Incisors rip at the corner of the empty tube of toothpaste, the splayed bristles on the toothbrush barely scraping enough to get the taste of last night's vomit out of his mouth. There's no mouthwash either, so coffee will have to do the job until his lunch break rolls around four hours from now.
The red flannel by the front door is dingy even by his standards, courtesy of yesterday's mishap at the shop. He adds detergent to the mental shopping list and thanks God today's shift is a shorter one. So many people bitch about marriage and kids being what ruins adulthood, but the sheer act of being an adult is what ruins adulthood. Keeping oneself alive day in and day out is exhausting, even without the presence of traumatic nightmares.
Every time Ricky closes his eyes he can see the faint outline of the marionette mask. Feels the give of wet meat as he sinks the knife into a quaking thigh. Nausea rocks his gut.
He tells himself he's just stressed, because it is the easiest way to explain the anxiety that comes tied to the nightmares. Because every time those reels begin to play, shit hits the fan.
I fucked up a custom and I'm worried the owner's gonna chew me out. It wasn't even that bad a fuck-up. He just nicked the alternator hose which meant the car would be in the shop for an extra day while they wait for the spare part to be delivered from the town over.
It was a rookie fuck-up, sure, but his mind had been elsewhere at the time. The news about the Y2K bug has spread far and wide, talks of viruses that will crash every computer on the planet and end the world. It's all a crock of shit, but enough people are buying into it that pandemonium is rampant on the web. The new millennium, two years away still, has infected him with new kinds of anxieties—as if he didn't already have a fuckload of them to begin with.
He pats Bonnie's hood before climbing inside. "Let's get to the shop in one piece today, okay? No tantrums." The car purrs to life under him as he turns the ignition. "That's a good little eyesore."
His initial intention had been to sell, as he thought of calling it, 'personal services', in exchange for a paint job at the most rundown auto shop he could find in the area, but Roger took one good look at him and rather than take him up on it, he offered Ricky a different deal. A deal that involved a monkey wrench, goggles, and a crash course on how to do an oil change.
Over the course of thirteen months oil changes became tire rotations, full alternator replacements, and engine repair. He can by now rebuild an engine with a blindfold on, and he can also Frankenstein his own 8-cylinder V6 that is in no way up to automotive code.
Being a mechanic wasn't even on his Top Twenty Things to Be When I Grow Up list, but here he is, grateful for the opportunity at a job that lets him lease a shoebox apartment in a nondescript Minnesota burb.
"Well if it isn't the man of the hour," Roger greets him as he walks up the gravel lot. "There's two Fords waiting for you in bay one and one of them's in pretty bad shape."
"Mornin' to you too, Roger. Did we get the hose in for the Shelby?"
"Lou dropped it off in the office about an hour ago."
"Thank fuck," he mutters, fishing out his wallet and keys to stash them up in his assigned locker. "I'm gonna finish her up first. See if I can get her outta here before Scarface gets his panties up in a bunch again."
"That call's on you," Roger says, his Jersey accent slurring his words together. "You get enough sleep to go under?"
"I'm awake," Ricky says, pulling on his navy overalls. "I promise not to nick anymore parts."
The bay is cramped and smells of stale engine oil. And yes, engine oil can in fact smell stale no matter how much the other guys argue. Despite how hard the concrete walls have been scrubbed, the stubborn scent lingers, but he prefers that over the smell of gasoline. Light rigged up to the suspension grid, he climbs under the Shelby and gets to work.
It's an easy enough fix that most of the time will go towards flushing out the alternator once it's replaced, but he finds himself stalling for a couple more minutes.
Ricki Lake would've called it 'therapeutic recovery' or some other phony hooey because people are just inventing terms to describe age-old practices left and right nowadays. A guy can't enjoy menial labor just because he enjoys it, but because he's using his hands and upper brain functions to distract himself from deep-rooted psychological trauma.
Or something like that. Whatever.
Ricky just likes having his hands in mechanical guts, rearranging broken machines so that they can go back to doing their jobs without accidentally killing people. Normal stuff.
But what if the machines do it on purpose?
Stephen King already got that one covered. Christine wasn't even that good. The book, anyway. The movie was a solid B+. Bad to the Bone gets stuck in his head.
On his back, wrench tightening the last of the bolts, he lets his arms fall to his sides for a moment to admire his work. Non-EU cars aren't fancy once the undercarriage is removed for maintenance, American and Japanese models are more focused on practicality than aesthetics.
The Shelby however, is gorgeous. The framework runs like a skeleton over its black surface, steel rib cage curled around its motor in a new design type meant for efficiency, speed, and fuel economy. At rest, its pistons resemble rows of teeth, and he can imagine their savage chewing as she pushes 80 down the freeway.
We really do move around in killing machines, huh, he thinks to himself, oddly at peace with the realization. Imagine if they did think for themselves.
The blue liquid in the circular tanks stare down at him and…blink? No. Those aren't eyes, they're windshield wiper fluid and antifreeze. It's a car. It's not alive no matter how much people anthropomorphize them by naming them and—
The hood slams shut topside. The reverberation makes the lantern flicker, forcing shadows to run around the cramped space like he were caught in a game of cat and mouse. His breath hitches, a ball lodged in his throat, throwing off his ability to breathe at a normal pace no matter how hard he punches his chest. All he can hear are his own gasping breaths, the wheezing of panicked lungs and the faint, distant giggle of a little girl.
A hand wraps around Ricky's ankle and he kicks out against it. The walls are moving closer. The car rocks back and forth on its posts and it's going to crush him if he doesn't fucking move.
He's yanked out by the ankle, his body rolling off the janky creeper with a gasp that hurts.
"Dude, are you okay?" Jenny, their 'token girl mechanic' as the others worshipfully call her, is squatting next to him by the exit tunnel, a clipboard in hand. "Do you need, like, an inhaler or something? You sound close to passing out."
Ricky shakes his head and pushes himself up into a sitting position, hand against his chest. Light filters over the spot where he had been, meaning that the hood was still propped open. "I'm fine," he says. "I'm fine." The car is safely in place, tires tied down and its frame secured to the bay's rim.
Jenny keeps staring at him. "Tony Montana is on the phone. He's asking about the Shelby."
"Tell him the ETA's an hour."
"Shouldn't take that long to flush it out."
"Always overshoot wait times so when a customer rolls up thirty minutes early they don't have a bitchfit over it. Have someone wipe down the windshield and put in a new pine tree."
"Got it."
"And Jenny?" She pauses mid-turn, looking at him with raised eyebrows. "Let's keep this between us."
She nods her head. "You're not snorting anything, are you?"
"Honestly? I'm starting to wish I was."
When the nightmares start, the world begins to lose color. As winter turns to spring and white begins to give way to the dead browns that will eventually become green, everything remains a flat beige. It is an uncharacteristically warm season for Minnesota, and while Ricky appreciates not having to bulk up, he does miss bundling up in his heavy coat.
Warmer weather means there's kids darting around right after the bell rings, slowing traffic to a crawl as he waits at the crosswalk for the crossing guard to let him drive on. He waves at the woman, and she politely waves back once she lets him through.
Rather than shop at the nearest dollar store, he opts to drive.
There's no need to run, not right now. Not that he could. He has a steady job and an apartment under his name. He pays taxes. He even has a favorite burger joint off of main street. He has friends, even if he only sees them at work and occasionally meet up for bowling and drinks.
It's been over a year since he settled here, same old state but new town, and it almost, almost, feels like a home.
He can't ruin shit again because he has a bad feeling, the world feeling off in a way he cannot explain.
He checks his mirrors every so often to make sure no one is following him, but when that doesn't ease his nerves, he decides to drive further east. At a stoplight, he cards through the collection of ancient tapes stashed in the glove box and feeds his favorite into the stereo. He keeps thinking about making his own, adding albums from the current decade because there's only so many times he can listen to the greatest hits from the 60s, 70s, and 80s. But he doesn't.
Journey accompanies him on this short journey he will return from, Bonnie's tires smooth over asphalt.
Rain falls over the windshield like gentle needle-taps as the sun dips beneath the midwestern horizon, blues and yellows giving way to fading orange and dark grays. He lowers the window and sings along.
He follows interstate signs towards the rest area off exit 19 when the gas needle dips below the red line. He doesn't sweat it, knowing the car still has a good two to three miles of juice left in the tank. Both the gas and speedometer are slightly off and while he could fix them, there's really no need to. His estimations have never been wrong.
While at the gas station truck stop, Ricky grabs what he needs.
There's no way any store not attached to a brand chain will still be open in thirty minutes' time, but at least these types of gas station convenience stores are stocked up with everything under the sun. He grabs the essentials: toothpaste, mouthwash, laundry detergent, and a hot dog he scarfs down while waiting for the slushie machine to squirt out that sweet, sweet blue sugar water.
It takes all of ten minutes to get in and out and on the road again, but then he misses the turn back onto the interstate. In his defense, the rain has become torrential and the roads are dark, and the headlights on the Chevy aren't as powerful as they could be.
All of these shoulders are built the same, though. Drive for another two minutes and there will be another onramp that will loop back onto the highway. And if one doesn't come up, he'll just make a U-turn since the roads are desolate.
Truly desolate.
The area, from what he can see, looks abandoned. There aren't that many buildings, or much of anything, really. Just empty lots and a long stretch of road with sporadic streetlights and… What on Earth is that?
Ricky leans over the steering wheel and turns on the heating, slowing down enough to pull his sleeve over his hand and wipe down the windshield for a better look at the sign.
He slams the brakes so abruptly his chest hits the horn.
No.
No, no, no.
There's no way. There is no, possible, fucking way that that's what it is.
He takes his foot off the brake and the car eases forward in a slow roll, his heart hammering.
To his right, in a sprawling lot, is a building that looks every bit condemned if not for the brightly lit, still functional sign that flickers the longer he looks at it. The yellow marquee lights, a sight that once inspired joy, fills him with nothing but horror. The brown bear is stuck smiling, a hand up in a friendly wave.
He can feel the words Freddy Fazbear's Pizza buzzing at the back of his teeth.
It's still there. It's still standing.
Ricky turns into the parking lot against his better judgment and stumbles out of the car, uncaring of the rain, uncaring of just about anything because he cannot, for the life of him, wrap his mind around the fact that this place still exists. While no longer in operation, there's clearly been some sort of maintenance going on. White hot fury tells him to—to—to what?
What are you gonna do about it? It's just a building.
He turns in a circle but it's too dark, too stormy, for him to recognize anything.
He lived near here for the first fifteen years of his life. He biked down these streets, chained it to the posts that are now overgrown with dead ivy. His old name is still carved into the green plastic and he takes a step back, hand over his mouth.
He can almost hear the music coming from inside, muffled by brick and mortar and plaster. He can hear the chiming of games and the faint electrical buzz of arcade cabinets, Freddy's trademark laugh, the pop of confetti bottles, the low chatter of adults as their kids get up to no good, the sound of waves through crackled speakers in Pirate's Cove.
A sob perches in Ricky's diaphragm but it does not dislodge.
He can see the red and blue lights of police cars. The ambulance. The firefighters. His parents' car. The blood—there was so much blood and— please, please, put it back inside of him and he'll be okay right? He said he was tired. He's just taking a nap.
"What are you doing here?"
Ricky whips around to find that the red and blue lights are not disjointed memories, but are coming from a very real patrol car. A woman stands in front of the headlights, obscuring most of her.
"You're trespassing on private property."
The sob decides right then to escape, and it does so in the form of a pathetic hiccup. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I… it's just… this place." The cop steps closer and he backs away, but at least now he can see her better. "Actually, this is a parking lot. I can't be trespassing."
The woman frowns, looking like there are a million other places she would rather be. "In that case, you're loitering. At ten in the evening. On a Wednesday."
Ricky nods, breathing as if he's run a marathon. "My bad, Miss… Officer, ma'am. I'll get out of your hair. I missed a turn onto the interstate and…" He lets the sentence trail off, unsure of what else to say. "Okay."
The cop stands there, watching him scuttle back to the car. Then, "I'm going to need to see your license."
The overhead light has clicked off and the driver's seat is now damp, having left the door open in his bewildered haste. "I don't think you do."
She takes a step closer, side-eyeing him before looking at the car again. "Sir, are you aware this car's been reported stolen?"
Ricky's gut lurches, palms now sweaty for entirely different reasons. "I think there's some confusion here. I fixed this baby up myself. I'm a mechanic at…" He shuts his mouth. She cocks her head to the side. "Look, if you want the license and registration they're both in the glove box." His plates are registered to Iowa because he isn't a fucking idiot.
The cop isn't buying, even after she's poured over the documents. And because he has both on him, there ain't shit she can do about it.
"Alright," she says, gesturing at the Chevy. "Get out of here."
She doesn't have to tell him twice.
Climbing behind the wheel and slowly buckling up in clear sight of her, he gives her a thumbs up. He watches her get back in her patrol car, and the realization of what this means adds further kindling to his mounting dread.
Ricky white-knuckles the steering wheel, bile rising up the back of his throat. Switching gears, he begins the slow roll towards the parking lot exit.
He's going to have to leave. He's going to have to pack his shit up and skip town because even on the off chance that the police don't report the Chevy, he knew he would come back here.
Mother fucker.
With the patrol car escorting Ricky back towards the road, he glances in the rear view mirror only to see a child sitting in the backseat.
He hits the brakes, body lurching alongside his heart as he whips around to see—nothing. There's nothing there. There's no one there even though he thought… "Jer?"
The cop honks her horn and Ricky flips her off with frantic anger, even though he knows she can't see him with her high beams on.
"Fuck. Fuck. Keep it together, man," he mumbles to himself, turning back around.
With shaky hands and blurry eyes, he begins the long drive back home.
• 
