Five Nights at Freddy´s 1. Stand in the Place Where You Work

**Rating: T** for graphic violence, mild swearing, perilous situations, psychological trauma

**Setting: **Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria, during the events of the game

**Summary: **Nearly unemployable because of his criminal record, Mike is shocked to land an overnight security gig. As the nights pass by at the pizzeria, he's starting to lose it, but when he discovers hidden messages from a previous night guard, he struggles to hold it together, fight for his life and find out what happened to the other guard. Slight AU in that Mike leaves the office.

**Author's Note:** _Five Nights at Freddy's_ and all canon characters, settings, etc. are the property of Scott Cawthon. This is a non-commercial fan tribute and was not written for profit.

You are free to use any original concepts, headcanons and characters from this fanfiction in your own work (fanfiction, art, etc.) if you'd like.

Some rooms and attractions appear in this fanfiction but not the game, such as the arcade and ball pit, but just because the camera angles didn't capture them in the game doesn't mean they can't be there. (Surely Freddy's has a few attractions besides the trio of singing characters. That alone wouldn't impress most kids at parties. Then again, maybe that's why the place is closing.)

Views expressed in this fanfiction do not necessarily match the writer's.

* * *

"Mike Schmidt? Strange, but I'd have expected you to be...younger," Nathan Faz remarked dryly, regarding his newly-hired overnight security guard as the man sat and fidgeted in his chair at the training office. Between his long and stringy but thinning hair and the fine lines crossing his face, Mike was clearly about twice the age of the fresh-out-of-college guys typically hired for the position, and not that sturdily built, either. On the bright side, his threadbare clothing and knockoff-brand tennis shoes suggested he was desperate enough to stick the job out for the meager wages advertised in the help wanted ad he'd answered - a mere $120 a week. Making hiring decisions over the telephone without the benefit of an in-person interview or a fitness test had its drawbacks, but it was the way Faz was forced to do business, at least for _this_ position at his pizzeria.

"I'm _forty,_ not ninety. Believe you me, I can do this." Mike shrugged, already feeling indignant that he was being judged on his ability to perform the job before he'd had a chance to prove himself. He crossed his arms over his chest, leaning forward even more in the chair. "Besides, you're no kid yourself."

_Fresh. _Faz blinked in surprise at the comeback, but anger never came. "True, that. Anyway, sorry to have raised your defenses, but you have my word that so long as you fulfill the job requirements, your employment with Fazbear Entertainment is secure. We discussed salary, code of conduct and all other formalities over the phone, so now there's just the matter of finding you a work uniform." He gestured to a rack of generic blue workshirts and navy pants, some of them considerably faded and others practically new. "Go ahead, look through them, but good luck finding one that fits just right. It's been a long time since we had a night watch as scraw-I mean, as slim as you." His own portly figure rumbled with silent laughter at his wisecrack.

Faz took malicious glee from seeing the corner of Mike's mouth twitch as he registered the insult, but he obediently examined the garments, the metal hangers chiming against each other as he slid them aside.

"Speaking of which, you know one thing we didn't discuss? The wording in your ad. 'Not responsible for injury or dismemberment?' The heck's that supposed to mean?" Ever defensive, Mike held two shirts at arm's length, grimaced at a large stain across the collar and shoulders of one, and tossed his choice onto the chair that held his jacket.

"Oh, that? Good catch. That language was little more than a long-standing family joke. We are always striving to keep our target audience - children - loyal to our brand as long as possible, and we throw in a few harmless but clever messages like that in our promotional material. Older kids appreciate edgy humor that still plays it safe, and then they'll be less apt to dismiss this facility as an overgrown kiddie rumpus room. So it even carries over to our help wanted ads. Consistency, you know."

Mike nodded in understanding. Finally locating a pair of polyester slacks that would almost work with his unique combination of gawky height and slight build, he excused himself to change, remembering seeing a hallway with restroom signage just off the expansive dining area. He stepped out of the office into the main room, impressed to see the transformation that had taken place since his arrival less than an hour before. He had entered into the din of a hundred screaming children, with eternally cheerful yet frazzled teenage "party hosts" trying in vain to corral them to the tables so they could be present for the usual litany of children's birthday events: blowing out the candles. Serving the cake and ice cream. Whining during the opening of the gifts because it was somebody else's party. Maybe a pinata if Mom and Dad sprung extra for it (available for fifteen dollars at the concession counter, and no, you cannot bring your own from home.) Watching the animatronic band perform, of course. Then the distribution of tokens so everyone could be set free once again to feed the arcade games and visit the prize counter for plastic trinkets.

Now the room stood in stark contrast, still and placid with neat rows of party hats down the lengths of the long tables awaiting the next day's celebrations, every chair slid back into place and no traces remaining of the discarded food that had littered the floors. The teenage crew must have worked with amazing efficiency to be able to leave so quickly, almost as if they wanted to get home early instead of clocking in extra time, but the real mystery was why the lights had already been shut off. Not just the main lights, either, but everything save for a pitifully undersized set of bulbs that cast a dismal glow over the tables. The games had been powered down and someone had even seen fit to turn off the glowing exit signs, surely a safety violation. _Wouldn't it make more sense to leave the lights _on_ if they're trying to deter intruders? Idiots._

Mike turned back to voice a request for some illumination, then decided against it. Whoever heard of a night watchman unable to navigate in the dark, anyway? He already disliked Nathan Faz, as he imagined most people did within five minutes of meeting him, and he didn't want to get on his boss's bad side on the first day. It was hard to believe such an abrasive personality could have designed the beloved mascot characters who populated the restaurant's performance stage and became a fondly-remembered part of the young patrons' childhoods.

He emerged from the restroom with his street clothes folded under his arm, unsure how he looked since the lights in the restroom wouldn't even turn on when he flipped the switch. He hoped he had at least buttoned his shirt up correctly.

Passing the stage with its trio of deactivated robots (_animatronics_, he reminded himself) in the forms of a bear wearing a bowler hat, a rabbit and some kind of yellow barnyard fowl, he paused momentarily, caught where he stood in the terminal stare of the band yet oddly fascinated. "Neat," he said aloud to the empty room, then jumped when Faz stepped out from behind the namesake of the business, grinning at his joke.

"These are your charges, Mike. Meet Freddy, Bonnie and Chica. If you have any downtime - _and you won't _ \- you should read up on their biographies in the employee's handbook. All of the daytime workers are required to 'know' the characters as well as they know their best friends, should a child ask about them. They have distinct personalities, favorite activities and even their own preferred items from our menu." Rocking on his heels, the proprietor and founder of the pizzeria took in the sight of his creations with pride. "They're what make us stand apart from the dime-a-dozen pizzerias and arcades, something exotic and mysterious a child won't see at the local shopping mall or anywhere else." Faz affectionately ruffled the fluff atop Chica's head. "They're worth hiring the overnight security detail."

"How come the duck has teeth?" Mike cut in irreverently, unable to withstand the suspense any longer and jabbing a finger at what looked to him like an overgrown duckling wearing a bib that proclaimed "Let's Eat!" in childish text. One look at his supervisor's face made him realized he had crossed the line on his first day despite his intentions not to; evidently the guy took criticism poorly.

"'How come,' or should I say, _why_ does the duck have teeth, do you ask? First of all, it should be bleeding obvious that Chica is a chicken, and a young one at that, since she still has her yellow down. She has a story, and should you someday _ask somebody to read it to you, _you would learn that she has a great appetite, both for our delicious fresh-baked pizzas as well as for the spirit of fun and adventure. I strongly suggest you memorize all their biographies. Get to know them."

Mike exhaled sharply, backing away defensively and disliking the way he felt so small standing several feet below the animatronics and his boss on the raised stage. _Yeesh._ He vowed to never again question the design of Faz's beloved creations, and wisely decided not to follow up with a question about why the rabbit wore a bow tie but had a girl's name.

As if reading his mind, Faz cracked into a jovial smile once more. "You might as well ask why they stand on two legs instead of four. You seem unnerved by them. Please don't tell me you're scared of animatronic characters, Mike. You could save us a lot of trouble and expense by backing out now if you are."

Mike straightened in response to the challenge. "Are you kidding? That's insulting. I grew up on a steady diet of Sid and Marty Krofft TV shows and I was a kid right when these 'singing animal bands' first became so popular at theme parks, so if those freaky-deaky characters and costumes didn't scare me to death I highly doubt your creations have much of a chance." He snorted. "The day I whizz my pants over a five-foot-tall bunny rabbit is the day I hang up my security badge. My job is to keep the bad guys out, vandals and the like, right? I wouldn't be able to do that if I was afraid of what's _inside._"

Faz's sinister laugh unnerved him. "You have a good handle on the situation, Mr. Schmidt." The business owner, perhaps twenty years his senior, effortlessly leapt from the stage, strode forward and leaned in close to his face. "I must warn you, Mike, this job has an astoundingly high turnover rate, or it was until our long-time guard, Clyde, up and quit on us." He shook his head. "Poor Clyde. But _you_ won't become one of those statistics, will you? I may not have performed a formal interview or fitness test but I can assure you that subsequent to your hiring I did take the liberty of running a background check."

A lump formed in Mike's throat; he had been counting on the likelihood that in his rush to hire for the position, Faz had overlooked this step. "And...?"

"You have quite the record, even if most of it is for criminal mischief. You've basically made yourself unemployable in the past two years, have you not?"

_Crud. _Mike hadn't been counting on this. "Er, mistakes were made. My record's been clean for the last few months, since you say you checked." Beads of sweat broke across his face and soaked into his shirt collar as he awaited his fate.

The business owner laughed in the face of the employee who he now fully controlled. "That may be so, but there are hardly employers fist-fighting in the parking lot over who gets to hire you first. Appreciate and treasure your employment at Fazbear's, son, because it's damn well your only option. _Don't_ screw this up."

Mike gulped as he found himself being led to the security office at the end of a remote hallway. His shift began in less than an hour - midnight.


	2. I Don't Like Mondays

It was easy to tell which areas of the establishment were considered "backstage" and off-limits to guests, Mike realized as Faz led him down a series of hallways. Though decorated like the dining area in a wild explosion of star-spangled tackiness with a unifying checkerboard tile panel running along the walls, the neglected back areas were littered with debris and thick, gray dust and probably hadn't seen a broom in months. His sneakers stuck in dried soft drink spills that nobody had bothered to clean up - at least that's what Mike _hoped_ he was stepping in. Even the tiny security office itself was draped in cobwebs instead of the dangling sprays of metallic sparkles and stars that hung from the ceilings everywhere else.

Oblivious to the condition of the place, Faz instead noted with disgust the stains forming under the sleeves of Mike's work shirt as he took in the sight of his new headquarters. _Just my luck to hire a "nervous sweater,"_ he thought, grateful that the office was at least equipped with a fan to move the stale air around.

"All right, so there's no need for much on-the-job training; what you see is what you get," Faz gestured to the heavy steel desk with its array of monitors, all dark and silent at the moment. "Clyde worked here for years and when he gave his two weeks' notice, at least he agreed to make a series of audiotapes for the new hire." The man shrugged, then jabbed a finger at the telephone on the desk. Like the monitoring equipment, it looked like the latest in cutting-edge technology - for 1985. "Animatronics are my specialty, though; I don't do much with phones. I think he saved the messages in the phone system or something. He told me he'd break the training lessons down into five calls to get you through the week. No sense in throwing it all at you at once."

Faz watched Mike's steely blue eyes squinting as he no doubt tried to make sense of the cryptic instructions. _No, don't think about the eyes,_ he reminded himself grimly.

"Anyway, Clyde was our tech guy and just a few years back when these came out he insisted we add one to our arsenal of surveillance equipment," he added, pressing a far more modern, tablet-style monitor into Mike's hands. "The thing is a real power drain, though, and the electricity's wonky around here to begin with." As if on cue, the lights around them flickered. "I can't pay the power bill with money I don't _have!"_ Faz growled into the dark hallway, frowning at a cheerful striped cup that had been left on the desk. "Oh yeah. That reminds me, if you get here early enough you are entitled to free beverages from the soda fountain, but I'd recommend against overdoing it on the refills, for obvious reasons." He guffawed as if he'd said something really clever.

"By the stroke of twelve, you'll be in this office. 'Making the rounds' is not a job requirement thanks to your monitor. And speaking of monitoring, don't think I can't check in on _you." _Before Mike knew it, Faz had excused himself for the night, saying something about having stuck around long enough, like it was a sacrifice of his free time.

The monitor seemed to be programmed for a sole function, to allow a security guard to transfer between the camera views of all the rooms. From it Mike watched as Faz made his way out through the dining hall, noting the man paused one last time and even gave his animatronic creations a little wave on his way out. _Freak._

Alone at last, Mike dropped to his hands and knees on the dusty floor. This wasn't the first time he had searched a workplace for a hidden surveillance camera just to see how much leeway he had. Finding nothing tucked away in his thorough exam of a tall speaker set against the desk, he turned his attention to the walls, expecting to find a pinhole camera mounted somewhere between the posters and notes taped up. Finally, he pawed through the cables running to the desk and the antiquated screens themselves.

"That leaves only this," he said aloud, seeing that like many modern tablet computers, his new monitor had a small camera lens. Opening a desk drawer and finding it full of yellowed folders, dry-rotted rubber bands and other forgotten office supplies, he took a roll of masking tape and tore off a square to effectively block the camera's eye. Feeling smug that he had gotten one over on Nathan Faz, he reached for a ballcap that had been left on the desk, perched on top of a large toy cupcake. The little plush prize with its plastic eyeballs was decidedly strange, but once Mike put on the hat over his shock of black hair, he felt that he didn't look half bad when he caught his reflection in the nearby window pane. He felt certain he had just donned the very hat the mysterious Clyde must have worn.

* * *

With forty-five minutes to go before he was on company time, Mike strode across the asphalt of the parking lot, stopping to let a tow truck pass. A vintage Datsun hatchback, its frame dusty like it had been parked for a long time, was being taken away at this late hour. For some reason Mike found himself watching until the truck's flashing lights disappeared in the distance, then he stepped away from the curb.

* * *

The clerk at the little convenience store across the road briefly surveyed the items Mike had set on the counter in front of her before fixing him with a smirk. _Cynthia _read the nametag pinned to her smock.

"Hmm...pep pills and cheese curls. Judging by your shopping list, I'm going to assume you're the pizza joint's new security guard." Her gaze drifting to the plate-glass window behind her customer, she could make out the bold colors of the restaurant's neon sign casting light into the empty parking lot. As for her customer himself, he didn't really look the part and she would never have guessed his occupation had it not been for the unique combination of items he'd chosen and the familiar uniform. _Why_ did security guys all seem to share a craving for cheese curls, anyway?

Removing his ball cap and sweeping aside strands of hair that had grown too long to present what most formal workplaces would consider a "professional" image, Mike nodded.

"That would be me," he confirmed, hoping she wouldn't be suspicious that he left the pizzeria unoccupied. It wasn't as if he couldn't see it from here...

"Clyde had pretty much the same shopping list," she said with a sad smile on her careworn face, sliding his purchases over the counter to him along with his change.

"The guy who had the job before me?"

"That would be him," she echoed Mike's earlier statement. "I'm still surprised he left; he really loved the work. Something must have happened in his last week on the job, because a guy doesn't just walk out in the middle of his shift with one day to go. Then again, your new boss has sure had a hard time replacing him with someone who can actually stick around. Apparently quitting for no reason is the new workplace trend." She scowled at the pizzeria.

"Clyde never said much about what went on over there, but it's weird that that cheapskate Faz even hires an overnight guard. In all my time here, I've pulled a handgun on would-be robbers no less than three times, but Freddy's has _never_ had an attempted burglary. Nobody breaks in to steal pizza." She was still shaking her head as Mike thanked her and hurried back to the restaurant.

* * *

Clutching a tall cup of lemonade from the soda fountain, Mike pushed through the swinging doors of the kitchen, finding that just as in the restroom, the lights wouldn't turn on, forcing him to prop open one of the doors to allow the slightest amount of light inside. Meandering around the stainless steel counters to the walk-in cooler, he was at least relieved to find _that_ was running and had a functioning bulb overhead. Neatly sealed in plastic containers on the shelves were the entire contents of the restaurant's salad bar, awaiting the next day's business. If he going to accept a mere $120 a week, he at least intended to take full advantage of the employee meal discount. Not that Faz had explicitly _mentioned _one, but it only seemed fair.

Now juggling his drink and a paper plate loaded with potato salad and even some pizza slices that Faz had no trouble ordering his kitchen workers to reheat and serve again, Mike left the kitchen and stopped in his tracks at the concessions counter.

"Well, hello there, who said this job didn't have perks?" A beer tap was mounted beneath the counter, available for parents who weren't content sipping soft drinks while watching their youngsters run wild through the indoor playland. The menu board behind him advertised the cost at a hefty six dollars a glass, so at that price customers weren't likely to overdo it.

With the lemonade guiltlessly forgotten the moment it finished gurgling down the drain, Mike couldn't wipe the grin off his face even after he'd made his way back to the security office.

"Okay, cuppycake, looks like it's just you and me now," he said, toasting the silly little plush toy at the stroke of midnight.


	3. The Pinball Wizard

The sound of the telephone startled Mike so badly he fumbled with his beer, spilling most of it down the front of his shirt and cursing before he remembered the promised prerecorded message from the former security officer.

Three rings into the call Clyde picked up. "Hello. Hello?" he asked hesitantly, as though he expected an answer. Apparently satisfied the phone system was recording, he began his message in earnest, introducing the soon-to-be-vacated position and offering his help. Mike listened, entranced, finding that unlike Nathan Faz, he liked this guy right away. Trusted him, even. Clyde came across as not exactly fatherly, but like the type of big brother every kid wished he could have. The type who would run along on your first bike ride, holding the thing steady instead of sending you off with a push only to watch you crash at the end of the driveway.

It wasn't hard to imagine Faz hovering over Clyde as he read off the legal disclaimer, complete with the same death-and-destruction clause that Mike already knew was nothing more than a morbid joke. Stumbling all over himself trying to explain away the non-existent danger and talking more freely, suggesting Faz must have left, Clyde quickly moved on to what seemed to be his true interest, the inner workings of the animatronics.

"Okay, I get it, bud, you respect 'em," said Mike aloud, rolling his eyes and thinking Clyde was overdoing it just a little when he sympathized with the characters in the band, even putting himself in their place and imagining aloud how monotonous the decades of performing must have been for them. _He's as much of a fanboy as Faz himself._ Why else would Clyde have kept posters and even children's artwork of the characters in the office when he was already in charge of watching the animatronics all night? Didn't he get tired of seeing those same three goofy faces?

_"They're left in some kind of free-roaming mode at night..."_

"They walk around by themselves?" Mike asked, incredulous at Clyde's latest revelation and a little more interested in the mechanics behind it. _"This_ I gotta see." The monitor's battery had already met with an early and suspicious death, but a power cable dangled from behind the screens on the desk, and although he was now tethered, at least Mike could view the animatronics again. They hadn't moved, standing onstage like a trio of sentries overlooking the party room.

Mike paused, his index finger suspended over the monitor, when Clyde casually mentioned a biting incident that had not only restricted the animatronics' roaming to the nighttime hours, but had cost someone the frontal lobe of his brain. He chuckled darkly, appreciating this guy's sense of humor and his ability to deliver the entire message in such a deadpan voice.

"Maybe he had it coming to him anyway," he said flippantly, taking another sip of his beer but nearly choking when the guard's message suddenly took a sharp turn into the territory of nightmares. The wandering animatronics, out for their midnight stroll, would...mistake humans for the endoskeleton machinery that powered them...and attempt to shove them into an empty costume? Clyde's graphic description of the extensive and fatal head trauma the metal components of the suit would cause was far more gruesome than the vaguely spooky-yet-fun warnings the restaurant management favored.

His head swimming, Mike lowered his empty beer with a trembling hand. As hard up as he was for money, he hadn't drank much lately and forgot his tolerance for the stuff had fallen this incredibly low. He _believed_ Clyde, he realized all at once. The guy was stable and calm, he'd stood up to Faz assuming the boss really had been there when he'd started recording the training call, and so far he was the only one to offer a compelling reason why a night watchman was required at Freddy's.

Biting into his cold pizza slices, the food settling in his twisted stomach like lead, the guard poked a grease-stained finger at the boxes on the monitor screen, checking the surveillance camera in each room and finding something he'd missed when he'd watched Faz leave earlier.

None of the cameras were trained on the exterior doors of the building, not the main entrance or the doors he'd remembered seeing in the back of the kitchen or any other fire exits he might have missed. Faz was not concerned about break-ins, he truly was worried about what was on the _inside_ of his little playland. His precious creations had gone out of control.

Ignoring Clyde's insistence on conserving power, Mike punched the buttons mounted near both doors behind his desk, bathing the hallways beyond in precious light, and shut both steel doors for good measure, the hiss of the hydraulics pure relief to his ears. He was now sealed off in a tiny little room that was the size of a freight elevator and even resembled one with the metallic gray walls and the doors on either end, but he felt safer if somewhat claustrophobic. If Faz expected him to babysit his animatronic band, he would just have to settle for a higher electric bill.

It was then that Mike noticed a tiny device by the west door, powered by a single copper wire running to the desk. Its screen resembled a calculator's and it showed a percentage that was steadily dropping. _Oh no, don't tell me..._ His dread increasing, Mike reluctantly opened the doors again and turned off the lights in both hallways, slowing the descent of the numbers on the screen. To his disappointment the numbers didn't recover, either, leading him to the frightening conclusion that this figure represented the only amount of electricity he would have to work with this night, and apparently holding the doors closed required power as surely as leaving the lights on.

_Maybe it's my lucky night and they're too tired to roam. _Checking the monitor, Mike peeked at the show stage, staring dumbly at it for a few minutes and trying not to convince himself that Bonnie's animatronic head had turned directly toward the camera. There was no movement, but while he'd viewed the character in profile earlier, now those soulless eyes were locked his way. Was the rabbit watching _him?_

"What kinda nuthouse is this?" the terrified man whimpered, sliding to the floor with his back against the wall.

* * *

_May 1980_

"What do you _mean,_ you're closing the roller rink?" Clyde demanded incredulously of his boss. Nathan Faz was surprised, to say the least. He had never before witnessed such a passionate response from his employee, who was unnaturally stoic for his age. _Nineteen going on forty, _Faz had often thought.

"Disco's dead, chum, and roller disco's not looking any better." He gestured out to the skate floor of Fred's Fazstwheels Rollerena at a small crowd of children clacking their way over the wooden boards. "Even for these Saturday afternoon matinees, what's the _real_ draw?" He turned toward the banks of skeeball lanes and pinball tables he had gradually added to his enterprise over the years. The largest attraction by far was the new arcade games, with a crowd of children and teenagers alike waiting impatiently around the cabinets for their turn to play. "These. This is the only part of this rink that's halfway profitable, so we're going all arcade."

Clyde nodded glumly in forced agreement, sticking his hands in the pockets of his jeans. He couldn't have helped but notice that the allure of the games had far outshone that of the rink since the arrival of the latest in electronic games.

"We had a good run - thirty years. And we're not closing, just redesigning," Faz corrected him, no longer unable to contain himself. "It's all decided and it should be a quick transition: we're shutting down for the last three weeks of August when it's quiet here anyway. I'm having the rink carpeted, the arcade's going to get pulled out of this alcove onto the main floor and expanded with more games, and the skate shop's going to become a backstage. The kitchen and snack bar stay. Then this place reopens not as a tired, throwback roller rink but as a state-of-the-art arcade and birthday party venue!"

"Guess this puts me out of a job then. Who needs a rink monitor in an arcade?" Before his boss could respond, Clyde wheeled away, weaving among his younger charges on the wooden floor in an effort to collect his thoughts. His mind never far from their welfare, he moved fluidly, even catching some of the children up as their arms began pinwheeling and steadying them before they'd had a chance to complete their fall. One hand in a fist before him, one behind, his body slightly tucked, he slid through the shards of colored light from the mirrored balls hanging above, already imagining everything around him changed beyond recognition.

In his three years on the job, the rink had suffered only an occasional broken wrist or arm, and he felt proud to keep everyone safe. The oldest in a large family, Clyde didn't mind being surrounded by little ones, though it was never far from his mind that he was extremely unlikely to become a father himself. A bad childhood illness had seen to that.

* * *

Sensing his worker had blown off enough steam, Faz did not approach him until after closing time, coming up behind him in the arcade and clearing his throat. Clyde was hunched over a pinball table, deep in concentration but back to his unnervingly collected self. If kids didn't admire him already for saving them from countless rough falls out in the rink, they envied his status as the arcade's pinball wizard even more. He held the high scores on every machine and never lost his cool as he ran through mind-blowing marathon games.

"Son, I think you already knew you still had a job here. I'd never kick you to the curb like that. I know, you're sentimental about this place. Good memories and all, and I'm a little sorry to let it go myself. But what we're going to have is better, and I'm at a business decision now where I can either change and expand or just run this whole venture into the ground, and it will be a dark day before I allow that to happen." Faz moved in front of the machine so Clyde wouldn't have to abandon his play as they talked.

"I understand, sir," Clyde said in deference to his boss, his eyes flickering up briefly from the action of the game. He even managed a weak smile. "So, after I hang up my skates, what's next?"

"That's more like it!" Faz replied, beaming. "I need a security officer to watch over all these kids. You'll walk the floor, help kids who lost change in the machines, make sure nobody's climbing on anything he shouldn't be or wandering out the door, and..." His voice trailed off as he prepared to announce the key part of his business plan. "...You'll watch over our animatronic characters.

They'll be the stars of what is not merely going to be a restaurant, but a pizza palace. Places like these are the latest and greatest in children's entertainment, and while there's many concepts out there they always have an animal band as the centerpiece."

Clyde nodded; he'd been dragged to a younger cousin's birthday party at just such a pizzeria and had been impressed. His own childhood birthday parties had consisted of a backyard celebration with cake at the picnic table and balloons tied to the clothesline. And this new position _did_ sound good. Maybe he was getting a bit old to be playing the hokey-pokey and lucky corners on the skate floor with all the little kids.

"I guess you've been ahead of the game, then, with your clowns and all," he said, pointing to the DJ booth. A quintet of circus clown figures stood on top, each holding an instrument like a harmonica, accordion or drum, and for special occasions Faz would power up the robotic figures so they could perform for guests - which they did, quite badly. The ancient machinery inside the figures creaked and groaned, the record player hidden behind the drummer never kept tune with the movement of the clowns and the tune it coaxed from the warped vinyl record was strained and tinny. The clowns were filthy from decades of neglect, their painted faces chipped and flaking, and frankly Clyde found them as unsettling as most of the children.

Supposedly they had once been able to walk, but he was glad they'd been saved from witnessing that horror; the robots did have jointed limbs suggesting they were capable of this, but their inner machinery had apparently deteriorated too far. Nonetheless, they seemed to hold a special fascination for his boss, who had claimed they were a holdover from the rink's previous incarnation as a dance hall.

"Great minds think alike!" exclaimed Faz, pleased but not surprised his employee was catching on so quickly. "I'm going to finally agree with you and admit there isn't much for these fellows to do at a roller rink, but with a complete refurbishment and upgraded machinery, they'll finally take their place in children's hearts. Clowns were big in the Fifties with Bozo and all, but talking animals are the new thing, especially for these pizza joints. I'm actually going to get started this weekend, if you can help me lug the band to the supply closet." He grinned mysteriously. "But after that, no peeking. It's going to become my little laboratory and I'll unveil them at the grand reopening."

Deep into his game, Clyde had the entire pinball table lit up with activity as spinners whirled and bumpers sent the five metal spheres he had in play through the ramps and chutes. "Sure thing, sir. If you're content locking yourself up in a room full of clowns, it's not my business to question that."

Faz squinted at his youthful employee. _If only you knew._ He watched with growing interest as he played, coolly hitting the left or right flipper button at exactly the crucial moment to block the ball from entering the drain.

_Never wasting his energy on needless moves._

_Left._

_Right. _

_Can't let it get in._


	4. A Risk I'm Willing to Take

By the time Mike returned to his feet and checked his camera, Bonnie was no longer staring at him, only because the rabbit had left the show stage entirely and was nowhere to be found.

_If Clyde was right about this much, I guess this is the final proof that he wasn't joking about the other things he'd said_, the new guard admitted, fanning his grease-slicked hair through his fingers while squinting at the screen. The cameras slowly panned across each room, revealing footage so grainy it was a strain on his eyes. He saw something he'd missed on the first check: a dark, roughly human-sized figure lumbering stiffly across the back of the dining area.

He was strangely transfixed watching Bonnie walk, and somewhat calmed by the fact that the animatronic's travels didn't seem particularly purposeful. After wandering around the party tables, the character paused briefly, then moved out of camera range.

Following him from afar while keeping an anxious eye on his power usage, Mike consulted the crude map layout built into his monitor's display, comparing it against the direction Bonnie had moved, and discovered him in a room just off the dining area, labeled "backstage" on the surveillance footage. If the animatronics were really capable of some level of sentience as Clyde had suggested, perhaps Bonnie was visiting with his spare costume heads that were resting on the shelving and table in the room, interspersed with those of Freddy's and Chica's. The rabbit stood motionless before the heads, looking for all the world like a television host facing a studio audience seated in the bleachers.

Bonnie completely ignored a spare endoskeleton that was also stored in the room, deactivated and slumped in a sort of sitting position on the table, and it dawned on Mike that the animatronics' programmed "rules" that Clyde had warned him about might only apply to the public areas of the pizzeria where they could actually be seen by guests. Otherwise, he would have expected Bonnie to be upset upon finding an uncovered endoskeleton and unused costume heads. On some level, it made sense. Any place that hired workers to dress up as animal mascots had a strict order that they were never allowed to be seen only partially in costume, so why not program the same rules into the animatronics?

_But surely this security office is also "backstage" to them, and Clyde already told me they'll try to get me here,_ Mike remembered. A movement right by his elbow startled him before he realized it was only the clock informing him another hour had passed. The small electric clock was the old-fashioned type with numbers printed on a plastic wheel that slowly turned, but he had never before seen one that only changed on the hour. He had made it to two in the morning, the hour at which his hometown television channel used to sign off for the night by showing an image of an American flag while the national anthem played.

With no intentions of signing off himself, the security guard left Bonnie to commune with his bodyless clones and peeked back at the show stage. Chica was now missing. Frantically poking away at the screen, he failed to locate her, his power dropping steadily.

"Alright, Bugs, where's Tweety Bird?" he demanded into the monitor when he checked in on the backstage, until it became immediately apparent his search for the chicken had given the rabbit sufficient time to disappear again. Something flickered ominously against the glare on the window immediately before his face. The hallway outside was dark, but he was certain he had made out the bright white orbs and rows of teeth that were built into the heads of the animatronics.

Mike instinctively slammed the button to the door nearest him so hard he felt the plastic panel over it flex and nearly crack, then he sprinted over to close the opposite door, no less gently on the second attempt. Crouched in the middle like a trapped animal with his arms still outstretched in opposite directions, he turned to see the apparition of Bonnie at one window and Chica at the other, both quietly watching.

"Go on, shoo. Go back and play with the bear," he pleaded ridiculously, already feeling he was losing his sanity and talking to the animatronics on his first night on the job. "Or did you come over to meet the new guard? In that case, it's me."

"It's me," echoed a raspy voice from somewhere beyond the door.

* * *

_August 1980_

"It's still bothering you," Faz said pointedly, his shirt sleeves rolled up as he worked alongside Clyde boxing up skates. His rival across town had bought the entire collection of skating equipment at auction, no doubt thrilled that the Fazstwheels rink that had nearly run him out of business was soon to be no more. They were working alone, with the remainder of the teenage staff on unpaid leave during the transition.

"Not really, sir. I've come to terms with it, and an arcade oughtta be fun." Clyde tucked the flaps over a pile of skates and began assembling another box. The smell of the disinfectant they'd sprayed on the skates hung heavy in the air, irritating his eyes.

"Good to hear, but I wasn't referring to that. I meant the broken arm." Faz watched as his worker's head bowed slightly, an almost imperceptible gesture.

_"Yeah, _that's still bugging me. Skate-at-your-own-risk or not, what were the odds a kid would get hurt so badly the last week we were open?" The guilt welled up as he recalled yet again hearing the profound _thump_ and then a pained scream from across the rink. Recognizing what had happened, he had raced to the boy's side, kicked off his own skates and tried to reassure him that he was going to be okay. He didn't realize until after the child was loaded into an ambulance that he had instinctively pulled off his shirt and fashioned it into a wrap for the particularly nasty compound fracture the child had suffered.

"For the last time, it wasn't your fault," Faz tried to convince him. "You were all the way across the rink and there was no time to catch him before he took that fall. His parents called today, by the way. They couldn't say enough about how well you took care of him until the medics got here. He's already healing nicely."

"That's a relief. That kid's on my brother's baseball team, and poor guy, that's his pitching arm." Clyde leaned back against an empty wooden skate rack. "I still feel rotten it happened on my watch. But you're right, I guess those things just happen." His voice echoed strangely in the skate shop, nearly gutted of its contents. In the week since the rink had closed for business, he had worked far more closely with his boss, even being treated like a business partner and being asked his opinion on crucial decisions. Still struggling with his habit of using the deferential "sir" when addressing Faz and being reminded not to, he nonetheless rather liked the transition to being taken seriously as a young adult.

"Speaking of gory stuff, _is _it true?" Clyde suddenly cut in, asking the question he'd been to hesitant to address before. "Back in school, everyone insisted this place was-"

"Haunted by the ghosts of five children, lured into this very room and stabbed to death with a skate key by a deranged worker some time in the Fifties," recited Faz, sparing Clyde the need to recount the legend himself. "If I had a dime for every time I heard some variation of that story..." He shook his head vehemently and rolled his eyes. "It's such a ridiculous tale when you think about it. How could someone contain five kids without having at least one escape, and how exactly do you kill someone with a skate key?" He chuckled grimly. "Nope, I can assure you the entire thing is made up. Last week's injury was the only major incident in our entire thirty years."

"You'd never believe how many times I was asked about it, or had to stop a kid from sneaking in here on a dare." Clyde studied the well-worn toe stops on the final pair of youth skates before dousing them with a generous spray of disinfectant and adding them to the box. "Some of the older ones seem more interested in ghost-hunting than anything else this place has to offer."

Faz raised a brow, already aware that the legend drew in curious junior high students. "That's not bad for business, then, but I'll have to put an end to their fun by keeping this door locked during business hours once it becomes a backstage. These new costumes I've ordered were custom-made, and they're shipping replacement headpieces soon, lest one get damaged. It'll all take up a lot of room and considering what it cost me, I can't let some kid get in here and wreck everything." He nodded at Clyde. "Now if you can tape up and label all these boxes, they're sending a truck for them around noon. I'll be in my laboratory and if all goes well, I'll unveil the band for you today."

"'Kay, Doctor Frankenstein," chuckled Clyde, stretching out an arm's length of packing tape while trying to imagine Faz holed up in that office. He had accepted his secrecy over the animatronic refurbishment project as another of his boss's many eccentricities, but on one occasion he had managed to catch a glimpse of the work space before Faz shut the door behind himself, just long enough to have seen the exposed, skeletal framework that had been hidden under the hideous old costumes. It was a sight not easily forgotten.

"So it's not real," he remarked aloud as he carefully labeled the box with the size of the skates within, but he still had a vague sense of unease from being alone in this particular room, one that he knew he'd best overcome if he wanted to be a successful security guard. No sooner had he denied the ghost story, Clyde found himself doubling over onto the box he had sealed up, a crushing pain coursing through his skull and the marker rolling forgotten across the floor. A remarkably healthy person, he had seldom seen his doctor in his adolescence and couldn't remember popping a single aspirin for so much as a headache, making this sudden onset of sheer torture that much more horrific. The piercing sensation in his brain rivaled the intense pressure building behind his eyes, and he was only vaguely aware of his fingernails gripping the cardboard box so tightly they tore into it.

_It's me._

He wasn't certain when he came to, gasping for each breath of air, but the collar of his shirt was drenched in sweat and he was still shaking. Clyde raised a hand to his head, only to find the pain had entirely vanished. Cautiously making sure he was steady enough to walk, he made his way out of the room, his mind already working to explain what must have just happened.

"You're as white as a ghost! Are you okay?" Faz asked, his surprise so great he forgot to close the door to his laboratory behind him.

"Yessir, I made myself loopy hanging out in that small space with all those spray fumes from the disinfectant." The young employee's face reddened. "I guess the large-barrel permanent markers we used only added to the mix. Ugh, I think I gave myself a migraine back there, but I'm good now. Is it okay if I go outside for some fresh air?"

"Sure, and while you're at it, take these out back to the burning barrel," Faz requested, reaching back into the room and straining to lift a heavy box that his worker recognized as the stripped-off tatters of the clowns' masks and costumes.

Making his way through the fire exit, Clyde cringed at the sight of the peeled-away chunks of dry rotted rubber that had made up the jolly faces, and he tried to avoid touching the rubbish as he unloaded it into the drum. Faz held little regard for the local burning ordinances and had ordered him to burn trash behind the business before, so it wasn't surprising that he wanted his old mascots essentially cremated. By the time the flames had consumed the last traces of the clowns, Clyde was feeling much better, even enough to convince himself that he'd just had a bad trip on marker and cleaner fumes.

* * *

"They're really nice, sir. You've finally gone and made them not scary at all. Cute, even." Clyde stood with his hands on his hips, impressed with Faz's redesign of the clown figures. Lined up end-to-end in the supply room were the new animal mascots in the form of a baby chick, a rabbit, a fox in pirate clothing and a bear with a top hat. "And I guess this one's unfinished?" he asked, examining a set of the underlying framework still exposed without a costume.

"That one's going to be an extra, for the time being," Faz informed him. "I upgraded a lot of moving parts in these robot figures, and they're now functioning endoskeletons for the new animatronic characters. They can walk, repeat a few phrases with voice synthesis and of course be programmed for singing and instrumental performances." As if on cue, lids closed over the eyes of the endoskeleton.

"They can _see?" _Clyde asked, intrigued.

"Yes! Well, they can respond to light and movement and react to people and objects near them; it's not exactly the same as organic sight. If I can program them correctly, they'll be able to cross the room, stop in front of a human and greet him. You can help me test it out after the rink's carpeted and I'm done working on them." Perhaps not finding this the best plan, his employee rubbed his chin thoughtfully and then cracked into a wide smile.

"What if they _don't _see I'm there and just plow right through me?"

"That's a risk I'm willing to take," joked Faz, dismissing the notion with a flippant wave. "Aw, c'mon! They may be strong but give me some credit, they're also smart."

"I still don't know, Boss. You're going to set me loose in a big room full of robots and just see what happens? I've played enough of these arcade games to know how _that_ turns out." He flashed a double thumbs-up. "But it sounds like a challenge, and I'm up for it."


	5. Don't Let the Door Hit You

_Author's Note: Trigger Warning, as this chapter deals with the "Missing Children Incident" hidden within the game. I took Scott's cue here and purposely avoided listing too many details about the murders, such as naming the victims or describing in graphic detail what might have happened. I assume he left it that way to keep the game spooky yet sensitive for its controversial subject matter. The aftermath of discovering the crime scene will be dealt with in the next chapter._

* * *

A travel mug of coffee clutched in his hand, Nathan Faz pulled into a parking space shortly after six the following morning. He greeted the animatronic band with his usual wave, pleased to see no gruesome evidence to suggest his new employee had been moronic enough to leave the security office and try to make a run for it. Peering hesitantly around the open doorway to the office, he discovered Mike still intact, with the same harried look his previous guards had after their first night on the job, as though they'd just stepped off a roller coaster.

"Good morning, Boss." There was not a hint of shakiness in Mike's cold greeting despite his shell-shocked appearance. Spending the last several hours fending off the animatronics had brought about a change in Mike and had given him time to arrive at a crucial decision. He had done sloppy, clumsy work with no style and had very nearly bought it by wasting his dwindling power supply down to almost nothing, but he'd stuck it out and in the final hours, his motivation had been staying around to confront his employer.

"Do you think there's something you _might _have forgotten to tell me last night?" he asked suggestively.

Fully ready for his comeback, Faz swept out an arm, catching up the empty paper cup and sniffing it.

"Yes. You touch my beer tap and you're not only fired, I'll file theft charges. I bet your parole officer would be thrilled to hear about that." Crushing the cup in his hand and letting it fall to the floor, he inwardly rejoiced in watching the familiar expression of dread return to his worker's face.

As much as he resented Faz for being able to capitalize on his worst fears, Mike wasn't above joining in his game of hardball.

"You wanna fire me over one lousy drink? Fine. Do it, but that would leave you without a night watch. I think you're a desperate man to keep this job filled, hiring me right over the phone and all. It's plain to see you think I'm a marginal worker at best, so wouldn't you have hired a better applicant for the job instead? Admit it, I'm the only nutjob who even applied, aren't I?"

"I'm not even going to justify that with an answer," Faz began, but Mike was not done. He knew he had already veered into the same kind of dangerous territory that had cost him more than one job in the past, but he pressed on.

"You can't control this little sideshow you created and you could _never_ hack this job yourself."

"Don't let the door hit you on the way out, Mister Schmidt." The seething business manager's nostrils flared.

"Oh, it won't. There's probably not enough power left for it to close." The security guard was startled by his boss's sudden laughter.

"You got me there. To be honest, I guess you got me in more ways than one, because I _have_ had a lot of trouble filling this position. I'll keep you on, but surely if you're reasonable you'd see why drinking on the job is a lousy idea."

Calming a little, Mike nodded, the adrenaline still surging through his body. "I never said I was quitting, anyway." He'd far rather take his chances facing the animatronics again over another round of hiring managers he could never impress during interviews.

"Good. Show up on time, do what I ask of you and we'll tolerate each other and make this work. Now, I want to clear up a misconception. I _can_ control my animatronics. I could just walk over there right now and shut them all off. But in case Clyde didn't tell you in his message, leaving them powered down for too long would destroy their servomechanisms, and I'm not about to lose the main draw to my pizzeria. I've even pinpointed the exact amount of time they require for unprogrammed activity, a six-hour minimum, and since I can't very well have the animatronics in anything other than 'showtime mode' during business hours, they get the graveyard shift."

"I can buy that," the security guard said, agreeing that on some level the explanation did make sense. "But those guys were really going for my throat the last couple of hours. If you can program them to give it up at six each morning, can't you fix the programming error that, y'know, leaves them wanting to shove me into a suit?"

Faz leaned back against the wall, rubbing his temples wearily. "You wouldn't believe how many times I tried to do that before I realized that completely reprogramming their routines would require shutting them down for far too long. Their artificial intelligence is a system I built myself and if I brought in an outside repairman he wouldn't be able to make any sense of it. This setup is a real makeshift solution, I'll admit, and the power shortage is hardly helping, but I hope that someday very soon I'll get it all fixed. In the meantime, you might have noticed there are no longer any spare suits just lying around in the backstage. I can't guarantee they wouldn't still try to hurt you, but they can't shove you in a suit if they can't find one, right?"

Mike was incredulous that he and his new boss could transition so rapidly from shouting at each other to conversing almost normally. "Speaking of shutting them down, you'd better check on Freddy. He mighta locked up, because he didn't move all night." Faz's promise to someday remedy the situation suggested he'd fire Mike as soon as he was no longer needed to watch over the animatronics, but if the pizzeria's star mascot was broken and the place lost business, he could find himself out of a job that much sooner.

"That's fine. _He's_ fine. They don't have to be physically moving during that six-hour window. As long as their processors are running freely, all is good. Remember, I did say they're capable of very rudimentary thought. If they'd rather stay still and contemplate the mysteries of the universe on any given night, that makes your job easier, right?"

Soon after, Faz watched Mike's old beater of a station wagon stall once before turning out of the parking lot. _I thought I told him he'd need reliable transportation,_ he grumbled to himself, but he was secretly impressed with the new security guard's determination. His hiring had indeed been an emergency situation just as Mike had guessed, and while he'd been betting against his survival, at least now he didn't have to call the local day labor office and beg them to send someone over to cover the shift tonight. Mike had also shown a healthy interest in the mechanical reasons behind the animatronics' wanderings and attempts to get at him, and the only other employee who had made much of an effort to learn anything about them had made the job his life's work. Of course, it had cost him his life in the end, but that was another matter.

* * *

_June 26, 1984_

Converting the skating rink to a pizza palace had been a phenomenal business decision for Nathan Faz, and he was sitting atop a veritable gold mine. Yet on this night, the manager was sequestered away in his office, leaving Clyde to watch over the young clientele.

"Fifty years ago tonight," he muttered, taking another nip from a flask he had stowed in his desk drawer. "It's damn near unbelievable."

Meanwhile, out on the floor Clyde had to hustle even shortly before closing time, keying open arcade games and toting bucketloads of tokens back to the prize counter. Still wearing the striped referee-style jersey from his rink monitor days, he was now several years older than the fresh crew of high school workers who would have once been his peers, and a select few of them made little effort to hide their disbelief that he had settled into this job as a long-term career.

The testing of the animatronics years before had gone without a hitch, and not only had they proved to be more spectacular than anything he could have imagined, his boss had routinely upgraded their artificial intelligence. Though they spent most of their time performing the same tiresome set of pre-programmed song-and-dance numbers that the children loved anyway, they were also capable of interacting spontaneously with guests to create unscripted shows, but always within a strict set of guidelines. Having watched from the sidelines, he had observed that they showed the utmost gentleness to the youngest patrons, bestowing warm hugs and high-fives when they detected they were being approached by a child, but they joked around more and even roughhoused with and occasionally manhandled the adults, especially the workers who were dragged into their stage shows for the sake of comedy.

On this night, he was startled to feel a sharp jab in his back as he closed the panel over the coin bin on an air hockey table. Twisting around, Clyde found himself at swordpoint, being held at bay by the pizzeria's resident pirate fox. Chiding himself for being so distracted he hadn't heard the animatronic approaching, he was secretly thrilled to be drawn into the show, as he'd daydreamed about exactly what he would do if he were singled out for some all-in-fun mistreatment by the pirate. The usual workers who took part in this popular and mostly improvised show were party hosts or waiters; Foxy _never_ picked the security guard. All eyes from the kids seated at the dining area tables were locked on him, eagerly waiting to see how he'd react and even shouting out advice: "Fight him!" "Run!" They had seen this play out many times before, with the pirate selecting the nearest employee and forcing him or her to walk the plank.

"Arrgh, Foxy's caught ye red-handed, plunderin' the pieces of eight from these fine treasure chests!" cried the animatronic through his built-in microphone, deviating slightly from the previous times he had performed his show. He poked the sword forward; it was blunt but real metal, a detail not lost on the children, who gasped and laughed nervously.

"Nay, ye scoundrel, this was never rightfully yours!" replied Clyde in an equally overdone pirate's drawl. Rather enjoying his rare time in the spotlight, he brandished his set of keys, swinging them against the sword with a clank, and the kids erupted in giggles at the drama playing out in front of them. Keeping watch on the glowing light at the back of the animatronic's eyes, Clyde gamely allowed himself to be backed into the Pirate Cove, a play area off the dining room that featured an elaborate ball pit in the form of a wooden ship, complete with rigging and fake cannons.

"Surrender the gold or Foxy'll have ye visitin' Davy Jones's locker," the fox snarled, exchanging sword slashes with the security guard.

A smart grin on his face, Clyde reached the end of the wooden plank, ready to throw in the twist he'd thought up for this show. He gave the board a few experimental bounces, knowing the sea of plastic balls was merely a few feet below him, and challenged Foxy one last time.

"Then it's to the depths for me, but if I have to go..." He crouched low, reaching into the pockets of the black apron he wore and absolutely stuffing his hands full of tokens. "...I leave these pieces of eight to the kids!" Clyde pitched the shower of hundreds of coins onto the party tables, creating a melee as the children scrambled to gather them up, then executed a backward flip into the ball pit.

The crowd went wild, and although he clambered out of the pit to see more than a few rolled eyes from his coworkers and the parents attending their children's parties, it had been his single greatest moment in his career so far. Far away in his front office, Faz blinked at his surveillance monitor in disbelief. Clyde had never shown the slightest desire to draw attention to himself before, but clearly he had planned this for some time.

"Goofball," he grumbled, making a mental note to take the lost revenue of the tokens from his salary.

* * *

At least one child found the thrill show too intense. Attending a classmate's birthday party for the first time at the pizzeria, Laura had no idea what to expect when the pirate character had seized the security guard, and the sensitive grade-schooler was overwhelmed with fear for his safety, not at all convinced by everyone else's claims that it was just a show. Amid the energetic screams of young voices all around her, she slid off the vinyl chair cushion right onto the floor, hiding herself from the sight of the stage and drawing her knees to her chest. She prayed nobody would flip back the plastic tablecloth and laugh at the baby who was too afraid to watch the show, but then she saw to her shock that she was not alone.

"Where did _you_ come from? I've never seen you before," she asked, forced to raise her voice over the screams from above them. The five children, two boys and three girls and all close to her age, kneeling and sitting crosslegged in their shared hiding space, grinned back at her in a friendly way.

"We've been here a long time," answered one of the girls, her hair curled in neat ringlets and her clothes old-fashioned. _All_ of them were dressed strangely, and it took Laura a while to realize their outfits resembled those worn by the children in her grandmother's black-and-white photo album.

"It's just so lovely to have someone to play with again, even for just a while," agreed one of the other girls. "Don't worry, Foxy won't hurt that man."

"Yeah, it's against the rules," added the dark-haired boy. He perked his head up suddenly. "Hey, did you hear that?"

Laura _did_ hear it even over the din from the thrill show, a lively little jingle she remembered from cartoons. The children around her were rising to their feet, peering out from behind the tablecloth.

"Oh, look, a _bear!"_ exclaimed the first girl who had spoken to her. "Let's follow him." They emerged from under the table, leaving Laura straining to see where the supposed bear was. Then she saw him, unnoticed by all those who were intently watching the pirate stunt show. Freddy Fazbear himself was still on stage, but another teddy bear who could have been one of his relatives was standing just within a darkened room close to the show stage, the door slightly ajar.

"I'm coming, too!" Relieved to see the security guard bowing grandiosely from the performance, proving he hadn't met with harm after all, Laura scooted out from under the table, following her new friends. The tallest of the girls turned to grasp her arm, her grip cold.

"No," she said, the kind but sad smile never leaving her thin face. "Thank you for playing with us, but we have to go now." Laura could see the bear's yellow fur in the darkness beyond the doorway, and she stepped back instinctively, no longer wanting to see him up closely in the least. The children filed past her as if in a trance, the door swinging shut behind them.

The girl yelped as a hand came down on the ruffled sleeve of her party dress, but it was merely her father.

"Hey, kiddo, you about ready to call it a night? It's really late and your little brother's getting cranky. Grab your treat bag, thank the birthday girl for inviting you and let's head out." Doing as she was told, Laura took one last, long look at the closed door before hurrying after her dad.

* * *

Feeling a trickle of blood from his nose some time after he'd quietly returned to servicing the arcade machines, Clyde fumbled in his pocket for a handkerchief while searching for the nearest door. He was grateful nobody had been in a position to see his rough landing in the ball pit, particularly the moment he'd planted his face against one of the vinyl-covered beams that made up the support structure for Foxy's pirate ship. Knowing he must have overestimated his gracefulness, it had been a relief to at least find his nose didn't seem to be broken.

In his rush to avoid upsetting the few children who remained at this late hour at seeing someone _actually _injured, he twisted the nearest doorknob, forgetting that this was the one room his boss kept locked during business hours, yet the door opened anyway and he groped for a light switch.

He didn't remember dropping his keys to the floor or freezing in silent terror at the sight that met his eyes, nor could he guess how long he had stood silhouetted in the doorway before another worker came over to investigate.

There was nobody inside the former skate room, but the metallic stench of freshly-spilled blood was overpowering and the puddle on the floor nearly reached the tips of his shoes. It didn't take a forensic investigator to conclude no one could have survived whatever attack had taken place in the back room. Clyde's eyes darted from the spare costume heads, which were spattered with rivulets of red slowly soaking into the acrylic fur, to the wall behind them, where the most intimidating message of all was written.

Scrawled in red across the unfinished concrete wall, as if swiped on by someone wielding an oversized paintbrush or a fur-covered paw, were those familiar, hateful words.

IT'S ME.


	6. Clowns and Dancing Bears

He hadn't ironed, yet alone washed, his work shirt despite sweating profusely through the previous night, but this time Mike was seated in the security office well before his shift began, swiftly crunching through another plate of ill-gotten pizza slices. At the stroke of midnight he washed down a caffeine tablet with the last of his soft drink and soon found himself listening to Clyde's second call.

"It gets tougher?" he cried out in protest when the former security guard began his guidance and lessons with the warning that the animatronics grew more active as the week progressed. Had it been so wrong to assume that his first night had been a trial and he'd only get better with each passing day? Considering he'd barely survived what had turned out to be beginner's night and each shift afterward now promised to be more difficult, he had his work cut out for him.

Clyde droned on about mechanics of the job that Mike had already discovered through some dicey trial and error the night before, such as using the light to watch for approaching animatronics before wasting power to seal off the doorway. _Maybe_ he could still do this...

"And there's another character?" he sputtered, dumbfounded that the one person he considered his ally in this whole surreal situation would have failed to mention such a significant detail on the first night. Immediately investigating on the monitor, he only saw the same curtain pulled tightly over the Pirate Cove that Clyde had mentioned. During his tour with Faz and on surveillance the night before, he had dismissed the Cove for its sign proclaiming it was out of order, and it was anyone's guess what lurked beyond that sheet of starry fabric.

_Relax,_ he urged himself unconvincingly as the former guard signed off. _Whoever he is, that guy's still tucked away in there, so maybe he doesn't move much, just like the bear._

As much as he had shuddered from the raspy and weird moaning sounds the bunny and chicken characters had made when they'd approached the office yesterday, now that he knew what was coming soon Mike found the absolute silence from the open hallways even more unnerving.

"So, uh, Clyde told me you like to wander," he said aloud into the gloom of the restaurant, feeling certain somehow that the animatronics could hear him from the show stage, even if only through the heating ducts. "I can sympathize. I've spent all my life wandering, especially from job to job." Sighing, he didn't feel particularly swift for unloading all his troubles in front of a crew of animatronic characters, but if they really were capable of thought and reason it wouldn't hurt to get on their good side.

"I guess that's why I'm so determined not to screw this one up. My boss - well, _your_ boss too, I guess - almost had me, but I'm so far in a corner and I'm not going to storm out and quit or get escorted out to the parking lot and ordered to leave the premises. Yeah, those are all ways it went down before, and you don't want to know the boneheaded things I did that got me fired in the first place." His shoulders fell in desolation, though he somehow felt better than if he were talking to an empty room. _Someone_ out there was listening, and more importantly, he was successfully stalling for time.

"I've got enough people in my life who are fully expecting me to fail again, this latest time as a night watch at a children's pizza joint. I guess they figure if I can't handle that kind of cake job, then it just proves I'm the ultimate burnout. It wouldn't be a shock if they were taking bets on how long I'll last here. So that's why I-I'll stick this one out or die trying." He paused, already wishing his growing sense of bravado hadn't caused him to include that last part, and shot out a hand just in time to close the door on Chica after tracking her progress from the show stage. _There._ He'd managed to block an intruder at the last crucial moment without wasting any more power than necessary. He _was_ capable of learning something.

He gulped when he returned his attention to the Pirate Cove on the monitor. The curtain had now been drawn back slightly, and a canine head of some sort was peering out, its jaw open and leering at the camera. Someone was taking interest in his little bedtime story.

"Guess you really miss Clyde, huh? He was pretty decent to you guys? Treated you with some kinda respect and all?" he addressed Chica's darkened form as she lingered in the hall. "Funny thing, I knew someone like that myself." Still hardly believing he was talking to the very creatures who had proven capable of destroying him, he related the story of his brief time spent in the county jail, of receiving constant ridicule from most of the guards who periodically checked in on him, except for that one guard who had stood out...

"His name was Carter. I never found out if that was his first or last name, but in all the times he passed by on his night rounds, he never insulted me, just treated me like an equal as if there were no bars between us." Mike watched Chica recede into the gloom, certain she was still listening, and crossed the room to slam the other door down almost in Bonnie's face.

"Sorry," he was quick to apologize, seeing the rabbit's ears reflected against the glass of the window when he allowed himself a brief use of the hallway light. "Anyway, Carter would pass by twice an hour and ask me each time, 'everything okay, Mike?' like he was protecting me or like I was a fellow guard and not one of the guys he was supposed to be watching." He snorted. _"'Course _everything wasn't okay, I was behind bars and none too happy about it, but it was nice to be treated right for a change. The other inmates were pretty sore I was only in for a month and they made sure I suffered for it. After I did my time I had to find a job since being gainfully employed was a condition of my parole, and so here I am. Maybe he even inspired me to go into this line of work, I dunno."

The security guard couldn't explain to himself why he had opened up to the animatronics when he had never talked to another person about all of this, but for all his social failings, maybe it went with the territory. _Besides, whether they're judging me or not, I think I can assume my secret's safe with them._

The animatronic in the Pirate Cove had now moved from behind the curtain, paused with its head tilted crazily and its eyes aglow in the darkness. Its jawful of teeth was positively formidable, as was the curved hook it held aloft at the end of a raised arm. _Oh, right. A pirate,_ Mike realized, finally catching on. He wished Bonnie would move on, because he was using more power than he liked keeping the door closed.

"At any rate," he ended his sad story, "I don't have too much more going for me out there than I do in here, so I've got to finish this week at any cost. That hundred-twenty's going toward a court fine I need to pay off, because Mike Schmidt is _not_ landing back in jail."

_I might be headed somewhere far worse, _he thought, panicking because the pirate had disappeared, but not before it had spun the "out of order" sign around so it displayed a new message:

IT'S ME.

In a frenzied rush to close the remaining entryway into the office, Mike was so startled by the heavy knocking at the opposite door that he dropped the monitor, watching in horror as it bounced off the hard floor and went blank.

_Great. Just great. _In a matter of seconds, he'd blown everything to hell, and it wasn't even two in the morning.

* * *

_June 27th, 1984_

Even well past midnight the residual summer heat rose up from the asphalt parking lot outside the pizzeria, but as Clyde stood talking to the police officers he couldn't stop shaking until someone finally threw a blanket over his shoulders.

"Watch that referee kid," he overheard one detective warn another, "he might be going into shock."

"I'm fine," he called out irritably to them, looking over at his boss, who was being interviewed separately some distance away. Sensing he was being watched, Faz sharply turned his head and refused to so much as make eye contact. The silent insult stung, and hurt mixed with bitterness in Clyde's tormented mind.

Kid. _That's right, that's all he's ever seen me as, and he couldn't even trust me with a secret when I gathered the guts to ask him about it to his face._

By this late hour he still had no better idea than the officers themselves just what type of crime they were investigating, but one consolation stood out among the nightmarish events of the past several hours: even after the few remaining patrons had been escorted out after the awful discovery in the back room, nobody had rushed forward, frantically asking whether anyone had seen his or her child. Several, though, had claimed to have seen a group of children - "maybe five," one had guessed - sneaking into the back room earlier in the night, making the situation that much more confusing.

Police Chief Carswell snapped shut a clipboard case and regarded Nathan Faz, speaking loud enough for his employee to hear as well. "We're gathering forensic evidence, but at this point it's looking like you were the victim of a mean-spirited prank, seeing as there are no bodies and nobody's missing." He crossed over to Clyde. "You really say the blood was _fresh_ when you burst in on the scene? One of my men tells me the samples he just took from the, er, animal heads were so degraded he doesn't think we'll even be able to confirm whether it's human. We're also availing ourselves of your security footage."

"Good luck," Clyde muttered under his breath, leaning back against the side of a squad car with his arms crossed over his chest. "If the jerky video isn't useless enough, the tapes get reused 'til they're grainy as all get-out." He ignored the characteristic sound of his boss exhaling in anger.

"Look," interjected Faz with a note of authority. "So what you're saying is that somebody doused my backstage room in blood that he got from who-knows-where, trying to make me look bad and scare off business? If we're _not_ dealing with a murder or missing-person case, could you at least humor me and release the so-called crime scene? To put it simply, those costume heads cost me well over three hundred dollars apiece, they were custom-made deals from a company that's now out of business and the continued existence of my business depends on salvaging them from the vandalism someone wrought."

Scowling at the blank expression on the chief's face, he snarled, "In plain English, I need to scrub the fake blood or animal blood or whatever off of them before they're ruined!"

* * *

Still incredulous that his boss's appeal had not fallen on deaf ears, Clyde remained shut out of the backstage, not that he had any great desire to be on the other side of the door where Faz was swearing a blue streak as he labored. It sounded as though he had dragged a hose in through the fire exit and was power-washing the walls.

_"You_ three saw whether any kids went in there," he appealed to the silent band on the show stage. The animatronics only blinked and swiveled their heads in response, as they had been hurriedly switched to a programming mode that left them confined to the stage during the investigation.

_I don't know what to make of all this. _Clyde felt lost without anyone giving him directions, so he retreated to the security office at the far end of the building. As the business's lone guard, he had to question why Faz had gone to the expense of furnishing the tiny space as an office, since he spent little time monitoring the premises from the monitors here. It was far more effective to walk the floor so he could service malfunctioning games.

"Hold the phone, they left the tapes?" he asked in surprise, seeing the bank of silent monitors, their screens dark. Then it struck him; the police had turned their attention to Faz's personal office first, as his surveillance monitors recorded footage continuously, if only from a select number of cameras in the building. Finding and seizing the videotapes they'd expected, the officers had had no reason to believe there was a second office set up for a security officer, and even if they had made their way back here, they had apparently taken little interest in the dust-covered screens that would have appeared inactive.

In truth, though, the remaining cameras were timed to capture still footage at various intervals, just to provide an overall record of the business's activity if the need ever arose to review the tapes the next day. There never had been such a need, at least until now.

Drawn like a magnet to the overlooked equipment, Clyde barely hesitated before rewinding the first tape, impatiently withstanding the long, tortured squeal. Well aware that he should turn the footage over to the authorities immediately, the urge to unravel the mystery himself won out.

The monochrome image of the show stage, recorded on a tape so grainy it was barely possible to make out one member of the band from the next, stayed on his screen for a few seconds before dissolving into static, only to be replaced with a shot of the Pirate Cove. Clyde flinched as he recognized himself clowning around with the fox animatronic, blissfully unaware that someone had chosen that distraction for the worst intentions.

Within twenty minutes he was nearing the end of the final tape, spotting once what did appear to be five small figures standing in the dining area, but due to the extremely nominal tape quality, it was impossible to tell whether they were ordinary party guests who had stepped away from their table or even if they were boys or girls. Entirely lacking was any camera angle that had caught the entrance to the backstage, making him wonder if someone had managed to enter that room from the fire exit without setting off the door alarm. Annoyed he hadn't found anything conclusive, Clyde reached to end the playback, seeing no point in watching images that had been taken after the place had been evacuated.

_Wait._ The final frame was that of a hand reaching directly for the camera mounted in the kitchen, the intruder's intentions so clear Clyde was certain the camera was now destroyed. Between the splayed fingers he could make out a face just feet from the lens, complete with piercing eyes and a malicious smile. Pausing the tape, the security guard reached for the phone, unable to tear his eyes from the white teeth that stood out in contrast to the darkness.

* * *

"How'd you _know?"_ Faz demanded, shocked that police had stormed the restaurant again, this time leaving with a suspect in handcuffs. He twisted his hands in agitation, but Clyde had gone into full-on investigative mode.

"He wanted us to find him," the security guard answered matter-of-factly. "He may have been arrested on charges of vandalism, but there's got to be more to it than that. You just wait." He pulled a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket and lit one, making his boss frown.

"Since when did you start smoking again?"

"Since rooms started getting drenched in blood on my watch. I still had 'em in my locker; forgive me for wanting to keep my cool. You still so sure no kids bought it here back in the Fifties?" Ever fidgety, Clyde removed his glasses and used the corner of his jersey to wipe the lenses.

Faz grimaced wearily. "I think I liked it better when you were a golly-gee-whiz kind of kid, but they do grow up fast, as they say. I owe you the truth, and I should have been upfront years ago when you asked me directly." Clyde held in a mouthful of smoke when his boss paused dramatically. "Nobody died in the Fifties, but this building was the scene of a tragedy twenty years before that. You won't find anyone willing to talk about it anymore. Hell, I didn't want anyone associating _that_ with my business decades later."

You already know this place had been a ballroom back when people actually went out dancing. As the story goes, one night it hosted some kind of high-society event, a charity deal to benefit the local children's home. It was more for adults who wanted to feel like kids again, with all the trappings of a circus: the clown band, games and shows, and even a dancing bear, or at least a man in a costume pretending to be a dancing bear.

Somehow the costumed performer lured some of the children present - yes, five of them - to the coatroom and from there, the story probably matches the legends you heard in your day." Faz shook his head. "That was years before anyone thought of running background checks on some random fellow they just hired off the street."

The forgotten cigarette burned away between Clyde's clenched teeth. "Well, don't leave me hanging, did they catch the killer?"

Faz nodded. "Easily. He was so deranged he just took off the bear suit, then waited for someone to walk into the coatroom and find him."

"Just like someone else 'just waited' around for us to find him tonight?" the security officer asked.

"Maybe. I'm not going to get into the mindset of a lunatic. Anyway, he wasn't long for this world after that. As the story goes, once he was found, vengeance took over and he never had to worry about facing justice. Not that anybody _saw_ anything, of course. The ballroom was done for and sat vacant for years, while the rest of the country dealt with the Depression and war and people eventually turned their attention away from the tragedy." He sighed in frustration. "Of course now that some nutjob felt the need to stir things up again, the old legend will gain new life."

Clyde replaced his glasses. "That's ghastly, and more than a little sad. But like I said, just wait. This can't be the end of it."

* * *

Two days later, a copy of the local tabloid newspaper clutched under his arm, Clyde found his boss still at work in the backstage, setting up an industrial-size fan and several dehumidifiers in an attempt to dry the room and its waterlogged contents. Since their fallout during the police interviews, they had made strides in repairing their working relationship, but some level of trust had been irreparably shattered.

"Guess you saw this?" Clyde asked, dropping the newspaper onto the table. The publication, well-known for its sensational if poorly-researched and inaccurate content, had its readers convinced that management at the pizzeria was actively attempting to cover up a serious and recent crime. The cover story announced the death of the suspect, who had made the mistake of boasting about the supposed murders while in the company of his fellow inmates. Faz snatched up the paper, poring over the article.

"Of course, nobody _saw_ anything," Clyde related from his boss's telling of the legend, "and he died a John Doe. Never offered a clue to his identity. They probably got at least that part right." He winced at the sorry state of a spare Freddy Fazbear costume head, wondering if his boss had seized on the irony of choosing a bear mascot when the murderer of yesteryear had suited up as the same animal. "I don't think it was supposed to end this way. He waited in that kitchen hoping for you or me to try and be a hero and confront him, and your guess is as good as mine how _that_ would have gone down."

_He wasn't expecting to get caught, but once he did, he _chose _to die in that prison beatdown so he'd be free to return _here_,_ he had come to realize, now certain that he was dealing with something otherwordly. Clyde glared at the wall, now scrubbed clean of its taunting message.

_Let him go ahead and try, if that's what he wants. I'll be ready._


	7. My Not-So-Fun Day: The Bite of '87

_Author's Note: There is a video out now that theorizes FNAF was inspired by a real-life shooting at a pizza restaurant, and the murderer has the same first name as one of this fanfic's characters. For the record, I named the character in the very first chapter of the fanfic, which predates the video and absolutely no connection between the two was intended or should be inferred. _

_Trigger Warning for humiliation. And gore, lots of it._

_What are you doing reading this, anyway? Scott released the sequel just around midnight._

* * *

Chica rambled through the darkness of the vast kitchen, sending the pots hanging on racks overhead clanking against each other. Unseen by her, the pulled-apart shell of a surveillance camera dangled from a wire near the ceiling in the corner of the room, and though its red light still occasionally blinked on, the animatronic sometimes preferred retreating to this blind camera spot where she could not be watched as diligently by the guard in the office.

Closing her jointed fingers around the handle of the exterior door, she gave it an experimental push, but it was locked as always. She didn't understand why she was driven to perform the same ritual each night, because she ultimately knew that even if the door was flung wide open, she wouldn't have been able to take so much as a step beyond the pizzeria. That guard - Mike, he had called himself - had spoken of leaving the jail where he'd been imprisoned; she was trapped here forever with the others.

_Mike. _Even if she remained wary of the cameras herself, curiosity had lured her out repeatedly to watch the latest night watchman. Captive in his office, he had been defenseless to do much but wait until she'd lost interest, but she'd returned many times since, intrigued by this new arrival. She had hardly been surprised when he'd cowered in fear at his first sight of her unexpected apparition at his door, despite his earlier insistence to his boss that characters like her could not frighten him. Yet when he failed to run away in hysterics like the series of other guards who had tried, unsuccessfully, to take over Clyde's old position, the animatronic's intrigue had only intensified. When he had spoken to them it had been only the second time after hours she'd heard a human voice that wasn't distorted by terror.

Not only had Mike fallen silent after ending his story, it had been a while since he'd activated the surveillance camera to listen in on her, and yet if he was anything like the other guards he surely would want to monitor her as much as her companions. Moving swiftly towards the office, she was drawn like a moth to the light cast into the hallway from the tiny room ahead, her servomechanisms whirring almost inaudibly. The cameras she passed were inactive and by the time she reached the door frame, Mike had still made no effort to turn on the light in the hall to see if she was approaching.

Her hopes growing, Chica held onto dim memories of being allowed into the security office and even of the earliest days when Clyde hadn't bothered to hide away in the office at all and merely sat at a party table reading a paperback while she and the others meandered around him. That had changed over time, with their actions growing more unpredictable and making the human increasingly skittish. One fateful night after he had retreated to the security office and closed the cheap plywood door behind him, Bonnie had put an arm right through it, and soon after Nathan Faz reluctantly agreed to install the heavy-duty, spring-loaded doors that separated her and the others from the guard.

The chicken animatronic discovered Mike crouched on the floor, scowling at a power cable he clutched in his hand. The tablet monitor lay on the floor by his feet; she hated the thing for reasons she could not explain. Clyde had never used it until a few years ago when it had been added to the existing surveillance equipment; previously he had watched them with as little as a keyboard and some specialized software.

* * *

_Perfect. _The monitor might have survived the fall to the floor, but that hardly mattered because its power cable had snapped off in the charger port, and the battery held no charge whatsoever. Mike was essentially dead in the water, as the saying went, rendered sightless by his own carelessness, and just when things hadn't been going so badly for a change. Clyde had warned him to keep an eye on the pirate character to keep him from moving and now that he was completely incapable of doing that he could no doubt count on repeated visits at his door for the next four hours.

In a fit of fury Mike hurled the useless power cable across the room, where it struck the wall and landed at the orange feet of..._oh, no_. _Forget the pirate, this was how it was going to go down. _He'd been stupid enough to let an animatronic into the office and now he would pay the ultimate price, and to top things off he would earn the most humiliating obituary ever.

_Mike Schmidt died unexpectedly November 10th, killed by a baby chick animatronic character at a children's pizza palace. Employed at a number of local businesses, he most recently had served as an overnight security officer at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. There will be no viewing. In lieu of flowers, contributions can be made to the electric bill fund..._

Shaking away the nearly hallucinatory idea of his own death notice, Mike made a motion to reach for the monitor, stopping abruptly when Chica made an ominous hiss from her vocal mechanisms.

"Aw, fine, it's broken anyway," he said in desolation, wondering if there was anything around that he could use to fend off the character when she inevitably attacked. That fan on the desk looked sturdy enough to survive at least a few strikes against the metal endoskeleton that was supposedly hidden beneath the costume. "You wanna mess with it, go for it."

The sudden slam against the door behind him sent him retreating toward the chicken, who for the first time appeared to him to be just as frightened as he was.

"Uh, you're not so sure about the pirate either? Guess that makes two of us," he admitted, certain he had seen Chica visibly tremble. "So he's antisocial, I can relate. Trust me, the promise of almost no human interaction was a real selling point for me on taking this job. I wasn't exactly counting on _this,_ however, but, uh, maybe you're not half bad, Chicky. No, it's Chica, isn't it?"

Still not certain the chicken wasn't just waiting for him to drop his guard and strike at the best opportunity, Mike found himself occupying the next four hours uncomfortably cooped up with the animatronic, interspersed with nerve-wracking visits from Bonnie and the pirate at the remaining closed door. For all he knew, the bear had even come off stage to pound at the door as well, but after a while something inside Mike shut down and he didn't bother to even use the hallway light anymore, preferring not to see what was probably going to kill him.

He instead watched the power meter mounted on the wall, its digits gradually dropping as the hours passed, and grimly assumed the door would slide upward if and when he was unfortunate enough to lose the last dregs of electricity. Strangely, the knocks at his door were so strong they caused the meter to register the power loss more rapidly, and jiggling the device did nothing to reverse this. _Faulty wiring, maybe?_

Though he feared it was too late in the game to benefit him, he still made note of several tactics the animatronics used. Once in his office, the chicken was more or less docile, objecting vehemently only when he reached for the monitor or approached the door she had used to enter the office. Though Mike was hesitant to leave that entryway open, he eventually realized the other two animatronics exclusively approached the door to his left, which he could at least afford to leave closed since he couldn't as well use power via the monitor if he wanted to.

Mike's eyes rolled back in relief in unison with the clock's rollover to six a.m. and Chica shuffled away, presumably to her place on the show stage as she had done the morning before. Confusion and relief flooded through his agitated mind. _Thank you,_ he sighed, pulling himself together. Until now he'd taken Clyde's word for everything, but the former security guard had erroneously told him the animatronics would kill him at first sight and he had by some miracle been spared, at least for another night. Losing trust in the man who had been his lone ally, he bitterly questioned why Clyde had walked off the job, never to return, if he supposedly cared about helping his replacement survive. Imagining him relaxing on a beach somewhere celebrating his retirement or even starting a new, less dangerous job was hardly a peaceful thought.

* * *

"I'll replace it immediately, but this is coming out of your paycheck," Nathan Faz groused, pulling the stub of the power cord from the tablet monitor. His uttered something under his breath about negligence and destroying company property only to be met with a loud objection by Mike.

"The way you talk about me, _I'm_ company property, and yet you didn't even introduce me to your fourth animatronic, you know, the one who came pretty close to killing me last night. You got any _more_ of them hiding around, maybe one that hangs out in the restrooms or something?" he spat out. He didn't trust Faz enough to tell him that he had survived the long encounter with Chica, instead claiming he'd dropped the monitor at the end of his shift.

Faz raised a brow. "If Clyde didn't tell you about Foxy during your first training call, it must have been to avoid overwhelming you. Admit it, he wasn't a problem yesterday, was he? He usually takes Mondays off, as we like to joke, so long as you watch him. Freddy takes it easy even longer. I can assure you those are the only four animatronics we've ever had, but may I suggest you read this since you've obviously not done as I suggested before." The business owner pulled a copy of the employee handbook from the desk drawer and pressed it into Mike's hands.

"Know thine enemy," he said, turning to the page with the character biographies. "Foxy was retired as a character in the late Eighties but he still has a writeup in this old edition. That Pirate Cove area of his was a stage leading to a giant ball pit for the kids, but you wouldn't believe what it cost to insure the damned thing. Back in the days when nobody sued it was just fine, but times changed and when it got too expensive I was forced to shut it down." He shrugged nonchalantly. "I never scrap anything outright, though, and if things ever start looking up I'll probably sell it off to some other sucker and put in some skeeball lanes."

Peeling a fifty-dollar bill from his wallet, he entrusted it to Mike along with the destroyed power cord.

"Here, hustle over to Radio Shack when they open and pick up a new one. I want a receipt." His nose crinkled in displeasure. "But first, stop in at the convenience store across the road and buy yourself some laundry detergent and a damned deodorant stick. Use both if you plan on working again tonight, and I want a receipt for those, too."

* * *

_Late Summer 1984_

Witnessing what Clyde was now convinced had been a supernatural reenactment of the murders had brought about an abrupt change in the animatronics. By day they remained their artificially cheerful selves, gleefully celebrating with each birthday guest of honor as if they had been built just for that child's special day, but the change was more evident after the young guests had left.

"Bonnie? I uh, really need to take these out to the janitor," the security guard found himself pleading one night, his arms laden with rolls of paper towels he'd pulled from the shelves in the supply closet. The rabbit stood in the door frame, blocking any exit from the room with his trademark red electric guitar. "Hey, uh, great ax, man. You really rocked tonight. In fact, this would be a _perfect _ time to fit in a practice session with the band now that the kids are gone."

He could have sworn he heard a sharp hiss from the mechanical workings of the devices inside the head portion of the animatronic; the voice box was a complicated and occasionally glitch-prone element. Yet the character did eventually retreat, even if Clyde wasn't certain why he felt such relief when he was no longer cornered in the room.

"Believe you me, I've noticed it too," Nathan Faz admitted when Clyde finally confronted him about the shift in the characters' behavior. "They've never been so restless before, and I'm starting to fear that confining them to the stage the night of the, er, incident might have been a mistake on my part. They were all but overlooked for those many hours and they're not designed to be restricted for any length of time." Muttering something about damage to the characters' servomechanisms, he looked up from the playback monitor on his desk, where he'd been reviewing the surveillance footage from the night before and hardly liking what he'd seen.

"It was more than restlessness, Bonnie was damn proud of trapping me in there and he wanted to make sure we both knew it," Clyde insisted. "If one of them did that to a kid, you'd have a real situation on your hands." His boss threw up his hands in protest.

"That could simply not happen," he retorted. "You've seen it yourself, they get rough with the workers, all in the name of fun and we're all in on it, but their programming would never allow them to harm a young guest. You _have_ noticed they immediately retreat if a child appears frightened?

By the way, I have a proposal. Since at least until tonight you seemed more than at ease with the animatronics, even testing guest interactions with them before we ever opened, what would you say about a shift in your scheduled hours? After thinking this over for some time, I would rather spare the expense of having someone monitor these fellows at night than to have something happen to them. You could work a sort of swing shift, covering the late-night business hours and then sticking around to watch over the band after close."

Clyde perked up, for one moment appearing as the overly enthusiastic teenager he'd once been. "Really? If you'd asked me that just a few months back I wouldn't have wanted to do anything but stay on the day shift helping out the kids, but this would give me a better chance to investigate our resident ghost." He ignored his boss's eyeroll, deciding to press his luck. "With the change in duty, could I plead my case for a new work uniform, at least for after hours?"

"Sure, how about a tan jumpsuit, and we'll find you a proton pack-" Faz was cut off by Clyde's laugh when he recognized the reference to the hit movie of the summer.

"I already checked, those aren't in the business supply catalog." He tugged at the collar of his threadbare referee jersey. "But in all honesty, this hardly screams 'security officer.'" It might not hurt to dress the part even if he didn't feel like much more than a glorified game technician.

* * *

_Summer 1987_

"Aw, fercryinoutloud, don't leave your smokes on the arcade machines!" Clyde grumbled, plowing through a group of teenagers clustered around the pizzeria's newest game. Drawn in by the acrid smell of scorched plastic, he snatched up a smoldering cigarette stub from the top of a cocktail-table arcade cabinet and plunked down an ashtray in its place. "At least have a little respect, y'know? These plastic overlays aren't easy to replace."

"Okay, man, you don't have to bite my head off about it." A youth with a headful of short spikes rolled his eyes, scoffing at the officer who was easily ten years his senior.

As he stormed off, unable to filter out the insults of the crowd dismissing him as a killjoy, Clyde thought of all the changes the pizzeria had gone through over the last three years, few of them to his liking. After the "bloodbath of '84," as some had taken to calling it, the place had fallen on hard times and it might have closed altogether had something significant not happened at the end of that summer. Children's birthday parties had been cancelled, moved to the town's only other entertainment venues, which consisted of the remaining roller rink, a miniature golf course and the county park with its picnic pavilions. Right at the height of Faz's agitation over the fate of his business, a fortuitous stroke of luck had seen the shopping mall's arcade abruptly close its doors, leaving the teenage populace without a hangout until they'd discovered the same games could be found at the pizzeria.

Thus on any given night, Freddy Fazbear's became a completely different place once the few remaining children left. Nathan Faz was more than happy to extend his business's operating hours as long as revenue was flowing in, and while he regularly sent Clyde out to the parking lot to surreptitiously gather up scattered beer cans to avoid scrutiny by the local police, at least the teens sustained the business.

"Hey, Security," a voice from the crowd broke through Clyde's thoughts. "I heard this place is having trouble 'cause your boss had to pay off the families of those dead kids so they wouldn't talk. Bet that leaves you working for peanuts." "Spike" wasn't done challenging the authority figure.

Refusing to take the bait, the security guard shrugged. "Don't believe everything you hear. If my boss is paying anyone off, it's the local cops so they won't enforce the curfew."

"Heard _you_ were the one who found the dead kids," sneered another teen, liquor evident on his breath even from a distance, "and you haven't been right since." This one Clyde hadn't heard before.

"Maybe I'm not," he admitted with a shrug, "that would explain why I'm still here." He'd barely had time to gauge the local tough's reaction when another, more familiar voice called him, this time by name.

"I _said_, could Clyde come up to the show stage?" boomed the inimitable Freddy Fazbear himself. "He has a _very_ big day to celebrate." Usually motionless at this hour, the bear now stood with Bonnie and Chica at the edge of the stage, starting their usual routine for a celebration.

_The hell?_ The security officer rushed to the stage where the animatronics had retreated after the birthday-party crowd had left. Ironically, though they remained on free-roaming mode around the clock, they seemed to find the stage a safe refuge from the rowdy older crowd, and were left mostly ignored save for the occasional curious teenage guests who would try, unsuccessfully, to bait them into uttering curse words. Clyde turned to glance at the curtained-off Pirate Cove, seeing that Foxy had no interest in whatever reason Freddy had summoned him.

Yelping, in the next instant he found himself seized under the arms and hauled effortlessly upward by Bonnie, who had swiftly knelt at the edge of the stage. Set roughly on his feet, the worker was surrounded on all sides by the animatronics. He wriggled his shoulders uncomfortably, but the rabbit's vise-like grip wouldn't allow him any movement.

"We're here to celebrate today because Clyde's not only one of Freddy's special friends, but he works with us!" Freddy announced, adding his characteristic chuckle. The security officer cringed when laughter rang out from the audience, who had mostly abandoned their games to watch the spectacle on stage.

"Ooh, is it his birthday?" squealed Chica, drawing a fluffy hand to her face.

"No, it's something even better," Freddy said mysteriously, "Today's the anniversary of his hiring! Ten magical years of fantasy and fun." The bear leaned in close, allowing Clyde to see that he was wearing one of the replacement costume heads from the backstage, and brought up his microphone under the man's chin, forcing him to look into his backlit animatronic eyes. The stench of the matted and stained costume was enough to send the security officer pressing back against Bonnie's equally stale-smelling acrylic fur.

_"It's me," _Freddy growled quietly, watching Clyde's throat move as he gulped. The officer had vowed to be ready when the otherworldly murderer made his inevitable return, but he had _never_ expected him to use the animatronics against him.

"We've got some really swell surprises for our guest of honor today." Returning his attention to the crowd and his voice to its usual fun-loving, goofy tone, the character produced a paper crown from behind his back, the guard recognizing it as the type bestowed on the birthday children. "You see, we remember Clyde when he was practically a kid himself. He talked about wanting to be an air traffic controller someday, and we were worried he was going to leave us." Using none of the care he would have when giving the crown to a child, Freddy brought the paper headpiece down over Clyde's ball cap so hard it crumpled, provoking more vicious laughter from the crowd.

"Ow, you're going to give me whiplash," protested the security officer weakly, his fear outgrowing his embarrassment. Chica took the opportunity to present him with one of her plush cupcake toys, slamming it unexpectedly into his chest with enough force to send him reeling against Bonnie again.

Freddy moved in for the final ruthless taunt. "But something changed, and luckily for all of us, our Clyde's not going _anywhere at all."_ He leaned in close to the trembling security officer who was now clutching the cupcake, drawing him into the final depths of absolute dread and humiliation all at once.

* * *

All right, which one of you put them up to that?" snarled the night guard, finding his fellow late-shift employees standing near the stage once the animatronics had finally grown tired of giving him a hard time. His hands practically squeezing the stuffing out of the cupcake toy, Clyde abruptly dropped his accusation when he saw the pale faces of the janitor and snack bar attendant.

"Neither of us did! Are you okay, man? I-I've never seen the band act like total a-holes," protested Davy, wringing his hands in his apron. "They really had it in for you. What got into them?"

_Something did,_ Clyde answered silently, excusing himself. There would be time for apologies later. Striding into the darkened Pirate Cove, he drew the curtain back behind himself, peering around with the aid of a small flashlight he pulled from his belt. The thin beam pierced through the gloom, matched briefly when Foxy's eyes lit up from his stage, curious about the intrusion. _He_ was here somewhere in the pizzeria, Clyde was certain; he'd made that much known from his control over the animatronics.

"So my name is now mud around here. Whatever, I'll deal with it. Is that the best you can do?" he called out brashly, seconds before he was overpowered from behind, this time by arms that were clearly not those of an animatronic but just as infuriatingly strong. Wrestled into a chokehold, he struggled against his attacker.

"I could ask the same of you," the man spoke with an eerie calm, his frame silhouetted in the scarce amount of illumination from the dropped flashlight. He laughed darkly. "You're really not much of a fighter, are you? At least you finally decided to be a hero tonight and come find me. That backfired last time when you passed the job off to someone else, someone with real authority." He leaned his head downward, allowing Clyde the slightest glimpse of his gleaming white teeth, pulled into a menacing grin.

"How did that jail brawl work out for you, you demon?" the security guard gasped out in defiance, trying in vain to pry the arm away that held him to the other man and landing a few equally ineffective kicks to his shins.

"Demon, I like that." Paying little heed to his captive's struggles, he went on. "I came back, though, and I owe that in no small part to you. You see, it took fifty years of feeding off the youthful energy around here to return the first time, and since fear - and you seem to have a _lot_ of it - is a far better fuel, it only took three years this time around to make my big comeback."

"Why'd you come back?" Clyde demanded, shocked the spirit-turned-human was confiding in him though he suspected he was being toyed around with before being finished off. "Killing those kids wasn't enough for you?" He felt the arms gripping him shake from Demon's laughter.

"Which kids? Oh, right. The bear suit. Good times and all, but did you really think those were my only victims, that I had never done that before?" His voice dropped bitterly. "They were my last. I never counted on that accursed security guard having such a short fuse. I thought I'd kill him too when he came to find me, but I guess he had other plans. No matter, tonight it's going to go down exactly the way it should have." The lack of proper room to breathe finally caught up with Clyde, and when he stopped struggling, Demon allowed him to slip limply through his arms.

* * *

"Hey, glad you decided to stay with us. For a minute there, I thought you'd checked out early on me." Clyde came to, finding himself sprawled on the hard tiled floor, Demon crouched over him in a savage mockery of someone tending to an injured person. His eyes stung fiercely from having the life choked out of him, and Demon brought down his knee, leaning it heavily into his chest.

"By the way, how was your playdate with the band? I knew you always had a soft spot for them. Happy Anniversary, Clyde. I have one final really swell surprise for you, and you'll love this one."

_The band. _The security officer turned his head, seeing through strained eyes the ball pit where he'd performed the stunt show with Foxy years before. The place where so many kids had played happily, being allowed to break the rules and throw plastic balls around indoors and have more fun than perhaps any place but a theme park. And the fox pirate himself, who still watched motionlessly from his stage. And the flashlight he'd dropped, now only inches from his hand.

Clyde's fingers curled around the handle of the light, unobserved by his attacker. With waning strength he brought it crashing against the side of Demon's head, finding to his satisfaction that however he was capable of taking on a human form, he was also capable of feeling pain. He knew he'd pay for his actions, though, and found himself infuriatingly back in a tightening headlock.

The two men brawled, neither seeing the pirate rise to his full height and lift his hook skyward. Foxy emitted a piercing shriek and rushed the pair, his teeth bared and slicing across skin before finding purchase in the flesh of Demon's forehead. His ears still ringing, Clyde could hear the sickening crunch of cranial bones yielding to the metal teeth and the sloppy sound of something wet being squeezed and crushed. Warm liquid began to pour down onto his uniform shirt from above, drenching the light blue fabric. His bicep throbbed with pain and he realized he hadn't escaped the bite entirely, though at least he didn't get the worst of it.

Demon released his grip on Clyde, seizing the fox's jaw and wrenching it free from himself, then staggered backwards. Something fell with a splatter to the floor by their feet. Fixing Clyde and then the pirate with a horrible expression of betrayal, the killer rushed headlong toward the gap in the curtains. The guard hesitated only a moment, able to see Foxy's jaw hanging askew. The animatronic had really taken a hit for the team, also suffering a large rip across the plush fabric of his chest. Clyde couldn't shake the feeling that his old stage show partner had maybe not been focusing his attack on Demon specifically, but he'd just been unfortunate enough to be in position to suffer the brunt of the damage.

"Thanks anyway, Foxy," he said, rising to his feet and racing after the grievously injured Demon, who was plowing through the crowd of besotted teenagers. Screams echoed through the arcade floor at the sight of the monstrous Demon, chased after by the security officer who was completely slimed with blood, most of it not his own.

"Get out and _stay out!"_ Clyde yelled after the killer vanished in the unlit far end of the parking lot. He was not in any shape to run after him, whether he had crawled off to die or he had other plans. Turning around, he limped back to the arcade games, where the young crowd was watching, aghast. "Uh, everybody okay?" he asked.

Spike snatched up his cigarette from the arcade cabinet, letting out a low whistle. He might have had a few drinks in the parking lot before coming in for a round of gaming, but he was still pretty certain he had just been pushed past by a man with the front of his head missing, and now the officer stood before him, soaked in a mix of blood and gray cranial fluid and his eyes crazy and bloodshot.

"Hey guys, maybe we should listen to the security guy after all. He looks like he means business."


	8. Lost Causes and Lost Souls

_Author's Note: Not to reveal any spoilers for those still playing through FNAF2, but it largely retconned this fanfic, especially concerning the pizzeria's origins. That was inevitable and Scott's ability to craft a real story spanning the two games is impressive. I am going with the advice of a fellow author and reviewer (thanks, Antoine!) and sticking with my original vision for this story, meaning it will follow original FNAF canon. That also means you can safely read it to the end without coming across any FNAF2 spoilers. _

_Thank you also to reviewer JH24 who suggested a scene that showed why the animatronics eventually forced the night guards to retreat to the security office._

* * *

"Ouch, that was _harsh_. I'll wash the uniform already, but can't a guy be forgiven for breaking a sweat when he's trying to fend off a band of murderous robots?" Mike sprawled back against the security desk, fixing his boss with an annoyed glare. "Now, in the interest of my continued and successful employment here at Freddy Fazbear's, not to mention my very survival, I think I have the right to some answers."

"I'll do my best. Shoot," offered Faz, agreeably enough.

"Good. So far, everybody but the bear seems to have a favorite door, and some of them avoid certain rooms altogether, as if maybe they _couldn't _go in those if they wanted to. Like that supply closet, only the rabbit seems to care what's in there. What's up with that?" Mike looked around the desk, finally uncrumpling a ball of paper and flattening it out to write on, then reached for a ballpoint pen. "I should jot this down," he explained, writing the characters' names under some headings, "left" and "right" for the respective doors.

_He's taking notes? That's a first, and I definitely misjudged this guy. _"It's at times like these I sorely wish Clyde hadn't left us so abruptly," the manager fretted. "I won't deny it; I never did work this job a night in my life, but had I only had more advance warning he was planning on quitting, I'd have ordered him to type out some kind of training manual for his successor rather than just leaving those recordings. Perhaps I was mistaken, letting him do his own thing and never learning much about the way he went about it.

Where was I? Oh, yes. The way you describe them, their movement patterns sound like a holdover from their original daytime programming, 'showtime mode,' if you will. Many years back they could walk throughout the pizzeria during business hours, and since it made more sense to have them spread out through the crowd rather than all bunching up, they mostly stuck to their own quadrants of the place." Faz chuckled. "Chica's allotted territory was always near the concessions counter, which of course is just outside the kitchen. We wanted her to encourage the kids to eat up. Higher revenue and all."

"Got it," said Mike, scribbling some more. "That's why she winds up at that right-side door all the time; it's her territory." He jabbed a finger at the door that led to the east hallway, then smirked at his employer's astonishment. "Heh, see now? I'm not as dumb as you thought I looked."

"I never said you-" Faz's voice trailed off as he recalled insulting Mike's intelligence more than a few times during his brief stint at the restaurant. "I'm genuinely intrigued; are you drawing out some kind of battle map?" He craned his neck around to see what the security guard was writing.

"Battle, survival, what's the difference?" asked Mike irreverently. He squinted at the paper, noticing for the first time the header, "MY FUN DAY!" printed in bubble letters across the top.

"Those are coloring sheets we run off for the kids to draw on while they're getting antsy waiting for their pizza," Faz explained, pointing to some crayon art on the walls. "Dunno why Clyde had 'em back here; I guess he never heard of plain white paper being a cheaper alternative if he just needed to write something down. But anyway, Foxy never wandered far from his Pirate Cove after he was put out of service. He's a bit reclusive, as if he never really got over losing his role as a performer, so now he's decided he doesn't like being watched at all."

"Well, he was sure at my door in a flash once he darted off his stage, and more than just once," Mike informed him. "You sure you couldn't just, uh, decommission him if you're not going to use him again? That would make my job a lot easier."

Faz regarded him sharply, not appreciating suggestions on how to run his business. "I told you, I never scrap anything outright and these animatronics aren't exactly cheap. I may yet bring him back into service again, and I'm not about to let him completely rust out in the meantime."

"Just my luck. So, how about the bear? He hasn't moved yet, but it doesn't take a genius to guess that's going to change real soon if they keep getting more active each night. Where are Freddy's stomping grounds?"

Faz smirked. "Well, as the namesake mascot of this pizzeria and its star attraction, it made sense to keep him near the show stage, but funny thing, he's always made his own rules and wandered wherever he wanted. To this day I don't quite understand, but it's as if he...somehow overruled his own programming."

* * *

"Cheese curls and a large coffee. Will that be all?" the convenience store clerk asked, already taking Mike's cash. The sun was rising outside, bathing the sky in a sea of orange warmth.

"Yeah. Wait, how did _that_ get there?" the security guard exclaimed, spotting something on the back counter he'd failed to notice on his previous visit. A plush cupcake, identical to the one in his security office, was perched on the lottery ticket dispenser. The clerk turned briefly, breaking into a smile.

"Isn't that the cutest thing? Clyde brought it over one morning when he stopped in for his usual coffee. He's my little good-luck charm." Cynthia may have been a few years older than Mike, but her eyes were bright with far more energy and enthusiasm than he could muster after completing his night shift.

"What a romantic gesture." Glad there were no other customers, he fumbled through his pocket, extracting the folded paper he'd filled with his notes earlier. "Now that you mentioned him, it turns out I could really use some guidance and my boss isn't much help at all. Any idea how I can get a hold of the guy?" Mike's request was purposefully vague, though he felt guilty for misleading Cynthia. Still, a disgruntled former employee might be more than willing to share company secrets that could in turn help him out.

"Sorry, no can do. I thought I knew him at least on some level, but when I told you he quit, I meant he literally walked out on not only, well, _whatever_ exactly his job involved, but on everything. He never stopped in here again," she said in dismay. "It was uncharacteristic of him, to say the least." Hearing this and realizing Cynthia had been kept as much in the dark as he was, Mike suddenly lost any desire to mislead her in the least, especially considering the scant help he'd received at work the last two days.

"Here. I found this in the security office, and I didn't notice the writing on the back first, but you deserve to have it." He unfolded the paper and passed it to her, waiting uncomfortably while her eyes scanned the neat lines of small printing.

_Cindy,_

_I can tell you're confused and maybe a little annoyed with me for not telling you what's up with the pizzeria and why I'm quitting. Just please hold out a little longer. When I'm safely out of there, I swear I'll tell you everything. _

_All I can say is that the work is really something else, more than you'd ever believe, and sometimes looking forward to seeing you again is one of the few things that get me through it._

_\- C_

"It took me a while to figure out "Cindy" was your nickname and make the connection already," Mike admitted. "I don't know what made him crumple up the note when he felt that strongly about it. Maybe he decided he'd tell you in person instead?"

Cynthia let the paper fall to the countertop. "But he never _did_. Something's not adding up here and this note only makes it more weird. I was worried enough to go over there myself and ask that boss of yours about what happened, and Nathan was...evasive at best. He said he had just abandoned his post, then apparently he showed up the next day, claimed his final pay and skipped town.

_How,_ is what I want to know? Clyde tried to hide it, but I could tell he was living paycheck-to-paycheck. He left his car in the parking lot and that last check wouldn't have held him over for too long. It's not a crime for an adult to just pick up and leave, but still, it's been about two weeks." The clerk hesitated only momentarily before reaching out and putting her hand over Mike's, a gesture that caught him completely off guard. He, in turn, had left her touched by his genuine concern, a stark contrast to his employer who had shown only bitterness over Clyde's sudden departure.

Mike looked down at their overlaid hands, feeling just as confused as he had been his first night on the job but for entirely different reasons. He hardly knew Cynthia well, but he desperately needed an ally he could fully trust, not just a dubious voice in a recording.

"All I can say is that your Clyde wasn't kidding when he said the work is 'something else;' it's downright dangerous," he admitted. "Either way, I swear I'll trade total honesty for total honesty, and I'll tell you _everything_ he didn't if you can give me a rain check until tomorrow night. I've got to get some things straight first."

* * *

_Summer 1987_

"Dude, that looks really bad," Davy said, whistling for emphasis. Standing on the loading dock behind the kitchen, he trained a hose over the railing onto Clyde, creating an improvised shower. "You should see a doctor about that arm. I don't like hospitals myself, but they fixed me up." The teenager raised his own arm, revealing the faded silver scars from the surgical pins and plate that had been needed after the great Bone-break of '80.

"Nah, I'm washing it out, it should be okay," Clyde insisted, knowing that if he stalled long enough, it would likely be too late to have the wound stitched, exactly to his preference. Ignoring the sting, he rubbed another handful of industrial-strength dish detergent through his hair and then his clothing, the red runoff streaming through a grate in the asphalt. "It'll scar, but they say scars mean you have a story to tell, right?"

"Yeah, about that. Care to say exactly what happened in the Cove? I still can't believe it! Mr. Faz came out and closed the place early and then _nobody_ called the cops? That guy you beat up was running _fast_ for someone who lost so much blood. I never even got a good look at him; I don't think much of anybody did since he went by in such a blur."

_Nobody called the police because they weren't about to lose their late-night refuge,_ the security guard had already come to realize. The pizzeria had descended into near anarchy after dark, complete with a manager more than happy to look the other way when it came to fights breaking out and underage drinking so long as the teenagers kept feeding quarters into his game machines, and none of the young customers in their right minds wanted _that_ kind of haven shut down.

Clyde motioned for Davy to turn off the water and reached for the stack of cleaning rags they'd brought out for towels. Revealing the truth about the haunting to anyone else would expose that coworker to danger, and he was at least grateful that so far Demon had singled out him alone for his vengeful wrath. His mind worked quickly to mislead the snack bar attendant.

"I, uh, realized someone had goaded the band into roughing me up like that, and when I made my usual rounds I went to check behind the curtain in case any teenagers were making out back there again." He even managed a smirk. "But instead I found the school bully who'd picked on me all through high school, just waiting for me with a smart-ass grin on his face. He said he had some unfinished business and rushed me, then when Foxy saw two adults fighting I guess it just overwhelmed his programming and he, uh, bit the guy. It wasn't nearly as bad as it looked, just a lot of bleeding, and it taught him a lesson. He won't be back. I doubt he'll call the cops, either. He had it coming to him." Strangely, some elements of his story weren't that out of place.

"You're a piss-poor liar and I'm not quite buying that. Also, your eyes are really red, you know."

Clyde rolled his eyes at him. "I can see from here that yours are, too. No need to tell me what you were smoking out in your car again before work. Geez, was _anybody_ remotely sober tonight?"

"I was, at least until I saw what I had to clean up in the Cove," said Mr. Faz, slurring his words a little as he pushed his way through the doors with a bin full of stained paper towels. He pointed sharply at Davy. "Go punch out and scram already. Remember, you're working with the small fry tomorrow, so at least show up clean for your shift." When the teenager shuffled away, Faz turned to Clyde and demanded a full explanation, having only seen the sprinting figure in the arcade on his cameras and nothing from the darkened Cove. "Somebody came back again, didn't he?"

Though Clyde still did not completely trust his boss, he was his only ally and co-conspirator when it came to their supernatural enemy, and this time the security guard was completely honest in his account of the attack.

"I knew something was up the minute Freddy threatened me, but you know what? I never _did_ tell anyone about my old career plans, and how would the animatronics have known me back then? I worked here even before you built them." He stepped back, momentarily overwhelmed. "And this _is_ my exact date of hire, I think; how'd they know that?"

Faz shrugged. "So this...Demon, you call him? has it in for security guards because one killed him in vengeance? That would explain why he's never attacked me, I'm the lone proprietor of this business and if it went under following my demise, he'd lose the source of his energy with no kids around." The manager looked down at the damp towels in the bin. "By Jove, we're figuring this out. He _can't_ hurt kids, except for the ones he already has, or he would have done so by now." Walking out to the burning barrel with Clyde obediently following, he dumped the wadded paper inside.

"What's going to happen to Foxy?" the guard asked, abruptly remembering the damaged animatronic. "And what were you thinking, giving a kid's character _functionally _sharp teeth like that?" He knew he was pushing his luck being fresh, even if the man was slightly tipsy.

"Tell me about it, I insisted on cleaning up the Cove myself and saw just what he bit...off," Faz answered, well aware there was brain matter in the waste he was touching a lighter to. "I always had a strange feeling working in a building where multiple murders had taken place, and though I had no idea early on the place was haunted, I thought it wouldn't hurt to create one animatronic that could double as a personal guard, if you will. Of course the design firm would never in a million years risk the liability of building such a thing for me, but there was nobody to stop me from adding some after-market modifications, namely the teeth." He smiled, visibly proud of himself. "I might point out that unlike the others, Foxy never stoops down to hug children so they cannot come within reach of his jaw. And it's been foolproof, hasn't it? He's never once shown anything but affection to a child, but he recognized the imminent danger and repelled the one individual who meant harm. It worked perfectly!"

"Yeah, it worked _perfectly._ No collateral damage whatsoever." Clyde held his slashed arm in front of his boss, who gestured helplessly in response. _He's completely out of his mind._

"You might be relieved to know I'm forced to put him out of commission. His stunt show is so much more physically aggressive than the other animatronics' song-and-dance numbers and he was down to his last undamaged replacement head. That dangling jaw is not going to sit well with families, and maybe encouraging horseplay in the restaurant isn't such a hot idea after all. I might just shut the whole Cove down. That ball pit is a sanitation nightmare; we're always finding chewed gum and snotty tissues in it."

* * *

Apparently rethinking the pizzeria's business plan, Faz ultimately decided to make far more sweeping changes, confining Freddy's band to the show stage during the day as a safety measure. The characters who had once embraced children and joined in their play now entertained exclusively from the raised stage, separated from any hope of contact with their youngest fans. The workers were instructed to inform children curious about the changes that the band had reached "superstar" status, and to emphasize their new role Faz even hung sprays of glitzy silver stars around the animatronics and trained more spotlights on the stage.

Superstars or not, Foxy was immediately relegated to becoming a faded star. Reprogrammed not to leave the roped-off and darkened Pirate Cove during the daytime, at night he was still free to lurk around his little domain, which had already started to show signs of neglect with dust gathering on the abandoned play fixture. Gone entirely were the over-the-top stunt shows kids had loved just a few years before.

Late one night nearly a month after "the Bite," as the workers had come to call it, Clyde periodically peeked around the corner of the pinball table he was playing, occasionally catching a glimpse of Foxy's eyes flashing back from behind the curtain. The rest of the band crowded around the guard, perhaps curious how he was faring in his game. He turned an anxious glance their way, still getting used to their increased activity level after hours. It was unmistakable; being restricted to the show stage all day left them restless and starving for interaction at night. _And maybe for contact as well,_ he mused when Bonnie suddenly gripped his arm near the bandaged area. He jerked it back reflexively.

If Faz's claims that the animatronics could think on some level were true, then could the pirate actually be feeling remorse, or more cynically, regret for not completing the job? For that matter, he wasn't certain whether the fox was truly confined to his Cove or whether he could roam the entire place but preferred to stay where he felt most comfortable, and he was taking no chances.

"All's cool between us, Foxy," the night guard called out to the character, hoping to reassure him. "This healed up fine on its own and you sure nailed the real bad guy. A save's a save, y'know..." His voice trailed off as his injured arm twitched yet again, causing him to miss a critical flipper strike. Stepping back from his lost game, he wiped sweat from his brow with a handkerchief. He wasn't feeling well at all and the wound _wasn't_ fine; he'd been too proud to admit he'd suffered some kind of muscle damage, and no doubt some kind of infection as well, considering how tender the healed-over wound had grown lately. Fazbear Entertainment offered no health insurance provisions, but at the end of his shift he was going to have to petition his employer for some type of assistance.

"Sorry, guys, it's game over, but I, uh, just wanted to say again that all's fine between us, too. I know you weren't behind what happened that night. _He_ made you do it." Demon had to have lost his brief grip on life by now and was back to haunting the grounds; that was evident by the increasing hints of malice from the band, who weren't above shoving him around a little during their wandering hours. He was forced to keep a constant eye on them, all while trying not to give in to dread. As bad as the situation looked with the spirit having chosen the animatronics for the misdeeds he couldn't do himself, Clyde could at least take pleasure in denying Demon the fear he craved.

He looked back at the three sets of eyes that had all locked on him in response. _No, make that four,_ Clyde fretted as Foxy silently appeared behind the others.

"Hey!" Freddy Fazbear clamped a hand on his shoulder, forcing him to move his feet to avoid being aggressively dragged across the dining area. "Where are you taking me?" Shrugging loose, he dropped to the floor and scrambled under the nearest party table, the pain growing more acute from having to bear weight on his injured arm. The animatronics continued across the room, with Freddy trying the door handle of the backstage. _But why? That door's always locked,_ Clyde thought feverishly.

As if they suddenly remembered him, the characters were back in no time, crouching down around the table and thrusting their arms through the chair legs in a group effort to get at him. Caught up in a twisted game of tag, the security officer stumbled backwards, then scurried to the far end of the table, Foxy's hook flashing dangerously close to his face. It was only a matter of time before they'd figure out they could just pull the chairs out altogether...

"You guys don't have to do this," he pleaded, his heart hammering in his chest. "Fight him and don't give in." _So much for abandoning fear._ He woozily leaned back against the table leg as everything came to him at once. "I get it, I finally get it. He couldn't just take over animatronic machines. He's never been alone here, all this time he's been holding other souls back, too.

_You're_ the lost children!" Clyde wailed, unwittingly drawing his knees to his chest just as Laura had when she'd encountered the spirits herself while attending a birthday party. The murderer hadn't merely wanted vengeance on the security guard who had ended his killing spree; he was holding hostage the very spirits of his young victims of long ago, or at least four of them. Maybe five, if that spare endoskeleton was host to a lost soul as well.

As if in recognition of what he'd come to realize, the characters abruptly retreated, giving Clyde just enough time to flee to the security office and wait out the night behind the locked doors.

* * *

"They were trying to drag you to the backstage room?" Nathan Faz asked incredulously the next morning, rubbing his chin as they watched the silent surveillance footage of the band harassing his worker. "But all that's back there are the extra costume heads and a spare Freddy Fazbear suit. I don't get it, but I'm afraid I've got something else figured out. You were exposed to rusted, dirty metal. When's the last time you had a tetanus shot?"

"Aw, no," Clyde groaned as the pieces all fell into place. His optimism, bravado and stubbornness had set him up for a world of hurt. "Listen, I'm in a bad way here. I guess I'm gonna need a ton of antibiotics now, but if you spring for the bill, I swear I'll be right back here, night after night, and I'll give this job my all for as long as it takes."

Faz's frown stretched across his lined face. "Of course I'll cover your medical costs; I'd be a monster not to." He paused, hesitating to address a long-overdue concern. "But something about the way you're throwing yourself into your work doesn't sit right with me. Don't get me wrong, I greatly respect your absolute dedication, but if the truth must be told, I kind of thought you'd have left by this time. I haven't been able to give you much of a pay raise and I'm sure you've caught on by now that there's not much room for advancement. You don't seem to be getting much out of this anymore, but yet you stick with it." He wasn't even about to get into the situation with the grudge-bearing spirit that had it in for his employee.

Clyde twisted his uniform cap in his trembling hands, knowing every word his boss had spoken was true even if he had delivered the message much more gently than the band had. He longed to tell Faz about the spirits possessing the animatronic characters but something he couldn't explain made him hold back.

_Great, now my own boss thinks I'm a complete sucker._ "I've made peace with all that, but trust me, I have my own reasons for staying." _Five of them, to be exact._

"Suit yourself, but would it at least make things better if I switched you to the all-night shift? After what happened tonight, the band now warrants constant monitoring after dark and you don't seem particularly enamored with the late-night crowd anyway. Now c'mon, I'll drive you to the hospital myself. I'm not going to risk you blacking out on the way there."

Slumping into the bench seat of his boss's sedan, Clyde was relieved when his exhaustion made further conversation impossible. He hadn't seen his demotion - at least that's what he thought it was - coming, but it would turn out to be exactly what he had wanted.

* * *

Swinging the new power cord for the monitor over his head like a lariat, Mike dropped into his seat in the security office with minutes to spare. He mowed through his usual plate of stolen pizza with the expected ferocity of someone whose food supply at home had dwindled down to the barest staples, then booted up the tablet, relieved to see he had selected the correct cord for the device that would give him a view of the animatronics again.

Curious, he uncrumpled several other pieces of paper that lay strewn across the desk, disappointed when they turned out to be nothing more than earlier drafts of the note he'd delivered to Cynthia, none of them offering any new information.

Cynthia's parting words still lingered, _Take care tonight, Mike._ Sure, she'd been concerned about the welfare of her awkward suitor, but it still affected Mike to know that someone out there was rooting for _his _survival and fully believed he could do it.


	9. Kinda Winging It

_Summer 1987_

"So, how'd you manage while I was out?" Clyde asked on his first night back. "I was kinda wondering how this was going to work now that I can't exactly watch over the animatronics from the dining area." He stood with his boss in the security office, noting the addition of several more monitors to those already clustered on the desk, suggesting more cameras had been installed in the building as well.

"Through a lot of trial and error," Nathan Faz began cautiously before shaking his head. "Oh, who am I kidding, after seeing the footage of what they were up to on your last night here, I wasn't taking any chances staying overnight with them. I chained the doors from the outside, crossed my fingers they wouldn't go on another rampage and left. I guess Chica's not the only chicken around here, huh?" He laughed at his own expense while Clyde merely looked taken aback at the unexpected admission from someone who was fiercely protective of his animatronic characters and who loathed leaving anything to chance.

"Don't worry, that's hardly a long-term solution, and after reviewing the security tapes each morning, I noticed some interesting patterns in their behavior. For one, you might be flattered to know they missed you, or at least they sure caught on quickly that they were unguarded. You say you hid out that last night in this office? Well, if you watch the tapes, it's amazing how much time they spent back here. Once they realized you weren't around, they tried all the exterior doors, though I'm not sure whether they were still trying to find you or escape from the building."

"Huh. They rarely messed with the doors at night before," Clyde said, scratching his head.

"Why would they? They had you for company then. Still, if they're getting this clever they'll need a sharp eye on them at all times, so that's where you come in. Now the fire department would have a fit if they saw the doors chained when I had an employee inside, but I think I've come up with a solution to work around that..."

* * *

"I guess I'm just kinda winging it from here on," sighed Clyde once he was alone. Faz's plan was beyond risky but he was hard pressed to come up with a better solution himself. His manager's idea of a "work around" was to aim the new cameras at the doors, order him to watch the animatronics from the office and call him at his nearby home immediately if any of them "acted up." Exactly what would happen next was unclear at best, but Faz insisted there was an emergency remote control switch hard-wired into the master controls in the backstage room, and it could be used in a pinch to deactivate the entire band. Clyde had his doubts, but he had worked for his boss long enough to learn when it was better not to express them.

He'd had the doors shut for all of twenty minutes, hearing the animatronics scuttling around in the nearby hallways every so often, when he made his first unpleasant discovery. Nearly twenty cathode ray tube monitors packed onto a desk in a fishbowl of an office created an impressive thermal output, and with no ventilation he was forced to prop the doors ajar lest the screens overheat. He unbuttoned his uniform shirt, flapping it a few times to dispel some of the excess warmth. A bank of toggle switches on the desk controlled the monitors, and he flipped several of those that seemed slightly less important to the off position to further decrease the heat output. Already the sharp smell of overcooked electronics reached his nose.

"Uh oh," he remarked, watching onscreen as Bonnie and Freddy forcefully rattled the handle on the front entrance. They seemed downright irritated, and abruptly changed course, unmistakably heading his way. His hand briefly hovered over the telephone that would summon Faz, but he hesitated at the idea of calling so soon on his first night back on the job, which would only prove to his boss that he couldn't handle the responsibility of tending to the animatronics.

Clyde looked anxiously at the thin plywood doors to either side of his desk, the only thing separating him from the characters, and closed and locked both. His notoriously thrifty manager had reused the DJ booth from the building's era as a roller rink, and years before had the wooden structure disassembled and moved farther back in the building where it could be repurposed as a security office. _Please don't disturb the DJ_ was still stenciled on the outside of each door and various decals from record labels and skate companies were plastered to the interior surfaces.

The two animatronics gained Chica's attention along the way, and it wasn't long before both doorknobs were rattling fiercely.

"Occupied!" Clyde called out with false cheer while peering out the plexiglass windows to either side of his desk to take inventory of his visitors. "Looks like the gang's all here, minus one Foxy?" He tugged his ball cap lower over his brow, ready to put his experimental plan into motion. Languishing in a hospital bed hooked up to an I.V. drip had been excruciating, but it had left him with plenty of time to dream up some ideas that were just so crazy they might work, as the saying went. When he'd discovered the local library ran a book-lending service for patients, he'd taken full advantage of it, requesting every text they had on parapsychology and poring over them.

"So, uh, Mister Faz told me you guys missed me. Well, the feeling was mutual; there was nothing more I wanted to do than get back here, especially once I figured some things out. I really lucked out; that tetanus stuff turned out to be a mild, localized case," he asserted, flexing his bicep even while he winced. "No hard feelings and all...

Anyway, uh, I still don't know who exactly you all were before _he_ got to you, but, as long as we're all stuck here together, maybe you'd enjoy a story?" Clyde stammered, his face reddening as he pulled a tattered book from the backpack he had brought with him. "This was mine as a kid and my dad's before me, but the tales are so old that I bet you might have heard 'em back when..." His voice trailed off, unable to finish aloud. _When you were alive._

His face positively burning now, he forced himself to continue, convinced he had fooled himself and had no idea what he was doing. "Er, it's been years since I read these Uncle Wiggily Longears stories, but maybe you can appreciate them. See, they're about animals that walk and talk - kinda like you - and there are bears, chickens, bunnies..." His voice trailed off as he thumbed through the table of contents. "And foxes." He felt it best not to mention that the fox characters were inevitably villains, even if the pirate wasn't joining them for the story.

He hadn't made it through more than a few paragraphs, reading in a stilted, hesitant voice, before a sudden shower of plywood splinters covered the pages. Bonnie had thrust a paw straight through the flimsy door, and Clyde willed himself not to panic. The animatronic's arm withdrew, leaving behind a small tuft of lavender fur that caught on the shattered wood.

"Bonnie!" he reprimanded the rabbit character. "Be careful, you'll hurt yourself. I'm really sorry, but it's best for us all if I stay in here. I know you guys didn't mean me any harm, but _he's_ trying to control you, and at least right now he's got the upper hand. Uh, if you return to the show stage, I'll bet you could hear me even better over the loudspeaker." He resumed reading until he realized he was being watched by the lone holdout. Various servomechanisms whirring in rapid succession, Bonnie had dropped to his knees to peer through the broken space in the door, a piercing red eye locked on the security guard.

"Bedtime stories, _really?_" the animatronic spoke, his happy-go-lucky "showtime mode" tone replaced by a deep and malevolent garble his voice box mechanism scarcely seemed capable of uttering. "You're a real glutton for punishment, aren't you? You just can't stay away from this place."

"I could say the same for you, Demon," Clyde shot back, well aware of just who he was talking to as he heard a hiss of anger from beyond the door. "At any rate, I've made my choice, I'm in this for the long haul and," his voice dropped ominously, "you're my problem now."

"I see what you're trying to do here. You think you can make these spirits docile again by treating them like the kids they once were, by _reading_ to them and playing nice? What makes you think _that_ will work?"

A faint smile played across Clyde's face when he saw that at least Chica and Freddy had returned to the show stage as he'd suggested. "If there was no chance it would, you sure sound worried about it." He shook the shards of plywood off the book and was just about to resume reading when he was interrupted again.

"You look a bit _underdressed,_ there, Mister Security," Demon taunted him, changing his tactic.

Clyde shrugged, his eyes straying to the triangle of his undershirt left exposed when he'd undone his work shirt. "Sorry if this offends-" He was abruptly cut off as the malicious spirit made his true plans known.

"Shut up, wiseguy, I wasn't referring to your uniform. I _meant,_ your little pals in the band have told me they like you so much they consider you one of them. How touching, right? Problem being, you don't _look_ like one of them, and they've recently expressed concern that 'the endoskeleton' - that would be you - is breaking the rules by not wearing a costume even after hours. Hehe, or maybe I planted that idea in their minds myself; I forget the exact details." Bonnie's paw reached through the broken door again, casually twisting a splintered chunk of plywood back and forth until it dropped to the floor at Clyde's feet. "You should be _ashamed_ of yourself, scaring the kids like that," Demon hissed mockingly. The security guard grit his teeth, unsure what had been plotted in his absence.

"Since I only wanted to help, I reminded them there _are_ some spare suits in the backstage room," Demon continued, snapping off another piece of the ruined door with a crunch before chuckling darkly. "You should have seen how their faces lit up when I helped them choose the _perfect_ one for you. Of course, trying it on will be quite the ordeal once you're finally caught. Want to know how that will work?"

Clyde's resolve began to waver as his otherworldly adversary described in salacious and lurid detail exactly how the various animatronic devices installed in the spare costumes would mutilate a human body forced inside in place of - or even in addition to - a metal endoskeleton, leaving not the smallest technicality out.

"...And last but not least, those ugly bloodshot eyes of yours would be forced right out the front of the mask, left dangling by the optic nerves. It's so unfortunate that the devices in the costume aren't compatible with a human occupant for the suit, but that's the way it goes. We need to work with what we've got, and they're _dead set _on having you join their band." Bonnie's paw withdrew from the badly-shattered door while the guard suddenly froze. The characters _had _been trying to drag him to the backstage room; could there possibly be some truth behind Demon's threats?

"Don't you want to see their choice of costume _for yourself?" _No sooner had the words been spoken than Clyde found himself staring into the blank, vacant eyes of a bear not entirely unlike Freddy, but golden in color, more old-fashioned in appearance and seemingly crouched and hovering over his desk. Caught off guard and entirely unsure how to react, he was transfixed by this animatronic he had never seen before and baffled as to how it had made its way into his office when both doors were locked.

_"It's Me," _echoed a voice far back in his mind, bringing him to the realization that this must have been the "bear costume" his boss had mentioned being used in the long-ago murders, somehow surviving just as the soul of the man using it had.

"You're not _real," _Clyde snapped impetuously, lifting the book back in front of his face and droning on, refusing to lower it and prefering to deny the existence of what he'd just seen. He had read enough parapsychology texts during his hospital stay to learn that the mere denial of an apparation could, in a last-ditch case, render it momentarily powerless.

* * *

"Let me guess, I should burn this out back?" he asked Faz the following afternoon, toting the destroyed door he'd removed from its hinges under one arm.

"Of course. If we left that out on the curb it would only start more rumors, and that's the last thing we need," replied his manager. "Then get back in here; I've got to show you these doors I bought in a rush at the auction barn. They're spring-loaded babies, and they'll slam down in a flash. They're supposedly salvage from that warehouse across town that was razed; they came off the freight elevator or something." He frowned at his bedraggled employee. "You sure you got enough sleep before heading back here? You _do _know you're not on the clock, right?"

Clyde dismissed his concern, insisting on staying around with the handyman hired to install the doors. As grateful as he was that Faz at least shared his belief that their workplace was haunted by a restless spirit, he was reluctant to admit he had witnessed what his boss could easily mistake for a paranoid hallucination on his part, and so he hadn't told him about the apparition of the bear costume. He only hoped it had been a visual trick Demon had devised to terrorize him and that particular, accursed and yellowed suit didn't actually still languish somewhere in a forgotten corner of the restaurant. It hardly put his mind at ease that Faz was so protective of that backstage room, staunchly denying any of his employees access to it and yet installing a surveillance camera in it so it could be monitored remotely.

"I've got to say, Sonny, these are some weird doors to put up in an office. It seems overkill when ordinary steel doors would've worked just fine. Not that I mind the gig installing these, since work is work," the grizzled technician remarked, scowling at the complicated mess of wiring that would be necessary to make the doors operational. "Pardon me for asking, but what exactly is your boss trying to keep _out?"_

Clyde shrugged, playing the role of the clueless and uninformed employee. "I dunno, sir, but just between you and me, you know those old fashioned types. He's never trusted the banks so I'm guessing he's going to move the safe in here and stop the whole night deposit cash drop routine, and he doesn't want to take any chances with the security." He felt a twinge of guilt for lying to the technician, who by all means seemed like a clever man.

"You're not fooling me, kid, and I don't think you quite believe that yourself, but give me a hand with this and I think we can get both of these installed by nightfall. I'm not sure what's going on here, but if I read between the lines I get the impression you sure need these doors functional by the start of your shift." He grinned when the security guard nodded enthusiastically in full agreement.

* * *

To Mike's great aggravation, the third night's recorded training message was as cryptic as ever, with Clyde implying there had been others who had attempted and failed to hold the overnight security job before him. That in itself was nothing new, as both Faz and Cynthia had mentioned the high turnover for the position, but Clyde was the first to hint that perhaps something more sinister had taken place with his spontaneous - and wholly unnecessary - denial that nobody had met with foul play in the pizzeria. Mike could only guess what horrors the other fledgling guards might have witnessed during training, and he sincerely hoped they had merely quit in panic instead of meeting with a worse fate.

During the previous two calls, Mike's unseen mentor had come across like a genial high school guidance counselor doling out encouragement, but tonight he sounded far less reassured, especially as he mused uncertainly about how to survive getting "caught" by the animatronics, whatever that meant. Mike wasn't sure if his recent experience being trapped in the office with Chica counted as a capture on her part, but at the least it was not something he was about to risk repeating, since he doubted the others would be so lenient lest it ever happen again.

"You know," he shot back at the speaker under the desk even though he knew better than to expect an answer, "when _you_ don't even have much confidence in the advice you're giving out on how to survive, it's not very encouraging to me, either."

Despite the shaky message, Clyde managed to sign off with a cheerful "See you on the flip side!"

_No, I doubt I'll ever see you anywhere, because you _quit,_" _Mike thought to himself. _You quit on Cynthia, who had faith in you. And you quit on me, when I sure could've used your help floundering through this._

Working with far more precision than before and a healthful dose of caution, he quickly discovered that at least Clyde had been right on one count; things did indeed "get real" that night just as he'd warned. Chica and Bonnie were relentless in their approaches to his office, forcing him to track their rapid progress through the rooms of the pizzeria until they inevitably appeared at his windows, leering menacingly when he blinked the lights on ever so briefly.

The fear of the unknown occupied far more of his time, and he monitored the fox closely, dismayed to see him slowly emerging from the Pirate Cove just as he had done the previous night.

"I don't get it, Foxy," Mike complained, shaking his head as the character sprinted off. "Clyde told me you _didn't_ like being watched, so I watch you like a hawk and you bolt on me." Dismissing it as yet another inaccuracy on the former guard's part, he switched to a view of the West Hall, assuming Foxy would take the quickest route to his office from his nearby stage.

To his shock, the pirate was sprinting down the corridor, his jaw snapping open and shut at a rapid clip and his hook swinging, no doubt in preparation for an attack. The officer forced down the door just in time, watching it close in front of a pair of endoskeleton feet, entirely devoid of the usual furry costume, as they skidded to a halt just outside his office.

"Foiled again. Sorry, guy," Mike said as the animatronic pounded furiously on the door. "I don't know why you were dealt such a bad hand, but they all but forgot you, didn't they?" It struck him that none of the posters hanging up around the pizzeria, even those that appeared older and relegated to the off-stage areas, featured the pirate; it was as if no trace of him remained to suggest he'd ever existed. He felt a twinge of guilt for trying to encourage his boss to deactivate the fox character, and maybe he could sympathize with the feeling of being shut out after all. "You're in such poor shape, too, not that any of you are in prime condition. Eh, who am I to talk; I've no doubt seen better days myself." He gazed out, but the fox had already left, leaving him wondering how long he had been talking to an empty hallway - as well as a door left closed, which had cost him power.

"Man, did I call that one a mile away!" he hissed in irritation once he'd checked the monitor again. For the first time all week, the show stage was entirely empty, confirming his suspicions that Freddy Fazbear himself would grow tired of letting the others have all the fun and would finally decide to pay him a visit. "Oh, and I see what you two did there. You thought you'd send Foxy over here to distract me while Freddy sneaked off. You got me, but that trick will only work once." A deeply ominous, drawn out chuckle echoed in response somewhere far off in the building, lessening Mike's ability to make light of the situation.

"I can _hear_ you, but I can't see you - where'd you go?" he demanded, shuffling through the cameras on the monitor in an effort to track down the bear. The teasing laughter was doubtlessly growing louder as the bear went about his travels, but he was far more elusive than Chica or Bonnie, who had so far proven clever but at least somewhat predictable.

_"There_ you are," Mike said at last, sighing in relief when he seized on two pinpricks of light gleaming back at him from, of all places, the entrance to the girl's restroom. At least Freddy hadn't traveled too far during the harrowing game of hide-and-seek, but he couldn't help wondering why the bear's eyes now appeared hollow and glowing, and so hard to spot in the darkened views of the various cameras. If anything, the character's eyes resembled those of the unused endoskeleton he recalled seeing in the backstage room, and he had never particularly liked the looks of that forsaken animatronic, either.

It was a genuine triumph for the security guard when he was able to calmly close the door once Freddy had finally drawn too close for comfort. Hearing the bear's laughter echoing in the tiny hallway soon wore on him, however, when he questioned just how long Freddy intended to remain there. Could the character actually be aware he was forcing him to bleed off his remaining power by keeping the door closed?

"Heh, times flies when you're having fun, right?" Mike joked when he checked the clock and saw with much relief that he'd already made it to four in the morning and had been miserly enough with the power to likely withstand whatever Freddy had in mind. "As long as you're out there and I'm in here, all's well, right?"

_It's Me,_ growled a harsh voice in response, and as if to reinforce Faz's concern that Freddy had been able to override his own programming, the bear's face flashed inexplicably before Mike's vision, this time with smaller eyes resting in the center of the empty sockets of the costume mask. Mike only took in the sight for a moment before he found himself clamping his hands to either side of his head and shrinking in dismay from what he hoped was a mere hallucination. He knew those eyes with their blue irises and slight veins; they were the same ones that looked back at him every day from the mirror in his bathroom vanity as he combed his hair. Freddy was giving him an advance preview of what they would look like forced violently and torturously out the front of the mask, just as Clyde had warned.

Slumped helplessly in the chair and taking shallow breaths of air, it was then that Mike realized that just as he had built a strategy to fend off the characters, Freddy might have spent the first two nights watching _his_ actions through the cameras to learn how to deal with the latest troublesome night watch.


	10. The Lost Traveler

_Author's Note: Trigger warning for slight gore and brief mention of drug use._

* * *

The horrible face flashing in front of his own soon forced Mike to close his eyes in an effort to make it less real. For all his past regrets, he had lived a relatively sober life and had only let himself be talked into trying hard drugs once, and that had been nearly two decades ago. It hadn't gone well and he had left the experience positively detesting the feeling of not being in control of his own mind.

"This is _exactly_ why I quit that!" he growled, glaring forward once again to find the piercing gaze of Freddy Fazbear gone. His chest rising and falling as he collected himself, it struck him that he wasn't so much trying to choke down his fear; he was trying to suppress his building anger. Simple irritation had brewed into a slow-simmering fury, for just as he had finally found himself competently working a job for the first time in years, maybe even thriving at it and having his efforts recognized by someone else, he'd had the rug yanked out from under him and now he was seeing things that weren't there, things that had no _right_ to be there. Mike had known the conditions intensified as the nights went on and had done everything he could to plan accordingly, but he had never foreseen his sanity checking out on him midway through the week.

_Cool it, Schmidt,_ he scolded himself. The guard checked the monitor again, relieved to discover the hallway where Freddy had stood was now blessedly vacant. Opening the door, he pulled the chair up to the desk, leaning his elbows on the cluttered surface and clasping his face in his hands. Uttering a long string of muffled curses into his palms, he finally pushed back with a sigh of resolution, incensed that despite all his efforts to hide his fear, he was so terrified that he was seeing visions.

_Or was he?_ It wasn't as if the stuff he was actually witnessing on the job wasn't chilling enough, and the apparition of the bear animatronic was very _specific. _Mike had never quite decided if he believed in ghosts or not, but he couldn't shake the feeling that he had been _meant_ to see that image of his enemy and his mind hadn't concocted it entirely out of thin air. It was actually a far preferable thought over the chance that _he _had been capable of imagining something so disturbing.

_You can do this, man. One way or another, you've always been a fighter,_ he mentally coached himself, closing the door as Chica peered in. Freddy's laugh still echoed faintly, but much farther away. As a cloud seemingly lifted, Mike finally broke into a wry smile. Hallucinations or not, the odd skills he'd picked up over the course of his meandering career were serving him well in the security office. Maybe everything truly had happened for a reason, as the saying went.

* * *

_September 1999_

"Schmidt, what the devil are you doing?" demanded the manager of the used car lot, stomping across the asphalt toward his employee, who was kneeling by the driver's side of an economy-class sedan. A customer stood nearby, wringing her hands anxiously as she watched the salesman.

"Don't startle me like that, man!" Mike replied in near-panic, just as he jerked a handle, causing the door to the vehicle to pop open. He hurriedly stuffed a bent wire back into his pocket and turned to face his boss, adjusting his tie against the crisp collar of his button-down shirt. "Sorry, sir, she accidentally locked the keys inside after the test drive and-" He caught the hint of a frown forming across his boss's face. _Oh, yeah. The customer is always right._ "I mean, _I_ locked the keys in, can you believe it?" He clapped a hand to his forehead and another to the body of the car, laughing at his own supposed ineptitude, but the manager looked more thoughtful than amused.

Don Goode, owner of Goodewheels Premium Pre-Owned Cars, excused himself, allowing Mike room to surprisingly complete the sale and send away his first satisfied customer in three weeks, before summoning him to the tiny trailer that served as a personnel office.

"I think we both know why we're here," Don said, thumbing through his worker's meager sales record, glancing at each page fastened to his clipboard. "I've got to level with you, and this should come as no surprise. Your sales numbers have never been anything approaching impressive, but it's been so long - weeks - since you even closed a deal, at least until today. I tried to make it easier since you were having trouble, pushing what looked like the easy sales your way, but I think you can surely be reasonable and understand what I'm getting at here..."

Mike dipped his head. "Yeah, I saw this coming. To be honest, this pushy sales stuff doesn't come easy to me."

Don's brow furrowed at the unexpected admission from his employee. "And to be equally square with you, not everyone is cut out for this line of work, and many only find out once they've worked for a while as you have. You need to overcome the customer's objections to persuade him he really does need a particular car, and there's no room for pushovers and marshmallows in this business."

"So you're letting me go," Mike said, rising from his chair stiffly. If his boss wasn't going to be direct about it, he preferred to leave rather than suffer through a long lecture detailing all the ways he had failed at his first professional position. Instead, Don motioned for him to return to his seat, and he reluctantly obeyed.

"From the sales job, yes. I'm sorry, but I can't afford to keep you there when I have other more qualified applicants who can finagle better sales." The manager patted an impressive stack of resumes he perpetually kept on his desk. "However, I'm intrigued by your finesse at unlocking that car in mere seconds, of all things. I knew something was up when you slipped in here without a word and snagged a wire hanger off the coat rack, but when you had that door jimmied it suddenly struck me that we might be able to use you another way."

Lowering his voice conspiratorially, he continued. "Exactly what other antisocial skills do you possess, Mr. Schmidt? That hardly looked like the first-time attempt of an amateur." He chuckled when Mike braced his jaw and folded his arms across his chest, unwilling to divulge unneeded details on how he'd attained the type of talents nobody exactly bragged about on a resume. "Okay, fine, we won't go there. But so help me, don't think I didn't notice the Coke machine in the employee office coming up short lately. You pull that one once more and you can consider yourself out on the street." He watched as Mike almost choked up, previously unaware his petty larceny had been noticed.

"Now, I think you're well aware there's another side of this business the general public doesn't see. When someone is no longer able to land his payments, we try to be reasonable, but we are running a business here and eventually the time comes when we need to get the vehicle back in our possession. I've outsourced the work at a great cost up until now, but would this be something that would interest you in the least?" He tapped his fingers on the desk. "It's no doubt preferable over starting from scratch at another company, no?"

* * *

Before he'd quite realized what he'd gotten himself into, a twenty-something Mike Schmidt was suddenly a salesman only on paper, but in the shadows of the night he was dispatched to repossess vehicles for the car lot. It was unsteady and occasional work at best and he took on many odd jobs on the side to pay the bills, but he found a secret thrill in sliding through the darkness, gaining access to a car and disappearing with it before anyone even knew he had been there. As his boss had warned him; there were two types of guys who could handle the work; either the intimidating ones who pounded on the front door and demanded the keys or the wiry, sneaky ones who outright stole the car away and were out of sight in seconds. He was more than aware of which category he fell into.

While he thrived on the thrill of jetting off in a vehicle, sometimes cackling in the rear view mirror at the sight of an infuriated former owner pursuing him on foot, the work soon started to catch up with him. Arriving in the car lot one night with his very first seized vehicle, he was just relishing the natural high over his victory when he'd discovered the backseat still held children's car seats and a school backpack, and it had bothered him so much he'd even, at great risk, returned to the scene of the "crime" shortly before dawn to leave the items on the front porch of the family whose vehicle he'd nabbed.

However, the bottom eventually fell out, and one day Mike arrived at work to find the trailer door padlocked, the entire operation shut down abruptly over shady financing deals. Left without any professional references, the former salesman had spent the next several years in a long string of unrelated jobs, never quite finding something lasting.

* * *

"You have _got_ to stop peeking in here like you're afraid of what you're going to see!" Mike said in amusement as Nathan Faz's worry-lined face appeared around the edge of the door frame. Using the inner calm and strength he'd acquired in his former career as "Sneaky Schmidt" had helped him outwit the animatronics yet another night, but he wished his boss had slightly more confidence in his survival.

"You'd better believe it Freddy Fazbear was on the move last night, by the way. Once he gets going, he's everywhere, but he couldn't throw me off his trail." Mike gathered up his car keys before pausing. "Tell me about the previous guards. You said yourself you've had trouble filling this position; is that a nice way of saying you, er, 'lost' a few of them along the way?"

Faz's stare pierced into Mike. "I can assure you I know of nobody who met with a grisly end in this office. Now I've had a handful who literally tore out of here mid-shift without so much as locking the front door behind themselves and I can't tell you how I'd like to repay them for that, but it's been hard to find good help." He broke into a sincere smile. "At least until now."

* * *

"...And that's the whole story. I know it's a lot to process," Mike had said, once again finding his hands intertwined with Cynthia's. It was late the following night and they were seated at one of the tables off to one side of the convenience store, two mugs of coffee largely forgotten on the formica surface and growing cold. He found himself wondering why she bothered leaving the place open overnight when they'd been interrupted by only a handful of customers, and yet they'd been talking for nearly an hour. Or at least _he'd_ done most of the talking while she'd listened in awe, her eyes growing continually wider.

Cynthia shook her head. "I...I don't want to doubt you, Mike, and that's the craziest part of all this. How else to explain why Clyde was trying so hard to hide how rattled he seemed after his weekend shifts? You just said it yourself, those _characters, _you call them? They grow more aggressive as the week goes on. Exactly why is anyone's guess, though."

Mike blinked, stunned and overcome with gratitude that Cynthia hadn't immediately dismissed him as a caffeine-addled lunatic. After all, he'd been dismissed for far less before. Although he'd kept his promise to tell her all the darkest secrets of the pizzeria, he understood how completely insane the entire story would sound to a relative outsider, and had plowed through his tale without letting her get in many words edgewise. She'd not only listened but she _got it._

_However tough things got that final week, how could he have left someone like you behind? _Mike found himself wondering, seconds before he rashly spoke aloud.

"_I'd_ never leave you," he began, affirming once and for all his commitment to Cynthia. "No matter what happened in the past, I'm sticking this one out and I'll be here for you."

Soon after, he settled into the security office for his fourth night on the job, the light of hope alive in his heart. They had shared a heated, lingering kiss before she'd finally, reluctantly released him with an admonition to stay safe. He had a boss who had come close to actually admiring him, someone special in his life for the first time in years, and more confidence than ever. Mike Schmidt felt as though he was on top of the world.

* * *

_June 1995_

"I wish you'd reconsider this," Nathan Faz fretted, tugging on his sportcoat as he hastily prepared to leave his business. A mere half hour before, the entire region had been placed under a tornado warning and the wind was already picking up outside, rattling the plastic panels of the building's signage so badly it could be heard from deep within. "I admire your intentions, but you don't in the least _have_ to stay the night; we could chain the doors just this one time."

"I'll be fine, really," Clyde insisted, grinning good-naturedly. "I'd rather ride out the storm here than at my crackerbox of an apartment." Faz abruptly let the issue drop; his employee had a point. He had occasionally driven past the long-stay motel where his worker had rented a room in recent years, and the dilapidated little wooden cabins were hardly preferable protection against a tornado over the concrete-block walls of the pizzeria.

"Suit yourself, but the graveyards are chock-full of folks who thought they could 'ride out' storms." Faz's brow furrowed deeply. "As always, call if any trouble arises. Better yet, page me if the phone lines get knocked out."

* * *

His ball cap tilted over his face and hiding hair that was just beginning to thin out, Clyde ran the usual equipment check that had become part of his routine before the start of each shift. It was very early in the week, a sure sign that the animatronics wouldn't be as active as on later nights. He had come to the sobering conclusion, aided by his research on ghosts and hauntings, that they grew more agitated as the week went on because the childlike spirits within had met with their end on a weekend.

He was closing in on his eighth year working solely the night shift, and while he'd never expected to stay so long on the job, he hardly considered his work done and had no intentions of leaving. Though he was sometimes encouraged by the vaguest hints that the lost children were trying to wrest their wills from the force that controlled them, most of the time he feared he was barely holding his ground. There was no longer the slightest hope of leaving the security office after hours and the characters had grown fiercely aggressive in their attempts to break inside.

Startled when a tremendous crash resounded through the pizzeria, Clyde snapped to attention. The wind was howling outside in earnest now, and he hoped his car was safe, having stowed it in what had seemed like the most sheltered location, snug against the loading dock behind the building. He still had several minutes until the animatronics would enter their free-roaming mode, and he maneuvered hurriedly through the various camera views, trying to ensure the building hadn't been breached by whatever the wind had hurled against it.

He hadn't had much time to react, already arriving for work when his boss had informed him of the storm threat, but in a snap decision he had known he would have to stay. If the restaurant suffered enough structural damage to permit the animatronics to escape, there was no telling how quickly they could be destroyed, by the storm itself or those who might understandably panic at the sight of robots running amok outside of the only home they knew. He hated to even entertain the thought; it was something straight out of a science fiction movie but not an impossible scenario.

Using a trackball, he moved from icon to icon on the master computer monitor, finally switching back to the show stage camera to find the characters safely in place, even as the numbers on the clock rolled over to midnight. The new technology made it easier to keep only one or two monitors on at once, though even with the help of a large desktop fan, the accursed heat still built up and forced him to leave the doors open most of the time.

"It's okay, guys, there's a twister outside but you're in the safest place in town. Hey, if it wasn't for your free-roaming habit, we could've opened _this_ place up for a storm shelter. I sure hope everyone else made it to the high school basement, huh?" Freddy swivelled his head toward him in response, emitting his signature chuckle.

Moments later, a second deafening crash landed outside, plunging the building into darkness. With a loud whine, the electricity had gone out, rendering the bank of monitors useless. _Well, now at least I don't need to worry about them overheating... _A slight breeze ruffled his hair, and to his dismay Clyde reached out, waving his arms to find only gaping spaces leading to the hallways beyond the office. Both doors had ascended back into their frames.

"Wait, those things need power to stay _shut?_ Well, that's a tough break."The guard clapped a hand to his forehead as it dawned on him that he had never worked through a power outage before, nor had he considered the downside to relying on electricity with no backup plan.

It made little sense to remain in the one location within the pizzeria where the animatronics were all but certain to find him, so feeling his way along the walls, he crept noiselessly from the security office, making his way through the hallway. Dangling wires from the unfinished ceiling and sprays of metallic decorative stars brushed against his face, and he froze once, startled, as his foot sent a discarded paper cup rattling across the tiled floor. Faz liked to brag about saving money by only hiring a part-time janitor, and the off-stage areas certainly suffered for it.

"Hello? Uh, anyone here?" a voice suddenly called out from the gloom, causing Clyde to fumble for the flashlight clipped to his belt. Whoever else was in the building, he was forced to yell over the howling wind. "I'm sorry, the front door was left unlocked. I got stranded outside and made a run for it. The storm's coming in close."

_How could Faz have left the door unlocked, just _how_?_ "Ssh, and hold on! Whatever you do, _please _don't move. I'll be right there!" Groping his way to the end of the hallway, Clyde entered the expansive dining area, already spotting the glow of Foxy's backlit eyes from behind the fabric of the shuttered Pirate Cove. The hapless traveler had chosen the worst possible location at the worst possible time to seek shelter, with absolutely no idea of the danger he had placed himself in. While the animatronics seldom strayed from the stage this early in the night, the security guard had no doubt that could change immediately if they witnessed an "endoskeleton" bold enough to be wandering through the party area.

"I'm over here," the other man hissed more softly from somewhere among the clusters of arcade games. At least he had taken the officer's advice by not making any more noise than necessary. Still hesitant to use the light and arouse the attention of the animatronics, Clyde drew near and reached out a hand.

"C'mon," he urged him, whispering now. "Trust me, you _really_ don't want to be here tonight. I'll help you get back to the front door; you're better off taking your chances with the twister." The traveler seized his hand, gripping it with ice-cold fingers, and swung the security guard around, violently flinging him against the nearest arcade cabinet, pinned by two fists clutching handfuls of his shirt.

"You are _such_ a sucker!" Demon snarled in triumph. "It was so easy to set you up for this one, but then again, you always were far more trusting than you were bright." He abruptly released the security guard, who stood defenselessly in front of him, left with nowhere to run. "Don't bother bolting for it, the front door's not really unlocked," he informed him tauntingly, "but in his haste your boss did forget to lock the door to the backstage. I believe you're familiar with that room; it's where the spare costumes are stored." He reached out and forced Clyde's face toward the door. "Hear that?" he asked. "Maybe not over the wind, but they're rummaging around in there to bring out your suit."

"Thank you for sticking around as long as you did, but it wasn't very nice of you to hold out like that on the children. All they ever wanted to do was to have you join them." Clyde fumed silently, angrier at himself for being gullible enough to be lured into the evil spirit's clutches. Shuffling footsteps drew near as the animatronics returned and closed in around them, their eyes providing the only illumination, and Demon shook his head in false consternation. "Imagine that. A bad storm, no power, I'm back and...your luck ran out. You couldn't have said it better yourself, that's a tough break!"

His eyes narrowed. "Now children, help your enemy into the suit he deserves."

Clyde backed into the center of a ring of arcade games, squeezing between the tall cabinets and nearly tripping over a tangle of thick power cords, as the members of Freddy's band did just as they were ordered. Grateful the screaming winds mostly blocked the hideous screams of his adversary and the sounds of groaning metal, he hid away until dawn, stunned that the lost children had finally turned on their tormentor.

* * *

Working fast, the next morning saw the security guard standing over not the golden bear suit he'd been threatened with years before, but merely another costume that was an exact replica of Freddy himself. Dragging a moth-eaten starry curtain from the supply closet, he braced himself only momentarily before opening the hinged panel that ran the length of the costume, dry heaving when he witnessed the intense destruction the moving devices inside the suit had wrought on a human body, or at least an otherworldly one. His foe was unrecognizable.

"Serves you right," he growled, far more determined than fearful now. The band never moved as he seized the corpse and wrenched it from its tomb, letting it drop heavily onto the curtain and folding the fabric over the evidence of the animatronics' dirty work.

Outside, he was relieved to find that the storm had largely missed the building just as surely as he had been spared from an excruciating death. A metal trash bin rested against the side of the building and debris was scattered across the expanse of the parking lot, and far off in the distance he heard a chain saw as someone toiled to remove a fallen tree. He would learn later that day that the storm had bypassed the center of town, narrowly missing the pizzeria at its outskirts.

A light pole had fallen, blocking the only entrance to the lot, and anyone else nearby was too busy surveying the damage to notice the man dragging something concealed in cloth into the woods behind the building. Taking a shovel used for mulch for the outdoor planters, Clyde created a clandestine grave, spitting on it for effect when he'd replaced the final scoop of earth over the body.

"You could only push them so far, couldn't you?" he asked, the only eulogy that seemed necessary. Hardly believing he'd committed such a dark act himself,

Returning to the restaurant, he took great care while cleaning the delicate electronics inside the costume. The suit had not been equipped with an endoskeleton, but the inner workings of the costume had still destroyed the suit's former occupant just as Demon had warned. Lugging the bulky form of the bear into the backstage, he was just about to explore the room he'd always been denied access to when he heard the front door rattle and was forced to abandon his plans.

"You're safe, thank goodness!" Faz cried, rushing over. "I'm so sorry I was delayed getting here, there was a tree down across my street and then I couldn't even get in the parking lot."

"Yeah, no sweat, I'm safe," Clyde assured him, intending to bring up the power issues with the doors soon and the incident with Demon never. _I'm safe. They're safe. _He would regret his words the next night when the animatronics proved as agitated as ever, but it was apparent that in fighting back, they had finally exerted some control and maybe even weakened their enemy.

* * *

_Author's Note: Thank you to reviewer Xcite, who requested some Mike Schmidt backstory. There were no intentions to put down repossession agents; their work is respectable and it seemed like a career a thrill-seeker like Mike would enjoy. _

_Clyde's scene felt needed because in the game, he talks as though he has witnessed firsthand what would happen if someone were caught in a suit. _

_And...please don't judge Mike and Cynthia for starting a (rather sudden) relationship. They're still in the dark at this point.  
_


	11. Passing the Torch

_Author's Note: Apologies because this chapter is largely a series of recent flashbacks, but it's necessary to include the events that led up to Mike's hiring. Mike himself will have a larger role in future chapters._

* * *

_Early October 2014_

Controlling Bonnie, the insidious spirit glared through the office window at the security guard he despised more than ever. Nearly two decades had passed, and while the lost children's act of rebellion had failed to banish his presence from the pizzeria, they had greatly lessened his power, reducing him forevermore to a supernatural presence. Forced to adapt his tactics, he had amplified his hold over the characters themselves, causing them to increasingly lash out at night.

Ever resourceful, Demon had not forgotten how delightfully vulnerable the unexpected power outage had left his adversary, and over the years he had taught his childlike minions to use their residual energy to first flicker the lights, then eventually drain the available power, albeit at a slow rate. They'd reacted with true joy at finally being able to achieve something that wasn't part of their programmed animatronic routines. While Nathan Faz, unaware of the true cause behind the electrical disturbances, had diligently brought in a series of electricians, none could find anything wired incorrectly or any other plausible explanation for what was making his guard's job markedly more demanding and difficult.

With Clyde's blessing Faz had ultimately installed a small power meter in the office so he could at least monitor how much electricity was left on any given shift, and over his objections he also brought the restaurant's decor into the room so it matched the rest of the building rather than looking like an out-of-place DJ booth, complete with checkerboard tiles running along the walls. His worker had eventually adapted to the change, even adding a few touches of his own: a poster of the band in cheerful showtime mode, a few coloring sheets children had left behind and even the plush cupcake Chica had not-so-tenderly presented him with decades ago.

The guard Demon peered in on tonight was a far cry from the naive teenager he'd been when he'd excitedly arrived at the pizzeria clutching a work application; he was now a leaner, more weathered individual, but to the spirit's chagrin, just as diligent at the task. Wearing the usual long-sleeved uniform shirt that hid his faint scars from The Bite, he had slung his old shirt over the back of the chair, its sleeve shredded and the entire thing still bearing the stains that hadn't come out in the wash. It was a passive-aggressive act of defiance that only incensed his enemy more.

"Sometimes I can't believe you're still here," the spirit growled, in distorted words that would have been unclear to anyone who hadn't grown used to them over the years.

"I can say the same for you," Clyde returned, his eyes markedly tired behind the lenses of his glasses. "Y'know, they say the vast majority of haunting ghosts don't make the choice themselves to stay. Ever asked yourself what held you back from moving on? Was your desire to keep those kids forever that strong, or were you afraid because you knew where your actions in life were going to take you?" Hearing no answer aside from a snap as Bonnie's jaw closed, he lowered his voice in a tone approaching sympathy.

"Maybe it's _not_ too late. It'd be a tough order, but if-"

"I've regretted nothing, _ever," _Bonnie demanded, the headpiece of the costume twitching violently in agitation, before storming off.

Once alone, Clyde resumed staring down at his hand, poised over the new tablet computer that had reduced the antiquated monitors to a back-up system that ran on low power. Over recent months he had become aware of a growing tremor in both hands, and he knew it had nothing to do with the old injury from Foxy and the ensuing infection. Researching the symptoms and at first falling into denial, the problem was gradually growing too much to ignore.

A quietly religious person, on that fateful night in the office he recognized and accepted his situation for what it was, a sign that it was okay to leave his long-time work behind and that he was not meant to die at the hands of the animatronics. It would have been arrogant to assume he was the only one capable of freeing the children's spirits and banishing their captor, and if he couldn't be the chosen one to accomplish all that, he liked to think he had at least helped along the one who could succeed in the end. He only wished for guidance on choosing his successor, and then he would surely have some good years left, maybe even stay well enough to take on another job once he regained control of his health.

* * *

"What do you mean, you're leaving?" cried Faz, his face a mask of pure panic as he reacted to his long-time employee's abrupt announcement. Clyde had been so married to the job he'd worked since high school that it had never entered his mind that he might have been planning to depart anytime before retirement age. "I never saw this coming a mile away, and I don't know what we're going to do without you."

"I never saw it coming myself, to be honest," the security guard admitted meekly, his demeanor resembling that of a child caught doing something wrong. "I do have my reasons, though, and they're not something I'd like to get into right now." Perpetually loyal to his boss, how to explain to him the escalating situation that had eventually brought him to this moment, when he would so reluctantly announce his impending departure? "This isn't my two weeks' notice, though. I swear I'll stay around as long as it takes to properly train the next night guard," he offered.

* * *

"Before I head out, I almost forgot to offer you the chance for overtime," Nathan Faz offered, unexpectedly appearing at the door again after he'd already bid Mike farewell. "I tried diligently to find a relief guard so you could have some time off, but since you're downright flourishing at this and I'm certain you might appreciate the extra pay, it occurred to me that it was only fair to ask you first." He cleared his throat. "As you might've guessed, I never had a relief guard before. Never needed one. Clyde even rang in every New Year here; I guess he wasn't much of a partier."

In the midst of his usual equipment check, Mike broke into a wide smile. Paying off the court fine _and_ having some cash to get back on his feet, maybe even treat Cynthia to a better night out than watching television at home? His head was already nodding even as he remembered her account of how anxious the weekend nights had left his predecessor. It couldn't be so bad that he wouldn't eventually grow used to it, and even if he was left in no mood to go out the first weekend, he could always get caught up on bills and invite her out later. He already felt more than assured she would understand.

"Great! I've been told it's a madhouse here on weekends, but show up same time, same place and it's yours." Faz checked his watch and quickly excused himself, already talking longer than he'd intended. Mike listened until the jingling of his keys faded, followed moments later by the heavy lock being set on the front doors.

"Yesssss!" he cried in affirmation at the latest good news, pumping his fist in a celebratory gesture and causing the coloring sheets on the wall to gently flutter. _Wait...had there been writing on the backs - the _flip sides_ \- of those pages?_ Mike had never paid the cheery little masterpieces in multicolored wax much heed; they depicted the childish and larger-than-life fantasies of the young guests: opening oversized presents, playing with large bunches of fat balloons, and of course cavorting with the animatronics themselves.

_Those ones at least must be old; I thought he said the characters don't walk in the daytime anymore,_ Mike thought, noticing the papers were in various stages of yellowing deterioration. His curiosity rising at the prospect of more notes from his unseen mentor, he impatiently plucked the left-most drawing from its place on the wall, noticing that while the artwork itself may have been old, it had been rehung on the wall with a fresh strip of tape. His breath caught in his throat. He recognized the printing, neat and careful even on unlined paper.

_Hey kid,_

Mike winced despite himself. Why had even Clyde assumed his position would be filled by someone barely out of school? He read the series of notes, tearing each off the wall as he went along.

_If you found these, good work! It's me, the guy on the phone, coming to you this time in pencil and paper. I can't tell you half the things you need to know in my recordings because the boss would only edit them to fit "corporate policy." That's a nice way of saying he'd cut out all the real tips on how to stay alive._

_The boss was unhappy to hear I was quitting and let's just say I'm not leaving Freddy's on good terms. We really had it out tonight. I better not count on him to write me a letter of recommendation for my next job - haha! I offered to stay on and train you myself, but he refused. I have a strange feeling he's not even going to let me work my last shift tomorrow, so that's why I'm jotting all this down for you now just in case he orders me out. _

_So the tips. First, don't be stupid and unplug the fan. It drains power but without some air moving around, all these old monitors will overheat and die on you. That would be a very bad thing. They're your only backup, but then again you're probably too young to even know how to use a trackball and a computer that still runs DOS. Maybe you should learn. Second, if you haven't already, cover the camera lens on your tablet. I'll never know if the boss can watch you through that thing but I always stuck a wad of chewing gum over it and he never said a thing._

Mike smiled at the suggestions while rolling his eyes at the idea he was far too young to be comfortable with dated technology. "Already been there, done that."

_Now for the real warning: As you no doubt guessed, the animatronics all want you dead. It's not really their fault. I don't know why the boss would claim he programmed them to help an endoskeleton into a costume like he made me tell you; he dressed the characters himself and it's not like he would have needed their help. But for the record, I know there's a spare Freddy Fazbear costume in the back room out of camera range - only used once, haha. Whatever their motives, you'd better believe it they will try to shove you in there if you get caught._

This time Mike let his hands, still clutching the note, fall to his lap so abruptly the brittle paper tore. Who exactly was he to believe? He had started out with a healthful distrust of his new manager and an immediate trust in the outgoing guard, but in the days that had followed, his opinions on their reliability had entirely reversed. He pitched the paper aside and read on.

_And if you get caught, forget what I said on the phone about playing dead. Run like hell, kiddo! Nowadays the backstage is always locked during business hours and unlocked at night. If you could make it there, you could probably barricade the door long enough to unlock the fire exit at the far end of the room. And note I said "unlock" - the boss locks the doors from the inside at night. It's supposedly so the animatronics can't escape but I have my own ideas about that. They do try to bolt, but I don't think he wants any guards making a run for it either. Your only other route is the kitchen, but the exit doors there are locked too and you're not going to barricade a set of swinging doors for very long. _

_That was my plan if I ever got caught, anyway. Glad I never had to use it. _

To Mike's disappointment, the correspondence abruptly ended there, absent the expected signature or anything sensible like a contact number, and the final page on the wall was completely blank, as if Clyde had meant to finish writing later.

The guard cast his eyes toward the pages scattered on the floor around him, some showing portions of the text and others the artwork that had hidden it. Deeply confused, he mulled over the significance of what he'd just read. Could Clyde have been honest about a hidden costume in the recesses of the backstage room or was it some type of trap to sabotage the next guard in line for his position?

_How could it be a trap, though?_ he asked himself, realizing that his mentor would have had nothing to gain by lying about the suit, while perhaps his boss had something to hide. He slowly found his alliances changing, with his faith in Clyde at least partially restored. That last-ditch escape plan seemed logical if risky, just as the notes explained the sketchy and vague recordings, but one discrepancy stood out.

"The guy _wanted_ to work his last night," Mike mused aloud, assembling the pieces of the puzzle. The composed, orderly instructions hardly seemed like the work of someone who would quit his second-to-last night mere hours later and flee in panic, especially since he'd cautioned against using that strategy as anything but a final resort.

"And he said himself, he never got caught," he added, just as the ring of the recorded phone message crackled through his speaker. Distracted enough to have missed the start of his shift, Mike scrambled forward, crumpling the notes under the wheels of the chair.

* * *

_Mid-October 2014_

The on-the-job training was not going well, to say the least. Faz, still resenting Clyde's decision, had presented him with a series of potential candidates for the position, depositing them in the security office with so little time to spare before the animatronics' free-roaming mode began that there was not always a chance to escort them out once they proved unsuitable for the work. Which they inevitably had; most had the mistaken impression a night-shift security job involved little more than being paid to sneak in some nap time.

Others were more earnest but still misled, like the ambitious young man who had arrived early, but already overly tired from his physically demanding day job. Clyde had hurried him out with the most sincere apologies, but the security office was no place for an exhausted individual who was overextending himself. Another candidate had made every effort to learn how the various pieces of surveillance equipment worked, but he sorely lacked the lightning-fast reflexes that would ensure his survival, and after a one-night trial in which Clyde had been forced to override his every move, he was left with no choice but to let him go as well.

"Where are you finding these guys, and are you even interviewing them beforehand?" he finally demanded of his boss one day. "Some of them really gave it a try, but that guy you sent in last night was _drunk. _He ended up sleeping it off in the corner while I ran everything myself." He shook his head in consternation. "At least he won't remember anything, but if things go on like this, someone who doesn't land the job just might tell the outside world about our, er, animatronic situation." _Not to mention our paranormal activity,_ he silently added.

"Of course I'm interviewing them; it's not my fault if a candidate was deceptive," insisted Faz, irritated that Clyde had yet not given a single candidate the benefit of the doubt. "Also, you'd better believe it I don't want just anyone in on what happens after hours here. I have one more candidate to send your way before I grow desperate and run a classified ad. She's a hire from within, you might say, our current kitchen manager, and an altogether trustworthy and professional individual."

He shot his guard a frustrated glare. "I've got to warn you, if you're going to keep being this choosy about hiring someone to fill the position, I do reserve the right to override your decision and hire someone directly myself."

* * *

The officer agreed with his boss's assessment of the latest candidate immediately upon meeting Lynne, and his hopes only grew as she competently demonstrated a practice check of each room through the tablet monitor and casually mentioned how much she enjoyed the animatronic band during business hours. Clyde hadn't met most of the current day-shift crew, and he had never imagined the next security guard could have already been working at the restaurant.

"So, uh, what do you think made Mister Faz tap you for this job?" he asked, watching and even more impressed as she ran a diligent equipment test prior to midnight.

A smile crept across Lynne's face. "Actually, I heard him grousing about trying to find someone and I requested it myself. He seemed more than a little surprised, but I'd love the late shift, the quiet, the chance to be off my feet a while." She laughed softly. "I wasn't about to tell our boss just yet, but I have a future patron of this pizzeria on the way." Lynne frowned at Clyde's reaction; the guard had brought up a hand to his mouth in disbelief, his eyes on her flat belly.

"What?" she asked, her voice rising. "There's no reason I can't perform the work. So far it's been no different and you wouldn't have been able to tell-"

"No, it's not that at all, and you're by far the best candidate we've had," Clyde was quick to reassure her. "But I can't let you work here. Faz would deny it, but this little back wing of the building has so many mold problems...and radon." He gestured around at the supposed unseen dangers, shocking himself at how easy it had become to lie. "C'mon, I'll walk you to the door and if Mister Faz doesn't make accommodations to your old job, you let me know." The officer's apparent honesty touched Lynne and she thanked him for looking out for her, but she wondered why he had been willing to work in hazardous conditions for as long as he had.

* * *

"What possessed you to turn her down?" Faz snapped the next morning. "Before I left, you were showing her the ropes and everything seemed to be running smoothly. Exactly what changed your mind about her in the next ten minutes?"

Clyde shrugged; his hands were tied and he wasn't about to reveal Lynne's maternity status to their manager before she was ready to do so herself. This time he had no lie at the ready. "She, uh, changed her mind?"

Faz cut him off. "Or somebody who just can't give up control and pass the torch already changed it _for her._ I'm about at my wit's end here, and you need to make up your damn mind." He watched Clyde flinch at the unexpected hostility. "Either admit that there are others besides you capable of handling this job or don't quit after all. If you're still on your way out then I'll run the classified ad, but if you sabotage the efforts to train whoever responds to it, you're out of here."

Retreating to his office, his fingers angrily punched against the keyboard, describing the job duties as vaguely and innocuously as possible. Then, with his uncooperative employee in mind, he half-jokingly included a disclaimer warning that his company would not be held responsible for injury or dismemberment, and finally he called the advertisement in to the local newspaper. Summoning Clyde to the office, he acted to rein in his wayward employee.

"It would be best for both of us if you had a set date to end your employment here; considering you're no longer happy with your job situation I don't feel it would be so good to have you stay indefinitely. Plan on working through the last weekend of the month, through that Monday morning. By then I'll either have hired someone from the ad or I'll just bite the bullet and have the day-labor agency send someone over."

"To his doom, you mean," Clyde grumbled under his breath. With a severance date looming only two weeks away, he hoped more fervently than ever that the ad would get results.


	12. A Hopeless Drain (Night 4)

_Late October 2014_

"Whatever career you have in mind next, I only hope it's not radio broadcast," Nathan Faz said patronizingly through gritted teeth, leaning against the wall of the security office. "What is this, Take Six? One more time from the beginning, only this time we're not going to tell our next guard we're helping him 'survive' his first week. I think you can guess the legal implications that raises." Clyde nodded in reluctant compliance.

Faz motioned for him to attempt again to record the introductory message for future guards, but armed with only the roughest notes and resenting being monitored, Clyde stumbled over his words worse than ever, causing his boss to break into a scowl and impatiently thrust a sheet of paper in front of his face. _I'm glad I'm not paying you extra for this,_ he mouthed silently before the guard read the legal disclaimer verbatim, flawlessly if somewhat woodenly. Wrongly assuming his worker was too nervous to think of deviating from the message they'd rehearsed, Faz could take no more and departed, wearily pointing to his watch.

No sooner had he left than Clyde stopped reading the disclaimer, which wouldn't help the next security officer anyway, and veered off into revealing the true dangers of the job. Hoping his boss wouldn't be technically adept enough to retrieve the recording, he nonetheless toed a cautious line between revealing too much, which could result in the message's deletion and the guard being left entirely on his own, and saying too little, which would leave his successor with a false sense of safety. The phone system contained an option to set a unique greeting for each day of the week, and in a gesture of faith Clyde set the message to play back just after midnight the following Monday, hoping he'd be training a new employee in person by then anyway.

_On second thought, better safe than sorry,_ he thought, resetting the message to replay every Monday, just in case the next security guard didn't stay around any longer than the previous applicants had. Whoever eventually kept the job could delete the recordings once he no longer needed them.

* * *

_October 31, 2014_

The security office was silent, save for the buzz from the overhead lamp, the soft swish of the fan and the occasional turn of a page in the paperback Clyde was reading on Halloween.

"Wow, this is far out," he remarked, trying to make it through the assigned pages for his literature course before his shift began. He had long ago delayed, then put aside entirely, any plans to attend college after making the decision to keep what had been his high school job, but in more recent years he had taken some evening courses, feeling it was never too late to gain a broader perspective. Speaking to the band through the loudspeaker, he tried to share what he had just read, but to his frustration, he found the literature selections for the course terribly difficult to comprehend.

"This author - he was a yogi and a philosopher, and so help it, I've read this three times and it's still as clear as mud, but I think he was trying to say that machines can have a true life force." He broke into a reluctant smile. "Well, my mechanic insists that car of mine has a will of its own that's kept it on the road this long. Anyway, I thought you'd get a kick out of that, because it sorta sounds like it could apply to you guys, too, doesn't it?" Closing the book, Clyde knew he had waited long enough to tell the animatronics of his plans.

"This is hard to say, but...I'm going to have to leave you, and very soon. I didn't plan on this, but I need to take care of something else, something personal. I always thought I'd be able to stay here as long as Mr. Faz has, but I've gotten the message it's not to be." He regretted not being able to be more honest, but if Demon knew of his malady he would certainly use it against him. The entity had kept eerily silent lately, but he had to have suspected something when Clyde began training others for his longtime job.

"Two more nights, that's all I have," he continued, his voice wavering. "I'll come back to visit, though. Now listen, you need to be fair with the next security guard. I really think the right one is on his way, and I've been leaving him messages to help him out. I'll have you know I put in a good word for you, so treat him with respect and he should do the same."

Trying to maintain a positive attitude despite feeling like an agitated mess, he began taping another brief message for his successor. Whoever made it to his third night on the job to hear the recording would not have reached that milestone by accident; he would surely be the dedicated, calculating type who could not only survive the animatronics but continue where he'd been forced to leave off. Already feeling a little humbled at addressing "The One," Clyde bungled the message badly, trying to warn against the animatronics' increasing hostility but meandering into nervous and useless chatter. He sent the message to the phone system anyway, vowing to make up for it with a better pep talk the following night.

* * *

"Okay, buddy, you have one chance to redeem yourself," Mike called out, not entirely in jest, as the phone rang again. Clyde began by heartily congratulating him on reaching his fourth night, but his hollow tone was anything but convincing. Why did he sound so...defeated?

His unseen mentor followed up with a warning that he might be sending his last message, and Mike leaned forward in his chair, eager to hear what explanation Clyde might offer for quitting early after all. The insistent knocking that he recognized as Foxy's calling card could be heard in the background of the recording, leaving him impressed by the way the seasoned night watch didn't even bother to address the pirate. _If you were really recording these messages _while_ you were fending off the animatronics, you were more badass than I thought._

"Wait..." Mike cried aloud in protest, his voice catching in his throat as it dawned on him that the officer, his melancholy words interspersed with more frantic knocking from the fox, was openly admitting defeat. Biting his lip, he waited in anticipation for the sounds of a scuffle, indicating Clyde might have attempted to fight off the animatronics he had somehow let into the office, or even the sound of fading footfalls as he bolted from the room like he'd advised him to do, but instead the endangered guard timidly asked if Mike could "maybe, sometime" check the back stage room. _For what?_ Mike wondered, not entirely grasping what he wanted him to do.

A raspy moan, reminiscent of the sound Chica's strained voice box had made when Mike had accidentally let her into the office two nights before, was audible, followed by a stoic expression of dread from Clyde. Then a menacing roar that he had never heard from any of the animatronics cut off the audiotape entirely, followed by a short burst of static.

_"Noooo!"_ Mike wailed in denial, recognizing all at once what he had witnessed. The nearly-forgotten monitor felt unreasonably heavy in his hands and the screen had gone blurry, at least until he swatted hot tears from his eyes. _I'll make it through this night for you,_ he vowed.

He grimly knew that with the passage of nearly two weeks' time since Clyde had been heard from, logic dictated that his mission once his shift ended would be a recovery rather than a rescue. _No matter._ He was far too late to save anyone, but he could seek justice for the lost security officer, force his boss to acknowledge exactly what had happened, and make sure nobody else would ever meet the same dismal fate.

* * *

_Night of November 1, 2014_

"What are you doing? You said you were getting a drink; the concession counter's that way," Nathan Faz called out suspiciously, striding across the dining room to catch up with Clyde, who was gazing up at the band from the foot of the show stage. His soon-to-be-ex-employee had arrived early for his shift and had immediately made a flimsy excuse to wander out to the dining area.

"No kidding, I just wanted to see the band up close one more time." Appearing startled, Clyde collected his nerves. "Still no bites on the classified ad? Well then, this has been eating me alive all week, but it's got to be said. There's only one right thing to do this late in the game; you've got to restrict these guys to this stage if you care at all about your new night watch." His words were met with a blank stare, but he pressed on, twisting his ball cap in his hands. "That wasn't a joke. If you reprogrammed them to stay in place up here - Foxy, too - around the clock, they could still sing and perform, but then they'd never go after the guard. I know you're worried about their servomechanisms locking up, but that would only affect the servos in their legs, right? They haven't walked these floors during the daytime in years, anyway, so how much of a loss would that be?"

Faz regarded his worker with an icy glare. "That's the worst suggestion I've ever had the misfortune to hear. You're really proposing I should reduce the band to some type of sideshow attraction when they're the stars of this theater, the very reason children beg to be taken here?"

_"Are_ they, though?" the guard countered, his voice rising. "I love them as much as you do, but there's no denying business has been way down. Remember back in the 'Golden Era,' as you called it, when we held as many as six birthday parties at once in this room? You're lucky to book that many in a week now. These guys are all about celebrating, but they've sort of lost their sparkle over the years and they just don't impress kids the way they did a generation ago." He regretted the band had to hear his frank words.

Faz exhaled sharply in response; but Clyde had reached the point of no return. "You said yourself back at the dawn of the Eighties that you needed to change your business model and the roller rink was a tired throwback. Are you sure you're not overdue for another look at it? It's been thirty-four years, _this_ place is vintage now," he admitted, regarding the worn and dingy fixtures throughout the building and the dated arcade games. "Nostalgia doesn't appeal to most kids, just us older folks." Suddenly aware of the way he was anxiously mauling his hat, Clyde fidgeted around, trying to straighten it while avoiding eye contact with his boss, who was now seething in pure ire.

"Are you _honestly_ ordering me to alter this pizzeria's main draw, to cut out the band's dance routines and cripple my business, just because you're having some kind of mid-life crisis ten years too late and you've chosen not to be a part of this place anymore? Tell me this, if your idea was such a good one, why didn't you ask me to 'lock down the band' while you were charged with watching them? I will _not_ intentionally damage my characters that way."

"But you won't do anything to help the new guy, either, even if you had no problem asking me to feed him a bunch of lies on the recordings!" Clyde replaced his ball cap over his receding hair, his desperation worse than ever. "For the record, I never really believed that whole 'servos-locking-up' business, myself. It sounds like a convenient excuse for someone who no longer wants to take responsibility for his animatronics." He stalked off to the concession counter, his boss speaking to his back as he walked.

"You know full well I can't reveal everything that's really going on around here to a new employee before I even know how well I can trust him," Faz countered. "If he stays around long enough he'll start to figure things out on his own, anyway."

"Sure he will, if _they_ don't get to him first. It's fitting that the lights are faulty in here, because you just love keeping everyone in the dark! Almost everything I've ever found out about this place was by accident or pure dumb luck. I could kick myself for falling for some of the stuff you've come up with, but I guess when you work at a kiddie establishment for thirty-seven years, you drink plenty of the Kool-Aid." Clyde snapped a lid on his drink cup, which he had ironically filled with syrupy red punch, and raised it in a mock toast to his manager.

"That's enough. We're both just spinning our wheels and it's almost midnight," Faz said, positively fuming. "I am going to take the higher road here, admit we're getting nowhere and call it a night." Stepping forward, he placed his hands on his worker's shoulders, his eyes locked on his fiercely. "But let it be known, should you attempt to interfere with the characters' programming like I suspect you had intentions of doing when you darted out here, I will have you arrested for destruction of property and you'll be leaving your last shift in police custody." His hands tightened into fists, taking folds of Clyde's shirt with them, and the guard swallowed hard, trying not to betray his sudden fear.

"I'm done," Faz announced, releasing his worker, who stalked off to the security office. "Have a nice night," he called out after him, no longer attempting to hide his hostility. Clyde's rant had struck more than a few sore spots, and had they remained on better terms Faz might have leveled with him and admitted the business was perilously "circling the drain," with the situation looking so bleak that had Clyde stayed on just a little longer, he might have found himself out of work just the same.

* * *

Clyde told himself that what he was doing wasn't sabotage the way his boss would surely see it, but protecting his successor. At the very least, he felt assured his intentions were in the right place. Taking down some of the crayon drawings on the office wall, he scrawled intently on the reverse sides, pressing so hard the pencil lead wore down to a nub and with a secretive grin on his face the entire time now that he could finally and freely warn about the true dangers of the job. He paused only when he'd moved to the last sheet of paper available, trying to think how to make the paranormal forces that influenced the animatronics' behavior sound remotely believable.

Sighing, he taped all the sheets, finished or otherwise, back on the wall when his digital watch beeped on the hour, and prayed the new hire would find them early enough. His confrontation with his boss had roiled on so long he would be forced to record his next audiotape for the incoming security officer sometime during his shift rather than before as he'd initially planned, and that was a risky proposition because the early morning hours of a Sunday, which he'd long ago taken to calling a "seventh night," were excruciatingly hard to endure. The animatronics were positively ruthless, no doubt still carrying the spiritual memory of their historic murder sometime after the stroke of midnight, and he would finish the night with the scarcest amount of power remaining even if he monitored the cameras at a flawlessly minimal level.

* * *

"Okay, guys, I know my watch is cheap and it drifts a few minutes off, but it's time to call it a night," Clyde pleaded in bewilderment as Foxy struck relentlessly at his door even after the chime of the clock that indicated his shift was over. Not only had the quartet of animatronics converged on his office all at once, but in the last several moments they had broken from their usual preprogrammed routines, with Bonnie appearing at the window alongside Chica and Freddy as if to show off his new tactics. The guard froze as an inimitable but uncharacteristic laugh came from the bear, the first he'd heard from Demon in weeks.

"Give him a little _time _and _fall back_ for now_,_ he'll figure this one out," the entity urged the other animatronics, and the pirate obediently ceased knocking. Alone in silence, Clyde was stunned. He'd done okay, hadn't he? There was just enough power, he'd made it through the night, and it was six in the morning.

His eyes strayed to the phone. Recording a message for the new guard would require even more power, probably all he had, but he was slowly coming to terms with the likelihood that he wasn't going to be around for the end of their extended night anyway, whatever had caused them to prolong their attack.

"Do I need to spell it out for you?" growled Freddy impatiently from beyond the door, his mechanical fingers drumming on the window sill. The character's music box activated, the merry but tinny little tune strangely out of place. "Okay, I'll take it easy on you because you've had a rough few weeks here, and you've been so preoccupied with finding a new night watch. It seems that some fool picked a nasty fight with the boss last night, making him leave rashly without performing some very important _annual maintenance." _The bear broke into an open-mouthed grin, revealing not only his row of oversized peg-like teeth but the second, smaller set that belonged to the endoskeleton beneath the plush costume.

_"No!" _The rush of regret as Clyde realized his fatal mistake was immediate and crushing.

"That's right, it's still _five_ in the morning," Freddy taunted the guard, who was now staring dumbly at his watch. "Daylight Savings Time ended at two, but your boss never reset the band to stop roaming after six hours. Sorry to say, I guess that makes the next hour a free-for-all." The two animatronics beside him leered at the officer through the window, left in an unspecified programming mode that freed them entirely from any preset routines.

Clyde exhaled sharply, took up the phone receiver in his hand and with a hopeless shrug, opened the door to ensure he'd have enough power to record his entire message. He could withstand another ten minutes at best with both doors closed or he could take back some control. Wasting no time, he'd already congratulated the next night watch for staying on the job by the time Bonnie and Freddy sauntered in through the open doorway. Foxy, outraged at being shut out, resumed his assault on the other door, dropping the power pitifully lower with each strike.

"It's-It's been a bad night here..." he admitted incredulously as the rabbit animatronic reached forward with his red electric guitar clutched in both hands, "...for me." _...And a really good night for them,_ he thought grimly as Bonnie pinned him against the wall with the instrument. The guard wrenched one hand free, locking eyes defiantly with the character and confessing out loud he was unlikely to be of future help to the other guard.

He wanted to leave his successor with useful advice that would outlive him via the recording, but when Chica slipped in through the doorway, Clyde's voice caught in his throat. Unnoticed by the other two but doubtlessly following their orders, she carried in her arms the same yellowed, decrepit bear costume he had seen in his waking nightmares. Though what he had always hoped was a terror-induced vision was now unmistakably real, it was no creation of his manager's but something left over from an earlier era, a long-forgotten relic from the murder scene. _Something different entirely..._

"Uh, hey, do me a favor?" he begged, trying to persuade the next guard to find some way to gain access to the backstage and the costumes themselves. Willing himself to remain calm as Chica advanced with the suit, he dismissed the imminent danger he was facing, not sure if he was trying to reassure himself or his successor more. In a failed effort to distract the animatronics, Clyde removed the ball cap he had considered a good luck charm, tossing it to the desk where it landed over the plush cupcake. At least it wouldn't get..._ruined_ if the worst happened. In response, Freddy lunged forward, his music box playing again, and clutched his enormous paw so tightly around one shoulder he was lifted off his feet.

"Y'know," Clyde began, fighting for a breath. _Tell Faz this wasn't his fault,_ he wanted to say, _and don't let him take this out on the band. They can't help it. _Instead, he uttered an expression of pure dread as Chica held up the headpiece of the costume, the empty eye sockets full of darkness.

"Oh, no." With both escape paths blocked, there was no chance to make a run for it, and attempting to fight off the animatronics would prove just as futile. Recognizing this, he gave up on struggling just before the band closed in on him.

* * *

_1978, Fred's Fazstwheels Rollerena_

A crowd had gathered around the most challenging pinball table in the arcade at the roller rink, watching with anticipation the skate monitor who had developed somewhat of a local reputation for his skill at the game. Their hero was about to top not only his own high score on the machine, but as far as they knew, the highest anyone had ever scored in the entire region.

"Oh, no," Clyde suddenly exclaimed, stepping back from the table and crossing his arms across his chest. The alarmed spectators leaned over the table incredulously as the last ball in play rolled directly into the drain, ending his game and chances of breaking the record.

"Why didn't you _do_ anything about it?" a boy cried in disbelief, and the teenager smiled down at him apologetically.

"Sorry, kiddo, but that was a hopeless drain. I only saw it coming at the last minute and slamming the flippers wouldn't have helped for all the world. It came down dead-center and that was it. It's all right; you win a few and you lose a few."

* * *

_Author's Note: S___orry that Mike Schmidt got shortchanged in this chapter, but he will be the action hero of the entire rest of the fanfic. _A heartfelt thank you goes out to two fellow FNaF fans whose ideas and headcanons were used with permission in this chapter. Thanks to fellow author Antoine, who first made the "Kool-Aid" reference in a comment; that concept was too perfect not to use. The theory that Phone Guy sacrificed his remaining power to record a final message for Mike was the brainchild of Tumblr FNaF theorist Spacewaluigi.  
_


	13. You're Not Supposed to be Here

_Author's Note: I'm sorry the last chapter was a real downer and the reviews from those who had grown attached to Phone Guy were really touching. That means a lot, and thanks. _

_*Spoiler warning for FNaF3* For all that's been retconned in this fanfic by the second and third games, it seems the killer really was haunting the place, at least at some point (he came back!) and the children's spirits needed to be freed, so Clyde was right all along. I have absolutely no explanation for how it's now..officially canon? that the killer died in a suit at the hands of the lost children, right next to a bunch of arcade cabinets during a storm. That's the weirdest coincidence! :)_

* * *

As the hours wore on, Mike cursed himself for even briefly fantasizing he could have saved anyone else when he was barely able to outwit the animatronics to preserve his own life. They'd really stepped up their tactics and his fourth night on the job had consisted of far too many close calls, though he could almost imagine his optimistic mentor reminding him that a close call was still a save.

Losing patience with Chica's bug-eyed stare as she kept watch at the window, Mike childishly seized up the plush cupcake and hurled it in her direction, the hard plastic eyes striking the glass with a sharp crack, but it failed to faze the chicken and only served to remind him he was surely losing his tenuous grip on his sanity. With perfect timing, Foxy rapped on the opposite door he'd already shut to keep out the accursed rabbit.

The officer leaned heavily over the desk, his face in his hands. "Just for the record, in real life, foxes _eat_ chickens and rabbits," he growled. Ever vigilant of Freddy's rapid progress through the pizzeria, he added, "and I'm sure bears go after foxes every now and then."

As strong as his survival reflex had remained, he couldn't shake the nagging feeling that all his efforts tonight would amount to nothing. His advisor on the phone had been an absolute expert at the job, and although Mike was determined to prove his mettle, he was admittedly still in his first week, a wet-behind-the-ears amateur in comparison. Why should he expect to have any better luck than Clyde, let alone however many security guards who had been hired after him? They'd inevitably failed, running screaming into the night according to Faz, and he questioned why he should expect a better outcome when he'd never been a stranger to failure himself.

_Maybe it's because I'm just too stubborn to quit, _Mike reasoned, finally able to open the doors again after Freddy had moved on. Watching the cameras with obsessive perfection, he looked anxiously for any sign that the characters would break out of their usual routines and converge on his office when they finally grew tired of the game, just as they had when they'd brought down his mentor. Clyde hadn't sounded shocked at their mutiny, nor had his advice about outrunning the animatronics served him very well.

_He did say in his note that he never had make a dash for it, though, so it was an untested strategy, not really his fault. I'd no doubt still try it myself if it came down to it, but why didn't _he? Mike mused, biting into a cold slice of pizza. He had started his shift so positively high on life that he'd forgotten all about the food he'd nicked from the cooler in the kitchen, but now he only ate out of desperate hunger. The same slices that had been so savory every previous night were tastelessly bland and he knew it wasn't because he was growing tired of pizza.

The officer peered at the corner of the hallway through the monitor, trying to spot the elusive Bonnie. Truly as "quick as a rabbit," as the saying went, the character was once again moving with shocking speed in his path towards his prey.

_"What the..." _Dumbfounded, Mike viewed the far end of the hallway where he expected to find Bonnie, not only failing to spot the animatronic but catching sight of something inexplicable. The usual poster of Freddy Fazbear, an endearing smile on his face and his microphone held out in an invitation for his young fans to sing along, was missing from its place on the wall, replaced by a horror that sent a chill down his spine.

The bear depicted on the poster still extended his microphone, but with his other paw he was tearing his costume head from his shoulders, leaving behind a hideous mess of exposed wires. One eye socket was black and empty, completing the nightmarish change in the character's appearance.

"I wish you _would_ rip your head off, it would sure save me a lot of trouble!" Mike yelled insolently. The usual poster with its exuberant "Let's Party" message must have been covering up the second one until it had fallen from the wall, he figured, but why would anyone have created such a grotesque image in the first place? Unless it had something to do with the spooky-fun theme Faz was so fond of, maybe something to scare off any child bold enough to sneak along the corridor in an area that was restricted to employees.

"That does it, after what you did to the last guy, I'll take care of this myself!" Adjusting his ball cap like he meant business, Mike checked the tablet monitor one last time before abandoning it on the desk and stepping out into the hallway, keeping a watchful eye out for Bonnie. A dusty, burnt-out security monitor sat forlornly in the corner, surrounded by the usual litter and signs of neglect. Papers hanging on the walls fluttered slightly in the breeze; they were some type of financial spreadsheets he had taken little interest in as he'd passed by each night on his way to his office.

Defiantly, the rookie security guard strode forward and, with authority he didn't really have, tore the offending poster right off the wall, then ripped it down the middle, crumpled up both pieces and cast them down the hallway, punting one with his foot all the way into the dining area for effect. Glancing around for the original poster so he could rehang it, he could only assume one of the animatronics had carried it off, at least until he turned back to face what should have been an empty space on the wall.

"The heck are you?" he sputtered indignantly, suddenly growing very fearful that yet another poster had materialized where there had clearly not been one moments before. The golden bear depicted on it was positively not a character, current or retired, from the employee handbook Mike had finally gotten around to reading. Its mask had the same haunting, empty eye sockets as the hallucinatory vision he'd seen of Freddy Fazbear himself, and Mike rapidly backpedaled into the office, only to encounter something more terrifying yet.

The yellowed bear costume looming over his desk shouldn't have been there by any means; clearly he was flipping out again just when he'd wrested back control of his sanity. He'd checked the doors before darting out to destroy the poster; nothing had been remotely close enough to have entered the office in the brief time he'd left. So, what _was _this and how had it made its way here?

"Where'd you come from, anyway?" the guard demanded, positively stabbing his index finger at the various camera displays on his monitor, then dropping it to glare at what he assumed was another false vision...who had disappeared entirely.

"Good riddance!" he shouted, fearing he was yet again going mad. _I didn't last this long just to bow out now. As insane as all of this is, I need that money and some stupid mind tricks are _not _going to bring me down._

* * *

He had fallen to his knees and was surrounded by complete darkness. Outstretching his hands in astonishment, he brought them up to his eyes, then his mouth, remembering the facial destruction that had resulted the one and only time he'd witnessed someone being shoved into an animatronic suit. Everything seemed strangely in place, and he rose to his feet cautiously. Something was terribly wrong, and only then did he realize he wasn't feeling anything when he'd moved, not even the usual hints of pain in his joints. He remembered the band really knocking him around, growing positively reckless, but then everything had gone black. Clyde had the urge to gasp, but his lungs didn't want to fill with air, and then he clamped a hand to his faded blue work shirt, over his heart. _Nothing._

"News flash, you didn't make it," came a sarcastically bored voice. The officer was startled at how he picked up the other's words even though they didn't seem to be passing through his ears like normal sound. He was finally standing face to face with the unsettled spirit who had haunted the pizzeria for decades.

"Demon?" he asked, realizing the other man must be speaking the truth. The entity shook his head in amusement, his unkempt hair swaying.

"Let's dispense with the titles, shall we? That 'demon' thing was cute enough when you were younger, but I go by Derrick, alright? That was my name way back when, and it'll serve me just as well now." He folded his arms across his chest, regarding the newcomer with an air of superiority. "I've got to admit, when the band finally got you, I really didn't think your soul would stick around this place, but I guess Heaven doesn't want you anytime soon. Besides, you never fulfilled your mission here even after all those decades; the kids are still mine, and at any rate, I'm stuck with you now." He grinned with an air of superiority, while Clyde was left gritting his teeth, remembering the brash way he had taunted the otherworldly presence years before when he'd first arrived back on the job after his injury, regrettably using almost the exact same words.

"What about _you?" _he spat back. "So you finally got me, or at least you got me by proxy because the animatronics did the dirty work. Was that _your _mission, to kill a lowly security guard you decided you didn't like?" He put his hands on his hips, taking on a defiant stance to match Derrick's. "Which is sorrier if you keep at it for years, trying to save some kids or take out a night watch?"

Derrick sneered at his captive, relishing his triumph. "Heh, you've got some fight in you after all. That's strange, because you wasted your entire life at this lousy restaurant, doing whatever Nathan Faz asked with a dopey grin on your face. I watched from a distance, for a long time assuming he was going to eventually take you on as a partner in the company, like the son he never had." He threw his head back, laughing bitterly. "Guess you didn't make the cut in the end, but that's all water under the bridge now. It wouldn't have made a difference, anyway." He strode forward and pulled Clyde close to his face, which was inhumanly distorted with wicked glee. "You were always so reserved and quiet, so annoyingly calm, so it was quite the treat to hear you screaming in the very end, when the band you loved so much took you down."

His face a mask of confusion, Clyde shrugged helplessly, willing himself to remain unaffected by this revelation. Maybe, he rationalized, losing utterly everything had left him unable to fear much by this point. "I don't remember any of that," he admitted blankly, and Derrick released him in a fit of anger, thrusting him away from himself in distaste.

"Well, rest assured that's the way it went down," he snapped, fading away. As he disappeared, Clyde could have sworn he heard a muttered phrase, "they used the _wrong suit."_

* * *

"He made us do it," said a childlike, thin voice from the ether. Left alone in the void after Derrick had left in a fury, Clyde glanced around in the darkness, finally making out the form of a young girl sitting nearby, her legs drawn up to her chest. Her dress and shoes were unmistakably old-fashioned, leaving him with no doubt who this latest encounter was.

"He made us," she repeated apologetically, turning her head toward him. "We didn't have a choice. _You're _not supposed to be here, not like this." Behind her, the children's artwork and character posters came into dim view, leaving Clyde to realize they were actually in one of the hallways just outside the security office where he had met his grim end.

Clyde let his arms drop to his sides; the events of the past hour had been nothing short of surreal. "I think I get it," he admitted, half-lying, as he didn't really understand much of what was unfolding before him at all. "What's your name, honey?"

The girl, perhaps twelve, bowed her head. "It's been so long, I can't remember. I don't think he wants us - any of us - to recall our names; this gives him more power over us so we can do what he wants." She sniffled, drawing a hand under her nose, not out of a true physical need but out of a lingering childhood habit to hide the signs of her emotions, then broke into a reluctant grin. "I liked when you sassed him back, though."

Clyde laughed despite himself. "What can I say, we're old adversaries." He was drawn to help the girl in her plight. "I know he's rotten to the core, but why not sass him back yourself? Pick a new name for yourself, a new identity to make up for what you lost. Throw it right back in his face, maybe weaken him a little if that's possible." His face lighting up with an idea, he turned to her again. "You could always pick a new name from one of those," he said, pointing to the drawings on the wall. "The kids sign them more often than not. See, you could be a Kate or a Maria or a Lori, whatever you want," he suggested, reading the names off some of the coloring sheets the youthful artists had proudly signed.

"I like those," the child said, flashing a faint, shy smile. Her eyes darted anxiously toward the end of the hallway, as if fearful the entity who held control over her spirit was about to return.

"He's angry, angrier than he's ever been," she informed Clyde before vanishing. "I'm dreadfully sorry for what he made us do tonight, but we didn't do the really bad thing he wanted."

Left alone again, the security officer sighed deeply, sinking back to the floor and staring up at a mobile of metallic stars dangling from the ceiling. He wasn't about to argue with the tormented soul of a child, but he couldn't help but disagree. _No, you and the others really must have done the "bad thing" if I'm now dead and stuck here in limbo,_ he thought, though he was unable to hold any true resentment against the lost children. They hadn't acted of their own free will.

* * *

_November 1, 2014_

Still shaken from his uncharacteristically brutal argument with the long-term worker who had become his right-hand man, Nathan Faz poured himself a strong nightcap and settled down for a sound night's sleep, swatting off his alarm clock when it blared only five hours later. On a typical morning, he would arrive early at the restaurant, greeted by the aroma from the coffeemaker that Clyde would set up after the animatronics ceased wandering at daybreak. More often than not, the guard would stay for breakfast at the concession counter, with both men reading the newspaper and joking about things that had happened at the pizzeria the day before. Faz hardly felt like sharing a cordial coffee break with Clyde on this morning, however, and sleepily decided it would be for the best to let him have his space. Clyde knew the drill; if his boss didn't show up within a half hour after his shift ended, he was free to retrieve the spare key from Faz's office and see himself out, but Faz had always been diligent about arriving punctually.

When he finally arrived at the pizzeria, he was a little disappointed to see his worker's hatchback still parked outside, for he would have been just as happy to avoid him until his final shift late that night.

"No coffee today?" he called out cautiously, unlocking the door and smelling the ever-present scent of stale pizza rather than the usual breakfast beverage. "Hmm, guess he walked over to the Gas'N'Grub," he muttered, looking back over his shoulder at the convenience store across the road. He'd never asked about it, nor had Clyde volunteered any information, but he'd already guessed why his employee always followed up breakfast with a visit over there, and it surely had nothing to do with the need for more coffee.

As he approached the security office, the incessant beeping of a phone left off the hook grew louder, and he discovered the cordless handset resting on the floor near the wall. The rest of the office was in order, though Clyde had left his uniform cap on the plush cupcake, perhaps in anticipation of leaving his job.

It was only when opening time drew near and none of his daytime work crew had arrived that he grew suspicious, walking out to the parking lot to see if anyone had plans to show up that day. Clyde's car was alone in the lot, and then Faz realized his error, racing at a fast clip back inside. How could he have been so distracted he hadn't remembered the time change and the absolute crucial task he had of resetting the animatronics' timers? Hadn't Clyde always said weekends were murder? He already knew he wasn't still at the convenience store if two hours had passed.

"Where _is_ he?" he demanded of the band, stopping short at the show stage and glaring up at the characters. "What have you done?" The animatronics, not yet in full showtime mode until the pizzeria's youngest guests would arrive, merely swiveled their heads in response, as if shaking them to deny they knew anything. Feeling more than a little heartsick with guilt, Faz set out to tear the place apart searching for his worker, finding not the slightest clue to his fate.

* * *

"You look like hell, Mike," Faz informed his worker, stunned at the overnight transformation from someone who had been growing increasingly confident to a weary and traumatized wreck.

"I've _been_ through hell," Mike said matter-of-factly before breaking into a flurry of demands. "Did you ever _listen_ to those training calls? Right in the middle of the one that played last night, the robots made their way in there and got him. I'm not kidding, he unintentionally recorded his own death. C'mon, play it back on the phone system, you need to hear it yourself so you'll believe me."

Faz frowned down at the complicated switchboard telephone. "I haven't heard them, and you're asking me to do something I can't begin to do. He set those messages to play each night using an administrator password, one I don't have. Now if you really think I should hear the message, it should replay next Thursday and I could stay in the office with you that night, or I could leave you a portable tape player to record the call."

"Next Thursday's not good enough!" Mike shouted, rising from his chair. "Don't you see, they shoved him in a suit. He asked me to check your backstage room, although it's got to be far too late by now." The security guard rushed toward the room he'd promised to examine, his employer yelling protests after him and struggling to catch up. Tugging on the doorknob and then impulsively seizing up the nearest chair from a party table, Mike was positively seething.

"I don't care whether you believe me or not, but you have fifteen seconds to unlock this door or it's getting opened my way," he snarled through gritted teeth.

Demanding the guard calm down, Faz boldly stepped in front of the door, putting himself in harm's way. The fury faded from Mike's eyes when he saw just how old his employer looked up close, and he lowered the chair to the floor.

"Thank you," Faz sighed shakily. "Please, just think rationally here; you're letting your passions get the better of you. Despite what you might have heard on the recording, remember, there's no reason to believe he came to harm or did anything but leave of his own free will.

Now listen, I am _not_ about to let you into the room that houses the most expensive and irreplaceable fixtures in this pizzeria after you were about to smash everything in sight, but are you trying to tell me you think he's dead in there? Maybe the exhaustion and stress are getting to you, but haven't you considered that after two weeks there would be, pardon my bluntness, some severe decomposition odor I would have noticed myself? Standing just on the other side of the door to a room that small, we would both be gagging violently if there was a corpse stashed in there."

The manager had a point about the forensic issues, but Mike knew he hadn't imagined the desperation and genuineness in Clyde's plea to look in the backstage.

"Go home, calm down and return for your shift tonight," Faz ordered him sternly, then softened his tone. "If you arrive a little early I'll let you in to search the backstage, if it will really put your mind at ease, but keep in mind that recording might not be authentic. He left this company under bad terms and employee sabotage can take on strange forms."

_And so can cover-ups by management,_ thought Mike, determined that while his boss was likely innocent, he wasn't being very forthcoming, either.


	14. One Clever Kid

_Author's Note: Just to clear up any confusion, this fanfiction was planned using the headcanon that while the spirits are trapped in the pizzeria, they can switch between the animatronics as well as exist outside the suits. (Remember, Derrick used the Freddy and Bonnie suits to torment Clyde/Phone Guy in earlier chapters.) _

* * *

"I just can't believe it." Cynthia drew in a deep, ragged breath of air, leaning back against the wall behind the checkout counter of her store and staring heavenward while Mike struggled to find a way to comfort her. Even through her visible grief she possessed a preternatural sense of calm for someone who had just been given the worst news she'd ever hear.

"I guess in the back of my mind, I hadn't ruled out the possibility he'd only dropped out of contact because he suddenly wasn't around anymore, not that _that_ was easier to reconcile than the chance that he coldly walked out on everything that had mattered to him before," she finally admitted, wiping her eyes. "Still, I had feared he'd met with foul play elsewhere and it _never_ crossed my mind until you brought me his note that he might not have left the pizzeria alive." Anger flashed in her eyes as she glared at the building across the road. It didn't seem remotely fair that Nathan Faz was setting up for another day of business as usual while his best and most loyal employee remained unaccounted for.

"I sure didn't help the situation," Mike admitted. "I royally screwed things up, becoming a hothead and threatening to tear the place apart to find him." Realizing he hadn't touched the coffee he held in his hand, he shook his head, now regretting his frenzied actions that had left a much older man fearful for his own safety. "Looking back, I don't blame Faz in the least for kicking me out. I trust him about as far as I could throw him, but I'm not so sure he's really the one at fault. Half of the time he seems as helpless as I feel."

_There's a difference between feeling helpless and _remaining_ helpless, _Cynthia thought, unable to tear her gaze from the cheerful neon lighting on the marquee at the pizzeria.

* * *

_Night of November 2, 2014_

Fidgeting nervously, Nathan Faz sat in his office, his eyes fixed on the locked door directly across from him, then the fancy brass clock on his desk. _11:50 p.m._ He still had time; he could make his way to the exit, bolt the door and forget he'd ever hatched his foolhardy plan to confront the spirit his missing employee had become obsessed with.

But he wouldn't, he vowed, even if the odds were overwhelming it was too late to make up for his mistakes. The pizzeria manager leaned back in his chair, the leather creaking, and just before midnight reached for the flask he kept stowed in the back of the desk, taking the smallest swig to steel his nerves. Nonetheless, he was badly startled when the clock chimed at twelve, having never done something so brave and reckless as to witness the animatronics' free-roaming night hours himself, let alone guard the characters as Clyde had. _It was time._

"I...I know you're active now," he began timidly but pointedly, addressing the ghost whose existence he had long since accepted, "and I still don't know what you might have done to my worker, but we need him back here. He only had one more night to go." To his ultimate disbelief, an intense chill washed over him, one that he knew he wasn't imagining even in his heightened state of fear.

"What makes you think he's in any shape to come back?" a surly, embittered voice hissed from somewhere beyond the door, leaving Faz fearful of what lay beyond on the other side of the thick steel, as well as rattled at finally hearing the entity and confirming once and for all its existence. "Didn't it ever strike you that we might not have wanted him to leave?" With that, the voice fell silent, leaving the manager to wait out the night hunched sleeplessly and miserably over his desk, occasionally hearing the doorknob rattle as an animatronic tried to enter his fortress.

_We. He said "we," as in he's _not_ alone here._ Sometime in the midst of his nightmarish vigil, Faz realized that what he had at least suspected all along was now undeniably correct. _He never was alone and those rumors the kids from the skating rink era believed in were true; those children's souls never did leave this place. _The manager clutched a hand to his heart, now aware that his late worker had known far more than he had let on, and that knowledge had cost him.

* * *

_November 3, 2014_

"Oh no," groaned Clyde, incredulously repeating what had been his last words the night before. "Oh no, oh no, oh no." Sitting despondently in the hallway, the children had huddled close to him, their eyes large and frightened as their captor, inhabiting Freddy Fazbear's suit, carried on his mischief in the nearby security office. Still unable to hire a replacement guard on such short notice, Faz had instead sequestered himself behind a locked door, which left Derrick free to roam through the empty security office unchecked. In a cruel mockery of Clyde's old job, he had seized on the idea of making a final, demonic-sounding garble of a recording, which the night watch already feared he would set in the phone system just to leave future guards certain of exactly what had happened to him and just who had won in the end.

"It's actually more like 'oh, yes,'" the entity sneered, advancing on the group and sounding quite satisfied with himself. "Your old job was quite a sorry situation, but now that you're here to stay, it's going to be _so_ much fun bending you to my will." Eerily phasing out of the costume, he paused for a moment, caught up in devious thoughts. "I'm curious whether you'll hold out longer than the children did."

"That will _never_ happen," Clyde insisted, anger flashing in his eyes. "Besides, what are you going to do to me if I refuse to become your minion - _kill_ me?" The spirit's vicious cackle met his ears.

"It's not what I'm going to do to _you_ if you don't play nice," he said slowly and deliberately, shifting his malevolent gaze to the small forms crouched next to the man. "You should be more concerned with what I'm going to do to _them."_ A tiny hand gripped Clyde's arm.

Already feeling broken, the security guard fixed him with a defeated look. "What do you want me to do?"

* * *

"Hello, hello?" Derrick taunted Clyde as the group lurked in the backstage room several nights later. "Welcome to your new job as an undead security officer and haunting spirit of Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. Tonight I'm going to show you how to phase in and out of _your_ suit."

_Oh, stow it,_ the guard wanted to tell him, but he was too anxious about where this was headed to put up much resistance. Faz had finally procured a rookie worker, a young man who looked barely old enough to have driven himself to the place, and while Clyde figured the children's spirits inside the animatronics were about to give him a run for his money once his shift started, he was dreading far worse whatever _his_ planned role in attacking the new guard might be.

"I bet you had no clue _this_ was ever here," Derrick said delightedly as Bonnie slid aside a table from the corner of the room, revealing a wooden trap door that was flush with the floorboards. "Your boss sure never noticed it, but it's a handy little storm cellar, and a good _hiding place._ I should know; I used it myself to stash the bear suit all those years ago, so well that nobody ever found it."Clyde watched in disbelief as Freddy reached into the shallow space, effortlessly lifting the yellowed and tattered bear costume from the darkness. He shuddered despite himself, taking in the sight of the angry-looking eye sockets and the bear's slumped, lifeless position. It was impossible to imagine someone had once designed this creation to entertain children.

"Meet Golden Freddy, and if you're guessing that your mangled corpse is in there, you're absolutely right," said Derrick, his merriment quickly giving way to irritation. "In the end, I changed course and thought Freddy's suit would be a better choice for you, but _they_ didn't exactly follow directions and used _my_ old costume." He fixed the animatronics with a seething glare, then abruptly seized Clyde and forced him backwards, plunging his very soul into the plush bear. "But hey, it all works out. Some workers get a gold watch when they retire, and you get an entire gold suit."

Now viewing his captor through the eyes of the headpiece, the security guard held out the paws of the costume in front of him, surprised to see that whatever shape his remains might be in, he was entirely capable of movement and in control of the suit itself. He paced through the small backstage room, trying to appease the entity and at least create the illusion he was willing to obey his every order.

"Good, you learn quickly. And now it's time to pay our new guard a visit. You look just scary enough that you might be able to rack up your first kill."

* * *

Disgusted by the way he had been forced to wear the costume Derrick had utilized to carry out his abhorrent crimes, Clyde noiselessly crept to the office, peering in the open doorway. Something about the earnest young man seated in his old chair behind the desk immediately reminded him of himself in earlier years. He was leaning forward with his back to the doors and listening raptly to the recording, no doubt trying to glean as much information as possible from the instructions that must have been nothing short of bewildering. A stack of college textbooks rested on the desk, suggesting he had been naive enough to believe he could sneak in some study time while on the clock but had no doubt been discouraged by Faz.

_Here goes nothing,_ Clyde braced himself, hoping his plan wouldn't horrifically backfire. Crouching into a pouncing position, he waited for a brief pause in the recording and let loose with a resounding growl, courtesy of the ancient voicebox that activated somewhere inside the costume. The rookie officer spun swiftly around, his ballcap flying off, and with expert finesse fled out the opposite door, just as the reluctant spirit had hoped he'd react.

_Good for you, kid. Now scram before Derrick forces me to do something I'll _really_ regret. I hope you can put this behind you. _Hearing the panic-stricken guard's sneakers beat a path along the tiled floor, he was even more relieved at the sound of the exterior door slamming shut, far away at the other end of the pizzeria. In a moment of mercy or perhaps to avoid any unnecessary death investigations, Faz had left at least one door unlocked for his officers-in-training.

"That was downright lousy," grumbled Derrick almost immediately, not yet suspecting Clyde had intentionally bungled his attack as an act of sabotage. "Who do you think you are anyway, Casper the Friendly Ghost? Don't go easy on them, because between the two of us and the children, we need to leave this place utterly unable to hire another security guard ever again. Only then will I _really_ have the control I need around here. Just go back down to the crawlspace so you can try again tomorrow." His eyes narrowed menacingly. "You _would_ do it for the kids, wouldn't you?"

* * *

At the sound of the phone, Mike rolled over in bed, shrugging out of the quilt he had wrapped tightly around himself like a warm, secure cocoon. He shivered, grabbing blindly for the handset and cursing his inability to turn up the heat much above a minimal comfort level without breaking the bank. The weak, mid-autumn sunlight filtering through the window nonetheless stung his eyes.

"You'd never guess where I am right now," Cynthia challenged him on the other end of the line, forced cheer in her voice. Wide awake now, Mike sat bolt upright, the springs in his worn mattress protesting.

"You _didn't," _he groaned, hearing the unmistakable sounds of the animatronic band performing in the background, mixed in with the melee of screaming children already out of school for the day. "Better you than me, though. I'd get thrown out and fired if I dared to show my face around there during the day. What are you plotting?"

"Look, I can either take action or quietly go nuts, and this one of those situations where it's easier to get forgiveness than permission. I for one do _not_ intend to wait until Nathan decides to show you that backstage room - and that's _if_ he doesn't go back on his word and refuse." Explaining the plan she had devised that morning, she sat inconspicuously at a table in the dining area, looking for all the world like an ordinary guardian of a young customer, and motioned encouragement to her niece, who was just leaving the prize counter clutching some plastic toys, a long strip of leftover arcade tickets trailing from the pocket of her jeans.

"I have a co-conspirator with me. She's my cousin Laura's daughter, Jenny, and don't worry, I didn't tell her anything she couldn't handle at her age. For all she knows, we're investigating what happened to 'my friend's' final paycheck, which Nathan wouldn't let him pick up." Cynthia looked down at the preteen's backpack slumped over on a nearby chair, no doubt filled with the Nancy Drew detective novels she adored. The child was a born sleuth and unnaturally clever, and her aunt knew she was the perfect one to disarmingly match wits with the shady owner of Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, but well within the bounds of safety. She would see to that herself.

As her aunt talked on the phone from a distance, Jenny dropped to her knees near the door to the backstage room, tearing open the package of jacks she had chosen from the trinkets available at the prize counter. Arranging the brightly-colored plastic pieces, she gave the little rubber ball included in the set a bounce, swooped a hand forward to catch the jacks, and expertly caught the ball before it could land. Flashing a subtle signal to Cynthia, she slipped a cell phone from her pocket and slid the thin device under the tiny gap between the base of the door and the tiled floor, hoping it would film whatever was visible in that strange room where she'd been told paychecks were held.

"This kid is something else," Cynthia mused, impressed at how slyly Jenny had executed the plan they had hatched together. "She's really going to take over the world someday."

"She takes after her aunt," Mike complimented her, biting his lip as the harrowing scene played out in his mind in real time. _Please don't get caught,_ he quietly pleaded.

* * *

"Why, what a great choice when everyone else is engrossed in video games, a game of jacks!" a jovial voice interrupted Jenny. A pair of polished dress shoes came to a halt just before her facade of a game, and she looked up into the face of the man who had supposedly stolen from his former employee, surprised to see he had the look of a kindly grandfather. "I chose those myself to stock at the prize counter, because I have the best memories of playing jacks outside on the sidewalk when I was a child myself." He frowned, noticing the girl had one hand underneath the door to the room where he kept his spare costume heads. "What's wrong, honey, did you lose a jack under the door?"

Feeling a sharp tug on the pink bejeweled phone that had been a birthday present, Jenny dropped to the floor, watching it disappear into the darkness on the other side. Resolved not to appear suspicious, she tried to shrug casually.

"I thought so, but they're all here after all," she said, casting an apologetic look toward her aunt. Putting the loss of her phone behind her and pretending to notice the manager's name tag for the first time, she reverently asked, "are you _the_ Mister Faz, the owner of this place? Because if so, I could interview you for a school assignment! We're supposed to ask a local business owner about his or her company. _Please_ could I ask you a few questions?" To her relief, the manager positively beamed, proudly agreeing to the interview.

Moments later, she was pulling a notebook from her backpack, unable to answer her aunt's silent questions just yet. "It's your turn," Jenny urged Cynthia in a hushed tone before bolting over to a party table where Faz sat patiently. "I know you said you wished you could check his old office, now go for it!"

* * *

"Mike, you _really_ wouldn't guess where I am right now," the convenience manager said in an awestruck tone. "I believed you from the start, but to see all this for myself; it's all real!" Her voice trailed off as she took in the security monitors, the tablet monitor, the controls for the doors and lights and even the power meter, exactly as Mike had described them. _He hadn't made up a thing; the place truly was as out of control as he'd made it out to be._

"Cindy, be careful," Mike pleaded. "There's probably nothing in there to find, anyway. So Jenny lost the phone under the door? I guess there's no getting _that_ back."

Assuring Mike that was the least of their worries, Cynthia paused briefly as she rustled through the desk drawers, trying to imagine what it would have been like fending off the animatronics armed only with one's wits and some low-level technology. Finding nothing of importance, she hastily slipped out through the hallway and back into the dining area, relieved to find Faz still regaling Jenny with stories of his company, his hands in rapid motion as he droned on about the history of the animatronic characters, and her niece scribbling furiously to take notes for what may or may not have been a legitimate school assignment.

* * *

"Did you find anything important?" Jenny demanded eagerly of her aunt once they'd retreated to the privacy of the car. "Was his paycheck in the office?"

"No, it wasn't," sighed Cynthia, "but I'm still glad you gave me the time to look for it, even if I never knew you had a 'Plan B' up your sleeve. You're one clever kid!"

Jenny huffed, falling back against the vinyl seat and looking genuinely worried. "Not clever enough to keep my phone from getting lost."

"Yeah, I'd been meaning to ask about that. Did you push it too far under the door? I'm sorry about that, and I'll personally get you a new one right now-" Cynthia nearly hit the brakes at her niece's final revelation.

"It wasn't that at all," she said, visibly shuddering. "When I peeked under the door to see why it was yanked out of my hand? Well, there was this furry..._paw_...that dragged it away." She crossed her arms over her chest. "I know what I saw. There's another animatronic locked up in that room."


	15. The Perfect End to a Perfect Day

_Author's Note: There is some very minor adult content (PG-13?) later in this chapter._

* * *

Wishing to distance himself as much as possible from Derrick, Clyde had retreated to the supply closet, where he sat deep in thought, his back against the steel shelving that held cleaning chemicals. Not far off down the hallway, he could catch the faint strains of his own voice over the phone, playing back for the benefit of whatever unlucky soul was trying to last through the night in his old office. He shook his head, questioning why he had ever believed his encouraging messages could offset the intense terror that greeted each new security guard.

"Mister Miller?" a voice asked hesitantly, and Clyde looked around, not used to being formally addressed by anything other than his first name. He was surprised to see the girl who had greeted him soon after his ill-fated final night on the job, accompanied by the older of the two boys. Derrick had evidently ordered the children to keep their distance from the newcomer, and from their cautious approach Clyde sensed they were taking a great risk visiting him in secret.

"Don't worry, _he's_ busy tormenting the latest guard," the girl said, as if reading his mind. Her quivering chin betrayed her deep concern for the new night watch. "He's making her see things the same way he used to try to frighten you, with visions of his old costume, but at least for now she's got the doors safely shut."

"I'd been meaning to ask about that, but he's kept us apart. This costume of his...he seems awfully sore I wound up in it. I take it he can't use it himself now that it's the only suit that's, well, occupied?" The two children exchanged guarded looks before the boy finally spoke.

"You didn't hear this from me, but he gets a lot of power from that suit. _All_ these suits, they have a certain power over whatever soul might be in them at the time." He bowed his head. "That's why we couldn't do too much of our own free will when we finally got into your office."

"That's also why you're having a harder time not getting aggressive against the new guards than when you first got here," the girl added, startling Clyde because he had secretly acknowledged this reality but had tried to hide it from the others. "The more time you spend in the costume, the worse it's going to get, and he knows that."

"I'll fight it with everything I have," the former officer said, the paws of the costume curling into fists. "Anyway, what if the suit got destroyed? Wouldn't that weaken him, or maybe even banish him, possibly setting you free?" The children showed visible alarm at his brash suggestion.

"I mean, c'mon, my body might have been stuffed in this suit but who cares, I'm dead anyway, right? What harm would it do?" To avoid adding to their agitation, he decided not to mention his earlier attempt that night to physically tear the costume open, but they had been right, and his act of mutiny had proven impossible, with his hands seemingly unwilling to grasp the suit to damage it.

"More than you'd think," the girl warned in a low voice before abruptly changing the subject. "By the way, I took your advice and chose a new name. I'm Beth, and he's Junior." Beside her, the boy grinned bashfully.

"Just Junior?" Clyde inquired. "You mean you named yourself after your dad?"

The boy shook his head. "Naw, I was an orphan, remember? I never got to know him, but _you_ were always good to us." He cleared his throat. "And I like your name." Before the stunned guard could respond, a distressed scream echoed down the corridor from the security office, suggesting Derrick had frightened the latest guard into fleeing in panic. "Sorry, we've got to go now before he catches us here, but see you around," Junior said before the duo vanished, leaving Clyde alone with his thoughts.

* * *

"Ugh, what died in here?" Mike groaned, wrinkling his nose in distaste at the musty odor pervading the backstage room. Nathan Faz had proved to be a man of his word, at least for once, allowing him free reign to search the space thoroughly. Standing among the costume heads he had formerly only viewed from the distance the camera afforded, the guard felt unnerved at the sight of the matted fur and aged vinyl that made up the faces locked in their terminal stares, all seemingly larger than life now that he was seeing them up close.

Despite his revulsion, he couldn't contain his curiosity, lifting a spare Chica mask and finding himself surprised at the weight of the thing. Peering inside, he noticed it was indeed laced with crossbeams designed to fit around an endoskeleton, assuming he understood the mechanics behind it properly. The steel posts supporting the hefty, cueball-size orbs that made up the chicken's animated eyes, along with similar supports for the complicated moving mouth parts, accounted for most of the machinery inside the headpiece. _The only parts of you that would likely see the light of day again would be your eyeballs and teeth when they pop out the front of the mask, _Clyde had warned, but how could he have _known?_

"I'll tell you who _didn't_ die in here, and that was the man who held your job before you," Faz reminded him sternly, his brow furrowing while Mike winced at his own poor choice of words. "I was just as worried as you when he failed to show up for work the next night, because even if he had a rough last week, he never was a quitter. I'll even admit I didn't lose much time before checking the animatronics themselves since Clyde had been convinced they would attempt to shove anyone they encountered after hours into a costume, but to my relief I found absolutely nothing. _Wherever_ he went that night, it wasn't into a suit."

Mike lowered the spare head with unsteady hands as he cautiously eyed the deactivated endoskeleton slumped on the table. He dropped to the floor and, to his boss's befuddlement, peered beneath the shelves, failing to find any sign of Jenny's lost cell phone, let alone the mysterious animatronic she claimed had been imprisoned in the room. The phone had not responded to any of Cynthia's repeated calls, leaving its ultimate fate even more mysterious.

"Claiming he returned for his final paycheck the next night, though? Admit it, you made that part up." Faz's eyes narrowed in suspicion at Mike's blunt accusation, and he regarded him curiously as the guard rose to his feet again, brushing off his knees.

"I confess that I did, but I thought that's what I told the woman at the Gas'N'Grub, not you. Getting a little friendly with her, are we? You sly devil, though need I remind you that if you value your employment with Fazbear Entertainment you'd better not be sharing trade secrets with her or anyone else outside the company. She and Clyde had some kind of fling going on, and so it hardly surprised me when she marched in here demanding answers after he'd been gone a while, and I was forced to mislead her a little." Faz sighed, exasperated at the growing pressure that seemed to be building hourly, as much from the company's financial woes as from stress and guilt over his vanished worker. "The last thing I need is for this to turn into a death investigation when all signs point toward it being a case of a voluntarily missing adult." He motioned to his watch, leading Mike to the security office for the start of his shift and talking all the while.

"I'm no thief, though. If and when he does show up, his paycheck's waiting for him in my office."

_Believe what you want, but wherever he is, I don't think he has much of a need for money anymore,_ Mike thought despondently, staring down at the filthy floor that was covered with what had to be months' worth of dried and blackened soda spills and thick layers of dust bunnies. As if reading his mind, his boss drew something to his attention.

"I wasn't lying when I said nobody died in this office. To avoid suspicion about the nature of this particular job at the pizzeria, Clyde was the only employee permitted back here, and that meant the janitor never once saw the inside of this room. Guess my guard wasn't much for picking up the slack, but if the animatronics were half as brutal as he claimed, maybe I can't blame him for not scrubbing the floor while they were beating a path to the office.

But after he disappeared, it suddenly struck me that if he had been, pardon my bluntness, _massacred_ in here by the characters, this place would have been a bloodbath, and as you can clearly see, this office hasn't seen bleach and a mop in ages, let alone in the last two weeks."

Mike stared down dully at the stained tiles, reluctantly admitting his boss had raised a legitimate point.

* * *

_Early November 2014_

Clyde stood unhappily outside his former office, his mouth set in a straight line as he listened to the hysterical screaming of the latest security guard he had scared off and sent stampeding for the front door. From behind the mask of the Golden Freddy costume, his mind was working to process a disturbing realization: this time, amidst the usual flood of relief that the man had escaped with his life, he had felt a disconcerting surge of power, maybe even a little pride that he had frightened someone so badly. He had never held any prestige whatsoever at the pizzeria before arriving in this strange place of limbo and had only been used to being on the receiving end of the animatronics' reign of terror, but rather than embracing the change, he admitted he was gradually falling victim to Derrick's influence.

Gazing upward at the silver stars dangling from the ceiling, he gave them an absentminded brush with the paw of the costume, sending them twirling on the threads that held them. He had landed directly in the very epitome of Hell, surrounded by the tortured souls of the children he had failed to save, left at the mercy of a triumphant and evil spirit, and worst of all, inevitably becoming just as wicked and vengeful as Derrick himself.

* * *

Seated in the office, Mike ignored his protesting stomach, resenting the way his boss had lingered until the last possible minute, rambling on about his innocence and affording him no time to retreat to the kitchen for his usual cold-pizza dinner. At least better days were in sight, and the promise of the long-awaited paycheck at the end of his shift might start to turn things around, if only by allowing him to finally buy some groceries after paying off his court fine, yet his stormy mood remained.

_You can't trust anyone in this world,_ he told himself bitterly, tossing the plush cupcake toward the wall, where it bounced off the poster of the characters with their insipid message to _"Celebrate!"_ before returning to his hands. Hurling the toy again, he complained out loud at his oversight.

"I can't _believe_ I let him pull one over on me like that!" the officer hissed in annoyance, watching the glossy poster pulse with each strike of the cupcake. _I thought he needed time to hide a murder scene or something, but that delay really just gave him time to hustle that extra costume out of there._ His eyes darted to the children's crayon drawings he had taped back to the wall, remembering Clyde's warnings written on the reverse sides.

_But for the record, I know there's a spare Freddy Fazbear costume in the back room out of camera range - only used once, haha. Whatever their motives, you'd better believe it they will try to shove you in there if you get caught. _The officer suddenly grabbed up the tablet, addressing the strange ensemble of mascot heads in the backstage.

"You know, the costume that supposedly doesn't exist anymore? Yeah, the last guy let me know about that, and wherever it's hidden away now, _don't_ get any ideas. I'm no endoskeleton and there's exactly one place I'm going at the end of this night: right into the boss's office to claim my check. You can just keep your suit."

The clock's chime, announcing the start of his shift, momentarily distracted him, but when Mike's eyes returned to the monitor a sharp chill racked his slight frame. His audience in the backstage room, from the headpieces to the endoskeleton, had turned directly toward his view, their sinister and empty gazes locked on the lens of the security camera.

"N-no," he spoke in a trembling voice. "I j-just saw you up close; you're only a bunch of heads and there's _nothing_ inside you that should even allow you to move like that." Trying to reassure himself this was merely another hallucination he was suffering and no more real than the golden bear he'd briefly encountered the previous night, his fingers had grown numb from clutching the tablet tightly when the telephone rang.

"Hey, you made it after all, buddy!" Mike cried out in shock, overwhelmed with joy so strong he mercifully almost forgot about the troublesome sights on the monitor. Leaning in close to the phone, he eagerly awaited Clyde's apology for his last, dire-sounding message.

"You had better have a _good_ explanation for this," the guard reprimanded his mentor, glancing down at the tablet screen in relief to find the backstage room had returned to its normal appearance. The wide grin he had broken into positively froze on his face when, instead of Clyde's gently reassuring voice, a demented slew of gibberish roared from the speaker, at once shattering his hopes for the man's survival. Was this the voice of an animatronic?

_Or..._ he thought as the recording broke through with static and ended with the same mechanical screeching he'd heard at the end of Clyde's previous call, _was he hearing a cry for help from beyond?_ He rubbed his arms with his hands briskly, trying to overcome the chill that had overtaken him.

Leaning back in the chair as he quickly switched to a view of the show stage, he gulped. His empty stomach lurched at the sight of the bare stage, its trio of bandmates already on the move and headed his way. Having no doubts the pirate would be just as active tonight, Mike hurriedly slammed down the door, his suspicions confirmed as Foxy thumped his bare steel fists against it seconds later. Freddy's cold, mocking laughter echoed distantly through the remaining open corridor, the sound of an experienced hunter leisurely advancing on his trapped and helpless prey. Forcing himself to put aside speculation on the puzzling phone call, the guard concentrated on sweating his way through what was already shaping up to be his most difficult night yet.

* * *

_November 2014_

"His name is Mike," Clyde breathed, stunned by the new security guard who had not only lasted two nights already but had made the effort to introduce himself to the animatronics, even confessing the poor choices and bad luck that had led him to such dead-end employment at the pizzeria. A strong sense of hope was building within the former guard, for this newcomer, who seemingly had little faith in his ability to keep this strange job he had found himself thrust into, was already showing far more promise than any of those who had come before him.

"So?" Derrick snarled next to him. In a change of strategy, he had ordered Clyde to hold off on attacking Mike and to phase back out of the Golden Freddy costume, and the duo had spent the last two nights lurking unseen in the darkness of the kitchen, able to occasionally hear the rookie guard's voice over the intercom system. "I agree there's _something_ about this one that gives me pause, but that's only because I want to see him fall harder than any of them. That's good you know his name, because you've just met your first _true_ victim."

The entity cracked his knuckles while Clyde rubbed his forehead in dismay. "Once we know how this guy operates, I'll set him up so that even someone as incompetent as you could take him down. There's no need to rush things." He cackled viciously, enjoying the license to treat someone's mortality with such carelessness. "Hold off a few more days, and who knows, maybe the children will get him first after all. They certainly enjoyed causing _your_ demise, so why deny them the pleasure of a second victim if they can swing it?"

Remembering the secretive conversation with Beth after his capture by the animatronics and her insistence that the children's violent actions had been forced, Clyde bit his tongue and said a silent prayer Mike could outlast the attacks by the characters, as well as the eventual moment when he himself would be sent after him. Falling victim to corruption as surely as the children had was a terrifying prospect, and he already feared he had nearly lost the battle in less than two weeks.

* * *

"Well, isn't this just the _perfect_ end to a _perfect _day!" Mike sputtered as the power abruptly cut out with an ominous electronic hum a mere ten minutes before his fifth nightmarish shift was set to end. His worst fears were realized as the office was plunged into near total darkness, both doors sliding neatly upward into their frames as if to reinforce his failure. He watched, strangely entranced, as the blades of the metal desk fan slowed to a gradual halt, and it was only then that the true gravity of his situation sunk in.

Feeling utterly cheated, his mind scrambled for a way to escape the all-too-certain fate that cruelly awaited him, for Clyde had warned that Freddy Fazbear would be the first to come after him should he manage to blow through his meager supply of electricity. He had been miserly enough with the power usage, yet forced to counter it against the pirate fox's frequent and prolonged visits to the office, as well as onslaughts by the three band members throughout the night.

In a desperate move, the guard fumbled in the dark, groping at the edges of the door frame, then leaped upward and seized the door with both hands, trying to use the pitifully slight weight of his body to force it downward manually.

"C'mon, budge!" he groaned, bracing his feet against either side of the frame for leverage and terrified at the prospect of meeting an animatronic face-to-face in his current dilemma. Finally dropping back onto the tiled floor in exhaustion, he panted, clutching his side in pain and well aware he'd wrenched more than a few muscles. The door itself hadn't descended any noticeably lower, adding to his sense of complete helplessness.

Mike was still crouched, spider-like, on the floor when he heard the laughter, and twisted around, already dreading his inevitable and likely final encounter with the namesake of the pizzeria. He had expected Freddy to appear at the door he'd struggled with, but the bear had surprised him at the other end of his office, his backlit eyes glowing in anticipation. The animatronic pivoted his head to scan the room, his movement accompanied by the slightest mechanical whirring sound.

_Do I play dead or run like Hell? _Mike questioned feverishly, remembering Clyde's conflicting advice and wondering what might have gone through the former guard's mind in his final moments when he had found himself likewise trapped. Unable to will his legs to move, he stood rigidly in place, fearing a dash for the remaining open exit would only propel him directly into the clutches of the ever-relentless Chica, who was no doubt still lurking just outside the office.

"Just...lemme go," he pleaded softly, boldly staring down the bear who stood slightly taller than himself, taking pains not to make any unnecessary movements as he addressed the fearsome creature. "I bet you regret hurting the last guard when he was decent to you guys, but I want to be the same kind of guy and stick around. I need this job and won't leave." He knew without looking that his knees were knocking together in sheer terror despite his best intentions to remain still. "I'll stay here to keep _you_ safe," he added, his voice dropping to a whisper as Freddy's music box activated, playing the same cheerful tune that he already knew Clyde had been forced to hear before the bear and his bandmates had attacked.

The notes plinked on for what felt like an eternity as sweat leaked from seemingly every pore in Mike's body. He dared not swipe off the salty drops that were slowly trickling down his forehead, and even his breaths came in barely noticeable, shallow bursts. Biting his lip when the music stopped, the guard heard the swish of a furry paw over the sleek floor tiles, and in a final act of desperation he seized the desk fan, one hand wrapping around the solid metal appliance and the other tearing the cord from the wall socket.

"Well if you insist on toying with me like this, I'm _not_ going down without a fight!" he snarled, wielding his makeshift weapon and turning to face nothing but an empty doorway. Perplexed, his eyes drifted to the clock. His shift had ended, and, apparently bound by his animatronic programming, Freddy had retreated toward the show stage in preparation for another day entertaining children.

"Fine," the security guard sighed before leaning out into the hallway. "You sure almost got me that time, but just so you know, that trick will only work once."

* * *

"A hundred-twenty big ones," Mike said, his voice devoid of enthusiasm though he was holding more money in his hands than he'd ever possessed at once in recent memory. What should have been his most triumphant moment in a long time now felt like little more than a hollow victory. "And wait, you really see me as a 'valued employee?'", he asked, reacting to his boss's handwritten note on the memo line of the personal check. Feeling vaguely sick from the surge of adrenaline still coursing through his veins, he avoided any mention of the ghastly phone call he had received at midnight or his close call with Freddy.

"Understand that I truly do appreciate what you're doing here, Mike," Nathan Faz said genuinely, seated behind his desk. "It's been a while since I've been able to issue an entire week's paycheck to my night guard. We got off to a rough start and I wouldn't wish this work on my worst enemy, but if you can forgive a foolish old man for underestimating you in the beginning, I'd appreciate it."

"Apology accepted," the officer said in the most agreeable tone he could muster, flapping his sweat-soaked uniform shirt. "And the offer for overtime still stands?"

"It's not just an offer at this point, it's a demand, since you already agreed to it. Like I said on your first night, your employment with Fazbear Entertainment is secure as long as the company exists." The manager's face fell as he suddenly became aware of the strongly-worded overdue notices from vendors scattered across his desk, and scolded himself for not hiding them from his guard's sight. "It's just that I don't know how much longer this place _can_ hold out. I'll level with you, Mike, this enterprise is in dire straights." Catching up the array of documents in his arms and wishing he could make them disappear, he gestured helplessly. "But anyway, good job, Sport! See you next week, or I guess tonight."

* * *

Though he'd only held the night shift a week, Mike had gotten so used to the solitude after dark that the rest of the daytime world seemed positively abuzz with activity as he ran his errands, first cashing his paycheck and then making a visit to the courthouse, but even the long-overdue steps he was taking to set his life straight failed to bring him much satisfaction. Defiantly slapping down his entire court fine on his parole officer's desk in one-dollar bills did not deliver nearly the sense of reward he had hoped it would, but at least he could reassure himself as he left the office that he had put one mistaken chapter of his life behind him.

Clutching desperately at what seemed like his final chance to salvage a day that should have been happy, he finally called Cynthia from the pay phone at the laundromat.

"The weirdest thing happened last night," he informed her, watching his uniform shirt spin with the rest of his laundry in a flurry of soap suds. "There was another recording that played, just when I thought they were all done. It must have been made after Clyde disappeared, only it was all gibberish, like one of the animatronics was on the line." He ran his hands through his greasy hair, reminding himself he still needed to shower after buying groceries. "I don't know if they were trying to tell me something or what, but what I really wanted to ask was whether you'd like to hang out this evening. Nothing fancy, just maybe watching some TV at my place?" He gritted his teeth, aware he was inviting her out of loneliness to the very type of low-key date he had hoped to avoid.

* * *

"You move so fast, Mike," Cynthia remarked while reaching up to playfully toussle his hair. The new couple were snuggled on the sofa as a television program neither of them was watching played softly across the living room. "Then again, I could say the same of myself." She laughed lightly before she found herself wondering how long it would have taken Clyde and her to reach this point, had things gone differently.

_It took him years of hesitant flirtation and he still hadn't made the next move,_ she mused. _Maybe I was too patient, letting him move at his pace instead of being a little more forward about it myself._

"You can say that again." Unaware of her internal conflict, Mike smiled rakishly, bracing himself on the sofa cushion with one arm to either side of her. Leaning in for another kiss, he tried to push aside a lingering sense of guilt as their lips meshed together. It was hard to shake the feeling that he was somehow living his late mentor's life, right down to his attraction to the same woman. _But if Clyde had known something was going to happen to him like that, he would have wanted her to be happy, wouldn't he?_

"On second thought, maybe for the first time in my life, this _is_ too fast," he found himself saying. Suddenly pulling away, the guard extricated himself from their embrace, regarding her with an apologetic look before sinking back to the farthest sofa cushion, leaning his forehead on his hands in utter frustration with himself. When he shifted his gaze from the buttons on his shirt to Cynthia, her stunned expression hardly surprised him. "I'm so sorry. It's just that, at least to me, this doesn't feel _right._ At least, not yet."

"It's okay, really," she reassured him, pulling her knees to her chest and trying to hide her disappointment, while also feeling genuine sympathy for Mike's struggle. "You've been through a tough week - we both have - and maybe we are jumping the gun, just trying to make everything feel _normal_ again."

"You said it," Mike admitted, moving back to Cynthia's side and embracing her in gratitude for her understanding. Sliding one eye open to make certain his alarm clock on the nearby coffee table had been properly set, he eventually allowed himself to drift into a sort of twilight sleep, holding his only true ally close. It had been some time since his last relationship, which had abruptly ended with his short stint in jail. She hadn't exactly waited around for his eventual release, though he had long ago stopped blaming her for finding someone new.

Swatting off the alarm clock at its first buzz several hours later, he slid off the sofa, stepping into the bathroom to change into his work uniform. Clutching a mug of instant coffee and his house key, he paused briefly before leaving, gazing down at his girlfriend's sleeping form.

_She's perfect, but it still doesn't feel right and I'm not sure if it ever will,_ he added silently, already certain that, despite Cynthia's reassurance otherwise, he had once again ruined everything beyond any hope of repair and that very soon he would be starting his first overtime shift with a heavy heart.

* * *

_Author's Note: In Chapter 6, Mike Schmidt admits out loud that he doesn't have much going for him and he's moved from job to job but has never found success or respect. He's sure everyone is just waiting for him to fail yet again._

_Maybe you've read Scott's recent "Make a Difference" message on his Steam page about working entry-level jobs and feeling unsuccessful prior to creating FNaF. Since he wrote that he wants to read our stories someday and he might just come across this one, just for the record, that chapter was published Oct. 24, 2014 so it long predates his message, and Mike's story was not modeled in any way after Scott's. (Awkward admission, it's actually "write what you know." Back in the day, I worked overnight security for six bucks an hour after some hard failure at my day job. It was honest work; no regrets.)  
_

_Also, please understand that this writer was never personally judging Mike even if other characters do. He's still making mistakes at this point in the story and is just now starting to come into his own and "get his heart right," as Scott so eloquently said. If you write fiction you have to have some characters hold opinions that don't match your own or you couldn't have any antagonists.  
_


	16. Matching Steel Against Steel

"That is quite a personal supply of coffee!" remarked Nathan Faz, amusement evident in his voice as Mike set a tall vacuum bottle on the desk with a solid thud. "And they don't even make those Thermos bottles quite like that anymore; that's good old vintage American steel."

The security guard nodded distractedly, explaining the bottle had been his late grandfather's and had been dutifully toted to his construction job for forty years before the man had retired. However, nostalgia had hardly been what had driven Mike to pull it from the back of the cabinet below his kitchen sink before leaving for tonight's shift.

Faz shook his head in agreement, relieved to be discussing anything trivial so long as it wasn't related to the disappearance of his guard's predecessor. "Sometimes I can't figure you out, but if you drink all that you'll be so jittery by the end of your shift that we'll have to pry you off the ceiling with a pizza paddle. So your grandfather worked the construction trade, did he?" His eyes strayed to Mike's footwear, noting for the first time that his worker had switched out his usual worn tennis shoes for heavy-duty work boots. "You halfway look the part yourself today."

Mike glanced down at his feet, surprised his boss had taken notice. "Aw, that? Those ratty old sneakers I'd been limping along with finally gave up the ghost. The sole tore clean off one of them, and since I had a perfectly good pair of boots in my closet from a labor job where I needed them, I figured why not?"

Suddenly conscious of his own pristine and polished wingtips, Faz patted the checkbook he always kept in his suitcoat pocket.

"I can admire a strong work ethic like that," he began, clearing his throat. "Say, I wasn't minimizing this company's troubles when we talked yesterday, but what would you say to a bump in your pay for the weekend shift? You seem like you would put the money to good use." Seeing Mike visibly startle at the completely unexpected offer, he continued. "As much as I hate to say it, I've lost hope that Clyde intends to return for his paycheck, so that money's sitting in the company account unclaimed. It's rightfully yours in gratitude for your loyalty." Under the tailored seams of his suit, the big man's shoulders shrugged. "Before you ask, should he actually return, I'll sell off an arcade game or two so he still gets his check."

"Forget 'rightfully mine,' I still feel like I'm taking yet one more thing that should've been his," Mike blurted out, scuffing a boot on the floor tiles. Though he wasn't about to turn down the offer and was already nodding speechlessly in acceptance, a lump had formed in his throat as he tried to discern whether he was receiving an honest bonus or was being bribed for his silence.

"I don't know if this will change your mind or not," the manager began, looking thoughtfully at the crayon drawings and character poster on the wall across from him, "but if he was still here and saw you were down to one pair of work boots as your only footwear, he'd have given you that money anyway, or at least lent it to you. That's just the kind of guy he was."

Strangely, the ensuing half-hour found Mike checking his watch repeatedly, not out of eagerness to see his boss leave but to ensure he was safely out well before midnight. He could hardly explain his sudden concern, but the manager had cut it perilously close the night before and he hated to see him repeat such a risky and unnecessary mistake. He even breathed a sigh of relief when he finally heard the front door being latched and he found himself alone with the animatronics once more.

* * *

_6th Night_

Derrick paced impatiently through the long-closed Pirate Cove, biding his time until Mike's shift began. He rather liked the abandoned aesthetic the defunct attraction had taken on, with the playground's ball pit now an unhygenic morass of discarded drink cups, plastic cutlery and other debris nobody had bothered to clean up.

He had decided that tonight, the newcomer who had defied all odds and doggedly clung to his security job for the past five shifts was finally due to meet with his inevitable and terrible end. The task of dispatching him was one he was loathe to relegate to the children; after all, the oldest two, who he thought he had held most under his control, had both rebelled in their earlier orders to kill the guard. Beth, as he had learned the eldest of the girls had defiantly renamed herself, had breached the security office during Mike's second shift while in Chica's costume, only to do the officer within absolutely no harm. Her transgression had been nothing compared to Junior's deliberate failure, which had taken place just the night before. Seizing on the opportunity to corner the guard, defenseless once he had used his remaining power supply, the boy had then hesitated so long he'd squandered what should have been the perfect chance to brutally slay Mike, and worse yet, he had only narrowly avoided giving him the chance to lash out in defense.

Such disobedience could have only come from one source, Derrick pondered as he made his way undetected toward the sound of hushed voices in the arcade. Peering around a tall game cabinet, his anger spiked when he spotted the five children gathered around Clyde, who was seated on a skeeball lane and no doubt doling out his usual optimistic, good-natured advice despite the hopelessness of their situation.

"That night you found the backstage room covered in blood," gasped one of the younger girls, who was trying hard not to sob, "that was fifty years to the day after we arrived _here._ He let us come back just for a while and we met a girl at the party who could actually see us, but then he called us to the back room just like on that awful night, and we were right back here again. He was only teasing us all along."

"I'm so sorry. I never forgot what I saw that night, and I still feel like I should have been able to stop him," Clyde said sympathetically, and he would have hugged the child if he hadn't been wearing the very bear costume that her killer had used to lure her to her doom. "That night the tornado struck almost twenty years ago, when he almost had me until you forced him into the suit? And the Bite of '87?" He rubbed the sleeve of the costume, recalling the long scars that criss-crossed his flesh underneath. "You did all that on his orders, but each time you were able to rebel just a little, weren't you?"

Junior's face fell. "That's right, but believe me, we paid for it each time. I hope it's not too late to tell you how sorry I am about the Bite," he admitted. "When he had you pinned down like that, I lost it and rushed him, and I'm sorry I got you as well. Needless to say, I'm not exactly his favorite around here."

"'S'okay, I healed up." Clutching his arm thoughtfully, Clyde felt as though the pieces were all falling into place. Beth suddenly broke in with an unexpected confession.

"None of us would be here if it wasn't for me," she blurted out, hanging her head and staring at her patent leather shoes, which would forever be as shiny and polished as they'd been the fateful last day she'd worn them. "All of this is my fault, and I've known it all along."

"What? Derrick is the only one to blame; how can you even say that?" interjected Clyde.

"He may have done it, but it shouldn't have happened anyway. We were at the charity party, dressed up for the first time we could remember, and enjoying rich food and lavish entertainment like we'd never seen before. Then _he_ showed up in the dancing bear costume, performing for us and making us laugh, like he was there just for us." Her shoulders slumped and her tone became grave. "The bear disappeared into the coat room, and I tried to get the others to follow but they wanted no part of it. They weren't even afraid of _him_, just sneaking into a dark room like that." The other children listened silently, and Clyde urged her to continue.

"I called them all babies and chickens - and a lot of things worse than that - for being afraid of a musty old coat room, and I didn't let up on them," Beth moaned, putting words to the guilt she had carried for decades. "They finally followed me, and you know how that turned out." She slumped against the fleece shoulder of the bear costume, and Clyde awkwardly put an arm around her. Peering past him, she failed to catch any signs of anger on her friends' faces, just understanding and an unmistakable forgiveness.

"It wasn't your fault, you were just being a normal kid, setting up your friends for dares and all," Clyde insisted, dismayed that his efforts to console her had probably fallen short. Witnessing the depth of the children's prolonged suffering had brought about a change in the normally mild-mannered former guard, and Beth suddenly lunged back, certain she had heard a growl escape his throat.

"But...that does it. This all ends tonight," he vowed in the determination that had failed him lately, pulling one paw of the costume into a fist and snapping it into the other. "Derrick's had his fun long enough, and I already know what I have to do. He can kiss his bear suit goodbye, even if it means I have to take myself out with it." Nearby, Junior cringed, not liking the abrupt change, and raised a hand in protest.

"Halt right there!" called out an ominous and familiar voice before the boy could get his attention, and Derrick strode into the little gathering, glowering at the souls he had taken. Singling out the former security guard, he drew in close to Clyde, who had risen to his feet but recognized there was no point in fleeing.

"Especially _you,"_ he snarled. "You should be grateful you were given a second chance when I could have just let you rot, and instead you're trying to rebel against a situation you couldn't escape if you tried. So you think you've pulled one over on me, have you?" Seizing the arms of the bear costume, he pulled in even closer, accentuating each word of his threat. "That suit was never yours in the first place-"

_And I'm taking it back,_ a voice echoed inside Clyde's mind, causing him to recognize with abject horror that the wicked entity had somehow done just that, disappearing from in front of his vision. "Oh, come on, you didn't stop to think that I could reclaim it any time I desired to, that a second spirit could haunt a costume if it so chose?" Helplessly, Clyde watched as the children scattered like panicked animals, leaving him alone with his dreaded enemy.

"Of course, there won't be two of us for long," Derrick boasted. "I was reluctant to take this step, but the dominant spirit will soon enough diminish the far weaker one, and once again this form will be rightfully mine." Proving his point, he manipulated the costume away from the arcade and back to a blind corner of the backstage room, away from the ever-watchful eye of the security cameras. Along for the ride, Clyde made a desperate attempt to phase out of the suit but found his spirit inextricably bound to it.

"Oh, don't bother trying that, there's no escaping this late in the game! It's incredible to be able to take control again and actually walk in this costume," the entity mused. "For all those years, it only lacked one thing, an endoskeleton to give it the same strength and power as those newer characters. Sure, there's that one in the backstage but it was never compatible with the dimensions of the suit." He laughed darkly. "And that's where _you_ came in," he said, flexing the yellow acrylic arms before them. "After much thought, I've found a way to make the best of the unexpected way your demise went down, and it turns out an agile human body would make a far better endoskeleton for this form than those clunky metal abominations your boss used for the band characters."

"Tha-that's my fate, to give you strength so you can destroy anyone you want?" cried the bewildered guard, already imagining Derrick tearing into Mike and any other guards unfortunate enough to follow him, but using _his_ hands, the ones that had seldom been raised in anger against anyone in his lifetime, the ones that had worked with expert precision to keep him safe from the animatronics, at least until they had betrayed him by developing the trembling that had forced him to leave his career.

"Right on. I only wish I'd gotten to you sooner when you were still in your prime, but for the pathetic life you led, at least you kept yourself in decent shape for your age. I imagine you went running every now and then, maybe lifted some weights?" The entity flexed the arms and legs of Golden Freddy, eager to use his newfound physical strength against all who stood in his way.

Infuriated by the theft of what had been his final link to his old life, Clyde lashed out in irritation. "Yeah, so maybe I did, but that won't do you a whole lot of good, at least for much longer. What's it even matter when your new 'endoskeleton's' going to decay to nothing? 'Dust to dust,' ever heard of that one?" Getting no response aside from a hiss of pure fury, he pressed on. "Or is there something you're not telling me?" _Why _would_ Derrick be so thrilled to inherit for an endoskeleton what he had referred to himself as 'a mangled corpse,' presumably mauled beyond recognition by the animatronics?_

"You fool," Derrick finally broke his silence, proving Clyde had even lost access to his own inner thoughts and secrets no longer existed between the two men. "I called them off before they could do _too_ much damage, even if it did spoil their fun." The chime of a clock interrupted the now-dual entity's argument, signaling the start of the midnight hour.

"Time to bring down one Mike Schmidt. Wanna come with? Oh wait, you hardly have a choice in the matter," crowed Derrick, watching the security camera begin its pivot across the small space in search of wayward animatronics, suggesting the children, ensconced in the guises of the characters, had surged off the stage and were already on the move.

"Oh, and don't worry. I won't let your spirit fade away _too_ fast," he reminded Clyde. "Following Mike's gruesome demise, I wouldn't miss it for the world when his spirit joins us here and he discovers the former guard he trusted the most was the one to end his miserable existence. You lament the fact that you never got to meet him? That will all change tonight."

* * *

The brim of Clyde's old ball cap was soaked with sweat, but underneath its bill Mike maintained a concentrated effort. Determined not to squander his power as he had been forced to do the night before, the guard seldom turned on the lights in the hallways, instead taking the riskier choice to venture out far enough from the office doors to catch sight of any characters approaching the hallways. On one such foray he was shocked to see that the poster of Freddy Fazbear's golden counterpart had somehow reappeared, but now that he was thoroughly convinced its apparition was an otherworldly phenomenon, he chose not to waste precious time trying to destroy it again. Strangely, the bear himself failed to materialize upon his return to the office, though Freddy soon lurched toward the opposite door.

"See?" Mike said after he'd put three solid inches of metal door between himself and the animatronic. "I told you I'd be back to keep you guys safe but..." He flexed his feet under the steel toes of his boots. "I wasn't kidding about not going down without a fight, either, so don't try anything tonight. I'm not above matching steel against steel, if it comes down to it."

Apparently unwilling to match his strength against the newly-invigorated and now somewhat armed guard, Freddy soon let his music box wind to a halt and shuffled off away from the corridor without so much as his customary laugh, allowing Mike the chance to step out into the hallway. Standing in the dim light spilling out from the office, he peered into the gloom of the dining area far ahead, detecting only an eerie silence. Satisfied, he turned back toward the office until a glimpse of something unusual on the wall in the corridor caught his attention.

"What?" he asked in confusion, noting that just as the poster from the other hall had inexplicably transformed into a new image two nights ago, the usual chart listing the rules of the pizzeria had changed. He'd read the chart with amusement on his first shift; its listed rules ranging from sensible to inane, and he'd come to the conclusion that the entire document must have been a joke typed up by a bored employee and never meant for guests to see if it had been hung up in an area where children were not permitted to wander. After seeing for himself what went on after hours at the pizzeria, some of the more ominous rules, such as the warning to leave before dark, left him wondering whether they day shift crew had some suspicions after all as to what the night watch endured.

The paper now replacing the chart appeared to be a news clipping, yellowed and brittle with age, and although its message was cryptic and vague, it told of a terrible incident from the building's past.

"Children..._died_ here? But who could have _done_ that?" Mike croaked out, reeling back at the grim account of young people losing their lives, purportedly lured away from the crowds by an entertainer in an animal costume. Why hadn't his boss ever mentioned this? Why had _he_ never heard of it as a child himself, growing up just a few towns away?

Clamping his hands to the sides of his head, the overwhelmed guard backed away from the poster, stopping only when he bumped against the wall behind him. The poster shimmered and changed before him, drawing him reluctantly in to read whatever some supernatural force wanted him to know. Mike's hands balled into fists at the final revelation.

"That son of a gun already knew this place was closing," he sputtered in disbelief, having read Faz's terse statement that the enterprise would cease operations by the end of the year. "C'mon, man, I could've handled the truth. Amazing to think he could trust me with everything else about this place but not _that."_ Feeling a sharp chill through his cotton work shirt that seemed to emanate from the concrete wall itself, he spun away, hardly shocked by yet another apparition meeting his eyes. On the wall where he'd just been leaning, the usual cheerful posters of the animatronic band members had been replaced by grotesque depictions of distorted, screaming faces, their hollow eyes overrunning with tears.

"I said before, I _quit_ using years ago because I hated seeing crud like this," he growled, then threw up his hands in defeat. _But I get it, this is no hallucination. Whoever you are, you clearly drew me out here so I could see this._

* * *

"Beth? Junior? Anyone?" Clyde's voice rang out in the back room, not expecting a reply from the children who had last been seen fleeing in terror from his presence. His eyes adjusting to the light, he suddenly realized he was not in the backstage he knew, but its far earlier incarnation, even before it had served as the roller rink's skate room. Plush fur coats and long rain trenches lined the walls, each with a paper claim check dangling from the hanger, and a lone light bulb buzzed overhead. He could even detect the faint odor of mothballs in the air.

It was 1934, and he was reliving one of Derrick's fateful memories, now that his consciousness and the murderer's had been merged.

_No..._ He drew his gaze sharply up from the floor, but not before catching sight of the five small forms sprawled at unnatural angles under the long coats. The door behind him swung open, the silhouette of a tall figure caught in the light.

"What...what the devil have you _done?"_ screamed the other man, taking in the sight around him and stepping forward without hesitation, revealing himself as the venue's young and enraged security guard, assigned to watch over the ballroom's gala event. Clyde glanced down in silent awe at the knife in his hand, its blade stained crimson. Unable to run or do anything except follow along helplessly as Derrick's memories played out, he lunged forward, ready to claim the man who had intruded on his murderous frenzy as his next victim.

Then he was abruptly on the ground, falling far short of reaching his intended target, overtaken by agony from the force of his stumble. Using the last of his strength, he rolled to his back, making the mistake of grasping and removing the blade that had been forced into his chest while choking on something vile that had welled up in his throat. The guard's face, now clouded with concern, was the last thing to abruptly fade to complete darkness.

* * *

"You _lied," _Clyde snarled once the dreamlike memory had faded and he found himself back in the present, still bound to the despicable costume and sharing it with the most contemptible entity imaginable. "You weren't killed by a vengeful security guard, you fell on your own knife." He laughed mockingly, no longer caring if he'd pay for it later. "What a way to go, but that was fitting, a coward's way out, and you did a lot of people a favor that night." To his surprise, Derrick responded to the accusation with a mere shrug of indifference.

"I see you've been reliving old times, now that we can't keep much hidden from each other? It's a pity your consciousness will eventually fade away, because I actually liked what I just heard. That didn't sound like you at all, rather nasty, really, and you're losing that nice-guy routine _remarkably _fast." While half-praising the former guard on his transformation, Derrick had cautiously slid from the concealing shadows of the backstage and made his way across the dining area, the feet of the costume padding noiselessly over the tile. Hearing angry exclamations in Mike's inimitable voice, he peered into the far hallway, grinning fiendishly at the sight that met his eyes before addressing Clyde silently through their shared mind.

"This change has come just in time, because you might actually enjoy what's going to happen next," he said gleefully, as if sharing a great secret. "The children are one step ahead of us, see?" Despite himself, the fallen security guard felt a pang of guilt seeing Mike frozen in terror, his gaze fixed on the wall, which now bore a splash of graffiti.

IT'S ME. The very words that had been used to taunt him and make him doubt his own sanity were now displayed before the rookie guard's eyes.

"Do you think they've gotten their message through?" Derrick asked casually. "Not that it matters if he experiences his big revelation before we get him, the result's going to be the same. I've obviously overestimated him, because here he is, outside the security office without a single way to protect himself."

* * *

"Clyde?" Mike's voice sounded faraway and thin as he called out to his late mentor, hardly expecting a response. "Were _you_ the one who wanted me to see this? I-I already found your hidden notes in the office, so I guess these are more?"

"Go on, what are you waiting for? _Don't_ leave him waiting," hissed Derrick, and before he knew it, Clyde had lurched forward, the tall and bulky form of Golden Freddy blocking off the end of the hallway.

"Mike, is that really you?" The fallen guard's tone was so cordial, he might as well have been welcoming his successor to the annual company picnic. He gave an awkward laugh from behind the mask of the costume, sounding perfectly in character with the voice on the recordings. "I can't believe I finally get to meet you! I mean, you're just one week in, you've made it this far and now a raise? You've already put me to shame!"

Though a cautious smile lit up the rookie guard's face, he slowly inched back toward the office, his mind struggling against rationale.

"Y-y-you've made it pretty far yourself, buddy," he stammered. "How exactly does a guy last almost two weeks impaled inside a suit, anyway?"

Awaiting a prompt from the entity who co-inhabited Golden Freddy and failing to receive one, Clyde shrugged, the bear's shoulders bobbing upwards.

"He doesn't, Mike," he admitted sadly. "Don't blame yourself, I was a goner long before your first shift. But hey, at least I saved you from meeting the same sorry fate-" His words were cut off without warning, as if a hand had seized and crushed what was left of his vocal cords.

"-At least for a while." An inhuman, mocking voice finished for the mild-mannered guard, and Mike found himself caught up in the golden bear's impossibly strong paws and slammed against the concrete wall, struggling not to black out.

_"It's me," _the creature sneered, sounding nothing at all like Clyde while drawing in close and slowly strengthening his grip on the hapless security guard.


	17. Back from the Flip Side

Mike whimpered pitifully as the golden bear's outstretched arms seized him and thrust him against the wall, the abrasive concrete tearing into his back even through the fabric of his shirt. With the air forced from his lungs and his hands clawing ineffectively at the massive paws that gripped his neck, he could only gasp to claim each desperate breath of air during his struggle as the monstrous being gloated in its moment of triumph. His vision wavered, leaving only the grim mask of the bear's face illuminated before his eyes.

Owing to his slight frame and unimpressive strength, Mike had almost always preferred to avoid confrontations rather than settle arguments with his fists, and while he could at least be proud he had not amassed any charges on his record related to violent crimes, he was sorely lacking in experience when it came to defending himself.

His panicked mind soon enough recalled the secret weapon he had at the ready that night to improve his odds, and he twisted once more in the bear's grasp before swinging his foot forward, the steel toe of his boot striking the creature's leg with as much force as he could muster. He only hoped that the leg joint of an endoskeleton was as susceptible to damage as a human opponent's kneecap.

To his astonishment, the strike caused the bear to stagger backwards, allowing him to slide downward against the wall until his feet were once more touching the floor. The guard lost no time in seizing the furry paws with his own hands, prying them free from his neck. Perplexed, he felt not the cold, unrelenting steel of a metal skeleton beneath the animatronic costume, but softer, more pliable joints, complete with what felt like knuckles as he wrenched the paws from their firm grasp on his neck.

Sprawling on the floor on his back, Mike only allowed himself the indulgence of a single, unrestricted draw of air before scuttling backward, crab-like, into the office. He pulled up to the desk, taxing the muscles in his side that he had badly strained the night before. Seizing the formidable cylinder of steel he had brought to work with him from its resting place on the desk, he didn't have much of a wait before the ghastly, decrepit bear lumbered after him through the office door.

_This is it,_ he chided himself, shaking his head angrily at the buttons near the door that he had entirely neglected in his moment of panic. _I've officially lost it, and thanks to that boneheaded mistake, I might have just lost everything!_ Fueled by his self-directed ire, his arm swung in a wide arc and caught Freddy Fazbear's golden relative across the jawline, snapping the creature's head viciously to the side and knocking the character across the desk, leaving the security monitors and fan swaying on their bases and the crayon drawings fluttering on the walls.

_And if you get caught, forget what I said on the phone about playing dead. Run like hell, kiddo! _Clyde's advice, hidden on the back of the childish artwork, once again came to mind, yet Mike paused just a moment, warily watching the bear as it rose to its feet, far from defeated even if one side of its costume headpiece was grotesquely caved in. He couldn't help but notice in grim fascination that its motion was far more organic and fluid than the somewhat jerky movement of the animatronic band, and he suppressed another shudder, trying not to imagine the reason behind the difference.

Jostled by the intruder, the unattended tablet monitor suddenly pitched off the desk and tumbled toward the unrelentingly hard tile of the floor, and Mike flung himself forward instinctively to catch it. Relieved to have broken its fall seconds before it would have been dashed to oblivion, he straightened, only to find the bear clutching the vacuum bottle he had all but forgotten in his pointless haste to save the tablet.

"No!" the guard cried, ducking to avoid the bottle that sailed through the air like an expertly-launched javelin. It grazed his shoulder, its new trajectory landing it squarely in the glass of the largest surveillance monitor behind him. The punctured screen emitted a shower of blue sparks over the desk and Mike yelped, covering his head with his arms milliseconds before it imploded, spraying shards of glass violently forward.

The resulting power surge plunged the office into darkness, but Mike had finally made his fight-or-flight decision and was already tearing toward the interior of the restaurant, his mind working overtime to recall the layout of the building from the crude maps built into the computer system he had monitored for the past five nights. Bursting into the dining area, he paused in the dim glow of the exit sign that hung over the kitchen's double doors, hearing no sounds from the room that lay beyond. Already catching sight of Bonnie meandering around the party tables, he slipped through the swinging doors as noiselessly as possible, finding himself in the near-complete darkness, familiar from his foray into the kitchen before his first shift. His mission then had been to sneak away some ill-gotten food for a makeshift dinner, but now he had been reduced to fleeing for his very life.

"Faz _padlocked_ the door?!" Mike exploded in anger once he'd fumbled his way to the opposite end of the room and the emergency exit that lay promisingly between himself and freedom. Landing a boot against the chained and unyielding door in anger, the resulting clang echoed through the kitchen and was promptly answered by the swish of the swinging doors he'd entered through moments before, leaving the officer to curse his impatient mistake. The golden bear stood menacingly, paws outstretched to either side to hold the doors apart, pivoting its damaged mask around the gloom as if it could actually see from those empty black eye sockets.

The guard nimbly vaulted over one of the stainless steel food preparation tables, dropping low and at least partially concealing himself behind a tall stack of pizza baking trays that were kept on a rack underneath. His hand darting forward into a plastic tub of utensils that were also stored under the table, Mike rattled through the implements, then broke into a grin as his fingers closed around the textured handle of what had to be a knife.

_Matching steel against steel,_ he feverishly thought, lowering his unseen weapon to his side and dashing past his pursuer for the swinging doors and back into the cavernous, empty seating area. Slipping through the drawn curtain that marked off the entrance to whatever forgotten attractions lay within Pirate Cove, he clambered up onto the deck of a climbing structure for children, ducking between what appeared to be a ship's cabin and a fake cannon. Though he could see a sharp drop-off just beyond his hiding place that would limit his escape options, he had at least evaded his pursuer long enough to catch his breath.

* * *

"Mike!" The voice beckoned him once more from somewhere below the ship, though it still sounded nothing like the man who had left him the messages through the phone system, the one person from the twisted establishment that was Fazbear Entertainment who had actually tried to help him survive. Freddy's relative must have noticed the curtains swaying if he'd been drawn directly to Mike's location.

A malevolent laugh punctuated the silence after the guard failed to answer. "You know, for all his shadiness, you would have been better off following the advice of the guy on the phone. He might have never met you, but that poor sap truly wanted to see you make it. As I recall, didn't he try to warn you that your chances of escaping through the kitchen, let alone Pirate Cove, were slim? He wasn't lying and the exit from the backstage room would have been your only real chance, but it's _far_ too late for that now. The band is already guarding that way out."

A tall, lean figure ascended from the darkness as Mike rose to his full height, defiantly staring down the entity. "Who _are_ you?" he demanded accusingly, knowing he'd been found as well as weary of hiding in fear of being ambushed at any moment. "You're not _him. _Not anymore, at least."

The bear threw back its head and laughed, leisurely ascending the wooden stairs of the ship and apparently preferring to enjoy the trapped guard's helplessness instead of satisfying his curiosity. "I should have given you more credit from the start, Schmidt. You're quite correct; for all intents and purposes, Clyde has left us, so it's just you and me from here on out." He laughed again, even more derisively. "Don't waste your time mourning him; he had a good run, going on four decades, and he even died a hero, at least if you consider it especially heroic to devote one's entire life to watching over an animal band, only to be brutally slaughtered by your charges."

"He damn well knew he was doing a lot more than guarding some robots!" Mike cried, his fingers clutching more tightly around the handle of his knife as he was forced to tread backwards to keep some distance between himself and the creature. "Those...kids, the ones in the news articles. They're still here, aren't they? It took me a while to figure out this place was haunted, but not so long to guess there was more than one spirit lurking around." He narrowed his eyes, glowering at the unseen entity he knew had to be inhabiting the bear costume. "It hardly takes a genius to guess _your_ role in all of this. I saw those articles that were left out for me."

* * *

"No, it doesn't take a genius, which would explain why _you've_ managed to guess the truth. You're quite right; _I_ took those kids out, though it was long before your time." Derrick spat out his cold answer as he strode forward, his footfalls landing softly on the deck of the ship. "Maybe it's better Clyde isn't here to see this after all. It's ironic that he wasted years investigating the sordid story behind this forsaken business and his precious kiddie ghosts, only to have some two-bit ex-con figure it all out in less than a week."

Paying little heed to the insult directed his way, Mike's lips curled in disgust at the cruel way the entity spoke of his victims, both those whose lives had been cut far too short and the one who had persevered until the end in his lonely quest to rescue them from an afterlife of torment.

"Don't look so surprised I know about _you_," the voice chided, "Remember, you shared your sorry life story right from the start, and though it was entertaining, I imagine at the time you didn't _really_ believe the characters understood a word of what you said. You haven't exactly done well for yourself, following up a stint in the county lock-up with _this_ dead-end place, have you? This is quite the fitting end for you."

"Whatever. That's all 'sticks and stones,' and I wasn't lying when I said I was _not_ going back to jail," the guard answered defiantly. "I've stuck it out this far, and I'll take my chances with you." His feet firmly planted on the deck, he held his ground, refusing to allow the taunts weaken his resolve, and stared down the eyeless facemask of the bear until it had drawn in so close that only the ship's gangplank stood between the two adversaries.

"Correction. You'll take your chances with _them_ as well," the creature assured him as the animatronics wandered in through the parted curtain, standing obediently at the base of the ship like a quartet of sentries guarding their master, with their backlit, robotic eyes trained on the outnumbered guard.

* * *

Derrick took in his trapped prey's disheveled appearance, relishing every sign of his victory over the man, from the rings of dampness staining Mike's shirt over his heaving chest to the fine beads of sweat dappled across his forehead. The guard's successor had remained so infuriatingly calm in his final moments that he'd effectively denied him the pleasure of feeding off his pure fear, and the entity was all the more eager to savor the experience he'd missed.

His mouth curled into a twisted smile when he recognized the quick flash of metal held down at the level of the guard's hip. "Knives are only a threat to the living, Schmidt." Mike's arm gripping the weapon lowered noticeably once his ruse had been discovered, and the guard was no doubt inwardly cursing his failed, last-ditch plan to strike back.

"However, at least you tried," Derrick teased, forcing Mike to take his first blind step backward onto the plank itself. "Allow me to tell you the story of the man who worked in the office before you, the one who never so much as raised a hand in his own defense when the characters he loved so much finally overcame him," the spirit continued, in a mocking, sing-song sort of voice one might use when telling a child a moralistic little tale before bed. "Clyde stayed on here for decades, and though I didn't know it at the time, under that happy-go-lucky persona he gave off, he was hiding a rather sad secret. Surrounded by children and all their youthful excitement, he'd known for some time he was quite unlikely to ever be able to have any of his own. It bothered him far more than he ever let on."

Forced into silence yet compelled to witness the showdown playing out before him, Clyde snapped to attention. "You _wouldn't,"_ he growled to the entity with whom he was somehow sharing minds. Derrick only ignored his weak protests and continued taunting Mike.

"It all makes sense in retrospect, though; it's just that to this day I don't think he ever realized it himself. Way back when, during an earlier incarnation of this business as a skating venue, he threw his heart and soul into his role as a rink monitor, saving children from every imaginable injury, every source of pain and hurt. Years later, he finally found some kids _he just couldn't save."_

_"Derrick..."_ His secrets laid bare by his nemesis's frustratingly accurate intuition, Clyde's psychic fury grew, even as he struggled to direct his anger toward its proper target and not the innocent man who had had little choice but to assume his old job and life from where he'd been forced to leave off.

"But he tried anyway, for thirty years, seeing himself as their protector. Then, when he finally made that fatal mistake that allowed the band to overpower him, he _still _couldn't bring himself to strike out in anger and hurt his darling children," the entity boasted, undaunted by his victim's return to their shared consciousness.

"It's all true!" the former guard blurted out rashly, finding himself unexpectedly able to speak aloud again. "He's...right. I never would have done anything to hurt them, after all they'd been through. _He's _ the one who wanted to turn them into monsters." He laughed, his voice uncharacteristically full of grit as he addressed his captor. "But you failed, _Derrick," _he said accusingly, at last revealing the spirit's identity to Mike. "You don't have nearly the power over them anymore that you think you do, and I'm through doing your bidding." Under Clyde's control, the bear's head tilted downward, as though the empty eye sockets were taking in the sight of the guard's weapon for the first time. _"End this, Mike," _he asked in a calculating, detached tone.

"No!" Derrick sharply warned, realizing all too late what Clyde was imploring his successor to do.

The former guard pressed on. "Knives are only a threat to the living, Mike," he said, repeating his detested captor's words. "I'm not among that number. You've got to stop him." He waved a paw at the hand Mike held behind his back, still gripping what might have been his last chance of defending himself, and the guard slowly drew the weapon forward, his hand trembling and betraying his nervousness.

As the blade came into better view under the slight illumination afforded him by the animatronics' backlit eyes, Derrick broke into a cruel laugh.

"Oh, Schmidt. You truly were a screw-up right to the end. _Pizza cutters_ are a threat to absolutely no one." Drawing the reluctant co-occupant of the suit along with him, he lunged forward, propelling himself across the gangplank as though it was little more than a minor hurdle. He held his clawed paws outstretched, ready to tear apart the guard who had blindly seized up what he had comically mistaken for a true weapon.

_So this is how it ends,_ Mike thought from his position nearly at the end of the swaying plank, staring dumbly at the circular blade of the cutter he had chosen in his haste. Debating whether to throw down the useless yet hefty item on which he had pinned his hopes for survival, he found that his fingers simply refused to release their grip on the handle of the cutter, which still had a formidable blade.

_Use it anyway, kid,_ Clyde pleaded wordlessly as Golden Freddy hurtled toward the guard, emitting an unearthly roar of victory. Gazing on the crouched, tense form of the man before him, he recognized the betrayal and horror on Mike's face, remembering his own sense of hopelessness the night he had nearly lost his life during the tornado, when Derrick had cornered him in the arcade. Clyde only hoped the guard could get in that crucial and fatal strike before Golden Freddy beat him to it.

* * *

Detesting what he had been drawn to do, Mike's arm had already started its sharp swing toward the bear's chest. Driven to desperation, he intended to hack repeatedly at the costume in the slim hopes of destroying the endoskeleton that lay underneath. He held his position resolutely until the bear had drawn so close he could see little more than the empty sockets of its hollow facemask, and beyond those, the faint glint of two eyes, frozen in terror.

_Only the living fear knives._ Mike's own blue eyes widened in sudden realization. _He doesn't know!_ The ex-con turned security guard changed the trajectory of his weapon, instead catching the costume directly under one of the bear's outstretched arms, and viciously plunged it through the ancient, decaying fabric so far the blade emerged on the other side. Having avoided whatever lay beneath the costume, he wrenched the cutter back across the length of the creature's chest, the snarled plush yielding to the steel blade. A drawn-out shriek of defeat from the entity assaulted his ears as he completed his grim task of destruction.

Hardly believing what he had revealed, Mike thrust forward his free hand, catching the character's headpiece under its chin and sending it flying. He missed the decapitated bear's tumble to the ball pit far below, instead sprinting back across the plank in pursuit of the headpiece, which had come to rest by the cabin of Foxy's sailing ship. Under the watchful eyes of the motionless band, the guard stomped the mask under his hefty work boots until it was unrecognizable.

Losing no time in returning to what looked for all the world like the carcass of a slain animal, Mike dropped to the sea of plastic balls and knelt gingerly by the remains of the character he had knocked from the plank. His hands poised over the shredded plush fabric, he was no longer so certain of what he thought he had seen during his assault on the entity. He held his breath and tugged away the furry costume, freeing the slumped form of the man who had given his all to help him survive his hellish work week.

* * *

Clyde coughed and sputtered, jolting sharply awake at the feel of something cold splashed across his face and finding himself leaning against the foam mat at the edge of the pit, still shoulder-deep in the brightly colored plastic spheres. Turning his head upward groggily, the lanky form of his successor gradually came into focus.

"Mike?" he asked uncertainly, breaking into a reluctant grin as the other man lowered the plastic beverage pitcher he'd retrieved from the concession counter, his face flooding with a mixture of relief and complete awe.

With considerable effort Mike Schmidt reached under his arms and lifted him from the pit and then pulled him into a tight hug, even if Clyde was too weak to return the embrace.

"Welcome back from the flip side, buddy," he said, just as Bonnie's acrylic paw clamped over his shoulder. In his haste to revive the other guard, he had neglected to watch the animatronic characters, who had boarded the ship and drawn around the duo in a tight circle. "Uh, do they _know_ this Derrick guy's gone for good? They don't look particularly happy about something..."

"Oh, no." The last time Mike had heard such a simple expression of pure dread from his successor, the man had given up entirely, only this time he was stuck by his side, quite possibly for what promised to be a bitter and ironic defeat.


	18. Your Move

_That washed-up burnout had actually won. _As the aged fabric of the Golden Freddy costume had given way to Mike's focused destruction, Derrick could feel his power steadily slipping away, leaving him fuming with impotent rage. The suit he had used to commit his heinous crimes had also served as the source of his otherworldly strength, and with its loss his grasp on the realm of the living was diminishing.

Emitting an unearthly howl of defeat and anguish, he had scarcely noticed the children, freed from his control as well as their binds to the animatronic characters, as they rushed past, no doubt to escape the confines of the restaurant altogether. Beth and Junior had glanced back once before urging the others onward, but they had only been reassuring themselves that Mike and Clyde had been spared and had paid their former captor no heed.

_That pathetic night watch was never supposed to get a happy ending, either! _Derrick thought ruefully, lamenting being denied the superiority and control over Clyde that he had briefly relished. The naive guard had not once imagined the truth; that the children had obeyed their master and yet chosen the lesser of two evils by entrapping Clyde in the almost-forgotten and primitive Golden Freddy costume, which predated the animatronics by several decades and had never contained any lethal components. Nonetheless, when they had imprisoned his unconscious form within the suit he had remained in a strange and supernatural paralysis between life and death, and when his spirit had reawakened in the shadowy realm alongside the children, he had every reason to believe he had perished in a horrific fashion.

_This was supposed to be the night Mike suffered the most degrading defeat imaginable, not his moment of triumph! _Derrick's hiss of pure irritation was inaudible as Clyde slowly regained alertness. Although the entity had originally wanted to kill him outright, prolonging his torment in the afterlife and watching him give in to despair had been infinitely more satisfying, yet even those misdeeds had been nothing compared to the sheer joy of reclaiming a human body to possess once more, even if it had been bound to the Golden Freddy costume.

_He was in my grasp and you had no right to take everything from me! _The unsettled spirit's anger was tempered when the animatronic band, no longer controlled by the children, aggressively surrounded the two security guards. _Maybe they'd get what was coming to them after all, _Derrick mused vengefully.

* * *

"C'mon man, don't give up like that!" Mike begged, leaning over Clyde while the rabbit character tugged at his shoulder, trying to pull him away. "You held out in that back room, just like you said you'd try to - for two weeks! Hold out just a little longer, because it would be really lousy of you to quit on me now. Derrick said you had a soft spot for the kids, so couldn't you ask them to back off?" He glanced up with trepidation at the animatronics looming over them.

"I'm not quitting on you," Clyde assured his rescuer, staring deep into Bonnie's vacant eyes, searching for any spark of recognition and finding none. "But I've got some bad news for you. I can tell the kids are gone, and it's just you and me versus the world at this point."

"So they're just robots now? Then why are they still going after us?" Mike sputtered, fiercely prying Bonnie's paw from his shoulder as his mind processed this latest revelation. _Of course. _Faz had spent enough time boasting of the animatronics' capability for rudimentary thought, even their ability to learn new patterns of movement. After years of being controlled by the children, it seemed that the urge to pursue the night watch had become ingrained in their programming.

"I guess the whole 'attack mode' became worked into their instincts, and I wouldn't bet they won't still try to shove either of us into a suit if they could only find one," Clyde answered, confirming Mike's suspicions while looking over his shoulder at the ball pit and wincing at how befouled it looked with all its collected litter, a far cry from the way he had remembered it in its pristine condition from the pizzeria's golden era when he had performed in the thrill show with Foxy. "Y'know, talking about programming, the animatronics were never able to go in there. I guess it was for the kids' safety. You couldn't really have a heavy animatronic dive in next to you-"

"Then that's where we're headed," Mike cried, not wanting to take his chances with the aggressive characters any longer. Plowing his way between the imposing robots like the football linebacker he certainly wasn't, he took advantage of their distraction to shove a startled Clyde backwards down into the pit. Leaping out as far into the sea of plastic spheres as he could, he tugged the other man away from where he had landed at the edge, far too close to the animatronics who were already swiping for him with outstretched paws.

"I don't know about you, but I was never a strong swimmer," Mike joked as they fumbled almost comically through the balls in a frantic bid to reach the center of the play area. "And these were fun when I was a kid, but there was also something eerie about them, like you could get swallowed up in them and they'd never find any trace of you again." Once they'd swam out a safe distance, he flopped backward, feeling the tines of a plastic fork jabbing at his back and no longer caring. "Besides, back then all the kids swore there were knives and snakes hidden in these-" He was cut off by Clyde's sharp laugh, which was reassuring because the man seemed to be regaining his strength.

"You do know what an urban legend is, don't you?" Clyde asked in amusement, still trying to understand the surreal situation they'd found themselves in, holed up in a child's play area with the entire band circling the pit like sharks or hungry wolves. "Never found anything remotely like that, though back in the day I sure retrieved a lot of lost socks and hair barrettes and arcade tokens, even entire slices of pizza, from this thing on the odd occasion Faz would have me clean it out." He frowned in disapproval when he noticed Mike flashing an obscene gesture at the animatronics they had evaded, then used the corner of his shirt to dry his eyeglasses.

"Heh, and did you have to make me come to by dumping root beer over my head?" Clyde asked with a good-natured laugh, fanning out his damp and stained work shirt. "Y'know, there _is_ a little lever for water on that soda dispenser, and once we make it through the night I'm going to show you where it is..." Pausing to consider his words, he realized that in joking about something so trivial, he was actually trying to reassure himself as much as Mike that they truly would survive the night.

Mirroring Mike's actions, Clyde pitched back, feeling the balls scatter beneath him. "Aw heck, maybe I shouldn't be so choosy. After all, I'm alive, even if it's just catching up to me now." He clamped a hand to his sticky forehead. "How on Earth am I alive? This is unreal." Yet he could scarcely ignore the growing pain that reminded him he was among the living once more, drawing a hand up to his aching jaw where Mike had cracked him with the vacuum bottle back in the security office. _After weeks of feeling absolutely nothing, hurting again isn't such a bad trade-off for being back, though,_ he reasoned.

"Sorry I had to do that," Mike said with a hard swallow, glancing guiltily at the angry and discolored mark that had formed on the side of Clyde's face. The other guard turned to him, wincing and drawing a hand to his side as he did so.

"Considering the circumstances, it was understandable," he admitted with a forgiving grin. "Though I'm pretty sure I might have also cracked a rib or two when you sent me flying across that desk." Mike looked so mortified that Clyde chose not to even mention the shooting pain from his knees, which had been the recipient of more than one well-aimed strike from his steel-toed work boots.

"Still, I'll take that over being imprisoned in that wretched suit for all eternity. That was Derrick's plan, to use me as his minion until he overpowered my spirit, and then to use my body to power his awful suit and prey on whoever else he had it in for, namely you." The guard shuddered violently. "That's why my last hope was that you would destroy the costume and what little I thought was left of me inside of it, because it would have taken him out as well." His demeanor grew even more serious as he stared up at the ceiling. "I'm still in awe that you set the lost children free. Like Derrick said, I fell far short of managing that one myself, but I always hoped the next guard would be the one to do it, and I _knew_ I wasn't overestimating you."

"You didn't fall short of anything, and I couldn't have done it without your help," Mike insisted, removing the baseball cap from his head and offering it to his mentor. "Oh, and I believe this is yours."

Clyde replaced the hat he had considered a good luck charm over his thinning hair. "Hey, wow. Thanks for keeping that safe, buddy," he said gratefully, not hesitating to reach out and rest a hand on Mike's shoulder, nor keep it there until he gradually succumbed to exhaustion, his eyes sliding shut.

Like the night watch he finally felt he had become, Mike remained alert, his mind still overbrimming with unanswered questions. Throughout the course of his training calls and gentle guidance, he had come to think of Clyde as a type of protective older brother he would likely never get to meet, but somehow they had switched roles and he had become the rescuer.

_You're my first real success in a long time,_ Mike thought. _I actually managed to keep my promise and save you, and the kids as well, and banish this Derrick to where he belongs. _Gazing down at the other guard, he marveled at the way he could peacefully sleep after having spent most of the previous two weeks with his soul essentially torn from his physical body, convinced he was dead and driven to despair. Then again, maybe that was why he could finally rest, as for all he knew his worries were over. It was apparent he was blissfully unaware of the impending closing of the restaurant he loved so much, and Mike was left alone to brood over the lightest possible way to break the bad news to him and shatter his sense of peace.

* * *

"For crying out loud, Mike, don't press our luck!" Clyde exclaimed in disbelief, awakening shortly before the end of the shift to find that the other guard had risen to his knees and was taking out a week's worth of frustrations by lobbing a steady barrage of plastic balls at the characters. "I said I didn't _think_ the animatronics could go in here, and I'd hate to find out the hard way that I was wrong." Running a hand through his still-sodden hair, he sighed. "And to be honest, getting slaughtered in a ball pit would be an even worse way to check out than dying in a teddy bear costume, y'know?"

"Fine," Mike acquiesced, glancing down at the ball in his hand, unable to resist the urge. "But _that_ is for giving _him _such a rough time!" Pitching the sphere forward with all the strength he could muster, he felt a twinge of satisfaction when it cracked directly off Freddy Fazbear's microphone, causing the character to briefly swivel his head toward him, his backlit eyes flashing ominously. "I'm sorry, it's just been a helluva week," he admitted, returning his attention to Clyde.

"I've had better myself, and Mister Faz hasn't been taking any of this too well, has he?"

Mike shook his head, recalling the way his employer had vacillated between expressing anger, heartbreak and genuine guilt over his long-time worker's mysterious disappearance, and how he in turn had wavered in his willingness to trust his boss.

"He's been all over the place about it and he's sure not the easiest guy to read, but I think deep down he's torn up about what he, well, _thought_ happened to you," Mike answered cautiously. "That extra Freddy costume you warned me about in the backstage room? He actually did move that out to keep me a little safer, my guess is to that closet inside his personal office, just in case I got caught. Don't ask why he did it so late in the game, but I guess it was better than nothing. I misunderstood his intentions, thinking he was hiding evidence of what happened to you, but I know now he's not that kind of guy."

_No, he's not,_ Clyde agreed silently, wondering what kind of guy that made _him._ Though he had spent years in frustration over his boss's secretive ways, he had hidden far more from Faz in turn, right down to his reason for finally leaving the job.

* * *

Free. They were _free._ Clutching Junior's hand, Beth raced toward the front door of the building that had served as their prison for decades, beckoning the spirits of the younger three children onward. For once not restricted to the physical confines of the structure, they passed through the exit unimpeded, awestruck at the sight of the star-filled sky above them.

"We're finally going _home!"_ Junior cried, his voice full of glee at realizing a dream that had long been denied to any of them. The little group stood on the pavement in a lopsided ring, their arms linked and relishing the sheer joy of their newfound freedom, until Beth spoke up.

"Maybe we should wait a little longer," she admitted in a low voice. "Mike and Mister Miller might need our help. It wouldn't be fair for us to leave this place now." Met with expressions of disbelief from her friends, she shrugged, remembering the last time she had tried to dare the others to follow her lead. "No, on second thought it's entirely your choice. I'll stay around though, at least for a while." She was startled to feel a gentle squeeze of her hand, and looked up to see Junior's mischievous yet sincere grin.

"We're a team, and we'll stay until we're _all_ ready to leave," he assured her, thrilled when she returned his smile.

* * *

Running late, Nathan Faz unlocked the door to the pizzeria, the smell of freshly-brewed coffee greeting him as he made his way through the lobby toward the concession counter. Though he had resigned himself to the reality that his lifelong business enterprise was in its final days, he remained fiercely determined to honor the contracts he had signed with families who had booked birthday parties at the pizzeria, unaware of the venue's impending demise.

"I thought you already brought along enough coffee for a small army, Schmidt," he called out, coming to a sudden halt as he recalled the tradition he and his lost right-hand man had shared on so many mornings, seated at the counter and finishing off the better part of a ten-cup carafe, himself in preparation for a hard day's work and Clyde to celebrate another successful night guarding the animatronics.

"What the devil? You're back!" Faz sputtered, abruptly dropping the stack of schedules and unpaid bills he had been carrying and rushing to clutch up his worker in a crushing hug, only realizing as the tears began streaming from his eyes that in all the years of working together, they had seldom so much as shook hands, let alone embraced. Eventually drawing back, he clasped Clyde's hands in his own, looking him over before nodding Mike's way as well. "And you're a real sight, both of you."

"Yeah, I guess there were days when we looked better," Clyde said, smirking at Mike's uniform and then his own, both of them stained with an unaesthetic mix of sweat, filth from the neglected ball pit, and in his case, a generous dousing of root beer. "By the way, our long-time resident ghost? He sure had me for a while there, but Mike took care of him, as well as-"

"The children's spirits? They're free?" Faz cut in, watching Clyde's jaw drop. "Don't be so shocked," he reprimanded him lightly, releasing his grasp on his worker's hands to swipe away the tears blurring his vision. "It was only after you disappeared that I finally caught on to what was truly going on around here, and I even encountered your 'Demon' when I forced myself to stay overnight. Now I know exactly why you stayed so long, and you have a really big heart, but I wish you hadn't tried to go it alone for that long." His eyes threatened to mist over again. "You gave up so much for them, never even calling in sick. I truly hope you can forgive me for giving you a hard time when you finally announced you were quitting; that came as such a shock."

Mike paused with his coffee mug halfway to his mouth, catching the briefest glimpse of Clyde's face flushing before he dipped his head lower, hiding behind the bill of his ball cap.

"Yeah, about that," he stammered, "I never wanted to quit and unload a job that dangerous on anyone else. I'm sure I came across as a real jerk giving you a hard time when it came to hiring a replacement, but most of those candidates you had in mind would've been sent straight to their deaths." He pulled his hands from his pockets and held them before himself, appearing more flushed than ever.

"Like I said, I never planned to leave this place but as much as I didn't want to admit it..." He gulped audibly, still not looking his employer in the eye. "Aww, I might as well come right out and say it. Over the last few months I've been getting the shakes, even if I hid it from you, and this isn't the kind of thing that's going to get better. It finally got to the point I could barely hold the monitor steady enough to cycle through the cameras, and that's when I began to fear it would lead to a fatal mistake. If Mike's gonna stay on the job, I'll stick around to help him out for as long as he wants, free of charge, but then I'd better duck out-" His voice trailed off as he stared down at his hands, which for the first time in recent memory weren't trembling at all, even in his agitated state.

_I have no idea how you did that, but...thanks, _he silently thought, though he hardly knew to whom he was expressing gratitude. Had being imprisoned in the suit actually cured his malady somehow?

"Well, how about that," he muttered aloud, covering his face with his hands and feeling completely overwhelmed with relief. The entire course of his life had just changed, and he startled when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

"We're all in this together now, so I want to hear what you've really been up to, all of it," Faz said, his tone genuine. "I need to make sense of this all." Before he knew it, Clyde was finally divulging the entire narrative of his long and lonely time as a night guard at Freddy's, beginning with the fateful run-in he'd had as a teenager with Derrick in the skate room.

* * *

"So anyway, that's my sorry story, and forget 'having a big heart,' I'm just a stubborn guy who couldn't bring himself to leave the only job he'd ever had since high school," Clyde said, scuffing his shoe on the floor. "I wanted to free the kids, sure, but after a while I wanted revenge on that Demon-er, Derrick for what he did to them. I'm glad you finally put him in his place, Mike. Y'know, Derrick was right about at least one thing. You really are something else, accomplishing in one week what I couldn't handle in thirty years as a guard."

Mike opened his mouth to protest but Clyde hastily excused himself, saying he needed to "burn something out back," and after he left the rookie officer turned to his employer.

"The Golden Freddy costume," he guessed. "I can't imagine what's going on in Clyde's head right now, but that should bring him closure, to destroy the suit that almost ended him." He took a sip of his coffee, still reeling from the incredible account his mentor had given.

"What can I say, he kept to himself, especially in more recent years, and I let him do his own thing since I felt he was capable and he rarely asked for help," Nathan Faz sighed, frowning at Mike's narrowed eyes.

"So how are you going to break it to him that this joint's closing soon?" Mike asked blankly, struggling to keep any tones of hostility from his voice. "Yeah, I found out about that."

"Okay, so I haven't been as transparent as I could have been," Faz admitted in defeat, his brow furrowing. "I was loathe to admit there wasn't much hope of keeping this enterprise around much longer, and even now I sometimes delude myself into believing I can somehow turn business around at the last minute and salvage the whole operation." He stared down at the swirl of cream in his coffee. "Let's only drop one bomb on him at a time if we can help it, okay? I can pay you both to cover the night shift tomorrow and you have my assurance that if I'm going to stiff anyone it'll be a few vendors, not the two most loyal workers I've ever had." His next words left Mike feeling as though his heart had sunk to the bottom of his steel-toed boots.

"Not that it's your fault, son, but I don't envy you, either, having to explain the situation with Cynthia to him."

Mike grimaced, setting his coffee mug down on the counter with an audible clunk. "Yeah, and there's that. Awkward..."

* * *

The door at the far end of the backstage room closed softly behind Clyde as he stepped onto the loading dock, a large cardboard box in his arms. Nestled inside amongst stained paper party goods were the remains of the Golden Freddy costume that had nearly become his permanent resting place, now looking sadly pathetic in its state of destruction.

Upending most of the box's contents into the rusted metal drum and touching a match to the edge of a mass of crepe paper streamers, he watched, deep in thought, as the edges of the brightly-colored strands blackened and shriveled, the sharp smell of burning paper hanging in the air. This was where he had clandestinely burned the remnants of the ancient clown animatronics from the building's earliest incarnation as a dance hall, where he had incinerated the clean-up from the bloody Bite of '87 and even the wooden door Bonnie had splintered.

For decades, he and Nathan Faz had conspired, not out of malice but necessity to avoid harming the enterprise, to hide the dark secrets of the past. Doing so had nearly cost him everything, though it was too late for regret.

His gaze moved from the crumpled, misshapen headpiece of the costume, its paper mache and chicken-wire form resembling a high school art project gone awry, to the torn and faded plush remnants of the bodysuit. Holding out both suspended over the flames, he watched as the wisps of the acrylic fur began with wither and melt in the intense heat. Below in the burning barrel, the crackling flames consumed a paper tablecloth printed with a cheerful wish to _Celebrate!_

_I know you're not completely gone,_ he silently addressed the diminished evil spirit whose remaining ties to the world were connected to the costume he was about to destroy. _I can feel it, and _nothing _is going to make me happier than ending all this by sending you exactly where you've been long overdue to go. Mike had his victory over you, and now it's my turn._ He began to release his grasp on the costume, only to find his fingers wouldn't permit it.

_No._ Wrenching his hands back, he shook them, only then realizing he'd nearly burned them both, and folded the costume into the box, setting the facemask on top. Staring down at the items and scarcely believing his abrupt change of mind, he returned to the backstage room.

The secret trapdoor to the musty storm cellar was exactly where he had remembered it, and when he swung it open he grinned, kneeling to pick up a small pink cellphone glittering with fake rhinestones. Then with more care than he owed the entity who had tormented him and the children, he lowered the box gently onto the moist earth below.

"Remember a few weeks ago when I said maybe you were afraid of where you'd wind up if you did move on?" he addressed Derrick, feeling only the slightest hint of a chill in response. "I was honestly going to give you a shove in that direction anyway, but the choice wasn't mine to make.

Maybe it really isn't too late, though I wasn't kidding when I said it would be a tough order. One thing's for sure, time's not on your side. The damp in here's going to finish off your costume soon enough, and then you're headed somewhere, like it or not." The security guard sharply kicked the door closed with his sneaker.

"Your move, Derrick."

* * *

_Author's Note: The way Mike thought of Clyde as the brother he never met was the headcanon of reviewer Pjbunny13 on FF.N._


	19. Employee of the Month

"Employee of the _month?" _Mike exclaimed incredulously, grasping his first overtime paycheck, complete with a congratulatory if somewhat hastily-scrawled message on the memo line and the bonus payment that had been promised. "I've gotta admit, this is a first."

"It somehow struck me while I was completing the payroll just now that no other employee even came close to saving a life, exorcising a horde of haunting ghosts and banishing a demonic presence to Hell," Faz admitted dryly, pretending to be deep in thought. "Though Lynne, our kitchen manager, did an admirable job of increasing concession sales fifteen percent over last month and that's no small accomplishment, either." Mike blinked at his boss in pure disbelief, finally acknowledging that he might have put in an exemplary workday after all.

Faz ran a hand over the wooden plaque on the wall outside his office, catching his fingernail under the edge of one of the tiny metal nameplates adhered to it. _July 1987, _the tarnished plate read, _Clyde Miller. _That "Employee of the Month" award had been a thinly-veiled apology for the bite injury his worker had suffered far more than a recognition of any outstanding performance.

"Huh. I never realized I only gave Clyde the honor once in all those years, but once he switched to the night shift, he practically became invisible to the day crew, myself included," Faz mused, giving Mike an apologetic glance. "I'd add your name to this, but the whole thing will probably end up getting pitched or burned out back when we close, anyway. Still, I thought the award might look good on your resume, you know, for when you start looking for another job." His shoulders fell. "I wouldn't wait too long on that one, either. But you have my reassurance that if any prospective employers call, I'll most certainly put in a good word for you. It's the very least I can do at this point."

Mike felt the thin paper check growing damp in his sweaty grip. They both knew that Faz could hardly tell an interviewer over the phone that his candidate had fought off killer robots, battled a ghost and saved a man's life in his first week on the job. The best commendation he could give would be confirming that his worker had shown up on time, watched the cameras diligently all night and had not pulled off anything too boneheaded during the short duration of his employment. Those nominal accomplishments would scarcely outweigh Mike's previous checkered work history and the criminal record that had left most other interviewers shaking their heads in disbelief. _There are hardly employers fist-fighting in the parking lot over who gets to hire you first. Appreciate and treasure your employment at Fazbear's, son, because it's damn well your only option, _Faz had warned him on his first night.

"That's right, it's payday," Clyde called out cheerily, interrupting Mike's morose thoughts and making his way across the dining area toward the office. "Can you believe it, when I started out here in '77 the minimum wage was two bucks and thirty cents an hour? Funny how that seemed like more than enough for my needs as a teenager back in the day, though. So long as it kept me in comic books and candy bars and gas money, I was good to go." Keeping up the carefree act, he had already made the decision to let his boss and Mike believe he had incinerated the Golden Freddy costume. It was already in the past and he was confident that Derrick, however long he was for the world, would never regain the strength to hurt anyone again.

"Speaking of gas money, why don't you just make my paycheck out to the city impound, since I guess that's where I'm headed after this. Did you really have to have my car towed?" he asked, abruptly changing his tone and offering a sudden and rare hint of defiance. "It's been all of two weeks."

"I had nothing to do with that!" Faz insisted, throwing his hands in the air in a gesture of defense. "You left it parked in the shopping plaza's shared lot, and when the cops eventually came around asking about it, I couldn't exactly tell them it belonged to my employee who had incidentally gone missing, could I?"

"Guess not," sighed Clyde in agreement as he tucked the check in his shirt pocket. "'S'okay, I'll take care of it, at least if they haven't crushed the sorry thing."

* * *

"It's kind of a long walk to the impound," Mike said out in the parking lot, jingling his car keys and gesturing at his own rather nominal vehicle. "C'mon, let's go get your wheels back, but I've gotta admit, you have an incredible amount of self-control." _You're covered in bruises and limping a little, you nearly died on the job and your boss lied to you for years, and yet the first time you showed the slightest hint of annoyance, it was over the loss of your car, of all things._

"And if it would make you feel better, we could swing by Faz's place on the way and turf his lawn in my car," the rookie guard wisecracked. "It was cathartic to trash my last boss's front yard after his shady business deals got the whole used car lot shut down and everybody lost his job."

Realizing that his friend likely wasn't kidding, Clyde burst into laughter despite himself, though his next words confirmed Mike's worst fears. "Er, pass. And thanks, but I wasn't heading straight home, anyway." His face reddening, he gazed across the road to where the Gas'N'Grub stood, knowing that beyond the large windows plastered with the usual signs advertising milk and cigarettes, the woman he'd long harbored a crush on was no doubt brewing coffee or stocking shelves. He found himself wondering whether she was still worried about what had happened to her "best customer," as she had jokingly called him more than once.

"I, uh, want to check in on a friend first," he admitted hesitantly before drawing a deep breath and continuing with more confidence, surprised at how freely he could talk to someone he could trust about his feelings for Cynthia. "The clerk over there, Cindy, maybe you've met her; she's wonderful, and I'd made myself a promise that once I left my job I'd finally be free to, uh, ask her out, I guess." He laughed at the deplorable condition of his work uniform. "Suppose I should wash up first, but I just want her to know I'm okay-" Mike cut him off, unable to hold back his guilt.

"Yeah, I've met her, and she _is _wonderful," he said, folding his arms over his chest and leaning back against his station wagon, resting one boot sole on the rust-flecked body of the car and noting that the counterfeit inspection sticker adhered to the windshield was beginning to curl at the edges and peel off. _Just be honest. _"We grew pretty close this week, and last night we almost-" Stealing a glance at Clyde, he was dismayed but hardly surprised to see his stunned expression, as though he'd been struck with a bucket of ice-cold water.

"Well,_ that's _a tough break," the guard sighed, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand while staring at the ground, already having guessed what Mike had been about to confess before he had fallen silent. "Serves me right for taking that stupidly long - five years, can you believe it? - to tell her how I felt. Besides, you weren't doing anything wrong. Both of you thought I was dead."

"In all honesty we did, or I never would have dreamed of pursuing her," Mike said, his voice quavering, more astounded than ever at his mentor's incredible stoicism. "But in typical Mike Schmidt fashion, I messed things up rather badly last night and and it didn't end so well, to the point that I might as well consider myself single again." Seeing a mix of confusion and hope on Clyde's face, he reached out, grabbing the other man's arm and practically dragging him across the parking lot.

* * *

_On second thought, I don't know about this. _Clyde halted just outside the door to the convenience store. Though the thought of starting a life with Cynthia had sustained his spirits during his final lonely work-week, now that the moment had arrived under very different circumstances he had lost his resolve. Wordlessly, he seated himself on the curb, staring pensively back at the pizzeria.

"I take it this is a first for you and you've never been in a relationship, have you?" Mike asked pointedly, sinking down next to him. "Hey, I'm hardly in a place to judge," he admitted, thinking back to his solitary long-term but ultimately failed relationship and especially the few one-night stands that he had grown to deeply regret. "You were still practically a kid when you started working the graveyard shift, and I can't imagine holding down those hours seven nights a week would help much with that." He shook his head. "Damn."

Clyde gave him a weak grin, grateful for his understanding and lack of judgement. "You can say that again. I threw myself into the job and told myself it didn't matter anyway, and then when I finally, _finally,_ fell hard for a woman I realized it wouldn't be fair to lead her on. What would I have even had to offer her except a promise that she'd be spending every night alone?

That was the only silver lining to knowing I'd have to quit," he said. "At least it gave me a chance with her, but now if I'm staying on the job..."

_Not for as long as you think. _Mike gulped, recalling the restaurant's eventual fate. "Don't sell yourself short; you have plenty to offer her. You can make this work, and don't forget, she works the night shift often enough herself." He watched a sparrow, the last of the stragglers who had not flown south by mid-November, peck at a discarded donut hole in the empty parking lot. "Let's get in there before this gets _too _After-School Special, huh?" he asked, catching Clyde's snicker. "I mean, look at us, we're two older dudes sitting outside a convenience store pining about our emotions like we're in high school all over again."

* * *

"Clyde!" In an impressive display of athleticism fueled by sheer joy, Cindy hoisted herself over the counter of the convenience store before Clyde had even reached it, propelling herself into his arms. "Mike told me everything about your restaurant," she said in his ear, reluctant to release him from her grasp. Over the shoulder of the man she was fiercely hugging, her eyes met Mike's in a long, questioning gaze, and he nodded slightly, a reluctant grin on his face.

"Cindy, I'm not so great with words, but I want to thank you for the week we had together," Mike said, clearing his throat and peering around cautiously to assure himself there were no customers in the store. "Clyde can explain how he really did hold out in that back room you tried to investigate, and he's one heck of a fighter. That's one thing all three of us have in common; we're tough as nails even if you'd never guess it from looking at us, and once I had someone who believed in me, I fought even harder to pull through this week.

So I don't regret anything we had together," Mike continued, watching Cindy's eyes mist over with what he could only imagine must have been a confusing mix of emotions. "It made me want to be a better guy and it all happened for a reason, but now I think _this," _he gestured to the embracing couple, "needs to happen, also for a reason."

"Ugh, this is getting sappy," Cindy suddenly wisecracked, proving she shared her suddenly new ex-boyfriend's dry wit. "How about I just date you both at the same time?" Giggling lightly at Clyde's startled reaction, she quickly reassured him she was kidding.

"I'll leave you two to catch up," Mike said, feeling awkwardly like a third wheel. "I'll tie up some loose ends at the pizzeria, and when you're ready, we're gonna spring your car from jail, pal."

* * *

"Hey, thanks, buddy, but I guess I've gotta take it from here," Clyde said later that morning as the station wagon lurched into the parking lot of the city impound. A complete stranger to legal situations that found him on the wrong side of the law, he nervously eyed the large and formidable spirals of barbed wire that rested atop the chain-link fence surrounding the lot, then breathed a sigh of relief when he spotted the familiar frame of the hatchback he had owned since high school, looking particularly unimpressive flanked by two enormous luxury SUVs sparkling with chrome embellishments. At least it hadn't been crushed as he'd feared...

"Nope, I've got this one," Mike said confidently, flashing him a rakish grin. "I used to be a repo guy myself and trust me, we're not only going to fight this one, we're going to win."

* * *

_He's really on fire today, _Clyde thought with admiration as Mike, armed with an enviable sense of confidence, advocated on his behalf to the clerk who had graciously agreed to meet with them.

"Now see here," the rookie guard said with an authority he didn't really possess, spreading an array of documents across the desk. Though surprised by Mike's request for them, Faz had willingly pulled the papers from the company's files, sensing that his worker knew what he was doing. "I understand you were only responding to a towing request for a presumably abandoned vehicle, but if you'll review this map of the shopping plaza's entire parking area, I think it can safely be argued that my coworker's vehicle was parked in a space that was reasonably close to his own place of employment. When the car suffered a breakdown that he wasn't able to immediately repair, our boss permitted him to keep it in the lot for an indefinite amount of time. You can verify that with the man himself."

Mike jabbed a finger at the rectangles on the map that represented the parking spaces closest to the pizzeria. "Though our manager has a bit of a reputation that hardly serves him well when it comes to dealing with the other leaseholders in the plaza, he owns his restaurant building outright and a sizeable amount of the shared lot around it, and from what I'm seeing on this map, he either owns or had the right to use the spot where the towed car had been left." Extracting a red pen that he had stolen from the restaurant from his pocket, he marked the rectangle in question with a large 'x.'

The clerk scrutinized the blueprint, astounded at the persuasive evidence before him. Excusing himself for some length of time, on his way out he barely resisted the temptation to ask the two men what exactly their duties as security guards entailed if they wound up so bruised and filthy.

"Well, Mister Schmidt, I must say I'm impressed," he said when he returned. "It turns out you were exactly right and the shopkeeper who called in the report of the abandoned car - you'll have to forgive me for not revealing who he was, but he has a bit of a past when it comes to your boss - didn't quite have the authority to order a tow."

* * *

"Mike, that was incredible!" Clyde cheered as the other man waited patiently to make sure he could start the long-idled hatchback. "You came in with a battle plan and knocked 'em dead! You'd make a great lawyer."

Mike chuckled. "Let's just say I tried to serve as my attorney once before and it didn't go nearly so well, and leave it at that."

_I'd have never had the guts to pull off something like that,_ Clyde thought, recalling how he had been fully ready to meekly hand over the towing and storage fines until Mike had insisted on arguing the case. Removing his key from the ignition and staring at it with a frown as if willing it to turn the engine over, he finally succeeded on his fourth try, with the motor humming to life. "Eh, at least if that clerk's watching he'll believe what you said about the car trouble back at Freddy's, but I guess I'm good for now. I've got to get home and take care of some stuff. Thanks."

Watching the car amble out of the lot, Mike stood for a moment by his own vehicle, deep in thought. He truly wasn't one for going down without a fight, and, buoyed by his recent success, maybe he was up for yet another battle. It would require another trip to the pizzeria...


	20. All Utilities Included

_Author's Note: Warning for mildly depressing content, though things will eventually get better. This chapter contains very mild sensuality and a minor spoiler for _The Lord of the Rings_ trilogy of novels._

* * *

Clyde pushed open the door to the cabin at the long-stay motel that he had called home for the better part of his adult life, the familiar and comforting scent of the long pine planks that paneled the walls greeting him. Stepping over two weeks' worth of mail that had been dropped through the slot in the door, he bent to gather them up, finding no personal letters in the lot, only sales circulars advertising Christmas deals even though it was not yet Thanksgiving, coupons for the local hardware store, the electric bill and a handwritten note from his landlord politely reminding him his rent had been due the day before.

Tossing the mail on a small table next to a two-burner stove, he examined a bag of bread that sat on top of the tiny cube of a refrigerator, frowning at the mold that had overtaken the slices during the two weeks of his absence, coating the inside of the bag with green spores. _Well, that would have to go. _Once he worked up the courage to open the fridge itself, he was relieved to be met with nothing more than the gentle hum of the motor, and he rustled through the few jars and packages inside, finding everything still apparently good. _Incredible._

"Hey, you pulled through, lil' guy!" he praised a spider plant hanging in a macrame holder by the single window, its long leaves yellowed and barely grasping at life. "Here ya go." He twisted the knob on the sink, watched the water sputter to life and run rusty, and filled a plastic watering can to revive his ailing houseplant.

"Uh, guess that makes two of us." Pitching his arms behind his head, he flopped back onto the quilt that covered the bed, staring up at the ceiling and then over at the bookshelf, where the paperbacks from his college literature course stood in neat rows. _Lord of the Rings. _As much as he had enjoyed the trilogy of novels, even reading them twice, he had always found it saddening that the protagonist had returned from the most incredible journey of his life, only to find himself beset by a hollow, haunting sadness for the remainder of his days.

A knock at the door interrupted his melancholy thoughts, leaving him regretting he had not yet cashed his paycheck so he could make good on his overdue rent. His landlord was a very fair and sympathetic man, and the last thing he wanted to do was ruin his longstanding reputation with the guy.

"Hold on a moment, Bruce, I have to make a bank run and then - Cindy!" Once he regained his wits, Clyde hesitantly invited her inside, silently praying she wouldn't find his overly modest living quarters laughable, but she looked around with approval and even made a gracious remark about the space being cozy.

"I'm sorry to swing by when you probably want to rest, but I couldn't just leave you all alone," Cindy explained, taking a seat at the little dinette table and giving the green loaf of bread a sympathetic glance. "You poor thing, I can already tell you're traumatized, even if you're trying hard to hide it."

Jestingly complimenting her on her nurturing complex, Clyde awkwardly sank to the bed, the only other seat as he didn't even have a sofa and the place was hardly built for entertaining.

"Hey, it's not so bad," he said sarcastically, throwing his hands up in the air. "I can always find a good counselor and tell him all about the possessed teddy bears and the ghost bully who had it in for me since I was a teenager so he can help me get past all that." He pulled his legs up to his chest, staring down at the garish colors making up the long strands of the outdated carpeting.

"I'm really going to miss my - those kids," Clyde said, his voice cracking slightly as he corrected himself. "They never got a chance to say goodbye, though I can't blame them." Cindy was by his side in an instant, her arms around him, and he found himself remembering that she had once mentioned wanting children herself, but her marriage almost immediately after high school had been very brief and she had decided against remarrying any time soon.

"You were all they had, Clyde," she reassured him softly. "Of course you'll miss them, at least until someday when you're back with them. Just imagine, introducing me to your children I never got to meet here on Earth."

"Well, don't count on _that _moment happening anytime too soon," Clyde said, breaking into a sudden grin and feeling a little better. "After all that I've been through, I plan on living to at least a hundred, just to spite Derrick. So the way I see it, I'm only halfway through at best and I have a good ways to go."

"You're something else, and I have no doubt you'll do just that." Cindy's grin matched his and then she shot him an uncharacteristically timid look, eyebrows raised, that he recognized as a request for permission. Instinctively understanding, he let his weight pull them both down to the quilt, still wrapped in each others' arms.

Though his face was positively burning, he snuggled her to his chest, marveling at how incredible it felt to simply rest in an embrace with someone so tight they could feel each other's heartbeats after years of being used to falling asleep entirely alone in the same bed. He wouldn't have dreamed of asking for more.

* * *

Earning the Employee of the Month award and being granted a new level of trust he had never even come close to enjoying in his previous work history had its perks, Mike thought as he sat behind the large oak desk in the center of Nathan Faz's office late that evening, his fingers drumming across the keyboard of the late-model computer. The same boss he had exchanged threats with only two days before had now granted him so much leeway that he hadn't even bothered to remain in the office to supervise Mike's use of his personal computer, ostensibly to type out a resume for his upcoming job search.

"Aha!" Mike exclaimed triumphantly, leaning back and rubbing his eyes against the glare from the monitor. Stealthfully poring over hundreds of advertisements on a commercial real estate website, he was certain he had finally located the listing for both the company and its building, which had apparently been on the market for nearly a year. His lips moved as he read the ad that touted the features of the business. _Long-established children's entertainment and birthday party venue in a free-standing, 10,000 square-foot building with ample parking. Zoned for commercial use, includes all utilities._

_"All_ utilities? Nice way to hide that pesky electricity problem, Faz." Snorting in disbelief despite his efforts to keep his research clandestine, the guard's mouth soon pulled into a frown. The advertisement had been amended earlier that day, no doubt by Faz himself, and the new information affirmed that the proprietor had virtually given up hope of finding a buyer for the business itself, touting the other potential uses for the building and even the site. _The site? But that would mean..._

Cursing, Mike landed a fist on the desk, causing the computer mouse to briefly lift up from its resting place on the pad. "I am _not_ gonna let the only joint I ever had half a chance at get bulldozed to the ground!" he snarled, and he was soon rifling through documents in the desk drawers once again.

* * *

"Uh, sir?" Clyde asked timidly, appearing in the doorway to the office long after Mike had vacated it, leaving it to be reclaimed by its usual occupant. "I've been thinking, and since this place is going to be a lot more quiet at night now, you're probably not going to want two guards on duty every shift. As much as I want to stay here, Mike has ten times the right to stay on the job than I do." He twisted his ball cap in his hands. "I just talked to him, and he thought it was a great idea if we could both work part-time, with each of us moonlighting somewhere else on our days off from Freddy's."

Faz looked up, startled, from where he had been perusing the pitiful resume file Mike had left open on the computer. Despite the impeccable spelling and overall polished look of the document, the meager work history listed would hardly serve his soon-to-be former employee well in his job search. At the very least, nobody could accuse Mike of embellishing his personal details.

"Clyde, are you asking permission to take on another job?" Faz asked, his face softening even as he fretted over how much Mike might have told him about the restaurant's inevitable fate. "By all means, do so. Take as many hours as they're willing to give you. We can manage here." He managed a small and kindly smile. "And then take some days off once you accrue some vacation time. Go camping outdoors overnight, because you've never once been able to do that. Take a road trip or a vacation that will let you stray farther from this place than you've been in thirty years. By all means, take your lady friend out for a night on the town she'll never forget, because you've more than earned all of that."

Clyde smirked, stuffing his hands in his pockets awkwardly and looking for all the world like the bashful teenager he once was instead of a man who had seen his fiftieth birthday several years before. "I guess Mike told you she and I are sorta together now, huh?" His mind was reeling, as he had never assumed his boss had given much thought to his lack of a social life outside of the pizzeria. "Thanks. I'll get on it right away and let you know how it turns out."

After his worker had left, Faz's eyes returned to the sorry excuse for a resume, guilt welling up far worse than before.

_You won't be so gracious about it once you find out the real truth, _he thought sadly, his mind still vacillating between dismissing his entire work shift when the fateful moment came or simply letting them arrive to find the doors padlocked.

* * *

"You can _adjust_ their artificial intelligence?" Mike sputtered shortly before the start of his shared shift with Clyde, watching the other man twist a screwdriver, feverishly working to open a well-hidden panel on Freddy's hip. After Faz had left for the night, he had been amazed to hear Clyde's casual suggestion that they examine the animatronics, as he had caught sight of the mysterious controls on the characters once decades before while his boss had been building them.

"Turns out you can, but I never once dared change anything back in the day," Clyde said, shrugging. "I guess Mister Faz told you about the problem with their servos locking up if they were left out of service for too long, and once I found out about the kids' spirits haunting these..." He trailed off, letting his arm holding the screwdriver fall to his lap. "I didn't want to take that risk, because I didn't want any of them trapped in a robot that I irresponsibly broke beyond repair." Encouraged by Mike's nod of understanding, he confided, "it was bad enough knowing poor Foxy couldn't be out to entertain the kids like he used to."

His eyes widened as the panel, covered with a layer of acrylic fur like the rest of the bear's frame, clattered to the floor. "Huh, so that's how it works," Clyde said, staring at the small dial with preset numbers. "We still need to show them some respect, though, so I guess we can't afford to leave them at zero. If they're left unable to move that would do in their servos for sure."

Mike dropped to his knees beside him, cringing at the sight of Freddy's head, swiveled sharply in their direction as if the robot - _they're really just robots now, _he had to remind himself - had grown curious as to what his caretakers were up to.

"Well, what are we waiting for?" he asked breezily, twisting the dial to its highest setting of twenty from what he assumed had been its default and neutral place at ten. "This is intelligence we're talking about here, and we want 'em smart as can be, right? At least bright enough to catch on that we're not endoskeletons that need shoving into a suit."

"Sure thing," Clyde said smugly, tossing a second screwdriver his fellow guard's way. "I'll get Freddy finished up here and you take Chica. Twenty for everybody it is, then. Who knows, that might leave them geniuses spouting Shakespeare." He broke into a grin. "Speaking of geniuses, this plan of yours was incredible, Mike! It's going to be great working with you."

Unseen at the back of the show stage, Beth leaned into Junior's arms, feeling utterly helpless and overwhelmed with concern for the two men. Being freed from Derrick's control had also weakened the spirits of the Lost Children, and when they had returned to the pizzeria in the early hours of the morning, they had immediately discovered they could no longer control the animatronics.

"Mister Miller, Mike, what are you _doing?"_ the distraught girl wailed, tugging one of her ringlets of hair in frustration. "Don't they _know?" _With his return to the world of the living, Clyde had evidently lost his ability to see the children or even sense their presence, and she dreaded she was about to witness something ghastly.

* * *

_Author's Note: Just to be clear, that truly was just a chaste cuddling scene. To be continued, of course...  
_


	21. Worth a Shot (20202020 mode)

_"Sure _you're ready for this?" Mike asked, resting against the wall of the security office with one boot resting on the spare plastic chair he had dragged in from the dining area. Still regretting the vicious assault tactics he had been forced to use against Clyde while he'd been imprisoned in the Golden Freddy suit, he had graciously offered him the use of the desk chair. "I'm sorta surprised Faz wanted us both back on the job this soon after all that went down last night, but I guess he figured we can look out for each other if one of us nods off on the job or something."

"Heh, if _you_ doze off, count on getting this cup of soda emptied over your head. It would be fair payback," said Clyde, taking a sip from a striped drink cup and staring down at the ice packs resting over his bruised and swollen kneecaps. He tugged the brim of his ball cap slightly lower over his face, hoping to hide the copious beads of sweat he could feel forming across his brow, some of them already trickling toward his eyes.

"You bet I'm ready for this," he sighed. "I can't stay scared; I've got to get right back on the horse, as they say. And besides, we fixed those guys good. This should be a cinch, right?"

* * *

"I thought you said we were adjusting their artificial intelligence, not their _aggression_ levels!" Mike shouted mere moments later after their shift had started. The characters' movement toward the security office had been almost immediate, and he stood in the center of the room drenched in an absolute cold sweat and feeling like a fish in a bowl while Bonnie leered through one window at him while Freddy and Chica vied for space at the other. He had been forced to close both doors, which had left the numbers on the power meter spiraling downward at a dizzying tilt. "So what gives?"

"I have no idea!" Clyde wailed, hunched over the desk with his face buried in his hands, the icepacks forgotten where they had fallen by his feet. When he dared to open his eyes, he was greeted by a field of vision full of static, as well as the nightmarish, glaring visions of the animatronics' facemasks. Recognizing the old tactic Derrick had used in an attempt to make him lose his grip on his resolve and lower his defenses, Clyde knew that this was not the evil specter's doing but his _own_ mind reliving the feverish visions of the past, and that somehow made the flashbacks far more real. Trying to imagine himself back in the blissful and warm embrace he and Cindy had shared hours earlier did little to end the horrific sights in front of him.

"Hey, you don't even have to tell me what you're seeing right now, because I'm sure I saw all that and worse," Mike said gently, placing a hand on his mentor's trembling shoulder and fixing him with a reassuring but firm look. "But you've got to snap out of this if either one of us are going to have a ghost of a chance of making it through the night. Now, what was that career you told me you would have considered if you hadn't become a lifer at Freddy's?"

Clyde blinked at him in surprise, shaking his head as his vision cleared until only Mike was present. "I wanted to be an air traffic controller, but what's _that_ got to do with this? Besides, I was aiming _wa_y too high with that dream; to do that kind of work you have to be whip-smart, have lightning-fast reflexes, work well under pressure-"

Mike cut him off. "Gee, that almost sounds like the kind of skills a guy would need to have to survive thirty years at a job like this," he said curtly, gesturing around the security office.

Clyde's eyes stung as he saw the monitoring equipment and the large observation windows as if for the first time. Maybe his life's work _hadn't_ been so different from his long-deferred plans after all.

"You're going to live your dream tonight, and I'll be your wingman," the rookie officer said as he clapped his hesitant coworker across the back, "just tell me _what_ to do and when to do it." Without waiting for confirmation, Mike delivered a high kick to the controls for the nearest door, sending it flying open.

* * *

"Ground control to Officer Schmidt," Clyde began, genuinely grinning as he began the most frantic night he was certain to endure in his long career. "We have a Foxy on the run, ETA seven seconds. In three, close the left door. Then until I pinpoint Chica's whereabouts, zap the right hallway's light on just a sec and slam the door accordingly if you get a visual on her."

"Roger that!" Mike was already sprinting for the door where the pirate was due to make his appearance, a maniacal smile of his own plastered on his face. His mentor's newfound enthusiasm had proven infectious, and even if the next several hours saw Clyde giving him terse instructions that left him in near-constant motion and drenched in sweat, he was running on pure exhilaration and adrenaline. Maybe they both were, for their own reasons.

* * *

"Okay, so just for the record, which one is it, 'play dead' or 'run like Hell?'" Mike asked in dismay as the power cut out with a loud hum and the room plunged into near-total darkness. He grit his teeth together as he heard the characteristic chuckle of the pizzeria's namesake; with the office left open and undefended, Freddy had lost no time shuffling toward it, presumably in pursuit of the wayward "endoskeletons" inside.

"Beats me, to be honest, seeing as this has been a total free-for-all," Clyde admitted, stealing a glance at his wristwatch, which was equipped with a small light. "We have ten minutes to go, but if we made a run for it we'd never last long out there with them _this_ incredibly active tonight." His shoulders slumped as he fretted over the few options remaining, none of which promised them much of a chance of survival.

"Aw, c'mon, Mike, this is a weird time to redecorate the security office," he sighed despondently, watching the silhouette of the rookie guard hefting a monitor from the desk. Oddly fascinated, he suddenly realized that Mike was using the utmost in care moving the equipment because he actually believed they would both make it through the night and he would be held accountable if he rashly swept the contents of the desktop to the floor and broke the expensive monitors.

"Shut up and help me clear this off, would you?" Mike snapped, still grinning to confirm that, despite his brusque ways, he held no animosity. "I've always thought this big steel monster of a desk would make a perfect block for that doorway, but I couldn't begin to muscle it over there myself to test my idea. Maybe we two noodles can swing it, and it's at least worth a shot."

Snatching up the desk fan and another monitor, Clyde cautiously set them on the ground and helped Mike heave the hefty behemoth onto its side, the office supplies inside the drawers spilling with a loud clatter. With some difficulty due to sprained muscles and broken ribs, the two guards wedged the piece of furniture backward into the open doorway that Freddy Fazbear favored, with Mike dropping to the floor, his back against the underside of the desk and his boots braced against the floor to provide additional leverage.

Clyde remained frozen in place, practically spellbound as the bear appeared just behind the desk, his backlit eyes glowing and the cheerful little tune from his music box beginning to play. His memories fresh from his last ill-fated encounter with the bear and his companions, he felt his heart pounding in his chest at the unexpected showdown.

"Not today," he said unsteadily, giving Freddy Fazbear one last defiant glare before sinking down next to Mike. Despite their dire situation, his fellow guard was still grinning widely, his gleaming teeth visible in the gloom. "Alright, what's so funny?" Clyde demanded, the desk shuddering behind them as the character tried to force his way in. He only hoped Freddy wouldn't think to approach the remaining open doorway, looming before them as a constant reminder of their predicament.

"Nothing much," Mike chuckled, sounding slightly delirious. "It's just that now that the kids' spirits are gone, this job is more _stupid_ than ever, and yet so far it's the only thing I've proven to be any good at. We're more or less just live bait to distract the animatronics from escaping the building, which they'd probably be able to do sooner or later if we weren't here."

Clyde's immediate smirk was halted by a cry of surprise as Freddy's oversized paw swiped in through the thin space between the side of the desk and the doorframe, grazing his shoulder.

"You really think I didn't realize that years ago?" he asked, sneaking another peek at his watch. "I know what you mean, though," he added, wincing from the pain of his injured knees as he braced his back even more firmly against the desk. "We have two minutes left, by the way, but I'm just grateful you took my training calls seriously when all that information I threw at you must have sounded so surreal." He shrugged. "Since you're planning to stay for the long haul, you might as well come up with an alibi for what you do at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza overnight, because believe you me, there's no way to make our job responsibilities _not _sound ridiculous to anyone who hasn't been there himself. For all my family knows, I've worked as the overnight janitor all these years. Cindy's the only one I ever told otherwise."

Mike flashed his coworker a rueful grin. "As long as I'm gainfully employed, I doubt anyone else would care to know what I actually do for a living. I've sort of set the standards pretty low as of late." Met with a sympathetic look from Clyde, he rose from the floor and retrieved a manila folder from the desk, pulling a stapled document from the papers within.

"Here," he said, passing it to Clyde before he hastily resumed his position helping brace the desk against Freddy's aggression. "Just in case we don't pull through, I thought you ought to see this; I found it in our boss's desk. Even if you didn't believe in yourself, Faz sure believed in you."

"This is a last will and testament," Clyde said slowly, his words interrupted by the sound of the animatronic's paws pounding at the metal desk. Illuminating the paper with the tiny light from his wristwatch, he pored over the document. "He really would have...?" Passing the document back to Mike as if it pained him to hold it another moment, he tilted his head skyward, staring at the dark light bulb suspended from the ceiling. "I had no idea," Clyde said flatly.

While his fellow guard processed what he had read, Mike listened to the sounds of the bear padding off to the show stage, signaling the end of their shift. "Wow, we actually made it," he said, sprawling on the cool tiles of the floor in a flood of exhaustion and relief. "Gimme five minutes to convince myself we somehow pulled this off and then we'd better straighten this place up."

* * *

"Tampering with the animatronics?" Mike cried indignantly, reading off the pink slip Nathan Faz had just handed to him. "General unprofessionalism? _Odor?"_ Folding the note in half sharply and tucking it in his shirt pocket, he glared at his employer.

"Sorry, it's nothing personal, just in keeping with the long-standing family tradition of off-color humor in this business," Faz said, looking down at the pad of blank slips on his desk. "Besides, they're not effective immediately, but just my way of letting you both know that sadly this place can't stay afloat much longer and we'll soon all be out of a job." With a pang of guilt he saw Clyde bow his head, visibly crushed. "I'm truly sorry; I should have been more forthcoming about this enterprise's financial problems. But at any rate, I'm determined to at least fulfill the promise we made to the families who have booked their children's birthday parties for the next two weeks." He pushed the pad of slips forward to Mike. "You're welcome to write one out for me, if you'd like."

"You'd better _believe it _I'd like to!" Roughly tearing the top sheet off the rest, the rookie guard seized a gilded pen from his boss's executive desk set and began scribbling furiously on the piece of paper, concentrating so hard he held his tongue in the corner of his mouth like a small child learning how to print. Although the sight was amusing, Faz found some relief in Mike's annoyance. After a sleepless night spent debating how forthcoming he should be with his two night-shift workers, he had come to the decision that after all they had been through, they at least deserved his honesty over an outright betrayal.

"Failure to report for work and general insubordination," Clyde read from the slip he had been handed, then shrugged. He was not remotely about to admit he had seen the will his employer had drafted. "Guilty as charged, I guess, but what really kills me is the way this place is closing." _This was all I ever knew..._ Staring at the floor, he inexplicably felt a pang of guilt for ever having requested another job outside the pizzeria, which had felt like a second home for most of his life.

"We might not have to go that route," Mike said sharply, snapping to attention. Clicking the pen tip inside the barrel and tossing it back irreverently onto Faz's desk, he sat back with a smug expression, reading the long list he had scrawled onto the pink slip enumerating his boss's shortcomings. "Heh, _that _was therapeutic, but I'd be fired on the spot if you ever read this," the officer said, crumpling the note into a tight ball and jamming it deep in the pocket of his uniform slacks. Leaving Faz and Clyde to stare in disbelief at his tenacity, he dismissed himself from the office, only to return with the hefty manila folder full of documents.

"So I'll admit it, I betrayed your trust and rifled through your desk drawers," he frankly told a startled Faz, who was already rising from his seat in protest. "If that's not 'general unprofessionalism,' I don't know what is. Only I might have a plan here, if you'll hear me out." Sliding the folder to his boss, he bit his lower lip while the business owner scrutinized the papers he had labored over, written out neatly in ball-point pen ink. Completely blindsided, Clyde could only sit nearby, absentmindedly folding his pink slip in his hands until it began to look quite frayed.

"The group of local investors who backed you when you transformed this enterprise from a roller rink to a children's party venue, are they still around?" Mike asked once Faz looked up from the work that had taken him the better part of the day, his expression incredulous.

"Well, yes, they took quite a leap of faith believing in me back then when many other rinks were simply closing for lack of business, but it all worked out and we still occasionally meet for lunch," came the manager's guarded answer.

"That's good to hear. Think you could have them here for an 'investment luncheon' two weeks from now? I'll need time to polish these plans up and make them look a little more professional, and I'm definitely going to need some help learning how to make a business presentation."

Clyde moved behind Faz's shoulder, his eyes widening at the figures, diagrams and charts filling the sheets of paper, and he eventually broke into a hesitant smile.

"This is so crazy it just might work! It's at least worth a shot. But...you maniac! If you had time to write all of this, I'll bet you didn't sleep at all during the day, did you?" He sighed with exasperation at the feigned innocence in Mike's weary shrug.

Faz's stern gaze met his rookie guard's eyes, bloodshot and yet sparkling with a genuine zest for his ambitious plans, and suddenly the two men were shaking hands across the desk.

"You never owed me this, but son, if this crazy plan of yours actually does work, it would be a complete turnaround for Fazbear Entertainment." Turning to his long-time employee, he was secretly thrilled to see him beaming like the enthusiastic young man he had once been, enamored with every aspect of the restaurant. "Clyde's entirely right, it's at least worth a shot."


	22. You and Me Both, Man

"Mike, do you have to hum that infernal tune?" Clyde asked. Fat raindrops were beginning to spatter the ground around them as the two guards made their way across the parking lot toward the Gas'N'Grub. His partner stopped short, so preoccupied with the work that lay before him that he hadn't been aware he'd been humming the taunting melody from Freddy Fazbear's music box.

"It's called the Toreador March," Mike said matter-of-factly. "It's from an opera about bullfighting in Spain, but most guys our age remember it from Looney Tunes cartoons and The Three Stooges."

"Sure, I know that one, or at least the parody version." Clyde said with a nod of recognition, and to Mike's surprise, he began to sing, though badly off-key. "Toreador, don't spit on the floor. Use the cuspidor, that's what it's for!" Bowing dramatically in the falling rain, he made a wisecrack about not leaving his current job for a career as an entertainer.

"You nerd." The rookie guard shook his head in amusement. "And here I thought I was the jokester friend while you were the serious one." His hand poised to push the door open, he squinted curiously at Clyde, who had fallen behind and was gazing up at the cloudy night sky, his nylon jacket slick with rainwater. "Oh, and most sane individuals don't find it particularly pleasurable to get soaked to the skin in the middle of November, so they make attempts to avoid that at all costs," he jestingly informed him.

Clyde's attention returned to his friend and he smiled apologetically. "Right. Sorry, it's just that after two weeks of believing I'd never feel anything again, even little things that used to be annoyances, like rain, are something else." Stepping out of the deluge and under the protection of the convenience store's awning almost reluctantly, he grinned at Mike a little shyly. "To be really frank with you, it's been so long since I've had a close friend that I'd almost forgotten what that one was like, too."

"That makes two of us, to be just as frank." Gesturing Clyde in through the door, Mike was lost in thought. _You and me both, man._

* * *

"Hi, guys," Cynthia greeted the duo from where she had been restocking shelves, a twinge of concern in her voice. "Everything all right?"

"Sure, never been better." Mike shot Clyde a look cautioning him not to bring up the pizzeria's questionable future. "Oh, and you must be Jenny, right?" he added, suddenly noticing they were not alone, as a young girl sat at the lone table by the checkout counter, looking up at him in amazement from the mystery novel she had been engrossed in.

"Yes, this is indeed Jenny," Cynthia explained. "Her mother was called in to work unexpectedly early this morning so she whisked her over here, but she's due back any moment to take her to school." Her eyes sparkling with amusement, she slyly added, "I think you'd like Laura. She's entirely fearless, a great mother to her daughter, and a lot of fun."

"That wasn't very subtle, Cindy," the guard said with a grin, even while subconsciously running a hand through his damp hair to straighten it. "But then again, there's nothing I need to rush off to anyway, so sure, I'll stick around."

While Clyde chatted with Cynthia, Mike poured himself a mug of coffee and approached the girl. "Hey, uh, so your aunt, I guess, told me you helped hatch a plan to solve a real-life mystery and get our friend's paycheck back," he said, awkwardly stumbling over his words but pointing toward Clyde. "That's him over there, and let's just say it was all a misunderstanding and he did get his back pay. So, uh, thanks."

Jenny smiled, then her eyes widened when they drifted to the badge on his uniform shirt. "You're a security guard at Freddy's, too?" she asked eagerly before she lowered her voice. "Tell me, did you ever see the ghosts? Or the animatronic Mister Faz kept locked up in the back room?"

Mike straightened to his full height and scoffed, pretending to not understand. "An animatronic in the back room? Do you mean Foxy the pirate? He's actually still in the Cove, just long out of order." Clearly not falling for his attempt at feigning ignorance, Jenny crossed her arms over her chest, but fortunately Clyde chose that moment to approach the duo.

"Your aunt told me about your brave efforts to get my check back, and this must be yours. I found it at the pizzeria." Crouching by the table, he pulled an item from his shirt pocket that the astonished child recognized as the pink, bejeweled cell phone she had lost underneath the door to the backstage room.

"My phone! Thank you!" she cried, impulsively throwing her arms around Clyde's neck before sitting back, admiring the prized possession she had given up hope of ever seeing again. "So how about you? Did _you_ ever see the animatronic that swiped the phone?"

"Actually, I did," Clyde said frankly, exchanging a hesitant glance with Mike. "I've worked at the place for years, and Mister Faz has always kept a lot of old costume parts back in that room, spare heads and the like. Until recently he had a yellow bear character back there, but it never worked right." Smiling kindly, he assured Jenny that the character had been removed from service, even more so than Foxy. "To be honest, I never cared for that room myself," he admitted as Jenny listened with growing interest. "That's way too many empty heads and big staring eyes for my liking."

"I don't blame you, it's haunted anyway," Jenny added with certainty, leaving Clyde momentarily speechless. "Everybody at school talks about the five kids in the Fifties who died in the skate room back when Freddy's was a roller rink."

"This is the skate key murder legend, right?" the guard asked incredulously. "I can't _believe_ that one's still making the rounds; everyone talked about it when I was your age. But don't fall for everything you ever hear-" He was cut off by Jenny, who shook her head knowingly. Behind them, the bells hanging on the door of the convenience store jingled, signaling the arrival of another customer.

"I don't, because it actually happened in the Thirties. But I'm sure the ghosts are real, because my mom saw them when she was a little girl, _and_ she saw the bear you talked about."

"Jenny," came a mildly-scolding voice from behind them, and Clyde spun around to face a woman who appeared to be about Mike's age. "I've already warned you, I don't want you telling my old ghost-encounter story to just anyone, especially not in front of my cousin who wouldn't let me live it down." Putting her hands on her hips, she added dismissively, "Besides, I was just a kid and I was probably mistaken in what I saw."

"How many were there?" Clyde asked gently, his gaze intense behind the lenses of his glasses, and Laura found herself trusting the unexpected sincerity in his tone.

"Five," she said guardedly. "Three girls and two boys. They were all dressed from a bygone era, too. The oldest girl had her hair done up in ringlets, like Shirley Temple." Shrugging, she brought one hand up to her own chestnut locks, brushing them from her face. "I actually remember it like it was yesterday. I was ten but scared of everything back then, and this young guy in a referee shirt was clowning around with Foxy, sword-fighting with him on his pirate ship. I was worried he'd get hurt so I hid under a party table and that's when I met _them,_ at least for a short while before they disappeared into the back room."

"I reckon it's safe to say she was _there,_ man." Mike gave a low whistle of surprise, while Cynthia blinked in astonishment, having had no idea previously that her cousin had witnessed the paranormal events at the restaurant as a child.

"Yeah," Clyde finally agreed. "July 1984, right? That was a night I'll never forget, either. It was also the only occasion I ever took part in Foxy's thrill show." Grinning, he added, "and you were right, I actually did wind up getting hurt a bit pulling that stunt, though by my own clumsiness and not Foxy's doing. I sort of smashed my face against the edge of the ball pit when I leaped into it, but hey, I lived."

"That performer was _you?_ Forgive me, but it never once dawned on me that you might _still_ be working there thirty years later," Laura said, adding, "or that anyone else might have seen those kids."

"Maybe your folks protected you from the aftermath of what supposedly happened that night because you were so young, but that was the turning point for the pizzeria and things started going downhill after that." Clyde rubbed the back of his neck, staring down at the floor. "A few others claimed to have seen something, though nowhere nearly as vividly as what you just described, and soon we were defending ourselves against rumors that we had covered up a terrible crime that had happened that very night. And believe you me, I've seen the kids myself, though I think they've finally moved on."

_"Told you_ my mom met 'em," Jenny piped up, crossing her arms over her chest and fixing a very perplexed Clyde with a triumphant smile.

* * *

Working alone later in the week, Clyde dropped into the office chair, resting his chin on his hand and reflecting for a few moments before addressing his old adversary for the first time since Mike had nearly banished the entity forever.

"Y'know what, Derrick?" He knew he wasn't imagining the vaguest icy chill that eventually came in response. "Not to rub it in, but I can tell you're not much longer for this place. You sure had it in for me all these years, and yet you want to hear something? You were right about maybe one thing: I did sorta lead a 'pathetic existence,' as you put it, and I only realized that after Mike helped me make it back here." His shoulders fell despite the defiant attitude he was struggling to maintain.

"Two weeks, and almost nobody seemed to really notice I was even gone. I wasn't missed at my college literature class; it's a huge lecture hall. The same goes for the church I attend every Sunday morning right after my shift at Freddy's; I always sat in the back and didn't socialize much. Even my own family had just assumed I was putting in extra time at my job, not that I'm going to tell them otherwise now. Better late than never, though. No more holding back and isolating myself; I'm going to live every day to the fullest from this point on, just to spite you.

There's more, though," he said after a thoughtful pause. "Back when you more or less took over and you could relive all my old memories? You already know I could see into your past experience as well, and I sure did." He swallowed hard, suddenly finding the right words difficult to find. "Without getting into details, I actually feel_ genuinely _bad for all the completely awful stuff that happened to you, at least until you turned around and lashed out at innocent kids in anger. And while it took me a while to get to this point, at least when it comes to what you put _me_ through, I forgive you. The rest is up to the kids, and for now I guess I'll see you on the flipside."

* * *

Feeling perspiration dampening the collar of his dress shirt, Mike stood before a party table where the trio of business investors had gathered, along with Nathan Faz himself, for an informal luncheon. After thanking the men for their interest and time, he paused only briefly before clearing his throat and beginning his speech.

"Gentlemen, it was through your faith in this enterprise at the dawn of the Eighties that my employer was able to transform what had been a struggling, down-on-its-luck roller rink into a popular children's pizza parlor, and for years the Freddy Fazbear name was known as the finest in birthday entertainment." Beside him, Clyde beamed, impressed with Mike's polished presentation.

"However, with the changing interests of kids over the years, we've come to the conclusion that it's time for yet another transformation, one that will widen the appeal to include an older audience while not entirely abandoning our previous traditions and what we do best." Flipping open a large sketch pad propped on an easel next to him, he gestured to the blueprints he had labored over, feeling a surge of excitement when the investors craned their necks to view his work, eyebrows raised in interest.

"We need something so innovative it will leave us completely unique in the entertainment field, so I'd like to propose the addition of a laser target arena, using many props and playground equipment that we already have, but with one crucial difference from the competition: _our_ laser game will pit the players against our animatronic characters!"

Taking his cue, Clyde gestured to the band on the stage behind him. "I've had the pleasure of working alongside Fazbear Entertainment's unique robots for decades, and with some recent improvements to ensure guest safety, Mister Faz and I have been able to restore their former ability to roam around with our young patrons, making them the perfect opponents for action-packed games of skill." Barely able to contain his enthusiasm, he excused himself for a moment, only to return from behind the backstage room wearing a futuristic-looking vest and carrying a plastic space pistol.

"You, uh, ready for our demonstration, Foxy?" he called out, and the businessmen were startled at the long-forgotten character's sudden apparition from behind the curtain that marked off Pirate Cove. Also equipped with a vest and carrying a toy weapon similar to Clyde's, Foxy lost no time in firing an expertly-aimed laser beam at his hapless opponent, causing the LEDs on the man's vest to blink wildly.

"Okay, so we'll probably have to ratchet down the difficulty level when the kids are playing this game," the guard admitted, his face turning nearly as red as the lights flashing below it, "but at least that demonstration goes to show how fine-tuned their optical sensors, artificial intelligence and coordination really are." Nearby, Faz's shoulders shook with mirth as he silently chuckled at his stunned worker's immediate loss.

"You're getting too old for this!" he informed Clyde before turning to his friends. "So what do you think? If this is something you could see yourself backing, let's talk figures."

* * *

"I feel a little bad doing this," Clyde said a few weeks after the investment meeting as he rolled garish neon paint over the bow of Foxy's sailing ship, beginning its refurbishment into an obstacle for the laser target game that the investors had eagerly approved. "But then again, even if I'm not the biggest fan of change, it's make-it-or-break-it now, and at least this will get good old Pirate Cove back in service in some capacity, not to mention Foxy himself."

"True," agreed Mike from his position by the ship's cabin. "There's nothing to worry about, though; this is going to go over great with the kids." Setting his paintbrush down for a moment, he sat back and examined his work. "By the way, how's the second job coming along? I can't believe you're moonlighting as a mall cop! _Real_ imaginative choice there."

"So I'm a one-trick pony," Clyde retorted with a smirk. "But for what it's worth, I couldn't love the work more. It's just before Christmas and everybody's so happy, plus it's nice to work among human beings again after years of being all alone in that tiny office with only Derrick for company." His mind flashed back to his last shift at the shopping mall, when he had retrieved a grateful child's teddy bear after she had dropped it into the fountain by the food court and had even helped console a very shaken and repentant teenage shoplifter who had been escorted to his security office.

_Derrick. _He now knew for certain his former tormentor had departed forever, thanks to the overwhelming sense of calm and peace that had settled in his long-time workplace, and when he was feeling especially optimistic he found himself questioning whether the unsettled spirit really had experienced some last-minute repentance in the afterlife.

* * *

_Three months later_

"Mike, you've created something incredible!" Catching her breath after a long and successful try-out of the new pirate-themed laser arena that had made her feel like a gleeful young child again, Laura took one last admiring look around at what her new boyfriend had designed. "I'm honored to have been part of the final after-hours test before it goes live, too." Beaming, the guard unhesitantly grasped her hand as they strolled out to the empty arcade together.

"In case you weren't already aware, you're rather incredible yourself," she admittted with a rakish smile before ensuring herself Jenny was engrossed behind the wheel of a driving-simulation game some distance away. Boldly making her move, she pounced without warning, catching the guard unaware and pulling him down to the skeeball lane directly behind them.

"Schmidt!" gasped a familiar voice, and Clyde strode into the room, placing his hands on his hips and fixing the couple with a feigned stern expression. "This type of behavior is entirely inappropriate for a children's establishment, so don't get carried away!" He chuckled despite himself as Mike exchanged one final, passionate kiss with his lover before helping her to her feet.

"Oops, busted," he laughed, before regarding Clyde with newfound amusement. "So, how'd your date with Cindy go?"

"Aw, it went really swell," his mentor replied dreamily. "She's on her way inside as well; she wanted to see your big project. We went roller skating at the rink across town just like I did back in the day, then caught a movie." Ducking his head lower and partially hiding behind the bill of his ball cap, his face flushed slightly. "I love this; it's just like being a teenager again, only I missed out the first time. Wait, why are you looking at me like that?"

"Did you..._kiss_ during the movie like teenagers?" Mike lightly taunted, provoking an awkward laugh from Clyde and a knowing look from Laura. "Because no offense, but you look like you've become the victim of the..."

_"Don't_ say it, Schmidt!"

"The _Love-bite_ of '87," Mike blurted out, while beside him Laura, unable to hold back any longer, doubled over in laughter at his joke.

The older guard self-consciously rubbed a rather obvious mark on his neck. "Gee, that thing is showing plain as day, isn't it?" he asked, smiling sheepishly when the couple nodded in unison. "Fine, so maybe we did get a little carried away."

"Hey, good for you!" Mike congratulated him, seeing Cindy emerge from the front hallway and approach the group. "Really, it's about time you took a page from my book and did something at least a little impulsive. You're always looking before you leap; I didn't think you had it in you." To his surprise, Clyde put up a hand to challenge him.

"You wanna see 'impulsive?' Fine, though I've been planning on doing_ this _for a long time, anyway." Striding over to the arcade's prize counter, he fished in the bins of plastic trinkets for a moment, then returned with something small clutched in his hand.

* * *

"You just got _engaged!"_ Jenny squealed, watching Clyde rise up from his knee after presenting her aunt with a ridiculous plastic ring. "I can't believe this!" Overcome with relief, the guard clutched his new fiancee up in a firm hug.

"We sure did, and sometime before the wedding, I'll be sure to get her a better token of my love. Definitely one without giant specks of glitter embedded in it and one that _doesn't_ light up," he chuckled when the little strobe in the gaudy item began flashing.

"No way," Cynthia pretended to protest, sliding the toy jewelry onto her pinky since it was sized for a child. "You know how to pick 'em and I can't _wait_ to show this off and make all my friends beyond envious."

While the adults exchanged giddy congratulations, Jenny found herself growing a little embarrassed and wandered toward the show stage. Gazing up at the animatronic band, she found herself thinking of the long-lost children, who unbeknownst to her were watching with absolute delight all that had just transpired.

Taking Junior's hand, Beth leaned slightly against him. "I think Mike and Mister Miller have this one now," she said with reassurance. "Maybe it's time for us to move on very soon."


	23. Like You Owned the Place

"Schmidt! Don't even _think_ of punching in this early; your shift doesn't start for two and a half hours!" scolded Nathan Faz jestingly as his night guard made an unexpected - but hardly unwelcome - early arrival while the youthful patrons were still tearing wildly through the premises at full tilt.

"I'm not here on business yet," Mike assured him with an uncharacteristically humble smile, "but I told someone I'd meet him here so he could see the place for himself." The night before, he had pulled a paper from his dresser drawer, one that he had held onto since his release from jail quite some time before, and dialed the number scrawled on it, keeping a long-term promise to make someone who had believed in him proud.

Leaning back against the wall clutching a drink from the fountain, Mike thoughtfully watched the children as they laughed and shouted their way through a boisterous laser target game against the much-taller animatronics. Though the sheer number of players harkened back to the restaurant's glory days, seeing the pizzeria regain its luster, reviewing the skyrocketing sales with his glowing and grateful boss and having the satisfaction of knowing _he _had revived the venture never ceased to astound him when he dwelt on it.

So absorbed in his thoughts that he failed to foresee a young boy racing through the darkness and come barrelling directly into him, despite his position far from the game, Mike helped to pull the child back to his feet, confirmed he wasn't hurt and then as the boy returned to the frenetic activity, the officer felt a tap on his shoulder.

"I knew I'd be getting this call from you for some time, Mike," said Carter, the kindly jail guard who had overseen him during his brief stay behind bars. Looking out of place to his former charge dressed in a sports jersey and jeans instead of his usual uniform, he peered around at the dark maze of neon-hued obstacles glowing in the gloom, nodding his head and clearly impressed.

"When I saw the ad in the paper for the new attraction at Freddy's, it struck me that was the place you'd found a job, but I thought you'd taken the night watch position. Still, you have some incredible creative talent; just look at what you've built!" Carter scratched his head, somewhat perplexed.

Faz threw an arm over his employee's shoulder, pulling Mike closer. The man he had once dismissed as little more than a menial and desperate worker with a troubled past had ironically rallied to save his livelihood, though he had been reluctant to take credit for his clever ideas for the transformation of the pizzeria.

"Our Mike is an impressive multi-tasker, and we couldn't be more proud of him," the manager praised, beaming.

"That makes two of us," Carter agreed, nodding his head so that his short hair swayed. "You even surprised my teenage son; he's somewhere out there blowing through all the cash in my wallet. I invited him along to see my old pal's project and as you might expect, he protested mightily, griping that he hasn't set foot in this 'kiddie place' in at least five years. He sure changed his tune once he saw how much it's changed!"

"That was also our Mike's doing," gushed Faz, jabbing a finger at his own chest. "He persuaded _this_ old cheapskate to reinvest the profits from the laser arena into new additions for the arcade, bringing it into the modern era." Chuckling, he scanned the long banks of video game cabinets for the newcomer, marveling at how crowded the gaming area had become. Ever nostalgic, when he had heard of the plan to expand the arcade, Clyde had insisted on keeping the vintage cabinets in service, but surprisingly the older games and pinball tables had proven to carry a lasting and faithful following of their own.

"Ya done good, jailbird," Carter agreed, mirthfully using Mike's old and irreverent nickname for himself, "and surely this won't be the last the world hears of Mike Schmidt, so hang onto that number and don't be a stranger!"

_I won't,_ Mike vowed silently, basking in the afterglow of his long-awaited redemption.

* * *

Back in his office, Nathan Faz paused from filing the day's sales reports to smile at the framed portrait on his desk of his entire work staff. There was Lynne, the kitchen manager who was shortly due to take maternity leave, looking vaguely weary but happy, the fresh-faced crew of teenage party hosts and servers, and, standing in the back of the little group, himself, with one arm paternally over Mike and Clyde's shoulders, all three men seemingly competing to see who could sport the biggest grin.

"You really did it, Mike," he spoke to the photo. "You threw yourself into the job like you owned the place." Removing a document from the desk drawer, he regarded his newly-revised will and last testament that would deed his business not only to his right-hand man of decades as he originally had planned, but now to Mike Schmidt as well. Somewhat estranged from his own children who had staked out their own, far more successful careers in life and had expressed no desire to take on their father's enterprise, he smiled down warmly at the evidence of his decision for the two men he respected and loved like family.

"And someday you two _will_ own the place, though hopefully not too soon, because I'm really starting to love it here again. Clyde wasn't the only one to have a big heart, Mike."

* * *

Jenny pedaled her bike along the narrow lanes of the local cemetery, moving past carefully-manicured and modern banks of headstones toward the older, less-maintained sections. Finally, in a small hollow overshadowed by several towering oaks, she found it: a collection of diminutive stones in neat rows, all belonging to children, and shortly after, she found _them,_ the five that all shared the same, sad date. An iron plaque at the entrance to the hollow simply read, "Baby Garden," indicating the graves were for the very young whose time on Earth had been far too brief.

Dropping to her knees, she knelt reverently before the headstones for a moment, then dug in her backpack for the folded pieces of paper she had carefully packed in the bag before leaving school, as well as a black crayon from which she had peeled the wrapper.

Grateful for the solitude the secluded area of the cemetery provided, she set to her task, placing the paper over the first stone and whisking the crayon over it to create a transfer. Though she knew she was risking a grounding if her mother caught her lurking around a cemetery by herself, she had come on a mission she was determined to carry out.

* * *

"Well, I'm not sure about this, Jenny," Mike mused that evening. "I'm curious what you insisted on having Mister Miller and me here to show us, but as the officer in charge today, I'm afraid I'm going to have to uphold my guardly duties and not let you anywhere near the security office. Here at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza we have some strict rules, and children are not allowed in employees-only areas." Struck by the girl's crestfallen expression, he could maintain the charade no longer and broke into a wide smile before she could turn in protest to her mother standing beside her.

"I'm kidding!" Mike exclaimed jovially. "You're practically family, so c'mon in. In fact, lead the way!"

Curious when Jenny requested a roll of tape, Clyde obediently retrieved one from the desk drawer in the office, then stopped short when he saw what was on the sheets of art paper Mike and Laura were helping the girl unfold.

"You gave them their names back," he said, his eyes misting over until he could scarcely read the decidedly old-fashioned names on the gravestone rubbings Jenny had created: _Gertrude. Harriet. Agnes. Thomas. Milton. _

"Well, how about that, _Thomas," _said Beth smartly to Junior once the pages were taped to the wall where the images of crying children had once supernaturally materialized. "All this time I was a Gertrude. It's a bit unusual for _this_ day and age, I suppose, and nowhere near as classic and timeless as your name, but I like it as much as my new name. Plus, it was given to me by my _parents." _She clasped both his hands excitedly. "It's time to go back to them, and all our families again, thanks to Jenny...and all of them, really."

* * *

"I knew what I was seeing that night as a child," Laura said, gazing up with pure affection at the animatronic band as the characters rested, virtually motionless, on the show stage. "No sooner did my dad whisk me away from that birthday party than I realized I'd encountered ghosts rather than ordinary children, but something about that incident changed me. I'd been a very timid child up until that point, afraid of just about everything, but when it struck me that the children's spirits had chosen _me_ to befriend, instead of being frightened I guess I accepted it as an honor."

She crossed her arms over her chest, remembering the times she had begged her parents to bring her back to the restaurant, ostensibly to enjoy the arcade games and a pizza dinner when she was actually searching for her mysterious friends, but her youthful attempts to discover them again had resulted in little more than the vaguest feeling that the spirits might have remained, unseen, in the pizzeria.

Nearby, Clyde nodded. "For all those years I wanted nothing more than to set them free, but it took Mike here to accomplish that." Beside him, his coworker looked sharply aside, suddenly taken aback, while Jenny stepped forward, her eyes wide and focused on something only she could see.

"Goodbye," she said softly, waving one hand in a gesture of farewell before clasping it in her mother's reassuring grasp, "and rest in peace."

Aware that the childlike spirits were finally moving on, Mike pulled Laura and Jenny closer to himself with one arm while beckoning Clyde and Cindy over with the other, and they stood together like the family of sorts they had become. One of the many silvery mobiles hanging above the stage languidly twisted despite the lack of any breeze in the dining area, the spangles and stars dangling from its gossamer threads catching the multicolored stage lights, and then its motion gradually ceased.

"They're home," Mike said, choking back a little as he clapped Clyde across his shoulder. He knew he hadn't imagined the gentlest whisper of _goodbye_ any more than the others had.

"Yeah, they are, right where they should be," Clyde replied with a sigh, reaching up to the show stage and affectionately patting Bonnie's foot. "And I don't know about you, but as much as I've waited for this moment, I'm not going anywhere. The band may just be the characters they were always designed as from here on out, but they're still highly sentient robots and they need a caretaker." Towering above him, the rabbit animatronic blinked and gazed downward, his eyes half-lidded as though he was acknowledging Clyde's dedication to his colleagues and himself.

"You're too sentimental for your own good," Mike chortled, "but I guess that makes two of us, because I'm sticking around as well." He threw his hands up in the air in disbelief. _And to think that at first I thought I'd be lucky to hack it five nights at this job, and now it's turned into my career and life's work._


	24. Okay, I'll leave You to It

_Author's Note: Thank you to all who have followed this fanfiction over the last two years, and I hope it was as enjoyable to read as it was to write and that readers will also enjoy my other current and future FNaF fanfiction. A few reviewers picked up on the theme of depression in this story, bravely describing their own struggles with it. That really meant a lot because joining the FNaF fandom and writing this story has sustained me through my own long fight, and more than a little real-life experience found its way into the story. I actually penned the previous chapter on scrap paper while in the depression ward, though things are slowly getting better. If you can forgive a PSA, please don't make my mistake and try to fight depression by ignoring it, because it can get worse rapidly and dangerously. Scott has written about getting one's heart right with God, and I've found that sometimes it takes the help of an ally to do that._

_And on a much happier note, apologies to any readers who find the ending below just too adorable. If you'd prefer a less sappy ending, consider the previous chapter the final one and quit reading now. But you won't. :)_

* * *

_May 2015_

Wearing his ball cap at a jaunt and a wicked grin across his face, Mike worked expertly like the master of the job he had become, his fingers poised over the monitor and dipping down sporadically to check each camera at exactly the moment an area of the pizzeria required his attention. Pushing off from the desk with both feet, he glided backwards over the floor in the wheeled desk chair, reached behind his head and pressed the controls to close the door, but not before looking back to wave almost apologetically at Bonnie, who had paused in the doorway. Sailing across the room, he also casually locked out Chica, only jumping when the telephone rang.

"Hello. Hello?" a familiar voice greeted him, and, still watching the cameras vigilantly, Mike slapped a hand to his forehead and broke into a laugh.

"Clyde!" he scolded. "What on Earth are you on the phone for? This is your wedding night!" He heard a snicker on the other end of the line. "I should've known you'd pull something like this."

"No kidding, _best man." _In a motel room across town, fresh from leaving the reception at the local fire hall, Clyde sat on the edge of the bed, loosening his tie from the collar of his tuxedo shirt. "Old habits die hard, I guess. I just wanted to call and make sure you're doing okay. It's custom night, and you're not doing anything crazy, are you?" Catching the faint sounds of the rabbit animatronic's worn voicebox along with Foxy's insistent knocking over the line, he shook his head, already guessing what Mike was up to. "Was that moaning I heard? You ratcheted up their A.I., didn't you?"

"Who, me?" Mike asked innocently, opening the doors again while watching Freddy move through the dining area. "I'm insulted you would insinuate I'd ever be so irresponsible, but trust me, I didn't do anything I can't handle." He smirked, but not because of anything the animatronics had done. "Besides, I don't think you really called to check in on _me, _I think someone is a little nervous about his...first night." There was only prolonged silence on the other end of the line, then an indignant gasp.

"What? No, I've waited forever for this," Clyde sputtered, momentarily speechless when Cynthia emerged from the bathroom, looking beyond alluring. He shrugged helplessly as she fixed him with a mildly scolding but knowing look once she saw the phone in his hand. "Okay, maybe just a little," he admitted in a low voice, twisting the cord around his fingers.

"Hey, relax. You're in love and you're finally together. You'll do fine," Mike reassured him, "there's really nothing to worry about. Anyway, I'm sure you have everything under control! Okay, I'll leave you to it." Clyde chuckled despite himself, hearing the familiar phrases from the recordings he'd left.

"Schmidt, you may be my best friend, and not to mention you sorta saved my life and all, but I'm hanging up on you for that. Are those messages of mine _still_ stored in the phone system, since you seem to know them by heart? When I get back I'm going to delete 'em-"

"Enjoy your night of night of fantasy and-"

"Good _night,_ Schmidt. Heh, and thanks. For everything." The phone clicked sharply and Mike looked up affectionately at the poster of the characters. Even with the animatronics coming at him in droves, it was indeed a good night at Freddy's, and he was ready for many more ahead.

\- The End -


End file.
