Chapter 3

Jacob, Daniel and Gabe arrive as the Six Flags when they suddenly realize that they are not alone in this place.

When I was a child I was always afraid of amusement parks. Not necessarily the park itself, but rather the rides that were in the park. Roller Coasters were never my thing as a child because of my intense fear of heights. I’d never even go to the amusement parks in the first place purely because of that reason. People would expect me to go on the rides that I considered “scary” or “frightful”. Coming to this Six Flags gave me an odd feeling of nostalgia from my childhood. Although I never liked them, amusement parks intrigued me nonetheless. Now that I got to see one with rides that have been overtaken by nature; covered in moss, trees, and tall, dead grass. The entire sight was completely magnificent. Just about every ride that was once functional was now a gravestone with an epitaph that said “What Once Was, Is No More”. Since we had arrived, the three of us had just stood at the point in which we walked in from, staring at the beauty of the abandoned Six Flags. While Gabe and Daniel were still looking around in awe, I took out my cell phone and checked the time on it. It was seven o’clock in the morning. The sun was just barely high enough to cast light on the establishment for us to see. If it had been any darker, we’d have just seen the silhouettes of the buildings and nothing more. The air smelled of ripe forest and rotting metal. It was the type of smell that could only be traced to the locations in which we had explored that were desolate and isolated. Wind blew gently around us as the sound of the old ferris wheel and roller coaster could be heard creaking in the stress of age and decay. It almost sounded as if the entire place was in pain, begging for someone to put it out of its misery. It was sort of depressing, but also unnerving. 

I looked to Daniel and Gabe who were standing in place, taking in the vastness of the Six Flags. Gabe proceeded to pull out his camera and began to take pictures of the place while Daniel walked over to me at a brisk pace.

“Okay… this place is f*****g incredible.” Daniel said with a large grin.

“I know! It’s absolutely magnificent!” Gabe shouted from across a couple of old rides, still snapping photos on his camera. “Just imagine what the rest of it looks like!”

“See? Coming here wasn’t such a bad idea after all.” I said, looking at Daniel.

He shot me a look of confusion and for a moment I wondered if he even knew what I was talking about. I couldn’t help but smile as I took out my sketchbook and began to draw pictures of the surrounding buildings and rides that littered the little court-yard we were standing in. Daniel walked over to a marry-go-round that was rusted and beaten to hell. The thing barely even resembles what it was originally used for. He found a seat on the old dead ride and sat in it, taking out his video camera and began to video himself sitting in the ride. While Gabe took pictures and while Daniel vlogged his experience, I finished a rough sketch of the ferris wheel. It was something that I would touch up on and finish later. After that, I put the sketchbook away and pulled out my photography camera and proceeded to take several pictures on the interior and exterior of several of the rides that I could get into or onto. 

We had all spent about two hours taking pictures and exploring the court-yard that we had first walked into. There were still several other buildings that we hadn’t explored and I was eager to get into them and take some more pictures. Gabe quickly rushed over to Daniel as the two began to conversate. With interest, I made my way over as they seemed to be arguing about something.

“Daniel, we’ve only been here for two hours. There is still a lot more to do!” Gabe said.

“Mkay well, I don’t really wanna spend much more time here. We got our pictures, we got our video, we did the trip. Let’s go.” Daniel replied. 

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“Daniel wants to leave.” Gabe said as he quickly snapped another photo of some dilapidated ticket stand. 

“Four eyes is right, times up. I don’t wanna be here any longer.” Daniel said as he leaned in towards me. “And I doubt that you don’t want to either.” 

“I want to stay here. What makes you think that I’d want to leave so soon?” I asked. 

“What about that whole Alyssa thing that happened when we were walking here? You wanna give that some clarity?” Daniel said.

Gabe put his camera down and looked over to the two of us. His expression changed from excitement to worry. Apparently, whatever “Alyssa” thing that they were talking about had actually happened to me. But I hadn’t the brightest clue as to what they were saying. 

“Danny is right. I think that this place is having a really bad effect on your mental health because of the loss. You don’t have to worry man, it’s okay.” Gabe said.

“No… guys really, I’m fine.” I said putting my hands out. 

“Champ, I think that you’re just handling the loss pretty gnarly. There isn’t anything wrong with that, but ever since you’ve gotten here, you’ve been acting pretty f*****g weird.” Daniel said while putting his video camera away in his backpack. “It started when you began to cry in your sleep back at the camp.” 

I began to get furious. The reason why I cried that night was because of what he had said to me.

“The only reason that I did that is because of what you said a*****e!” I shouted.

“What the f**k are you talking about? We didn’t share a word that night s**t head.” Daniel yelled as he stood from crouching near his bag.

My eyes squinted as I didn’t understand what he just said. That night, we had talked about how we didn’t really know if this trip is what Alyssa would’ve wanted or not. He made me think that I did this for my own sake, not for hers. He made me feel awful about myself that night. And just then he tried to make me think that he didn’t say anything at all?

“Jacob… the only person who you talked to last night was me.” Gabe said.
“Right! And you mentioned how you agreed with Daniel and how he wishes that he didn’t come here in the first place!” I yelled. 

“I did not say that Jacob…” Gabe said as he backed up a bit from where he was standing. “You came out of your tent and said that you had a feeling of being watched. We never talked about anything regarding Danny.”

“You seriously don’t remember the talk at all?” I asked Daniel.

“There was no talk. I think that we should leave man. This place isn’t treating you well.” Daniel replied as he put away his camera. “Just calm down and we’ll walk back here soon.” 

A wave of frustration and anger swept over me in that instant. I knew what Daniel had said that night and it hurt. How could he have just ignored it like that? Gabe said that he didn’t hear it either but last night when I left the tent he said that he overheard us and he agreed with Daniel. I didn’t know whether to be confused or disrespected. I wanted to lash out, but my thoughts were interrupted by the sound of something coming from the woods in the distance. 

“Hey! Hey! Who’s out there?” A voice yelled from the woods. It sounded masculine and very close. “This is the New Orleans police! These grounds are private property! You need to come with me!” 

The three of us looked to each other as we scattered throughout the park. I briefly saw Gabe duck into a ticket stand while I ran for a large building that Daniel had already entered. Looking behind me to try and see this officer that was calling us, I saw something else entirely. It was tall and had many limbs with an elongated head that twitched around. The sound of screaming could be heard as I glanced over it to which it gained a terrifying pace on me. Seeing how quick it was moving, I responded by increasing my pace as well in an attempt to outrun it as I faced the building that I was running to. 

Without realizing where I was going, I ended up running through the window of the abandoned building. I fell about ten feet from going through the window as there wasn’t any base floor, just a one way ticket to the basement level of the building. As I hit the floor, I fell into my backpack which managed to break most of my fall. The wind was still knocked out of me as I struggled to even get myself to sit against the cold stone wall. As I struggled with my breathing, I remembered that the only person with the .44 was Gabe. I looked around the decaying boxes and old arcade and pinball machines that were now rusted and forgotten. Darkness encapsulated the whole environment that I was in. The smell of mildew and rot rushed to my nose and created a distaste in my mouth. With no way of getting up and no way of trying to look for Gabe, I would be forced to look for Daniel in this old, decrepit storage building. I thought about going outside and getting Gabe but I had forgotten about that thing and the fact that the staircase that led upstairs to the main floor was destroyed. As previously mentioned, the entire first floor had either been destroyed or simply just never exited in the first place. Perhaps it was a building that had its main floor in the foundation. 

Without many options, I got to my feet as best I could and flinched at the pain that now resonated from my back. I got a grasp of my surroundings as I glanced around the cluttered storage room. There was no light in the entire room. Reaching into my backpack, I grabbed my flashlight and hoped to God that it still worked from the fall that I had just endured. To my luck, it switched on after some fidgeting. As I shined it into the darkness in front of me, I quietly called out to Daniel. 

“Dan? Dan?” I called out. “Dan, are you here?” 

Nothing. The silence was petrifying and loomed over me like someone breathing down my neck. It gave me chills. I didn’t want to be alone with whatever was out there and I certainly didn’t want to be alone in here. Whatever it was I didn’t want to see another one. If only I had been the one to carry the .44 instead of Gabe then I’d probably go out and shoot it. Did the others see what it was? Was I the only one?

“Jacob!” Daniels' voice whispered from the darkness. “Jacob! Are you okay?” 

I shined my flashlight in the direction of his voice and saw him ducked behind a crate. I had a sigh of relief as I felt a thousand pounds of weight lifted off my shoulders. Thank God I wasn’t going to be alone here.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m fine. Bag broke the fall thankfully. How about you?” I replied. 

“Just trying to look for a way out of here. Did you see the cop?” Daniel said as he looked at me. 

I froze for a minute. What I saw wasn’t a cop and it wasn’t human. I didn’t know how to explain this to Daniel without sounding mad. I kept my composure and pretended as if I hadn’t seen him.

“No. No, I didn’t see the cop.” I replied. 

“Alright. Well we just need to figure out how to get the hell out of here.” Daniel said as he moved out from behind the crate he was hiding behind and quickly moved over to me. “Have any idea where Gabe is?” 

“Last I saw of him was when we scattered. It looked like he ducked into a ticket stand near the back of the courtyard.” I explained.

“F*****g perfect. If Gabe gets caught then we-” 

The two of us stopped talking as we heard something terrifying. It was the sound of the .44 magnum going off. One. Two. Two shots could be heard echoing from outside. Then silence. Daniel looked at me with an expression of terror. This was the most scared I had ever seen him before in our times of exploration. I didn’t blame him at all. For all I knew, I probably looked close to if not the same as him. Never before had we needed to use that gun. We had needed to pull it out and tell crazy homeless people to get back to to fire it into the ground to scare off some animal but never had we needed to fire twice. If he fired it twice, then it wasn’t just to get something to go away. He was defending himself. 

Daniel and I quickly began to make our way through the storage facility. Boxes, crates, and a mountain of junk made walking through this place worse than we thought. Pushed over shelves with old equipment and tools were everywhere and what made going through here especially more difficult was the quiet and the darkness. Since the gunshots, we hadn’t heard anymore activity from the surface where Gabe was. Daniel was probably assuming that the cop had gotten to him but I was thinking the worst. Whatever that… thing was, I hoped more than anything that it didn’t find Gabe. 

As we continuously tripped and caught ourselves on unsteady shelves,  we navigated the dark storage facility in a very disoriented fashion. After some time of treading and climbing, we happened upon a rusted metal door. The area around the metal door had been cleared so there wasn’t anything obstructing it from our end. As Daniel tried the door, the sound of the metal scraping against the concrete broke the silence like the shriek of a Banshee. 

“Daniel! Be more quiet for f**k sake!” I shouted while whispering. 

“Do you want this door open or not?” He replied.

“Do you want that thing to find us?” I said.

I froze at what I had said. It was an accident, but it seemed to alarm Daniel as he gave me a look of shock and took his attention away from the door.

“What. Thing?” Daniel said slowly. Daniel grabbed me by the collar of my jacket and repeated what he said in an aggressive tone. “What f*****g thing?” 

“What was chasing us, it wasn’t a cop.” I replied. Daniels grip loosened as he looked down to the floor in disbelief. “It was something inhuman.” 

“We have to get out of here.” Daniel said.

“What about Gabe?” I asked.

“Did you think that I was just going to leave him behind? F**k no. We’re going to look for him but first we need to find a way out of here.”
“Here” implied the storage building that we were in. Grabbing the metal door, Daniel continued to attempt to pry open the large, rusted obstacle. I darted my eyes around, pointing the flashlight in the areas that I scanned to make sure that there wasn’t anyone else around with us. Suddenly, another shriek from the metal door could be heard as I jumped at the sound of it.

“C’mon Jacob!” Daniel said as he climbed through the now cracked door that led to more darkness.

We descended into a dark corridor with piping guarded by a chain link fence to the left of us. On the right, there were doors that led to presumably more storage rooms for whatever this place wanted to keep in this building. The only thing that could be heard was the sound of our boots hitting the concrete floor and our heavy, quiet breathing. The two of us were scared, that was an understatement. The amount of fear that we had felt in that moment is indescribable. No words could be used to personify the feeling. The biggest feeling of all that I felt though, was dread. Gabe had fired two shots out of that .44 and we didn’t mistake the sound of that gun. We knew it distinctly. There isn’t any reason why that thing would be holding a gun. Two shots and then silence. Why? Was he attacked? Misfire? Even though the answer might have seemed obvious to some, to us, we didn’t even want to accept the fact that the gun was fired twice in the first place, if at all. 

The hallway came to an end as we observed a relatively well preserved door with a padlock on the front of it. Daniel tried the handle, but to no avail. I looked behind us, shining the flashlight and saw a silhouette before I focused on it only to see nothing. 

“What’s going on?” I asked quietly.

“Padlock. Needs a key.” Daniel replied, almost in a whisper. 

“There are some rooms back down the hallway. What if I try some of those to look for the key?” I said as I continued looking down the hallway, my voice shaky and soft.

“Sounds good but I’m coming with you. No reason any of us should be alone in this place.” Daniel said as he grabbed a long bar of metal that lay next to the door. “I’ll use this just in case something tries to get friendly with us.”

I nodded and slowly readventured the dark and mildew smelling hallway. As we walked, we stopped in our tracks again to the sound of something that would make any man or woman, iron-skinned or weak have their knees turn to jelly. It was the sound of a fist pounding on metal and muffled screams. It emanated from the cluttered storage room that I had fallen into. It was like someone was pounding on the door that Daniel had entered which was also near the window I had fallen through. The sound continued for as long as we stood there in silence. At one point, Daniel and I had looked to each other to which we both slowly nodded. We kept moving. Yet at almost the instant that we continued to walk, the muffled banging and screaming ceased. Coincidence or not, eerie and utterly disturbing were the only two things that we could think in that exact moment. Quietly, we walked up to the first door in the hallway. It was metal and appeared to be in the best condition out of all of the other doors. Pushing the handle down, it clicked and I slowly opened up the door to reveal a small office room. A horrid stench assaulted my nostrils as I quickly threw my body away from the doorway and gagged. Daniel neared the doorway and immediately vomited at the hulking smell. 

I put my shirt over my nose and used my foot to push open the rest of the door until the room was fully exposed. There was a desk with several folders and papers that were covered in blood. A planning board hung on the wall behind the desk which was now caked with blood and bits of rotted flesh as there sat a rotting corpse in the office chair with a Winchester Pump-Action was held pointed at the now decimated skull of whoever the poor b*****d that was left rotting here was. Attempting to keep my composure was no longer control that I had over myself. To the response of what I saw, I vomited and began to cry. I put myself up against the wall on the other side of the hallway and slouched down until I sat on the ground, putting my hands on my face and quietly sobbing. Daniel sat next to me and put his arm around my shoulder as he hugged me. 

We had sat there for what seemed like hours. Crying and panicking in this dark, hostile world that we had now entered. My decision to come to the Six Flags went from an idea out of high hopes and nostalgia to now a nightmare of terror and dread. Something popped into my head at that moment. Gabe took two shots. I hoped that the second wasn’t whatever happened to this man that now sat in his office chair, as he would forever. My anxiety and fear was higher than any point on Earth. Daniel tried desperately to calm me down, but none of it worked. My thoughts were sporadic and liquefied. I was jumping from topic to topic in my head. I thought of my parents back in Oklahoma, I thought of Gabe and that thing, I thought of how we were going to get out of this place, I thought of the noises I heard in the forest on my walk to the SUV, I thought of the radio and the trailer house. Finally, I thought of Alyssa. Thank god she wasn’t here to witness this but a part of me wanted her to be here. She’d know what to do. She’d surely know what to do. I kept myself quiet for a moment as I let myself calm down a bit. I shined my flashlight down both ways of the hallway. There was nothing that I could see. 

I stood up as Daniel looked up from me from the floor. He had tears in his eyes as he slowly stood with me. I held my breath and put my shirt over my nose as I walked into the room with the man who had committed suicide. Forcing myself to check the drawers next to him, I found a box of shotgun shells that were supposedly for the weapon he had used to end his life. I took them and quickly stuffed them into my bag. Checking the rest of the drawers, I found a key that was labeled “basement”. As if we hadn’t descended deep enough into hell. I took it and reached for the shotgun that the corpse was holding. I struggled to break it loose as the body had stiffened due to the rigamortis. I pulled the shotgun free, but I ended up pulling the body onto myself. I tripped as the corpse landed on my body. It forced me to breathe and the stench was horrible, worse than it had been. I vomited again as I turned my head and faced away from the body. Maggots landed on my neck from his gaping wound that the shotgun had inflicted. I quickly shoved and kicked the body off of me as I gagged again. This time, nothing left to vomit up. I weakly stumbled out of the room as Daniel grabbed me and slowly brought me to the floor. I sat there, wanting to cry but nothing, not even a weep came out. It was as if this place had sucked the soul out of me. I was a husk, emotionless. Either I was too disturbed to give a reaction or that was my reaction. I held the shotgun tightly and rose up from laying down slowly as I used my other arm to try and push myself up. I closed my eyes and took a couple of deep breaths. Daniel sat next to me in silence, his breathing panicked and frantic. So much time had been spent sitting in that hallway, it almost made us forget what we were there for in the first place. The padlock. 

“Dan. Let’s go unlock that door.” I said, breaking the silence.
“What if there is something worse on the other side?” Daniel replied quietly.

“Then we face it together.” I responded. 

The two of use quietly stood and walked back down the hallway towards the door with the padlock. Our movements were coordinated and slow as if not to trigger some kind of trap that we were maneuvering through. It was the most serious we had ever been in a situation before. Although, this would also be the most serious situation we had ever witnessed and been a part of. 

As we neared the door with the lock, I set the shotgun down quietly in the corner to prevent it from falling over. I took the key and carefully put it into the padlock and twisted it around a few times. The padlock made a clink as it unlocked. I looked at Daniel and nodded as I slowly turned the knob of the door and opened it, grabbing my shotgun after the door was fully open. On the other side of the doorway there was a staircase that went down further into this storage building. How deep does this thing go? I thought to myself. Daniel was hesitant about entering the stairway as I slowly made my way down the stairs. The smell of mildew and rot was now accompanied by a smell of dirty water. Now that I had thought of it, I heard the sound of water dripping. I waved for Daniel to follow, to which he did, as I shined my flashlight over the railing of the stairway. There was water at the bottom of the staircase. How deep it was exactly was unknown to me as I sighed and slowly continued down into the basement level of the storage building. Calling this place a storage building was an inappropriate name for what we had seen. From now on, I’d just call it Hell. 

Making it to the bottom of the staircase, there was about a foot of water as debris and trash was floating in the brown tinted water. Down the walls, stairs, and even the concrete ceiling had rust that painted the entire room we were in. I slowly put my foot into the water as my boots quickly filled up with water. Putting my other foot in, Daniel followed behind as the water was a little over ankle deep. Slowly, we crept from the staircase and walked down what looked to be a hallway that was dome-like in shape. Now, the hallway looked to be a sewer instead of a place where people would access rooms in. On each side of us there were doors that were either rusted beyond functionality or were bent open with debris filling up the entire room, rendering it impossible to enter. The sound of water splashing and moving around was all that accompanied us in this dark tunnel. Our nerves were heightened and our hearts were racing. At some point during the walk, we had happened upon a door that seemed to be left open. It was one of the only rooms that didn’t appear to be completely destroyed or left in decay. Shining my flashlight into the room, I peered around carefully for anything or anyone who might be in it. The only visible things that could be observed in the dark room was a desk and a shelf that had cardboard boxes on it. Most of them sunken in presumably from the moisture produced by the lack of vents and the abundance of garbage water that now owned the entire basement floor. 

I walked into the room and made my way as quietly as I could to the metal desk that sat in the foot of water. Some of the drawers had been submerged by the water and the bottom half of the entire desk was rusted. I shined my light on the ceiling and saw that rust came down from it and coated the walls around me. Everything was made out of concrete down in the basement. In the hallway that we had walked through, there was piping that had run across the ceiling in there. I was beginning to believe that this wasn’t just a storage building. The extra levels, the man who committed suicide… it didn’t make any sense. What’s even more concerning is that the blood on the wall was black. It had to have happened a while ago but still be fresh enough to not have a completely decomposed corpse. Who worked here and what the hell happened to this place? I began opening up the drawers to the desk and I ended up finding a note or report.

June 29th, 2005

I think that it’s pretty safe to assume that we’re going to go out of business. Ryan has constantly been up my a*s about the rides and the potential flooding that’s been happening in the basement levels of our storage facilities. Goddamn it Louisiana is bullshit. Too much goddamn rain and moisture. Why the hell even build a Six Flags here? Only after five years is the place going to get shut down. Waste of money let me tell you. I think that everyone has just about had it with this place. Barley any customers, employees are leaving left and right and there are constant complaints about people seeing “things” on the rides or people in the windows of buildings. Just last week an employee left because he said “The walls were grabbing at him”. Bunch of horror stories from a group of schizos. 

The note had a blood stain on the bottom of it. I looked in the drawer to where the note was placed and saw that there was blood that covered just about every inch of the drawer. Something malicious had happened here that caused this place to get shut down. I took the photography camera that was slung around my neck and took a photograph of the note for reference. I turned around to Daniel who was looking at the cardboard boxes that were placed on the shelf next to the desk. He opened up one of them and found a bunch of papers that seemed to be documents on the place. Reports, complaints, pink slips, a bunch of things. All held together and bundled up into an unorganized pile that was kept with string that tied it all up. 

I looked to Daniel and quietly said:

“Dan. Let’s get out of here now.” 

“Agreed. Do you know the best way out?” Daniel whispered.

“Maybe there is something in that pile that could help us.” I replied quietly as I pointed to the pile of random papers that he was holding. 

We pulled out some of the documents and forums, scanning through each of them that could indicate a way out of this place without having to climb out the window I had fallen though. In either some stroke of luck or just pure coincidence, we happened upon a paper that explained service and emergency exits to the building. Daniel and I smiled and sighed with relief as we had finally found our way out. We’d have to walk down the hall further and take a life, climb up some stairs to a service door and then we’re out of this place. Looking to Daniel, I could see that he was visibly distraught and terrified. This place had really done a number on us. Now all we’d need to do is to get out of this goddamn hell hole, find Gabe and then book it to the SUV. God knew if it was actually going to be that simple. I didn’t want to think negatively, if it was going to be a chore to get into the place I’m sure that it’ll be even harder getting out of here.

“Follow me.” I said quietly to Daniel. “We’ll make it.”