So, my mother apparently read and reviewed this last chapter. I guess you're reading this, too, Mom. Thanks for reading and I'm glad you like it! (Nothing is safe) And of course, thank you to everybody else whose reading this and I'm glad you all like it, too!
"Let me guess," Nate sighed when Lucy floated through the wall and into the room. "We have another night guard to deal with, don't we?" The eternal teen was lounging as the Marionette in the sealed off off-camera room. Fredbear was slumped over a few feet away, propped up against the Spring Bonnie suit that had been taken to rot alongside his old stage partner.
"When the heck is this manager going to quit hiring people so we can finally deal with the murderer once and for all?" Timmy kicked the air. "I saw him again tonight. He just stands outside, mocking us! I swear, the moment he comes in I'll be so ready for him he won't even know what hit him!"
"Yeah, well, we won't be doing much of anything until these guards stop coming," Nate reminded him. The boy got quiet. It was impossible to forget the first time the murderer had come to the new Freddy's. He had appeared to be unarmed, but the kids would have been fools if they had believed that he was actually defenseless. He obviously had something up his sleeve, and his past victims were ready to face whatever it was. The past months had been spent preparing for their final confrontation, coming up with plans for how to take their justice. As discussions filled the empty hours of the day and night, the younger children began to realize that a solution that did not involve violence might not be possible. Detaining the killer would be useless when a group of robotic animals couldn't exactly take anybody to court, and with getting him locked up was out of the question, there wasn't really any other way to make sure that he wouldn't hurt anybody else. But when it came down to their final confrontation, Nate promised to spare his young friends the horror of having to take somebody's life and do the deed by himself.
Unfortunately for their plans, the night guard had done his job and wouldn't allow anybody to come to even the parking lot without a threat of calling the police on the intruder. The kids hadn't gotten their revenge and the murder hadn't gotten rid of his victims in whatever way he had been planning to. An outside confrontation had not been possible, either, as the children had discovered when the robots had locked up all movement the moment they tried to get farther than a few dozen feet outside the front door. Even Fredbear was bound to teleporting within the confines of the pizzeria. Some mechanism must have been installed in them to prevent their "free roaming" from getting them into trouble.
The logical solution to their predicament had been to scare the guard into quitting. A little bit of movement from Bonnie and Chica had sent him out of the building at 6:00 and never to return. With nobody to prevent their confrontation, both the murderer and the murdered children prepared to settle things once and for all. They had found someone new sitting in the guard room. It didn't seem to matter what they did; another person always showed up. Nathaniel had no clue where the manager was getting these people from, but they were seriously becoming annoying to deal with. It had been three months since the place had opened and there still seemed to be no end to them. Both the children and their murderer were getting impatient. Nate feared that if this went on much longer, his opponent would try to speed up the process of removing the position of night watchman by bloodying his hands, even though that could risk him getting checked by the police. Nate certainly hoped that the only death awaiting the pizzeria was the murderer's (although the last person to be a guard had been a thrill-seeking weirdo with such a foul mouth that after five whole nights with him Nate had been half wishing that he could get rid of the man himself).
"You guys know what to do. I'm hanging out with Nate tonight," Timothy waved Lucy away. The small girl nodded and disappeared through the wall. Katie watched the place through which she had exited for a few seconds before taking a seat next to her brother.
Henry pushed his chair in and looked down at the desk. There was a monitor for the cameras, which was to be expected, and a little note on top of a piece of paper. He picked it up to read it. Should have thought of this a long time ago. It'll save an explanation to any more newbies. Please record yourself reading script 2 make tapes 4 future use. Thanks, management. It took Henry a minute to figure out how to work the tape recorder, and soon he was reading the introductory message that was printed on the script.
"Hello, hello? Uh, I wanted to record a message for you to help you get settled in on your first night. Um, I actually worked in that office before you. I'm finishing up my last week now, as a matter of fact." Well, that wasn't true, but that was what the script said. Henry assumed that it would be more comforting to a newbie if he thought he was hearing something from an experienced worker.
Henry made his way through the boring introduction. There was a slightly unnerving part about responsibility for damage, but knowing the history of the company, Henry supposed that it was necessary for it to cover itself. Nothing was too out of the ordinary until the second paragraph. He was starting to skip some stupid parts that would bore a listener into quitting, so he was surprised when a line caught his attention. He slowed and went back to reading the script unabridged. "Uh, the animatronic characters here do get a bit quirky at night." What did it mean by "quirky?" Weren't they shut off? His question was answered a few sentences later. Apparently, they were in some sort of night mode that let them move around, which was weird but Henry didn't think that it was too big of a problem until—
Wait WHAT?! Henry practically couldn't restrain himself from shouting as he read the next sentence. What kind of a stupid prank were these people trying to pull on him?! He did NOT need to have that imagery in his head. What-?! Well, someone in the management was probably having a good laugh right about now. That message was definitely going to frighten some new guards. Henry couldn't help taking a quick, nervous glance at the stage camera. Freddy, Bonnie, and Chica were standing in their proper places, just like they should. Henry scolded himself for being so easily scared and went back to reading the script. He finished up the recording with a warning to conserve the power (being powerless and in the dark was something to actually be afraid of) and an off-script promise to talk the next night with whoever was going to hear his recording. He'd apologize for that stupid prank message and besides, it would add something for him to look forward to doing the next night. This job seemed pretty boring; even a one sided conversation would be better than staring at cameras for six hours.
Henry stopped the recording and leaned back in his chair. Well, time for a long night. He absentmindedly flipped through the cameras. When he reached the one trained on the stage, he gasped in shock. Bonnie was GONE. The more than a little nervous guard checked the rest of the cameras and squeaked in terror when he found the rabbit standing in the left hallway. "No no no no," Henry tried to regain his breath. The message wasn't a prank. It was absolutely real and there were a bunch of murder bots coming after him. "Oh gosh oh gosh oh shoot." He had to think! The doors! Henry slammed the button to close the left door. Before he could breathe a sigh of relief, however, he remembered the power. Feeling sick, he lit up the window. The rabbit wasn't there anymore, thank his lucky stars. The right hallway, on the other hand, wasn't so empty.
Henry had no idea how he managed to make it to six AM. Both animatronics returned to their stage and the daytime employees started coming in. Henry deemed it safe to leave. He glumly wished that he didn't have to wait five nights for his paycheck.
"You're actually coming back?" a surprised Mike asked when he saw the guard walking up the parking lot.
"Mike! Do you know- Bonnie and Chica- have you heard- ?"
"They move and try to kill you? I've heard rumors," the man shrugged. "Eh, some are true, some are false. I know that there was this guy at an old location who swore that they tried to stuff him into one of their costumes. The guy before him backed up everything the kid said. Since then that's been the general belief. The bots here are the same ones as the ones he was freaking out about, you know? They're all fixed, though." He leaned against a street light. "Most people quit after one night, you know, since they stopped giving that stupid contract. The thrill seekers last a little longer. It's like surviving a week before quitting is something to brag about. What made you come back?"
"I need the money and I don't get paid until the end of the week," Henry grumbled, embarrassed.
"Eh, well, that's what makes the world go round," Mike shrugged. "Best of luck to you, then. A bit of advice to you: keep some power, Freddy likes to sneak around when it's out." He gave Henry a quick thumbs up and then was off. Henry looked up at the entrance doors and sighed. Another night was about to start.
"The guard is back," Joey reported.
"You go have fun with him," Timmy waved the boy away. He went back to braiding his sister's hair. Joey shrugged and went off to get Foxy. It wasn't every night that he was allowed to run down the hallways.
Henry was none too happy to see another animatronic out to get him that night. Freddy hadn't moved, though, but that didn't hold any promises for the upcoming nights. Maybe the animatronics got more active as the week went on and more of them started moving on later nights. He passed that information on in the phone message he recorded that night. It might save the next person taking the job after Henry quit, not died! No no no he wasn't going to die he had plenty of power left and he was going to make it he just had to find another job and keep this one until he did. The assurance gave him little comfort.
He went back to his one sided conversation with the tape recorder, adding advice to the message as the night went on and he learned how the animatronics behaved. He passed on Mike's advice about Freddy coming when the power went out, as well as some things he figured out on his own like the fact that the cameras had blind spots (He had discovered that one by accident and boy had it been a terrifying shock!) and how the Foxy that hadn't gotten fixed up like the rest of the gang would run up the hallway to bang on the door.
Eventually, the church bells chimed the first toll of the day: 6:00. Henry's shift was over. He had made it through another night. Sighing, he pushed the front door open and made his way across the filling parking lot. This night had been a nightmare.
Everyone was surprised that Henry came back for a third night. Mike advised him to get a safer job. Henry sighed and replied that he was looking but he wouldn't quit this one until he got paid. He'd worked two nights and he sure as heck wasn't going to leave without getting compensated for his troubles. The rent needed to get paid soon, after all, and switching to another job now wouldn't earn him enough by the end of the week to cover that cost. And then he had said goodbye to the man and started his shift.
Brian was allowed to join in that night. He was sure that adding Freddy into the mix would frighten the guard into quitting. Henry definitely was afraid, but he wasn't going to stop coming to work until the paycheck was in his hand. Taking a deep breath for courage, he sat down and pressed the record button. If these messages were going to be played by the night, then he would be talking to someone on their third. He or she must be either desperate or love dangerous thrills. "Hello, hello? Hey! You're doing great! Most people don't last this long," he started. That did not sound the way it was supposed to have. "I mean, you know, they usually move on to other things by now. I'm not implying that they died," he tried to correct his mistake. "Th-that's not what I meant." Ok, this was sounding worse and worse. He better quit that topic before he said something else that was stupid. He laughed nervously. These nights were really getting to him.
"Hey, listen!" he told the tape recorder, coming up with something. "I had an idea! If you happen to get caught and want to avoid getting stuffed into a Freddy suit, uh, try playing dead! You know, go limp. Then there's a chance that, um, maybe they'll think that you're an empty costume instead. Then again, if they think you're an empty costume, they might try to…" Oh shoot. He realized the flaw with his idea. "Um, they might try to stuff a metal skeleton into you. Yeah, never mind, scratch that. It's best just not to get caught." Welp, he'd just created some imagery that neither he nor any other guard on their third night wanted to think about. Maybe he should just stop talking. He gave a quick goodbye and then went back to focusing on his job. Hopefully the flip side would be the morning, not something else that he didn't want to think about.
He'd left the camera monitor on. How could he have been so stupid as to leave the cameras on! He had left them open when he didn't need them and they had drained the power to 1%! There were five minutes until the end of the night, a chance that he could make it, but how could he have been so careless?! He remembered Mike's warning about Freddy coming when the power ran out and shivered. Five minutes. Maybe if he struggled enough, he could waste enough time that 6:00 would come before he could be stuffed. Still, five minutes was a lot of time to waste when all Freddy had to do was drag him a few rooms away.
0% power. Four minutes left. All the lights went off and Henry was left alone in the quiet darkness.
Katie stretched and smoothed her skirt. The telltale hum of electricity had stopped, signaling that the power had run out. She didn't like seeing people get scared, especially if they cussed a lot when they were nervous, but she couldn't help admitting that she liked listening to the little tune that Freddy always played before chasing the guard out of the building. It made her think of fairies dancing in a beautiful forest clearing under a bright, full moon. Simply magical.
Katie hovered in the left hallway behind Freddy. Twirling around in carefree bliss, she was slightly disappointed when 6:00 made her friend stop his music. Brian shrugged and lumbered down the hallway to return to the stage, sharing a wave with the ghost girl when he passed her. Katie sighed and got ready to follow him. She heard the footsteps of the all-too-ready-to-leave guard behind her. Maybe he'll leave for good this time, she thought. She shuddered as he walked right through her. The guard paused at the end of the hallway. "Shoot, left my apartment key in the office," she heard him grumble before he turned around. Katie gasped, so shocked that she didn't even close her eyes when he passed through her again. That… That was Henry!
Well, there we go. I looked up Phone Guy's quotes and I rewatched Markplier's videos so hopefully there aren't too many inaccuracies as far as power levels per time are concerned. And I have officially ruined myself because I now cannot wait for Phone Guy to get caught on night 4. =]