Husks

The door of the apartment locked with a click and without a moment's hesitation, she was slumped yet again in her usual position. Amidst the room there were portraits aimlessly placed on the walls. One was of a young boy with bright, friendly eyes smiling and entertaining himself with several colourful toys strewn across the floor. Another of the same boy slightly older heading peeking through the windows of an elementary school bus and waving. Adjacent to these photos were framed news clippings dating decades back. All relating to the same news story of a series of children gone missing and presumed dead at a local family pizzeria joint. The room at first glance seemed almost as if it were abandoned. Dated floral wallpaper covered the walls of the residence and litter was scattered about the stained carpeting. In the center of the room stood a tall reclining chair fixed in front of a television set.

There sat what could barely be called a person. Routinely she rested on her recliner staring at the television as it kept her mind from wandering. Silently Idle in her quiet apartment wearily allowing the time to pass until she would sleep, wake, and work until she returned to her current state. Life had come to condition her to be generally indifferent towards any senses or stimulus around her. Indifferent to the grime and litter polluting her narrow apartment, indifferent to the conditions of her dead end job, indifferent to her own health or feelings of self preservation. Her life had ended over 30 years ago yet she lingered on and lumbered through the days. As unfeeling as a corpse wasting away in their grave. When it had grown quite late she reached for the newspaper she had picked up in the morning. The newspaper was slipped out of the plastic and into her bony hands. The bag was tossed onto the floor and she unfolded the paper. The woman carelessly browsed through the articles until she came upon the local news. All of the sudden her eyes widened at fixed on a small article featuring something she could never have anticipated seeing. She scanned each word with disbelief and shock visible all across her face. “Coming Soon!, Fazbear’s Fright: The Horror Attraction! Local amusement park is getting ready to scare your socks off with a new attraction based on the unsolved mysteries of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. Featuring actual relics from the decades-old pizzeria this new attraction is guaranteed to bring back your childhood in the worst possible way!”

Then, for the first time in decades she felt something again. The feeling rushed through her and took hold of all of her thoughts and action. She was feeling a profound rage taking over her head. Incomparable rage that built more and more which blinded what decency and restraint held her back all these years before. It was the ultimate insult. Her only child, murdered in cold blood and they were making an attraction off of it. They were profiting off the greatest pain she had ever felt and treating the whole thing like a game. Her head began to feel light and her hands started shaking beyond her own control. Tears began to glide down her face and onto the floor as she simply stared at the print before hurling it across the room.  She lashed out at portrait on the wall smashing the glass the shards before turning to grab her car keys. She dropped the keys into her pocket and ripping the door and open storming out, not even stopping to lock or close the door behind her. She rushed down the stairs, found her car, and entered the vehicle with haste. She turned the key desperately until the car roared to a start and hysterically took off down the moonlit road.


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Meanwhile in the old pizzeria as the dead of night shrouded the attraction, there was a subtle stirring echoing through the dusty halls. The faint sounds of movement came from deep within the maze like structure. Inside there shuffled a shambling mess of coils, wires, and rust. It was an old model of one of the characters that previously populated the restaurant. It was slumped against a wall on the floor of one of the back rooms of the building. Its eyes produced a dim light which flickered slightly as it slowly began to animate. The yellow figure crept upwards slowly, expressing a sort of strain on its tattered face. Once it had its bearings it embarked out into the diner. The zombie shambled aimlessly through the corridor, seemingly wincing in pain with each step. Its jaw loosely swung below with each step it took. Its wide plastic eyes drifting across the corridors as it paced through the quiet pizzeria. It came to a halt in the east hall of the building and fixed its gaze at a few old posters that had been added to the attraction. It seemed to be drawn by a child and depicted a skinny black and white puppet emerging from a large present. The being's eyes lay fixed on the crayon drawing that adorned the hallway as it leaned in closer with an expression of abhorrence.

This was cut short by a sudden screech from outside the building. The machine jerked around to this sudden noise, twisting the leathery organs clenched inside. It immediately limped towards the window overlooking the parking lot the noise had come from. It slowly peered out into dimly lit lot to confront the unexpected arrival. There was a car, brought to a halt in the middle of the empty lot leaving a trail of tire tracks on the blacktop. Though the lot was poorly lit, the silhouette of a woman could be seen emerging violently from the vehicle, knocking several empty bottles out into the pavement. The machine watched silently as she frantically, she picked up one of the bottles and headed to the back of the automobile. It was there the animatronic saw her remove a jerry can from the trunk before moving out of view behind the car. The being stared intensely at the car for any signs of movement with a perplexed look adorned on its decrepit face. There was a faint sound of a distressed voice coming from the car, but it was impossible to make out who it was or what was going on. The voice grew louder and more violent yet remained unseen. The husk crept closer to the window and waited silently until the figure emerged from behind the vehicle. The woman had the bottle in hand, however it now radiated a bright orange glow and she had gone into a frenzy. She was shouting now with extreme ferocity and conviction apparent in her voice. With one last shout she hurled the bottle towards the very window that the Spring Bonnie animatronic gazed from. The onlooking robot could now make out the flames emitting from the end of the bottle and its eyes grew wide once more as the light grew brighter and brighter as it approached before it crashed through the glass window and burst enveloping the surrounding area in a bright inferno. The abomination screeched as its body was immersed in a blaze of searing orange fire. It twisted and stumbled around flinging burning pieces of its own body across the room as it thrashed about. The hall was now a bonfire as the flames climbed the walls and ignited the many props strewn about. The fire burned its way into the dry, hardened flesh and muscle gripped by the suit and charred the remains as it consumed the room. The woman outside was screaming at the building itself as tears poured down her cheeks and onto the asphalt. The machine fell to the floor as it writhed in torment from the insufferable burning coating its body. It began to claw its way across the floor and towards the window as it deteriorated slowly. The husk pulled itself up by the window sill in an attempt to stand, however its legs would no longer support the machine. It glanced back out into the lot to see the distraught woman climb back into her car and drive off swiftly down the road. Its eyes moved back down towards its legs to see its entire lower body nothing but blackened endoskeleton distorted and limp. Finally, its arms gave out and the animatronic collapsed onto the ground before its body contorted and ceased to move.