HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR

BY JACK

All years of his work had amounted to a final casual grip of the leather on his car’s wheel, papers in his other angry and desperate fist. Matthew sat in the comfortable, unburdened seat of his old-styled Cadillac, which was matte as the sky above his buzzing head. He kicked the car up into consciousness, twisting the keys into the grasp of the vehicle’s mouth and, without skipping a beat, forcing the gas pedal against the roughed-up carpeted ground.

***

My theories. Today they’ll make sense. Proper sense. I’ll find the body of the murderer, who rotted years ago. Years ago. I’ll find him.

The building looked born of rusted chain, painted and covered brick and termite-infested wood. Its entrance was free and unchained, and the door wide open–which would’ve been a perfect sight, if sawdust’s offspring hadn’t lined the monochromatic floor below, and if tumbled and toiled down wasn’t the ceiling.

As if it were open for business, Matthew steadied the tie in his jet black dress shirt. He stepped, inches away from his ajar, silver-lined Cadillac door, kicking up gravel and decades-old dust while he walked.

It’s been 20 years since the location shut down for the last time. If he truly died in the restaurant, a locked or boarded room would be the most likely. I doubt the entirety of the place has caved in if it were held up by souls.

Shoving aside a caved-in roof with a kick of his boots, the detective made his way in. There would be no ceiling above him but he was sure that this assumable dining area would be the only spot where things went to hell. The rigid, uncertain bendings of the caved roof promised that he was definitely stepping over tables–and probably animatronics. He searched, staring over the terrain he walked to come to… a rather deranged conclusion.

Well, I’ll have to break a way in myself.

Matthew clambered back to where he’d started, his dress shoes damn near clearing him dead with a slip down the building before he was able to steady himself with a quick lucky shove forward of his stomach. He recalled it raining hysterically the night prior, and determined that rain must have gathered by the building’s cusp.

He wasn’t incorrect but it wouldn’t have assisted him greatly in kicking through the building’s ceiling–nevertheless, with as much force as he could, the man had struck his ground in. His knees ached from both the drive to the old Freddy’s and covering the crooked-tooth of a ground, and yet, like a hivemind, his energy simply worked to chip at it like instinct.

Though it had taken him a good deal of the time he’d have rather spent investigating, under his feet came down the ceiling. Apparently Matthew wasn’t sure of his own strength, because its faux sediment caved in landslide-like. The detective, despite his quite uncalled for tumble, simply pulled his flashlight from its holster first, before he’d bother to stand.

A quick shake of it and the light woke up without a fuss. Matthew didn’t regret caving the roof in–it was very easy now to see what was under the hole he’d created, under the dank moonlight. Though, what he could see didn’t excite him as much as he’d hoped.

The crushed, greening forearm of a robot had been suffocating under the tile’s debris. The gross paw was outstretched, and had let go of half a shattered plate, which looked made of perishing metal. The broken bits from it were scattered close, but like a puzzle, some pieces were forever missing.

Chica, the detective had pondered to his lonesome, you’re not at all what I’m looking for.

On the paw he shone his light but very quickly it was redirected to the left, and he nearly jumped. It was not the skeleton of a robot, but rather, of a person.

But Matthew had seen much more than what should’ve been his share of bodies, and more often, bones. The body stank of dead and orange still clung like a bat to parts of its frame, particularly the crushed skull and in large clumps in its ribcage. A huge piece of ceiling had nestled in where the skull’s lobe would’ve, and at that, Matthew shuddered. He hadn’t expected a body in here–well, he very, very much did, but not at all in such a boring place. He refused to believe this was the killer.

The detective stepped to the body. He didn’t plan on investigating it. Matthew wanted to go around this body, because if the layouts he’d figured out in his head were right, the real killer would have been through this wall.

And the wall he slipped behind was dank–dank as if it was currently raining sewage, because by God, it may have just been the corpse but it stank! Matthew wished he’d brought a gas mask, but knew he never would’ve thought it necessary.

The whole dead restaurant was potent as a gas fire, where the overwhelming stench was body. But, thinking of that was much better than thinking of how easily Matthew could’ve been crushed between the thin gap separating him from the still-falling ceiling. The wall on his fingers was cold, and felt obviously of an old popcorning roof. If the flashlight was right, it was white, dappled with flecks of a gray or black. Perfect for a children’s place where nobody would look up. The flooring must have been flashier.

Matthew nearly tumbled backward. He would’ve avoided it if he turned around. His shoulder blades kicked inward, and the rest of him twisted around to face the opposite direction. He thought he may have dropped his light, he couldn’t tell with the numbness in his fingers and throat.

Coughing.

What?

Matthew must have coughed in his search for the light.

He panicked, but he didn’t really know how to react to the surge of air in his stomach without collapsing. His hands scrambled against the ground for a warmer plastic, something that had been in those hands just seconds ago, ANY kind of LIGHT?
The detective knew it wasn’t him who coughed, because it coughed again, and the voice sounded hollow, full of dried marrow, if that were any way to describe a thing like what he’d heard. It took the noise you’d expect from a deserted, dead mouth which hadn’t swallowed its own saliva in decades. Matthew couldn’t find a hint of life in that voice.

So he decided to do just that. Silently, yet, very admittedly to himself, he gulped. He couldn’t be to blame for that.

“I,…”

With desperation, he gripped the light off the ground. But by the time the gravel had left the voice’s lungs Matthew couldn’t flick it on in time or bend back onto his feet.

“Always..”

Maybe he just thought that time had slowed, but in this instance it felt particularly difficult to simply stuck his nail under the light and click it on. As soon as the bright had managed, and fast as Mat turned around…

“Come… back.”