1982

"So, welcome to my humble abode," Clyde said, leading Derrick and Marjorie around the flagship restaurant. "This is where it all began, the very first Freddy Fazbear's Pizza in the franchise after we bought out the diner. It shouldn't take much getting used to since the layout's almost identical to your place."

As they passed the sealed-off entrance to the safe room, he leaned in close to Derrick, winking. "Don't even think about sneaking in there. Our watchman, Hermie, may be reassigned to food prep for the time being and he's none too thrilled about it, but once a security guard, always a security guard, I guess, and he's still busting folks for breaking the rules." He laughed reluctantly. "Not long before you arrived, he stormed right out of the kitchen and confiscated my smokes for lighting up too close to the non-smoking end of the dining area, but I'm trying to quit anyway. Maybe I had it coming."

As much as Clyde respected Hermie, who was by far the most dedicated employee in the franchise, he found himself intimidated by the man, as he sensed most of his fellow workers were. He had left his story short and amusing, but in truth, the brawny guard had been quite an imposing presence as he'd burst through the double swinging doors of the kitchen, his apron snapping against his thick legs with each purposeful stride he had taken, and had relieved the training coordinator of both the cigarette dangling from his mouth and the rest of the pack from his shirt pocket before he had even realized what was happening, then crushed them mercilessly under his boot. It had been an unsettling experience, to say the least.


Holding his chunky, budget-model cell phone to his ear, Mike broke into a wide grin as Randy greeted him, no doubt unaware the pizzeria had once relied on training messages made in similar fashion over the phone system. Wherever the entrepreneur had retreated to make his phone call, it was immediately apparent he had celebrated the near-completion of his horror attraction in typical fashion. His sobriety had been a short-lived phenomenon, as evidenced by the drawling, surfer-dude dialect he seemed to revert to by default. The young man rambled on with well-deserved pride in his voice about the discoveries he had made over the weekend, oblivious to the fact that Mike had been part of the crew that he'd hired to salvage the fixtures from the original pizzeria and unload them into the storage trailer.

Mike found Randy's unrestrained enthusiasm for what was shaping up to be his first successful project downright infectious, but he raised a protest when he suggested a workaround for the attraction's lack of animatronics.

"Haha," he cut in sarcastically, the creaky desk chair rocking with his laughter. "For a minute there, I actually thought you said you were going to make me wear a furry suit and pretend I'm some frightening animatronic. That is where I draw the line, my friend, so you'd better look harder for your robots!" Kneeling in his office by a large box overbrimming with parts from the disassembled animatronics, he rummaged through it, doing an quick inventory and finding at least some remnant of every character in the history of the pizza chain. Feeling a twinge of guilt for leading Randy on when there was virtually no chance of uncovering an intact animatronic, he fell silent, unsure of what else to say in encouragement.

His young boss returned the laugh. "Fine, no fursuit for you, then. You'd make a much better security guard anyway. Like, seriously, in case I didn't say it earlier, you totally look the part." Mike stifled a chuckle at his observation before Randy suddenly dropped a bombshell he had never seen coming, boasting he had gotten into contact with an architect who had remembered a boarded-up, forsaken "extra room" in one of the buildings.

Mike's fingers gripping his phone went numb as his mind flashed back to how close he had been to taking a sledgehammer to the mysterious plywood wall in the derelict restaurant just the previous week. Maybe he'd been on to something after all, but what did Randy expect to find in there? Between the characters at Jeremy's old restaurant and those at mine, there shouldn't be any animatronics unaccounted for, he reasoned, trying to reassure himself that his boss would likely uncover nothing of importance in whatever lay beyond that waterlogged sheet of wood.

Calming somewhat by the time Randy fretted about the marginal and faulty equipment he had been forced to make do with, the security guard didn't lend much credo to his warning about faulty ventilation. They had already discussed the pervasive moldy odor in the attraction, but Mike had his suspicions as to exactly why his boss might have seen, in his own words, some "crazy stuff," and he guessed it had nothing to do with bad air flow. The last time he had checked, a few airborne mildew spores were hardly hallucinogenic.

With a final wish for good luck, Randy groggily signed off for the night, and alone at last in the horror attraction, Mike leaned back in his old desk chair, not having expected the odd feeling of peace that overcame him but welcoming it just the same. He had initially feared the spookhouse would be a celebration of macabre events best left in the past, but somehow he had successfully diverted its creator to make something that would not disgrace the legacy of the children who had lost their lives at the pizzeria.

The contents of the defunct restaurants had instead been reworked into something that had a true potential to be positive, something kids could enjoy again even after the closing of the pizzeria. After all, dark ride attractions were all about facing one's worst fears, and countless children would spend their summer vacations gathering up the courage to race through the darkened hallways, screaming in surprise at the backlit character masks around the corridors, perhaps, but proving to themselves they could make it through all the same and gaining an empowering sense of confidence when they successfully reached the exit. Maybe the whole thing really wasn't so different from his otherwise inexplicable love of roller coasters and other thrill rides.

Imagining the young guests filing past his office, maybe giving a grateful wave to the pseudo-security guard charged with protecting them, filled Mike with a strange sense of pride. Even if he would only be masquerading as a guard, in his new position he just might find the success and respect that had evaded him in the past. Before the weekend, he hadn't seen any point in staying on at the fright attraction once its construction had been completed so rapidly, but now he realized that everything had happened for a reason, and he had been drawn to this place by no accident.

"I don't know what I did to finally deserve this, but thank you all the same." Bowing his head, he uttered his barely-audible expression of gratitude, at last finding the long-awaited sense of closure that had eluded him for half a decade. He could now work on putting the past behind him, but there was someone else who had fared far worse than him over the years, and that individual deserved the same inner peace he had found. Mike reached again for his phone, feeling Jeremy Fitzgerald needed to see this for himself.


1982

The fire of hatred had stayed alive in Derrick's heart over the years, stoked every now and then by the occasional insult, real or merely perceived, delivered his way. He had given the wildly screaming children a wide berth as he made his rounds through the pizzeria, relieved when the hour had grown late and the youngest, most unruly ones had finally been hauled home by their folks.

The parents were entirely too good at protecting their little ones, he fretted, pacing through the near-empty dining area, occasionally stopping to set upright a fallen chair or retrieve a forgotten arcade token from the floor. His malevolent plans had been constantly thwarted by the restaurant's former security guard, who had proven to be just as vigilant as Clyde had warned. Every time the two had crossed paths, Hermie had fixed him with a disapproving scowl, no doubt deeply resenting seeing a temporary worker performing the duties that he sorely missed. To make matters worse, the training manager also had an annoying tendency to pop in on him unexpectedly, usually clutching some mindless company memo that he was all too eager to share.

Deciding he had waited long enough to set his twisted scheme in motion, the security guard had eventually given up on trying to lure away the youngest, most gullible children as he'd originally plotted, but the only costume available to him to carry out his wicked plans would still serve its purpose. He passed once again by the curtain that marked off the Pirate Cove, an arcade and play area with its own seafaring fox animatronic mascot. Catching the faint glow of a cigarette far beyond the area that was supposed to be closed and off-limits by this late hour, his face twisted into a deviant mask of delight as he peered in at the five youths who had slipped past the drawn curtain for some rebellious, delinquent fun. He had been monitoring them all night even if they had no idea they were being watched and were convinced they had gotten one over on the security guard.

It was perfect, he thought, watching a boy carve some initials into the side of an arcade cabinet while his friends stood nearby laughing and joking in hushed tones. With no adults remaining in the building, their parents either didn't know the group had converged on the kiddie pizza parlor for the night or they didn't care. Having set the first step of his plan in place during his recent break, it was too late to back out now even if he had wanted to, and he only had to wait for the right moment.


"Damn." Quitting smoking was far harder than he'd expected, Clyde thought, gazing cross-eyed at the crumpled cigarette between his lips, tobacco spilling out hopelessly from the ripped paper sleeve. Out on his last break of the night, he wandered aimlessly through the darkened parking lot outside the pizzeria, kicking along a chunk of asphalt that had broken loose from the pavement. Hoping he had another pack stashed in his car, he turned the corner to the narrow aisle of employee parking behind the restaurant, coming to an abrupt halt at the sight that met his eyes.


"Well, isn't this just great," growled the guard-turned-kitchen-worker, who looked even more formidable than usual, with his apron liberally stained with tomato sauce from the dozens of pizzas he had labored through his entire shift to assemble. Hermie shook his head at the trio of cars belonging to the skeleton crew of workers who still remained on duty at this late hour, sullenly taking inventory of the broken windshields on each, from Clyde's hatchback to his own pickup and even that luxury sedan, done up in a ridiculous shade of lavendar, that the replacement security guard claimed had been an inheritance from a late grandmother.

"Yeah, just great," Clyde grumbled by his side, hankering for a cigarette worse than ever. "I don't suppose you have much beyond minimal insurance, either? This will take forever to replace on my wages." He slumped dejectedly to the curb, resting his chin on his palm and unable to tear his eyes from the pitiful damage to his car. "Ugh, the drive home should be fun. Nothing like wind right in your face and busted glass all over the front seat, right?"

Hermie regarded the training manager with sympathy, struggling inwardly with the decision to explain his actions earlier that day, and finally spoke. "Since we're in this together, I might as well say I'm sorry for scaring you witless out there in the dining area, but I hate seeing a young person destroy his health with those coffin nails." He looked down at the mauled cigarette abandoned on the curb, his voice growing vaguely softer. "It kind of hits close to home. My own brother..." His voice trailed off, but his message had been clear enough.

"I'm so sorry," Clyde said, only guessing at Hermie's pain. "'S'okay, maybe I needed that after all anyway." He laughed awkwardly. "Guess I can't smoke 'em if I don't got 'em, and you took care of that for me. So anyway, which one of us is going to be the lucky fellow who gets to tell Derrick about this? The last time I checked, he doesn't take bad news very well."


"Hey, you guys had better scram, this place is about to close and that security guard is on his way!" His true identity hidden inside the long-forgotten costume of Fredbear, easily enough retrieved from the backstage room now that Hermie and Clyde had been mercifully distracted, Derrick had taken on the role of a youthful performer trying to help his peers escape trouble.

"Uh, do I know you, from school or something?" asked one boy doubtfully, giving a lazy roll of his eyes. "Forget it, I don't care who you are under that dopey costume, and I couldn't care less about getting yelled at by that sorry security dork. What's he gonna do, limp in here and bust us?"

Derrick's fury rose to a simmer at the insulting reference to his injured leg, but he willed himself to stay calm, ever mindful of the hair-trigger spring locks that were mounted inside his fellow performer's old costume and how incredibly easily they could be set off.

"Guys," he pleaded, his voice rising with false urgency, "I'm not joking, he's on his way and you're really better off leaving right now, or you'll probably get banned for life." Tugging open the curtain, he gestured frantically to the backstage room. "Trust me, there's a fire exit on the other end of that door; you could sneak out and never get noticed."

Reconsidering the offer of help, the leader of the group gave an appreciative nod. "Then again, maybe we will. Thanks, you flea-bitten bear." He crinkled his nose in displeasure. "But once we're outta here, take a bath already. Your nasty costume stinks." With a sharp jerk of his hand, he gestured for the others to follow him, beating a quick exit toward the backstage.

Derrick slid inside noiselessly after them and bolted the door, delighting in their confusion as the kids fumbled in the darkness looking for an exit that wasn't there.

You think you're going to escape this one, but you can't.