Wally's Wonderland

Chapter 10

True to her promise, Emily and Dan have not left the sheriff's office. It has been awfully quiet, and they have been snoozing since that time.

That is until the phone rings, waking them up. The two stare at each other, then to the phone at the center of the desk. It rings several times before Emily reaches for the receiver and answers:

"Hayesville Sheriff's office."

"Sheriff, it's Chris." He whispers, sounding pretty terrified.

"What can I do for you son?" She asks.

"Serious trouble is going on here." Chris explains. "The gang and I went to Wally's Wonderland. Me, Maria, Sophie, Jake, Ben, Liv, and this janitor guy—"

"Liv?!" Emily yells immediately after hearing the girl's name. "Goddamn it... keep your ass down there Chris!"

She ends the call, and gets off her chair.

"Trouble?" Dan asks.

"No shit there is." Emily tells him. "Now c'mon, we're going to Wally's."

The two leave the office and head towards Emily's car. She throws in a couple of shotguns in the trunk, while Dan watches, somewhat unsure of why she's doing that.

"Sheriff, if I may?" He asks. "Why do we have to use our firearms? These are just teenagers right? Vandalizing, getting dirty, all that kind of stuff? Doesn't really seem that big of a deal."

"It's not them we have to worry about. It's Wally and his gang."

Dan looks at her with a confused look. What does she mean that they have to use guns against a giant weasel? Then he realizes what he thinks is really up here:

"Okay. I get it. They got you to screw around with me. Well nice try it ain't gonna work on me—"

"You don't know the entire story of Wally's don't you?"

Dan's confused again. It's true. He's not very familiar with the history of the so-called park of joy.

"You ever heard of Jerry Wilkinson? The ritual he did 30 years ago? The furries of that park being cold-hearted man-eaters?" She asks.

"Well, I kinda heard a little bit of it..."

"Well I can guarantee ya that it's all real. But that's not where it ends."

Emily begins to tell Dan a little story about Wally's.

Tex Macadoo, after closing the park 15 years ago, tried to keep the fact that the machines were cursed monsters a secret. He felt the public wouldn't believe such a thing. But he knew that he couldn't just tell everyone to stay away from it and let it rot. So, he made deals with experts in apotropaic magic to take care of Wally and his chums. Unfortunately, none of them had ever survived. Every person he found ended up getting mutilated in the most horrific ways possible.

After that, there wasn't a man alive willing to break the curse. Tex figured that maybe it was best to just hire a demolition crew to bulldoze the park. And with it gone, the town of Hayesville could live in peace without any more people getting killed.

However, Tex didn't realized that the puppets were able to actually walk. So they ended up leaving the park, and started terrorizing the entire town. They attacked fast food restaurants, the bakery, even the crew hired to destroy Wally's.

6 years pass, and the townsfolk had only two choices left. They either go to war with the animals, be seen as lunatics, probably lose more people, or cut a deal with them.

They went with the latter.

On one big night, a group of locals gathered outside the park. Tex entered, meeting up with all 10 animatronics, Wally Weasel at the front. Tex approached the creatures, stopped in front of their leader, and gave out a speech:

"Mr. Weasel, you've caused enough damage to our town. And I think it's about time we make a deal from here on out. You and your buddies leave our people be. And in return... we'll feed you when needed."

And thus, Tex, with the help of his pal Jeff Lynch, tried to find people who wouldn't be missed by many, people with little to no moral character, and people who were in a bad situation from the start, to give to the wonderland gang, so they can feast upon them and leave the townsfolk alone.

"Well, if that's the case, then why are we even going?" Dan asks.

"Liv." Emily says quietly, and starts telling him another story.

9 years ago, a family, consisting of a mother, a father, and two daughters, one a teen, and the other a 10 year old Liv, were walking aimlessly down the road of Route 50. They were lost, looking for any form of transportation.

Eventually, Jeff's tow truck came over and picked them up, taking them to his garage, where he told them:

"Hayesville's one and only motel has already been booked. But I think I've got another place you could stay for tonight until I find a new car for y'all. Now, it's nothing really all that fancy, but it's most certainly free, if you don't mind a little job of cleaning."

Of course that place was Wally's Wonderland. Jeff took the family to it, and Tex gave the janitorial job to the parents.

"Well my friends, I'm glad you came to help out at Wally's." Tex said to them. "20 years this park has brought wonders and joy for all the kids in Haysville. Unfortunately we had to condemn it for a while. But we are planning to reopen it again, bring back all the playtime and reintroduce it to the rest of the world. And your job is to clean it up before we do. So I hope you've got everything under control, and have some wonderful fun here in Wally's Wonderland."

The first few hours of the family's job was relatively easy-going. They were wiping the floors with mops, sweeping the leaves, etc.

But then it all went to shit when it got close to midnight. All the animatronics came to life, and started chasing the family everywhere around the park endlessly, until eventually they got cornered by the two big baddies, Rebecca Rabbit and Wally Weasel, and they began to tear them apart and eat them alive. Chewing the meat off their ribs and munching on their intestines as if they were sausage strings.

The next day, Emily, Jeff, and Tex came over to check on the damage, finding the remains of the family. It was completely messy. Nothing but a pile of bones. They soon heard muffled crying coming from the custodian's closet. Tex opened the door, and he, Emily, and Jeff, discovered little Liv sitting down on the floor, tears flowing down her face. She hid inside here while the puppets chased and slaughtered her parents and sibling. Considering how it just isn't right to let this kid be fed to them, Emily decided to take her in as her own, and promised to take care of her no matter what.

And this is where Emily's story ends.

"I can live with the machines feeding on drifters... but certainly not that girl." Emily mutters. "As much as she pisses me off, I can't afford to lose her."

A few tears shed through her eyes. Dan isn't sure what to make of all of this.

"Now come on Dan, we need to get her out of there." Emily orders, and the two officers hop into the car and drive off to the wonderland.