Days turned into weeks and weeks stretched into months. Vanny searched everywhere she could possibly think to go. Fredbear's was bulldozed years ago, so that was out of the question. She had even snuck into the old abandoned Freddy's to look for William. There wasn't a trace of him, though. Not even the robots were on the stage anymore. Vanny didn't feel welcomed there; it was almost like countless eyes were watching her and judging her for her sins, not against them, specifically, but others. She was guilty by association, really. Vanny never went back.
When a year came and went, a heavy depression fell over the woman. Her hopes of finding her lost lover were slowly dying. Maybe he didn't want to be found. Vanny spent many sleepless nights wondering if he had left her of his own accord or if that bastard Burke had something to do with it. While Vanny didn't know Clay Burke well, she had seen him enough after the questions directed at her had been dropped to hate him. Hurricane was a rather small town and it was impossible to avoid him all the time. William had told her many stories about the cop; mostly about how he'd managed to outsmart Clay and never get caught for any of the killings. No bodies were found. William had won his demented game that time around.
Vanny had since opened up the closet she'd sealed off. Sometimes she'd set William's rabbit suit up around the house and act like he was inside. He rarely spoke while he was in his suit, anyway, so there wasn't much of a difference. She would snuggle with it, sometimes. Its yellow fur was salty with her tears that she never cleaned off. Doing so would risk getting rid of William's lingering scent. One day she swore she saw it move. For a moment her heart fluttered in excitement until she realized that gravity had played a nasty trick on her. The suit had simply slid down the side of the couch ever so slightly where she had set it up. Vanny swallowed down her heartbreak and tears as she trudged over to the couch, clutching her dinner in a hot bowl.
"There's more in the kitchen." She announced to nobody but herself.
It had been a while since she'd heard her own voice; so long in fact that it nearly startled her.
Vanny sat down on the couch next to that suit and watched TV as she ate. The show didn't really interest her in the slightest but it was one of William's favorites. As the overwhelming sense of loneliness and dread settled over her, Vanny couldn't help herself as she spoke up once again. Her voice was soft and gentle; it was obvious that she was about to cry as she spoke.
"You're coming back, aren't you?" She asked the empty suit beside her. It stared on with those blank, purple eyes. It didn't say a word as it smiled wide at nothing in particular. It was always smiling. That was how the suit had been made. Without William inside, it was just that; a suit. It was a lifeless shell that Vanny clung to for comfort and validation. The suit was a very good listener, though. Vanny spoke to it nonstop for the next several weeks. Sometimes when she was tired, she swore that its eyes would follow her across the room. Even though the woman had taken up speaking to the suit like William was in it, she knew that it was lifeless and that the eyes hadn't ever moved an inch. She was sleep-deprived; not insane...
Vanny kept on talking to the suit for a few months until she had to force herself to stop. Conversing with it was slowly dragging her down a dark path. Not only would the suit's eyes appear to follow her when she was exhausted, sometimes she swore that it wasn't gravity making the suit shift on the couch. She shoved it back into the closet and locked the door.
Vanny was well aware that the suit was inanimate and didn't pose a threat to her, but talking to inanimate objects was wearing on her sanity. Vanny felt even more alone and hopeless after locking it away and the house went quiet once again.
The thought of Will made her smile weakly.
Vanny was lying on her back, staring up at the ceiling. It was another one of those sleepless nights. Two years had slipped by and not much had changed.
She hadn't found another partner; that was never even a thought that had crossed her mind. Her entire being belonged to William; body, soul, mind, and life. If he wanted her to die for him she would in a heartbeat. If that man were to show up on the doorstep that night, insisting that she off herself for him, she'd do it. It didn't matter that he'd been absent for two whole years.
She would do anything for William, just as she knew he'd do anything for her.
Warm tears spilled down the woman's face as she clung to a pillow, holding it against her chest as her freezing body trembled. The pillow had no case over it; just a baggy T-shirt that wasn't her own. It still smelled like William. This was how she feel asleep most nights.
She'd drift off with her face crammed into the pillow and her eyes screwed shut tight, pretending that William was there in bed with her, holding her and telling her that everything was going to be alright. The pillow lacked his warmth, though. It lacked his voice that never failed to calm her, and it lacked the feeling of his scarred skin. She missed the way his stubble felt against her cheeks and the soft touch of his lips on hers. Vanny missed feeling alright.
Nightmares flooded her mind and she always woke the next day feeling hopeless;
Nightmares of William dead or dying plagued her and never seemed to end.
Her waking moments weren't much better. She could either sleep her time away and be met with horrible dreams or stay awake and be faced with the nightmare that was her lonely reality. William wasn't coming back.
Two years stretched into five. Despite her withering mental stability, Vanny never stopped searching. Her search consumed her entire life. William was her entire life.
Without him, every moment felt like an eternity that had been wasted and thrown away into the trash. Those five years gnawed at her, eating away what little normality she had left.
All of Hurricane now knew her as a recluse; she was that weird woman who had gone through a weird breakup and rarely left her weird house in the country to go into town. Some people quite literally thought that she had murdered 'Dave Miller.' She was so tired of hearing that name.
If she went the rest of her life without hearing that stupid fucking name, she'd certainly be a lot happier. Maybe 'happy' wasn't the right word to use. Vanny doubted that she could be happy anymore. She would only crawl into town to get food and the essentials to make sure that she didn't die these days. Whenever she went into town, she was met with judging gazes and unfriendly faces. Kids would gawk at her with wide eyes and open jaws like she was some sort of amazing attraction. She was a nobody; she was nothing. Vanny was an idiot who lingered around in this shitty town with a dying hope that William would return to her.
She hadn't felt alive in ages and she really wasn't sure if she could feel much anymore.
Her emotions seemed about as present as William. Her ability to feel emotions had quite literally died away for the most part. Vanny would feel the vague, occasional flicker of something but it would always fade as soon as it had come. She only ate, slept and did the bare minimum to keep herself from dying. If William ever came back, he wouldn't want to find her dead, she was sure.
Or… maybe he did. She didn't fucking know anymore.
Her trip to the grocery store was uneventful and boring. Very few words were spoken between her and the cashier that was ringing her up. The woman behind the counter had frizzy pink hair and a nose ring that Vanny thought was much too flashy. Unlike the rest of Hurricane, though, Vanny was decent enough to not comment on the little things she disliked about people or their appearances. Sure, she had killed her fair share of people, but she wasn't a total dick.
The woman at the counter gave Vanny a half sympathetic look, almost as if she was apologizing for the way that Hurricane treated Vanny for a crime that she hadn't committed.
Vanny knew well enough from their brief exchanges that the slightly overweight cashier was on her side. Hurricane seemed to be divided on their opinions over Dave's disappearance but the bad outweighed the good. Vanny was a no-good troublemaker in most people's eyes.
She couldn't care less anymore.
Vanny muttered a small thanks to the cashier before grabbing her bags of food and heading out to her-... William's car. The bags were thrown carelessly into the passenger seat of the purple vehicle and she crawled inside not even a moment later. She didn't bother to fasten her seatbelt before starting the car. She left the door of the car open for a moment and threw her head back, sucking in a deep breath of the fresh nighttime air that was flooding in from outside. Shopping at night was much more tolerable. When you were known as a possible murderer, going out in broad daylight for everyone to gawk at wasn't the most appealing idea. Then again, creeping about in the dark of the night wasn't doing her much good, either. The weird recluse who possibly murdered her boyfriend only rolled into town in the dead of night… She was sure that looked great for her image. There was nothing she could do to fix that image, though. Honestly, Vanny was well beyond the point of caring what this shitty town thought of her.
"Hey." A voice called out from the parking lot. Vanny stiffened and looked in the direction that the voice had come from. There was a teenager standing there with his hands in his pockets.
His hair was a messy red lump of curls on top of his head. He was wearing a letterman's jacket and a pair of grass-stained jeans. There was a cigarette hanging from his mouth. Vanny briefly wondered if the kid was aware of how quickly those things were going to take over his life.
That wasn't her business, and she really didn't care enough to scold him.
"One of your tires are flat." The teen informed her with a tilt of his head in the direction of the damaged tire. Vanny's eyes widened a little and she got out of the car, muttering a quiet, "Shit," under her breath. She walked to the back of the car to inspect the supposed damage but found that the tire was perfectly fine. Before Vanny could scold the kid for wasting her time, a horrible pain shot through her entire body. Vanny stumbled and fell to the ground. Her head throbbed as a horrible headache washed over her. It took a moment for Vanny to realize what had just happened; the kid had whacked her over the head with a baseball bat.
He was laughing and saying something to her that she didn't care to pay attention to.
Vanny wanted to stand up and gut the kid but her body refused to move. The woman stayed down with her eyes shut, sucking in shaky breaths as she tried to get a grip. The boy spat on her before pacing over to the car. With one good swing, he put a sizeable dent into the side of one of the doors. Even though the bat was made of wood, it was still doing a reasonable amount of damage to the car. Vanny's eyes widened in horror as she struggled to push herself off of the asphalt. That was William's car. That was William's car and that little rat was destroying it. When the teen realized that Vanny hadn't given up and still had some fight in her, he backed off the car. The wooden bat was lowered to the ground and he leaned against it with a smug smirk. With a careless flick of his fingers, his cigarette bounced across the ground and nearly hit Vanny. She had managed to push herself up to her knees now and was fighting the urge to vomit. Her vision was swirling, making her dizzy and unsteady on her knees.
"My dad said you were trouble." The redhead scoffed finally. That was the first sentence Vanny had made out since being struck. "He said you killed your boyfriend. He knows you did it, too."
"I didn't kill him!" Vanny screamed out at the top of her lungs. For the first time since she was a child, she sobbed in front of someone other than William. She had been comfortable opening herself up to that sick, twisted man. She hadn't trusted anybody else before him and she hadn't trusted anybody after. He was her everything and with him gone she had nothing.
Vanny knew that William would want her to be strong in his absence but she was too broken to stay together at that moment. She sobbed and dug her nails into the hard asphalt below her scraped up hands. Showing her weakness to this boy was a mistake and she knew that. Crying and showing her emotions like this was weak and pathetic but something inside of her snapped at that moment. Hearing someone blame William being gone on her right to her face was too much. The sound of the teenager laughing let her know that she'd won no sympathy from him.
"What? You expect me to buy this stupid bullshit, whore?" The teenager took a few steps closer to Vanny, dragging his bat behind him. Vanny stopped crying, then. She fell completely silent as the boy continued to approach her. She sucked in a deep breath and slowly slid her hand down to her hip. Before the boy could register what was happening, Vanny lunged up at him with a glistening blur of motion. The bat was dropped to the ground as her knife plunged into his stomach. The boy let out a choked gasp as he was pushed onto his back. Vanny was on him in a heartbeat, plunging her knife in and out of his stomach repeatedly. The sight and smell of blood excited her in a way she hadn't experienced in a long time. With an excited intake of breath, Vanny let out a small giggle as she drove her blade into the teen's stomach one final time. She left it deep inside of him for several long moments as she panted; attempting to catch her breath. Blood had splattered all over Vanny's jacket, staining the green fabric beyond hope of salvaging it. There was a wonderful sound that filled the woman's ears at that moment. It was a sound she hadn't heard in years. The boy's breathing was uneven as he choked and struggled to breathe. He was trying to push the woman away in a pathetic attempt to save his life but Vanny was physically stronger than him. The boy was nothing without his weapon; he was left to the hands of the woman who was taking great pleasure in seeing his pain.
The boy tried to say something to Vanny but couldn't seem to form words. The woman loomed above him with a distant look in her eyes. It was like she was watching him from behind a wall of glass; almost like she was in a movie that she had no control over. Vanny was on autopilot; completely disconnected from the world around her. She felt as if nothing could hurt her then and that she was the center of the world. The boy finally found it in himself to whisper out a pathetic plea. He begged her to help him. That made Vanny smile.
"Help? Help the one who attacked me for no reason?" She hummed out in a sing-song voice.
There was something odd yet familiar running through her blood, then. It was an old feeling that she hadn't felt in far too long. Despite the unwanted attack, Vanny seemed to be glad that it had happened. Her gaze drifted down to the knife that was plunged into the boy's stomach for a brief moment before yanking it out. A quick hand over his mouth muffled his pained scream.
Vanny's eyes drifted up to gaze at the supermarket. The employee was nowhere in sight.
The pink-haired woman always slipped to the back when there were no customers inside. Perfect. A perfect crime in the dead of night. Vanny stood slowly and slipped her knife back into its sheath on her hip, not caring if there was blood to be cleaned later. She needed to leave before she was spotted and there had to be two murders that night. The boy's bat was picked up and tossed into the passenger seat before Vanny grabbed at his legs and drug him across the parking lot to the back of William's car. The hood was opened and her barely conscious cargo was thrown inside roughly. The teen made a pained sob as he was thrown onto his stomach into the empty trunk. Vanny stared at him for a long moment, watching the way he trembled as he attempted to cling to consciousness. She cocked her head sideways in a curious manner before smiling wide and shutting the trunk.
Was the farm still around? Vanny silently wondered about the farm as she drove through the countryside. She had no idea if the kid had bled out in the trunk yet or not. It didn't matter either way. He'd take his last breath before the night was over. When a large barn came into view, Vanny smiled. It was still here. She turned her radio down, quieting the trashy song that the local radio station provided her. Within a few moments, she was parked beside the barn and out of sight from anyone passing by on the road. It was highly unlikely that anyone would be passing by on this desolate road in the middle of nowhere this late at night, but caution never hurt. The owner of the farm was an elderly man who was just a little too friendly and dimwitted. He had always been blissfully unaware of the meals that the strangers in the dark provided his livestock. If everyone involved was lucky, he would never find out. Vanny and William had used this place several times in the past to dispose of their questionable hobby's unwanted waste. The radio was turned off and Vanny exited the car after snagging the bat out of the seat beside her. She hummed quietly as she walked around to the back of the car. The sound of her friends was audible from where she stood beside the barn. She missed those fat bastards. The hood slowly lifted up, revealing the half-conscious boy who had been kind enough to bleed all over inside of the trunk. It wouldn't be the first time she had scrubbed the back of that car.
"You're a dumb little fucker, you know that?" Vanny asked him with an amused snicker. She dropped the bat to the ground and grabbed him by the arms. Another pained sob left the teen as he was carelessly yanked out onto the muddy ground. Vanny pulled him up to the barn door and then released him with a tired huff. "You're heavy." She complained irritably.
"Please…" The kid managed to hiss out. Vanny ignored the plea and grabbed ahold of him again, pulling him inside of the barn.
His vision was fading in and out, but the boy knew what was going on. The sound of squeals and snorts filled his ears as his tired eyes caught sight of floppy ears and round snouts. An unpleasant smell filled the barn that made him want to spill his dinner all over the hay-covered floor. Vanny didn't seem phased by the smell. She had clearly been exposed to it before.
"Pigs are amazing creatures, you know?" Vanny hummed as she began stripping the boy of his bloody jacket and shirt. He made a noise in objection but couldn't find the strength to physically stop her. His shoes came off next, then his socks and jeans. Vanny left his underwear on; she wasn't a creep. She simply wanted to help the pigs enjoy their meal without too much trouble.
"I'd ramble on about how they're good at disposing of corpses, but I'm sure you already know that, don't you? I'm sure you've seen it in movies." The woman hummed out in amusement. She lifted the boy and threw him into a metal bin. It was slimy and disgusting and smelled like rotten eggs. Vanny turned and walked out of the barn, only to return wielding the bat.
The kid looked up at the woman in horror as she swung it around as if she were hitting invisible baseballs. If it were under different circumstances, it would look like she was testing it out in a store before buying it. In this case, she was getting a good idea of how it would feel to bash in his skull.
"My dad will kill you. He's a cop." The kid threatened with a croaky voice.
Vanny let out an amused giggle. "Oh, sweetheart…"
That was the last thing she said before swinging down as hard as she could on his face. She lost count of how many times she whacked him, honestly. Blood had splattered everywhere including her; coating both the barn and herself in that pretty red that she had grown to love.
Not every whack had been to the kid's face, though. His hands had been broken in his futile attempts to shield himself from the weapon that had gotten him into this mess, to begin with.
The boy's face was disgusting to look at, but the slight rising and falling of his chest told Vanny that he was still alive. The woman panted and loosened her grip on the bat. Her eyes drifted between the dying teen and the pigs frantically squirming around in their pen.
She had made her friends wait long enough.
Vanny paced over to the pen and undid the latch, letting the animals scurry out into the center of the barn. All of them made a beeline for the trough and wasted no time in biting into their midnight snack. Vanny watched as they bit into his flesh, snorting and fighting over it like the wild animals they were. She needed a shower.