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NIGHT ONE
A blue four-door sedan drives into an empty parking lot, it respectfully pulls into a parking spot. A medium built black man with an exceptionally shiny head steps out of the driver's seat, as he steps out he immediately sinks his foot into a puddle. The bottom hem of his trouser leg now stained by the water. Irritated, he walks up to another man, this man is slimmer, a bit taller, and white, “Shawn, why did you drag me out of my bed at,” he lifts his arm to check the time on his wrist watch, “midnight to meet you in this random parking lot that doesn't even get phone signal?”
Shawn stands stiff, his hands behind his back as he watches the other man's movements as he continues to walk closer, “you had to do the whole ‘checking your watch’ thing just to say “midnight,” really, Gus, really?”
“Why are we here,” Gus frustrated, asking again. “You better have a damn good reason.”
Shawn, being one of those people that needs to be the loudest in the room even when no one else is trying, loudly pulls and stretches his words for emphasis in his response, “because if I told you where we were actually meeting you wouldn’t have showed up,” Shawn turns his head to look at the building he is standing next to.
Gus pushes his eyebrows together, looks up to the old unlit neon sign hanging from the only building in the middle of the parking lot, “Freddy’s?! Nope. I am going home. I'm gonna watch a movie to forget about even being this close to this place and then, if I can, I will go to sleep. Good night!” Gus turns around and starts walking back to the car he just parked.
“Gus, come on, you're really that afraid of Freddy's?”
Gus continues to walk away, “good night.”
Shawn lets out a large sigh before adding, "you can't just run home and watch Harry Potter every time you get scared.”
Gus stops, turns, and walks back towards Shawn, “tsk, you know damn well I stopped supporting JK Rowling after she started hating on the trans community.”
Shawn smirks, knowing his distraction worked, “you know that’s right.”
Gus makes a ‘uh huh’ noise to agree as the two men fist bump; one of Shawn's hands is still behind his back.
As Gus looks back up at the large neon bear, Freddy, the mascot of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza Place, Shawn rotates his body to face the building; keeping whatever he’s hiding behind his back a secret. He walks up to a metal security gate blocking the door.
Gus finally breaks eye contact with Freddy and starts walking to catch up to Shawn, “so what are we doing here? Did the owners want us to investigate?” As he walks by Shawn’s side he notices a large pair of pliers Shawn’s using to cut the chain on the gate, “Shawn, what are you doing?”
Shawn asks when fumbling, failing to cut the chain, “what’s that one Judas priest song about?”
Gus asks, confused, “panic attack?”
Shawn’s hands stop in their tracks, “yes, Gus, I was obviously referring to the song Panic Attack and not the immensely more famous song Breaking the Law, which actually has something to do with this moment right now,” Shawn sasses before finally successfully cutting the chain holding the metal gate closed.
“You can’t break into Freddy’s! It’s disrespectful,” Gus says while looking horrified.
“To who, Gus, .. To whom? To whooo…m?” Shawn snaps out of his own confusion, “To Freddy? Come on, he’s a machine.”
“No, Shawn, to the four kids who went missing here.”
Shawn slowly opens the metal gate, his eyebrow furled together, “..whom went missing?”
“Don’t play dumb right now, Shawn.”
“No one’s playing here. Not unless the arcade machines are working. Then I will, in fact, be playing,” Shawn says as he steps forward to the glass front doors of the pizzeria.
“I know you remember, it was all over the news. My parents refused to let me come back to Freddy’s— not that I wanted to. Those animatronics freaked me out,” Gus looks down at the lock of the door expecting to see Shawn trying to pick it but instead he sees Shawn using a key, “Shawn, how do you have a key to Freddy’s?”
“I stole it when we went to Mark’s ninth birthday party. The owners never change the lock but the gate is from a security company and they are constantly switching it out,” Shawn pushes the double glass doors open to reveal the dark hallway lined with a white and black checkered floor, “which is odd because they are only supposed to change it when they replace the guard but that turn over would be ridiculous.”
“Shawn.”
“Gus?”
“I’m not walking in there.”
“Fine, you can wait in the car. Just don’t leave. You’re my ride.”
“You got here on your own, you can get back,” Gus says definitely, “I’m going home.”
“Gus, come on, I don’t have money for a ride back,” Shawn whines.
Gus doesn't stop walking. He’s already a quarter of the way back to his car, “fine! I’ll stay in the car then.”
Shawn speaks louder to make up for the distance between them, “come on, man! We haven't had a case like this in a while. Just you and me, no cops. Just like in Scooby-Doo. We can even try to find a dog to come on adventures with us! We can eat some snacks together and-”
“Shawn, we always eat snacks together,” interrupts Gus.
“And it's magical every time but if you don’t join now it would be just me. Have you ever seen the mystery gang without Freddy– or Velma– or Daphne– or whoever you are in this situation. You got to come with me, goddammit!” He says dramatically.
Gus sighs, silent for a moment before answering, “ok, fine, I'll tag along but only for tonight, understood?”
Shawn pumps his fist in excitement before regaining himself slightly, “one night at Freddy’s, I swear.”
A layer of dust covered the old unused pizzeria. The two men walked carefully, only having flashlights to illuminate their path. Gus follows Shawn who seems to have a destination in mind. Gus debates breaking the chilling silents but is worried any answers could make his nerves worse. He decides to ask anyway, “if it wasn't the owners that asked you to investigate, who did? and what for?”
“A mom asked me to scope it out and possibly try to find her kid she said went missing back in the day while at Freddy's,” Shawn says while looking around, “I told her it was a long shot but she still paid.”
“Which kid?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think the mom liked him so much though. She just called him germ-y,” Shawn stops and pulls a confused face for a second before ducking into one of the rooms.
“Do you mean ‘Jeremy,’” Gus asks with an edge of frustration as he follows behind him.
“Oh, that makes more sense,” Shawn stops in a small room, he flips a large lever on a fuse box which incrementally lights up the whole pizzeria, “because I was wondering why someone would be insulting their own kid while saying they want to find where they are.”
Music starts playing from a different room.
The two men looked at each other before hurrying to the main showroom to check out the noise. The three animatronics on the stage's movements are jerky as Freddy sings into his microphone, Bonnie played the bass, and Chica sang back up while holding her iconic pink-frosted cupcake.
“Look, Gus, isn't it amazing! We haven't seen Freddy sing since we were kids!” Shawn says with a twinkle in his eye.
“No, Shawn, it's not amazing, it's creepy. Can we go now?”
“We haven't even looked around yet. Come on,” he says as they turn away from the now silent stage. They returned to the room with the fuse box. “The mom didn't like the owner of Freddy's but apparently none of the cops found anything.” Both men start looking through miscellaneous paper scattered over the small room which was a security office. Shawn hums to himself because stopping abruptly to look at Gus, “great, now I got that song from earlier stuck in my head.”
“Which song? Breaking the law?”
Shawn pushes his eyebrows together, “ironically the other one,” as he gets back to work on the search.”
The early morning sun begins to shine through the blinds on the windows, Shawn still looking through copious amounts of papers, some look like drawings done by kids. Gus wakes up on the table booth he fell asleep on while ‘resting his eyes’ earlier in the night.
“Good morning,” Shawn says with dark bags under his eyes indicating he hadn't sleep at all, “guess what I found out.” Gus sat up straight, his brain still foggy as Shawn continued, “I think the owner really did do it. I don't have any proof though but it's all laid out in these drawings. Remember that he would dress as a yellow bunny? Well, these show a yellow bunny slowly luring each of the kids, one by one, while wearing the bunny suit. The problem is I haven't found any clue to where he is now.”
Gus looks at his watch and jumps up, “Shawn, do you know what time it is?”
“I don't know, Gus. You know I refuse to wear a watch.”
“Six in the morning! We got to go! I have work and we have to rush all the way back so I'm not late,” Gus power walks towards the front door, leaving Shawn behind who looks around at the mess of papers. He shrugs in defeat and joins Gus to the car.
NIGHT TWO
“Shawn, why are we back here?” Gus asks as Shawn pulls into the empty parking lot of Freddy Fazbear's Pizza Place. “That is the last time I trust you to drive. You said we were going to that fancy donut shop where they fry your donut in front of you and you get to choose the toppings while it's still hot.”
“Because, Gus, I realized through those horribly drawn pictures that the owner did kidnap those kids,” he said with an emphasis to make Gus feel too guilty to complain about being at Freddy's, “apparently, the police even thought the owner did it when they were first looking for the kids. They searched Freddy's top to bottom but they didn't find anything to prove it. So, I did some digging on the owner, William Afton, and the guy just vanished from the face of the earth a few years back. I just need to look through some more of the files to find out where he could have gone. All I found was his house and here, but his house was sold and he clearly isn't here at Freddy's so there has to be a third location for him to hide at for all this time.” Shawn and Gus enter through the metal gate with the cut chain, “but seriously, that guy who did those drawings should have been fired, they were terrible. Even you could do better.”
“First of all, I’m not a bad artist, Shawn. Second, those were kids drawings,” Gus retorted as he walked into the pizzeria.
Shawn stops in his tracks, letting the glass door close behind him, “oh, then those were great drawings for a kid.”
Inside the office the two men are carefully reading through piles of documents for any clue to the whereabouts of William Afton. Gus drops his hand holding a stack of receipts he was combing through, “we have been looking for an hour now and found nothing. Just admit that there's nothing here so we can go home.”
“Maybe we are looking for the wrong information. Perhaps, we can find the name of someone who might know something, anything,” Shawn says, a little defeated before adding with desperation, “someone has to know where this man is!”
The lights cut out. A huge thud echoes from the main lobby of the pizzeria. Both men scream in fear before looking at each other with disapproval. They both pull out their respective flashlights and walk in unison to the main lobby. Shawn looks around the room to see if something has fallen over. Gus speaks up, his voice cracking, “Shawn?”
“Yeah?”
“Where’s Chica?”
Shawn slowly turns to look at the stage, his flashlight highlighting the empty spot where a huge yellow animatronic bird used to stand.
The men rush back to the office to try to flip the lights back on. Gus panics, yelling at Shawn in a loud whisper that it's the ghosts of the missing kids while also telling Shawn to hurry up. Shawn gives the switch a few tries before it finally works. They hurry back to the main stage. “See, Gus, no ‘ghost children.’ The duck is right there. He probably was never really gone.”
Gus makes a tsk sound with disbelief.
“We were probably just looking at the wrong spot in the dark,” Shawn said half distracted as he continued to look around for what made the thud noise.
“Shawn!” Gus raised his voice with urgency.
Snapping out of his search, “what, Gus? What?”
“Chica is a chicken,” Gus stares at a distance before turning to Shawn and adding, “also, she's a girl.”
“Is that what was so important?” Shawn asks as he walks to be face to face with Gus.
“No,” Gus says, motioning to his right without looking away from Shawn, “has that door always been open?” A hint of fear in his voice.
The two men turn their heads in unison to face a newly opened door at the far end of the room. They look back at each other for a beat before Shawn starts walking to the door, “well, look at that, Gus. Now we know what made the noise.” The two men walk into the newly accessible room. Shawn thinks back, “are you sure she's not a duck? I swear I remember the other Shawn in our class telling me it was a duck,” he asks as Gus flips the light switch, “but what did that kid know? He always spelt his name wrong. Who spells Shawn S-E-A-N,” he lets out a small airy laugh.
“A lot of people. It's a fairly common spelling,” Gus corrected.
Shawn riffles through stacks of papers including blueprints of the animatronic suits. Quickly scanning for any information about Afton on them before tossing them back into the filing cabinet he found them in. He reaches forward and grabs a framed photo off the wall. “Is this Afton? He had a suit of his own.” Studying the photo for a second before adding, “he looks like a murderous bunny version of Shaggy.”
“No way, he actually looks like that,” Gus starts walking towards Shawn.
“Yeah, look at this creepy looking bunny suit.”
Gus, while looking at the photo, “He really does.” Still looking at the photo, “I'm glad my mom didn't let me come here. That would have given me nightmares for years. Why did he think that was a good idea for a kids mascot?”
“Gus. He’s a kidnapper,” Shawn retorted while continuing to search the room.
“I know!” he snapped, “you would just think he would have chosen a better looking suit, is all.”
Shawn tries to open a closed door on the left side of the room. It doesn't budge, he takes out his key-ring and starts trying keys. Gus notices and walks towards him. “None of the keys work. Sniff it.”
“What?” Gus replied caught off guard by Shawn's odd request.
“Use your– just do it. I think I smell something.”
“All I smell is mold,” Gus dismissed.
“Come on, man! The one time I need the Super Sniffer you don’t use it?” Shawn whined.
“Fine,” Gus bounced his shoulder up and down before squatting a little. Taking a few deep breaths through his mouth before finally taking one huge sniff. “Mold,” he says flatly as he stands back up while he readjusted his shirt tucked into his pants.
“Come on!”
“I tried but the smell of the mold is too strong. There's probably a leak due to roof damage.”
“You couldn't smell anything else?”
“Maybe some rotting,” Gus takes another few quick sniffs, “but that’s not unusual for an abandoned building like this one. Raccoons, rats, squirrels nest here then die.”
BAM! Suddenly the door they walked in through slams shut. They both turn to the door. In unison, the two slowly step towards the door. Shawn slowly reaches his hand out, turns the doorknob and lightly pushes the door open. He lets go of the doorknob, the door squeaks as it opens to reveal the stage room. They take a single step through the doorway. Freddy and Bonnie are missing from the stage. Neither could find the bravery to mention it out loud however they both started hitting each other's torsos to inform the other of the missing animatronics. As they start to run towards the front door a thunderous boom echoed as Freddy took a step out of the hallway which leads to the front door. They take a step back before turning to run farther into the pizzeria when they notice Bonnie standing in their way. The two men were trapped with no way out. They started to back up towards the small room they just walked out of; keeping their eyes on the two animatronics in front of them. Shawn’s eyes darted at the animatronic still on the stages. He stops walking. His voice cracks, “hello, creepy machines.”
Gus putting his arm up to stop Shawn who started walking forward, whispering, “what are you doing? They could be dangerous.”
“If they were feeling kill-y right now wouldn’t their eyes be red or something? Come on, Gus, it's simple environmental storytelling,” Shawn whispers back.
“You do NOT know the meaning of that enough to try to use it against me.”
Shawn snaps his turns gaze towards Gus, “all I do is environmental storytelling. Literally all of it.”
Gus lets out a sound of disbelief, looking away before over-dramatically looking back at Shawn, “then why did you have to spend half an hour yesterday telling the whole precinct how you cut yourself when right next to you was Mcnab’s new letter opener with blood on it?”
“I said I know environmental storytelling, not everyone at the station!”
The three animatronics all take one loud step closer to the men. All three of their faces contoured to frowns.
Gus steps slightly behind his friend, “ok, Shawn, it’s not red eyes but that’s pretty clear! Do something!”
Shawn clears his throat, “hello, ghost child.”
“Shawn!”
Shawn shushes Gus before continuing, “hey, I’m a psychic detective,” holding his flat hand on his chest, “I was sent here to help. My name’s Shawn.” Motioning to Gus, “and this is my partner–”
“Shawn!”
Shawn lets out a forced laugh, “his name is also Shawn. Just two Shawns trying to find the truth.” Shawn drops his voice low to talk to just Gus, “I wasn’t going to tell them your real name.”
“Really?” Gus asks with suspicion, “what were you going to say then?”
“ .. uh”
“Exactly!”
The two men return their focus to the animatronics whose faces have turned back to neutral before walking back to the stage.
The two 'Shawn's watch in silence. They both start walking cautiously towards the main door, walking backwards down the hallway in order to keep their eyes on the animatronics.
Once outside the two men rush into the blue sedan parked neatly in the empty parking lot. Gus starts the car but doesn't start driving.
“What are you doing, Gus? Let’s go!”
“Shawn, promise me you aren’t going to try to speak to any more ghosts.”
“We can talk about this later. Go.”
“Now, Shawn. Promise now.”
“Fine, I promise.”
“Good.” Gus says poignantly as he starts to speed out of the parking spot.
NIGHT THREE
Through an old security camera monitor a man watches as rain falls over an empty parking lot when a pair of lights cut through the darkness of the night. The source is a small car which neatly parks in the closest spot to the entrance. A man steps out of the car. His head tucked low and his hands raised high to block as much of the pouring rain as possible which happens to also obstruct his face from the camera. The man walks through the fully opened chain gate to the large glass double doors. He tries to open them however they are locked. He looks up, searching for a camera before shouting, “Shawn, let me in!”
The man behind the monitor stands up.
Shawn unlocks the front door to the pizzeria, “Gus,” but before he can say anything Gus speaks over him.
“Why are you dressed like that?” Gus asks as he looks irritated at Shawn's security uniform. “What if the real security guard shows up?”
“That's the thing!” Shawn replies excitedly. “Think about it. Why hasn’t there been a security guard telling us to leave? And why has the chain not been replaced? They didn’t have a guard!”
Gus side eyes Shawn as they enter the small security office, “what do you mean “didn’t" have one.”
“I got the job.”
“Shawn, you can't be a security guard. You need to take a training course, not to mention pass a background check. There's no way you could get that down in less than a day.”
“They didn't care about any of that.”
“What do you mean they didn't care?”
“They didn't care,” Shawn says nonchalantly as he grabs a bag of pretzels out of a locker and throws them at Gus. “Apparently people just keep quitting suddenly so they were taking anyone they could.” He pulls out a small bag of gummies from his pocket as he sits down to watch the screen of camera monitors, “plus, I just told them I have all that and they just believed me.”
Gus looks unamused as he drops the bag of pretzels on the desk and grabs a second chair to sit next to Shawn.
“What changed your mind about coming back anyways,” Shawn asks his friend.
“I’m just back to make sure you are being respectful to the ghosts,” he answered as he sits up straight straight in his chair.
“We went over this. The machines are not hunted; they were programmed to move around and react to their environment. They just rebooted when we turned on the power.”
“And them attacking us?”
“Attacking? That’s a little dramatic,” Shawn says as he starts to stuff more candy in his mouth. “They have been abandoned for decades which is why they acted up, that's all. Afton may be a kid killer but I have to hand it to him, he was quite a genius.”
“Under no circumstances do you have to hand it to a child murderer,” Gus counters as he opens the pretzel bag.
The two men furrow their eyebrows in unison together. “It just sounds like it's a kid that's a killer no matter how you say it.”
Gus agrees, his mouth now full of pretzels.
The men continue to watch the cameras until all of the snacks have been eaten. Gus desperately tries to get all of the crumbs out of the pretzel bag. Shawn speaks up, “I’m guessing you are planning to head home soon.”
“Nah, it’s fine,” Gus says, trying not to sound suspicious. However he could tell Shawn didn’t buy it. Gus mumbles as he slightly tilts his head to the side, “after the first night of the investigation, I have been sleeping in the afternoon and been waking up at midnight.”
“That’s perfect,” Shawn said with an excited undertone.
“No, it is not. I have been so tired during the day I have been missing over half of my delivery appointments. You need to close this case so we don't have to spend another night at Freddy’s.”
Shawn slowly turns his head towards Gus, “not even if I got the arcade machines to work?”
“We both know damn well that we already checked those machines and we can’t play them without their unique coins.”
“Like these?” Shawn asks as he pulls an old plastic bag filled with gold tokens out of his pocket. “I found them at my dad’s house.”
The two of them play games for a while until Gus suddenly knocks Shawn's hands away from the controls and shushes him. Shawn starts to complain about losing when Gus shushes him again and explains that he heard something.
“Yeah, that's probably just Chica. Her program must still be bugged because she keeps walking to the kitchen to ‘eat’ anything she finds. She also goes to the trash to eat.”
“They aren’t shut down?” Gus asks, panicked.
“No but they are harmless,” Shawn's words seem to calm Gus down a little until he adds, “probably.”
“Probably?” Gus repeats louder. “I’m going home.”
Gus speed walks away as Shawn shouts after him, “come on, man! Don’t be Chad Michael Murray’s character from The Merry Gentlemen! I can’t leave! My shift isn’t over yet!” After a beat of silence Shawn shouts again, “Gus?” He waits another second for a response before saying, “I don't need him. Right, Foxy?” Shawn turns to look at the dark corner of the room where Foxy has been watching them from. Shawn stares at the animatronic for a moment, “Gus was right, you are a bit creepy.”
Shawn leaves the room to look through all of the papers in the both offices again for any clues on William Afton’s whereabouts.
NIGHT FOUR
Gus sits in the passenger sit of the blue sedan. His face drops as he sees the Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria building, “you said we are actually going to the donut shop this time?”
Shawn haphazardly parks the car, “and I can't believe you fell for it again. So who’s really at fault here?”
“You!”
Shawn clicks his tongue in protest as he throws his head to the side. “Come on. You’re the one who left me last night.” He unzips his hoodie to reveal his security uniform shirt, “just one more night, I promise.” Gus looks unconvinced. “Then in the morning we can stop by the donut shop on our way back.” Gus wiggles in his sit to show he is not getting out of the car. “And,” Shawn says, stretching out the word, “I borrowed this for one of my dad’s ex-cop buddies.” He holds up a large stun baton. “If one of the animatronics start attacking this will stun them for a while so they can't move,” he says stabbing the air with the baton.
“How do you know that would work?”
“I read all about them last night after you ditched me,” Shawn declares, a little desperate with a hint of bitterness, “please.”
“Fine but you are paying me two donuts!” Gus says with a bite. Grabbing the taser from Shawn.
“Yes!” Excited that his friend agreed to help him.
Inside the pizzeria the two men sit at the camera monitor. Gus asks, “why are we actually watching the cameras and not looking for the evidence you said you needed?”
Shawn is watching one spot of the camera feed without blinking, “we will. We just need to wait for the others to move.” Shawn suddenly points at the stage on the monitor, “there! Bonnie's moving. Let's go.”
They start sneaking down the hallway towards the main stage, “Shawn, what's the plan?”
Whispering back, “you are going to shock Freddy–”
Gus stops in his tracks and stands up straight, “like hell I am.”
Shawn sneaks back to Gus, arguing in a hushed tone, “you already have the baton! Do you want my job; you’d have to open Freddy’s face plate? It's very simple, just press the button on its right cheek, then its left, then the right button between its eyes, and then finally the nose. However, if you do them in the wrong order the suit can start moving. Which is why I need you here to zap him again if that happens.”
“Fine. I will stun him.”
“Good.” The men start sneaking again down the hallway, Shawn pulls a face, “or was that the order for Funtime Freddy?” Shawn shrugs and continues moving, Gus is behind him looking even more unsure of his decision to go along with this plan.
They make it onto the stage, walk up to the stationary Freddy. His eyes lighting up but before he can move, Shawn nods at Gus who instantly jabs the taser forward. Freddy’s whole body glitches and twitches until finally falling flat on his back. Shawn quickly kneels down and pushes the correct input to open the Freddy animatronic. To their horror they are faced with a small corpse. A shrunken body with leathery skin covered by the clothes that one of the missing children were said to be wearing when they went missing. The two men shriek.
“Shawn!” Gus lets out before turning away looking like he is about to be sick.
“I thought this was going to be a Scooby-Doo moment!” Shawn explains.
“This is NOT Scooby-Doo! This is Willy’s Wonderland. And we are not Nic Cage,” Gus shouts.
“Speak for yourself,” Shawn mutters as he crutches back down to look inside the opened animatronic.
“Then who would I be? Did you not notice there wasn't a single black guy that made it to the end in that movie?” Gus moves to the side of the stage still looking away.
“Hopefully you'd be someone who is alive at the end. Maybe the girl that drives off with Nic Cage at the end?”
“You want me to be the Hispanic teen girl, Shawn? Really?” Shawn passes by Gus as he walks off the stage, “Where are you going?”
“I am going to call the police. Afton isn’t in the other suits unless he likes eating trash for some reason.” Shawn continues to walk back to the security office, “Also, you can be anyone else from the movie.”
“Who? Everyone else in that movie dies. Or did you forget that detail–” Gus cuts himself off, “did you just say you thought the killer was in the suit!”
Gus runs after Shawn who is now in the office, “yeah, Gus. I had it all figured out. The animatronics weren’t just machines but suits people could also wear. I noticed the others did odd things so he wouldn’t have been in those suits– but now I'm worried what is in those suits.” Shawn explains as he rethinks through his logic, “they only reacted when Freddy reacted; I thought that was Afton controlling them from that suit. Plus it’s Freddy. It seemed obvious. But he must be controlling them from somewhere else.”
“It would make sense; him hiding in the titular character's suit.”
“Gus, this is no time to be making up words,” Shawn says as dials for the police station on the office’s phone, “especially one just so you can mention breasts.”
“Titular, Shawn, tit·u·lar.” Gus emphasizes, “TIT–”
At the same time the person Shawn called answered the phone. For a second he looks at Gus like he was the one in the wrong before talking into the phone, “Hello, Jules? You need to get down here right away.”
The blue and red police lights dance off the facade of the pizzeria. A tall clean cut gentleman– Lassiter– walks over to the two men. He is followed by a blonde sharply dressed woman. “Tell me again why you even have this ludicrous job in the first place,” the man questioned the pair, “and why you were here at all, Guster?”
“The spirits of the children guided me here. They told me, ‘Shawn, Shawn, come play with us at Freddy’s.’” Shawn answered, speaking in a fake high pitched child’s voice.
The woman– Juliet– inquires, “and how did you know to look inside the machines?”
“That's a very good question, Jules,” Shawn praises before continuing, “because once I got here they started telling me about a yellow rabbit. I didn't have a clue what they meant until one of them said, ‘the suits. The suits open so people can wear them but now they wear us. Help us.’”
Gus mumbles to himself, “unbelievable.”
“Unbelievable,” Jules says earnestly in unison with Gus’s disbelief. “These kids have been missing for decades. Great job, Shawn.”
Begrudgingly Lassiter agrees, “yeah, good work, Spencer.”
“I’m surprised I never heard of this case before,” Jules stares up at the neon sign with sadness in her eyes.
“The boys at the station don't like to talk about it,” Lassie answers, “we had the sonofabitch but he slipped through our fingers.”
“No body, no crime,” Juliet mentions, defeated.
“I even had a crack at it when I first started as a detective,” Lassiter adds, “but no one thought those ugly machines could open.”
“At least the kids were found,” Jules adds, looking at Shawn, before the two detectives walk away.
The two men turn to walk towards their car, “let’s go home, Gus.”
“You still owe me a donut,” Gus corrected, pointing at Shawn before he got into the car.
“Gus, we just found four dead bodies that have been decaying for years and you still want a donut?” Shawn sits down in the passenger seat.
“Thank you for reminding me,” Gus jabs with a little bit of sass. “You owe me at least two donuts.” Gus starts to drive out of the parking lot full of police personnel.
NIGHT FIVE
Shawn is alone in the small security office. The lights are off as he ducks under the desk. He puts the office phone to his ear, “hello? Hello, hello? Gus, I wanted to record this message for you in case I needed help. Which I think I do.” Shawn peaks his head out from under the desk to look into the hallway. While ducking back, he continues, “Gus, I messed up bad. I think he is here. I think Afton is here. Send help–” Shawn hangs up quickly before quietly running out of the room due to a noise he heard.
Shawn runs past Pirate Cove which previously housed Foxy. He continues past the now empty main stage. The door to the small room that mysteriously opened on the first night is open; Shawn sneaks in and closes the door. Scrunching his nose in response to the door letting out a creak. When he turns around he notices the locked door he couldn’t find a key for was now ajar. He slips through the door without fully opening it. Inside the dark room he could make out a few old arcade machines, possibly in here to be repaired later. Gus was right; there was a hole in the roof. Water dripped onto the corroded floor. Small black mold spores line the walls.
A noise rings out from the main stage room. Shawn notices there’s a second door in the room. He goes through it, knowing it’s the only hope he has. Luckily it leads to another hallway. He recognizes the way to the kitchen. He starts walking faster as he hears the creak of the door behind him.
Shawn thinks he’s safe for a moment. He tries to think of a plan but he is panicked. He looks around. A light bulb goes off in his head; he will use a kitchen timer as a distraction. He grabs one and carefully sets it for five minutes. He gently places it down, making sure it doesn’t go off.
In a crouched run he makes for the door leading to dining tables. Shawn’s plan for now is to distract Afton long enough to get to the office to make another call. He looks around in the dark but can’t find anything to use.
Shawn backs out into the game prize area and accidentally knocks into a stand of plushies. He hopes it isn't loud enough for Afton to hear but after a second the unmistakable sound of heavy footsteps ring out. Shawn panics and dives behind the prize counter. He almost screams when he comes face to face with an animatronic mask. He listens as the steps get closer. Shawn grabs the mask and slips it on before hiding his body behind boxes.
He can’t hear anything besides his own breath but before he can question if Afton is still walking his way a large yellow bunny suit walks through the doorway. Its large pale yellow eyes glowing as it scans around the room for the source of the noise. Shawn notices the suit was in much worse condition than the others; it is missing half its right ear, wires and parts of the animatronic endoskeleton showed through holes in the faux fur exterior. The animatronic starts to walk towards the prize counter when the kitchen timer goes off. The large bunny snaps to look in the direction of the kitchen. He turns completely around and walks out the door he came in from.
Shawn takes off the mask. Visual sweat drips from his forehead. He thought of a plan.
If he inserts a token into a particular arcade machine that he knows will make a loud noise at the death screen which will only occur when the timer reaches zero. That should give him enough time to run to a far room, make a noise there and have Afton running to that noise. Then when the death scene plays, Shawn should have enough time to make a call in the security office. If he is lucky.
He slowly stands up. He walks towards the game console, lowers a coin into the slot, the coin falls with a metallic thud. Shawn’s whole body tenses as he cringes away from the machine. He relaxes enough to listen for Afton. The coast is clear so Shawn drops another coin in the machine. The screen lights up but doesn't make a sound as it waits for the player to move. The timer in the top right corner ticks down. Shawn sneaks out of the room. He heads out towards the main stage room. Then through to the small office. He slightly bounces up and down as he tries to gain the courage to purposely let the killer know where he is. He takes one last deep breath before he pushes over the filing cabinet. He hears footsteps coming. He runs out the door away from them, making his way to the security office.
He quickly hides under the desk. As he hears the muffled arcade console's death scene play in the distance, he reaches up and grabs the office phone. Hoping Afton fell for the trap. He starts dialing before realizing the phone line is dead. As Shawn throws his head back in frustration, he hears a noise in the hallway outside the office. Shawn sits completely still as heavy mechanical steps walk closer to the open office door. Closing it wouldn’t have helped much but Shawn still regrets not doing it.
The large bunny suit leans his head around the door frame first. It’s glowing eyes scanning the room. Stops when they land on Shawn. It stares down Shawn, unblinking. It moves to stand up straight, completely blocking the doorway. When suddenly it glitches and twitches before falling to the floor. Shawn looks at the animatronic with confusion before Gus steps over it to check on Shawn.
“Gus!”
“Shawn!” he says as he helps his friend out from under the desk. “Let’s get out of here!”
After a few steps towards the door, “wait, how did you get here so fast?”
“I went to the office because my sleep schedule is still a mess thanks to you and saw your uniform was gone. It wasn't hard to put two and two together.”
“But you didn't answer the phone?”
“You know there's no reception out here.” Gus starts walking again, “we can talk more about this when we are a safe distance away.”
“Wait, we need to tie up Afton first, once he can move again he will just leave.”
“Don’t worry, Jules and Lassie will be here soon.”
Shawn walks a few more steps then stops walking again, “how did you know to call them?”
Looking a little guilty, Gus answers honestly, “I may have turned back around because this place still gives me the creeps and your voicemail came through.”
Proud of his partner, “and you faced your fears and came right back when you knew I was in danger. Good for you!”
“... yeah. Right back.” Gus sheepishly says as he breaks eye contact with Shawn.
Right at that moment Lassiter and Juliet fling the front doors open. A crowd of police officers file in behind them. Shawn points to the stiff rabbit suit, “he’s in there!”
“This joker is hiding in a bunny suit?” Lassie asks with confused disgust. Now yelling at the suit, “all right, Afton. Give up! There's no way out of this!” After an embarrassing few seconds of silence Lassiter gets angry, “Afton! Come out with your hands up!” More silence. “Someone open this thing! Now!” he commands.
Shawn steps forward as he kneels down to press the buttons in order to open the suit he notices the dark stains on the suit were not dirt. They were old brown pools of dried blood clumped in the fur of the suit. “Wait, something isn’t right,” he says quietly as the face and chest plates open.
The corpse of Afton lies in the suit, the endoskeleton’s metal ribs piercing through his mummified torso. By the amount of blood lining the robotic inside of the animatronic it is evident what the cause of death was.
Gus’s voice cuts through the crowd of mutters, “I told you it was ghosts!”
Crouching down to look at the body, Lassie says, “Don’t be ridiculous, Guster. The suit is still damp from the storm yesterday. It probably just short circuited and gone crazy.”
Jules, still looking at the corpse while speaking to the two friends, “you guys are lucky you didn't get hurt. These machines should have been taken apart years ago.” She turns to look at Shawn, “I’ll make sure we disassembled every animatronic here so this does not happen to anyone else.”
The group of four stand in the parking lot of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza Place, the police officers drop the unmoving rabbit suit with a thud. “Be careful with that evidence!” Lassie shouts, “that evidence will help me get a promotion.”
Gus pushes his eyebrows together, “for what? You didn’t do anything.”
“Do me a favor and shut up,” Lassiter sasses before walking away. Juliet follows close behind, ready to resolve the conflict that will surely soon arise.
Suddenly there's a loud pop! Ribbons falling through the air to the ground. Gus turns to see Shawn holding a party popper.
“What are you doing? They are photographing a dead killer less than 20 feet from you,” Gus argues as he starts walking towards his car.
“We earned it,” Shawn says, turning to follow, “We worked a month straight on this case.”
“Shawn, it’s been five days.” Gus says as he opens the door to the car, “actually, nights because for some reason we can’t leave this place before six am.”
Shawn thinks for a second, “Good god, Gus, you’re right. It’s only been Five Nights at Freddy’s.”
“Come on, Shawn. We’re going home,” Gus adds as the pair get into the car to drive away from the wretched pizzeria for the last time.