Friendly Face, page 18
She was pretty sure she’d just swallowed a piece of Brittany’s skin. She remembered how sweaty Brittany had looked when she’d disappeared into Rosie’s belly. If her face had been perspiring, the rest of her had been, too. Jessica thought she’d just tasted blood and sweat.
“Jessica?”
Jessica froze. “Hello? Is someone out there? I’m inside here. Inside the pig! Get me out of here!”
She tried to pound on the insides of Rosie’s belly, but she again encountered gears and rods. And she also, yet again, felt way too many of Brittany’s squidgy body parts. She stilled her hands and listened.
“Help me, Jessica,” the voice said.
Help her? What stupid girl wanted Jessica’s help? It was Jessica who needed the help! Jessica opened her mouth to yell at whoever was talking. But then she stopped.
Wait a second, she thought. That voice.
It hadn’t come from outside Rosie.
It had come from …
“Jessica, I think we might have screwed up,” the voice said.
Jessica’s breathing caught.
It was Brittany. That was Brittany’s voice.
She wasn’t dead?
How was that possible?
“Brit?” Jessica whispered.
“Jessica,” Brittany answered. “I’m glad you’re here. I’m cold.”
She wasn’t dead?
How was she not dead?
Jessica hadn’t taken an inventory of Brittany’s parts. She’d tried not to look at the gut-churning gruesomeness very much at all. But she was pretty sure she’d seen nothing but small annihilated pieces of human flesh, bone, and tissue inside the animatronic pig—that and the peeled-off face. There was no way Brittany could be alive.
“No way,” Jessica said out loud.
“For sure, right?” Brittany said.
Jessica shifted her hips to try to stop a rod from pressing against her foot. She made herself breathe in and out evenly through her mouth. She wasn’t going to use her nose again inside this abattoir.
Okay, so if Brittany was dead, then why was she hearing Brittany’s voice?
Just as Jessica had the thought, she heard a click.
She sucked in her breath. The switch.
No, not the—
In the briefest of instants, Jessica went from thought to nothing but sensation, and the sensation was worse than any pain imaginable. Every nerve ending in her body registered a catastrophic, lethal attack, and then …
Nothing.
Jessica’s consciousness was only darkness. No poise. No grace. No presence.
No royalty here. Nothing but blackness.
* * *
Mindy and Cindy trotted toward the door of the robotics classroom. They were a few minutes early, as they usually were. They couldn’t wait to show the class later today what they’d done with the dog animatronic that Mr. Thornton had assigned to them in the sophomore class. Mindy knew Mr. Thornton would let them stand up and talk about it. They were both happy to do that.
Both Mindy and Cindy wore red today. It was a total accident. Mindy had on her favorite corduroy jumper with a red-and-yellow frilly blouse. Cindy wore a new red dress her mom had bought her at the mall the night before. It had poufy sleeves, which Cindy had shown off to Mindy when Cindy’s mom picked Mindy up to drive them both to school. “Totally mag,” Mindy had said.
She and Cindy weren’t too up on high school slang. That might have been one of the reasons they didn’t fit in. It didn’t matter. They didn’t care if they fit in.
Mindy pushed on the door to the robotics classroom, but it wouldn’t budge. Something was wedged up against it.
“On the count of three?” Cindy asked, turning to her friend.
Mindy nodded.
“One … two … three!” The friends heaved their full weight against the door, and it skidded open. A table was in front of it, as though someone had barricaded themselves in.
But the room was, as they’d expected it to be, empty.
Well, almost empty.
When they entered the room, the first thing Mindy and Cindy saw was Rosie Porkchop. The animatronic pig stood a few feet from the door, watching them with a happy smile. The pig’s curly tail whirred in a spiral.
“Hi, Rosie,” Mindy said.
Rosie raised her right arm. Both girls stared at her.
Cindy tilted her head. “I think she wants you to give her a high five.”
Mindy laughed and slapped the pig’s hand. Rosie stood, spun in a circle, bowed, then said, “Hello, Mindy.”
Mindy raised her eyebrows.
“How does she know your name?” Cindy asked.
Mindy shook her head. “I don’t know.” She looked around. “Do you think Mr. Thornton programmed her with all our names?” Shifting the animatronic dog that she held, she poked Cindy. “You try saying hello.”
Cindy shrugged. “Hi, Rosie.” She sneezed.
“Hi, Cindy. Gesundheit.”
Cindy laughed.
Rosie’s voice sounded familiar to Mindy. Why?
“Hey,” Cindy said. “Doesn’t she sound a little bit like that mean girl?” She pulled a tissue from her pocket and blew her nose.
“Which one?” Mindy asked. She and Cindy had encountered more than a few mean girls in this school.
Mindy didn’t understand at all why people picked on them just for being younger. For that matter, she had no idea why a person’s appearance separated them from certain social circles. People were people. Kids were kids. What was the problem?
“The one who’s going to be homecoming queen,” Cindy said. “Brittany?” She wiped her nose and crumpled up the tissue.
“Oh, that one. No, the queen is Jessica. The princess is Brittany.”
Cindy nodded, and her red curls bobbled around her freckled cheeks.
Mindy looked at Rosie. Did Rosie sound like Jessica? She decided to see if Rosie would say something else.
“What are you doing here, Rosie?” she asked.
“I’m here to serve you and Cindy,” Rosie said in Jessica’s smooth timbre.
“Wow!” Mindy grinned. She turned to Cindy. “You’re right. It is her voice.”
Cindy nodded. She stepped up in front of Rosie’s eager face. “What do you mean by ‘serve’ us?” Cindy asked the animatronic pig.
Rosie did an awkward little shuffle, then bowed. “I am your ladies-in-waiting. I will treat you like queens. I will do whatever you want me to do to help you and make your life easy. Just tell me what you need, please.”
“Ladies?” Mindy repeated. “There’s just one of you.”
“I am your ladies-in-waiting,” Rosie repeated.
“Whoever programmed her needs a lesson in grammar,” Cindy said.
Mindy laughed. “Queens, huh?” She giggled.
Rosie nodded. “Yes, you are queens. You deserve the best.”
“I can’t argue with that,” Mindy said. “Can you, Cindy?”
Cindy shook her head. She held out her backpack. “Can you carry this for me?”
Rosie nodded happily and took the backpack from Cindy’s outstretched hands. She turned toward Mindy. “Milady? May I have yours, too?”
Mindy snorted. “Milady? That’s hilarious.” She gazed at Rosie. Rosie smiled her fixed smile back at her, waiting patiently.
Mindy shrugged. “Okay. This is getting kind of heavy.” She handed the animatronic dog to Rosie. Rosie took it easily.
“I can handle my own backpack,” Mindy said.
“As you wish it to be,” Rosie said.
Cindy laughed and did a little happy dance. “This is the coolest thing ever!” She sneezed again.
“Gesundheit,” Rosie said again.
Cindy grinned. “I love that!” She took out another tissue and honked into it.
As she wiped her nose, Cindy looked down. She frowned at the ground. “Is that—?”
She pointed at the floor, and Mindy followed the direction of her finger. She saw a drop of something thick and red. “Must be paint,” Mindy said.
Mindy grabbed her friend’s free hand. Together, they skipped to the front of the robotics classroom, with Rosie trotting along at their heels.
Mr. Thornton strode into the classroom as Mindy and Cindy took their seats and Rosie Porkchop set Cindy’s backpack and the girls’ animatronic on the table in front of them and sat down.
Mr. Thornton paused and raised an eyebrow at the pig. He looked from the pig to Mindy and Cindy and then back to the pig. “Did you and the other team, um, Jessica and Brittany, trade projects for some … ?”
Mindy and Cindy exchanged a glance. “Yes,” Mindy said quickly. “I hope you don’t mind.”
Mr. Thornton shrugged. “I can’t argue with the results you got with …” He nodded. “Well done, girls,” he said. “You’ve tamed the monster, but let me check something …” He knelt next to Rosie’s neck and flipped a switch. Nothing happened. He reached under her belly, felt around, then gave a tug. Nothing happened.
He straightened. “Good. Apparently, it’s been deactivated.”
“What has?” Mindy asked.
Mr. Thornton waved a hand as if the topic was not important. “Oh, I saw an article last night about the old springlock suits, part animatronic and part costume for …” He pointed at Rosie Porkchop. “This was one of them. They were taken out of commission because they were deemed too dangerous for use by … Apparently, sometimes these old animatronics switched modes automatically because of a glitch in the programming, so …” He patted Rosie’s big pink head. “But she seems safe enough now, and clearly you’ve done a great job reprogramming her.”
Mindy and Cindy exchanged looks, then smiled at Mr. Thornton. Mindy grinned when Rosie reached an extension of her front foot into Mindy’s backpack and pulled out her notepad.
“Thanks, Rosie,” Mindy chirred.
* * *
Inside Rosie, fused with the interlocking metal structure of the machine’s mechanisms, two lifeless disembodied faces stared at each other. Although the lips on both faces had perfectly applied, shiny lip gloss, the mouths guarded by that gloss would never speak again. The two faces would stare at each other in perpetual silence, their features locked in contorted expressions of horrified understanding.
Scott Cawthon is the author of the bestselling video game series Five Nights at Freddy’s, and while he is a game designer by trade, he is first and foremost a storyteller at heart. He is a graduate of The Art Institute of Houston and lives in Texas with his family.
Andrea Rains Waggener is an author, novelist, ghostwriter, essayist, short story writer, screenwriter, copywriter, editor, poet, and a proud member of Kevin Anderson & Associates’ team of writers. In a past she prefers not to remember much, she was a claims adjuster, JCPenney’s catalog order-taker (before computers!), appellate court clerk, legal writing instructor, and lawyer. Writing in genres that vary from her chick-lit novel, Alternate Beauty, to her dog how-to book, Dog Parenting, to her self-help book, Healthy, Wealthy, & Wise, to ghostwritten memoirs to ghostwritten YA, horror, mystery, and mainstream fiction projects, Andrea still manages to find time to watch the rain and obsess over her dog and her knitting, art, and music projects. She lives with her husband and said dog on the Washington Coast, and if she isn’t at home creating something, she can be found walking on the beach.
Larson leaned over his desk, frowning at his computer screen. He hated following paper trails, or more accurately, electronic trails. All the forms, being trapped behind his desk for days at a time—it was his least favorite part of police work. He preferred being out in the field, talking to witnesses and chasing down suspects. But for all his annoyance, this kind of investigating was important, too.
For days now, he’d been trying to trace the history of the building where he’d found the ball pit. But he’d landed in a quagmire of real estate transactions and business permits. The building had been the home of so many failed ventures that trying to follow the transfers was making Larson’s eyes burn. This wasn’t his forte.
Larson sat back and rubbed his itchy eyes. The addresses and phone numbers were all blurring together.
Opening his eyes, his gaze landed on Chancey, who was strolling toward the coffee machine. Larson wasn’t crazy about Chancey, but Chancey was the only other detective in the bullpen right now. Roberts and Powell were both testifying in court this afternoon, and the other detectives were out for a coffee break. At least the absence of Roberts and Powell meant the bullpen smelled better than usual. The only odor Larson noticed came from the bitter dregs in the coffee maker.
“Hey, Chancey,” Larson called out.
Chancey turned, grinned, and sauntered back toward Larson. “What’s up?” he asked.
Larson waved him over. He pointed at his computer screen. “You any good at tracing ownership of real estate? I’ve found a trail so convoluted I can’t make heads nor tails of it.”
Chancey pulled up a chair next to Larson’s desk. The chair legs scraped across the floor. Larson got a whiff of spicy cologne.
“Sure thing,” Chancey said. “That’s as easy as apple pie.”
Larson raised an eyebrow. “Um, okay.” He pointed at his screen again. “What do you make of this?”
Chancey scanned the screen, then reached for Larson’s keyboard. “Mind?”
Larson waved his okay.
Chancey took over the keyboard and typed at a blazing-fast speed for several minutes. More addresses and phone numbers flashed across the screen. Larson felt a headache coming on.
Finally, Chancey leaned back. He shook his head. “This place has had more names and owners than a stray dog has fleas.”
Larson frowned. “But who owns it now?”
Chancey gestured at the screen. “Well, that there’s where we get thrown off the bull. I can’t figure that out from just a quick dive.”
Larson studied Chancey. The cowboy persona was annoying, but the man wasn’t stupid. “Think you could if you spent some time on it?”
“I’d sure give it my best shot,” Chancey said.
Larson handed Chancey part of the ball pit file. He kept back the lab results and added those to a stack of files he’d pulled a couple of hours before. “Go for it,” Larson said.
Chancey took the file and grinned. Then he moseyed away to get the coffee he’d been after in the first place.
Larson looked around to make sure no one had come into the bullpen to see what he was working on. He was still alone.
Taking out a yellow legal pad, he opened the lab report and the top file in the stack he’d created, then got to work.
It took Larson an hour to finish his lists. By this time, a couple of the detectives were back, but they weren’t paying Larson any attention.
Larson put down his pen and studied the pages in front of him.
Earlier that morning, he had started cross-checking the dates associated with the blood samples against dates of other crimes. He was hoping to link the blood samples to unsolved murders. That didn’t happen, but he had linked them to something.
It turned out that the blood sample dates coincided with bizarre incidents, ranging from missing persons to almost every other kind of strange phenomena imaginable. In more than one incident, parents reported that their teens had found a strange, robot-like body, like a metal mannequin, not long before the teens disappeared. Larson skimmed all those statements. At first, he was tempted—like the detectives who had taken the statements—to dismiss the reports as the confused ramblings of freaked-out parents. But the details the parents gave were too similar: The body looked female, with a pale, gaunt face decorated with crude clown makeup.
Now that Larson had made his lists, he could see that a teenager had gone missing during several of the time periods associated with the blood samples Larson had taken. Not every teen was associated with the metal mannequin, but every teen’s disappearance did happen on a date listed on the ball pit blood sample list. What did that mean?
The blood couldn’t belong to the teens because it was the same blood each time. Who did it belong to?
Larson pushed aside his lists and started flipping through the files again. He went through photo after photo of happy or sullen-faced teens. They didn’t reveal anything that he …
Wait a second.
Larson went back to a photo he’d just turned over. He dug in his drawer for a magnifying glass. Holding the glass over the photo, he looked past the shoulder of one of the missing girls. And there it was behind her … the metal mannequin with the clown face! It was real.
And now Larson knew what it looked like.
Larson examined the metal mannequin carefully. Its face was skeletal, as though the thinnest layer of diseased gray skin had been stretched over its skull. The skin was painted garishly, with a candy-apple-red mouth and pink circles on the cheeks, giving it the hideous clown-like appearance some of the parents had mentioned. Its large, deep-set eyes were dark pits, and its red-painted mouth was stretched wide, revealing a mouthful of large, jagged teeth. Larson couldn’t tell if it was smiling or baring its teeth in aggression. The thing’s sparse red hair was pulled into twin pigtails on top of its head, a bizarrely childish hairstyle for something so hideous. The whole thing gave Larson the creeps. So did the weird cartoonish heart pendant hanging around its neck. He wasn’t sure why the heart gave him the heebie-jeebies, but it did.
Larson quickly went back through the files again, noticing something he’d missed before. He flipped back and forth through the reports. Finally, he picked up his pen and jotted a note on the bottom of his lists.
Now he had something else, too. A name.
Although most of the incidents were seemingly unrelated from a glance, someone must have investigated their connection at one point because an expert of some sort had been called in on more than one occasion, a Dr. Talbert. He apparently specialized in a mysterious material called Remnant.
