"I really appreciate you two coming out," the man whose name tag said Mike Schmidt greeted Dean and Jay cordially, shaking their hands. They'd taken the Impala to a small building just on the edge of town, a cluster of administrative offices for food outlets all over the state. Dean smiled at Mike, nodding reassuringly.
"It's no problem, really." Jay put in with a trademark crooked grin. "We're in need of a job, and you're in need of security guards. How could we refuse?"
"I'm glad to hear you're excited about the job," Mike chuckled. It was a nervous sound, as if he wasn't really happy about what he was saying. He rubbed his forearm, shrugging, his eyes flying around his small office. "Not many people are. I mean, it is a night shift, first of all... And not everyone is delighted by the animatronics... Or, frankly, the history of the place..."
"Well, we're a lot harder to scare off than most folk." Dean assured him, shooting a brief glance at Jay.
"And what are your names again?" Mike asked, discontinuing his darting glances around his office to look at Dean and Jay.
"Ian and Lou," Dean spoke up immediately. Jay shot him a sly grin at the Foreigner reference that Mike luckily didn't catch.
"Right, thanks. Okay." Clapping his hands together, Mike said, "I can take you out to the pizzeria and give you a tour now, if your schedules permit --?"
"Yes, certainly," Jay said eagerly, gesturing for the door.
*
The place was run down, at the very least. The outer walls were thinly veiled by flapping, translucent tarps, but what slivers of plaster did peek through were cracked and yellowed with age. Boarded up with old, dirty planks, the front windows gave no hint to the state of the interior; but Jay could assume that it was as grimy and decrepit as the exterior. Up above the doors, the "Freddy Fazbear's Pizza" sign was swaddled loosely is brown, water-stained butcher paper. Eh, I've seen worse, Jay thought to herself as she stepped onto the curb with Dean at her heels.
“Well, this is cheery.” Dean commented, sniffing disdainfully. The place looked strange, out of place, in the bright sunlight, as if it would be better suited to a dismal, overcast grey sky and lurking fog. With neither present, it seemed almost clownish.
“Yeah, it is a bit of a dump,” Mike admitted as he pulled a pair of keys from his pocket. "Since it's been out of commission, we've, uh, we've kind of let the place go..."
"Understatement." Jay muttered under her breath, and Dean flashed her a grin behind Mike's back as he fiddled with the lock. Jay could see that his hands were shaking, and he was leaning slightly away from the door -- the entirety of his body language screamed reluctance. He did /not/ want to go into that building. Perhaps he knew something about it, Jay mused to herself. She'd slip some questions into their later conversations for a bit of confirmation.
Staring idly about himself, Dean was untroubled by Mike's resistance to the place. He hardly even noticed it. The place was creepy, sure; but it wasn't so bad. Compared to some of the rotted dives he and his family had taken to during a hunt, it seemed relatively normal.
Except for Mike -- once he really looked at him, Dean could tell that the man was a pretty nervous guy. Reasoning that Mike was disturbed by the restaurant's past, Dean sighed slightly. Hell, I'd be nervous too if there was murder at my job, he thought to himself, then realized that death was kind of in the hunting description. He subsequently wondered why /he/ wasn't a nervous wreck.
The door opened with a grinding creak that echoed bluntly through the building. Giving a gentlemanly -- or perhaps cowardly -- gesture for them to go in first, Mike practically clung to the door as they passed him by. The room opened to something of a dining-space, with a several rows of oblong tables ringed by chairs and spiked dotted with striped part hats. Beside them as they walked in, there was a large stage shrouded by a dusty, washed-out red curtain. As Mike flicked a switch, bringing to life a single sickly, flickering lamp that partially illuminated the room, Jay darted around to the front of the stage, peering inside the faint folds of florid fabric.
“Well, hi, there, ugly.” She retorted once her eyes fell upon the characters perched inside. There were three of them, a bear, a chicken, and a rabbit, all with a look of creepy, faded grandeur. Their blank, staring eyes and gaping mouths filled Jay with an odd sort of disgust, and she curled her lip, taking a step back.
“Yeah, I’m not overly fond of them either.” Mike admitted grimly. He was already halfway through the next door. “The rabbit’s Bonny, the chicken is Chica, and Freddy’s our titular bear. There’s actually one more, Foxy the Pirate, but his station was shut down a good time before the rest of the place was due to some technical… issues. But we’ll get to that later. Shall we move on --?”
“Yes, let’s.” Dean said, and Mike slipped through the door, glancing back for the assurance that Jay and Dean were following. He did not like those animatronics. That was certain. Did he know that the place was haunted? Jay’s acute hunter instinct throbbed strongly, saying that this was a deep, severe haunting. She scanned the new room that they entered, her eyes narrowing in thought.
“This is just the backstage area.” Mike explained. “I-it’s nothing special. It’s just a helluva lot creepier…”
And he was right. Extra character masks hung by hooks on the wall, bits and pieces of animatronic body parts littered the corners of the room, and a naked, metal endoskeleton was perched on a countertop, its dead eyes glaring at the door. Jay purposefully dodged out of its blank gaze, ignoring the squirm of discomfort in her gut.
“But I don’t see any purpose in lingering here, so on we move to Pirate Cove…” Mike said, ducking back out the door and along down the room. There was a long purple curtain spangled with velvety lilac stars, the end tattered and worn. Jerking back the fabric, Mike revealed a smaller stage in the shape of a pirate ship surrounded by wood cutouts of waves and sharks and the like. Slumped over on the edge of the stage was Foxy the Pirate. This fox animatronic was a bit more out-of-commission than the others, an eye patch over one of those glazed, lifeless eyes, a broken jaw that dangled limply down from the rest of his snout, and the metal bits of its legs protruding through torn pieces of shaggy, russet faux fur.
“There was an accident with Foxy back in the day that caused him to break down, and we had to close Pirate Cove. It was pretty sad. You know, for the kids. I-I didn’t care either way…” Mike added hastily, huffing.
“Right.” Dean nodded. “What happened?”
“Well, I don’t know exactly what happened, but there was an accident with one of the kids and apparently it was really bad.”
“Ah.” Jay said, eyeing the teeth on the mangled jaw apprehensively. She raised her chin fractionally, dismissing the flicker of anxiety. “Okay, next?”
“We’ll head across the room to the other side this time.” Mike said, sniffing as he ushered them out, returning the curtains to their closed state. As they started across the dining area, Dean shot a glance towards the stage. Those stupid things were really creeping him out. Of all the things that could be creepy about this setting, it was those animatronic characters that were the worst.
“How long has the place been here?” Jay asked as they started walking back towards the stage, in the direction of a door that had a faded restrooms sign posted over it.
“Well, that’s an interesting question.” Mike said stiffly, shrugging. “There’s actually been a lot of… versions of Freddy’s over the years. Back in the 60’s, there was this place, Fredbear’s Diner, but there was an accident there, and it foreclosed soon after. Then there was the first official Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza in the early 70’s, but due to some financial issues it closed as well. The most recent Freddy’s, other than this one, was a few states over, and it was apparently a really big deal. It went for several years since the mid 70’s, but in the late 80’s it got closed. Then this one opened in the early 90’s, but after about five years was forced to close due to –“
“Sanitation issues.” Dean interjected grimly.
“Yeah.” Mike huffed in response. “I see you’ve read the newspapers.”
“Mmm-hmm.” Jay nodded solemnly. “That’s really horrible, what happened to those kids.”
“Personally, I think the place should have been shut down when at its first opening. It was doomed to be ill-fated since the day Fredbear’s Diner opened.” Mike grumbled as he unlocked the next door. He gestured down the hall, its floors checkered with black, monochromatic tile. “We don’t have to go in – these are just the bathrooms. But I would advise you to utilize the glass bottle for late-night potty breaks – you don’t want to be roaming these halls.”
“So how are we keeping an eye on things?” Dean wondered.
“Security cameras.” Jay told him, before Mike could say anything, gesturing up at the corner of the room. “So far, there’s been one on the stage, one at the top of the curtain watching the party room, one backstage, and one in the hall across from Pirate Cove.”
“Wow, you’re uh, you’re really observant.” Mike said, blinking rapidly.
Jay shrugged. “It’s my job.”
They finished up with the camera room. Mike showed them in, sighing slightly. “This is where you two will be staying,” he told them, leaning against the doorframe. “Your monitors are here,” he gestured at a large laptop-looking device set on a desk in front of two chairs. There were children’s drawings plastered all over the walls, and a small fan sat across the room. Every corner was swathed with cobwebs. This place hadn’t been occupied – or at least well-maintained, for a very long time. “Check them a lot. And you’ll be getting a few calls by the last guy who worked here, so there’s nothing more for me to explain, and you two can be on your way.”
“Great, thanks, Mike,” Jay said, smiling professionally as he led them out.
“I hope to be seeing you soon,” Mike told them as he locked up the building. He jangled the keys around a nervous finger, smiling gratefully.
“Likewise.” Dean nodded cordially, shaking Mike’s hand as they said their goodbyes.
As Mike split off towards his car, Jay turned to Dean. “He knows something,” she said quietly, making sure that Mike was out of earshot. “He’s too opinionated about the history of Freddy’s – he knows that something really bad has happened. And I’ll bet that whatever happened was at Fredbear’s Diner, back in the 60’s.”
“That makes sense.” Dean nodded in agreement. “Do you think we should go do some research about the history of each place before we go back tonight?”
“Yes, definitely.” Jay said pointedly as she opened up her car. “But for now, lunch.”