Fazbear Frights #4: Step Closer

Dance With Me

Kasey struggles to survive on the streets after stealing a pair of unusual novelty glasses

The stars looked like tiny pinpricks of light shining through a sheet of black velvet. Kasey lay on her back on a low stone wall, staring up at the sky, feeling wonder at being even a small part of such a beautiful universe. She remembered a nursery rhyme from when she was little, there had been a coloring sheet in kindergarten with the nursery rhyme's words and a picture of smiling stars. Twinkle, twinkle little star, she thought. How I wonder ... what I am.

"Kasey!" Jack's voice startled her out of her trance. "Look over there!"

Kasey sat up and looked at the brightly lit kiddie restaurant across the street, Circus Baby's Pizza World. A woman and two young children were standing outside its red door. The woman was fumbling with her purse.

"Let's go," Jack whispered.

Kasey stood up and casually crossed the street with Jack, ducking into the alley next to Circus Baby's, close enough that she could hear the little girl chattering to her mother.

"I think Circus Baby is pretty!" the little brown-haired girl said. She was wearing a T-shirt decorated with Circus Baby's Pizza World's creepy-looking mascots.

"She is pretty," the mother said, looking a little dazed, probably because she had spent too much time surrounded by the bright lights and loud noises of the kiddie pizza emporium.

"Can I wear pigtails like Circus Baby?" the little girl asked, pulling two handfuls of her hair up into bunches. She couldn't be much older than three, Kasey thought. Four, at the oldest.

"Sure you can," the mother said. "Hold your brother's hand while I find my car keys."

"Her hands are all sticky from candy," the boy complained. He was early elementary school age. Maybe seven.

"Mommy, I'm so sleepy," the little girl said. "Can you carry my goody bag?" She held up a little plastic bag with the name of the restaurant printed on it.

The mother had found her keys. "Sure," she said. "I'll just put it here in my purse."

"Can you carry me? I'm too sleepy to walk."

The mother smiled. "Okay, come here, big girl." Her purse dangled from her left forearm while she leaned over to pick up her daughter.

"Now!" Jack barked into Kasey's ear.

Kasey pulled the ski mask over her face and dashed out from her hiding place in the alley. She ran past the mother and grabbed her purse with a swift, sure motion. She kept running as the woman yelled "Hey!" and the little girl screamed.

As Kasey ran, she heard the little boy say, "I'll catch the bad guy, Mommy!"

"No," the mother said firmly. "You stay here."

If they said anything else, Kasey didn't stick around to hear it. Kasey knew she was fast, and she knew there was no way the mother could catch her on foot, not with two little kids on her hands.

After Kasey had put some distance between herself and the crime scene, she took off the ski mask and stuck it in her jacket pocket. She slowed to a walk and carried the purse casually, as if it belonged to her. And now, she supposed, it did.

She met the guys back at home, or at what passed for home. Kasey and Jack and AJ stayed in an abandoned warehouse. There was no electricity—

they had to make do with flashlights and camping lanterns. But there was a good roof, and the building was well insulated, which made it warmer than being outside. They slept in sleeping bags and heated food on a little two-burner cook stove, the kind people used on camping trips. Actually, living in the warehouse was a kind of indoor camping. That was one way to see it, Kasey thought.