Don't Touch Freddy

Don't Touch Freddy

Written for the Five Nights at Freddy's General Discussion Thread at /vg/.

---

I really should wear a hat.

I've never been a big fan of hats, to be honest. I don't like the way they feel on my head -- they're itchy and uncomfortable. I shave my head with my dad's old barber clippers, so I've got that short spiky hair thing going on and hats don't play well with that.

Even so, a hat would provide me with one benefit, and that would be to absorb all the sweat trickling down my face that keeps splashing onto the monitor in front of me, making it harder to use. It's the middle of November so you'd think it wouldn't be hot as Dante's third ring in this room, and yet somehow it is.

If I had the power to spare, I'd crank the hell out of that little desk fan in front of me, but I don't dare turn it up higher than low. Not again.

Not after last time.

God, I hate that song.

I make another sweep of the building using the monitor's incredibly finicky touch screen. It's a Wednesday night, so that means everyone's finally up and around.

I spy the dining room first out of habit because it's the largest room in the building. The rabbit's busying itself moving hats around on a table, like it's some kind of game. Every so often it'll glance up at the camera then quickly look away.

Like it's shy.

I keep trying to remind myself these are all programmed behaviors and that they don't actually feel anything, which just makes it worse -- that means some sick bastard actually designed these monsters to grief the hell out of me. Well, not me specifically, but security guards in general.

Glancing at the clock, it's somewhere between 4 and 5 AM -- minute hand doesn't move anymore, piece of shit. Note to self: buy a new one and bring it in, or better yet a digital watch. Procrastination may very well be the death of me one of these days.

It takes a couple taps before I can get the monitor to shift to the next camera view. Grabbing a wadded-up piece of paper off the desk, I dab furiously at the screen trying to absorb some of the sweat that's been pooling up on its surface. Paper towels -- another luxury that this company apparently isn't willing to afford its guards. There isn't even a coffee pot back here, so if I don't bring a thermos from home -- to last me six hours, no less -- I'd be stuck without that precious boiled bean water our country's become so reliant upon.

A fate worse than death indeed, I muse wryly. Give me the suit anyday.

The kitchen camera's still busted. I don't even know why I bother. I shift it over to the Pirate's Cove and grimace. The fox is already out of the curtain completely -- it's wide open, and the damn thing's standing in front, head tilted back at a wholly unnatural angle, rusty pirate hook tapping the side of its jaw with feigned innocence.

"Hmm, should I haul ass through the pizzeria and gut the night guard or not? What a tough decision!" Probably thinking something like that.

I know how this movie ends, so I lean over and tap the door button on the left hand wall. The electromagnetic door slams shut with a loud bang, causing me to jump slightly -- I'll never ever get used to that noise. I flick the camera to the east hallway and stare into the dead, soulless eyes of the canary.

Out of all of these creepy pieces of crap, that one's by far and away the creepiest. It's looking in two different directions, jaw agape. Is that a second set of teeth inside? Why the hell would a bird need even one set of teeth, let alone two?

I shiver uncontrollably and flip the camera back to the Cove. The fox is gone. I grimace and glance up from the cameras, hearing its footsteps down the hallway. The fox bounces off the door with a resounding CLANG. I hear the wreck bash its metal fist against the door a few times out of frustration before slinking back down the hallway to start the process all over again.

"Just doing what they're programmed to do," I mutter under my breath. As with the rabbit, the thought fails to provide me with comfort.

I lift the door and hit the lights to make sure the aforementioned bunny didn't decide to be an opportunist. The view's clean, so I tap the lights on the right side and oh, hello duckie.

I wave to the bird sarcastically. It locks eyes with me and smiles, metal beak opening and closing like castanets. I nervously lean across the room and press the right side door button with my shaking hand.

"I'm good," I call out. "You can leave now!"

It disagrees, lingering for a couple of minutes to spectate me. I squint -- is that breath on the window? No, gotta be humidity, right? Yeah, humidity.

...in November.

...in Minnesota.

I set the monitor down and rub my eyes. As soon as I do, the bird's gone to parts unknown. I turn the light off and reopen the door, abiding by my mantra of "gotta conserve power". The only good piece of advice that guy ever gave me.

A deep, booming laugh echoes through the restaurant, and I cringe. In all of my haste to keep an eye on his stupid friends, I failed to keep track of Freddy. He laughs when he moves, and I honestly don't know why. If that was programmed in, it's a stupid thing to add to a kid's character -- that's more of a supervillain laugh than Winnie the Pooh. If I was a kid having a birthday party here they'd have to drag me kicking and screaming.

Come to think of it, I also don't know why I think of the bear as a "he". All of the others are kind of impossible to tell what gender they're supposed to be with names like "Foxy" and "Bonnie", though considering they're robots I think gender's a wholly foreign concept to them anyway. The fox occasionally hums and he's got kind of a deep voice like Freddy's, so it's probably a safe bet that it's supposed to be a boy.

Glancing at the poster on the wall, I frown. That rabbit, though -- purple's more of a girl's color, but it looks kind of like a guy... but it's named Bonnie, but it's also wearing a bow tie. Or is that a ribbon?

At least the duck makes sense, but why's it called "Chica" when it looks like -- oh, ohh. Freddy's laugh again. He's moving quick and I'm sitting here debating the design aesthetics of cartoon mascots that may or may not be trying to murder me based on the advice of a man I never met training me via pre-recorded messages on a telephone. (...who may or may not have been murdered himself.)

I yank the monitor off its stand and start paging through the restaurant nervously, ignoring everyone but Freddy. Once he gets going he's nearly impossible to find, because unlike the other assholes he makes a concerted effort to hide behind things. He's fast and sneaky -- almost impossibly so for something that size -- and that's a horribly dangerous combination. The only way you can see him is by the light reflecting off his beady, hateful little eyes.

I eventually spot the malicious bear leering at me out of the women's bathroom. "Sicko," I mutter aloud. Making a mental note to keep an eye on that area, I quickly flip back to the Pirate's Cove -- yup, Foxy's leaning out already, revving up for another go.

"Not this time, pal."

I set the camera down and quickly hit both lights -- the coast is still clear, so I disregard the sideshow and focus on the main attraction. Freddy's skipped out of the bathroom and after scrambling through the monitors I hear him winding up his stupid-ass music box in the kitchen. I REALLY wish management would fix that damn camera.

I figure trying to lock Freddy down in the kitchen's a moot point because he probably can't see me anyway, so I flip back to the Pirate Cove camera. Foxy's not even making an attempt to hide now. He's -- great, it's a he now too -- just milling around in front of the curtains doing who knows what so I flip the monitor off through the camera and sweep for Freddy's bandmates.

Bonnie's wandered off to the broom closet, glancing up occasionally at the camera mounted in there. Why on EARTH there's a camera mounted in a damned broom closet but not in the kitchen is beyond me, and I make another mental note just below "buy a watch" and just above "buy a hat" to see if I can't figure out how to disconnect it and swap it out when I have time. Can't be that hard, right?

I continue scanning and see Chica standing directly outside my -- oh, HELL. I toss the monitor carelessly onto the desk right as I see the bird sneakily reaching one of its grubby little paws around to rip the wires out of the right side door control panel.

In a moment of what I'll later discover was the less stupid of two monumentally stupid risks I took tonight, I slap Chica's hand away before it can finish sabatoging me. I hurriedly punch the door and light buttons, lighting the bird up and simultaneously blocking off its point of ingress.

The bird visibly leaps away from the door, bumping into the wall behind with a startled look on its face, like a child caught with their hand in the cookie jar. Chica's visible shock quickly gives way to anger as she lets out an ear-piercing shriek.

"YOU CHEATED!" she shrieks in a shrill, girly voice at the top of her... voicebox? Well, at least that's another mystery solved -- I can die happy successfully having deduced the gender identity of an animatronic performer at a backwater failed-to-launch children's pizzeria.

"You cheater!" she screams again, pounding on the window angrily. The glass starts fogging up the same as before, and I find myself recoiling under her dead-eyed gaze. "I'm going to tell Freddy and he's going to fix you REAL good, you filthy cheater! You broke the rules!"

I find myself speechless -- I have so many questions, but this one takes the cake. In the week and a half that I've been working this dead-end job I've never heard one of them talk to me even once. They make occasional noises, sure, like Foxy's weird humming and Freddy's nightmare-inducing laughter, but we've never held anything resembling a conversation, even when I'd taunt them through the window as a means to combat the fear.

I recoil slightly, groping for the light at the left-side wall behind me. Sure enough, Bonnie's standing in the doorway, likely having run all the way across the pizzeria when Chica started bellering at me. A quick press of the door button locks the rabbit out.

"Bonnie, tell him! Tell him about the rules!" she screams, bashing the window again.

"What rules?" I scream back at her. I wrack my brain trying to figure out what the hell she's talking about. The only "rules" I'm aware of are... that poster out in the hallway -- what I'm presuming is guidelines for the kids to abide by during the day. "Don't run in the halls", "Stay close to mom". What's she talking about?

Bonnie peers at me through the other window with a grin, wordlessly pointing to the desk clock. I glance at it -- it's reading 5 AM solidly now. I grimace, but try to maintain my calm.

"I can ride the hour out, you know," I say, setting the monitor on the desk. One less thing to drain power. I've been backed into this corner a few times before -- keeping the doors shut and stalling the clock out HAS snuck me through in the past once or twice. It was the only way I was able to survive LAST Wednesday, now that I think about it.

"You haven't won yet," I defiantly whimper as I cross my arms. Still smiling, Bonnie steps back from the door, lining up perfectly against the left-side wall. I turn to Chica who, by now, seems to have caught onto whatever Bonnie's plan is. Fuming, she angrily glares at me as well but makes no attempt to move. With a shrug, I shut the lights off and bide for a few minutes, waiting for them to lose interest and leave.

After what I believe is a few minutes have passed, I check the lights again. They're both still there, unmoving. That's when I see the red blur in the hallway as Foxy bounces off my left side door again. With my heart in my throat, I watch an enormous chunk of my remaining sliver of power disappear, and it suddenly occurs to me that my strategy is doomed -- I can't keep track of Foxy, and that means he'll continue to assault my office.

I nervously turn to look back at Chica, whose previously angry countenance seems to have given way to smug satisfaction.

I flip the lights again and stare daggers at the clock on the desk. It's all I can do at this point.

Sure enough, several minutes pass and another -whump- signals a third assault from Foxy. In a flash, the last of the electricity allotted to me dissolves into nothingness, and the lights in the pizzeria go out. The sound of the backup generator grinding to a halt is the last thing I hear before the dead silence, and the inevitable next and final step.

I'd hoped I'd never have to hear it again.

Chica immediately closes in on me from the right side. I drop to my knees on the ground as I feel her hot breath on my neck. Her grubby, slimy furry fingers brush my right sleeve. I feel her plastic beak jamming me in the cheek as the motors in her arms and body whirr.

The music box starts.

The lights built into Freddy's face begin to illuminate the entire office as he plays his song. Chica angrily, begrudgingly steps back from me into the hallway as Freddy plays my funeral dirge.

I stare coldly at him, desperately trying to think of an out here.

There is none.

Second time's the charm, I guess.

The song cuts off after about thirty seconds or so. I squeeze my eyes shut, hoping that he'll be mercifully quick.

A deafening electronic roar that could only be described as a banshee being struck by lightning erupts in my ears. Freddy snatches me off the ground proudly, jerking me into the air as the lights come back on -- 6 AM too late, I realize in horror.

The bear begins dragging me out of the office and down the east side hallway. I kick and scream and struggle as his cronies fall in behind him, laughing merrily. "Oh, you've put up a good game, a great game, Mr. Schmidt," Freddy booms joyfully. "It's 6 AM," I cry out. "Let me go! It's over! I stalled you out!"

"But we always play by the rules here at Freddy's, and the rules say you lose if you're caught before six," Freddy replies. "Really, Mr. Schmidt -- can't you find it in your flawed, malfunctioning heart to at least be a good sport about it?"

"What rules are you talking about?" I snap, futilely trying to twist his feet out from under him. I only end up bashing my own shin against his cold metallic body in the process.

"You don't get to play at Freddy's unless you play by the rules," he dutifully blathers as if he's reciting the national anthem. "Fair play's the best play at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza!"

I writhe as best as I can, but in his iron grip I succeed only in hurting myself. We continue down the east hall as I stare sadly at the cartoon mascot posters. "Pizzeria opens in an hour for the day shift, Freddy," Chica says nonchalantly. "We've got to be quick if we're going to get this one processed in time."

"Oh, that's fine," Freddy says. "I don't think we'll be needing most of these extra parts, so you can help yourself to whatever you need if you have to restock," he replies. She smiles as best as her limited face can manage. "Oh, good," she says. Turning at the end of the hallway, Chica disappears in the direction of the kitchen.

As Freddy begins to carry me through the dining room, my gaze falls on that stupid safety guidelines poster on the wall.

Don't run.
Don't yell.
Don't scream.
Don't poop on floor.
Stay close to Mom.
Don't touch Freddy.
Don't hit.
Leave before dark.

I grimace, but suddenly a spark of an idea catches in my mind.

Turning to Freddy, I clear my throat. "If -- if you play by the rules, then why are you breaking one right now?"

Freddy stops dead in his tracks, swivelling his entire head to look at me. "Come again?" the bear asks in a dangerous tone.

"You're breaking the rules right now," I wheeze as I try to shift in their arms to look back at him. "Don't touch Freddy. It's one of the rules on the poster right there. For safety," I stammer.

Freddy pauses. "But the rules say to not touch Freddy. You're not touching me right now, I'm touching you," he replies. "It doesn't matter. We're making contact," I argue. Freddy glances back at Bonnie, who shrugs.

Setting me down on the ground, Freddy frowns. "Chica accused you of cheating earlier. I was going to let it slide, but now I can't overlook it if I'm being accused of the same," Freddy growls.

I struggle to my feet, looking at him. "She broke one too," I say, favoring my rapidly-swelling leg. "She screamed at me earlier. And yelled. There was yelling and screaming, actually. Foxy breaks rules all the time by running in the hallway and hitting my door, too. I've never called them out on either of that. You screamed at me, too, when you picked me up. You're cheaters," I burble. "Whatever happened to fair play?"

Freddy and Bonnie exchange glances before turning back to me. "And -- and I have to leave before dark and stay close to Mom," I continue, milking this whole thing for everything it's worth. "My mom's not with me right now so I guess that one's out, but it's still dark outside. So I don't know what we're going to do there, since I got here when it was dark, too."

The shock must be getting to me because I'm just blabbering anxiously at this point. I turn to look at Bonnie. "Now, in your defense you've been pretty fair. I don't think you ran or yelled or screamed -- well, maybe running. You ARE very fast. And I'm sorry, but while we're all here and talking with each other -- are you a boy or a girl? Not judging, I'm just curious."

Bonnie opens its mouth. "Boy," he mutters quietly. "Everyone gets it wrong though." I nod, patting his shoulder. "It's okay. I understand." He timidly hugs me, and I hear one of my ribs crack as he does. I smile desperately through the pain.

Freddy sighs audibly, pulling his plastic hat off his head and holding it over his chest. "Well this has turned out to be a complete disaster of a night, Mr. Schmidt. A complete and utter disaster. You've done gone and upset the whole game, you did. If there's that many strikes against us, then... we're going to have to just come up with new rules."

I look directly at Freddy. "Instead of different rules, can't we just play a different game? Maybe one where night guards like me don't have to get... gotten?" I add hopefully.

Freddy chuckles. "It's far too late for any of that, Mr. Schmidt. Far too late. But we'll let you off tonight on a technicality. Several of them, actually." He thoughtfully walks over to the east hall and plucks the safety rules poster off. "Better see about these," he mutters, folding them up carefully and tucking them under his hat.

I trudge toward the exit door. "Have a good night, Mr. Schmidt," Freddy says as he and Bonnie head for the stage.

I say nothing as I grab my jacket off the coat rack by the door, walking outside into the freezing air. $120 a week isn't worth this misery.






Stopping halfway through locking the door, I lean back inside. "Freddy," I call out. Freddy and Bonnie turn to look at me right as Chica wanders into the dining room holding a meat grinder. The priceless look of confusion on her face is something I'll savor for the rest of my life. (So about eighteen or so hours, I'm guessing.)

"I'm just saying, maybe Monopoly?" I ask pensively.

He opens and closes his mouth a few times, seemingly formulating what he wants to say. "Only if I get the top hat," he finally manages. "I want the ship! The sailin' ship!" Foxy yells from behind his curtain. "Don't yell, Foxy," Freddy warns. "We're already ALL of us in enough trouble as it is."

I'm sure it's still the shock, but I smile tiredly in spite of everything, hoping to God that I've found some kind of middle ground with the world's most deplorable co-workers.

"I'll let you guys off tonight on a technicality. Several of them, actually."