Following his sudden unemployment and the demise of the once-thriving pizza palace franchise, Mike Schmidt had unintentionally become something of a historian of the ill-fated business. In an effort to distract himself from the misery of failing at yet another job, he had occupied himself doing as much discreet research as possible, poring over computerized records and even microfiche film in the local library's archives and eventually finding the news articles that confirmed the local legends about the multiple - and ultimately unsolved - murders that had taken place at the very location where he had worked, decades before he had set foot in the pizzeria.

Growing more than mildly obsessed and at last finding a purpose, he had assembled a clip-file of every piece of media he could find related to the pizzeria chain, scraping coins together to photocopy anything relevant, including the circa-1987 announcements that the "vintage children's pizzeria" would be reopening in a new and improved location, then the terrible news of another round of unsolved murders and the traumatic injury a security guard had suffered in the midst of a birthday party, resulting in the immediate closure of the new restaurant almost before it had gotten established. It had been no accident that he'd later sought out to interview Jeremy, who had since recovered, surprisingly developing a rare true friendship along the way and finding a kindred spirit who wanted answers as much as he did.


After taking Mike's call, Jeremy Fitzgerald returned his attention to the bass guitar partially disassembled on the coffee table before him, all while the windowpanes in his century-old farmhouse rattled violently in their frames against the onslaught of heavy metal from the speakers that towered over him from either side of his sofa. Years after healing from his gruesome injury, he was still left with very skewed, unpredictable sleep patterns that had made daytime employment virtually impossible, but he'd adapted by pursuing his dream of repairing stringed instruments, often in the dead of night when he felt he worked best. In the early years his small business had struggled, but with each completed job he had gained a satisfied customer and more confidence that he was capable of overcoming the setbacks life had dealt him. Every tiny wire string he delicately twisted around the bridge pin of a damaged guitar reminded him of the way his wounded brain was also rewiring itself, making new connections to replace what he had once feared had been stolen from him forever.

Though over thirty years later others still regarded him with a strange mix of sympathy and morbid curiosity, Jeremy could brush it off, as he was content with his life. He adored his wife, even if they led somewhat separate lives, yet he relished the freedom to live like a bachelor without any close neighbors, blasting his music at all hours and leaving guitars in various states of repair strewn about the house during her frequent travels. He enjoyed a great relationship with his grown son, and playing occasional gigs at dive bars still held the same thrill it had in high school.

In the aftermath of Mike's phone call, though, he soon found that his heart just wasn't into the project that lay before him, and for fear of doing more harm than good to a customer's cherished vintage Fender bass, he pushed the entire coffee table aside with one combat-boot-clad foot, reclining on the battered sofa with his hands behind his head. Even if Mike had assured him there were no animatronics in the re-creation of Freddy's he had been hired to watch over, the vaguely ominous way his friend had signed off had stirred memories he had never wished to revisit.

Jeremy's brief stint at the short-lived "new" pizzeria had been pure hell, an insane tempest of activity that involved no less than eleven animatronics to fend off for hours on end, with ridiculous makeshift work-arounds to distract the restless creations. As a young man in desperate need of the money, he had nonetheless flourished at the job for six nights, performing almost on auto-pilot, and when Clyde, his company's training coordinator and a personal acquaintance, had begged him to work the following day guarding a children's birthday party, he had willingly accepted the double shift.

That day would forever be burned in his memory, and that of everyone in town, as The Bite of '87. It hadn't been enough to kill him, but it had led to the eventual death of Clyde Miller, whose intense guilt over the incident had left him determined to never put another worker in harm's way again. Sadly, he had seen no other way to keep others safe than by naively taking on the night shift security job himself when the franchise reopened in its original location, and then one terrible day years later, long after they'd lost touch, Jeremy had read the missing-person report in the newspaper. A mere five-line item on the police blotter, it had briefly described his old friend's appearance, mentioned he had last been seen at work and that he had been reported as appearing "despondent." As a former guard himself, Jeremy had immediately known his true fate.

"Good luck out there, Mike," he said to the empty room when the CD in his stereo finally ended. I sure hope that wasn't your "Night Four" call.


From the moment Mike had settled into the mock-up of a security office, the dimmed mood lighting, the pervasive mold stains covering virtually everything, and most of all the wide glass window before his desk that gave him a view of the nearest hallway outside, had worked together to give him the impression that he was trapped in some strange, damp terrarium, albeit one that hadn't been cared for properly and was being overtaken by algae.

Cursing as the coffee he poured mostly bypassed the mug altogether and streamed across the desk, he set the carafe down with an unsteady hand and gulped down the small amount that he had managed not to spill, finding that it did him no good. Mike clamped a palm to his forehead, feeling lightheaded and trying to recall what little useful information might have been contained in Randy's rambling, almost incoherent phone call. Overhead, a strobing red light intermittently bathed the room in a ghastly red glow, while an ominous electric buzz droned on from ceiling-mounted speakers. The claxon seemed insultingly unnecessary, as if he really needed a second clue that something had gone wrong when the room was already bathed in red light, and the strobes themselves stirred up bad memories.

He'd been thrown roughly onto the hood of the police cruiser, staring up at the mesmerizing flashing red and blue lights on the roof overhead as his hands were cuffed behind him. He scarcely listened to his rights being read to him - not that he hadn't heard those before - as he was dragged to his feet. His eyes were locked on the windows of the shuttered pizzeria that he had returned to in hopes of peering inside one final time to prove to himself that the animatronics who had haunted him had finally run out of power and shut down once and for all. Before he could get a real glimpse of anything inside the building, though, two cruisers had squealed into the lot and he had found himself trying in vain to come up with an excuse for why he might be lurking around a vacant building with a flashlight at two in the morning.

Oh, right. Bad air, he recalled, pulling himself back to the present. The guard attempted to roll his chair to where he had been told the maintenance panel had been installed, but its casters had long since rusted in place, so he rose unsteadily, finding a monitor affixed to the left wall, where it appeared to have been hardwired using the same less-than-expert electrician's skills his boss had confessed to employing elsewhere in the attraction. Raising the monitor with a sharp click, he squinted at the simplistic control system that had been programmed. There were only three systems, cameras, audio and ventilation, and even in his foggy state of mind Mike knew which required an immediate reset.

Breathing hard and leaning for support against the slimy wall behind him, he watched the square white cursor scroll across the screen, which hopefully meant the reboot was in progress, and then his hair began fluttering as a blessed stream of fresh air crossed the room from a series of air ducts overhead. Mike slid heavily down the wall in relief, relishing every unpolluted draw of air he could take in and hardly caring about the filth transferring onto his uniform shirt.

I should have known this job wouldn't be total cake, he finally recognized. Still, a faulty ventilation system that could probably be fixed in due time hardly compared to fending off four crazed animatronics.


1982

Chief Carswell tapped his ballpoint pen on the table, his eyes never leaving the anxious young man seated across from him. Of all the Fazbear Entertainment employees he had interviewed regarding the unexplained disappearance of the five local teenagers, this one had his coworkers entirely outmatched when it came to nervous fidgeting. The security tapes seized from the pizzeria had revealed a deeply disturbing image, that of a costumed bear, a character that had supposedly been retired years before from the lineup, barely visible as it slipped inside a small room just offstage. The missing teenagers were entirely absent from the hours of footage he'd scrutinized, but the tapes were far from complete, as though someone had deliberately realigned the closest security camera so it would fail to capture critical images.

"Mister Miller, I understand that as the training coordinator, you would have a roster of employees who were certified to wear these spring-lock costumes, and I understand that you trained them in the proper wearing of the suits yourself, is that correct?" he asked, receiving a deferential "yessir" from Clyde, who was clearly accustomed to obeying authority. "Could you name for me, again, all those who were capable of performing in these costumes?"

"Uh, well, there's Derrick; he was a Spring Bonnie performer at the other location until his leg injury, but now he's a security guard. And Marjorie, but she hasn't worn the Fredbear suit since the day of the accident," he added, thinking of his coworker's natural strength, poise and grace, carried over from her days as a gymnast in high school, that had served her well during her time as a performer. "Over here, we had our own rotating crew of three performers, but all of them have moved on to other jobs after we put the spring-lock suits away two years ago. That is, except for Hermie," he suddenly recalled. "He wanted to stay on, so he trained as a security guard."

"What about you?" the chief asked gruffly. "You might not have performed on stage, but surely you've worn the suits if you were charged with instructing others on their use." Clyde gulped at the insinuation.

"Yessir, I did put on the costumes, on my boss's orders. They're very tricky to get just right, and not for beginners." His mind flashed back to the afternoons that had found him kneeling before a tape recorder in the safe room, halfway dressed in a costume and probably resembling some strange type of rabbit-human hybrid, pausing after each step to explain into the microphone how to retract each spring-lock mechanism as well as avoid its accidental release.

"Tell me more about this Hermie." Carswell leaned forward on his knuckles, scrutinizing the other man's face. In his mind, Marjorie was the least likely suspect; her shift typically ended some time before the restaurant closed for the night and, biased or not, he had a hard time imagining a woman in her early twenties ambushing an entire group of teenagers barely younger than herself and hiding the evidence.

Derrick had been irksomely surly during his interview and unsympathetic to the crisis facing his workplace, even attempting to redirect the conversation to the theft of his car, as if that somehow outweighed the disappearance of five minors. His interrogation had been lengthy, yet after reluctantly dismissing him the chief couldn't help but notice how stiffly he rose and limped out on his injured leg, which Carswell had been told had nearly been crushed beyond repair by one of the recalled spring-lock costumes. The bear mascot in the surveillance footage, by contrast, had walked with a swift, steady gait.

The skittish and youthful training coordinator, his hand shaking as he reluctantly reached for the employee files he had been asked to provide during the interrogation, was the very picture of apprehensiveness and it seemed almost laughable to imagine him capable of holding steady long enough to commit the heinous crime. Only Hermie, with his impressive strongman's frame and a certain history with the company, remained suspicious in his mind.

Sweat positively dripped into his eyes as Clyde fulfilled the demand, starting out with a vague record of his fellow worker's employment history, which had been nothing short of exemplary. Cringing under the chief's constant glare, he could provide little defense against the pointed questions that followed.

"Hermie very well may have been a valued and dedicated employee, but your coworker Derrick informed me he also had a hot temper. Something about roughing you up badly the very day you brought in his replacement?"

"No!" came Clyde's vehement protest, and when he was met with a stern look of disapproval, he froze in fear, realizing he had just given testimony that had contradicted Derrick's. Feeling his resolve crumble as panic rose, the training coordinator finally cracked, the words tumbling helplessly from his mouth.

"I mean, he did take some cigarettes off me and stomp them into the ground, but he never laid a hand on me; that's not like him. And sure, he made it clear he was sore at me for letting Derrick have his job on a temporary basis-" Carswell cut him off.

"I've also been told he had been prone to violent outbursts before," he suggested, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back in his chair, watching the younger man run a hand through his messy fringe of hair, now damp with perspiration.

"Never against another person," Clyde insisted in a resigned voice. "He did get written up once by Mister Faz for damaging company property. There was an argument in the security office and he grew so upset he stormed out back and punched a big dent in the trash bin that's there to this day." Resenting the way he was being forced to sell out his coworker, he tried to rationalize the incident. "Management wasn't that mad, though. He walked away from what could have been a big fight and hit a rusty old bin instead. How's that any different from the classic 'punch a pillow when you're mad' advice?" When he caught the chief's cold glare, he turned his gaze downward, studying the woodgrain pattern on the table in the interrogation room.

"And is that bin not directly next to the employee parking, where the windshields were broken out of several vehicles the same night the youths disappeared? It seems your coworker was in a persistently foul mood that day."

Exhausted by the barrage of questions, Clyde still weakly tried to defend Hermie, but he already sensed the dread of defeat creeping in. Could the same man who had eventually calmed down and warned him personally against smoking have gone on a rampage of violence, only stopping after he'd taken five young lives? It seemed impossible, but so did the chance that Derrick or Marjorie could have done the same. He knew them, worked alongside them every day.

Carswell regarded the training manager, who by now was resting his face on both palms, his shoulders trembling, and gruffly told him he had no more questions at the time.