"Mikey… what do we do? Is there a way to deactivate the robots?"
I could barely hear Mabel's sharp panicked whispers through my own internal conversation.
It wasn't my fault, Baby! What do we do about this? Do I really have to deactivate it?
"I don't think the Puppet is like the others," she replied. "Maybe if you stay still, he won't be able to register any body movement."
Okay. I'm choosing to trust you.
"It's totally safe, right? Mikey? Mike-"
"Mabel, please!" I didn't mean to sound so annoyed but my voice came out that way. "Just- just stay still. It won't see us."
The gift box's melody ceased as the crank stopped turning. The lid cracked open with an ear-splitting creak. I didn't dare take my eyes off it. After a few mechanical whirrs, two slender arms riddled with stripes emerged. Then the head. Then the body. Its dark sockets locked onto the mascots on the main stage. My racing heartbeat stirred my stomach.
It's on strings, it's not going to do anything. It's not even possessed probably. We don't have anything to worry about.
Sliding the clown mask up and off my face, I glanced at Mabel. She watched the Puppet with gleaming eyes full of fear but also curiosity- like a child at the zoo for the first time. I tore my gaze away before I could get distracted. The Puppet kept its focus trained on the stage. In a slow and awkward manner, it climbed out of its box. Its legs trembled forward before coming to an abrupt halt- the strings kept it from walking any further. It jerked forward and its strings yanked them back in place.
"What is it d-" Mabel started to whisper but stopped at my fierce glare. The Puppet jerked forward again, this time snapping the strings instantly. Then it began to totter toward the stage. My heart jerked in fright as Mabel slowly shifted position. Before I realized it, I locked fingers with her. The Puppet didn't react.
How is this working right now?! I was baffled. It really can't see us here?!
We watched the animatronic marionette loom over Freddy Fazbear. It quietly calculated while I could only be still and wait. From the angle I was sitting at, I couldn't tell what the Puppet was doing. Whatever that was, it finished and then went to Foxy, then Bonnie, then finally Chica.
"It's waking them up," observed Circus Baby. The Puppet's head snapped backwards. A single white pupil flickered in its right eye socket.
It heard you?! You're in my head! How?!
"I don't know!" Baby cried. Her worried tone tensed my shoulders. Irritated by the disembodied voice, the Puppet stumbled forward. Every inch of my body screamed to move. Run. No, hide. Stay still? Don't move. Baby, stay quiet.
The Puppet stood barely a metre away, its slim fingers twitching. We locked eyes. My breath caught in my throat as I noticed just how far up I had to look to see its face. How tall is this thing? An eternity later, a blur of black and white crashed into me. The Puppet's slim body was heavier than it appeared. My vision fizzed and darkened. Again with this shit.
"Mikey!" Mabel cried out, but I could hardly hear her over everything else.
Sounds and voices layered over each other. I heard familiar shouts of the other entities with me; an odd sensation for sure.
"Wh-what's happening?!"
"I don't know!"
"I'm scared!"
"Michael, are you still there?"
"Where are you?!"
The pizzeria swirled into darkness and a small figure a few meters away emerged.
I felt microscopic in this thin glowing body. This is the- what, third time my soul has been knocked out of my skin? The figure pivoted its head, revealing the Puppet's mask bleeding over a pudgy girl's face like an unfinished painting. A gaping hole rested in the centre of her body; inside it, a tiny light flickered. What is that? Before I could get a better look, the darkened world began to shift.
An amalgamation of memories both mine and also not mine swirled around us. Father stared down at my lifeless body with a malicious glint in his dull eyes. I suffocated in the heat of a box that I can't escape from! Why was the rain so loud?! The Puppet wouldn't let go of my body. I can't get out! I can't save them! He killed them! Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! Wake-
Mabel smacked a chair across the Puppet's head. Its lanky body collapsed next to me. I scrambled to my feet and picked up the clown mask. My heart thumped painfully in my artificial ribcage. I could still hear and feel broken memories playing in my head like a distant, skipping record player. That girl, I knew her. I didn't have time to think about it. Mabel yanked me down the hallway and we ducked into one of the open doors there.
Mabel scooched in between the wall and an empty animatronic suit. I tried to join her but my large self was not about to fit in that tiny space. The suit's pale yellow fingers twitched in my peripheral vision. What the- The Puppet's melody echoed down the hallway. My thoughts crashed together into a panicked mess. Out of ideas, I scampered underneath the table across the room. Mabel flung a desperate look in my direction. She didn't want to be alone.
"Just stay right there," I mouthed, then on impulse began chewing my own tongue. I want her to be here with me. I want to feel her warm, breathing body and know that she's alive and safe and here with me. I clenched my fists. We have to stay put.
Shifting my mask back on my face, I felt another memory surfacing in my head, blocking my focus from this pressing situation.
That girl hid under the table with me. She used to cheer me up when I was sad. She liked to kiss me sometimes. "Like Mummys and Daddys do," she'd say. Her mouth always tasted like tart candy. After I… after that whole bite incident, I didn't see her around anymore.
"Mike," Mabel threw a whisper across the room. "This suit, it- it smells really weird. Like bad. And my foot's falling asleep-"
I startled at the mental image of an old springlock suit.
"Just don't touch it," I warned hastily, my voice wavering. "Please."
The Puppet veered its head around the doorway. My body crept further under the table as Baby or whoever controlled my extremities. I was too frozen in shock to react.
Four stripes on each limb, my brain numbly counted. I watched the striped legs slink weightlessly through the room. The Puppet was searching for us. In my gut, a robot writhed, and I clamped a hand over my mouth. Stop that or I'm gonna puke!
The Puppet inspected Mabel's hiding spot, tilting its head ever so slightly to examine every single detail. Mabel's mouth twitched; she held back a scream. Somehow, the Puppet didn't see her. My watered eyes followed the Puppet until it left my sight. Its music began to trail off and slow its pitch.
I released a breath in a quiet shudder.
"I knew her too," Circus Baby blurted out.
A heavy hand clamped around my ankle. The shrill scream that flew out of my throat startled everyone in the room, including myself. The Puppet ripped me out from underneath the table. Its music box began to chatter in a broken tone:
London Bridge is falling down, falling down-
The Puppet hurled my flailing body into the hallway. My shoulder hit the wall first with a painful smack.
"Mm let me guess- do you wanna- do you wanna kill me like every other robot I meet?" I hoarsed. As I hurried to stand, a plastic gift box shot past my head. Yep. It's trying to kill me. It zipped my way without its feet even touching the ground. My stomach churned again as my heart raced. I'm always the punching bag, huh? The Puppet yanked me up by my head and slammed me into the wall. When I blinked away mind-fogging static, I saw the white mask staring into my soul. One quivering and glowing pupil floated in its eye socket; studied every molecule of my face. Incessant clicks echoed from its mouth.
London Bridge is falling down, my f-f-fair lady...
"I'm not who you think I am," I declared in a harsh whisper. "It's me, Michael. We knew each other. S-somehow."
But just like everything, I can barely remember.
The tips of my sneakers barely grazed the floor. The Puppet peered into my eyes- no, it peered deeper than that as if it could see into my past. Its children's song began to play backwards. I caught the gaze of a wide-eyed Mabel nearby. She gripped the legs of another chair and I gave her the smallest head gesture to back off. I wanted to believe that I knew what I was doing.
"What was her name?" I asked Circus Baby, still staring into the Puppet's one glowing eye. My lips parted as she spoke for me.
"Charlotte."
The Puppet's violent cry shattered every coherent thought of mine.
"She was our friend."
I failed to catch myself from falling out of the Puppet's grasp. It clutched its head and began to wail.
"My father hurt you," I started from the floor, "didn't he? He-" I stopped to concentrate on getting up slowly to not alarm the troubled animatronic. "He betrayed you… that night in the rain." My voice was low and careful and only carried a hint of my panic. I swallowed a lump in my throat. "You're trapped in a body that never belonged to you- that he created."
Kinda like me.
"Her case is a little different," Baby added quietly. "First of all, she wasn't an idiot like you are."
"Uncalled for-" I started before the Puppet swung a hand and knocked me on my butt. "Oof!" The tall robot didn't want to be reminded of the past. It hovered past me easily, attempting to escape. I didn't move a muscle as I watched it crawl into its box desperately. The Puppet was gone as quickly as it had arrived.
That was anticlimactic. I carefully released my breath. At least nobody got disfigured today- I startled at a booming clank behind me. Mabel had not bothered to set the chair down quietly.
"What is going on?!" she yelled a whisper, moreso to herself than me. She outstretched a hand to help me up and quickly found that lifting a six foot two, 172-pound man- plus the additional 120-pound weight of four compressed robots- was quite the task. I got up with my own strength. Mabel began to rant, her voice not angry or worried, surprisingly, but more like a detective trying to deduce things about me. She wanted to figure out her suddenly mysterious friend. It was like a game now.
"You knew that creepy thing? Are you like, connected somehow- like, at the brain or something like that one movie? This is why you've been acting weird, isn't it? You've been talking telekinetically-"
"Telepathically?" Baby corrected her. Mabel stared at me like I was going to shit a duck.
Thanks, Baby, I thought sarcastically. Before she could ask about my sudden change in vocal tone, I tried to offer Mabel an explanation- one vague yet understandable.
"I'm not connected to the Puppet. There's a- a little girl… trapped inside it. And we used to be kinda, little friends. That's all."
Mabel squinted. "Trapped inside? What do y- what do you mean, like, it's possessed or something? That's…" The thought of child ghosts blanched her cheeks. She looked back at the Puppet box with a wide-eyed kind of astonishment. "This place really is haunted then. I mean, I didn't really believe that it was at first- I kinda did, but now-"
"What are you kids doing here?"
We both gasped in surprise, pivoting to find a man at the end of the hallway. He stepped out of the shadows with a stern frown. The dim hall light cast ugly shadows across his thin and drooping face. He grasped a phone in his left hand, its wobbling cord stretching itself straight. Mabel and I exchanged the same worried glance.
"We were just about to leave, sir!" blurted she before I could blurt anything first. "We weren't doing anyth-"
"Uh, actually, I was looking to apply here!" I interrupted. "I saw th-the sign in the window." Hesitation crossed my face and I hoped nobody saw it. Do I really want to do this? I caught Mabel's sideways stare momentarily.
"At ten til 12?" the phone guy asked with a raise of an eyebrow. I glanced at my arm to check that information. My wrist was bare. Where's my watch?!
"You just now noticed that?" Baby sighed in my head. I wiped off a scowl.
Yes.
Scratching his scruffy face, the phone guy turned to Mabel. "And what, you're his girlfriend or something?"
"Yes," Mabel lied swiftly, while I also answered, "No." She shot me an odd look. I pocketed my hands, awkward tension creating an odd pressure on my chest.
"Yes," I decided to play along, only for Mabel to correct herself simultaneously, "No." She averted her eyes to the checkered pattern on the wall. The phone guy squinted.
"Uh… okay then." He perked up a finger. "Follow me." We did just that. I stepped into the office and wrinkled my nose at the concentrated smell of sweat and pepperoni. My shoe crushed a plastic cup lid with ease. A metal fan made a quiet clack clack clack as its blades rotated at a steady pace. The older man set his phone down finally, turning to speak to me.
"By the way, how did you get in here? The doors were locked. Unless I didn't do that, which is not good-"
"I have a key," I answered simply, displaying it from my pocket in one brisk motion. The pizzeria employee dug a curious laser into my eyes. He turned away to fish around his messy desk drawer.
"Where'd you get it?"
"I found it." That's not technically a lie.
"You found it," the man repeated. He looked at me like a parent would at a child who had just been caught sneaking in something.
I strained confidence into my tone, as I usually do. "Yeah." The man spent seconds too long to leer disapprovingly. Then he handed me a ballpoint pen and a paper. The latter's print faded into nothing the further down I read. Either the application paper's ink was illegible or I needed a kindergarten class review. Before I could mention this small yet bothersome issue, the man added through a yawn, "I don't know why you kids wanted to do this right now. You're lucky I'm nice. I could report you. Anyway-" he tapped the edge of the paper- "-fill it in. Come back tomorrow during open hours. I'm sure the boss won't hesitate. We do need a new night guard and you look like a man who doesn't value his own self-worth." My eyes narrowed as I took three years to understand what he meant by that. He hopped past the subject.
"I can't keep doing it. Last guy we had was k- I mean- he, uh, he left."
I caught Mabel's mouth snap open. She wanted to point out his stutter. He cleared his throat loudly, plopping down in his chair.
"Okay, so yeah. Leave. Yeah."
I stepped back, my legs moving not in my control. Mabel hooked her arm through my elbow.
"C'mon, stupid. We can come back tomorrow."
I didn't want to leave just yet. I felt… empty-handed if that makes sense. I want tangible evidence that something really happened here.
"For what? You already know what your father did," Baby asked.
I just want it. I just want it all to make sense.
"By the way," the man by the phone started, "you should hurry. The characters start moving after 12."
Both Mabel and I stopped in our tracks. My muscles tensed as I imagined animalistic robots tearing me apart.
I thought they were deactivated at night! That's why I came here at this hour! Circus Baby!
"Don't blame me," she quipped. "I didn't want you to come here in the first place. I just wanted to watch the drama."
"Y-you can't be serious-" Mabel started with a nervous edge quaking her voice. The employee guy chortled.
"I'm just pulling your leg. They don't-"
We all jolted at the sound of a heavy footstep.
"-move?" My breathing stopped. I wrung my hands, imagining all four animatronics tearing me apart.
Oh no.
The man scratched his chin. "I thought they turned off the free-roam mode…"
Footsteps continued, echoing from the large main room. The employee man booted up the thick computer on the corner of the desk. I flinched at the Windows 95 start-up sound, then frowned at myself. Mabel's grip on the doorway edge tightened as she whimpered, "I don't think a chair can kill ghosts, Michael." Grabbing his phone, the employee gave a small chuckle.
"Oh, you're one of those people. Yeah, ghosts aren't real, sweetheart. And more importantly, ghosts do not pilot robot suits like some kinda ethereal Power Rangers."
Mabel's face flashed a look of pure disgust.
"We should leave now," Baby snapped. The footsteps outside seemed to multiply- they were multiplying. The computer finally loaded a live black-and-white camera feed. We all leaned in, immediately noticing two empty areas on the stage cam.
"The rabbit's gone," the guy groaned. "The chicken too." He switched the camera view to the one in the main party room. Both aforementioned animatronics stood at the tables, their heads turning slowly.
They're looking for us, my mind quickly went.
"They're just old, I'm sure," the cam man offered after seeing mine and Mabel's pale faces. "Perhaps a bit irritated. If I were forced to sing those same stupid songs for years, I'd probably be a bit irritated, too. They just need a little break, is all." He spread his lips into a forced smile for our reassurance. On the camera, the purple rabbit's ears twitched.
"He does have a point," Baby said. "Victims or not. It's tiring to-" The man at the computer interrupted her unknowingly, "You two are free to leave. I don't think the characters will bother you if you're fast enough. Or you can stay here. Watch me watch cameras all night."
I peered down the dim-lit hallway, my heartbeat and breathing sounding like a whole orchestra in my ears.
"We need to leave," Baby said as I thought the same. I turned back to Mabel and the guy at the desk.
"Tell us when it's safe to go-"
"Wait, but if we stay here," Mabel burst through my words, "and close the doors, we can wait here until the bots chill out."
"Can't do that," the employee guy spoke before I could. "The doors are run by a fault generator that runs like cow piss. It wouldn't last long and you could end up overloading the whole system and shutting the entire building's power down. So these doors stay open." Mabel looked back at me, wide-eyed and defeated.
"Okay. Let's get outta here, then."
The phone guy squinted at the computer screen. Bonnie and Chica wandered in the corner away from the entrance, which was perfect.
"Go now," he declared. I grabbed Mabel's hand. Just to make certain that she wouldn't fall behind. Together, we started down the dark hallway. We speed-walked, wincing at our shoes squeaking against the tile. My eyes drifted off our target destination. I noticed that the Parts and Service room now lacked a smelly yellow suit in the corner.
"Where did they go?" Baby asked. She stopped my rapid legs all of a sudden and I stumbled.
"Woah!" Mabel exclaimed, bumping into me. If she hadn't done that, I could have avoided falling over. We both tumbled to the floor with a bang. Mabel pushed away from my chest, startling at my breath on her face. I tried to swallow away my racing heart.
"Oh, sorry, I- I-" she choked on her apology as her eyes darted above us. She shifted her knees on top of me slightly and I yelped in pain.
"Ow-ow-ow, Mabel! Get off! You're crushing my gonads!"
When she didn't budge, I pushed her off myself. "What are you-" My eyes finally met what she couldn't break her stare from.
Two magenta irises shined overhead in the sockets of a furry purple rabbit animatronic.
I blared a harsh scream.