Gene saw something green sticking out from behind a corner of the maze. He went to investigate, steeling himself for a jump scare, but the version of Springtrap he found, while undoubtedly scary, was incapable of jumping out at anyone.
Springtrap’s body lay motionless and flat on its back, its abdomen flayed open. Springs and gears protruded from the wound. Its eyes were open and empty.
Gene thought it might be a trick, that any second the green rabbit would spring to life and grab Gene’s avatar’s ankle. But the rabbit just lay there. Gene made his avatar nudge it with his foot, but it was inert. It seemed to be GAME OVER for Springtrap.
But that didn’t make any sense. If this game was about Springtrap getting revenge, why would the supposed main character be dead in the beginning? Unless the plot turned into some kind of ghost story?
“Gene Junior! Your dinner’s getting cold!”
“I’ll be there in a minute, Ma! Just let me finish … filling out this job application,” Gene called. He knew if she thought he was applying for a job, she’d stay off his back for a few more minutes.
He had to figure out what was going on in Springtrap’s Revenge, and the only way to do it was to take a look at the code. It was time to put those superior hacking skills to use again.
After a few commands, he was in. But what he found made no sense. According to the code, Springtrap had been extracted from the very game that bore his name in the title. The program that initiated the extraction was inexplicably called “Its_a_boy.exe.”
Matt was hungry. Ravenous. He was sitting at a table for two at Ye Olde Steakhouse. His companion at the table was Madison, who, thankfully, was as pretty as her pictures, with shiny chestnut hair and big, doelike brown eyes.
This was their first date, but Matt was having a hard time focusing on the required chitchat because he was so hungry. He realized he had scooted the breadbasket in front of him and had been mindlessly gnawing his way through the rolls. “I’m sorry. Would you like some bread?” he asked, forcing himself to push the basket in her direction.
“No thanks,” she said with an awkward grin. “I’m watching my carbs.”
“Not me, obviously,” Matt said, trying for humor as he tore off another chunk of bread with his teeth. What was this? Roll number four? Number five?
The server appeared, and before she could even ask them for their order, Matt said, “Porterhouse steak, very rare, with a loaded baked potato and creamed spinach on the side. And let’s get a refill on this breadbasket, too.”
“And for you, ma’am?” The server turned to Madison. Matt figured this was a subtle jab at him, a reminder that he was supposed to have let the lady order first, but he was far too hungry to care about etiquette. He was so hungry that it felt like a medical emergency.
“The Cobb salad, please, with blue cheese dressing on the side,” Madison said.
Matt hoped the server would hurry back with that new breadbasket before he started trying to eat the tablecloth. “You know, I’ve always wondered,” he said, “you girls always order salads when you’re out on dates … like you don’t want a guy seeing you eat too much. When you go out with your girlfriends, do you order something else? Like a big plate of ribs or something?”
Ribs, Matt thought. Ribs sound delicious.
Madison smiled. “It depends on how hungry I am. Sometimes when I go out with my best friend, we split a burger and fries.”
“You split a burger and fries?” Matt said. “That’s just like an appetizer or something.”
Madison giggled. “It’s really not. Half a cheeseburger is plenty. And girls can’t eat like you guys can. If I look at a piece of cheesecake, I gain five pounds.”
Cheesecake. For dessert, Matt definitely wanted cheesecake. He rarely ordered dessert, but he was going for it tonight. Stop, he told himself. Stop obsessing over food, and notice your date. “Well,” he said finally, “whatever you’re doing, you should keep on doing it because you look fantastic.”
“Thanks,” she said, smiling.
Good, Matt thought. When in doubt, give a compliment. It always smooths things over.
When the food arrived, Matt felt like a starving lumberjack. The rare steak sat in an appetizing pool of blood, and when Matt cut into it, the meat was a purply red.
“I think I just heard it moo,” Madison said as Matt held a dripping chunk of meat to his lips.
“Well, you won’t hear it long because it’s going to be in my belly,” Matt said. The nearly raw meat was delicious, so intensely so that Matt closed his eyes as he chewed. He ignored the vegetables on his plate and sawed into the meat over and over again, cutting off big chunks that filled his cheeks as he chewed. He resented how the knife and fork slowed down his eating. Really, it would make much more sense just to pick up the steak and rend off chunks with his canines. That’s what they were for, weren’t they?
Table manners, all the rules of etiquette, really, were just ways to delay the body getting what it needed. And Matt’s body needed this meat.
He wasn’t quite sure when he had picked up the large T-bone from the center of the steak and started gnawing it, growling to himself with animal pleasure.
But then he felt Madison’s eyes on him. She was sitting across from him, holding a forkful of lettuce in midair, staring at him like he was an exhibit in a zoo.
Then he felt the eyes of the other customers at the other tables as well.
He set down the bone. “I went to the doctor the other day,” he lied. “He said I was terribly anemic. I must have needed this red meat something fierce.”
“You must have,” Madison said. She reached into her handbag, pulled out her phone, and looked at it for a second. “Oh no,” she said. “I just got a text from my roommate. My cat is sick. I have to go. Thanks for dinner.”
She didn’t stick around long enough to hear Matt say, “I’ll call you.”
Why couldn’t he satisfy this bottomless hunger? His steak was gone now, and so were the baked potato and creamed spinach. He reached across the table for the rest of Madison’s mostly uneaten salad. It would be a shame for it to go to waste.
As Matt got undressed for his bedtime shower, he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the bathroom mirror and almost didn’t recognize himself. His belly was definitely bigger. He was bloated from the enormous dinner he had eaten at the steakhouse, but this seemed like more than standard post-meal bloat. Matt looked at his handsome face and shrugged. What were a few more pounds? He was still looking good. And historically, being a man with a little extra weight was a sign of prosperity.
Matt woke up with a goal that was crystal clear in its simplicity: to make it to the bathroom before it was too late. He threw off the covers and ran, then spewed the remains of last night’s huge and expensive dinner into the porcelain bowl. He retched and gagged long after there was nothing left to bring up.
Strangely, he still felt bloated afterward, and his belly was still distended. Was this some kind of weird virus, the symptoms of which were cycles of extreme nausea followed by extreme hunger? If it was a virus, it was certainly hanging on a long time. He would have to ask people at work if they had heard of anybody else having the same symptoms.
“Matt, are you feeling okay?” Jamie asked as they sat in the conference room waiting for a meeting to start. Her brow was knitted in a look of concern, but Matt doubted that it was genuine.
“Oh, it’s just this bug I’m having a hard time fighting off,” Matt said. The smell of the coffee in the room, usually one of his favorite aromas, was nauseating. “I’m either nauseated or starving, and I’m bloated and gassy. Do you know about any viruses with those symptoms going around?”
“I don’t,” Jamie said. “And I know about all the bugs because I have kids in school who bring them home!” She smiled. “Seriously, though, maybe you should have a doctor check you out. You’re definitely bloated, and your color doesn’t look good—you’re kind of yellowish, like you might have jaundice. Maybe you sh
ould get some blood work done and get your liver function checked just to be on the safe side.”
“Oh, doctors don’t know anything,” Matt said. And neither did Jamie. He didn’t even know why he had bothered to ask her anything.
Gary walked in, which had the negative effect of starting the meeting but the positive effect of ending any other conversation.
“Good morning,” Gary said, taking his place at the head of the conference table. “Well, the release date is in two weeks, and the reviews from early screening copies of the game are in. And the results are”—he looked down at his notes—“mixed.”
Jamie let out a little sigh.
“According to the reviewers,” Gary said, “the story line is good, the game play is challenging, and the number of jump scares is consistent with what FNAF fans expect.” He cleared his throat. “However, every single reviewer agreed on one fact: the AI design of Springtrap is sloppy and not up to the game’s usual standards.”
Gary didn’t call out Matt by name, but he might as well have. With Springtrap’s bizarre series of regenerations and deaths after Matt had left him to wander the maze, Matt had really needed to rush to create a new AI to plug into the game. But he had been confident that despite the last-minute nature of the work, he had still done a good job. Well, good enough, anyway.
“Oh, is that what reviewers are saying?” Matt said. His face heated up with anger. “Are you going to tell me who these people are, or are they really just you?”
“Hey, hey,” Gary said, holding his hands up as if defending himself. “No need to get all riled up. I’m just saying that in this competitive climate, nobody can afford to be doing anything but their best work.”
“I always do my best work!” Matt said, raising his voice. “In fact, I would be doing some of it right now if you weren’t wasting my time in this pointless meeting.”
Jamie reached out to touch Matt’s arm, but he jerked it away.
“I know these meetings take away time that you would use to work and think,” Gary said. “And I promise this one won’t last long. But after the meeting, Matt, as you are working and thinking, I would suggest that one of the things you should think about is the appropriate way to talk to your supervisor.”
Matt drove home in a rage. He broke the speed limit by double digits and powered through red lights. Let a cop pull me over, he thought. Just let him.
Both anger and hunger were gnawing at him, even though he was so bloated and gassy that it felt like a pinprick to his stomach would cause it to pop like a balloon. When he drove by a burger joint, the smell of hot grease lured him to turn in. He went through the drive-thru and ordered a double bacon cheeseburger, large fries, and a chocolate shake—food that he would generally dismiss as too unhealthy for human consumption. Not wanting to have to slow down his eating because he was also driving, he pulled into a parking space and devoured the greasy meat and carbs like a ravenous wolverine.
His hunger subsided some. His anger did not.
When he got to the apartment, Jason was packing video games from his shelf into a cardboard box. Other filled boxes were scattered across the floor.
“What’s going on?” Matt asked, though he had a feeling he knew.
“Listen, man,” Jason said, not looking up at him, “Meghan finally told me what you did. She said she almost didn’t because we’re roommates, but then she decided that I needed to know. She said you hit on her when you were supposed to be getting to know Eva. You gave her your number when you knew she was on a date with me. Not cool, man.”
“Okay,” Matt said, “if you want me to apologize, I’ll apologize.” He didn’t see the need for an apology, though. He hadn’t been trying to forcibly take Meghan away from Jason. He had just been presenting her with choices.
Jason shook his head. “See, that’s just it. I don’t want you to apologize. I want you to stop being a jerk. But unfortunately, I don’t see that ever happening. So I’m moving out. You spent our whole meal the other night talking about how prosperous and successful you are … right before you left us with the bill. You don’t need my help with the rent. You can afford this place without me.”
“I can,” Matt said. “But I want you to stay.” He didn’t know why, but he had a sudden, desperate need not to be alone. It was a vague but persistent feeling that if he were left alone, something bad would happen.
“Yeah, and Eva wanted you to be nice to her, but she didn’t get that wish, either. She’s a super nice person, Matt. She deserved better.”
“Yeah, you fixed me up with the girl with ‘the great personality,’ ” Matt said, laughing bitterly. “You kept the pretty one for yourself.”
Jason threw up his hands. “Okay, look. I can’t have this conversation right now. I’m leaving. Tonight I’m borrowing a truck from a buddy. I’ll come back in the morning and get my stuff when you’re at work. I think it’s best if you and I stay out of each other’s way for a while.”
Jason grabbed his keys and was out the door.
Matt got a beer from the fridge and sat down on the couch. How had things gotten so bad so fast? He didn’t really need to ask. He knew the answer.
It was the rabbit. He couldn’t explain it, but somehow the rabbit was to blame.
The beer tasted sour and unpleasant, and Matt felt the sickly blooming of a headache above his right temple. He reached up to massage his head and felt a hard knob pushing against his scalp. Was it possible he had gotten hit in the head hard enough for a knot to form and didn’t remember it? And if he didn’t remember it, what did that mean—that he had some kind of brain injury that was causing him to lose his mind? Or maybe it was his physical health, not his mental health, he should be worried about.
Matt needed someone to talk to about his problems, but there was no one. Hannah had abandoned him. A string of ungrateful girlfriends had abandoned him. And now Jason, his best friend, had abandoned him. As if that weren’t all bad enough, he was unappreciated and criticized at work.
Perhaps such loneliness was the sad price to pay for his brilliance. Like so many geniuses before him, he was isolated and misunderstood. For the first time in his adult life, Matt found himself crying real tears.
Matt couldn’t fasten his pants. Yesterday, they had been a tight fit but still a fit, but today they were impossible. Today he had lounged around in pajama pants all day, but now, trying to fit into real pants, it was apparent that his belly had swollen such that his size 34 waistline was only a fond memory. He tried another, more forgiving pair and then another, all to no avail. The discarded pants lay strewn on his bed.
The problem was that he had a date in a few minutes, and while he did find most rules of etiquette to be stupid and oppressive, he did accept the fact that a public date generally required one to wear pants. He dug through his closet and found a size 36 in the very back. He stepped into them, but they still wouldn’t fasten over his belly. Finally, he pulled them down below the mountainous swelling and managed to zip them up. The button still wouldn’t close, but he managed to secure them with a belt. It wasn’t the ideal situation, but it would have to do.
Matt had arranged to meet his new date, another internet acquaintance, in a bar. This way, he reasoned, if the date turned out to be as disastrous as his last ones, at least he wouldn’t have to pay for dinner.
The bar was one of those sleek, modern places favored by young urban professionals, all chrome and glass and indirect lighting. Walking in, he caught his reflection in one of the place’s many mirrors and was momentarily startled. His belly was so bloated that the buttons of his shirt were straining, the gaps between the buttons revealing his yellowish skin. His face and hair were drenched in sweat. And was it his imagination, or was his hair also getting thinner?
Still, Matt knew he had a lot more going for him than any of the losers in this bar. Emma—that was the new girl’s name, right?—Emma was lucky to be going out with him.
He didn’t recognize her at first. She was sitting at a
table alone and gave him a little wave. Her face was pretty like he remembered it being on the dating site, and so was her honey-blonde hair. But the picture she used on the site must have been taken a good twenty-five pounds ago. The girl was chunky. It was a good thing he hadn’t committed to taking her out to dinner. He probably couldn’t afford to feed her.
Well, it was too late to slip out now. She had already spotted him. He pasted on a smile and walked up to the table. “Emma?”
“Matt!” She smiled broadly and gestured for him to sit down.
“So what are we drinking?”
“Hmm … appletini?”
“One fruity girl drink coming up. Let me go converse with the barkeep.” He went to the bar and ordered the Girl Drink for Emma and a martini for himself. It was strong, but he had a feeling he was going to need it to get through this date.
“Yum, thank you,” Emma said when he set down the toxic-looking green drink in front of her. “Thanks for picking out this place. It’s really cool. I’m ashamed to admit I don’t get out much. Most nights after work I just put on my pajamas and watch Netflix.”
And eat a gallon of ice cream, Matt thought, but he just smiled and nodded. “Yeah, sometimes I just end up hanging out with my roommate and playing video games,” Matt said. Then he remembered Jason wasn’t his roommate anymore. No need to tell her that, though. He had already decided he was never going to see her again.
“Well, you’re a video game developer,” she said, sipping her cocktail, “so when you hang out and play video games that’s like research, right?”
He managed a strained smile. Something was happening in his abdomen. Pressure was building in an unpleasant way, almost like a force was pushing his belly from the inside. He took a sip of his martini, which hit his stomach like battery acid. He must have grimaced because Emma asked, “Are you okay?”
Bunny Call Page 9
