George Hanley gawked at the sight that greeted him as he pulled off the road and into the old parking lot. Just beyond the nose of his SUV was small building. It was sitting alone on the edge of town behind an empty carpark. No one moved in it. It had defiantly been filled with life once, the tell-tale signs were still dotted about the place, but now it was silent and dead. Not even the rats or the strays looked to it for shelter. Decrepit walls buckled under their own weight while windows webbed with cracks rattled against the wind. There was a sadness emanating from the sagging building, a wordless tale told in the once bright colours peeling from the façade in dull clumps, and the rotting statues of childish mascots still smiling through rain streaked dirt.
How depressing, George groused as he unclicked his seatbelt and opened the door. This is what I've driven all this way for?
Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria. That's what the burnt brown letters above the entrance spelt. Freddy's name hung at odd angles while most of the other words were missing altogether leaving nothing but a ghost of an outline. It was a far cry from the gaudy splendour of its heyday. Still, the past may have been rotting away and the stories slowly fading from memory but the sad little building refused to crumble. It stood like a tombstone, a morbid testament to the horrors buried within.
It should have stayed that way. It should have been left alone with its secrets and its evils.
George put his hands on his hips and shook his head at the decrepit building. Even without the morbid history this place could have made a convincing horror attraction. He sighed and crossed the parking lot, the broken gravel crunching beneath his shoes. He walked up to the glass door, bound shut with a thick chain so new compared to the rest of the rust covered building. He fumbled through his pockets for the key, squinting at the shadowed space beyond. It didn't look promising. The old building had most of its contents pilfered and what the scavengers hadn't taken looked to have succumbed to water damage.
The lock opened with a click and he pulled the chain away with a loud rattle. The door felt unnaturally heavy in his hand as he pushed it open. Old air that had been trapped within suddenly rushed out smelling of damp and dust.
George choked back a cough.
Well that was thoroughly pleasant. Let's see what other wonderful surprises await.
He pushed the door open all the way and stepped into the old restaurant. It was perfectly silent except for the gentle flutter of old paper. Nothing had walked through the foyer in a long time. Dust had been allowed to settle in a thick layer across the floor and large water stains blotted the walls. The door banged shut behind him and he flinched. George scanned the foyer for any artefacts, anything to salvage for his employers but there were only a few yellow aged newspaper pages and a faded Coke can. He kicked the can down the hall, the metal ting echoing loudly. Nothing stirred at the disturbance.
"Any restless spirits here?"
The silence answered him.
"Yeah thought so," George mumbled almost disappointed.
Each side of the foyer had a door that led to the main dining area. He walked through the left one, the door creaking heavily on its hinges as it swung closed behind him.
The open space of the main dining area was just as bare as the foyer. A couple of upturned chairs littered the otherwise empty dinner, tiles hung from the roof and crumbling plaster littered the floor. George felt his spirits sink a little, this wasn't looking promising. Even the ancient lightbulbs and wiring had been gutted from the walls and stolen.
He looked to his right where the rotting stage sagged at odd angles. The wood was cracked and a huge gaping hole lay right where the animatronic Freddy would have stood. George pulled out his phone and fired up the torch function.
Disappointingly, Freddy and the other animatronics had been lost years ago. Only bits and pieces remained, scattered through various dumps, stored in forgotten locations and recycled into God knows what. He'd managed to find the odd bits and pieces here and there - an arm, an empty 'skin', a head, a servo - but not enough to ever recreate one of the antiquated machines.
George swung the bright LED glow around the dark space. It didn't look like this was going to be any more fruitful than the last scavenger hunt.
A loud moaning creak interrupted his thoughts. He looked at the old stage where halos of light peeked through the roof and shone down like natural spotlights, waiting for the performers who would never show.
George had never understood the appeal of giant anthropomorphic robots singing for kids, personally it creeped him out a bit. But even he couldn't deny the sadness that lingered in the dead little world. He remembered all the stories he'd heard about Freddy Fazzbear's. For George the ghost stories had always paled in comparison to the real horror of a sadistic child killer who had used the innocuous family restaurants as a hunting ground. It was a particular kind of evil sickness that prayed on the vulnerability of youth.
He sighed. What am I doing here?
In answer to his own question George turned to his phone and scrolled through his messages, reading the instructions his employer had left him.
"Enter the dinner – left side of building – restroom corridor – top of the corridor is the hidden wall."
"Yeah. Right."
He followed the instructions walking across the old floor. The gentle rustle of falling dust and creak of old wood accompanied his steps as he sought out the so called hidden room. Besides the ambient sounds there was nothing but him and the odd echo. He took a step. There was an echo. Another step. Another echo just a second later.
Wait. Was that really an echo?
George took a few more steps, each followed by a phantom thump. He shivered in between short breaths. The acoustics were all distorted but it almost sounded as if something were following him, shadowing his steps.
Pull yourself together.
He shook his head, frustrated at the ease with which he succumbed to the simple urban horror stories.
He finally found the spot he was looking for. The old bathrooms were boarded up and the corridor was very precarious. A large section of the roof had fallen in completely, leaving splintered wood and tiles piled up to knee height.
George looked up through the gaping hole at the dark storm clouds that had started to gather outside. The cool air breezed past his face and gave him welcome relief from the damp musty stink. He turned and looked at the blank wall to his left, running his hand across the cracked plaster.
He rapped his knuckles against the wall, tensing a little at the loudness of the sound. There was a definite hollowness behind the plasterboard.
Sheesh. Hidden rooms, murders, mutilations and malfunctioning animatronics; this place certainly deserves its reputation, George mused silently.
The sound of his knuckles tapping against the old wall echoed through the restaurant as he searched for a weak spot. Perhaps this wasn't going to be as pointless a journey as he had originally thought.
He looked over his shoulder at the pile of debris and spotted a large piece of timber support beam.
"That'll do."
He fetched the old, heavy wood, careful not to splinter the rough surface in his hands and stood in front of the fake wall with his makeshift tool.
As he lined the head of the beam up for the swing the thick musty air in the old restaurant suddenly felt light, as if swallowed up in a breath of eager anticipation. Even the walls seemed to stretch like they were tensing up, waiting for the blow.
George blinked the weird sensations away. Something, something in this place went beyond the usual unsettling sensations that haunted abandoned, lonely buildings and spaces. The old foundations were dripping in it; the rotting walls bled it out. If he wasn't careful he'd probably start to hallucinate, if he wasn't already. As it was, he could imagine with disturbing vividness the sound of the metal feet on the vinyl tiles as the old animatronics chased him down, corned him, leering with their plastic glowing eyes and hideous toothy smiles before going in for the kill and mauling him to death.
For the love of God man stop it!
He pushed the feelings and the thoughts to the back of his mind where they waited taunting him, ready to creep forward again when he let his guard down.
George tapped the old wood against the wall marking the spot, drew back for the swing and-
"Hey George."
He jumped and yelped shamelessly, wheeling around to face a tall, soft faced man in coveralls.
"Dam it Josh." He sucked in a couple of deep breaths, his heart hammering so hard he could feel the pulse in his neck bulge with every beat. "You scared the hell out of me."
Josh Brooks smiled a sympathetic smile. "Sorry, didn't mean to."
He gently took the wood that George was now gripping as if to wield as a weapon.
"Wanted to stop you before you did something you'd regret," he gently set the wood down. "It's not a good idea to go smashing through walls in a place like this. You could bring the whole roof down on your head."
"Not to mention most of this place was built when asbestos was all the rage."
Jennifer Brooks appeared behind her husband with a tool belt in one hand and a heavy looking mallet resting on her shoulder.
"Don't want you to end up breathing in a lung full of that stuff."
Josh nodded in agreement as he cast his professional eye over the crumbling building.
"It's probably best if you leave the demolishing to the professionals."
George nodded, not really listening. He had the sudden urge to turn tail and run far, far away from this dead place, damn his employers and damn the money.
"Why don't you go see if you can't find some more ancient paraphernalia for that horror attraction of yours." He gave George a pat on the shoulder and went about examining the old structure with his wife.
George didn't want to leave their company and go off alone. As childish as that sounded he really didn't want to find himself isolated and vulnerable in this place. Still he kept that sentiment to himself and wandered off making sure he was within earshot of Josh and Jennifer.
He followed the corridor past what was once the restrooms his mind turning over. He'd been to one of the other restaurants many months back, one of the larger ones. Most of it had been demolished and rebuilt as an electronics outlet. Only a few of the original rooms remained but there was nothing left of their original state.
He couldn't help but wonder which building had played host to the gruesome murders. This place had seen the end of the Fazbear franchise. The murders and most of the gruesome 'industrial accidents' had taken place before that. Still, the other building hadn't held the raw tension this place did. The only frightening thing he had witnessed in the other premises had been the cost of the new tenants TV's. Here, it felt as if all the horrors of Fazbear entertainment had condensed and stagnated.
He came to what must have been the old security room. A heavy metal door hung askew in its frame. George regarded it with shock and awe. It seemed so out of place, like it belonged in some dangerous industrial setting, or possibly a warship, not part of a family restaurant. The brutal barrier had obviously been used to keep the room's resident safe from something big and powerful. The smooth metal had been dented in multiple places where a solid object had been thrown repeatedly against it with a considerable amount of force.
George shuddered. Perhaps that was enough sightseeing for now. He made his way back to Josh and Jen. Josh was diligently hammering away at a section of wall and Jen was supervising.
Just as George walked up to the handy couple Josh slammed the hammer into the wall again, his face contorting into an expression of surprise and horror as the sound of cracking and tearing assaulted their ears. He tried to stop himself but his momentum had already seized him thrown him head first through the shattered wall and the rotting door beyond.
Immediately George and Jennifer covered their noses and mouths, coughing and spluttering. Josh's own choked gagging could be heard from the dark of the hidden room. George dry wretched as the unmistakable stench of decay assailed his nose.
"Holly hell! What is that smell?"
George blinked through watering eyes, his vision blurred. He held his phone in front of him like a torch, the LED lighting up the dark, cramped space.
Josh was covered in dust, still picking himself up from the floor in the middle of the room. His fall had stirred a cloud of dust that tumbled around them in a thick eerie haze.
Jennifer ran to her husband's side and helped him back to his feet.
"That was close. What happened?" She asked as she dusted him down.
"I-I don't know it felt as if…" He trailed off looking nervously about the room, still a little shell shocked.
George glanced at his friend before turning back to the revealed hidden space. It looked like hell. Literally. Brown-black water dripped from open pipes that had rusted away. The years of water seepage had turned the walls a reddish brown, blistering the paint and giving it the disturbing appearance of dried, dead skin. The roof sagged dangerously at the centre and the floor was covered in something black and sticky. You could be forgiven for thinking you were standing in the giant carcass of some dead beast. Even with his arm pressed over his nose and mouth, George had to swallow the stench of mould, damp and roy.
"Damn, we were lucky." Jennifer looked around cautiously, breathing through her hand. "We should probably get some braces in that doorway.
"Yeah," Josh said dully. "This part has suffered even more than the rest of the building."
George couldn't argue with that. This room looked as if had been locked down tight, probably before the restaurant had even closed its doors all those years ago. That nervous feeling pricked the back of his neck again. What could possibly have been so bad that even Fazbear entertainment, with their blatant disregard for basic human health and safety, had felt a desperate need to lock away?
He panned his phone around the room, seeking the answer to his question with a due sense of trepidation. There were some old arcade games lined up against the far wall, surprisingly untouched by the years of weathering that the rest of the room had sustained. He should have been glad, there was quite a bit of money in those for him, but there was an unshakable feeling of uncertainty drowning the victory of his find. He wasn't really a religious man, or particularly sensitive person but there was some part of him that wanted to maintain a healthy respect and leave this place alone, let the disgusting walls hold their secrets till it all crumbled to dust.
He walked over to one of the old games. The surface had been pretty heavily scarred but not by natures hand. Someone had very deliberately vandalized the cutesy caricatures of Freddy and the smiling kids decorating the games surface with disturbingly placed cuts and gashes.
The desire to leave grew a little bit stronger.
"Hey-"
He stopped short. The vinyl floor warped beneath his feet, drooping as if it were sand. A brief second of confusion furrowed his brow as he sunk down into the foundations. Before he could act a loud bang rang out and he fell waist deep into the floor.
Almost immediately the strong hands of his friends were wrapping around his arms.
"Jeeze."
"Pull him up, pull him up."
George kicked out searching form some kind of purchase with his feet as Josh and Jennifer struggled with his weight. They scrambled desperately, heaving him from the gaping hole before all three of them fell to the floor panting heavily.
George crawled away from the rickety ground that had nearly claimed his legs and slumped forward coming face to face with two red dots staring at him from behind the old arcade games. Below them a wide toothy grin smiled through the darkness at his frightened, sweaty visage as if delighted by his brush with death.
George felt the air catch in his throat. Seizing his phone he threw light over the demonic thing in the shadows, his jaw dropping at the sight that greeted him.
It sat there, staring from its hidden corner with its grotesque grin and dead, glass eyes. Time had mauled the old animatronic like a savage animal. The arms hung limp and lifeless, its legs bent at disturbing angles. Wires and metal jutted through the fur in a horrific mimicry of broken flesh and bone.
"Whoa!"
Jennifer gave a soft gasp as she saw what had captured his gaze. He shone the light so it bathed the entirety of the old machine in a ghostly white glow.
For a second it looked as if something stirred beneath the glass eyes. George froze as realization sparked across numb neurons. Had it been a trick of the mind? He could have sworn light had danced across the polished orbs as if they had moved slightly.
"Guess you've finally found what you've been looking for."
George didn't reply. He just stared dumbly at the animatronic only vaguely aware that Josh and Jen were conversing behind him.
"This whole place is ready to come down any second. If we want to get any of this stuff out we'll have to do it now."
"I'll go get what we need from the truck, you see if you can't brace that door."
Both Jen and Josh had already disappeared through the tear in the wall as George tentatively approached the old machine's resting place, unable to tear his eyes off it. He moved until he was standing on the other side of its gaze. The dead intensity of those eyes was more than a little unnerving.
He had to cup his hand harder over his nose and mouth as he crouched down next to the machine. So this was one of the infamous Fazbear animatronics in all its original glory. Just like the arcade games it had somehow managed to remain mostly intact given its age and surroundings. He was going to have to do something about the smell though, possibly make a new skin for it too, but neither of those things would be hard to do.
George frowned. He didn't recognize the character. It wasn't Bonnie, the colour was wrong and the proportions were too human. Perhaps it was a prototype or something of that ilk. He made a mental note to look it up when he got back to the office.
"Lets hurry this up. If this damned place doesn't kill me the smell will."
Jen and Josh had wheeled two of the arcade games out while George had been scrutinizing the old animatronic and were back for the third and final one. He couldn't take his eyes off the horrid thing. There was something so morbidly fascinating about it.
As Josh and Jen worked like ants he stood staring dumbly at the animatronic. Like so much of the Fazbear world this simple, harmless object felt like it was hiding a wealth of secrets, a quiet story that no one could hear, or perhaps didn't want to hear. A tide of questions started to build as George's mind ran with the ambiguities and bizarreness of his new discovery.
"Excuse us."
George startled slightly as Josh suddenly stepped up beside him. He watched as Josh hooked the animatronic under the arms and dragged it from its resting place to the cart Jen had wheeled in. It flopped and lulled about like an unconscious body, the plastic eyes flashing blood red every time they caught the light, like some wild animal caught in a spotlight.
"I wish it wouldn't do that! It's so unnerving," Jen hissed as she grabbed the legs.
It was indeed off putting how alive the aged animatronic seemed even in its rotting, unanimated state. George shuddered. Their new friend was certainly going to sit well in the horror house.
They awkwardly navigated their way out of the room, crushing dry clumps of whatever it was splashed across the floor into dust. George followed behind them at a healthy distance.
As they staggered and tripped through the old restaurant the ominous feeling that lived in the walls seemed to melt away with their passing. As their footsteps faded, the old building dulled. The wood sagged, the colours muted and greyed. It seemed as if some unseen force had finally given the old building permission to die.
George restrung the chain through the door handles and snapped the lock shut. The dark storm clouds now covered the sky and the first drops of light rain hit his forehead. He should have felt relieved that his hunt had finally come to an end, excited that he was finally free of this forsaken contract. He'd come out on top again and was about to reap the reward. He watched as Josh and Jen loaded the animatronic onto the back of their truck. So why couldn't he shake the feeling that he had just done something incredibly stupid.