Five Nights at Freddy's: The Silver Eyes(43)

Charlie went back to the control room, but did not go beyond the door.

“How did you do that?” She snapped, not caring if it was rude. Dave raised his hands in the air.

“Beginner’s luck,” he said. “I just pressed some buttons.”

“Right,” Charlie said. She rubbed her temples. “Can someone please turn the speakers off?”

Lamar darted forward and flipped a switch, and the sound died. Despite the silence, Charlie felt as if she could still hear it, whining away inside her head. She closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them Jessica and Lamar had gone back to working the controls, but there was a caution to their movements, and they glanced at one another every few seconds, as if seeking reassurance. Charlie looked at John. His arms were folded across his chest, and his eyes were trained on the back of Dave’s head.



In the arcade, Carlton pressed some random buttons on a game console, knowing nothing would happen, then turned around, finding himself the subject of an eleven-year-old’s resentful stare.

“What?” He said.

“I’m not a baby,” Jason said. “You don’t have to watch me.”

“What? Jason, I’m not watching you, I’m just hanging out with you. I’m not Marla. Go stick your tongue in an electric socket for all I care.” He waggled his eyebrows comically, and Jason laughed.

“Okay, then, maybe I will.” he said. He scanned the baseboards for a socket, briefly considering calling Carlton’s bluff, but when he glanced back, Carlton had already wandered off. Jason bit his lip and rocked on his heels, feeling foolish. After a moment, he went back to the drawings on the wall. There were too many drawings to peruse each one in turn, but Jason suspected he would not need to. As they had the night before, the drawings would come to him. They wanted to be found. All Jason had to do was look.

The drawings in the arcade gave up nothing: they were just children’s grubby art, faded with age, and so he went back out into the dining room, still hugging the walls and scanning them, hunting for something that was more than crayon.

“What’re you up to, Jason?” Lamar was suddenly behind him. Jason turned around and studied him for a moment, considering. He liked Lamar, even if his friendliness could be traced easily to his interest in Marla. Lamar had bent down so his head was almost level with Jason’s, and Jason leaned toward him and whispered:

“The drawings are moving.”

Lamar drew back, and for a moment a look of real alarm crossed his face, but it was fleeting. Jason bit his lip, waiting, and Lamar grinned at him, then reached out to pat him on the head.

“Ok, Jason. We’ll get you the help you need.” He said heartily, and Jason laughed and slapped Lamar’s hand away.

“Shut up, seriously,” Jason said with a hint of sheepishness, and Lamar patted his head again and headed off. As soon as the Lamar was a few feet away, Jason rolled his eyes. What do you think I am, your pet? He gave his hair a violent tussle as if he could shake loose whatever Lamar had done to him, then went back to the wall, concentrating.

He had made his way all the way along one wall, and was turning the corner, when it happened: a flicker, just out of the corner of his eye, almost a shimmering. He stopped. Which one was it? He scanned the drawings again, going up and down the wall carefully, around the place he thought he had seen movement, but there was nothing. He started over, stopping to look at each crayon scribble, and then it happened again. He seized on it this time, his eye finding the drawing just as the shimmer of movement stopped, and just as he did, he saw another, so brief he would have ignored it, just a trick of the light, had he not been watching for it. It was above the first, and maybe two feet to the left; his eyes darted back and forth, trying to see both at once. Suddenly, there was a third movement in a drawing between the two, this one more noticeable. This time he almost, almost saw the drawing shift before it was still again. Sitting back on his heels, Jason looked at the three drawings, each in turn. The crayon was black, and they all looked like they had been drawn by the same kid, all with two figures in the foreground: a child, and a rabbit.

Jason glanced around the room. His sister and the others still seemed to be engaged by the stage; Lamar had gone back to join them. Jason pulled the drawing he had found the night before from his pocket. He smoothed it out, pressing it to the surface of the floor, then, slowly, he peeled its linty tape out flat and stuck the paper to the wall just at his eye level. He stared at the wall, waiting.

Nothing happened.

Jason frowned. He had been so certain these would tell him something, but they were just drawings; the child and the bunny stood in the middle of the paper, in one close together, in another far apart. But there was nothing there that could be called a story. Oh well. He started to look over at the others again—and the highest one began to move.

This time he saw the shift: the crayon lines twisted and slid on the page, moving of their own accord, too fast to follow. When the first stopped moving, another started, they continued one after the other until the last, the one he had just put back, was finished. Jason watched, eyes wide, his heart pounding, but by the time he realized what was happening, it was over. The figures were fixed in place, and now they did tell a story. In the first, a child was sitting alone. In the second, Bonnie appeared behind the child. In the next, Bonnie had snatched the child, lifting it off the ground.