Happy Halloween From Fredbear and Friends

“Oi, Mike-o. Ya listenin’ ta me?”

Michael snapped to attention and tore his wandering eyes from the decorations around Fredbear’s. His father was looking down at him impatiently, brow furrowed and frown etched deep. “Sorry, Dad. What’d you say?”

William Afton sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Listen, just hand out some suckers to the suckers. I got heaps ‘a sugar-free on sale, but don’t think that means you can hand ‘em out willy-nilly. Otherwise the tykes’ll be on ya like magpies.”

Michael fired off a sharp salute, puffing his chest out and standing tall. The effect was somewhat diminished by his Foxy mask, but he didn’t let it bother him. “I gotcha. You can count on me.”

“Good. Ain’t had a smoko in yonks, so Oi’m gunna pop round back fer a durry. Back in a tick. Oi’ll take both a ya to Maccas when we’re done here.” Having said his piece, William walked across the party room, grabbed some candy from the bags of distracted trick-or-treaters, and ducked out the back.

Michael kept saluting until his Dad left the room, at which point he slouched hard and elbowed his younger brother. “Don’t mess this up, ya drongo.”

Michael’s younger brother stumbled and rubbed his arm. A bruise was already forming, and tears began to well in his eyes. Michael sighed and distracted him by dumping the bowl of suckers into his hands. “Here, can I trust you with this? I gotta take a piss.”

Michael’s brother didn’t respond, but he did visibly brighten at the thought of being entrusted with what was in his mind an incredibly important task. He skipped off before Michael could say anything, quickly mingling with other kids and offering his sugar-free treats.

Even early in the evening, the party room was busy, and from the looks of the line outside the door it would only be getting busier. Kids ran around wearing costumes, laughing and screaming. Parents took well-deserved breaks at tables, exhausted from walking around the neighborhood. All in all, the Fredbear Halloween party was shaping up to be a success.

Michael weaved through the crowd, craning his head this way and that until he spotted his friends sitting at a table in one corner of the room. They beckoned him over with a wave, and he rushed over to join them. All of them were wearing masks just like he was, each and every one a Fredbear and Friends character. “Aren’t you supposed to be handing out candy or something?” one of them asked when he reached the table.

“Yeah, nah. I just got my little brother to do it.”

One of them slugged his arm, and Michael forced down a wince and the urge to rub it. “Cool shit, dude. How about we head out and see how much candy we can take from the bowls on people’s front porches until someone stops us? I bet we can beat last year’s record.”

Michael did wince at that. “Sorry, but I can’t. Dad’s out back, and if he comes back in and I’m gone I’m gonna be in heaps of trouble.”

A bevy of eye rolls greeted him back at that, but Michael stayed resolute. Last time his Dad got angry he made Michael test the “child calming spray” he’d built into the tail of some gay-looking robot prototype. He still got nauseous every time he smelled strawberries.

One of the teens across the table rested his chin on his hand, looking bored out of his mind. “Well, crap. What do we do now?”

Everyone was silent for a moment, and Michael took the opportunity to do some people watching. One of the fathers was sifting through his son’s pumpkin-shaped candy basket, discreetly pocketing some choice selections when his kid wasn’t looking. A performer had just walked out from backstage in a Spring Bonnie costume, one fully decked out in fake blood. A crowd of children tackled him, and Michael saw some fake blood squirt from the joints as he went down. Interesting special effect.

A loud clap brought Michael’s, and everyone else’s, attention to a member of the group. He seemed a bit embarrassed at the sudden attention, but quickly powered through it. “I got an idea. Let’s just mess with the kids in here and see if we can make any piss their pants.”

Enthusiastic agreements came from all around, and the group of edgy teenagers got to work. The chaos they caused was barely noticeable in the already-chaotic room, but between jumping out from behind decorations and dogpiling lone children in order to shove them around and scream, there was a significant number of little kids left standing in puddles and crying. Satisfied that they’d traumatized enough people, the group was getting ready to retire back to their table when Michael saw his younger brother and had an idea.

A nudge here and a tap there and soon the whole group got the idea. Michael’s brother was humming happily to himself as he handed out some suckers to some costumed patrons when all of a sudden he found himself hoisted up above the crowd and rushed towards the stage. The bowl fell to the ground with a clatter, spilling its contents.

“Ah! Hey, lemme down. Lemme down!”

No matter how much he kicked and flailed and screamed, though, his tormentors kept a hold of him. His eyes widened when he saw where they were bringing him towards, and he struggled even harder, but all it did was make Michael and Michael’s friends laugh cruelly.

“Here, loser. Why don’t you go give the star of the show a nice, big hug to show him how much you love it?”

They reached the stage and clambered up, and the chaos of the room meant that nobody noticed or attempted to stop them. The group held Michael’s younger brother right up to the Fredbear animatronic who was standing still on stage. They shoved him closer, until he could hear the whirring of the idling machine’s joints.

“Oi, Mike! Get the hell off the stage, ya cunt!”

Michael dropped his younger brother, who tripped over his own feet in his attempts to get away. William stalked through the crowd, heedless of the outraged expressions on the faces of every mother in the room. Michael could faintly hear some kindergarteners asking their parents what “cunt” meant.

When the Australian expat reached the stage he crossed his arms and tapped his feet on the tile floor. “One thing I asked of ya, Mike-o. One thing!” William pointed at the bowl of suckers, still laying on the floor. “What’s that, then?”

Michael climbed off the stage, unable to tear his eyes away from the floor. His friends wisely ran away while they had the chance. “Err, I told the brat to do it.”

William narrowed his eyes at his son. “Mike, you know yer brother can’t handle that. I told you to do it for a reason. He prolly gave half the bowl away to anyone who said please!”

Michael didn’t look up from the floor. “Sorry, Dad.”

“Listen,” William said as he uncrossed his arms. “Quit teasin’ yer brother and finish handin’ the candy out. Then we can go home and all have a Golden Gaytime. I know both ‘a you love ‘em.”

Michael rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment and finally looked up. His eyes locked with his father’s. There was annoyance there, to be sure, but Michael could tell he wasn’t angry. “Okay, Dad. Sorry.”

The rest of the Halloween party went more-or-less as planned. Some kids got given candy, the animatronic performers performed some seasonably appropriate songs, and patrons were successfully filched of more money than they’d ever spend at Fredbear’s at any other time of the year. A rousing success, in William Afton’s book.

Closing time finally came, and the Afton family piled into the back of William’s purple car as he drove them home. Michael rested his forehead against the back-seat window, thankful for the cool glass. The Halloween event had ended up giving him an awful headache. He could see his brother clutching a plush in the window’s reflection.

William patted the dashboard as he sped down the highway, passing every car on the road along the way. “Bloody good car, innit? I’d marry ‘er if I could.”

Michael wriggled around in his seat, trying to get comfortable. The left side of the back-seat was always lumpy and sagged in weird places that made it hard to fully relax. Then his brother fell asleep, dozing lightly with his head against his side and a thin trickle of drool coming from his mouth, and Michael didn’t move for the rest of the car ride home.