After contentedly propping his feet up on the desk, Spike belched without bothering to cover his mouth. The powder room rat had been a nice, fat pisser - a welcome change from frozen black market plasma.
Welcome change aside, he preferred shotgunning the ones that fed from the dumpster behind the Bronze – which he'd unfortunately cleaned out while still learning how to feed himself. Those had a nice, robust bouquet: cheap beer and Bloomin' Onion with a delicate hint of stale cigarette smoke until they took the soddin Onion off the menu! This one had a frozen, greasy pizza aftertaste with a slight hint of Chica's Magic Drink. Still, it made for a nice warm change from the health nuts and scientifically fed market-weight hogs he'd been indirectly feeding from the last few weeks.
Absently sipping blood and Bourbon from the big Thermos, Spike turned to the next page of the technical manual he'd swiped from Parts and Service. What had pierced his face while nearly putting out an eye last night was an integral part of the mechanical morons left wandering around the place after the end of the day shift. Ingenious, really, if he understood what he was reading. It was all part of a super-light exoskeleton covered in fake fur which could spring in and out at once or one at a time.
And the challenge, he thought while scratching at his face where the healing puncture marks showed purple in the cheap fluorescent lights, was how to put that skeleton to work in his favor once the animatronic he'd managed to ship south of the border was released from the packing crate…
A piece of paper being shoved in his face broke Spike's chain of thought. I saw what you did with that rat. You're disgusting!
"No, I'm a demon, it's what I do. What's your excuse?" Absently, Spike crumpled the paper and tossed it at the nearby trashcan without looking. Mike's unsolicited opinion bounced off the wall and landed on the floor.
Scribble scribble. So, are you going to do anything about the curse?
"What curse?" Not that Spike particularly cared. Out of the corner of one eye he watched the hi-jinx of the "Best of Temptations" video he'd smuggled into the place in one of his duster pockets. At the mention of a curse, William, the annoying little git, began stirring in the back of Spike's subconscious. Damn.
Scribble scribble. The people who slipped through the cracks, the ones who died here, him, me, are all cursed.
"I slipped through the cracks sometime around 1890, and I've done all right." Spike batted the next note away, "Go haunt somebody who cares." William cared, but William was a boring prat with poor eyesight who took being nice to people all too seriously and because of that, always got kicked in the teeth. The last thing Spike wanted to get tangled up in at the moment was altruism, even if it was in the form of enlightened self-interest.
"Duuude, we died in this pizza stinking shithole and didn't even get like, a funeral or some junk or other!" Jeremy added, "And the missing kids, like, dude, not so much as a picture on a milk carton!"
Scribble scribble. I injured my back and had to leave the Army. This was the only job I could get!
"I'm so happy for you." Too late! William stood up in the back of Spike's mind all but screaming,, "Me! Me! I know what it's like to be forgotten, let me help – anyway, if we help, maybe Buffy will love us again!"
"Sod off." was Spike's response to the last few shreds of his previous self. Too bad William wasn't real and standing next to him dancing up and down like Andrew or that other short kid (Jerry? Jerome?) from the Nerd Herd like he hadn't gone all day and somebody'd lost the key to the lavvy. Spike would have happily pulled the little twat's underpants up over his head and set the whole mess on fire. "I'm tryin' to read here. Do you mind?"
"Hell yeah, I mind!" Pacing back and forth in the cramped space of the security office, Jeremy shook his head in a mass of unkempt dark hair, "I've had it with this place. It was supposed to be a temp job so I could start paying off my student loans. Now I'm stuck here forever surrounded by phantom boogersnots and some creep in a yellow bunny suit – and I hate Furries!"
Scribble scribble. Me too. I don't like how their eyes look at me through the screens.
Raising his scarred eyebrow, Spike looked over at the monitors. According to camera #6, Bonnie was now outside the office door staring at him. Using one finger as a bookmark, Spike closed the manual and looked up at the ghostly two, asking, "What about last night? Where the hell were you two lads when some loony stuffed me in a bear suit so that I got both cheeks pierced without even the consolation of a crunchy frog for desert?"
"Dude, our shift ends at 5."
"Right. Glad to hear it. Union rules or somethin'? Sod off."
Scribble scribble. How'd you get out of Freddy Fazbear? I didn't.
"I was helped by a teenager with hair only a mother could love– were she colorblind." Spike placed the manual on the battered desktop, "Day-glo red. I mean, Ronald McDonald territory here. Who is he?"
The two ghosts pulled back and started arguing back and forth – which wasn't easy, considering one of them couldn't argue aloud. Spike went back to reading. He'd been right. If he could cut into the main body core with a blowtorch like he'd started to last night, he could get at the remote interface and…
"Now what do you lads want?" Spike reclosed the manual. Jeremy was now leaning over him, close enough to touch were that possible.
"Duuuude," the slacker whispered nervously, "Shit's about to get real. That was Vinnie."