He liked coming in early to see the children. He was always so great with them; his excitement and childlike qualities seemed to leak out when he kneeled down to meet eye level with the girl wearing an eye patch or the boy that drew a picture of Chica. He never complained about the night shift, or the fact that he didn't get paid overtime. He simply loved the children.
He was always so quiet. He talked but not very loudly, and he made small talk, but not very often. He was a reserved man who kept to himself. He was also nice, and cool, I suppose. Especially when he worked day shift, we chatted most of the time and became friends. Good friends, I would think.
• • •
"You-You have to come over now," he called me shortly after his shift had started. "The security tape – i-it – there was a man, he was in the empty costume, the, uh, yellow bear one? What did we c-call it? G-Golden Freddy? Y-Yeah, uh, I think that was it. He was wearing the costume. There were-" he cut off with a choked sob, "children … he led the children into the back. You need to come."
When I got there he was shaking from head to toe. He rewound the tape from hours earlier and we watched the scene unravel. Someone used the suit. Two children were seen in the tape, and I later learned that there were more. This man killed five children. The bodies were never found.
• • •
"The new location is going to be great," I explained to him, "the new animatronics are super kid-friendly and have facial recognition software, so they can detect a predator from the moment they enter the building."
At that moment, I saw something flicker in his eyes. His excitement was shadowed by wariness and discomfort, but quickly went away within a second.
"What about the old animatronics?" he asked, "and Golden Freddy?"
"They started to fix them up, but they still – uh, they just smelled, uh, really bad. And they're so ugly, compared to the new animatronics. Golden Freddy is still being kept, for sentimental reasons, you know."
He frowned. "Foxy was always my favourite."
"He was mine, too," I replied, "but don't worry, the new Foxy looks great. A little creepy, though, but I'm sure the kids will love him."
• • •
"It's only been a few months and the place already smells." I commented as we left the Prize Corner.
• • •
"The old ones were moving around," he said to me one morning, voice shaking, "Bonnie tried to get into the office, a-and Chica was staring into the cameras."
I looked at him in confusion. "They got some of the new technology, but I don't think they should be able to do that…"
"Well they did, and they haven't done that before." He paused and stared at me with wide eyes. "Did they have any setting programmed into them, like, rules or something? That they think I might be breaking?"
I thought for a moment, but nothing came to me. "I'm not sure. I'll have them contact the engineers to see if there might be any bugs in the system." He still didn't seem satisfied with my answer, so I suggested, "look, if we can find a replacement, I'll move you to day shift as soon as possible, okay?" He nodded, eyes still wide. It's amazing how much a grown man could resemble a puppy. I sighed. "For now, just get that empty Freddy mask from the back and see if they'll leave you alone when you wear it. You'll be fine."
• • •
"Any news?"
"Yeah, so the engineers got back to us, and their theory is that they think that the animatronics don't have a proper 'night mode.'"
He stared at me. "What does that mean?"
"It means that they probably want to go to where people are, in that case, you."
"Oh."
"Also," I sighed, "they probably think you're an endoskeleton or something, so if they had ever tried to come at you, they, uh, were probably trying to forcefully stuff you into a suit."
He didn't say anything.
I held up the applications sitting on the desk. "On the bright side, we got someone to replace you. Congrats, buddy, you're working day shift with me."
• • •
I watched him kneel down as a little girl approached us and smile gently.
"Are you having fun with Freddy?" he asked, and she nodded vigorously and pointed to the sparkly yellow crown on her head – the crown the kid wears when it's their birthday.
"Oh, it's your birthday? How old are you turning?"
She giggled and grinned toothily at him. "Six."
"Six? Wow, that's so old." He then leaned in closer to her and whispered, "can you keep a secret?"
She nodded.
"Okay, but if I tell you this, you have to promise to tell me a secret too, okay?"
She held out her pinky and they pinky-promised.
"Okay, do you wanna know the secret?"
"Yeah!"
He leaned in even closer. "I heard that when it's your birthday, Freddy comes to serve you cake instead of our chefs in the kitchen."
"Really?" She asked, eyes wide with excitement.
"Really." He confirmed. "Now, you promised me a secret." He wiggled his eyebrows and she laughed again.
"Okay," she whispered, proceeding to cup her hands around his ears and loudly whisper into his ear.
He gasped loudly. "Your brother doesn't like Freddy Fazbear's? Why is that?"
"He said that his friend saw a kid sleeping in the puppet box, and that Foxy tried to bite him."
He glanced up at me, but then back down at the girl.
"Why, that's absurd! We don't tolerate that here at Freddy's. I'm the guard, you see," he tapped on the gold badge on his uniform, "and I watch this place from opening to closing. I can assure you that nothing like that happens around here." He winked at her and she laughed again. "Run along, now, you don't want to miss the cake." With that, she turned around and skipped back over to her party table.
He stood up and looked at me nervously. "What do you think she was talking about?"
I shrugged and put a hand on his shoulder. "Shouldn't be anything to worry about."
• • •
Two women were standing outside the building smoking.
"I was really kind of reluctant to bring my son here, you know? With all of those rumours going around…"
The other woman nodded. "You know those children that went missing a couple months back? Brady likes to joke around and say that they were made into pizza ingredients."
The first woman scoffed. "Well, I don't think that's what's happening. Everyone at work says that they were stuffed into the robots, and that the employees have been acting really strange." She paused to take a drag, then continued, "of course, they're just rumours, but they still make you think, you know?"
They then seemed to notice me listening in on their conversation. "Oh, oh I'm sorry-"
"No, it's alright," I smiled nervously, "I can assure you that everything is alright here at Freddy Fazbear's. You have nothing to worry about, ladies."
I continued to go inside and exhale sharply. Shaking my head, I made my way to the security office.
• • •
"Oh no,"
The Health Department's van was parked in front of the building. I hurriedly walked inside to find him talking with FBI Agents.
"What's going on?" I ask once I approached them.
"Uh," he started, looking at me nervously, "there's some sort of, um, investigation…?"
One of the FBI agents nodded. "We're here again to investigate the case of the missing children," she explained, "the Health Department is also here, since there have been reports of unsanitary locations throughout the building."
"It's tragic, I know, but that incident has nothing to do with our establishment," I defended.
"It's alright, sir," the other agent said, "I'm sure it'll all be sorted out within a few days."
• • •
"Welcome to Freddy Fazbear's Pizza!" Freddy greeted a party of children as they sat down at a party table.
"Thank you," the chaperone said, smiling at the animatronic. However, Freddy didn't respond with his usual reply. He just stared at the father without saying anything.
The man, obviously uncomfortable, simply said, "okay," and made his way around Freddy to sit down.
• • •
"Alright, Bonnie, time to go back upstage," one of the employees led Bonnie by the arm back towards the stage.
The animatronic stopped, stared at the employee, and then whipped its arm away from her grasp.
• • •
I couldn't find him anywhere.
"Excuse me," I asked one of the agents investigating, "have you seen the other security guard? He's about this tall, has a purple-"
"Yes we have, sir," she interrupted, "he's been taken in as a suspect."
I stared at her with an open mouth. "A suspect? No, no, that can't be right. He would never – he loves the children-" It was a thought I could not comprehend at the time. I stopped and merely stared at the lady.
"I'm sorry, sir. He strongly resembles the figure shown in the security tape from last month."
"Security tape?" I cried out. "What security tape?"
"We can show it to you in a day or two, but for the time being, it's being held as evidence. Now, as you might have known, the building will most likely be put on lockdown-"
"Lockdown? Is that really necessary?"
She sighed. "I'm afraid so. Nobody is allowed in or out, at least for the next few days. We're thinking he's also responsible for the previous missing children, even the one at the first location."
At this point, I actually had to turn away for a moment. "You mean that one kid at FazFred's? From what I remember, they didn't know anything about that kid or his family, let alone the killer!"
"FredBear's Family Diner, sir, and he's been implying that it was him, as well. We don't have any hard evidence, but we're working on it. The company should be trying to contact the original owners."
As I exhaled, I noticed my shaking breath. He couldn't have done this. There was no way I'd believe them. He would never do any of this.
• • •
He was wearing the suit. I saw it on the monitor that displayed the tape. He was wearing the suit. There were children. I watched the film of his entire routine; he ripped out the wires from the spare yellow suit and easily slid into it (as if he's done it before, my mind had said, but I tried to push that thought away). He led five children to the back room, where there was no camera to catch what exactly he did to them. I watched as he hid each kid throughout the pizzeria. I watched as he fended old Freddy away when he awoke. I watched it all.
• • •
I saw it in the paper before they even called me. The building was being shut down.
• • •
I was notified right away that the night guard had come in that night. I sighed and gave him a call.
• • •
They're letting me talk to him.
• • •
When I came in, he was grinning widely. His grin seemed to stretch on his face and eyes pop out of his head. Everything about him looked more confident and loud and psychotic.
He greeted me as if it were a normal day, as if he never killed any children, as if he wasn't wearing a strait jacket.
He was no longer quiet and reserved. He just sat there and smiled at me with his inhuman grin and cat-like eyes.
I didn't know what to say to him.
"What's the matter? Cat got your tongue?" He chuckled. His voice was louder and lower and smoother and everything I didn't hear from him before.
"I can't believe it…" I mumbled. I shook my head and averted my gaze to the table at which he sat.
"Well you should," he growled, "you saw the tapes, you saw the evidence. It makes sense, doesn't it?" He leaned forward and stared at me.
"B-But the last time, you called, and you showed me the footage … what about that other man?" I thought back to when that happened. He was so frightened; he didn't seem right for weeks. How could someone act out that sort of character development so well?
He laughed again. "That poor guy… he got the chair, you know. I felt kind of bad for him…" he trailed off, then shook his head. "No I didn't."
"So-So what about that family place? FredFaz's?"
"Fredbear's," he corrected, annoyed. "And yes, that was me as well."
I was shaking at this point, and I would have used the table to support myself, but I didn't want to get any closer to him.
"W-Why?" I breathed out in my confusion.
He shrugged. "Why not?"
He watched me lean against the wall, breathing shallowly and quickly.
"It's all just a game," he started, "each child is a piece of the game for me. Every time they try to fight, it just makes the game more fun and more challenging." He leaned forward, as if he knew what he was doing to me. He probably did. Through gritted teeth, he said, "I fed off of their struggling and screams."
I felt like I was going to throw up.
He looked at me for a moment, as if he were trying to fathom a thought.
"Oh yeah," he seemed to remember, "did they ever show you my journal?"
"You had a journal?" I asked, not understanding why he'd bring that up.
"Oh, yes. I wrote down everything in that journal, from the very. First. Day." He grinned again. "They're using it as evidence, of course, so you probably won't have a chance to look at it."
The stilled blood inside of me finally started to boil.
"Oh, so every day you'd sit down and write: Dear Diary. Today, I killed another child at Freddy Fazbear's!" I cried out, finally stepping back into the center of the room.
All he did was shrug.
I began to pace back and forth, shallow breaths replaced by panicked heaves of air.
"Pacing won't help you do anything," I heard his low, raspy voice say from the other side of the room, but I ignored him.
I finally stopped when my mind settled on a single question. "What happens to you now?"
"Lethal injection," he replied, sounding bored.
"You're on death penalty?"
"Would you rather a killer be alive?"
I didn't respond.
"I don't believe any of this." I told myself, hand on my forehead.
"Well you should," he said, suddenly sounding aggressive, "Because it's me. It's always me."
He stood up and I stepped back by instinct.
He tilted his head and creased his brow. "What? I thought I was your friend."
I shook my head and took another step back. "No. You were my coworker."
He was such a great actor, and such a great liar.
"It couldn't have been you," I choked out.
"Oh, but it was," he growled, "It was me. Always. It was always me. It was me." As he spoke, he got louder and more aggressive until he was shouting. He began to walk towards me, but suddenly two officers burst through the door and grabbed ahold of him.
With wide eyes, I backed up into the corner as they dragged him out.
He wiggled around in their grasp, trying to escape. Still, he continued to stare and shout.
"It's me!" He yelled as they dragged him out, "It was always me! It-It's me!" He struggled to keep eye contact with me as they pulled him along. "Never forget! It's me! It's me! IT'S ME!"
• • •
I saw it everywhere. As they all raced towards me, I saw it. I saw it on the walls, I saw it on Pirate's Cove, I saw it in the office, and I saw it on the cameras. I saw their faces: Bonnie's soulless, dark eyes, and blue, human eyes in Freddy's. I saw the yellow bear. I saw it everywhere.
It's me.