Monkey Business (1.0)

(WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE? Go read the google doc version, this will kill your eyes)
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DPV0HdpvgEPU-0kYk0s0OUyvtzLpvXAs2EtrwU993mw/edit?usp=sharing

He was a new arrival, Karl noted. This new performer hadn’t gotten his publicity push yet, so he was completely without any merchandise or advertising.  No template to project this robotic creature of the night onto a cartoon facade. So, that might be why Karl had a harder time adjusting to the animatronic ape than his older compatriots.

Bathed in darkness, Karl could barely make out this little monkey fella. He was the only performer on stage; the rest having been relocated for maintenance work. The camera Karl was looking through was directly in his line of sight, facing the ape from across the Party room.  The silhouette was indistinguishable; the ‘tronic chimp’s black form blending in with the darkness. The only clear feature was Bobo Bonobo’s pale, milky sclera, which shone in the dark like a lighthouse, along with his equipment. The ape wielded a pair of cymbals, which were clasped together permanently.

The time was 12:04, and Karl waited in eager anticipation for the animatronic orangutan to make his move. It was Karl’s fourth day on the job, and he had received plenty of information on dealing with all the animatronics. Except for Bobo. This was the first time Karl had seen Bobo on the night shift.  Bobo was a wildcard; an unpredictable element. Karl slipped a Reese’s Pieces’ candy into his mouth as he looked down towards his notes on the table.

Things like “mad rabbit”, or “sneaky chicken right window” were scrawled in messy handwriting. He had amassed two pages of notes on duty and off, ranging from quick snippets of his thought process to detailed tactics and scenarios for whatever situation came to mind. If Bonnie got into the office on the left side, he would try juking it. If the animatronics were lingering too long, Karl decided that he would bang on the glass to try to scare them off.

Karl was distracted by his plans and lost in thought, until his attention was broken by the smashing of cymbals. He heard them hit each other twice, each note echoing throughout the pizzeria. Karl looked back to his camera, and the monkey was still on stage.

But the cymbals were separate now, with the arms raised up, and the chimp’s face bearing a horrible snarl. Bobo’s mouth held four canines, two on each jaw, with two buck teeth bridging them. They shone in the camera’s light just like the baboon’s eyeballs did, with a brilliant white sheen.

The gorilla’s arms swung down and smashed the cymbals together twice more, creating an obnoxious clatter. It’s black-furred form faded into the darkness, the eyes diminishing and growing smaller with each step. After a few seconds, the gibbon was gone.

Panicking, Karl moved to the other cameras, trying to find the missing monkey’s location. But the animatronic ape was absent from each one. He scanned the parts room, only to hear the accursed cymbals again, on the other side of the pizzeria. He checked the west door’s camera, and could see the maverick monkey machine retreat into the darkness just as he had done on stage, still clanging his cymbals. Karl moved to the next camera further down the hallway, and the monkey was nowhere in sight. The confusion of this sank in, just as he felt something warm and sticky splatter onto his head. Specifically, at the point where the nape connected to the skull.

Karl’s fingers touched the impact site on instinct, and as he withdrew them he saw a thick, dark substance on them. It stung a little, giving a light tingling sensation. Another volley struck his head, this time on his side. Just above the ear, and close to his eyebrow. He turned to his left, where the source was coming from.

Standing just a few foot from his doorway was the culprit. Karl tried to understand what he was looking at. It looked very different from on-stage. It was a loathsome, gorilla-like thing, with abnormally long arms which looked more like forelegs, and a face that conjured up thoughts of unspeakable arcane secrets. It was less a monkey, and more like a hollow facsimile. A golden cymbal seemed to hover independently in mid-air, until Karl noticed that it was attached to the wall, with a shadowy goop dripping over it. The gorilla’s free hand dug into the darkness behind him, and scooped out a handful of the black, tar-like goop that was covering part of Karl’s face at the moment. It flung the strange, dark substance at Karl, and hit him in the eye.

Karl jolted back in shock, before he reached out and flailed for the door button. He missed, hitting the light.

His free eye saw the doorway, bathed in darkness and silhouetted by blue light. A black substance coated most of what seemed to be the wall and the area beneath the monkey’s feet.  There was a strange separation between the tar coating and the wall itself. As if it wasn’t quite on the wall. Karl’s mind likened it to a 3D movie, where the film is slightly projected forward in the viewer’s vision. There was no sane explanation for why the coat and the building’s wall weren’t attached to each other. Karl abandoned his questioning when he noticed that the monkey itself was seemingly fused into the blackness, or at least partially. The hand that had thrown the goop was less a hand, and more of a scooper.  The monkey closed it’s mouth and it’s eyes dissipated as the monkey receded into the goop, and disappeared completely.

 Karl hit the button to close the door, and tended to his eye. His fingers still had the substance on it, though it had hardened into a crusty, black texture. He rubbed at his index finger with his thumb, and watched it flake off to reveal raw red muscle underneath. It bled like a scab, with blood trickling out of the red chasm Karl had inadvertently opened.

Panicking, Karl tried to brush the goop out of his eye. He scooped it with his dirty hand, and succeeded in getting most of it out. Some of it was left just above his cheek, but that was of no concern. As Karl lowered his tar-covered hand to the ground and flicked it, he noted that the goop was growing more viscous with each section, streaming down in thick strings. His other hand clutched at the black on the back of his neck, which had hardened into a panel. Karl dug his fingernails into the black and peeled it off of his neck, bits of flesh coming along with it.

Karl grimaced, but ignored the pain as he looked at his cameras again. He was able to locate the goopy gibbon this time, finding it next to the bathroom. But it wasn’t a gibbon. It wasn’t even a fucking monkey. Bobo’s forearms were much bigger now, bristling with power. The legs were small and vestigial, dragging on the ground as Bobo walked on his hunches like a silverback gorilla. His face was unmistakably Bobo. It’s jaw jutted out unnaturally, it’s piercing eyes staring straight at the camera as it walked down the hallway. Karl noted that it’s eyes were bloodshot; though a dark liquid replaced the blood-veins. Bobo stopped walking, and then ran down the hallway.

Karl ran to the doorway and slammed the door shot, just as he heard something wet hit the door. Black goop sprayed over the window. On the camera, he could see Bobo just out of the camera’s blindspot, his head facing upward. The head receded into the gorilla’s neck, and emerged on the other side of the body.

The forearms bent into legs.  The formerly tapered legs were longer, and were now hooked into Bobo’s golden cymbals, which rang with each lift and stomp. The ape-thing made a deafening amount of noise as it moved toward the west  wall. It lifted up it’s arms, and slammed the cymbals on the wall. It slammed them again and again, it’s head turned toward the camera and bearing a sneer. It then raced down the hall once more, and slammed into the door. This time, nothing sprayed.

Karl lit up the hallway, and saw the silhouette of an eight-feet-tall animatronic ape stand up. Bobo Bonobo’s form was stable and unchanging, but was obfuscated by the black smear on the window. He saw the behemoth’s right arm move to it’s left shoulder, grabbing a clump of it. It threw the clump at the window, startling Karl. It was a mass of goo and some “hairs” from the ape, which wriggled like worms on the glass window. Bobo probed it with one finger, poking the black parts of the glass. He withdrew his finger, and raised his hand, balled into a fist. He swung it down…

And beating his chest, Boba turned and sauntered down the hallway towards the party room.

Karl tracked his progress on the cameras, as Bobo entered the party room and went to the west hallway. He opened the door, and stood at the end of the hallway. He stared into the west hallway camera for a second, now equipped with his cymbals.

Bobo brought the cymbals together, and smashed them. Again and again and again as he walked down the hallway. Until he was at the parts and service room. He stopped, and entered the room.

Karl moved to the parts room’s camera, only to find it covered in the black goo. He could hear the angry orangutan rummage through the room, lifting various objects and putting them down. Out of the few spaces not covered in darkness, he could see a Freddy helmet, held by Bobo’s black hand. The ape bounded over to the camera, and drenched it in more goo. Switching over to the hallway once more, Karl watched as Bobo entered the hallway empty handed. He was smaller, about the size of a man. When he walked forward, Karl understood why.

Trailing behind him were two black figures, who were about the size of a hound. They both wore animatronic helmets; with one wearing a Freddy helmet and the other wearing a Chica helmet. Freddy had longer arms, like a chimpanzee. Chica was fatter, and built more like an orangutan with big arms and smaller legs. The black goo streamed out of their mask in droves, with the formation of vague antennae on them. Bobo held their hand, and guided them down the hallway.

When Bobo let go, Freddy jumped at the window and splattered across it. The helmet fell to the floor, while Chica lunged forward at the door.  Bobo walked to the parts and service room, and did not return. Instead, a capuchin Foxy  raced down the hallway, and jumped up at the window. It smashed against the window, as it’s helmet fell off and revealed a monkey’s face underneath, just like Bobo’s. But it was smaller, and bore greyish, almost silver eyes. It chittered and slammed its head into the window, destroying more of itself in the process. Cracks were formed, but the upper half of the head was gone, and what was once “Foxy” fell off the window, blackness spraying out of the wound like a fountain.

Frantically, Karl searched the cameras for Bobo, for some affirmation of the ape’s presence. For affirmation that he wasn’t hallucinating this. Instead, a gorilla sized Bonnie bounded down the hallway, and smashed through the window. Karl moved towards the east hall, and as he moved towards the doorway a white mask dropped down, dangling on a piece of the tar.

It was eerily familiar. It had two eyeholes, and a large gaping mouth. But it wasn’t quite a mask. It had imperfections. Areas where whatever was used to make this mask had been mashed together and fused.  He tried pushing it aside, and recoiled when he felt the organic, bone-like surface. Behind him, the gorilla grabbed Karl by the legs, and it threw off the helmet. Underneath was Bobo’s snarling face. It looked deflated, as if someone had removed whatever was Bobo’s endoskeleton. It flopped down onto Karl, and Karl felt himself dissipate.

The longer the thing spent on Karl, the more he was assimilated into its biomass. Karl’s legs felt like they were swirling and twisting, before he stopped feeling them. Karl’s body was pulled inside of the thing, as it reached out and grabbed the white puppet mask off of the string. It slipped the mask inside of it, the goo yielding and accepting the mask without struggle. His head was no longer deflated, and the last thing Karl saw was the ape bringing down it’s cymbals on his charred, scabbed head. Two of Bobo’s dark legion entered the room, now helmetless. The rhesus pieces pulled the Reese’s Pieces into their bodies, before returning to their progenitor.

Karl was never found by the morning crew. He was never reported missing. Sometimes, at night, guards say they can hear a muffled moaning coming from the gorilla.

But those are just rumors.