Well, here it is, July already! This means two things. First, we have experienced Dobby’s first Independence Day,  a holiday which has traumatized many a beloved household pet. Dobby was surprisingly chill…but then, I’ve been watching FNAF: UCN almost nonstop since its release and getting jumpscared by screeching animatronics every few minutes appears to have desensitized her to sudden loud noises. Here at the Smomestead, I completely forgot the Fourth of July was a thing until it was upon me (I don’t leave the house much. Or look at clocks. I do own a calendar, but as it is Markiplier’s Tasteful Nudes calendar, I obviously don’t look at the dates), so we did not have fireworks. That’s okay, all our neighbors did. Dobby and I sat out on the front porch on a warm summer night and no matter where we looked, fireworks were happening, the big blossoming kind that jump up in the air and explode in a shower of colorful spark. Even better, as the fireworks went off in the sky, the oceans of fireflies occupying our lawn would start flashing their fannies like crazy in an effort to get some of that sweet, sweet magnesium lovin’.

The second thing that July brings is the urge to barbeque, which for those of you who may be unfamiliar with the word, is an urge to invite over all your friends and family so you can stand around a mound of charcoal for several hours and watch it slowly turn to ash without ever getting hot enough to melt butter, much less cook a burger, and everyone’s pretending they’re happy with Aunt Enid’s deviled egg platter (AKA Paprika Surprise; the surprise is extra paprika) and celery sticks, and the kids are bored and it’s hot enough to cook a burger on your face BUT NOT THE FRIGGIN GRILL and it doesn’t matter how many bottles of lighter fluid you squirt on it, it won’t stay lit, and suddenly there’s a pizza guy in the driveway and everyone’s pretending to be pissed at the kid who ordered a pizza, but I don’t even care anymore as long I can feed these people and get them the hell out of my house and so we’re all eating pizza and it’s starting to get fun again and someone brings out Cards Against Humanity and we’re having a great time until someone notices the deck is on fire, because apparently Uncle Tiberius left his lemonade glass out on the deck and the sun shining through it focused just enough energy in just the right spot to ignite the boards and they are charred everywhere except in a perfect circle around the Hibachi.

Barbeque! Hey, you know what else starts with B? Burn ward! Binge drinking! And Burger King.

Anyway, in addition to the usual July hijinks, I’m still writing, so I’m pleased to announce that I have posted the next chapter of my Five Nights at Freddy’s fanfiction, Everything Is All Right, Part IV: New Faces, Old Bones, so if you’re reading it, head on over to fanfiction.net or archiveofourown.org and check it out! If you still haven’t decided to start this series, or if you’re hanging out in the ER with only a few minutes to kill between talking to the doctors and the cops and you don’t have time to read a whole chapter right now, please enjoy this snippet! Have a great summer and stay safe out there!

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Freddy gave her space, but did not retreat as far as the doorway. Although she tried not to eye the space between them too obviously, he noticed and took another small step back. Out of grabbing range, maybe, but not out of lunging range. She’d seen him move damned fast when he wanted to.

“I don’t suppose you have a light,” Ana said, checking her pockets and finding only keys. Two sets of keys.

Whatever dark thoughts had begun to rise up at the touch of that Frankenstein string-doll were burned entirely away in the next instant when Freddy stepped up, pointed at her joint, and a two-inch flame leapt out of the tip of his finger.

Ana did not flinch, but she did gape, too astonished to even think of actually lighting up.

“There’s a striker hidden in the tip.” The flame winked out so he could show her, then snapped back into existence so he could offer it again.

“Why?”

“He built us to impress. He was…Our creator, I mean…He had a keen mind for the unexpected wonder.” The flame went out again. This time, Freddy let his arm lower. “When the first restaurant opened, Bonnie played an acoustic guitar—you may have noticed it in the photographs from the lobby—but after a few years, our creator thought up a way to install an amplifier in Bonnie’s arm so that he could play an electric one. Much better sound, a much more impressive performance. One of the animatronics at Mulholland had a small helium tank installed with a line that ran to a valve in his finger so he could inflate balloons for the children. And I saw schematics for another animatronic that could dispense soft-serve ice cream.”

“From where? Never mind,” said Ana quickly, shaking her head. “I don’t want to know. Every possible orifice is just gross. But…Why a lighter?” she asked as he offered it for the third time. “What are you setting on fire? Whenever I’ve seen Chica bring a birthday cake out, the candles are already lit.”

“Flash paper at parties. Always a crowd pleaser.” He rolled his other shoulder while keeping his extended arm steady so she could finally lean in and light up. “And believe it or not, it used to be considered gallant to light a lady’s cigarette.”

“At Freddy’s?”

“There was a smoking section at Circle Drive,” he agreed, nodding. “And Mulholland, I suppose, although I never saw it. The only reason there wasn’t one at High Street is because the very idea of a non-smoking section was so inconceivable. Everyone smoked when I was young. When I saw the sign here declaring the entire premises to be smoke-free, even the parking lot, I was astonished.”

“That is ironic,” she agreed. “Especially when you consider how many kids came out here to sneak a smoke before the place was even built.”

“Mind you, it’s an unhealthy habit and I don’t approve, but it was one of those things I never thought would change, until it did.” His eyes moved up and over the walls, through them, reading the restaurant’s history, maybe the whole town’s. He grunted, seemed to remember he could talk, and said, stiltedly, “Change is different here.”

“In Mammon? Yeah, that’s what everyone says. Nothing ever changes.”

“It does, though. Invisibly.” He gestured vaguely, his eyes still in constant motion. “We tell the same jokes, sing the same songs, see the same faces in the crowd. Our years are made up of the same Mondays, the same Christmases, the same opening and closing acts…the same silence when the doors lock and the windows are boarded up. Without children to grow in front of us, there are no years here, just hours in the same week, over and over. And then there’s another grand opening and suddenly everything is different. Hemlines, haircuts, language, attitudes…I still remember the outrage over the violence in Elevator Action and now there’s, what? She-Zombie Slaughterhouse III? Everything changes,” he said again, shaking his head. “But it never happens in front of us.”

All the while he’d been talking, Ana had listened, fascinated by the juxtaposition of Freddy’s familiar voice and Fred Faust’s personable, if slightly odd, way of speaking. They weren’t quite identical, but closer than coincidence. This was Fred Faust’s own voice, not as it was now, eroded by age, but as it had been then, when the boy barely out of his teens had recorded it for his favorite animatronic to use.