Anybody want to try and guess who's going to be paired with who? Is there anyone who likes both Heavy Rain and Five Nights at Freddy's who isn't just my friends and me? I don't know, I'm going to do the game a tad out of order, in that I'm also putting Shelby's first introduction in this chapter despite him actually being introduced before Jayden. Enjoy.
Chapter Three – A clever metaphor (it's in there somewhere)
It was already raining heavily on the Tuesday. A shabby looking car slowly pulled up to a rundown hotel. A middle-aged man sat in the driver's seat as he looked out at the building. Not the sort of place that he would want to be if he had a choice. Beside him sat his partner, an animatronic fox with a hanging jaw and a hook for a right hand named Foxy the Pirate. He was almost as old as the driver, and a lot of his fur was stripped away to reveal the endoskeleton underneath, but Foxy could talk and move and function all the same.
"Scott, are you sure this is the place?" the fox asked in a stereotypical pirate accent.
"I wouldn't be a private detective if I got the wrong place," the man, named Scott Shelby, pointed out, turning off the car. Foxy shrugged his ragged shoulders and followed Shelby out of the car and to the entrance to the building. A grumpy looking man sat at the reception, reading a newspaper as the two of them came in.
"Hello," Shelby greeted. "I'm looking for Lauren Winter."
"Sorry, doesn't ring any bells," the man said, not looking up from his paper. Shelby rolled his eyes and quickly pulled out his wallet and flopped a five down on the desk. The man quickly snatched it up. "Oh, that Lauren Winter? Third floor, the left room at the end of the hall."
Shelby and Foxy exchanged glances and started towards the stairs with Foxy quickly taking the lead, walking at a fast pace. Even though he had been decommissioned a while ago, Foxy still felt the need to run everywhere or walk at a brisk pace. It drove Shelby insane because he couldn't keep up with the animatronic due to his asthma.
Foxy was already at the end of the hall waiting for him by the time Shelby reached the top of the stairs, and the animatronic fox was tapping his foot impatiently.
"You know, private detective might not be the best job for someone who has asthma like you," Foxy pointed out when his human partner reached him.
"Said the animatronic fox with sharp teeth and a deadly hook that used to work at a children's restaurant," Shelby grumbled, knocking on the door. Foxy was about to reply, but at that moment, the door opened a crack and a dark-haired woman peered out at them.
"Lauren Winter?" Shelby asked.
"Sorry, I only see clients by appointment," the woman said, starting to close the door again. Shelby quickly reached out a hand and just barely managed to stop her in time. She opened the door more and stared at him, barely looking at Foxy. She looked sleep deprived and she was wearing only a bath robe. Finally, she let out a sigh. "It's fifty bucks," she told him. "I don't kiss, and I don't do weird stuff." She shot a quick glance at Foxy as she said this.
"Sounds good to me," Shelby replied. She backed away and retreated into the room. Scott and Foxy exchanged glances before following her in. The room, like the rest of the hotel, was run-down and shabby, but a little less so than the rest of the building.
"Just put the money on the table," Lauren said over her shoulder. "You have ten minutes, and you're going to have to do something about your…friend."
Shelby opened his mouth to reply, but then noticed something strange standing in the corner. It looked like a tall, lanky marionette with a white clown mask and blank, black eyes. It had a permanent smile on its creepy face, and its entire body was black with white stripes on its arms and narrow legs. Everything about it was horrifying, and Shelby had no idea what it was or why Lauren had it.
But what was stranger than that was the fact that Foxy was staring at it horrified. He had a look in his eye that gave Shelby the impression that Foxy knew this thing, whatever it was. Lauren glanced back over her shoulder and noticed to two of them staring at the strange thing.
"Oh, don't mind him," she told them. "That's just the Marionette. He's pretty harmless."
The Marionette didn't move for a moment, and Shelby thought that everyone was going crazy if they were talking about this thing as if it were alive. But then it slowly turned its head towards him and he almost had a heart attack.
"Hello Foxy," said a whispery, faraway voice that seemed to be coming from the Marionette's direction. "Fancy seeing you here."
"H-hey there, Puppet," Foxy greeted nervously. "Long time no see."
Shelby blinked in surprise and was about to ask Foxy how he knew this thing, but Lauren interrupted him with a cough.
"You should really be getting your clothes off," she pointed out to him. "We haven't got much time." Shelby shook his head, reminding himself why he was there in the first place.
"Actually, to tell you the truth, I'm not a client," he confessed. Lauren turned to him with a frown.
"I knew it," she growled. "You're a cop, aren't you? What do you want, a freebie?"
"My name is Scott Shelby," he introduced himself. "I'm a private detective. This is Foxy, my…partner. The families of the victims of the Origami Killer asked me to investigate the murders. We just came here to ask you a few questions about your son, Johnny."
"I already told the police everything I know," Lauren growled, rolling her eyes. "And I have nothing to add. Leave me alone."
Shelby exchanged a glance with Foxy before speaking.
"Look, I know what you're going through," he started, but he didn't get to finish.
"Really?" Lauren snapped, interrupting. "Have you seen your own son murdered on a wasteland? Did you have a deadbeat husband that refused to do anything? With all due respect, I don't think you have any idea what I'm going through, Mr. Shelby."
"The killer is walking around as we speak," Foxy pointed out. "You know he's going to kill more innocent children if he's not stopped."
Lauren glared at him. "You would know about murdering innocent children, wouldn't you?" she growled at him. "I've read the newspapers about the shit that happened in that restaurant. Besides, what do I care? My Johnny's already dead! It doesn't matter."
Foxy took an angry step towards her, and was stopped by Shelby placing a hand on his shoulder. He let out a huff and stood back, folding his mechanical arms.
"If we don't find the killer, then there are going to be more mothers who find their children dead in wastelands," Shelby pointed out. "But you're right! Why should you care? It's not your problem anymore."
He turned away from her and Lauren shakily sat down on the bed. The Marionette silently glided over to her and put a comforting, slender hand on her shoulder. Lauren flashed the thing a grateful smile before turning back to Shelby.
"What do you want to know?" she said eventually. Shelby turned and after casting a nervous glance at the Marionette, he went over and sat down beside her.
"Tell me about Johnny," he offered gently. "Did he live with you?"
"Yes," Lauren answered, looking down at the floor. "I made sure he never met any of my clients. It was a hard life, and I wanted to quit, but I needed the money, and I wanted to make a better life for him. He was a good boy too. He would get into fights whenever he heard someone call me a…you know. I think he knew more than he let on, but he never judged me for it."
"What about the day he disappeared?" Shelby asked. "What happened?"
Lauren let out a sigh. "I'll never forget that day," she said sadly. "He used to play with his friends after school. At five, all the other children came home, but he never did. It was raining something fierce that day. And then, several days later, he showed up on an abandoned lot, dead."
"What was his father like?" Scott wondered. He swore the Marionette let out a soft hiss at the mention of the father, but since the thing's mouth didn't move, it was hard to tell.
"He was a dead-beat loser who liked to hit me after a few drinks," Lauren said with a growl. "He left the day Johnny disappeared and I haven't seen him since."
"Bloody coward," the puppet hissed in that strange, whispery voice.
Before anyone could say anything more, the buzzer on the table went off. Lauren stood up and turned it off before turning to Scott and Foxy. She was frowning at them.
"Your time is up," she announced. "I hope you got what you were looking for. Now both of you, get out of here." Then she turned her back to them. Shelby looked at her in surprise and took a step towards her. The Marionette somehow managed to growl at him despite it not moving its mouth, and for a moment, Shelby swore that the thing looked almost angry.
He let out a sigh of defeat and backed away towards the door. At the last moment, he decided to put his card down on the table as they left.
"If you ever remember anything important, just give me a call," Shelby urged her before following Foxy out the door. Lauren gave no indication that she had heard him, but the Marionette stared after their retreating forms.
"Well, that was a waste of time," Foxy growled once they were back in the hallway. "Talk about unpleasant."
"Where did you know that creepy puppet thing from?" Shelby wondered, glancing at him. Foxy hesitated.
"Back in '87, before the whole bite thing happened and got Freddy's closed down for the third or fourth time," he explained. "The Marionette was one of those fancy toy animatronics and he worked the prize corner. He creeped the rest of us out because he always had his own agenda." He paused for a moment before adding "I was kind of hoping I would never see him again."
Scott opened his mouth to express his surprise that robots could get creeped out, much less by one of their kind, but that was the moment his asthma kicked in and he was unable to breath. He frantically reached into his pockets for his inhaler, Foxy shouted at him that it was the left pocket, and a gruff man pushed past them and made his way towards Lauren's room. After a couple puffs and a few deep breaths, Shelby managed to collect himself enough to notice the man enter the room they had just left. A moment later, they heard shouting, followed by a thud and a cry.
Feeling his blood turn cold, Shelby quickly turned around and hastened back to Lauren's room with Foxy following close behind him. He knocked loudly on the door and was surprised by the sight he saw when the man opened the door. Behind him, Lauren was lying on the floor, obviously having been hit. The Marionette had leaped onto the man's back and was trying to strangle him or something, but because the animatronic was pretty much made of sticks, the man took no notice of it.
"What do you want, asshole?" the man growled. Shelby looked past him and called to the woman on the floor.
"Lauren, are you alright?" he asked her.
"She's fine," the man snarled before she could reply. "We're just talking. Now get the hell out of here. And take this annoying thing with you." He easily yanked the Marionette off of himself and tossed it at Shelby before slamming the door in their faces.
"Lauren!" the Marionette cried out weakly.
"Cover me," Shelby ordered Foxy before swiftly kicking the door in. The man looked startled as the three of them poured into the room. The Marionette immediately went to Lauren's side, helping her to sit up and wrapping its arm protectively around her as Shelby tackled the man. The man quickly fought back, throwing punches at Shelby left and right.
"Troy, stop!" Lauren ordered, trying to rise. The man, Troy, ignored her.
For a middle-aged man, Shelby was quite the competent fighter, and he dodged most of Troy's punches, while landing a few of his own. The two of them were thrown around the apartment while Foxy tried to skip by them to get a jump on Troy. As Troy slammed into Shelby, throwing him onto a nearby table with his hands around his neck, Foxy came up behind him, raising and bringing his hook down into Troy's shoulder. Troy let out a cry of pain and let go of Shelby, who then kicked him away from him.
Troy backed away from the two of them, and Foxy raised his now bloody hook again, but the man had had enough, it seemed.
"You think you're such hot stuff?" he snarled. "Well, you two haven't seen the last of me!" Then he quickly ran out of the apartment and disappeared.
Breathing heavily, Shelby collected himself, making sure nothing was broken before turning to Lauren and her puppet, who were still sitting on the floor.
"Are you ok?" he asked them.
"Yeah, I think so," Lauren said after a moment.
"Who was that?" Foxy wondered.
"Troy," Lauren spat the name. "A former client of mine who thinks he owns me. I told him I didn't want to see him again, but apparently he didn't take the hint." With the help of the puppet, she slowly stood and looked over at Foxy and Shelby with a slight smile. "Thanks for the help," she said earnestly.
"Don't mention it," Shelby replied. He nodded to Foxy, who was cleaning his hook with a cloth he had seemingly gotten from nowhere, and the two of them made their way back out of the building, leaving Lauren and Marionette with their thoughts.
Well, I was going to introduce Ethan in this chapter, but I was afraid it would get too long, and I kind of wanted the next two parts of the game to just be one chapter. So yeah, it's not until chapter four that we get introduced to the main character of Heavy Rain, so that's funny, right? At least, I think it is.