Five Nights at Freddy's: The Silver Eyes(37)

“We could have missed something,” John said. He slowed the car, looking for a spot to make a U-turn. “We missed a lot back there, maybe it’s down one of those dirt roads.”

Charlie laughed.

“Really? You think we missed a lot?” She grew thoughtful. “No, none of this feels right. Nothing rings a bell.” She felt a tear spill onto her cheek, and she swiped it away before John could notice.



“Ok, no worries.” Charlie said abruptly, pulling herself back from reverie. “Let’s grab a bite, just you and me.” John smiled, still checking his mirrors for a place to turn. Charlie shivered, then something caught her eye, and she almost jumped in her seat, sitting straight up.

“STOP!” She shouted. John slammed on the breaks and the car skidded, dust billowing up all around the car. When they stopped, Charlie sat silently as John checked the rearview again, his heart racing.

“Are you okay?” He said, but Charlie was already out of the car.

“Hey!” He called after her, scrambling out of his seatbelt and rushing to lock the car behind him. Charlie was running back toward the town, but her eyes were on the field beside the road. He caught up quickly, trotting along beside her without asking questions. After a few minutes Charlie slowed and began shuffling her feet on the ground, peering down as though she had lost something small and valuable in the dirt.

“Charlie?” John said. Until this moment he had not thought about what it was they were doing. It was an adventure, a chance to be alone with Charlie, to run off after a clue, but now she was starting to worry him, He brushed his hair back from his face. “Charlie?” He said again, his voice touched with concern, but Charlie did not look at him; she was intent on whatever she had found.

“Right here,” she said. She made a sharp turn toward the edge of the road where something protruded and snaked across the ground. John knelt carefully, brushing some of the loose dirt with his hand and exposing a flat metal beam. He kept going, uncovering a track that stretched across the road and went off into the field in both directions. It took him a moment to speak; it was as though the earth itself had tried to conceal it from them. Be careful, he thought with a minor pang of alarm, but he brushed aside the feeling. “I think we found your tracks,” he said, looking up at Charlie, but she was nowhere in sight. “Charlie?” He took a quick look up and down the road, but there were no cars. “Charlie!” He called again, waving the dust away from his face and racing to catch up. When he reached her he hung back a little, afraid to disturb her intense focus.

There was a cluster of trees up ahead, gathered together as though around a campfire, tall and short, and thick and scraggly. Charlie dragged her foot along the track as she walked, as if it might vanish if she ceased to touch it.

“What is that, an old station?” John asked, squinting and blocking the sun with his hand. There was a long building nestled in the trees, its color blending in with the small grove, making it difficult to spot.

The tracks veered away, heading off toward the mountains, and Charlie stopped dragging her foot along them, letting them go. John finally caught up and they walked through the dry grass together toward the grove of trees, not far away now.

“There has to be a road.” Charlie strayed almost randomly, heading away from the building. John hesitated.

“But…” He gestured toward the building, then followed her, looking back to make sure he knew the way back to the car. Before long, the ground leveled out beneath their feet. Old pavement, broken with weeds and mounds of crumbling rock stretched across the field in a narrow, almost hidden path, leading once again toward the small building.

“This is it.” Charlie said softly. John approached her carefully then stood at her side. They walked the road together, dodging around the pillars of grass that shot up from the breaks and holes. The tree was there, the one with reaching arms and a ghastly face, but it was no longer frightening, no longer as Charlie remembered. It must have already been dead when she was a child, she realized. Its limbs had fallen off, leaving jagged holes where they had been, and they lay where they fell, rotting into the ground. The tree seemed a frail and weak shade of its former self, only recognizable by the stumps and bulges on its side that had made its face. Now even the face looked tired.

The building itself was long and dilapidated. It was a single story, with a dark roof and weather-beaten walls. The place had once been painted red, but time and sun and rain had won out over the paint; it was peeled and curling, whole long strips of it gone and the wood beneath showing, dark with what might be rot. Its foundation was overgrown with tall grass, and Charlie thought it looked as if it were sinking, as though the whole structure were slowly being swallowed by the earth. Charlie grabbed John’s arm as they neared it, then let it go and straightened her back. She felt as though she were preparing for a fight, as if the building itself might attack if it sensed weakness.

Charlie went warily up the few steps to the door, sticking to the edges and testing the wood before she let down her full weight. The stairs held, but there were soft, splintered patches in the middle she would not have liked to try. John didn’t follow her right away, sidetracked by something nearly hidden in the grass.

“Charlie,” he held it up: a battered metal sign, with the painted words: “Fredbear’s Family Diner” in red script.

Charlie gave a gentle smile. Of course this is it. I’m home.