“Dad, I’m gonna puke,” Carlton murmured. Clay laughed but leaned back when he saw that he wasn’t kidding. Carlton bent over, hands on his knees, fighting the urge to retch, and Clay’s face took on alarm. Carlton straightened. “I’m good.”
Clay was not listening anymore. He was looking around the room, at the animals. All of them were frozen in time, displaced.
“Okay, kids,” Clay said, his voice low and his words careful. “I think it’s time for us to go. Come on.” He started toward the exit he had made.
They glanced at each other. The whispers were gone; whatever he had been, the yellow Freddy was slouched again, an empty suit, though no one had seen it move. Charlie nodded toward Clay, and the rest started forward, heading almost reluctantly to the hole in the wall. Charlie hung back; John stayed beside her, but she gestured him forward, taking up the rear.
She had barely had time to take a step when something took hold of her throat.
Charlie tried to cry out, but her windpipe was being crushed; she was whipped around as if she weighed nothing, and found herself face to face with the yellow rabbit. Dave’s eyes were shining through, triumphant. He had his arm around her neck, squeezing her throat so tightly that she could scarcely breathe. He was holding her so close it was almost an embrace; she could smell the costume, stained fur and years of putrid sweat, and blood, and cruelty.
He spoke, still staring at Charlie.
“You are staying.”
“Absolutely not,” Clay said, taking on the group’s authority.
Dave dug his fingers deeper into Charlie’s neck and she made a strangled sound.
“I will kill this one right here, while you watch, unless you do as I say,” he said, and his voice was almost pleasant. Clay looked at him for a long moment, as if calculating, then nodded.
“Okay,” he said, his voice calm. “We’ll do as you say. What do you want?”
“Good,” Dave said. He relaxed his grip on Charlie’s neck, and she took a shaky breath. The others began to move toward them, away from the door. Charlie looked up at the man in the rabbit suit, and he met her gaze. It was you. You killed Michael. You killed Sammy. You took them from me. His eyes should have held something fierce and dangerous. They should have been windows to the rotten core inside. But they were only eyes, flat and empty.
Charlie plunged her hands into the gap beneath the costume’s head. Dave drew back, but she held on.
“If you want to be one of them, then be one of them!” She shouted, and she tripped the spring locks. Dave’s eyes widened, and then he began to scream. Charlie jerked her hands free, barely evading the locks as they snapped open and plunged into his neck. She took a step back, watching as Dave crumpled to the ground, still screaming as the costume released. Part by part, the animatronic insides pierced his flesh, ripping up his organs, tearing through his body as if it were not even there. At some point he stopped screaming, but he still writhed on the floor for what felt like long minutes, before he was still.
Charlie stared, breathing hard as if she had been running. The form on the ground seemed unreal. John was the first to move; he came beside her, but, still staring down, she waved him off before he could touch her. She could not bear it if he did.
Jessica gasped, and they all looked up as one. The animatronics were moving. The group drew back, huddling together, but none of the animals were looking at them. One by one, they took hold of the broken body on the floor, and began to drag it away toward the hall to Pirate’s Cove. As they began to disappear down the hallway, Charlie noticed that the yellow Freddy was gone.
“Let’s go,” Charlie said quietly.
Clay Burke nodded, and they filed out of the restaurant for the last time.
Chapter 13
The sun was rising as they emerged into the open air.
Clay put his arm around Carlton’s shoulder, and for once, Carlton didn’t brush him away with a joke. Charlie nodded absently, blinking in the light. “Carlton and I are taking a drive to the ER,” Clay continued. “Is there anyone else who needs a doctor?”
“I’m fine,” Charlie said reflexively.
“Jason do you need to go to the hospital?” Marla asked.
“No,” he said.
“Let’s see your leg,” she insisted. The party stopped as Jason held his leg out for Clay to examine. Charlie felt an odd relief wash through her. A grown-up was in charge now. After a moment, Clay looked up at Jason with a serious face.
“I don’t think we’re going to have to cut it off,” he said. “Not just yet.” He added. Jason smiled, and Clay turned to Marla. “I’ll take care of him. It might leave a scar, but that’ll just make him look tough.”
Marla nodded and winked at Jason, who laughed.
“I need to change my clothes,” Charlie said. It seemed like a petty thing to be worrying about, but her shirt and pants were wet with blood in some places, dry and stiff in others. It was beginning to itch.
“You’re a mess,” Carlton pointed out redundantly. “Will she get a ticket if she drives like that?”
“Charlie, are you sure you don’t need to go to the hospital?” Marla said, turning her laser-like concern on her friend, now that her brother had been declared safe.
“I’m fine,” Charlie said again. “I just need to change my clothes. We’ll stop at the motel.”
When they reached the cars, they split into what had become their habitual groups: Marla, Jason, and Lamar in Marla’s car, Charlie, John and Jessica in Charlie’s. Charlie opened the door to the driver’s side, and stopped, looking back at the building. It wasn’t just her; out of the corner of her eye she could see them all gazing at it. The empty mall was dark against the pink-streaked sky, long and squat, like something brutish, slumbering. As one, they turned away, getting into the cars without speaking. Charlie kept her eyes on it, watching as she started her car, waiting to turn her back to it until the last possible moment. She pulled out of the lot, and drove away.
Along the road, the cars split off: Clay and Carlton took the other turn out of the parking lot, heading to the hospital, and Charlie turned off toward the motel while Marla continued to the Burkes’ house.
“I call first shower!” Jessica said as they got out of the car, then, seeing Charlie’s face: “I’ll make a special exception in your case. You go first.”
Charlie nodded. In the room, she grabbed her bag and took it into the bathroom with her, leaving John and Jessica to wait. She locked the door behind her and undressed, deliberately not looking at the gashes on her arm and leg. She didn’t need to see what was there, just to clean and bandage it. She got into the shower and let out a quiet yelp as the stinging water hit her open cuts, but she gritted her teeth and cleaned herself, washing her hair over and over until it was rinsed clean.
She got out and toweled herself dry, then sat down on the edge of the tub, put her face in her hands, and closed her eyes.
She was not ready to go out yet, not ready to face whatever aftermath, whatever discussion there might have to be. She wanted to walk out of this bathroom, and never speak again of what had happened. She rubbed her temples. She didn’t have a headache, but there was pressure inside there, something that had yet to emerge.
You can’t stay here forever.
Charlie still had the gauze and tape from the first time around, so she took it from her bag, wiped both wounds clean with a hotel towel, and bound up her arm and leg, using all the gauze. I probably do need stitches, she thought, but it was only an idle thought. She would not do it. She got up and went to look in the mirror: there was a cut across her cheek. It had stopped bleeding, but it was ugly. She didn’t know how she could cover it, and she didn’t really want to, for the same reason she didn’t want stitches. She wanted them to heal wrong, wanted them to scar. She wanted proof, displayed on her body: this happened. This was real. This is what it did to me.
She dressed quickly in her jeans and her last remaining clean t-shirt, and emerged from the bathroom
to find Jessica and John carrying suitcases out to the car.
“I figured there was no point leaving stuff here,” Jessica said. “We’re all going in the morning, we may as well bring it all to Carlton’s. Charlie nodded, and grabbed Jason’s backpack, taking it out to the car along with her own.
Carlton and his father were already back by the time they arrived, and again they entered Carlton’s living room, now almost familiar. Carlton was curled up in an armchair by the fireplace, where someone had lit a fire, and Marla and Lamar were on the couch. Jason was sitting right in front of the fireplace, staring in at the licking flames. Charlie sat down near Jason, arranging herself stiffly; John joined her, looking at her with concern, but she ignored him, and he said nothing.
“Are you okay?” Charlie said, rubbing Carlton’s arm for a moment, and he looked at her sleepily.
“Yeah, it’s a mild concussion,” he said. “I’ll be fine as long as no one else tries to murder me.”
“So… now what?” Jessica said as she took the chair beside Carlton. “I mean—” she paused, searching for words. “What happens?” She said finally. They looked at each other; it was the question they all had. What did you do after something like this? Charlie looked at Clay, who was standing in the doorway, only half in the room.
“Mr.—Clay, what happens now?” She said quietly. He looked off into the distance for a minute before answering.
“Well, Charlie, I’m going to go back to Freddy’s. I have to get my officer.” He said gravely. “I won’t go alone.” He forced a smile, but no one joined him. “What do you think should happen?” He said. He was looking at Charlie, asking her this impossible question as if she could answer it. She nodded, accepting responsibility.
“Nothing,” she said. “It’s over; I want to leave it that way.”
Clay gave her a nod, his face impassive. She could not tell if it was the answer he was looking for, but it was all she had. The others were silent; Marla and Lamar were nodding, but Jessica looked like she wanted to protest.
“Jessica, what?” Charlie said gently, realizing with unease that her friend wanted her permission to disagree.
“It just seems wrong,” she said. “What about… everything? I mean, people should know, right? That’s how it works, that guard, he murdered all those kids, and people should know!”
“No one will believe us,” Jason said without looking up.
“Officer Dunn,” Jessica said. “Officer Dunn, he died in there, what will you tell his family? Will you tell them the truth?” She looked at Clay.
“Officer Dunn died at the hands of the same man who killed your friends. I can prove that now.” A silence fell over the room. “It won’t bring them back,” he said softly. “But maybe it will give them some rest.”
Clay turned his eyes to the fire, and a few minutes passed before he spoke again.
“You kids have been carrying Freddy’s with you all these years. It’s time you left it behind,” he said. He said it sternly, but his commanding tone was reassuring. “I’m going to see to it that Officer Dunn is given a proper burial.” He paused, collecting himself, as though what he said next required effort. “Your friends, too.” His brow furrowed. “I have a few favors to call in, but I can make this happen quietly. The last thing I want to do is disturb that place, or desecrate it. Those kids need rest.”
The next morning, they began to go their separate ways. Marla offered to drive Lamar and Jessica to the bus station, and they said their goodbyes with hugs and promises to write. Charlie wondered if any of them meant it. Marla probably did, at least. They pulled out of the Burkes’ driveway.
“So, my bus isn’t till later,” John said as they disappeared around a bend in the road.
“I wouldn’t mind a few more hours in Hurricane,” Charlie answered. To her surprise, she realized it was true.
John flashed her a quick, almost nervous smile.
“Okay, then,” he said.
“Let’s get out of there. Let’s go somewhere; anywhere,” Charlie said.
When they were alone in the car John gave her a sideways glance.
“So,” he said, “are we ever going to see each other after this?” He tried to say it lightly, but there was no way to lighten it. Charlie stared straight ahead.
“Maybe,” she said. She could not look at him. It wasn’t the answer he wanted, she knew that, but she could not give him what he wanted. What could she say by way of explanation? It’s not you, it’s the weight we both bear, it’s too much. When you are here, I can’t ignore it. She did not look at him.
But something in her thoughts felt off, not quite right, as if she were speaking by rote, thinking off a script. It was like flinching instinctively to protect an injury, before remembering it has healed. She looked at John beside her. He was staring through the windshield, his jaw set.
“I have somewhere I need to go,” she said abruptly, and made a slow U-turn. She had never gone to visit the place, but now, without warning, her mind was consumed by it. Aunt Jen had never suggested it, Charlie had never asked. She knew where it was, though, and now she headed there with a singular sense of purpose: I need to see.
Charlie pulled to a stop in a small, gravel parking lot beside a low fence of short white posts, chains swinging between them.
“I just need a minute,” she said. John gave her a concerned look.
“Are you sure you want to do this now?” He said softly, and she did not answer, just got out of the car, closing the door behind her.
The graveyard before them was almost a hundred years old. There were hills of lush grass and shading trees; sometimes people went on walks there. This corner was at the edge of the cemetery; there was a small house only a few yards past the edge of the fence. The grass was trimmed neatly, but it was patchy and yellowing; the trees had been pruned too far, so the lower branches were bare, too exposed.
There was a telephone pole set just inside the fence, barely on the cemetery grounds, and beside it were two headstones, plain and small. Charlie stared at it for a long moment, not moving. She tried to conjure up the right feeling: grief and loss so that she could mourn. Instead, she just felt a numbness: the graves were there, but the sight did not touch her. She took a deep breath and started toward them.
It was such a small memory, one of those moments that meant nothing at the time, was just one day in a series of days the same as all the others. They were together, just the two of them, and it must have been before everything, before Fredbear’s went wrong, before anyone was dead.
They were sitting out back behind Fredbear’s, looking out over the hills, and a crow landed and began pecking in the dirt, looking for something. There was something about its sharp, darting movements that struck her as the funniest thing she had ever seen. Charlie began to laugh, and her father looked at her. She pointed, and he turned his head, trying to see as she did, but he could not tell what she was pointing at. She could not get it across to him, she did not know the words, and just as her excitement was about to turn to frustration, he saw it too. Suddenly he laughed, too, and pointed to the crow. Charlie nodded, and he met her eyes, looking at her with an expression of pure, boundless delight, as if it would fill him to bursting.
“Oh, Charlotte,” he said.
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