Woes of a Private Eye

The coffee felt hot in his hands. It was nice. Especially for such a brisk day.

Noon sun shined through the clouds and though it somewhat kept the cold at bay, the occasional razor wind would send him into shivers. Taking a sip from his coffee, he rubbed the crusty sleep from his eyes and continued down the street.

September had never been a good month for Caine. The start of Autumn—or Fall, as the Americans liked to call it—was probably the most honest state the world would be in; dying and depressing. He of course knew his own personal reasons for it, too, but that didn't change anything for him.

It had been ten years since his life as he knew it had been so unceremoniously taken away from him. It surprised him, sometimes; how much he had accomplished. How much he had failed. How much he had suffered.

Now here he was; stuck on babysitting duties with a bunch of metal has-beens. He detested it, of course; his employers knew that.

Sometimes he disagreed with Sanders. This was, of course, one of those times. In spite of that, he knew how to follow orders. Perhaps not all the time, but he respected the man. Respected him for always making decisions based on what he felt was right, rather than what he felt would please people.

Hearing a commotion on the other side of the street, Caine glanced over with a raised eyebrow to see a group of college kids drunkenly stumbling down the pathway. Though it was certainly an odd thing to see, the detective couldn't exactly blame them. It was a Sunday, sure, but what could you do?

He sometimes wondered what he would be like if his path hadn't been selected for him, as it were. Had he not ended up in the profession that he was in. Would he have been a recluse? Would he have been like those college kids, with enough time and money to waste his life away?

Or would he have ended up doing all of this, anyway?

The Crucible had selected him for a reason. Recruited him. Perhaps it was never for the noblest reasons and maybe they never expected it to go the way it had, but the one thing that he could say for definite was that coincidence, it was not.

Almost five years in the occupation that he was in and he'd proven his worth and then some. Even with his reservations for the job he'd been given to do for the unseeable future, he couldn't blame them for choosing him.

Speaking of which…

He'd walked to Freddy's from the safehouse enough to remember the route mostly off-by-heart. More likely than not, Mike Schmidt believed that he'd only visited Freddy's the two times he had turned up at their doorstep. Truth was, he'd been there numerous times since his last visit.

Scowling at the memory of that, he shook his head in disgust. He'd made a mistake, falling for such a rudimentary trap. He knew he had to give credit where it was due, because they certainly got the drop on him. Their mistake had, of course, been the lack of cooperation, at least for the last part of their little 'interrogation'.

The truth was, he needed them scared. He needed them to be worried about what was coming. As long as they were both of these things, they would make mistakes. That was how he'd managed to escape, in the end; not because of their lack of coordination or their misuse of resources, but because they had decided to argue.

Shaking his head, Caine certainly hadn't expected it. His predictions of how the animatronics would react had been washed aside. He had figured that the likelihood of them deciding to kill him had been high enough to consider, so when their leader had started going down that path, it had of course been concerning.

Perhaps one day, his luck would run out.

Stopping by a small concrete bridge that sat over a small stream, Caine rested his arms on the railway on the bridge. He'd already figured out the plan for his little recon that he and Carl would be attempting that day.

What they were aiming towards was breaking into the manager's office, located in between the security office and the dining hall. It was a simple matter of picking the lock and sneaking in. From the floorplans that he'd managed to stumble upon in the Fazbear storage site, the door had a simple lock that he'd be able to pick.

From there, it would be as simple as searching the office for anything useful. Garfield was gone for the week, so they wouldn't have to worry about him interrupting them. Even better, the room had some soundproofing for reasons Caine knew would be better if he remained ignorant of.

The biggest concern and the thing that Caine was still trying to wrack his brains over was actually getting into the pizzeria in the first place.

Occam's Razor told him that the front door would be the best option, but hard logic told him otherwise; even if they were able to avoid the staff inside, what about the guy in the security office? The chance of them avoiding the cameras would be too much to consider.

There were no rooftop entries, as Caine had discovered upon climbing up there. Ventilation system wasn't big enough.

Which meant there was only one possible entry point: The backdoor.

Linking right up to the hallway system, they would practically have a straight path to the manager's office. It would've been perfect, had it not been for the electronic lock and alarm system.

Caine sighed. Hopefully Carl had made some progress on that…

It took Mike a moment to realise that his senses had faded. His hearing was muffled, his touch covered by an icy veil, his sight hindered by what could only be described as tunnel vision. A cold metallic taste that he could only hope wasn't real made him want to vomit and all he could smell was that stench of death.

That much he knew to be real. Because the stench was coming from the suits sitting upright in the back of the room, drenched in blood.

Feeling like he was going to faint, Mike rested against the doorway, his face a mask of fright. Struggling to breath, he tried to find an answer. A reason. Any piece of evidence he could that would disprove what he had discovered, that would shatter the illusion and bring him back to his troubled, simple reality.

But there was no denying it. It was not an illusion. What Mike had seen, what had happened at some point before he had arrived at the pizzeria that night, was evil. It was twisted and it had sent him down a one-way tunnel to hell itself.

Because no matter how much he denied it, it was inevitable. The animatronics, the four former enemies that he had worked with, began to accept, and even possibly began to form a friendship with, had killed once more.

The question was, of course, why? His hearing began to reform and he realised that the animatronics hadn't noticed him and were still conversing.

Then another question popped up in the Night Guard's head, spiralling him down into a different type of horror; was he next on their list?

Glancing over towards them, trying to hide his expression of horror, he was relieved to see that none of them were even looking at him. That changed when Chica glanced over.

He must've been quite a sight, leaning head-first against the doorway of the backstage room. He could only hope that his arm hid his face from view, because they would've known straight away what he'd just seen.

"Mike?" Chica asked, her eyes perking up in concern, "Are you okay?"

Biting his lip so hard that he felt the blood in his mouth, Mike knew he couldn't look at them. It would give the game away instantly. Backing away from the door and slowly closing it, Mike kept his back to the animatronics and was surprised to find his voice neutral, almost monotone.

"Yep," He said, "Was just checking something. What were you talking about?"

"Foxy pointed out something," Freddy explained, his voice hiding what he was thinking about Mike's reaction, "Don't you find it strange that Detective Caine was the only member of the Police to visit us?"

"Yar," Foxy agreed, "The landlubbers 'ave partners, don't they?"

"Exactly, so how can we know for sure that Caine was ever who he said he was?" Freddy continued,

Surprising himself that he was able to pull his mind away from what he'd seen, Mike replied, "He had a badge. And a warrant."

"True," Freddy hesitated, "But can we know for sure that they were legitimate?"

Not knowing how to answer that question, Mike saw the logic in those words. The last thing he needed was the possibility that he'd let a pretender stroll about…

"I, uh…" Mike said, "I forgot something in the office." He quickly strolled over to his safe haven, his nerves on edge and just waiting to get jumped by one of them. They shot confused glances towards him before resuming their conversation.

His mind was only unravelled more at their reaction. Surely they must have at least suspected that he'd seen their mess? There was no way they couldn't have and letting him walk away was a strange decision, at best. It was either that they were wanting him to try and run…

…or they didn't know.

Freddy had said it himself; they didn't remember anything from that day. Not one of them. However ludicrous, however laughably-naïve, what if they were telling the truth?

What if they had murdered someone and they didn't have any memory of it?

"Maybe I should just sit this one out," Mike mumbled to himself. Go to his office, keep the doors shut, and just wait until dawn so that he could get out of there and the morning janitors could clean up, as they always did.

Unless, in a cruel twist of irony, the morning janitors had become one of their last mess…

Shaking his head, he reached the office and briefly considered shutting both doors. Nervously, he opened his cameras and made a point to find each of the animatronics on it, as per usual tactics. Finding each one of them in the places he'd usually do, it was clear that they didn't seem to have an objective in mind.

They didn't suspect anything. He could walk away and leave someone else to deal with this.

Giving an irritated sigh, he cursed himself for not taking the opportunity. The fact is, he knew what would happen if the animatronics stumbled upon their last meal; it would either break them emotionally, or it would potentially send them into another bloodlust.

The fact is, if the latter came to happen, Mike wasn't absolutely sure he could survive. It had been a while since he'd fought them and he had a funny feeling they wouldn't go slow if he found himself doing his long-outdated job role.

If it was the former…no matter how much of a stupidly-naïve thing it was, Mike couldn't deny that he had formed a connection with the animatronics. He owed them for saving his life after he'd shot them and he knew they were trying to redeem themselves.

If they saw what they had done…it would kill them.

Leaning back in his chair and closing his eyes, he knew he was practically serving himself onto a silver platter. But he also knew how damned stubborn he was.

"Well, then," He struggled to his feet and cursed himself for a fool, "I guess I'm the janitor, now."

My shortest chapter so far.

vaetta: Possibly. As the next few chapters will show, however; there's a bit of a murder mystery on our hands.

TU4QU0I53T4IAN6L3: Agreed. No matter his true intentions, I have a feeling that Caine is way over his head here...

TheAmberShadow: Might make another story about that, actually. 'Ghost Detective' sounds fun.

Also, just want to say a massive thanks for a grand total of 4000 views. I'm hoping people are enjoying it so far.