FRIDAY LATE EVENING

Throughout the day, people had asked Charlotte if she was okay. Thankfully no one had found out about her stay at the restaurant, but it was written plain on her face that she'd had a long night. Dark circles had formed under her eyes; the look she wore resembled that of a child who was about to cry. On more than one occasion she was caught leaning on counters or against walls dozing off. When anyone asked her what had kept her up, she lied and said it was just a rough night getting to sleep. Truthfully, she hadn't had any sleep in over twelve hours. When she had gotten home after the night shift, she couldn't close her eyes without seeing Freddy or Foxy burned into the dark of her eyelids.
Mark walked through the double-doors of the pizzeria at eleven o'clock, security jacket slung over his arm and dressed in the uniform white t-shirt and jeans. In his hand was a manila folder filled with papers. He caught sight of his friend from across the lobby, using a little push vacuum to clean under a set of party tables. Even from where he was standing he could see she was tired, her movements sluggish and a hand reaching up to rub her eyes. "Hey Charlie," he greeted softly as he approached her, making her look up. That's when he noticed her look, like she was teetering on the brink of a total breakdown. "Hi," she greeted back with a yawn. "You're here early." He nodded toward the hand holding the folder. "I've got some stuff I wanna show you." About last night, he silently added. "Maybe another time Mark. I'm really busy." She looked away, back down at the vacuum. Her tone was more than just tired. It took him a moment to figure out that she was trying to avoid him. "Wait, Charlotte-" Don't shut me out again. We were supposed to be in this together. "I just gotta finish cleaning, and I gotta wipe down the counters, and the salad bar, and-"
"Stop lying to me." She looked up at him, and through the haze of sleepiness he could see something spark to life. "Tell me why you don't want to hear this." There was an edge to his voice; she responded with the same fierceness. "Because I just don't want to." And just like that, her walls were up.

It didn't matter. He'd take a chisel and carve away at the bricks until he got to her again. "There's more to it. Why're you shutting me out again?" Mark sounded genuinely hurt and confused, hurting her. "I thought last night would make you believe in me." Not letting go of his gaze, Charlotte's eyes softened. "I do believe you, Mark. You wanted that, and now you've got it. Now, please, just leave me alone." She was trying to get out of it. "Why?" He wasn't going to let her go. "Because!" Her voice raised dramatically, the anger from last night flashing across her face. But she pulled back, lowering her voice to a more moderate volume. "You asked for one night to make me believe in you. One night. You got your one night, and you got me to believe you. I believe the animatronics are moving and alive. I believe that they're out for blood. I believe you and every other goddamn security guard who told me about it. Okay? You got what you wanted. I don't need to be convinced anymore by doing it again." The fact that she could tell that was what he was going to ask wasn't surprising.
"Okay! Fine! I won't make you stay the night again. But I need you to listen to this." Her mouth opened to refuse, but he cut in. "Please Charlotte. You're the only one that'll listen and believe me. I need someone to hear this." The entire day he spent researching and working on what was in the folder and he didn't want it to go to waste. They held each other's gaze for a moment before she looked away, parking the little push vacuum against the table she was cleaning under. "Fine. What've you got?" Pulling out the bright orange chair, she sat down heavily, him taking the seat across from her, setting his jacket in his lap, and putting the folder on the table.
"It's like a puzzle." He opened the folder as he began his explanation, spreading out the sheets he had printed out from online. "The Missing Children Incident, The Bite, the smells and stains, the animatronics moving and attacking the night guards. They're all pieces to make up the bigger picture." Mark slid a page of his handwritten notes over to her. Scanning them quietly, he kept going. "The childrens' bodies were never found after the guy said he murdered them. Everyone went with cannibalism. But when they brought the guy in and sent him through processing, they didn't find anything in his stomach." Charlotte looked up at him, eyebrow raised. "The kids' bodies were stuffed into the suits." She put his notes down and leaned forward, disbelief written all over her face. "Six kids went missing, Mark. There are only four animatronics." He shook his head. "Not backstage there isn't." That made her lean back. "Those kids were killed backstage and stuffed into the suits. No one ever found their bodies. That's why-" He gestured to an article in front of her. "The suits smell like rotting meat and copper. It's flesh and blood. And the stains around the eyes, nose, and mouth?" They caught each other's eyes. "That's blood too," she finished, voice quiet, and he nodded.
A moment of silence passed over them. "Okay," Charlotte said slowly, crossing her arms over her chest. "So, the dead kids are the reason for the smell and stains. What about The Bite? And the attacks?" A moment of shuffling earned her another news article. "The Bite of '87 happened three years after the kids died. Right before The Bite was when the first complaint was filed to management about the look and smell of the animatronics," he explained. Her expectant face told him to continue. "Foxy didn't bite the guy because of the malfunctioning AI. Malfunctioning AI wasn't the reason at all." Slipping the paper out of her hand, he replaced it with one on The Bite. "He did it because of the dead kid inside of him." She put the article down, eyebrows furrowed and the look of doubt back on her face. "How could the kid-" She paused, thinking. "Are you saying it's ghosts?"
"Look, I know it sounds crazy-"
"Mark, seriously? Ghosts?"
"Just hear me out!" he pleaded, voice rising just slightly with desperation. "I worked all day on this, Charlotte. I know what I'm talking about!" He would resort to begging if he had to. "Fine. Go ahead. Can't be any crazier than anything else that's happened." Though her face and tone of voice didn't seem convincing, he continued.

"The kid took over the AI, and lived on in the suit after he died. And when the drunk guy grabbed him, he thought it was his murderer. The bite was a defense mechanism. Grabbing his arm freaked the kid out. He thought he was gonna get hurt again." She crossed her arms and leaned back, but he went on, afraid if he stopped, she's stop listening. "All of the animatronics going after to the night guards, they're possessed by the spirits of the kids. They won't leave because that's where they were laid to rest." He pushed another news article toward her, about the kids. "All of their parents collectively decided to not give them any sort of burial. They didn't want to go through the pain of burying their child." All of them were under ten, according to the article that she scanned. It would make sense. I wouldn't want to have to bury my baby either. That's all they were. They were just babies. "Why the night guards though? Why not everyone that comes to the pizzeria?" she asked, looking up at him. Mark paused, more for dramatic effect than anything. "Because the guy that murdered them was a night guard." Her green eyes widened just a bit. "Long before you and the night guards you dealt with, before me, probably even before the guy from the voice messages." He leaned forward; she did too. "These kids, their spirits are pissed. Any night guard to them is their killer. So they go after anyone in the security office after midnight." It made enough sense for Charlotte to lean back into her chair again and look at the wall above Mark's head, quietly processing everything he had told her.
"I'm gonna finish the week out." The fact that he sounded so sure made her glance at him. "I'm gonna try and give these kids closure, show them that I'm not who killed them, y'know? A couple nights ago, Foxy – He acted as if he understood me. Maybe the kids are still there, and they just gotta be convinced." And if I can convince you to risk your life against a bunch of bloodthirsty, haunted animatronics, I can convince anyone of anything. "No one's ever made it to the fifth night. Everyone's stopped at the forth. Even the murderer-"
She cut in. "No." He looked back at her, thick brows knitted together. "We had one guy make it through all five nights." It sounded like she was around to see it. "What happened to him?" he asked, a bad feeling swamping his insides. She didn't look at him as she answered. "He quit. Then killed himself three days later." And she was there to deal with that? "He said in his note that the he was having nightmares. They wouldn't stop after he quit. They just kept getting worse. He kept seeing a golden Freddy Fazbear in his dreams, hearing kids scream and cry, seeing mutilated childrens' bodies. Said it didn't stop when he woke up. So he had to put a stop to it on his own." Her voice was cold, eyes far away. "Charlotte, I'm-" She cut him off before he could say any more. "Don't. I've heard that enough. His family, management, the company, grief counselors. I didn't care enough about Greg to really get affected." She paused. "The only reason why it still hurts is because he told me about it and I didn't listen." So she didn't report this Greg guy. She straight-up ignored him until he went to Manny himself.

"So you're gonna finish the week out," she said, promptly changing the subject. "I want to, yeah. But…" He trailed off and looked at her, sincerity and desperation in his brown eyes. "I don't want to do it without you."
"What did I tell you earlier? No. I'm not doing that again."
"Why?"
"You asked for one night. I gave you one night. And, y'know the fact that I almost died."
"I've almost died every night since starting the night shift and you don't see me backing out."
"Maybe that's because you're braver than I am!" Her voice had risen again, and this time she didn't try to keep it down. A tense beat of silence passed between them. "Maybe I'm just too scared." Charlotte sat back and crossed her arms over her chest, tucking into herself and reminding him of a turtle. "Charlie, I'm scared too." He looked at her, but she didn't look back. "I'm afraid of my life every night. But…" He trailed off, wondering if what he wanted to say was going to cross some sort of line. "But I think about the morning, and you knocking on the door, and I get less scared." She looked at him finally, arms still crossed over her chest and trepidation in her eyes. "You make things easier. It's not that I don't want to do this alone anymore. I don't want to do it without you." In just a few days, he had come to care about her so much that it surprised him when he heard these words come out of his mouth. "You're my friend, Charlie. One of the best I have. And you believe me. You've been through the night shift with me. I need you." He needed her, but he also wished he had never brought her into this in the first place. She didn't deserve this sort of fear, especially with what she had gone through with everyone before him. Charlotte, on the other side of the table, wished that he had never taken the job. While she sat quietly and thought, she knew that he didn't deserve to see or experience anything he had. She should've worked harder at scaring him off, been meaner and colder. Maybe that would've saved him like it did some of the others.
But they were together now, sitting and deciding on what to do on the final night. "You're one of my only friends, y'know," she said softly. "You're one of the few that actually tried to be nice, and kept being nice despite my attitude." Though it wasn't quite as explicit as his outpouring of feelings, the underlying message that she cared about him too made his chest ache with gratitude. "And then you wrap me up with all this…" She gestured to the papers scattered on the table. "I have nowhere else to go. If I take this information anywhere, it's gonna land me in a straightjacket like the others." Though her voice sounded resigned, there was warmth to it that promised her full effort. "I'm stuck in this death trap, andyou're stuck with me, until we figure this out."
At least we're doing it together, they both thought.