“Sorry for wasting your time.”

  Jeff then looked south in the pizzeria next to the stage, and there was a door that said “E PLO EE NL ” which must have originally said “EMPLOYEES ONLY.” Maybe they were in there?

  Jeff broke down the door using the crowbar without checking if the door was locked. The room appeared to be a storage room, or the place where they work on the animatronics. There was a metal desk in the middle of the room, and shelves had heads of the animatronics. And on the wall were hanging endoskeletons, with no life in them whatsoever.
  “Now this is creepy,” Jeff said. “We gotta find something that we could salvage.”
  “Maybe an endoskeleton?” Max suggested. “We’re looking for an animatronic, so if we ‘borrow’ an endoskeleton we could just decorate it.”
  “Not a bad idea,” Carter said. “The only thing is that we’d have to reprogram it.”
  “I’m pretty sure there’s some geeks who take robotics,” Max said.
  “Then it’s settled. Let’s put him in the wagon,” Jeff said. The boys helped each other lift the endoskeleton into the wagon, then they used the garbage bag as a tarp to cover it up.

  Jeff then looked around the room some more, and in the corner of his eye he saw a large metal closet that’s partially open, and a hand sticking out of it.
  “What’s that?” He asked. Jeff slowly walked towards the closet, then opened it. A massive animatronic fell out of the closet, and landed on the floor with a massive BANG! Jeff jumped backwards and bumped into Max.
  “What the fuck man,” Max said sounding very pissed.
  “Sorry,” Jeff replied. “Just got a little scared.” Jeff looked at the animatronic again to get a good look at it.
  The animatronic resembled a bear, exactly like Freddy. The only difference being that the colours were off. The animatronic must have been left in there for so long, that it’s fur has decayed into a sickening green, or well that’s what he assumed. If the animatronic decayed, then why would it’s hat and bow tie go from black to purple? Though it surely must have decayed since it’s fur has been ripped apart and damaged exposing it’s metallic innards.
  “Um, I think we should ditch the endoskeleton,” Jeff said. “I think we found our main attraction.”
  “Hey, what’s that?” Carter pointed into the closet. He walked closer to grab what he found. A booklet, old and withered. Was the booklet in there as long as the bear had been? Jeff looked at the book's cover, which said “FAZBEAR ENTERTAINMENT SPRINGLOCK GUIDE.”
  “Springlock?” Jeff asked and raised an eyebrow. “What’s a Springlock?”
  “Only one way to find out,” Carter said and opened the book. Jeff read out the instructions in his head, and they said:

  HELLO, FAZBEAR ENTERTAINMENT EMPLOYEE, WELCOME TO THIS SPRINGLOCK GUIDE. IN THIS BOOKLET YOU’LL READ HOW TO CLIMB INTO/CLIMB OUT OF/OPERATE SPRINGLOCK SUITS. PLEASE LISTEN TO THIS MANUAL BECAUSE ACCIDENTS/INJURIES/DEATHS/IRREPETIBLE AND GROTUSQUE MAIMING. NOW THESE ANIMATRONICS WERE SPECIALLY DESIGNED TO DOUBLE AS ANIMATRONIC AND COSTUME.

  “Cool,” Max said. “These things are like a wearable animatronic costume!”
  “I say we take this bad boy instead of the endoskeleton,” Carter said.

  “Well it looks spooky, so I say we do,” Jeff said. The boys went up to the endoskeleton inside the wagon and got ready to lift it up. Before they even laid a finger on it, footsteps grew louder and louder from the main room.
  “Someone else is here,” Max whispered. The footsteps continued to get louder, and all three of the boys began to feel dread.
  “Wait here,” Jeff commanded. He clenched the crowbar with his fists, and slowly walked to the main room. The footsteps made a stop right behind the door frame, somewhere on the left, and Jeff swung the crowbar behind the door, and a massive FWAP was heard.
  Jeff went into the main room, and lying right next to the destroyed door was Alex, with his glasses smashed and his nose all bloody.

  “Hey guys,” Jeff shouted, “it appears that some nerd has gotten lost and followed us here.”
  Max and Carter appeared behind Jeff and looked down at Alex’s body. “Is he dead?” Carter asked.
  “Dude, you think I’d kill that bastard?” Jeff roared. “You think I’d wanna go to jail?”
  “Well it depends how hard you swung,” Max said. “And you sure did give a big swing since his glasses are
all mangled.”
  Jeff looked at Alex, then back at the bear animatronic/costume. Then he got an idea. And not a good idea to say the least.
  “Hey, you guys know how to put someone into that costume?” Jeff asked.
  “Well let’s see what the manual says,” Carter said and pulled the booklet back out. He flipped through it a bit and then paused at a page. “‘Using the crank you can remove and replace the parts on the Springlock, and it is what you must use to put on the costume,’” he read out loud. “So we’ll need a crank.”
  Jeff looked back into the closet, and there was the crank. “Now let’s scare this dweeb when he wakes up!”
  “Don’t tell me your plan is to lock Alex in there,” Max said. “You know he’ll snitch.”
  “If he could get out that is,” Jeff said and started to lift the torso.
  Max and Carter dragged Alex’s dead but also alive body into the room, and Jeff slowly placed the Springlock suit over him. Alex was then fully covered by the Springlock, that they couldn’t tell there was even a human within it. All they saw was the massive bear.
  Jeff locked Alex into the costume, then left the crank right in front of him. “Just in case he wants to break out,” he said with a twisted grin.

  “Gonna admit that this idea was way better than bringing it to school,” Carter said.
  “Now quick, let’s get outta here before anyone else tries to snitch on us,” Max said.
  Jeff put the crowbar back into the back, Carter and Max pulled the wagon, and the boys left Alex to rot with the rest of the pizzeria.

  Max’s dad dropped them off at school, since they couldn’t walk back to school with the endoskeleton. They lifted the whole wagon with the endoskeleton still inside out of the truck's bed, then Max’s dad drove away.
  The boys brought the endoskeleton inside the school, and inside the cafeteria they saw kids putting up decorations like Jack-O-Lanterns made of plastics, bats that were also made of plastic, and banners. Mrs. Henry stood in the centre of the room with a clipboard in her hands.
  “MRS. HENRY!” Jeff called. She turned around to look at the boys with the wagon. “Sorry we’re late, we just found one, a real one!”
  “A real what?” She asked.
  Max removed the garbage bag from the endoskeleton, revealing it to her.
  “You found an animatronic endoskeleton?” She said with shock.
  “Didn’t we agree on making a Freddy Fazbear themed haunted house?” Jeff asked.
  “Yes, but I didn’t want you guys bringing an actual endoskeleton. Where’d you ever find it?”
  “We salvaged it from an old Freddy’s location.”

  Mrs. Henry rolled her eyes. “Well, at least we got ourselves a main attraction. All we gotta do is decorate it.” She began to write in her clipboard, then slowly raised an eyebrow. “Have you guys seen Alex?”
  Jeff’s eyelids peeled back, so did Max and Carter’s. “Um…” Jeff said. “He had to go home early.” That was clearly a lie, but what else could he say. If they found out that Alex was locked inside a bear costume, and could possibly die then the three boys would be in so much shit.
  Mrs. Henry luckily believed them and nodded. “Thanks boys.” She said. “You can put the endoskeleton in the back, we’ll work on him later.”
  The boys brought the endo into the back, and went back into the main room. For the next few hours they help decorate the school with a bunch of spooky things. Jeff helped hang a banner in front of the entrance that said “HAPPY HALLOWEEN” and placed a few pumpkin balloons beneath it.

  At 6:30 PM the pizza they ordered arrived for the whole class. It wasn’t Freddy’s pizza, but it was still good. So good that Jeff could not stop himself from eating, and he must have eaten more slices than there were in two boxes.
  “Damn bro, you’re hungry,” Carter said. “I mean you had a big lunch so why are you so hungry?”
  “I don’t know, my stomach just craves em,” Jeff replied while munching a slice of meat lovers. While eating though, he began to feel guilty from locking Alex into the bear. Was it really a smart decision? What if he died inside the suit, the manual said it would be dangerous. Like Jeff said, he loved tormenting him, but he didn’t want to kill him.
  That led him to his next question: Why? Why did he enjoy bullying him? This mostly started on the first day of high school when Alex threw up on Jeff’s assignment, and Jeff wanted revenge. But at this point he went far beyond revenge.
  Thinking about this made Jeff feel sick, plus all the pizza he ate. “I gotta hurl,” he said and rushed out of the room to find the nearest washroom to throw up.
  After he did, Jeff walked out the bathroom and wiped a bit of vomit off his mouth. Jeff looked into a classroom, but outside the window he saw something move away like a flash. Jeff didn’t want to think too much about it, since it could have been a student or a hobo.
  The rest of the night they worked more on the decorations till midnight, where they laid on a bunch of mattresses and fell asleep.

  Jeff awoke and shot out of bed. He didn’t know why he woke up, but he did remember having a nightmare, about... something. He didn’t know what that nightmare was about, but he did remember being strangled to death.
  Jeff looked around the room, and everyone was fast asleep. He decided to go to the bathroom without disturbing anyone. He was also curious about the time, and checked his phone to see that it was 3:30 AM.
  On his way back from the bathroom, he walked past the same window where he saw something walk by, and something else walked by. Jeff decided to see whatever it was that walked by to see if it was the same thing, so he walked to the door and peeked out. Nothing was there, so Jeff walked away.
  When he got back into the cafeteria, he went back to sleep, and awoke shortly after. He checked the time again, and this time it was 4:20 AM. He had slept for almost an hour.

  Jeff then got a weird feeling and decided to go to the entrance next to the cafeteria. He looked out and saw something… monstrous. The bear he found in the pizzeria was standing right behind the door, staring blankly at Jeff. The bear looked similar, but instead he saw blood dripping from it, and through it’s ripped fur he could see what looked like a skeleton with a bit of flesh on it, but they were all ripped away like the animatronic normally looked. And now that he looked back at it’s eyes, the more they resembled those of a human.
  It didn’t take long for Jeff to realize what he was looking at. Alex. Or, more specifically, Alex after being crushed by the Springlock suit. The shocking thing was that he was still alive, and Jeff knew he was after his blood.

  The bear began pushing the door, and Jeff charged towards it so it could not get in. Jeff pushed the door shut, and the bear tried pushing it open, and was winning at this door opening game. He then spotted the pile of chairs lined outside the cafeteria and felt like using it to block the door so the bear couldn’t open it. Jeff grabbed the chair, and placed it in front of the door then backed away. Soon the bear stopped pushing, as the door was barricaded shut, then the thing slowly began to walk away.
  Jeff grabbed another chair and used it to block the door again just in case the thing would come back. He then wiped sweat off his forehead after that tense little fight. Jeff wished that this was a nightmare and he was still in his bed, so he went back into the cafeteria, laid down on his mattress, pulled his blankets over him, and
fell asleep.

  Jeff awoke again for no reason. He got the feeling the bear had returned, and that he was trying to come in.

  Jeff ran to the door in the front of the school, and outside the window on the door he saw the bear slowly walk towards the door. Jeff looked around the room to see if there was something to block the door with, and there was a folding table with nothing on it. Jeff folded it up, and placed it in front the door, even leaned on it. The bear tried pushing the door open, and with the strength of Jeff and the table, the bear gave up and walked away.

  Jeff thought that since the table wasn’t enough to guard the door. Jeff ran back to the outside of the cafeteria, grabbed a chair, ran back to the entrance, and placed the chair in front of the table so the bear couldn’t get inside.

  Jeff checked the time on his phone to see that it was now 4:55 AM, almost 5 AM. He then let out a yawn, and then thought: No sleep now Jeff, something’s trying to break in. Jeff thought of some of the many entrances/exits inside the school and remembered how on the west side of the school there is an entrance to the school right next to the gym.
  Jeff grabbed a chair and ran towards the gym. The unique thing about the west school entrance is that this one has no windows, so it would be hard for Jeff to know if the bear would be there. He placed the chair in front of the door and sat on it. He waited, and waited for the bear to appear.
  Suddenly, a loud bang was heard on the door, and Jeff was almost knocked off the chair. He leaned back, and the bear continuously slammed at the door. After a while, the banging stopped, and Jeff heard footsteps walking away.
  He checked his phone's clock again and the time was now 5:02 AM. Jeff thought some more about any other entrance to the school if there were more, and to his luck there were none.
  Jeff walked slowly back to the cafeteria and crawled into his blanket.