Crusty the Cat

I'm sure you're all familiar with the Chuck E. Cheese's band. Chuck E Cheese, Helen Henny, Mr. Munch, Jasper T Jowls and Pasqually. Whether you had a birthday party as a kid, or found about them during the Five Nights at Freddy's boom, doesn't matter. What you probably didn't know about was Crusty the Cat. 
Crusty was an extremely short lived character from the very first Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theater. He was a cat character who just didn't click with the higher ups, so they got rid of him and replaced him with Mr. Munch. 
That was that, and most people who had seen him during his brief run at the restaurant simply forgot about him, and assumed he had been lost to time, his animatronic probably just tossed out and never thought of again. 
However in 1985, Brian Stackhouse, a young man working at that initial location, thought he caught a glimpse of Crusty's portrait frame on the wall one night during his evening trash run. This was, of course, impossible, seeing as the portrait stage had been removed almost 10 years ago. Brian checked with his supervisor, who told him he had witnessed the employees destroying the Crusty robot with a baseball bat behind the restaurant back in '77.
Brian, convinced the sighting was just his imagination, went about his business as usual until he got to the dumpsters outside. Sitting on top of the dumpster, was the Crusty animatronic, slumped over and lifeless as if it had been removed that afternoon. Brian immediately went to fetch the supervisor, but Crusty was gone by the time they returned. 
After this, nobody heard anything about Crusty until 1996.  Emily Williams,  a manager at an Arizona Chuck E. Cheese's claims to have heard a voice saying "Hey Big C! You said you was gonna make me a star today!" from inside the control room for the animatronic stage. Assuming it was part of the show, she ignored it.
When she walked past again few hours later, she heard "Uh no Big C. An impression is when you do an imitation of a real famous person"  The thing is, it was 10pm. The main show has been off for a while. Thinking it was a TV having been left on, she looked inside and saw Crusty positioned on the wall, looking like he had always been there.
Now, this particular store had the three stage setup, and was a Showbiz Pizza originally, rather than a Pizza Time Theater, so there was no way the store could've had the Portrait show. Somehow, Emily had heard of Crusty but had never seen him. She guessed he was just some prototype character they were testing and ignored him.
Now, you may just be passing these off as people randomly seeing ghosts, however, there is a dark side to this. Brian Stackhouse was arrested a week after his sighting of Crusty for attempting to murder his manager with a bat, shouting "Have a ball, Mr. Jenkins!" and Emily Williams attempted to burn down her Chuck E. Cheese's a few days later, saying "You better make him a star Big C". 
Both Brian and Emily pleaded not guilty and tried to blame Crusty the Cat in court, to no avail. 
This was investigated, but ruled as a freak coincidence, simply passed off seeing as Crusty was nothing more than a defunct Pizza mascot.
This brings us to 2017, when I decided to spend a few minutes at the local Goodwill after my shift at Chuck E. Cheese's where I worked as a busboy. After spending a few minutes browsing old movies,  something caught my eye.
It was a large black cat animatronic wearing a Swingers jersey and holding a cardboard baseball bat. A small nameplate attached to the cat's base read 'Crusty'. When I walked over, I saw the animatronics eyes following me as I approached. Just left, right, left. 
This was unsettling, but I figured someone had plugged the robot in to test it. I reached around the back of the figure, but realized it didn't even have a plug. I went to find the manager to ask how much for the animatronic, when I heard a voice come over the PA:
"Hey Crusty what're ya doing out there all alone?!"
I whirled around to see the Crusty bot, alert and seemingly watching me. "Me? Big C I was staring at our friend!"
I looked around to see if anyone else could see this, but nobody seemed to take any notice. I didn't know how nobody could notice, since after all an animatronic cat coming to life wasn't something you can ignore. 
At that moment, I heard a voice in my head, which I could instantly tell was Crusty. "And remember, always have a ball!"
Suddenly the robot went limp and lifeless again. I ran to get an employee, but found the animatronic missing upon returning. 
"It-it was here!" I stammered. 
"Kid, I think I would've noticed a 5 foot cat in here"
Upon arriving home, I did some research and found the stories of Brian and Emily. I haven't gone insane like they did, so maybe whatever Crusty does to a person didn't effect me. But I still must warn you, next time you go to a Chuck E. Cheese's, beware. Crusty could be nearby.  
Category:Ghosts
Category:Beings