Joseph locked down the dump telling me to get some rest. He refused to let me leave so allowed me a room that I never knew existed in the place. It was like a guest room complete with bed, bathroom, and even a mini-fridge. I was allowed to have what was in it as long as I didn't eat most of it. Though with the events from earlier I didn't think I'd be able to do much eating let along just go to sleep.
I sprawled out on the bed forcing myself to relax. My leg throbbed in protest to my straightening it out. It ached to no end but did feel much better than it had.
Staring up at the ceiling allowed me to think.
Apparently I had a spirit following me. I couldn't see it, didn't know if it was watching me, had no way of knowing if it was even in the damn room with me. The spirits outside obviously wanted to hurt me – or maybe they didn't much care for anyone and I just so happen to be the one to always be in the wrong place at the right time. But if those spirits were so angry, then what did that have to say about the one with me? Why was it with me in the first place and not Riley? She had been here first when the animatronics got here.
I sighed. It always felt like shit happened to me. Nothing quite like this, but bad things always happened in my life. My mom dying when I was young, dad being a drunk and always getting fired, getting kicked out of the house when I turned eighteen. Hell, if it weren't for Riley I'd still be out on the streets doing God knows what with my life. This job wasn't the best of things but it did pay the bills.
"You here, kid?" I asked the empty room. It felt rude to ignore the boy. He was probably just scared and alone. If I wasn't careful he might get mad too. "If you are, I just wanna say that… I'm sorry that bad stuff happened to you. I can complain about shit in my life but at least I'm still here." Probably not the best thing to say and I regretted reminding the spirit he was dead. I sat up thinking of ways to add on to what I started. "We really want to help. I want to help make it all better." But how?
Sighing again I rested my forehead to my palm. This wasn't helping at all. "How can I help something I can't see or hear…?" The only thing I could think of doing was helping to catch the killer but he was probably long gone by now. Either that or it was the guy who killed the person from that pizza place and he could be on the run somewhere.
I wished there was something that I could do to help. It felt like it was just a matter of waiting for the police to find more information.
His face.
I sat up straight. That was true. I knew his face.
His FACE.
Anger swelled up in my mind again.
That stupid GRIN. Fucking annoying piece of trash. Thinking it's okay to just do that. Enjoying everything he did to US. Those fucking EYESthat watched as we SUFFERED THROUGH WHAT HE DID-!
I shook my head panic setting in. Those weren't my thoughts. Maybe this kid really could take over me.
Wait! "He's communicating with me?!" I looked around the room expecting to see the upper half of a floating body. "So you are here." There was no one but with those thoughts imbedded in my head I knew the kid was still here. "Listen, I want to help catch this guy but I can't really do much. I'm sorry. We just have to be patient."
No thoughts banged around inside my head. I took that as him agreeing with me.
"Okay. Now, if you can we need to get those animatronics outside under control. Eh… I mean, the other kids. The bunny one almost broke my leg earlier. They could really hurt someone."
Again.
I flinched. Again? "What does that mean?"
No thoughts again. He wasn't answering me or couldn't.
Remembering what I'd read earlier it made sense that the robots had hurt someone before. If the murders had happened when the place closed the first time, maybe the robots were already possessed by the time it reopened. Maybe that night watchman that is missing is dead too.
Mike.
Another flinch. I wasn't getting use to these stray thoughts breaking into my head. "Wait, Mike? You know his name? Th-the other kid knew his name too! Do you kids know him?"
It must have been so painful. So much blood…
I didn't understand. The thoughts stopped there and there was no flashing images like before. The kids know him in some way but I couldn't figure out how. All of it was beginning to make my head pound. I felt tired too. I needed to sleep. Maybe I'd get more answers if I slept.
Slowly I crawled to the head of the bed, pushing myself under the sheets and gently lying myself down so my leg didn't scream too loudly at me. I easily got comfortable and closed my eyes.
Within moments of my eyes shutting I opened them to a brightly lit room filled with laughing kids, smells of greasy pizza, and the sounds of scratchy music. My own mind remained conscious as before as my body that was no longer reacted without my say so.
Straight up to the stage I ran to watch the happenings of the creatures I now found so disturbing. Their struggled movements as they danced and moved to programming seemingly draining away over time.
Then my vision was drawn elsewhere. A boy who stood alone staring up at a curtain. He had on a pirate hat and the one eye I could see was covered with an eye patch. His gaze remained on the curtain and finally he stepped past a sign there and got closer to the separate stage.
As I was going to move to head over, a yellow creature stood in my way. His movements seemed less glitchy than those of the animatronics on stage, he even was able to kneel down to my level to talk to me.
"Hey hey, little boy. Do you want to hear a secret?"
"Wow! A yellow Freddy? Or are you a different one?" He was so excited, jumping forward and hugging the bear.
The bear laughed – a disturbing laugh that had my skin crawl. "Now now, little boy. Calm down. I've got a secret for you. There is a room over there," he pointed down the hall that lead to that dreadful room, "that there will be a party in. I'm only telling the most special kids about this so don't go telling anyone or you'll ruin the surprise." He stood once more. "When you see ol' golden Freddy heading on back then come on to the party."
The boy squealed happily and rushed us away to get some pizza. Nothing about that felt right. I knew what was going to happen. The dreading pain of being ripped apart struck me but I was unable to move myself as I wanted. Instead I looked back to the brown haired boy looking into the star curtains. Even the boy felt like he shouldn't be that close to that stage.
Again as I felt myself about to call out to him, my gaze moved to the hall where the yellow Freddy was now leaving to. A few other kids rushed down to him – the short boy who was trapped inside Foxy, the girl who got crushed to death, the other girl who choked on her own organs, and the older boy whose jaw was broken. Things were all falling into place and I didn't like it.
Even so, the boy ran off after them. We reached the end of the hall and I looked back. A fox was behind the curtain, but it was white. It hung from the ceiling of the curtained area, half of its body now out as it crawled from behind. The shape of the fox wasn't right. It had extra appendages, an extra metal face, and no body. All it had to show it was a fox was the white face. It didn't seem complete and definitely not like it was supposed to be there. The boy looked surprised by its presence as well.
The animatronic twitched, masked face twisting upside down and back again. It angled down toward the boy before it and, without a moment of hesitation, lunged forward and sunk its teeth deep into the child's head. Blood sprayed the curtains before gushing from behind the closed mouth and to the floor.
Children screamed.
Parents screamed.
The group I was in screamed.
I didn't. He didn't. I stood there just staring at the blood pouring over.
HE didn't scream. No. Three sharp thuds sounded before I turned to see he had knocked out three of the kids. He then hit the last child on the back of the head before turning to me.
I got a few good running steps away from him, but he was bigger and faster and easily caught me. I went down, hitting the ground hard. I stared at the boy surprisingly still standing with the fox still attached to his face. His body was twitching with the efforts of any sort of movement. Then the fox released and the boy crashed to the ground.
My vision blurred and blacked out before I could see anymore.
He isn't gone.
His voice called out to the darkness.
Mike… Find Mike. Find him.