CHAPTER SIX - " run or hide "
━━━━━━ 🔦📺🐻🍕 ━━━━━━
RUBBING THE BURNING SENSATION from staring too long at those screens off her eyes, Haley leant into the sensation of Mike's hand on her back. Had she known night got this cold at the reception, she would have insisted he brought a proper winter jacket with him to work, instead of his glorified vests and spring jackets tossed over a flimsy pullover; but then again, Mike's hands were warm and it was her whose teeth cackled uncontrollably to constant shivers, as soon as the hands of the clock passed midnight. Though Mike had had the right gentleman idea of letting Haley take his usual chair so she may sit more comfortably and closer to the supposed heater under the desk, that heater was criminally outdated, bringing only a faint hue of auburn on the floor beneath them rather than any significant heat.
"You know," Haley mumbled, "if we had some food with us, we could have counted this as our alone date night for the month." Her words ended with a soft chuckle; it never failed to amuse her that monthly 'alone date nights' were an actual thing that the two of them agreed to call that way. If her memory didn't fail her, it was Mike's turn to fabricate a date idea for them, and almost instantly she giggled once more, realizing him pitching going Christmas tree shopping early might have been it. Thinking about December being her month of ideas only made her smile linger a little longer, even as her hand lowered from her face and dropped in her lap.
Tucked away in her much welcomed happy thoughts, Haley didn't even notice Mike's hand has retreated from her back and he bent over to rummage in his own backpack, not until she heard the aluminum foil and sniffed the faint scent of toast. Mike extended the sandwich to her just as she turned around to look at him and simply couldn't contain a little chuckle, "Am I romantic or am I romantic, huh?"
Haley took the sandwich and placed it on the table, searching first with her eyes the right drawer, "How come we never considered going ghost hunting as a date before?" Finally, locating the drawer she needed on Mike's side of the booth, she leant over his lap and dragged her chair closer until she grasped the handle of the drawer and pulled it open.
Mike was too entranced by Haley to actually remember checking the two monitors. After all, it's been hours of staring at them and not a single movement. They were, at that moment, the last two people awake in the whole building.
"Do you have a lot of haunted places in this town?"
"None of the creepy stuff you see in movies," Haley admitted. "But since most of the big buildings in town, outside the new residential area, are old and have been re-purposed, if ghosts are real, this town might have gotten plenty of them spirits confused about how much the places they used to know changed. Got it!" She straightened up, back in her own seat with a cutter in hand. "Gotta clean it up and then we get that sandwich cut in half."
The sudden dive their conversation has taken into the paranormal not only stiffened Mike up behind the reminder that he was yet to start discussing the past with her, but also had him check the security cameras with a supposed glance turned to a shocked stare. "We've got movement," he blurted out, pulling onto Haley's chair to get her out of the way of him pointing towards the first screen. "Camera 8. That's on the second floor," he deducted without much thought.
"The boys rooms," Haley squinted at what looked like nothing more than a moving shadow by the time they both started observing its motion. Mike reached forward to the keyboard and switched the view on that square of the screen to Camera 9, immediately getting a better focus on the culprit of this unexpected night traveller. "It's just Freddy," Haley sighed out, far more relieved than she wished she had sounded; she didn't lie — she really didn't want either Mike or Abby to be right about this.
Mike on the other hand was too confused about what the boy was doing to actually be relieved it was just him and not one of the animatronics. Prompted only by his continous stare to keep on watching too, the explanation Mike awaited was voiced by Haley in a whisper, "Of course he knows about that secret passage."
"This place got secret passages?" Mike looked up, on high alert as Haley decided to sit up. His hands went to his knees and he was ready to push to his feet as well.
"Lots of them," she nodded. "Most have been completely sealed during the transition from monastery to college, but some are still accessible."
By the time Mike looked back at the screen, the boy had already disappeared in one of those passageways.
"Don't worry," Haley serenely reassured him. "I know where that one leads." She closed the cutter and pocketed it, then reached over and took Mike's flashlight, tapping it on the corner of the second screen, "We'll be there. It won't take long."
"No." All Mike had to see was that the location she pointed too was right before the exit to the courtyard for him to stand up and take the flashlight from her hand. That cutter would help her in no way whatsoever should she come face to face with an animatronic and since he knew for a fact her shortness of breath made a shitty runner out of Haley too, he added, "I'll go. You stay here and watch the cameras."
Haley was left no room to actually argue with that decision, because before she knew it, Mike stole a kiss from her lips and went, flashlight in hand, towards the exit to the courtyard, with the dangle of the spare keys he wore at his side following his steps. Perhaps he shouldn't have hurried so much to get going, because once he got there, Mike found himself standing in absolute silence, simply waiting; he didn't know where Freddy would be exiting that secret passage from.
The wind blowing outside made the doors with a crack between them shudder in a woodsy cackle paired with metallic creaks from the hinges. Holding the flashlight under his right arm, Mike approached the doors to pull on them and test the lock's sturdiness. Just as he nodded, happy that they were still locked and he was about to draw in closer to get a look through the crack past which cold slithered inside the building, Mike was put on high alert by a rapid tapping sound.
Steps. Coming closer. Closer.
Mike turned around and his flashlight shone over a piece of the wall creaking open before him. Freddy was instantly blinded by the light that greeted him when his tiny hands pushed the makeshift door open.
"Going somewhere?" Mike barely contained his tone from giving away how relieved he really was it was just the little kid.
He seemed entirely shocked, if not even a little disappointed he was caught. "How did you know about the secret tunnel?" Freddy pouted, holding closer to his chest a plastic canister almost as big as him, one on which Mike's flashlight dropped now that he noticed it.
"What you got there, buddy?"
"It's important," Freddy argued, turning away. With the experience of pretty much raising his little sister, Mike was much faster than the kid in taking that gasoline recipient from him. "Give it back!"
"Where did you get this from?" Mike lifted the canister out of the kid's reach, knowing darn well that the only place which might have had some spare gasoline stored in case the lawn mower needed a recharge was the basement, where none of the kids should have had access to. "How do you always manage to get yourself into trouble, hmm?" He raised his flashlight back on the kid's face with a sigh, then reached out and shut closed the secret passageway. "Got nothing to say in your defense? What were you even planning to do?"
The answer came in unexpected fashion: wind blew the doors behind Mike completely open. The old wood slammed into the walls downright hard enough that Mike feared he would turn around and find the doors completely shattered.
About the same time that a wide noise occured, the camera footage on both screens got altered by static. "Oh, darn this old things," Haley stood up and immediately hit the top of the second screen, managing to get a fraction of clarity out of it before the static took over again.
Just as she got ready to hit it again, a flash of difussed yellow light coming from the left caught the attention of the corner of her eyes. Haley followed this distraction and ended up staring confused at the now open front door. "What...?" Her indignation about the door being open froze in her throat when she realized Mike's car, parked close to the fence, was supposed to be the only vehicle in the parking lot before the property's closed gates, but just then, there was another there.
It wasn't just any car though that was all lit up, with its trunk open in the middle of the parking lot — it was the car.
As if someone had clipped it from her memory and pasted it with all the terror and cold that had surrounded it years ago, into the present moment.
With words stuck there, Haley's breath knotted in her throat as well, causing her eyes to start stinging through resisting the bubbling of tears.
"This isn't real," Haley shook her head, those words barely making it out. With her nose no longer sufficient to bringing enough oxygen from the tank and feeling the suffocation of tension bringing her pressure up exponentially, Haley removed the tubes from her with one last deep breath and rummaged quickly through her back for the relieving inhaler.
The problem once, after the puffs had been taken, the car was still out there, in the parking lot and it was at that point that she had to recognize everything Abby told her definitely scared far more than she had been willing to admit that morning.
"This cruel man took children that went to his pizzeria and killed him. It's their spirits haunting those animatronics. He kidnapped and killed more kids though, since he's also the one who took our brother."
She had to admit to herself that hearing Abby say those things not only disturbed her, but also made her think back at the kidnapper she escaped. It was before that thought that her mind held to divisive stances: one scared to imagine what could have happened to her that night had she been a second slower and one speculating on the borderline insanity — what if the man from the parking lot was the same man who kidnapped Mike's brother?
Pure insanity, Haley reassured herself enough to be able to get out of the booth with slow steps, eyes fixed on the lit up car outside. She placed her free hand on the cutter still in her pocket. I'm tired, she started justifying then. I haven't been sleeping well. I haven't even eaten since breakfast. I'm probably hallucinating.
There was nothing in the courtyard, not that anything would have prompted Mike to do anything else but close the door shut and lock it back up again. Only this whole endeavor had put him so on the edge that by the time he turned back to the boy, he had no more patience to interrogate him on what the hell he was thinking of stealing gasoline and sneaking out in the middle fo the night. So, instead of wasting any more time there, he urged the kid on and escorted him back to the second floor in a quiet walk that Freddy acted like it was some great defeat, sulking and dragging each step.
"Dum dum dum," a hum of a sea shantie brought both Mike and the kid to an abrupt stop, no sooner had they made a couple steps onto the hallway.
There was no need to even look at the empty hallway ahead, path lightened by Mike's flashlight to be able to tell the hum came from somewhere behind them, where it was pitch black.
Mike had pointlessly wished for so long since escaping that darn pizzeria that he forgot the sound of that murmured song, but truth was, it haunted him relentlessly.
"Did you hear that?" Freddy whispered, suddenly holding onto Mike's right hand hard enough to leave a bruise. The kid was shivering of fright besides him, and Mike couldn't exactlt deny that cold chill going down his own back too once he knew for certain that he wasn't imagining this one.
"Hey," Mike gave the kid's hand a short squeeze, before pulling him in front of him. "Your door's right ahead, yes?" He moved the flaslight to stay exactly on the door behind which was Freddy's bed too. "You go ahead and get back there, bring a chair under the doorknob inside and get back to bed, okay?"
"They will take you like they took Roy," Freddy sniffled and though now he wasn't facing Mike no more, the latter was certain there were tears into his eyes.
"Who? Me?" Mike tried to laugh it off in a barely convincing chuckle. He was, after all, too busy looking up near the ceiling line, until he made eye contact with the blinking light of the security camera. "I'm too fast for them, buddy," he gave the kid a nudge to go forward. There was no sound from Foxy's mechanic steps behind him, so Mike had that reassurance at least while he decided to stand barrier between the possible animatronic watching him from the darkness behind and the child who walked at first cautiously slow, then jogged desperately.
The slam of the door was too loud for Mike's liking not to make him flinch, but thankfully, it was quickly followed by the soundly proof Freddy listened to the advice he was given and pulled a chair to block the door. Just as Mike was about to admit to himself in a grimace that a chair would probably not be enough to save the kid from any of the animatronics he knew, a cold sensation around Mike's right forearm startled his heart to cower in his chest and flared alive all the scars from his last stand taken against these spirits.
He look down cautiously, moving nothing but his eyes. Around his arm was Foxy's hook.
"It should have been you," a tiny voice breathed right down behind his left ear, creating a disturbing discrepancy between a child's whispering voice and the height well beyond that of an adult.
Only a single blink away, Foxy's hook turned into the greyed out hand of a child, tightening it's little palm into a fist around his jacket's sleeve.
"It should have been you..."
His heartbeat was in his throat. Flashlight was starting to give away.
"... not her."
Haley!
Mike's eyes widened and damned be his fear, he ran away from the grip that simply let him go. Children's laughter bombarded his hearing while he rushed down the stairs and slammed himself into walls just to get back to the reception faster.
"Haley!" He called out, voice broken when he had the booth in sight and it waited for him empty. Seeing her discarded tubes to the oxygen tank there did not, by any means, help.
"Mike," Haley answered with his name, her voice tentatively shivering, but nonetheless bringing absolute relief and joy to Mike who, finally lifting his gaze spotted her next to the open doors.
"What are you doing?" He brought a hand over his heart, ready to double over in complaints about the fright he just had. "Thought I told you to keep your eyes on the monitors."
"I think I saw someone in the parking lot," Haley admitted, even if by almost interrupting him altogether. Only a single glance at her expression told Mike that her concern was sincere, so even though he looked ahead and saw nothing but pitch black in the parking lot, the only light outside being the white one shed over the gate, he went behind the booth and flipped the switch that lit up the whole parking lot.
Haley knew she should have been truly relieved to see only Mike's car there, parked where she remembered it would be, but she thanked him absently nonetheless. Only once she closed the door did she turn around and sigh, "Man, nightshifts make you feel like you're loosing your damn mind. How do you manage through them?"
Seeing as she was hugging herself in an attempt to warm up again, Mike opened his arms for her — he definitely wasn't asking to hug her because he almost had a heart attack thinking he lost her for one single moment away.
However, his silence, spurring out of concern making him completely forget that she asked him anything at all before cuddling into their embrace, said enough, prompting thus Haley to lift her chin on his shoulder and inquire, "How's Freddy?"
At first, Mike hummed inquisitive. He was fast however in rectifying that confusion, "He's alright. He had a gasoline canister with him. Left it on the hallway so we can get it back downstairs when we finish the shift."
"Gasoline?" Haley frowned with disbelief.
"This kid got some serious talent for getting into places he's not supposed to get."
"Well, being good at hiding has saved his life before," Haley drew away from the hug and got Mike to retake his seat with her, making sure she was still close enough to hold his hand, interlock their fingers and lay her head gently on his shoulder from an angle on which the two monitors were still within her sight. "I was here when they brought him in, you know. He was scared of his own shadow and even the nuns had been shocked to hear the mistreatment he went through in foster care. Within hours from being left here, the nuns came to me all panicked that he ran away, that they couldn't find him. I thought to myself then — there are two types of children. Those who run and those who hide. He doesn't seem like the type who runs. Found him in that secret passage. He was so startled that I could find him there and I promised we are the only ones who know about that tunnel."
It was no secret to Mike that Haley Anne was good with children. He had witnessed first hand this talent of hers in how easily she won over Abby's trust. "How did you know about it?"
"I lived here for a while," Haley admitted with a disturbing amount of ease.
"You're... you..."
"Orphaned, yeah," she confirmed, hearing Mike struggle to actually speak his confused mind. She brushed her big thumb over his palm in a comforting circular motion and snuggled closer. "When Abby told me about what you went through, it struck me that we never actually asked each other about out pasts. We know so much about each other, but not that. I've come to realize childhood is just one big box of bad memories for us."
Mike puffed a short chuckle, "You're not wrong. It's not exactly easy to poke around someone's history when you know how badly it hurts for the same thing to be done to you."
"I was the type of kid who ran," Haley admitted, her own personal way of evening the scales between them; she learnt about his past and it felt only fair she shared a part of her own with him in return. "Running saved my life when my mother was too deep into trying to bring a drought to the liquor stop to be here for me. I wanted to blame her for so long for what happened that night a stranger came to grab me, but it's hard to keep a grudge on the dead. After she died, dad couldn't handle it anymore. My sick lungs, my nightmares, his works. It was too much. I ended up here when I was sixteen and though I didn't stay here all that long, once I got a proper job, I wanted to come back. There's just something so heartbreaking about abandoned children who expected an adult to be there for them, but they were only let down."
A moment of silence followed her words. Though Mike stared at the security footage, his mind was trapped on a single detail Haley had revealed.
As if she was reading his mind, Haley continued, "The man who tried to take me. They never caught him. Do you think it's him?"
Mike nodded. "It's why we came to this town to begin with. People he's crossed paths with have been dying and we wanted to prevent that from happening to you, or at least give you a warning. Only," he took a deep breath, "he never showed up."
"He's still alive?"
"It's more complicated than that," he grimaced, letting go of Haley's hand only to move his arm around her and pull her closer. "But it might not have been him. Do you remember anything from that night? How the man looked...?"
"No," Haley shook her head. "I just remember being cold."
This second moment of silence following her words felt more stiff and uncomfortable than the last and yet again, as Mike's mind spiralled into overthinking, Haley took it upon herself to break the quietness between them.
"I'm glad you came to this town. Whether bad things are out to get you or me, you should know you are the best thing that ever happened to me."
No one knew to say exactly what he needed to hear quite like Haley Anne Reed.
Mike brought her closer and leant in to press a kiss to the top of her head, "I love you too, Haley Anne."
AUTHOR'S NOTE :
Haley Anne and Mike are definitely my Roman Empire right now 😭😭 aaand Haley's little speech about kids who run and kids who hide ughhh
But onto more serious matters, allow me to point out two key elements of this rather long chapter 👀 Foxy's "it should have been you, not her" + junior Freddy's gasoline canister