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John didn’t like Michael. There was just… something off about him.
When Charlie met up with the others of the group, it seemed she was alone. When she later ran out, and John followed, he found her sitting on the hood of her car. A man John, reasonably, didn’t know patting her back.
The man, Michael, noticed John approaching and moved himself and Charlie over so John had enough room to sit beside Charlie. At first, John had thought he was Charlie’s boyfriend. Why else would he be in Hurricane with her?
However, Charlie had introduced Michael as her “friend”. John didn’t quite believe it. And then, Michael made a joking comment about their age difference. 10 years. John hoped they were truthful about not being in a relationship.
If Michael was an adult, and he was dating Charlie, he could've been arrested for sexual relations with a minor. Some dark, twisted part of John hoped that to be the case. Everything about him just seemed to scream; “I belong in prison”.
He naturally curled his body in as to appear shorter. His hair was a mess, he hid his left eye for some reason. His eyes. Pale blue, almost a silver. It’d seemed like Michael had seen death itself and not been impressed. His knuckles were bruised over, and his hands wrapped randomly in bandages. A few fingers on each hand taped together. He just didn’t look right.
Carlton gushed about him like a schoolboy. John figured a celebrity crush on the man wouldn’t be too harmful, but he didn’t see what Carlton saw in him. Carlton practically dedicated their entire Freddy’s trips to following Michael like a puppy dog. Trying to vie for his attention.
John was shameful to admit he was grateful for it. It allowed him to hang out more with Charlie. And it meant Michael couldn’t wander off alone. Another part of John thought Michael would hurt Carlton. But they always came back with Michael smiling softly and Carlton ranting about one interest or another.
Michael didn’t go with them to the school for other-Michael. The one that died when they were younger. He had no relationship and felt awkward. John isn’t sure what he was doing but was sort of glad he wasn’t around. It meant John could tag along to the old Emily house.
When they went to Freddy’s the third time, Michael was still gone, and Carlton seemed much less enthusiastic than before. Then they met the guard. No one, not even Charlie, seemed to realise.
Despite Dave’s grotesquely thin frame, thinning hair and dead eyes, John could see the resemblance to Michael. It made him wonder. Did Michael know his relative was a guard here? Why was he avoiding him? Why didn’t he mention it to anyone?
Then, Carlton and Dave disappeared.
Michael was waiting in the parking lot for them, like a ghost in the night.
“Where the hell were you?!” John actually found himself yelling. He jabbed a finger into Michael’s chest and unconsciously tried to seem taller. Anything to intimidate him. Michael blinked surprised and surveyed the group.
“I was at the graveyard…” he must’ve noticed Carlton missing. “What happened?”
“Bonnie!” Jason cried. “He took Carlton!”
John didn’t miss the way Michael froze in place. John had never felt hatred for someone, but whatever feelings he felt towards Michael were a second close.
“Who was that guard?!” John yelled. He’d tried to brush off the weird things Dave was doing, but he just couldn’t. He’d done it to calm Charlie of her suspicions. He didn’t get how she didn’t see the resemblance. Their eyes were the same damn colour!
“Guard?” Michael echoed.
“He saw us the other night,” Marla explained to him. “His name was Dave. He was waiting for us when we got there.”
“Carlton!” Jason cried again. “We need to save him!”
“We need to go to the police.” Lamar corrected.
When they got to Carlton’s house later, Michael lingered at the back, protesting even going into the house, but Charlie dragged him in. Clay was halfway through a sentence when he saw Michael’s face and choked. They had history, and that’s when John realised Michael’s hometown was Hurricane. He was revisiting home just as much as Charlie was.
That’s why he’d been at the graveyard. He had family here. Dead family, but family still. That’s why he was here.
Any conversation of it was avoided between Clay and Michael until everyone separated to bed. John’s suspicions were too high to let Michael out of his view, so he sat on the stairs and listened in to Michael and Clay in the kitchen late that night.
“Do you know what happened?” Clay asked.
“I wasn’t there,” Michael responded. “I was in the graveyard.”
“Visiting your family?” Clay asked again.
“Yeah,” Michael replied. “It’s a bit late but oh well.”
“Better late than never.” Clay agreed. “You Michael, you look scarily like your father.”
“I know,” Michael answered. “I’ve been debating dying my hair.”
Clay laughed at that but didn’t sound all that amused. There’s a pause in the conversation. “Do you think it was him, Michael?” Clay asked suddenly, and John was lost to the context.
“No doubt,” Michael replied. “He was always like that, to be honest.”
“Surprise he didn’t kill you kids.” Were they talking about the kids that died at Freddy’s? Did they know who the killer was? John listened closer.
“Father was strange.” Michael acknowledged. “I think, in his mind, we were off-limits. Like, with the little one, he hated him just as much as I did, but he never dared to harm him.”
Was Michael’s father the man that killed John’s friend? Why hadn’t he been sent to prison for that if Clay knew?
“Why would William hate his youngest so much?” Clay asked aloud, more to himself than Michael.
Michael was quiet for a long while. “When I was about three or four, Mum took me on a trip with her to visit her family in a different state. Father stayed behind for work-related reasons; I think. During that time, he had an affair with a woman named Martha.”
Clay scoffed. “Like your father couldn’t sink lower.”
Michael ignores the interruption. “After the first night, Father called Mum and told her.”
“Told her?”
“They never had a single secret between them. Mum knew everything there was about him.”
“Even the fact that he was a serial killer?”
“Yep.”
“Was she upset he cheated?”
“No. She definitely wasn’t. He quite literally had Mum’s permission to continue seeing Martha.”
“Your family is strange, Michael.”
“I know. Anyway, during that time, Father figured out that Martha’s boyfriend at the time--”
“She was cheating too?”
“Just listen, her boyfriend was forcing her to do it. He wanted to blackmail Father with it to get money. Also, he was an absolute cuck so…” John assumed Michael shrugged. “Father beat the man enough to put him in the hospital. Martha left him and she moved in with Father. Mum came home with me and we loved her. Martha was an amazing person.”
“Wait, no, I’m confused.” Clay cut in.
“Monogamy isn’t for everyone.” Michael reasons. “But Mum and Father loved Martha like they loved each other, and I loved her too. I didn’t mind having a second mother around. Father got them pregnant within a few months of each other, Mum with Elizabeth and Martha with the little one. Martha died in childbirth though, and that’s where Father and I’s dislike of him stemmed from. Mum was always too soft to hate anyone. She loved that damn kid like her own.”
The two sit in silence for a moment, and John’s mind is reeling. That was too much information for him to process at once. And Michael is talking again.
“Actually, that was a lie. Mum wasn’t soft at all.”
“Your mother is one of the sweetest people I’ve ever met.” Clay replies.
“She was naturally a kind person, but she wouldn’t hesitate to kill someone. She was married to my father after all.”
“…Both of your parents were serial killers?”
“Pretty much,” Michael replied. “Mum was better than Father, to be honest.”
“How do you know this, Michael?” He next response could literally get him arrested.
“They used me as bait as a kid.” Michael answers. “They’d put little me out in the dark to lure some asshole out and they’d kill him.”
“Oh…” Clay murmured. “I’m sorry, Michael.”
“It’s whatever,” Michael responded. John jolted in shock when he appeared at the bottom of the stairs. “Enjoy the story?”
“I- uh--”
Clay appeared behind him, confused. “What’re you doing up, John?”
“I was just leaving.” He replied and ran back to his room.
Michael came with them when they went back to Freddy’s. Michael told part of his story working there a few years earlier, how the animatronics moved in patterns and where certain areas were. He mentioned an office.
Michael’s movements were strange and random. At one point he was with Marla, Jason and Lamar. At another time, he’d left and was with Charlie.
John felt Michael moving on his left when the group was cornered by the animatronics. John noticed Michael’s aversion to the golden bear. “Michael,” Carlton called it, referring to their childhood friend. The suit had some strange to Michael though because two words flashed in their vision.
“It’s me.”
Michael did not acknowledge that claim, aside from the darkness growing in his eyes. And then Clay appeared, and the suit slumped to the floor.
Michael didn’t so much as flinch when Charlie triggered the springlocks in the suit.
All things considered; John still didn’t like Michael.