Five Nights at Freddy's: The Silver Eyes(51)

“I’m especially surprised at you, Charlie,” Clay said quietly.

Charlie blushed, shame rising up in her with the flush of heat. She wanted to protest, to explain herself, to say anything that might soften the eyes that seemed to bore into her skull. Instead she ducked her head, and muttered an indistinct apology.

Lamar broke the silence.

“Mr. Burke—Clay—did they ever find out who did it? I thought they arrested somebody.”

Clay didn’t respond for a long moment. He was still looking at Charlie, and she felt as if he were trying to tell her something, or else read something in her face.

“Clay?” Marla said, and he seemed to come back to himself. He looked around the group, his expression dark.

“Yes,” he said quietly. “We did arrest someone. I did, in fact, and I am as sure now that he was guilty as I was then.”

“So, what happened?” Lamar asked. There was a hush among the group, as if something very important were about to happen.

“There were no bodies,” Clay Burke said. “We knew it was him; there was no doubt in my mind. But the children had disappeared, they were never found, and without their bodies...” He stopped talking, staring off into the middle distance as if scarcely aware that they were there.

“But kidnapping,” Charlie said. “They disappeared!” She was suddenly furious, appalled at the obvious injustice. “How can this man be walking around somewhere? What if he does it again?” She felt Marla’s hand on her arm, and she nodded, settling back, trying to calm down. But the anger was still there inside, seething under the surface of her skin. Clay was looking at her with something like curiosity in his eyes.

“Charlie,” he said, “justice penalizes the guilty, but it must also protect the innocent. It means that sometimes the guilty get away with terrible things, but it is the price we pay.” He sounded grave, his words weighty. Charlie opened her mouth to argue. But this was my price, she wanted to say, but before she spoke she looked at his face. He had a grim conviction about him; what Carlton’s father was saying mattered very much to him, and he believed it utterly. It’s how you sleep at night, she thought with an uncharacteristic bitterness. They locked eyes for a long moment, then Charlie sighed, and nodded, giving up the challenge. Intellectually, she didn’t even disagree with him. Clay sat up suddenly in his chair.

“So,” he said brightly. “I think it’s a bit too late for you girls to be driving back to that motel. Why don’t you spend the night here? We have two more guest rooms. And you can scold Carlton for his little prank in the morning,” he added with a grin.

Lamar and John showed Charlie, Marla and Jessica up to the bedrooms, and Jason reemerged as they headed up the stairs, joining the group as if he had never been gone.

“So, Jason and I will take one,” Marla said, “and Jessica, you and Charlie can have the other.”

“I want to stay with Lamar,” Jason said instantly, and Lamar grinned widely before he could help himself.

“Yeah, okay,” he said. He glanced at Marla, over her brother’s head, and she shrugged.

“Take him,” she said. “Keep him if you want! So, that means someone gets her own room,” she went on, “or we could all stay together. I know everything is fine, but I kind of feel like we should stay together.” She was voicing Charlie’s precise thoughts from only a little while before, but now, Charlie jumped in.

“I’ll take the other room,” she said.

Marla gave her a dubious look, and even John looked a little surprised, but Charlie just looked at them and said nothing.

When the door closed behind her, Charlie sighed with relief. She went to the window; it was as she imagined, nothing in view but the trees. It was as if the house were completely isolated, though she knew that the driveway, and the road, were just on the other side. From outside she could hear nocturnal birds, and the rustling of other, larger creatures on the ground below. She felt suddenly restless, wide awake. Looking out the window, she almost wanted to go outside, to slip into the woods, and see what they concealed. She looked at her watch. It was long past midnight; and with reluctance she took off her shoes, and lay down on the bed.

It was, like everything else in Carlton’s house, well-worn, the kind of furniture only owned by people who have been wealthy for generations, whose ancestors could afford things of such high quality that they last for a hundred years. Charlie closed her eyes, in what she assumed would be a futile effort to find rest, but as she lay there, listening to the sound of the woods, and of Jessica and Marla gossiping and laughing in the next room, she felt as if she were sinking into the mattress. Her breath deepened, and she was soon asleep.

She woke suddenly, startled from sleep. She was a little girl again, and her father was asleep in the next room. It was summer, and the windows were all open; it had started to rain, and the wind rushed into the room in great gusts, blowing her bedroom curtains in a frenetic dance and ushering in a fine mist. But that was not why she awoke. There was something in the air, something unshakeable that gripped her: something was very wrong.

Charlie climbed out of bed, lowering herself carefully onto the floor. Beside her bed, Stanley the unicorn stood, patient and deactivated, staring at her with lifeless eyes. She patted his nose, as if giving him comfort might bring it to her as well. Quietly, she snuck past him and out into the hallway, uncertain what compelled her. She crept down the hallway, past her father’s room to the stairs, and ducked down beside the wooden bannister, as if its open slats could protect her from anything at all. She held fast to it as she made her way down the staircase, letting the rail take her weight as she avoided the boards that creaked. One by one she took the steps; it felt like ages, like years might pass before she reached the bottom, and when she arrived she might be an old woman, her whole life spun out in the descent of these stairs.