Chapter 6: Hide and Scream

Chapter 6: Hide and Scream

The crimson letters of the word FORGOTTEN pulsed in time with the throbbing, searing agony in Leo’s hand. For a terrifying second, the world was just that word and the corpse of Dale sprawled beneath it. The performance was over. The applause was due.

Then came the sound.

A heavy thump-clank from the stage.

Billy Bob had stepped down.

The sound shattered the paralysis. It was the signal that the curtain had fallen, and now the actors were coming for the audience.

“RUN!” Leo’s voice was a raw, broken croak, but the command was pure instinct.

He and Maya broke in the same instant, two startled animals bolting from the kill zone. Their feet pounded on the sticky, patterned carpet. Not for the front doors—that way was death, locked and barred. Not for the back halls—Mitzi, the bloody-mouthed gatekeeper, was waiting there. The only path, the only prayer of cover, was the arcade.

They plunged into the flashing, chaotic darkness. The sensory assault was immediate and overwhelming. A dozen different machines, left in attract mode, blared a cacophony of 8-bit battle anthems, tinny pop songs, and the digitized roar of racing engines. Strobe lights from a forgotten dance game pulsed erratically, carving the darkness into disorienting slices of neon-drenched reality. It wasn’t a sanctuary; it was a sensory minefield, a perfect hunting ground where sight and sound were twisted into weapons of confusion.

Leo clutched his ruined right hand to his chest, the mangled flesh a dead, heavy weight. Every jarring step sent lightning bolts of pure agony up his arm, making his vision swim. He could feel the wet warmth of fresh blood soaking through his shirt.

“Split up!” he yelled to Maya over the din. “Find somewhere to hide! Don’t make a sound!”

He saw her terrified nod in the flash of a "Street Fighter" cabinet before she veered off to the left, disappearing behind a towering row of Skee-Ball machines.

Leo’s eyes darted around, searching. He needed something solid. Something defensible. His mechanic’s eye, trained to see the guts of these machines, found it: a hulking, four-player “Captain Commando” cabinet. It was an old, wide beast of a machine, and he knew from experience its back was a simple metal grate, held on by clips, designed for easy service access.

He stumbled behind it, his body screaming in protest. His fingers, clumsy with pain and slick with blood, fumbled with the rusted clips. One gave way with a loud snap. Then another. He pulled the heavy grate open just wide enough to squeeze his wiry frame inside, into the cramped, dark space that smelled of hot dust and thirty years of spilled soda. He was surrounded by thick bundles of wires and the humming warmth of the cathode-ray tube monitor.

He carefully pulled the metal grate shut, the click of the last clip locking him into his coffin-sized hiding place. He peered out through the narrow slats, his world now a claustrophobic, barred view of the flashing, screaming arcade. He held his breath, listening.

For a moment, there was nothing but the electronic symphony. Then, a new sound cut through it.

Thump. Hiss. Thump. Hiss.

It was a heavy, rhythmic, and unnaturally fast footstep. A sound of immense weight moving with a jerky, mechanical gait that was a grotesque parody of a walk.

Rolfe DeWolfe stomped into the arcade.

The wisecracking wolf puppeteer was no longer a comedian. He moved with a twitching, predatory purpose, his head snapping from side to side, scanning the rows of machines. His felt tuxedo was rumpled and dark, and the little puppet, Earl Schmerle, dangled limply from his left hand, its head lolling back and forth with each jarring step, a tiny, silent echo of Dale’s broken form. In the pulsing, multi-colored lights, Rolfe’s permanent, toothy grin looked like the rictus of a rabid animal. His plastic eyes, which should have been lifeless, held the same faint, internal red glow as Billy Bob’s.

Leo pressed himself deeper into the cabinet, trying to will his heart to stop its frantic pounding. He could feel the vibrations through the floor as the animatronic stomped past his hiding spot. Rolfe paused, his head cocked as if listening to something beyond the range of human hearing, the delicate whirring of servos inside his neck audible even over the arcade’s noise.

He was hunting. Methodically.

Rolfe turned his attention toward the Skee-Ball lanes where Maya had disappeared. He began to move in that direction, his heavy tread a countdown to murder. Leo’s blood ran cold. He wanted to scream, to warn her, but he was frozen, a prisoner in his metal cage, forced once more to be a spectator.

Rolfe stopped at the end of the row of machines. He stood perfectly still for a second, a silent, menacing statue. Then, his head snapped down and to the right with a sharp whirr-CLICK.

Leo followed the animatronic's gaze and his heart sank. Huddled in the dark space behind the last Skee-Ball machine, Maya had tucked herself into a ball. But in her panic, she hadn’t been thorough. The toe of her sneaker was sticking out, and the small, silver buckle on its strap caught a stray flash of light from a nearby pinball machine. A single, tiny glint of light.

It was enough.

Rolfe took a single, deliberate step forward. Maya must have seen him, must have realized her mistake. A small, terrified whimper escaped from behind the machines.

The animatronic reacted to the sound with inhuman speed. There was a deafening crash as Rolfe, with one effortless shove of his arm, sent the half-ton Skee-Ball machine crashing onto its side.

Maya’s scream was sharp and full of terror, but it was cut brutally short.

Leo couldn't see what was happening, and for that, he was grimly thankful. All he could hear was a horrifying medley of sounds: the high-pitched whine of powerful hydraulics, the sickening crunch of splintering wood, the shriek of tearing metal as Rolfe’s steel claws found purchase. And underneath it all, a wet, tearing sound that made Leo’s stomach heave.

He squeezed his eyes shut, but the sounds painted a vivid, unbearable picture in his mind. The cacophony from the arcade games seemed to swell, a gleeful, mocking soundtrack to the slaughter.

Then, as quickly as it began, it was over. The violent noises stopped, replaced by a soft, rhythmic dripping.

A horrified, choked gasp for air escaped Leo’s lips. It wasn't a word, barely even a sound, just an involuntary spasm of his lungs against the overwhelming horror.

It was the quietest sound in the entire arcade.

And it was the loudest thing Rolfe DeWolfe had ever heard.

WHIRRRR-CLICK.

The animatronic’s head, which had been bent down over its grisly work, snapped up. The methodical side-to-side scanning was gone. Its movements were now precise, locked on. The faint red glow in its eyes flared into two piercing, crimson points of light. Its head swiveled instantly, bypassing everything else in the room and locking directly onto the dark, metal grate of the “Captain Commando” cabinet.

It had heard him. It knew exactly where he was.