“Charlie, are you okay?”
“What?” Charlie looked at John. She realized she’d pulled her feet up on the chair and was hugging her knees to her chest. She sat back, setting her shoes back on the floor. John gave her a concerned look. “I’m fine,” she whispered, and gestured to the screen.
John put a hand on her forearm. “Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked.
Charlie stared straight ahead. Now there were people running, the zombies lurching after them. “This doesn’t make sense,” Charlie muttered, mostly to herself.
“What?” John leaned toward her.
Charlie didn’t move, but she repeated herself. “It doesn’t make sense. Zombies don’t make sense; if they’re dead, the central nervous system is shot, and they can’t do any of this. If there’s a functioning central nervous system, which has somehow decayed to the point that movement and thought are possible, but severely hindered, fine. If it makes them violent, fine. But why would they want to eat brains? It doesn’t make sense.”
That man wouldn’t have been able to walk on his own in a suit so oversized. He didn’t walk into that field; the suit did. The animatronic was carrying him inside. It walked into that field of its own accord.
“Maybe it’s symbolic,” John suggested, eager to engage, however odd the conversation. “You know, like the idea that you eat your enemy’s heart to gain their power? Maybe the zombie eats its enemy’s brain to gain its … central nervous system?” He glanced at Charlie, but she was only half listening.
“Okay,” she said. She’d been irritated by the movie, now she was irritated by the conversation she herself had introduced. “I’ll be right back,” she told John, and got up without waiting for him to respond. She made her way out of the row, through the lobby, and out the door. On the sidewalk, she took a deep breath and felt an intense relief at the wash of fresh air. Dreams about being trapped are common, she reminded herself. She’d looked it up when they began. They were only slightly less common than dreams of showing up to class naked, plummeting from a great height, or having your teeth all suddenly fall out. But this didn’t feel like a dream.
Charlie jostled her thoughts back to the present, where even the crime scene of a gruesome murder seemed like a safer place to keep them.
There must be tracks. He didn’t walk there himself. There must be some clue of what carried him into that field, and where it came from.
Charlie shivered. She went back inside the building. John’s going to think I’m nuts. She arrived at the swinging theater doors and stopped—she couldn’t do it. She had to know. There was a young man at the concession stand, and she asked him if the place had a pay phone. He pointed silently to his right, and Charlie went, fishing in her pocket for a quarter, and for Chief Burke’s card.
She dialed carefully, pausing between numbers to check the card again, as if the writing might have changed since she looked. Clay Burke answered on the third ring.
“Burke.”
“Clay? It’s Charlie.”
“Charlie? What’s wrong?” He was instantly alert; Charlie could picture him leaping to his feet, ready to run.
“Nothing, I’m fine,” she assured him. “Everything is okay, I just wanted to see if you’ve found anything else.”
“Not so far,” he told her.
“Oh.” Burke let the silence stretch between them, and Charlie finally broke it. “Is there anything else you can tell me? I know it’s confidential, but you’ve brought me in this far. Please, if there’s anything else you know. Anything else you found, anything you know about the man—the victim.”
“No,” Clay said slowly. “I mean, I’ll let you know when we find something.”
“Okay,” Charlie said. “Thanks.”
“I’ll be in touch.”
“Okay.” Charlie hung up the phone before he could say good-bye. “I don’t believe you,” she said to the phone on the wall.
Back in the theater, her eyes took a moment to adjust as she inched along the back row toward her seat, careful not to make noise. John looked up at her with a smile as she sat down, but didn’t say anything. Charlie smiled back with a grim determination, and settled back in her seat, then scooted over until her shoulder was pressed against his. From behind her head, she heard him make a surprised noise, then he shifted, putting his arm around her shoulders. He gripped her tightly for a moment, halfway to a hug, and Charlie leaned in a little, unsure how else to reciprocate.
What if someone put him in the costume, like some kind of wind-up deathtrap? Stuck him inside that thing, then sent it walking until the spring locks went off. But who would know how to do that? Why would someone do that?
“Did I miss anything?” Charlie asked, though she hadn’t paid any attention to the first half of the movie anyway. It was daytime onscreen, and it looked like there were more people, holed up in some sort of bunker. Charlie couldn’t remember which of them had been the original characters. She wriggled in her seat; John’s arm around her had relaxed, but now the arm of the seat was digging into her side. He started to move away, but she settled herself again.
“No, it’s okay,” she whispered, and his arm circled her again. “Just get on with it,” Charlie said, flustered. John startled.
“Sorry, I didn’t want to be too aggressive.”
“No, not you.” Charlie gestured toward the screen. “They should just build a minefield around the bunker and wait for them to all blow up. The end.”
“I think that’s actually what they do in the sequel, but we’ll have to wait to watch it for ourselves.” He winked.
“There’s another one?” She sighed.
When the credits started to roll, they gathered their things and headed to the exits with the rest of the small crowd, not speaking until they got outside. On the sidewalk, they stopped.
“This has been nice,” John said, sounding—somehow—like he meant it, and Charlie laughed, then groaned, covering her face with both hands.
“This has been awful. This has been the worst date ever. I’m so sorry. Thanks for lying, though.”
John gave an uncertain smile. “It was nice to see you,” he said with cautious levity.
“It’s just—can we go somewhere to talk?”
John nodded, and Charlie started back toward campus with him following behind.
The quad was usually empty late at night, or at least mostly empty. There was always someone walking across, some student finishing up late night work in a lab, some couple ensconced in a dark corner. Tonight was no different, and it was easy enough to find their own dark corner to talk. Charlie sat down under a tree, and John copied her, then waited for her to talk as she stared at the gap between two buildings, where you could almost see the woods.
Finally, he prompted her. “So what’s up?”
“Right.” She met his eyes. “Clay came to see me today.” John’s eyes widened, but he didn’t say anything. “He took me to see a body,” Charlie went on. “He had died inside one of the mascot costumes.”
John was frowning; she could almost see his thoughts, working through what this meant, and why it involved Charlie.
“That’s not all: Clay told me that they found blood in the main dining room at Freddy’s. Fake blood.”
John’s head jerked up. “You think Dave’s alive?”
Charlie shrugged. “Clay didn’t come out and say it. But all those scars—he had survived the spring locks of a mascot costume before. He must have known how to escape the building.”
“It didn’t look to me like he escaped,” John said doubtfully.
“He could have faked it; it would certainly explain the blood.”
“So what then? Dave is alive and stuffing people into spring-lock suits and killing them?”
“If I could just go back to the restaurant one more time, to make sure that—” Charlie stopped, suddenly aware of growing anger in John’s face.
“To make sure that what?” he asked sternly.
“Nothing
. Clay has it under control. Everything is best left with the police.” She clenched her jaw, gazing out over the horizon.
Jessica will go with me.
“Right,” John said with a surprised look. “Right, you’re right.”
Charlie nodded with forced enthusiasm.
“Clay has men for this sort of thing,” she continued with a furrowed brow. “I’m sure they’re on top of it.”
John took Charlie’s shoulders lightly. “I’m sure it’s not what you think it is, anyway,” he said in a hearty, reassuring tone. “There’s a lot of crime in this world that doesn’t involve self-imploding furry robot suits.” He laughed and Charlie forced a smile.
“Come on.” John extended a hand and Charlie took it. “I’ll walk you to your dorm.”
“I appreciate the gesture,” she said. “But Jessica’s there, and we’d have to go through the whole reunion, you know?”
John laughed. “Okay, I’ll save you from Jessica and her relentless camaraderie.”
Charlie grinned. “My hero. Where are you staying, anyway?”
“That little motel you stayed at last year, actually,” John said. “I’ll see you tomorrow maybe?”
Charlie nodded and watched him go, then started on her own way home. Excruciating though the date had been, the last half hour felt like a homecoming. It was her and John again; they were familiar again. “All we needed was a good old-fashioned murder,” she said aloud, and a woman walking her dog gave Charlie an odd look as she passed in the opposite direction. “I was at a movie, Zombies vs. Zombies!” Charlie called halfheartedly after her retreating back. “You should go check it out! They don’t put mines around the bunker; spoiler alert.”
Charlie had half hoped Jessica would be asleep, but the lights were on when she reached their room. She flung open the door before Charlie had her key out of her pocket, her face flushed.
“So?” Jessica demanded.
“So what?” Charlie asked, grinning in spite of herself. “Hey, before you start into this, I need to ask you something.”
“So you know what!” Jessica cried, ignoring her question. “Tell me about John. How did it go?”
Charlie felt the corner of her mouth twitch. “Oh, you know,” she said casually. “Listen, I need you to go somewhere with me in the morning.”
“Charlieee! You have to tell me!” Jessica moaned exaggeratedly, and flopped back on her bed. Then she sprang back up into a sitting position. “Come here and tell me!” Charlie sat, drawing her legs up under her.
“It was weird,” she admitted. “I didn’t know what to say. Dates just seem so … uncomfortable. But about what I was saying—”
“But it’s John. Shouldn’t that outweigh the ‘date’ part?”
“Well, it didn’t,” Charlie said. She looked at the floor. She could tell her face was red, and suddenly she wished she hadn’t told Jessica anything at all.
Jessica put her hands on Charlie’s shoulders and looked at her seriously. “You are amazing, and if John isn’t just falling all over himself for you, that’s his problem.”
Charlie giggled. “I think he kind of is. It’s part of the problem. But there is something else if you would just listen for a second.”
“Oh, there’s more?” Jessica laughed. “Charlie! You need to save something for the second date, you know.”
“What? No, no. NO! I need you to go somewhere with me in the morning.”
“Charlie I have a lot going on right now; I have exams coming up, and …”
“I need you …” Charlie clenched her jaw for a moment. “I need you to help me pick out new clothes for my next date,” she said carefully, then waited to see if Jessica would believe a word of it.
“Charlie are you kidding me? We’ll go first thing in the morning!” She jumped up and gave Charlie a giant hug. “We’ll have a girls’ day out! It will be amazing!” Jessica flopped back to her bed. “Sleep for now, though.”
“It won’t bother you if I work on my project for a while, will it?”
“Not at all.” Jessica waved limply, then went still.
* * *
Charlie turned on her work lamp: a single, bright beam that was focused enough to not illuminate the whole room. She uncovered the faces; they were at rest, their features smooth as if in sleep, but she didn’t turn them on yet. The switches that made them move and talk were only one part of the whole. There was another component: the part that made them listen was always on. Everything that she and Jessica said, every word spoken in the room, outside the window, or even in the hall, they heard. Each new word went into their databases, not only as a single word, but in all its configurations as they emerged. Each new piece of information was stuck to the piece of information most like it; everything new was built on something old. They were always learning.
Charlie turned on the component that allowed them to speak. Their features rippled softly, as if they were stretching themselves.
I know, said the first, more quickly than usual.
So what? said the second.
Know what?
You know so what?
Know what?
Now what?
What now?
Know how?
Why now?
Charlie switched them off, staring as the fans slowed to a stop. That didn’t make sense. She looked at her watch. It was about three hours too late for bed. She changed quickly and climbed under the sheets, leaving the faces uncovered. There was something unnerving about their exchange. It was faster than it had ever been, and it was nonsensical, but there was something about it that rang familiar—it struck her.
“Were you playing a game?” she asked. They couldn’t answer, and just stared blankly into each other’s eyes.
She removed the pillowcase gently, taking care not to let it catch on anything. Beneath their shroud, the faces, blank and sightless, were placid; they looked like they could wait, ever listening, for eternity. Charlie switched them on, and bent over to watch as they began to move their plastic mouths without sound, practicing.
Where? said the first.
Here, said the second.
Where? said the first again. Charlie drew back. Something was wrong with the voice; it sounded strained.
Here, repeated the second.
Where? said the first with a rising intonation, like it was growing upset.
That’s not supposed to happen! Charlie thought, alarmed. They shouldn’t be able to modulate their voices.
Where? the first wailed, and Charlie stepped back. She leaned down slowly to peer under the desk, as though she might find an entanglement of wires that would explain the strange behavior. As she stared, puzzled, a baby began to cry. She stood at once, knocking her head painfully on the edge of the desk. The two faces looked suddenly more human, and more childlike. One was crying, the other watching with an astonished look on its face. “It’s okay,” said the calmer face. “Don’t leave me!” The other wailed as it turned to look at Charlie.
“I’m not going to leave you!” Charlie cried. “Everything will be okay!” The sound of crying swelled, higher and louder than human voices should be, and Charlie covered her ears, looking desperately around for someone to help. Her bedroom had darkened, and heavy things hung from the ceiling. Matted fur brushed her face, and her heart jolted: the children are not safe. She turned back, but an acre of fabric and fur had somehow fallen between her and the wailing babies.
“I’ll find you!” She shoved her way through, tripping on limbs that dragged on the ground. The costumes swung wildly, like trees in a storm, and a little distance away, something fell to the floor with a hard clunk. At last, she reached her desk, but they were gone. The howling went on and on, so loud Charlie couldn’t hear herself think, even as she realized that the screaming was her own.
Charlie sat up with a loud, raw gasp, as if she had actually been screaming.
“Charlie?” It was John’s voice. Charlie looked around with one bleary eye to see a head peerin
g through the bedroom door.
“Give me a minute!” Charlie called as she sat up straight. “Get out!” she cried, and John’s head shrank back; the door closed. She felt shaky, her muscles weak. She’d been holding them tense in her sleep. She changed quickly into clean clothes and tried to brush her slightly tangled hair into something more manageable, then opened the door.
John poked his head in again, taking a cautious look around.
“Okay, come in. It’s not booby-trapped, though maybe it should be,” Charlie joked. “How did you get in here?”
“Well, it was open, and I …” John trailed off as he took in the room around him, momentarily distracted by the mess. “I thought maybe we could go to breakfast? I have to work across town in about forty minutes, but I have some time.”
“Oh, what a nice thought, but I … ,” she said. “Sorry for the mess. It’s my project, I sort of get wrapped up in it and forget to—clean.” She glanced at her desk. The pillowcase was in place as it should be, the vague outlines of the faces just visible beneath it. It was just a dream.
John shrugged. “Yeah? What’s the project?”
“Um, language. Sort of.” She looked around the room curiously. Where had Jessica wandered off to? Charlie knew John would be suspicious of her sudden, unprecedented interest in clothes shopping, and was hoping to avoid explanations. “Natural language programming,” she went on. “I’m taking … computer programming classes.” At the last moment, something stopped her from saying the word robotics. John nodded. He was still eyeing the mess, and Charlie couldn’t tell what had caught his attention. She plunged back into her explanation. “So, I’m working on teaching language—spoken language—to computers.” She walked briskly to the door and peered out into the hall.
The Twisted Ones Page 5