Five Nights at Freddy's, page 21
Right back at you, Mike thought now.
A crow let out a long cackle. Mike looked up into the trees around Freddy’s. He couldn’t find the crow, but his gaze landed on the wood cutout of Freddy Fazbear’s head. The bear’s grin seemed to be jeering at Mike.
“Stuff it,” Mike said. He let himself inside the pizzeria and went directly to the office.
There, Mike wasted no time. He plopped in the desk chair, set up his cassette player, and dry-swallowed three of the white pills from the bottle he’d pulled from the white bag. He locked his gaze on the poster opposite the desk.
Maybe because he was so determined, or maybe because he hadn’t slept well in days, the effect of Mike’s routine was immediate. His vision blurred as he listened to the sound of the wind and the trees coming from the cassette. His lids fluttered closed.
Sunlight is warm on Mike’s shoulders as he walks forward. The breeze picks up a lock of his hair. It tickles his cheek.
Mike hears laughter, and he looks toward it. Stunned, he stares at his family, all gathered by the picnic table.
Mike’s mom is setting the table for lunch. His dad is standing next to her; he’s spinning an overjoyed Garret around like a spiraling airplane. Garret’s laughter fills the campsite.
“All right,” Mike’s mom says, “enough games, you two!”
Mike’s mouth hangs open as he watches his dad swoop toward the picnic table with Garret.
“Emergency landing!” Mike’s dad shouts.
His dad makes a whooshing sound as he sweeps Garret’s spread-eagled body over the table. Mike’s dad plunks the boy onto the table with a flourish. Then Mike’s dad looks toward Mike.
“Hey, buddy,” Mike’s dad calls out.
“Don’t just stand there,” his mom says to Mike, “come and dig in.”
Mike’s parents settle on the table’s benches. Garret climbs off the tabletop and joins them. Then the boy turns and gives Mike the biggest, most adorable happy-kid smile Mike has ever seen. Mike’s eyes are awash in tears.
His mom looks his way. “Sweetie, what’s wrong?”
Mike wipes his eyes. He clears his throat. “This isn’t …”
He stumbles back from the picnic table. “This … isn’t the way it happened.” He shakes his head. “This isn’t real.”
Mike’s parents, and Garret, exchange confused glances.
“But it could be.” The voice is coming from behind Mike. It’s a child’s voice.
Mike turns to find the blond boy, and the other four children, standing behind him. He shakes his head again, this time more vehemently. He bites his lip. His hands are clenched into fists.
“What is this?” Mike asks the blond boy. “This isn’t what I asked for.”
The blond boy cocks his head. “No,” he says, “but it’s what you want.”
More head-shaking from Mike. He’s trying to erase the entire scene by rejecting it.
“I want to find—” Mike begins.
“You’re lying!” the blond boy interrupts.
Mike looks at the ground.
“You want to save Garret,” the boy says. “That’s really why you’re here.”
Mike tries another head-shake, but it’s a feeble one.
“You want to change what happened,” the boy says. “You want to go back.”
Mike throws up a hand as if to shield himself from the boy’s words. “That’s not possible,” he says. “He’s gone. They all are.”
“Really?” The boy points past Mike.
Even though he doesn’t want to, Mike turns around and looks at his family. They’re staring back at him with concern and compassion … and hope.
Garret scrambles off the wooden bench and dashes toward Mike, who drops to his knees. He’s eye-to-eye with his little brother.
“You can have this dream every night,” the blond boy says. “You can be together, like before.” The boy’s voice drops to a near-whisper. “You can change what happened.”
Mike’s head-shakes have turned into a tentative nod. His tears have escaped his eyes; they’re rivulets sluicing down his cheeks.
Mike looks at the blond boy. “How …?”
“You said we could have anything we wanted,” the blond boy says. “It’s only fair.” He steps up close to Mike and leans in.
Mike expects to feel the boy’s warmth, but a puff of chilly air touches Mike’s ear as the boy says in a gentle whisper, “We want Abby.”
Mike wipes at his tears, his face twisted. He’s struggling to grasp …
Mike’s eyes widen. He gets it now.
“Abby,” he whispers.
Garret clutches Mike’s hand. “They love her, Mike,” Garret says. “And she loves them.”
Mike looks at Garret. Mucous runs from Mike’s nostrils, joining his tears. He sniffs.
“It’s for the best, buddy,” Mike’s dad calls from the picnic table. “It really is.”
Mike looks over at his dad, who smiles reassuringly. Even as wracked as he is, Mike can’t help but return the smile.
Mike’s mom chimes in. “You’ve seen her with them. You’ve seen how happy she is.”
Mike looks over at his mom. She’s tearing up, too.
“Doesn’t she deserve a real family?” his mom asks as she gets up and comes over to kneel next to Mike. She uses her thumb to wipe tears from his cheeks.
Mike’s tentative nod is becoming more assured.
“It’s time to let her go, sweetie,” his mom says. “You were never the right person to take care of her.”
Now Mike’s nod is emphatic. He’s not just nodding because he wants to believe her. He does believe her. He agrees with what he’s hearing.
Mike looks from his mom to his dad to Garret. His conviction solidifies.
“Okay,” Mike says. He nods one last time. “Yes.”
The blond boy lifts one side of his mouth in a small, satisfied smile.
Mike looks again at his brother. His gaze lands on the flop of hair that is obscuring Garret’s eyes. Mike reaches out to brush the lock of hair back. His hand stops mid-motion.
The sun’s spotlight suddenly glares in Mike’s eyes, and he feels its heat. It catapults him out of the campsite and into a memory.
Mike’s vision turns inward. He sees his sleeping sister in his mind. He knows he’s sitting on the side of her bed. He sees his hand reach out and brush a lock of her hair from her face. He’s in a memory, he realizes.
But then the memory becomes something else. It becomes more of a vision, something Mike wants to experience instead of something he experienced in the past.
In Mike’s mind, Abby’s eyes open. She’s groggy, but she smiles at him. “You’re home,” she says.
In his mind, Mike smiles at his sister. “I’m home,” he says.
The picture in Mike’s mind disintegrates. He’s back at the campsite.
The sun disappears behind a cloud. In the instant shade, Mike stares at Garret. Mike realizes his hand is still touching the lock of Garret’s hair. Mike pulls his hand back.
With that motion, it seems like a veil drops away. Garret’s face is startlingly pale. Too pale. And his eyes are wrong. The adorable … Garret-ness … is gone from Garret’s eyes. Mike’s brother’s eyes have turned to deep wells of hollowness.
Mike staggers to his feet. “Wait! This isn’t—”
He looks at his parents. They too are pale now. They too have bottomless eyes.
Mike returns to head-shaking. “This is wrong,” he says. “I’m sorry, but I don’t want this. You hear me? I don’t want it!”
Mike spins to confront the blond boy, but the boy … and the other children … are gone. Mike scans the campsite and can’t find them. He turns back to his —
His family is gone, too. Everyone has vanished.
Mike is completely alone.
Mike hears the tree branches swish. The wind picks up. A creak of branches. Through the sounds of the wind and the trees, a chorus of whispers starts to build in volume.
The content of the whispers is indistinct at first. It’s just a susurration, a white noise. But then the whispers begin to separate into something clear.
“Abby!” the whispers say.
Mike turns in a circle. It’s the children, he realizes. Their voices are taunting him. He turns and he turns, trying to find the kids.
“Listen to me!” Mike shouts. “You stay away from her!”
The whispers are louder now. “Abby. Abby. Abby.”
Mike screams, “Stay away from my sister!”
The whispers stop, replaced by a giggle. Then a rush of footsteps.
Mike whirls toward the sound. All he sees is a blur of motion. And then a paper hook arcs toward him. A bolt of heat scores into his chest. Gasping, Mike throws up a hand toward his chest. Before he can get it there, he sees another blur. This time, it’s the top hat. The boy wearing it rakes claws across Mike’s back.
Mike cries out and flounders in a circle. He doesn’t see anything but trees.
A flurry of motion out of Mike’s range of vision precedes another lava flow of pain. This one courses through his left calf.
Mike’s legs go out from under him. He tries to curl into a ball, but the scourging pain stops him. The strikes land too fast for him to defend himself. His clothes are being shredded.
Mike falls back, lying prone in the dirt. Above him, the wind picks up. He hears a whir, low and soft.
Mike looks up into the trees. His vision is hazy.
The tone of the whirring changes. It no longer sounds like wind. It sounds … mechanical.
Mike’s lids flutter. He’s giving into the pain, but when the grinding, metal-on-metal sound gets even louder, his eyes bug open.
The mechanical thrum was deafening now, almost as loud as helicopter rotors … vrum, vrum, vrum. The sound demanded Mike return to full consciousness.
Mike tried to get his eyes to zero in on whatever was causing the head-splitting sound. His eyes weren’t fully cooperating, but they were giving him glimpses.
Mike struggled to process what he was seeing. His head was pounding because the visual snatches were coming at him like they were being hit with a strobe light.
Mike saw …
… a robotic arm suspended above his head.
… a bear mask, peeled open, held by the arm.
… honed bits of metal inside the mask, like miniature but lethal knives in constant motion.
Mike’s brain brought his sight completely back online, and Mike put it all together. He was lying on his back … on a hard metal surface—a reclining chair?—and he was looking at the inside of a robotic mask full of sharp, continually moving metal. The mask was coming toward his face.
Mike yelped and tried to get up. That’s when he realized that he was bound to the chair. Steel bands were clamped around his wrists. A heavy leather strap was cinched tight around his chest.
The metal juggernaut started to descend toward Mike’s face. He did the only thing he could do. He brought every muscle he had into play and sent them all into motion. He squirmed and twisted and wriggled. He kicked his legs, and he jolted his body up and down and side to side.
Mike knew, of course, that his efforts were going to fail. He wasn’t strong enough to break …
Above the relentless metal chirring, Mike heard a crack, a distinctive, pinging crack. He knew that sound. A bolt had given way.
Mike felt his arm fall away from him as one of the chair’s armrests detached. His gaze still on the plunging mask, Mike jerked on his arm without much hope.
To Mike’s astonishment, the metal clamp disengaged from Mike’s wrist. He had an arm free!
But that wasn’t enough. The mask was closer now. It was moving slowly, but unalterably, lower and lower.
Sharp metal. Soft face. Not a good combination.
Frantic, Mike sent his fingers in search of something … anything … on the side of the chair that could help him get free. He ran his fingers over an expanse of metal, thrust them between sharp gaps. And then …
Mike’s fingers stopped on something flat and round, some kind of control button. Mike strained to see his hand, and he saw a quarter-sized green light. He didn’t hesitate. He pushed the green button and …
Eureka! The other wrist band uncoupled.
The mask was now just inches from Mike’s nose. It was so close that the burring of the rotating and constantly cycling metal was blowing his hair.
Feverish with the crucial need to move, Mike fumbled with the leather chest strap. Maybe because he got lucky or maybe because necessity is the mother of getting the hell out of Dodge, Mike managed to click the strap apart and slide off the chair. His escape couldn’t have come any later. The blitzing metal grazed the side of his forehead as he turned downward.
Mike dropped to the floor. Metal-on-metal screeches told him the mask, aka buzz saw, was grinding into the chair. Fireflies of hot sparks seared the little hairs on Mike’s arms as he rolled away from the chair.
All of Mike’s muscles demanded a break. He flopped into a glob of exhaustion.
The continuing spray of sparks … and his understanding of his foe’s strength … got Mike back into motion. He tried to stand.
Fiery pain in Mike’s calf sent him careening off-balance. He toppled backward into jabbing metal and sticky, crusty, faux fur. Mike scuttled away from what was grabbing at him. His gaze shot around him wildly. He saw a litter of faded, matted-fur-covered animatronic characters.
It’s just costumes, Mike told himself.
Again, he tried to stand. This time, ready for the pain, he made it. But as he wavered on his feet, he heard a peculiarly familiar hop-hop beat of snaps. Looking down, he watched the costume’s clamshell open.
Mike squawked and blundered backward. His hand whipped to his nose and mouth as the sick stench of rotting corpses hit him.
No longer thinking about running because his brain was now overwhelmed by what he was seeing—and smelling—Mike’s stomach threatened to heave as he gazed at the mutilated remains of three men … and Max.
Mike gagged as he looked at poor Max’s body. It was severed in two. No, not severed. It looked like something had bit her in half at the waist. Her upper body lay back against one of the two men, and her lower body was draped across her stomach. Mike, his hand over his mouth, quickly shifted his gaze to her face. Her eyes and mouth were open wide in a rictus of pure terror.
“Oh, Max,” Mike whispered.
Mike jerked his eyes away from her. When he did, he saw that the faces of one of the men had been similarly chewed, all the way into the man’s brain.
Mike quickly moved his gaze to the other two men. One was older, and one younger. Mike sucked in his breath. He recognized the younger man; it was Jeff, Max’s brother. Jeff and the older guy looked like they’d been run through a meat slicer. But no, the cuts weren’t straight. They were curved, like the wounds you’d get from a pirate’s hook.
This last thought finally galvanized Mike. He turned away from the putrefying cadavers, and he limped past the still-sparking mask and chair. He staggered toward the door.
At the room’s threshold, Mike paused. All the way up and down the main hallway, the lights were surging on and off, on and off. The rhythm wasn’t even, though. It was chaotic, as if the lights were being manipulated by someone too enraged to stay in control.
Mike squinted to see through the disorienting flashes of light and dark. It was hard to know for sure, but the hallway appeared to be empty.
Mike reeled into the hall. His feet fumbling as if he’d never properly learned to walk, Mike zigged and zagged his way toward the lobby. If he could get there, he could get out of the building. Out of the building meant salvation.
Mike tried to pick up the pace. His feet shuffled faster.
Just a few feet from the lobby now.
From behind Mike, a crash boomed after him. A roar joined the crash. They partnered in their pursuit.
Mike didn’t bother to look back. He called on every ounce of strength he had, and he stepped on the gas. Managing to break into a jerky gallop, he spilled into the lobby. He threw himself toward the double doors.
But when Mike hit the doors, they wouldn’t open. They were locked.
A new sound joined the crashing and roaring. No, not a sound. A voice. A singing voice.
“Dum dum diddly da …”
The lights were now going totally bonkers. They were winking in and out so fast that it was impossible for Mike to see what was coming toward him.
But something was. Something big. Something fast.
Mike summoned the last bit of his perseverance. He pounded on the heavy metal doors.
Sensing rather than seeing that his time had run out, Mike looked to his left. He screamed and fell into a total eclipse of any light he’d ever seen or hoped to see.
Abby, curled up in her bed, hugged Dolph tighter than she ever had, and it still wasn’t tight enough. Outside Abby’s window, the sun was a deep red ball hovering just above the hills in the distance. Soon it would slip out of sight. Abby thought the ball looked like a big drop of blood, like the sky was hurt and needed a bandage.
Of course, Abby knew the sky wasn’t hurt. She was hurt. But she wasn’t hurt in a way that a bandage could help. A bandage couldn’t fix the stuffed-up nose and stinging eyes that hours of crying had left her with. And it couldn’t fix the fact that the happiness she’d been feeling ever since she’d been united with her friends at Freddy’s had been ripped away. Abby’s happy was gone. That was why she kept hugging Dolph tighter and tighter and tighter. Hanging on to something familiar, something Abby loved … and who loved her … was the only thing that could stop her tears. Maybe. She hoped. It hadn’t worked yet.
A knock on the door caused Abby to smush Dolph even more. Abby put her face in Dolph’s gray-blue fur.
“Abby, sweetheart?” her Aunt Jane called through the door.
Abby let go of Dolph with one arm, and she pulled a blanket up over herself and the dolphin. Even through the blanket and the door she could hear the TV in the living room. She’d heard it for hours. The stupid fake laughter coming from the TV told Abby that her Aunt Jane was watching old-timey sitcoms.
