Angel of Vengeance, Chapter Five
a Five Nights at Freddy's/Doctor Who crossover
MEANWHILE, TWELVE HOURS AGO...
Amy Pond wrinkled her nose. The carpet really did smell appalling. The six year old children laughing and shouting for pizza didn't care, but she supposed they had lower standards.
Somehow, she'd always thought a trip to America would be more glamorous. New York City, Hollywood, Las Vegas . . . movie stars, rock and roll, burgers, and tough, rugged men . . . . Not that she was really into tough and rugged men, but somehow she'd expected them and now instead she was dealing with a young boy's birthday party. Tough, definitely, but like most overexcited young children, he seemed more rubbery than rugged. Right now, he was literally bouncing off the walls.
His parents were nowhere to be seen. A couple of disinterested teens were ostensibly supervising while they colored pictures and waited for the pizza to arrive, but were spending more time flirting with one another than anything else. No one questioned her presence.
Well, no one except herself. As the only adult in the room, she felt as if she ought to be the responsible one, and ask her what she thought she was doing here. It was silly, but everything about this was silly, and of course what she was actually doing here would seem even sillier.
The Doctor had sent her in here while he fiddled with the security system. The Angel was nowhere to be seen, which she found a huge relief. They'd only gone back twelve hours, after all. And now she had to leave messages on the wall, messages to be hidden behind the cryaon drawings for the animatronics to find later. And she really had no idea which part of that sentence was craziest.
The good news was that the teenaged staff members were completely ignoring her. The bad news was they were ignoring everyone, and she was beginning to attract attention from the children.
"Hey, lady, whatcha doing?"
A young boy was looking up at her with wide eyes. "Um . . . I'm arranging the pictures. Do you want to help by drawing some new ones?"
"Sure," he said, then stood and looked at her expectantly. Amy scooped a fistful of crayons off the table and a sheet of paper, then shoved them at the boy. He took them and sat down.
Amy turned back to the wall. Working quickly, she wrote the text the Doctor had given her on the wall with a fat crayon, rearranging the pictures to cover the text as she went.
"Angel?"
The boy was standing at her elbow again, looking up at her with wide, innocent eyes. He'd seen what she was writing. "Yeah," she said to him. "Have you got a problem with that?"
The boy shrugged, losing interest. "You sound weird," he said.
She smirked at him. "I'm Scottish. You sound weird to me."
The boy shrugged again, then turned away, his attention lost. He sat back down with the crayons and started drawing.
Finally.
Amy finished her work, then slipped away. No one paid her any attention.
MEANWHILE, NOW...
The guard was whimpering now, terrified, as the door shuddered under each impact. He'd stepped a little ways away from the door, but his back was to Mangle. It was too dark for him to see, but Mangle could see perfectly. She could always see, even when she didn't want to.
All those years ago, she saw it all, and when she couldn't stop herself remembering, she saw it again...
She emerged from under the shelf, sprawled on the floor and unable to stand properly. SHe could not remember why she was like this, a twisted endoskeleton with no suit to cover it up. Naked and crippled. For a moment, she wished the guard didn't have to see her like this, and she wondered why. Before, she'd wanted to kill him. Now she wasn't sure.
The door shook and quivered under another blow, and the guard jumped backwards, almost stepping on her hand. She pulled it back, then used the shelving to pull herself upright, making herslef small against the back wall and giving him a little room.
The door shook again. The guard fumbled with his flashlight. "Oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god..." His breathing was coarse and ragged, but he was making a visible effort to get a grip on himself.
The flashlight went on, painting a bright circle of light on the door. It vibrated, not just from the impacts but from the shaking of his hands.
She tilted her head to one side. When night fell, she hated the guard, wanted to destroy him or drive him away from the perfect moment, but now...
This happened before!
She remembered again.
He wasn't their enemy.
He was their friend.
They had to protect him.
But she couldn't go tell the others. She was trapped in here.
Foxy screamed, outraged. Freddy laughed. Foxy turned his head all the way around to glare at him, but the big bear didn't seem to care.
There was a loud noise in the distance, something heavy slamming into something else. They stopped their bickering, and waited. After a few seconds, it was repeated, and then again, and again.
Chica tapped the writing on the wall.
She was right. The wall was right. It was always right.
They had to find the Angel. They had to stop it.
The door shook again, and in the light from the flashlight, Jeremy saw plaster flakes raining down. The lock was holding, hell even the door was holding, but the doorframe was crap.
And then he heard the whirring of a motor, close to his ear.
He kept his grip on the flashlight, but for a moment thought he'd leap right out of his skin.
There was one in here!
He backed away from the unknown creature, but that put him closer to the door. He swung the beam around to see what it was that he'd been doing such a good job of ignoring...
Oh terrific. Yep. Absolutely. Exactly what he thought.
That mangled thing was looking back at him.
To his surprise, Jeremy realized he wasn't afraid of it. There was absolutely no reason for him not to be afraid, but he wasn't. He'd run out of fear, somehow. The Angel had taken over all his fear reserves, and this thing didn't matter. This suddenly filled him with a weird resolve, and he actually dared to speak to the thing.
"Uh, hey," he said.
The animatronic just stared at him, impassive.
"You're not gonna kill me or anything, are you?"
To Jeremy's surprise, it lowered its eyes and then slowly shook its head.
"Oh. Good," he said.
Another loud bang broke the air, and this time he could hear chunks of plaster falling. The Angel was making progress. Jeremy swung his light back to the door. "Um, I don't know if you know about this thing..." He heard the animatronic move, but he didn't turn to look to see whether it was shaking its head or nodding. "Well there's this guy. He's been talking to me over the phone, except I left the phone behind in the office and now he can't talk to me . . . whatever, anyway, he said if someone's looking at it, the Angel can't move." The door shook violently again, and there were now cracks in the wall on either side. Jeremy turned to look at the animatronic. "Be ready. When it breaks in, we've gotta look at it. We can't look away. We can't blink. If we blink, it'll get us."
He heard the animatronic move again. He hoped it was nodding.
The next impact pushed the door inwards slightly, and the door stayed like that.
Jeremy backed up as far as he could. He felt the animatronic's cold metal endoskeleton against his back and jumped, but it pulled itself up to the ceiling, allowing him to move all the way back to the wall. He looked up at it and smiled. "Thanks," he said. To his surprise, it winked back, then turned its face and its weird freaky tiny second face around to face the door.
The doorframe suddenly cracked, sending splinters and showers of plaster into the storeroom.
Jeremy gripped the flashlight tighter, and blinked furiously to clear the plaster from his eyelashes. He couldn't afford to be blinded now.
One more blow. The door fell in.
When the dust cleared, the Angel was there.
It was smiling.
-* TO BE CONTINUED *-
(c) 2017 Kirstin Jones/Calli Arcale, all rights reserved except those granted under terms of service