“Okay, dude, maybe we’ll catch you later,” Chip said, and Mike gave a little nod and wave.
Oswald left his companions, stood in a corner in his sock feet, and wondered what to do. He was having some kind of magical experience, he was late getting back, and he was missing his shoes. He was like some kind of mixed-up guy Cinderella.
How to get back? He could walk out the front door of Freddy Fazbear’s, but where would that take him? It might be the right place to find his dad’s car waiting, but it wasn’t the right time. Not the right decade, even.
Then it dawned on him. Maybe the way out was the same way he got in. At the ball pit, a mom was telling her two little kids it was time to leave. They tried to argue with her, but she turned on her Stern Mom Voice and threatened them with an early bedtime. Once they got out, he got in.
He sank beneath the surface before anybody could see that a kid over the height limit was in the ball pit. How long to stay under? Randomly, he decided to count to one hundred, then stand.
He rose to his feet and found himself standing in the dusty, roped-off ball pit at Jeff’s Pizza. He climbed out and found his shoes right where he’d left them. His phone vibrated in his pocket. He took it out and read, Will be there in 2 min.
Had no time passed at all?
He headed out the door, and Jeff called, “See ya, kid” behind him.
* * *
“This looks great, Mom,” Oswald said, spearing a sausage link with his fork.
“You’re in a good mood today.” Mom slid a waffle onto his plate. “Quite a contrast from yesterday when you were Mr. Grumpy Pants.”
“Yeah,” Oswald said, “they’re supposed to get my book in the library today.” This statement was true, but it wasn’t the reason Oswald was in a good mood. Of course it wasn’t like he could tell her the real reason. If he said, “I discovered a ball pit at Jeff’s Pizza that lets me travel in time,” Mom would be dropping the waffles and picking up the phone to call the nearest child psychologist.
Oswald picked up his book at the library but was too impatient to read it. He headed over to Jeff’s Pizza as soon as it opened at eleven.
Jeff was in the kitchen when he got there, so he made a beeline for the pit.
He shucked off his shoes, stepped in, and sank into the depths. Since it had seemed to work before, he counted to one hundred before he stood.
The animatronic band was “playing” some weird jangly song that was partially drowned out by the beeping, blipping, and dinging of a variety of games. He wandered the floor and took in the video games, the Whac-A-Mole, the neon-lighted token suckers that let you win some tickets (but probably not) if you pushed the button at the right time. Older kids crowded around the video games. Preschoolers climbed on the crayon-colored play equipment. Pinkeye, Oswald thought, though he had no room to talk, the way he was diving into the ball pit these days.
Everything looked as it had before. He had even caught sight of a calendar hanging in an open office that helped him pinpoint the date: 1985.
“Hey, it’s Oswald!” Chip was wearing a baby-blue polo with his dad jeans and giant sneakers this time. Not a hair on his head was out of place.
“Hey, Oz,” Mike said. He was wearing a Back to the Future T-shirt. “Anybody ever call you that—like the Wizard of Oz?”
“They do now,” Oz said, grinning. He had gone from having the loneliest summer ever to having two new friends—and a nickname. True, all of these seemed to be happening in the mid-1980s, but why get hung up on the details?
“Hey,” Chip said, “we just ordered a pizza. You want to come have some? We ordered a large, so there’s more than we can eat.”
“Speak for yourself,” Mike said, but he was grinning.
“Okay,” Chip said, “how about I say it’s more than we should eat? Wanna join us?”
Oswald was curious how Freddy Fazbear’s pizza compared with Jeff’s. “Sure. Thanks.”
On the way to their table, they passed someone in that same yellow rabbit suit who was standing in a corner, still as a statue. Chip and Mike either didn’t see him or ignored him, so Oswald tried to ignore him as well. Why hide in the corner like that, though? If he worked for the restaurant, surely he wasn’t supposed to act all creepy.
At the table, a young woman with big blonde hair and blue eye shadow served them a large pizza and a pitcher of soda. In the background, the animatronic band played on. The pizza was pepperoni and sausage with a crispy crust, a nice change from plain cheese slices.
“You know,” Mike said between bites, “when I was little, I loved Freddy Fazbear’s band. I even had a stuffed Freddy I used to sleep with. Now I look up at that stage and those things give me the creeps.”
“It’s weird, huh? How stuff you like as a little kid gets creepy when you’re older?” Chip helped himself to another slice. “Like clowns.”
“Yeah, or dolls,” Mike said between bites. “Sometimes I look at my sister’s dolls all lined up on the shelf in her room, and it’s like they’re staring at me.”
Or like that guy in the yellow rabbit costume, Oswald thought, but he didn’t say anything.
After they demolished the pizza, they played some Skee-Ball, Mike mopping the floor with them again but being really nice about it. Oswald didn’t worry about time anymore, because apparently time here didn’t pass the same way as in his own time zone. After Skee-Ball, they took turns playing air hockey in pairs. Oswald was surprisingly decent at it and even managed to beat Mike once.
When they started to run low on tokens, Oswald thanked them for sharing their wealth and said he hoped to see them again soon. After they said their good-byes, Oswald waited until no one was looking and disappeared into the pit.
* * *
Hanging out with Chip and Mike turned into a regular thing. Today they weren’t even playing games. They were just sitting at a booth, drinking sodas and talking, trying to ignore the animatronic animals’ annoying music as much as they could.
“You know what movie I liked?” Chip said. His polo shirt was peach-colored today. Oswald loved the guy, but really, didn’t he own one shirt that wasn’t the color of an Easter egg? “The Eternal Song.”
“Seriously?” Mike said, pushing his huge glasses up on his nose. “That movie was so boring! I was like, The Eternal Song is the perfect title for this movie because I don’t think it’s ever going to end!”
They all laughed, and then Chip said, “What did you think of it, Oz?”
“I haven’t seen that one,” Oswald said. He said that a lot when hanging out with Chip and Mike.
Oswald always listened to them talk about movies and shows they liked. When they mentioned one he didn’t know, he’d look it up online when he got home. He made a list of ’80s movies he wanted to watch and checked the TV listings on the DVR to see when any of them might be showing. Oswald participated in Chip and Mike’s conversations as much as he could. It was kind of like being a foreign exchange student. He sometimes had to fake his way through by smiling and nodding and being generally agreeable.
“Man, you need to get out more,” Mike said. “Maybe you can go to the movies with Chip and me sometime.”
“That’d be cool,” Oswald said, because what else could he say? Actually, I’m from the distant future, and I don’t think it’s physically possible for me to see you anyplace but in Freddy Fazbear’s in 1985. They’d both think that was a joke on Mike because his favorite movie was Back to the Future.
“Name one movie you’ve seen that you really like,” Chip said to Oswald. “I’m trying to figure out what your taste is.”
Oswald’s mind went blank. What was a movie from the ’80s? “Uh … E.T.?”
“E.T.?” Mike slapped the table, laughing. “E.T. was, like, three years ago. You really do need to get out more! Do they not have movie theaters where you come from?”
They do, Oswald thought. And they have Netflix and PlayStation and YouTube and social media. But he didn’t say it.
&nbs
p; Of course there was technology Chip and Mike talked about that he had only the vaguest knowledge of, like VCRs and boom boxes and cassette tapes. And he constantly had to remind himself not to talk about things like cell phones and tablets and the internet. He tried not to wear T-shirts with characters and references that might confuse them or the other customers at 1985 Freddy Fazbear’s.
“Yeah, we definitely need to bring you up to date,” Chip said.
If you only knew, Oswald thought.
“Hey, do you want to go play some games?” Mike said. “I feel the Skee-Ball calling me, but I promise I’ll go easy on you guys.”
Chip laughed. “No, you won’t. You’ll murder us.”
“You guys go ahead,” Oswald said. “I think I’ll just stay at the table.”
“What, and watch the show?” Mike said, nodding in the direction of the creepy characters on the stage. “Is something wrong? If you’ve suddenly decided you like Freddy Fazbear’s music, we need to get you help fast.”
“No, nothing’s wrong,” Oswald said, but really, something was. For his first few visits to 1985 Freddy Fazbear’s, it hadn’t even occurred to him that he was basically mooching off Chip and Mike’s generosity because he never had any money of his own. And even if he wasn’t broke in his own time zone, would the money he brought from the present day even work in 1985? It was kind of pitiful, being broke in two decades.
Finally he said, “I just feel like I’m always taking your money because I never have any.”
“Hey, dude, it’s cool,” Chip said. “We hadn’t even noticed.”
“Yeah,” Mike said, “we just figured your grandma never gave you any money. I know my grandma doesn’t except when it’s my birthday.”
They were being really nice, but Oswald still felt embarrassed. If they had talked about his lack of money, that meant they had noticed it. “How about I just go hang out with you while you play?” Oswald said.
When he stood up, he felt a strange heaviness in his pockets. Something in them was so heavy he felt like his jeans might fall down. He reached in his pockets and pulled out double handfuls of 1985 Freddy Fazbear’s game tokens. He produced handful after handful and dumped them on the table. “Or we could all play using these,” he said. He had no idea how to explain the magic that had just occurred. “I guess I forgot I was wearing these pants … the ones that had all the tokens in them.”
Chip and Mike looked a little confused, but then they grinned and started raking coins from the table into their empty soda cups.
Oswald did the same. He decided just to go with the weirdness. He didn’t know how the tokens got there, but then again, he didn’t really know how he got there, either.
* * *
In the morning, as Dad was driving him to the library, Oswald asked, “Dad, how old were you in 1985?”
“I was just a couple years older than you,” Dad said. “And other than baseball, all I could think about was how many quarters I had to spend at the arcade. Why do you ask?”
“No reason in particular,” Oswald said. “I’ve just been doing some research. Jeff’s Pizza—back before it was Jeff’s Pizza, it was some kind of arcade, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah, it was.” Dad’s voice sounded strange, nervous maybe. He was quiet for a few seconds, then said, “But it closed.”
“Like everything else in this town,” Oswald said.
“Pretty much, yeah,” Dad said, pulling up in front of the library.
Maybe it was Oswald’s imagination, but it seemed like his dad was relieved to get to their destination so he wouldn’t have to answer any more of his questions.
At eleven o’clock sharp, Oswald headed over to Jeff’s Pizza, as had become his habit. With Jeff nowhere in sight, Oswald proceeded to the pit. After his count to one hundred, he stood. There were noises but not the usual ones of Freddy Fazbear’s. Screams. Crying children. Yells for help. The fast footfalls of people running. Chaos.
Were Chip and Mike here? Were they okay? Was anybody here okay?
He was afraid. Part of him wanted to disappear back into the pit, but he was worried about his friends. Also, he was burning with curiosity about what was going on, even though he knew whatever it was, it was horrible.
He wasn’t in danger, he told himself, because this was the past, a time way before he was born. His life couldn’t be in danger in a time before he even existed, could it?
His stomach in knots, he moved through the crowd, past crying mothers running with their toddlers in their arms, past dads grasping children’s hands and leading them swiftly toward the exit, their faces masks of shock.
“Chip? Mike?” he called, but his friends were nowhere to be seen. Maybe they hadn’t come to Freddy Fazbear’s today. Maybe they were safe.
Scared but feeling as if he had to know what was happening, Oswald walked in the opposite direction from everyone else with an escalating feeling of dread.
In front of him stood the man in the yellow bunny costume … if it was a man under there. The bunny opened a door that said PRIVATE and went inside.
Oswald followed.
The corridor was long and dark. The rabbit looked at him with blank eyes and an unchanging grin, then walked farther down the hall. Oswald wasn’t chasing the rabbit. He was letting the rabbit lead him, as if he were in a terrifying version of Alice in Wonderland, going down the rabbit hole.
The rabbit stopped in front of a door with a sign reading PARTY ROOM and beckoned for Oswald to come inside. Oswald was shaking with terror, but he was too curious to refuse. Besides, he kept thinking, you can’t hurt me. I haven’t even been born.
Once inside the room, it took Oswald a few seconds to register what he was actually seeing and a few more seconds for his brain to process it.
They were lined up against the wall, which was painted with images of the place’s mascots: the grinning bear, the blue bunny, and the bird girl. Half a dozen kids, none of them older than Oswald, their lifeless bodies propped into sitting positions, their legs stretched out in front of them. Some of them had their eyes closed as if asleep. Others’ eyes were open, frozen in an empty, doll-like stare.
They were all wearing Freddy Fazbear birthday party hats.
Oswald couldn’t tell how they had died, but he knew the rabbit was responsible for it, that the rabbit had wanted him to see his handiwork. Maybe the rabbit wanted Oswald to be his next victim, to join the others lined up against the wall with their unseeing eyes.
Oswald screamed. The yellow rabbit lunged for him, and he ran out of the room and down the black corridor. Maybe the rabbit could hurt him; maybe he couldn’t. Oswald didn’t want to hang around long enough to find out.
He ran across the now-empty arcade toward the ball pit. Outside, the police sirens’ screams matched Oswald’s own. The rabbit ran after him, getting so close that a fuzzy paw brushed Oswald’s back.
Oswald dove into the pit. He counted to one hundred as fast as he could.
When he stood, the first thing he heard was Jeff’s voice. “There’s the little stinker!”
Oswald turned to see his dad stomping toward him while Jeff looked on. Dad looked furious, and Jeff didn’t look happy, either—not that he ever did.
Oswald stood frozen, too overwhelmed to move.
His dad grabbed his arm and pulled him out of the pit. “What were you thinking hiding in that nasty old thing?” Dad said. “Didn’t you hear me calling you?”
After Oswald was out, his dad leaned over the pit. “Look at how dirty this is. Your mother—”
A pair of yellow arms reached out of the pit and pulled Dad under.
The struggle would have been cartoonish if it hadn’t been so terrifying. Dad’s feet in their brown work boots kicked up to the surface, only to disappear below, then a pair of big fuzzy yellow feet appeared, only to disappear, too. The balls in the pit roiled like a stormy sea, and then they were still. The yellow rabbit rose from the pit, adjusted his purple bow tie, brushed off his front, and turned toward
Oswald, grinning.
Oswald backed away, but the rabbit was beside him, its arm firmly around Oswald’s shoulders, guiding him toward the exit.
Oswald looked at Jeff, who stood behind the counter. Maybe Jeff would help him? But Jeff wore the same hangdog expression he always wore and just said, “See you later, guys.”
How could Jeff—how could anyone—act like this situation was normal?
Once the rabbit got him outside, it opened the passenger door of Dad’s car and pushed Oswald in.
Oswald watched as the bunny buckled its seat belt and started the car. He tried to open the door, but the bunny had activated the power lock from the driver’s side.
The bunny’s mouth was frozen in a rictus grin. Its eyes stared blankly.
Oswald pushed the unlock button again even though he knew it wouldn’t work. “Wait,” Oswald said. “Can you do any of this? Can you even drive a car?”
The bunny said nothing but started the car and pulled it into the street. It stopped at a red light, so Oswald figured it must be able to see and must know the basic rules of driving.
“What did you do to my dad? Where are you taking me?” Oswald could hear the panic in his voice. He wanted to sound strong and brave, like he was standing up for himself, but instead he just sounded scared and confused. Which he was.
The bunny said nothing.
The car made a familiar right turn, then a familiar left into Oswald’s neighborhood.
“How do you know where I live?” Oswald demanded.
Still silent, the bunny turned into the driveway in front of Oswald’s ranch-style house.
I’ll run for it, Oswald thought. As soon as this thing unlocks the car door, I’ll run to a neighbor’s house and call the police once I’m safely inside. The locks clicked, and Oswald jumped out of the car.
Somehow the bunny was standing right in front of him. It grabbed his arm. He tried to break free, but its grip was too strong.
The bunny dragged Oswald to the front door, then yanked off the chain around Oswald’s neck that held his house key. The rabbit turned the key in the door and shoved Oswald inside. Then it stood in front of the door, blocking the exit.
Into the Pit Page 3
