“Do you have any bullets left?” John asked Clay in a low voice. Clay slowly shook his head. He was turning in a cautious circle, shifting his gaze from one animatronic to the next, as if trying to gauge which would make the first strike.
* * *
Charlie ran steadily on, keeping her eyes on the path. She turned another corner and blinked. Something was glowing blue ahead of her. It’s not real, she told herself. She paused for a moment, but the glowing shapes didn’t move. She kept going, realizing as she drew closer that the passageway was widening, opening out finally into a small alcove where the blue glow became clear.
The floor was spotted with patches of mushrooms, their caps glowing an intense neon blue under the black light. She slowed her pace, went to the nearest grouping and bent to touch the mushrooms. She snapped her hand back in surprise when she felt a spongy substance. “They’re real, sort of,” she said.
“Yes,” said a voice beside her ear, and then she was choking. Springtrap grabbed her by the neck, crushing her windpipe. Charlie only panicked for a moment before anger returned to her, giving her clarity. She reached her arm out forward as far as she could, then jammed it back, striking her elbow into his solar plexus with as much force as she could muster. His hands dropped from her throat and she leaped free, turning to face him as he clutched his injured gut.
“Things have changed since you died,” Charlie said, surprised by the calm disdain in her voice. “For one thing, I’ve been doing sit-ups!”
* * *
“I think this is it,” Jessica said quietly, spinning in place as the three monsters approached, leaving no avenue of retreat. John felt his chest clench, his body protesting the idea. But she was right. He put a hand on her shoulder.
“Maybe we can play dead,” he said.
“I don’t think we’ll have to play,” Jessica said resignedly.
“Backs together,” Clay barked, and they backed up into a tiny triangle, each facing one of the creatures. The wolf was crouched, ready to spring. John met its eyes. They were sputtering in and out: dark and malevolent, then completely blank. The thing drew back, and John steeled himself. Jessica grabbed his hand, and he clenched hers tightly. The wolf leaped—and then fell to the ground screeching as something knocked it viciously on its face. The figure, invisible in the shadows, grabbed the wolf’s feet and yanked it backward, dragging it away from its human prey as it howled, scrabbling at the floor with its claws. It kicked its hind legs, freeing itself, and began its attack again. Jessica screamed, and John shouted with her, then watched, breathless, as the wolf was caught by its feet again. The thing that held it flipped it onto its back and jumped on top of it. The new predator paused for an instant, meeting their eyes with a silver glow, and Jessica gasped.
“Foxy,” John breathed. As if spurred on by hearing his name, Foxy plunged his hook into the wolf’s chest and began to tear at its exposed machinery. The screeches of metal ripping apart metal ground at their ears. Foxy continued to dig furiously, burrowing into the wolf as wires and parts fell from the sky. He snapped his jaws in the air, then tore at the wolf’s stomach, wrenching out its insides and flinging them aside with a brutal efficiency. The wolf was overpowered, its limbs flailing helplessly before falling heavily to the ground.
Behind them came another inhuman scream. John whipped around in time to see the fire-ravaged Bonnie on its stomach, being dragged steadily into the shadows. Its eyes blinked on and off in a panicked, meaningless pattern. It screamed again as, with a horrible grinding sound, it was torn to pieces by whatever lurked in the shadows. Pieces of metal and shredded plastic scattered across the floor, skittering out in front of the prone rabbit, so that it could see the remnants of its own lower half. It screamed again, anchoring its claws into the tile in a last, futile defense, only to be pulled screeching into the dark as though through a grinder. In the shadows, four lights glowed. John blinked, realizing they were eyes. He nudged Jessica.
“I can see them,” he whispered. “Chica and Bonnie! Our Chica and Bonnie!” Beside the river, Foxy had torn the wolf’s limbs from its body. He leaped from the ravaged torso and took an attack posture toward the large, twisted Freddy, which twitched and flickered for a moment, then lowered its massive head and charged. Foxy leaped, hitting the twisted Freddy’s face with full force and knocking it onto its back, then tearing into its head cavity, slashing at what was left of the twisted face with enthusiasm.
Something grabbed John and he snapped out of his trance. The twisted Bonnie grabbed him with an arm of exposed metal, but the eyes in the dark rose suddenly behind it. The original Bonnie grabbed the torso of the twisted Bonnie and threw it aside to where Chica waited; she grabbed the misshapen rabbit’s head and wrenched it off in a burst of sparks.
John shielded his eyes. When the smoke settled, all that remained was the hollow, burnt corpse of an unidentifiable monster. Bonnie and Chica had vanished into the shadows.
* * *
Charlie ran for the mouth of the passage, but Springtrap leaped on her with preternatural speed. He knocked her to the ground and reached again for her neck with his swollen hands. Charlie rolled out of the way, and something jabbed her hard in the back. She snatched at it, and a mushroom cap came away in her hands. She leaped to her knees as Springtrap got to his feet, circling her, looking for an opening. She glanced down: a sturdy, metal spike had held the mushroom cap in place. She wrapped her hand around its base, blocking it from Springtrap’s sight with her body.
Charlie looked up at him, meeting his gelatinous eyes, silently daring him to attack. As if on cue, he sprang at her, leaping with his arms thrust out, stretching again toward her throat. At the last moment, Charlie ducked her head and thrust the spike upward with all her might. It stopped with a jolt as it hit his chest, but she drove it in, ignoring his sputtering cries as he tried uselessly to beat her away. She stood, her hands shaking as she shoved the stake in as far as it would go. He toppled backward, and she knelt swiftly beside him, giving the metal spike another thrust.
“Tell me why,” she hissed. It was the question that consumed her, the thing that kept coming back in her nightmares. Now he said nothing, and she rocked the stake back and forth in his chest. He made a gagging cry of pain. “Tell me why you took him! Why did you choose him? Why did you take Sammy?”
* * *
“Into the cave!” John shouted. “We have to get Charlie!”
They hurried to the opening, but from inside the cave came a strange, overwhelming clatter. They all stepped back as a horde of the balloon boys emerged from the cave, shaking back and forth on unsteady feet, their pointed teeth chattering loudly as they wobbled forward with staring eyes.
“Not again! I hate these things!” Jessica cried. Clay took up a fighting stance, but John could see they would be overwhelmed. There was something different about the children now, something coordinated. Though they shook and wobbled, it no longer seemed like a sign of weakness. Instead, John thought of warriors rattling their shields: the threat before the battle.
“We have to get away,” he said. “Clay!”
Something shook the earth—pounding, even footsteps—as a shadow loomed above them. John looked up and saw a smiling Freddy Fazbear approaching, his hat at a jaunty angle and his massive limbs swinging. “Oh no! He’s back!” Jessica screeched.
“No, wait! That’s our Freddy!” John grabbed Jessica and shielded her with his arms. Freddy lumbered past them and into the crowd of balloon boys. With a single lunge he smashed both arms into the crowd, creating a deafening shatter of metal and plastic. The air was filled with arms, legs, and broken shrapnel. Freddy got to his feet and grabbed one of the balloon boys, lifting it up like it weighed nothing. He crushed its head with one hand. Freddy tossed the body to the ground and stomped on it, pursuing the others as they ran. They scattered, but Freddy was moving swiftly, and the room resounded with the noise of cracking plastic.
“Come on, into the cave!” Clay yelled over the din, and they
ran for the passage. They hurried down the narrow path, Clay at the front and John taking up the rear, glancing behind to make sure they weren’t being followed. Suddenly Clay halted, and Jessica and John nearly ran into him. Crowding up beside him, they saw why he’d stopped: the path split, and there was no trace of Charlie.
“There,” Jessica said suddenly. “There’s a light!”
John blinked. It was dim, but he saw it. Somewhere down the passage there was a blue glow, though it was impossible to tell how far away it was. “Come on,” he said grimly, pressing past Clay to take the lead.
* * *
“Why did you take Sammy?!” Charlie cried again. Springtrap wheezed and smiled but did not speak. She grabbed his head with both hands, desperate with fury. She lifted his head and brought it crashing against the rock where it lay. He made another sharp grunt of pain, and she did it again. This time something began to ooze from the back of his head, running thickly down the rock. “What did you do to him?” Charlie demanded. “Why did you take him? Why did you choose him?” He looked up at her; one of his pupils had swallowed the iris of his eye. He smiled vaguely.
“I didn’t choose him.”
Hands grabbed Charlie’s shoulders, dragging her up and away from the semiconscious Springtrap. She shouted and turned to fight back, only stopping herself when she saw that it was Clay. The others were behind him. She turned back, shaking with rage.
“I’ll kill you!” she cried. She lifted Springtrap up by the shoulders and shoved him back against the rock. His head bounced and lolled to the side. “What do you mean you didn’t choose him?” Charlie said, leaning in close to him, as if she might read the answers in his battered face. “You took him from me! Why did you take him?”
Springtrap’s mismatched eyes seemed to focus for a moment, and even he seemed to have difficulty muttering his next words.
“I didn’t take him. I took you.”
Charlie stared, her fingers going lax, loosening on Springtrap’s moldy suit. What? The rage that had filled her to the breaking point drained away all at once. She felt like she’d lost too much blood and was going into shock. Springtrap didn’t try to get away; he just lay there coughing and sputtering, his eyes once more unfocused, staring into a void Charlie couldn’t see.
Suddenly the floor rattled beneath them. The walls rocked inward as the whole cave shook, and something mechanical roared on the other side of the wall. The sounds of grinding metal filled the air.
“It’s a battle royale out there!” Clay shouted. “This whole place is coming down!” Charlie glanced at him, and as soon as her head was turned she felt Springtrap slip from her fingers. She whipped back around, just in time to see him roll through an open trap door at the base of an enormous rock a few feet away. Charlie leaped up to follow him, but the floor quaked violently. She lost her footing, nearly falling as half the cave wall came tumbling down. She stopped, glancing around in confusion: real rock and dirt cascaded all around them. “It’s not the fake cave that’s collapsing!” she shouted to the rest. “It’s the whole building!”
“Is everyone okay?” Clay shouted. Charlie nodded, and saw that John and Jessica were still on their feet. “We have to go!” Light shone through a crack in the wall ahead. Clay started for it, motioning the others to follow. Charlie hesitated, unable to take her eyes from the last place she’d seen Springtrap. John put a hand on her arm.
The walls of the fake cavern had almost completely fallen, and now they could see the actual interior of the complex.
“That way!” Clay shouted, pointing to a narrow maintenance hall that seemed to stretch off endlessly into the distance. “None of these things will be able to fit through there!” Clay and Jessica ran for the entrance to the corridor, but Charlie faltered.
“Charlie, we can deal with him another day,” John shouted over the din. “But we need to survive this one first!” The ground shook again and John looked at Charlie. She nodded, and they ran.
Clay led them racing through the tunnel as the sound of its collapse chased them. The air was filled with dust, obscuring the path ahead. Charlie looked back once, but the ruins were lost in the haze. Eventually the rumble of falling rock was reduced to a distant thunder. The clean, narrow hallway began to feel removed from the madness behind them.
“Clay we have to stop,” Jessica cried, holding her side like she was in pain.
“I see something up ahead. I think we’re almost to the end of this. There!” The hallway ended in a heavy metal door, partially cracked, and Clay beckoned John to help him open it. It squealed and protested, then gave way at last, opening into a simple room of dark stone. One wall of it had been knocked down, and the room gaped open, the cool night air pouring in.
John looked at Charlie. “We’re out! We’re okay!” He laughed.
“Don’t you see where we are?” she whispered. Slowly, she walked the length of the room, gesturing to the four enormous pits in the floor, one of which contained a headless, half-buried robot. “John, this is my dad’s house. It’s the room we found.”
“Come on, Jessica.” Clay was helping Jessica through the gap in the collapsed wall. He paused and looked back to John.
“It’s okay,” John said. “We’ll be right there.” Clay nodded. He helped Jessica through and moved out of sight.
“What is this?” Charlie put her hand on her stomach, a sudden unease settling over her.
“What’s wrong?” John asked. Something flickered all around them, a disorienting flash, too fast to even tell where it had come from. A thunderous crash echoed from the hall they’d just broken out of. “Charlie, I think we should go with Clay.”
“Yeah, I’m coming.” Charlie followed John to the gap in the wall as he climbed through it.
“Okay, come on,” John shouted, holding out his hand to her from what had once been her own backyard. She started forward, then stopped as the lights flickered again. What is that?
It was the walls. The whitewashed concrete was blinking in and out of existence, shivering like a dying bulb. It was the wall Charlie had been drawn to the first time they came to this place. Now she felt its pull as she had in the cave. It was stronger here than it had ever been, even in the dreams that left her drained and aching. I’m here. She took a step toward the far wall and felt another pang in her stomach. Here. Yes, here.
“Charlie!” John cried again. “Come on!”
“I have to,” she said softly. She went to the wall and put her hands on it, as she’d done before. But this time the concrete was warm, and somehow smooth despite the rough finish. I have to get inside. For a moment, she felt like she was in two places at once: here, inside the little room, and on the other side of the wall, desperate to get through. She drew back suddenly, taking her hands off the wall as if it burned. The illusion flickered, then died altogether.
The concrete wall was made of metal, and at the center was a door.
Charlie stared, blank with shock. This is the door. She’d been drawing it without knowing what it was. Approximating over and over something she had never seen. She stepped forward again and put her hands on the surface. It was still warm. She pressed her cheek against it. “Are you in there?” she called softly. “I have to get you out.”
Her heart was pounding, blood rushing in her ears so loudly she could scarcely hear anything else. “Charlie! Charlie!” John and Jessica were both calling her from outside, but their voices seemed as distant as memory. She stood, not taking her hands from the metal but tracing her fingers along it. It felt like letting go for even an instant would cause her pain. She brought her hands to the crack in the wall: it had no handle, no knob, and no hinges. It was just an outline, and now she ran her thumb up and down the side of it, trying to find a trip, some trick that would make the door open and let her through.
She heard John climb back inside and slowly approach her, keeping his distance, as though he might scare her away.
“Charlie, if you don’t get out of here, you’ll di
e. Whatever’s behind that door, it can’t give you back your family. You still have us.” Charlie looked at John. His eyes were wide and frightened. She took a small step toward him.
“We’ve lost enough. Please, don’t make me lose you, too,” John pleaded. Charlie stared at the ceiling as it trembled; clouds of smoke were pouring out of the corridor they’d come from. John coughed heavily; he was choking. She looked at him. He was terrified, unwilling to draw closer than he already was.
She turned again, and the world around her faded; she couldn’t hear John behind her, or smell the smoke filling the air. She laid her hand flat against the wall. A heartbeat. I feel a heartbeat. Though she made no intentional movement, her body turned to the side. She tensed, committing to remain where she stood, without ever making the decision. Something began to hiss: the steady, gentle sound of air being released. From the base of the door came a rhythmic clicking. Charlie closed her eyes.
“Charlie!” John grabbed her and turned her forcefully toward him, shaking her out of her stupor. “Look at me. I’m not leaving you here.”
“I have to stay.”
“No, you have to come with us!” he cried. “You have to come with me.”
“No, I …” Charlie felt her voice trail off; she was losing strength.
“I love you,” John said. Charlie’s eyes stopped drifting: she fixed them on him. “I’m taking you with me, right now.” He grabbed her hand roughly. He was strong enough to pull her away by force, she knew, but he was waiting for her to acknowledge him.
She looked into his eyes, trying to let them bring her back. It felt like trying to awaken from a dream. John’s gaze was an anchor, and she held it, letting him keep her steady, draw her back to him. “Okay,” she said quietly.
“Okay,” John repeated, heaving the words out in a sigh. He’d been holding his breath. He walked backward, guiding her as he went.
The Twisted Ones Page 20