Picking up the discarded newspaper from the ground, Courage folded it neatly and placed it back into Eustace's red chair. He was always curious of how old the chair was. It was covered in sweat stains, and you could visibly make out the curve of Eustace's body in the cushions. He had left to go pester Muriel, his wife and Courage's beloved Master out of the two. Well, not before pulling out his favorite, frightening mask and scaring Courage's tongue out of his body like usual. The old man was definitely not a nice person to be around. After all, he sent Courage's arch nemesis-s after him that almost killed the poor dog in a game of dodgeball. The things Courage did for love.
Speaking of Eustace, he hadn't paid the bills this month. The farm was already on the point of collapsing, figuratively and literally. There was no crops being grown in the vacant fields surrounding the old house, the pipes were leaking and rusting, and the old truck that Eustace loved needed repairs. The reason was because Eustace refused to work. It was usually Muriel's efforts with performing for others with her sitar, her amazing cooking ability, and her sewing that made the final cuts in the end. If it wasn't for Muriel, nothing would get done.
Courage felt that since Eustace spend much more time this month watching a new show on TV then usual, Muriel's earnings wouldn't make the amount. And since Courage felt guilty for not being able to help his family, he decided that somehow, just somehow, he was going to pitch in and try to assist.
"But how do I do that?" He asked out loud to himself, scratching his pink fur in confusion. He trotted over to Eustace's seat and jumped in, feeling something wrinkle under himself. Courage made a noise of curiosity. He reached under his posterior and yanked out the folded up newspaper that Eustace had chucked at him earlier. A light bulb formed over his head, figuratively, and he made a noise of joy.
"The classifieds! Why didn't I think of that?!" He unfolded it and began searching through carefully. He could have sworn that his sarcastic computer make a remark about him being a dog from upstairs, but he ignored it. "Let's see. Assistant at Dr. Vindaloo's office needed. There is nothing to worry about, nothing at all. Hmm..." Dr. Vindaloo was the Bagge's family doctor. Courage considered him a close friend and ran to him in times of need, but usually he was no help at all. The amount he was willing to pay wasn't that much, but Courage would keep him in mind. After all, rushing wasn't necessary here.
"Muriel, the faucet's leaking!" Eustace yelled from the kitchen. Muriel made her usual remark of shock in response and hurried over to aid her husband. Courage whimpered and began flipping through the pages in a frenzy. No, nope, definitely no. None of these jobs would either hire him or be enough to help out the farm. He needed something, something! Anything!
Wait...
"Help wanted. Freddy Fazbear Pizza. Family pizzeria looking for security guard to work the night shift. 12 AM to 6 Am. 120 dollars a week? That's perfect!" He smiled and refolded the paper, jumping down from the chair. That's all he needed to read in order to be fully convinced to take this occupation. He dashed upstairs and into the computer room. He began to type quickly over the outdated machine's keyboard.
"Computer, give me the details about Freddy Fazbear Pizza!" He told it's monitor, typing the same thing that he spoke.
"You twit. I suppose it can't be helped. Fazbear Pizza was once a popular restaurant to children and their parents, mainly for their cash, and the main attractions are these hideous creatures you call animatronics that play live music. Of course, the restaurant is set to close by the end of the year, so it doesn't matter much. I suppose you'll be taking the opening job there, am I wrong?" The computer sassed as the robotic voice narrated the information as fast as it processed it. Courage crossed his arms and looked displeased with the computer's answer. "What? I'm just curious."
"Give me the directions to the restaurant!" Courage said aloud once more, typing.
"No need to get feisty." It retorted. The printer activated and produced a set list of directions to the location. Courage made a noise of excitement and dashed out of the room. He was going to prepare for the later hours of the next day. Unfortunate to Courage's knowledge, the computer chuckled to itself darkly once the little dog left the room.
"That poor twit doesn't know that he's in for."
He left the house the next day once Muriel and Eustace left town to purchase groceries and took a cab to the big stinkin' city. Hoping around town as fast as his hind legs could carry him, Courage obeyed the computer's manuscript. He got lost several times because of miscalculations and at one point fell down a sewer hole in the middle of town, though that was mostly his fault for not looking where he was going. Finally, at long last, he stood in front of Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. Like the computer implied, the place looked weathered down. Courage took a deep breath and entered the restaurant's front doors.
Almost immediately, Courage was hit with the most revolting smell. His eyes widened cartoonishly and covered his nose the best he could. For humans, this wouldn't have been that big of a deal. But considering that he was a dog, the smell was multiplied in power. It was like a stench fume turned into a fist and socked him into a wall. Courage turned around and slipped on a biohazard mask from who knows where. Ah, that was better! He traveled down the hallways with his resume that he worked so hard on all night long, looking for the manager's office. Oh, there it was! Right side of the hall.
He inhaled deeply and took off the mask and knocked on the manager's door. Courage held his breath the best he could and waited nervously. The door opened, and he came face to face with Di Lung. The air escaped from Courage's mouth when it flopped open in surprise, thus leaving him to be vulnerable to the stench.
"Watch where you're trippin', you foo'!" Di Lung yelled and dragged Courage into his office. Well, this was a surprise. Though, it was Courage's fault for not noticing Lung's red Corvette in the manager's parking space. But why was Lung the manager, of all people? Courage could have sworn that he was royalty! Why would he own a pizzeria?!
"So, you lookin' for a job? Well good for you. Where's your resume?" He asked from his manager's seat, while Courage had been thrown into a small, wooden seat in front of the bosses's area. Courage listened to a Beatles song play over the radio, he wasn't sure which one, though. He was thankful that Lung had enough sense to keep the windows in his office open. He took out his resume folder and laid it on the desk. Lung went through it carefully, stroking his chin.
"Says here that you are a hard worker. What experience do you have?" Courage babbled to him in nonsensical gibberish that protruded from him whenever he became nervous or distressed. Somehow, Lung understood all of it and nodded.
"Hard worker, indeed. Better than these lowlife losers working for me. Ha ha ha ha ha!" He cackled, and Courage just sat there, blinking awkwardly. "Alright. Papers seem to be in order. Since you are the only one applying, you get the job."
Courage jumped in his seat and celebrated silently. Lung then waved at him to get out of his office.
"Now get out, you foo'! I have a TV show to shoot where people should give their money to me!" Then Courage took his things, if he had any, and left the room, getting punched in the face by the awful smell again. He wasn't going to let his boss down, or his family!
Courage left his home around 11 PM to begin his new job. He settled in the security guard's office quite nicely once he arrived. Di Lung showed him the basics of his job, which was actually quite simple. Watch the security cameras over for any suspicious activity and maintain order within the faculty. Though, Lung dived for his car and drove away like a madman once he finished. Even if that crushed Courage's dapper attitude a bit, he sat in the office's chair and adjusted his little security guard had with pride. He made sure to take an extra long nap once he finished his interview so he could be all charged up for the late hours. But who knew that it would only make him even more tired than usual?
His eyes, he was sure, was an exaggerated red. He yawned and slumped through the desk, flipping through the security cameras. It was a few minutes into his shift before the phone rang. He let it ring a few times. One, two, three. Courage reached over slowly and put it on speaker, smashing his head on the desk. It was a man, presumably one of the previous night guards. His message was simple. It was a greeting to the shift, and the general rules of the night shift. There was something about the animatronics, but he didn't really pay attention.
Halfway though the message, Courage's weight led him to fall out of his seat. He crashed on the floor with a tedious thud. Courage moaned and readjusted his tiny hat. But luckily, the pain made him able to retain his conscience. Just in time to hear the most important parts of the words being spoken.
"So, just be aware, the characters do tend to wander a bit. Uh, they're left in some kind of free roaming mode at night. Uh...Something about their servos locking up if they get turned off for too long..." Courage put his hands to his jaw and howled in fright. He jumped up into his chair and listened more keenly. His teeth chattered intensely, but Courage managed to make out what the man on the supposed other end was saying. Apparently, these machines were able to roam around at night to their leisure. If they caught one look at Courage, they would mistake him as a walking endoskeleton and stuff him into a suit. What was even worse was the contraptions inside the suits when they stuffed their victims in there. Courage's body melted into a puddle from the intensity of this entire ordeal. He moaned once the unnamed man discussed the entire thing for him.
Once the man instructed him to check the cameras and not close the doors unless absolutely necessary, the phone clicked off and remained dead. Courage pulled himself together and began dashing around the room in a miniature circle. He screamed out incoherent babbling and waved his hands wildly. He was able to stop once he tripped over a pine cone scented car ornament that lay on the floor and found himself being slung into a wall.
He got up and returned himself once more to the security guard's seat. Courage began sweating and had to make sure that what the man said wasn't false advertising. Sure enough, the camera aimed towards the stage showed that the machine's spots were vacant. Courage screamed in a cartoony way, almost hovering over his seat. He flipped through the different cameras quickly. Courage never bothered to get a good look at the attractions. He had sworn to once he left Di Lung's office. Alas, the smell drove him out the door on both hind legs. He hoped at the very least that they were cute and cuddly.
Courage flicked to the camera displaying the backstage to glimpse at a huge amount of suits and parts for the machines. This scared him immensely, and he screamed once more. You could almost hear a monkey screeching in the midst of his high pitched cry. He heaved and regained his composure. Time to switch the camera channels again. Camera 3 is clear. Camera 1A was clear. East Hall...
Just then, a mechanical bird-chicken hybrid, to be believed, jumped out at the camera. Courage felt the pink tinted fur of his body fade out to a pasty white. He could no longer scream, but sit there in mutual horror. This was no King Ramses. This was worse.
"Closethedoorclosethedoorclosethedoor!" He spat out. Courage slammed his tiny paw on the button and opened and closed it more times than necessary. It eventually closed. Courage went and huddled in the corner underneath a box and prayed that the entire situation would end at that moment. Wait, why was he doing this? He was Courage! His name meant that he had to be courageous! He had to stand up to these creatures for the sake of Muriel... and Eustace.
It was unfortunate that Courage didn't recall the man on the phone's words about power conservation. When the tiny dog stood up bravely to walk over to the desk, the lights went out and the doors opened.
He wasted all his power on opening and closing the doors.
Courage darted back into his tiny cardboard box of shame and heard footsteps growing closer. He began to shake and quiver, knowing that this was the end. A music box began to resound throughout the office. Courage could hear a dark laugh close to him and tried to get deeper into the box. He slid into the deepest corner of the box and prayed for salvation.
Something pulled the box off of him. Courage hesitated to look up, but he did anyway, and gazed into two faces of the machines. A bear and a bunny. Two white lights in their eye holes was the only thing that illuminated from their costumes. It almost sent Courage to the emergency room. The bear, the one that picked him up, studied him closely, then grumbled and tossed him against the wall. Courage made an 'oof' sort of sound and observed the creatures walk out of the room slowly, never taking their lights off of Courage.
It took Courage almost an hour later to figure out how he survived, but it finally hit him. Courage looked like an animatronic.Courage knew that he didn't look like or act like any dog, considering he stood on his hind legs and behaved with the intellectual ability of a selfless human, but his bulbous head and his cartoon body made them consider that he was one of them.
The event did make him pass out once he came to his conclusion of his miraculous survival. Only the door of the morning light from Di Lung thrusting open the somehow closed doors signaled that Courage was still alive. He looked deeply unsatisfied at his newly hired security guard passed out on the floor.
"Stupid dog! Wake up!" He kicked Courage into a wall, and Courage immediately woke up. Courage put on his hat nervously and stood in front of his boss. Lung crossed his arms. "Seems as though you survived. Good for you, foo'!"
Courage smiled and was happy to see his paycheck handed to him. It was only a fraction of the entire amount promised, but Courage was pleased with himself. He hoped that this would aid the farmhouse.
"Now you have the next four nights to look forward to! Ha ha ha ha ha!" Lung walked out of the room while cackling sadistically. Courage just stood there for a few moments in silence, holding on tightly to his paycheck. Then, his body fell apart into miscellaneous parts on the floor. Well, Five Nights at Freddies has that title for a reason, and hopefully Courage can live up to his name with the next shift hanging above him in the form of a noose.