DEEPEST apologies for the long delay, but I had some technical difficulties in that my laptop went kaput and the motherboard and charger port both went at the same time, so I now have to get a new laptop. However, I was able to transfer the old data onto my family's desktop and I worked from there, but it took a good while to get back the motivation to write again, but I pushed on and now here we are.
I want to give a big shoutout to Antoine, a fellow Springtrap horror story writer who has written amazing story called "A Springtime Interview". He's a really nice guy, a talented writer who has done a very chilling portrayal of Springtrap/Vincent (Purple Guy), and has been leaving excellent reviews for each of my chapters. So, it would really mean a lot to him and me if you could check out his story and maybe fave it and leave feedback as well. Trust me, he deserves it. :-)
Anyway, in this chapter, we finally get to meet Dougie's five friends and we get hints of why Vincent killed them later on.
WARNING: This chapter contains scenes and thoughts of a pedophilic nature. Though nothing explicit happens, I feel it is best to give warning to those who might be disturbed or triggered by such things, and if it does, I strongly recommend you skip this chapter.
Blood, Mucous and Five Friends
July 28, 1993 – 11:05 AM – Freddy Fazbear's Pizza
"Mom! Kylie's hogging the Cracker Jack!"
"Pizza's here! Dig in everyone!"
"Marla, which prize should I get? The Bonnie plush or the pink Chica shirt?"
"I want ice cream!"
"Race you to the ball pit! Last one's a rotten egg!"
"Do what you want, 'cause a pirate is free! You are a pirate!"
"Ugh! Shut up, John! You've been singing that song nonstop!"
"Well, it's my favourite!"
It was yet another ordinary day at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza.
None of the excitement and chatter that filled the artificial fantasy land could pull Dougie Blackburn's attention away from his deep, distracted thoughts. Not today. Not now.
The child, who always happily participated in the fun, games and joyous adventuring, sat dispiritedly at a table adjacent to the stage where Freddy, Bonnie and Chica stood quietly, until the next show began. An idling blink, a nod or a turn of their bodies indicated that they were still keeping watch over the youngsters playing within their realm.
But that didn't matter to Dougie. Not even Freddy, his favourite, mattered to him today. Nothing but what happened to him did.
"You look so beautiful... I'm going to make you feel good."
Vincent's soft words reverberated hauntingly in Dougie's mind, making him grimace at the memories of the previous two days.
"Oh Little Dougie... I want you. Oh... I need you so much!"
Dougie winced, doing so because he remembered with perfect clarity what happened next. He became that lifeless doll stuffed with cotton.
His skin tingled all over with goose pimples as those special 'playtimes' with Vincent came back to him with frightening lucidity; a swaddling shadow enveloping him like a black blanket; an inescapable spider web.
He heard Vincent's gasping, his dirty moaning and determined grunting in his ears. He felt the man's body against his own, squeezing him against his chest. He relived the sensation of Vincent grinding his loins with the hardness in his groin between his legs, completely wrapped up in his own pleasure, and in his highs not noticing the distress he was causing his 'special friend'.
The experience hurt and confused Dougie. If it was to make him a big boy quickly, then why did it have to be this way? Why was he only feeling bad and disgusted with himself, like he wanted to shrivel up and die like a dried-up plant? What was wrong with him?
And it did not stop there either. There were the nightmares he had when he went to sleep. Only he was not in the bathroom with Vincent.
No.
Vincent was right there in the bed with him.
He would be straddling him, holding him down, touching him, kissing him, and doing all the same things over and over again, whispering those unsettling words while he did his deeds.
"I could never hurt you, Little Dougie. I want to make you feel good."
The boy cringed as his skin crawled from the nightmares and he hung his head like a dying flower, ashamed to look at anyone else in the pizzeria. He only focused on the thick pizza crust he was slowly picking away at bit by bit, feeling as if the crumbs were like the pieces of his life right now.
Lost forever to the rest and never to be rejoined again.
Irreparable.
Dougie sighed and took a sip of his grape soda. His parents had noticed his change in demeanour, but, remembering Vincent's words about the need to keep the big boy secret, he lied and said he was just worn out from a day of playing and that he just missed his friends who'd been sick for the whole week. It worked and nothing was asked about it again.
He drummed his fingers on the tablecloth in a dull, slow tattoo, trying to put the past behind him and focus on the future ahead. He was going to be a big boy soon, and he was Freddy's new special friend, surely he could be happy about that?
Couldn't he?
Dougie blinked, and as soon as he did he stiffened. He could hear music in the room.
It was not the typical tunes and light-hearted melodies that played in the pizzeria. No, this was something very different and very familiar. It was the slow, sweeping pings of a music box, slightly aged and tinny-sounding as it strummed out its song.
"What's that music?" said Dougie, looking up and scanning the room, "Where's it coming from? I've heard it before..."
Then he realized it was coming from his left, in the direction of the stage with the animals. He looked over and his mouth opened in surprise when he saw Freddy. The animatronic bear's face was illuminated glitteringly by a strobe light from inside his head that made his eyes and mouth flicker like a bad light bulb. The music box jingle was coming directly from him.
"Freddy?" squeaked Douglas, glancing around to see if anyone else was hearing the music, but strangely no one else appeared to. Was he the only one that could see and hear what was going on?
Dougie slid off his stool and slowly walked towards the stage with Freddy's flashing face beckoning him closer still and the song growing louder in his ears.
"I remember that song now," he thought while his red and white Converse shoes lightly tapped on the tiled floor, "Freddy plays that song when it's time for the restaurant to close and him to go to bed. I think the grown-ups called it the "Toreador March". But why's he playing it now? It's not his bedtime."
Dougie reached the stage and easily stepped up onto it. It was just no more than a foot from the ground, since it had to be easy for the big animatronics to come down for the kids to hug them from time to time. Now he stood right in front of the seven-foot brown bear, which towered over him like a California Redwood, and felt intimidated.
"Freddy?" he spoke again, "What's wrong? Why are you playing that song? Do you want to tell me something?"
At that, the song ground to a halt and Freddy was quiet; even the lights in his head stopped blinking. Dougie looked up at Freddy's smiling face, then at Bonnie, then at Chica, searching for a response from either of them. He craned his neck to face the Pirate's Cove to see if maybe Foxy had something to say, but the red-furred terror of the seas hadn't even poked his head from behind his purple curtain.
Even stranger was how all the other patrons of the pizzeria were going about their business as usual. No one looked up in his direction or even noticed the strange scene that was playing out. Dougie and the animatronics were invisible to them.
"What's going on?" said Dougie as he turned back to Freddy. When he did he gasped in shock.
Freddy was looking straight down at him.
The ursine's glass eyes were locked with his. They were so blue; Dougie could feel them boring into him. But they were a different blue than the soft, friendly shade everyone was accustomed to, this time they were a serious blue, the blue of an unforgiving ocean; the blue of a hot cutting torch.
Dougie took a step back and saw that Bonnie and Chica were also looking down at him with solemn stares of ruby and amethyst.
"W-what?" stuttered Dougie, shivering nervously when he felt a sensation of prickly coldness in the air.
He looked behind him. The rest of the crowd played on; happily blind.
"GET AWAY…"
Dougie spun around when he heard a whispery voice slither into his ears, and he gasped when he saw Freddy's large mouth move up and down in speech.
"GET AWAY…" repeated Freddy, "YOU HAVE TO GET AWAY…"
"BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE…" came another similar voice.
Dougie saw Bonnie's jaw moving as well, directing his words at the small child.
"B-Bonnie?" trembled Dougie, his eyes wide with fear.
"BEFORE IT HAPPENS AGAIN…" added another voice, noticeably feminine in tone this time.
The boy looked at the other yellow animatronic on stage and noticed Chica speaking as well.
"Chica?" said Dougie, taking another step back, afraid, "Before what happens again? Why do I have to get away?"
"YOU ARE NOT SAFE…" warned Freddy, his words fading in the air like a smoke-ring. Dougie looked at his face again.
Slowly, very slowly, Freddy's eyes rolled upwards in his sockets until the blue irises and the white sclera disappeared and there was only blackness remaining. Dougie drew in a sharp breath when two glowing white dots appeared in the inky depths like distant stars; both Bonnie and Chica's eyes had also turned dark with two white dots replacing their pupils.
Dougie suddenly could not move. He could not run. His entire body felt as if some strong, invisible force, like a giant hand, was holding him in place and preventing him from running away.
"H-help! Help!" cried Dougie, scared for his life, "Somebody help me!"
He turned his head back to see that everything was business as usual in the pizzeria and he was still invisible to all, but what was more surprising was that Foxy was standing outside of Pirate's Cove's curtain, his eyes also completely black with two white specks floating in the center.
Foxy's mouth with his gold canines flapped slowly up and down with a message of his own.
"HE WILL KILL THEM…" he hissed in low, wheezy tones. "HE WILL KILL THEM ALL…"
"Wha-what are you s –" stumbled Dougie, stopping as he felt something cold and wet drip onto his head. He turned back and looked up at Freddy once more, only to feel the same liquid fall on his cheek. He wiped it off, while observing the speaking bear, noticing a trail of dark, viscous fluid running from the corner of his right eye socket. Then he saw his fingers, and for a moment he shrieked with helpless panic.
It was cold, gloppy and reddish-brown.
His fingers were splotched with blood and mucous.
Dougie still could not move. The invisible hand continued to hold him right where he was, forcing him to listen and bear witness to the horrifying sight. He could not speak, only whimper and make pathetic cries as more of the disgusting liquid dripped down from Freddy's eyes, rolling off his cheeks like teardrops, and pit-pattering onto Dougie's face and staining the cotton of his red T-shirt, freaking him out even more. The same fluid suddenly began to flow from Freddy's open mouth, trickling between the spaces of his white teeth.
It, too, also fell on Dougie.
"No... no... Stop it!" he begged Freddy and the others, who were also crying and regurgitating bloody mucous. "Please stop it, Freddy!"
There came this horrible smell emanating from Freddy's mouth and the rest of his body, it reminded Dougie of the time he'd walked by some roadkill on the way to the park with his parents and how it smelled to high heaven. Now that same smell, a hundred times worse, was right up in his face.
Freddy then slowly leaned over the panicky child, bending down and bringing his eyeless, stained face close up to his. Dougie felt like he was going to vomit.
"YOU ARE IN GREAT DANGER..." agonized Freddy, the white dots in his empty sockets drilling into the very fiber of Dougie's being as he moved closer still to the frightened child. "HE WILL NOT STOP..."
Before Dougie could reply, Freddy's brown fur abruptly changed colour. This time he was a drab shade of yellow; golden, to be precise. This new incarnation of Freddy seemed oddly familiar to Dougie.
"HE'S GOING TO KILL YOU!" rumbled the golden Freddy in a low ominous voice.
A great pang gripped his heart. Dougie let out a choked sob and he shivered fearfully. It was all he could do in response to the ominous threat to his life.
The animatronics all started up again with their frightening omens.
YOU HAVE TO GET AWAY!
BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!
BEFORE IT HAPPENS AGAIN!
HE WILL KILL THEM ALL!
YOU ARE IN GREAT DANGER!
HE WILL NOT STOP!
HE'S GOING TO KILL YOU!
Dougie grabbed his head with his hands and covered his ears, his legs wobbling as if made of jelly, but the unseen force still had him in its grip and he could not get away.
"Please! Stop it! Stop it, Freddy!" he yelled with great distress as the animatronics' words swirled madly in his head. The voices whined and shrilled in his ears, boring deep into his brain like a merciless dentist's drill, making sure that their messages would permanently stick.
The invisible hand gripping him then forced his head upwards, making him look at the Golden Freddy's face which then flickered back to the regular Freddy Fazbear's.
"YOU HAVE TO GET AWAY!" the bear warned yet again, and then the bloody mucous began gushing from his empty eyes and open mouth, splashing onto the little boy's face and shirt, covering the rest of his clothes and painting him reddish-brown.
Dougie screamed.
He squeezed his eyes shut and screamed, wanting to rip his ears and legs off; anything to get away from the scary words and the terrifying animatronics; anything to escape this campaign of unbridled ferocity; anything to escape this life.
He screamed, and screamed, and screamed, and –
"DOUGIE! DOUGIE! DOUGIEEEEE!"
Voices.
New voices.
The brown boy's eyes shot open with intensity and he saw darkness, but felt something hard and smooth against his head and arms.
A table surface.
He bolted upright as quick as lightning, and to his utter shock and surprise, saw that he was seated back at the table where he was before the animals started speaking to him. Dougie rubbed his face and looked at his hands and his clothes.
All clean. No bloody mucous.
He shot a glance at the stage and saw that Freddy and the rest of 'The Fazbears' were right there as always, looking straight ahead and frozen in their usual poses. No black eyes with glowing with dots, no bloody tears and vomit, no creepy voices, no Golden Freddy.
"Wa-wa-was I dreaming?" he whispered to himself, shivering from a great sense of uneasiness, "But it felt so real. Why would Freddy and the others tell me those things?"
"DOUGIE! OVER HERE, DOUGIE!"
Dougie perked his head up and turned around in his seat at the voices calling out his name excitedly. There were five in total, and he knew them.
"Could they be? Are they..." thought Dougie, happiness rising within.
And then he saw them. All five of them.
His best friends: Amber, Jamie, Yoni, Nicky and Jeff.
"Hey!" waved Dougie ecstatically at the quintet of kids, "You're here! You're all back!"
Dougie scrambled off his chair with the biggest smile on his face, and ran over to where they were standing. They all looked so happy and healthy, and fully recovered from the nasty flu that kept them sick at home for the past week.
"It's great that you're here!" said Dougie gleefully, thinking of new and exciting games to play with his buddies. "Are you all better now?"
"Uh-huh!" spoke Amber Likens with two nods of her head. "I'm so glad I don't have to take that yucky medicine anymore!"
Dougie noticed she looked really nice today in a pink and white checkered tunic sundress and pink flats on her feet that complimented her cream and wild rose complexion. Her straight sun-blonde hair fell nearly down to her waist, was combed back and held in place with a white bandeau; her six-year-old blue-green eyes blinked enthusiastically at her friend. Dougie blushed ever so slightly at her.
"Yeah, my mommy gave me yummy chicken soup every day and lots of orange juice. It was really good!" replied Jeffrey Carter. Dougie looked at his shining black face, proud and brave, happy to be healthy.
"Same here," spoke up Nicholas Thorne, scratching his short dirty blond hair, "But I did lots of colouring in bed all day and watched my Fredbear & Friends videos."
"My abba made my favourite salat ḥatzilim and gave me double chocolate mashuga nuts every day," said Yonatan Kletzky, the Jewish, Moroccan-Israeli descended boy, closest in complexion to Dougie. "Ima made me drink onion and honey all the time, but it was fine," he added, adjusting his small, pinned-on black satin kippah.
"Well, I had it the best!" proudly announced James Morcombe, puffing out his chest in his dark purple shirt, "I played Star Fox and Super Mario All-Stars on my room's big TV, Rosita the maid brought me sundaes and chocolate chip cookies whenever I wanted, and mom and dad got me new toys every day!"
Everyone gave a collective, but good-natured eye roll at the spiky-haired redhead. It was no secret that Jamie's family had money and he was proud to show off about it from time to time. It came with being the only child of a hotshot lawyer dad and an in-demand interior designer mom.
"What have you been up to while we were sick, Dougie?" inquired Yoni, looking at his friend with his dark eyes.
"Well, I was kinda lonely here all by myself at first," admitted Dougie, glancing down at his white shorts momentarily before looking back up. "But then I made a great new friend and we had lots of fun playing together! He gave me lots of free food, and sweets, and Faz Tokens, and I got to meet Freddy Fazbear all by myself! I'm his special friend!"
The others were surprised at what Dougie was saying and began peppering him with questions, eager to hear more about this great new friend of his. Only Jamie was a bit more cynical since he was not the one doing the bragging.
"Who is this new friend? Is he some fat, stupid, purple dinosaur from your imagination?" he mocked.
"Don't be mean, Jamie!" scolded Amber.
"Yeah," agreed Nicky who added, "I like Barney."
"Me too!" concurred Yoni.
"Me three!" chimed in Jeff.
Jamie sneered. "Whatever. I'm a big kid and Barney is dumb because I say so!"
The seven-year-old brazenly stuck his tongue out at the others to which they snapped back that he was the dumb one.
Dougie opened his mouth to say that he was soon going to be a bigger boy than Jamie, but remembering his promise to Vincent and Freddy, he bit his lip and instead reiterated what he said before.
"My new friend is real!" he protested. "We played together all week and he took me to meet Freddy backstage, and he's been giving me toys and candy, and he really likes me a lot."
"Well then," started Jamie, folding his arms challengingly, "What's his name?"
"His name is Vincent," replied Dougie confidently, also folding his arms with a pleased smile, "He's a grown-up and he works here. He's best friends with Freddy, too!"
The five children all looked at him with expressions of surprise and disbelief.
"You? Friends with a grown-up?" said Jeff.
"How can you be friends with a grown-up?" Amber asked with a puzzled look on her face.
"I was trying to talk to Freddy one day and he came up to me and we started talking," answered Dougie. "Vincent's so nice. He got me chocolate ice cream and we watched Foxy together."
"He sounds kinda cool," declared Yoni with a little smile, especially at the prospect of free ice cream.
"He sounds weird," snorted Jamie, "A grown-up would never want to be friends with a kid."
"Well, he wanted to be friends with me. So there!" pushed back Dougie.
"You never know, Jamie," spoke up Nicky. "I think Dougie's telling the truth."
"Where is he then?" asked Jamie again, tilting his head to the side, "I wanna meet Vincent."
"He said he had to do something first," said Dougie, scratching his nose, "But he's going to come back real soon. He gave me that pizza and soda over there."
Dougie motioned with his head over to the table he was sitting at in front of the stage.
"OK. We'll wait for him, Dougie," said Amber.
"We will?" said Jamie disbelievingly, hesitant to follow the others to the table.
"Yes, we will," defended Amber, walking past him.
"Fine," Jamie grumbled, following behind.
As they sat down at the table, Dougie furtively cast a look at the trio of animatronics, nervously looking for any sign of the blood and mucous leaking from their eyes and mouths.
Nothing.
Freddy, Bonnie and Chica were still as statues.
He blinked and shook it off, figuring he would tell Vincent about it when he came.
He would know what to do.
11:23 AM – Security Office
"Barry, have you taken care of our 'little problem' yet?" inquired Vincent DiCarlo to Barry Driscoll as he leaned against the right hallway's door frame.
Barry turned his fat, double-chinned head to his superior.
"Oh, uh, yes, Vincent. It's been handled. There's really nothing to worry about," he confirmed in his nasally Midwestern accent, "Our 'friends' up on the stage made quite the mess this time in the backroom. But the property and premises have been thoroughly cleaned and bleached, and the carpets have been replaced."
Vincent smirked and gave a soft, eerie chuckle.
"Who was it this time?" he queried, looking at the small office table filled with Barry's clutter.
"Another college student. Uh, Mark, I think was his name," said Barry, leaning back in his chair and making it creak under his weight.
"Ha! Those little brats always think those night guards are me," Vincent said without one drop of remorse in his voice.
"It was clever how you reworked their A.I. to make them see you instead of the night guards, Vincent. Though it keeps on costing us new animatronic suits all the time… and new carpeting… and lots of cleaning supplies…" remarked Barry wryly, taking a swig of Cherry Pepsi.
"Well, better them than me," smiled Vincent creepily and then adding, "And it worked so well at the previous location. While I didn't expect them to be moving the Toy animatronics as well as their original bodies, they deserve to be kept in the cycle of knowing they kill the wrong person every time. They deserve it for making me lose Timmy."
"It's a shame what you had to do back in '87," remembered Barry somewhat wistfully, "But how is this new kid coming along? This… uh, Dougie…?"
"Oh he's a treasure," purred Vincent, a self-indulgent smile curling his lips. "Little Dougie's coming along nicely with me. I love feeling him, holding him, and kissing him… He doesn't give nearly as much trouble as Adam or Timmy did, and I think he'll soon be ready."
Barry only nodded and took another gulp of his soda.
Vincent spoke again, drifting off into his twisted fantasies.
"You know, Barry… There is nothing in this whole world more beautiful than a grown man and a little boy who love and care for each other. I love seeing good fathers who love and are devoted to their sons, I love seeing a man publicly show affection for a little boy, even more a man showing respect for a little boy, taking him seriously as a person - when I see that I think: 'Hmm, he could be just like me.'"
Vincent blinked and realized by the tightness in the front of his pants that he was aroused. It was time to play another game.
"Little Dougie should be finished eating by now," he said, hoping his arousal would not show, "I'm going to see him; I have a new game for us to play."
"OK. I'm sure you have everything under control, Vincent," said Barry. "Uh, talk to you soon!"
"Later," came the reply.
By now Vincent knew that outside the late morning would be sunny and beautifully calm. He smiled, for it made him dream of things to come.
"Pretty soon I'll be waking up to mornings like this with you, Little Dougie," Vincent hummed lustily to himself. "You'll be right there with me… not some old pillow."
Little Dougie was so warm and young and defenseless; it pleased the man greatly to imagine the boy taking the pillow's place one day.
Vincent's body grew warmer from the desires of his flesh for the little one in the dining area up ahead. More games, more special playtimes and then he would be his completely - heart, body and soul.
"At last, everything is going my way," thought Vincent with a pleased smirk on his face, "Today, I'll use my camera, and then he'll…"
He froze abruptly in his tracks the moment he stepped foot in the dining area. The groups of children and adults eating pizza and playing games all vanished from his sight when he saw them.
Five other children.
Seated with Little Dougie.
His Little Dougie.
There was nothing in his field of vision but the table at the front of the stage with his little one in the company of five, similarly-aged youths.
His heart skipped a beat.
A bead of sweat coursed down his forehead.
His eyes widened, his nostrils flared and his fists clenched tightly on their own as the past came racing back to him. He trembled with shock and outrage.
"No…" he growled mentally as events from 1986 resurfaced in his mind's eye, "Five of them… just like the last time! No! This cannot be happening again!"
Vincent's face hardened into an incensed scowl, his glaring eyes cold as marble as he watched Dougie's friends with the same burning animosity he had for Timmy Richardson's friends six years ago.
"Timmy… Sweet Timmy…" he remembered with sentimental longing, "I had to let you go because of your friends… they turned you against me. Tore us apart. They got what they deserved…"
"Hey! Vincent!"
The purple-clothed man snapped out of his dark, brooding state and quickly forced a happy smile when he heard and saw Dougie waving excitedly for him.
He waved back and saw the other kids turning their heads to look at him; stupefied expressions came over their faces as if they could not believe he was standing in plain sight.
Dougie came running over.
"Vincent! Vincent! My friends came back! They got over the flu!" he squealed joyously as if it were Christmas morning.
"That's good, Little Dougie!" said Vincent, feigning happiness and sincerity. "You all look mighty happy to be together."
"You bet!" nodded Dougie quickly, and then pulling on Vincent's hand to get him to come over to the table. "Come! You must meet my friends!"
Vincent followed close on his heels, forcing a grin on his face when he got to where they all were. Their faces all lit up, except for one - a boy with spiky red hair, a bit taller than the rest, looking at Vincent with mild suspicion and arms folded.
"That must be Jamie," thought Vincent as he continued to fake a smile for all of them, but annoyed that they were cutting into his and Dougie's special 'playtime'. "Better get this over with."
Dougie spoke first, "This is Vincent, my new friend! We've been playing together while you were sick!"
Then he looked at Jamie with a smug look on his face.
"See, Jamie?" he began to boast, "I told you he was real!"
Jamie snorted, "Yeah, well, I'm sure he only felt sorry for you, Dougie."
"That's not true, Jamie," Vincent declared to the seven-year-old, "Little Dougie's a really nice kid and I enjoy his company. We played every day while you weren't here."
Already he was beginning to hate the kid and his attitude.
Jamie pursed his lips and turned up his nose at the man, "You're weird."
Vincent chuckled, wanting to backhand the boy across his rude little mouth. "I guess I am," he replied with a mocking smirk.
"Jamie, be nice!" chastised Nicky. Jamie rolled his eyes and stuck out his tongue.
"Why don't you all tell me your names?" asked Vincent, feigning interest and wanting to usher Dougie into the boys' bathroom.
"My name is Amber," the lone girl declared with a small wave.
"I'm Jeff," smiled the boy, making his black cheeks shine.
"Shalom, sh'mi Yoni. Naim meod lehakir otha," Yoni said in fluent Hebrew.
"Aleikhem shalom, Yoni," replied Vincent with a tip of his cap, eliciting a giggle from the Jewish boy.
"My name is Nicky," smiled the blond-haired boy to the older man.
"Jamie," muttered the redhead indifferently.
"I'm Vincent DiCarlo," the security guard greeted, wishing this could move along. "It's good to finally meet you all. Little Dougie talked about you a lot."
"I'm so happy that you're back here at Freddy's now!" piped up Dougie, taking a step towards the rest of the group, "I missed playing with you guys!"
"So did we," responded Amber, sliding off her seat.
"Well, now that we're all acquainted, Little Dougie and I've gotta go now," Vincent said, taking hold of Dougie's hand.
"Hold on!" interrupted Jamie, the others with slightly bewildered looks on their faces, "We wanna play with Dougie first! We didn't get to have fun last week! You can wait, Mister!"
Vincent glanced at him in genuine surprise, not expecting to be so brazenly challenged by a child. Still, he spoke; restraining his anger, but his voice was noticeably sharp.
"You can all play together tomorrow instead. Little Dougie wants to play with me today," he said. He didn't blink once. He didn't raise his voice. But his expression hardened towards the child, "You're really starting to piss me off, boy..."
"Vincent," came Dougie's voice softly.
The man looked down at him.
"I-I know what I said yesterday… but I really want to play with my friends today. I really missed them. Please?"
Vincent stooped down to his level, his ice blue eyes gazing into the brown pools of uncertainty and wanting before him.
"Come on, Little Dougie," he whispered to him so the others would not hear, "You know how much this means to me and Freddy. You remember what he said, don't you? Why do you want to hurt our feelings?'
"I don't mean to, Vincent, but I just want to have fun and play games with my friends today. I don't want to hurt their feelings either. I don't think Freddy would want me to do that," murmured Dougie.
Vincent opened his mouth to protest, but quickly shut it. He realized that if he made a fuss, it would only agitate the six-year-old and cause suspicion in the others. He had to wait this one out and satisfy his urges when he was alone.
"You know what? You're absolutely right," Vincent finally replied with a smile, "You go and have fun with your friends today. I'll get you some ice cream before you go home."
"Really?! Oh thank you Vincent!" perked up Dougie, speaking louder this time with a bright-eyed expression.
"Uh-huh, but just for today or Freddy's going to get upset you're not keeping your promise," reminded Vincent.
Dougie's expression faltered a bit and he glanced apprehensively to the side, knowing what was to come. "Oh…"
"Don't worry; it'll be worth it in the end. But for tomorrow, I want you to meet me backstage, but make sure no one sees you. Got it?" relayed the purple man.
"OK," the brown boy nodded, but he stayed, his feet rooted to the spot. Something else was bothering him.
"What is it, Little Dougie? Something else the matter?" queried Vincent.
Dougie blinked and shifted his weight from foot to foot before answering, but when he did there was a tension he could not hide that gripped his vocal cords so that his words seemed to carry great weight.
"Vincent... I-I-I saw something... something really scary happened with Freddy, Bonnie, Chica and Foxy."
"Scary? What do you mean?"
"Well, Freddy started playing the song he plays when it's his bedtime, and I went up onto the stage... and then he started to talk to me."
"Really? What did he say?"
"He... he said I had to get away from here and I was in great danger. The others said that I had to go before it was too late... before something bad happens again, and then Freddy turned yellow."
"Yellow?" said Vincent with surprise and then looking at the inactive animatronics.
"Yes, Freddy turned yellow for a little while," continued Dougie with a shiver and holding his wrist. "And then there was this yucky smell, and blood and snot started running from their eyes and mouths. Vincent... they had no eyes!"
Vincent just stared back at Dougie with an incredulous look on his face.
"They're manifesting again..." surmised Vincent in his head, "They just don't know when to give up..."
Then he asked, "And then what happened?"
"... and then I woke up," Dougie answered earnestly. "Vincent, I'm scared. Why would Freddy and his friends say those things to me? Why would they do those scary things for?"
Vincent breathed a fake sigh of relief and gave a reassuring pat on Dougie's shoulder, "Oh Little Dougie, you just had a bad dream, that's all," he said in a soft, gentle tone. "Freddy loves you. So do Bonnie, Chica and even Foxy. They would never do anything to hurt you or make you feel scared. I'll tell you what, I'll arrange for Freddy to come talk to you again before you go home; he'll tell you there's nothing to worry about and that he loves you. How does that sound?"
"It sounds OK," replied Dougie, perking up a little more, "But it felt so real, Vincent."
"Bad dreams can seem very real, but they can't – "
"Before next year!" Jamie's voice loudly interrupted from a few feet away, "Hurry up, Vincent! We're waiting for Dougie!"
Vincent's eyes narrowed, "You annoying little pissant!" he thought, wishing to kick the impatient brat in the mouth.
"Coming Jamie!" called back Dougie and then finished Vincent's sentence, "They can't hurt me. They're not real!"
Then he let a big grin spread across his face, feeling a lot better and more confident.
"That's my boy," smiled Vincent slyly, messing up Dougie's hair. "Now run along and play with your friends."
Dougie nodded and jogged off to the rest of the kids, who all then headed over to the fun and games section. There was excited chatter about first playing a game in the big ball pit; a combination of hide-and-seek and tag.
"Let's make this a game we won't forget EVER!" cheered Jeff and they all giggled excitedly, disappearing around the corner.
When they'd gone, Vincent slowly stood up from stooping, keeping his eyes on the children until they were out of sight, and then his eyes flared; arctic pools transforming into blue flames. His teeth gritted, his fists balled, and he fumed inside at not being able to play with his Little Dougie.
Vincent turned and glared daggers at each of the animatronics, moving from one to the other as if intending to speak to each of them, or rather, address the spirits within.
Freddy... Bonnie... Chica... Foxy... Golden Freddy...
"Keith... Daniel... Megan... Charles... Judith... you think your pathetic little mind tricks are going to keep Little Dougie away from me? You think you can stop me? You can't!" he sneered, taunting the ghosts of his previous victims. "Manifesting blood, mucous and bad smells was a clever idea. Bravo! But I still remain, and no one believes you. You never stood a prayer! You failed, you fools! You will ALWAYS fail!"
With a haughty chuckle, Vincent turned and quickly strode over to the security office.
"Out!" he commanded sharply to Barry, who hurriedly left without a word, seeing that his superior was in a foul mood.
The livid thirty-nine-year-old pressed the big red door buttons, waiting until both metal doors slammed down shut and he was alone inside that he let his composed facade slip off.
"No... no... NO!" Vincent raged through clenched teeth, punching one of the doors, his anger numbing the pain, but this act did nothing to ebb the resentment he felt towards Amber, Yoni, Nicky, Jeff and Jamie.
Especially Jamie.
He imagined them all playing together in the ball pit, enjoying their game and having a blast. Little Dougie was happy, too. Happy without him. Not needing him. Not playing a special game with him.
Vincent hated that he didn't get his way.
"How DARE they!" he thundered inside at the kids who came between him and Dougie, "Those brats are going to ruin everything! I lost Timmy because of his fucking friends! I can't let it happen again! I CAN'T!"
Then he turned much of his vitriol onto Jamie, narrowing his eyes at the thought of the precocious, spoiled, entitled little redhead and his smug, stuck-up face.
"Motherfucker... someone needs to teach you some manners..." he growled under his breath.
"HAHAHAHA! This was so much fun!"
Dougie's pealing laughter, a sweet sound to Vincent's ears, jolted him from his dark thoughts. He didn't quite know how long he was standing there in the office fuming, but it had to be nearly ten minutes at least.
He shook his head and pulled himself together, pushing back his turbulent feelings behind his mask of friendliness and civility, and then opened back up the office doors.
"Maybe their game is done and Little Dougie's ready to take a break?" he thought hopefully, wondering if maybe he'd be able to squeeze in a quick session in the bathroom or storage closet with the sweet little boy.
When he got to the fun and games section he realized there would be no such luck and disappointment reared its head again. They were all still playing in the ball pit, apparently having just finished round one of their game.
Dougie noticed his adult friend and waved. Vincent smiled and waved back, but when the child had turned his head back to his playmates, his face hardened again.
Vincent's baleful eyes were fixed bitterly on the figures of Amber, Jamie, Yoni, Nicky and Jeff, submerged up to their necks in the different-coloured, hollow plastic balls, having a blast with Dougie. They were even encouraging other kids to join in the game as well.
But Vincent stood in the doorway hating them, burning up with jealousy amongst the jostling crowd of kids and passing adults. They filled him with murderous hatred.
He flashed them a menacing glare and slid his right hand deep into his pocket, searching, feeling for something familiar. His fingers enclosed the thing he was looking for, and he gripped it tightly as if it were the only thing keeping him alive.
A Rigid USA Apache R-9 Folding Lockback Hunting Knife.
Vincent slightly unfolded the 3 ¾-inch 440 stainless steel blade from its sleek, polished, exotic, finger-grooved rosewood handle, and touched the tip with the meat of his thumb. It pricked him. He ran his thumb along the edge of the blade and smiled when he felt it leave a thin, neat trail of blood.
Thereafter, he felt something else awaken inside of him.
A delicious feeling.
A sinful need.
A hungering force.
Vincent smiled even wider when he remembered the last time he felt this way.
Six years ago.
Six long years since the force inside him was this strong.
It was different from the urges and thoughts he had towards little boys like Dougie Blackburn, but it was the second side of his coin and it made him feel so alive, so pleasured and so powerful; and the thrill it gave him was almost better than sex.
It was blood hunger.
His thirst to kill, the need to destroy life, the craving for the smell of fresh, warm blood dripping through his fingers and tricking down his face drove him to do what he relished doing so many times in the past. He thrived on the fear he invoked in his victims; he loved every second of it.
Now, his hunger was beginning to pang again.
But yet the true nature of the force that made up every fiber of Vincent William DiCarlo's being had many other names, but all knew it could be summed up with just one, simple, four-letter word.
Evil.
The evil coursed through Vincent's veins, racing in his heart, pounding in his head. It multiplied quickly in his blood, slowly transforming him into the monster he was born to be, rising from its abyssal hibernation. The predator rattled the bars of its prison, wanting to be free, needing to feed, to rip, tear, kill its chosen prey, but he did not release the beast, the cage remained locked.
Vincent put the metaphorical key to the cage far away and he thought, "No… Not yet… maybe it will be different this time… maybe they won't try to stop me? Maybe they won't get in my way this time…"
He looked back at Dougie, who was now trying to find his pals hidden in the ball pit, and licked his lips, fantasizing about taking him right there and making him completely his.
"Don't worry, Little Dougie... it'll be OK," he smiled, watching him keenly and feeling an all-too-familiar hardening in his groin, "Vincent's here for you."
The man's eyes settled on the boy's five friends, who were now all cheerfully laughing together, and then he squeezed his knife as tightly as he could. They had now strayed into his killing ground.
"I'll do whatever it takes to make you mine... because that's how much I want you..."
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
I will say it was a bit of a challenge to write Dougie's five friends. It's one thing to write a lone six-year-old, but another to write a whole group of them, so believe it or not, I went and watched a bunch of classic Barney & Friends episodes to get a better idea of how to do it. Talk about dying for your art. .
In my version of the lore's events, the blood, mucous and bad smells that the animatronics leaked which customers complained about were simply paranormal manifestations the children's spirits were causing in the hopes that it would get the restaurant closed down and prevent what happened to them from happening again. Needless to say, here and in the games, it does not work.
And it seems that Vincent's true psychotic nature has revealed itself and he's going into full-on yandere mode, which is fitting since one of my inspirations for him (his human self, that is) was Yuno Gasai from Future Diary. Just look her up to see what I mean.
In the present, Douglas is going to have a very hard time going back into Fazbear's Fright, but he will have more flashbacks and more ghostly encounters, that I will say.
Anyway, hope you all liked this chapter. I'm going to start work on the next one.
Until next time!