“I want to see Frankie!” One troublesome kid wailed and enough joined in that it became clear to me these kids were not leaving until they saw the stupid fucking band play a happy birthday song.
Suddenly the curtains to the stage slid open on their own and the whole band was standing there motionless, including Frankie with his pinstripe suit and rainbow tie, guitar in hand. His empty eyes were aimed somewhere near the edge of the stage and it sent chills up my arms. He looked genuinely like a turned-off robot.
Then the whole band snapped up from their quasi limp positions and smiled at the sea of kids. I skated backwards as kids gasped in awe. Either this was going to be okay or a blood bath was about to start.
“Hi kids, welcome to Frankie’s Funhouse. I’m Frankie!” My eyes bugged. His voice had a pre-recorded cadence about it, the exact phrase from the tv shows my younger siblings used to watch.
I wasn’t insane. There was still blood on one of Frankie’s paws. Which meant I hadn’t imagined everything in the back. But this was fucking with my head.
“I heard it was someone’s birthday!” Frankie went on.
Marabell Mozzarella, the opossum creature thing in a pink dress chimed in, “Oh I just love birthdays!”
This was insane. I couldn’t handle this. The only thing I could do was straddle the back wall in terror as I eyed an entire group of animatronics, wondering if they were all alive and not opposed to homicide.
The birthday song started and Frankie’s lifeless eyes stayed aimed at me. Maybe it was a trick, some type of optical illusion. I didn’t think so though. I scrambled across the wall back and forth and I watched as his eyes followed me the entire way. That was until I bumped into my boss.
“Gus!” I barked out in shock, leaping away from him. His shirt was drenched in blood but the mess Frankie made of his throat was nowhere to be seen. His skin was a smooth, blemish free expanse and by the angry flush creeping up his face apparently he had blood again.
“Oh my god, I thought he’d killed you,” I said in shock. This was a good thing, right? I mean of course Frankie was upset Gus was alive because he’s the one who tried to kill him. I should side with the human, not the animatronic. Team Human for the win.
“You fucking bitch,” Gus snarled, his short blond bangs falling in his eyes as he lunged at me. That’s when I noticed one of his hands had an honest to god chainsaw in it.
“Holy fuck!” I snapped, ducking under his arm and then giving him a sharp jab between his legs. He wheezed, doubling over in pain. I tried to lift my leg to kick his face. That was always a great move—a broken nose, blood spraying out, their eyes tearing up. Except I was still in skates and fell over on my ass.
He loomed over me and I sent my skate directly into his gut. He barked out in pain and a smile stretched over my face. As he bent over clutching his stomach I sent my skate into his face and could actually hear the bone crunch. A little zip of excitement made me chuckle.
“Take that, fucker,” I hissed. Guess I wasn’t Team Human. Or hell, maybehewasn’t Team Human. I wasn’t exactly sure what was going on here. However, the kids were still wide-eyed in awe as the birthday song continued. It wasn’t the normal birthday song but some special thing about having fun at the fun house on your birthday and it was far too long at this point because I think I needed to re-kill my boss.
While the kids clapped and Frankie smiled and the band all swiveled on their robotic parts Gus stood up tall above me. He spat blood on the ground then reached up and pinched his nose, roughly jerking it back into place. I made a noise of disgust and shivered in displeasure to hear him crunch it back in.
“Frankie!” Gus wailed above the cheery music and giggling, happy kids. “Kill mode!” Frankie jerked to a stop, his eyes began to glow red, and Gus stomped through the kids and tossed the chainsaw to him. Frankie snatched it from the air with enthusiasm.
“Oh wow, this is gonna be messy, kids!” Frankie said, his voice a robotic, pre-recorded phrase from his show. It was…unsettling to say the least to see a childhood sweetheart mascot gleefully and with no hesitation talk about the mess one’s body would make when he put a chainsaw through it. Particularly with the same enthusiasm and upbeat words used for when it was time to get pied in the tv show.
Slowly Frankie’s entire body turned in my direction. His metal eyelids blinked one at a time, like some ancient reptilian beast. Then his large round eyes were on me, glowing red. I swallowed wondering if he was still in there or if this was something else entirely, just a killing machine operating on a floppy disc that told himmurder sure was fun, yipee!!
Frankie laughed, still looking at me. Welp, I was dead. Hopefully, the chainsaw went for the throat first. I’d bleed out quickly and wouldn’t have to labor myself with a bunch ofscreaming and cardio. Frankie lifted his hand and I heard his robotic parts humming under the suit as he waved at me.
“Bye-bye for now, kids!” Frankie said. The kids had gone quiet once the chainsaw came into play, awed by his ability to pluck it from the sky. One of his gray fingers played with the chainsaw’s drawstring a moment before he gripped the thing steady in his hand and jerked his arm back. The machine came to life, buzzing loudly while the blade spun its teeth round and round.
Oh shit, someone was about to die.
“I’m going to make you regret what you did to me, Frankie. You were very bad,” Gus reprimanded. His smile was cruel and I saw what he wanted. He wanted Frankie to murder the kids and it’s something Frankie couldn’t stop himself from doing.
“Hide and seek time!” I wailed. “I’m starting to count now! One, two, three…” Half the kids immediately scrambled for the exit, gleeful in the excitement of playing in the entire mall.
“Frankie’s coming too, better hurry! Four, five…” The rest of the kids took off while Frankie robotically moved to the edge of the stage and tipped his head to the side, watching the kids flee with red glowing eyes. Gus growled, turning around to spew vengeance and hate from his eyes. He opened his mouth and Latin began tumbling out.
“What the fuck!” I yelled. Clearly, I was in over my head. Before I could turn and run, the parent lounge finally burst open and the adults came tumbling out like an overenthusiastic wave crashing to the shore. Some even fell over, their pupils blown. Ray had so much of one chick’s ass in his palm that I was actually impressed he had managed to grab so much of it.
6
The animatronic band was still playing which led me to believe they weren’t monsters, just regular creepy animatronics that tickled the uncanny valley. They finished off the birthday song complete with a group moment where they congratulated each other on how good they played. All the while Frankie slowly turned towards a bunch of stumbling parents and their drug dealers who had yet to notice he was holding a chainsaw that had a sloshing full tank of gas.
“Funhouse Band,” Frankie yelled with chipper glee, getting their attention. The animatronics all swiveled to look at Frankie.
“Time for some death metal,” he growled, holding the chainsaw higher while his red eyes glowed violently. The animatronics looked at each other then Dizzy Duck, or whatever his name was, stepped up and started to riff his guitar.
