August 27th, 1993

6:30 PM

?, Hurricane, UT

It was a rainy day.

Water poured in torrents, assaulting the hard cement below. The beautiful sunset was hidden behind masses of dark clouds. Not many people were out at this time. Why would they risk catching a cold when they could do whatever they needed to do the next day, or the day after that?

The decrepit building still stood, a harsh reminder of the tragedies and dangers of years past. Its outer paint was peeling, and the sign above the door looked like it had seen better decades. Most of the letters were missing, spelling out the incomprehensible gibberish of 'Fdd zbr izzri'. The building's front windows were boarded up, the wooden pallets dark and dirty. It was almost impossible to believe that this place was still a functioning restaurant.

A tall man stood looking at the structure. Despite wearing a shabby gray trench coat, black jeans and a beige bowler hat, it would seem as if he had no inclination to get out of the downpour. His dark eyes scanned the location, mentally noting every detail of the location. With a sigh, he began to trudge towards the restaurant's front door.

He wanted to get out of the storm. He just didn't want to go inside.

Walking towards the door, he noticed the PULL sticker pasted on the front of the door. The man looked down, but there was only a dirty hole where the door handle should have been. The man pushed the door, but nothing happened. For all their faults, the company had apparently chosen to buy sturdy doors.

Something to know for later, he thought.

He rapped sharply on the metallic frame of the glass door. The fragile glass gained another crack, but, with the amount of damage the door had clearly received, it wouldn't be noticed.

That being said, it was evident that the company had chosen to buy doors of tempered glass and not regular glass.

Strange… but if it is what I think it is, not all that shocking.

The man looked at the proudly displayed 'OPEN' sign behind the door's glass. In spite of its state, one or two customers could be seen, ordering a pizza and drinks.

He was certain they weren't locals; most likely just weary travelers on their way to Salt Lake City or the Grand Canyon.

The small town of Hurricane, Utah had a population of 4,000 people, according to last year's census.

There were many more people before. They used to come to see the restaurant in front of him. It was so much more lively back then. Arcade games, parties, music and, of course, the main four.

There were more of them back then, too. Many more. That was the best day of his life.

Not when he was at the location…

but when it had finally been shut down.

Good riddance, he had thought back then.

But, like a pestilence, the company had come back. It had spread its gangrenous rot, clawing up from the depths of obscurity which they should have faded into. The man had been enraged, seething, FURIOUS, when he saw the news in the Post.

Some tombs shouldn't be opened, no matter what kind of treasure one thought was at the end.

The door clicked.

A short, balding man stepped into the doorframe. He was clearly annoyed that another customer had come; it meant that he would have to start up the fryers and grills and who-knows-what-else behind the kitchen doors. However, the employee managed to school his features into something resembling a smile.

"Welcome to Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria, where fantasy and fun come to life!" the employee squeaked out in what was obviously a practiced line.

The tall man smiled coldly. The last time he had been in a hellhole like this, it hadn't just been fantasy and fun that came to life.

The man stepped inside, the whoosh of heated air greeting him. He looked around the room.

Long, rectangular tables lined the room in rows, covered in plastic tablecloths with printed images of confetti. Birthday party hats were placed at regular intervals along the tables. Two hallways led to what the man could only assume was a cramped and uncomfortable security office. Beyond the tables, a set of steel doors marked the kitchen entrance. A gap in the wall at the far end of the place marked the bathrooms.

But the man wasn't there to see those details. He was there to watch them.

One wall was entirely taken up by a massive wooden stage. Faded red curtains were swept to the side, tied to the edges by dirty golden ropes.

The background was composed of artistic murals of clouds, suns (plural) and smiling children. Three mammoth animatronics were performing on the stage.

On the left, a faded lavender rabbit strummed a red, nearly pink guitar. The creature's large ears were raised and coloured an awful shade of maroon, with off-white inners. The rabbit's red eyes stared forward at the wall, glassy and oblivious to its surroundings. Its whiskers were black, and, ironically enough, were probably the only clean parts of its body. Its blue muzzle contained a row of whitish rubber teeth, concealing the jaws of the skeleton within.

On the right, an awful yellow duck held in its left hand a cracked plate. On top of the plate was a small robotic cupcake with two buck teeth. The pastry's yellow eyes were just as uncomprehending as the rabbit's eyes and the duck's own purple ones. A small striped candle was jammed in the cupcake but was tilted at an awkward angle. The duck wore a dirty and stained bib which read 'LET'S EAT!' in plaque-yellow.

Taking center stage was a brown bear. It was easily the largest of the three robots. It wore a miniature black top hat with a white stripe. Its teeth were curled up in what was supposed to be a warm smile but ended up looking more like a sinister sneer. A cacophonous sound, mocking a Southern gentleman's voice, seemed to come from its voice box. It held a small mic in its right hand, and the man couldn't help but wonder how easy it would be for the thing to crush the object in its hands. Its dark-brown eyebrows were constantly raised as the animatronic's cold blue eyes looked at him…

…wait what?

The man blinked and looked again. The bear was clearly looking towards the opposite wall with all the intelligence of a rotting corpse. But the man was smarter than that. He had seen what they truly thought and knew that behind those rusty gears lay a savage and inhuman intelligence, wishing nothing less than fire and brimstone upon everyone and everything.

Speaking of rotting corpses, the smell emanating from the three animatronics was unnervingly similar to that which came from one. While that certainly caught Nathan Parrett's attention, that wasn't nearly the worst thing he had ever seen or heard. Especially not relating to… monsters… like these.

The man sat down at a table. The wooden chair was stained slightly with red, mainly on one of its four legs. A ketchup bottle stood under the legs of the chair. Its presence didn't fool Nathan. He knew that the red stain wasn't sauce.

After some time, a waitress went over to where Nathan was sitting.

"What can I get for you, sir?" she asked, a forced smile on her face.

Parrett didn't reply.

After a while, the waitress left; probably to call the manager or some sort of higher-ranked staff. Good, the man thought. Let's see the idiot who raised the dead for some extra cash.

She returned, another woman close behind.

"Sir, if you're not going to order anything, I'll have to ask you to leave," the other woman said in what may have at one point been a graceful tone, but had devolved into an annoying one.

Nathan's reply was low.

"Are you the manager here?"

The woman hesitated. She was clearly debating over what to say to him.

"…Why do you ask?"

Nathan pulled a wallet out of his shirt pocket. A flash caught the manager's eye and she stopped.

"I'd like to ask you some questions, Ms. …"

"Lawton," the woman replied, before her eyes went wide and she suddenly stopped short.

"You're not here to arrest me are you? Do you even have a warrant? You can't search the premises without a permi-"

Nathan smiled. It was not a kind smile.

"I'm not here for any of that. I just want to ask you some questions, Ms. Lawton."

The woman glanced around the room, before taking a seat at the table, opposite to Parrett's chair.

"What do you want to know, sir?"

Nathan paused.

"When did this happen?"

The woman wore a confused smile on her face.

"When did what happ- "

"I'm currently not REMOTELY in the mood for your nonsense, so tell me when it happened." The man was smiling coldly, a grin that didn't seem to reach his eyes.

The woman paused. Bureaucratic red tape… or something worse?

"Well, in 1987- "

"Skip over that. I don't want to hear the company tagline."

The woman was flummoxed.

"…well, after that, the company had to retire for a couple of years. Then, in 1990, it was restarted by one of the original owners of the franchise. He wasn't very rich, so he had to remake the animatronics; and he didn't have enough money to pay for the rest of the animatronics other than the main four.

BB, JJ and the Prize Puppet were all scrapped.

But he was able to buy two locations; this one and another in New Harmony.

We've been making do ever since."

The man paused. If it had been some stupid wannabe trying to bring back a rotting franchise's glory days, I'd have been able to hit him with counts of copyright infringement and slander. One of the original owners? Makes things different.

"Tell me the true story."

The woman was scandalized. "Sir, what I'm saying IS the tru-"

"Do you think I'm an idiot? That nice little rags-to-riches story might look good printed on a nice little newspaper, but it doesn't hold up in real life. Now tell me the truth."

The woman hesitated. Nathan noticed with icy rage that she was having to stop with every single sentence. That means that she's either lying or really confused. And I know which one I'm picking when it comes to this damned company.

"The story is mostly true. One of the original owners really was poor. He really did have to scrap some of the cast…

But rumor has it that a week before the franchise reopened, he got boatloads of anonymous donations to restart the company. Don't ask me where the money came from; I don't know, and I can't just ask around."

Nathan stood up, stretching himself to his full 6" 3 height. He smiled one last time at the manager, except this smile was a tad warmer than before.

"Thanks for your time."

With those final words, Nathan left the building, back out into the endless monsoon shower.

…It was a rainy day.