Mugshot

I simply made the robots go. I made sure they worked, were oiled, and cycled out the costume parts. Most of the time, things go as planned, with perhaps a false move here or there resulting in strange actions, like the whole animatronic tries to strike a pose, or the whole thing goes slack. I understand that's entirely normal. I know what happened isn't normal.

Started a month ago, I was doing my rounds, making sure the new models were all working properly, Freddy the bear one, Bonnie the blue rabbit thing, Chica the chicken, and the Balloon boy as well. I then got to Foxy, sitting behind the curtain. Usually they look over your face when they sense movement, normal with their face recognition stuff, they usually leave it at that though. This one seemed to be taking note of my movements as well, which should've been a red flag something was wrong.

I was going through all the normal motions, when the animatronic started asking questions like it'd ask the kids, "Hi, my name is Foxy, what's yours?" and "Can you spell it?" as well as a few others, while not unusual for when I'd get to making sure the head and voice box were working, it was asking this while working on the legs. Looking to see what was happening, the animatronic simply looked back, wide-eyed and unblinking. I really wish they didn't give this one those daunting sharp teeth. I continued to work on it and got up to the torso when it started asking the loop of questions over again, when I felt a thin bit of movement around my neck, the arm under me which I could've sworn I disabled had grabbed and opened up my locket, its focus now on the photo of me and my girlfriend inside.

I recoiled, yanking the locket out of the animatronic's grasp, the robotic eyes still locked on what its position was for a second or two before shifting back to look at my face. I felt a cold chill run up my spine, adrenaline running as soon as it asked, "Where's your mommy, dear? Do you remember where you last saw her?"

I quickly started to flip the animatronic over as it repeated the question a second time, I opened up the back part of the torso costume pieces and hit the kill switch. As it powered down, it asked a third time, slowed down and distorted, with static in the voice. I was glad that the rest of the evening went without incident, though couldn't find what the problem was with Foxy. But there was something definitely wrong with that Hello Kitty!-colored tin can.

I didn't think too much about it afterwards, most of the week went pretty routinely. We got the spare costume pieces back from the cleaners in their cardboard boxes, generally a box per major piece or set of pieces in the case of heads. I went about replacing the animatronics' costumes with the clean ones, and when I got to Foxy, I found something odd, a warning of things to come. An envelope, in the Freddy Fazbear stationary from the prize counter. Inside were folded up photographs of my girlfriend, including a police mugshot. To say I was shocked would be tantamount to calling Pompeii just a little eruption; I not only felt the color drain out of my face, I don't think my heart started pumping for a good eight seconds. It was made worse when I saw Foxy simply staring back at me, before asking, "What did the pirate say when his wooden leg got stuck in the freezer?" to which the hand puppet responded, flailing its little arms, "Shiver me timbers!"

I made sure to use the killswitch that night, taking the photos and confronting my girlfriend about the mugshot, tossing the invasive pictures of her save for where she seemed to be involved in some sort of deal with a shady individual. We had a fight, she took off and I didn't hear from her for the rest of the week. I didn't think much of it until the police showed up at my door and took me in, questioning me about when I saw her last.

She was dead.

Police were tipped off soon enough that they arrived while the body was still warm, strangled to death with markings they could only describe as being similar to a toothless bear trap, right on her windpipe. They found several strands of hair at the scene, hoping it'd be the killer's, but each hair seemed to belong various children who'd never set foot in her part of town. They said the tip off was a call out from a woman over police radio from someone claiming to be an officer with a badge number that didn't match up to anyone in the state. They seemed legit as they knew the crimes on her rap sheet in the past, and they didn't question the call until they couldn't find the badge number. They also had some black and white photos faxed over to them later that evening with her involved in some sort of deal, apparently with a local drug dealer.

They matched the photos I found inside the Foxy costume. I didn't think there was any sort of opportunity or ability for the robot to leave the restaurant, but I had a fairly strong idea that it might have been Foxy. I went into work with an aluminum bat.

I got complaints from the manager that Foxy's handpuppet wasn't working properly. I went through the routine, tweak and make sure the animatronics are working right. Until I got to Foxy. After scanning my face, she went into routine again. "What are the 10 letters of the pirate alphabet?" to which the hand puppet responded, "I, I, R, and the 7 Cs!" At first the puppet's mouth didn't open, but as it hit Cs, its small mouth opened wide, revealing caked blood flaking and stuck to the mouth and along the soft foam teeth.

I hit the killswitch immediately. I grabbed the bat out of the locker. I disconnected the security camera. I took the first swing at the bitch.

The plastic-y foam rubber absorbed most of the blow, but a repeat strike to her head broke the eye. I jumped when the animatronic twitched to life, its voice box crackling as it tried to give more schtick. "How does a pi-pirate asssssssssk for a d-d-date?" The hand puppet was moved forward with its little arms held together in a pleading manner as it asked, "Arrrrrr you busy tonight?" I feel sick recalling that as I don't know if it was asking earnestly somehow or if it was begging for its life, either way, I'll never forget the satisfying crunch of my bat caving in part of the puppet's head. It produced a sound between an electronic chirp and a yelp as I took the bat to the bulk of the animatronic's body. I whited out for a while and when I came to, my palms were torn up from the baseball bat's grip.

I finally started to feel guilt and tried to cover my ass when I realized I damaged property. I took the costume bits to see how bad the damage was.

I took time to bullshit a story about the kids taking the thing apart and putting it back together as I tried to put the damn thing together with spare parts, but there were too many limbs and not enough proper torso parts. They didn't buy it, but I hear that's what they tell the security guards, or did until the whole bite thing happened. I thought I was off scott-free otherwise though, the place had shut down and those things were scrapped. Until I got a package, in a cardboard box, with the label of the cleaners. Inside was Foxy's head piece, in the mouth a Freddy Fazbear stationary envelope. With another mugshot.