Author's Note: Hello, greetings, and salutations! Thought you'd never see me again? You thought wrong! I got a story I think is really good, so I'm going to start on it right away! I hope you're as excited for this as I am, 'cause this is going to be a doozy!
Police officer Michael Schmidt sat at his desk, fiddling with his pen. He hadn't been on an assignment in weeks, which was good, but that left him bored in his small office. All of the other case files had been taken by other officers, which left him with all the paperwork.
Lieutenant Wesley walks through the door, arms filled with files. "More paperwork for you, Schmidt," He says. Wesley's a very relaxed guy. Everyone just calls him Wes, and he's the only one Mike can actually trust in this place. He has a wife and a couple kids, a happy little family. He signed on in his early thirties, and he's almost breaking forty now. "It's a shame you aren't out there on a case. You're pretty damn good in the field." He drops the stack on top of Mike's desk.
"Yeah," Mike says. "Maybe I should get up earlier so I can get first pick." He grabs the first paper in the stack and skims through it.
"Oh come on, Mike. We all know you're incapable of getting up before eight." Mike puts his hands up in a sarcastic way.
"Guilty as charged." He turns back to the paper, and stamps at the bottom of the page. He moves it to the other side of his desk. Suddenly a door slams open from the other room.
"Any officer who isn't currently on a job, report out in the lobby!" They hear the chief yell.
"Looks like you got lucky, Schmidt," Wes says. "Come on, maybe you'll get a shot at this." Mike stands up and jogs out the door behind the Lieutenant, and get in the circle with the rest of the officers.
"Ok, boys," Chief Joanne yells. "We just got word of a homicide down at the old pizzeria, We need a few guys to go down there and assist the detectives. Any volunteers?" Mike's hand shoots up immediately, along with a few others. "Schmidt, Wesley, and Grayson, you three go down there and see what you can scrape up." Grayson just signed on, fresh out of training. It doesn't seem like a good idea to Mike to have a rookie on a homicide case, but it isn't his place to say, so he keeps shut. From what he's heard, Grayson doesn't really have anyone to go home to. He's pretty timid around other officers, and usually sticks to paperwork. It's pretty shocking to see him go for a field job.
But relief fills Mike anyways, glad to not have to push papers anymore. He belonged in the field. He and Grayson follow Wesley out to the Patrol car. Wesley gets in the driver's seat and turns on the ignition. Mike takes passenger, and Grayson gets in the back. A playful smile spreads across Wesley's face. He looks back at Grayson, who looks like he's about to puke, and the car hasn't even gone anywhere yet. "You ready, rookie?" He says. Grayson shakes his head, but Wes just smiles even larger. "Better get ready soon, 'Icause we'll be there before you know it!" Was flips the switch that turns on the siren, and presses down on the gas, sending them speeding out of headquarters. Grayson closes his eyes, and holds on to the 'Jesus handle' on his door. Wes lets out a childish laugh, and a smile spreads on Mike's face.
After speeding through a few intersections, they arrive at their destination, Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria. The place always seemed to send a chill down Mike's spine every time he passed it, and for good reason too. The place had an eerie atmosphere, and Mike never understood how parents could ever take their kids there. Police cars are already parked outside, along with a couple civilian vehicles that belong to nosy reporters. The trio gets out of the cruiser and walks towards the building surrounded with yellow caution tape. As they approach the tape, they're swarmed by reporters.
"Can we get a comment?"
"What's going on inside?"
"What caused this?"
"Is this the end for the family pizzeria?"
Mike stops and turns to face the reporters. "Look, we don't quite know what's going on inside. As soon as we do know, we'll be sure to let you know," he says. The reporters aren't satisfied with this, and launch another barrage of questions. Mike ducks under the tape, and follows the others to the building. They open the door and enter the building, and are immediately greeted by the smell of a rancid odor and grease. A detective runs up to them, looking pale and a bit shaken.
"Glad you guys could make it. We're stumped. I've never seen anything like this," he says. Mike didn't think the rookie could get any paler, but he was proven wrong in that moment. He looks like he's seen a ghost.
"And you are…?" Was asks.
"Oh! Where are my manners?" the detective says. He extends a hand in greetings. "Detective Martin, sir. May I ask of your names?" Wes shakes his hand.
"Lieutenant Wesley," He says, and gestures to the other two. "This is Officer Schmidt and Officer Grayson."
"Pleasure to make your acquaintance," he says. "Now if you'll follow me, I'll lead you to the crime scene." The deputy turns and walks down the hall, beckoning them to follow. He leads them down the hall and into a large room filled with tables, which Mike assumes is the dining room. He'd never been in this building before, and never really wanted to either. They approach a door, and as they get closer the odor gets stronger. Martin opens the door, revealing a few other men inside, surrounding a large robot bear, with blood and other human bits poking out of a few of the openings.
"Oh Lord…" Grayson says. They walk into the room, and start to take a look around, stepping over any chalk lines, trying not to be in the way of the other detectives at work.
"Any idea of who the man is inside?" Wes asks.
"The only person it could have been was the night time security guard," Martin says. "The owner claims that the body wasn't in the spare suit when he went back here to power down the other characters. We questioned all of the other staff, and they didn't know anything either. The guard's name is Jeremy Fitzgerald, a nineteen year old kid looking for a job." He shakes his head. "It's a shame. Graduate out of highschool, just to be killed in some freak way."
"Is there anyone on file who could have done something this… brutal?" Wes asks, but Martin just sighs.
"We've checked. Three times, in fact. Anybody who has a criminal history is either a shoplifter, or already in prison. Nobody on file could've done this. We're in a completely different ballpark now."
Mike looks around the room and spots the band of animatronics. He walks up to them, inspecting each one carefully. A purple rabbit with a red bowtie holding a pretty nice looking guitar, A brown bear, much like the one the victim is in, with a black bowtie, holding a microphone. Next down the line is a chicken… or is it a duck? Mike can't decide. the chicken duck thing has a bib reading "Let's Eat!". Finally, there's a red fox with an eyepatch and a hook for a hand, obviously supposed to be portraying a pirate. Suddenly, a quiet shuffling comes from the bear. Mike walks back over to the bear slowly, and examines it. He gets up close to it, trying to see inside, and suddenly it activates. Its eyes flip open, revealing a pair of blue eyes. Its arms spring up, and it moves back and forth in a classical robotic fashion.
"Hey kids! I hope you're ready to party!" It says. Mike is taken by surprise and stumbles backwards, tripping over a spare head that rolled onto the floor. He lands on the ground with a thud, shocking everyone else in the room. Wes walks over and looks around on the back of the bear's neck. He lets out an 'ahah!' and flips a switch, powering down the robot bear. He walks over to Mike and helps him up.
"Gotta be more careful Mike," He says. "Don't want you or Grayson pissing yourselfs on the field," he laughs. Grayson looks like he's about to faint.
"Excuse me," He says, and runs out of the room. Martin clears his throat.
"Well, we're not getting anywhere. Why don't you guys go look around in the rest of the building, see if you can find anything," He says.
"Good idea," states Wes. "While we're at it, hopefully we can catch Grayson before he spews all over the place." They walk out of the room, Wes heads down the hall in the direction Grayson ran, leaving Mike to search for anything leading towards the case.
~~~TIME SKIP WOooOOOoOOoO~~~
The sun had set about half an hour ago, and the group of police officers had come up with nothing. Martin walks finally catches all three of them in the same spot and catches their attention. "Hey guys, I got something important to tell you," he says. "Chief just radioed in asking about our progress. I told her we had nothing but a body, and she said to head back. We'll pick up tomorrow."
"Damn," Wes says. "Oh well. We probably weren't going to get anything today anyways." We head back outside, where the mob of reporters had mostly died down. Paramedics showed up a while ago to collect the body, and drove him down to the forensics department back at headquarters. Mike gets back in the cruiser, followed by Wes and Grayson. They back out of the parking lot, and head down the road. "So how'd you like your first day in the field, rookie?" Wes asks.
"It was… eventful," He manages to spit out. Wes chuckles, and turns down the road leading back to the station.
"Well, don't worry, it just gets better from here," He says.
"Oh boy," Grayson mumbles under his breath. We pull back into the garage, and head to our offices.
~~~TIME SKIP WOOOoOooOOOoo~~~
Weeks have passed since Mike and the others had been at the pizzeria. Other officers had gone down to see if they could find anything, but they came back with nothing. Chief Joanne calls everyone out of their offices, and they form a circle around her. "As of today, we're temporarily closing the Pizzeria case. There isn't any evidence left to go off of anything, but if this happens again, God forbid, we'll open the case back up and investigate. All officers that were assigned to this case, await further orders and return to your office. That's all." Mike returns to his office frustrated at the fact that they had to close the case. He sits down at his desk, and as soon as he does, Wes comes in with a stack of papers.
"Bummer about the case," he says. "Hopefully something like this doesn't happen again." He puts the papers on Mike's desk and leaves him to his work.
"Yeah," Mike says under his breath as he grabs a paper. "I sure hope not."
One Month Later…
"Alright boys! We got a 1-87!" Chief Joanne yells. Mike is shaken from his trance, and jumps out of his chair, jogging out of the room. He joins the rest of the officers in the circle around the chief. "You guys remember the homicide we had a couple weeks back at the pizzeria?" She asks. A couple guys say yes, while others nod their heads. "Well, It happened again. Same cause of death, same place. I think the guy behind this is issuing us a challenge! What say we give this guy what for?" She yells, and is followed by everyone either yelling or issuing a "Ooh-rah". "Schmidt, Wesley, and Grayson! I need to speak with you!" She yells over the other officers.
They follow Chief Joanne into her office, and she shuts the door behind them. "Ok boys, I have a plan. We suspect that if whoever's behind this has enough balls to commit this crime in the same place, using the same tactics, that he'll keep doing it, and he knows we won't catch him. He's good, that's for sure, not leaving any trace at all for us to follow."
"Ok?" Mike says. "But what does that have to do with us?" the only way we'll catch him is if we constantly monitored the place."
"Not exactly, but almost correct. If we stationed men around the building, he'd either stop or just move to a different location, and both are unacceptable. If he stops, we'll never find him. If he moves, more people die. But, if we place an undercover cop inside the building, he'll never see it coming."
"But wouldn't they have to be there constantly?" asks Grayson. "I feel if even one person was there twenty-four seven, they'd still tip him off, and he'd just move."
"Nobody said anything about staying there constantly," she says. "He strikes at night time, after everyone is gone and all that remains is the night guard. So the plan, is to place an undercover cop as the night guard, and they'll remain there for the shifts, until the slithery bastard shows his face."
"That actually might work," Says Mike.
"Hopefully it does. Now, which one of you will do it?" She asks. Nobody says anything for a while.
This is what we signed up for, Mike thinks. Putting our lives on the line for people who can't defend themselfs. If I don't do it, then another officer will, and that's just another life who could easily be lost. If I don't do it, I won't ever live down the guilt of another officer's death on this case.
Mike steps forward, and brings up a salute.
"I will, Ma'am."
Author's Note: WOW THAT WAS LONG. I hope you guys liked it. This is a pilot chapter, and if enough people like it I'll keep going. I thought I'd try doing third person perspective, mix things up a little. Hopefully I'll see you guys in the next chapter!