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Chapter Text

Ralph was no stranger to oddities in the Hurricane countryside; he’d seen his fair share of shit. But this was on a whole other level of weird.

He stared with a mix of horror and awe as, sat broken and defunct against an old, withering tree, what appeared to be an animatronic rabbit looked back at him through dull eyes. Its baby blue metal skin was cracked, endoskeleton exposed and paint peeling off in chunks like dead skin. Each limb was twisted and splayed, and one eyelid hung low while the other was missing. The worst part was the gigantic hole in his chest, his midsection torn open like a piece of roadkill.

As he took a cautious step forward, only then did Ralph truly realize what he was looking at. It was some iteration of Bonnie. He almost looked like one of the old Glamrock animatronics from upstate, but surely that couldn’t be it. Salt Lake City was four hours away…

Then he heard the rustling of the brush behind him.

Turning around, Ralph stifled a scream as a slim figure stepped out into the beam of his flashlight. A chrome white chicken, its pink accents chipped and casing cracked just like Bonnie’s, lurched her way towards him on a damaged leg. Where a beak should have been was merely a gaping hole, a toothless endoskeleton maw hanging out uselessly from inside. Chica!

Chica let out a stifled cry as she swiped at him, and Ralph quickly scampered out of the way when he felt himself bump into something rugged and cold. Looking over his shoulder, Ralph watched as a metallic wolf towered above him, her face ripped apart and her eyes torn out as she snarled down at him. Her green and silver hair reeked of smoke, and oil dripped from her razor-sharp teeth. Even stranger, the remains of a green gator clung to the wolf’s back, its pinkish-red eyes glaring at him. Roxy and Monty.

Monty leapt off of Roxy’s shoulders in an instant, revealing only the upper half of a torso- everything else had been torn off, leaving exposed wires and parts out in the open. Before Ralph knew what was happening he and the gator were rolling around in the dirt, the rabid animatronic snapping its mangy jaws as it clawed through skin and tissue.

Ralph screamed as he managed to throw off the monster, but he barely got back to his feet before Chica slammed into him with surprising force, sending him right back down. Roxy grabbed him hard by the hair and yanked him upwards, reaching towards his face as she sneered, “Let’s see how you like it when you get your eyes ripped from your skull!”

“Roxanne.”

Everything stopped as a rough, broken voice crackled through the silent desert. As Ralph squirmed, Roxy threw him back to the ground and huffed, “So you get to have all the revenge you want, but I can’t rip out a guy’s eyeballs?”

“I am not getting revenge,” the mystery voice sighed as heavy, rusty footsteps came ever closer to Ralph’s struggling body. Soon enough, a metallic hand grabbed him by the back of his shirt, and gently he was lifted up enough for the man to get a good look at the monster before him.

It was a bear, its orange coloring faded and dull as its eyes glowed a saccharine blue. He was just as worn and withered as the others, half of his facial casing gone and his jaw mere exposed metal. His chest, just like Bonnie’s, was ripped open, and his hand casing was gone, leaving bitter metal and deadly claws. And yet, despite the damage, his expression still held a special kindness.

Freddy Fazbear.

“What are you doing out here in the desert?” the bear asked matter-of-factly. “Are you lost?”

“I… I was just on a walk… Sight-seeing…” Ralph wheezed, blood spilling down his chin. “Please don’t kill me… Please…”

“I would not dream of it.” Freddy took Ralph in his arms and sat him upright next to Bonnie’s corpse, careful not to scratch him. “I am so sorry for my friends. People have not been kind towards us.” The bear turned toward the rabbit. “Right Bonnie?”

Bonnie didn’t answer, still just as lifeless as before.

Freddy laughed humorlessly as he continued, “Bonnie is not much of a talker anymore. But I am. I am the leader of this… Whatever you would call us.”

“The Glamrocks.”

“Yes. I had almost forgotten that name.”

“Just get it over with Freddy,” Roxy snapped from behind. “Do you want me to do it or-”

“What? What does that mean?!” Ralph tried to scramble away, but Freddy grabbed him and pulled him close. Too close.

Freddy chuckled again, his exposed wiring sparking with nerves as the man struggled and squirmed. “I am not going to kill you. That is not in my programming. I cannot do such a thing.” The bear hesitated, and then whispered, “I am sorry I have to do this. I do not enjoy violence. Please know that.”

Suddenly, Freddy grabbed Ralph by the side of his face and smacked his head hard against the rotting tree. As his body went limp, Freddy nudged him to make sure he was out cold and got back to his feet.

As Freddy stared down at the man, Roxy held his shoulder. “You should’ve let me do it,” she whispered, concern in her voice. “Are you… Are you okay?”

For a long while, Freddy didn’t respond, slipping out of Roxy’s grasp. “I am okay,” he finally said. “He will be okay too. Worst thing he will have is a slight concussion. Maybe a nose bleed… But it was necessary. Better than killing him… This is all for us.” He stared at the rest of his remaining bandmates, sorrow in his damaged voice. “We have to get going. They cannot find us. Not yet. We will know what to do when we get there. I am sure of it.”

Without another word, Freddy gestured for Roxy to help him carry Bonnie’s body as Monty hopped onto Chica’s shoulder. The old band grabbed their few things, and soon enough they were back on the move.

Freddy added the stranger’s face to his database. He couldn’t afford to forget anyone, even if they weren’t dead.

—

“Hey Dad. It’s me, Charlie.”

Charlie stared down at the gravestone, the name William Mitch Afton engraved into the granite. Underneath his name it read, In the hands of eternity. She’d chosen that line. In fact, she’d been the one with the idea to give him an actual gravestone in the first place, next to Mike and Evan’s. He hadn’t had one before, given how he had been framed for child murder.

Quickly she said hello to Mike and Evan as well, unfolding a piece of paper from her pocket as she mumbled, “I know you guys probably can’t hear me, but y’know, stranger has happened. Kids have possessed animatronics, Dad possessed an old mascot suit, metal can be infused with human souls, yada yada yada… I’ll get to the point.

“It’s the anniversary of the Freddy’s murders. John, Lamar, Marla, Jason, I’m sure you remember them. You guys are all being honored this time too, so that’s cool.

“I’m going out to the celebration of life with the crew, and…” She sighed, crumbling her paper into a ball and shoving it back into her pocket. “This is ridiculous. I mean, surely no one’s listening. What the hell am I even doing?” She put her hands up, sighing, “Dad, Mike, Evan, anyone, if you’re there, just send me a sign. Please.”

She waited, the dry desert breeze whistling past her as she stood there in the dry grass, the tombs barely shaded by the crippled tree on top of the awkward, hilly grove. Nothing happened.

Charlie kicked at the dirt underfoot as she began to sulk away, only for something to catch her eye. Just behind the hill were two familiar markers dug into the dirt, not a single flower or note left behind for the pair. Jen Emily and Clay Burke’s tombstones.

No one was sure who decided to even give those two the time of day in the old cemetery; nobody liked them, for good reason. Charlie could remember everything that had happened with them when she arrived in Hurricane a year ago like the back of her hand. She could remember Vanessa’s tales of Jen’s victims, their bodies piled up into mountains at the bottom of the Pizzaplex and their souls injected into endoskeletons; she could remember Carlton’s stories of soul-crushing horror as Clay killed each and every one of his friends and Jessica’s recollection of her brother’s death at the corrupt police chief’s hands; she could remember Clay attempting to kill her as animatronics ran amok through his home, and Jen plunging a knife through her neck.

Her fingers grazed against the bumpy scar across her throat, each swallow more painful than the last as she continued to stare down at the poor excuses for graves. They didn’t even have anything to bury; Jen and Clay’s remains had never been found, probably scorched into ash by the fire that consumed Freddy’s in the end.

The sound of her phone smacked her back to reality, and Charlie couldn’t help but smile seeing a message from Vanessa. I’m heading down to the diner; see you in a few! it read.

I’ll be there in five, Charlie replied, and added a heart emoji for good measure. Then she raced down the hill towards her car, hoping to actually be there in the five minutes she promised.

She didn’t dare look back at the gravestones.

—

Pulling into a parking space near the town square, Charlie raced as fast as she could manage on the uneven gravel. She couldn’t help but wonder how much quicker she could have run if she still had both legs instead of only one.

Charlie shook her head. Her prosthetic did its job, and frankly she was rather glad she didn’t have one like Carlton’s arm or Jessica’s eye. Having to connect the tech to actual nerves wasn’t a pleasant process.

The merciless summer sun beat down on the small desert town as Charlie hurried along the busy sidewalks. It was the most populated she’d ever seen the square. Frankly, ever since Freddy’s burnt down and the truth was revealed about Clay and Jen, things seemed a bit brighter. The astroturf was a bit greener, the unused fountain a little cleaner. Everything was still old and tired and forsaken, but at least she saw a few more smiles than she had before.

Finally, she saw it. At the southeast end of the square sat Fredbear’s Family Diner, the face of a familiar golden bear plastered above the rickety front doors. Charlie couldn’t help but grin as she saw the others sitting at one of the window booths, engrossed in conversation. She knocked on the dirty window, grime brushing up against her scarred, worn knuckles, and immediately the three of them turned to look at her. Vanessa’s face blushed a bright, surprised red as she broke out into a sheepish smile, and Jessica rolled her eyes as Carlton giggled.

“We were wondering where you were,” Jessica said as Charlie walked inside. The former Freddy’s manager radiated coolness, her icy gaze and pastel complexion like breaths of fresh air compared to the feverish warmth of the wasteland. Her left eye only added to the look, replaced with a sleek black-and-white robotic one. It was pretty badass, Charlie had to admit.

“How many minutes was I late this time?” Charlie asked, breathless as she sat down next to Vanessa.

“Only three,” Carlton said, “which means you only get charged three whole dollars!” Jessica nudged his shoulder playfully, and he held his robotic arm delicately. “Hey, I know it was a dumb joke, but don’t damage the merchandise!” His smile was fuller now in comparison to when Charlie first met him, his dull green eyes now full with life. His red hair was longer, his bangs hanging over his face and nearly covering his freckles as he laughed.

Suddenly, Charlie felt her face turn hot as Vanessa took her hand. “Don’t worry, I was a little late too,” she said. To Charlie, every part of her was beautiful; her emerald eyes, her sand-gold hair, even her scars. It didn’t matter where they were or what they were doing, Charlie knew she was the loveliest woman in the world. There was simply no competition.

“You mean by half a minute?” Jessica asked.

Vanessa scoffed. “That’s still technically late.”

“Ah, everyone’s here now! May I take your order, Ms. Afton?” Charlie jumped in surprise at the new voice, looking up only to see Henry standing there, notepad and pencil in hand. For a guy in his forties, he looked surprisingly young, not a hint of gray in his chocolate hair and not a bag under his olive eyes.

Carlton spoke up first. “I think you nearly gave her a heart attack, Dad.”

“Ah, yes, I’m sorry. All this coffee’s made me a tad hyper, I hope you can forgive me.”

“It’s alright Mr. Goodman.” Charlie waved the incident off, and one by one they all made their orders. But as Henry jotted the last one down and began to walk away, Charlie excused herself and hurried to follow him. “Mr. Goodman! I need to give you something!” Henry turned around, but before he could even speak she pulled out a small, handmade card from the inside of her jacket and handed it to him. “I just wanted to say thanks.”

“Oh, thank you!” Opening the card, Henry’s face broke into an eager beaming as he read, “Thank you for accepting my suggestion for the diner’s name. I appreciate it more than anyone could ever know. Sincerely, Charlie Afton.”

Before Charlie knew what was happening, Henry set down his things and practically tackle-hugged her. “I’m glad you like it!” he laughed as Charlie stood there, still as a statue. “Fredbear’s Family Diner’s a better name than Goodman’s Glamorous Eatery, after all.”

“Yeah, uh… Sorry, I’m not used to this,” Charlie squeaked, awkwardly patting Henry’s back as he continued to hug her. “I’m glad you like the card.”

“Of course!” Finally, Henry let her go, saying, “Now go hang out with the others. I’m sure they’d like you back.”

“Okay…?” Henry was gone before Charlie even finished speaking, and stiffly she made her way back to the booth. “Carlton, how much coffee has your dad drank this morning?”

“Like, three cups. He’s a lightweight when it comes to caffeine, I guess.”

Before long the table went silent, and Charlie knew exactly what they were thinking about. All around them people were shooting glances toward the four of them, some kind and some not so much. A microphone was being set up on the tiny, makeshift stage in the corner, and an empty round table sat in the middle of the diner, eight seats vacant and barren. The table itself was filled with framed pictures, old trinkets, crinkled drawings and writings. On each chair was written a name: John Brooks, Lamar Kingston, Marla Miller, Jason Miller, Neil Dunn, Evan Afton, Michael “Mike” Afton…

And William Afton. Someone had scribbled out his name with red marker, the word MURDERER written underneath. Some people still didn’t believe their story, clearly. At least, the part of their story they could tell; nobody would believe the supernatural side of things.

“Who did that?” Charlie asked through gritted teeth as she gestured toward the graffiti.

Jessica shook her head. “Don’t know. We told one of the staff about it, and they said they’d fix it, but…”

“Maybe we should tell Henry,” Vanessa said. “Clearly he hasn’t noticed it.”

Carlton nodded. “I’ll tell him when I see him.”

All was quiet as the four of them just sat there, staring sorrowfully at the empty table. Then Carlton stood up and walked over, and then Jessica too. Vanessa took Charlie’s hand once more as they followed, and the blonde whispered, “Doing okay?”

“Yeah. I’m fine.” Only then did Charlie realize she had tears in her eyes. “Uh, you?”

Vanessa could only nod, wiping at her face.

After a while, other people started to join in too. Charlie recognized one of the library interns staring wistfully at one of Marla’s drawings, the local genealogy club looking at pictures of Jason, a group of high school girls paying their respects to Evan; Lamar’s father read over his son’s essays, and even one of Mike’s former bosses took off his hat before a graduation picture of him. Charlie held a picture of her father with shaking hands as Carlton stared at John’s, his expression unreadable. Jessica brushed specks of dust from her brother’s old badge, and Vanessa scribbled a note to her old co-workers at the Pizzaplex.

The community mourned. Some with tears, some with hugs, some with condolences, but nevertheless, they mourned.

“You must be Charlotte.”

The new voice, just like Henry’s, shook Charlie from her thoughts, and slowly she turned around to see a man probably in his early fifties standing behind her. From the pictures of John she knew the stranger was his dad; she recognized that same scruffy brown hair, those same matching eyes.

“I am,” she answered quietly, dread washing over her like a sudden torrent of rain. It wasn’t often when the family of one of Jen’s victims was very happy with her.

Carlton suddenly appeared by Charlie’s side, one eye twitching as he said with a nervous smile, “Hey Mr. Brooks, how are you doing?”

Mr. Brooks’s look of disgust grew. “Neither of you should be here,” he said. “Neither of you have the privilege.”

“Excuse me?” Charlie crossed her arms. “We’re here to mourn, just like you.”

“And this is a public event,” Jessica added. “Anyone can come and go as they please, Donald.”

“None of you get to call me that!” Mr. Brooks got up in Jessica’s sullen face without hesitation, snapping, “Your brother made us a promise, to find our son’s murderer, and then he didn’t do shit!”

Jessica’s eyes widened, and Charlie watched as her hands curled into fists. “Neil was murdered by the same man as your son. If he was still alive, he would’ve been able to give proper justice. I swear.”

“Then he was clearly a r-t-rd, getting himself killed.”

Before Jessica could even open her mouth, Vanessa shoved her way in front of her, yelling, “Don’t you ever call my cousin that! Ever!”

“And you!” Mr. Brooks pointed. “What the hell are you doing here? You didn’t know my son, you barely knew any of these people. You belong back in that damned complex with the rest of your co-workers.”

“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

“Yeah. You don’t deserve how lucky you got.”

Charlie grabbed Mr. Brooks by the shirt collar, pulling him away from Vanessa. “You bastard, you don’t get to talk to anyone like that,” she snarled, “especially not my girlfriend!”

The man pushed her away. “Of course, the daughter of Jen Emily threatens violence,” he sneered, turning his attention toward Carlton. “What about you, Burke boy? You wanna kill me too?”

“I’m nothing like Clay,” he replied, flexing his mechanical fingers.

“Sure, sure, of course. It’s not like you’re just as guilty for John’s death as your father! Oh, wait, I forgot! You led my boy right into Freddy’s. You didn’t even go with him at first, you dared to stay in my home and wait! You watched him die, watched him sacrifice his life for you, and you didn’t do shit!

“And that’s not to mention what your mother did to my boy!” Mr. Brooks shouted, looking back at Charlie. “She ripped him apart piece by piece until he could fit into a goddamn animatronic bear! Do you know what it’s like, to have to go to the coroner’s office and have to identify your own child? Your child that’s been chopped up and torn apart like a damn dog toy?! To only know who your child is by a lock of his hair found stuck to his eyeball and by the fillings in his remaining teeth?!

“You don’t! You don’t know how that feels, none of you! You’ll always be your mother’s daughter,” he said, and looked back toward Carlton again, “and your father’s son. There’s no escaping from your blood! Never! I’m never getting my son back, because of you!”

“Donald! What are you doing?!” The crowd turned to see Henry hurrying over, nearly stomping as he got between Mr. Brooks and the others. “How could you talk to them like that?!”

“Henry, they killed my son! They helped kill my son!”

“They didn’t do shit, and I do not appreciate you talking about my son and his friends like that.”

Mr. Brooks’s face turned from red to nearly purple, rage restraining any ounce of sense he had left. “That is not your son!” he screamed. “That is a traitor, all of them!”

“Get out of my diner.”

“What?”

“Get out of my diner!” Henry grabbed Mr. Brooks by the scruff of his shirt, and in a flash he threw the man out the front doors and onto the cracked sidewalk. Without hesitation, Carlton’s adoptive father spit at him, slammed the doors shut, and locked them behind him. “And never come back!”

The diner went quiet as everyone stared at Henry, the tension so thick you could cut it with a knife. Finally, Henry held up his hands and said, “We’ll have no hate in this diner. Understood?”

The crowd murmured in agreement, and Charlie watched with quiet fury as Mr. Brooks pathetically limped away, still glaring at her. Surely that day couldn’t get any worse, right?

—

An hour or so passed, and the anger towards Mr. Brooks slowly began to fade as things continued to go as scheduled. Their food arrived, and as Charlie tried not to plow through her bacon and toast, Vanessa muttered, “I think that guy forgot I still have my taser. Mr. Brooks, I mean.”

“The one you killed Jen with?” Jessica asked.

“Yeah. I could’ve zapped that dipshit real good.”

“Would’ve been badass,” Charlie joked, and Vanessa’s face began to blush.

The conversation stalled as the girls stared at Carlton’s empty seat, his chocolate-chip pancakes only half finished. “Should we check on him?” Vanessa asked. “He’s been in the bathroom for five minutes.”

Charlie and Jessica glanced nervously at each other, and finally Jessica said, “I’ll check up on him.”

But as soon as she stood up, Henry stepped onto the makeshift stage in the corner and took the microphone in hand. “Hello everyone! Thank you for coming to our celebration of life. All eight of the people honored here today mean something to each and every one of us, and I’m sure they’re all happy to know we still honor and remember them.

“I don’t want to steal the spotlight for too long, so I’ll cut myself short for now. But again, thank you all for coming, and please welcome Carlton Goodman to the stage!”

The crowd erupted in surprised applause as Carlton appeared from out of the shadows, sharing a few whispered words with Henry before taking the microphone and stepping into the spotlight. As the clapping eventually subsided, the redhead cleared his throat and hesitantly began, “Like my dad said, I’m glad everyone’s come here to honor my friends and all the others lost to Freddy’s.”

“I knew all of them, even if only a little bit,” he continued. “Evan was a wonderful manager, and Mike was always pleasant the few times I met him. A little crude, but who in Hurricane isn’t?” That got a few chuckles out of everyone. “Neil was more honorable than the other cops and detectives combined, and William was more like a dad than Clay ever was. Of course, no one can live up to Henry, but that’s just my opinion.

“But I knew my friends best out of everyone. Jason, Marla, Lamar… John. I loved them just as much as they loved me, and I still wish I could have done more. It haunts me every day. But I can’t do anything about it now, so I choose to focus on my new friends.

“Jessica, Vanessa, Charlie, all three of you are more wonderful than you think. Jessica, you’re a genius, both book and street-wise. Vanessa, you’re the sweetest girl I’ve ever met, no competition. And Charlie… Well, what else can I say other than-”

Suddenly, Carlton’s speech was interrupted by the sound of something heavy banging up against the front doors. Charlie turned and felt the warmth drain from her face as she saw Mr. Brooks through the glass, angry tears running down his face as his eyes met her own. Immediately he screamed, pounding his fists against the doors, “You fucking traitor!”

“Everyone get away from the doors!” As the patrons scrambled out of the way, Henry ran over to Vanessa, nearly begging, “Ms. Shelly, I know you have that taser on you. Can I borrow it?”

“O-Of course.”

Quickly she handed it to him, and Henry set it to its least dangerous setting and approached the doors. “Donald, I don’t wanna hurt you,” he said, “but I’m not afraid to use this if you try something.”

“Stop playing dumb! Turn on the news and you’ll see what she’s done!” Mr. Brooks pointed angrily at Charlie, yelling, “You sold us out, you little snake! I’ll fucking kill you!”

“I swear, I don’t know what the hell he’s talking about,” Charlie said.

Henry fiddled with the taser. “I’m sure. Jessica, can you turn on the television and switch to the local news? Maybe that’ll placate him.”

Jessica did as said, scrambling to find the remote behind the front desk and pointing it at the screen hanging from the ceiling corner. The channel was already on the news, and as the usual host stumbled over her words, Charlie froze.

Fazbear Entertainment. They were talking about Fazbear Entertainment.

“Reportedly, the former Cyclone Mall was bought by the new, anonymous CEO of Fazbear Entertainment less than two months after being abandoned during the infamous Freddy’s fire,” the host said. “They stated in an email our team sent in regards to the reveal, ‘We here at Fazbear Entertainment do not plan on opening our Pizzaplex location in Salt Lake City. We have already moved all usable equipment, furniture, and machinery to the refurbished Cyclone Mall in Hurricane, and we will be renaming the mall to the Fazbear Entertainment Pizzaplex in the coming days. If production continues to go smoothly over the next week, our new location will be opening as scheduled on July 30th at 10:30 A.M. We hope to see everyone there!’”

Everyone’s gazes slid from the television over to Charlie, but she barely noticed. She could barely even speak. Her mind raced, wondering how this had happened right under her nose, but she kept coming back to one thought:

What. The. Fuck.

Chapter Text

“How did this even happen?!” Charlie paced back and forth across Carlton’s living room, nearly frothing at the mouth. Just a few feet away, Jessica had her eyes glued to yet another news article about the new Pizzaplex on her phone, and Vanessa watched her girlfriend walk in circles, growing concern on her face. “Seriously! We live here! I can’t even count how many times I’ve passed by that damn mall, and I still never knew! How?!”

“It doesn’t matter now.” Henry walked in, Carlton trailing close behind as he set down a snack platter on the coffee table. No one dared touch it, too nauseous to hold anything down. “We can’t do anything about it.”

Charlie glared at Henry. “I don’t think you realize how fucked we are. I thought Fazbear Entertainment was too weak to do something like this, but clearly their new leadership has just been playing their cards differently. They’ve stayed quiet. Who knows what else they could be hiding?”

Finally, Jessica put her phone down, sighing, “She’s got a good point. And no offense Henry, but you haven’t dealt with them like we have.” The blonde pointed at her robotic eye, and Henry flinched at the thought of losing such a thing.

“So,” Jessica continued, “now what we need to do is learn as much as we can. Charlie, didn’t you inherit some of Jen’s old things when she died?”

Charlie nodded; there were no living Emilys left to take her stock, so after the courts confirmed they were related she got a fair share of the CEO’s stuff. Nothing related to the current state of Fazbear Entertainment, but all of Jen’s old estates and paperwork, among other things. “She probably had a few notes or something jotted down somewhere about this kind of thing. The succession line of Fazbear’s, plans for if she were to die, all that. She was paranoid enough to plan for all this.”

“So what’s to say that Jen didn’t plan for you to look through her stuff?” Henry asked.

“I don’t know. But I’ve checked before, at least in the closer estates. Everything’s still there. I’ll never understand why she needed multiple houses all in the same general area, but whatever.” Charlie shrugged. “How about this? Jessica and I visit Jen’s old houses and snoop around, and Vanessa, you and Carlton can visit the nearest Fazbear representative and see if you can talk anything out of them. Intimidate them, if you have to.”

“Fine by me,” Vanessa grinned slyly, pulling out her taser; it was the most evil she’d ever looked. “I’ve got the perfect tool for the job.”

“Hold your horses, all of you.” Henry stepped forward, saying, “You’re all just teenagers, remember? Older teenagers, sure, but still! I can’t in good conscience let you all just up and leave.”

“Thank you for the concern, Mr. Goodman,” Charlie replied, “but again, I think you’re forgetting who you’re talking to. Jessica fought animatronics with her wits alone, and she won with barely a scratch compared to the rest of us. Vanessa escaped a mall full of evil animatronics and shocked Jen Emily to death. Carlton plunged his own goddamn hand through Clay Burke’s chest, ripping out his heart like it was nothing. I rose from the dead and beat the everloving shit out of my mother, and let me tell you, I fucked her up real damn good. So tell me, Henry, who do you think you’re talking to? Regular-ass teenagers or what?!”

Henry stared wide-eyed at her, unblinking, and as Charlie looked to the others she realized she’d said too much. The official story of what happened last year went as followed: while Charlie was working at Freddy’s in Hurricane, she found the circumstances behind John, Lamar, Marla, Jason, William, and Neil’s deaths strange, and so she, Jessica, and Carlton dug deeper into the mystery. They found out that Jen and Clay had killed the kids and Neil and faked William’s suicide, and Vanessa’s escape from the Pizzaplex only strengthened their argument. After an attempt to reveal Clay’s guilt ended in the slaughter of everyone at his dinner party (this was disputed by Betty, Clay’s wife, but most people thought she was batshit crazy anyways), a conflict occurred at Freddy’s in which Jen and Clay attempted to burn the four teens and the building down to hide evidence. It went awry, Charlie and her friends revealed the truth, and everything was a-okay.

But no one knew about the living animatronics, the ones possessed by children’s souls. No one knew Vanessa and Carlton were the ones to kill Jen and Clay, not the fire. And certainly no one knew Charlie had been revived from the dead.

“Charlie,” Jessica whispered, “from now on, I’m thinking you should keep your mouth shut.”

Henry just kept staring, until finally he opened his mouth and yelled, “You did what?!”

—

To Charlie’s surprise, explaining everything that happened wasn’t as bad as she’d believed. “I-I’m not sure what to say,” Henry said when they finally finished, a flabbergasted look on his face. “It’s… It’s something.”

“You actually believe us?” Carlton asked.

“None of you would lie about something like this… H-Honestly, things make a lot more sense now, knowing everything. Some of y’all’s scars couldn’t have healed that quick without supernatural interference, for one.”

“Are you mad?”

“It’s too late to be mad. And it’s not like I’m going to snitch on my son for killing a child murderer, or you either Vanessa.”

“Thank God.” Vanessa let out a sigh of relief. “I don’t wanna go to jail.”

“We’d break you out, don’t worry,” Jessica smirked.

“I…” Henry couldn’t finish, his breath shaky as he held his head in his hands. “Jesus, this is a lot.”

Carlton bit his lip. “Dad, I-”

“Don’t say you’re sorry. You did what you had to do, all of you, I just… I just need a moment. I need to mull over this.” Henry waved the others away, saying, “Just go and do what you were planning on doing, you’re all clearly capable of keeping yourselves alive. I trust you. But I need some time to try to soak this all in.”

The teenagers stared at him for a while, desperately waiting for more, and Charlie half expected Henry to yell at them for just standing around. But when he didn’t, just staring blankly into the void, Carlton finally whispered, “Okay. I’ll be back before dinner.”

Henry barely managed a nod, too deep in thought to say a word, and slowly they walked outside. “I think we broke him,” Charlie said.

Carlton shot her a look, eyes bloodshot. “Don’t say that.”

—

Dust billowing out behind them, Charlie clung to Jessica for dear life as her motorcycle zipped across the barren landscape. Truthfully, she was scared of falling off at those speeds; she’d lose more than just another leg if she did.

“We’re almost there!” Jessica hollered over the howl of the motor, and right on cue a sign appeared in the distance. SILVER REEF; POPULATION: 2,753, it read. Charlie saw no small town though, only the wasteland with a collection of scattered houses in the distance. Even stranger, while they were quite clean, there was clearly no one there. No cars, no people, not even a stray pet. It was empty, no bird song to echo through its vacant streets.

As Jessica skirted her vehicle to a halt in the middle of a small neighborhood, Charlie couldn’t help but ask, “What the hell happened here?”

“The outskirts of this place used to be a major mining area ten years ago. Toxic minerals started getting in the water supply, and after a while the town had to be evacuated.” Jessica nonchalantly brushed dust off her jeans, as if what she just said wasn’t mildly depressing. “The water system’s been fixed by now, but there’s too much baggage for most people to come back.”

As she spoke, Charlie couldn’t help but notice the homemade crosses sticking up from the ground nearby. There were dozens of them, all from the same year. Some of them stood surrounded by old toys.

Jen’s house was quite obvious. Sat at the end of the road, it loomed larger than everything else, a two-story home eating square footage like a pig gulping down filth. It had been taken care of the least, but that wasn’t saying much; aside from a few cracks and broken windows, a bit of dirt here and there, it still looked okay. The inside wasn’t far off appearance-wise to the home in Hurricane either, only bigger and less moldy. The first floor was pretty basic, a living room, a kitchen, a dining room, even a bathroom that had some graffiti. FUCK FAZBEAR ENTERTAINMENT, it read, and Charlie added a little smiley face beneath it.

But the second floor was a different story. One extravagant bedroom and two bland-looking guest rooms along with a small arcade area, a room filled with scotch (some bottles mysteriously missing), a home theater, and of course, a library-like office. Jackpot, she thought.

As Jessica rummaged through file drawer after file drawer, Charlie pulled out a document labeled Fazbear Entertainment Total Leadership Loss Contingency Plan. Skimming through the laminated pages, she read:

‘In case of loss of both Fazbear Entertainment’s CEO and Board of Directors, the individual leaders of our subsidiaries (Silver Parasol Games, Circus Baby’s Pizza World, JR’s, Rowboatics Corporation, El Chip’s, and Popgoes) would function as normal while whoever out of these leaders who is most financially successful becomes the interim CEO. All six company leaders will schedule a team meeting within a month of the loss of Fazbear Entertainment’s CEO and Board of Directors to vote on who out of them will become the official leadership.

‘If there is a tie or the six listed previously cannot come to a decision, a list is posted at the end of this document with all of my personal choices for leadership, ranking from most-likely to least-likely choice.’

Charlie flipped to the end, the list quite obvious. At the top was Clay Burke, then Betty Burke, and then the six leaders of Fazbear Entertainment’s subsidiaries. There were about half a dozen more names she didn’t recognize, and then hers and Vanessa’s. Under Charlie’s name, there was a note that read, ‘A better choice than Vanessa Shelly with a wider array of talents, and has the advantage of a similar personality to mine. Would likely drive the company in a direction not approved of though, and she has no actual leadership knowledge.’

The thought of having a similar enough personality to Jen ate away at Charlie, and as she gritted her teeth she avoided Jen’s likely rude comments over Vanessa and turned the page. Although to her surprise, the last name on the list had next to nothing written about him. ‘Jeremy Fitzgerald - would make a fine leader if given the right circumstances. First choice if RVP is enacted after death.’

“Charlie. Come look at this.”

Glancing up from her papers, Charlie saw that Jessica was no longer interested in the file cabinets, but instead on something outside. Jumping to her feet she looked out the window with her and saw… Nothing. Just desert and dust, and a grave dug in the backyard. One without a cross. “Why does everything in this damn place have to be so depressing?” Charlie asked.

“Charlie, I think the grave just moved.”

“...Excuse me?”

Jessica hugged herself. “No, nevermind. I’m probably just seeing things. I haven’t drank enough water.”

“Well God, I hope you’re just seeing things.” Charlie went back to Jen’s old desk, saying, “I don’t think I can handle a zombie right now.”

—

Oftentimes, Vanessa finds her mind wandering. Strolling the sidewalks, driving the streets, laying in bed as she stared up blankly at the ceiling. It didn’t matter, the guilt always seeped in, and she could always feel Jen Emily’s blood on her hands.

It wasn’t like she wasn’t justified in killing her; Jen Emily was a murderer, and she was about to kill Charlie. But still, it weighed on her. She took a life, watched the body collapse at her feet surrounded by smoke and fire and ash. She kept the murder weapon, always in her pocket or resting just beside her. She was guilty. At any time, one of her friends or Henry or even Charlie could tell the wrong person the truth, and Vanessa would go straight to jail. After all, the courts loved to send people like her to the dungeons, or to the electric chair for that matter; she was out and proud, she was herself, she dug her heels in whenever she had the chance.

She knew the establishment hated her, and she hated them right back.

The sound of a car horn startled Vanessa back into the present, and she looked over her shoulder to see Carlton stressing behind the steering wheel. “For God’s sake, can’t you just wait one second!” he shouted towards the driver behind them, and then made a right turn.

“Where are we?” Vanessa asked after a moment, glancing out her window. To her surprise, they were surrounded by a bustling city. Not as neon and overcrowded as Salt Lake City, but still quite lively. Although, once night came and the sharp cold set in, it would likely be as empty as the desert.

“St. George,” Carlton replied. “It’s got the closest Fazbear representative office in Washington County. My dad used to take me here all the time.”

“Why?”

“My arm’s Fazbear-made. We can’t just take it for a check-up at the normal doctor, y’know?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

Vanessa looked back out the window, almost spacing out again before Carlton said, “You’re always quiet during car rides.”

“Oh, uh, yeah. I’m just thinking.”

Carlton smiled, a knowing look in his eyes. “I get it.”

After a few minutes they finally managed to find a parking spot on the street and walked the rest of the way. The Fazbear Entertainment representative office was tucked off between two larger office buildings, and it was honestly surprising that they didn’t miss it entirely. The only thing that made it stand out slightly was the company logo barely hanging on above the front door, rusted and weathered. It wasn’t any better inside either, the egg white walls tainted with strange dripping stains and the reception room furniture looking like it had seen better days. The newest thing there was a poster advertising new job positions at the Hurricane Pizzaplex.

The receptionist nearly jumped at the sight of them. “Oh, uh, I know you guys,” she said anxiously, flipping through her papers. “Carlton Burke and Vanessa Shelly, right?” They nodded. “I’m sorry, I don’t see an appointment for either of you. Uh, are any more of you here, waiting outside? Because new company policy states that people who haven’t scheduled an appointment yet cannot loiter inside or outside the-”

“Ah, hello! Our first guests of the day!” Vanessa and Carlton looked over to their right, and to their surprise a guy their age walked out from down a hallway towards them. Fit in a three-piece suit and his golden hair perfectly slicked back, he adjusted his purple tie and shot them a picture-perfect smile. “Ms. Shelly and Mr. Goodman… I wasn’t expecting a visit from local celebrities.”

“Mr. Fitzgerald, they don’t have an appointment scheduled,” the receptionist said.

“No offense Ms. Wrisley, but we haven’t had any appointments scheduled since a week ago. I think I can afford to host something impromptu.” Mr. Fitzgerald turned back towards the other two and held out his hand. “You two can call me Jeremy. What brings you to our location?”

“Uh…” As Vanessa leaned in to shake hands, she couldn’t help but notice his eyes. Oddly enough, they were a vibrant purple… Where had she seen that shade of purple before…?

“We would like to discuss the new Pizzaplex opening in Hurricane,” Carlton said. “It is-”

“A strange decision?” Jeremy laughed. “Oh yes, I’m well aware. Follow me; let’s walk and talk, shall we?”

The young man began to walk down the hall where he came from, and as the pair reluctantly followed along Carlton whispered, “Have you met this guy before?”

“Absolutely not,” she answered, bewildered. “I’d remember him if I had.”

“Do you think he’s got colored contacts or something?”

“You noticed that too?”

“It’s pretty obvious.” As Jeremy gestured for them to hurry up, Carlton shrugged and mouthed back to her, “Keep your taser ready.” She nodded, and they scurried along.

As the hallway stretched on, Jeremy couldn’t help but ramble about all the pictures and documents hanging on the walls around them. “That’s one of the first ever pieces of concept art made for our first film,” he chattered. “I’m sure you’ve both seen Freddy and Friends, right? What about Freddy in Space?”

“I was more of a Chica’s Magic Rainbow kid,” Vanessa mumbled.

“Ah, of course. Can’t forget about all the spin-off shows! And this is the first photograph taken of FazbearLand- you can even see the original Bonnie’s Rock ‘n Rollercoaster in the back- and then there’s our blueprints for our military technology work…”

Vanessa began to tune him out after a while. She knew all about what Fazbear Entertainment has and hasn’t done. Movies, theme parks, drones and robots for the military (out there in the world, there was indeed a tank called the Fazbear Freedom-Lover), she’d heard it all. Company history lessons were required for her former position at the old Pizzaplex, after all.

Eventually they got to Jeremy’s office, and as the stranger sat down behind his desk and kicked up his feet he asked, “So, you wanted to know about the new Pizzaplex in Hurricane, right?” They both nodded. “Alright. Well, I could tell you some about it. Not much, considering we want a lot of it to be a surprise, but-”

“You said you moved everything usable to the mall in Hurricane,” Vanessa interrupted. “So let’s cut the bullshit and get to the main question: are you reusing the animatronics from upstate?”

“Why wouldn’t we? They were quite easy to fix up.”

“They were used as killing machines by your former employer. Are you aware of that, Mr. Fitzgerald?” A sudden fury flared up in Vanessa’s chest as she pointed at the giant scars across her face. “Montgomery Gator did that, and he and the others did worse to my old co-workers. By reusing them, you run the risk of-”

“Now it’s my turn to interrupt, Ms. Shelly. I’m going to let you in on a little secret. I used to be a cybersecurity worker too, and given how sparse they are nowadays, I took it upon myself to rid those animatronics of any possible viruses. I put up the best defenses. An incident such as the one you experienced will never happen again. I promise.”

“I don’t want a promise. I want proof.”

Jeremy leaned back in his chair. “I’m sorry, but what you want is classified.” Vanessa opened her mouth to speak, to shout all the vulgar truths at the brat that was supposedly a businessman, supposedly another nineteen or twenty-year-old like her, but after a moment she closed it again. He smirked. “Silent. Just how I like them.”

Carlton narrowed his eyes as Vanessa felt her heart sink. “What’s that supposed to mean?” the redhead asked.

“You know what it’s supposed to mean.”

The room turned quiet, and Vanessa began to speak once more when Jeremy interrupted again. “No, no, I already know you two’s side of the story. A bunch of queers supposedly left Jen Emily and Clay Burke to get scorched alive. But I know better.”

“All you know are conspiracy theories made by lunatics,” Carlton grumbled.

“No one said you had permission to speak, f-g.”

Vanessa sprung out of her seat. “Don’t you dare call him-!”

SMACK!

Time froze as Vanessa felt a hard, swift thwack across her face, on the same side as her scars. Carlton stared in horror as Jeremy let his hand fall to his side, slumping back down into his seat. He had no emotion on his face, just a glaring, burning stare that said more than any hateful slur could. Vanessa had barely even realized he stood up at all to hit her.

He hit her.

Carlton immediately got up, spitting, “We didn’t need your help anyways.”

“Your nose is growing, Mr. Burke.”

“Don’t call me that!” A split second later Carlton collected himself and gently took Vanessa’s shoulder. “Let’s get out of here. He doesn’t deserve the time of day.”

She didn’t answer. The two walked out of the representative office without another word. Behind them, she could hear Jeremy laughing, “Hope to see you on opening day!”

—

By the time the sun was beginning to set, Charlie and Jessica had found just about nothing in Jen’s old estate. Most of the papers she had there were tax-related, which wasn’t exactly very helpful to their current predicament. They were just beginning to pack up their things and leave when, suddenly, Jessica got a call.

The blonde picked up without hesitation. “Hello… Yes, this is Jessica Dunn…” A long silence. “Okay, well, we’ll be on our way.” She hung up.

“What was that about?” Charlie asked.

Jessica looked more bewildered than anything else. “It was the Hurricane PD. They’ve got someone who came in talking about how he was attacked three months ago by a robot bear, and they requested our assistance in questioning him.”

“Well… That’s new.”

“No kidding. Call the others, we need to get there now.”

It didn’t take long for the four of them to gather, and before Charlie knew it they were walking heads high into the Hurricane Police Department. Charlie could feel the glares of all the cops around her, their begrudging hesitance to let them further into the station so obvious even a toddler could see it. At last, as the four of them journeyed further into the bowels of immortal concrete, unknown suffering etched from top to bottom as prisoners sat empty-eyed behind bars, they were let inside an interrogation room. The whole time, Vanessa never looked at Charlie, and the mechanic could feel something nervous pulse inside her.

Sat handcuffed to the metal table inside, a man a few decades older than them sat there, staring wide-eyed at them. “Wha- What are you four doing here?” he asked, yanking against his restraints.

“We were called here to discuss what you said happened three months ago,” Jessica said as she turned toward the guard behind them. “Why is this man handcuffed?”

“He tried to escape while we were still asking questions.” The guard was emotionless, almost to the point of uncanniness.

Jessica shook her head. “Then let the man go, for fuck’s sake.”

“No can do. All interrogations proceed in the station.”

“I guess we won’t be helping then.” The guard didn’t budge, his motionless stance calling her bluff, and finally she sighed and asked, “Can you at least let him go when we’re done here?”

“I’ll ask the chief.” The guard pointed at the camera in the corner, saying, “We see and hear everything. Don’t get any ideas.”

As he left, slamming the door shut behind him, Jessica turned her attention back on the handcuffed man and asked, pulling out a notebook, “What’s your name?”

“Ralph. Ralph Coppelia.”

“Alright. So, I was told that you came in this afternoon reporting that three months ago, you were attacked by an animatronic bear while on your nightly walk. Can you tell us a bit more about what happened?”

Ralph’s eyes got wider at the mere mention of an animatronic. “I swear, I wasn’t drinking or on drugs or anything that night!” he stammered. “It all just happened so fast, I can barely even… Okay. So, I was just on my usual walk. I’ve got insomnia, so going out gives me something to do. And suddenly out of nowhere, I see something weird leaning up against a tree with my flashlight.

“It’s Bonnie, the one from that weird Pizzaplex upstate. He’s all broken down and stuff, and when I try to get a closer look, all the other animatronics ambush me!

“The bear one, Freddy, stops them from trying to kill me or something, but as he’s talking to me, he just says he’s sorry and knocks me out cold. Next thing I know, I wake up and it’s already noon and they’re all gone! Even Bonnie!”

The four of them eyed each other suspiciously, Jessica continuing to jot everything down. “So,” she asked, “why did you only decide to report this now?”

“Because I saw one of them last night, in my driveway. It was far away, but I could tell it was a rabbit silhouette. And I can’t think of anything else but Bonnie.”

“...Oh.”

Chapter Text

Charlie longed for the nights with no dreams that she used to have, surrounded by the warmth of the mindless dark. She didn’t have to think about her mother or her father, her brothers, the children trapped in machines and the man who stole their lives. But she hadn’t seen that peace in a long, long time.

Tonight’s nightmare wouldn’t even be considered a nightmare at first. She’d loved it.

Opening her eyes, the first thing she noticed was the familiar layout. It was the old Afton house, the one she’d interviewed Mike in when she first came to Hurricane. To think that was the first and last time she’d ever gotten to see him…

“Charlie.”

The sound of a familiar voice snapped her from her confusion. It was Mike, still wearing that same Metallica tank top he’d been wearing when she first met him. He was okay.

“Mike!” She hadn’t even realized it wasn’t real, no time to question how this was happening before she hugged him. “Oh my God, Mike…!”

“It’s been a while, huh?” His voice wasn’t raspy anymore. “They’re all waiting for you in the kitchen, y’know.”

“What? Who?”

Mike pulled himself from her grasp. “Everyone. It’s your birthday, remember? Now c’mon, there’s a cake with your name on it waiting for you.”

She followed him without another thought, and he was right. In the kitchen, about a dozen people stood around the dining table, a giant cake sat smack-dab in the middle. Balloons littered the ground as Vanessa, Jessica, and Carlton all lingered around the front, Evan and Neil close behind, all with knives. “We’re ready to cut the cake!” Vanessa cheered.

Behind the rest of them stood the old Glamrock band from the Pizzaplex. “We have missed you Charlotte,” Freddy beamed.

Charlie suddenly felt tears dripping down her cheeks. “You guys really pulled this off all for me, huh?” Sniffling, she wiped her face with her sleeve. “I love you guys… Wait, where’s Dad?”

“Right behind you, birthday girl!”

She turned around, and-

The light disappeared. The house disappeared. The people disappeared, everything disappeared. She stood in the void, almost alone.

Standing opposite of her was her father, but not how she wanted to see him. His salt-and-pepper hair was coated in brain matter and viscera, blood gushing from the bullet hole dug through his head. His posture was warped like the twisted trees in the wasteland, spindly branches reaching out as they begged for an end, any kind of end. His eyes were a milky, dead white, the color and life sapped out of them. Scraps of yellow fur from the Fredbear suit stuck to bloody patches of his skin.

It was his corpse.

The thing that was once her father stepped closer, his walk jaunty and strained; his bones cracked underneath his own weight. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for your nineteenth birthday.” He tried to smile, but his teeth had rotted away. “Does this make up for it? Sweetheart?”

Charlie stumbled back, her tears now falling faster than they had before. “You’re not my dad,” she stammered. “You’re not my dad, get the fuck away from me!”

It stopped, hurt slipping across its dead, drooping face. “But I love you,” it cooed.

For a moment, its words had an impact. But she knew better. She didn’t know what happened to her father; he’d given up the last pieces of himself to revive her. She already knew he loved her.

“Stay away from me,” she snarled, winding up her fist, “you sick motherfuck-!”

Charlie woke up as soon as she made contact. One day, she thought. It’s only been one day and I’m already freaking out…

In the dark, a mirror sat opposite of her bed, barely visible in the cold moonlight that seeped through her window. Charlie saw her silhouette sat alone in the looking glass, the look in her eyes one she couldn’t even read. Was it fear? Want? Need?

Taking a breath, Charlie reached for her phone and opened her texts. It was 1:35 in the morning, but she didn’t care. She opened Vanessa’s texts and began to type.

Can we talk? she wrote.

—

Carlton could remember his first shift at Freddy’s like the back of his hand. It haunted him nearly every night.

“Let’s go over it one more time,” his father grumbled, arms crossed as he leaned against the back office door. “Then you’re on your own. Where’s the taser?”

“The top desk drawer.” Carlton pulled it open, gesturing exhaustedly at the piece of equipment inside. They’d already done this song and dance three times.

“And what do we use the taser for?”

“To shock the animatronics in case they get out of line.”

“And what do we do with the animatronics during the night shift?”

“We stay away from them in the office,” Carlton sighed, “and if we have to leave the office we keep as much distance as possible.”

“Wrong, you’re forgetting something.”

Carlton threw his arms up, his robotic one quite a bit heavier. “What now?!”

Immediately his father grabbed his wrist and squeezed it tight. “Don’t fucking sass with me,” he snarled, and then threw it down. “If you have to leave the office, you lock the door inside too. You cannot let those…” His father glanced out the window toward the main stage, Freddy and his band of animals staring right back at him. Carlton hadn’t noticed it then, but the animatronics’ eyes seemed so much more alive that night. “...Those beasts in here.”

“Why do they even have a free-roaming mode at night?” Carlton asked, cradling his sore wrist.

“Jen-” His father cleared his throat, correcting himself. “Ms. Emily said their servos will lock up if they aren’t allowed to.”

“Then why do the technicians keep bolting them down to the stage?”

“It isn’t your business, or mine either frankly. They’re just following Ms. Emily’s commands.”

Carlton resisted the urge to call bullshit as his father looked down at his watch and smirked, “Your first shift starts in five minutes. You think you’ve got everything handled?”

“Yeah.”

“Well then you’re damn wrong. Call me only if you actually need me.” Without another word, his dad strolled out of the back office, and Carlton watched with narrowed eyes as he left the pizzeria.

“Jerk,” he muttered under his breath as sat down, flipping open a random company manual. The hours passed slowly; midnight, one o’clock, two o’clock. Carlton checked the cameras again, his eyelids sticky with sleep. Freddy, Bonnie, and Chica were still in their places, and so was Foxy. The place was empty except for them.

He glanced back at the door in the corner of the office. His dad said it was just random storage, but Carlton knew better. Images of Jason’s dismembered parts flashed in his mind, fleshy bits and pieces left to rot on the floor by the woman inside. Her cruel smile flashing through the dark haunted him just as much as his friends’ screams. The way she had that stranger in the Fredbear suit ready, a simple signal setting him off on such a rampage, just to make sure no one lived to see whatever they were doing…

But he’d lived. Why did he, out of all of them, get to live? The man in the suit was right there, he could’ve just snapped his neck or bashed his head in so easily! Maybe he wanted me to live, he’d thought, trying to muster the energy to open up his eyes again. Maybe he wanted me to find those bodies. Maybe he wanted me to notice their blood dripping from those animatronics’ mouths. Maybe it was a taunt.

Perhaps it was just the horror of remembering what he’d seen, but he could feel something was wrong. Not in the past, but the present.

Was he the one who killed William too? he wondered. The possibility of William having done all that wasn’t one Carlton believed in. He’d known him all his life, he couldn’t have, surely!

“Carlton.”

Flinching, Carlton covered his ears. He could hear William’s voice so clearly, was his mind trying to mock him? He couldn’t help but think back to his first night in the hospital after that monster took his arm, the way he could hear John’s voice so clearly. “It’s not real,” he whispered, “it’s not real, it’s not real…”

“Carlton, look at me.”

Tears slid down his face as he nearly pounded his head against the metal desk. “Leave me alone. You’re not real, leave me alone!”

“Carlton!”

Suddenly, the feeling of stale, matted fur met his shoulder, and he immediately knew who it was. Whipping around Carlton tumbled wordlessly out of his chair, scrambling for the office door as he stared wide-eyed at the thing behind him. Covered in years-old blood stains, a yellow bear suit loomed over the new guard, its eye sockets empty as it stared back at him. The door in the corner sat wide open; he’d been hiding in there the whole time.

The man in the suit.

Carlton screamed as the costume reached down toward him, kicking the beast as hard as he could and sprinting straight out into the dining area. Then as he looked around, the obvious finally became apparent. Freddy, Bonnie, and Chica were all gone, the stage left wide open in their wake.

Beelining toward the front doors, Carlton desperately pulled at the handles as he heard the sharp snap of metal on metal. They were locked, his dad’s doing.

He didn’t get the chance to look for his keys before Fredbear had already caught up to him, inhumanly fast as he took Carlton’s hand. “Get away from me!” the redhead screamed, punching as hard as he could.

The bear let go, tumbling backwards, and Carlton started toward Pirate’s Cove when he saw a familiar face looking back at him. It was Foxy, taking careful, janky steps toward him. Somehow, in the shadows of the pizzeria, his red fur and wear-and-tear looked gruesome. Then he saw the tiny bits of blood and oil dripping from the fox’s jaw, and he realized why Foxy was still out of order.

He swore he could’ve heard Jason crying out for him as he raced toward the repair room to grab something, anything, to defend himself. Then Bonnie and Chica stepped out of there too. “Carlton?” he could’ve heard Marla ask as Chica tilted her head.

His heart pounded against his chest as he spun around, realization crashing down on him. He was surrounded.

Tumbling back into the employee break room, Carlton jumped as he felt something grab him from behind. Brown hands, covered in old snarled fur just like Fredbear’s.

Freddy.

“Let go of me!” he screamed, tears in his eyes as the rest of them crept closer. “I don’t wanna die! I don’t wanna die!”

They all stared down at him as he devolved into a sobbing, snotty mess, shivering in the animatronic bear’s arms. Only when he calmed down a little did he realize that he wasn’t being dragged off somewhere, or crushed to death, or anything. The other animatronics were keeping their distance. Even Foxy was trying to clean off the blood from his snout.

“Carlton, it’s us.”

He stopped, cold shock striking him like lightning. That was John’s voice. The same strange, ghostly John who had comforted him in the hospital. The same John he’d been friends with for so long. Carlton looked up, slowly stepping out of Freddy’s grasp, and saw the brown bear looking down at him with soft eyes.

“It’s me,” John said as the bear opened its mouth, as if trying to speak. “Carlton, it’s me. It’s John.”

“Don’t you remember us?” Lamar asked as Bonnie took a step closer.

Carlton looked at them and felt his chest begin to tighten with not fear, but grief. Jason’s remains had been found in Foxy, Marla’s in Chica and Lamar’s in Bonnie. William’s corpse had been pulled out of the Fredbear costume, his friends’ supposed “murderer”. John’s remains had been in Freddy…

“We just wanted to say hi,” Jason stammered. “Mr. Afton was supposed to lead you to the kitchen, and we were gonna surprise you with a birthday cake.”

“We know it’s a late birthday,” Marla added, “but… Well…”

“Oh God.” Carlton pushed his way out of the crowd and toward the nearest trash can, leaning over as his stomach did somersaults. All this time, for two years, he hadn’t been going crazy. He’d been hearing them every time he went to Freddy’s. They had possessed the animatronics.

“I know this is a lot,” William said, suddenly standing next to him, “but we can explain. Okay?”

“...Okay.”

“Happy fifteenth birthday, Carlton.”

—

Ralph knew he wouldn’t be getting any sleep that night; he didn’t even bother breaking out his sleeping pills. Instead, as the clock struck 1:38, he sat alone in his home office, guzzling energy drinks like they were the elixirs of life. A part of him considered calling his daughter to keep him company over the phone, but he couldn’t bear the thought of wasting her time like that. She needed her rest.

So do you, the sensible part of him called out, but he ignored it, eyes glued to the security footage on his computer. They were why he’d noticed the rabbit thing in the first place, it wasn’t like he wouldn’t use them now.

He scowled as he watched a police car slow down in front of his driveway for a moment, and then speed off less than thirty seconds later. The woman who had interrogated him- Jessica was her name, right?- had tried to convince the police to keep someone on guard at his home for his own safety. Instead, they settled for sending someone to check every hour. The question of whether they were incompetent or malevolent ate away at his mind, but he tried to shake the thought away and focus once more.

A minute later, the crackling sound of broken glass rippled through the halls, and Ralph saw a notification from the camera situated at his back porch. POTENTIAL BREAK-IN, it read in flashing red letters. SEEK SHELTER IMMEDIATELY.

Ralph scrambled to lock the door behind him, putting his ear up to the wood for just a moment to listen. Faintly, he could hear the sound of metal dragging against the floor a few rooms away, and he flicked off the lights in his office, realizing exactly where the creature was heading as he scrambled to find his gun.

The sound got closer, too close for comfort, and finally Ralph stopped. He held his breath as the shadows of two mechanical feet appeared under his door, and something knocked outside.

A minute passed, then two. Another knock. Then a third. Ralph covered his mouth as he choked down a whimper.

Nothing moved, and…

The shadows disappeared. Ralph waited for a few more minutes, listening, but there was still nothing. Or at least, he couldn’t hear anything above the pounding of his own heart.

Checking the cameras, he couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief. His house was empty except for himself. The only strangeness left was his destroyed back door and his open front one; the creature outside must have left that way. Clever, he couldn’t help but think. It waited until the cops had passed to attack…

He stepped out and looked around. The space was normal aside from the open door, his office right next to it. Ralph wondered if he should heat something up in the microwave for a late-night snack when-

A blur of metal sprang out from the nearby coat closet, fabric flying as the thing crashed into him. With a loud thud Ralph fell to the floor, and he barely had time to look up at his attacker before something sharp plummeted down towards his chest.

Ralph scrambled away, but not quick enough as an agonizing pain pierced through his stomach. He screamed as the monster yanked the knife out and swung down again, and again, and again.

Ralph Coppelia died two minutes later.

—

Vanessa’s eyes burnt with strain as she scanned Fazbear Entertainment’s website from top to bottom, each new section pulling at her sleepless mind. She would have saved this for tomorrow, but even with her sleeping pills she couldn’t seem to get any shut-eye. She would’ve taken dreams or nightmares or nothing, anything but the cursed exhaustion of her own stress.

But at least she could put that stress to good use, right?

Blinking hard, she rubbed her eyes and went back to the home screen. Just one more look-through before I go through the code; after all that surely I’ll get some sleep, she thought.

For what felt like the twentieth time but was really just the third, Vanessa read off the front page: ‘Welcome to Fazbear Entertainment, where fantasy and fun comes to life! Here on our website you can find the following: information on our locations, subscriptions to our streaming service, our online store, and behind-the-scenes information and news on all our endeavors!’

Vanessa went to the next tab, labelled LOCATIONS AND ENTERTAINMENT VENUES. She saw the usual, although compared to previous years there were significantly less than before. On the Hurricane Pizzaplex’s page it said, ‘The Fazbear Entertainment Pizzaplex in Hurricane, Utah offers the ultimate fun for all ages! Watch our state-of-the-art animatronics perform, try our new buffet including food from a variety of cultures and diets, win tickets and prizes in the Fazcade, and more! Sign your child up for a private birthday party today! LOCATION OPENING JULY 30TH.’

She checked everything again. Nothing new of course, and she definitely hadn’t missed anything. It was like the website was purposefully trying to be as boring as possible to deter any deeper look into it. Admittedly, it worked pretty well.

Stretching, Vanessa nearly fell off her bed, exhaustion finally beginning to tick away at her. But she couldn’t let it win now, it was time for the main event: analyzing the source code.

When you analyze source code, you usually don’t get anything interesting, just the building blocks of a website. Vanessa wasn’t expecting much, but being a former cybersecurity worker had taught her a lot of things. You check everything and you keep your expectations low.

So, she checked. And she was damn glad she did.

The entire website was built on spaghetti code; everything was connected to something else, there was absolutely no way of detangling anything unless you wanted to delete the entire site, or at least a decent chunk of it. Stranger, it was changing in real time, her computer’s fan chugging along faster than she ever knew it could as it tried to process it all at once. It was like the code was alive, a living, breathing beast within itself.

The code was purple, the same shade of purple as Jeremy’s eyes.

As soon as the realization hit her, Vanessa’s computer began to smoke, the fan going into overdrive. Then the keyboard lit on fire, and as the device immediately blue-screened she saw for a second something else hiding behind the computer’s glitching. A face, but not a human one. It almost looked like the Fredbear costume, rubbery and worn with time.

Her computer let out an ugly, grading screech as the fire grew, and finally Vanessa stumbled for a nearby water bottle and splashed the device. The fire disappeared, and so did her computer’s functionality.

Only then did Charlie’s text come through, breaking out from the grasp of her apartment’s shitty Wi-Fi. Vanessa looked from the text to the remains of her computer back to the text, and finally she sighed to herself, “Why can’t I just have a normal life?”

—

Jessica had relatively better nightmares, at least compared to the rest of her friends. They were still the same nightmares she’d had for a few years: Neil, all those animatronics, Fredbear, chasing her to the ends of the earth. They always caught her in one way or another. Each ending featured a different demise, but the worst was always when Neil grabbed her. Every time, he’d strangle her, that same cold, betrayed look in his eyes. You should’ve saved me, he’d always scream.

Strangulation was always the most personal demise.

When she gasped awake, sweat pooling down her back, she immediately glanced over at her alarm clock. It was two in the morning. Mildly frustrated, she began to drag herself to the bathroom when she heard the faint sound of typing coming from Charlie’s room. Knocking on her door, the blonde droned, “Are you awake in there?”

There were soft footsteps, and then Charlie cracked open her door, the blue light of her phone nearly illuminating the whole house. As Jessica recoiled from the light, Charlie quickly turned it off, muttering, “Sorry… What’s up? Wait, why are you awake?”

“Gotta take a piss.” Wiping the crust from her eyes Jessica said, “I’d be asking you the same thing, but knowing you I’m a bit afraid to ask.”

“Vanessa and I’ve been texting.”

“At this ungodly hour?”

“To be fair, I started it. I had a nightmare, and… Well, I just needed to talk.”

“About your nightmare?”

The mechanic shrugged. “Among other things.”

“Y’know, if you need to talk about your nightmares, you don’t have to go waking Vanessa up. I’m here if you need anything.”

“I know, but this nightmare, it made me realize…” Charlie hugged herself, and to Jessica’s surprise she saw tears dripping down her face. “I don’t know how all this stuff with Fazbear Entertainment’s gonna work out for us. We all nearly died in more ways than one last year, and…”

“I’m aware.” Jessica flinched at her own words. “Sorry, that was blunt.”

“No, it’s okay. I’m just scared that me and Vanessa’s last memories are gonna be terrible. If one of us dies, or both of us die… I don’t want our last moments to be bad. I couldn’t live with myself if she died and I knew the last time I hung out with her I didn’t make her happy. I just can’t. I just want her to be happy.”

As soon as the last word slipped from Charlie’s mouth, her voice cracked and she let out a sob. She covered her mouth, trying to stop herself, but she couldn’t. Jessica pulled her into a hug. “You’re the best girlfriend Vanessa could’ve asked for,” she whispered as Charlie wept into her shoulder.

Charlie let out a weak, hiccuping laugh. “I try,” she whimpered. “I really do try…”

Chapter Text

The first thing Carlton saw that morning was Henry. He was sitting stiffly on the couch and staring blankly at a ratty scrapbook, one Carlton had never seen before. “Dad?”

Henry snapped out of his trance in an instant. “Oh! Carlton, I didn’t realize you’d be up so early. Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, I just had a…” He waved off his nightmare, saying, “Nevermind. What’s that?”

“It’s an old scrapbook from when I lived in Salt Lake City.” With gentle hands Henry closed it before Carlton could get a closer look, murmuring, “I need to apologize.”

“For what?”

“For how I acted after you kids told me everything. With all that you four went through last year, I shouldn’t have been so cold. It just hit a bit close to home.” As Carlton cocked his head, confused, Henry sighed and continued, “I had a kid before you. Gregory. He was my biological son. This scrapbook’s dedicated to him.”

Carlton glanced at the front of the book, only then seeing the wording sewn onto its plush cover. ‘Gregory Goodman, 2012-2027’. “What happened to him?” he asked quietly.

“The same thing that happened to your old friends, the ones who went looking for Jason.” Henry ran his hands through his hair, and in that one moment he looked so much older than he had before. “Well, sort of. Gregory, he and his friends had heard rumors about the Pizzaplex. Bad things were happening behind the scenes, and they wanted to get evidence of what was really going on.

“He’d told me they were just going out for the night. I thought it was odd, but it wasn’t like I was going to stop them from having fun. I only called the police when it was obvious he should’ve been home by then, but…

“It was too late.

“The reports said Jen Emily found them. Some freak accident in the unfinished basement, she said, but there was no way that was it. Those wounds were too precise, I know it. I mean…” He shook his head. “Nevermind. Even if I wanted justice, there was nothing I could do. Unless I wanted to go to legal war with Fazbear Entertainment of course. I got a few thousand dollars and an apology- all the parents did- but nothing can fix what happened.”

The two of them just sat there in stunned silence, and finally Carlton asked, “Is that why you took me in?”

“I knew Fazbear and your dad screwed you over, and I knew you needed a parent. And I needed a kid.” Henry paused. “If you don’t want to be around me anymore, I’d understand. It was selfish of me to just-”

“There’s a reason I call you Dad,” Carlton said harshly, holding up his robotic arm. “Clay never acted like one. He was a murderer, and I made sure he paid for it. There’s still blood on my hands. The evidence will always be there. You’re the one adult in my life who’s always treated me right aside from William, and he’s not exactly around anymore.” He put his arm down. “What I’m trying to say is that you’re my dad, and it’ll always be that way. You’ve cared for me more than I thought a father ever could.”

Henry sat there, eyes wide, and suddenly he began to weep. He hugged Carlton and held on tight, blabbering on and on without any sign of stopping. Most of it was unintelligible, but the redhead managed to make out one thing: “You’ll always be my son.”

—

That afternoon, Vanessa called for a meeting at her apartment; she’d found something last night. ‘My dad wants to come,’ Carlton messaged the group chat. ‘Can he?’

‘Sure,’ Vanessa replied.

Soon enough, the five of them were sitting on her rinky-dink couch from the local Goodwill, drinking coffee out of old mugs she’d found on clearance and watching as she tried ceaselessly to move her presentation onto the television. Finally she accepted defeat and sighed, “Sorry about that. Normally I’d use my computer, but it literally exploded last night. So I’m just winging it!”

“Your computer did what?!” Henry asked.

“It’s true,” Charlie said, showing a picture Vanessa had sent her. “You threw it away, right? It’s not good to keep broken electronics.”

“Don’t worry, it’s in the dump.” Vanessa cleared her throat and said, “Last night I was looking into Fazbear Entertainment’s website, and while it looked ordinary on the outside, the source code was something else. It was like it was alive somehow.” She looked over at Carlton. “You remember Jeremy’s eyes, right? How it looked like he was wearing purple contacts or something?”

He nodded. “I don’t think I could forget it.”

“The source code was that same shade of purple. After I saw it, my computer got set on fire and died. I put it all out, but everything’s gone now. My computer’s hard drive had all of my Fazbear research, and now that it’s destroyed, we’re pretty much starting at square one.”

“What are you trying to say?” Jessica asked, leaning forward. “That the website’s alive somehow and set your computer on fire?”

“I know it sounds ridiculous, but that’s not all.” Charlie watched as Vanessa’s knuckles turned white, the blonde beginning to pace as she continued, “When Jen released her virus into the Pizzaplex and infected the animatronics there, their eyes turned that same shade of purple. It’s the virus’s signature color. And Jen said she’d put a piece of her soul into it, so it wouldn’t be far off to say that it’s slowly been infecting more stuff. I don’t know how it could infect a living being like Jeremy, but if that’s what’s going on here, then we’re dealing with a threat beyond anything we’ve seen before.”

“And they’re using the same technology from the old Pizzaplex,” Carlton whispered, eyes wide with realization.

Charlie stood up. “Vanessa, you know this stuff better than the rest of us. Surely there’s a way we could destroy this thing, right?”

“If I had more resources, then yeah, maybe. But this thing just killed all my research in seconds. To fully destroy it we’d need to find its original source, but I have no idea what that could be. We’ll need to find anyone who’s fought the infection, robotic or human alike, and ask them how they came into contact with it. That way, we can slowly create a timeline, and that’ll lead us to where we need to go and what we need to do.”

“But we don’t have time.”

“Exactly. So we’ll need to stall its progress as much as we possibly can so we have enough time to do proper research. And given our history with Fazbear’s, the virus is definitely going to target us.”

Jessica raised her hand. “If it’s so deadset on watching us, then why don’t we divide its attention? The rest of us can get in its way while you track down where it comes from.”

“Yes! Jessica, you’re brilliant!”

The blonde smiled wryly. “I do my best.”

“We’ll do just that. But we’ll probably have to wait for the Pizzaplex to open before we can really start, so for now we just have to wait and see. I’d advise everyone to stay off the internet unless absolutely necessary, and do not- I mean do not- look up anything related to Fazbear Entertainment. Got it?”

Reluctantly the rest of them nodded, and to everyone’s surprise Henry stood up and said, “Let’s do this.”

—

It took a while for everyone else to leave Vanessa’s apartment, and Charlie could see the surprise on Jessica’s face when she refused to head back to their place. “I’ll drive the motorcycle slower this time if that’s what you’re worried about,” she said.

“No, it’s not that. I just need to talk to Vanessa.”

Jessica smirked. “Alright, I’m picking up what you’re putting down,” she said, hands in the air as she walked toward the door. “You lovebirds have fun.”

"I’m just gonna ask her-”

“I’m just messing with you, I know it’s nothing serious. Have fun.”

Charlie rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t help but smile. “Thanks, Jess.”

“No problem.”

Jessica left, and as Charlie combed her fingers through her hair she heard Vanessa walk out of the bathroom. “Everyone’s gone?” the blonde asked.

“Yeah.”

The two stood in the silence for a while, neither of them sure where to start, and finally Vanessa said, “I heard you needed to ask me something?”

“You heard that whole conversation, huh?” Charlie chuckled.

“Your voice gets high-pitched when you’re nervous. Doesn’t help with how thin the walls are.” Vanessa sat down at the kitchen table, gesturing for her to do the same. “What’s on your mind?”

“Well, uh, kinda everything, but one thing in particular? If that makes sense?”

“Don’t know why it wouldn’t.” Vanessa’s voice wavered slightly as she rubbed her eyes, and as Charlie took a closer look at her, she felt her heart sink. Her eyes were bloodshot, and gray bags hollowed out the space underneath. Vanessa’s hands shook with the familiar quiver of caffeine, and the more Charlie stayed the more she noticed the smell of burnt coffee. It’s only been a few days since this all started… Has she even slept? she wondered.

Vanessa gave Charlie a concerned look. “Everything okay? You’re real quiet.”

“Well, now I’ve got two things to worry about. Vanessa, have you been taking care of yourself? You don’t look so good.” She got quiet fast. “It’s not a bad thing! I’m just worried.”

“I know what you mean.” Vanessa fiddled with her ponytail. “But I’m fine. I’ve just been working to figure out what the hell’s happening, that’s all.”

“How much have you slept, Ness?”

“Enough. I’ve slept enough.”

“And did you have breakfast this morning? Dinner last night?”

Vanessa didn’t answer, and Charlie’s expression softened. “Alright, I know what we’re gonna do today,” she said, hurrying into the kitchen. “You’re getting a self-care day.”

“Wha- Charlie, I’ve got more research to do.”

“Vanessa, your computer exploded and you’ve sworn us off the internet. You can’t do much research to begin with. Plus…” Charlie opened cabinet after cabinet, looking for anything: eggs, waffle mix, bagels, literally anything. But the whole kitchen was empty, aside from some ketchup, a half-empty bag of frozen chicken nuggets, and some fruit cups. “How long have you been living off this stuff?”

“The past week.”

Charlie whipped her head around. “The past week?! Ness, you need three proper meals a day, with at least three food groups in each! We’re going to the grocery store.”

“I do have three food groups!” Vanessa staggered over. “Chicken’s a protein, I’ve got fruit, and… Well, ketchup’s made from tomatoes, so…?”

“Ketchup’s a sauce,” Charlie said, raising an eyebrow, “not a solid.”

“Whatever. I’m fine, Charlie.”

Frustration began to bubble in Charlie’s chest, and she began to say something when she looked at Vanessa’s expression. It was one of desperation. Pushing down her feelings, Charlie took a deep breath and said, “Ness, this isn’t a healthy way to live. I know things are chaotic now, but you can’t let it consume you. I don’t like seeing you live like this.”

Vanessa stared at her, scanning her expression, and eventually she sighed, “I’m fine, Charlie. I appreciate your concern, but I really am. What did you need to ask in the first place?”

“I wanted to ask if you would go out on a date. Before anything gets crazier, y’know?”

Immediately Vanessa’s eyes lit up. “Definitely! Where were you thinking?”

Charlie did have an idea beforehand, but she threw it out the very second she considered it again. “I was thinking we stay over at Jessica’s place and treat ourselves? Watch a movie, have dinner- not chicken nuggets- and some dessert too, all the things. Kinda like a sleepover?”

“Like, I would stay over?”

“Yeah. You could take my bed, and I’d take the couch.”

“And what if I didn’t want to sleep alone…?”

Charlie’s face got hot. “Uh, well, um, we’ll cross that bridge when we get there? Probably?”

Vanessa burst out laughing. “I’m kidding! I just wanted to see you get flustered.”

“Oh good God…” Charlie waved her off with a shaky smile, saying, “How about seven tonight? Does that work for you?” Vanessa nodded. “Good. And seriously, please get something other than Costco chicken nuggets for lunch today. I’ll pay for something if that’s what it takes.”

“Alright, alright, fine… And what were you calling me again? Ness?”

“It’s short for Vanessa. It’s a dumb nickname, I know, I’ll stop.”

“No, I like it.”

“Oh! Okay. Cool.” Before she even knew what she was doing, Charlie hugged Vanessa tight, and letting go she stumbled quickly towards the door. “I’ll see you tonight! Love you!”

And with that Charlie left the apartment, giggling as she hurried to her car. She’d been trying to think up a nickname for the longest time…

—

“Hey John… I’m back, again.”

Carlton knelt down next to his old friend’s gravestone, dirt burrowing under his fingernails as he pulled out his checklist. Written down were the names of every single person in Hurricane who had died thanks to Fazbear Entertainment: his old friends, Neil, William, Mike, Evan, he even had Clay and Jen. He knew they probably wouldn’t have answers, but he needed to ask each and every one of them what was going on. It was his responsibility to use his powers wisely, after all.

Although, if he was being completely honest with himself, he knew no one would answer. He hadn’t heard even a whisper since months ago. Maybe the power just fades away when the body doesn’t think it’s needed anymore, he told himself.

He didn’t believe it.

“So, uh, it’s kinda funny,” Carlton laughed humorlessly, “but I haven’t heard from you since everything happened at Freddy’s. I know you guys probably passed on after that, and I definitely understand, but could you at least send a sign? Just to show that you guys are okay, wherever you are? Or you could just talk if you’re still here, that would be great too.”

Silence. Carlton shook his head and stood back up when his phone started to ring. It was Jessica. Picking up, he didn’t even get a single word out before she asked, “Did you hear what happened to Ralph?”

“The guy we interviewed at the station?”

“Yeah. The police found him dead in his home an hour ago. A reporter managed to leak a picture of the body.” She hesitated. “He wasn’t attacked by a human, Carlton. There’s no way. And there was an old springlock left at the crime scene.”

“...What?”

—

Charlie knew Vanessa had heard about Ralph’s death the moment they met up for their date; she could see that exhausted, unsettled look on her face clear as day. But Vanessa just brushed off her concern the moment Charlie dared to ask. Collapsing on the living room couch, Vanessa asked, “So, what movie were you thinking?”

“I dunno.” Charlie sat next to her, worry furrowing her brow. “How was the rest of your day?”

“I mean, it passed by, that’s for sure… I think I just need some fresh air. Maybe that’ll clear my head.”

“Oh. Well, uh, we could go over to Zion, take a walk. Does that sound okay?”

“You’d really do that for me?”

“I’d kill for you.”

Seconds later Charlie texted Jessica saying where they were heading (she was at Carlton’s, analyzing the leaked photos of Ralph’s body), and they left for Zion National Park. They paid for their presence and headed down the trail, taking in the beauty without a single word. But to Charlie’s sorrow, Vanessa still didn’t smile.

“Charlie, I can’t deal with this anymore,” Vanessa finally said ten minutes into their hike.

The mechanic stopped in her tracks. “You mean the hike? That’s alright, we can go back, but it might take a bit to-”

“No, not that, this place is beautiful. I’m talking about Hurricane.” As the two stood there, watching the moon make its slow trek across the night sky, she said, “I know it’s your home, but there’s got to be a better place for us. Somewhere where people won’t stare at us wherever we go, somewhere where people actually enjoy their lives.”

“Hurricane’s getting better,” Charlie said. “We’re making it better, slowly.”

“Well maybe that makes me selfish, but I don’t want to wait for the world to get better. I just want it to be okay now. Is that too much to ask of God?”

“...I thought you didn’t believe in God.”

Vanessa paused. “I used to. But I haven’t been sure for a long time… I wanna go to college, Charlie. I wanna get a real job that doesn’t leave me with just the scraps. I wanna enjoy my life and not have to worry about animatronics or viruses or dead people ever again. Be honest, is that too much to ask? Really?”

Charlie couldn’t seem to find the right words. The pessimistic side of her desperately begged to say yes, that it was too much to ask an already cruel universe to throw them a bone, but Charlie knew the truth. This world could offer kindness. It could offer joy, empathy, a helping hand and a shoulder to cry on. The universe gave her Vanessa, Jessica, Carlton, Henry, William, and so many other good, amazing people. How could she betray the universe by calling it awful?

“It’s not too much to ask,” she finally said, “but I imagine someday it’ll give us the chance.”

“So you’d be willing to wait for something that might never come?”

“Yeah… I guess so.” Before Vanessa could reply, Charlie hugged her, and she held her tight. She didn’t want to let go, lest something happened. “But whatever you want to do, I’ll support you. Always.”

Vanessa didn’t say anything for a moment, and when Charlie started to get concerned the blonde finally said, “You too, Charlie. You too.”

The moment was nice… Until they heard the rustling behind them.

Charlie let go of Vanessa and whipped around, scanning the darkness. She didn’t see anything at first, but as she began to relax, she suddenly spotted a pair of silver, pinprick pupils in the shadows.

As soon as they made eye contact, the figure stepped closer. The two women stood frozen in horror as a rabbit silhouette heaved its way out of the darkness, and at the mere sight of it Charlie felt her stomach churn. It was a viscera-coated, ash-caked yellow rabbit, one worn with age and stale air and the wrath of God. It was the exact springlock suit Carlton had been trapped in last year.

The costume adjusted its rotting bowtie, and as its silver eyes locked onto Charlie’s, deja vu hit her like a truck. She knew that look. “No,” she panicked. “No, no, no, not you. Please don’t be you.”

The thing let out a raspy chuckle. “Daughter,” it called out, its voice cracked and gutted.

Jen Emily.

As soon as the realization of who was in that suit hit them, the rabbit let out a guttural screech and leapt at Charlie. The mechanic barely dodged, heart pounding, and before her and Vanessa knew it they were barreling down the mountain path as fast as they could manage. Charlie thought she heard heavy, metallic footsteps behind them as they saw the end of the trail just up ahead, and-

A horrible, jagged pain stabbed through her back. A butcher knife.

The rabbit wrenched the knife from her back, and as Charlie stumbled and collapsed, she looked up just in time to see Vanessa. She must have ran quite a bit until she realized Charlie wasn’t following, because she was already almost gone. But now she just watched in horror, paralyzed. Charlie opened her mouth to scream, to yell for her to keep going when the knife swung down into her back again, and again, and again. Blood puddled under her as every ounce of warmth drained from her body, and Charlie wondered if this was how true death felt as she struggled. Her last death had been so quick, she hadn’t even had time to process it before she was already back to life. For once, the dread was gone, and she almost let it win until she glanced back at Vanessa.

The rabbit was heading straight towards her. The animatronic swung down its knife, and as Vanessa screamed, Charlie felt something ignite in her heart. A passion burning in her chest, her blood, her bones, and she blinked when-

BAM!

Suddenly Charlie was not only on her feet but punching hard against the rabbit’s head. As the robot recoiled, she swung again, striking the suit harder. She didn’t even notice the knife slashing across her chest, her fury stronger than the pain. Her vision turned red as her swings got faster, almost too fast to track, and before anyone knew it the animatronic’s plastic face went flying.

Charlie paused. Through the hole where the suit’s face once was, she saw another corpse, one she recognized despite all the rot and burns and viscera. She had been right, it was Jen inside. But she hadn’t died inside a springlock suit. Someone had put her there.

As soon as Charlie stopped the rabbit took advantage, running as fast as it could in the other direction. Charlie started to race after it, but as soon as she took another step she face-planted into the dirt. As she spit up blood, the last thing she heard was Vanessa’s voice. “You’re okay,” she cried. “You’re gonna be okay…!”

Everything went black.

Chapter Text

“I miss you, but missing you won’t change anything. Maybe someday I will learn to let go… But for now, I will keep missing you.”

For the life of her, Charlie couldn’t remember where she heard that quote. Maybe it was from a book or a movie, maybe it was from someone she actually knew; she figured she’d never know. But it felt so accurate at the time.

She didn’t dream of her own memories that night, but of someone else’s. Charlie stood alone watching in the foggy distance as another figure, a tall, spindly man, sat alone on a porch, facing the infinite desert. As she stepped closer, she felt her heart sink as she recognized those sweet amber eyes and graying black hair. William.

He didn’t hear her, of course; it was just a memory. But as he sat there staring, two other figures stepped out next to him. Mike and Evan, she realized.

“Come inside Dad,” Mike said gently. He looked almost fourteen then. “It’ll be night soon.”

“Don’t wanna get frostbite,” Evan added, and Mike shot him a look.

William nodded, waving them away, and Charlie noticed in his other hand an old photograph. It was the picture of a baby, the name Sammy Elizabeth scrawled underneath. “I’ll be inside in a minute,” he said. “I just need some time… Go get the table ready, the chicken will be done soon.”

Mike and Evan glanced at each other, their concern obvious, but nevertheless they followed their father’s orders. As the door creaked shut behind them, William looked down at the picture for a while, and Charlie watched as he choked down an angry, guttural sob.

“Sammy.” He tried to smile, but it looked more like a grimace. “It’s been seven years now. I promise I haven’t forgotten you… You can come home anytime. You’re always…”

He stopped, unable to get the words out, and Charlie felt her legs begin to buckle. “I’m right here Dad,” she whispered. “I’m right here.”

William sat there for a while, trying to compose himself, and eventually wiped the tears from his face as he stood. Stuffing the picture in his pocket, he took a deep breath and looked back at the desert one last time. “I miss you, Sammy.”

She couldn’t help but respond. “I miss you too.”

It almost looked like he heard her, but it must have been a trick of the light as he dragged himself back inside. The memory ended, and Charlie was thrown back into the unthinking abyss.

—

Carlton, Vanessa, and Jessica all stood anxiously in the New Harmony Hospital waiting room, unmoving as the eerie silence set in. Running his hands through his hair, Carlton flinched as he felt the cold metal of his fingers brush against his scalp. We can do this, even without Charlie, he tried to convince himself. It’s not like the rest of us are inexperienced.

Images of John’s maimed corpse from all those years ago flashed in his mind, and he winced. To think, that same thing could happen again…

“Carlton?” Blinking hard, he looked around and saw the other two staring at him. “You okay?” Jessica asked.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m fine. Just nervous.”

Jessica offered a smile. “You aren’t the only one.”

Then, Vanessa uttered a bombshell. “I think Charlie has an ability like you, Carlton.”

That got their attention fast. “Like how I can hear ghosts?” he asked, and she nodded. “How do you know?”

“I’ve seen it twice.” Vanessa’s face was drenched with sweat, dirt smudged against her clothes from the robotic rabbit’s attack. “At the Freddy’s fire, and tonight. I think it happens during near-death experiences… She gets up just at the right moment, and her wounds heal themselves back together. Her eyes turn black with little white pinpoints for pupils. Every time it happens she just loses her shit. She…”

Immediately Carlton knew what she meant. After all, he’d seen what Charlie had done to Jen at Freddy’s after William revived her. She’d been soaked in her own blood, smiling as she shattered Jen’s ribcage and bashed her head into the wall. It hadn’t lasted for very long, but he’d seen enough to know. And knowing what Charlie did to that rabbit, even if she didn’t win…

Well, he didn’t need to see to believe. Not this time.

“I thought maybe that was just Charlie’s reaction to being revived,” he said, “but with how much stuff she’s been through, I wouldn’t be surprised if she gained some sort of near-death adrenaline ability. At least, that’s what it sounds like to me.”

Jessica nodded in agreement, and then laughed, albeit humorlessly. “This has got to sound so ridiculous out of context.”

“Or in context, really,” Vanessa sighed. “So, what now?”

“I was hoping you had an idea,” Carlton said. “You’re the only one that’s actually dealt with this kind of tech except for Charlie.”

“...Well, Charlie and I were working on something a few months ago that might help us out. And if it actually works, we could get into the Pizzaplex without anyone even noticing!”

“Go on.”

Vanessa pulled out her keys. “You guys care to go to my apartment again?”

—

Henry sat next to Charlie for hours. In fact, he was the first person by her side when she got out of surgery. Someone had to stay with her, after all.

Hands clasped in prayer, he bowed his head to the heavens as he whispered, “Oh God, benevolent shepard, help this young woman to recover, and help her and her friends- and my son- bring justice to the evils that plague our world. The helpless need them just as the sheep need their shepherd. Lord… I don’t want them to be taken by darkness like the rest of us. Amen.”

For a while he sat there in silence, wondering what Carlton and the others were up to now. Carlton had texted him, saying something about going to Vanessa’s apartment, but that was it. It didn’t help that Carlton’s unfortunate grammar made things difficult to parse.

Looking over at Charlie, he tried to brush the hair from her face, saying, “It’ll be okay.” The words were more a comfort for himself than her.

—

As Vanessa dug through her closet, tossing random knick-knacks behind her, Jessica couldn’t help but notice the small bronze angel sitting on her nightstand, blowing an equally small trumpet. It was the angel Moroni, the unofficial symbol of Mormonism. “I can’t believe you’ve kept this for so long.”

Vanessa looked over to see what she was talking about, and as she spotted the figurine she shrugged. “It’s not like I’m gonna throw away something Mom got me,” she replied.

“I didn’t know you were Mormon,” Carlton said. “I honestly thought your family was agnostic or something.”

“Ha! If my dad heard that, he’d kill you.” Vanessa pulled out a box labeled ‘WEIRD EXPERIMENTS’ as she continued, “Jessica can tell you, my parents weren’t exactly the non-religious type.”

Carlton looked over at Jessica, and she put back the figurine. “They kicked my mom out of the family after she had… Well, you know,” she sighed. “The premarital horizontal tango. Vanessa and I only got to reconnect after she ran away.”

The redhead’s eyes widened. “You ran away?”

Vanessa didn’t look up from the box, still searching. “They were gonna send me to conversion camp. What else was I gonna do, bow down and let some God I’m not even sure exists control my life?”

“Fair enough… Is that why you hacked yourself into the Pizzaplex’s employee catalogue?”

“I’m sure you can figure it out.”

“That’s a yes, then.” He paused for a moment before asking, “You do know Charlie’s Catholic, right?”

She shot him a slightly annoyed look. “She’s my girlfriend, Carlton. Of course I know that, and I don’t have a problem with it. I mean, why the hell should I? Prejudice should never be part of the equation.” Vanessa couldn’t help but chuckle. “Plus, it’s not like Charlie doesn’t see the flaws in it. She’s a gay Catholic, for God’s sake.”
“That is a strange contradiction, isn’t it?”

“Alright, alright, enough about religion,” Jessica interrupted. “What are you looking for, Vanessa?”

“Just hold on a second, it’s in here somewhere… Ah-ha! Here it is!” To the other two’s surprise, Vanessa held up a small, half dollar-sized metal circle. “This is an illusion disc.”

Jessica raised an eyebrow. “A what?”

“An illusion disc! Whenever it’s turned on, it emits a constantly-changing frequency high enough that it’s only noticeable to the subconscious. The frequency affects the brain in a way that makes others disconnect what you look like from your actual identity. So, if I were to use it now for example, you guys would see me as is, but not be able to recognize who I actually am. I could tell you I was Mary Sue from Nebraska and you wouldn’t know any better.”

“That’s actually kinda disturbing,” Carlton said.

“And useful,” Jessica added. “But if the frequency makes others forget your identity, wouldn’t you forget yours too?”

Vanessa’s face blushed with slight embarrassment. “Yeah, that’s something we couldn’t really work around. But you’ll still have your memories, your goals, and your experiences. The only thing you’ll forget is yourself… I guess you could even forget you had forgotten yourself in the first place, if you’re exposed to it long enough.”

Jessica looked almost nauseous at the idea of such. “Any other side effects we should know about?” she asked nervously.

“Oh, well, the beginning frequency makes people kinda sick for the first minute or so. Your body’s just overwhelmed by the changes, that’s all.”

“And you only have one of these?” Carlton asked.

“Yep. They’re so tiny and need so much fine tuning that it would be impossible to make one that functions exactly the same as the others. They would be similar, but still ever so slightly different.”

“And we can only use them for so long, unless we forget ourselves permanently?”

She nodded and looked down at her work, almost with a scowl. “No one can remind you to turn off the disc if they can’t figure out who you are in the first place.”

Jessica’s eyes gleamed with concern. “I’d hate to know how you two found out all these side effects.”

“Everything needs testing… We knew the risks. We’re still okay.”

Jessica grimaced, and Carlton asked, “Why do we need this in the first place again?”

Vanessa perked back up, as if suddenly reminded why they were all there in the first place. “Each of us will apply for a job at the Pizzaplex. I’ll go for a cybersecurity or tech maintenance position, Jessica will go for management, and Carlton… Well, you could really go for anything. Night guard, first aid, cook, you’ve kinda done it all.”

“I’ll do security. It’ll let me snoop around on the job.”

“Alright. Whoever gets hired uses the illusion disc to hide their identity at work, trying to find out as much as possible while they’re there. If two or more of us get hired, we’ll draw sticks, and whoever loses will reject the job. If none of us get hired, we’ll go for round two with brand new fake identities. Got it?”

The other two gave varying gestures of approval. “Alright,” Jessica said. “But I wanna have the name Sophie, at least for the first time around.”

Vanessa gave her a thumbs-up of approval, and they all got to work crafting their new, fake lives.

—

Each day crawled past them like a wounded animal. Each day Vanessa visited Charlie in the hospital, holding her well-worn hand as she watched time pass them by. Each day she whispered stories to her, what the rest of them had been getting up to, well aware Charlie couldn’t hear her but whispering anyway.

Each day, she waited.

“You’re Ms. Shelly, yes?”

Vanessa glanced over her shoulder and saw a doctor standing in the doorway, deep bags under his eyes as he clutched his aging clipboard. “That’s me. Are you Charlie’s doctor?”

“I’ve been assigned to Ms. Afton, yes. I just wanted to talk to you while you’re here, since you’ve been listed as her primary emergency contact on all her paperwork. It’s… Well, it’s rather strange.”

“She’ll be okay though, right?”

“Oh, definitely. It’s the speed of her recovery that confuses me.” The doctor sat down next to Vanessa, showing off his clipboard; it was filled with progress pictures of Charlie’s wounds. “It hasn’t been long since she was admitted here, has it? Only four days.”

“It’s felt like longer.”

“It always does in the summer... The healing of her wounds has been incredibly exaggerated, at least in comparison to what’s normal. I’ll let you look at these and see for yourself, but if this continues at the same rate, she should be leaving on the morning of the 29th.”

“The 29th? That’s tomorrow!”

"Indeed. Has Ms. Afton ever taken any medication that could explain this, Ms. Shelly?”

“...No. Nothing at all.”

—

Betty Burke lived a rather lonely life, which was a much better fate than she deserved quite frankly. She wasn’t ever sure why Carlton had pleaded with the courts to not send her to prison, but still she felt no need to thank him, not when she could still imagine the blood on his hands.

Clay’s blood.

She remembered her ragged tears when Carlton told her how he’d killed his father. She’d just been put on house arrest for a decade, her son’s personal request to the judge, and he decided to leave her with those awful last words. “He deserved it,” he snapped as Betty resisted the urge to strangle him. “And frankly, I should’ve left you to rot in prison for how you treated me, how you kept his secrets, but I made a promise to myself. I promised that I wouldn’t become the monster that you two and Jen were, and that means treating even someone like you with mercy. But don’t come crying for anything else.”

“Why not?”

“Because you were never a true mother, and I never deserved your disrespect.”

And he kept his promise; he’d never come back, not even once.

So when she answered a knock at her door that night and saw an unfamiliar face, she nearly jumped with joy. It was a boy about Carlton’s age, though he seemed much more professional, fitted in a full suit and tie and his blonde hair slicked back. His eyes, a watery blue, glittered with nerves. “Hello,” he tried to smile. “You must be Mrs. Burke.”

“That’s me! And who would you be?”

“Jeremy Fitzgerald.” He ignored her attempt at a handshake, fiddling with his shirt collar instead. “I’m with Fazbear Entertainment. Given your prior relationship to Jen Emily, we wanted your input on our new location in Hurricane. I’m sure you’ve seen the news?”

“Of course I have, dear. It sounds like the company is in for a wonderful comeback. And you don’t look too bad yourself… Come on in, I’ll get you a drink.”

Nervously the young man stepped inside, locking the door behind him as he followed her into the dining room. The table was already perfectly set up. She had all the time in the world to make things look pretty, so why wouldn’t she?

Pouring him a glass of lemon water, she couldn’t help but glance outside through the sliding doors to the backyard. There was an odd, almost burial-like lump of dirt outside, one she didn’t remember being there before…

“So!” Jeremy said, clearly trying to draw her attention. “Mrs. Burke-”

“You can call me Betty.”

“Oh, uh, Betty. Okay Betty, what did you love most about the Fazbear locations you visited before?”

“Goodness, that isn’t a simple question to answer, is it?” Betty leaned back against the glass of the sliding doors, trying to look casual; she’d practically forgotten how to act with so much time by her lonesome. “I enjoyed the food, before it was that frozen shit they threw in the microwave. And I liked how you could say whatever you wanted.”

“Could you give an example?”

“Well, if your server was a r-t-rd, you could call them a r-t-rd! Simple as that. Employees couldn’t do anything about it.” She paused. “Well, that’s how it was at the original Freddy’s for a while. Then Jen changed the policy because employees threatened to unionize after a while. Honestly, I think she should’ve just dug her heels in, but whatever. No offense to her, it’s just my opinion.”

“Well, Betty, I’m sorry to say this, but Ms. Emily does take offense.”

“...Excuse me?”

“Ms. Emily takes a lot of offense when it comes to you.” Jeremy stared up at her, unblinking, and for once Betty felt genuinely unnerved. “She takes offense to how you didn’t come to her aid when she needed it the most. She takes offense to the fact that you gave up on her so quickly, had so little faith in her. She takes offense to the fact that you never answered the door at night.”

Betty stiffened. “How do you know about that?” It seemed like every other night she would hear knocks at her front door, ones that didn’t sound human. It was something mechanical. She’d thought she’d been hallucinating, but…

“She takes offense to how pathetic you’ve become.” Betty curled her fists as Jeremy stood up. “I’m sorry. Don’t shoot the messenger.” A single tear fell down his face. “I’m sorry, I really am sorry…”

Betty would’ve started asking questions right then, but she didn’t have the chance. Something crashed through the patio doors at full speed, and as she tumbled and crashed hard into the dining room table, her back snapped clean in half. The woman screamed in agony, and as she tried to get away she realized she couldn’t move her legs.

A large metal hand grabbed her by the throat and threw her to the side, and as she finally got a good look at her attacker, she was surprised to see a yellow rabbit costume looming over her. She could hear Jeremy weeping somewhere nearby, and for the first time, she felt pity. But her chance at redemption was far too late.

The rabbit drew its knife, and her fate was sealed.

—

The bitter night wind howled through the desert as Carlton walked toward the Pizzaplex, his mind clouded with dread as the illusion disc bounced in his pocket. Biting his lip, he checked his phone. Fazbear Entertainment always texted interviewees the time and place of their interviews, and he was the first to be picked. ‘Meet your interviewer outside the front of the Pizzaplex at 9:30 P.M.’

So there he stood, right on time.

Soon enough he spotted someone through the glass entryway, and he flicked the switch on the back of the disc. A millisecond later he was hit with an overpowering wave of nausea, and as he doubled over, the front doors opened. “Hey man, you okay?” a voice called out.

Bracing himself, Carlton looked up and saw a guy no older than Jessica poking his head out, his face unshaven and uniform stained. But at least his eyes weren’t purple…

“Yeah, just a little sick.” The redhead tried to smile. “Nerves.”

“Oh yeah, I get it.” The man held the door open for him, smirking, “I see it all the time with the ladies. I can really make them swoon, y’know?”

Carlton fought the urge to roll his eyes as he walked in, and then any worries of first impressions were immediately surpassed by awe. A stone statue sat in the middle of the lobby, surrounded by a fountain and the sound of bubbling water. Moonlight glistened against the tile as it seeped through the skylight above, the floor squeaky clean. A golden banner hung above it all, cheering in all caps, ‘GRAND REOPENING!’

“Pretty cool, huh?” the employee asked.

“Fanciest I’ve ever seen,” Carlton said. He couldn’t imagine what the rest of this place looked like.

“It’s way smaller than the one in Salt Lake, but we work with what we’ve got.”

“This is small?!”

The employee chuckled, and he said as he looked over his paperwork, “Welcome to the Pizzaplex, Everett Larson.”

Carlton was taken aback for a moment, and then he remembered that he’d made a fake identity. Then he tried to remember his real name, then his fake name, and they both instantly vanished from his mind. The disc really does work, he thought, and realized the nausea was gone as well.

“Y’know, you don’t look like an…” The employee had to look back at the paperwork again. “Like an Everett. Or anyone really.”

“More like a John Doe?” Carlton tried to joke.

“Exactly! I’ll have to start calling you that, if I can remember too.”

The stranger gestured for him to follow, and soon enough they were in an employee break room, sitting across from each other as a camera watched their every move. Carlton couldn’t help but notice that it seemed to follow him specifically when the interviewer asked, “So, why do you want a security job at the Pizzaplex?”

Carlton wrung his hands, putting on his best poker face. “I’ve always loved Fazbear Entertainment and its characters, and I want to protect not only the characters I love so dearly, but their legacy as well.”

“Hm. Honorable. How well do you handle stress?”

“I’ve been handling stress my whole life. It’s a piece of cake.”

“Parent pressure?”

Carlton almost laughed. “Like you wouldn’t believe.”

“Ha, yeah, same. Anyway, what makes you unique?” The redhead raised up his robotic arm, and the interviewer smirked. “Understood.” They went through about five more questions before the interviewer asked, “Alright, last one, I promise. Why should we hire you?”

“Because I’m loyal, and I’d never betray the company I love so dearly.” A lie had never tasted so bitter.

“Great! That’s all.” They shook hands, and the interviewer said, “I hope you get the job, man. I’d love to-”

Suddenly, the walkie-talkie on his belt buzzed with static. “Mr. Cabrera, answer please,” a voice crackled through the static, and even through all the distortion it sounded eerily familiar.

The interviewer picked up immediately. “What’s up, Mr. Fitzgerald?”

Carlton froze as Jeremy answered, “Hire Everett immediately as the night guard. His first shift starts Thursday at 12 A.M. Tell him congrats for me.”

“Oh, uh, of course Mr. Fitzgerald.” Mr. Cabrera put down the radio, looking back at Carlton. “I’m sure you heard all of that, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, uh, welcome to the team then!”

As the interviewer led Carlton back into the lobby and out the front doors, he couldn’t help but notice Jeremy sitting on a bench in the far corner, phone in one hand and radio in the other. The strange man was staring right at Carlton, eyes narrowed in confusion, and for once he didn’t seem malicious.

His eyes weren’t purple either.

Chapter Text

“You guys used the illusion disc?”

Charlie readjusted her prosthetic leg as Vanessa turned on the ignition, her car’s engine revving softly against the whistling wind outside. The sky was completely clear, but Charlie didn’t let that fool her; it was just the calm before the storm. The whole morning, doctors and patients alike had been whispering about the storm cells set to pass through Hurricane over the next week or so, a rare occurrence in their dry desert town.

“It worked out fine,” Vanessa promised as she pulled out of the parking lot. “Jessica and I just had our interviews, but Carlton’s the only one who got the job.”

“Well,” Charlie shrugged, rolling out the kinks from her shoulders, “at least your plan’s working out so far then.”

“Is it a bad plan?”

“What? No, it’s great! Really, I mean it.” When Vanessa gave her a questioning look Charlie continued, “Seriously. I’m sorry I sounded so skeptical when you mentioned the illusion disc, I just worry about the side effects.”

“Carlton’s going to be turning the disc on and off frequently, depending on the surveillance. He’s gonna gather as much info as he can, and then…”

“Then what?”

“I don’t know. I guess we’ll have to figure that out as we go.” Vanessa smiled at her. “But either way, it’s good to have you back.”

“Same to you.” She smiled too, and they drove without another word. Each others’ presence was all the comfort they needed.

—

The clouds hung heavy and gray as Charlie watched the crowd grow larger around the Pizzaplex. The signage had gone up in the night, the last step to making it official. A cartoonish Freddy grinned as he held out his hand, illuminated by neon next to billboards of Bon, Chica, Monty, and Roxy. It felt terminal.

Vanessa, Jessica, Carlton, and Henry all stood next to her, all focused on one thing or another, and Charlie couldn’t help but notice the color draining from Vanessa’s face. The two women locked eyes, and both shared the same silent question: what if?

“There he is,” Carlton said, and they looked towards the stage set before the Pizzaplex doors. Jeremy stood confidently, microphone in hand and a performed joy etched onto his face.

Henry squinted, the sun creeping up over the Pizzaplex’s mass and shining right into their eyes. “He looks familiar.”

Jessica raised an eyebrow. “Do you know him?”

“No. I never knew a Fitzgerald, unless you count…” Henry shook his head, trying to break the tension as he laughed at himself. “Ignore me, my age is showing.”

“You’re not old, Dad,” Carlton said.

“I’m middle-aged. That still counts.”

“It really doesn’t.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, it is a pleasure to see you all here today!” Jeremy’s speech cut short any and every conversation in the crowd, and as an unsettling silence commenced he continued, “I remember my first day in the Pizzaplex like the back of my hand. The Salt Lake City location was beautiful, a wonder of the world. It came with state-of-the-art technology and a whole slew of attractions that put Disney to shame. It was incredible! And working there as Jen Emily’s old personal assistant let me see it all.

“I was privileged to see it in its prime, and my position allows me to admit that yes, this new location has its quirks. We do not have gold, only stone. But we have heart, and I think that might just make this new location even better.

“I’m aware of my company’s past, and I won’t pretend to ignore the harm that Jen Emily inflicted. Under her rule dozens of men, women, and children died to fuel her ego. But I promise, I won’t let those same things happen. We have equipped the best security the world has to offer. In fact, that’s what a huge chunk of our building costs went to! No child will go missing ever again. I promise.”

A quiet murmuring rippled through the crowd, and as Charlie looked around she couldn’t help but notice Henry again. He looked near distraught. Carlton noticed too, asking, “Dad? Are you okay?”

Henry couldn’t get out an answer, stumbling over his words as he kept staring up at Jeremy. “I do know him,” he finally managed. “Oh God, Jeremy, what the hell did you do?!”

Charlie didn’t have time to ask questions when Jeremy spoke once more. “It is with great privilege that I, Fazbear Entertainment’s new CEO, present the grand reopening of the Pizzaplex!” Pulling a pair of scissors from his pocket, he cut the ribbon before him with a grin, and to Charlie’s horror a cheering began. They believe him, she realized.

“It’s happening again,” Vanessa whispered, eyes wide.

Charlie nodded. “It’s happening again.”

Suddenly, as Jeremy began to step down from the stage, Henry raced through the crowd, pushing and shoving without hesitation. Immediately the others ran after him, Carlton yelling, “Dad! Stop!”

But it was too late. By the time the four of them caught up Henry had grabbed Jeremy by the shirt collar, shaking him hard as tears streamed down his face. “What the fuck are you doing, Burrows?!” he screamed. “You promised me you would honor my son, why the fuck are you the goddamn CEO?! You betrayed them!”

For once, even behind his violet eyes Jeremy looked unsettled. “Hello Mr. Goodman,” he said breathlessly.

Before Henry could mutter another word Carlton and Jessica yanked Henry away from the new CEO, Charlie helping to restrain him. “Let go of me!” Henry screamed, thrashing around. “I’m not done with him yet!”

“We’ll take it from here.” Charlie looked over her shoulder and felt her blood turn cold, noticing a group of cops looming behind them. Before anyone knew what was happening, the four of them along with Jeremy watched as the police dragged the rabid Henry away.

Carlton couldn’t help but follow. “Where are you taking him?” he asked on the verge of tears.

“You can come see him at the police department,” one of the officers said lifelessly. “He’ll be behind bars for a while, won’t ya’ old man?”

“Let go of me!” Henry looked straight at Carlton, and his madness softened for a moment. “Oh Carlton, I’m so sorry…”

Carlton couldn’t manage a reply. No one could. They watched helplessly as Henry and the police disappeared out of sight, and Jeremy chuckled, brushing off his suit. “Close one, huh?” he asked mockingly.

—

The four of them decided their Pizzaplex visit could wait. It wasn’t long before they were right on the police’s tail, Jessica passive-aggressively hounding the cruiser Henry was in while the others rode in Vanessa’s car. They were right by Henry’s side when he was ushered into his cell, and only through constant pestering of the guards were they allowed to talk to him. “You’ve got an hour,” an officer finally scoffed.

Henry leaned against his cell door, resting his head against its rusted bars. “I’m so sorry,” he sighed. “I don’t know what came over me… You guys can go, really. I’ll be okay. It’s only a month sentence, they told me.”

“We’re not leaving until we absolutely have to.” As Carlton held his father’s hand through the bars, Jessica crossed her arms and asked, “I think we deserve to know what that freak-out was about too.”

“Yeah,” Charlie added. “And why were you calling Jeremy ‘Burrows’? How do you know him?”

Henry stared blankly for a moment, and as he looked for the right words, Vanessa asked Charlie, “Wasn’t Burrows the name of one of the old Fazbear board members?”

“Oh, yeah. He was at the Burke party last year. Foxy killed him.”

“Didn’t he have a son?” Vanessa leaned forward. “A son named Jeremy?”

Charlie felt a lightbulb go off in her head, and as she nodded yes everyone’s attention drew back to Henry. “Dad,” Carlton whispered, hands trembling, “how did you know Jeremy’s real name?”

“I…” Henry swallowed hard, his eyes bloodshot. “Carlton, do you remember what I told you about my other son?”

“You had another son?” Jessica asked.

Quickly Carlton explained everything: Gregory, how he and his friends snuck into the unfinished Pizzaplex, their mysterious deaths, all of it. But as he finished, Henry said, “I never told you who his friends were. One of you, start writing. You might need this in the future.”

Jessica immediately pulled out a pen and notepad as Henry continued, “Gregory was their little group leader, but there were five others. Susie Curtis, Gabriel Holland, Cassidy Ramos, Fritz Lozano, and Jeremy Burrows. Susie and Gabriel had both been Gregory’s friends since grade school, and he met the others in middle school. They all connected over their shared interests: playing in the band or the choir, technology, Gabe was always really into bowling and dragged the rest of them to the alley every other day… And Fazbear Entertainment. They knew its flaws, but they loved those characters more than anything else.

“Jeremy had to love Fazbear Entertainment. It was practically a requirement if he wanted his father to love him. I always told him that he shouldn’t be looking for respect from a man who didn’t already love him, but he always just shrugged it off. He said he really did like Fazbear’s either way. I couldn’t tell if he was lying or not.

“Gregory told me one day that Jeremy’s father had convinced Jen to let his son be her temporary assistant. Not a long gig, it was only going to be for a few months or so, but he was still too young for the job. But his father wanted to prepare him for his future in the company. That poor boy was fated to work for Fazbear Entertainment since the day he was born.

“The job came with its ‘perks’ though,” Henry said, putting up air quotes. “Jeremy learned all about the company’s horrible secrets, and he told them all to his friends. They were all angry hearing about it, but Gregory?

“Gregory was enraged.

“He wanted to get evidence, and the rest of his friends backed him up. Jeremy was the one who let them in. He knew the schedule, knew the best time they could get around. But then…

“Jeremy was the only one who survived. He wouldn’t say a word to anyone about what happened, not even me. The experience traumatized him. Jen fired him of course, and his father basically disowned him… Fitzgerald was his mother’s maiden name.

“He came and lived with me for a while, before he moved downstate for a new job at a game studio. Silver Parasol Games, I think it was called. It was bought out by Fazbear a few months after he joined. But when he was living with me, he swore to me that he would never honor Fazbear Entertainment ever again. It would be a betrayal of his friends, he said. He would honor them for as long as he lived.”

Henry finally stopped, and only then did Charlie notice that he had begun to cry, his face red and blemished with tears. “I trusted him,” Henry whispered, voice cracking. “I don’t know what happened to him, but that’s not the Jeremy I knew. That’s not the Jeremy any of us knew.”

Slowly, Carlton reached out his hand, the one of flesh and bone, back through the bars of the cell door. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so, so sorry.”

Henry took his hand. “Don’t be sorry. Just promise me that you’ll figure this all out, okay?”

“We will,” Jessica said. “All of us.”

Through his tears, Henry cracked a smile. “Thank you… And visit when you can, please.”

Carlton held his father’s hand tight. “Of course.”

Just then, the door into the cell block opened, and an officer walked in. “Hey now, it hasn’t been remotely close to an hour,” Charlie said defensively.

The officer cocked his head. “That’s not what I came in for. Carlton Goodman, we’ve got some bad news.”

“Oh.” Carlton stood up straight. “Well, how much worse can it be than all this?”

“Mr. Goodman, your biological mother was just found dead in her home this afternoon. It’s suspected that this was a robbery gone wrong, and you’ve been eliminated as a suspect given your lack of visitation since her house arrest.”

For a while, Carlton just stared at the officer, dumbfounded. They all expected him to sob, or explode, or any other loud expression of grief, but he just muttered, “Okay. Thank you for letting me know.”

—

Much of the afternoon felt like a blur. Carlton shrugged off every comment or question about Betty, surprisingly uncaring about the whole thing- or at least, that’s what he wanted them to think. In fact, the only real time he showed any sort of emotion was when the officer asked him if Betty had anyone buried in the backyard; they’d found a strange, grave-like pile of dirt just outside the crime scene, empty. Charlie knew that kind of mask better than anyone. Jessica was rambling mostly to herself as they attempted to eat lunch, her robotic eye twitching as she tried to piece everything connected. Vanessa was completely silent.

Ultimately, they decided that today wasn’t the right day to scope out the Pizzaplex. “It’ll be too crowded with it being opening day and all,” Carlton reasoned as they drove around town. “And my first shift isn’t ‘til tomorrow anyways.” They all made various noises of agreement, and one by one they all went home.

It was a little past midnight before Charlie got any sleep. She tried to keep her mind occupied in the meantime, but eventually in her boredom, morbid curiosity got the best of her. She rummaged through the depths of her desk drawer, quietly so she wouldn’t wake Jessica, and pulled out her father’s old journal.

Brushing off the collecting dust, Charlie skimmed through it. She’d already read the bulk of it since she first found it, but William had many little sayings and poems and such taped and paper-clipped to various pages. One in particular caught her eye that night. In The Desert, by Stephen Crane. It read in her father’s familiar, scribbled writing:

In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial
Who, squatting upon the ground
Held his heart in his hands
And ate of it
I said, “Is it good, friend?”
”It is bitter- bitter,” he answered

“But I like it
“Because it is bitter,
“And because it is my heart.”

She couldn’t help but wonder why he wrote that poem down, but it felt true to life nevertheless. Maybe William saw himself as the witness, and he saw Jen as the beast.

Either way, she closed the journal and finally went to sleep.

But it didn’t last.

The rumbling of her phone against her nightstand woke Charlie up. As she reached out from her tangled sheets and snatched it away, she saw through the screen’s haze that Vanessa was calling. “Hey, what’s up?”

“Charlie, I’m scared.”

The mechanic immediately shot out of bed. “What’s going on? Did someone break in? Are you-”

“No, no, I’m fine. I’m safe. I know I shouldn’t be scared, but I’ve been up all night freaking out. I didn’t know who else to call.”

“Do you want me to come over and keep you company?”

“...Yeah. I’d like that.”

“I’m on my way.”

—

This wasn’t the first time Carlton was all alone in Henry’s house. Really, Carlton usually loved having the house to himself. It was out of traumatic habit mostly; every year, Clay and Betty would leave him alone for the day to celebrate their honeymoon, and that was the only day of the year where he really got to be himself. He would watch all the cartoons Clay mocked him for having any interest in, sneak a chocolate strawberry from the tray Betty shamed him for even glancing at. “You’re too old for cartoons.” “You’ll get fat eating those.” Their words echoed in his head, but he always managed to push them away for just one day.

Those days were always happy. Except one.

It was the honeymoon after the massacre at Freddy’s, only three months after he got his new arm. “Be good while we’re gone,” Clay told him, his smile bigger than previous years. Carlton knew why now.

Carlton had simply nodded. They left, and not long after he was raiding Betty’s medicine cabinet, grabbing one of every type of pill he could get his hands on. Then he went to his room and barricaded the door. He couldn’t have anyone getting in his way.

He popped the first pill, a painkiller. It was the ultra-fast kind, and about a minute later as he wondered which med to take next his body went numb.

Carlton collapsed backwards onto the carpet floor, eyes glazed over with… Well, he didn’t know what to call it. It wasn’t euphoria; he was happy, but it wasn’t a strong enough happiness to call it that. He didn’t feel anything at all. It was just pure, endless nothingness.

He wondered if this was what death felt like. Slowly, he tried reaching for another pill.

“That’s not what it’s like, dumbass! Don’t do this!”

That voice… John. It snapped Carlton out of it long enough for him to realize he’d been speaking his own thoughts. And now he couldn’t make himself ignore the other voices either. “You’re not real,” he slurred.

“Don’t do this, Carlton. Please. You can’t do this to us, you’re our last connection to the real fucking world! Don’t do this!”

“You’ve never cursed before…” Carlton giggled. “It’s funny.”

“This isn’t a joke, Carlton! Snap out of it!”

“Nah. I’m good, I’m chill.”

“Goddamn it man, you can’t just do this and…” Slowly, John’s voice faded out, as did everything else. The pill fully took, and Carlton had fallen asleep right there on the floor. It was a miracle he’d woken up in time to clean up the mess before Clay and Betty got back home.

Now in Henry’s house, Carlton laid on the couch, wishing to hear that voice again, or any voice at all for that matter. Alive, dead, he didn’t care.

He didn’t want to tell the others that he hadn’t heard from the dead in seven months.

—

Donald Brooks hadn’t felt so afraid since his son disappeared.

He’d seen the leaked photos of Ralph Coppelia’s body, heard about how Betty Burke’s body was found. Again he got to question why the hell Charlie Afton of all people got to survive, and again he got to question what her gang of misfits had dragged Hurricane into this time. But for once, he pushed it all aside. He had to focus. He was all the Brooks legacy had left, he couldn’t die yet. Or so he told himself.

Bolting closed every window he could get his hands on, Donald checked his home protection checklist. He’d already locked the doors, hid away anything that could be considered a weapon (aside from the bat that he kept with him), and the windows were being handled right then and there. All that was left to do was a scan of the house and he should be good to go.

Running his hands over the bat, his flesh suddenly met a jagged divot in the wood. Immediately he ripped his hand away only to see a familiar engraving, and his anger melted. His son had carved his name into the bat, a way of marking what would always be his.

Donald sighed. I should’ve grabbed my own bat, he thought.

But he continued on anyway.

The first floor was perfectly empty, just like how it had been for the past five years. He kept imagining what it would be like for John to walk through their home’s hollow halls again, shine his brilliant smile against the bathroom mirror, count sheep in his own bed.

But no, he had to sleep forever in that goddamn pizzeria. He had to shut his eyes and ignore the maniac chopping his body to bits, he had to go on some dumbass search for a boy everyone knew was probably dead.

He looked up at his reflection in the mirror as he searched the last bathroom. His eyes were bloodshot, his skin graying with stress and his hair falling out. He narrowed his eyes at himself, wondering if his own judgment would make him look stronger, but seeing his grimace only made him feel worse.

Donald held his face in his calloused hands as all his regrets came flooding back. I didn’t do enough, he thought. I never fucking did enough. Why the fuck do you think everyone left, Don? Why?

He couldn’t help but think of Henry. Donald had heard rumors that the strange man had lost his first son before he moved to Hurricane, but no one knew if it was true or not. That’s why they were rumors after all. But maybe, just maybe, he could go apologize to him and the rest of those kids. Maybe Henry would forgive him. That would be nice, he told himself.

Then he heard the quiet, subtle sound of a creaking floorboard, and he realized he forgot to check the basement.

Donald jumped back in horror as the bathroom door swung open and a towering animatronic rabbit charged him. He tried to run when the rabbit grabbed the back of his head, metal fingers digging into his scalp, and slammed his face straight into the mirror.

The ear-shattering sound of broken glass echoed through the house as shards stuck out from Donald’s face, and as he desperately tried to scream the rabbit slammed his head into the mess again and again and again. He got one last look at himself in the fractured mirror, and through the blood and red-hot pain he spotted the butcher knife pressed up against his neck.

A sharp pain sliced across his throat, and Donald felt himself fall into that ancient forever sleep. He could’ve sworn he heard his son cry out as he did.

Or maybe that was his own screams. He’d never know.

Chapter Text

Surprisingly, it didn’t take long for Charlie and the others to get inside the Pizzaplex the next day. “Holy shit,” Jessica whispered, staring up at the stone statue of Freddy. “Y’know, I’ve gotta admit, that thing’s awesome.”

Vanessa replied, “We had a statue just like that in the old Pizzaplex. Wanna guess what it was made of?”

“Silver?”

“No. Gold.”

“You’re kidding.”

Vanessa shook her head as they reached the front of the line. “Welcome to Fazbear Entertainment’s Pizzaplex in Hurricane, Utah, where fantasy and fun come to life,” a robot said behind the lobby desk. It was probably one of the most simplistic Charlie had ever seen, most of its body covered in a fragile white plastic with two black, soulless eyes painted onto its bald head. Its silhouette almost completely resembled a human’s, aside from its three-fingered hands and wheels for legs. “What can I help you with today?”

Charlie glanced at the signage hanging above. “We can get the four-ticket all access attraction pass for a discount if one or more in the group was a former Fazbear Entertainment employee,” she told the others.

They all grinned. “How much with the discount?” Jessica asked.

“Fifty bucks, twelve dollars and fifty cents for each person.”

“Good God, that’s with the discount?” Jessica rolled her eyes, and they barely managed to cough up enough cash. As Charlie finalized the deal the robot slid the money behind the desk and handed them back a single quarter and their tickets.

Then it said something nobody expected. “Would you like to pay an extra fifteen dollars per person for a guided tour throughout the Pizzaplex?”

“Does this company think we’re made of money?” Jessica asked.

“No,” the robot replied, apparently hearing her. “Human beings are composed of bone, muscle, flesh, and multiple organ systems. Would you like to pay-”

“Charlie?”

A familiar voice hit Charlie like a truck, and slowly she looked over to see an orange animatronic bear, baby blue eyes glowing against the dim neon. “Freddy,” she realized, and then yelled, “Oh my God, Freddy!”

“Charlie!” The mechanic sprinted over and tackle-hugged the metal bear, and soon enough they were chatting just like old times. “It is so good to see you again! I thought you were gone forever!”

“Nope, they can’t get rid of this bitch!”

“Charlie! Watch your language! This is a family-friendly establishment!” They both giggled, and he asked, “Are you alone? Where is Vanessa?”

“I’m right here, Freddy.” They turned around to see the others hurrying over, Vanessa leading the way as Jessica and Carlton exchanged reluctant glances.

“Vanessa!” Freddy immediately hugged her, and for a moment Charlie thought she looked rather emotionless when suddenly, the blonde burst into tears. “Oh no! What is wrong? Did I upset you? Are you hurt?”

“No, no, I’m fine!” Vanessa smiled through her sobs and hugged him again. “I’m just really glad to see you!”

“As am I. I have been wishing for a reunion ever since Jen fired you… I have been very lonely. I am not afraid to admit that.” They finished their hug, and Freddy looked warmly at Charlie and Vanessa as he exclaimed, “We are going to have so much fun together! I cannot wait to show you around! But I must ask something.”

“What’s up?” Charlie said.

Freddy pointed at Jessica and Carlton. “Who are they?”

Charlie and Vanessa looked at each other. “God, there’s a lot we need to catch you up on,” the blonde chuckled. “Freddy, this is my cousin Jessica, and that’s Carlton. They’re close friends of ours.”

“I met them at the original Freddy’s when Jen sent me over to scrap the place,” Charlie added. “They saved our lives too many times to count. They’re pretty awesome.”

“Hm. Let me save them to my database.” Before the other two could object, it was already done. “What are your last names? I do not like having just first names.”

“Uh, no thanks, we’re good,” Jessica said defensively.

Vanessa shot her a look; not a mean one, but definitely close. “Freddy’s friendly,” she said. “He’s the only one who never… Y’know…”

“You know what?” Freddy asked.

“It’s nothing,” Charlie tried to recover. Does Freddy even know what Jen did? she wondered. Where even was he during the Pizzaplex slaughter anyways? “Just an inside joke, it’ll take too long to explain.”

“Oh! I apologize.”

“My last name’s Goodman,” Carlton said, and then gestured towards Jessica. “And hers is Dunn.”

“Thank you Carlton! I appreciate it.” Freddy gestured toward the front desk robot, asking, “Have you gotten your tickets yet? If not I can-”

“Don’t worry, Freddy.” Charlie showed hers off. “We’ve got them.”

“Great! I was just about to say that Vanessa can still use the deluxe Pizzaplex entry pass she won during Bonnie’s Best Bowling Brotherhood Bonanza. It never expires! It is only a one-time use item though.”

“Oh yeah!” Vanessa grinned. “I forgot I won that. How’s Bonnie doing anyway?”

For once, Freddy seemed to freeze up, the lights in his eyes dimming, and Charlie felt her stomach drop. She almost thought he would collapse just like he did during his first practice performance a year ago, but he didn’t. In fact, he recovered almost instantly. “Bonnie is alive,” he said. “I put him back together.”

Charlie nodded. “Well, I can’t wait to see him again!” She tried to sound chipper, but even after being away for a year, she still knew Freddy like the back of her hand. Something was definitely wrong.

Freddy didn’t seem to realize she was faking, his cheery self back and brighter than before. “Did the staff bot ask you about the guided tour?”

“Yeah, they- Wait, a staff bot?” Charlie crossed her arms. “Have robots replaced the staff?!”

“Of course not!” Freddy hesitated. “It is complicated. Some positions were given to staff bots. But all of the behind-the-scenes work is still run by actual humans.”

“How did Fazbear Entertainment have the money to make that many robots?” Vanessa asked.

“I am not sure. But I have been told they were quite inexpensive. Anyways!” Freddy clapped his hands together, clearly excited. “Did you pay for the tour?”

“No. It’s way too expensive,” Jessica answered sullenly.

“Well this is perfect!” The bear paused. “Not the expensive part. That is not perfect. But this means I can give you a tour myself! Free of charge! But only if you are all up for it.”

Charlie looked back at the others, seeing the gears turning behind their eyes. “What do y’all think?”

One by one they nodded yes, and as Charlie gave him the thumbs-up Freddy bared his teeth into a grin; in the corner of her eye she saw Jessica flinch. “Wonderful!” he cheered. “Let us hop to it!”

—

The tour was surprisingly okay, all things considered. The atrium was much smaller than the one upstate, about a third of the size, but overall looked exactly the same. What really caught Charlie off-guard the attractions. On the first floor going clockwise there was still Fazer-Blast, Monty Golf, and Roxy Raceway, but something new had joined their ranks. “Funtime Circus features circus-themed kiddie rides and games run by Mangle. It is also home to the Fast Freddy rollercoaster,” Freddy explained.

“Who’s Mangle?” Vanessa asked.

“She is an older animatronic from a location in New Mexico. Her main gimmick is to be a pull-apart-put-back-together animatronic. All of her parts are magnetic and can easily detach and reattach. She is supposed to inspire kids to become mechanics and engineers.”

“And why is she here now?”

The bear shrugged. “I am not sure. She is a bit kooky.”

“I’d be kooky if someone pulled me apart on the daily too,” Jessica said.

Then came the second floor. The Fazcade and Bonnie Bowl were there side-by-side on the left, but to the right was something called Chica’s Kitchen and, to everyone’s surprise, a Foxy-themed area called Captain Foxy’s Seaside Adventure. When prompted Freddy explained, “Chica’s Kitchen is an interactive attraction focused on teaching children how to bake delicious Fazbear-brand treats along with the virtues of patience and fun!”

“And what about the Foxy one?” Carlton asked.

“Captain Foxy’s Seaside Adventure is a dual attraction featuring a themed log ride along with a small aquarium and hourly shows by Foxy.”

Carlton was practically jumping for joy. “I can’t believe they brought Foxy back!” he grinned.

Charlie couldn’t help but feel warm and fuzzy; she knew how Carlton felt. Even if it wasn’t the same Foxy as before, it was still comforting to see some remnant of before. She couldn’t help but think back to the Fredbear sketch she’d drawn up for Henry’s diner.

“It’s just a proposal,” she had told Henry all those months ago, “but what about the name Fredbear’s Family Diner?”

Then she realized, she was a remnant of before too. Her father’s legacy would not be with the costume he was stuffed into, but with her. Same went with her mother. Charlie was the last Afton, and the last Emily.

She shook the thought away. Focus, she scolded herself. You’ve got a mission at hand.

“I cannot forget Rockstar Row of course,” Freddy continued as they headed toward a door labeled PHOTO PASS REQUIRED, sitting almost unnoticeable in the corner next to the Fazcade. “It is an exclusive area… But I promised a good tour! Follow me.”

They went down a rather long flight of stairs, and before they knew it, they were backstage. Charlie saw Vanessa shudder from the corner of her eye; the long, winding halls looked identical to the ones in the old Pizzaplex basement. But eventually, passing by boxes of old parts and damaged furniture, Freddy unlocked another door and they were greeted by a dim, cavernous corridor. The only genuine light poured out of seven rooms carved into the wall, the one thing separating them from the audience their thin glass panes.

“This is Rockstar Row,” Freddy said. “It is an exclusive area featuring meet-and-greets and artifacts from dozens of Fazbear locations. There are rooms for each animatronic: Bonnie, Chica, Roxy, Monty, Foxy, the Mangle, and myself. They are where we rest and recharge.”

“Are we allowed to look around?” Vanessa asked.

Freddy put on a faux-torn look, resting his head in one hand and waving around the other. “I do not know… What a question… Just kidding! Of course you can. But I must get going. The Glamrocks are performing in about eighteen minutes. Use the path we came through whenever you want to leave. The doors only lock from the outside. Bye!”

They all said their goodbyes, but to Charlie’s own surprise she hurried over to him and grabbed his hand. “I’m not sure when I’ll see you again,” she said.

“Why is that?”

“I’m just… Busy.” The lie hurt more than she imagined it would, but it wasn’t like she could tell him everything that was going on. Not here, at least. “But if this is the last time we see each other, just know that you’ve always been a friend. Okay?”

For a moment Freddy just stared at her, and she worried he might be glitching out when he finally replied, “You too, Charlie.”

Then he walked away, looking more sullen than before.

—

It wasn’t long before Charlie and the others headed back upstairs into the atrium, and finding an empty table, they sat down and looked towards the stage. Sure enough, the Glamrock band came out with their instruments one by one, and Charlie’s mind began to wander as she tried to get a better look.

Chica, Roxy, and Monty all looked relatively the same. Chica was still painted that shiny white chrome, dressed in a pink bow and green triangle earrings; Roxy’s green-streaked silver mane contrasted against her grayish-purple coloring, her amber eyes still as piercing as ever; Monty had traded his webbed fingers for sharper claws, but he still had his red mohawk and sunglasses. And she’d already seen Freddy, of course.

What really caught her off-guard was Bonnie. He still looked like the Bonnie she knew before- baby-blue coloring, purple headband, that dopey little tuft of hair- but there was something deeply wrong about him. He walked with a slight limp, and his mouth hung open like a zombie. Even stranger, they had changed his eye color from a pinkish-red to a brilliant violet.

Then it hit her. “Vanessa,” Charlie whispered, “Bonnie’s got the virus.”

Vanessa sat up straight. “Shit, you’re right. That’s why Freddy was acting so weird… How much do you think he knows?”

“He probably doesn’t know the truth, but he definitely suspects something.”

“Poor guy,” Carlton said. “How close are Freddy and Bonnie anyway?”

Charlie and Vanessa gave each other a rather hopeless look. “Well, it’s a bit complicated,” Vanessa sighed. “Officially, there isn’t supposed to be any particularly close relationships between any of the animatronics, but those two broke that boundary on day one.”

A giddy smile crept up across Carlton’s face. “Are they like me?” he whispered.

“Again, officially, no. But you want our opinion?” Vanessa leaned forward. “Of course they are! For God’s sake, in the old band introductions, Bonnie was called a ‘loyal lover boy’ and he did a little twirl with Freddy! You should’ve seen them at the old Pizzaplex!”

“They bickered like an old married couple,” Charlie chuckled.

“Huh.” Carlton tried to hide his excitement. “Interesting.”

“Interesting indeed.” The whole table whipped around to see Jeremy standing there, still as a statue. He was so close that Charlie could see every imperfection; the brown roots of his bleached hair, the fleshy scar cutting across the corner of his mouth, everything. In fact, she couldn’t help but notice he seemed to be wearing makeup, not to make himself prettier but to cover something up. Faintly, three lines scrawled up from the scratch across his lips, over his unfocused eye, and further under his slicked-back hair.

Jeremy narrowed his purple gaze. “What are you looking at?”

“You, dipshit,” she snapped back.

The man looked over at the others. “Vanessa and Carlton, long time no see. And you two must be Charlotte and Jessica?”

“It’s Charlie.”

“Hm. Of course. So, how are you four enjoying our new location?”

“We haven’t seen enough to make a true judgment,” Jessica answered, unnaturally calm. “What about you, Burrows? What do you think of this place?”

Immediately Jeremy stiffened. “My name’s not Burrows.”

“Henry said otherwise,” Jessica said, standing up. “Your real name is Jeremy Burrows. You’re the son of an old Fazbear board member. You got Fitzgerald from your mother’s old maiden name. Only you aren’t the real Jeremy, are you?”

Charlie watched as Jessica and Jeremy stared each other down, the tension thick in the curdling air. “I should’ve killed Henry first,” Jeremy finally snarled.

The four of them froze. “What the hell are you talking about?” Charlie asked.

“I’ve already won, y’know,” he whispered, his voice raspy. “You may have killed the original body… But evil never dies, does it?” He looked right at Charlie as he pulled a small vial from his pocket and slid it over to her, full of a familiar white powder. Cyanide. “You should know that more than anyone, Charlotte.”

The table fell silent, and Charlie felt every ounce of warmth drain from her body as she stared at the tiny flask. “How?” she asked.

Jeremy chuckled. “Think, Charlotte. I know you’ve got some brains. You inherited them from me, after all.” Then he said a quick goodbye, turned around, and wandered off back into the crowd.

Vanessa looked at Charlie, eyes wide. “Jen?”

Charlie couldn’t bear to answer. Then, all at once, their phones started buzzing. ‘DONALD BROOKS FOUND DEAD IN OWN HOME,’ a new notification read. ‘THIRD SUSPECTED ROBBERY GONE WRONG IN WASHINGTON COUNTY AREA.’

—

“I thought Jen was possessing that rabbit suit you guys found,” Carlton said as they hiked the same trail Charlie and Vanessa had taken on their date. “How can she be possessing multiple bodies at once?”

“Don’t know.” Charlie glanced over at him, the wind whistling as they climbed higher and higher. “I can’t believe I haven’t asked already, I guess it just slipped my mind. You can hear ghosts. Have you heard anything interesting lately? Something that could help us out a little?”

Carlton looked down, kicking up dust. “Don’t be mad.”

“You can’t hear them anymore?” Vanessa asked.

“I haven’t heard anything in months. That whole ability was linked to having a part of John’s soul inside of me, so maybe when he passed on so did the power?”

“Maybe it’s not the power that’s gone.” Jessica rolled her shoulders, trying to loosen up. “Maybe it’s the ghosts.”

“Like there was a mass exodus or something?” Charlie asked. “Is that even a thing that can happen?”

“Never heard of it,” Carlton answered.

“Just because we haven’t heard of it doesn’t mean it can’t happen,” Vanessa said. “I mean, we’ve seen way crazier.”

“Fair,” Charlie shrugged. “Or maybe something- or someone- took all the ghosts. Jen knew how to take parts of people’s souls to make remnant, it wouldn’t be that far of a stretch to say she could’ve taken other people’s ghosts and used them to power all the stuff in the Pizzaplex.”

Carlton grimaced. “God, I hope that’s not it.”

“The real question is,” Jessica said, “how did Jen’s corpse get in the rabbit suit?” Everyone went silent. “No one has a theory?”

“We can probably just chalk it up to more ghost magic shit,” Charlie sighed. “Like how Fredbear could teleport and heal people and stuff.”

“Yeah,” Vanessa said. “How come he could do that but none of the other ghosts could?”

“Ghost magic shit. Try not to think about it.”

Finally, they reached the patch of land where Charlie and Vanessa had been attacked, and the mechanic led the way through the dry undergrowth. Dead leaves left an obvious path, and soon enough a strange lump in the dirt appeared just ahead. It looked like a grave.

“Jessica, do you remember when we went to Jen’s old property in Silver Reef?” Charlie asked.

“Of course.”

“Outside there was a little pile of dirt, just like this. You said you saw something moving underneath. Carlton, that cop said there was a weird burial site outside Betty’s house. And didn’t that article about Ralph say there was something strange in his backyard too?”

“It was just a weird pile of dirt,” he answered. “Like a grave.”

Jessica’s eyes lit up. “Ralph’s body had dirt all over it too.”

Charlie gestured at the pile in front of them. “And this must have been where the rabbit came from when it attacked us. Something similar’s probably around Mr. Brooks’s house too, even if it hadn’t been reported on. Each attack only happened at night, and you would think if there really was a rabbit suit walking around, more people would’ve noticed, right? But no one has. Ralph, Betty, and Mr. Brooks’s deaths were all labelled as robberies gone wrong, not targeted murders. I think Jen has been possessing the rabbit suit at night and burying it next to the property of her next target in the morning, or somewhere she knows well enough, like her old house. She’s killing people who she thinks could be threats to Fazbear’s reputation.”

“No offense,” Jessica said, “but how could two middle-aged men and Carlton’s crazy-ass mom be threats to Fazbear Entertainment?”

“Ralph saw the damaged Glamrocks and was obviously trying to make a fuss about them to the police, so she probably thought he might go public about it. Mr. Brooks hated Fazbear’s, and she knew he would try to give the new Pizzaplex a bad name. And maybe Jen thought of Betty as a friend and felt betrayed that she thought she was really dead.”

Carlton’s face fell. “That definitely sounds like Betty… And I saw Jeremy during my interview a few nights ago! He wasn’t possessed, his eyes weren’t purple. Jen’s only controlling him during the day.”

“Exactly,” Charlie said. “And that’s why Carlton’s new night guard gig at the Pizzaplex is so important. Carlton, you need to find out as much about Jeremy as possible. How Jen has control of him in the first place, any weaknesses he might know of, everything.”

“You’ve got this all planned out, don’t you?” Jessica smirked.

“I’ve been thinking about it ever since we left the Pizzaplex. And Carlton’s not the only one with a role here either, we all do. Jessica, I need you to track the rabbit suit’s movements and locations. We need to prevent as many murders as possible. Vanessa, you know the Glamrocks better than any of us.”

The blonde did a so-so motion with her hand. “You knew Freddy and Bonnie pretty well too, y’know.”

“But that’s the thing, I don’t have much insight on the other three. You do. You’ve been hanging out with them since day one at the old location. If Freddy can remember us, I’m sure the others can too. You need to find that old entry pass and get as much intel as you can. Try to interact with the new robots too if you can. See who’s a threat and who isn’t.”

“And what about you?” Carlton asked.

Charlie cracked her knuckles. “I think it’s about time I try to find Jen’s old research, huh?”

Chapter Text

Artificial light buzzed through the tender flesh of Henry’s eyelids as he suddenly heard Carlton say, his voice tinny in the jail’s echoing halls, “It’s my first shift tonight.”

Henry shot up from his rock-hard mattress. “Carlton! How are you doing? Are you okay?”

“I’m doing fine, the girls are keeping a close eye on me.” Carlton tried to smile as Henry hurried over, stumbling over his own feet as he reached out through the bars. “I’m more worried about you. Jessica was in here once, and she wasn’t exactly positive about the whole thing.”

“Why was Jessica here?”

“Clay, that’s why.”

Henry shook his head. “How did you live with that bastard for so long?”

“I had to. That’s all there is to it… But I got my revenge.” Carlton examined his robotic arm, and Henry wondered morbidly what it was like to kill; to feel blood splatter across your face and know that blood helped create you.

He shook it off. Clay deserved it. Carlton got his heaven, and Clay got his hell.

“It’s okay in here,” Henry said. “The food’s not great, but the other guys in here are surprisingly okay. Lots of petty crimes. The officers are… Oh, nevermind. You said your first shift’s today?”

“Yep.”

Carlton told him about the Pizzaplex and Jeremy and everything else, and Henry couldn’t help but feel slightly relieved knowing that wasn’t really Jeremy he’d yelled at on opening day. But that relief didn’t last long. “God, I can’t imagine what it would be like, having to live in the passenger’s seat all day.”

“Well, that’s what I’m hoping to find out.”

“Promise you’ll try to help him?”

“Dad, you know me. Of course I will… Crap, I gotta go. I’ll see you soon, okay?”

The two said their goodbyes, and as Henry watched him disappear around the corner, he couldn’t help but feel proud of his son.

—

“Do you think you’re still immune?”

Charlie glanced over at Vanessa, the vial of cyanide Jeremy gave her cradled carefully between two fingers. “Huh?”

“William burnt away the part of Jen’s soul inside you last year. If that piece of yourself is gone, do you think the cyanide immunity is too?”

Charlie pocketed the vial as she got comfortable on Vanessa’s couch, laying her head on the blonde’s shoulder. The place was just as disorganized as it had been before, old Fazbear paperwork and blueprints strewn everywhere. A vase full of sunflowers sat in the corner, wilting. “I’m not sure,” she answered, “but I’m gonna look into it. Just don’t stress about it, okay?”

“I’m trying, I’m trying. It’s hard not to though.”

“I know.” Charlie waved around the television remote. “Now, which movie do you wanna watch tonight?”

“I don’t really wanna watch anything. I just wanna talk.” As Charlie put the remote down, Vanessa asked, “Did I ever tell you what the doctors said, when you were in the hospital?”

“Not really. I didn’t know there was anything to say in the first place.”

“They said you were healing way faster than you should’ve. And when you got back up and attacked Jen that night… It wasn’t fully you. It didn’t look like it, at least. Your eyes were just pitch black, the only thing left these little white pinpoints of light. It was like you’d been possessed. You were only rage.” She hesitated. “You looked the same as you did when William revived you.”

Charlie felt an icy chill creep up her spine. Her eyes, black with little white pinpricks… That description wasn’t too far off from how the Freddy’s animatronics looked when they were angry. “That’s… That’s strange. I’m sorry if I’d scared you.”

“You didn’t scare me. I just wonder, what if being revived gave you more power than anyone else has ever seen? You weren’t revived like Carlton was with remnant. The dead had to save the dying. Don’t you think that had to have some effect?”

“I guess so.” Charlie sat up straight. “But do I deserve that kind of power in the first place?”

“I’d say so. Why?”

“Because I may be my father’s daughter, but I’m my mother’s mirror too.”

“But that’s the thing. You’re her mirror. Mirrors show the reverse, not the same.”

“But they show you who you are nevertheless.”

“Charlie.” Suddenly Vanessa’s voice hardened, and as the mechanic turned her head, the blonde kissed her. The moment passed, and as Charlie sat there, dumbstruck, Vanessa asked, “Would I kiss you if you were like Jen? Would I have even considered you a friend when we first met?” Charlie couldn’t manage an answer, still in awe. “The answer’s no, Charlie.”

“I love you,” Charlie breathed.

“I love you too.” Again, Vanessa kissed her, and this time Charlie didn’t just sit there. She kissed back.

—

As the moon hung high in the night sky above, Carlton was surprised to see another staff bot waiting for him in the lobby, holding a security badge in one hand and a lanyard in the other. “I have been assigned to lead you to your office,” the robot said, shoving the items toward him. “Take these. They are now your responsibility.”

“Okay…?” Cautiously, Carlton followed the bot through the lobby and into the atrium. “Where’s my office?”

“Underneath Rockstar Row. More information will be communicated to you via the business phone in your office.” Using his new security badge to access Rockstar Row, Carlton watched as the bot stopped at the top of the stairs. “I am incapable of following you. These stairs do not feature escalators.”

“Then what was the point of you coming all the way here in the first place?” Carlton asked.

“Observation.” Leaving Carlton utterly confused, the bot sped away out of sight, and he began his descent.

Entering Rockstar Row, he suddenly became aware of how much darker the Pizzaplex was at night. Most of the lights were off, leaving only the dim buzz of neon decorations and the angry glow of emergency exit signs. Flicking on his phone’s flashlight, he froze as he noticed the animatronic’s green rooms nearby. Inside each of them, a robot stood empty-eyed in a charging pod, looking more lifeless than even the old Freddy’s robots. But still, it felt like they were staring at him…

Shaking off the feeling, Carlton made his way to the opposite end of the hall and through a door labelled SECURITY OFFICE ONE. He sprinted down another corridor of stairs, and through a hefty metal door he found himself in the smallest office he’d ever seen.

The room, made of raw concrete and stone, was about half the size of the one from Freddy’s, and had more the appearance of a storage closet than anything else. There was the usual decor: a plain steel desk, a fan, the company phone, two rather sleek-looking monitors and corresponding keyboard, and a few employee manuals. Oddly enough though, opposite of the door sat a barred vent large enough for a human to crawl through. Or an animatronic, he thought, remembering how different the Glamrocks looked from the older models. They were slim and moved with ease, almost as if they were just humans in costumes.

Shutting the door behind him and checking the desk drawers for anything useful, he felt himself flinch as the company phone began to ring, a shrill noise grinding on his inner ear. Immediately he picked up. “Hello?”

“You’re Carlton, right?”

Carlton felt his heart drop. Not only was that Jeremy’s voice on the other end, but he recognized his name too. He hadn’t turned on the illusion disc. “No,” he tried to lie, his voice cracking. “My name’s Everest Larson.”

“C’mon man, I know that’s bullshit. I saw you on the cameras during your interview. You’re Carlton Goodman.”

His heart skipped a beat as a thought came to him: does the disc not work on cameras…? “Fine. Whatever. I’m Carlton. And are you really Jeremy? How’d you know to call me right when I got here anyways?”

“There’s a camera in your office.” Carlton looked around and spotted it instantly, its red light blinking steadily back at him. “I’m in the second security office at Captain Foxy’s.”

“You didn’t answer my first question.” Carlton pulled out Jessica’s pistol; she’d let him borrow it for the night. “Are you really Jeremy?”

“Would you believe me if I said yes?”

“Maybe. I wanna see you first, make sure you aren’t possessed.”

There was a long, static-filled silence, and Carlton was shocked to hear Jeremy’s voice turn from a brooding seriousness to something much less performative. He almost sounded normal, for once. “Fine, I’ll come over to Rockstar Row, just put the pistol away. Please.”

“Hm? No, nu-uh. You could ambush me. You said your office was in Foxy’s attraction, right?”

“Captain Foxy’s Seaside Adventure, yeah.”

“I’m coming to you, alright? Stand outside your office and wait for me to see you. If you take one step closer than I like, I’m not afraid to use force.”

“I-I know. Very well.” Carlton regretted his words immediately; Jeremy sounded actually scared.

“I’m not gonna hurt you,” he tried to course-correct. “Not unless you try to hurt me. I’ll see you there.”

“My office’s at the end of the aquarium.”

“...Thanks.” And with that, Carlton hung up.

—

Charlie had another nightmare.

She was standing in the middle of a lifeless arcade, one not unlike the old Fazcade. It had been significantly downgraded and kiddified, no second floor in sight let alone a bar or gambling section. The walls were lined with arcade machines, snaking through the rest of the room like flashy, noisy dividers. A small stage sat in the corner, unused and pristine; Charlie assumed it was for amateur karaoke.

Looking around, she spotted what appeared to be an angel’s wing slip behind a row of machines. “What the hell…?” She chuckled nervously at her word choice and hurried after whatever she saw.

Turning corner after corner, Charlie stumbled back as she was suddenly blinding by flashing lights. Squinting, she could make out what appeared to be a photo booth-like attraction, about twice the size of a closet and covered in light strips. A neon sign hung on its side, reading in an overbearing purple, BLAST TO THE PAST!: FAZBEAR’S ONE AND ONLY VR ATTRACTION!

The curtain on the side of the booth ruffled, dove-like feathers poking out, and immediately Charlie leapt inside. She blinked, and-

Charlie froze. Inside, a guy her age sat twitching and spazzing, a VR headset stuck to his face as he hacked up blood. It took her a moment to realize who it was: Jeremy.

He must have sensed her as soon as she came in. Whipping around, Jeremy blindly swung his arms, looking for something, anything, to cling to. “Help me!” he cried. “Please, help me!”

Then everything went black.

—

Jessica knew she was supposed to be looking for any strange burials around town, but she couldn’t help but throw herself into something a little extra. Jeremy was obviously possessed by Jen at some point in the last year, she thought as she cracked open her laptop, but how?

Henry had mentioned Jeremy came downstate to work for Silver Parasol Games, she remembered. That’s at least one place to start.

It only took one Google search and Jessica was bombarded by more than enough information to sink her teeth into. ‘Silver Parasol Games was a video game production company open from 1999 to 2030 that specialized in arcade machines and VR technology,’ the top search read. ‘Only a year and a half after being bought out by media conglomerate Fazbear Entertainment, the company faced the ultimate tragedy when a fire consumed the studio’s main office building, causing a technical malfunction which locked all employees inside and caused mass casualties. Foul play was suspected at first, but ruled out due to a lack of suspects and inability to identify many of the bodies inside the crime scene.’

Jessica grimaced and kept scrolling. She’d found her lead.

—

Stepping inside Foxy’s attraction, Carlton was immediately hit by how cold it was. The air reeked of chlorine and hydraulic fluid, and the carpet felt strangely squishy. A few rows of tables and a small stage sat under humming neon, and to his left and right were the aquarium and log ride respectively. Colorful fish danced across the winding walls of the labyrinth as Carlton kept moving, and he swore he could’ve heard a splash close nearby as he continued. But when he looked, he was still alone; just him and the fish.

Jeremy was waiting outside his office like he promised. Under the swimming lights, Carlton couldn’t help but notice how strange he looked, at least compared to the other times he’d seen him. He had swapped out his suit and tie for a black jacket with red linings and jeans, and his hair gel had been painstakingly washed out, leaving behind a mess of curls. Clearest of all was his eyes, a painterly blue compared to the old eye-bleeding purple.

His heart ached as he noticed the familiar fleshy pink of scar tissue running across Jeremy’s face. Three lines stretched out across the left side of his face, clawing at the corner of his lips and under his hair, and the focus in one eye was noticeably shot compared to the other.

Jeremy smiled shyly, the cut across his mouth becoming more pronounced. “You made it.”

“Yeah.” Carlton was surprised by the gentleness in his own voice, and slowly he pocketed Jessica’s pistol and rolled up his sleeve, showing off his robotic arm. Jeremy immediately backed up, fear sparking in his eyes, and Carlton held up both hands. “I’m not gonna hurt you. I just…”

Awkwardly, the redhead traced over his own face like the scars on Jeremy’s, and the blonde let out a mix between a sigh and a chuckle. “You wanted to show off how much cooler your scars are, huh?”

“No. Just some camaraderie." Carlton rolled his sleeve back down. “Let’s just start over. I’m Carlton Goodman, but you already knew that.”

“Oh, uh, well. I’m Jeremy. Jeremy… Fitzgerald. Jeremy Burrows works too, but…”

“Got a preference?”

“I think you can figure that out.”

“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Jeremy Fitzgerald.” Carlton held out his hand, and hesitantly Jeremy shook it, quick as to make sure the redhead couldn’t reel him in too close. “The real you. Not the asshole I’d met before.”

“Heh, yeah.” The two stood around, waiting for the other to do or say something, and finally Jeremy opened the door into his office. “Want some coffee?”

“What’s the catch?”

“I don’t know. What’s yours?”

“I wanna know what’s up with this place, and I definitely wanna know what’s up with you and Jen. And I wanna save you from whatever the hell she’s done to you.”

Jeremy stared at him, almost unbelieving. “Is that really the truth?”

“This town may be a shithole, but it’s my shithole. And whether or not you like it, once someone comes here, they don’t usually leave. You’re a part of Hurricane now. And I wanna save my town. Please, you just gotta trust me.” He paused. “I killed my father, for this town.”

“...Okay. Come in. I’ll tell you everything I can.”

As Carlton walked inside, he couldn’t help but ask, “Seriously though, what’s your catch?”

“I just need someone to listen.”

Chapter Text

“I’m sorry about your mom.”

Carlton took a long sip of his coffee, trying to ignore the lump in his throat. “She was a shitty person anyways,” he said, waving Jeremy off.

Jeremy cocked his head. “I know. But it still hurts, doesn’t it?” When Carlton just stared at him he continued, “I mean, my dad was awful, don’t get me wrong, but it still hurt when he died. Just because someone hurt you doesn’t mean there weren’t still good times.”

Slowly Carlton nodded; he wasn’t wrong. Maybe I should’ve visited her at least once, he thought, but immediately rejected it. It was too late to do anything about it anyways.

“I’m sorry about your dad too,” the redhead mumbled.

Jeremy shrugged. “I know he was at your dad’s party… Can I ask how he died?”

“Foxy.” Carlton didn’t hesitate. “He was the first animatronic to break in. He ripped his face off with his bare teeth.”

To his surprise, Jeremy didn’t even flinch. “Well, the coroner’s photos make a lot more sense now.”

Carlton laughed sharply, the sentiment catching him off-guard. “I guess I don’t need to explain everything that happened last year, given Jen probably already told you?”

“Yep. I took her side of the story with a grain of salt, of course.”

Carlton nodded, and as he looked around he couldn’t help but think about how much nicer Jeremy’s office was. It was about twice the size of his own, the walls a blinding white and the tile floor spotless. On his sleek metal desk sat a bobblehead for each of the Pizzaplex animatronics aside from Mangle. She was the only robot he hadn’t seen yet, not even on a poster, and he couldn’t help but wonder how, well, mangled she really was.

“So,” Carlton finally asked, “where should we start?”

“What?”

“You promised you’d tell me everything. Where should we start?”

“That’s more of a loaded question than you think, y’know.” Jeremy stared down at his reflection in the tile, unblinking. “It started on my sixteenth birthday.”

—

THREE YEARS EARLIER…

“Dude, don’t you remember that one scene in Freddy and Friends?! It’s, like, burned into my brain!” Jeremy pulled out his phone and typed as fast as he could with his clumsy fingers, blabbering, “It’s the scene after Sparky tries to kill the whole group, but Freddy just-”

“Jeremy, how many times have you watched that thing?” Fritz asked, switching between his regular glasses and sunglasses.

“Uh… A lot. It’s a good movie!”

“No one’s denying that,” Gregory said, “but we do have to actually discuss, y’know, club activities. You're the club president for a reason.”

Jeremy sighed, looking at the five faces staring back at him around the rickety round table. The smell of dusty books and cheap cafeteria food wafted through the tiny school library, only held down by the oppressive heat of the Salt Lake City sun. “Right, right, fine. Let’s take a vote. Who wants to discuss the club activity checklist?”

Everyone but Jeremy raised their hand. “Okay,” he frowned, putting away his phone and pulling out a crowded notebook. “Where is it… Ah, here we go! The Fazbear Club checklist!” He cleared his throat dramatically and read, “As president of School District 1073’s Fazbear Club, I declare that our mission is to spread Fazbear Entertainment’s joy to the rest of our student body, promoting the company’s greatest values: hard work, teamwork, and most of all, friendship! Each Fazbear Club is assigned to host at least one school-wide activity that portrays these values. And under the ideas list, we have a Fazbear-themed bake sale…”

“That’s me,” Susie giggled, her blonde pigtail buns bouncing with her head.

“We’re aware,” Cassidy said from the opposite side of the table, impatiently drumming her fingers. Her nails, sharp as claws and painted a vibrant green, nearly dug into the wood as she did.

Susie glared at her. “Now why’d you have to say it like that?”

“It’s a dumb idea, okay? Nobody goes to bake sales anymore!”

Thankfully, before the two began to squabble, Gabriel clapped his hands together. “C’mon now, what did Jeremy just say about our values? Teamwork? Does friendship ring a bell?”

Cassidy started to mouth off, but she took a deep breath and said, “You’re right. Sorry, Suze. It’s been a long day.”

“It’s okay.” It never failed to astound Jeremy how fast Susie would forgive anyone. “You didn’t mean it.”

“Continuing on with the proposed ideas,” Jeremy said, “Cassidy and Fritz both suggested we host some sort of musical event, Gregory and Gabriel a school dance, and I didn’t really have any ideas, so… Yeah.”

“Should we do another vote like last time?” Susie asked.

“Depends. Has anyone changed their minds on what they’re voting for?” Everyone shook their heads. “Well, that’s the thing. Everyone’s only voting for their own ideas, and that leaves us with a tie between the musical event and the dance. Unless Susie votes for something other than the bake sale, of course.”

“Why can’t you be the tie-breaker vote, Jeremy?” Fritz asked, finally settling on wearing his sunglasses. They were star-shaped and probably his most prized possession, even if he couldn’t actually see through them; Cassidy had gifted them to him as a gag gift. The swooning was overwhelmingly one-sided, to say the least.

Gregory opened his mouth before Jeremy even had the chance. “The club president can’t vote on anything. It’s the cost of having all the other powers he does.”

“Then how come the vice president can vote?” Cassidy narrowed her eyes.

“Greg is merely a second-in-command,” Gabriel said, again trying to keep the peace. Although it was rather difficult to not laugh at his attempts once anyone saw all the rabbit stickers he had plastered on everything: his computer, his schedule, even his first-place bowling trophy. “He doesn’t have any powers like Jeremy does.”

“One of these days you’re gonna have to let Greg defend himself,” Cassidy said, crossing her arms. “Aren’t those in power supposed to defend their actions themselves?”

“In the old world maybe,” Fritz snorted.

Jeremy was about to chime in when the sound of a slamming door interrupted them. The six of them looked over and saw none other than Mr. Burrows walking towards them, his face scrunched in annoyance.

“Hi Mr. Burrows.” There was an obvious quiver in Gregory’s voice. “Do you need something?”

“Cut the meeting short Jeremy, we’ve got an appointment.” Mr. Burrows completely ignored Gregory as he slammed Jeremy’s notebook closed and grabbed his wrist. As Jeremy attempted to protest, he dragged him away, saying, “This is the most important meeting you’ll ever have! Stop squirming!”

“Greg!” Jeremy strayed from his father as best as he could, but it was no use. “Please get them to agree on something! Text me the results!”

“Okay!” The library door slammed once more, and Jeremy didn’t get to hear Gregory call out, “Happy birthday!”

—

Mr. Burrows barely spoke a word to Jeremy as his private driver sped through the busy city streets. He couldn’t even look his son in the eye. After twenty minutes his father finally asked, “Has the club decided on an event yet?”

Jeremy froze. “No.”

“Why the hell not? You’re running out of time, the school year’ll be over before you know it.” Mr. Burrows adjusted his cufflinks. “The club is a test in your leadership capabilities. One day, you’ll be wearing my suit, and you’ll have to fend for yourself. You can’t be a sissy your whole life.”

His father was met with silence; Jeremy knew better than to argue. He’d already told him many times he didn’t want to be a businessman, but it hadn’t exactly gotten him anywhere.

“We’re meeting with Jen Emily,” his father continued. “I convinced her you could be her temporary assistant until the end of the summer. Unless she really wants to keep you around, of course. But she said she wanted to meet you before she makes anything permanent. To make sure you’re capable.” He glared down at Jeremy. “Don’t fuck this up.”

“Yes sir.”

“And don’t call me sir. Makes you sound like a brown-noser.”

It wasn’t long before they reached the local Fazbear representative office, which compared to others across the state was much more profound. It had three stories and was the cleanest building among the block, each office inhabited by HR employees who were always as nervous as you were. It made sense, given the types of complaints Fazbear Entertainment usually got: why was the pizza served at one location moldy, why are the animatronics at another location broken down, etc. And Jeremy knew they weren’t allowed to say anything bad about the company.

Heading up to the third floor, Jeremy was surprised to see an anxious employee waiting outside the elevator for them. “Welcome Mr. Burrows, and other Mr. Burrows,” she said, voice unsteady as she held out her hand. “Ms. Emily requested I lead you to her office.”

“Why thank-” Mr. Burrows went to shake her hand and immediately recoiled. “Jesus! Did you just dive in a pool or something?”

“No, Mr. Burrows. I just get sweaty when I’m nervous. I apologize.”

“Good God, get the hell outta my sight before I fire you myself.” Without warning he spit out his gum and handed it to the poor woman, her eyes watering with embarrassment. “And go throw that away, you good-for-nothing leper.”

“Y-Yes, Mr. Burrows.” As his father dragged him away, Jeremy could’ve sworn he heard the woman begin to sob.

Barging into Jen’s office, Mr. Burrows’s demeanor changed in an instant. “Jenny, it’s so nice to see you! How have you been?”

Jen raised an eyebrow, barely fazed as she sat cross-legged behind her desk. Everything was perfectly tidy, not a paper or pen out of place, and even the Freddy and Bonnie bobbleheads were perfectly lined up. Strangely enough, Freddy and Bonnie were painted gold, and next to them was a nurse-looking character Jeremy didn’t recognize. “You were just here, Hunter. Nothing’s changed.” She leaned forward, her silvery eyes piercing Jeremy’s soul. “Now, you must be my new assistant candidate I’ve been hearing all about. Jeremy, yes?”

“Yes ma’am.”

Mr. Burrows shot him a look as Jen smirked. “Hunter, don’t look at him like that. I prefer being called ma’am. Now, would you leave the two of us alone please?”

“Of course.” It was an honest surprise seeing his father so immediately obedient, and Jeremy found himself hiding a smile as he left.

“That must’ve been the first time you saw him like that, yes?” Jeremy immediately threw on his best poker face, but Jen simply laughed and went to lock the door. “I saw that smirk, Jeremy. You’ve only known Hunter as some bossy asshole, I’m sure. And it’s always entertaining to see bossy assholes fold so quickly.” Jeremy nodded, and then raised his hand. “Just ask your question. This isn’t a classroom.”

“I don’t recognize the bobbleheads. Are those new characters?”

“Oh no, they’re quite the opposite. These bobbleheads are older than your mother. But I guess that isn’t shocking. Your father likes them young.” When Jeremy got a horrified look on his face she clarified, “No, not like that. I have standards for my employees, for God’s sake.”

Jeremy let out a sigh of relief, but it wasn’t long before the nerves returned. “How much do you know about my dad?”

Jen chuckled. “More than anyone ever will. In fact, I probably know more about you than you do yourself.”

“What? No way. Prove it.”

“Alright.” The CEO pulled her hair back into a bun as she rattled off dozens of different things. “Starting with the obvious, you’re Jeremy Scott Burrows, the only child of Hunter Davis Burrows and Selena Marie Fitzgerald. You turned sixteen today at 1:35 A.M. on May 23rd, and your astrological sign is Gemini. You’re the president of School District 1073’s Fazbear Club, a role your father forced you to take, and your closest friends are Gregory Goodman and Gabriel Holland, the former of which is your vice president.”

“Ma’am, no offense, but my dad could’ve told you all of that.”

“You want me to go right for the kill then? Alright.” Jen leaned forward, a dark spark in her eyes. “Your search history is relatively mundane during the day, but during the late night starting around eleven o’clock, midnight, and even one o’clock on occasion, you enjoy browsing more… Well, how do I say this without being vulgar? Let’s just say you-”

“Woah, nuh-uh! Stop it!” Jeremy sat there, dumbfounded as Jen stared smugly at him. “Don’t expose me! …How did you know that?”

“I’ve been developing a new AI for the Pizzaplex. I’m aiming to make an AI that can create the perfect experience for each individual customer, but in order to do that I have to feed it a whole lot of data. And all that data, good, bad, and everything in-between, goes to me.” Jen winked. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell your parents. It stays between us. Unless, of course, there’s something less positive about my company you’d like to say?”

“No! Of course not, ma’am.”

“Now that’s the answer I wanted to hear. Now, Jeremy, I already know you’d make perfect assistant material. You’re respectful, a team player. A bit naive, but we can work on that. And you know how to keep a secret.”

“How do you know that?”

“There’s an anonymous Reddit post that leads right back to you, asking what to do if you saw your father beating your mother. A day after that, you looked up how to cover bruises with makeup. Can I guess what happened there, see if I’m right?” Hesitantly, Jeremy nodded. “Your father found your post somehow, and he beat you too. He swore you to secrecy, to never speak about what happens inside your home ever again. So you went the extra mile out of fear. You not only never told a soul, you looked for a way to cover it up. You even realized after watching your mother that the best way to hide it is with makeup. Am I correct?”

The room went silent.

“Yes.” Jeremy’s voice was merely a squeak, his face pale as snow.

“And you’re great at it. I wouldn’t have even noticed it on you now if I hadn’t leaned forward to get a better look at you.” As he began to quietly weep, she wiped away his tears, smirking, “Don’t cry. That’ll ruin the makeup.”

“I’m trying!” he snapped through gritted teeth.

“Hey now, let’s not get pissy here. Again, you’d be my perfect assistant. And in return for your work, I’ll not only pay you, but offer you some protection. No man beats their child outside the privacy of their own home, after all. So, what do you say?” She held out her hand, her palms hardened and calloused. “Are you in?”

Jeremy didn’t feel like he had another choice. Jen knew all his secrets, and his dad would definitely beat the shit out of him if he didn’t take the job. So, he took her hand. “Yeah. Let’s do it.”

“Wonderful!” They shook on it, and as Jen handed over the paperwork she asked, “You know what’s the best about keeping secrets, Jeremy?”

“What?”

“Nobody believes the truth when you tell them. They just think it’s another lie, until it’s too late. Just keep that in mind.”

“...Of course, ma’am.”

—

No one celebrated Jeremy’s new position. It surprised him that his father wasn’t more excited, to be honest. Maybe it was just another thing to mark off on his mental checklist. Either way, the car ride home ended the same way it always did: Mr. Burrows gave his driver their address, he dropped Jeremy off on the sidewalk, and then sped away for another meeting.

Walking inside, the smell of warm vanilla hit him like a truck, and as he closed the door behind him he heard his mother holler from the kitchen, “Is that you, Jeremy?”

“Yeah.” He didn’t even stop in his room to drop off his stuff, rushing over and hugging her. “I’m home.”

“Oh- Sweetheart, what’s going on? Are you okay?” His mother ran her hands through his hair, and he was close enough to feel the grainy texture of flour on her apron, her clothes smeared with it.

Jeremy told her about the meeting; not every detail of course, just the general outline. A look of disgust fell across her face, and she pulled him into another hug as she whispered, “I’m sorry your dad puts so much pressure on you, and I’m sorry Ms. Emily wasn’t very nice. But all we can do is just brush it off, okay?”

“I know.” Glancing up at his mother, he couldn’t help but feel a little better knowing he looked more like her. Lucious brown curls fell down her back, her small mouth curved into a patient smile. There was just a bit of pink in her face, a permanent blush that nothing could replace, and her eyes were as deep and blue as the fading sky. “Thanks, Mom.”

“It’s alright, sweetheart.” Pulling away, she pointed at the oven. “You like vanilla cake, right?”

Jeremy broke into a grin. “You’re making a cake?!”

“Yep. Just for the two of us.”

But as she checked on the cake, Jeremy suddenly felt his phone buzzing in his pocket. He’d gotten a text from Gregory. ‘Gabe, my dad, and I are going bowling tonight, wanna come? We’ll pick you up and get you the birthday discount.’

“Let me guess,” Jeremy’s mom said. “Gregory?”

“Yeah. Says he’s going out to the bowling alley with Gabe.”

“Will Mr. Goodman be there?” Jeremy nodded. “Then you should go out with them.”

“But what about the cake?”

“The cake isn’t going anywhere, and neither am I. Plus, it’ll be good for you to go out with your friends!”

“...Okay, if you say so.” Jeremy texted Gregory back as fast as he could, and as the message sent, he shot his mom another smile. “I love you, Mom.”

“I love you too, Jeremy.”

—

“Long time no see, Jeremy!” As he hopped into the back seat of Mr. Goodman’s van next to Gabriel, Henry looked over at him and asked, “How’s your birthday been? The big sixteen!”

“It’s been alright,” he shrugged. “I mean, I’m a year older. Not that big of a deal.”

“But it is! You only turn sixteen once.” Henry adjusted the rearview mirror. “Now buckle up, ‘cause it’s time to party!”

They cheered, and as Gregory and Gabriel pumped their fists in the air along with the music on the radio, Jeremy couldn’t help but realize how much of a spitting image Gregory was of his dad. He had the same well-combed chocolate hair, and his olive eyes were only a shade away from being an exact match. Even stranger, ever since Gregory hit his growth spurt, he was actually taller than his dad.

Gabriel was about the same as Gregory in height, but different in absolutely every other way. His blonde hair stuck out in dopey-looking tufts no matter how much he tried to comb it, and his amber eyes were always bloodshot from late nights trying to catch up on homework. Late nights were really the only time he gave himself to do it, his days spent endlessly honing his craft at the bowling alley. He practically lived there.

And of course, once they actually got there, it took only a few good rolls for Gabriel to be in the lead. “Can’t you ever go easy on us?” Gregory asked as Henry left for the restroom.

Gabriel smirked. “I’m the damn bowling master! How dare you suggest I dull down my skills!” he said faux-dramatically, doing a little twirl.

Jeremy tried to laugh, but he didn’t have it in him to make it sound genuine. The other two noticed immediately. “Jeremy? Everything okay?” Gregory asked.

For a moment, Jeremy couldn’t even begin to formulate how he really felt. Jen’s words kept digging into his psyche. Finally he said, “I got a job. I’m Jen Emily’s personal assistant now, my dad forced me into it. She knows everything about me. She’s been working on some new AI thing and it’s taking everyone’s information, apparently.”

“Oh shit.” Gabriel fiddled with his hands, trying to figure out what to do, and eventually settled on just patting Jeremy on the shoulder. “I’m sorry about that, man.”

“Me too,” Gregory said. “Are you sure you can’t get out of this?”

“Yeah. Him and Ms. Emily are pretty dead set on it.”

“Crap. Well, if there’s anything you wanna talk about, Gabe and I and the rest of the crew are always here. And you can always stay over at my place if things get bad enough. My dad doesn’t mind.”

“No kidding,” Gabe laughed. “Henry’s always gushing about how polite you are.”

“Well, you and the others don’t set the bar very high,” Gregory teased, nudging Gabriel hard enough to knock him back a few steps. But it was all in good fun.

“Thank you,” Jeremy sighed. “And thanks for taking me out too. I guess I really did need to get out of the house.”

Gregory nodded and looked at Gabriel, and Jeremy saw something more in his gaze. “Hey, since we’re being serious… Gabe? Can I tell him?”

Gabriel started messing with his shirt. “About the thing?”

“About the thing.”

“We told your dad, man. Nothing’s gonna be more nerve-wracking than that! Go ahead.”

As Jeremy looked at them in confusion, Gregory cleared his throat and said, “Well, uh, don’t be mad, but… Gabe and I got together.”

Jeremy’s jaw dropped. “Seriously?!”

“Heh, yeah. You’re not mad, right?”

“No! Of course not! Honestly I’m just a little surprised. I feel like I should’ve figured it out already, being club president and all. And you’re both, like, my best friends. That too.”

The three of them started to laugh, but before Jeremy could ask anything more, Henry came running. “Jeremy, we need to get you back home,” he said, catching his breath. “Your dad just texted me, he says it’s an emergency. We have to go now.”

“What’s going on?”

“I don’t know, but it sounded urgent. We have to go.”

The boys looked at each other, and Gregory nodded. “We can bowl another time. Let’s go.”

—

The first thing Jeremy heard when they pulled up to his house was the wail of police sirens.

Immediately Jeremy was the first out of the car, sprinting past cops and ducking under yellow tape as he raced inside. To his horror, he saw evidence markers everywhere and a pool of blood on the kitchen floor. Then a coroner. And then his father, weeping and begging to an officer and Jen.

Then…

His mother laid there on the hardwood, still as a statue, her skin pale as marble. Her eyes were glazed over. A massive, brutish hole sat caved into the back of her head, her hair tangled and soaked in her own viscera. Bruises covered every inch of her body, every inch of her broken face. The birthday cake she made sat on the kitchen counter, completely untouched.

“Mom.” He didn’t even process all the blood at first, trying to help her back to her feet. “Oh God, Mom… It’ll be okay. I’ll get you the tissues and help you with the makeup. I know your hands get shaky, I’ll…”

“Hey! Stop!” An officer, then two, then three, pounced on him.

Jeremy swung at them, but it was no use; they were much stronger than he could ever wish to be. “Let go of me! My mom needs me!” he shouted. “Let me go, now!”

“Get the kid out of here,” one of the officers said, barely acknowledging him. “And wash the blood off his hands.”

Blood…?

Jeremy looked down, and his heart dropped. His hands were coated, dripping in red slick. Bits and pieces of gore slipped through his fingers as he was escorted out, and as he got one last look at his mother….

He screamed.

Chapter Text

Jeremy paused, the only sound the hollow hum of the office’s fluorescent lights. Leaning forward, Carlton waited for him to continue with baited breath, but he never did.

Instead, slicking back his hair, Jeremy said, “It used to be brown.”

Carlton blinked. “What?”

“My hair. It used to be brown, like my mom’s. Now it’s just the roots… Doesn't hair dye fade eventually?”

“I don’t know. I would think so.” Shifting around in his seat Carlton asked, “That can’t be all, right?”

“Ha, I wish.” Quickly Jeremy changed the subject. “You know Henry. You know what happened to Gregory, I’m sure.” Carlton nodded. “Yeah… How’s Henry doing anyway?”

“He was fine before the cops got him.”

Shock sparked in Jeremy’s eyes. “What? What happened?”

“You don’t remember? You were there, man. Henry saw you on opening day and tried to pick a fight. It’s the most mad I’ve ever seen him.”

“Oh. Oh God, he’s in jail now?”

“Yeah.”

Jeremy rubbed his eyes. “Fuck… Jen was in control then, she takes over during the day. It’s not like you’re in the backseat when she takes over, you’re just… Buried. I guess that’s the best way to describe it. She only tells me what she wants to. I’m so sorry. I can fix this… My phone’s dead, what time is it?”

“Uh, 5:50.”

“What?!” Jeremy shot up from his seat. “I’ve gotta get you outta here, now!”

“What about your story?”

“No time! I’ll finish it tomorrow! Jen takes back over at 6:00 every morning. She doesn’t know what I do when I’m in control!” Jeremy frantically unlocked the office door, hurrying through the aquarium with Carlton in tow. “She doesn’t even know you work here!”

“Can’t she just look me up in the employee records?!” Carlton wheezed, struggling to keep up; Jeremy was surprisingly fast.

“I didn’t put you in the records, I’m paying you under the table! That’s why your office looks so shit! How long do you think I had to set it up?!”

Running through the atrium and into the lobby, Jeremy yanked open the front door. Holding it open he snapped, “Go! Now!”

Carlton couldn’t find it in himself to be so frantic. He just stood there in front of the door, unmoving. After a minute Jeremy calmed, his confusion obvious. “Why are you just standing there?”

“Are you going to be okay?”

Jeremy’s confusion softened. “Are you really asking me,” he said, “or are you just trying to be polite?”

“I’m really asking you.”

“...I’ll be fine. Now get out, before Jen comes along. See ya.”

Solemnly Carlton nodded and walked outside into the warm summer air. He thought to look back, but as he did, all he saw through the tinted glass was an empty lobby. A chill ran down his spine, and as soon as he got into his car his phone began to buzz. It was his end of shift alarm.

It was 6:00 A.M.

—

The rosy pink of dawn snuck through the window shades as Charlie blinked awake, the sunset’s glow coating the darkness of Vanessa’s bedroom. As she rolled over under the heavy warmth of the covers, she immediately noticed Vanessa sitting at the edge of the bed, staring down at her lap.

“Ness?” Charlie sat up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. “You okay?”

Vanessa nearly jumped out of her skin, and as she scrambled off the bed and onto her feet, Charlie saw what was in her hands. It was a little angel figurine.

“Sorry. You scared me.” Vanessa let out a sigh of relief, sitting the figurine back on her nightstand. She cracked a smile, but her eyes didn’t follow.

“Don’t be sorry, that’s my bad. That’s the little statue your mom gave you, right?” When Vanessa didn’t meet her gaze Charlie slid over to her side of the bed, asking, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Nothing’s wrong.”

“Ness, I know that look. You can talk to me about whatever, I’m not gonna judge.”

“...I’ve been thinking about my mom.” Vanessa let out a dry, humorless laugh. “It was so strange, she was the only one who wasn’t mad when they all found out. She just looked… I don’t know. Not disappointed, not shocked. Just resigned.”

“Was that when they found out you’re…?”

“Yeah. I never really told you what happened then, did I?”

“No, but if you don’t want to, you don’t have to. I’m not gonna pry.”

“You deserve to know… No, I need you to know.” Vanessa took a deep breath. “There was this bar just a few blocks from our house. It was for teens, one of those non-alcoholic ones that are really only for socializing. I was curious. I knew when my parents went to bed, and I knew if I opened my window slow enough it wouldn’t make a sound.

“I’d been going there for two years, every other night or so. I thought they’d never find out. But then my dad woke up at the wrong time. He saw my window open, and…

“There was this girl I’d been meeting up with at the bar. We were both Mormon. We both knew how bad it would be if anyone from church found out. Honestly, there wasn’t a whole lot of actual chemistry there between us, but all it took was those few similarities and we were set. Her name was Hope.” She paused. “I don’t know how my dad knew to look there, but he found us that night. He found me kissing her.

“He nearly murdered that girl, y’know. Made a scene and cursed out every guy and girl that got in his way, dragged the two of us outside and threw us in the back of his truck. He took Hope home first, threatened to tell her parents what happened if she ever came near me again. She took it to heart. I never saw her after that.

“When we got home, he told everyone. He called each and every family member to curse me out and tell me to repent. When I stood my ground, he went to our church leaders. They recommended the strictest conversion camp they could think of, all the way in Texas.

“Thank God I’d sent in my resume a few days earlier, right?”

But Charlie knew that part of the story. “Then they lost it.”

“They emailed me the day after my dad told me about the camp, saying some intern had lost my papers. I nearly snapped my computer in half, I was so angry and scared and… Yeah. I was just really scared.

“But then I got the idea. I hacked my way into the employee records. I got my apartment with the money I’d been hiding in my closet, packed my things in the night, and got the hell out of there… I left a note for my mom, saying how sorry I was, but I’m not sorry anymore.” She wrung her hands together, knuckles white. “I’m not sorry for surviving.”

The room was dead silent, and Charlie said, “I understand.”

“You really do, don’t you?”

—

It wasn’t long before another meeting at Jessica’s was held, this time by Carlton. He told them everything Jeremy had: the old Fazbear club, the interview with Jen, his mother’s death, everything.

“This is great!” Charlie paused. “Well, not the traumatic stuff. I mean it’s great that we have someone high-rank helping us out. Did Jeremy say anything about how Jen’s controlling him? If he did, maybe we can find a way to free him.”

“He said Jen only possesses him during the day, starting at 6:00 A.M. exactly. But he also said that whoever’s not in charge of possessing his body isn’t in the passenger’s seat either. They’re completely unaware of what the other is doing. He didn’t say how, but it definitely works to our advantage.”

Vanessa hugged herself. “That’s horrifying… For Jeremy, at least.”

Leaning up against the faded wallpaper Jessica said, “I found something else last night too.”

Everyone perked up. “Another burial?” Charlie asked.

“No. Henry mentioned Jeremy worked somewhere called Silver Parasol Games, so I looked into it. It was an old video game company that got bought out by Fazbear’s and burnt to the ground. All the employees died. Definitely foul play, but they couldn’t find any evidence.”

“Do you think he killed them?” Charlie was surprised at how offended Carlton sounded.

Jessica seemed just as surprised, but shrugged it off. “Not necessarily. But I’ve got a feeling it’s related somehow. It was the only job Henry said Jeremy had before he suddenly became part of Fazbear Entertainment’s management. Don’t you think something happened there?”

“I don’t know.” Carlton looked down at his feet. “I’ll have to ask.”

“Wait, you said Silver Parasol was a video game company. What kind of games did they make?” Charlie asked.

“Arcade cabinets and VR stuff,” Jessica said. “Why?”

“I had a nightmare last night. I was in this arcade, following something. I never got a good look at it, it was too quick, dodging around corners. All I saw was its wings… Almost like an angel. It led me to a VR booth, and…

“There’s no good way to say this, I guess I just gotta spit it out. It was Jeremy in there. He was hooked up to a headset inside. He knew I was there and tried to reach out for me.”

“Did he have brown hair?”

Carlton’s question caught her off-guard. What kind of question was that? But when she thought about it, she didn’t remember him having blonde hair at all. “It looked brown, but it was hard to tell in the dark… What if that arcade is where he’s sent whenever Jen possesses him? What if that’s why he looks so different compared to now?”

Carlton shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ll ask him tonight.”

—

Henry’s eyes lit up as soon as Carlton and Jessica appeared, and immediately he hit them with a dozen questions: “Is everyone okay?” “How’s the Pizzaplex stuff going?” “Are you staying hydrated?” For a while it felt like neither of them would ever be able to get a single word in.

Jessica waited for Henry to take a breath before butting in, “Everyone’s doing fine. We’re closer to figuring out how to help Jeremy.”

“Really! Oh my God, that’s wonderful!” Henry tried to hug them, but immediately remembered the bars that separated him. Both of them could tell how fast the poor man was wilting, even if he wouldn’t admit it. Dark bags hung under his eyes, and his face was taut with stress. Something about his smile seemed empty now.

“Everything seems to lead back to his time at Silver Parasol Games,” Jessica explained. “If there’s any information you can give us about his experiences there, it would really help.”

Henry bit his lip and recoiled as blood drew from the chapped, broken skin. “Honestly, I can’t tell you much,” he sighed. “He left when he was seventeen, after the studio noticed some of the work he’d been posting online. They said they wanted that kind of talent on their team. I didn’t really want him to leave, but Jeremy insisted on finding himself and that he’d be okay. Hounded me, practically. Plus, Mr. Burrows had found out I was housing him, and once he started threatening me… It wasn’t great. I wasn’t great. I shouldn’t have let him go.”

Carlton and Jessica shared a concerned look. “It’s alright,” Carlton tried to reassure. “It’s all in the past now.”

“True, but- Oh! I almost forgot, Jeremy and I emailed each other during his first few months alone. Maybe those’ll have something that can help. Just use my password book and you’ll be reading them in no time!”

“You’re sure you want to give us total access to your email and all your passwords?” Jessica asked.

“I trust you two.”

“Okay.” Carlton gave his adoptive father a wary smile. “See you soon, Dad. Love you.”

“Love you too. And Jessica, keep an eye out for me, please.”

Jessica nodded. “Of course, Mr. Goodman.”

As soon as they left Jessica couldn’t help but ask, “His sentence is a month, right?” Carlton nodded. “My God… Is he gonna be okay in there?”

“I hope so. But it’s not like we can break him out, so…” Carlton shook away the grim possibilities, saying, “Let’s just get out of here. This whole place still reeks of Clay.”

“Agreed.”

Little did they know, behind the police department and underneath the dumpsters sat a strange pile of dirt. It was almost unnoticeable, but it was a burial all the same.

—

Charlie almost thought her GPS made a mistake once she arrived where Silver Parasol Games should have been. Parking in the middle of a concrete wasteland, she stepped out into the burning light and tried to look for any kind of landmark, but there was nothing. For miles the land was completely flat, the only natural life the weeds sticking out from cracks in the sun-baked cement. In the distance she could make out the smoggy silhouette of Cedar City, and on a jagged hill not too far away she noticed what looked to be a small factory. The sunlight was almost green there, the air thick with grime and soot.

Getting back in her car, she took a deep breath and coughed the dust from her lungs. There really is nothing left, she realized as she glanced out her window at the faded scorch marks nearby. Maybe that was where Silver Parasol Games once stood. Maybe she was right on top of it. She’d never know.

I drove an hour… For this, she thought. Of course.

Clearing her throat until it was sore, Charlie swallowed hard and started toward the factory. It didn’t look like anyone had been there for a long time, garage doors crawling with rust and the mechanical bones of old experiments thrown haphazardly into portable dumpsters, ancient fungi spilling over the edges. Decayed police tape wrapped around the walls like spider webs.

She looked toward the signage clinging above the front doors. MURRAY’S COSTUME MANOR, it read, and then in smaller text underneath, A FAZBEAR ENTERTAINMENT-APPROVED PRODUCTION SITE.

Charlie looked back at the wasteland behind her. It wasn’t like she would find any answers back there.

Carefully, she ripped away the police tape and stepped inside.

—

Vanessa couldn’t help but feel a little surprised at how packed the Pizzaplex was. Thank God she’d found her old attraction pass, under her bed with the rest of her Fazbear belongings, or else she probably would’ve been waiting in the lobby for an hour. I guess the press is finally getting in on the action, she thought as she saw a camera crew nearby.

She headed toward the Funtime Circus area first, trying to cover as much new ground as possible. Walking inside, she was surprised to see an entire fairground in front of her. In the middle sat a panopticon of carnival games, and against the cotton candy-colored walls were food stalls and rides of all kinds. The most eye-catching of course was the Fast Freddy rollercoaster; just a little shorter than the ceiling it towered over everything else, its stark red railings sleek with the familiar shine of new metal. The carts had the face of Freddy himself etched into their fronts, and by how young each passenger looked, she was surprised how fast the ride was.

Vanessa jumped when she saw what she assumed to be the Mangle crawling out from the kids’ playplace to her left. Freddy had been right, she really did look messed up. Her head, that of a white fox with cheery pink cheeks and a sharp-toothed grin, was the only intact part of her, the rest of her body a constantly-changing mass of endoskeleton parts. A foot where a shoulder should be, a spare head hanging off an arm, a hook stuck as a strange jutting tail, it just kept changing.

As the animatronic began patrolling the grounds, it suddenly met Vanessa’s gaze and paused, golden eyes flickering. The blonde felt frozen. It was like it was staring right into her soul. A part of her almost recognized that gaze, but she just couldn’t pin it down. She almost had it when-

“Vanessa?” Mangle scurried away as she glanced over her shoulder, surprised to see Monty and Roxy coming straight toward her. Immediately Monty tried to give her a hug, and as she instantly recoiled he paused and said, “Sorry. We’re both just excited to see you.”

We’re? That caught her attention; the animatronics aren’t programmed to use contractions. “I see you got an upgrade,” Vanessa said.

“We all did,” Roxy shrugged, “even Freddy.”

The silence was profoundly awkward. Eventually, Monty gestured for her and Roxy to follow as he said, “We’ve got a lot to catch up on. There’s a private VIP dining room in Chica’s Kitchen, if you wanna catch up over some desserts?”

“They’re real good,” Roxy added.

Vanessa stared at the two of them, wary, but pushed down her suspicion the best she could. Clearly they had experience with Jen’s virus, so this was her best shot at getting new information. Plus, it would be nice to catch up. “Of course,” she smiled. “Let’s go.”

Soon enough they were trudging through a horde of adoring fans in Chica’s Kitchen. The place was surprisingly quaint from what Vanessa could see above the crowd, the front a working bakery and the back leading to a pastel-colored, child-proofed kitchen. The walls were adorned with poster after poster of the Glamrock animatronics eating cupcakes drowning in sugary pink icing and cake coated to the brim with diabetes-inducing sprinkles, and everything looked as if it had been ripped straight out of some 1960’s diner. Through the glass separating the two halves, Vanessa felt her heart warm seeing an actual human employee teaching a group of kids how to color icing.

“Excuse me? Miss Roxy?” The three of them stopped as a small girl, maybe about seven or eight years old, stood shyly holding a crayon drawing. Upon closer inspection, it was a drawing of the girl rocking out on stage with Roxy. “I don’t wanna bother, but I made you this.”

To Vanessa’s surprise, Roxy gingerly took the drawing from the girl, careful to not scrape her claws against the paper. She looked at the drawing for a long time, admiring every part of it, and said, “This is perfect, rockstar! How about an autograph trade? You sign your drawing, and I’ll sign your notebook. That way we can always remember each other.”

The girl broke out into a grin and pulled out a small notepad, and as quickly as Vanessa’s expectations were flipped they made their trade and the kid ran off, yelling, “Mommy! Daddy! You won’t believe what just happened!”

As they passed through a keycard-guarded door and stepped into a private room, Monty pulled up the bakery menu on the widescreen television and said, “All you gotta do is tap on what you want, and a staff bot will deliver it in a snap.”

“Thank you, but I’m not hungry.” Sitting down on the leather couch nestled into the corner, Vanessa couldn’t help but look over at Roxy. Her amber eyes glowed with pride as she stared down at the drawing, grinning. She honestly looked happier than the kid.

Roxy noticed her stare and quickly tried to conceal her excitement. “It’s nothing,” she mumbled. “I’m cool. It’s cool.”

“You don’t need to hide your happiness, Rox,” Monty said, leaning casually against the wall.

“Yeah, yeah, I just… I don’t know. It’s just special to know you’re someone’s favorite.” Roxy gave the picture one last good look and set it aside, asking, “So, Vanessa, whatcha been up to? Still doing your cybersecurity thing?”

“A little. I’ve been trying to find a good community college to attend next year, once I save up enough.”

“That’s awesome!” Monty flashed her a grin and immediately she flinched. Regret struck her as he covered his snout, a nervous flicker in his eyes. “Sorry. Again.”

“Alright, enough of avoiding the obvious.” Roxy sat down opposite of Vanessa, and as the blonde felt her hands begin to shake, the wolf took them and said, “We’re not infected anymore. We’re okay. Freddy saved us, all of us.”

Monty did a so-so motion with his hand. “Maybe not-”

Roxy shushed him. “Fazbear Entertainment abandoned us in that old Pizzaplex. Freddy was the only left who hadn’t been destroyed or infected, so he took matters into his own claws. He did what was necessary, even if it was painful.”

“Especially painful,” Monty shuddered.

“Dude, would you stop interrupting my story?” Her words had a hint of humor to them, and Vanessa couldn’t help but let her guard down as Monty gave Roxy a faux-shocked look. “Thank you. Anyway, you don’t have to worry about us, okay? We’re back to normal… No, we’re even better than ever.”

“Surely you know there’s something wrong with your boss, right?”

Roxy and Monty eyed each other nervously, and the gator said, “Yes… And Freddy’s helping him. He’ll be okay, trust us. We’re making sure what happened at the old location never happens again. Ever.”

She narrowed her eyes. Carlton never mentioned Jeremy and Freddy were working together. “Why should I believe you?”

“I don’t know,” Roxy sighed, letting go. “It’s not like we have concrete proof we can just hand over. But can you please just trust us?”

Vanessa stared at the two animatronics, their gazes desperate and pleading. She thought back to all the times she’d hung out with them at the old location, before everything had gone to shit. They really had been her only friends aside from Charlie. Would people she’d loved so dearly really lie to her?

Yes, she told herself, but…

“Alright,” Vanessa said. “I trust you.”

Immediately Roxy and Monty broke out into eager grins, and the wolf pulled her into a hug. As Vanessa struggled to not accidentally breathe in any of Roxy’s silver hair the animatronic squealed, “Yes! Awesome!”

But as she let go, Vanessa couldn’t help but ask, “I’m still investigating this place though. So, could you guys answer one question for me?”

“Of course,” Monty said.

“Where do you think all the weirdness is coming from, aside from Jeremy?”

“...Bonnie.”