She saw his shadow at the end of the hall—if he turned his head, he would see her. Without thinking, Charlie climbed up onto the platform that she had bumped into and ducked behind the curtain, tucking herself between the wall and a large, bulky prop, trying not to breathe.
“Charlie?” He called, still far away. “Charlie!” Charlie felt her heartbeat quicken. There had been boys she liked, now and then, but this was something different. She wanted him to find her, but not quite yet. As she waited, her eyes adjusted to the darkness, and she was able to make out the shape of the curtain, and the edge of the stage. She looked up at the object in front of her.
No. Her body shuddered, then froze.
It was standing over her. It was the thing from her father’s workshop, the misshapen thing that hung in the corner, shaken by random convulsions as its eyes burned silver. Does it hurt? Now it was still, and its eyes were blank and dull. It was staring straight ahead, insensate, and its arm with its hook hung useless at its side. She recognized his eyes, but he was somehow worse now, encased in hollow body parts and matted with red fur, with a stench of oil and glue. He had a name now: they called him Foxy. But she knew better.
Charlie shrank away, pressing against the wall. Her heart was racing, and her breath was shallow, too fast. Her arm had been touching its leg, and now she felt a sudden itchiness from it, as though she had been contaminated. She wiped her hand violently against her shirt as she began to panic.
Run.
She sprang away from it, pushing off the wall to get away, to move before it saw her, but the edge of the stage caught her foot. She stumbled forward, momentarily becoming entangled in the curtain. She struggled to get free when suddenly the thing’s arm jerked up, and the hook slashed at her arm. She ducked away too late, and it cut her, the pain shocking, like freezing water. She tripped backward, and felt herself falling for long seconds, and then she was caught.
“Charlie? Are you ok?”
It was John, he had caught her. She tried to nod, but she was shaking. She looked at her arm: there was a cut above the elbow, almost four inches long. It was bleeding freely, and she covered it with her hand, the gaps between her fingers welling over as her own blood leaked through.
“What happened?” It was Marla, rushing up behind her. “Charlie, I’m so sorry, I must have hit a button that caused it to move. Are you okay?”
Charlie nodded, a little less shaky. “I’m fine,” she said. “It’s not that bad.” She moved her arm around experimentally. “See? No nerve damage,” she said. “I’ll be fine.”
Carlton, Jessica, and Lamar came hurrying out of the control room.
“We should take her to the E.R.,” Carlton said.
“I’m fine,” Charlie insisted. She stood up, refusing John’s help, and bracing herself on the stage for a moment. She heard her Aunt Jen’s voice in her head. How much blood have you lost? You don’t need to go to a hospital. She could move her arm just fine, and she would not bleed to death from this. She felt dizzy, though.
“Charlie, you look like a ghost,” John said. “We need to get you out of here.”
“Okay,” she said. Her thoughts were scattered, and the injury hurt less than it should have. She took deep breaths as they headed for the exit, grounding herself. John handed her a piece of cloth and she put it to the cut to slow the bleeding.
“Thanks,” she said, and looked at him. Something was missing “Was that your tie?” She said, and he shrugged.
“Do I look like a tie person?”
She grinned. “I thought it looked good on you.”
“Jason!” Marla yelled as they passed the arcade. “Move it or I’m leaving you behind!”
Jason ran to catch up.
“Is Charlie okay?” He said anxiously. Marla caught her breath and put her arm around him.
“She’s fine.” She reassured him.
They walked briskly through the same corridor that they entered through. Jason looked back as he was being guided out, studying the pictures on the wall once more before losing sight of them. The colored lights from the stage were fading and the flashlight was throwing shapes and shadows on everything, making the drawings difficult to see, but Jason could swear he saw the figures moving in the pictures.
They all hurried back through the empty building and out to the parking lot, not keeping watch for the guard. When they made it out to the car, Lamar, who had grabbed the big flashlight, flipped it on and shone it at Charlie’s arm. She looked down at the cut.
“Do you need stitches?” Marla said. “I am so sorry, Charlie.”
“We were all being careless, it’s not your fault,” Charlie said. She knew she sounded annoyed, but she didn’t mean to: her voice was tight and clipped with pain. The shock had worn off, but that meant the wound had begun to hurt.
“It’s fine,” Charlie said, and after a long moment the others gave in somewhat reluctantly.
“We should at least get you some stuff to clean that up and bandage it,” Marla said, wanting to do something to atone, however small.
“There’s a 24-hour drugstore just off the main road,” Carlton offered.
“Charlie, why don’t you go with Marla, and I’ll drive your car back to the motel?” Jessica said.
“I’m fine,” Charlie protested half-heartedly, but she handed Jessica the keys. “You’re a good driver, right?”
Jessica rolled her eyes. “People from New York know how to drive, Charlie.”
John lingered a moment as Charlie was getting in to Marla’s car. She smiled at him.
“I’m fine,” she said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” He looked at her like there was something more he wanted to say, but just nodded and left.
“Okay,” Marla said. “To the drugstore!”
Charlie twisted in her seat to look at Jason. “Did you have fun?” She asked.
“The games don’t work,” he said, obviously preoccupied. The drugstore was only a few minutes away.
“You stay in the car.” Marla commanded as they pulled to a stop.
“Don’t leave me out here,” Jason pleaded.
“I told you to stay,” she repeated, a little confused by the fear in his voice. He didn’t answer, and she and Charlie headed inside.
As soon as they were gone, Jason pulled the drawing out of his pocket. He held it up under the faint lights of the parking lot to examine. It had not changed back: Bonnie the Bunny was reaching toward a child, who was facing away from him. Curious, Jason scraped at the crayon lines with his fingernail; the wax came off easily, leaving its trace on the paper.
As soon as Marla passed into the florescent-lit, air-controlled drugstore, she sighed and put her hands to her temples.
“Oh, he’s such a little brat,” she said.
“I like him,” Charlie said honestly. She was still using John’s tie to stanch the bleeding, and now in brighter light she peeled it back to see the cut. The bleeding had almost stopped; it was not as bad as it had first appeared, though the tie was irreparably ruined. “Hey,” she said. “How come you brought Jason, anyway?”
Marla didn’t answer right away, setting her sights on the first aid aisle and heading for it.
“Here we are,” she said. “What do you think, gauze?”
“Sure, but don’t call me Gauze.” Charlie leaned into Marla but was ignored. “Antiseptic.” Marla continued, grabbed the items.
“The thing is,” she said, “so, Jason’s dad and our mom have been married since before he was born. I mean, obviously. And they’re probably getting divorced. I know about it, but Jason doesn’t.”
“Oh, no,” Charlie said.
“They’re fighting all the time,” Marla went on, “and it scares him, you know? I mean, my dad left when I was still a little kid, so I grew up with that, I was used to it. Plus I got to have a great stepdad. But for him, it’s gonna feel like the end of the world. And they’re sure not doing anything to make it easier; they’re fighting right in front of us. So, I didn’t want
to leave him alone with that for a week.”
“I’m so sorry, Marla,” Charlie said.
“Yeah, it’s okay,” Marla said. “I’m leaving in a year anyway. I’m just worried about the brat out there.”
“He’s really not a brat,” Charlie said, and Marla grinned.
“I know, he’s pretty great, right? I kinda like having him around.”
They paid for the supplies. The clerk, a teenage boy, didn’t bat an eye at Charlie’s moderately blood-spattered appearance. Outside, they sat on the hood of the car. Marla started to open the bottle of antiseptic, but Charlie held out a hand for it.
“I can do it myself,” she said. Marla looked like she was about to argue, but she swallowed whatever she was about to say and handed Charlie the bottle, and a piece of gauze. As Charlie awkwardly cleaned her arm, Marla smiled impishly.
“Speaking of people we like having around, are you having fun with John?”
“Ow! That stings. And I don’t know what you mean,” Charlie said primly, suddenly putting all her attention on her task.
“You do, too. He’s following you around like a little puppy, and you are loving it.” Charlie bit back a smile.
“How about you and Lamar?” She retorted.
“Me and who now?” Marla said. “Here.” She held out a hand for the bloody gauze, and Charlie handed it to her, reaching for a clean strip. “You’re going to have to let me tape it,” Marla said. Charlie nodded and held the gauze in place as Marla reached for the tape.
“Come on,” Charlie went on. “I see the way you look at him.”
“Nope!” Marla smoothed down the last piece of tape and put everything back in the bag.
“Seriously,” Charlie said as they got back into the car. “You’re adorable together. And your names are anagrams of each other. Marla and Lamar! It’s meant to be!” Both laughing, they headed back to the motel.
Chapter 5
When they got to the motel, Jessica was already there—and so was John. He stood up when Charlie walked in.
“I was worried about you. I thought maybe I could sleep on the floor?” He waited nervously for her reaction, as though he had realized only upon seeing her that he might have overstepped her boundaries.
On another day, in another place, Charlie might have been annoyed by his excessive concern. But here, in Hurricane, she was glad to have it. We should all be together, she thought, it’s safer. She wasn’t really afraid, but unease still clung to her like cobwebs, and John’s presence had been a calming one ever since they arrived. He was still looking at her, waiting for a response, and she smiled at him.
“As long as you don’t mind sharing the floor with Jason,” she said.
He grinned. “Just let me have a pillow and I’ll be fine.” Marla tossed him one, and he stretched elaborately, set it on the ground, and lay down.
They all went to bed almost immediately. Charlie was exhausted; now that her injury had been cleaned and bound up, the adrenaline of the night had left her body all at once, leaving her drained and a little shaky. She didn’t even bother changing into pajamas, just collapsed on the bed next to Jessica, and was asleep in seconds.
Charlie woke just after dawn, when the sky was still pale and a little pink. She looked around the room. The others wouldn’t be up for hours, she suspected, but she was too alert to try to fade back into sleep. She grabbed her shoes, and, stepping over Jason and John’s sleeping bodies, she went outside. The motel was set a little way back off the road, trees spread thickly around and behind it. Charlie sat down on the curb to put her shoes on, wondering if she could go for a walk in the woods without getting lost. The air was crisp, and she felt renewed by the brief night’s sleep, energized. Her arm hurt; a dull and pulsing pain that kept drawing her attention, but it had not bled through the bandages, and Charlie usually found it easy to ignore pain, when she knew she was not in danger from it. The woods were inviting, and she decided to risk getting lost.
As she was about to stand, John sat down beside her.
“Morning,” he said. His clothes were rumpled from his night on the motel floor, and his hair was a mess. Charlie held back a laugh. “What?” He said. She shook her head.
“You look a little like your old self today,” she said. He looked down at himself and shrugged.
“Clothes don’t make the man. What are you doing up so early?”
“I don’t know, couldn’t sleep. What about you?”
“Somebody stepped on me.”
Charlie winced. “Sorry,” she said, and he laughed.
“I’m just kidding. I was awake.”
“I was going to go for a walk,” she said, pointing at the tree line. “Out there, somewhere. Do you want to come?”
“Yeah, definitely.”
They headed into the woods, and John hung back for a moment and surreptitiously re-tucked his shirt, trying to smooth out the wrinkles. Charlie pretended not to notice.
There was no path, and so they made their way through the trees at random, glancing back now and then to be sure they could still make out the motel parking lot. John stumbled over a fallen branch, and Charlie reached out with her good arm to catch him before he fell.
“Thanks,” he said. “Strong arm, too.”
“Well, you caught me yesterday, so it’s only fair that I catch you back. Now we’re even,” she said. She looked around; the motel was scarcely in sight, and she felt concealed, made safe by the woods. She could say anything here, and it would be all right. She leaned back against a tree, picking idly at the bark behind her. “You know Freddy’s wasn’t the first restaurant?” She said it abruptly, surprising herself, and John looked at her quizzically, like he had not quite heard her. She didn’t want to say it again, but she forced herself to. “Freddy’s, it wasn’t my dad’s first restaurant. There was a diner, a little one. It was before my mom left.”
“I had no idea,” John said slowly. “Where was it?”
“I don’t know. It’s one of those memories from when you’re a little kid, you know? You only remember the things that are right around you. I remember the linoleum on the kitchen floor, it was this black and white diamond pattern, but I don’t remember where the restaurant was, or what it was called.”
“Yeah,” John said. “We took a vacation to a theme park when I was like three, and all I remember is the backseat of the car. So were they there?” His voice dropped a little quieter when he said it, almost reflexively. Charlie nodded.
“Yeah. There was a bear, and a rabbit. I think. Sometimes the details get mixed up in my head. They’re not like normal memories,” she said, needing him to understand the story’s defects before she told him the rest. “It’s like when you have a realistic dream, and in the morning you’re not sure if it really happened or not. It’s just impressions, little snatches of time. It’s…” She trailed off. She wasn’t explaining it right; she was choosing all the wrong words. She was reaching back too far in her memory, to a time when she did not yet speak. It was a time when she did not have the words to name the things she saw, and so now, when she tried to recall them, the words could never be right.
She looked at John. He was watching her patiently, waiting for her to go on. She wanted to tell him, this story from her life that she had never told. It was not even a story, not really, just something that nagged at the edge of her mind, something flashing by randomly in the corner of her eye. She was not entirely certain it was real, and so she told no one. She wanted to tell John, because she wanted to speak it to another person, and because he looked at her with trusting eyes and she knew he would listen and believe her. Because he had cared for her a long time ago, because he had caught her when she fell, and he had come here to sleep and keep watch all night. And, thought a pragmatic, slightly cruel part of her, because he was not part of her real life. She could tell him this, tell him anything, and when she returned home, it could be as though it had never happened. She wanted suddenly to touch him, have confirmation that he was re
ally there, that this was not another dream. She reached out her hand to him, and, surprised but glad, he took it. He stayed where he was, as if afraid that moving in closer would scare her. They stayed that way for a moment, and then she let go, and she told him the story the way she spoke it in her head, the memories of a small child mixing with the things she had come to understand as she grew older.
There was another restaurant, rustic and small, with red checkered cloths on the tables, and a kitchen you could see into from the dining area, and they all were there together. Her father, and her mother and us. When Charlie was very, very young, she was never alone. There was Charlie, and there was a little boy, a little boy so close to Charlie that remembering him was like remembering a part of herself. They were always together: she learned to say we before she learned to say I.
They played together on the floor of the kitchen, sometimes drawing pictures while hiding under a hard wood table. She remembered the shuffling of feet and the shadows of customers walking by. Light was broken by a slow turning fan and thrown across the floor in ribbons. She remembered the smell of an ashtray, and the hearty laughter of adults lost in a good story while their children played.
Very often she would hear her father’s laugh echoing from a distant corner as he talked with customers. When Charlie pictured him laughing like that now, it was with a little ache, a sucking feeling in the center of her chest, because his eyes were bright and his smile was easy, and because he wanted them all to be a part of the restaurant, to share his work freely. Because he was not afraid to let his children roam and explore. He was yet untouched by grief, and so while he looked a little like the father she truly remembered, they were not the same man at all.
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