Nightmare Island (A Partial Draft)

Intro and Chapter 1

Nightmare Island:

By: Cindy R. Miller (Camp NaNoWriMo April 2020)

Intro:

Lexie Kirkwood's heart pounded in terror as she and her friends stood in front of Dreamland- which had been a favorite haunt of her's when she was a child. But a few years ago, the park had suddenly ended their season and no one had heard from any of the owners again. Old employees had disappeared, or just refused to talk about their time in the park. To be honest, coming here hadn't been Lexie's idea at all. Quite the contrary. She thought this was an absolutely stupid idea, and she could almost hate her best friend, Emersyn O'Dell for making her come here.

But in a way, Lexie was wanting to get a little outside of her comfort zone. Maybe this was a good place to start. Urban exploring a place where there was almost no risk in getting caught. Still, Lexie admitted that she didn't think it was a good idea to go to a place which was abandoned, especially with the way the park had just silently and suddenly shut its doors for good... the place being left to nature...

-

Some nightmares don't begin as such. They lull you into a false sense of security with pleasant fantasies, but the bait and switch is painfully apparent. Before you know it, the beast has sunk it's fangs into you and you're caught off guard.

That's how it happened for the people running Daydream Park, as well as the patrons spending their days eating carnival food and riding rollercoasters.

The park had only been in operation a period of two months when the first odd occurrences started happening. Gates would be unlocked which were locked at the nightly closing of the park. Lights would flicker on and off regardless of the fact that all the wiring and lightbulbs were new.

Some guests thought they saw things that weren't physically there. As time progressed, things began to escalate. Rides would mysteriously get stuck on hills every Friday the 13th. Faucets would be on in the morning in the guest bathrooms throughout the park. None of the fish they'd put in their pond would live more than a month. And finally, rollercoaster deaths began occurring. That spelled disaster for the park, and after only ten years in operation, they closed their doors for good, randomly, with no fanfare... right in the middle of the season. Rumors swirled, but nothing was ever carved in stone, and no investigations ever bore fruit. The owners dropped off the grid, and most of the former employees either refused to speak to police or checked into rehab facilities... a smaller number of those park employees went missing, or were hospitalized for weird, insane injuries.

And five years later, the place is abandoned, rusting, and overgrown. During the day, it doesn't look like much, but in the evening, unexplained things happen. Lights coming on and off, garbled voices and sounds of screams, first sounding delighted, as one usually is on a rollercoaster, but turning darker, and malevolent. Occasional rumbles make the rollercoasters sound alive. Some have even reported seeing the Ferris Wheel move its cars up and down on its own...

Some brave (or stupid) adventurers make occasional pilgrimages to this place to explore a place haunted by memory, and perhaps more.

Chapter 1

Lexie Kirkwood had never jumped a fence before, and to be honest, she didn't want to be doing it now. She was only doing it because she and her friends were doing some harmless urban exploring.

Once her best friend, Emersyn hopped over, she pulled Lexie along with her, and the two friends began helping their other friends over. Before they'd gone out, Ren Kaiser, a guy in one of Emersyn's classes in freshman year of college, looked at old park maps, and recent Google Street Views to make sure there was a way in and a way out. Out of all of the people in their circle, Ren had the most secure network because he was an I.T. for Beylar Industries, and was naturally a whiz at that kind of stuff.