Night Shift at Freddy's

by Bunny Cop

A young man's looking for a job to help cover some costs during a rough patch in college, and he finds out an old childhood hangout is looking for a night watchman. He's thinking it's easy cash and a chance to reconnect with his childhood, but old Freddy Fazzbear's Pizza has darker secrets than he'd have believed were true...

3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3: The First Night, Part 2

At least, I would have started my rounds of the building and all the doors if something else didn't catch my eye. The sight of it was so jarring and old fashioned that it was demanding not only to be noticed, but to be paid attention to. Right there, sticking up out of the drawer of my desk, was an audio cassette tape. At 20 years old, I'm old enough to recall cassette tapes, mostly because my mother had been really into making mix tapes and I managed to benefit from that. But I didn't think anyone still used or made them outside of record labels and aspiring musicians. And I'm pretty sure those don't have "I WILL SAVE YOUR LIFE" written on the label in red ink unless the artist had an egotistical problem.

So I stopped, interest roused and curiosity's thirst parching, to reach over to the tape and look for something to put it in. It took me a minute to locate the battery powered cassette recorder in the other desk drawer, most of that time taken up trying to unstick the damned thing so it'd open, before I was all set up to listen to the tape.

A couple minutes later though, I was grinning and hitting 'stop' on the control deck before hauling my ass out of the chair to walk the halls. Ye gods and little fishes, I thought to myself as my boots strode across the floor, do they really take me for an imbecile? The voice on the tape was a Mike something, supposedly a previous employee, trying to warn me about the animatronics and how they walked around at night because the pizzeria was too cheap, and what danger I was in, blah blah blah.

"Right, and I fart pink fluffy unicorns out my butt." I muttered to myself, both amused and a little annoyed at the transparent prank. I'm no stranger to hazing rituals or pranking the new guy, but this was just silly. I mean, come on really? This close to Halloween and the best the day shift kids come up with is 'Freddy and his friends might try to kill you'? So cliché, I thought to myself, passing Pirate's Cove on my way to the game room. It's like something from a B-grade horror movie, they couldn't possibly think-

Something moved just out of the corner of my left eye, causing me to turn on reflex and look to the curtain. Part of the cloth was swaying, as if disturbed by some passing presence, but I didn't see anything. I walked back, lifting aside the cloth with my night stick to poke inside with the flashlight I pulled off my belt. Nothing, just Foxy and his ship. I was about to turn back away when I realized something wasn't the same as before, so I looked again. Nothing seemed disturbed, I thought. Fake gold coins and jewels, same plastic 'wooden' chest holding treasures, the fake beach, the ball pit ocean, same ship, same Foxy...

Hadn't he been a bit further back in, though? Sitting on one of the rocks? Or had he always been on that other rock closer to the curtains?

I gave a shrug of 'whatever', letting the curtains fall back into place as I walked away again to the front entrance through the game room and past the prize counter. Just my imagination, I told myself, latching onto the idea of late night horror movies while in a...

...Surprisingly creepy Pizzeria, come to think of it. I'd never seen the place without any of the lights on, or this late at night when the only other lights not in my hand were from the parking lot out front. My left hand jiggled and checked the push door entrance's lock while I looked around, training my beam of light out and around the place with the suspicious eye of a cat in the bushes. Something seemed...off.

Shadows weren't cast properly, or just looked off in some way while the utter stillness of the building lent the place a feeling of abandonment I normally associate with old houses. I keep telling myself it's just my imagination combining with my normal association with light and liveliness of the building, but I can't help but feel...

I hear a noise and turn sharply, the beam of my flashlight cutting into the darkness of the dining area. At first nothing, I see no movement or hear any continuation of the noise I'd percieved earlier. A few steps closer though brings me into better view, and my light swings around to cover the whole room until...

I couldn't quite say if I cried out or cursed, but I made some kind of noise in my surprise to see Bonnie the Bunny walking down off the stage, coming from around the curtains and walking with all the mobility of Frankenstein's monster. Or that was my initial impression until I saw Bonnie turn abruptly and navigate the chairs and tables of the dining area with more alacrity than I gave him credit for, those big, expressive eyes locking on me.

My first instinct is to laugh, breaking the tension with a couple of chuckles that are a mix of amusement and annoyance as I regard the first disturbance of the night. So those jokers on the day shift were really gonna play this to the hilt, huh? Try and spook the new guy, get him to piss himself and run away on camera? Sorry, kids, gonna have to try harder than that. I'm shaking my head at the approaching Bonnie, who's walking calmly but pointedly towards me from fifty feet across the room. "Alright, cute joke. Now get outta the costume, it's not a toy, and get home." I said, smiling at the walking 'Bonnie' to show I was being a good sport about it. Kid must have had shaders or something in the mask, he's walking without trouble despite the flashlight in his face. He's still walking towards me, and the smile I'm wearing fades a bit. Thirty feet. "Look, I'll admit you gave me a start. But the joke's over, pal, you gotta go." Twenty feet, he's still walking, and I'm not smiling anymore. "I said the joke's over! Costume off and get the hell outta here!" I shout in my best authority voice. I've had enough of this crap, and I'm pulling my nightstick free from my belt to look menacing while I start walking towards him, glaring. I don't care how big he is, I'm gonna knock him on his ass and-

I felt the metaphorical hot wind come out of my proverbial sails a bit as I got a better look at Bonnie. And I could see it really was Bonnie the Bunny, the joints clearly that of a machine with the reflective metal skeleton under neath the fake fur and fiber-glass body. My steps falter a bit, my pace slowing, eyes taking in all the details at once, and my brain came to a decision a scant second just before the animatronic lunged at me, an inhuman screech issuing from its' mechanical throat with arms extended to grab me.

Self-defense classes and regular practice with my room mates kicked in without my conscious thoughts getting in the way, my body ducking and rolling over a dining table while my brain was still trying to come to grips with the present situation. I was being attacked by Bonnie-Fucking-Bunny and this was NOT some weird nightmare. I knew it wasn't a dream because I felt the impact of my boots hitting the thinly carpeted floor sending tiny jolts of discomfort through my feet and ankles, my eyes adjusting again to the sudden dimness of the pizzeria till my flashlight was trained on Bonnie again. In a dream I was sure I wouldn't have felt anything from my feet, my subconscious wasn't always so detail oriented about that kind of thing when it wanted to terrify me. I would have had better night vision so I could be sure to still be able to perceive the impossible threat I was facing.

Which meant that either my subconscious was working over time to keep this dream vivid, or my reality had just taken a sharp turn for the Twilight Zone.

Bonnie was on the move again, trading the slow walk for a kind of quick jog that equated to running for 'his' aging servos, still a lot quicker than I would have credited him for, and he suddenly around the table and between me and the exit back to the lobby. He didn't slow, still holding out his arms as if to grab hold and squeeze me to death, and this time I didn't slow either. I broke out into a dashing sprint, right at the big rabbit, and was lunging through the air with both my hands grabbing the dining table to use as a fulcrum, swinging both my mechanic's work boots up to impact with Bonnie's chest. At five-ten and near two hundred pounds, my mass combined with current momentum translates to considerable force being focused into the small area of my feet into the broader area of my opponent, and I'd dropped guys twice my size doing something similar.

What I hadn't counted was that Bonnie's mass was just that much more than mine and plus some. The material of the costume wasn't fiber-glass covered in fake felt, as I'd suspected. It was something closer to hardened plastics not unlike that found in some motorcycle gear, which made sense since kids could be pretty rough and it would cost less to replace in the long run. The metal framework skeleton inside was also a factor, being much denser and heavier than any human of comparable size, not to mention all the connecting pieces and "ligaments" with in. This gave his momentum significantly more force than I had.

So instead of knocking Bonnie on his fuzzy purple ass, he went back a couple staggering while I was the one knocked onto my back a few feet from where I'd hit him in the air, my breath leaving my body in a grunting exhalation as my body quickly turned it into a roll, once again without my brain's interference and acting on well-drilled instinct.

I couldn't afford to spend any kind of time catching my breath, the stunning blow I'd dealt Bonnie wouldn't last very long if at all, so once again I was vaulting over the table through the relative darkness, flashlight forgotten in my tumbling roll and my nightstick with it. Bonnie was already about-facing and pursuing me, so I poured on the speed in my mad dash to get to safety, my brain latching onto the location of my office at the back of the building with its nice, secure looking steel doors and thick plastic windows. I made it out of the dining area, through the arcade and past the prize counter, and was coming up on Pirate's Cove when I finally shot a glance back behind me and-

Holy shit, Bonnie was building up some speed! He was clear of the lobby and halfway through the arcade's only clear walkway when I'd chanced the look, and as I turned my head around again to make the turn into the 'authorized only' hall way I could almost hear his pounding animatronic feet catching up. I had a straight shot down the hallway, past doors and posted up kids' drawings with my boots crashing down noisily onto the linoleum. The light of my office fell out of the doorway on my left, and it was a near thing of a sharp turn that might have twisted my ankle if I'd been unlucky enough, but I made it inside to slam my hand on the big red button marked 'door'. The comforting sound of a strong door sliding shut and locking down was suddenly replaced by the more worrying sound of what had to be the better part of maybe six hundred pounds of Bonnie colliding with the door and coming to a dead halt, the thudding of body followed by the thudding of his fists into the steel enough to make me stand up and back away from it, eying it warily as Bonnie hit it again and again.

It didn't take long for him to give up, though, and even less time for me to scoop up the tablet from my desk and open the camera app to check that hallway. He was walking away, lumbering along with nary a sign of disappointment I could read in his body-language. Relief didn't get a chance to settle in my mind, my fingers dashing across the camera icons to bring up the various views of the restaurant. The other hallway outside my second door, clear. Further up that way, also clear. Bathroom doors, clear...Wait, I'd missed one. Where was the...

My finger tapped the icon labeled 'Kitchen' and it came up completely blank, a notion that made me more than a little concerned, but the icon for the camera's audio was still green and I could hear the refrigerators for the food humming softly. It would have to do. Arcade. Supply room. Dining Area...Yup, there was Bonnie, walking away and to the left...and there was a large, wide yellow chicken animatronic that I recognized all too well. Chica. "Oh shit..." I whispered as I saw her stop walking and turn her head, eying the camera as it moved to track her movements, her dead mechanical eyes looking back at my camera's single digital lens.

A bit unnerved by the chicken's stare, I swapped camera views again. Backstage. There was Freddy, in all his unactivated glory. I let out a deep breath of relief as I sagged into the chair and looked at the power meter. My heart skipped a beat. 84%.

It was barely 12:30am.

My chair rolled with a kick from my boot-clad feet to my left-hand door and I hit the door button to deactivate the lock, the door sliding open smoothly and the power use gauge lost one of the little green bars. Deactivating the camera app on the tablet brought the power use of the building's stored power back to the single background power levels needed to keep the refrigerator running.

I still can't relax, though, my eyes shifting back and forth to the doors on both sides of my desk, trying to pierce the darkness of the hallways beyond. I check the windows to each side, but to no avail as the dim light of my office is only enough to illuminate my single room. I can see the light switches beneath the round red door buttons, but I'm hesitant to use them as well. If I do, they use power. If I run out of power, what happens to my ability to use the doors. I need questions answered.

Memory flickers back to barely a half an hour ago when I'd started to work tonight, and the portable tape recorder/player someone had left out. Sure enough, it's still there and I hit rewind on the thing before pushing play again, and this time I really listen to what it has to say...

It's 1:42 am, I'm still in the Security office with my ass in the office chair, my eyes darting back and forth between the doors while my ears strain for every little sound. I've stopped three more attempts to enter the office, the last two fairly easy to foil while the first one had come while I was distracted.

Chica had come into the office while I had still been mulling over what I'd heard on the tape, and I'd only escaped from being grabbed because Chica had gotten a face full of office chair mid-step, knocking 'her' back into the hallway long enough for me to slam the door shut so I could wait till she left. Through luck or a minor act of some deity the chair wasn't broken, so I'd recovered it to sit in once more.

The tape had been made by someone named Mike Schmidt, a previous night watchman who had apparently survived this ordeal. He'd explained that for some reason he himself couldn't explain, the animatronics were left to roam around in free-roaming to keep their mechanisms from seizing up after years of use. That made no sense to either of us apparently, since I would think further wear and tear would continue their steady decline, but it was how things were so he'd had to deal with it. That in itself wasn't too terrifying, but the animatronics had been programmed for who knew what reason to identify anyone inside the pizzeria between 12am and 6am to be perceived as non-costumed endoskeletons and would be shoved inside any spare Freddy coverings. And subsequently be crushed by the internal bracings and workings of the suits. The guy who'd been before HIM had been unlucky enough to run out of power and caught by Freddy himself, and this was the kicker as it answered my question about the doors.

The doors were held shut with powerful electronic magnets, preventing their opening, and therefore were a massive draw on the building's power supply. "Use them only when you have to. And keep an eye on Foxy, he can be sneaky if you're not careful. And fast. Faster than the others except for maybe Freddy, who is way too damn sneaky for something his size. Alright, that's everything I can think of, the rest you'll figure out since they don't have a consistent pattern. Watch your back, conserve your power, and seriously consider a new job in the morning..."

Not bad advice, I thought, bringing up the tablet to skim through the cameras again. Chica was missing, but I could hear noises from the Kitchen. She was messing with pans and the like, but I didn't care. Mike warned me about that in the tape too, said she made pizzas for the next day sometimes. I'd briefly entertained the idea of chasing her out of there before reminding myself Bonnie'd nearly cleaned my clock. Best to leave her there so she could entertain herself.

Bonnie was in the supply room again, looking at my camera and frankly creeping me the hell out. "Be curious elsewhere, damnit, you're blocking the whole view." I grumbled softly, flicking to another view. Backstage, Freddy was still there, and hadn't moved once all night. Fine by me. Pirate's Cove.

I just barely managed to not shiver as I saw my formerly favorite Foxy leaning out of the curtains, his slightly unhinged jaw hanging askew in a weird grin. He'd been like that for twenty minutes. I didn't think he was waiting for anything, I didn't get that vibe from his stance, but I was still hanging out near the left-hand door control just in case he tried to pull a fast one. I glanced at a clock. 2am.

I felt my back getting sore from the tension building in my shoulder blades. I checked my tablet. 68%. I had to be better about conserving power...

I was getting close to falling asleep now, the constant awareness I was projecting an exhausting demand on my brain and my body to be ready for anything at any moment, but I couldn't afford to relax. Freddy and Foxy had not made any move all night, though Bonnie and Chica had been quite inclined to come and try to say hello every now and again. I glanced at the clock again and just barely kept from crying out in joy. 5:54am. A check of my tablet showed I'd just barely done it, 11% power.

I let out a deep breath of joyful relief as I let myself sag in the chair, dropping the tablet onto the desk with a small smile on my face. I'd made it. Just a couple more minutes and I'd be outta here.

I spent some of the remaining time straightening up my office, collecting the few things I'd brought and sticking them back into my backpack and tugging my security jacket back on, secure in the closeness to the end of my shift and believing that the remaining-let's see the clock-four minutes would be spent by the four robot animals going back to their positions. That I had some breathing space finally.

So when I reached for my hat on the hook just to the right of my left-hand door below the window and I reached for the light switch out of a quickly forming habit, I was completely blindsided by Bonnie as he came screeching and grabbing through the doorway. I screamed back in surprise, backpedaling away before I was caught off-balance by the edge of my desk and I crashed to the floor, knocking the chair on my left shoulder on the way down and sending it clattering to the floor. I landed awkwardly, groaning in a stunned kind of pain on my back, all the while Bonnie came inexorably forward, bending forward so he could reach out and grab me.

I shook off the daze and hunched myself up, bringing my knees to my chest and lashing out with both feet to try and knock back the big robot rabbit, but all I managed to do was hold him at bay for a bit, my teeth bared in a growl as my arms reached out and held my body in position on the ground. Bonnie pushed harder, making my muscles protest in dull pain in the strain to push him away, and I was sorely tempted to try and kick out his ankles when my growling turned into a sharp cry of surprised pain.

Bonnie was grabbing my around my calf with his big hand, and it was a lucky thing he was only squeezing hard enough to bruise everything instead of snapping my shin. My cry of pain turned into one of violent protest as I lashed out with my other boot, kicking at his arm, his hand, the back of his legs, doing nothing even close to substantial damage.

I called him names, shouted curses and threats at Bonnie's back as he slowly dragged me out of the office and down the hall, all the while my heart pounded in fear at my impending fate. I was screwed, without options against my inhuman attacker. He was dragging me away, to shove me into a suit to die a painful crushing death, and for all my training and ability there wasn't a damned thing I could do!

For a couple brief seconds, I wondered if I remembered to put away the cassette tape and the player. I hope the next guy after me pays better attention...

The pressure around my leg was gone so suddenly it registered as a new kind of pain to have blood flowing again, but it didn't stop me from scrambling backwards away from bonnie, glaring a challenge at the robot. It was wasted. Bonnie wasn't looking at me. Didn't even acknowledge my presence. He just kept right on walking, as if nothing mattered.

"What the fuck?" I breathed, catching my breath and pulling my feet underneath me to stand, ignoring the ache in my right leg as I put my weight on it. Then I was fishing my cell phone out of my pocket to look at the time, and I about cried right then. My cries turned into a triumphant laugh.

"Six'o'clock!" I shouted in the technically empty Pizzeria. "And all's well!"

Author's Notes: Whew, there's the end of Jeremy's first night. This one's a bit longer, obviously, but I hope you guys enjoyed the hell out of my protagonist's first foray into what will be an interesting story to a future therapist.

It's a bit later than originally hoped, and I'm sorry to anyone that was waiting for it. But here's hoping I can get the next few chapters out more timely and can entertain you folks with my collection of keystrokes. Happy Halloween (belatedly) and please leave a review!

Tune in next time for Jeremy's attempt to not sound crazy to his friends, and for more heart-pounding nights at Freddy's as he comes to a chilling conclusion...