Five Nights at Freddy's: The Silver Eyes(41)

“What about you two?” Jessica asked, looking at Charlie and John.

“Yeah, what about you two?” Marla echoed with a twinkle in her eye.

“We just went for a drive,” John said quickly. “Got lost for a while.”

“I bet you did,” Carlton muttered into his burger, grinning slyly even though his mouth was full.



After dinner, the group hurried through the mall and toward the restaurant, hushed and cautious. As they passed through the atrium, their shoes made only soft sounds on the tiled floor, and no one spoke. Charlie had left the big flashlight in the car. They knew their way well enough by now, and the guard had almost seen them the night before; there was no reason to risk drawing extra attention. They came to the end of the hall, and Lamar, at the front of the group, stopped short. Charlie bumped into Marla before she realized what was happening, and she murmured an apology, then froze.

The night guard was blocking the alley behind Freddy’s, his arms folded across his chest. He had no flashlight, and so he had been invisible, hidden in the darkness until they were almost upon him.

“I had a feeling you wouldn’t leave it alone,” he said with an odd, uneven smile.

Marla whispered something unpleasant under her breath.

“I could have you arrested for trespassing,” he said. “Saw you here last night, but I couldn’t see where you got to; I guess now I know,” he added with a smirk.

There was something almost immediately off-putting about the man. He was tall and slightly too thin for his uniform, which bagged at the shoulders and waist, as if he had once been a more robust man, but lost his form somehow to illness or tragedy; his nametag, reading “Dave” hung askew on his chest. His skin was sallow and his eyes undercut by heavy lines, adding to the impression of longstanding ill health.

“What were you all doing back here, anyway?” He demanded. “You kids partying? Drugs? I could have you arrested right now, you know.” Charlie and John glanced at each other.

“We’re sorry,” Lamar said quickly. “We’ll go. We don’t have any drugs.”

“Says who? Says you?” The guard wore an odd expression and his were harsh and fast; he seemed not to be responding to what they were saying. He looked angry, but his mouth kept quirking up at the corners, like he was trying not to smile.

“What do we do?” Jessica whispered.

“Probably the most action he’s ever had out here,” Carlton said with a hint of disdain, and Charlie remembered suddenly that Carlton’s father was a cop. She remembered him in his uniform, tilting down his dark sunglasses at them with a mock-glare, then smiling, revealing the joke. The guard, however, looked like he meant it.

“We’ll go,” Lamar said again. “Sorry.”

Charlie looked at the man, considering him; the ill-fitting uniform, his peaky, almost exhausted-looking features. He really could kick them off the property or even have them arrested for trespassing, but still, she could not really fear him. His inadequacy shone through him like a kind of negative charisma. He would always be shoved to the back of a crowd; always shouted down in an argument; always picked last, forgotten, ignored in favor of those who were simply more vital, more vigorously attached to life. Charlie frowned at herself. It was an unusual train of thought for her—she did not usually assume she could read the lives of strangers through the lines on their faces. But it gave her an idea.

“Why don’t you come with us?” She said. “We just want to explore a little bit more, then we’ll leave. You know your way around better than any of us,” she added, hoping that some of the flattery would stick.

“And then we’ll never come back again,” Carlton said. The guard did not immediately dismiss the idea, and the others quickly chimed in with their own assurances. The guard peered at them one by one, fixing his gaze on each in turn. When he looked at Charlie she looked away, not wanting to meet his eyes, as if she would be giving something away if she let him look too deeply. Once he had inspected them to his satisfaction, he nodded.

“Sure,” he said. “Only because I’ve always wanted to take a walk in there myself.” He jerked a thumb behind him, and, catching the surprise that must have shown on their faces, added: “I’m not an idiot, I’ve been working here for years, walked this building inside and out every night. You think I don’t know what’s back there?” Charlie felt herself flush; she had somehow assumed their discovery was unique. The guard looked down at his nametag suddenly, then pointed to it. “Name’s Dave,” he said.

“I’m Jason,” Jason said, and, a little warily, the others recited their own names in turn. They stood there, looking at one another awkwardly for a moment, no one wanting to be the first to move, then Jessica shrugged.

“Come on,” she said. She walked quickly to the scaffolding that hid the alley to Freddy’s and pulled back the plastic, revealing the break in the wall, and they all filed through, squeezing past the piled boxes. Dave hung back politely, letting them all go first. He motioned to Charlie to go ahead.

I don’t want you behind me, Charlie thought. She looked at Jessica, who wasn’t moving either.

“Please, go ahead,” Charlie said with an edge in her voice, and Dave ducked his head shyly and went. Charlie followed him and Jessica tucked the plastic carefully back where it was, concealing their passing even though there was no one left to catch them. As they made their way down the dank alley, Charlie touched her fingers to the brick wall, dragging her hand along it as if to guide her. The flashlights seemed a little dimmer, now, though she knew it could only be her imagination.