Chapter 30
Fritz settled into his chair behind the desk in the security office and picked up the tablet. He didn't even know why he had to keep doing this job. No one would be crazy enough to break into Freddy Fazbear's pizzeria.
Scott hadn't called him since those first few days on the job. He already knew what he was doing, so he didn't really need Scott's guidance. Scott usually patrolled the restaurant at random and made sure everything was in order for the next day while Fritz sat in the office and flicked through the cameras. Right now, Scott was in the kitchen, cleaning up the mess Tia had made earlier.
Suddenly, the phone ran, and Fritz was so surprised, he almost fell out of his chair. He scrambled to pick up the phone. He jammed the receiver to his ear, straightening his glasses as he did so. "Hello?" he said frantically. Something serious must have happened if Scott was calling him now.
"Hey, Fritz," Scott greeted calmly, the sound of clattering dishes in the background. It didn't sound like anything was wrong.
"What's going on?" Fritz asked curiously. "Is something wrong?"
Scott chuckled. "No, no, nothing's wrong. I just wanted to talk to you."
Fritz was still skeptical. "About what?"
"Um, it's about Vincent."
"What about him?"
"It's just kind of a warning." Scott sounded hesitant. "You remember what happened last night?"
Fritz nodded. "Yep." At around 2:30 the previous night, Vincent had come out of his room in his pyjamas and looked around aimlessly. Then he started walking towards Fritz, but Scott had just been coming out of the Parts and Service room and got Vincent back in his room before he could reach the office. It had been another thing to add to Fritz's list of weird things about his boss.
Fritz blanched. He hadn't even realized he had a list until then. Thinking about it now, he realized that there were a lot of strange things about Vincent Graves. The odd way he reacted on that first day with the animatronics, his decreasing temper, the odd pain-sharing thing he had with Springtrap that everybody else seemed to put off as some weird coincidence- yes, there were quite a few strange things about him.
"In case you hadn't already guessed, he tends to sleepwalk," Scott continued, snapping Fritz out of his thoughts. "He's been doing that more often recently, so I figured I might as well warn you. I mean, he doesn't usually make it out of his room, but sometimes he does, so just, you know, don't freak out or anything if you see him do that again..." The sentence tapered off, like he wanted to say something else but wasn't sure how to put it.
"Anything else?" Fritz prompted.
"Ah..." Scott paused, as though trying to find the right words. "When he sleepwalks, he can also get a little- violent."
Fritz raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean by 'violent?' How 'violent' does he get, exactly?"
Scott took a deep breath. "Like- old animatronic violent."
Fritz inhaled sharply. "That's pretty violent."
"Yeah, but you should be fine. He doesn't make it out of his very often, like I said before, but if he does, he should ignore you. Well, as long as you stay really still and quiet. But you'd survive, probably. You should be fine."
Fritz was suspicious. "Are you doing that thing again?"
"What thing?" Scott asked curiously.
"You know, that thing where you completely down-play a situation that could actually be fatal? You did that a lot when I worked here the first time."
"No I'm not."
"You hesitated."
"No I didn't."
"Yeah, you did."
Scott sighed. "Okay, maybe a little. But seriously, as long as you don't move or speak, he'll ignore you and just wander away. Then I'll come get him and put him back in his room. Okay?"
Fritz furrowed his eyebrows. He'd never really trusted Scott when he worked there a decade or so ago, and those feelings hadn't changed much over the years. He had an odd feeling that Scott was lying. Nevertheless, he nodded. "Stay still, keep quiet. Got it." He reached across the desk and hung up.
xXx
*The next day*
Zoe sat in her chair in the Parts and Service room, setting her toolbox down at her feet. She was tempted to ask Vincent for a day off so she could focus a bit more on her auto repair shop, but despite his weirdly decreasing temper, he was still a little scary.
She absentmindedly tapped on the control panel in front of her. She was just waiting on Fritz. The two of them had agreed to meet up that morning so they could try to fix whatever it was about the animatronics that made them react so weirdly to light at night time. They had discussed it before, but they'd never had much time since he was on the night shift and she worked during the day. Vincent had actually approached her earlier and told her to take this one day off so she and Fritz could fix that problem with the robots. She had argued that it wasn't fair for him to make Fritz stay awake for that long just so they could fix a minor glitch, but Vincent actually offered to take the night shift for Fritz the next night. She thought that was strangely kind of him, and she didn't protest any further.
The door opened and Fritz walked in, looking exhausted. He plunked his laptop on the control panel and collapsed in his own chair opposite Zoe.
"You look tired," Zoe observed.
He nodded, rubbing his eyes behind his glasses. "Yeah. I've been on edge all night. Scott decided to call and tell me that Vincent sleepwalks. I usually have a short nap while I'm working, but I wasn't able to sleep at all."
Zoe furrowed her brow. "Why were so worried? A lot of people sleepwalk, and they're usually fine. I remember this one time in high school when Raina, Mike, Jeremy, and I all had a sleepover at Raina's house, and Mike woke up in the kitchen, laying on the counter." She chuckled at the memory.
Fritz sighed. "Yeah, but Scott told me that Vincent gets really violent when he sleepwalks."
"Violent? Like, how violent exactly?"
"Old animatronic violent."
Zoe inhaled sharply. "That's pretty violent."
"That's what I said!" Fritz exclaimed. "It's already been an hour since my shift ended, and my hands are still shaking. Scott said that as long as I stay silent and still, he should ignore me, and if he does get me, I should survive, probably."
Zoe rested her chin on her hand. "That's so weird. Thinking about it, there are actually a lot of weird things about Vincent. His decreasing temper-"
"And that weird pain sharing thing he has with Spring-" Fritz added.
"The weird way he reacted on that first day with the animatronics-"
"The fact that he literally sleeps inside the pizzeria and not in an actual house-"
"And he actually had a room built specifically for that purpose, so he obviously planned to be staying here and it's not just a last resort-"
"And now this." Fritz finished. "I wish we knew more about him. I mean, if these things are in any way connected with those rumours about him from 1987-"
"But how could they be?" Zoe interrupted. "He's twenty-five years old. He would have been born in 1991. That's four years after 1987."
He shrugged in response. "A lot of people get plastic surgery to look younger these days. He might be older than he looks."
Zoe thought about it. "Well, if he got plastic surgery all over his body, that might explain all the scars."
Fritz leaned forward, suddenly wide awake. "Scars?"
Zoe told him about the day they'd started working on the animatronics, when she had gone for a walk around the pizzeria and wandered into Vincent's room.
"But the scars didn't look like plastic surgery," she said. "They were in random places, and a bunch of them were scabs, like they'd been recently reopened. I asked him about it, and he just said they were from an accident. He didn't elaborate at all." She smiled. "Man, if this were a mystery novel, we'd just bust right into his room and start looking for clues."
Fritz shot up straight in his chair. "Why don't we?"
She raised an eyebrow. "What? Dude, this isn't Scooby Doo. I know Vincent's been a lot less angry lately, but if those rumours about the murders are true, he wouldn't hesitate to kill us. We wouldn't just walk out of there with all the answers and not have any consequences."
"I know, but if those rumours are true, and we figured it out and had proof-"
"Then we'd catch a murderer," Zoe finished. "I don't know, Fritz. I'm just not too sure about this." She really was curious to know more Vincent, but poking around in people's personal stuff just seemed wrong.
"I know, I know, everyone deserves their personal space," Fritz said, as though he had just read her mind, "but aren't you curious?"
Zoe had to admit, she was. She'd always been to curious for her own good. But still, she was hesitant. "I don't know, Fritz. If we get caught-"
"We'd make something up," he said. "I'm pretty okay at lying. I could think of an excuse."
Zoe thought about it. She actually kind of liked his idea, and she knew that if they wanted to know more about Vincent, this was really their only option. But still...
"How about we ask Scott first?" she suggested. "Vincent seems to care about Scott, and that one day when I'd asked him why Scott is the only one he seems to care about, he said it was because Scott saved his life. If that's somehow connected with the scars, then maybe Scott could give us some answers. And if he doesn't tell us anything, we can go ahead with your idea."
Fritz nodded. "Yeah. Let's do that. But first, we should get working. We don't want Vincent to come in here and see us slacking off."