Some Things Are Better Left Buried

By: Miss-DNL

Chapter 22: Meet Up

It was harder than she expected, thinking back to thirty years ago. She'd just been a child then, not even in her double digits. But Harriette, remembered it well. Enough that she could recall details that most wouldn't. Her memory wasn't identic, but it severed her well enough to recall what she needed. What was hard was looking back on the memories. While they were sprinkled with confetti of bright friendly pastel colors and warm beckoning smells of foods. All this childish wonders were tarnish by what her adult self knew. The danger lurking around in plain sight, how close she herself had been to death.

Harriette forced her mind back to that time. She needed to, she had to tell Mike about Davey and how her uncle was innocent. Through what she'd experienced at the pizzeria. Mostly she wanted someone to believe her uncle's innocence. It'd been terrible, having his name associated with such a crime over the years. When he'd been released there'd been some shift, but then he went missing and talks of a cohort arose. Then it'd gone right back to square one. To say it was painful for her family was a grievous understatement. It'd been downright torturous, even Harriette had found herself doubting her own uncle's innocence and she still felt guilty for those times.

"If it's too much," Mike's voice broke her chain of thought. She looked up from her knees to the man across from her. He looked neutral but his brows were creased in concern. His frown deepened and his tone showed his consideration, "you don't need to go on."

Harriette shook her head solemnly, "No, I need to share this."

The Puppet Marionette's music box chimed ever so cheerfully as Harriette watched thin animatronic dance. She had a big smile on her face as she held her new Foxy plush doll. She'd been working hard to collect all the dolls and finally she'd saved up enough allowance to get Foxy. Her uncle had gotten her Freddy, and Fredbear, while her parents had gotten her Bonnie, Toy Freddy, Fun Time Foxy, Puppet, and Toy Bonnie. She'd gotten Chica, Spring Bonnie, Balloon Boy, and Toy Chica on her own. Now finally her collection was complete!

She'd been watching Puppet dance for a while now. Harriette hadn't ever seen him dance for so long before. Currently was just the two of them at the prize corner, the clerk had gone on break, but it only made this moment even more special. Puppet's mask was kind of creepy, not that she'd ever said that aloud; that'd be rude, but she loved watching him dance. She wanted to dance like a ballerina too.

Out of nowhere Puppet came to a jerky halt, causing Harriette to blink in confusion. The motion almost seemed liked he'd been caught doing something he shouldn't. A tall shadow fell over her, instantly she thought of her uncle and turned around happily. Only to stop when it wasn't him. He was just as big but of a different ethnicity entirely and even then, his skin was unhealthily pale. Still, he was familiar so his presence was only a brief surprise.

"Hello, Davey." Harriette greeted normally. He was one of the guards that worked with her uncle Fritz. She didn't know him well, but he'd worked at Freddy's since before her uncle had applied so they'd seen each other often- enough to know each other's names. Though she liked the guard Bernie more, he'd give her a cupcake occasionally. Davey was always too busy because he was very important to the pizzeria. He took care of Freddy and his friends, helped with the shows often, and was a guard on top of it all!

Davey looked at her a moment then flashed a customary smile, "Hey kid," his voice sounded like it'd been rubbed by sandpaper, but that's just how it was, "I need to have a look at Puppet. Okay?"

Harriette furrowed her bow, why would he need to do that? She watched as he went behind the counter, even though she hadn't said it was okay. Seemed a bit rude to her. Still she was curious and asked, "Why?"

The guard stood behind the still Puppet and smiled again, his hand landing with a heavy thud on Puppet's back, "I've been told he's been acting funny."

The way he said funny seemed off to Harriette, and he'd looked right at the back of Puppet's head when saying it. Harriette shook her head, "No he hasn't." The man looked back to her. With his attention, she explained, "He was dancing like he always does."

A soft laugh came from Davey and he shook his head, "This is about other times." He patted the back of Puppet's head again with the same heaviness. He tilted his head to her and smiled softly with concern, "Me and the others are just worried."

"What other times?" Harriette questioned curiously, concerned about the pierrot.

Davey seemed happy to dismiss her worry, "It's nothing kid." Pat. "He just seems off." Pat. "Just not his usual self." Pat. "I'm sure it'll be cleared up real soon." Pat. "And I'm going to make sure of that."

Harriette watched Puppet's thin form shake with each pat to its head. She blinked, the pats seemed a bit heavier than needed for some reason. Probably because Davey was bigger than skinny Puppet. Uncle Fritz's pats were a bit heavy and he was around the same size as Davey. Deciding in her head that was the reason, Harriette moved on to showing off that she'd gotten the last doll she needed for her collection.

"I finally got Foxy!" She cheered.

"Good on yah." Davey answered, sounding a little distracted by his current task of unfastening Puppet from his puppeteer's cross.

Harriette didn't notice this and kept talking to the guard as she petted her doll's angular ears with her fingers, leaving faint finger trails in the red felt fur, "It's extra special because I got him on the day of a birthday party!"

This time she caught the guard's attention as he paused momentarily in his task before continuing, only Puppet's arms left to unfasten, "Oh? You're here for the birthday party today, hm? Friend of yours?"

Harriette nodded, "Uh-huh, well, he's my brother's friend, but plenty of my friends are here too! It's a lot of fun! We're all just playing games right now while we wait for the others and the cake!" She looked up at the guard with big doe eyes that practically sparkled with her built up excitement. "Are you going to be there for when they bring out the cake?"

Puppet no longer attached to his cross Davey hoisted him down and tucked the simple animatronic under his arm. He shook his head, much to Harriette's disappointment, "Sadly, I'll be busy with making sure Puppet's okay kid. I've got to make sure he gets better." When Harriette began to pout, he crouched down in front of her. Puppet got scrunched up at his side, his limbs sprawled out onto the checkered floor as a result. He offered her a smile, "Hey, I'm sure it'll be a real special day without me. Besides I get to see plenty of birthdays here."

"Harriette?" The young girl immediately whirled around to her uncle's voice. Fritz Smith stood tall and built about the same as Davey. While he had called his niece, his eyes quickly locked on the senior guard. Davey smiled up at Fritz before he stood back up to his towering full height. Fritz only broke the unsaid stare down when his niece spoke up.

"I finally got Foxy uncle!" Harriette announced, with even more enthusiasm than she had with Davey. Much to her disappointed her uncle seemed more distracted than Davey had been with Puppet.

"That's great angel." He said in partial mutter as he recommenced eye contact with Davey. The other guard continued to simply smiled back at him, patiently waiting. Fritz glanced from Davey to his nice, then back to the other guard before finally turning to Harriette. He gestured to where the party appeared to be gathering, "Why don't you go join up with the others?"

Harriette was about to leave when she stopped and asked, "You're going to be there for the party right?"

Frits frowned uncertainly, "I'll try to, but I'm on the clock right now angel. Boss is being real tight with us about staying on point. He catches me not doing my job and I could lose it. I promise I'll give the birthday boy a happy birthday before he leaves alright?"

"Okay…" Harriette muttered moodily, her head hanging low.

"Hey, hey, now. No sour face." Her uncle said insistently, his words getting his little niece to smile. Fritz patted her shoulder, giving a brief glance back towards Davey before saying, "Now you and Foxy go enjoy the party enough for the three of us, okay? Think you can do that?"

"Yep!" Harriette exclaimed, taking the request very literally. She quickly skipped off to the party table, holding onto on of Foxy's stubby plush limbs so that he could skip with her. The pirate fox swung back and forth without so much as a protest.

At the table, most of the guests had arrived, only a couple weren't present yet. The birthday boy had already arrived, of course, and was eagerly staring at his presents from his seat at the head of the table. The special birthday boy seat. Harriette looked back off towards where her uncle and Davey had been but saw the two were now gone. She frowned for a moment but distracted herself with some punch, both said they'd had jobs to do after all. The yummy fruit punch flavor perked her right up. It was tropical fruit punch, her favorite.

As she drank her juice Harriette looked around the table. The six year-old-girl was used to the sight of a birthday party at Freddy's, but it always seemed just as magical. The plastic tablet cloth was covered in stars, confetti, and the mascots faces. Swirl colored balloons were tied in clusters of four at the end corners of the tables. Cone shaped party hats sat either on children's heads or by their disposable paper plates. Harriette picked hers up, the hat was pink with yellow stars, and strapped it onto her head.

Musingly she hoped Leo, the birthday boy, would like the gift she got him. She'd bought him an toy of an action hero from a movie he'd seen recently. Harriette could see the blue wrapped present from where she was sitting, the little box at the bottom of a good pile of presents. She turned her eyes to Leo, he was talking excited to his two closer friends about something. It was hard to hear what it was with all the noise going on.

"Hey, Harriette!" She turned and saw Cloe had come to sit next to her.

Harriette smiled in return, "Hello, Cloe!"

Cloe puffed her cheeks up, "Why didn't you tell me you were here?"

Harriette giggled and stuck her tongue out at her, "You're the one that didn't notice!"

The two girls ended up giggling to each other with playful nudges getting exchanged playfully back and forth. Cloe had been one of Harriette's friends since first grade. They played during recess and even had slumber parties together. Harriette also liked Cloe's sister Alaine. It was easy for Harriette to get along with anyone, so she had a lot of friends but only a few of them were close to her. Cloe was certainly one of those.

"You finally got Foxy?" Cloe asked excitedly, looking at the plush pirate fox that sat on Harriet's lap.

Harriette nodded, "Yep!"

"He's so cute! You're so lucky! This means you have all of them!" Cloe exclaimed happily with a twinge of jealously. She huffed and pouted a bit, "Spring Bonnie and Fredbear are so expensive. I might never get them…and I haven't even seen Toy Bonnie or Fun Time Foxy in forever."

Harriette frowned, feeling sorry for her friend. When she got an idea, she smiled and exclaimed, "I'll get you a Fredbear or Spring Bonnie for your birthday!"

Cloe's blue eyes lit up, "What? Really!" Harriette nodded. With a happy squeal Cloe pulled her friend into a hug, "You're the best!"

The two girls laughed but soon quieted when the lights dimmed, signaling the beginning of a show. Cloe and Harriette smiled widely at each other and watched as red show curtains on the stage pulled apart revealing the brightly colored animals behind them. Toy Freddy lumbered towards the front of the stage and addressed the crowd. Harriette remembered the old Freddy had noticeably heavier footsteps. Toy Freddy though, was shorter and rounder at the edges than his predecessor. Harriette liked the new Freddy a lot but she still liked old Freddy too, he just seemed realer than his shiny counterpart.

"Hello girls and boys!" Toy Freddy began with a bubbly laugh as the kids hollered back their greetings. Freddy scanned the crowed, "I heard that we have a very special boy with us today!" He gasped and pointed as a spot light landed on Leo, "There he is! The birthday boy!" Toy Freddy looked about the crowd in an inquiring manner, asking, "You all know what we gotta sing for the birthday boy right?" A unanimous storm of answers came in and Toy Freddy nodded, "That's right, we gotta sing Happy Birthday!"

In a mere moment, the party room was filled with the sound of animatronics and people singing happy birthday to Leo. During which a couple of Fazbear staff brought a large cake over to the party table to a rather shyly embarrassed Leo, who hid his blushing face behind his hands. Harriette and Cloe looked at each other and giggled about how cute that was to them. Harriette then began to tease Cloe about the crush she knew her friend had on the birthday boy, resulting in more playful nudging, laughing, and giggling.

Harriette didn't know that this would be the last time she'd ever see Cloe. She didn't know when it happened, but after the birthday cake was cut, the presents opened, and they'd dispersed to play games…she vanished into thin air. Last Harriette remembered, she'd dared Cloe to tell Leo that she liked him. She'd ran off to go find him…and that was it.

It'd left little Harriette confused and upset. How could her friend just up and vanish like that? Where had she gone? Was she okay? She didn't know, and they'd never find out. A little less than a week later it happened again. This time with another friend of hers, June. Her parents had arranged a play date to try and help her feel better. Katherine blamed herself when June vanished. She'd tried to feel better but she just couldn't and went to go eat while June kept playing games. Her parents didn't take her back to Freddy's after that, and Harriette didn't want to go back.

Freddy's had taken two of her friends. After that, her collection of plush dolls lost its charm. In a fit, she tossed them into her closet, swearing to not hug them until her friends were found. The dolls would never see the light of day again. Especially after Harriette's next loss…

"And then your uncle was arrested and charged for the disappearances?" Mike guessed somberly. Harriette had said she needed to share this, but, as she went through what'd happened the woman came closer to what looked like a break down. Right now, she was just barely hanging on to her frail composure. While Mike felt sympathy for Harriette, he felt more anger towards the killer. Whether that was Davey or Fritz, Mike didn't know. He'd like to believe Harriette, he did, but she didn't have any solid proof. Far as he knew they'd both killed the kids. Mike kept this thought to himself as Harriette nodded and continued to explain.

"Yes, it was just a day after the last night guard Jeremy Fitzgerald "disappeared". They arrested him after he covered the last day that would've been Jeremy's shift." Harriette explained tensely. Mike picked up on this resurgence of anger and took it as her previously shown anger towards the past events. Mike hadn't expected exactly why it resurfaced. Harriette tightly gripped her own hand, voice shaking with resentment, "You know why they did?"

Mike hadn't expected the sudden question. When he saw tensed up expression of barely held back emotion Mike knew he needed to give an answer. Mike thought back to the research he and Kyle had done on Freddy's. His memory was left disarray from all that happened since then, but after a bit of mental digging he came up with the answer.

"Someone made a call." Mike answered, hesitantly he wondered what this'd lead to.

"Know who made that call?" Harriette questioned in response.

Mike didn't like where this was going, but answered anyway, "No, I don't."

"Davey did," Harriette answered with a low tone of loathing. She took in a sharp breath, calming herself to avoid going into a ranting outburst. Once Harriette felt she had herself under control she explained, "I remember my parents yelling in the living room. That Davey had told the officers he'd found my uncle in the saferoom. Trying to move the bodies. That he attacked him and injured him."

Harriette hateful tone grew weaker as she went on, becoming sadder and more mournful as her uncle's unknown fate began weighing down on her once again, "My parents visited him and when they came back I' snuck up to their room. I listened as they said he'd been swearing that Davey had set him up. He said that none of the cops were listening to him. All of them were dead set on putting him in the chair."

"They wanted to take someone down for the crimes." Mike surmised.

Harriette nodded sharply, she'd thought the same. She looked to Mike, waiting for his response. Harriette felt herself bristle at the thought he believed her uncle killed the kids and the other murdered people. She swallowed her apprehension and directly asked Mike, "Do you believe me?"

"I know just about as much as you do." Mike began. Harriette formed a look of slight confusion on her expression at the indecisive answer. Mike shifted where he stood, moving his weight form one foot to another, "I didn't know either of these guys. I think I might've seen Davey a couple of times while working at Freddy's. That's it though. We've got no solid proof for neither."

Harriette immediately stood up and protested heatedly, "The killing started back up while my Uncle was in jail! He couldn't have done that!"

Mike kept his tone even in face of her anger, "And I'm not saying he did that. I'm saying that I just can't be sure. I'm trying to figure things out, and if I find out he didn't do it then I'll apologize."

The promise settled Harriette some, though she still looked tense and irate. She wasn't the only one tense now, both cats had gone on alert after her sudden movement and yelling. The one that had been near Mike bolted into the hall and retreated to his room with its sibling. Harriette watched the action and sat herself back down, "Alright, fine. One more thing, then I'll leave."

"That is?" Mike questioned, his voice beginning to develop a slur. The beer, long night, and emotional drain was beginning to take its toll. Least he'd gotten some info today. Nothing on how to free the kids but it was better than nothing. Especially since Mike was sure he was going to collapse after this conversation ended.

Dammit, Mike thought in his sleep deprived aggravation. He knew what would be waiting for him soon as he passed out, Going to be a bad one tonight.

"I think I know where to find someone who can help us." Harriette began, Mike lifted his head some in interest. "Isaac Vargas, might've heard of him."

The name rang a bell somewhere in Mike's mind, but with how sleep drunk it was he couldn't be sure. He rubbed his eyes and responded in almost a mutter, "Sounds familiar yeah."

"He's the guy behind the Fazbear Fright fire." Harriette explained. She could see how exhausted Mike was and she felt it imperative to wrap up soon before the poor man collapsed where he stood. When Mike nodded in response Harriette continued, "He might be able to help us with the Spring Bonnie-if it's there."

"And how do you think he can help?" Mike questioned. His eye lids were feeling increasingly heavy and as his eyes lazily drifted around the room he saw the shadows move. The shadows were big and had glowing eyes, all trained on him. Whispers were rising in his ears, none of them baring any kind words for him.

Harriette could see Mike was staring off towards a corner of the room. She glanced at it but saw nothing there. She dismissed this just as him being tired. More reason to finish what she had to say, "I heard rumor they'd found an animatronic, nearly a week before Isaac burned the place."

"Certainly have kept an eye on things…" Mike commented drearily, his words more slogged down with a need for sleep than before. It wasn't a big surprise to him that Harriette had kept tabs on things, considering her past with the franchise. Despite the information she was offering him, Mike still didn't want her to get involved. He understood why she wanted revenge, but it may very well cost her life.

With Mike looking like he wouldn't be able to stay awake much longer Harriette escorted herself to the door. Mike groggily watched her open the door for herself. After she took a step into the doorway she looked back to the man, "I'll try and talk to him today, see if he can help. I'll come back tomorrow."

"Yeah, fine." Mike uttered. The shadows were all around, constantly moving, but always kept their eyes pinned on him. The voices were growing louder, some sounded like they were right up beside his ear.

"Get some sleep, Mike." He barely heard Harriette's words over the chorus of ghostly whispers filling his ears. The images shifted around the open-door space before filling it as the door closed.

Now alone, save the cats, Mike lumbered over to the couch. No use avoiding it, might as well get it over with. He collapsed onto the old couch and his heavy eyelids fell shut. The whispers were at their clearest just before Mike succumbed to sleep.

"We're waiting for you."

Author's Note: Was a bit tricky to do the flashback, as I wasn't sure whether to write Harriette's initial meeting with Davey. I kept going back and forth before settling on not showing it. Anyhow more about the past is revealed. Also! We'll be meeting up with Isaac next!

Hope you enjoyed :)