This is the first chapter to one of the stories I had started a while back that has been sitting in the back of my files until I decided to blow the dust off and get to work on it. Personally I've never played the games but I have watched let's plays on all of them and I know a lot of people didn't like the third game, I personally thought it was one of the best ones and I saw a lot of potential for a great narrative. I hope you all like this first chapter.
Mondays, the time of the week everyone in all of western society, from the United States all the way to Europe, unanimously hated. From the time you get off of work on Friday you go out to have fun. You get to do whatever you want without having to worry about a damned thing come the next day. Then Sunday approaches and you start feeling down because you know that all the fun is going to an end before you have to start your busy week where you'll yell, get angry and all sorts of drama simply falls into your lap from seemingly out of nowhere until Thursday comes around. Thursday, that time of the week that makes everyone feel better because they now that Friday is coming back again and everyone starts making plans for what's going to happen over the weekend which usually involves going to bars and getting drunk or getting laid or going out to hang with friends, somewhere along those lines.
For Dean those kinds of things were never an issue. He didn't care about going out and getting fucked up at a bar, he didn't even drink that much. Every once and a while he would get a beer or two but he never drank to get drunk. Getting drunk wasn't very fun to him. And, he didn't care about how quickly the weekends came and went because he didn't usually leave his apartment much unless to attend his classes during the day. Other than that he was content at staying home and working on his artwork. He wanted to be an artist. He was good at it too! During a class that wasn't his art class, whenever he finished the assignment, he opened up his little black sketch book and started drawing. His fellow classmates would lean over and stare and say something about how good he was or how he should be a tattoo artist. The second one bothered him because he didn't want to be a tattoo artist. Not that he didn't like tattoos, hell he was covered in them, but he wasn't interested in that particular field and he's been told that same thing ever since he was in middle school and he was tired of it.
No, what he wanted was more of the freelance kind of work. Make a few paintings here and there and maybe a few drawings and get them hung in a gallery somewhere for all to see. His girlfriend who was basically his number one fan, loved the idea and encouraged him to do it. His art teacher was more realistic about it. He never completely disagreed with Dean about it but told him to not get lazy because a lazy artist was a poor artist and would find themselves washed up before they could even get ahead in life. Dean took that advice to heart because he wasn't lazy and he was always working on something new. He didn't think of himself as the next Frank Frazzeta or H.R. Giger by any means but he liked to think he was a middle of the run kind of artist with the sufficient talent to make it a living and if one day his work was seen as good enough to counted among the giants of whose shoulders he stood on then so be it. He never saw it as possible but if it did happen, he wasn't going to complain any.
There was one problem he was already facing and that was he was poor. Being a college student and living on his own, he didn't have a lot of money. He was able to get by doing commissions for friends and classmates but those were little more than bill payers at best. His girlfriend was the real bread winner right now since she worked a full time job at a nursing home to help them get by with rent and their other bills and there were times she would come home looking like death. She worked hard and he loved her for it but she disserved a break which is why he took this job at this new haunted attraction at the amusement park to help her out a little.
He saw an ad for the job on the bulletin board in the hallway on his way to class last week. The article showed a black and white picture of an old Freddie Fazebear head and read:
COMING SOON!
Fazebear's Fright:
The Horror Attraction!
Local amusement park is getting ready to scare your socks off with a new attraction based on the unsolved mysteries of Freddy Fazebear's Pizza. Featuring actual relics from the decades-old pizzeria, this new attraction is guaranteed to bring back your child hood in the worst possible way.
Dean took the article from the bulletin board and called the number on the bottom when he got home later that day. He was called in for an interview and before he knew it, got the job. During the interview, Dean already thought that the guy he was going to be calling his boss was annoying. He talked like a stoned, beach surfer and looked like Kurt Cobain if Kurt Cobain wore plaid, long sleeved shirts and cargo shorts, and Dean was sure that he didn't. The man was also easily impressed. All Dean really had to say was that he was a college student who was majoring in art and that was it. Wham, bam, thank you mam. And, the biggest thing that bothered him was he wasn't given a tour of his workspace, all the man did was show him the building and told him which door he needed to go in and his office would be the first room on the right. Lazy, lazy, lazy!
He had to be honest though, Dean was happy he got the job and was now able to help his girlfriend out more once he started getting paid. It wasn't much, minimum wage but that was enough for now. He was on his way to the place now to start his first day. It was dark, almost midnight and Dean flipped his car light on real quick to double check his schedule.
Monday through Saturday, midnight to six in the morning. Thursdays and Sundays off.
He flipped his car light back off and his phone started vibrating in his pocket. Normally he didn't answer his phone when he was driving but when he turned the screen on he was greeted with a picture of his girlfriend sitting in restaurant booth in the seat across from him. It was his favorite picture of her. They were on a date to celebrate their five year anniversary when the picture was taken.
He hit answer on the screen and said, "Hey, Ashley."
"Hey, were are you at?"
"I'm on my way to work."
"Oh yeah, I forgot. Sorry, haha! Well shoot, I was hoping to come home and put on something sexy for you so you could carry me off to bed." Dean smiled, he counted himself lucky to have a girlfriend like her.
"Don't worry, hon. As soon as I get off, I'll be there to give you just what you need to start your day before you go to class."
"Then I guess I won't have to wear anything for bed tonight."
"Are you trying to make me turn this car around?" He joked.
"Maybe a little bit." She giggled. "Alright, I guess I'll let you go. I love you, babe. See you when you get home."
"Love you too, Ash." He finished then hung up. A few minutes passed and his cellphone lit up again with a text message, but he wasn't going to look at until he got there.
After a few more minutes he found the amusement park. He pulled into the parking lot and parked his car. He got out, stretched a little bit and opened the back seat of his car. Inside he had an MP3 player, his lunch for the night, a sketch book, a few pencils and a copy of "The Shining" by Stephen King. It was his favourite Stephen King novel and the only book he has ever read more than once. The place wasn't operational yet so his employers shouldn't have a problem with this. Plus it was only him there and he needed something to keep his mind occupied while he was at work to keep him from getting bored. He put all of his things into a plastic sac and walked to the building. His boss gave a key to open the place up and so he grabbed his key ring from his belt loop, scrolled through the keys until he found the right one and unlocked the door.
It was dark inside and he could barely see in front of his face. He put his hand on the wall to his right and felt for the first room. He found the rim of the door and walked in. He felt around some more and flipped on the light switch.
The room lit up in a yellowish-green light and he wasn't too displeased with the space. It was a small room. A desk sat on the far left hand corner with a computer monitor and small cartoonish figurines standing on top if it next to a small fan. The walls were decorated with old drawings of the Fazebear characters that the old pizzeria had and to his left was a box full of old trinkets. He made out a blue bunny face, a chicken or duck face, there was a fox and guitar stick up out of the box. An arm with a hook for a hand hung limp over the box and Dean knew it must have belonged to the one called Foxy.
Dean wasn't too familiar with the Freddy Fazebear incident, all that happened before he was born and the pizzeria closed down when he was just a little kid. He remembered wanting to go but never got a chance too. He knew bits and pieces from what his friends in high school told him. Apparently a few murders happened that involved kids and there was that one accident that happened back in the 80's. What did they call it again? Oh yeah! The bite of 1987. That was when one of the animatronics bit one of the kids in the head and tore out his frontal lobe. Man, what a way to go. Dean didn't know if whether or not it was a good thing that the kid lived. It was good in the sense that he was alive but bad in the sense that he had live with the injury for the rest if his life. That one really put the company in the spot light and they were never the same after that.
A red light was blinking on the phone that sat on the desk. He had a message, which reminded him that he needed to look at that text message that Ashley sent him. He walked over to the desk, set his items on the desk and plopped in the chair. He spun around in it then stopped. He hit the message button on the phone and lo and behold, Surfer Dude was the one who left the message. The message played.
"Hey, hey! Glad you could make it for your first night, I know things may seem boring but things should be getting more interesting pretty soon…"
"Ha, totally!" Dean mocked.
…"We found some great new relics over the weekend and we're out tracking a lead right now! So uhhh…let me update you real quick and then you can get to work. The attraction opens in like a week so we need to make sure everything works and nothing catches on fire." On fire? Dean's list of concerns was growing by the day. "When the place opens, people will come in from the opposite end of the building and work their way towards you and pass you and out the exit. Yeah, you've officially become part of the attraction and you'll be starring as, a security guard!"
"Yay! When do I get my Grammy?"
"So not only will you be monitoring people on the cameras as they pass through so, you know, make sure no one steals anything or makes out in the corner, but you'll also be part of the show. It'll make it feel really authentic I think. Uh so, let me tell you about what's new. We found another set of drawings, always nice. And, a Foxy head! Which we think could be authentic, then again it might just be another crappy cosplay. And we found a desk fan, very old school. Metal though, so watch the fingers, ha! Right now the place is basically just flashing lights and spooky props. I honestly thought we'd have more by now, Uh, if we don't have something really cool by next week we may have to dress you up in furry suit and make you walk around saying boo! Hehe!"
"Oh, hell no!"
"Uh, you know, like I said. We're trying to track down a good lead right now. Uh, one of the guys who helped design one of the buildings says there was an extra room that got boarded up or uh, something like that. So we're going to take a peek and see what we can find. Uh, for now just get comfortable with the new set up. Umm. You can check the security cams on the computer and there should be a maintenance program on there so you can reboot any system that may go offline. Hehe. In order to make the place feel vintage we may have over done it a bit. Hehe. Some of this equipment is barely functional. I uhh, I wasn't joking about the fire. That's a real risk.
What in the actual fuck was going on here? If there is a risk for a fire to happen then why the hell don't they do something about it? Screw authenticity! If this was my place I would be more concerned about the safety of my employees and customers. Dean almost thought this was going to be his one and only night here but he had his woman to think about. She deserved a break. She worked too damned hard and he wanted to make things easier for her. For now he was going to stick it out and hope that things improved as time went by.
"So I'm going to leave you to it and I'll let you know if anything new comes up. Bye for now." The message ended.
So let's see I have an incompetent boss and I work in a fire hazard. What could possibly go wrong? Dean shook his head. Well better see what these cameras are all about. He turned the computer on and waited for it to boot up. The screen flashed on with a screensaver of the park to which he was not surprised and clicked on the software program titled cameras. A window popped up with the camera feed. The camera was titled Cam 02 and was illuminating a corridor with a creepy prop of Freddy Fazebear. The prop had no arms or legs, it was being held up by two metal beams that went up into the prop. Man, it was actually creepy. It was nothing but a dead, hollow husk. Its head hung lose and its jaw stood ajar on a single screw. Now that he thought about it, that could very well be the Freddy prop in the picture he saw from the ad.
Okay next camera. The cameras were listed on the side of the screen and each one was numbered from 1 to 10. The camera icons lit up as the mouse curser scrolled over them and he clicked on Cam 03. The feed was patchy, like trying to watch a messed up VHS tape. The footage itself was nothing to spectacular, the camera was facing the floor at the corner of a corridor. Cam 04 was next and this one was pointing at a wall with the Foxy head that Surfer Guy mentioned in the message. It was mounted on the wall like a hunter would mount a trophy and Dean believed that may have been intentional, it would have been an amusing joke. The prop looked old and the jaw looked like it was ready to fall off.
He skipped a few cameras and click on Cam 08. This camera was looking down a hallway with a Chica head looking right at the camera which made Dean feel a little uncomfortable. The way the camera was angled made Chica's eyes looked half lidded and the mouth was wide open like it was hungry and wanted to eat him. He really cursed his luck for having a fertile imagination sometimes. It was a great tool to have for his artwork and the one he relied most, but when it came to things like this, it kind of played against him and he would look behind his shoulder because he would make himself paranoid that someone may be in the room with him. It was ludicrous obviously, but he learned a while back that he got a thrill out of being creeped out. He wasn't an adrenaline junky by traditional standards, but if you showed him something that creeped him out, he wanted more.
He scrolled through the rest of cameras and nothing interesting caught his eye. The bunny, Bonnie, his name was if Dean remembered correctly was nowhere to be seen save for the Bonnie face in the box of trinkets that was in the office with him.
Man this place was a real piece of work. Shitty was what it was. Not only did his manager look like the kind of guy whose night wouldn't be complete until he got completely torched, but this place was a big safety hazard for any who came in. If he didn't need the job so bad he would have reported this place immediately. He could go find another job somewhere else, preferably one that paid more and cared about safety laws and regulations. He would think that this place would have made that their number one priority since this place was going to have families, most likely with children coming through here instead of making authenticity their main objective. What a shit hole.
He almost forgot about the text his girlfriend sent him. He opened his phone and opened his messages. He clicked on the one Ashley sent him and it said, "Christie said to call him if you can. He wanted to talk to you about something. He wouldn't say what. I don't know how you boys stay up so late. Haha! Have fun at work! Love you babe." He swore he was going to marry that woman someday. When they first started dating he didn't see himself getting into a serious relationship. He was too involved in himself and his artwork but he counted himself lucky to have found someone who was as much as a workaholic as he was. Ashley wanted to be a writer and she was very good at it. Mostly she wanted to work on film writing. She had already written a few scripts for movies she wanted to make someday, and when he read them, he couldn't put them down.
He looked at his watch and it was 1:32 A.M. That text was sent to him about an hour and half ago and he didn't know if Christie was asleep by now. Christie was also an artist and Dean's best friend. They grew up together and became roommates when they started college. Christie's work was drastically different from Deans. Dean was more into fantasy art like the great Frank Frazzeta. Ever since he was little he loved dragons and wizards and when he was in high school he read up a lot on Celtic, Nordic and Greek cultures which greatly influenced his work. Christie's work was more surreal and very apocalyptic. Christie once said that Dante Alighieri's "Divine Comedy" and Oliver De Sagazan's artwork were some of his biggest inspirations and man did it show.
He called Christie's phone and was greeted with a song by Tech N9ne. He remembered this one, he believed it was called "Hope for a Higher Power". It was a creepy but brilliant song. Dean didn't have a lot of rappers that he listened too but after Christie showed him Tech N9ne, Dean had borrowed some of Christie's CD's on several occasions.
"Hello?"
"Christie! What's up, man?"
"Oh, how's it hanging, bro? Ash said you got yourself a new job."
"Yeah. I figured I would try and make more money to help her out. My artwork can only pay for so much right now."
"Well shit bro. You know I live here too, right? My work sells for more than yours does. So why go through the trouble?"
"Yeah, but I feel guilty that she works so hard and I just sit at home after school. It's a love thing."
"Man, she's changed you. I remember you used to not give two shits about shit like that until she came along."
"You of all people should know that people change."
"That's true. So you're working at that new haunted joint in the amusement park, right? I saw the newspaper article here on the table."
"Yeah. They're basing it off of the Freddy Fazebear murders."
"I saw that. I went there once as a kid. Never went back though after the first time. The animals creeped me out as a kid."
"I find that funny coming from you." For Christie to get weirded out was unheard of. The man used dark and disturbing imagery in his artwork all the time to make it more entrancing to look at. For being twenty-five years old, Christie's artwork was like that of a master's. The images were masterfully painted on the canvas and the subtlety of the symbols and themes were akin to a Stanley Kubrick film. Dean did similar things in his artwork but they were more on the philosophical and spiritual side of things.
"Eat a dick! Anyway, I'm going to finish up here and get by black ass to bed because, you know, some of us have class in the morning."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Have a good night man."
"Peace out, homie."
He hung up the phone and set down on the desk. He wasn't feeling inspired to draw so he opened up a small bag of chips he brought with him; he cracked open his book and started reading. The Shining was Stephen King's best novel, Dean believed. He's read many of Stephen King's books in high school and had a few select favorites like "It" and Desperation but none of them compared The Shining. The Jack Torrence character was made to be an everyman that the reader could relate too and his drinking problem made the character feel more real as the character struggled to cope. Stephen King certainly put a lot of himself into the character. It was obvious for anyone who knew anything about the writer.
Dean lost himself in the book and he barely noticed the passing hours as they went by. He was sitting in his seat with his feet propped up against the desk and mouthing along with the words as he read them. He was so absorbed that he failed to notice the shadow that passed the door and he jumped when he heard something fall with a loud clanking like something metal had been knocked over. He almost fell backwards but regained his balance. What the hell was that? He turned the computer on and clicked on the camera software program.
He scrolled through the cameras and found what must have made the noise. On Cam 08, the Chica head had somehow been moved to the end pf the hallway and was on its side now. Dean was feeling a little creeped out but he had a job to do and so he got up from his chair grabbed a flashlight and went looking for the Chica head. He couldn't believe that something like this was happening already on his first night. How did the Chica head even move? As far as he knew he was the only one in here, or supposed to be in here unless his boss had come in through the other way and accidentally knocked the fucking thing over and didn't bother putting it back. Asshole.
He made to the hallway and the Chica head was still on the other end. He went over to it and kneeled down. "How the hell did you get over here?" he looked it over and didn't see any damage on it, but he doubted anyone would be able to tell if it was not or not. The thing was old and hollow with only the skeletal frame of the head still inside. He turned it over and it looked him in the eye. "I'm going to eat you. I'm going to rip you apart and I am going to eat you, piece by piece." He needed to imagine another thing for this thing to say when he looked at it. It was a duck for crying out loud.
For some reason he thought about the murders that happened all those years ago and wondered that if things could talk what kind of stories would they tell. What did they see when the murders where happening. "You must have quite the tale to tell, don't you?" Dean said to the Chica head. The head said nothing in return obviously and Dean put the flashlight in his mouth and carried the head back to its original spot. The damned thing was surprisingly heavy but it wasn't anything he couldn't handle. He could probably run with it if he wanted. He set down and looked at it one more time until he heard laughter that sounded like a child's laugh come from behind him.
Dean quickly turned around and shined his light to the end of the hallway only to find no one there. "Hello!" Dean yelled. "If there are any kids in here, you better come out and stop playing games, now! You're not allowed to be in here!" He waited for a response but did not receive one but he her the light tapping of little footsteps come from behind the corner and ran to find the source. He shined his light down the other corridor but again turned up empty but he did see a shadow pass down the next corridor and ran to meet it.
"Okay kid, if you don't stop running, you're going to be in big trouble if I catch you!" This kid was fast. He couldn't seem to catch up with them. Every time he turned the corner he would only catch a glimpse of their feet before they disappeared down the next hallway. He picked up his pace, he turned the down to the next room and almost hit his head against the mounted Foxy head. He quickly stopped and almost slipped. He shined his light on Foxy and shook his head. He walked in front of it so he was face to face with it. "What's wrong Dean? It's just me! Having trouble with those pesky brats are ye, laddy?" The Foxy head seemed to say mockingly.
"Where did you go, kid?" A light behind him turned on and he saw the light on the camera that watched this room was on. The lights on the camera only turned on when someone was looking through the monitor and Dean smiled.
He ran as fast as he could to his office, but when he got there it was empty. He walked inside and he shook his head. The computer had been touched, the camera feed had changed and was pointing right at Foxy. How could a kid run so fast? It was the strangest thing. He heard the entrance doors open and he walked out of his office and the door had been left open. He looked outside and shined his light. He scratched his head and walked over to his car to make sure whoever was here wasn't hiding. He didn't find anyone and double checked to make sure his car was locked. He will have to call his boss tomorrow and tell him about this. He had half a mind to tell the guy how incompetent he was for leaving the backway open for any wonderers to just come through when they pleased.
He went back inside, closed the door and did a walkthrough of the building just to make sure no one was there. All was clear and he even checked the backdoor and it was locked. So how anyone could have gotten in was a mystery and he was left without words. He sat down in his chair, opened up a soda and continued his shift.
Nothing strange happened for the rest of the night and he had almost forgot it happened when the alarm in his watch started beeping indicating it was no 6:00 A.M. and his shift was over. He shut everything down, grabbed his stuff and locked the building before going to his car. He started it up and left for home. If he ran into his boss later he was going to make it very clear to the guy that he needed to make sure there was no other way in and to keep a look out for any children in the area because this was seriously too much excitement for the first night and it only added up to everything that was already wrong with the place.
He hoped from now on that things would run a lot smoother during his time with Fazebears fright. He really wanted the money to help his lady out and he would be disappointed if he ended up having to quit.
Just a head's up, to all who like what they've read, I will try to update this story regularly but my main focus is my other story Humility which I have put a lot of time and effort in. I pretty much have this entire story already planned out and it should be really easy for me to write. I'm hoping for at least 15 chapters at a minimum with this one. So I hope you all enjoyed the start of this story and I will update hopefully sooner rather than later. PEACE!