CHAPTER 5

Alex jerked himself awake! His shoes thudded on the floor so heavily they sounded like shotgun blasts, making him jump! His chest heaved, his heart thundered in his ears, sweat trickled down his face. His breath came in heavy gasps. For a moment he wasn't sure where he was. But slowly creeping back into his mind was the realization that what he'd just experienced was the most realistic nightmare ever. His brain was pulsing heavily, a migraine thudded in his head.

"Oh crap…UGH…. Ugh… ow…." he moaned, his hands clutching the side of his head, just waiting for the pulsing to end.

It took time but once the pounding in his skull ended, Alex decided he had to get off the floor, he couldn't stay here. As he sat up, he felt the crazy weight on his shoulders increase. Looking back, he saw his GrabPack. No doubt he was back in reality, but reality and nightmare felt interchangeable at this moment. At least in one he could run away if he pushed himself. Looking around he saw that he'd barely made it into the room, which was now completely clear of the red smoke. It was so quick he'd hardly made it a step before he collapsed onto his back!

"Crap… that stuff is fast…"

The speed at which it had happened was mind blowing; to go from being awake to deep in sleep so fast he didn't realize it… This was all the more reason to try and avoid it in the future. He found himself counting his blessings that the smoke had dissipated not long after as any intense dosage to chemicals could be fatal. The ghostly memory of a Mommy Long Leg's poster floated to the forefront of his mind and made itself clear; he'd need a gas mask.

"Don't know if they'd have one here, but it would behoove me to look anyway."

As he began sitting up very slowly and drowsily, Alex felt his body aching to respond as if he didn't get much sleep. Looking at his watch it had to be an hour… at most. Hardly enough for meaningful rest at all. But right now, he couldn't think about rest, what was important was looking for that generator.

Looking around the room, Alex saw it was more like a series of large living rooms. Couches were centered around empty fireplaces that had air vents placed inside or around television sets. One TV had a small VCR installed atop it. Looking at the couch that faced it (grimacing at the Huggy Wuggy pillow and it's too innocent smile), he saw a rumpled blanket and a VHS tape. Picking it up, all it said was "Goodbye." Despite the foreboding name, Alex stuck it in the VCR, and waited as the screen went from snow to a static image of a child's face.

"Maybe it'll have a hint where to find the generator," he thought.

The tape was silent before slowly coming was a loud commotion. Like all VHS tapes, this one was only audio with a static image. The commotion sounded familiar, over the sound he heard children talking and squealing excitedly.

"Ah, and here they all are," said a male voice.

"Well of course! They'd never miss this," said a woman's voice.

"Who is it, Ms. Brooks? Who's going away?" a child's voice asked.

"Tell us tell us!" another child's voice cried.

The woman shushed the kids and slowly they went quiet before she continued.

"This week, Dr. White here has selected our very own Samuel Lee!"

A chorus of cheers and screams greeted this as the children went crazy.

"Now before he goes, let's all give Sam one last goodbye, shall we? With me. 1…2…3," the woman said.

There was an eruption from the kids wishing Sam goodbye. Alex couldn't help but feel this was a strange way to wish a child goodbye who'd been adopted. The more he thought about it, this didn't sound like an adoption, it sounded like a lottery. If this kid was adopted, it would have made more sense to say he'd been "adopted", not "chosen."

With the sound of the tape coming to its end, came another sound from back the way he had come. The sound of doors being thrown open, and then the heavy foot pads coming down the stairs.

"Catnap."

Leaving the TV behind, Alex pressed into what appeared to be a foyer. Here he saw a second story above him, and above that a chandelier with two glass enclosed lights. One shaped like the moon, the other like the sun. But he had no time to take this sight in as he scanned around for the first open entryway. Some entryways were blocked by big ornate gates, and others were too far away. Looking to his far right, a couple crates blocking a doorway with only a narrow space under them welcomed him. He felt the time slipping away, this way would have to do.

Slipping into the other room, Alex shuffled around the crates just out of sight and peered back. He watched as Catnap entered the room. He peered around slowly looking behind the couches.

"Come out come out little rat…" he sang in a dementedly cheery tune. "You're trespassing in my domain and my Lord doesn't like that…"

Alex said nothing and shifted as quietly as he hoped out of sight. His heart rate pounded in his ears, his breathing sounded too loud, too heavy… His mind brewed up what would happen when Catnap found where he was; smashing the boxes over, paws clamped around his neck, claws slicing cleanly through flesh and bone….

A deep breathing that was not his own caught his attention. Peering around the corner, he saw Catnap breathing red smoke from his wide grinning mouth. With his long slender body, the feline looked more like a dragon than anything. The red smoke rolled out his mouth then rose to start filling up the room. Alex held his breath as some of the smoke eeked around the crates. It stopped there though, filling the room. Catnap paused, listening… waiting… then he turned and continued down another hallway.

Only after the heavy feline's footfalls faded into the distance did Alex dare to breathe normally again. The room remained filled with the red smoke, sealing off any escape. He was trapped in here, and he'd have to figure a way out on his own.

"Maybe I could call Bubba to open a vent or something," he thought. "Hmmm but I don't know the number for the bunker. Crap. Maybe if I restore power, he'll call me and then I can ask."

Despite lingering doubts that this plan would work, Alex pushed them down to continue his trek. He found himself in a large room filled with bunk beds from wall to wall. This had to be a general area where the younger kids would sleep. This seemed the case as beds had cartoon print sheets and blankets. Some were of Huggy Wuggy, some Kissy Missy, a couple were of Catbee, but most were of the Smiling Critters in their cartoon appearance. A poster on one of the walls showed a sleeping Huggy while Catnap sat on the headframe of the bed, reminding people to get a good night's rest. In small text it mentioned that employees were only allowed 5 hours of sleep.

"Ugh… I definitely need more than 5 hours of sleep," Alex muttered. "At least three times that."

Moving through the room, Alex couldn't help but notice how many bunk beds there were. This whole room was filled with them. 40 kids had to share this room. His heart sank; so many kids without parents and a real home. He could remember how it was often suggested of the higher ups to adopt children. His co-workers had done so, but not him. He'd not done so because he never felt he could be a good caretaker of children.

While his past as an employee of Playtime Co. eluded his mind, Alex could remember his life before that. A life of foster homes with families that didn't really love him. He was far from a bad kid, it was the people who were assigned to look after him that were the problem. It was how he grew to be fascinated with toys and engineering later in life. Toys made childhood easier to weather as they were constant companions who never left his life. Engineering became his grown up interest as the last man who'd demanded to be called dad had insisted. "Take up something that'll make something of yourself for all the money I'm wasting on you." With engineering, it promised to create something new that was better than the old. And Playtime's toys were the best toys around. How could he not wish to work here?

Ducking under a blocked door that had been hastily barricaded, Alex stepped into what appeared to be a small office. Possibly for one of the caretakers. A desk sat in the middle of the room, while filing cabinets and regular cabinets crowded the walls. On the desk was another TV set with a VHS tape nearby. Hoping this tape might reveal something, he picked up the tape and pushed it inside. On the tape was a scientist talking about one of their latest subjects before a little child's voice interrupted his dictation. The child clearly figured he was talking about a friend he knew, as he referred to them by name: Kevin. The scientist then went on to dismiss the child's concerns with the promise they were doing everything to help Kevin get better. Given the earlier tone, it was clear this was a lie. This man didn't care about Kevin's health, he was just a subject to him. A number. A nobody.

Like him.

The empty bunk beds, so many of them, brought a dreadful thought in his mind. This factory was what he had wished for as a child: to find a good home and to have the source of his favorite toys be the ones that made it happen. He'd wanted it to happen, probably all the kids here wanted it to happen too. Immediately he thought of the tape of the children wishing Samuel goodbye. They all thought he was leaving for a new home with Dr. White. Just like Joseph thought his friend Kevin was being taken care of. It was all a lie, a lie none of the children suspected. But how deep did the lie really go?

"So many kids… how many of them found a good home? How many actually got that wish? Did some really find a home? Or was it all a lie from the start? How many children became the toys they loved? How many became… like Catnap?"

Leaving the office space as no exit could be seen, Alex returned to the first bedroom. From here he saw another door leading to another bedroom. In this room, it's more chaotic. Rubble from the ceiling covered the floor, one bunk bed was crushed under its top bunk, and two bunks were pushing in a way to block one of the exits out of this room. In the gloom of the sole surviving light hanging from the ceiling, a ragged hole in the floor opened up.

"Huh? What happened there?" he wondered.

Stepping over to examine the hole, Alex saw it looked clawed up. This wasn't the result of the aging structure; this had been done on purpose by some toy angry enough to do it. The claw marks hinted as to the perpetrator being only one critter. At the bottom of the hole was another room that was filled with red smoke. Through the crimson haze, Alex could make out the walls being made of bricks instead of the normal plaster and wallpaper.

"No way the children saw what was down there, they wouldn't have been allowed. The generator must be down there, but without a-"

His thought was interrupted by the sight of a gas mask hanging from one of the broken boards around the hole. With its big black eye holes on its shiny red rubber, it looked like a bloody skull. Snatching it up, Alex held it up. It seemed it would fit him.

"Okay, now we're getting somewhere," he murmured to himself as he tugged it on over his head.

The hissing of the respirator was extra loud in his ears as he gave a couple breaths through it. The rubber scent stunk, but it was this or another trip to dreamland. Back into nightmares with maybe no way out as that was a lot of smoke. With a deep breath, Alex took a step forward and leaped down into the room below.

Down in the smoky basement room, Alex felt relief flood his body. The mask was working like a charm; he felt alert and aside from the rubber scent, there was no indication of the smoke's effects. A glance around the room revealed it to be a dead end with some breaker boxes and shelves filled with boxes of spare parts like air filters, gas mask filters and fuses, and one of Playtime Co's infamous Pull-N-Go Rideable Drag Racer cars. The only way out was blocked by large crates that had been pushed into the short hallway, creating a layered barricade that would be incredibly difficult to break through. It was clear why there was a hole in the ceiling; someone had been hiding here until Catnap broke through the floor.

And quickly it looked like Alex would be staying down here as well as there was no way out of the hole he'd dropped down into. Nothing to GrabPack onto that could lift him up, and these shelves were made of flimsy sheet metal that would fold underneath his weight. The crates were too heavy, beyond what his GrabPack could pull, even using both hands.

"Why didn't I look before I leapt down here?" he berated himself, his voice muffled by the mask.

Then his mind returned to the race car. He remembered hearing about these and the problems they caused. These electric race cars were meant to be scaled up versions of their Pull-N-Go Drag Racer toys. "Pull the special ring back to rev your engines up and let em go go go!" had been the slogan. Someone had thought scaling them up would make for a fun riding toy. And it was… until the lawsuits of the car's batteries exploding upon impact with something at speed became apparent, not to mention the cars caused a great deal of damage to anything they hit.

"Hmm… maybe this could be useful. Hopefully the batteries are still good," Alex thought.

Getting behind the car, Alex found the pull start. With the car aimed at the crates, it was perfectly aimed. He GrabPacked onto the handle and yanked it back. For a moment nothing happened but soon the electric motor kicked in and the rear wheels began to spin! The rubber tires squealed on the concrete floor, leaving skin marks. Alex held on as long as he could as it was known that the longer the pull back the faster and further the ride would be. Then, as he felt his shoes start to slide, he released his grip.

VROOOOM! CRASH! CRASH SMASH!

The car lived up to its expectations and turned the layered defenses into rubble. Alex chuckled.

"For once, a reject toy helps me out of a jam, instead of causing one," he said, remembering the massive Bron toy blocking his exit from the rejected toy's room.

Quickly, he left the room behind him; with all that noise, it would only be a matter of time before Catnap would come check it out. At the end of the hallway, the Pull-N-Go Rideable Drag Racer's racing days were officially over as the remains burned. Unfortunately, it had only wrecked when it plowed into the roller door. A quick look up revealed a hole in the ceiling, and an exposed pipe that was perfect for grabbing onto. Quickly Alex winched himself out of the hallway and into yet another bedroom filled with bunk beds. With a heavy gasp, he slipped the gasmask up.

"Whew, good to be out of there."

Leaping to the floor, he continued forwards out the next open archway. This led out to another hallway, and to the right was a stairway that curved up towards the second floor, only an ornate metal and wood gate blocked it. The blinking of a green light drew his attention upwards to see a green power node that would hold a charge for ten seconds. Alex made a note of it, and continued down the hallway, which was crowded with bits of broken wood, cracked plaster and crushed toys stuck on wooden stakes.

"Even here? What if there were children here? Oh crap… what if there were children here when… it happened?"

Brushing past the implications, Alex continued down the hallway. Suddenly an explosion of crates and wood blew out from around the corner in front of him! It was followed by angry yowling and snarling! Looking around frantically, Alex's eyes saw a door that was slightly ajar. He didn't think, he moved!

Pushing into the dark room, Alex grabbed the door and pushed it shut behind him as he heard Catnap burst forth into the hallway he'd just been in.

"GRRRRRRRR… where are you?! I know you're still here!" Catnap snarled. "Come out! Come out and I'll make your death mercifully quick!"

Alex just held his breath, he didn't dare move a muscle lest his movement make any noise that could be heard. Staring at the door, praying that Catnap didn't come in, he noticed wisps of red smoke blow through the cracks in the door. This was followed by the sound of heavy breathing from the other side of the door. With one hand on his gas mask, ready to yank it down at a moment's notice, Alex waited with bated breath. Soon, after what felt like an eternity, the heavy footsteps moved onwards down the hallway, leaving him in silence.

Taking a moment to see the room he was in, Alex saw he was standing in a small employee's lounge. A countertop and sink stood at one end of the room with a small fridge. At the opposite end of the room were some couches centered around another static filled TV. A VHS sat in the attached VCR.

"Third time's the charm," Alex huffed, as he stepped over and pushed the tape in.

The tape played, displaying only a red gas mask, while the audio played the voice of one of the caretakers. She talked about events following what sounded like regular bedtime proceedings: tuck the kids in, have Catnap breath the red smoke. But one girl, a girl that this caretaker saw as her own daughter, had a violent reaction to the smoke and it was horrific to hear. Sweating, heart pounding, and screaming about some monster no one could see… The interviewer remained unphased while the caretaker broke down into hysterics, not taking the excuses being given. As the tape came to an end, Alex found it took a bit of an effort to start moving again.

"My god… this must be that incident Bubba mentioned. But this woman, Ms. Harper... she sounded like she cared. Genuinely cared. So there were good people working here… people who did care… but where are they now?" he wondered.

His train of thought didn't last long as a distant crash in the distance brought him back to reality. He knew he couldn't stay here, he had to keep going. Quietly slipping from the lounge, Alex continued down the hallway Catnap had entered from. Upon coming to this crossroad, he saw to his right a door with a brass nameplate on it reading "Staff Only- Emergency Generator." However the path forward was blocked by an ornate gate. Two empty battery ports stood on either side.

"Has no one heard of a lock and key?"

The dull buzzing of an electric probe drew his attention. This had to be for accessing the second floor.

"I could go upstairs or I could look around down here," he thought. "But Catnap is actively looking for me down here. Maybe if I put some distance between me and him I'll be able to search for these batteries quicker without needing to step so lightly."

Another crash down the dark hallways helped to force his hand. He grabbed the charge, ran back to the stairway, slapped the charge into the node and darted upstairs before the charge eventually died and the gate closed behind him. Whether there were other ways to access the upstairs, Alex didn't know, but for now he had distance between him and the killer cat.

Immediately Alex noticed a difference to the upstairs rooms. Most of them weren't like the big, shared bedrooms downstairs filled with bunk beds; most of them were small individual rooms. Each room had a desk and dresser, as well as a single bed, and toy chest. The only visual difference he could see between some of these rooms, besides the drawings stuck on the walls and the orientation of the furniture, was the absence of a mirror that almost ran half the length of the room.

Alex figured these had to either be for older kids, or kids who couldn't handle large groups and needed space. Given that adopting an orphan was encouraged even if the child was a teenager, he figured this was probably the reason. Opening the door to another room, Alex barely had the chance to tug the mask down over his face as a cloud of red smoke suddenly poured out!

"Whoa! This must be one of the leaks Bubba mentioned," he sighed in relief.

Pushing into the room, his eyes scanning to pick out the green glow through the red haze, something caught Alex's attention; the blue glow of a TV screen. Only it was further away into the room than it should have been. And above him he could hear a hissing noise coming from the ceiling light, like air leaking from a bike tire. Craning his head to see better, Alex saw the source of the red smoke: a ceiling vent.

"Wait, if the smoke is coming through the air vents, why is this room the only one affected and not its neighbors? And what's with that light?" he asked himself.

Stepping closer to the flickering blue light, Alex got his answer; there was a room behind the room.

"Wait… what's this?"

Climbing through the broken mirror into the hidden room, Alex got his answer. The room wasn't very deep, but it was very long. Desks and chairs sat along one wall, each one facing a window; a window that faced into the other bedrooms he'd already been in. It dawned on him this was an observation room. Picking up a clipboard, it read "Observation Notes: Subject Derek Douglas." Another clipboard on the other table read the same but had the name Lily Stone.

"Names of the kids… the kids they were… observing."

Between each desk was a pipe going from floor to ceiling with a simple valve. On a hunch, Alex grabbed the one next to the window he'd climbed in and twisted it. The moment he did the red smoke stopped gushing out of the vent into the room.

"Good God… not only were they observing these kids, but they were gassing them! On purpose!" Alex gasped.

The nature of this room filled him with disgust. This was beyond an invasion of privacy; this was deceptive, this was sneaky, this was… perverse. Images of scientists in Playtime Co. brand yellow lab coats standing here, taking notes of children… countless children who'd stay in these rooms flashed in his mind. People with clipboards who'd turn the valves to the room to see what this chemical batch would do, or worse… simply smoking the child into unconsciousness… leaving them unable to resist as they were removed from Playcare. Taken away. Never to be seen again.

"I gotta get out of here, now," he thought, this room was making him intensely uneasy.

CLACK!

His foot struck something and sent it skittering across the floor. Looking down, he saw it was yet another tape. Picking it up, there was only a small handprint on the title. Looking back at the TV, Alex wondered if he wanted to know what was on this tape. It might simply be observation notes from the scientists talking about reactions to the chemicals they were testing. Or observations on their child test subjects. As horrible as he felt about this room, his curiosity was too strong. It was clear what the scientists here really thought of the orphans, but maybe it wasn't all that. He'd heard tapes of his old friend Rich Avery, and the last tape of Ms. Harper showed that in this place there were people who cared. And besides, with his memory of this place being nothing but a blank slate, any information might help him.

The moment the VHS booted up, a bloody looking heart necklace or amulet filled the TV screen. The sound of distant screaming… children screaming could be heard faintly, as well as the panicked voices of two males.

"What's going on here!? What's happening!?" a male voice screamed.

"Shut up! You'll attract one of them!" another male voice said in a hushed tone. "As long as they don't know about this room, we're safe."

The sound of a door slamming open was heard followed by an animalistic growl.

"It knows we're here!" the second voice hissed in dumbfounded shock.

"Hurry! Gas it, gas it!" the first voice screamed.

The squeak of a valve opening, then the hiss of the smoke blowing out from wherever it was being released. The animal growl turned into a mad shriek, followed by a smashing of glass! The male voices screamed then the audio glitched out. It stayed this way for a couple seconds before it snapped back on. There was a crunching noise, a growling, then there was a pause. Alex listened to hear a soft barely audible grunt leaf from the TV's speakers. Then there was a squeal of horror! A quivering little girl's voice could be heard. It was Bobby's voice!

"No… no… no! NO!" she screamed before the tape suddenly ended.

Alex stared at the tv for a moment, the horrified scream of Bobby echoing in his ears. As he took a step back, he noticed the same heart shaped pendant sitting next to it. He picked it up in his hand and felt the dried blood on its surface flaking off onto his fingers. What had happened in this tope, it had happened in this very room. Two scientists huddled for shelter, Bobby had found them, attacked them… and then realized what she'd done as if she'd woken from a nightmare, only to find the nightmare was real.

He was starting to understand why Bobby had said what she did about herself. She might be a small critter, but it seemed size didn't matter when whatever happened happened. She had killed two men in cold blood, not even the red smoke they'd tried to use could stop her. But she had remorse, she felt guilty, There was something here that wasn't adding up. Why would she attack and kill the workers here if she felt revulsion at the act? It was clear from the tape the moment after doing so, she seemed to snap out of it. There was something more going on. He slipped the heart pendent into his pocket and headed through a large hole in the wall that had been smashed through by something big, definitely not Bobby but something else.

It was another large bedroom only instead of bunk beds, it was filled with cribs. It seemed that the poster suggesting for employees to adopt a child even months old was being serious. Which only made Alex's heart drop even further to think of the possibility that even infants ended up as test subjects. These horrible thoughts were interrupted by a familiar green glow catching his eye. Through a hole in the wall, he saw a battery perched on a chair in the room next door to this one.

"Whew, found one," he sighed.

It was just in reach, no need to GrapPack it. Alex reached into the hole and grabbed at the top of it to pull it up and out. Suddenly, the battery was yanked out of his fingers, and then something rapped hard against his knuckles!

"OW! What th-," he cried, drawing his hand back in pain.

"THAT'S MINE!" a girl's voice shouted.

Alex looked up and staring back at him, with a spatula poised to smack him again, was the defiantly glaring face of another critter. She was missing her pendant but her, albeit dirty, pink form was instantly familiar.

"Picky!?"