Chapter Text
Wowie-zowie! Phonegingi’s beautiful, troubled, swan-scented paramour wanted them at the Funfair! At this, perhaps expecting some fanciful romantic rendezvous or other, they nodded with vigor and threw on their coat — which was, in fact, loosely-assembled scraps from the slabs of ham and leather that didn’t make it to their head. It was less of an article of clothing and more of a weird cape, and even that was being generous.
But Phonegingi never cared about such things! And so, they gargled, hollered, and harassed their way to Dialtown’s familiar fairgrounds. Even when the ditty carnival tune sounded a touch distorted… hey, that added flaveour!
“TICKET-FUCK.” They bellowed, waving a hand as they scuttled to that familiar, boxy ticket gate. “OH, TICKET-FUCK, MY BELOVED, I’VE COME TO HARASS YOU-”
…however, before they could process the booth as, in fact, empty, out came a yelp of astonishment, and a hushed, admonishing, “Phonegingi!” — spoken only in the tone of someone used to scolding sickly alsatians…
“Ticket-man!” They echoed, skidding to a halt and whirling around to face the figure, bouncing on their heels a little — it would have been more endearing if they didn’t come with jiggle-physics. Though, slowly but surely, the bouncing slowed as they realized the titular Ticket-man was not in his Ticket-booth… had he finally moved onto greener pastures? Had he won the lottery? Surely he could spare granting his favowite cryptid one last egg-hurrah!
“Ticket-man, before you scamper off to your beautiful vacation in the Bahamas, can I see my egglings?”
The Ticket-man, today, however, showed no interest in even quipping back. Instead, his shoulders rolled with a world-weary sigh, and an utterance of curses beneath his breath. There, he held it for a while, clutching the armrests of his wheelchair like vices, before finally looking Gingi’s way to ask —
“Do you know anything about this?”
“Bold of you to assume I know anything, ever!” The cryptid chirped, earning yet another heavy sigh.
“Are you—” Jerry began, “you’re not really this stupid, are you?” He murmured, mostly to himself, before clasping his hands and continuing. “The yellow around the ticket booth isn’t Fruit By The Foot™, Phonegingi. My manager is…—”
Jerry stopped himself, to catch Phonegingi craning their neck over to, what they now processed as, a spiral of lemony yellow Fruit By The Foot™. Gathered ‘round were likely some very fruit-snack-hungy policemen. Trailing from the window, a blend of Gusher™ juice and the slime that some fresher brands of roadkill seemed to let out.
“—…gone.” Jerry surmised.
A hush fell, punctuated by police sirens, chatters into walkies. The ferris wheel no longer turned. Still, the nub of Gingi’s tail thwapped about at nothing. The little drinky-bird and colorful gear mechanism that made up the inside of their brain started a-churnin’.
“So that means…” Phonegingi started, smacking together pairs of toy blocks in their head with a gasp. “That means I can see me young'uns whenever I want! No purple-fuckhead means no greedy Funfair money-prices, right?” They seized either of Jerry’s shoulders in their weirdly-damp hands and resumed bouncing. “Our friendship, dearest of Jerralds, is no longer marred by the unfeeling cold glass of that foul ticket-booth! You can be my little eggles’ Phone-God-Papâ in peace!! Oh — and you don’t need to pay for the weenies anymore! You can drink all the hot-dog-mustard and ride all the rides you want!”
Usually, the round of banter outside the Funfair gates, between the lime-hued critter and the beleaguered carnival-keeper, was energetic and exciting — sure, Jerry found their antics often insulting at best, and was downright terrified for his safety at worst, but Phonegingi never realized until this precise moment how often he took to just… talking to them. Like it was, for as boring as his life could be, something like a pleasant time-waster. An endless supply of stories he could laugh to the missus (and the alsatians) about, when the work day finally ended. A wacky verbal centerpiece for every dinner Ticket Jerry went on for the rest of his life.
…now, he was quiet — seeming to stare, far past Phonegingi, into the ticket booth he had inhabited only days ago. It’d be easier on the psyche to call it unrecognizable, a hurricane of viscera and busted antique phone-bits — but no, he’d spotted, on the slight ramp they’d installed for his wheelchair, right under the desk where he’d stuff old sandwich bags and napkins from lunch… Dotting crumpled receipts and corn dog sticks were splatters of thinning brain, blood soaking through to the floor, even lurching upwards to the window itself. PLEASE DON’T BANG ON THE GLASS: IT SCARES JERRY.
“I don’t think there are gonna be any more rides.” Jerry muttered, then tipped his head back with another sigh — anything to avoid looking straight ahead. “They’ll probably shut the place down. Shitty it may have been, it was Abel’s dream.”
“But you hated that guy.” Gingi noted.
“Not—” Jerry pinched his dial in his fingers, “not ‘explode into blood’ hate. Jesus. He paid my rent, Phonegingi.”
A gravity to Jerry’s voice that felt completely foreign in Gingi’s speakers. So much so that their brain began to process it more like a distant math equation, or perhaps the KEEP-OUT sign at the old Bunny’s Burgers — before ping-ponging back to their (and Jerry’s!) favorite topic in the world:
“But my eggs!” They said, “No weird rides around, so I can pop in whenever I want, right?”
“Your hellspawn are probably gonna get bulldozed.” Jerry snapped. “And who knows. Maybe that’ll knock some sense into you — maybe that’ll…”
The ticket operator trailed off. Not even the fire in his heart could warm the cold remnants of the Funfair, at this point. Phonegingi-induced rage, much like any other Phonegingi-induced emotion, wasn’t fit for a situation like this.
“…I’m sorry. I’m stressed. I can’t — I can’t do this today, Phonegingi. I really can’t.”
Gingi watched in bewilderment as the former ticket man’s paroxysm of frustration fizzled out, their head tilting to the side like a confused puppy. The exhaustion in his voice was palpable, though not the least bit enjoyable— not even to their more sadistic sensibilities.
“But I…” Whatever protests they had died out on their tongue. For the first time in their life, Phonegingi felt a Jerry-related unease welling up their gut; as if the person sitting in front of them, looking down at them like an exasperated parent who didn't know how to explain the family puppy ran away to the butterfly farm, wasn’t their beloved punching bag at all. The thought made them queasy. They’d never prepared for a situation when putting up with their antics wouldn’t be worth it— as if whatever the two of them had going on only mattered because of the fog of mediocrity everywhere else.
“Um. Does that mean I should go then…?” Phonegingi tried again, far too tense to offer any condolences.
“Yeah.” Jerry replied, and Gingi immediately winced at the dullness in his voice. “I think it does.”
They swallowed. “Oh-kay… See you later?”
That got them nothing, both of them knew there'd probably never be a “later”. Jerry had, all at once, lost his role as a bit character in Phonegingi’s life. Even as he sat there, physically unaltered, it felt like they were looking at a stranger. It wasn’t fair. The gates of the funfair belonged to the two of them— it wasn’t about eggs or money or anything like that, not really anyways. Not to them.
It wasn’t fair that somebody else got to decide when everything ended. What right did anyone else have to smack Jerry around? What right did Jerry have to act like he didn’t care? It was an unpleasantness they weren’t used to— the feeling that everything was changing in ways they didn’t understand yet. The future looming ahead of them, terrible and vast.
But before Gingi could even think to take the time to absorb whatever this final interaction was to their memory, try and to clutch and hold on to it as it desperately wriggled away from them, they had already began running the other direction, away from the Jerry who looked at them like a maladjusted toddler, away from the strobe of red and blue bouncing off police tape, and away from all five of their eggs. Eggs they also weren’t sure they’d ever see again.
—
They didn’t know how long it’d been when they stopped, nor did they have any sense of how far into the woods they’d gone. All they knew was their widdle gween feet hurt and the burn in their lungs was killing them and before they knew it they’d collapsed into a heap next to one of the many trees, its branches scarce and bark harsh.
“JESUS CHRIST” they coughed out, to no one in particular. They struggled to catch their breath, the unpleasant tang of iron crawling up the back of their throat. “WHAT WAS ANY OF THAT?”
Of course, Gingi was never permitted to be alone with their own thoughts for too long. Like clockwork, a familiar voice sounded from the back of their head, always ready to complain about something. Their grip tensed.
“Well. You repeatedly canoodled with a sadistic murderer and it finally bit you in the ass. Can’t say I’m shocked.” The Narrator chided, and Gingi couldn’t help but notice it too sounded cold, exasperated. Like Phonegingi was some sort of unruly, sticky fingered, bratty little kid it had to keep on a leash or else they’d run into traffic.
“He’s not a– I-I didn’t have a– wait what did you just say? Canoodled? What are you, 40?”
“Hey, I’m probably the same age you are. And besides, ‘canoodle’ is a much nicer word to describe the unspeakable sexual acts you’ve done with that man knowing he KILLS people then anything else I could’ve possibly picked. So really you should be grateful–”
“Oh I’m sorry, you’re right. Here, let me grovel at the FEET you don’t have for having the courage to say ‘I told you so’. Would that finally make you HAPPY?”
…
……
“You know I’m just trying to help you, Phonegingi.”
They let out a breath held painfully in their chest, burying their head in their knees, trying to hide from a voice in their head. “You haven’t been doing a good job.”
“Yeah.. I’ve gathered.”
The wind felt harsher than usual, bellowing between naked branches like it too was upset. Seemed as though the weather in Dialtown would never get better, unwilling to let its citizens pretend spring was coming anytime soon. Gingi shivered into their knees, their breath not hot enough to keep any part of them warm.
The Narrator, quite rudely, interrupted the sounds of nature surrounding them. “Well… now what?”
They sighed. “Whadd’ya mean ‘now what’?”
“I mean what are you going to do about Randy? He obviously did this, I swear to GOD Phonegingi if this is not your final straw.”
“...”
“Gingi.”
“I’m THINKING, I’m THINKING, give me a second.” Before the Narrator had a chance to yell at them to do it faster, they gargled out a horrible “OUGGHHHUUUUOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUHRGGGGGGGG” from the very back of their throat, to signify that they were in deep concentration.
“Yeah I got nothing, sorry.” They finally shrugged.
“Nothing? Really? After all that?”
“Thinking is hard :(. I'm not like, an Albert or whatever, the fuck do you want from me?” Gingi huffed with the same casual annoyance as if the Narrator had asked them to clean their tent (without the help of many small children). Though the Narrator could feel the genuine frustration in their words— the kind of frustration it realized, had very little to do with it directly.
Still, it struggled to find any words of comfort. God forbid it foster their destructive indecisiveness any further– the hard truth was, encouragement only ever made things like Phonegingi worse. Though it could feel every heave of their chest, every knot twisted in their stomach like it was their own, the Narrator only had so much sympathy to offer.
“These aren’t the kinda things you can keep hand waving away— look, this is the last thing I expected outta Randy when the two of you first met. Piss and tears aren’t exactly famous warning scents of murder, but by Phone-God it’s been THREE people now! It’ll never end if you don’t—”
There, in the distant shrubbery, the two of them heard the distinct crunch of branches snapped underneath the weight of another living being— a person presumably, as its steps were far too deliberate to be anything else. Gingi’s shoulders tensed. They shivered at the thought of having to speak to something not confined to their own head; it's as if the universe was saying that even something as mundane as sulking to themselves wasn’t a luxury to be wasted on them.
Their visitor stood tall up on a discarded, fallen over tree. Miraculously, despite its apparent age, the wood hadn’t been rotten enough to collapse under the weight of a person. Despite what Gingi thought should’ve been possible, the thing in the shape of a human standing before them looked elegant, composed. Like it had every right to be there.
It twirled around a rusted, heavy looking hammer absentmindedly, not caring at all where its swings might hit— like tossing a hacky sack back and forth between your hands during idle conversation. For the first time ever, Gingi imagined what it might feel like slamming down into their skull, over and over again, until they too were just another inconvenient pile of gore tucked away in the corner of a ticketbooth.
“Gingi, hon, there you are! I-I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Thought you’d still be at the funfair— d-did you get bored and scamper off already? Jerry not in the mood to play with you?” Randy spoke, and Gingi, in some pre-Dialup, animalistic residue in the back of whatever entanglement of wire and fleshy face parts they had buried underneath their stitches, knew he’d be grinning ear to ear if that had been remotely possible.
Gingi couldn’t– no, they refused to answer any of his dumb questions.
“You.”
“Me!” Randy responded in turn, cheerful.
“What the HELL WAS--” they began, then realized they hadn’t planned a lick of this: “THE--- YOU- THE FUNFAIR GUY?! THE–”
“H-huh?” The Nokia tipped a bandaged finger to one of the buttons on his chin. Damnably, even now, he looked innocent as a discarded stray puppy. Good thing Phonegingi had never been opposed to kicking discarded stray puppies. “I’m - well, hon,” he began, with a cheeky laugh like this was nothing more than an inside joke, “ol’ Randy? Mr. Swanling-Shit-Smear over here? With blood on his hands that’s not his own? Surely not!”
Behind swaddled layers of mismatched, deceptively-neatly stitched skin, teeth began to bare. On any other day, the sopping wet kitten song and dance may have eased their nerves a little. There was only so much fun someone could have punching down, after all.
“I know you’re not stupid, Randy!” Gingi bit, with enough venom to make the mirth begin to trickle pathetically out of the other’s voice. “And neither am I! What in the fuck happened back there?!”
“Oh, pffbh,” Randy blew an odd, mechanized raspberry, flippantly gesturing with the hammer -- Gingi hated how naturally it slipped through his fingers. “I bet you didn’t even know the guy’s name!”
“I totally did!” Phonegingi insisted. “It was…” …ah, fuck, “…uh… I-I’unno, Seymour or something!”
…all at once, Randy’s arm stilled, and he looked at his partner with an expression they could only describe as confused bewilderment.
“Seymour?” He echoed.
“Get off my dick, it was the first old-man-name I could think of!”
“I-I don’t think he was that old.” Randy shrugged. “Hey, since when has the health and safety of Abel Brannigan ever been a concern of yours? I thought you’d be cheering for me, hon. I’m shedding my inhibitions, wiping the scum off the streets like discarded ol’ pizza-possums, getting more ferāl or whatever.”
“Ferál!” Phonegingi corrected, digging their heel into the dirt. Really not a fan of this whole role switcheroo thing you two’ve got going on, they wanted to imagine the Narrator would’ve chimed in - if it still desired their company at all.
“Whatever you say, honeybunches…” Randy tossed his hammer up into the air: vapidly, it twirled, before its hefty weight landed perfectly into the palm of his hand. He might have smiled at the way Phonegingi jolted. “Y-y’know, if I didn’t know any better, I’d reckon you’d think you’re better than me, right about now. And that’s kinda sad, isn’t it?”
“I do think so, actually.” Gingi huffed. “I saw what you did to Jerry! And.. and…”
…they remembered the grouch behind the ticketbooth - likely never to return there. Their shallow, two-dimensional world had been thoroughly cracked in two: were it any other day, Randy would be the one they’d come crawling too for meaningless distractions in predicaments such as this. But…
“I don’t care about Seymour Bangagain or whoever the FOCK, but I care a great deal for the innocent guy you just put out of a job!”
Randy snorted. “Since when? Not only did you hate that guy, but he hated his job! Sure, he’ll feel like shit for a while: but…” he trailed off, voice noticeably softening. “L-let's put it this way, have you ever heard the saying 'crack a few eggs to make an omelet' before?” Randy asked, his voice dripping in the same forced gentleness one might use to coax a scared kitten out of hiding.
Gingi hissed. “Now you're going to CRACK my EGGS? WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU YOU SICK FUCK?—“
“—No no, that's not what I— I-it's a figurative term of speech, babe.” He quickly corrected himself. Though the cryptid didn't miss the way he tightened his grip on the hammer, though if it was threat or preemptive self-defense they couldn't be sure. “It means that in order to achieve a greater good, you have to make a few sacrifices, yeah? It d-doesn't really matter if you break some unimportant stuff if it means you have something new at the end.”
“...I'm not following.” They took a step back. The sea of dead wood and bramble did nothing to soothe their claustrophobia— as if even under the vast winter sun the whole world was just them and Randy.
“Okay.” Likewise, the Nokia took a step forward, dismounting from his fallen log with an uncharacteristic level of grace— like watching a robot clone of one of your friends live out their routine with an unspoken, mechanical perfection, but being the only person to notice.
“Tell me, since you two are so close, what do you like about Jerry?”
Gingi opened their mouth, teeth bared, ready to bark back about all the great adventures they and ticket Jerry have been, all the classic, loveable banter you couldn't get anywhere else, but...
“D-do you know his hobbies outside of work?” He asked, taking another step forward.
“No, but—”
“How about how many pets he has? Name of his wife? Hell, I'll give you an easy one, what's Jerry's full name? Do you know?”
Of course, it was all rhetorical— like scolding a child in front of a broken vase, each utterance of “What happened? Hm? Who broke this?” coated in a barely hidden rage. It was the kind of smugness that made Gingi's blood run cold.
There's nothing you can say to those kinds of questions — a pop quiz where all the options are incorrect.
“No? I thought not. You know what I think?” Randy paused for a response he knew wouldn't come, filling in the silence with a giggle. “I-I think you just like having something weaker than yourself to bully.”
Gingi shook their head at the accusation. “I don't bully Jerry!—”
“You do though.” He interrupted them, voice steady, as if he were stating “the sky is blue” level knowledge. “I actually talked to Jerry recently. Did you know that? Did you know that I have friends t-that aren't you?“
Another step forward. Another step back.
“Yeah? So what? What are you getting at— why are you being WEIRD?” They backed up into one of the trees, wincing at the way its bark scraped into their exposed back.
“A-always the insults with you… Y-you, um, you really hurt my feelings sometimes, hon.” Randy whispered. Gingi didn't know whether to focus on the way his words tickled against their receiver, or how close that hammer was getting.
“You...” The world was too small. Gingi could walk a million miles in any direction and it wouldn't matter, Randy would always be there— as inescapable as the chirping of birds or the buzzing of cicadas. “you literally kill people.”
He soured at their reply. Wrong answer. “Mhm. Sure. B-but I only hurt people that deserve it. That’s a heck of a lot more than I can say for YOU. Sometimes…”
A cold hand met the side of the cryptid's head, its bandages soaked with a mix of blood, only some of it belonging to Randy. It felt awful rubbing into their various head leathers, like being fondled by a freezer burnt, half-melted cadaver, his fingers clammy despite their offputting gentleness.
“Sometimes it feels like you d-don’t actually like me– n-not like this.” He trailed his hand downward, cusping the hard edge of the phone’s stitched underside, rubbing along one of the seams. “You want the old Randy back, right?”
Faintly, Gingi knew that somewhere in the back of their head an exasperated voice was begging, pleading with them to get the hell out of there, call the police, do something— but it all felt like too much to parse over the sound of their thumping heart, ramming against their ribcage. Despite the cold trickle of sweat ran down their neck. They nodded their head. And for their compliance they were rewarded with the chewed, jagged edges of Randy's nails digging into their head meat.
“It's not just you, e-everyone would be happier if I just stayed a-a PUSHOVER forever, wouldn't they? Everybody needs a RANDY or a JERRY,— something they can push around forever and ever because they won't do anything about it—”
“—Randy,” Gingi whimpered, “y-you've made your point or whatever, okay? Now can you please stop? It's really starting to hurt—”
“Stop?” Randy repeated, as if Gingi had dropped his mother's urn right in front of him, ”Stop what? Stop advocating for myself? Stop standing up to you?“ In an instant, he violently jerked their head up to look at him, as if they were a stubborn dog who needed to be force fed its medication. “Do you want me to go back to being m-mauled by swans or, or having to wrangle weiners on the phone? You want me to go back to squatting in that SHITTY dumpster where I was set to DIE ALONE and MISERABLE festering in my own FILTH? HUH? HUH?—OW!” Randy cut himself off with a loud cry, pulling away from Gingi upon feeling their jagged teeth sink into the pale skin of his hand. Instinctually he went to apply pressure to the wound, as if he were dying, dropping the hammer in the process.
“I WANTED you to let GO of me, you ASSWIPE.” They snarled, taking a minute to try and catch their breath. The Narrator had been trying to correct their habit of biting people under stress, but they figured it would understand this time around, even as they licked the few scant droplets of his blood off their teeth.
Randy stood there, slack jawed, almost unable to process the warm fluid trickling out of the skin between his index finger and his thumb, coating his palms in a brighter red than usual. At times like these, he supposed he could only laugh.
“Rotary-Christ, look at us Gingi,” he exhaled with a sigh, “Our first couple’s spat™ and I'm already bleeding.”
Perhaps despite themselves, Gingi’s shoulders relaxed upon hearing Randy’s tone lighten, letting out a sigh of their own. “This is all pretty dire, yeah.”
“Look, honey, darling, baby, I-I don’t wanna fight with you or— or make you mad, I just… I don’t have a lot of time left.” Randy thought about retrieving his hammer from the pile of mud and discarded twigs he’d accidentally flung it into, but decided better of it. Wouldn’t wanna scare off his lover, now would he? “Despite what it looks like I’m not— I’m not a murderer, Phonegingi, n-not a real one anyway. I’m not cut out for all of this— I’m sure the authorities are hot on ol’ Randy’s trail already. A-and Phone-God knows what they’re gonna do to someone like me in jail. You remember right? The seasoned alpha men? They’re gonna—“
“Turn you into Randy soup, yeah, yeah, I remember. Why the hell are you still DOING any of this then?”
“Don’t you get it? I have NOTHING else to lose anymore! If I know I’m gonna die horribly anyways, why fight it?” Gingi felt a returning sense of unease building in one of their stomachs. “I might as well take all of Dialtown’s biggest scumbags down with me. Cause i-if I don’t then who will? For the first time in my life I have a purpose! A reason my existence matters! If I can save even one person from having to pay dumpster rent, then… then all 25 miserable years of my life will have meant something. I hoped as my partner— as one of Dialtown’s freaks, you’d understand that.”
And as horrible as it might’ve been to admit, Gingi thought about it— thought about how maybe, in another life, they’d be the one wielding the hammer, plotting revenge on everyone who’s ever made their life harder. They couldn’t honestly say they’d never thought about punishing the Bunny’s Burger guy, or the Funfair employees, or any of the other schmucks Randy dug his claws into.
“Randy…” Was all they could say. Even if his words started to make sense to them…they couldn’t wipe Jerry’s distress— his rejection of them from the back of their mind.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you, hon.” Randy spoke with an earnest gentleness, the kind Gingi couldn’t help but miss a little. “Even if you did drug me at Olive Garden that one time. N-none of that matters. And for what it’s worth,” Randy closed the gap created between the two of them. And without any of his previously held malice, clacked his head against theirs.
There wasn’t a day, Gingi remembered, where Randy wasn’t afraid of his head blowing up. If you touched it wrong, it was like puncturing an inflated battery– not only a danger to himself, but to everyone else around him. You could say goodbye to your vitals in an instant.
“I’m sorry I got you involved in this.”
And they thought, then, maybe that’s why he did it.
—
MEDIA INFORMATION
Dialtown Division Of Police Date:02/22/202X
Homicide Bureau / Homicide Unit
—--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
█████████ █████████
For further information, contact: ███████ Phone: (534) ███ - ████
Type of Offense/Incident: Homicide
Location of Offense/Incident: Pungleberry Drive, Dialtown WI 25360 Date: 02/22/202X Time: 7:46AM
Incident Report #: 420707514
Victim: Abel Brannigan Sex: Male Race: White Age: ████
Suspect: Address:
□ Arrested □ Warrant on File Sex: Race: Age:
Charges:
Incident Summary:
On Tuesday, February 22nd, 202X, at 7:46AM, Dialtown Police Officers were called to the Dialtown Funfair on report of a deceased person on premises. On arrival, officers found Abel Brannigan unresponsive and severely disfigured from blunt force trauma to the head alongside numerous other major injuries. He was pronounced deceased at 8:03AM.
Officers noted several instances of Criminal Damage of Funfair machinery, possibly committed with the same blunt instrument object used against Brannigan.
The circumstances of this incident are still under investigation by Homicide Detectives.
Anyone with information regarding this incident is asked to call Dialtown Police Detective █████ at (534) ███-████, the Homicide Unit at (534) ███-████, or make a direct call to Town Hall at ███████████████.