Five Nights at Freddy's: The Silver Eyes(57)

He reached the end of the hall, where a door was standing ajar.

With one hand Dunn gave the door an inward push, dropping low and to the side as he did. The door swung in, and nothing happened. He pulled the nightstick from his belt; its heft was unfamiliar—he had never had much need for it in Hurricane. Now, though, he gripped its hard rubber handle like a lifeline.

The office was not quite empty: there was a small desk, and a metal chair was folded up, and leaning against it. A large cabinet stood against one wall, its door open just a crack. There were no exits, other than the one Dunn himself was standing in. He swept the light up and down the length of the cabinet, and took a deep breath. He bounced his nightstick lightly in his hand, reassuring himself of its presence, and carefully assessed the small space. Standing to the side, he used the stick to open the door, moving slowly. It came open easily, and again, everything was still. Relieved, Dunn looked inside: the cabinet was empty, except for a costume.

It was Bonnie, or, rather it wasn’t. The face was the same, but the rabbit’s fur was yellow. It was slumped lifelessly against the back wall of the cabinet, its eyes dark, gaping holes. The rabbit took him. The kid hadn’t been lying, then; Carlton must have gotten someone to dress up in this outfit, and help him play his trick. Still, Dunn’s unease did not abate; he did not want to touch the thing. He lowered his light, and stuck his nightstick back in his belt, intending to go.

Before he could turn, the costume pitched forward, landing on Dunn with the lifeless weight of a heavy corpse. For a moment it did not move, then all at once it was writhing violently, grabbing at him with strong, inhuman hands. Dunn screamed, a desperate, high sound, struggling as the rabbit gripped his shirt, then his arm. Dunn felt a sudden, vicious pain in his arm, and a small, detached part of his mind thought, he broke it, he broke my arm. But the pain was washed numb by terror, as the rabbit swung him around and slammed him into the cabinet door, taking Dunn’s weight as easily as if he were a child. Dunn struggled to breathe; the rabbit’s arm was pressed against his neck so tightly that every movement choked him. Just when he thought he was on the brink of passing out, the pressure lifted, and Dunn gasped with relief, clutching his throat. Then he saw the knife.

The rabbit was holding a slim, silver blade. His big, matted paws should have been too clumsy, but Dunn knew as he stared down at it that he had done this before, and would easily do it again. Dunn screamed again, an indistinct shriek. He had no hope that he would be heard; it was only a guttural, despairing noise. He breathed deep and did it again, a bestial sound, his whole body vibrating with it, as if this could somehow be defense against what happened next.

The knife went in. Dunn felt it tear through skin, through muscle, felt it sever things he could not name and plant itself deep in his chest. As he seized with pain and terror, the rabbit pulled him close, almost in an embrace. Dunn’s head went light; he was losing consciousness, and as he looked up, he could see two rows of smiling teeth, horrid and yellow, the costume peeling at the edges of the mouth. The two gaping holes for eyes were looking down at him. They were dark and hollow, but the creature drew near enough so that Dunn could see smaller eyes peering back at him from deep within the mask. He held Dunn’s gaze patiently. Dunn felt his legs go numb; his vision clouding. He wanted to scream again, to somehow voice his final outrage, but he could not move his face, could not raise the breath to cry out. The rabbit held him upright, supporting his weight, and his eyes were the last thing Dunn ever saw.



Charlie unlocked the front door to her old house and looked back down the front steps.

“You coming?”

John was still standing on the bottom step, staring up at the house. He shivered a little, then hurried to join her.

“Sorry,” he said sheepishly. “I just had a weird feeling for a second.” Charlie laughed without much humor.

“Just for a second?”

They went inside, and John stopped again, looking around the front room like he had just stepped into a sacred place, somewhere that merited a humbling pause. Charlie bit her tongue, trying not to be impatient. It was how she had felt as well; she might have felt that way now if she were not overwhelmed by a sense of urgency, the feeling that the answer to everything, the answer to how to get Carlton back, must be somewhere in this place. Where else could it possibly be?

“John,” she said. “It’s okay, come on.”

He nodded, and followed her up the stairs to the second floor. He stopped again briefly, halfway up, and Charlie saw his eyes fixed on the dark stain that marred the wood floor of the living room.

“Is—” he began to say, and swallowed it, then started over. “Is Stanley still there?”

Charlie pretended not to notice the lapse.

“You remember his name!” She said instead, and grinned. John shrugged.

“Who doesn’t love a mechanical unicorn?”

“Yeah, he’s still there. All the toys still work, come on.” They hurried the rest of the way to her room.

John knelt down beside the unicorn and pressed the button that set him on his track, watching raptly as he made his squeaky way around the room. Charlie hid a smile behind her hand. John was watching intently, his face serious as if something very important were happening. For a moment he looked just like he had so many years ago, his hair falling into his face, his whole attention fixed on Stanley as if nothing in the world were more important than this robotic creature.