Five Nights at Freddy's: The Silver Eyes(64)
It had occurred to Carlton years before, that there were two types of nasty people. There were the obvious ones, like his sixth-grade English teacher who yelled and threw erasers, or the kid in fifth grade who picked fights with smaller children after school. That type was easy, their offenses public and brutal, but undeniable. But then there was the other kind of petty tyrant, those who grew spiteful with their small scraps of power, feeling more and more abused by the year—by family who did not appreciate them, by neighbors who slighted them in imperceptible ways, by a world that left them, somehow, lacking something essential.
Before him stood someone who had spent so much of his life fighting like a cornered rat that he had taken on the mantle of bitter sadism as an integral part of himself. He would strike out against others and revel in their pain, feeling righteously that the world owed him his cruel pleasures. The guard’s face, with its malevolent delight in Carlton’s pain and fear, was one of the most terrifying things he had ever seen. He opened and closed his mouth, then, valiantly, found his voice.
“What kind of a name for a serial killer is Dave?” He said. It came out as a trembling croak, lacking even the echo of bravado. Dave did not seem to hear him.
“I told you not to move, Carlton,” he said calmly. He set the rabbit’s head down on a plastic crate of some sort and began fiddling with the fastenings at the back of his neck. “It’s not an order, it’s a friendly warning. Do you know what I’ve put you inside?”
“Your girlfriend?” Carlton said, and Dave’s face made a thin curve of a smile.
“You’re amusing,” he said with distaste. “But no. You’re not wearing a costume, Carlton, not precisely. You see, these suits were designed for two purposes: to be worn by men like me,” he gestured fluidly toward himself, with something that might have been pride, “and to be used as working animatronics, like the ones you see on the stage. Do you understand?”
Carlton nodded, or began to, but Dave’s raised eyebrow stopped him.
“I said don’t move,” he said. The neck of his costume came open, and he began to undo a second fastening at his back as he talked. “You see, all of the animatronic parts in that suit are still in it; they are simply held back by spring locks, like this.”
Dave went to the pile of costumes and selected one, bringing the fuzzy green top, headless, over to Carlton, He held out the costume, waggling two twisted pieces of metal that were attached to the sides of the neck.
“These are spring locks,” he said, and brought the piece of metal so close to Carlton’s face he almost could not focus his eyes on it. “Watch.” He did something, touched some piece of the lock so imperceptibly that Carlton could not see what he had done, and it snapped shut with a sound like a backfiring car. Carlton stiffened, suddenly taking the order not to move deathly seriously.
“You can trip these spring locks very, very easily,” Dave went on. “It takes almost no movement at all. That’s a very old costume, one of the first ones Henry made.”
“Henry?” Carlton said, trying to focus on what he was being told. He could still hear the snap, as if it had lodged in his head like a song, and kept repeating. I’m going to die, he thought for the first time since waking. This man will kill me, I will die, and then what? Will anyone even know? He set his jaw and met Dave’s eyes. “Who’s Henry?”
“Henry,” Dave repeated. “Your friend Charlie’s father.” He looked surprised. “Did you not know that he made this place?”
“Oh right, well,” Carlton said confusedly. “I just always thought of him as ‘Charlie’s Dad.’”
“Of course,” Dave said, the kind of polite murmur people made when they didn’t care. “Well, that’s one of his first suits,” he said, gesturing at Carton. “And if you trigger those spring locks, two things will happen: first the locks themselves will snap right into you, making deep cuts all over your body, and a split second later, all the animatronic parts, all that sharp steel and hard plastic will instantly be driven into your body. You will die, but it will be slow. You’ll feel your organs punctured, the suit will grow wet with your blood, and you will know you’re dying for long, long minutes. You’ll try to scream, but you will be unable to: your vocal cords will be severed, and your lungs will fill with your own blood until you drown in it.” There was a faraway look in his eyes, and Carlton knew with chilling certainty that Dave wasn’t predicting. He was reminiscing.
“How—” Carlton’s voice broke, and he tried again. “How do you know that?” He said, managing a raspy whisper. Dave met his eyes and smiled widely.
“How do you think?” He set the costume he was holding down, and reached up to undo the final piece of his own. It took time; Carlton watched for several minutes as Dave romanced whatever mechanisms lay under the collar. He took the costume top off with a flourish, and Carlton made an involuntary sound, a helpless and frightened mewl.
Dave had been shirtless under the costume, and now his bare chest was clearly visible even in the dim, flickering light. His skin was horribly scarred, with raised white lines that scored his flesh in a symmetrical pattern, each side of his body mirroring the other. Dave saw him looking and laughed, a sudden, happy sound. Carlton shivered at it. Dave raised his arms out from his body and turned slowly in a circle, giving Carlton ample time to see that the scars were everywhere, covering his back like a faint lace shirt, stretching to the waist of the rabbit pants as if they continued all the way down. On the back of his neck, where they were largest and most visible, two scars like parallel lines were etched from the nape of the neck all the way up to his scalp, disappearing into his hair. Carlton tried to swallow. His mouth was so dry he could not have spoken, even if there had been anything to say.