Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“You two almost ready?” Mike yells from his position at the bottom of the stairs, arms crossed, and tapping his foot, impatiently waiting for his siblings who he warned a half hour ago, to finish getting ready. He’d been ready for ages now, having his familiar fox mask already on his face. One could maybe argue that since he wore it almost everyday already it didn’t count as a costume but he really couldn’t think of any other costume that could beat it.

Not that he should even have to dress up. He was thirteen. In his opinion, too old for trick or treating. But his father was working late at the restaurant with it being a holiday, so he’d made Mike promise to take Liz and Evan. Or more, Liz had made dad make him promise. A good call too on her part otherwise he probably would have refused.

He huffs. He’d rather be anywhere else tonight rather than babysitting his siblings. Like egging the neighbor’s house with his friends.

“What’s taking you guys so long?” he half calls out before giving up and stomping up the stairs, taking two at a time.

He goes to Liz’s room first. She was eight, old enough he thought to be able to get herself ready so he’s really curious the hold up.

He gives a small knock before entering. He’s gotten yelled at more than enough times to know to not go in without doing that.

“Hey Lizard, what’s taking so long.”

“Don’t call me that,” comes the automatic response he always got when he called her that.

He rolls his eyes but then pushes the door all the way open to reveal his sister standing in the middle of the room in her costume.

A few weeks back, his father had left out some designs for ideas for future animatronics. One of them had been a clown, red hair in pigtails, red and white dress, jester shoes, and a big smile on her face. Liz had immediately been smitten with her and announced practically in the next moment that she’d be going as her for Halloween and spent the next couple of weeks making her costume.

So far, all the pieces seemed to be in place, even the makeup - about as good as it could be for an eight year old. So it takes Mike a moment to identify the problem.

On the back of the red puffy skirt that went over the simple white dress was a bow. One that was currently undone so that the only thing holding up the piece was Liz hands.

“I can’t get it,” she frowns, trying again to tie it with no luck. She never could. For as many dresses as she owned, it was always Mike or someone else that had to help her with tying them, for she could never quite get the hang of it.

“Here come here,” he says knowing the routine, and as does she, she prances over, turning around.

“Why didn’t you just bring this piece down to the door and have me tie it down there? That’s what you usually do.” Mike only slightly grumbles as he loops the strings together.

Liz huffs. “I almost had it this time. I swear!”

Mike shakes his head. “You say that every time.”

“I mean it though!”

He pulls the strings tight, finishing off the bow. “There. Give me a twirl.”

She smiles brightly, then complies. “Thanks Mike!”

Mike chuckles. “Yeah yeah Lizard, now go get your bag and whatever else you need for the night. I’m going to check on Evan and then we’ll be down.”

She sticks her tongue out at him and then runs from the room. He trails after her a moment later but instead of going right towards the stairs, he heads left.

A grimace pulls on his face over having to go into his brother’s room and help him yet again, but then he mentally scolds himself. He had been trying to be nicer to Evan lately. Despite how much the kid still constantly annoyed him. Like now as when he goes in his room, instead of even being some semblance of ready, Evan is instead half shoved inside the closet, appearing to be looking for something.

“Evan,” he says from the doorway, a little harsher than he means too, and in the next sentence, is softening his words, “What’s the hold up?”

It’s too late. As Evan turns around, already tears are coming to his eyes and Mike mentally curses at having set him off.

“I-,“ the six year old pauses, looking unsure.

Mike walks in, glancing around at the costume pieces all over the floor. “Why aren’t you in your costume yet? I know dad told you we were going out today. Unless you changed your mind?””

He looks to his brother for his answer. Evan shakes his head and despite his slightly watery eyes, his voice is clear as he says, “No I want to go.”

“Then what’s wrong?”

Evan mumbles.

“What was that?”

“I can’t find Fredbear.”

Of course it was the stupid bear. Mike hated that thing. He doesn’t know how to explain it, but it gave him a weird feeling. But he also knew how much it meant to his brother and it made perfect sense why it was the only thing he could focus on at the moment. Thankfully, it wasn’t an unusual occurrence. Evan aways seemed to be losing it. Thankfully in the same places.  

“I think I saw him downstairs. Come on, lets get ready and then we’ll go look.”

A soft, “Okay,” is his answer.

Mike walks towards the bed and the costume on it.

It’s a cowboy one. One of his old ones. Despite the reassurances that Evan could pick something different, he’d insisted on it. Something Mike thinks has something to do with the recent cowboy episodes of Fredbear and Friends.

“Saddle up partner,” Mike jokes, tossing the shirt and pants of the costume at Evan and as he walks by, sets the hat on his head. He’s pretty sure he spots a small smile in response.

Evan nods, causing the hat to bob up and down on his head and giving the kid a smile, Mike leaves the room.

Mike stomps back down the stairs in the way only teenage boys seem capable of and immediately sets out on finding Fredbear, knowing the faster he did the faster they could get going. He searches for a couple of minutes, enough for Liz to finally make her way down, and finally he finds him.

“What are you doing there?” he asks as he grabs the thing out from behind the couch. It must have fallen when Evan was watching tv earlier.

He stands, pausing to look down at the thing in his hands. And shudders. He never liked the eyes. Always felt like it was watching him.

He frowns, and debates shoving it back under a cushion and telling Evan to just get over it for the night but when he glances up the kid is already at the bottom of the stairs in costume, eyes locked on the bear in his hands.

“You found him!”

“Yeah..” Mike says, awkwardly and hands the bear over to Evaans outstretched hands.

“Can you help put the hanky on him?” Evan holds out the small handkerchief. One that matches his own on the cowboy costume. Mike gives a small scoff in answer and then takes the bear and fabric and does as asked.

“Thanks Mikey,” comes the small voice of appreciation when he’s done.

“Yeah yeah. Now let’s get going before it gets too late and you get no candy.”

That gets them moving. Within the next five minutes, shoes are on, bags are grabbed, and teddy bear in hand, they walk out the door.

Up and down the street they go, going door to door they walk, starting in their neighborhood and then branching out to the surrounding ones. It’s not too late when they start, sun just beginning to set and there’s plenty of other kids and parents out also going door to door.

Mike’s a bit moody at first like he always is doing things with his siblings. Standing at the end of walkways and edges of yards as Liz and Evan make their way up and knock and say trick or treat. But as the night goes on and they share a piece or two of candy with him, he starts to relax and let himself enjoy all the decorations and other costumes around. Someone even tells them they like his mask which makes him beam internally, through in response he just gives a gruff, “Thanks.”

Eventually, the sun sets, fewer and fewer people walk the streets with them, and they reach the last house on their current street. Behind them, many already have their lights off, signaling the end of night of treats.

“Fredbear says it’s time to go home Mikey,” Evan says as they walk back down the driveway of their final house.

“Fredbear didn’t say that,” Liz scolds her brother.

“Did too.”

“Hey you two,” Mike softly scolds as he looks around where they are, gaining his bearings and looking back at the sidewalk and the long walk home. “Evan’s right though. We should get heading back.”

Liz starts to whine in protest but with a look, she stops, accepting it was time to be done. “I don’t want to walk back.”

He didn’t either. They’d gone further than he’d thought.

He glances towards the woods next to them. The one that separated the neighborhood they were in with theirs and that he knew a trail through.

And then back to the sidewalk.

And then back to the two obviously tired kids in front of him. Both of which were probably going to ask him to carry them after a couple minutes of walking now that the excitement of the night was done.

“Come on guys. I know a short cut,” he says, surely and proudly, and takes off walking towards the woods.

He hears one pair of footsteps follow behind him. And a small whimpering instead of another.

He pauses, turning around to see Evan standing on the sidewalk in the same spot, staring past him into the dark woods.

“I don’t want to go that way Mikey.”

Mike sighs and considers just grabbing the kid but he really doesn’t want to carry him. “Its not that bad Evan. And it’ll get us home a lot faster.”

“But its dark.”

Mike understood most kids were scared of the dark at one point. But his brother seemed to have an otherworldly fear of it. One that he was going to use to his advantage, even if he did feel a bit guilty about it.

“It will be dark here too when that light goes out,” he points up at the streetlight, the only one by them at this end of the neighborhood, “and then you’ll be in the dark and alone because me and Liz are going home through the woods.”

“The streetlights don’t turn off,” he tries to argue.

“They do on Halloween.”

Evan looks like he doesn’t believe him. He gives one more look towards the woods, and then the light. But then must decide he didn’t want to risk it as he rushes to catch up the few yards they had on him.

Mike walks on and this time there are two pairs of footsteps following behind him.

The light fades behind them and as they reach the woods and head inside, he’s relying more on muscle memory than actual eyesight. Minutes later, he’s so focused on trying to follow the path that it takes him a moment to realize the lack of a set of footsteps.

He stops and an “Oof,” comes from behind him as Liz runs into him.

“Hey, what’s the deal?”

“Is Evan behind you?”

Liz turns around to check, but not able to see much, waves an arm out.

“Evan you here? Make a sound if you are!” Mike calls. To his dismay there’s no answer. But a moment later, comes a scream.

He doesn’t hesitate. He takes off in the direction, just barely remembering to grab Liz’s hand before he does, startling a “Hey!” out of her but she’s quick to gain her feet and start running behind him.

He can’t see much, leaving twigs and branches slapping across his arms and face leaving a series of small scratches. He stumbles over the uneven ground and nearly trips once or twice.

The scream fades into a crying whimper that slowly grows louder until its practically right in front of him.

“Evan what-“ he starts to shout but then pauses as he runs right into something. He’s confused for a moment over the thing sticking mainly to his arm that was held out in front of him but is also over his whole body. Then it clicks. It’s a spiderweb.

“UGH!” he shouts in disgust. He’s always hated the things. And unfortunately, the first one was not enough for his brain to click to stop and he ends up running through a few more as the clearing seems to be filled with them before he stops, doing a small dance with a series of swipes motions as he tries to get them off.

Behind him, he hears a small shriek as Liz also runs into the webs.

“Mikey! Get them off me!” comes the small voice of his brother, now next to him.

“Ugh Evan! What are you even doing over here?!” Mikey asks, ignoring his brother, relieved to find him but now annoyed and trying to get the spiderwebs off himself.

“I got lost.”

“No shit!”

“They’re all over Fredbear too.”

He can’t help it. Instead of the usual yelling, he breaks out in laughter. His siblings go quiet, probably wondering if he lost it but after the long night they had and the panic and relief of trying to find his brother, it’s all his brain can do.  

A few seconds later it dies down and fumbling in the dark a bit, he finds Evan’s hand, then Liz’s, and starts dragging them out of the clearing.

He feels them both lagging behind a bit, still trying to pick the webs off themselves with one hand. But he decides they can worry about that when they get home and decides to give them a bit of motivation in getting there. “Those were a lot of spiderwebs. Must be some big spiders around here. Lucky they didn’t eat you Evan. Yet.”

Two small shrieks and two kids walking at a faster pace is the result and a handful of minutes later, they’re walking out of the woods into their backyard.

He leads them through the grass, around the house, and up the porch stairs to the front door. He opens it, bundling them all inside.

As he closes it and flips the light switch on, he gets a chance to really look at his siblings and the spiderwebs covering them, and it sends him into another fit of laughter.

“It’s not funny Mike,” Liz scold, arms crossed.

“It is a bit.”

Mike laughs a bit more, but then goes to work on helping pick the spiderwebs off his siblings and despite their constant noises of disgust, he thinks it was a perfectly spooky way to end the night - one last good scare - leaving it a pretty good Halloween in his books.

Chapter Text

Ew! It’s cold! And slimy! Mikey you should do it for me.

What?! No way, I got my own to do.

Mikey, do mine too!

Me too!

I’m not doing anyone’s for them!

Mike shouts playfully at his siblings an honorary cousins surrounding him at the table.

Charlie is directly to his right, smiling away as she reaches in and pulls out the seeds. Sammy is next to her, grimace on his face as he does the same. To his left is Liz who’s scooping into her pumpkin with gusto and past her is Evan who seems to be having a bit of trouble both holding the scooping spoon and getting himself to put his hands inside, though he does, bringing one slow scoop of seeds out at a time.

“How’s it going in here kids?” calls a voice from the doorway a moment before Henry enters into the dining room where the annual occasion is taking place.

“Mikey isn’t helping us!” cries Charlie in a teasing tone, smirk on her face. Mike sticks his tongue out at her.

“Well now Mike looks pretty busy over there. How about I help you out instead?” Henry suggests, settling down in a chair between his two kids.

“Okay!” Charlie immediately jumps at the opportunity. “You can probably do it better than Mike anyways!”

“Hey!”

A series of noises rise as all the kids go back to their light bickering and conversation, their voices combining into almost one, and a smile spreads on Henry’s face at the sight.

Mike’s face, years later, also spreads into a smile at the memory. Though a much ghastlier one with the cuts, scars, and missing flesh covering the purple, mottled skin.

“You remember that year Charlie?” Across the table from him sits the puppet with her white blank mask and long black and white limbs stretching down beside her, who sat patiently listening as he recounted the memory.

On the table in front of them are two pumpkins. Ones Mike had stolen off the outside stand at the grocery store the other night after the workers forgot to bring it in. He felt a bit bad stealing just like he always did. But he was a corpse without much money or social standing. And he really wanted to participate in the holiday. Halloween was the only one without any bad memories attached. And one that he could still enjoy for it was the one day a year he actually fit in.

But tonight, a few days before the candy and horror filled day, he sits with only one other for company.

He’d been unsure, upon seeing the puppet there in Fazbear Frights, if Charlie was indeed possessing her. He’d had suspicions over the years, especially after what he’d heard from the other spirits, but he hadn’t been able to confirm it until after. After Frights burned down and he escaped and so had she. He’d found her later that week, wandering in the woods, and had brought her home. Or at least, to the barely standing apartment he called home. She didn’t seem to mind. She didn’t talk much either but that was fine with him. Just having someone else from his past, someone who was a friend, was comfort enough.

“I think it was some of the most fun I ever had,” he answers his own question, picking up the knife and pressing it into the top of the pumpkin. His limbs weakly protest but it’s not too hard and a moment later he’s cutting away the top. “Carving pumpkins and going trick or treating with you guys after. Oh, I think that was also the year we made caramel apples.” The smile on his face slips to a melancholic one. “I wish I could still eat those. I miss caramel.”

He finishes cutting the top off, switches the pumpkin with the one by Charlie, and starts in on doing the same to it. He wasn’t sure if she would help or not, but with a small smile, he watches as she wraps one of the long limbs around the spoon and with more dexterity than he was expecting, starts scooping the insides out.

He winces at the thought and the momentary connection his brain makes to what happened to him. But he shakes it off. It was years ago now.

He distracts himself by asking. “Do you remember what you carved that year?”

She nods, bringing his next words to a halt with the soft answer of, “Rabbit.”

It was the year that the main four animatronics had been introduced and in excitement, they’d each carved one. Mike remembers taking a marker and drawing the face on each of them for his siblings and friends as they’d all voted he was the best at it.

He chuckles. “That’s right. I got Foxy. Liz had Chica and Evan had Freddy.” He finishes sawing the top of the pumpkin in front of him. Using the stem, he gently tugs it off and sets it aside. “I think Sammy did something different though.”

“Jason.”

“Oh yeah.” The movie had just come out that year and least to say, Sammy had been obsessed, despite the fact he was probably too young to be watching it.

“I wonder if he still likes horror movies.” To his knowledge, Sammy was still alive, somewhere out there. The only one out of all of them.

“I miss him,” Charlie admits, gently setting the limb holding the spoon down onto the table.

“I do to.”

Over the years, Mike had considered trying to reach out. Same with Henry. But he decided they probably didn’t need all this mess of serial killers and the supernatural dumped on their doorstep. He’d gotten a bit too close and look what happened to him. He wanted to spare as many people as he could.

He moves on, not wanting to spend too long thinking on it.

“So what are we doing this year? Basic pumpkin face? Triangle nose and eyes? Probably the best bet. I don’t think either of us have the dexterity for something more complicated.” He picks up the marker next to him. One that shakes a bit as he holds it, the tendons and ligaments in his hands not working like they once did and he wonders how many years they’ll actually last.

Quietly, he draws a face on his pumpkin, then goes over and draws one on Charlie’s, only making on small adjustment after she makes a noise of discontent at him drawing a matching triangle eye. So he rubs it off and makes a mismatched square instead.

They sit there for the next hour, tv on beside them, some old horror movie rerun on the screen, enjoying each other’s company and slowly carving out the pumpkins’ insides and then eyes, noses, and mouths.

When they’re done, Mike places them side by side on the table and then grabs a pack of candles from the cupboard. He places one inside each and stepping back, pulls out a matchbook and strikes a match. He watches the fire dance jubilantly, feeling its warmth as its glow lights up his face in the now mostly dark apartment.

He carefully lights them, angling the pumpkins just so that he doesn’t burn his own flesh as well, then steps back next to Charlie who’s hovering next to him, admiring their work as the haunting faces carved onto the pumpkins flicker out at them.

“Well, I don’t think we did half bad. What do you think, call it a night? I think there’s that old rerun of –,“ he cuts himself off as glancing to the side, its to see the space empty and Charlie gone. A noise catches his attention, and it turns his head to find her over by his junk pile on the side table, pawing through the papers there. Taking two steps over, he spots what she’s after.

He walks over, and carefully stepping closer, grabs the phone book from the pile.

“Sammy.” She says in explanation and he immediately knows what she means.

“You sure it’s a good idea?” Thinking back, he shouldn’t have brought him up. He wonders if she thought of him at all these past years. Ghosts were funny like that. Sometimes stuck in the past, only being brought forwards once someone mentioned something like he tonight had. And often, their images of things were still in the past too.

“He won’t be young anymore.”

“I know.”

He looks and is again taken aback by the intelligence in her eyes that the others didn’t seem to have and that he was still getting used to seeing in her.

He sighs, shoulders slumping, not sure if he was about to regret this or not. “If we find him. IF. It’s just a call.” Mike could maybe explain reaching out via phone after all these years. He couldn’t as easily explain his appearance.

She nods.

He spends the next few minutes flipping through the phone book, running down the list of E names. Eventually he finds it and its to his surprise to find the address listed as still in Hurricane. He would have thought he would have gotten out by now. Mike knows he would have if he hadn’t have died here.

He walks over to the wall, pulling the phone off the hook and one by one, puts in the numbers, Charlie hovering over his shoulder. He can feel her excitement and nervousness as though it were his own. Maybe it was.

It rings. For a long couple of seconds.

“Hello?” comes a confused voice through the phone and it makes Mike glance at the time. 11:00. He hadn’t even considered that it might have been too late for a casual call.

“Anyone there?” The voice is as he remembers it, only older, deeper, more mature. He would have been in his 40s by now. They both would have.

“Hi,” he croaks out, his own voice sounding so raspy by comparison. “This, this is Mike.”

“Mike?” the voice sounds even more confused, and Mike realizes that duh, he probably hadn’t thought of him since they were kids.

“Mike Afton.”

A long pause. “Aren’t you supposed to be dead?”

Mike pauses, cursing himself. He’d forgotten the fact that his organs had been found and identifies even if his corpse hadn’t. There was even been an obituary. “Um, that was actually a mix up. That might have sorta of never got fixed.” He gives the half lame excuse.

Still, some part of Sammy seems to accept (at least for now) it as he pushes on to ask, “What the hell are you calling for? After all these years?” There’s an edge to his voice, but one carrying more heavy confusion and grogginess from sleep rather than anger.

“I know it’s a bit out of the blue. I was just…” excuse excuse excuse that’s not his dead sister standing next to me, “Carving pumpkins. And I thought how our families used to get together to do that and it made me wonder if you were still around. Sorry for the late hour. I can just hang up.” Mike’s expecting Sammy to. Next to him, Charlie has her eyes closed, content look on her face and he knows just hearing her brothers voice had been enough, at least for tonight.

“No no. It’s fine. I-,“ he trails off and Mike understands the mental loops he probably going through at the unexpected call, “Been a while hasn’t it?”

Mike barks a laugh. A while was an understatement. “Twenty years give or take.” And most days, it felt like more.

Mike feels a tug on his sweater and glances over to see Charlie’s arm on his. He glances to her face and there in her eyes is pleading.  

He holds the phone away, lightly covering the receiver with his palm. “You sure?” She gives a small nod.

Mike didn’t want anyone else involved. To know. But Charlie had been through so much, more than him, and he couldn’t deny her a family she’s gone so long without regardless his feelings on it. Perhaps this was the reason he’d even found her. He can’t promise it would go the way she was hoping, it might just be a big mistake, but for her sake, for what his father did, he could sure try.

“Sammy?” he pressed the phone back to his ear.

“Yeah?” comes the immediate reply.

“There’s someone else here. That I’d like you to meet. Or again, I supposed.” He rambles.

“Mike..?”

“I can’t say much over the phone.” He doesn’t think he’d believe him. Not without the full proof standing in front of him. If there was one way to get Sammy to never take another call from him again, it’d be trying to explain everything now. “Halloween. You doing anything?”

“I- no I’m not.”

Mike smiles, one that he feels tearing at his face. Down in with all the junk is also a white bear mask he’s taken to wearing when he goes out. Something still odd, yet not as terrifying as his actual face.

“How would you like to hang out? Watch some of those old horror movies like we used to. And I can tell you then.”

Balancing the phone on his shoulder, he uses his hands to slip the mask over his face.

Perhaps, if Sammy didn’t look too close, Mike could say it was all a costume. Stop him from freaking out right away. Give him some time to adjust. One thing at a time. Sister possessing an animatronic first and zombie childhood friend next.

“Yeah Mike. Sounds good.”

Mike rattles off his address. They exchange goodbyes and a small click signals the end of the call.

He hangs the phone back up.  

“Thank you,” comes a small voice from his left and he shifts his body to face her. Two masks staring at each other, one a white bear, the other a marionette.

He smiles even though she can’t see it. “Anytime Charlie.”

They goes back over to the table and there they spend the rest of the night, cleaning up their mess in silence as they both think of the holiday to come and what reconnections it may bring.

Chapter Text

“Please please please please please,” Mike begs an overly tired Jeff that had to already hear this same argument proposition an hour ago, and yesterday, and the day before.

“Mike, for the last time, I’m not throwing a Halloween party.”

“It would be good for business though! Would get people to come in!”

“No. Everyone is already going to be too busy hiding from the ghosts and other things that inhabit this town that always seem to get way too active that night. That or trick or treating.”

“But what about everyone not doing that? Or maybe we can all hide out here instead of cowering alone at home!”

“I enjoy my cowering alone time.”

“I know Jeff but please!”

Mike, who’s hanging off Jeff’s apron, gets pulled into the kitchen with him where he’s promptly picked up off the floor by Jeff as he weighs nothing. He holds Mike, who’s not allowed in the kitchen, back over the threshold.

He sighs, one hand on his hip and the other still holding his undead coworker he was really starting to think might be more trouble than he was worth to pay. “Okay Mike. You plan it and we can do it. I’m providing pizzas and that’s it. There might be some leftover decorations in the back but other than that, you’re on your own.”

Mikes un-beating heart swells. “You got it boss!”

Jeff drops him, then slams the kitchen door shut in his face.

“Success!” Mike smiles to himself and pushing himself off the ground, immediately heads to storage to check out the decorations Jeff so speaks of.

-

“So what costume are you going to wear?”

“I’m not wearing a costume.”

“It’s a Halloween party. Everyone needs a costume.”

Mike and Jeff sit in the back office, as they can commonly be found when things are slow. In front of them is a computer that Jeff’s eyes and focus are currently on as he plays spider solitaire.

A small squeak comes from the cage next to them.

“See even Chucky agree with me!”

“He’s a rat, that could mean anything.”

“I was thinking maybe a pirate for myself.” Mike rambles on, “Or an astronaut. Or-”

He rambles on for a couple more minutes, going through costumes and the pros and cons of each while Jeff continues to play the game, used to the noise of constant chatter than is Mike.

“- okay maybe an astronaut that took its helmet off and died is a bit much for some kids. Maybe I’ll just do pirate zombie. That sounds pretty cool,” Mike nods to himself. “And I’ll put you down as my first mate. Chucky too.”

Mike gets up, task complete and makes his way towards the door. Behind him, Jeff continues to click away.

-

The next couple of days were filled with Mike preparing for the party. From making the fliers to hang around town, to decorating the place with fake bats and orange and black party decorations, to planning games. The hardest part had been convincing Jeff to wear a costume but he had and here they were, party in full swing.

The main room of the restaurant was filled with more people than Mike was expecting to show. Above them were streamers and in their hands, cups and plastic plates holding slices of pizza while their children ran around playing games like pin the tail on the headless horseman and bobbing for apples. Of course, the arcade was also open and even from here, Mike could hear the music and noise of the games being played.

Jeff was currently in the kitchen in his usual outfit and apron, only difference being the singular eyepatch over his eye to mark him as Mike claimed a ‘pirate chef’ but Mike would take it. Mike nodded to him as he made his rounds, making sure everything was running smoothly

He himself was dressed in a heavy overcoat with a pirate hat on and one eye patch covering his empty eye socket. He was a little nervous just like every time he went without a disguise or coverings, but he found Halloween to be the one day that no one gave him a second glance. Here he was in his full ghoulish face and he fit in just as much as everyone else. Though he did have a back up plan in the form of the illusion disk that if turned on, would make his look appear a slightly more makeupy. But unless someone really started staring, he wasn’t going to bother.

Stepping out of the kitchen, he gives the main dining hall and its residents one last glance before making his way towards the arcade where a about a dozen or so kids are gathered either hunched over the machines, watching others play, or competing, like one group was, in skee-ball competition.

“Os!” he exclaims upon seeing the familiar face at one of the arcade machines.

“Mike,” Oswald responds back, pulling away from the game he’d been playing. “Nice costume.”

“Same to you.” The kid was dressed in a cape and mask of some superhero. Mike wasn’t entirely sure which one, but he knew Oswald loved comics so it was no surprise that’s what he’d chose to go as.

“Who’s your friend?” Mike gestures to the girl leaning against the side of the machine who had been watching Oswald play the game.

“Oh this is Cassie. She just moved here this school year. Her dads the new maintenance guy at the school.”

“Hi Cassie.” Mike waves. She seems a bit unsure at first, giving him a once over, but then she smiles and something about it feels familiar to Mike.

“Hi Mike,” her voice is firm, yet has a soft edge to it. “Nice zombie make up.”

“Why thank you. I have to compliment yours as well.” On each of her cheeks is painted on a teacup. Ones that match the Alice in Wonderland costume she wears. “So how are you guys enjoying the party?”

“It’s been a lot of fun!” Cassie pitches in. “Oswald was just showing me all the games here. He told me about it before at school, but this is my first time in here.”

Mike gives a half bow. “Well, welcome to Jeff’s, where the discounts are minimal and pizza above just below average.”

“Where is Jeff by the way?” Oswald asks.

“Kitchen. Being a party pooper. I might try and drag him out later. Play me in a game or two. Or make him pin a tail on the headless horseman’s horse.”

“Want to play me now? I was just about to start round of Five Laps at Freddy’s.”

“Oh you’re on!”

They move over a few cabinets to the game Oswald suggested. When they get over there, a thought occurs to Mike.

“You sure you don’t want to play Cassie? I can go the next round.”

She shakes her head. “I’ve never played before. I’ll watch a round and then play.”

“If you say so!” Mike grins, flipping up the eye patch on his face to give him a better view of the screen in front of him.

They both go through the menus, picking their characters (including a slight disagreement about who gets to be Foxy. In the end, Oswald gets him and Mike chooses the puppet instead), race carts, and then the tracks. Cassie stands by, smiling in amusement the whole time. They hit play and then the game is on.

And Mike loses. Badly. Couples minutes later leaves Mike slumped defeated against the machine.

“Not fair,” he objects, leaning back from the ‘You Lost’ message flashing on his side of the screen. “You play this way more than me.”

“Jeff’s only had this game for about a month now. And you’re here every day.”

Mike shakes his head, pretending not to listen. “You kids and your video games.”

“This machine is as old as you!”

“Hey!”

Cassie laughs at the two of them, breaking the light banter.

“Okay okay,” Mike smiles, dropping the sore loser act. “You two have fun. Cassie, cover for me. Bring our score back up.”

She gives him a salute, hopping into the empty space in front of the screen he just left.

“Oh Mike!” She calls as he’s a few steps away from the exit. “My dad is here too! In a mad hatter costume! If you see him you should say hi.”

He turns towards her, continuing to walk backwards as he says, “Mad hatter. I think I remember seeing that one. I’ll stop and say hi if I see him!” and then he’s out the door.

Out of the noise and dark of the arcade, Mike makes his way back towards the dining area, but as he passes through the hallway connecting the two, he spots the man that just a moment ago Cassie was describing walking towards him and the room behind him.

He has his hand half up, ready to draw his attention and stop him for a quick chat but upon taking a closer look, he stops in his tracks.

Because he knows that face.

It’s one he recognizes, albeit from a life that feels so far and decades away. It’s older now, but unmistakable and it suddenly gives him the urge to hide, to avoid. But before he can, he’s being spotted.

“Why hi,” the man says as he spots and comes to a stop in the hall a couple steps away from Mike.

“Hello,” Mike smiles, one that feels tighter than usual.

“I was just looking for my daughter. You haven’t seen her, have you? She’s wearing an Alice in Wonderland costume.”

Mike gestures behind him to the door he just left from. “In the arcade. Actually, just got done talking with her. Her and Oswald are killing it on the racing game.”

“Oh you know Oswald?”

Mike nods while trying to keep his face in the shadows of the dimly lit hall just in case the man somehow manages to make out under all the rot who he is. “Hangs around here quite a bit. He’s a good kid. Cassie seems so too.”

“Yeah, she is.” A conflicted look crosses his face. “I wasn’t sure about moving back here. Especially with the town in this state but I’m glad she’s making friends and having fun.”

Mike smiles. “Don’t worry. The town is actually starting to see some good days. I hear that some of the empty businesses have even been selling. Maybe soon well see some new things coming in.”

“That’s good to hear.” He meets Mike’s smile, and like the thought just occurred to him, he says, “Oh! I’m Ben by the way,” and holds out a hand for Mike to shake. One Mike isn’t so sure about but after a moments hesitation, uses a gloved hand to do so.

He quickly tries debating in his head the pros and cons of what he says next. But before he fully can, he finds himself saying,

“I know.”

“Oh did Cassie tell you-“

“No.” He wasn’t sure it was a good idea and there was still time to back out. But it was a small town and Ben would find out sooner or later who he was.

“I’ve known you for a long time and you’ve known me. Though it’s been a while.” At the words, Mike watches Ben’s eyes glance back and forth over his face, looking closer, and from his expression, knows he arrives at the answer a split second before he says “It’s me. Mike.”

“Afton?”

Mike winces. “Fitzgerald actually now.”

That seems to shock Ben out of the stupor of shock he’d fallen in. Mike’s almost tempted to hit the illusion disk as he feels his eyes boring into him but he’s watching way too close and would notice the shift.

“Oh. That’s – that’s good. Jeremy, right? God I – How’s he doing? How are you doing?” Ben stutters through the sentence and Mike recognizes the awkwardness there. They hadn’t exactly parted on the best of terms, even if they’d stopped talking under slightly better circumstances than some others. At least there’s had been a mutual understanding after his brother’s death that there was just nothing more to say.

Mike chuckles dryly. “Trust me Ben, I’m not looking to pick up where we left off. I didn’t even know you were around until now. But I’m doing good. Better than back then. So is Jeremy. We’ve been back here for a few years and its not the best but not the worst you know?”

“I do. This place has a way of dragging you back.”

In more ways than one

Ben continues, “I’m glad to hear you two have been doing well. He had that accident, right?”

Of course he would know about that. Even after their group had split, it had been big news and now even years later, he still heard whispers of it around the town.

Mike nods. “He’s doing better. Has been for years. Not here tonight because he doesn’t really like crowds but I’m sure you’ll see him around.” And after a brief pause and in an attempt to turn the conversation away from himself says, “You’re not doing half bad yourself. Kid and job.”

“It’s just maintenance.”

“Better than me.” Mike chuckles, gesturing to the place, specifically the old Freddy’s. “Can’t seem to escape being here.”

Ben purses his lips, slightly opening and closing them a few times before he admits, “I was nervous. Coming back here, specifically here. I know what this place once was. But I’m happy to see its changed. And that we have to.”

Mike smiles, though its more of a grimace. “Just promise me you’ll keep an eye on her yeah?” There were still things in this town. Things that made some people assume that others had simply moved out, instead of on.

Ben gives him a confused look. “Of course, I would never let any harm come to her.”

“Good good.” He claps a hand on Ben’s shoulder and the small glowing specks that are his eyes meet Ben’s and just for a moment he seems to see through the excuse that it was just a costume, to the truth that still plagued this town. “I’ll see you around then.”

“Same to you,” Ben replies in a bit of a haze before turning and making his way on down towards the end of the hall, same as Mike, each going their separate ways.

Alone again, Mike pauses before the door back to the main hall, worrying about the things like him out there. The ones that couldn’t quite pretend, that were dangerous to the town, the community here, haunting it.

“What’s that face for?” comes a familiar voice, one with a slow drawl to it.

It leaves Mike’s mood lifting. “Jeff!” He turns towards the man who’d come out of the kitchen door connecting into the hall and immediately starts blabbering, “You’re never going to believe who I ran into! So you remember me telling you- “

He loops an arm over Jeff’s shoulders as he talks. He gives one last look back towards the arcade but then steers him and Jeff – who isn’t getting out of a game this time – towards the main hall and back to the party.

Chapter Text

It was Halloween at the pizza plex. Meaning along with the usual attractions, were children laughing as they played the themed games like bobbing for butters and Grim Foxy’s corn maze, and screaming as specialty characters like Dreadbear and Jack o Chica lumbered after them. The Glamrocks, also in on the fun, were up on stage playing a set of Halloween themed songs, and staff bots dressed in a variety of costumes from a simple mustache to a full ball gown weaved in a out of the guests also dressed in the same variety, offering specialty snacks like dread soda and marshmallow ghosts.

And two friends, Cassie and Gregory, both frequent visitors to the plex, were right there in with all the fun, standing on the balcony by Bonnie Bowl, overlooking it all. Cassie was dressed as a witch in her black dress, boots, and pointed hat. She carried with her a green bucket, nearly filled to the brim with candy and other prizes. To her left was Gregory dressed as a skeleton. The printed white bones on the black shirt and pants almost seeming to glow in the soft neon lights of the plex above them. Like hers, his orange candy bucket was almost overflowing. So far, it had been a night of fun and treats. Excitement and things to do around every corner.

Only, there was one problem.

“I’m bored,” complains Cassie. Grabbing onto the railing in front of her, she pulls her body away and puts her head down in between her outstretched arms to look at the floor as if it was more exciting than any of the activities going on around them.

Greogry stares at her with wide eyes. “Bored? How can you be bored?” he asks incredulously. The pizza plex was the place to be any other night if you were someone who was anybody, and that was especially true tonight. Gregory had been bouncing all week at the thought of getting to go.

“We played all the games, did the trick or treating,” she shakes her green candy bucket for emphasis, “Saw most the special animatronics, ate so much pizza and candy I feel like I’m going to throw up. And we’ve been here since noon.”

Gregory will give her that. In his excitement, he’d drug her there the moment the day began and the plex opened. It was nearing ten now, about two hours to closing and he doesn’t blame her for being a bit tired after the long day. However, he was still full of energy and sugar, sleep as far away as the age of forty.

“Okay okay,” he concedes, and she pokes her head up to look at him. “I got one item left on the scavenger hunt. Promise well go after I find it.”

“I thought you called that scavenger hunt stupid and ‘easy.’”

“Yeah. Well,” Gregory stutters. “Now I want to finish it. It’s one item and they give you a prize on the way out the door. Aren’t you curious?”

Standing back up, Cassie crosses her arms, small scowl on her face, one slightly weakened by the smiling frog on her left cheek and small bat on her left, that she’d gotten painted on earlier at one of the activity booths. But underneath it all, the crossed arms and the scowl, Gregory saw the curiosity and love of adventure that made them such good friends.

“One more. We find this. And then we leave,” she states, leaving no room for further compromise and Gregory eagerly nods.

That settled, Cassie glances down around the main dining hall at the people milling around there and to the band up on the stage, currently playing a rendition of the Monster Mash, as she asks him, “So where what are we looking for?”

Gregory pulls the folded up sheet out of his pocket and opens it up. On it was a two row grid. One row of boxes held clues and in the other was room for a stamp to go upon finding the area the clue lead to. They’d been easy to find. Gregory hadn’t even been looking half the time. He just happened across the stamps as they walked around. It was definitely meant for younger kids and as a way to get people to actually walk around the plex.

Regardless, most of the clues were simple. Like a picture of a racecar, indicating they should head towards the raceway. A bowling pin pointing anyone playing to Bonnie Bowl. And the last one was no different.

“Looks like a flag with a golf club. Monty golf.”

“Well then what are we waiting for?” Cassie begins walking with purpose towards the elevator, the longer frills of her dress trailing after her, and reluctantly, not yet wanting the night to end, Gregory follows after her.

“What floor again?” he asks as the elevator opens and they climb inside.

She gives shim a look. “Like you couldn’t navigate this place blindfolded.”

Gregry sighs, defeated, and presses the button for ground floor. With a shift, the elevator starts its descent.

The elevator music plays above them, a creepier version of the regular tune with extra organs and what might be faint screams. It was a bit silly but that didn’t stop a shiver from going down Gregory’s back as the silence stretched.

After a couple seconds, he frowns. He swore the ride never took this long. It felt like they were going down forever.

And sure enough, when the doors open a second later, it’s to a floor he’s never seen before. And neither had Cassie.

“Seriously Greg?” Cassie scoffs, hands on her hips. “You know it’s on the ground level.”

“I pressed the right one! You saw! It was lit up!” Gregory gestures towards the panel and even though the number was unlit now, Cassie knew he was right, she’d watched him push it. “I don’t even know where we are!”

He glances up towards the screen above the door but instead of showing the floor as normal, it’s glitching out, the number changing from one to another one second to the next.

“Well, push the right one and get back up. This place is sort of creepy.” Cassie says, though there’s a small waver in her voice as they both faced the area beyond the elevator.

Gregory has to agree. It was obvious this was not an area guests were supposed to be. Silence filled the long hall in front of them and the only light was a dim one a couple yards down, making the shadows around it seem long, almost like they were elongated fingers, stretching to get them.

Greogry leans over to the buttons and presses the one for the ground floor. Nothing. He frowns, trying level one instead, they could just take the stairs from there. Again, nothing. He tries them all, even just pressing the button to get the door to close but that just results in the changing numbers above them to turn off and the music to cut and the silence that follows is almost worse.  

“I think it might be broke.”

“What do you mean?” asks Cassie who’s still staring out at the hallway in front of them as if daring something to stare back. Like if she kept an eye on it, nothing could sneak up on them.

“None of the buttons are working. It’s not moving.”

Pulling away from her post, Cassie leans over and she too starts pressing buttons with the same luck he had.

“Well now what?” she murmurs.

Gregory warily eyes the only other option they have. Down the hall before them. Filled with shadows and a strong musty smell of something old. Dust dances before them in swirling and erratic way that suggest it was its first time being disturbed in a long time. And now without music, the creaks and groans that were too faint to hear before, bounce from wall to wall in their own eerie symphony.

He doesn’t want to walk down that hall. He suddenly gets the feeling that they shouldn’t leave the elevator. But they really don’t have a choice.

“There has to be some stairs around here somewhere. Come on.” He decides.

Taking a breath, Gregory steps off the elevator onto the tiled floor and behind him a second later, a second set of footsteps follow. There’s no turn-offs or doors to their immediate right or left so they start quietly down the hall, their footsteps the only sounds apart from the settling of the building around them. Neither make a sound, for it was the type of air that were to suggest that to speak into it was to invite something to answer back. Or take notice of the two small children wandering the underbelly of the plex. And they both wanted to get out of there before that. They both were old enough to claim they didn’t believe in the monster under their bed but young enough to prefer a night light, just in case. And just like in their beds, tucked under the covers that were impervious to all claws and teeth, the silence was keeping them safe now.

Meaning they both jump when from behind them comes a noise.

Frozen only a moment, they both spin around to see the elevator doors closing, and with it comes the whir of machinery echoing down the hall as the elevator ascends.

“Hey!” Gregory yells, an involuntary reaction in all the commotion, but it was no use. The elevator was gone and there wasn’t even a call button on the wall next to it to bring it back down. They were trapped. At least from here.

He turns to look at Cassie and she at him, uncertainty shining in both their eyes, and without the light of the elevator, the dim hallway light is the only thing left struggling to illuminate them.

“You just had to find one more clue huh?”

“Shut up,” he retorts. From the bucket he’s carrying, he pulls out a flashlight. It wasn’t very big, just a small prize one he’d won at one of the games, but it was better than nothing.

He clicks it on and points it ahead. It doesn’t do much, but it does give both of them some comfort, having a light of their own. Moving together, they finish walking towards the only other light. When they reach it, they glance around but again there’s no turn offs. There’s a single door but trying the handle, it’s to find it locked so they’re forced to go on ahead.

They walk for a few minutes, turning a corner to the left into another dimly lit hall, this one’s light flickering in and out. They pass through and turn another corner to another hall and then another until it gets to the point it just feels like they’re walking in circles in a maze. There’s a few more doors along the way but like the first one, they’re all locked.

Gregory is about to suggest they head back. Try breaking into one of the doors or check to see if they missed where the call back button for the elevator was but just as he opens his mouth, the hallway they’re in ends and the space opens up to a larger room. One he can’t even see the other side of from where they’re standing in the entrance. It’s dimly lit, just as the halls had been but it’s enough to see that between the cement walls of the room is filled with piles upon piles of boxes.

“Whoa,” comes Cassie’s voice from next to him. They were both aware the plex was huge but even they couldn’t have guessed all of this was under it and it makes him wonder what other halls and secrets might be contained within this place.

Used to the routine now and knowing they can’t turn back, they venture forth into the room, the light from the flashlight bouncing from box to box.

Breaking away from Gregory’s side, with confidence, Cassie walks forwards and opens one of the boxes they are about to pass.

“Cassie,” Gregory hisses in a scolding tone and glances around, waiting for someone or something to pop out and yell at them. It was beginning to unnerve him, the lack of bots down here. They seemed to be everywhere else in the plex.

“Relax,” she assures. “There’s no one down here but us.”

“There could be cameras.” He tries to shine his light up on the wall, but the ceiling was too tall and light too dim that his attempt revealed nothing.

“Then why haven’t they come to get us yet?”

She makes a good point, and when she says, “Get over here,” interest in her voice, he listens, walking over and peering down into the box.

“What is it?”

“Looks like some sort of old fan.” She moves to the next box, opening it. Inside are a variety of vintage looking toys. Ones of characters that are very familiar.

Greogry pulls out the old plush of Foxy. “These look like the things that should be in the display cases in rockstar row.”

“Maybe its where they keep the extras.”

They open a few more boxes, revealing piece after piece of posters, toys, and items that look like they were pulled from the old locations. It’s exciting, seeing it all, being the fan he was of Fazbears and their characters. Cassie was having a blast too, getting to rummage through the boxes like they were treasure chests. But as they go on, Gregory starts to get unsettled.

“We should really keep going Cassie,” he suggests after she closes the lid back on the box they’d just opened. They were both in silent agreement that they weren’t going to take anything, even though it was tempting.  

“You’re the one that wanted more time in the plex.”

“Not down here.” He was covered in spiderwebs and dust and he would never admit this to Cassie but the dark was starting to get to him. She’d always been braver than he was.

“Fine. One more box.”

“One more,” he says, in imitation of the deal she’d made to him a few floors up and possibly a few hours ago. It was hard to tell how long they’d been down here.

She starts down the aisles, passing boxes, glancing at each, but not stopping. For a moment, Gregory thinks she isn’t going to open anymore despite her words but then he spots where she’s headed. Of course she’d go for the biggest.

Or perhaps not biggest but definitely tallest as they both stand starting up at it. It towers over them by one or two feet.

Gregory opens his mouth, a bit in shock as he’s not sure how she’s going to get this one open as its more a crate than cardboard, but she strides forward and with a light tug, the front board comes right off, like all the nails holding it together had already been removed or corroded.

He wasn’t sure what he wasn’t expecting, but the looming figure of the grandfather clock above him was not it. All the other stuff so far had been things that made sense to find in a children’s restaurant. This was out of place. In more ways than one.

The time the clock was stuck on was 6:00, the shorter hand pointed down and longer one stretching up. And going from the dust covering the face, they had been for a long time.

“Weird,” Cassie mutters she reaches a hand forwards and before Gregory can yell out, “I don’t think-“ she’s touching it, creating fingerprints in the dust as she pulls away her hand away.

For some reason, Gregory is tense. He was already sure they were going to get in trouble, and now finding something like this here has his brain just screaming at him to get out. So when a voice comes from behind him, he just about jumps out of his skin.

“What are you guys doing here?”

He’s not the only one. Cassie too, jumps a bit as with him they both whirl around to face the new person.

Gregory’s flashlight finds them and it reveals a kid, squinting into the flashlight beam as it remains leveled at him. They take a moment to observe him. He can’t be much older than them. He’s shorter than Gregory by about an inch and Cassie by two, with brown hair and pale skin that almost seems to glow in the dark with the light reflecting off it. He wears a grey striped shirt and blue shorts, and a small part of Gregory’s brain finds it weird he’s not in a costume despite the day.

What catches their attention most though is his eyes. They’re a dark blue. But in certain shadows, as the kid holds up his hands to block the beam, they almost appear to be pitch black.

“That light is bright,” the kid says, breaking the trance they’d both slipped into when taking in the newcomer.

“Oh sorry,” Gregory apologizes, moving the flashlight away.

The kid lowers his arms.

“Thanks. Who are you?”

“Oh um. I’m Gregory and this is Cassie.” Next to him, Cassie gives a friendly wave to the kid.

“What are you doing here?” He repeats his question from earlier when he first found them.

Gregory and Cassie share a glance before Gregory admits, “We got a little lost.”

“The elevator malfunctioned and brought us here. It went back up before we could get back on,” Cassie elaborates. “Is that what happened to you to?”

The kid tilts his head at them. His dark eyes flicker over them, giving them a good once over now that he wasn’t blinded by the flashlight. It goes one just long enough for goosebumps to appear on Gregory’s arms. It felt like he was being examined from the inside out. From the fake bones one his costume all the way down to his real ones.

“No.”

They both wait for him to elaborate. To explain how he got here. Offer up some excuse or explanation. But one doesn’t come.

“I know how to get out though,” he suddenly announces. “Follow me.” He gestures them and then turns, walking without waiting to see if they were following towards the opposite corner of the room they’d come from.

Cassie throws Gregory a look the same time he does her. They share a small, near inaudible argument, wondering if it was a good idea to follow the kid but they were going that ways anyways and really, what harm could a kid do?

Both coming to this consensus, they turn and follow after the kid who’s now almost at the exit.

“So what’s your name?” Cassie asks as they push through the door exiting the storage area and into another hall.

“Oh. I’m Evan.” The kid smiles and away from under the shadow of the grandfather clock, it’s a lot friendlier. As they walk too, now with another voice, one who claims to know the way out, Gregory starts to relax.

“Nice to meet you. Don’t see many people down here.”

“You down here a lot?” Cassie asks, her curiosity poking through.

“Sometimes. I get bored and its quieter here than other places.”

“You come to the plex a lot?” Cassie continues her questioning.

“I guess.”

“Are you allowed to be here?”

“No ones said anything yet.”

The answers get Gregory’s own curiosity going. And he comes to one conclusion.

“Does one of your parents work here?” He cuts in to ask as Evan leads them around a corner.

Even goes quiet, casual demeaner from before gone. Whereas before he’d been turning his head back to answer them, he keeps it staring straight forward as he says, “In a way.”

A stretch of silence accompanies the answer. Long enough for them to pass another hall, this one with a few more lights spotting the walls than the last one, giving the illusion that they were truly making their way towards the surface rather than further below and deeper into the dark.

Gregory is the one to eventually break the silence after it gets a tad too uncomfortable for him. The kid seemed nice, and he hadn’t meant to upset him as it was obvious he had. “Would have thought you’d be up there tonight with all the excitement.”

“Excitement?” The light tone to Evan’s voice is back.

“Halloween.” Cassie answers for him.

“Oh. Is that the season now?”

Greogry frowns at the odd answer but brushes it off. “Yeah. They had a lot of games and special events planned.”

The kid light laughs and despite the soft tone, it echoes just a bit more down the hall than it should. “That would explain your costumes.”

“There’s no way you didn’t know it was Halloween,” Cassie teases, reaching forwards to lightly punch Evan on his shoulder which about makes the kid jump out of his skin.

Evan awkwardly clears his throat. “I’m not the best with dates and stuff. Hard to keep track sometimes.”

“You got to get out more,” Cassie says in the friendly manner Gregory knew well and was one of the reasons they were such good friends. Gregory might have been the one to speak to her first, but she was the one to keep on coming back to talk to and hang out with him. “Come on, don’t tell me you spend all your time down here. What do you like to do for fun?”

The kid ponders the question. “I like the racetrack. And the arcades. There are so many more games now.”

Greogry nods, perking up as he loved the arcades and all the games in them. “Fazbears is the best at getting the new ones! Every time I think I’ve got the high score on them they bring in another for me to beat!”

Evan laughs. “You must be here a lot if you got all the high scores.”

“Well not all of them. But a lot.” A thought crosses his mind. “I haven’t ever seen you here before. You said you’re here a lot?”

“Well, I try and stay out of sight. In places like these.” He gestures around at the hall they pass through. “I’m not technically supposed to be here.”

It clicks for Greogry then, Evan’s reluctance to say if his parents worked here or who they were. They probably weren’t supposed to have him here on the job. Cassie said she could only accompany her dad on certain allowed days.

Gregory hums in response, deciding not to push it. “Well, we should meet up sometime. I come here a lot after school and Cassie’s dad actually works maintenance so she’s here most weekends as they get a discounted pass.” He shoots her a lucky look and she sticks her tongue out at him.

A far away look appears in Evan’s eyes. One unseen to the two behind him. “Yeah. That would be nice.” Turning his head, he sends Gregory and then Cassie a smile. On that hits Gregory as out of place because of how sad it is.

“Almost midnight,” Evan says, turning back around and picking up his pace as he hurries forwards.

“How can you tell?”

But he receives no answer and couple minutes later, they’re coming to a door, the only one in this long twisting maze of halls marked ‘Exit.’

Evan stops just before it, gesturing them forwards. “Here you are.”

Gregory lets out a sigh of relief. One matched by Cassie. Without Evan as their guide, they would probably still be down there.

“This will bring you out to sublevel one. Make a right down that way and you’ll come out near rockstar row.”

Passing by Evan, Cassie pushes open the door to peak out and sure enough, it’s to reveal another hallway. But this one more brightly lit and with a clear staircase at the end of it.

“Man, that’s a good sight to see,” Gregory says from his place peering over her shoulder.

There’s no response. Confused, Greogry turns but it’s to find Evan gone. Where he’d been standing before, there’s nothing but shadows.

“Evan?” he calls, taking a step back into the hall away from the door.

Confused frown on her face that matches Gregory’s, Cassie turns to peer down the hallway with him. “Probably went back to go out another door. He seems to know this place well.”

“Why not come with us?”

“Maybe his dad or something was waiting for him. It is pretty late if he’s right and it is midnight.”

“Yeah...” Something about the answer doesn’t sit right with him. But neither of them had a better one.

“I hope we can see him again.”

“Me too. For now, let’s get out of here.”

Greogry nods in agreement and goes to follow Cassie through the door but as he does, a cold breeze graces his neck and in the distance, he swears he can hear a grandfather clock chime. As they climb the stairs, he counts and arrives at twelve.

They push open the door at the top to a now almost vacant Rockstar Row.

It feels weird, being back in the soft neon lights. For a while, it was like they weren’t even at the plex at all.

“Hey! Kids!” comes the voice of a staff worker standing a few yards away. “Midnight, place is closing! Time to head out!”

They nod and wave to him as they walk hurriedly past towards the doors out.

“Oh!” Cassie exclaims, stopping as they near the entrance. “You didn’t get the last stamp.”

“That’s okay,” Gregory says, “Everything’s probably done by now anyways. I think I’m just ready for bed.”

Cassie raises her eyebrow and gives him a smirk. One of her crystal clear laughs rings out and then looping her arm over his shoulders, she begins leading him forwards, pulling a chuckle and light protest from him.

At the entrance stand the main four band members, wishing the last exiting guest a goodnight.

As they pass by Freddy, Gregory looks up and for a moment, as Freddy locks eyes with him, they seem darker. Something swimming there that wasn’t, nor ever had been before. But then the bear blinks.

“Have a Fazerific Halloween superstars!”

They go past the band, past the doors, and arms linked, out into the chilly autumn night.

Chapter Text

Welcome, eggs benedict

Down far below was his destination.

Ground shaking, walls flashing past, bringing him deeper and deeper into the facility, into his new reality for the night.

She’s down there

and now so is he

a promise

a mission

a lie, deception

the night shift

He could do it. Sleepless nights were no stranger to him. The heavy eyelids, burning retinas, clouded mind, All symptoms of restless nights all too familiar to him.

The elevator comes to a halt.

He steps out, feet light, to the vent.

Hard metal presses against his kneecaps as he crawls through. He coughs, the air thin, not right, heavy, settling in his lungs like the dread in his stomach.

The control room is empty save for him. And a handunit.

Instructions, orders, shocks, vaulting arcs of electricity, uncertainty.

She wasn’t there. Not on the stage. Night one and something’s not right. There’s no standard, no comparison, but something in his gut screams, Get out

He dreams that night. Of eyes in his skin. Bright green ones. One set in his lower right arm, blinking up at him, accusing, questioning. He can feel it moving, the lid slowly opening and closing. New, fresh, testing what it can do, can see. It feels like a bug. He feels another open on his face, in the flesh of his cheek directly under his own left eye. A glance to the reflection in his window reveals it glowing green. It moves side to side in the socket, like a spider twisting in one’s ear.

He shudders, his head pounds, the start of an ache present behind own eyes - not the ones in his skin, the ones in his skin, the extra ones aren’t there, aren’t his - the eyes roll, searching, grasping, staring. He reaches for the one in his arm and digs his fingers in, for it isn’t real.

He screams at the pain it produces and the pounding in his head reaches a thundering crescendo.

-

Another night.

Instructions, orders, an error

Crouching in the shadows under the desk, eyes staring in, so so many eyes

Searching, flickering, angry

Someone is inside.

At last, alone

He hurries fast as he can through the gallery, heart pounding, pounding like his head, eyes watering, wanting to be anywhere but here. There’s a voice in his mind, one saying he’ll die down here. This place will be his grave, his tomb. Like it already was for so many others. It’s thoughts he tries to push down before the chattering in his mind becomes too much, before it costs him too much. A slip in attention, a mistake, a consequence. It was a technician job, nothing more. They were robots, advanced, but nothing else. There was nothing else going on. His sleeves stayed rolled down and he avoids any reflective surfaces, hurriedly turning his face against any he comes across.

He believes her about the handunit’s lies. Pausing when the dancer and her voice box playing its sad melody come near, crawling slowly across the gallery floor, trying not to make a sound and put to test the fears in his mind. It’s nothing more, nothing else.

Ignoring the way too many eyes seem to search the darkness. It’s dizzying, disorientating. He makes it, and looking back behind, across the darkness he just passed through, it’s to see two purple eyes staring back at him, before they blink close, and the twinkling moves further away.

He dreams again that night of the eyes. The green ones are back, already situated in his skin as if they’d always been there. Looking and seeing as if they always had. It’s an off putting sensation. Of seeing more than he ever had before. But all too soon he’s screwing them all shut as a burst of pain burns forth from the lower left side of his chest. The waves of it go through him, making him shudder, contracting his breathing, making him gasp, like a fish searching for water, confused why it’s even lying on land in the first place. It shouldn’t be here. It’s meant for down below the surface, where its cold and dark and nothing like where he is now, filled with pain and feeling like he’s coming undone stitch by stitch as his skin splits in a familiar sensation like the ones last night.

When the waves of pain pass, he slowly reaches his shaking hand up under his shirt. His fingers search until they find there, right atop his left ribcage, a lump. As he presses his fingers on it, it splits, and another burst of pain comes as his fingers poke into the eye there. He quickly pulls his fingers away, using them instead to pull back his shirt and spot the pink hue. It stares up at him, he stares up at himself, he stares down at it.

A small pain, one from his right ankle, sears through his thoughts but it’s almost familiar now and soon enough, in the skin above the bump from bone already there, forms another, this one opening all too soon, just like all the others.

He tries to tell himself it’s just a dream. He remembers falling asleep, surely that’s all this was. Some vivid nightmares that he was forced to see tenfold, made worse by the horrors seen during his ‘day.’ He can’t get her green eyes out of his head, they were imprinted in his mind the same way they now were into his skin in this vivid hallucination he was subjected to be in. Same with her pink ones. The ones he met for a fraction of a second and saw something there so much deeper than wires and metal should be capable of.

So many horrors to see. And they just kept coming.

His alarm goes off. It was time for another night.

-

Instructions, a mission, missing

Foxy isn’t on her stage, Ballora is pieces on hers, her shell scattered amongst the tiny minireenas holding them aloft; the wires and metal inside, her eyes, nowhere to be found.

He turns to right vent, ignoring the throbbing under his skin, the sweat on his brow, to the tasks of the night. He uses the flash beacon, praying that is enough to make it. Though winces too, the light brighter than he remembers. It stings his eyes and they water. His mouth set in a grimace, he takes another burst of steps forward. Over and over and over again until he’s reaching parts and service.

The maintenance goes as smooth as it can. He sits, overly aware of the blue eyes staring down at him, almost accusing, but something, perhaps bloodlust, is most prevalent. He’d given up on lying, on reassurances and spent the whole time praying to something he believed in less and less every day that it wouldn’t power on. Wouldn’t open its maw and swallow him whole.

He retreats leaves with the face plate remaining wide open, its metal face of twisting wires gazing out at him. He rushes back through the door, into the auditorium – too fast- he forgets the one lurking there and pays the price a moment later as he feels something slam into the back of his neck and his vision, every single one, goes dark.

-

The dream plagues him again that night. In it, he wakes, opening more eyes than he should be. He blinks around at the dark room. It’s always dark. The only difference this time is that he feels crammed, legs and arms contorted together and unable to move despite the feeling of covers underneath him, indicating him to be laying in a bed. Nothing to be seen despite the many eyes covering him. And soon to be more as the burning pain is back.

It’s on his chest, worst this time as the it centers at the base of his throat and the stinging, like lightning, spreads outwards. He can hardly breathe as the forming lump presses down on his trachea. In unison, from his upper left thigh, comes the same familiar pain. Though its secondary compared to the one pulsating in his chest. The one that feels like he’s being ripped open as something pushes its way forth from the inside.

It presses up underneath the skin, straining in the same area his scream sits trapped, before splitting open and revealing the brilliant blue beneath. He takes a shuddering breath as the pain subsides, the only relief in the otherwise terrifying ordeal.

He can feel them flickering all over his body, the many eyes, the two new ones on his chest and leg the most active. Scanning the darkness around them for anything to perceive. Yet it’s his ears that first catch the noise of the little girl shifting to stand in front of his petrified body, her long orange hair falling to the side as she tilts her head. Looking at her is like looking through a kaleidoscope and he finds it hard to focus.

Distracted by the headache forming behind each of the eyes, he misses her lurch forwards, though feels when she presses her nails that are like claws into his face as she peels the eyelid on green eye on his cheek back.

She stares into it with green eyes of her own. Across his body, all the eyes blink, except for that one.

All I wanted was to see her whispers a voice, deep inside his mind. Her hands fall to her side. The green eye blinks.

He blinks again and when he opens them, she’s no longer there.

-

Be still, and quiet

Are the first words he hears, followed by a massive headache pounding from within his skull.

A suit.

A springlock one.

His arms and legs twisted together as he sits inside the cold metal shell.

He knows what it means. The dangers that are present.  

He’d told himself he didn’t care if he died. But faced with the possibility of this death, he’s desperate to escape it and by the end of the night, by time he’s watched Ballora destroyed and the workers leave and the minireeenas crawl in and all over him, his fingers are bloody. Skin torn to shreds on the tiny screws, the only thing keeping him alive.

His head pounds as he walks out of the facility. It pounds as he walks the familiar path home and under neath his skin is a pulsing to match it. It follows him home where he collapses onto the couch. Where he falls asleep that night, utterly exhausted. Yet it’s only a few hours later he’s waking, the toll of the grandfather clock he’d long grown used to hearing telling him it was midnight.

He has to get up. He’s going to be late for his shift if he doesn’t. He doesn’t want to go back but he’s so close, he can feel it.

He tries sitting up and immediately regrets it. It was like all the pounding he went to sleep with was now centered in on one spot at the base of his neck. He lightly brushes his fingers over the bump, assuming it’s the place where the metal hand of the fox struck him, and a jolt of pain goes down his spine. One so sharp it masks the other one also coming from his upper right arm.

A moment later, the skin splits, a mangy yellow glow spilling out.

He’s sure he’s awake. He’s positive this isn’t a dream. The kaleidoscope effect is back, and it makes walking near impossible. He can feel them all. On his arms, legs, in his chest, face. All flitting back and forth madly, looking for something to explain this, to latch onto in this moment of madness.

He collapses back down onto the couch cushions. The plush beneath him sinking and it feels like he’s falling through it. He closes his eyes, the two on his face that are his and covers them with his hands. He stays curled in the position as he concentrates one by one to shut the other’s lids. One by one, his world gets a bit darker, more sane, until that’s all it is. Dark. And with the curtain drawn and sundown, it truly feels like there’s nothing in this void here except for him and his budding fear, one only kept in line by the mission he must complete.

He breathes out slowly and stands.

He inhales and walks to the door, hands pressed over his face the whole time. He shifts the left one to cover both sockets as his right reaches for the handle.

It’s only when he feels the fresh air on his face that he spreads his fingers and allows himself to peak through. At the night and sidewalk stretched with streetlights before him. The one above him flickers.

Down down down he goes. One last time.

His skin itches and eyes burn as he stares at the bodies hanging. Something crawls up his spine and whispers that he needs to leave, to get out before it’s too late but it already was. From the moment he went down here. There was no returning to what once was.

He follows her and finally faced with her lies, her manipulation, her freedom, all he knows is pain. Worse than the one from the last few nights. This one puncturing in, splitting him open and allowing something else in.

His world goes dark, only this time, it’s now his doing. His fault, for falling in. For stepping over the edge, having had ignored all the warnings before it.

It’s a cacophony of noises and a feeling like he’s attached to a rollercoaster but one he’s unable to get off. Up and down through the loop, teetering on the edge before plunging down. Just to whip around and do it again.

Slowly, sight comes back to him. Brief flashes of light coming and going.

Floor tiles. Staring right at them yet he’s aware he’s standing, making it wrong.

He blinks. A wall. One he recognizes to be in his bathroom.

He blinks again and again and each time, his vision travels upwards until he’s staring at his face, his two closed eyes. Slowly, the lid of the single green eye under his closes and when he opens them again, two bright purple specks gleam out at him. They waver, scared and terrified. And all across his body, the eyes tilt up to meet them.

A strangled choking noise escapes his throat.

His chest is torn open, flesh pushed to the side to make room for the tangle of wires inside. On his face are the remains of a white mask, partly embedded into his face in the right side over the eye. He reaches a hand up, using the broken nails to try and pry it off. He fails. Next, they move frantically to the eyes, trying to pull each from their sockets yet he just can’t seem to grasp them. Another failure. He reaches for the wires and it’s only then he cries out again as the action sends pain roaring through every inch of his body. His legs shake, stability leaves him, sending him crashing to the ground where he lays in a heap, too many views of the ceiling above him plaguing his mind and too many dark inky tears stinging his skin.

It'll be okay Michael, you have us now, one big happy family.

And against his wishes, he feels his mouth tilt upwards into a grin.

Chapter Text

He’s not sure how long he’s been wandering these halls.

Sometimes it feels like he’s been here for years. Other times, he’s aware it’s only been a few days. The wooden floors creaking under his steps and wallpaper coarse under his trailing fingers as he passes through the corridors, searching for a way out.

The first time he became aware, awaking here in this place, he ran. Down the hall and through the many twists and turns, searching for the exit as he wasn’t sure where he was or how he got there. And when he failed to find it, the door leading out, he started searching for people. Anyone to explain what this place was. But he appeared to be alone.

It was frighting at first. Each room he checked covered with spiderwebs and other gross memorabilia that made him think he was in some serial killer’s lair or haunted mansion but after braving walking forwards in the dining room to poke the eyeball siting on a plate, it was to reveal it was rubber. It was at that moment he let out a chuckle as he realized what it all was. A haunted house. Not an actual one, but one set up for Halloween, for people to walk through voluntarily and get scared. It was obvious after the first discovery that the rest were all just props, and he had a bit of a blast walking around from room to room appreciating the details of each, all made a little less scary by the lack of music or even darkness as each room appeared bathed in a light gray tone.

Which made him then wonder where the light was coming from. The windows were all covered with curtains and upon drawing them back it was to reveal the glass missing and space boarded up. He tried pushing on the wood but no matter what he did, it didn’t budge. He walked around, testing all of them with the same result.

It was at that point he started feeling exhausted. His eyelids fluttered open and closed and he doesn’t remember falling asleep but the next thing he knew, he was back at the end of the hall, staring ahead at the walls stretched before him and the multiple doors leading off from either side.

It went like that for two more nights, the wakening, exploring, and then falling asleep unknowingly, and while it was disorienting and sort of scary that he couldn’t find a way out, he’d come to accept his new reality even though he was positive there was something more going on. He’d worked for Fazbears for years after all, could say without a doubt the place was haunted, and had a feeling something similar might be going on here.

“Day four,” he speaks down into the tape recorder in his hands. He’d found it on his second day here sitting on a side table close to where he’d first woken up. He ignored it at first, but after days of walking around by himself alone, he’d picked it up. It felt nice to at least pretend he was talking to someone. (There was also a part of him that said if he never got out, if he was somehow cursed to wander here until he died and perhaps even then, that maybe someday someone would find the tapes he left behind.) So here he was, once again trekking forwards with it in his hands, trying to put together the mystery of his circumstance.

“Going to try and check out the basement today. Spent day two searching the second floor and day three on the main floor. I’ll try the attic tomorrow if I fail to find an exit here.”

He passes on through the hall, pass the rooms he spent the last few days looking in, pulling out drawers, removing rugs and pushing other furniture around, but finding nothing amidst all the props and other decor.

From there, he makes his way down the stairs to the main floor. As he does, he unintentionally follows the red line on the floor. It was all over the house, weaving in and out of the room. He was sure that this was some sort of attraction, somewhere meant for people to walk through for fun, the line meant to lead them through, enter to exit. Yet, when he’d followed the line, all it led to was a locked door. One that like the windows, would not budge or open.

Reaching the bottom of the stairs, he makes his way over to the kitchen which also happened to contain the entrance to his current destination.

“Approaching the door to the basement.” He passes by the stove, one topped with pots containing spiders and other fake plastic bugs, and comes to a stop in front of the door.

It almost feels colder than the rest of the house and there’s a feeling of dread coming over him as he stands before it but he’s reluctant to chalk it up to anything ghostly. He’s always hated basements and is sure his anxiety is just getting the better of him.

He checks the door handle to find it unlocked and informs the tape recorder of the discovery. Then with another twist of the doorknob, he’s pulling it open. The hinges creak as he does and the space widens to reveal in front of him a long staircase disappearing down into the darkness.

“Guess I about expected that,” he quips.

He’s about to begin the descent down, no use in delaying despite his reluctance, when from behind him, comes a noise. A faint muttering, like people talking in a distant room.

He turns around, searching for the source, but there’s no one. Nothing but the quiet kitchen with it’s fake bugs and mice behind him.

He’s quick to brush the disturbance off. It’s happened a few times since he’s been here. It freaked him out the first few times, his mind running wild with ideas of what it might be, but it was almost normal by now, the only emotion left from the encounter being curiosity of what could be causing it.

He turns back towards the stairs and his mission here and with a deep breath and outstretched foot, starts down them. His nose wrinkles at the musky smell as he descends. He’s expecting it to be dark but as he goes down, the darkness retreats leaving everything washed in a light gray despite there once again being no clear source of light.

Reaching the bottom, it’s to find it’s not a very big space. One large room with a singular smaller one branching off that appears to be a utility room. Unlike the rest of the house, there’s no decorations or red line leading him to believe that his was not part of the attraction.

“Not much down here except for bugs.” He watches a spider crawl along the cement brick wall and looks up to find the ceiling covered with real spiderwebs opposed to the fake ones upstairs.

“No windows. No other doors.” He notes to the device still clutched in his hands as he looks around at the space, a feeling like a stone dropping through him at the implication of what he just said.

He gives a dry chuckle. One that hurt more than it should coming out. “No exit here. Will try the attic next. Why it would be there…. I’d like to talk to whoever designed this place.”

He’s disappointed, but not necessarily surprised. The most obvious point for an exit would be on the main floor. At this point, especially in searching the attic, he was as some might say, growing desperate.

He’s about to turn and leave when something catches his attention. In the corner of his eye, a shadow shifts. He instantly freezes, the chilling feeling of being in the basement turning to one of actual fear.

“He- hello?”

Over in the doorway of the utility room, the shadow moves again and this time, within it, something gleams. Something sharp. Grinning at him.

He doesn’t waste any time. He races for the stairs, feet pounding up them. He slams the door shut when he gets to the top and leans against it breathing heavily. A small voice in the back of his head chastises himself for being scared so easily but the overwhelming feeling is one of relief of being out of there, even if he was still left with one of dread at having to cross another level off his list of possible exits. And the list was only growing shorter.

After a few minutes, he starts to calm down, his breath coming more easily.

“Heh,” he gives a light chuckle into the device he’d somehow managed to hang onto in his panic. “I could have sworn... perhaps I was wrong, and this place really is haunted. I- I could have sworn it had teeth. Long ones in its stomach. But I also haven’t eaten or drank anything in days so who knows. Maybe I’m starting to hallucinate. I- I think I’m going to call it a day.”

He clicks the recorder off.

-

The next day he wakes. It’s an odd feeling, slightly disorienting. He’s not ever sure how he gets here at the end of the hall but he figures he must have slept. Must have woken up and walked himself here to this corner.

“Starting to feel like I’m in a labyrinth,” he mutters to himself as he walks over to wear the recorder is stored and picks it up and clicks it on. “Day five. Or maybe it’s night. I guess I’m not sure.” Not like he could see out the windows.

He starts down the hall but comes to a halt not too far down under a square in the ceiling. “Checking the attic today.”

Reaching up, he pulls on the cord hanging from the ceiling. A set of stairs fall partially down after it. He finishes pulling them down and then carefully steps on the bottom rung to test putting some weight on them for they appear to be a bit older and worn down.

“They seem solid enough. Okay, going up.” He clips the recorder to his belt and begins to climb. Like the basement, its dark though brightens once he’s up and poking his head through the hole in the floor.

The place is much larger than the basement yet made to feel smaller by the boxes upon boxes spread out before him in the space. He pulls himself up, gaining footing on the floorboards and then takes a moment to take in the impressive amount of storage. Boxes in all shapes and sizes and appearing to have no method of organization whatsoever.

He unclips the recorder. “Guess I found where they keep the spare props.” He walks over to a box and pulls it open. Fake plastic skulls great him. “Yup.”

He opens a few more – cauldrons, rubber rats, masks - though grows bored after a while of the same thing of cheesy Halloween decorations. However, as he makes his way through the aisle of boxes, waving dust out of his face every so often, something catches his attention. A light, brighter than the rest, coming from the other end of the attic.

“I think I see a window. A real one.” He maneuvers around a stack of boxes and sure enough, there, in the peak of the roof, is a singular circular windowpane.

“It doesn’t even look boarded up.” Something like hope fills his chest. Perhaps he’d finally found it.

He takes a step forward, and is about to walk over, when his foot hits one of the boxes and the stack goes crashing over.

“Shit!” he yells as he backs away from the cascade. Thankfully none hit him.

They scatter out in front of him into the path to the window. He sighs, rubbing his hands on his face as he’d just made it harder for himself. “Stupid little mistakes. Feel like I’m always making those.”

He begins to wade through, pushing aside the boxes when suddenly, just like yesterday, he gets the feeling he’s being watched. He pauses, eyes searching the space before him. But there’s so many corners and shadows something or someone could be hiding in, just out of view.

“Just imagining things,” he tries to reassure himself. Yet when he takes another step, suddenly it’s like the shadows around him converge into one, one that rises in front of him until it’s a dark silhouette leering down at him. It’s monstrous form completely blocking the route and it’s glowing eyes and sharp teeth peer down in a grotesque expression. The rabbit ears on its head seems a bit silly but he’s not laughing. Not when he’s sure it’s about to jump him and sink its overly long claws into any flesh it can find.

He runs before it can. Back through the aisles of boxes, not looking back. He doesn’t stop until he’s down the stairs and pushing them back up to seal the attic shut.

He’s hit with disappointment then. He was so close. The window was a few steps away. Couple more and he could have seen what was outside it. If only he hadn’t spilled the boxes. Wasted time on an avoidable mishap.

“Attic failed. Will try again tomorrow,” he whispers into the recorder before clicking it off. He blinks his eyes open and closed a few times, fighting off the emotions wanting to spill from them. He told himself he wouldn’t cry. Wouldn’t give up. He was terrified of whatever these entities were but that wasn’t going to stop him. Because it was either find a way out or spend eternity here with them. And that didn’t sound very appealing.

He steps away from where the stairs were and leans against the wall. He slides down it, drawing his legs up to his chest and wrapping his arms around them.

“There’s no way I can actually be stuck here, right?” he asks to no one but the quiet house before him. Predictably, he receives no answer. He sits there for minutes but no other noise comes from the attic and nothing else reveals itself leaving him alone with only his thoughts.

He realizes he’s still holding the tape recorder. With nothing else to do, he rewinds the tap and presses play. But despite talking into it these last few hours and the last few days, nothing but static greats him.

“Should have known it wouldn’t work. Doubt anything in this place does.” He goes to toss it away, it’s purpose null, but pauses. Sure it didn’t work, but there was something familiar about it, comforting, and instead, he finds himself bringing it into his chest and clutching into it there, like a lifeline. Something to hold onto.

He closes his eyes and when he opens them again a moment or maybe even an hour later, he’s back at the end of the hall. Hands empty, tape recorder nowhere on his person despite just clutching it.

Instead of immediately moving forwards like he usually did, he stands there, just taking in the creaking of the house and the faint whispers. Ones that sound like there sound be more people here with him but that always feel out of reach.

As he stands there, slightly humming - the habit a comforting one - something occurs to him. He’s searched the house top to bottom. From the attic to the basement. But there’s one place he hasn’t been. Or he’s been but hasn’t looked.

Carefully, like he’ll spook something if he moves too fast, he turns around. There behind him, about a foot back, at the end of the hall, is a desk. And right on top of it, with some fake spiderwebs for decorations, is a faded red phone.

It looks innocent enough. Yet something about it screams familiarity. Hestitantly, and hopefully, he reaches a hand out and picks the phone up off the cradle. He holds it to his ear and prays that it still works so that he can call someone to come and get him out of here.

But there’s no call tone. Instead, static meets his ears.

He frowns, recognizing something not right. Leaning forwards, he reaches behind the phone for the cord but pulling it up reveals it to be unplugged.

The static crinkles in his ear before pulls it away and sets it back down in the cradle. The momentary warm familiarity from a moment ago is quickly turning to something else. Something closer to dread. He feels something in his mind, a memory, trying to crawl its way forwards but before it can he turns and runs.

He ends up back in the kitchen. At the back door that he swears should lead out into a garden or alley or something but is stubbornly locked.

“Just got to…” He wanted out. Needed out.

He runs over to the basement stairs. He opens the door but doesn’t go down them. At the top, to his right, is a small alcove that it just large enough to fit a broom, dustpan, some smaller tools like a screwdriver and hammer and ax. He grabs the ax, hands wrapping tight around the handle and goes back towards the back kitchen door.

He stands there, ax posed, ready, but pauses, suddenly second guessing himself. But in the next instant, he’s slamming it down into the wood where it gives a loud thunk.

He does this a few times. Over and over again until there’s a decent size hole in the door and once it’s big enough, he reaches forwards, ripping the wood away to peer out.

It’s incomprehensible.

There’s nothing there. Past the door, there’s nothing but darkness. Like it was the blackest night to ever touch the earth. All power gone, every star extinguished. His mind runs with possibilities. That perhaps the house itself was built inside a building like some movie set. Or that there was a large screen in front of this door. But nothing he comes up with quite sits right.

“Wha- it can’t-“

He repositions the ax in his hands, gripping it tight and begins to swing again, chopping fervently until the hole is big enough that he can fit through. He would figure this out. One way or another and he was done playing it cautious.

Looking upon his work, he drops the ax. He flexes his hands a few times, preparing for what might be beyond. Behind him, he hears soemthing shifting and from the corner of his eye, the shadows start moving.

“Oh no, not tonight,” he mutters to the thing behind him before throwing himself through the open door.

He lands with a thud. Back in the hallway, back inside. The red phone on its desk behind him.

He takes a deep breath. In and out. He’d always been told he was good at not panicking. At making light of a hard situation. But he was finding it harder and harder to do so. Failure after failure starting to stack up.

He stands. Ramrod straight, not giving himself time to even think about the last failed attempt for he had one last hope left. The light from the window.

He was going to there to the attic, creature be damned.

With purpose, he strides forwards the few steps it takes and as he passes by, absentmindedly grabs the tape recorder off its pile on his way. He pulls down the stairs and climbs up them. At the top, racing across the creaking floorboards, he weaves back and forth through the aisles, marching forwards towards the window.

However, right before he’s about to reach it, the light right there before him, his foot crashes into one of the boxes in the way. It’s light and goes sailing a few inches to his left, out of his path, undeterring to him but something about it makes him stop.

It’s a normal enough box. Not too big, something he could easily life by himself and nothing overly remarkable about it. There weren’t even any labels on it. Yet there was something there.

He kneels down beside it and before he can even fully process what he’s doing, he’s digging his fingers under the tape holding it closed and ripping it open.

Inside is filled with tapes. Dozens of them.

And still feeling like he’s being puppeted by something, he reaches a hand down to the recorder on his belt. He takes it off and clicks it open, popping the tape inside. Upon closing it, he presses play.

It’s his voice that comes out. A prerecorded message. Meant for a nightguard coming after him.

Memories flood his mind. Not all at once, nor painfully. But one at a time, night by night, sitting in front of cameras and manning the doors, the job, the animatronics, the years of keeping watch, until he remembers the night. The night he made a simple mistake that ended with them getting in. With them dragging him down the hall and shoving him into a suit. The night that ended with his death. With pain and blood and starving gasps of air until nothing but darkness surrounded him.

“Oh.” A small voice escapes him as the recorded words continue to flow over him.

‘I always wondered what was in all those empty heads back there’

“I’m dead, aren’t I?” he chuckles to himself, collapsing back from his kneeling position to sit on the floor. But instead of the dread he was expecting it to fill him with comes a bit of relief. Because he remembered. His death. Losing power, the suit, him getting attached to the phone, to the red one downstairs. He’s not sure how it, how he, got here but he wasn’t trapped. Not in the way he’d been thinking.

Standing up, he stumbles over, almost in a daze, to the window. He steps up onto a box under it to the pane and looks down. Far below, is a yard. And stretched in it is a line of people. All dressed up in different costumes, waiting to enter the house. Chatting and smiling and laughing as they wait their turn.

There’s a noise from behind him. He turns but instead of the horrific shadow he was expecting, it’s a child. One he recognizes.

“You understand now?”  she asks him, tilting her head, her large empty eyes staring up at him, black tears streaming down her face.

He steps lightly off the box. Knows his eyes too like hers, were nothing but voids, black tears streaming down his face. “It’s a haunted house. Only they aren’t the ghosts, I am.” The voices, nothing but the guests he’d been hearing moving through the house each night.

“We are,” she corrects him.

“We.” He smiles at her. There was a time perhaps he would have been mad at her and the others for what they did to him. But it was short lived. They were just kids. Scared and alone.

“Sorry it took me so long. You know how new places always disorient me.” He’d danced this tune before, from restaurant to restaurant, storage to storage, and this time, a horror attraction.

He takes her hand in his, and she grasps it back, smiling up at him.

“Play?”

His smile widens, the uncertainty and fear of the night melting away into playfulness. “There’s a whole house of guests waiting to be scared. What do you say we give it to them?”

Her smile grows to match his and she slips out of his hand, bounding forwards to go and tell the others. A spark of happiness goes through him at the sight but before following her, turns back once more to the box of tapes. Carefully, he sets the recorder and the one in it down on top.

He wonders momentarily, how many more times they will move. Every time was disorienting and confusing and scrambled what memories of his life he had, same with the kids. They always seemed to recover quicker, and he appreciated their patience as without them, he’s sure he’d go insane. He dreads the next move, the possibility that they would be split, and they’d be forced to wander alone. But they are all here tonight and until then, they had some people to scare. Being a ghost wasn’t so bad.

Halloween always was his favorite holiday.

Chapter Text

Mike releases a sigh as he slumps down onto the couch next to Jeremy, leaving about a cushion’s worth of space between them. “So what we watching?”

It was currently Halloween night. One might think, being a vampire and arguable zombie that they would be out and about like the legends said monsters were to be, scaring people and terrorizing the town. But they’d already gone out to the local carnival in town, without drawing any attention to themselves they might add, and least to say, they were both exhausted after all the excitement of rides, games, and crowds of people. Neither were used to it as they usually spent most the day hidden away but with the festivities running long into the night, they’d decided to venture out. It was also the one day of the year they didn’t have to worry about hiding who they really were. No one gave a second glance to Jeremy’s fangs or Mike’s rotting skin as there were about a dozen others around them with the same look.

Mike chuckles after his question, interrupting Jeremy, surfing through the channels, who was about to answer.

“What?” Jeremy asks, changing his response.

“Just thinking about you in the mirror maze again.”

“You said you wouldn’t speak of that again!” Jeremy cries indignantly.

They’d both been eager and delighted upon seeing the attraction. Unfortunately, both forgot to take into account that one of them wouldn’t show up in said mirrors. Mike had lost count of the amount of times Jeremy had run into a mirror tonight. Fortunately, he had fast healing, so it was more his ego that was bruised than anything.

“I’m not speaking though, just laughing,” Mike claims before another round of laughter escapes him.

Jeremy huffs, though there’s a small smile tugging at his lips. He leans forwards towards the tv trying to hide it. “Okay looks like tonight for options we got Night of the Living Dead, It, or Casper.”

“Casper,” Mike immediately votes.

“The friendly ghost?” Jeremy mock teases, a bit surprised at the quick decision.

“Laugh all you want but Night of the Living Dead is basically my life, and It is just scary.”

“You’re scared of a clown?”

“Did you just completely zone out my sad and tragic backstory I told you when we first met?”

“Oh shit,” Jeremy remembers. He supposes circus themed animatronics crawling inside your skin would make anyone impartial to such a film. “Okay you get off on that one.”

They settle down into the couch as Jeremy flips it back to the channel playing Casper. The tv flickers before them, screen going fuzzy every so often as the signal would tune in and out, but they were both used to it. It was a cheap tv in a cheap apartment, quality to be expected.

They’re both tuned into the movie and the comical chaos happening that it takes them a moment to turn away when about twenty minutes after the movie begins, the phone starts ringing.

They both turn to look at each other, and then to the cause of the disturbance. Then back at each other.

Their phone never rang. There was maybe two people total that had their number and neither could think of a reason for them calling tonight of all nights.

“Who do you suppose that is?”

“Probably some prank call. Some teens bored somewhere. Just leave it,” Jeremy suggests.

Mike shrugs and as it’s the option that doesn’t have him getting up, so he goes with it.

It rings for a while longer, filling the apartment with its shrill tone but a few seconds later it stops and silence minus the movie on tv falls over the room once again.

Though it’s broken ten seconds later as the phone begins ringing again.

“Just go answer it.” Mike complains.

“Why don’t you?” Jeremy shoots back, before immediately saying, “Play you for it.”

Mike makes a sound of weak protest at the words. Whenever neither wanted to do something, all the other had to say was that and then would come a round of rock paper scissors. Whoever lost had to, with no complaint, go do whatever they were playing for.

And there was no backing out once the words were said.

“You always win,” Mike grumbles, holding his hands up.

“It’s rock paper scissors Mike.”

“Yeah, but you probably have some vampire mind reading that you’ve been holding out on me all this time just so you can know what I’ll choose.”

“No, I’m just lucky.”

“See? I have the worst luck ever so you’re still cheating,” Mike claims as they move their hands up and down to begin the game.

Jeremy does scissors. Mike does paper. Just like he always does.

“See?” Mike says as he stands up, completely unaware of reluctance to choose either rock or scissors.

“You’re right,” Jeremy says from his comfy place on the couch, “I totally read your mind with my vampire powers.”

Mike tosses him the bird as he walks over to the still ringing phone. He picks it up off the wall and presses it against his ear.

“Hello?” a string of silence follows, prompting him to asks, “Hello?” a second time. He stays standing there on the phone for about half a minute, listening to the silence and waiting for a response before he hangs it up. “Must have had the wrong number.”

“Mm.”

He goes back over towards the couch but before he can sit down, the phone starts ringing again.

“Oh you’ve got to be-,” Mike mutters before stalking back over.

“Hello?”

Silence.

“I will unplug this phone!” he threatens into the receiver where from a moment later as if in response, comes a small reply.

“Hi.”

The voice. Mike knows that voice. It rings through his ears, the cadence and pitch so unnervingly familiar and it has him flashing back to a dark office, monitors in front of him and vents to the side. And a flashlight dead in front of him because of a certain thief.

Mike screams and chucks the phone against the wall where it leaves a small indent in the wall before falling to the floor with enough force to drag the rest of it off the wall.

“What?! What is it?!” Jeremy asks frantically at the commotion and Mike’s reaction, leaping up off the couch to come over by him.

“It-“

“What?”

“It’s-“

“Spit it out Mike!”

“Balloon boy!”

Jeremy opens his mouth, but then freezes. He turns slowly, staring at the phone in horror.

Then whips around to Mike. “Oh I am not dealing with that fucker again! You get check window and locks. I’ll hide the batteries.” Without hesitation, they both leap into action - despite the small puppet animatronic being nowhere even in the building.

From across the street, next to a payphone that he was just hanging up, Sammy watches through the small crack in the curtains as Mike and Jeremy flounder about, running this way and that across the apartment in alarm. He releases a light laugh that flows out into the night at the chaos he’d prompted.

“Thank you voice mimicking ability,” he says, grinning. Most days he really hated being a werewolf, but it did come with its perks. One being the ability to fuck with his friends. “Teach them for messing with me.” Least to say, they had it coming.

Pleased, hands in his pockets, he walks down the sidewalk. One day he’d vaguely bring up the incident sparking suspicion he was the one behind it, but for now, on this Halloween night, he leaves them running from a ghost of a nuisance that was long since decommissioned.