Somniphobia, page 8
The disgusting rabbit suit came in two pieces. One piece was the big, ghoul-eyed, toothy-mouthed, broken-eared head. The other piece was the rest of the rabbit’s body; this part of the suit was kind of like a hideous onesie for demented adults. The onesie had hidden closures up the front, so it wasn’t hard to get on. All Luca had to do was step into it.
Once Luca shoved his tennis-shoe-clad feet inside the oversize rabbit feet and started to pull the suit upward, he discovered it was designed to expand and contract. Both the fur and the metal skeleton beneath the fur stretched to accommodate his height as he brought it up his legs. When he got the suit to his waist, he only had to contort a little to shrug one and then the other shoulder into the rabbit’s torso.
His stomach roiling with reluctance and dread, Luca closed up the suit. He looked at himself in the mirror.
From the neck down, Luca was no longer Luca. He was a moldering rabbit that looked like an escapee from an apocalyptic trash heap.
From the neck up, Luca still looked like Luca … sort of. Actually, he wasn’t quite himself. His skin, next to the putrid green fur, looked sallow, and his forehead was glistening with sweat. His eyes looked strained, and dark circles had appeared under them. Or was that just the dressing room’s dim lighting?
Behind Luca, the curtain swished open. He whirled around.
“Hey!” Luca objected.
Asher and Nolan ignored his protests. They crowded in next to Luca and stared at him. “Sweet!” Nolan said. “Put the head on. I want to see the whole enchilada.”
Asher brushed against the torn rabbit fur. He quickly recoiled. “Ew.”
“See?” Luca said.
Asher gave Luca a sheepish smile. “I mean, yay. You look great.”
“Stuff it,” Luca said.
“Just put the head on,” Nolan repeated.
Luca felt like an automaton when he lifted the head and pulled it down over his own. When he inhaled, he nearly retched. “It smells like dead fish.”
His voice sounded funny from inside the rabbit head—a little muffled and mushy. His vision wasn’t quite right, either. He could see, but looking out through the milky-white eyes of the rabbit head gave everything a filmy appearance, as if it was all swathed in gauze.
Luca didn’t like this. He didn’t like it at all.
Luca started to reach up and take the head off. He’d changed his mind. He couldn’t do this.
Before Luca got a grip on the rabbit head, Nolan lifted his hands and tugged the head more firmly into place. He reached around behind the head and snapped something together. “There,” he said. “You’re all set.”
Luca frowned and used his skeletal-looking rabbit hands to try to lift off the rabbit head. The head didn’t budge.
“There’s a release mechanism in the back,” Asher said, craning his neck to examine the suit. “But leave it alone. You look great.”
“Yeah,” Nolan agreed. “Let’s do this.”
Luca rotated to look at himself in the mirror again. He couldn’t help himself. He had to see the full effect.
As soon as he saw it, he wished he hadn’t. He’d gone from being what he’d always thought was reasonably okay-looking to being totally repulsive.
Now that Luca had the rabbit head on, he could see just how vile it was. With exposed yellowish teeth, the rabbit’s mouth was a grim maw of desolation. A wire stuck out from the rabbit’s jaw and one of the holes in the fur on the rabbit’s head exposed more protruding wires. Even more wires extended from beneath the rabbit’s dark eye sockets.
Luca lifted his hands and once again tried to pull off the rabbit’s head. He shifted his attention to the rabbit’s paws. Not so much paws as big fuzzy hands, the coverings over Luca’s own hands were missing a lot of fur. Several of the fingers were exposed metal. Luca’s knuckles, beneath that metal, felt entrapped and chafed.
“Stop that!” Asher said. “You’re not getting out of this.”
Nolan and Asher grabbed Luca, aka Springtrap, by the arms and dragged him out of the dressing room. Luca didn’t resist. I might as well get it over with, he thought. He’d agreed to it. He’d look like even more of a loser if he backed out now.
Outside the dressing room, a neon sign pointed to a hallway that had multiple doors. Each door had another neon sign above it. The signs labeled the sets for each game.
Luca, Asher, and Nolan paused at the end of the hallway to wait for Maddy. Asher and Nolan started talking smack about how they were going to win the game. Luca ignored them. His attention had been caught by the little girls he’d watched earlier.
The little girls were now playing around outside a game door a few feet away. One of the girls was giggling, adjusting her Chica costume head. The other girl was laughing hysterically because her Freddy head kept falling off. The third girl, dressed as Foxy—the fox character with the eye patch and the metal hook—was lunging this way and that, waving her plastic hook around. She was oblivious to her friends.
She was also oblivious of the Fazbear employee who leaned against the back wall of the Costume Closet. The employee, a lanky thirtysomething guy with a super-short haircut and large ears, was watching the little girls.
The fact that the employee, whose name tag read EARL, was watching the little girls wasn’t in and of itself bad. After all, Luca was watching the little girls, too.
The difference between Luca’s observations and Earl’s staring was that Luca’s attention on the girls was benign; he thought the girls’ antics were cute. Judging from the expression on Earl’s long, narrow face, Earl didn’t see cute. His pale blue eyes squinted just slightly, and his mouth stretched into a salacious leer; Earl’s interest in the girls was not benign at all. Earl was looking at the girls like they were tasty morsels. His focus was so, well, icky that Luca took a step forward, intending to confront the guy.
Before Luca could take a second step, two little boys raced into the Costume Closet. Screaming in excitement, their feet pounded across the floor. Earl shifted his attention to the boys. But his expression didn’t change.
Luca hesitated, wondering if confrontation was the right move. Sure, he could easily handle the guy, but the guy would play dumb, and Luca would look like the aggressor. Luca started scanning the Costume Closet, trying to find another employee—maybe he could report what he’d seen.
He didn’t find any other employees. But he did spot Maddy.
“Are you guys ready?” Maddy called out as she skipped toward Luca and his friends.
Luca turned to Maddy. As predicted, Maddy looked amazing in the floral dress. For a second, Luca forgot about Earl. When he remembered, he rotated back to where Earl was lurking.
Earl was gone.
Luca spun in a full circle, searching the area for the skinny guy in the red Fazbear employee shirt. He didn’t see Earl anywhere.
“Are you coming?” Maddy tugged on the arm of Luca’s rabbit suit.
Luca looked one last time for the unsettling employee. He hesitated. Should he try to find a manager?
Maddy tugged again. “You’re not getting out of this. Come on!”
Luca let Maddy drag him down the hall to where Asher and Nolan were already opening the door to the “Green-Eared Killer” set.
Asher grinned. “Let’s do this!”
He and Nolan disappeared through the door. Maddy pulled Luca across the threshold behind them.
Each designated area in the roleplay auditorium was a tableau designed to fit a specific game. The “Green-Eared Killer” staging area was a replica of the original Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria, which also included elements of the Fazbear’s Fright Haunted House. From what Luca had read about the Urban Legend Role Players Auditorium before they’d gotten here, all the staging areas were hybrids of multiple locations. Each area was a combined venue packed full of themes from the old stories.
Luca had never been to either the original Freddy’s or the Fazbear haunted house, but he’d played the games. He had an idea of what the pizzeria should look like, and this game set was exactly right. He was blown away by its authenticity.
The entrance to the roleplay arena was a crumbling brick archway. Since the Pizzaplex was relatively new, the archway Luca was looking at couldn’t have been even a year old, but it looked like a long-forgotten entrance to a place better left not remembered.
Maddy grabbed Nolan’s hand and pulled him through the archway. “Look at this,” she gushed. “It’s totally dope!”
Luca and Asher trailed behind Maddy and Nolan. Their feet made tapping and scuffling sounds on the black-and-white-checkered linoleum floor.
Luca couldn’t see the whole place from where they stood, but he figured there would be a dining area with a stage, a backstage area, an arcade, a Pirate’s Cove, kitchens, an office, a back hallway, storage rooms, party rooms, and a network of large ventilation ducts running through all of it. All these rooms—at least in the games he’d played—were designed to look old and eerie. They were dimly lit, packed with disturbing Fazbear decor, and populated by knockoffs of the original animatronics.
The actual haunted house and the games based on the house were chock-full of jump scares. Luca assumed this set would include them as well. Although, in the game they were playing, Springtrap—i.e., Luca—was the real jump scare.
“So how does this work?” Maddy asked.
Asher turned in a circle. He spotted a sign next to the archway, and he stepped over to read it. Luca didn’t follow him. He was still trying to convince himself he was actually in a disgusting rabbit suit getting ready to chase his friends around a pretend haunted house. Why had this seemed like such a good idea when they’d planned it?
“Okay,” Asher said, “according to the instructions here, we”—he indicated himself, Maddy, and Nolan—“are supposed to go down that hallway.” He pointed. “There’s a little room down there that’s like the backstage area of the game. Once we close the door, the door basically becomes what we’re going to get through to ‘break into’ the haunted house. Even though we’re breaking in after dark, the venue’s attractions are going to somehow get activated, so it’s going to be like a haunted house with a chaser. Springtrap’s the chaser.” Asher pointed at Luca and gave Luca a thumbs-up.
Luca didn’t move.
“What’s he supposed to do?” Maddy pointed at Luca.
Asher glanced back at the instructions. Then he looked at Luca. “You’re supposed to go to the Safe Room. It’s a small room at the end of the back hall. You’re supposed to go in, close the door, and then wait for the door to open again. Then you come and chase us. Apparently, there’s a knife—not a real one, of course—in there someplace. You’re supposed to pretend to try to stab us or grab us or whatever.”
When Luca didn’t respond, Asher said, “Got it?”
Luca nodded. When he did, something rough rubbed at the back of his neck. He reached up to try to adjust the rabbit head. The rubbing stopped, but the skin on his neck felt scratched.
Asher read aloud some more of the instructions. It was something about how long the game lasted and how you left the game. Luca was only half listening. The scratch on his neck distracted him.
Asher studied the game instructions for a few more seconds. He turned to Nolan and Maddy. “There’s some stuff here about ways we can handle Springtrap.”
Luca turned toward the instructions. He might as well know the defense’s strategy.
Asher blocked his view. “Nuh-uh. No fair. You don’t need to know anything else.”
“Well, we’re on a timer, guys,” Maddy said. “Let’s do this. Come on.” She grabbed Nolan’s hand and motioned for Asher to come with them. Asher turned Luca away from the game’s instructions. Luca shrugged. What did he care anyway? He just wanted to get this over with.
Asher lifted a fist and offered it to Luca. “Good game, right?” Asher said, just like he did before they took the field at their games.
Luca raised his fist and bumped Asher’s. “Good game.”
Something poked the underside of Luca’s right wrist. He unclenched his hand and dropped it to his side. He watched Asher trot after Maddy and Nolan.
Luca looked around. He shrugged. He knew he’d find the back hallway off the rear of the dining area, so he headed in that direction. As he took his first step, a distant pop resounded through the set, and the lights dimmed. Shadows stretched out in front of him.
Luca took a deep breath and a few steps. He winced.
The Springtrap suit was not at all comfortable. Although it had expanded to fit him, it now felt like it was tightening around his body. The metal framework was poking him in a myriad of places. He felt like he was wearing a broken cage.
Luca tried to ignore the unpleasant sensation of metal prodding him through his shirt and his jeans. He crossed the black-and-white tiled floor and headed down a short hall.
Even though the haunted house was dark and gloomy, Luca could see well enough. He marveled at just how chilling the place looked.
The set, like the dilapidated archway, was relatively new. It felt, however, as if Luca was inside a building that had been ravaged by time. Nothing about the place felt fake.
The walls Luca passed as he moved farther into the set looked dirty and moldy, and cobwebs stretched across murky corners and hung limply from barely flickering wall sconces. The mottled walls were “decorated” with old Freddy’s posters and decayed parts from Fazbear characters. The parts—animatronic heads, limbs, hands, and feet, along with wires and gears—were caught up in netting or dangling from filthy strings; occasionally, they were pinned to the wall with incongruently gleaming knives. Luca idly wondered if the knives were as fake as the one that he was supposed to use.
Luca didn’t linger near any of the walls. He walked as fast as he could in the cumbersome and cramped suit and finally reached the dining area.
The dining area looked like it had been abandoned in the middle of a birthday party. Half-eaten pizzas and half-drunk sodas sat on red-and-white-striped tablecloths next to bright yellow napkins. Freddy Fazbear birthday hats were strewn on the tables and the chairs. The chairs were askew.
Curious, Luca reached out to touch a pizza as he passed a table. Even though he couldn’t fully feel it through the suit’s decayed-looking rabbit paws, he could tell it was made of rubber. Clever.
From down the hall behind Luca, a crack and thump warned him that his friends were starting their break-in. He picked up his pace so he could get to the Safe Room before they reached him.
At the far side of the dining area, a stage ran the length of the room. Its curtains were pulled partly back, just far enough to reveal statues—at least Luca figured they were statues—of Freddy’s original animatronics. Freddy, the bear with the top hat; Chica, the chick wearing an apron and holding a plate with a toothy cupcake; and Bonnie, the purple guitar-playing bunny, clustered near center stage. They were unmoving, but the way their gaze was aimed toward Luca made them look like they might start performing—or worse—any second.
Luca turned away from the stage. He spotted the back hallway, but he was suddenly reluctant to go where he was assigned. Part of the reason he’d wanted to come was to explore, right? Defiant of his friends and the rules, he headed in the opposite direction, toward the arcade area.
Unlike the arcade in the Pizzaplex, which was filled with so many bright lights and emitted so many bleeps and dings and tinny music that the din was overwhelming, this arcade was dark and quiet. All the games looked broken, and they were covered with a hefty layer of dust.
Beyond the grimy arcade, the purple-and-gold-starred curtain to Pirate’s Cove was closed, but the hem of the velvet fabric fluttered. Luca stared at the movement, but he shrugged it off. It wasn’t like Foxy was actually back there.
Maddy’s high-pitched giggle echoed through the set, and Luca heard the low rumble of Nolan’s voice. Asher said something in response to Nolan, and Maddy laughed again. Luca could hear his friends’ footsteps in the main hall. They were getting closer pretty fast. Luca had to move.
Luca headed toward the back hallway and trotted into the inky tunnel. But once he was out of the dining room, Luca hesitated. He couldn’t help himself.
This was the infamous hallway, the one the killer used to take the kids to their deaths. Well, actually, it wasn’t the hallway. This was a reproduction, obviously. But Luca could have sworn it was the real thing. Not only did it look like the narrow, dingy hallway of urban legend infamy, it felt like it could easily be the conduit to a very bad place.
Behind Luca, his friends’ footsteps reached the dining area. He started to stride down the hall.
Then his steps faltered. He stopped and listened.
Sibilant sighs wafted through the hallway. They carried with them the sounds of sobbing and childlike pleas.
Luca frowned and shook his head. It was just an audio track, he reminded himself. This was a fake haunted house.
A chair scraped across the floor in the distance. His friends had reached the dining room.
Luca started trotting down the hall.
As he jogged along, something inside the rabbit suit gouged Luca’s forearm. He sucked in his breath.
“What was that?” Maddy asked.
She wasn’t really close, but she was closer than Luca should have let her get. He should have been in the Safe Room a long time ago.
Maddy’s question, however—although she didn’t know it—was a good one. What was that gouge that Luca had just felt?
He didn’t have time to think about the question for long because the next thing Maddy said was “Oh, look at the animatronics!”
Luca heard Maddy’s leather flats tap across the bare floor. Her footsteps reached the base of the stage. “This is so cool!”
Luca listened to Maddy trot up the stairs to the stage just as he reached the doorway to the last room at the end of the hall. Although he could easily hear his friends from where he was, he knew they didn’t hear him. They couldn’t see him, either. The hall was as dark as any subterranean passageway.
As Luca ducked into the little room, he heard Nolan calling out, “Be careful, babe. This place has surprises.”
