By: Scott Cawthon, Andrea Waggener and Carly Anne West
“You’re an idiot,” said Isaac. “I know.”
Scott Cawthon, Fetch
*This post contains spoilers
Warning right off the top: The dog dies. Proceed how you see fit.
Overview:
Fetch: Greg has a curious mind. That’s probably what leads him to convincing his friends to break into a local abandoned pizza shop. It’s calling to him on a cosmic level and he aches to explore.
In the dusty and hastily abandoned restaurant, he finds an anamatronic dog named “Fetch”. The toy is not only grotesque but somehow is equipt with technology that wouldn’t have been available when the pizza shop closed their doors.
But Greg will soon realize that Fetch takes his role as mans best friend to a frightening new level.
Lonely Freddy: Alec can’t find common ground with his family. Not that he’s ever really tried. His sister Hazel seems to get everything she wants including the love of their parents.
Stuck at a familiar pizza parlor, Alec hatches a plan to expose his sister for the spoiled brat he believes her to be.
Will his sinister plan work or will he be the one learning a lesson?
Out of Stock: Oscar has never wanted anything more in his life. The Plushtrap Chaser, is the must have toy of the season. Due to unwanted responsibilities, he just misses out on his dream.
Fate seems to intervene and he takes an irresponsible opportunity to get what he wants.
But… something is very wrong. The toy doesn’t appear to work and has features that look off. Almost human.
My thoughts:
Weird thing to start off with but the first page being white lettering printed on a black background it super hard to read. I’m in my thirties, squinting to read is not my favorite thing.
Fetch:
I can relate to being a kid and wanting to go into an abandoned building. It’s probably the thrill of knowing that you shouldn’t be somewhere but you are causing any harm just exploring. The place I went to was an old school. The campus had several buildings and it looked as if they just picked up and left one day. However, I wasn’t afraid of running into some sort of vengeful spirit, I was more concerned with finding another human lurking in the shadows, waiting for someone to come in. Panicking because you hadn’t let anyone know where you are because you didn’t want to get into trouble.
In terms of the plot, I had a hard time suspending reality to believe that there are no stories in the town about the abandoned pizza place. Surely, there is some type of lore around it or even news stories explaining the closure and why you shouldn’t go there. The same was true for the first entry in the series Five Nights at Freddy’s: Fazbear Frights #1: Into the Pit. I know every urban legend and supposedly haunted house in my town. Seems unrealistic that no one has any knowledge about the place ahead of time.
What I gathered from the story, and honestly I’m not entirely sure I completely understand the mechanics of it all, is that Greg manifested Fetch as a REG (random event generator). In that case there is nothing really sinister about the restaurant at all. Fetch is just a conduit to Greg’s thoughts and desires. He could have channeled into anything especially because he had been actively practicing that exact thing.
I wish it was a little less ambiguous but from reading a few of these stories, I think the point it to leave it opened ended and ominous.
For example, in the ending who was wrapped up in the bloody sheet?
I guess it is safe to assume that it is Kimberly because he asked to see her but I wish there was some sort of clue pointing to the solution. Who’s to say that Fetch is limited to taking cues from just the phone and hasn’t evolved into reading feelings another way.
The ending is also somewhat problematic for me from a practical standpoint. Up until this point, Fetch has been limited to only what a dog could. How can he now wrap and body in a sheet behind a closed door?
No matter how hard I train my dog I don’t see him ever being capable of something like that. And thank god because that would be terrifying.
Fetch should still be limited in his capabilities as a dog just how the plants they mentioned earlier in the story, couldn’t do anything other than feel because they are stuck in soil.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this post-the dog dies. Not the murderous robotic dog but an actual living, breathing dog that belonged to someone. This is the exact thing that I feared when I read the title. I was thinking “Just don’t kill a dog” and sure enough not only does a dog die but its horribly mangled body is described all while the main character throws up. They tried to take away some sympathy for the dog being ferociously murdered by making him aggressive. No such thing as a bad dog, just bad owners. They should have been eviscerated and left on the front lawn.
Lonely Freddy:
I was not a huge fan of this story. Most of the series is about learning a lesson and becoming a better person but this has no moral. In fact, the main character Alec, realizes on his own that he needs to change is ways and is then punished when he decides to admit he has been a bad brother.
The poor kid was trying to work through his feelings in a therapeutic way that adults told him was safe and he ended up regretting that decision. He didn’t deserve to be punished by Lonely Freddy to learn the error of his ways. He was already going to apologize to his family because he realized that he had hurt his sister and it was the biggest regret of his young life. There is nothing to learn from this story because honestly, if he hadn’t regretted his actions and actually felt empathy for others, he wouldn’t have been doomed.
It’s so awful that a lonely child who feels unloved deserves to be entombed in a bear plushie. That’s so sad and heartbreaking that the only thing that might bring a child comfort is a predator waiting in disguise. No one will miss the kids who have no friends.
A perfect target. That’s just icky. I don’t like that one bit.
Out of Stock:
I was also let down by this story.
There was a lot of buildup to a very short amount of the actual tension and fear. The entire subplot of him going to the nursing home to help his mom, could have been complexity cut out and he could have been late to get the Plushtrap Chaser just because of school.
Also, his mom is violating HIPPA with zero regard. You can’t tell your family members about residents in a long term care facility. Most people I know use initials or code names when talking where they think they might be overheard. Maybe because he volunteers there he is allowed to know some things but even that is problematic.
The story does touch on nostalgia of having to go to a store to get the newest toy before they sold out. I remember having to have certain toys and being so excited before playing with them for a week and then moving on to something else.
It is odd though that the toy that is all the rage only works in the dark. What is the point of that exactly? That’s a literal nightmare to hear it roaming around your room. Nothing was more terrifying growing up than hearing your Furby go off randomly in the middle of the night.
Regardless of the expected problems, I think this is the first story in the anthology that actually has a happy ending for the child. It does leave some ambiguity in the epilogue but doesn’t appear to have any impending danger for the main characters. more that it will move on to something else.
Overall,
Each story is less interesting than the one before. The first book in the series was much stronger but the overall theme and world building is still interesting. I’m invested in learning about the Five Night’s at Freddy’s universe so it was still enjoyable but not necessary to read.
Rating: 2/5 stars
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