(Unedited, 5641 words)
Trigger Warnings: Discussions about death, description of a death
I get to the grocery store at seven forty, much later than I expected, and quickly head inside to enjoy the warmth and buy a large plastic water bottle so I'll have something to drink tonight. While I wait for Michael Schimdt to show up, I make a plan to go grocery shopping after work tomorrow using the money I get from tonight. That way, when I get paid Sunday, I'll basically have all the money I spend on groceries replenished, which will feel nice.
Sometimes I amaze myself with the amount of time I spend worrying about money and where it's coming from and where it's going, and other times I kick myself for not thinking about it enough. Either way, Jonah's joke is probably right. I do probably need therapy to help me obsess over money a little less. But guess who can't pay for it. How ironic.
I wasn't like this a few months ago. Back when I didn't have a house and was just trying my best working day-to-day jobs so I could pay for simple things. But once I got solid jobs and a chance at having a roof over my head, I fell down a rabbit hole I can't claw my way out of.
I find myself obsessing over a lot of things nowadays, whereas back then I was just a leaf in the wind, trying not to get crushed. Now I worry about money, I have a schedule for shampoo in my head (carefully crafted so I can stretch the contents out as far as possible), I know exactly what kind of bread to buy and what time of day to get it at, I have notes about the prices of various items in different stores. My life has become consumed by things I know normal people don't even think about.
But my obsessions are also driven by fear. I've noticed that recently. My mind if often clouded by a single thought: I lived without these obsessions before, but now what? What if the local market doesn't have the cheap bread and I can't afford the more expensive one? Will I know where to go to get bread, or will I have a backup plan with something cheaper that can last me for as long as a loaf of bread can? Can I support myself if I have to buy a more expensive loaf of bread, or will that completely crumble my system?
Fear keeps my obsessions alive. And it keeps me from trying to rid myself of them.
I don't know what I'm going to do when rent raises.
At eight, I head out of the grocery store and stand next to the giant ice cooler out front. No less than a minute later, a car pulls into the parking lot and sits near the edge for a moment before pulling into a spot far off to my right. I wait, not willing to approach it in case it's the wrong person. After a second, a man steps out and closes the door, putting his hands in his pockets and stepping up onto the sidewalk.
He makes his way towards the entrance, and I'm careful to note the moment he notices me and how he smiles softly and slows his stride. "Josephine Sterling?" he asks, coming close enough that I can see his features in the glow of the grocery store.
"Michael Schmidt?" I return, examining his slightly curled brown hair and the stubble littering his face. His brown eyes are smiling on their own, but his cold-weather-cracked lips are what truly tip me off to how he's feeling. Other than, you know, the fact I can feel his emotions anyway.
"Hi, good to see you," he comments, "I didn't notice you at first, I figured I had gone to the wrong grocery store."
"Nope, I'm just hiding from the wind," I admit, gesturing to the ice cooler.
"Thank you again for agreeing to this," he chimes, "I just want to know why we keep having nightmares."
"That's understandable," I reply before nodding to his car. "We should get going then."
"Agreed," he responds, turning and starting to walk towards his car.
"So tell me about this pizzeria," I prompt, opening my door when I get there and casually sliding in. We close our doors almost in sync, mine a second after his.
"It's called Freddy Fazbear's Pizza Place. It was opened in about 1981, owned and operated by William Afton," Michael explains, starting the car. I can't help but notice how he puts a strain on the name of the man. "It was uh... I guess a family diner. There were arcade games, pizza, and these four animatronics for entertainment."
"Mhm," I hum, putting my bag in the floorboard between my feet and buckling my seatbelt as he pulls out of the parking space.
"Sometime in the mid-eighties-- eighty-five, I think--, five kids went missing and the pizzeria was placed under investigation," he reveals, piquing my interest. "The cops never found anything, but the kids were there."
"Do you know what happened to them?" I ask, looking from the street ahead of us to the man driving the car.
"While I worked there, a police officer who had come to the pizzeria as a kid came in to show me the ropes. Through a matter of... events... she revealed that the kids had been killed and their bodies were stuffed into the animatronic suits," he replies, and I immediately feel sick to my stomach.
"God, that's awful..." I whisper, looking out the passenger window for a moment. "Did they ever find the one who did it?" The question throws him off for a second, or perhaps he's just thinking about how to word his response. Either way, it's a weird place to pause.
"No, the police never had a definite suspect. They placed suspicion on William Afton, but never had enough evidence to arrest him," he responds, and I know for a fact he's lying.
It took a long time for me to perfect the art of finding liars, but with the recent help of Jonah and Makaylen, who both are unreasonably good at it, I've gotten it almost down to a system. From the race in his heartbeat that I feel as a stress emotion to the way he taps his steering wheel and won't move his eyes at all, I can tell he's at least not telling me the full truth.
"Wow. I hope they got what they deserved," I mumble, looking out at the road. He doesn't say anything for a few seconds, so I add, "How long did you work there?"
"Five days. The building practically fell apart on the fifth," he admits. The words worry me.
"Is it... safe for us to go in?" I question.
"It should be. The outer walls didn't fall, and they seemed strong enough to hold, from what I remember. We'll just have to be careful on the inside," he explains, sounding somewhat confident. I nod, settling back into my seat and exhaling deeply.
"Anything else I should know?" I ask after a minute.
"The ghosts possess the animatronics they were stuffed in," he deadpans. I stay quiet for a moment, my eyes wide and my lips pressed together. "I probably should've started with that."
"Yeah, that would've been good to know," I mumble, nodding a bit. "Could the spirits make them move? The animatronics?" I look over at him.
"Yeah, they could. Uh, should I be calling the spirits?" he asks, glancing over at me. "Or is there a difference?"
"Everyone you ask will have a different answer, but I believe ghosts are spirits who are vengeful. Most spirits are just people who have passed on but can't fully pass, like something is holding them here. Most of the time that could mean they have a goal, like protecting a living person or staying until their life's work is complete or realized. Ghosts want to scare or harm people, they're negative spirits," I explain, basically regurgitating Annabeth's philosophy. All I know about being a medium, I learned from her and my mother.
"Okay what if they were vengeful but they aren't anymore?" Michael asks, turning to look at me for a second. I raise an eyebrow, giving him a questioning look. He quickly looks back to the road.
"They were vengeful, and now they aren't?" I question.
"Y...es," he replies.
"But they're still here?" I prompt.
"Yes," he responds, more confident in this answer.
"So something happened that satisfied their vengefulness?" I ask, trying to get him to admit that thing he lied to cover up.
"No," he lies, and I frown. "But they've been giving my sister and I nightmares and I've had enough of them." The swift change in subject annoys me, but I let it go. There will be plenty of chances for me to circle back.
"What kind of nightmares are they?" I ask, running my fingers through my hair. He reaches down and turns the heat up slightly before responding.
"For my sister, she's had to watch them each die every night since three days before Halloween," he explains, and I cringe.
Every night. Every night. Every night.
"That sounds less awful," I admit. "And yours?"
"Mine are... more graphic," he mumbles, and I get the feeling I shouldn't ask about them any further.
"Graphic how?" I question, pushing my luck.
He stays quiet for a moment before he sighs and replies with, "I haven't had the same nightmare twice. Every night it's something different. The kids getting lured to their deaths, getting killed, getting stuffed in the suits, rotting alone for fifteen years... it's always something different."
"You have weird dreams, don't you?" I ask, feeling a certain shift in his emotions that prompts the question. He glances over at the center console before clearing his throat.
"I used to have the same dream every night," he admits, and I tilt my head.
Not exactly what I was expecting, but knowing more about him might help me connect to the spirits (ghosts?) of the pizzeria, so it's probably worth a shot to investigate.
"What was that about?" I question.
"That's personal," he replies, no emotion in his voice but a lot in his head. I stay quiet for a moment before I turn to look at the road ahead. We say nothing for several seconds until he mumbles, "So you and the Skylar girl don't work together anymore?"
"Four months after we put up those posters, I moved out of her house and we haven't spoken since," I admit, rubbing the back of my neck.
"How did she know how to find you?" he asks.
"She's the best investigator I've ever known. She probably tracked me down, even from Washington," I reply, not worrying about it. If Annabeth wants to find someone, she's going to, and nothing can stop her.
"It did take her a while to call me back," he comments, mostly to himself.
"If you didn't want your sister to know you're going back to the pizzeria, where is she now?" I ask suddenly, the question coming out of nowhere for both of us. Regardless, I turn to him and wait patiently for his answer.
"She's at a friend's house, thinking I'm working a night shift," he admits. "I don't know how long it will be until she realizes there isn't any reason for me to work the night shift at a car wash." I chuckle and catch a glimpse of a smile on his face when I look over at the steering wheel.
"So you just want to know why they're giving you nightmares, if they'll stop doing that, and if I can help them fully pass on?" I ask, and he nods.
"That's all. And I'll pay you whatever you ask," he replies, quickly adding, "within reason. I do work at a car wash."
"I hear that," I laugh. "I might raise it to sixty for an hour and a half, so as long as it's less than that amount of time, it's not that much higher than the original price."
"I can make that work," he says thankfully. I smile softly.
"Is that it?" I ask, sitting up sharply and laying a hand on the dashboard as I look at the building coming into view.
"That's it," Michael says, his voice less than joyful as we approach. Its pitch black outside right now, but the building stands out against the starry sky and catches the swipe of headlights as we turn to get closer. I follow it with my eyes, trying to sense any changes in energies as we near the parking lot.
"You're right, the outside looks pretty much normal," I comment, "aside from the bits of overgrowth."
"The inside looks a little rough, so just be ready," he mumbles, pulling into the parking lot over a bump in the road. He settles for a place across from the pizzeria instead of in front of it, backing into the spot so his headlights are pointed to the building. As soon as he puts the car in park, he reaches back into the back seat and produces two flashlights, handing one to me. "I still have the keys, so I can open that gate and the front door."
"Good, I don't think breaking into a haunted building is a good idea," I comment, causing him to laugh a bit. I open my door and climb out, putting my bag on my back and turning on my flashlight as his car lights turn off. Cold air seeps into my clothes, mostly through the cargo pants that instantly go stiff from the temperature.
We close our doors together and he nods to the building. We start walking across the parking lot, led by his flashlight. I turn my light up to the top of the building, looking at the sign that once probably lit up.
Freddy Fazbear's Pizza Place.
As I look at it, my heart begins to quicken as if I were a kid approaching a real pizzeria. If I focus on the feeling hard enough, I can almost see the sign glowing and hear music coming from inside. Keyword being almost.
"Is the bear Freddy?" I ask, and Michael looks at me before following my flashlight's light.
"Yeah, that's him," he replies, looking at the bear for another moment before he focuses on the entrance we're approaching.
The location definitely feels weird, but not necessarily haunted. Not like a cemetery or even like New Orleans as a whole. Then again, there's only five child spirits here and there's a stranger approaching them (me being said stranger). They might not be that interested in letting anyone, especially not the stranger in question, know they're here.
We come to a stop at the crosshatch gate covering the front doors.
"Can you hold this for a second?" Michael asks, handing me his flashlight. I hold his so the beam points to the lock he picks up, but I tilt mine to the door and try to peer inside.
It takes him a second, but he finally gets the key to unlock the bolt and he tosses it to the side before taking his flashlight back. We push either side of the gate open and he slips another key into the front door, twisting it with ease.
"Welcome to Freddy's," he says calmly, pulling the door open. A wave of stale air washes over us, the smell of mold and dead plants following with it. The months of abandonment have ruined this place.
He steps in first, holding the door so I can grab it and walk in behind him.
As soon as I cross the threshold from pavement to manufactured flooring, I expect to feel another rush of emotions like the one I felt looking at the sign. Instead, I feel nothing but an intense sense of emptiness. Almost like nothing is in the building and nothing has ever been here.
But that's obviously not true. This place was a functional pizzeria. It wasn't built with busted lightbulbs and glass all over the floor.
Or at least I hope.
Michael said this place was for children.
He also said those children died here.
We're in a lobby right now, one's that's a lot cleaner than I was expecting, just based on Michael's warnings. This thought dissipates immediately when I look past Michael at the rest of the building. It becomes clear that the lobby had somehow become protected from the chaos. The rest of the pizzeria had not.
Through the archway that leads to the larger part of the building, I can see smashed furniture, snapped support beams that must've fallen from the ceiling, whole lights hanging to the ground, and glass almost everywhere. Booths and tables lay in mangled messes beneath large chunks of ceiling tiles and jungles of wires hanging down through patches of open roofing. I wouldn't be surprised if I could see the night sky in some places, though I can't from right here.
"Jesus, Michael, what happened?" I ask, taking a cautious step forward to try and see more. There's not much else to process, the entire mess looks like a repeated system of junk.
"I told you," he mumbles, pointing his flashlight into the room alongside mine. "This place fell apart."
"Is it going to fall the rest of the way?" I question, the thought instantly making me ready to leave.
"It hasn't yet," he points out.
"That's not comforting in the slightest, I hope you know," I whisper. He starts walking into the pizzeria and I reluctantly follow. Even inside the mess, I don't feel anything haunted.
Glass and wood crunch under my steps, sounds I don't like, nor do I want to continue hearing. But, for Michael's sake, I hold my tongue and press on. My flashlight passes over splintered wood, bent metal chairs, and hundreds of little unidentifiable bits and pieces scattered across the floor. The place looks like a bunch of wild animals were let lose in it. I can't imagine that this happened all at one time though. For a place to go from a somewhat alright appearance to this? A lot has to happen.
Michael ducks under a support beam hanging from the ceiling, and I realize it looks like he's walking towards something. Like he has a goal in mind. "Is there a specific place we're going?" I ask, wanting to confirm my theory.
"I figured we'd start where the animatronics are..." He comes to a dead stop after ducking under another beam. I duck under it and look up at him to find his flashlight pointed at a slight upward angle. I follow it and find an empty stage in front of us. "But it looks like we're out of luck."
"Oh, fun," I chirp, feeling a sense of dread starting to creep in as I inhale more dust than I can manage and promptly begin coughing.
"I don't know where else they would be," he admits, panning his flashlight around as I clear my throat and cover my nose and mouth with the jacket sleeve.
"You said they could move, so what would stop them from leaving?" I ask, immediately terrifying myself. The thought of animatronics wandering around in the dead of night sends shivers up my spine.
"That's probably not--" Something crashes a few rooms away and we both nearly jump out of our skin. My blood runs cold as I duck back under the board and sit beneath it, crouched down with my light pointed down straight beneath me. Michael backtracks to where I am and shines his flashlight towards where the sound came from.
The little Jonah voice in my head keeps telling me that Michael planned this and that I should run as fast as I can to get away, but the empath in me feels that he's as scared as I am, which keeps me anchored to my spot.
"Any idea what that could've been?" I ask, quietly. He keeps his flashlight pointed at a hallway that branches off from the main room we're in. Slowly, he begins walking in that direction. I look around for a second, finding and quickly grabbing a loose piece of wood that was laying on the floor beside me. I hold it tight and begin following him, slowly standing all the way up before taking cautious steps behind his.
"The building is old," he comments as we near the hallway. "That could've been anything." Another crash scares me into dropping the only weapon I had and running to be directly behind Michael. I turn my flashlight behind us and look that way.
The dread returns to my system when I look back at the beam from Michael's flashlight. This time the feeling is stronger, much stronger, and nearly heavy enough to knock me off my feet. But it's not just dread. There's anger and regret and resentfulness all laced together into a horrible symphony of emotions that staggers me for a second.
I know for a fact these new feelings aren't mine.
"Something's here," I say with a sudden clarity, keeping my voice as low as possible, "and I think it's dying." Michael turns to me, and I point to my chest. "All I can feel are the worst emotions a human can experience. That's usually a death thing."
"Maybe you're feeling the building?" he offers, looking up at the ceiling as if the answer is up there somewhere. "I mean, kids did die in here in pretty horrible ways." Another crash, this one more like a clatter followed by the sound of metallic pipes jostling around, prompts me to reach a hand out to press against Michael's arm, just to assure myself he's still there.
"Is this a bad time to mention that I also don't feel any spirits?" I ask, which drags the man's gaze back to me.
"Nothing?" he questions.
"Nothing," I reply, "anywhere. Usually, I can feel them from a block or more away, but this place is empty... except for that horrible dread feeling."
"I think I might know what that feeling is from," Michael admits, a loud crash punctuating his thought. He flinches and I grab onto his jacket, taking a step back.
"You think maybe we could discuss this where there's not creepy crashes? You know, like outside?" I offer.
"Good plan," he replies, and we turn around. Just as we start going, I feel a snag in my mind, like I forgot to look at or say something that was important. Michael ducks under the first of the two support beams and I know I should follow him, but I can't stop myself from turning around and shining my light across the area we just came from.
"Josie?" Michael asks. "You coming?"
"Yeah, yeah, right--" My flashlight passes over something on the stage that catches my attention. It's just a small reflection, but all of a sudden, my body is so desperately dedicated to going towards it that I assume it has to be something.
"Hold on, I think I found something," I warn, abandoning our easy escape in order to make my way to the stage. Glass scrapes beneath me and I have to climb over a questionable amount of fallen ceiling panels perched on top of a slanted table, but I make it to the stage without any real issue.
"What is it?" Michael asks, just as I hoist myself up onto the wooden platform. I walk over to the side, pushing the crumpled curtain out of the way to reveal what seems to be a mess of broken and disconnected wires leading back off the stage. Along with it, oil that seems to be new.
"Come look at this," I mumble, pushing the curtain further to the side so I don't have to hold it out of the way. I feel the stage give way slightly as he climbs up onto it, his footsteps sending sharp vibrations through my entire body as I crouch down to look at the wires and puddle of oil. I push my hair back behind my ears before following the wires with my flashlight, trying to see if they actually lead somewhere.
"What, some wires?" Michael asks. "They're everywhere, what's so special about them?"
"There's oil here, and it's still wet," I mumble, pointing to it without taking my eyes off the trail of wires. "And these have been broken."
"Oh," Michael mumbles, and I stand up and look over at him. He looks at me for a second, eyes asking the question his mouth doesn't have to.
Are we going to investigate?
Well, I guess I didn't come out here expecting this to be easy.
And Annabeth would've done it.
"Come on, this might lead us to your spirit friends," I say, nodding to the path. He goes first, and I keep a hand out just behind his back in case one of us needs to be steadied.
The path leads away from the party area and into a back room through a stage door that must've been an easy access passage for maintenance. The room we enter into is significantly colder and noticeably damp. I pull the jacket sleeves further down my hands, shivering as we follow the broken trail to where it splits.
"One path goes further," Michael mumbles, following it down a hall through an archway, "and the other goes... that way." He turns to the other path, which leads to where the crashing came from earlier, off to the right.
"Let's follow this one," I suggest, tugging his left sleeve lightly so he knows which one I'm referencing. He looks to the right for a second longer, then presses on forward.
The trail ends just in front of a back room that has no visible purpose just by looking at it. Other than being covered in rubble and having an oddly large vent, there's nothing in it. Michael sighs softly and walks inside, but as soon as I'm in the hallway alone, I feel a presence.
My head turns on a swivel and I see the last bit of something running into another room. The back of a head, the tail of a shirt, the last visible bit of a shoe disappearing through the doorframe. I make a move to follow it.
The problem is that as soon as I take a step towards it, a tension I hadn't noticed before snaps. The building instantly becomes less dreadful, and the curiosity I had been missing returns to my chest with no more outside influence. The change tips me off to the fact that whatever I had seen was a residual manifestation, not a spirit. It was a memory. The building's memory, I assume.
The mere presence of such a manifestation means something horrible happened here.
I follow the energy to the room it ran into and cautiously shine my flashlight down on the floor, finding what appears to be motor oil on the ground, though it does kind of look red in the light of the flashlight. I try not to think too much about it and lift the beam of my light up.
A scream escapes me before I can even fully process what I'm looking at. My flashlight hits the ground as my back hits the wall behind me, hands covering my mouth as the full image becomes obscured by the lack of light.
"What happened?" Michael asks in a panicked tone as he runs out of another room. I can't bring myself to answer. All I can do is leave my left hand on my mouth and reach down for my flashlight, shining it over the ripped-apart animatronics and wires scattered across the room like a trash pile.
Michael appears next to me and looks inside, his heavy breathing pausing for a moment. "What the hell...?"
The intense pressure of memories that aren't mine starts to press on my head. Slowly but surely, the soft sounds of a party start to fill my ears. Children laughing, music playing, arcade games blasting. The smell of pizza fills my nose, and I swear for a moment I can taste chocolate cake and cheap fruit punch.
The sound of a single laughing voice gets closer, and I turn to my left, finding that the rubble we had just walked across is faded, as if it weren't really there. I grab Michael's arm and gently pull him a step or two backwards as the laughter comes fully into the hallway. It's a kid's voice, but a man's speaks a moment later, much closer to me than I expected it to be.
"In here. The special present is in here," the man says, but I can't see him. I hear his heavy footfalls walk into the room, and as he crosses the threshold, the animatronic parts and mess completely disappears. The man comes into view, but he's not a man. He's an animatronic, or perhaps a man inside one. A golden-green bunny with a lopsided ear, tall enough that he probably had to duck to get in the room. I step forward, wanting to be closer, but a kid appears in the doorway as they walk in.
It's a girl, a young girl. The colors of the vision are a bit odd, but she looks to have blonde pigtails and a yellow shirt. I'm quick to realize that she didn't run in like the last figure that went into this room. She walked. She followed. She was led here.
"Mister... Who's that?" she asks, pointing to the corner. I don't see anyone or anything there, but the man has an answer for her.
"That's Chica," he replies, and I hate the way his voice sounds.
"Mister, there's no presents in here," the girl says, looking around. "I want to go back to where the presents are."
"You will," he whispers.
Without warning, the residual energy snaps back into reality, but not before horrible screams fill my ears and my heart sinks to the floor.
"Holy shit," I whisper, stepping back from the door.
"What?" Michael asks. "What just happened? Why did you go quiet?" The screaming gets muffled and I close my eyes, trying to will the auditory sensation away. "Josie?"
"He killed that girl," I whisper, the screaming fading in an instant. "He killed her."
"Yeah, I told you that's what--" Michael pauses as I look up at him, one hand still covering my mouth as tears that are actually mine fill my eyes. He realizes what's going on a moment too late.
"That rabbit," I whisper, slowly pulling my left hand away from my face and point to the room. "That rabbit was the killer... he was... he..." I have to pause as waves of emotions that aren't mine hit me hard.
"Okay, maybe we should go somewhere else," Michael offers, gesturing behind him. I shake my head and wipe my eyes, trying to keep myself calm. I step forward and shine my light into the room again, looking specifically at the animatronic bits.
"Which uh... which one was Chica?" I ask, and Michael makes a surprised noise. Without asking anything, he points his light to a yellow arm protruding from the mess on the floor.
"Chica was a chicken. She had a cupcake that uh... it really didn't like anyone," Michael admits, and I nod. "Did you see the spirit that possessed her?"
"I saw um... I saw a memory of hers, or maybe of the building, I don't know. Um... she was... she was killed by a rabbit animatronic," I reply, turning to look at him. "A tall man in a rabbit suit, maybe?"
"Yeah?" Michael prompts.
"What I saw wasn't the spirit. It's something called residual energy," I explain, turning to see how far the wall is and then immediately moving to lean on it. "It's uh... it's not alive-- well I guess spirits aren't either, but it's not uh... conscious. It can't think." Michael nods, furrowing his brows as if he's trying to understand.
"Like a TV show," I admit, and he nods. "They play in the location they happened, over and over, sometimes for eternity. Sometimes it's the spirits reliving it, sometimes it's the building remembering."
"Can you tell the difference between the two?" Michael asks.
"No but based on your explanation I would assume this is the building," I reply, running my fingers through my hair and closing my eyes for a second.
"Okay... what do you want to do?" Michael asks. "If you need a break, we can step out. If you want to be done, we know the spirits aren't here so..."
"I think they were here," I admit, looking up at him. "I believe you when you say they were here in February, and I think they were recently. But I don't think that--" I flick my flashlight into the room as if to gesture that way-- "happened because of them. Someone did that."
"Oh," Michael replies, looking into the room.
Those poor kids... This poor building...
What else happened here?
"If you don't mind," I say softly, "I'd like to stay for a while to see if another memory comes through."
"We can do that," Michael chimes, nodding a bit.
"I just don't know why they would've left..." I whisper, looking into the room. "The spirits, I mean. Their deaths were... bad. I think that might be the dread I'm feeling."
"Maybe," Michael mumbles, but I can sense that he doesn't feel the same.
(A/N: I will be heavily basing the residual energy visions off of a TikTok edit that I saw and no I will not take suggesting against it because I liked it, thanks for understanding)
Please leave a like if you enjoyed and again, feel free to correct my spelling/grammar in the comments :)