Hello reader, how do you do? Sorry for the delay, work is being extremely toxic.

I'd like to thank sevensocks and the unnamed guest for leaving their thoughts on the last chapter/the story so far. I really appreciate the feedback. I'll be answering the signed reviews as well.

So, do you remember back in chapter three when Foxy looked angrily at Freddy? Yeah, about that…

PART I

Do You Remember

Chapter V

When They Found Us

"Good morning. I'm glad to see you're all early." Thea greeted the three employees who were waiting when she arrived a quarter before seven. She thanked them for their punctuality, just as she always did. "I hope you haven't been waiting too long."

"Good morning, ma'am." Jim, the skittish new recruit, stood at attention upon her arrival. She didn't expect him to be this early, even on his first day; if he wanted to make a good impression then he succeeded.

"It's all good, Miss Roquefort." Virgil answered back cheerfully. He knocked on the panel to the right side of the shutter door. The panel itself was a shinier grey compared to the door frame. "We don't have keys for the new lock, though."

"I'm sorry about that." She opened her saddle bag and rummaged through an inside pocket for the key, which she held out for the more senior of the two boys. Virgil was usually early enough that he usually arrives before the night guard leaves, though, and normally wouldn't even need to use his own key. "I take it David hasn't come out yet?"

"No ma'am, he hasn't. I tried calling out to him, no dice." Virgil took the key from her and slotted it into the keyhole. He turned it a full rotation counterclockwise until he heard a click and pulled it out to give back to her. "He might be in one of the back rooms where he can't hear us. Marco's over at the other side in case he is."

"I'll leave the key with you for now. Have someone go into town and get two duplicates made when the locksmith opens at ten." Thea closed her bag as Virgil nodded and put the key in his uniform's front pocket. Jim stayed silent, watching the conversation.

"Well it looks like someone came around and wanted to give the back wall a new paint job." A gruff voice came from around the corner of the building, another early riser. His eyes lit up and he grunted lightly when he saw the manager, acknowledging her presence. It was enough of a greeting, coming from him. "Mh."

"We'll clean it up before we open." Thea said simply. There should still be enough paint to cover it up if it's not too big, and thinner if it's still new and can still be cleaned up.

"I'll handle it." Virgil looked up from his position kneeling down in front of the shutter doors. "Did you find him, Marky?"

"No he's not answering." Marco shook his head. "And we shouldn't have to patch it up; he should've prevented it in the first place. He ought to have scared the hooligans off at least."

"Think you can do a better job?" Thea smiled, "You know, you can always switch out for night guard duty instead."

"W- what? No! Absolutely not!" Marco stammered in response. He talked a big game when it came to David but would never follow through.

"Then you do your job, and let him do his." She said, her voice neutral without scolding.

Virgil chuckled as Marco grumbled what may have been an apology. Jim, the new guy, looked like he felt out of place, unsure of the dynamic going on between the boss and his coworkers who oddly don't seem to be intimidated by her presence.

"Here we go." There was a metallic shuddering when Virgil lifted the shutters open, standing up as he did so. At the end of the lift, he pushed it up with a short hop. The bottom of the door met with the ceiling of the frame, leaving only a small metal protrusion with which it could be pulled back down later. Virgil pushed the handles to the glass double doors that led inside. He reached for the light switch and flicked it on. He took a deep breath, and frowned. "Aww, no free food today."

"Jim, you go with Virgil and clean up the back wall." Thea paired the two together for now, Virgil will be showing Jim how things are done around the pizzeria. She trusted he would be tactful about… recent… issues should the newbie bring them up in conversation. She had briefed all employees the week prior to downplay the issues as much as they could, especially with the customers.

"Okidoki, Miss Roquefort." Virgil motioned for Jim to follow him as he walked through the middle of the table columns to the supply closet along the west corridor. "Come on, Jimmy."

There was little surprise to Thea that he had already come up with a nickname for the new recruit. Virgil was always jovial and delightful to work with. Marco came in through the doors last, already looking over the dining area for anything out of line. Apparently seeing everything in order, as opposed to the usual state of things when they came in, he smirked. "If David keeps this up a few more weeks, I might actually start to like him."

"You know what to do, Marco." Thea turned left toward the security office. "I'll see if David's still here."

"Alright," Marco's first job, as always, was to assess the pizzeria's state to see if anything needs major fixing so they know if they need to call in help. He started for the covered stage. "I'll let you know what he screwed up this time."

Thea turned the lights to the east corridor on as she passed. She wanted to check up on David before heading upstairs to her office. She reached the door and knocked softly.

'tap ta-tap tap'

There was no response. She turned the door handle and found it unlocked. The hinges on the door creaked as she pushed it open and what she saw on the other side made her smile.

There, on the floor in the middle of the security office, sat Foxy who was facing in her direction. He had his arms wrapped around David's torso, who she recognized by his back. The night guard was slumped awkwardly on him, their heads to the left of each other and his arms reaching above Foxy's shoulders.

Thea leaned slightly onto the doorframe as she watched him sleep. She noticed Foxy's jaw seemed to be hanging limply over David's shoulder and made a mental note to tell the in-house repairman about it later, but decided about asking the night guard about it until after he woke up. She had seen him sleeping with Foxy a few times before, usually with his head on Foxy's lap, during the times when he obliged and helped out with renovations on top of his usual nightwatch duties. He deserved this, considering the firestorm that started about last week's incident.

"Miss Roquefort?" She heard Virgil's voice from the dining room end of the hallway. "Is he in there?"

Yes affirmative, Thea popped her head from the doorway and gestured, her right hand open with the palm facing Virgil. In her time as operations manager for the restaurant, she had devised a series of one-handed signals so the crew could still communicate effectively with each other even when the noise from the children and the singing was too loud. She brought her index finger to her lip, the universal signal for quiet.

Virgil nodded as Jimmy, er, Jim stood by him watching the exchange. The new employ seemed especially fidgety at the moment. Virgil raised an open right palm toward Thea, and then extended his arm roughly in the direction of the stage presumably where Marco was. You are needed over there.

I'm coming. Thea closed her hand and brought it down and up, as if triggering a pullcord on a bus. With that, Jim and Virgil left through the front doors, the former carrying the paint buckets and the latter bringing the paint kit that had brushes and rags.

Thea looked back at the still figures inside the security office. She wondered quietly how David could even manage to sleep in that position. The little rascal sometimes makes messes he can't clean up alone, which irritated Marco to no end. But the numbers never lie, no matter how unbelievable they are. David was an undeniable asset, worth so much more than the trouble he caused for the morning crew to sort out. Heck, they can hire twice as many people for morning cleanup and still ring in higher numbers than they did before he started. Whatever it was that he did with the animatronics at night didn't matter to her so long as they could still perform in the morning.

She was sure any other manager would have shot him down after his first night out of fear for damages and lost revenue. Thea didn't know much about the nitty gritty of running a business; profit margins and projected outcomes and cost ratios were above her paygrade, but she didn't need them to do her job. What she was good at was motivating the workers, and staying out of the way of people who knew things better than her. Business models can only go so far if all your employees hate you, after all. This is especially true with the waiting staff, where the sentiments of an unhappy or unsatisfied worker bleeds so easily into interactions with the customers.

Thea left the door a crack open to let in some air from the outside as she stepped away toward the dining hall. Until David came along, they never really had a dedicated night guard. The way the pizzeria was managed was that everybody, save for a few select members of the kitchen and technical staff, switched roles every now and then depending on their availability, and the necessities of the pizzeria itself. Waiters could be drafted as crowd control when the kids get particularly frisky, or into kitchen staff when a large order comes in, or construction when the pizzeria underwent remodeling. The nature of the jobs here meant the pizzeria always had enough people to do what it needed.

But it also meant that every night one poor soul got assigned to watch duty. There's really not much to do, aside from routine patrol every now and then when they felt like it, but the drudgery of being the only person in the place (sleeping was strictly not allowed) would drive most people nuts. She eventually settled on a rough cycle across the employees, with the more reliable ones being assigned longer duties and bonuses levied for simply taking the job. It was difficult both on a management and a financial standpoint.

So when David came along, Thea straight up offered him a job as night watchman instead of the usual hodgepodge of roles, since height was much less a problem as actually staying in the job. It was arguably the best decision she had made for the establishment. Not long after he started working, the animatronics seemed to take a life of their own. Their performances started to draw ever bigger crowds of customers and, every now and then, they would surprise everyone with a new song or interaction that had never been seen before. Thea was cautious at first, of course, and had the technicians have a look at the characters. But they found no signs of tampering with the seals and, for all they know, the new songs have always been in their programming and the interactions simply did not have their conditions met before.

She had stopped asking questions about David and the animatronics so long ago that she barely remembered exactly how the status quo came about. Upper management was only ever interested in the bottom line, so her guidelines for David basically boiled down to him making sure none of the animatronics got damaged and not to mess with their electronics.

"Marco." Thea called out softly as she came out into the dining area. She would have called out a second time immediately but the now open stage caught her eye. On it stood Bonnie and Chica with their respective props. Freddy was missing, and his microphone was on the floor between the two.

Red flags immediately came up in her head, just as they did the weekend prior after the incident with the children. It wasn't uncommon for the animatronics to be offstage in the morning, especially with Foxy, but it was never the case with Freddy. Where did he go off to? He couldn't have gone outside; the shutter doors didn't look to have been tampered with. The manager stopped in front of the stage and spotted a black stain on the floor leading to backstage parts. Did they play around with the chocolate syrup from the kitchens again? She called out. "Marco."

"Polo." Came the answer from backstage. Thea carefully stepped over and around the puddles and spots as she walked toward Marco who met her at the door, holding a black tophat in both hands – Freddy's tophat.

"Foxy's with David in his office, did you find Freddy?" She relayed.

"I found him alright, but someone – or something – did a number on him." Marco stepped aside to let her pass. "David fucked up."

In the brightly lit room Thea saw Freddy slumped against the far corner in a terrible state. His right arm had been pulled completely off, wires and small parts spilling out from where the shoulder was. And his head seemed to have been forcibly ripped open from the left side just above the joint for his lower jaw; the fur showed fraying and the precious equipment underneath torn apart.

"He's a minor fire hazard, for now." Marco motioned toward the spare costume parts that he had already piled near the entrance to a side and the fire extinguisher he had on hand. There were small sparks and fizzles from where Freddy's head was torn. "If we have birthday requests for Freddy, you might want to cancel those for today, maybe tomorrow. Or close the pizzeria, since we can't have a show without the main mascot."

Thea had her eyes trained on Freddy. There were many other tears with his costume to count, but the suit can easily be replaced. She hoped the hardware damage could be repaired. She watched as the fingers on the animatronic's left hand twitched before closing and opening once, which gave her a ray of hope. She addressed Marco. "Have you called technical yet?"

"Yeah, they'll be here in half an hour. They said not to touch anything." He replied. "I haven't told Virgil and the new guy, by the way."

"That'll do. Stay there for now, and have the new guy relieve you when he comes back so you can continue assessment." Thea turned and left for David's office. They needed a clearer picture of what happened, either from the watchman himself or from camera recordings if they decided to work like they did last week.

Last week.

She tried to push the thought from her mind as she walked purposefully to her destination. The pizzeria had received a lot of flak from the public about the fiasco and not having a guard on duty at the time. Thank goodness the cameras, which never really recorded anything before but didn't show any signs of tampering, provided an unquestionable account of what happened that night. Thea had basically been firefighting, trying to console and pacify customers, dealing with troublemakers, and coordinating with authorities when needed. She liked to think she did a good job with that, but it really boiled down to her not being on top of things. She probably could have asked Virgil to cover for David, perhaps offer an incentive bonus.

Thea also had to come to grips with the fact that if David had been in the building at the time of the break-in, he might have been a sixth victim. It was due to this that she decided to dip into the funds and commission heavy duty security doors for the guard's office, so he could lock himself in and call for help if needed. It was a small trifle considering what they've saved up so far. Further, the establishment showing it would spare no cost in security would would lend some much needed credibility to the pizzeria in the eyes of its patrons.

She thought back to Freddy and the damage he'd received. It was so very strange that it would happen; especially that David was on duty. She opened the door to the security office. "David, wake up."

There was no response. "Foxy, please let go of him. We need to talk."

At that, the animatronic moved, but only to constrict his arms and bring David closer to himself; his hanging jaw shifted slightly during the motion. Was he acting up? Was the damage to Foxy's jaw connected to what happened with Freddy somehow? Thea sighed, and glanced at the monitors to her right. On them she could see Marco in the backstage, and Virgil and Jim outside working on the back wall.

"For goodness sake, David wake up!" she walked over and touched his shoulder, hoping he could explain to them what exactly happened to Freddy. She immediately withdrew her hand and backed away when she felt him.

David was cold and stiff.

#

One flashback Foxy. We were gone for one flashback. What did you do? WHAT DID YOU DO?!

This officially ends Part I of the story. Look out for the first chapter of Part II next weekend!

Not much to say about this chapter, actually. It was meant to explore the point of view of the other employees of the pizzeria. I suck at exposition, like really badly. Did it feel like too much of an info dump? I feel like it is, ugh. And since you've already read chapter three by now, the end is really no surprise is it?

As before, if you liked this chapter or the story so far please consider leave a review. If you didn't, but care enough to point out where or how I could improve, also consider reviewing.