The next day, Joel went back to work, determined to forget about what he had seen in the office and never talk about it to anyone ever again. He ignored the police cars and news vans that were congregating outside and walked into the store. When he started down the Main Hall though, he was stopped by an angry police officer.
"Hey, what are you doing here?"
"I work here."
"Not today, you don't!" The officer took Joel by the shoulder and steered back down the hall.
"Wait, what's going on? I need to clock in…"
As he had been walking, Joel had been ignoring everything but the checkered tiles in front of him, and everyone else had ignored him. He hadn't seen that one of the Backrooms was open.
"Oh God…"
Coroners were carting small bodies out of the room in body bags.
"Oh God…"
The officer paused at the Back room, realizing his mistake in herding Joel past it, but continued to push him angrily. Mr. Faz was standing outside the room, watching the police.
"Mr. Faz, what happened…"
Joel was able to look directly into the Back room, where he saw crime scene investigators boxing up an old Golden Freddy suit. He stared at the suit, and then at Mr. Faz. The look Faz gave confirmed what Joel was thinking.
"We're closed today. We're going to have that birthday party tomorrow, and that'll be it for a while."
The officer herded Joel out of the store. Joel froze outside, and then staggered over to a trash can, which he threw up in. He got back into his car and drove away, trying desperately to forget what he'd just seen. However, it wasn't until several hours later at midnight that he thought of something. Fitzgerald hadn't seen any of this. He didn't know what was going on. Still though, there had been a police investigation into the store. It had been all over the news. But Joel couldn't help the nagging thought that Fitzgerald was still coming to work. He called the store, and to his horror, Fitzgerald answered.
"Hello? Hello…uh…what on earth are you doing there? Didn't you get the memo? Uh, the place is closed down, at least for a while. Someone used one of the suits. We had a spare in the back, a yellow one, someone used it, now none of them are acting right."
Joel decided that it didn't matter whether he or Fitzgerald were crazy or not, he needed to let Fitzgerald have an idea of what he had been seeing during the day and prepare him for tomorrow.
"Uh, we have one more event scheduled for tomorrow, a birthday. You'll be on day shift, wear your uniform, stay close to the animatronics, make sure they don't hurt anyone okay? Uh, for now, just make it through the night. Uh, when the place eventually opens again I'll probably take the night shift myself. Okay, good night, and good luck."