CHAPTER 4
Much to Alex's surprise, upon entering he saw a long staircase going down. Looking around he saw that there was actually no door or opening leading into the upper part of the house. It was as if the whole upper part just worked to push the illusion further in this Playcare world.
"This is getting really creepy," he said to himself.
Down the steps he went until he reached a hallway. On either side were photos of children in semi-victorian style frames. In fact the house seemed to be designed that way: inside as well as outside. The illusion matched with the exception of the staircase descending downwards below the house. Alex thought about that and wondered if he was able to look inside the house itself, he felt he'd find a completely empty and hollow shell. Or maybe it would be filled with dead toys… or bodies….. or bones…
The suddenness of this thought repulsed him. And he had to push through this thought to think again with a level head.
"I don't know a damn thing if any of that is true. The tape said they are still here… I have to find them. For my sake. Just don't think about that, focus on the task at hand, and how every step I take could be my last," he said to himself.
After sufficiently hyping himself up, he walked to the double doors at the end of the hallway, grabbed the door knob and opened it. His vision was instantly clouded by red.
.
.
Alex gasped and coughed, he could already feeling his head starting to ache. This smoke had to be slow acting. It meant he had a chance. Looking back he saw the hallway already filled with smoke. He couldn't go back, he had to get through this and hopefully find fresh air on the other side. Rushing into the room he saw an open passage way ahead of him. Stairs… more stairs going down. He had no time to be picky, he had to go.
Down the stairs he went until the red fog lifted from his vision and he could see clearly again. Looking back he saw the cloud hanging above him. Clearly this smoke was warmer than the air and so rose instead of fell. He was safe now. Continuing to descend the stairs, Alex thought they seemed to be going down a lot further than normal. He thought he'd already reached the house and instead there was still more of it? But before he could really wonder this thought, the stairs came to an end and a hallway below opened up. It was a small landing. A doorway with a green handprint reader near it stood out to him. Another hand scanner. He raised his GrabPack to fire the green power hand when suddenly the Grabpack melted out of existence! It just turned into smoke that quickly dissipated into nothing. The weight seemed to vanish too! But when Alex looked up, the doorway he'd tried to open was gone, replaced with a wall!
"What the heck!?" he asked, shocked by this happening.
"This isn't right? What happened? Am I going insane from a concussion on the train? Or… is this…. a dream?" he thought.
Though his internal voice was louder and more present than it ever had been, Alex couldn't linger on this thought. He had to find that generator. Turning to look down the hallway, he saw hotel-like hallways stretching into the dark where all clear sight vanished. But the absurdness of this didn't seem to fully register in his mind.
"I… guess I have to go this way…" he said to himself.
As he walked down the hallway, the doors became broken and sealed with wood and chain bracing as if it was intended to keep something inside. A passing radio crackled, and suddenly the announcer broke the silence.
"Tragic news this morning as of 9:45 AM. Local authorities report that the body of a young boy has been found on the estate of the late Elliot Ludwig, an esteemed toy maker and originator of the Playtime Company. As of this time, an identity for the child awaits official confirmation. Found in an upstairs bedroom in a large duffle bag, officers on scene report that the remains appear to have been disturbed. Organs as well as key bones from the skeletal structure were reported missing from the body. It is unknown at this time whether this extraction was in fact, the cause of death."
"Ugh, that's dark! But… Why would they be doing a story like this? Elliot died long ago, years even. And the factory has been closed for longer… this makes no sense," Alex wondered, pausing to massage the bridge of his nose as his head felt like it had just been squeezed in a vice.
Further and further he went, passing another radio sitting atop a dresser. As he got close, it crackled to life, the same announcer's voice speaking.
"Following recent events, Playtime Co. was asked for any comment regarding the discovery. This is what they had to say. 'It's sickening. Elliot Ludwig was a great man. And those who knew him understood that he was not capable of violence, let alone what others now claim. He had a deep love in his heart for children like this one, making the actions of whoever planted this body all the more sick. We look forward to clearing his good name both in the public eye, and the eyes of the law.' STAY TUNED FOR MORE!"
Alex shuddered as a throbbing in his head came and went, ending the moment the announcer went quiet. Continuing down the hallway, patches of the wallpaper began to peel off, the doors became nothing more than a jumble of broken wood with chains nailed over the doors. Looking inside these rooms, all he could see were bits of debris looking like dressers and lamps. The lighting became spottier and the lights that were on became a sickly green.
"Jeez… this place is looking worse by the second."
Brrrrrrrrinng… brrrrrrrrrrrring… brrrrrrrrring….
In the distance a ringing phone could be heard. Alex knew it couldn't be his phone. He wondered who it could be, and figured it might be Bubba calling. Why he wasn't calling him on his phone like normal didn't register in his mind, he only knew he had to get to that ringing phone. Following the sound into a small room at the end of one hallway, Alex found the phone. He picked up the receiver and brought it to his ear.
"Hello?"
"You have to run!"
The suddenness of this demand struck Alex for a moment as the voice sounded like Bubba's but different in some way. The line clicked as it went dead. Turning around to leave, Alex screamed as he saw the horrific grinning maw of Catnap lingering in the doorway!
"SHIT! WHAT'S HE DOING HERE?!"
As he thought this, the feline slunk away and disappeared into the darkness. He stood staring into the darkness for what felt like forever, but the monstrous feline didn't return. Alex wondered what the cat could be doing. The doorway was hardly small enough to stop him from coming in if he wanted, and there were no other breaches in the room the cat could circle around to sneak up on him. He slowly made his way towards the doorway and peered around the corner. The hall was empty and quiet with no sight of the fearsome feline.
"Where did he go? Why did he leave me alone? Oh crap, I can't stand here waiting, I better get out of here before he comes back!"
Alex ran down the hallway, heading further into the house. After a while he slowed his running, trying to hear if Catnap was sneaking around. He'd need to listen carefully. Outside of his shoes on the wooden floor, the crackling of another radio was heard. It got louder as he got closer before the announcer came on again. Same voice, same story.
"Despite Playtimes' proclamation of Ludwig's innocence, many believe his reclusive and mysterious nature displayed over the previous decades lend suspicion to this claim. When questioned, Ludwig's neighbors indicated that Ludwig would often return to his home at strange hours of the night, and depart again before sunrise. Some believed that he was sick, others that- DON'T MOVE. DON'T MOVE AN INCH. -Playtime Co. it seems intends to keep Elliot's name within its brand regardless. What is sure to be a long legal battle will follow."
Alex felt his head pound and his body freeze solid. He began to wonder what was happening. This radio broadcast had taken a sinister turn, as if the announcer had spoken directly to him. This couldn't be an actual broadcast. But what could it be? Was it a dream? And if it was… why couldn't he wake up?
Regardless of his own feelings, he continued on. Down the hallways he went. Turning a corner, Alex froze in place, Catnap was there! It was him! Standing in the hallway, looking right at him. But as he looked, the form melted away into a set of lights. Moving on he thought he saw the feline again, only for it to turn into the reflection of the lights against the wall molding. It seemed like the towering cat was everywhere and gone in a blink before he could see it clearly!
"Crap… what's going on? This is like a nightmare…" he thought to himself.
So long as these illusions of Catnap didn't make a move to attack him, Alex tried to not linger on it too much and continue on. Reaching another dresser, the radio atop it crackled to life. Alex winced as the pressure in his head grew stronger. It sounded more like someone constantly twisting the dial to try and find a station. At times he thought he heard music, others a garbled human voice; the sound was so brief as someone had scanned right through a station too quickly. Unable to take the soreness growing in his head, Alex rapidly walked away.
"Ugh… what is with my head… What's going on? Where even am I?"
The hallway came to an end as it turned left. Looking up and other radio crackled to life and Alex felt his head being jackhammered. The voice of the radio was garbled, terribly so that Alex could hardly hear it. At moments it sounded almost clear, but the words were like gibberish. Rushing to get away from it, he continued around the corner turning left again. Then again…. then again…. and again…. Alex's mind reeled as he realized he'd just gone in a circle! Impossible if this was reality…
"This is a dream… but why can't I wake up?"
Another circle and the hallway was back. Alex felt himself compelled to continue down. He didn't feel himself walking with a reason, the generator had become meaningless. Now he was just walking, the hallway becoming as decrepit as the rest of the factory with torn wallpaper, cracked plaster and holes in the walls. Walking all the way to the end of this hallway brought him to a dead end with a window looking into a room. Looking in, Alex could see barren concrete walls, and one single cubicle. In it was a desk, an old brick of a computer, and stacks of papers. The more he looked the more familiar it became.
"Wait… that looks like… my office… my old office. If this is a dream, why am I seeing this, of all things?"
Above the cubicle was some writing, hastily painted on with a paint brush that didn't have enough paint. It was faint, but after staring enough the message became legible.
"Happy and fun, why was it done?"
Alex shrugged; was this question meant for him? And if it was, who was the one asking? This was a dream, rarely did anything from that dream talk to him directly. It had to be, it had to explain the impossible geometry of this house. it was clear given the appearance of his workspace, and explained away Catnap who never seemed to be 100% real after a couple seconds. Still with all this, he was really wishing he could wake up.
Turning around and heading down another hallway, this one with a ceiling that stretched upwards into darkness, a red and yellow light hung over this entryway. Stepping through the door, which was a strange merging of the hallway and this other room, he found himself in what looked like a very cramped hospital room. Or a nurse's office. A static filled TV sat at one end, and the VHS tape for it sat on one of the beds which was coated in dirt and dried blood.
"Ugh…. this might not help me out," Alex thought as he stared at the bloody tape in his hand, "But maybe this will help me remember something about this place since it seems intent on reminding me of it."
Inserting it into the VCR, the snow filled screen flickered to show a smiling Huggy Wuggy in a dark void. Alex figured it was good that at least something was consistent: all the VHS tapes he'd come across stuck to a static image. Soon a man's voice spoke from the tape.
"Greetings employees! And welcome to your first day here in Playtime. We're certain that in the days to come, you'll find your new family here every bit as loving and supportive as your own!"
Alex sighed as he watched. This tape, despite not showing anything outside of a smiling Huggy, brought back a wave of nostalgia. He'd been happy to work for Playtime once, long ago when the recruiter had come to his college to hunt for new engineers. He could remember wanting to be part of innovation, as that sounded like the more rewarding for his major. However, the memory soured as he remembered how he'd not gotten that far, being made a simpler engineer rather than what he'd hoped he'd be doing, filling out request forms. And of course, he'd known little about what really happened here. A lot of the employees didn't know. He remembered hearing some fellow named Marcus Brickley say he'd seen a monster in one of the hallways, and everyone had shrugged it off. Now he felt dumb for doubting the paddy. Clearly something had been wrong here ever since he'd joined and he'd been too blinded to see it.
"Now, everyone of you has your part in that future so should you come back tomorrow feeling unhappy about where you are…or what you've done…worry not, for your supervisor's here and happy to listen!" the tape continued.
Alex blinked as that one line stuck out. That hadn't been in the tape, he felt certain of it. The smiling Huggy suddenly vanished from the screen, and the narrator paused. When he began to speak again, the screen slowly started to come back into focus to show Huggy who was no longer happy and smiling. The furry blue monster's head was distorted and stretched into an unnatural shape, the sockets where his eyes had been were deep black pits, and his mouth stretched wide, revealing longer sharper teeth. But only one row of teeth, rather than many. Alex wasn't sure, but this Huggy looked worse than the one he'd met. And the narrator's voice had lost all the joy in his voice, which began to drip with venom and hatred.
"And… should you come back… years later…Your conscience finally getting the better of you… may you descend into the dark and the dust…finding all that await you are incomprehensible horrors. Each hungry for your return, each eager that they might find you. Perhaps they'd… smile at you from a shadow. Their smiling mouths full of teeth and meat and plastic…watching and waiting patiently for their turn at a warm welcome. Or perhaps… they won't allow you such time to figure your place in this you'd left. A world that's theirs now."
"Welcome Home."
The screen's static grew heavier where Huggy's outline was. Heavier and heavier as if he was building up out of the tv screen. Then that's exactly what happened as Huggy's face bulged out of the tv before popping out freely and looking less like static and more real than ever before! Then came hands… not mittens anymore, but long curling 4 fingered hands!
The paralysis broke and Alex turned and ran for the door, out of this room and back into the hallway! The lighting had all turned red, and dressers now blocked the way! He dodged and ran. Nothing looked real. Looking back, he saw this nightmarish monster now fully out of the TV and filling out the entire hallway and growing closer by the second no matter how hard he ran! He ran, and ran, the monster thudded behind. He saw the fingers for a second before he was grabbed and turned to face the monster with his wide grinning mouth filled with teeth. The nightmare has become real, he had lost now. With a demonic shriek and a scream from Alex, he was shoved into the monster's mouth and felt all the teeth stab through him.