Mable: Time to go into the abyss.
Almost Feels Like Home
Chapter Ninety-One
Fazbear Entertainment's personal factory was unlike what they were used to with Afton Robotics. Instead of looking futuristically sleek, with narrow corridors and cleanly tiled floors, the open room they stepped into looked much more rustic. The only light except for the flashlight was some coming through high, dusty windows into this foyer. There were a few dirty, dusty stations that looked like they were for mounting and working on animatronics and even a few abandoned pieces of endoskeleton left behind. Including some legs left on one of the stands.
While the room stretched further into the back, where there were workstations and desks before ending in more double doors, there was also a dusty glass window to the left that looked in on another large room. Upon shining the light on the glass some conveyor belts could be seen, but it was too fogged to see much else. Everything smelled dusty and there was sand and cobwebs all over. It was hard to believe that any investigation had happened at this building recently.
Mike looked around and whistled. "Definitely a step down from ARI. You would think that Fazbear Entertainment of all people could afford better than this," he said. It fit the creepy vibe he expected from an abandoned factory but didn't resemble what he expected from what disguised itself as a sterile company. At least to the general public.
"You've got to keep in mind that this was after many of the lawsuits. They didn't really have the money to invest in a setup to rival Will's, and they didn't really need one to be honest. Almost all their animatronics were being reused so they really didn't need to make too many complete bodies anymore," Scott explained. He was borderline rambling but the other two were too interested in the background to stop him. "I don't think it was open that long. Maybe a few years at most."
"I couldn't imagine being posed on one of those to be worked on," Marionette remarked. He looked over the stand with a mix of curiosity and unease, wondering if any of the animatronics he knew had been worked on here. He knew that he hadn't but Foxy couldn't have been accountable for all those years. Not that he received much maintenance then. "It would be like being on stage at your most vulnerable moment."
"It's like a cross between an operating theater and an assembly plant. Looks like most of the automated parts are over in that section though," Mike said as he shined the lights on those other windows again. There still wasn't a good angle to look through them. He continued scanning the room with the light slowly. "What would Burke find here other than some broken down Freddys?"
There was a long pause before Marionette quietly answered, "…The bodies." Mike's head snapped to him and the puppet looked more uncertain and uneasy. "So many bodies were stuffed into suits, Mike. Children, employees, they had to go somewhere. Not all of them were reported to the proper authorities and I suppose those might've been brought here… Those that weren't taken by the Purple Man himself."
"Oh Lord, you're right. That's what he found. He found bodies," Scott choked. He instantly began to lose his cool as he looked around in paranoia. Sweat was already forming on his forehead as his nerves kicked in.
"We don't know that yet," Mike started to defend. Marionette gave him a silent stare and waited for another explanation. "…But I'm not going to pretend that's not the most likely scenario." The puppet's face fell, and the man reached out to pat his back with an exhale. "Alright, let's see…" he said as he shined the light around. It eventually found its way onto a couple of open double doors in the back that looked like they led into a hallway. "Looks like someone's been back there. Let's check that out."
The three headed into the back and found a dark hallway waiting for them. There was an unresponsive elevator and past that a doorway, a door at the end of the hall, and a corner leading off somewhere by the latter door. The first doorway caught their attention the most, the one right at the corner where it turned off. It looked like an open office door and, sure enough, they looked inside to see a desk, an office chair, and a couple of file cabinets.
The one thing that stood out was what looked like an open fuse box against the wall beside the desk. There were monitors on the desk and between them and the wall was a mounted lever, almost looking like it activated the main breaker. Scott carefully approached the desk and looked around at the fuse box.
"I can't imagine being the night guard that had to work in a place like this… Maybe if we can get the electricity on, we can look at the security footage. Maybe that's what Clayton found," Scott suggested.
He started to check the fuses and flipped any that were off to on. So far there wasn't a response and it gave Mike and Marionette time to look around. Not that there was much to look at. Marionette had become fixated on an old Freddy poster that was still hanging on the wall while Mike stood alongside the door to look over the dusty supplies left on a file cabinet.
"O-Okay. Let's see if that does it," Scott forewarned. He sat down in the office chair and reached for the final lever, throwing it and activating everything to start. The lights flickered, a dull hum filled the facility, and then with a sudden pop everything failed once again, and the factory returned to darkness. "No good. Okay, let me try this again. Maybe with less of the fuses on." Scott wheeled the chair slightly to the side and began to check the switches again, now making note of which ones blew.
A dull groaning noise travelled down the hallway. It was mechanical and heavy, but it was impossible to tell if it was machinery, the settling of the factory, or something else. Mike looked towards the doorway out of the corner of his eye.
"Did you hear that?" Marionette quietly asked. Mike nodded and leaned out the doorway to shine his light down the halls. There was nothing there. In the meantime, the puppet turned back to the poster. Now he raised himself up to reach for it and ran his fingers down it. He noticed that he could feel little ridged underneath the paper and knew it was covering something.
"Second time's the charm. First time I turned everything on and it couldn't support it, so this time I think it's only going to be the lights. It's hard to tell with these little notes all over the place," to which he was referring to a few sticky notes with tiny memos on them. Only one of them directing to a fuse and it just explaining which one turned on power to the basement. With them in place, he pushed back to the desk and grabbed for the lever.
"Here goes nothing," Scott said before pulling it down and restarting the power again.
This time it looked like it took. The lights started to flicker on, the humming from before was much quieter, and then without any warning, a security door slammed down beside Mike.
"Geez!" he cried as he stepped aside. The doorway had looked like it was made with a security door, but he had no warning it would activate like that. There weren't even any buttons alongside it. "That could've taken my arm off," he muttered.
"Maybe there was a power surge and it activated the door? Uh, sorry about that!" Scott said awkwardly. He turned back to the computer and pressed the button for it. "Let's see if this'll come on…"
"It better, because if it doesn't, we don't-." Mike cut off as he turned back to the Phone Guy and, now with the lights on, could see the ceiling. His eyes widened as he saw what was hanging over his head. "Scott!"
Scott barely had time to react before the younger man grabbed the office chair and violently yanked him back out of the way. Once he was back near the door, Mike pointed up at the ceiling and then did he see it.
There was a hole in the ceiling, almost as wide around as the chair was, and just barely sticking out was a bundle of steel pipes. They weren't connected to anything and instead were just mounted precariously over right where Scott had been sitting.
He almost thought he overreacted when nothing happened, but it was just delayed. As soon as the computer screen lit up there was a clicking noise somewhere in the ceiling and the pipes dropped. They hit the floor with a thunderous banging while some of them even fell askew and stabbed into the monitor and caused it to flicker and die again. If Scott had been underneath the pipes he would've been impaled if not completely eviscerated, which he realized quickly.
"Wha-What? How-?" Scott shakily choked out as he grabbed the arms of the office chair.
"That wasn't an accident," Mike announced. He looked to Marionette, "You saw that too, right? That was a booby trap. That was set to go off." The puppet nodded and looked just as disturbed. Not nearly as unsettled as Scott who stood shakily from the office chair.
"On- On second thought, I think I just- I think I need to go wait in the van. I, uh, I don't want to leave you two alone in here, but I just- I need to go," Scott half-rambled as he shuffled back towards the door. Neither of them were going to dissuade him after what just happened. He looked around the door for a release button or keypad and found nothing. "Uh… There's not- This door won't open."
"It's probably a trap too. Set to stay closed if anyone turns the power on so that nobody can get back out if they survived that," Mike pointed out. His cynical outlook only made Scott more uneasy, but he himself was already working on a plan of escape. "So, it might be as easy as shutting the power back off. That's what usually gets these doors open."
He started to walk towards the desk when Marionette stopped him with a hand on his shoulder, then smoothly moved past him to approach the desk himself. He sent a wary look at the pipes before reaching for the lever and trying to lift it again to shut off the power. Except the lever was now stuck in the on position. It didn't budge no matter how much the puppet pushed or pulled.
It was only then that a slow growing dread started to crawl up Mike's spine as his brows slowly raised. "…We're actually trapped," he said in disbelief.
"What are we going to do?! As soon as they don't find you at home, Burke's going to know I called and warned you, and they're going to come looking for us both! It's only a matter of time before they find us-!" He suddenly cut off before getting a look of horror. "You… You don't think Burke- that this- that he did this?"
"I could've believed he did this," Mike clarified as he knocked on the door. Then he pointed to the pipes, "But that? No way. I've met Burke and he's hardheaded, but he's not a complete loon. This reeks of something William set up before he croaked." Though right after he said it he started to second guess it. "But how the hell did the cops investigate this place without setting it off?"
Marionette gave an irritated static noise as he gave up on fiddling with the fuse box. Trying to flip the fuses didn't do anything, as though the box itself was locked in place. He turned back to the two humans before beckoning them.
"There's another way out," Marionette said. He then returned to the poster on the wall and tore it down to reveal a vent opening hiding behind it. He looked closer at the screws holding it in. "Does anyone have a coin I can use? It'll be quicker that way."
"Hold on a second…" Mike reached into his wallet and got a quarter that he handed over. Then he looked back to Scott and pointed his thumb at the file cabinet. "Can you help me bring that cabinet over?"
Scott agreed and came over to help him. Thankfully the cabinet must've been emptied as it wasn't as heavy as they expected it to be. They made short work of moving it underneath where the vent was. By then Marionette unscrewed and removed the vent cover. He flicked the coin back over his shoulder towards Mike- who somehow caught it, impressing Scott- and then slid into the vent.
Mike turned to Scott. "Do you want to go next?" he offered. To which the older shook his head, fumbled something out, and waved him ahead. The security guard agreed and climbed up and into the vent.
The vent was pitch dark and smelled like a mix of dust and burnt plastic. It was cramped but no more than any other vent, if anything this was one of the roomier ones Mike had gotten stuck climbing through. The only thing that seemed odd was the temperature in the vent. He expected it to be cold considering that it was metal, but instead it was stuffy. Maybe the heat outside was somehow working its way into the ventilation system. He didn't pay it much mind and shined the flashlight ahead past Marionette.
They waited until Scott climbed into the vent before they started to move. Marionette was in the lead and moved fluidly through the vent as Mike followed close behind with the flashlight.
"You know, I was just thinking about what you said… And I think you had a good point when you said that trap looked like it was made by Will. I mean, I don't know if Will ever made traps, but I'm pretty sure he knew about this place. He, uh… He wasn't very friendly with competition, and after the falling out with Freddy's they were pretty much competition. There's a good chance he got in here and did something. Maybe tried to sabotage them or something, you know, maybe," Scott rambled uncomfortably. He cleared his throat. "But I'm just thinking out loud."
"So, you don't know of any accidents that might've shut this place down?" Mike asked.
"Not that I know about. They were open back when I was working as assistant manager, so I was handling only some of the paperwork and I wasn't the one coming out here," Scott explained. That seemed to be the end of any possible leads and they fell silent as they went around a corner.
Marionette could see another hatch at the end of the next section of vent and began to speed up towards it. His legs brushed the bottom of the vent as he easily slipped towards the vent towards his prize. When suddenly something snapped around him. A metal wire that had been hidden in the grooves of the vent suddenly tightened around his middle, catching one of his arms and trapping him in place. He immediately began to thrash like a trapped animal as he rang 'Pop Goes the Weasel' in alarm.
"Mari!" Mike saw him get snared and crawled to him quickly. He grabbed for the puppet who was still panicking and fighting against the wire. "Take it easy! It's okay, just let me see it. I'll get you out," he promised. This got Marionette to stop long enough for him to see what had caught him. It looked like a makeshift snare trap made with a metal cable and was so tight that it dug into his fabric.
"Okay, maybe we can try to loosen this up…" Mike said as he started to try and fit his fingers underneath the wire. "Or maybe you can teleport out?" he asked. Marionette nodded, calming down enough to try and do so. Right before he did there was another loud click in the vent, followed by a humming and a rumbling through the vents. Mike's head snapped up in alarm, "Now what is that?"
He was answered both by the gust of hot air that suddenly blew through the vent and Scott guessing, "It sounds like a heater."
Mike almost made a sarcastic comment about it- of course it had to be something uncomfortable kicking on for no reason- but then he suddenly focused on what it was. It was a heater, a unit made to heat up the vents, suddenly kicking on and heating the vents in only a matter of seconds. In an instant he was having flashbacks back to Chance's pizzeria and wasn't willing to wait and see if it was a similar circumstance.
He just looked to Marionette and gave a firm, "Teleport out. Quick."
It didn't take Marionette being told twice. He got a look of horror as he suspected the same thing and focused enough to teleport himself out, ending up only a foot further down the vent. He instantly turned over and hurried to the hatch at the end to try and force it open, as he couldn't do the quarter trick from the inside.
Mike caught up with him quickly. "Move, I got it," he instructed. As soon as the puppet was squeezed beside him and out of the way, Mike began to kick at the vent at the end. Even though old it was resilient and only shuddered slightly under his blows. One random hit sent it flying off the vent and crashing to the floor. He knew he hadn't done that alone but wasn't about to argue against Marionette's help.
Both climbed out quickly. By now Mike was already sweating so he felt the full force of the chilled air as he dropped into the room. They were at the top of a stairwell leading down into a basement level, right beside a metal, normal door that with a keypad beside it. They waited for Scott to climb out as he took a little longer to get out. His face was pinkened and he was shaking worse in the hands as he turned to them.
They turned their attention on the door to their left first and Mike pulled his taser off his belt and held it up. "Think the overload trick will work?" he asked. Marionette gave a partial shrug.
"It might be worth a try," the puppet said. This seemed like enough of a go-ahead and Mike stepped forward to do so.
"Wait!" Scott caught up to him and stopped him before he could do anything further. He then reached to the keypad and tried a brief combination. "Let's just see if this works…" After he pressed the enter button, the keypad beeped and there was a click as the door unlocked. The two looked surprised and Scott gave a strained smile. "The year Freddy's opened. It works like a charm about twenty-five percent of the time."
Scott cautiously pushed the door open, being sure to look up at the ceiling and around the walls and floor before daring to step out. It was another hallway, but from the size and the corner at the end it seemed very likely that it was connected to the hall they were just in. He exhaled in relief and stepped out. "I think we're in the clear. That way should lead right back to the office."
"You go ahead. Mari and I are going to head downstairs and keep looking," Mike offered. Scott looked to him in surprise and saw he was dead serious. Then he looked to Marionette, who seems to be on the same page as he nodded in agreement without taking much time to think.
"But… You can't think this is a good idea! That back there- That's a sign. Someone doesn't want us in here, and I don't think there's going to be only two traps in here. Three if we count the heater. Four if we count the door," Scott rambled in alarm. He looked between the two. "I- I know what's on the line with Burke, but it's pretty clear that something's wrong here."
"I know. That's why we're going to keep going, because obviously there's something here if someone tried this hard to rig the place up," Mike pointed out. He gave a slow exhale and sent a weary glare behind him and down the stairs. "There really isn't any other option. Either we find out what's in here or I take the fall for a crime I didn't commit… But we'll be more careful from now on."
Scott still looked doubtfully at the two. He looked down at his radio, looking like he was considering using it, but then just gave a defeated sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'll come with you," he agreed.
"Scott, you don't have to," Mike insisted more firmly. "Look, you almost got maimed just getting the lights on. Don't come with us. I rather only have one life on the line." Scott shook his head.
"No, I need to… You might need me," he excused.
Marionette's face grew more serious. "We all know that we might face something worse once we get downstairs. If we have already weathered four traps making it to the stairs, then there is something in here worth hiding… And once you see whatever it is, you won't forget it. You shouldn't put yourself in that situation." He slowly turned his head towards Mike. "…That goes for you too, Mike."
"You couldn't pay me not to go with you," Mike quickly declined.
"No, I know you're coming… But if I see something that you shouldn't, I ask you to take my word for whatever it is and to not look. I don't want you to have those memories," Marionette explained. Mike wasn't entirely sure if he agreed, but at this point he nodded along with it. Things could always change later, and they didn't have the time to mull over such trivial details. He was sure he could survive whatever he saw. The puppet looked back to the Phone Guy, "Are you sure, Scott?"
"…I'm- I'm not going to be the one who runs away again. I've seen plenty. Might need another set of credible eyes," Scott tried to sound convincing. Then he beckoned them towards the stairs. "But if it's alright with you two I'm going to just… Be staying in the back, okay? I'll let you two go first."
"No arguments here," Mike said with a slight smile. He then turned back to the stairs and started down them, taking careful steps in case there was another trap waiting to be sprung. Marionette was right at his side looking around just as carefully as Scott followed a few steps behind.
Whatever was down here they knew they had to find it.
Charlie was starting to grow antsy at how long it had been since the three went into the warehouse. She had expected it to be a little while before Marionette came back to get her but knew that this was too long. He wouldn't have lied either, so she knew that something must've happened inside. Either that or they found something and forgot all about coming back. Neither was a good sign.
Just when she was starting to consider going inside, something happened that she did not expect. Another car drove into the parking lot and parked far enough away that she got a chance to look at it. For a second she was relieved to see that it wasn't a police car, but that only lasted until the doors opened and she saw who was climbing out, no longer hidden by the sun glinting on the windows. She was shocked.
The group was oblivious to the fact that they were being watched but had noticed the vehicles parked there right off the bat. Without any hesitation, John strode over to the navy car with Carlton in tow and they looked inside. It only took them a few seconds to come to the same conclusion.
"It's Mike's. I'm sure of it," John said to the others. He then looked past at the van with the obvious 'Foxy's Pirate Cove' on the side and his face grew more firm. "The others must be here too. Maybe they're trying to get rid of the evidence."
"Isn't it a little too late for that? If Clay found anything then they must've hauled it off to the police station by now," Lamar pointed out. He looked at Carlton. "What did he say they found again?" Carlton just gave a half shrug.
"He doesn't know. He just overheard him talking on the phone and saying they found evidence here," Jessica explained. She then looked towards the front doors and noticed one was still left slightly open. "They must already be inside."
"We're not… Actually going inside, are we?" Marla hesitantly asked.
"We're not going to find anything out here," John reminded. All he could see in Mike's car was what looked like a sheet or tarp that fell in the backseat floorboard. Nothing incriminating or that would give them any sort of clues. He turned away from the car. "I'm going in. You all can wait here or come with me, but I've come to far to go back."
"Same," Jessica agreed. She exhaled slowly and straightened her back. "He might be our last chance at finding out what really happened."
Little did the group know, but they were being watched. They were paying too much attention to Mike's car to notice the glimpse of something in the van's window.
"I don't believe this!" Ennard hissed in quiet shock. He sunk back further behind the seat so they wouldn't be able to see him. "This can't be happen-ening!"
"It's the cops, isn't it?" Baby flatly asked. "Isn't that wonderful? They take forever on an emergency, but they get here at a moment's notice."
"Oh, I wish! It's that weird, redheaded guy who was stalking me the other night! I don't know wha-what the heck he's doing here, but that's him alright! I'd recognize him a-a-anywhere!" Ennard explained. He was abruptly cut off by a loud cracking noise as Baby's head suddenly turned to stare at him.
"What was that?"
Only then did he realize his mistake, having effectively incriminated himself. If he could've started sweating he would've. "Ha, I didn't tell ya? Remember about a week ago when that car kept parking down the street and leaving? Well, a couple of days before that-."
"You let yourself get seen," Baby snapped. She barely managed to stay quiet with her anger. "You could be the whole reason this is happening. That detective's evidence could've been you."
"Take it easy! It wasn't the police that saw me! And even if it was, how'd seeing me walk around tip 'em off to Mike doing something? I'm all innocent here," Ennard defended. He peeked back out of the van window again to avoid having to look at Baby's steaming expression. He looked just in time to see the group heading for the front doors. "Oh nooo. They're heading inside!"
"Call Scott. Warn him," Baby firmly commanded.
Ennard clicked the button and whispered into the radio. "Scott, you hear me?" There was no response beyond a low crackling. "Scott, come in! We've got a pretty big emergency out here!" Though he cut off when he noticed something almost immediately after the door shut and the people disappeared inside.
As soon as her friends were gone, Charlie uncovered herself and looked back at the warehouse. She had been able to hear them talking and now knew why they were here, or why they thought they were here, and it was disturbing to know that even they weren't sure of what Mike was getting arrested on. That and Mike and Marionette's long departure gave Charlie a bad feeling, and then a sense of déjà vu when she realized she had been in this position before. Alone and waiting in a car, unsure what was happening inside and yet knowing it would be awful.
She had felt that same way sitting in that parking lot before her death. She knew well what had come of her decision to leave the safety of her car and go looking on her own, and she had no reason to believe that it would go just as disastrously if she tried it again. She had everything to lose… But then again, sitting here and waiting could lead to that same outcome.
Last time she saved the life of a little girl, maybe this time it would be her friends and family.
With that final thought, Charlie swallowed her fear, looked out to make sure nobody was left to watch, and climbed out of the car. It was a risk she had to take, and she sprinted over to the front door.
"What's happening? What is it?" Baby pried. She nudged him in the back. "You have to tell me what you see."
"I see Charlie getting out of the car…" Ennard drew out. "…And she just went inside."
"…What?" Baby's eye twitched. "Why? Why would she go after them?"
"Probably to do the same thing I'm trying to do, warn the guys that there's a gaggle of people coming in," Ennard pointed out. He was then taken aback by the sound of the van's back doors opening. He swiveled around and grabbed Baby's ankle at the last second before she could climb out. "Wait, wait, wait! That doesn't mean we've gotta go in! We promised- I promised Scott we were gonna stay put!"
"But Scott told you to keep an eye on me, didn't he? That might be easier if you follow me inside," Baby challenged. With that, she pulled free and fully climbed out. She wouldn't be swayed.
He had no interest in dragging himself out of the van and into a place like this, but it was becoming increasingly obvious that he didn't have a choice in the matter. His arm was twisted, and his promise would have to be broken, especially since Scott was still not answering. Ennard gave a staticky mutter under his breath as he took his finger off the radio's call button.
"Are you coming?" Baby asked. She was waiting for him outside the door. She looked around to make sure they were safe and then looked back at him expectantly. His arm was definitely twisted.
"… Of course I am!" Ennard said as he forced his usual tone. "Can't possibly see this going wrong. Heh, no. Course not…"
But if anyone asked, none of this was his idea. He wasn't taking the fall for this lapse in judgement.
The basement was moderately tighter and more crowded than the upper floors. Old, outdated electronic and boxes filled with endoskeleton parts to never be used crammed the walkways. Most of them looked like they had been factory new before they were abandoned but there were occasionally old pieces of costumes that were well worn and long forgotten. It seemed like after the business failed nobody came back to get what was left behind.
They were passing through a tight corridor stacked with shelves when a crackling noise came from Scott's radio. He quickly lifted it to try and hear what it was trying to make it through, but it was too staticky to make out more than the distant hum of a voice. As soon as it stopped, he pressed the button and tried to speak into the receiver.
"Ennard, is that you?" he asked to no response. "…Anyone? Is there anybody there?" There was still no response. He slowly lowered the radio with an uneasy look. "Well, that answers the question on whether we're going to get interference or not. I was afraid of that…"
"Looks like we're not calling for backup anytime soon," Mike muttered. That made him a little less comfortable, but he wasn't willing to say that out loud.
Instead he focused in on a window they were coming up on. He looked through the glass and saw two conveyor belts leading into what looked like deactivated furnaces. The belt was covered in old parts, as though they had just been halted in place when the factory was stopped. Just rubbish that would've been burned away left to sit there when nobody came back.
"Maybe we should check in here," Mike offered. He looked over the open doorframe warily before narrowing his eyes. "And here's another security door. Gee, I wonder what's going to happen when we go through."
Looking through the door he could see a few steps leading down into the furnace room. From this look alone he couldn't see and signs of trip wires or obvious traps, though he wasn't entirely convinced. There was a button outside of the door, akin to the usual light and open buttons seen on security doors, and he tried it. The door closed and he tried it again, to which it open, to which he continued pressing the button and received appropriate responses. He was still somewhat wary.
"Alright, I'm going to try and go through," he finally offered. Marionette seemed uneasy by this and slipped through the door before him. But if he thought something would trigger then he was mistaken because there was no response. He looked back to see Mike giving him a disapproving look. Marionette returned with a smile and a partial shrug. The man scoffed and carefully stepped down the stairs.
Then, before Scott could even step inside, Mike stepped down onto the third step down and the metal plating dropped under his weight. The security guard gave a shocked, "Oomph!" as he fell, stopped from going all the way through by something tightening around his calf and breaking his fall. His other knee hit the step painfully as he floundered. He was entirely unsurprised when the security door slammed behind him.
"Damn!" Mike hissed as he shifted awkwardly. Marionette was horrified by the scene and dropped down to look between the steps. To his alarm, Mike's leg was caught in a snare that looked very much like the one in the vent. The wire led back into the wall underneath the door, so it looked like it was what triggered the door to close. "How bad's the damage?" Mike asked.
Marionette hummed and tried to tug on the snare. He could just barely fit his fingers under the metal wire. "Tight fit. This is going to take a little working," he answered. To make it easier on them both, Mike sat down on the steps and tried to ease the tension on the snare.
Scott looked in through the window and could see some of what was happening. He had a pretty good idea of what happened by seeing Mike's leg stuck in the steps. He couldn't tell how bad the damage was and the thought of a broken or injured leg down here made him cringe. He needed to see if he could help, so he tried the button on the door with low expectations that it would open.
What he didn't expect was the loud buzzing noise that suddenly rattled out from a speaker on the ceiling above the door. Scott looked up in surprise and released the button which immediately stopped the noise. Startled but not entirely detoured, he looked in the window again. Mike was looking back at him and he shrugged without an answer and continued to watch.
For a little while he could just watch helplessly and hope that they could get Mike free. It looked like they were starting to make a little progress and Scott raised the radio up to his mouth to try and call Ennard again.
He was stopped by the sound of heavy footsteps creeping down the hall.
For a second Scott thought that maybe it was Ennard. Then the footsteps started coming closer, labored and sluggish, and he knew that it couldn't be. It was something else, something much heavier than any human, something that was following the sound of the buzzer right to his location. He looked down the hallway from where they once came and leaned to the side enough to see past the shelves, listening as it came closer to the corner at the end and waiting for it to show itself.
What Scott saw coming around the corner was something he could've only seen in his nightmares.
It looked to be a Chica at first glance, but it was some sort of abomination compared to the usual designs. Firstly, it was much taller and broader than the typical animatronic. It had a suit that looked almost brand new, save dust, with brightly colored fabrics of yellow and pink. Not that it made it anymore appealing with how it was designed. Instead of carrying a cupcake, two cupcake shaped mounds were stitched to her sides, like fabric tumors with grotesque faces that were styled to look like they were melting into her.
Her hands were large and glistening, sharp points stuck out at the tips of her fingers and polished to razor sharp claws. Large orange feet were stiff and clumsy as she wandered down the hallway which each heavy step. Large eyes glowed with a pink aura but stared ahead with a lifelessness that Scott had forgotten while living with alive animatronics. But out of all this one thing stood out as a horrific beacon over all the other details, and that was Chica's mouth. It was an enormous maw lined with razor sharp teeth.
Scott didn't know what was worse, that someone built this twisted nightmare of an animatronic or the fact that they had done it recently. This hideous animatronic looked brand new.
Chica turned stiffly and her pink eyes fell on Scott and focused in. It turned its body towards him and began to take faster steps towards him, to which Scott began to quickly back down the hallway. It was only now that Mike finally heard the noise and looked up at the window just in time to see the hideous Chica staggering down the hall. His blue eyes popped open.
"What in the hell is that?!" he blurted out. Marionette looked up from the steps just in time to share a similar look of horror at its disturbing design. Hearing Scott running down the hallway, Mike shook Marionette's shoulder and pointed back in the direction of the door. "You've got to go get Scott!" The Puppet looked between him and the door quickly, panicked and torn. "I'll be fine! Go get Scott!"
With that, Marionette nodded and teleported back out into the hallway. Unfortunately, a little close to Chica who took a swing at him. Thankfully it was slowed down by its wide swing getting caught on the wall and was able to slip back out of the way. At the end of the hall Scott was met by two doors. One locked tightly and the other one leading into what looked to be a storage room.
It was cramped with loose endoskeleton pieces and the remains of dozens of costumes. He had no choice but to run inside and look for another door out. Which there was in the back corner, hidden beside a rack of suits, but it too was locked and there was no keypad to save him. He had to figure something out quickly because he doubted Marionette could hold it back for long.
Which was correct. Marionette knocked over shelves and threw whatever looked heavy on them to try and slow down the mutated animatronic, but nothing stopped it for long. It climbed over what was blocking it and forced its way onwards to the room it cornered its prey in. From how its eyes stared ahead it almost seemed like it wasn't looking at Marionette or couldn't see him, a sharp contrast to it swinging at him earlier. Eventually he was backed into the storage room and quickly shut the door without any way to lock it.
The shelves were either attached to the walls or too heavy to move at his tugging, leaving Marionette in a precarious situation. He looked around the storage room to find Scott, but to his alarm the man was entirely missing. At first, he thought maybe he had escaped, but then he leaned enough to see part of a back door that was closed tight. No, Scott had to be in here somewhere.
Suddenly Chica rammed the door open so hard that Marionette was slammed into the shelf behind the door and pinned. It was by sheer luck that his head just dodged the edge of the shelf or he would've had a cracked mask. That didn't mean it was anymore comfortable being pinned sharply to the shelf. He struggled to free himself and climb into the shelf as Chica stepped inside. It wandered around the storage room looking for the human it knew would be there.
But it couldn't find him, and neither could Marionette who looked out from behind the door to see more of the room. Chica stomped around, knocking over things on the shelf, and making its was towards the back door, stepping over an old, fabric Freddy costume slumped beside it. Chica stared at the door blankly like it didn't know how to open it and was thus stuck there.
It was then that Marionette noticed the Freddy costume twitch and slowly start to scoot itself to the side. That's where Scott was.
Chica turned around before he could make a break for it and Scott went limp once again. It was a believable limp too; it could've worked on an animatronic that was more aware than this one. He stayed perfectly still as Chica passed by, it knocking over the other hanging suits and nearly stepping directly on him as it did so, and watched it stagger back out of the room.
Marionette slipped back behind the open door as Chica passed by and nudged the door further closed once he was sure it was too far away to hear. Now Scott struggled to climb to his feet in the awkward suit. Marionette floated over and gave him a hand.
"Clever," he complimented.
"Thanks. I knew all those years of climbing in these things would amount to something," Scott half-joked. It was clear that he was still tense. "Did- Did you see that thing? I mean, of course you saw it, but it wasn't… That was new. It looked creepy but it looks brand new. What even was it?"
"Someone's twisted version of Chica I suppose… But I'm more concerned about whose it was," Marionette answered cryptically. He was gripped by concern as he remembered Mike, who was still stuck even though protected from Chica. He was still a sitting duck out there. "I need to go help Mike. You should wait here."
"Go get Mike. I'll be right behind you," Scott assured. To which Marionette rushed out of the room. Scott started to take off the Freddy head when he hesitated and then decided to leave it on. It wouldn't be much protection, but it was the only line of defense he had, and he needed one because he knew that nobody would make Chica alone.
While Marionette had rushed off to help Scott, Mike was left alone in the furnace room and had to focus on freeing himself. He continued to slide the looped wire down his leg and to his relief did find it willing to move. It was slow because of it catching on his pants' leg and he struggled to stay patient and slow.
That patience ran out when he suddenly heard rustling in the room.
Mike looked over the furnace room quickly. Across from him was the second door out of the Furnace Room, which was still open, and there were the furnaces and conveyors, but the noise itself came from the right.
The right side of the room was more of a mound of garbage than anything else. What might've once been neat stacks had caved into a mound of forgotten parts waiting to be burned. It wasn't until the mound started to fall apart that he realized there was a complete animatronic inside. Clawed hands reached out of the mass before it lifted itself out with loud clattering and a low groan.
As it climbed out of the garbage it revealed more of its hideous form. It looked like a large Freddy animatronics, but it was styled in a much less kid-friendly way than what was typically expected. It looked like Chica with growths hanging off it, though instead of cupcakes it just seemed to have tumorous lumps of fabric stitched into it at random places. It had similar claws to Chica and its mouth the same sharpened teeth of metal, with his eyes glowing blue instead of Chica's vibrant pink.
Something that immediately stood out was Freddy's chest which was sporting an unexpected addition. It looked like a second mouth, or a circle of teeth stitched into place to resemble one. As it started to stagger closer Mike could see that the hole in the center of those teeth led into what looked like a metal lined cavity. It was a storage tank, just like Funtime Freddy had.
It didn't matter what it had been dolled up to look like, Mike knew what it was capable of, and he knew what was going to happen if the bear reached him.
Thankfully it moved much slower than Chica did- which wasn't saying much- giving him a few more seconds to get himself out of the trap he was in. He struggled to continue sliding his leg out, fighting the desire to start yanking and flailing, and got it down to his ankle where it caught on his shoe. By then the twisted Freddy was right there and started to lunge forward right as he slipped out of his shoe and the wire. He ducked under the bear's "hug" and made a run for the other door.
Leaping over the middle step, Mike made it to the door and jammed his hand on the button before running through expecting the door to slam shut. He was instead rewarded with an irritatingly loud buzzer over his head and the door staying open. He sprinted into the hallway and started to run down towards the end when the door unexpectedly slammed shut.
Mike stopped beside the window and looked out to see that the nightmarish Freddy had managed to trip the stair trap. It hadn't fallen through, not with feet of its size, but it caused the door to slam shut. Now it could just stand there and claw pitifully at the door. With an exhale of relief, Mike turned back down the hall. Now to find a way back to Marionette and Scott.
To which he had few options. He could see the elevator nearby but after getting trapped in an office, a vent, and a staircase he didn't feel up to getting stuck in it too. There was another door that looked like it led around the back of the furnace room, probably in the direction of the staircase. That seemed like his best bet. Of course, it was locked.
"What now?" he asked himself. Like he didn't already know the answer. He knew how to get right back to the other side of the hall from upstairs and he knew where the elevator let out, so he would have to take it up. Even if he suspected it too would be booby trapped the only other option was getting past Freddy, which wasn't going to happen. With a huff, he hurried back to the elevator and pressed the button to call it.
The doors opened to reveal a normal looking elevator. He stepped inside cautiously and looked for any sign of a trap. Nothing stood out to him and not even the buttons looked tampered with. He finally pressed the one for the first floor and let the doors close, soon feeling the motion of being lifted up the shaft. It all felt like normal as it continued up and slowed down, still managing to lurch to a stop. He waited for the doors to open to step out, but to his immediate concern they didn't.
"Please don't tell me…" Mike pressed the button to open the doors and they started to do so, and for a moment he mistakenly thought this meant all was fine. Except then he realized he was staring at a wall with only about a foot of the first floor showing at the top of the doors. The elevator hadn't made it all the way, and from how it stopped he couldn't tell if it was a trap or an electrical failure. "You've got to be kidding me!" he exclaimed in exasperation.
Mike grabbed onto the edge of the opening and started to lift himself up. It would be hard pulling himself up, but he just thought he could do it, maybe, even if his arms and fingers would be sore after.
He just got his head out when he heard footsteps approaching from down the hall. He drew back inside when he realized that they weren't the thunderous footsteps of the twisted animatronics he saw downstairs. He immediately perked with hope and called out, "Hey! A little help over here?"
The footsteps drew closer and a familiar face appeared.
Mable: Wouldn't it be odd to have just Freddy and Chica animatronics? I suppose crazier things have happened… Will happen, perhaps.