My brother is back to reading this and the day is fine, so enjoy this relatively happy chapter before things have to get serious again. =)
Night 4 couldn't be that bad. After all, Henry had faced all four animatronics the previous night, so it wasn't like they could throw anything new at him, right? He was so, so, so terribly wrong.
Katie was spinning through walls, hovering excitedly next to each of her friends as she waited for her chance to be reunited with her oldest brother. Of course, the doors slammed shut whenever any of them tried to get close.
Impatiently, she glided off to the back room to help Nate persuade Timothy that he should go to Henry. The boy was uneasy about seeing the person who had shoved his head into Fredbear's mouth and made every second of his time before that into a nightmare, but Katie knew that she could convince him to accept the Henry who she had grown up with. He was nothing like the cruel person he had once been; Katie just had to convince Timmy that their brother had changed from what the nine-year-old remembered him to be.
It was only 12:30 and the relentless assault was already getting Henry to slip up. Twice already he had checked the doors to find Chica and Bonnie a second away from jumping into the office. He wasn't sure how much longer he would be able to take this. It certainly wasn't long enough to get him to 6:00.
That was it then. He was going to die at the paws of a band of kid-friendly robots his father used to own. It was funny in a way, he supposed, though hardly something he would laugh at. Thinking about his impending death wasn't something he wanted to focus his last few moments on. Reaching across the desk, he turned on the tape recorder to make one final message.
"Hello, hello? Hey! Hey, wow, day 4. I knew you could do it," he cracked a smile, hoping that night four wouldn't end the same way for whoever was going to listen to his message as it had for him. "Uh, hey, um, listen, I may not be around to send you a message tomorrow." Chica knocked loudly on the right door, trying to force it open. Bonnie was camping firmly on the other side. "It's-It's been a bad night here for me. Um, I-I'm kinda glad that I recorded my messages for you," his voice started to crack, "when, um, when I did."
"Fine! I'll do it, but I'm not going to like seeing him." Timmy folded his arms and finally agreed to get into Fredbear so he and Katie could teleport into the guard room.
Katie squealed out of joy and clapped her hands. "Hey wait, guys," Nate realized something. "You won't be able to have much of a reunion if you can't talk to him." Katie sighed in frustration as she realized he was right. Some conversation that would be if Fredbear's voice box was just as broken as it had been for the past several years. Nate wouldn't allow his little friend to be so unhappy. He faded out to control the Marionette. Carefully, the puppet began fiddling with the back of his head and surprised both children when he pulled off a piece of himself. Kneeling over Fredbear, Nate took off the golden animatronic's head and plugged the device into the nest of wires near one of the ears. "You need that voice box more than I do," he smiled, appearing next to them.
"Thank you thank you thank you!" Katie jumped up and hugged him. "Able to talk or not, you're coming with us, Nate!" she squealed, pushing him towards the now mute puppet. Timmy gave them both a little nod and then he and Katie took their friend's hand and got ready to teleport.
Meanwhile, inside the security office, Henry was thinking about how much he was going to scream when he finally got caught. Too nervous to keep sitting, he stood up and began circling around the desk. The steady rhythm helped him compose himself enough to keep talking. "Uh, hey, do me a favor," he told the tape recorder. He was pretty sure the other animatronics had joined their friends because the banging grew louder. "Maybe sometime, um, you could check inside those suits in the back room?" It wouldn't be long now. Maybe a miracle would happen and he would take more than five hours to bleed to death? Probably not. "I'm going to try to hold out until someone checks. Maybe it won't be so bad." Who was he trying to kid? He was going to get scratched and poked to death. There was no way that that could ever be 'not so bad.' "Uh, I-I-I-I always wondered what was in all those empty heads back there." Probably a lot of wires and soon, him.
"You know," he started to say, but he lost whatever he was going to tell the recorder as a broken, yellow Freddy materialized out of the air before him. That… there was no way he could have anticipated that. A masked humanoid robot was holding the bear's hand. Letting go, it walked over to one side and the bear went to the other to press the buttons to open the doors. Henry swallowed hard. "Oh, no -"
"Gosh that was crowded!" gasped a relieved Joey. At least, he wanted to say that. Foxy's unfixed voice box decided not to cooperate with the sudden excitement, so instead of words, he emitted a static-filled scream. Surprised by his own outburst, Joey jumped and his hook snagged the underside of the desk, tipping it up. Everything on it, including the tape recorder, slid off and fell to the floor. It gave a mechanical whine and the tape stopped turning, cutting off the recording feed of what was happening in the room. Henry got a tiny flicker of relief out of knowing that at least all the screaming that was certain to accompany his death wouldn't be recorded. Of course, that relief was instantly overpowered by absolute terror as six killer robots crowded around him.
The teleporting golden bear took a step closer to him. Henry took a step backwards. He felt the wall. The bear took another step forward. Henry flinched, unable to get any farther away.
"Henry!" The man's eyes widened. The decrepit robot could talk? And it knew his name? It swayed unsteadily and it's mouth formed the closest thing it could to a smile. "Henry! It's me!"
"I told you he wouldn't know it's us." The golden bear was still talking, but it didn't seem to be talking to Henry. It was… arguing with itself?
"I knew he wouldn't know that just by looking at us. Do you think I'm stupid, Timmy?"
"I think it's stupid that you thought Henry would jump up and hug us the second we came into the room."
"I did not think that! I just said I wished that would happen!"
The puppetlike robot it had come in with waved a hand in front of the bear's face to get its attention. The golden Freddy stopped arguing with itself. "Sorry," it grumbled, embarrassed. It turned its attention back to Henry, much to the man's terror. "Oh come on. We're not that scary," the bear said to him. If it had eyes, Henry was sure that it would have rolled them.
"Wait, were we scaring you?!" the bear's jaw dropped. It took the clearly terrified Henry as an answer. "Oh no! I-I'm so sorry!"
"What do you want with me?" the cornered man asked nervously.
The bear tilted its head to the side. "There's no easy way to explain this, is there?" The puppet robot shook its head. The bear shrugged. "Ok then, I guess we'll just say it. Henry, it's me: Katie. Timmy's in here, too. We're controlling old Fredbear!"
"Basically we're ghosts and we've been hanging around this place ever since the old Freddy's got shut down." The bear's voice was the same, but it's tone was much more frustrated, as if it didn't want to explain this.
"Timmy? Is that you?" Henry asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
"Yep. That's what Katie said, right? I'm walking around in the bearbot you shoved my head into." Henry flinched a little and Timmy let out another huffy sigh. "Katie's got split control of him, in case you couldn't figure that out. The kids who got killed with her are those guys," he pointed to the four animatronics who were standing in an excited huddle behind him, "and that's Nate." The puppet robot gave a little wave. "The guy who murdered Katie and the kids got him outside the old Fredbear diner a month or so before my birthday. That birthday," he repeated as if he needed to clarify. "So, any questions that don't require me giving a detailed explanation of how we came back as ghosts or possessed robots?"
This was too much. His brother and sister and ghosts and... wow. Questions. He had so many and yet he didn't know what to ask. Was this even real? He ended up blurting out the first thing that came to his mind. "Did you ever stuff anybody into a costume?" he asked weakly.
The group stared at him. "I really didn't mean it!" Bonny piped up. The story was recounted and Henry found himself smiling when it was over. To think, he and countless other people had been scared over such a simple misunderstanding. It was actually pretty funny.
The next few hours were spent telling stories and laughing. Nate had volunteered to entertain the kids while his two friends talked with their brother. Though it was strange to have a conversation with two people who shared the same body, Henry was able to discern between the two different voices and besides, being with his lost brother and sister was so wonderful that he didn't care how abnormal the circumstances were. The three siblings were all together as they had never been before and it was pure bliss to sit at one of the tables of the empty party room and just chat. The only subject that wasn't allowed to be discussed was murder; the serious conversations could wait until the next night. This was their reunion and they were not about taint the mood by talking about what had torn their family apart.
"So, Henry, are you married? Do you have kids? Are they my age? Can I meet them?" Katie peppered him with questions.
"Um, sorry but no," her older brother blushed. "I'm barely able to keep a roof over my head. A family of my own isn't really something I could support, and I don't even know any women."
"You should stay with us!" she squealed with delight. "We could hide you and you could eat pizza every night!"
Henry smiled at his little sister's suggestion. "Sorry, but I don't think my boss would like that idea too much. I've got an apartment, don't worry."
"But you could sneak in and the manager wouldn't even have to know," Katie whined. Puppy dog eyes weren't exactly something Fredbear's empty black eyeholes were able to do, but she tried all the same.
"This conversation is getting too stupid for me," Timmy grumbled. "I'll be backstage if you need me."
Henry waited for Fredbear to get up. When the animatronic didn't move, he called, "Timmy? Are you still there?"
"He just walked away a few moments ago," Katie replied.
"I didn't see him, though."
"Well of course you didn't," she shrugged. "He left as a ghost. Nobody can see us when we're ghosts. Here, I'll stand next to you." Fredbear slumped over and Henry looked around. Nobody was next to him. "See what I mean?" she asked, the bear suddenly coming back to life. "Only ghosts can see other ghosts. Although," she added thoughtfully, "I actually could see Timmy and Nate while I was still alive."
"Your imaginary friends," Henry remembered. "Wow. Just wow. I can't believe I didn't listen to you. Maybe if I had…"
"That wouldn't have changed anything," Katie shook her head. "And me seeing them wasn't something that you could just shrug and accept. Other kids my age had imaginary friends who were actually imaginary, and I had a lot of made up fantasy worlds, too. Seeing two invisible playmates didn't sound too believable."
"You, Katie, are the voice of reason," Henry declared.
"Thanks," she giggled. A chiming bell began to sound somewhere outside. Katie frowned. "It's six o'clock already. I guess it's time for you to go."
Wow. The time had just flown by. The cooks and waiters and waitresses would be coming in soon, and boy did he not want to be there when the rude front desk lady walked through the door. "I'll come back tomorrow night," Henry promised. "After all, it is my job."
"We'll be waiting," Katie smiled before pulling her brother into a crushing hug. "Well, I guess I'd better get Timmy so we can drop Fredbear off at the room he's supposed to be in. It wouldn't be too nice to have some employees find him outside of a sealed off room. They might think he teleported," she giggled.
Henry nodded and said goodbye his sister. He smiled as he stepped out into the crisp morning air. For the first time in his career at Freddy's, he was looking forward for midnight to come.