CHAPTER 11: HORROR
Arlene continued to stroll down the empty road with Kitty in her arms. She didn’t know how she was going to go home, but she definitely knew that this was the route back home and she was on her way back to meet her beloved Mama.
The sun began to set and the moon began to rise. She may be an android but she certainly wasn’t programmed to have super speed so that she could go home faster. She’ll just have to put up with walking. There were cars passing by occasionally but none of them seemed to noticed that little girl with a Super Toy in her arms. Her footsteps echoed through the night as she walked down the lonely road as fast as she could to get home. Her whole body was covered with dirt and grime due to the car accident but so far nothing broken. The road may be quite dark, but she was programmed to see in the dark, so it didn’t bother her when there was lack of streetlights. The road she was walking on was near the forest, so there were also sounds of birds in the trees.
Suddenly, Arlene saw another moon in the sky, rising higher and higher than the first one. Soon the ‘moon’ came into focus and Arlene saw that it wasn’t a moon, but a special effect made on a hot-air balloon which carried a few people in it. A huge blinking sign written in huge letters ‘FLESH FAIR’ was on the hot-air balloon.
“Any old metal? Any old metal?” Arlene could hear one of them calling out using a loudspeaker. Then, almost suddenly, a dozen or two androids were running past her. They seemed like they had seen better days; their whole bodies were either being torn apart or were quite unfinished. Some were charred and others were damaged here and there. Arlene stared in horror at those scary, weird looking people.
From behind, roars of motorcycles were heard. Arlene looked back and saw motor bikers wearing flashy outfits chasing the broken-down androids with their fierce-looking motorcycles that looked like it just came from hell. Arlene took to her heels and ran with the androids, hugging Kitty tight to her chest. She could see those androids being caught one by one with some sort of magnetic gadgets as it made them attach themselves on the streetlights. Arlene ran for her life. She didn’t want to be caught for no reason. She just wanted to go home to her Mama where no one would ever come between them ever. She just wanted to go home…
Soon she found herself not running anymore, but in the arm of one of the flashy scary motor bikers. She held Kitty tighter and closer to her chest, not wanting to let go and be alone with these madmen. She put up a struggle, demanding to be let go but the roar of the motorcycle drowned her tiny voice. She was facing the back of the motorcycle and she could see it dragging a net filled with those broken-up androids and robots. The other motorcycles that followed behind it were also dragging nets of androids and robots, all begging for their lives to be spared. Arlene was scared. Extremely scared. So scared, that her DAS was activated.
“Keep me safe, Kitty. Keep me safe, Kitty. Keep me safe…” she muttered all the way to the final destination.
Arlene’s eyes finally came to focus. She saw herself surrounded by the wrecked androids and robots. She backed away, horrified at the monstrosity and the filthiness of these creatures before her. She was an innocent child once again when she found herself in this predicament. She found herself in a huge metal cage in a big auditorium. She looked outside and saw dozens upon dozens of people sitting or standing outside cheering and laughing while there were loud booms and zaps and a whole lot of other explosive noises.
When she looked closer, she saw those broken androids being dragged out into the field and were either stuffed into cannons or cuffed onto a wheel or tied on a board under pails of acid and they were demolished one by one, much to her horror. ‘Will I become like this?!’ she thought in horror. ‘I can’t be like this! I want to be with my Mama!’
“Next!” Arlene heard someone called. He saw a burly-looking chubby man in his 30’s stormed in. He was wearing a flashy-looking cowboy outfit and he came in with a few more men wearing dark uniforms. He checked around and pointed at the robots one by one, choosing randomly. Arlene tried to hide behind a rusty ancient-old android, but her aquamarine eyes shone even at the dimmest light, so she was spotted.
“Well, well, well. What do we have here?” The burly man came towards Arlene, pulling her from behind the robot and gesturing the men to take the robot away for the Flesh Fair event. He then took out a scanner and checked Arlene through and through. He frowned and said, “Just as I suspected. Another child android. I know just what to do with you.”
He grabbed Arlene’s arm and dragged her into a filthy room filled with more dark-uniformed men. He pushed her onto a chair and grabbed Kitty away from her. He snapped his fingers and two of the men got the cue. They held Arlene’s arms down with their strong hands, making her unable to move. Well, she was programmed with the strength of a small child, so it wasn’t surprising she couldn’t get free. The man (we’ll call him the Boss) came close to Arlene and grabbed her chin harshly, turning her head from side to side, inspecting her.
“A pretty lil’ lass, but a troublemaker all the same,” the Boss said. “The last kid robot almost cost me my business.”
‘The last kid robot?’ Arlene thought. ‘Are there any other android kids like me?’
“We know what troublemakers like you should be handled,” the Boss said as he gestured at one of the men. The man came close and the Boss jerked his head at Arlene. As the man closed in on Arlene, the Boss grinned and said, “Once you’re permanently turned off, you won’t be able to ruin my fair anymore.”
Arlene was shocked. He was going to turn her off! He was going to shut her down and throw her away with the rest of the broken-down robots to be demolished. She would never see her Mama ever again. That thought sent a gleam into her aquamarine eyes. The man forced her mouth open. As he tried to find the switch to turn her off and open the contraption of her face, something went with a loud snap, followed by a loud cry of agony.
Everyone was horrified and quite distracted until the men who held Arlene down loosened their grip on her. She walked stealthily towards the man who was rolling all over the floor clutching his right hand and spit out something that was drenched with blood at the man’s face.
It was his finger. His index finger.
Everyone stared at Arlene in horror as she smiled innocently with blood dripping out the left corner of her lips. They started to arm themselves one by one with anything heavy or sharp just incase Arlene tried to do anything harsh. Arlene casually stepped over the screaming man’s body and reached down from under the table, pulling out Kitty who was gagged and also tied. She released Kitty out of his captivity.
She was about to leave as if nothing had happened but the men were gathering one by one to stop Arlene from getting away. Arlene was a tad little than the other men, so throughout their struggle to grab her, she only had to dodge and run around the wide spacious office, letting them banging at each other. There were some people who got a hold of her but she would grab either the sharp object and jabbed it through their chests, ripping it together with their hearts out or the heavy weapon and rammed it onto their skulls, splattering skull fragments and brain juice all over, killing them in an instant. Where she got that strength, only the Lord can tell. The whole place was a real havoc. You can’t exactly tell who’s catching who; it was too hectic, bloody and down right gory.
Soon, as Arlene realized that no one was chasing her anymore, she saw a whole bunch of men (including the Boss) on the floor either dead or writhing in pain, groaning and moaning in agony. She looked around and noticed that there was blood everywhere. She looked at her clothes which were even messier with more blood and gore mixing with Paulo’s (the already dead Paulo) dried ones. She pouted and said, “Oh, Kitty, look. They’ve dirtied my clothes!”
Arlene set Kitty down and looked around with that innocent look on her face. She hummed a merry Spanish tune her Mama used to sing to her before bedtime. After scavenging around she finally came across a few jars of kerosene oil stashed at the back of the office. Probably to be used on the demolishing of robot on the fair. She uncapped the jars and poured it all over the men lying on the floor, dead or alive. She drenched them all with kerosene with a smile on her face, like it was all just a game.
Suddenly someone came into the room by surprise. She turned around and saw that it was the men—two of them—that were in charge of demolishing the robots. They probably came in for more supplies of ‘ammo’ to torture the robots. When the men’s facial expressions twisted into a face of horror, Arlene wasted no time. She pulled out a sharp object, one for each hand, from one of the bodies’ chest and walked as fast as she could towards the men. Without warning, she stabbed both the men with it, embedding them deep into their abdomen. They had no time to react. They slumped onto the floor and Arlene, with a little strength she had, pulled the bodies closer to the rest of the other bodies (and dying people) and poured the remaining kerosene onto the men.
“Arlene, why are you doing this?” Kitty asked, looking really worried.
“No one likes a tattletale,” Arlene smiled in her own cold way as she dug the pockets of the Boss. Again, she found a box of matches in his jacket pocket and smiled when she looked at the horrified man’s face. He wanted to talk, to beg her not to harm him but his throat was slit by her earlier. She hushed the Boss and laid a finger on his bloody lips.
“You shouldn’t play with fire.”
So saying, she struck a match and dropped it on the Boss, watching him scream as he got burnt from head to toe. She got up slowly and struck another match, dropping it on another not-quite-dead victim and giggled like an innocent child as she watched the man burn, screaming for his life. As she backed away from the fire, she struck more and more matches, deliberately dropping them on those not dead yet and watched and laughed as they burn and scream and yell in agony. It was like hell just moved into the neighbourhood. Arlene finally picked up Kitty before the flames licked the table he was sitting on and walked casually to the door.
“Bye bye, uncles. I had a great time with you! See you again soon!”
Finally, as all the staff of Flesh Fair rushed to see the horrifying burning and tried to put out the fire, Arlene blended in with the escaping crowd of spectators out of the Flesh Fair, skipping happily away like she actually had fun in a real fun fair. As soon as she was far away from the Flesh Fair, she laughed out loud like the little child she was programmed as and skipped all the way back to the road where she just walked to go home, singing the Spanish lullaby out loud with glee.
“Let’s go home to Mama, shall we?”
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