Step Closer

by Scott Cawthon

  Susie opened her mouth like she wanted to say something. But then she just took the pudgy doll and clutched it to her chest.

  “I’ve missed you so much,” Samantha said.

  Susie nodded. She reached out, and Samantha didn’t even hesitate. She stepped into the offered hug.

  Susie felt as solid as she had when she was alive. Maybe even more so. Samantha was never a hugger. She usually only half hugged Susie when Susie insisted on a hug. Now she hugged Susie with all of her strength. “I love you,” she whispered.

  She felt a wave of emotion flow over her, like the one she’d felt in the car. But this one wasn’t dark and oily. This one was light, and it was warm and fizzy. Samantha was pretty sure this wave was a wave of love.

  Susie let go, and Samantha brushed at the tears that ran down her cheeks. Susie smiled and then turned to Chica. Samantha watched Chica take her sister’s hand. Then she watched Chica lead Susie, and Gretchen, away.

  They disappeared just as Oliver dropped his last leaf.

  “Goodbye,” Samantha whispered.

  Samantha felt the letting go. And she felt the promise of something new.

  Susie was leaving, yes. But this wasn’t an end. Samantha knew it was a beginning. Just like the happy ghost in the story, Susie was going where she could be with her family forever.

  Scott Cawthon is the author of the bestselling video game series Five Nights at Freddy’s, and while he is a game designer by trade, he is first and foremost a storyteller at heart. He is a graduate of the Art Institute of Houston and lives in Texas with his wife and four sons.

  Andrea Rains Waggener is an author, novelist, ghostwriter, essayist, short story writer, screenwriter, copywriter, editor, poet, and a proud member of Kevin Anderson & Associates’ team of writers. In a past she prefers not to remember much, she was a claims adjuster, JCPenney’s catalog order-taker (before computers!), appellate court clerk, legal writing instructor, and lawyer. Writing in genres that vary from her chick-lit novel, Alternate Beauty, to her dog how-to book, Dog Parenting, to her self-help book, Healthy, Wealthy, & Wise, to ghostwritten memoirs to ghostwritten YA, horror, mystery, and mainstream fiction projects, Andrea still manages to find time to watch the rain and obsess over her dog and her knitting, art, and music projects. She lives with her husband and said dog on the Washington Coast, and if she isn’t at home creating something, she can be found walking on the beach.

  Elley Cooper writes fiction for young adults and adults. She has always loved horror and is grateful to Scott Cawthon for letting her spend time in his dark and twisted universe. Elley lives in Tennessee with her family and many spoiled pets and can often be found writing books with Kevin Anderson & Associates.

  Kelly Parra is the author of YA novels Graffiti Girl, Invisible Touch, and other supernatural short stories. In addition to her independent works, Kelly works with Kevin Anderson & Associates on a variety of projects. She resides in Central Coast, California, with her husband and two children.

  Jake looked down at himself and tried to get used to the fact that “himself” wasn’t anything like the himself he’d been used to being before. Last he could remember, he’d been a little boy. He hadn’t been a boy in a while … he didn’t know how long.

  So it wasn’t totally weird that he wasn’t in a little boy’s body anymore. But it was still pretty weird that he was in a thing that wasn’t alive. It was also weird that he couldn’t remember exactly who he’d been when he was a little boy. He had vague bits of memories, but they didn’t make sense. Like, he could remember thinking it would be fun to come back to life as a puppy or a kitten. But why would he think that?

  Now here he was inside a metal thing. He didn’t know enough about anything to understand what it was. But he did know he wasn’t alone. He was sharing this strange space.

  It was like waking up in in another family’s house.

  “Hello?” Jake said.

  “Who’s talking?” a child’s voice asked. The child sounded a little like a boy Jake used to know in school, a boy who was always talking back to the teacher and getting himself in trouble.

  “Oh, hi,” Jake said. “I’m Jake. Who’re you?”

  “What’s it to you?”

  “Um, I was just being friendly.”

  Jake remembered learning that the way to deal with kids like this was to let them be as tough as they wanted to be.

  “Sorry. I’m Andrew.” The child’s voice was rough. He didn’t sound like he was saying his name. It sounded like he was throwing down a challenge.

  “Hi, Andrew,” Jake said.

  “Why can’t I see anything?” Andrew demanded.

  “You can’t see the truck?” Jake asked.

  “If I could see the truck, do you think I’d say I can’t see anything?”

  Jake thought Andrew sounded angry. Very angry.

  “Sorry,” Jake said. “Um, so we’re in the back of what I think might be a trash truck? We’re with a lot of junk.”

  “Figures,” Andrew said.

  “How come?” Jake asked.

  “Story of my life.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Andrew ignored the question. “How come you can see and I can’t?” He sounded like he was gearing up for a tantrum.

  “I’m really sorry. I’m not sure,” Jake said. “I mean, I know we’re in some kind of metal thing, I don’t know, some kind of entity or something? I can see what’s around it, but I don’t know how I got here, and so I don’t know how you got here. And I sure don’t know why I can see and you can’t. But maybe I can help you see. Do you know how you got here?”

  Andrew was silent for a minute. Jake waited.

  “Well, it might have had something to do with the stuff I was in?”

  “What stuff?” Jake asked.

  “How is it any of your business?” Andrew snarled.

  Jake sighed. “It’s not. I just thought it would be nice to be friends, and friends get to know each other. So I just wondered what you meant by being in stuff.”

  The truck ground to a stop, and there was silence.

  “I haven’t had a friend in a long time,” Andrew said. His tone was defensive, as if he was daring Jake to make fun of him.

  “I’m so sorry,” Jake said. His memories were disjointed and muddled, but he remembered he’d had friends. “That’s awful.”

  Jake wanted to know more, but he knew better than to keep asking questions.

  The back of the truck opened, and a guy in coveralls started unloading all the junk. “I could be your friend,” Jake said.

  “Why would you want to be my friend?”

  “I just like making friends,” Jake said.

  “So how do we do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “Make friends!” Andrew made an exasperated puffing sound. “Geez, you’re dense.”

  Jake felt like he was making first contact with a new species, like in sci-fi movies he could remember watching.

  “We talk to each other, tell each other things and find out about each other, and then we become friends,” Jake said. He figured that was close enough.

  “Like what things?” Andrew asked.

  “Whatever you want.” Jake wanted to ask again about what Andrew meant by being in stuff, but he waited.

  Andrew was silent for a few seconds. “Have you ever been so angry you just wanted everyone to know it?”

  Jake thought about it and remembered a time he was really angry because he had to leave school. But why? It didn’t matter.

  “I’ve been really angry,” he said, “but I guess I didn’t need everyone to know it. But I had someone to talk to. Did you?”

  “No.”

  Jake wasn’t sure what to say, so he stayed quiet.

  “Did you want to get back at the person you were angry with?” Andrew asked.

  “I don’t think it was a person. I think it had to do with being sick or something. My memories are kind of fuzzy.”

  “Fuzzy. Yeah
. So are mine,” Andrew said. “But I do remembering wanting to get back at someone who hurt me. I think I attached myself to him. I got into his soul, made sure he couldn’t move on when he shoulda died. I remember I wanted him to suffer, the way he made me suffer. But I don’t remember what he did. I just know I hung on, no matter what they did to him to try and save him. I wanted him to hurt!”

  At one point, Jake couldn’t hold back any longer. He blurted, “That’s terrible that you felt so bad.”

  “Shut up. Just shut up,” Andrew yelled. “I don’t need your stupid sympathy!”

  “Sorry.”

  Several seconds passed.

  Then Andrew had more to say. “I remember they tried to kill him. But I wasn’t going to let him go until I was ready. It’s weird. I remember being so angry and determined, but I don’t know why.”

  It hurt Jake to be so close to this much hate. But he wouldn’t have left if he could have. Andrew needed him.

  “You still there?” Andrew asked Jake.

  “Yes. I’m listening. You told me to shut up.”

  Andrew laughed. “Yeah, I did, didn’t I?”

  Jake was quiet. Then he said, “So where is the person now, the one you’re angry with?”

  “I’m not sure. I know I was in him when we got to this big place with lots of cool stuff. All I can remember after that is wanting to be everywhere. I can remember being all over the place in all kinds of things. And I remember this animatronic dog, Fetch. He broke down in a thunderstorm. Sucky toy. Not made well.” Andrew made a raspberry sound. Then he sighed. “So I think I was in Fetch, sort of. I think that’s how I got here. I don’t know why I think that. I just do.”

  Jake stayed silent. He was still watching the man unload the truck.

  “You can talk now,” Andrew said.

  “I don’t know what to say,” Jake said. “I feel bad that you went through something that was really bad.”

  The man reached for Jake and Andrew’s container. Jake had been wondering what to do about the man. He thought moving what they were in would startle the man. But now he didn’t really have a choice. He didn’t want the man to throw Andrew and him away.

  So Jake moved, which meant the thing they were in moved. Jake saw the man stare in alarm. Wanting to comfort the man, Jake reached out to touch his face.

  The man screamed and grabbed his head. Collapsing on the gravel behind the truck, the man’s body began to wither like he was a sponge being wrung out by an invisible hand. As his body sucked in on itself, his eyes fell inward, disappearing. And black streaks ran down the man’s cheeks.

  “What just happened?” Jake shouted. He jumped out of the truck and stared at the bald man’s body.

  “I can’t see, dummy,” Andrew snapped. “What are you talking about?”

  “I just thought about touching a guy’s face, and he died! Why’d he die?!” Jake realized he was screaming, but he couldn’t help himself.

  “Why’re you asking me?” Andrew was sounding defensive again.

  “The other guy died, too. I just remembered,” Jake said.

  “It’s probably me,” Andrew said.

  “Could it be Fetch, the dog?” Jake asked.

  “Nah, it’s me, I bet.”

  “You want to kill people?”

  “No!”

  “Then why … ?”

  “I just want to scare people, okay? Like, you know, give them a zap.”

  “The zap is killing them!”

  “Well, that wasn’t what I wanted.”

  “Okay.” Jake thought a second. “So if what you’re doing isn’t doing what you want, maybe it’s doing something someone else wants. Maybe something else is here with us.”

  “In this thing, you mean?”

  “Yeah. Like a hitchhiker or like a flea on a dog.”

  “That’s stupid,” Andrew said.

  “You were a hitchhiker on the man who killed you. Why can’t someone else hitchhike with us?”

  Andrew was silent for second, then he said, “It just sounds dumb.”

  “The thing is,” Jake said, “that if you did do it somehow, whatever is causing you to do it could be in everything you got into.”

  “I infected them. I remember now.”

  “What?”

  “I infected everything I threw my anger at.”

  “Okay. So everything you infected could hurt people. Innocent people.”

  “Hey, I’m not like that. I just wanted to hurt the bad guy.”

  “But you said you infected stuff with your anger. You didn’t think that would hurt them?”

  “Shut up.”

  “Fine, I’ll shut up. But we’re going to go find all the stuff you infected.”

  “How’re you gonna do that?”

  “You won’t help me?”

  “Why should I?”

  Jake thought for a second and then tried something. He wasn’t sure he could do it. But …

  Yes, he could! He could feel Andrew’s thoughts. He’d be able to find the stuff Andrew infected, even without Andrew’s help.

  Copyright © 2020 by Scott Cawthon. All rights reserved.

  Photo of TV static: © Klikk/Dreamstime

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available

  First printing 2020

  Cover design by Betsy Peterschmidt

  e-ISBN 978-1-338-62699-5

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