Futility

Charlie punched in the code. 1-9-8-3. The keypad made an affirmative chirp, as the wait began. Jack used this time to orient himself. He was  on another impromptu shift.  “Routine shell waxing.” Jack doubted this was why he was assigned, but he had his eyes set on the cash basket, which is why he grumbled only a little when his supervisor informed him of the schedule.

Charlie was quietly trying not to throw up.  Going “downstairs” was a death sentence . Plenty of his coworkers have done it, but some of them never came back. The only reason he didn’t call in sick today was because all the robots were deactivated.

After five minutes of awkward silence and foot shuffling, the elevator arrived and the doors flew open. Jack and Charlie stepped into the dimly lit elevator, out of the darkness of Circus Baby’s pizzeria. The doors closed, and the elevator began descending.  After five more minutes of awkward silence and foot shuffling, the elevator stopped. The wall microphone turned on, signaled by a loud electronic beep.


“Good afternoon, gentlemen. First order of business today is to perform maintenance work on Ballora and Baby.  Proceed through the vent for further instructions.”

The elevator doors opened, revealing a small ventilation shaft.

Jack entered the vent first, and pushed himself forward using his fingers. After about fifteen seconds of crawling, he slipped out onto the floor of the security station. Jack knocked on the inside of the vent  a couple times, and shone his light down the chute to confirm his arrival. Charlie wiggled his way inside, and arrived in half a minute.

Handunit’s voice returned, coming from the wall-mounted speaker next to the gypsy doll. “I have calculated that it would be far more advantageous to split up and have one of you work on Ballora, and the other work on Baby. Ballora is located in her gallery, next to the spare springsuit. Baby is located in the Funtime Auditorium.  I have assigned Charlie to Ballora maintenance, and Jack to Baby maintenance. Ballora and Baby both need lubricant administration on the inside and the outside of their shells. You will find your equipment inside the employee locker.”

The employee locker was hidden relatively well, but it’s secrecy was betrayed by the presence of a keypad, next to a clock of Baby’s face.  Jack punched in 2-8-9-1, and the door swung open. Nestled in a bundle of rags were two bottles of Vaseline. Charlie questioned the validity of its application.

 “When you have everything you need for tonight’s duties, please proceed through your respective vents and begin working. When Ballora and Baby are properly lubricated, you may return home. I will be rebooting my systems, so any further questions should be referred to Jack.“
A click denoted Handunit’s shutdown.
“If you go in and anything’s moving around, just turn around and quietly crawl back in. You can also run past her stage and through Circus Gallery to get into the auditorium, but that’s really just in case of an emergency,  if one of us needs help,” Jack said. “Other than that, there isn’t too much to it. Just stick with the handbook, and wait for me when you’re done.”

Charlie thanked him for his advice, before slithering into the Ballora Gallery vent.

When he came out, Charlie  listened closely for movement or breathing or any other telltale noises. He stood up, and felt his knees pop. The noise echoed, and for a minute he stood petrified, waiting for something to happen. Charlie relaxed, and walked forward, with a rag and Vaseline . He focused on the silence of the facility, and remained cautious of the darkness. When his foot stumbled on something, Charlie almost had a heart attack. The piece of plastic rolled away and the impact it made with the wall echoed. Charlie deliberated on his next action, before he turned his flashlight on.

He had kicked Ballora’s thigh. Scattered around in front of him were pieces of Ballora’s shell, mingled with the broken bodies of small wooden puppets. Charlie felt a wave of relief wash over him, as he wouldn’t have to deal with the pinch zones today.  He could just wash the shells, and they’d attach them to her in the morning. His optimism was interrupted by Jack’s voice.

“Emergency!”, he yelled.  Charlie ran to the vent, but hesitated to enter. He instead ran past Ballora Gallery and into Circus Baby’s stage. The darkness was replaced with warm red and yellows.  Charlie paused and oriented himself, as his eyes adjusted to the brightness.

“Help. Me.” Jack said. His words were sparse and strange, spoken like a foreigner reading an unknown language aloud. ‘Help’ was spoken in three syllables, and ‘me’ failed to account for the “key” rhyming, ending in a hard “u” like in puck. Charlie did not have time to consider this.

Jack’s voice was coming from Funtime Auditorium’s stage. Charlie hoisted himself up onto it, only to be bathed in a flash of light. Charlie’s eyes were seared by the attack, and stumbled forward. He grabbed onto a warm, wet piece of cloth and could see Jack’s hanging, bloodied corpse. Just as soon as the light came, it went. Charlie was left in the darkness, clutching at a dead man’s body. Jack’s body was pulled  up into the darkness.

“Help me,” the voice  said.

 Charlie watched Jack’s body  go up and up, and watched Jack get smaller and smaller like a balloon that had been let go, to drift off into space. Jack was eventually swallowed by the darkness.

“Help us,” Jack said.

Charlie’s attention shifted to the nearing entity. He heard electronic crackling, like that of a radio.  A single blue eyeball peered at him from the darkness, gradually growing in size as it neared the stage’s proscenium. It shambled, and bobbed up and down as the pale, glossy face became more and more apparent. It was frozen in a perpetual grin. The thing, or at least part of it, had entered the aura of light cast by Circus Gallery. Beneath it’s face, wires churned and moved constantly, never lingering in one position for long. It’s tentacles extended into the darkness beneath it, tugging and undulating constantly.

“Hello, Charlie” he said.  His voice was smooth, American, and unmistakably Jack.

A noose wrapped around Charlie’s neck.