Summer 1978
Mike looked up at the stage. Freddy, Bonnie, and Chica were wrapping up their show.
"Sometimes old and sometimes new
We keep the ones we find are true
Sometimes found and sometimes lost
The greatest ones are worth the cost
"We all share the memories made
And hope they last and never fade
I am yours, and you are mine
Friends until the end of time"
His eyes watered a bit. The last time he stepped inside had been over a year ago, for his eighth birthday. Everything had been perfect, from the games to the cake, to having special attention from Freddy and his friends. And more importantly, Mike remembered the love and smiles from both of his parents.
They were gone now, and what was once a happy memory suddenly became bittersweet.
He and his friend had a good day today, but old wounds still stung. An arm wrapped around his shoulder. Taking the hint, he leaned into his friend. Carefully, Mike reached up to wipe his face.
"Are you okay, Mike?" came the soft Irish brogue.
"Y-ye...n...yes," he said, battling between keeping up appearances and pushing back those memories.
"We can leave."
"N-no, I just...give me a moment."
Mike forced up a smile and wiped his eyes again.
"No one should be...should be sad here," he said quietly.
"Okay," came the response. "But if it becomes too much, we can go home."
"Thanks," Mike whispered.
His best friend smiled.
"You know I'll always protect you."
Tuesday, November 9, 1993
The light blue Suzuki pulled into the Freddy's parking lot.
You shouldn't be here. It's dangerous. You'll end up like the others.
You'll end up like him.
Mike tried to keep those thoughts back as he approached the white and purple building.
No, he thought in defiance, I won't.
He parked by the lonely green truck and got out, locking the door and slamming it behind him.
The moon shone brightly tonight, and for a second, the restaurant with its flickering sign and dirty windows showed signs of its heyday. Even if briefly, Mike allowed himself to believe it, to remember the sense of wonder, the sounds of the games and the shows, the other children excitedly laughing and running.
Once upon a time, he believed no one should be unhappy at Freddy's. Maybe a part of him still believed it. A part that longed to preserve that childhood love, and everything this place once stood for.
He caught a shape in the window, something moving in the moonlight. Mike stepped closer. The figure morphed into his own reflection, which he quickly turned away from.
For a moment, he swore he saw a little boy instead.
Only his mind playing a trick.
Mike shook his head as he entered the building. He quickly cleared the tiny waiting area and the hostess stand. At the far right of the room, the janitor ran a cloth over the stage, giving the worn wood a bit of polish. A wistful smile crossed the old man's lips as he occasionally glanced up to the animatronics, before it faded to gloom as he went back to his task. Around him, the dining room gleamed, having been swept and mopped up. Even the chairs and game cabinets seemed less worn.
The janitor glanced up at the familiar welcome jingle, half-expecting the same foul-mouthed kid who came in last night, and half-expecting someone new. He hardly batted an eye when he recognized Mike, and simply went back to wiping down the stage.
"Heh. Almost expected you to be gone, kid," the janitor said. "Tryin' to beat the record?"
Mike silently watched him for a moment, looking for any trace of shenanigans.
"Cut the bullshit," he said at last. "What do you know?"
"Nothin', like I told you last night. I just tidy up."
"I don't believe you."
The janitor shrugged, then moved down the stage. A small, resigned note crept into his voice.
"Don't care if you do."
Mike narrowed his eyes as he stepped forward. He quickly glanced up at the animatronics, then back to the janitor.
"You've seen people come and go."
"Yep," the janitor confirmed. "Real shame. This place could use some new blood."
The man finished up, tucked the rag in his pocket and grabbed the lid to the varnish jar from one of the tables.
"But I bet you won't last the week," he continued, screwing it on. "They never do."
"What if I do?" Mike asked.
That actually got the old man to laugh. Mike kept up his glare as he crossed his arms.
"I'm serious."
The janitor smirked.
"I like you, kid," he said. "You're not like the others."
Mike tried to hide his sudden confusion.
"What do you mean by that?"
"You got something about you, kid," the janitor explained. "A spark the others lacked. Like you almost want to be here."
Mike stared him down.
"You don't know shit about me."
The janitor looked him over, his face brightening a little.
"I know this: you came back here after two nights. Can't remember the last time that's happened. And that you're here after last night, well, maybe you're onto something."
A smirk as the old man headed for the front door, half-heartedly throwing Mike a wave behind him.
"See you tomorrow, kid."
"My name's Mike!"
If the janitor said anything else, Mike didn't hear it over the jingle. He glared at the door, then checked his watch.
Fuck. The talk with the janitor took up more time than he thought, and a complete building check was out of the question. Mike glanced to the bathrooms, then down the long halls. Maybe if he was quick…
He ran for the bathrooms, already mentally timing himself. Less than two minutes before midnight, and he counted every second as he finished up and washed his hands. A quick glance to his watch showed 12:01am - hadn't he counted correctly? - and that was all the incentive he needed to make a mad dash for the office.
Mike hoped the footsteps he heard behind him were his own echoing against the tile floor. He dared to glance behind him. He caught a flash of purple movement and let himself believe his own mind played tricks on him, that they weren't quite moving yet.
He shut the door behind him just in case.
Wednesday, November 9, 1993
Tonight's phone message was already playing as he got into the office. The heavy door slid into place as he collapsed into his seat.
"-doing great! Most people don't last this long."
That's what the janitor keeps saying, Mike thought, turning on the monitor.
"I mean, you know," Phone Guy said, "th-they usually move on to other things by now. I'm not implying that they died. Th-th-that's not what I meant."
A thought flashed in Mike's mind, one that brought him little comfort.
It can happen to you too.
He pushed it away, back into the furthest reaches of his mind where it belonged, and instead looked at the stage view. Mike's heart skipped a beat when he noticed Bonnie missing, and he briefly wondered if he hadn't just had a near-miss.
"Uh, anyway, I better not take up too much of your time," Phone Guy continued. "Things start getting real tonight."
"Like they haven't already?" Mike gasped, turning on the hall light.
Nothing showed up in the window, but he had no way of knowing if Bonnie stood right behind that door. Better not risk it until he confirmed the rabbit's whereabouts. With this and and last night on his mind, Mike relented to taking Phone Guy a bit more seriously. His advice to pay attention to Foxy had been the difference between making it until morning and being skewered alive.
God, why did he come back?
He knew why. It didn't matter right now.
"U-uh...hey, listen, I had an idea," Phone Guy said. "If you happen to get caught and want to avoid getting stuffed into a Freddy suit, uh, try playing dead! You know, go limp. Then there's a chance that, uh, maybe they'll think that you're an empty costume instead."
"Wait, what?"
"Then again if they think you're an empty costume, they might try to...stuff a metal skeleton into you. I wonder how that would work…"
Mike stared at the phone as he tried to get the mental image of the endoskeleton in the back forcefully replacing his own out of his head. His eyes went back to the closed right door and tried to determine if he heard heavy footsteps over the sound of his pounding heart.
"Yeah, never mind, scratch that," Phone Guy said. "I-it's best just not to get caught."
"Obviously!"
"Um...okay, I'll leave you to it. See you on the flip side."
The call clicked off, leaving Mike alone in the dingy office, forced to listen to the sudden silence broken only by the buzzing of the light overhead and the building settling in for the night. As he checked the cameras for Bonnie, he mulled over tonight's call, the implications of fates unknown.
It can happen to you too.
Both Phone Guy and the janitor made it clear that lasting beyond two nights was something of a miracle. Which begged the obvious question: what became of those before him? Did they actually quit?
Or did they...?
Another thought came to mind, one he pushed back almost immediately.
Years ago, he reminded himself. It didn't matter now anyway, not when he had other priorities to focus on.
The dining room camera showed a tall pair of ears walking in front of it. The stage show still contained one bear and one chicken. The curtains at Pirate Cove remained still for now.
Only to save power did Mike reach over to open the door.
After last night, Mike diligently kept an eye on the cameras and an ear on the hallways. Bonnie and Chica changed up their routines before; he expected tonight to be no different. And he knew to definitely be on guard for Foxy.
Not long after the call, the power went off. Mike jumped and grabbed for his flashlight, already poised and ready for any intruders. Even when the lights came back on a moment later, every one of his senses remained alert and on edge as he waited for the monitor to power back on. The three useless ones flickered for a second before their screens went dark again. Mike grimaced and turned them off so they wouldn't waste power.
The janitor was right. Waylon really needed to do something about the building power. Had any of the animatronics been closer, that time in the dark could have been the difference between life and death.
When the main monitor came back on, it defaulted to the stage show. Freddy stood alone. Mike quickly flipped through the views until he found Chica dancing alone in the dining room, and Bonnie lingering in the back room by the masks. He then quickly checked on Foxy, before a thought came to him.
Had the endoskeleton moved?
Mike quickly flipped back to the back room. He caught Bonnie's back as he left and made a mental note that the rabbit was now in the dining room before he checked the endoskeleton. It still sat on the work table, quiet and still. Was its head now tilted slightly, or had it already been like that?
Unimportant. Probably just his mind playing tricks. Mike went back to diligently keeping an eye on the others, and watching for changes in routine. His diligence paid off. Twice in the last hour, Chica came by the office.
The first time, he heard footsteps, and hit the door light. The lit-up the hallway revealed her staring him down from the office window. Mike turned off the light and shut the door. He grabbed the flashlight then, and shone the beam through the window. Chica's dark eyelids came down in a slow blink, indicating the age of her robotics as they stalled for a second, then lifted again. Mike heard the clicking of her beak through the glass as the jaw lowered, revealing her silver endoskeleton teeth in the back of her mouth.
Was that a child's giggle he heard coming from her? Or did he imagine it?
Either way, Chica realized getting into the office was a fruitless endeavor, and turned to go.
The second time she came by, Mike got a small scare when she seemingly disappeared from view on the cameras. On a hunch, he shut the right door. Hardly a second after it clicked shut, a soft knocking echoed off the metal slab, a sign that his instincts only barely spared him.
Let me in.
Mike immediately recognized the voice, having memorized it from childhood. A light, cheery, sing-song feminine voice that often accompanied two others in song, a soprano to compliment a soft tenor and a boisterous baritone. Something else now underlied it.
Something surreal, unnatural, and impossible to put his finger on.
"Hell no!" Mike yelled in response. "Go away!"
Silence followed, broken only after a moment by the sound of her footsteps. Mike turned the flashlight on and shone it through the window in time to see Chica shoot a knowing glance at him before her large yellow body disappeared from view.
Only after he opened the door again did Mike pinpoint the wrongness of the voice he heard.
That the tone sounded...haunted.
That something else spoke with her, distorted her normal cheer into something that set him on edge.
With it came the realization that the robot hadn't actually said anything at all, that the voice simply popped into his mind, not unlike when he investigated the creepy marionette on his first night.
God, was he losing it?
Mike patted his breast pocket for his cigarette pack. Upon retrieving it, he stood up only long enough to wrestle his lighter from his pants pocket. To hell with what Waylon might say; his nerves were shot. This place got to him more badly than he wanted to admit, and panicking would do him no favors if he wanted to make it another night.
The lighter wedged itself under his wallet. Mike frowned. He worked the monitor with one hand while the other to clear his pocket.
Dancers in the dining room. Singer on the stage. Crook behind the curtain.
He turned the monitor off for a second to conserve power, and set the wallet on the desk. Mike finally accessed the lighter under it and sat back down in his chair. The seat groaned a little under his weight. Two clicks brought the lighter's flame to life, and from the first inhale of smoke, the nicotine soothed his nerves and cleared his mind
For a moment, the restaurant felt peaceful, almost normal, which in and of itself made Mike tense again. He relaxed only after he took another drag. Mike glanced to his wallet on the desk and noticed the corner of a photo poking out from it. Holding the cigarette in his teeth, he opened the wallet to pull it out.
Vanna's laughing face greeted him, and briefly, Mike returned it. He allowed the photo to bring him back in time for a moment. They went out for drinks on her birthday, and while they both had other photos detailing the night's shenanigans with some of their friends, this one, he cherished deeply. Everything from the delight in Vanna's eyes, the tilt of her head, her cocktail dress, even the drinks on the table in front of her evoked a pure sense of happiness. It broke through his current horror and momentarily distracted him from other weird thoughts.
Mike quickly put the photo back, making sure to put it in front of the only other picture he kept with him. He set his wallet down on the desk for the moment and took another drag, then flicked the ash over the tile floor where he knew it'd blend in with the dust the janitor never seemed to get around to. Afterwards, he flipped the monitor back on to do another roll call.
Cam 1B flickered on, showing Chica alone in the dining room, offering her cupcake to unseen guests. Mike was about to check on the others when he caught a bit of movement in the corner of his eye.
Something moved between the tables: a long, thin shadow he hadn't seen before. Mike changed back to Cam 1C to ensure Foxy stayed put, then moved back to the dining room.
Chica wandered in front of the camera in that time, blocking the shadow's prior location. It only served as a small hindrance. Mike quickly located the shadowy thing again and tracked its movements. The long tablecloths shifted a bit, like something dipped and slithered underneath them. He kept his ears perked for any sound that might warrant his attention, but right now, he needed to figure out what that shadow was, or if it was a threat to him. After his near run-in with Foxy last night, Mike knew the last thing he wanted was any more unpleasant surprises.
Speaking of Foxy, he snuck in a quick peek to ensure the pirate stayed put, then went back to the dining room. Mike ignored Bonnie and Freddy for a few seconds. He listened for the former and trusted the latter to stay in his spot as he'd been doing the last two nights. Phone Guy said he rarely left, didn't he?
Cloth fluttered on one of the farther tables now, hiding whatever just ducked under it from view. Mike sucked on the cigarette as he watched that back table. He kept his eyes focused on the dark shadows behind it. Sure enough, some unidentifiable black form moved into them, the shadowy thing almost immediately blending into the darkness. Chica's routine lead her to the back of the room. She temporarily provided a barrier between the shadow and Mike.
After dealing with Foxy and his borderline self-aware intelligence last night, Mike had no doubts the shadow planned its movements carefully to try to keep out of his sight.
That it knew he could be watching.
Another drag, another flick of ash, another check-in, another glance to his power levels.
78%, no thanks to Chica.
Mike hated this game, this anticipation. And he hated any change in routine from that first night, because it always spelled inevitable trouble. Cradling the cigarette between two fingers, he flipped to Pirate Cove first, then the backstage area to try to locate Bonnie.
The screen blacked out. Above him, the lights flickered. Mike glanced up at the ceiling light, willing it to not go out. It blipped for half a second, then settled. The monitor came back then, getting Mike's attention as he checked the back room. The damn rabbit wasn't there, but the brown endoskeleton eyes now glanced up to the camera.
Mike froze, not daring to even breathe, though in that moment, he wondered if he even could. The camera blacked out, and when it came back on, the endoskeleton faced forward again. Mike let out a painful breath. He pushed the weirdness back as his mind resumed his original task of finding Bonnie.
He began flipping through views, now used to them enough that he needed only a quick glance to determine if the purple behemoth was in them.
Empty closet, empty dining room, empty hallway.
"Fuck, not this again," Mike whispered.
He thought he heard something and kicked his chair over to the left door to check that blindspot.
Empty.
Mike shut the door anyway, not trusting any of them now. He went back to the monitor, and found Bonnie in the west hallway corner. The rabbit casually glanced up at the camera. The shadows turned his usual smile into something stern.
Determined.
Mike took a drag, the cigarette now on its last legs. At least his instincts were trustworthy.
Bonnie's head abruptly jerked back to an impossible angle, his mouth wide open, his red eyes crazed and bright. It reverted back a second later, then continued on with its insane twitching. Adrenaline kicking in, Mike slammed the monitor button to shut it off. The cigarette fell to the floor and left an ash mark on the white tile. Mike ignored it as he turned the monitor back on.
Nothing showed in the hallway corner now except a poster of Freddy, several documents tacked to the wall, and some trash that the poor excuse of a janitor left on the floor. Mike blinked, gaped at the camera view for a moment, then remembered the cigarette. Quickly, he stamped it out, then kicked the butt under the desk.
The hell even was that? Even if the animatronics had surprisingly good programming, there was no way Bonnie could move his head that fast.
No. Fucking. Way.
A rich, deep laugh echoed throughout the building. Mike never heard it before, and prioritized finding its source over everything else...if he even heard it at all, and it wasn't his mind messing with him again. He still hadn't eliminated that as a possibility with Chica earlier.
Pushing that thought aside, Mike began flipping through the views again.
Foxy peeked out of his starry curtains - lying manager - and both halls and their corners stood clear. Dining room showed Bonnie had since rejoined Chica. Stage show was empty. Backstage clear and nothing lurked by the bathrooms. Mike started another cycle, paused at Pirate Cove and ignored Foxy's stare as realization dawned on him.
The stage show was empty.
Mike flipped back to it to be certain. A gray wall popped up, broken by a checkered lining and part of a cloud set piece. Silver stars hung from the ceiling. None of the animatronics stood there any longer.
"Shit," he whispered. "Freddy, was that you?"
Another change in the routine, another element to the deadly game. He had to keep an eye on the others. Had to find Freddy. Had to find the shadow thing. Had to keep them all from getting in.
For the first time in he didn't know how long, Mike checked the power levels. His stomach dropped when he saw the numbers.
62%.
How had it dropped that much? It wasn't even 3am yet!
His eyes suddenly went over to the left door, which he'd stupidly left closed since he last dealt with Bonnie. Mike hit the switch to open it, his breathing heavy from panic. Every ounce of power left, he needed to ration carefully for the rest of the night. That meant balancing every camera check, every sound he heard, every use of the doors perfectly.
First things first, find Freddy. After that, he could better determine where to go from there.
Mike ran another round of check-ins. He looked for anything resembling Freddy's soft brown color, his top hat, his ears. The others, he found easily, and dealt with them accordingly. He also kept the shadowy creature in the back of his mind, knowing to try to locate that too.
It only added to his paranoia. The shadow thing hid well in the shadows, and from what little he glimpsed of it, it hid easily behind the much larger animatronics and knew how to utilize its surroundings. How was he to defend himself if he couldn't locate it? Mike glanced to the open doors on either side of him. Had it already gotten in?
...Best not to think about it.
A glimpse of the west hall showed the ten children's sketches and their varying subjects of smiling children and animatronics, cake, balloons, happy families, and the yellow Bonnie portrait. Mike practically memorized that view and never bothered with it anymore.
This time, though, black scribbles infected every single one, blacking out the eyes and mouths of their subjects, with the once-white backgrounds now heavily colored with black crayon. Dark streaks dripped down from the eyes and mouths, almost like blood.
Mike blinked, and the drawings became normal again. He blinked a few times, then shoved the thought aside. Finding Freddy took priority over whatever weirdness this was.
On his third round of checking the cameras, the blind spots, and flicking his flashlight down the hallway in the rare times he felt confident enough, Mike briefly remembered something Phone Guy told him yesterday, something about Freddy liking the dark.
He started paying more attention to the shadows, and finally noticed the two pinpricks in the back of the dining area, staring up at him from the shadows.
"There you are," Mike whispered darkly.
With the others accounted for at the moment, he shut off the monitor, then glanced to the open doors on both sides. The shadow thing still remained on his thoughts as he picked up the flashlight, turned it on, and made quick checks of both hallways.
Nothing weird so far. Just the tiles, the sketches on the walls, the silvery stars twirling from the ceiling. Mike did a quick search of his office then, checking behind him, under the desk, even the ceiling. He found nothing out of the ordinary.
Mike turned the monitor back on, to Freddy still hiding in the back of the dining room, Foxy pacing in front of the now-open curtains - shit he really didn't need right now - and Bonnie examining the endoskeleton in the back room. All the while, Mike kept his power levels under strict watch. The building's lights flickered again. Mike willed them not to go out as Phone Guy's comments about an empty costume crept over his thoughts. He quickly glanced at the other cameras.
It can happen to you too.
"Stop it," he told himself. "I'm fine."
The thought went back to the recesses of his mind where it belonged. Mike slowly realized he saw no yellow chick in any of the camera views. Great, now Chica was nowhere to be seen or heard. He checked both doors real quick, then flipped to the bathrooms, half-expecting her to be there. What he actually saw caused him to leap from his seat.
Something blocked the camera, its face dark save for two shining pinpricks.
Freddy?
No, it couldn't be Freddy. What little edges Mike saw on the camera showed the thing's ovular face, but any further details disappeared in the darkness. Mike's hand reaching to hit the monitor dial to change views. Almost as if sensing what he intended to do, the thing backed away. The bathroom lights behind it filled in an aura around its face.
Red cheek circles. A white mask. Just enough light to pick out the thing's smile, the purple streaks down its face.
"...You," Mike whispered.
The Puppet nodded, though if it heard him, or merely wanted his attention, he couldn't be sure. It lifted one of its long, thin fingers and reached to gently tap it against the camera.
It pointed right at him.
"...Me?" Mike whispered.
Could it actually see him?
The Puppet made no confirmation. It merely tilted its head down to look at something beyond the camera. It then pointed to the lower left corner of the screen, before it looked back up at Mike.
Here.
Like before, the word entered Mike's mind. Unlike before, it spoke with a strength that cracked any denial he might have attempted. The lights flickered before the screen cut to white noise. The monitor blacked out. Instinctively, Mike shut it off, then quickly checked the doors on either side.
Safe, for now.
He turned the monitor back on.
The bathroom camera now stood empty.
Only half an hour to go.
The thought brought him some comfort. Over the course of the night, Mike took extreme care and caution to keep them all away. Freddy remained in the dining room, though sometimes he shifted his location and forced Mike to search for the tiny lights that made up his eyes. Occasionally, Mike saw other weirdness in the camera views, none of which really stuck out in his mind.
Foxy got a sprint in. Mike headed him off when he saw the curtains open and no pirate fox in sight. Like before, Foxy banged on the door and made his way back down the hall. Bonnie had yet to come by again, and Chica seemed content to stay in the dining room. The Puppet made no other appearances.
A miracle in and of itself when he was now down to 15% power.
Mike heard footsteps in the left hallway, much softer than Foxy's distinct metal clanging. He wasted no time to hit the button to turn on the hall lights.
They flashed brightly to reveal something in the window. Mike saw the shape first, the long ears, the blood red eyes, the purple coloring that barely stood out against the pale fluorescent. His heart jolted as he got up to shut the door.
Bonnie paid him little heed. He just stared through the window as the heavy metal door cascaded down. Mike shut off the door light, and grabbed his flashlight. He shone it up on the animatronic. Bonnie kept staring at him. His eyelids lowered a little, giving the robot a calm, almost mocking expression. He turned to go, moving more quietly than expected of a machine of his size.
Mike opened the door when he left. A glance of his watch said he still had twenty-five minutes until his shift ended, and Bonnie's visit brought his power levels down to 9%.
He frantically flipped through the views, noted everyone's location, turned the monitor off, and just sat in the dingy room and listened. Mike loosened his tie a little and rolled up his sleeves. He then turned off the fan, knowing it would help, even if a little.
And at least make it easier to hear them.
Like Freddy's laugh, and how he now lingered in the bathrooms. Chica's bustling in the kitchen. Strange music in the left hallway. Foxy humming his little ditty.
Time slowly ticked by, every minute counting down to his doom, every camera check done as sparingly as possible. Around 5:53am, Mike started another roll call and willed the clock to go faster. He watched the power drop from 5% to 4%.
"Only seven minutes," he told himself. "I can do this."
Foxy paced again, and this close to 6am, Mike had half a mind to just go out the right door and duck into the hallway if he saw the curtains empty again. Freddy's pinprick eyes still shone from the bathrooms. Chica stood in the east hall and examined some of the drawings. She wasn't yet close enough to risk wasting power.
That left one unaccounted for. Mike groaned. He remained calm as he flipped through the views, turned off the monitor, and carefully checked the left hallway. It helped knowing Chica stood in the other one. The hallways weren't wide enough for two, and it meant fewer places to look.
Mike swallowed hard as he turned the monitor on again. He reminded himself that he always found Bonnie before. The purple behemoth was just very quick. He probably went to another room while Mike was stuck searching another.
The thought hardly brought him any comfort. His searching caused the power level to drop to 2%, and allowed panic to creep back in.
Bonnie, Bonnie, Bonnie, his mind screamed, his eyes desperately looking for ears, for purple. Fucking hell, find Bonnie!
Mike held his breath to listen to the familiar sounds of the building. All of Bonnie's usual places on the cameras remained empty, with the exception of Chica now occupying the dining room. Foxy still paced at Pirate Cove, and Mike didn't give a damn about Freddy so long as a quick glance confirmed the pinpricks remained in the bathrooms.
Hallways: empty. Backstage: empty. Hall closet: empty.
Mike hit both door lights and saw nothing in the flickering lights on either side. He briefly wondered if that bunny bastard figured out one of the camera's blind spots, and just stood there waiting for an opportunity.
It's just a machine, he thought. It can't think.
Even if he more than knew better. Foxy, and now the Puppet, proved otherwise.
Mike turned on the monitor again to try to locate him. When another round came up empty, his entire body tensed. Every hair stood on end. His breath hitched with the distinct feeling that he no longer sat in the office alone. Mike heard a noise behind him, a long drawn out breath that brought to mind a zombie expelling dust and phlegm from its decaying lungs as it discharged the last dregs of life from its dying shell of a body.
Shit.
Mike froze, suddenly feeling very small and cornered. Part of him wanted to turn around and give into morbid curiosity. The other part wanted to make a break for it.
He never got to make that choice.
Mike choked a second later, his collar and tie forced against his throat as something strong grabbed him from behind and yanked him from his seat, his head thrown back with the force. He barely registered the feel of plush against his neck. The thick fingers tightening around his collar. Mike got only the briefest glimpse of the ceiling before he saw the dark form and glowing red circles.
The light overhead outlined the long ears, the edges of purple plush. The glow from the monitor lit up the permanently smiling face. The white teeth glint poignantly as the jaws opened wider.
Got you! he seemed to say.
Prize in hand, Bonnie turned toward the left door, pulling Mike along behind him. The hard black and white tiles felt cold and slick through his slacks as the animatronic dragged him from the room. Mike flailed. His fingers desperately worked on undoing his tie. He grabbed for his collar when that proved fruitless and tried to wedge his fingers under the top button.
Bonnie's tight grip ensured it remained in place.
The animatronic paid him no heed, even as his prisoner tried to no avail to pry the metal fingers away from his collar. This close, Mike heard every whirr, every electrical hum, every faint hiss of compression as Bonnie took each step. Worse, the longer the animatronic kept his hold, the more Mike noticed a gut-wrenching stench.
Like something died, and had been dead for years.
He struggled to breathe, Mike tried to rip the collar away as his own weight forced it to dig deeper into his skin. Silver stars blurred overhead. Crayon drawings smudged together. He briefly glimpsed the large gift box by the prize counter as they entered the dining room. Despite his hazy vision, Mike swore he saw the lid close.
Darkness crept into the corners of his sight as they passed the tables. Foxy stopped his pacing and turned, his teeth glinting almost in glee, his glowing yellow eyes cutting through the increasing darkness. Some of the video game cabinets flickered on, almost as if in celebration of his inevitable demise. Mike wondered if he imagined Freddy laughing.
It's happening, he thought. I'm next.
Bonnie halted suddenly. The mechanical whirring jarred a bit, preventing the rabbit from taking another step. His fingers loosened. The old cloth grazed against Mike's neck as Bonnie let him tumble to the ground. Behind him, heavy metal footsteps tromped over to the curtains, followed by a rustle of cloth. Mike forced in a breath, coughed, and moved a hand to rub against his throat as three more sets of footsteps converged on the stage.
He barely heard his watch beep as he collapsed to the floor.