Part Five: Jen

1

A car pulled up to the blacked-out building, its headlights illuminating the red brick wall in a narrowing beam of light as it slowed to a stop. Jen was sitting in the driver's seat and was staring at the front door of the building, her hands still gripping the steering wheel. There was a dull glow of light from inside, the main lights kept off to not draw attention to the building. He was already here. She climbed out of the car and closed the door quietly, watching the building for any movement. Everything was still. She peered down the side alley and saw a rental truck, its windows now frosted over, parked halfway down it near where she usually parked. Clearly, he didn't want people to know he was here.

Shivering in the cold night air, Jen approached the front door of the closed Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, knowing that it would be for the last time. She had been with the company since its inception, and this same walk would be the longest of her life. To most people, she was just Jen the cleaning lady. A silent brooding woman who kept to herself and had no time for anyone, especially the night guards who never lasted long enough to make it worth getting to know.

A scarcely known fact about Jen was that she was Henry's sister, and that she had been a major investor in the company that he had created. She had been there for many of the big corporate decisions between Henry and William and had her fair share of influence over the company as a whole. Since the death of her niece Charlotte, Jen had to put on a brave face for her brother as he mourned, and for herself when he himself left not long after. She blamed herself for the girl's death. The Marionette, which she now kept in her house since the bad times, should have been protecting her.

William had bought out Henry's share of the company and had assumed majority control over it, leaving Jen to fade away into the background, watching as he changed everything. For a while, she lived life of quiet wealth as the company boomed and her shares swelled. The company's brief success felt bittersweet to her. It felt like a jab at the memory of her brother, whose vision it had been from the start. It felt as though William had proven him wrong and that his ideas were better. Nevertheless, the company was doing very well. There were talks of it becoming a chain, with locations being planned across the state. Then, the bad times happened and the company all but crumbled. The original mascots, the ones her brother had designed and had built himself were to be put back on the stage at the smaller location.

Jen didn't need to work as a cleaner at the restaurant. She had never struggled financially. She did it to keep an eye on the animatronics. They were the last remaining part of her brother and she had sworn to herself that she would care for them. Over the years, she had begun to feel like they were her children. Through befriending Fritz, the longest lasting security guard with the company, Jen learned about the quirks that the animatronics had developed over time and began to understand them. Therefore, she knew to be out of the building before midnight. Apart from her healthy respect for them, she was never fearful of them. Not like Fritz seemed to be at times.

-xxx-

The door handle was cold in her hand as she pressed the door open and stepped into the dark room. Her eyes were drawn to the circle of light on the dining room floor and the scene that greeted her filled her with grief. The animatronic characters, Henry's animatronic characters, were strewn about in a scattered pile. Their limbs looked to be thrown about in violent poses, the detached heads frozen in silent screams as though someone had taken out their anger and hatred on them. She stepped closer to the scene and spotted the yellow bunny lying on its back not far from the pieces.

She recognised it immediately as the old Bonnie suit. Though the techs had referred to it as Springtrap for more years than it had been in use, Jen had never forgotten the suit that her brother had made for his business partner William. William, who now lay dead with his own blood pooled around him clotting, his pulverised insides partially forced through the gaps between the joints of the suit. She circled him slowly, staring down at the open eyes of the still intact head behind the large eyeholes. How foolish he looked.

The swell of feelings she felt right now was not for him, but for her brother's animatronics. She had intended to take them back with her herself, though she hadn't thought too much about how to move the heavy things. At the least, she just wanted to see them up on the stage one more time. As they were when they were first created. As they should have still been. But she was too late to save them from the man who had always quietly loathed the man who built them. William might not have paid her much attention, but Jen knew far more about the goings on of the restaurant than she let on.

She knew. Somehow, she knew that it was him behind it all. The missing children, her brother's disappearance, the one behind little Charlie's murder. The slow, steady corruption of the company that she once helped run. She knew that he was clever, cunning, and always a few steps ahead. There was never any proof of what she knew, but that little smirk of his was often proof enough for her. She looked at the open door to the brightly lit backstage area. She also knew -William would have been surprised- about the little hiding spot for the old Springtrap suit.

Rage slowly seething within her, she stepped over the dead man in the malfunctioned suit and grabbed its wrists. She heaved and pulled it back towards the small room, the pool of blood now streaking across the tiled floor. With some effort, she lifted him back into the small compartment behind the wall. Before resealing it, Jen looked the dead man in his dull eyes, the light in the small room giving the rabbit face an eery shadow and spoke to him.

"May you never escape that damn suit. May you never be found. May you burn."

Barely containing her rage, her hands trembled as she replaced the panel and hid the dead man in the wall. He would never have a proper burial, and for Jen, that was good enough. She returned to the main dining room and sat down on her knees in between the four piles of parts. It was silent, and for the first time, the place felt empty. Really empty. She had been on her own with them many times and never actually felt alone. Not with them. Now, with the parts scattered, ready to be trashed, she felt nothing from them. She picked up Freddy's head and looked into his eyes.

She had always felt a quiet anguish within these characters, one that was quelled by her caring presence. It was no longer there. Jen placed the head back onto the ground, closed her eyes, and began to shake, her body thrumming like a tension cable. She wept. Outside, for the first time that year, the soft snow had begun to drift gently onto the empty parking lot.

The End