The Calm Before
Thursday 5th March 2015, 08:21 AM
He wasn't sure how long he had been sitting in that chair. The moment he had gotten back home, his legs had started to fail him and he had collapsed onto the nearest seat he could find. As the rising sun had fully ascended to shine the light through the uncovered window to his right, he had plenty of time to mull things over in his head.
At some point, Michelle had woken up and had started to fix herself up a coffee. Sleepily greeting him, she had raised an eyebrow when she had seen him seated there with his head in the clouds, but had seemingly decided against questioning him at that point.
In the back of the apartment, Jack was still sleeping. His sleep schedule, though certainly not unreasonable, usually meant he was in bed around two am and awake just before nine. Mike supposed it would be hypocritical of him to disagree with it, considering his own body clock.
The truth was, the moment Mike had left Fazbear Frights, there was only one thing on his mind: The tapes he had discovered. They were important. He was sure of it. But without the means to play them in location, it meant that the only way he could figure out what was on them was by stealing them and taking them home.
Jack had managed to convert an old VHS player to work on his computer, so all it would take was to put them in on it and see what was held on them. But they would be risking a whole lot of time and effort for something that could be entirely useless.
He couldn't smuggle them out himself. The camera system was only operational during the night and Mike couldn't be sure that they weren't recorded. Which meant that the only way to get those tapes out were by smuggling them out during the day.
Which meant it was up to Ella and Jack.
But after that, there was one other big issue; would Reggie notice that they were gone? Despite the young entrepreneur's apparent lack of sense, it would be dangerous to assume that he couldn't keep an eye on his property. It seemed like the only thing he truly valued was the nostalgia of Freddy Fazbear's.
If he even suspected that they were stealing from him, Mike had a feeling he would figure it out.
When the phone started to ring to his side, Mike blinked at it confused for a few moments. Then, with unsteady hands, he picked it up and answered it. It was from an unknown number.
"Hello?" He asked warily.
"Mike. It's me."
"Tom? What's going on?"
"Mike, listen to me. The situation's changed. You need to pull out of Fazbear's Fright."
Those words stunned Mike and he tried to piece his words together for a response, "What…what do you mean? What's happened?"
"Lawson's here. He's back. And he's gunning for us again. Not just us; he killed ten Fazbear executives just in the next town. Me and you, we're on his list. He's got at least five other targets, but I don't know which one he's going after next."
Memories of the bloodthirsty mercenary that had been after their heads twenty years ago ran through Mike's mind. How those sniper rounds had barely missed him, and how he had jumped from that building, swinging from that rope, with the most crazed expression on his face.
"Lawson." Mike spoke quietly, "Dutch Lawson is here?"
"Yes. I found his handiwork just last night."
"But…you said that he killed…killed some Fazbear executives." As those words left Mile's lips, he realised that he didn't know how he felt about it. After all, with everything Fazbear had put him through, was it really right to feel sympathy for them? "Then if they didn't hire him…who did?"
Not answering at first, Caine's tone seemed far grimmer than Mike thought capable of him. "The Crucible did. I don't know why, but they've hired Lawson. Either to clean up their involvement twenty years ago, or because I started sniffing around again."
Those words finally woke Mike up. He remembered that conversation with St. Clair, all those years ago, when the aged member of the Council had discussed the similarities between Caine and Lawson. How Lawson had once been one of them before being excommunicated.
Mike had seen the Crucible's handiwork himself. Seen the operation from the inside. If they were the ones pulling the strings…
"Just how dangerous is this, Tom?"
"I don't know. But the order came from them. I'm sure of it. They've not targeted any of our associates yet, as far as I'm aware. So Sam, Carl, Michelle, and Jack are all safe, unless Lawson goes after them himself. But Mike…this kind of move can only mean an act of war. We're all in danger."
"Yeah."
"Mike," Tom spoke lowly now, as if not wanting to be overheard, "I know what's been going on there. How you've been quiet. How something's been bothering you. That animatronic…the one Wood found. It's not just a dormant piece of scrap, is it?"
Mike didn't answer that.
"It's been trying to kill you, hasn't it? Just like they tried to all those years ago. And it's not just the animatronic. Every night you've gone there, you've been fighting for your life again."
Gazing out of the window, Mike couldn't find the words.
"We agreed, Mike. The moment your life is in danger, I said I would pull you out. This…it's not worth it, Mike. We don't even know if Fazbear Frights had the answers we've been looking for."
"It does." Mike insisted, "I'm sure of it."
"Even if it does, do you really think that it's worth the risk? Mike, the animatronics wouldn't have wanted this. They wouldn't have wanted you to get yourself killed for what might be a few useless artefacts."
"And what the hell," Mike gritted his teeth, "makes you think you would know what they wanted?"
"I don't." Caine spoke carefully, "But what I do know is that they cared about you. Please, Mike, don't throw your life away."
"The only reason why my life is in danger," His voice grew cold, "is because, as usual, your god damn problems are getting in the way."
"I don't—"
"Same as twenty years ago. The only reason why I was being targeted by that crazed loon was because of you. The only reason why I got stabbed was because of you."
Caine fell quiet for a moment. "That's not fair, Mike."
"Fair? This is my mission." Mike almost snarled, "My fight. My friends who are dead. If you don't think it's worth the risk, then go ahead. Leave."
"Mike—"
But before he could continue, Mike had hung up. A moment of shame passed over him, but the anger he was feeling deep inside him quickly overturned it. Tapping his foot angrily on the ground, he felt the rage boiling within him.
Seeing him, Ella raised an eyebrow. "Lover's quarrel?"
"Not now." Mike stated bluntly.
She quickly caught on that he was not in the mood for jokes and with a weary sigh, she picked up her coffee, stepped out of the kitchen, and leaned against the wall just separating the two rooms. "Okay. Run me through it."
"Caine thinks we should stop." Mike sighed, "Because our lives are now all in danger and he doesn't believe that Fazbear Frights is worth the risk."
"Well, is it?"
"It is. I'm sure of it."
"Well, what have you found?"
Leaning back in his chair, Mike tried to correlate his thoughts together. "The animatronic there. It's the key to this. It has to be involved in something. It was sealed away behind a wall. It's ancient, probably as far back as the seventies. Yet…it's advanced. Really advanced."
"Other than the animatronic, them." Ella continued, seeming perturbed by the thought of the stinking scrapheap, "What else is there? You've always said that unless we've got more than one points of interest, there's not really a lot to go on."
"The tapes." Mike continued, "The security tapes in the Toy bin."
Hearing the movement coming from the other room, Mike glanced over to the doorway and saw Jack, still in the process of waking up, step into the room.
"The tapes?" Jack asked groggily.
"Back in the pizzeria, the manager there, Charles Garfield, kept tapes with the recordings of the CCTV cameras stored away." Mike explained, "There were…that many of them. I think he recorded every single day and every single night. Those tapes might be just about the only ones left."
Considering his words, Jack looked thoughtful. "So…we retrieve the tapes. See what's on them."
"The only problem is," Mike frowned, "getting them out is going to be a lot harder than it sounds. We can't risk Reggie finding out that we're stealing from him. If he does, we might blow our cover."
"Do you think these tapes have been used?"
"No." Mike looked at him, trying to picture the tapes, "They were dusty. At the bottom of the toy bin. It looked like they were just being used for storage. Why?"
Just by looking at the almost non-lucid look in Jack's eyes, Mike could tell that he was putting together a plan. "Then we don't steal the tapes. They'll stay right there. If Reggie does come to look at them, all he will see are the tapes still there."
At first, the implication was lost on Mike. Then, realising what he was saying, he almost smiled. "As far as he is aware, the tapes will have never left the building."
"Because there will be the exact same amount of tapes as he put there, all marked how he marked them." Jack gave a rare grin, "But empty. Because the real tapes will be here."
"Then we'll need some empty clamshells." Ella pointed out.
"There's a couple of old electronic stores in town." Mike shrugged, "One of them will have the right amount."
"So, that's the plan?" Glancing between the two of them, Ella seemed anxious to begin, "We're finally stealing from our boss?"
"Yep." Mike nodded, "And it happens today."
Nearly an hour later, after a successful shopping trip that led to them buying at least ten empty VHS clamshells, they had pulled up to Fazbear Frights. Whilst he sat in the car, fighting off sleep, Mike would have to await the two of them to finish their shift.
"Alright." Ella sighed as they parked up, "Let's do this."
"Stick to the plan." Mike spoke cautiously, "Only go for them when you're sure you're not being watched. Do you have a plan for getting them out of the building?"
"I've got one." Ella nodded, "If it doesn't work, we'll adapt."
With the two of them gone, Mike chose to lay in the back of the truck, covered from the spring sun, so that he could try and get some rest. He knew he couldn't be caught half asleep that night, but he also had to be there for his two partners in case things got out of hand.
Hearing a sound just outside at some point, Mike glanced out of the window and saw Ella wheeling a large maintenance bin outside the back door. Unloading the garbage bag from within and putting it in the dumpster, she eyed Mike before going back in.
Realising what that meant, Mike collected his thoughts, got back into the front seat, and exited the car. Putting his baseball cap on, he quickly made it to the building, opened the dumpster, and grabbed the bag before making his way back over to the truck.
Searching inside, he saw the tapes all there, the sticky notes on them removed but replaced with a white permanent marker with the numbers on them.
Sometime later, just two hours before the sun started to set, Jack and Michelle left the building and made their way back to the truck. As they entered, they exchanged nods to Mike before Ella pulled the truck into reverse and slowly pulled out of the parking lot.
Friday 6th March 2015, 00:00 AM
Mike knew he had made a mistake the moment upon arriving at Fazbear's Fright. Fatigue quickly set in and he felt dazed, almost confused. Having spent most of the day up, only getting a short nap after they returned from their retrieval of the security tapes that Mike hadn't yet watched, he felt dead to the world.
So the fact that he was now having to go up against the Springlock Animatronic one-on-one, all the while fighting off the hallucinations of his dead friends howling their resentment, he had a bad feeling that this night wasn't going to go his way.
Perhaps he wouldn't have felt that way, had it not been for the last time he had worked at Freddy's, twenty years ago. The fifth night had been bad, worse than anything he had ever gone through. Until the sixth and seventh nights, of course. He hadn't gotten a moment's rest, constantly on the move trying to repel the animatronics.
As he sat on that chair in the office of Fazbear's Frights, his mind wandered. Of whether Caine had been right about this and the absurdity of him putting himself in this kind of danger when he didn't even know if it was worth it. So far, nothing had really proven itself to be enough to prove anything.
He still didn't even know anything substantial about the animatronic.
When the night began, he heard the phone call start. Gazing at it, he answered tentatively and got to work tracking down where the animatronic was as the call started.
"Hello, hello!" The voice of his father cleared his throat, sounding tired and nervous, "Uhm, this is just a reminder of company policy concerning the safe room."
Though the mention of the safe room once more piqued Mike's interest, he remained focus on the job at hand. He truly had no idea what this safe room was, as he had never seen anything like it before. But the idea that there was a secret room—much like the one in the backstage room back at the Toy Animatronics' Pizzeria—in the pizzeria he had worked in all those years ago did chill him to the bone.
Especially if it had been used in such a way as its counterpart.
Seeming to scuffle through papers, as if forgetting a certain detail he was required to point out, his father resumed speaking, "The safe room is reserved for equipment and or other property not currently being used, and as a backup safety location for employees only."
That point made Mike ponder something. If property had been stored away in these safe rooms, just what did that include? Memorabilia that had no marketability? Company kit that needed to be stored safely away? Or perhaps, old broken technology that couldn't be so easily recycled?
The Springlock animatronic had been stored away in a back room. That much Mike was now certain of. Was it indeed the same safe room that may have laid hidden in the pizzeria? The question is, if that was the case, was just how long? As silly as it may have seemed, the idea that Mike had stood within the same building as the animatronic—hidden away out of sight—that was now trying to kill him was frightening to say the least.
"This is not a break room, and should not be considered a place for employees to hide and-slash- or congregate and under no circumstance should a customer EVER be taken into this room, and out of the main show area."
As Mike heard that line be spoken, he closed his eyes, almost foolishly. Hearing those words made him accept the reality of the situation. Much like the Toys' pizzeria, which had a unmarked safe location, the one he had once stood in and worked within had been misused in such a way. He remembered the vision that the Marionette had given him.
Seeing the events that had transpired through the Marionette's eyes, and how it had been the one the victims called their parent—not the Purple Man—who had hidden their bodies in the suits of the animatronics. Giving them new life. Mike had seen everything that had happened that day.
But the thing that he had not noticed, something that he should have seen before, was the fact that the place where the bodies had been in the vision was not the backstage room. Empty, and the wrong shape. Whilst the backstage room was longer, with the door at the left of the long side of the room, the room that had been in his vision had been square, with the only noticeable doorway in the middle of one of the walls.
Then he remembered one of the articles talking about the Missing Children's Incident. Two local children were reportedly lured into a back room during the late hours of operation of Freddy Fazbear's Pizza on the night of June 26th. The article had never specified the room, so Mike had assumed it to be the backstage room when he first saw that article, buried away in the documents hidden in the pizzeria.
After all, why would he ever assume that there would be another, hidden back room?
"Management has also been made aware, that the Spring Bonnie animatronic, has been noticeably moved." His father seemed almost nervous to point out that fact. As if aware that there was something else happening behind the scenes and the event he was mentioning meant something greater, "We would like to remind employees, that this costume is not safe to wear under any circumstances."
Gazing at the animatronic through the camera lens, Mike felt almost satisfied even as the relic glared emptily into the lens. Now he at least had a name to call it.
"Spring Bonnie." Mike almost whispered and when the animatronic shuffled slightly, he was almost sure that it had heard him.
"Thank you, and remember to smile, you are the face of Freddy Fazbear's Pizza."
As the phone call ended, Mike readied himself for the onslaught. Having seemed to oil its joints, the animatronic named Spring Bonnie started to move quickly, with Mike just barely able to keep track of him through the cameras. It moved with such purpose that in the back of his mind, Mike knew it would take everything he had to keep it from reaching its gruesome goal.
Glancing through the cameras, Mike knew that his only way through this was to make sure he knew exactly where Spring Bonnie was and where he was going. As much as he hated to admit it, it didn't matter how much skill he had at this job. Much like many of his other near deaths at the hands of Freddy's, a large amount of it would be down to pure blind luck.
Something that he had a feeling was quickly draining away.
Noticing the movement in one of the camera lens, Mike squinted at where he believed to have seen it, but came up empty-handed. A quick glance at the clock told him that it had barely gone past one am. Something about that made his stomach hurt and he started to realise just how stupid this all was.
Why had he put himself back in this position? The gift horse which had been handed to him hadn't been enough. He had long since gazed into its mouth. He had survived something that had killed many other unlucky people, people who had deserved to live far more than he. He had been given the opportunity to walk away.
Yet he had come back. In spite of everything, here he was. Back in the same hole he had dug himself into twenty years ago.
Switching to another camera, he saw the movement again, this time in one of the vents. The quick blur of something no taller than his waist. Though he knew that assumption was the mother of failure, he knew immediately that it was the rotting shade of Balloon Boy. Swallowing his nerves down, he flicked to another camera and was barely shocked when he stumbled upon the face, blackened eyes and all, of the small child robot staring back at him.
He lowered the camera and felt the blinding stab of pain in his mind. The small animatronic was watching them and spoke with a little voice. "They're our friends. We have to help." Then the fist broke through his back and out through his chest. Balloon Boy blinked in confusion, looking down at the gaping hole in his chest. Then his eyes rolled back and turned black as the oil dripped from his mouth.
Shaking his head as his vision cleared up, Mike gritted his teeth. He knew that he had to press on. What he was seeing, it wasn't real. None of it was. It all happened a long time ago.
But as he continued to look through the cameras, his vision kept getting more and more blurry. Trying to keep his focus on the maintenance system, Mike reset the ventilation and the blaring alarm eventually died off. He found Spring Bonnie wandering around the middle hallway, getting closer and closer to his office.
Mike knew that he couldn't even be sure that the animatronic would continue down that hallway. After all, it had shown that it was more than capable of travelling through the vents, which gave it a massive advantage with multiple routes. Some of which Mike would only have the one chance to stop him from exploiting.
Luring Spring Bonnie back into the hallway, Mike tried to clear his head. He was distracted, off his game. Out of all the nights, this was the one he knew he needed to remain focused on. After everything he had gone through, he couldn't die tonight. There was still so much he needed to find out, that he needed to prove.
It couldn't end here. He couldn't let it.
But as he saw the figure out of the corner of his eye, he felt the pain blare into his head again.
"Clean livin' and sunlight." Toy Chica said almost sheepishly, smiling and frowning, "I think it's time our little retreat comes to its end." Then a figure, black and gold, grabbed her and raised her above its head. He pulled and she uttered a shriek before splitting in two. As the top part of her body, separated by the waist, laid on the floor still gripped by the hands by the figure, she stared at him, eyes black.
Mike could hear himself howling as his vision cleared up. Gritting his teeth and ignoring the pain, he jammed at the ventilation and the alarm went away again. He desperately clicked through the cameras and found Spring Bonnie turning the corner, passing the Bonnie Scarecrow. Mike played the sound back towards the hallway it had just gone through, and for a moment it didn't move.
Feeling the wave of relief as the animatronic turned around finally and did as it program told it to, Mike started to feel the paranoia that his bloodthirsty foe was learning to ignore the directives forced upon it. Without the sound system and with no doors, Mike knew that if the moment came when it learnt to resist, the only thing that could save him from Spring Bonnie was his pistol.
A migraine had started to form in his head, at the front just behind his forehead. Stifling a frustrated yell, Mike tried to consider his options. The back door was just outside his office, locked. He had the key right there on his desk. All it would take was the risk of leaving his office and rushing to unlock it.
If he did, it would mean the end of his operations. Mike very much doubted that coming back would be an option. It would also mean giving up on learning anything more about the animatronic named Spring Bonnie.
As much as he knew he couldn't think about such things, he felt the surge of regret that should he die here, it would mean that the last time he and Caine had ever spoken would have been an argument. The guilt of his words towards the man who had come here just to help him hit him hard.
I can't die here. Mike decided, knowing that there was still so much he needed to make right. But another burst of pain erupted in his head.
"This hole's starting to get tiresome," The shade of Toy Bonnie almost smirked with the most laidback stance Mike had ever seen, "So that's it? You're just gonna give up?" Then he started screaming, so much in pain, as the giant hand gripped his head and a brilliant light burnt through the rabbit's skull, melting plastic and metal. All the while, Toy Bonnie still screamed.
This time, Mike knew that the screaming he was hearing was his own. He tried to wake himself up, pulling himself from his stupor and rebooting the ventilation. Within moments, he tracked down Spring Bonnie again. The animatronic was hiding in the shadows near the end of the corner hallway, mere steps away from the hallway just in front of Mike.
Clicking desperately at the sound system, he watch uneasily as the rabbit left. He wasn't sure how much strength he had left. Sweat dripped down from his head, blurring his vision. In his head, it felt as if a war was going on. His migraine had doubled in intensity, making his movements shaky.
For a moment, he forgot where he was and even who he was. Disassociation, a therapist he had once gotten the services from had told him. As if what he was experiencing and the moments he was going through weren't his, but rather he was a spectator watching the life of a stranger.
But it isn't, he told himself over and over. This is real. All of it. And if I don't do something, I'm going to die. Right here and now.
Struggling to maintain his balance, he started playing more and more sounds, attempting to get as much distance as possible. Glancing at the clock again, the sight was a stab of pain right through his heart. It had only just gone two am. He wasn't even halfway through his shift.
Trying to breath, his eyes fell back to the Toy Bin. To the red-lined top hat that stood just at the top of all the parts. And he felt that very familiar stab of pain like a knife sliding into his brain.
"Please forgive us if we seem perturbed by this." The voice of Toy Freddy spoke light-heartedly behind him, "I agree that you could never have understood." Then, as Mike turned to look at him, he saw the bear crumble and drop to the floor. His life essence faded into the void, as if it never existed in the first place.
Instead of screaming, Mike heard himself give an annoyed growl. Though the pain was horrendous, both physically and mentally, he continued to press on. These visions weren't needed. He didn't need to be reminded of all those he got killed. Those who had followed him into the howling dark and hadn't returned.
He didn't need reminding that he should have died in their place.
His face a mask of rage, Mike pushed onwards. Spring Bonnie was once more slinking into the shadows, slowly closing in on his prey. Pressing the sound button, Mike was satisfied when the animatronic was once more held back for a few more crucial minutes. But the severity of the situation was not lost on him.
His lifelines were quickly fading.
It's not too late to leave, Mike reminded himself. He didn't need to die here. He could walk away at any point. Even without the risk of attempting to unlock the door and leaving himself vulnerable. All he had to do was place a phone call. No matter if Caine didn't see him favourably right now, he knew that the detective would come racing to aid him the moment he realised that Mike was in trouble.
Right?
I'm alone, a dark thought muttered to him, I'm all alone. And I have no one but myself to blame.
The sound of something scuttling just in the hallway in front of him made his eyes dart to its source. Slowly, the shadowed form of Mangle raised itself to look through the window, their white eyes staring into his soul.
He was almost expecting the blinding light this time.
"Oh, hello! You seem to have fallen down! Are you okay?" Mangle spoke to him, and perhaps another day Mike would have realised that he could understand them now, "We might not come back from this. You know that, right?" Then the massive metal rod pierced Mangle like a spear, pinning them to the ground. They gave a low mechanical whine before their eyes turned black.
As Mike overcame the vision, once more rebooting the ventilation, he tried to shrug of the pain. He just couldn't understand. Why was this happening to him? Why was his guilt coming back to haunt him now? As he fought for his life from this relic with no origin?
No, he reminded himself as he lured the animatronic away once again, it came from somewhere. That's why I'm still here. Because this thing is my one best lead.
But why? What was with the animatronic named Spring Bonnie? Why was it so perseverant to reach him?
What was the purpose of Spring Bonnie?
Then the thought dropped into his mind, like a bomb. Just three simple lines, three lines that he had never thought to connect until that very moment.
Five children are now linked to the incident at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, where a man dressed as a cartoon mascot lured then into a back room, the newspaper talking about the Missing Children's Incident had said.
"Someone used one of the suits." His father had spoken in a panicked voice in a message made almost thirty years ago, "We had a spare in the back, a yellow one, someone used it..."
Then the last thought stunned him.
"Management has also been made aware, that the Spring Bonnie animatronic, has been noticeably moved."
As that thought raced through his head, echoing, his eyes fell back into the lifeless white eyes of the animatronic predator that had been hunting him. Deep into the darkness peering. Wondering.
Fearing.
Only one more chapter to go and the second act is all done. We're reaching the point of no return. Saddle up.
TU4QU0I53T4IAN6L3: Springtrap is certainly one of the more interesting parts I've had to take a lot of time to think about when writing this. After all, with what the character is, it's unlike anything I've written about in this series. Golden Freddy was bad, but Springtrap? Springtrap's the devil. And it would certainly seem that Mike is starting to realise that.