Charlie gasped and whirled around, her heart pounding. Jessica was behind her, holding a stack of books to her chest. Her eyes were wide and a grin of excitement broke across her face.
“We were just talking about the movie we saw last night,” John said with a casual smile.
“Oh yeah, okay.” Jessica gave him a quick look of faux seriousness and glanced at Charlie. “So, Charlie, what’s the map for?” she asked, gesturing at it elaborately. “Oh, does it have to do with Freddy’s?” she said with excitement in her voice. John looked at Charlie suspiciously.
“Did she tell you?” Jessica looked to John, and John looked back at Charlie, eager to hear the rest.
“Jessica, now probably isn’t the best time,” Charlie said feebly.
“We went to Freddy’s yesterday,” Jessica said in a hushed tone, although no one else was around.
“Oh, really? Funny, Charlie didn’t mention that. Was that before or after all that shopping?” John folded his arms.
“I was going to tell you,” Charlie murmured.
“Charlie, sometimes I think you’re just trying to get yourself killed.” John put his hand over his face.
“So what’s the map for?” Jessica repeated. “What are we looking for?”
“Monsters,” Charlie said. “New … animatronics. They’re murdering people, seemingly at random,” she continued, not fully convinced of what she’d just said.
Jessica’s face grew grave, but her eyes still held a twinkle of eagerness as she walked around the side of the car to dump her books on the backseat. “How? Where did they come from? Freddy’s?”
“No, not Freddy’s. They came from my dad’s house, we think. But they weren’t his, Jessica. He didn’t build them. We think it was Dave … Afton … whatever his name is.” The words had come tumbling out all at once, nonsensical, and John stepped in to translate.
“She means that—”
“No, I get it,” Jessica cut in. “You don’t have to talk to me like I’m uninitiated. I was at Freddy’s last year, too, remember? I’ve seen some crazy things. So, what are we going to do?” She looked at Charlie, her game face on. She looked far more together than Charlie felt.
“We don’t know what any of it means for sure,” John said. “We’re still figuring it out.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Jessica asked. Charlie looked up at her hesitantly.
“I just didn’t want it to be like last time,” she said. “There’s no need to put everyone at risk.”
“Yeah, just me.” John smirked.
“I get that,” Jessica said. “But after what happened last time … I mean, we’re in this together.”
John leaned back against the car, glancing around for anyone who might be listening.
“So …” Jessica stepped around her to look at the map. “What are we doing?”
Charlie leaned in and squinted at the distance key on the map. “There’s about three miles between each location.” She studied the map again for a moment, then drew another circle. “That’s my house—my dad’s house.” She looked up at John. “Whatever is out there killing people came from there. They must have …” Her voice trailed off.
“When the storm broke the wall,” John muttered.
“What?” Jessica asked.
“A section of the house was sealed until the storm broke through.”
With firm strokes, Charlie drew a straight line from her father’s house, through the three houses of the victims, and continued the line across the map. “That can’t be right,” Jessica said when she saw where the line finally ended. John peered over Charlie’s shoulder.
“Isn’t that your college?” he asked.
“Yeah, it’s our dorm.” The excitement had left Jessica’s voice. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
Charlie couldn’t take her eyes off the paper. It felt a little like she had drawn the path to her own death. “It wasn’t a coincidence,” she said.
“What are you talking about?”
“Don’t you get it?” She let out a faint laugh, unable to stop herself. “It’s me. They’re coming for me. They’re looking for me!”
“What? Who are they?” Jessica looked to John.
“There were three empty … graves at her dad’s house. So, there must be three of them out there somewhere.”
“They move at night,” Charlie said. “I mean they can’t walk around in the daylight. So they find a place to bury themselves until nightfall.”
“Even if you’re right, and they’re coming for you,” John said, bending down and trying to catch her eye, “now we know they’re coming. And going by this, we can at least guess where they might go next.”
“So, what are you saying? What does that matter?” Charlie heard her own voice break.
“It matters because those things are out there, right now, buried in someone’s yard. And when the sun goes down they’re going to kill again, in the most horrible way possible.” Charlie said nothing, her head bowed. “Look.” John straightened out the map and pushed it into Charlie’s lap, so she couldn’t help but see it. “Somewhere in here.” He pointed to the next circled area on the line. “We can stop them if we can find them first,” John said with urgency.
“Okay.” Charlie took a breath. “We don’t have much time, though.”
John grabbed the map, and they all got into the car.
“Just tell me where to go,” Charlie said grimly.
John peered down at the map. “So this is where we need to be?” he confirmed, pointing to the fifth circle, and Charlie nodded. He turned the map and squinted. “Turn left out of the parking lot, then take the next right. I know this place. I’ve driven past it. It’s an apartment complex. It’s pretty run-down from what I remember.”
Jessica leaned forward, poking her head between the front seats. “Those circles don’t look too precise; it could be anywhere in the area.”
“Yeah, but I’m guessing it’s going to be the place with the three fresh graves in the backyard,” John said.
Charlie glanced at each of them for a second before fixing her eyes back on the road. There was safety in numbers. Last year when they were trapped at Freddy’s together, Jessica was the one who had gotten them inside the restaurant in the first place. She was brave, even when she didn’t want to be, and that meant more than whatever notion of romance John was entertaining.
“Charlie, turn right!” John exclaimed. She yanked the wheel, barely making the turn. Focus. Imminent murder first, everything else later.
Before them lay sprawling fields, lots marked out and prepared for construction and future development but never finished. Some had never even begun. Slabs of concrete were stacked here and there, almost completely obscured by overgrowth. A few lots away, steel beams had been erected to make a foundation that was never filled in. The place had decayed before it was completed.
In the farthest lot back was a cluster of what seemed to be finished apartment complexes. Grass and weeds grew rampant around them, however, climbing up their very walls; it looked like years of growth. It was hard to tell whether anyone lived inside. Years ago, the city had been diligently preparing for a population boom, one that never arrived.
“Are there even people out here?” Jessica was gazing out the window.
“There must be. There are parked cars.” John craned his neck. “I think those are cars. I don’t know where we’re supposed to look, though.”
“I think we just have to drive around.” Charlie slowed the car as they traversed the road leading toward the buildings.
“Maybe not,” John said. “I bet it’s somewhere near the edge of the development. Most people would probably call the police if they saw eight-foot monsters digging holes in someone’s backyard. There is a lot of visibility out here.”
“Of course,” Charlie said with dread in her voice. “They’re buried, out of sight, and strategically placing themselves so as not to be found.” She looked at John expectantly, but he just s
tared back. “They’re intelligent,” she explained. “I think I would have liked it better if they were just roaming the streets mindlessly. At least then someone could call the national guard or something.” Charlie kept her eyes on the fields.
They drove around the outer edges of the development slowly, looking at the yards of each house. Some of the buildings looked abandoned, the windows boarded up or torn out completely, opening the apartments to the elements. The storm had done its damage, but little had been done to repair it. A tree had fallen across one cul-de-sac, blocking a building off completely. But it didn’t look like anyone was trying to get in or out; the tree rotted where it lay. There was litter strewn in the abandoned streets, collecting in the gutters and bolstering the curbs. Maybe one apartment in five had curtains in the window.
Occasionally they passed a parked car or a toppled tricycle on the patchy grass. No one came outside, though Charlie thought she saw a curtain pull shut as they drove past. In two backyards there were aboveground pools filled by rainwater, and one had a large trampoline, its springs rusted and its canvas torn.
“Just a second.” Charlie pulled to a stop, leaving the car running as she approached a tall wooden fence. It was too high to climb, but there was a single board that hung loose off its nail near the base. She squatted down and pried it away to peek inside.
Two round black eyes glared at her.
Charlie froze. The eyes belonged to a dog, a massive thing, which started to bark, its teeth gnashing and its chain clanking. Charlie slammed the board back in place and walked to the car. “Okay, let’s keep going.”
“Nothing?” Jessica asked dubiously, and Charlie shook her head. “Maybe they didn’t make it this far.”
“I think they did,” Charlie said. “I think they’re doing exactly what they mean to.” She pulled the car over to the shoulder of the winding road and looked at the apartment buildings on either side. “This could have been a nice place to live,” she said softly.
“Why are we stopping?” John looked confused.
Charlie leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes. Locked in a box, a dark and cramped box, can’t move, can’t see, can’t think. Let me out! Her eyes flew open, and she grabbed the handle of the car door in a panic. She pulled against it hard.
“It’s locked,” John said. He leaned across her to pull up the button lock.
“I know that,” she said angrily. She got out and closed the door. John moved to follow her, but Jessica placed her hand on his shoulder.
“Leave her alone for a minute,” she said.
Charlie leaned over the trunk, propping her chin on her hands. What am I missing, Dad? She stood up straight and stretched her arms over her head, turning her whole body slowly to study her surroundings.
There was an empty lot beyond the development, not far from where they were. It was marked out with telephone poles, only one of which had wires. A breeze dragged the loose wires through the dirt, scattering gravel. It didn’t look like it had ever been paved. There was a coil of barbed wire as tall as Charlie, sitting uselessly in a corner. Empty cans and fast-food wrappers littered the ground, the paper quivering and the cans rattling in the slight wind, like they sensed something awful. The wind rushed up behind Charlie and blew past her, straight toward the field, rustling the papers and cans and sending waves across the patches of brown grass. Something wrong is planted there.
Filled with a new energy, Charlie opened the car door just enough to lean inside.
“That lot. We have to go look.”
“What do you see? It’s kind of out of the way,” John said.
Charlie nodded. “You said it yourself. If an eight-foot monster is digging up the neighbor’s backyard, someone’s going to notice. Besides, I just have … I have a feeling.”
Jessica got out of the car and John followed at her heels. Charlie already had the trunk open. She pulled out a shovel, the big Maglite flashlight she always kept close by, and a crowbar.
“I’ve only got one shovel,” she explained, making it clear she was keeping it for herself. Jessica took the flashlight and made a practice swing with it, as if hitting an invisible assailant.
“Why would you even have a shovel?” Jessica asked in a suspicious tone.
“Aunt Jen,” John said by way of explanation.
Jessica laughed. “Well, you never know when you might have to dig up a robot.”
“Come on,” Charlie said, tossing John the crowbar and starting off. He caught it with ease and jogged beside her, leaning in so Jessica wouldn’t hear.
“How come I don’t get the shovel?”
“I figure you can swing a crowbar harder than I can,” Charlie said.
He grinned. “Makes sense,” he said confidently, gripping the crowbar with new purpose.
When they reached the edge of the lot, John and Jessica stopped, looking down at the ground before them, as though scared of what they might step on. Charlie went ahead across the loose dirt, gripping the shovel tightly. The field was mostly barren soil, studded with large mounds of gravel and dirt that had been left for so long that grass had begun growing on them.
“This must have been the dumping ground for when they were building,” John said. He took a few steps into the lot, avoiding a broken glass bottle.
At the opposite edge was the tree line. Charlie studied it carefully, tracking its path back in the direction they’d come.
John knelt beside a pile of gravel and carefully poked at it with his crowbar, as though something might leap out. Jessica had wandered toward a cluster of bushes. She crouched to pick something up, then quickly dropped it and wiped her hands on her shirt. “Charlie, this place is disgusting!” she cried.
Charlie had reached the tree line and began walking alongside it, studying the ground.
“See anything?” John yelled from the other side of the lot.
Charlie ignored him. Deep grooves in the dirt extended from the trees, snaking around the bushes. The large rocks nearby were freshly marked with gashes and scrapes. “Not exactly footprints,” Charlie whispered as she followed the grooves in the soil. Her foot touched soft ground, a sudden contrast to the hard-packed dirt of the rest of the lot. She stepped back. The dirt at her feet was discolored, familiar.
Charlie struck her shovel into the ground and started to dig, the metal rasping noisily on the gravel mixed in with the dirt. Jessica and John ran toward her.
“Careful,” John warned as he approached. He hefted the crowbar in his hands like a baseball bat, ready to strike. Jessica hung back. Charlie saw that her knuckles were white on the flashlight’s handle, but her face was calm and determined. The dirt was loose and came away easily. At last the blade of the shovel struck metal with a hollow clunk, and they all jumped. Charlie handed the shovel to John and knelt in the mess of scattered earth, brushing away the dirt with her hands.
“Careful!” Jessica said, her voice higher-pitched than usual, and John echoed her.
“This was a horrible idea,” he murmured, scouting the area. “Where’s a police car when you need one? Or any car?”
“It’s still day for a little while longer,” Charlie said absently, focused on the ground as her hands ran through it, prying away rocks and clods of dirt, digging to find what lay beneath.
“Yeah, it’s day. It was also day when that twisted Foxy attacked you earlier, remember?” John said more urgently.
“Wait, WHAT?” Jessica exclaimed. “Charlie, get away from there! You didn’t tell me that!” She turned on John accusingly.
“Look, a LOT has been going on, okay?” John raised his hands, palms out.
“Yeah, but if you’re going to sign me up for this stuff, then you need to tell me about things like that! You were attacked?”
“Sign you up for this? You had one foot in the car at the first mention of murder! You practically invited yourself.”
“Invited myself? You talk like I crashed your date, but you didn’t exactly fall over yourself to refuse my hel
p.” Jessica planted her hands on her hips.
“Charlie,” John sighed. “Can you please talk to—OH JEEZ.” He jumped backward, and Jessica followed suit as soon as she looked down. Beneath them, gazing up from the loose dirt, was an enormous metal face, staring toward the sun. Charlie didn’t say anything. She was still busy scooping away the soil from the edges, revealing two rounded ears on the sides of its head.
“Charlie. Is that … Freddy?” Jessica gasped.
“I don’t know. I think it was supposed to be.” Charlie heard the anxiety in her own voice as she stared down at the large, lifeless bear with its perpetual smile. The crude metal frame was covered with a layer of gelatinous plastic, giving it an organic appearance, almost embryonic.
“It’s huge.” John gasped. “And there’s no fur …”
“Just like the other Foxy.” Charlie’s hands were getting sore. She cleared the hair from her face and stood up.
It was Freddy, but somehow not. The bear’s eyes were open, glazed over with the inanimate look of lifelessness Charlie knew so well. This bear was dormant, for now.
“Charlie, we have to go,” John said with a tone of warning. But he didn’t move, still staring downward. He knelt beside the face and began to claw at the dirt above its forehead, clearing the earth away until he saw it: a filthy, battered black top hat. Charlie felt a smile tugging at her mouth, and she bit her lip.
“We should call Burke,” Jessica said. “Now.”
They all turned back toward the development as the wind rose again, rushing past them and making waves in the tall grass. The earth was still, and the sun was sinking lower behind the rolling hills in the distance.
Charlie tossed her keys to John. “You go. There’s a gas station a few miles back the way we came. You can call from there.” He nodded, jangling the keys in his hand.
“I’ll stay with you,” Jessica said instantly.
“No,” Charlie said, more forcefully than she intended. “Go with John.” Jessica looked confused for a moment but finally nodded and headed off toward the car.
“Are you sure?” John asked. Charlie waved her hand at him dismissively.
The Twisted Ones Page 11