Play Zone was closing in half an hour. Kelley knew because the janitors were already coming out with their yellow mop buckets and getting ready to clean the cushioned floor. The noise had died down - thank God for that, really - and the arcade machines only chimed in an intermittent bleeps.

With a sigh, Kelley checked her watch. It was five-fifty five, but the Bradley children knew their schedule very well - even when Kelley, their babysitter, had to enforce it. When their mother watched over them, she permitted them to stay at Play Zone until it closed. If Kelley tried to round them up, they would refuse to go home until six-o-clock on the dot. It would have been impossible to find them anyway since the play-place was a plastic jungle in front of her. It was the largest in the Tri-State area. There were colored tubes of all sizes that crawled on top of one another in a giant maze. Some of them ejected children out of slides, while others led to rooms with different activities. There were ball pits and rope ladders and cartoon pictures for kids to stick their head in. Kelley cared little for this smorgasbord. At twenty-one, she had taken up babysitting as a half-shot method of paying her way through college. It would also pay for a date at Olive Garden tonight, which she needed to get to as soon as possible.

Kelley got up from the bench and called out, “Zachary? Taylor? Come down now! It's time to leave!”

On command, Taylor emerged from the plastic slide. She was a sprightly young girl with a hooked nose and a sheet of long black hair. Much like her brother, she wasn't allowed sweets because they would make her rambunctiousness even worse. Perhaps Play Zone was a bit like a punching bag, allowing them to exert their energy so they crashed early.

“Where’s your brother?” Kelley asked. “I have a date in an hour, and I've still got to drag you kids home.”

“He’s still inside,” Taylor said. She hopped up and down, her finger planted firmly in her nose. “He made a friend.”

“I don't care if he's running for office,” Kelley replied. “He needs to come down here right this instant.”

“He can't,” Taylor said. “He's busy.”

“Doing what?” Kelley asked. “Driving me up the wall?”

“He's being licked,” Taylor explained. “He found somebody in the tubes, and they decided to lick him.”

Kelley just stared. “Did another boy put his mouth on him? You’ll spread germs that way.”

“It's not a boy,” Taylor said. “I told you already. He made a friend, and they've decided to lick him.”

One of the janitors walked over, a big and burly man in a jumpsuit who lugged a mop bucket. “I'm sorry to rush you folks out of here, but we do have to start cleaning.”

“Sorry,” Kelley sighed, running her fingers through her hair. “They’re just being little brats.”

“I'm not being a brat,” Taylor protested. “I’ll take you to him if you want. I'll show you where he is.”

“No,” Kelley said, raising her voice. “Go back in there and get your brother, right this instant. If you don't bring him out, I'll tell your mother you misbehaved again.”

“Like she'll believe you over us,” Taylor said, sneering in her face. But she grumbled and hurried back into the play-place. Kelley watched as her foot vanished into the tube, absorbed by the purple shadows.

Kelley clicked her tongue. She checked her cell phone. She did this all with the janitor standing beside her and resting his chin on the tip of his broom.

“We really do have to hurry up,” the janitor said. “Y’know, we might not look like it, but we have lives too.”

“I'll bet,” Kelley said, smiling weakly. “I have a date.”

But as they stood there in silence, the minutes passed quicker. The arcade lights started to turn off. The music stopped playing. There was the sound of a vacuum buzzing around the tables where children had birthday parties. Kelley stared at the tube, waiting for the demon spawn she watched over to come crawling out. But with the eerie stillness of the play place, it seemed like nobody was there at all.

“It's been ten minutes,” the janitor grumbled.

“They’re coming,” Kelley replied. She raised her voice, cupping her hand to her mouth. “Zachary? Taylor?”

No response.

“Really, we have to start cleaning,” the janitor said, not even smiling now. “You have to get them out of there.”

“Isn't there a manager?” Kelley said, wincing when she heard a vacuum turn off. “Couldn't they do something?”

“They’re your kids,” the janitor said. “Aren't they?”

Kelley shook her head. “I can't stomach children.”

They waited for five more minutes. By then, Kelley was well-aware of her tight schedule. After she dropped off the children, she still had to shower and get dressed before she partook in bread-sticks with a stranger she’d met on Tinder. Perhaps some things were worth ten dollars an hour, but babysitters should have been salaried.

“Are you really suggesting I crawl in there?” Kelley said, glaring at the janitor. “Are you trying to check out my ass or something?”

“It will hold your weight,” the janitor said, infinitely patient. “I just need them out so I can do my job.”

“And I need them out so I can quit mine,” Kelley mumbled.

But with that, she crawled over to the play-place and bent down on all fours on the soft blue floor. The tube was purple, meaning the tunnel offered nothing but darkness. She brought her shin down on the cold plastic and shuddered when she felt the metal bolts? How hadn't she cut herself when she'd done this as a kid?

Kelley crawled down the purple tube and came to a blue corridor. It opened into a four-way intersection: a green pipe, a yellow pipe and two pink ones on either side. She soothed her patience with thoughts of small talk at Olive Garden. If they ended up complaining about their jobs, Kelley had a mouthful. She took the yellow pipe. As she continued to crawl, she started to hear a strange sound. It sounded like her stomach gurgling. She ignored it and pressed onward. But it grew louder as she trekked down the yellow pipe, almost like a bowel movement.

“Kids?” Kelley called out. “Are you there?”

Nothing. The sound bellowed up and down, almost like the porthole of a whale. She thought faintly back to Taylor’s words, which she’d dismissed like anything else the children babbled. Somebody had kicked Zachary. It was some stupid game probably, a disgusting game. Kids were giant blisters full of pus, and Kelley would have had them popped if they didn't fund her college tuition. But when the guttural rumbling grew louder, Kelley’s skin tightened when she remembered what Taylor had said: “It's not a boy that licked him.”

All of a sudden, Kelley looked ahead and saw the flash of a pink shirt. It was Taylor sitting at the end of the tube and picking her nails. Not searching for her brother. Not heeding her instructions.

“Are you deaf or something?” Kelley snapped. “Don't you know how much trouble you’re in?”

Taylor just chuckled. “Bet you can't catch me….”

She started to scamper away. Kelley swore and tried to reach out to grab her, but the tubes were simply too small for her to navigate. She banged her head hard on a metal bolt. As Taylor giggled her way down the tube, Kelley gave chase with her shins scraping the plastic. At this rate, she decided it be fair later to ask their mother for a raise.

“You have no idea what you're in for,” Kelley shouted. When her voice echoed, she heard a pair of laughs in return. It was both of them. They'd found each other, and now they were joining in on the savage hobby of wasting her time.

When Kelley turned a corner into a red tube, she saw Zachary’s red shirt over his pudgy, sweaty body. He was kneeling at the end of the tunnel with Taylor, and both of them were stifling their laughter with their hands.

“Your mother’s going to hear about this,” Kelley shouted as she approached. “You're not going to be given any more screen-time. You can kiss the computer goodbye.”

“You're not our mother,” Taylor said. “You can't make that decision.”

“I'm hurt, Kelley,” Zachary whined. “Somebody licked me.”

“What do you mean?” Kelley exclaimed. “Was it an adult?”

“They’re right over here,” Zachary shouted.

He pointed to the tunnel ahead of them. It sloped off into a long shaft, and Kelley assumed it led to a slide. All of a sudden, thoughts of punishment and restricted television didn't seem like a fair match. She thought of reports she'd seen on the news of perverts on subways or needles at playground. The play-place was intended for children, but what if she wasn't the only one who had broken the rules?

“Out of my way!” Kelley called out. She edged her way down the pipe. The siblings parted for her, allowing her to scoot right past them.

With sweaty hands, Kelley rose onto her stomach and peeked over the ledge. It seemed to be nothing more than a slide. But in its depths now, Kelley could hear that strange sound again. The gurgling.

“Did someone down there touch these kids?” Kelley called out. “I'm telling you right now. I'm calling the police.”

“Don't do that,” Taylor said. “This is our friend.”

“We wanted to introduce you,” Zachary explained. There was a push from behind. A child’s hand-print on her back. Kelley went plummeting head-first down the vertical tube. She caught herself with her hands, positioning herself like a rock-climber. The gurgling was all around her now. Pumping. Pulsing.

“You're in so much trouble,” Kelley howled, trying to tighten herself. “Your parents are going to kill you.”

“We’re going to bring our parents here too,” Zachary explained. “Then we won't have anyone telling us what to do.”

“Look, Kelley,” Taylor said, pointing over her shoulder. “It's our friend.”

All of a sudden, Kelley felt something wet behind her ear lobe. It stunk like rotten sausage, a putrid smell that filled the whole tunnel. She recognized the sensation. The movements. It was a tongue and it moves behind her like a long rope of flagella. Before Kelley could scream, she heard the sound of splitting plastic above her. In the pale light of the tube, she saw what looked like sawed blades jut out from the walls. They spit flakes of paint onto her face and dropped with black liquid. Before they came down on her face, crushing it in half like an overripe coconut, Kelley made the connection. It wasn't coming from a human. It was coming from--

“Goodbye Kelley,” Taylor called out.

No time to shout back. No time to scream. The play-place devoured Kelley in seconds. It churned her bones to paste and her clothes to bloody rags. What remained of Kelley dripped to the bottom of the tube and was digested in a hearty lake of bile. A few seconds passed. With a chortling cough, the play-place vomited Kelley’s cell phone upward like a projectile. It landed with no fuss or muss in the hands of her former angels, who had now become caregivers themselves.

“Cool,” Taylor exclaimed, thumbing through Kelley’s contacts. “Let’s call Mom to pick us up.”

And from the bottom of its throat, the play-place gave a loud gurgle of approval.