Chapter 16
Ava wasn't sure what woke her up. But something did. Sitting up, she rubbed her eyes and yawned. She listened, expecting to hear Joshua moving around. When she didn't, she parted the overlapped blankets of the makeshift tent. She grinned.
Joshua was totally zonked out in the office chair. His arms folded forward, his head buried deeply into them.
Tucking the Finizen plush under her arm, Ava stood. She tiptoed toward the desk. "Josh?" she whispered. She stepped forward and poked her brother lightly on the bicep. He snorted, but he didn't wake up.
Ava grinned again. Wider this time. Cool.
She quickly ducked back inside her tent. Setting down her Finizen plush, she dug inside her sleeping bag to get the overalls she'd stashed there.
Joshua had thought she'd spend the night in her PJ's, but she'd hoped she'd get the chance she had now, and she was prepared for it. She quickly changed into a pale blue tee and pulled darker blue overalls over it. She stuffed her PJ's into the sleeping bag, and she tucked the Finizen plush into the bag, too. Then she stood.
"I'll be right back," she told her sleeping brother.
Then she stepped over to the office door, easing it open, and slipping out into the hallway.
At the fringes of his consciousness, Joshua thought he heard the soft click of a door closing. Or was that a clipped-off branch off one of the trees on the cassette tape?
A single Fletchling chirped from a branch undulating in the breeze. The branch creaked, and its leaves rustled.
Ava stepped through the archway and surveyed the huge empty room that stretched out before her. No, not empty. She spotted a big pile of sad-looking tables and chairs. The shape of the pile reminded her of a sleeping Ursaring. She hoped the table-and-chair Ursaring was happy.
Her gaze moved past the tables and chairs. On the other side of the room, wide stage curtains were closed over a long stage. She smiled and headed that way.
Climbing up the short flight of stairs to the stage, she headed toward the middle of the curtains. When she got there, a thud sounded from behind the curtains. Then a clickety-clack.
"Hello?" Ava called out. She parted the curtains and looked behind them. The stage was like the inside of her tent in the middle of the night. She couldn't see anything. "I know you're back here," she said. "You may as well come out."
A burst of children's laughter crackled from the stage speakers. How fun, Ava thought, looking up at the speakers above her head. She giggled. "Clever," she said, smiling.
As if in response to her comment, the grr of grinding metal and several thumping footsteps started coming her way. Her smile wavered a little, but she was sure - pretty sure - everything was okay. The footsteps belonged to something really big. Maybe it wasn't what she thought it was.
She took a step back, but she kept hold of the curtains. She strained to see into the backstage area.
A lurching surge of movement. More footsteps - they made the stage shake under her feet - were coming toward her.
And then…
…Ava tilted her head back and gazed up…way, way up…into the big white eyes of a Sprigatito. It was a huge Sprigatito, bigger than any Sprigatito she had ever seen before.
Joshua, feeling no need to run because there was no point, walked out of the thicket of trees and all the way back to the beach where he started. The black car had since roared away, but he didn't even glance at it. He was more interested in the blonde girl, who was sitting by herself in the sand, her back to him.
Joshua moved toward the girl. "I know who you are," he said.
The girl ignored him.
"All of you," he went on. "You're those kids. The ones who disappeared."
He stopped a few feet in front of the girl, who was using a stick to draw something in the sand.
"A long time ago," Joshua said, "I had a brother who disappeared, too."
The stick stopped moving. The girl's head lifted…just a little.
"I don't know how it's possible that you can be here like this," Joshua continued on, "Inside my dream. But I have to believe that you're here to help."
The girl didn't respond.
"Please," Joshua said, bending toward the girl. "Help me remember the person who took my brother. Help me so they never hurt another kid again. I can't do it by myself. I've tried. But it's buried too deep."
The girl dropped her stick. She stood and wiped her hands, facing Joshua. In flat tones, she spoke. "If we show you, what will you give us?"
Joshua didn't hesitate. "Anything," he said. "Anything you want."
The girl rubbed her upturned nose with the back of her hand. Her pale brows furrowed together as she twisted her lips, clearly thinking hard.
Joshua waited, and then…
…the girl vanished.
Joshua dashed forward and stood where the girl just was. He was frustrated, but also invigorated. Things were unfolding differently. The girl talked directly to him. That meant he was making progress.
He glanced down at the sand. He leaned in close to look at what the girl drew. The drawing was a stick figure, but its shape was unmistakable. The girl drew a Sprigatito. No question about it.
And then…he heard a faint scream. The scream of another little girl.
Joshua opened his eyes and rotated his stiff neck. He rubbed the sore muscles and looked around the dim, quiet office. Remembering that he wasn't here alone, he looked over at Ava's tent.
He erupted to his feet. The office chair skidded backward and slammed into the credenza.
The tent was wide open, and the sleeping bag inside of it was empty.
Joshua immediately charged toward the closed office door. Before he got halfway to it, a high-pitched scream stopped him in his tracks. It sounded so eerily similar to the scream he heard in his dream.
His heart went from zero to infinity in a nanosecond. He spun around and rushed to the CCTV monitors. Scanning them quickly, his eyes nearly shot out of his head and ping-ponged around the room.
"Ava!" he gasped. He took off, pell-mell, toward the dining room. How could I be so stupid? He asked himself as he barreled down the hall. It was Sunny all over again. No, this couldn't happen again. He would rescue his sister no matter what it took.
His intestines felt like they were reaching up inside of him to strangle his lungs as he blasted through the room. He kept his gaze, his horrified gaze, on the massive jumble of animatronics that were writhing in front of the main stage.
Ava's screams were coming from within that snarl of metal and rotting fur. What were those things doing to her?
"Stop!" Joshua screamed. "Stop it! Let her go!"
Racing past the pile of furniture, he grabbed a broken chair. It was the only weapon available to him.
As he raised the chair over his head, poised to strike, one of the metal-and-fur mounds wrapped around Ava broke free of the melee. It was Spriggy FazSprig. The gargantuan Sprigatito charged straight toward Joshua. And Joshua's breathing choked in his throat. He wanted to turn and run. But he couldn't. He had to save his sister.
He tightened his grip on his makeshift weapon. He braced his feet on the linoleum floor.
Spriggy came closer. And closer. And closer and…
…he stopped a few inches from Joshua.
Joshua held his breath.
Gears grinding, eyes flashing in obvious anger, the animatronic Sprigatito leaned down and put his face right in front of Joshua's. The Sprigatito's scratched and dirty pink nose nearly touched Joshua's nose. "WE-WE-WELCOME TO SPRIGG-GY FA-A-AZSPRIG'S PIZZA-A!" The animatronic roared as his jaw flapped up and down, his voice coming from the back of his mouth. His voice was much louder and glitchier than the first time Joshua heard it.
Joshua closed his eyes and screwed up his face. He started to swing the chair, even though he knew it wasn't going to help him at all.
"Josh!" Ava called out. "You're here!"
Joshua opened his eyes and watched in disbelief as his sister, who was just fine, skipped toward him and Spriggy. She let out a carefree laugh…and she gave the animatronic creature a big…hug.
Joshua gaped at his sister.
"They wouldn't stop tickling me, Josh," Ava said. "I thought I was gonna die!"
Seriously? Tickling? Joshua lowered his arm. The chair hit the floor with a clatter.
What the hell is going on? He struggled to compute the situation, to put it into some comprehensible box. But he couldn't do it.
"Spriggy," Ava said. "This is my brother, Joshua. He works here."
Spriggy raised his head away from Joshua's face, just a little. Joshua didn't move a muscle. His intestines eased up on his lungs, infinitesimally. The animatronic's eyes were still bright, but the candescence didn't give off the same signal. The rage Joshua had felt, viscerally, coming from Spriggy, was giving way to what seemed to be cautious curiosity.
Spriggy straightened, but he kept studying Joshua. He scanned him from head to toe. Joshua hoped he passed muster.
"A PLEA-ASU-URE TO ME-ET YA-A JOSHUA-A-A!" the animatronic said in his glitchy voice.
"Ava," Joshua said quietly, as if he stood in front of a wild Pokémon. A wild Pokémon may have been an improvement over an animatronic one. "Are you okay?"
Ava grabbed his hand. She giggled.
"What's going on?" Joshua asked, even softer.
Ava looked up at her brother with more happiness than he'd ever seen in her eyes. "C'mon," she said, "I want you to meet the others!"
The others?
Feeling like he had little choice, Joshua let Ava pull him forward. Too dazed to resist, he realized his sister was dragging him over to where the rest of the animatronic pile had separated itself into different characters. The Quaxly, the Fuecoco, and the Eevee. The pirate-themed Eevee with the sharp metal hook. Great, Joshua thought.
He was still ultra-wary, but the other three animatronics seemed to find him as interesting as Spriggy did. They eyed him with what truly looked like eager curiosity. He found himself intrigued by how aging monstrosities of metal and fur could look so…childlike.
"Josh," Ava said, "this is Ducky, Flamer, and Captain Fluffy." She turned to the animatronics. "Everyone, this is Josh!"
One by one, and more than a bit shyly, the animatronics lifted ragged paws and waved at Joshua. Acting from social conditioning, Joshua started to lift his hand for a return wave. He immediately realized what he was doing, and he lowered his arm.
In spite of the animatronics' apparent friendliness, Joshua's self-preservation system backed him up a step. When it did, he nearly bumped into Spriggy, who was lumbering back to rejoin the others.
"AIN'T-T IT WONDER-RFU-L AVA-A? ALL OF OU-R-R FRIEND-ENDS ARE HER-RE!" Flamer the Fuecoco said with a robotic giggle. "NOW THE-E SHOW-OW CAN GO-O-O ON FOREV-ER-R AND EVE-R AND-D EVE-R-R-R!"
Joshua looked from the furry robots to his sister. "This…is a joke, right?" he asked. He frowned at the animatronics. He figured they had been standing still for ages. So how were they still moving around? Sure, the animatronics were jerky and cumbersome. But they were functional. How was that possible?
Joshua looked around. "Someone else is here, right?" he said. He raised his voice. "Someone's controlling them?"
"Someone" didn't step forward to take credit.
Was it Vanessa? Joshua wondered. Who else did he know who might be able to do this?
Annoyed, he shouted, "Okay, very funny! Good joke! You got me! Congratulations!"
He glowered as he spun in a circle. He saw nothing but the empty room, empty that is, except for him and Ava and the moving animatronic Pokémon.
"You hear me?" Joshua bellowed. "The joke's over! You can come out now!"
The room threw his words back at him. Otherwise…silence. He tried again. "Hello?" That, too, after seeming to bounce off the dining room ceiling, returned to him. He ground his teeth and looked at the animatronics. "There's no way," he muttered. "It's not possible."
He felt Ava take his hand. He looked down. For once, he felt their roles reversing. He was the kid - a very dumbstruck kid - and Ava was the knowing adult.
"It's okay, Josh," Ava said. Her voice was low and even, as if she was talking to a scared Meowth. "They just wanna play."
Joshua frowned at her. Then he looked from one animatronic to the next, with Flamer the Fuecoco giving him a robotic wink.
Since his intestines had settled back where they belonged, and his lungs were giving him more air, he really looked at the creatures in front of him. Top hat. Bib. Pirate hook. These were…the kids from his dreams.
The truth hit him like a battering ram between the eyes. Whatever was happening with the animatronics was supernatural.
Joshua's voice cracked when he uttered, in low, low tones. "You're…them."
Beep! Beep! Beep!
At first, Joshua thought the sound was coming from inside his brain, a sort of Ding! Ding! Ding! of realization. Then he came to his senses. He looked at his watch and saw his alarm was going off. He silenced it.
Ava frowned at her brother's watch. "Do we have to go home now?" she asked.
Joshua looked at the animatronics. "I think that's probably a good idea," he replied.
Ava nodded, her smile gone. She was clearly let down, but she didn't argue.
Joshua started to pull Ava toward the lobby. But she freed her hand from his grasp. "Hang on," she said.
She pulled one of her Pokémon cards from her dark blue overalls. It was a card with a picture of a Sprigatito on the front.
"Ava," Joshua said.
"One sec," she answered. It was more than a second, though. But it wasn't more than twenty or so. Ava skipped over to Spriggy, handing the Sprigatito card to him. Spriggy took the card from Ava delicately, as if it was the most precious thing in the world. He held up the card so the other animatronics could see it. Joshua took a step to his left so he could see it, too.
"LOOK-OK EVERYB-O-ODY! AVA-A GAVE US-S A GIF-F-FT!" Spriggy announced.
Joshua's chest tightened with an emotion he couldn't quite quantify. Was he touched? Worried? Freaked out? He just couldn't tell.
"I had a lot of fun tonight," Ava told the animatronics. "Thank you for playing with me."
Before Joshua could stop her, she rushed forward. She threw herself at the animatronics, and they all folded their arms around her.
"COME-E BACK-CK TO SE-E US RE-EAL SOO-O-ON!" The Quaxly, Ducky, said to Ava sweetly, but glitchy.
Every muscle in Joshua's body went taut, like a bow drawn back, ready to fire. Immediately, he relaxed, though, when he realized the intimidating robots were just giving Ava a goodbye hug.
Joshua was tempted to pinch himself to see if he was in a dream, not his usual dream, but a dream nonetheless. The scene was as nonsensical as a dream, but Joshua knew he was awake. And he was really watching a bunch of mottled, old jumbo-sized animatronic Pokémon hugging his little sister. The spectacle was both tender…and terrifying.
