Wednesday, June 23, 1982
William had spent the past couple of months studying the Puppet intently, doing his utmost to learn as much as he possibly could from it and trying to glean just how it had been brought to life. He learned early on that the Puppet was only ever active in this state between 12:00 AM and 6:00 AM, and went back to follow its original programming in the morning.
William also managed to conclude that the Puppet was indeed possessed by Charlotte in some way. While he was unable to interact with it directly at night due to it being terrified of him, he was able to use the security monitors to observe its reaction to various objects and photographs that he had left out for it to see. It would noticeably react differently when it saw pictures of Charlotte or her parents than it would to pictures of other people. Similarly, it reacted differently to Fredbear and Spring Bonnie plushies than it would to any other toys. However, the most interesting thing the Puppet reacted to were music boxes. Ever since Charlotte was a baby, her parents had always wound up a music box after putting her to bed, and it had gotten to the point where just listening to a music box would make her sleepy. What William discovered was that, while the Puppet would be momentarily drawn to music boxes while it was active, it was possible to delay it from becoming active by winding up a music box and placing it close by.
However, finding out exactly how Charlotte's spiritual remnant was tied to the Puppet proved to be quite the challenge. Since his shift started at 10:00 PM and ended at 6:00 AM, William initially only had two hours a night to physically inspect the Puppet before it became active, but that was until he discovered that a music box could be used to delay its activation. Of course, winding up a music box over and over again would be tedious and a waste of time, and so William simply added a battery-powered motor to it, allowing it to keep playing throughout the night.
William was very thorough with his inspection of the Puppet. He checked its code, but it looked completely normal. He opened it up to see if there was anything unusual inside of it, but he couldn't find anything that looked out of place. Finally, William was able to discover something anomalous in the Puppet when he used a highly sensitive EMF meter to detect a very faint electromagnetic field emitted by the animatronic, even when it was powered down. In order to get a better reading, he built his own EMF meter that was calibrated to better detect the intensity and frequency of the electromagnetic field emitted by the Puppet. As it turned out, this field grew in intensity after 12:00 AM and returned to normal around 6:00 AM. Not knowing what exactly was emitting this electromagnetic field, aside from it being somehow linked to Charlotte's consciousness or soul, William decided to simply refer to it as 'Remnant'.
Of course, there was only so much he could learn from the Puppet alone. He knew that in order to get a better understanding of the process behind the Puppet's possession, he needed to observe more possessed animatronics. More importantly, he needed to observe the actual process of someone's Remnant being infused into an animatronic.
And William knew exactly how to make that happen.
After thinking long and hard about it, he came up with the perfect way to permanently ruin the Fazbear brand while also trying to replicate the infusion of Charlotte's Remnant into the Puppet. Sure, what he had in mind was absolutely monstrous, but he figured that if he could kill his own goddaughter without it affecting him much, then it should be trivial to kill children that he didn't even know. And if what he suspected turned out to be true, then they would all just live on inside of the animatronics. That wouldn't be so bad, now would it? Hell, depending on the kids, he might even be doing them a favor.
In addition to studying the Puppet, William had spent the last couple of months getting intimately familiar with Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, and he had found that its management and security procedures were absolutely laughable. Lloyd Hodson, the young manager that Henry had left in charge after his withdrawal from public life, barely had a handle on anything. Employees frequently came and left without him ever noticing it, and he often neglected to keep records and write reports. William almost felt bad for him, but Lloyd being bad at his job was very much to his benefit.
To make things even better, Freddy's had hired Gus and Liam, two teenage boys, to wear the springlock suits and entertain children as a summer job. While they were admittedly careful with the suits and decent at their jobs, the boys often slacked off and sometimes wouldn't even show up to work. Their frequent absence presented an opportunity for William to come in and wear one of the suits and walk around in the restaurant without any of the employees knowing who was inside.
Moreover, William had memorized all of the blind spots of the surveillance system, and he even managed to make a copy of the key to the safe room—the perfect place to kill and temporarily hide his victims.
After spending a lot of time waiting and planning, this week finally gave William the perfect opportunity to set his plan into motion—Liam catching mono, which left the Spring Bonnie suit free for him to use for the next few weeks. And as it so happened, the animatronics had gotten their monthly maintenance done only three days ago, which meant that if he stuffed them with corpses now, they would have almost a month to decompose before the next scheduled maintenance.
That evening, William arrived at the restaurant and snuck into Parts and Service, where he put on the familiar Spring Bonnie suit before going back outside. As it was the middle of summer break, Freddy's was quite busy with lots of customers, most of which were children, as many either came by themselves or were dropped off by their parents. Freddy's was a very popular and trusted establishment, after all, so very few people thought twice about leaving their children there.
That trust was exactly the kind of thing William would exploit… and ruin.
He spent the day testing the waters, so to speak, walking around and entertaining the kids, something that came very natural to him. He had always been great with kids, after all. However, he didn't go after any of them. Before risking it all, he wanted to first make sure that he didn't draw anyone's suspicion to himself.
To William's relief, few, if any, adults paid him any mind.
That night, at the beginning of his shift, William brought some supplies to the pizzeria—a sharpened butcher knife, plenty of bleach, and some rags. After hiding them in the safe room, he then spent the rest of the night steeling himself for what was to come.
He kept reassuring himself of the importance of the discovery of a life after death. If the process behind it could be understood and controlled, it would undoubtedly change the world. People would no longer have to fear death, and it could perhaps even allow them to be reunited with loved ones who had passed away. Who wouldn't want that?
William smiled to himself. Such discoveries would bring him an unfathomable amount of fame and wealth… and power. It would allow him to finally prove his greatness, and to show people like his parents and Henry how foolish they were to ever cast him aside! And his grandfather! Oh, his grandfather would be so proud of him! … Well, aside from the murder part, of course, but he would be bringing his victims—no, subjects—back, so it wasn't really that big of a deal. You can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, after all.
William grinned as he watched the Puppet come alive on the security monitor. "If I succeed, I'll bring you back as well, Charlie!" He placed his hand on the screen. "I promise."
Thursday, June 24, 1982
Like the day before, William arrived at Freddy's during the evening and snuck into Parts and Service. Then, after donning the golden rabbit suit, he went out into the restaurant to search for a suitable subject.
After looking around for a little over half an hour, William came upon a crying eight-year-old girl who was playing on an arcade machine. She had bright blue eyes and curly blonde hair with a red bow. William recognized her immediately. Her name was Susie, and she was a regular who would typically go to Freddy's on her own, which made her a perfect subject.
With a grin hidden under his mask, William approached her and spoke up with his high-pitched Spring Bonnie voice. "Why hello there, young lady! I couldn't help but notice that you're crying."
"Oh hello, Mister Bunny," Susie sniffled as she turned to him. "I'm just… I miss Sparky."
William tilted his head to the side. "Sparky?"
"My dog," Susie clarified with a sniffle. "Daddy said that he got run over… And I just…" She broke down into tears. "I miss him so much!"
William smirked under the mask. That was all he needed to hear to figure out how to get his hooks into this kid.
"There, there," William said, comforting the girl. "He's not really dead. Your daddy and I were just playing a prank on you."
Susie sniffled and looked up at William with a mix of disbelief and confusion in her eyes. "What…?"
"It's true!" William reassured her and beckoned her to follow. "He's over here. Follow me, and I'll prove it to you."
William kept offering Susie reassurances as he led her to the safe room. Once they got there, he opened the door and gestured for her to enter with a flourish. Inside, she looked around while William entered and closed the door behind him.
Susie turned to him with a confused look on her face. "Where's Sparky?"
"Oh, don't worry, he'll be here soon," William reassured her as he went over to his toolbox to get his knife, making sure that she couldn't see what he was doing. He then turned to her with his knife hidden behind his back. "While we wait, how about I show you a magic trick?"
Susie fidgeted with her hands as she watched him approach. "Um… what kind of magic trick?"
"Oh, you'll see," he replied as he loomed over her.
William smirked. He finally got the girl right where he needed her to be, and he had his knife at the ready. All he had to do now was kill her. Nothing could be simpler.
… And yet, he hesitated.
But he grit his teeth and reminded himself that if he could kill Charlie as easily as he did, then this random girl wouldn't pose a problem to him whatsoever.
Sensing that something was very wrong, Susie slowly backed away from William. "Y-you said Sparky was here…"
William didn't say anything, he just regarded her in silence.
Susie eyed the door and then made a run for it, only for William to grab and hold her by the wrist. Now hyperventilating, she looked up at him in terror as she struggled against his powerful grip.
"L-let me go!" She shut her eyes and screamed, "Mommy!"
And that's when William plunged his knife into her chest.
Her eyes welled up with tears as she tried to scream for help, but all that escaped her mouth was a wet gurgle.
William proceeded to stab her again, and again, and again, until she was no longer moving. With trembling hands, he stepped back and stared at the tiny body lying there on the floor, blood slowly pooling under it. He then caught himself almost hyperventilating, and realized that he needed to get out of the suit so as to not risk a springlock failure. William walked over to the other side of the room, where he carefully removed the Spring Bonnie suit, occasionally glancing back at Susie as he did.
Once out of the suit, William leaned against the wall and ran his fingers through his hair. He knew that he had done something awful, but he reassured himself that it would all be worth it in the end.
Having finally calmed himself, William cleaned off what little blood had gotten on the suit, before putting it back on. He looked at Susie's body one last time before he left the safe room and locked the door behind him.
After clocking in for his shift that night, William got to work on the next step. He brought Susie's body out of the safe room and went to Parts and Service to stuff her inside of one of the animatronics. Of the four, William decided to put her inside of Chica—they were both girls, after all. While it was quite a grisly affair, William managed to push past his misgivings by instead focusing on how exciting it would be to observe the process of a machine becoming possessed.
Once he was done, William closed Chica up and placed various sensors around her that would allow him to better monitor her status. With that, he spent the rest of his time before midnight cleaning the safe room. Very few people ever went in there, but it would be very bad for him if someone did and saw blood stains.
As midnight drew near, William activated the music box to keep the Puppet in place and then went to the security office to observe Chica. The next six hours proved to be fascinating. As with the Puppet, he detected a faint electromagnetic field, but its intensity fluctuated wildly. But unlike the Puppet, the chicken animatronic was immobile for almost the entirety of the night. However, at 4:48 AM, William saw Chica twitch and at the same time his instruments detected a large spike of intensity of the electromagnetic field. He smiled to himself, knowing that he was indeed on the right track. Now all he needed were more subjects so that he could collect more data from his observations.