The Cotton Candy is On Me
It made him wish he hadn’t stopped working out three years ago. It took every once of strength inside him to make it stop. The sound of the gears as they ground to a halt was awful. Sparks bit at his hands. But he wouldn’t let go. Finally the struggle was over and the ride came to a halt. Grabber smiled. The ferris wheel car he was after was right there at the bottom. But Grabber didn’t get into it. He wasn’t in the mood for another ride today. At least not this moment. He had other business. Instead he pulled someone out the car, roughly. They called this thug Frederick “Soft Spot” Sambig because although he had grown normally as a child into an adult, his soft spot had never filled in. Grabber grabbed him by the throat and pulled him down the steps and over to a food booth. He smacked the attendant’s hands away from the machine he was working at and shoved “Soft Spot’s” head in the space where they had been. Over his shoulder the crowd couldn’t see what he was doing, it just looked like he was swirling the head around and around. Then he pulled the head back up into view. It was fully encased in pink and green cotton candy. Muffled screams came from inside the webby mass, creating a person hell of short breath and noise for the criminal. With each hot breath the candy half melted and crystalized, the webs turning hard and cutting off the remaining passages for oxygen. He couldn’t afford to stop breathing. But he couldn’t afford to breathe either without making breathing impossible. Grabber laughed at this catch 22. He let go of “Soft Spot’s” neck. No need for handcuffs on a suffocating and blinded man. But he wouldn’t let him die this way. Not even a pornographer like this asshole. There was a difference between good guys and bad guys. Grabber had always believed that. So he snatched a glow stick out of a child’s hand. Broke it to light it. And then drove it home through the soft spot in the pornographer’s skull. Sambig collapsed. Blood mingled with the cotton candy mask, adding a third color. Children from all over pulled out from their parents grips and went over and started licking at it. “Cotton candy is on me today,” Grabber said and then walked off toward the Scrambler. The line was short and he knew that if he walked fast he could make the very next ride.