Jessica looked to the door in despair, but quickly steadied herself. “We’ll get him back,” Jessica said, because it was all she could think of to say. She glanced around helplessly, then froze as the doorknob slowly began to turn again. “Stay here,” Jessica said in a low voice, and she moved quickly to the door. She stood to the side, bracing herself to jump on whatever came through. This is your plan?
The door opened, and Jessica screamed and lunged into the doorway, as though ready to karate-chop whatever was coming through.
Carlton and Marla jumped back with startled expressions, and Jessica stared for a moment, then seized Carlton in a hug, holding tight to his shoulders as if he could stop her from shaking.
“Jessica?” Marla said, spotting the children. Jessica pushed Carlton away.
“Something got one of the kids, a little boy,” she said in a rush. “I didn’t see where it went.”
Marla was already beside the children, checking them for injury. “We have to get them out,” she said.
“Oh, really, Marla? Is that what we should be doing? Here I was painting my nails,” Jessica said crisply. Carlton reached for his ear and pulled something out.
“Here, take this,” he said.
“What? Ew.” Jessica made a face instinctively, then peered at the tiny device. “Is that a hearing aid?”
“Not exactly. It makes you invisible to the animatronics. You and Marla take these kids out, I’ll find the other kid they took.”
“How does it—?” Jessica took the device and studied it. “I have to put it in my ear?”
“Yes! You have to put it in your ear! I’ll explain later.”
“But, are your ears even clean?” She leaned in, peering suspiciously at Carlton’s ear. Marla grabbed the earpiece out of her hand and shoved it into Jessica’s ear.
“OW!” Jessica cried.
Marla turned back to the kids. “Shouldn’t we give them to the children, instead?”
“There are only two earpieces, and you can both protect them better if you’re invisible, right?” Carlton said irritably.
“What if Jess and I stay here with the kids, and you take one out at a time, wearing the earpieces?” Marla pressed. Jessica shook her head immediately.
“And what if that thing comes back and kills us all while we’re waiting for Carlton to take his sweet time? We have to make a break for it, Marla, it’s the only way.”
They were all quiet for a moment. Carlton looked from Jessica to Marla and back.
“Right? Now, give me thirty seconds to get away from here, that way if something chases me, I can draw them away from you. Anything I should know?” Carlton paused at the door.
“Afton’s still alive,” Jessica said, and he nodded.
“This ends today,” he said quietly. “One way or another. Not one more child dies because of that psychopath. I owe that much to Michael.”
Jessica bit her lip. “We all do,” she said.
He forced a smile. “Good luck.”
“Good luck,” she echoed.
“Right.” Carlton clenched his jaw, then squared his shoulders and held the door open, poised to exit. “This was my idea?” he muttered, then closed the door behind him.
“Marla, do you know the way out?” Jessica asked, surprised to hear her own voice come out clear and steady. Marla nodded, standing up.
“We came in the back way. But I think if we go back down that hall, we can get out into the main dining room; should be easy to get out from there, right?”
“You’d think so,” Jessica muttered with an edge.
Marla gave her a level look. “You got something better?”
“No. I don’t.” Jessica turned to the three remaining children, who were watching them with wide eyes. “We don’t have to get far,” she said, searching for scraps of hope to offer them. “I need you to stay together, and stay with me and Marla. If you can do that, we’ll all be okay.” They looked at her like they knew she was lying, but no one said a word.
Jessica opened the door again carefully. The hallway outside the little room was dark, but Marla led them onward as if she really did know where they were headed. She held a large, battered flashlight out in front of her. She looked poised to turn it on but refrained from doing so, seemingly afraid of attracting more unwanted attention. Jessica’s eyes adjusted to the dim light as she took up the rear, alert to the slightest sign of danger.
They came to a T in the hall, and Marla turned without hesitation. A few yards ahead there was light: strings of small, bare bulbs lit the way at intervals, and the next fork in the hall was visible. We’re getting closer, Jessica thought, as they moved cautiously onward.
A soft popping noise caught Jessica’s attention overhead, and she froze. “Marla,” she hissed, and Marla and the children ahead stopped and turned around. Marla pointed up with a worried expression, and Jessica looked up to see that some of the bulbs over her head had gone out, their glass made opaque with a sooty film. “Just old lights,” Jessica breathed.
A light above Marla burst and died, and all of them jumped. Alanna clapped both hands over her mouth, and Ron put a hand on Lisa’s shoulder. “Can we go faster?” Lisa whispered. All at once, the rest of the light bulbs flickered and clattered. Jessica held her breath: they stayed on, preserving the little light, but overhead something hollow and metallic rattled in the ceiling.
Marla’s face went pale. “Keep moving,” she said tightly. Jessica gave a sharp nod. The rattling noise kept pace, sometimes seeming to come from above them, and sometimes from the dark corners just out of view, scraping and clattering in a vent or crawl space. Lisa whimpered; the older children’s faces were stony, but Jessica could see the glimmer of tears on their cheeks. Suddenly, Marla stopped short, and Jessica almost bumped into Ron. “What?” she hissed, then saw: a thin curtain of dust was falling from above. Jessica looked up, and saw the open duct directly above them.
A multisegmented metal arm covered with springs and wires dropped down through the open duct, anchoring itself to the floor right next to Jessica’s foot. Everyone screamed. The arm retracted, then two more of the creature’s contorted limbs smashed down to the ground, raining down plaster and dust. “RUN!” Marla screamed. They took off down the hallway as the creature lowered its full form into the space, its shiny white fox head turning and smiling in their direction as they fled. Jessica glanced back, and the unskinned head dropped, too, grinning upside down, a red bow tie joining their necks ridiculously. Jessica fled; behind her came an enormous thud. Run faster! she wanted to scream, but the others were gasping for breath, already running at their full capacity.
The children were pounding along as fast as they could, but Lisa, the smallest, began to fall behind. The creature shot past Jessica, reaching out for the little girl again, and Jessica grabbed her, yanking her up and out of reach just in time. It reared back to strike again, and Jessica clutched Lisa to her chest and ran on. They rounded a corner, and with a flare of hope Jessica saw that the hall was short, ending in a heavy set of double doors. Marla sped up, and Alanna and Ron did the same; Jessica kept her pace, staying at the back as Lisa clung to her with startling strength.
Marla reached the end of the hall and slammed herself against the emergency bar, and the doors split open. They raced through, and Marla flung the door shut, grabbing a nearby sign post and jamming it through the door handles.
“Keep running,” Jessica said with a fresh pump of adrenaline. She looked around: they were up against the wall, behind a popcorn popper and a cotton candy machine. She glanced back briefly at the sign Marla had barred the door with: LET’S EAT! it read in big, round letters. Ron leaned to the side, about to peek between the machines. “Hold on,” she hissed, putting a hand on his shoulder. He drew back as if something had burned him.
“It’ll be okay,” Marla said, and Jessica marveled briefly that she sounded like she believed what she was saying. Behind them, something crashed against the door again, rattling the doorfra
me. Jessica waited, her eyes on the makeshift barricade, but nothing came.
“We have to move slowly and quietly,” she whispered, and the three children nodded in unison. “Stay back,” Jessica told them, and stepped out past the popcorn machine, alert to danger. She took a second to get her bearings: The walls of the dining room were lined with arcade games and children’s play areas, and on the far side of the room, blissfully, were the wide glass doors of the entrance. She motioned the others forward; the children, huddled together, followed her into the open room with Marla close behind.
“Hurry,” she urged, and Marla nodded, taking Lisa’s hand as Alanna and Ron followed behind her, their faces pinched with exhaustion. Suddenly, Alanna screamed, and Jessica jumped. “What? What is it?” The girl was pointing at a jungle gym a few feet away, where two toddlers, too small to climb the bars, were nonetheless doing so.
“It’s okay, they’re just toys,” Marla said, looking back at Jessica with a frazzled expression. “We saw them on the way in.”
Alanna screamed again, and ran to Jessica, grabbing on to her waist. “It bit me!”
“What?” Jessica looked down: Alanna’s ankle was bleeding, though not badly, and a few feet away was another crawling, robotic child.
“Jessica!” Marla screamed, touching the device in her ear nervously. “It can’t see us, but it can see them.” As she spoke, the two other robotic children on the monkey bars lowered themselves unsteadily to the ground and began to crawl straight toward Lisa and Ron; they backed away, and a fourth appeared, boxing them in. Marla scooped up Lisa and Alanna and tried to hold them away from harm. “Jessica!” Marla screamed. “Help!”
“It bit me,” Alanna repeated, panic in her voice, and the children clung together as the crawlers came closer, a slow march of determined toddlers with the black eyes of insects. “They can’t see us,” Jessica said with determination, darting forward and grabbing the nearest robot baby. It was heavier than it looked. Jessica held it out from her body. It was facing away from her, and she held on tight as it continued its crawling movements in the air, steadily putting its hands and feet into position, one after the other. She glanced around, then spotted the ball pit: at least four or five feet deep. Jessica threw the crawler down into the colorful balls as hard as she could, and it landed, half-buried, on its side, still repeating its motions, and slowly sank out of sight.
“Marla, come on!” she shouted. Marla set down Lisa and Alanna beside Ron, then turned her attention to the baby crawling toward them. Her hands were shaking, like she was preparing to pick up a giant cockroach. “Marla!” Jessica shrieked. Marla screamed and shook her hands in the air, and the baby suddenly charged forward, clawing at the ground and biting at the children’s feet. Lisa cried and fell to the ground, and the heavy creature grabbed at her legs as it crawled up on top of her. Marla bolted forward with a blood-curdling scream and yanked the metal crawler off the little girl. Marla cried out again as she spun and threw the creature through the air. It missed Jessica’s head by an inch, slammed into the net canopy above the ball pit, and dropped down into it, sinking out of sight.
“You almost hit me!” Jessica had barely spoken the words when the third and final robot baby flew through the air and landed at her feet with a resounding bang. Marla let herself fall to the ground, breathing heavily, her eyes wide with panicked fury. Jessica stared down at the creature as it locked its sights on the children again. “Oh, no you don’t.” Jessica picked it up just as it started to crawl. She held it over the pit and it turned its head around completely to face her with its ant-like eyes. Its little rosebud mouth opened, flashing two rows of pointy predator’s teeth, then snapped shut, chomping the air. Jessica shuddered and dropped it, watching with grim fascination as it churned its arms and legs, digging itself deeper into the pit.
“Jessica!” Marla cried, and she spun around. Lights had come on behind them, illuminating a large show stage with a bright purple curtain as its backdrop. On the stage, and in the spotlight, was a glossy and white Foxy animatronic, its mouth open and arms wide, ready to perform for a cheering crowd. The Fox looked down at them with delight.
“Was that there a second ago?” Jessica whispered.
Suddenly, the fox’s body began cracking apart: metal plates split away from the center of its torso, from its arms and legs, lifting out, splitting again and folding back, leaving only its canine head untouched, grinning maniacally as its body was horribly transformed. Jessica ran to the children as all at once, tentacle-like metal limbs erupted from what had been Foxy, and the mutilated skeleton creature stretched out into its new, semi-arachnid form.
“Get them out!” Jessica cried. Alanna and Ron were frozen to the spot, staring, and Marla slapped their cheeks lightly. Ron snatched up Lisa’s hand, and together they all ran for the front door.
“Jessica!” Marla cried as they reached the door. “We can’t let it get out!” The creature was on top of the monkey bars now, elongating itself to terrifying proportions as if showing off its tangled metal spines.
“Get them out!” Jessica shouted again, pushing away from them, then turning her attention back to the mangled pink-and-white fox. The thing began to slowly dismount the monkey bars, its limbs slipping over and around one another, changing its shape with every step it took. Its foxlike face, and its vaguely human one, were both intent on the children, the heads angled slightly toward each other so that each of its eyes could focus. Jessica took a deep breath, then pulled the earpiece out of her ear, struggling to steady her hands long enough to slip it into her pocket. “Over here!” she screamed as loudly as she could, her throat going raw, and the canine head ducked under the other neck, its eye rolling around to fix on her. “Yeah, over here!” Jessica cried, her voice hoarse, and the thing came down from the monkey bars with menacing grace and began to slink toward her. She glanced around. Should have thought this through. At the door, she could see Marla bracing it open and shooing the children through, one at a time, then looking back to Jessica.
Jessica nodded her head and waved Marla away. She grabbed a folding chair from a nearby table and hefted it over her head, then flung it at the creature. It landed with a clatter on the floor, missing the thing entirely. The fox head cocked to the side, its mouth hanging open to show all of its teeth, then it lurched forward, its metal appendages banging against the ground. Jessica turned and ran.
She looked around wildly for an escape as she darted through the mass of tables at the center of the room; she shoved over a table behind her, but the thing just climbed over it like it was flat ground. Jessica sped up. The creature was right behind her, the fox head snapping its jaws as the unskinned skull grinned ghoulishly from its swing. She raced back the way they had come, ducking between the cotton candy machine and the popcorn cart. The sign blocking the doors was still in place, and she flung it away and yanked the door handle. It rattled in place, but still wouldn’t open.
Something crashed behind her, and Jessica spun around to see the popcorn cart knocked over, popcorn strewn across the black-and-white floor tiles. The creature stretched out a limb and pushed the cotton candy machine experimentally; it rocked but did not fall, then another limb shot out. It hit Jessica’s leg with a smack, and she stumbled back against the door, an involuntary shout of pain blurting from her mouth. The fox and the unskinned head looked at each other, the head bouncing on its cables, then in unison they turned their eyes on her as the creature undulated its limbs, displaying their full extension. Jessica felt in her pocket for the earpiece, but couldn’t find it. It must have fallen out while she was running: she darted her eyes from side to side, afraid to move even her head. She was cornered, caught between the wall and a children’s climbing set: there was no way past the thing.
All at once the creature seized the cotton candy machine with three of its limbs, crushing it; shattering glass sprayed in all directions as it carelessly flung the machine aside. Jessica shielded her face, turning away, and as the machine cracked
the floor tiles behind her, she saw it: the red-and-yellow bars of the playset nearby led high above the room below, where a colorful pipe maze began, bolted tight to the ceiling, and disappearing into a circular hole in the wall and into the next room. That’s my way out.
Jessica set her foot on the bottom rung of the playset and started to climb as fast as she could. Below her came a wrenching noise, and she glanced down to see the creature tearing up the playset, the unskinned head swinging and bobbing gleefully. It reached up and tore out the rung below her, and she climbed faster, hurling her upper body into the tube just as one of the creature’s hands grasped the last piece of the playset. Jessica scrabbled for a handhold, at last managing to pull her full body inside the tube. She crawled as fast as she could, the pipe shaking with every movement, then stopped to look down. Although some of the plastic tunnel was bolted to the ceiling, there were large portions that were not. This was made for kids, not me. Jessica rocked herself carefully, and the section of plastic below her rocked as well, the plastic segments creaking at the seams. Jessica shivered. Slow and steady. She checked her hands and knees, making sure they were safely in place, then started forward again.
She was in a narrow, unadorned tube, hovering above an empty hallway, lit by a single, exposed florescent light that hummed as it flickered. The hum of the florescent light seemed to grow louder as she made her way cautiously along the fragile plastic flooring, filling her ears almost painfully, as if she had gone deep underground. She worked her jaw open and shut, trying to clear the sensation, but the noise persisted. When she reached the segment of tubing that went into the wall above the door, she hesitated, trying to see inside, but there was only darkness. Jessica took a deep breath, and carefully crossed into the next room.
Silence fell: the humming noise was blissfully gone. The only light was behind her, and bizarrely it did not penetrate into the room, as if it were somehow being filtered out. She looked back and saw the circle of light where she had come, but everything else was in darkness. Jessica blinked, waiting for her eyes to adjust, but all she saw was black. Okay, then. She shuffled slowly forward, feeling carefully and sliding her knees along the support beams that ran along sections of the tunnel. After a few minutes, she came to a turn, bumping her head gently on the plastic, and she felt her way around it with a vague sense of accomplishment.
The Fourth Closet Page 20
