Twenty-three years later, Mike Schmidt shrugged off his security guard uniform and tossed the shirt on his bed.
"…And for what? Minimum wage?" His girlfriend continued to rant on speakerphone. "I know this has got to be some… some jarhead stubbornness or something, Mike, but it's not worth it."
Mike sighed, picking up the phone and putting it in his lap as he stretched before starting to wheel his way to the kitchen as his girlfriend continued to talk. "I'm sorry, honey, I just don't see it."
"Well, it's a job, Janine."
"It's minimum wage! You're risking your life for - for pennies! Wait, wait. I know what this is. Some sort of facing-your-fears thing, isn't it? Your parents told me what happened…"
"I'm fine. Really. If I can survive an IED, I can survive this."
"It isn't healthy, Mike. It's not."
"It's just some robots in animal suits. I'll be fine." Mike swung open his fridge, grabbing for a beer, and paused with the drink in his hand. "…I don't know. I'll probably quit tomorrow."
"You should quit now. That place isn't right. I know I'm nagging you but we can find you a better job."
"Out of all the people scrambling to hire wheelchair-bound cripples, you mean?"
"Out of all the people scrambling to hire veterans, that's what."
For a long moment Mike was silent. Then, with a new steeliness in his expression, he put the can of beer back and closed his fridge. When he spoke next his tone was almost dreamy.
"You know, Janine, you're right. I think I am going to do something."
Pasquale Hernandez opened the passenger door of Mike Schmidt's van, hopping in and greeting him with a fistbump. "Hey, man! Thought you said you were staying in tonight."
"Changed my mind." Mike's smile was strained and thin. "Listen, Paz, you know how you keep saying you owe me one…"
"Dude, you pushed me out of the way of a fuckin' IUD. I owe you more than one," Paz said as he buckled his seatbelt.
For a long moment Mike was silent as he used the hand-accelerator in the modified car. Paz, however, sniffed the air, immediately frowning. "Mike, why's the van smell like gasoline?"
"I'm calling in that favor today."
"That doesn't answer my question," Paz said nervously. "Did you just fill it up, or…?"
Calmly, Mike Schmidt reached over to the side of his seat, pulled out a handgun, and pointed at Paz.
"Woah, woah, what the hell - Mike, put that thing away, whatever's wrong we can talk it out -"
"Don't worry," Mike interrupted. "I'm not going to shoot you or anything. I need your help. This is just me threatening you so that when the police ask later what's gone on, you aren't liable, all right?"
And then he calmly put the gun into its holster at his waist. Paz continued to stare at him, pressed against the side of the car.
"Mike," Paz finally said, "what are we doing, exactly?"
"We're burning down Freddy Fazbear's."
Paz gulped solidly. "Look, I know you have some… history there, but it's just a pizza place, I don't think -"
"There's evil at work," Mike snapped, his voice finally rising from calm for the first time. "I've been there a week, and I've seen it."
"Mike, I don't think…"
"You don't have to think. You just have to trust me, and to help me." Mike looked over to Paz out of the corner of his eye before returning his gaze to the dimly-lit nighttime streets. "That's worth two legs and a lifetime of colostomy bags, right?"
Paz gulped.
The last tinges of twilight had long faded by the time they turned into the parking lot of Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria. Mutely, they set about their work, dousing the outside of the building. Paz stood back for the most part, nervously pacing in small circles. He paused to open one of the doors. "Shouldn't we…"
"Don't!" Mike called out from the other side of the parking lot. "Don't you dare open that door. …Just light it up."
The fire started slowly, licking the building's walls before finally rolling up to the rooftop. As it began to penetrate the building itself, Paz looked increasingly nervous - both of the fire, and of the fact that Mike went over to his van, opening the back, and pulling out several shotguns.
"You'll need this," he grunted out, tossing a shotgun over to Paz, and then a couple of rounds of deer shot.
"It's a pizza place?" Paz's voice went up in vague inquiry as he nonetheless loaded the gun. "We're not going to shoot at the firemen, are we? Look, Mike, I've done what you said, but I'm not -"
"Not for the firemen," Mike said tersely. "Just this." He pointed at the burning building, and as if on cue, siren-like screaming began to come from the flames. The noise was high-pitched, like a child's wail, but it was one Mike had been bracing himself to hear every single night. It coupled with the fire sirens in the distance that were growing ever-closer.
That was when something came out of the flames.
Only one had been fast enough to outrun the holocaust. Foxy burst out of the fire, still screaming, fabric singed and flaming to reveal the skeleton of metal underneath. Paz froze in fear, even as he was being charged down, and the first gunshot rang out. Foxy staggered back as Mike reloaded the shotgun, and then, still screaming, lunged for him. Another shot - Mike's wheelchair was flung back from the recoil - and finally Foxy crumbled to the ground, the shrieking growing increasingly distorted as the fire overtook the animatronic.
Paz cowered, breathless. The shouts of the firemen grew closer, and it wasn't long before the fire sirens were joined with police sirens.
"Hands up! Put your hands up!" Paz gladly complied, but it took a moment for Mike, cool and collected as he was, to let go of his shotgun and put his hands in the air.
As they handcuffed him, Mike said nothing. Instead he watched the fire engulfing the building.
One by one, like lights going out on a long summer night, the screaming ceased.
Mike Schmidt didn't speak much about that night. Not beyond giving an enigmatic smile. He always maintained that he was perfectly sane and in the right, even when his court-appointed lawyer said otherwise. And he always told everyone how the night after he dreamed about Maria Lopez, and Lauren and Isaac Hunter, and all of them smiling, free, and happy again.
He didn't tell them about the black shadow behind their smiling faces. He didn't tell them about how something was still waiting, watching, and seething.
No, Mike Schmidt just smiled and told them about how easily he slept these days.