Last wishes

Mike sighed and wiped away some sweat that had been beading at his eyebrows. The animatronics had been more active and determined to get him than ever. Bonnie had been especially intent on catching Mike. Even Freddy had gotten in on the action, finally stepping down off the stage to take part in the hunt.

In the end it had come down to the wire. Scant minutes remained before the power would have run out and his fate sealed. Luckily, Mike had been smart with his energy consumption. Unluckily, the next night’s shift would likely bee even harder. Mike stood up from his rickety chair and stretched. It looked like he’d be spending most of his waking hours planning like he had the day before.

Mike hesitated when he turned out into the hall to leave. The memory of the message that had played six hours earlier was fresh on his mind, as it had been the entire night. A war raged in his mind. Should he leave or should he do as the guy on the phone requested and check out the heads in the back?

In the end, the decision to honor the guy’s final wishes won out. He owed the phone guy that much, at least.

There had been a flashlight in one of the drawers, Mike remembered. He’d found it while rummaging through them bored on his first night. It had been packed in with an old Freddy mask and some paper plates.  Finding it again was no problem. Mike pulled it out and tested it to make sure it worked. It was a hefty thing, almost too heavy to hold with one hand, and the light flickered and wasn’t too strong. It worked, though, and that was all that mattered.

Mike stepped through the hall across the party room with caution. He had no clue about how the animatronics would act with him still there. Normally he left as soon as he was physically able to. Not today, however. Today, he was a man on a mission.

The storage room in the back was as unsettling as it had been on the cameras. Mike picked up the nearest head and was forced to wave away the cloud of dust that followed. He coughed and set it back down. Empty.

Every head told the same story. Thick layers of dust that implied months, if not years, of abandonment. Hollow, each and every one of them. Mike shivered. This place gave him the creeps.

It was only when Mike reached the back corner of the room, far out of sight of the camera, that he discovered something. Deep scratches in the linoleum floor, hundreds of them, and they all converged behind a shelf that was curiously clean. Mike had a hunch.

The shelf was heavy but Mike had been doing his situps. It groaned in protest but soon gave way. There, in the gap that had been formed, was a gap in the wall leading to another part of the room. It looked like the storage room had been built in a ‘U’ shape, as one large room with a wall running through most of the center. Mike squeezed into the opening. He started when he brought his flashlight back up.

Blood was everywhere.

It wasn’t fresh blood, that much Mike could tell. Rust-colored brown caked the floor and came off in flakes as Mike trudged through it. Shelves lined the walls, and each shelf was lined with costume heads. Mike grabbed the nearest one and pulled it off the shelf. There was resistance in the form of a sticky brown puddle underneath it. Mike cringed. His pulse racing, he tipped the head back to look inside of it.

The costume head dropped to the ground, and it was all Mike could do to swallow back the screams and the bile that were racing each other up his throat. Well, a dark corner of his mind thought, at least you found out what was in the heads.

Mike steadied his shaking hands and looked around the room with fresh eyes. Dozens of soulless eyes stared at him – accusingly, angrily. Goosebumps raised along his flesh. Mike ignored them and said a short prayer before crossing himself. Forehead, sternum, left side of chest, right side of chest. Sweeping his flashlight across the room one last time, Mike noticed something he had failed to before.

There was a fresh puddle under one of the heads.

Mike walked towards it, his feet heavy as lead. Each step felt longer than the last, took longer than the last. Finally he reached the shelf. Mike panted, chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath. It had been a dozen feet but it felt like he had ran a dozen miles.

Trembling hands reached out and grabbed the head. At once, it twitched in his grasp. A voice weakly called out from it. A voice Mike recognized.

“Hello? Is there someone there?”

Mike couldn’t answer, was incapable of answering. The head continued, hope staining every word as thoroughly as despair was.

“If… If you are there, please… kill me…”

When the deed was done an indeterminate amount of time later Mike left the room. His muscles burned, his back ached, his heart felt hollow. It had taken so long, had been so messy, and yet he had been profusely thanked the entire time.

Mike couldn’t remember much of what had happened in that room. He couldn’t remember anything at all after leaving it. Not leaving the restaurant, not the drive home, not even the water running over him in the shower, scalding hot but never hot enough. Full awareness didn’t return to him until he was lying in bed.

Tears stained his pillow, and Mike vowed to last until the restaurant closed so that no one else would suffer that fate. He owed the phone guy that much, at least.