Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

-March, 2000-

The transceiver weighed dense in his hands. With the antenna between his fingers and the body in his opposite palm, the scruffy young man rotated his walkie-talkie, aimless in his fidgeting, listless in his presence.

He lifted his gaze for a split second, thinking he’d look across the table to see his colleague. But the clouds through the glass ceiling had parted, and the rays of the midday sun beamed straight down on him, on all of the food court. Every brightly-colored surface took on a terrible bloom, stabbing brilliant light into his eyes, bright enough to make him wince. 

Mike Schmidt lowered his whole head. Mall guests chattered, children played, music blared, all bouncing back at him and ringing with the strange, cold character that the walls imposed on the sounds they reflected. Here, surrounded by color and people, he just wanted to focus on the midnight-black shell of his walkie-talkie. 

The luminous outlines of the tables and chairs he’d just seen danced in his retinas. As his eyes flitted over the buttons on the keypad, the floaters in his vision seemed to flee, always exactly as far from scrutiny as they were to begin with. Never closer, never willing to be where he wanted them to be…

“‘Though the dreamer remains asleep, he walks through memory as if experiencing it for the first time anew,” came the husky voice of Jeremiah, Mike’s superior, sitting across from him, “no longer a passenger, but an active participant.’” 

In one hand, Jeremiah held an ancient little book, looking more like a pamphlet in his giant hand. The book was simply titled Dream Theory, the cover decorated by a blue, quadrate maze. An indented path traced through the maze’s dead ends, its twists and turns; someone in the book’s history had grown a little too preoccupied with its teachings.

Jeremiah chuckled as he read further, soon putting the book down. “Is this stuff for real?” The stocky, black-skinned man couldn’t keep a look of amusement off his face.

Mike looked up. With the clouds covering the sun again, he could see Jeremiah now; the two of them were like night and day. Mike was ghostly pale, thin, and so square that you would need a ruler to properly draw him, while Jeremiah, by contrast, had the build of a linebacker. Mike’s face had been locked all day in an almost-constant frowning line; Jeremiah’s jovial grin—the grin of a man capable of appreciating the small things in life—was infectious enough to make Mike’s twitch upward for a second. 

Jerry lives a good life, Mike reminded himself before speaking up.

“Some people think so. I guess it depends on what you believe.” 

The controlled chaos of the food court had no bearing on their conversation. Small booths crowded by mall-goers, flanking a center courtyard that housed all of the tables. Pumped-out smells warred for the attention and appetites of the mall guests; Mexican burritos, pizzas, soft pretzels, Philly cheesesteaks, all converging in a museum for the nostrils. 

There was a birthday party going on at the tables behind Mike. Fortunately, right now they were going through the procedure of cake and presents; most of the children were gathered around to see their friend’s gifts.

“In the summer of ‘82,” Jeremiah began, musing over what he’d read in the book, “I traded a mint condition Cal Ripken Jr. rookie for a used copy of ‘Missile Command’. That card’s probably worth 800 bucks now?” He adjusted his position slightly, resting his hands on the table, over the book. “I wish I could participate in that memory and actively kick my own ass.”

“Yeah,” Mike chimed, “I’m sure everyone’s got something they’d like to smack their younger self for.” He scratched at the back of his scalp as Jeremiah passed the book back to him, quickly taking the volume and stowing it in his pocket, away from anyone who might take it.

“You doing alright today?” Jeremiah asked, knitting his beetle-brows. 

Mike heard honest concern in those words, but denied himself the chance to speak up. “Yeah,” He muttered without looking up from his walkie-talkie. 

Clearly, the man wasn’t convinced. Jeremiah dug a hand into his pocket, fishing out a paper card. On one side, nothing: blank, white. On the other, a loyalty space for the Magic Rainbow Scoop Shop, full of stamps. Collect 10 Stamps To Receive A Free Scoop! read bright yellow text across the top of the card, contrasting against the royal blue of the rest of the card, and the hot pink of the ten stamps in their spaces.

“How about you go get yourself something?” He offered Mike the card, lifting a hand to the side of his face to indicate secrecy. “As long as you don’t mention it’s mine, I doubt anyone’s gonna notice that’s the same card they stamped ten minutes ago.”

Mike stared at the card for a few moments, contemplating the offer. He genuinely wasn’t feeling any better or worse than normal; simply annoyed by the brightness of the light. But at the same time, he could sense that the other man had wanted to do this for some time. 

Guess it’d be rude of me to refuse, he thought as he took the card between his fingers.

“Sure; thanks.” Mike stood and made his way over to the Magic Rainbow Scoop Shop; easily recognizable thanks to its mascot, a smiling, buck-toothed rainbow. The mascot was all over the booth; on the sign, on the registers and the machines, on the wrappers on the cones.

He’d gotten in line quickly enough to beat a handful of others coming for a scoop of ice cream. Unfortunately, he’d gotten stuck behind one of those customers.

“I would like the walnut fudge,” the woman before him drawled, seemingly incapable of ending on a downward inflection, “but I want the fudge on the side, because I don’t want it to melt the ice cream. And can I get whipped cream on the top with three cherries?”

Mike shifted his feet, unsure just how long she was going to take with her order. He hated these moments of helplessness. It was always these lulls, these seemingly innocent moments, in which he had nothing but his thoughts for company. 

Detached from the world around him, he let his eyes wander, across the mall-goers in the food court, and the bobbing stream of people out in the corridor beyond. As the flow of the throng waxed and waned, something caught his eye. A small boy, maybe six, seven years old, loitered by the T-shirt vendor stalls, unattended. The boy had dark hair and a red jacket, and he looked like a deer in the headlights. His wide eyes wandered around the mall, tense, expectant almost. 

At last, the bullheaded woman received her order and cleared the line; Mike was next. He shuffled forward, glancing over his shoulder at the young boy, looking as nervous as him. What did he have to be worried about? And where were his parents?

“Hey, Mike!” a bright voice called out to him.

Mike registered the voice but kept his attention on the little boy until someone gently poked his shoulder. Mike turned toward the poke. A gray-haired woman pointed at the Scoop Shop’s counter, an expectant expression on her face.

“You want your usual, right?” The girl behind the counter chirped. 

This time, Mike turned toward the voice. “Hey, Cindy,” he said, not acknowledging what she said. “Sorry.”

At that moment, his mind was otherwise occupied. He frowned, his thoughts focused on the scared little boy. Was the kid lost? Why was he alone?

“Your usual?” Cindy repeated.

“Huh?” Mike focused back on Cindy. He saw that her ice-cream scoop was hovering over a tub of chocolate peanut butter twist. “Yeah,” Mike said. “Sure.” He muttered, twirling the card in his hand.

“Coming right up!”

Mike turned away from Cindy and back towards where the scared little boy was. He was still there, for now at least. Mike quickly scanned the area, looking for the cause of the little boy’s distress. Aware that his breath was quickening, Mike could feel a rushing sound in his ears, blood pounding in his head. 

“So, when are you going to bring your sister by?” Cindy asked as she prepared the order.

Mike didn't acknowledge her. He was still watching the little boy. But then, it happened.

A stern-looking man snagged the boy by his arm and marched him away. The boy leaned back, clearly not wanting to go along with the man. 

“We got a new flavor,” Cindy continued, oblivious to the kidnapping. “Rainbow explosion. I bet she'll go crazy for it.”

Mike stepped away from the line, ignoring Cindy’s attempts at conversation and leaving her looking around the booths confused. 

Instinct took over. His mind on autopilot, he pursued the man and the child, slowly at first, but quickly building up into a run. Rapidly he closed the gap, sprinting as fast as his legs could carry him. He shoved everyone who even looked like they were going to walk in front of him out of the way, shouting after the man, “Hey! HEY!”

The man had just about-faced to see what the commotion was when Mike pounced on him like a lion would a gazelle. The two of them tumbled into one of the mall’s fountains- a simple, two tiered decoration with a floor covered by wishing coins. 

When Mike splashed into the water, his ability to think rationally completely disappeared. 

The man feebly fought back, hitting Mike’s face with his palm, but that only served to make him angrier. Whether a result of the man's retaliation or his own out-of-control fury, Mike bit his lip. He tasted blood. He felt blood on his knuckles, too warm to be fountain water.

Out of the corner of his eye, it swirled in the clear fountain water; red, unmistakable. The red triggered a memory, a memory he himself wasn’t fully aware of. This memory didn’t just fuel his primal instincts; it shut down his mind.

He was unaware of everything else around him; the gathering crowd, the cameras broadcasting his pummeling, the boy shrieking “DADDY!” 

He only stopped when Jeremiah grabbed him and held him back. “Mike! Mike, what the hell’s gotten into you?!” 

As Mike snapped back to his senses, he saw three figures dancing around his peripheral vision; one colored blue, the second red, and the last one green. They stared at him, lifeless beings amongst the crowd, that vanished as soon as they appeared. 

Mike barely processed their presence. The man he’d pummeled shook in the freezing water, grimacing through his blackened eye and broken lip. As the man he’d pummeled tried to get up, a new thought at last came to Mike. 

I’m done for.

Chapter Text

-A few days later-

To Mike’s waking senses, the covers seemed to weave themselves together over him, unfurling across a tough, uncomfortable mattress; that too simply materialized underneath him, as far as he could feel. For a moment longer, he managed to cling to the sensation of weightlessness and non-existence that sleep granted him.

His alarm clock had no time for such fantastic sensations. Breep! Breep! Breep!

Without looking over at the clock, he flung his hand out towards the nightstand, slapped it down. Blind to his aim and sluggish from sleep, he accidentally flung his frail copy of Dream Theory off the nightstand, to the sound of a muffled thunk on the beige carpet floor. 

Hearing it fall, his eyes shot open. On the alarm blared and blared as he rolled over, reaching over the side of the bed to retrieve the paperback. Breep! Breep! Breep! He missed the button to stop the noise again. The damned clock might as well have been a parakeet; if his abilities now were any indicator, he’d have about as much luck shutting it up.

Third time proved to be the charm; Mike squinted toward the clock, smacked his hand down on its top, and finally stopped the accursed honking. Dream Theory took its place on the rickety nightstand, beside a half-empty water glass and cassette recorder, automatically stopped at some point in the night. Safe between the recorder and the clock, a prescription pill bottle with the childproof cap screwed on dwelt, waiting to be put away.

Okay, he thought with a sigh, everything’s where it belongs…

Sitting up straight, legs over the side, he reached for the glass next to the recorder, taking a replenishing swig. Through the distortion of the glass, he eyeballed the Rx bottle. Back in the drawer with you. He pulled out the shelf of his nightstand and dropped the amber bottle in the back. A press of the tape recorder’s rewind key, and it started to whirr back into place. 

Mike breathed a sigh of relief; finally, his morning routine was starting to fall into place. He would’ve liked to think he’d gotten it etched into his mind well enough to do it without a blunder: hit the alarm, stash the pills, rewind the tape, face the day. It’s gonna be one of those days, he resigned as he flopped down on the floor, readying himself for a round of push-ups.

Through all of his preparations to face the day, he paid no attention to the ceiling; hardly anyone would do so with their room. But watching him as he went about his warm-ups, taped to the ceiling, was a glossy poster. Within a pineapple-colored frame, pine trees rose tall and proud into the clear sky, their sparse, straggling branches leaving plenty of room for those on the ground to admire the majesty of their elevation. Letters breaking a neat black border around the photo inquired, Pining for fun? and bold print across the bottom posited the solution: Visit Nebraska!

His reps were fast and intense; he concerned himself not with completing a certain number, just doing however many “felt right”. He glanced over at the weight set next to the window, tucked in the corner of the room. Brows furrowed, he contemplated pulling it out and pumping some iron. Exercise helped to calm him down when he was in stressful scenarios; today definitely counted as a stressful scenario. But with his horrible headache and the way he fumbled to turn off his alarm, he decided it would be for the best if he didn’t use the weights today. With his luck, he’d choke himself out mid-rep. 

That’d be an embarrassing death. The kind you deserve.

He closed his eyes and bowed his head, hoping to squeeze that particular thought out of his mind.

However long he ended up going for, he finished by giving a great shove against the floor, pushing himself up with enough force to stand upright. His hands found their way to the back of his head; elbows in the air, he reveled in the energized feeling of blood coursing through his veins. This was as in shape as he’d ever be.

To the closet, he decided, pushing the sliding mirror-door aside to search for his most formal outfit; best to not go to the DSS building without at least looking like he was serious about getting a job. At the back of his closet, he found a button-up shirt — one clean and pressed. That, in all honesty, was probably because he’d forgotten it existed since the last time he wore it. Pulling it out, he saw that it was… 

Huh. Actually, the color was difficult to discern. At some angles it looked to be a dark, navy blue. In others, it seemed closer to gray, or maybe black. But every so often, Mike saw a flash of purple where the shirt’s fabrics wrinkled and rippled. 

His eyebrows wrinkled and he gave a slight frown to the piece of clothing. The sun streamed through the windows as he strode to the door, about to—

He glanced across the bed to check the time. Half past six already?

Crap. Gotta move.

At the end of a yellow hallway so short it barely counted as a hallway stood an unpainted door; the only bedroom in the house besides his.

“Abbs, you ready?” Mike asked just before he opened the door, knowing she would hear him. There came no reply.

Abby’s room was full to overflowing with soft things — stuffed animals, blankets, pillows. All across its green walls were a picture show’s worth of drawings, most of them depicting her and Mike together, having fun with all sorts of activities. But the thing he was most focused on was the fact that she wasn’t in her bed. By his own conservative estimation, she had three different places she could have slept: the bed, which was empty, a perch next to the window, and a small tent made out of blankets. A silhouette within the tent made it clear where she was. 

“C’mon, I know you’re in there.” Mike said, approaching the blanket fortress. “Let’s go.”

Again, no reply. She didn’t even look out, no comments made on the hole in his sock either. 

Frustrated, Mike grabbed onto the blankets and gave them a quick, firm shake. “Abby,” he groaned, “c’mon!” 

“Okay, okay!” A little girl with a short brown bob cut crawled out from behind the blankets. “You’re being a jerk.” She said as she glared up at him, her face showing little emotion despite her words. 

“You know that I have somewhere I have to be.” Mike said, gesturing at her. 

“"Not my fault you lost your job at the mall.” Abby sighed. The mood in the house had dropped dramatically in the days following Mike’s very public beatdown. If it was possible to be fired on the spot, chances were he would have been. 

Since then, Mike had been desperately looking for someone who would hire him with his shoddy employment record, and everything had failed up to this point. Abby, for her part, was just sad they couldn’t get discounts at the food court anymore. 

“You’re right about that,” Mike grumbled. "But if I’m late, that will be your fault." He lightly kicked the side of the blanket tent. “Let’s go. Five minutes, I need you dressed.” Abby stuck her tongue out at Mike, but he didn’t see it. He was already on his way to the door. 

A lobbed plushie hit him in the back on his way out of the room, letting out a squeak as it did so. Mike stopped in his tracks, rotating to look at her. He allowed himself nothing more than a displeased huff as Abby retreated into her tent.

“Five minutes,” he ordered.

***

The precious few slices of bacon on both plates sizzled, greases bubbling. Beside them, shifting in the pan as Mike shuffled them, just enough scrambled eggs to complete breakfast. The fluffy yellow foodstuffs soon “filled” the plates as much as they and the bacon strips could, Mike being careful with both dishes, handling them by the rim.

“Alright, Abbs.” he plopped himself down in a chair, passing a plate her way. Beside each, a glass of orange juice had already been poured; Abby’s was half-finished. “Dig in.”

He scarfed down his breakfast as quickly as he could, hoping Abby would do the same; he hardly looked up to check if she did. The camera of his eye focused only on what lay right before him; the rest of the world, besides Abby, faded, blurred.

His fork clattered softly on the tabletop, having stuffed the last of the eggs into his mouth. Immediately he rose.

“Time to go!” He declared, looking to her and her plate. His chewing slowed; she’d hardly taken a nibble of her food. She’d only eaten the bacon, it seemed, and full slices remained intact. A film of pulp covered the inside of the glass of juice, above the drink itself, so she’d clearly drank some, but the eggs were untouched. Abby just stared up at him, wearing the same vacant, passive expression as always.

Are you kidding me? Again? No, no. I can’t get angry at her; not her.

He leaned down, hands on his knees. “Abby,” he mumbled, chewing, “You’ve gotta eat more than that. Come on, I don’t have time for this today!” He reigned his tone in as much as he could. “Just have some eggs. Don’t you like eggs?”

“My friend doesn’t want me eating them.”

Right. Her friend. Or whichever one of her friends she meant. 

“That’s fine, but you’ve gotta have something. Will they let you finish the bacon in the car?”

Not a flicker of activity behind her eyes, nor a twitch of a muscle on her face; she nodded, taking a couple of the remaining strips. She made no fuss as he hurried her along, hopping into the car.

A quarter of an hour disappeared on the drive to school, past the other tatty, run-down houses in their dumpy neighborhood. The only coherent thoughts in Mike’s head that weren’t about his sister concerned the numbers on the car’s clock; he had to be downtown in time. His focus on the road extended only far enough for him to keep from running into someone else on the drive, or from rear-ending the minivan in front of him in the car-rider line when dropping Abby off. 

Once she was inside the school building, it was off to the office. His right hand absent-mindedly began turning the car’s radio dial, surfing stations for something to fill the silence. The turgid adult contemporary ballads and jerking, teeth-grindingly inane hip-hop of the hitparade served as a functional enough distraction, keeping him from being too bogged down by his thoughts.  Without Abby’s occasional remarks, her humming random tunes, though, he couldn’t deny to himself how crushing the solitude became.

Mike broke free of the fog, silencing the radio with a click of the dial. One moment, he breezed up the freeway towards the city; the next, he navigated downtown’s angular grid of turns and intersections; and now, he was here, in the parking lot. Heaving himself out of the car, he glanced up at the sad, rectangular hunk of concrete which was the DSS field office. It looked like it could barely hold its own under the weight of the gray blanket of clouds far above.

He hesitated at the base of the steps leading up to the front door. He could almost feel the pressure of the sky’s dome on his shoulders, pressing him into the cracked pavement. The weight of the world itself, trying to keep him rooted in place.

You’ve done this before. Just… walk in there and do it again.

A moment of contemplation, and he squared his shoulders, marching inside. 

The trademark colorless palate of a government building greeted him; oppressively, soul-suckingly utilitarian, only a dark red gutter marked where the drab gray of the floors ended and the tasteless eggshell of the walls began. A few chairs, a trash can in the corner, reading materials for the bored and desperate, and of course, the paperwork; nothing more for him, or anyone. 

Mike had been in these offices so many times, his actions here too were muscle memory: go to the desk, check in, get your number, sit down and shut up. There were only a few other people around him; a mother and son duo, an older and stout looking man. None spared him a glance.

The feeling of being crushed into the ground didn’t abate; in fact, it only grew stronger. Whether he meant to or not, he started twitching, impatiently bouncing his foot up and down. The hushed conversations of the people around him, the people elsewhere in the offices, hardly reached him; receding into himself, any words they uttered were indistinct to him. Except for one person, repeating their words, a little louder each time until they broke through.

“Number twenty-seven?” The receptionist called for the umpteenth time.

The association flashed in his cortex; that was his appointment. He raised his hand towards an elderly woman with a clipboard, whose eyes passed over each of the people waiting. 

“Follow me.” The woman led him up the hall, towards his allotted counselor’s office. Neither she nor anyone in these offices knew Mike had been penciled in to see; none of them had the faintest clue who was here, hiding in plain sight.

Chapter Text

Man. This guy really likes rabbits.

STEVE RAGLAN: CAREER COUNSELOR, declared the plaque at the empty desk across from him. A myriad of degrees hung proudly on the wall, showing this Mr. Raglan’s qualifications—Mike didn’t look close enough to notice that one such document was a participation award—though alongside them were plates, canvases; grandparents-house-type ornamentals, all displaying rabbits. A great many more rabbit curios scattered across the office; a letter holder in a rabbit shape—really only obvious if you looked at it from a certain angle—a few pencils whose tops formed the outline of rabbits, rabbit bookends keeping the shelves orderly. 

Most everything else in the office seemed normal, if slightly untidy—a map of the county, boxes of papers waiting to be properly filed, a coffee maker brewing on a table behind him—but these decorations…

Highly unusual. 

Shuffling footsteps outside the office drew near; Mike straightened his posture, his hands finding their way to the knot of his necktie to adjust it. The tiniest things could make or break his—

“Ah,” came the voice of a man walking in; a man with an aged, gravelling voice, “Here on time, are we? That’s a good man.”

Mike had stilled himself at the sound of this man’s voice, already prepared to stop fidgeting and look his best. But… That’s a good man? What sort of career counselor spoke to their client like that? He sounded like he was talking to a dog or a child, not a grown man with hopes of a future.

Mike glanced at the man, who’d turned the corner and slunk over to a coat rack nestled in the corner before Mike could take a good look at his face. The man shed his beige blazer, revealing a flannel dress shirt beneath, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. 

While the man—Steve Raglan, Mike presumed—moved to a filing cabinet behind his desk, searching for Mike’s documents, he tossed his keys across the desk. There, too, was something rabbit themed; a lucky rabbit’s foot, attached to the keychain. 

Mike’s pupils dilated, his fists contracting around the edges of the seat’s padded armrests. The cheap, flimsy leather creaked under even this minute strain. “Is that…?”

“Real?” Raglan chuckled. “No, no, I got this from the store. Years ago. I bet if it was real,” he continued, producing a folder from a filing cabinet behind the desk before making himself comfortable in his brown leather chair, the perimeter of each of its faces studded in dots of gold. “it would have decomposed by now. Heck of a conversation starter though, huh?” Rather than turn and speak to Mike about his history, Raglan opened and perused the folder himself, back turned to Mike. Besides his head of meticulously-groomed, graying hair and a pair of prominent, bulbous ears, his face remained obscure.

Mike said nothing. There was something about Raglan’s voice. It would randomly fluctuate in pitch and tone, like he was adjusting on the fly. As though he wasn’t sure what someone in his position should sound like. 

Silent, waiting to have judgment passed on him, Mike eyeballed him. He felt like a child sent to the principal’s office, about to be sternly put down. The creak of Raglan’s chair as he finally rotated it to face Mike only worsened that impression. 

As Raglan pouted his lower lip, Mike’s first thought of the thin, almost sallow-colored face came to him. This bespectacled man, likely in his fifties, donning an unimpressive mustache-goatee combo, had—what Mike might call—a uniquely punchable face. His mile-wide forehead, preciously sunken-in eyes, his disappointed dad aura; that and his irrepressible air of superiority.

“What is your deal, Mike?” Raglan grated, shaking his head as his eyes flitted across the file’s contents. “What are you, some kind of… headcase? You beat up a man in broad daylight, in front of his child.” The faintest smirk in the corner of his lips betrayed the abhorrence his voice projected, however quickly he suppressed it.

“That was a mistake,” argued Mike. “It was a misunderstanding; I-I thought—!”

Raglan scoffed. “Just look at your employment record! Tire Zone, sales associate, two months; terminated for insubordination. Media World, custodial staff; one week!” A raised finger drove home Mike’s pathetic performance. “It’s like you’re not even trying! And yet you sit before me, asking for help.” 

He glanced up to see Mike’s annoyed glare. It looked like the younger man was fighting the urge to show him just what kind of a first impression he had made. But Raglan took it in stride. “Aww, don’t give me that look. I’m just trying to figure out who you are,” he chimed as his eyes fell back upon the papers, “Mr. Michael Sch—” 

Silence. Every muscle in Raglan’s face, every flutter of movement in his body, stopped cold. He drew no breath, eyes fixed squarely on whatever article he’d discovered amongst the data in the papers. Mike assumed he’d found some galling infraction from a previous job, waiting to be laughed at, admonished; whatever this aloof cowboy of a man found fitting.

Nothing changed in Raglan’s dull expression as he thumbed back through the pages, combing over the print. He glanced up from the file, brows knit. Leaning forward at the edge of his seat, he studied Mike’s face like a scientist, a researcher, enthralled by some new discovery.

Mike shifted feebly in his seat as Raglan stared through him with those beady eyes. He sensed recognition in Raglan’s odd expression, but he couldn’t even begin to guess from where. The feeling was mutual, whether or not Mike acknowledged it; something at the back of his mind, scratching at him to put the pieces together. Mike ignored the nagging voice, consigning it to the back of his mind without further thought. 

Raglan’s face relaxed. He dropped Mike’s file on the desk with a flat thump, and asked innocently, “Coffee?”

Mike blinked a few times, befuddled. “I’m sorry?”

Raglan rose and moved to the coffee maker on the opposite end of the room, behind Mike. He managed to sputter out, “Um, would— would you like some— some coffee? I made some coffee.”

“No.” Mike said simply, eyeing the man as he made his way to the coffee maker. Had he dissociated again in the midst of an aside about whatever Raglan had seen in the file? Raglan’s heel-turn had come so swiftly, Mike could swear the whiplash was physical.

“Look, I’m gonna be brutally honest with you here, Mike.” Raglan began once he’d poured himself a cup, clutching the mug to his chest. Keeping his back turned, his hands trembled; as much as he tried to keep a neutral expression his lips would occasionally curl into a quick smile. “Given your track record, your options… are gonna be extremely limited.” 

“I’ll take anything,” Mike pleaded over his shoulder, palms up like a beggar. “OK? Any job you’ve got!”

“No, no.” Raglan said, returning to his desk, mug set to one side. “I get that part. It’s just…” he clapped his hands together. “It’s not that easy.”

Mike wrung his hands, a dejected but accepting look on his face. “Yeah… thank you.” He whispered, standing up and moving to exit the office. 

Raglan’s face turned blank, almost panicked. “But I do have something.” He said just before Mike could leave. 

“Wait, for— are you serious?”

“Yes! I wouldn’t be bringing it up if I wasn’t. C’mon, sit down!” Steve beckoned Mike back to the chair, swiping a hand towards the seat. He’d become leagues more expressive, from palpable indifference to an almost childish glee. He was smiling, a genuine smile; not the grimaces or smug, self-assured looks he had been giving up to this point. 

When Mike hesitated to do as instructed, Raglan’s glee broke for a moment, but it quickly returned as Mike shuffled back in. “Sit! Sit-sit-sit-sit!”

“OK, w-what is it?” Mike asked, leaning forward. 

The look in Raglan’s eyes had changed. In fact, his entire demeanor had; his voice settled into a consistent pitch, and he kept his eyes glued to Mike like a used car salesman trying to get a jalopy off the lot. “It’s a security gig. Full disclosure; it’s not great. Right? High turnover—that’s what we call it in the business—but you get to be your own boss. Sort of. And you only have to worry about one thing!” Out came his best sales-pitch smile, his index finger again rising for emphasis. “Keeping people out!” A beat, then he backtracked. “And, y’know, keeping the place tidy.” 

“That’s two things,” Mike was quick to point out. 

Raglan didn’t acknowledge the retort. Not directly. “You want the job or not?”

“How’s the pay?”

“Not great,” said Raglan with a candor which had eluded him not one minute prior. “But! The hours are worse.” He grinned, eyes half-lidded; Oh yeah, you better believe I just went there, his nod implied.

Terrible hours. Mike had sat through enough interviews to know what someone meant with those sorts of euphemisms. 

“I can’t do nights…” he murmured, averting his gaze.

“‘Scuse me?”

“I can’t do nights.”

Raglan just laughed. Twiddling his thumbs, he stared off into space. “That’s such a shame,” he said, in a beggars-can’t-be-choosers tone of voice. 

Mike took his flippancy as a sign to go; that if he wouldn’t accept this job, they had nothing more to talk about. giving a repeat performance of what he had done just moments before. “Thank you.” He grabbed his coat from the rack.

“WAIT!” Raglan practically jumped out of his chair, lunging at Mike as if he was ready to strangle him. Mike turned to see an enraged Raglan, but once their eyes met, the death-scowl vanished. 

Raglan pulled back, drawing a business card from his breast pocket, holding it up for Mike. “In case you have a change of heart.” And there he went again: back to moving like a pendulum, swinging between extremes.

Hesitantly, Mike took the card. As much as he didn’t like Raglan, he had a terrible feeling that he may be his last hope to get stable employment. He said no more as he left, simply giving a two finger salute with the hand that was holding the business card. 

Mike’s footsteps receded into the gray noise of the hall. Going, going…

Gone. 

Raglan had his office to himself now. Himself, his coffee, and his secrets. 

“He’ll come around,” he graveled to himself. “They all do, sooner or later.” He turned his rabbit-shaped letter holder around to face him. “And when he does…” He traced his finger across what would be the rabbit’s head.

Chapter Text

Few things caught the eye like the color red.

Mike, waltzing up to the front door of his single-story house, would be able to posit no argument against that. A scarlet sheet of paper hung from the door, held on by a single strip of tape. NOTICE, declared its bold header, commanding his full attention.

He pulled it from the door, and a pit opened in his stomach as he scanned the text beneath it; he’d received a notice of delinquency. 

His immediate thought was, perhaps should’ve taken Raglan’s job offer. It wouldn’t have magicked away the overdue payments, but he could at least have gotten to work straight away. He trudged inside, re-reading the notice in hopes to reveal some kind of mistake, that it could’ve been applied to the wrong front door and that the real address this was intended for was written somewhere on here, next door or up the block.

He hurried to stow the notice in a junk drawer by the kitchen table; out of sight, out of mind, just for tonight. Trying to be present, he noticed the low, aliasing speech of an infomercial commentator, hissing out of the TV’s speakers.

“Hey, Max,” he greeted. “Thanks for babysitting.”

Maxine, a dark-haired, square-faced woman around Mike’s age, lounged on the couch, comfy beneath a blanket. She shot a glance across the room to see Mike open the drawer and quietly bury the paper. She hadn’t heard the social workers leave it on the door that afternoon; maybe it was some paperwork to sign from the office, she thought. Hopefully he’s got a new job to show for it. Mike ran a tight ship around here, that much she knew; she hoped he’d stay on top of things for his little sister’s sake.

“I brought some Stouffer’s,” she responded kindly. “Should still be warm if you’re hungry!”

Her eyes reset, returning to the vignetting screen of the tube television. A commentator’s spirited voice waxed poetic over an ad for a diamond ring. “14 karat!” Declared the boxed text to one side on the screen. “Limited time offer, available while supplies last! Order today and receive…” 

The soulless jargon dissolved into meaningless word salad long before it reached the ears of either person in the room. Max sighed wistfully, fiddling with rings she already donned on most of her digits as she daydreamed of having the one onscreen.

“I wish someone would buy me a ring…” She smiled, content to dream until that day.

“Did Abby eat?” Mike asked, thinking back to her recalcitrance during breakfast. 

“What do you think?” replied Max.

As expected. Mike hung his coat and headed to see Abby. 

***

The tip of the crayon had been whittled to a pearl, dispensing its tree-bark-brown hue on the paper. Now in place where the artiste had decided its color would best serve her opus, its spent wax could never be relocated. Like any true piece of art, this portrait would last a lifetime if it was simply cared for.

The artist, a budding master of her craft, sat at her desk, nice and cozy in her room. No disturbances, no intrusions—so far anyway—just her, her drawings, and the presence of her friends. Her stuffed animals, one might assume if she mentioned her friends being with her, in a room where she was the only physical occupant. But no, her friends were there. 

No one else could see them.

Abby hummed to pass the time, a host of previous drawings on the walls around her, some even right before her, over the desk. In an airplane, on a boat, standing happily in a field of flowers, little stick figures beheld her new work with approving smiles. A constant across her catalog was two particular people: a tall, messy-haired man watching dutifully over a young girl. Inseparable. Complete together. Brother and sister.

The click of the door’s latch needled her ears, as did the creaking of the door opening and of the floorboards underfoot. But the artist didn’t let them break her concentration.

“What’ve we got?” Mike stepped up to Abby’s side and peeked  over her shoulder, trying to get a good look at her drawing. “Now, that good lookin’ guy I recognize.” He started, looking at the figure in the center of the paper. It was the largest one among the figures, and the fact that the lines that served as its hair were brown was enough to assure Mike that it was supposed to be him. “Who are these other punks?” 

“My friends.” Abby replied, continuing to draw. “It’s not done yet.” 

Mike didn’t reply straight away, taking a few moments to watch her fill in some of the white gaps in the tapestry, swapping one crayon for another, then another. “Well, you can finish up after we eat, all right? Come get some food.” He made for the door.

“‘M not hungry.” She didn’t even glance at him. 

He suppressed a weary groan. “Abby, please, come eat.”

She didn’t move a muscle, except to grab another crayon and keep drawing.

Mike didn’t want to resort to this. He knew she hated this, but after the last few days, after she refused most of breakfast, he was not going to have her skimming to bed on an empty stomach.

“Come on,” he ordered, taking half of the crayon she’d just grabbed between his finger and thumb. “Please just—”

“No!” She pulled the crayon back, trying to wrestle it away from him, but his grip was too strong. The two of them fought, her protesting over his begging for her to just eat supper until…

Snap!  

The crayon broke in half under the forces of each other’s opposing grip. Mike, realizing what he’d done, dropped the half he’d held on the paper and stepped back. Abby stared at the remains of her green crayon, processing what happened. She glared, pouting at him.

You broke her crayon. You broke her freaking crayon, his mind resounded, Are you proud of yourself?

He turned around, unable to face her.

“Abbs. With the day that I’m having, can you please just eat some food?” The weary man sat on her bed, lazily tearing his necktie off, tired of it all.

She looked at him, making that one face of hers — that one emotionless, indecipherable face.

Although Mike saw nothing but an empty bed when he sat down, Abby saw a flash of black and white stripes right where he sat himself. 

“You’re sitting on my friend.” She accused him, finding a suitable replacement color for the broken crayon. 

Of course I am. How could I have known I wasn’t?

He waved a hand in surrender, out of shits to give. “Y’know what, I don’t care. Do whatever you want.” He said in a frustrated tone, heading back to the door. But he didn’t actually exit the room, keeping his head inside. “But you should know what happens to kids who don’t eat their dinners.” 

She’d only scribbled a few lines of color with the new crayon, stopping and looking up from her drawing. What would happen?

“Their bodies stay the same size forever, and they never get to ride the adult rides at the amusement park.”

Abby blinked, eyebrows rising enough for Mike to just barely notice. Her eyes slowly moved back to the bed. Mike did the same, playing along more than expecting her to see anything. 

After a few moments, Abby’s gaze returned to Mike. “She says you’re an idiot.” She flatly relayed, like an underpaid news anchor. 

At the end of his rope, Mike shot back, “At least I’m real,” and closed the door behind him before she could respond.

Don’t worry! Whispered a voice only she could hear, He’s just a big ol’ crab apple!

***

Crickets chirped in the dark of the night. Outside, the porch lights shone, seemingly the only lit house on the whole street. And Mike wondered why he couldn’t pay his bills…

Not presently, though. His Dream Theory paperback lay on the nightstand, where it had been since leaving this morning. Jeremiah couldn’t have it; nobody else could. Mike needed this tired little volume, and not as an intriguing curio. He needed it to search for something. For the past half year, maybe a year or two, Mike had been trying to figure out a way to grapple with his past, healing, resolving it instead of letting it haunt him. He didn’t want to go to a therapist; too expensive, and he didn’t trust them to understand what he had gone through. That may have been a side effect of him not trusting people in general.

This self-reliant streak sent him to esoteric locales when it came to unpacking his baggage. But nothing seemed to work, save for what he read in the dream theory book. This tragedy was a recurring theme in his nightmares; why not utilize that to try and make sense of it?

And so that’s what he did. He pulled the sleeping pills out of their hiding spot at the back of the nightstand drawer, unscrewed the top, and swallowed one of the little white pills. And he couldn’t forget — Click. Reels of eighth-inch tape spun inside the cassette, the peaceful tweeting of birds foaming out of the recorder’s dingy speakers, sounding full of dust. 

He stared up at the poster on his wall. As he closed his eyes, the trees seemed to move in an impossible wind, leaves rustling in time with the sounds on the tape. 

Lights out…

***

It started innocently. A small, pudgy boy running through the woods, holding a toy plane and making plane noises as he did. He made his way to a campsite, where two kids were playing frisbee, and a family was sitting down to eat. The Schmidts, Mike’s family. 

His father was at the grill, watching as his mother dumped copious amounts of ketchup on her burger. Mike, a younger Mike, was there too, scarfing down his own burger like a hungry animal. 

“How about some burger with that ketchup?” His father quipped, which prompted a laugh from his mother. 

“Everything’s better swimming in ketchup,” she grinned. “Right, Mike?”

As she went to sit down, her hand accidentally smacked into an opened bottle of pop, knocking over and spilling the drink. Her hand fumbled slightly as she picked it up, causing some of it to stain the wooden picnic table, the fizz still faintly audible. 

She stopped in her tracks, halfway between sitting and standing. “Gonna go grab a towel. Go watch your brother, OK?” She instructed Mike, pointing over at the little boy. Mike gave a nod of understanding as she ran into the tent, and turned to face him. 

“Hey, Garrett?” Mike started, trying to catch the boy’s attention, but he was just out of earshot. He stood up to move over to him, but just then, a frisbee flew past him. It landed not too far away from him, so he had decided to grab it and look for the person who had thrown it. 

It was the worst decision he had ever made. 

Once he had picked up the frisbee and was about to return to the campsite, he heard a car engine start. An unlabeled black car without a license plate. One needn’t watch many movies to know that that was a horrible omen. 

Mike had bolted towards the car, as fast as his young legs could carry him, but he had been too late. The unlabeled car was already moving, with Garrett in the back seat. 

His mouth was an unnatural line, his expression oddly calm. No fear, no sobbing, nothing. Just blank staring from the rear view window, toy plane in one hand and the other pressed against the glass. 

Mike started towards the car, walking at first, before quickly moving to a sprint. But by the time he had gotten to the dirt road, it was too late. The car was going too fast for him to ever even hope to catch up to it. His brother had vanished, without anyone even seeing. 

“Garrett! GARRETT!” He shouted down the road, to no reaction from his brother.

***

Breep! Breep! Breep!

Another night gone, with no answers. No nourishment in sleep. He opened one eye wearily, the other pressed against the pillow, whose synthetic filling had hardened into uncomfortable clumps. There would always be the next night.

Damn that clock…

***

The other children in Abby’s class careened back and forth across the playground lot, ecstatic to let out their uncontainable energy after half-a-day of lessons. While they all jumped rope, hopped scotch, or spun each other in groups on a tire swing, Abby lingered at a table by the playground gate, drawing the day away.

Mike almost preferred being outside, watching the kids running around and playing, to being in here with this harpy.  

“Just look at my nephew!” Railed a woman with a haughty voice. 

As if the fruitless meeting with Mr. Raglan and the notice of delinquency weren’t enough already, Mike was now forced to spend far too much time than he would have liked with his Aunt Jane. The two of them were in an office belonging to Dr. Lillian Cawthon; who fortunately, was someone who had the best interests of the kids in her care at heart. 

The difference between nephew and aunt was like night and day. Aunt Jane dressed sharply, in counterfeit designer clothes, with a face powdery from makeup and well-groomed blonde hair turning a tarlike brown at its roots; to describe Mike, on the other hand, as looking like he’d just crawled out of bed, would be a compliment. 

Between them sat her lawyer, an aged, broad-shouldered man named Doug. Just Doug; no last name, no other identifier than “My lawyer, Doug.” Never in Mike’s life had he seen another man whose face looked at all times like he was both endowed with all the terrible secrets of the universe, yet had no functioning brain between his ears to process that maddening knowledge.

“It’s not even ten o’clock and he can barely keep his eyes open!” Jane gestured at Mike. “This degenerate is who they trust with the well-being of a mentally ill child!” 

“Jane,” Dr. Cawthon adopted an authoritative tone, sensing the aggrieved petulance of the woman across from her. “Like I’ve said before, Abby is not mentally ill.”

“Oh, right! Perfectly normal to sit around, drawing pictures all day and talking to magical creatures who do not exist!” Jane said with a forced smile, wiping her hands out in the shape of a rainbow. 

“Listen,” Dr. Cawthon began again, “I think we all just need to calm—“

There was no “we”. Doug’s expression was, as always, unreadable; Mike was tense, but calm enough; and Dr. Cawthon’s eyes were squarely on Jane. 

“Don’t tell me to calm down!” Jane broke into the doctor’s attempt at being constructive, “You’re the doctor, and you’re making me feel like I’m the crazy one!?” 

Mike couldn’t help but give her a no shit look as she went on this tirade. So close to the point, and yet so far. Dr. Cawthon kept a level stare on Jane, like a silent urge for her to put two and two together.

“And after what he did to that poor, poor man, I just—!” She shook her head, eyebrows furrowing and voice breaking. And then, all of a sudden, she broke out into loud, theatrical sobbing. She snuck a tissue out of her coat’s chest pocket to blow her nose into. 

If she was fishing for sympathy, no one was biting. 

“I have really tried to play nice. I have!” Jane started, putting the tissue in her purse. “But I have to think about Abby now.” Any attempt at emotion ceased; Jane recollected herself on a dime, far sooner than anyone would from a sob. “Enough is enough. Doug?”

Doug didn’t move, his mouth agape as he stared into space with that faraway look in his eyes.

“Doug!” barked Jane. 

The man let out… a noise. Something like, “Buh! Meh… ” Snapped out of his haze, he reached into his briefcase to pull out a small collection of color coded papers, held together by a paper clip. 

The elevator doesn’t exactly go to the penthouse floor with this guy, does it? Mike thought.

He hadn’t time to so much as smirk at his inner comic before Doug handed him the stack of papers. It was a legal document; a request to change custody. He’d never considered that Jane would actually play this card; some piece of her character would surely prevent her from reaching that far. But clearly, he had misjudged her. 

“In your heart, you know this is the right thing to do. I hope that you’ll sign.”

“And if I don’t?” Mike asked, resting the papers on his knee. 

“Well, then, my lawyer and I,” she gestured at Doug, “will have to take you to court, where any judge with an ounce of sanity will see to it that you never see your sister again. Is that what you want?” 

Mike looked over Doug, sizing him up.

“Well, what about Abby?” Dr. Cawthon asked. “Have you considered—?”

“Abby,” Jane railed with undue heat, “Is ten. Years. Old.” 

She said no more, standing up and departing. Doug followed, waddling like a penguin trying to avoid becoming a polar bear’s lunch. 

Mike and Dr. Cawthon hardly let Jane’s words linger. Both knew she considered that a mic-drop moment, something the two of them couldn’t refute even if they tried. Which it wasn’t; Abby’s age was never in question. But it was clear by Jane’s tone that she didn’t think ten year olds should have a say in what their life path would be.  

Alone to speak, Mike and Dr. Cawthon’s eyes met. Thinking to take the conversation somewhere less clinical, she invited him to the empty classroom, where the two of them could see the class run about outside, through large windows. Right there, just a few steps away, Abby colored to her heart’s content, in her own world.

“She doesn’t even care about Abby.” Mike complained. “All she wants is the monthly check from the state.” He took a deep breath to steady himself. “But, I mean, she has some good points. I’m hardly fit to be raising a kid.”

Cawthon shook her head. “I know a little girl who would strongly disagree.” She motioned towards Abby, who was still sitting at the picnic table. 

“Come on,” Mike scoffed. “She talks to air more than she talks to me. I could drop dead tomorrow, and she’d be too busy drawing to even notice.” 

The woman’s lips curled into a slight smile. “You know, pictures hold tremendous power for children. Before we learn to speak, images are the most important tool we have for understanding the world around us. What’s real, what matters to us most; these are things children learn to communicate almost exclusively through pictures.”

Unmoved by her flowery language, Mike translated it into a form his fuzzy brain could comprehend. “Yeah, so her pictures mean something.”

Her smile grew, recognizing that she was getting through to him. “And who is at the center of nine out of ten of them?” 

It took a few moments for Mike to say it, but he conceded her point with a nod. “Me.”

“Like it or not, you’re her world.”

“But what if it’s not up to me?” Mike continued. “My aunt’s an idiot, but she’s right; no judge in their right mind is gonna side with me.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.” Dr. Cawthon said. “You’re Abby’s caregiver, and have been for some time. Plus, you’re her immediate family. Demonstrate any sense of stability, and a judge might surprise you. For example, have you found a job yet?”

His silence proved a sufficient answer. 

“Okay, that may be a good place to start.”

Chapter Text

He was expecting to get a recorded message as he dialed up the number on the card. With how flippant Raglan had been during their initial meeting, he wouldn’t have been surprised if he didn’t get an answer.

But midway through the trill of the hold tone, a clicking of static silenced the hum.

“Hello, hello?” The gravelly voice came on the other end, staticky but definitely audible. 

Mike’s lips moved open and shut in surprise, before he responded. “Hi, M-Mister Raglan, it’s Mike. You remember?” He stammered out. 

Raglan gave a small scoff. “Mr. ‘I Can’t Do Nights’? Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hide-Your-Dad-Or-I’ll-Give-Him-A-Black-Eye?” He burst out into a laugh, probably both at his own joke and the expression Mike undoubtedly had on his face. “Oh, come on, that was funny!”

“Hilarious, yeah. I was just, uh, wondering if the job you mentioned was still open.”

“Oh, it absolutely is! Why, did you have a change of heart?” Raglan sounded positively delighted.

Mike looked up from the phone, at a mirror hanging. Reflected in the glass, he saw Abby laying in front of the TV, elbows on the floor with her hands propping up her head. She kicked her feet in the air, watching the colorful cartoons; something about a sponge-man and a golden spatula? 

If Max can’t stay here overnight, I’m screwed.

“How soon can I start?”

Another eager little giggle. “Probably within the next few days! The owner is desperate for a guard, so you’ll probably be able to skip past the interview, provided I can convince him you’re the man for the job. But that shouldn’t be too difficult.”

“Really?” 

“I mean, there’s a chance! No one goes out of their way to search for a job like this, so who knows? The owner can’t have that many applications. And— and uh… You know, I think the last hire for the place came on board last month, and quit last week, or something like that. So… he might take anybody who’s interested at this point!”

Wow. He wasn’t kidding when he said ‘high turnover’.

Mike did wonder, if the average employee tenure lasted that long, what did that mean for the conditions? No matter; for Abby, he’d at least try to weather them.

“You got a paper and pencil on hand?” Raglan probed. “‘Cause if you wanna have the details right now, I can give you the whole shebang. Like, the location, the job, the things you gotta know?”

Mike reached over to the drawer beside the table, yanking it open. The sight of the delinquency notice as he reached for something to write with only sped him up.

“Yeah, yeah.” Mike cocked his head to one side, keeping the phone in place on his shoulder as he prepared to jot everything down. “Tell me.”

“Righty-o!” Raglan exclaimed, chuckling afterward. 

Mike rolled his eyes, unamused.

“So, let me give you a little backstory,” the man on the line opened, like he was about to spin a yarn for campers gathered around a campfire. “You’re gonna be a night guard at this old pizza place, around the edge of the county. Place called Freddy Fazbear’s.” He spoke the name with a note of reverence, though Mike couldn’t tell if it was earnest or sarcastic. “Ever heard of it?”

“Can’t say I have,” Mike returned at once.

“Really?!” The shock in Raglan’s voice carried clear over the phone. “I’ve never been the best at guessing backgrounds, but really, Mike; you seem like the perfect age to have been into it when you were a kid!”

Freddy Fazbear’s. The name repeated itself on the paper, however many times Mike needed to look at it. Wasn’t Raglan supposed to be giving him the job description right now? Why the theatrics?

“Is it important that anyone who gets hired has been there before, sir?” He asked into the receiver.

“Eh— Nah, I guess not. Sorry, I’m a little… a little scatterbrained today!” And Mike could tell. “Anyway! The place started out in 1977 as Fredbear and Friends’ Family Diner; they became Freddy Fazbear’s in seventy-nine, and they spread like wildfire in the eighties. I mean, this place was huge with the kids.”

At this point, Mike assumed Raglan was talking out his ass. What did any of this have to do with the job?

“Thing is, it’s been shut down for years; since, eh… ninety-one? The only reason they haven’t given it the ol’ wrecking ball treatment is that owner. He’s kind of a sentimental guy. Y’know? Just can’t bring himself to let it go yet.” Raglan forced a strange, goofy laugh. “He’s had some trouble with break-ins over the years. Drunks and vagrants, mostly; not ideal. The security system’s dated, but fully functional. Floodlights on the outside, cameras inside and out.”

“Fair warning about the power at the place, though: it’s a bit… iffy. But as long as you keep the amount of juice you’re using down, that shouldn’t be an issue. If anything does happen, there’s a breaker in the main office; just flip it. And as for where the office is… well, once you’re there, I’m sure you’ll be able to figure it out. You’ll need to be there from midnight until six.

Freddy Fazbear’s. Security guard. Abandoned. Shitty electricity. 12am to 6am. These were all well and good to know, but there was also the question of…

“The address?”

“Aah, you’ll— you’ll get the address soon, when the owner gets back to me.” Mike could almost hear Raglan swatting that question away.

Mike didn’t process that Raglan had been speaking about this position as if it were absolutely certain that Mike would get it. ‘You’re gonna be working,’ ‘you’ll get the address soon,’ ‘you’ll figure it out.’ 

“I guess that’s about it,” Raglan summarized, “You know, the rest is pretty easy. Just keep your eyes on the monitors and keep people out. Piece of cake!”

Mike wasn’t sure it was. But he wasn’t going to talk back and squander this opportunity. “Thanks, Mr. Raglan.”

“You’re so very welcome, Mike!” he tittered.

Mike had no response. What was his deal, Raglan had asked? He’d like to know Raglan’s deal right about now. A moment passed with no further exchanges, but no disconnect tone either. 

“So-ooo,” Raglan droned, breaking the uncanny silence. “I will catch you on the flipside. Hopefully.”

The disconnect tone buzzed in Mike’s ear.

Miles away, in his office, Raglan’s expression turned into a massive grin. All the emotions he suppressed while on the line erupted outwards in a cathartic wave. He bore his yellowing teeth, cracking up with full, bellowing laughter. If people heard him from outside and gave each other uncertain looks, he didn’t care. 

He had him. He finally had him.

***

Freddy Fazbear’s. Security guard. Abandoned. Shitty electricity. 12am to 6am. 

The scribbled-down articles in Mike’s list had found themselves contorted in right angles, bent out of shape with the folds he’d made in the paper. At the end of the list, a newer bullet point had been jotted down.

614 Greenbrier Way, Granite Falls.

Raglan’s certainty had not been unfounded. Just two days after their call, a letter arrived for Mike. The letterheads had been separated from the contents by a red and white checkerboard pattern, and had borne the logo of the ancient pizzeria company. The paper had felt far older than it could’ve sensibly been; it had the same odor as the yellowing pages of his copy of Dream Theory.

Now in the driver’s seat of his sedan, Mike’s thumb held the once-folded scrap of notebook paper open, the dome lights illuminating the directions he’d copied from the letter. The headlights lit the desolate road, woodland trees standing by on either side while the engine hummed out its one note song.

Where the road straightened out at the end of a broad curve, the wall of trees on the left-hand side dropped out. Around the road ahead, deserted brick buildings, once home to roadside shops or restaurants, decayed in the night. Some buildings had shaped signs with their lettering long since removed, jutting out from the storefronts; others boasted unlit signs out by the turns into their deserted parking lots, slick from a recent cloudburst. An utter ghost town of a commercial district…

Mike checked the directions once more; the place should be just up ahead, on the right. Glancing out, one lot distinguished itself from its similarly timeworn brethren. Not by virtue of the property being open, or even presentable, but simply thanks to a troupe of working floodlights. 

Land ho.

The engine’s consistent whine began to drop in pitch with the driver’s foot off the accelerator. One could only glean so much about something from glancing out the passenger window when one was on the opposite side of the car, but coasting past the first entry to the parking lot, Freddy Fazbear’s was an even sorrier sight than Mike had envisioned. 

It was larger than he expected; that much he’d concede. He figured it would be about the size of a fast food joint, or a nice, upscale bar at most, but it seemed to be closer to a supermarket in terms of width; height-wise, it hadn’t an obvious edge over any other building on this block. A checkerboard stripe like the one printed on the letter divided the fading, sickly hues of yellow and purple painted on the building’s front fascia, and a teal, trapezoidal roof jutted out from the back of the fascia’s top edge, rising up to extend over the rest of the building’s length.  Two pillars arose from the ground at either corner of the storefront, like a castle or fortress.

The building’s marquee stood proud over the front doors, featuring the same design as the toppled sign out front: the titular Freddy Fazbear, smiling down on the parking lot with one arm mid-wave over his blocky head and the other resting on the edge of the nameplate of the sign as if it were a tabletop. 

The brakes squealed as Mike brought his car to a stop. Having spied no trace of any lines marking any spots, he’d given himself a front-row seat, parking right at the front door. His keys jingled as he worked the ring around the loop of his jeans before pushing the door open and stepping out into the humid air of the night. 

The unmoving eyes of the bear in the marquee image seemed to follow him as he strode up to the front door, locked behind a retractable shutter gate. A bulky padlock and a wadded-up length of iron chain kept the gate’s halves united, and Freddy Fazbear’s sealed off from intruders. Imposing as the lock and chain combo appeared, a simple turn of the brass key Mike had been provided with in the letter dispatched their defenses. 

The yellow and purple theme continued into the building’s interior. Whatever walls weren’t made out of synthetic stone were painted a beige-ish yellow, like rotting cheese. Purple carpeting flanked a checkerboard tile pathway, leading into the main area. The intent, he supposed, was to let guests have something akin to a red carpet treatment. 

I’m hardly getting it now.

A small booth, flanked by the prices and contents of various ticket packages, stood vigil next to the checkered pathway, complete with velvet ropes hanging from gold stanchions, their domes cloudy with dust, to make sure the line stayed single-file. Behind it, he could see various pieces of merchandise; cups, shirts, plush toys.

Mike passed under a welcome arch to enter the pizzeria proper, coming to the dining room. All around him in the bluish half-light, the accommodations and appeals of the once-bustling pizzeria lay in quiescence beneath the light of the moon, admitted through a skylight dome over a carpeted dining area. Chair legs stuck up into the air, perched atop square tables in the room’s center while booth tables lay uncovered at the edges of the carpeted eating space, free of dust. To the right, an arcade landing where games and cabinets languished, all clean as a whistle and waiting to be fed another token. To the left, between a pair of doors leading elsewhere, a prize counter still full of prizes eager to be claimed; masks, plushies, pins, buttons, T-shirts and trinkets. Each and every one, spick and span. 

For a place that’s been closed for a decade, it hardly looks closed at all.

The fully-stocked prize shelves were the biggest question mark. No one had thought to remove them before the company went under? Not one of the “drunks and vagrants” had thought to help themselves to a new shirt or a little plush friend?

As if. The owner must be a control freak or something.

Out of the corner of his eye, an EMPLOYEES ONLY sign on the door beside the counter caught his eye. If he didn’t count as an employee, who did? The door slid open with a soft push; the lights in this hall actually worked. A dim, golden glow showed the way to—

A twinkling crunch sounded from below. 

Mike stopped, dropping his eyes to find virescent shards of glass strewn across the checkered floor. Looking up to find their source, an open poster frame with fragments lingering in its corners held a simple poster: a red background with a star pattern, and the words “GET READY TO ROCK!” in black below the franchise logo. 

And above that logo stood four figures. One was Freddy, with his goofy grin and his microphone in hand. But who were these other three, all just as happy and upright as the star of the show? To Freddy’s left, an indigo rabbit with a spiffy red bow tie wielded an electric guitar; to his right, a yellow beaked creature with eyelashes—the tried-and-true universal shorthand for femininity—donning a bib declaring “LET’S EAT!!” in large cartoony letters, held a pink-frosted cupcake with orange eyes. 

The fourth and final member of the cast, posed above the other three, was a rusty red canine, probably a fox, with an eyepatch. And a smile that was a bit too wide, exposing their carnivorous fangs. Startling, incongruous; disturbing even. 

Mike’s gaze lingered on the one-eyed fox. In the pit of his stomach, something stirred. Why did the fox look so…

The line of thought severed itself immediately, without conscious effort from Mike, like a song on the radio, cut off in the middle of a lyric. The question of whether he had any degree of familiarity with this pizzeria had evanesced, and he forgot ever wondering what that feeling had been. His only thought in its place, continuing to stare intently at the moth-bitten poster:

The good times didn’t last, huh?  

Nothing and no one answered; the state of the building proved it well enough.

A solid metal door waited a few paces forward. He gave the handle, cold to the touch, a turn and stepped into the security office; a square room, just spacious enough to not feel cramped, but nowhere near clean enough to not feel filthy. The colorless cement-brick walls would feel oppressive and utilitarian in a high school locker room, and the hoary films of cobwebs indicated little better. Just like all of the public areas, there were posters plastered across the walls; these ones having far less care put into their placement and maintenance. Most of these were probably meant to be kept internal, if the headers some of them had were any indication. 

First order of business — the breaker.

It was an easy enough find; right beside the door, a large, cobweb-coated gray box on the wall, its lever equally claimed by webs. 

The switch went up easier than he expected; time must have loosened it up. As he pulled the lever up, he could hear the place begin to whir to life. The sound of lights finally flickering back to life after years of inactivity, the generators almost seeming to thank him for letting them perform their duty. 

Satisfied with the purr of electricity running through the building, he turned to face a desk against the wall, laden with stacks of CRT monitors. Seven screens, huddled together on the desk before an oddly-shaped system command console, comprised Freddy Fazbear’s CCTV system, waiting to be powered on with the flick of an in-line switch beside the console.

The monitors sleepily awoke, their monochrome pictures fading in rather than flashing in. Through the cameras, Mike could see any corner of the pizzeria. The entrance, the arcade, the show stages, the dining room; it was all just a click of a button away. With the aid of seven different monitors, he figured he could easily keep tabs on the whole of Fazbear’s environs.

He took a seat in a rolling chair, the leather of its old cushions ripped and cracked. So this would be the job; all of it. Keep your eyes on the monitors and keep people out. That’s the gist of it.  

Sit here , he thought as he patted his fingers against the rubbery buttons on the console, flipping through the cameras, for six hours to guard against intruders.  

Mike took a glance around the grungy room once more, struck with a sudden awareness of how desolate of a place he’d found himself in. How much could there be to guard against out here in Nowhere, Minnesota, during the most ungodly hours possible?

I can think of worse jobs than this, I guess.

***

The minutes dragged by. He turned his head to look at a TV set, mounted on a rolling shelf to the desk’s side. His first thought was whether or not the place had cable, but looking at the shelf beneath the television, a top-loading VCR sat with a tape held in its rising drawer, waiting to be pushed downward into the VCR. Someone had written his name on the label, and gone to the trouble of leaving it perfectly poised for him.

“The hell?” He muttered. 

He turned the television and VCR on, and pushed the tape down into the machine. A push of the Play key initiated a thin, soft buzzing from the machine while the TV screen, having held a steady standby-blue, went dark.

A flash of color parted the black curtain; a compressed, cacophonous din of warbling sawtooth bass, cheaply-sampled orchestra hits and booming, quantized drums pounded out of tinny speakers as the picture came into focus. In a glimpse of the pizzeria’s glory days, the dining area bustled with partygoers, drifting across the room while families at the tables hungered for pizza, tore open presents. In its prime, a family would see Freddy Fazbear’s, and think: good old, clean-cut family fun. For the children who had their parties there and then, it didn’t get any better than this.

A block of text spiraled to the front of the screen, its orange type spelling out “FREDDY’S SECURITY TRAINING” while the crowd continued, unfazed by the camera.

A uniformed woman forcing a smile swept into frame, the text vanishing for her. Looking headlong into the camera, she certainly dressed the part, wearing a red vest whose right shoulder bore a collection of pins, and the left, a nametag too blurry to make out; a white undershirt was hardly noticeable between the vest and her rainbow-flecked tie. Her dolled-up, teased mane of frizzy brunette hair dated the video as much as the music.

“Welcome to Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria!” She said with that pseudo-enthusiasm that could only be found on such a tape. “A magical place for kids and grown-ups alike, where fantasy and fun come to life!”

Another small pang of recognition hit his stomach. 

“If you’re watching this video, that means you’ve been selected as Freddy’s newest security guard! Congratulations! We’re going to have so much fun together.” 

The scene fragmented in sets of bars, each peeling away from those surrounding them. The lady sauntered up towards the camera, past children at the controls of arcade games, coming to a stop in the center of the frame before continuing, standing unnaturally still. 

“The genius who created Fazbear Entertainment opened Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria to indulge in his two greatest passions.” The image flipped around like the page of a book being turned, the screen segmenting into blocks as she went on. “Family-friendly fun,” images of children playing around to their heart’s content in the arcade, and a ball pit Mike had missed when he came in, flashed across the screen, “and cutting-edge animatronic technology!” A power drill unscrewed a bolt from the bare head of a robot. A robot without any sort of character costuming.

An endoskeleton.

“State of the art robotic engineering enables our characters to interact with guests in a truly lifelike fashion.” She continued, now in some backstage area where a jumpsuited man continued working on the endo. “Carefully concealed, rechargeable lithium cells give them limited range to roam free.”

The scene transitioned again, this time with a circle radiating from the center of the frame. The woman had returned to the outer part of the pizzeria, between the two show stages. An unmissable red button on the wall, with the word “SHOWTIME” in yellow, chunky letters floated right above it. “And how does all of this robotic wizardry come together? See for yourself!” She said, before pressing the button on the wall. “Hit it, guys!”

A star transition hid any sort of introduction the show may have had, instead jumping straight to the animatronics performing. 

“Hello everybody!” Freddy started, waving to a nonexistent crowd. “Are you ready to have a good time? I know I am!”

“Cause it's Freddy Fazbear's Pizza

For kids, it's number one!

Freddy Fazbear's Pizza

Where fantasy meets fun!”

“Well, let’s meet the band!” Freddy announced after the first chorus. 

“My name is Freddy, I'm the singer in the band!

Got a hat and a big bowtie!

I'm a big brown bear, but don't be scared!

I'm a real fun lovin' guy!”

Next, the rabbit started singing. “Bonnie's my name, I'm hopping along

Floppy ears and a cotton tail!

My guitar is blazing, this rabbit's hare-raising

Just listen to me wail!”

“Take it, Bonnie!” Freddy instructed, and Bonnie complied. 

“Freddy Fazbear's Pizza

Get your pizza by the pound!

Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza

It’s the greatest spot in town! ”

Third up was the beaked creature. “Hey, I'm Chica, the lady of the group

My singing is a treat!” 

“So sweet!” Freddy added. 

“But keep an eye on your pizza

'Cause I'm a bird who likes to eat!

Nam-nam-nam-nam!”

“Finally, there's Foxy

One eye and a hook for a hand!

He hangs out over in Pirate's Cove,”

Finally, the fox spoke up. “Now you've met all the members of the band!”

“ Freddy Fazbear's Pizza

The fun just can't be beat!

Freddy Fazbear's Pizza

It's time for us to eat!”

With that, the song concluded. It was punctuated by the sound of children screaming and cheering, a perfunctory “YAAAAY!” that sounded more like it belonged on a sitcom than a training tape.

The woman gave a clearly forced laugh as the camera went back onto her. “Adorable, aren’t they?” 

Mike shook his head, fighting the urge to laugh. 

“Protecting these cuddly critters, and the proprietary technology that brings them to life, is now your sacred duty. It’s my job to make sure that you’re properly trained for this critical position. So, let’s get started!” 

The tape droned on, occasionally making sure it still had Mike’s attention by fizzling and dissolving into tracking lines. Nothing a good ol’ fashioned Happy Days -style slap of the TV couldn’t fix, though. 

“Remember, these characters hold a special place in the hearts and minds of children, so be sure to treat them with the respect they deserve.” The tape woman said, completely oblivious to the fact that Mike had only been half listening to her. “Keep them safe, and help ensure that Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria is here to delight, dazzle, and entertain our guests for years to come!”

With a final proud hit of music and a zoom-in on Freddy’s face, the tape ended and the screen faded to black. A few moments later, some small white text appeared at the bottom.

© 1985, Fazbear Entertainment LLC. All rights reserved. 

Eighty-five! Really! The production values, aesthetic and quality of the recording itself would’ve had him guess it was a product of the twilight of the decade. Something about it just had that decadently-colorful character of the time when the late-eighties embarked on a Macchiavellian campaign to out-eighties themselves. Dark times…

Fazbear Entertainment is not responsible for damage to property or person. Upon discovering that damage or death has occurred, a missing person report will be filed within 90 days, or as soon as property and premises have been thoroughly cleaned and bleached, and the carpets have been replaced.

Ah, yes. The requisite “you can’t prove anything” disclaimer.  

The television screen glazed over in blue, signaling the end of the tape. On the desk, one of the boxy little monitors flickered, as if to say: Eyes over here! Do your job!

He slumped in the chair, already bored. What time was it? A glance at the clock high over the cluster of monitors told him… half-past-six? Alright, that clock’s clearly broken. He checked his watch to find the time was only half-past one. How else to kill time? Spinning in the chair, his eyes fell upon a set of lockers against the office’s back wall, collecting dust. He espied no lock on any of them.

Might as well. He pushed himself up, coming to investigate. One already hung slightly open; a simple pull of the—

MOTHER OF GOD!

A sour crash of metal slashed through the air like a sword, the locker rattling from its door being slammed shut.

What in the hell was that face? Steeling himself, Mike peered back in to see it again; a bug-eyed, toothy grotesquerie stared back, holding a sign for “Balloons!” as if customers wouldn’t be expected to run screaming from this rotund caricature of a human being, and its  disease-ridden, nightmarish mug.

A face only a mother could love…

Mike rotated the little affront to all good things in the world, having it stare at the back of the locker. A pair of batteries shuffled between the balloon boy’s feet as he turned it, and a flashlight lay beside it. And left on a hanger below the locker’s shelf, a black vest, with SECURITY emblazoned across one shoulder in striking gold type. He slipped into it, shaking the lapel as he looked himself over in it. 

Yeah. Not bad. And the flashlight?

Taking it from the shelf, he unscrewed the head, slipped the two batteries in, and with the click of the button, cast a golden beam onto the wall. The beam terminated in a hollow, pie-eyed circle of light, wavering in his loose grip.

Now officially on the job, Mike returned to the main dining area with a more scrutinizing eye. He moused around the eatery, familiarizing himself with its small, cluttered layout. The ray of his flashlight swung lazily across the room, refracted by extravagant stained glass artwork of the characters mounted upon the tops of bench chairs at the edges of the carpeted dining space. Back when this place was alive, when the training tape was filmed, they probably would have caught the light of his flashlight, and filled this place with color. Now, only an air of sadness surrounded them.

The prize counter was the first place of interest Mike let his light fall on, the still-functional neon sign above it drawing his eye.  All of the inexplicable goodies seemed to still be in place; the stuffed animals, the shirts, the cups, the… masks . Mike’s flashlight never even touched the edge of a cheap plastic mask, another subconscious move on his part. Instead, it moved down to the counter itself, stuffed to the gills with more generic toys like bouncy balls and playing cards. 

Next to the prize counter was the kitchen, boarded up behind a closed window. He was able to make out an unlit neon sign with the “LET’S EAT!!” on Chica’s bib next to the window; no shocker there. 

The flashlight brushed over the menu, revealing what the pizzeria actually sold back in the day. Value deals — 14.99 for 4 large pizzas and 10 drinks?! 

Naturally, the pizza was front and center, both make-your-own and pre-made combos.

And then, wings and more. He noticed that the wing sizes were all under the label of “Chica’s Wings”.

Does that mean she’s a chicken? She was a bird, she had said as much in the animatronic’s song. 

At once the most striking and most disquieting installation, a wall covered in the drawings of children preceded the arcade. Mostly of the characters themselves, but also of things associated with them; pizza, presents, stars, families, figures in party hats. Unbelievably, he even saw a drawing of the figurine in the locker; meaning not only were those things released to the public, some child liked it enough to draw it. 

Some of these aren’t half bad. Maybe Abby would’ve liked to hang a drawing here.  

The wall of drawings echoed Abby’s room quite a bit. Thinking of her, at home with Max watching out for her, he breathed a relaxed exhale.

Next, his flashlight moved over to the arcade, and he finally got an approximation of where that ball pit was; way in the back, behind the arcade machines. He saw a rope net hung up in the rightmost corner of the main area, probably to let particularly daredevilish kids leap off the ropes into the pit, if not to keep the balls in when they did so. 

Lastly, coming to the center of the dining room, amongst the tables in the center, he turned his flashlight and his gaze upwards at the skylight, showing the pitch-black night sky overhead. The curved glass of the dome caused little glare, but he thought to lower the light anyway, scouring for any stars.

That caused the light to fall on the stage show curtains. The curtains’ red velvet shimmered, iridescent in the path of the beam, no matter if he looked or not. Mike hadn’t bothered himself to think about what could be behind them, if indeed anything might be there. 

Clunk!

Mike jumped in fright. A metallic rattle persisted from behind the curtain, like metal dice rolling across the floor. Staring hesitantly at the stage, shoulders hunched, he called out for anyone to reveal themselves. 

Only silence came back. Not a single ruffle of movement or sound dared to disturb the stagnant air again.

What’re you standing there for? You’re the guard! You have to find out what it was!

He gave a nod of acknowledgement to his inner voice, and hesitantly paced forward. A swarm of thoughts raced through his mind as he neared the stage. Had someone gotten in, on his first night on the job? What could he do to stop them? He should’ve paid closer attention to the monitors, he berated himself.

Steps painted the same off-yellow shade as the walls would let him rise up to the stage. As he took the first step up, both his shaking hands found their way to the grip of the flashlight, the only thing on his person he could use as a weapon. 

He held the flashlight out, brushing it between the curtain and the wall until the head of the flashlight had vanished behind the curtain’s edge; a sliver of its glow bled his way, indicating to him that he’d poked the flashlight past the curtain. With a simple sweep of his hands, he could throw the curtain open.

So he did, swinging the flashlight like he held a baseball bat, throwing the curtain aside and making the rings suspending the red velvet sheet jostle, ringing against one another. Making out a single anthropoid figure in the darkness onstage, Mike centered the beam on it.

And nearly leapt off the steps in panic.

The light had fallen upon a face: a glazed, inhuman face with two massive eyes staring miles out of the pizzeria. A face with a gaping maw full of borne, blunt teeth. A face with a…

Disarming, cute little black nose.

Mike gawked, steadying the light on the face of the hulking animatronic. The initial wave of panic quickly subsided as he, and the giant rabbit, stood still in the silence. It didn’t flick its eyes or move a muscle; or whatever the equivalent of muscles would be for an animatronic, he thought. The rabbit was frozen in place. 

Bonnie Bunny. 

He moved his flashlight down Bonnie’s body. Clad in a suit of plush, cerulean fur, the rabbit stood upright in repose, like a horse would in its sleep. A mouth full of blunt, square teeth; a similarly rectangular muzzle; and the little black nose belying a set of vacant, pink eyes comprised the cartoonish face. The lifeless eyes were settled into a half-lidded squint, as if this leporine golem’s last thought—if it ever had one—was suspicion. Mike realized as the ray of the flashlight passed over Bonnie’s red guitar that this mechanical creature would do him no harm. Didn’t mean he couldn’t be creeped out by its uncanny appearance…

His flashlight then moved a little further to the right, illuminating the yellow beaked animal; which he finally had a name and species for. 

Chica Chicken. 

Before the light from the flashlight reached her, it first went onto her cupcake. Mike hadn’t been able to make out much of what it looked like from the poster, only that it was pink and had eyes. It looked like the cupcake’s costume was hard plastic rather than the velvety fur of the full-size animatronics. It had buck teeth visible under its frosting, and a candle jutted out from its midsection. 

Then, the flashlight moved up to the chicken’s face. Like Bonnie, her eyes were a shade of pink; darker, more vibrant than the eyes of her band mate. Unlike him, Chica’s beak was open, looking like she was smiling. Her uncannily cheerful expression and sunny yellow coloring only served to highlight the weathering on her fur and the shadows cast around her. 

Chica herself seemed harmless, but that cupcake didn’t seem quite so benign. 

And of course… 

His flashlight moved away from Chica and onto the animatronic placed center stage. 

Freddy Fazbear.

It was difficult to get a read on Freddy. Only the bear’s blocky head could be seen clearly, his body obscured by his position just behind Bonnie and the guitar. From this angle, seeing the metal bones and wire veins of the endoskeleton, Mike felt the skin of his own neck crawl, acutely aware of himself.

A final wave of the beam over the three robotic colossi showed no clear sign of damage to any. The whole trio of performers stood as unmoving, unthinking, unfeeling with their feet planted on the stage’s wooden surface; no life of any kind inhabited these creatures. And nary a footfall besides his own had broken the silence since the noise.

Maybe something just… fell off one of them.

Content with his conjured-up answer, Mike closed the curtain, retreating to the relative safety of the office.

***

3 AM. An hour-and-a-half of nothing. Mike could make nothing of the uncanny dereliction of the pizzeria, nor keep his eyes fixed on the monitors for the rest of the shift. He had no superiors to report to, and no coworkers to keep an eye on him; what could stop him from getting some shut-eye?

He’d sat himself in the rolling chair and folded his arms before him to serve as a pillow, head down. Dream Theory sat before him, having had a select few passages reread before its owner had drifted off on the job. Mike had only brought the tatty volume, and expected a simple rest to await him in sleep.

But as he drifted, well before the desk and the chair had faded from perception, what sounded like a faint breeze began to whisper through the office. He didn’t think anything of the sound; it was probably nothing more than a hypnagogic illusion, his mind filling in the blanks he’d turn to his tape recorder to fill.

The soft noise flowed out of the PA speakers, producing a hissing feedback. The static proved to be a sufficient replacement for the nature tape, because with no pills or poster—no other landmarks to watch for on the way to his stop—the dream began again. 

Vroom! Vrooooom!

“—burger with that ketchup?”

“Everything’s better… right, Mike?”

Thunk! Fizz-zz! 

“Towel… watch your brother-?”

Clonk! 

Vrooooom….

“Garrett? GARRETT!”

His scream echoed through the woods, over the rumble of the black car’s engine. He’d reached the end of the memory. In moments, he’d awaken, like always.

In the seconds before he expected to go, a strange noise sounded from nowhere and from everywhere; from between his ears, and from the earth and sky. It sounded like a throat-shredding scream from someone far away, their voice muffled, dulled to the point that Mike couldn’t make out a single syllable. 

He kept his eyes pointed towards the car carrying Garrett away, but he didn’t watch it. Mike stood there, thoughtless, his body caught between a sort of changeover between passenger and participant. The car drove straight, seemingly bound to collide with trees in front of it, yet never did; it traveled on and on, no longer important enough for Mike to register how at one point or another, it simply had gone without explanation. It hadn’t turned away or broken his line of sight; the car and both people inside evanesced, disappeared into thin air, and he failed to process or question quite how.

A twig somewhere behind him snapped.

This more innocuous, unexpected variable quickly switched Mike into ‘active participant’ mode. Mike’s child self was replaced with his current, adult body. 

He turned around and saw that it wasn’t just one someone, but five. Five children: four boys and a girl. None of the group could have been much older than Garrett was. 

Four out of five of them wore or wielded  paper accessories. A tall and lanky boy in navy blue wearing a headband adorned in rabbit ears. A somewhat pudgy and spiteful looking one in orange, a pirate’s hook in the place of his left hand. A short one in a pinkish-orange striped shirt, wearing a plain white top hat. And the girl, her hair in long pigtails, her yellow shirt covered by a bib. 

The one who didn’t have any accessories was a blonde wearing a brown striped sweater. He stood apart from the other four, in front of them. 

What… 

“What is this?” Mike’s thoughts bled out from the mouth of his dream self. “Who are you?”

No answer from any of the children. They all stood deathly still, not a twitch of a wrist or quiver of a lip.

“That— th-that car,” he stammered, pointing after it, not entirely aware of how it vanished. “Did you see that car? Did you see what happened?”

The children didn’t reply, all glaring at him with eyes like hawks.

“Did you see who took my brother?” 

He waited on bated breath for any response. The whole woods seemed to have gone quiet; the birds no longer chirped and the wind didn’t rustle the leaves.

All five children whirled around at once and scattered, running as quickly as their legs could carry them. In the corrosive silence of the woods, the patter of their footsteps running away shook the earth.

“Wait!” Mike gasped, breaking into a run after them. “No! Come back!”

He couldn’t catch them all; they’d split up, each one running in a different direction.

The blonde! Go for the blonde!

Mike took off after the blonde boy, who ran in a straight line away from him. He chased the boy as quickly as he could, but never drew closer. The boy led Mike towards a fallen tree, a thicket of its branches forcing the boy to duck under them to move. Mike had just begun to calculate how he’d follow when his foot struck something in its path. He threw his arms up, seeing the ground come racing at his face.

But it wasn’t the forest floor that met Mike when his face met the ground. It was the checkerboard floor of the office. Slowly he came to, letting out a winded cringe before taking stock of the insistent beep of his watch. Pulling back his sleeve, the digital face relayed 6 AM exactly.

Man. Talk about perfect timing… Ow…

A blunt pain from where his head met the floor beckoned a hand to soothe it. Clumsily sitting upright against the desk, holding that hand against the throbbing bump on his temple, he reached the other up onto the desk and retrieved the book. 

He’d finally managed to become that active participant. And this was how it had happened. Where had those children come from? What were they doing there? He couldn’t remember seeing them before, anywhere.

As Mike locked up the pizzeria and trudged to his car, he thought nothing of that distant scream he heard just before the children appeared. Like how he’d stopped wondering what about the fox had made him feel so peculiar, never to ponder it again, he’d dropped that line of thought too, before it ever had a chance to start.

***

The front door squeaked open.

Stirred from sleep on the couch, Max ignored the numbness of her arm, tingling from how she’d slept. Craning her neck up, she saw Mike shamble over to a coat rack by the kitchen.

“Hey,” she greeted, drowsy but polite. Having just awoken, her mind was clear of the trance he’d come home to find her in last time. Looks like he survived! Thank goodness.

A vexed Mike returned her greeting, in the same beaten voice she’d come to expect from him. Was he… wearing two coats? She clocked him hang a dark green one on a hook, but neglected to remove the other, gray one; without another word or anything more than a quick glance, as if to check that she was there—physically, visibly there to speak and project her voice herself—he sank into the rocking chair to the sofa’s side.

“So?” A smile graced Max’s friendly face. Sure, she didn’t need to remind him that the hours were awful, but he made it through a shift! He’d come home, where Abby needed him! He ought to be proud of himself for that, she figured. “How’d it go?”

Mike nodded wordlessly, his astonished expression unchanged. “Uh… It was interesting.”

He’s in one of those moods, she surmised from the utter vacuum of his presence. I mean, if I worked from midnight to morning, I’d probably be the same if someone asked me what it was like.

“I should probably get outta here.” Max stood up, collecting her phone from the coffee table and stowing it in her pocket.

Mike sat there, unperturbed. Was this really going to be how he made a living? Scraping by with just enough money to keep the hounds at bay? If it weren’t for Max being such a good friend, he’d surely be screwed; he couldn’t pay anyone else to house-sit.

That last thought roused him from his somnambulant state. Without leaving the chair, he reached out a hand to stop her.

“B-By the way, Max. I do intend on paying you, eventually.”

“It’s okay.” Her smile returned as she waved a hand. Breaking into a giggle, she raised her brow and joked, “I know where you live!”

Mike let out a single huff of laughter as Max fetched her things and left. Where would he and Abby be without her?

His thoughts soon overtook him again, keeping him rooted in the chair. The dull, dead-eyed looks of the animatronics on their stage, suspended in time, waiting for a show that would never come. The training video, suspiciously staged both in the VHS tape itself and in its contents. 

But none of those thoughts progressed beyond the initial germ of an idea. All thoughts about the pizzeria had, it seemed; he could think nothing more about anything he’d seen, or where he’d been. If only he could go to sleep now, and try to regain a sliver of mental energy. 

Can’t. Abby’s gotta go to school soon.

He rose, going to her room to check on her. Remembering Max having said nothing about her, he gingerly pushed the door of her room open, peering in. There, cozy beneath the covers and with her teddy bear enfolded in her arms, she slept soundly. 

He smiled, letting the door glide shut, tiptoeing away so as not to disturb her; she had time to rest yet.

Hope her dreams are better than mine.

Chapter Text

The laminated paper brushed through his fingers; he’d narrowly missed.

The bedsprings squeaked and cried in protest as Mike landed. An early-evening shower pattered on the windows as he readied himself for another jump, trying to grab his Nebraska poster. Counting in his mind, he bent his knees, bouncing without his feet leaving the bed as a way to prime himself before he made another leap. He managed to touch the poster again, but still no luck getting it off the ceiling.

Why did I ever put it up there anyway?

Mike focused on nothing but getting it down, to the exclusion of everything beyond his bed. Abby walking into his room to watch his struggle to remove the poster when completely past him until she spoke up.

“What’re you doing?”

He’d finally gotten a hold of it, working his fingers under the poster and firmly gripping it as he fell. His hope that he might pull the poster clean off the ceiling shattered as it came down; a loud RIP! proved those hopes were in vain. He crashed down on the sheets holding a corner of the poster in his hand, frayed into white fiber on its inner edges.

Goddamn it.

Ignoring his frustration with the poster, he climbed off the bed to look Abby in the face. Once he was actually looking at her, he noticed her wearing his security vest. It drooped from her shoulders and hung around her like a raincoat; it looked as if she wore a shirt stolen from his closet.

“You need something?” He asked, adjusting his position to face her. 

“No,” came her usual blunt answer.

“Alright. Quit playing with that; I’ve gotta go to work.”

“I know,” she nodded. “I’m coming with you.”

Mike’s shoulders involuntarily tensed. “No, you are not .” he ordered, unusually stern. “Give me that.”

“No!” 

Mike crouched, hands on his shaking knees. “Give me the vest. Now.”

She copied him, assuming the same posture. “I’m going with you!”

***

Max stepped in through the front door and pulled back the hood of her raincoat. Down the hall, in one of the bedrooms, she could hear the squalor of a sibling argument, both of them talking over each other.

Abby’s voice escalated to a manic squeal as the floorboards creaked; someone was moving. Both of them came into view as Mike crossed the hall, manhandling Abby to her room. The young girl flailed her arms in the air, churned her legs by her brother’s face, like a duck separated from the water. 

“HE’S TAKING MY VEST!” Abby shrieked, grabbing onto the hallway with all her strength before Mike could pull her away. 

The squabble picked up immediately after Abby vanished from sight. Nothing cohesive, just Abby’s high pitched whining alternating with Mike’s monotone grunts. 

To a final demand from Abby for him to give back the vest, Mike returned with a cold, flat, “No.”

The door of Abby’s room slammed shut, and Mike shuffled back into view, holding the vest in his hands as he turned to Max.

Nothing seemed off about Max; she wore the same sleepy but amicable face as always, unable to help but smile at what she’d just witnessed.

“She’s all yours.” He sighed.

***

Relentless sheets of rain hammered down on the roof of Freddy Fazbear’s, sweeping the parking lot clean. The rain’s sonorous roar beat through the pizzeria’s aged walls and ceilings, yet Mike, after only thirty minutes into his second night on the job, managed to tune it out completely.

On the cluster of monitors beneath his Nebraska poster, lightning flashes beamed what almost looked like sunlight in through the front doors, the skylight. Mike lay asleep in his chair, his head flung back with a pair of headphones over his ears, hearing the flat playback of his nature sounds tape on his recorder.

Had he been watching, he may have noticed the curtains of the smaller show stage wide open to reveal nothing there; just a wooden stage floor, backed by a brick wall. On the monitor beside it, a lightning flash threw the shadow of an animatronic across the wall: an animatronic holding its hooked hand aloft. 

Outside, down the road, a pair of headlights cleaved a bright path through the darkness of the abandoned commercial district, drawing near to Freddy Fazbear’s. In the cabin, mounted over where the cupholders would be, a radio console filled with switches and dials softly buzzed with electricity, muffled voices addressing someone other than the car’s driver burbling in and out.

“10-26. Break-in suspect apprehended, will report back shortly. Over.” The ragged old voice of the man on the line carried an authority beyond description for all those hearing it through the speakers of their two way radios. As the operator on one of several other ends reported back to the man to confirm they’d received his message, the woman driving through the storm silently saluted her superior.

Another perp taken care of. Good on you, Captain Thompson. Even in her mind, his title was mandatory.

The wipers flicked back and forth over the windshield in a steady rhythm, her headlights showing the road ahead and the derelict buildings lining her path. She drove without a thought beyond alertness, waiting for her name to burble out of her radio or for something outside to stick out to her; something that didn’t belong, something aberrant.

If her younger self could’ve seen what would become of all these shops along Greenbrier, if she’d never seen hide nor hair of this road between then and tonight, everything here would be an aberration. Where there now stood buildings of drab gray, their paint peeling away from a decade of neglect at best—and several years of vandalism at worst—she could still imagine families like her own, strolling down the sidewalks to the little old coffee shop, the hardware store, and the financial office on a tough day.

As she thought of the biggest attraction on this street, her eyes flitted to look out the window to her left. Beyond the roof of another pitiful cinder-block structure, slowly being claimed back by nature, the silver beams of the building’s floodlights were still on. She thought little of them; someone, somewhere, paid to have them on. 

The same person who keeps scrounging around for security hires. She had to wonder, as Freddy’s came into view, who the next poor schlub working the graveyard shift would be.

The officer went from eyeing Freddy’s to jerking her head towards it, pressing her foot into the brake pedal. Over the doors, the likeness of Freddy waved at her, just like it had all those years ago. Bulbs strobed around the marquee’s perimeter, and through the front doors, she could see a warm golden glow in the lobby.

Slowing her cruiser, the officer turned into the parking lot and coasted into a space beside a conspicuous sedan. Her hand moved to pick up the microphone of her radio, and lifted it to her lips.

“Officer Albright to station. Over.”

“10-2; 10-5,” a dispatcher’s voice responded through the static, asking her to state her message.

“Currently 10-20 at Freddy Fazbear’s for a code six. We may be looking at a break-in. Over.”

“10-4, Officer Albright. Standing by for information. Over.”

Holstering the microphone in the machine, the officer reached over the shifter to open her glove compartment, withdrawing a poncho.

***

“GARRETT!!” 

Mike shouted down the old dirt road. 

To his surprise, he heard the snapping of twigs which signaled the presence of the five mysterious children. He turned to face them once more.

The children seemed slightly different this time, their natures altered. The previous night, they had all just stood there, rigid, stoic, and unfeeling. This time, however, there was some variety. 

The boy with the rabbit ears had his arms folded, his posture and sly grin suggesting a cocky attitude. The blonde boy, the leader, seemed mostly unchanged, but his expression seemed angrier. The same could be said of the pudgy boy with the pirate’s hook, now sporting a jacket and reddish-brown shorts. The other two, the boy in the top hat and the girl, seemed afraid of him, the girl cowering back and the boy eyeing him cautiously. The girl’s outfit had changed significantly, like the boy with the hook — her shirt and pants replaced by a simple yellow dress. Her long blonde hair was now loose, with ringlet curls throughout. 

“Wait, please!” Mike said, cautiously approaching them. “P-Please, don’t— don’t run.” He stammered out. “I-I just want to know what you saw.”

The children’s expressions actually changed as he asked them for help. Some looked confused, others annoyed, and the blonde boy seemed strangely frustrated. They looked at one another, as if they were silently convening on what to do. 

“Please… I’m begging you… help me.” He continued, approaching the children like they were wild animals.

The bunny-eared boy leaned forward, the sly grin not leaving his face as he shook his head. 

Mike’s panicked expression turned into a scowl. “WHO TOOK GARRETT?!”  

All five turned and scattered like billiard balls knocked away in the opening shot, just as they had the night before. 

Oh, no, you DON’T! Mike rocketed forward, setting his sights on the boy in the orange shirt, running in a straight line; he’d take the least effort to chase, Mike figured. In moments, Mike had closed the gap between them. But just as Mike lunged his hand out to grab the boy’s shoulder, the boy had twisted around, raising his hook hand up in the air and swinging it down over Mike’s arm, cleaving through the green fabric of Mike’s shirt and into his flesh. 

Mike screamed, dropping to his knees with a hand shooting straight for the source of the searing pain. Grasping at it did nothing to quell the torment; he lifted his hand and stared at his palm. 

Red. Dark red with his blood, both his hand and the path of ruin the hook had gouged in his arm, spilling over with it, pulsing with the beat of his thumping heart. Mike gasped through his clenched throat, turning his head up to the—

The ginger boy’s eyes had turned black as night, oily, pitch-black tears streaming down his face. He let out a horrible… To call it a scream would imply that it was something a human mouth could produce.

***

Mike jolted himself awake to find himself assaulted with a whorl of flickering lights, huge blasts of light firing out, the monitors and bulbs threatening to blind him. He threw his headphones off, ready to leap to the breaker and fix the situation, but hadn’t left his chair when his eardrums nearly burst with the cataclysmic volume screaming out of the speakers, rattling dust loose from the surfaces of the room.

Only through his ears, cowering in pain from the piercing feedback, did Mike notice a song crackling through the speakers, in and out of legibility: 

Aruba, Jamaica…

To Bermuda, Bahama…

Key Largo, Montego…

Crushing walls of chipper-sounding voices ran down a list of tropical getaways over pummeling distorted drums, so horrifically loud that any sounds other than the singing and percussion were crushed, crunched into fizz.

He stood up, ignoring the punishing volume and eyeing the breaker by the door, but no sooner had he turned to it than the onslaught of the speakers and lights appeared to have ended. The music had quieted to a pleasant level, and the lights stayed constant without flickering. 

He lowered his hands from his ears, looking around in confusion. Had there been an electrical surge? A malfunction at a nearby power plant that this place didn’t have the upkeep to handle? Looking back to the breaker, he decided a reset would do no more harm to the ancient wiring than whatever had just transpired. 

As he moved towards the breaker, the song swayed on, as relaxed and agreeable as a beachgoer, cozy in their lounge chair. Mike thought nothing of the music, and didn’t process anything about it, except for a lone singer’s voice in the song, uttering in a secretive, leering way: I wanna catch a glimpse.

A booming drum fill brought the deafening static blasts and frantic flickering back, worse than they’d been before. With a yelp of panic, he went back to cowering, covering his ears. 

His eyes, squeezed shut, did not stay closed; cutting through to his eardrums, as distorted and blown-out as the rest of the song, came a wistful, soaring saxophone. 

The saxophone’s scratchy, yearning cry set loose a primal fear in him. He shot to his feet and plowed across the room, lunging for the breaker. He didn’t throw the lever down as much as he fell to the ground, his outstretched hand grabbing it and pulling it down with him. 

A moment of uncomfortable stillness in the dark, his hand gripping the lever while the rest of him lay on the ground, slouched against the wall. The feral part of his being that had taken over at the sound of the saxophone, retreated into the recesses of his hippocampus; the danger it sensed had gone.

He got up, once again moving the lever with him. As the breaker moved back into the “on” position, the building whirred back to life, into a state of relative peace. 

A shrill buzz. Seeing an intercom beside the breaker, he tried to calm down as the buzz came again. Back to the cameras he shuffled, standing over the desk. On the biggest of the screens, boasting four camera feeds, the feeds of the two cameras displayed in the monitor’s upper half undid all his efforts to ground himself.

The right camera showed the parking lot. There, parked near his car, a black-and-white police cruiser weathered the driving rain.

Oh, shit. 

The buzzer came again as he checked the left feed, showing the front doors. A figure in a rain poncho gave up on the buzzer, resorting to banging their fist on the door. Mike’s heart crashed against his chest when the officer turned their face towards the camera, looking right at him. The hooded, stern face of a young woman formed in the pixelation, staring up at the camera with what looked like a faint scowl. 

How long has she been out there? 

Longer than she should have been, he decided, hurrying to the door. 

The roar of rain on the pavement, and the earthly aroma of petrichor, filled the pizzeria’s lobby as he opened the door for her. Any noise—such as old songs about island getaways with jarringly loud sax solos—would have been muffled by the storm. A blessing in disguise for the already paranoid Mike. 

“‘Bout time!” Albright exclaimed over the downpour. “Was starting to think you were asleep on the job.”

Mike gulped. “Can I… help you, Officer?” He asked cautiously. 

She looked him over. “Depends on what you say, mister…” 

“Uh— Mike; Mike Schmidt. How did you—?”

“Know you were here? You turned the sign on. Kinda hard to ignore a flashing sign in these parts.” The form of her poncho shifted as she placed her hands on her hips, drilling him down with a steely, authoritative glower.

“I’m— I’m the new security guard. I’m supposed to be here; I have the key for the gate.”

Her eyes followed his frantic hands as he dove one into his pocket, fishing it out and showing it. Only when the precisely-formed nugget of brass glinted the light of the floodlights back at her did her gaze relent, flicking back to Mike’s flustered face. She studied him closely, watching every quiver of his lips; every blink of his swiveling, bloodshot eyes.

“I see,” she nodded. “Are you going to invite me in or what?”

Mike spluttered, stepping back to hold the door open. He buttoned his lip as she entered, trying to still himself. Don’t look suspicious, he ordered himself, looking down at… 

What was that on his hand? Lifting it up to his face, he saw a trickle of blood. No, there’s more than one! He rotated his hand towards him, trying to figure out— 

He jolted, biting his lip shut to keep from shouting. A terrible gouge had been slashed straight down his forearm, nearly black with blood. When the fuck did that happen?!  

The officer shed her poncho to stand in her police blues, revealing a head of blonde hair, pulled back in a taut ponytail. From a cursory glance around the lobby, nothing seemed out of place, or moved since her last time inside. Not that that means Mikey here is off the hook yet.

“So, Mike Schimdt ,” she turned to face him so quickly that he only just managed to obscure his mysterious wound, hiding it by hugging himself, “when did you get this job?”

“A couple days ago,” he answered, as cool as he could manage.

The officer nodded, eyes narrowed. She could see how his right hand clutched at his opposite elbow, clinging to it too tightly to be nothing.

“Calm down, will you?” The nylon of the poncho shuffled as she draped it over the welcome counter. “I’m just here to ask some questions!”

Mike winced, trying to ignore the pain. 

“We don’t have to talk here. We can go to the office if you want.” The officer told him. 

“Do you know where it—?”

“I’ve been here more times than you have, Schmidt; I know.” She said, powering forth without him. 

Mike followed, holding his stinging arm. 

***

Officer Albright’s clear, keen eyes of pale green passed over the office under its new occupant, absorbing, imprinting each still frame in her mind like the eternal record of a camera. Once trained by the force to exercise this percipient, rivet-counting focus, one could never unlearn it. The simplest of sights would become a picture puzzle; viewed from afar with each puzzle piece in place, they blended into reality. Into fact.

Mike slunk in to take a seat at a table behind her, fretful as she surveyed his workspace. Nothing out of the ordinary, she thought, except for the new poster over the monitors. Why Nebraska?

“It’s nice to see someone’s taking care of the place,” she remarked, her tone sterile; she wasn’t here for small talk.

Mike looked to the side as Albright, whose name he didn’t yet know, came to the table. Cautious of his arm, he tried to hide it behind his back; a conspicuous action which only drew her attention to it. 

Her eyes narrowed slightly. “You have something?” She asked, lowering her voice. 

“No, it’s nothing.” Mike shuffled in his chair, trying to avoid her gaze. 

“Then don’t hide it from me; give me your arm.”

Mike swallowed. So plain was the warning, the reminder of her authority, he dared not resist her lawful request. He rotated his arm towards her, drawing his hand away from the gouge. Flesh torn open, blood already coagulating.

Gingerly she held his arm. Bereft of anything but her serious, studying gaze, her face gave him no clue what went through her mind; she evinced no trace of surprise as she looked it over. But, before she spoke again, the woman gave a quiet sigh. For a split-second, Mike sensed vulnerability behind her dutiful front.

“Stay there.” She gestured at him as she stood. “Let me patch that up.” There went that trace of vulnerability; she took charge of the situation with nary a moment wasted.

He sat back, holding his arm as she strode towards the lockers behind him. With a few quick squeaks of the old joints opening and the door shutting, she returned to the table, opening the little red tub and pulling out a roll of gauze. Almost involuntarily, he held out his arm to let her begin her treatment. 

A brass tag on her shirt caught his eye as she wrapped his arm; black letters crossed its narrow surface. She turned at just the right angle for one of the feeble office lights to glint off the golden pin, showing the letters.

“Albright?” He read off, testing the name out. 

The officer paused for a moment; she had never told Mike her name. “Vanessa Albright,” she supplied, giving a quick, polite smile as she did so. “Pleasure to meet you, Mike.” Silently, he watched as she finished wrapping the gauze with a whisper of, “That should do it,” before putting the supplies away. He rolled his sleeve over the gauze, content to let it be; the faint pulsing beginning to die down.

“Thanks,” he paused, “O-Officer Albright.”

“Don’t mention it.” She gave him a nod of acknowledgement. “Just doing my job. Speaking of…” She leaned on the chair’s back, staring down at him. “This job doesn’t seem to be treating you all that well.”

The sleeve of his jacket warmed his arm, as if it were an old friend, giving an embrace. He glanced at her, not quite present. “What?”

“I could feel your heartbeat through your arm; it was pounding like a jackhammer. Your eyes are bloodshot, you’ve been wounded. Have you seen anything or anyone suspicious tonight?”

“No, I— I haven’t. It’s just been a long night.”

Vanessa glanced at the security cameras, before giving a quick nod of acknowledgement. “Sounds like Freddy’s.” She sat herself opposite him, crossing her arms on the table. “This place, it gets to people.”

I don’t doubt it, thought Mike.

“Which is one of the reasons why you’re gonna quit,” she declared, unprompted.

Mike scowled, remembering how Raglan had brought up his predecessor’s brief tenure. That the police knew how short these hires lasted didn’t fill him with confidence, but…

“Who says I’m gonna quit?” he asked, more defensive than he meant to sound. He had no intention of losing this job; not as long as Abby depended on him.

Vanessa dropped her eyes to her hands, together on the table. “Nobody lasts long here. Especially not security hires like you. You’re always gone within a month.”

“I’ll try to stick around,” he returned. “I’ve gotta.”

A shrug from the woman. “I suppose you could try. As long as someone’s working here, there’s always a chance.”

Nothing more from him.

“Have you seen the band yet?”

“The band?”

***

Forceful snaps from the lot of plastic switches filled the dining room. Little light came into the dining room, the circuitry dead from years of neglect and intrusion; across the room, the arcade games bleeped and zapped. The multihued bursts of light colored the walls of the far nook, reflecting off the tables as Vanessa led Mike toward the stage.

“So, what happened?”

“To whom?”

“All those other guards. What happened to them?”

Vanessa’s strides slowed as they were nearly past the tables. Her head hung as she reached her hands out, grabbing the backrests of a chair to either side of her.

“You really don’t know?”

Mike stopped a few paces behind her, noting her reaction. So this place had a tragic backstory? Was that why Steve had asked him if he’d heard of it? 

She took his silence for an answer of no.

“Every guard who’s worked here since this place shut down has been found dead within weeks of taking the job.”

Dead?! Mike reeled, snapped to awareness by this revelation. 

“Every single one of them,” she said, rapping her fingers on the chair headrests, “was here, on duty.” Unbidden images of some of those unfortunate souls came to mind, to be dismissed with a sigh. “And add to that the missing children…” she muttered as she approached the SHOWTIME button between the two stages. 

Mike lagged behind her, jolted out of any preoccupation. To trail off on a note like that, seconds after talk about this job having an unbroken history of on-the-job deaths, with little more than annoyance indicated in her tone, would be ghastly to her in any other line of work. Of course, he couldn’t see how it was acceptable here either.

“I— I’m sorry, what did you say?” 

“One thing at a time. We’re here to meet the band, and that’s what we’re doing.” She said, before pressing the red button. Prepare to have your mind blown, Mikey.  

A dozen things took place at once. Spotlights of every color imaginable began streaking across the pizzeria, disco balls moving and adding to the mesmerizing, almost overwhelming display. Mike found himself cowering, shielding his eyes from the blinding display. 

A loud, staticky whine cut through the air, before solidifying into a triumphant fanfare. “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls!” A proud, announcer-like voice rallied over the PA system. “Fazbear Entertainment would like you to put your hands together for the one, the only, Freddy Fazbear!” Music flowed from the speakers: skittering, insistent drums and percolating piano glided effortlessly over a rising, brasslike bass drone. Spotlights far behind them blazed to life, dancing across the curtains; over the music, servos and motors squeaked and clanked from backstage as the animatronics prepared to perform. 

The curtains parted, and the four animatronics were finally revealed in all their glory, dancing under spinning, searching stage lights. Freddy, Bonnie and Chica had woken from their slumber, moving in place, their limbs and bodies articulating in rigid shapes, dancing the most robotic, rudimentary dances.

Freddy opened his mouth, and a pitchy, high-register voice rang from the speakers.

Oh, I’ve tried before to tell her

of the feelings I have for her in my heart.

Every time that I come near her, 

I just lose my nerve, as I’ve done from the start.

The voice singing absolutely did not belong to Freddy. On the training tape, Freddy had a boisterous, hearty baritone; the singer on this obviously prerecorded track sounded like he’d come into the studio with a nasty sinus infection. At the end of the verse, the music dropped out without warning, the spotlights dimming, only for the show to burst back to life when Freddy led the rest of the band into the chorus.

Every little thing she does is magic,

Everything she do just turn me on.

Even though my life before was tragic,

Now I know my love for her goes on.

Bonnie and Chica swayed in unison behind Freddy, raising their free hands whenever the song’s backing vocalists chimed in, all three swaying side-to-side in a rolling, majestic wave. 

What… What is this? 

Mike backed away from the stage, his jaw agape and eyebrows arched. That terrible knot in his gut had returned; far, far worse. 

His eyes darted across the room. 

Do I have to tell the story

Of a thousand rainy days since we first met?

Isolated from the other three on his own treasure island of a stage, standing tall over the out-of-order sign, the fox had appeared; the red, patch-eyed, hook-handed fox. He played no instrument, just dancing along like Chica. He glanced out at the absentee crowd, his ears perking up and his jaw hanging open like an excited dog.

I don’t know you. I don’t know you. I DON’T FUCKING KNOW YOU! 

If Mike even registered that his own blood was splattered across the fox’s hook, if he’d made the connection between the ginger-haired child in his dreams and the fox of the waking world, he showed no sign of it. All he could think of was leaving, retreating back into the office. 

It's a big enough umbrella,

But it's always me that ends up getting wet.

“I take it this is not the best thing you’ve seen in your entire life?” Vanessa looked askance at him, seeing how he recoiled at the sight of the animatronics.

He looked over at her, at first with a look of gawking horror before he quickly began to suppress it. “It’s not the worst ,” He gasped as if reeling from a punch to the gut, trying desperately to play it off and return to equilibrium. 

But the damage had already been done. She was making notes of everything he couldn’t quite suppress; trembling lips, stiffened posture, the way his gaze seemed to be traveling back and forth between awareness and dissociation. She could tell something was off, something even he may not have been fully aware of. 

Her expression softened as she logged his reaction, not wanting to further provoke him if she could avoid it. “Focus on something else. Maybe the song?” 

The song? It was worth a try. Mike closed his eyes and tried to follow Vanessa’s orders. Piano… bright… silent fears…? If tonight was anything to go by, his own fears were far from silent.

A burst of light and noise from onstage. Startled, both turned to see a blast of sparks spewing into the air from Bonnie’s form, the lights behind the band going out and the music slowing like a tape spinning on inertia, until it too stopped. The other animatronics froze in their poses as the curtains automatically drew shut, ending the show before it could truly begin.

Vanessa stepped back, starting to move back towards the office; the performance had shown what she needed to see. “Guess the band’s got stage fright tonight,” she muttered as she kicked her heels on the carpet, drifting away from the stage.

“Y-You mentioned some missing kids?” He stammered, unable to get over how quickly the subject had been brought up and dropped, like it was common knowledge.

“Yeah.” Vanessa nodded, sitting down in a booth stall. “On more than one occasion. The first case was in ‘83, then several vanished at once, in ‘84.”

“What happened to them?” 

The best response she could give was a shrug. “The case went cold long before I joined the force. A couple folks were interrogated, but no one was ever charged. But it was huge news when it happened; even I remember hearing about it, and I was, like, ten.” She sat down, shaking her head with a nostalgic sigh. “I wanted to have a birthday here so bad. I remember bawling my eyes out when I heard it was gonna shut down.”

“Do you think there’s any… connection?” Mike asked, trying to help bolster his chances of survival. “Between the missing kids and the dead guards?”

“I’ve entertained the thought,” she admitted. “But I’ve never been able to find anything concrete. For all I know, it could just be a coincidence that all the guards have died.” Her expression showed that she didn’t believe it to be so. “But whatever it may be, there is one common element. It’s always gory.” She shuddered, thinking back to some of the corpses she had found ever since she took up this beat. “You’re lucky you managed to get out with nothing but a scratch on your arm, deep as it was. In fact, I think you deserve a reward.”

“N- No, it’s fine, you don’t…” He started almost as soon as she finished speaking. Then, his expression changed as his hands lowered. It was strange, how immediate and vehement that statement was. What was he so afraid of? It was just a little trinket from his workplace; it wasn’t like the thing was irradiated or something. It wasn’t like he had to get it for himself either. “Actually, yeah.” He decided, giving a reluctant sigh as he did so. “I can just give it to Abby.” 

“Abby?” Vanessa looked over her shoulder, an eyebrow slightly cocked. 

“My, uh… sister.”

Vanessa gave a nod of acknowledgement. “As long as it’s not gathering dust here. Now come on, I’ll grab something for you.”

Vanessa led him to the prize counter, the decrepit merchandise vendor between the kitchen and the “employees only” hallway. Stepping behind the glass case, its inside and outside turbid with dust and cobwebs, she ducked down, reaching into the case to withdraw a plastic tub. Setting it upon the countertop, Mike watched her peel away a covering of dust before digging through a collection of colorfully-painted, medallion-like coins, chinking against one another as she looked through them. 

Several different patterns, schemes encompassed the lot of coins: at least one of each of the four animatronics, painted to match, and a fifth design featuring the whole band. It appeared that each coin featured on its back face, arching in rainbow-formation around the pizzeria logo, the numbers 1977 - 1987, and TEN YEARS OF FUN! with the two mantras forming a circle.

1000 tickets? Coins? Whatever this place used. Yes, according to a paper slip taped to the tub’s front, someone could’ve taken home a commemorative coin for one-thousand of the arcade’s arbitrary currency units. Could anyone interested in these have asked for a particular one, like whichever featured their favorite animatronic?

“You got a favorite?” She asked, suggesting that assumption to be correct.

A shake of his head told her he didn’t.

“Alright. How ‘bout…” She flipped a few coins around, stirring her hand in the pile. “Chica.”

She plucked a coin from the lot, holding it up for him to see. Within a brassy rim, bright yellow filled the decorative cast of enamel, with the likeness of Chica Chicken embossed in its surface, giving the world a joyful wink. Flipping the coin around showed the coin, like all of them, celebrated Freddy Fazbear’s decennary.

“Is Chica… your favorite?”

Vanessa smiled. “Don’t have much of an option, being a girl and all.” She placed the coin in his palm. “But you can consider this a lucky charm.”

The frenetic beeping of his watch caught their attention. Six o’clock had come.

“Time to head out?” I ought to report back anyway.

He nodded, eyes meeting hers for a second before returning to the coin. Turning the coin in his hand, feeling the cold, smooth enamel, the gloss of the yellow and black paint, and wondered what use he’d have for it.

Would she like this? He wasn’t entirely sure. This felt like it’d be up her alley, but something in the back of his mind insisted that she’d be unenthused. She wanted to come here pretty bad…

“ Khm …” Vanessa coughed, clearing her throat. “I trust you know how to lock the place up. Do you?”

Another nod from him, a confident one. Surprisingly confident for someone who had only been there for a few days. 

“Right, then,” she remarked as she turned on her heel and strolled towards the lobby. “I’ll leave you to it.” If he’s a basically competent worker , she thought to herself as she pushed the door open and stepped outside to find the storm had passed, leaving rainwater gathered in puddles and inviting the early tweeting of birds, he can lock a few doors.

She came to a stop outside her cruiser, reclining her head to gaze up, into the sky. The eerie, ethereal, pale-yellow tint that followed heavy weather lingered in the clouds while she thought back to childhood, how Freddy’s had loomed large in her mind; just as much then, when she longed to play and celebrate here, as now, when not a day passed without a thought of what a dirty word its name had become. 

Her jaw clenched as she climbed into her cruiser, stung to her core by the thought of the cold cases.

No one can hide forever. Not even you, wherever you are. She knew the perpetrator couldn’t hear her thoughts, but on all the world’s behalf, she hoped they were still within her reach; within her station’s reach. Criminals could hide from the law if they wanted, but they could never escape justice.

Chapter Text

Max glared out the window, watching a truck speed past. Wedged between the cold, spotless glass and her brother Jeff’s stocky frame, she could look no one at this table in the eye. Not even Jeff.

“Hey there, welcome to Sparky’s Diner!” Nor the waiter, passing menus around. How could she be here? How could she do this? Away her mind wandered, to somewhere, anywhere besides this seedy dive, this wicked rendezvous. 

Jane, sitting diagonally across from Max, bickered with the waiter until she drove him away. Great; now she had to sit here, endure this lady’s onerous aura, and do so without a nibble of lunch.

Jeff, beside Max, cast his sister a sorry glance as the waiter strolled away to tend to another table, fanning himself with the menus. He scooted away from Max, freeing up some room for her. Endowed with the same square face as her, Jeff focused his attention on the catty bottle-blond across from him. With his short, ratty hair swooping over one eye, and a dark leather jacket around him, the teeth of its zipper catching the light outside like brass spikes, he managed to make himself out as something of a brute; an anti-hero in some universe, here to stand up for his sister against whatever snide put-downs Jane had in store for them now.

And then there was Doug, opposite Max. Poor, piteous lawyerman Doug, looking as frazzled by his own existence, as uncomfortable with his own flesh-and-bones as he did against any other backdrop.

“Ah, where were we…” Jane muttered, staring at the two siblings. She hadn’t actually lost her train of thought; this was simply an intimidation tactic. “Oh, yes! You were about to tell me what an incompetent failure you are.”

Max’s lip curled, about to spit Jane’s insufferable sarcasm back at her.

“Hey! Screw you, lady.” Jeff growled, narrowing his eyes at Jane. “I told you, my sister goes there all the time. She knows every square inch of the place. If there was something going on, she’d know. Now pay up!”

Jane drummed her fingers on the table. “I’m sorry?”

“We had a deal,” he fumed, keeping his choler in check. “You said two-hundred!”

“Yes, if you found me hard proof of criminal endangerment. But even with your ace in the hole,” she gestured at Max, “all I’ve heard is about how nice my niece is and that my nephew sleeps a lot.”

“He does, though!” whispered Max.

“Sleeping,” Jane hissed, “is not a crime!” 

Jeff readied a retort, his lips parting. He hadn’t uttered a letter of it when his eyes strayed to Doug, who goggled at some nebulous point behind the siblings; his hands trembled on the table, mouth agape, seeming to choke on the air he breathed. Jeff had to ask, “Is that guy okay?”

“I— I just realized,” Doug gasped, feverishly adjusting his tie, “I shouldn’t be hearing any of this! I-I shouldn’t be here at all—” He tried to clamor to his feet.

“Sit down!” Jane ordered, pushing a hand into his chest. Doug caved at the first inkling of resistance, dropping right back to where he sat. “Unless one of you,” she addressed Max and Jeff, “has a brilliant idea, which I realize is highly unlikely, I believe we’re finished here.”

An outline of an idea popped into Max’s head. Something to do with Freddy’s, but whether out of a sense of duty to help Mike or simply being too distant to piece the parts together, she couldn’t get it out.

Jeff, blunt as a sledgehammer, up and wondered aloud, “Why don’t we just kill him?”

Doug shot up once again, stammering as he tried to push Jane out of the way. Again she bulldozed him, forcing him to sit.

“Tempting, but no.” A sinister glint flashed in Jane’s eyes; if only that option were on the table. “What else?”

The idea in Max’s head fleshed itself out, but still she wouldn’t say it. 

“Why do you care?” She finally asked. “Abby doesn’t like you, and I don’t think you like her either! So why go this far?”

Jane laughed, throwing a hand up in the air as if the answer was obvious to anyone with eyes. “She’s a retard!” she announced, not a trace of shame in her voice, loud enough for the whole diner to hear it. “Or, no, she’s emotionally challenged.” Jane groaned, her lip curled. “But really, that’s just a nice way to say it.” Her arm moved over to Maxine. “You’ve seen it, haven’t you?! She’s always in her own little world! Doesn’t eat, doesn’t sleep, doesn’t talk to anyone who actually exists, just sits around drawing and watching cartoons! That’s no way for a ten year old to be acting!”

Max wanted to defend Abby, but she couldn’t muster up the courage to do so; Jane’s sheer contempt strangled the will out of her. Jeff inclined his head towards Jane, letting out a riled exhale through his nose, like a bull about to charge. Doug, beside Jane, broadened his shoulders; he stared into space, fixated on the exact same spot between the siblings across from him that he’d been since sitting down, but his eyes bugged even wider. Not that anyone considered him enough of a presence in the conversation to notice.

“Right? Right. That girl’s light years behind where she’s supposed to be, and unless someone does something soon, it’ll only get worse.”

Jeff scowled. If the promise of payment weren’t part of this scheme, he’d have been out after that tirade. Looking to his sister, who seemed defeated by it all, he remembered hearing something about a new job Mike had taken up.

“Max was telling me the other day that Mike got a new job at… some place. Security, right?” He kept his eyes on his sister, expecting her to spill the details.

But Max would say no such thing, just the reason why he’d taken the job. She mumbled out, “He was saying that he really needs this new job, to like… look good for the judge, or something.”

“That’s very fascinating, honey,” Jane sneered. “But I’m not hearing a plan.”

Max buttoned her lip for good. Never before had she been called “honey” in that kind of mean-spirited, dismissive voice by another woman.

“I dunno, we could work with it.” Jeff scratched his stubbly chin. “It’s at that old pizzeria just out of town, Freddy’s something-or-other…”

Hearing the words “Freddy” and “pizzeria” in the same sentence, Jane straightened, alert and uncomfortable, but her discomfort quickly morphed into disgust. Visceral, poisonous disgust. 

The siblings watched her hands ball into fists on the table, as if they were the hands of a hangman, pulling a noose tight, merciless, around the neck of a dissident. They assumed this to be a megalomaniacal proclivity rearing its head — she alone held the roles of judge, jury and executioner; and Mike, that of the hopeless defendant in the most open-and-shut case to ever be on the docket. 

“You’re thinking about having us break in, aren’t you,” came Jeff, unable to hide a smirk. She’s sharper than I thought.

“Well,” Jane started, clapping her hands together. “You said he was a security guard, right? His job is to make sure no one gets in. So… ”

“So we get in!” Finished Jeff, less concerned with Max’s thoughts on the matter than of the money the two of them could make from this venture.

She gave a quick, brisk snap of her fingers. “Yes! Exactly!” Finally, they were making some headway. “Give Teddy Ruxpin and his dead-eyed friends a good old-fashioned shakedown.”

Jeff hunched closer to Jane, tapping a finger on the counter with every beat in his plan. “We mess up the place; we help ourselves to whatever we find in there; Mike gets canned; the judge gives you the kid; you give us…” he motioned to her.

Jane pursed her lips before sealing their deal, offering up, “A thousand.”

Jeff nodded, pleased. Max didn’t move a muscle, filled with disgust for everyone at the table; not least of all, herself.

Jeff and Jane went over the loose ends of the plan, settling on the break-in’s date with no input from his sister. In time, the quartet rose and left the diner, dispersing to their cars.

From the driver’s seat of her spotless, creme Coupe DeVille, Jane watched her fellow conspirators scatter to the wind; the siblings in their weathered pickup truck, and Doug in his inconspicuous sedan. Freddy’s—that filthy, rat-infested barrelhouse of a pizza joint—continued to play on her mind while she sat stiff in the driver’s seat, clutching the steering wheel as if she meant to strangle it.

She was never the same after Freddy’s; none of them were. Especially not Clara, her sorry idiot of a younger sister. 

And that made Jane feel validated. She didn’t like Clara’s first husband all that much. And the second? The less said about him the better. Getting Abby away from Mike wasn’t just about the money, although that was an important factor. It was also about crushing any semblance of Clara’s influence in their family. Keep her sister where she belonged, six feet under and forgotten.

Wherever you are, Clara, I hope you’re watching. Your precious Billy-boy’s legacy, and yours; they’re both about to be destroyed. 

***

-6:15 AM, the following day-

The ignition of the engine in Vanessa’s cruiser made Mike glance over his shoulder. Relieved to have another shift behind him, he brought the halves of the shutter together over the front doors, fiddling with the chain and lock.

“Some friendly advice,” Vanessa called over the rumble of the tires on the rough pavement, coming to a stop behind him. “Don’t let this place get to you. Keep a sharp eye out when you’re here, and make sure you always know where the nearest exit is.”

Mike stared at her, then up at the lightless marquee over the doors. What had he gotten himself into with this job?

“Yeah, sounds good,” he called back, hardly enthused.

A flutter of static-laced chatter broke out of Vanessa’s radio, and away she drove, ready to respond to wherever the force needed her. In her rearview mirror, Mike locked up the gate and shuffled to his sedan. 

I give him a week, tops.

From afar, posing as a lost biker across the street, tracing his finger across a roadmap to ascertain his location, Jeff watched Mike’s sedan grumble away. The police cruiser rode off in the opposite direction, leaving the unassuming motorist standing by the remains of a dollar store, stranded in the forgotten district. Discreetly, he peered across the way, sizing up the building. Through the framework of the collapsed sign for the pizzeria, he espied the garage entrance on the building’s side. 

Miles away, Max sat poised on the couch, solemnly staring down at her phone on the coffee table. She blinked her eyes, taking a labored breath in; any longer alone, contemplating what she was rolling over to help Jeff and his cohorts do to Mike, and she’d break into tears. What had Mike ever done to deserve what this might lead to? To tear his sister away from him after seeing how tirelessly he worked to take care of her; to rip her away and put her in Jane’s care? The word “care” had no business being in the same sentence as that woman’s name…

And herself? How would she sleep tonight? While Abby tuckered herself out and went to bed early, Max hadn’t at all in the hours leading up to this. 

With a buzz, the phone rattled itself ever-so-slightly towards her. She shook her head to no one, thinking she’d stop this plot in his tracks by just refusing long enough. But the phone continued to skitter her way.

Blankly, she took the call.

“It’s showtime!” Jeff chuckled on the other end. “As soon as Mike gets back, call the guys and meet me here. I think I see a way in!”

***

The locking mechanism on the garage door gave out with a resounding CRACK! Max refused to watch Jeff as he threw the door open, or grant her brother’s goons a single glance. The hood of their truck chilled her hand, resting on it in the morning’s humid air. 

Her brother and his cronies hustled inside, leaving her on her own. Disgusted with herself, to be anywhere near these events, she shut herself up in the truck’s cabin, curling up with her back against the door. 

“Alright!” Jeff announced as he led his pair of lackeys into what appeared to be a kitchen. All around the troublemaking trio, shelves full of long-forgotten, dust-coated cooking utensils and cardboard pizza boxes towered against every empty wall; the stoves and sinks which once saw daily use, serving up delectable pizzas and cleaning the baking sheets for the next one to be served upon, had dulled to death, their once-shimmering chrome now reflecting only vague, formless shapes.

Jeff turned to marvel at his crew. Nodding excitedly with the business end of a metal baseball bat perched on his shoulder was bearded, burly old Hank, in a sandy jacket and a mutely-colored casual ensemble. With his mammoth fists and his trusty weapon, he was ready to bash anything out of his way long before letting it stop him could ever be considered as an option. To Hank’s side stood Carl, a scrawny, sly-looking young man. A pair of cheap cables dangling from his almost rectangular ears converged into one at his chest, and trailed off to the seat of his pants; how much Carl heard of Jeff’s words through whatever played on the walkman, Jeff couldn’t be sure, but he assumed he got the gist.

“Let’s be quick but thorough: maximum damage, minimum time! If you see anything valuable, you grab it, and we’ll settle up later. We good?”

Hank grinned, throwing up a horned gesture with his free hand. Carl, forever deadpan, replied simply, “Yeah. Golden.”

“Let’s go, boys!” Jeff rallied them as they dispersed across the pizzeria, earning a hearty, booming holler from Hank. 

Behind the curtains of the show stage, the three main animatronics stood placidly, soundless in their slumber. None moved, none thought; none seemed to live. Not Freddy, not Chica, not…

Bonnie’s eyes flicked open.

***

The vandals’ trail of mayhem through the pizzeria mostly added up to smashing lots of things with bats and crowbars. Trash cans, poster frames, gumball dispensers; anything that seemed easily breakable was put to the sword. Every pane of glass in a pinball machine bashed through by Hank’s bat, every token machine Jeff drained of its bounty, and every ball thrown out of the pit by Carl only served to fuel their collective mania. Too preoccupied with the dining area, none of the three heard the lumbering stomps echoing through the maze of hallways behind the show stage; the shattering of glass and the clattering of quarters drowned out the harbingering noises.

Carl’s warpath had brought him to the pizzeria’s kitchen. He unceremoniously toppled a looming shelving unit, spilling the white and red pizza boxes across the dirty floor. Looking over his work, he smirked, nodding his head along to the music on his tape. 

As fun as reckless vandalism could be, the others had destroyed most of the fun targets already, and he had no weapon of his own to annihilate those neon signs in the dining room. What a shame; he could imagine Hank getting ready to leap up and swing that bat of his up into the signs. What a sight that’d be: big, hefty Hank leaping up as best he—

Clang!

The metallic clatter cut through the sound-deadening of his in-ears. Turning towards the direction of the sound, the racket came again; a refrigerator in the kitchen’s corner vibrated from some force within, a handful of pizza boxes falling from atop it.

Carl pulled out his earbuds. Rather than the silence that had greeted them on the way in, broken only by the chaos of his companions, a song now played in the pizzeria, reaching him through the kitchen’s serving window. 

All I wish is to be alone!

Stay away; don't you invade my home!

A wary Carl approached the fridge as a fan in the wall spun, creaking. He didn’t think to turn and see it, or the bright-yellow figure passing by through the rotating blades. 

Towards the handle of one door he reached his hand, gripping the cold steel firm.

Behind door number one…

He flung it open, seeing only empty shelves. A chuckle followed before he opened the other door. Seriously, what would’ve been in here? Jostling an entire fridge like—

What the…?

A fashioned heap of what looked like metal, or something sturdy. A cupcake-shaped thing sat on the shelf behind the left door, two buck teeth poking out from the bottom of its pink-frosting coat, and two faintly-oxidized black orbs planted in that frosting, like eyes.

Is this thing alive? How the hell did it—

The cupcake’s eyes opened with a strange chirrup, and with its yellow pupils, it stared up at Carl, unblinking. With no mouth, no speech, nothing but the look in its eyes, the unnerving little hunk of metal seemed to tell him: You’re not supposed to be here!

Who can it be, knocking at my door?

Make no sound; tiptoe across the floor.

“You’re givin’ me the creeps, little buddy.” Carl reached for a flashlight in his coat pocket, tempted to bash the judgy-looking cupcake’s dome in.

Bang!

Carl whirled around before he could raise the flashlight up. Turning it on and pointing it towards the cooking island, the pots and pans hung from the utensil rack; they swung back and forth, but nothing seemed to have caused it.

Whipping the flashlight back to the fridge, he found the shelf the cupcake had sat on not five seconds prior to be empty. All the shelves were barren; it had disappeared.

He hadn’t heard a peep come from the creepy thing when he had his back turned. Did it vanish into thin air? 

Something behind him went click , and he spun around.

Carl gasped, backing up to the fridge. Staring him down from next to the cooking island, a colossal animatronic bird loomed over him, two full heads taller than him, at least. In the hand of the seven-foot monster, the spookish cupcake-thing gave him the same malicious leer.

The flashlight fell to the floor with a hard crack as Carl gawked, drilled down by the eyes of the two horrific creatures before him. In the gloom of the kitchen, the eyes of both mechanical menaces glowed a sickly, jaundiced yellow, their pupils reddening. 

Without moving a muscle, Chica’s eyes fell upon her cupcake, which whined and clanked on its plate like an industrial machine. It jittered in her hand, eyes going wide as Carl cowered.

The cupcake launched itself towards him, propelled seemingly by nothing but its own demonic forces. Its frosting-head peeling back to reveal a plexus of sawblades, needles and shanks, all spinning as the cupcake dove in, would be the last thing Carl saw.

***

The chair crashed into the glass of the prize counter desk, shattering every pane in it. Placards and party hat stacks left atop the counter flew backwards, flung into the air; prizes within tumbled to the shard-littered floor.

Hank chuckled, reaching back to retrieve his lucky bat, left lying on the table beside him, when  he heard a scream. A scream of pure terror, coming from the kitchen, muffled as soon as it had begun. Bat in hand, he came to the shuttered kitchen window and peeked through. Carl writhed, thrashed on the floor, batting his hands against the surface of some big, protuberant pink orb that had latched itself onto his face.

Over Carl’s muffled shrieking, a hideous slew of cracks and crunches, and wet, bloody squelching filled the air.

To the side, watching that cupcake-thing eat into Carl’s face, the towering animatronic turned its head towards Hank. Frozen in horror, realizing what it did to Carl, Hank choked back a scream of his own.

Chica narrowed her glowing eyes at him.

***

Jeff rummaged through the filing cabinets in the office, having ripped through the lockers to find next-to-nothing for his troubles. He knew nothing of it to begin with, but the heinous little balloon boy Mike had shut up in one of the lockers had gone; Jeff had seen neither hide nor hair of the wretched thing.

Pretty much nothing. He conceded defeat, shutting the filing cabinets and turning his eyes to the monitors on the desk. The crowbar in his hand itched for more action. He cocked his biceps back, crowbar raised in the air to—

A high-pitched scream from somewhere in the pizzeria stopped Jeff before he could smash the monitors. There, on one of them, the husky figure of Hank zoomed past the toppled tables with a speed Jeff had never seen from the man before.

Jeff followed Hank across the cameras, unsure whether to be afraid or to laugh. On one hand, he couldn’t recall seeing Hank so terrified in all the time he’d known him; on the other, his screams were, quite unfortunately, comedy gold.

What the hell is he doing?

Hank skidded to a halt in the corner of some backroom-hallway, nearly falling over with how abruptly he stopped. Spinning around in sheer panic, his arms flying from his sides, he turned to what looked like a closet and scampered in, shutting the door behind him.

Unaware of what had transpired in the kitchen, Jeff set out to find him.

***

Hank held a hand over his barrel-chest, gasping for air. The darkness of this closet and the opaque window in the door lent him a feeling of safety, out of sight from that animatronic, or any of the others, should they be on the hunt too.

Outside, down the hallway he’d run through to get here, he heard Jeff’s voice, calling out for him.

“J-Jeff?” He whispered to himself, so shaken by what he’d seen he had to think if it was actually Jeff’s voice. “Jeff!” His hands lunged for the doorknob, thinking he’d be safer to join him; if the two of them took on the animatronics together, they may stand a chance.

Hank’s stony hands rattled the handle, which only clicked as he tried to open the door. He didn’t remember locking it when he dove in to hide, but… maybe he’d simply been on autopilot when he did so. 

He pulled back from the door, thrusting a hand up into the air; no way this closet didn’t have a light. Before long, he made contact with a little bead of metal, cold to the touch. He yanked the cord down, but remained in darkness.

“Come on! You stupid…” He gave another hard tug of the cord; the lights flickered, but failed to stay lit. Hank was too preoccupied with getting them on to turn around and notice what loomed in the closet’s corner.

Jeff rounded the corner at the other end of the hall, spying the supply closet, calling Hank’s name. “Come on, man! What’re you doin’ in there?”

Still wielding his crowbar, Jeff sauntered towards the closet, seeing a glow appear through the frosted glass. To his left as he came towards the closet was a metal gate to elsewhere in the building; like Hank had, he passed it without care.

A blood-curdling shriek cut through the air from inside the closet, making Jeff stop. That sounded like Hank, screaming bloody murder. Before Jeff could get any closer to the closet, a massive thump from inside stifled Hank’s screams; desperate yelping followed, stamped out by more thumping, ringing through the floors and walls.

The closet door drifted open as if by magic. Imprinted on the door, dragging down the glass, was a dark handprint. 

“Hank?”

Jeff’s meek whisper bounced through the narrow hall, the screams of his colleague gone.

Mechanisms, servos whined in the closet; a broad shadow shifted, and the stomping footsteps of an animatronic rabbit beat into the floor as it left the closet, the tips of its motorized ears grazing the top of the doorframe. It stood straight up, staring into the distance for a moment, seeming oblivious to Jeff. 

Until it twisted to look at him with an intentness resembling constant awareness.

Its metallic insides groaned like an empty stomach, waiting to be filled. The rabbit’s face was unamused; even with such limited facial expressions, the disappointment was palpable. Jeff could imagine the hulking hare meaning to say, in a comic voice: Sonny, what do you think you’re doing here?

Jeff’s crowbar slipped from his hand, and the ring it produced made him jump. Only from being startled out of his staring contest with Bonnie did he think to flee, dashing back up the hallway. He flew around corners in the labyrinthian halls, turning so sharply that a number of pilfered goodies slipped, fell from his duffel bag; tokens, coins and prize baubles left a trail leading to the office, where he retreated to hide.

He slammed the door shut behind him, heading to the desk and the monitors he’d nearly smashed, grateful that he hadn’t. His eyes flicked from one screen to the next, to the next, to the next; he had to have some way out, but he had to know where the rabbit—and any other fuzzy freaks—waited.

The malicious gaze of the rabbit met his own through one of the cameras. That lumbering, murderous robot had joined up with another towering animatronic, a chicken, and they leered straight into the cameras, as if they knew Jeff was watching them. Together they flanked around an open air vent, low on the wall, just inches off the floor.

Silent but for the winding of their servos, the two robotic assailants turned their heads to look at each other, then down at the plate in the chicken’s hand, where there sat the cupcake that killed Carl, though Jeff knew nothing of that. In the black-and-white feed from the cameras, he couldn’t make much of the dark stains marring much of the cupcake’s dome; only that those stains were there, as the chicken bent down, lowering the plate to the level of the air vent, and the cupcake turned on the plate, vibrated for a few seconds, and then, without any help from either of the animatronics, lobbed itself into the vent like a frog would jump into a pond. 

Elsewhere in the building, a metallic gong rang out as the chicken rose, straightened. The gonging continued, and Jeff stared transfixed at the two animatronics, who turned back to the camera.

The metallic banging grew louder, racing closer to the office like a boulder gaining speed down a mountainside. Jeff cursed as he twisted around, searching for wherever the attack would come from. 

A hard crash came from his right, and he spied a vent cover beside the table in the office’s center. Far at the back of the air shaft as he dropped to his knees in front of it, two glowing eyes like headlights sped towards the cover. Jeff’s eyes went wide as he heard what sounded like the grinding whir of a chainsaw.

He pressed his fists against the vent just in time to stop the hungry cupcake. Metal clashed as the cupcake gnashed its sawblade-teeth, striking the cover hard enough to bash it out of its fixture; only thanks to Jeff holding it against the wall could the cupcake not come chomping in. The horrid crashing went on after Jeff, terrified, turned around and backed up against the vent, forcing himself up against the cover to keep the monstrosity out. Still it attacked, attacked, attacked, for an amount of time that Jeff didn’t have the brainspace to measure, until…

Silence. 

He peered over his shoulder to see no light from the eyes of the little murder machine, only the murk of the shaft. It gave up! So quickly, in fact, that he did not hear the banging in the vents that had thundered out when it made its advances toward him. It had disappeared like magic.

The damage he’d wreaked with his own two hands flashed through his mind; while he couldn’t say anything for his erstwhile goons, he decided then and there that he’d done his duty. Tremoring, he checked the cameras again to ensure he could simply dash out the exit to the office’s left. No sign of anyone.

This was his one chance. Choosing not to contemplate any criminal implications of his actions, or of what questions might be asked when it came to Hank and Carl’s fates, he barrelled out of the office, poised his hands to push into the bar on the exit door, and ran into it.

His forehead collided with the door and he staggered back, confused. Another try, he figured, but that changed nothing. The push bar compressed when he tried, but the door simply wouldn’t open. Again and again he tried, thinking after a while to kneel and check the locking mechanism; was it jammed? There didn’t seem to be anything—

“Da-da-dum-dum-dum,” sang a calm, gravelly voice from somewhere far behind him.

Aaah, who can it be now?

The song plowed towards its conclusion, a choir of voices chanting out near-tribal calls over the paranoid shouts of the lead singer.

The blood drained from Jeff’s face when he spun around to see who made the sound. A third animatronic, new to him, stood in the doorway at the far end of the hallway, silhouetted by flickering lights behind it. 

Though the canine animatronic drilled him down with its dispassionate glare, Jeff didn’t let up in his attempts to get the door behind him open. He continued to push into the bar, hoping he’d somehow unjam it and escape. But as the lights kept flickering, flirting with total darkness in the hallway, it wouldn’t happen.

The lights went out, as did the glow of the fox’s eyes, and anything beyond the hall; like reality itself blinked. A split-second later, they lit again. The fox animatronic came racing towards him, lifting a hooked hand high over its head as it closed the distance between the two of them.

Jeff screamed.

***

Max crept in through the garage, quiet as a mouse, hearing music in the pizzeria. That other song, the one she could faintly hear the whole time, had ended; another had begun, stark and rhythmically walking, beckoning for her, or anyone, to step in time with it.

And another one gone, and another one gone;

Another one bites the dust.

Hey! I’m gonna get you too!

Another one bites the dust…

“Jeff?” she peeped, tiptoeing around the kitchen carnage, the toppled shelves and dark stains on the floor. “Carl?” A nauseating, coppery smell hung in the air, but she could guess no source. 

She kept moving, careful not to make a sound. Through the wending hallway maze that had claimed Hank, she moused, searching for any sign of life. Before too long, she found herself in the narrow stretch with the supply closet, and the metal gate that had gone unnoticed by the others. The closet door had been shut and the light inside switched off; she didn’t see the bloody print on the other side of the glass, but had a feeling all the same that she had wandered too far.

A rusty squeak from behind her.

She about-faced, seeing the metal gate had drifted open on its own. Tiny footsteps ran closer from beyond the hall it led to, and from out of the darkness appeared a young boy, yellow-shirted and top-hatted. 

Max blinked in surprise. Had this boy been in here the whole time her brother and his cronies had been trashing the place? She took a few paces towards him, about to speak up, ask what business he had here, but it occurred to her that he didn’t look scared. He didn’t look nervous or frightened at all.

The boy stared up at her, weaving his fingers between the diamond patterns in the gate, and giving her a confused look. 

“Hey,” she said, kneeling, “are… are you lost?”

Nothing changed in the boy’s face.

“You’re not like the others,” he replied like he hadn’t heard her question. “You didn’t come here to break things. But he said we can’t have any survivors…” He dropped his head and scratched his chin, seemingly regretful.

Max double-taked, remembering the scream she’d heard. She stood up and backed away, but hadn’t gotten too far before the boy looked up, snapped his fingers and said, “I got it! Follow me!” He ran off, beckoning her to follow down the hall. 

No survivors… 

She wasn’t stupid, she wasn’t deaf. And she wasn’t part of this either; none of the damage done in this building had been by her hand. If she were simply to keep quiet about the conspiracy she had been involved in, she could run to the police right now, tell them this had all been a stupid excursion she, her brother and some friends had decided on to pass the time, maybe she wouldn’t face too harsh of a sentence herself. Hell! She could run away, pretend none of this had happened! She could tell Mike her brother alone had orchestrated this stunt; that’d keep her conscience clear.

“Yeah,” she gasped to herself, coming back to reality. How long she’d stood there thinking, she didn’t know, but it was only a short sprint back to the truck. She went past the gate, turning a sharp corner down the next hallway.

A towering figure blocked her path.

Max screamed and jumped back, looking up into the glowing eyes of a growling fox animatronic. It brandished a sharp, bloody hook as it lumbered towards her like a stalking cat cornering a mouse, forcing her back.

It took nothing more than a thought that there was a way out in the other direction for her to turn around, about to run, only to find two more animatronics closing in, their footsteps all thudding, beating in her chest. 

“What’s going on?!” Max cried as the rabbit, the chicken and the fox forced the poor woman towards the gate, where yet another animatronic made his entrance: a brown bear, his eyes burning with the others’ as all four of them circled her in. She cowered, and her screams rang through the halls. “DON’T HURT ME! PLEASE!”

The colossal hands of the four animatronics reached out and pressed into her, grabbing hold by her jacket and her shirt, lifting her off her feet. Max shrieked in panic, flailing and kicking as they carried her down through the gate.

She couldn’t see anything beyond the huddled mass of treated fur moving her down the lightless passage, and the iron grip of their hands bit into her. Her screams turned to sobs as she coped with the concept of death, here and now. Jane’s had been tempting, but why couldn’t she have turned it down? Why couldn’t she have just stayed true to the people she called her friends, or smacked some sense into her brother before it was too late?

The universe offered no answer, no solace as the quartet carried her into some backroom full of their spare parts. Grimly, she dared to glance up, espying her final destination. Standing upright by a work desk devoid of any trace of dust, whose lightbulb in the desk lamp was still on and working; a lifeless, eyeless bear animatronic with fur colored a pale violet. Its maw hung wide open, as if it were about to devour a scrumptious meal.

The quartet lifted their helpless victim straight up, to the spare shell’s mouth. Max’s head barely fit through the gaping mouth of the shadowy shell, but the animatronics pushed and pushed, forcing her deeper. Her shoulders were forced inward, towards her chest, her arms stuck in the jam, unable to be leveraged to get her out; further and further the four of them shoved her, further than it ever appeared she could’ve fit. Her legs stuck up in the air, churning and kicking as the suit muffled her cries.

A piercing force began to dig into her waist; she knew there was no fighting it. If only she had been a little braver, if only she had been more willing to stick up for herself, for Mike and Abby… She closed her eyes. 

CRUNCH

Max’s flailing legs fell from the violet bear’s maw, landing on the floor with a dull thud. The four animatronics with their glowing yellow eyes beheld their work, pleased, before the glow faded.

With the entire group eliminated, the yelping of another one gone, and another gone from the speakers echoed through the pizzeria’s empty halls; equal parts a celebration, a challenge, and a plea. 

Chapter Text

“I'll take a Double Triple Bossy Deluxe on a raft,” drawled a character on TV, “four-by-four animal style; extra shingles with a shimmy and a squeeze; light axle grease; make it cry, burn it, and let it swim.”

A bald, bluish, big-nosed cashier gave whomever had just spoken a stink-eye for the ages. “We serve food here, sir,” he stated, as if the customer needed a reminder.

She was watching that sponge cartoon again. Some corpulent, olive-colored fish had come to place an order at the sponge’s restaurant, and it seemed the two of them had a history. The bass swatted the cashier out from behind the cash register and confronted the sponge himself.

Mike leaned forward from the couch, trying to see what she was drawing. “What’re you working on, there?” She was drawing a scene from later in the episode; the fat fish with his mouth forced open and his tongue pulled out by the sponge, who pointed to three green circles beneath the fish’s tongue. 

When she didn’t answer, he let out an amused huff. The robust enamel of the Chica coin Vanessa had given him chilled his fingers as he rotated it; perhaps this would be a suitable stand-in for the vest.

“Whatcha think about this?” He held it out in the tips of his fingers, making her look up from her drawings. She took the coin, stared at it for maybe five seconds, then dropped it on the table behind her, getting back to her art.

Mike didn’t know why he expected anything else. “Not that cool, huh?” He took the coin back and went to stow it in the junk drawer. The drawer slid open with a gentle tug, and he dropped the coin inside. But no sooner had he opened the drawer than he saw the custody papers he’d shut up in there, supposed to be out of sight and out of mind.

The hard slam that rang out from the kitchen as he closed the drawer made Abby turn her head. Her brother hunched over the desk, tense. 

“I’m trying my best, Abby. Okay?”

He lingered by the drawer, paralyzed with worry before he managed to slink away to his room.

A little voice whispered to Abby, from nowhere in particular, Didn’t you see what was on that badge? Go get it!

She snuck over to the drawer, peering down the hall to see if her brother was looking. Mike wouldn’t punish her for taking it; he wasn’t that sort of caretaker. It was just that she figured, being noticed trying to swipe it after turning it down… It’d be an episode, for sure. Grabbing the drawer’s handles, she gave her best heave, but it didn’t budge. 

She frowned, shaking the drawer knob a little bit before attempting to pull it out again. And when that didn’t work, she grabbed onto both little knobs. She took a few steps back, kneeling down and summoning every bit of strength in her tiny body. The drawer went back and forth, back and forth, before it finally opened with a loud clatter. 

At the same moment, some character on Abby’s show let out a sneer. “You forgot the pickles! ” Gasps followed, and the little sponge cried, “NO-oo!”

Mike perked up when he heard the loud clattering from the living room, but then he noticed what came right after. Soft, quiet sobs. Curious, he made his way into the living room. 

“I made a mess…” Abby whimpered, but it was clear she wasn’t just talking about the drawer. Sure, it was down on the floor, its contents scattered all around her, but her eyes were focused on one particular item. She had seen the court documents, holding them with a look of dread in her eyes. “I’m… I’m sorry…” she whispered. 

Mike kneeled down, taking them from her. “They’re just papers, all right? They don’t mean anything.”

“Then why do you have them?”

“Well…” Mike shrugged. “It’s complicated. Your aunt Jane—”

“I hate her!” shewhined. “She’s mean, and she smells like cigarettes!”

Mike couldn’t help but crack a smile at that, nodding and giving a small chuckle. 

“It’s not funny!” she insisted. 

“You’re right, it’s not. It’s just nice that we can finally agree on something.”

“Are you gonna give me away?”

Before Mike could explain himself, there came a knock at the door. Mike answered it immediately. On the other side of the door stood Vanessa Albright. 

“Oh… Vanessa?”

“Hello, Mike.” she greeted, arms folded. Her police cruiser was parked right in his driveway, visible from the door, as if to emphasize what kind of power she wielded. Her expression was a line, not a scowl and definitely not a smile. 

Little feet pitter-pattered on the floor behind Mike. Before he could turn and tell Abby not to bother, he felt her reach up and hold his hand.

Vanessa looked down at the young girl. “Well, well. You didn’t tell me you had a kid.” 

Abby blinked. “He’s not my dad, he’s my brother!”

“Oh! So you’re Abby?” Vanessa’s expression lightened in surprise; she hadn’t expected her to be so young. 

The fact that she knew the young girl’s name before she actually said it seemed to trigger something in her. She cowered slightly, hiding behind the door. “You’re not here to take me, are you?”

“Now, why would I do that?” She asked, using her best talking-to-kids voice. Her posture relaxed, and she put on a smile that would look stilted to anyone save a kindergartener. “You haven’t been breaking any rules, have you?”

Abby retreated further behind the door until only her eyes were visible. She whimpered, not taking her eyes off Vanessa.

“Listen, Abby,” Mike started as he looked back at her, “Why don’t you go back to your cartoons so Vanessa and I can talk?”

For once, Abby compiled immediately. She gave Vanessa another paranoid glance before hurrying to the TV. 

Mike played with the strings of his hoodie and stepped out, closing the door behind him, unable to conceal his worry. “What’re you doing here?”

“Four people were found dead at Freddy’s.”

Mike’s jaw dropped. “What… what happened?”

“We got a call this morning about a break-in, but when we got there, it turned out to be a lot worse than that. The place looked like a bomb went off; and that was before we found the bodies.” Even at the plain statement of fact that bodies were found, her throat clenched. He may not have known, but she wouldn’t unsee what she and the response team had already laid eyes on. She wouldn’t unsee a man lying face-up in Freddy’s kitchen, with his face appearing to have been eaten through by sawblades. 

Trace amounts of rust, an analyst said out loud in her mind. The reverberations from the kitchen walls sounded as cold as the weapon itself.

“I’m here to ask you some questions.” She’d already relegated those images to her nightmares, voice clear and eyes unclouded as she pressed on.

“Are you saying… I did it?” He hunched his shoulders, a defensive side of himself rising out.

“What I’m saying is that there is an investigation being launched,” she explained, impartial. The realities of an investigation at an early stage, she thought would be obvious to anyone with the faintest clue about police procedure, and she hoped Mike would at least grasp that. “I’m here because we need to ask the last known person who was there before the bodies were found, what he knows. If you want to give me your version of the events, I can take it now and pencil you in for a formal interview later.” She withdrew a notepad from the inside of her jacket, a pen from the spiral binding, and flipped to a blank page.

The words ‘formal interview’ felt cold on his eardrums. He pictured the fluctuating needle of a polygraph, straps around shuddering fingertips.

Passion churned in his gut, something deep down within him that told him he had to defend his honor. He wouldn’t even entertain the notion of him killing someone there. 

“Well… Why would I drive all the way out from Freddy’s and then all the way back? Huh?” He asked, unaware of his raised voice. “You saw me leave! I swear, you were watching me as I pulled out!” 

“I did,” she flatly replied, “but I need you to tell me more. Is there anyone who can vouch that you stayed here after returning from Freddy’s?”

“Abby can!” He gestured back inside the house. “She’s my witness! I made her lunch an hour ago! Why— Look at the cameras!” he posited, forgetting the pizzeria used a CCTV system so cut-rate and outmoded that footage couldn’t be extracted or replayed, “‘Cause I can assure you, you won’t see me on any of them after I locked—” 

“Mike,” she cut in, “calm down. You’re not a suspect. I told you, you’re the last person we know was there before this happened.” She’d seen people react with indignation to interviews before, commonly offended by the idea that they could be a suspect when asking questions to the involved parties was simply a routine and mandatory part of an investigation. Seeing Mike respond in that way raised no alarms to her, though she jotted a note of his animated reactions. “Speaking of locking up, can you attest that you locked every doorway into the building?”

“Every doorway? Y-Yeah, I’m positive I did.” 

“Do you recall ensuring the padlocks on the building’s garage doors were secure?”

“Yeah, those too. Is that how they got in?”

“At this time, it appears so. We suspect a crowbar found on site was used to shatter one of the padlocks.” She clicked her pen after recording his response, sliding it into the notepad’s binding before reaching her free hand back into her jacket. Plastic crinkled, and she withdrew her hand, producing an orange pill bottle sealed in an evidence bag. “Can you explain what a prescription bottle of loprazolam was doing in your workspace?”

FUCK! How, indeed, was he going to explain having sleeping pills on his person when he was an overnight security guard? 

“I, uh— It’s not what you think,” he stammered out. “They’re sleeping pills, they help me—”

She broke in, seeing he had no rationalization. “I know what they are, Mike; it’s printed on the bottle. I’m prescribed this exact same medication myself. Why did you have them on the job?”

His eyes kept shifting between her and the door, swaying his body weight back and forth. “Well, uh, I just got them refilled?”

Not a very convincing liar. But I get it. Maybe he’ll talk more in private. 

“I suppose we’ll save this for a later interview.” She moved along to the next question. “Do the names Jeffrey and Maxine Hine mean anything to you?”

“Max?” He blinked, straightening his back.

“You know Maxine?”

He stammered, trying to find the words. She was just here! They greeted each other when he came back! “She’s Abby’s babysitter. She watches her when I-I’m— Is she alright?”

Vanessa’s expression didn’t change. Keeping up her professional front, she flicked her pen back and forth between her fingers, aware of the neighborhood Mike lived in, the shabby houses all around. Does he need to know? Hearing it may destabilize him.

Seeing the pleading, desperate look in his eyes, she relented. “Maxine and Jeffrey were found dead at Freddy Fazbear’s at roughly ten-forty-five this morning.” She’d softened her voice, hands together behind her back to relay the news. “They were the only vics with identification onsite; Jeffrey’s was on his person and Maxine’s was in a pickup truck parked by the pizzeria’s garage.”

He stared, gaping. His hand rose to his chest as he heaved for breath, stepping back. “Oh my god…”

“My condolences.” Pity and sympathy bubbled through her blank expression.

“She was just…” Here, this morning. Alive. Easing the load.

“Can you think of any reason why the Hines would be at Freddy’s?”

“N-No?” Mike shook his head, still reeling. Max surely would have no reason to go there, but he didn’t know her brother well enough to assess his motives. Hell, maybe they weren’t even in on this willingly. “You said there were four, right? What about the other two?”

“We haven’t identified the other vics.” She shook her head to rid herself of the image of the man who’d lost his face. 

She closed and stowed away her notepad, her questioning concluded in an unofficial capacity. Looking back to him, he leaned on the doorframe for support, winded, eyes pale.

“I can see this comes as a shock,” she said. “For the time being, if you need any assistance from us—from myself—we will see what we can do to offer you our support. Is there anyone we could call? Family? Any relatives?”

He shook his head, cringing away from her as soon as she’d asked about family. “Mom’s dead,” he croaked, “dad’s gone; aunt’s just mean.”

“Is there anything I could do right now?”

He didn’t respond directly, apologizing as he choked up, hiding his face. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a plastic deck chair, its paint bleached by the sun. “Here.” She fetched it, bringing it over to the door, offering him a seat. “In case it’d make it easier.”

Mike quickly shuffled into the chair, making a noise of appreciation. 

“If you can pull yourself together for now, there’s something else we need to discuss.”

He slouched, giving a present-enough look at Vanessa.

“You said you were positive that you locked everything, but someone got in anyway. You’re the guard; it’s your job to secure the property and ensure no one breaks in, yet someone did anyway, and it cost four people their lives. You could be facing charges for their deaths.”

Mike gritted his teeth. “I… I can’t go to jail! I can’t leave Abby alone. I’m her only family; she’s about all I have left too.”

“This case was opened this morning; there’s still time for us to uncover something that would clear your name,” Vanessa said, almost apologetic. “But once I file the report, it’s out of my hands. If you can show up at the station sometime in the coming days and tell us your side of the story, your cooperation would be appreciated.”

“Alright,” Mike nodded his head with an immediate, desperate quickness. If there was even a chance for him to get out of serving time, he knew he had to take it. “A-Alright…”

The keys to her cruiser jingled as she drew them from her pocket. “I’ll be off now. If you want to schedule an interview yourself, call the station sometime soon and ask about it.” She turned, paced to her car, opening the door. “Until then, stay out of trouble.”

He raised a meek hand to wave farewell, watching her drive away until the cruiser disappeared behind a turn at the end of the street.

Retreating into the house, Abby had already returned to her spot in front of the TV, oblivious to everything that had transpired. He slumped on the sofa, watching with her. A red crab opened a hull door, asking for the little sponge, only to find a wrecked living room; a couch upturned, flower pots spilled on the floor, salami roasting of a TV antenna, eggs and toast splattered on the wall.

The sponge greeted the crab in strange, jumbled sentences that didn’t scan to Mike, and the crab tried to persuade the sponge to come along to the restaurant. The sponge didn’t listen, turning and leaving the crab.

“You’re fine, me-boy!” the crab insisted. 

The sponge, deaf to all good sense, plowed through a closed door, leaving a hole in the precise shape of his silhouette. 

“Ooh,” cringed the crab. “Uh… maybe not.”

***

VA-GF-040900-10:39.

Moore, a broad, bespectacled man in khakis and a polo shirt, adjusted his glasses, transcribing the alphanumeric title of the case into a computer, into the station’s database. He flipped quickly through the pages in Vanessa’s ledger, checking that all the expected forms were present.

“Christ,” the case clerk gasped, beside himself at the four separate sheets of gridded red paper describing the bodies. He knew well enough that the less he saw of field autopsy forms from Freddy’s, the better he’d sleep tonight. “Even for Freddy’s, four vics in a single case is extreme. I don’t think there’s been so many since…”

Since eighty-four, her mind filled in. He needn’t say it himself.

“It’s a tragedy.” Vanessa bowed her head, standing beside him while he started logging it.

The lights in the station’s work-in-progress digital archive—an eggshell room, empty but for a line of desks against the walls and the computers atop them—were brighter than those in the rest of the station; brighter than any of them had shone for months. Stunning, how beautiful new things could be. The CRT monitors and the boxy computers beneath them, on the other hand, already seemed yellowed, done no favors by the white tabletops beneath them.

“Do you have any leads at this point?” Moore asked, unable to hide his concern. No one else sat at any of the other computers, yet he kept his voice low anyway.

“The guard doesn’t know anything. He left before the break-in, and made sure I knew it.” She sighed, arms crossed, words reverberating around the empty room with a plastic, tinny note. “I took some unofficial answers from him today; we’ll need to schedule a real interview. If he doesn’t do it himself, I’ll probably put him in at the end of the week.”

“It’s not much of an honor, but this’ll be the first Freddy’s case getting logged straight into the computers.” Moore typed away, frowning at the papers, frowning at the screen, back and forth between them.

“Amazing,” she scoffed. “Finally stepping into the computer age, and we’re still dealing with this place.”

He lifted a mug of hard, black coffee to his lips. How he stomached such a bitter drink, she didn’t know; everyone had to stay alert on the job, however they could manage. “Or maybe technology’s finally caught up to it. We all figured out whatever the old managers were doing to make animatronics walk around during the day! Ain’t that something? Soon, the robots’ll all be moving around, doing their jobs, while we sit here, logging everything they do for us.” He shook his head at it all.

“Yeah, ‘cause that’ll work out. I’ve seen RoboCop.” 

He wheezed out a laugh. “Finally, someone sees sense.” For all of a second, he smiled as his fingers danced across the keys; as soon as he laid eyes on the name Freddy Fazbear, the fish-eyed reflection of the convex CRT screen showed his grimace return. “I’m gonna say it though: the county, the state, somebody seriously needs to knock the place down. Eminent domain it; people are still dying there all this time later. Whoever’s out there, wiring money to keep the place up, finding ways to hire people — that person deserves to be in a cell.”

You got that right. 

“For the love of god, the first cases go back to… I don’t even know.” He grumbled, pausing, seeming conscious of his volume. “Someone was abducting children from that place in eighty-three or something, and it hasn’t gotten better! More people have died since it closed than ever disappeared when it was open! That building itself is a menace to society.”

“Eighty-four,” she corrected, surprised there was so much as a single person who couldn’t pin the date. How could any of them forget?

“No, no; eighty-three!” He turned in his chair to face her. “The first missing child was eighty-three! There was one missing child case there before the MCI, completely separate from it,” he said, a finger lifted in place of any raised voice. “At least one; I know there was. And I’m not even sure if that was the first time we were called in to deal with that place!”

Moore contented himself with another swig of his coffee, shaking his head and returning to transcribing her report. 

Vanessa blinked at him, her brows knit. Where had that memory gone? When had there ever been an utterance about an abduction at Freddy’s preceding the MCI? Her mind didn’t rush to recall specifics of the case, but where she might have been if she’d ever heard it before. Around the water cooler, where first-hand accounts of cases changed hands and the air beneath the trying old lights smelled of nothing in particular? In a meeting about a previous Freddy’s case, the smoke of a cigar floating upwards around what used to be Captain Thompson’s face while he gave feedback with a voice they’d never hear again? 

Had it been from the muffled voices on television, through her bedroom walls while she pretended to sleep? Were her eyes free of tears? Could she take any more of what the voices said? 

Which team did she report to at the end of the day?

“You’re serious, aren’t you?”

Moore side-eyed her.

“About there being earlier abductions?” she clarified.

“Freddy’s is… kind of your jurisdiction. I’m surprised you didn’t know.”

It’d be easy to give an excuse. I was ten when it happened. All of us talk about the MCI as if it’s the first Freddy’s case. But it didn’t sit well with her to try and justify it. She’d overlooked another missing child, lost in the shadow of the MCI. They had overlooked them. 

“I am, too,” was all she could muster, stepping back and bowing her head in shame. If there was a whole other case, before the MCI, that had faded into obscurity, then what else could there be? “Excuse me.” She stepped away.

“Where are you going?”

“To give myself a history lesson; I’m going to the archives.”

“You have fun with that.” Left with Vanessa’s report, Moore let his shoulders relax, transcribing the plain, grotesque descriptions of the vics without allowing them to fester in his brain. 

Educating herself, like all officers ought to. She’s one of the real straight shooters.  

***

Beneath sterile, white fluorescent lighting, row after row after row of filing cabinets, of binders on bookshelves, held police records dating back decades and decades, ad infinitum, back to Granite Falls’ inception. With its smattering of tables spread out across the archives, it resembled a library; an oppressive, strictly professional library.

Vanessa lifted a foam cup of coffee to her lips, taking another sip as she waited for the recordkeeper to get back to her. Upright in a wooden chair, patient at a table of the same vintage, she drank without tasting her drink, waited without rapping her fingers on the table or her cup. A clock on the opposite wall counted the seconds as they passed, as diligent in its duty as any other being, any other system with a task to carry out. 

The clock didn’t care; it wasn’t burdened with sentience. It had one job, and it would be expected to do said job for as long as it had power. Its job required no thought on its part; just the precisely-tuned rotations of gears and the flow of an electrical current, all of which had been worked out for it long ago by any old Tom, Dick or Harry with a job at the factory the clock had come from.

If only policework could be that simple.

She didn’t realize how much she echoed Moore’s sentiments until he voiced them. The questions lodged in the back of her mind ever since she had taken up this beat, he’d shaken loose. Why? Why did Freddy’s still stand after being closed for so long, and despite a rising, unabated death count? Who was keeping it up, hiring people seemingly just to die? And most importantly, why weren’t they doing anything to stop it?

Footsteps, muffled by deep carpeting, approached from between one of the narrow passages between the great ranks of shelves. Vanessa turned her head to a bespectacled woman, much older than her, emerging from behind one of the shelves and coming to the table, carrying an inches-thick binder of manila folders under her arm, all stuffed with documentation.

Heavy-set and short-haired, the old woman wore a dark, flowing dress instead of a uniform; a measure of freedom afforded by her specific position. A plain nametag over her heart, in the same place as all the others in the station, read, Ware.

“Here you are,” came Ms. Ware’s silvery old voice as she passed the heavy binder to Vanessa. “These are all the case files we’ve got on Freddy’s; I’ll be checking the tapes next to see if we’ve got any videos while you go through all this.”

Vanessa thanked the recordkeeper for her help before the old woman vanished behind the shelves again, off to retrieve someone else’s requested file. For a second as she grabbed the first folder from the top of the stack, she longed for the simplicity of digital archives, if the station ever got the funding and resources to digitize their vast library. Though this didn’t last; a sense of esprit de corps kept her aware and thankful for every clear head at this station, including the modest recordkeepers and diligent archivists, holed up here in the stuffy backrooms. 

Everyone counts. No exceptions.

Settled in, guaranteed the time she’d need to pick over the records, she cracked the first folder open. 

If there ever was such a thing as an intimidating file, this was it. A solid inch of paperwork strained the confines of a plastic folder whose tab read, FAZBEAR COLD CASES, filed with smaller manila folders. 

Never a good sign when one place has its own dedicated cold case bin. I knew there were a few, but seeing it like this… 

She started fingering through the smaller folders. Bob Fischburn, Fritz Smith, Scott Warner… 

Those names, she recognized; the freshest were in her handwriting. She flipped through them, knowing the pattern they normally took. Some down-on-his-luck, desperate man who was found missing his head or some other part of his body. Harrowing stuff, not something people could be easily desensitized to.

And thus, they were fresh in her memory. She moved through them at a quick pace, not wanting to remind herself too much of the carnage she had discovered there. 

She picked up a new case file from the plastic folder. The non-alphanumeric title—used officially only in high profile or exceedingly unique cases—had been written cleanly on the folder’s tab. The Missing Children Incident.

This is the big one. Captain Thompson worked this one. The one cold case Thompson, a mere lieutenant then, had handled directly.

ET-GF-062684-1800, read the proper case title on the report. Each of these jumbled characters read like poetry in Vanessa’s mind. 

“ET” for Edward Thompson, the reporting officer’s initials. “GF” for the location: Granite Falls. “062684” for the date: June 26th, 1984. “1800” for his time of arrival on the scene: 6 PM on the dot.

She opened up the folder with almost-reverent hands, finding the initial report, Thompson’s record of the early hours of the case.

On Tuesday June 26, 1984, the Granite Falls Police Department received multiple calls from families who had been in attendance at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza at 614 Greenbrier Way, Granite Falls, Minnesota, after no fewer than five children went missing. 

On the above time and date, I was on uniformed duty in a cruiser assigned to Prentice Street, designated to the downtown area between 1000 and 2000 hours. At approximately 1749, I was patrolling downtown when I overheard a broadcast requesting presence at 614 Greenbrier. Due to my proximity, I responded.

When I arrived at 614 Greenbrier, all Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza attendees and staff were outside in the parking lot. William Afton, the establishment’s co-owner, was among the crowd, and went on to tell me what he knew of the situation. He informed me that no fewer than five children in attendance for a birthday party had gone missing on the property, and that efforts by staff to find them had been unsuccessful. Initial interviews with the onsite families of these five children yielded little more information before I conducted an initial search of the property with the aid of the staff, lasting approximately one hour. I elected then to clear the area and request backup for a second, more through search. Interviews with staff, families and other adult attendees were scheduled prior to closing the scene. Forensic investigations are to be conducted tonight.

She winced at the page’s last sentence, knowing how the story ended. She continued, flipping to the next few pages; further reports, where the leads didn’t come and hope seemed to dry up. 

Forensics conducted in the seven days following arrival on the scene in ET-GF-062684-1800 have yielded no concrete leads or credible suspects. Interviews have shed similarly little light on any credible suspect or motive…

A page or two later, one passage stood out from the rest.

The establishment’s fellow co-owner, one Henry Emily, bears little connection to the case, but volunteered for an interview regardless. Afton and Emily both attested in interviews that the latter has been on leave from the establishment since the disappearance of his only child, eight-year-old Charlotte, last year within the restaurant, to focus on grieving. Charlotte’s MP case remains cold. Whether or not the new disappearances are connected remains to be uncovered…

Charlotte? Was that the prior case? Vanessa set the MCI folder to one side, opening a few more folders from the pile to check the titles. If it was the year before, there’s an 83 in the date code.

Only a few folders later, she had an ‘83 case, the jumbled code prefaced with the letters, “MP.” A yellowed poster remained in the file, paperclipped behind the case’s report. 

HAVE YOU SEEN THIS CHILD?

Charlotte “Charlie” Emily

Age: 8

Last seen: August 7th, 1983, approx. 6:30 PM, at Freddy Fazbear’s

Oh, no, she thought, perusing the MP file. There’s no resolution to this either. 

Vanessa could hear a muffled voice on TV again, from nowhere in particular. The feeling of a handknit blanket draped over her, unable to block out the voice’s words…

She returned to the MCI, combing through her captain’s impartially-written reports. As the days turned to weeks, then to months, and his leads whittled down without an answer to show for his diligent investigation, his handwriting seemed to shrink; the loops in his letters vanished, the straight lines shortened. 

The advice of another officer returned to her. For some of us, we feel as guilty as the perps themselves when a case goes on too long, and we haven’t given anyone the answers they deserve. For a captain-to-be who’d never let a case go cold before or since, how much worse could that be when you have a case like the MCI to answer for?

A single page of pale blue copier paper marked the end of the file. Dated in 1987, Thompson’s plain handwriting had regained none of what it had lost over the preceding three years.

The Granite Falls Police Department notified me today that ET-GF-062684-1800 is officially recognized as a cold case following the conduction of a Solvability Matrix, which was carried out independently by the state, he’d written, indicating he’d relinquished the case against his wishes. This case will no longer be actively investigated by myself or any other official at the department unless a new development is presented to the department in extraordinary circumstances.

Lieutenant Edward Thompson, 111287.

The injustice weighed on her to this day, as it had to for everyone who lived through it. She grimaced, closing the folder, setting it aside. The next few folders flew by, nary a single one approaching the level of gut-wrenching darkness as the MCI; that she laid them all in the same pile felt like a futile attempt to bury it.

Ms. Ware soon reappeared, empty-handed.

“We haven’t got any interviews,” she politely interrupted Vanessa’s research, “at least not that I could find. But we do have a recording of a news segment on the MCI. Would that fit with your research?”

Vanessa glanced at the small pile of remaining folders. Her drive ebbed not, and she’d heard enough about the MCI to be sure that she knew everything she could with the facts she had. But, she thought, what harm could it do to take a while to see our only relevant tape? She closed the file in her hands.

“Cue it up,” she said, standing and following her.

***

The VCR accepted the tape, pulling it in with a whir and a click. Vanessa sat cross-armed in a chair before the TV while Ware moved aside. Mechanisms in the VCR stuttered, as if it too couldn't believe what it had taken in, before it began to play. 

A scene of controlled chaos: a news reporter flanked by cruisers on either side. Uniformed officers and trench coat-clad detectives milled about behind her, and above her hung the lit Freddy Fazbear’s marquee. 

“Tragedy struck last week at a local pizzeria,” the reporter began, “where five children attending a birthday party vanished without a trace.” 

School pictures of the missing children appeared onscreen, with each child’s name beneath their photos. Susie Price, Jeremy McDowell, Fritz Calloway, Gabriel Underwood, and Cassidy Lee. None of them could have been older than twelve. 

The reporter continued. “Multiple employees and other party attendees recalled seeing the five children as a group when the party began, allegedly thinning out as the party went on. Restaurant manager William Afton also recalled seeing the children supposedly go their own way throughout the day.”

The tape cut to a sit-down interview with the same man, identified in the lower-third by the same name and position the reporter had just described. A shaken man with a square face and an unimpressive mustache-goatee, donning a vibrant purple polo.

“I would go out there,” he recounted, frog-voiced, “in costume as one of our— one of our characters, to greet people and pose for photos with them. And…” His sunken-in eyes dropped for a second, quickly rising to meet those of an offscreen interviewer. “Those children, the five of them; they were all together at one point. I saw them all together early when the party began, and… they… one or two of them had… left the other three by some point in the afternoon. By the evening, their parents were coming up to me and my staff, asking if we knew where any of them were.”

The voiceover of the reporter spoke over him, his image fading to later in the interview. “For Afton, who lost a son in an accident that took place at the same location last year, the tragedy feels all too familiar.”

“Y’know, we thought the worst was behind us after what happened last summer. My poor boy, he’s still struggling. And to think, something like this happening; it’s horrible! A tragedy! I founded Freddy’s in hopes that it would bring as much joy to the people of this community, and beyond, as it’d bring me. After everything that’s happened here, we’ll be closed for a good long while, until the police conduct a thorough investigation.” His shoulders suddenly tensed. “And— And out of respect to the families.” 

Goodness gracious. The MCI, Charlotte Emily, and this poor man’s son…

Vanessa heaved, feeling a sting in her tear ducts. For a moment, she forgot where she was, what she’d been doing. She thought back to childhood, helplessly watching reports such as this one on TV, and hearing the bleak voices of the talking heads when her parents would keep watching the news well after she would be in bed. Disappearances, murders, accidents, disasters. For such a young mind to quietly mull over the idea of someone’s loved one being gone forever in an instant, with no goodbyes spoken, no thought that such a thing could happen so soon, threw the full weight of that world-weary sorrow onto her shoulders. From miles and miles away from the families, her heart bled for them. She’d lay in bed, surrounded by her squad of plush friends—Patchy, a blue and white patchwork rabbit, and Lovebird, a pink, fluffy swan—wishing she could do something, anything, to help the victims. She tried her best at every turn to stand by that wish.

Watching this tape all these years later, knowing the culprit wouldn’t be caught, and that they’d take the livelihood of a local businessman with them, she clenched her fist.

Wherever you are, however you got away with this, the world hopes you burn.

The feed switched back to the reporter. “This is not the first time such a tragedy has happened at Freddy’s. Last August, soon after the accident which claimed the life of one of the owner's sons, eight-year-old Garrett Afton, another child, Charlotte Emily, vanished under circumstances that locals have been quick to compare to these.” 

There’s Charlotte, she noted. I don’t think I’ve gotten to Garrett’s case.

“Local police Lieutenant Edward Thompson, the first on the scene, aims to ensure closure for the families after the disappearance of another child last year at the same establishment; the only child of the restaurant’s co-owner.”

The footage cut to another man, standing by the front doors of Freddy’s. Almost unrecognizable from the captain she reported to, a man with curly, dark hair graying at the temples, looked at the off-camera reporter with steely blue eyes.

“We’re working closely with all members of the restaurant’s staff at this time as part of the early stages of our investigation. As is and has always been the case, the Granite Falls Police Department intends to pursue and exhaust every avenue, and we will not rest until justice is served and these children are found safe.” Thompson vowed, iron certitude in his every word.

I know you tried, sir. 

She felt that sympathetic twinge once more, this time for the man who had done everything he could, but simply couldn’t get the answers. In a way, that hurt just as much as the story itself.

Mere frames after cutting back to the local news desk, the tape ended, the screen going blue.

“I’m afraid that’s all of it,” Ware said, moving over to the VCR and packing the tape away.

Vanessa thanked her, leaving the old woman to return the tape to its place in the archives. She stepped out of the viewing room, shuffling down an aisle of the towering record shelves, the table and the pile of folders ahead. 

I found Charlotte’s file already. Garrett’s shouldn’t be far behind if it was that July. 

As soon as she returned to the table, she intended to look through the remaining cases for whatever had happened in July. Case files with dates that didn’t match her target were set aside until only one remained, from the very bottom of the pile Ware had fetched. She flipped the folder, which sat with its tab face-down, over, expecting a sequence with 07 as the first numbers in the string.

She saw no numbers. In all caps, two words had been not merely inked into the tab by pen, but scratched into the tab by the pen’s point being forced, driven into the tab hard enough to nearly tear through it. The look of those seven letters alone struck Vanessa with a hope that whoever had written them—the officer who’d overseen the case—had been able to recover.

Then she processed the words the letters formed.

The Bite.

Vanessa’s stomach tightened just looking at it. For a moment, she couldn’t open the file, locked in contemplation. She’d never heard of a “bite” at Freddy’s. What in the living hell could a case with this title, at this location, entail? 

She hesitantly set the folder down, unfolding its front flap. The first sight was the same as with any case file: a structured sheet of yellow paper, divided into boxes filled out in the ancient handwriting of an officer before her. The initial report. 

The assigned officer’s handwriting had come out rushed, sloppy; difficult to interpret. As far as she could remember, Vanessa had never seen anything that caused her confident handwriting to suffer as she jotted case notes.

The report’s header read: JT-GF-072283-21:08. July 22nd, 1983; a match for the date in the news report.

Do I know an officer with those initials? That came up blank; she knew of no such officer. 

She read on, trying to interpret the ragged handwriting of “JT.” 

During a normal evening… Fazbear’s Pizza… crushed… blood everywhere… brother… restaurant owner…

Are you kidding me? This is the file on what happened to the owner’s son? I can hardly make out any of this!

Towards the end of the page, the handwriting devolved into print errors, negation of information. The record was right here; someone had seen it and documented it, yet she had nothing. She flipped through the other documents JT had left, and not a single one brought her closer to understanding what had happened. Printed on a bright red sheet of paper elsewhere in the folder, a field autopsy form had been attached, proving Garrett died in this event, yet JT’s handwriting made his record of the events for naught. Not a single element of this form, from the victim’s age or gender to their injuries, came clear through the tortured slashes of JT’s ballpoint pen.

Vanessa closed the file and gave a final glance at JT’s bedeviled handwriting on the tab. This final, enigmatic case had proven inscrutable. She couldn’t bring herself to hate him—too strong a word —but that didn’t stop her from being annoyed. She skimmed the folders she’d set aside to read about The Bite, seeing the careful, clear handwriting of other capable officers before her.

Thanks for nothing, butterfingers. 

The door to the viewing room opened beyond the vast stretch of shelves, Ware approaching as Vanessa tucked the last of the case files into the binder. Only that of The Bite hadn’t been tucked away yet.

“If I can ask, how long have you been here?” Vanessa asked as she handed the bundle of folders over.

The recordkeeper replied simply, “Nineteen years. Why’s it matter?”

That’d be eighty-one. She’d have been here when the Fazbear happenings started.

“I was reading over the case file for a Freddy’s incident called ‘The Bite’,” she picked it from the table, showing her, “and there are huge stretches in the file where the writing of whoever was assigned to the case is… totally illegible. The initials are JT; do you know who that was? I was wondering if he might still be here, or if he’s not, that there’d be a way I could ask him about the case.”

The old woman clenched her jaw. Shaken, she removed her glasses, looking down.

“I did know that man, yes. Jody, erm… Jody Timken.” She forced his name out, sounding winded to say it. “He joined in eighty-two. He was only here for a year, and that was one of his last cases. He always seemed like he was on the edge of a nervous breakdown over something; he tried his best, but he just wasn’t cut out for this line of work. For the year before he got the case, he at least kept himself together, but when he got that case…” The woman had to sit down with Vanessa, holding a hand over her chest.

Vanessa’s brows rose, lines of worry appearing on her forehead. “What happened to him?”

The woman rubbed the bridge of her nose, where her eyeglasses had left indentations. Vanessa noticed the rims of the old woman’s eyes reddening. I shouldn’t have asked…

“Whatever he saw that day… broke him. He hung himself after his very next case.” The scarred old woman added, “He wasn’t even thirty.”

Vanessa’s ducts tingled, though she held her tears in, taking a steady inhale. She reached a hand over, holding the record keeper’s. “Do you need anything? Can I get you some water?”

“No, no.” The old woman shook her head. “But thank you, young lady. Thank you.”

The younger officer gingerly helped Ware up, giving a nod of acknowledgement and slipping the last file in with the others. She didn’t think Timken’s penmanship to be that of an incompetent fool anymore; just that of a man in over his head.

Rest in peace, Officer Timken. You did the best you could.

She took a breath, steadying herself before looking back at Ware as the recordkeeper paced up an aisle.

“One more thing,” Vanessa stopped her, making her turn. “Is the captain in?”

“He should be. I saw him come in earlier.” Ware gestured towards a door.

“Good.” Vanessa pushed in the chairs around the table they’d sat at. “I need to talk to him.”

***

The walk to Thompson’s office led her away from the archives, in their quiet corner of the station. Towards the station’s center, through the spare hallways and past the occupied meeting rooms, she stood in an anteroom, explaining her situation to a secretary outside his office. The secretary peeked their head into the office, murmured to the station head, and pulled back out. “He’ll see you,” the secretary affirmed. “Head on in.”

Vanessa stepped through the door, hands behind her back, spine straight as a plank. In the clean, spacious silence of the office, the uniformed captain stood before a bookshelf and behind a broad, varnished wooden desk, sweeping one coarse, quivery hand across it to clear its surface while he held a thicket of papers in the other, shivering the same way. Attached to the same body as those fair-skinned hands was a tan face, patched with lighter shapes on his cheeks, his head devoid of all hair. On one side of his face, his lips curled upward in a lopsided, indecipherable shape; one blue eye blinked on the same side, and the other rolled upwards in an involuntary flit, its eyelid not closing.

“Albright,” he greeted, choking her name out one side of his mouth in a thorny, gargled tremor that sounded almost kind to her ears. If a sheet of sandpaper could not only talk, but have a history of chain-smoking and swigging diesel to pass the time, it would sound like him; a lifetime removed from who she heard on tape minutes ago.

The scars we get in the line of duty tell different stories for all of us. You don’t walk away from a crash like that with nothing but a few cuts and scrapes. 

“Captain Thompson, sir.” She saluted him with a hand on her heart.

“Have a seat,” he motioned towards the chair across from his desk, and Vanessa quickly complied. “What brings you here?”

At the earnestness of her captain, and the comfort of the leather chair, she allowed herself a smidgeon of ease.

“I opened another case at Freddy’s this morning, sir. Four trespassers were found dead on the premises.” 

The captain’s chair creaked under him as he inched forward. “Four vics?” he croaked.

“Four, that’s correct. It’s much too early to jump to conclusions, but it appears the perp used parts of the animatronic characters to kill them. This incident has to have taken place between six and eight AM, as I and the newest security guard left the location at the conclusion of his shift. The guard has already been notified and tentatively scheduled for an interview. Notably, one of the vics is confirmed to be a friend of his, and a relative of hers was also among the vics. As of right now, that’s all we know; my initial report is currently being processed.” 

A gravelly gasp passed his lips. “This isn’t the kind of case we can keep quiet about. We’re going to have to say something.”

“I understand, sir,” she replied, thinking of what it must be like for him to hear of this. “I’ve come to see you about this because, above the basic responsibility I have to inform you about a case like this, I wanted to ask if it would be possible for another officer to preside over the crime scene so that I could pursue a more… bureaucratic angle that I believe this case asks of me.”

“Bureaucratic?” Thompson looked up at her, doubt clear in his one good eye. “What do you mean by that?”

“I’d like to launch a side investigation into the ownership of 614 Greenbrier Way. There must be a reason they insist on still hiring guards. If we can find them, maybe they could shed some light on their reasoning. We could have the building seized and demolished for good. I believe, as is the opinion of at least several others at this station, that it would do a world of good for Granite Falls if 614 became an empty lot.”

He grimaced, reminded of that day in June, and the worst failure in his thirty years as a public servant.

“What you’re proposing is an extremely ambitious investigation for one department. Inquiries of this kind are usually taken up by the state,” he explained, concerned with the realistic constraints of such an extraordinary undertaking. “Are you open to lodging a formal complaint? That’s the more standard route to having action like that taken.”

“I would’ve been open to lodging a complaint with the state if we weren’t in the twenty-first century, sir,” she asserted. “Freddy’s has been a bane for this community for over fifteen years. It’ll soon have been closed for as long as it was open, and there are more confirmed deaths there already than there were MP cases filed when it was open. I can’t allow myself not to exercise the power this position affords me to try and ensure that we put an end to this for good.”

A nod as he looked down at his hands, weaving together on his desk. “How would you conduct this investigation, if I were to greenlight it?”

“I’d request business records on when and to whom Freddy’s has been sold through the years. With that information, I would locate and interrogate the present owner on why they’ve continued hiring new guards in spite of the clear and present danger of the job, and charge them with negligent homicide for the deaths of previous guards. If the owner is imprisoned, the building could become state property, and the state could demolish it.”

He steepled his fingers in thought, bringing them up to the tip of his nose.

“What you found at Freddy’s is your crime scene. The vast majority of cases that are passed to a different officer than the one who opened it, are passed on only because of injury; not because the officer simply wants to do something else. On those grounds, there’s no precedent.”

She didn’t speak, preparing for a rejection.

He let out a long, deep sigh. “Then again, most departments don’t have to deal with Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. If anything deserves an exception, it’s an exceptional place with an exceptional history. And I can tell there’s no changing your mind. Permission granted.”

A proud smile. “Thank you, sir. I won’t let you down.”

Chapter Text

The fax machine scraped and screeched, slowly spitting out page after page as if they were sunflower seeds. A pause indicated it had completed printing this set of records; Vanessa took them, straightened them in a stack, and set them to one side, alongside another small stack.

The wonders of modern technology, she thought, as the third and final set came through the wire from the county seat and she took to filing each set, labeling them. FRDYS FINANCE REC’S, she scrawled on one. On the others, one name a piece: AFTON and EMILY. As she took the folders with her, collecting her case file on the way out to her cruiser for peace and quiet, the speed at which she’d been granted access to these records didn’t escape her. In this day and age, and with the support of the best police department she could ask for, she knew thankfulness for it all, for this investigation to come about at this time.

The owners’ folders were set in the passenger seat, and she cracked open the financial records. She’d received scans of yellowed spreadsheets and tables of expenditures, monthly reports and statements from the location’s morning years, organized loosely, stepping from year to year and back again. Between every other string of endless tables, columns of earnings and expenses, blocks upon blocks of numbers, an intriguing document would be waiting for her in one spot or another: the original record of the sale from the owners of Fredbear’s Family Diner to the Freddy’s chain; a yearly report from 1988, showing a precipitous imbalance in allocated pay between Afton and an unnamed, second recipient of apparent import; and a bankruptcy petition from 1991, not long after all the myriad controversies and tragedies finally caught up with the brand. 

The names of banks and other debtors filled the boxes in the petition, each one ready to pick Freddy’s clean as a vulture would pick roadkill, making off with anything and everything of value.

So why didn’t they? Why did they leave the building branded as Freddy Fazbear’s? Why did they leave the tables, chairs, arcade games, animatronics? Vanessa knew enough about the arduous process of liquidation and litigation that encompassed bankruptcy to know that someone or something had to have intervened to keep everything where it would stand to this day. Where were those records that would show who should be blamed for why her station still troubled itself with 614 Greenbrier? 

She pored over the bankruptcy filings, searching for any trail, anything to follow. Quickly, one name jumped out from the gridded regiments, belonging to neither of the men whose information lay in the passenger seat. Presiding over the bankruptcy proceedings, an attorney — one Franklin Offord. An intake form signed by William Afton even recorded his firm—Anderson, Offord & Wakelin—and left no ambiguity of his relation to the case; he’d come on board to represent not Fazbear, but Afton specifically. No second lawyer’s name or presence could be extracted from careful examination; Offord had operated to ensure a smooth and timely process, on his own.

Excellent. That’s one bona fide lead. She took the name down in her notepad, making a point to locate him, a small smile of satisfaction starting to form on her face. The stack of files thinned quickly after finding Offord, and she sensed a quick discovery of the files she’d be looking for would come soon, the ones that’d tell her where the chain of ownership went after Afton.

No such documentation revealed itself by the end of the stack. Reviewing the last few files, then all the others she’d gone through, she found no trace of any indication of a change in ownership among the financial records. It was as if, as far as city hall was concerned, Freddy’s had ceased to be of any interest once the bankruptcy proceedings began, and they’d let it go so quickly, they hadn’t archived everything. 

It also could’ve been that Offord’s representation of Afton, rather than the company he owned, indicated that the proceedings changed at some point. Through other records, stored elsewhere under different jurisdictions, the ownership of Freddy’s had taken a circuitous route across the legal system. As she rearranged the bankruptcy files in the closest to chronological order that she could and packed them back in their folder, she eyed the tab of Afton’s file, thinking of Offord and his firm; she’d need to speak to them soon enough. At least the financial recs hadn’t been a complete bust.

Afton’s personal file hardly weighed an ounce in comparison to the financial folder as she opened it. Whether she ought to be thankful that the man who helmed an establishment where every aspect of its existence opened up into a web of new mysteries, had such a small amount of information about him personally, or if that in itself was another knot to complicate the story, it was too early to say. At least she had him here, his existence accounted for in some way.

The photo supplied with his files matched the troubled man she’d seen in the tape — the angular face shrubbed in facial hair, his recessed eyes staring dead on with an opaque emotion behind them. A grid of biographical statistics sprawled out beneath his image.

WILLIAM CURTIS AFTON.

BORN: March 2, 1945, Concord, New Hampshire. Age 55.

HEIGHT: 5’ 11”

WEIGHT: 195 lbs.

CHILDREN: Michael Afton, Garrett Afton (Deceased 7-22-1983)

SPOUSE: Clara Afton (née Schmidt) (Divorced 3-15-1993. Deceased 4-4-1997)

With folks who’d lived lives such as these, interviews had to tread a fine line, she knew. She’d already begun formulating a delicate set of questions when an addendum to the records dashed the very thought of an interview with the creator of Freddy’s.

MISSING as of 12-6-1994. Last seen: Willmar, MN, December 6th, 1994, leaving support group with colleague Steve Raglan, also missing.

She groaned, having to close the file and take a moment to compose herself. You can’t be serious. He’s missing too?

No problem; as long as Offord could still be contacted, or the records she needed could be dug up from whatever dusty basement they’d been filed away in, she wouldn’t need Afton himself. Opening her notepad, she circled Offord’s law firm. Locate and contact at once, she mandated herself.

Back to Afton’s records she went. How ironic; the owner of Freddy’s, missing, yet not included amongst the missing persons associated with his own business. And to disappear only a year after the little shop of horrors went under? 

There could always be other factors at play. He had debtors after his business; the wrong kind of debtors can be vicious. I’ll have to talk to Ware.

Two folders down, one to go. The collection of records on Henry Emily felt no more substantial than that of his business partner. Please don’t be missing or dead.

Behind the flap, his photograph greeted her with world-weary eyes and a face concealed behind a bushy brown beard, his hair short but shaggy. The same template surrounded his picture, giving him a clinical overview of the man’s life. She skimmed his bio.

HENRY DEXTER EMILY

BORN: December 21, 1939, Aurora, Illinois.

HEIGHT: 5’ 9”

WEIGHT: 220 lbs.

CHILDREN: Charlotte Emily (Missing 8-7-1983)

SPOUSE: Delilah Emily (née Hart)

She bit her lip, eyes looking over the document. Don’t be missing, don’t be missing… Oh, thank god! A gasp of relief. No caveats to this, no runarounds, no missing pieces; just an individual comfortably accounted for and living in peace, his location printed in plain English.

She nodded with conviction, her expression becoming more determined. She jotted his name and address under the law firm’s, underlining it for further emphasis. This was someone who knew William Afton personally, a primary source for all the trials and tribulations Freddy’s faced. Next to Afton himself, he’d be one of the most authoritative voices in the Fazbear sphere. 

She marched into the station with the folders under her arm, purpose in her quick stride. 

“I need you to get in touch with a law firm called Anderson, Offord & Wakelin,” she instructed a phone operator in the station’s call center, nothing more than a quartet of desks arranged in tight formation in a conference room behind the front desk. “Ask for Franklin Offord and let him know I need to interview him about his counsel to William Afton. It’ll also help if you can contact this man and arrange an interview with him.” She pulled Henry’s file from the bundle and opened it to his phone number.

The operator nodded, taking Henry’s number down before passing it along to a coworker. 

Vanessa powered out of the call center, taking a moment to think as she leaned on the front desk. A few bizarre exclusions from the records and a missing person of interest aside, this had been a promising start to the investigation. She had everything that an officer could hope for: multiple interviewees in Emily and Offord, potentially even in Afton’s lone surviving child too; more records to search for, which could potentially reveal a lead; and even a person of interest in Afton’s disappearance, with one Steve Raglan, however much of a long shot finding a second missing person may be. She double-checked her notebook, ensuring she’d put all of it down.

• Interview Freddy’s co-owner.

• Interview bankruptcy lawyer.

• Find living relatives.

A sound caught her ear as she reviewed her notes; a raggedy, hoarse grunt from the other end of the desk made her look up to see the captain, strolling over to her. “Albright. A moment of your time, please?”

“Captain,” she acknowledged, giving a quick nod. “I think you’ll be pleased to know that I’ve already gathered enough information to find two possible leads on the Fazbear chain of ownership. They’re being contacted right now.”

“That’s the kind of initiative I expected, officer.” Thompson paused to clear his throat, letting out a sound like a sputtering chainsaw. “I thought you should know before this goes much further, that I’ve had your homicide case submitted for transfer, but you’ll still have to supervise the crime scene tonight.”

She stowed her notebook in her shirt pocket, placing her hands behind her back, all ears for her superior. “A-ha. No one else is free to take it yet?” she guessed.

“It’ll be transferred fully to one of our detectives by this time tomorrow; Katch will have the last loose ends of his current case tied up by tonight. Since the homicide case was yours, you’ll need to be the one to oversee the forensics, and the easiest way for that to happen is for you to be there tonight.”

A flicker of exasperation, swiftly extinguished. No good officer knowingly refused to follow guidelines, however cumbersome they might be.

“Let’s not forget who opened these Freddy floodgates in the first place,” he goaded. “You’re obligated to ride it out.”

She nodded in acknowledgement. “I’ll arrange to be there tonight; have them brief me then.” 

The captain nodded in return. His paralyzed lip stretched upward at one end, into what would’ve once been a pleased smile. 

***

Mike crammed his hands into the pocket of his sweatshirt, head hung as he dragged his feet down the sidewalk, towards their house. Over the low roofs of the other homes on their street, the setting sun kept watch, like the eye of the universe, glaring down on him. He could feel the judgmental, lukewarm gaze telling him, don’t waste time.

He didn’t speak to his neighbors even on his most sociable days. When none of them were willing to fill in for her on such short notice, he couldn’t take umbrage with them for it.

The last interaction he’d had with Max replayed in his head, how he’d casually sent her on her way with his usual, emotionless “Thanks” and nothing more. How could he have known it would be the last time he’d ever see her? That she’d die the very next day? He shuffled up the driveway, knowing he couldn’t tell Abby why Max wouldn’t come tonight.

Hey, he thought in the same half-awake, half-aware stupor he drifted through every day with, she wants to go to the place, doesn’t she? Maybe this’ll get her to see it’s not that fun. It could snap her out of it. He maundered through the front door how a convict allowed himself to be led to the gallows. 

In the living room, playing with a drawing gear-toy on a bench seat beneath the window, Abby looked up. Her big brother wiped a hand across the back of his neck, sighing as he locked eyes with her. A mischievous smile graced Abby’s face; most days, Max had arrived by now.

Mike drummed his fingers against the wall, turning his face away from her. 

“So, Abbs… I don’t think Max is gonna be here to babysit tonight. Why don’t you…” He scratched at the collar of his shirt, at a tie that wasn’t there. “Why don’t you grab some blankets, a pillow, and bring ‘em out to the car.” A sideways glance at her. We’ll get going at eleven-thirty.”

Abby hopped up from her seat, skipping to her room to gather her things. Mike pursed his lips, nodding to himself. 

Yep. This is really happening.

***

In the rearview mirror, the road and the woods behind them receded into the red glow of the one working taillight. Surrounded by enough of the comfort of her room to feel like she’d brought the whole of it with her, she squeezed the daylights out of her little elephant.

Mike needed only to consult his directions a handful of times, keeping the cabin light on for when he did; he needed to see her too. Her and her elephant, and the pillows beside her, and the backpack stuffed with blankets. The backpack’s zipper looked quite tired, with the fabric the teeth were built into wrinkling and warping with the amount of material compressed inside.

Here came the end of the broad curve into the old district. The walls of woodland trees faded, and the desolate buildings lining Greenbrier Way cropped up to replace them, but they couldn’t hide the floodlights up ahead, at 614. 

“You awake back there?” he glared into the mirror again. She nodded, not looking at him. His eyes flitted between her and the nearing lot. “Remember, I’m here to work, and you’re here to sleep. Under absolutely no circumstances will you come out of my office. Understand?”

“I understand,” she replied immediately, mid-yawn.

“This is not a vacation,” he insisted, peeling past the last building before Freddy’s. “We are not here to have—”

He’d signaled a turn into the parking lot and slowed to make the turn when he saw the trio of police cruisers in the parking lot, their beacons off. The beams of his headlights swung over the front face, and a group of officers outside the front doors watched like hawks as he sheepishly pulled into a parking spot; among them, Vanessa moved to confront him.

A sigh he wasn’t even aware he was holding, passed his lips, his shoulders lowering involuntarily. 

Vanessa barked an order to another officer over her shoulder, shaking her head in disbelief at the sedan as she approached it. Mike rolled the window down.

“What are you doing here?” She asked, her voice sharp as she stood at the window. “This is still a crime scene. Do you have nothing better to do?”

“Wha— I have to work!” he complained like a teenager bemoaning the unfairness of life, throwing his hands down. “This is how I pay the bills! I don’t have a choice not to be here!” 

Vanessa felt the eyes of her squadron upon the sedan, an ache in her head from the idiocy of Mike’s presence. She suppressed an urge to slap her hand over her face and pull it down, just to emphasize. Before any further accosting of the bumbling, hapless guard could take place, a shuffle of movement in the backseat caught her ear; two little brown eyes stared from behind the driver’s headrest, the girl’s face blank, or confused.

Vanessa leaned down, closer to Mike. “Why did you bring—” 

“Couldn’t find another sitter,” he broke in, forgetting he had a policewoman as his interlocutor.

Vanessa’s frustration briefly gave way to pity as she glanced at Abby. Not only had the girl lost a babysitter, she had to deal with this moron every day. Your brother’s not the sharpest tool in the shed.

If it was only going to be this one night, though, maybe an exception could be made. Unsupervised minors could also stir up some problems, after all. And god knew the last thing she needed right now was unnecessary problems.

She sighed, shifting her weight slightly before glaring at Mike. “If you’re going to be here, let’s go over some things. We just finished gathering evidence, and cleaned the place up for you. But this is still a crime scene; until we finish our investigation, you’re the only person allowed here without police presence. Keep an eye on your sister, and don’t let her mess around.”

Twisting around to his sister, he asked her over the seat, “You hear that, Abbs? No playing. The police say so.”

She pouted at him; Vanessa heard a huff of protest over a conversation between another officer and their cruiser radio.

“You’re obligated to tell us about your shifts when you sit with us for a formal interview,” she continued. “If anything unusual happens on tonight’s shift, we expect you to tell us immediately.”

“Of course,” he conceded, eyes passing nervously between the cop outside his window and his little sister in the rearview mirror.

Eyes narrowed and expression sour, she turned towards the rest of the team, pacing to her own cruiser. “We’re done here!” she barked out to her fellow officers, so loud and so sudden to Abby and Mike that the girl tensed in her seat and her brother hunched his shoulders. “Everyone radio in, see if they need you anywhere! If not, it’s back to base!” The words of her authoritative snap beat back from the brick storefront of Freddy’s; the wings of a stealthy bird eavesdropping from the marquee flapped as it soared off, startled.

The cavalry of older officers copied without dissent, piling into their vehicles. In the quiet minds of the veteran detectives and lieutenants, they recalled a voice their young commanding officer had never heard but for a videotape in the archives; one they themselves wouldn’t hear again. Not since before Captain Thompson cheated death in his crash had a superior officer made them feel the words of an order in their chests.

As the squadron departed ahead of her, bound to splinter off on the way to the department, the nearest police outpost, or a graveyard-shift patrol, Vanessa radioed in from the parking lot. She watched the siblings in her mirror, the two scuttling in with their belongings as if they were crabs making off with stolen goods; and Freddy’s their safe, impenetrable niche. Mike grabbed onto Abby’s hand almost the second they exited the sedan, set on making sure she didn’t run off or get too far behind. For her part, Abby was staring at the building, up at the lightless sign. 

A long, slow shake of her head, alone with her ledger, where she made a record of the night’s events, and motored away afterwards. 

She couldn’t wipe the scowl from her face. Festering more with each street sign she passed and every mile she drove, the part of her unpermitted to intrude into her reports or her notepad, but loud between her ears, erased the sketch of Mike, the latest night guard, that it had drawn for her on first or second blush. In red safelight, the granular image produced by the camera of her mind, showing Schmidt, person of interest in her case, developed. 

He loves his sister, I’ll give him that.

Ties of blood, however, excused no one for negligence; not in the workplace, nor as a caregiver. Not in the eyes of any sensible agent of the law. 

*** 

Mike’s face wrinkled as he inhaled, slowing under the welcome arch to the dining room. “Ooh…” That is a LOT of bleach.

The cops had definitely done their job; despite Vanessa saying the place looked like a bomb hit it when they had initially come, it looked mostly the same as it had when he had left the previous night. 

He surveyed the dining room, a table or two short from what he remembered. The vinyl of the bench seats, he couldn’t recall ever looking worse, all of them torn open to expose the yellowed, mildewy foam cushioning. By the arcade, the pinball machines had lost the glass panes over their playing fields; if anyone longed to get the high score, tilting would no longer have to suffice as the cheaters’ best method. The prize counter had been emptied, its glass gone too.

Better job than I woulda done.

Abby trailed behind him, somnolence starting to pull at her. She looked around the main dining room with a childlike wonder, eyes wide and mouth ajar. 

She was walking slower now, trying to drink everything in. It was dark, and it kind of smelled, but it all looked so cool! The carpet had those funny patterns, and despite the lights being off, she could see all the games over the arcade corner, all the neon signage that must look so pretty when it was on. And was that a ball pit, over by the machines?

“C’mon, Abby, step it up.” Mike said, squeezing her hand gently. “We can’t just hang around here.”

“No-oo…” she whined, but she didn’t have the lucidity to truly fight back. 

Mike led her into the office, his grip on her hand tight. It didn’t look like anyone had been here at all. At the very least, the smell of chemicals wasn’t as overwhelming in the office as it was everywhere else. The monitors were all intact, nothing in the whole room looked broken; even the table in its center, behind the desk, was unturned. He couldn’t have hoped for better.

“What do you say,” He began, leaving his bag by the monitors, “we make a tent here, with this table? You can sleep down here.”

In her usual, brusque way, she replied, “M’kay.” Letting her backpack slide off, she released the sea of fluffy blankets, letting him spread the largest of them over the table and turn the chairs out to give her room. Scurrying under, Abby laid out the rest for herself; having barely had enough energy to stay up on the drive, drowsiness came over her in seconds.

“Want this off?” Mike, crouching, reached under the drooping edge of the starry-sky blanket over it all, pointing to the knob of the desk lamp, down beneath the table with Abby to serve as her nightlight. Its yellowish glow lit her face as she yawned, laying herself down.

She shook her head, eyes closed; the train to dreamland was already departing.

“Goodnight.” He stood up, moving to the desk.

“This is… like camping,” mumbled the sleepy girl.

He stopped. Why, of all things, did she have to say that? He glanced back at her, but she would see nothing. And she’d best get to sleep anyway; no use to disturb her.

As usual, it wasn’t long before Mike joined his sister in slumber. His head lay upon his crossed arms on the desk, listening to the rustling wind and cooing birdsong of his tape.

Peace surrounded Abby’s tent, and dwelled within. The girl dreamt of nothing, simply letting herself sleep. 

Neither of the two sensed the presence creeping closer. The cameras showed clear hallways, free of the debris that had dirtied them for ages; the near-silent squeaking of the office door being pushed open without a hand on its surface disturbed neither. The presence, intangible and silent as the dead, loomed in the entry to the makeshift tent, and whispered,

“Abby.”

The girl stirred, opening one eye. Outside the tent, she saw Mike in his chair, but not the source of the voice; high-pitched and untainted by the gravel of age, it couldn’t have come from him. It felt familiar, that voice, but from where?

She crawled out of the tent, first looking to the open door. No more sound came her way, no more voices. Had Mike heard anything? She pulled on his sleeve in a half-hearted, perhaps even deliberately feeble attempt to wake him.

Could he have heard past his headphones, he still would not have heard the voice; its words weren’t meant for him. For someone as perpetually frazzled as Mike, a disembodied voice whispering someone’s name would scare him witless. 

But if you’re in a shady, abandoned pizzeria that is most likely haunted, there’s one phrase you don’t want anyone saying under any circumstances. 

“I’ll be right back.” 

And that was exactly what Abby Schmidt said to her brother. 

She wandered away, into the lit dining room. Seeing how clean the police had made it, she spun herself slowly to take it all in, still moving when a noise came from the stage. Something clattered, rattled gently from behind the curtains, drawing her closer. 

“Hello?” The curious child strode up to the larger stage. Through a part in the curtains, the form of an animatronic faintly appeared in the light. “I know you’re back there! Come out already!”

Silence. She came closer to the stage, ready to climb up and find whoever hid back there for herself.

A sound like the roar of a lion split the air, making her leap back with a shout. The great bear onstage moved its right arm out, stretching it off to the side, the servos in its arm emitting a mechanical, grinding heave. That horrible noise quickly ended, the grinding slowing down, clicking to a stop; just like that, the bear’s fit of life had stopped.

Abby, now well across the room, huddled down on the floor, her knees to her chest. Did she break something? Did that bear robot know she was there? She had no clue what to think or do.

And what of that voice? Were the robots guarding whoever had made it? Had they taken him away? Maybe… Maybe she had to do something.

Getting to her feet, she crept towards the stage with her hands together in front of her chest, defensive. Darkness filled the stage; she could see no further than the bear’s legs. Glancing up at the colossal robot, she noticed its other arm, the one not straightened out. Stepping to the side, she looked to see the straightened one. In the darkness onstage, she couldn’t be sure, but from her perspective it seemed the bear was… pointing. Pointing to something through her side of the curtains.

The SHOWTIME button.

Abby strode to the big, red button, sitting well above her head. What did this do, pull back the curtains? She reached a hand up over her head, and pushed the button, determined to find whoever—

The lights in the room cut out, the opening jingle ringing out from the overhead speakers as spotlights danced. Startled, Abby yelped, running away from the stage.

“Ladies and gentlemen…!” The announcer’s booming voice hurt her ears; she cringed in pain, covering them as she backed up to one of the bench seats. 

The awful robotic grinding and pounding came again. Looking to the smaller stage, the curtains rustled, quaking footsteps boomed from behind them. 

Abby couldn’t move; locked in place by the overwhelming, chaotic opening of the show, her trembling legs wouldn’t let her run, nor would her quivering lips let her scream for Mike’s help.

A handless metallic arm protruded out from the small stage’s curtains, groping its spherical, metallic nub pointlessly in the air. It retracted into the curtains for another, handed arm to emerge. It pulled the curtains back to reveal the rust-red muzzle of a snarling fox, bearing his fangs. His one eye glowed a burning orange like the surface of a star as it studied its surroundings, eventually landing on Abby. The singular, searching eye opened wide, gazing right at her.

***

The roar of the car’s engine faded away, into the woods and their peaceful birdsong. It felt like the car had barely been there, like Mike had just begun to dream, starting at this exact point in the memory. 

This is the point, Mike knew, where the kids show up.

Calming himself, he turned around, expecting to see the quintet in formation, as he’d seen before. But only one, the blonde boy, appeared. 

He wasn’t standing; rather, he was sitting on a boulder with his back to Mike. 

“You’re the kids, right?” Mike asked, approaching the boy. “The ones who disappeared.”

The boy glanced back, and to Mike’s surprise, he actually spoke. “Make it quick.” He said before turning away, his voice flat, uninterested. 

Mike swallowed, crouching down to the boy’s level. “Look… I don’t know how it’s possible that you’re here like this, in my dream, but… I need your help.”

“I’ve kinda figured that out.” The boy grumbled. 

“Well, then why didn’t you do anything? If you know what I’m asking for—”

“Because you already know.” He interjected, his tone scathing. 

Mike stared at the boy for a few moments, trying to process what he had just said. “I’m sorry?”

“You heard me. You know the man who took your brother. Very well.”

Mike felt himself bite his lip, trying to suppress the frustration that the non-answer spurred in him. In a spell of silence, Mike noticed the boy moving his arm around before him, a faint, wooden scratch from the ground before him.

“You know him, and you’re only this upset because you’re choosing not to remember.” The boy held a long twig, Mike realized when he swept the stick out, dragging its end around on the ground, drawing something in the loose dirt. Mike assumed him to be passing time, still watching from well behind the mystic boy. “As long as you choose not to remember, I can’t do anything to help.”

He was choosing not to remember? Then what were they standing in? “W-What, do you need me to say it?” Despite the frustration, his voice had a slight stutter to it, something resembling fear. “Then I will. I choose to remember.”

“No, you don’t,” the boy retorted as soon as Mike stilled his tongue, “and you won’t.” 

“Please!” he begged, more desperate than he meant to sound. “D-Do you want something? Please, just help me!”

The boy finally stood up from his boulder, and turned to face Mike. “What are you willing to give us?”

“Anything! Anything you want! Just— please!” 

Not a muscle on the boy’s face moved; not a blink in reaction. 

From afar, a shrill shriek cut through the air, followed by the pattering of feet against the ground. Mike whirled around, surveying the horizon for any trace of who’d made it. But no, nothing to be seen. He turned back to where the boy stood…

To find nothing there either.

At least, no boy. The cryptic, interlocking lines the phantom had drawn in the soil lay bare before Mike, who kneeled to look closer. The forms of creatures became clear in his mind.

Three figures—a bear, a fox, and a rabbit—together, yet inharmonious. The fox appeared to lunge after the bear, who ran scared from it. Away from the two of them, the rabbit stared up at the world, at Mike, smiling, oblivious to the discord between the fox and the bear.

The shriek came again, and Mike’s dreamworld frayed into nothingness.

***

Without moving, his body assumed the slumped-over pose of him sleeping in his chair, head on the desk. He sat up, removing his headphones and rubbing the rheum from his eyes. 

What was that about?

Without taking in anything on the monitors, he glanced up to the clock; 5:37 AM.

Not too much longer and he and Abby would be out of here. He swiveled the chair around, peering into the tent to check on her. He thought at first that he could see her form beneath the blanket bundles, but checking closer revealed no one inside. 

“Abby?” Scrambling from the chair, he stuck his head under the desk. With the desk lamp still on, he found her blankets flat on the floor, her pillow without her head laying on it.

She’d vanished.

SHIT!

Instantly, Mike bolted out of the office, the force of his running start causing him to stumble.

No! No-no-no-no-no-no! It was Garrett all over again; a younger sibling getting snatched right under his nose. His mind whipped itself into a million-miles-a-second fit of horror; disbelief, guilt, desperation, all simmering just under the surface. He was only barely keeping himself together, that desperation to find her about the only thing keeping him from shutting down on the spot.

It didn’t take long for him to burst into the dining room, seeing three of the four animatronics—Bonnie, Chica, and Foxy—huddled together in a conspiratorial circle on the opposite end of the room. 

“Abby?!” 

Bonnie looked up when he heard Mike’s voice. The rabbit marched towards Mike, who, in the grip of panic, grabbed a nearby chair and held it up like a shield, its legs out at the rabbit, ready to slam him upside the head with it if need be.

Bonnie stopped just feet short from Mike, with the chair keeping him from going any further. 

Mike’s panicked gape morphed into a near-maniacal grin. Yeah, that’s right, you dumb bunny! Know your place!  

Bonnie just stared at the chair, taking a moment to lift his head and eyeball Mike, blinking his eyes in a cuttingly slow, you-kiddin’-me glare. Across the room, Foxy and Chica made no advances, evinced no aggression of their own, watching Bonnie as if wanting him to communicate something to Mike they didn’t have the heart to. Focused on the rabbit before him to the exclusion of all else, Mike took no notice of them.

Bonnie suddenly raised his arms in front of him, eliciting a jolt from Mike, who stepped backwards with the chair out, ready to attack. Only when the rabbit stepped back did Mike notice no hands on Bonnie’s blue arms; they ended at the wrists, with rust-sprinkled metal nubs protruding from under the furry sleeve of the shell.

Mike lowered the chair, curious, before his gaze finally moved towards the other two animatronics. A restless Chica searched all around her, scanning the room, twitching her arms without her cupcake in sight. She stood in front of Foxy, who sent Mike a malicious leer, but made no incursion towards the guard; he stayed rooted in place, stewing over something, unwilling to help either of his agitated cohorts.

But Bonnie breaking the circle revealed Abby wasn’t in the middle of it.

“Where’s the girl?” he demanded to know, holding up the chair again and shaking it a few times at Bonnie. “She better be alive!”

Bonnie stepped back from Mike, his feet thumping on the floor, heavy falls ringing in Mike’s chest. Twisting his torso around the rabbit, swung his arms into Mike’s chair, sending it tumbling away. 

He stepped back, teeth grinding together and eyes full of panic. He had lost his shield, and a large amount of his confidence. For a brief moment, his eyes went down to his hands, a temporary stopgap before his instincts took over. 

From a running start, he could put some pretty good distance between himself and the animatronics, but considering the size of the building, he couldn’t run for long. For now, all he had was size, speed, and quick reflexes. Thinking to keep himself in one piece, he jerked his head to the side, seeing the welcome arch, and to its right, the arch leading behind the reception desk.

He jumped away from Bonnie, who only drew closer; Mike blitzed under the vestibule to the desk and wrenched open the wooden door. Once inside, he slammed the door behind him, sliding to the floor. Safe for now. Just gotta lay low for a bit, until they realize I’m not coming out, then I can look for Abby and—

“M-Mike?” came a blubbering, panicked young voice. “Is that you?”

His eyes widened. Abby! He scanned the small room they were in for any sign of her. Run-down, discarded objects filled the room. Most likely, it had been a supply closet while the place was still open. A clutch of disused arcade machines stood huddled together in the middle of the room, a couple more against the walls. 

From behind one of the straggler cabinets, a trembling Abby poked her head out to see him, silhouetted by a blue beam of uncertain origin. Beside her, the legs of some other animatronic were splayed out, unmoving.

A relieved smile crossed his face.

Inching closer to Abby until he was at her side, he remained aware of the animatronic suit, just a few feet away. The curious blue light streamed from the one intact eye of a whole spare Freddy animatronic—or at least a whole spare Freddy shell—sat slumped, limp, colored a pale, matted yellow. Maybe meant to be gold, but time had stolen its luster. 

“What happened? Did those things chase you?”

Abby nodded. “I heard this v-voice, and I— I thought there was someone hiding on the stage, so I pushed that b-button… on the wall…” She curled up, hiding her face against her knees. “The fox and the bird… they both gave me this look, and… I-I thought they were gonna hurt me!” 

So she activated them . Mike, in the present for once, didn’t let his thoughts become absorbed in musings about the fox, or about anything besides his sister. Thinking back to how Vanessa had activated the animatronics during his first encounter with her, he could see well how jarring, how frightening the show’s sudden bombardment of the senses would be for Abby; on top of that, the animatronics lunging towards her, trying to attack. Thank god she had been able to get out of there in time. 

“Abby, look at me,” he said, “It’s okay; it’s all okay. Come here.” He held his arms open for her, and she sat up, holding onto him while she cried.

“I’m sorry!” She blubbered as she hid her face against his chest. “I thought I could hear ‘em play, and watch ‘em dance, and it’d be fun to watch, b-but—!” She couldn’t finish, going back to incoherent sobbing. 

“It’s okay,” he continued to soothe her, stroking her back. “Let it all out.” 

It didn’t take long for their bubble of tranquility to burst. Mike heard a faint, metallic thud from the other side of the door. Probably Foxy, considering that it didn’t sound muffled by the furry shell of a paw. His grip on Abby tightened as his eyes locked onto the door. The girl let out a confused little noise, looking between Mike himself and the door that he had put all his focus on.

Shit. We’re trapped. Mike swallowed, his heart pounding in his chest. They wanted to hurt him, huh? They wanted to hurt him and his little sister? Not if he had anything to say about it! The blue light of the inert animatronic’s eye illuminated a tool chest in one corner of the room. Mike yanked open the chest’s drawers, rummaging through them until he grasped something he felt he could work with. He drew his hand out, bringing the full bulk of a monkey wrench into the blue light.

“Stay in here, Abbs!” He sidled over to the door, gripping his makeshift weapon as tight as he could in one hand, psyching himself up to open the door with the other. He huffed through flared nostrils, his hand jiggling the handle until he found it in him to burst out with a battle cry.

The monkey wrench collided with the head of Bonnie, not Foxy; the rabbit had his arms spread to either side as though he’d grab Mike and squeeze the life out of him with some monster hug, when the wrench hit his cranium with a plasticky bonk.

“How’s that, huh?! HUH?!” Mike kept bashing Bonnie over the head, the rabbit hardly putting up resistance. “You try to hurt her again and I swear, I’ll—”

The rabbit swung his arm at Mike, knocking the monkey wrench out of his hand. It clattered on the floor; Mike lunged to take it back, but was beaten just barely by Bonnie’s bare metal endo foot, pinning the wrench down and keeping him from taking it back.

He looked up, expecting to now see Bonnie bringing the heavy metal of his arm joints down on his head. 

But Bonnie just stared down at him, his slow blink giving off the same sense of exasperated confusion that it had before. The rabbit held both of his arms down, nubs toward Mike, getting him to take a long look at them.

“What?” Mike asked, as he thought he’d get an answer. He thought the rabbit was having a momentary glitch that prevented him from returning the favor Mike had dealt with the wrench, now pinned under the robot’s foot.

He gave another glance at Bonnie’s joints, where his hands ought to be. Would Bonnie be killing him if he had them? And as Bonnie stood over him, unmoving, Mike began to wonder why the rabbit didn’t make any attempt to harm him at all. 

Chica continued to nervously putter around the dining room, now coming to the prize counter, where Mike got a clear view of her. Unlike her leporine bandmate, Chica’s eyebrows gave one an indicator of her emotions, and they were raised high, angled sadly. She eventually stopped looking near the prize counter and moved to check somewhere else, lifting her hands to the side of her head like an overwhelmed child. Foxy hadn’t moved from his spot nearby; he stood there, arms crossed to the best of his ability, like a cranky sibling who refused to help out.

Mike turned back to Bonnie, the rabbit without his paws; the big blue brute still hadn’t moved a muscle to injure him. Bonnie waved the joints of his arms in Mike’s face again, slow enough to signal that he didn’t mean harm at all.

Before Mike could do anything, Abby let out a quick, involuntary gasp. Instantly, his focus locked onto her. She poked her head out from behind the closet, hiding herself behind the door jamb with her eyes locked squarely on Bonnie. Eyes glazed over, mouth slightly ajar, posture straight. Bonnie stared back at her.

“Abby, what are you doing?!” Mike shot across the floor, putting himself between her and Bonnie, the dread gripping his chest in a vice grip. 

“I think it’s okay.” She muttered, moving out towards the animatronics. “They don’t look angry.”

Yeah, no shit they don’t look angry! They couldn’t emote, not fully at least. Especially not Bonnie.

“Abby?” He muttered, his own eyes widening in confusion and not a little panic. “What’s— what’s going on? Are you hearing me?” He cautiously waved a hand in front of her face, but she leaned her head further out to see past it. She and the giant rabbit were set on each other, unreachable.

“Oh.” Her expression snapped back to normal. The life returned to her eyes as she gave a slow and cautious, but somewhat understanding, nod. “Makes sense.” 

“What does?”

“They’re just grumpy ‘cause they don’t have all their parts.” She explained, looking up at him. 

“All their… parts?” Mike repeated, like it would help him process what she had just said. “They, like—?” He pointed a thumb towards the dining room, at the two aimless animatronics in there. 

A quick little nod from her. “Yeah. They said people in blue came and took them.” 

“The cops,” Mike muttered, running his hand through his hair. His mind raced at a thousand miles a second, jam-packed with seemingly-contradictory information. 

How were the animatronics able to move on their own? Sure, the tape had mentioned that they had hidden batteries, but there wouldn’t have been a charge left by now, with all the years they’d spent locked up. But somehow, nonetheless, they had come off their stage and onto the pizzeria floor. Could they think, feel? Mike couldn’t conjure up any other explanation for them to be out and about, behaving so erratically after the police made off with pieces of them.

So they weren’t violent, at least not now. Bonnie, Chica and Foxy were only puzzled. If someone had broken into Mike’s home and stolen pieces of him, he reckoned he’d be irritable too.

“Look,” Abby pointed to the dining room, shuffling around the unnervingly passive rabbit. Mike followed. “See Chica? She’s looking for something.”

Unlike her fellows, Chica had no obviously missing parts. Her furry, animatronic suit was perfectly intact. However, her mouth was ajar, her eyebrows arched in perpetual worry. 

“And Foxy’s missing a hand,” she said, pointing at the glowering fox. 

Foxy shut his eyes and turned away from them, hanging his head.

Hold on. Bonnie, Chica, Foxy…

“Freddy’s not here,” Mike realized, eyes darting around in search of the bear. “Where is he?”

“Maybe… he’s still on the stage?” Abby theorized, looking up at her brother. Her expression was starting to become softer, the fear beginning to loosen its grip on her. 

Foxy turned his head to the two of them, earning their attention. He then pointed his nose toward the stage like a dog catching a scent; he held his gaze there for a spell, until he returned to brooding in place, scowling at the floor.

The siblings went to investigate, peering into the darkness of the stage from well back. Barely visible in the shadows, cowering in the stage’s corner with his back to them and his head down, Freddy secluded himself from everyone else.

“Freddy?” 

Mike glanced down at Abby, who’d asked. The bear shifted in place, but wouldn’t turn around.

“What’d they take from you?”

Freddy turned around, and it became abundantly clear why he hadn’t done so beforehand. 

His face was entirely gone, exposing the endoskeleton within. In a creepy, uncanny way, it was comical; it looked as if the endoskeleton wore a Freddy onesie. And its expression didn’t help any; eyelids half-open, and a pair of  at an angle that suggested sadness, but looked utterly uncanny when combined with the endo’s exposed teeth. 

Mike felt himself take a quick, sharp inhale as Freddy revealed himself. Faint white light peeked through the bear’s plastic pupils, as if some inhuman presence possessed the poor bear.

Abby turned around, glancing at the other three, all simmering and fretting in vexation. 

“I’m sorry your stuff got taken,” she said to them all, an apologetic look in her eyes. “Wish there was a way to make it up to you.”

The animatronics focused their attention back onto her. Chica’s expressions seemed to lighten; if animatronic casings were even capable of going through such a change. Even Foxy’s glare seemed to lighten, albeit less than his two co-stars. Freddy shrank further into the shadows, as too embarrassed to be seen anymore.

Mike checked his watch, reading 5:45 AM, as scenes from his previous jobs, scenes which had led to his termination, pestered him. His shift hadn’t ended, but deep in his gut, an irrational, potent force compelled him to leave. He’d bent the rules before, and his infractions universally lead to losing his job, but the unifying factor in all of those firings had been the presence of someone higher in the chain whom he had displeased.

As Raglan had said, he could be his own boss. Therefore, he had every right to end his shift a quarter-hour early. No one else needed to know.

“Abby, c’mon, we need to go,” Mike muttered under his breath. He was on high alert now. Panic was beginning to fester at the bottom of his soul, from that primal spot he tried to ignore. “We need to go home now!” 

“Wait! I got it!” Abby ran over to Chica, pulling a notebook and crayon out of her pocket. “Do you like pictures? I know it’s not a lot, but…” Her voice softened into a murmur as she quickly drew a little red heart on a sheet of notebook paper and placed it in the bird’s hand. “There.” She looked up at Chica, who seemed surprised, stirred by Abby’s gesture. Bonnie, who’d been lumbering towards Chica for a moment, gazed at the paper too, blinking at it. A curious Foxy even stepped closer to them, seeing for himself. 

“See?” Abby smiled up at them as they all turned their eyes to her. “We’re not bad people.”

Mike’s lip quivered, the anxiety jolting up as he processed what she just said. The smell of the cleaning chemicals throughout the pizzeria suddenly felt ten times more intense. He swore he could see the footprints of every officer, every forensics analyst who’d set foot in here, criss-crossing the room in search of something that would break the case wide open. A bloodstain where a victim hadn’t been lying, a stray article of clothing belonging to no one in particular; who knew what they’d find with all those components they’d taken from the animatronics to analyze in their labs. They’d find something, as sure as he and his sister would leave this place. 

“For the love of god, Abbs, come on!” He didn’t realize how he raised his voice as he came to her, motioning for her to leave with him.

The animatronics stared at Mike, just the same as Abby. Their wide eyes studied him as though he had sprouted a second head. Feeling their microscope upon him, Mike took his sister’s hand and tugged her away from them, nodding towards the office; they had to pack up what they’d brought.

Abby relented, turning from the animatronics. Mike tugged at her arm and marched them both down the hallway to the office, nearly pulling Abby over with the force of his grip and the jolt of his start.

Minutes later, he led Abby out from the same hallway, her backpack stuffed to bursting with her blankets. The animatronics hadn’t returned to the stage. Over by the wall of children’s drawings, Chica seemed to cradle Abby’s heart doodle in her two yellow hands; Foxy simmered in place, unmoving; Bonnie watched the two humans like a hawk, patrolling their every step on the way out.

Abby gave a tentative wave back at the animatronics as the two of them left. “Bye,” she whispered. 

***

Mike laid the sleeping Abby in her bed, tucking her in. She’d fallen fast asleep on the drive home; as many questions as he needed answers to, she needed rest. He did too. 

Mousing over to her chair, he took a seat at her desk. Sapped of his cognitive capacity by the night’s events, he laid his head back, gazing blankly at the ceiling. Just an hour ago, he couldn’t have been sure the two of them would make it home.

She had another hour to rest, at most, before school. And as much as he wished to sleep himself, he had to wait until he could come home a second time. At least he had nothing to concern himself with now. He slouched, relaxing. Here, at home, nothing could touch him; not the animatronics, not the police, not Aunt Jane—

He lifted his head, snapped to attention. The interview Vanessa mentioned still had to be scheduled. 

Creeping out of Abby’s room, he forced himself to think back on the night’s events, arrange them in the most flattering way he could. He couldn’t have fallen asleep, no; he must have been so focused on the cameras that he missed Abby sneaking out. That sounded plausible. And if he hadn’t seen her on the cameras? Well, he was simply switching through the exact cameras needed to not notice she’d gotten out earlier. A tad far-fetched, to be sure, but crazier things had happened. Like, say, the animatronics leaving the stage and searching for parts seized as evidence by the cops. He wouldn’t sugarcoat that; the police had to be made aware.

He strode past the cabinet by their table on his way to the kitchen phone, first stung by the thought of its contents; the custody papers, the delinquency notice. Not until he slid around the corner and had picked up the phone, about to punch in 9-1-1, did he remember something else stowed away in the junk drawer.

The acceptance letter! When he’d tell the police about the aberrant behavior of the animatronics, it would probably be in their best interest to have someone, somewhere to go to, to investigate, someone to blame it on. In typical “Mike” fashion, he’d neglected to pay close attention to any names printed on the letter when it arrived, but he’d be sure to bring it in for them when he’d come to the station.

Actually, he thought, what do I have to wait for? He pulled the drawer out, recalling that it should be near the top. The bright red of the delinquency notice drew his eye first, but he rummaged around, lifting up the custody papers, pushing the drawer’s oddments to the side.

That’s weird. I could have sworn I put it here… He ran his finger down the small pile of papers in the drawer, skimming for the letter. He couldn’t see it. Even after a few more sweeps of the drawer’s contents, he saw no trace of the yellowed old paper, or the envelope it came in, which he thought he’d retained for reference. Well, it couldn’t have gone far. I won’t need it until I go in. He shook his head as he shut the drawer and walked away from it. Once he’d dropped Abby off, he’d look harder for it.

“Granite Falls Police Department,” a woman on the other end of the phone broke through after a moment of static. “How can I help you?”

He let out a sigh. “My name is Mike Schmidt, and I’m involved in a case for one of your officers. I’m calling to ask about an interview. Is Officer Vanessa Albright there?”

“She’s out at the moment, but we can notify her.” Paper and pen shuffled over the receiver. “When would be a good time for you?”

Chapter Text

A sheet of paper from her ledger, clipped to the air vent on her center console, and an unfolded map of the interstate had guided her this far. Not much farther now, she assured herself, taking a swig of coffee from her drive-thru cup; the dutiful officers had no time for rest on a schedule like this. From Granite Falls at midnight, to the station half-an-hour later, to St. Cloud before rush hour…

She peeled away from the surge of highway traffic and signaled off of I-94, wending towards the peaceful suburbs of Waite Park, eyeing the directions clipped on the vent like an air wick. A case or two before, and the occasional request for backup from another department, had led her outside Granite Falls on duty, but not to Waite Park; one of those supremely quiet places. Impressive, given its proximity to St. Cloud.

Another glance at the sheet as she came to a stop at a neighborhood intersection. The street names over the stop sign showed her the last stretch of the journey to 223, 26th Avenue North. 

The little homes, devoid of any outside activity in the middle of the working week, rolled by as she coasted, counting the numbers on the mailboxes. 

Here it is. She parked her cruiser and reached for her radio, tuning it carefully until she found home.

“10-23, Waite Park, conducting interview. 10-6 until further notice. Over.” Before Granite Falls gave her the 10-4 and allowed her to proceed, she opened her ledger to her current case file. No jumble of letters and numbers inhabited the box where yesterday, she’d written out the name of the newest Freddy’s case in seconds; only three words—full words—were written in blue pen. Freddy’s Ownership Investigation.

A string of bullet points on the clean white paper tracked every known lead she could assemble from what the town and the state had provided on short notice, consisting of nothing more than William’s town record, and his missing persons file, neither having seen an update in five years.

• Interview Freddy’s co-owner. (Arranged for 041100, 0700 at residence 223 26th Ave N., Waite Park)

• Interview bankruptcy lawyer. (Waiting on contact information)

• Find living relatives.

• Identify blind trust.

“10-4, officer,” a voice replied through the static, vanishing after one more word. “Over.”

Vanessa slung a bag from her shoulder and stepped outside, absentmindedly opening to a fresh page of notes while she took in the home. An unassuming ranch house, shadowed under trees only just beginning to grow their leaves back after winter. An old station wagon, well-tended to, sat in the driveway, its sides wooden-paneled and surface spotless. No children’s toys, no bikes or playthings, barely any flora or shrubbery to decorate the lawn on the walk up to the wooden porch. Inside, faintly audible, a cloudy and subdued saxophone fluttered high above the quiet groove of a jazz song, playing on a stereo.

Seven on the dot, read her watch as she came up to the porch. She knocked on the door. 

“I’ll be out in a moment!” The voice of someone not used to raising their tone called out, just as the music stopped. His footsteps shuffled toward the door, only to turn away, into some other room; a door shut behind him.

A calm morning breeze blew past the porch, keeping her cool as she reviewed her questions. With the assistance of Detective Katch, seasoned in such procedure, she’d put together a thorough interview. Having discarded the ingrained questionnaires of traffic collision and petty theft interviews, which she could recite word-for-word without trouble and would need only a few lines in her notebook to fill, the comprehensive survey touched on the whole of Fazbear history, every aberration and event of note recorded by the station’s archives and the town where Emily made his living, all those years ago. 

She thought nothing of promotion to a higher office for her work, no matter the outcome of her special investigation, more befitting a detective than a field officer. If a call were to come, she would suppose her time would be best spent where it always had been, out on the street, covering as much ground as possible, with minimal distance between herself and anyone in need.

With her ledger under her arm and her shoulders back in a pose of professional composure, she waited.

The door opened with a creak. Out from behind it stepped a heavy-set, elderly man dressed in flannel and khakis, with dark hair and a full beard. Bags hung under his evergreen eyes; he squinted at the light of day, recoiling an inch or two.

“Officer,” he greeted, his broad shoulders relaxing. “Right on time.”

“Mr. Emily.” She nodded politely. “Thanks for agreeing to speak to me so early. May I come in?”

“Please, do.” He stood back, welcoming her in. 

Flipping a lightswitch, he illuminated his pristine, silent abode, lifeless but for the two of them. The rooms could hardly be called such; the lower story packed the necessities of a home into a small floor plan, with little delineation between the kitchen, living and dining rooms except for a counter closing off the kitchen from most sides.

A mess of papers covered the small, square dining table beside the kitchen. In a corner beside the table, a lamp shone upon an open sketch pad; protractors and compasses filled its sill. Precise pencil sketches of what appeared to be an animatronic head, rounder, smoother, and less obtuse than those of the animatronics at his old establishment, recalled a particular member of the Fazbear band. 

Other, more cartoony conceptual sketches of Chica were spread across the kitchen table. This bird had shed her yellow chick plumage for a mature mother-hen white, grown out of her bib and into a waitress’ uniform, given up her pizza-gluttony for—judging from her spiffy button-up dress, and a pair of roller skates built into her feet—milkshakes and burgers. Her short chicken comb sprouting from the top of her head had grown into a perfectly-preened mop of curled rockabilly hair. In one sketch, perhaps an illustration of the character’s retooled appeal, she looked to be pacing happily along with her eyes closed, squawking out a song while on either side she was flanked by a young, adoring fan; one a boy, one a girl, both dancing with her, holding plushies of her with one arm, and one of the bird’s hands with the other.

Looking closer, there were two others. Unlike the revamped Chica, whose design seemed settled, the granular details of this new duo fermented across several drafting sheets. One bore a striking resemblance to Foxy, with a canine muzzle, but, if the long lashes and bumper-fringe hairdo held up with a bandana was any indication, this one was female. The other was entirely original; a brawny, muscled reptilian creature wearing what seemed to be a leather jacket.

“Pardon the mess in here.” He chuckled, moving to clear the table. “Meant to organize some papers I thought would be of interest, and then… an explosion of creativity came to me.”

“I can see that.” Vanessa stood back out of courtesy. Her eyes stuck with the characters on the papers as he gathered them in a stack and stowed them in a drawer beneath his drafting board. “Are those for something you're involved with?”

“No, no. Just passion projects; don’t know what I’ll use them for, if anything. Maybe they’ll all be cartoons at the studio someday.” He stopped, as if he’d run into a lamppost. “Oh, I… I’m at a graphic design studio now. Pays well. Gives me something to do while the missus is out of town.” Pulling out a chair for her, he motioned to it. “Make yourself comfortable. I’ll be with you in a minute,” he said, moving to fetch himself a drink from the refrigerator. “Can I get you anything?”

“Oh, no. Thank you.” She opened to her questions, taking a pen from the spiral of her ledger and clicking it upon the table. “I appreciate it.”

He shuffled back to the table. Setting a glass of water before his seat, he took a small lot of documents from the drawing board before joining her at the table, composing himself. “Whenever you’re ready, officer. I hope I can make your time here useful.” He aligned the papers, which let out their ancient odor, filling the space around the table as he put them to the side.

“Thank you, sir.” Vanessa set her bag on a chair next to her, opening it to produce a tape recorder. Keeping the conversation flowing, she exchanged pleasantries, made a comment on the early hours. Henry didn’t bother changing his low monotone or injecting into the conversation any levity. Words flowed from his lips with the pace of molasses and the drawl of defeat. Life didn’t belong to him anymore.

A quiet, sad kind of man. He has far more of a past than a present.

“Alright, sir. Let’s get started.” She pressed play on the recorder, the tip of her pen barely half-an-inch above the sheet in her ledger. “For the record, please state your name.”

“Henry Dexter Emily,” he recited, weaving his hands together on the table.

“And between the years 1977 and 1984, you were co-owner and operator of the establishments Fredbear and Friends’ Family Diner, and Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, both located at 614 Greenbrier Way in Granite Falls, Minnesota. Correct?”

“Yes, I was.” A grimace showed through his beard. “Between those years and those years only; nothing there before or since.”

“And during those years, you co-owned these operations with one William Curtis Afton.”

“Yes, officer.” He glanced aside for a second, at the documents he’d dug up.

“Let’s start with how you came to know one another. How’d you meet? What led you to managing Freddy’s together?”

“I first met Will back in college. We were both in electronics classes at the University of Minnesota together, and we collaborated on a few projects together because needs must; the class required us to get together in groups with one or two other people, and all the people I actually thought I’d gel with got snatched up by someone else.” He paused, looking down at his hands. “Something I quickly realized about him was, he had the most outlandish ideas. He couldn’t always parse out a way to make them real on his own, but if he worked arm-in-arm with someone who was mechanically inclined, they both came out the other side with…” He lifted his hands, searching for the right word. “A marvel,” he settled. “Our projects floored the rest of the class.

“And Fredbear’s was a matter of… us being two young men, fresh out of college with bachelor’s degrees, wives to support and children on the way. What do you do in that situation? You find a way to make money doing what you know how to do. In our case, that was opening a ‘mascot pizzeria,’ which is what the trade journals called them at the time. We didn’t want to be anyone’s franchisee, so we churned out some dirt-basic characters to build animatronics of, and by summer of seventy-seven, Fredbear and Friends’ was open.”

Diligently, Vanessa had transcribed as much of his response as possible, having the speed of a court stenographer in recording it into small, practiced print.

“Fredbear and Friends’ became Freddy’s in the fall of 1979. Correct?”

“Right again, officer.”

“This rebranding, was it a personal choice, of your and Afton’s choosing? Or was your location bought out by a competitor or chain?”

“No buyout; nothing of the sort.” He shook his head. “Fredbear and Friends’ opened with only two animatronics, and they were the most primitive, basic things we could put together. There wasn’t much to the show, and we didn’t have much to spend on the amenities during the first couple years of business. By ‘78, Will and I had been brainstorming, we’d been visiting a few other pizzerias, seeing what their animatronics could do, how the shows were put together. And now that we had the cash and the experience, we decided to… What’s the right term?...” 

He sat back, taking a drink. “Update, maybe…? Ah— Revamp. That’s it. We opted to revamp the whole operation. Renovate the building, add more animatronics, throw in some variety to the shows; the whole works. We went from two characters to four, expanded the dining room, added more games, got more involved in what went on in the kitchen. We figured this was the ‘real deal’, so to speak, so we put our all into the rebranding. Will had a degree in finance, so he turned out to be a real trooper when it came to keeping all those balls up in the air.” A sigh of disbelief, to let such words pass his lips. “I don’t have many nice things to say about him today, so… that’s one of the few allowances he gets in my book.”

“I see.” She watched him take another drink, to calm himself. His fist clenched around the glass. “You and Afton did not part on good terms?”

The chair beneath him creaked as he leaned forward, shaking his head. “That’s a… diplomatic way to put it.”

“Well, this next question will give you a chance to let me know why. What can you tell me about Afton, with the benefit of hindsight? What was he like to work with? Are there any events in your history with him that stand out as… maybe as warnings that should’ve been heeded?”

He scratched at his chin through his beard, how one would when thinking of a punishment to be meted out. 

“I don’t want to say that I disliked him from the start, because that would be a boldfaced lie. But I was in a class mostly full of people who approached what we did with the same thought process; the rest of us, as far as I ever knew, were Minnesota-born-and-raised. So imagine, this… beanpole from New Hampshire drops into our laps. He walks around like he owns the place, he stares at everyone he meets like they’ve got two heads, and… he was the kind of guy who laughs at his own jokes, but his laugh sounds fake, no matter who’s being funny. And I wondered back then, what problem have I really got with him? Is it just me? He mentioned at one point that he came across the Great Lakes alone; so he was out here, a thousand miles away from where he grew up, and he’s got no one and nothing from home to lean on. I cut him some slack and got to know him a little more, because I figured: He’s in a new place, building a whole new life for himself from the ground up. Who wouldn’t want to try to put himself out there, get to know people?

“Will had all kinds of crazy ideas, and by the time we were prepping the rebrand for Freddy’s, he started dishing out these random, one-off comments that I was the only one who could keep pace with him. In retrospect, I think he was buttering me up to get me to take care of the parts of running a business that he didn’t want to. That, or he wanted to get me to trust him so I’d be less inclined to object when he’d pitch something… goddamned psychotic.”

“Psychotic?” she echoed, an implied Tell me what you mean by that at the end.

“I’d say you don’t want to know, but why else would you be speaking to me?” He didn’t smile or force a chuckle. “In ‘82, he came to me with this idea that he was losing his mind over. Called me the night before, trying to explain it to me, and he could barely string a sentence together. He called them springlock suits: animatronic suits whose internal parts could be restrained, so that people could wear them as costumes.” 

Vanessa arched an eyebrow.

He let out a rare laugh, bowing his head with a quick shake. “Yeah, that’s about the face I had when he pitched the idea. He told me that it would add a level of interactivity that wouldn’t be possible otherwise. I, on the other hand, had to remind him that the mechanisms we’d need to build into any one of those suits would be not only so complex that it’d take a good month’s worth of income to make back the cost of it, but that those mechanisms would also be so fragile, a spider trying to spin a web on the inside of the suit could lead to them coming unlocked, and the various crossheads and support structures meant to keep the suit on an animatronic’s endoskeleton would…” 

He goggled, recalling the lunacy of having to make his partner see sense. 

“They would skewer the person wearing the suit if they came loose. And sure enough, they did; they cost a couple employees a limb or two. I want to make clear that I had no part in designing it with him. I told him upfront, it’s a terrible idea and we shouldn’t do it. But he badgered me about it for weeks, even after telling him I’d have no part of it. A while later, I found out he went over my head and used his own money to have the casings for the old animatronics—the two we had when Fredbear and Friends’ opened—converted into wearable suits, with his own death-trap designs for spring locks to bind the animatronic parts against the insides. He was so proud of it, he filed a patent for that nonsense.”

“Every single person working at that pizzeria could see it was suicide to put it on. And when I say ‘it,’ I mean the first one, because for a few weeks, the second one was held up at the plant where they were jerry-rigging it. My personal guess is that someone working there got shanked every way to Sunday, and they realized they couldn’t ship it out as Will designed it, so they kept working on it and tried to not make a medieval torture device crammed inside a costume.

“The first suit, which was built out of the old casing for Fredbear, cost one of our employees his leg. By the time the second one arrived, no one would put them on but Will. He went around in the Bonnie springsuit every other day when he got it, and I think that was just to freak others out, because he knew fully well that the suit could kill him if someone were to just touch it wrong. It’s probably only because the Bonnie suit was modified from his plans, that it didn’t kill him.

“And then there was, uh… his other favorite hobby, besides endangering himself and others around him.” He clasped his hands together. “Everything you’ve heard about businessmen back then, it’s all true. For some people, laws were suggestions. And since his major was in finance, I can’t say in retrospect that it should’ve been all that surprising when I found out he was embezzling from my pension plan.”

“A-ha.” Vanessa flipped ahead in her ledger. “I’m going to stop you here for a moment. In my investigation, I obtained some financial records from the establishment. One of those records, dated 1988, showed a high disparity in the percentage cut between William Afton and a second individual unnamed in the files. Were you still receiving this pension in 1988?”

His lips curled in disgust. “I was. That was the last year I received William’s tablescraps before I did some digging and found out he was giving me short shrift.”

“I see. And what did you do with this information?”

“I sued him for all he was worth. When I filed suit, he was going through two other court battles at the same time. He already had a nasty divorce, and a negligence suit from the parents of the children who disappeared; they’d found out the pizzeria had no security cameras, and leapt at the chance to bleed him dry. On the subject of the divorce, I do think his wife, Clara, and his kids helped keep him… in line, so to speak, while we worked together at the pizzeria. At the very least, she got him to agree to stop having the springlock suits be worn after they made a couple employees into amputees. By eighty-seven Clara was… she was leaving him, or something else happened. So she took half of his stuff, I got the other half, and then the children’s parents were entitled to several million more that he didn’t have.”

She flipped back after transcribing, meaning to assemble her timeline chronologically. “Let’s backtrack for a moment, to when you were still at Freddy’s. Per your own words, you cut ties with the establishment located at 614 Greenbrier in 1984.”

A huff through his nose. His shoulders sagged. “That’s correct.”

To have him cast his mind back to the darkest days of his life made Vanessa pause. Her tear ducts tingled, but she maintained her outward composure.

“I understand that this may be a difficult subject for you, but can you… capsulize for me, why it is that you left the establishment in William’s care? What made you choose to leave behind what the both of you had built together?”

He hesitated, his fist tightening. “It was the last place I saw my little girl. I… I just couldn’t stop seeing her, even after I came back.” He muttered, bowing his head down. “Charlie loved Freddy’s; she insisted on coming to work with me whenever she could. And she was the reason I loved my job. When she was taken away, that reason went right along with her.”

Vanessa stopped transcribing, with nothing more than Charlotte’s disappearance in print. To write anything more felt like an act of disrespect; she needn’t wring any pain out in impartial writing.

“And what bridges the gap between nineteen eighty-four and eighty-eight? Is there anything of note that happened in those four years?”

He shrugged, looking down, then over to his drawings, then down at the table again.

“The funeral for William’s youngest son,” he croaked. “Then I… attended the mass for… the other five kids who… disappeared.” He unbuttoned the sleeve of his flannel shirt, dabbing his eyes with it. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright, sir.” She reached across the table, offering a hand to hold. “Thank you.”

“I stayed in touch with the families for a few years, made good friends with some of them. Got back into art design, took up a job as a designer, bounced around a few studios and agencies. But that takes us back to eighty-eight, and my lawsuit. The courtroom on the day I won what I was owed, was the last time I ever saw Will in person, but he did phone me the next night, while Delilah was working late. I knew by then that he would have to answer for those negligence charges, and he didn’t stand a chance of winning. I pick up the phone, and he screams at me until his receiver blows out.” His lips twitched into a schaedenfreude-fueled grin through his beard. “That’s about the level of maturity I expected from him. Last I heard, he was on welfare, going to some support group for divorced husbands. Haven’t seen hide nor hair of him since; if I ever see him or that building again, it’ll be too soon.”

The support group! Vanessa paused for a second as she wrote his response down.

“You mentioned he was in a support group. To your knowledge, was this group based in the town of Willmar, about an hour northeast of here?”

He shrugged. “It may have been, but I didn’t care where he was as long as I didn’t have to see him.”

“If you did not have contact with William, can you tell me how you learned he was attending this group? Did an acquaintance tell you?”

“Actually, it was in a newspaper years back. They ran a story about support groups, and his was one they featured. They quoted the sorry half-wit, dropped his name in print, said something about the catharsis of being around other people who’ve lost everything. Knowing him, that was his way of bragging about being able to hear others force themselves to confess to the worst mistakes of their lives.”

“Are you aware that William has been missing since December 6th, 1994?”

Henry sat back, blinking in surprise. “I wasn’t, no.”

“He was last seen leaving a meeting of this support group with another attendee: one Steve Raglan. Can you tell me if that name means anything to you?”

He leaned forward, cupping his ear. “Say it again, please?”

“Raglan; Steven Callum Raglan.” A sort of dossier-entry she’d written in another page of the ledger provided ample material for her to recite. “He was sixty-four, just a few months away from retirement when he disappeared. Divorced, like William; unlike him, Raglan was a fairly affluent man at the time of his disappearance, managing a chain of car washes in the Minneapolis area. His family stated in their missing persons report that they’d arranged for him to be back with them for the holidays, and he gave no indication to them that there had been any kind of change of plans. He left no correspondence, no last messages, and bank records indicate he withdrew nearly all of his life savings days before they were last sighted.”

“No, officer,” he answered with a shake of his head. “I think I’d remember a name like ‘Raglan,’ but I don’t recall ever hearing it. Again, Will was out of my life, and I considered that to be all that mattered.” 

Vanessa nodded, taking note. Unaware of William’s disappearance, unfamiliar with Steve Raglan.

“Now, sir, we’re coming to the end of the questions I came here with. You mentioned attending the funeral for Garrett Afton, and you were aware of his late wife, Clara. How familiar were you with the Aftons?”

“Well, when you work with the same guy for years, you get to know the people he cares about. Clara wasn’t in college with us, but he met her while we were in the program; I met her plenty of times. Quiet lady, faultlessly polite. She had an awfully high tolerance level for… William. Just in general. I don’t enjoy speaking ill of the dead, but I think she was a bit too forgiving of his antics. She knew there were times when she had to put her foot down, and the springlock idea was one of those times; he would’ve been content to let them chop a few more of our employees up if she hadn’t slapped some sense into him.” A long pause. “She was a good soul, at the end of the day. Didn’t deserve the pain she had to live with.”

“What did she live with? A condition?”

“No, she just lived with Will. Lived with him… telling her to shut her mouth when she’d finally open up, and that happened at a birthday at Freddy’s for one of their sons. Lived with him being more married to his job and his ideas than her.”

“What about the kids?”

“Well…” He sighed. “Apples don’t fall far from the tree, as they say. The older one, Mikey, was a troublemaker — he and a few of his classmates loved picking on younger kids. If you ask me, it’s a classic case of a kid acting up because their parents didn’t give them much attention otherwise. 

“And the younger, Garrett… He was a lot like his mother. Barely spoke, rarely ever saw him without this little stuffed bear, and seemed to be scared of his own shadow. That poor kid grew up being terrorized by his brother — his mean, careless, stupid older brother. I never got the whole story about how little Garrett died, but… I never saw Mikey again after that happened. I’d hope he’s grown up to be a better man.” 

“Mm-hm,” she agreed, noting it. “Michael Afton seems to be William’s only direct relative whom we haven’t yet confirmed to be missing or dead. Have you had any contact with him in the years since? Any idea of how we could reach him?”

“Sorry. Where Mikey went is as foreign to me as the news that Will’s been missing. Honestly, I don’t know that I’d wanna keep up with him even if I did know. I hope for the best, but who knows how he turned out with everything that happened.”

“Alright, sir.” Vanessa flipped to another page. Her final line of questioning was a long shot for Henry, but it could do no harm to ask. “The last thing I was hoping you could shed some light on for me is the bankruptcy proceedings for the pizzeria at 614 Greenbrier. I know this happened well after you left the company, but the documentation we obtained is incomplete. Are you aware that the Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza at that address is still standing and that virtually everything left inside the pizzeria upon its closure is still there?”

“It’s— Excuse me, it’s what?” He squinted at her, like she’d just admitted to some horrible crime.

“Freddy Fazbear’s, and everything that the establishment owned when closed, is still at 614 Greenbrier. For reasons unknown, a third party is hiring security guards to monitor the building. Who this third party is, how they are finding guards to hire, or how the building and the belongings inside it were never cleared by debtors is still under police investigation.”

“That is…” Henry scratched at his beard, eyes agog in confusion. “I-I have no idea who’d be keeping the place intact or why. The only reason I could fathom as to why that would be the case is… Will talked someone else into taking on the debt so the place wouldn’t be stripped bare. Maybe because he got too attached to his cash cow to bear to see it go all the way under. Clara, the other families, and I made off with all his money in court, so there’s no way he could’ve paid it off by himself. I’m sure you find it as ridiculous as I do that… he’d be able to cover it while he’s legally missing, and no one would find any trace of him.”

An interesting theory, and it could be possible. She scrawled in her notes: Blind trust? 

In a scenario where Afton established a blind trust, pawning Freddy Fazbear’s legal woes off to another person in lieu of his own ability to solve them, it would be entirely plausible for no one else to be notified of where the money they were after came from. Afton’s bankruptcy lawyer, however, would definitely know; he would have to preside over the creation of a trust. One more reason to get to Frank Offord as soon as he makes himself available.

“You were never approached about this? At no point were you ever notified that someone had taken the building off William’s hands?”

“Nobody told me anything to do with Freddy’s after I won the lawsuit; I was gone from the place by that point. The only thing I’ve still got from it is Chica.” He motioned to the sketch pad, the sheets stacked neatly on it. “She was my character and I licensed the rights to use her to the chain for as long as they were open. The chain’s belly-up, so… her likeness belongs to me. She’s the only thing from those years that I keep with me.”

“That concludes our interview, Mr. Emily,” she said, closing her ledger and stopping the tape before standing up to shake his hand. “Thank you very much for your time.”

“I’m glad I could be of assistance. By the way, officer?”

She nodded, about to turn and leave.

“Good luck on this. Hope you scrub what’s left of Will clean off the face of the earth.”

“I intend to,” she promised.

Vanessa stared up into a brighter, bluer, sunnier sky as she returned to her cruiser. A little closer to solving a few mysteries, little gained in the way of answers. 

Where did the tragedies of Freddy Fazbear’s end, and those of the Afton family begin? William and his big ideas, unleashed upon the people of Granite Falls, destroyed his own family; whether he’d tried to escape or not, he ultimately went down with the ship. Did the man not care for the consequences of his actions? Did he fancy himself a visionary, bound to change the world from the lofty heights of pizzeria manager? What a strange, sorry life to live; and a deplorable legacy.

Where are you, William? And where’s your son? 

She piled her things in the passenger seat and put her key in the ignition. Before setting off for home base, she took the receiver from her radio. “Officer Albright to station, over.”

“10-2; 10-5,” replied the operator.

“Interview concluded. 10-8. Over.”

“10-4, officer. The station needs to know if you can 10-19 at this time. Over.”

10-19? Come straight back to the base after an hour-and-a-half on the road to get here?

“10-4. What’s the situation? Over.”

“Someone named Mike Schmidt called, officer, and he asked specifically for you. He said he wanted to schedule an interview. Can you provide a 10-77 at this time?”

***

Mike rummaged through another kitchen drawer. Where had that acceptance letter gone? The contents of the junk drawer lay sprawled across the surface of the kitchen table; no trace of the envelope or the letter.

Sifting now through every nook and cranny the letter could’ve conceivably ended up in, he tried to mind the noise he made, careful to close the drawers softly; Abby needed as much sleep as she could get before school. To that end, the microwave clock kept him aware of the time. Not much longer, and he’d have to wake her. 

He’d searched too long for the letter, so concerned with locating it that he feared he didn’t have the time to prepare bacon. He did, of course, but in a panicked state, he figured only enough time remained for some waffles, which he threw into the toaster as if his life depended on them popping out hot and ready in the next ninety seconds. He passed that time dropping everything back into the drawers he thought he’d pulled them from — as best as he recalled in his rattled state. And even then, he focused more on listening for the pop! of waffles jumping out of the toaster than whether he dumped their silverware or ziplock bags back in the right drawers.

Creeping quietly into Abby’s room, he tried to rouse her from her nap. “Abby. Breakfast time. C’mon.” 

Sleeping soundly beneath the covers, she just rolled over when he shook her shoulder.

“Abbs, it’s a school day. You know it and I know it. Get up.”

A belligerent little “Hmph,” came from beneath the covers as she snuggled her elephant tighter.

Mike stepped away, defeated. These kinds of morning games, he never stood a chance at winning; she’d be up whenever she decided to stop making his life difficult. He nearly strode out the door before noticing the paper on her desk. Some new drawing sat there, crayons whittled down to nubs around it. In his panic over the events at Freddy’s, he’d missed it when he sat there at the desk himself.

The latest masterpiece from the inimitable Abby Schmidt! He leaned over to take a gander. How did the artist mean to express her profound innermost thoughts with this?

How indeed.

A chill ran down Mike’s spine. He fell into the chair, stooping over the drawing. 

***

Mike looked over at Abby, who sat beside him, eating her waffles. She made no fuss and didn’t utter a word. She seemed content, to have put her frightful encounter with the animatronics in its proper place; although with her, it could be difficult to tell. 

“Hey, Abby, um…” He spoke to her like the two of them were hostages, concocting a scheme to escape captivity. “Did you… sleep okay last night?”

A moment of quintessentially-Abby silence later, she nodded her head, not sparing him a glance. “Yeah. Slept good.”

Hardly the answer he was looking for, but it was at least an answer.

“Think you can handle school today? We didn’t get a lot of sleep, and… I, uh…”

“I’m okay,” she flatly replied, still not looking up from her plate.

Abby’s mind was an enigma at the best of times, and Mike didn’t always buy her pithy responses. At times like these, with a potential polygraph test looming over his head, he was almost thankful for her ability to drift through life, unfazed by much of anything.

He thought to double-check, at the very least. “Th-Those robots, they didn’t hurt you or anything? Did they.”

She lifted her head and met his gaze. “No. They just scared me. They said they were sorry.”

Her brother blinked his eyes, processing it.

“The robots said sorry?”

“Yeah.”

Years of accidentally sitting on Abby’s imaginary friends blunted Mike’s mind to the inanities that came from her mouth. Believing she’d made friends with the animatronics, he wouldn’t have put past her; on any other day, he might’ve accepted this, rolled with her having made new friends. He might’ve even been glad they were at least tangible.

Out of the corner of his eye, her latest drawing lay in the empty chair beside him. His skin crawled beneath his henley shirt.

“How exactly did they… How’d you know? Did you hear them say it?”

“Can I have more waffles?” 

Total ignorance. The cold pit of illness stirring in Mike’s stomach didn’t ease at all, squeezing him in a grip of fear so tight, he didn’t clock that for once, Abby wanted more food. Appease the artist. Maybe she’ll start telling you her inspiration.

“Y-Yeah. Just a minute.” 

Mike couldn’t stop himself from shivering, all the way through dropping a couple more waffles in the toaster. He hung his head over it. 

“Hey, Abbs?” His voice wavered. A long pause to compose himself followed. “I-I saw what you were drawing in there.” He shuffled back to his seat. “And… I… I just wanted to ask you, uhm…” The paper flapped; he lifted it up, positioning it before her.

The same bright colors Abby used to paint fields in bloom under clear skies filled the paper, edge-to-edge, top-to-bottom. Rose reds, tree-bark browns. But the scene had no place in any peaceful idyll she’d drawn before. 

A towering bear stood on its hind legs on a stage under beams of colored lights; a large catch hung in its mouth, surrounded by spattered scarlet. The body of a young child, their head crunched between the bear’s jaws. Witnessing the grizzly scene, their silhouettes all blackened, were animals, like the animatronic characters who would be on the stage at Freddy’s, performing. Now, all there for an image burned into their memories.

“Can you explain this to me?” He watched his tone, not wanting to frighten her. “You drew this, right?”

Abby hesitated, taking in the drawing as if she’d never seen it before. She nodded, and looked up at him again, her eyes rounded in fear.

“Hey, listen,” Mike laid a comforting hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay; I’m not mad at you. I just wanna understand. Why’d you draw this? What’s it supposed to be?”

A beat of silence. 

“My friend said you’d know what it is,” she murmured, as if admitting to some wrong she’d done herself.

The pit his stomach dropped out, deeper. He drew back in a flinch. Quelling the sudden spike of fear, the calm voice of reason resounded in his head: Why would I know? He carried on questioning her.

“Your friend? What friend? A— Was it a boy with… w-with blonde hair?”

“No. She was the friend you sat on the other day.”

Something about her answer gave him the impression she knew the blonde boy in question. “Do you know who I’m talking about?”

She nodded.

“This other friend, the girl — what did she tell you? D-Does she talk to you about things like this, or… w-what does she usually say? Is she… violent?”

“No. She likes to tell jokes. She says she likes to make people smile.”

“What does she look like?”

“She has black hair, but I never see her face. She wears a funny mask. I asked her once if I could see her face, but she said she’s had it so long, she can never take it off. And then she said something about you.”

“About me? What’d…” He shrugged; some part of him didn’t want to ask in words. 

“She said I’d get used to her wearing a mask all the time, because you do too. I don’t know what that means.”

Mike gripped the side of the chair, knuckles whitening. And again, before his thoughts could go too far—maybe towards what he’d do to that imaginary friend if he could do anything about her—the thought was gone.

I don’t know what that means either. Since when have I ever worn a mask?

He asked nothing more, taking the picture back, sitting it face-down in the chair; out of sight, out of mind. The rest of breakfast passed without a word out of him. Abby ate up the rest of her waffles without complaint, relieved to not have an adult grilling her to speak anymore. 

Mike didn’t bother to clear the table before they left for the car, too stressed. Getting Abby to school on time couldn’t be described as one of his worries.

“Can you fix them?” Abby asked, peeking out from the back seat. 

Mike’s hands tensed slightly. “Fix who?”

“The robots.” She said, matter-of-factly. “I feel bad for them, being stuck without their parts and stuff.” 

For a moment, Mike said nothing. All Abby could make out was the furrow of his brows in the rear-view mirror, a clear sign that she had done something she probably shouldn’t have. “You worked at a car place.” she pointed out, already bowing her head in submission. 

“I was just telling people what tires to buy! That’s not the same!” He gave a gesture, raising his hand up to the car’s roof like he was asking for some divine inspiration. “And why the hell do you feel bad for them, anyway?!” The word just slipped out, as though cursing out a ten-year-old could be rendered irrelevant by what said ten-year-old was suggesting. “They could’ve killed you!”

“They weren’t gonna,” she insisted at once. “Chica’s nice. And so’s Fredbear.”

Great, she’s giving them nicknames. He gritted his teeth. 

“Remember what they said? They’re just mad ‘cause they got their parts taken. Maybe if we fix them, they’ll be nice to us. Then, we can all be friends!” She gave him a quick, sheepish smile, clearly knowing she was going against Mike but still wanting to make her case.

Silence, but for the rattle of the idling motor.

“Look, Abbs, I don’t think I’m the guy for the job.” He grumbled. “Maybe, once the cops finish up at Freddy’s, they’ll be able to put them back together. And if they don’t, I’ll… I don’t know, I’ll call a mechanic, and they can fix them up, good as new. How’s that sound, OK?” He looked back at her, maybe not realizing how frantic he looked. 

She gave him a quick nod. “Sounds good.”

The drive to school passed without incident. 

“Now, Abby,” he pointed back at her once the sedan came to a stop in the car-riders line. “No telling anyone about what happened last night. That’s cop stuff.” And I really don’t need Vanessa on my case any tighter than she already is. “Got it?” 

“Mmm-hmm.” Abby nodded as she grabbed onto the car door handle. 

“All right, then, have a good day.” He said, giving her a little wave as she exited.

He’d done enough, he told himself as he watched her go through the school doors. He’d found her when she was scared, comforted her, and brought her back safely. She was safe; a little shaken at the time, but alive. 

And that was the important thing. She was alive and okay. She was here, and he’d be damned if he let her go somewhere he didn’t think she’d be okay. 

***

Dull gray on brick walls. A table with a second chair in front of him, a one-way window to his left, and a reel-to-reel tape machine with microphones sprouting from either side on the table before him, one mic pointed at him. The room came straight out of a police procedural. Except that in reality, it was ten times more oppressive. 

“You know the drill,” said Vanessa, conversing with a fellow police employee on the other side of the window. “You just let me know if anything about him jumps out at you.”

Reynolds, one of the station’s kinesics experts, had settled into his own seat on the other side of the one-way. An unassuming figure, with eyes like a hawk; a human polygraph if ever there was one. Actions—even a nervous jitter, or fanning oneself—spoke as loud as words in a police interview, and men like Reynolds were here to account for it.

Mike figured to straighten his back when Vanessa came in. The lack of any machine his fingertips would be wired to, gave him some comfort. 

“Thanks for coming.” Vanessa reached across the desk and shook his hand.

“Glad to help,” he said. “I… I tried to find the letter I got from my employer before I came here, but… I-I misplaced it. Sorry about that.”

“No trouble, Mike. We appreciate that you looked. If you do find it, feel free to call.” Vanessa started the tape machine with a satisfying click of the record button. “For the record, please state your full name.” She flipped open her ledger.

Mike took a breath, trying to steady himself. “Michael Terrance Schmidt.”

“Occupation?”

“Security guard at Freddy Fazbear’s.”

Vanessa moved down each point on her list of questions with surgical precision, a voice unmarred by emotion.

“At what point did your employment at Freddy Fazbear’s begin?”

“My first night on duty was the morning of April 8th, this Monday. 12 AM to six. I got a letter from my employer, whom I… never spoke with on the phone or met in person, two days before that, on the 6th.”

“And I assume you had a career counselor as your liaison?”

“Yes,” he confirmed.

Vanessa noted, No contact with employer(s). Ask about middleman career counselor before ending interview.

“As you are aware, four people involved in a burglary of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza were found dead on your worksite within five hours of your departure. I will now list the names of the deceased. Will you tell me how many of these individuals you were acquainted with?”

Mike shifted uncomfortably. His shoulders drooped. “Yes, ma’am,” he sighed.

“Maxine Hine, Jeffrey Hine, Hank Jones, and Carl Watt.”

Mike thought for a moment on the last two, but concluded that they rang no bells. “The Hines, I knew. I don’t know the other two.”

“What can you tell us about the Hine siblings?”

“I knew Max pretty well. She talked about her brother every now and then, but I may have only met him once or twice. I met Max in high school, we were study buddies. She and her brother had an easier time keeping down jobs than I ever have. The times when I did have a job, I paid Max to come around and babysit Abby when she was able. Even, um… Even when I was between jobs, she still was willing to come and look after her. She was a really good friend. I… really can’t say what she’d want with Freddy’s; she was always supportive when I was looking for somewhere to work.

“Jeff, I never knew much about. He seemed like the kind of guy who had trouble taking jokes. I said a couple smart-alec things around him once, and he just… grabbed me by the collar and told me ‘Say that again, I dare you,’ or something like that. Max had to talk him down.”

“Interesting,” Vanessa remarked. “To your knowledge, were the Hine siblings struggling to make ends meet? Did they have any financial or legal troubles that you knew of?”

“I know they both made rent together,” he answered with a shrug. “And… I think Jeff was trying to pay off a truck he bought, or something like that. I— I can’t imagine things were too bad for them if Max was willing to babysit Abby for nothing but the leftovers in my fridge.”

“Our department uncovered an unfulfilled debt that Jeffrey owed to a dealership for a vehicle. An ongoing agreement had been reached for Jeffrey to pay them in installments. To our knowledge, the dealership’s terms were that he owed a four-digit figure every month, or the vehicle would be repossessed.” Vanessa looked up from her notes. “The matter of the Hine siblings’ finances, and whether Jeffrey and Maxine had the means to pay the forthcoming installment are not entirely clear to us as of yet.”

A solemn nod from Mike.

“At this point, we can’t rule anything out. In your opinion, would the Hine siblings at all be willing to turn to illegal activities, such as robbery, in hopes of finding money?”

He furrowed his brow, not responding for a moment. “Not Max, no. I can’t imagine her doing that. Jeff… I guess I wouldn’t be too surprised if he’d done some shady things, but… I just don’t see how he’d get Max involved. Are you saying they’d want to rob where I work? Why would they do that?”

“With all due respect, I’m the one asking questions.” Vanessa remained a stone wall, unaffected by Mike’s confusion, though she shared in it. “We’re trying to figure out what they would want with Freddy’s, just the same as you are. You stated Maxine knew about your precarious financial situation. Do you believe she, Jeffrey, or anyone else you might know of, would have reason to interfere with your employment?”

“A-Again, for Max, I have no idea why she’d go out of her way to do that. I do know someone who’d… um… My aunt Jane, Jane Barton, has… Well, just recently, she gave me some custody transfer papers. She wants to take Abby off my hands.”

So that’s why his sister thought I was there to take her. Vanessa’s heart wept for the young girl, though she didn’t let it affect her.

“And I take it you weren’t planning on signing those documents.” She remembered that he managed to croak out the word “mean” during the initial questioning, but how deep did it go?

“Well, she’s… I get this isn’t the most official way to say it, but it’s the truth. Jane’s just an asshole. She wouldn’t lend a hand at all when I called her last year to ask if Abby and I could stay with her, or if she could come live with us to make things easier, or… anything at all. She’s the only family I know we’ve got in the state, and she wouldn’t help with anything. And I… guess I pestered her about it so much that she started getting suspicious. 

“She finally came to see us for Christmas last year. Max and Jeff were the only people who came around to see us— uh— th-that we knew were coming, I should say. Jane showed up unannounced, and she did bother to bring presents for me and Abby, but… she sat me down after Max and Jeff left, and she started… raking me over the coals about how I ‘let Abby live in poverty.’ She got really personal. Like… Abby’s, um… She’s a lonely kid, only really talks to her im— i-imaginary friends, instead of other kids at school; she spends more time drawing than doing the homework she gets, or even doing classwork. Jane started blaming me for the way she is, said I was letting her slip behind.”

“And she’s been trying to use this as leverage to pry Abby away from you?” Vanessa noted Jane’s name.

“Yeah. She came to the school last month, had a talk with the principal, with me there. I think it was another… manipulation tactic, trying to get someone from the school on her side, so… they could do something about Abby, t-to Jane’s benefit, I should say. The principal, or whatever, didn’t buy anything Jane was selling, if that’s any indication.”

Vanessa circled Jane’s name, penciling Max’s and Jeff’s in below. “Maxine and Jeffrey both met Jane?”

“Yeah,” he said, nodding.

“Did she have any interaction with them that you recall?”

“I introduced Max and Jeff to her. Not that I wanted to, ‘cause… she’s a drag on the whole room. But yeah, they did know each—”

Vanessa had just circled Max and Jeff’s names, drawing a web between theirs and Jane’s. Possible quid pro quo to tip favor of custody case? She glanced up at Mike, who’d trailed off, agape.

“Holy shit,” Mike gasped, eyes widening. “It’s a setup! It’s gotta be! She set me up!”

“The timing is suspicious. Rest assured, we’ll speak to her as well.”

He threw his head back, letting out a groan of relief, barely choking down the urge to shout in victory and throw his fist in the air. FUCK YEAH! 

“We’ll investigate the matter of your aunt in due course. Moving on now…” She flipped to the next page in her notes. “A near-empty bottle of the sedative drug loprazolam, prescribed to you, Michael Terrance Schmidt, was found at the scene of the crime. Can you explain why you brought a sleep-aid drug to your workplace?”

And there it was: the six million dollar question. Mike’s relief faded. Buttressing his courage, he recited his litany.

“I’ve been reading this book… Dream Theory. The idea is that, well, we can’t forget things. Basically, every single thing you see in your entire life, down to the tiniest of details, gets stored inside of you. You just need to know how to get to it.”

“Through dreams, I assume?” 

He let out a quick, involuntary chuckle. “I was already on the meds, but they help. And so do familiar sights, sounds, stuff like that. Y'know… ‘Pining for fun? Visit Nebraska’…”

“I am aware. How exactly does this factor into you having the loprazolam at your workplace?” 

Mike held up a hand, sure of his answer. “When I was about 12, me and my family went camping. In Nebraska, of course; a camping park called Hidden Falls. Mom was pregnant with Abby then; it was them, me, and my…” A pause, a nervous fidget under Vanessa’s microscope lens. “My little brother, Garrett,” he pushed the name out with a whimper.

Vanessa clocked the weakness in his voice; her camera-gaze shot up from her notes, studying him in crystal-clear resolution. 

Wasn’t I just hearing about another Michael with a brother named Garrett? Interesting coincidence.

Mike closed his eyes and continued confidently, with no more hesitation or misspeaking.

“Another family was playing with a Frisbee. Garrett was running around, flying this little toy plane in his hands; it was his favorite thing. Dad was grilling. Mom knocked over a bottle of Coke; I can remember the carbonation bubbles, sticking to the wood of the picnic table. She steps away to get a towel and tells me to watch Garrett while she heads off. I keep an eye on him while he’s running around trees, until the other family chucks their Frisbee over my head. I ran over to grab the frisbee and toss it back. I turn around, and…” A tremor through his whole body. “There was a black car, driving down the road. And they took Garrett, snatched him right when I wasn’t looking.” He opened his eyes, coming down from his dream. “They never found the guy, and they never found my brother. And things were… never really the same after that.” 

When he looked back up at Vanessa, he found that her expression had softened, if only just.

“My condolences.”

Mike hesitated before nodding.

“So, If I understand this correctly, you believe that your subconscious stored the face of the man who took your brother.”

“I wanna believe it’s in there. And… when I’m at Freddy’s, I feel… closer, I guess. I can’t explain it, but my dreams are more vivid. It’s like I’m really there. It’s like I can change what happened.”

The pencil clacked on the table. Vanessa massaged the bridge of her nose with an exasperated huff. 

“I don’t pride myself on questioning people for what helps them sleep at night, but Mike, you realize you can’t change the past, right? Especially not through your dreams. This isn’t Run Lola Run.”

“N-No, no, I…” He backtracked, “I know that. I just… You’ve probably seen what losing a family member does to someone.”

Indeed she had. Who would she be if she went out of her way to deny people the simple desire for closure? Not anyone Patchy and Lovey would believe she could ever turn into.

“It probably is a bunch of… new-age, guru mumbo-jumbo,” he admitted. “But it helps. It just helps me… find a little bit of peace.”

He could tell by the look in her eyes what she thought of his explanation: bullshit. And he didn’t blame her; he didn’t believe it either, until he started getting results.

In her notes, Vanessa was more diplomatic than Mike thought: Subscribes to a genre of self-help science supposed to enhance memory recall. Seeks closure for disappearance of brother; medication provides consistency in returning to traumatic events through dreams.

“I can respect that. Thank you for sharing that story.”

Mike nodded.

“I want you to understand that as this case develops, we may have more questions for you at a later date. For now, that last line of questioning we have for you is: what do you know about your employer?”

“Uh…” Mike swallowed. “Never met him. All I ever got was a letter saying I got the job.”

“Was it signed?”

“Not by a person.” He shrugged.

“But they knew your address.”

“My career counselor said he’d talk to the Freddy’s guys. He must’ve told them.”

“Right. Can you tell us where we’d find this counselor?”

“His name’s Steve Raglan,” said Mike. “He works at a place over in Minneapolis.”

The reel of film supplying Vanessa’s unfaltering memory jammed. Her pen had just touched the paper in her ledger; she retracted it at once, only a dot left behind.

“I’m sorry. Can you repeat that? His name is?…” 

He could tell by the look in her eyes that he had just said something monumental. “Steve Raglan?” 

“Raglan, spelled R-A-G-L-A-N? First name Steve?” Her questions were pouring out as fast as she could think of them.

“Yeah.” Can’t imagine it being spelled another way. It was etched into his mind as well as it was on that placard on Raglan’s desk.

“Did you ever catch if his middle name was Callum?”

“Uh… No?”

“He works as a career counselor in Minneapolis?”

“Mm-hm. Drove out to see him at the DSS office there last month, called him on the 2nd of this month.”

“Can you give me that number?”

“I— I don’t have it on me right now, but I can do you one better. I’ve got his business card at my house. I could bring it in.”

“Thank you. If you could, we would appreciate that business card as soon as you can provide it.”

“D’uh… Sure. As soon as I next see you.”

Call the Minneapolis DSS office immediately. Vanessa underlined it in her notes. Inquire about Steve Raglan, career counselor.

“Well, I did not expect this interview to end so abruptly, but you’ve provided me with answers to all of the questions we needed to ask.” A click of the button on the tape machine, stopping the reels.

Mike glanced at the one-way window, at his reflection in it, startled by the sudden conclusion. “Does this mean I’m free to go?”

“It does, as soon as I come back. Stay here for a minute.”

Mike stayed put; Vanessa left the interview room and circled around to see Reynolds, rising from his seat.

“Did you pick up on anything?” she asked.

Reynolds eyed Mike with his raptor-gaze. “He’s a nervous wreck over something. Fidgets a lot. But it’s hard to tell how much of it relates to the questions and how much is down to his circumstances. He mellowed out big-time, describing how his brother was abducted. And the connection from his friends to his aunt was rather revealing. I’d say he’s got so much on his plate already, I couldn’t definitively pin down what’s going on.”

“That’s your statement? Inconclusive?”

“That’s what I’d go with.”

Vanessa returned to Mike. “Thanks for your time. You’re free to go. The department will keep in contact with you in the event that we have any further questions.” She extended her arm across the table, and they shook on it again. “No more pills on the job. When you’re at Freddy’s, you stay alert. Got it?” 

“Y— Yeah, yeah…” Mike nodded, absent-mindedly, letting Vanessa guide him to the front desk. He watched her check him off the visitors list. “Before I go, I wanted to ask, could you come by Freddy’s tonight? When I’m on shift?”

Her brows furrowed. “Why?”

“For one, I can get you the business card by then. And there’s…” he twiddled his thumbs, not sure on how to describe what Abby had told him without digging himself even further in the hole. “There’s quirky stuff going on there.”

“Quirky how?” As soon as the question left her lips, Mike’s palms began to get sweaty. How could it be that a child’s eyes, no wiser than they’d ever been, pierced his soul?

“I— I-It’s, uh—” Mike started, unsure on how to explain it himself. “One of those ‘gotta be seen to be believed’ kinda things.”

Vanessa checked her ledger for her schedule today. Nothing prevented her from being there if Mike felt her presence was essential. As far as she knew, the station was still trying to connect her with Frank Offord.

“I’ll try to clear it with the station.”

“‘Right. See you then.” Mike slunk out of the station and motored off. The Granite Falls Police Department shrunk in his rearview mirror, smaller and smaller until he’d left it behind.

The tension in his shoulders eased; he breathed it all out like black smoke. If he’d done well in that interview, they believed his story as much as he did.

Vanessa found a phone operator at once. “Get in contact with the Minneapolis DSS ASAP. Call and ask them about one Steve Raglan, apparently working there as a career counselor.”

The operator at the desk flipped through the phone book, searching for the number. Vanessa turned away, about to make her way towards the heart of the station, to find Captain Thompson and inform him of her arrangement at Freddy’s. 

It’s best to find Katch too; he needs to have the information I got from Mike. 

Luckily, the detectives’ offices were on the way to the captain’s. More open and spacious than other, more important quarters in the station, a handful of desks were filled and surrounded by the station’s finest, dressed for plainclothes operation; detectives had more leeway than patrol officers on just about everything.

Katch’s desk, however, was empty. A fellow detective pointed her to the lounge at the front of the building, tucked away near the forensics lab. Vanessa trekked back to the front desks and took a right turn, passing the records office, where she caught a glimpse of Moore and some of his colleagues through the window, still acquainting themselves with the computers. 

The lounge, past that, tended to attract most of the budget for renovations, and housed more modern comforts than the rest of the station; folks working hard jobs for long hours needed somewhere to unwind when they could, after all. 

Vending machines and simmering coffee makers stood flush against freshly-painted walls. A half-dozen patrol officers in their street blues gathered where they’d get their drinks, making small talk about this and that.

At the back, set apart from the men and women in blue, Detective Katch dressed like a holidaymaker in the Florida Keys — a shirt patterned with tribal drums and tiki masks, with blue jeans and loafers to complete the getup; only his police badge and the handgun in his belt clashed with it. Short-haired and stubbled, the well-tanned detective toasted to an officer’s forthcoming wedding; he and his compatriots raised their coffee cups, and all took a swig, or a sip, for those who’d just poured their joe, hot and fresh.

Recognition flashed in Katch’s eyes as Vanessa came into his line of vision. He excused himself from the group celebration, leaving his cup on the counter.

“Albright!” He hurried up to greet her, shaking her hand.

“Detective,” she greeted, more formal than he seemed capable of.

“I heard the guard just came in for an interview. Is he already out?”

“Affirmative; I just wrapped up. Reynolds didn’t think much of him, but I thought you’d wanna hear the recording. He gave us some leads you might wanna look into.”

Despite his slacker appearance, Katch strode diligently in lockstep with her on her way to retrieve the recording. His face had gone from the jovial smile of a cop on his coffee break, to that of a hard-boiled noir hero.

***

In most circumstances, Inspector Grundman wouldn’t be at a local police station to audit evidence. This duty usually befell him in Saint Paul, where the rest of his bureau worked, and where evidence in cases such as VA-GF-040900-10:39 would be sent for an audit backed up by funding that a station like Granite Falls’ may not be able to supply on their own. 

Of course, when the bureau received a call about another Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza case with multiple vics, they couldn’t slack off. He was already in town seeing relatives, and had his equipment on hand; why not send the nearest inspector?

And now Grundman was in their forensics lab, faced with this disturbing instrument on the sterile metal table before him. A cupcake-shaped, blood-stained mass of metal with two buck teeth and closed eyes. Something told him this case would be news statewide before the end of the week.

The short-statured, silver-haired man zipped up in a protective white suit reviewed the packet of notes the case’s handling officer provided. The nostrils of his wide nose flared as he took a deep huff at the phrase, No prints besides the vic’s.

The perp must’ve known a thing or two about these animatronics, to rip parts off of them, use those parts to kill the vics, and reattach them without leaving a single print, strand of hair, or anything that could be used as trace evidence. How’d the perp done it with this? How’d the vic met with the fate he had? Bashing someone in the face with a hunk of metal this heavy would leave a mark, but it wouldn’t rip halfway through a man’s head, as the photos showed it apparently had. Even a relentless flogging to the face after being knocked unconscious wouldn’t do that kind of damage…

Frosting of cupcake lifts back to show interlocking system of blades, read a section in the notes. Hair, tissue, and blood samples of Vic 1 were found on blades.

The hair on the back of the inspector’s neck bristled. Using a pair of pry bars, he separated the cupcake’s frosting from its wrapper-body, wishing all the while that he’d just skipped his grandniece’s birthday, sent her gifts in the mail.

Odors of rusted metal and blood wafted from the mouth of the cupcake. He pulled his stomach in, cringing at the stench alone before producing a tissue packet and a pocket-sized bottle of room spray, spritzing some into a tissue and holding it over his nose. With his free hand, he reached a pair of metal tweezers into the web of blades; samples of hair, shredded tissue, dried vitreous of the vic’s eyeballs. 

Grundman scowled all the way through the inspection, but his careful hand never faltered. One couldn’t be too squeamish in this line of work. Turning away after clearing out several samples of the vic’s remains, he typed up a rough report on his laptop, perched on another table off to the side.

Clink, went something behind him.

He spun to face the table. Something fallen loose inside the device? 

Nothing he could see; all was as he’d left it. Back to typing. The sooner he wrapped up his own report, the sooner he could bag this appalling little torture machine up and—

Clink. Clink-clink.

Again he stopped, coming back to the shredder-cupcake. Handling it gingerly with his gloved hand, he craned his neck down, peering into the blades. 

Clink, went the blades, all ticking forward like the gears in a pocketwatch. Clink. Clink. Clink… clink… clink-clink-clink-clinkclinkclinkclinkCLINKCLINKCLINK…

Grundman dropped it on the metal examination table with a loud clatter, staggering back. The frosting-head jittered as the gears spun, spitting out more shreds of tissue; knotted hair snapped with the quickening rotation of the blades, their whirring turning to a metallic roar that rattled the whole table, his tools and the provided photos and evidence jumping around across the tabletop like it was the surface of an air hockey table. 

Just as quickly as it had all begun, the whirring stopped; the head of the cupcake closed over the blades.

Grundman cringed against the door of the lab, about to rip it open and call for help. He stared at the evil little machine, his hand trembling as it gripped the doorknob.

The cupcake’s eyes opened, swivelling, taking in its surroundings. A second later, its vision landed on the harrowed old inspector. 

It growled at him like a rabid dog.

The gears within it rattled up to speed. It shook the desk as its eyes lit with a jaundiced yellow glow.

***

Vanessa and Detective Katch sat at a table with a tape player, having returned to a room nearby the lounge. She poised a hand over the controls; he stood to her side, listening to Mike’s bewildered responses to the inquiries about his career counselor. Vanessa halted the tape once it had run to the end of the recording; she turned to Katch, who’d transcribed in a notebook many of the same points she did.

“An aunt hiring her nephew’s best friends to rough up the place where he works so she can have custody of his sister is… I don’t know, that’s a new one. New to me, at least,” he said, trying to sound lighthearted about it all. 

Some of us need to find things to laugh at. Cases that are amusing on their face are the exceptions.

“Does this Jane lady sound like as much of an asshole to you as she does to me?”

Vanessa blew out her cheeks as she respooled the tape and removed it from the reel-to-reel, exasperated at the thought of her. Heaven help the detective if he met one of those types in the flesh. “Couldn’t say anything on the record, but you read my mind.”

The two headed back out into the hallway. With the tape held under her arm, she heard him out as he bounced ideas off of her.

“Aunt bribes a guy’s friends to wreck his job, and the poor knuckleheads get their heads bashed in by…” He trailed off, throwing a hand up in the air as he committed his notes to memory. “Something or someone already there.”

“Bashed in, gouged in, sawed in.” She blinked away the image of Carl Watt’s remains; she’d be seeing the faceless corpse in her nightmares again, if she could be lucky enough to sleep before going to Freddy’s.

“Yeah, uh— Who exactly builds a medieval torture device into a kiddie mascot’s cupcake?” Unfazed by much of anything, he floated through cases like he was just peering down from a cloud.

Possibly the same guy who created iron-maiden-animatronics and thought people would want to wear them, Vanessa half-joked to herself. It’s something of a theme at Freddy’s.

A distant knock of metal from the forensics lab didn’t distract the two as they headed into the lounge; Vanessa decided a bit of caffeine would do her well for the day ahead, and figured the noise was someone moving things around. The other cops stood by idly, making the most of their breaks.

Her cup of coffee had barely been poured when there was a muffled, distant noise that sounded like a dog barking. “Grrr…. WAF! WAFF!” 

“You hear that?”

“Yeah. Sounds like a—”

From the same direction, a hair-raising scream drowned beneath a chainsaw-buzz and a violent clatter of metal.

“What the hell is?—”

The door to the forensics lab at the end of the hall burst open. The visiting inspector from the state bureau flopped and flailed like a fish on dry land, screaming for dear life with a pry bar in his hands. His protective white suit was shredded around his chest, a gaping hole open to his shirt, similarly tattered.

The buzzsaw roar ramped up in the forensics lab as Grundman scrambled to his feet. “HELP! SOMEONE HELP!”

Vanessa and Katch both drew their sidearms, sprinting to the end of the hall. “What happened?!”

“In there!” Grundman pointed his pry bar at the lab. “The evidence—”

“WOOF! Arrr-WOOF! WOOF-WOOF!” The cupcake sprang out of the room behind the inspector as though fired out of a cannon. Grundman fell backwards to avoid it, and the cupcake soared between him and the two cops, who jumped back.

“KILL IT! KILL IT! DO SOMETHING!” Grundman shouted, frantically waving his pry bar at it while scratching and clawing his way back to his feet. 

The cupcake had struck the wall across from the lab, smashing a hole in the drywall. It lingered there, stuck, just long enough for Vanessa to raise her pistol, aim at the chattering, growling little demon, and pull the trigger. 

The shot echoed through the station; an entry opened in the cupcake’s metal wrapper. Dislodged from the wall, the cupcake whined like a wounded hound, hopping angrily with its frosting bouncing slightly free from the rest of its body. Vanessa and Katch stayed well back, training the sights of their weapons on the cupcake as it turned to lunge at Grundman, who backed into a corner behind the lab door.

The other officers in the lounge clamored out, alarmed by the gunshot; no sooner had they come running out than Katch took a shot of his own, piercing the cupcake’s frosting cap. The bullet ripped through it and embedded itself in the station wall. 

The cupcake cried out, falling on its side and seeming to split open. Gears and blades spilled out on the linoleum floor, but the cupcake’s frosting still narrowly hung onto the wrapper, only a flimsy connection of joints keeping them linked. The cupcake continued to gnash its sawblade-teeth and writhe on the floor, refusing to be put down. 

Vanessa reluctantly fired another shot into it; its eyeball shattered, shrapnel bursting out. With that, the cupcake gave up the ghost. Its whine deepened and its form went slack, lifeless.

“GET THAT THING AWAY FROM ME!” Still delirious, Grundman howled as he clung to the walls and took shelter behind the wall of officers crowding around the scene. “I DON’T CARE HOW! JUST GET IT OUTTA MY SIGHT!”

More staff came pouring into the hall; medics took charge and pulled Grundman away, tending to his injuries, trying to calm him.

“What happened?!” asked one officer who’d been sipping an espresso not a full minute prior.

Vanessa drew a long breath, forcing it out her nose. If she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes, the scene before her—the unfortunate inspector from the state breaking down sobbing, a cutesy cupcake from a children’s pizzeria show laying in bits on the floor with three bullets fired through its body packed with sawblades—would’ve come only from the set of a hokey cop show, in an episode dreamed up by the kind of writer known to viciously protect the contents of his office from inspection.

In a matter of moments, the captain would be here, asking the same question as everyone else; she asked herself that question too. 

Fortunately for her, Mike’s offer gave her a chance to find an answer.