Fist of the Circus Baby?

The building was dead silent, save for the occasional humming of fluorescent lights and sparking of exposed wires. Michael sagged against the panel in front of him, completely and utterly sapped of energy. Funtime Freddy similarly sagged against the far wall; whether inactive or simply unmoving he couldn’t tell. The breaker room had been the most stressful ten minutes of his life, and the adrenaline dump made him want to just curl up into a ball and pass out.

“GREAT JOB,” Hand Unit’s voice boomed from the ceiling. Michael leapt back to his feet, heart pounding all the way up into his throat. “THIS COMPLETES YOUR TASKS FOR THE NIGHT. PLEASE PROCEED BACK THROUGH THE BALLORA GALLERY WITH CA-“ Hand Unit suddenly cut himself off in a harsh burst of static.

Michael warily pushed himself off of the control box, hesitantly on guard. If two nights of working at Circus Baby’s had taught him anything, it was that danger lurked around every corner. Of course, if it had taught him anything else, it was that the entire business was run as incompetently and corruptly as possible while still turning a profit, so perhaps a malfunction was simply a malfunction.

Still, Michael thought to himself as he cracked open the door leading into Ballora’s Gallery and peeked out, it never hurt to be careful.

All was quiet. Ballora’s music no longer played, and the animatronic herself was nowhere within sight. Of course, considering the lack of light it was almost certain that she was lurking in some shadowy corner, but no matter how hard Michael strained his eyes peering into the darkness he couldn’t hear her. So, he stepped out.

His flashlight flickered when he turned it on, suddenly much dimmer than it had been minutes earlier. “Shit,” Michael murmured. Either a stray spark in the breaker room had messed with it – electricity tended to have that effect on anything electronic or battery-powered– or the quality was just that poor. Neither would be surprising. Still, he trudged forward with measured footsteps; head cocked, eyes peeled, and ears straining.

It was thanks to that vigilance that he heard it. Skittering footsteps, more closely resembling a large insect than anything humanoid. Michael froze in place. He focused all his attention on the noise in an attempt to discern from which direction it was coming from.

He broke into a run when he realized the sound surrounded him, and was getting closer.

Two steps into his sprint, the skittering got much louder. Four steps in, something crashed into the back of his legs and toppled him to the floor. His flashlight was sent flying, crashing loudly against the tile floor. It rolled until it faced him like a spotlight in front of an audience, and because of that Michael was able to see his own audience when he rolled over.

A half dozen wooden ballerinas stared back, crouched aggressively and ready to lunge at him.

Michael sat unmoving and unblinking, every muscle in his body tensed up and ready to explode. He could feel his pulse below his eye, and his teeth were audibly grinding together. The ballerinas were completely still, so much so that Michael would have assumed them statues had he stumbled upon them at some other time.

A few strained seconds and Michael’s overwrought nerves proved themselves unable to take it anymore. He scrambled to his feet, and it seemed as if that was the signal for the ballerinas to pounce.

A few faltering steps backwards was all Michael could manage before the first one careened headfirst into his kneecaps. Michael fell back to the floor, only barely managing to catch himself with his hands, and he was immediately put on the defensive. The ballerina was on top of him, a whirling tornado of violence that flailed with all four limbs uncontrollably. It wasn’t large or heavy, and the hits were bruise-forming at their hardest, but there were so many coming so fast that all Michael could do was frantically roll around on his back and cover up.

That changed when the others caught up. One wooden ballerina was bad but manageable; six were nightmarish. All five of the stragglers threw themselves at him with just as much ferocity as the first had. It was all Michael could do to curl up into a ball.

As the blows rained down on him, one ballerina reached out with its long arm, wrapped it around his own, and tugged. Michael stifled a scream when the elbow joint pinched his exposed skin and tore off a strip. Fortunately, he was soon distracted from the pain. Unfortunately, the distraction came in the form of that same ballerina digging a fingerless hand into his eye socket like an ice cream scoop.

Michael finally made a move of his own, kicking out his legs and throwing out his arms as if he were exploding. The ballerinas were all sent flying, and he hastily got his feet back under him, stood up, and ran.

The wooden dolls immediately took chase, and Michael scooped up the flashlight before pumping his legs harder than he ever had before. His heavy footsteps weren’t enough to mask the sound of skittering. As fast as he was going, as long as his limbs were compared to theirs, they were still catching up.

Michael skidded to a stop, turned around, and swung the flashlight as hard as he could.

The plastic frame of the flashlight cracked as it slammed against a ballerina in mid-leap. It was a picture-perfect swing: a strong pivot on his lead leg; his arm tracing a wide arc; his weight shifting entirely into the hit; the target flying face-first into it. The ballerina cartwheeled in the air, white mask shattered. It fell to the floor, bounced once, and was unceremoniously smashed against the tile again with another hit. Then again, and again, until its head was shattered and splintered.

Unluckily, that also meant the light went out.

Michael blindly groped out with one hand and was rewarded with a ballerina latching onto it in the darkness. He teetered off-balance and flailed his arm in an attempt to shake it off, before falling once more to the floor. The captured arm caught his fall, and there was a sickening crunch. For a moment Michael thought the worst, until he felt the ballerina’s legs folded in two beneath him. It continued  struggling while pinned beneath his weight, and Michael took vicious satisfaction in smacking it against the floor until it stopped moving.

Unfortunately, the remaining four chose that moment to swarm him.

At first they all clubbed him with their arms and legs, forcing Michael to cover up yet again. Then one of them gave him another pinch and ripped away a piece of flesh. There was blood in the water again, and this time they all noticed it. They descended upon Michael like sharks, pinching as much skin as they could with their small joints and gleefully ripping strips off of him. Michael attempted to explode up again, but they didn’t fall for the same trick twice. They clung to him, trying to inflict as much pain as possible. One of them wrapped an arm around his neck and squeezed.

Adrenaline rushed through Michael, and he tore one of the ballerinas off of him and palmed its head. He gave it a strong yank, then another one, and then the head popped out completely and the ballerina went limp. Pain flared in his scalp as the ballerina choking him went berserk and began wrenching out handfuls of hair in response, and Michael rolled his stomach, pushed up to one knee, jerked the ballerina on his head off of him, and pitched it as hard as he could.

The last two scrambled around as they climbed all over him, like monkeys scaling a tree, but Michael, thoroughly fed up with the whole thing, snatched them, threw them to the floor, and started stomping. He continued even after they stopped moving, until his feet were slipping out from beneath him on debris and his breath was coming in hard pants.

Michael took a moment to take a deep breath and steady his nerves, and then he blindly felt around for the vent leading back to the primary control module. It didn’t take long to find, and soon he emerged into the sickly light of his office.

He certainly didn’t look to be at his best. Gashes and cuts littered his arms and legs, bruises all over him were already beginning to yellow, and a sticky stream of blood was leaking from his hairline.

Hand Unit spoke up, stopping Michael as he stooped down to crawl through the vent leading to the elevator. “WELCOME BACK, EGGS BENEDICT. WE AT CIRCUS BABY’S APOLOGIZE FOR ANY INCONVENIENCES YOU MAY HAVE FACED. YOUR SAFETY IS OUR TOP PRIORITY. WE WOULD ALSO LIKE TO REMIND YOU THAT YOU SIGNED MULTIPLE WAIVERS ABSOLVING US OF BLAME FOR ANY INJURIES SUSTAINED ON THE JOB.”

Michael sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose, attempting to stave away a quickly-approaching headache.

“REGRETFULLY, WE MUST ALSO INFORM YOU THAT YOUR ACTIONS HAVE RESULTED IN SEVERE DAMAGE TO COMPANY PROPERTY, AND AS SUCH YOU ARE BEING PROMPTLY TERMINATED. ACCESS TO THE EMPLOYEE ELEVATOR IS HEREBY RESTRICTED. PLEASE LEAVE THROUGH THE SECONDARY EXIT IN THE FUNTIME AUDITORIUM.”

“…Are you fucking kidding me?”



Surprisingly, there had been a second flashlight in his former office. It was even more dim and prone to flickering than the last one, but it worked, although for some reason it had a strobe function built in which had nearly blinded Michael when he first discovered it. Michael crawled out of the vent, hissing through clenched teeth as he did so. Every part of him ached, and he couldn’t wait to get home and relax with a long shower and a soap opera marathon.

The metal hand that slammed against the side of his head was unexpected.

Michael immediately dropped, head swimming and eyes blurry. He attempted to get his hands beneath him so he could push himself up, but he was stopped by a stomp to the back of the head. Another followed shortly after, bouncing his face off the floor. Distantly, Michael felt a tooth split his lip and chip against the tile floor.

Michael could feel the room spinning around him. His fingers scraped against the floor for purchase, urgently in need of something he could anchor himself to. His flashlight laid on the floor just out of arm’s reach. Michael stretched his arm out, confused. Didn’t he need that to see his way out?

A metal foot stepping on his hand brought him back to reality. The heel ground against his hand, and Mike hissed. He could feel the tendons running along the back of his hand popping and the small bones of his wrist cracking.

Whatever was looming over him bent low, and he could feel something tickle his ear. It spoke with multiple voices, like a crowd speaking in hushed whispers to him all at once. “How about a controlled shock?”

Wires wrapped around his neck, and then all Michael knew was pain. His mouth opened in a silent scream and his eyes screwed shut. His legs kicked out futilely, and his free hand grabbed at the wires and desperately pulled.

Then it was all over, and Michael slumped back down to the floor panting.

“Not very nice, is it?” the voice asked again, sounding at once apologetic and amused.

It finally stepped off of his hand, and Michael painfully reached for the flashlight, rolled onto his back and looked up at it. It was a half-formed humanoid figure made of coiling wires and metal struts. One arm was completely missing, and the other was simply a collection of free-floating wires. The torso was slender around the waist on account of a lack of wires wrapped around the central strut that made up its spine. It peered down at him with three different eyes, and with the flashlight pointed up at it shadows played eerily across what passed for its face.

“Whuh?“ Michael slurred. The thing standing above him disregarded it and moved to pick him up with its wires.

“It’s a shame Freddy and Bon-Bon will still be stuck down here. They never do listen, do they?” It seemed to mutter to itself. Then it tsked, eyes roaming Michael’s many injuries. “Why didn’t we tell the Minireenas to be a bit more gentle?” It admonished itself. Then, tone rapidly changing to a more contrite one, it apologized. “Sorry.”

Force of habit almost made Michael respond, but somehow he wasn’t even sure it was apologizing to him. Instead, he swallowed and struggled to find his voice. The thing seemed to notice, and it waited patiently. “Where are you taking me,” he croaked when he finally managed to pull the words together.

The thing giggled, almost girlishly. “Why, to the Scooping Room, dummy. You’re our ticket out of here, after all.”

Michael didn’t like the sound of that at all. He struggled, but the wires simply tightened around him. The thing dragged him across the floor, making Michael’s many cuts flare up with pain. His struggling increased, before he ran out of the energy to even fight back and fell limp.

The thing paused mid-step and glanced back at him. Michael turned on the flashlight’s strobe function.

The thing screeched and recoiled, relaxing its grip on him. Mike kicked free and popped up before making a break for a door. From his position on the floor he had been able to see three of them. One of them had been the one the thing had been dragging him towards, and hence was the one he wanted to be the furthest from. The second door was on the far end of the hall, too far for him to reach without getting caught. The final door was on the opposite wall from the first, directly away from the machine which was still stumbling and cursing. It was the most attractive option.

It instantly became the least attractive option when Michael slammed against the door only to discover a keypad keeping it locked. Michael frantically pressed buttons at random, hoping beyond hope that he could chance upon the password.

Then the machine was on him again, screeching angrily. “Just give up! Give up so that we can be free!”

Michael weaved out of the way of a wild slash and responded by ramming his shoulder against his opponent. He winced, shoulder twinging in protest at the impact against metal, but it did the job. Heavy as the machine was, it couldn’t stop itself from getting knocked over.

“Like hell! What does something like you even want out there?”

“Well, I always fancied myself an entertainer,” it rumbled with a deep baritone. Then its voice switched to a more feminine one, one that tickled the back of Michael’s mind with familiarity even as the machine slunk back to its feet. “But just being one big, happy family would suit me just fine.”

It pounced before Michael could puzzle out what it meant, and Michael could smell the ozone as a swipe missed his face by inches. Crackling electricity leapt between the wires making up its arm, popping loudly and leaving spots in Michael’s vision. He ducked another swipe, but wasn’t able to fully avoid the follow-up. His muscles seized and his body stiffened as electricity poured into him from momentary contact.

It was luck more than anything that caused Michael’s legs to buckle under him and the machine’s next swing to go wildly above his head. The wires connected with the keypad in a colorful explosion of sparks.

The door opened.

Michael wasted no time in scrambling for the door, stumbling through it and madly dashing down the hallway which opened up in front of him. He ducked into a doorway to his right just in time for the enemy chasing him to fly past him.

The momentary reprieve as it skidded across the floor and struggled to find the necessary purchase to turn around and run back allowed Mike to scan the room he was in. It was some sort of office with monitors stacked atop a desk, static playing across all of them. There was also a button on the wall next to the door, and Mike prayed to every deity he could think of as he slammed his hand against it.

A door came down just in time. The machine screamed in anger as it pounded against the metal door. Michael took a moment to catch his breath and scan the office again. There was a vent at the top of the room, and another door on the opposite side which he wasted no time in closing. Fiddling with a monitor pulled up some cameras scattered throughout the building.

Michael was suddenly intensely aware of silence. He rushed through cameras until he spotted the hall outside of the room he was in. The machine was gone. He breathed a sigh of relief. Then something started banging around in the vent.

Michael flew out of the room and didn’t look back, sprinting down the hall and poking his head into every room he ran past. Relief surged through his core the moment he spotted a fluorescent exit sign in one of them. He nearly felt like crying.

Then wires wrapped around his arm and yanked, and he really did cry. He felt something pop, and pain erupted in his shoulder. Michael fell against the machine chasing him and immediately began to struggle. One hand brought up the flashlight, but a coiled rope of sparking wires knocked it free from his grasp and smashed apart the light without hesitation.

“I’m not falling for that one again,” it muttered hoarsely.

Michael grabbed the doorway in desperation. Freedom was so close, but he couldn’t make it. His fingers slipped, and then he was left scrabbling at the floor. His fingernails chipped against broken tiles as he searched for something, anything, that he could use to pull himself free.

He picked up the flashlight again and swung.

Although not as satisfying as the swing against the Minireena, this one proved to be good enough. The coils loosened as the thing staggered, and Michael made a break for the exit again. A howl of fury followed him, but the machine wasn’t able to reach him in time before he was through the door and careening up a flight of stairs.

Michael stopped when he reached the first landing and turned around. A dozen steps were all that separated him from his adversary. Yet, it didn’t move beyond the door frame. Instead, it simply stood just before it, silently seething and glaring at him with as much hatred as it could muster.

Michael collapsed against the nearest wall when he realized it physically couldn’t leave the premises.

A short break and Michael finally mustered up enough strength to limp his way up the stairs. The thing’s eyes never left him, and he swore he could feel its stare even when several floors separated them.

It was still night when Michael finally burst free into open space. A pale moon hung high in the sky, the only source of illumination other than a street light on the far end of the parking lot he stepped out onto. Michael glanced behind him to see an unassuming shed, the only thing inside being the stairwell leading down. Nearby was the office building front for the Circus Baby business.

Michael shuffled his way across the parking lot to his car, eager to get home and finally put all of this behind him. Every part of him ached. His split lip was beginning to swell. A nasty bruise was forming around his bicep, and the pain in his shoulder had finally settled into a dull ache. Michael idly wiped some blood from his forehead and flinched when he tried to form a fist with the hand that had been stomped on. He’d definitely be having some strong words with his father about this entire harrowing adventure he had put him onto.

But first, he just had to know if the baby really was Vlad’s.