October 30: just before midnight

             “This is it?” Greta pointed her flashlight at the rusty gate, the thick dust bouncing in and out of the ray as apparent as the light.

             “What did you expect?” Halley said.

             She shrugged. “More. I mean really, where’s the spook? Where’s the inexplicable chill? The boot-shaking, knee-quaking terror?” She kicked the gate with her scuffed boot, knocking a spray of narrowly balanced rain out in every direction. “Tammy C. said it was, like, this religious experience, and not a single one of my gaviidae are tingling.”

             “You mean vertebrae?” Halley heaved puffs of air through chattering teeth, pulling down her shirt, which she had realized was too short for the weather about halfway through the night.

             “Yeah, sure, whatever. You know, if you want to go, we can. This doesn’t seem all that exciting.”

             “We came all this way, didn’t we?”

             By all means, it was a regular amusement park – albeit decrepit. There was no blood dripping from any rusty pipes, or flesh rotting and crushed into the crevices of the concrete. There were no haunting screams echoing between the halls of the house of mirrors, and the reflections would not smile at you on their own accord. There was, however, a vague smell of mold that could be cause for concern if it were a bit stronger. It would be swampy if there was water – There was moss in every crevice, foliage over the gates, insects and vermin skittering in and out of the shadows. There were rusted rides, crashed bumper cars, exposed and snipped wires, impossibly leaned structures that loomed over the rest of the park – and when pushed aside, the foliage revealed a two-foot wide gap in the bars of the entrance. The girls, protected by nothing but thin fabric and naivete, climbed through the snapped metal.

             As Halley climbed through, the skin on the back of her leg caught on a sharp bit of rust – she yelped and fell through, tumbling onto the moss. Halley lurched to her bearings slowly, like a newborn giraffe; Greta stood near her. Then, they stumbled further into the park. The moisture in the thick air was beginning to flatten her teased hair, and Greta’s curls didn’t seem to be faring much better. With every soft, squelching footstep they took, the stronger that smell of mold, salt, and manure became.

             The park was silent, Tammy C. had said as much – and she was rarely louder than the chilling wind that swept around their ankles. This place should be full of life, beer cans, screamy teens, weirdo batcavers.  Yet, as far as they could see, they were alone. Completely alone, and half of a mile off the beaten path. 

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             Tammy C. was on the cross-country team, found out of breath and crawling in the middle of the street. Amanada, the captain, was still missing.

             Greta failed tryouts.

             Halley had Asthma.

             Greta sniffled, waving around her flashlight – fresh fog began to descend around them. They came to a structure, a corner made of cold, splintering wood. There were still speckles of mold crusted to the surface, perhaps that is where the smell came from. Greta vaulted herself over the counter and haphazardly tore open the metal containers. A plume of a rotten egg smell tore through the air. Shining her flashlight inside, she smiled.

             “I’ll drink this if you give me five bucks,” she said. Halley peered over the edge, gazing into the sludge that did not ripple.

             “I’ll give you ten bucks if you don’t drink it,” Halley gagged, watching a maggot crawl across the counter and fall slowly into the opaque liquid.

             “You’re no fun,” Greta said, “One of these days, you’re gonna take a risk, and then you’ll realize ‘woah! Greta’s actually super cool and awesome, and I should be more like her,’ and then you’ll quit wearing those fugly aviators,” Greta caught herself, snapping her mouth shut mid-word.
             Halley frowned. “...fugly?” She kicked up some dirt. “But… I thought they were trendy.”
A scoff. “Please, if headgear was trendy you’d take a hammer to your teeth. Aviators are so… middle-aged serial killer.” Halley gasped.

             “That’s kind of mean.”

             The fog condensed, Greta’s nose ran, dripping into the sludge. “Maybe I wouldn’t have anything mean to say if you didn’t get dressed in the dark every morning,” The words tumbled out.

             “At least I get dressed, and don’t show up to school wearing two strings and a clam shell on my –”

             “Says the one with shorts and a crop top.”

             “Says the one who almost drank mystery goo.”

             “It’s not like it’s going to give me petulance!”

             “Botulence, Greta! You already have petulance, botulence is the disease that makes you crap your brains out!”

             “I hope you crap your brains out,” Greta mumbled.

             Halley snatched the flashlight from Greta and turned away, stomping off into the fog with a huff.

             “Where are you going?” As she moved to climb over the counter, she found her hand stuck to the surface. It was itchy, a type of itch that crawls. She tugged. And tugged again.

             “Home! so I can scribble your face out of my yearbooks, and cut them out of my scrapbooks,” Halley echoed around Greta, sound bouncing and skidding off the wood.

             “Oh yeah?! Well… I’ll cut you out of my scrapbooks! How does that feel, huh?!”

             There was no response but her own voice reverberating on the fog. If she squinted, she thought she could see little… worms. Small, slithering specks that weaved around her arm, taut, like roots. But that wasn’t possible, the cold was simply the wind, and that itch was simply nerves. Her feet were stuck in place as well, must have been the mud. She pulled, and pulled, her other hand rooted in place on the edge of the container, but she could not free herself. The air chilled, a cold that burrowed right behind her ear… and at the same time, there was a crunch. Where there once was an edge to a container, there was goo – It climbed up her arm, twisting and biting so lightly she had mistaken it for the biting wind – but when it crunched down on her tendon, it was warm. Something fell on her forehead with a solid wet slap, then joined the other leeches in the pit. 

             Soon, they would drain her of blood  – and they just. Wouldn’t. Budge. 

 
                                                                             💀💀💀

             A scream echoed through the park as Halley stepped one leg out of the opening in the gate. She stilled. The park smelled of sewer run-off, and she felt as though she was being pulled out. Her foot hit the solid ground, shifting to feel the strange give in the concrete of the park and the solidness of the packed, wet ground. That mold was getting to her, breaths shallower and shallower. As she whipped out her inhaler, a tough breeze knocked it out of her hand, and it skidded across the moss and squishy concrete. Halley sighed and stepped back through the gate, reaching for the inhaler – but she slipped, and fell onto it. It cracked, as did something in her. The flashlight flickered out. Greta always carried an extra one, damn her. 

             Reluctantly, Halley wobbled up, again, and walked slowly back to her. She knew she wouldn’t be able to navigate through the fog, but what else could she do?

             “Greta?” Halley called, wheezy and pained. 

             She was alone.

             Something pricked the back of her leg. She reached for it. In place of her wound was a cold, wet leech. She screamed and pulled it off, throwing it to the ground – it burrowed beneath the moss. Quicker than she could process that the concrete wasn’t concrete, the ground swallowed her up to her stomach, yanking her down by her ankles. Halley pulled at the ground, breathing ever quicker, kicking as much as she could – which admittedly was not much. Leeches, millions of leeches bit into her, and with one tug… She couldn’t even take her final breath.

             The last thing that Halley saw, in her mind’s eye, was the image of Tammy C. covered up to her neck in mud.
 
                                                                              💀💀💀

             “Greta G. was weird, I bet she like… Killed that other one. Then, she couldn’t handle the grief and killed herself,” Trevor punched a branch out of the way, but as soon as his arm went back down, it smacked him in the nose. He briefly contemplated punching the tree more, and imagined what it would be like to karate chop it in half. Alas, Jen marched on. “I bet her corpse will be all covered in blood, and her face will be like ‘oh no!’”

             “That is so gross,” she said. “Greta would never kill someone. She might bully you – but to just flat-out kill someone? that’s disgusting.” 

             “You're disgusting,” Trevor sulked.

             “What?”

             “Huh?” It seemed that a fog was beginning to settle, thick, and salty.

             With her nose turned up at him, Jen pushed through to a clearing in the woods. Past that clearing sat a gate. They craned their necks to gaze up at the foliage-encrusted metal and leaning structures. 

Trevor whistled. “This is it?”

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S.P. GoodAlias is a 12th-grade student at Decatur. They like to write about bugs, rodents, and grimy people, and would one day like to be paid for it.

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