The site is being super irritating lately. Last few times I tried to upload documents, it would pretend it uploaded but it would not exist, then after like 20 times it would say there's an issue and then finally upload. Wtf man...
Ever since Abby had told her there was another – smaller – animatronic somewhere around, Lea had been determined to find it. She had been there for over a month and still had not seen it. She did not even know what it looked like.
While snooping around for clues on her investigations, Abby had split up from her when Lea mentioned going down to where the endoskeletons were kept. Lea had only been down there twice herself, but she quickly noticed how the things would move when not being watched. Secretly, Lea found them terrifying, but only due to her past experience with the endo creature she dubbed Ennard. The endos here had yet to behave in a threatening manner and were really just mindless machines that had yet to be given any programming other than the most basic kind.
As Lea came into the line of sight of one standing across the hall, it twitched with an activating sound as its eyes lit up with a red flash. She paused to stare at it; it did not move again. She turned away from it and heard the heavy clunking of its metal feet. She waited until the sound was just behind her before sharply turning around to shine her flashlight on it. In doing so, she had caught a brief glimpse of it moving as it halted mere inches from her. Its eyes were wide, and its stance looked ready to grab her, yet it did not move even the slightest bit.
"Creepy thing," she said to it. "Why do you do that?" It did not respond or even twitch, as she expected. She looked it up and down. It was just a basic endoskeleton but it already had a pair of artificial eyeballs set into its face. The cords and wires that the other animatronics had were not present on the endo, meaning that its movements were simple and that it could not feel anything. She waved her hand in front of its face then snapped her fingers near each ear. Lea knew it could see, but she was not sure if it could hear. It was possible that it was currently ignoring her actions while it continued to play statue.
Lea bid it farewell then stepped around it and turned to watch it. As soon as she was out of its line of sight, it began to move again, walking forward, hunched slightly, and twitching its ears as it glanced side-to-side in search of something. What, she did not know. Perhaps it was not actually searching. Perhaps it was looking for her. Either way, the simple creature could not currently see her, so it continued to walk forward down the hall.
As she continued, she encountered several more of these endoskeletons, all of which behaved in the same manner. Still uneasy, but no longer afraid of them, Lea skirted her way past them all, being careful not to bump them just in case. Eventually, she reached an odd room that looked like a colorfully padded children's play area with a thick net surrounding the side opposite the door. There were several foam blocks, toys, and balls. The place looked like it belonged in the Daycare. Hanging from the ceiling were several dormant endos. All of this, combined with the fact that the only light was a single spotlight directly shining down in the center, gave the room an eerie and uncomfortable feeling. "What is the purpose of this room?"
She walked around with her flashlight, stopping to examine the toys and other childish objects in the room. None of the toys looked used and some were even coated in a fine layer of dust. She was beginning to think that the room had been abandoned until she found some scattered children's drawings on the floor. The papers and crayons were not dusty. Lea knelt down on one knee and moved the drawings around to look at each of them. Several of them depicted drawings of a strange and frightening rabbit character with a gaping smile and big red eyes. Lea had seen the drawings children made of the animatronics. They typically drew them as the robots they were, but these drawings depicted a character with no visible joints or gaps on the limbs or ears. Some showed it with stitches, as if it was a patchwork doll or costume.
"What in the world?"
Other drawings depicted small human figures, likely children, in an area that greatly resembled the room she was currently in. All of their faces looked frightened or sad. One drawing showed a crude depiction of an endoskeleton watching them from the doorway. Lea picked up the paper to look closer at it and noticed her light showing something on the back side. Flipping it over, she found a note written in crayon. Judging by the handwriting and misspelling of some words, it appeared to have been written by a young child. Lea did her best to read it, muttering the words quietly under her breath.
"'The scary monsters come to watch us through the door. They never come inside, but they scare us. They watch us because Julian left the room. He said he was going to escape. We told him to stay because the monsters walk around the halls, but he didn't listen. Now he is gone, and the monsters come to watch us. I want to go home. I miss mommy and daddy and my dog. Sometimes the rabbit lady comes and takes someone with her. We never see them again. Jane thinks she takes them home. I don't believe her. Maybe if I am good and pretend to like it here, she will not take me.'" Lea felt anxiety bubbling up in her chest. "What the hell is this? Was someone keeping the missing children here?"
She gasped and looked up at the doorway upon hearing something in the hall. It did not sound like the metal movements of the wandering endos. Frightened, Lea quickly glanced around, spotting a vent near the floor. Without waiting to see what was coming, she clicked off her light, yanked the cover off its rusty hinges and crawled into the vent, doing her best to move as quickly and quietly through it as she could. There were more drawings she wanted to check, but they would have to wait until another night.
Lea kept following the vents until she felt that she had gotten a good distance away from the room. She had just reached an open vent cover leading to a well-lit storage area she recognized when she heard something like a tiny music box echoing behind her. Startled by the tapping sounds that followed, she jumped out of the vent onto a covered stack of pallets and turned to look up. A strange spider-like creature that heavily resembled the DJ skittered to the mouth of the vent before stopping to stare down at her. Lea stared at it. She had read a report a while back about the Mini Music Men from the museum and back storage that had been activated and gone missing. "Hello there."
It clapped the symbols it was carrying and shuffled its many legs around, tapping rapidly on the metal vent. It seemed irritated.
"Sorry," she said, climbing back up the stacked pallets to get a better look at the thing. It would not leave the vent. "You're filthy. That must not feel good. Do you want me to clean you up?"
It shifted its feet again, slower now, and tilted its head.
Lea held her hand out to it and it quickly backed away from her. "It's okay. I won't hurt you. I won't lock you back up either. In fact, I won't even tell them that I found one of you. I just want to clean you up."
The Mini Music Man studied her, its tiny piano key teeth clacking together as it considered her. Finally, it moved closer and allowed her to pick it up by the body.
"You guys are so weird in design," Lea said as she climbed down and headed for Parts and Service. "That's okay though. I like spiders."
While she worked on cleaning and repainting the small animatronic, Lea processed what she had found in the strange room. It seemed that children had been being kept there against their will, persuaded to stay by the frightening endoskeletons walking around. Someone – or something – that resembled a female rabbit character was involved. Perhaps that rabbit was the thing approaching when Lea decided to flee the room. She was sure they would notice the broken vent cover, if they had not heard her tear it off in the first place. Lea would have to wait a while before trying to go back there.
After cleaning and painting the Mini Music Man, Lea checked its interior and cleaned the rust off some pieces while replacing others. When she was done, she polished the tiny pair of symbols and patted the creature on the head. "There you go. All better."
It tested its limbs one-by-one, spun around, then leapt up and clanged the symbols together before crawling up to her as if to say thanks.
Lea smiled at it then had an idea. "Glad to help. Oh… Hey little guy, could you maybe do me a favor?"
It cocked its head to the side.
She explained about the strange room to it. "Could you go there from time to time and check on things for me? Let me know if you ever see anyone there or anything change?"
It clapped the symbols together and nodded vigorously.
"Thanks little guy. If you see any of your friends, let them know to come find me so I can fix them up too."
With another nod, the Mini Music Man skittered away to the nearest open vent and climbed inside.
…
"Hey, Freddy."
"Oh, hello Leanne. How are you tonight?"
"I could be better." Lea had encountered him in the Main Atrium while looking for Abby.
"I am sorry to hear that. Is there anything I can help with?"
"Well, right now I'm looking for Abby. Have you seen her?"
"Why, yes, I have. She was just looking for you, in fact. I believe she was headed upstairs."
"Ah, okay. Thanks." She spotted something like a tiny bear limping by. "Huh? Who is that?"
The little white and purple bear's ears twitched. Upon making eye contact with her, it let out a startled sound and took off as fast as it could with its twisted foot.
"Hey! Freddy, who was that tiny bear!?"
"Hm?" He glanced back to look but the tiny bear was already out of sight. "Oh, you must be talking about Helpy."
"Helpy?"
"Yes. He is a very small animatronic that helps direct guests and guide workers. You may have seen cardboard cutouts of him around." He chuckled. "But those are much taller."
"He was so cute… It looked like his left foot was messed up."
"Being so small, he often gets stepped on."
"Aw, poor thing! Why'd he run away?"
"Hm… If I had to guess, I suppose it would be due to his fear of mechanics."
"He's afraid of mechanics like the Daycare attendant is?"
"More so, actually. I am not sure why, as Helpy will not discuss any of it with me. But he is certainly traumatized."
"Well, I still have to try and fix him. If you see Abby again, tell her I'm following after Helpy and I'll meet up with her later."
"Of course."
She thanked him and made her way in the direction the little bear had gone. When she found him again, he ran off once more. Lea tried to keep up without running after him. Eventually, he led her all the way into the Daycare lobby where he vanished again. "Damn," she muttered. It was just turning 6:00, so all the lights in the Daycare suddenly clunked on, causing her to flinch. "At least I'll be able to see." She moved to walk down the long ramp leading to the play area but stopped and eyed the colorful slide. After a long time staring at it, she shrugged to herself and climbed into it, sliding down flashing colors of the rainbow until she landed in the huge ball pit below. "Worth it," she said to herself as she began to wade through the plastic balls.
After pulling herself free of the ball pit, she stopped to pick up and examine a large foam dinosaur. It was some kind of long-necked dino that was colored a blue-gray, with a cartoonish appearance and friendly smile. Suddenly, something burst from the ball pit behind her, scaring her, and she spun around with a shout and whacked it with the foam toy.
"Oof! Hey!"
"Sun!?"
"No hitting!" He snatched the toy from her and hit her with it.
"Hey!" She stumbled back a little. "Wha- You can't say that and hit me after!"
He ignored her, distracted by the scattered balls on the floor now. "Oh, look at the mess you made! These go inside the ball pit, not outside!"
"You did that, not me!"
He stepped up out of the pit and began collecting up the balls.
"Sunny, have you seen Helpy? A little white and purple bear?"
"Do you mean recently?"
"Obviously," she said with a smirk as she playfully pushed his shoulder.
"I have! Just a few minutes ago. Don't know where he went though."
She sighed. "Right." Lea placed her hands on her hips and eyed a nearby set of foam blocks stacked neatly on top of each other. With a glance back at him, she smirked and knocked the blocks over.
"What are you doing!?" he yelped. "You're making a mess!"
She grabbed one of the blocks and threw it at him, but he saw it coming and ducked out of the way.
"Leanne! What are you doing!?"
"Stay still! You hit me!"
"You hit first! Stop behaving like a child!"
"You're the one behaving like a child!" She threw another block and he caught it. "Uh oh. Ah!" He had thrown it back, hitting her in the face. "Ow!"
Sun gasped. "Oh my goodness! Are you okay?"
"How are you going to throw a block at my face and then ask if I'm okay?"
"I-I'm sorry! Hm?" He noticed her giggling. "Oh…" He sighed in both relief and a bit of exasperation. "…Why are you chasing Helpy?"
Lea fixed her hair, which had been messed up a little by the foam block. "I'm not chasing him. Well, not like that. His foot is hurt."
Sun set to tidying up again while he spoke. "Helpy is even more afraid of mechanics than we are."
She huffed. "I'd really like to meet your last mechanic and give him a piece of my mind."
"I hope you never have to. You're nice, and he was…not."
"Hmph. Well," Lea turned on her heels and began to speak louder. "I heard that little Helpy really likes candy. And I just happen to have a big lollipop with me right now." She noticed his little head poke out from behind a corner of a play pen. "There you are." He ducked back behind it again. "No, no! It's okay. Look." She produced a lollipop from her pocket and held it up to show him. His ears flicked but he did not come out. Lea stepped forward a few paces, placed the candy on the floor, then backed away to sit down and watch. "It's for you."
He eyed the lollipop intently. After a while, he carefully stepped out from behind the corner and began to limp over to it, stopping every few steps to make sure that she did not move. Finally, he reached the candy and snagged it before running back behind the corner and sticking his head out to watch her while he shoved the top of the lollipop in his mouth.
"You're so cute!" Lea gushed. "So cute and little! Hey. Does your foot hurt?"
His ears twitched.
"It looks uncomfortable. Freddy said you might have gotten stepped on again. People should really watch where they're going." She watched him gnawing on the candy while he watched her curiously. "It doesn't look too bad, though. If you come closer, I bet I can fix it real quick and easy."
He continued to watch her while he chewed on the candy. Once he had eaten it all, he held the stick in his mouth and began to approach her. He stopped about half way, studying her, then continued until he was just out of arm's reach.
"Hi there," Lea said with a friendly smile. She was in love with his adorable little self. "You're adorable. Are you done with that?" She carefully held her hand out.
He looked at her hand then grabbed the stick from his mouth and handed it to her. After another moment, he moved a little closer and plopped down on his bottom with a tiny huff.
Lea placed the stick in her pocket to throw away later and took the opportunity to look him over from where she was sitting. Other than his twisted foot, which was bent at an odd angle, he looked to be in perfect condition. "Can I fix your foot? I don't even need any tools."
Helpy blinked at her, then nodded.
Lea smiled at him again then scooted closer. She gently took his little foot in her hand and held the leg with the other. It would not take much effort or pressure to force it back into place. With a quick twist and push, his foot snapped back into place, causing him to jump in surprise. "There you go," she said, letting him go. "That feels better, right?"
He wiggled his foot then jumped to his feet and smiled as he did a happy little jig. Lea laughed at his cute behavior. After, he ran up to her and reached his arms up, bouncing on his tiptoes like a child who wanted to be picked up.
"Aw, you're so cuuuute!" She scooped him up and hugged and nuzzled him. "Cutie!"
Sun watched them, chuckling to himself. He could sense that Moon was annoyed by Lea's behavior with the little bear. "Are you jealous?"
Moon hissed in his head. "Jealous? Of that? No! Why would I be?"
Sun found his response amusing.
After checking over Sun and finding nothing that needed work, Lea excused herself. Normally, she would go spend time with Monty while he was locked in his room, then go to check on and spend time with Sun until it was time for her to go home. Tonight, however, she had discovered important things that she really needed to tell Abby about. After explaining this, Sun was understanding, though he did seem curious about what she had discovered.
"There you are," Abby said when Lea approached her. "Oh, you found Helpy. Guess you made quite an impression, too."
Lea was carrying him in her arms like a child would carry their beloved stuffed toy, facing away from her with his back against her, her arms around his midsection. Lea smiled. "I love him. He's adorable."
"I figured you would," Abby said with a smirk. "Anyways, what is it you wanted to tell me?"
"Well, first off, I found one of the Mini Music Men."
"Really? Where?"
"It was running around in the vents. It let me fix it up, but I let it go instead of locking it back up."
"Figures you would. Wait. Why were you in the vents?"
"That's a part of the main point. So, while I was looking around the basement area where the endoskeletons are kept, I found this room all the way at the end. It was super creepy. It looked like a children's play room, with colorful foam mats and toys everywhere. Hanging from the ceiling were a bunch more endoskeletons, which was already weird. But get this. There were these kid's drawings all over the floor. They were drawings of kids being trapped in that room, and some were of a creepy rabbit thing with big red eyes and stitches all over its body."
"Huh? Never seen something like that around before…"
"Yeah. I noticed one of the drawings had words on the back. It was like a kid was keeping a diary while they were there. It said something about them being trapped there and wanting to go home, but they were being prevented from leaving by their fear of the wandering endoskeletons."
"Can't blame them for that. Anything else?"
"It briefly mentioned the 'rabbit lady' and how she would take some of them away, never to be seen again. I wanted to see if there were anymore notes, but I heard something coming down the hall that I don't think was another endo. So, I booked it out of there through a vent. That's why I was in the vents."
"Holy crap. This is big news! We should tell Vanessa next time we see her. You know, when she's not in one of her…moods."
"She has been acting weird lately," Lea admitted. "We hardly see her anymore either. She told me she's been seeing therapists, too." Their watches beeped with the change of the hour. Lea was tired and ready for bed, but she was also reluctant to put down Helpy. "Bye little cutie," she said as she placed him on the floor. "I have to go home now, but I'll be back tonight."
He smiled and made a strange sound. It was almost like a sound one would hear when a character in an RPG would pop up with a text box.
"Oh yeah," Abby said. "He 'talks' funny. The other bots can understand him, but I sure can't."
Lea smiled. "I'll figure it out. I've already learned what all the different sounds and beeps the S.T.A.F.F. bots make mean." She patted Helpy on the head. "See you tonight, Helpy. You be careful not to get stepped on."
…
When her next shift came along, Lea started it out by heading straight for the Daycare. Moon was laying on his front with his arms crossed and head resting on them atop the jutting balcony to his room. If he was not busy cleaning, she often found him waiting in that spot. "Good evening," she greeted from below.
His head turned sideways a bit. "Helloooo… Princess."
She was inwardly surprised to hear him call her that. Before now, only Sun had ever called her princess. "Princess," she huffed with a smirk. "Well then, are you going to come down and entertain your princess, Moondrop?"
His head turned a little more. "That is not my name…"
"I know. It's the name of that candy, right?" She chuckled. "A lot of people call you guys Sunnydrop and Moondrop because of those candies."
"I know…" He seemed to be in a good mood, which was always relieving.
"So, I take it that you're not coming down?"
He did not respond and turned his head back the other way, watching her.
Lea sighed. "Fine. Stay up there." She turned, waving her hand dismissively. She heard an odd sound from the dark and spotted something small running up to her until it grabbed her leg in a hug. "Helpy!" Lea picked him up and held him close so she could nuzzle their faces together. "There you are! Oh, you're so cute!"
He chattered nonsense and wriggled excitedly, grabbing her face with his little hands as he nuzzled back.
"Tch." Moon made an irritated sound. "Stop doing that."
"Doing what?" She looked up at him.
"Coddling the little bear… It's annoying."
Lea made a face. "Hmph! Whatever. He likes it." She turned to Helpy and began to baby-talk him, causing him to squeal in delight. "Don't you, Helpy? You love it, huh? Hehee!"
Moon growled lowly and muttered something she could not hear.
"Fine," Lea called up to him. "Be like that. We're going somewhere else! Come on, Helpy. Let's go find Abby. I think she's in Chica's room."
As she had thought, Abby was in Chica's room playing the arcade game in the corner while Chica ate a large pizza by herself. Helpy had climbed up on the table and watched her.
"So," Abby said without looking away from the game. "Have you managed to get a hold of Vanessa yet?"
"Yeah. I told her about what I found last night. She didn't seem all that surprised though."
"I mean, it's not that surprising," Abby said. "We knew this place had something to do with the missing kids. Now we just gotta figure out who – or what – that rabbit lady is. Uh, but maybe wait a few more days before going back down there."
"Are you scared?" Lea teased, trailing her fingers up Abby's spine like a pair of spiders crawling.
"Uh, yeah!" Abby jerked away from the weird feeling. "Dude, you made me lose the game." She stood up straight and turned to face her now. "I like spooky stuff as much as the next weirdo, but we need to be careful messing around with a murderer."
"None of the bodies have been found."
"Doesn't mean they didn't kill them."
"I know. I'm just saying." Lea thought for a moment. "Speaking of rabbits… Have you managed to find out anything new related to the disappearance of Glamrock Bonnie?"
"Nope. Not a clue. Maybe we should ask Freddy? He and Bonnie were like best friends. They were always together."
"They were more than just friends," Chica sang.
"What?" both said and turned to look at her.
"Oopsies! That was supposed to be a secret." She giggled.
Lea and Abby both knew by now that despite her ditsy personality, nothing Chica ever said was an accident or slipup. The chicken knew a lot more than the others, and a lot more than management would be okay with. But they trusted Chica. Although she clearly had a liking for gossip, she never ratted them out about their investigations to anyone. Sometimes she would even help.
Helpy jumped down from the short table and ran over to Lea to beg to be picked up. As she bent down to grab him, she said, "You know, Moon fussed me earlier for being cuddly with Helpy. He said it was annoying."
"Personally, I think it's more funny than anything," Abby told her, "but I'm not surprised that grouch got annoyed by it."
Chica chuckled. "He must have been jealous."
"Jealous?" Lea echoed.
"Mm-hmmm. He used to love attention, especially from the kids. But one day he started acting scary. We all did… And now they don't let him out at all during the day. Not even for naptime. He must feel lonely."
"Does that one have feelings?" Abby joked crudely.
Lea considered something for a moment before placing Helpy back down. "Helpy, can you go find Freddy for me? I have to go check on something."
He nodded and patted his chest before running off out the door. "Oo, I'll go look too," Chica said. She had run out of pizza and wanted to use the opportunity to find more food.
"Chica," Lea said. "I don't have your contact in my watch. Or Freddy's." She sighed. Chica was already across the hall. "Okay, whatever."
Abby followed Lea back into the Daycare and down to the play area. "What are we doing here again? I thought you checked on this guy already tonight."
"I did. Hey, back up. You're too close."
"I don't wanna back up…" she muttered, turning and letting out a scream. Moon was standing right behind her, arms up and hands out as if he was about to grab her. "What the fuck!? Lea!"
Lea smirked; she had figured that Moon was going to scare Abby. He seemed to enjoy messing with her. "Moony!" Lea said excitedly.
"Leanne…"
"You're just the version of you I came back here to see!"
"Oh? What makes me so special tonight?"
"Well, I'm actually on my way to go talk to Freddy about something, but I had to stop by here again because I realized something about you."
"Which is…?" He was a little apprehensive now.
She went over to him and grabbed both sides of his face, causing him to tense. Then, she pulled his face down closer so she could nuzzle her face against him. He was bewildered and stunned.
Abby huffed. "Sheesh. If the lion escaped the zoo, would you go up to it and cuddle its face too?"
"Yes. I would actually."
"You'd get your face eaten off," she told her. "In fact, if this guy could open that mouth, he'd have probably bitten you just now."
"Aw, no he wouldn't." She rubbed her forehead against him. "Would you Moony?"
He was confused and suddenly embarrassed. "I… What are you doing?"
"Giving you some special attention."
"Are you treating me like a pet?"
"No. I'm treating you like I do my dearest friends. And my sister."
"It's true," Abby told him. "She does that to me too, sometimes."
"I thought Abigail was your pet," he said.
"Hey!"
Lea let out a laugh. "Well, if she is, I did a very bad job of training her."
"HEY!"
Moon let out a quiet chuckle and allowed Lea to coddle him a bit longer before he gently pulled away. Not pushing him any further, she let go and smiled at him. Just then, her watch beeped with the arrival of a message.
"It's from Helpy. He found Freddy. They're in El Chip's."
…
"N-Now Chica. Let us be reasonable about this." Freddy was trying to block her from the nacho cheese dispenser. "You know that the liquid cheese gets caught in places in your joints. Lea would be very upset if –"
"Ugh! Move! I'm starving!" She pushed him roughly out of the way.
Lea and Abby entered just after hearing a crash and found a peculiar scene. Freddy was on the floor after having been pushed down onto a helpless Pat-Pat. Helpy was freaking out as he watched Chica, who was bent under the nozzle of the cheese dispenser and guzzling down mass amounts of liquid cheese like a drunk person at a party.
Lea gasped. "Chica! Stop that!"
Chica said something through the cheese, but Lea had no idea if they were really words or not. She hurried behind the counter and pulled the plug to the machine out from the socket. "What?" Chica said. She tested the lever a few times then hit the machine. "Come on!" She sighed. "Oh well… At least there's another one."
"Not so fast," Lea stopped her. "That one is broken, and I haven't bothered to fix it yet!"
Chica whined then twitched and made a gurgling sound as cheese began to ooze from her waist and neck joints.
"Ewww," Abby said. "You're like a cheese zombie."
"Chica, go to your room!" Lea said.
"My room? But I – erk – I'm hungryyyy…"
"Go to your room right now and wait for me!" Lea raised her voice, pointing like a mother scolding their child.
"Okayyyy…" She shuffled out of the restaurant like some kind of undead ghoul.
"Freddy, are you okay?"
"Yes, I am fine." He stood up and placed the Pat-Pat back on its wheels, much to its relief. "I tried to stop her, Lea, but she was determined."
"It's okay Freddy. It's not your fault. I don't think it's Chica's fault either… Oh, before that fiasco, we wanted to ask you something."
"Did you? All right then. What is it?"
"Well, it's about Bonnie."
He looked sad. "Oh… What did you wish to know?"
"Do you know what happened to him? He disappeared, right?"
"He did. I do not know why or how. I have tried asking many times, but no one seems to have an answer. It is…unfortunate. Bonnie used to play the bass guitar for the band. Monty was scheduled to replace him so that he could be placed as a drummer instead."
"Really?"
"Yeah, the band could do with some real drums," Abby remarked. "Do you remember the last time you saw him?"
"I do." He gave them a specific date and time. "He was heading to Bonnie Bowl last I saw him. We…never saw him again."
Abby looked at Lea. "We might be able to find the footage from that night. What do you think?"
Lea nodded. "Let's go check it out. Then I have to clean out Chica…"
"Do let me know if you discover anything," Freddy told them. "Bonnie and I were…close."
"Yeah, we know."
"Er, I mean he was my best friend. So, I miss him dearly."
"No Freddy," she said. "We know."
"You… You know? Oh! Uh, please do not tell anyone! Especially management!"
Abby cocked her head and placed her hands on her hips. "Why? What's the big deal?"
He shifted his feet. "Er, I do not think they would have approved due to it being a… debatable subject. Especially for exposure to children."
"Oh that. I get it, but I still think it's dumb. Kids see worse stuff in video games and TV anyway. But whatever. I don't have a kid, so it's not my problem."
"Don't worry Freddy," Lea told him. "We won't tell anyone."
"Thank you. Um, if I may ask… How did you know that?"
"Oh, uh… Chica told us."
He jumped. "Chica!? How did she know? We had never told anyone. Not even our friends…"
"To be honest, Chica knows a lot of weird stuff she shouldn't know about. Come on Abby."
…
Lea liked bowling alleys. There was a peculiar smell to them that fed into the nostalgia of times she would go out with her sister in late evenings to the bowling alley in the next town over. Since the Pizzaplex was built, anyone who wanted to go bowling would just come here. She looked out over the shiny lanes and could imagine the crashing sounds of bowling balls colliding with pins echoing all around. But of course, the place was currently silent, resting for the time it would reopen in the morning.
Abby showed Lea to the security office there and they sat down in the two rolling chairs. While Abby fiddled around with the stored footage, Lea watched the cleaning bots working through the other monitors. Everything was deceptively peaceful.
"Got it," Abby announced. She fast-forwarded the footage until they spotted a large blue rabbit animatronic coming into view of the camera. "There he is!"
"Aw, he was cute," Lea said.
In the footage, Bonnie walked through a back door. According to Abby, the door led to a hallway that led to a bunch of small locker rooms and storage spots for pins, bowling balls, and decorations. There were also, for some reason, no cameras back there. Shortly after Bonnie had gone through the door, Monty came onto screen and entered the back hallway as well. They stared intently at the door, waiting for it to open again. A few minutes passed and Abby decided to fast-forward again. According to the timestamp, Monty returned from the back hall approximately twenty minutes later, carrying a box.
"What does he have?" Lea asked.
"Looks like the Monty Mystery Mix."
"The hell is that?"
"It's a green-colored, pizza-flavored slush mix."
"Gross!"
Abby shrugged. "It's actually pretty popular. Tastes better than that Sodaroni crap…"
"I'll take your word for it."
She fast-forwarded the footage some more, but no one else came from the doorway. "Okay…? So, this is the last footage of Bonnie before he pulled a Houdini and vanished? He went in the back hallways, Monty followed shortly after, then only Monty came out?"
"Guess we should ask Monty next. Actually, do me a favor. Go clean up Chica while I go talk to Monty."
"What!? Why do I have clean her while you investigate further?"
"Do you want to be in Monty's room, alone?"
Abby considered it, recalling him attacking Lea's arm and smashing the security bot on the floor. "Nnnnnoooo. No, I don't."
"Well, that's settled."
…
Monty was still under lockdown for three more days, and apparently had decided to tidy up his room in the meantime. Lea was surprised to enter it and find everything neat and tidy; she ignored the claw marks on the walls and tears in the couch. Instead of finding him rampaging or lurking around in the dark, she found him playing the arcade machine in the corner.
"Hey Monty," she said carefully, trying not to startle him.
"Hm?" He turned to look at her and seemed to perk up. "Hey, Lea!"
She smiled and walked over, looking at the video game. "A mini golf video game?"
"Yeah, well, I can't go play actual golf, so I just figured I could play this instead. Uh, do you wanna play?"
"Sure."
"Really?" He was surprised. "Oh, uh, cool! Hold on. Let me change it to two-player mode."
Lea was quite good at video games, as well as mini golf, so she quickly adapted to the game. She did well for her first time playing the game, but Monty ultimately won in the end. She figured he either had played it so many times or it was programed into him. "Ahh, lost."
"You did good though! Your score's pretty close."
"It's been a long time since I played actual golf. So, Monty. How are you feeling today?" She asked each of them this same question every night, but currently it was different for Monty.
"I still feel really bad for hurting your arm…" he admitted.
She rolled up the sleeve of her left arm to show him. "I'm fine. See?"
"Hm?" He moved his head to look it over. "Don't humans usually get scars from bad wounds like that?"
"Oh, that." She rolled her sleeve back down. "I guess I could tell you. A lot of my left side got replaced by synthetic materials and machine parts a few years ago. Including my entire left arm."
"Why?"
"I was attacked by a… Um. By an animatronic…of sorts."
He furrowed his brow and took a small step away from her. "Oh…"
"Yeah… But it's okay. I mean, I'm alive and still moving."
He was quiet for a minute. "…I got angry earlier and messed up the wall again." He gestured to a new slash in the wall.
"Mm. Hey, do you know anything about what happened to Bonnie?"
His head turned a little and she could see him watching her out the corner of his sunglasses. "He…disappeared a while back. Shame." He looked at the floor. "I do miss him…"
"Abby and I were looking through the Bonnie Bowl footage from that day." She studied him closely, but he did not appear to be acting much different than his usual nervous self that he often was around her. Of course, now he seemed sad. "We saw Bonnie enter the back hallways. Then we saw you enter shortly after. Only you came out later."
"I didn't see him. I went back there to get more of the pizza flavored slush mix."
"It took you twenty minutes to do that?"
"…Twenty minutes? I did stop to talk to an employee for a little while…"
"Hm."
"…I really do hope you find him."
Lea had her suspicions but decided not to push any further for now. Instead, she decided to change the subject. "Okay. Well, I did find something relating to the missing kids, I think."
He looked at her. "You did?"
"Yeah. A creepy room at the end of a creepy hall in the creepy basement full of wandering endoskeletons."
"Creepy."
"Indeed. It was a weird playroom, and I found children's drawings and a note seemingly written by a child. Do you know anything about a rabbit lady? One with big red eyes and stitches?"
He looked highly confused. "Rabbit lady? No. Never heard of it."
"Hm. All right. I didn't think so… Too bad those endoskeletons don't have the memory storage program. Otherwise, I'd just nab one of them to see what it's seen."
"Y-You can do that?"
"Yeah. Of course. You guys store memory a little differently than humans do."
"Oh. Right… I, uh, forgot."
Lea sighed. "Okay Monty. Thanks for answering my questions. I've got to go check on Abby and Chica now. Chica decided to guzzle down the cheese from the nacho cheese dispenser."
"Again?"
"Again?!"
To be continued…
Again.