It was the second night.
Your second night.
The last night was odd. The old building was eerily quiet. It was unusual. Especially since the place had older lights and equipment, like that boxy old fan that took up half the desk space- And let's not forget the rusty, trusty ventilation system that couldn't stay on for a solid two minutes. Or at least it seemed that way. Eventually you'd gotten so fed up with it quitting, that you did a whole rewire on the fuse box. Didn't have to worry about that anymore at least. But the rest was history. No, literally- The whole place looked like it'd been taken from the 80s'... The place definitely showed its age. And neglect.
-12 am-
A wet mop slapped the ground. The fabric strands ran front to back as you worked it across the stained floor. A bag of garbage and dirt had been placed at the exit door from where you'd swept the halls. The place looked like a pig-stye. You grumbled to yourself as you dipped the mop back into the water and rang it out again. "So much for, 'Hey, hey, man! Yeah, we like, open in a week!' Psh! What a joke..." The mop hit the tile and continued working over the rest of the hall. "Not with this place looking like this." Your watch read 4:15 am. You'd been cleaning the place ever since your shift started that night. A mess was not how you rolled. And given that the place was 'owned by a rich businessman', one would figure it'd look nice and presentable. But that didn't seem to be the case. The mop was finally dropped back into the water bucket as you stepped back to study your handiwork. The floors shined, the walls were clean, and all of the 'decorations' had been wiped down and dusted- Well, what you could of them, anyway. Most of the decorations were childrens' drawings from some pizzeria that existed a while back. Everything else was just a bunch of animatronic props and masks. The other night, the phone guy had mentioned that the items were collectibles from the pass franchises- 'Good for spooks', he said... An eye roll. "The only thing 'creepy' about this place is how washed up it is-" You paused. The silence was broke as you let out a laugh. "Literally! I practically just washed the whole place!" You wiped a tear from your eye and sighed. "Yep... Laughing at my own stupid jokes... This place is already driving me crazy..."
The office chair hissed as you dropped yourself into it, making it roll slightly. The security tablet was picked up and you reset all of the 'error codes'. Not that they were malfunctioning. Your stray hand reached out to press the voicemail play button on the phone. Earlier you'd paused it after the phone guy had finished talking, but he said something about some sort of 'training tapes' that they'd found. You figured they were worth the listen since he said they were 'prehistoric'. The phone clicked and the recording continued from so many hours ago. You leaned back in the chair, the security tablet pulled up in front of you.
"Uh, hello? Hello, hello?" The mans voice was soft. "Uh, welcome to your new career as a performer slash entertainer for Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. Uh, these tapes will provide you with much needed information on how to handle, slash climb into, slash climb out of, mascot costumes. Right now we have two specially designed suits that double as both animatronics and suits. So please pay close attention while learning how to operate these suits, as accidents, slash injury, slash death, slash irreparable and grotesque maiming, can occur." You spared a glance at the phone and rose a brow. "What?" If you had a drink, it would've gotten spat all over the place. 'All of those risk just from an animatronic?'
"First, we will discuss how to operate the mascots when they are in animatronic form." You scoffed a laugh. "How about we discuss why this sounds like a super bad idea?" "For ease of operation, the animatronics are set to turn and walk towards sound cues. This is an easy and hands-free approach, to making sure the animatronics stay where the children are, for maximum entertainment slash crowd-pleasing value. To change the animatronics to suit mode, insert and turn firmly the hand crank provided by the manufacturer." The audio clip had your full attention. There's no way this was actually a thing.
"Turning the crank will recoil and compress the animatronic parts around the sides of the suit, providing room to climb inside. Please make sure the springlocks are fastened tight, to ensure the animatronic devices remain fixed. We will cover this in more detail in tomorrow's session. Remember to smile. You are the face of Freddy Fazbear's Pizza."
*CLICK*
The office was dead silent. The fan whirred as you just stared at the phone, your mind still trying to process what it'd just heard. "Well... I guess I've heard... Stranger ideas..." You were startled when the monitor started beeping. "Speaking of which-" A foot was kicked out and the chair rolled over to the maintenance monitor. The audio was showing an error. You pressed it and waited for the reboot to be complete. A few minutes later it was finally done. You pushed the monitor away and sighed. "What do I even need an audio switch for...? Oh, right." You rolled back over to the camera monitor. There was a button on it that said 'audio', so that must've been what that guy was referring to earlier. You didn't pay it any mind the previous night because, well, nothing happened. Probably because you didn't think to reboot it. Your finger pressed the button. A second later came the sound of a child laughing. Odd. "Huh... That's weird." You pressed it again. This time it said 'hello'. You laughed. "Haha! Ok, now that's creepy. WAIT- Maybe I should play this when the place opens! That should make 'em jump!" The cameras were given a once over for a few moments, mostly so you could get a good look at all the props again. The red fox's head on the wall amused you. "He's a lamp, haha! Clever." Technically any head you saw was a lamp, you just didn't realize it the day before. There were four of them: The fox, the chicken, and then a bear and a rabbit. The last two were almost full suits, but still acted like some sort of lamp for the 'attraction'. You browsed through the cameras before finally putting the monitor away- And then brought it right back up.
"Oh... Didn't see you there before..." The room on the camera was dark, but what caught your attention was the faint silhouette of some kind of animatronic leaning against one of the arcade machines. All you could see were it's eyes. They were silver. This animatronic actually had eyes. The other 'animatronics' were just shells. The screen glitched for a moment with static before it had settled. And the thing was gone. You furrowed your brows and hesitantly clicked on the next camera. Nothing was there. "...Oook. Probably just seeing things. I mean, I did stay up all day after my other shift... I just need some sleep." You pushed the monitor back to where it was before. "Geez. I really need to work on my sleep schedule for this job." And then your watch beeped. That brought a smile to your face. "Ha! 6 am- Right on time, too!" The chair spun as you shot out of it. Your backpack was pulled from the employee locker and you swiped your security badge. "Well, the shifts been good, but my bed is better." You paused to smell yourself. "Ugh! And so is my shower." All the filth you cleaned had apparently jumped on you instead. Too bad that won't help your paycheck any... The door rattled as it was closed and locked behind you. Then you were gone.
—-
A pair of eyes watched you leave. Their focus wandered to the hall before them. It was clean. Really clean. A quiet huff, and then the eyes disappeared into the darkness of the building.
YOU ARE READING
Retro
Fanfiction"It's a simple job." If only you were told about the piece of nostalgia they were keeping in the back room. This is a short fic I decided to make after seeing the Five Nights at Freddys movie. By the way, it was G R E A T. Although, THIS fic has abs...
