~O~
Part Two
Dust and spider webs covered nearly every inch of the pizzeria.
Once the teenagers entered the decaying establishment, they immediately noticed a change in atmosphere as opposed to outside. It was colder here, but there was no chill in the air. Just a constant state of emptiness.
There were old games, prize counters with prizes still sitting inside the glass. Walls filled with cheaply made toys and everything else you'd come to expect from places such as this. Andy smiled and picked up a kazoo.
"Hey!" he said, "You guys remember going to places like this?"
Emily shined her flashlight on a poster of Freddy Fazbear. She made a face at the almost eerie caricature of the mascot. There were cartoon images of Chica, Bonnie and Foxy on an adjacent poster as well.
"Not like this, no." she replied.
Andy tried to blow on the kazoo, but eventually gave up and set it onto the counter. He glanced down, noticing a yellow Fazbear head lying in a corner on the floor. He smiled and bent down to pick it up.
Dean wandered around and stopped in front of a skeeball game. He chuckled and bent down, retrieving one of the balls. He turned it around in his hand before looking back up at the arcade game. A cartoon depiction of Chica grinned back at him from it.
This game he'd loved a lot when he was a kid.
Behind him, Andy was wearing the yellow Freddy head and crept up slowly. He raised his hands and gave a deep roar, startling Dean into throwing the ball from his hands. It rolled beneath a crane machine.
Andy was laughing and removed the Freddy head from his shoulders. "Dude, relax!" he said, "It's just an old head, man."
Dean sighed, rolled his eyes and tried to search for the ball he'd dropped. "Whatever..." he muttered.
"Hey, Dean! Andy!" Mark called, "Come on! We have to set up the equipment!"
"Alright!" Andy yelled back. "Hang on!"
Dean was still searching for the ball, moving his hand beneath the machine before he touched a scrap of paper. Curious, he pulled the paper out and noticed it was a child's drawing. The paper was faded with age and most of the colors stained by water damage. It depicted an image of what Dean could only guess was Foxy playing with children.
"Dean! Come on!" Mark said, firmly.
"Yeah, I'm coming!"
Dean dropped the picture and it fell face-down, revealing a message scrawled in crayon.
Help me.
Andy started to follow them, but stopped at the sight of a "Whac-A-Mole" game. The soft, felt-covered mallet was lying on the floor and he smiled, bending down to pick it up.
"Andy!"
Andy sighed with annoyance as Mark called for him insistently. He set the mallet down and followed him.
O
Mark switched on the camera in his hands and smiled down at the little red blinking dot that began to record.
"Hey, Dean," he said, "Does this look right to you?"
Dean walked up, took the camera in hand and switched a few settings before nodding his approval.
"Looks good." he replied.
Mark glanced over at Andy, who seemed interested in an old clothing shop. Amy was with him and they were talking together. She seemed amused by a few of his jokes, but he must have said something inappropriate because she slapped his shoulder next.
"Hey, don't worry about Andy," Mark told the younger teenager, "I know he's kind of an asshole, but he can be motivated when he wants to be."
Dean shrugged. He didn't want to seem like he couldn't take care of himself. Really, he had trouble doing so, but no reason for anyone else to notice.
"It's cool." he replied.
Mark smiled a little. "How do you keep cool all the time?"
Dean exhaled and set the camera on a tripod. "Well, you know... I'm used to it." he answered. "With my mom doing her thing as a Fortune Teller and working full-time at the shop. I've kinda just gotten used to being alone."
Mark thought about that. "What about your dad?"
Dean made a face. It was hard for Mark to tell if he touched a particularly sensitive subject. "Yeah...but I never met him." he replied, quietly. "He left when I was born, so..."
Emily carried in a cooler filled with drinks and food, interrupting the conversation. "Okay, the guards are probably gone for the night," she said, "I didn't seem them circling around. Still, we should probably be careful not to make a lot of noise."
Dean shook his head and sat down near the light that had cast the center of the mall in an eerie glow. He noticed an old sign that was lying on the floor.
He absently picked the sign up and read the happy message written on it with a smiling face.
THANK YOU FOR VISITING FAZBEAR'S GALLERIA. WE HOPE TO SEE YOU AGAIN!
Dean made a face and set the sign back on the floor.
"So what's the plan?" Andy asked, approaching them before he looked at Mark.
"Well," Mark said, "We could take the EVP recorders and maybe wander around the mall for a while. See what we can find. It looks like this place hasn't even been looked at in a while. Who knows? We might end up finding something no one else has."
His voice took on a delighted pitch at that possibility.
"Good idea. We can check that security guy's room," Andy said, smirking with glee. He gave Emily a look, as if he knew the whole story. "I hear he was the one who did it."
"I heard it was the night guy on janitorial." Amy added.
"Yeah, but he had an alibi, you know?" Andy pointed out, getting into the conversation, "I heard the security guy disappeared too. No one's seen him since it happened."
Mark frowned, as if it was the first time he'd heard of this new information. "What security guy?"
Andy winced at his error. "My bad. It wasn't the first guy. They hired another guy who was supposed to be the nightwatchman or something and he vanished."
"Some say the ghosts of those dead kids came back to get their revenge." Amy added.
Mark exhaled and gathered his flashlight. "Look, we can all talk about it while we look around, okay?" he told them, "Now I want us to stay close together. We go in groups and meet back here in an hour. Dean, Emily and I will look around on the first floor. You guys take the top."
Andy chuckled. "I always do." he said, strolling off.
Mark gave him a look and leveled his flashlight on the other teenager's face. "Dude, chill, alright?" he muttered.
Overhead in the vents, something quickly skittered by, catching the corner of Dean's eye. He quickly looked up, frowning.
O
Andy returned to the Whac-A-Mole game. He picked up the mallet and smacked a small caricature of Chica still sticking out from one of the many holes.
The machine let out a dying gurgle as he did. Andy laughed.
"Hey, Amy!" he called. "I think this thing still has juice!"
"Andy! Stop screwing around! We need to work!" Amy called from somewhere in another room.
"No, wait, come here!" Andy insisted.
"Andy, seriously!"
"Come on!"
After a few moments, Amy walked up to him with annoyance. "What?" she asked, "What is so important?"
Andy gestured to the Whac-a-Mole console and one of the Chica heads popped up. He grinned at Amy, who looked a little surprised.
"Wait, this place has power?" she asked.
"Guess so." Andy said, the relevance of that matter going far over his head. He was too occupied with the game.
Each time he struck the little Chica's that popped up, they uttered a pained grunt. A female voice chimed up from them.
"Ouch! That hurts!"
Andy laughed with delight and Amy frowned. "That's weird. How could it still have power in this place?"
"Dude, there's a generator outside." Andy said, distracted with his game. "Not really that weird if you ask me."
Amy gave up on the whole idea and threw her arms in the air with a huff. "Fine, whatever. Guess I'll do the work as always."
"Great. I'll catch up with you in a sec!" Andy replied, licking his lips with effort as he attempted to catch every Chica head that popped up.
"Ouch!"
"That hurts!"
Every strike against the tiny Chica's began to develop into more morbid cries.
"Ouch!" the Chica head's voice seemed to filter through static. "Ouch! ... Ouch..."
Andy made a face, pausing once.
"Stop..." the Chica head's gears groaned and creaked.
Andy grimaced and placed the mallet down. The game console whirred and the robotics within it seemed to creak painfully.
"Andy, seriously," Amy returned. "Stop playing around. I need your help in the security office."
She noticed that he looked unsettled and frowned.
"Andy?"
"I don't think I want to play this anymore, man." he said, somewhat uneasy.
"Good, then let's go."
Andy followed her, but glanced back briefly at the game console.
O
Andy and Amy walked through the security room; Andy was digging through boxes while Amy wandered around with an EVP Recorder.
A few kid's drawings were taped to the wall. The paper was worn and yellowed with age. Some of the drawing were extremely adorable to Amy; all of them were titled "MY FUN DAY!". She looked at one that depicted Freddy Fazbear hugging a child.
"So are you going to talk to him?" Amy asked, after a moment of silence.
Andy looked up at her before he sighed through his nose. "You know Mark won't talk to me," he told her, "He gets weird about it."
"Yeah, but it's just weird for us, you know?"
A figure walked passed the open doors.
A violet shadow, distorted in a form of Freddy Fazbear.
Amy frowned and looked over her shoulder briefly. She stuck her head out and glanced down the dark hallways with her flashlight before looking back at Andy, who seemed delightened by the contents of a box.
"Dude, check it out!" he said, pulling out old cassette tapes. "These are, like, prehistoric! Oh man, I wonder if they're the real deal."
"Why do you care about a bunch of old tapes?" Amy stared at him skeptically. "No one listens to cassettes anymore. Except for, maybe, my grandfather."
"Because if we find some authentic stuff here, we could sell them on eBay."
Amy raised an eyebrow. "So you're only going on this trip to collect stuff?"
"Duh!"
Amy knelt down and picked one of them up, turning it in her hands for study. Most of them had labels ripped off. One in particular had been scratched out in black marker and replaced with red ink that spelled out: LIAR.
"Aww man, someone scribbled on this one..." Andy protested, holding the tape out to her.
Suddenly, the sound of a child-like laugh filled the air, startling the two. Amy gave a cry and brought her flashlight up, pointing it in the direction of the closet nearby.
"What was that?" she asked, suddenly uneasy.
Andy stood up, frowning. "Hang on."
He approached the closet and opened it, but the two relaxed at the sight of a puppet lying on the floor, beneath several purple security guard coats. Andy gave a laugh and bent down to pick it up.
The sockmonkey style puppet's white face was cracked a little; there were two purple stripes that stretched from the bottom of its eyes to the top of its mouth. It had red lipstick that was faded with age.
"Huh. It's one of those weird little puppets my grandmother used to have in her attic," Amy remarked, "Well, something like it."
Andy chuckled. "I remember this creepy little guy. He was one of the pizza place's mascots or something."
Amy reached into the closet, studying the coats. She ran her fingertips over the worn leather and touched one of the name badges that read "Mike Schmidt".
"Hey." she said, "Who's Mike Schmidt?"
Andy shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know. Some guy who disappeared, I think. Hey, let's find the others and show them what we found!"
He carried the puppet under his arm and Amy continued recording on the EVP device that Dean had given her to use.
The light had flickered on and off several times, but it went by unnoticed.
O
Dean wandered toward the party room, where most of the banners had been torn down. It looked like it had been frozen in time; several plates, hats and pictures still filled the room. It left it in a very eerie condition.
The sound of footsteps behind him made him whirl with a sharp gasp. A hallway further ahead was empty, but he could have sworn he'd seen something run by him. Something small.
"Mark?" he said.
...Come here. Let me show you something.
Dean squeezed his eyes shut, mumbling 'no' under his breath. He saw brief, unwanted flashes of images in his head. The razor-sharp endoskeletons for the animatronics. The glowing eyes.
...Come on. It'll be lot of fun...
Dean couldn't stop his feet from moving forward; he barely made out the sound of high pitched, jittery giggling. He passed a poster on the wall that showed a yellow Freddy Fazbear head without its eyes.
...We know you can hear us...
Dean turned a corner and a flash of a yellow Freddy Fazbear appeared in his field of vision. He covered his eyes with both hands, mumbling 'they can't hurt me'. His mother had told him of these things. Of how seeing images such as this were just 'scary pictures in your head'.
But she never knew that he could actually see them. She never knew because he never told her.
Or anyone else.
Dean opened his eyes and found himself shocked to see a yellow Golden Fredbear standing there. Without its eyes and wires sticking out from its empty sockets. Its head occasionally flicked and twitched like something out of Jacob's Ladder.
Want to see a magic trick, kid?
Dean shook his head with a frightened murmur at the low, almost sick-sounding male voice that filled his head. His stomach felt as though it dropped a thousand feet. He was frozen, unable to move and look away from what he was seeing.
But the Golden Fredbear simply ignored the gesture, reached up with two hands. Each movement caused the joints to creak horribly. Ethereal moans and broken pleas of anguish filled the air, but Dean wasn't sure if it was the horrible thing in front of him or something else.
The Golden Fredbear grasped both sides of his head and began to pull upwards. Sticky, horrid sounds filled the air and Dean shut his eyes with a sharp cry of fright.
Another scream.
A plea for mercy.
A beastly snarl of rage.
Look at me! Look what you've wrought!
Emily put a hand on Dean's shoulder, drawing another shriek from him. She looked concerned.
"Whoa! Hey, Dean, relax!" she said. "It's just me."
Dean looked over his shoulder and the Golden Fredbear was gone. He looked back at Emily and gave her a nervous chuckle.
"Jesus, you're sweating," she pointed out, studying his sweat-soaked cheeks, "Are you sure you're okay?"
"I'm fine. I'm fine." Dean insisted, wiping his face on his coat sleeve.
"Don't walk off like that, okay?" Emily said, gently. "We can't be too careful here. This place is old. We don't know what might fall apart."
...Or end up pulled apart...
A sinister giggle filled Dean's head, but he simply shook it away and nodded to Emily, resuming a calm expression. A poor attempt, however, because Emily put an arm around his shoulders and ushered him back to the others.
"Come on. Mark's found something. Let's check it out." she said.
O
The door had been locked.
Well, not just locked. Heavy chains and padlocks had been used to reinforce it, along with the words scrawled in red paint near the walls.
DO NOT OPEN.
KEEP LOCKED PLEASE.
NEVER OPEN. NEVER AGAIN.
Mark tried to seek inside the window of the door, but it had been painted over with black paint, making it impossible.
"So what do you think it is?" Mark asked, looking back at his friends.
"Something someone definitely doesn't want anyone to look at," Dean pointed out. He heard a collection of whispers fill his head and he winced, closing his eyes briefly before continuing. "Maybe the warnings are there for a reason, though..."
Mark raised his eyebrows. "Or maybe someone's just screwing around. Come on, let's see if we can get it open."
Emily and Mark moved to try and tug the chains loose, but the water damage from the ceiling and age had left them rusted. Dean simply watched, uneasy and suddenly sick to his stomach.
"Hang on, where's Andy?" Mark asked, looking around.
Andy was standing by the generator, trying to connect the equipment they needed to get started up. He struggled to get one of the old tapes fitted into the player.
A few clicks and the tape started up. Andy failed to notice a figure approaching him slowly. Hunched and breathing heavily.
He turned around with a grunt, but nothing was there.
"Hello, hello? Uh, I wanted to record a message for you to help you get settled in on your first night!" the tape played a male voice. "Um, I actually worked in that office before you. I'm finishing up my last week now, as a matter of fact. So, I know it can be a bit overwhelming, but I'm here to tell you there's nothing to worry about. Uh, you'll do fine. So, let's just focus on getting you through your first week. Okay?"
Behind the door they had attempted to open rested a Spring Lock Bonnie suit, trapped in the stages of decay. Most of its yellow-green faux fur had been rotted away and one of the ears was missing.