Maybe it was that crazy voice in his head.
Whatever it was, Grim found himself scurrying stealthily, and perhaps a bit unsteadily, toward the opening into which the figure disappeared. When he reached it, he hesitated for a second, questioning the wisdom of his actions, but he went through the opening anyway.
Preparing to be jumped the second he entered, Grim was surprised and relieved to find himself in an empty triple garage–size space that widened into another space beyond. And he was even more surprised and pleased to hear movement in that second space and see enough light to pick his way over the debris-strewn concrete floor.
The dragging movement he heard was disconcerting and would have sent any normal person running for his life. Grim, however, hadn’t been normal for several years. When Grim reached the front edge of the second space, he paused. He waited, listening until the scrape and shoosh sound of the dragging bag was far enough away to make him feel fairly certain he could follow without running into his quarry.
It didn’t take long for him to feel like he should make his move. Taking a deep breath for courage, he took another step. And he stopped.
He was in a huge square expanse, an expanse with flat walls and high ceilings, an expanse filled with piles of junk. He figured this was the main floor of the old factory. It was at least a couple thousand square feet in size, and its high ceiling peaked at a bank of skylights, which allowed murky daylight to brighten the area.
Grim realized he stood on an elevated rim of the floor, a rim about fifteen feet wide. It ran around the perimeter of the huge space. Several sets of concrete stairs with metal stair rails led down to a level about six feet lower. On that level, on one side of the cavernous square, a massive, dirty, blue trash compactor was set partway into the concrete floor. It had a filthy, scarred chute that led from the elevated rim down into its metal bowels. It was quiet and still now, but Grim could imagine it in action, pummeling trash and then tipping it out into a shallow concrete pit near the end of its lethal enclosure. Near the trash compactor chute, a small shelf hung on the wall. The shelf held a pot with two bright red flowers shaped like starfish. Grim couldn’t imagine anything looking more out of place than those two flowers did next to the powerful eater of trash.
Grim blinked and watched the cloaked figure drag his bag to one of the junk piles. He couldn’t see what was in the bag, but he glimpsed a doll’s arm hanging from the opening. Dressed in a bright-blue dress with equally bright-pink ruffles, the arm looked so innocent and sweet. It didn’t belong in this room of metal and mechanical junk. Nothing belonged in such a room. Because the junk in this room wasn’t just any junk. It was the junk of nightmares, the junk of bloodcurdling histories. The junk in this room was a collection of the worst mechanical monstrosities imaginable. Spotting the remains he’d seen removed from the tracks, Grim also saw the carcass of a robotic dog and several partial animatronic characters. It looked like someone had blown up a factory of creepy robotic toys and then piled up their remains.
Not even the crazy voices in his head could convince Grim to stay in this room. He backed out and retreated as quietly and as fast as he could to his rusty shed.
Jake, aware that he was being watched but not concerned about it because he could sense the soul and the character of the person watching, emptied the latest bag of infected items on the shortest pile in the abandoned factory. It made him sad to see the doll’s arm. Well, all of it made him sad, actually. Toys shouldn’t have been things that held terror and anger and fear. They should have been containers for joy and love and laughter.
Ever since Andrew had told Jake about all the infected things, Jake had been using the thing he and Andrew were in to gather all the stuff Andrew had infected. When he first had the idea to do that, he wasn’t sure how he’d actually do it. He didn’t know what he and Andrew were in then, just that it was made of metal and it could move. But then he understood he was in an animatronic endoskeleton run by a battery pack. And he understood he was looking at the world through a doll’s eyes. None of that felt strange to him. The only thing he thought was funny was that the thing they were in was wearing a hooded trench coat. Going around in a trench coat felt really silly.
And it was hard to go all over in this thing, too. Harder than he’d thought it would be. Andrew had infected so much stuff!
Jake hadn’t understood how tiring it was going to be to use his will to get the locations from Andrew’s mind and make the animatronic go all over the place finding the stuff. Jake was feeling so worn out, like he had before he’d left his little-boy body. He wasn’t sure he could keep doing what he needed to do.
Maybe he should just give up and let go. Jake hadn’t done anything wrong. Why did he have to be the one to fix Andrew’s mess?
Wasn’t he a good boy? Didn’t he deserve to have some fun?
“I think we need peanuts, don’t you, Jake?” a smiling man asked.
A crowd cheered and a different man called out, “Hot dogs! Get your hot dog here!”
“Maybe a hot dog too?” the smiling man said.
Jake froze with the empty bag in his hand.
Was that a memory? Did he just have a memory?
He cocked his head. Since he’d been in this metal endoskeleton, he hadn’t had a sense of smell. But now he felt like he was inhaling the aromas of peanuts and hot dogs. He also could feel something new. His face … or the face of what he was in … suddenly felt warm, like he was outside in bright sunlight instead of where he was—inside, in a dingy factory.
This had to be a memory, because it for sure wasn’t happening right now. It felt like a memory, and the man in his memory had said his name.
No, wait. It wasn’t just a man. It was his dad. Jake had just experienced a memory of his dad!
“What are the flowers for?” Andrew asked.
Jake ignored him. He was concentrating. The memory, if that’s what it was, had felt really good. Jake wanted more of it. He closed his eyes and focused on the smells and the sounds and the sensations.
“Let’s have both,” Jake’s dad said. He motioned, and a man came over with a tray full of roasted peanuts in small bags.
Jake felt himself settle into his little-boy body. He looked out through the little boy’s eyes, and he saw a big field of grass and a huge crowd of people.
“Jake? What about the flowers?” Andrew asked.
Jake didn’t answer. Instead he picked up a watering can he’d left under the shelf holding the flowerpot. He walked over to water the flowers.
At the same time, he returned to his memory.
As Jake watched his dad exchange money for one of the bags from the tray, understanding came back to him. For the first time since he’d become aware of being in the animatronic he was in now, he fully knew himself as he truly was. He was Jake, the little boy, and he was reliving an afternoon at a baseball game with his dad. It felt so real, and …
Jake began to feel as if he was being sucked out of the thing he was in. He felt like he was a puff of smoke, and he was being borne by an air current away from the being that had contained him. He could feel himself being pulled into the memory itself, and he intuitively understood that if he was enveloped in the memory, he could stay in that happy place forever.
The crack of a bat resounded, and the crowd rose to its feet, cheering.
“Get your glove up, Jake!” his dad shouted. Jake raised his baseball-gloved hand.
And he drifted even further from the animatronic he’d been in.
“Jake? Where are you going? Jake!” Andrew shouted.
Jake realized he could easily relax into this wonderful memory and allow the whole of who he was to be extracted from the animatronic that contained him and Andrew. He could stop trying so hard. He could go have fun.
“Jake!?” Andrew called out.
But Jake couldn’t leave Andrew. His new friend had never known love, and if Jake left, Andrew would be lost forever. Jake couldn’t let that happen.
Ja
ke looked hard at the piles of trash in the compactor; he forced the memory from his mind. By putting his whole attention on what was here now, he wiped the memory away from his awareness like he was erasing a blackboard.
As he did, he settled back into his place in the animatronic. He watered the flowers, and he ignored Andrew’s repeated questions.
Copyright © 2020 by Scott Cawthon. All rights reserved.
Photo of TV static: © Klikk/Dreamstime
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available
First printing 2020
Cover design by Betsy Peterschmidt
e-ISBN 978-1-338-62700-8
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