Five Nights

Self-Employed Detective

    As usual, Michael’s sleep was fitful and more of something to pass the time than real sleep. He’d grown used to it, as usual, after many years of nightmares.
   He stared at the ceiling, thinking back to the house. William, obviously, was using it. Or was he? He would be getting old, though Michael was unsure of whether or not that would stop him. William had to at least be in his 60s by now, born in the late 1930s. It could easily be a copy-cat killer, or maybe somebody who idolized him. William is a considerably popular killer in Hurricane; though, due to the fact he was never convicted, he wasn’t as popular as somebody like Jeffrey Dahmer. Though it wasn’t entirely impossible that William had come back.
  It didn’t really matter who the killer was, as long as Michael found and stopped them. That was his real objective. Save the children.
  Well, whoever the new killer was, Michael wasn’t going to find out by laying around staring at the ceiling. He sat up and got dressed quickly, heading out.
  Michael didn’t bother with the truck, he’d forgotten to get gas and honestly didn’t feel like doing it right now. By now, the sun sat in the center of the sky, blue and without clouds. Thanks to that and the early November weather, Michael’s disguise wasn’t particularly out of place- dark trench coat flicking around his worn Doc Martens, gray scarf tight around his neck, black gloves, sunglasses and a medical mask, under the excuse of not wanting to spread the flu. His hair was messy, but that was fine- it was almost never not messy.
His first stop was the local library. The librarian looked at him anxiously for a moment before leading him to what Michael had asked for- the newspaper records from the restaurant's opening in 1990 up until now, 1993.
  “If- if you need any help, just ask, Mr…?”
“Just Mike is fine, please.” Michael hummed, noncommittal, before flicking through the newspapers from 1990 and stopping on the articles from June that year. There was nothing for quite some time after the restaurant's opening, but Michael was determined- searching through the newspapers was boring, but he was used to that.
   Finally, he stopped on a particular article from some few months ago.
   “Kids vanish at local pizzaria-” Michael cringed at the spelling error- “bodies not found.” He murmured to himself, surveying the next few articles closely until he found it. “Five children now reported missing. Suspect convicted.”
   Michael raised an eyebrow at that. Perhaps he had nothing to do in the way of justice this time. Though he had a feeling William could’ve wriggled his way out of that.
   He read on quietly to himself.
   “Five children are now linked to the incident at Freddy Fazbear’s pizza, where a man dressed as a cartoon mascot lured them into a back room. While the suspect has been charged, the bodies were never found. Freddy Fazbear’s pizza has been fighting an uphill battle ever since to convince families to return to the pizzaria. ‘It’s a tragedy’.”
Michael hummed. William was never named in the article, so there was a chance that the wrong person had been caught or that he had framed somebody. Michael had only distantly heard of the new restaurant being opened sometime in 1990, though he had been reluctant to investigate at the time. He’d waited, patient, hoping maybe that William had gone away for good and that he could move on with life.
   Maybe if he hadn’t waited, those poor kids would still be living.
   Michael shook his head, running a hand messily through his dark hair in an attempt to force himself to relax. It wasn’t his fault. It was William’s. He hadn’t hurt those kids. He hadn’t- he hadn’t killed them.
   But you killed Evan, a small voice in his head whispered. Your own brother.
   Michael took a deep breath, stepping back from the newspapers laid out before him. The remaining articles rumored that the location was going to close soon. Probably the reason why the place seemed so dingy… and why his paycheck was so small.
    He took a deep breath, shaking his head and placing the newspapers back where they belonged, and headed out- not bothering to talk to the librarian again to tell him that he was done.
    The sky had darkened in the time Michael had spent looking through the newspapers, dark clouds rolling over the afternoon sky. A chilling wind coiled around him as he walked back to his apartment. He needed to do a few more things before he got ready for work.