“I don’t know,” Clay said grimly. “But we know about how far they can get.” He drove wildly back down the hill and out to the main road, flipping on his police lights. They went less than a mile before he turned quickly onto a small, unpaved lane.
John’s shoulder banged hard against the door. He gripped his seat belt as they barreled down the trail, high brush scraping the sides of the car and thumping the windshield.
“They have to come through here,” Clay said. “This field is right in the middle of the path between that house and the next area on the map. We just have to wait for them.” He stopped the car abruptly and John jerked forward.
Together they got out of the car. Clay had stopped at the edge of an open field. There were trees scattered here and there, and the grass was tall, but there were no crops, and no livestock grazed. John walked out into the open, watching the grass ripple like water in the wind.
“You really think they’ll come by here?” John asked.
“If they keep moving the direction they’ve been going,” Clay said. “They have to.”
Long minutes passed. John paced back and forth in front of the car. Clay positioned himself closer to the middle of the field, ready to run in any direction at a moment’s notice.
“They should have been here by now,” John said. “Something’s wrong.” He glanced at Clay, who nodded.
The sound of a car engine rose from the distance, growing louder. They both froze. Whoever it was, they were coming fast; John could hear branches whipping against the car’s body in an irregular percussion. After a few seconds the car shot out from the lane and screeched to a halt.
“Jessica.” John walked toward the car.
“Where’s Charlie?” Jessica asked, stepping out onto the grass.
“How did you find us?” Clay demanded.
“I called her,” John put in quickly. “From the restaurant, right after I talked to you.”
“I’ve been driving all over the place. I’m lucky I found you. Why are we stopped here?”
“Their route crosses through here,” John explained, but she looked skeptical.
“What does that mean? How do you know?”
John glanced at Clay, neither of them looking confident.
“They have her already, right?” Jessica said. “So why would they keep going toward her dorm?” Clay closed his eyes, putting a hand to his temples.
“They wouldn’t,” he said. He looked up at the sky, the wind battering across his upturned face with a raw touch.
“So they could be going anywhere now,” Jessica added.
“We can’t predict what they’re doing anymore,” John said. “They got what they wanted.”
“And she wanted this? She planned this?” Jessica said, her voice rising. “What’s wrong with you, Charlie?” She turned back to John. “They might not have even wanted her. It could have been anyone! So why did she have to go up there, like some kind of—of—”
“Sacrifice,” John said quietly.
“She can’t be dead,” Jessica muttered, her voice shaky even under her breath.
“We can’t think like that,” John said sternly.
“We’ll form a perimeter,” Clay said. “Jessica, you and John take your car and start driving that way.” He pointed. “I’ll loop back the other direction. We’ll make circles and hope we catch them. I can’t think of any other way.” He looked at the teenagers helplessly. No one moved, despite Clay’s new plan. John could feel it in the air; they had all surrendered. “I don’t know what else to do.” Clay’s voice had lost its strength.
“I might,” John said abruptly, the idea forming even as he spoke. “Maybe we can ask them.”
“You want to ask them?” Jessica said sarcastically. “Let’s call them and leave a message. ‘Please call us back with your murderous plot at your earliest convenience!’”
“Exactly,” John said. “Clay, the mascots from Freddy’s: Are they all gone? When you say you threw them out, what does that mean? Can we get access to them?” He turned to Jessica. “They helped us before, or at least they tried to, once they stopped trying to kill us. They might know something, I don’t know, even if they’re on a scrap heap somewhere, there must be something left. Clay?”
Clay had turned his face up to the sky again. Jessica gave him a sharp look. “You know, don’t you?” she said. “You know where they are.”
Clay sighed. “Yeah, I know where they are.” He hesitated. “I couldn’t let them be dismantled,” he went on. “Not knowing what they are, who they had been. And I didn’t dare let them be casually tossed out, considering what they’re capable of doing.” Jessica opened her mouth, about to ask a question, then stopped herself. “I … I kept them,” Clay said. There was a rare note of uncertainty in his voice.
“You what?” John stepped forward, suddenly on guard.
“I kept them. All of them. I don’t know about asking them any questions, though. Ever since that night, they haven’t moved an inch. They’re broken, or at least they’re doing a good impression of it. They’ve been sitting in my basement for over a year now. I’ve been careful to leave them alone. It just seemed like they shouldn’t be disturbed.”
“Well, we have to disturb them,” Jessica said. “We have to try to find Charlie.”
John scarcely heard her. He was staring searchingly at Clay.
“Come on,” Clay said. He set off toward his car with a heavy look, as if something had just been taken from him.
John and Jessica exchanged a glance, then followed. Before they reached Jessica’s car, Clay was already heading toward the main road. Jessica stepped on the gas, catching up just as Clay made a sharp right turn.
They didn’t speak. Jessica was intent on the road, and John was slouched in his seat, thinking things through. Ahead of them, Clay had switched on his flashing lights, though he left off the siren.
John stared into the darkness as they drove. Maybe he’d spot Charlie just by chance. He kept his hand loose on the door handle, ready to jump out, to run and save her. But there were only endless trees, scattered with the orange windows of distant houses, which hung on the hills like Christmas lights.
“We’re here,” Jessica said, sooner than John had expected.
John pushed himself upright and peered out the window.
She made a left turn and slowed the car down, and as she did John recognized it. A few yards ahead was Carlton’s house, surrounded by a cove of trees. Clay pulled into the driveway and they came in behind him. Jessica stopped the car inches from his bumper.
Clay jangled his keys nervously as they approached the house; he looked like an altered man, no longer the assured police chief in control of every situation. He unlocked the door, but John hung back. He wanted Clay to go in first.
Clay led them into the living room, and Jessica made a noise of surprise. Clay gave her a sheepish look. “Sorry for the mess,” he said.
John glanced around. The room was mostly the same as he remembered, full of couches and chairs all fanned around a fireplace. But both couches were piled with open files and stacks of newspapers, and what looked like dirty laundry. Six coffee mugs sat crowded together on a single end table. John’s heart sank as he noticed two bottles of whiskey lying on their sides between an armchair and the hearth. He cast his eyes around quickly, spotting two more. One had rolled under a couch; the other was still half-full, sitting beside a glass with a distinct yellow tinge. John snuck a look at Jessica, who bit her lip.
“What happened here?” she asked.
“Betty left,” Clay said shortly.
“Oh.”
“I’m sorry,” John offered. Clay waved a hand at him, staving off further attempts at comfort. He cleared his throat.
“She was right, I guess. Or at least she did what was right for her.” He forced a laugh and gestured at the mess that surrounded him. “We all do what we have to do.” He sat down in a green armchair, the only seat completely free of paperwork and debri
s, and shook his head.
“Can I move these?” John asked, pointing to the papers that filled the couch opposite Clay. Clay didn’t respond, so John stacked them up and put them to one side, careful not to let anything fall. He sat, and after a moment so did Jessica, though she eyed the couch as if she thought it might be carrying the plague.
“Clay—” John started, but the older man started talking again, as if he’d never stopped.
“After all of you left—after all of you were safe—I went back for them. Betty and I had decided it might be a good time for Carlton to get out of town for a while, so she took him to stay with her sister for a few weeks. To be honest, I don’t remember if she suggested it, or if it was me who put the idea in her mind. But as soon as I saw them pull down the driveway and out of sight, I got to work.
“Freddy’s was locked up. They’d taken away Officer Dunn’s body and completed their search, under my careful guidance, of course. They took some samples, but nothing else had been removed from the premises, not yet. They were waiting on me to give the go-ahead. The place wasn’t even under guard—after all, there was nothing dangerous inside, right? So, I waited for things to calm down. Then I drove to St. George and rented a U-Haul.
“It was raining when I picked up the truck, and by the time I got to Freddy’s there was a full-on thunderstorm, even though the forecast had been clear. I had keys this time; all the locks were police-issue now, so I just walked right into the place. I knew where I would find them—or at least, I knew where I’d left them and prayed they were still here. They were all piled together in that room with the little stage.”
“Pirate’s Cove,” Jessica said, her voice barely a whisper.
“I half expected them to be gone, but they were sitting patiently, like they’d been waiting for me. They’re immense, you know. Hundreds of pounds of metal and whatever else was in there, so I had to drag them one by one. I loaded them all up eventually. I figured I would bring them down through the storm cellar, but when I got back home the lights were on and Betty’s car was in the driveway. She’d come back from her trip early, it seemed.”
“What did you do?” Jessica asked. She was hunched over, her chin in her palms. John shook his head, mildly amused. She was enjoying the story.
“I waited across the street. I watched the lights, staking out my own house. When the last light went out, I pulled into the driveway and started dragging those things again, lowering them down into the cellar one by one. I drove the truck back to St. George and came back home, all without anyone seeing me. It would have never worked if I hadn’t had the cover of thunder and lightning to mask what I was doing. When I came in, I was soaking wet and my whole body ached. All I wanted was to go upstairs to bed, next to my wife …” He cleared his throat. “But I didn’t dare. I took a blanket and I slept in front of the basement door, just in case something tried to come out.”
“Did it?” Jessica asked. Clay shook his head slowly back and forth, like it had taken on extra weight.
“In the morning, they were exactly the way I’d left them. Every night after that, I went down there when Betty was asleep. I watched them, sometimes I even … talked to them, trying to provoke them somehow. I wanted to make sure they weren’t going to kill us in our sleep. I went back over the case files, trying to figure out how we’d missed Afton. How had he managed to come back without anyone suspecting?
“Betty could tell something was wrong. A few weeks later, she woke up and came looking for me—she found me, and them.” Burke closed his eyes. “I don’t remember exactly how the conversation went, but the next morning she was gone again, and this time she didn’t come back.”
John shifted on the couch restlessly. “They haven’t moved since then?”
“They’re just sitting there like broken dolls. I don’t even think about them anymore.”
“Clay, Charlie’s in danger,” John said, standing. “We have to go see them.”
Clay nodded. “Well, then let’s go see them.” He stood and gestured toward the kitchen.
The last time John had stood in the Burkes’ kitchen was the morning after they’d all escaped from Freddy’s. Clay had been making pancakes and kidding around. Betty, Carlton’s mother, was sitting next to her son as if she were afraid to leave his side. They were all giddy with relief that the ordeal was over, but John could tell that each of them, in their own particular ways, was struggling with other emotions, too. Someone might stop talking in midsentence, forgetting the rest, or stare for several moments at the empty air in front of them. They were all just barely recovering. But the kitchen had been bright. Light sparkled off the counters, and the smells of coffee and pancakes were reassuring, a connection to reality.
Now, John was struck hard by the contrast. There was a rank smell, and he could see immediately what it was: the counters and table were strewn with dirty dishes, all crusted with leftover meals. Most had scarcely been eaten. There were two more empty bottles in the kitchen sink.
Clay opened the door to what looked like a closet, but turned out to be the basement steps. He flipped a light switch, illuminating a dim bulb right above the stairs, and motioned them in. Jessica started forward, but John put a hand lightly on her arm, stopping her. Clay went first, leading their descent, and John followed, guiding Jessica behind him.
The stairs were narrow and a little too steep. Each time John stepped down he felt a slight lurch, his body unprepared for the distance. Two steps down the air changed: it was damp and moldy.
“Watch out for that one,” Clay said. John looked down to see that one of the boards was missing. He stepped over it carefully and turned, offering Jessica a hand as she made the awkward jump. “One of many things that’s on my to-do list,” Clay said offhandedly.
The basement itself was unfinished. The floor and walls were nothing but the unpainted inner surface of the foundation. Clay gestured to a dark corner where the boiler lurked heavily. Jessica gasped.
They were all there, lined up in a row against the wall. At the end of the line, Bonnie slumped against the boiler. The gigantic rabbit’s blue fur was stained and matted, and his long ears drooped forward, almost obscuring his wide, square face. He still held a red bass guitar in one enormous hand, though it was battered and broken. Half of his bright red bow tie had torn off, giving his face a lopsided look. Beside him sat Freddy Fazbear. His top hat and matching black bow tie were undamaged, their material only a little scuffed. And though his brown fur was bedraggled, he still smiled for an absent audience. His blue eyes were wide and his eyebrows raised, like something exciting was about to happen. His microphone was missing, and he held his arms out stiffly before him, grasping at nothing. Chica leaned against Freddy, her head drooping to the side. The weight of her yellow body—inexplicably covered in fur, not feathers—seemed to rest entirely on him. Her long, orange chicken legs were splayed out in front of her, and for the first time John noticed the silver talons on her feet, inches long and sharp as knives. The bib she always wore had been torn. It had read: LET’S EAT!!!, but it was faded by time, along with the damp and mildew of the basement.
John squinted at her. Something else was missing.
“The cupcake,” Jessica said, echoing his thoughts.
Then he spotted it. “There on the floor,” he said. It was sitting alone beside Chica, almost huddled, its evil grin maniacal and pathetic.
Set a little apart from the three was the yellow Freddy, the one that had saved all their lives. He looked like Freddy Fazbear, and yet he did not. There was something different about him besides the color, but if someone had asked John what it was, he knew he wouldn’t be able to name it. Jessica and John looked at it for a long moment. John felt a sense of quiet awe as he studied the yellow bear. I never got to thank you, he wanted to say. But he found he was too scared to approach it.
“Where’s—” Jessica started, then cut herself off. She pointed to the corner where Foxy was propped against the wall, clothed in shadows but still
visible. John knew what he would see: a robotic skeleton covered with dark red fur, but only from the knees up. It had been tattered even when the restaurant was open. Foxy had his own stage in Pirate’s Cove. As John peered at him now, he thought he could see more places where the fur covering was ripped, and the metal frame showed through. Foxy’s eye patch was still fixed in place above his eye. While one hand drooped at his side, the arm with the large, sharpened hook was raised above his head, poised for a downward slash.
“Is this how you left them?” John asked.
“Yep. Exactly how I left them,” Clay answered, but he sounded suspicious of his own words.
Jessica approached Bonnie cautiously and crouched down to make her eyes level with the enormous rabbit. “Are you in there?” she whispered. There was no response. Jessica reached out slowly to touch his face. John watched, tensing, but as Jessica petted the rabbit, not even dust stirred in the mildewed basement. Finally she straightened and took a step back, then looked helplessly at John. “There’s nothing—”
“Shh,” he interrupted. A noise caught his attention.
“What is it?”
John bent his head, craning closer to the sound, though he couldn’t tell exactly where it was coming from. It was like a voice on the wind, words swept away before he could catch them, so that he couldn’t be sure it was a voice at all. “Is anyone … here?” he murmured. He looked at Freddy Fazbear, but as he tried to focus his attention, the sound situated itself. He turned to the yellow Freddy suit.
“You’re here, aren’t you?” he asked the bear. He went to the animatronic and crouched in front of it, but he didn’t try to touch it. John looked into its shining eyes, searching for any of the spark of life he had seen that night, when the golden bear entered the room and they all knew as irrefutable fact that Michael, their childhood friend, was inside. John couldn’t remember precisely how that knowledge had come: there was nothing behind the plastic eyes, nothing different physically. It was just pure certainty. He closed his eyes, trying to call it back. Maybe by recalling that essence of Michael, he could conjure him again. But he couldn’t catch it, couldn’t sense the presence of his friend as he had that night.
The Twisted Ones Page 15
