MONDAY NIGHT
At eleven o'clock on the dot, Mark walked through the doors of Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria dressed in a casual pair of jeans and a white t-shirt. The restaurant was all but empty, with just a few of the evening crew members finishing the nightly cleaning. At the greeter's podium was Patricia, who smiled widely at the sight of him. "Hey new guy," she said cheerfully, unhooking the red rope and letting him through. "You ready for your first night?" Without even a second thought she left her front post, becoming his guide to the security office. "I'm honestly kind of nervous," he said, a little self-conscious. She put her hand on his arm. "Don't be! You'll do great." Her confidence in him made the nervousness wear away just a bit.
They walked across the main floor together, passing the time by talking about movies. It was a comfortable subject for him, one he could simply slip into, no matter the genre. Thankfully she was a huge fan of animation just like him, and that became the main subject of their conversation until they reached the back of the dining area. From there, they trekked through a black-and-white tiled hallway, walls adorned with posters and articles advertising and praising the restaurant. Despite wanting to stop and look them over, he didn't have time, his guide walking on without him; he caught up quickly, trying to play it off, smiling when she looked back at him.
They reached the end of the hallway and a seemingly blank part of the wall. Patricia held up a slim finger as if to say, wait and see what happens, and knocked on the wall a few times, the echo hollowly reverberating through the wall. A beat passed before the wall swung inward, earning a little noise of surprise out of Mark. It was a door, and in its doorway was the day security guard. He was on the taller side, but younger, with dark skin and darker green eyes. But his smile was soft and bright, his demeanor open and welcoming. "Hey Steven." Patricia waved. "This is Mark." Mark waved a little too. "The new night guard." Steven held out his hand, and he took it, shaking it firmly. "Great to meet you. C'mon in." He looked back at her, expecting her to lead the way. "Oh, no, I can't," she said, putting her hands up. "Management said that room is for security only." She laughed a little. "Steven's your guide from here on out. Good luck."
And with that, Patricia headed back the way they came.
"All right," Steven said with a friendly smile. "Well, c'mon in. I'll show you the ropes." He led Mark inside to the relatively small security office. Inside, against the front wall, was a metal office desk whose legs were tangled in wires. The wall above the desk was plastered in posters and children's drawings, gifts given to the employees and day guards. There was a rolling chair pulled away from it, a tablet sitting in its seat. "Welcome to your office." He continued to look around. There were two large metal doorways on each side of the office leading out to hallways, which made him curious. "Doors?" He prompted, pointing to them. "Ah." The other boy looked at them. "Yeah. They were installed in the eighties, during the Cold War. They were installed as protection against the threat of nuclear fallout."
"And the tablet?" Steven walked over and picked up the piece of equipment from the chair, offering Mark the seat. He took it, finding it a fairly comfy little chair. "I was expecting, y'know, little black-and-white TV screens." That made the both of them chuckle. "Nah. We got this installed right before they excommunicated us from the restaurant chain." Right. Patricia talked about that this morning. "I heard. They're basically trying to run you out before having to evict you." Us. They're trying to run us out. You're part of the family now. The thought made him bite back a smile. The other boy nodded. "Yeah. But Manny's not going to let it go unless they pry it out of his hands. His kids, his nieces and nephews, they all had their parties here. It's practically him and his family's second home."
There was a moment of silence while Steven fiddled with the tablet. "Okay, so here's how it works…" It didn't take Mark long to grasp how the camera system operated. "… Just tap the room that you want to see, and the screen will switch over." The graphics were in black-and-white, despite the advanced technology; there was also a second or two lag between camera changes, which mildly amused him. "And there's also the matter of the hall lights." Taking the chair by the headrest, Steven rolled Mark over to a metal doorway, where a panel with a set of two buttons, one white and one red, was within arms-reach. "It does get pretty dark at night. So you might need these." He pressed the white button and a sterile white light lit up the outside hallway, a faint buzzing sound being emitted from the light socket. "Right under that is the button to close the door." That was the one lit up red. He pressed it and down the metal door slid with a solid thunk. He pressed it again, and it reopened.
"And about the power…" Steven motioned to the tablet, where, in its bottom left corner, a percentage and 'Power Usage' meter showed. "Since we're basically running on borrowed time here, we only have a certain amount of power after midnight. Everything turns off to conserve power and avoid high electric bills. So once the clock strikes midnight, the only things that're gonna work are the cameras, that tablet, and the door modules." He stopped short as if he wanted to say more, but switched subjects instead. It required him to open one of the desk drawers and pull out a small box filled with cassette tapes and what looked like an old voicemail machine. He set it on the desktop. "These are for you." Mark furrowed his brows and looked up at Steven. "Management says they're a requirement for all night guards to listen to. They're labeled and everything, so just pop 'em into the machine and press play." The thought of cassette tapes meant just for him both excited him and made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.
While his imagination went wild with thoughts of what was on the tapes, there was a knock from outside of the hidden door. Steven crossed the small space and opened the door to see Charlotte with backpack slung over her back. "Closing time," she told the both of them. Her voice snapped Mark out of his thoughts, making him turn and wave just a bit at her. "You gonna be okay?" Steven asked, looking back at him, and he nodded back. "It'll be a breeze." The comment made the girl roll her eyes and start to turn away. "I'm leaving, Steven. I'll lock you in if you don't hurry up." That made the boy cringe. "All right, I'm coming. See ya Mark. And good luck." Steven exited the room quickly, leaving Charlotte a few steps behind. Just as he turned on the tablet and began to fiddle with it, he heard a voice. "Hey." Mark looked up, looking Charlotte over. Though still in the bright orange uniform shirt and brown slacks, she seemed much softer, face almost apologetic. "See you tomorrow?" He smiled a little and nodded. "Yeah. See you tomorrow." There was a hint of a smile on her lips as she turned away, shutting the door behind her.
Midnight was marked by the sound of the generators shutting down. With a few loud shudders and the fading sound of movement, everything went dim and dark. The sudden switch from full brightness to nothing but the button lights and tablet screen made him jump, then laugh at himself for being so scared. He checked the screen one last time before putting it to sleep – fully charged at one hundred percent.
Mark would readily admit that he wasn't afraid - darkness wasn't a fear he harbored as a child. It just took a moment for his eyes to get adjusted, and when they did, he scooted to the desk, tablet in his lap, and pulled the voicemail machine and the cassette tape labeled 'Night One' in thick black letters in front of him. After a moment of fumbling with the machine and tape, he got it out and open, got the cassette placed right-side-up, and got it shut again; he pressed the bright red 'play' button.
The first thing on the tape was the ringing of a phone. There was an audible click as it switched over to record the voice message.
"Hello hello? Uh, I just wanted to record a message for you to help you get settled in on your first night..."
The message instantly and completely hypnotized Mark. As the man on the voicemail read the official legal spiel out loud to him - very quickly skimming through the part about missing persons' reports and bleaching the floors – the goosebumps returned, rippling over his tan skin. "Now that might sound bad, I know, but there's really nothing to worry about…" He scoffed, a sassy remark on the tip of his tongue. There was a brief pause in the message, giving him a chance to check on the cameras. Waking the tablet, he saw that he was at ninety-six percent, and flipped to the main stage's camera.
Mark's stomach did a violent flip. "Now, the animatronics do tend to get a bit quirky at night…"
Bonnie was gone. The bright purple bunny was no longer on stage, her guitar carefully placed against the stage's back wall. Where could she have gone? How did she move? There was no one else here in the restaurant. He looked up at the voicemail machine, listening to it for a moment. "… 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." That made even less sense to him. Why did they move around at night and not during the day? That would be an awesome gimmick for the pizzeria to draw in customers. He kept listening, his stomach churning uncomfortably. "Uh, they used to be allowed to walk around during the day too. But then there was The Bite of '87. Yeah. I-It's amazing that the human body can live without the frontal lobe, you know?"
"What?" He shouted out loud, a loud curse following. Someone got bit? Did they die? Why did they get bit? What did I sign up for?
As he flipped through the cameras to try and find Bonnie, he listened as the man on the message went on, occasionally looking at the time in the top corner of the tablet and carefully watching his reserved power. "… The only real risk to you as a night watchman here, if any, is the fact that these characters, uh, if they happen to see you after hours probably won't recognize you as a person." What would they think he was then? Another robot? "They'll most likely see you as a metal endoskeleton without its costume on." Nailed it, he thought to himself. "Now since that's against the rules here at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, they'll probably try to... forcefully stuff you inside a Freddy Fazbear suit."
Mark flipped from the main lobby to the backstage area and yelped loudly. He found Bonnie standing in the middle of the room, staring right at the camera. "O-Okay! Hi, Bonnie," he said shakily to no one in particular. "Good to see you, buddy. How you doin'?" Please don't stuff me in a suit, he pleaded in his head. Realizing talking actually steadied his nerves a bit, he decided to go with it. The voicemail man caught his attention with his goodbye. "I'll chat with you tomorrow. Uh, check those cameras, and remember to close the doors only if absolutely necessary. Gotta conserve power. Alright, good night."
And with that, he wasalone in the quiet again. "Goodnight," he said softly, checking the tablet again, finding Bonnie still backstage and the other two animatronics still on the main stage. "I can do this. It's-" He looked to the corner for the time. "-Two in the morning. Just gotta last four more hours. And I'm at, like, eighty-nine percent. It's good! It's fine…" It was very far from fine, but he was trying really hard to convince himself it was all alright.
As time ticked on, he kept reassuring himself that it was going to be okay out loud, doing all he could to remain in high spirits. He kept an eye on all of the animatronics, flipping between the main stage, Pirate Cove, and backstage where Bonnie was hiding, kept on his toes by the lingering question - What's going to happen now?
The clock struck four in the morning. Two more hours and I'm home free! herealized with a jolt of relief. Just as he begun to relax, the camera feeds turned to black static, and from the tablet came the fuzzy and familiar sound to accompany it. "Wh-What? No! Give me back my-" The feed returned then, cutting off his plea, backstage now empty. "Where's Bonnie?" he loudly whispered, struck by terror. "Where did she go?" Mark flipped through the cameras quickly, realizing with a quiet "oh no" that another animatronic had left the stage. Chica was nowhere to be seen, her keyboard moved to the side. "Oh no… Chica…" Now he had two killer robots to find, with two hours still to go and eighty percent on his tablet. Frantically tapping through the camera feeds, he found the chicken at the bathroom entrance, his heart almost stopping. Thankfully she wasn't looking at the cameras like her counterpart had been earlier, but the creepy factor was still heavily present. "Okay, just- Just stay there!" he commanded, even though the robotic bird couldn't hear him. Quickly he found Bonnie, who was back in the main dining area, just across from the camera. He couldn't see anything other than a silhouette of her. Good enough.
The battery was slowly draining away as he looked at the tablet, going from eighty percent even to seventy-six. He clicked it into sleep mode and sat back. To calm himself down, Mark quieted his breathing and strained to hear any sort of movement outside the hallway doors, any sort of sign that they were moving. It was loud; deafening even - he didn't want to make a sound and attract their attention, but he couldn't stand just how suffocating the dark had become.
A loud clattering erupted from the right hallway, making him jump violently. He turned on the tablet and flicked through the cameras quickly, finding Bonnie backstage again, and Chica... He couldn't see Chica. Where's Chica? The noise answered his question, it resembling pots and pans banging together. The kitchen maybe? He clicked over to the kitchen camera, which was black; the words 'Video out - Audio only' were written across the top of the screen. Did she do that? Or was it like that this whole time? He couldn't remember. It was the first time he heard someone in the kitchen. There was another clatter, making him panic, hit the sleep mode button on the tablet, toss it onto the desk, and wheel over to the right side of the room. With a hard slap, he pressed the red button, the metal door sliding shut.
Time and battery were the first things he thought of the moment the door hit the ground and he looked at reinforced metal instead of blackness. Could he afford this for the remainder of his shift? Mark wheeled back over to his desk. Seventy-one percent and within the five o'clock hour? Not bad. The decision to keep the door shut for the rest of the night wasn't going to be as hard as he thought. He checked the tablet for Bonnie once more, finding her back near the main stage, and Chica still in the kitchen, since she wasn't to be seen anywhere else.
Once the clock struck six, a chiming rang through the small tablet speaker and a matching louder one through the rest of the restaurant. The lights slowly flickered on, one by one, the metal door automatically slid up, and the sound of the arcade machines turning on echoed back to meet him. Finishing off the night at seventy percent even, he set the tablet down on the desktop, leaned back in his chair, and shakily drew in a breath. Just over the chimes he could hear the loud footsteps of the animatronics going back onto the stage. Six single bells chimed to mark the hour, Mark silently counting them. Once it went quiet again, he slowly stood, finding his legs shaking a bit. You survived. You're here, you're breathing, you're alive, he repeated to himself reassuringly. No one's going to get you, nothing is after you, you're safe now.
Then there was a knock at the door.