Read Online Anything Can Be Dangerous by Matt Hults - Free Book Online Page B

the guy to
run and find help.
    Then the man smiled a mouth full of
razor-pointed teeth. “Do you happen to have any live children?” he
asked.
    Ron stood frozen. “Fresh out,” he
replied, praying it was the first and only time such a request had
come in.
    The gentleman snapped his fingers. He
pushed his glasses up. “I guess I’ll just have a chicken sandwich,
then.”
    Ron keyed in the order and fled back
toward the kitchen—
    Where he noticed Wendy had
disappeared.
    “ Wendy!” he shouted. He
hurried through the kitchen, pushing past the workers as they went
about their chores, but couldn’t find her. He dashed past the
freezer. “Fucker!” the thing inside barked—and rushed down the back
hall.
    He found her in the manager’s office,
tucked into the corner beside a plastic potted plant. The small
room appeared immaculate, a far cry from when he’d first viewed it.
The furniture all looked new now, as did the various office-related
supplies and corporate-themed decor. Behind the desk, the picture
of the Last Supper gleamed as if just painted.
    “ It’s my fault,” Wendy
wailed when she saw him. “I knew something was wrong when I drove
up. The place was fixed! When I first toured it last month, the
building was just a burnt out shell. But today…I should’ve said
something, anything, but I needed the commission…”
    Her confession deteriorated into a
sorrowful moan.
    He sat down beside her. Took her hands
in his.
    “ We’ll be all right. We
just need to feed the customers and obey the rules.”
    “ But what does that
mean?”
    “ I don’t know,” he said.
“It’s like we’ve skipped the Twilight Zone and gone straight to
Hell. All I know is that we’re still alive, and if we can stay that
way long enough, we’ll find a way out of here…this place seems to
need us.”
    “ Which is why we’ll never
get out,” she said. Despite her tears, the words came out soft and
calm, sounding frighteningly like acceptance.
    He opened his mouth, not yet sure what
he planned to say, only knowing that he had to get her back to work
before whatever force controlled this place decided she was
slacking.
    “ Look we—” he started, but
stopped when he spotted something lying forgotten under the desk.
He let go of Wendy’s hands and crawled over to it.
    He picked it up and hope instantly
charged his nerves.
    “ Look at this!” he said.
“It’s the ID badge of the previous manager.”
    When she didn’t move, he returned to
her side, holding the badge forward. He tapped the headshot under
the laminate. “Wendy, do you recognize this guy?”
    She stared at it for a moment, eyes
blank, but then a look of understanding enlivened her features. “Al
Tolbec,” she whispered, reading the signature on the badge. “Yes!
He’s the owner, the one who tried to burn this place
down.”
    Ron could see a fresh glint of resolve
in her eyes, a growing excitement he felt himself.
    “ And where is Tolbec now?”
he asked knowingly.
    “ A mental hospital,” she
replied. “That’s why the insurance company dropped the arson suit
and ownership of the property reverted to the bank, because the
courts found him insane!”
    “ Of course they did!” Ron
laughed. “Imagine trying to tell a judge you built a restaurant
that caters exclusively to the dead!”
    He got up, helping Wendy to her feet.
“That’s not the important part, though. What matters is that Tolbec
got out. He got out and tried to destroy this place. And if he
found a way to escape—”
    “ So can we!” Wendy finished
for him.
    Ron nodded.
    From the hallway came the background
noise of the workers laboring in the kitchen, along with the
constant undertone of the feasting creatures in the dining
room.
    Ron crossed the office and checked the
hall, finding it vacant. He eased the door closed, wiping a layer
of nervous sweat off his forehead.
    “ Okay…” he said, pacing
back and forth. “For whatever reason this place seems to function
on the