Five Nights at Freddy's: The Silver Eyes(24)

Memory overtook her, and she closed her eyes, not fighting against it.

Her feet were wedged in the dirt, and two large and calloused hands covered her eyes. Suddenly there was a bright light, and Charlie squinted, squirming impatiently to see what was before her. Three complete and gleaming figures towered over her, motionless, the sun reflecting off every edge and contour: they were blinding to behold.

“What do you think?” She heard the question, but could not answer it: her eyes hadn’t adjusted. The three masses of standing metal all looked similar in structure, but Charlie had grown accustomed to seeing more than was there, imagining the final result. For a long time now, there had been three empty suits, hanging like carcasses from a rafter in the attic. Charlie knew that they had a special purpose, and now she understood what it was.

Two long beams protruded from the top of the head of one of the hulking masses. The head itself was solid and skull-like; the beams looked as if they had been violently thrust there.

“That’s the rabbit,” Charlie squealed, proud of herself.

“You aren’t scared of him?” The voice asked.

“Of course not. He looks like Theodore!”

“Theodore. That’s right.”

The figure in the middle was more clearly rendered: its face was chiseled, its features distinct. It was clearly a bear, and a single metal beam stuck out from the top of its head as well. Charlie was puzzled for a moment, then smiled. “For the top hat,” she said with confidence.

The last form was perhaps the most frightening: a long, metal clamp protruded from its empty face, in the place where a mouth might go. It was holding something on a platter, a metal structure that looked like a jaw, wires running like strewn spaghetti up and down the frame and in and out of sockets.

“That one’s scary,” she admitted hesitantly.

“Well, this part will look like a cupcake!” Her father pressed down on the top and the jaw snapped shut, making Charlie jump, then giggle.

Suddenly, her laughter stopped. She had been so distracted she’d forgotten. I’m not supposed to stand here, I don’t stand here! Her hands were trembling. How could she have forgotten? The corner. She looked at the ground, unable to lift her eyes, unable to move. One of her shoes was untied. There was a screw next to her foot and an old piece of tape, opaque with dirt. There was something behind her.

“Charlie?”

It was John.

“Charlie!”

She looked up at him.

“Sorry. Just lost. This place…” She stood, and took a step forward, positioning herself in the place she remembered. She glanced behind her, as if the memory might manifest. The corner was empty; there was nothing. She knelt again and put her hand on the ground, fishing around until she found a small screw in the bare dirt. She palmed it, then looked closer: there were small holes in the ground, exposed when she moved the loose dirt. Charlie ran her fingers over them, thoughtful.

“Charlie, I have to tell you something.” There was something urgent in John’s voice. Charlie looked around the workshop and stood up.

“Can we go outside?” She said. “I can’t breathe in here.”

“Yeah, of course,” he said. He followed her out into the yard and back to the hide-and-seek tree. She was tired, a wrung-out exhaustion deep inside. She would be fine in a minute, but she wanted a place that held only silly childhood memories. She sat down in the grass, leaned against the trunk, and waited for John to talk. He settled himself cross-legged in front of her, a little stiffly, smoothing his pants and she laughed.

“Are you worried about getting dirty?”

“Times change,” he said with a wry smile.

“What do you have to tell me?” She asked, and his face grew serious.

“I should have said something a long time ago,” he said. “I just—when something happens like that, you don’t trust your memory, don’t trust your own mind.”

“What are you talking about?” Charlie said.

“Sorry.” He took a deep breath. “I saw someone that night, the night Michael disappeared.”

“What do you mean?”

“Remember, we were sitting at the table by the stage, and the animals started going crazy?”

“I remember,” Charlie said. It had been bizarre, their movements upsetting. They were moving too fast, bending and spinning, cycling through their limited, programmed moves over and over. They seemed frantic, panicked. Charlie was mesmerized. She should have been afraid of them, but she was not; she saw, in their juddering motion, a kind of desperation. She was reminded, for a moment, of dreams of running, dreams when the world depended on her going just ten steps forward, yet her body could only move in slow motion. Something was wrong, terribly wrong. Chaotically, violently, the animatronic animals on stage thrashed robotic limbs in all directions, their eyes rolling in their sockets.

“What did you see?” Charlie said to John now, shaking her head as though she could rid it of the image.

“There was another mascot,” he said. “A bear.”

“Freddy.” Charlie interrupted without thinking.

“No, not Freddy.” John took her hands as if trying to calm them both, but let go before he spoke again. “It was standing right near us, next to our table, but it wasn’t looking at the stage like everyone else was. That technician came over, remember, and even he was just watching the animatronics, I guess he was trying to figure out what was happening. I looked over at the mascot, and it looked back at me…” He stopped.