Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

The ruins of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza were always interesting to pick through. Phineas smiled wryly as he rubbed his sleeve on an old pizza-shaped wall decoration. The act spread filth on his jacket more-so than it actually cleaned the old prop, but Phineas’ clothes were already so dirty that a bit more didn’t really matter.

“Hey, come here and check this out,” a voice cried faintly from another room, and Phineas grunted a bit as he got up. With the pizza prop dropped into a duffel bag hanging from his shoulder and the neckline of his shirt pulled up to protect against the dust choking the air, Phineas carefully picked his way around debris and headed in the direction of his partner in crime.

Freddy Fazbear’s was a long-dead restaurant at this point in time. Closed decades ago due to health violations, or at least that was the official reason given. The writing had been on the wall at the time, anyways, what with the ever-dwindling crowds. The pizzeria had never recovered from the Bite or the missing children, and although it chugged along for years after either had occurred one day it simply closed its doors and never reopened them. By the end, it could be said that Freddy Fazbear’s had died with a bang and not a whimper.

Although the place had closed in large part due to its lack of popularity at the time, the past was always looked at in a rose tint, and nostalgia’s sway was powerful. This was where Phineas came in. He was in his late thirties and had fond memories of celebrating birthdays at Freddy’s, and he was also aware that there were plenty of people just like him in that regard. He also knew all about the whispers of dark secrets and hidden tragedies, stuff he and everyone around town had grown up hearing about for years. More than anything, though, Phineas was a man with an instinct for where he could make a quick buck, and that’s what led him to this building.

Now, what Phineas was doing wasn’t strictly legal. Picking through an abandoned property that didn’t belong to him and pocketing whatever looked interesting could have gotten him in trouble. Nor was it exactly moral; making a haunted house of all things out of Freddy Fazbear’s legacy of missing children, presumed dead, would be called tasteless by some people. Phineas liked to call those people “prudes”.

Phineas rounded the corner and came face-to-face with his fellow trespasser; someone he’d met online under a pseudonym. Phineas didn’t know the man’s name and the man didn’t know his, which suited both of them just fine. If this went belly up, there’d be less of a chance of snitching. “What’d you find?” Phineas asked.

The man wordlessly held up a curved bit of metal in response. It was dim in the building, pale moonlight shining through holes in the roof the only real source of light, but even Phineas could recognize a hook when he saw one.

“Score! Where’d you get it?”

The other man gestured to a pile of rubble behind him. “It was buried under those rocks over there. I thought I saw some other stuff under there but it’s too dark to tell.”

Phineas snatched the hook from the man, unceremoniously dropping his duffel bag in the process. He held it closer to his face and tilted it, examining it in the moonlight. “Dude, ain’t there some urban legend about a dude with a hook for a hand? Think this can be used for something like that?”

“Uhh, didn’t one of those robots have a hook? One of them was a pirate, I think,” the other man called back over his shoulder, already back to sifting through the rubble.

Phineas snapped his fingers. “Hey, yeah. You’re right! That’s even better.”

The hook was dropped into the bag with all the other choice goods that hadn’t already been ransacked from the building over the decades. Phineas joined his companion in clearing away some rubble, getting more excited the more he uncovered. An old microphone prop, what looked to be an old strut from a limb, and even a massive bowtie were all dropped into his bag, each one gaining a grin from Phineas.

Then, he struck gold.

“No way,” Phineas exclaimed, awe coloring his voice.

“Whazzat?”

Phineas ignored the other man, digging through the rubble even faster to reveal a crooked snout. More bits of fallen roof and stone were tossed to the side. Dust was brushed off. Red faux-fur was gradually revealed, attached to a hard rubber mold. Phineas’ excitement peaked as he finally held up his treasure.

A Foxy the Pirate costume head, more or less untouched.

An impressed whistle from his side broke Phineas from his reverie. “Nice. I think we’re really onto something over here.”

Phineas agreed. “I think we’ve hit paydirt. There’s more stuff in this pile than there probably is in the rest of the building combined. We’ve gotta keep digging.”

So the two dug through the night, gingerly moving debris to avoid a collapse and subsequent crushing of any other possible finds. Their care was rewarded when they found more scraps of machinery and mostly whole bits of costume, the only ones left in the building since the backstage had been picked clean years ago by vagrants.

It was as they were pulling the last of the costume pieces out of the pile of rocks that Phineas spoke up. As he looked over the large pile of mechanical parts and costume scraps a thought struck him, one he had to share. “Dude, I think this is where the animatronics went.”

His partner frowned at him. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, I think they were probably in this room when the roof caved in on them or something. Look at it,” Phineas gestured to the pile. “We’ve got the whole damn band here.”

A non-committal grunt. “You might be right.”

Phineas shook his head. “C’mon, dude, let’s keep digging. We might be able to score something else.”

At this point the labor was practically back-breaking. The rocks were getting larger and heavier. Metal pipes from the ceiling and tiles from the roof were joining the collapsed chunks of concrete from the walls. Phineas wasn’t used to working this hard for a future paycheck, but some gut feeling told him it’d be worth it.

Unfortunately for the two men, however, the first rays of dawn were peeking into the building when they finally found a door. It was heavy and set into the wall, blocked by rubble but clearly some sort of panic room.

“You wanna see what’s inside?” Phineas’ partner asked, wiping sweat from his forehead and smearing black grime across his face in the process.

Phineas grimaced back at him, for more reasons than one. “Nah, I’m going to bow out for now. My bag’s full so I’ll need to start loading stuff in my trunk, and I can’t carry back anything else. Besides, it’s almost daylight, and I don’t want to be caught looting this place.”

A shrug. “Suit yourself. I’ll clear the rest of the way and see if I can’t break into here. See you tomorrow night, I guess?”

A nod. “I’ll see you,” Phineas said, grabbing his bag and an armful of costume parts and wandering out. When he returned the next night the door was open, but he never saw the man again.