THE FUN BET
By Red Charcoal
CHAPTER TWO
"A haunted house? You must be joking, Miss Swan. How positively pedestrian."
"Lighten up Regina. Come on, it'll be fun." She gave the older woman's elbow a nudge.
"Clearly you have vastly overestimated what I consider to be fun." Regina's entire posture screamed reluctance as Emma led the mayor to the deliberately crooked building's door.
The brunette gave the lopsided architecture a stern look and frowned: "Is this even built to code?"
Emma laughed aloud at that. "Shit Regina, take off the mayor's robes for once."
She paused awkwardly as she realised how that sounded.
"Miss Swan?" Regina shot her a glance, eyebrow tilting.
"Um ... figuratively speaking," Emma mumbled, flushing faintly.
Regina's lips twitched and she wordlessly followed her up the building's steps.
A 'ghoul' in diabolically bad make-up collecting the tickets quailed upon identifying his illustrious visitors.
"Uh go right inside ma'ams. Prepare to be f-frightened. Bwahaha." He attempted a villainous cackle which was only made funnier by the fact he appeared more intimidated by his customers.
They stepped inside, Emma parting the web of fake cobwebs laced with cheap plastic spiders and looking around.
It was dark and stifling.
"Really," Regina sighed, from close behind her. "This place smells revolting. Have they even had a good clean in, what, six months?"
"It's supposed to be dirty and smelly. It adds to the atmosphere." Emma grinned into the blackness. "Can't really have a haunted house primped and cleaned to your mansion's pristine standards."
Regina ignored the jibe.
They rounded a corner of the dank passageway and creepy music began to fill the air. Distant moans and rattling chains began to sound and even Emma, who loved to be scared, found it suitably eerie, if a little obvious. She slid a glance to the woman now stalking the corridor impatiently beside her and, in the near darkness, could just make out her familiar profile etched in displeasure.
"After you, dear," Regina said with a drawl as the passageway ahead narrowed to one-person wide. The blonde stepped confidently forward.
"GAHH!" Emma shouted as a plastic skeleton flew at her face. She leapt back and landed heavily on Regina's foot behind her, its owner immediately howling in outrage.
"MISS SWAN! THAT IS MY FOOT YOU'RE STOMPING ALL OVER."
"Shit! Sorry," Emma swiftly lifted her boot and could faintly see Regina's mouth pursed in pain. If it had been Emma, she would have been cursing up a storm. She was rather impressed with the mayor's restraint.
"Want me to rub it better?" she suggested with a half grin.
"That will not be necessary," the mayor ground out. "Let's get moving. The sooner we do, the sooner we get out of this ridiculous building and you will be able to see where to put your clumsy feet."
Bats were next. Rubbery little puppet things were suddenly launching at them overhead from every angle. Emma yanked up her jacket collar and bent forward to stop them hitting her face. Regina merely batted them away with supreme irritation, eyes flashing. One that didn't get out of her way fast enough, she grabbed, yanked hard until a fishing wire broke and then tossed it to the floor. They heard a muffled male's curse in the rafters above them.
Regina snorted derisively, then kicked it to one side. "This is supposed to be scary, Miss Swan?" she asked incredulously.
"Well yeah – it's supposed to be you know, cheesy scary. Where you leap into your friends' arms, shrieking and swearing and scare yourself silly."
"Is that why we're here? So I will leap into your arms, Miss Swan? Because I could save you the effort right now by saying you are wasting your time."
"Geez, Regina, don't flatter yourself," Emma bit back, offended, and shoved her fists in her jacket. "I just figured you were due to let your hair down a bit and, I dunno, calm your tits."
There was silence and Emma realised she may have gone a little too far with her colourful metaphors.
"I assure you, Miss Swan," came the brittle reply, "My 'tits' are sufficiently calm. Now shall we get out of this absurd house sometime before Henry hits high-school age?"
Zombies lurched suddenly at them, growling enthusiastically and Emma, who was closest and badly distracted after hearing Regina say the word 'tits", started in fright. She bounded away a few feet, laughing at herself. She then doubled over helplessly when she caught the expression of haughty disdain welded onto the mayor's face as the brunette strode up nose to nose with one of the lurching zombies, her hands on her hips.
She was the very vision of imperiousness.
"Really, Mr Sayer? This is how you spend your time when not packing boxes at the supermarket?"
One of the pimply-faced zombies froze. "Graaah?"
"Oh don't think I don't recognise you. How many times have you put my cold cuts in with the dishwashing liquid despite me asking you repeatedly not to? Does Mr Grisham know you moonlight as the undead?"
"M-Miss Mills," the zombie stuttered, "N-no, ma'am."
The other zombie nudged the frightened teen, and hissed too loudly: "Josh, dude, stay in character."
"Just what I thought, Mr Sayer. I will be letting your employer know you have been terrifying unsuspecting Storybrooke residents when you were supposed to be at his store."
"P-please don't, M-Miss Mills. I really need that job."
"Josh! Shuddup, dude! In. Character."
"And you!" Regina turned on the zombie's accomplice. He took a startled step backwards. It was more a shuffle thanks to oversized ragged costumed feet. "Don't you work in my office?"
Silence. A harsh breath was sucked in. All eyes pinned on the now increasingly whiter painted face with black-ringed eyes.
"Gah?"
"Accounts Payable? Simon Hastings isn't it? Did I even give you time off to cavort in this absurd entertainment facility?"
"Eep."
"Regina, come on, you're not supposed to be scaring the zombies," Emma interjected as both ghouls began to slide petrified looks at each other. She tapped the mayor on the arm and whispered: "They're only young. Come on."
Regina sniffed at the cowering men. "I suppose you're right, Miss Swan." She gave them a glare for good measure. "You two can count yourself very lucky the sheriff is such a soft touch."
Emma snapped her head up. "Hey!"
Regina smiled at her, eyes glittering dangerously. The zombies took the distraction as an opportunity to fade back into the scenery.
"Problem, Miss Swan?"
"Just surprised you think of how soft I am to touch, Regina," Emma finally proclaimed, deciding the best defence was an offense. "Who knew?"
"It's a saying, Miss Swan," the mayor muttered, and although the blonde couldn't see her in the darkness, she knew she would be rolling her eyes. "As you well know."
The next corner yielded a creeping witch who swooped down from above on a swing and then leapt off to strike a pose before them, producing a half-hearted cackle and a scraggly broomstick. Her costume contained every witch stereotype imaginable and Regina's eyes narrowed when she saw a large fake wart perched on her faker nose.
"That is deplorable," she scolded the witch who was now attempting to intimidate the women by waggling the broom bristles defiantly at them. Regina gave her an irritated sigh.
"This woman couldn't scare the skin off a rice pudding," she complained. "And how culturally insensitive is her costume?" She frowned and flicked the wart off the nose and then leaned further forward until she was well inside the startled witch's personal space.
"Culturally insensitive to whom?" Emma sputtered. "Real witches?" She laughed at her own joke.
Regina suddenly bared her teeth at the young witch and let loose a menacing, guttural shriek that reverberated up and down the corridor and shook the flimsy walls. Then came a threat so venomous it was as if it had been dredged up straight from the bowels of Hell: "I will destroy your happiness, if it's the last thing I do!"
The witch and the blonde froze instantly. The bile and charisma dripping off Regina was so powerful, so palpable that Emma was no longer entirely confident in her bladder control. Her jaw dropped open.
"See? That's how it's done," Regina offered pleasantly into the silence, now punctuated only by ragged breathing in stereo. She straightened up and smiled casually.
"Mercy," came a tiny croaked voice from the creature of the night now trembling before her. The woman suddenly regained her wits, screamed and ran back behind a screen, which shook as she whipped past it at Olympics-qualifying speed.
Regina tossed her head disdainfully. "The quality control in this establishment beggars belief," she sniffed and continued on. After a moment she seemed to realise she was alone and turned back.
Emma was still rooted to the spot. Staring at her. Agog.
"H-how the hell did you do that? Where did it come from? That voice… Shit!"
Emma's mouth remained hanging open, and she realised she was still waiting for her frozen legs to move.
"Two years of amateur theatre in my youth, dear," Regina suggested with a smirk. "A stint as Lady Macbeth in our first season. One learns to project." She said the last word with a theatrical trill and gave her fingers an arty waggle then laughed at the blonde's disbelieving expression.
Regina strutted back to her, swaying her hips cockily, then stepped up close. Very close. Emma swallowed anxiously. Regina slipped her finger under Emma's chin and closed her mouth with a clack.
"Come, dear, I do want to get out of this place now. It is losing what little charm it had."
Emma shook herself and scampered after her, her heart thundering in her ears. She had never been more chilled in her life by such a phenomenal transformation. Hell! Mayor Mills could win Oscars for that shit.
Suddenly Regina stopped cold and Emma, predictably, ran into her back with a startled OOMPH. Regina grunted but made no effort to dislodge her. She help up a hand to stop Emma's inevitable apology and then whispered: "I swear they are not even making this difficult anymore."
She sounded supremely pleased with herself.
"What do you mean?" Emma hissed back, all too aware of the warmth emanating from the woman she was leaning against.
"You can't hear that?"
Emma shook her head in confusion.
Regina gave a wicked smile, lifted her arm and then shot it around the corner grabbing a fistful of costume and dragging a shocked 'vampire' into the space before them. She leaned forward and hissed at him, her eyes narrowed and threatening, and gave him a tiny shake.
His pointy teeth fell out and he squealed and fled without offering so much as an evil cackle, his cheap plastic cape squeaking as he ran.
"How the hell did you know he was there?" Emma asked in astonishment. Really was there no end to this woman's hidden skills?
"His heartbeat. He was so scared from all that silly screaming back there, his heart was pounding."
Emma shook her head. "You have amazing hearing."
Before the mayor could reply an enormous figure stepped before them. "Ma'ams?" the voice rumbled, low.
Regina and Emma stared up at a burly man. Then up, and up. He was dressed in a black turtleneck and dark pants and heavy combat boots. Well. This character actually was faintly alarming. Emma gaped. Either he was playing a very modern ogre or ... Ah. He had a wire in his ear. Emma winced in sudden understanding.
"Carnival security," he stated. "I have received a complaint from Miss Fright Spark and several other personages in the employ of this establishment that two patrons matching your descriptions have been systematically threatening and/or harassing them. This amusement facility has a zero-tolerance policy on health and safety issues and we request you now exit to minimise any further … unfortunate misunderstandings with the staff. I am here to escort you out ASAP."
"Now hold on," Regina said stepping closer to the giant and arcing her head up to glare at him. The mismatch was ridiculous but did not seem to daunt her in the least. "As the mayor of Storybrooke you have no right…"
"That was not a request," he replied, unmoved, face stony. "Ma'am. This way. Now." Large masculine hands stretched out. He locked eyes with her and added: "Easy way or hard way." He smiled at her challengingly.
It was not a pretty sight.
Regina ground her molars for a moment, her nostrils flaring. "Fine," she eventually scowled. "And for the record this so-called 'haunted house' was a risible example of false advertising and unfrightening theatrics. It would be a delight to leave now."
The man ignored her and pointed out a route direction, and a hidden passage. Within moments Regina and Emma found themselves unceremoniously thrust, blinking, out into the sunshine and a side door slammed shut. "Have a good day," the voice rumbled behind them sarcastically.
A silence descended. In the background they could hear the fairground sounds of music and excited laughs and screams from the rides. Emma scuffed her boot on the dusty pathway and looked around. Unwilling to make eye contact.
"Well that was diverting, Miss Swan," Regina growled and folded her arms. "And humiliating, I must say. So much fun."
"Erm, certainly different," Emma replied, scrunching her nose. "Not how I remember haunted houses. I mean, shit, usually they do the scaring. And did you have to frighten the pants off Miss Fright-ass and threaten her eternal happiness and all that? I think even I lost a year off my life – and, hell, I am actually used to your crap."
"She needs to take a teaspoon of cement and harden up, Miss Swan," Regina retorted, unmoved. "She is ill-suited to her chosen career if she can't take a little constructive criticism on her character."
"I had no idea you were such a freaking thespian."
"What did you say?" Regina asked and gave the blonde a hard stare.
Emma chuckled.
Regina sighed. "Forget it. Hand me your phone." She thrust out a hand, brooking no debate.
"What? Why?" Emma asked as she dug her hand into her jeans pocket, wriggling it around.
"I wish to see where Henry is. And so far your promised 'fun times' are far from materialising."
"The hour is young," Emma said with a small shrug. She finally located her cell and pulled it out, tapping on the Find My iPhone icon. She held it up to demonstrate. "You just click here and tap there and…"
Regina snatched it from her. "I am sure I can work it out." She peered at the screen and then tapped it significantly after a moment. "They're over there."
"Great for them," Emma grinned. "But we're going this way."
Regina frowned, clearly torn between where Emma was pointing and checking in on her son. She glanced towards the three boys and could see them in the distance queuing for another ride.
"What do you have in mind now?"
"You'll see," Emma said with an easy grin. "And this time all that pent-up aggression of yours will pay off."
Regina rolled her eyes. "That was hardly aggression, Miss Swan. Pent-up or otherwise. I cannot be held responsible for the entirely too easily traumatised staff at a haunted house."
"Just keep telling yourself that. But I think your tits were definitely uncalm at one point. OK Regina, it's this way."
"Will you stop mentioning my breasts? They are off limits. Now where is this ridiculous next activity? I await with bated breath."
"Excellent."
"That was sarcasm, dear."
"No shit, Sherlock."
"Must you always swear?"
"Must you always be so vanilla?"
"Miss Swan! For God's sake. Are we here yet?"
"You sound like a five-year-old on a boring road trip."
"What would you know of such things?"
"Really? Playing the mock-the-sheriff's-shitty-childhood card again? I have half a mind to ditch you right now, and you'll always be wondering about the rest of the fun stuff that I was going to show you."
"I hardly think I would care if…"
"We're here."
"Miss Swan!" A shocked gasp. "Absolutely not! I have my image to maintain. There is NO way."
"You promised."
A hissed word followed from the outraged brunette that was barely audible. Emma however heard it and smirked broadly.
"Ahhh, that's better, Madame Mayor. Knew you had a good curse in you. Now come on, let's get in line."
"You will pay for this later, Miss Swan."
"Yeah, yeah. I know. Now remember, we're here to have fun."