July 1980

Clipboard in hand as always, Clyde conducted a last-minute inventory of the contents of the safe room at his "home base" restaurant location, the same one where Mike Schmidt would briefly serve as the night watch decades later. The work crew was already assembling their equipment outside in the hallway, ready to wall off the little niche at the far end with a sheet of plywood and make it look as though it had never existed.

There wasn't much to list, aside from some broken furniture and a few burnt-out, glitchy arcade games. With the video arcade industry still in its infancy, it seemed incredible that there already existed game cabinets ready for retirement, but the particular machines had been poorly designed, prone to dangerous overheating and were impossible to maintain, let alone repair.

"And that leaves you, Spring Bonnie," Clyde reluctantly announced, addressing the golden rabbit character that stood silently against the wall and wondering if the animatronic devices within still held enough of a charge for him to hear and process what he was saying. He had been moved hastily over from the satellite location after the spring-lock failure, tucked away in the safe room with employees ordered to keep away from him, as if the character himself was a threat. "I know this wasn't your fault, but after that horrible accident, this has to be done for everyone's good, your own included." Taking a draw off his cigarette, he cringed, knowing his fellow workers openly scoffed at him for talking to the animatronics as though they were his equals.

"They wanted to scrap you outright, but since the insurance company's been pushing us to lose these safe rooms anyway, someone came up with the idea of stowing you in here." He smiled weakly, feeling the need to explain everything to the character whether Spring Bonnie could hear him or not. "Maybe the world just wasn't ready for a great animatronic like you. Think of it this way: you'll be part of a time capsule, and who knows, someday, someone might bust open this false wall and fix you up and you'll be the star of the show once again. Heck, I promise I'll do it myself if I ever fight my way up high enough in this company."

Reaching out to rest a hand on the acrylic fur of the rabbit's chest, he looked apologetically one last time into the cheerful face of the character the young guests to the pizzeria had loved so dearly.

"Goodbye, old friend."

"You done in there?" asked the work crew foreman after Clyde had shuffled out. His workers were standing by impatiently with the sheets of plywood.

"Yeah," admitted the training coordinator in resignation, "have at it." As the sound of electric drills filled the hallway behind him, he gazed up despondently at the promotional posters mounted on the wall. Just days ago, the posters hung throughout the pizzeria had all featured Fredbear and Spring Bonnie, but those had been stowed in the safe room along with the rabbit character himself, and the replacement posters showcased the new and improved "Freddy's band," consisting of an entirely different cast of animatronics. Fredbear had been given a reprieve at least for now, with his spring-lock character deactivated and merely moved to the backstage room at both locations. It was an awkward era of transition, but now that Clyde had faced the worst of it, maybe everything would look better in the long run.


"Randy, you've outdone yourself!" Mike slapped a hand to his forehead incredulously as he was pulled by one arm through the attraction by its enthusiastic creator. "This is amazing, just like being back in the old place in its heyday. I seriously can't believe you did all this in just two days." As far as he could tell, Randy had set aside his recreational smoking to make a true attempt at building his dream over the weekend, and it was already evident he was an entirely different individual when sober.

The kid clearly had an eye for design even if his father didn't appreciate it; he had retrofit the otherwise useless animatronic masks with light bulbs to serve as lamps over each corridor of the winding path that led through the maze, as if to beckon guests toward the next frightful scenario, and he had papered the walls with children's crayon drawings and other decorations recovered from the defunct restaurants. Arcade games were located at unexpected bends in the hallways, lending to the feel that one was trapped hopelessly in something that had been meant to be a kiddie haven but had become something else entirely. The fresh, sharp smell of pine sawdust permeated the air, a testament to his diligent work.

"Yeah, I threw a lot of elbow grease into it," Randy said dismissively, inwardly glowing that someone approved of the long hours he had put into the project. "But I thought you said you weren't around to visit any of the restaurants back when you were a kid." He stopped short to take a screwdriver from his pocket and refasten a wooden pizza-slice decoration that had started to slide off the wall.

"Right, I wasn't," Mike quickly corrected himself. "But while the Freddy's in your area might've shut down - and didn't you say it burned to the ground pretty soon after that? - thirty years ago, the one back in my hometown hung on all the way until the end of 2014, I think it was, before it sputtered out for lack of business. I, uh, was there a few times for my nephews' and nieces' birthday parties. Cool enough place, if you could stand the goofy songs and the constant screaming from all the kids."

Randy's shoulders fell. "Yeah, screaming. Speaking of which, I guess this isn't so terribly spooky just yet, huh? I was really hoping to find something that would actually scare the living daylights out of our guests, but right now this is just a sorry walk-through deal with some creepy stuff tacked up on the walls. I was kind of counting on at least one animatronic still being intact; what a rip-off."

"Hey, I meant it when I said I wanted to see what you came up with, and ya already done good," Mike reassured him. "You bought out, what, at least two vacant restaurants? Maybe you missed something. You know what they say, 'if you don't succeed, try, try again.'" He bit his lip as Randy guided him through the final twisting corridors in the maze, dreading the inevitable moment when he'd discover a reenactment of the brutal murders that had been committed at his old workplace, but when they reached the end and merely wound up in a mock-up of his old security office, he found it touching that the younger man had made a true effort to abide by his advice and forgo any significant reference to the pizzeria's tragic past.


October 1980

"Hey, kids, who's already having fun?" asked Clyde, standing before the drawn curtain on the show stage at the satellite location. "Enjoying that free pizza tonight? I want to thank you all for coming out to the official unveiling of our all-new Freddy Fazbear band!" He flashed his most winning smile at the young crowd sprawled on the floor around the stage. In a hasty public relations move following the unfortunate and traumatizing spring-trap failure, the company had issued free admission tickets to each child in attendance for the promised debut of the new characters, and over his protests, the training coordinator had been asked to serve as the event's emcee. Clyde remained convinced it had been a mistake, though; it was one thing to feel comfortable enough to record a training lesson by speaking alone into a tape recorder or even showing someone the ropes in person, and something else entirely to take center stage and address a huge crowd, even if they were just kids.

At a table off to the side in the expansive dining room, Derrick leaned forward, a wide grin on his face and a light wrap over his healed leg. "This is only going to get better from here," he said with devious glee, taking another sip of the beer he had poured from the tap behind the concession counter. Next to him, Marjorie, the former Fredbear performer, rolled her eyes, her own drink barely touched.

"For you, maybe. You got him wasted on purpose," she accused, frowning at Derrick's arm, which had somehow ended up across her shoulders. No sooner had she and the others greeted the performer upon his return just a week ago than she'd seen what was going on at the restaurant for what it was. Management seemed so relieved he had never bothered to sue over his extensive injuries that they were perfectly willing to grant him a wide berth, which he had taken to his advantage. Accepting the day-shift security guard position with apparent enthusiasm, Derrick had misused his newfound authority on countless occasions, including today, when he'd bullied the teenager at the concession counter into providing several free rounds of alcoholic drinks to the trio at his table.

"I was just helping the kid overcome his stage fright!" he protested, leaning back and smoothing a hand over the crisp purple work shirt that designated him as a guard. He frowned as Marjorie shrugged off the arm he had rested on her shoulder. "Hey, he's doing fine, just watch."

"So Spring Bonnie got, uh, hurt a little, but I'm happy to say he's all better now and he's even on a special assignment away from Freddy Fazbear's Pizza," Clyde addressed the children, lowering his voice as if sharing a great secret. "I heard he's off helping the real Easter Bunny with all those eggs year-round, but he's sent along his special friends from Animal Land to party and celebrate with you." Glancing down at the sheet of looseleaf that contained the script he'd written, he tried to make out the text, which had mysteriously become blurry. The band's backstory had made a lot more sense when he'd actually written it out, but he at least felt he could wing it from here.

"Uh, first there's his very own cousin, Bonnie the Bunny!" The curtains slowly drew back, revealing a trio of animatronic characters, still mostly obscured by the fog effects from a machine just offstage. "He's a real guitar legend, ready to jam with anyone who wants to learn the words to the band's songs. And, hailing from a farm in central Iowa, presenting our backup singer, Chica the Chicken! She's a young leghorn chicken with a healthy appetite for fun and adventure, as well as our own fresh-baked pizzas! Finally, the leader of the band-hey!" Clyde exhaled sharply, staring down at his white dress shirt, where a slice of pizza had just landed, sliding downward and leaving a greasy triangle of tomato sauce on the fabric. "Who threw that?"

Marjorie glared at Derrick in disapproval as he nearly fell off his chair in hysterics.

"We want Spring Bonnie!" a snarky, young voice demanded. "Your new band sucks." As if on cue, other kids joined in the chorus, rising to their feet and growing more agitated and restless.

"Sorry, kids, but he's left the building," Clyde informed the audience with a helpless shrug, dodging a thrown drink cup. "Hey, does your mother know you use that kinda language?!" Who exactly had put them up to this? He ducked behind the Freddy Fazbear animatronic that he probably wasn't going to get the opportunity to properly introduce, and reluctantly tossed forward several handfuls of company-issued free arcade tokens to the crowd. "Here, go play some Pac-Man!"


"Well, that went down like a lead balloon," Clyde sighed, resting his face on his palm at the table in utter defeat and staring down at his stained shirt. It felt as though a thousand tiny hammers were assaulting his brain, and he wasn't remotely ready to down the mug of coffee Marjorie had thoughtfully brought him. "Just great, I was done in by a bunch of kids."

"Maybe so, but give 'em a little time and they'll get used to the new band," Derrick reassured him. "See? Look, the free arcade tokens calmed 'em down." He gestured to the arcade, alive with the frenzied activity of a hundred wired children, stoked up over the opportunity for free game play and an all-you-can-eat pizza buffet as well.

"If I can let you in on a little secret, I can barely stand the little twerps myself," he admitted, while Clyde and Marjorie glanced at each other in alarm.