I've had this one done for a while but I apparently forgot to upload it. Sorry...
"The weather's supposed to get pretty bad tonight," Alex said as she swapped the TV channel from the news to cartoons for Chica.
Chica happily sat herself on the floor to watch the TV as Lea and Bonnie sat on the sofa. "Yeah," Lea responded. "I saw the clouds today. They say when it's supposed to hit?"
"Around midnight or something. Going to be really bad lightning and thunder, some strong wind." Alex leaned back in the cushiony recliner and sighed. "Did you pick up the loose things in the yard?"
"Mm-hm." Lea hummed as she fiddled with some object in her hand.
"What is that?"
She held it out briefly for Alex to see. "It's Freddy's voice box. I'm trying to see if I can fix it, but it's really messed up. It's pretty rusty and looks like it got hit or smashed by something."
Bonnie shivered a little but said nothing.
"He also has a little music box in him, too. But that works just fine."
"Eh, he let you mess around with his insides?" Alex eyed her.
She looked up at her older sister. "What? You expected something else to be inside of him?"
Bonnie shivered again.
"What's wrong with you?" Lea asked him, having ignored it the first time.
"Oh, um…I'm not sure." He looked a little confused with himself.
Lea suddenly remembered what Miss Westin had said to her about missing children and ghosts, and what Puppet had said about "giving them life." Ghosts, children, inside of animatronics, and they didn't even seem to remember their own circumstances. At least, not fully. She wondered if she should tell them, but telling them a truth like that seemed harsh and scary.
Later on, as midnight drew nearer, it began to rain. The rain did not start out as a drizzle that turned into a shower. No. Lea was laying in her bed with Bonnie, asleep. It was silent, then suddenly there was the sound of a torrential rain loudly plastering the outside of the house. A bright flash intruding the room through the curtained window, accompanied by a harsh crack of thunder that shook the house and startled her awake. She lay there, breathing deeply for a moment as her mind processed what the sounds were. Just the weather, she told herself.
Bonnie stirred behind her as another crash reverberated around the house. "It's very loud," he said, his voice almost drowned out by more thunder as lightning lit the room again. "Foxy will be frightened."
"Foxy," Lea mumbled, tiredness conquering her initial surprise from the sounds. Her eyes were beginning to close until realization struck her just as a loud crashing sounded from the other room. "Foxy!"
She shot up and out of the room, stumbling a little from the unprepared use of her legs. She threw open the door to Foxy's room just as another bright flash shone to light up the darkness. With the flashes she could see multiple slashes along the walls and deep tears in the bed from his panic. The window was shattered, a clear telling that something large had crashed through it, the wind billowing the torn curtains wildly and rain pouring in to soak the room.
"Alex!" Lea shouted back into the house only to find that her sister had already exited her room to investigate the noise.
"What happened?!" She gritted her teeth as she eyed the scene.
"The sounds scared him," Lea was afraid. "He must have panicked and broke out through the window!"
Bonnie, Chica, and Freddy had all entered the dark hallway to see what was going on. Keeping well away from the rain pouring into the room.
"Foxy's outside?" Chica asked, looking fearful. "What if he gets lost?"
"I need to go find him," Lea said.
"What?!" Alex snapped. "You can't go out there now! It's storming like crazy; you can barely see a thing out there!"
"Exactly!" She was afraid of him getting lost or hurt, or even hurting someone else. Foxy wasn't exactly rational when he was scared. And Lea felt she should have known better. She should have stayed with him tonight, knowing he didn't like loud noises.
"At least wait for it to calm down a little," Alex told her.
"But-!"
"Alex is right," Bonnie said, his ears folded sadly. "What if you get hurt or lost, too?"
"That's right," Alex said. "No one's going to be out in this weather, and I doubt he'll get very far. When it settles, just a bit, you can hurry and go look for him, and I'll keep an eye on these guys."
Reluctantly, Lea agreed. They all gathered together in the dark living room, the only lights being Freddy's glowing eyes and the frequent flashes of lightning through the windows that were steadily becoming less frequent. The power had gone out, and she kept looking at the clock on the wall with each flash. Almost twenty minutes had passed before the storm had finally subsided to a common shower.
"I'm going," she stood up and went over to the door to put on her shoes and grab an umbrella.
Alex bit her lip. "Okay. Be careful. If you're not back in an hour at the most, I'm coming get you."
Lea glanced over at them, all watching her worriedly. "I'll be back. I promise."
She grabbed her coat from the wall hanger, placed it on herself, and exited the house and opened her large umbrella. Swiftly, she walked away, trying to think of what direction Foxy would have gone. She followed a relatively straight path from the window he had broken out of, passing through the yard across the street after noticing large scratches upon the fence, looking as if something scrambled over it in a hurry. Soon, she ended up in the nearby city where it had become increasingly difficult to follow any possible trails after the storm had damaged things on its own.
Lea stopped to look around, suddenly feeling the cold through her wet pajama pants and shoes. Over in a nearby alleyway was a dark mass that looked like a body lying on the wet ground. She carefully went over to investigate and was surprised to find that it was the Puppet. Quickly, she bent down to pick it up from the ground.
The thin animatronic was surprisingly heavy, but not so much so that she couldn't carry it at all. She hefted the Puppet onto her back, its arms hanging over her shoulders and long legs dragging along the ground due to it being taller than her.
She was soaked now from the waterlogged machine on her back, but kept her umbrella up to try and prevent any more water from entering it. "What are you doing here?" she wasn't actually expecting an answer.
"I came to find him…bring him back. It's not safe outside…" The whispering voice sounded strained and tired in her ear.
"I know," Lea gritted her teeth. She was incredibly upset with herself right now. "Don't worry, I'll get both of you back. Did you see where he went?"
"Through here…on the other side. Under the tarp…"
Lea passed through the alley and exited the other side to find an overhang on the side of an old rusty building. Hanging low from one side was a large blue tarp that blocked from view whatever may have been under the overhang.
She shot a glance over towards the street then crossed the short distance to the overhang and stopped just outside of the tarp. She stared quietly at it, listening to the pitter patter of rain atop her umbrella. "Foxy?" she called quietly. Something behind it shifted, and she heard a strange broken growl that sounded as if it had been cut short. Lea slowly moved the tarp aside to find the animatronic huddled as far back against the wall as physically possible. He was soaking wet and twitching slightly with a strange broken mechanical sound coming from somewhere inside of him that sounded like the wheels on a RC car.
"Oh no," Lea said softly as she walked under the overhang. "You're really soaked. That water must be messing with your insides."
He snarled at her, but she wasn't fazed and reached her hand out to touch his nose. He winced at her touch then seemed to relax a little.
"It's just me," she gently stroked his muzzle. "I'm really sorry Foxy. I should've known better. I should have stayed with you tonight to make sure you were okay." She was surprised when he leaned forward and pressed his nose into her shoulder. She wrapped her arms around his face and rubbed her forehead against his, still mindful of the other still resting on her back. "Okay, let's get you guys home. Can you walk?"
She stood up and shifted Puppet into a better position on her back as Foxy got to his feet as well. He took a hard, shaky step forward, his head and jaw moving in an odd way before he completely followed her out from under the shelter. "Okay," she held the tarp aside for him. "Let's-"
"Hello there."
She gasped and spun around to find a man standing there only two or three feet away from her. She immediately recognized him. He was that man that they had seen standing at the entrance to the alleyway that night. He was even wearing the same blue button-up shirt, but he looked messier and tired, soaked from the rain and looking down at her with a sad smile.
"What do you want?" Lea stared up at him apprehensively from under her umbrella.
"Ah, oh don't be afraid," he told her.
"I'm not afraid of you," she gave him a suspicious look.
He chuckled a little, but it sounded forced. He seemed like a very hollow, broken man. "What's your name?" She didn't answer him. "I'm Michael. Say," he tried to peer under the umbrella. "What've you got there?"
She shifted the umbrella to block his view, but she knew that Puppet's legs were still trailing out from behind her. "It's not really any of your business, sir."
"Right, right," he took a few steps back, holding his hands up. "Just wondering what a little girl is doing out in the rain all by herself at this hour. That's all. Do you need help?"
"No… Do you?"
He forced another laugh. "Yeah, probably."
Lea didn't know what to do. She could barely hide the animatronic on her back from this guy, and Foxy was just behind her on the other side of the tarp. "No," she said again. "I'm fine. Just heading home actually."
Michael rubbed the back of his neck. "Ah, good. Good." Neither of them moved. "Well?" he asked.
"Well?"
"You waiting on somebody?"
She clenched her teeth. What did this guy want? "I'm…waiting on you to leave." She decided to say it straight up.
"I thought so," he smiled his sad smile. "Afraid I'll follow you home or something?"
She wasn't before… "I-"
Before she could even form her next sentence, Foxy suddenly burst from the tarp with an earsplitting screech at the stranger. Frightened and completely caught off guard, Michael stumbled and fell backwards on his rear. Foxy stomped forward, claws and hook up, mouth open and tail lashing, as he leaned menacingly over the terrified man as if he was going to leap on him.
"Foxy!" Lea shouted and pushed against his back to get his attention before running as fast as she could with the Puppet on her back. She was greatly relieved when she glanced back to see the fox hurrying after her, and the man nowhere in sight.
She kept running until they reached the street they lived on. She stopped, breathing heavily and leaning forward from the weight of the animatronic on her back. Foxy slowed to a stop beside her, crouching down on all fours to look at her under the umbrella. His tail swished and he looked very pleased with himself.
Lea laughed at him. "That probably wasn't a good idea," she said. "But I couldn't see any other way out of it either. Thanks." She stood there looking up and down the street for several moments to make sure that they had not been followed. After deciding that it was safe, she gestured for Foxy to follow her again then headed for their house.
By now, the rain had slowed to a slight trickle, and the bright moon was now able to illuminate the outside world. Just as they approached the door, Alex opened it and hurried them inside. "I saw you from the window. I was just about to go out looking for you! Hey, when did that one get out?"
Lea dragged the Puppet inside and laid it on the floor beside the sofa. "I don't know. I found him on the ground in an alley while I was looking for Foxy."
Foxy twitched and stumbled towards the corner, collapsing in a heap.
"They both got pretty soaked," Lea said.
"So did you," Alex handed her some dry clothes. "Get changed before you get sick."
To be continued…
Poor, poor Michael. He really is a nice guy.