My aspirations serve to distract my mind from the pressure and fear that is beginning to take a visible toll on my body, until we arrive at the front gates of what was formerly one of the most popular amusement parks in all of England.
“There’s a hole in the wall in the women’s restroom in the front of the park that leads behind the gate.” Jake practically jumps out of the vehicle as soon as it comes to a stop.
“I don’t know if I believe you.” I make sure to highlight the undertone of sarcasm in my voice. I step out into the fresh, brisk air, glancing up at the soupy mixture of gray clouds that swathe the sky. It is one of those days that feels drearily beautiful.
“You should always trust me.” Jake waves a finger at me as the sports car we had hailed to the theme park leaves. There is the slight fear in the back of my mind that the ride-sharing service has reported our location to the authorities, and that within a few minutes the police will show up to arrest us for trespassing.
“I don’t think it’s possible for a statement to be covered in more bullshit.” I follow him as he approaches the line of ticket booths in front of us, and the rusted metal gate with a fifty-foot, long-faded icon of the four Spiders boys. “After you told me so many times that the cookies you made were fine when in reality you put laxative tablets inside them, I don’t think I can ever trust you again.”
“Oh, now you’re bringing that up again.” Jake shakes his head, a grin impossible to hide quirking up the corners of his mouth. “I swear, you have the memory of an elephant. I guess we pranked each other so much growing up that I don’t even remember half of it.”
“Well, I sure do remember that one. I was pooping out my brains for hours. For HOURS. I learned some things about my body that I didn’t even know were possible.”
“Thanks for that stunning visual.” He looks at me with wide eyes, pretending to be sincere. The women’s restroom is now a few dozen feet away from us. “The fact that we are still talking about these pranks years later means I got you good, so I consider the arduous hours I took into baking you homemade cookies as a worthwhile investment.”
I laugh. “I’m glad you see it that way. Whatever you tell yourself, I’ll always be victorious in our petty prank wars.”
“Okay, okay, fine. I can’t argue with that,” Jake concedes, his expression suddenly shifting from confident to more reticent. “But for like five straight years I was too hurt and shocked after my dad was killed and my mom abandoned me to even try and have fun with my life.” He laughs, his body shifting nervously as we open the door to the women’s restroom and enter inside its mold-infested walls.
“I understand. I was the same way after my mom died. I’m still struggling with it; something tells me that I always will be to a certain degree.” I connect with his eyes, and I feel a warm energy flow through me. “Just know that if you ever need anyone to talk to, I am here for you.” The words are hard for me to push out, and after I close my mouth, a long silence blankets the air.
“Thanks.” He swallows, a glassy layer coating his eyes. “I got your back always too. We know the same pain.”
He turns to the roller coasters towering above the park, and I know I have lost my chance at breaking through and having a deep conversation with him today.
Even after all the years we have spent practically as brothers, he has never been able to be vulnerable with me, never able to fully let down his guard. He told me that after his dad was killed and his mom went insane, trying to kill him during a tirade with pills, alcohol, and a rifle, and then abandoned him to go live with her new husband in Paris, that he would never be capable of loving anyone else again. The only reason he even had a home to live in is because my dad was childhood best friends and co-founders of Chimera with his father, named Bradley Pickering, and he always told me that if he were still alive, the only person Bradley would want taking care of his kid would be him.
What parent would ever want my psycho father to take care of their children? I laugh at that preposterous idea, part of me never fully believing the story about Jake’s hushed past, and part of me always wondering if Jake never talks about it because he truly doesn’t know the answer or knows the darkest secrets to something much deeper.
“How do we get out of here?” I scan the room. Piss stains, likely from rodents, line the cheap floor tile and the gray bricks that make up the walls, making the room seem ten times smaller than it actually is.
“Dude, you think I know?” He leans over, trying to peer under the stalls to inspect every section of the bathroom. “It was a picture online that had this location tagged, and the caption said something about the women’s restroom. Besides that, I have no clue. Maybe it’s not…
“Aha!” He dashes across the floor, almost slipping on a wet portion of the tile where a puddle had formed from a hole in the ceiling. “It’s in the back of the handicapped stall. I knew I was right.”
“Right, ’cause you sounded so sure a minute ago.”
“Well, I’m sure now.” He pats me on my back, pushing me forward to go through the small hole at the bottom of the wall. It is barely big enough to fit my own body and has rough edges to the sides, looking like it has been formed from a pickaxe.
“Wow, so you’re sending me first so I can get killed if anyone is on the other side. Oh, Jake, you’re so brave.”
“Ah, shut up, man. The only reason I’m having you go in first is ’cause there’s a good chance I’ll end up getting stuck in that hole.” He holds his hands to his gut, picking up the flab on his stomach and jiggling it with his hands. “This stuff is a liability, bro.”
I laugh, about to add on and make another joke about his weight, but I stop myself, remembering that one of Jake’s only rules is that he is the only one who can joke about his weight, 'cause most of the time his self-deprecating comments are not jokes—he actually feels that way.
Luckily for Jake, shimmying our bodies through the cavity in the wall is not a problem for either of us, and with minimal scrapes Jake and I glance around at the abandoned theme park, insiders in a part of the world that is supposed to be forgotten forever.
Chapter 15
“Wow.” Jake looks at me, then back at the landscape in front of us that appears as if a virulent killer disease had wiped out the town. Rows of shops and restaurants line the entrance to the park, all the doors shuttered, with graffiti and dirt staining the wooden and concrete walls. More so than any of the other places we have been to illegally, which at this point in our lives are quite a few. Spiders World feels darker than the rest. There is a tangible pain in the air, the feeling of hurt so pervasive in the landscape that it seems to seep into the pores of anyone who enters it.
I suddenly get the feeling that something horrible happened here, that all the graffiti, tossed-over benches, and trash lining the streets are here for a reason. Chills run down my spine as something seems to move on one of the rusted roller coasters that tower hundreds of feet above the ground, casting a shadow of darkness upon the rest of the park. There is a dark energy to this place, something inside the old, broken gears of the Ferris wheel and beneath the eyes of the countless statues of a young Paul McAlister adorning the landscape, that excites me.
“This was such a cool find, dude.” We both stand unmoving for a few more seconds, trying to take in everything about our surroundings before we decide which direction to take.
A light breeze causes the countless weeds and vines that have begun to take over the dried-up fountains and every crack in the walkway to sway gently. Somehow, being surrounded by an environment that is decaying, gradually being reclaimed by the earth, all the joy it once held being buried forever, gives me comfort.
There’s something about the silence that finally quiets my mind. I take a deep breath, letting all the anxious thoughts leave the periphery of my mind. I need this. I need to find a place among these abandoned rides and let my mind forget about everything among the graffiti.
“Let’s head to the old water
park.” I look at the map, the color from its icons having long been eroded from the plastic stand. “I feel like it will be cool to climb atop one of the slides and have a bird’s eye view of the entire park.”
“What about on top of that roller coaster?” Jake points to the peak of the tallest ride, the Helter Skelter, which easily extends four hundred feet into the air with a nearly straight vertical drop. Its track was built from large, red metal pillars that seem to extend for hundreds of yards. Even from nearly half a mile away, the roller coaster has a way of imposing itself over the landscape that makes it look otherworldly.
“Dude, no.” My voice is serious, mainly because I don’t want to hear Jake whine for several minutes as he tries to convince me to change my mind. “There’s no way I’m risking that. We could so easily fall off. Plus, we can actually probably slide down the water slides themselves; it will be sick.”
“Oh, that’s so true.” His feet are already scrambling forward. “Let’s go, man, this is about to get awesome.”
“Hey, hey.” I look around, the Deadwave side of my mind that is always wired watching out for potential predators. I would feel more comfortable if we somehow had a weapon, but trying to get an illegal weapon in a foreign country is more hassle than it is worth for our two-day trip. “Don’t run there like you’re a little kid sprinting through a candy store. We have no clue who is in this place; we don’t need to draw any attention to ourselves, or have anyone think we are any dumber than we already are.”
“All right, fair point.” He slows down his pace to a walk, allowing me to catch up with him. “I don’t think there will be anyone here, though. This isn’t exactly a great spot to live for those who are jobless or part of gangs. Being in a fenced-off park full of pictures of hot guys from the nineteen sixties, without electricity, running water, or any food is not exactly my idea of home sweet home.”
“This world is fucked up.” I look at him, trying to drill my concern into his eyes. Luckily, the security cameras appear to not be operational, but we still can’t afford to take too many risks. “We have no idea what is here, that’s what makes it exciting. We have to be smart like we always are.”
At those words, he finally acts less like he is inside his childhood dreamland and more like he is currently trespassing on private property in a foreign country in a nightmarish abandoned theme park that could be full of vagrants, gang members, or honestly anything else. Despite this reality, we both trot forward, moving between rows of weeds, overgrown bushes, and piles of leaves that have formed from years of neglect. We decide to enter two of the abandoned stores, one of them an ice cream shop and the other an old memorabilia store that has been stripped of all its merchandise except for a row of Spiders bobble heads on a shelf at the back of the store, which is, to say the least, beautifully creepy.
Inside both the stores, there are suffocating amounts of dust, symbols of Nihilist groups lining the walls, and fecal matter that has fermented, seeping into the floors and adding to the mustiness of the air that is pleasing to my nostrils. However, both contained nothing we haven’t seen before, except the bobble heads that seemed to rock back and forth without any pressure (if I had been alone, I probably would have shit myself), and as we walk closer to the water park, I become more and more excited.
Every time I enter one of these forgotten places, I feel like it is in an odd way a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but sliding down empty water slides that are as high as two hundred feet tall will certainly be a one-time thing. Soon, we approach the base of the water slide, passing the empty wave pool and a Spiders-themed carousel in which you can ride on the Spiders boys, and for that reason alone I’m glad that this park shut down. That’s a sight I don’t ever want to see. I can imagine all the middle-aged women, stuck in unfulfilling relationships or recently divorced, riding on top of Jean Lemon as their music blares on the carousel, living out their fantasies in real life.
This ride should be illegal. Jake and I make a series of jokes as we pass by the ride, both of us not desiring to step any closer. Instead, we dash up the wooden steps to the series of slides, the hundreds of popped inner tubes at the base of the stairs a haunting reminder of the lost memories.
This is gonna be good. I bound up the stairs ahead of Jake, who claims as usual that he will beat me to the top. Some habits never die, and even at nineteen years old, Jake and I still race each other to places like we are ten years old. You can judge us if you want, but nothing feels better than watching him breathe so heavily that it looks like his lungs are collapsing as I easily sprint to our destination. This time, our short run up the stairs, although my legs ache with each step, is accompanied by a stunning view of the park, the forest surrounding it, and the homes that stretch on for miles of suburbia on all sides.
Seeing the park from such a perspective feels like flying above a graveyard, each ride marking a headstone of deceased opportunity that will soon collapse into the earth itself. The brick walkways are covered in weeds as the dirt pathways to graves are covered in mounds of ants. This park is a graveyard, covered in icons of brighter times that adorn the attractions and shops like pink carnations. Every place in the world is dying, that’s no secret. This place happened to meet its reckoning sooner.
But I didn’t think I’d meet my own reckoning in this moment.
I was wrong.
The moment I enter the top of the platform, half a dozen slides attached to its top, I notice the lifeless body strewn across the middle of the wooden planks. It coughs, blood spewing out of its mouth. There is a fresh pool of blood gushing out of their chest, which is torn open with a knife directly on top of it. It is a boy, a young boy, no older than fifteen, who has an innocent, unsuspecting face and a Deadwave hoodie on. I look down at the body, shocked, not because it is dead, but because a fire has erupted around the edges of the platform.
What started as a low burn catches a trail of oil that covers the entirety of the staircase. Within moments, the entire wooden platform has erupted into flames.
I am fucked.
Chapter 16
The speed at which shit hit the fan on what was a great day five seconds ago is astounding.
Dammit. I grab Jake, trying to snap his frozen body into action. The fire has already smothered the wooden platforms on all sides, its heat beginning to penetrate my skin and melt every thought from my mind.
“Agh!” I scream, the pain of the fire singing through my outer layer of skin. Within seconds, the fire has spread from the outside of the platform, its orange flames beginning to brush up against my skin and incinerate the lifeless body on the ground.
I hear a series of loud explosions in the distance, their sound waves driving the maddened palpitations of my heart. There have been very few moments in my life where I’m unsure if I’m going to live to see another day, and this is certainly one of them.
That feeling has been a theme lately.
“Let’s freaking go!” I push Jake in front of me, both of our bodies emerging from the flames onto the top of the metal slide, which has not caught flame yet. And there is no way in hell I’m sticking around to find out if it will or not. As long as he is in front of me, I can make sure he stays okay—make sure that I don’t get caught up in the moment and leave him behind.
“This is nearly straight down!” Jake throws both his hands in the air, having the nerve to protest my route of survival.
“Shut up!” I look back at the flames and the black smoke that exudes from them into the sky. The entire platform will surely fall within a few minutes, which means no time for lollygagging, or else we fall too. “Unless you wanna run back through those flames to another slide, then freaking do it.”
I put my hand on the side of the five-foot-high metal wall that encases the slide on either end, made to prevent any of the tubes from plummeting tragically two hundred feet onto the cement below as they slide down steep slopes and narrow corkscrews.
He hesitates, his legs jerking forward twice in a false s
tart. Although I admittedly am a bit apprehensive on how steep the drop is, given that I cannot see the slide beyond where his legs are, I figure we have a better chance at surviving this fall than one from hundreds of feet in the air.
Another series of explosions, this time one coming from the base of the staircase that leads to the slides, ensue before I can move forward to push his body down, and that is all the warning he needs to accept the pain of the fall and not of death.
His body clunks against the metal below, and as I approach the edge of the first drop, I only look to make sure that he has gotten up before sending my body off the ledge. My feet collide with the metal below, the fall from the modest altitude giving my head a rush of blood and sending vibrations through my knees.
Damn. I exhale, bracing my back against the sloped section of the slide behind me so that I won’t fall upon trying to continue my momentum forward. Jake has already begun sprinting down the next turn in the slide, his body entering a dark tunnel which is likely fun if one is sitting on a tube amidst the smooth, flowing rapids. But with the red metal of the slide dry and rusted, entering its darkness will be more paranoia-inducing rather than a wonderful memory.
“Fuddy guddy!” Jake’s voice, raspy with terror, echoes in the tunnel, pounding my face as I sprint into the entrance and am absorbed by the darkness. If I weren’t currently in the middle of running for my life, I might have laughed at his scream, which had the exact cadence that he would bellow in as a kid. If only I could go back to those days right about now.
The tunnel takes a stomach-churning twist, and the echo of Jake falling once again hits my ears. My muscles tense as I realize that, at any moment, I could be falling unexpectedly down a drop that is who knows how long.
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