Pension: Downhill (1)

	 I sat paralyzed, staring at the answering machine.

“Maybe sometime, uh, you could check inside those suits in the back room?”

Knocking. The sound of metal striking metal. Violently. Persistently. I knew, from this point on,  my friend hadn't made it out. I maneuvered myself in the chair over to the west hall. Always the first half of the place where things get crazy early in the night.
“ I'm gonna to try to hold out... until someone checks. Maybe it won’t be so bad.”


That song. I heard it the day I  came in for the job, heard a snippet of their stage performances. “They do get a little rowdy at night…” the manager replied, to my questioning of the need for night watchmen.

I’m hearing it now. It’s getting louder, gradually.

There was a wheeze over the answering machine. Loud too,and stretched as if every muscle’s movement was agony for the producer of the noise.

 “ Uh, I-I always wondered what was in all those empty heads back there.”

There was a deep, unearthly roar over the phone, and the recording stopped. Whenever I slept that week, I saw... them, in my dreams. But they were always mute. Only really, just staring. That was the first time I ever heard something I couldn't place a source to inside the place. I said this on Tuesday, and on Wednesday, but now that I have solid reason- I'm resigning.

I checked my watch.

12:02.

Shit.

Cameras first. Cove, then stage.

The fox was missing.

I threw down the west door, just as I heard an impact on the other side of it. I heard the glass rattle in it’s sill from the force of the collision. Almost on cue, I leaped out of my seat and hustled to the east window. Room’s not that small, I found out quickly I'd need to hoof it if I wanted to shift my attention from hallway to hallway.

I slammed the light button, to see “Let’s Eat” and the familiar yellow flicker in front of my eyes. At this point, looking up only made it worse, but it still didn't prevent the disgust at the sight of these things.

The "costumes" are at least twenty years old, and have rarely, if never, had repairs or overhauls of any kind. I had the displeasure of touching one on the day I came in for the interview. Manager insisted that I took a picture with it to calm a kid down. It was cold and stiff, feeling like a corpse. Couldn't blame the guy, Bite of '87 and all.

I was transfixed by the sudden apparition of the mascot, however. The strobe effect of the bulbs, combined with sleep deprivation really worked wonders. I managed to shut the door down, my vision focused on just the tablet.

I paced across to the west door while skimming the rooms. “Foxy” was back in it’s cove, behind the curtains even. Looked like he was in for the night. I put it back up. Power’s 97.45% at 12:05. It's never drained this fast, with encounters this often, not with the span of activity that usually occurs. Sometimes, forty-five minutes will pass without a robot even getting close to the doors. It would've been 1 by now if I applied the way they're acting up to past nights.

I checked the stage. The black-and-white filter on the camera made it difficult to tell, but I could infer that the liquid, encompassing and running down the camera lens was maroon. Despite this, it was thin enough to let me see that nothing was on the stage. I slammed down the west door again, just to let myself feel secure. Expecting the worst, I flicked to the east hallway.

Oh. I saw Fazbear himself, and “Bonnie” standing side by side, down from Cam 4A. Light emitted from where Cam 4B was, right outside my door.  My lights were still on, even though I had let go of the switch. I looked to see Chica, still standing in the window, but waving it's hands over it. Chica's fingers were built as one solid piece, eternally holding a mimed object. It would hit the glass every few seconds, that thud echoing loudly inside my room.

It's hands were covered in some red substance, the identity of which I could infer, but the source alien. The liquid was thick, and stayed on the window like lead paint. Silent, eternally, Chica "washed" the windows, jaw jumping up, and down. Flickering on were the east lights.

The light switch was somehow depressed, despite my release of the pressure earlier. I pressed it twice, hoping it would release a spring or anything else possibly jamming my lights, to no avail. I noticed a hairline crack, in the middle of the switch, but before I could investigate further, a sudden silence was recognized. The calm before a storm.


Without even checking, I sprinted to the west doorway and slammed it shut. Again, another collision on the outside. Two, in fact. I saw a purple mass roll across from the two windows.

I could see Freddy on the outside of the east hall. His eyes were shut down, replaced by small white pinpricks, a flash-light in the woods. I did my best to ignore.

Walking away and ignoring , I probed the fracture. Pushing inward, I maneuvered my finger inside the lightbox, and felt a button. Forget the irony of my words, but looking back, the light's malfunction was going to happen. What I did in reaction wouldn't have changed a goddamn thing.


The lights that had bathed the yellow robot in a turquoise tone began to fade. It flickered, like a dying firefly, before extinguishing itself. I heard footsteps in that direction, leading away.

Flipping my tablet on, I pointed the screen towards the window. I also caught a glimpse of myself in the reflection, one of the last times I got a good full look at myself. I was distracted momentarily by this until the  sudden pang of realization that I was dwarfed by my "co-workers". Their cold inhumanity was only accentuated by this.

The red "paint" wasn't idle play, but a message.

 Two severed optic nerves, one having a dotted line leading to a rectangle. The other was much longer, and bent in the shape of a "^" to stare directly at a little red stick figure, in a red baseball cap behind the "door".

The sheer inanity of the situation, the little sketch, caused me to chuckle out loud in the dead of night.

"Cute."
I checked my watch, while turning on the tablet.

The time was 12:21, and the power as at 75.32%.

I heard that bastard's laughter, getting closer and closer, louder and louder; burnt into the galleries of my mind for eternity, and heard a slow moan outside of my west door. Loud, stretched, and powerful.