"Now that's somethin' you don't hear every night." Spike leaned back on his hands where he now sat on the scuffed floor beside the phone. As the receiver clicked on the other end, he noticed the flashing red light on the answering machine.
Leaning forward, he pushed the button next to it.
There was a tone, followed by the phone guy's annoyingly cheerful voice from 3 days before if the date/time stamp was in any way accurate: "Hello? Hello? Hey you're doing great! Most people don't last this long. I mean, you know, they usually move on to other things by now. I'm not implying that they died…"
Smirking, Spike leaned forward and sped through the message. He released the button, and the annoying one resumed, presumably on night four: "Hello? Hello? Hey! Hey, wow, day four! I knew you could do it!"
The vampire absently lipped a cigarette out of the pack before shoving it back into his uniform pocket, "Uh, hey, listen… I may not be around to send you a message tomorrow. (banging noise) It's… it's… It's been a bad night her for me. Ummmmm, I-I'm kinda glad that I recorded my messages for you (clears throat…) Uh, when I did."
Hang on there! Did he hear something in the background?
Spike cut the recording off and rewound it back to just a few seconds before the throat clearing.
No. Missed it.
Rewind.
Replay.
Bang, no, ah! There… he carefully played it back yet again, head cocked, eyes closed in concentration…
He was right, there, in-between the idiot who loved the sound of his own voice soon to be strangled, flattened, whatever, and the banging noise was the unmistakable sound of a child yawning and what sounded like a music box that somebody had taken a hammer to giving off its final death rattle.
Bizet's "Carmen".
Now, wasn't that interesting!
Spike leaned once more over the answering machine and pushed the play button as overhead in one of the surviving monitors, Freddy's grinning face slowly rose into full frame before the monitor went blank.
Followed by another.
And yet another…
The yellow rabbit found that the guards, who had died all to easily to have been of any use to Simon as little more than light appetizers, were willing to listen as Simon told him what to say.
Backs would be turned.
Ears would be deaf.
Simon said it had to be that way.
Simon was always right.