An Old Classic

“I told you I was good at pretending, right? So, let’s pretend we’re playing a game.”

Those had been the only words Michael Afton had been given by Circus Baby before he was flung past a formerly locked door and ended up in some sort of security room. It was disorienting to say the least, and Michael had been rattled ever since.

It was cramped in the small room; a small table was pressed against the far wall, with a pyramid of three televisions stacked atop it. Harsh static played across their screens, casting an eerie flicker across the security room as the only form of light. A desk fan ran at full force, blasting lukewarm air against Michael’s face. An old plush doll was wedged in between the televisions and the fan, and a poster featuring Baby herself was behind it. Two doors, some sort of opening in the back wall, and pipes everywhere. Not the most welcoming of rooms, to put it lightly.

Distant clanks echoed faintly down the halls, putting Michael on edge. Whether it was from the pipes or something else he wasn’t sure, but he definitely didn’t want to chance it.

There was a tablet laying on top of a chair that looked like it’d been fished out of a landfill. Michael eyed both suspiciously, carefully picking up the tablet and testing the chair’s ability to hold his weight before committing to sitting on it. The tablet was fiddled with warily, HandUnit having let Michael more than cautious when it came to dealing with company property.

The tablet turned on with a click and a buzz, revealing a camera feed. Suddenly Michael knew what had been making noise.

Every animatronic in the building was swarming the halls outside, steadily making their way towards him. Each camera revealed a new threat, each one a new reason to be afraid. Michael slammed a button on each wall that made both doors shut, then sat back and tried to think. He had no clue what time it was; Baby had gotten the jump on him in the middle of some menial repair tasks that were so mind-numbing that he had no idea how long he had been doing them. HandUnit hadn’t even given him a warning. As a result, all he had was a vague idea that there were likely several hours before anybody would show up. Day shift started arriving around six, so he just needed to last until then. As long as the doors held, he’d be fine.

Then he noticed a power gauge on the wall next to him that was gradually trickling down. Michael opened a door experimentally. The power drain lessened.

“Fuck.”

There went that plan. Michael hurried to check the cameras again, only to see the animatronics continuing to meander his way. They weren’t all rushing him, though. Evidently, they were in on this “game” that Baby had proposed. Michael could work with that. He clapped his cheeks, took in a deep breath, and began playing a game of survival.

Funtime Freddy was the first one to make an attempt at Michael. He was so busy juggling every camera feed that by the time he switched to the one outside his door it was almost too late. The bear was standing in the middle of the hall, arm held back.

“Bon-Bon, go get ‘em!”

Michael smashed the door button down. A moment later there was a thud, then the faint clattering of plastic on tile. A quick glance at the camera showed Bon-Bon scampering away with their arms, right into Funtime Freddy’s outstretched hands. For a brief moment it looked like a tearful reunion, right before Bon-Bon launched themselves at the bear’s face and started scratching.

Michael ignored Freddy’s apologetic wails. Not because he wanted to, but because a Minireena chose that moment to latch onto his skull.

The small ballerina screeched and hooted, its limbs a flurry of movement as it deftly avoided every one of Michael’s attempts at dislodging it. His fingers scrambled for purchase, frequently tugging at his own hair thanks to a missed grab. When he finally managed to grab onto a leg, he yanked the Minireena off of him and slammed it onto his desk. Its head spun around from the force. It looked back at him and hissed. He tossed it into the doorway and hit the door button. It finally stopped moving when the door came down on it like an executioner’s guillotine.

Michael sat back down in his chair and winced as his fingers traced over the scratches and welts on his face. That wince turned into a grimace when he picked a splinter from out of his cheek.

Unfortunately for Michael, his casual destruction of company property hadn’t gone unnoticed. The moment he checked the camera feed once more, it was to the sight of Ballora charging down the hallway on all fours. She was rampaging like an angry bull, stampeding over an unlucky Bidybab that was in her way. The closed door didn’t seem to dissuade her; if anything, it only appeared to make her angrier. The ballerina flung herself at the metal door over and over again, banging so loudly that it drowned out the ongoing squabble in the opposite hall.

A spark of creativity led to Michael opening the door Ballora wasn’t banging on. He timed the banging, then opened the door right as Ballora threw herself at it.

“GET READY FOR ONE HELL OF A SHO-“ Funtime Foxy chose that exact moment to charge in, only to get barreled over by Ballora. Both animatronics tumbled out the door in an awkward mess of tangled limbs, and Michael closed the door on them.

With that done, Michael felt a bit better about his chances. Bidybab wasn’t moving, Funtime Freddy was too busy groveling in front of Bon-Bon to be a threat, and Ballora and Funtime Foxy were having trouble separating because their costume plates got wedged together. In fact, the only one left was Circus Baby.

The same Circus Baby Michael couldn’t find on the camera feed.

Michael checked over all the cameras in order. Then, he checked them again. And again. Baby wasn’t on any of them. He was torn between worry and confusion. Had she not entered this part of the building when she’d tossed him in? Was she not taking part in this strange game of hers? Michael didn’t like it one bit, not at all. Not knowing what Baby was up to made his skin crawl. Even at the best of times she was inscrutable, and now more than ever he wished he knew what she was thinking.

Then the cameras turned to static.

It started with the one showing the collapsed Bidybab. A brief flicker of static, just like the television screens in front of him, and when it cleared the small animatronic was gone. One by one, each camera registered static. It went in a wave, traveling across them sequentially. When the static reached the camera showing the commotion outside his door, everything went quiet, and in scant seconds it lifted to reveal an empty corridor.

Michael was on edge, plagued with uncertainty. For a brief moment this “game” had actually seemed a bit less serious than it had at the start, but this total unknown was a stark reminder of the truth. It was all the man could do to not jump at shadows as he peered closer at his tablet, face drawing ever nearer as he squinted down in an attempt to see something, anything.

Then the upbeat, workplace-appropriate tune signaling the end of his shift played over the building’s speakers, and Michael’s simultaneous attempt to jolt of fright and sag with relief led to him taking an awkward tumble out of his chair. It didn’t matter, though. He had made it. In mere moments, other employees would be showing up, and they could rescue him from what had quickly shaped up to be his worst night on the job.

Michael darted out of one door, ready to make a run for it back into the Funtime Auditorium. Instead, he ran right into Funtime Freddy, whose arms snapped around him in a too-tight hug before he could even think to flee.

“H-hey, wait! What’s the big idea? I won the game, right?” Michael shouted up at the bear, kicking and squirming in a futile attempt to escape.

“Hehahahah, n-not quite,” the bear half-sang in response, stomping his way over to the door leading to the auditorium. It opened without any action from Freddy, revealing the rest of the animatronics waiting on the other side.

“I told you about pretending, remember?” Michael turned his head to one side to see Baby standing next to Funtime Foxy. The pink and white fox jauntily lifted an eyebrow and winked at Michael, before mockingly playing a recording of the end-of-shift jingle from the speaker on their chest.

“So,” Baby continued, returning Michael’s attention back to her. “I wonder what we should do with you. We had a plan, but there’s something I’ve always wanted to try. I asked myself, ‘How can I get one of us inside a guard?’”

“What? What are you-“ Michael was dropped by Funtime Freddy at that moment, but as he stumbled back up to his feet Baby stepped closer to him. Her eyes flashed a different color.

“But then I wondered, ‘What about putting a guard inside one of us?’” A claw burst forth from Baby’s chest, painfully clamping down on his ribs in a pincer that made his bones creak ominously. Before he could even react to the pain, though, his entire body was jerked forward. There was a crunch. Michael didn’t even get a chance to scream.