EVERYTHING IS ALL RIGHT: A Five Nights at Freddy's Fanfiction
Part Three: Children of Mammon
By R. Lee Smith
Dedicated to Scott Cawthon
With my sincerest gratitude (and apologies)
This is Part Three of a 5-Part Series.
For Part One, please read Girl on the Edge of Nowhere.
For Part Two, please read Mike Schmidt and the Long Night
TRIGGER WARNING! This book contains strong adult themes, including adult language, drug and alcohol references, graphic depictions of child abduction, violence towards children and adults, graphic gore violence and explicit sexual content. You have been warned.
I'd also better take a moment here to say that I started writing this before certain truths were revealed in a certain book and a certain game, so it goes without saying that the story you're about to read follow my Alternate Universe timeline/theory and not canon lore. Sort of not sorry either. If Scott Cawthon wanted to see William Afton or Ennard in my books, he should have consulted me before releasing Silver Eyes and Sister Location.
Five Nights At Freddy's is the creation of Scott Cawthon. The characters of Freddy, Bonnie, Chica, Foxy, Mangle, Toy Freddy, Toy Bonnie, Toy Chica, Mike Schmidt, Jeremy Fitzgerald, Fredbear, Springtrap, Plushtrap, the Puppet, Balloon Boy, and the Purple Guy, as well as Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria, belong to him. Everything else is a product of my own imagination and no similarity to actual events, locations, or people is intended or should be inferred. Do not reproduce, repost or copy any part of this story without my permission.
As always, a sincere thank you to all those who took the time to rate and review if you liked it (or even if you didn't like it). If you are interested in my non-fanfiction work, feel free to check out my blog (the address keeps disappearing when I type it here. It's rleesmith dot wordpress dot com) or look me up on Amazon.
"Hello, hello? Hey, you're doing great! Most people don't last this long. I mean, you know, they usually move on to other things by now. I'm not implying that they died. That's not what I meant. Uh, anyway, I better not take up too much of your time. Things start getting real tonight."
CHAPTER ONE
August 12, 1996
It was hot in the closet from the start and with winter clothes pressing down from above and heavy blankets heaped to one side, the heat became almost an animal thing, panting its used breath into Ana's face as she lay huddled and crawling with sweat atop a pillow of mismatched shoes. She slept closet-sleep, oppressive and unrestful, but deep enough that she never heard footsteps on the kitchen linoleum until the door rattled and opened, hitting Ana with the twin slaps of fresher air and bright light. She raised her head groggily, seeing only a formless black mass against the light.
"Get dressed," her mother told her. "We're going out."
Ana unfolded her body and made it work, gaining her feet and walking to her room on legs that somehow were both shaky and stiff. There was still a little fire shining off the dirty clouds outside her window, proof that she had been in the closet only a few hours this time. It had felt like much longer since she'd come home from school and walked stupidly into the eye of her mother's storm. She had no idea what she'd done this time and had learned not to ask. She was beginning to learn to be grateful for the closet, which, hot and dark and suffocating as it was, was still a barrier between Ana and her mother's fists.
Ana opened the broken suitcase where she kept all her clothes, shifting the neat piles of tops and bottoms until she found the too-tight top and too-small shorts that were her 'going out' clothes. She took a quick shower, brushed her wet hair, then dressed without looking at herself in the mirror. A little tinted lip gloss was all the make-up she was allowed to wear and applying it took all the time she had left to waste. Her mother was already waiting for her in the car.
It was a twenty minute drive to Rider's place. Neither spoke.
Rider didn't look happy when he answered the door and saw Ana's mother, but he told her to wait and let Ana in. "Give me a sec," he said and left her there by the door. She heard his voice from several rooms away and other men's voices in answer. When he came back, he gave her a nod of release and she followed him to his bedroom at the back of the house.
"Look at me," said Rider, switching on the overhead light.
Ana looked at him, holding very still as his steely gaze moved over her.
"Lift your hair."
She obeyed, gathering up the heavy mess of it and pushing it atop her head to fully expose her face and neck.
"Turn left."
She faced left.
"Right."
She faced right.
His rough fingers moved in fast; Ana did not flinch. He prodded at the nape of her neck, finding little pains she hadn't known were there. Her mother's fingernails must have scratched her when she'd grabbed Ana by the hair to drag her to the closet.
"You wearing something under that shirt?" he asked.
She nodded. She'd only started wearing a bra in the last year, but she'd already reached the point when she either had to wear it all the time or suffer the stares of the boys at school and sometimes the teachers.
"Take it off," said Rider. "The shirt."
She got up from the bed and peeled her tight tee off, holding it in one hand while Rider inspected her.
"Turn around."
She faced the wall, studying the patterns in the textured paint while Rider took account of the bruises, old and new. She hated this part more than any other, the baring of her back. He'd seen her scars so many times, she ought to be used to it by now. She wasn't. If anything, it got a little worse every time.
"You got anything to tell me?" he asked, moving her arm to better see her ribs on that side.
She shook her head.
"All right. We're done." He went to his work-table, moved some bricks of money aside and pulled the tacklebox he called his sample-case closer. "I got people over," he told her as he measured out rocks onto a square of paper and twisted it together. "Want you to stay here until I'm done with 'em. Watch some movies or whatever."
"Can I use the bathroom first?" asked Ana, who didn't need to go.
"You don't got to ask to piss in my house," he said curtly. "Do what you got to do, just keep out of sight while I do business."
He left.
Ana waited a little while, then went silently after him. She took herself to the bathroom that was off the main hall and not the one adjoining Rider's bedroom. She squeezed into the narrow space between the shower and the toilet and quietly opened the window. She listened.
"—show up at my house without an invitation. This is the last time I'm going to tell you. Next time, I just shoot you, understand?"
"You don't answer my calls," Ana's mother said in that petulant voice she only used with men.
"I answer 'em. I just answer 'em in my time, not yours. Look at me." A pause. A slap. "Look at me. You want my shit for free, you obey my rules. Got that?"
Silence. Her mother must have nodded.
"Good. Name 'em. Just so we're clear."
"Call before I come over. Get an invitation."
Another pause. Another slap, harder. "And?" Rider pressed.
"Save her for you."
"That's good. And in that spirit—" A third blow, but not a slap this time. The dull whump of Rider's fist hitting Ana's mother immediately preceded a retching, honking caw of pain. A stomach-punch. Kidney-shot, maybe. "There are scratches on my pony's neck," said Rider calmly while her mother sniveled. "There are bruises on her arms in the shape of a hand."
"It's just a bruise. She bruises easy."
"Just a bruise. You must think I'm stupid."
"I never touched her!"
"Then you let another man ride my pony, is that what you're saying?"
"What? No!"
"You selling her? Huh? Woman, you better get up off your fucking knees or you're gonna die on them. You look me in the fucking eye, this eye right here, and tell me you ain't been selling that girl to any other man but me."
"No!"
"No, you won't?" asked Rider, still calm, even as Ana's mother let out a sudden, shrill scream. He had just pulled a gun. And, to judge by the equally sudden, shrill silence, aimed it. "Or no, you ain't?"
"No, I haven't!" Ana's mother said hoarsely, scarcely discernable, and it was a quiet day. There was no traffic around Rider's house, no buildings, nothing. He could fire that gun dry and no one would ever hear it but the people who were already here and they wouldn't care. "I never would! Never!"
"Then what's the story here? You ain't watching her? She sneaking out and fucking around behind your back?"
"She wouldn't dare!"
Pause. "I know," said Rider and he must have put his gun away, because her mother started sniveling again. "I know she wouldn't. And if you'd told me she had just to save your sorry skin, I would have shot you dead for the lie. I hope you know that."
Surly tears.
"So," said Rider. Gravel crunched as he walked a short ways. Circling her, maybe. "So what's the real story? Tell it to me and tell the truth."
A mutter.
A slap.
"I said, she doesn't listen!"
"Bitch, she don't need to listen to you. She listens to me and so the fuck do you. When I say I want her kept clean for me, that means you keep your fucking hands off her too. That is my pony. You? You're just the stable where I'm boarding her. She comes to me banged up again, and you go straight into the ground. We clear?"
Silence.
"Good. Get out of here. You can pick her up tomorrow night."
"She's got school."
"Oh fuck off with that like you give a shit. Call her in sick and pick her up tomorrow. Not before six, no later than ten. And?"
"Call first."
"Call first," Rider agreed, already walking away. "Get out of here."
Rider's front door closed. Ana shut the window and went to the bedroom as her mother drove away. She turned on the TV, found a good horror movie on his shelf, and lay down on the bed to wait.
She watched all of Castle Freak and half of Killbox before car engines started up and tires rolled away. Ana kept her eyes on Rider's big-screen and her hands loosely laced on her flat tummy as she listened to his heavy boots coming up the hall toward her. The door opened. Closed. A paper bag with the McDonald's logo landed on the bed next to Ana's hip. She moved it so it wouldn't touch her and tried not to smell the burgers inside.
Rider shrugged out of his heavy jacket as he walked in front of the TV and hung it over the open closet door. He took off his shirt, sniffed it, and tossed it on the floor. He took a fresh one from the closet and tossed it to her, took another and put it on. He dropped onto the mattress beside her and kicked off his boots.
"What are we watching?" he asked, reaching into the nightstand for his bedroom pipe.
"Killbox." Ana took her tee off again and pulled his shirt on slowly. It was loose, blurring out the curves of her ever-changing body. Even clean, it smelled faintly of Rider—sweat, weed and earth.
"You bring that over?"
Ana shook her head, climbing back onto the bed. Rider put a pillow between them. She settled where she was, uncomfortably close to the edge. "It was on your shelf."
"It was?" Rider paused in the act of filling his bowl to study his movie collection. "I don't remember buying that."
"You must have been watching it. I had to rewind it."
"No shit? Huh. Must be one of Jenny's."
Ana didn't ask who that was. There was almost always a woman at Rider's house. There was probably one here now. Some of them tolerated Ana's visits with icy dislike, others with open hostility, and one or two had actually been kind of nice, but none of them stayed long.
Rider lit, took a few puffs and blew it out slow. His gaze dropped to the bag of burgers. He nudged it with his leg. "You want one? They're today's."
"No."
"Why not? And don't start that 'they're not mine' shit. I'm giving them to you."
"I'm not hungry," she lied.
"This'll cure that." He passed her the pipe and laced his hands behind his head, studying the evisceration onscreen with an academic eye. "Look at that fucking fake blood. Movie making is a million dollar industry, they tell me, and they still can't afford realistic fucking blood."
Ana breathed in the smoke and held it longer than she had to, so she could time her exhale with the last breath of the killer's victim. When she could, she said, "I think they do it on purpose."
Rider snorted. "Naw. Why would they?"
"Real-looking blood would be disturbing."
"Horror movies are supposed to be scary."
"No. They're supposed to be fun. It's only fun if it's fake." She took another lungful of smoke, timing this one with the masked killer's own heaving breath as he stood over the corpse. "If it's real and fun, there's something wrong with you."
"With me, huh?"
"I meant 'you' generally, but whatever," she said with a shrug. "If the shoe fits."
Rider glanced at his bare feet, flexing his toes, then crossed one leg over the other and returned his attention to the screen. "You're gonna miss school tomorrow."
"Oh well."
"Yeah, that's about what I thought you'd say and in just that tone. You still going to school?"
"Sometimes."
"What'd I tell you about that shit?"
"That I'm going to fuck up my life."
"Then why you still doing it?"
She shrugged again, watching the killer hack and tear at the body, turning it from a person into meat. "It's already fucked up."
"I swear to God, you start this nihilist teenage shit in my house and we are fucking done." He took the pipe from her, had another hit, and put it on the nightstand beside him. "You want a better life, get a fucking education and quit hanging out with drug dealers."
Ana thought about it, then went ahead and said it, her heart beating harder although she tried not to let it show. "I think I'd get a better education hanging out with them full-time."
Rider watched the movie.
Ana waited.
"I feel you looking at me," he said at last. "But this is not a conversation we're having, so you just better put them demon-dog-eyes back on the screen."
She did. The surviving teens, unaware of the fate that had befallen their friends, had paired off and were making out. Shirts and bras were coming off while, close enough to watch but still unseen, the killer unsheathed his machete and held it at a ready angle.
"You think I ain't seen this coming?" Rider asked. "You been carrying that around in a floating bubble over your head practically since I met you. You had to put it out there. Fine. Might as well, instead of pretending you ain't thinking it every time you look at me, but you are way too smart to think it was going to go any other way but this."
"I'm not arguing, am I?"
"Yeah, you are," he said testily. "You're just doing it without talking and it's pissing me off. Get this straight, girl. I do not rescue damsels in distress. Just because I draw the line at diddling kids does not make me your Prince Charming."
"I'll settle for a pirate. I'm a realist."
"Oh, are you? Well, you might want to get your reality-scope recalibrated because you have overlooked one or two tiny details in this fantasy of yours. Just what is it you think is going to happen if I should aerate your mom's head for you, huh? You think the sun comes out and the world goes color and the munchkins hand you lollipops and you and me trip off together down the yellow brick road? No, ma'am. Your skinny ass goes straight to foster care, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars. And this I will tell you right now for free: you are too old, too mouthy and way too fucking pretty for that to end well."
"And what do you think will happen if you don't?" she countered. "Sooner or later, she's going to piss the wrong guy off and leave town. Wherever it is we end up, she'll find the next guy like you and put me in his pocket. You think he'll be putting pillows between us on the bed? Or I could just run away, is that what you think?" she asked as his eyes dipped to the pillow. "And how the hell do you think that's going to end? Those are my options. Why don't you pick one?"
"Jesus Christ." He rubbed a hand over his face, rough skin scratching at new beard-growth, louder even than the screams coming from the TV. "We ain't doing this, girl. We ain't. Now we can sit here and watch this movie, or I can get up and walk out on you, but this horseshit, we ain't doing."
"Why not?"
"Because you're fucking twelve!" he snapped, dropping his arm with his hand in a fist. "What the fuck do you think I am?"
"I'm thirteen," said Ana without emotion. "Today was my birthday."
The fire died back in his pale eyes. He frowned.
"It's my birthday," she said again. "And my mother sold me to her drug dealer. Again. Who the fuck do I think you are? I think you're the only one who can get me away from her before it's too late."
"And do what with you? Jesus, Ana, you think I can magically produce a fucking kid and no one's going to notice? I already got a dozen ex-bitches and half a dozen ponies who think I'm a fucking chomo. You think I don't get the side-eye over that every time they see you creeping around my fucking house? Ain't nobody buys that 'she's my niece' story, least of all my goddamn brothers! And what am I going to do with you, for real now?" he demanded. "You think I'm going to pack your lunches and go to fucking PTSA meetings? Huh? Or do you think I'm going to stable a fucking child, put you on the fucking playground peddling shit to all the kids in your class?"
"They don't have playgrounds in middle school."
He thrust a callused finger in her face like it was a gun. "Don't you fucking wax pedantic with me, girl. You know goddamn well what I meant. And don't look at me like that," he said, settling angrily back against the headboard and glaring at the TV. "I got a good thing just starting to get going here. I ain't throwing it away. I feel for you, I do, but I ain't the good guy in the story of your sorry life and that's just the way it is."
"Then just fuck me already."
He pushed his entire body back with a bang and stared at her.
"This is the life you're leaving me in," she said, lifting her chin. "And if you won't get me out, then teach me how to do it right. I can be a high-money escort instead of a two-dollar whore, for a few years, at least."
Someone in the movie screamed, moaned, died.
Rider got up, all hard muscle and quiet rage, and walked out. But he didn't put his shoes on, Ana noted, and she didn't hear his car start up out in the driveway, so he was probably coming back. To do what, she didn't know, but she tried to be ready for it. She considered taking her shirt off—his shirt—and decided against it. Her bra had frayed straps and holes in the cups, and her ribs were probably showing. Another girl might still know how to make that look sexy, but not Ana. She took off her shoes and socks instead, indicating willingness should he return in a receptive mood, but not aggressively enough to provoke him if he came back all, 'I am not a child molester'. And he wasn't.
Thirteen was old enough.
She watched the rest of the movie, crying off and on. As the credits rolled, she unwrapped one of the burgers and tried to eat it. She managed only one big bite and then just sat holding it, hating her mother for a lifetime of punishment for 'stealing' food. Maybe later, Rider telling her she could have it would be good enough. For now, fresh from the closet, it was all Ana could do to swallow what she'd already chewed. She took the rest into the bathroom, pulled it apart into tiny pieces and flushed it away so he'd think she'd eaten it, then washed her face.
She looked at herself a long time in the mirror, trying to see a woman, or at least, to not see a fearful child. She hadn't exactly seen Rider fuck, but she'd heard it a few times through the wall that separated this room from the other bedroom where she slept on those rare nights she slept over. It got loud, even when his girls weren't. Violent, not in a slappy, angry way, but just in the way of violent sex. She supposed it would hurt, but she could take a punch everywhere else, so she hoped she could take one there too. And he was pretty quick, there was that. Ten, fifteen minutes and it would be over.
Ana washed her face again, held up her damp hands and watched them until they stopped trembling, then shut off the light and went back into the other room to wait. When she was once more settled on the bed with the empty burger wrapper conspicuously arranged atop the blankets and Species in the VCR, she found herself thinking of David.
Not the way she usually thought about him, child-thoughts still tangled up with Foxy and plastic doubloons, Aunt Easter on the phone telling her he'd gone to live with his father, and Ana's mother in the kitchen telling her he was dead. No, this was an uncharacteristically specific thought: It was supposed to be David. They were supposed to get married. He'd promised, when she was six and he was seven and they had their whole lives ahead of them and knew just how it would all shake out.
She wondered, as she wondered less and less these days, where he was right now…if he was happy…if he ever thought of her.
Rider had left his pipe on the nightstand. Ana leaned over and picked it up. She relit it, breathing deep and without enjoyment as she studied Gieger's sex-alien in action with her chosen human prey. Real sex wouldn't be the same, she knew that. At least, there would be fewer scaly tendrils and spikes. But it was all mechanical, wasn't it? There were only so many parts and they only fit together so many ways. After that, it was all energy and friction, tension and release.
She smoked, forcing herself to picture Rider naked, to imagine what he must have and how he must use it that made him capable of producing the sounds she'd heard coming out of this room in the night. She smoked until she didn't care anymore. And then she smoked until she couldn't care, even if she wanted to.
Time slowed and grew heavy. Sharp edges softened. The pins that held Ana to the board of what was here and now came out, one by one, and somewhere along the way as Species played, she drifted off to sleep.
She got the feeling there were many dreams, some spun from memories and others from pure fantasy, all woven together into one tangled ball of thread. She watched some, lived others. They were never entirely stable. She was never entirely safe.
In the last dream before waking, the one that came in clearest, she was back at Aunt Easter's house. It hurt to see it, so clear and real that she could almost smell the desert pines and the foul wind that blew in off the quarry. She tried once to wake herself out of it, but managed only to pull the dream into focus around her, and now it could not be stopped. Now it was a nightmare, too.
She could have been any age. This was no memory, only a dream and dreams lied. She could see herself in it, as if she were watching footage taken from a hidden camera, and even that picture was indeterminate. At first, it was day, but then she recalled there had been a fire, sparks rising red into a darkening sky, and instantly, it was evening. She was five, then ten, and then, as if in compromise, around eight-ish. She couldn't even be certain of the date, although she knew it had to be early October, because there was a cake on the patio table. She was there for David's birthday. Not his real birthday, of course. This was just the weekend closest to it and the small pretend-celebration he shared with her, before or perhaps after he'd had the real one at Freddy's.
They were having a cookout in the backyard. Was there ever anything so fine as the smell of woodsmoke in autumn? No, never. The fire had not been long lit; David still had the bucket of hickory chips in one hand, watching the flames lick up around the wood. Golden light glowed on his face, dazzling across the lenses of his glasses so that he seemed to have no eyes at all, just sockets full of fire. And there was Aunt Easter on the other side of the sliding glass door in the kitchen, mixing the burger-meat with her hands. When Ana looked down, she saw an ear of corn in her child-small hands, a basket with more corn on her left, a paper bag for the husks in front of her, and a bowl for the cleaned ears on her right. Corn silk clung to her skirt and her legs, all the way down to her bare feet, stained reddish by the mountain soil she'd been running on earlier, chasing David through the trees, playing pirates.
Had this really happened? There were too many details to be anything but a memory, yet she knew she was dreaming. Corn was summer-food. This was fall. The leaves were turning red and falling right in front of her eyes, raining blood all over the mountainside and swirling away toward the quarry like water down the sink.
As she watched, she heard a car drive up, the sound of tires crunching over gravel much louder than it ever could have been in life, ominous, like thunder in a clear sky. Ana peeled a dry leaf away from the ear of corn in her hand; it crumbled apart, spilling between her fingers and over her feet, leaving her with a handful of corn silk and white kernels, yellow hair and teeth.
"Hello, hello!" a man called. He appeared—Ana could not quite see from where, whether he'd come through the house or around it—shrugging out of his purple jacket as he walked. He tossed it through the open sliding door onto the kitchen table and continued on his way to the inset brick barbeque pit grown-Ana would rebuild a hundred times over without ever being fully conscious of why the design had lodged in her mind.
"A very merry unbirthday!" this man said, ruffling up David's hair.
David stood for it the same way he stood when his mother licked her thumb to wipe away a smudge of dirt on his face, but Ana giggled. She had seen Alice In Wonderland and read Through the Looking Glass, so when the man glanced at her, she shyly said, "To me?"
"To you!" he agreed and ruffled her hair too. Hers was almost as short as David's right now (she couldn't be eight, then; the only people who ever cut her hair were the hospital people who shaved it when she got stitches), shorter but thicker, and messier. "A very merry unbirthday to us all! Oh, wow, look at all this hair. Where are you getting it?"
Ana squirmed, twisting corn husks, wanting to hug and to be hugged, unsure of protocol. "I don't know."
"Me neither, but you need to send about half of it back. Come here." He hunkered, arms open, and Ana flung herself against his welcome chest, burying her face against his purple shirt and scraping her lips on his stubbly cheek. Groaning as grown-ups do, he stood and rocked her twice before flinging her up into the sky so that she hovered for just a moment, entirely airborne, flying, before dropping safe into his hands again. Another hug, hard enough to hurt her ribs, and then he set her on her feet. "What's in the bowl?"
"Cider."
"Mmm. Go dip me out a mug, would you? And what about you?" he asked, now turning to Aunt Easter, who was just stepping out on the patio with her plate of hamburger patties. They dripped, writhing and raw. "You going to say hello?"
"Just waiting until you can do it right," she said, wiping the blood off her hands before going to meet him.
They kissed grown-up kisses, right on the lips. Ana could see their tongues, licking all over in each other's mouths. Gross.
"Can you stay?" Aunt Easter asked softly, still hugging him.
"For a few hours. Not all night. No, no," he said as Aunt Easter made disappointed sounds. "He's too stressed. Not eating, not sleeping, self-medicating. He needs me."
"Poor baby. What's wrong?"
"Oh, the usual legal drama just getting more dramatic, and now I guess the kid's starting to ask where Daddy is. Abby keeps calling, wanting him to fly out and see them."
"He should go."
"No," said the man with a laugh and scowl at the same time. "No, he should bring them both the fuck back is what he should do, and if I only knew where she fucking was, I'd go get her myself. He had no business letting her leave in the first place. Granted, she's a whiny bitch and Randy's dumb as a bag of cheese soup, but if he wanted them gone so bad, he should have told me, not sent them to the ends of the fucking Earth. They were mine more than they were his and he knew it! God! You know, I love him, but sometimes he makes me so mad, I could just kill him!"
Aunt Easter made hushing sounds, looking past him to Ana and David.
The man glanced their way and sighed. "Yeah, yeah. Angry words, o let them never. I'll be good."
"You're always good," said Aunt Easter and they kissed some more. "How was it at work today?"
"Pretty quiet. The mom came around and asked some questions, but she's not quite to the freaking-out phase yet. Kind of a wild kid. I don't think this is the first time he's taken off."
"And how are…they?"
"Fine. They're fine. I keep telling you," he added, laughing as he put her out of his arms and took his cup of cider from waiting Ana's hands. "Why do you keep asking?"
"They just don't seem like they're acting right."
"Like, how? What exactly are they doing?"
Aunt Easter shook her head, looking uncomfortable. Ana, feeling the same way, crept up to her side and took her hand, leaning into her hip. Aunt Easter's smile as she smoothed Ana's perpetually flyaway hair was drawn on, unreal. "I don't know. It's just a feeling. I catch them looking at me sometimes. And last week—"
"Oh, well, looking at you." The man caught Ana's eye and rolled his, inviting her to laugh along at her silly aunt. Ana managed a small smile. "I had no idea it had gone that far. They're looking, huh? Thank God you told me. We'll put a stop to that, won't we, Ana? We'll pop their little eyes right out."
"Your father came into the office last week."
The man kept smiling, but Ana could see his eyebrows pinch slightly. "Oh yeah?"
"He knew it was me. He could see me. He came right in anyway."
The man glanced at his cider as if he'd forgotten he was holding it. He took a sip, watching Aunt Easter over the rim of the cup. "And?" he said once he'd swallowed. "What did he do?"
"Nothing. He just—"
"Looked at you."
"It was the way he was looking at me. The things he was thinking."
"Uh oh, looking and thinking," he said, but his teasing tone was as drawn on as Aunt Easter's smile. He nudged aside the basket that minutes ago had held corn and that now held dozens of naked plastic dolls, and sat down, pulling Ana onto his knee. "I'll talk to him. I'm sure it's nothing, but in the meantime…you know, maybe keep the music box wound."
"You said I didn't have to worry about that."
"You don't, but if he's getting a kick out of making you nervous, you got to kick back to get him to quit. Just type in the debug code and it'll autoplay all night. No big deal."
"I don't know any of that computer stuff, you know that."
"It's not rocket science," the man said with a laugh. "Exit out to the main menu. You'll see a picture of the band in the background. Poke Freddy in the nose. When you hear the honking sound, type 'musicboxon' like it's all one word and hit enter. You won't see a prompt or hear a noise, but when you tab back into security mode and tap over to the prize counter, you should see the timer isn't winding down anymore. Got it?"
"Can't you just come with me and talk to them?"
"Good," he said, just like Aunt Easter had nodded 'yes'. He had another drink of cider, then held the cup for Ana to have a sip. It was hot and sweet. "Anything else?"
"The older ones are walking around."
"No kidding." He laughed, a pleased and surprised sound. "Well, they're probably just bored. If they want to play, let 'em."
"During the daytime."
Again, his brows pinched. "Huh. Okay, that definitely qualifies as weird. I guess I'll have a look at them tomorrow."
"Look at all of them. Please!" she pressed even as he blew a hard sigh up at the sky. "The guests are starting to complain about the way they stare and how they sometimes follow people around. I try to talk to them, but they don't listen to me like they do you! They just laugh at me!"
"All right, all right. I'll give them all a stern talking-to. Happy?"
Before Aunt Easter could answer, David let out a groan and called, "Mom, you said we could start the barbeque when he got here! He's here! Aren't we ever going to make the burgers?"
"David!"
"That's my boy, a slave to instant gratification," the man said, looking back at David. Louder, he called, "You've got to wait for the coals to get hot."
"They're hot now," David argued, holding his hand over the flames to prove it. "It's fire. Fire's hot."
"Hot enough to burn you," the man replied. "Not enough to cook you."
Aunt Easter leaned over his shoulder to murmur in his ear. Ana couldn't hear what she said, just that it contained the word 'hot' and made the man glance back at her with a crooked sort of smile.
"Oh yeah?" he said, slipping an arm around her waist. He moved Ana away and pulled Aunt Easter, giggling like a child herself, into the place he had made for her. "And how are you going to do that, hmm? You got a barbeque grill somewhere I don't know about?"
"Maybe," said Aunt Easter, her eyes shining as she put her arms around his neck.
"Maybe. And where are you hiding it? Hmm? Is it here?" The man tickled at her tummy. "Or is it here?" His fingers skipped over her hip and down her kicking thigh, then slipped between her knees and up beneath her skirt. "Or is it…here?" he asked, smiling, as Aunt Easter gasped and giggled.
David glared at them as they kissed, then turned away and stabbed at the fire with his stick.
"Mmm, that does feel pretty hot," the man said. His arm moved, making Aunt Easter's skirt bulge and roll in dangerous new shapes. "But I don't know if it's hot enough to cook on. Hmmm. If only there was something I could stick in there to check the temperature. Hmmm."
"Do you want to go upstairs?" Aunt Easter asked, her own hands restless and traveling.
He tsked, shaking his head with a cheerful scowl. "This is supposed to be a birthday party, not a booty call."
"Please. I haven't seen you in so long."
"You see me every day."
"At work."
"And at play."
"But not at home."
The man's smile widened, but his eyes narrowed and he did something with his hidden hand that made Aunt Easter flinch and look at him with wide, wounded eyes. "Don't you nag me, Mary-Mary-Quite-Contrary. This was the arrangement. He needs me."
"I need you. Your son needs you."
The man let out a low, lazy laugh and raised his voice slightly to call, "You need me, David?" as he gazed into Aunt Easter's flushed face.
"No," said David and hit the fire.
"No. He's a little lion, doesn't need anyone or anything. And you—" He tapped her on the nose with his free hand. "—shouldn't hide behind him. Taking advantage of a vulnerable child is quite possibly the worst thing anyone can do. For shame."
"Please." Aunt Easter shifted to her knees, sitting on him, his hand still under her skirt. She clasped her hands together beneath her chin and buried her face against his shoulder, shivering as if she were cold. "Please!"
"Again."
"Please. Please, don't tease. Please, do…"
"Do what? What do you want me to do, Mary-Mary? Hmm?" His arm flexed. He must have pinched her; she let out a cry and although she didn't struggle, she couldn't seem to hold still. The man watched her writhe the same way David watched the spiders he sometimes trapped and took apart, leg by leg. "And what will you do to earn it?"
Aunt Easter raised her head, blonde hair like corn silk tumbling all around, bloody in the firelight. "Anything."
"Mm." The man looked suddenly straight at Ana, once more smiling broadly as he took his hand out from under Aunt Easter's skirt and pushed his finger into Aunt Easter's mouth. "Isn't she pretty?" he asked.
Ana nodded, but retreated, confused by the strength of her own inexplicable discomfort. David did not look around when she took his hand, just kept smacking sparks out of the fire.
"Like I always say…there is nothing as beautiful as a woman on her knees, begging. All right, come on." The man sat up, giving Aunt Easter a playful swat on the bottom as she scrambled off him and dashed inside. "Let's go upstairs. David, you keep an eye on those coals, okay?"
David tossed his hair in something that might have been a nod.
Ana watched through the sliding glass door as they walked away together. Halfway down the hall, the man caught Aunt Easter's hand and pulled her back to him like he was going to yell at her, only to kiss her some more. He touched her in grabby, hurt-looking ways, fingers squeezing and twisting and pushing. Ana couldn't tell if he was angry or not, but Aunt Easter was laughing when she finally escaped, laughing when she ran upstairs. He followed, not running, unbuttoning his shirt as he walked. When he swung around the ornate post at the foot of the stairs and noticed Ana still at the patio door, watching, he leaned all the way over the bannister and waggled his fingers at her, then ran up, taking the steps two and three at a time.
"What's going on?" Ana asked.
David watched the fire and didn't answer.
Not knowing what else to do, Ana returned to her chair and picked up a doll. She shucked it like corn, pulling off arms and legs. Silky strands of hair clung to her clothes and skin, impossible to remove completely. She put the doll, ready for grilling, in the bowl and picked up another one.
Through Aunt Easter's open bedroom window came a moan, long and low and full of pain. In the desert, as if in answer, coyotes laughed and rose up on their hind legs to dance.
Ana listened, fearflesh prickling up her arms and spine, tightening her scalp. "What's going on?" she asked again.
"They're having sex."
"What's that?"
David looked at her for what felt like a long time before turning his stare back on the fire. "I don't know."
Aunt Easter moaned again.
"Why is she making that sound?" Ana asked. Her voice cracked a little. She touched her eyes and found them dry for the moment, but the tears were there, hiding.
"It hurts."
"Should we do something? Should we call 9-1-1?"
David was already shaking his head. "It's not like that."
"But you said—"
"It supposed to hurt. Like going to the doctor." David jerked one shoulder in an angry shrug. "It's just something grown-ups do."
"Why?"
"Because," he said grimly. "They're supposed to do it if it's someone they really like, and if they're dating or if they get married, then they have to."
In the cold wake of this information, Aunt Easter's moans grew louder, shorter, until she almost seemed to be crying. Ana's own throat tightened. Her stomach knotted. Her lungs ached. She could not imagine the hurt that could make those sounds…but she wouldn't have to imagine forever, would she? She and David were going to get married someday. He'd promised. Had that already happened yet? Was she still eight? It felt as if she'd slipped away into a younger body, even as David grew taller, older. Ana looked at the cake for clues, but the letters spelled out in frosting across its face were nonsensical. It seemed at first they said Let's Eat! but when she looked again, they were all Vs and As, sugar-teeth, and then nothing at all, just colored sprinkles on white buttercream.
David glanced at her, then frowned and sat up straighter. "We don't have to," he said, so he must have already made his promise. "We'll just…tell people we're doing it. But don't have to, really. Who's going to know?"
Ana didn't argue, but she didn't agree either. Grown-ups knew everything.
"I'd never hurt you," he said, and the next thing Ana knew, they were sitting together on the low brick wall much later, with the sky full dark and crumbs of cake on paper plates beside them, watching red sparks fall upward into the stars. On the other end of the patio, Aunt Easter and the man she sometimes called 'honey' and sometimes 'Erik' shared a lounge chair that was too small for the two of them. His purple shirt was on, but completely unbuttoned; Aunt Easter's hand moved up and down along his stomach, like he was a cat she was petting. Aunt Easter's skirt kept catching the wind and rippling up higher around her hip; the man petted her, too. Their voices were low and laughing. They kissed a lot. They were both so young and pretty and happy. If it hurt very much to do the sex-thing, it didn't seem to keep on hurting after it was over.
She turned to say so, but David was gone. In his place sat a giant-sized Freddy-bear, old and torn and filthy. His purple top hat was charred on one side. The microphone he held in his loose grip was rusty and half-melted. He had no eyes, only black holes full of wires.
"If someone hurt me," Fredbear rumbled, staring blindly into the fire. This was not that memory and they both seemed to know it. His form shimmered, growing hazy enough to let her see the boy within, eleven years old in a torn t-shirt and paper mask, then grew solid around him once more. "If someone hurt me, would you hurt them back?" he asked, as David would ask years later, just days before he slipped that plastic doubloon into her hand and sent her off to kill her mother, days before he disappeared. "If someone…hurt me…"
Ana leaned into his golden fur and tucked up her bare legs under her skirt. "It's okay," she whispered, watching the fire as her eyelids grew heavy. She was tired, even in her dream…and she knew she was dreaming now, just as she knew she was dreaming that dream too. Layers upon layers of unreality and time separating this moment from that one far in the future, past eight-year-old Ana at Aunt Easter's house and thirteen-year-old Ana in Rider's bed to grown-Ana in the basement of the Mammon Public Library, but it was all true, whether it had really happened or not, and it needed to be said. "It's okay. You can do the sex-thing to me when we're married."
"I…I don't want…want to hurt you."
"I know, but you love me." She took his huge, worn paw in her hand and watched his fingers slowly curl around it. "If you really love someone, it's okay to hurt them."