Five Nights at Freddy's: The Silver Eyes(45)

“Lamar! Something’s wrong!” Jessica cried.

Bonnie’s foot jerked upward with a sound like a gunshot, yanking free the bolt that anchored him to the stage.

“Lamar!” Carlton climbed onto the stage and hurried to Bonnie, trying to search the rabbit for an off button as he ducked its erratic swings.

“Carlton get down, you idiot!” Jessica ran to the stage.

Bonnie was moving too fast, out of control as if his program had hit a glitch. He was no longer following the dance sequence they all remembered so well. He began to convulse and thrash. Carlton scrambled back, trying to get away, but Bonnie’s arm broke away from the guitar, swinging out and hitting Carlton across the chest, knocking him off the stage; he landed on his back and stayed down, gasping for breath.

“Lamar!” Jessica shouted, “Lamar, turn it off!”

“I don’t know how!” He yelled back.

Jessica knelt down beside Carlton, looking helplessly at him. She tapped his shoulder insistently.

“Carlton, are you okay? Carlton? Look at me!”

Carlton gave a small laugh that sounded more like a cough, then grabbed her hand and pulled himself up to sit.

“It’s okay,” he said. “Just got the wind knocked out of me.” Jessica still looked worried. “I just need a minute,” he assured her, the words still coming in little wheezes.

In the control room, Lamar pressed button after button frantically, but on the screens he could still see Bonnie moving wildly and at random, not responding to anything he did. Charlie rushed in, pushing him out of the way, but it took her only seconds to see that the buttons were powerless. She locked eyes with Lamar for a moment. We aren’t in control. she thought. As one, they rushed from the control room to help the others.

Jessica screamed, a short high-pitched sound, and Marla and John ran to her, Charlie and Lamar arriving seconds later. All the animals were moving now, in that same, fitful way, cycling through their programmed movements at random, but with a desperate, panicked air. The lights began to pulse, flickering rapidly on and off. The stage lights did the same, the colors appearing and disappearing so that the whole space was washed first in bright gold, then a sickly green, then a bruised and vicious purple. They blinked like strobes, and the effect was nauseating. The speakers blared brief bursts of static, cutting in and out like the lights, and beneath the static was the same sound as they had heard the night before, the growling of a voice too low to be human, to indistinct to be speaking words.

The group came together cautiously, not quite trusting their own senses: the lights throbbed savagely, and as Charlie walked toward her friends, she could not be sure how far away they were, or what was right in front of her. They huddled in the middle of the floor, staring at the animals as they rattled and rocked as if with their own agenda. Carlton got to his feet, and Jessica watched him with concern, but he waved her off.

“I told you, I’m fine,” he said, shouting to be heard over the intermittent noise.

Charlie stood fixed in place, unable to take her eyes off the animals. They’re trying to get away, she thought. It was a child’s thought, and she tried to dismiss it, but it clung as she watched them, scarcely noticing the fitful flickering of the lights and sound. The animatronic creatures didn’t look like they were glitching; their movement seemed not mechanical but hysterical, like there was something they needed desperately to do, but, horribly, could not.

“Where’s Dave?” John said suddenly. Charlie met his eyes with a rising dread. Oh, no. They all looked around, but the guard was nowhere in sight.

“We have to find him,” Charlie said.

“He probably left already; who cares?” Marla said, her voice high and frightened.

“I’m not worried about him,” she said grimly. She turned to John. “Come on,” she said, setting off toward the hallway to the right of the stage. He glanced at the rest of the group over his shoulder, then followed Charlie at a brisk pace.

“We should find the other control room and see if we can stop all this from there,” Jessica said crisply, taking charge. “You and Jason go look for Dave,” she told Marla.

“I’ll go with them,” Lamar said quickly.

“Control room?” Carlton said, looking at Jessica.

“Control room,” she confirmed. They all set off, moving slowly. The strobing lights distorted the space in front of them, seeming to throw up obstacles that were not there, obscuring the ones that were. The effect was disorienting, a constantly shifting maze of light and noise.

“Ow!” Marla shouted, and everyone stopped short.

“Are you okay?” Carlton yelled.

“Yeah, I just bumped into this stupid merry-go-round,” she called back. The speakers were momentarily noiseless, but they shouted across the small distance as if there were a canyon between them.



In another hallway, Dave was moving toward a goal. Without the others there to watch, he moved fast, scuttling almost sideways and darting his eyes back over his hunched shoulders from time to time to see he was not followed. There was a large key ring at the belt of his uniform, but only a few keys hung from it. He selected one, opened a door, and let himself into the restaurant’s office. He closed the door quickly behind him, cushioning it against noise even though the group would never hear it this far away, or note it between their own shouts and the blaring of the speakers. He turned on the overhead light, and it was steady, illuminating the room without a flicker. On the far wall there was a tall closet flat against the wall, and he used another key on his ring to open it. Dave stood in the open door, still for a long moment, breathing deeply. As he did, his back straightened and his hollow chest seemed to expand, as if what he saw lent him an uncharacteristic confidence. An odd, thin smile on his lips, Dave reached out with his fingertips, savoring the moment, and brushed yellow fur.