Five Nights at Freddy's_The Silver Eyes

by Scott Cawthon

  He looked around slowly, trying to assess calmly, though his heart was fluttering alarmingly in his chest. The room was small, a single bulb overhead lighting it dimly and flickering ever so slightly, giving the place a disquieting impression of movement. A small metal desk fan, brown with rust, was gently oscillating in the corner, but the air it blew was heavy with the smell of stale sweat; costumes left unwashed for a decade. Carlton was too hot; the air felt too thick, like it was not as full of oxygen as it ought to have been. He tried to stand, but without his arms he could not brace himself, and as he moved, he felt another violent wave of nausea, and a sudden, angry surge of the pain in his head.

  “I wouldn’t do that,” a raspy voice muttered. Carlton looked around, seeing no one, then the door opened. It moved slowly, and somewhere beneath his terror, Carlton felt a twinge of impatience.

  “Who is it? Let me out of this.” He said in panicked desperation.

  The door squealed like an injured animal as it glided open, almost of its own accord, the frame empty. After a moment’s pause, a yellow rabbit poked its head around the corner, its ears tilting at a jaunty angle. It was still for a moment, almost posing, then it came in with a bouncing walk, graceful, with none of the stiff, mechanistic movements of the animatronic animal. It did a small dance step, spun, and took a deep bow. Then it reached up, and took off its own head, revealing the man inside the costume.

  “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised,” Carlton said, his nerves triggering an automatic wisecrack. “Never trust a rabbit, I say.” It didn’t make sense, it wasn’t funny, but the words were coming out of his mouth without any input from his brain. He still felt sick, his head still ached, but he had a sudden, visceral clarity: this is what happened to Michael. You are what happened to Michael.

  “Don’t speak,” Dave said. Carlton opened his mouth to answer back, but the smart remark died on his tongue when he saw the guard’s face. He had seemed somehow faded when they met, depleted, ineffectual. But now as he stood over Carlton in his absurd-looking rabbit’s costume, he looked different. His face was the same, technically: his gaunt features and sunken eyes, his skin that seemed to have worn thin, ready to snap from strain, but now there was a mean, undeniable strength in it, a rodentine vitality that Carlton recognized.

  It had occurred to Carlton years before, that there were two types of nasty people. There were the obvious ones, like his sixth-grade English teacher who yelled and threw erasers, or the kid in fifth grade who picked fights with smaller children after school. That type was easy, their offenses public and brutal, but undeniable. But then there was the other kind of petty tyrant, those who grew spiteful with their small scraps of power, feeling more and more abused by the year—by family who did not appreciate them, by neighbors who slighted them in imperceptible ways, by a world that left them, somehow, lacking something essential.

  Before him stood someone who had spent so much of his life fighting like a cornered rat that he had taken on the mantle of bitter sadism as an integral part of himself. He would strike out against others and revel in their pain, feeling righteously that the world owed him his cruel pleasures. The guard’s face, with its malevolent delight in Carlton’s pain and fear, was one of the most terrifying things he had ever seen. He opened and closed his mouth, then, valiantly, found his voice.

  “What kind of a name for a serial killer is Dave?” He said. It came out as a trembling croak, lacking even the echo of bravado. Dave did not seem to hear him.

  “I told you not to move, Carlton,” he said calmly. He set the rabbit’s head down on a plastic crate of some sort and began fiddling with the fastenings at the back of his neck. “It’s not an order, it’s a friendly warning. Do you know what I’ve put you inside?”

  “Your girlfriend?” Carlton said, and Dave’s face made a thin curve of a smile.

  “You’re amusing,” he said with distaste. “But no. You’re not wearing a costume, Carlton, not precisely. You see, these suits were designed for two purposes: to be worn by men like me,” he gestured fluidly toward himself, with something that might have been pride, “and to be used as working animatronics, like the ones you see on the stage. Do you understand?”

  Carlton nodded, or began to, but Dave’s raised eyebrow stopped him.

  “I said don’t move,” he said. The neck of his costume came open, and he began to undo a second fastening at his back as he talked. “You see, all of the animatronic parts in that suit are still in it; they are simply held back by spring locks, like this.”

  Dave went to the pile of costumes and selected one, bringing the fuzzy green top, headless, over to Carlton, He held out the costume, waggling two twisted pieces of metal that were attached to the sides of the neck.

  “These are spring locks,” he said, and brought the piece of metal so close to Carlton’s face he almost could not focus his eyes on it. “Watch.” He did something, touched some piece of the lock so imperceptibly that Carlton could not see what he had done, and it snapped shut with a sound like a backfiring car. Carlton stiffened, suddenly taking the order not to move deathly seriously.

  “You can trip these spring locks very, very easily,” Dave went on. “It takes almost no movement at all. That’s a very old costume, one of the first ones Henry made.”

  “Henry?” Carlton said, trying to focus on what he was being told. He could still hear the snap, as if it had lodged in his head like a song, and kept repeating. I’m going to die, he thought for the first time since waking. This man will kill me, I will die, and then what? Will anyone even know? He set his jaw and met Dave’s eyes. “Who’s Henry?”

  “Henry,” Dave repeated. “Your friend Charlie’s father.” He looked surprised. “Did you not know that he made this place?”

  “Oh right, well,” Carlton said confusedly. “I just always thought of him as ‘Charlie’s Dad.’”

  “Of course,” Dave said, the kind of polite murmur people made when they didn’t care. “Well, that’s one of his first suits,” he said, gesturing at Carton. “And if you trigger those spring locks, two things will happen: first the locks themselves will snap right into you, making deep cuts all over your body, and a split second later, all the animatronic parts, all that sharp steel and hard plastic will instantly be driven into your body. You will die, but it will be slow. You’ll feel your organs punctured, the suit will grow wet with your blood, and you will know you’re dying for long, long minutes. You’ll try to scream, but you will be unable to: your vocal cords will be severed, and your lungs will fill with your own blood until you drown in it.” There was a faraway look in his eyes, and Carlton knew with chilling certainty that Dave wasn’t predicting. He was reminiscing.

  “How—” Carlton’s voice broke, and he tried again. “How do you know that?” He said, managing a raspy whisper. Dave met his eyes and smiled widely.

  “How do you think?” He set the costume he was holding down, and reached up to undo the final piece of his own. It took time; Carlton watched for several minutes as Dave romanced whatever mechanisms lay under the collar. He took the costume top off with a flourish, and Carlton made an involuntary sound, a helpless and frightened mewl.

  Dave had been shirtless under the costume, and now his bare chest was clearly visible even in the dim, flickering light. His skin was horribly scarred, with raised white lines that scored his flesh in a symmetrical pattern, each side of his body mirroring the other. Dave saw him looking and laughed, a sudden, happy sound. Carlton shivered at it. Dave raised his arms out from his body and turned slowly in a circle, giving Carlton ample time to see that the scars were everywhere, covering his back like a faint lace shirt, stretching to the waist of the rabbit pants as if they continued all the way down. On the back of his neck, where they were largest and most visible, two scars like parallel lines were etched from the nape of the neck all the way up to his scalp, disappearing into his hair. Carlton tried to swallow. His mouth was so dry he could not have spoken, even if there had been anything to say.
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br />   Dave smiled unpleasantly.

  “Don’t move,” he said again.

  “He’s here, he has to be here!” Marla cried, staring despairingly at the door to Freddy’s. She was clasping and unclasping her hands, the knuckles going white. Charlie watched her, feeling helpless. There was nothing to say. The door was no longer covered in chains; instead it was simply no longer a door. It had been welded: the metal was melted seamlessly into the frame, and the hinges were gone, covered in crude, patchy solder. They all stared, not fully able to comprehend what they were looking at. Charlie shifted her feet. She had stepped in a puddle as they hurried from the car, and now her shoes and socks were soaked and freezing. It seemed unforgivable to be focused on her own discomfort, in such a moment, but she could not stop her attention from drifting to it.

  “This is insane,” Marla said, her mouth agape. “Who does this?” She threw up her hands in frustration. “Who does something like that?” She was almost shouting. “Someone did that! Someone welded this shut. What if Jason is in there?”

  Marla put her hands over her face, and Jessica and Lamar stepped forward to comfort her, but she waved them away.

  “I’m fine,” she said tightly, but she did not move, still staring at the place in the wall that had once been a door. She looked smaller, lesser; the panicked energy that had been driving her was gone, leaving her empty, without purpose. She looked at Charlie, ignoring the others, and Charlie met her eyes uncomfortably.

  “What do we do?” Marla said. Charlie shook her head.

  “I don’t know, Marla,” she said uselessly. “If he’s in there, we have to get him out, there has to be a way.”

  “There has to be another way in,” John agreed, though he sounded surer than Charlie felt. “Freddy’s had windows, a service door, right? There must have been fire exits. There has to be something!”

  “Stop!” Marla cried, and they all froze in place. She was pointing at the floor.

  “What is it?” Charlie said, coming up next to her.

  “It’s Jason’s footprint,” Marla said. “Look, you can see the imprint, it’s those silly shoes he spent a year’s allowance on.”

  Charlie looked. Marla was right; there was a muddy footprint about Jason’s size, still fresh. Marla’s face was alive again, fiery and determined.

  “He must have just been here,” Marla said. “Look, you can see the tracks turn and leave again. The door must have been already welded when he got here. He’s probably still here somewhere; come on!”

  Jason’s tracks were heading further down the alley, into the darkness, and the group crouched low to the ground, following his trail. Charlie hung back, not really helping, but keeping an eye on the bobbing flashlight ahead. There was something she was forgetting, something she should know. Something about Freddy’s. Noticing that she was apart, John let the others move ahead.

  “You okay?” He asked in a low voice, and Charlie shook her head.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “Go ahead.” He waited for her to say more, but she was staring ahead into the dark. Another way in.

  “Found it!” Jessica’s voice pierced the dark, and Charlie came back to herself and jogged to catch up to the others. Lamar had the flashlight again, and he was aiming it at an air vent close to the ground.

  The vent was old and rusty, and its covering was lying flat on the ground amidst scattered footprints and clumps of mud.

  “Jason, what are you doing?” Marla gasped and knelt beside the vent. “What are you thinking?” There was an edge to her voice, something teetering between panic and relief. “We have to go after him,” she said, and knelt in front of the vent.

  Charlie watched, dubious, but said nothing. It was John who spoke up.

  “It’s too small,” he said. “I don’t think any of us will fit.”

  Marla looked down at herself, then around at the others one by one, calculating.

  “Jessica,” she said decisively. “Come on.”

  “What?” Jessica looked to the side as if there might be another of her. “I don’t think I’ll fit, Marla.”

  “You’re the skinniest,” Marla said shortly. “Just try, okay?”

  Jessica nodded and went to the vent, kneeling in the muddy concrete that was the alley’s floor. She studied the hole in the wall for a moment, dropping to her hands and knees, and tried to squeeze in, but her shoulders barely cleared the space, and after a moment she pulled back out, out of breath.

  “Marla, I can’t fit, I’m sorry,” she said.

  “You can fit!” Marla said. “Please, Jessica.”

  Jessica looked back at the others, and when Charlie saw her face it was almost white, and harshly expressionless. She’s claustrophobic, Charlie thought, but before she could speak, Jessica was back at the air vent, twisting herself, trying again to fit.

  “Please,” Marla said again, and Jessica shot back out like something had bitten her.

  “I can’t, Marla,” she said, her breathing shallow and fast, as if she had been running full-out. “I don’t fit!”

  “There has to be another way in.” Charlie stepped in, reaching her arm between Marla and Jessica as though breaking up a fight.

  Charlie closed her eyes, trying again to remember. She pictured the restaurant, trying to see it not as they had the last few days, but as it had been years before. The lights were bright, it was full of people. “It used to get hot, stuffy,” she said. “In summer it smelled like pizza and old French fry grease, and sweaty kids, and my dad would say…” That’s it. “He would say, ‘whose brilliant idea was it to put a skylight in a closet?’” She finished triumphantly, relieved. She could picture it, the little supply room with the open roof. The two of them would sneak away and sit in there for a few minutes, enjoying the small stream of fresh air that filtered down from outside.

  “So that’s it, let’s get to the roof,” John said, breaking Charlie’s drift into memory.

  “What roof?” Marla said, studying the top of the closed hall. She was no longer in a full-blown panic, reassured by evidence that Jason was still alive, but her anxiety was still palpable. Her glance darted constantly around the little group, as if her little brother might suddenly appear from the shadows.

  “It’s been covered over, like everything else.” Lamar chimed in.

  “Maybe not,” Charlie said. “The roof of the mall is pretty high. I bet there’s a crawl space at least.”

  “A crawl space?” John said excitedly. “You mean a crawl space between the roof of Freddy’s and the roof of the mall? Up there?” He stared up into the darkness for a moment. “A crawl space?” He repeated, his voice a little meeker.

  Charlie was busy studying the ceiling of the corridor, measuring it in her head against what they had seen of the outside of the building. It was different, she was sure of it.

  “This isn’t the roof to the mall; it’s not high enough,” she said, feeling a spark of encouragement. She set off briskly down the hall, not waiting for the others. They followed, trailing behind her, and the space above her suddenly illuminated as Lamar caught up and cast the beam of the flashlight upward. Charlie was going back and forth, looking from wall to ceiling and back again, and trying to picture the space outside.

  “The ceiling of this hall is probably level with the roof of Freddy’s.” Jessica’s voice came from behind Charlie, who startled briefly; she had been so intent on her pursuit she had lost track of her friends.

  “We have to get up there,” Charlie said, and turned back to the group, expectant. They looked blankly at her for a second, then Lamar’s arm moved reflexively, like he was about to raise his hand. He caught himself and cleared his throat instead.

  “I hate to point out the obvious, but,” Lamar said, gesturing. About ten feet ahead of them, a maintenance ladder rested against the old brick. Charlie grinned and hurried to the ladder, waving for John to follow. They grabbed it together; it was heavy, metal and covered with spatters of paint, but it was manageable to carry. Whe
n Charlie had a firm grip on one side of the ladder, she turned her face back to the ceiling, searching.

  “There is probably a hole, or a hatch, or something,” she said.

  “A hole, or a hatch, or something?” John echoed with a half-smile as he lifted the other end of the ladder.

  “Do you have a better idea? Now, come on.” She jerked the ladder forward, so hard John stumbled and almost fell.

  They moved slowly. With only one flashlight, they could not see where they were going and examine the walls at the same time, so every few yards they stopped, and Lamar ran the light back and forth across the place where the brick wall met the dripping ceiling of the makeshift hallway. Though it slowed them down, Charlie was grateful for the breaks; the ladder, industrial metal, was heavy. She could have asked the others to switch off, but it felt essential, somehow, that she be part of the physical process. She wanted to help.

  Marla’s agitation was growing as they went, and after a few rounds of move-and-scan she started calling Jason’s name softly.

  “Jason! Jason, can you hear me?”

  “He’s inside,” John said shortly, “He can’t hear you.” His voice was strained with the weight of the ladder—he had the wider end—and he sounded almost snappish. Marla glared at him.

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Marla, stop it,” Jessica said. “We’re doing everything we can.”

  Marla didn’t answer. A few minutes later, they came to the end of the alley.

  “So now what?” John said.

  “I don’t know,” Charlie said, puzzled. “I was positive that we would find something.”

  “Is that the way life usually works for you?” John teased, raising an eyebrow at her.

  From down the hall, Lamar let out a triumphant cry.

  “Found it!”

  Marla took off toward him at a run, and Jessica followed a little more cautiously behind, wary of obstacles in the dark.

  Charlie gave John a wink then picked up the ladder again. He hurried to lift his side, and they lugged it back the way they came.