Everyone, be very quiet,” Jessica whispered. The children just stared at her, their eyes wide and solemn. They stood together in the back corner of the small, dank room, awaiting her instructions: Three-year-old Lisa was still huddled behind Ron, her chosen protector, and Alanna had taken hold of the little blond boy’s hand, though he was wriggling in her grasp. Jessica swallowed. Why do I have to be the leader? It’s bad enough when I’m just in charge of myself.
She bent down to the children’s level, trying to summon some kind of leadership quality. Should have listened to Mom. Should have played a team sport. But no, I had to be the quiet girl in the corner chewing the eraser off her pencil.
Jessica studied the door again, then took a more serious tone. “Is there something out there?” Alanna and Ron exchanged a worried glance. “What’s outside? You can tell me,” Jessica pleaded.
“It comes in through the door,” Alanna said, not meeting Jessica’s eyes. “She …” The little girl broke off and covered her face, mumbling something unintelligible behind the mask of her hands.
“She? Who, the … woman who took you?” Jessica asked gently, trying to contain her impatience. Alanna shook her head vigorously, her face still hidden.
“We thought it was a toy. It wasn’t scary like everything else.” Ron searched for words, and Lisa tugged on his shirt and whispered something, too quietly for Jessica to make out. Ron nudged her. “Tell her.” Lisa looked up at Jessica with a suspicious expression on her grubby toddler’s face.
“She’s all mangled up,” the girl said, then turned away again, hiding her face in Ron’s shirt. He gave Jessica a distressed look.
“Who? Who’s all mangled up?” Jessica said slowly, searching her mind for what they might be talking about. “Was something broken? Did you break one of them?” she asked hopefully. The little kids all began to sniffle again, and she ground her teeth. “What is it?” Jessica nearly snapped, but none of them seemed to notice her tone.
“It’s not broken,” Ron said, his voice rising in panic, and then the floor shook with a resounding thud. Alanna grabbed Jessica around the waist, and Ron huddled closer, pulling Lisa with him. The little blond boy stayed where he was, frozen in place with a look of terror. There was another thud, this time louder, then the pounding continued over and over, coming closer. Jessica could hear it moving in the hall, reverberating deep in her chest as whatever it was came thundering toward the door outside. She heard wood cracking, and clutched the children’s shoulders as something struck the wall three times in quick succession, rocking them all back. There was a final, clattering noise that seemed to come from all around.
“What is that?” Jessica whispered, searching the walls and ceiling, unable to make sense of the noises. Then everything fell silent. They waited. Jessica listened, counting to ten, then twenty, and the sound did not come again. She counted to thirty, then sixty. I have to do something. She straightened, carefully extracting herself from Alanna’s grasp. “Wait here,” she whispered. She crept toward the door, stepping as softly as she could; as she moved she could feel their eyes on her. The door was ordinary-looking, a wooden door with a brass knob—the kind you’d see on a closet. Jessica took a quick, deep breath, then stretched out her arm to take the knob.
Before she could touch it, the knob turned, and the door began to slide open. Jessica held her breath, and took steady steps backward, desperately wanting to rejoin the group, even if they were just children. At first, Jessica saw only pink and white, the shapes indistinct, then her mind made sense of it: slowly, the enormous head of a garishly painted fox peered into the room.
Foxy? Jessica thought, hazily taking in pointed pink ears and yellow eyes. Its cheeks were painted with red circles, like the animatronic girl’s had been. The creature looked at her for a long moment, and she stared back, unable to remember how to move her feet, and then the fox head retreated, and all the children screamed. Something new sprang violently into the room, a long and segmented metal limb like a spider’s leg. It braced against the floor just as a second metal leg violently invaded the space, embedding itself in the nearest wall. The children screamed, and Jessica raced toward them, looking frantically for a way out. The room was filling with arms and legs, extended and contorted, some with hands, others without. Jessica searched for a place to run through the steadily thickening mass of legs. Her eyes met the yellow eyes of the fox head, now suspended in the air by rods and beams. But there was another set of eyes as well. Does it have two heads? The unskinned metal skull lowered itself; it was connected to the mass above by cables and cords, and seemed to move of its own will.
One high-pitched scream rose above the others, a blood-curdling wail. “LISA!” Ron cried, and Jessica saw that the thing had one hand on the little girl’s arm and was pulling her toward it. The skinless metal head studied her, then swiveled and swung on its cables to the others, taking an aggressive stance toward them as the metal limbs entangled the little girl and pulled her toward the door.
“NO!” Jessica cried, climbing through the snares of metal coils and grabbing Lisa’s tiny hand. A violent surge threw her back, but she held fast to whatever she had managed to grasp, letting go only as she hit the floor. She struggled for air as she got to her feet, but the creature had already retreated through the doorway and disappeared. Jessica whirled, looking frantically to the children, and her heart nearly burst with relief: Lisa was on the ground beside her, and Ron and Alanna were helping her up. Jessica rushed to them. “It’s okay,” she whispered, then the momentary relief vanished. The blond boy, the one who might have been Jacob, was gone.
“I couldn’t hold on to him,” Alanna wailed, as if reading Jessica’s mind.
Jessica looked to the door in despair, but quickly steadied herself. “We’ll get him back,” Jessica said, because it was all she could think of to say. She glanced around helplessly, then froze as the doorknob slowly began to turn again. “Stay here,” Jessica said in a low voice, and she moved quickly to the door. She stood to the side, bracing herself to jump on whatever came through. This is your plan?
The door opened, and Jessica screamed and lunged into the doorway, as though ready to karate-chop whatever was coming through.
Carlton and Marla jumped back with startled expressions, and Jessica stared for a moment, then seized Carlton in a hug, holding tight to his shoulders as if he could stop her from shaking.
“Jessica?” Marla said, spotting the children. Jessica pushed Carlton away.
“Something got one of the kids, a little boy,” she said in a rush. “I didn’t see where it went.”
Marla was already beside the children, checking them for injury. “We have to get them out,” she said.
“Oh, really, Marla? Is that what we should be doing? Here I was painting my nails,” Jessica said crisply. Carlton reached for his ear and pulled something out.
“Here, take this,” he said.
“What? Ew.” Jessica made a face instinctively, then peered at the tiny device. “Is that a hearing aid?”
“Not exactly. It makes you invisible to the animatronics. You and Marla take these kids out, I’ll find the other kid they took.”
“How does it—?” Jessica took the device and studied it. “I have to put it in my ear?”
“Yes! You have to put it in your ear! I’ll explain later.”
“But, are your ears even clean?” She leaned in, peering suspiciously at Carlton’s ear. Marla grabbed the earpiece out of her hand and shoved it into Jessica’s ear.
“OW!” Jessica cried.
Marla turned back to the kids. “Shouldn’t we give them to the children, instead?”
“There are only two earpieces, and you can both protect them better if you’re invisible, right?” Carlton said irritably.
“What if Jess and I stay here with the kids, and you take one out at a time, wearing the earpieces?” Marla pressed. Jessica shook her head immediately.
“And what if that thing comes back and kills us all while we’re waiting for Carlton to take his sweet time? We have to make a break for it, Marla, it’s the only way.”
They were all quiet for a moment. Carlton looked from Jessica to Marla and back.
“Right? Now, give me thirty seconds to get away from here, that way if something chases me, I can draw them away from you. Anything I should know?” Carlton paused at the door.
“Afton’s still alive,” Jessica said, and he nodded.
“This ends today,” he said quietly. “One way or another. Not one more child dies because of that psychopath. I owe that much to Michael.”
Jessica bit her lip. “We all do,” she said.
He forced a smile. “Good luck.”
“Good luck,” she echoed.
“Right.” Carlton clenched his jaw, then squared his shoulders and held the door open, poised to exit. “This was my idea?” he muttered, then closed the door behind him.
“Marla, do you know the way out?” Jessica asked, surprised to hear her own voice come out clear and steady. Marla nodded, standing up.
“We came in the back way. But I think if we go back down that hall, we can get out into the main dining room; should be easy to get out from there, right?”
“You’d think so,” Jessica muttered with an edge.
Marla gave her a level look. “You got something better?”
“No. I don’t.” Jessica turned to the three remaining children, who were watching them with wide eyes. “We don’t have to get far,” she said, searching for scraps of hope to offer them. “I need you to stay together, and stay with me and Marla. If you can do that, we’ll all be okay.” They looked at her like they knew she was lying, but no one said a word.
Jessica opened the door again carefully. The hallway outside the little room was dark, but Marla led them onward as if she really did know where they were headed. She held a large, battered flashlight out in front of her. She looked poised to turn it on but refrained from doing so, seemingly afraid of attracting more unwanted attention. Jessica’s eyes adjusted to the dim light as she took up the rear, alert to the slightest sign of danger.
They came to a T in the hall, and Marla turned without hesitation. A few yards ahead there was light: strings of small, bare bulbs lit the way at intervals, and the next fork in the hall was visible. We’re getting closer, Jessica thought, as they moved cautiously onward.
A soft popping noise caught Jessica’s attention overhead, and she froze. “Marla,” she hissed, and Marla and the children ahead stopped and turned around. Marla pointed up with a worried expression, and Jessica looked up to see that some of the bulbs over her head had gone out, their glass made opaque with a sooty film. “Just old lights,” Jessica breathed.
A light above Marla burst and died, and all of them jumped. Alanna clapped both hands over her mouth, and Ron put a hand on Lisa’s shoulder. “Can we go faster?” Lisa whispered. All at once, the rest of the light bulbs flickered and clattered. Jessica held her breath: they stayed on, preserving the little light, but overhead something hollow and metallic rattled in the ceiling.
Marla’s face went pale. “Keep moving,” she said tightly. Jessica gave a sharp nod. The rattling noise kept pace, sometimes seeming to come from above them, and sometimes from the dark corners just out of view, scraping and clattering in a vent or crawl space. Lisa whimpered; the older children’s faces were stony, but Jessica could see the glimmer of tears on their cheeks. Suddenly, Marla stopped short, and Jessica almost bumped into Ron. “What?” she hissed, then saw: a thin curtain of dust was falling from above. Jessica looked up, and saw the open duct directly above them.
A multisegmented metal arm covered with springs and wires dropped down through the open duct, anchoring itself to the floor right next to Jessica’s foot. Everyone screamed. The arm retracted, then two more of the creature’s contorted limbs smashed down to the ground, raining down plaster and dust. “RUN!” Marla screamed. They took off down the hallway as the creature lowered its full form into the space, its shiny white fox head turning and smiling in their direction as they fled. Jessica glanced back, and the unskinned head dropped, too, grinning upside down, a red bow tie joining their necks ridiculously. Jessica fled; behind her came an enormous thud. Run faster! she wanted to scream, but the others were gasping for breath, already running at their full capacity.
The children were pounding along as fast as they could, but Lisa, the smallest, began to fall behind. The creature shot past Jessica, reaching out for the little girl again, and Jessica grabbed her, yanking her up and out of reach just in time. It reared back to strike again, and Jessica clutched Lisa to her chest and ran on. They rounded a corner, and with a flare of hope Jessica saw that the hall was short, ending in a heavy set of double doors. Marla sped up, and Alanna and Ron did the same; Jessica kept her pace, staying at the back as Lisa clung to her with startling strength.
Marla reached the end of the hall and slammed herself against the emergency bar, and the doors split open. They raced through, and Marla flung the door shut, grabbing a nearby sign post and jamming it through the door handles.
“Keep running,” Jessica said with a fresh pump of adrenaline. She looked around: they were up against the wall, behind a popcorn popper and a cotton candy machine. She glanced back briefly at the sign Marla had barred the door with: LET’S EAT! it read in big, round letters. Ron leaned to the side, about to peek between the machines. “Hold on,” she hissed, putting a hand on his shoulder. He drew back as if something had burned him.
“It’ll be okay,” Marla said, and Jessica marveled briefly that she sounded like she believed what she was saying. Behind them, something crashed against the door again, rattling the doorframe. Jessica waited, her eyes on the makeshift barricade, but nothing came.
“We have to move slowly and quietly,” she whispered, and the three children nodded in unison. “Stay back,” Jessica told them, and stepped out past the popcorn machine, alert to danger. She took a second to get her bearings: The walls of the dining room were lined with arcade games and children’s play areas, and on the far side of the room, blissfully, were the wide glass doors of the entrance. She motioned the others forward; the children, huddled together, followed her into the open room with Marla close behind.
“Hurry,” she urged, and Marla nodded, taking Lisa’s hand as Alanna and Ron followed behind her, their faces pinched with exhaustion. Suddenly, Alanna screamed, and Jessica jumped. “What? What is it?” The girl was pointing at a jungle gym a few feet away, where two toddlers, too small to climb the bars, were nonetheless doing so.
“It’s okay, they’re just toys,” Marla said, looking back at Jessica with a frazzled expression. “We saw them on the way in.”
Alanna screamed again, and ran to Jessica, grabbing on to her waist. “It bit me!”
“What?” Jessica looked down: Alanna’s ankle was bleeding, though not badly, and a few feet away was another crawling, robotic child.
“Jessica!” Marla screamed, touching the device in her ear nervously. “It can’t see us, but it can see them.” As she spoke, the two other robotic children on the monkey bars lowered themselves unsteadily to the ground and began to crawl straight toward Lisa and Ron; they backed away, and a fourth appeared, boxing them in. Marla scooped up Lisa and Alanna and tried to hold them away from harm. “Jessica!” Marla screamed. “Help!”
“It bit me,” Alanna repeated, panic in her voice, and the children clung together as the crawlers came closer, a slow march of determined toddlers with the black eyes of insects. “They can’t see us,” Jessica said with determination, darting forward and grabbing the nearest robot baby. It was heavier than it looked. Jessica held it out from her body. It was facing away from her, and she held on tight as it continued its crawling movements in the air, steadily putting its hands and feet into position, one after the other. She glanced around, then spotted the ball pit: at least four or five feet deep. Jessica threw the crawler down into the colorful balls as hard as she could, and it landed, half-buried, on its side, still repeating its motions, and slowly sank out of sight.
“Marla, come on!” she shouted. Marla set down Lisa and Alanna beside Ron, then turned her attention to the baby crawling toward them. Her hands were shaking, like she was preparing to pick up a giant cockroach. “Marla!” Jessica shrieked. Marla screamed and shook her hands in the air, and the baby suddenly charged forward, clawing at the ground and biting at the children’s feet. Lisa cried and fell to the ground, and the heavy creature grabbed at her legs as it crawled up on top of her. Marla bolted forward with a blood-curdling scream and yanked the metal crawler off the little girl. Marla cried out again as she spun and threw the creature through the air. It missed Jessica’s head by an inch, slammed into the net canopy above the ball pit, and dropped down into it, sinking out of sight.
“You almost hit me!” Jessica had barely spoken the words when the third and final robot baby flew through the air and landed at her feet with a resounding bang. Marla let herself fall to the ground, breathing heavily, her eyes wide with panicked fury. Jessica stared down at the creature as it locked its sights on the children again. “Oh, no you don’t.” Jessica picked it up just as it started to crawl. She held it over the pit and it turned its head around completely to face her with its ant-like eyes. Its little rosebud mouth opened, flashing two rows of pointy predator’s teeth, then snapped shut, chomping the air. Jessica shuddered and dropped it, watching with grim fascination as it churned its arms and legs, digging itself deeper into the pit.
“Jessica!” Marla cried, and she spun around. Lights had come on behind them, illuminating a large show stage with a bright purple curtain as its backdrop. On the stage, and in the spotlight, was a glossy and white Foxy animatronic, its mouth open and arms wide, ready to perform for a cheering crowd. The Fox looked down at them with delight.
“Was that there a second ago?” Jessica whispered.
Suddenly, the fox’s body began cracking apart: metal plates split away from the center of its torso, from its arms and legs, lifting out, splitting again and folding back, leaving only its canine head untouched, grinning maniacally as its body was horribly transformed. Jessica ran to the children as all at once, tentacle-like metal limbs erupted from what had been Foxy, and the mutilated skeleton creature stretched out into its new, semi-arachnid form.
“Get them out!” Jessica cried. Alanna and Ron were frozen to the spot, staring, and Marla slapped their cheeks lightly. Ron snatched up Lisa’s hand, and together they all ran for the front door.
“Jessica!” Marla cried as they reached the door. “We can’t let it get out!” The creature was on top of the monkey bars now, elongating itself to terrifying proportions as if showing off its tangled metal spines.
“Get them out!” Jessica shouted again, pushing away from them, then turning her attention back to the mangled pink-and-white fox. The thing began to slowly dismount the monkey bars, its limbs slipping over and around one another, changing its shape with every step it took. Its foxlike face, and its vaguely human one, were both intent on the children, the heads angled slightly toward each other so that each of its eyes could focus. Jessica took a deep breath, then pulled the earpiece out of her ear, struggling to steady her hands long enough to slip it into her pocket. “Over here!” she screamed as loudly as she could, her throat going raw, and the canine head ducked under the other neck, its eye rolling around to fix on her. “Yeah, over here!” Jessica cried, her voice hoarse, and the thing came down from the monkey bars with menacing grace and began to slink toward her. She glanced around. Should have thought this through. At the door, she could see Marla bracing it open and shooing the children through, one at a time, then looking back to Jessica.
Jessica nodded her head and waved Marla away. She grabbed a folding chair from a nearby table and hefted it over her head, then flung it at the creature. It landed with a clatter on the floor, missing the thing entirely. The fox head cocked to the side, its mouth hanging open to show all of its teeth, then it lurched forward, its metal appendages banging against the ground. Jessica turned and ran.
She looked around wildly for an escape as she darted through the mass of tables at the center of the room; she shoved over a table behind her, but the thing just climbed over it like it was flat ground. Jessica sped up. The creature was right behind her, the fox head snapping its jaws as the unskinned skull grinned ghoulishly from its swing. She raced back the way they had come, ducking between the cotton candy machine and the popcorn cart. The sign blocking the doors was still in place, and she flung it away and yanked the door handle. It rattled in place, but still wouldn’t open.
Something crashed behind her, and Jessica spun around to see the popcorn cart knocked over, popcorn strewn across the black-and-white floor tiles. The creature stretched out a limb and pushed the cotton candy machine experimentally; it rocked but did not fall, then another limb shot out. It hit Jessica’s leg with a smack, and she stumbled back against the door, an involuntary shout of pain blurting from her mouth. The fox and the unskinned head looked at each other, the head bouncing on its cables, then in unison they turned their eyes on her as the creature undulated its limbs, displaying their full extension. Jessica felt in her pocket for the earpiece, but couldn’t find it. It must have fallen out while she was running: she darted her eyes from side to side, afraid to move even her head. She was cornered, caught between the wall and a children’s climbing set: there was no way past the thing.
All at once the creature seized the cotton candy machine with three of its limbs, crushing it; shattering glass sprayed in all directions as it carelessly flung the machine aside. Jessica shielded her face, turning away, and as the machine cracked the floor tiles behind her, she saw it: the red-and-yellow bars of the playset nearby led high above the room below, where a colorful pipe maze began, bolted tight to the ceiling, and disappearing into a circular hole in the wall and into the next room. That’s my way out.
Jessica set her foot on the bottom rung of the playset and started to climb as fast as she could. Below her came a wrenching noise, and she glanced down to see the creature tearing up the playset, the unskinned head swinging and bobbing gleefully. It reached up and tore out the rung below her, and she climbed faster, hurling her upper body into the tube just as one of the creature’s hands grasped the last piece of the playset. Jessica scrabbled for a handhold, at last managing to pull her full body inside the tube. She crawled as fast as she could, the pipe shaking with every movement, then stopped to look down. Although some of the plastic tunnel was bolted to the ceiling, there were large portions that were not. This was made for kids, not me. Jessica rocked herself carefully, and the section of plastic below her rocked as well, the plastic segments creaking at the seams. Jessica shivered. Slow and steady. She checked her hands and knees, making sure they were safely in place, then started forward again.
She was in a narrow, unadorned tube, hovering above an empty hallway, lit by a single, exposed florescent light that hummed as it flickered. The hum of the florescent light seemed to grow louder as she made her way cautiously along the fragile plastic flooring, filling her ears almost painfully, as if she had gone deep underground. She worked her jaw open and shut, trying to clear the sensation, but the noise persisted. When she reached the segment of tubing that went into the wall above the door, she hesitated, trying to see inside, but there was only darkness. Jessica took a deep breath, and carefully crossed into the next room.
Silence fell: the humming noise was blissfully gone. The only light was behind her, and bizarrely it did not penetrate into the room, as if it were somehow being filtered out. She looked back and saw the circle of light where she had come, but everything else was in darkness. Jessica blinked, waiting for her eyes to adjust, but all she saw was black. Okay, then. She shuffled slowly forward, feeling carefully and sliding her knees along the support beams that ran along sections of the tunnel. After a few minutes, she came to a turn, bumping her head gently on the plastic, and she felt her way around it with a vague sense of accomplishment.
A point of orange light appeared below her, and she startled, her hand slipping off the support beam and rattling the plastic. She caught her balance, her heart racing, and a pair of green lights appeared, a few feet away from the first one. They vanished, then reappeared, and another pair, purple, sprang out of the darkness beside them, and this time Jessica saw the dark pinpoint at the center of each circle. Jessica tensed with an awful recognition, as more and more sets of colored lights appeared: Eyes. They’re eyes. The room below was slowly filling with sets of eyes, until it seemed impossible that so many creatures could fit into the space; they all stared upward, unblinking at Jessica. She moved slowly forward, her hands shaking as they found their way along the beams, and the eyes followed her as she went. Don’t look down.
Jessica set her gaze on the darkness in front of her and shuffled on and on for what felt like ages; each time she glanced down there were more pairs and pairs of watchful eyes, all of them rapt on her progress. Jessica shivered. She moved faster, still feeling carefully before she slid her hands and knees along, then the tube curved slightly, and a circle of dim light came into view. Jessica crawled for it as fast as she dared, the tube swaying precariously as she moved. She crawled through the hole and turned back: the room was in darkness again; all the eyes had vanished.
Jessica shuddered, revolted, then looked down at the room she now hovered above. The light was dim and unsteady, flashing strange colors at intervals, but she could see clearly. Peering down, Jessica saw that it was coming from the carnival games that filled the room, some flickering noiselessly and others giving steady light in every hue. She took a deep breath and looked ahead, trying to see where the tube led. I really hope there’s another way out, she thought, and started crawling again. The plastic tubing rattled as she went, the only noise in the dark room. Jessica swallowed; as the adrenaline waned, she was beginning to remember how much she hated enclosed spaces. Just keep moving. She reached a split in the tubing: one way snaked around the perimeter of the room, the other through another wall, into the pipe maze bolted to the ceiling of the next room. She scanned the room, then made her choice. She took the turn, taking the tunnel that fed through the neatly cut hole in the wall, and found herself back in the main dining room.
She paused and listened. There was no sound of movement in the dining room, and she craned her neck to look down through one of the large plastic panes, searching the area: the creature was nowhere to be seen. She had not noticed the play pipes that covered the ceiling before climbing up into them, but now she saw the extent of them, with no end in sight, and no way down. The playset she had climbed to enter the tunnels was utterly destroyed. How am I going to get out? She cast her eyes helplessly over the maze, tracing the paths she could take, and suddenly she saw it: the ball pit where she had thrown the baby crawlers was across the room, and it had a canopy made of climbing rope that stretched fifteen or twenty feet above the floor. The tube went directly over it. Jessica took a deep breath and crawled farther out into the room, bracing herself. She made it to the first turning point, and suddenly the pipe shook. She paused, but the structure shook again, and again. The light was being obscured from below her, and Jessica looked down.
The unskinned skull grinned up at her with yellow eyes, suspended below as if out of nowhere. The head swiveled sideways and elevated up and over the plastic tunnel. Jessica looked up in dread, and saw the body of the creature right above her, its limbs wrapped around the tube like a monstrous squid seizing a ship. She stifled a scream, and her heart skipped as she fought not to hyperventilate. The fox head lowered to eye level and snapped beside her, and she screamed and shied away; her hand hit the plastic floor between the support beams and the segment fell straight down. Jessica clamored back before falling with it, and quickly took a corner, heading off to a new direction. The fox head swooped upward in a blur and vanished.
Jessica crawled in a straight line, keeping her eyes fixed ahead. The structure continued to shake, and she could hear plastic breaking behind her, as well as large segments of the pipe maze crashing to the ground. Soon she reached the ball pit, and she stared down at the canopy of ropes through the bottom of the tube, hesitating. Now what? The structure shook again, but this time it was different. This time it trembled as though someone, or something, were in the maze with her. The entirety of the structure swayed and rocked on the bolts it hung from. Jessica kicked out the plastic below her, bracing herself on the sides of the tube as she looked down. Something moved in the pit below: three of the crawlers’ heads were above the surface, staring up at her disembodied with blank eyes. In unison, they snapped their little jaws, and she startled, hitting her head on the top of the plastic tube. “Stupid babies,” she muttered. When she looked down again, they were back in motion, swimming through the balls and snapping, apparently at random. Jessica shivered and froze, suddenly paralyzed at the next step of her plan. For a moment, she prayed that it wasn’t too late to just stay silent, and wait for danger to pass.
The structure trembled again, this time over and over in rapid succession. A spiral of shimmering metal flew through the tunnel, then she saw its gleaming fox’s head, its mouth open in an impossible smile. Jessica screamed and fell sideways through the hole, landing heavily on the rope canopy. It sank inward, giving her a split second before she began to slip downward.
She grabbed wildly at the net, the ropes burning her hands and entangling her feet, then she got her footing, and scrambled back up the slope to the top, wrapping her hands around the metal support bar. She watched the hole in the bottom of the pipe that she had fallen through, expecting something to come out, but nothing did. There was motion in the pipes, barely visible through the thick foggy plastic. Jessica searched in panic, trying to locate the creature, but there was movement everywhere: every pipe seemed to be crawling with life. Then she realized, all of the movement was flowing in the same direction. Jessica followed the flow with her eyes, through pipe after pipe, all the way up to a plastic end cap just above her. With a crash, the end cap burst out of place, and bolts rained down from the sky, hitting Jessica on the head. The fox head beamed down at her. More of its body pushed its way through, more and more limbs emerging as it balanced itself delicately on the edge of the pipe like a cat preparing to pounce on a mouse.
Something fell out of Jessica’s pocket with a ding. It was the earpiece, which must have been wedged into her other pocket. Jessica held steady, violently fumbling to retrieve the earpiece. The fox head craned sideways as the last piece of the monster exited the pipe and joined the rest of the metal mass, perched like a vulture on the rickety infrastructure of the pipes.
Finally, the fox lunged.
Jessica crammed the earpiece into her ear and jumped, and the creature slammed into the netting where she had been, its limbs shooting through the spaces in the net. Jessica landed on her back on the top of an arcade cabinet, then fell to the floor below with a thud, the wind knocked out of her, and she wheezed. The creature struggled to free itself from the net. The limbs writhed, then the whole body sank down with the net, tearing it off the frame as it went. The creature was stuck, its limbs tangled in the mesh. It thrashed and flailed, and its long, snakelike appendages lashed through the air. The net rocked back and forth, straining in its bonds, then gave way in an instant. The thing dropped straight down into the pit, sending colorful plastic balls splashing over the sides of the pit. It twisted frantically, still tangled in the torn netting, then suddenly it began to twitch. Jessica watched, wide-eyed, as the bound creature slowly sank into the ball pit with a sound like metal grinding metal; after a moment it vanished entirely, though the balls boiled up frenziedly as the gnashing sound continued. Briefly, she caught a glimpse of a black-eyed crawler, chewing contentedly. She drew in a shaky breath, then ran for the front entrance. Jessica burst out through the double door and into the cool night air, and swayed on her feet.
“Are you all right?” Marla asked with alarm.
“I’m fine.” Jessica looked at each of the children, confirming that they were all there, all safe. Except one. Carlton, do you have him? She forced herself to smile. “So, who wants to visit a police station?”
* * *
Carlton crept quickly down the hall, scanning the walls and floor for signs of struggle—of anything that would indicate something had passed through. There was another door a little way down the hall, and he paused outside it, carefully turning the knob while staying outside the frame. Bracing himself, he pushed the door in, and waited. Nothing came out and he cautiously peered inside: the room was completely empty. “Calm before the storm?” he whispered to himself, and shut the door.
When he reached the T in the hall he paused. Where are you, kid? He closed his eyes, listening. There was nothing, and then, a muffled scraping came from the wall behind him, back the way he and Marla had come. Carlton went toward it, and put his ear to the wall. The rustling continued. It was an odd sound he could not quite pinpoint, but it sounded like someone moving. He stepped back, examining the wall: It was plain, painted beige, with a large, silver air vent near the baseboard, about three feet high and almost as wide. That’s strange … Carlton knelt down in front of the vent and turned on his flashlight—which worked, somewhat impressively, after its extended use as a blunt instrument. He turned the beam on the vent, and squinted, trying to see inside, but the slats were too close together to make out anything.
A faint sound came from somewhere deep inside; it was indistinct, but it was unmistakably a voice. Carlton tugged at the grate with his fingernails, and it moved easily; he pulled the whole thing out, revealing a dark tunnel about four feet high. He shone his flashlight inside: The walls were concrete, painted red on one side and blue on the other in faded colors. Incomprehensible words were scribbled on them in crayon, and the yellow linoleum floor was scuffed with black sneaker marks, scratched, and turning up at the edges. “This place is brand-new, right?” Carlton muttered as he crouched down and crawled inside, keeping the light ahead of him. It was unsettling to think of someone carefully laying down a new floor, then marking it with deliberate signs of wear; adult hands mimicking children’s painstaking handwriting and simple drawings. He cast the light around: on the red wall there was a drawing of a house and stick figures; underneath someone had written My House with the e drawn backward. The sound of the voice came again, echoing faintly through the tunnel ahead, and Carlton crawled forward awkwardly with the flashlight in one hand.
The wall color changed every few feet, cycling through the rainbow at random, with childlike graffiti spaced unevenly all along the way. He came to what he thought was an opening to a new tunnel, but when he turned the light toward it, he saw that it was only a cubbyhole, small enough for a child to squeeze into. In the corner of it was a little blue sneaker, the laces untied, and Carlton swallowed. What is this place?
His flashlight lit on a silently screaming face, and Carlton jumped back, dropping the light. He snatched it up again, his heart thumping, and shone it on the figure: it was a jack-in-the-box stuck in its “surprise” position: a white-faced clown, its mouth gaping in perpetual laughter. “This isn’t a vent,” Carlton whispered, letting the light leave the painted face and continue down the colorful hall littered with hiding spaces and scuff marks. “This is part of the play area.”
The light fixed on a rainbow stretching above one of the hiding spaces. HIDE-AND-SEEK HALLWAY, it read. “This can’t be good.” Carlton winced. The child’s voice echoed again, this time a little louder, and he shook off the eerie sensation. I’m coming, kid, he promised silently.
He rounded a corner, but stopped short: there was an animatronic baby in a cubbyhole, motionless, laying on its back. Carlton’s elbows and knees trembled. Please don’t move.
Black, insect-like eyes stared blankly at him from a sweet, plastic face; the crawler did not move, apparently deactivated. He backed away cautiously, and turned his light on the path ahead; he was approaching a turn, but there was still no sign of an exit. He crawled on, passing stick figures and houses that were beginning to look suspiciously repetitive.
“I s-ee you …”
Carlton whirled around. There was nothing in sight but a closed door. It was the size of the other cubbyholes, child-height, with a small, heart-shaped window near the top. As he passed his light over the little door, something glinted through the heart-shaped window. Carlton stiffened, but before he could think to move, the door broke off its hinges as Freddy crawled forcefully out, a maniacal grin on his shiny purple-and-white face as he unfolded from the cramped space he had stuffed himself into. Carlton crawled backward frantically, and Freddy matched his motions, keeping a distance of inches between them. Carlton glanced around, then turned and crawled as fast as he could down the tunnel, his knees and hands slamming into the floor painfully as he raced to get away. He glanced back: Freddy was crawling behind him, his mechanical arms and legs thundering faster than Carlton could hope to escape. He rounded a corner, and Freddy caught his foot, the iron fingers digging into his heel. Carlton kicked with his other foot, wresting himself free, and got to his feet and started to run, hunched down to half his height and scraping the ceiling with his back. From behind, he could hear the sound of Freddy bearing down on him, his hands and knees pounding the floor with vibrating force.
Carlton turned another corner, and relief surged through him: there was a vent along the tunnel, an actual vent that led to a large room. Carlton kicked it out without hesitation and scurried through to the room on the other side.
The room was enormous, seemingly designed to house a single, giant carnival ride: it was a ring of seats set on an angle, held together by huge metal arms on a spiral, a terrifying variation on the merry-go-round that would whip around at high speed while tilting nauseatingly up and down. On the far side of it was a door marked EXIT. Before Carlton could run for the door, Freddy burst out of the tunnel, climbing to his feet, his eyes sickeningly reflective in the dark.
“I see you so clearly now,” said the speaker in Freddy’s chest.
Carlton turned to run, then smacked into the carnival ride, biting his lip and drawing blood.
He turned back just in time to see Freddy lunge at him, and Carlton ducked under the ride, the blow just missing him and hitting the metal side of the tilted merry-go-round. The sound rang out in the vast, empty room, and he shuddered, then leaped back as another blow hit the ride above him, reverberating so hard it rattled his teeth. Carlton looked up: the metal had bowed out above his head, caving to Freddy’s strength.
“You can’t escape …”
Carlton scrambled away, tripping over the heavy steel beams that undergirded the ride, bolting it to the ground. Freddy’s shiny purple-and-white calves stalked him calmly, keeping pace with him along the perimeter of the ride as Carlton ducked under heavy cables and mysterious, frightening-looking gears.
“I’ve alm-ost got you …” Freddy announced.
“Not yet,” Carlton muttered as he carefully untangled his foot from the heavy wire that had ensnared him. He craned his neck, trying to see the room around him: There was no way he could get past Freddy, and even if he did, he would pursue him relentlessly. Carlton was backed up against the tilted end of the ride, and up against the control platform. As he craned his head upward he could see a large on/off lever, which was almost in reach.
“Nowhere else to run …”
Carlton waited for Freddy to make his way deeper under the ride, pressing and contorting his body to get at Carlton between the beams. Carlton squeezed out from under the ride and hoisted himself just high enough to pull the lever and activate the ride, then dropped to the ground and covered his head. Freddy reached for him, but the ride tilted abruptly.
Carlton saw Freddy jerk about, wrenched by the moving parts, until the ride jolted hard. Carlton clutched his head as his ears rang with the impact, a growing shriek of tearing metal and grating gears as the ride slowed, wobbling unsteadily on its axis. Carlton didn’t move: from where he had landed he could see the apparatus in motion, shredding through the body of what had been Freddy as the machine ground on inexorably through its routine. Scraps of purple appeared and vanished, then fell to the floor, spat out by the machine. A yellow eyeball appeared in a space above two gears, and Carlton watched with shocked fascination as the rest of the precariously balanced body was pulverized by the alternating beams, then dropped to the ground in several distinct masses.
The machine screeched ear-splittingly, then slowed and sputtered to a dead stop. Carlton didn’t move for a moment. He got to his feet and cautiously moved away from the apparatus, carefully avoiding the littered scraps of metal and plastic on the ground. He didn’t dare climb under the thing again, but he prodded it gently with his toe, then yanked his foot back as something dropped out.
Half of Freddy’s head, one-eyed and still grinning insanely, fell out of the machine near Carlton, spun partially on the ground, then stopped moving, and its single eye flickered on, then sputtered and died. The speaker in the now-smashed chest piece, laying armless and legless nearby, crackled with static, then spoke, “Thanks for playing; come again soon!” The voice trailed away and went silent.
In the distance, the child’s scream came again, and Carlton was startled back to himself.
“Hang on, kid,” he whispered, and headed grimly for the door.