Five Nights at Freddy's: The Silver Eyes(55)

“Another one of his pranks,” he said. “He’ll be back home later, I’m sure.” Their eyes met, and something private passed between them. Betty broke away with a laugh that sounded a little forced.

“Oh, lord, what is it this time?” There was a moment’s pause. In the morning light, the story sounded insane, and Charlie had no idea where to begin. With a nervous clearing of his throat, Lamar started to explain.

“We, uh—we went up to the mall construction site, to go see what was left of Freddy Fazbear’s.”

At the name, Betty’s head jerked up, and she gave a quick nod.

“Go on,” she said, her voice suddenly cold and clipped.

Lamar explained, awkwardly, and Marla and Jason jumped in with details. After a few minutes, Carlton’s mother had a messy version of the truth. As she listened, her face hardened until it looked like plaster; she was a statue of herself. She shook her head as they finished, small rapid movements, and Charlie thought she looked as if she were not just trying to deny what they were saying, but to shake the knowledge entirely from her mind.

“You have to go get him, Clay, right now,” she demanded. “Send someone! How could you wait all night?”

She set her coffee on the table more forcefully than she should have, spilling a little, then went to the phone and started dialing.

“Who are you calling?” Clay said, alarmed.

“The police,” she snapped.

“I am the police!”

“Then why are you here, instead of finding my son?”

Clay opened and closed his mouth helplessly for a moment before finding his bearings.

“Betty, it’s just another joke, what is all this? Remember the frogs?”

She set the phone back on its hook, and turned to face him, her eyes smoldering. Charlie could suddenly see her standing righteous before a jury, wreaking the wrath of the law.

“Clay.” Her voice was low and steady, a dangerous calm. “How could you not wake me up? How could you not tell me this?”

“Betty! You were asleep, it’s just Carlton being Carlton. I didn’t want to disturb you.”

“Did you think I would be less disturbed when I woke up and found him missing?”

“I thought he would be back by now,” Clay protested.

“This is different,” she said with finality. “It’s Freddy’s.”

“I don’t understand Freddy’s? I know what happened there, what happened to those kids,” he retorted. “I don’t understand? For goodness’ sake, Betty, I saw Michael’s blood, streaked across the floor where he was dragged from—” he stopped, realizing too late that he was surrounded by the teenagers. He looked around at them, near panic, but his wife had not noticed, or, Charlie thought, she just did not care.

“Well, you didn’t see him,” Betty snapped. “Do you remember what you told Carlton? Be tough? Be brave, little soldier? So he was brave, he was a little soldier for you. He was shattered, Clay, he had lost his best friend, had Michael snatched away right in front of him. Let me tell you something, Chief, that boy has thought about Michael every single day of his life for the last ten years. I have seen him stage jokes so elaborate they deserve to be mounted as performance art pieces, but there is no way on earth that Carlton would desecrate Michael’s memory by making Freddy’s a joke. Call someone, right now.”

Clay looked slightly shocked, but he gathered himself quickly and left the room. Charlie heard a door slam shut behind him. Betty looked around at the teenagers, breathing hard as if she had been running.

“Everything is going to be fine,” she said tightly. “If he is trapped in there, we will get him out. What do you kids have planned for the day?” The question was inane, as if they were all going to hang out at the park, or go to a movie while Carlton might be in danger.

“We were supposed to leave today,” Marla said.

“Obviously we won’t,” Lamar said hastily, but Betty did not seem to be listening to them.

“I’ll have to call in to work,” she said distractedly, and went to the phone to make the call. Charlie looked at John, who jumped to the rescue.

“We were going to go to the library,” he said. “We had some things we wanted to investigate—research!” He blushed faintly when he said it, and Charlie knew why. It was absurd to be talking like this, about cases, and disappearances, and murder. But Marla was nodding.

“Yeah, we’ll all go,” she said, and Charlie’s heart sank. There was no reason she couldn’t just tell them all that she wanted to go back to her old house, just her and John. No one would be hurt. But that wasn’t the problem—even sharing the knowledge felt too much like exposure. Carlton’s mother hung up the phone, done with her call.

“I hate this,” she announced to the room in general, her careful, controlled voice almost shaking. “I hate this!” Charlie and the others jumped in unison, startled by the sudden outburst. “And now, like always, I get to sit here by myself hoping and praying that everyone will be ok.”

Charlie looked at Marla, who shrugged, helpless. Lamar cleared his throat nervously. “I think we’ll stick around for another day,” he said. There was a pause, then Marla and Jessica jumped in to help.

“Yeah traffic is crazy out there,” Jessica said, high-pitched and forced.