A decade without maintenance has erased the white lines, and while headlights would help differentiate the lanes, Ricky isn't taking any chances as the Chevy coasts down the desolate stretch of road.
The sign serves as a lighthouse in a sea of misty black, its garish colors luring in anyone stupid enough to get close.
He parks in the shuttered lot across the way, facing the defunct restaurant, and kills the engine. Rains keep the nights cold, breath fogging up the windows, but it does not hinder the stakeout. He's not sure why he's here, what he intends to do, what answers he will be able to glean from — from what? You gonna tackle Raglan? A guy who's a whole foot taller than you?
Afton. His name's Afton. Not Raglan.
Unlike Steve Raglan, looking up William Afton on the web brought up a whole slew of unsavory factoids that forced Ricky into a forty-five minute shower where he tried to scrub away nonexistent traces of him with near boiling water. He was here, less than fifty feet away from where Ricky is now parked, when the incident happened. He was one of the voices Ricky had heard.
Even if he hadn't been the one to pull the proverbial trigger on his brother, the mere idea that someone suspected of spiriting away four kids had been allowed to continue working near them? Fucking batshit, is what it is. He basically sanctioned the gun, loaded it and aimed it for anyone reckless enough to pull the trigger.
Ricky glances at the backseat, at the wooden box he had found in the trunk beneath the spare tire, its golden lock secured. It was one of the items he had hesitated to toss when he first took the Chevy, something about it weighing heavy on the back of his mind. He often considers getting rid of it, on nights when the nagging dread that has followed him like a bad stench over the years becomes too much, but he never gets around to it.
Never had the heart to throw it out, just as he's never had the courage to open it.
Across the way, a set of headlights catch his attention. Wiping the windshield, he sits forward and watches the car pull into the Freddy's parking lot. Someone nondescript climbs out, fumbles with their pockets, and disappears inside the building. It's 11:45pm, and whoever that is, is neither Afton nor the cop that busted him last time.
Can I tempt you with a night security position?
The memory curdles his stomach lining.
So he managed to hire a security guard after all.
Ricky camps out, watching the time on his watch blink by. It's only when two hours pass within the frame of five minutes that he calls it a night, sleep tugging him towards a silent dreamscape.
Before the long drive back home, he glances at the backseat one more time, hoping to catch a glimpse of an apparition. Only the box stares back.
The second night, Ricky approaches the security guard and nearly gets clocked with a flashlight for his troubles. "Who the fuck are you?"
"Don't worry about it," he says. "How's your night going?"
The guy looks like he hasn't slept in a month. He's visibly tweaked, and Ricky remembers Ragl—Afton, fuck—saying something about the owner not looking too closely at applicants' records. He's grateful that security guards don't go packing heat while working at defunct pizzerias.
"If you're here to cause trouble," he says, his entire frame sagging, "please don't. I don't get paid enough for this."
Ricky glances over his shoulder, at the metal gates in front of the cloudy doors. It's too opaque to get a proper look inside. "We're cool, man. I spent a lot of time as a kid here back in its heyday and was feeling that nostalgia, y'know?"
"You look a little young to be nostalgia-hunting."
"World's gone to shit. What else is there to do?"
The guard snorts. "Amen to that, brother. I can't let you in though, if that's what you're looking for."
It was worth a shot. "You're good. You got a name?"
The guard eyes him warily, seizing him up as if to record any details he might need to remember further down the line. "Mark," he says, holding out a hand.
"Ricky." His handshake is firm. "Nice to meet ya'."
By the fifth night, Mark arrives thirty minutes early to his shift, and Ricky brings with him several crunchy tacos and two jugs of Mountain Dew. "Not looking forward to pissing neon green into a bottle tonight, but at least it'll keep me awake."
Ricky's sitting on the Chevy's hood, sneakers perched on the chrome bumper while Mark leans against it in an easy slump. "You should call HR if you're not allowed any bathroom breaks." That's Dean talking through him. "There can't possibly be anyone in there to snitch if you take a fifteen." He gets shredded cheese all over his jacket, even while leaning forward for a bite.
Mark crumples up the wrapper and dumps it into the takeout bag. "More like you can't pay me enough to wander out of the office before my shift ends."
"Aw, is someone scared of an old building?"
He grimaces around the straw. "You're a mechanic. Do cars move on their own after they've been off for a while?"
"Not in my experience."
Mark points at the building. "Those things get a bit…quirky. And I don't mean it in the 'creaky gears slightly shifting' sort of way. You'd think their capabilities to free-roam would die after however many years of disuse, but nope. Blink, and one of them will be standing in front of the security camera looking right at it."
Something on Ricky's face betrays how he feels about the revelation, because Mark nods in approval.
"You should show me," he says.
"No. Absolutely not. I'm not getting my butt fired because you bought me Taco Bell."
"Would it be that bad? Getting fired, I mean. The job sounds awful as fuck."
Mark contemplates the idea, then shakes his head. "I got dogs to feed," he says with a finality that brooks no more argument. "Anyway, time for me to head in. Same time tomorrow?"
Ricky gives him a high five. "Any requests?"
"You're the one paying, and I don't want to impose."
Gathering the trash, Ricky deposits it into the passenger's seat to discard back home. "No way, man. Takes care of the Sisyphean task of having to decide what's for dinner every night."
Mark zips up his hoodie and jogs in place, his breath coming out in misty puffs. "Chinese. Chicken fried rice."
"Sweet."
"Maybe we can check out the new Thai joint some time," he says, already walking away. "I'm off Sunday, if you've got no plans."
With any luck, he'll get Ricky into the pizzeria before then. "We'll talk about it. See you tomorrow, Mark."
Mark offers him a sloppy salute as he whistles a familiar tune, "Workin' nine to five, what a way to make a livin'—"
Ricky presses the button on his watch and the blue blacklight shows that it's 2:20am. He's been sitting in the parking lot for three hours, shivering in his layers, with no sign of Mark.
The sign is off, and the gates are locked.
He pages him and gets no response. The food in the car has gone cold.
Ricky takes his first ever sick day and Roger doesn't press. "You need a hospital?" he says instead over the phone, and Ricky is moments away from chewing on the cord. "I can send Jenny over with some chicken noodle."
"I'll be fine. I just need some extra sleep. I'll be in bright and early tomorrow morning."
"And if you're not?" The way he poses the question fills Ricky with a foreign sense of peace amidst the mounting dread in his gut. "Do I call the cops or come get you myself?"
He smiles into the receiver. "Send in the cavalry."
"We've got you covered kid."
It's strange to see Freddy Fazbear's during the daytime, when the early afternoon sun dispels most of its haunting shadows in exchange for a sadder sight. In broad daylight it's easier to see the decay that comes from urban abandonment, a pocket of a town that used to be bustling once upon a time now but a flaking shell.
A new mall has opened up fifteen miles north and plays host to a variety of chain stores and tech giants, as well as some of the best dining options this side of Minnesota. It explains why the mom-and-pop shops that made up most of Ricky's childhood have closed down, why the corners tucked away from the bustling big-name shopping districts are becoming a dying breed.
He can't ride a bike down the highway. Buses aren't as reliable as they used to be. But he supposes that's the downside of progress: the increasing isolation of it all.
The black Ford is parked near the entrance of the building when Ricky pulls up next to it. He pats the switchblade in his jeans' pocket as he marches up to the partially opened gates to knock on the frosted doors. Consecutively. Loudly.
It takes minutes for a face to appear on the other side of the glass, and his hands curl into fists. Very rarely is he compelled by the need to punch a face, but Afton just has one of those that are primed and ready to receive.
Afton opens the door enough to lean against the adjacent one, his ankles crossed. "Can I help you?"
"Where is he?"
"I hate to say that I know more than just one he."
May the good Lord grant him the strength. "Don't get fucking cute with me, William. I'm talking about Mark. Where is he?"
If the surprise isn't genuine, then give the man an Oscar. "Ah, the night guard. I'm afraid he couldn't take the heat. Walked out midway through his shift, very unprofessional of him, but not everyone is equipped to handle the job. With the creaks, the building settling, I don't really blame him."
Ricky doesn't believe him. While he hardly knows Mark, he seems like an honest enough guy to not leave his messages unanswered.
Afton looks beyond him in the direction of the Chevy, then turns his attention back to Ricky with a genial smile. "Would you like to come inside? I promise not to bite."
He can feel his own quickening pulse hard in his throat. The phantom sensation of teeth on the column of his neck sends mixed signals towards two points on opposite sides of his body.
Before he can accept or decline the invitation, Afton steps aside with a gimmicky sort of flourish that, in any other circumstance, he would consider charming.
Ricky continues to stand at the threshold, heart hammering away, palms sweating, as a chorus of whispers builds at the back of his head. There are no discernable words, just desperate warnings to run the other way, to not listen. Heed the nightmares. Flee.
He steps inside.
Freddy Fazbear's is everything he remembers it to be.
Even after a decade, everything from the glass table dividers to the arcade-patterned carpet are inputs that drift from his eyes into his chest, where nostalgia radiates warm and safe. It's a gentle ebb and flow of emotion that quiets the voices for a fraction of a moment, like swaddling in a favorite blanket on the darkest winter night.
"Isn't it special?" Afton says, walking around the area with a hop in his stride, a hand lovingly caressing the furniture in his path. "I'm a bit of a sentimental old fool, to be entirely candid with you. Haven't had the heart to let this place be demolished." He stops to look at Ricky, his smile earnest. "I take it you've been here before."
Ricky's feet are rooted to the spot as he waits for the rush of night terrors to engulf him, for the memories of that night to scream until his eardrums shatter — but nothing happens. The venue feels ordinary, just an old place that's been kept tidy for years after its doors closed to the public.
The arcade cabinets are on. The prize counter is stocked. The stage curtains are drawn shut but he turns to face it when the feeling of being watched weighs heavy at the back of his mind.
He looks at Afton who is now sitting on a table, swinging his feet. The sight fills him with a rage so sudden and savage that he blurts out the first thing that perches on the tip of his tongue: "What'd you do to those kids? Did you kill them?"
Afton does not waste a second. "Did you kill your parents?" and then, crossing his legs with a casualness that is at odds with the cold cruelty of his tone, "As well as that lovely couple in Salt Lake City? And that other couple in… was it Boulder?"
The both of them fall silent, the chiming of games filling the echoey corners of the room. His questions are as good an answer as any.
"How did you—"
"Your file has both your original name and the one you changed it to," he says, smiling like a cat that's caught a particularly succulent mouse. "The name you carried with you until nine years ago. I wasn't the only one on Channel 6 that year. What did they call it again? The Christmas Massacre? Rough year, '87."
He knew. He knew all along.
Can I tempt you with a night security position?
"What do you want from me?"
Afton sighs, tilting his face towards the ceiling in thought. "You took my car, you see. And there was something very important to me inside it. A box, about yay big. I'm sure you know what I'm referring to."
Ricky stands between Afton and the exit. The box is back at his apartment and if push comes to shove, he can always use it as a bargaining chip. "What's inside it?" He knows a wrong question when he hears it.
Afton doesn't answer.
Instead, Ricky picks up on a different sound altogether, one that isn't tied to the hum of ancient light bulbs or the 8-bit tunes of old video games. It's the rustle of fabric and the faint creak of what he takes to be gears, and it's coming from behind him.
The shadows across the floor cue him in before he can understand what is happening. Not that his brain is too keen in processing any of it, to the point where even turning to face the monstrosities that have crawled off the stage, the rest of him hasn't quite caught up with the urgency of the situation.
It's only when Freddy lifts a mechanical hand that the world finally gets up to speed.
Ricky jerks away from the animatronic with a terrified gasp, his own feet betraying him as he tries to run for the front door but ends up tripping over their own length.
What the fuck.
What the fuck.
Freddy turns to Bonnie the Bunny as if to ask what's this guy's problem?, before swiveling his attention back to Ricky. Chica the Chicken, meanwhile, glowers at him as he cowers on the floor in what was almost a puddle of his own piss. He's never seen a more sinister looking cupcake.
"What the fuck? How are they—What the fuck?"
"Now, now, let's watch our language," Afton says. "I like to keep it PG around these parts."
Ricky backpedals while still on his ass, legs and arms flailing despite the fact that the animatronics are not chasing him. They just stand there, looking bored. It's alarming to be able to tell what their expressions are given they're nothing but hulking robotic mascots.
Through the doors, the flashing of red and blue lights bleed in. Afton doesn't look happy about it, hopping down from the table and sauntering towards a huddled Ricky like a man with all the time in the world.
"What if I told you I could give you back your brother?"
Ricky stops to look up at him with wide, sodden eyes. "What happened to him?" He pushes himself back onto his feet, wits scattered but a more pressing drive urging him to action. Suddenly, he recalls the reason why he never gave up, why he kept waking up day after day following that Christmas. Ricky knows what happened to him; he lived through the aftermath. "How did Jeremy die?" Yet another wrong question. "Why did he die?"
He flinches when the Bonnie animatronic takes a step forward. Afton side-eyes it, before removing his glasses to clean them with the end of his tie. "I'm afraid I've made myself as clear as possible for the time being."
"You're a fucking monster," Ricky snaps, but for every step towards Afton he takes, the closer the animatronics get.
Afton squints at him, the smile that crawls across his face an infuriating mixture of pity and promise as the front doors rattle. "You're more than welcome to stay the night," he says. "It seems like the position for a new security guard has recently become available."
The doors slam open and in stumbles the same cop from before, gun propped up against her flashlight. She looks to the animatronics, to Afton, then lastly to Ricky. "You again," she says to him. Then, "Mr. Raglan?"
Afton straightens his posture. "Officer."
The standoff is far shorter than expected, but not short enough. Ricky is dazed and confused about everything. He's speechless, nauseated, and he has to get out of there, away from the insanity of that place, of whatever technology moves those mascots to the point of mimicked sentience.
Away from whatever fantastical promise Afton is handing him.
The cop steers clear of the animatronics, jerking her head towards the door as she lowers the gun. "I'm going to need the two of you to vacate the premises, ASAP." She holsters her gun but keeps the flashlight on Ricky. She won't look at Afton longer than she has to.
Something tells him there is far more at hand than he can possibly begin to untangle, but for the moment, he's just glad to make it out of Freddy's alive.
• 
