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“You can’t stay here.”
Gregory’s eyes snap open. The little boy standing over him stares with wide, wide eyes. Gregory doesn’t think he’s ever seen anyone look so terrified.
The Pizzaplex’s weird storage closet is empty, except for the two of them. How did this kid even get in here? Is he one of the missing ones? From the newspaper?
Gregory sits up, the movement sudden. “But I can’t leave.”
“No!” The little boy’s voice cracks around the room, sharp to Gregory’s ears, but softly accented. British? Weird. They look around the same age, maybe. His hair is dark and short, and he’s in a black t-shirt with gray stripes in the center. It looks like something Gregory would wear—if he had more clothes—but the way the boy backs slowly away like a skittish animal isn’t much like Gregory at all.
“Shh! And I’m locked in,” Gregory rolls his eyes. “Dunno what you want me to do about it.”
“N-no,” the boy whimpers.
Gregory resists the urge to scoff at the growing redness of his eyes, the way his shoulders tense and his hands ball into fists. “What, is that all you can say now?”
“Help,” the boy says. “Help.” First quiet, then louder, louder, so loud that Gregory has to cover his ears and squeeze his eyes shut, so loud that, if he didn’t know better, he’d say the room shook. “HELP—HELP, PLEASE HELP—”
When he opens his eyes, the little boy is gone, and the room is calm.
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In the dim, faintly neon hallway, there is someone watching him.
Gregory whips around.
“You need help,” says the boy in the gray shirt. He’s older than Gregory, but not by a lot. His hair is the same dark brown as the first boy’s, but it’s longer, hanging over his face. The accent is the same, though. How did so many British kids get into the Pizzaplex?
…His eyes are blue. Too blue, almost. Too bright for his face.
“I don’t,” Gregory says.
“You do.”
“No, I don’t. I can handle myself. And there’s stuff in here that can help me.”
The older boy dashes towards him, faster than Gregory can react, faster than he can run.
“No one can help you,” the older boy whispers in his ear. “No one can help you but me.”
Gregory violently jerks away. The older boy lets him, impassive.
“Who says?” Gregory spits out.
“Everyone,” he says simply. “That’s how it always is.”
When Gregory blinks, the boy is gone. Like he was never there at all.
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“Am I going insane?” Gregory asks no one.
“No, silly!”
A little girl bounds into view. The big red bow in her hair bounces, trailing ribbon.
“If you’re insane, that means I’m insane too. And I haven’t been insane in a really, really long time.” She says it matter-of-factly, even crossing her arms to punctuate the statement. Her hair hangs around her face in soft waves, shimmering and reddish under the lights.
“So I am insane,” Gregory whispers. It’s the only way to explain all the British kids.
“No!” She giggles. It echoes across the hallway. “Well. Not yet!”
She stops.
“But you need help,” she says, suddenly solemn.
“No. I don’t.”
“Of course you do, silly. He said so. And just look at where you are!” She puts her hands on her hips.
Gregory glances around the hallway. “It just looks like a dumb kid’s place.”
There’s no reply. When Gregory looks back at the girl, she’s gone.
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“What are you DOING—” the little girl shrieks. Oh, so she’s back now. Great.
Gregory shrugs. He climbs into the sleeping Freddy’s now-open stomach hatch. “Hiding?”
“You shouldn’t even go near it—” the older boy is suddenly on his other side. He just barely misses grabbing at Gregory, who huffs and slams the hatch shut.
He can hear the little boy sobbing. “No, no no no nonononono—”
“Uh—okay kid, don’t move too much—”
“Does he WANT to die?”
“No, no, no—”
“All of you shut up!” Gregory shouts. “There’s nothing that can kill me in here! It’s a metal box!” With a lot of wires and mechanical stuff, but that’s not important.
“There’s nothing that can kill me in here,” the little girl copies in a mocking, high-pitched voice. It has an odd quality to it. Almost sounds like it’s coming from the animatronic.
Three gasps ring out.
And then there is silence.
“Uh… hello?” Gregory whispers. Did the shouting alert Vanessa? Or worse, the animatronics outside? Stupid, stupid, stupid, he has to be quiet.
With a great shake, Gregory begins to move. He braces himself against the smooth metal and tangled wires of the hatch.
Oh no.
Freddy’s awake.
“...Showtime already? I am experiencing a malfunction. The recharge cycle is not complete.”
What, is he talking to himself? He’s doing it very loudly. “Shh! Will you shut up?”
“Who said that?”
“I did! I’m down here.”
“Down where? I still do not see you.”
Is he… stupid? “Okay, listen. You were sleeping, so I opened the stomach hatch and climbed inside.” Despite the panicked shouts of the weird British kids. Where did they go?
“My… stomach hatch? That place is reserved for oversized birthday cakes and pinatas! It is not a safe play area!”
Gregory wants to laugh. This guy talks like a Sesame Street character. He very, very quickly stops laughing once he’s ejected from the hatch, though. Freddy grabs him by the shoulders.
“There you are.”
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“I don’t like him,” the little boy whispers in Gregory’s ear.
“He probably won’t hurt you if you keep him charged,” says the older boy.
“But he doesn’t make ice cream,” the girl pouts.
“Right, because ice cream is what I need right now.” Gregory rolls his eyes.
“Did you say something, Gregory?” Freddy’s head tilts, questioning.
“I—um. Hey, Freddy, do you know if there are any other kids in the Pizzaplex?”
“There are none. Vanessa and my friends are only searching for you. Why?”
“Um…” and sure enough, they’re gone. “No reason. Just wondering.”
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The three children don’t… don’t like to be around Freddy. Which is weird, because he’s been way more helpful than they’ve been (even if they are possibly maybe figments of his imagination) and he calls him ‘superstar’ and he lets him hide inside him, and, and, and is just nice? Like. He’s just nice. Freddy’s a nice robot.
Still, when Freddy’s around, the kids only show up in whispered warnings. He rarely even catches sight of them, just a trailing red ribbon or a flash of dark hair. Don’t go that way, Gregory. She’s waiting for you, Gregory. Gregory, hide!
When Gregory’s in the stomach hatch, they don’t appear at all.
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“Hide!” The older boy motions like he’s shoving Gregory away. “Chica’s in the other room, go go go!”
Gregory has since learned that, for all that they’re supremely annoying, the British kids are usually right about this kind of stuff. He sprints for the photo booth, and waits from the inevitable pounding of footsteps.
The older boy is inside with him, though Gregory never saw him open the curtain.
Chica’s harsh, metallic footsteps clank past him.
5… 4… 3… 2… 1… okay.
“Okay, that’s enough.” Gregory’s hands are still shaking. “Who are you? Why haven’t any of you been caught yet?” he demands. The older boy lets him. “Why are you here? Why can’t anyone else see you? Are you even real?”
“Ghosts are real.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“My siblings are dead,” says the older boy.
“That means you are too,” Gregory fires back.
“I… well… yeah. I mean, I hope so,” the older boy says, soft.
“What? Why?” Gregory asks, incredulous. And he might just be imagining it, it’s dark in the photo booth, but he could swear that the older boy’s eyes look purplish.
“It hurts a lot less.” He shrugs.
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“So… you’re siblings?” Gregory whispers to the air. “That’s… cool?”
Sure enough, when he turns around, there’s the older boy.
“Yep. Can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em, but you can definitely die with ‘em.” He laughs.
“That’s awful.” The little boy appears out of the corner of Gregory’s eyes.
“Well it’s not like he’s wrong,” the little girl steps out from behind the older boy, giggling, a teasing smile on her face.
“I mean—well—no,” the little boy stammers, “but you shouldn’t say it.”
“What about you?” the little girl walks up to Gregory’s mediocre hiding spot, tilting her head, spilling strawberry-blonde hair off of her shoulder. “Do you have brothers or sisters?”
“No,” Gregory says quickly. Perhaps too quickly, because the older boy and the younger boy exchange a glance behind their sister’s back.
“What about your parents?” The older boy asks.
“What about your parents?”
“Dead and hopefully dead,” The older boy says simply.
“Mum says hi, by the way,” the little boy adds.
“Tell her… I… say hi back?” What on Earth do you say to a dead kid’s dead mother?
“I will!”
“Anyway,” the little girl interjects, “what about yours?”
“Um… promise you won’t tell?”
“Who would we tell?” She waves her hands around wildly. “You’re the only one who can see us!”
“My real parents are dead.” Gregory can’t manage to say it quite so casually as the older boy could. It’s not a fresh wound, not exactly, but he doesn’t like talking about it for a very good reason.
The three children just nod, understanding.
“Who’s taking care of you then?” The older boy asks.
“No one,” Gregory says. “I take care of myself.” He narrows his eyes at the children, daring them to argue.
“Good idea,” the older boy sighs. “Wish I’d done that waaayyy earlier.”
Gregory blinks. “You’re not gonna… yell at me, or something?”
“Kid,” and okay it’s been so weird being called that by a boy who looks thirteen, though Gregory supposes he doesn’t actually know his age, “that would make me the worst kind of hypocrite.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“Me neither,” the girl adds.
“I do,” the little boy says.
“That’s because we’re nerds,” the older boy says sagely, and he ruffles his younger brother’s hair.
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“Left!” the little boy whispers.
“Okay, now right!” the girl waves him over.
“You are very skilled in navigation,” Freddy says. “I was not aware that these hallways would be so simple for you.”
“Uhh… thank you,” Gregory says. The girl scowls at him, and he just shrugs.
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“WhatdoIdowhatdoIdowhatdoIdo—“
“Oh, so now you want our help,” the older boy smirks, hanging upside-down on the playset by his legs. He doesn’t wince or even squint at Gregory’s flashlight in his face.
“Yes! I don’t! Know! How! To! Not! Die!”
Moon’s laughter scatters across the daycare, echoed by the girl’s high, cheerful giggles.
“Oh Gregorryyyyyy,” she calls. “There’s a generator over here!”
“Well?” The older boy raises an eyebrow. “Go find her.”
————————
“Do you have a favorite superhero?”
Gregory nearly leaps out of his skin at the sight of the little boy next to him.
“Gah—warn me next time!”
“Sorry. But do you?”
“I don’t watch a lot of movies. Totally Batman, though.”
“Cool,” the little boy giggles. It sounds like his sister. “I like Captain America.”
“Who would win in a fight?” Gregory strokes an imaginary beard on his chin, half-jokingly thoughtful. “Cap has super strength and stuff, but could it beat Batman’s tools and armor?”
“There isn’t any kryptonite for Captain America, though!” The boy bounces on his toes. “So Batman would need to be prepared already with stronger armor than he normally has, or catch Captain America off guard, but Captain America wins with pure strength! And I think determination, too!”
Gregory laughs, and it’s oddly genuine. Huh. “Nice. Dooooes no one else talk to you about this?”
“I… didn’t have a lot of friends. And then I… in fourth grade, you know…” he blinks rapidly, but shakes it off. “And my brother only watches soap operas,” he scrunches up his nose.
“Boooring.”
“Right?” The boy rolls his eyes.
“You haven’t convinced me though,” Gregory smirks. “I still think Batman wins.”
“No!”
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“Freddy,” Gregory hesitates.
“Yes, Gregory?” The animatronic tilts his head, cheerful-looking as ever.
“Do you believe in ghosts?”
“I… do not have an answer for that question, Gregory. I have never seen any evidence to the contrary, nor any supporting the theory. Do you believe in ghosts?”
“Yeah.”
“Then I will as well.”
“Thanks. The ghosts in here are nice, by the way.”
“I will make a note of that.”
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“Why can’t they see us?” The little girl waves her arms in wild gestures in front of Chica. “All the others could.“
“Uh… others?” Gregory whispers from his hiding place. He goes unanswered.
“Hello, dumb bird! Helloooo!”
“Don’t make it mad!” The little boy whispers, harsh.
“Ah… let me try something,” the older boy hesitantly says, frowning. When Gregory blinks, in his place is a man.
“What.” Gregory stares at him.
“I hate it when you do that,” the little boy groans.
“What, you think I like it?” The man grimaces. His accented voice is oddly soft, quieter than should belong to a man that tall. He’s almost gangly, with an angular face and hair shoved roughly under a hat. He’s in some kind of uniform, which forces Gregroy to shove down an unreasonable spike of fear, before he sees it’s actually more like… like a mechanic’s, or something.
“You can’t have the hat on,” the girl says, as though he’s stupid for keeping it.
“I know,” the man sighs. He takes it off and shakes out his hair, and without the shadow of the hat’s brim over his face, his eyes are the same odd, bright blue color of the older boy.
“Smooth it back,” the girl instructs. “They’ll remember him looking nicer.”
The man nods and, grimacing, combs back his dark hair with his fingers. The second it’s away from his forehead, the little boy winces and ducks behind the girl with a squeak.
“Sorry, sorry.” The man sighs again. Then, with a squaring of his shoulders, he strides up unhesitatingly to Chica. The animatronic doesn’t so much as blink in his direction.
“I hate this,” the little boy hisses.
“Hello, Chica,” the man says strangely. But she still doesn’t react to him. He shakes his head, as though resetting himself. “Chica, report,” he tries again, in a sharp, barking tone and a thicker accent. Still nothing, though it makes the little boy wince again, and even the girl flinches.
Immediately, the man is gone, and the older boy is in his place. “Sorry,” he says again.
“It was worth trying,” the little boy mumbles.
Gregory has absolutely no idea why the animatronics are supposed to be able to… to see, or at least react to, the man. That’s also the boy. But if the problem is that the animatronics can’t see them, then…
Gregory gasps. “Maybe Roxy?”
“You mean Foxy?” The older boy frowns.
“No, Roxy.”
“There isn’t any Roxy,” the girl scoffs.
“Yes there is! She’s literally on the posters and everything! She’s like, a rockstar wolf? Plays the keyboard? Freddy says she has special eyes, so maybe she can see you.”
“But does that mean—are they making more?” the little boy’s frantic voice echoes oddly around Gregory’s ears.
“Not if I have anything to say about it.” The older boy glares, but he sort of sounds like the man, and his eyes are less bluish. Almost… purpley, again. But that’s probably just the lighting in here.
“We are not burning down the Pizzaplex,” the girl rolls her eyes.
“All in favor of burning down the Pizzaplex, say aye,” the older boy says.
“Aye,” the little boy immediately says.
“Aye,” Gregory raises a hand. “You’re outvoted.”
“Ugh. Boys.”
————————
“What’s your name?” Gregory asks the girl.
“I’ve had lots,” she shrugs. “They don’t matter anymore.”
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“What’s your name?” Gregory asks the older boy.
“Eggs Benedict.”
“Your real name.”
“Mike Schmidt.”
“I said your real name.”
“Fritz Smith.”
“No.”
“Jeremy Fitzgerald?”
“You do not look like a Jeremy.”
“Oh well.”
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“What’s your name?” Gregory asks the little boy.
He just stares at him, and then starts to cry.
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A little girl sets up her dolls in a line on the floor. It’s school picture day for them. The back of the couch makes a good background. One of them is missing an arm, and has been for a long time, but no one at home knows how to fix it.
There are no adults in the house. There haven’t been for three days.
There is a boy at the stove—older, angrier, a pre-teen with a fox mask slid from his face to the side of his head. He is making chili, because it’s cheap, because it’s easy, because his mother died before she could teach him how to caramelize onions or make marinade. Each stirring of the spoon is rougher than it needs to be.
There is another boy. He is inside his room, and the door is locked from the outside. Neither the other boy nor the girl dare to so much as look at it.
A note on the table is signed by a man with scribbly handwriting and a first name for a last name. It goes ignored. They might get in trouble.
Wake up!
Gregory’s eyes snap open. He’s alone in the lost and found.
(Though he isn’t alone. Not really.)
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Gregory scrambles to Freddy’s side. Freddy doesn’t look great—if a robot could be sick, it would look like this.
The girl stares down from where she’s sitting above him, perched on the nearby table. “They always break so easily.”
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“MOVE MOVE MOVE—keep the flashlight on them—spin around like a maniac if you have to, I don’t care—” he guides Gregory wildly through the mess of skeletons, flickering quickly between the older boy and the man depending on which is more convenient. “I hate these things. I hate them. I really do.”
“Why are they so dangerous?” Gregory asks, running for his life nonetheless, half out of breath.
“Have you ever wanted to know what it was like to be a robot with an endoskeleton?”
“No?”
“Well these things really, really, really want you to know.”
He vanishes as soon as Gregory’s out of danger of the endoskeletons, shuddering the whole way. Gregory really doesn’t want to know what secrets the endoskeletons are hiding that mean they scare the older boy more than staring down multiple murderous animatronics.
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Gregory stares blankly at Freddy, lying motionless. Headless. Vanessa removed his head.
She took! His head! Off!
He wouldn’t say he’s unhandy, per se, but Gregory is definitely no technician. How on Earth is he going to put the head of a hyper-advanced robot back on?
“What’s going o—oh dear,” the girl’s eyes widen. “That’s not very good.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“Hold on, I’ll go get him,” the little boy offers, stepping out from behind the huge central machine.
“Wait, no, no, I’ll just do this.” The girl shakes her head. “MIIIKEEYYYYYY,” she shouts.
“What,” the older boy appears. “If it’s more endoskeletons, I’m out.”
“I guess that works too,” the little boy says.
“So. Didn’t he tell you how to fix things?” The girl clasps her hands and bats her eyelashes at her older brother.
The older boy blinks. “As in…”
“Yes.”
“Hardly, but enough to get by. Why?”
She points wordlessly at Freddy.
“Oh. Oh I see,” the older boy winces. “And… I need to help fix him?”
“Please?” Gregory asks, feeling sort of… quiet. Is he worried? Is that what’s happening? Dangit.
Gregory turns back to Freddy. It’s so awful to see his eyes look that hollow. To see him so still. It’s so unlike him.
When he looks back at the children, in the older boy’s place is the man dressed like a mechanic—technician?—something, hat firmly on his head.
“Oookay. I… have… never seen this model before.” The man frowns, but he’s interrupted by the sound of the intercom as Gregory opens the door to Freddy.
“Oh, this shouldn’t be too bad.” The man follows Gregory into the cylinder. “No springlocks in these, and they get charged, so they don’t run on their own energy… wow, that’s some fancy engineering in his head. Okay.” He points to the wires and buttons beside them. “Red, blue, green, yellow. Easy as pie. Just be quick about it without screwing up the timing or he may kill you accidentally.”
Like that helps his concentration. But Gregory can remember four colors in a row, he’s not stupid.
“This next one will be worse,” the man warns. “Buuuut if you don’t perform diagnostics, it’s very possible his head will just fall right back off again. Steady now.”
Green. Green green. Green green red. Green green red blue.
“Good job” the intercom intones, and Gregory heaves a sigh of relief.
“Now. Are you feeling particularly murderous?” The man asks Freddy.
“Freddy, are you feeling particularly murderous?” Gregory asks in his stead. He laughs at the light glare thrown his way.
“Of course not!”
“Good to hear.”
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“Can I call you Mikey?” Gregory asks the older boy.
“Absolutely not,” he snorts.
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Not again.
Geez, why can’t this stupid rabbit leave him alone?
Not to mention it doesn’t seem like Freddy can see her at all. This sucks. He’s going to get murdered by an invisible rabbit with a knife.
He hears a shriek. “BUNNY!”
Gregory chances a peek out of his hiding spot, just in time to see the man in the uniform sprint by, cursing. The two younger children run to him, quickly dashing to hide behind his legs. The man shines a flashlight at Vanny like it’s a weapon, glaring viciously. His other hand pushes the little boy farther behind him.
“Stay the hell back,” he practically growls.
And to Gregory’s breathless shock—she stops.
Can she see them?
“Is… is it really you?” The rabbit lady breathes.
The man doesn’t move except for the slight widening of his blue-blue-violet eyes. He stares her down, motionless.
“I’m doing what you asked me to!” she says, gleefully. “I’m doing everything right! You’ll see!”
“Then leave,” the man finally says, stern and cold, so unlike the older boy.
Immediately, the rabbit lady skips away. As though following orders.
But… but …what? No. No, no no no. Is he—are they in league with her? Is she their ally? Was this all some trick?
Gregory blinks spots out of his eyes before launching out of his hiding spot. He points at the man—no, he’s the boy again.
“What was that?” He nearly shouts. “What did you do? Why is she listening to you? She’s trying to kill me! I thought you were helping me!”
The older boy backs away a step. The girl shoves her brother farther back.
“Stop it!” She raises her arms out to her sides, as though blocking the older boy from Gregory’s view. “It’s not his fault he got bad genetics and it’s very easy to mix them up! But it’s not him, it’s not him, it’s not him it’s not him it’s not him it’s not—” she stops.
She touches a hand to her face. Seems surprised at the tears there.
“He’s not him,” she says again. Quieter this time, but just as certain.
Gregory jumps, startled, at a whisper from beside him.
“We are helping you,” the little boy says. “I promise. I promise.”
“...Pinky promise?” Gregory whispers.
The little boy holds up a pinky finger.
Gregory isn’t sure if he can actually touch him, so he just raises his own pinky in return.
He turns to look at the older boy, still standing frozen behind his little sister, looking about ready to bolt at any second.
“Then who does she think you are?”
“The worst man,” the little boy says.
Gregory looks over to him. He’s… surprised, almost, at the conviction in that one word. Worst.
He glances over to the girl, who nods, then at the older boy, who sighs.
“If it’s him… doing this… then we have more than just personal business to attend to.”
“What does that even mean?” Gregory asks. But the older boy is already gone.
“Oh, you know,” the girl sings. Her voice rings behind her as she vanishes too. “Just a family reunion!”
“Charlie says we have daddy issues,” the little boy tells Gregory, nodding wisely.
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“Vanny…” Gregory breathes.
“What a stupid name,” the girl laughs.
“What is she, a car?” the little boy adds. The girl high-fives him.
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Gregory desperately tries to calm his panicked breathing, to not much avail.
Chica’s cracked and crushed body lies in front of him. Still sparking. Staring up at him with sightless eyes, loose like a broken doll’s. Her screeching rings in his ears, and his neck throbs from where her hands briefly wrapped around his throat.
“Good riddance,” says the older boy.
“Freddy will be mad,” is all Gregory can manage to choke out. But the beak clutched in his trembling fingers still feels like a victory. “Will you help me put it in?”
“‘Course, kid.”
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“Haha, you’re too short for the riiiide,” the girl sings, laughing.
“You’re not any taller than me!” Gregory hisses.
“Dead kids don’t have any rules,” she grins.
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Roxy sparks and sputters under the wreckage.
“You shouldn’t feel bad about it,” the girl says.
“I don’t.”
“It was either you or her.”
“I don’t feel bad about it.”
“We do what we must to survive.”
“Says you.”
“Who says this isn’t surviving?”
Her laughter stays long after she’s already vanished.
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The man backs away from Freddy, quickly replaced by the older boy. “That should do it.”
“Thanks,” Gregory says.
Freddy slowly steps out of the cylinder, his new eyes scanning the room as though he’s seeing it for the first time. In a way, he probably is.
He stops cold at something behind Gregory. No—not something.
Someone. Three of them, actually.
“Oh,” Freddy says. “I see. I had wondered… how Gregory was so skilled at repairs.”
Freddy slowly looks over the three children. The girl stares back at him, defiant. The older boy steps in front of his little brother, blocking him from view. The little boy grips the back of the older boy’s shirt with shaking fists.
“Why…” Freddy starts, and then stops.
Hesitates, even.
“…Why does it hurt to look at you?”
The only response is the little boy’s muffled sob.
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“Are they the nice ghosts you told me about, Gregory?”
“Yeah. They are. But I think you scare them.”
“Something tells me it is for the best.”
“Oh.”
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6:00 a.m. isn’t enough to light the streets outside of the Pizzaplex. Under the early morning sky, it’s more like there’s nothing at all out there. Just Gregory, an animatronic, three ghosts, and everything that wants him dead.
He could leave.
But he could also stay.
Freddy watches him patiently. Gregory gets the sense that Freddy will be okay with whatever he does. Even if Gregory decides to leave him (which he will not be doing, thank you very much).
The three children are… less patient.
“It is six a.m.! You can leave! What are you not understanding—“ the older boy throws up his arms. “I can’t believe this.”
“You could die,” the little boy insists. “Don’t push your luck.”
“There is nothing here worth saving,” the little girl says. “Nothing worth seeing. Leave and don’t ever come back.”
“But… I wanna see if we can find a way to take Freddy with us. And what about you guys? You said you had… personal business? Or whatever? Maybe I can help.” If there is anything that Gregory is unmatched in, it is stubbornness. “You can’t stop me anyway.”
“If that is what you wish.” Freddy inclines his head towards Gregory.
“I’ll get you out of here,” Gregory says, with as much conviction as he can muster.
The three children exchange despairing glances.
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“He wasn’t real, anyway.” The little boy watches the twitching metal halves of Monty impassively, obscured by the smoke.
“What?” Gregory asks, incredulous. “Of course he was real. He tried to kill me.”
“Not like that. I mean—Monty and Roxy. They aren’t real ones. So they aren’t scary.”
“But… Freddy and Chica are?”
“Especially Freddy. And Bonnie, too. And Foxy. And all the others. Except for Roxy and Monty.”
“Freddy said that Bonnie used to be here, but he’s… gone now.”
“Good,” says the little boy. “I hate bunnies.”
“Do you hate alligators and wolves, too?”
“I’m indifferent.”
Gregory shoves down the inexplicable urge to laugh. “What animals do you like, then?”
The little boy pauses. Tilts his head. “Um… I like armadillos.”
“What? Why?”
“They’d never make an armadillo robot.”
“…I guess?”
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“I think… I think I always come back too,” the older boy says.
“What?”
“You asked before. About why we’re here.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“You don’t have to.”
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The three children are nowhere in sight as Gregory and Freddy step into the old elevator.
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Hello? Hello, hello?
Gregory jolts at the whispers, but no one is there.
Please let me out. They thought I was you.
Gregory’s flashlight pans across the cavern. He can barely see what’s in front of him in the fog. He only knows that Freddy is still behind him by his heavy, mechanical footsteps.
I’m going to come find you. You’re wonderful! I’m going to come find you. Where did the other children go?
The burnt corpse of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza Place sits abandoned and empty under the ground. Gregory shines his flashlight across the sign. He hadn’t—hadn’t realized there were more of them. More—more Freddy Fazbears, more pizza places, more—
Hello? Hello? Hello? I’m going to come find you, hello?
He doesn’t want to go inside. Gregory does not want to go inside. His feet are glued to the dirt. His hand is stuck outstretched, holding the flashlight with a grip so tight his hand is shaking with the effort. He glances up at Freddy, who looks… almost afraid?
What did he do this time? Just like you asked me to. Daddy isn’t watching.
That’s enough to get Gregory to move his feet.
Hello? Helloooo? Tomorrow is another day.
Gregory’s flashlight shines across the gutted restaurant. Black and white tiles, red doors, a wide open space for tables and chairs and animatronics.
Why won’t you let me go? I should be dead. You won’t die. You have to get up.
They go down. Down, farther down, down an underground lined with dripping wires and metal bones. Freddy’s face smiles at Freddy from the living breathing thing—creature—no, robot—no, monster.
I guess you forgot about me.
There is a great CLANGING of claws against metal against bone. There are burning eyes that are open and vivid, vivid violet.
I AM NOT ME.
Gregory stares at the camera feed. He wonders how he was ever afraid of Vanny when… when this was always underneath his feet. This skeletal mockery of a rabbit.
I’m going to come find you I’m going to come find youI’mgoingtocomefindyouI’MGOINGTOCOMEFINDYOUI’MGOINGTOhello? Hello? Hello?
It stops.
Hello?
Half-shadowed in the sooty, dusty darkness of the hallway are three figures.
The first is not-quite-a-girl. If you tilt your head a bit to the left, she looks like a doll, with pigtails and rosy red cheeks and green eyes just a little too wide. If you tilt your head to the right, it might be a little girl. She is covered in too much blood to be able to tell that her hair used to be strawberry blonde.
The second is a small boy. There is blood dripping down his face and front like a macabre spill. His head is oddly misshapen. If you blink, behind him are the flickering-dying shapes of bears with too many teeth and rabbits with too-human eyes. There are tear tracks in the blood on his face.
The third is a man. Tall, wearing a crisp suit, and rotting from the inside out. He is gnarled and mottled-lavender and smoke-smelling. He grins, but it’s hard to tell whether it’s a smile or because the flesh of his face has been eaten away. His eyes are nothing but dark pits with pinpricks of light. But out of the corner of your eye, they might just be blue.
When he speaks, his voice is hoarse with disuse and painfully layered over itself.
“Hello, Father.”
————————
They stand utterly still as Gregory sets the thing on fire again and again and again. He doesn’t have time to wonder how it could possibly be their dad, doesn’t have time to wonder what happened to them. To that family. All he can do is burn and hope that Freddy is strong enough to fight it off.
————————
“Daddy!”
“El…iza…be…”
“Does it hurt? I really hope it does!”
“Do you know how much I hate you, Dad?”
“…My… s…so…”
“Don’t touch me.”
“Isn’t this great, Father?”
“Y…you… you…”
“Yes, Father?”
“M..Mi..Mich..ael…”
“Come on. You can do it.”
“You… have… RUINED ME…”
“I’ve ruined a lot of things. But this?”
“Li..izz…ie…”
“This, I think I did right.”
“Goodbye, Daddy!”
“I never want to see you again, Dad.”
“Rot in hell, Father.”
————————
The twisting thing with Freddy’s face reaches out with molten wires and a face full of teeth and snatches the burning rabbit-thing away. Up, towards an inevitable death or more half-life.
The three of them are left standing alone in the flaming ruins.
Gregory tears his eyes away from the screen and runs.
————————
He and Freddy burst out of the structure just as it begins to buckle and crumble. Above it, Freddy Fazbear’s Mega Pizzaplex tumbles down. Down into the same cavern they just escaped from, thoroughly crushing the old restaurant underneath its weight. Gregory remembers something about sinkholes.
The ruined place is still on fire. The flames are climbing higher still, and it’s only a matter of time before they find a gas leak and the entire place is incinerated.
Freddy doesn’t let Gregory stop to watch, pulling him farther and farther along, heading to the city’s edge.
Gregory looks back.
Just once.
And smiles, just a little, at the three children dancing in the fire.