6:05 PM

I hand him the envelope as soon as I’ve closed the passenger door. “Count it. It’s all there.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Good morning to you too.” The stack of bills is counted in no time, which doesn’t surprise me. He’s probably done this several times before. A slight nod of his head indicates it’s the correct amount. “Dude, I gotta ask you: are you 100% sure you wanna do this?”

“Yes. My mind is made up. I can’t live with her any more. She’s cold, demanding, and controlling, but I can’t leave her, either, because I’ll lose everything if I do. I’d rather burn in hell.”

He raises a hand. “All right, all right, I got ya. I just wanna make sure because once it’s done, it can’t be undone.”

“I’m aware of this.”

“And you can’t do this yourself…”

“I told you: I’ve tried but keep losing my nerve.”

He shrugs. “Okay then. So let’s go through this once more: dinner’s at 6 sharp. I ring the doorbell at 6:05. Then one clean shot to the head, execution style.”

“Yes, please. Quick, and hopefully painless.”

“Thy will be done,” he says, and we shake hands.

My wife and I are eating dinner accompanied by our usual silent tension, eyes on our plates instead of each other. I’m surprisingly calm; not even flinching when the doorbell rings. As she pushes back her chair to get up, I stop her with an outstretched palm.

“It’s okay.” A quick glance at my wristwatch tells me it’s 6:05 p.m. “I’ll get it.”


---
via: photofreecreepypasta.tumblr.com

Goldstein’s Monster

Frankenstein.

I won’t say I don’t share his interest, because I do. My fascination, however, is more of a medical one. Using dead organs and muscle and tissue built around a skeleton to create life? Seemed impossible, but I always kept an open mind.

My colleagues would never agree to work with me on this conceptually flawed experiment, but Peter Goldstein had the funds to let me work toward my dream.

He gave me the money when I asked, and I did all the work: finding fresh bodies, harvesting the organs and muscle and tissue and bones, assembling the pieces, finding the chemical mixture to bring the dead tissue back to life once more.

Years of work to find the perfect ingredients. But I came across a bit of a problem, so I requested Peter’s presence at my lab.

“This is… difficult, to say the least. I have most of everything, but there are some pieces that I can’t take from the usual corpses. I need to get them from a living specimen. I need-“

“Say no more,” Goldstein interrupted, holding up his hand. “I will find you a specimen, willing or not.”

He turned to leave, but he didn’t understand my urgency, why I called him here. I plunged a hidden syringe in his neck and sedated him. The body would not last much longer. I needed the parts now.

I laid him down on my operating table and began to work. A few hours in and I came to a miraculous realization; I didn’t need anything vital from Peter!

I was relieved and ecstatic! He would be able to see the result of his investment after all!

I completed the work on the creature and began pumping the chemicals into its body. If my calculations are correct, it is mere minutes away from being a living being. The sedative must be wearing off from Peter; he is beginning to stir. I hope he is as excited as I am about this momentous occasion.

I can’t wait for him to see the look on his face.

----
via: photofreecreepypasta.tumblr.com

Mister

When I was seven, I had a best friend named John. Every night John would ask to stay over at my house, of course I said yes. But as a normal seven year old, I got bored of doing the same thing. So I asked John if we could spend the night at his house instead of mine. A look of fear flashed in his eyes, and he hesitated before saying no, I obviously begged and pestered him before he finally said yes.

Throughout the day leading up to me sleeping over, John had been very quiet and nervous. After school, I went home to get my clothes and toothbrush, and John had begged me if we could please just spend the night at my house, I laughed and joked around that he just didn’t want me to see how messy his room was.

The night had been going good, we had stayed up till 1 AM and I was getting sleepy, so I had asked John if we could go to sleep.

He gave me a nervous look again but nodded his head. As I was getting into my sleeping bag, John turned up the TV as loud as it could possibly go and just stared at the TV. I turned the TV off and that’s when I heard it. It sounded like someone.. something was scraping the floor above us. Then it spoke, not loudly, but a quiet raspy whisper, "Come up and play with me, John, it’s been sooo long since you’ve came up here.. I miss you.. We miss you..”

I started crying and John hushed me and told me to get into my sleeping bag and be quiet. I later fell asleep. I woke up in the middle of the night and started feeling around for my glasses, but then I heard raspy breathing next to me.. Everything was blurry but I could see this dark figure perched over John, just breathing and staring at him. It looked back at me and that’s all I remember.
Me and John didn’t speak after that. We went through all of junior high and almost high school without speaking. On my senior year, John came running up to me, and he looked like he hadn’t slept in weeks and had bruises in every place imaginable. He was begging me to let him stay at my house, but I made up some excuse because I really didn’t know him anymore.

The thing is, John committed suicide that night. His parents contacted me and said they wanted me to pack up his things because it was too difficult for them. I understood and went through his things while packing them into boxes. He had kept endless journals of his life. I found the last entry and here it is:
“Mister has been watching me and -scribbles- keeps whispering and doesn’t stop shh shhh he can hear me I don’t know what is going on I can’t breathe -scribbles- goodbye”

After the last entry, this is the only picture John had drawn of “Mister”.

------
via: eeriie.tumblr.com

20 Questions

In the wee hours of the night when I've had too much caffeine I usually find myself doing those lame personality quizzes that people do on Facebook. I'm sure you've done a few yourself; "What element are you?", "What classic horror villain are you?", "What was your profession in your past life?", that sort of thing. You can usually tell what it's going to give you just by what answers you select, but whatever, it's a way to pass the time.

Tonight is like most nights. It's late, I'm bored, and I'm surfing the web. The combination of an excessive amount of Dr. Pepper and a few bowls of some decent weed means I'm not going to bed anytime soon, but I'm probably not going to get anything done, either.

I guess I could clean my apartment, but it's not like I have anyone to impress. I've been single for seven months now and I don't have any roommates, and I don't entertain much. I moved out here from my hometown of Dayton, OH to try and pursue school, but after two semesters I heartily lost interest and dropped out. That was nine months ago. I tried to keep my relationship going with Sara after I stopped going to school, but I suppose she wants a man with more ambition. I suppose they all do.

My job as a delivery driver pays just enough money to satisfy rent and utilities and maybe a little left over for a few creature comforts, but not much else, and definitely not any amount that would add up to anything meaningful in a savings account. My coworkers are ok, but I kind of keep my distance. They are all mostly younger and are only interested in getting shit-faced every weekend, and I've never been much of a drinker. I guess you could call me a shut-in.

I could lay down on the couch and watch a movie, but I lost my DVD remote and I would have to actually get up and push the buttons on the player, and besides, I've watched everything I own at least a dozen times anyways. I have cable TV, it came in the bundle, but there's never anything on and I can't stand commercials. Internet prevails.

Facebook is proving to be pretty boring, as always. It's the time of night when everyone else has gone to sleep and my news feed isn't showing me anything new. I scroll down for five minutes, refresh the page, and start back where I was five minutes ago. Maybe I can find something on Youtube that I haven't seen yet. Not likely. I refresh the page again.

I see a quiz my friend has done. "What type of warrior are you?" is the title of the quiz. My friend is apparently a viking. I click on the quiz and answer the questions and discover that I am a pirate. Hooray. I could not have gone on living without that precious information. I scroll through some other quizzes hoping to waste more time before I eventually pass out. I click on one entitled "What decade of music are you?", but I get a popup instead.

"Can you fool the all-knowing Ronwe? Play 20 questions now!" is the text that appears in the new window. I usually don't click on random popups, but this looks innocent enough. I'm pretty tech-savvy anyways (benefits of being antisocial) and my computer is pretty well-protected. I am also very bored, so I figure what the hey, sure, I'll play. I click the "Yes" button in the window.

"Ronwe knows what you are thinking. Ronwe knows all. Is it nighttime where you are?"

What? This is not a typical question in the game 20 Questions. I thought the object of the game was to guess the word I am thinking of. For being all-knowing, this Ronwe sure doesn't know how to play the game properly. Whatever, I'll go along with it, it is nighttime where I am. I click "Yes".

"I knew it! Ronwe is all-seeing. Are you alone?"

Like I would be doing this if I had any company. I click "Yes".

"Of course you are! Ronwe knows everything! Are you wearing a grey shirt?"

I'm a little high, so I don't even remember what color my shirt is. I look down, and sure enough, I am wearing a grey shirt. That's a little uncanny. I click "Yes".

"Ronwe can see that! Ronwe can see all! Are your eyes brown?"

Another lucky guess, but I suppose brown is the most common color of eyes. I click "Yes".

"Nothing is secret to Ronwe! Ronwe sees everything! Is your name Stephen?"

I'm jolted awake. How the hell does this game know my name? That is very unsettling. Unsettling unless this game is accessing my Facebook information. I am logged on to this quiz app through Facebook, after all. That must be it. Ha! Very clever, Ronwe. I click "Yes".

"Ronwe knows you, as Ronwe knows all! Is your dog's name Lola?"

Did I ever post that? I don't think I have that in my profile information. I must have listed her as my pet, but I really don't remember doing that. I click "Yes".

"Ronwe is ever-knowing and ever-seeing. Is Lola at your mother's house?"

Ok, there is no way I ever posted that on my profile. When I moved out here to go to school, I couldn't find an affordable place that allowed pets, so I had to leave Lola back home with my mom, but how could this game know that? I know I never put that in my information. I'm high, but not that high. Hesitantly, I click "Yes".

"Of course she is! Ronwe always knows! Is your living room lamp off?"

Ha! A swing and a miss, Ronwe, a swing and a miss! I turn around with an intense feeling of relief as I look at my living room lamp, which is clearly on. Laughing, I click "No".

"You cannot lie to Ronwe. Ronwe sees."

As soon as I read these words, the lightbulb in my living room lamp burns out. I seize up with dread. What the hell is going on?

"Are you out of lightbulbs?"

I pause and think for a minute. No, I am not out of lightbulbs. I have a pack of lightbulbs in my kitchen drawer. I click "No" with a smirk on my face.

"Ronwe knows all. I would check again."

I'm about to prove you wrong on this one Ronwe! I leap out of my chair and rush to my kitchen and find the drawer where I keep the lightbulbs. I rip the drawer open and see the familiar cardboard box. I take the box out and see I have one lightbulb left. I remove the lightbulb from the box.

"Shows how much you know! What the hell do you call this?" I yell at the computer. I triumphantly thrust the lightbulb into the air, but as I do, it falls from my hand and shatters on the ground with a pop. I cannot believe it. I stare blankly at the shattered remains of the lightbulb before deciding I've had enough.

I rush over to my computer and click on the X of Ronwe's window, but nothing happens. I click on the X repeatedly, but to no avail.

"Do you want to stop playing?"

Hell yes I want to stop playing this creepy ass game! I shout my answer as I click "Yes".

"We can't stop playing now. We have to finish."

I'll be damned if that happens. I open task manager with the intent of closing the process, but it doesn't even show up. I stare blankly at the screen before Ronwe's next question appears.

"Did Sara leave you because you are a broke and worthless loser?"

What the hell? "No!" I scream at my computer as I fervently mash the mouse button and click "No" in Ronwe's window.

"You cannot lie. Ronwe knows all. Ronwe sees all. Are you angry?"

Angry is an understatement. I'm fucking livid. I click "Yes", eager to get this over with. I don't know what the hell is going on, but if Ronwe wants to ask his 20 questions to humiliate and infuriate me, then let's have them.

"Ronwe senses your anger. Ronwe sees into your soul. Is your phone ringing?"

"No my phone is not ringing!" I shout as I click "No", but as soon as I do, my phone starts to ring.

My heart sinks. I feel nauseated as a sense of dread sweeps over me. I know I shouldn't answer the phone. Some instinctive part of me begs me not to answer the phone, but I only want to get this over with. I look to Ronwe's window to see if he will contradict me, but no text appears. The phone continues to ring. Hesitantly, I pick it up and answer.

"Hello?" I nervously ask into the receiver. No answer, only heavy breathing.

"Hello!" I shout, but the breathing continues. It sounds feral, like a wild animal that is anticipating a meal that is long-overdue. New words appear in Ronwe's window.

"Can you hear me?"

I instantly hang up the phone. I stand staring at my computer screen for what seems like an eternity until I finally regain my senses. This has gone on long enough. I am shutting this down. I click on my start menu and click "Shut Down", but it has no effect. Fine, I'll shut it down manually. I hold the power button in for a full twenty seconds, but nothing happens.

"Are you trying to shut me down?"

I click "Yes", hoping that it might have some effect.

"Are you succeeding?"

I click "Yes", then I yank the power cord out of the wall, but my computer remains on.

"You cannot shut Ronwe down. Ronwe has unfinished business with you."

I stand there staring at the screen, awaiting the next question, dreading it, yet wanting to end this. His next question appears.

"Is someone at your door?"

I listen intently for a few fearful seconds, but I do not hear anything. I click "No", and as soon as I do, a slow and loud knock is sounding on my front door.

I cry out, now gripped by pure terror. Ronwe asks yet another question.

"Are you going to answer that?"

I start to sob uncontrollably as I click "No". I beg the computer to stop tormenting me, to please leave me alone, but yet another message appears in Ronwe's window.

"I thought not. You are a coward. You are a worthless waste of life and that's why you are alone. You have squandered your existence and you are not worthy of the air you breath. Our business is almost concluded. I have but one final question for you."

I am hysterical. I want this to end. I want whatever is knocking on my door to just go away. I am pleading with Ronwe to just ask his last question and be done with me. Ronwe torments me with an unbearable wait before his final question appears on the screen.

"Are you going to die tonight?"

I read this question over many times. I manage to stop crying. The knocking on my door has stopped. I gather what little resolve I have left and pray that my answer will be proven true. I grab the mouse and click "No."

For a moment nothing happens. Then a message appears on the screen.

"Ronwe knows all, and Ronwe sees that you are wrong yet again."

My front door crashes open. I turn and see the last thing I will ever see in my life. My final moments are spent beholding the awful face of death as its jaws open wide to devour me.

A Trip to Greece

Lolita Slave Toy

*Click or open pic in new window/tab on the picture to enlarge

Coward

Not everything falls into your plan
Maybe luck just wasn't on my side
I don't know why it's you that I love
Maybe it's better to let you go

It's not fair, not fair, oh, for him/her
This isn't fair, isn't fair, oh, for me
It's not fair for you to ask
If I love you too
It's not fair, not fair, oh, for him/her

You never tried to understand me
The love you proclaimed, you never show
And the moment I am lost
A burden you never tried to lift

It's not fair, not fair, oh, for him/her
This isn't fair, isn't fair, oh, for me
It's not fair for you to ask
If I love you too
You are not mine

And I am a coward
Admitting my love for you
A thousand times I tried to say it
when you're with me
You are not mine
And you know it
You are not mine

(Loosely translated from a Malaysian song sung by Yuna)

I Fucking Knew He Was Cheating on Me

Dear Diary,

I fucking knew he was cheating on me. I fucking knew it and I still can’t fucking believe it, I am so goddamn upset. My boyfriend of four years, FOUR FUCKING YEARS, is cheating on me. I can’t fucking begin to tell you how upset I am. Let me start by giving you some background. My boyfriend and I first met four years ago at the mall. I was working at a Pretzel stand at the time, and when he walked past me I knew it was love at first sight. He was the one for me. I couldn’t believe how much I loved him. He was tall, he had straight black hair, and when I learned his name I nearly fainted. Aaron. The name I had always dreamed of as a child, and had always wanted to be with. It sounds stupid, being so attracted to a name, but it was something I’d always felt. Anyway, pretty soon we had moved in together. His house was beautiful and charming. It was only one bedroom one bath, but with a big attic and basement and a beautiful yard out front. It was the perfect place for us to start our family. We’d eat dinner together, he’d always wash the dishes and take out the trash, and at night I could just stare at his smile for hours, happy to have found someone as perfect as him. It was all going amazingly as the years went on; he got a better job, a new car, he was really turning into the perfect husband I had always imagined. That’s why you can understand how fucking DEVASTATED I was when I saw him with some whore.

I was out getting groceries one day, and I thought I saw my Aaron at this cute little coffee place we love going to. It was like our town’s Starbucks. He loved to go there to get work done or get a morning coffee, and I loved being with him when he did. I hid behind a streetlamp outside and stared through the glass, wondering why he was at the coffee shop instead of work. It was 12:45, so at first I convinced myself he was just taking a quick break from the Office and decided to get some coffee. Something tugged at me though, knowing it wasn’t true, so I waited and watched. Sure enough, at 1:00, this young, brunette girl in her twenties walked in. I was never the jealous type, but fuck me if this girl didn’t have everything I was jealous of. She had thee nicest tits I’ve ever seen. They were firm and big, unlike my floppy sandbags. She had perfect teeth, her smile was amazing, and she walked with an elegance that made me furious. Her hair barely grazed her shoulders. As she sat down at his table and they started talking, I could feel what I had built crumbling apart. Our life together, our future, ruined by some fucking slut who probably just wanted him for his money. Or maybe she just wanted something warm to fuck and play with. Either way, she didn’t know that he was mine, she didn’t know I was not someone to fuck with, so I decided I was going to teach her.

At first it was little things. I followed her home one day to see where she lived, and wouldn’t you fucking guess it, it was barely a mile away from me and Aaron. I went by one morning and knocked over all her potted plans. Then, when she was at work, I cut all of her power cables in half. Finally, I slashed all of her tires, and spray painted “whore” across her front window in bright red paint. I waited outside the next morning for her to leave, and when she saw what I’d done she burst into tears. I couldn’t be happier, fuck this home wrecker and her attempts to seduce my man. I’m assuming she called into work, because she spent the rest of the morning wiping the paint off her windows. I left satisfied that this tramp would never talk to my Aaron again.

However, wouldn’t you fucking know it, that same night Aaron left the house around six. I didn’t bother asking where he was going, I just watched him leave. As soon as he was gone, I got in my car and followed him to this amazing Italian place that we’d been to a few times. Guess who was there but that fucking slut. She came in, and then she did something I could never forgive her for. She touched my man. She fucking hugged him, flinging those stupid perfect tits onto him and resting her head on his shoulder. I could barely stop myself from charging into the restaurant and beating her to fucking death. I watched them get dinner. Aaron could tell she was upset, and finally she broke down and told him about the vandalism. She couldn’t understand why someone had done it. She said she didn’t have any enemies and had never ruined a relationship. Fucking Aaron just sat there, and didn’t say a peep. He didn’t mention he was cheating, he didn’t mention that we’d been together for four fucking years, nothing. He just fucking sat there. What happened next is honestly his fault.

This bitch was obviously not understanding that she and Aaron shouldn’t be together. So I was going to make her. That night, after he dropped her off, I waited until all the lights went off in her house. I walked up to the front step, and found a spare key under the mat. Under the fucking mat. This bitch was asking for this. I walked inside and tried to get my bearings. It was pitch black except for some filtered light from the streetlights outside. I made out a hallway in the dark and followed it down to an open door.

There, sitting in bed as fucking stupidly beautiful as she’d ever been, was this girl. This demon. This succubus whore. She had single handedly caused me more pain than anyone else in my life. I couldn’t believe what she was doing to me, my Aaron, our future children, our lives. All that fury bottled up inside me immediately came out. In one quick motion, I lept on to the bed and had my hands around her fucking throat. She woke up, gasping, trying to hit me, but it was too late. As I watched the life drain from her eyes, relief flooded through me. I had fixed this problem. She would never threaten my relationship again. I quietly left, locked the door behind me, put the key back, and headed home.

The next day, I could tell something was bothering Aaron. He didn’t go to work, and had been answering phone calls all day. I had purposely been trying to keep my distance, so I couldn’t really tell what he was saying or who he was talking to. Around ten a.m., two police officers came into the house and asked him a bunch of questions. Questions he had the fucking audacity to answer right in front of me, like how did he know this “Alison Bacman” or how if they had any “personal history.” I was almost in tears by the time they left, hearing my Aaron admit all of these things right in front of me. We have a lot to work through, but I know we're a strong enough couple to make it work.

Thanks for listening, Diary. I’m so glad you could be there for me when Aaron couldn’t. I’ll let you know how this all plays out, and hopefully me and Aaron can be back on track to having a perfect life in no time.
-Courtney

---

Dear Journal,

I am only writing this because I am in such a state of shock. After my girlfriend Alison was found dead, the police came to my house and questioned me. I honestly told them I had nothing to do with it. As I was their only lead suspect, they came back two days later and requested to search my house. I had nothing to hide, so I let them. What they found has permanently changed my life.

Apparently, for at least three years, there has been a forty-five year old man living in my attic. He convinced himself we were in love. He would watch me, spy on me, fantasize about me, and was obsessed with me. We only know this through a series of Diaries that the police have just started going through.

For the first time today, I saw the man. He had crooked teeth, hair that looked like grey straw, and had to be at least three hundred pounds. He was massive, at least four inches taller than me. Looking at him left me physically terrified. The most horrifying moment of meeting him wasn’t his appearance though. It was his face when I entered the room. A smile broke across his face, and he begged me to explain to the police that we were in love, and that he had only murdered Alison to protect me. The look in his eye when he stared at me made me physically sick. I could see this man honestly believed we were in love. I left the courtroom and threw up.

The police have informed me they expect me to stand as a witness in his upcoming trial. I don’t know if I can. The past five weeks have changed my life permanently. Tomorrow, I will put my house on the market and look to moving. I need to start somewhere new if I want to move past this.

I am still in shock and haven’t been able to tell my family or friends what I’m going through. I don’t think I ever will.

I don’t know if I can live with this.

-Aaron

---
By reddit user Charles3129 via: reddit.com/r/nosleep

Sleep Aid

I have problems sleeping. I always have. Some nights I find myself staring at the ceiling for hours before I can drift off. The only thing that helps me fall asleep is the T.V. I turned it on to a boring channel and lowered the volume so that it’s no louder than a faint whisper. It doesn’t help me doze off immediately, but if it’s not on I can’t sleep at all.

I don’t even watch the T.V. during the day time anymore, I’m too busy. It’s strictly a sleep aid. Since the first night I set it to a low volume and dimmed the brightness way down, I haven’t messed with the settings since. I just turn it on when I get into bed and off when I wake up.

Tonight is just one of those nights where I can’t fall asleep even with the help of the T.V. I’ve been tossing and turning for hours just trying to hold my eyes shut and let the dull whispers of the T.V. lull me to sleep, but it’s not working. I don’t have work tomorrow so I decided I would flip through the channels and find something good to watch. 

When I grabbed the remote, I accidentally pressed the power button and the T.V. clicked off. The only problem was, the faint whispers still filled my ear. My eyes grew wide and cut through the darkness of my room. I slowly turned my gaze from the T.V. to the vent directly above my bed. It was then I realized the whispers were coming from there.

--
Written by: Sage
short-horror-hits.tumblr.com

via: deadlytales.tumblr.com

I Was A Normal, Unremarkable Girl

TRIGGER WARNING: SEXUAL ABUSE

I was hanging out with friends. In the midst of our whirlwind of random debates, I asked them if they’d ever died in their dreams-if they had ever been full on dead-to which they each said no. Their flow of reasoning went in the direction of our brains being either unwilling or unable to perceive ourselves as dead. I waved the topic off altogether when someone changed the subject, not throwing another thought at it.

Three months later, I dreamed I was dead. I was on my cell, driving on an unknown street. My dad was chewing my ass out about something, only he wasn’t my real life dad. Not such a big deal; I’ve had plenty of dreams where made up people played the role of a friend or family member, or were simply someone I knew in the dream world, someone conjured up.

He was really giving it to me, going on and on and on. He was so loud, my ear throbbed. I was responding, but inaudible, as if I was on mute. I was so distracted by his words, words I could not remember when I got up the next day, that I ran a red light, and a red pick up truck crashed into me from the oncoming cross traffic.
A lot hit me at the same time: I heard horrible, high pitched screeching; my phone catapulted out of my hand; my head snapped violently to the right; my body was tossed into the right side of the windshield like a rag, the glass cracking and going airborne (along with me) from the force; and presently there was blackness all around.

I was dead. I felt the same as I did when I was alive. There was no residual pain from the crash, and, moreover, there was this kind of relieved feeling, like I’d been needlessly stressed for so God damn long, hanging on by a thread, and I didn’t have to be anymore. Everything that weighed me down, that bound my arms-that breath I’d been holding my whole existence without ever knowing it-was gone. I let go.

Then I was standing over my body, bloodied and face down on the asphalt. I had red hair, matted with blood, but I was a brunette in reality. Minuscule bits of glass from the windshield were embedded in my skin.

My alarm intruded, and I was back in my life, alive.

I text one of my friends on the way to my insufferable nine to five, letting her know that I had died last night. She text back before I clocked in, saying, “Must be because of our conversation awhile back!”

The dream encroached on the border of my busy mind as I tried as best I could to concentrate on miscellaneous clerical tasks.

Freed from work, I imparted for my bed earlier than usual. My boss was driving me crazy, with his extravagant getaways during peak income tax season. My brain felt like slush, and I needed to give it a break.

I died again as I snoozed. Same exact scenario, only this time, I caught some of my dad’s vicious words.

“Ellie, you listen to what the fuck I’m saying, God damn it!” The venom in his words hammered into my ear drum.

“I can’t, I can’t listen to you anymore!” was my retort.

The crash was reenacted, every meticulous detail. As I gazed down at my lifeless body, the driver of the red pick up truck hobbled over, limping. His nose was gushing blood and he had a gash chiseled into his chin.

“Oh, Jesus! Oh, no, oh, God-Miss?”

He forced his hand into his jean pocket, pulling out his cell.

Beep, beep, beep, beep. My alarm. I groaned. Sleep never lasts long enough.

I mused over the probability of this becoming a recurring dream, so brilliant and distinct in its detail. My daily activities were front and center in my brain before I could sit in deep thought over the dream for too long.

All day I had a song stuck in my head, one that both infected me and left me befuddled-I didn’t recognize this from my mental catalog of tunes.

“Sweet dream, baby Sweet dream, baby Sweet dream, baby How long must I dream? Dream baby, got me dreaming sweet dreams, the whole day through Dream baby, got me dreaming sweet dreams, the night-time too I love you and I’m dreaming of you, that won’t do Dream baby, make me stop my dreaming, you can make my dreams come true…”

I covered up in bed, mentally singing that damn song before the sandman visited.

My brain rewound the dream, throwing in more intelligible dialogue. “I am your father, damn it! You can’t do this to me, Ellie! Blood is-”

“Thicker than water, God, I know, Dad! This is just too much!”

In my rearview mirror, a girl peered back at me. I didn’t look at my reflection long, but my brain saved the image: red hair, dark green eyes, freckled nose, creamy skin.

“Ellie, you listen to what the fuck I’m saying, God damn it!”

“I can’t, I can’t listen to you anymore!”

Death, like a welcome friend.

The driver of the red pick up called 911. He reached down and pressed his first two fingers into the side of my neck, palpating for a pulse. I watched, knowing his efforts were futile, and the tears welling up in his eyes told me he knew, too. He spoke to the 911 operator in a calm manner, explaining that there’d been a wreck, and he was pretty sure a girl was dead. I walked down the road some, standing back from the crowd that was pouring in around the scene.

My head pulsated with pain when I was aroused by sunlight. I popped ibuprofen, but the stubborn headache refused to relinquish its hold on me.

I couldn’t help but start to feel like this was more than a dream. It didn’t seem very dreamlike anymore-it was more like I was watching a dramatic reenactment on Unsolved Mysteries, but from the climax and backward, one snippet at a time. I opened a notebook on my desk and wrote every detail of what I’d dreamed so far, humming the tune of that song.

Then I Googled the lyrics and clicked one of the first links on the results page: Roy Orbison. That was the song. But why was it in my head? I’d never heard it before, never.

Intrigued by the workings of my subconscious mind, I took a nap, hoping to shed some light on the dream or, better yet, to not have the dream again at all.

“You don’t even know what you saw, Ellie!”

“Don’t do that, don’t try and make me feel crazy! I know exactly what I saw! I didn’t do this, Dad-you did!”

“Please, honey, think about this-”

“No! How could you ask me to do that? How? I don’t even know you anymore!”

“I am your father, damn it! You can’t do this to me, Ellie! Blood is-”

My cell phone trilled. It was my mom, wanting to know if I wanted to go out to eat. I said sure and met her at our favorite sit down restaurant an hour later.

We were waiting for the hostess to call our name, chatting on leather booth seats. People were crammed in the compact space in front of the hostess’s podium, buzzing with talk and laughter. The bell on the front door tinkled and I gave a perfunctory look up. I stopped breathing. It was the girl from my dream. She was with an older man, good-looking with salt and pepper hair.

“Marie, are you even listening to me?” my mother asked.

The girl locked eyes with me. She made an unhappy expression at my open staring. I tore my attention from her and back to my mom.

“Marie?”

“Yea, yea, sorry.”

“How many, sir?” the hostess asked the good-looking man.

“Two, under the name of Hunt.”

“We want to be seated at the bar, please,” Ellie (presumably) said.

“Aw, hon-”

“C'mon, Dad, it’s Saturday. We don’t get to do this kind of thing often,” Ellie said.

It was her dad.

“Marie, I don’t even know how you hold down a job-your head is so airy, it might float away at any given moment,” my mom teased.

“Sorry, sorry. I was…”

“Distracted?”

Ellie and her dad walked passed us and out the door, to wait outside.

“Yea.”

We were called soon after that, and I didn’t see Ellie and her father again.

I couldn’t have just walked over to them and said, “I’ve been dreaming about you,” so I drove home after our meal and watched TV, attempting to get her and her dad out of my head.
What did this mean, though? I kept dreaming about this stranger’s death. And the argument with her dad, it was over something very serious.

When I dreamed of her after the chance encounter, there was nothing new thrown in. I found myself suddenly thankful for that because whatever revelation awaited was odious.

I scheduled a doctor appointment that week. I was struggling to get through the week without getting six headaches, at minimum. Over the span of a couple months, she ran all sorts of tests on me, the scary ones, but found nothing panic-inducing. She told me it must be all the stress from my job.

All the while, I continued to have the dream. I was starting to feel crazy; it was so damn redundant.

My cousin’s wedding came, and I was a bridesmaid. I drank too much champagne, and my mom and dad drove me to their house after, putting me to bed. That was the night my dream changed.
I was in a dark, dank space. I felt like it was a basement. That song was playing, Orbison singing away. I was carrying a knife. I sauntered over to a corner of the big, wide room.

A girl was grasping her knees tightly, staring up at me with animalistic fear. I could smell urine and feces and…menstrual blood. The clothes she was wearing were extremely dingy. The crotch of her jeans had a stain of blood that grew before my eyes, spreading like a cancer. There was a bucket next to her, and I knew that it was the source of the offensive odor.

“Please, I stink-could I at least have a change of clothes-”

I slapped her with the force of ten men. A string of slobber was slung out of her mouth by my hand. She grunted.

I ripped open her shirt as she wept, running the blade of the knife over the parts of her breasts that spilled over her bra.

I was excited. Not just sexually; there was some pure sense of exhilaration in my core. Shaking with the effort to keep my pace slow, I slit superficial cuts into her flesh. Without warning, I plunged the blade into one of her breasts.

She moaned, weakly swatting her bound up hands at me. I drove the knife into the fatty part of her upper arm, to discourage her from fighting me. She took the hint and turned her head up toward the ceiling. I cut into the flesh of her soft belly some, then tore her pants off. The foul smell of menstrual blood and unwashed female anatomy intertwined, wafting to my nose.

This further excited me.

I raped her. Repeatedly.

I woke up alternating between whimpering and screaming. My mom and dad raced in, asking what was wrong, but I couldn’t stomach telling them. I was repulsed by myself and showered four different times.

How could I dream up such filth? What the fuck was wrong with me?

There was no relief. I dreamed that one again that very night.

After I raped her, I took her picture. She wasn’t even emotional. I knew she’d become numb-I’d kept this one for way too long. It was time to dump her and get a new one, full of spunk and fight. That was where the fun was, in the fresh ones who thought they could win, overpower me and escape.

This one was broken.

So, I slit her throat open. There was this awkward whistling sound and her eyes gleamed in…relief? It wasn’t terror, whatever was there. I dipped a finger in the blood squirting out of her neck and tasted it. When she was dead, I got a tarp out of a nearby box and covered her up.

My alarm rescued me from having to endure anymore. I wretched into the toilet and got ready for work.

I was really missing the dying dream. Depression hung over my days of the rape and murder dream, like a black cloud. Night after night after night it ended with me starting to clean up any evidence of this poor, poor girl’s stay in my basement.

My headaches grew more intense. I was calling into work too much due to their debilitating power. When I was at work, I was short and snarky with everyone I interacted with.

The day I got fired, I stood up from my desk as a client yelled in my face.

“Did you even graduate from high school-do you even have a G.E.D.? Because, I tell ya, I’ve never seen someone so incompetent-”

“Shut up, you moronic bitch!” I shouted.

Her mouth snapped shut.

“That’s right-you, you fluffy, obtuse cunt!” I slammed a stapler onto the desk so hard that it shook.

“Fuck this,” I muttered and made for the bathroom.

My boss, listening from his office, was charging passed and stopped me.

“Get out-get out! You are done here!”

I nodded and left.

My dream that night changed again, thank God.

I was sifting through memorabilia and photo albums on the messy, carpeted floor of a sunlit room. Warmed by the pictures of myself as a child, happy and secure in the arms of my mom and dad, I lifted another photo album off the floor. When I opened it, a picture fell out. I picked it up and studied it.

As revolting as the picture was, I couldn’t break away from it.

It was a girl, maybe 19, tied up and naked. She was bleeding from multiple places. Judging from the objects around her, it looked like the basement of this house. The picture got blurry from behind my wall of tears. I dropped it and turned to the photo album it had fallen from.

There were eight other pictures like this. The girls were anywhere from 18ish to 20ish. They were all bound, some naked, some clothed, some partially naked.

My alarm pierced itself into the scene, sharp background music. The room faded and I opened my eyes.

Things were starting to come together, but I couldn’t be sure. I had to be sure. But even if I was sure, where would I go from there?

Back in that scene that night as I slept, I sat looking at the lewd, abhorrent pictures.

“Ellie? What are you doing here? And why are you going through my stuff?”

I paid him no heed, just kept looking at the pictures.
“Ellie-Ellie, what do you have there?”

“Why don’t you tell me?” I asked.

My dad stood in the doorway.

“Ellie, let me ex-”

“Let me out of here-” I jumped up and tried to slip passed him.
He reached out to me.

“NO! Don’t you dare, don’t touch me!” I got around him and sprinted down the stairs outside of the room.

Worried lines etched in his face, he asked, “Where are you going, Ellie?”

At the bottom step, I pivoted and glowered at him.

“To the police.”

“What? No-honey, stop-”

But I was already outside.

On the familiar, yet unknown, road, I quarreled with my father on my cell phone. I wrecked and I died.

This was the last of those dreams.

I woke up in a cold sweat.

I had so many things renting spaces in my overwhelmed head. For one, I was jobless, and bills weren’t going to just stop coming. Then, what was I going to do about these dreams? How was I going to get the police to take me seriously? And was I willing to gamble that these dreams were fact? What if my mind just created some twisted, elaborate story, and I caused a lot of trouble for an innocent man?

My mind hadn’t made up the young woman, though. The young woman was real, the spitting image of Ellie.

I had to give myself some space from all of that. I needed some breathing room. I took up the least taxing of the two problems at hand and started job hunting.

A couple days later, my GPS was giving me directions to turn right onto Gawin Road. It was a long stretch of road, with rows of industrial businesses on each of its sides. I had never been on this road and kept a watchful eye out for the business I had an interview at.

A screeching sound sounded out of nowhere. Jumping in my seat, thinking I was in danger, I saw ahead of me a red pick up truck had plowed into the side of a white car. The intersection was instantaneously familiar to me, as was the truck.

I’d dreamed about it for a good few nights.

I drove closer, before pulling over to the right shoulder and carefully crossing the busy street. The driver of the truck was already talking to 911.

There she was on the asphalt, Ellie. Dead.

The accumulating crowd was talking in hushed tones. Someone was crying. Someone else asked what happened.

“Yes, I checked for a pulse. She, she went out the windshield, you see. I-I-OK, yes, I’ll stay right here.”

My mind blanked.

When they peeled her off the street, her father ran up, hysterical. I couldn’t stomach looking at him, so I took off then.

Needless to say, I didn’t go to the job interview.

I went to my mom and dad’s, upset. Concerned, my mom cooked me dinner and demanded I stay for the night, which I did.

I schemed up stories to tell the police about Ellie’s dad, to offer them something they could use to start up an investigation, but they were all too crazy or stupid. In the end, I went with the truth. They didn’t openly ridicule me, like I’d thought they would. They said they’d look into it, but I knew they were all talk. They couldn’t do anything without evidence.

I had a couple dreamless nights, a vacation from the nightly mayhem, but last night I dreamed I was a man, cheating on my wife. I was fighting with my mistress when she slammed a heavy vase into my head, rendering me dazed and confused. She ran off and returned wielding a golf club. She beat me to death with it.

Headaches are as much apart of me as my heart is now, the price I pay for this kind of insight.


---
by reddit user SuperQueen0208 via: reddit.com/r/nosleep

Snuff Film

Of course nobody believes in Snuff films. It's just too sick to be real, right? Nobody in their right mind would actively produce evidence against them like that, let alone make money off of it.

Al Goldstein, publisher of Screw magazine, has a standing offer of one million American dollars for the one who can find a real, commercially sold Snuff movie. The offer has been in place for years and nobody has claimed it. And for good reason. I mean, you don't buy a carton of cigarettes and then sell it for half or a third of the price, do you?

Besides, as far as I know, nobody has ever taken one of these films home, seeing as they aren't sold as everybody thinks. That's too much of a risk. You pay to view a screening of it. Nobody ever held a copy of these films, except of course for the few people who make money off of them. As far as I know, there are only three, all male. Actually, the only females involved in these movies are the victims. Not all movies contain rape or sex of any kind, but it's not uncommon, especially with the few starring children as victims.

This all may sound a bit odd to a lot of you, but of course it does; it involves something that just can't exist, right? It is, though, very hard to get to attend one of these screenings. You need to be invited, and everyone who's ever been invited has been invited by personal mail, i.e. not via the postal office. The letters are apparently drenched in some chemical that makes the paper dissolve after a certain amount of time outside the envelope, possibly in contact with air or light - I don't know.

All I know is that these people are clever and they take their measures. If they knew who I am, they'd surely kill me, maybe even make me into a movie star. Then I'd be shown in their little cinema. It's quite a dark place, seeing as the only lights are candles situated around the screening room. The entrance to the Snuff cinema is that of a decrepit, old factory, reminiscent of a slaughter house. The letter would have short instructions as how to get to the screening room.

The projector itself, apparently hooked to a recently bought DVD-player, is powered by a car battery. I've been told they used to use a small gas engine back in the 30s. The 'chairs' are the same old tables that were once used as slaughter benches. As soon as the screening is over, all the guests, maximum 10 or so, are threatened to leave immediately through 3 different exits with 30 minutes intervals. The exits are different from the entrance, as they lead to underground tunnels, probably old sewers, that lead to back alleys in different parts of the city.

The crew, i.e. the people with the films, quickly vanish, probably through a fourth exit. If you manage to find the screening room after a screening, you wouldn't know it was ever used for anything like that. It just looks like a walk-in-freezer with white walls, meathooks still in the ceiling, and of course the tables, still with obvious marks of old, dried blood.

There are about 120 Snuff films to be viewed in just this one cinema (and there are probably more throughout the world), each categorized by victim, method of killing, whether sex is involved (and whether it takes place pre or postmortem) and by "level of brutality." At least one film is of young, blonde women being choked to death while performing an unwilling blowjob. Another of a young child being cut open while drugged just enough to not move, but enough to still audibly and visibly be awake. Yet another is of a man hung upside down on a meathook, then having his testicles removed with a machete and force-fed them before he dies from blood loss.

I could go on and on about these movies as I've seen a good portion of them. Why not? I have the money for it. The goriest film I've seen was that of a middle aged dark haired woman having her hands, feet, arms and legs amputated while drugged, then sewn them crudely back on at the wrong extremities.

The next cut showed her wriggle in terror as she tried standing up on her arm-feet until she collapsed and vomited. A door behind her opened and a male figure swung an aluminum baseball bat at her head. On impact, the head bent and she let out a gurgling cry before going limp and silent.

The angle of the camera changed and the man hit her head again, this time bursting it open with debris of brain matter. A crying child was then shown eating her eyes. It was the most satisfying movie I've ever made.


---
via: creepypasta.wikia.com

Heavenly Promises on Mended Wings

The sweetest melodies are those sung from the heart
The softest harmonies are when two souls mend together
Why then do people say it's love that tears them apart?
When it's with love that you can stand the stormy weather

When I met you, Spring was here, and the birds were nesting
I looked into your soft eyes and saw the prettiest smile
Heaven pulled down her veil and offered her most sacred blessing
I've met an angle, I couldn't help but to smile

Sitting by the pool of life, reflecting upon its surface
I think of others and I get a little ripple
I think of you, and a wave swells, spraying my face
You said you wouldn't cry, but I see the tears start to trickle

Some people don't believe in love at first sight
Obviously they haven't seen you
Drifting on love's endless blissful flight
I'm so glad I met you

(Poem by Mike Lewis)

Never Sleep with A Crazy

A few years ago I was walking to my car from class when I noticed a cute girl with straight but unkept black hair wandering around campus and constantly looking to her phone as if it was a map. I approached and said "you look pretty lost, need some assistance?" She gave me a big smile and told me she didn't go here but had to pick up her friend who had locked herself out of her car. I made a lame joke about how lost she looked and she got a kick out of it, as her laughter died she asked if she could borrow my phone because hers had died. That was a lie, she had just been looking at her phone before I approached her and I could see the screen was on. I didn't object though, she was cute. 

Later that night I noticed a new name was in my contacts. "Jess wink emoticon" I made the connection right away and started texting her.

One thing led to another and we had begun dating. You'd think we were the happiest couple in the world if you saw us on our dates always laughing with each other and what not but honestly something was just off about her. I couldn't put my finger on it but from date one something about her just didn't sit right with me. It became this sick obsession of mine, I would go home and think about what it was about her that made me so uneasy but I just couldn't logically explain it. She did nothing particularly strange and was always smiling and laughing with me however the voice in the back of my head was constantly telling me something was off about her. I concluded I was being absurd and began to ignore those feelings because another side of me really liked her. That is until we had sex.

On our 6th date we were watching a movie at her parents house (who were dead asleep upstairs) when cuddling turned to kissing and then stripping etc. you know how it is. The sex itself was amazing but this isn't an erotica so I'll spare you the details. Only after I finished did I notice the condom had been cut. Fuck. Did she do that? I looked up and she had this satisfied smug look on her face like she had just pulled off a heist or some shit. I told her I had to go and scurried home without saying goodbye. She tried to ask me what was the matter but i just left. My head was racing that night I was freaking the fuck out. My brother came into my room and told me to stop laughing because he was trying to sleep. I still don't know what the fuck he was talking about I wasn't laughing at least I don’t think I was. He looked concerned upon seeing how broken up I probably looked. I was curled up in a ball on my bed in my own world hardly processing what he was saying. He closed the door without saying a word.

The next day my sleep deprived brain devised a plan to outsmart her. I spent that morning gathering the materials I needed and drove to the restaurant where my friend Kyle worked as a waiter. I told him I'd be taking Jess here tonight and I needed him to slip this plan B pill in her drink. He was a good friend of mine so he reluctantly accepted the task. She was relieved when I started answering her worried text, I told her i remembered I had left the stove on the previous night and that's why I rushed home. As for my phone I said I managed to lose it upon getting home and didn't find it until the end of the afternoon. She thought I didn't know a thing about her little condom scheme. I have to admit I started to understand how she must have felt the previous night; nothing makes you feel smugger then watching a good plan unfolding itself perfectly. Sure enough Kyle slipped the pill in her drink and "forgot" her straw. Watching her sip down that coke was the most satisfying thing I had seen in my life. "It’s my win Jess" I thought to myself as she put down her empty glass on the table. I'd have broken up with her the next day but tragically she ended up passing away in her sleep. I must have gotten 30 voice mails from Kyle that morning; I never did listen to them. What an ordeal that whole thing was. Everyone’s heard at least once in their lives "never sleep with a crazy." She shouldn't have.


----by reddit user Whatgoesaroundd via: reddit.com/r/nosleep

The Sultan and The Beggar

There was a Sultan who loved to play tricks on people and derived pleasure from seeing people tortured from his cruel jokes. He likes to disguise himself as a commoner and goes around looking for his victims so that he can play his sick jokes on.

One day, while disguised as a traveller, he found a drunken beggar who wished more in the world to have the destiny to become a sultan. The Sultan knew he found the perfect victim. He made him drunk to the point of unconsciousness, took him back to the palace, cleaned, shaved, dressed and perfumed him and let him lie on the bed while he disguised himself as one of the palace guards to watch his joke in play.

As expected, when the beggar woke up to find himself in the sultan's palace and everyone calling him 'Your Majesty' and all that, he was driven crazy, and the Sultan went almost mad with laughter as he watched the poor beggar trying to figure out whether it was a dream or not. The subjects had no choice but to play along with the Sultan's joke for fear of being beheaded if they give away the secret.

But what the Sultan did not expect was that the beggar soon believed that he was the Sultan and unlike the real Sultan, he took his role very seriously and actually began to care for his subjects. The real Sultan didn't think this joke was funny anymore, and decided to end it by drugging him, strip him off his fancy clothes and throw him back to the streets where he belongs.

The poor beggar woke up finding himself in the streets again as a beggar and went almost mad, shouting throughout the streets that he was a sultan, which earned him a trip to prison. The Sultan giggled as he watched the beggar trying to convince himself that he was the sultan, but slowly eased in to the fact that he wasn't. The Sultan decided to play the same trick again to him by repeating the same process: drugging him and changing him back to the lavish Sultan's clothes.

When the beggar woke up again in his fancy state, he again went crazy, screaming "No, it's happening again~!" But this time, the tables were turned. The Sultan made a mistake by hiding behind the wardrobe while watching him going crazy while his subjects tried to calm him down, and while he laughed out loud, the beggar thought it was demons playing a joke on him and took a nearby dagger and stabbed the Sultan in the wardrobe to death.

The subjects were a little distraught. The Sultan had no heir and there would be a civil war if the news of Sultan's death ever got out. They decided to cover it up by saying to anyone who asked that the Sultan had went on a holy pilgrimage to Mecca and had asked his friend to take over. After agreeing to that decision, they tended to the beggar who is the current "Sultan".

"Who was that?" the beggar asked.

"Oh, that's the royal jester," they replied. "Don't mind him. His last joke was a killer, anyways."

And soon the beggar became the most well-loved Sultan among his subjects and the old Sultan was, through time, completely forgotten


Moral: Never tell the same joke twice

Mayhem Mountain

“In two miles take exit 19 for Valley Park Drive South.” Siri chirped from my sister’s phone.

“Charlotte, turn that off. I know where I’m going.”

“You sure about that? I mean…it has been a couple decades, Mark.”

“Please, like I could ever forget where Adventure Valley is. Come on, we spent every summer of-“

“There it is!” I swerved briefly into the oncoming lane as Charlotte thrust her arm in front of my face to point excitedly out the window. “There’s Adventure Valley! Oh my God, what ride is that? That coaster, it was called ‘Steel’ something, right? No, no, wait, that’s Mayhem Mountain, isn’t it?”

I gently pushed my sister’s arm out of my face and back over to her seat. I couldn’t fault her for her excitement while I was trying so hard to control my own giddiness. It felt like we were kids again, yelling and bouncing in the back seat of my parent’s car as the first shining rails and wooden planks of the park’s roller coasters came into view above the treetops.

“That’s the Steel Viper.” I told her. “Mayhem Mountain’s on the other end of the park. And that wooden coaster over there is the Excalibur.”

“Oh yeah! I remember those! I was always too much of a wus to ride the viper but I rode the shit out of the Excalibur.”

“Well, Charlotte, you’re an adult, now. I think it’s time to take on the Viper.”

“As long as the contractors have tested it and given it the okay, I’m in.”

That was really the question, wasn’t it? We didn’t know which rides had been inspected and cleared and which ones hadn’t. I sent up a silent prayer that Mayhem Mountain was counted among the rides that had. I’d left Brandon several voicemails asking about it since he was the one in charge of everything. But with how fast things had been moving since we’d bought the park, I couldn't fault him for being a busy man.

If you'd told 12 year old me that my crazy, hyper, wild-eyed friend Brandon Decker would end up graduating cum laude from Northwestern business school I would have laughed in your face. Brandon? No way. Tyler, maybe, but never Brandon. In fact, half the reason I think he choose a business designation was because of Adventure Valley. When the park had closed in 1989 Brandon had gathered us all together in his basement and, with a gravitas and solemnness I’ve never seen in him before or since, asked us to make the pact.

At the time the promise had been the most serious vow that five 12 year olds could ever make. High off of an entire summer of Adventure Valley fun, we agreed, with all the ceremony of a meeting of parliament, that we would one day come together and buy Adventure Valley Amusement Park.

Of course, back then we’d planned to just buy it and ride the roller coasters into the ground. We decided which friends from school we would let in and which enemies would be barred from the gates. It had always been our park, and it was only right that we should have it.

It had taken twenty years but we eventually did fulfill our promise. With a hell of a lot of pushing from Brandon (and a sizeable offer of collateral from Tyler) the bank had agreed to give us the multi million dollar loan to buy, repair, refurbish and reopen the park. The size of the loan that the six of us were responsible for gave me nightmares for several weeks. How would this place ever turn a profit? It had been closed decades ago after operating in the red for several years. The county had experienced a high number of runaways and missing persons in the area in the last years of the 1980s. The entire region was on edge as the cases mounted and people in the area became depressed and suspicious of each other. It had absolutely killed park attendance.

But seeing the first cresting waves of roller coasters rails through the trees made me all but forget about my financial worries. This was Adventure Valley for Christ’s sake. If we opened the gates, people would come.

“There! There, there, there – that’s our exit!” Charlotte squeaked.

I pulled off the interstate and took a left under the bridge. Less than a mile later we came upon the acres of the park’s parking lots to our right. We turned in and drove all the way up to the front near the gates where several other cars were parked – a Lexus, a Mini Cooper, an old Chevelle and a Honda Civic – another rental car like ours.

“Looks like we’re the last ones here,” Charlotte said.

She was right. As we pulled up next to the Lexus I noticed a group of people standing next to the ticket booth, waving to us excitedly.

“Oh my God, is that Tyler? Jesus, he’s lost some weight, he’s so skinny now! And Brandon’s losing his hair. Holy shit, is that Koji? Koji got hot!”

“Calm down, Paris Hilton, these guys are my friends. They’re off limits to you, same rules as when we were teenagers. Besides half of them are married.”

“Really…which half?”

I raised an eyebrow at Charlotte and shook my head in amused bewilderment. My little sister never had outgrown her boy craziness.

“Wait, who’s that?” Charlotte asked as we got out of the car.

“What? That’s Scott! You know Scott.”

“Not Scott, Scott looks exactly the same. The girl next to Scott.”

“Oh.” I had put this off so long that I’d actually forgotten to tell my sister at all. “That’s Dani, Scott’s girlfriend.”

“Dani as in Danielle Burcher?”

“Well…yeah.”

My sister gave me such a horrified look that you’d think I’d betrayed her to her death. But it was fleeting and quickly replaced by a sly smile.

“Fine by me. I’m sure she’s not the same person she was in high school. We’re all adults now, right? Now come on, let’s go!”

A sigh of relief escaped my chest as I slammed the car door and followed Charlotte over to the entrance. Though I saw most of these guys every year, seeing us all here together, standing at the ticket booths of Adventure Valley, brought me a sort of happiness I hadn’t experienced in many years.

“Mark-fucking-Lantice. I can’t believe it.” Tyler had an edgy, commanding voice that probably made his many employees shudder and scatter. But I knew him like a brother so his bravado just made me laugh.

“Can you believe it?” I asked as I gave him a hug and a slap on the back. “Back at front gates. $15 a day doesn’t seem so ridiculous now.”

“Pfft, $15 a day, my ass.” Brandon said as he shook my hand. “By my math, it looks like we’ll be charging about $65 a day.”

“I’ll pay it!” Charlotte smiled as she gave Koji a hug.

“Are people really going to pay $65 a day?” Koji asked. “Even Disneyland only charges $85 and there you get access to two parks.”

“How could I forget,” Brandon shook his head. “One of our investors works for the mouse. Pity they won’t let you design any artwork for this place.”

“Come on, man, I’m not an artist, I’m an engineer.”

“Don’t you mean imagineer?” Charlotte winked at him.

Koji sighed and shook his head. “Yeah, I fuckin’ do.”

As Brandon and Charlotte teased Koji I made my way over to the side of the ticket booth where Scott and his girlfriend were conversing. I didn’t know why Scott was being so standoffish but I thought it might have something to do with the investment. Scott, the least well off of us six, worked at his dad’s collision shop and hadn’t had a whole lot of money to invest. I thought maybe he was embarrassed about the money but now, watching him lean against the booth with slowly shifting eyes, I realized it wasn’t that at all - Scott was just stoned. Same old Scott.

“What’s up, Burnout? My brother. I haven’t seen you in like 15 years, how about a bro hug?”

Scott smiled and pushed off the wall to come give me a quick hug. “Hey, how’s it going, man? Fuck, look at you. What your diet, man, rabbit food and lettuce? You’re not gonna get any ladies with that skinny body.”

“Your mom doesn’t seem to mind.”

“Hey, Mark. I’m Dani. Do you remember me? Dani Burcher?” Scott’s girlfriend gave me a shy smile and stuck out her hand so we could engage in a stiff handshake.

“Yeah, I think so. You were in my sister’s class, right? Charlotte Lantice?”

Dani had the decency to look embarrassed. “Yeah, but we weren’t really friends.”

That’s putting it lightly, I thought.

“We were freshmen when you guys were seniors.” She added.

“Yep, I do remember that.”

Maybe I should just get it over with. I called Charlotte over and the re-introduction of the two girls, while awkward, was over pretty quickly to everyone’s relief. We were all eager to get into the park. It was odd not stopping at the window for tickets and even odder to walk around the rusting turn-styles of the front gates. I delighted in reminding myself that we owned this place now.

Brandon gave us a tour of the park. Now so much of the geography – we all knew that inside and out – but of the hypothetical layout and reorganization of the park as he saw it.

“The Excalibur is going to need the most amount of work, according to Rich.” (Brandon’s head contractor). “A roller coaster made of wood exposed to the elements for all these years…we’ll keep as much of the original structure as is safe but we might have to rebuild most of it.”

“Do we have the money for that?” Scott asked loudly from where he walked behind us with Dani.

“Yeah,” Tyler said. “We have the money for that.”

“Ah, Mr. Moneybags. That Mini dealership treating you good?” I nudged him hard with my shoulder. Tyler stumbled but kept enough composure to push me back into a passing churro stall.

“Those six BMW dealerships are treating me very well.”

“Well enough to serve as the sizable collateral we needed.”

Brandon added.

“So,” Charlotte ran up behind us and threw her arms around Tyler and Koji. “Can we…ride some rides?”

“Are you kidding? Why do you think we’re here!” Tyler laughed.

“I’m just here for Mayhem Mountain.” I said clapping my hands and rubbing them together eagerly.

Brandon threw up his hands. “Alright, fine! I thought you guys would be interested in how your investment is coming along.”

Koji snorted. “All we’re interested in is the projected ROI and, more importantly, which rides have passed safety inspection!”

“Oh,” Brandon stopped walking and tried to look annoyed, and, failing that, he smiled. “A little over half of them are rideable.”

Suddenly everybody was talking at once.

“Is Steel Viper open?”

“Yep, that one’s on.”

“What about Snapdragon?”

“That one is good to go, too.”

“Renegade Falls?”

“The water’s not on.”

“High Roller?”

“Yes.”

“Space Spin?”

“Oh yeah.”

“Power Tower?”

“They’re doing the inspection this week.”

There was only one ride I really cared about – mine and Brandon’s favorite.

“What about Mayhem Mountain?”

“Fuck. Yes.” He answered to collective groans from the rest.

Mayhem Mountain had always been our thing. The others had always been happy to ride High Roller and Snapdragon into exhaustion, Brandon and I always split off toward the end of the day to ride Mayhem Mountain into the twilight hours.

“Ugh,” Charlotte shuddered. “I hate that ride.”

“It’s boring as hell,” Koji agreed. “I helped design something similar for Disneyland Hong Kong. We put it in Fantasy Land, for fucks sake.”

“Hey, that ride is awesome. It’s long and it goes upside down,” I argued. “Charlotte is even too scared to ride it!”

“I’m not scared of that ride, it just gives me the creeps. Something about it, just, I don’t know, seems off.”

“Alright, look. We’ll start at this end of the park and work our way towards the back. That way we can ride every ride that’s passed inspection - including Mayhem Mountain.” Brandon said.

“And Snapdragon,” Tyler added and the others nodded excitedly.

“Yes, every ride. And of course we can ride them, you know, as many times as we want.”

“Hell yes, brother.” Koji high-fived Brandon and we headed down the street toward Space Spin.

Our progress through the park was blissfully slow. Everyone wanted to ride every ride multiple times and one person always had to stay in the loading area to operate the ride.

It only took an hour or two to forget that I was a fully grown 35 year old man. Being back here, running through the line-ways with my friends, arguing who got the first row of the first car, it was like being 12 years old again.

Still, my eye was constantly drawn up over the buildings into the distance, to the back of the park where the high, gleaming rails of Mayhem Mountain shined in the unobscured sun. There would be no arguing who got front row on that coaster - it was me and Brandon. It was always me and Brandon.

Charlotte, Tyler and Koji were the most like children, constantly running ahead and arguing over which ride to get on next, yelling back to ask Brandon if this one or that one had been cleared by the contractors.

Brandon and I held back from the group a bit, discussing ideas and possible improvements for the park. Scott and Dani took up the rear of the group, quietly talking and lighting joints.

When we arrived at the Enterprise, a simple ride that consisted on spinning cars on a circular track, I offered to flip the switch while the rest of the group rode to excess. The Enterprise always made me sick when we were kids. Brandon offered to stay on the platform with me to chat while everyone else rode the ride.

I flipped the switch to turn the ride on and as the cars spun away from the loading area, the Enterprise’s signage came into view. I sighed. All day I had been trying to ignore the bright graffiti sprayed all over the park but the words painted over the signage for the Enterprise were impossible to ignore.

Where did the missing kids go?

And the rest of the graffiti in the park was much the same. Most said things like: “Where are they?”, “Runaway Row”, “Find Ryan Kinskey”, and “The Missing are now Dead”. Similar sayings could be found in town sprayed across a few dilapidated buildings in the industrial district.

Brandon’s eyes avoided the sign but I could tell he was thinking about it, too.

“Do you think the reason they shut this park down, I mean, do you see that being an issue for park attendance?” I asked as casually as I could.

Brandon was quiet for a few moments as he waited for the ride to slow to a stop so he could flip the switch again.

“Nah, I don’t think so. Low attendance issues aren’t actually what shut the park down.”

“They aren’t?” This surprised me.

“Nope. When we were negotiating the sale of the park, I was given access to the park’s financials in the 80s.”

“So they weren’t operating at a loss?”

“Oh they were. But this park has operated in the red since opening day in the 70s. Half of their revenue was being fed back into something called ‘county services’, whatever that is. The bank couldn’t tell me and believe me, I tried to find out.”

“County services…” I mused.

“Yep. Bizarre. And according to the paperwork the park was closed because the owner didn’t want to live here anymore. And he couldn’t be bothered to wait for a decent offer on the property so he just sold it to the bank for next to nothing.”

“So he was a rich guy.” I leaned back against the railing to stretch my back. “And an idiot.”

“Yes – to an extreme in both cases. The owner of the park was Abel Bissette.”

“Abel Bisette? Related to that French billionaire, I’m guessing?”

Brandon nodded. “Michael Bisette. He built this park for his son in the 70s. Abel was never really what we would call ‘business inclined’. I’ve always heard him described as ‘simple’.”

“I can’t believe the son of a billionaire lives in this area.”

“Well, not anymore. He moved on decades ago.”

I shook my head in disbelief. Who would ever have thought that our simple little park was owned by a famous billionaire’s son? Hell, I may have even sat next to him on rides and had no idea!

“You guys want to go again?” Brandon yelled to the others as the ride again came to a stop.

“I’m ready to move on,” Koji yelled back. “Anybody want to ride again?”

“Nope!” a chorus of voices replied.

It was near 5 o’clock when we finally arrived at Mayhem Mountain. As the sun began to set a familiar panic and urgency welled in the pit of my stomach. It took a moment for me to realize that we didn’t have to leave when the park closed this time – because the park didn’t close. We could stay until sun-up if we wanted to!

As I eagerly approached the turn-style for Mayhem Mountain Tyler spoke up behind me. “Listen, can we run into town and grab something to eat before we ride Mayhem?”

“You really want to ride Mayhem after we eat?” Asked Koji.

“Good point.”

“There’s only one loop,” Dani rolled her eyes.

“Two,” I said. “Don’t forget the inline roll.”

“Yep, two.” Scott answered. “Plus it’s a two minute ride. If your food isn’t sitting well, you’ve got a long wait ‘til it’s over.”

“Look,” I said, “Let’s ride it a couple times and then go eat. When we come back we’ll see how we feel.”

Everyone nodded and we started walking through the line-ways up to the platform. When we reached the loading dock, I was excited to see our favorite green car sitting on the track.

“Front seat!” Brandon and I yelled simultaneously as the train cars came into view and everyone behind us groaned.

“I’m staying here,” Charlotte said. “I’ll just work the launchpad thingy.”

“Still scared after all these years, Char?” Scott teased her.

“Shut up, Burnout.”

Scott laughed and tousled her hair before running and jumping into the first car behind Brandon and I. Dani got in next to him and then Tyler and Koji took the second car. We pulled the shoulder restraints down and they locked in place.

“Ready?” Charlotte asked.

“Yep!” Brandon yelled back, “Send the car through!”

Charlotte pulled the lever and the brakes disengaged. As the car moved forward I turned to Brandon.

“Did we get the green car on purpose?” I yelled to him as the coaster clacked around the load platform and began the clattery climb up the first lift hill.

“Yep! We sent cars through here all morning but I made sure Rich knew to leave the Green Machine in the loading bay.”

“Awesome.”

As the train climbed up the lift hill I made no attempt to hide my utter glee. I looked out over the expansive park and couldn’t believe it was mine. Every track, every car, every turn-style, every screw, from the front gate to the overflow parking lot in the back, it was all ours. How I wished I could go back in time and tell a young me waiting in the two hour line for Mayhem Mountain – one day, you will OWN this place.

And as we crested the hill and the train fell into the first drop, I realized I essentially had gone back in time. At least, I was screaming like a 12 year old, as was everyone else behind me.

We dipped into the first tester hill and then banked hard and up, to the second lift hill. We dropped from there, down into the vertical loop, banked around a set of gift ships, up briefly and then down a small hill into the inline roll. When we arrived back at the loading bay we were all screaming and whooping. Charlotte didn’t even have to ask, just smiled at us and sent us through again.

We went twice more before we finally got off the ride. Koji walked over to check out the control panel while the rest of us taunted my sister.

“You sure you don’t want to go, Char? It’s awesome.”

“Nah, I’m good. I have no problem being the carny for this ride.” She laughed.

“Come on, Charlotte, just one time. One time and we’ll leave you alone.” Tyler urged.

“No, no, no, no, no. No way. Not interested. I’ll ride anything else, though!”

“Hey, do you guys know what Track B is?” Koji asked.

“Track B? What do you mean?” Brandon walked over to Koji at the control board and raised an eyebrow. “That’s weird.”

“It’s probably just the track they use to get the cars into the storage bay,” Scott said with a shrug.

“No,” Koji said. “That’s called a transfer track. Track B has to be something else.”

“Yeah, well I’ve been on this ride enough times to know that there is no other track.”

“Yep,” Tyler agreed with me. “He has.”

“So…should we try it?” Brandon tested.

“Fuck no.” Said Charlotte. “If you don’t know what Track B is that means the contractors don’t know about it either. Which means it hasn’t been inspected in at least 20 years. That’s suicide.”

“Look,” Koji said, “if Track B exists than even the most
incompetent of engineers would have found it during an inspection.”

“And Rich cleared this entire ride,” Brandon nodded. “It’s probably just the ride in reverse. We’re good.”

“Well, we’re in,” announced Scott from the other side of the track, though Dani didn’t look quite on board with the idea.

“Mark?” Tyler asked.

“Yeah, I guess I’m in. What the worst that could happen: we get funneled into a repair bay?”

“Alright, then I’m in too.” Tyler said hesitantly.

Koji shrugged. “Here goes nothing.”

He flipped the switch over to Track B and a moment later a loud metallic scraping some distance away filled the park. The sound lasted almost a minute. I studied the familiar silver roller coaster under the pink sky of the setting sun but I saw no physical changes to the track. I looked over at Brandon and a shrug of his shoulders told me he didn’t either.

“Shall we?” Scott asked gesturing to the train cars we’d just disembarked. I gave Charlotte a questioning look but she shook her head emphatically no. So it was just the six of us again.
“It’s only right you two take the bow of the ship.” Tyler gave a mock salute. “Oh Captains, my captains.”

I laughed and hopped into the right side of the front row. Brandon crawled into the seat next to me. Tyler and Koji got in behind us and Scott and Dani took the back. We pulled the shoulder bars down and they locked into place.

“Are you sure about this?” Charlotte asked when everyone was settled.

Dani said something from her place a few rows back but all I heard was Brandon yelling “Pull it!”

The brakes released and the train rolled away from the platform and into the twilight of dusk. The lights had lit up on the track while we’d been arguing and the roller coaster looked absolutely beautiful. I was filled with awe and reverence at what this place truly meant to mean and my friends. It was a symbol of our youth and innocence and blissful ignorance of the world. It was our own little bubble of happiness.

The coaster again climbed the lift hill and from the top Brandon and I studied the track but in those few seconds I saw no difference. Brandon looked over and I shook my head at him disappointedly. By the time we reached the vertical loop halfway through the ride it was clear that there was no Track B. But it was hard to be upset because I was still on Mayhem Mountain and still found it an impossible challenge not to smile.

We banked around the now brightly lit gift shops, up the small tester hill and then back down to the inline roll. Except…the inline roll was suddenly above us. We’d missed it. Instead the track now descended into a large, square hole in the ground behind the gift shops – and we were headed directly into it.

I was in too much shock to scream or even move. The black hole swallowed us in an instant and we descended into complete darkness. I felt a comfortable pressure leave my shoulders and realized that the shoulder bars had released. I gripped the front lip of the ledge of my seat and heard the terrified screams of my friends behind me as the coaster suddenly spun into what felt like an inline roll. I was too scared to do anything but hold on for dear life though some part of my brain registered that the g-forces of the roll probably would have been enough to keep me in my seat if I had let go. Probably.

We came out of the inline roll and dropped again - hard. As the roller coaster dropped the room suddenly lit up around us and I saw the track below arcing up into a light tester hill. As we hit the bottom of the hill the shoulder bars lowered mechanically. The car went over the small tester hill and then braked to start up another tall lift hill. I took my first breath since dropping through the ground and looked around, tuning out the screams of Dani and Tyler behind me.

We were in what can be described as a cavernous room and I only assume it stretched to the farthest reaches of the park above. There were lots of vertical loops, high drops and sharp curves that put the track perpendicular to the ground. Throughout the entire sublevel building lamps dotted the wall every 30 feet. They put out a dreary, yellowed glow for as far as the eye could see. But many were burnt out and in parts the track disappeared into darkness.

But in the dull, yellow edges of the light I saw something that registered in me a horror beyond death. Far away from us, in a section of shadowy track, I saw the high crest of a peak hill which reached almost the ceiling of the giant room. And then the track just…ended.

Suddenly feel the horrible reality of the world outside my mind began to bleed in. Dani was screaming uncontrollably, Tyler was crying, bawling even, Koji was yelling at Brandon who was looking straight at me, hitting my leg hard and repeating my name. As the cars continued to climb I finally gave him my attention. I didn’t want to be alone in the fear anymore.

“What is this?” was all I could think of to say.

“We have to get off this ride. We have to get off this ride, Mark.”

“I fucking know, man.”

“We’re going to die.”

“I fucking know, man!” I yelled as we reached the top of the lift hill and dropped over the other side. I squeezed my eyes shut until I felt the shoulder bars once again release and I bit my lip to keep from crying. I opened my eyes and choked as I watched the track ahead up us bend up into a vertical loop. I reached up and tried to pull the shoulder bar down but it was locked in place.

“Hang on! Hang onto the seats!” I yelled as loud as I could.

As we approached the loop I felt the brakes engaging, slowing the car, and a tow cable catch beneath my feet. We were being pulled up through the loop, but too slowly for gravity to keep us in our seats.

As the train began to invert I felt my feet rise from the floor of the car. My hair fell over my face and my butt left the seat. I closed my eyes and tried to block out the screams of terror from behind me. I concentrated on my death grip of the ledge of my seat as we rounded the track. We remained upside down for what felt like eternity. Finally the pressure began to ease, my butt dropped to my seat and my feet to the floor. The white noise subsided from my ears and I heard Koji’s screaming.

“Tyler! Fuck, fuck, he fell out. Fuck, he fell, he’s dead, man, he’s dead.”

“He hit the track down there.” Brandon yelled at me, wide-eyed and crazy looking. I was finally seeing the Brandon from my youth. The shoulder bars descended again, this time locking in tighter.

We came out of loop and sped up and down several tester hills. I tried to study the track ahead of us as we went through the safer parts. I thought I saw water reflecting off the metal rails somewhere in the distance. Brandon sobbed in his seat.

“Mark, what are we gonna do? I don’t wanna die, man. I don’t wanna fucking die.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what to do. I’m sorry, I’m fucking scared, too.” I answered him.

We banked around a corner of the room and the shoulder bars released again. This time we dove into a curve that put the left side of the train parallel to the ground – and it was a long drop. I gripped the edge of the seat tightly as before but this time I kept my eyes open and was able to catch Brandon as he began to slip out of his seat.

By the time the train righted itself, I couldn’t tell who’d been lost. Most of the screaming behind me had turned to loud sobbing or silence. The shoulder bar didn’t reengage and I felt the car’s brakes slow the train down again. I didn’t have to loop to know what was coming next.

It was another inverted loop - this one was tall and large and I could tell we’d be upside down for longer. Someone behind me began screaming again, Dani I think, as I tried to take measured breaths and position my hurting hands back under the lip of the seat. Brandon did the same and looked over at me as the car started up the loop with tears streaming down his face.

“I don’t wanna die in here, man.”

I shook my head back at him because I could think of nothing to say.

I felt tears leave my own eyes as we reached the tipping point of the loop and my feet again left the floor. Before we were even completely upside down I felt my back begin to slip down the seat. I thought if I lost my grip, I could try to grab for the shoulder bars when I fell out of the car.

The car suddenly stopped and I opened my eyes to see we were completely inverted. I grunted loudly at the pain and immense effort it was taking to keep my grip on the seat. The car started to move again slowly and I heard Brandon say something to me. I looked over at him just before he slid out of the car. One second he was there, next to me, and the next he was falling, falling away from the car.

I saw Brandon try to grab the shoulder bar on the way out but we couldn’t keep his grip on it. I watched him fall and I saw him break his back on the track below and he stopped moving. I stared down at him as the car continued to move slowly around the loop and he stared back up at me, dead, or dying. By the time the car hit him on the way out of the loop, he was completely gone.

The shoulder bars re-engaged and we went through a dreadfully long period where nothing happened. We were secured in our seats by the restraints as the coaster spent what felt like several minutes racing over hills, banks, curves, even an inline roll.

Without the adrenaline pumping through my veins, I felt the shock begin to wear off. It was replaced by a panic and fear unlike I’d ever experienced. And I decided that was the point of this section of track: to build and facilitate an unbearable fear.

I felt the brakes engage finally and I looked ahead to find the loop we were surely entering but there was none. We were high, almost to the top of the ceiling and we slowed to a stop on a straightaway. Directly ahead was a drop and at the bottom of the hill, a series of four different tracks, with a transfer stack just before they split off. Each track had five or so feet of color – red, orange, green and blue – before racing off in different directions.

I felt an urgent shaking of my shoulder and turned around to hear what Koji was saying.

“Which track are we connected to?”

I looked at the transfer stack.

“Green.”

“Where does green go?” It was hard to hear him over the sound of Dani’s sobbing from the second car. I tried to trace the green track through the building, constantly losing it and finding it again. I wasn’t sure, but it seemed to end at the lift hill I’d seen earlier.

The hill with no track at the top.

“It ends at that hill,” I yelled back at him and pointed. Dani cried louder.

“Fuck.”

While we were stopped I rubbed my hurting hands together. As I looked down at them I noticed something new in the car. At some point a small, blinking panel had flipped over in the wall at the front of the car. It had four colored buttons and an old analog timer. The timer was so old and damaged that though the numbers were clearly changing I couldn’t see how long we had.

“We get to choose,” I said and explained what I was looking at.

“Can you see which track ends where?” Koji asked.

I followed all the track as best I could but the rails circled and slid in between each other. It was hard to tell which track went where.

“I think the blue track ends in that big pool in the corner. The red track ends in a wall and the orange one just drops into a hole in the floor like the one we came down here through. I think.”

“There’s no way out, dude,” said Scott from the second car. His voice was unsettlingly calm. “They’re just telling us how we’re going to die.”

“We can still find a way out of this.” I answered quietly, more to myself than to him.

“Choose the pool,” Scott said, and I could hear the tears in his voice. “I’ve heard drowning isn’t an awful death. I’ve heard it’s calming at the end.”

“No! Choose the hole in the floor,” said Koji. “It’s possible it drops down into another cavern like this. There might be more track which means more time to figure out how to live.”

“You don’t think we’d be the first to choose that option, do you?” 

Scott asked him. “And no one that went missing ever came back. There’s just more death in that hole.”

“I don’t want to die like this,” Koji begged. “And at least it’s a chance.”

Dani was still whimpering in the back and offered no suggestion. It seemed the decision was up to me and I had to make it fast.

I knew I didn’t want to die by dropping off the track. I didn’t want to drown. Perhaps the quickest death was the wall. More than likely we would all be killed instantly. Less suffering, less time to think about our fates. But the truth was, I wasn’t enough entirely positive which track ended where. It was all educated guesswork and my time was up.

“The orange. Let’s go down to the second floor, if there is one.”

Scott and Dani said nothing and Koji choked out the last words I’d ever hear him say.

“Push it before it chooses for us.”

Before I could think about it any longer I pushed the orange button and committed us to whatever death it led to. We heard the metallic scraping of the track transferring below. Once the orange track was securely connected, the brakes on the car released and the train rolled slowly toward the drop. Dani started screaming again.

As we dropped down the hill I got a better view of the orange track. There was a vertical loop ahead that didn’t look as high as the others we’d been through. If fact, it looked like there was a chance the fall wouldn’t kill us. If it wasn’t an optical illusion and if the shoulder bars disengaged for that loop we might have a shot at living through this. I yelled back to everyone behind me.

“Let yourself fall out of the loop, the one up there!”

No one responded to me, which didn’t matter because I didn’t think I’d have the courage to let go of the seat anyway.

We raced along the track in and out of banks and curves. And one point we passed along the pool and I looked down. Below the water’s surface the track ended above an even deeper pool. I could see the shadows of several coaster cars at the very bottom.

I suddenly felt the brakes engage and I realized we were coming to the loop. I tested the shoulder bar by pushing up on it but it stayed locked. I was somewhat relieved in that moment to know I wouldn’t have to make the decision to fall out now or gamble on the orange track. But suddenly – the restraints released.

As we started up the loop I gripped the lip of the seat tightly and turned my head back to look down. It looked like we were very high and I only hoped the ground was the loosely packed dirt that it looked like. I had to choose now – the fall or the hole. I choose the fall.

As I began to slide up the seat I yelled at the others to let go and fall out of the car. And then I closed my eyes – and let go. I felt my head crack the shoulder bar on the way out.

It wasn’t like a slow motion fall - it was over before I realized that I’d actually let go. One moment I felt an intense pain as my head hit the bar and in the same moment I realized I was on the ground. I hadn’t even had the time to realize the possibility of hitting the track below or get run over by the cars. I opened my eyes in time to watch the cars speed over the track above me.

The pain didn’t hit me all at once. I had one long, blissful second before I felt it. And then I was in agony.

I’d hoped my body was so in shock that I wouldn’t feel much of the pain but I felt it all. I concentrated on keeping my eyes open and trying to catalog the damage. There was blood on my clothes but I didn’t know what part of my body it was coming from. I heard screaming as well but I didn’t know if it was in my head or coming from my friends as they approached the end.

I didn’t want to move, didn’t think it was safe to move, but I knew I had to, if only to pull out my phone. With trembling fingers I pulled the thing from my pocket and brought it to my face, trying to focus on the screen. But it was shattered and refused to even turn on. I threw it away from me and then I realized the silence.

Their ride had ended.

With a great amount of effort I rolled over onto my stomach and dragged my broken body across the ground toward where I thought I remembered seeing the hole. I crawled for what seemed like hours and maybe it was. Sometimes I tried to stand or even kneel but the pain in my back and ribs was too great. I passed out several times from shock and pain but eventually I made it to where the track disappeared into the ground. I pulled myself to the edge and looked down inside the hole.

The track ended just below the surface.

It was a natural shaft with walls made of rock. I didn’t know how deep it went and I didn’t want to. It was a fate I’d only narrowly escaped. But then I thought my friends were down there and maybe someone survived.

“Koji?” My voice echoed loudly down the shaft. No answer.

“Scott?” Nothing.

I reached for a nearby screw and dropped it down the hole. It took half a minute to land and when it did it was with a tink as it hit something metal. The small sound echoed up the shaft and out into the cavernous room and I realized this place was built with acoustics in mind. I rolled over onto my back and studied everything I could see from where I was, staving off my bodies desire to pass out again. I felt nothing but numbness when I finally saw what I was looking for - a long, panoramic window in the far wall. I knew what Track B was for and I finally let myself slip away into the darkness.

I remember very little of my rescue. There were lots of people in uniform and my sister yelling and pain - lots of pain. I was in and out on the way to the hospital but I remember I passed through the room behind the window at some point. And from my stretcher, through the chaos, I saw in that room a single chair facing the window. It was covered in a deep layer of dust.

I was never visited by anyone official, let alone asked to give a statement. Charlotte stayed by my side at the hospital for months while I recovered. She wouldn’t say much about that day although she finally did tell me something. She that that they wouldn’t let her ride with me to the hospital and that someone offered her a ride. On that drive she’d been spoken to by two people that had convinced her to never speak of what had happened and to convince me of the same. Whatever they threatened her with had her begging me to agree. And I did – at the time.

I am still to this day learning to walk without aid. I never saw Mayhem Mountain again. The loan defaulted and Adventure Valley was bought up by an unknown LLC which bulldozed it and built a block of apartments over the top. They’re still empty to this day.

I don’t like the dark anymore. It reminds me of the horror my friends experienced as they looked down and saw the track end before they disappeared into that hole. I try not to think of what they must have felt as they fell down the shaft in complete darkness, strapped to a roller coaster, waiting for the terrible end. I wish I’d chosen the pool, if only to save them from that fate.

As for the billionaire’s son, he was only ‘simple’ in the fact that he was a man of simple tastes. And he still is.

I looked him up once, only a few years ago. He owns several amusement parks now, all sizable but small enough to be popular only in their specific regions. In fact, one is not very far from where I live now.

I’ve thought about going many times, just to check, just to see. But then I realized that I probably didn’t need to search all the rides in the park to know.

Because I know that somewhere in that park, some ride in some corner…has a Track B.

C.W.



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by reddit user The_Dalek_Emperor via: reddit.com/r/nosleep