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The animatronics had found a new pass-time, it seemed.
2a, 4a. Mike checked from camera to camera, listening to the quiet, ambient creaks emitting from the office walls. It was Tuesday, and things appeared pretty tame – by this place’s standards. He checked the cameras on the stage and sure enough, Chica had followed Bonnie’s lead into traipsing into the dark.
Probably to the kitchen. Like Clockwork. Halting that thought, Mike peered in on Pirate’s Cove. The curtains remained docile and thankfully closed, for now, and Freddy hadn’t even made his usual 90 degree turn towards the camera yet.
It started gradually. Maybe chasing Night guards was all these abominations had to do on their schedules, and they’d welcomed a new sport. It began back at the beginning of autumn, and now it was a common occurrence three weeks later.
Bonnie was in the storage rooms now, looking under the tables. Chica was moving around the kitchens; metal scraping together, making it clear that she was checking under various pots.
They’d started looking for something, all of them. Well, sans Foxy – he kept up his usual game of red-light, green-light until he decided to sprint.
Freddy? Mike had no idea about Freddy – but he was sure he was on the look-out too.
Mike checked the bathrooms and found Chica loitering there, gawking at the camera. The next time he flicked the camera to the yellow animatronic, he found she was staring into the bathroom itself – where he knew she knew he couldn’t be.
He had a few theories on why.
Chhh.
There was a crack in the curtains. Was it just him, or were these things...frowning a lot more?
Not angry, no, more like...flustered. Intense. He’d laugh at their expressions if he wasn’t so high-strung himself.
Because of their...search, Mike had less of a hassle dealing with them. He idly wondered if they’d caught onto that. But what were they looking for?
He knew.
Bonnie had appeared in the hall. He braced himself, itching to the left, getting ready for a potential door-slam. His knee shook ever so slightly as he peaked in on Foxy – halfway out. Chica was now in the Dining Area, looking under the tablecloths. They won’t be there, Mike thought. They aren’t that stupid.
His heartbeat flared when he checked the door-light and saw Bonnie’s face staring intently back at him. He closed the door, swallowing his nerves, and made a note to check on Freddy.
Around 3AM, when his eyes glanced left again, he saw Bonnie had –
Wait, wait, wait. That isn’t right. That’s not –
Bonnie was in the right corridor, the one with the window. No. That – that was against the rules. Bonnie never came in from the right! Mike closed the door, gaping stupidly at the animatronic. Its stare remained unblinking, and unlike Chica’s almost comical gawk, Bonnie’s was horribly intense. Almost...almost questioning. Mike blinked several times, but his own brain refused to re-evaluate it.
Stomp, stomp stomp –
Son of a...
The door came down and Foxy’s usual slams thrummed through the office. Mike didn’t budge more than he had to, but his ribs hurt with the effort of keeping his breathing under control. Fine. They’d caught him off guard, one time. One time.
Foxy paused outside the door. Mike stared down at his watch until his eyes stung. Half past three, 40% power.
Chica was...oh shoot. She was at the toy stand, peering inside. They knew. They had to know.
“Hi.”
The voice ringed, shrill and flat, though the building. Mike froze, glancing between the door in which Foxy was standing behind, and the window where Bonnie was still staring vehemently into his forehead. The door light was shut off. Couldn’t afford to lose any more power.
“Hello...”
Mike could almost feel the animatronics’ attention zero in on the little word. How? He had no idea.
Foxy moved away from the office. A scraping sound, like a knife on metal, sounded from halfway down the hall. When Mike pressed the light switch, he found Bonnie had gone, too. He opened both doors and breathed. Tried to, anyway.
Then, another noise sounded, so soft and small that Mike almost missed it. The only reason his ears picked it up was because it was...unusual. And boy, did he notice the unusual. It could mean the difference between another close call and his face pressing into a hundred wires. It sounded like – cardboard, falling over, or getting knocked into. From the left...
He checked Pirate Cove, located all the animatronics, prayed to God, and then checked the storage room. He got there just in time to watch a pile of small boxes topple over and hit the floor.
There was movement instantly. The cameras flickered with static and just like that Bonnie had approached the storage room, and was standing directly outside it.
Mike swallowed, and checked pirates Cove. Foxy was still inside. Freddy was gone from the stage.
Tap, tap, tap.
Oh sweet Jesus. He closed the door. On the other side, the little noise continued, only instead of padding across the floor, it prodded daintily on the metal. Tap, tap, tap. Mike chewed on his lip.
Cameras. Hall, bathrooms, kitchen, Pirate’s Cove. Empty.
Horror gripped Mike’s soul as he changed over to the corridor camera, and saw the red-brown blur hurtling past his line of vision. Not because he was afraid himself, the door was closed, but because something else was already there on the other side, on the receiving end –
He opened the door and closed it again in a fluid snap. Foxy slammed against it moments later, pounding viciously, with far more force than usual.
And there, having fallen face-first into the office when he opened the door, was the Little Foxy Toy.
...
He put Little Foxy up on his desk next to the cupcake. It could use some company.
It got worse as the weekend drew nearer, all the multitasking. The animatronics were hell-bent on finding the source of the little voice in the dining area, and the cause of the noise in the kitchens.
What noise, you ask? Well, last week Mike heard what sounded suspiciously like someone hitting a bunch of bottles with a spoon, like some makeshift glockenspiel. And thus came the territories – Bonnie would keep to the Dining Area and the Storage rooms, Chica would prowl about the kitchen and bathrooms. And Foxy would try to get into the office, while Freddy peppered his appearances in now and again.
Again, Mike didn’t know how, but he could feel a new tension in the air. Before, the animatronics had been playing their usual games with him, which had gotten probably a few more guards before him shoved into a death trap filled with by-beams and wires. But this time around they were being challenged by something...they didn’t like.
Ah, boy.
“It’s not like it’s my fault, right?”
Little Foxy didn’t have an answer. He slipped off the edge of the desk and hit his face on the floor. Whenever Foxy came thundering on the door, the little toy would topple off.
...
Mike rarely saw one of the other toys during the shift – let alone on camera. Any other time was after the danger hours were over and everything was in sleep-mode, or whatever strange equivalent these...beings had. Anyway, it was Thursday, and he’d been keeping tabs on Chica and Bonnie whilst they tore up the respective kitchen and Dining Hall. It was then that he noticed the Bonnie Toy, in the back amidst the instruments. Just barely visible, glass eyes peering at him from behind the guitar. Unease sank into his chest. Did it...did it mean something?
He couldn’t spare the thought, not now. Mike switched cameras.
Chica and Bonnie were standing in the Dining Room; the latter closer to the camera. They were facing it, both of them. Staring sharply into the lens. Mike tried to steal his nerves. It wasn’t unusual for them to look at the camera.
Ccch. Pirates’ Cove. Foxy’s curtains were parted, but only his hook arm was slinking out...
Back to Bonnie and –
Oh shit.
Their heads had turned. The two animatronics were staring over their shoulders at the stage...more specifically the musical instruments leant against the back wall. The Bonnie Toy had the good sense to skedaddle before they did and was now nowhere in sight.
Just two more hours.
...
A rusty hook slid through the gap in the curtains. A gentle creak emitted from the joined arm. Some yards away the hallway camera was rotated back and forth, the little red light signalling that the Guard was checking up on him. The animatronic seemed to make a point of glancing towards the lens before it quickly shut off.
Bonnie was still ambling around in search, this time lifting up the band’s respective instruments and peering inside. The sound of wood and drum clunking together danced off the walls, and the Night Guard shut the left side door.
Throwing subtleness to the proverbial wind, the Pirate animatronic drew the curtain back even further, putting himself in clear but dim view.
Then, his sights fell on something down the hall. Sitting against the storage room door. Something small, soft and pudgy looking. His eyes narrowed with a soft, robotic slink.
There it be.
Slowly, he edged from his Cove, his eyes never leaving the little toy lying in the hall. It had flopped innocently onto its side, and in the flickering back-up light, the animatronic could almost see it staring back at him.
“Hi.”
The ringing voice had a bit of a snicker to it. Unless the sensors lied. The hallways lights flickered gently and the toy had moved a few centimetres. So it was no longer looking its counterpart in the eye.
The curtains flailed suddenly. Foxy’s mangled shadow shot across the wall at a terrifying speed.
The Nightguard’s door opened – the sheer guts he’d displayed was surprising – and a broom reached out to snag the toy and drag it inside. The door slammed shut just as the animatronic got there.
...
The broom handle, wooden and grubby, dug splinters into Mike’s skin at the sound that came next. Not a giggle or an absent ‘dum dee dum’. It was a distorted, twisted noise that took form halfway through before fading back out into mechanical hissing. It sounded like a furious growl. Foxy pounded on the door once – or maybe he’d kicked it – and then Mike heard him stalking off again.
He quietly checked Pirate’s Cove. He got there in time to see the curtains falling shut again.
Then, a calamity of crashing started up in the kitchens. Mike dropped the sweeping brush and shut the left door. What the actual –
No image per usual, but the sounds coming in from the room were loud and almost violent. He could hear pitter-pattering footsteps amidst the chaos. A loud snapping noise.
Then quiet.
Okay. Okay. He opened the door and made to check on Bonnie.
Bonnie was back on stage. But he wasn’t facing the cameras. He was holding the guitar his smaller counterpart usually used as a hiding spot. His back was to the camera’s view. Mike swallowed. His mouth felt like sandpaper.
He put the left hall light on. Through the window he saw...
Holy Moly. It was the Chica Doll. Leaning on the very thin pane on the other side of the window, just barely balancing –
The Chica doll did a remarkable imitation of the Foxy Plushie by falling face-first onto the floor and out of sight. All right. Guess they were having a party tonight. His fingers inched towards the door button.
Beep-beep.
Shit, shit, shit, shit. Chica was staring at him intly through the glass. Mike found himself pressing down on the light, because he knew that if the light went off, the animatronic would move. Towards the doll.
Why the hell was he risking his neck for a living doll?
Maybe, because, you crazy ass, it’s been saving said neck this whole time?
The staring contest between himself at the demonic chicken continued. His eyes stung. “Nope. You’re not winning.”
His voice came out in a rasp.
Then –
Stomp, stomp, stomp, stomp –
Motherf –
Nothing, not anything, no worldly concept could describe the sheer and utter terror Mike experience in that moment. The blood had rushed from his head, his bones had ceased up in the incredibly certainty that he was about to die.
The door closed in the nick of time. Little Foxy lay at the foot of it as the pirate on the other side furious pounded on the metal.
Gradually, it subsided. He had 10 percent power left, a cramping finger, and ten minutes to go. His gaze slipped back to Chica. The animatronics eyes were slanted sideways, in the direction if the hellish pounding. Distracted.
Mike saw something small and yellow zip around the hallway corner, and let the button go.
...
When 6AM came, he collapsed onto the floor and gulped down air like a dying fish. If he’d thought the other nights had been gruelling, he was in for a rough, nauseating surprise.
A soft thud nearby told him that Little Foxy had fallen again.
“Well, buddy. We did it. But it looks like the Master of Pirate Cove wants both our butts on a platter now.”
He was losing his mind. Since when did he start seeing these things as allies?
...
Another sleep-coma weekend, and he was back in seventh pit stop to Hell. Things looked pretty normal, all things considering. So he was surprised to walk into the office with ten minutes to go and find the Bonnie Toy lounging on his chair. Facing the doorway as he came in.
The way the light fell on its glassy eyes, Mike could almost see an awkward expression rather than a lifeless gawk of a toy. Without breaking eye contact, he settled his keys down on the desk.
“Hi.” He ventured.
Nothing. “Shouldn’t you be picking out a hiding spot? We’re running out of...time...”
True, this place was hot and stuffy in the summer. Unbearably so. Heh, un-bearably. But in the winter, like it was now, the metal condensed cold like nobody’s business. The office felt like the inside of a cooler and already Mike could feel his skin begin to prickle.
He deliberately turned away, eyes closed. Then realised that in an establishment with haunted toys, he ought not to do that.
Looking back, however, he saw Lil’ Bonnie had taken off again. Pick a good hiding spot, bud, Mike found himself thinking. The animatronics aren’t playing any games these days.
...
Another close call. The animatronics aren’t falling for the ‘hello’ game anymore. They either ignore the doll’s quiet calls or go after them later. Bonnie kept his eyes fixed on Mike for five minutes before shuffling off.
Foxy was coming after him with a vengeance and Little Foxy apparently didn’t have the nerve to continue playing look-out. Which was a given, seeing as the animatronics had all but figured them out.
Mike flipped through the screens again. The kitchen taps were on. He frowned a bit. What – why? That was. Why would Chica –
Door, door, Bonnie’s on one side. Freaking hell.
“...Over here.”
The quiet, child-like voice made Mike start. Okay, there was too much of the new stuff going on tonight for his liking. Granted, taps and added vocabulary wasn’t much to an outsider but to him it was major derailing.
“Here!”
Power’s draining.
Bonnie moved. Mike found him in the storage room.
Slowly, painstakingly slow, Bonnie’s eyes slid to the side of his head. Mike shuddered. The sounds of mechanics and wires shifting seemed ten times louder.
Clunk.
Was...
Pirate Cove was safe. Foxy wasn’t out yet and Freddy was still on stage. Mike took a breath and went to the hall camera. That hadn’t sounded like a footstep, that had been something turning. That – he tried to figure out the noise with what little attention he could spare.
Then it hit him. A lock. That sounded like a lock.
Bonnie had been locked in.
A shrill laugh bubbled out of his lips.
Down the hall, without even needing to look, Mike heard a handle rattling. A door being shaken. Yep, locked in the storage room.
Left hall. Chica wasn’t there. In fact she hadn’t been coming after him lately – she and that appalled doll of hers had some major vendetta going on it seemed.
Several loud clangs resonated from the kitchen area.
Mike opened the door and jumped. He bit down a loud curse word when he spotted the chicken plushie lying on its side just outside the office. An obvious ketchup stain hung off its leg. Mike’s eyes slid between it and the camera, showcasing Pirate’s Cove. Foxy was halfways out.
Nothing for it.
He dove for the doll.
At the same moment he heard curtains flap, and Chica’s open-beaked mouth poked out of the kitchen door.
Mike all but threw himself back, his finger having snagged the doll’s bib, and in a moment of panic-induced madness he tossed the chicken toy at the door button.
Little Chica soared, beak open wide, and smacked dead-centre into the button. The door shut.
Mike elbowed the left door button, effectively sealing them inside.
Down the hall, a high-pitched ripple of laughter rang out. Whoever it belonged to could do and screw themselves.
Thud, thud, thud.
...
There were now two toys sitting shoulder to shoulder beside the cupcake on his desk. Mike didn’t know how, but for some reason he thought the Chica doll was giving him a murderous glare. Stooped to one side her plushie beak had been pressed together. A bird toy equivalent of a thin-lipped scowl.
“Sorry.” He found himself saying.
It seemed these two weren’t as good at this shtick as the Bonnie Plushie. And the Freddy one seemed ace at hide and seek.
A low giggle reverberated down the hall; echoed by the high-pitched one. He wondered...was the high-pitched one –
The phone rang.
Jesus. No. That couldn’t be – the phone hadn’t rang in months. The last time it did –
The last night guard moved on; don’t ask questions. Mr Schmitd, do you want to keep your job?
The beep of the message receiver brought him out of his thoughts.
Gurgling. Just. Gurgling.
Then –
A song started to play. It had the same muffled; trumpet-introduced audio of old records. It made him think of fuzzy old movies, black and white cartoons that moved a little too eerily.
If you go down in the woods today, you’re in for a big surprise.
If you go down in the woods today, you better go in disguise.
The phone call cut off, leaving him with two locked doors, vastly drained power, and the tablet almost slipping through his fingers.
The little music ditty of ‘dum diddy dum’ was rolling down the hallway, in time with the buzzing of the generator.
And of course, the slams on the storage closet. Bonnie was stuck, and that seemed to be distracting the others. This was new. A good new? Mike could barely think.
He opened the left door. Bonnie wouldn’t be standing out there for quite a while...