“What?” he said, momentarily stopping his frantic movement and looking thoroughly confused.
“Shoot it!” Jessica screamed. Clay clenched his jaw, then raised the gun and aimed at Freddy’s gaping mouth. He fired once. The shot was only a few feet from Charlie’s ear, and it was deafening. Freddy jerked back, the python-like jaw contracting, and for a split second his image blurred and distorted. The unnaturally stretched mouth began to close, but before it could, Clay fired again, three more times in quick succession. With each shot the creature seemed to glitch: it blurred, sputtering around the edges. Freddy’s mouth curled in on itself, not quite closing but shrinking inward, as the bear hunched forward around its wounds. Clay fired one last time, aiming for Freddy’s head. Finally, the animatronic toppled forward, a misshapen heap on the ground.
Freddy’s image flickered like static on a television screen. The color faded from his fur, then everything that made him Freddy winked out, leaving only a smooth plastic figure in his place. It looked like the rest of the animals in the room, a blank mannequin stripped of its characteristics. Charlie approached the thing that had been Freddy cautiously. The ringing in her ears was beginning to fade. She crouched down next to the creature, tilting her head to the side.
“It’s not like the other mascots from Freddy’s,” she said. “These aren’t made of fur and fabric, they’re made of us—by twisting our minds.” The words came out with a revulsion she hadn’t expected.
“Charlie,” John said softly. He stepped forward, but she ignored him. She touched the creature’s smooth skin. It felt like something between plastic and human skin: a strange, malleable substance that was a little too soft, a little too slick. The feeling of it made her nauseous. Charlie leaned over the body, ignoring her disgust, and plunged her fingers into one of the bullet holes. She dug around in the slippery, inorganic stuff of the chest cavity, pretending not to hear Jessica and Clay’s protests, and then she found it. Her fingers touched the disc, which was bent in half, almost broken. Charlie pried out a second piece of metal that was wedged beside it.
She stood up and held it out to the others; a bullet rested in her palm.
“You shot the chip,” she said. “You killed the illusion.”
* * *
No one spoke. In the momentary quiet, Charlie was suddenly aware of the racket they had just made, in this place so accustomed to stillness. The silence was broken by a clicking sound: the noise of claws on tile.
They all whirled to see, and from what had appeared to be a dark and empty corner, a wolflike figure split away from the shadows and stalked toward them, upright but hunched forward, as if uncertain whether to walk as a beast or a human.
They backed away as one. Charlie saw Clay about to trip on Freddy’s collapsed body. She shouted, “Look out!” He stopped, turning to see, and his eyes widened at something behind Charlie.
“There!” he cried, and fired a shot into the dark. They turned: an eight-foot, misshapen Bonnie, the rabbit counterpart to the creature on the floor, was blocking the doorway behind them. Its head was too large for its body, with eyes glowing white-hot in the dark. Its mouth was open, revealing several rows of gleaming teeth. Clay fired again, but the bullet had no effect.
“How many bullets do you have left?” John said, measuring up the two threats still in the room.
Clay fired off three more shots at Bonnie, then lowered the gun.
“Three,” he said dryly. “I had three.” From the corner of her eye, Charlie saw John and Jessica draw closer together, moving a little behind Clay. She stayed where she was as the others retreated, transfixed by the two advancing figures: the wolf and the rabbit. She started to walk toward them.
“Charlie,” John said with a warning tone. “What are you doing? Come back!”
“Why did you bring me here?” Charlie asked, looking from one creature to the other. Her chest was tight and her eyes ached, like she’d been holding back tears for hours. “What do you want from me?” she shouted. They looked back at her with implacable plastic eyes. “What is this place? What do you know about my brother?” she screamed, her throat raw. She flung herself at the wolf, hurtling toward the gigantic beast, as if she could tear it apart with her bare hands. Someone caught her by the waist. Human hands lifted her up and pulled her back, and Clay spoke quietly into her ear.
“Charlie, we need to go, now.” She pulled herself out of his grasp, but remained where she was. Her breath was unsteady. She wanted to scream until her lungs gave out. She wanted to close her eyes and sit very still, and never emerge from the darkness.
Instead she looked again from Bonnie to the nameless wolf and asked, her voice so calm it chilled her to hear it, “Why do you want me?”
“They don’t care about you. I’m the one that brought you here.” A voice spoke from the same shadowed corner the wolf had emerged from. The rabbit and the wolf straightened their posture, as if responding to the speaker’s command.
“I know that voice,” Jessica whispered. A figure began to limp forward, obscured by darkness. No one moved. Charlie realized she was holding her breath, but she didn’t hear anyone else breathing in the silence, either, just the uneven shuffle of whatever was coming. Whatever it was, it was the size of a man. Its body was contorted, sloping to one side as it lurched toward the group.
“You have something that belongs to me,” said the voice, and then the figure stepped into the light.
Charlie gasped and heard John’s sharp intake of breath. “Impossible,” Charlie whispered. She felt John move up to stand beside her, but she didn’t dare take her eyes off the man who stood before them.
His face was dark, the color mottled, and it was swollen with fluid; cheeks that had been hollow were now distended with the bloat of decay. His eyes were bloodshot, the burst capillaries threading through eyeballs that looked just a little too translucent. Something inside them had gone bad, jellylike. At the base of his neck, Charlie could see two pieces of metal gleaming. They extended from within his neck, rectangular lumps standing out from his mottled skin. He wore what had once been a mascot suit of yellow fur, though what remained was now green with mold.
“Dave?” Jessica breathed.
“Don’t call me that,” he snarled. “I haven’t been Dave for a long time.” He held out his new hands: blood-soaked and forever sealed inside a rotting suit.
“William Afton, then? Of Afton Robotics?”
“Wrong again,” he hissed. “I’ve accepted the new life that you gave me. You’ve made me one with my creation. My name is Springtrap!” The man who had once been Dave cried the name with a hoarse glee, then scrunched his gnarled face back into a glare. “I’m more than Afton ever was, and far more than Henry.”
“Well, you smell terrible,” Jessica quipped.
“Ever since Charlie remade me, set me free to my destiny, I’ve been master of all these creatures.” He crooked his fingers and made a sharp gesture forward. Bonnie and the wolf took two steps forward, in unison. “See? All the animatronics are linked together; it was a system designed to control the choreography for the shows. Now, I control the system. I control the choreography. All of this belongs to me.”
Springtrap shuffled forward, and Charlie shrank back. “I owe you both another debt of gratitude as well,” he said. “I was imprisoned in that tomb beneath the stage, scarcely able to move, only able to see through the eyes of my creatures.”
He gestured at the two who stood behind him. “But for all that I could see, I was trapped. Eventually they would have broken me out, but having you do it yourself was a delightful surprise.” He met Charlie’s eyes, and a muscle twitched in her cheek.
Get away from me, don’t come any closer. As if reading her thoughts, he sidled nearer to her. She would have felt his breath on her face, if he still breathed.
Springtrap raised a bent hand. The fabric suit was ragged, revealing his human skin through the gaps. She could see the places where metal pins and rods had buried themselv
es alongside his bones and tendons, into a rusted shadow-skeleton. He touched the back of his hand to Charlie’s face, stroking her cheek like a beloved child. From the corner of her eye, she saw John start forward.
“No, it’s okay,” she forced herself to say.
“I won’t hurt your friends, but I need something from you.”
“You have to be kidding,” she said, her voice brittle.
His mouth twisted into something that grotesquely resembled a smile.
John heard a faint click, and turned just in time to see Clay loading one bullet quietly into his gun. Clay shrugged. “You never know when a corpse may wander out of the shadows wearing a rabbit suit.” He raised his arm, steadied himself, and fired.
Springtrap recoiled. “Kids!” Clay shouted, “the door!” Charlie jerked her eyes away from Springtrap almost painfully, as if he had been exerting some hypnotic force on her. Bonnie had abandoned the exit, leaving it clear. Clay, John, and Jessica began to run. Charlie glanced back, reluctant to go, then joined the others.
They ran back the way they’d come from, Clay leading the way as they wound through the carnival games and looming, featureless mascots. He strode purposefully ahead, as if he knew the way. Charlie remembered her question that no one had answered. How did you find me?
They were chased by sounds: scraping metal and the clack of the wolf’s claws. In the open space, the noises echoed strangely, seeming to come from every side. It was as if an army pursued them. Charlie quickened her step. She glanced up at John, seeking reassurance, but his eyes were on Clay ahead of them.
They reached the room with the waterfall, and again Clay knew the path. He headed directly for the passage beneath the cliff, where the water emerged. They pressed through it one by one. Clay and John were too tall to walk through without bending over, and Charlie felt a quick pang of relief. The monsters won’t fit. Halfway through the passage, Clay paused, standing motionless in an awkward position. He craned his neck, studying something just out of view. “Clay!” Charlie hissed.
“I have an idea,” he said. Two shadows emerged from the far side of the room. Jessica glanced at the black-lit tunnel beside them, ready to run for it. But Clay shook his head. Instead, he guided the group backward, none of them taking their eyes off the monsters. All that shielded them now was the river that bisected the room. The animatronics were approaching the water hesitantly. The wolf sniffed at it and shook his fur, and Bonnie simply bent down and stared. “Don’t run,” Clay said sternly.
“They can’t cross that thing, right?” Charlie said.
As if responding to her cue, the two mascots stepped unsteadily into the river. Jessica gasped, and Charlie took an involuntary step back. Slowly and deliberately, the animatronics continued toward them through the waist-high water. The wolf slipped on the smooth bottom and fell. It dunked completely under the water for a moment, before scrambling to the side, thrashing violently. Bonnie lost his footing as well but managed to grab the riverbank and steady himself, then continued forward.
“That’s not possible,” Charlie said. Behind her came a peal of laughter, and she whirled around.
It was Springtrap, his eyes scarcely visible, peering through the black-lit tunnel nearby. “Was that your plan?” he said incredulously. “Did you think my robots would be as poorly designed as your father’s?”
“Well then, I’m sure you made them fireproof as well!” Clay called out. His voice reverberated in the cavernous, empty room. Springtrap frowned, puzzled, then looked at the water in the stream. It was glistening in the dim light, color dancing on its surface in gleaming swirls, like—
“Gasoline.” Charlie turned to face Springtrap. Open gas cans lined the walls, some lying on their sides; all were empty.
Clay flicked a lighter and flung it into the water. The top of the river caught fire, a flame billowing up like a tidal wave, obscuring the animatronics in the middle. The creatures struggled to the side of the river, emitting guttural, high-pitched shrieks. They managed to crawl onto the bank, but it was too late. Their illusions deactivated. Their plastic skin was exposed, liquefying and falling from their bodies into little flaming pools on the floor. Charlie and the others watched as the dissolving creatures fell, writhing in agonized screams.
They all stood frozen, mesmerized by the gruesome spectacle. Then, from behind her, Charlie heard a quiet scraping sound. She whirled around to see Springtrap vanish into the mouth of the narrow, black-lit cave. She took off after him, running into the eerie light.
“Charlie!” Clay called. He began to chase her, but the flaming creatures had crawled across the floor—perhaps trying to reach their master, perhaps in mindless desperation—and now they blocked the mouth of the cave with their blazing remains. Charlie set her eyes on the path ahead. She couldn’t afford to look back.
The passage was narrow, and it smelled damp and ancient. The floor felt like rock beneath her bare feet, but though it was uneven, it wasn’t painful. The surface was worn and smooth. As soon as the dark of the cave closed over her, she felt a spark from her dreams: the tug of something so like her that it was her, blood calling to blood.
“Sammy?” she whispered. His name glanced off the cave walls, shrouding her in the sound of it. The absence inside her pulled her forward, drawing her toward the promise of completion. It has to be you. Charlie ran faster, following a call that came from deep inside her.
She could hear the distant echo of Springtrap’s laughter at intervals, but she couldn’t spot him ahead of her. Occasionally she thought she caught glimpses of him, but he was always gone before her eyes had time to focus in the disorienting glow of the black light. The cave twisted and turned until she had no idea which direction she was headed, but she ran on.
Charlie blinked as something moved at the corner of her eye, just out of sight. She shook her head and ran on, but then it happened again. An unnatural shape, neon-bright, slithered out of the wall and wriggled past her.
Charlie stopped, clapping a hand over her mouth so she wouldn’t scream. The thing undulated up the wall, moving like an eel though it was climbing rock. When it reached the ceiling, it vanished, but she couldn’t see a break in the rock where it might have gone. Just keep going. She started to run again, but suddenly more of them poured out of the seam at the base of the wall. Dozens of wriggling shapes swam and danced, moving along the floor of the cave like it was the floor of the sea. Three of them headed right for Charlie. They rippled over her feet and she screamed, then realized as they circled her, nibbling curiously at her toes, that she felt nothing. “You aren’t real,” she said. She kicked at them, and her foot passed straight through empty air: the creatures had vanished. Charlie gritted her teeth and ran onward.
Ahead of her, large glowing creatures like dancers made of mist appeared and vanished one after another. They dashed across the passage, as if they were running along a path that just happened to intersect with this one. When Charlie was almost close enough to touch them, the one nearest sputtered and faded out. She ran on, listening for the sound of Springtrap’s maniacal giggle, hoping that it was enough to guide her.
She turned a corner, then the passage angled sharply the other way. Charlie ran straight into the wall, catching herself with her hands at the last second. She spun around, looking for the way forward. The jolt had been enough to distract her. She couldn’t tell which way she had come from. Charlie took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She could hear a soft voice in the air. Left. She started running again.
A burst of blue light nearly blinded her as a massive shape rose in the darkness. Charlie screamed, flinging herself back against the wall of the cave and throwing her arms up to shield her face. The thing before her was a gaping mouth full of teeth, all glowing blue. The enormous maw bore down over her.
“It’s an illusion,” Charlie whispered. She ducked and tried to roll away in the narrow space. Her shoulder struck a rock and her arm went numb. Charlie clutched it instinctively and looked up: nothing w
as there.
She pressed her back against the wall of the cave, taking deep breaths as feeling slowly returned to her arm. “It’s another transmitter,” she said quietly. “Nothing I see here is real.” Her voice was thin in the rocky passage, but saying the words aloud was enough to make her stand again. She closed her eyes. The connection she had felt was growing stronger as she ran, the sense that she was running toward a missing piece of herself. It was unbearable, stronger than the urge to fight or flee from danger. It was greater than hunger, deeper than thirst, and it pulled at the core of her being. She could no more turn back than she could choose to stop breathing. She set off again, hurtling farther into the cavern.
Far in the distance, Springtrap’s laughter still echoed.
* * *
“Charlie!” John called again, but it was hopeless. She was long out of sight, deep into the cave, and what remained of Bonnie and the wolf still burned in front of the opening.
“We have to go!” Clay shouted. “We can find another way!” Jessica grabbed John’s arm and he gave in, following Clay toward the arcade entrance.
Just as they reached the door, the twisted Freddy lunged out of the shadows, almost falling to the ground. Jessica screamed and John froze, struck still at the sight of him. His illusion sputtered on and off in pieces. An arm flickered away, exposing the smooth plastic underneath. Then the fur returned and his torso went blank, revealing the gunshot holes, and the ugly, twisted metal beneath the plastic shell. Worse was the face: not only was the illusion missing, but the material underneath. From his chin to his forehead, the left half of Freddy’s face had been ripped away, revealing metal plates and gnarled wires. His left eye glowed red amid the exposed machinery, while his right eye was completely dark.
A noise behind them broke John from his horrified reverie. He looked back to see that Bonnie and the wolf had gotten to their feet, still smoldering. Their plastic casings had almost entirely melted away, still dribbling slowly off their bodies, but the robotic works beneath seemed intact. They approached steadily, moving into position, so that John, Clay, and Jessica were surrounded.
The Twisted Ones Page 19
