Five Nights at Freddy's, page 8
Mike lifted his gaze and looked around the room again. His attention landed on the lone locker. Randomly, his mind was suddenly filled with the image of seeing one of the boys in his school—Bobby, a poor skinny kid who was teased relentlessly—being stuffed into his locker. The little hairs on the back of Mike’s arms bristled as he looked at the slats at the top of the locker. What exactly was in the thing?
Mike tried to dismiss the question, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to settle until he satisfied himself that the locker was empty … or that it was at least filled with something benign and inanimate.
Leaving his backpack on the desk next to the TV, Mike got up and walked over to the locker. Hesitating only a second, he reached out and yanked on the locker’s unsecured lock. The locker door swung open and slapped back against the wall with a clang as Mike looked into the locker.
His gaze met the bug-eyes of a rosy-cheeked, grinning little boy.
Mike yelped and immediately slammed the locker door shut again. He backed away from the locker and stared at it. His heart felt like it was detonating in his chest.
What the hell was that?
Mike’s brain provided him with a replay of what he’d seen. He’d seen a boy. Shiny skin. Too-colorful face. Too much white in the eyes. And most important … the boy was very, very puny. Conclusion: it wasn’t a real boy.
Mike rolled his eyes at his own skittishness. He breathed in and out evenly, and then he stepped forward. This time, Mike pulled the locker door open slowly.
Sitting on the locker’s top shelf, the boy gazed at Mike placidly. Not a boy. A doll.
The doll wore a pin-striped, propellor-topped cap and held a satiny red balloon. The doll was too short to have been mistaken for a real child. Unless you’d gotten yourself worked into a jump-at-your-own-shadow state of high anxiety.
“I really need to calm down,” Mike said.
The boy doll didn’t agree, but it didn’t disagree, either. The boy’s grin, however, did make Mike feel like the doll was laughing at him.
Mike looked at the doll’s bulging eyes. Little worms of unease crawled up Mike’s neck.
He quickly reached out and turned the doll’s head so its face was aimed toward the back of the locker. “There, Balloon Boy,” Mike said. “Laugh at that.”
Mike dropped his gaze from the doll and inspected the rest of the locker, wanting to be sure it didn’t hold any more creeptastic toys. Thankfully, it didn’t. There were only two other things in the locker. One was … great! … a flashlight, one of the big black ones that could be used as a weapon if necessary. (Mike really hoped it wouldn’t be necessary.) The second thing in the locker was a Freddy Fazbear–branded red security vest. Mike studied the vest for a second, then he shrugged.
“Why not?” Mike tugged the vest from its wire hanger.
Mike grabbed the flashlight, gave Balloon Boy one last glance (to be honest, he wanted to make sure it was still turned toward the back of the locker), and shut the locker door. Stepping over to the desk, he set the flashlight where he’d be able to grab it quickly if the power went out again. Then he slipped on the vest. He might as well look the part.
Armed now with the hefty flashlight and a determination not to be so on edge, Mike decided he’d be more comfortable if he explored his surroundings a bit. The office itself didn’t feel like much of a safe haven, and so Mike wanted to know what else the building held. He decided to start with the main dining room he’d seen in the video.
Mike left the office and headed back down the main hall. Bypassing all the closed doors (not because he was afraid of what was behind them … nope, not afraid at all), Mike retraced his steps back to the lobby. As he went, he shone his flashlight every which way. He didn’t see much that he hadn’t noticed before, except he did see that the hallway ceiling had intercom speakers like the one in the office. He figured they were probably all over the restaurant.
When Mike reached the lobby, he turned toward the archway. Then he strode through it and looked around.
Although the building’s power was full-on, the cavernous dining area—it had to be at least a hundred feet square—was still filled with puddles of black and gray and the palest of dirty yellow. Mike looked up, and he saw that the yellow came from moonlight shining through a bank of dirty skylights.
Mike looked around and he saw a light switch to the left of the archway. He took a step toward it, but then he remembered Raglan’s warnings about the electrical system. He didn’t want to risk plunging the entire building into pitch darkness again. So, he flicked on his flashlight.
As soon as Mike aimed his flashlight at the expanse in front of him, he kind of wished he hadn’t turned it on. The scene was bleak.
Maybe if Mike hadn’t watched the video, he wouldn’t have been as put off by the vacant, filthy, desolate room. Mike’s mind, however, was still filled with the bright, happy scenes from the video. He’d expected to find a colorful room filled with tables. Instead, he was looking at a wasteland. Only a few tables remained, and these were covered with dust or filthy, torn tablecloths. A few toppled stacks of chairs were scattered around the room. The black-and-white floor was littered with debris—party hats, paper plates, napkins, empty cups.
Kicking one of the cups, Mike walked toward the two stages on the opposite side of the room. One of the stages was covered with an older version of the red curtain he’d seen in the video. The velvet on the curtain now was matted, and the red was faded. Over a smaller stage to the left, a purple curtain with gold stars sagged. Mike recognized it from the poster in the hallway. He sincerely hoped the fox from the poster wasn’t lurking behind the curtain.
To counter the sudden melancholy the neglected and forgotten dining room had created, Mike whistled … loudly. The sound rang through the room, swirling out away from him and then returning. It reminded him of the way his words had echoed back to him in the lobby. Weird.
Mike shook his head, reminding himself that he’d decided not to be spooked. He whistled again, even louder. He started to take a step forward.
A loud clatter jerked Mike into full-startle. He sucked in a gasp and snapped his flashlight beam toward the sound.
His flashlight’s rays were aimed at the curtains that covered the stage. What was back there? Was someone else here?
“Hello?” Mike called out.
As soon as he threw out the word, he regretted it. How many times had he laughed at a character in a movie when they called out “Hello?” If someone was here, it probably wasn’t someone up to any good. And now, Mike had announced his presence and his exact location. Brilliant.
Mike kept his flashlight aimed at the curtains. They didn’t move.
Staying very, very still, Mike listened. He heard nothing. Not even his own breathing.
Mike realized he’d stopped breathing. He started again.
Shining his light in a full circle, Mike decided there were way too many potential hiding spots in the room … not the least of which was behind the closed curtains. The flashlight … and the wimpy moonlight … didn’t give him even close to an acceptable view of the area around him.
Mike turned and strode to the light switch. Using it was worth the risk.
Mike reached the switch quickly. He flipped it upward.
Nothing happened.
Mike flicked the switch up and down several times. Click, click, click. No light.
“Perfect,” Mike said.
The word toyed with him the same way his whistle had. Mike decided to keep his mouth closed from now on.
For a second, Mike thought about retreating back to the office. But if someone was in here, wasn’t it his job to find them?
I’m not getting paid enough for this, Mike thought. Even so, he stepped away from the light switch. Taking a deep breath, he advanced farther into the room.
Feeling vulnerable out in the middle of the room, Mike decided to hug the right wall. That wall, he noticed, was covered with children’s drawings. Maybe a hundred or more stick-figure drawings, not unlike many of Abby’s masterpieces, plastered the dining room’s wall like wallpaper. Yellowed and curling, the drawings fluttered as Mike passed them.
Although Mike’s flashlight beam illuminated the drawings, he gave them only cursory attention. His focus was on the main stage. That was where the sound had come from.
Past the drawings, Mike reached a short flight of stairs that led up to the stage. Near the steps, a hand-sized red button was on the wall. It was the button from the video. The SHOWTIME letters above it were faded, barely legible. If Mike hadn’t known what it said, he might not have been able to piece the word together.
Mike aimed his flashlight at the button. He shook his head. No way in hell was he going to press that thing.
Mike passed by the button. He climbed the steps up to the stage.
Making sure to walk far enough in front of the curtains that he was beyond arm’s reach of anything that might want to come out from behind them, Mike stepped softly over the dusty wood stage floor until he reached the middle of the stage where the two sides of the curtains met. He shone his light at the half-inch gap between them.
Straightening his posture, as if a shoulders-back, soldier-like stance would prepare him for whatever he was about to face, Mike reached out and took the edge of the curtain in his left hand. The velvet was crusty beneath his fingertips.
Mike pulled the curtain farther back. Leading with his flashlight, he poked his head behind the curtain.
When Mike’s flashlight beam landed on the first grinning, big-toothed mouth, the beam immediately jerked away. That took the light to another massive grin. And another.
Stunned and awed by the size of the tooth-filled mouths he was seeing, Mike steadied his light and aimed it so it illuminated as wide a view as possible. As soon as he took in the whole scene, his awe morphed into dread.
Mike immediately stepped back. Still clutching the curtain in his left hand, not because he wanted to but because his fingers had spastically clamped on the velvet material, he retreated. The curtain came with him, pulling up and away from the stage floor and opening a wider gap. Mike swept his flashlight left and right, and then he quickly shot the light away from what he was seeing.
Finally dropping the curtain, Mike turned. He didn’t bother to head for the stage stairs. He just leaped off the stage and started hotfooting it through the dining room.
As Mike ran, his brain provided him with a recap of what he’d just seen: the huge white eyes that hovered above all the leering grins that had sent him scampering away like a bunny rabbit pursued by a hawk.
The eyes. Bunny rabbit.
Had Mike really seen what he’d thought he’d seen?
A chill cascaded through Mike’s body like a freezing waterfall. He ran faster.
Mike tried to tell himself that his brain was playing tricks on him. He hadn’t seen what he thought he’d seen.
But he knew he was lying to himself.
Just as Mike had dropped the curtain, one set of white eyes, the set that belonged to the big blue bunny, had shifted. It had watched Mike’s retreat.
Sticking to his trusty nighttime routine was more than a little challenging for Mike, given the circumstances. A multitude of obstacles stood between Mike and the normal flow of his bedtime ritual.
First, of course, there was the fact that he was at work. He hadn’t been hired to sleep. But to heck with that. Who was going to know if he slept instead of watching the creepy monitors?
Second, there were the contents of the building Mike was in. As much as he tried to convince himself that he hadn’t seen the bluish-purple bunny move its eyes to watch him, he knew he had. If the bunny could watch him, what else could it do? What else could the other animatronics do? Mike had assumed they were powered down … but were they?
Third, Mike wasn’t tired. He was too freaked out to be tired. But then … that’s what the pills were for.
Mike pondered these and other issues for an hour or so after he returned to the office. He also watched the office door, which he’d locked. When nothing had come to get him during that hour, Mike had decided to stick to his well-established bedtime habits. But first, he dragged one of the filing cabinets—the battered one—over to the door. Looking again at the scratches on the floor, he wondered if he wasn’t the first one to use the cabinet as a barricade. If so, what did the scratches mean? He didn’t let himself think about it.
Returning to the desk, Mike looked at the chair. Not ideal for sleeping, but if he put his head on the desk, he could make it work.
Mike opened his backpack and started pulling out what he needed. Pills … check. Bottle of water … check. Cassette player … check. Dream Theory … check. Alarm clock … Mike looked down at his watch. He’d decided to use his watch as his alarm clock instead of bringing his clock from home. He set his watch alarm now.
Mike laid the paperback book next to the cassette player. Then he took his pill.
Looking at the door one last time, Mike shifted his gaze to the wall clock opposite the desk. The hour hand was halfway between midnight and one a.m.
Mike looked at all the monitors in turn. Parking lot, lobby, hallways, kitchen, arcade, dining room, storage rooms, back of the restaurant, front of the restaurant. All empty. All quiet.
Mike put his head down on his folded arms. He closed his eyes.
Besides his bed, of course, there was one piece of Mike’s nightly arsenal that he hadn’t brought with him—the poster. But even so, when he closed his eyes, he immediately saw the swaying pine trees. He heard the breeze, too.
Drifting into unconsciousness, Mike twitched and frowned. Was that a breeze he was hearing? It didn’t sound quite right. It sounded more like static than a breeze, as if he was hearing the scratchy modulation of feedback coming through a speaker, maybe an intercom.
This thought almost derailed Mike’s descent into dreamland, but the pull of the pine trees’ undulation was too strong. Mike ignored the crackling that marred the soothing sound of the breeze. He let the pine trees drop him into the scene that was so familiar to him.
The scene, however, didn’t flow smoothly in Mike’s mind tonight. It came in snatches.
Gyrating tree branches.
Orange toy airplane flying through the air.
A spray of ketchup.
“How about some burger with that ketchup, hon?” Mike’s dad asks.
Thump.
Fizz.
Mike’s mom’s voice calls out, “Keep an eye on your brother.”
Frisbee whizzing.
Car engine revving.
Twelve-year-old Mike shouts, “Garret!”
Branches slapping Mike’s face.
Black car zooming away.
Garret’s pale face in the car’s back window.
Mike opens his mouth to scream. And for once, the scream makes it out of his mouth.
“Garret!”
Mike watches the black car disappear around a bend. Then …
Mike hears children laughing. The sound comes from behind him.
Confused, Mike turns.
Five children stand in the middle of the now-empty road. One of them wears a paper top hat. One has a paper bib tied around his neck. One wears paper rabbit ears on her head. One holds a paper hook.
The fifth child, a blond boy with icy-blue eyes, stands out in front of the other children. He has no paper props.
Mike stares at the blond boy. “Who are you?” he asks. “How did you get here?”
The boy says nothing.
In the periphery of Mike’s vision, he sees the other children playing. For a moment, they seem strangely abstract, oversimplified. They’re almost two-dimensional, like paper dolls instead of real children.
As soon as Mike turns and looks at the children full-on, though, the children are perfectly real. Mike shifts his gaze back to the blond boy. As his focus transitions, he gets the same cardboard-cutout impression of the kids.
Quickly reorienting to look at the kids straight-on, the flattened affect disappears again. Mike frowns, baffled.
As bewildered as he feels, however, Mike has a little fire of exhilaration flickering in his belly. Whatever’s happening is new, different than anything he’s seen before.
Mike steps toward the blond boy as he gestures back over his shoulder to where the car disappeared. “Did you see that car?” Mike asks. “Did you see what happened?”
The blond boy studies Mike as if Mike is an ant invading a picnic.
Mike tries again. “Did you see who took my brother?”
The blond boy smiles. Beyond him, the other children are back in 2-D, like they’ve stepped off the page of a book.
Mike looks directly at the children. They’re real again.
Once, twice, three times, Mike adjusts his gaze. Focusing. Unfocusing. Focusing. Unfocusing. Focusing. Unfocusing. The children turn into flattened images and then swell back into 3-D.
Finally, the children abruptly scatter. All five of the kids run. They go in five different directions.
Mike calls out, “Wait!” He looks from one fleeing child to the next, trying to decide which one to follow.
Mike finally chooses the blond boy, who is just starting to disappear into the woods. Mike takes off at a full sprint.
Pine branches thwack at Mike’s face as he strains to keep the boy in his sights. He can see flashes of blond hair through the branches. If he can just stay with the boy until they’re out of the trees …
Thunk! Mike’s foot hits a rock. He loses his balance and pitches forward, his body flying toward the ground.
Mike opened his eyes and discovered he was pitching forward out of his chair. His body flew toward the floor. His head cracked against the hard linoleum.
Moaning, Mike put a hand to his forehead. He winced when his fingers pressed against a lump near his temple.
“Ow!” Mike pulled his hand back from the tender area. He pushed off the floor and managed to get to his knees. Just as he started to get his bearings, a shrieky beep started stabbing at the pain in his head.
