Five Nights at Freddy's: The Silver Eyes(7)

“Uh, oh,” John pointed, and Charlie saw Jessica and Carlton hesitating in the doorway to the diner. She waved them over, and they came.

“Remember that time at Freddy’s when the merry-go-round got stuck and Marla and that mean kid Billy had to keep riding it until their parents plucked them off?” Charlie said.

John laughed, and a smile broke out across Charlie’s face.

“Their faces were bright red, crying like babies.” She covered her face, guilty that it was so funny to her.

There was a brief, surprised silence, then Carlton started laughing.

“Then Marla puked all over him!”

“Sweet justice!” Charlie said.

“Actually, I think it was nachos,” John added.

Jessica wrinkled her nose. “So gross. I never rode it again, not after that.”

“Oh, come on, Jessica, they cleaned it,” said Carlton. “I’m pretty sure kids puked all over that place; those wet floor signs weren’t there for nothing. Right, Charlie?”

“Don’t look at me,” she said, “I never puked.”

“We used to spend so much time there, privileges of knowing the owner’s daughter.” Jessica said, looking at Charlie with mock accusation.

“I couldn’t help who my dad was!” Charlie said, laughing.

Jessica looked thoughtful for a moment then continued.

“I mean, how could you have a better childhood than spending all day at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza?” She said.

“I dunno,” said Carlton, “I think that music got to me over the years.” He hummed a few bars of the familiar song and Charlie dipped her head to it, recalling the tune.

“I loved those animals so much,” Jessica said suddenly. “What’s the proper term for them? Animals, robots, mascots?”

“I think those are all accurate.” Charlie leaned back.

“Well anyway, I used to go and talk to the bunny, what was his name?”

“Bonnie,” Charlie said.

“Yeah,” said Jessica. “I used to complain to him about my parents. I always thought he had an understanding look about him.”

Carlton laughed. “Animatronic therapy! Recommended by six out of seven crazy people.”

“Shut up,” Jessica retorted. “I knew he wasn’t real, I just liked talking to him.”

Charlie smiled a little. “I remember that,” she said. Jessica in her prim little dresses, her brown hair in two tight braids like a little kid out of an old book, walking up to the stage when the show was over, whispering earnestly to the life-size animatronic rabbit. If anyone came up beside her she went instantly silent and still, waiting for them to go away so she could resume her one-sided conversations. Charlie had never talked to the animals at her father’s restaurant, or felt close to them like some kids seemed to; although she liked them, they belonged to the public. She had her own toys, mechanical friends waiting for her at home that belonged only to her.

“I liked Freddy,” said John. “He always seemed the most relatable.”

“You know, there are a lot of things about my childhood that I can’t remember, at all,” Carlton said, “but I swear I can close my eyes and see every last detail of that place. Even the gum I used to stick under the tables.”

“Gum? Yeah right, those were boogers.” Jessica took a tiny step away from Carlton.

He grinned. “I was seven, what do you want? You all picked on me back then, remember Marla wrote ‘Carlton smells like feet’ on the wall outside?”

“You did smell like feet,” Jessica laughed with a sudden outburst.

Carlton shrugged, unperturbed. “I used to try and hide when it was time to go home. I wanted to be stuck in there overnight so I could have the whole place to myself.”

“Yeah, you always kept everyone waiting,” said John, “and you always hid under the same table.”

Charlie spoke slowly, and when she did everyone turned to her, as though they had been waiting.

“Sometimes I feel like I remember every inch of it, like Carlton,” she said. “But sometimes it’s like I hardly remember it at all. It’s all in pieces. Like, I remember the carousel, and that time it got stuck. I remember drawing on the placemats. I remember little things: eating that greasy pizza, hugging Freddy in the summer, and his yellow fur getting stuck all over my clothes. But a lot of it is like pictures, like it happened to someone else.”

They were all looking at her oddly.

“Freddy was brown, right?” Jessica looked to the others for confirmation.

“I guess you really don’t remember it that well after all.” Carlton teased Charlie, and she laughed briefly.

“Right. I meant brown,” she said. Brown, Freddy was brown. Of course he was, she could see him in her mind now. But somewhere in the depths of her recall, there was a flash of something else.

Carlton launched into another story and Charlie tried to turn her attention to him, but there was something disturbing, worrisome, about that lapse in memory. It was ten years ago, it’s not like you’ve got dementia at 17, she told herself, but it was such a basic detail to have misremembered. Out of the corner of her eye she caught John looking at her, a pensive expression on his face, as though she had said something important.