Step Closer

by Scott Cawthon

  Another man appeared above Pete, looking down with sad eyes.

  “Poor kid. So young,” he said.

  “Yeah, hate it when they’re young like this.”

  “Really a shame. Gives me chills sometimes.”

  “Because of your own kids, right?”

  “Yeah, I’ll be sure to give them an extra hug when I see them.”

  “Me too.”

  The two men lifted up Pete’s body and set him on a hard table.

  Hey, guys, for some reason I can’t move. What’s the matter with me? Did you give me something to numb me? This is kind of freaking me out and I’ve had a really bad week, you know? So please tell me everything is okay.

  A terrible thought dawned on Pete. Oh no, did the truck hurt my legs? Will I be able to walk again? Is that why I can’t feel them? Why won’t you talk to me, guys? I need answers! I need help!

  One man put his gloved fingers above Pete’s eyes. “Weird.”

  “What?”

  “I can’t close his eyelids. It’s like they’re frozen open.”

  “It’s happened before.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t like it. I want ’em closed.”

  The other man laughed. “Suck it up, buttercup. We have work to do.” He picked up a handheld screen. “One good thing, says here the kid’s an organ donor.”

  Wait. What?

  “Yeah, parts of him are going to some lucky recipients. He’s young, his organs are healthy. We got to work fast, though.”

  No! There’s a mistake! I’m okay! I’m not ready to give up my organs. Mom! Dad! Where are you? Don’t let them do this to me!

  The men grabbed large scissors and started to cut his clothes away. A few minutes later music filled the room.

  Wait a minute … is this another nightmare? Am I dreaming? Please let this be a bad dream. Let this not be real. Wake up, now, Pete! Wake the hell up!

  “You got plans, tonight?”

  “Yeah, taking the kids to Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. They love that place.”

  “My kids love that place, too. Those animatronic things kind of freak me out, but the kids love ’em. Whatever makes them happy.”

  Stop! I’m alive! You can’t take my organs before I’m dead! Someone help me! Please!

  The first man grabbed a scalpel and placed its point onto Pete’s chest.

  “Oh, hold up a minute,” the other man said, reading again from the screen.

  “What’s up?”

  Oh thank goodness. Tell him this is all a mistake. Tell him I’m still alive. Tell him not to cut me open!

  “We have an urgent case, in need of the eyes and one hand. Says here the kid is an exact match. The hand doesn’t have much damage. It’ll work but we got to put everything on ice quickly. The transport will be here before we know it. Let’s do that first.”

  Noooooooo!

  The man with the scalpel looked down at Pete. “Good job, kid. You’re going to help a lot of people.” He retrieved small forceps with his other hand. The second man turned on a small buzz saw, the blade spinning into a circular blur.

  “Let’s get to work.”

  Pete began to hear Foxy’s music play in his head …

  You can be a pirate, but first you’ll have to lose an eye and an arm! Yarg!

  Pete watched in helpless horror as the first man leaned down to take his eyes.

  Four weeks later …

  Chuck rode his bike to Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. The clouds were heavy and dark, and there was a cold bite in the air. When he’d come home from school, no one was there. Even though Chuck knew the house was empty, he called out, “Hello? Pete?”

  The refrigerator answered back with a low hum.

  The house wasn’t very big, but it seemed huge and empty to Chuck. He used to want to be old enough to stay home by himself. Now that he’d gotten his wish, he wished for company.

  Mom had finally been able to go back to work after weeks of crying. Dad was also at work. Somehow the grief of losing Pete had reunited his parents, and Dad had moved back home after the funeral. One day, Chuck watched them both clean up Pete’s room. They picked up the dirty clothes, threw away some garbage, made his bed, and closed the door. It hadn’t been opened since.

  Chuck hadn’t met up with his friends in a while. He was supposed to be home doing his homework. But something had been driving him to go back …

  Back to Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. Back to see Foxy.

  He’d never told anyone what he and Pete had really thought about Pete’s freak accidents. How they believed the trouble had started, or why they had planned to meet at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza to face Foxy once and for all.

  For weeks, Chuck had felt this heaviness on his chest, like he was supposed to do something that he never got to do, like he had a puzzle that was incomplete.

  He’d replayed Pete’s last message over and over since the funeral.

  “Chuck! You were right! It’s been Foxy all along. I have to go back to face him! Freaky stuff is still happening, but no way is Foxy going to win, Chuck. No freaking way! I’m sorry I didn’t believe you, little bro! Meet me there as soon as you can! We can finish this together!”

  Pete’s death nagged at Chuck day and night. Sometimes, when he was sitting in class, the bell would ring and he’d realize the period was over before he’d noticed it had started. He was falling behind in every subject. Teachers stared at him, but no one said much. They all knew he’d lost his brother. They all knew he’d changed. Chuck sat alone at lunch, writing in his notebook, filling it with notes, ideas, and scenarios on what could have happened to Pete and how they could have stopped it all before Pete had … gone.

  Well, no more what ifs. Chuck was done wondering.

  He locked his bike on the bike rack in front of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. When he stepped through the doors, the familiar scent of pepperoni wafted over him. The pings and musical game sounds vibrated around him. He walked through the arcade and saw a group of kids huddled around a game. That used to be him. He’d always loved this place—until that fateful day, when Pete dragged him down the corridor to the maintenance room and everything had changed.

  He walked through the play area and over to the birthday tables and watched a couple of families sitting right in front of the stage. Everyone looked so happy. The little kids were eating pizza, enthralled by the show of the animatronics. Some were singing with their mouths full. The kids clapped and cheered after the song finished.

  Chuck walked toward the corridor that led to the maintenance room. He looked over his shoulder to see if anyone was watching, then he slipped through. He walked slowly down the darkened hallway, past the old posters, until he reached the door. He reached out for the handle and his hand shook. He took a breath, and pulled the heavy door open, stepping into darkness.

  The door slammed at his back, the sound echoing in his ears.

  He pulled out his inhaler as his breaths thinned, and took a puff. Then he shoved his inhaler into his pocket and pulled out his phone light. He went straight to the small stage and straight to the open control box. No more wasting time.

  A shiver crawled down his back, but he ignored it. If he hesitated, he knew he wouldn’t do it and he’d been replaying this moment over and over in his head. He had to do it. He had to find out what happened to Pete.

  “This is for you Pete,” he said into the dark room. “I’ll face the villain and beat the game.”

  He braced himself and slammed down on the START button.

  He waited for the curtain to pull back … for Foxy to begin to sing …

  But nothing happened.

  All Chuck heard was complete silence.

  The stars looked like tiny pinpricks of light shining through a sheet of black velvet. Kasey lay on her back on a low stone wall, staring up at the sky, feeling wonder at being even a small part of such a beautiful universe. She remembered a nursery rhyme from when she was little, there had been a coloring sheet in kindergarten with the nursery rhym
e’s words and a picture of smiling stars. Twinkle, twinkle little star, she thought. How I wonder … what I am.

  “Kasey!” Jack’s voice startled her out of her trance. “Look over there!”

  Kasey sat up and looked at the brightly lit kiddie restaurant across the street, Circus Baby’s Pizza World. A woman and two young children were standing outside its red door. The woman was fumbling with her purse.

  “Let’s go,” Jack whispered.

  Kasey stood up and casually crossed the street with Jack, ducking into the alley next to Circus Baby’s, close enough that she could hear the little girl chattering to her mother.

  “I think Circus Baby is pretty!” the little brown-haired girl said. She was wearing a T-shirt decorated with Circus Baby’s Pizza World’s creepy-looking mascots.

  “She is pretty,” the mother said, looking a little dazed, probably because she had spent too much time surrounded by the bright lights and loud noises of the kiddie pizza emporium.

  “Can I wear pigtails like Circus Baby?” the little girl asked, pulling two handfuls of her hair up into bunches. She couldn’t be much older than three, Kasey thought. Four, at the oldest.

  “Sure you can,” the mother said. “Hold your brother’s hand while I find my car keys.”

  “Her hands are all sticky from candy,” the boy complained. He was early elementary school age. Maybe seven.

  “Mommy, I’m so sleepy,” the little girl said. “Can you carry my goody bag?” She held up a little plastic bag with the name of the restaurant printed on it.

  The mother had found her keys. “Sure,” she said. “I’ll just put it here in my purse.”

  “Can you carry me? I’m too sleepy to walk.”

  The mother smiled. “Okay, come here, big girl.” Her purse dangled from her left forearm while she leaned over to pick up her daughter.

  “Now!” Jack barked into Kasey’s ear.

  Kasey pulled the ski mask over her face and dashed out from her hiding place in the alley. She ran past the mother and grabbed her purse with a swift, sure motion. She kept running as the woman yelled “Hey!” and the little girl screamed.

  As Kasey ran, she heard the little boy say, “I’ll catch the bad guy, Mommy!”

  “No,” the mother said firmly. “You stay here.”

  If they said anything else, Kasey didn’t stick around to hear it. Kasey knew she was fast, and she knew there was no way the mother could catch her on foot, not with two little kids on her hands.

  After Kasey had put some distance between herself and the crime scene, she took off the ski mask and stuck it in her jacket pocket. She slowed to a walk and carried the purse casually, as if it belonged to her. And now, she supposed, it did.

  She met the guys back at home, or at what passed for home. Kasey and Jack and AJ stayed in an abandoned warehouse. There was no electricity—they had to make do with flashlights and camping lanterns. But there was a good roof, and the building was well insulated, which made it warmer than being outside. They slept in sleeping bags and heated food on a little two-burner cook stove, the kind people used on camping trips. Actually, living in the warehouse was a kind of indoor camping. That was one way to see it, Kasey thought.

  She sat on one of the wooden crates they used as chairs, holding the stolen purse in her lap.

  “How much did we get?” Jack asked, leaning over her shoulder. He was sharp-nosed and twitchy, like a rat.

  “I like how you say ‘we’ even though it was me who took all the risks,” Kasey said, unzipping the purse.

  “That’s the code of the Thieves’ Den,” AJ said, sitting on the crate next to her. He was big and bulky, the muscle of the group. “We share everything.”

  “Yeah,” Jack said. “It’s like how coaches say there’s no ‘I’ in ‘team.’ Except it’s there’s no ‘I’ in ‘thief.’ ”

  “Yeah, but actually there is an ‘I’ in ‘thief,’ ” Kasey said, laughing. She pushed her long braids out of her face and peeked inside the purse. The first thing she pulled out was the little girl’s goody bag. No wonder the kid had screamed. She didn’t want to lose all the candy and plastic junk she had “won” at the pizza place. Kasey stuffed the goody bag in her jacket pocket and then found what they were all waiting for: the woman’s wallet.

  “How much?” Jack said. He was trembling with anticipation.

  “Hold your horses,” Kasey said, unfolding the wallet and taking out all the bills. She counted. “It looks like … eighty-seven dollars.” It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t terrible. People hardly ever carried cash anymore.

  “What about cards?” AJ asked.

  “I’m looking.” She glanced briefly at the woman’s driver’s license, then looked away. She always felt bad when she thought of the victim as having a face and a name, of them having to wait in line at the DMV for a new license. She pulled out the plastic cards. “One gas credit card, one general credit card.”

  The gas card was of limited use since they didn’t have a car. Still, they could use it in gas station food marts. And they could definitely get some use out of the credit card before they had to ditch it. Kasey badly needed some socks and a new pair of boots. The ones she was wearing were battered and held together with duct tape, so her feet hurt all the time.

  “We’ll try out the cards tomorrow,” Jack said. “In the meantime, eighty-seven dollars split three ways is”—he made a big show of doing the math, “writing” in the air like he was solving a problem on the board at school—“Twenty-nine dollars each. I’ll take twenty of that now, Miss Kasey. I’m gonna go out and see how much a person can party on twenty bucks. You two coming with me?”

  “I will,” AJ said. “Gimme a twenty, too, Kasey.” He held out his hand.

  “I think I’ll stay here,” Kasey said. She wasn’t a partier like Jack and AJ. Her mother had partied a lot, and Kasey had grown up knowing that her mom’s tendency to blow through all her money in one carefree night meant they had to have to live with the consequences until her next paycheck.

  “Why?” Jack asked. “That’s no fun.”

  “I’m tired.” Kasey put the wallet back into the stolen purse. “I was the one who did all the running, remember?”

  After the guys had gone out, Kasey lay on top of her sleeping bag and dug through the plastic sack from Circus Baby’s Pizza World. She pulled out a pair of cardboard glasses with flimsy plastic lenses. The cardboard was decorated with a picture of some kind of weird robot ballerina. Kasey put the glasses on briefly, but they made her feel strangely dizzy. And if there was something she was supposed to be seeing, it was too dark to see it. She put them in her jacket pocket for later.

  Everything else in the bag was candy. Kasey and her fellow thieves ate to survive. They had cheap fast-food burgers when they had a little money, canned beef stew or ravioli shoplifted from convenience stores when they were broke. It had been a long time since Kasey had eaten a piece of candy. She found a red lollipop, unwrapped it, and popped it into her mouth, enjoying the sweet artificial-cherry flavor and feeling like a little kid again.

  A little kid. She had robbed a little kid. A saying came into Kasey’s head: like taking candy from a baby. That’s literally what she had done today. She wasn’t proud of it, but at the same time, the kid’s mom had nice shoes and a nice purse and a car. If she had enough money to take her kids out for pizza and arcade games, she could afford to buy her kids more candy.

  Why had Kasey turned out the way she had, not like the woman she robbed? Kasey hadn’t planned to be a thief who slept in a warehouse. She doubted those were anybody’s career goals.

  Kasey’s mom hadn’t been crazy about being a mom. She worked nights and slept days and often, when Kasey came home from school, her mom looked at her with a mixture of surprise and annoyance, as if she were thinking, Oh, I forgot. I have a kid, don’t I? Dinner was usually a bowl of cereal or a sandwich before her mom went out to work at the club. While her mom was gone, Kasey did her homework, took a shower, and w
atched TV until bedtime. She had instructions to go to the apartment of the old lady next door if there was ever an emergency, but there never was. Kasey was good at taking care of herself.

  When Kasey was a teenager, her mom got a new boyfriend who seemed like he was going to stick around longer than her past string of boyfriends. He had a steady job and could help her mom out with money. The only drawback was he didn’t want a teenager around “freeloading,” as he called it. He said he had moved out of his parents’ house and gotten a job by the time he was Kasey’s age, and that was why he was so successful. When he asked her mom to choose between him and Kasey, she didn’t think twice about the choice. Kasey was out on the street before her seventeenth birthday.

  Kasey’s teachers had begged her to not to drop out of high school. Her grades were solid, and she was an athlete, so there was the possibility of college scholarships, they said. But she couldn’t stay in school and still earn enough money to survive. She dropped out and drifted from one dead-end job to another, working long hours but never making enough to cover rent and groceries. Sometimes she stayed in sad little rooms she rented by the week; other times she camped out on friends’ couches until their hospitality ran out.

  The first time she stole was at Famous Fried Chicken, the fast-food restaurant where she was working. It was a terrible job. She stood sweating over the deep fryer for hours, and every night she went home feeling like she’d been dipped in a vat of grease. One day, when she was sweeping the floor of the dining area, she noticed that some guy had gone to the restroom and left his jacket hanging on the back of his seat. The corner of a twenty-dollar bill was peeking out of the pocket. It was too tempting.

  Sweeping the floor right next to the table, Kasey pinched the bill and hid it in her sleeve. It was shockingly easy and somehow exhilarating. She knew the guy would never suspect theft. He’d just think that he should be more careful.

  Making minimum wage, standing over the hot fryers, it would have taken Kasey more than two hours to earn the money that it took her less than a minute to steal. There was a thrill in that—to know you had gotten away with something, beaten the system.