Five Nights at Freddy's: The Silver Eyes(90)
Charlie plunged her hands into the gap beneath the costume’s head. Dave drew back, but she held on.
“If you want to be one of them, then be one of them!” She shouted, and she tripped the spring locks. Dave’s eyes widened, and then he began to scream. Charlie jerked her hands free, barely evading the locks as they snapped open and plunged into his neck. She took a step back, watching as Dave crumpled to the ground, still screaming as the costume released. Part by part, the animatronic insides pierced his flesh, ripping up his organs, tearing through his body as if it were not even there. At some point he stopped screaming, but he still writhed on the floor for what felt like long minutes, before he was still.
Charlie stared, breathing hard as if she had been running. The form on the ground seemed unreal. John was the first to move; he came beside her, but, still staring down, she waved him off before he could touch her. She could not bear it if he did.
Jessica gasped, and they all looked up as one. The animatronics were moving. The group drew back, huddling together, but none of the animals were looking at them. One by one, they took hold of the broken body on the floor, and began to drag it away toward the hall to Pirate’s Cove. As they began to disappear down the hallway, Charlie noticed that the yellow Freddy was gone.
“Let’s go,” Charlie said quietly.
Clay Burke nodded, and they filed out of the restaurant for the last time.
Chapter 13
The sun was rising as they emerged into the open air.
Clay put his arm around Carlton’s shoulder, and for once, Carlton didn’t brush him away with a joke. Charlie nodded absently, blinking in the light. “Carlton and I are taking a drive to the ER,” Clay continued. “Is there anyone else who needs a doctor?”
“I’m fine,” Charlie said reflexively.
“Jason do you need to go to the hospital?” Marla asked.
“No,” he said.
“Let’s see your leg,” she insisted. The party stopped as Jason held his leg out for Clay to examine. Charlie felt an odd relief wash through her. A grown-up was in charge now. After a moment, Clay looked up at Jason with a serious face.
“I don’t think we’re going to have to cut it off,” he said. “Not just yet.” He added. Jason smiled, and Clay turned to Marla. “I’ll take care of him. It might leave a scar, but that’ll just make him look tough.”
Marla nodded and winked at Jason, who laughed.
“I need to change my clothes,” Charlie said. It seemed like a petty thing to be worrying about, but her shirt and pants were wet with blood in some places, dry and stiff in others. It was beginning to itch.
“You’re a mess,” Carlton pointed out redundantly. “Will she get a ticket if she drives like that?”
“Charlie, are you sure you don’t need to go to the hospital?” Marla said, turning her laser-like concern on her friend, now that her brother had been declared safe.
“I’m fine,” Charlie said again. “I just need to change my clothes. We’ll stop at the motel.”
When they reached the cars, they split into what had become their habitual groups: Marla, Jason, and Lamar in Marla’s car, Charlie, John and Jessica in Charlie’s. Charlie opened the door to the driver’s side, and stopped, looking back at the building. It wasn’t just her; out of the corner of her eye she could see them all gazing at it. The empty mall was dark against the pink-streaked sky, long and squat, like something brutish, slumbering. As one, they turned away, getting into the cars without speaking. Charlie kept her eyes on it, watching as she started her car, waiting to turn her back to it until the last possible moment. She pulled out of the lot, and drove away.
Along the road, the cars split off: Clay and Carlton took the other turn out of the parking lot, heading to the hospital, and Charlie turned off toward the motel while Marla continued to the Burkes’ house.
“I call first shower!” Jessica said as they got out of the car, then, seeing Charlie’s face: “I’ll make a special exception in your case. You go first.”
Charlie nodded. In the room, she grabbed her bag and took it into the bathroom with her, leaving John and Jessica to wait. She locked the door behind her and undressed, deliberately not looking at the gashes on her arm and leg. She didn’t need to see what was there, just to clean and bandage it. She got into the shower and let out a quiet yelp as the stinging water hit her open cuts, but she gritted her teeth and cleaned herself, washing her hair over and over until it was rinsed clean.
She got out and toweled herself dry, then sat down on the edge of the tub, put her face in her hands, and closed her eyes.
She was not ready to go out yet, not ready to face whatever aftermath, whatever discussion there might have to be. She wanted to walk out of this bathroom, and never speak again of what had happened. She rubbed her temples. She didn’t have a headache, but there was pressure inside there, something that had yet to emerge.
You can’t stay here forever.
Charlie still had the gauze and tape from the first time around, so she took it from her bag, wiped both wounds clean with a hotel towel, and bound up her arm and leg, using all the gauze. I probably do need stitches, she thought, but it was only an idle thought. She would not do it. She got up and went to look in the mirror: there was a cut across her cheek. It had stopped bleeding, but it was ugly. She didn’t know how she could cover it, and she didn’t really want to, for the same reason she didn’t want stitches. She wanted them to heal wrong, wanted them to scar. She wanted proof, displayed on her body: this happened. This was real. This is what it did to me.