Chapter 8 : 3:00 am

(Warning: The decommissioning of the animatronics in this story is pretty brutal).

"Wake up, sleepyhead," a female robotic voice said.

Jeremy opened his eyes, first seeing Roxanne in front of him. He rubbed his eyes and looked on his watch, it read 3:00 am. He then looked at Gregory, still sleeping.

"Should I wake him?" Roxanne asked.

"Yeah, we should."

"Gregory, it's time to get up," the wolf said soothingly.

She ruffled the blanket a little, and he finally began to move.

"Wakey wakey, Sleepyhead." Gregory got up, and rubbed his eyes. He yawned and tossed the blanket off of him. "While you two were asleep, I snuck into El Chips and got you each a burrito." She handed them a burrito wrapped in aluminum.

"Thank you Roxanne, I was really hungry," Gregory said.

"You're welcome, rockstar."

"Rockstar? I thought that was my special name!" Jeremy said in a silly voice. It made both Gregory and Roxanne laugh.

The two guys wolfed down (pun definitely intended) their burritos. Jeremy collected the wrappers and threw them in the trash. He also took the time to stretch any stiff muscles in his legs or back. Gregory then said something.

"Jeremy? Roxanne? I want to thank you for helping me and keeping me safe. You guys are like family to me."

"Don't you have a family, Gregory?" Jeremy asked.

He stared for a moment, then spoke up. "To tell you the truth, I'm homeless." The other two were shocked at his answer.

"Well why didn't you say something earlier?" Jeremy said, concerned.

"Because, I was focused on escaping this place. And I also didn't want you to feel bad for me."

"It's okay, Gregory. When we get out of this, I'll make sure you'll be in a good home."

Gregory hugged Jeremy, and Roxanne joined in. "Thank you guys for everything," Gregory said, sniffing.

"No problem, Gregory. We're here to help you anyway we could," Jeremy said. Then they ended the hug. "Alright, I have come up with an idea. There's a lost and found room not too far from here. We can find some things to defend ourselves. If we can't find anything, we'll go to the security office."

Gregory raised his hand, "what are we going to do about the other animatronics?"

Jeremy paused for a few moments. "We're going to have to decommission may be infected beyond repair. Plus, they can be replaced, but we can't."

"Wait, if they're infected, then how come Roxanne isn't?"

They both looked at Roxanne, then she came up with a response.

"I think I can explain. We are connected to an online system. If a virus spread, that would be how. But my systems were rebooting before anything happened."

Jeremy remembered when Vanessa mentioned Roxanne had an emotional breakdown. And when he saw her on the monitor, facing down on the floor. The stress of everything that had happened in the past, and the disaster show, must have been too much for her. So her system must've had to reboot in order to deal with the stress. And it was probably at the moment the virus spread.

"That does explain things," Jeremy said.

"How?" Gregory asked.

"Remember when Vanessa said Roxanne couldn't help find you?"

"Didn't she say Roxanne was having a meltdown?" Gregory said.

"Yes, Roxanne has been dealing with a lot of issues. And the stress was too much for her system to handle. So she rebooted before the virus could infect her."

Gregory took it all in, then nodded once he understood. Jeremy waited for any other questions, then looked at the cameras on his watch. "Looks like the coast is clear. Let's get going." And they left the green room and headed to the lost and found.

The trio arrived at the lost and found room. Everything was the same as it was earlier. Jeremy told the others to look through the boxes for anything of interest. Then they got to work. Many lost items were sorted through, but they couldn't find anything so far. Then Jeremy found what looked like a blaster inside a holster.

"It looks like a ray gun from Call of Duty: Zombies."

"What's Call of Duty: Zombies?" Gregory asked.

"It's a game my cousin and I played all the time. You basically kill as many zombies as you can. We're definitely gonna play that when we get out of here." Jeremy tried on the holster, but he was too big.

"Let me try it on," Gregory said. Jeremy handed him the blaster holster. It fit him just fine.

"You remind me of Han Solo, Gregory."

"Who's that?"

"You'll find out later, right now we have a job to do." And they continued their search.

Box after box was looked through. Gregory found a cassette player with some tapes. He popped in a tape, and pushed play. Then some rock song played and it startled Jeremy and Roxanne. "Where'd you find that?"

"This box is full of these cassette tapes. I just wanted to see if it would work."

"Well, you should turn that off. We can play it later." Gregory turned off the cassette player and continued searching.

"Hey Jeremy, I found something," Roxanne said. She was holding a fire ax that looked brand new. She gave him the ax, and Jeremy held it in his hands.

"Wow Roxanne, this will be very useful. Good job." She smiled, but was quickly interrupted when a laser beam flew by. Jeremy and Roxanne looked at Gregory holding his blaster in a firing position.

"Gregory! Be careful where you point that! If that hits my eyes, I'll become temporarily blind!" she said sternly.

Gregory looked apologetic, then Jeremy came up with an idea. "Wait, Gregory can use his blaster to blind the animatronics. Then Roxanne and I can attack them." The party finished their search, and left the room. It was agreed that Chica would go down first since she would be the easiest.

Roxanne said Chica would be in one of the kitchens in the atrium. So they went through the utility tunnels to get to the atrium. They went through kitchen after kitchen, looking around for the chicken. Then they found her eating trash out of a garbage can. Jeremy thought that was disgusting, but she was distracted.

"Remember Gregory, aim for the eyes,"Jeremy said. Gregory nodded while pulling out the blaster.

Jeremy walked out from his hiding spot and stared down at Chica.

"Hey Chica!" Jeremy yelled. Chica stopped eating and turned to look at him. Her eyes were still purple, but they no longer scared Jeremy. "Colonel Sanders called, he told me to make you extra crispy!" The chicken didn't take that too kindly and got ready to charge.

"Now Gregory!" Roxanne called out. He aimed his blaster at Chica's eyes, then shot.

The laser beam went into her eyes, and she clucked in pain. Then Jeremy Charged at her with his ax in hand. He swung and hit her chest plate. She was in more pain as sparks flew from inside. He kept swinging at her like he was Patrick Bateman. After a few more blows, Roxanne tackled Chica, and pulled her arms off. After that, Roxanne got up and smashed Chica's face with her foot.

"That's what you get for abandoning your friend!" the wolf yelled. Then after a few moments, her system finally shut down.

Gregory looked over at the damage done to Chica. He was glad Jeremy and Roxanne were on his side. "Alright, where's that alligator?" he said. Jeremy and Roxanne loved his attitude, and they headed to Monty's attraction.