The crisp fall air blew harshly across my face. I continued to slowly walk towards the dark and gloomy building. Slight flickers of light could be seen through the window as a neon sign flashed on and off that displayed 'Welcome'. I swore under my breath as my lanyard fell out of my pocket as I fumbled around for the front door key. The small silver key roughly turned sideways as the door gave a rusty 'click'. I pushed the heavy metal door open, making sure to lock it behind me, as I unwound my gray infinity scarf from my neck and headed towards the reception room.

My black low heel boots made a dull 'thud' each step I took. I looked around to take in my surroundings. The room was a wide rectangle shape, the floors were made of wood which was dusty and cracked in some areas. The peach paint was peeling off the walls, and balloon wallpaper trim only covered about 46% of the room in torn strips by the ceiling. I made my way to a hostess podium made of pine and metal, which was leaning awkwardly to the left, there seemed to be some sort of water damage to the base on that side. I rummaged through the drawers until I found what I was looking for. My fingers gently traced around the inside of a drawer, which could only be opened about half way. I was careful, you don`t know what could be in these old drawers. I grabbed another set of keys, a yellow legal pad that was ripped in a corner and had sloppy writing on half of the front page.

In smudged blue ink it read, "Hey. I hope you found this okay, I wasn`t sure if I gave good enough instructions when I called. Um, the keys in this drawer open the lockers in the security office, and you should probably walk there while you're reading this. Make sure to turn the power save feature on after you get situated and receive my phone instructions, okay? At night apparently they need to conserve power or something. That`s really important, you'll probably be yelled at if you don't.-' I looked up from the page and began to speed walk through the hallway. I heard the scrape of a mop bucket being dragged across the floor in the party room. 'That must be the janitor… I think his name is Felix? I don`t exactly remember…'I thought to myself as I peeked around a corner. Even though the lights were on, it was sort of unnerving in here. I coughed after I took in a deep breath of musty air. 'Oh there better not be much mold, I`ll be sneezing all night. I'll have to bring some allergy pills tomorrow' I tucked a piece of my light brown, dark blonde hair behind my ear that fell out from my tight bun on the back of my head.

I continued to walk ahead the wood floor was now a cream tile. It seemed like it was ceramic or something along those lines, definitely not a good quality stone tile, I really like heavy stone tiles. I jogged ahead as I saw a flash from a room just down the hall, was that the buzzing of a fan too? I hope so, that should help circulate the air and help my poor sinuses. Allergies can seriously go suck a big one. In front of me I saw a poster, maybe a 9.8" by 13"? It was bent at the edges, and a piece of white tape fell off of one of the sides. There was an eerie looking animatronic on it. The large furry brown bear was sort of smiling, and large text said 'Let`s Party!' I shivered slightly as I took a left into the small room, animatronics have always made me feel on edge.

I looked around the space and frowned, it was a little cramped, but there was a really comfy looking office chair in the back by a tall tan filing cabinet. I glanced down at the keys in my hand, and placed them by a monitor on the front room wide built-in desk. It clearly was made of a cheaper material, there were dents and scratches across the front…. Was that a long scratch leading out to the door? It was sort of deep and jagged, like someone dragged a knife across it, maybe a support hook of some kind? I looked up and saw a cork board being held up by two small gold hooks. Maybe it was scratched by those when they were trying to hang the board up… but the scratch looked like it was made by something bigger. I shook my head and looked up at the wall. 'You're just nervous' I told myself. 'This isn`t a horror movie, there aren't people running around with meat hooks to hang you up by your shoulders. You need to lay off the murder mysteries there Sherlock'. There were bent posters attached to the cork board by pushpins, there were three that showed each of the animatronics.

I did some research about this place, I could not find much about it though. All I know is that there was an issue with the old location, so they had to scrap some of their animatronics and move to a new building. Their other animatronics had a few incidents where they bugged out and there were some law suits that occurred. I could never find details of what occurred during the incidents though; it was covered up pretty well on the internet at least. I`m pretty sure they were in debt from that, the interior looks like it has not been updated since the early 90`s. My pay is not all that great either, but what can I say, I have to pay for college somehow. I shook my head and sat back in the black CEO looking chair, I need to concentrate and read those directions. I glanced at the clock as I sank into the chair, 'Ohh, it IS comfy!' I thought as I swiveled back and forth with a stupid smile on my face like Lenny from Shark Tale. I shook my head again, propped my feet up on the desk, and placed the legal pad on my lap. 'Okay, focus Miss ADHD, come on. It`s 11:15pm, you need to read what you have to do.'

'Once you get into the office open the top drawer of the cabinet' I took the keys into my right hand while holding the legal pad in my left, spun the chair around, and opened the top drawer. I reached up and over a little bit to get my forearm into the drawer, I was too lazy to stand up. My fingers traced around the empty drawer until they rested on a cold soft thin plastic. Whatever was behind it was pretty cold. I lifted the object out, it was a tablet with a black leather life proof case and built in screen cover. Since it was cold I assumed it has not been used for about a day or so. I closed the drawer, spun the chair around, and placed the tablet on the front table. 'Okay, next step.' I thought as I looked back down to the yellow paper.

'There should be a tablet thing in there, if it`s not then look in the party room or find Felix, he should still be there. Okay, so the company is really freaking cheap, so they got a lousy ass monitor tablet for the security cameras. Don`t ask me why they did instead of getting a good forever-powered system. Oh yeah, by the way, everything electronic in that building is on a power save mode after midnight, so you better hurry up if you`re just reading this and it`s getting close to midnight. On the tablet there will be an icon at the bottom of the screen that shows the building power. DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES LET THAT SHIT RUN OUT MAN. Conserve the power, check the cameras just a few times probably every two minutes, and only shut the emergency doors on your left and right when absolutely necessary. Hopefully you won`t have to use them, but I doubt that. There are lights on the doors that show you the area around the windows since the other lights in the hallway will automatically be dimmed or shut off. So the bot things here are… pretty temperamental I`m not going to lie. Felix says that they like to be called by their names, Bonnie, Chica, and Freddy. I call them Purple Ass, Duckface, and Fredfuck though… I wouldn`t recommend that to you though, I don`t think they like that… or me. So, that`s pretty much all you need to know about the tech stuff tonight. And you should probably open the bottom drawer of the cabinet, I left something in there for you since you`re a newbie. I`ll be calling you around midnight to finish up these instructions. My hand is cramping, my shift is almost over, and I`m gonna go get some tacos.~Mike Schmidt'

I put the legal pad down on the table next to the tablet, picked up the keys, and opened the bottom drawer of the cabinet behind me. As the drawer slid open, I saw a large piece of metal… why did he give me a crowbar? I picked it up and placed it in the corner by the desk. I closed the drawer and jumped as a black phone rang on the desk.

"Holy shit…" I muttered, obviously spooked by the sudden loud ringing of the older phone. I picked up the phone and shakily held it up to my ear, waiting for the other person to speak first.

"Hey…you there?" A deep-ish voice came from the phone.

"U-Uh, yeah, I`m here. I got your note thing too." I breathed out, glad it was not a physco killer voice that was talking to me.

"Cool. Okay, so you did you get all of that? Anything I need to go over?" I heard a faint echo of a television from his end of the line in the background. He must be watching the news.

"Yeah, I get it. What do I need the crowbar for though?" I asked as I raised my eyebrows and glanced over at the piece of metal.

A deep chuckle sounded from his end. "Oh trust me, you`ll be thanking me for that in a few hours if the power goes out. You`ll figure it out. I just hope you do really well with horror movies, maybe that place won`t haunt your nightmares so bad."

I scrunched my eyebrows in a confused expression, he seemed a little cryptic. I did not understand what he meant. "Um… I do decent with them I guess…" I trailed off as I glanced into the left hall at a flickering ceiling light, he was right, the owners must be really cheap.

"Good, good. So you`re going to be there for a while, I would go with Felix to the kitchen and stock your little shack up with some munchies. I put some Hot Pockets and Mountain Dew in the fridge, hope you like those. For some reason the kitchen stays powered throughout the night, probably because of the food. You had the grand tour the other day right?" He asked, it was getting a little harder to understand him, there was some static in the lines now or something. I guess the power must be shutting off soon.

I nodded, but then remembered we were on the phone. He couldn`t see me, duh. "Yeah, Felix gave me the tour the other day the bots were in the back though I guess. I guess he didn`t want them to be out while I was there or something?" I shrugged as I looked around the room.

I heard him crack his knuckles on the other end, I had that bad habit too. That is the reason why I am a size 8 ring, I thought as I looked down at my man knuckles.

"Okay, well I`m gonna let you go do that. It's almost midnight, you might want to be quick about it. If you need anything here is my number, just text me and I`ll add you to my contacts. I live in an apartment not far from there. If you feel like you can`t handle it or something goes wrong, call me before you call anyone else okay?" His voice was firm, it seemed like there was a sympathetic feel to it too though.

I pulled out my phone from my pocket, opened the message system and fired off a message to him once he gave me his number.

"Okay, I got it. Your name is Alice right?" I heard the faint click of a keyboard, he must have a Blackberry or something.

"Yep." I said quickly as I entered his name into my contacts.

I heard the television change a channel in his room, there was something about cars on now.

"Sweet. Well, good luck newbie. If you make it tonight we`ll have to go party or something tomorrow." Mike chuckled into the phone.

I laughed, "Yeah, sure, whatever. I`m gonna go now." I checked the clock, it was 11:42pm.

"You better be ready for Freddy. Good luck."

A click from my phone signaled that he had hung up. I laughed quietly, he seemed cool. As I stood up from what will be my nest for the next six or so hours, I cracked my shoulders and headed out to find Felix. After a few minutes of searching I found him in the kitchen, how convenient.

"Hey there newbie, ready for your first night? It starts pretty soon." His southern British accent rang out from across the kitchen.

I nodded and smiled slightly. "Yeah I guess, I`m sort of nervous. Mike has me on edge from the way he talks about this place."

I reached into the white retro fridge and grabbed three Mountain Dews, four Hot Pockets of various flavors, two apples, two waters, and a bag of gold fish from the cabinet above. Hopefully this would be enough, I eat when I get stressed.

Felix`s deep chuckle came closer to me as I closed the cabinet. "It shouldn`t be that bad, mate. The mechanic did some programming on the bots yesterday; they should not be as active as usual for a day or two." He leaned against the fridge and looked at me with his warm hazel eyes. "Mike was planning to work with you for your first shift so you had someone incase anything happened. But he has to do some stuff for the boss later tonight, and they should not bother you too much."

I took a deep breath and let it out, I was working myself up over nothing. "Well that`s a relief."

I heated up the hot pockets and said goodbye to Felix, then returned to my little hobbit hole. I arranged everything around me in a neat order so I would not trip on anything if I had to skedaddle really fast. I wrapped a large fuzzy blanket around me and placed the crowbar near my chair. I jumped as the power went into conserve mode with a loud bell. I took a deep breath and let it out shakily as I looked at the screen. Everything was pretty quiet except for the hum of the power supply near the supply closet.

Suddenly I heard it. Loud, heavy, slow mechanical footsteps. My heart lurched into my throat as I chewed on the corner of a pizza Hot Pocket. My eyes darted to the backroom camera view, where three freaking large shadows moved through the doorway. I saw the 8 freaking feet tall animatronics take their place on stage.

Holy shit.

Here we go…