“No,” he said, shaking off his reverie and wiping his hand clean with his black shirt.
“Come on” Charlie said firmly, and took his arm. “Come on, we have to get out of here. I don’t know how long he’ll stay out.” You’re awfully calm for just having knocked a guy out cold, she thought wryly.
They crept out into the hallway, empty and lit by the dim glow of light from other rooms, and Charlie hustled them through the swinging doors to the kitchen, where the dark was total. The air was thick with it, a blackness that was almost tangible; it was as if they had been swallowed. She turned to look at Carlton, but only the faint sound of his breathing told her that he was still beside her. Something touched her arm and she stifled a scream.
“It’s just me,” Carlton hissed, and she let out a sigh.
“Let’s just make sure that we aren’t being followed, then we can find the others and get out of here,” she whispered. Charlie glanced back at the door, and the last spots of light peeking under it. She scooted herself a little closer to it, and got to her feet to peer through the round window, careful not to touch it.
“What do you see?” Carlton whispered.
“Nothing. I think it’s safe.” Just as she finished speaking, a form passed by, darkening the window. Charlie jumped back, almost falling over Carlton.
They stumbled forward, rushing to get away from the door.
Suddenly two beams of light split the darkness, illuminating the room in a harsh, yellow light. Chica loomed in front of them, almost on top of them. She stretched up to her full height, growing taller still. She must have been hiding here all along, Charlie thought. The dark recesses of the kitchen could be hiding anything. Chica looked at each of them, the beams of light shifting dizzyingly as her eyes snapped mechanically from one side to the other. Then she paused, and Charlie grabbed Carlton’s arm.
“Run!” She screamed, and they took off, looping around the prep table, the metal furniture clattering as they rushed clumsily past it. Behind them, Chica’s steps were long and slow. At last they reached the door, and they burst out into the hall, and ran for the main dining room.
John and Jessica were silent, listening to the clamor outside. John was resting his hand on the door of the control room; whatever had been on the other side was gone, or was pretending to be. The lock had been wrenched out of the floor, and he tried the knob, but the door, twisted out of shape, still stuck.
“Are you crazy?” Jessica exclaimed, alarmed.
“What else are we going to do?” John said calmly. Jessica didn’t answer.
John backed up against the control panel and gave the door a calculated kick, moving it an inch closer to opening.
“Here, let me,” Jessica said, and before he could reply she had delivered a kick of her own, the door again moving just a little.
They took turns, not speaking, until finally John kicked, and the top hinge broke. John quickly wrestled the door the rest of the way off until they could crawl out.
They hurried out, and stopped, exposed in the main dining room. Jessica looked at the main stage in misery: it was empty.
“I don’t know how this is safer,” she said, but John was not listening.
“Charlie!” He cried, then covered his mouth with his hand, too late. Charlie and Carlton were running from the dark hallway at a furious pace.
“Come on,” Charlie yelled at them, not slowing down as she passed, and John and Jessica ran after them as Charlie led them out of the dining room into the opposite hall, toward the storeroom they had come in through.
Charlie ran down the hall with a purpose, stopping in front of a closed door and trying to get it open. Behind them loomed the open mouth of a pitch-black party room, a wide empty space that could have hidden anything. John turned his back to the group, keeping an eye on the abyss.
“Is it locked?” Carlton said, an edge of rising panic in his voice.
“No, just stuck,” Charlie said. She forced it, and the door popped open. They hurried inside, John lingering to the last moment, his eyes still on the darkness behind him.
When the door was shut, Charlie reached for the light switch by the door, and John put a hand on her arm.
“Don’t turn the light on,” he said, looking back for a moment. “We have enough light, let your eyes adjust.”
There was a window high up on the door, thick glass with a bubbling frosted pattern, letting a trickle of light and color into the room from the hallway.
“Right,” Charlie said. A light on in here would have marked them out clearly. In the semidarkness, she surveyed the room. It had been an office, though not one she remembered visiting often; she was not sure who had used it. There were cartons here and there on the floor, overstuffed to bulging with papers, their lids perched sheepishly on top of the mess inside. There was an old desk in the corner, a grayish blue metal with visible dents in the surface. Jessica boosted herself up to sit on it.
“Lock the door,” Jessica said with an irritated tone, and Charlie did. There was a button set into the knob, which she knew would be useless, and a flimsy bolt lock, the kind in bathroom stalls and on picket fences.
“I guess it’s better than nothing,” she said.
Chapter Eleven
In the little office, they sat silently for a few minutes, everyone eyeing the door, waiting. It’s just another place to be trapped, Charlie thought.
“We have to get out of here,” Jessica said softly, echoing Charlie’s thoughts. Suddenly Carlton made a small sound of distress. Spasmodically, he grabbed a cardboard box, tipping it over to dump out some of the contents, and vomited into it. His stomach was empty; he retched futilely, his guts clenching and seizing to no effect. At last he sat back, gasping; his face was red, and there were tears in his eyes.
“Carlton? Are you okay?” John said, alarmed.
“Yeah, never better,” Carlton said as his breathing returned slowly to normal.
“You have a concussion,” Charlie said. “Look at me.” She knelt down in front of him and looked at his eyes, trying to remember what the pupils were supposed to look like if someone had a concussion. Carlton waggled his eyebrows.
“Oh, oh ow!” He ground his teeth and ducked his head, clutching it as if someone might try to take it away from him. “Sorry,” he said after a moment, still bent over in pain. “I think it was all that running. I’ll be okay.”
“But—” Charlie started to protest, but he cut her off, straightening with a visible effort.
“Charlie, it’s fine. Can you blame me for being a little out of sorts? What about you?” He pointed at her arm, and she looked down, confused.
There was a small, bright red patch leaking through the bandage on her arm; the wound on her arm must have opened while they were fleeing.
“Oh,” Charlie said, suddenly a little nauseated herself. John moved toward her to help, but she waved him away. “I’m fine,” she said. She moved the arm experimentally; it ached with the same dull pain that had been radiating through it for the last few days, but did not seem worse, and the spot of blood did not seem to be growing very fast. There another rumble of thunder outside, and the walls trembled.
“We have to get out of here; not out of this room, out of this building!” Jessica exclaimed.
“Carlton needs a doctor.” John added.
Jessica’s voice rose in pitch, sounding frantic, “We’re all going to need a doctor if we don’t leave!”
“I know,” Charlie said. She felt a rising irritation at the self-evident statement, and she tried to tamp it down. They were scared, and they were trapped: sniping at one another would not help. “Okay,” she said. “You’re right. We need to get out. We could try the skylight.”
“I don’t think we’ll be able to get out that way,” John said.
“There’s got to be a ladder in this place somewhere,” Charlie replied, her fear receding as she considered the options. She sat up straighter, gathering herself together.
“It wo
n’t help,” Jessica said.
“Air vents,” John said hastily. “The ones Jason got in through were too small, but there have to be others. Windows—Freddy’s had windows, right? They have to lead somewhere.”
“I think it’s safe to say that they’ve all been bricked up.” Charlie shook her head and looked at the floor for a moment, then she met John’s eyes. “This whole place has been sealed.”
The walkie-talkie crackled to life, and they all jumped. Lamar’s voice came over the radio.
“John?”
John grabbed the radio.
“Yeah? Yeah, I’m here, and I’m with Charlie, Jessica, and Carlton. We’re in an office.”
“Good,” Lamar said. “Listen—” There was a brief scrabbling noise, then Marla’s voice came through.
“Good,” she said. “Listen, I’m looking at the monitors, and it looks like all the robots are on the main stage again.”
“What about Pirate’s Cove?” Charlie put in, leaning over John to talk into the receiver. “Is Foxy there, too?”
There was a brief pause.
“The curtain is closed,” Marla said.
“Marla, is everything ok?” Charlie said.
“Yeah,” she answered shortly, and the background static vanished abruptly—she had turned the walkie-talkie off.
Charlie and John exchanged a glance.
“Something’s wrong,” Carlton said. “Other than the obvious I mean.” He gestured in a vague circular motion, indicating everything around them.
“What are you talking about?” Jessica was losing her patience.
“With Marla, I mean,” he said. “Something’s wrong. Call her back.”
John pressed the call button again. “Marla? What’s going on?” There was no reply for a long minute, then Lamar replied.
“We don’t know where Jason is.” Her voice began to break. “He’s in danger.”
Charlie felt a jolt through her stomach. No. She heard John take a deep breath.
There was a shuddering sound from the other end of the radio: Marla was crying. She started to speak, broke off, and tried again.
“Foxy,” she said, her voice a little loud as she forced the words out. “Foxy took him.”
“Foxy?” Charlie said carefully. The figure standing in the front hallway, the rain whipping past it, the silver eyes, burning in the dark. She took the walkie-talkie from John’s hand; he gave it up without protest.
“Marla, listen, we’re going to find him. Do you hear me?” Her bravado echoed emptily even in her own ears. The walkie-talkie made no sound. Agitated, needing to move, to do something, Charlie turned to the others.
“I’m going to check out the skylight one more time,” she said. “Jessica, come with me, you’ve got the best chance of fitting.”
“Right,” Jessica said reluctantly, but she got to her feet.
“You shouldn’t go alone,” John said, standing to go with them. Charlie shook her head.
“Someone has to stay with him,” she said, gesturing at Carlton.
“Hey, I’m a big boy, I can stay by myself.” Carlton said, speaking to a shelf.
“Nobody is staying by themselves,” Charlie said firmly. John gave her a brief, precise nod, something just short of a salute, and she returned it. She looked back at Carlton, whose face was drawn, tight with pain. “Don’t let him fall asleep,” she told John in a low voice.
“I know,” he whispered.
“I can hear you, you know,” Carlton said, but his voice was flat and fatigued.
“Come on,” Jessica said. Charlie shut the door behind them, and heard John slip the lock back into place.
Charlie led the way; the closet with the skylight wasn’t far, and they crept down the hallway and in through the doors without incident.
“The skylight. Look, there’s no way to climb out through it, even for me. To get to the roof I would have to put all my weight on the glass; it would break. Even if we had a ladder, this isn’t the way out.”
“We could take the skylight window off,” Charlie suggested weakly.
“I guess we could break out all the glass,” Jessica said. “But that just brings us back to the ladder question. We need to look around.”
A sudden knock on the door caught John’s attention, and he sprang to his feet and listened carefully at the door. Charlie knocked again, briefly regretting that they had not come up with some sort of signal. “It’s me,” she called softly, and the lock slid back. John looked worried.
“What is it?” Charlie said, and he cast his eyes in Carlton’s direction. Carlton was huddled on the floor, his knees drawn up tight to his chest, and his arms were wrapped oddly around his head. Charlie knelt down beside him.
“Carlton?” She said, and he made a small whimper. She put a hand on his shoulder, and he leaned into her a little.
“Charlie? Sorry about all this,” he whispered.
“Shhh. Tell me what’s going on,” she said. She had a sick feeling of dread. Something really was wrong, and she did not know how much was his injury, and how much was just exhaustion, pain, and terror. “You’re going to be okay,” she said, stroking his back and hoping it was true.
After a long moment, he pushed at her, and she drew back, slightly hurt, until she saw him pitch forward over the cardboard box, retching again. She looked up at John.
“He needs a doctor,” he said in a low voice, and she nodded. Carlton sat up again and wiped his face with his sleeve.
“It’s not that bad, I’m just so tired.”
“You can’t go to sleep,” Charlie said.
“I know, I won’t. But I didn’t sleep last night, and I haven’t eaten since yesterday—it just makes everything worse. I had a bad moment, but I’m okay.” Charlie looked at him dubiously, but did not argue.
“Now what?” Jessica said. Charlie didn’t answer right away, even though she knew the question was for her. She was picturing the guard, his eyes rolling back in his head as he collapsed, his thin face going slack as he fell. They needed answers, and he was the one who had them.
“Now let’s hope I didn’t accidentally kill that guard,” Charlie said.
“I don’t want to go back out there,” Jessica said.
“We have to go back to where I found Carlton.”
“Hang on,” said John, and pulled out the radio again. “Hey, Marla are you there?” There was a blip of static, then Marla’s voice.
“Yeah, we’re here.”
“We need to get to the supply room, it’s off the main dining room, past the stage. Can you see the area?”
There was a pause as Marla searched her screens.
“I can see most of it. Where are you? I can’t see you.”
“We’re in an office. It’s—” John looked at Charlie for help, and she took the radio.
“Marla, do you see another hall leading from the main room? Sort of the same direction as the closet, but next to it?”
“What? There are too many hallways!”
“Hang on. Can you see this?” Over the protests of the others, Charlie opened the office door and poked her head out cautiously. When she saw that the space was clear—or at least she was fairly sure it was clear—she stepped out into the open, looked up, and waved. There was nothing but a quiet, steady static from the walkie-talkie, then Marla’s voice came through, excited.
“I see you! Charlie, I can see you.”
Charlie ducked back into the little room, and Jessica caught the door and shut it behind her, double and triple-checking the lock.
“Okay, Marla,” Charlie said. “Follow the cameras. You can see that hall, can you see the main dining room?”
“Yes,” she said instantly, “most of it. I can see the stage and the area around it, and I can see the second hallway, the one parallel to yours.”
“Can you see the door at the end?”
“Yes, but Charlie, I can’t see into the supply room.”
“We’ll just have to take our chances with
what’s in there,” Charlie answered. “Marla,” she said into the receiver, “are we clear to get to the dining room?”
“Yes,” Marla said after a moment. “I think so.”
Charlie took the lead, and all four of them made their way slowly down the hall; Jessica hung back a little with Carlton, staying so close to him he almost tripped over her feet.
“Jessica, I’m fine,” he said.
“I know,” she said quietly, but she did not move away, and he did not protest again.
When they reached the end of the hallway they stopped.
“Marla?” Charlie said into the radio.
“Go ahead—no, stop!” She cried, and they froze, pressing their bodies up against the walls as if it might make them invisible. Marla whispered over the walkie-talkie, her hushed tones distorting her voice even more.
“Something—stay quiet—” She said something else, but it was unintelligible. Charlie craned her neck to see out into the room and what might be lurking there, some murky form, lumbering heavily in the shadows, poised to attack— There was a long rumble outside, and the panels on the ceiling rattled as if they were about to fall.
“Marla, I don’t see anything,” Charlie said into the walkie-talkie. She looked at the stage, where all of the animatronics were still in position, staring sightless into the distance.
“Me either,” John whispered.
“Sorry,” Marla said. “Not to overstate the obvious, but it’s creepy in here, it feels like it’s been midnight for hours. Does anyone know what time it is?”
Charlie checked her watch, squinting to see the little hand. “It’s almost four,” she said.
“AM or PM?” Marla said. She didn’t sound like she was joking.
“PM.” Lamar’s voice came over the radio, hard to hear, like he was not close enough to the receiver. “I told you, Marla, it’s daytime.”
“It doesn’t feel like daytime.” Marla sobbed, shrieking as the building shook with a crash of thunder.
“I know,” he said softly, and the radio clicked off. Charlie looked at the walkie-talkie for a moment, with a sense of something empty; it was like hanging up the phone, knowing the person on the other end was still there, but feeling a loss anyway, as if they might be gone for good.
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