Chapter Text
It was half-past eleven when the ‘73 Oldsmobile Delta screeched into the staff parking spot, nearly busting a headlight on the corner of a dumpster. The driver exploded out of the vehicle, muttering a whispered mantra of “Shit, shit, shit…” as his bulky prosthetic hand fumbled with the lock on the car door. Clumsily stuffing the keys into the pocket of his thin, navy blue jacket, he rushed inside, boots sticking to and peeling off of the tacky linoleum of the corridor with each step.
He squinted at his watch by the dim light, giving a relieved sigh when he realised he was right on time to start his shift. His name was Ashley Williams, known to all but his mom as Ash, and this was his first night as the security guard at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. Other than the moonlight filtering in through the wire mesh windows, there was only one light source on in the building’s staff wing; a flickering fluorescent bulb just outside a doorway marked “Security” in fading letters. The darkness washed the normally garishly-coloured posters with a fuzzy grey reminiscent of TV static, making the restaurant’s anthropomorphic mascots leer at him from the walls. The place looked more like a haunted house than a family-friendly restaurant.
‘Hey, anyone still here?’ He bellowed down the hallway. No answer. Nobody but my old pals Jack and Shit, Ash mused. He peered into the blackness, and, for a moment, it felt like something, or someone, was peering back. The presence laughed. A low-pitched, slow, mocking chuckle. What the hell? He inched forward to see if he could make out what this strange thing was. It looked as though it was constructed out of four cocktail weenies skewered to a potato, but what caught Ash’s attention most were the vivid, glistening marks on its top-hatted head. Are those… Handprints? But before Ash could get any closer, a loud ringing sound erupted from the security guard’s office, which he took as his cue to get to his post.
The office was, for lack of a better description, a complete dump. There was a crumb-encrusted desk, underside obscured from view by a curtain of cobwebs, littered with enough greasy napkins and fast food containers to supply a small chain of McGiggity’s for a year. Stacked on top of it were monitors that hadn’t been touched since at least 1987, an answering machine, and an old desktop computer that had only faith and a small rickety desk fan keeping it from starting a lucrative new career as a fire hazard. An age-yellowed fridge sat dejectedly in the back corner of the room, plastered with crude drawings and the remains of a war fought with sticky notes over the whereabouts of their authors’ lunches. Much like the hallway, the walls were plastered with posters of the restaurant’s mascots, slogans like “Celebrate!” and “Let’s eat!” doing poor work of convincing Ash that he had not in fact waltzed backwards a few decades into a childhood nightmare. After discovering the source of the ringing to be a phone buried under a pyramid of balled-up napkins, Ash answered it.
‘Hello?’
‘You’re in grave danger!’ came the reply. Ash baulked for a second, a feeling that was quickly dismissed as he recognised the voice at the other end.
‘Mike Schmidt.’ He addressed his old high school classmate playfully. ‘You do this to all the new night guards at Fred Fuzzbucket’s, or am I just special?’ He eyed up the heavy-looking doors at either side of the room. Speaking of, what the Hell is with this place, He thought, is it trying to be a kiddie restaurant or Fort Knox?
‘It’s Freddy Fazbear’s.’ Mike corrected.
‘Gesundheit.’ Ash deflected, choosing instead to pick up the only piece of modern technology he could find in the office- a lone touchscreen tablet covered in grimy fingerprints.
‘Ash, much as I love your pillow talk, I need to tell you something. It’s important.’
‘I’m in grave danger?’ Ash said, using his chin to pin the receiver to his shoulder so he could examine the tablet with both hands.
Mike’s voice suddenly acquired a hesitant, almost fearful tone. ‘Yeah, that. The… oh, geez, how do I say this…’
‘Try using words.’ Ash lazily replied, well aware of Mike’s propensity to kid around. He wiped the greasy screen with the stiff sleeve of his starchy new uniform. It blinked into life, showing security camera footage from the show stage.
‘Hardy ha. Jokes aside, the uh… robots at Freddy’s… they, uh… they move.’ He gulped.
‘Wow, what a miracle of modern technology.’ Ash muttered drily. The bottom right-hand corner of the touchscreen held a map of the building, with the locations of every security camera marked on it in little grey boxes. Currently the camera marked CAM 1A was highlighted. Two graphics in the opposite corner, indicated two things. One showed that there was 99 percent power remaining, and the other claimed to represent usage- of what, Ash wasn’t quite sure. A few experimental prods and a scratch of the head told him nothing.
‘No, I mean the animatronics like to wander around. Freely. During your shift. Don’t let the fluffy furball act fool you either- those things are killing machines!’ ’ Ash rolled his eyes, certain that Mike was just winding him up.
‘Truly amazing. Nice talking to you Mike, but duty calls, so if you could just…’
‘Ash, I’m telling you, I wish I was kidding. I spent a whole week cooped up in that office, so scared I couldn’t even speak-’
‘Wait a minute.’ Ash interrupted, cocking an eyebrow. ‘A whole week? Seven days? What, you get superglued to the chair or something? If it’s so bad, why work here so long?’
‘I didn’t say it was bad. Despite the cruddy office and worse pay, it was actually kinda fun. Doesn’t mean it’s any less dangerous. I just… I heard about what happened to you a while back, and I want to make sure you’ll be okay.’ Mike reassured gently.
‘I am okay.’ Ash said bluntly.
‘Really?’ Mike sounded unconvinced. ‘Ash, Linda died. You were missing for five years! How long were you in therapy for again?’
‘That’s not the point. I came back. I got better.’ Ash snapped coldly. ‘What are you, my mom?’
‘I’m just looking out for you.’
‘Mike, I’m a grown man.’
‘Ash-‘
‘Listen to me.’ Ash snarled into the receiver. ‘I. Am. Going. To. Be. Fine.’ On the other end of the phone, Mike let out a puff of air.
‘Okay, so you’re mad I brought Linda up. I get that. I’m sorry. But you can’t just ignore me and think that you can just put your feet up tonight. This is some serious A-grade ninth-circle shit going on here! Call me crazy, but I think these robots might be haunted!’ Mike said in the nervous, rushed manner of a man making an erectile dysfunction appointment with his mother in the room.
Ash rubbed his eyes, exasperated. Can’t I just go one week- hell, just one night- without something weird happening? Please? He prayed to a god who was probably too busy doodling on people’s food to listen to the pleas of the nominal Promised One. Resigned to the fact that his life had contorted itself into some twisted comedy sketch years ago, Ash corrected his old friend. ‘First things first, Mikey, I’ve BEEN to the ninth circle. It looks more like downtown Miami than some sticky-floored pizza place. Second of all, haunted robots?’ He laughed.
‘You think I’m joking.’ Mike groaned, crestfallen.
‘Trust me Mikey, I believe you. Don’t sweat it. I could take care of ten killer ‘bots with one hand tied behind my back.’
‘Okay, just… whatever you do, can you at least promise you’ll do something for me?’
‘Mike-’
‘Please- just this one thing. I’m begging you, Ash.’
As soon as those words escaped Mike’s mouth, travelled in electrical signals down the telephone line, and exited out the other end directly into Ash’s right ear, Ash knew two things. Firstly, any efforts to refuse his old classmate’s oncoming request would be futile, and secondly, that said request wasn’t going to be particularly fun to carry out. Last time Ash had heard those words, it was in connection with an extremely embarrassing incident at the Dearborn town hall involving some brownies, a trampoline, and a very unfortunate Christmas tree. In his head, he was frantically trying to cram it back into the all too overstuffed space in his brain reserved for repressed memories. Meanwhile, in reality, Ash shrugged his shoulders and lolled his head back in defeat.
‘Fine, I’ll bite.’ He answered passively. ‘What do you want me to do?’
‘I want you to play the recordings.’
‘…What?’
‘The answering machine on the desk. I swear to God, Ash, it’ll save your life.’ Ash’s throat tightened like a noose. It wasn’t often he was rendered speechless, but as he recalled the ill-fated vacation that had changed his life forever, the constant stream of words he would otherwise have been eager to unleash suddenly dried up into nothing. To him, recorded messages meant nothing but Trouble with a capital T, smeared all over the walls with the blood of all the past nameless Shemps who were stupid enough to take this job. He didn’t care about what Mike had just told him- pushing the play button on that little black answering machine went against every gut instinct his body was capable of producing.
‘Ashley? You still on the phone?’
‘Huh? Yeah, yeah…’ Ash quietly muttered his goodbyes and thanks into the brittle plastic receiver, and went back to absent-mindedly flicking through camera footage as the digital clock counted down to midnight, minute by slow-burning minute.