5~
Marcie didn't just want to succumb to the panic and run like everyone else. She wanted to stand up to it, maybe even get a chance to reason with it, but visually it looked every bit the living, yet dangerous life-form people had said it was, and everything about its nature told her that she was better off observing it from a distance and giving it a respectfully wide berth.
She weaved around the tent-like concession stands, Schrödinger bounding by her heels. Close behind them, they could hear each stand collapse like semi-rigid cloth sacks under the slashing claws of the creature.
"I'm sensing a pattern here," Marcie muttered after cutting up a thoroughfare before it filled with a glut of terrified people. "Why is he always coming after us?"
"You could ask him once he stops for a rest," quipped the cat.
"I'm not waiting that long," Marcie said, looking back to gauge her distance from the Sea Beast. "I've gotta stop him or he'll wreck my dad's park."
"What do you suggest?"
The Sea Beast was fighting and frightening his way past an especially dense wall of people, which gave Marcie time to think and survey the breadth of the amusement park. Few of the concession stand still stood. One in particular caught her eye.
"I think I've got an idea," she said. Then she ran to the other side of the thoroughfare and headed back towards the stands.
"You're heading back towards him?" the cat asked her. "Suicide is never an option."
"I don't think he saw us," Marcie said, entering the abandoned cotton candy stand. "Quick! Get in."
Marcie found the cotton candy machines and turned them on without preamble. She then found a dented bucket on the ground, grabbed it, and ran out of the tent.
"Where are you going now?" the cat asked.
"I need water!" She knew of one place that could supply her. "Make the candy, Schrödinger. And make it big!"
The cat gave a resigned sigh and dipped his paw into one of the machines. While the pink froth began thicken, he began working the edible filaments into a dense cloud of confectionary.
The Slippery Slope water slide that was installed a few weeks before and made considerable profit for the park was still operational even though nobody was around to operate it.
Zigzagging among the remaining stands and rides to keep under cover, Marcie soon sprinted over to the massive pool at the bottom of the ride and scooped the bucket into it. She then made a beeline back to the cotton candy stand, fighting against the weight of the bucket and hoping that the Sea Beast hadn't seen her. She also hoped that the cotton candy was of sufficient thickness by now.
Finally returning to the tent, Marcie gratefully saw that the cat had made the food grow into a reddish mass that began to recklessly fill the front of the stand.
"Great!" Marcie praised. "I can work with this. Keep making more."
As the cat worked with the bowl shaped machines, Marcie grabbed large heaps of the confectionary, laid it on the ground, and mixed it carefully with desperate handfuls of water, turning it into a pink, glue-like mass.
For several minutes, human and feline worked in the tent, until, finally, a thick carpet of tacky, spun sugar covered the floor of the stand, except for a strategically bare path that led from the front of the stand to one of the side windows.
"Okay, now we need to lure him here," Marcie told Schrödinger, eyeing him suddenly with tactical interest.
Something the cat noticed soon after. "You can't be serious!"
"You're way faster that I am," reasoned Marcie. "Just let him see you and lead him here. I'll do the rest."
Schrödinger saw the rash logic of the girl and shook his head mournfully. "Cats should be influencing human beings, not the other way around," he muttered as he jumped out of the tent's front window, then scampered out into the park's now chaotic grounds.
Following the faint scent of the ocean, the cat soon homed in on the creature's general location.
The Sea Beast had stopped in hesitation by a clearing, not sure where to proceed in finding for the girl and cat. It was now or never.
Giving his loudest yowl, Schrödinger had gotten the Beast's attention. It turned his head to the sound, saw the animal, and immediately gave lumbering chase.
Schrödinger was both relieved that the plan was working so far and terrified for the exact same reason, as he teasingly showed himself to the creature whenever he pulled away too far.
Eventually, he reached the periphery of the cotton candy stand and a waiting, grateful Marcie, who reached out her arms to catch the now leaping cat in her arms.
"Ooof! No more snacks for you before bedtime," the girl joked.
"Cute," Schrödinger muttered. "You better get ready. He's on his way."
And sure enough, the monster had lurched and stopped by the direction of the tent, a good few yards away. He had lost the cat but was now in the perfect position for the trap.
"Hey, shark bait!" Marcie called from the tent's front window. "We're over here!"
The Sea Beast heard the taunts coming from up ahead, saw Marcie and Schrödinger and charged towards them like a seaweed clad freight train.
While Schrödinger began to whimper in Marcie's arms, she took one last look at the clear path she stood on. It was a dance that she had to be precise and quick to execute.
The yards were closing swiftly. He had to almost on top of them for this to work.
The Beast gave a roar of triumph as he spread out his muscular arms and claws, eager to rend and feed.
With his head blasting into the front window, Marcie ducked to the side to avoid the oncoming bite and sidestepped along the path towards the waiting window.
Without thinking, she danced over to the other window and dove out of it, landing hard on her shoulder but rolling over to avoid crushing Schrödinger.
The creature, meanwhile, used his claws to tear the front window open wider to more easily enter the tent in that same move, but he was now a victim of his own momentum, as he stumbled against the tent's cloth and fell into the interior of the stand, crashing and sticking into the cotton candy glue that spread across the floor.
Marcie released the cat and stood ungainly, then gave a satisfied smile as she watched the vaunted Sea Beast twisting, thrashing and working his way deeper into the sticky sweet trap. It looked as if he were captured in a strange, pink tar pit.
Eventually, damage from the monster's violent attempts to get free caused the tent to collapse and settle on him while he continued to kick and claw.
"Stick around, chum," Marcie joked, then she gave a sigh and said, "Let's get out of here."
"And leave that thing here?" Schrödinger asked worryingly.
"Someone'll call the sheriff or animal control and deal with that thing," she reasoned as she headed in the direction of the parking lots. "Meantime, I have to analyze that stuff we found at the aquarium."
Schrödinger also gave a sigh. This was way more excitement than a cat should experience in a day, he thought as he followed her.
The park's office building offered advantageous views of the property and certainly allowed Winslow a sight of the proceedings below.
After calling the sheriff's office, he had chance to see a wonder.
His daughter, Marcie, had managed to capture this menace that disrupted his business, however long that lasted. The courage it took to do that spoke volumes to him about how she actually cared about the park, all things considered.
It also made him think on the breakfast they had. Maybe he had been too hard on her. He hadn't really listened to her side of the story, so angry and closed off was he, emotionally, from her.
The park was all to him. His inheritance, his legacy. He never wanted it to be passed down to no one but a Fleach, and even then, to immediate family.
With the damage to the tilt-a-whirl, the possible lawsuits from whoever was riding it at the time, and the threat of a definite lawsuit from Mr. Greenman if he didn't sell the park, Winslow could see how his mind would not be receptive to a daughter's pleas.
He wearily put his arm on the panoramic window and rested his forehead on the crook of that arm and sighed as he watched Marcie and some cat speed-walk over to the parking lots.
"What are you getting into, Marcie?" he had to ask aloud.
Soon, both daughter and cat were gone, and Winslow was alone with his work and his thoughts. Thoughts that now included his daughter.
"Marcie," he sighed.