Five Nights at Freddy’s
Tales From the Pizzaplex #1
By: Scott Cawthon, Kelly Parra, & Andrea Waggener
*This post contains spoilers for Lally’s Game & other stories from Five Nights at Freddy’s Tales From the Pizzaplex
Click the link for an overview of Frailty, the first story in Tales From the Pizzaplex #1
Overview:
Cade and Selena are the perfect couple. Both are successful, good looking and adore each other. Two weeks before their wedding, the couple decides to move to Cade’s hometown.
Selena notices that Cade has snuck in an old and ratty trunk that she asked him to throw away. She reminisces about the first time she saw it at his apartment and he told her it was full of childhood memorabilia. When Selena attempts to open the trunk Cade gets defensive and steers her to remove her focus from the trunk.
Selena decides to stay with Cade’s mother until the wedding to get to know her better and learn family traditions. While Janice is out, Selena takes the opportunity to snoop and finds photo albums of Cade when her was younger. One of the photos features Cade at Freddy’s Pizzaplex in a blacklight arena named “Lally’s Game”.
Lally was a robot that would befriend children who didn’t have anyone to play with. Janice reveals that Cade loved Lally’s place and played with Lally quite often. One day, someone stole Lally. Selena seems immediately suspicious of this information.
Selena confronts Cade who brushes off her concerns of him keeping something from his childhood from her. He does admit that it was a hard time for him as someone got hurt and he didn’t want to talk about it.
Their wedding day goes off without a hitch except for the fact that Selena can’t shake the feeling that Cade isn’t being completely forthcoming with her about his childhood.
Later, Selena is spending her first day alone at their new house. Of course, she spends the day looking for the trunk. Cade comes home for lunch just on time to interrupt her as she is breaking into the trunk. Selena confronts him once again about the trunk and her runs to it in a panic. Lifting the lid open, the trunk is revealed to be empty. Cade says that everything is okay but Selena can see the fear radiating through him.
For the next week Selena pretended to be asleep while Cade got up in the middle of the night seeming to be searching for something around the room. Finally, he tells her the truth. Lally wasn’t stolen, he escaped. When he escaped he followed Cade and played a scary version of hide and seek. Cade was able to trick Lally into the trunk and hasn’t opened it since. Selena doesn’t believe him and thinks that he “trapped” Lally as a metaphorical way of dealing with his fears. She doesn’t see the real threat.
During a BBQ, Selena sees Lally. Before Cade can get there, Lally disappears. Cade believes Selena but doesn’t seem to do much to solve the problem. They go about their lives and Cade spends more and more time away from the house.
Over the next few weeks, Selena feels someone watching her. She decides to go to Janice to finally get some answers.
Janice reveals that another boy tried to play Lally’s game and Cade got upset. The boy then died in an accident. Selena asked how Lally worked and Janice let her know that the children had to move Lally around as the robot didn’t have the ability to move itself.
Convinced that she needs to escape, Selena runs home to pack her bags. She doesn’t know if she is running from Lally or Cade but knows she needs to leave. Once again, she hears noises and decided to check the entire house. Cade grabs her and instructs her to hide.
He tells Selena that you can’t make Lally mad and that Lally killed the little boy from his childhood. Selena makes a dash for the door and smashes a lamp on Cades head when he tries to stop her. Selena isn’t sure if she can trust Cade and thinks he is using Lally to do nefarious acts.
When Cade come to he finds a ghastly scene and it is implied that Selena has been killed and put in the trunk.
Some time later, Cade is moving into his new home with his new finance Debbie. When she asks about the familiar trunk he tells her it is childhood baggage.
The End
Discussing Important Topics Before You Get Married
Cade and Selena dated for two years before they got married. You would think they would have difficult discussions but how these two are written it feels as if they were caught up in the romance. When something comes up that Cade knows is going to start a fight he pivots to compliments and romance.
Selena talks about their relationship with very surface level things. It feels as if the two were waiting to get married to really know each other. They didn’t even live together before they got married. They don’t know how to be together 24/7 when things may not be romantic and more on the mundane side.
Lally is a placeholder for whatever issue you can think of that you might face in a marriage. Selena had no idea what she was getting into and Cade didn’t give her an opportunity to decide if she would be able to handle Lally for the rest of their lives. He may have thought that it was his burden but it became her’s the second they got married.
Selena probably never saw Cade deal with conflict. He knows that there is a dangerous robot loose in his house but he chooses to leave his new wife alone and spend as much time at the office as he can. Again, this can be a substitution for any other form of conflict. Instead of facing the conflict with his partner, Cade is choosing to ignore it and run away. Even though, his decision is putting Selena in danger.
If You Go Looking for Something, You Are Going to Find It
Selena couldn’t let the mystery of Lally go. She wanted reassurance that she had nothing to worry about but had to see it for herself in order to move on. She would not have met her fate had she trusted her partner and let it go.
I equate it to checking your partner’s phone. You may not find damning evidence of something awful but you will probably find something to fight about.
Maybe Your Husband is a Murderer
It is completely possible that there is no moral to the story and that Cade is a murderer.
Perhaps he did kill the little boy from his childhood. When he locked Lally in the trunk he was locking up what he did and vowing to never be that person again. Selena unlocked that childhood trauma and caused Cade to break.
He could have easily moved Lally around and been the one making noises when Selena thought she was home alone. Cade could have been pretending to go to work because Selena did say that his schedule had never required him to work this much before.
By uncovering Cade’s deep dark secret he had to kill Selena to protect himself. He locked her up with his secret in the trunk just like he did years ago.
Overall,
I prefer to read most of these stories as if humans are the ones doing bad things. I think it is much more interesting if Cade is traumatized by his past actions and it drives him to kill his wife.
It gives the story an easy way to connect to the reader. We can all relate to a partner hiding things and trying to connect. We also have all been alone in a house and think that something is lurking in the shadows.
Lally’s Game did give me the shivers a few times but overall it was just ok. I could have done without the random scenes of her cooking with Janice or the renovations. They didn’t feel like the actions of someone who is being tormented by something.
I wouldn’t be baking and picking out decor if I thought my husband was having a mental break.
Overall, a good story that could have been great if it chose to embrace the itself a little bit more.
Rating: 3/5 stars
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