“Stay alert,” she said.
Then she saw it: a single ranch-style house stood at the center of it all, surrounded by bulldozed land and the bare rib cages of half-built houses jutting from the ground. It was out of place: painted, fenced, and even planted with flowers in the garden. That’s when it made sense. A show house.
The road stopped a few yards into the development, replaced by worn-down tracks in the dirt where the machinery came in and out. Charlie slowed the car to a stop. “Even you can’t follow me this time,” she said to the rabbit’s head, then got out and closed the door, giving Theodore a smile through the window.
Charlie walked the trail slowly. The hulking, unfinished frames of the houses seemed to watch her reproachfully as she trespassed. The gravel crunched under her feet in the silence. There wasn’t even a breeze; everything was still. She stopped when she reached higher ground and surveyed her surroundings for a moment. Everything was disturbed. Everything was upturned. She glanced above her as a single bird passed overhead, barely visible from its soaring height. Her eyes returned to the wasteland. “You’re here somewhere, aren’t you?”
At last she reached the lone finished house. It was set at the center of a neat square of perfectly trimmed grass, towering above its stooped, half-constructed neighbors. Charlie stared at the lawn for a moment before realizing that it must be fake, just like whatever furniture was inside.
She didn’t try the door right away, instead going around to the backyard. It was laid out in a neat square of AstroTurf, just like the front, but here the illusion had been ruined. Ragged strips of grass had been torn up. The place radiated a sense of distress, now eerily familiar. Charlie just stared for a moment, certainty pulsing through her. She clenched her jaw, then went back around to the front door. It opened easily, without even a whisper of sound, and Charlie went inside.
It was dark in the house. She flipped a light switch experimentally, and it illuminated the whole place in an instant. A fully furnished living room greeted her, complete with leather chairs and a couch, and even candles on the fireplace mantle. She started to close the front door behind her, then hesitated, leaving it ajar. She walked farther into the living room, where there was an L-shaped couch and a wide-screen TV. I’m surprised it hasn’t been stolen, she thought. But when she went closer she saw why—it wasn’t real. There were no cords or cables coming from it. The whole place had a surreal quality, almost of mockery.
She walked slowly into the dining room, her feet clapping against the polished hardwood floor. Inside was a beautiful, mahogany dining set. Charlie bent over to look at the underside of the table. “Balsa wood,” she said, grinning to herself. It was a light, airy wood, made for model airplanes, not furniture; she could probably lift the table over her head if she wanted to. Down a short hallway from the dining room was a kitchen with gleaming new appliances, or at least imitations of them. There was also a back door in the kitchen. She unlocked it and pushed it open halfway, leaning outside and looking again at the expansive, tortured landscape. There were several stone steps here, leading down into a small garden. She stepped back inside, being sure to leave the door hanging slightly open.
There was a second long hall off the living room. This led to bedrooms and a small room fashioned into an office or den, complete with tall bookshelves, a desk, and an inbox tray full of empty file folders. Charlie sat down in the desk chair, finding herself enchanted by the utterly surface imitation of life. She spun the chair once, then stood again, not wanting to get distracted. There was a door to the outside here, too, though it was oddly placed beside the desk. Charlie opened it, fiddling with the latch until she was sure it would stay open. She continued on her way, walking through the house systematically, unlocking and opening each window she came to. Then she went down to the basement, where a storm cellar hung over a set of steep stone stairs. She opened that as well, leaving the doors gaping wide. Outside, dark had fallen.
There were several bedrooms, each furnished and made up with bright curtains and silk sheets, and a large bathroom with marble sinks. Charlie turned the faucet to see if there was water, but nothing happened, not even the grinding of pipes trying and failing. There was a master bedroom with an enormous bed, a guest room that somehow looked even less lived-in than the rest of the house, and a nursery with a life-size menagerie painted on the wall and a mobile hanging above a crib. Charlie glanced inside each, then went back into the master bedroom.
The bed was wide and covered in a light canopy of white mosquito netting. The covers were white as well, and the moon shone through the window to illuminate the pillows. It had an uncanny effect, as if whoever slept there would be on display. Charlie went to the window and leaned out, breathing in the soothing, cool night air. She looked up at the sky. It was still cloudy; there were only a few stars visible. She’d been moving with such grim, impulsive energy until now, but this part would be agonizing. Long hours might pass before anything happened, and all she could do was wait. A nervous fluttering had begun to fill her stomach. She wanted to pace, or even to run away, but she closed her eyes and clenched her jaw. It’s me they want.
At last, Charlie pulled herself away from the window. She’d packed pajamas in the bag out in the car, but this sterile house full of props and imitations felt too strange for her to actually dress for bed. Instead she just took off her sneakers and considered her bedtime rituals complete. She laid down on the bed and tried to conjure her nightmares, gathering up those final moments with Sammy and holding them close to her like a talisman. Hold on, she thought. I’m coming.
* * *
John checked his watch. She’s just running late. But she was late last time, too. The waitress caught his eye, and he shook his head. Of course, last time she showed up covered in filth. He’d already called her dorm room, but the phone just rang and rang. He’d seen what he’d thought was an answering machine when he was there, but realized only as he was waiting for it to pick up that it could have been one of Charlie’s projects, or some piece of discarded junk. The waitress refilled his water glass, and he smiled at her.
She shook her head. “Same girl?” she asked gently.
John let out an involuntary laugh. “Yes, same girl,” he said. “But it’s okay. She’s not standing me up, she’s just … busy. College life, you know.”
“Of course. Let me know if you want to order.” She gave him another look of pity and went away. He shook his head.
Suddenly, he saw Charlie’s hands on her backpack straps, holding on so tight that her knuckles had gone white. They’re coming for me, she’d said. Charlie wasn’t the type to wait around patiently for something to happen to her.
He got up and walked urgently to the pay phone at the back of the restaurant. Clay picked up on the first ring.
“Clay, it’s John. Have you heard from Charlie?”
“No. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” John said reflexively. “I mean, I don’t know. She was supposed to meet me, and she’s—twenty-four minutes late. I know it’s not a lot, but she said something earlier that’s bothering me. I think she might do something stupid.”
“Where are you?” John gave him the address. “I’ll be right there,” Clay said and hung up before John could reply.
For the first few minutes, Charlie kept her eyes shut, feigning sleep, but after a little while they began to flutter of their own accord. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to force them to stay closed, but it became unbearable. She opened them into the darkness and at once felt relief.
The house had grown cool with night. The open window let in fresh, clean air. She breathed deeply, trying with each exhalation to make herself calm. She wasn’t anxious so much as impatient. Hurry up, she thought. I know you’re out there.
But there was only silence, and stillness.
She took the disc out of her pocket and looked at it. It was too dark to see any details, not that there was anything on it she hadn’t already memorized. A little light shon
e in from the moon outside, but the shadows in the corners were deep, like there was something hidden there eating up the light. She rubbed the side of the disc with her thumb, feeling the bumps of the letters. If she didn’t know they were there, they’d be scarcely noticeable.
Afton Robotics, LLC. She’d seen pictures of William Afton, the man who Dave had been: pictures of him with her father, smiling and laughing. But she only remembered him as the man in the rabbit suit. My father must have trusted him. He must not have suspected. He would never have built a second restaurant with the man who murdered one of his children. But those creatures—he had to have known they were buried beneath our house. Charlie clenched her teeth, stifling a sudden delirious urge to smile. “Of course there was a secret robot graveyard under my bedroom,” she murmured. “Of course that’s where it would be.” She covered her face in her hands. All the threads were tangling in her mind.
She pictured it unwillingly. The creature in the doorway. At first he was a shadow, blocking the light, then he was a man in a rabbit suit, and even then it didn’t occur to Charlie to be afraid. She knew this rabbit. Sammy hadn’t even noticed him yet. He continued to play with his toy truck, running it back and forth hypnotically across the floor. Charlie stared up at the thing in the doorway, and a coldness began to gather in the pit of her stomach. This was not the rabbit she knew. Its eyes shifted back and forth subtly between the twins, taking its time: making its choice. When the eyes settled on Charlie, the cold feeling spread all through her, then he looked away again, at Sammy, who still hadn’t turned around. Then a sudden movement, and the costumes on their hangers all leaped together, covering her so she couldn’t see. She heard the toy truck hit the ground and spin in place for a moment, then everything was still.
She was alone, a vital part of her cut away.
Charlie sat up, shaking herself to try and set the memories loose. She’d grown accustomed to sharing a room with Jessica. It was a long time since she’d been completely alone with her thoughts in the dark.
“I forgot how hard it is to be quiet,” she whispered, her voice as soft as breath. She glared down at the strange disc in her hand, as if it was bringing these visions on her. She tossed it across the room and into a dark corner, out of sight.
Then she heard it. Something was inside the house.
Whatever it was, it was being cautious. She heard creaks from somewhere distant, but they were slow and muted. Silence followed; whatever moved was hoping the sound would be forgotten. Charlie crept from the bed and approached the door carefully, pushing it farther open and leaning out agonizingly slowly, until she could see deep into the living room, and the dining room beyond that. A part of her kept returning to the thought that she was in someone else’s house, that she was the intruder.
“Hello?” she called, almost hoping for an answer, even an angry one demanding to know what she was doing there. Maybe John would answer, happy to have found her, and come running from the darkness.
Only silence returned her call, but Charlie knew she wasn’t alone anymore.
Her eyes widened, her heartbeat drumming in her throat, making it hard to breathe. She took careful steps over the stone tiles, down the short hall to just outside the living room, where she stood to listen again. A clock chimed the hours in a different room. Charlie walked to the edge of the living room and stopped again. She could see most of the house from here, and she scanned the area for anything out of place. Doorways surrounded her like gaping mouths, breathing night air from the windows she’d opened.
There was a long hall leading from the farthest corner of the living room to a different bedroom. It was one of the few places she didn’t have a clear line of sight into. She edged around the leather sofa in front of her and across the circular rug that filled the room. As she walked, she could see more of the hall slowly revealing itself. It stretched out, farther and farther.
Charlie stopped midstep. She could see into the far bedroom now. It was full of windows and blue moonlight, and there was something obstructing her view, something she hadn’t noticed while she was moving. Now its silhouette was unmistakable. Charlie carefully looked around again, her eyes adjusting to her surroundings. To her right, another large door led down a single step and into the large den. Bookcases stretched up to the ceiling, and a putrid air emanated from inside. Beyond the bookcases was another shadow that didn’t belong. Charlie bumped into a lamp and startled. She hadn’t even realized she was moving backward.
The front door was open wide. Charlie nearly bolted toward it to escape, but she stopped herself. She took a breath and stepped softly back toward the bedroom, checking over her shoulder as she went. She went back to the bed, sliding her bare feet on the wood floor so her steps would make no sound, and eased herself slowly onto the mattress, cautious to keep the springs from creaking. Charlie lay back, closed her eyes, and waited.
Her eyes twitched, every instinct she had shouting the same thing: Open your eyes! Run! Charlie breathed steadily in and out, trying to make her body go limp, trying to look asleep. Something is moving. She counted the steps. One, two, one, two—no. They were slightly asynchronous: there was more than one of them. Two, maybe all three, were inside the house. One set of footsteps passed her door, and she let her eyes flutter open for an instant, just in time to see an indistinct shadow cross before the crack in the door.
Another set of footsteps sounded like they were in the side hallway, while a third …
She screwed her eyes shut tight. The steps fell still outside her door. Her breath was shuddering; she almost hiccupped as she inhaled and she bit her lips together. The door was gliding open. Her lungs tightened, pressing her for air, but she refused. She hung on to that single breath as if it were the last one she’d ever get. I’ll find you. She clenched her fists, determined to remain still.
The footsteps were through the door now, crossing the floor with a heavy tread. She kept still. The air above her stirred, and through her closed eyelids, the darkness grew even darker. Charlie opened her eyes, and breathed in.
The space above her was empty; nothing was looking down at her.
She turned her head slowly, peering into the open hall to her left. The noises had all stopped.
Suddenly the blankets were yanked off her, pulled from the foot of the bed. Charlie shot up and finally saw what had come for her. An enormous head rested its chin at her feet. It looked like something from a carnival game, its eyes rolling from side to side, clicking each time they moved. A pitch-black top hat was perched on its head, cocked slightly to one side, and the giant cheeks and button nose gave him away immediately. Freddy.
It was no longer the sleek and featureless head she had unearthed in the abandoned lot. His head was lively and full of movement, covered in wavy brown fur and bouncy cheeks. Yet there was something disjointed about it all, as though every part of his face was moving independently.
Charlie fought to remain still, but her body was acting of its own accord, squirming and pulling to get away from the mouth opening up toward her. Freddy’s face slid across the bed like a python. His head lost its shape as it folded outward, taking hold of her feet and beginning to swallow, moving slowly upward as she fought not to scream or fight. A giant arm reached up and clapped the side of the bed, shaking the room as it anchored itself and pulled the giant torso higher. Freddy’s jaw made motions of chewing as the distorted face pulled Charlie’s legs inside it. His cheeks and chin dislocating further. It no longer resembled a living thing.
Panic took hold and Charlie screamed. She clenched her fists, but there was no longer a face to strike. There was only a squeezing and spiraling vortex of fur, teeth, and wire. Before she could struggle further, her arms were pinned to her side, trapped inside the thing. Only her head remained free. She gasped for a last breath, then was violently scooped up, consumed by the creature.
* * *
Clay Burke stopped the car without slowing down. The brakes screeched as they fishtailed in the dirt. John
was out of the car before Clay had gotten it under control, running up the hill toward the house.
“Around back,” Clay said, catching up to John, his voice low and tight. They made their way around the house to the back door, which was gaping open. “Check that way.” Clay gestured to his right as he ran left. John stuck close to the wall, peering into doorways as he passed them.
“Charlie!” he cried.
“Charlie!” Clay echoed, entering the master bedroom.
“CHARLIE!” John ran from room to room, moving faster. “CHARLIE!” He arrived at the front door. He swung it wide open and stepped outside, half expecting to catch someone fleeing the scene.
“Clay, did you find her?” he shouted as he raced back inside.
Clay walked briskly back into the living room, shaking his head. “No, but she was here. The bed was unmade and there was dirt all over the floor. And these …” He held up Charlie’s sneakers. John nodded grimly, only now noticing the trails of dirt strewn through the house. He glanced again to the front door.
“She’s gone,” John said, his voice catching in his throat. He looked at the older man. “Now what?” he asked.
Clay just stared at the floor, and said nothing.
Clay!” John repeated. His alarm grew as the older man stared down at the dirty floorboards, apparently lost in thought. John put a hand on his arm, and Clay startled. He looked as if just he’d realized he wasn’t alone. “We have to find her,” John said urgently.
Clay nodded, springing back to life. He broke into a run and John followed close at heel, barely making it into the passenger’s seat before Clay started the engine and took off, speeding down the half-made road.
“Where are we going?” John shouted. He was still struggling to close the door against the wind. It flapped like a massive wing, pulling against him as Clay swerved down the hill. Finally John yanked it shut.
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