Five Nights at Freddy's: The Silver Eyes(83)

“They don’t remember,” Dave said. “They’ve forgotten. The dead do forget. All they know is that you are here, trying to take away their happiest day. You are intruders.” He lowered his voice to a hush. “You are grown-ups.”

They looked at one another.

“We’re not—” Jessica began.

“You’re close enough. Especially to a vengeful, confused, and frightened child. None of you will survive the night”

“And what makes you think they won’t kill you?” John said again, and Dave’s face took on something shining, almost beatific.

“Because I am one of them,” he said.





Chapter Twelve


They all stood staring at the man on the floor; Jessica took an involuntary step backward. Charlie was glued to the spot; she could not look away from him. Because I am one of them. As if he could tell what she was thinking, John stepped up beside her.

“Charlie, he’s insane,” he said quietly, and it was enough to break her away from that dreadful, ecstatic face. She turned to John.

“We have to get out,” she said. He nodded, turned back to the group, and gestured to the walkie-talkie in his hand.

“I’m going back to the control room,” he said. “These things are police radios, there has to be a way to get them to reach the outside. Maybe I can use the equipment in there to get a signal somehow.”

“I’ll go with you,” Charlie said instantly, and he shook his head.

“You have to stay with them,” he said, barely audible. Charlie looked over at Jessica and Carlton. He was right. Carlton needed someone with him, and Jessica—Jessica was holding it together, but she couldn’t be left alone, in charge of both their safety. Charlie nodded.

“Be careful,” she said.

He didn’t answer; instead he tucked the walkie-talkie into his belt, gave her a wink, and left.



Clay Burke was in his office, reviewing the week’s case files. There was not much; traffic violations, two petty thefts, and one confession to the murder of Abraham Lincoln. Clay shuffled through the papers and sighed. Shaking his head, he pulled open the bottom drawer of his desk and removed the file that had been plaguing him all morning.

Freddy’s. He closed his eyes, and he was there again, the cheerful family restaurant, its floor streaked with blood. After Michael disappeared, he had worked fourteen-hour days, sometimes sleeping in the station. Every time he came home, he went to look at Carlton, who was usually asleep. He wanted to grab his son and hold him close, never let him go. It could have been any of the children there that day; it was his blind, dumb luck that the killer had spared his own.

It was the first murder that the department had dealt with at the time. It was a 16-person department, usually charged with small thefts and noise complaints, and to be handed a gruesome murder made all of them feel a little like kids whose toy guns had suddenly turned real.

Clay opened the file, knowing what he would find. It was only a partial report; the rest of it was in a storage room in the basement. He scanned the familiar words, the bureaucratic language that tried, but failed to obscure the point: there had been no justice done. Sometimes the guilty get away with terrible things, but it is the price we pay. He had said that to Charlie. He cringed a little now, to realize how that must have sounded, for her of all people.

He picked up the phone, calling the front desk in a moment of urgency rather than walking the twenty feet to ask in person.

“Has Dunn reported back from Freddy’s?” He asked, before the officer on the other end could speak.

“No, sir,” she said, “I’ll—”

He hung up, not waiting for her to finish. Clay stared moodily, restlessly at the wall for a long moment, then he grabbed his coffee cup, and headed to the basement.

He didn’t have to search for the box of evidence from the Freddy’s disappearances; he had been here before. There was no one around, and so instead of taking it upstairs to his office, Clay sat down on the concrete floor, spreading papers and photographs around him. There were interviews, witness statements; reports from the on-scene officers, Clay included. He sifted through them aimlessly; he didn’t know what he was looking for. There was nothing new here.

There was nothing to find, really. They knew who did it. At first he had suspected Henry, just like so many others around town. It was a terrible thought, but it was a terrible crime; there was no solution that would not be shocking. He had not been the one to question Charlie’s father, but he had read the transcript. The man had been almost incoherent, so shaken that he could not give straight answers. He sounded as if he were lying, and to most people, that was proof enough. But Clay had resisted, delayed having him arrested, and sure enough, they came to William Afton, Henry’s partner. Afton seemed like the normal one in the venture, the businessman. Henry was the artist; he always seemed to be off in another world, some part of his mind thinking about his mechanical creatures even when he was holding a conversation about the weather, or the kids’ soccer games. There was something off about Henry, something almost shell-shocked; it seemed like a miracle that he could have produced a child as apparently normal as Charlie.

Clay remembered when Henry had moved to town and begun construction of the new restaurant. Someone had told him that Henry had a kid who was abducted several years prior, but didn’t know much else. He seemed like a nice enough guy, though he was obviously terribly alone, his grief visible even at a distance. Then Freddy Fazbear’s opened, and the town came alive. That was also when Charlie appeared; Clay hadn’t known Henry even had a daughter until that day.