By the time spring begins to warm, heralding the early arrival of summer, the horror show begins to settle into a lackluster routine. William becomes camouflaged within the passage of time, fading into the background like a boring middle-aged man with a day job—which he is, much to Ricky's bewilderment. He knew from the very beginning of course, but it is difficult to compartmentalize after looking behind the curtain.
He's Steve Raglan again, and every once in a while Ricky will coast by social services to check he isn't being duped.
Raglan walks in through the front doors of the freshly painted government building at 7:45AM and walks out at 4:00PM, Monday through Friday. On various occasions he's been caught heading out at noon, chatting with co-workers on the way to lunch. Sometimes he eats his meal on the bench near the parking lot, in a shaded area beneath a reviving oak tree. Other times he'll swing by a drive-thru and head back into the building with multiple bags of takeout.
It is as boring as it sounds.
He's one Steve Raglan, and Ricky is one Ricky Kronbach.
He's just Ricky, and the notes on his clipboard make as much sense as the idea of bringing the dead back to life through ghosts and experimental AI programming. But fields aren't revolutionized by playing it safe and staying within the lines of reason. The sweet spot is often found when said lines of reason are toed, and the most infinitesimal of variables nudges closer towards the other side.
"Workin' hard or hardly workin'?" Roger asks from the office door, waving a hand when Ricky glances at the clock by the window. "Relax, you still got another fifteen to go."
Nodding his head, he flips the page on the clipboard to doodle until Roger's curiosity is satiated. "Business slowed down these past couple of weeks," Ricky says, the scratch of the pencil revealing a pair of lopsided rabbit ears. "Think it's to do with the new Pep Boys?"
Roger takes the seat across from him, one of his hands worrying away at his beard. "Maybe. Regulars haven't swapped over yet and so long as we manage to keep a couple of those heavy hitters, we should fare well enough to stay afloat."
"Just gotta pray Scarface doesn't realize he can just buy a new Lambo whenever he wrecks it."
"Can't ever replace his Shelby though. Which reminds me." Roger shifts in the too-small chair, trying and failing to look casual. "Didn't you want a paint job for your ride?"
He tries erasing a crooked line, but all he manages to do is streak pink and gray across the page. Trying to rub it off with his thumb rips a hole he can't smooth out. "I did, yeah."
"Change of mind?"
"I'm not sure. She's got personality, you know? Doesn't match mine but that ugly ass color's kind of grown on me."
"No, no, yeah, I agree. Ugly color but she's got pizzazz. Doesn't go at all with what you've got going on here." And because Roger is never discreet with his segues, "What have you got going on here?"
Well, Roger, there’s a dead man’s bones sitting in my kitchen and I’m currently shacked up with his former business partner who is trying to Herbert West Re-Animator him after killing a handful of kids and claiming their soul-juice is the key to busting Death’s kneecaps and also I think the ghost of my dead brother is trapped inside a rundown pizzeria and also also I’m trying to figure out how to replicate human consciousness using computers because apparently the man I’m shacking up with, the dead guy’s former business partner I just mentioned, has cracked the age-long philosophical dilemma of whether the soul is real or not, what its components are, and where exactly in the human body it is stored!
“Nothing much.”
“Mm.” Roger lifts his nose as if smelling something rotten. “I call bull.”
“I hit a rough patch.”
“No offense, but rather it looks like a rough patch hit you.”
Ricky is well aware. The nightmares have grown quiet but that's been courtesy of a lack of sleep, and trips down memory lane have been postponed due to how preoccupied his thoughts have been crafting initial hypotheses. For weeks his head has been processing in the form of zeros and ones, warping grids and copper wires into the form of neural pathways.
He can't bear the weight of Roger's stare. It isn't often he teeters between the role of boss and parental figure, despite his staunch denial of the latter, but when he does it feels like someone has decided to carve out Ricky's insides like a jack-o'-lantern.
"Been healing up fine?" Roger says. Never pressing. Trying to shape water with nothing but his fingers. "Hope you've at least been using up your time off to rest up."
"I'm dealing." Ricky looks away from him. "I've been thinking about stuff. You know?"
"I might, if you wanna elaborate."
Ricky considers it, he really does. Just tell him everything and it would maybe help ease the burden of madness and regret and grief. That would open up a bigger can of worms, and Ricky is unwilling to gamble with Roger's life.
"I'm thinking about picking up programming again. Been saving up on the side, see if I can try for post-grad in the fall."
Roger eases up at this, his broad shoulders falling. "Good, good. You're too smart a kid to work a dead end job like this one."
"I like this job," he mutters, and finds that he means it. "Man, if it wasn't for this job I would've blown my fucking brains out ages ago." There's something about fixing things with his own hands, putting stuff together and watching it go.
"Then so long as this shop stays open, bay five has your name on it."
"Thanks."
"That Bug needs to get wrapped by end of day."
"And Dean's been dragging his ass," Ricky says, getting himself sorted as he cleans off the desk, readying to clock back in. "I'll hop down and run parallel diagnostics while he gets the pistons replaced."
"Ain't no one bothering you, is there?" Roger is halfway to the door when he asks, and the severe set of his brow speaks loudly to what he's referring to. He's a clever man, capable of sniffing out a rat five miles away with a stuffy nose, and maybe that's enough to help Ricky sleep tonight.
"I'd tell you if that were the case."
Without further prodding, Roger knocks his knuckles on the door frame and exits back into the shop proper.
"You're quitting?!" Jenny's voice comes out of nowhere, startling him into smacking his forehead against the Volkswagen's undercarriage.
"Jesus Christ. Fuck."
"You can't just up and leave, man! We need you here. Like, what if Jon gets named employee of the month or something? Or, God forbid, Dean does. This place is going to fold faster than a beach chair in a hurricane."
Ricky rubs his forehead, the point of contact tender to the touch. That's going to leave a bruise. "Who the hell said I was quitting?"
"Jon overheared."
"And you believed him?"
"Yeah? He's a chatterbox but he's never wrong."
He rolls out from under the Beetle, the model too new to merit Herby's iconic decals, but doesn't bother getting up from the creeper. "First time for everything," he says. "I'm cutting down my hours but I plan on staying for the foreseeable future."
"Why are you cutting down your hours?"
"Why are you so nosy?"
"Because you're basically my best friend and I hate the thought of never seeing you again, knucklehead." The words leave Jenny in a rush, her face flushed pink. Summer is a lot closer than any of them expected.
"Oh." If asked, he would call her a work buddy, a casual friend, but best friends feels juvenile. Not to mention presumptuous on her behalf, when their only offsite meetings involved everyone else in the shop. "Great news, then. You get to keep seeing my ugly mug."
Jenny purses her lips and rests the tip of her boot on the toppermost curve of the creeper, just above his shoulder. "I don't like your tone, boss."
"You interrupted me and now I have a headache to go along with a speed knot the size of Lake Superior. I apologize if I'm coming off crabby."
"So…why are you cutting down your hours?"
Ricky shuts his eyes and considers lying for the hell of it, but doesn't. He likes Jenny as much as he likes the rest of the crew, and her dad's chicken noodle soup recipe is to die for despite his claim that it comes from a can. He's eaten enough Campbell's to know the difference between a block of salt and homemade vegetable stock.
"I'm going back to school."
"Didn't you get fired from school?"
"You don't get fired from school." At her impassive stare he adds, "I was expelled."
"Same shit, different stink. Trying for computers again?"
"Kind of."
"Will you tell me about it? Like, for real tell me about it. No passive-aggressiveness, just a grownup chat about the ins and outs of the technology that makes the world go round."
He's not buying that one for a second. Jenny's the kind of person who would rather get a hand cramp writing two dozen letters than type a single e-mail. "Okay," he says, sitting up and debating the need for an ice pack. "I already said I wasn't interested in your cousin. No amount of smooth talking is getting me on board."
Jenny sits on the Beetle's bumper, legs crossed at the ankles. "This ain't about her. It's about you and me. And not like that, God. You're a swell guy but…"
"But?"
"Your energy's gnarly."
The edge of his mouth quirks up because he's never heard the term uttered with such disdain. Disdain might be too strong a word, but there's enough suspicion in her tone to confuse him. "Then why are you trying to get me to go out with you?"
"'Cause I'm not and you're reading the whole thing wrong. I just wanna hang."
"With a dude with gnarly energy?"
"Right on. Think Bill and Ted. Everyone needs a weird friend."
He doesn't think this is a good idea. In fact, he's sure that it's a terrible idea. "What have you got in mind? Movie theater? Dinner? Mall crawl?"
Jenny perks up, but the way her eyes narrow tell him there's more going on that she's leading him to believe. "We should check out the new mall. I heard the food court was mediocre but that they have a pretty sick arcade."
"I'm sure a mall is a perfect place to talk shop."
"You suggested it, my dude."
"We could swing by Blockbuster. Grab something goofy, order pizza," he tries, fishing with what little bait he has on hand. "My place is a mess but I can tidy up before the weekend."
"Ultimate bachelor pad?"
There it is. "Company only preoccupies itself with my bedroom so it's never really a problem."
Jenny thinks about it for all of three seconds. "Deal. Blockbuster and a pizza. Friday after work?"
"Make it Saturday and I'm yours for the evening."
"Cool," she says.
He gives her a lopsided smile before pulling himself back under the Beetle and tries not to feel too guilty about it.
Saturday is uneventful. So is the weekend after that, and the one after that.
As far as he can tell there are no ulterior motives to Jenny's newfound interest in his life, and having her chill out on his couch has been surprisingly pleasant as she fills the apartment with white noise as he works away at the dining room table. She keeps him in check, in a way, making sure he doesn't do anything too stupid. She also helps with keeping the shadows at bay, hellish visions preferring to take a backseat when there's another living soul in the room.
Jenny only asks if he's seeing someone once, and he tells her it's complicated. It's complicated and fucked up, but the latter he keeps to himself.
He hasn't seen William in weeks. There's a part of him that's grateful for the respite, knowing they're both doing their own thing on good terms, minimizing the stress of shit hitting the fan when he least expects it. Ricky doesn't miss him either, but that's because a solid chunk of his time off is spent at Freddy's.
The animatronics don't react to his presence. The building itself feels dormant whenever he hurries through its hallways to get to the back office, loading up the system files William has on hand to study at home. It takes several trips, the floppy disks barely large enough to contain a full folder of data, but he doesn't mind it. It helps break up the task into tiny tidbits for both him and his refurbished computer to handle.
Also, standing inside of Freddy's, even in the dark, feels soothing in a way he can't explain.
It doesn't feel empty. Neither does it feel hostile. Sad, yes, but that's to be expected when the most formative of his traumatic memories took place five feet away from where he stands. But there's also a feeling of tranquility that hangs over his shoulders, and despite being aware that that should not be the case, he doesn't have the mental fortitude to dispel it.
The first summer rainstorm bangs heavy over the roof as he jogs out of the pizzeria and shutters the doors behind him. Shoving the floppy disk inside his jeans' pocket while standing beneath the awning, he can barely spot Jenny pushing open the driver's side door for him to make a run for it.v
He readies himself, the clap of thunder synching up with that first footfall over the weathered asphalt of the parking lot. Red Chucks now soaked, he slides into the Chevy and slams the door shut. "Jesus! Didn't expect the rain to be this cold."
Jenny leans forward in the passenger's side, using her sleeve to clear up the foggy windshield. "Enjoy it while it lasts, techboy. Come July you're going to be wishing for cold showers."
"I'm allowed to complain about stuff," he says, pulling out the floppy and setting it on the dashboard. "I took stock of what's left in there and unless I get bigger storage, it's going to take another three months to get it all transferred." He shakes his head, flinging water everywhere.
Jenny flinches forward to cover the floppy disk with her hand. "Why not get an external hard drive? Aren't those portable CPUs?"
He blinks at her, and it isn't until he registers her smirk that he realizes how much of an idiot he's been. He could have. It would have expedited the process tenfold.
Buckling up, he slumps in his seat. "You're right."
"You can't tell me it didn't cross your mind."
It didn't, actually, and that concerns him. Normally, that would have been his first thought when he started this mad endeavor months ago.
There's so much on the line, all of it so intangible and ephemeral that he's too afraid to pop the murky bubble he's standing inside of. Maybe he doesn't want to make this go any faster, the number of reasons so high it would take him just as long to list. It's not avoidance if he's actively making progress, after all.
"I want chicken tenders," Jenny says, and he hates that it's become a routine. He hates that, without even acknowledging it, the scripts on how to pull him out of his downspirals have been established and executed.
"Burger King sucks," he says, clicking on the car stereo and hitting play on the last cassette tape he loaded up.
Since you've gone, I've been lost without a trace,
I dream at night, I can only see your face–
"Oh shit! I haven't heard this one in ages," Jenny says, turning the volume knob up and singing along. "We could do McD's instead. I can settle for nuggets."
Ricky glances from her to the stereo, his fingers wrapping around the steering wheel until the leather squeaks a complaint. "This one yours?"
"What?"
"The cassette."
Her eyebrows scrunch up. "What kind of dinosaur do you take me for? I only do CDs." She doesn't look away. "Isn't it yours?"
Last he checked, The Police wasn't in the ancient collection of mixtapes in the glove compartment.
Every move you make–
And every vow you break–
Every smile you fake–
Every claim you stake–
"Ricky? What's up?"
"I'm fine. Nothing," he grits out, a frigid chill settling in the pit of his stomach. "McD's sounds good to me." He throws the car into drive, shaky hands growing firm when dread whiplashes into anger.
It's only fair since he took his eyes off Afton.
Why would that mean Afton took his eyes off him?
• 
