It was the first murder that the department had dealt with at the time. It was a 16-person department, usually charged with small thefts and noise complaints, and to be handed a gruesome murder made all of them feel a little like kids whose toy guns had suddenly turned real.
Clay opened the file, knowing what he would find. It was only a partial report; the rest of it was in a storage room in the basement. He scanned the familiar words, the bureaucratic language that tried, but failed to obscure the point: there had been no justice done. Sometimes the guilty get away with terrible things, but it is the price we pay. He had said that to Charlie. He cringed a little now, to realize how that must have sounded, for her of all people.
He picked up the phone, calling the front desk in a moment of urgency rather than walking the twenty feet to ask in person.
“Has Dunn reported back from Freddy’s?” He asked, before the officer on the other end could speak.
“No, sir,” she said, “I’ll—”
He hung up, not waiting for her to finish. Clay stared moodily, restlessly at the wall for a long moment, then he grabbed his coffee cup, and headed to the basement.
He didn’t have to search for the box of evidence from the Freddy’s disappearances; he had been here before. There was no one around, and so instead of taking it upstairs to his office, Clay sat down on the concrete floor, spreading papers and photographs around him. There were interviews, witness statements; reports from the on-scene officers, Clay included. He sifted through them aimlessly; he didn’t know what he was looking for. There was nothing new here.
There was nothing to find, really. They knew who did it. At first he had suspected Henry, just like so many others around town. It was a terrible thought, but it was a terrible crime; there was no solution that would not be shocking. He had not been the one to question Charlie’s father, but he had read the transcript. The man had been almost incoherent, so shaken that he could not give straight answers. He sounded as if he were lying, and to most people, that was proof enough. But Clay had resisted, delayed having him arrested, and sure enough, they came to William Afton, Henry’s partner. Afton seemed like the normal one in the venture, the businessman. Henry was the artist; he always seemed to be off in another world, some part of his mind thinking about his mechanical creatures even when he was holding a conversation about the weather, or the kids’ soccer games. There was something off about Henry, something almost shell-shocked; it seemed like a miracle that he could have produced a child as apparently normal as Charlie.
Clay remembered when Henry had moved to town and begun construction of the new restaurant. Someone had told him that Henry had a kid who was abducted several years prior, but didn’t know much else. He seemed like a nice enough guy, though he was obviously terribly alone, his grief visible even at a distance. Then Freddy Fazbear’s opened, and the town came alive. That was also when Charlie appeared; Clay hadn’t known Henry even had a daughter until that day.
William Afton was the one who made Freddy’s a business, as he had the previous restaurant. Afton was as robust and lively as Henry was withdrawn and shadowy. He was a hefty man, and had the ruddy geniality of a financially shrewd Santa Claus. And he had killed the children. Clay knew it; the whole department knew it. He had been present for each abduction. He had mysteriously and briefly vanished at the same time as each child went missing. A search of his house had found a room crammed with boxes of mechanical parts and a musty yellow rabbit suit, and stacks of journals full of raving paranoia, passages about Henry that ranged from wild jealousy to near-worship.
But there had been no evidence, there had been no bodies, and so there could be no charge. William Afton had left town, and there was nothing to stop him. They did not even know where he had gone. Clay picked up a picture from the pile; it had been taken, framed, from the wall of Henry’s office at the restaurant. It was a picture of the two of them together, Henry and William, grinning into the camera in front of the newly opened Freddy Fazbear’s. He stared at it; he had stared at it before. Henry’s eyes did not quite match his smile; the expression looked forced. But then, it always did; there was nothing unusual here, except that one of the men had turned out to be a killer.
Suddenly, Clay felt a shock of recognition, something indistinct; he could not quite catch it. He closed his eyes, letting his mind wander like a dog off the lead: go on, find it. There was something about William, something familiar, something recent. Clay’s eyes snapped open. He shoved everything back into the evidence box, cramming it in messily, keeping out only the photograph. Clutching it in his fist, he took the stairs up two at a time, almost running by the time he got to the main floor of the station. He headed straight for a particular filing cabinet, ignoring the greetings of his startled officers. He tore open the drawer, pawing through it until—there it was: employee background checks requested by businesses from the last six months.
He pulled out the stack, and flipped through them, looking for photos. In the third folder, he found it. He picked up the picture and held it up next to the one of Henry and William, turning so his body did not block the light.
It’s him.
The background check application was labeled “Dave Miller,” but it was unmistakably William Afton. Afton had been fat and affable; the man in the picture was sallow and thin, his skin sagging, and his expression unpleasant, as if he had forgotten how to smile. He looked like a poor facsimile of himself. Or maybe, Clay thought, he looked like he had dropped his disguise.
Clay flipped the page back, to see why the check had been requested, and his face drained white, his breathing stopped for a moment. Clay stood, grabbing jacket in the same motion, then stopped. Slowly, he sat, letting the jacket fall from his fingers. He took the partial file back out of its drawer, and delicately, he lifted one of the photos out. It had been taken in the aftermath, when the place was no more than a crime scene. He paused for a moment and closed his eyes, then he looked again at the picture, willing himself to see it as if for the first time.
There was a glimmer of light he had never noticed before. One of the animatronics on the stage, the bear, Freddy, was looking toward the cameraman, one of his eyes illuminated with a smear of light.
Clay put the picture aside, moving to the next one. This one was from a different angle, but the side of the main stage was still in the frame. Chica’s body was facing away from the camera, but her face was turned directly toward it, and another smear of light streaked across her left eye. Clay rubbed it with the tip of his finger, making sure it wasn’t a defect in the paper. The next photo showed Bonnie in the darkness behind the chairs. A pinpoint of light, like a star, shone from one of his eyes as though reflecting a spotlight that wasn’t there. What is this? Clay could feel his face flush; he realized he hadn’t been breathing. He shuffled his hands on the desk like a conjurer calling forth a picture to reveal itself. One did. The last picture had been taken in Pirate’s Cove. Tables had been disturbed, he remembered. The scene was chaotic: the tables and chairs in disarray, clutter strewn through the halls. But unlike so many other times he had stared at this picture, he ignored the disorder, focused only on the stage. The curtain was pulled back slightly, a figure barely visible in the recesses behind it, one eye illuminated by the flash of a camera. Clay studied the rest of the pictures, looking for more reflections, but found none. There was no flash.
Jason opened his eyes. His leg hurt; it was a steady, dull pain. He flexed it tentatively, and found he could move easily; it could not be too bad. He was lying on something lumpy, and his whole body felt stiff, like he had been asleep on a pile of—he looked at what he was lying on—a pile of extension cords and wires. He sat up. It was dark, but he could dimly see what was around him. He bent over to examine his leg: his jeans were ripped where Foxy’s claw had gouged him, and the gash in his leg was ugly, but it was not bleeding badly. The hook had mostly got hold of his jeans. Jason felt a little relief. Satisfied, he began to examine his surroundings. He was in a
corner, and there was a heavy, black curtain strung from one wall to the other, cutting the space off from the room outside. He crawled forward over the cables cautiously, careful to make no sound. He made his way to the edge of the curtain, where there was a tiny sliver of a gap between it and the wall. Jason took a moment to steel himself, then peeked out, conscious of his every movement.
He was on the small stage in Pirate’s Cove, behind the curtain. He could hear something moving out there, something large, but from his position he could see only an empty room. He pushed his head out a little further, craning his neck to look. He couldn’t tell where the sound was coming from, but with each second he grew bolder, readying himself to leap from the stage and run. A light was pulsing in the main dining room, illuminating the hall for brief seconds at a time with bright, dizzying carnival colors. It wasn’t much, but it gave Jason a direction to run. He watched it intently, until it was all he could see, and then it stopped. The room was dark, darker than it had been before—his eyes had adjusted to the light and now he was nearly blind. The shuffling sound went on, and Jason pulled the curtain open farther. This time he moved too fast, and as the curtain was drawn the metal rings that held it clinked together.
The light above Pirate’s Cove went on.
Foxy was there, right in front of him, his face so close to Jason’s that they could almost touch. Jason scrambled back through the curtain, pulling it closed again, trying to escape the small alcove, but there was nowhere to run. He crawled backward, staying against the wall, hoping that the curtain would somehow shield him from Foxy.
At once, the curtain began to open, not by force, but as if a show were about to begin. Lights and color flashed in silent patterns, and the glittered front curtains rolled back in grand fashion to reveal the stage, and the beast standing patiently at its base.
Foxy cocked his head to the side as if considering something, and then he began his approach. He climbed the stairs to the stage one by one, each step a whole series of disjointed movements, as if each piece of his metal body maneuvered itself individually. Jason watched, struck with horror, yet some small part of him was enthralled; it was like nothing he had ever seen. Foxy reached the stage and took two more large, deliberate steps, until he was standing over Jason. Jason stared up at him, too afraid to move, frozen in place like a mouse beneath a diving falcon. His breath was shallow, his heart beat so fast his chest hurt. Foxy raised his hook again, and Jason threw himself down on the floor in a ball, protecting his head with his arms, waiting for the blow to come.
It did not come.
Jason did not move. He waited, and waited, wondering if time had slowed down as he approached the moment of his death, his mind trying to give him refuge, making the last moments feel as long as possible. But not this long. He opened his eyes and turned his head a little, keeping his arms in front of his face. Foxy was still there, not moving. Despite himself, Jason met the creature’s eyes. It was like looking into the sun—Foxy’s burning gaze made Jason’s eyes tear up, made him want to look away, but he could not. It was the animatronic who looked away. As Jason watched, peering through the afterburn that clouded his vision, Foxy turned to face his absent audience. His hook fell slowly to his side, his head tilted forward, and he was motionless. The sounds of whirring machinery and clicking parts came to a stop, and the curtains drew closed again.
“Ready?” Lamar said. Marla nodded curtly.
“I’m ready,” she said. She threw open the door, fists clenched, and they climbed out, facing opposite directions, preparing for an assault. Marla was breathing heavily, her face furious. The darkness was thick, almost tangible, and she could barely make out what was around her. She could see Lamar, but if they drifted three feet apart, they would be lost to one another. The lights above them flickered, but only for a moment; the brief illumination ruined what little night vision they had, making the dark impenetrable.
“Anything on your side?” Marla whispered. Lamar looked toward her voice, distressed.
“No, anything on your side?”
“Light please.” Marla whispered. Lamar held up the flashlight as though aiming a weapon, and turned it on. Above them, the lights sputtered.
Jason could see their flashlight waving back and forth, filtering through the slightly transparent curtain. Oh, no. The light fell on the animatronic, just for a moment, and there was a clicking noise. Jason looked up. Foxy was not moving. The light swept across him again, and again the mechanical sounds came, this time unmistakable, though he still did not move. Jason scooted forward, around Foxy’s foot, and looked up at the animatronic’s face as the light struck him again. Again the clicking noise came; something inside him was readying itself, but his eyes stayed dark. Jason crawled as far forward as he was willing to venture, trying not to cross into Foxy’s line of sight. He made it to the edge of the curtain, and reached his arm out to wave a warning.
“Jason!” He heard his sister’s voice, and then a quick shushing from what must have been Lamar. The flashlight swept up, trained on the stage, and Foxy’s eyes lit up. His head swept toward the light with a predatory precision, and Jason, panicked, reached for the pile of cords, and grabbed a cable. Foxy lifted a foot, and Jason threw the cord around it and yanked with all his strength. Foxy pitched forward, grabbing at the curtain with his hook; it caught, ensnaring him, and he ripped through the cloth with a vicious tearing noise, falling to the ground in a tangle of cloth and metal limbs. Jason scrambled past the struggling creature, and ran toward the light.
Marla reached for him and he brushed her aside.
“Run,” he panted, and the three of them took off down the hall. They turned a corner, and as one, they stopped, Jason skidding against Lamar and grabbing him for support. At the end of the dark hall stood another figure, too large to be a person. The top hat was unmistakable. Freddy Fazbear.
His eyes illuminated, their piercing red glow consuming the space around him. They could hear the brittle notes of a song, mechanical and thin like a music box, coming from Freddy’s direction. They stared, mesmerized, then Jason found himself and pulled at Marla’s arm.
“Come on,” he hissed, and they followed him, running back the way they had come. When they reached Pirate’s Cove they slowed; Foxy had thrown off the curtain, and was beginning to right himself. The three exchanged glances, then ran past him; Jason held his breath until they were through to the next doorway, invoking some old superstition.
Lamar motioned to one of the party rooms and they ducked inside. He switched off the flashlight, and they stood still for a moment, their eyes adjusting. The room had three long cafeteria-style tables, each one still set for a party: metal folding chairs were lined all up and down them, and each place was set with a party hat, a paper plate, and a plastic cup. By wordless agreement, each hid beneath a different table, leaving themselves as much space as possible. They crouched low, hoping to be lost behind the chair legs, and together they stared silently into the vacant hall, and listened.
“Hello? Anyone?” John repeated into the radio, but there was only static. He had managed to hook the walkie-talkie into the sound system, but getting a signal to the outside seemed impossible; Freddy’s was sealed off from the world. He looked at the monitors again; on one screen he could see three figures crouched under tables, Marla, Lamar, and Jason, he thought. They found Jason, he realized with profound relief, letting go of a tension he had not known he felt. Everything on screen was lit with unnatural greys and whites. “These must be night-vision cameras,” He said aloud to no one, and squinted to see through the static. He watched the blurry figures crawl and come to a stop beneath the long party tables, then movement from another screen caught his eye.
There was a figure in the hallway, moving steadily toward the room they were in. John could not tell what it was, but the way it moved wasn’t human. It stopped beside a doorway and with a sudden jolt of realization, John looked again at the party room where his friends were hiding. He grabbed the walkie-talkie an
d flipped the speaker system on, jamming the volume control as high as it would go.
“Lamar.” He said calmly, trying to sound commanding, and heard the reverberation of his own voice through the walls of the control room. “Lamar, don’t move.”
John’s voice blared over the speaker, blurred with static but intelligible.
“Lamar, don’t move.”
Lamar, Marla, and Jason looked at one another across the distance between the tables. The room lit up with a burning red glow, and they watched, as still as they could be, as Freddy Fazbear entered the room. His movements were mechanical and graceless as he walked with deliberate steps to the middle of the room and stopped between two tables; Marla on one side, Jason on the other. Jason looked at his sister and she put a finger to her lips. Jason hadn’t realized that there were tears on his cheeks until now.
He watched as Freddy surveyed the room, his head, with eyes like spotlights, whirred to one to side, stopped with a click, and then turned to the other side. There was a long pause. The two padded feet were motionless, the legs like black trees in a forest beside them. There was a sound of twisting fur and crinkling fabric, and the feet began to pivot. Freddy turned around and headed for the door, each step shaking the floor beneath them. As Freddy passed by, Jason shrunk back instinctively, his foot hitting one of the metal chairs. It made a scraping sound. Jason’s heart raced. Frantic, he looked across the space at Marla, who beckoned to him urgently. Freddy had stopped, they could still hear the sound of fabric and fur scrunching and moving. Freddy was bending down to look under the table. His motions were slow, and in those precious few seconds, Jason pushed the two chairs in front of him apart, making a gap just wide enough for him to crawl behind Freddy and under the table with Marla. The light of Freddy’s eyes came into view under the table, illuminating the space beside Jason, and he quickly but quietly crawled between the chairs and through the space Marla had cleared for him. Freddy stood again, training his eyes on the floor just as Jason pulled his foot out of sight.
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