3
At 11:15pm Mike set the book he had been reading down on the desk and looked at the screen. The mascots were all still there, unmoving. He stretched his arms high above his head, joints popping and crackling as he did, and he prepared to do his first …and only… round for the night. He picked up the flashlight from the desk that he had found earlier in the locker with some old, spare batteries, clicked it on and off a few times, then stood to leave the office. Leaving through the same door that he and Fritz had used, Mike accidently slammed the door hard behind him. The sound seemed to cut offensively through the thick, established silence of the place, and for a moment he felt as though he had disturbed some sacred site. Walking quietly down the corridor towards the main dining room, flashlight beam cast downwards in front of him, Mike felt reluctant to actually step out into the main room. Where they would see him.
Mike stood at the doorway and shone his light towards the stage. Large shadows loomed behind the animatronic mascots as they stood staring into oblivion. Though they remained unmoving, Mike could almost feel a presence from them. Not taking his eyes off the large characters, he stepped to his right towards the kitchen and pushed the doors inwards as he entered. He flicked the switch on the wall and the lights flashed on brightly, causing him to squint as his eyes adjusted to the sudden glare. Large stainless-steel benches ran along the walls of the long room on either side, and a long steel table lay between them. One side was crammed with crockery and utensils, the other side lined with piles of plates. A large pizza oven sat at the far end of the room, its opening dark and menacing. The faint smell of pizza still lingered in the air as Mike walked through the long kitchen and past the freezers to the back door. After confirming that it was locked with one firm rattle, he turned and headed back to the swinging double-doors and turned off the light. Next was to check the bathroom, then the front door.
The rest of his checks went as smoothly as the first one and each time he had to walk past the stage in the main room, his unease about the characters there seemed to lessen. The front door was locked fast and the place was empty, Jen the cleaning lady wasting no time and having left shortly after his arrival. Walking back towards his office down the other corridor, he paused as he passed the smaller side stage. A sign above the purple curtains read PIRATE'S COVE. Keep an eye on Foxy. This must be where he was. Surely, Mike thought, as this attraction was out of order, presumably awaiting repair, there was nothing to keep an eye on here. He thought briefly of pulling the curtain aside and having a look at what was behind it, but not yet wearing a watch, he wasn't sure how much time he had left to loiter before the characters entered their free roaming mode. It seemed best to just go back to the office and watch from the cameras. Mike walked down the corridor, passing between a storage room on his right and the fuse box on his left and entered his office on the left, opposite the manager's office.
The clock on the desk read 11:30pm and the nerves in his stomach lurched as midnight drew nearer. Mike sat back down at the desk, put the flashlight down next to the Freddy head and picked up his book, not taking in the story as his eyes kept flicking back up to the stage on the screen.
As soon as the digital clock on the desk read 12:00am, Mike put down his book and focused on the screen, not sure what to expect. He half thought that the characters would spring to life at the stroke of midnight and start dancing and wondering around happily. That would have been less unsettling than what they were doing now: nothing. The waiting was torturous as Mike watched the stage closely. But as each minute passed, the feeling that it was all just a prank on the new guy grew more and more. Hell, the animatronics were probably bolted to the stage, anyway.
The camera continued to pan slowly left and right, showing the dark figures on the stage, illuminated only slightly by the few fluorescent security lights that remained on at all times. Once or twice the image flickered with static for a few seconds, giving Mike a sense of dread at the idea of the cameras going offline altogether. After twenty minutes and still no movement, Mike opened his book again and continued to read, checking the screen less and less often as time dragged on. A couple of times he scrolled through the camera feeds just to check how much of the building he could see, but apart from the camera in the kitchen being faulty and only providing audio, they showed nothing of interest.
At 2:00am, Mike realised that he had forgotten one of Fritz's rules. He hadn't used the bathroom during his round and was now trying to decide whether or not he could hold it for another four hours. He checked the stage camera again and saw that the characters were all still there and none had moved. Mike looked closer at the screen. Maybe Bonnie on the left had turned a little, but it was hard to tell. Mike stood up from the desk, picked up the flashlight and opened the door on his right.
That same silence was deafening as he stepped slowly down the dark corridor, flashlight pointed towards the dining room ahead of him. Though he was alone, he again felt that he must remain quiet. Quiet enough to pass by unnoticed. He stood at the end of the corridor and pointed the flashlight to the bathroom door on his right. It wasn't far. Just need to walk past the kitchen doors and he was there. Just as he reached the bathroom door, Mike heard a quiet, brief whirring sound from the stage. He shone his light at the stage and his heart skipped a beat when he saw Chica the chicken looking directly at him. So, they are active, he thought. With renewed urgency, he quickly walked through the door and down the short hallway to the men's bathroom. He locked himself into a cubicle and relieved himself, wanting nothing more than to just get back to his office. As he reached out to flush the toilet, a sound made him freeze on the spot. The bathroom door just outside the cubicle was pushed open slowly and the sound of slow, metal footsteps followed. Mike turned the flashlight off and stood still in the sudden dark, unable to move as the unmistakable presence of something very big waited just outside the cubicle door. A subtle, rancid smell filled the room and Mike tried his hardest not to cough, silently gagging until he slowly got used to it.
The thing outside stood just as still as Mike did, only the sound of servos clicking and whirring occasionally as it turned its head side to side gave it away its presence. Mike had no idea how long he stood there. He only remembered the vivid images his imagination conjured up of the door behind him being suddenly ripped from the hinges with a crash and being forcefully dragged away to the backstage area, where all of the spare costume pieces were kept. The waiting for this seeming inevitability was the worst part. Even if he had a watch, he doubted he would have checked it for fear of making a sound. He had no idea if the thing outside the door was just following programming to find people to entertain, or if it had actual, malicious intent. Though if it really wanted him, it would have surely gotten him by now.
Finally, the thing clicked and whirred as it turned, and the sound of solid footsteps slowly left the bathroom. Mike waited a few more minutes before attempting to do the same. Very carefully, he unlocked the cubicle door and pulled it open. He dared not turn the flashlight back on, and slowly crept through the dark room towards the exit. When he reached the door to the dining room, Mike peeked carefully out and looked at the stage. His stomach dropped. Two of the animatronics were gone. One of them, Bonnie, stood perfectly still at the other end of the room near the backstage area, facing away from him. Chica was nowhere to be seen.
Mike crept slowly along the drawing-lined wall towards the left corridor past the kitchen. Bonnie hadn't moved and Freddy remained on the stage, still staring straight ahead. Mike hoped that Chica wasn't standing in the corridor blocking his path. As he reached the double-doors of the kitchen, Mike heard a sound that almost made him jump. From somewhere in the kitchen he could hear pots and pans being banged about as though someone was rummaging around in there. He snuck past the doors and moved as quickly and as quietly as he could down the dark corridor towards his office. Once he was in, he made sure the doors were closed properly and watched the cameras on the screen intently, scarcely taking his eyes off them for the rest of his shift.