Five Nights at Freddy's: The Silver Eyes(22)

“That’s really good,” John said over her shoulder. Charlie startled.

“You scared me,” she said.

“Sorry.”

Charlie looked back at the drawing. Whatever it was, it was better than she could draw now. Suddenly her chest tightened, gripped with loss and rage. It wasn’t just that Michael died young, it was what that truly meant: he had been stopped in his tracks, years, decades of life snatched and torn violently from him. She felt herself well up with youthful indignation, as if she were a child again, wanting only to whine it’s not fair!

Taking a deep breath, Charlie set the picture back down on the table, and turned away. The gathering was continuing, but she needed to leave. She caught Marla’s eye, and Marla, as scarily intuitive as always, nodded, and caught Lamar’s sleeve. From their various vantage points, they all headed for the parking lot. No one seemed to notice their departure, which made sense. Except for Carlton, they were all strangers here.

In the lot, they stopped by Marla’s car. She had somehow called down a miracle and found a space right next to the school.

“Can I play my game now?” Jason said immediately, and Marla found her keys in her purse and handed them over.

“Don’t drive away,” she warned. Suddenly, Marla grabbed her brother and pulled him close, hugging him to her for a long minute.

“Jeez, I’m only going to the car,” he muttered when she let him go.

“Yeah, maybe I should let you drive away,” she said, giving him a little push. She cleared her throat. “So, are we going to Freddy’s?” She said. They all looked at one another.

“Yeah,” Charlie said. “I think we should.” Somehow, following this, going back to Freddy’s seemed like more than a game. It felt right. “Let’s meet there at ten,” she said. “Hey, Jessica, can you catch a ride with the guys or something? I’m gonna go for a walk.”

“You can come with us,” Marla said. “I promised Jason I’d take him to the movies.”

Charlie headed down the road without waiting to hear the rest of the discussion. A dozen feet from the lot, she realized she was being followed. She turned around.

“John?”

“Do you mind if I come? You’re going to your old house, right?”

“How did you know that?”

“It’s the only interesting thing out this way. Anyway, I went to see my old place, too. It was painted blue and there was a garden in the yard. It was weird. I know it wasn’t blue when I lived there, but I couldn’t remember what color it was supposed to be. Everything’s so different.”

Charlie didn’t say anything. She wasn’t sure she wanted John to come with her. Her house, her father’s house, it was private. She thought of the first time John saw the toys, his fascination, an interest that was all his, that had nothing to do with pleasing her. She relented.

“Okay, you can come.”

“Is it…” he hesitated. “Is it different?”

“It’s really not,” Charlie said. It wasn’t quite true, but she wasn’t sure how to explain the thing that had changed.

They walked together for the better part of three miles, away from town and down old roads, first paved, then gravel. As they neared the place they left the roads, ascending the steep incline of a hill overrun with brush and trees that should have been trimmed or cut down ages ago. Three rooftops peeked over the leaves, scattered widely over the hill, but no one had lived in these houses in a long time.

At last they walked up the driveway, and John stopped short, staring up at the house.

“I thought it would be less intimidating,” he said softly. Impatient, Charlie took his arm for a second and pulled him away, leading them around the side of the house. It was one thing for him to be here with her, but she was not quite ready to let someone else inside. She was not quite sure she wanted to go inside again anyway. He followed her without protest, as if aware that they were in her territory, and she would decide where they went.

The property was large, more than a lawn. There were woods surrounding the wide space of the backyard, and as a child Charlie had often felt like she was in her own little realm, ruler of what little she surveyed. The grass had gone wild, weeds growing feral and up to their knees. They walked the perimeter. John peered into the woods, and Charlie was struck by her old childhood fear, like something out of a fairy tale: Don’t go into the woods alone, Charlotte, her father warned. It was not sinister, just a parent’s warning, don’t get lost, like telling her not to cross the street without holding someone’s hand, or not to touch the stove when it was hot, but Charlie took it more seriously. She knew from her storybooks, as all children did, that the woods contained wolves, and more dangerous things. She caught John’s sleeve.

“Don’t,” she said, and he pulled back from the woods, not asking why. Instead, he went to a tree in the middle of the yard, and put a hand on it.

“Remember that tree?” He grinned, something a little wicked in his voice.

“Of course,” Charlie said, walking over. “It’s been here longer than I ever was.” But he was looking at her, waiting for more, and suddenly she remembered.

It had been a sunny day, springtime; they were six years old, maybe. John was visiting, and they were playing hide-and-seek, half-supervised by Charlie’s father, who was in his garage workshop, absorbed in his machines. The door was open and he would notice if someone screamed, but short of that, the outdoors was their own. John counted to ten, eyes covered, facing the tree that was home base. The yard was wide and open, there were not many places to hide, and so Charlie, buoyed up by the excitement of the game, dared to hide beyond the forbidden edge of the woods, just barely past the tree line. John searched the other places first: behind her father’s car, in the corner where one part of the garage jutted out, the space beneath the porch where a child could just barely crawl. He realized where she must be, and Charlie braced herself to run as he began to walk the edges of the yard, darting into the woods and out again, looking behind trees. When at last he found her she took off, tearing across the lawn to the home-base tree. He was just behind her, so close he could almost touch her, and she sped on, staying just out of reach. She hit the tree, almost slamming into it, and John was right behind her, bumping into her a second later, too fast to stop. They were both giggling hysterically and then they stopped at the same moment, still gasping to catch their breath.