(Unedited, 3657 words)
Trigger Warning: I don't think there's any but feel free to correct me
"Here, take a left here," I say, catching sight of the road a little late. Jonah sighs and hums as he makes the questionable turn with somewhat of a practiced ease. "Mike said they're the sixth or seventh house, so I guess just find the one that has a colored mailbox." My eyes scan the road, trying to count ahead and search for the mailbox.
"Aww, that's cute. A good lure for the kids, too," Jonah mutters, still stubborn in his belief that Mike's a criminal. At this point, I can't tell if he's joking or serious. His emotions on the matter are mixed: half of him believes the things he says, and the other half is completely joking. I can't tell if the two halves are arguing or just coexisting, and it annoys me. Regardless, this is one of the emotions that can't influence me because I know for a fact it's wrong. Which doesn't happen often, I'd like to add.
"Stop," I hiss, lightly backhanding his shoulder. "He has a little sister, not an army of children in his basement."
"How do you know she's not just model of the month?" he asks quietly, and I have to stop myself before I laugh.
No matter how wrong I know he is, it's still a little funny how far he'll go to prove his point.
"You have to stop," I beg, shaking my head while trying to suppress a smile. He mocks me, then points out the mailbox and slows down for the turn. "So, when we go in, I'm going to introduce you and then we'll explain the other location, does that sound alright?"
"Sounds good to me," Jonah replies, turning into the driveway and parking at the edge of it, just behind the same car I climbed into late yesterday afternoon. "Reach back and grab those newspapers from the backseat, will you?"
"Is there anything I shouldn't see back here?" I ask as I turn around and reach for the papers sitting behind his chair, both on the bench backseat and scattered across the floor. The rest of his car is a complete mess, as I expected, but the newspapers are settled on top of the chaos. The light grey color sharply contrasts with the concerning mix of hues the rest of the car is streaked in.
"I think the worst things back there are an unopened pack of condoms and an empty pack of cigarettes," Jonah replies, and I can't help but snicker even though I don't see them. "What?" He asks this defensively even though I can feel the smile fighting its way onto his lips.
"I don't know which is more depressing," I tease, handing him the papers as he mocks me again and snatches them away. "Are they— well, I guess were they— your cigarettes?"
"Hell no. Do you know what Carter would do to me if I smoked?" He asks, turning the car off and taking the key out of the ignition. Less than a second later, he mumbles, "Not to answer my own question or anything, but he'd probably kill me."
"You know, that's fair," I mumble, opening my bag for him and letting him haphazardly stuff the newspapers into it. I zip my bag up once he's done, and then waste no time in climbing out and fighting with the back until it gets onto my back. I close the passenger side door and wait for Jonah to join me on this side.
"You first, madame," he teases, putting his French I class to work. He's probably slept through every lesson, but he still knows enough to toss a word or two in every now and then. Not to mention his tendency to whip out complex sentences (meaning four or five words randomly strung together) when a cute guy comes into the pet shop.
I lead him down the little walkway that connects the driveway to the front porch, already looking for the doorbell.
But just as I stretch my foot out to step onto the porch, I stop. Before I can stop them, worried thoughts fill my head.
What if I'm wrong? What if the nightmares ended and he doesn't care anymore? What if they didn't and he's mad he paid me for nothing?
What if I'm making a mistake?
"Hey, it's cold," Jonah chimes, visibly shivering next to me. "Get over yourself and knock, please."
I wipe my nervous-sweaty palms on the jacket I'm wearing— still Jonah's jacket—, take a breath, and step forward. With shaking hands, I ring the doorbell and knock twice. It's the same little ritual I do for every house I have to enter. Doorbell and two knocks. If I think I'll need it, I do three knocks, the third harder than the first two. I haven't yet made a list of times there the third knock has felt useful, but I do intend to think about it more often.
This is not an instance where I would need the third knock, but I am tempted to include one.
"What if he answers the door covered in blood?" Jonah whispers, and I stomp on his foot to get him to shut up. He leaps away, covering his mouth to stifle a shout as the door audibly unlocks and begins to pull open. I give Jonah a warning glance before sidestepping into the view of the cracked front door.
In the doorway stands Abby— or at least I assume it's Abby—, Mike's younger sister. She looks up at me silently for a moment, giving me time to observe her dark brown hair, which is pulled back into pigtails with small bits framing her face. She has Mike's brown eyes and a similar face shape. As someone with no siblings who has only ever been close to one person who has them (Jonah), it always startles me when siblings look so similar in spite of age and gender differences.
Though at the same time it's nice knowing the universe liked the face so much it decided to give it to two people.
That's the Annabeth side of me talking.
"Hi, my name is Josephine," I begin, nodding respectfully to her before I pop the question: "Is Michael home?" I already know the answer, since we parked behind his car, but I still feel like I have to ask.
"Yeah," Abby replies, looking at me for a moment longer before she turns around and yells, "Mike! Josie's here for you!"
The nickname catches me by surprise, especially since I wasn't the one to tell her it was okay to call me by it. Which means Mike told her it was.
Which means he told her about me.
"He's coming," Abby says, staring out at the yard behind me instead of at either of us. Jonah clears his throat and snags my gaze, giving me a warning glance before he looks up at the top of the doorframe. I don't know what the glance was for— actually it was probably for Michael—, but it feels suspicious nonetheless.
A set of heavy footsteps starts to make their way across the floor inside, causing Abby to turn around to look. I can judge how close he is based on the angle Abby's head and eyes make, so I'm ready when the door is peeled further open. Mike puts his left hand on Abby's shoulder, his right holding the door level with his head. His eyes bypass his sister and find mine almost instantly. A short moment of silence follows before he speaks.
"Hi," he says softly, starting with a gentle introduction.
"Hey, we need to talk to you," I say, gesturing to Jonah without looking over at him. Mike's eyes flick over to the teenager, rest there for a moment, then return to me. He nods a bit, visibly biting the inside of his cheek, before he speaks to his sister.
"Hey, Abs, I need you to go to your room for a bit so Josie and I can talk about some grown up things alright?" Mike asks, and the eleven-year-old kid rolls her eyes. Regardless of her opinion, which I can feel is very pro-not-doing-what-Mike-tells-her, she turns and heads back into the house.
Nobody moves or speaks until her door closes.
"What happened?" Mike asks, his voice barely louder than a whisper and his eyes barely able to lift themselves to find mine once again.
"Mike, this is my friend Jonah; Jonah this is Mike," I begin, gesturing to each as I say their name. They acknowledge each other with a small nod, then Mike turns back to me. Jonah steps slightly closer, snagging my attention for a moment before I continue. "I think we might've found where your spirits went."
Mike's eyes widen and his heartbeat quickens, excitement and anticipation building in his chest. He quickly gestures for us to come inside, and I nod before stepping in. Jonah hesitates for a moment, eyes on Mike, who has stepped aside to allow him room. Jonah's eyes flick to me and I gesture for him to follow, which he eventually does.
Once the door closes, Mike asks, "Where?" The question is simple, but it holds a lot of weight. If we're wrong, I'm afraid it might crush him.
"Jonah found some newspapers that talk about another Freddy Fazbear location, somewhere up in Northeast Louisiana or just across the border in Mississippi," I explain, following Mike into the kitchen he leads us to. I set my bag down on the counter and unzip it as I finish speaking.
"Another one?" Mike asks, more annoyed than surprised. "Who thought the first one was good enough to open a second?"
"This one was just as bad as yours, unsurprisingly," Jonah says, his tone implying that Mike somehow owned the one we had been in the night before. I hate how he says it. So does Mike. "It opened in 1985 and closed in 1987."
"Short-lived," I clarify, rustling through the newspapers out and finding the one with the bite story that Jonah had read to me earlier today, "because of this." I hold the paper out to Mike and he takes it gingerly. It takes him a minute to fully get what he's looking at, but he finds it in the end.
"The Bite of '87?" He reads aloud, a question in his voice as he looks at the headline.
"A security guard was mauled in mid-November of 1987, leading to the close of the pizzeria and the near bankruptcy of Fazbear Entertainment," I explain, quieting down for a moment as he reads. I take a second to look back at Jonah, who's leaning against the countertop with his hands in his jacket pockets. His eyes drag away from Mike to meet mine, and he exhales deeply as soon as he's aware we're both looking at each other.
Stay calm, I beg him. I promise Mike's not a murderer and we're both okay.
"Why would they go to this place?" Mike questions suddenly, pulling my gaze back to him. "I mean, it's been closed for over a decade. What would they want with it?" He looks up at me and must catch a glimpse of the other papers because he quickly asks, "There's more?"
"They all say pretty much the same thing," Jonah clarifies. "Near-fatal mauling of security guard leads to the discovery of shady practices and unsafe security systems in infamous hometown pizzeria." His memorization of the articles' hooks terrifies me, but Mike just nods a bit and looks back down at his paper. I take a second to formulate my response before sending it out.
"Bonnie's spirit said he was sent back when he came to warn us," I begin, pausing for a moment to let the words sink in, "so I can only assume that something took him away first." Mike's eyes stay on mine for a second, a strong sense of physical exhaustion spreading from him to me the longer we stay still.
He needs to sleep.
So do I.
"And you think whatever it was took them here?" He questions, lazily waving the newspaper at me. Suspicion starts to crawl out of him and up the walls and across the floor. It pools at my feet and rises quickly like a faucet spewing more than it should. I begin to drown in his overwhelming disbelief. This is another one of those non-influential emotions that clash with my own beliefs.
I try to step back and see the situation from his angle, but it all looks the same no matter how much I try to distort it. There's another pizzeria that was nearly identical in every way to the first save the floor plan and main attractions. A security guard was nearly killed there. Where else would the spirits go? Where else would harbor— could harbor— their souls? The souls that I still have to put to rest. All because one man in a bunny suit got too drunk on power and decided a good way to blow off steam would be killing kids and stuffing them into animatronics.
I'm spiraling.
"Afton couldn't have done it," I state, feeling confident in my words. Said confidence helps ground me. It helps recenter my mind. It is a fact; one I don't have to search for or guess at. It's as real as the jacket keeping me warm, the floor beneath my feet, the teenager looming protectively behind me, and even the man slouching in disbelief in front.
That being said, the fact does nothing to persuade Mike.
He looks at the newspaper, then up at me, then over to Jonah. His eyes rest on the teenager for a second, something I notice a little too much. His mouth remains silent, but his heart does something weird in his chest and it sends a lot of suffocating sadness in my direction. Like a freight train of sickening trauma smashing me through walls of pain whilst simultaneously stabbing and twisting knives of guilt into my gut. I shift uncomfortably, and both of them catch it.
"Are you two hungry?" Mike offers, his tone shifting to a warmer, more welcoming variation. "We have leftovers if you're up for it. Abby wanted tacos. Um, she's starting to eat less meat and more vegetables, so I only made enough meat for myself. But, if you guys—"
"Do you believe us or not?" Jonah asks, coming out of nowhere with a question I wouldn't even ask. He cuts Mike's stalling out of the conversation and curbs any chance he has at reviving it. The defeated man stands in the middle of the kitchen with his head turned down, and for a moment I wonder why. Then he looks up at Jonah and his heart does the thing again and I start to hurt all over again.
Jonah reminds him of something. And he hates the memory.
"I had a nightmare last night," Mike says softly, and I perk up a bit. His eyes are down again, and after noticing the blank expression on his face, I also notice that his emotions are completely blocked off. Somehow, he's shut himself down in such a way that I can't even try to work around it. I feel nothing from him anymore. Only Jonah's soft anger and constant suspicion.
"Did the spirits say anything?" I ask, trying to open him back up. I dislike not being able to feel the emotions of the room. It's almost scary, I have to admit.
Nobody's ever been able to do that to me, other than my mother.
"It wasn't about the spirits," he mumbles, his voice twisting in a way that tells me not to get my hopes up, "it was like the ones about brother." I stiffen and bite my tongue, so many thoughts colliding in my head at once.
Simplified for my benefit and for yours, most of these thoughts can be roughly translated to: That's not good.
Mike shifts and exhales deeply before he looks up at me. "Except... it wasn't my brother in the car being driven away—" he pauses as if he's struggling to say the rest— "It was me."
"You were in the car?" I ask, and he nods. "Then what?"
"Abs—" he stops himself and turns away for a moment, discomfort and sadness building on his face. I wish I could feel if he felt the same inside, but he's still blocking me out. I wish I knew why, or even just how.
"Abby was chasing the car," he admits, running his right hand through his hair as if it's going to help him. "And... and I think I had gone willingly... or... I don't know—" he seems to have lost his words until he perks up again a moment later— "but she was following me, and she was determined, and I knew it was bad and she shouldn't be."
All the pieces start to click together then.
"You're worried about Abby," I say matter-of-factly. I don't leave much space for an argument. "Worried this— these spirits— will affect her. Again." There is a moment of silence after I speak. At first, it's empty, like a house that hasn't been lived in for years. I sit in it, savor it, and beg Jonah to do the same. This moment is Mike's, and he needs it. We all do.
I watch as the brunet man in front of me reaches a hand out to the countertop, his palm pressing firmly against the cool surface. I wait, willing to settle for as long as this takes him. The longer he thinks, the more likely he is to return with the right answer. The admission he needs to put a voice to followed by the agreement to join us.
I feel a soft press on my emotions. At first, I think it's Jonah sensing some kind of hope and responding with that of his own. But, as the press turns into a jab and then an influence, I realize it isn't him.
It's Mike.
And it's messy.
There's a lot of anger settling at the bottom, hidden beneath layers of fear and anxiety, topped off with some kind of negative-nostalgia syrup and mounds of sadness sprinkles. A medley of negativity forms inside of him, creating not a state of ambivalence but rather one of pure despair. In short, he's hurting.
I see why. He's stuck between sheltering his sister by staying as far away from his past as possible and tackling it head-on to finally end their nightmares and his own subsequent anxieties. I would never compare any of my life troubles to his, but I imagine it like my decision to get a job. I was stuck between almost freezing to death and so much financial anxiety that I would rather be dead. Neither option was great, but one was obviously better.
He takes his hand away from the counter as if to punctuate my thoughts and signify the end of the silent moment. I'm quick to realize why.
"How can I not be?" He asks, turning to me with a look in his eyes that perfectly reflects the despair felt in his soul. "I lost one sibling to this," he admits, his voice back down to almost a whisper, "I can't lose another one... or risk losing myself." He stands still then, confident in his words and unmoving in his decision.
I reply without missing a beat. "Alright." It takes a little longer to form an intelligent reply, but I can't risk letting him think he's caught me off guard. "Regardless, I'll be going to the location tomorrow."
"Josie—"
"I was asked to stop the nightmares and set the spirits free," I say sharply, shifting my gaze and refusing to make eye contact with Mike. Instead, I look at the newspaper set lightly on the counter to his right, my left.
"Josie, you don't have to do anything else, it's already—"
I cut him off again, firmly stating, "I asked for fifty and was told I would receive, quote, 'sixty and a ride home'. Upon reaching home, I found a forty-dollar tip in addition to the sixty." I turn my head a bit to face the space between Mike and Jonah, my eyes set where I can partially see both of them. "I have not stopped the nightmares, nor have I set the spirits free, and because I received such a generous tip, I don't mind working off the clock in order to complete the job."
"Josie," Mike snaps, "are you listening to yourself?"
"I'm doing this with or without you, Mike," I reply, my voice faltering as tears back my eyes. I don't know if the sadness is mine, his, or someone else's. It all feels mixed and messed up. It's all weird and fuzzy. Everything hurts. Everything feels heavy. "You may have given up on the spirits, but I haven't. I saw their deaths, Mike. I felt their pain. And I'm not letting them exist on a plane where they have to feel that constantly. They deserve to pass on. They deserve... so much."
Mike doesn't answer, and his eyes don't hold mine long enough for me to even start hoping he'll change his mind.
"I'll call you when I get back and let you know how it goes," I mutter, holding my hand out in his direction. He reaches over and grabs the newspaper, dropping it in my hand.
"Good luck," he mumbles, and that's that.
Jonah and I leave without another word.
(A/N: Okay so it's a bit later than I hoped but hey, I got the chapter out. It's not as good as I wanted, but that's what the "unedited" up there at the beginning means. Hopefully another chapter out this weekend, as I have nothing to do (thank goodness))
Please leave a like if you enjoyed and again, feel free to correct my spelling/grammar in the comments :)