Tales To Tell In The Dark

Thrills and Fun Amusement Park

Thrills and Fun Amusement Park

In New Zealand, 1967, George McCann opened an amusement park for children and teens. Calling it 'Thrills and Fun Amusement Park', the park was an instant hit for the locals. The nearby forest was unaffected by its building, so the locals saw no problem about its opening.

No expense was paid in the building of the park, even being rated by a local newspaper 'a local Disneyland'. So it was a shock to all when they abruptly closed it down in 1981. A fence was made around the park and no one was allowed to enter or the police would have to get involved. It was a shame it closed, but there were definite reasons. A month after the park opened, repairs had to be made for a few attractions. One was the Dino Ride. The ride consisted of singular little carts that drove slowly along into a path of trees, and alongside the trees were models of dinosaurs.

When driving along, the cart goes out of sight from the people who run it and people waiting to get on next. Strange things began happening on the ride. Carts that went behind other carts ended up in front of the first one on the way back. Carts would take twice as long to get around the track than they should usually take. At one point, when the Dino Ride was being tested, the workers sent the six carts on after another into the track to see if they worked. Only five came back.

But the strangest thing about the ride is that people on the carts seem unaffected by what was happening. They didn't even seem to notice that sometimes carts that went behind them ended up in front of them when they came back. Another possible reason was the Sky Coaster. Parts of the track on the roller coaster would randomly break. This was strange because the Sky Coaster was made of steel.

When parts of the track broke, the pieces were never found. The park closed down soon after a figure was spotted wandering around the park. The person appeared to be male. He had dark black hair, which seemed to be spiked with gel. The person look about 20 years of age, quite young. This man had been spotted in the background of some family photos from the park.

In every picture, he was looking at the camera, his head tilted slightly. He always had a large smile on his face. People who looked at any photos he was in felt, quoting from a member of staff, 'uneasy'. The man was never identified, and any staff working at the entrance didn't remember seeing the man enter any box (though this is unreliable information since staff don't remember everyone they see in the park).

In security camera footage, it showed the man get onto two rides; the Dino Ride and the Sky Coaster. Didn't take me too long to figure out something weird about that. To confirm my fears, it showed the man getting on the ride soon before anything strange happened on them.

Security footage never showed the man getting off either ride. But, as I suspected, no one noticed a thing at the time. The reason the park closed down was because of the death of a 14 year old boy. He was found mutilated in the Dino Ride trees.

Minutes before his death, he had a family picture taken. In the picture was the strange man, only this time he was right behind the 14 year old boy. The strange man had the same look on his face as he had had in every other picture he was in. The tilted head and the horrible grin.