“Like what?” I asked in a screech, eyeing his snout where that large tongue hid.
“Like…” He looked off smiling, he gave a little laugh of delight. “Like the very first episode of Frankie’s Funhouse, the way the kids all looked at me with awe.” He looked back at me with a wide smile. “I love you, Ramona and that’s why I hurt Gus. He was grabbing you,” he growled, his eyes flickered into a glowing red as he bared his teeth.
“Frankie!” Gus yelled and Frankie’s eyes stopped glowing and he looked like a dog with its tail between his legs.
“We need to get everyone out before he breaks through the door,” Frankie said.
“What?”
“Yeah, he’s probably going to want to kill everyone. He’s like that.” Frankie explained it like saying someone didn’t like pineapple on their pizza.
5
“Run,” Frankie whispered. My eyes bugged, my fingers tangling with the fabric of his suit as I clutched it harder, fear ramping up inside me. Pretty sure this was a very expensively tailored suit jacket. I did not run, I was glued in place because there was something terrifying about an actual monster telling me to run.
My arms were shaking a little as I looked up at him. Gus kept banging the door and then I heard it start to splinter but I couldn’t stop looking at Frankie’s purple eyes, the metal lids sinking lower and lower over his eyes until he was giving me a glare.
“Ramona,” he said, pressing my face gently between his clawed hands. He leaned forward, his snout peeling back from metal teeth painted white. They were sharp and excessive and my breathing was getting quicker.
“Don’t kill me,” I whispered.
“To be honest Ramona, I can’t make that promise,” he said and an undignified whimper came from my mouth. I was dead meat. “But if I do kill you, I hope you’ll remember I didn’t want to.”
“Well,” I croaked. “That makes it all better.” Frankie chuckled.
“You are too cute.” One of his hands slid down to my ass and I felt his claws graze under the shorts’ fabric. “And these rainbow shorts are fucking killing me,” he rasped, giving my ass a good grab. The thing was, he was so strong it lifted me clear off the ground and when my skates came back down to the floor I nearly fell over. My hands left his suit as I tried to balance.
“Shit,” I snarled before I got my balance. I looked at Frankie and all the color drained from my face. The door cracked behind him and I saw an honest to god fire ax poke through the splintered wood. Gus’s angry eyeball peered out.
“Frankie!” He yelled. Frankie only had eyes for me and he looked fucking terrifying because there was anger in his stance. With a creature as dangerous as that, even the smallest show of anger sent my fight or flight wild.
“Get the kids out,” he growled at me as Gus tore through the door behind him.
“What?” I asked.
“Get the kids out andrun!” He growled and that did it. I flipped around on my skates and attempted to get away. I couldn’t run on skates though and to be honest, I couldn’t even skate fast. The arch in my feet was burning in pain from using poorly fitting skates for multiple shifts and there was still a little blood in them. Which meant I flailed down the hallway barely going anywhere, screaming the entire time and shooting looks behind me at Frankie just standing there staring at me. He stood far too still for something alive. I didn’t like it.
The rainbow hall seemed so much longer and almost as if it was twisted like a legitimate circus funhouse. But when my hands pressed against the green wall it was solid beneath my fingers and not moving. I was probably having a panic attack. And I could still feel the way Frankie’s sharp, murderous clawshad tickled the flesh just beneath my shorts. And oh my god, the way his tongue had literally fucked my mouth.
Now all types of weird visuals were in my head as I got to the end of the hall. Like Frankie running at me and tackling me to the ground, spreading my legs and ripping my clothes to tiny shreds until his massive tongue could plunge—
“God dammit,” I hissed at myself. I needed therapy. To combat that alarmingly horny imagery I thought about what Frankie tasked me with and decided that yeah, the kids should probably not be inside Frankie’sDeathhouse. Maybe I was a bit of a stickler but kids playing in a shitty pizza parlor arcade with murder robots and immortal bosses sounded sort of bad.
I flailed into the main room and the kids all turned to look at me as I panted and tried to speak without any breath.
“Where’s Frankie?” They asked and I looked around at the crowd of kids, sitting and waiting for the animatronic band. Uh oh.
“You need to leave!” I blurted. The chanting started again, so loud they couldn’t hear me trying to poorly explain Frankie was alive. The kids that did hear me looked at me like I was insane.
“Of course he’s alive,” they said. I screamed in frustration and nearly tugged on my perm before I remembered to not do that. I gently patted my hair with the sweater fabric and tried to calm down.
“We are playing a fun game of hide and seek in the entire mall!” I said, stretching what probably looked like a horrific smile across my face. I tried to give a charming chuckle like Frankie did but it came out too high-pitched and manic to sound anything but alarming. I felt grubby hands on my ass and jerked around to see a group of young kids running off giggling after harassing me.
“The job doesn’t paythatgood,” I snarled. Fuck this, I was quitting. I could do it right now instead of trying to get the kidsto safety. I let out another frustrated yell. Of course, I couldn’t do that, even if they were a bunch of little shits. Even if the timing was perfect because Gus was no longer dead which meant Icouldn’tbe charged with murder.
“Hide and seek in the whole mall?” A little boy asked with eyes as big as saucers.
“Yes!” I said, happy this was working. “The only rules are you can’t hide in Frankie’s Funhouse and can’t leave the mall unless it’s with your parents.” I shot a look at the closed door to the parent’s lounge. I’d uh, deal with that later, once the kids were safe. First things first.
