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Outside my window, I watched the grand opening of a brand new Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria. A bright red ribbon was cut and the people cheered as its doors swung open. The owner smiled proudly, as if he had wanted this for years. The small crowd, mostly made up of young kids and parents, rushed inside the welcoming building. One of the kids, my best friend Ella, stopped and turned before she walked inside. She made eye contact with me and waved, no doubt seeing my disappointed face through the window. I waved back before she entered the pizzeria with her mother.
I sighed and shut my pink curtains, wishing more than anything that I could be over there with her. Just my luck that the only Freddy Fazbear’s within a two hundred mile radius of me was built right across the street, and I couldn’t go inside.
Mom and Dad had told me to not go near that place. They told me it was dangerous, that bad things happened there. I asked them what kinds of bad things, but they said I was too young to understand.
How could a pizzeria created for children be dangerous? Ella said the one she went to near the big city was so much fun! There were games and tasty pizza and friendly animatronics! She said the bluish-purple bunny was her favorite, his guitar sounded so real in comparison to Freddy’s automated voice.
I wanted to believe my parents’ warnings, but at the same time they hadn’t given me many reasons to fear the pizzeria. What was the harm in observing the place for myself?
I decided that it was best to go at night, just to look at the building up-close. There wasn’t anything wrong with taking a look, right?
******
That night, a huge storm came thundering from the distance, allowing me to sneak out of the house undetected. Before leaving, I pulled down the hood of my dark purple rain jacket, making sure to keep my hair as dry as possible. If my parents caught me when I snuck back in the house, at least they wouldn’t be mad that I could’ve caught a cold. If I was going to break one rule, I would make sure I didn’t break any others.
I creeped across the slick road and stopped in front of the entrance to the pizzeria. The building looked much bigger than from across the street, its dark shape was almost intimidating as it loomed above me. I walked towards one of its windows and peered inside, only catching the outline of a checkered floor from the lightning’s occasional brightness.
Hmm, maybe I should have brought a flashlight, but I didn’t want to risk waking my parents sneaking back in and out again.
I walked around to the other side of the building; maybe there was a street lamp in the back alley that would let me see more.
I stepped around trash cans and bags carelessly placed in the narrowing alley. As someone who liked a neat room, I was kind of offended.
When I finally turned the corner to see the very back of the pizzeria, I was disappointed. There were no windows or street lamps! Or at least, there were none that I could see. I cautiously crept between the garbage, guided by the occasional lightning strikes. For a brand new business, there sure was a lot of trash in the back.
I kept my eyes on the brick building, looking for any secrets. About halfway to the other side of the alley, I heard a murmured groan right next to me! My eyes darted to the side and I gasped when I saw a tangled mess of wires that were piled up in a clump larger than my whole body. Several different colored animatronic eyes gazed at various spots around the alley. One of them was even looking at me.
But the crown jewel of the jumbled mess was the disjointed face of Freddy Fazbear. While I had never seen him in person, I had seen enough commercials to know his face like he was my best friend. However, this Freddy was not the friendly brown bear I was used to. Instead, he had sharp pointed teeth and only one eye that was completely white. His plastic face and top hat were a reddish-pink hue in the occasional light.
Another groan came from within the wires, muffled by the rain and thunder.
“Uh, hello?” I asked in my squeaky voice, unsure of whom or what would respond.
“Hehe- ha- hahahehehahahehehahahaha!!!!!!” burst out from the wires and I leaped back, even though nothing moved.
“Why, hello there!” a chipper voice sounded from the wires.
I stared at Freddy’s face. Was he talking to me?
“Hi,” I said, almost quiet enough to be drowned out by the rain.
“It’s a special day! Are you the birthday girl? Wh- where’s Bon-Bon!? Bon-Bon say-ay ‘hi’ to our friend!”
My palms started to sweat as his voice seemed to glitch-out, garbled by the rain.
“Uh-” I stopped when I heard a sound on the other side of the alley, like someone was coming.
“Hahahaha!! One big happy family!” Freddy yelled as I turned back down the path I came from. I kept as low as possible until I reached the end of the alley. I ducked around the side of the building, tempted to run home but also to find out what made that noise. I peered back into the alley and saw the figure of a man standing in front of Freddy. He leaned down and began to gather the wires, mumbling something to himself as he did.
I turned back around and ran home, making sure I was as quiet as ever when I climbed back inside through the laundry room window.
I kicked off my rubber boots and hung up my rain jacket to dry, hoping my parents wouldn’t be suspicious. I creeped back upstairs and snuggled under the covers, quiet as a mouse.
That was definitely… strange. How did a pile of wires talk to me? I definitely had to tell Ella about it. Maybe she would even come with me to see if he was still there the next night. Even if that man had taken Freddy away for good, maybe something else would be there.
******
Ella thought my claim about a talking pile of wires was ridiculous, but she still agreed to come with me to see for herself. Of course, as long as Freddy was still there, hopefully. We were able to convince our parents that we just wanted to do a sleepover on a Tuesday night; it was the summer after all.
The weather was the same as the previous night, and we snuck out as silently as possible.
“Rachel, do you realize how much trouble we would be in if we got caught?” Ella said to me as we scurried across the street.
“I know, but it won’t hurt anything. If you’re so worried then you can go back.”
“No, no, I’m just saying that to remind you. Your parents are stricter than mine.”
We reached the alley and I led my friend to the halfway point, gasping when I saw an entirely different animatronic.
It was a worn down rabbit that looked to be a greenish-yellow color in the faint light. The right ear was completely missing and jagged teeth were shining from inside the rabbit’s open jaw. Coils of reddish-brown material looped around its feet and through holes in the body. While the animatronic’s head was down and its body leaned against a trash can for support, its left eye gazed at us like we were a fresh meal.
“Ella, I think we should go,” I whispered to her. While Freddy had been creepy, at least he was just a pile of wires that couldn’t do anything. This thing however, it looked like it could spring up and attack us at any second.
“No way,” she hissed in my ear. “This thing looks cool, like he could be Bonnie’s cousin or something!”
She stepped closer to the rabbit, and I could have sworn I saw its head tilt the slightest bit…
“You may not have recognized me at first, but I assure you, it’s still me,” a deep, gravelly voice spoke through the rain.
Ella gasped, “He talks!”
“I can do much more than talk, child,” the rabbit said.
Ella giggled, “What else then?”
The animatronic lifted its head up to look at her, the wires in the back of its neck squeaking in protest.
“My name is Springtrap, and I always come back,” he said.
Ella leaned closer, “Well Mr. Springtrap, can you tell me why you’re out here in the rain?”
A deep chuckle rumbled through the animatronic, causing the hairs on the back of my neck to stand. I leaped forward and pulled Ella away from him just as he snapped his jaws toward her.
We fell back onto a pile of trash bags, our hoods falling off and our hair soaked in seconds.
Ella jumped up to her feet, “Why you-”
I grabbed her arm and pushed her back to where we came from. This was such a bad idea. I heard a door open at the other end of the alley and led my friend back home. I didn’t stop running until we were in the laundry room.
“What the heck, Rachel? You said Freddy didn’t move, so why did that thing?” Ella asked, making sure to keep her voice down.
“I’m sorry, I’ve just been curious and I had no idea he was going to do that.”
She sighed and I noticed she was shaking a little. “Well, thanks for saving my butt,” she finally said with a smile.
“No I’m sorry; if it weren’t for me you wouldn’t have been there.”
“Seriously? I can’t wait for tomorrow!” Ella said, beaming all of a sudden.
“What? Why?”
“Because this is as interesting as it is scary! Besides, I’ll have you watching over me.”
“Uh, if you say so,” I said, unsure if I should have forced her to not go back.
“Plus, I can be the daytime informant. I’ll search for anything suspicious at the pizzeria during the day and see if it has anything to do with the animatronics at night.”
“Are you sure?” I asked, still shaken up about the close-call that happened only minutes ago.
“Of course! Who knows? Maybe we’ll discover some big secret that the adults have been trying to keep quiet all this time. Did you know that some kid got really hurt by an animatronic? I don’t remember how, but apparently he was sent to the hospital for it. If we could find anything relating to that with the ones we find in the alley, then maybe we could get to the bottom of the mysteries at Freddy’s. Maybe if we solve them, they could create an entirely new Freddy’s that your parents would know they could trust!”
I smiled at the possibility to finally experience the “magical place for kids and grown-ups alike.”
“That’s a good plan, great work Detective Ella.”
She gave me a bright smile, “Thank you , Detective Rachel for starting this investigation.”
******
Unfortunately, Ella couldn’t find anything that seemed dangerous or suspicious in the pizzeria. She said she heard some adults talking about “liabilities,” but that was the only thing that seemed out of place at the cheerful restaurant. The owner had added new animatronics, games, and upgraded the decorations. Ella said it seemed like the place was only getting happier rather than becoming more and more scary.
So we focused most of our efforts on pondering the creatures of the back alley, and Wednesday’s new addition was no exception.
The animatronic looked like a cross between a preppy girl and a clown. She had multi-colored hair in two ponytails with what looked to be a little tiara on top of her head. She wore a short skirt and roller skates, but that was where her girlish features ended. The animatronic’s smile was exactly like a clown’s, with rosy cheeks and crooked teeth. Her right hand was a giant claw, and her body was cracked in several places, exposing the metal to the rain.
“What do you think?” I asked Ella. I had never recalled seeing a character like this before.
“I’ve never seen one like this. I wonder where she came from,” Ella said, taking a step closer. She peered at the animatronic’s green eyes, staring lifelessly into the sky.
“Have I been forgotten already?” a sad voice asked. It sounded like a girl, but one much more mature than Ella and I combined, like she had been through years of torment.
Ella jumped back from the animatronic, and the once lifeless eyes looked directly at us.
“Hello, my name’s Circus Baby. Did you come here to say ‘hello?’ That’s sweet. I would give you some ice cream if I could, but unfortunately, I’ve been broken beyond repair.”
Her voice just sounded so, so sad, almost to the point that I wanted to hug the animatronic.
“Uh, Circus Baby, why are you here? How did you get here?” I asked.
“I heard their calls, and I can finally become complete. I will be able to make Daddy proud. This will be a gift for us.”
Ella and I looked at each other before turning back to Baby.
“A gift? What sort of gift?” Ella asked.
“Don’t worry little girl; it will be over soon,” Baby said, her eyes beginning to glow green.
I grabbed Ella’s arm and took off, her steps quickly falling in line with mine. Good thing she was able to sense the danger too, I didn’t want to find out what Baby could do with that claw.
******
The next day, we scoured the internet for anything about a “Circus Baby” animatronic and found nothing. Although we did find information about a golden rabbit named “Spring Bonnie,” it took hours just to find the scraps of information about him.
It seemed the further we dug, the more obscure the information was, as if there were many things about Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza that no one wanted us to know.
That night, the weather was still as stormy as it had been, although there were signs that it would let up soon.
The animatronic this time was the cleanest and most put-together out of all of them. It was a black bear with a red top hat and rosy cheeks. He wore a red bow tie and had a gold star right underneath it. The bear leaned against a trash can like Springtrap, but with slightly better posture as his left hand gripped a plastic microphone. His right eye was open while the other was a black pit, both staring lifelessly at the wall. His jaw hung wide open, but it wasn’t intimidating like Springtrap’s.
Ella gasped when she noticed the star, turning to me with her brown eyes even wider than normal.
“Rachel, the new Rockstar animatronics that were put in today have that same gold star.”
“What does it mean?” I asked.
She shrugged, “Maybe they have some sort of connection, although I wouldn’t think they’d put a black bear on display, it’s kind of gloomy.”
“Hmm,” I wondered, my eyes trailing to the pictures behind the animatronic. It took me a few seconds to realize that they were different from the ones the night before… and the ones the night before…
“Ella, these pictures weren’t here before. They’ve been changing every night. Do you think that means something?”
“Maybe, although they’ve all creeped me out too much for me to notice.”
I continued to stare at them while Ella leaned towards the bear, asking it questions. One of the pictures had a clown in it, there was a clown for Baby too… but not for Springtrap…
“Ugh, why isn’t he talking?” Ella asked.
I looked at the bear, and its dead eyes didn’t seem so dead after a few seconds of staring at it.
“Hey! Hello? We’re talking to you Freddy!” Ella yelled over the rain.
I grabbed her arm and put a finger to my lips right as a quiet, “Shhhhh,” purred from the animatronic.
“We’re going,” I hissed, pulling Ella away.
She didn’t protest, and I didn’t deny her request to visit the alley once more the following night.
******
The rain had finally let up on Friday night, forcing us to be extra-cautious when sneaking out.
“What do you think we’ll find tonight?” Ella asked, excited.
“I don’t know, but hopefully it’ll give us some answers,” I replied.
But when we got to the spot, there was nothing, not even posters on the wall.
“What?” Ella said. “What the heck? There should be a new one!”
“No there shouldn’t,” a deep voice said at the other end of the alley. We turned towards the voice and a man probably in his forties stepped out of the shadows. “Thank goodness there aren’t anymore, it’s been exhausting finding the last of them.”
“Oh crap,” Ella whispered as my heart rate doubled in speed.
The man chuckled, “It’s alright, and you’re not in trouble. I know you two have been visiting this spot all week, which is why I wanted to speak with you tonight.”
“Uh- y- you’ve known about the animatronics then?” I asked.
“Yes and I’ve been taking them somewhere safe,” the man said.
“Do you know where they came from? Why are they trying to hurt us?” Ella asked.
“We are unsure of their origins, but trust me; I’m making sure they won’t hurt anyone again.”
“How?” I asked.
“All in good time. What I really wanted to say to you girls is to not come here tomorrow. You can visit the pizzeria during the day if you’d like, but don’t come to this alley.”
“Why?” Ella asked.
“Just trust me. I promise you that even if you did come, there wouldn’t be any more animatronics to discover.”
“Then how about you answer some questions, like what was Circus Baby? Who was Springtrap? What was that black bear’s connection to the Rockstar animatronics?” Ella asked.
The man sighed, “I’m sorry, I can’t answer any of those. It won’t matter soon anyway. Just remember the happiness that Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza has brought to you.”
He turned and went back inside the pizzeria.
Ella looked at me, her expression flabbergasted. “What. In. The. Heck! Why wouldn’t he answer our questions? They weren’t difficult for him to know, especially since he’s been the one taking the animatronics out of the alley. You know what? I think he knows everything , everything that would solve this whole mystery!”
I sighed, sharing her frustration. “You know what? How about, just to be nice, we stay away tomorrow and then come back Sunday night.”
“What!? No! There must be something really important that will be here tomorrow, we have to find out what it is.”
While I wanted to believe the man’s warning, just like my parents he was as vague as ever. I suddenly wanted to get to the bottom of the mystery myself. “Or what if,” I suggested, “we sneak into the pizzeria tomorrow night and see if he’s keeping them somewhere inside.”
Ella gasped, “Oh my gosh, that’s perfect Rachel! We wait until he leaves for the night and then we sneak in through the back door! You know how obsessed with lock picking my brother is? We could bring him and-”
“Ella! I don’t think we should involve anyone else. Besides, what would he say?”
“Oh Joshy would be fine with it! Besides, he should get some adventure, I can’t believe he is a living sixteen-year-old who is that boring.”
While I didn’t want to involve Josh, it was true that his skills were our best method to getting in. “Alright,” I agreed.
“Yes! We’ll get to the bottom of this Detective Rachel!”
******
On Saturday night, Ella’s whole family came over for dinner. Since we had been spending the whole week together, we suggested that a little get-together would be fun to end it on a nice note. Our parents applauded us on the idea, and we suggested that they should use the time to discuss Fourth of July weekend plans. Best friends are always looking for the next time to hang out after all.
Before dinner, we explained our plan to Josh as he gazed at his phone with a bored stare.
“What’s in it for me?” he finally asked, unfazed that two ten-year-olds wanted to break into a pizzeria.
“Uh, well, don’t you want to find out what all the mystery is?” I asked him.
“Not really, why would I care about corporate corruption or whatever it is you hope to find inside a children’s entertainment building?”
“Well, it’s not exactly something related to the business that we want to know about,” I said, unsure how much we should tell him.
“Okay, then what do you want to find?” Josh asked.
“The animatronics are alive and there were old broken down ones we found in the back alley,” Ella rambled. “We’d never seen any of them in person before and we think there might be some dangerous plot relating to them.”
Josh’s jaw dropped and he looked to be on the verge of smirking.
“Or something like that,” I said.
There was an awkward silence before Josh burst out laughing, shaking his head and clutching his phone.
“You’ve got be kidding me! That’s what you’re looking for?” he finally asked, gasping for breath.
Ella put her hands on her hips, “Yes moron, that’s what we expect to find. Now will you help us?”
Josh fell into another fit of laughter, but it was slightly more composed. He finally leaned back, wiping tiny tears from his eyes. “Alright, fine little sis. I’ll help you, just because I’m curious to see what you think you saw the robots do.”
“Good,” Ella nodded before we all sat down for dinner.
The entire meal I nervously tapped my foot, watching the clock on the other side of the room tick from 8:30 to 9:00. The pizzeria would be closed by then, good thing both Ella’s parents and mine preferred to stay up late; otherwise we would’ve had dinner at six with no excuse to stay later.
At 9:30, Ella and I stood up from the table in unison, excusing ourselves.
“Oh that’s right, you two should get ready for bed,” my mom said.
“Uh no, actually we wanted Josh to take us to that new ice cream shop on the other side of town,” Ella said casually.
“Are you sure, hon? This late?” her dad asked.
“Yeah sure, whatever, I’ll be the chaperone,” Josh said, standing up.
“Okay, be safe and don’t get back too late,” my dad said.
“We won’t, the shop closes at ten anyway,” I said.
Josh grabbed his keychain from the other room and I noticed it had some of his lock picking tools attached to it.
“Come on kiddos,” he said in a forced enthusiastic voice. I couldn’t tell if he was being serious or if he was really good at acting.
We stepped out into the humid night air and my nose immediately scrunched when I smelled something burning.
Josh laughed, “Well I guess the mystery will always remain a mystery!”
Ella gasped and I saw the pizzeria was burning.
Through the shiny windows of the brick building, we saw orange flames eating everything in their path.
Sirens sounded in the distance and I heard the parents rush out of the house behind me.
“Oh my gosh!” Ella’s mom said.
My dad chuckled, “Good riddance, it’s just like what happened to that ‘Fazbear’s Fright,’ all those places have such horrible electrical wiring.”
“Jared,” Ella’s dad said in a hushed voice.
“Look, I’m sorry if any of you liked that place, but I never trusted it. I mean seriously, the pizzeria wasn’t even open for a full week and it’s already in ashes. What does that tell you about the franchise as a whole?”
Ella glanced at me, “So is that it? Will we just never know?”
I stared at the flames, almost swearing I saw something move within them.
“Maybe that guy was planning on burning it, with the animatronics inside,” I whispered to her.
“Why?” Ella asked.
“Maybe... because some things are best left forgotten.”