John opened his eyes and looked at all the animatronics one by one, remembering them alive and mobile. Once, the children stolen by William Afton had watched him back from inside. Were they still inside now, dormant? It was horrible to think of them moldering down here, staring into the darkness.
Something flickered in the yellow bear’s eye, almost imperceptibly, and John drew in a sharp breath. He glanced behind, checking for a light that might have glanced off the hard plastic surface, but there was no obvious source. Come back, he pled silently, hoping to see the spark again.
“John.” Jessica’s voice pulled him back to reality. “John, I’m not sure that this was a good idea.” He turned toward her voice, then stood, his legs cramping. How long had he been there, staring into the blind eyes of the mascot?
“I think there’s still someone in there,” he said slowly.
“Maybe so, but this doesn’t feel right.” She looked down from John toward the suits again.
Their heads had moved; they tilted up unnaturally, facing John and Jessica.
Jessica screamed and John heard himself shout something unintelligible, leaping back as if he’d been stung. They were all looking directly at him. John took three experimental steps to the left, and they appeared to track him: their eyes stayed fixed on him, and him alone.
Clay had grabbed a shovel and was holding it like a baseball bat, ready to strike. “I think it’s time to go.” He stepped forward.
“Stop, it’s okay!” John exclaimed. “They know that we aren’t enemies. We’re here because we need their help.” John opened his palms toward the creatures.
Clay lowered the shovel, though he kept it in his hand. John looked at Jessica, who nodded rapidly.
John turned back to the mascots. “We’re here because we need your help,” he said again. They gazed back at him blankly. “Remember me?” he asked awkwardly. They continued to stare, as frozen in their new poses as they’d been before. “Please listen,” he went on. “Charlie, you remember her, right? You must. She’s been taken by … creatures like you, but not like you.” He glanced at Jessica, but she was watching anxiously, trusting this to him.
“They were animatronic suits, buried under Charlie’s house. We don’t know why they were there.” He took a deep breath. “We don’t think they were built by Henry; we think they were built by William Afton.”
As soon as John said the name, the robots all began to shudder, convulsing where they sat. It was as if their machinery was being jump-started by a current too powerful for their systems to absorb.
“John!” Jessica cried. Clay stepped forward and grabbed John by the shoulder.
“We have to get out of here,” Jessica said urgently. The mascots were seizing wildly, their arms and legs jerking. Their heads banged against the back wall with painful clanks. John stood rooted to the spot, torn between the impulse to run to them, to try and help, and the urge to run away.
“Go, now!” Clay shouted over the noise, pulling John backward. They made their way back up the basement stairs, Clay followed behind with the shovel raised defensively. John watched the mascots convulsing on the ground until they were out of sight.
“We need your help to find Charlie!” he shouted one last time, as Clay slammed the basement door and snapped three shiny new deadbolts shut.
“Come on,” Clay said. They followed him, chased by hideous clanking and banging noises, only slightly muffled by the floor beneath. He led them back through the living room to a small study branching off from it, where he shut the door and bolted it.
“They’re coming up,” John said, pacing and watching the ground beneath his feet. Metal ground against metal; something crashed like it was slammed against the wall. The echo reverberated through the floor.
“Block the door,” Clay ordered, grabbing one side of the desk in the corner. John grabbed the other side as Jessica cleared a path for them, yanking two chairs and a lamp out of the way. They dropped it in front of the door as, beneath them, something scraped across the concrete like it was being dragged.
Heavy footsteps shook the foundation of the house. The high-pitched whine of malfunctioning electronics filled the air, almost too high to hear. Jessica rubbed her ears. “Are they coming for us?”
“No. I mean, I don’t think so,” John said. He looked to Clay for reassurance, but Clay’s eyes were on the door. The whine intensified and Jessica clapped her hands over her ears. The footsteps grew louder. There was a noise like cracking wood.
“At the door,” Clay whispered. There was a loud thud, and then another. John, Jessica, and Clay sank down behind the desk, as if it would better hide them. Another thud resounded, then a sound of splintering wood. The earthshaking footsteps came closer. John tried to count them, to see if the creatures were all together, but there was too much overlap. They layered one over another, rattling his teeth and shaking through his chest. It felt like the sound alone might break him to pieces.
Then, quickly, the footsteps faded and were gone. For a long moment no one moved. John gasped to breathe, realizing only now that he’d been holding his breath. He looked at the others. Jessica’s eyes were closed, and she gripped her hands together so tightly that her fingertips had gone white. John reached out and touched her shoulder and she jumped, her eyes flying open. Clay was already standing, tugging at the desk. “Come on, John,” he said. “Help me get this out of the way.”
“Right,” he said unsteadily. Together they shoved it aside and hurried out into the hall. The front door stood wide open to the night. John rushed out to look.
The grass outside had been torn up where the mascots shuffled through it. The tracks were obvious and easy to follow, leading straight into the woods. John broke into a run, chasing after them, Clay and Jessica at his heels. When they reached the cover of trees they slowed. In the distance, John saw a blur of movement for only an instant, and he motioned the others to hold back. They would follow, but they didn’t dare be seen by whatever was leading the way.
The world thundered around Charlie, shaking her rhythmically back and forth, strange objects digging harder into her each time she was jostled. Charlie opened her eyes, and remembered where she was. Or rather, what she was inside. The awful image of the malformed Freddy sucking her into its mouth like some kind of snake hit her, and she closed her eyes again, biting her lips together so that she wouldn’t scream. The thuds were footsteps, she realized: the animatronics were on the move.
Her head throbbed with each blow, making it hard to think straight. I must have been knocked unconscious when it threw me in here, she thought. The torso of the thing was connected to the head by a wide neck, which was almost level with her own, though its head stretched up another foot above her. It was like looking at the inside of a mask: the hollow of a protruding snout, the blank spheres that were the backs of the eyes. When she carefully tilted her head up, she could even see the bolt that attached the black top hat.
Charlie’s legs were cramped and bent at odd angles, wedged between pieces of machinery. She must have been stuck this way for some time, but she had no way of knowing how long. Her arms were constrained, suspended away from her body into the arms of the suit. Her whole body was covered in small points of pain, bruises and cuts from tiny pieces of plastic and metal that deepened each time they banged against her. Charlie could feel blood trickling down her skin in half a dozen places. She itched to wipe it away but had no idea how much she could struggle without triggering the springs. Her mind flashed to the first murder victim, the lacerations that covered his body almost decoratively. She thought of Dave’s screams as he died, and the bloated corpse beneath the stage at Pirate’s Cove. That can’t be me. I can’t die like that!
Charlie had told Clay what she knew about the spring-lock suits. The animatronic parts were either recoiled, making room for a person inside to use it as a costume, or fully extended, so the mascot would work as a robot. But that was what Charlie knew from Fredbear’s Family Diner—this creature w
as different. She was inside a cavity made for a human being, but the suit was moving with complete autonomy. Its insides were full of metal architecture and wires, all except for the space that Charlie occupied.
The animatronic lurched unexpectedly to the side, and Charlie was smacked against the jagged wall again with greater force. She cried out this time, unable to help herself, but there was no break in Freddy’s stride. Either the creature hadn’t heard, or it didn’t care. She clenched her teeth, trying to quell the pounding in her head.
Where are we going? She craned her neck this way and that, looking through the holes in the animatronic’s battered suit. There were only a few holes, small and on either side of the thing’s torso. All she could make out was the forest: trees rushing by in the darkness as they hurried to their mysterious destination. Charlie sighed in frustration, tears welling up. Where are you? Am I getting closer to you? Sammy, is it you?
She gave up looking for hints outside and stared straight ahead at the inside of the suit. Stay calm, Aunt Jen’s voice said in her head. Always stay calm. It’s the only way to keep your head clear. She stared up into the mask, at the inside-out features of the twisted Freddy.
Suddenly, the blank spheres rolled back and the eyes flipped in, staring straight down at her with an impassive, plastic gaze. Charlie screamed and jerked back. Something behind her snapped, lashing a whiplike piece of metal into her side. She froze in terror. No, please no. Nothing else triggered, and after a moment she cautiously settled herself in place, trying not to meet the shiny blue eyes above her. Her side where the piece of metal had hit her shocked with pain each time she breathed. She wondered, alarmed, if a rib had broken. Before she could be sure, the animatronic lurched to the side again, and Charlie fell with it, hitting her head so hard that the blow reverberated through her body. Her vision darkened, closing to a tunnel, and as she faded into unconsciousness again, all she could see were Freddy’s watching eyes.
* * *
John’s lungs were beginning to burn, his legs turning rubbery as they ran on and on through the forest. They had been running for what felt like hours, though he knew it couldn’t be. That was just his exhaustion playing tricks on his mind. The trail had faded. When they entered the forest, the trees had been their guide. They followed ripped, ragged bark and broken branches, and even torn roots where massive, careless feet had stepped.
But the signs had grown farther between, then stopped entirely. Now John ran on in the direction the creatures seemed to have been headed.
Truthfully, he might have been lost.
As he darted around trees, trekked up and down small hills, and stumbled on uneven ground, John began to lose his sense of direction entirely. Ahead of him, Jessica ran confidently onward. He followed, but for all he knew they could be running in an endless circle.
Behind him, Clay’s steps were slowing, his breathing heavy. Jessica, a few paces ahead, doubled back, jogging in place as she waited for them to catch up.
“Come on, guys, we’re almost there!” she said energetically.
“Almost where?” John asked, struggling to keep his tone even.
“I’m just trying to be encouraging,” she said. “I was on my high school cross-country team for three years.”
“Well, I was always more of a heavy-lifter, you know,” John panted, suddenly defensive.
“Clay, come on, you can do it!” Jessica called. John glanced back. Clay had stopped running and was doubled over with his hands on his knees, taking gasping breaths. With relief, John slowed to a walk and turned back. Jessica let out a frustrated sound and followed him to Clay.
“Are you all right?” John asked.
The older man nodded, waving him back. “Fine,” he said. “Go ahead, I’ll catch up.”
“There’s nowhere to ‘go ahead’ to,” John said. “We’re running blind. When’s the last time you saw tracks?”
“A while back,” Clay said, “but they were heading this way, and it’s all we have to go on.”
“But it’s nothing to go on!” John’s voice rose in frustration. “There’s no reason to think they went this way!”
“We’re losing them,” Jessica said urgently. She was still running in place, her ponytail bouncing like a little nervous animal behind her. Clay shook his head.
“No, we’ve already lost them.”
Jessica stopped running, but she kept shifting from one foot to the other. “So now what?”
Something rustled in the trees ahead of them. Jessica grabbed John’s arm, then released it quickly, looking embarrassed. The sound came again, and John started toward it, raising a hand to signal the others to stay. He made his way cautiously through the trees, glancing back once and noting that Jessica and Clay were close behind, despite his attempt to keep them back.
A few feet farther on, the trees broke into an open field; they had reached the far side of the woods. Jessica gasped, and a split second later John saw it. Halfway across the clearing a figure stood in the darkness. It was almost featureless and flat, scarcely distinct from the shadows. John squinted, trying to get hold of the image, to assure himself he was really seeing it. Heavy, black electrical wires stretched above the field like a canopy, but besides the wires, the field was clear. Though it was dark, there was no way for them to sneak closer to the figure without being seen.
So John straightened his shoulders and began to walk slowly and openly toward it.
The field was untended, and tall grass brushed John’s knees as he walked. Behind him, Jessica and Clay made rustling sounds with every step. The wind whipped the grass against their legs, blowing more ferociously with each step they took. Almost halfway across the field, John stopped, puzzled. The figure was still there, but it seemed as far away from them as when they’d started. He glanced back at Jessica.
“Is it moving?” she whispered. He nodded and started walking again, not taking his eyes from the shadowy figure. “John, it looks like … Freddy?”
“I don’t know what it is,” John answered cautiously. “But I think it wants us to follow.”
* * *
I can’t breathe. Charlie coughed and gagged, coming suddenly awake. She lay on her back, dirt pouring down onto her. It filled her mouth, clogging her nose and covering her eyes. She spat, shaking her head and blinking rapidly. She tried to raise her hands but couldn’t move them. She remembered suddenly that they were trapped inside the arms of the suit and would be mutilated if she struggled to free them.
Buried alive! I’m being buried alive. She opened her mouth to scream and more dirt fell in, hitting the back of her throat and making her gag again. Charlie could feel her pulse in her throat, choking her from the inside as surely as the dirt from outside. Her heart was beating too fast and she felt lightheaded. She took faster breaths, trying in vain to fill her lungs, but she only stirred up the dirt and inhaled it. She spat, gargling at the back of her throat to catch it before she swallowed, and turned her head to the side, away from the soil that fell like rain. She took a shuddering breath that shook her chest, and then another. You’re hyperventilating, she told herself sternly. You have to stop. You have to calm down. You need your head clear. The last thought came in Aunt Jen’s voice. She stared at the now-familiar side of the suit and took deep breaths, ignoring the dirt settling in her ear and sliding down her neck, until her fluttering heart slowed, and she could breathe almost normally again.
Charlie closed her eyes. You have to get your arms free. She concentrated all her attention on her left arm. Her T-shirt left the skin of her arms bare against the suit, so she could feel everything that touched her. With her eyes still closed, Charlie began to draw a map. There’s something at the shoulder joints on either side, and a space just below. Spikes in a line all the way down to my elbow on the outside, and the inside has—what is that? She rocked her arm slowly, gently, back and forth against the objects, trying to envision them. They’re not spring locks. She froze, focusing again on the place where the arm joined the to
rso. THOSE are spring locks. Okay, I’ll get to it. Hands. She flexed her fingers slightly: the sleeves were wide, and her hands—which reached roughly to the creature’s elbows—were less constrained than anything else. She spat out dirt again, trying not to notice that it was still pouring in steadily, piling up all around her. Breathe. While you still can. She clenched her jaw, envisioning the sleeve that encased her arm, and slowly began to work her way out of it. She dipped down her shoulder, rotated forward, held her breath—and pulled her arm three inches out. Charlie let out a shuddering sigh. Her shoulder was free of the spring locks. That was the hardest part. The rest of my arm won’t touch them if I’m careful. She kept going, avoiding the things she thought might snap or stab her. When she was halfway out, her elbow at the shoulder seam, she twisted her arm too quickly and heard a snap. She stared horrified at the suit’s shoulder, but it wasn’t the spring lock. Something smaller inside had triggered, and now she could feel the burn of a fresh cut. Okay. It’s okay. She got back to work.
Minutes later, her arm was free. She flexed it back and forth in the small space, feeling a little like she had never had an arm before. Now the other one. She wiped her face with her hand, smearing away the dirt, closed her eyes, and began again with her right arm.
The second sleeve took less time to get out of, but fatigue and the growing mounds of dirt around her made Charlie careless. Twice she triggered small mechanisms that bruised her painfully, but didn’t break her skin. She yanked herself free too fast, bumping the spring locks and only barely snatching her hand away before they cracked open. The arm jumped and jolted as the robotic skeleton inside it unfolded with a noise like firecrackers. Charlie clutched her hand to her chest, cradling it against her pounding heart as she watched. That could have been … It wasn’t. It wasn’t me. Focus. Legs.
The Twisted Ones Page 16
