Work Text:
[CLICK]
[A SHARP LAUGH]
FITZGERALD
Are you guys just that broke or is this an aesthetic choice?
ARCHIVIST
Excuse me?
FITZGERALD
I- I’m sorry, I- [Sigh] The brain damage, Y’know? Makes it… hard to keep stuff like that to myself. I don’t- I mean, you guys are the experts on this apparently, who am I to judge your equipment.
[SOUNDS OF BRITISH SCEPTICISM]
ARCHIVIST
Right… [Clearing his throat] Statement of Jeremy Fitzgerald regarding…
FITZGERALD
One hell of an awful summer job.
ARCHIVIST
Statement taken direct from subject 7th September, 2016. Statement begins.
FITZGERALD
What? I mean, where’d you want me to start?
ARCHIVIST
The beginning, preferably.
FITZGERALD (STATEMENT)
Right! Yeah, of course, I mean. Where else would I…
[A DEEP BREATH]
Even before I’d gotten a job there, I’d been aware of Freddy’s existence. Like, tangentially speaking. I knew that it was actually a new location, and the locals told awful stories about the things that happened in the older locations but I never really paid it that much mind. I just figured it was one of those ghost stories that every town has, gossip repeated over and over that everyone already knew but talked about because there was nothing new to talk about.
In hindsight it’s not that surprising people were still going on about it. I mean, people are still going on about it to this day, yknow? Those true crime nut jobs love digging into the most gruesome stories they can find, and apparently child murder is not off the table. Let me tell you, those guys are a pain in the ass to scare off.
Anyway, this was before it was a well known thing. I was broke. Really broke. I desperately needed any kind of job, and didn’t even have a high school education yet. So you can say my options weren’t the best. And on paper the job seemed like a dream come true. All I had to do was make sure no one got in. Like, who’d even want to break into a mildly successful kids restaurant anyway? The pay was awful but every jobs’ was, and at this one I’d probably get away with sleeping on the job. Plus the free pizza to employee’s. Free food is always a win.
Except it wasn’t an easy job. I mean, obviously, I wouldn’t be here if it had been.
The first red flag should’ve been when I found out that the doors were on a timer. They’d automatically lock at midnight and would not open until 6am. For any reason. But I didn’t exactly know what was supposed to be normal for that kind of job, so I shrugged it off.
The first night, I’d gotten a phone call as my introductory briefing to a job. That’s when I started to realise there was something seriously wrong. The eerie feeling of being watched I’m from the darkness and the supernatural chill were easy enough to dismiss as first day jitters. But someone telling you that the goddamn machines walk around the place at night, that they will try and find their way to you and that, whoopsie, they might just try and brutally murder you because they don’t realise you’re a human being. That’s much less easy to ignore.
I’m not sure why I took the warning seriously. Honestly, it sounded more like the sort of hazing you’d get from senior employees than actual instructions. But I did. God am I glad I did.
They did come. Plastic monstrosities walked in with movement just a dash too stiff to be natural, clouded over eyes unseeing and staring and watching and waiting for me to fail, to be too slow.
I— they gave me a mask. It was supposed to trick the software into not seeing me, fool the facial recognition into ignoring me. Some old mascot head, hastily spray painted a blotchy brown in some miserable attempt to hide the mouldy yellow. It reeked . Like rotten meat and rust and dried blood. Every second spent wearing that thing was hell, my hot breath making it feel tight, like there was something else next to me and it did. Not. Want. To share.
But being uncomfortable is better than being dead. Besides, not like I could just sit in the mask for the entire time. That’d be too easy.
One of them could only be stopped with a music box. Had to keep it playing or it’d get out and come after me. I… One night I wasn’t careful enough, got overwhelmed by back to back intruders and it fully unwound. I saw it. It looked at me, through the cameras, I know it saw me. I could feel what it wanted me to know. That I was going to die. That I was going to reach my end and there was no place I could run to try and escape it. I wasn’t a threat, not really. The others made me very aware of what a threat feels like, a pounding rhythm of war drums as your blood flared scarlet. This was different. Cold. Numb. Inevitable.
The only reason I even made it out of there was because of luck. The clock ticked to 6am before it made its way to me. That was the rule, y’know?
The moment the clock hit morning they’d back off and I could leave. Apparently it was just their daytime routines switching on. I think that was just their way of toying with me. Letting me catch my breath before trying to end me, every night getting closer and closer and…
Right, sorry, the robots. The restaurant had a bunch of robot mascots. They were just supposed to walk around, pretend to sing and dance and occasionally wish the kids happy birthday and whatever. Fancy shiny new things, with all the bells and whistles. But in the back room, they kept the models from the old location around. “For spare parts”.
Afterwards, I found out that the reason the original location shut down was health concerns. The robots had started to stink, oozing foul fluid from their eyes and mouths and a fly infestation that the employees were unable to fully hide. There were a lot of rumours then, related to the missing kids. No official accusations of course, and the police investigation never found the bodies.
Doesn’t really matter. Those things were haunted. You… I— I don’t care, okay? Everyone says that what I remember isn’t real, that it’s just an intersection of head injury and trauma. But I know that it was real. Everything else might be off-kilter and warped and wrong but those nights I spend as the security guard are in screaming technicolour. They were possessed. Vengeful. Violent.
The Toys were uncanny, but the Withereds were terrible. Torn fabric stained with god knows what, grime caking the faux fur stiff. Ripped off jaws and limbs and faces, removed carelessly with the connections still sparking pitifully. Mechanical zombies that groaned with torn throats and rusted joints, denied reprieve and making others suffer instead. In hindsight part of me pities them. Like, were kids still in there, conscious of the horror that had been inflicted on them? Or did they snap, shattered beings no longer aware of what they once were, only that they were in agony they had no way of stopping?
Wish I knew which one was the better option to be honest.
But that’s still small fry compared to the Mangle.
I… The Mangle was originally a Toy animatronic. The Foxy reboot. Shiny and plastic and fake, but still had an echo of something that could be seen as charming. Kids are, however, cruel. I’m not sure how they managed it to be honest. They started ripping the thing apart. Beats me why. Beats me how. Robots are supposed to be held together with screws and bolts and— whatever else, I’m not a scientist. I don’t think a gaggle of kids on far too much sugar should be able to disassemble machinery.
At first, the technicians would repair the damage at the end of the day. Put the things back into working shape. I guess they got sick of it after a while, doing it day in and day out. So management decided to make it into an attraction. Of course, nothing I wanna let my kid do more than play with heavy machinery like it’s a jigsaw puzzle…
At night? At night it’s shamble, twisted limbs convulsing as it dragged itself through the vents. Staticky shrieking cries, like roadkill left to suffer in the summer night, each passing car ripping its body even more and its joints bent more and more out of what could even be considered functional.
Maybe part of it was begging me to help. Maybe the fact that I hid from it like I hid from the others made it angry. But can you blame me, when the sound of its jaws snapping open and shut in the darkness rang out with what could only be described as hunger? When it wheezed out electric gasps as it hunted with no reason other than feed?
[ Sigh ] You can probably tell I didn’t manage to escape it in the end. Funnily enough, it was after I moved onto day shift, after a week of pleading for someone to listen about how they were acting strange, stranger than what even the only other employee who knew described. I— I guess I let my guard down, felt somewhat more secure in the chaos of the day.
I don’t remember it turning to me. Locking on with recognition, with vehement hatred. I don’t remember it lunging, forcing its broken body into action with nothing more fueling it than rage. I don’t remember it locking onto my face, lower jaw setting in just below my left eye.
I do remember the crunch. My skull breaking. The blood. The taste of it. Or was it my tongue I bit down on? Or was it my own brain I could taste? At that moment I understood it’s starvation. The satisfaction of finally being able to feel flesh. To feel bone crumble so easily. So fragile. So easy.
[AN AUDIBLE SWALLOW, FOLLOWED BY HEAVY BREATHING]
ARCHIVIST
[ Softly ] Statement ends.
FITZGERALD
So? You gonna call the cops? Try and get me institutionalised? I know!
[A HAND SLAMMING ON THE TABLE]
I know I’m a nutcase! Just do it okay!
ARCHIVIST
No, I… While I haven’t seen anything about what you’ve specifically described, I’ve… There’s been statements from others who’ve experienced things of a similar nature. I’ve… well, not that type at least, but…
FITZGERALD
But?
ARCHIVIST
I’ve ah- There has recently been an incident in the archives…
[FABRIC RUSTLING]
I can empathise.
FITZGERALD
[ Soft, sad laughter]
Fuck. I… Thank you? I… I’m gonna leave. Thank you.
[FOOTSTEPS. A DOOR CREAKS OPEN, THEN SHUTS]
[CLICK]