Five Nights at Freddy's Fazbear Frights Collection, page 157
He heard a whispered response to his internal dialogue: As if a girl would pay attention to you.
Mott whipped his head toward Rory, but Rory wasn’t even in the room. Mott was in here alone.
Or not.
He turned toward the fish tank.
Sure enough, the Sea Bonnies were all clustered at the end nearest to Mott. They were watching him again.
Before he knew what he was doing, he spat back, “You’re just glorified fish bait.”
Rory ran into the room. “What’d you say?” He held up one of his striped socks. “This was in the hamper. I don’t know where the other one is, though.”
Ungluing his eyes from the fish tank, Mott noticed his heart rate had picked up. He swallowed and said, very slowly and very calmly, “Why don’t you go check Mom’s room? Maybe your socks got mixed up with hers by mistake. When I’m done looking in here, I’ll check my socks.”
“Okay!” Rory scampered out of the room.
Mott looked at the Sea Bonnies … and he flinched.
The water in the fish tank was choppy. He could hear it sloshing, and he could see bubbles shooting up through the middle of the tank. The Sea Bonnies were agitating, as a group, as if … as if they were …
Mott strode out of Rory’s room … and he ran right into Rory.
“Oof,” Rory grunted loudly. He bounced off Mott and grinned. “Look!” He held up a pair of striped socks, not his own, but similar in color. “Mom’s letting me wear her lucky socks. She says they’re even luckier than mine.”
Mott tried to talk but couldn’t. He was too busy processing what he’d just seen.
Rory didn’t seem to notice. He went around Mott and dropped to the floor to put on his mother’s socks.
Mott’s head was suddenly throbbing. He rubbed his temple.
Could simple organisms like Sea Bonnies even get angry?
Because that was what it had looked like in Rory’s tank. It had looked like the Sea Bonnies were reacting to his insult.
And before that, it had sounded like they’d been taunting him again.
“Mott?”
Mott blinked and saw his mother standing just outside his parents’ room. She wore a beige suit, and her long red hair was in a French braid.
“Why are you standing in the hall?” she asked. “Are you all right?”
Mott frowned. He opened his mouth, but he still couldn’t talk. His mouth was horribly dry.
His mom put her hand against his forehead. “You feel warm. Are you coming down with something? Do you want to stay home from school?”
“No!”
Ah, there was his voice.
His mom raised her eyebrows. “Okay, okay. Wow. I must have the weirdest teen in recorded history. I give him a chance to skip school, and he jumps down my throat.”
Mott coughed and moistened his teeth with his tongue. “Sorry, Mom. I didn’t mean to snap at you. It’s just that—”
His mom’s phone rang, and she raised a finger.
Thankful for the reprieve, Mott went into his room to get his backpack. Rory thundered in behind him.
“I’m going to take Danny down,” he announced. He flexed nonexistent muscles and puffed his cheeks.
Mott turned Rory around and gave him a gentle push out into the hallway. His mom got off the phone and looked at her sons. “Are we ready?”
“Let’s get out of here,” Mott said. He winced at his mom’s strange look. “I mean, let’s go.”
* * *
Mott was in no hurry to get home that afternoon, but he couldn’t come up with a decent excuse to be late. His mom had asked him to bike over to the grade school and escort Rory home. And she’d asked him to look after Rory until she got home later that evening. He’d promised he would do that. If he broke his promise, it would mess up her work.
Mott had hoped that when he got home, he could get Rory to play outside, but rain started coming down on their way home, and it was steady by the time they put their bikes away.
“Go get dried off,” Mott said to Rory. “Then come to my room, and I’ll help you with your homework.”
“No. You come to my room,” Rory said. “I’m s’posed to write a poem about something I have that I like a lot. I’m gonna write about my Sea Bonnies. You have to help me.”
“Oh, joy,” Mott said.
Mott was a little unnerved to notice that his hands were shaking when he left his backpack in his room. Really? He was afraid of tiny squirming sea critters confined to a glorified fishbowl?
“Get a grip,” he breathed as he went down the hall into Rory’s room.
Rory sat at his desk, a piece of paper in front of him, a pencil grasped tightly in his right hand. He was staring raptly at his Sea Bonnies. Mott eyed the tank warily.
For a few seconds after his gaze landed on the Sea Bonnies, they swam around normally. Then, as if they realized he was in the room, they suddenly shot to the end of the tank and lined up in formation. Hundreds of pinhead-sized black eyes appeared to be focused directly on him.
“Rory!”
“What?” Rory’s gaze didn’t leave the tank.
“Do you see what they’re doing?” Mott asked.
“Huh?” Rory looked over at Mott.
“The Sea Bonnies. See how they’re all lined up?”
Rory looked at the Sea Bonnies. They were milling about separately. Mott felt a growl-like sound rise up in his throat. The little monsters! They were messing with him!
You’re so easy to mess with, a chorus of whispers tickled his ears.
Mott clamped his hands over his ears and started humming.
He wasn’t sure how long he stood there humming. Probably not long. Rory was capable of sitting still for only a nanosecond or so. He couldn’t have been waiting at his desk for long before he started yanking on Mott’s shirt.
Mott opened his eyes and looked at his brother. “What, Rory?”
“What’s a word that rhymes with love?”
“Above, dove.” Mott chewed the inside of his cheek. “That’s all I can think of right now.”
“Above works.”
Stupid, the whispers came again.
“I need to go to the bathroom,” Mott told Rory. “Stay in here and behave. When you’re done with your poem, come and get me in my room.”
“But—” Rory began.
Mott didn’t wait. He bolted down the hall and escaped into the bathroom.
He wasn’t sure how long he remained in the small white-tiled room. He didn’t need to use the toilet, so he sat on the edge of the tub and stared at the fish-patterned blue-and-white wallpaper. He shivered.
Was it fish in general that were weirding him out now? He gazed at the wallpaper. Would the blue fish whisper at him, too?
He waited. Nope. No whispers.
That was because the sounds weren’t in his head, or at least, they weren’t being manufactured in his head. The sounds were coming from the Sea Bonnies. He was sure of it.
“Mott?” Rory shouted through the door. He pounded on the door so hard it rattled in its frame. “I’m ready!”
Mott sighed and stood. Taking a deep breath, he opened the door.
“Come look,” Rory said. He motioned for Mott to follow him back to his bedroom.
“I said you can read it in my room,” Mott said.
Rory turned and shook his head. “No! You have to come see this. It’s super-duper coolio.”
Mott swallowed and accompanied Rory.
In Rory’s room, Rory walked over to the fish tank and began reading. “When I saw my Sea Bonnies, I felt love. It was like a gift from Freddy above. They’re super cool, and they make me glad. I like that ’cause I hate being sad.” Rory pointed to the Sea Bonnies and looked over at Mott with a face shining with happiness. “See?” he said. “They like it!”
Mott made himself look in the tank.
Oh, man.
As much as the Sea Bonnies seemed to dislike Mott, they appeared to love Rory. They were all in formation again, lined up at the glass in front of Mott’s little brother. Their little see-through tails were shimmying in unison.
Well, at least the revolting little monsters are nice to my brother, Mott thought.
“It’s a good poem,” Mott said to Rory.
Rory turned to beam at him.
Behind Rory, the Sea Bonnies darted, as one, to the end of the aquarium, and they all focused on Mott … or again, it looked like they did.
“Do you want to go play my video game with me?” Mott asked Rory.
“Really? Sure!” Rory ran toward Mott, his Sea Bonnies and his poem momentarily forgotten.
Mott hummed as he and Rory trotted toward the stairs. Behind him, whispers reached for his ears, but he hummed louder and refused to listen.
* * *
Mott managed to avoid his brother’s room for the rest of the evening. When his mother got home, he told her Rory had been restless, so Mott hadn’t had time to do his homework. She took over Rory duty, and Mott retreated to his room.
Because, distressingly, he could still hear the faintest of whispers in his own room, he put in his earbuds and listened to music while he studied. He kept in the earbuds while he got ready for bed, taking them out only for a couple of minutes to say good night to his mom. Then he went to bed wearing the earbuds. When he got up the next morning, he went from earbuds to shower to earbuds to out the door. He avoided breakfast by telling his mom he had to get to school early to meet with Nate and Lyle so they could talk about an upcoming history project. The truth was their history project was weeks away, but he figured a lie in the interest of remaining sane was a lie worth telling.
Over lunch, sitting with his friends, eating his cheese sandwich, he thought about telling them what was going on, but he knew his friends. They didn’t share more than one serious bone between them. Mostly, they were one big laugh fest. There was no way they’d do anything but make fun of Mott if he told them what he thought about the Sea Bonnies.
After algebra that afternoon, he briefly considered telling Theresa about his experience with the Sea Bonnies. He knew she was as grossed out by them as he was, so she might be inclined to believe him. But …
“Maybe next weekend?” she asked him.
Mott realized he’d missed all of whatever she’d just told him. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “My head was someplace else.”
Theresa laughed. “I do that all the time. I said we’re going camping this weekend, but I was wondering if you’d like to get together next weekend and study? I’m having trouble with two-variable linear equations. You seem to be getting it. I was hoping you could help me?”
She looked really pretty today. Her shiny hair was caught back in a yellow scarf that matched her short dress.
Mott grinned. “Sure!” He’d help her shovel manure if she asked.
He didn’t think telling a pretty girl that you think tiny mutant brine shrimp were whispering to you was a good way to impress her. He kept his fears to himself.
If only he could stay away from home …
But he couldn’t. His mom was used to him enjoying being at home. He spent most of his afternoons with Rory and most of his evenings with his mom, when she wasn’t at an event. She would find it bizarre if he suddenly wanted to stay over with Nate or Lyle, and his friends would, too. He’d just have to avoid Rory’s room.
This plan worked for much of the evening. He got Rory involved in another video game in the living room. Then he suggested they all play a board game after dinner.
When the game concluded, Mott started to tell his mom he had a headache. Unfortunately, she beat him to it.
“Can you get Rory ready for bed, Mott?” His mom held a palm to the side of her head. “I have a tension headache, and I need to lie down.”
Mott’s reluctance must have shown on his face. She frowned when she looked at him and said, “I’ll give you extra allowance this week.”
Mott shook his head. “Forget that. It’s okay. Sorry. I was just … never mind. Of course, I’ll get him into bed.”
“Let’s read Foxy and Bonnie on the High Seas,” Rory shouted.
Mott’s mom drew away from the sound and headed out of the room.
“Dial it down, buddy,” Mott said. “Mom has a headache.”
“Oh.” Rory turned to watch their mom go up the stairs. “Sorry, Mom!” he yelled.
Mott shook his head and ruffled Rory’s hair. Rory emitted his multisyllabic “Mott” and galloped up the stairs. Mott turned off all the lights, checked that the doors were locked and the security system was on, and then he followed his brother up to the second floor.
A long twenty minutes later, Mott had Rory settled and in bed. “You need to get to sleep,” Mott told his brother. He handed Rory the plush Freddy Fazbear he liked to sleep with.
“Nope,” Rory said. “Read.” He clutched Freddy and pointed to his nightstand. The book he’d referred to earlier was lying under a rolled-up comic book, a slingshot, and a half-empty package of gum.
Yeah, read, the whispers commanded.
Mott ground his teeth, but he reached for the book.
He knew better than to try to leave Rory’s room without reading to him. Rory was quite capable of pitching an ear splitting fit, and if he did that, it would delay Mott’s exit from the room even longer. So, he reached for the book and pulled it out, sending the slingshot and the gum to the floor. He didn’t bother to pick them up. He just started reading where he’d last left off.
He read fast and he read loudly, but Rory didn’t seem to care. He listened raptly for several minutes, and then his eyes began to droop. Mott kept reading loudly; he was almost shouting. Just as he had been with all his silly antics earlier, he was trying to drown out the whispers.
Thankfully, Rory could sleep through a hurricane. He burrowed down under the covers, tucked Freddy under his chin, and closed his eyes tightly. In seconds, Mott could hear Rory’s little-kid snores, even over the shouted reading.
Mott stopped reading, laid the book on the nightstand, and stood all in one motion. He was ready to get out of here.
He turned off the wagon-wheel lamp on the nightstand, but the room didn’t go dark. Rory had a night-light plugged in near his door, and the fish tank had a light, which was still on.
Mott turned and prepared to sprint out of the room.
Namby-pamby, the whispers taunted.
Mott froze. Feeling like he couldn’t back down from a challenge made by something as small as a Sea Bonnie, he turned to glare at the hideous things.
Expecting to see them glaring back at him, he was surprised to find them all clustered together near the back of the tank. He started to walk by, but then he did a double take. They weren’t just clustered together. They were clustered together around Fritz. They were attacking him!
Mott made a beeline for the fish tank to save Fritz, but he realized there was nothing he could do without a net. He looked around wildly. Where was the net that he used to remove Fritz when he had to clean the fish tank?
Mott started opening Rory’s desk drawers, and then he snapped his fingers. Rory had taken the thing into the bathroom; he had been playing with it in the tub.
Mott tore out of Rory’s room. He raced down the hall to the bathroom. Yep. There was the net, sitting on the side of the tub. Grabbing it, Mott ran back into Rory’s room. He charged over to the fish tank.
As Mott reached for the tank’s lid, he froze. The Sea Bonnies were nowhere near Fritz. They were swimming around in the tank, acting like … well, acting like normal Sea Bonnies. And Fritz was swimming around by himself. He looked just fine.
Had Mott imagined what he’d seen?
Mott leaned closer to be sure Fritz was okay. He appeared to be—
Mott blinked and frowned.
Fritz was not okay.
Fritz was different. He didn’t appear to be orange anymore. What had the Sea Bonnies done to him?
Ignoring his distaste for the Sea Bonnies, Mott went over to the tank to get a closer look at the goldfish.
Up close, it was clear that not only was Fritz’s color off, his shape was weird, too. Now a faded blue, not unlike the color of the Sea Bonnies, Fritz was a little lumpy, as if he’d—
No, hang on. He wasn’t lumpy. Mott gasped, but he couldn’t pull himself away from the tank. He had to see.
He leaned closer, putting his face almost up to the glass.
Fritz was drifting lazily through a cluster of Sea Bonnies toward the back of the tank. Mott had to wait until Fritz turned to circle toward the front of the tank. He remained still, almost holding his breath, as the no-longer-gold fish came his way.
As soon as Fritz swam toward the front wall of the tank, Mott’s stomach turned. He covered his mouth as he stared at the fish.
Mott had been right when he’d first seen it. Fritz wasn’t just lumpy. Something was moving inside Fritz. No. Not inside. Mott squinted at the fish as it swam past his gaze.
Something was moving on the outside, too. All of Fritz was in motion, as if—
“Oh gross!” Mott backed away from the tank, but he couldn’t stop looking at Fritz.
Not that Fritz was Fritz anymore.
Fritz was no longer a goldfish. He no longer had fish scales and fins. No. Fritz was now a mass of squirming Sea Bonnies. All Fritz’s own parts had been replaced with the tiny gelatinous deformed aquatic rabbits.
Mott stared in disbelief and total disgust. As he gaped, he saw a couple of Fritz’s scales drifting toward the bottom of the tank. They slowly floated downward until they settled on the rocks. Mott stared at the tiny scales. They were all that was left of the original Fritz.
Mott felt like he was going to be sick.
Fritz swam behind a cluster of Sea Bonnies, and Mott swallowed bile. He made a face and started to turn toward the door, but movement in the tank caught his attention. He glanced back.
All the Sea Bonnies were lined up against the glass, staring at him.
Mott ran from Rory’s room.
Mott spent most of the night and the better part of the next day thinking about Fritz … or actually, Not Fritz. All this thinking time wasn’t technically needed because he’d reached a conclusion about the body-snatched fish within an hour of leaving Rory’s room. Lying on his back on his bed, he’d forced himself to think about what he’d seen. After analyzing it from every angle he could think of, he’d decided what he’d seen was not some new version of Fritz, formed out of Sea Bonnies. It was, instead, a Fritz imposter; it was a mass of Sea Bonnies formed to look like Fritz. Why? Because the Sea Bonnies had consumed Fritz, then used what they’d ingested to multiply themselves and take Fritz’s place. Mott had decided they were kind of like flesh-eating nanobots, which then took on the form of the thing they’d eaten.
