Fazbear Frights: Step Closer

**Step Closer** is the fourth book of the newest book series of the franchise: *Fazbear's Fright*. Written by Andrea Waggener, Kelly Parra and Elley Cooper with Scott Cawthon, published on July 7, 2020.

## Summary

***Five Nights at Freddy's fans won't want to miss this pulse-pounding collection of three novella-length tales that will keep even the bravest FNAF player up at night...***

Isolation can open up a void. Pete lashes out at his younger brother in the wake of his parents' divorce, falling prey to a gruesome curse. Kasey struggles with the lengths she'll go to survive on the streets after stealing a pair of unusual novelty glasses. Samantha and her sister, Susie, struggle to exist side by side, desperate to connect after a horrific tragedy. But in the grim world of Five Nights at Freddy's, empty feelings often attract hungry monsters...

In this fourth volume, *Five Nights at Freddy's* creator Scott Cawthon spins three sinister novella-length stories from different corners of his series' canon, featuring cover art from fan-favorite artist LadyFiszi.

Readers beware: This collection of terrifying tales is enough to unsettle even the most hardened *Five Nights at Freddy's* fans.

## Plot

### *Step Closer*

Pete is forced to babysit his younger brother, Chuck after their parents' divorce. Feeling annoyed that he can’t join his friends (and specifically his crush Maria) to hang out, he decides to punish Chuck at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza by taking him to the parts and service room where Foxy the Pirate is being kept, as Chuck is scared of Foxy. Chuck escapes as Pete tries to start up Foxy, and Pete's shirt gets caught on a nail when he tries to catch him. The curtains open and Foxy begins to sing a lyric over and over about how "You can be a pirate, but first, you have to lose and eye and an aaaaaarrrrrrrrm". Pete manages to escape, and the brothers return home, where their mom shows them brochures about being organ donors. Pete becomes unnerved upon reading that eyes can be donated and lashes out at his mom and Chuck.

The next day, Pete becomes sick but still goes to school. While dissecting frogs in science class, Pete’s lab partner taunts him by poking the frog’s eye and cutting off an arm with the scalpel, and later flings the scalpel after Pete accidentally kicks him. Pete is able to knock the scalpel away before it hits his eye. After school Pete goes to a butcher shop to pick up an order for his mom, and after going behind the counter his hand is almost hit by a falling knife. The butcher warns him to stay away from sharp tools. After getting home Chuck tells Pete that their mom completed the paperwork for all three of them to be organ donors, which angers Pete further as he had declined it. The next day, Pete's arm is injured on the way to school when a sawblade breaks loose from a construction site. Pete’s mom calls his dad who takes him fishing on a lake, where he reveals that he thinks Pete is self-harming to cope with the divorce. Pete is then snagged with another fisher’s hook that was caught on the wind, getting very close to his eye. Pete tells Chuck about his previous close calls and that day’s “freak accidents”. Thinking that this pattern might have started with the brothers’ encounter with Foxy, Chuck asks what happened after he escaped the parts and service room, and after hearing what Foxy’s song was about insists that Foxy is causing the accidents and Pete needs to confront him again, but Pete refuses to believe it. Pete later has a nightmare in which Foxy attacks him in his bed, tearing out his eye with his hook and crushing his arm under his foot.

The next day is the start of Homecoming week at Pete’s high school, and he is terrified to see it is pirate themed. At the carnival held that day, Pete gets angry at Maria when she pranks him with a hand-sized finger trap, and then is forced into a mirror maze by a crowd of kids. Here he encounters a pirate with a fox’s face, but escapes after punching it. Panicking, he runs through a dart throwing game where a dart hits him next to his eye, and then meets a green parrot that talks about losing an eye and arm. He attacks the bird but is pulled away by a teacher, to whom Pete starts ranting about his situation before running off, intending to confront Foxy at Freddy Fazbear’s. He calls Chuck and leaves a voicemail saying that he believes him now and to meet at Freddy’s, before Pete is hit by a truck. Chuck ditches school and runs to Freddy’s only to be called by his dad needing to pick him up. They go to the scene of the accident where Mom already is, and are able to see Pete, dead, before he is taken away in a body bag.

At the morgue, Pete is still able to see and hear despite being dead and can only watch as two coroners harvest his eyes and arm for a transplant. A few weeks later, Chuck decides to go to Freddy’s to see Foxy and confront him on Pete’s behalf, but nothing happens when he tries to start up Foxy’s stage.

### *Dance With Me*

Kasey, a thief, steals a woman’s purse outside Circus Baby’s Pizza World, and along with her wallet and a child’s goodie bag, finds some cardboard glasses that let her see Ballora dancing, although her partners Jake and AJ see nothing. Kasey notices Ballora gets closer every time she wears the glasses, and Jake throws them away, although her paranoia that Ballora will follow her invisibly causes Kasey to retrieve them.

Kasey decides to move to another city to try to escape Ballora, at the bus stop she meets an old lady who advises her that when people run away from their problems, the problems usually end up following. In Memphis Kasey gets a job bussing and washing dishes at a diner, but she can’t resist stealing tips from Brenda the waitress and ends up moving to Nashville when Brenda catches on and reports her to Jimmy the manager, as well as having a dream in which Ballora dances in front of banners calling Kacey a thief and a liar.

In Nashville, she tries to steal a dress as she needs it and new shoes for a job interview but can’t afford them both, but she is caught and sees swirling leaves outside the store, realizing that it’s Ballora. Mrs. Templeton, a regular at the store, pays for the dress, telling Kasey to do a good deed for someone else. Seeing Ballora closer than ever in the glasses, Kasey begs her to let her go to the interview and then she will right her wrongs. She then returns the wallet to the woman she stole it from, Sarah Avery, and promises to pay back all the money incrementally as she works. Sarah forgives her and invites her inside, where she gives the glasses back to Sarah’s daughter Isabella, who they had originally belonged to. Isabella sees Ballora in the glasses and begins to dance with her.

### *Coming Home*

One year ago, a young girl named Susie was lured away and murdered. Susie's tragic death broke her family apart, with her dad leaving, her mom drugging herself and her sister, Samantha left in constant grief. By day, Susie's spirit lingers throughout her house, with Samantha and her mother unable to see her, but by night, Chica comes to the house every night at midnight to snatch Susie's soul away.

Susie is aware that her time is limited, and that she only has two days left before all the leaves from a nearby tree outside her front yard fall, and she has to leave forever. Susie is able to communicate with Samantha through drawings. Samantha must find Gretchen, a special doll that the two sisters used to fight over. Susie had hidden it somewhere secret before her death. On the final night, and with Chica hunting her down, Samantha is able to find the doll, allowing Susie's soul to be set free, and appear before Samantha one last time. The two sisters say their final goodbyes and Samantha gains closure. Susie holds Chica's hand as they both depart into the unknown.

### *Epilogue*

Two young boys, Jake and Andrew, find themselves trapped in a metal object within a garbage truck. Both boys are dead, with both of their souls inhabiting the metal endoskeleton of The Stitchwraith. Jake can see, but Andrew can't. Jake nor Andrew can barely remember anything, but Andrew remembers wanting to hurt someone who hurt him. Andrew had attached himself to this person's soul to ensure he could never die, even when several people tried to kill him.

Eventually, Andrew, and the person his soul was attached to, somehow ended up in the factory, with his soul transferring to the broken animatronic dog, Fetch. Back in the present, the truck opens, and one of the employees grabs the endoskeleton. Jake reaches out for him, but inadvertently kills him, with his body withering and black tears streaking down his eyes. Andrew wanted to scare people, giving them a little zap. Jake suspects that there is a third entity with them that's transferring Andrew's thoughts into an infection. Jake decides to search for all the things Andrew had infected.

## Characters

### Humans

#### Step Closer

* Dinglewood Family
	+ Bill Dinglewood
	+ Audrey Dinglewood
	+ Pete Dinglewood
	+ Chuck Dinglewood
* Rodriguez Family
	+ Maria Rodriguez
	+ Maria's Sister
* Duncan Thompson
* Mr. Watson
* Mr. Sanchez
* Mr. Berk
* Leather Jacket Guy
* Unnamed Butcher
* Unnamed Construction Worker
* Unnamed Suited Man
* Unnamed Surgeons

#### Dance With Me

* Kasey
* Jack
* AJ
* Avery Family
	+ Sarah Avery
	+ Isabella Avery
	+ Sarah's Son
* Unnamed Elderly Lady
* Jimmy
* Brenda
* Unnamed Saleslady
* Helen
* Mrs. Templeton

#### Coming Home

* Susie's Family
	+ Samantha
	+ Susie
	+ Patricia
	+ Hayden
	+ Jeanie
* William Afton
* Drew
* Rhonda
* Chloe

#### Epilogue

* Andrew
* Jake
* Man in Room 1280
* Flynn

### Classic Animatronics

* Foxy the Pirate
* Chica the Chicken

### Funtime Animatronics

* Ballora the Ballerina
* Circus Baby

## Locations

### Step Closer

* Freddy Fazbear's Pizza
* W. H. Jameson Middle School
* North Hillside High School

### Dance with Me

* Circus Baby's Pizza World
* Royal Café
* Gas 'n Go
* Burger Barn
* Famous Fried Chicken
* Best Choice Inn
* Music City Motel
* Unique Fashions
* All-Mart

## Trivia

### Step Closer

* At the end, Chuck goes back to Freddy's and tries to activate Foxy to fight the curse, but Foxy remains inactive. It is implied that the curse Pete got only happens to one person.

### Dance with Me

* Since Ballora is not directly present in the story, she can be seen in the glasses. It is implied that the glasses seem to be connected with an illusion disc from Twisted Ones and Fourth Closet, making it seem that Ballora is there even though she is not.
	+ Ballora seems to also have a connection with Glitchtrap, as in the story, every time Kasey wears the glasses, Ballora comes closer to her, eventually when she reached the final stage, she would take over the body. This is similar to Glitchtrap, hence due to the fact that in *Help Wanted*, Glitchtrap comes closer to Vanessa every time, eventually taking possession over her body to revive himself.
* This is the third story with an ambiguous ending that's left up to interpretation. The other two are *Count the Ways* and *Fetch*.

### Coming Home

* As explored throughout the story, Susie who possessed Chica, has a supernatural ability to split into two ego entities. One being agony and the other being peaceful. Susie's soul is her normal peaceful ego, whereas for Chica, she is Susie's agony ego. The process of splitting into two soul entities is similar to Golden Freddy, however this may have a connection to do with how alter egos and how ghosts have special powers to control their spiritual entities.
* This story tells about Susie, one of the five children from the missing children incident.
	+ This story marks the third time, one of the killed children receive a backstory with the other two being Charlotte Emily and Cassidy, the spirits who are possess The Marionette and Golden Freddy.
* Susie's killer is mentioned in the story. It is also mentioned that he killed other children on the day he killed Susie. Although he isn't named, he is most likely William Afton.
* Unlike Susie's game and novel counterpart, where she is depicted as having blonde hair and blue eyes, this version of her is depicted as having brown hair and brown eyes.
* This is the third story to have a happy, uplifting ending. The others being *Into the Pit* and *Out of Stock*.