I breathed heavily, and my legs quivered. This was not good.

I tried to speak, but no sound came out. I was terrified, and what the guy who called himself the Menace had told me a second ago was even more terrifying.

Mr. Chiller rolled his eyes and pointed at the front door. "Please go," he demanded, eyeing Byron and the Menace.

"Wait. You are not coming with us?" Byron questioned. "You want to get rid of her as much as we do."

I gulped, hanging on to every word that came out of the Horror's mouth.

Particularly one phrase.

"...get rid of her..." The phrase echoed in my mind.

Mr. Chiller slowly nodded. "Yes. I want her gone for good and out of Horrorland forever."

"And Panic Park," the Menace added.

I could not help but whimper. Byron stared down at me and snorted.

"The kid is getting upset, sir," the Horror informed the black-haired dude.

"Ugh." The old man stretched his arm over the counter and was reaching for something. He then pulled back, and I spotted a roll of tape in his hand. He picked up a pair of scissors that was lying on top of the counter and started pulling on the tape.

The tape was brown and thick. It looked to be very sticky, for Mr. Chiller was having a problem with it.

"Do you really need help?" the Menace asked. He held out a hand. "Just say that you are an old man, and I will help."

"I am not old!" Mr. Chiller snapped. "And I do not need your stinkin' help!" He forced his attention back on the roll of tape and fiddled with it. "Aha!" He pulled on the end, and some tape began unsticking and unraveling a bit. The hand with the scissors was shaking, but he concentrated and carefully cut off a piece of tape. He put the tape on a finger and set down the roll and scissors, and then held out the finger. "Take this and go. I need to run my shop. If anyone comes in, like those puppets or her grandpa, we will be in deep trouble."

"How will we be in deep trouble?" Byron wondered. "We are not in the ocean and swimming with sharks."

"He does not mean the book, you idiot," the Menace said as he took the piece of tape and slapped it on my mouth. "He means that we do not want to get caught. Not by the other Horrors. Not by her parents."

"No one." The old man went over to a filthy window and looked outside. "The coast is clear. You should go now. The park will be flooded with humans and creatures in a matter of minutes."

"Of course." The Menace picked me up and hoisted me over his shoulder.

"Mmm!" I thrashed with my arms and tried kicking my legs. The Menace had a good hold on me though. He had an arm wrapped around my waist and was holding my legs down with a hand.

Byron slapped my face and held my arms in place. "Be nice," he said to me. "Be a good girl and do not struggle." He poked my nose with a pointy claw. "Or the cutie will have the same fate as you."

Cutie? Who did he mean?

Slappy? Snappy?

The Menace and Byron left the little shop. Mr. Chiller closed the front door behind us and stood by the window. He waved to us - and gave me a creepy grin.

I shivered. I wanted to cry, but I was too scared to do so. And I was filled with worry.

What would they do to me to end my life?

As I was pondering the question and worrying, I noticed that everything around me was fading. The shop. The rides. Even the Stagger Inn. It was all fading. Fading away into nothingness.

No. Something else was fading in.

As soon as the park faded, a room came into view.

The room was huge. It was bigger than a theatre. The floor was covered with a red carpet that stretched from one end of the room to the other. The walls were also red with thin, black lines that touched the tops and bottoms of each wall. A brown pole was in the center. There was nothing else.

The Menace set me down, and Byron quickly grabbed me and pushed me against the pole. He scooped up some rope that was near the pole and tied me to the pole. My arms were now around the pole, and my hands were behind it.

"At last," the Menace said, smiling evilly and striding towards me. "We have you." He patted my head, and I frowned. "I suppose that you would like an explanation as to why we kidnapped you."

"And that is easy to explain," Byron added on. "You are going to be—"

He was interrupted by the sound of a door bursting open.

The Menace clenched his teeth. "Mahar." He paused, and then said, "Puppets."