Another Path To Freedom

A stark white room, with the remains of some ugly carpet in the corner, a tacky thing with awful, clashing colors that was barely worthy of being fodder for soup stains. Sitting on it, a sobbing child with auburn hair, and a pair of designer child overalls with a red sweater underneath, missing a shoe while the other was untied and well worn. He clutched a stuffed chicken toy of cheap quality, a visage belonging to a mascot of yesteryear. The smell of greasy food, rotten meat, body odor, and something sour. Memories of the rest of the place were rather worn, the screams of children as the animatronics on stage would sing their song, all he could remember was being alone and hurt in that corner of the place.

Detective Robinson couldn't recall what he even liked about the place as a kid, let alone much beyond that corner and the exterior of the place. Seeing the interior of the attraction again only caused him to recall the pain and sorrow of when he was four and attended some kid's birthday party. Dressed in a suit with his favorite orange and black tie, with little hexagons all over, this was the fifth crime sscene he'd had to visit.

Why didn't they shut the place down sooner? PerhAps this was the first time they'd caught the culprit, or the closest thing they could pin down as one. Fifth person on security to die in the last two months, the people in charge of this hellhole, Fazfright, were using this to boost the publicity. By all means, they should've been able to take this crap to court already, but there was no evidence of a murder weapon and no human could've done what happened to those poor souls.

"Skull wrenched off of the spinal cord at a right angle, jaw ripped off on one side, eardrums burst and thrown across the room. Just like the last four, detective, but one difference," the coroner had started.

"Already heard from your buddy, we got ewidence this time. How damning is it?" Robinson adjusted his bifocal glasses with his good hand, his other arm still in a sling.

"That's just it. We honestly can't explain it, or there's information that the owners are holding onto. It's that animatronic they found, it's just..."

"You know I hate pregnant pauses. Out with it, already having a bad day," Robinson rubbed a bit at the stump in the sling.

"It couldn't have done it. All signs point to it being the same thing that did this to the previous guards, th bruises match the fingers, the few bits of dead skin and gore are found in traces on the thing, but the suit's hollow. That golden rabbit was supposed to be able to be worn as a suit, but looks like it went iron maiden on someone and the stains are years old, victim died around the start of their shift," the coroner looked over the clipboard as they approached the scene, officers looking a bit bored, shining flashlights at different parts of the place to look busy, floodlights brought into the rather straightforward horror attraction.

"Tasteless, they didn't even wash off the last chalk outline. Hollow suit, eh? No signs of who might've been wearing it?" Robinson asked, taking out a penlight from his breast pocket, peering into the eye socket of the decrepiT, golden rabbit costume. All he could make out was old, rusty wires and crossbeams and the interior of the thing. Victim this time was high school age, but with teeth pulverized from the pressure, they had no dental records and it was another Jane Doe, to also join three Johns.

The identity wasn't quite as important, as the families that were contacted to identify the corpses couldn't actually recognize them when this mystery killer was tHrough with them. When asked if they wanted to take care of the bodies, oddly not a single person wanted to, leaving the cost of funeral service to the state. What was bothering Robinson now aside from the physical pain of literal loss was why and how. Best why he could come up with was 'publicity', but that's pretty ballsy of a small town amusement park attraction.

How could a costume, with a few locking mechanisms, and no signs of use in years, possibly have the power to do that sort of thing? More perplexing was of all the tims for it to show up, it did so after five murders. This was something he'd have to take to his chief to get more information, but it was clear somehow this construct tore a teenager asunder, this time not getting to toss the victim aside, simply stopped mid-wrenching. Why was there no smell to the suit beyond dust, despite the caked blood and rotten bits of meat stuck to the bracing? What could have possibly made it move, if not a person?

Detective Robinson tried to get a look down the suit, there were traces of gore and bone here and there, but how could they get that far down? This case was taking a turn for the strange. He took some mental notes and pulled out his phone to get a few photos, including one taking a picture of the interior, through the vacant eye socket, after getting the coroner's permission. Looking around the office a bit more, he saw a few of the animatronic parts all around the security room and out in the hall beyond the one-way mirror, not recogmizing the brighter polyurethane parts or what they belonged to, some variant of the Fazbear mascots he hadn't experienced before this place. The Freddy chest and head piece on a rack outside the door looked more familiar.

Stepping outside, it was early morning at the amusement park, guests were already attending some of the other rides, various food kiosks already filling the air with the scents of food cooked in lard. An acrid smell, the building scent of unwashed amusement park guests, and...

ThE scent of decay sent Robinson's mind back in time, he was getting a clearer picture. The stark white room filled out, the carpeting spreading to what seemed like an impressively large room, tables with lots of families and gifts getting passd around. He could remember the animatronic mascots on stage a bit clearer, though details were fuzzy. He remembered being wet and sticky being the reason he was crying, but not much beyond that.

He winced as the pain in his stump shot through him, snapping him out of being lost in thought, painkillers starting to wear off as he wobbled a bit back to the car, where his partner was waiting in the driver's seat. Rodriguez held a bottle of pills in one hand and tapped on her plain gold watch with it in a gesture to remind Robinson it was time for the next dose.

The dose hit him harder than he thought, that old memory of the restaurant from years past was hitting him with explicit details. Every article of clothing on every person in the room, every designer logo, the amount of sprinkles on each cake or cupcake, all in stunning detail. The animatronics weren't colored blobs with vague details, Robinson could make out even the traces of mucus and blood caked on parts of those animatronics. What unsettled him most was looking to his stuffed animal, as the image came into focus, it wasn't an animal, rather a severed hand he was holding onto for comfort, with button eyes and a felt nose sewn onto the wrist. He then noticed his red sweater was supposed to be grey, the front was all red hovever, and bloody from wherever this hand had come from. And then the glint, he felt his body grow ice cold as he noticed a ring on the finger. His wedding ring. And the familiar irregularities of the back of his hand he'd lost barely six hours prior.

Looking up from the hand for a split second, gazing back at him were the faces of the five victims, expressionless and seemingly superimposed on the bear, chicken, and rabbit animatronic that were there, and two who weren't, the fOx pirate and some doll it loooked like. Jumping a bit awake in the passenger seat, Rodriguez reached across quickly to catch the paper bag in Robinson's lap.

"Easy there, almost spilled your breakfast. Got you some hash browms and OJ, they were still serving breakfast," Robinson nodded a bit groggily as he grabbed the small bag and started pulling out a hash brown to eat.

"Any word from the labs on that mess?" Robinson bit into the hash brown, setting it down for a moment to slip the carton of orange juic in between his legs to grip it, the minimalistic cup holders in the patrol car geared more towards large paper cups or broken.

"Yeah, bizarre stuff. Ya know that kid you tried to save earlier, being picked apart by dogs, disemboweled and stuff that tore your hand off before dying?" Rodriguez gave a rather disgusted look. Robinon stopped chewing the hash brown and nodded, a look of concern on his face.

"Well... His DNA matches the bits of skin we found in that costume this morning afterwards." The silence between the two was only broken in the proceeding police radio chatter. After nearly half a minute, Robinson swallowed the fried potato chunks and set his hash brown down to start preparing the straw for his orange juice.

"You saying that it was that tattered guy who was in that suit? But... How exactly? Wasn't that gore from years ago?" Robinson punctured the little foil-covered hole with the straw after getting the straw out with his teeth and one good hand. Rodriguez shrugged and stared into her half-eaten breakfast sandwich.

"Don't see how, myself. Guy's lower half was practically skeleton, but his wounds all looked fresh, the stuff in the suit was almost a decade decayed," Rodriguez looked over with a bit of a sheepish expression. "Didn't he say something to you after he took your hand off and you shot him?"

Robinson was finishing a sip of his orange juice, before motioning with his finger to wait a moment, rubbing his bleary eyes a bit before speaking a bit weakly. "Yeah. He was saying he won before he took my hand, over and over, after he said 'Tag. You're it,' before he went limp."