5

The tragedy of that night shook the school as various versions of it spread from student to student. Suddenly everyone knew who the Sheppard twins were. Suddenly several people claimed that they had always known them and had been good friends with them. The only two people who knew what had really happened that night hadn't been seen and wouldn't be back to school for some time. An investigation was conducted to determine the cause of the fire at Fazbear's Fright and there were pending charges against both Scott and Amber for breaking and entering the establishment. The owners were under scrutiny for their lack of safety standards and the use of second-hand wiring and circuitry for the security cameras, which it was determined had sparked the fire.

The rabbit animatronic was to be collected for investigation, but there had been no trace found of the creature amongst the smouldering ruins. Police believed it to be the original 'Bonnie' animatronic worn by William Afton. It was a convertible suit that doubled from being wearable to functioning as a fully automated animatronic. It was state-of-the-art at the time of its creation. The police had reason to believe that Afton had been involved in the disappearances of the four children in 1987, with another child from a separate case possibly linked to them.

The next few weeks drifted by in a haze. Scott barely left his room after his questioning with the police, only leaving for his therapy sessions. Amber hadn't responded to any of his texts or calls and each time he checked his phone and saw no new replies his chest heaved with grief. He knew why she wasn't responding. She blamed him. The whole thing had been his idea. He had wanted to go to find out more about the old restaurant and the mystery around it that his dad had grown up through and never talked about. She thought the whole thing was in poor taste and was set to profit in blood money. The twins—the poor twins—they only wanted to go along with their new friends and make a name for themselves in a town where they were unknown nobodies.

A funeral was held for them two weeks after the incident. The coroner had released the bodies back to their parents after the causes of their deaths were determined and they were promptly cremated. The cause of Ryan's death was quickly discovered. Though his body was charred, there were no signs of smoke inhalation. He had died before the blaze had reached him. He had crush injuries around his chest cavity so severe that his internal organs had been forced upwards into, and blocking, his throat. His lungs were splintered with fragments of his broken ribs and one of his eyes had been partially pushed out.

Darcy's death was harder to determine as it was impossible to remove the old Fredbear animatronic head. Only when they had transferred her charred body onto the slab at the coroner's office, and the head and its contents snapped away from her shoulders, could the cause be quickly explained. The head was wearable only while the animatronic parts were held back by springlocks. When these failed, the parts immediately forced themselves back into their proper position and completely destroyed anything in between them. Her skull and its contents had been pushed through the head's mouth and around the eye sockets, while her hair was bunched up along the back, some of it still hanging out the bottom.

Scott Burke did not attend the funeral, which was a quiet affair attended by only a small group of relatives. The twins' parents had made it clear that Scott was to stay away and not to contact them. A small part of their ashes were buried in the cemetery grounds under a small white plaque nestled in the fresh green lawns. Their parents had not been seen since and were rumoured to have moved away with the remainder of the ashes in two small urns.

Scott had begun to dream about them. Mostly, they were standing before him in a long, endless corridor, both wearing bear heads. Darcy's was yellow with a purple hat, Ryan's was brown with a black one, the lower jaw missing. He would turn to run from them only to come face-to-face with the old yellow 'Bonnie' character as it loomed behind him. Sometimes he would dream that they were waiting for him at school, perfectly normal. He would tell them sheepishly that he thought for sure, was absolutely certain, that they were dead. They would laugh and tell him that no, they were fine. Of course, they were fine. It was okay. Those were the dreams he preferred.

Scott sat on the end of his bed, staring at the sent messages on his phone. They were all addressed to Amber who had not replied to any of them. It had been three weeks since the incident and last he saw of her she was being treated in a nearby ambulance. She had been limping after the rabbit had grabbed her by the ankle. He typed out a new message, one that read 'Amber, please' and sent it. He sat in the silent bedroom waiting to see those three dots appear next to her name indicating that she was replying. None appeared and he lied back onto the bed, putting his phone aside.

There was a knock on the door. Carlton Burke entered and looked around the dark, messy room before focusing on his son. His son, the very image of himself. The same red hair and the same sly smirk he used to get when he thought of a quip. The smirk that had been absent for the past few weeks. He looked down at his son and spoke.

"Are you okay?"

Scott didn't look at him but continued to stare at the ceiling as if it were the most interesting thing in the world. How could he look at him? How could he meet his gaze and look him in the eye after what he had caused? If only his father had told him, really sat down and talked to him about what had happened when he was young, Scott might not have been so curious to see for himself. He felt a low anger rising in him again, a misdirected rage aimed at his father.

"I'm fine. Go away."

"Scott," Carlton sighed. He looked at him with tired eyes. "Talk to me. I know how you f—"

"No, you don't! How could you? You were never responsible for two of your friends getting killed!"

"Yes, I was."

Scott looked over at him and could see that Carlton was on the verge of telling him something he had never talked about openly. He bit his tongue and waited.

"Scott, I may not have been in the same situation as you are, but I know the feeling all the same. Maybe I should have told you about it when you first started asking questions. When that damn place started opening." He walked across the room and leaned back on the window ledge opposite where Scott was sitting.

"When I was six years old, I was at a birthday party at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. It was this brand new place with all of these colourful characters running around. It was incredible. Even when you're a kid, you can always tell when it's a person in a suit, but these characters were different. They were real. Every family in town had gone there in its first week, and that's no exaggeration.

"I was there for a birthday party… I'm not really sure whose anymore… some kid in my class. I was there with my two friends Gabriel and Jeremy. The place was crowded and noisy and it was easy to wander off. There were those characters walking up and down the hallway with their plates of food serving it to us kids. Well, one character came up and seemed to speak to my friends. I was off with some other kids playing around with Freddy Fazbear and I looked over to see this yellow rabbit standing in front of them. It didn't look right. This one didn't feel real. It was some guy in a suit. I kept playing with Freddy and when I looked over again, I see Gabriel and Jeremy walking off, following the rabbit at a distance as it led them. It looked at me. The whole thing felt wrong.

"Pretty soon their parents start to look for them and more and more time passes, and the boys don't come back. I should have told them what I saw right away, but I was scared that the rabbit was going to come back for me. And I thought that surely someone else had seen the same thing that I had." Carlton was looking at the ground as he spoke, his eyes seeing something that happened a lifetime ago.

"Two more kids went missing the next day. Your grandad was the police chief back then, and when nobody came forward with any information, I told him what I saw. Of course, by then, it was too late. None of them have been found since." He looked back up at Scott, who hadn't moved nor made any attempt to interrupt, despite his phone pinging by his side as a message came through.

"If only I said something right away, they might have found them in time. That will always be on me. I'm not the one who did it, but I could have saved them, and I didn't. I always felt responsible."

Scott thought for a moment, those last words hanging uncomfortably long in the air.

"I think it was the same rabbit," Scott mumbled.

"Well, that's for your grandad to find out. He's been pushing for the case to be re-opened ever since that place started going up."

Scott was silent for a moment, thinking only of the friends that he had lost.

"Dad," he began, not looking him in the eye and refusing to blink lest his cheeks become wet. "What do I do now? They're gone because of me! What do I do when I can't stop thinking about them?"

"You cry," Carlton replied simply. They looked each other in the eyes, understanding each other better than they had ever before. They had now both been affected in the same way, by the same cause, by the same fault. They were more like each other than the realised. "You just… cry."

They sat for a moment, neither of them speaking. Eventually, Carlton stood up and left the bedroom, giving Scott's shoulder a squeeze on the way out. Scott sat for a while and, after wiping his eyes, picked up his phone to read the new message. It was from Amber.

For the first time since asking her out what felt like a lifetime ago, he felt a flutter of nerves about reading it. Swallowing, he opened the message and his heart sank.

'Stop messaging me.'

He threw the phone down and sat slumped over on the end of his bed, not moving.

-xxxxx-

It was late afternoon and the cemetery was quiet. A soft breeze swept across the deep green lawns making the grass blades flicker against the edges of the low, white headstones. A car crept slowly through the entrance through the white fence that ran along the perimeter and continued on down the single lane road. It parked and Scott Burke climbed out, alone. He walked silently along the rows of headstones, making his way towards the small plaques. He walked along them and stopped, having found what he was looking for.

There lay a small, white plaque with the names of his old schoolmates on it.

Darcy Sheppard & Ryan Sheppard

2001 – 2017

Taken too soon

Rest in Peace.

On the plaque was no blame, no explanation. Only the names and dates of the departed that were relevant only to those who knew them. Scott sat and stared at it for longer than he intended or realised. The letters began to blur and shimmer and he closed his eyes, seeing only the faces of the dead.

A second car had rolled into the cemetery and came to a halt behind his own. Scott didn't look up, only listening as the stranger's footsteps crunched on the gravel towards him. He hoped it wasn't someone he knew. The footsteps stopped short just behind him and he heard an unexpected voice address him. It was his grandfather, Clay Burke.

"Hey, Scott. Your dad said you might be here."

Scott turned around and looked up into the old, lined face. Hi grandfather was a tall, thin man. His hair had been brown in his heyday, but it was now almost completely grey. He looked Scott directly in the eyes as Scott stood up to meet him.

Though he was his beloved grandfather, Scott always felt intimidated by the man. He had been the Chief of Police during the case of 1987 and had worked tirelessly on it. He had a suspect that he was personally sure of, though never had the evidence to convict him. He was retired, but the opening of Fazbear's Fright had caused him to push for the case be reopened. Due to his intimate knowledge, he was asked to come back to help work with the police as more evidence came to light. All that was left was to recover the old suit and see if they could get a DNA sample from the corpse they suspected was inside. Though he was not uncaring, he was often quick to get to the point of his visits.

"So, Scott," he began. He was much like his son, Carlton. "How are you doing? Are you coping okay?"

Here it was. The same old questions. The same questions that Scott was dreading to hear over and over again when he went back to school.

"I'm doing fine, thanks," Scott replied flatly. "Except for the part were two of my friends died because of me and my girlfriend won't talk to me, I'm doing good."

Clay could take the hint. He looked around across the cemetery and considered what he was interrupting.

"Okay, sure. I won't waste your time. But I do want to ask you something if you'll let me." Scott nodded, and Clay continued. "As you know, I was on the old case back in the eighties. Your dad was classmates with two of the kids that went missing and it so easily could have been him, so I was taking it very seriously." Scott said nothing and listened. He had heard the story before, but not from him.

"Your father said that he saw a man in a yellow rabbit suit. We checked the cameras, but they showed very little. They would glitch out whenever that character got too close and there was no footage of it directly with the kids. I interviewed every single person that worked there, even pulled up information from the animatronics there. They were all tied into our database at the time to spot any known predators. They all had nothing. But there was one guy who just rubbed me the wrong way—the owner, William.

"See, that suit looked like one of the old ones that the two owners, William and Henry, used to wear at the old diner." Scott's heart skipped a beat. That name. It had been buried in the back of his mind for the last few weeks, buried under the grief. He had seen it on the wall of the museum when he and Amber were escaping the fire. It had struck him then, but he had forgotten it until now. Clay continued.

"Henry hadn't been seen since his daughter died, so William was the man in charge ever since. He was very helpful with the investigations, even set up a charity for the affected families. It was a blow to his company's image, but he fought through it and was determined to prove that his restaurant was safe. But it always seemed pretend to me.

"I asked him about the suit, and he told me that he would sometimes test it. It was wearable, but it was ultimately an animatronic just like the others. He told me that he would sometimes activate it and have it interact with the children. Said he wanted to bring it back as a character—Springtrap, as it was called by the techs back then. It used to be called Bonnie, but that name now belonged to the blue rabbit since the yellow one was decommissioned. He wanted to call it Spring Bonnie.

"So, anyway," Clay pulled out a folder from his jacket and opened it, pulling out a large photograph. "Was this the animatronic that you saw that night?"

Scott looked at it. It was a photo of two yellow animatronics up on a stage. They were brand new. One was a big bear with a purple top hat and the other was a rabbit with a large smile.

"Yes," Scott replied. "That's the same one."

"I thought it might have been. This will sound weird, but was there anybody inside the suit? William and the suit went missing not long after the franchise closed, and I have reason to believe that he was killed by it malfunctioning while he was wearing it."

"Killed?" Scott thought about the voice he heard call out to him as he reached the stairs. The one he never told anyone about. He swore it said, 'Help me', but now thought that it may have said something else. It may have said, 'Henry'. The voice didn't sound pleading—it sounded angry. Though if the man was dead, there was no reason to think that it had spoken at all. If there was a man inside that suit and he was alive, he was almost certainly dead now. Although, the animatronic was never recovered from the wreckage. Clay interrupted his thoughts.

"We were so close to bringing it in for examination and finally finding out, but now…" he sighed. It would still be the case that eluded him. Another effect of Scott's misadventures. "Anyway, that was all I wanted to ask. You take care of yourself."

He left without another word and Scott watched as the man started his car and drove out of the cemetery, the gravel crunching beneath the wheels. Scott turned back towards the small plaque. He should have brought something to place by it, or at least prepared something to say. Instead, he thought of the happier dreams he had had of them—the ones where he had sat next to them in class and told them that he thought they were dead. The ones where they both looked at him and with a laugh told him that they were fine. Everything was okay.

He didn't believe that. It wasn't okay, and never would be.

A cool breeze swept across the lawns of the cemetery, dead leaves swirling around his feet. He began to shake, alone in the green lawn, his shoulders hunched and his head down, face hidden. He shook, but not because of the cold breeze.

-xxxxx-

The bell rang out through the still air from Hurricane High School. A mob of students filed into the hallways towards their classrooms. Scott avoided everyone's eye as he moved through the crowds. There was only one person he wanted to see, but she was avoiding him as much as he was avoiding everyone's stares. She had him blocked on all social media and he hadn't heard anything about her. She wanted him to leave her alone and he was honouring that, though he still wanted to get a glimpse of her.

Finally, he spotted her waiting outside of a classroom door with some other girls. She was on crutches and Scott was shocked to see that she was missing a foot. The grip that the animatronic, Springtrap, had had on her ankle proved devastating. She was talking with the other girls, her new friends. She almost looked happy.

Scott no longer wanted her to see him. He wanted to get away from them, away from everyone. He wanted desperately for everything to just go back to how it was. The girls went quiet and Scott saw that they were looking at him. The slight smile that had been on Amber's face vanished when she realised who they were looking at. Scott's and Amber's eyes met, and in that moment he understood. They had spoken so completely and without words, and he understood her better than he ever had.

Like him, she blamed him for everything. Like him, she missed the twins fiercely and regretted them coming with them. She had been lucky. She had kept her life, permanently altered though it may be. Like him. The bell rang again, and Amber and the other girls filed into the classroom. Scott turned and began to hurry towards his own.

It would take time, but everything would become normal again. They had been through so much in only a few weeks, but they would get through it. Just not yet. The pain would leave, and the dreams would happen less and less often. The bad dreams would stop and for a while only the good dreams would remain. The good dreams would begin to feel like memories and one day he would be able to convince himself that they were real, that he had seen the twins that one last time in the classroom when he asked them if they were okay. If they were dead. He would remember how they told him that they were fine, and he would remember the endearing laugh that they gave him.

They were fine and they did not blame him. He would remember how they sat together for that last class and how they left smiling when it ended. He would convince himself that he'd one day see them again.

It wasn't perfect, but it would have to do for now.

THE END