Defenseless…
…
The mechanics had gone home, Sarah had paid everyone an advance to keep everything quiet. Only people left were the night guard by the name of Randy, the junior mechanic, Lilly, who was unconvinced that the police shouldn't be contacted, Sarah, and I. Lilly stormed out of Sarah's office, threw her Fazbear hat at a table, and was about to walk out, when I whistled. She turned around, looked around, seeing if I had whistled at Sarah or Randy, but after realizing I wanted to speak with her, slowly walked over.
"I hope you're not gonna try to make me keep quiet about this shit?" She blurted, swaying on her hips.
I laughed, then said, "Listen, I get where you're coming from -"
"No...you fucking don't," she seethed quietly.
"I do, considering I worked at the predecessor to this place," I solemnly recalled. "I was in charge of cleaning the animatronics...I found a suit filled with a child, just like today."
"How old were you?" she nervously inquired.
"Eleven," I began, "Today was a PTSD experience, if I've heard of one," I smirked, then laughed emptily.
"My god..." she said, with her hand over her mouth.
"Listen..." I started, "I know you think you're helping by quitting and going to the police, but...it won't help." I shifted my weight onto my right leg, then continued. "If he finds out that the police are involved, I can assure you that he'll get reckless and go on a killing spree."
She raised her eyebrow, as if saying, Who?
"My uncle, a murderer, who somehow escaped prison by faking his death..I saw him today, you know." I replied.
Again, she raised her eyebrow, asking Are you sure? I nodded. She shook her head.
"I can't believe this shit," she broke down a little, "I just wanted to earn some money and be around kids, and this shit happened?" I laughed.
"None of us expected this." I stated seriously.
The restaurant was dark, only the dim lights at each corner giving sight to our fragile human eyes. Her hair had gone from the neat ponytail to a frazzled bob mixed with an undone tail quickly in the four hours after we discovered the child. We couldn't remove the child, for a multitude of reasons, mostly being the fact that if we took Chica apart, he would notice and go berserk, thinking that we'd given the body to the police, but also, it was dangerous to go putting your hands in one of the animatronics. One time, a few senior employees, good family friends, had tried to pull the kid corpses out, but ended up getting cut in half by the razor sharp metal pieces inside. In essence, it was safer, and more mentally non-traumatizing to just leave the kid in there, and make sure the smell wasn't too strong. That's what caused the police investigation, then the killing spree – people complaining about the corpse-like smell. Air freshener helped, but we had already wasted 6 cans of the stuff, so it was obvious that unless we caught Dad Afton, we were all going to lose money, which had caused some staff to quit. We had to pay those people off – and there still wasn't anything stopping them from simply taking the money and going to the police. It was stressful.
I went home, walking from the bus stop, I had an experience. White eyes appeared in an alleyway, angrily, I sprinted towards it...and suddenly woke up after being knocked unconscious. I found a tape recorder on my stomach with a sticky note covering the front of it, purple marker saying "Open with Sarah". I shivered, looked around, and realized he had spared me. He could have killed me...what stopped him? I walked up my stairs, and closed the door behind me and walked into my aunts, older cousins, and my mom all half naked, playing Apologies! The burning smell of vomit, piss, and alcohol all reeked of a college finals celebration. There were a dozen fifths of different alcohols on the kitchen table, and more than six empty bottles randomly sprawled on the carpet, and a few broken bottles in a couple corners. My female family all smiled drunkenly at me, and my mom motioned me over. My aunt May walked out of the bathroom, and her face was surprised.
Her face was only a pinkish red, it was obvious she had drunk the least.
"I would have thought you would be out drinking and celebrating?" she inquired.
"I was at work," I said, leaving out the events of today. "What's up with this?"
"They insisted on all bringing a fifth or two, you know me, I don't drink, but they all went overboard," she stammered.
"Hey, Silly, come sit with mama," my Drunk mother called over. "I want to say something."
Intrigued, I started walking towards her, when my aunt put a gentle hand on my shoulder.
"Be careful, you were the only conversation topic besides him," she whispered.
"All right, I'll be careful," I said back.
I walked over, kicked a plastic cup away, and sat Indian style between a cousin a few years older than me and my mom.
My mom leaned on my left shoulder, and my cousin worked her arms around my right arm. This was a horrible idea.
"I'm sorry," Mom said, tears welling up in her eyes. "I know I've been a bitch to you, but it's because I just love you so much, and I don't want you to end up like him, you know?"
I relaxed, I had known that. It just felt great that she didn't hate me. I knew she loved me, but I wish it didn't take her being drunk for her to admit that.
My aunt smiled, and handed me a cup of rum and cola, and we sat around, talking, lamenting, complaining, up until around 1 AM, when everyone went home, and my mom stumbled to the guest bed. I wasn't drunk, but needed the sleep, so I wandered to my room, said goodnight to May, and went to bed.
….
Run. Run. Run.
Hide. Hide. Hide.
Gold.
Black.
Black, empty eyes.
Pick me up.
Eat me.
Tear me apart.
I am nothing
I am dead.
You are me.
I am me.
It's me.
It's me.
It's me.
….
I jerked up in bed, sweat pouring from my forehead, and glanced around my dark room, then out of the corner of my eye, I saw something in my window.
There he was. His eyes, white as snow, and body obscured by the night.
He was just staring at me. Then, a black shape appeared below his eyes.
A smile?
I didn't move. I didn't cry, I wasn't afraid. I just waited. Waited for him to move. The black U of his dead grin soon disappeared, then his eyes. He closed them? He must be moving around to the door. I got up, quickly put on some pants and ran to the front door. I opened it...and woke up. I woke up on the fringe of the door of our small house. I had opened the door, then something had knocked me out….I saw a figure snaking its way away from my house...then heard a scream.
I ran...I ran as fast as I had at Fred's...I opened my mom's room to see a horrible site.
She was bound to the bed with her own knotted up underwear, she was wide awake, with a bottle of wine stuck in her throat.
The son of a bitch had stuck a glass bottle of wine in her mouth to suffocate her!
I ran over, picked the bottle out, and performed CPR, trying to get the wine out of her mouth.
It wasn't working.
"What are you doing…?" I heard a voice behind me.
My aunt! I flipped around like a criminal.
"What did you do to her?" she said quietly, almost fearfully.
"I didn't! I found her like this!" I said. She shook her head.
"She's not breathing. You killed her." my aunt whispered.
"No! I didn't!" I screamed.
… "Hey, do you mind helping me out?" a voice said behind me.
My mom?
I turned around to see her breathing, wine dribbling off her corner of her mouth.
"Mom!" I lunged and undid the bindings, and grabbed my mom's phone and dialed for an ambulance.
"What happened Shirley?" my aunt said, now on her knees next to my mom's floor mattress.
"I don't know...someone woke me up, then slapped me, and said 'I'm not over'," she began, then her eyes widened in horror, and she started breathing in and out really quickly.
"He...he..he..." my mom incoherently burbled. She knew.
The sound of a siren outside signaled the ambulance's near arrival.
I sat down at her side.
"Silan...he's….he's…." she continued to blurt, trying to tell me what I already knew. I looked her in the eyes, and mouthed I know. She realized I knew, and then promptly fainted. That's when the sound of bursting doors echoed, and suddenly four paramedics pushed me and my aunt apart, and picked my mom up and put her on a gurney, and rushed her out.
He was here….he attempted to kill my mother...then stood outside my window, smiling, proud of his doings. How can we defend against a fucking phantom?
