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"Ge-Get ready for a surprise!"
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“Joel is counting the days until he can quit his family's garden center and hit the road to a new life.” |
Kids at Play is the second story in Fazbear Frights 11: Prankster and chronologically the Fazbear Frights series' 32nd story. It was written by Andrea Waggener.
Characters[]
Humans[]
- D'Agostino Family
- Seth
- Zach's Family
- Wes
- Marianna
- Mrs. Linden
- Evan
- Bell Family
- Caleb Bell
- Jenna Bell
- Sally
- Lori Unger
- Chief Montgomery
- Rankin
Creatures[]
Animatronics[]
- Freddy Fazbear (Cartoon)
Locations[]
Plot[]
Joel is graduating in two months and planning to skip town and move to LA to be a musician and model. Until then, he has to work at his family’s business, D’Agostino’s Nursery and Garden Center. Everyone thinks his father, Steve, is a wonderful guy, but Joel hates that he and his mother are constantly on his case for his reckless and carefree behavior. One day, Joel attempts to leave seven minutes early and gets into a fight with his father, who fires him. He gets in his pick-up truck and drives back home going over 60 miles per hour, which causes him to accidentally bump into something. Believing it to be a mailbox, Joel comes out and discovers he's a hit three-feet-tall neon-yellow-green plastic kid-shaped figure holding a sign saying “Kids at Play”. Hitting it cracked its legs, but Joel doesn't care and begins to return to his truck. Its large, round black eyes and gaping empty mouth catches his attention, and he spots a strange, brown sludge puddle by its feet. Joel is disgusted and drives off.
At home, Joel is scolded by his mother but is luckily able to convince his father to give him his job back. The next day, he eats a Freddy Fazbear-themed cereal called "Fazbear Fazcrunch", with each box containing a toy prize. Joel is shocked to see that the prize in his box is a miniature version of the same plastic kid-shaped figure he hit. He flicks the toy away and leaves. Joel continues to appease his father, staying at work until his shift ends, until Friday arrives. Annoyed that he has to work early the next day and having dealt with an angry usual customer, Joel makes his way to his friend’s house to practice with his band. When it’s just after midnight, Joel explains to his friends that he needs to leave early. When all of his friends praise his father, Joel snaps at them and storms to his truck.
Joel notices how his friends’ cars are better than his, which infuriates him more, so he speeds up. He takes a sharp turn and enjoys the adrenaline rush until he spots a child in his headlights just at the entrance of Glenwood Fields. Joel tries slowing down but still hits the kid, watching as its body flies off the road and presumably landing in a deep ditch just off the pavement. After a few moments, the engine dies and Joel sits in his car, contemplating on what to do. When he sees headlights coming down the road, he races home. Unable to sleep, Joel thinks about returning to help the kid but decides not to, as returning to the scene of the accident would be an admission of guilt. Not wanting to have a crime hold him back from LA, he returns to his bed and tries to sleep.
Joel wakes up for work and joins his father to get donuts on the way. As his dad drives, Joel notices two plastic Kids at Play figures that he was sure weren’t there before. When they reach Sally’s, Joel finds that the donuts aren’t ready and Sally is distraught. She explains that her five-year-old grandson, Caleb, has gone missing late last night and she’s been on the phone calling everyone who may have seen him. Joel feels incredibly guilty now knowing the identity of the kid he hit and returns to the truck to inform his father of the news. HIs father goes inside to comfort her and when he returns informs Joel that Chief Montgomery is organizing a search. Joel is relieved to hear that no one saw him commit the crime.
Since they are aiding in the search, Joel and his father head to a hardware store to get materials to make signs and maybe a command center. As Joel is grabbing a bundle of wooden stakes, he hears a clicking sound and looks to see a Kids at Play figure sitting outside right by the window. He isn’t sure if it was there before and suddenly hears a ticking sound behind him. Joel hurries to the hardware store’s annex when he hears the sound following him, so he runs around the store to avoid it. He runs into his father and the noises stop, and Joel has trouble focusing as they’re paying for everything. As they’re leaving, Joel looks back and spots a price tag on the figure, so he assumes the store always had it out. During the search, Joel makes sure to be nowhere close to where he hit Caleb. He isn’t found by the end of the day, and Joel ultimately decides that it’s not worth being the one to save him since he’d be able to describe who hit him. Joel returns to his room and discovers the tiny Kids at Play figurine next to his alarm clock. Unsure as to how it got there, he stomps on it and snaps the “Kids at Play” flag into pieces before going to bed.
Joel has a dream about the little toy and awakens suddenly at 2:00 a.m. exactly. Instead of going back to sleep like he wants to, he sits up and gets out of bed. Joel’s whole body feels stiff as it continues to move against his will, and he’s forced to get dressed. He tries calling out to his parents as he’s forced to go down the stairs but he’s unable to speak. As Joel leaves through the back door and walks down the street, he hears his joints making creaking sounds. He realizes he’s heading for Glenwood Fields and can feel his body reaching a breaking point. Joel reaches the entrance and stops in the middle of the road. Pain shoots through his teeth and his mouth opens to let them fall out. Then his hair falls out and his eyes roll out of their sockets. Now blind, Joel listens as his fingers and hands fall off. He feels something pushing its way out of his eye sockets as pressure builds in his head. The last thing Joel feels before his consciousness fades is his skin peeling off.
Chief Montgomery follows up on a call regarding a strange man heading for the Glenwood Fields entrance. He looks around and finds a Kids at Play figure on the road, remembering that they are part of some Freddy Fazbear public safety initiative to deter reckless drivers and keep kids safe. Montgomery notices that this particular figure is bigger and oddly contorted, and on the ground is a strange mass of something organic, reminding him of mulch or freshly stripped bark. He checks to see if the trees are okay when he hears a child whimpering from the ditch at the side of the road. Montgomery calls for Caleb, and when the whimper turns into a cry he goes to his SUV and calls for EMTs. He jumps into the ditch and finds Caleb wedged behind a pile of rocks. As Chief Montgomery puts his jacket around him, he grins in triumph and is glad everything will be alright.
Trivia[]
- Chief Montgomery has the same name as Montgomery Gator from Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach.
- The brown puddle next to the first Kids at Play figure Joel saw was compared to a dog that had disintegrated. It is possibly foreshadowing Joel's future death.