Memetic Horror

Looking back on it, I guess I died on a Thursday. I don't think I could have ever guessed it was all because of the public library system.

Of course, I didn’t actually die then, but I’ve been living on borrowed times ever since so I may as well have. I was skimming through old newspapers for a class project – the teacher was old-fashioned and wanted some physical references in addition to digital ones – and was having trouble finding anything interesting or relevant. Stack after stack of old newspapers stretching back decades, and none of it was useful.

I was just about to call it quits when I made the mistake of asking the librarian for help. She brought me to a room in the back of the library, through a storage room, past dusty books and dustier shelves, and directed me to a cardboard box full of old newspapers and left me to it.

I grunted and heaved and felt something twinge in my lower back, but I finally got the box on a nearby table and opened the flaps. There were piles of yellowed pages, so old they’d turned brittle, and I sighed as I resigned myself to more skimming. There were all sorts of old sensationalist headlines about things that no longer mattered and probably didn’t matter when they were first written about, and for a while I amused myself by reading the more absurd ones. That was when I made what turned out to be a fatal mistake.

Deep in the pile of newspapers, a pile which had neither seen the light of day nor lightbulb in years, was a collection of headlines that I couldn’t help but read. A series of unsolved murders, missing children, stories that would be right at home around a campfire! I couldn’t believe that something this interesting happened in a town this boring. Ever the sucker for horror, I lost myself in the faded black ink which spoke to me of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria.

I read more and more, completely unaware of the noose growing ever tighter around my neck. It was as though there was an invisible force compelling my eyes to scan each page. It was near the bottom of the stack of papers that I found the article about opening day. It was more detailed than any article before it, and it was here that I finally saw pictures of the animatronics. I ignored the shiver that ran down my spine and the way the lights seemed to flicker as I laid my eyes upon them. Little did I know that my fate was sealed in stone at that very moment.

I waved goodbye to the librarian when I left the building, unable to find newspapers about my chosen topic and equally unable to care. Instead, my mind was preoccupied with thoughts of a long-gone pizzeria. It had been nearly 30 years since the place had closed down, but I had to know more. There hadn’t been any more recent articles after the place had closed down, which was unfortunate.

Instead, all I had were frequent advertisements for open nightguard positions and tales of animatronics which dripped with blood.  There wasn’t even anything online, no matter where I looked. It wasn’t a surprise – this town was small enough that it’d probably taken the Eternal September until spring to reach it – but it was disappointing nonetheless. At the time I had wished for just one more article, one more sensational than any other.

I can’t remember much about what happened the next few days other than when I asked around town about the place. It was strange; the most interesting thing to happen in decades and yet nobody seemed to remember it. As far as I could tell, I was the only living being who knew anything about Freddy Fazbear’s.

It didn’t seem strange to me at the time how I obsessed over the place. I was fickle and prone to obsessing over things before dropping them just as quickly as I’d picked them up, so I just went with the flow. Yet, days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months, and the memory of the restaurant never faded. If anything, it grew stronger.

One hot night in the summer, I had a dream about the animatronics. That was when the terror began.

It was a strange dream. I was sitting in a dark room, empty except for all the tables with festive tablecloths thrown over them. Before I could get my bearings a spotlight lit up a stage where the animatronics stood. They did a performance I couldn’t hear, and then they stared at me with so much intensity that even in an open room I felt cornered.

When I woke up I was freezing. My muscles were so tense that they were sore, and sweat made my bedsheets cling to my skin. My heart pounded, and I jerked my head from side to side, certain that someone was in my room watching me.

I started sleeping with my window closed and curtained after that.

It wasn’t long after when I started seeing things. Hazy shapes in the corners of my vision emanating malice. Flickering shadows that stood waiting around corners only to disappear before I could see what was making them. I’d sit down to eat a meal only to feel something looming over me. Whenever I’d enter a room I’d check behind the door to see if something was hiding there. Eventually I was too scared to even look at my own reflection, terrified of what I may find lurking behind me.

The second dream came weeks after the first. It started out the same and played out similarly, with one key difference: I could hear the performance. It was harsh and grating and sounded more like screams of terror and anger than it did singing. It echoed between my ears even after the animatronics stopped. Then they all stared at me, and Freddy opened his mouth.

“L-Looks like we’ve got a b-b-birthday boy here today!” His voice was equal parts cheerful and deranged, and it pierced through the cacophony down into my soul. It terrified me, and I found myself screaming when I woke up.

The hallucinating got worse after that. I started seeing them more often, more vividly. I started hearing things, as well. I would hear someone call my name walking down the street, only to turn and find nobody there. Whispers drifted from beneath door cracks, under my bed, and everywhere else I couldn’t see. Eating dinner one night, I could hear breathing directly behind me. It made my hair stand on end. I didn’t dare turn around.

My social life started to get affected after that. Friends stopped hanging out with me, telling me to get more rest and to calm down. Looking at windows scared me, as well. Innocuous and normal reflections would sometimes warp sinisterly.

It was around this time that I realized that this was all my fault. It all started with those damn newspapers, and that damn restaurant. In the privacy of my room I would curse and pace and pull my hair and grind my teeth. The whispers would taunt me then. I usually reacted violently.

At night the whispers grew bolder, teasing me from the edges of my hearing only to roar loudly in my ears when I least expected it. Sleep came fitfully to me, my eyes only closing momentarily before shooting open. The thought of falling asleep, of dreaming once more, filled me with dread.

Then the third dream happened.

This one was different from the ones that came before. I stood alone in darkness. I tried to grope around blindly or stumble into something, but my limbs refused to move. Right as I began to hyperventilate a light blinded me. My limbs began to jerk painfully through uncomfortable poses and motions. As the light dimmed I saw that I was standing on a stage, while the animatronics sat before me.

My performance ended, and the animatronics got up from their seats and walked towards me. I tried to run but I moved slowly, as though I were swimming through molasses. I struggled and screamed and gnawed at my own tongue until I forced myself awake.

My room was a mess, my door was flung open, and I could taste copper in my mouth.

The shadowy outlines which had stalked me for so long became figures. They stood amongst crowds, staring back at me until I refused to go outside. I stood with my back pressed firmly against a wall whenever possible after an incident where I felt something that wasn’t there touch my back. The whispers, once indistinct, became voices.

“You’ll be happier this way.” I doubt it.

“Close your eyes, let it happen…” I fought against heavy eyelids.

“SAVE US” I can’t!

“Let us in.” I refused every time.

Unbidden, the faded ink from what felt like a lifetime ago popped into my head again. The animatronics no longer hid, were no longer content waiting at the fringe of my awareness. They were bold, now. Bold enough, in fact, that I was able to match a name to their faces.

I would sit in my room trying to distract myself with television when Chica’s face, covered in soot and jaw agape, would flash on the screen. Freddy would limp past doorways, decrepit and damaged head turned to stare at me with his beady silver eyes as he did so. Every animatronic made sure to make an appearance regularly, made sure to solidify their presence in my mind.

It was all because of those newspaper, all because I remembered them. Nobody I had ever talked to knew what I was talking about. Maybe it was because they killed whoever knew about them, or maybe they went away when people forgot and came back more vengeful than ever, furious that anyone would dare to forget them.

An idea struck me, in the dead of the night while their screams tormented me. It was just a thought. I was already a dead man from the moment I stepped into the back room of that library, but maybe if I spread the word I could delay the inevitable. I would make sure everyone remembered Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria.