Chapter Text
Late September air assaulted Jack as he first stepped foot out his door. With a shiver, he tugged his jacket tighter around his body and made his way to his car. An old, rusted thing, but it got him where he needed to go. Whenever it broke down–which was frequently–Jack attempted to fix it himself and when he couldn’t, he’d have his coworker Dave help him out.
Since meeting him, Jack quickly learned Dave was a genius when it came to machines. He envied how easily tinkering came to him and frequently wondered why Dave didn’t pursue a better career in engineering. Instead, the both of them were stuck working at a cursed family pizza chain together. Thinking more on it, Dave’s unfortunate job circumstances probably had something to do with his offputting personality and strange habits. His unsettling appearance likely didn’t do him much good either.
When Jack went to start his car and it made a sickening revving noise, he realized now would unfortunately be one of those times where he had to ask for Dave’s assistance. Sighing, he accepted the fact he’d be walking to work that morning. Luckily, he didn’t live too far away. Unluckily, Jack didn’t take into account the amount of time it would take to walk when he got up this morning.
“Employee!” Jack winced at the sound of his boss’s voice as he opened the back door to Fazbender’s. Letting the door slam shut, he faced the phone-head with a grimace. Despite not being able to make facial expressions with a phone for a head, Scott looked pissed.
“Sorry,” Jack said. “My car wouldn’t start this morning.”
“That’s no excuse-” Scott cut himself off, realizing what Jack actually said. “Oh, that’s unfortunate.” Jack nodded and hung his coat up to reveal his dumb employee uniform. Every day he’s reminded that purple is so not his color.
“Okay, well,” Scott sighed. “We opened a bit ago and we have a party in one hour. Get ready, please.” Jack nodded again, wondering where Dave was. Hopefully being useful for once and helping set up for their first event of the day.
As he set up tables and decorations, Jack kept an eye out for Dave. After about fifteen minutes and no Dave in sight, he decided to check the safe room. If Dave was even here, he’d definitely be in there messing around. Making sure no customers were around to see, Jack carefully opened the door to the secret room at the end of the hallway and slipped inside. He closed the door slowly behind him before flipping the light switch.
The electric hum of the singular bulb always irritated Jack, but today it would frustrate him even more when he heard a loud pop and was once again bathed in darkness.
“Fuck,” he whispered. Jack turned around, trying to feel for the door knob. A mild panic began to creep under his skin as he continued to feel along the wall. When he still hadn’t found it after a few moments, he thought about yelling and banging on the wall. Surely someone would hear him if he made enough noise. Before he could bring his fist to the concrete however, he heard a slight shuffling noise in the darkness behind him.
Jack whipped back around. Holding his breath, he listened for the noise. Silence. Shrugging it off as a figment of his imagination or the sound of his own clothes rustling amplified by his panic, Jack turned back around towards where the door should be. At this point, his eyes were slowly adjusting to the dark and he thought he could make out a glint of the copper doorknob.
Reaching out, he made contact with… something. Not the doorknob and not the wall either. Something softer. Jack could hear his blood whooshing through his veins. He felt a warm puff of air across his face and neck. He let go of whatever it was he grabbed and stumbled backwards. A loud clang sent his heart up into his throat as his legs slipped out from under him. He crashed to the floor and was suddenly blinded by a white light in front of him.
“Sportsy?” A familiar voice came from the darkness, behind the light. Jack never thought he’d feel such relief at the sound of Dave’s voice. He moved his flashlight so it illuminated his face from below, and offered a hand to Jack. “Did I scare ya?”
“No, not at all,” Jack muttered, grabbing Dave’s outstretched hand and allowing him to hoist him up. “What the fuck were you doing?” Relief to see his coworker actually at work aside, Jack suddenly grew suspicious. Admittedly, Dave was weird. But why on earth was Dave in the safe room, by himself, in the dark?
“Oh, just relaxing,” Dave said. Sure, makes sense, Jack thought. Only Dave would find Fazbender’s safe room relaxing.
“Okay, well,” Jack started, brushing himself off. “Do you wanna come help Phoney and I y’know, do our jobs?”
Dave sighed, clearly annoyed that he was being asked to do what he was paid for. He agreed, but Jack’s suspicion returned when Dave asked for a second to clean himself up.
“Why?” Jack pried. “You weren’t jerking off or something, were you?” He hated the fact that this wasn’t an unreasonable explanation as to why Dave was in the safe room, alone, in the dark. What a freak.
“Not this time, Sportsy,” Dave smirked, the flashlight still under his chin giving his face a gaunt appearance. Not that he didn’t already slightly resemble a corpse. “You go out there an’ help, I’ll be there in a sec.”
Deciding it’d be better to let this go, Jack nodded and turned to leave. The light of Dave’s flashlight shone on the door, illuminating Jack’s escape from this godforsaken room. When he finally put his hand to the knob, the beam of light disappeared, replaced by the blinding fluorescent lights of the hallway. Jack’s lungs flooded with air, as if he had been holding his breath inside the safe room. He probably had, it reeked in there. The air in the rest of the building definitely wasn’t much cleaner, but right now it felt like a fresh spring day.
—
Jack made his way back to the dining area and encountered a very distressed looking Scott. He was just finishing setting up the tables for the impending party.
“Jack! There you are!” He cheered, handing Jack some colorful streamers and balloons. “Could you hang these up? The birthday girl will be here in about fifteen minutes.”
Jack nodded and did as he was told.
“Did you ask Dave to help out?” he asked, looking over to his boss. “‘Cause right now he’s just slacking off in the safe room.”
“What do you mean?” Scott asked. “Dave isn’t working today.”
A chill scuttled down Jack’s spine. As much as he liked Dave, some things he did unsettled him. Who in their right mind would step foot into a Freddy Fazbender’s location willingly on a day off?
Sure, everyone has their strange habits, but Dave was an oddball and also difficult to read. He always acted as if he was guilty, like he had something to hide. Jack could never tell if Dave was joking around or seriously up to no good.
As if on cue, Dave stumbled into the dining room. Something dark had stained his clothes, and he held a knife in his hand. Stains and knives weren’t particularly odd for Dave, but Jack had never seen the terror in his coworker’s eyes that he saw now. The strange, purple man looked as if he had just seen something horrific, which was saying something for Dave. His chest heaved up and down, lungs gasping for air. His dark eyes darted across the room, finally landing on Jack and Scott.
“Guys–” Dave started, but was interrupted by a loud thumping sound behind him. He turned and drew his knife in front of him, backing up towards Jack and Scott.
“Employee?” Scott asked. “What’s wrong? We have a party coming up in five minutes!”
Dave ignored him, extending his other arm to his side as if to keep Jack and Scott behind him. The thumping sound grew louder, now accompanied by strange groaning noises and the clunking of metal. Was one of the animatronics acting up? Jack wondered, though he didn’t think any of Fazbender’s crazy cast would frighten Dave this much. Sweat beaded on Jack’s face, and the chills he felt earlier returned. His stomach grew heavy and felt as if it had dropped down to the very bottom of his gut; his heart pounded loud and fast, almost drowning out the growing sounds echoing from the hall Dave had just come from.
Finally, Jack saw the source of the noise. It was humanoid in shape, stumbling slowly through the dining room entrance. Its footsteps were heavy, as if laden with metal. When Jack looked closer, he saw that the figure's legs did indeed have metal rods poking out from under rotting flesh and muscle. The rest of it appeared to have once been a living human being, couldn’t have been older than twelve. Its eyes were cloudy and painfully sunken into its skull, hair falling out of its scalp in patches. The arms hung limp from their sockets, and a few ribs were horribly misplaced, visible from underneath the creature’s shirt.
“Dave,” Jack finally spoke. “What the fuck is that?”
At the sound of his voice, the creature’s neck snapped with a sickening squelch so it was looking directly at Jack. He and it stared at each other, Jack wondering what he should do, the creature staring deep into his soul.
Then, it moved again, taking a step forward. Dave moved back another step in response.
“Dave,” Jack repeated.
Dave looked back over his shoulder to look at him. A mistake. The creature took this as an opportunity, nobody had their eyes on it anymore. It lunged forward with horrifying speed, arms flailing out in front of it and reaching for Dave. Its broken, grimy nails grazed Dave's arm before he could step back far enough. As if automated, Dave slashed back at the creature with his knife, making contact with its face. A wound opened below its eye, oozing thick, dark blood.
“We gotta get out of here,” Dave said, staggering back even further so he was within Jack’s reach.
“No shit,” Jack said, grabbing his coworker’s arm and running out of the dining room. He could hear Scott close behind them, his phone head ringing as if he was screaming. He could also hear the creature thumping behind them, chasing them down the hall.
Before it could catch up, though, Jack, Dave, and Scott made it through the front door. Scott, being the last one out, slammed it shut and put his weight against it.
“Well,” he said, “looks like little Susie’s not getting her birthday party.”