I bent down next to her. In the back of my mind, I recalled I’d left a pizza in the kitchen oven and it was likely burning. Maybe it would set the whole place on fire and hide the evidence of the murder and animatronics. That would likely mean burning the whole mall down.Worth it.This was my plan now. Burn the entire mall down.
“Sweetie,” I said gently to the little girl wearing the pastel dress and hyperventilating. She shot daggers at me while tears rolled down her reddened cheeks.
“I want Frankie! I want to see him play guitar!”
“Oh, I see. You know, Frankie doesn’t actually play the guitar right? He just holds it in his hands and the music is played from a tape.”
“I want to see Frankie play guitar!” She was shrilling so loud I was certain she’d be hoarse for days.
“Well I want Frankie to go back to hell where he came from!” I snapped. Her mouth popped open and I sighed, skating off. There hadn't been an extra pair of skates so I’d been forced to keep wearing the bloody ones. They were still leaving blood trails wherever I skated. That was not going to work in my favor when someone realized Gus was dead.
When I looked over the room, I felt something had shifted in the air. Across the sea of kids, I noticed they were all glaring at me, faces coated in blue gel icing and chaos. My eyes bugged and I tried to skate backwards, out of the room. My extra long sleeve dragged across a slice of pizza some kid had peeled the cheese and pepperoni off of. Sauce coated the fabric and not for the first time. The sleeves were filthy which only added to my stress overload.
“Frankie, Frankie…” They started the chant. It started as a whisper but was gaining momentum and the kids were walking towards me as if they meant to claw me like their favoritefuntimecoyote had clawed Gus. “FRANKIE! FRANKIE!” I felt pressure in my throbbing head. This shift would already be a nightmare without the animatronic murder.
“FRANKIE! FRANKIE!” They were screaming now, their little voices breaking. And then it happened.
They began picking up handfuls of cake and flinging it at me. The ice cream cake came dangerously close to my new perm and I lost it.
“FINE!” I shouted, wiping off the cake from my neck. A slice of pizza slapped my thigh and slid down. “You want Frankie!” I yelled. The kids went quiet and nodded. “Okay!” I said breaking off in a deranged laugh. I’d lost it, they’d broken me.
“Buckle up kids, it’s time for Frankie!” I growled out, chomping my teeth together. They went wild with cheers while I skated away, my entire body shaking.
“They want Frankie,” I said, talking to myself. Probably not a good sign. “They can have Frankie.” I got to the back hallway and stopped. There was about twenty feet between me and the door of death but it felt more like a hundred. I could see a puddle of blood had seeped into the hall. I grimaced. The lights back here were dim track lighting where the floor met the wall. Which created weird upwards shadows of everyone in it. It was alsopainted in rainbow colors—one wall red, one blue, the ceiling orange, yellow, and green. I swallowed thickly and skated down the hall, coming closer to the disturbingly quiet door.
I settled my hand on the knob and leaned close, listening for any noise. There was nothing. My hope was that I’d gone insane and imagined the animatronic killing my boss. I’m sure such delusions were an occupational hazard that everyone here had. Maureen had said the place was weird and most people didn’t last a single shift. I was likely just one in many who skated myself into hallucinations involving murder and Frankie propositioning sex.
“Yeah,” I whispered, nodding to myself. “I’m sure we all think about it.” Well, the boss meeting an untimely end…maybe not the animatronic fucking. I wasn’t going to linger on whatever subconscious trauma had made me hallucinatethat.
“Okay,” I said, standing tall and shaking out my shoulders. I licked my lips and twisted the lock. “Okay,” I said again. Say it enough times and it’s true. My mom always said that and right now, that saying was genius. I twisted the knob and pushed the door open a crack.
“Okay,” I wheezed, looking down at the puddle of blood that was still there. A little whine left my throat. “Fr— Gus?” I asked. Better not to ask for the animatronic to respond because that had just been a hallucination. Just a hallucinat—
Frankie burst from the room, causing me to fall backwards. With one hand he grabbed my arm, stopping my fall. He held me dangling in the air as he slammed the door shut and twisted the lock again. A wheezing sort of whimper came out of me. Banging rattled the door and that’s when my mind went from budding mental breakdown to confusion.
“Wait…who’s banging on the door?” Frankie did some special move where he gave his arm a quick jerk. It caused me to fly back up and land against him. His arm wrapped aroundme and I looked up with wide eyes at him. He was smirking, his mechanical eyes half-lidded as he squeezed me a little tighter against him. His mouth opened up.
“It’s Gus banging the door,” he rasped the voice magically coming from the depths of his body. I peered inside his snout for a moment and only saw teeth, tongue, and blackness. Wait, why did he have a tongue? Another whimper came from me as I pressed my palms to his pinstripe suit and tried to push us apart. Too bad he was so strong he didn’t even notice I was attempting to get away. I leaned back and he leaned forward.
“Ramona,” he whispered.
“Frankie,” I said high-pitched, my voice wavering. “What are you doing?” His tongue came out, licking his gray snout. “Oh my god, why do you have a tongue!” I slammed my eyes shut and shivered in his arms. I felt his warm tongue press against my jaw and slide up my cheek. It felt wet but when I slapped my hand to my face to try and wipe it off, my skin was dry.
Frankie pressed forward, his tongue pushing into my mouth. It was bigger than mine, maybe three times as large so when it went past my lips and filled my mouth it was huge. It was long too, sliding in deep. His tongue filled my whole mouth to my throat and he was licking into it over and over again. I shuddered, the action far too reminiscent of sex. My body felt lax and I was turning into a puddle as his huge tongue kept licking inside me. I squeezed my thighs together as the idea of his tongue in other places hit my mind because that size tongue could fully fuck a person. Oh my god, what was I thinking about?
He pulled back and I gasped for breath, my own drool on my chin. He lifted a furred hand and wiped it up. Then he gave a little pleased laugh.
“Whoops, I just smeared blood on your chin.” He was smiling like it was cute and it broke me from whatever evil magic spell he’d put me under.
“What the fuck!” I wailed. The banging on the door came again.
“Let me out of this FUCKING room, Frankie!” Gus yelled. I looked at Frankie and saw a demure blush creep up on his fur. The ears on top of his head flicked a little, giving a little mechanical noise as they did.
“I shouldn't have sliced open his throat,” he whispered. “He’s really moody now.”
“Moody?” I barked. “He was dead!”
“Gus doesn’t really die,” he said, brushing my face and humming in pleasure as he looked me over. “Oh Ramona, I’ve never felt like this with anyone before.”
