July 1980

"Heeeeyyyy, kids, it's been a really swell sing-along show, but it's about time for Fredbear and I to take our afternoon naps, and I think I hear the school buses outside, ready to take you back to your summer camp for even more fun!" drawled Spring Bonnie, cavorting around the show stage at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza with a series of hops, the enthusiastic cheering of children almost drowning out his words. "So long and goodbye, everyone, and I hope to see you back real soon! In fact, see Fredbear on your way out, because he has a special surprise for each of you: your very own coupon for half-off admission on your next visit. So stop in again and bring along your whole family!"

Behind the mask of the golden rabbit costume, Derrick carefully measured every breath he took with the precision of a deep-sea diver while reciting his lines, always cautious to avoid exhaling onto the sensitive animatronic devices spring-loaded within the suit. During the entire performance of song-and-dance numbers, his face had been twisted into a sneer that contrasted sharply with the happy and cheerful visage of the character whose persona he had taken on, for secretly he held nothing but contempt for his young audience.

He loathed the kids, hated their impatience and their boundless, undirected energy and their very presence in the restaurant, and had only taken on the role of Spring Bonnie because he had desperately needed to take a second job. Working as a performer paid far better than any other position at the pizzeria, so long as one was willing to accept the risks that came with wearing the complicated hybrid costumes.

"Just kill me now," he hissed to his fellow performer who was kneeling at the edge of the stage handing out the discount coupons, certain she was doing her characteristic eyeroll behind the mask of the Fredbear costume in response. As if on cue, a child clambered onto the stage, his camp t-shirt flapping behind him as he rushed at Derrick, arms outstretched and ready to embrace his favorite character.

"Spring Bonnie, I don't want to leave you!"

"No, kid, get back!" Realizing all too late what was about to happen, Derrick's desperate warning went unheeded as the determined child evaded Fredbear's attempt to snatch him up and away from his new idol.


A Datsun hatchback squealed to a halt outside Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, swerving askew into two parking spots. The driver scarcely noticed, scrambling out through the perpetually-open driver's side window since the door had jammed long ago after a minor collision, and sprinted toward the restaurant, clutching a company-issued clipboard in one hand.

It was immediately evident that something had gone horribly wrong at the pizzeria's first satellite location; the young campers and their counselors were leaving in droves toward their school buses, many still wearing festive party hats that clashed sharply with their pallid faces and shaken demeanor. Darting through the crowd, he was met at the front door by the restaurant's manager.

"Clyde, thank goodness you're here, but I kinda thought they were going to send someone...a little higher up?" Mitch paused only a moment, squinting at the training coordinator who was scarcely a year out of high school. "Never mind, I'm sure management knows what they're doing. As I said on the phone, there's been a...situation." His voice lowered ominously, leaving no doubt as to what had happened. "Safe room. Quickly." They rushed through the corridor that housed the building's restrooms, the manager filling the younger man in along the way since there were no customers remaining within earshot. "Our Spring Bonnie performer, Derrick, he's hurt. Hurt really bad. The suit malfunctioned somehow and punched him through in a few places. How it didn't do him in altogether is beyond me, but he somehow managed to limp it back here and peel off the costume. Marjorie - she's our Fredbear - helped him. This is just unreal."

"Curse those spring suits, I knew they were nothing but trouble and that something like this would happen!" Clyde exclaimed, following the trail of blood drops that led along the checkerboard-tiled floor and already imagining the graphic scene that awaited him in the back room. The small chain of children's pizza palaces he worked for, now in its second year of operation, had carried over the two headlining characters, Spring Bonnie and Fredbear, from a defunct "family diner" they had bought out, even replicating the costumes for the second restaurant in their franchise. In a frugal move, the suits had been designed to double as animatronic characters as well as mascot costumes for humans to wear and control, but they were fraught with peril. The same mechanisms that allowed the characters to move in a lifelike manner and entertain children could be withdrawn into the costume, but if the person within made any number of errors to set them off, they were capable of positively mauling him.

Clyde gingerly knelt by the injured man, who was reclining on the floor amidst more blood stains that had been hastily and only partially wiped up, one leg wrapped tightly in towels from the establishment's kitchen. Several employees surrounded him, trying their best to offer what comfort they could, and Derrick was stoicly bearing the obvious pain by holding his breath until his face had taken on a vaguely purple shade.

"Uh, hey, buddy, you're going to be just fine, okay? Breathe! We'll get you to the hospital soon enough, but for legal reasons and to take another...uh, I mean, to take an accident report, I need you to tell me what happened here." His eyes strayed to the discarded rabbit costume, its acrylic fur streaked with red from Derrick's mishap, and he shared the manager's shock that anyone could have maintained the self-control to nimbly shed the suit after suffering such an excruciatingly painful episode.

Derrick's eyes locked on Clyde's with a sudden fury. "You want to know what happened? I'll tell you what happened. I was doing my usual thing during the show, dancing with Fredbear, when one of those little brats rushed the stage and hugged me, only he could only reach my leg. But just the same, the pressure from that set off the springs and suddenly they fired into me." He gestured to his grieviously-injured leg. "This isn't even my only job, what am I going to do now?"

A young woman, barely out of her teenage years, lifted a wet towel from Derrick's discolored forehead. As a fellow performer herself, she still wore most of the Fredbear costume, having only taken the time to remove the headpiece before offering her shoulder as support to drag her coworker offstage to the back room where others could administer help.

"I'm so sorry," Clyde admitted with true concern. "I understand an ambulance has already been called, but, uh, because it's company policy, I sorta have to read off this official disclaimer before we release you from the, uh, accident scene." He anxiously flipped through the pages on his clipboard. "Right. 'Fazbear Entertainment denies any responsi-'" He gasped as he found himself tackled under the other man, who had suddenly found new strength.

"You listen to me," growled Derrick as everyone else stepped back involuntarily, stunned by the ferocity of his voice. "I never wanted in this line of work but I took it because I had to. Today it's ruined me every way possible, and I swear that as soon as I'm able to, I will return to this place and utterly destroy it. And I know you," he snarled, tightening his grip on Clyde, "you're that snotty voice from those training tapes; I should've known you were just a kid. You knew how dangerous these suits were and I promise you, someday I'll ruin you exactly the same way you ruined me."

Clyde managed to shrug himself loose from the worker who was rapidly losing strength, hearing the wail of an ambulance outside. "C'mon, guys, don't take any of that seriously. This poor man's delirious from the pain," he addressed the small crowd, following up with a nervous laugh. Ignoring the streaks of blood that now marred his own shirt, he shifted his weight and gently lowered Derrick back to the floor, resting a hand on his sweaty forearm. "You'll be alright, trust me." Lowering his voice to a whisper for the performer's benefit, he added, "I'm sorry, again. I hated the idea of those spring suits but I didn't have a choice to make the instructional tapes on how to use them. It was either that or lose my job; they were dead-set on making do with them, at least while our replacement characters are being designed and built, and thank goodness those are almost done. But for your sake, I'm going to do all I can to make sure nobody ever has to wear a Spring Bonnie costume again. You have my word on it."

"That's all fine and good, but I'm standing by my words," growled Derrick. "I will end you." His eyes locked on the younger employee's name tag, as if sealing the vendetta he had against him.

"Don't worry about him, son," the manager advised Clyde, resting a hand on his shoulder once the performer had been whisked away on a stretcher by the paramedics. "Derrick's a little rough but I know him well enough to tell he didn't really mean any of that." Craning his neck to see the incident report the youthful worker was filling out, he watched as Clyde paused in his writing, his ballpoint pen suspended over the clipboard.

"Uh, what type of accident do you think I should categorize this as?" he asked, admitting his bewilderment and inexperience.

Mitch sighed. "Call it what it is. Multiple and simultaneous spring-lock failures, resulting in grotesque maiming."

Clyde raised an eyebrow at him, shrugging. "Yeah, I guess that'll work," he said, scribbling away.


2019

Sitting in the passenger seat of the moving van with Harry at the wheel, the innate thrill-seeker in Mike couldn't help but inwardly rejoice when the outlines of the amusement park's Ferris wheel and chair lift came into view on the horizon. Despite being well into his fourth decade, he still had made it a mission to patronize Krayzee Action Park every so often when his finances permitted it, screaming hysterically and taking risks with whatever friend he could drag along for the day.

Seated in the last car of the park's fiercest roller coaster, his hands thrust fearlessly in the air, his thinning hair flapping wildly in the rush of wind and finding himself half-flung from his seat at the crest of the highest hills, Mike had always relished the feeling of absolute weightlessness and the freedom to forget the troubles that seemed to perpetually await him once he left the park grounds at closing time. His escape came in a controlled and mostly safe environment, unlike his days in the security office at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, when the terror had been anything but manufactured.

Ending his reverie, Harry maneuvered the van through the gates at the outskirts of the park, pulling up to a cluster of battered tractor-trailers. "Guess this is it," he announced gruffly, then shut off the ignition to consult his phone. "You know, Mike, all the way here we talked about how much you want to find a job that'll last ya. I see this place needs landscapers, and it would be full-time work, at least during the season. Once we're done unloading this old junk, why don't you march on down to the office and pick up an application? This could be your big break. Learn the trade for a season or two and maybe you could start your own business."

"That's hardly a bad idea. Maybe I will," Mike said absently, suddenly unable to tear his attention from the fright attraction looming before their eyes.


To Mike's disappointment, the proprietor of the new haunted house had left the grounds, supposedly out procuring more "artifacts" for his attraction, and the makeshift building itself was padlocked, with instructions being left to unload everything into an empty trailer parked away from the others.

"I was kinda hoping we could see the place; I'm curious where he plans to go with this," he admitted to Harry as they wrestled a hefty arcade cabinet down the ramp of the van. "Ugh, does this thing even work or does he just want it for appearance's sake?"

"We're making honest money, Mike, so don't knock the work," Harry responded with his perpetual sense of patience. They lowered the cabinet to the floor at the rear of the trailer, near a box of stripped-down components that had unmistakably once been animatronic characters. "Eew, what're these?" he asked, kneeling by the box and pulling out a dust-covered facemask.

Mike grinned. "Aw, they found the characters from the most short-lived Freddy's. That was a real score; from, uh, what I heard, that restaurant was only open a week and then after the usual tragedies, the characters were immediately scrapped. I had no idea those would still be around; I was sure they became landfill fodder a long time ago."

Harry lowered the headpiece of a yellow chicken back into the box, eyeing Mike curiously. "I know I've said this before, but you sure know a lot about that pizzeria chain. Scratch the landscaping idea, maybe you should help the kid who's trying to get this started, as a sort of consultant. I'm sure he'd be glad to have you."

After the last item was unloaded into the trailer, Mike helped Harry secure the moving van, but he waved his employer off, ensuring him he'd hitch a ride home after paying a visit to the park office.


Author's Note: In no way was it meant to be implied that Phone Guy/Clyde's voice actor has a "snotty voice." That's just Derrick being a jerk and not the author's opinion at all!