The Twisted Ones

by Scott Cawthon

“I was just a kid when all that happened,” she said quietly. Arty nodded, quick and skittish. Charlie made her face move into a smile. “I have to go meet Jessica,” she lied. I have to get away from you. Arty nodded his head again like a bobblehead doll. She turned and walked away toward the dorm, not looking back. Charlie blinked into the sunlight. Flashes of what happened last year at Freddy’s were batting at her, snatches of memory plucking at her clothing with cold, iron fingers. The hook above, poised to strike—no escape. A figure looming behind the stage; red matted fur barely concealing the metal bones of the murderous creature. Kneeling in pitch-dark on the cold tile floor of the bathroom, and then—that giant, hard plastic eye glaring through the crack, the hot miasma of lifeless breath on her face. And the other, older memory: the thought that made her ache in ways for which she had no words, sorrow filling her as if it had been wrought into her very bones. She and