Open Fire

Frankie became much more afraid, not being able to see what was going on out there. 

She wondered if the woman would come for her. If she did, would she check here first? She pulled Katie into the ladie’s room by habit. Maybe the woman would consider their best hiding spot and check the men’s room first. It probably wouldn’t matter. She could- would kill them both in an instant. Frankie begun to cry, remembering she’d just witnessed people die for the first time. She cried more once she ascertained she was likely the only one who got off that Ferris wheel alive. But turning back to the unconscious Katie, she forced herself to breathe.

Katie was alive.

She was grateful.

She picked up her phone and started to text a message to her parents. Her fingers slipped across the virtual keys like they were covered in oil, her vision blurring from her tears. It was a long message, almost illegible. She was scared knowing they probably wouldn’t understand all the things she wanted to say to them if this was the end. She sent it anyway.

Frankie turned to her sister again. She couldn’t stop looking at her.

She was indeed grateful that the girl was alive, but something bothered her.

The woman who did this was still outside.

Police forces crowded around Action as she held up Kiddie Parker by his golden hair. With thirty guns pointed at her, Action didn’t show the slightest bit of fear in her unbreakable crimson smile. The cops’ coarse, dark uniforms fit even less with the park aesthetic than her skinsuit.

“SET THE MAN DOWN!” barked one from a speaker, reminding her of something. She obliged as she sat the wounded, beaten, and now partially dismantled park owner’s body on the ground, awaiting the law enforcement’s approach.

“KEEP THOSE HANDS UP!” They sent in five men. She wished they’d given her more. As one stuck a gun in her face, the rest surrounding her on all sides, she finally got to do something she’d always wanted to. She flicked her spread fingers.

“Dismantle.”

Action always hated cops.

She wanted to see them afraid. Their bodies were just as intact as they’d been. But instead of guns, their hands held nothing but air, their weapons field-stripped into nothing but interlocking pieces littered into the night. She spun all around herself, kicking the transfixed men away in a single motion as she heard the first shot go off.

Action slid herself straight towards one of the cars blocking off the area, holding her hands behind her as she propelled herself at high speed towards its floor. Once she found herself under it, she put her gloved hands right up to the metal and began to laugh.

“Dismantle~”

Officer Kyle watched as his partner’s head was taken off by a stray wheel, a gas pedal flying into his kneecap soon after. Every single piece of the car became a deadly implement thrown about the field of engagement. The few left standing chose to run. Action strutted across the chaos to once again raise a battered Kiddie Parker.

“From what I hear, your son seems to have recovered from his last run-in with a death in the family. Forgotten his pain entirely. Let’s go remind him, shall we?”

“Wait… no, I’ll… give you something… do you want my money? Do you want me… to shut down my park, is that what you want…?” He pleaded.

“I’ll get your money anyway, Parker. And your park’s already done for after this incident.”

“What is wrong with you…”

“Terminal brainworms. I just can’t stop thinking about how people might die on all these awful rides. It’s up to me to remind them.”

Bare feet pitter-pattered across the ground behind Action.

She turned to see nothing more than a little girl with dyed hair, holding an iron pole taken from the Ferris wheel she’d destroyed.

“Hey…” she panted, trying to forget the icy fear inside her. “You hurt my sister.”