Five Nights' At Batty's - Chapter One

It was a cloudy Monday night when Devlin Hackle, the latest employee of Barry Bat’s Burger and Fries, pulled into the parking lot. He checked his dashboard clock before turning off the engine, taking note of the time, which was just a quarter of midnight. He had arrived there early with hopes of getting to know the ins and outs of being a security guard before he was on the clock. He hoped, as he stepped out of his weathered brown pickup truck, that the guard that served before him was still on his shift.

As Devlin strolled up to the burger palace’s front doors, he looked up at the cartoonish black bat face hanging over the entrance. Its wide white eyes and oversized ears, combined with the two small fangs hanging out from under its bulbous nose took on a rather sinister appearance in the dim light provided by the emergency lights emulating from the glass doors. There was something about the bat’s smile that put Devlin’s nerves on edge, and he spent no time reaching into the pocket of his brand new official uniform and pulling out his own personal key ring. Upon selecting the right key, he unlocked the front doors and headed inside the large building.

Devlin was greeted upon his entry by full sized plastic statue of the Barry Bat himself. In one hand, the little flying rodent held a sign that read “play safe!” while the other pointed off towards the burger palace’s massive arcade room. The bat himself, now that Devlin could see more of him than just his head, was a squat thing, standing at just a little taller than a child. His arms and legs were thin and curved instead of bent, like something from the rubber-hose era of animation. His body was a bright yellow color, quite an absurd choice for a bat, but the joke around it was that Barry was a Fruit bat, that ate so many bananas that he had turned Yellow. The bat also had a pair of small, webbed wings on his back that, when the restaurant was open, would flap open and closed on a timer. Around his neck was a bright red scarf that ended in a set of large tassels.

“I remember when you used to have your own TV. show,” muttered Devlin as he hurried past the plastic statue and towards a small door that was almost completely hidden by a large fake potted plant beside the counter where the restaurant staff would give out seating arrangements. Upon the door was a sign stating that it was for employees only. Right before he could go inside, someone came out.

The previous guard was a deadbeat teenager, who had dark circles under his eyes and hair that was a very unnatural shade of purple. His uniform was stained with ketchup and mustard, possibly from a burger he had snuck from the kitchen while he was on duty. The kid almost walked right into Devlin before looking up. When he saw his replacement, the kid did a double take, before smiling, showing teeth that showed a bottom row of crooked teeth.

“Hey,” he said in a raspy voice, “You must be the new guy they got to replace Mike.”

“Yeah, I’m Devlin.”

“Cool, but, um, why are you wearing that?” the kid asked, as he pointed at Devlin’s face.

“Wearing what?” Devlin asked, before realizing what the kid was asking about.

“That wolf mask,” said the teenager as he reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a smart phone.

“That thing looks so real. Don’t get me wrong, I’m into wolves too, my gf is totally an artist and stuff, and it’s all she draws.”

“Good for you,” said Devlin, trying to keep his cool. What the kid had mistaken for a mask wasn’t a mask at all but Devlin’s god given face. Devlin was a wolf, a bipedal white wolf to be precise. Like the humans, he had perfectly functional hands, and could read, write and all that good stuff. He stood at a rather short five foot six, and had a wispy beard hanging off of his narrow chin. His main, which on human heads would have been his hair, was long and slightly tangled. He had tried to tame it several times, but after breaking many brushes and snapping several combs, he had decided to leave it be. His tail, which poked out of a special hole in his pants, was a tad bit mangy, but was clean enough despite the tangles.

“Hey, mind if I take a picture?” asked the teenager as he snapped a few photos before Devlin could answer.

“No, please, go ahead,” Devlin sighed as he tried to blink the phone’s flash out of his eyes. Being a wolf, he had excellent night vision. This meant that he quick flash of light from the phone really did a number on his eyes, leaving him blind for a few minutes while the previous guard babbled on about how awesome animals were and stuff.

“Hold up,” said Devlin, holding up his hand, the fingers and palm covered in rough black pads like the paws of a feral wolf, “Can I ask you something real quick?”

“Oh yeah, sure man,” said the teen as he put his phone away and brushed idly at the stains on his shirt, as if he could wipe them off.

“Do you know what the furries are? Like, at all?”

“Furries?” asked the kid, scratching his head. “You mean those bird bitches from Greek Myths?”

“No,” sighed Devlin, “I said Furries, not furies. That’s one R, not two. You know, like furry, only in multiple instead of plural?”

“OHH!” the kid said, his eyes lighting up in realization. "You mean those animal things, like Barry?”
“Something like that, yes,” said Devlin as he flashed the plastic statue behind him a sour look. “Well, I’m one of them.”

“No way!” said the teen, reaching for his phone again. “I have never seen one in real life before! This is so badass!”

“Look,” groaned Devlin, doing his best to keep his cool. “I just wanted to ask you if there is anything different about working the night shift from the day shift.”

“Hmm, not that I know,” said the kid with a shrug, before glancing down at his stained shirt and then back to the wolf with a big smile, as if he had just let Devlin in on a rather dirty secret.

“I mean something different that I should be aware of, or doing that isn’t probably against company policy.”

“Uh, loosen up will ya?” the kid said as he let out a deep yawn. “They won’t miss one party burger. They never had as long as I’ve worked here. Well, they don’t unless you forget to turn the grill and deep fryer off when you’re done.”

“So, there isn’t anything different about the night shift?” Devlin persisted, anxious to get this delinquent out of his fur as soon as possible.

“Well,” said the purple haired guy as he pulled out his phone and checked the time. “There is one thing, the animatronics, but that isn’t a real big deal.”

“What about them? Am I supposed to do maintenance or something?” asked Devlin.

“Naw, we ain’t trained for that shit,” said the teen as he started to walk around the wolf as he headed for the exit. “It’s just, rumor has it that the restaurant’s four main electronics, Barry, Larry, Carlie, and Horsey, get up and walk around the building after midnight.”

“Really?” asked Devlin, his eyebrow rising as he didn’t buy the teen’s story at all.

“I haven’t seen it happen myself, but everyone who works the night shift after me either quits, or dies in an horrible accident,” said the kid as he neared the doors.

“Could I please switch to the day shift?”

“Heh, scared already?” the kid chuckled, sounding as if he was a child on the playground who had gotten away with throwing a snowball at a girl. (woot) “So much for the big bad wolf.”

“Believe whatever you want to believe, chuckles,” growled Devlin. “But I can see you’re trying to get out of here as fast as you can.”

“Me, scared?” asked the kid with mock shock on his face, before breaking into a grin that looked even more forced. “Dude, it is past my bed time, and I need to get home ASAP if I have any hope of being awake enough for tomorrow’s classes. Besides,” he said as he headed out the door, “My shift’s over. Have a good night, wolf-man.”

The kid only stayed long enough to lock the doors from the outside, sealing Devlin in for the night, or until he decided to open the doors with his own set of keys. Either way, the wolf was finally alone in the dim restaurant, with no one but the plastic statue to keep him company. As the wolf turned to go through the door to the back hallway of Barry Bat’s Burgers and Fries, he snorted in disgust at the statue of Barry.

After following the route that he was first led down when he had applied for the job last week, Devlin soon came upon the security office. It was a fairly small room, with only enough room for a chair, a desk and a few computer monitors set up upon the desk. A single ceiling light provided the majority of the room’s illumination. It was just one bulb, so the room was rather dim, save for the glow from the bank of computer screens on the desk. Besides the monitors were a few ransom knick-knacks, such as a few toys from the prize counter of the restaurant’s arcade, and several crumpled napkins that could have been left by the previous guard’s late-night snacking. The door he entered through was a simple metal thing that had several weird dents in it that looked almost like someone had tried to punch their way through it from the outside.

Devlin had asked about that during his orientation, but his handler had blown it off as nothing. She had said that was just how the door had been made, but Devlin didn’t buy it, and he could tell that she wasn’t either. But, he needed the money, so he didn’t ask too many questions. After all, due to there being so few furries in this city, the people tended to distrust his kind. At best, they were just strange animal people to the humans, and at worst, they were monsters. It was almost a relief when Devlin got mistaken for a man in a suit, though he really hated that comparison. It made him feel as if he was fake, which made him angry.

Shaking his head to clear it of those thoughts, Devlin slid the chair out from the desk and took a seat, making sure to have his tail slip through the space between the seat and the back cushion. He leaned forward in the chair and jiggled the mouse of the first computer, causing its screen to wake up. On it, the wolf saw through one of the many security cameras set up throughout the burger palace. This one was set up to show the main dining room’s stage, where three figures stood motionless. Upon clicking a little box on the lower right of the screen, the view changed to that of a different camera in the same room, giving Devlin a better look at the figures.

They had to be the animatronics that the previous guard had talked about. They were bigger than Devlin had expected, each one standing at easily six feet tall, if not taller. Since he had only been shown to the back rooms and offices of Barry Bat’s Burgers and Fries when he had applied, he hadn’t gotten a chance to look around the public parts of the restaurant. He was taken aback by how mechanical the three were. He could clearly see the joints in the robots, which broke any chance of them presenting themselves as actual living versions of the restaurants’ mascots.

“The kids that eat here must be dumb as bricks,” he muttered to himself as he looked over each of the three in turn. Starting with Barry, he was the tallest and thinnest of the bunch, standing in the center of the stage with a banana in his white gloved hand. Unlike the plastic statue at the entrance of the restaurant, this version of Barry had far more realistic proportions and joints. He also sported a glittery black jacket and a black bowtie. He almost looked like he had tried to put on a tuxedo, but had forgotten the undershirt and pants.

To the Bat’s left stood Carlie, the female cow. She was the shortest one of the group, though only by centimeters. The Cowgirl wore a bright red bandana over a white apron and was holding a plate with a plastic burger sitting atop it. She had golden curly hair that was so limp that it was hard to tell if it wasn’t supposed to be straight and flat. Her body was covered in white fur with several randomly shaped black dots. Before her was a keyboard, that she had her free hand resting atop of, as if she was about to play a few random notes before running off to deliver the hamburger to a hungry customer.

The last character on stage was Larry the lion. He was clearly designed to appear muscular, but he only came off as being chubby with an unusually thin stomach. His mane, unlike Carlie’s wig, was not hair but solid plastic, which served to make him look even faker than the other two. He only wore a stylized black leather sleeveless jacket and a pair of reflective sunglasses that hid his robotic eyes from sight. In his hands was an electric guitar that was clearly just a solid piece of plastic it didn’t have strings and wasn’t connected to an amplifier or anything.

“Where’s the horse?” muttered Devin to himself as he glanced up at a large poster that was plastered on the wall above the computers. On it were all three of the restaurants’ mascots. They looked far better as cartoon characters than as robots, their faces wide with energetic smiles. Barry was singing into his banana while Larry rocked away on his guitar. The cowgirl was playing along too, using both hands on the keyboard before her. However, there was a fourth member of the group, a bipedal horse who was managing the drums in the very back of the group. Due to his placement, the horse was overshadowed by the other members of the band.

Devlin, with nothing better to do, clicked a box on the lower left of the computer screen and brought up a pop-up window that listed the major rooms of the restaurant. One by one, he clicked on them, bringing up images of the party room, the arcade, the private birthday rooms, the takeout counter, the front door, the fire escape, the kitchens, the employee areas, the offices, the bathrooms, and lastly, the parking lot where his car sat all alone.

“Where is that horse?” asked Devlin as he ran through all the cameras again. He wasn’t sure what to look for, as the picture of Horsey on the wall was mostly obstructed by the other mascots of the restaurant. All Devlin could really see of the horse was his head, which was topped with a black cowboy hat that looked like something the villain of an old western movie would have worn. He wasn’t even sure what color the horse was, as there was a stain over the horse’s face, right under the hat, distorting its features into a blurry blob.

As he flipped through the cameras on screen, Devlin noticed a flash of movement. He stopped searching the feeds and took a closer look at what was happening. Once again, he found himself looking at the stage in which the three animatronics were standing. At first, the wolf wasn’t sure what he had seen, since he hadn’t been looking for something moving, just for that missing horse robot. But, after staring at the screen for a few minutes, and then zooming in to get a better look at Barry, Larry and Carlie, he saw noticed that each of the animatronics had moved ever so slightly.

Barry’s arm that had been holding the banana-microphone had drooped at his side, the banana’s tip now pointing out towards the audience who during operation hours would have been eating away at their burgers. Charlie’s hand had slipped off her keyboard and was now hanging limp at her side, her head also hung low, as if she was exhausted after a long day of work. Larry the lion had raised his head, looking up at the top of the stage as if he had heard something from up there. Other than that, nothing seemed to really have changed.

Is this what that kid was talking about? Devlin wondered as he gazed at the image for a moment more. After seeing nothing else change, the white wolf shrugged and started flipping through the camera feeds again. He reasoned that what he saw were just the animatronics’ joints acting up. Maybe, he thought to himself as he flicked to the camera facing the bathrooms, those robots twitched about to keep them limber for the next day’s show.

It could very well be that one of the previous night guards before him had seen the machines twitch about and thought they had been moving, thus creating the rumor he heard from the purple haired kid. Either way, it was little more than a distraction, keeping him from finding where Horsey was.

Suddenly, Devlin stopped on a single image. This camera was showed an image of himself from behind, with the monitors giving his fur a soft blue glow around the edges. Sitting up, he turned around and looked at the back wall. He didn’t see anything special about it, there was a closet with a few spare uniforms, a couple of plastic masks of the faces of Barry’s crew, a dart board that looked like it hadn’t been used since the eighties, and nothing else.

“Why the heck do they have a camera in the security office?” he muttered to himself as he walked over to the wall and checked each mask for a hidden camera. He found it behind the third mask he checked, the one of Larry. His sunglasses hid the camera’s lens, which saw the room from the mask’s left eye hole, from the casual observer. Devlin couldn’t help but feel a bit self-conscious at the fact that the camera was there.

He wasn’t sure how he had missed seeing its video feed the first few times he went through all the cameras on screen, but one thing’s for sure, he didn’t like the idea that he was being watched, even if he was watching himself.

He took the lion mask off the wall and carried it back with him to the computer desk. As he sat down, he put the mask down beside the keyboard, taking a moment to look once more at the feed from the camera behind him, a chill going down his spine as he watched his own movements on screen, with a delay of about a second or two. Devlin then, after clearing his throat with a little cough, he began to cycle through the feeds again. He didn’t have to search too far this time for something to catch his eye again.

Devlin had finally found Horsey. He was in the second of the four private party rooms, which were decorated with balloons, streamers and lots and lots of glitter. The white lupine wasn’t sure how he had missed the horse before, as he was without a doubt the tallest of the animatronics, or so it seemed from the view the camera provided. The horse was a chestnut brown, with tan spots all over his body. The spots, if Devlin brought his face up close to the computer’s screen, seemed almost to be shaped like spiraling flame tattoos that ran up and down the horse’s arms and neck.

Horsy was also sporting a vest similar to Larry’s, only the horse’s was made of what looked like leather and had a bright and shiny sheriff’s badge pined to the right breast pocket. Despite that, the horse had a rather sinister vibe to him, possibly due to the black hat he wore and the equally dark handlebar mustache that hung from the machine’s top lip.

“I’d hate to get held up by that thing,” grumbled Devlin as he began to flip through the cameras again. Now that everyone was accounted for, he took his time before changing the view on the monitor. He didn’t see anything too interesting happen, besides the occasional twitch of the animatronics. The wolf had to admit, it was a tad unsettling seeing the robots move in such quick and tiny spurts. There was just something unnatural about it.

As the night wore on, Devlin began to fiddle with the other monitors, to see what they were for. One of them was password protected, and he quickly gave up trying to guess the password. The other one was logged in, and had a few icons on its desktop. Some of them were the games that came with a pc fresh out of the store, such as solitaire, minesweeper and pinball. The others, he found after he clicked on them, gave information the restaurants’ power usage, vent status, atmosphere control, and a folder that contained videos from the security cameras that were taken earlier in the day.

To pass the time, Devlin played a few games on the third computer. He ended up dying a few times in minesweeper, before changing over to playing solitaire. He occasionally glanced over at the live camera footage on the center computer, but finding nothing to really make him sit up and take notice. There was a moment when he thought the horse had moved, but he soon found it in another private party room, this one decorated with plastic cactuses and had wallpaper that presented a panorama of a western ghost town.

Devlin simply shrugged it off, thinking he was mistaken the first time he had located the horse. After all, it seemed to fit in a lot better in that western themed party room than it had in the sparky one. However, he stared at the screen for a moment more, as he couldn’t help but remember that story he had been fed earlier. Could it be that the robots really did move around at night?

“Pft, as if it really matters,” said Devlin to no one as he went back to his virtual card game on the third pc. He reasoned that even if the robots could walk around on their own, they probably would only stay out in the main restaurant, since why would they have to go into the employee only areas? They were built to entertain children, not to harass the staff. Besides, if they did happen to wander into places they really shouldn’t be, he could always lock the door from the inside and call for help on the desk phone, or his iPhone.

He couldn’t help but chuckle at that. Devlin hadn’t even noticed the ancient desk phone on the desk before him until just that moment. It was an old, black thing that didn’t have a screen or anything. The wolf wondered if could be older than he was, as it looked like the one that his grandfather had at his house, only it wasn’t mounted on the wall.

By three am, the white wolf was very bored. He had stopped games on the computer and had gone to his iPhone. He accessed the internet, or tried to only to find that the Wi-Fi in the security room was shit. He couldn’t believe it at first, since most kids these days broke down and cried if they couldn’t get a signal on their smartphones. He hoped the restaurant had out-of-this –world arcade machines to keep the children happy; otherwise this place would probably go out of business very, very fast. Thankfully, he did have Pissed Poodles on his phone, and played a few rounds of taking out the evil block building cats, beating his high score on a few stages, before turning back to the computers.

Other than the animatronics having moved ever so slightly, there wasn’t anything interesting going on. Still, Devlin didn’t look forward to serving another night shift at the restaurant. It was clear by now that the rumors of the robots moving around at night were greatly exaggerated, but that wasn’t his reason for wanting to switch to the day shift. The following night would be the first of a four day full moon cycle, and Devlin wasn’t your average bipedal wolf. He was also a werewolf, and underwent a bit of a transformation at night when the moon was at its fullest. Devlin had a feeling that it might be bad for Barry Bat’s Burger Palace if he transformed while on duty.

He had tried to explain his condition to the handler when he had applied for the job, and several times in emails to the restaurant’s manager, but he had heard nothing back from about switching to the day shift. Until he heard otherwise, he had to assume they were ignoring him and he’d just have to grin and bear it during his moon phase. He only hoped that he could convince them to let him switch before Friday, as that was-

Again, he found his thoughts interrupted, this time by the faint sound of music. Flipping quickly through the camera feeds, Devlin soon found the melody’s source. It of course, was coming from the trio on stage. For some reason, they had started up their entertainment routine, Barry holding the banana up to his flapping jaw while the cowgirl played the keyboard with one hand. Larry came in every now and then, letting off a guitar solo every now and then.

“Damn things must be on a timer,” grumbled Devlin as he watched the robots preform. The music wasn’t all that great, just a poor cover of a pop song that had been popular a few years ago, one that he hadn’t even liked back when it was top of the charts. The robots were a tad out of sync with playing their instruments, the rifts starting before Larry’s golden hands worked the ‘strings’ of his fake guitar, and Barry’s voice flowing out of a mouth whose jaw was stiff and only flapped open and close.

“Why do kids like these things?” Devlin mumbled as he looked through the feeds until he hit the one with Horsey in the western party room. The wolf jumped a little in his seat when he saw that the horse was now looking directly at the security camera, its eyebrows angled down towards his nose, as if he was making an angry face at Devlin. It was as if it knew Devlin was there, watching him. As the wolf stared back at the horse, the animatronics’ eyes lit up and flickered a few times before going dark.

“Well, that was weird,” said the wolf, as he flipped back to the Barry and his band on stage. They had finished up one number and were taking a moment to talk to the empty room. The audio from the feed was rather poor, filled with so much static that Devlin had to struggle to hear what Barry was saying. The best the wolf could figure, it had something to do with bananas, or burgers. Either way, he just tuned it out, and watched as the robot went through its pre-programed motions, along with the rest of his crew.

He watched as Carlie turned towards the bat and held out the burger on the plate. The bat leaned forward and reached towards the burger with its free hand before Larry raised his strumming hand and pointed at the bat’s banana and said something. Barry’s head then lit up with a pink glow from within, a colored light in his head turning on to make it look as if the animatronic was blushing at what the lion had said. Barry then mimed pealing the banana he held and pretended to take a bite out of it before launching into the next song. Both the lion and the cow shook their heads as if they couldn’t believe how silly Barry was being, before they returned to their instruments and the music started up again.

Devlin sighed and wondered to himself how long the robot’s show went on for. The music wasn’t too obnoxious, as he could only hear a few notes here and there due to how far he was from the stage, but what he did hear sent shivers down his spine. If asked, he would compare the feeling he had to that one would get if they thought they were alone in their house, when suddenly they heard people talking a few rooms over.

Another hour passed before the robot’s show ended. Barry took a step forward and bent down to the empty audience, his little wings flapping a few times before he stood up straight and took a step back into his usual place. Next, the cow did a little spin in place while holding the burger platter high over her head. The last to say good bye was the lion, who with his strumming hand, lifted up his shades to reveal his eyes. Like the horse, Larry’s eyes were lit up, their light a bright and cheery yellow.

“Weird,” the wolf said again as he watched the lion replace its glasses and return to its default position on stage.

With that over, Devlin went back to going through the camera feeds, pausing once more to look at the one with the horse. After seeing that the horse hadn’t moved even an inch, its eyes still looking directly into the room’s camera, Devlin flipped past it to look out at the restaurants’ parking lot. He saw that there was a second car now, parked right along his own. It was one of those new fancy suv’s that were everywhere these days.

The lights were on in the car, making Devlin wonder what the driver was up to. Checking the clock, he saw that it was now quarter past four in the morning, which made the car’s appearance all the more strange. Who, he asked himself as he stared intently at the car, would come to a burger palace at quarter past four in the morning?

He soon had his answer as the driver side door opened and a familiar purple haired punk stepped out. Devlin wasn’t sure, but it looked like the kid was smoking something in the light provided by his car’s cabin. After taking a few drags, the kid tossed the butt of what he had been smoking into the back of Davin’s pick up, as if it was a convenient garbage can. The wolf couldn’t help but growl at the thought of that thing stinking up his ride. Some people just didn’t have any respect what-so-ever.

“Enjoy your morning classes, jack-ass,” Devlin growled as he watched the kid get back in his car, start its engine and drive away. At least now he knew why the kid had such dark circles under his eyes. He started to suspect that the burger palace’s management might suspect someone was doing drugs in the parking lot, which is why they even bothered with having a night security guard at all. After all, Devlin thought to himself as he started up another game of solitaire on the third computer, nothing else seemed to be happening at the restaurant. Not that he was complaining, as he placed one card atop the other. It was nice to have a job that presented so little drama.

It was quarter of six am when Devlin checked his phone for the time. He couldn’t believe that he had been sitting there for just under six hours, as it had felt like a year. As the digital numbers ticked down to the end of his shift, the wolf turned back to the center monitor and flipped through all the camera feeds one last time.

Once again, he saw the three robots on stage, Carlie, Barry and Larry. Something seemed off, and the wolf did a double take. He realized with a start that the cow and the lion had switched places at some point between the last time he had checked this camera and now. It was Carlie who was holding the guitar now and Larry who had the burger plate and a hand on the keyboard.

“Ugh, I must be getting tired, I’m seeing things,” said Devlin as he went through the feeds, looking for Horsey until he found the black hatted horse, now standing in the corner of the western party room. He had his robotic hand up holding the brim of his wide hat over his eyes, draping his face in shadow. Its eyes were dark, making the horse robot seem even more sinister in its darkness.

With only minutes left, Devlin flipped back to the main room and looked at the robots on stage. Everyone was back where they belonged, as if they hadn’t even moved at all. Devlin stifled a yawn with one hand as stared intently at the animatronics. He kept his gaze on them until he heard a little buzzer go off. It surprised him so much that he leapt out of his chair and turned to the door, half expecting the horse robot to be there, with hands out to grab him. Instead, he was met with an empty hallway, dimly lit by the emergency lights of the restaurant.

It was only then that he remembered he had set the alarm on his phone for 6am, so he would know when his shift was over. Upon silencing his alarm and catching his breath, the wolf looked one last time though the camera feeds on screen. When he flicked to the one of the parking lot, he saw a new car, this one an older car, its paint peeling and rust showing here and there. An older man with grey hair and a bit of a belly exited the car and headed toward the restaurants’ front doors.

“That’s probably the next guard,” muttered Devlin as he picked up the Larry Lion mask and took a moment to replace it on the wall behind him. With that done, he headed for the exit of the office and made his way back out into the front of the building. He only paused long enough to unlock the door from the inside, opening it for the man so he could enter.

“Why hi there,” said the old dude, his voice sounding friendly enough. “You must be Devlin.”

“Aye, and you’re my replacement for the day shift, right?”

“Heh, yep, that’d be me. Name’s Ramon Guy,” said the guard as he offered his hand out for a handshake.

“Yeah, um, mind switching with me for the rest of the week?” Devlin asked, ignoring the man’s hand.

“Erh, sorry?” asked Guy.

“I just, well,” said Devlin, trying to explain, but finding the words failing him.

“Oh, were you creeped out by Barry and his buddies?” asked the guard before chuckling a little.

“Oh, it wasn’t that,” said the wolf as he absently scratched the back of his head. “It’s just the next few nights wont’ be that good of a time for me. I can do next week, and several weeks after, but just not any nights with a full moon.”

“What,” asked Guy as one of his grey eyebrows rose higher than the over, “Are you afraid the animatronic will turn into wolf during a full moon or something?”

“Actually, I’m the one that’d turn during the full moon,” explained Devlin. “You see,” he started, before Guy cut him off.

“Look, I’m sure that it’s very important, but you got to understand that I got something I have to do at night too. I have to stay home and watch over my daughter’s kids till the weekend. See, she and hers are off on a business trip, and well, I’m all the little ones got.”

“If that’s true, why aren’t you with them now?” asked Devlin.

“Oh, they have to get up very early for school, the bus leaves at five forty five,” explained Guy.

“Poor kids,” mumbled Devlin.

“Tell me about it,” sighed Guy as he scratched at his chin. “Those kids don’t sleep enough as is. They are practically zombies when I put them on the bus. If I had my way, they would live closer to the school so they wouldn’t have to be up so early, but my daughter’s job is where it is, and they do love their house’s current location and…” Guy trailed off, before chuckling again. “Woopsy, look at me, unloading my life story onto ya. I bet you think I’m just an old chatter box, don’t ya?”

“Something like that,” muttered Devlin, low enough to not be heard by the old man.

“Well, I won’t keep you any longer. I bet you are dying to be out of that fur suit and into some real clothes, am I right?”

Devlin didn’t even bother to correct the old man. He just nodded and headed out the door towards his truck. Upon reaching the old pickup, Devlin stepped around to the bed and rooted around until he found the butt the punk had tossed in there earlier. He threw it onto the pavement, and then got into his car and started its engine.

As he headed home, he thought over what the rest of his week would be like. The truth was that, despite the full moon during the following days, he didn’t mind working the night shift. If anything, he preferred the night shift. He wasn’t a morning person, if anything he was at his best at night. He felt even better when the moon was up, as he felt he was only his real self during his moon phases. The only down side was, well, sometimes he got a tad out of control during the full moon, and things got broken,
or completely demolished. He only hoped there wouldn’t be a super moon during the week. In the case of when the moon was at its brightest, his transformation was at its strongest and it’s most destructive.

“Guess we’ll just wait and see,” he said to himself as he drove along, his hand turning the radio on. He hummed along to the song, recognizing it as a classic from the mid- 90’s, something that he had liked while he was still in school. He was looking forward to taking a shower and going to sleep. He wasn’t sure, but something told him that tonight wouldn’t be nearly as easy as his first shift on the job.