“I never saw it,” she said. “I mean, I never saw the body. I don’t know if you remember, but my aunt came to get me at school in the middle of the day.” She stopped, waiting for confirmation, her eyes shut tight.
“I remember,” John’s voice said from the darkness. “It was the last time I ever saw you.”
“Yeah. She came and got me, and I knew something was wrong; you don’t go home from school in the middle of the day because everything’s fine. She took me outside to her car, and we didn’t get in right away. She picked me up and sat me on the hood of the car, and told me she loved me.”
“I love you Charlie, and everything is going to be okay,” Aunt Jen said, and then she destroyed the world with the next words she spoke.
“She told me that my father had died, and she asked if I knew what that meant.”
And Charlie nodded, because she did know, and because with an awful prescience, she was not surprised.
“She said I was going to stay with her for a couple of days, and we would go get some clothes from the house. When we got there she picked me up like I was a little kid, and as we went through the door she covered my face with her hand so I wouldn’t see what was in the living room. But I did see.”
It was one of his creatures, one she had never seen, and it was facing the stairs; its head was bowed a little, so Charlie could see that the back of its skull was open, the circuits exposed. The limbs and joints lay bare, a skeleton of naked metal strung with twisting wires to connect it in a bloodless circulation, and its arms were outstretched in a lonesome facsimile of an embrace. It was standing in the middle of a dark, still pool of something liquid that seemed, though it must have been imperceptible, to be spreading. She could see its face, if it could be called a face; its features were scarcely formed, crude and shapeless. Even so, Charlie could see that they were contorted, almost grotesque: the thing would be weeping, if it could have wept. She stared at it for ages, though it could have been less than seconds, no more than a glimpse as Aunt Jen swept her up the stairs. Yet she had seen it so many times since then; when she slept, when she woke, when she unguardedly closed her eyes it would appear to her, the face pressing its way into her mind as it had pressed into the world. Its blind eyes were only raised bumps like the eyes of a statue, seeing nothing but its own grief. In its hand, almost an afterthought, was the knife. When Charlie saw the knife, the whole thing snapped into focus; she knew what the thing was, and she knew what it had been built for.
John was staring at her, horror creeping in.
“That’s how he…?” He trailed off.
Charlie nodded. “Of course.” He made a move to comfort her again, but it was the wrong thing to do; without thinking, Charlie moved slightly, slipping out of reach, and his face fell.
“Sorry,” she said quickly. “I just—sorry.”
John shook his head quickly, and turned to the jumble of papers on the floor.
“We should look through these, see if there’s anything here,” he said.
“Sure,” she said brusquely, dismissing his attempts at reassurance
They began randomly; everything had fallen in such a mess that there was no other way to begin. Most of the papers were engineering blueprints and pages of equations, all incomprehensible to them both. There were tax forms, which John took up eagerly, hoping for information about Fredbear’s Family Diner, but he gave up with a sigh after fifteen minutes, flinging the papers down.
“Charlie, I can’t figure this out. Let’s check through the rest, but I don’t think puzzling at it is going to turn us into mathematicians or accountants.”
Stubbornly, Charlie kept picking through the pile, hoping for something she would understand. She picked up a sheaf of paper, trying to straighten the next stack, and a photograph fell out from the pile. John snatched it up.
“Charlie, look,” he said, suddenly excited. She took it from his hand.
It was her father, in his workshop. He was wearing the yellow Freddy Fazbear costume; the head was tucked under his arm, staring sightlessly into the camera, but Charlie’s father was smiling, his face pink and sweaty as if he had been in the costume for a long time. Beside him was a yellow Bonnie.
“The yellow rabbit,” Charlie said. “Jason said there was a yellow rabbit.”
“But your father is in the bear costume.”
“The rabbit must be a robot,” Charlie said, “look at the eyes, they’re red.” She peered closer. The eyes were glinting red, but they weren’t glowing, and in a moment she saw why. “It’s not red eyes, it’s red-eye! There’s a person in there!”
“So who…?”
“… who is in the suit?” Charlie finished the question for him.
“We have to go to the library,” John said, jumping to his feet. Charlie stayed where she was, still staring down at the picture.
“Charlie?”
“Yeah,” she said. He held out a hand to pull her up.
As they descended the staircase, John hung back briefly, and Charlie did not turn around; she knew what he was seeing in his mind, because she was seeing it, too: the stain on the floor, darker than before.
Charlie drove fast to the library, a grim urgency hanging over her. The promised storm was in the air, the smell of it rising like a warning. In a strange way, the worsening weather satisfied something in Charlie: storms inside, storms outside.
“I’ve never been this eager to get to the library,” John joked, and she smiled tightly, without humor.
The main library in Hurricane was next to the elementary school where they had gone for the memorial ceremony, and as they got out of the car Charlie glanced at the playground, envisioning children screaming and laughing as they ran circles, immersed in their games.
We were so young. They hurried up the few steps to the library together, a square, modern brick building that looked as if it had come paired with the school beside it. She only remembered the library vaguely from her childhood; they had gone infrequently, and Charlie had spent all her time there sitting on the floor in the children’s section. Being able to see over the information desk was slightly disconcerting.
The librarian was young, Charlie thought, an athletic-seeming woman in slacks and a purple sweater, with short, bright pink hair and a glittering stud piercing her eyebrow. She smiled brightly.
“What can I do for you?” She said. Charlie hesitated. The woman was maybe in her late twenties; Charlie realized that ever since she returned to Hurricane she had been paying attention to age, scrutinizing each face and calculating how old they had been when It happened. This woman would have been a teenager. It doesn’t matter, she said. You still have to ask. She opened her mouth, to ask for information about Fredbear’s, but what came out instead was:
“Are you from Hurricane?”
The librarian shook her head. “No, I’m from Indiana, I moved here a few years ago; my son Aiden goes to school there,” she pointed in the direction of the elementary school, even though they were indoors. Charlie felt her body relax. She wasn’t here.
“Do you have any information on a place called Fredbear’s Family Diner?” Charlie asked, and the woman frowned.
“Do you mean Freddy Fazbear’s? They used to have one of those here, I think,” she said vaguely.
“No, that’s not the one,” Charlie said, ready to be endlessly patient with the librarian, who was, blessedly, probably the only person in town who was somehow unaware of her history.
“Well, for town records, things like incorporation and licensing, you would have to go to city hall, but it’s—” she checked her watch. “It’s after five, so not today, anyway. I have newspapers all the way back to the 1880s, if you want to look at microfilm,” she said eagerly.
“Yeah, okay,” Charlie said.
“I’m Harriet,” the woman said as she led them to a door at the back of the building. They recited their names dutifully, and she chattered on, like a child about to display her favorite toy.
“So, yo
u know what microfilm is, right? It’s because we can’t keep stacks and stacks of papers here; there’s no room and eventually they would rot, so it’s a way to preserve them, they take pictures and save the film. It’s almost like a movie reel, you know? Very small. So, you need a machine to see it.”
“We know what it is,” John cut in when she paused, “we just don’t know how to use it.”
“Well, that’s what I’m here for!” Harriet declared, and threw the door open. Inside was a table with a computer monitor, the monitor sitting on top of a little box with a small wheel on each side. Two handles stuck out in front. Charlie and John looked at it bemusedly, and Harriet grinned.
“You want the local paper, right? What years?”
“Um…” Charlie counted backward. “1979 to 1982?” She hazarded. Harriet beamed and left the room. John bent forward to peer at the machine, rattling the handles a little. “Careful,” Charlie warned jokingly. “I think she might be lost without that thing.” John lifted his hands to his shoulders and stepped back.
Harriet reappeared with what looked like four small movie reels, and held them up.
“What year do you want to start with?” She said. “1979?”
“I guess,” Charlie said, and Harriet nodded. She went to the machine and threaded the film through expertly, flipped a switch and the screen came to life; a newspaper appeared.
“January 1, 1979,” John announced, leaning forward to read the headlines. “Politics, somebody won a sports game, and there was some weather. Also there was a bakery giving away free cookies to celebrate the New Year. Sounds like now, except no cookies.”
“You use these to see more,” Harriet said, manipulating the controls. “Let me know if you need help switching the reels. Have fun, you two!” She winked conspiratorially and closed the door behind her as she left.
Charlie positioned herself in front of the machine, and John stood behind her, his hand on her chair. It felt good to have him close; like he would stop anything that tried to sneak up on her.
“This is pretty cool,” he remarked, and she nodded, scanning the paper for answers.
“Okay, let’s narrow it down,” he said grimly. “What’s the thing most likely to make the papers?”
“I was looking for an opening announcement,” Charlie said.
“Yeah, but what’s going to make the papers? Sorry,” he added. “I didn’t want to say it, but we have to.”
“Sammy,” Charlie said. “We should have started with Sammy. We moved to the new house when I was three; it’s got to be 1982.”
Carefully, they switched the reel. Charlie eyed the door as if they did, nervous that Harriet might catch them making a mistake.
“When’s your birthday?” John said, sitting to take her place.
“Don’t you know?” She teased. He screwed up his face in an exaggerated mime of thinking.
“….. May 13,” he said at last. She laughed, startled.
“Yes, how did you know?”
He grinned up at her. “Because I know things,” he said.
“But why does it matter?”
“You remember being three when you moved, but you didn’t turn three until May, so we knock out five months. Do you remember anything about the restaurant the night Sammy disappeared?”
Charlie felt herself flinch with an almost physical pain.
“Sorry,” she said. Her face felt too hot. “Sorry, you startled me. Let me think.” She closed her eyes.
The restaurant. The closet, hung full with costumes. Her and Sammy, there safe in the dark, until the door opened, and the rabbit appeared, leaning over them with its awful face, its human eyes. Charlie’s heart was racing; she slowed her breathing and held out a hand; John took hold of it and she held on tight, as if he could anchor her. The rabbit leaning over them, its awful face, the yellow teeth beneath the mask, and behind the rabbit… what was behind the rabbit? The restaurant was open, she could hear voices, people. There were more people in costumes, other performers? Robots? No…. She almost had it. Scarcely breathing, Charlie tried to coax out the thought, scared to frighten it away. Move slowly; speak softly. She had it, snatched it from the depths of her mind and held it wriggling in her fingers. Her eyes snapped open.
“John, I know when it was,” she said.
Earlier that night, when they were still wide awake, the closet opened, and her mother looked in. She was haloed with the light from behind her, smiling down at her twins, radiant in her long, elegant dress, her flowing hair, her gleaming tiara. Mommy’s a princess, Charlie murmured sleepily, and her mother bent down and kissed her cheek. Just for tonight, she whispered, and then she left them in the dark to sleep.
“She was a princess,” she said excitedly.
“What? Who?”
“My mother,” Charlie said. “She was dressed up as a princess. It was a Halloween party. John, go to November 1.”
John struggled briefly with the controls, and then it was there. The headline was small, but it was on the front page of the paper on Monday, November 1: TODDLER SNATCHED. Charlie turned away. John began to read aloud, and Charlie cut in, stopping him.
“Don’t,” she said. “Just tell me if it has anything useful.”
He was quiet, and she stared anxiously at the door, waiting, tracing the knots in the false wood with her eyes.
“There’s a picture,” he said finally. “You need to look.”
She leaned over his shoulder. The story had continued over an entire page inside, with pictures of the restaurant, of the family all together, and of her and of Sammy, though neither of the twins were named in the article. In the bottom left corner, there was a picture of her father and another man. Their arms were slung around one another’s shoulders, and they were grinning happily.
“John,” Charlie said.
“It says they were joint owners,” John said quietly.
“No,” Charlie said, unable to take her eyes from the picture, from the face they both knew.
Suddenly the door behind them erupted in pounding from outside, and they both jumped.
“CHARLIE! JOHN! ARE YOU IN THERE?”
“Marla,” they said as one, and Charlie rushed to the door and threw it open.
“Marla, what is it?”
She was red-faced and breathless, and Harriet was anxiously hovering behind her. Marla’s hair was wet, and water was dripping down her face, but she did not wipe it away, did not even seem to notice. I guess the rain started, Charlie thought, the mundane reflection drifting unbidden through her head despite her alarm.
“He’s gone, Jason’s gone,” Marla cried.
“What?” John said.
“He’s gone back to Freddy’s, I know he has,” she said. “He kept saying we should go back, that we shouldn’t just be hanging around all day. I thought he was in another room, but I looked everywhere and I know that’s where he is!” She said it all in one breath and ended gasping, a faint, whining hum resonating under her breathing, a keening sound she seemed unable to stop making.
“Oh, no,” Charlie said.
“Come on,” Marla pressed. She was jittering, vibrating; John put a hand on her shoulder as if to comfort her, and she shook her head. “Don’t try to calm me down, just come with me,” she said, but there was no anger, only desperation. She turned and almost ran to the door, and John and Charlie followed with an apologetic look for the bemused librarian they left behind them.
Chapter Nine
Carlton opened his eyes, disoriented, his head stuffed tight with a massive, pulsing ache. He was half-sitting, stiffly propped against a wall, and he found could not move his arms. His body was covered in little, random places of sharp pain and tingling numbness; he tried to shift away from the discomfort, but he was restrained, somehow, and the little moves he could make just made new places hurt. He looked around the room, trying to get his bearings. It looked like a storage room; there were boxes along the walls, and discarded cans of paint and other cleaning supplies litte
red the floor, but there was more. There were piles of furry fabric everywhere. Carlton peered at them sleepily. He felt muzzy, like if he closed his eyes he could just fall back asleep, so easily… No. He shook his head hard, trying to clear it, and yelped. “Oh, no,” he groaned, as the throbbing in his head demanded attention, and his stomach flipped. He clenched his jaw and closed his eyes, waiting for the pounding and nausea to recede.
Eventually they did, fading back to something almost manageable, and he opened his eyes again, starting over. This time his mind had cleared a little, and he looked down at his body to see his restraints. Oh, no.
He was wedged inside the heavy, barrel-shaped torso of a mascot costume, the headless top half of some kind of animal. His arms were trapped inside the torso section, pinned to his sides in an unnatural position by some sort of framework. The arms of the costume hung limp and empty from the sides. His legs stuck out incongruously from the bottom, looking small and thin in contrast. He could feel other things inside the mascot’s torso, too, pieces of metal that pressed against his back and poked into him. He could feel raw patches on his skin, and could not tell if the thing he felt trickling down his back were sweat or blood. Something was pressing into the sides of his neck; when he turned his head, whatever they were dug in to his skin. The costume’s fur was dirty and matted, a faded color that might once have been a bright blue, but was now only a bluish approximation of beige. He could see a head of the same color a few feet away, sitting on a cardboard box, and with a flicker of curiosity he looked at it, but he could not tell what it was supposed to be. It looked as if someone had been told “make an animal,” and had done just that, careful not to make it look like any specific type of animal.
He looked around the room, comprehension dawning. He knew where he was. The piles of fabric had faces: they were empty costumes, mascots from the restaurant, deflated, collapsed, and staring empty-eyed at him, like they wanted something.
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