In hindsight, maybe I should’ve seen the warning signs earlier. As I write this, it’s three in the morning. I’m sitting alone, cross legged on a swivel chair in the corner of a very poorly air conditioned break room, and I happened to find this notebook shoved inside a file cabinet. This was my first night on the job, and maybe it’s the shock wearing off but I’m starting to realize that I’m stuck here, and I don’t think I can leave if I want to. So, I’m writing everything down, partly to keep myself sane, partly to have some sort of testimony in case something happens to me before morning. Let me back up for a minute. The body on the table is starting to smell and I only have so much time before Mel comes back.
My name is Rory. About a year ago, after working my ass off for four years straight, I finally graduated from university. Had to take an extra semester to do it but so does everybody nowadays. It was one of the best days of my life. I partied all night with my frat, had an unholy number of drinks, and ended up blacking out atop a pool table of all things. I still get nauseous thinking about it. Great time. Anyways, the next morning, I woke up half naked and hungover in my roommate’s bathtub to find a text on my phone. It was my girlfriend, and she was breaking up with me. No real explanation, just a text. Cry-vomiting in my roommate’s toilet wasn’t how I wanted to start my post-graduate existence but sometimes that’s life.
I moved back in with my parents shortly after to look for a job. My sister had just landed a scholarship to her dream college around that same time pursuing biomedical engineering. I’m proud of her, really, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel a hint of jealousy about the whole thing. Most of that summer I was lounged on the couch, getting high behind my Mom’s back, and scrolling through an inbox full of rejected job applications. My dad gave me “the talk” about putting together a plan and sticking to it, using my degree and all, but you try getting a job with an english degree. I dare you. I tried the whole “fresh out of college/fresh meat for the grinder” thing, but turns out graduation was the starting gun for the job olympics. Everybody else had already crossed the finish line while I was still trying to tie my shoes. Got about halfway through a job interview with a decent-sized startup company before being told I “wasn’t what they were looking for.” By the end of May, I could recite that in my sleep.
So for about a year, I carried on like that, which is just as embarrassing to read as it is for me to write down I’m sure. I worked a couple of temp jobs in the meantime. Pizza driver, cafe barista, warehouse worker, but none of it really lasted. I blew through a few jobs in a short time period, either getting fired or just quitting on my own. Red flag, I know, but none of it really “clicked” with me, if that makes sense. I’d drive home from an eight hour shift, turn off my engine, and think “why am I doing this?” Quarter life crisis? You tell me. Either way, existentialism was setting in fast and I was in dire need of some fresh air, and no I was not going to join the army, much to my dad’s chagrin.
So one night, I’m sitting alone in my old room, cross legged on my bed, in the dark, scrolling through job listings for the umpteenth time that day. At this point, I’d expanded the search area far enough that commuting was no longer an option. Just as I was about to call it a night and slam the lid closed, I noticed an inbox notification pop up in the top right corner of my screen. I clicked it, expecting some crypto scam, but instead I got this email:
From: [email protected]
Mr. Hawkins,
I hope this email finds you well. Your resume came across my desk today, and I wanted to reach out personally to offer you a position working for one of our subsidiary companies. It’s a security guard position at one of our many esteemed amusement parks. If you are interested and would like more information, please call me at the following number: [phone number redacted because obviously]. We’re sure you’d fit right in. Signed, Management, Cardinal Lake Amusement Park.
The email was sketchy. I knew it was sketchy. In the moment though, I didn’t care. I was practically jumping for joy like a kid on Christmas morning. Finally, some actual progress. I called the number the next day, scheduled a phone interview, and before I knew it, after an exhaustive round of questioning, I had the job. Simple as that.
I’d never heard of Cardinal Lake before. I’m sure somebody reading this has seen a few ads or maybe a billboard somewhere, but there wasn’t much talk about it online during my initial searches. I found a pretty modest tourism site, evidently designed by someone whose idea of web design is still trapped in the nineties. There were a few pretty photos of the lake itself, some mom-and-pop shops, the town hall, and then the amusement park. The park itself took up most of the site. I got the impression that this was the main thing they were known for, and to their credit, it looked fun. It was big, too, with lots of slides, good food, and even on site hotels for the out-of-towners. I was pleasantly surprised.
In hindsight, I probably should have been more skeptical. My Dad was just happy I was getting out of the house and doing something with my life. “Mall cop extraordinaire,” he joked (it feels weird having your dad ruffle your hair at 23), but Mom was a bit more skeptical. “You’ll be so far from home,” she told me, “are you sure you want to work the night shift? Not many opportunities for friends there.” I love my Mom to death, but at the time, I couldn’t care less. I was seeing stars. I saw a decent paycheck and relocation assistance, and I was sold. No more college parties, no more moping around the house. This job offered me something I needed more than anything: a fresh slate.
So a month later I packed my car, said my goodbyes, and there I was on a road trip to work a night guard position at not-Six Flags. A couple of my friends let me know how insane that sounded, but in my eyes, I could use a change of pace. I didn’t want familiarity anymore, I needed something new, and a cozy lakeside town was better than nothing. It took me three days, and a flat tire, but I made it. Before long, I could see a wooden “Welcome to Graycott” sign peek out at me from the trees. All the freedom I could ever want.
So I got into town around mid-afternoon and immediately pulled into the first restaurant I saw, a diner with a neon sign reading “The Brick-a-brack.” It wasn’t a very big building. A little bell signaled my entrance through a creaky wooden door and I was suddenly transported back to 1955. Checkered floors, red leather booths, and a bar right up front. There was an honest to god jukebox in the corner, although it was one of the newer ones with the electronic screens. There was only one guy behind the bar.
“Hello hello,” the man waved me over. “What can I do for you?” He was taller than me, wearing a black apron and a dark red polo shirt. His nametag read “Fred.”
“Uh hi, just uh,” I glanced at the menu for all of two seconds. “Grilled cheese and fries?”
“Coming up.” Fred disappeared into the back, leaving me to my thoughts. I looked around, and noticed I’d turned a few heads. There weren’t a whole lot of people in the diner, but the ones who were there made no point of hiding their glares. Mostly old folks, although one lady was trying in vain to keep her kids from looking at me. It’s not like I stood out too much. It was the end of May, so I’d settled on a Sublime shirt and some cargo shorts. How was that weird? To ignore the glares, I focused on the back wall, behind the bar. There was a board there with ads for local businesses, phone numbers and the like. However, there were an alarming number of missing persons flyers. Even there, I couldn’t escape the stares. “And here you go.”
I had jumped a little when Fred returned with my order. “Thanks.”
“Mhm.” It took me a minute to realize he wasn’t walking away. “So, passing through?”
“Uh no actually.” I spoke around a mouthful of bread. “I’m new in town.”
“Oh wow. We don’t get a lot of newcomers around here. What brings you to Graycott?”
“Work. I got a job at that amusement park by the lake?”
“Cardinal Lake, huh?” The guy threw back his head and laughed. Like, the full throated kind that filled the diner, cementing my status as the titular elephant in the room. I felt eyes on me again. He leaned in close, “so, you hear it’s haunted?”
“Haha,” I chuckled, until I realized he was serious. “Wait, haunted? What do you mean?”
“Cursed.” I heard someone new off to my right, an old man in one of the booths, sitting across from his very embarrassed wife. He didn’t find the prospect nearly as funny as Fred. “That park and people like you have been a blight on this town for fifty damn years.”
“Honey, no.” His wife grabbed his arm, but the old guy pulled away.
Fred told the guy off, and he went back to his omelette. “Sorry about that,” he said.
“Is everybody in town this xenophobic?”
“No, no. There’s just a lot of bad blood between some of the locals and the park. Brings in a lot of tourists in the summers, but we’re a small town. They practically outnumber us.”
I could kind of understand that. I too had a phase of making fun of the incoming freshman in school, even though they could probably gang up and kick the shit out of me if they really wanted to. “So, what’s this about the place being haunted?”
“Oh boy, you really didn’t do your research, did you?” I apparently did not. “Lake’s haunted, or so they say. A lot of drownings, people gone missing, supposedly there’s ghosts out on that lake. I ain’t never seen a thing out there. Oh, and get this, there’s the Gill Man.”
“You’re kidding.”
“‘Gill Man’s gonna get ya.’ It’s just the park’s mascot. Part man, part fish, but we use it as a piece of lore to freak out the tourists a bit. All in good fun. Don’t stress about it.”The door bell dinged, and a couple walked in, drawing Fred’s attention to the other end of the bar, leaving me to quietly finish my lunch.
I did a quick Google search on my phone, and the guy wasn’t kidding. It took a bit of scrolling but soon I found a few ghost hunting blogs with royalty free fonts with headlines like “The Curse of Cardinal Lake.” Scrolling through them gave me a good laugh. Plenty of the images shown were just black and white photos waterslides made to look ominous. Something that caught my eye was the park mascot. It was a Creature from the Black Lagoon pastiche in the style of a 1930s rubberhose cartoon. Googly eyes and a big stupid grin full of blunted teeth with the name “Gill Man Greg.” More than anything, it looked goofy, perfect fodder for bumper stickers or novelty t-shirts. I left the diner soon after when I saw the old man was giving me the stink eye again. I made no point in hiding my contempt.
Ninety percent of my communications with management were done through email. The only time I heard a human voice was my interview over the phone, but I remember them saying I’d receive a box in the mail. Sure enough, when I arrived at my new apartment, I found a medium sized cardboard box, blood red in color, sitting outside my door. I took it inside, cut it open, and found my uniform: standard gray longsleeve button-up, black pants, a belt, boots, a cap, and some other items near the bottom. Just a flashlight and a small handbook. I did find a note though, a small slip of paper that read “You start 9 PM tomorrow. Good luck. Signed, Management.” I crumbled the note and tossed it in a bin. I didn’t know why they were being so coy with me, but I already had the information I needed. For now, I’d been driving eight hours and I just wanted to fall asleep.
I woke up the next day at the brink of sunset. Lazily, I slapped my phone screen to turn off the alarm I’d set (I Ran So Far Away by A Flock of Seagulls if anyone cares) and sat up in bed, blinking the drowsiness from my eyes. What little light I had came from the leftover sunlight trickling in through the blinds above my twin size mattress, no bedframe. I hadn’t bothered to unpack my boxes yet, opting to leave them strewn about my tiny bedroom. I had, however, laid out the uniform I’d retrieved from my mailbox on a set of boxes. Showered, shaved, threw on my uniform and ran out to my car, flipping down the face mirror to check myself. “Don’t fuck this up.” How hard could that be?
Twenty five minutes later, I found myself alone in the employee parking lot overlooking Cardinal Lake Amusement Park. Stepping out of the car, a warm breeze signaled the last rays of sunlight to disappear beyond the treetops which surrounded The lot was empty, aside from me of course. Granted, I was about fifteen minutes early, but I didn’t think I’d be the first one to show up. Didn’t matter, I’d figure it out I thought.
The employee lot was disconnected from the regular guest lot, which was on the other side of the park. In other words, I wasn’t going in through the normal entrance. The path that led me to the park was a beaten dirt trail leading down a small hill down towards the lake itself. I made myself jump, seeing what looked like a tall figure gesturing from the other side of the parking lot. Upon closer inspection, it was a wooden cutout of Gill Man Greg, dressed in a uniform of his own, holding a sign reading “Valued Employees This Way!” and pointing further down the trail. I sighed, and kept moving.
The trail wasn’t long, but amid the trees I had to use a flashlight to avoid the roots and sharp rocks. I’m not exactly an outdoorsman. My idea of camping involves an AirBNB and a cooler of beer. The night was warm, only getting more humid as I approached the lake. How cheap was this place to where they couldn’t even pave the employee entrance properly? By the time the hill leveled off and I reached a chainlink fence gate, I could feel sweat down my back.
The gate was chained shut with a large padlock. I tried skipping the gate all together when I stuck my boot in the gate to climb over, but quickly removed it upon seeing a solid foot of barbed wire placed at the top. This place really did mean business when it came to security. Begrudgingly, I undid the padlock and was inside the park for the first time.
It’s a weird sensation, walking around somewhere at night that during the day should’ve been filled with people. The employee gate spat me out near the entrance of the park. To my right was the back of a massive archway over what I’d later learn was called “Main Street”, displaying the park’s name in grandiose red letters, with the smiling face of Gill Man Greg peaking out from the top. To my left was the rest of main street, which was really just an asphalt road that kept going for around five hundred feet before forking off in two directions, lined with gift shops and fake palm trees on either side.
Smack dab at the end of the fork was a wide wave pool labeled “Seaweed Cove” formed from blue concrete. I walked over to the first row of reclining beach chairs, shining my light over the still waters. With the machine off and no sunshine, the waters were dark. It creeped me out. I felt too exposed. I looked off to my left and found a stand showing the park’s layout. There was a pocket with multiple folded paper maps. I took one and clutched it in my hand as I kept going down the path.
Ever get the feeling you’re being watched? Shining my light on the map, I navigated my way deeper into the park to an area labeled “The Fun Zone.” The Fun Zone, as it turned out, was the unimaginatively named section where most of the park’s smaller, kiddie water slides were. Splashpads ahoy. It was a water themed playground; lots of buckets, mounted water turrets, those mushroom things you can stand under, but without the water running, it was an empty art exhibition. Why the designers decided to place the employee break room here I didn’t know. Maybe it was to mitigate angry parent behavior before it started. Either way, I slid my key card in, heard a confirmatory beep, and shut the door behind me.
I had to fumble with a light switch by the door. When I flicked it up, one singular, buzzing bulb turned on in the middle of the room, the very same bulb that is driving me crazy as I write this. The break room was somehow both nice and pathetic at the same time. The first thing I noticed, aside from the flimsy fold out table in the middle of the room, was a series of desktop monitors stacked one on top of the other on the right side of the room. Six CRT monitors, three stacked on top of the other. They looked thirty years out of date, but for a theme park that started in the seventies, I’m surprised they tried.
On the right side was something far more concerning. The details were hidden by the terrible lighting but I saw just enough to get a good idea of what it was. There was a desk lamp perched on a file cabinet in the corner. I walked over to it, pulled the cord, and the wall was lit up, revealing what I suspected.
“Holy shit.”
It was a corkboard, a big one; a giant collage of papers, notes, photographs, drawings, and more, layered on top of each other and connected by I shit you not-red string. Somebody had put a lot of time and effort into building this. I leaned in closer, taking it in. The missing persons posters caught my eye first. Thirteen of them in total, but I got the feeling there were plenty more than just thirteen. Aerial maps of the lake had been annotated, certain areas circled or crossed out in marker. The photographs were just as strange, complete with sticky notes in a handwriting I could hardly decipher. Plenty of them I noticed were taken from those weird ghost hunting sites, but a few were original, evidently taken from a shaky phone camera. Blurred images of the park, images carved on rocks, all presented on printer paper tacked to the board. Right in the middle though was the centerpiece, one last piece of scrap paper where most of the disparate threads came together. It was a corporate logo, the logo plastered on the cap I was wearing: Mercer Corp.
What the hell did I get myself into?
I was interrupted mid-thought by a blast of static from my left which nearly scared me half to death. Against the same wall I’d entered the room through was a large workbench, the kind you’d find in a mechanic’s workshop. To the right of that was a set of tall lockers. Right on top of the workbench was a charging port housing seven black handheld radios. When I walked over, I noticed there should’ve been eight, but one was taken. One of the radios had been left on: the source of the static.
Curious, I removed the small box from its cradle, and it burst to life again in my hand. It was hazy, but there was a voice on the other end. “Anybody else here? I got a situation out here.”
Full disclosure, I hadn’t bothered to read the handbook before coming in, so with no idea what else to do, I pressed down on the talk button. “Hi, I’m here?”
“Wait, who is this? How’d you get onto this line? Are you new?”
“Uh yeah, I’m the new night guard. My name’s Rory. This is my first night.”
There was a lot of static on the other end for a moment. This wasn’t how I envisioned meeting my coworker. I knew two things about them so far: it was a female voice, and they sounded very, very concerned,
“Okay. Kid? I need you to do me a favor, okay? See a little box mounted on the wall in front of you?”
I did. It was a punch card machine. “Yeah?”
“Great. Write your name on a time card, and clock in.”
I did as I was told, punching my card. “Now what?”
“There’s a set of lockers on your right. Open the one at eye level. Take what you find inside.”
I reached out, lifted the latch on the locker and felt a wave of panic wash over me.
“This is a handgun!”
“Yes it is. Your job right now is to sit there, not move, and keep that thing on you at all times. I’m really busy right now. All you have to do is stay put in that room. Don’t. Move. When I’m done, I’m coming back to the breakroom, and I can fill you in on everything then. Just don’t leave that room. Got it?”
“Uh…” I was still looking at the gun in my hand. Was this a prank? “Sure?”
“Good enough for me. I have to go. Stay put!” The radio static died, and I was left, literally and figuratively, in the dark. Some time passed. I thought about examining the corkboard more closely, but all it did for me was freak me out more. According to the wall clock, I’d been spinning in my chair for all of twenty minutes. Not a peep from the walkie talkie. I did try calling back a few times, but no dice. At some point, I remembered what I’d smuggled in my pocket. I figured I’d use it on my break, but hell, it’s not like I had anything better to do.
I stood outside the breakroom under a small awning and took a hit from my cart, blowing ghosts into the humid night air. The wildlife had begun their songs by now, a chorus of crickets, cicadas, and bullfrogs emanating from the lake. The buzz of THC radiated through me, soothing my nerves. Yeah, the night had gotten off to a weird start, but it could always get better. I took a few steps out from under the breakroom’s shadow and looked out on the lake. In the distance, across the pond, I could see two lights slowly making its way around the shore. They looked too small for a regular car. Maybe a golf cart? Maybe this was my mysterious coworker, doing whatever task that was so important they left me to sit in the breakroom for an obnoxious amount of time. I got to smoke at least. Silver linings.
Suddenly, there was a new noise. I turned my head. It was a loud, electronic buzzing noise, like a generator starting up. I could see it was coming from a set of larger waterslides, on the other end of the park. That wouldn’t be too weird on its own, but as I watched, a set of string lights at the top of a slide lit up. Why would the light be on?;’l1
“The hell?” Curious, I walked back inside, moving towards the set of CRT monitors. It took me a minute, but I figured out how to turn it on. The computer powered on. Each monitor displayed a grainy, black and white view of different cameras around the park. Like I said, caveman technology. Using the arrow keys, I flipped through the cameras until I landed on one that seemed close to the area I was looking at. It showed the mouth of a slide opening out to a small pool area. Even through the grain, and in my inebriated state, I could tell something was wrong.
Someone, somehow, had turned on the water, a small flood spewing out from within the dark slide. How did that even happen? “Hey,” I called into the radio, “I see something on the cameras? Someone’s turned on one of the slides. Was that you?” I waited, but still, no response. All I got in return was static fuzz. I looked back at the screen, and nothing had changed. Screw it, I thought. I’m a security guard. So I was told to stay in the security room. That was nearly an hour ago. I could deal with this one thing, and be back in the room before anyone would notice. Armed with the map, and the gun which I’d carefully stuffed into the back of my pants, I left the safety of the breakroom and headed for the slides.
I swished my flashlight back and forth over the path. My feelings of being watched hadn’t gone away. If anything, the cart had turned against me; I was more anxious than before, trying to push the image of ghosts and curses out of my head. The slides didn’t help. Getting closer to the source of the engine noise, I was coming onto an area of the park called “Big Wave Bay.” As it turned out, the Bay was an area aimed at older kids and adults. The slides now loomed above, massive blue and orange tubes snaking and curling and looping over me. Foodstands and merch shops had their windows shuddered. Stacks of inner-tubes sat untouched next to vacant waterways or staircases that’d lead off higher into the . It was a ghost town, and it would’ve been peaceful, if not for that grating engine sound.
It took me twenty minutes on foot to reach Big Wave Bay. The slide I was looking for happened to be the tallest in the park: “Frostbite Falls.” One giant tower stretching into the sky with a single, cyan tube plunging at a near vertical angle toward the ground below, flushing you out into a wide pool at the bottom. Try as I might, my flashlight couldn’t reach the tower’s peak, a shadowy box where you’d climb inside the tube. At first look, nothing seemed amiss, apart from the slide being turned on. Water was still pouring out of the darkened slide into an empty pool. I shined my light over the pool’s surface. It should’ve been obvious if someone was in the pool, but out in the open, alone at night, even while armed I felt off. Even with a hot wind blowing in from the lake, I felt goosebumps crawling up my arms, my neck. I needed to get out, turn off the water and chalk this whole thing up as some kind of technical fault. But I knew better. There was no doubt about it when I saw what when I rounded the other side of the pool. Somebody was here.
Wet, bare footprints shined back at me when my flashlight panned across the concrete. Three sets of them, moving in a group, emerging from a half-submerged ladder towards a staircase. I moved my flashlight to the metal stairs, and sure enough, on every step was another print, flight after flight extending to the very top of Frostbite Falls. I wondered, in that moment, if whoever was up there was looking down at me. Six unseen eyes, peering over the railing, just far enough that I couldn’t see them but they could absolutely see me. I wasn’t taking that.
“Hey!” I called out in my best drill sergeant voice, “I know you’re up there. Come down now, and you won’t be in trouble! Just get down here, now!” I didn’t get a response, and somehow that was worse than if I actually got a response. Those images from all those stupid ghost sites were coming back to me. I kept looking over my shoulder to the dark voids of the other slides around me. Something was going to come crawling out of one of them, I just knew it. Then, I jumped. The tube was shaking, vibrating the whole frame of the tower. Something was coming down Frostbite Falls.
My muscles seized up. Fight or flight kicked in and somehow my body gave up entirely. All I could do was point my light straight ahead, arms frozen. When the thing was finally spat out by the slide and skidded across the water… well I felt like a moron.
“Hell yeah, brother!” It was a guy. Literally a regular dude, maybe a high school graduate at the oldest. He was shirtless, wearing nothing but some swim trunks while awkwardly paddling to the other end of the pool to grab one of his sandals that’d come off in the slide. From above me, I could now hear the all-too familiar sounds of two jocks laughing at one another. The whole time, they hadn’t even acknowledged me.
“Hey! What do you think you’re doing here?”
Pool-guy looked up and I could get a look at his face now. Brown hair, white skin, a face I’d seen a hundred times at a hundred college functions. The only thing about him that seemed remarkable were his eyes. He had heterochromia: one blue, one yellow. “Bro,” he finally addressed me, a grin on his face, “come on, we aren’t hurting anybody! Just having some fun here.”
Some part of me had figured the title of security guard would’ve given me some air of authority. Like, if I were to tell someone who’d snuck into the park in the middle of the night for shits and giggles to leave, they’d just leave, you know? That was not the case. “You guys are trespassing. I’m telling you to leave. Right now.”
The tube started rumbling again, and not a second later the other two jokers came flying out of the slide and into the pool (only one person’s allowed at a time by the way). “Hey man, who’s this guy,” asked a longer haired joker to Pool-guy once he’d stopped chuckling to himself.
“Oh, he’s the security guard. He’s here to kick us out.”
“Oh, man, really? Come on, let us stay for just a little bit?”
“No!” I was yelling now, trying to be intimidating. “Get out!”
“Wait, wait wait,” Pool-guy lifted his hands, then pointed at me. “Your eyes are all red. Bro, are you high right now?”
“Huh?” I had completely forgotten that I’d hit my cart before coming out here. Now, it had suddenly materialized in my pocket again. “N-no, shut up!”
“Bro! You’re totally high right now. Come on, what do you have? Indica? Sativa? You got to share with us, man.”
This was going nowhere fast. “You know what? I’m shutting down the slide.”
That was immediately met with protest from the pool guys, but I wasn’t having it. This was a massive waste of time and I regretted ever coming out here. I power walked my way over to a small, brick sub-building a few feet from the main tower. Of course, the door was left ajar. However they’d managed to get into the room they weren’t very subtle about it. The room had no lights, I had to use my flashlight to navigate a maze of protruding pipes, chlorine filters, and extraneous valves. Halfway through said maze, the radio beeped.
“Hey! Kid! I’m in the breakroom, where the hell are you?”
It was then I realized how much time it’d been since I’d left the breakroom. I didn’t think it’d take this long. I tugged the radio off of my belt and questioned what I could even say at this point. I clicked the button without a plan. “Hi! Sorry, I’m not there right now. There was this situation with one of the slides and I went to look and-”
“Oh God, you’re not in the park, are you?”
My breath hitched. “Yeah, yeah I’m in the park.”
“You need to get back here now, kid. Right now! It’s not safe!” It wasn’t just anger in their voice. It was mixed in with annoyance, urgency, and above all, fear.
“Well, there were these teenagers and they broke into the park and they were going down one of the slides and-”
“There’s PEOPLE HERE? Where are you?”
The guard was so loud that I had to move the radio away from my face. I didn’t even realize what she’d said at first, it was so staticky. I’d already found and turned the correct wheel by then to shut off the water. For a place that reeked of mold, it was surprisingly well labeled. “Yes? I just went to turn off the water. I’m in the pumproom.”
“Jesus Christ, kid. I see them on the cameras. You need to get out, now!”
“Why? What’s out here that’s so dangerous that I need to be babysat?”
BANG!
I jumped. Something big had fallen onto the tin roof above my head. It was so loud, I assumed one of the teenage dirtbags had found a way to fling themselves on top of the building. Then, another bang. They were moving now. Slow, deliberate steps that caused the whole roof to reverberate. My radio fizzed back to life again.
“It’s above you. Hide.”
There was an awful, ear piercing hiss, like a steam engine run through TV static. The thing took another step. I . I crouched down low and shut off my flashlight, effectively blinding myself. Carefully I reached out to grab hold of one of the pipes, pulling myself under a set of them that arched above me, a metal ribcage. Almost immediately, my head collided with one of the small valves, and I grunted, clutching my scalp. It heard me.
The footsteps increased in speed, a rapid thud-thud-thud until I heard whatever it was leave the roof and land on the ground outside with another booming thud. In a blind panic, I pulled myself through the arch and onto the cold concrete floor of the pumproom, scooting around until my back hit another, larger pipe deep within the nest of metal and chemicals. I clapped a hand over my mouth. The door to the pumproom was creaking open. I could feel the thing’s size just from the noise it made. Heavy, labored breathing had entered the room, riddled with hissing, the sound of an entire snakepit packed into the doorway.
I was petrified, unable to think of anything else. Even then, I couldn’t resist trying to look, to see what this undoubtedly in-human thing was. Slowly, I peaked my head out from behind the pipe that was the closest thing to a safe haven I had in this room. Between the bars of metal I saw something I didn’t expect. A sole, swinging light, waggling back and forth in the darkness, small and pale blue in color. Another hiss, and I flung my head back again, staring dead ahead into the darkness of the pumproom, hoping against hope that it hadn’t seen me. I could hear it moving now. The footsteps were heavy, but the sounds were interladen with this dripping, like a faucet left half open. I held my breath, closed my eyes.
“Devin! Come on man, you’re not dating my sister, bro! Shut up!”
I never felt so grateful for entitled morons. The light-thing let out another steam-pipe hiss, and took off out the pumproom door and into the night. It left me there, paralyzed on the floor while I tried to regain my bearings. When the radio started up again, I nearly screamed.
“Get up and move. It left the building.”
I kept the small box in a white knuckle grip. “How do you know?”
“I told you. I’m on the cameras. You need to get out of there before it decides to come back.”
I got up, poked my head outside the pumproom door. Two of the jocks were still splashing around in the exit pool of Frostbite Falls, maybe fifty feet away, oblivious. To my left was the path back to the security room. The coast was clear. I got ten steps outside before I stopped. The radio turned on again.
“Why’d you stop?”
“Ugh,” I grunted, turning on my heel. I ran right back over to the base of the slide, yelling and waving my arms, shouting breathlessly. “Hey! You two need to get out of here! There’s a big monster thing!”
The two of them stopped and looked at me. It wasn’t judgement in their expressions. They were looking at me and then each other in a way that said “are you serious?”
“Monsters?” Pool-guy went first, the one with the different colored eyes. “Please, we’ve lived here our whole lives. All the curse junk is made up garbage for tourists. You really going to try that with us?”
“Fine! How about if you don’t leave, I call the police. Deal?”
Pool-guy’s buddy elbowed him. “Let’s just go. This dude’s annoying.”
It was then I realized something. “Wait, where’s the other one?”
“Oh, Eric? Yeah, he went back up to do the slide again. That was, until you turned off the water.” A silence fell among the three of us. Pool-guy called out towards the staircase. “Eric! Come down already! We’re getting out of here!”
“Shut up!” Eric’s voice came from the tower, up the staircase.
“Nah man, come on down. He’s threatening to call the cops!”
“My sister!” He called back again. The two jocks looked at each other.
“Huh?”
“My… sister!” Something was wrong. The voice didn’t sound right. Broken.
“Come on, man. This ain’t funny.” They each climbed up onto the concrete lip of the pool. Pulling themselves out of the water and staring up at the darkened stairs.
“My… sister, bro!”
I shined my light up the staircase, higher and higher. There was a dark silhouette on the first landing. Apprehensively, I shined my light upon it. To my relief, it was one of those “this tall to ride” signs. Gill Man Greg held out his scaly hand, informing all riders they needed to be at least forty eight inches tall.
“Shut… up! My… sister, bro!”
It appeared. A gross, webbed hand slapped the side of the friendly wooden cutout’s head, and then it emerged. The thing was huge, but hunched over, clawed hands held tight to its chest. It was covered head to toe in blue-ish green scales, a set of gills rounding out its midsection. Its face was hideous. A misshapen, oval head with bulging, blackened eyes, never blinking. Protruding from its forehead was a long appendage, ending in a pale-blue light. It’s mouth was a permanent scowl, overflowing with the needle teeth of a deep sea fish, each tooth tipped with red. On the sides of its head were fins which bristled and shook with each step it took on massive, webbed feet. It continued to emerge from the shadows, holding up a hand to shield its eyes from the light, revealing a long, shark-like tail that waved around defensively. It unhinged its jaw, tilted its head, and from deep within its throat came the words again.
“My… sister.”
In my hand, the radio lit up again. “Fucking run, kid!”
Chaos. The Gill Man-thing let out a screech, a howling cry that wasn’t of this world, shattered glass and rending metal all at once. The two jocks fled in different directions, screaming, one taking off towards the lake while another went deeper into the park. I bolted, blind terror and adrenaline taking hold, propelling me faster than I ever thought possible. I fled down the open footpath, and to my horror, I heard the sound of splashing. A stupid move, I know, but I looked over my shoulder. The thing had leapt from the top of the stairs all the way into the exit pool, and now it was hauling itself up onto the concrete, arms outstretched, and it stared at me. It stared at me with those vacant, black eyes, and I felt this bitter hatred in them, cutting right through me into my soul. It didn’t want to hurt me, it had to hurt me. It was desperate to hurt me, and it was coming right for me.
It felt like a dream; running from a monster while alone in an empty amusement park at night. I’d never run so fast in all my life. The path ahead was barred on either side by guard rails, waist height. I didn’t know what section I was in anymore. This area looked more like a carnival than a water park; merry-go-round, vomitron, pirate ship. I was caught in an intersection. The walkie talkie lit up in my hand again
“Take a left! Merry-go-round!”
There was a whole array of stanchions set up to funnel a crowd into the ride itself. Instead, I hopped over one of the guardrails, landing awkwardly onto the base of the merry-go-round. I pushed off with my foot, sliding across the slick wooden floor just far enough to avoid the maw of fangs that’d leapt after me, arms outstretched. It crashed into a horse instead, dislodging the body from the pole and tearing into it in a blind frenzy, raking its claws across the plastic animal’s sheen. I flipped over and got a running start, weaving through the rest of the horses on poles and out to the other side, continuing on the path.
“Construction site! Fence! Go!” The radio screeched.
“What fence?!” It didn’t take long for me to notice it. Past a chainlink fence lined with neon-yellow ‘do not enter’ signs was a large ferris wheel, half engulfed in scaffolding. I had to make it to the fence. There came a primal scream from behind-the monster was on my tail again, heavy footfalls catching up to me. I made it to the fence, climbing, climbing, reached the top, flipped over, and-
It felt like a mac-truck when the monster crashed straight into me. I cried out in terror, seeing its hideous snarl, a blur of teeth and gums, so close to me. The force of impact knocked the fence off its hinges, sending me to the ground, sandwiched between gravelly mud, chainlink, and the beast. My flashlight rolled out of reach, but even in the dark I could feel it inches from my face, separated by measly chickenwire. I could smell it, rock slime and mold and fish guts, hot breath in my face. I screamed as it thrashed against the fence, digging a whole right through the metal and exposing me, pinned beneath its weight. Something was stuck beneath me, I could feel it, and just barely reach out my arm to feel what it was. I grabbed hold of it. The monster reared up with a wicked howl, claw overhead, ready to bring it down.
BANG!
I hadn’t fired a gun in a long time. In the dark, it felt strange in my hand.
BANG BANG BANG!
With each shot in the dark I felt hot, vile liquid falling down over me, dripping onto my face and uniform in fat globules that made me sick. I kept firing. It was only when the gun clicked empty and the tinnitus cleared up that I realized I’d been screaming just as much as the monster. I felt the thing collapse on top of the fence, and subsequently, me. With my free arm, I grasped to my right, searching. When I found my flashlight, grasping it barely between two fingers, I brought it to me and clicked it back on. The thing’s face was inches from mine, unblinking dark eyes pressed against the chainlink. It’s maw hung open, limp, one of its many teeth poking uncomfortably close to my eye. Black blood seeped from the many newly made holes in its chest, staining my clothes, my arms, my face.
Everything was oddly quiet now, sitting under the body of an ungodly horror. All I could hear now was the wind and the cicadas. The shock was wearing off. Dull aches began to radiate up and down my spine. Try as I might, hauling myself out from under the fence was nearly impossible, not with the monster’s weight bearing down on me. So I sat there, trying not to cry, when the radio beeped again.
“You alright, kid?”
I grabbed hold of it, brought it to my face. “I-I think so. I can’t move.”
“Sit tight, okay. I’m coming to get you. It’s dead, right?”
It’s dead-eyed stare wouldn’t end. At any moment, I thought, it would come back to life and snap at me like one of those dormant crocodiles. “Yeah, it’s dead.”
“Great. Stay there. Mel’s coming to get you.” Not like I had a choice.
I don’t know how long I spent under that fence. Eventually, I saw a set of headlights coming through the trees behind the construction site. By awkwardly contorting my neck, I got a glimpse of a golf cart pulled up in front of the half-assembled ferris wheel. The lights dimmed a little, leaving only a heavy-duty flashlight. Someone was walking over to me.
I called out. “Hey! Over here!”
“Damn, kid. How the hell did you end up in this mess?” The man took a knee in front of me, and I could see who I was looking at. He was older than me, probably in his mid-forties. The first thing I noticed was he wasn’t wearing a normal uniform. His sleeves were rolled up, his shirt was opened, and he’d traded the cap for a man-bun wrapped in a bandana.
“Can you please get me out from under this thing?”
“Sure can.” He grabbed me by both arms, and dragged me out from under the fence-monster pile with relative ease. I got to my feet, wiped the excess gravel and mud from my body, and got to look the guy in the eye. “Thank you, thank you so much.”
“No problem. Name’s Mel.” He held out his hand to shake. Mel’s body gave the impression of someone who, at one point, was muscular, but had slowly let himself go. His skin was golden-brown, and I could hear a hint of an accent somewhere in his tone. His eyes were kind, a dark mustache beneath his nose and stubbled with five o’clock shadow, yet up and down his arms were some wild tattoo sleeves, skulls, tribal tatts, etc. Under any other circumstance, I might’ve been intimidated. Then, I was just glad to see another human.
“Rory,” I blurted out, shaking his hand. “My name’s Rory. What the hell is that thing?”
Mel looked to the dead monster lying in a heap atop the broken fence. “That,” he pointed, “is a Gill Man. What did you think it was?”
“I… I don’t know? I didn’t think it was real! What is going on he-”
“Relax kid, I’m messing with you.” He held up his hands, defensively. “This is all a bit of a shock, I know. Frankly, it’s a miracle you’re standing here talking to me and not digesting somewhere in that thing’s stomach.”
I must’ve made a face, because Mel’s eyebrows went up a bit. “Alright, calm down. I’ll try to fill you in on the ride back. First thing, though. I need to do something real quick.” He started walking off towards the construction site. Nervously, I followed. He was humming some tune, although what it was I couldn’t pick out, and he seemed to be going through a pile of scrap metal. “This should do,” he muttered.
“What are you doing?” Ignoring my question, Mel walked back over to the monster wielding a large piece of rebar that resembled a spear. I stood there, flashlight in hand, as he straddled his legs over the thing, lifting the rebar high into the air. With force, he plunged the implement straight into the monster’s skull, a plume of black blood shooting straight up into his face. Mel grimaced, wiping the blood from his face using his uniform. There was no doubt about it now: the thing was dead.
“Alright, kid. You grab the legs, I’ll grab the head.”
“Wait, what do you mean?”
“We’re taking it with us. Can’t just leave the body out here, that’d be stupid.”
“How?”
So hauling the Gill Man’s body onto the back of the golf cart was harder than I thought it’d be. Mainly because the thing was nearly seven feet high. We secured it to the rear seat using bungee cords and some rope. The piece of rebar was still shoved through its face, emerging awkwardly from its bottom jaw. It would’ve been hilarious if it hadn’t tried to eat me. Before long, Mel turned the key in the ignition, and even with the extra weight, the cart was somehow moving again, maneuvering its way through the park’s winding pathways.
A few minutes in, Mel started talking. “You okay?”
“Huh?” I had tried zoning out in the passenger seat. “Oh, yeah. I think so? It’s just a lot to take in. I don’t know how to handle it.”
“I get it. Hell of a first night, way worse than mine. It took me about a week before I was running for my life.” He laughed, but that didn’t do much to quell my fears. “I’m not going to lie kid, you’re in deep shit. Real deep. You got to be careful out here, so next time,” he punched my shoulder, “stay in the break room!”
“I know, I know.” I felt a little embarrassed in hindsight, still do. “At least its dead, right? We don’t have to worry about it anymore?”
“Sure, that one’s dead. You still have all its brothers and sisters.”
“What do you mean?”
“You didn’t think that was the only one, did you?”
I felt a pang of dread somewhere in my chest. Turning around, I could see the back of the monster’s head, lulling lifelessly from side to side as the golf cart adjusted its course. There were more of them? How many more? Something in that statement felt suffocating to me. I turned back around, gaze aimed at my shoes. A few minutes later, Mel made another turn, taking us down a different path.
“Where are we going?”
“Saving you some time. I want to show you something. It’s the reason they have us out here to begin with.” He took us out of our way, way out of our way, out of the park and along a path through the woods . I was concerned the cart would get stuck on a root or something, but unlike the employee entrance, this path was paved with gravel; more of a fire road than a trail. The forest was dark, way darker than when I came in initially. The two of us were a tiny beacon of light chugging along through a sea of black. When we finally stopped, and I could see the water again, I looked out across the lake to see the distant towers and buildings of the park.
“Here, follow me.” Mel tossed me another flashlight, the heavy duty kind like his, and we disembarked from the golf cart. We’d entered a small clearing in the trees, a leafy forest floor giving way to the water’s edge not far from the center. In the middle of the clearing sat a large, stone boulder. Something smelled terrible, but I didn’t know what it was.
I looked around, shining my light into the trees. “What am I supposed to be looking at?”
“Check out the boulder. What do you see?”
I walked up to it. It was big, higher than Mel and me both, but it seemed fairly ordinary. Then, I got closer, ran my hand along the stone. All across the stone itself was a network of carved symbols. Hundreds of them notched into the stone by hand, ranging from pentagrams to hieroglyphs. The boulder was covered in them. “What am I looking at here?”
“Seals. Some weird witchcraft shit. The company put us out here to keep these things in check. Three of them are in the park itself, and the other ten are out here, all across the lake. One of these seals breaks, well, something bad crawls out. That’s how you get Gill Men.”
I stepped back from the rock, turning back to Mel. “What do you mean ‘breaks?’”
Mel let out a long groan, more of a sigh, waving me over. “Come here, other side.”
Curious, I rounded to the other side of the boulder. Amidst the leaves was a strange sight, to say the least. A set of wax candlesticks, all burned halfway to nothing, were arranged in a crooked star. Stabbed into the rock was the source of the terrible smell: a fish. It was a large bass, gutted and pinned into the rock with a large hunting knife. Blood still oozed down the metal, dripping into the dirt. I whinced. “Who the hell would do this?”
“Great question, because we have no idea.” Mel removed the knife, holding up the bass to inspect it. Something was placed inside the fish. He opened it up with his fingers, and I gagged when he stuck his fingers inside. How he hadn’t contracted something by now was beyond me. His fingers came back clutching something, and he discarded the rest of the fish by tossing it towards the water. He opened his palm to show me a small pile of shining pebbles. “We know three things about whoever’s been messing with the lake. One, they can’t break the seals permanently, only weaken them. Two, they’ve been getting bolder as of late, this has been happening more and more often. And three, for whatever reason, they love their gold.”
A pit formed in the bottom of my stomach as I examined the shiny rocks, slick with blood. I remembered the beginning of my shift, walking into the park and feeling watched from the shadows. I was starting to wonder how much of that was paranoia. Someone could’ve been in the park, waiting for me to slip up. I shivered.
“You want the gold?”
“What? No, it’s gross. Why would I want that?”
“Okay, your loss then,” he slipped the gold nuggets into the pocket of his shirt, to my disgust. He then clapped. “Alright, let’s take you back to the breakroom.”
“Wait,” he stopped midstride, “just like that?”
“Well yeah, figured you’d had enough for one night. You can sit in the breakroom for the rest of it if you want. Victoria should be out by now. She’ll let you know how to deal with Greg here.” He yanked on the Gill Man’s lure, making its impaled head nod.
“Who’s Victoria?”
“She’s been the one on the walkie. She never told you her name?”
“Uh, I guess not.”
“Sounds like her, then.”
So now I’m here. I don’t have much else to say now. About an hour ago now, Mel dropped me off in the break room and went off to look for Victoria. They should be back soon. The Gill Man’s body is lying atop a folding table on the other side of the room. I’ve made it a priority to stay as far away from it as possible, partly from its smell, partly because if I had my way, I’d never see something like it ever again. I have a few hours left until sunrise and my shift ends. If you’re reading this, I guess I made it.
I’m standing outside the break room now. I know what you’re thinking, dumb move, but to my knowledge the magical seal BS has been restored and the lake is stable again, whatever that means. I nearly died tonight. I’m still coming to terms with that. I came here looking to get paid, and what I got was a lot of trauma and a shattered sense of what’s real and what isn’t. This place, the lake, is something beyond me. I’m not the kind of person meant to deal with this sort of thing. I’m going to try and get out, and if that doesn’t work, I don’t know what I’m going to do. Because I know the things in that lake aren’t going to forget what happened tonight. I can see their eyes now. There’s so many of them out there, following my every movement. Glowing pinpricks out on the water, watching me. I think I’m going back inside now.
END PART 1 OF 3.
