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It’s not a new theme park by any stretch of the imagination but, for some reason, Lucy only started to get ads for it after a very long conversation with Sloane about their monstrous side. (a conversation that took place approximately three feet away from their smart TV, but that’s surely unrelated.) She’ll be watching one of her shows– usually Yellowstone-- and suddenly the little yellow ad signifier shows up in the upper corner of her screen as it plays. HORRORLAND! TOTALLY X-TREME PARK 4 ALL AGES! TASTE THE FEAR AS YOU RIDE OUR WICKED ROLLER COASTERS AND ENJOY OUR MORE CALM AMENITIES FOR THE PARENTS!
Then a little action box, like from a comic book, rotates around the screen before puffing up to display the word RADICAL! as a bunch of fine print sprints by the bottom of the screen. Who can pay attention to that, when the website is pulsating on the top of the screen, the final m obscured by the reminder that this is all an advertisement. But Lucy has already typed the address into her phone and settled herself into looking through their list of attractions and hotel partnerships. The website is something straight out of the 2000s and looks like it hasn’t been updated since, except perhaps to list off new attractions.
Just like the ad said, there’s some more relaxing things at the accompanying hotel that are certainly meant for the parents, which in her case means her husband will have something to do while she enjoys the rides with her daughter. Stagger Inn has a lounge, a spa, and other boring things. He’ll also get to go to Black Lagoon Water Park by himself, since her and Sloane’s scales don’t take well to water-based activities. But the fun attractions themselves include Coffin Cruise (which seems to keep park goers from the water involved in the ride, otherwise she’d write it off), Free Fall, Hall of Horrors, Happy Tooth Game, Scary Go Round… The list goes on! And the pictures look so fun!
Later that day she picks Sloane and her boyfriend up from school, each aged 14 and just a little too young for their own drivers licenses. She doesn’t usually pick up Todd Barstow with her daughter, instead reserving the additional seats in her car for Sloane’s little circle of friends, but they all have some sort of club activity on Tuesdays, so these two have started taking the opportunity to hang out together until Todd’s mother gets out of work. Which means he sometimes stays until deep into the night– lawyer hours seem to be brutal.
But it doesn't matter. They settle into her car, and the second she hears their little seatbelts click into place, she clears her throat for attention. “Sloane! I have a vacation idea to run by you.”
“What is it, mom?” She looks up from something Todd had started to show her. Is that a spider bite? Okay, she’ll work Urgent Care into the afternoon’s schedule.
“Have you ever heard of Horrorland Theme Park? I got this great ad for it on the TV earlier today, and I think it looks exciting.”
“Horrorland?” Sloane’s eyebrows furrow together, while Todd seems to light up in excitement. Surely his mother wouldn’t mind her borrowing him for their vacation? Or, surely she won’t, if she doesn’t have to pay to send him? “No, I’ve never heard of it.”
“Well, I ran the idea by your father earlier and he seems receptive. We might just be going there this summer! But I want you to look through the website and make sure you’d want to do the different rides and stuff. Can you do that?”
Sloane spares a glance over at Todd, who’s smiling like he just got a new lizard as he types quickly on his phone. How does he manage that with a swollen up thumb? “Consider it done.”
Todd is sitting at Sloane’s desk while Sloane hovers over his shoulder, the screen of her laptop reflected error-blue in her glasses. He’s scrolling through the Horrorland Park’s official website, looking through their attractions and the pictures attached. Not to mention the interactive map that plays different screams when you hover over different rides.
“Wow,” Sloane clicks her tongue. “They are very desperate to stay on theme, huh?”
“I like it, it’s immersive.”
She smiles and looks over at him, only to find him scratching at the spider bite on his thumb. “Don’t do that,” she swats at him. “You really should go see someone about that.”
“And let everyone find out I’m the next spiderman?” He raises an eyebrow.
She rolls her eyes, focusing back on the theme park. “I wonder if our parents will let you come with us.”
“If they don’t, I’ll just hide in the trunk and sneak in with you.” He clicks on a rollercoaster ride, giggling at the scream coming through the speakers.
“And then the staff will kick you out for not having a ticket.” She reads through the description of the rollercoaster, comparing it to the picture shown. “That sounds and looks really unsafe.”
“Maybe the real horrors of this park are OSHA violations.”
“I don’t think OSHA is in charge of theme park inspections for guest safety.” She clicks through a few more windows, trying not to smile at the overwhelming glee radiating off of Todd. “Why don’t we look for some reviews?”
“Oka–”
Lucy decides that now is the best time to knock on Sloane’s door. “Okay, kids, get in the car! We’re going to Urgent Care.”
Todd groans. “Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo–”
“Yesssssssssssssssss,” Sloane turns her desk chair and practically dumps him out of it. Snake strength.
Lucy puts a hand on his shoulder, ushering him out of the room as Sloane scrambles to get her things. “I got your mom to send me pictures of your insurance card, so now it’s my job to make sure you don’t die from venom.”
“That’s a different character than Spiderman.” She gently smacks the back of his head, making him snicker as he goes ahead to the car.
When they get there, Sloane sits in the waiting room by herself (apparently being bitten by a random spider an unknown amount of time ago gets you pretty high up on the priority list. Who would’ve predicted that?) and looks for some reviews on her phone.
Most of them seem overwhelmingly positive, praising the park for its exciting rides and the staff for their outstanding acting skills. Apparently, they will do anything to get a scare out of you, it’s not for the faint of heart. Hopefully her mom has something different in mind for her dad to do during this trip.
But between these raving reviews, there are a few strays calling the park dangerous and claiming the rides are designed to purposefully inflict both physical and mental harm upon the guests. They say the staff genuinely tried to hurt them and never ensured their safety throughout their whole stay. Sloane is willing to dismiss these reviews as people who just didn’t do proper research into what they were in for before visiting the park and couldn’t handle how immersive it was. You can never discount the possibility that whoever you’re reading from is stupid. But one of the negative reviews has an opening line redirecting the reader to read the same review on a specific horror review blog they run, so Sloane clicks.
EscapeHorrorland (fitting title) seems to be a genuinely insightful blog dedicated to all things horror, with annual posts dedicated to every Universal’s Halloween Horror Night dating back to 2011, reviews of pop-up haunted houses, and reviews for pretty much every horror movie Sloane has ever heard of and quite a few more she hasn’t. So, clearly, this person knows what they’re talking about. This specific review dates back to 2008, and judging by some context clues gathered from the other reviews posted on this site, they probably went on a family vacation as a child, just like Sloane will. (Though she wouldn’t self-identify as a child, as to be expected.) It’s the first proper review posted to the site, but it’s far from the first post about Horrorland Theme Park. From the looks of it, this blog was originally dedicated to documenting everything there is to know about the park, along with a dozen or so warnings on every post to stay as far away from the park as possible. Included among these posts seems to be a liveblog of one of their trips there. Why this person would go back to a park they so clearly detest is beyond Sloane’s understanding. Still, she reads through every post, trying to make sense of everything. According to the blog, this person and select others were forced to go through actual life-threatening horrors and only escaped the park by the skin of their teeth. They make Horrorland sound truly dangerous, and the attractions way more fantastical and thrilling than what they’re advertising on the official website.
And then it hits her. This must be some sort of a fandom thing! This blogger was in the Horrorland theme park fandom and made one of those old-school ARGs as a silly fanfic thing! Then, they must’ve grown into more mature horror fandoms, like the Universal theme park and stuff, and abandoned the ARG. What a loser. Who would put that much energy into a fandom thing? Making an entire website? The story isn’t even realistic and there’s way too many characters to keep track of. Boo.
When her mom returns with Todd, his hand now bandaged up, she shows her mom the blog. She thinks it’s the coolest thing in the world, because of course she does. She also thought whatever ad she saw for this place was cool enough to spend scales-knows how much money on a vacation for it. But it just makes her even more sure of it, so the plans are set in motion.
It's a typical day for Lizzy Morris. She woke up in the morning, answered some texts from her friends, then checked her email to approve or deny different invitations to movie screenings and early access to horror games. It's not easy to balance being a horror critic with running her brother's Twitch channel, but it's better than a 9-to-5 any day.
It all started on a family trip that Clay (now Luke's partner) was also allowed to go on, where they got lost on their way to an animal sanctuary and wound up in Horrorland... But that's all information freely available in the biography on her blog, Twitch, every news site she's ever been hired for, and every writing magazine that's ever bought one of her pieces. Not even to mention her personal Wikipedia article. And the origin doesn't matter so much as the destination: a horror genre empire, and she's the one running the show.
After writing a lengthy inquiry about a paranormal investigation show they have been invited onto, she opens up EscapeHorrorland.com and enters the moderation page. She clicks through the viewer and AdSense statistics from the previous days before getting onto her comments. There are the typical comments wondering why she won't just make a YouTube video so that people won't have to read for once in their lives, and more positive typical comments from profile pictures she recognizes.
And then there's someone called SpencerSnake2908 with a blank profile, who left a lengthy comment on her official review of the Horrorland Theme Park.
This is so stupid. You really think you're fooling anyone into thinking this is real? In this day and age, when ARGs aren't an obscure thing? We're way beyond The Blair Witch Project, you're not gonna convince anyone that this is real. And if you really put this much effort into a fandom thing, then you must have 0 actual hobbies. It's been over a decade. Just remove this from the internet and take down your Yelp review linking to it. This sort of misinformation is so harmful; it's really immature of you to... (read more)
She opens the full text of the comment, screenshots it, opens Discord, and pastes the screenshot into a server that she, Luke, and Clay use to organize technical things. She puts it in the #stupidcomments channel. She lets the 😂 emojis roll in, then returns to her usual work.
Summer couldn’t come soon enough after Todd manages to weasel approval out of his mom. He’s going to go on the Spencer Family Vacation™ to Horrorland! He doesn’t even have to hide in the trunk! How cool is that?
He gets up really early like they asked him to and packs up his things, then waits on the front porch steps of his house in the pre-dawn morning for them to come pick him up. Mrs. Spencer goes over all the stuff she told him to pack before handing him his very own ticket and sending him to sit next to Sloane in the back row while Mr. Spencer Tetrises his bag in with the others.
Sloane’s asleep, so he kinda just vibrates in excitement to himself while looking at the ticket. It really matches the energy of the website, having a paper ticket in this day and age. He makes a mental list of all the rides he wants to go on and all the things he wants to see. Maybe, if everything in the park does turn out to be real, he can finally fulfill his dream of getting bitten by a monster, since Sloane refuses to. (Something about them “not being old enough” and her thinking that biting should wait until marriage? He doesn’t really get it, either.)
Eventually, Mr. Spencer says they’re “Almost there!” and the sound wakes Sloane up. She stirs next to him for a moment, trying to get back to sleep, but ultimately fails with a yawn. She stretches with a cute cat-like sound, looking around the car like she has no idea how she got here until her eyes meet his. She lights up.
“Oh, Todd! How long have you been here?” She leans her still sleepy head on Todd’s shoulder. He reaches up to idly pet her hair.
“About two hours!” He can barely contain how excited he is in his voice. Sloane doesn’t seem to mind him vibrating at all.
Sloane groans. “And you didn’t wake me?”
“How do you know I didn’t try and just couldn’t?” He turns the ticket over in his hand, looking at the back of it before turning it to the front again.
“I don’t sleep that deep.” She lifts her head away from his shoulder and stretches again. “Are we there yet?”
“Almost!” Todd helpfully repeats before her parents can. “Put your head on my shoulder again.”
“Bossy,” she mumbles, but does it. She reaches over to mess with his ticket, her fingers ghosting over the healed spider bite, as well as all sorts of other bites and scratches he’s gotten from wild animals. “You know, I’m pretty sure there’s no monster that’s ever been created by getting rabies.”
“You just don’t respect the grind.”
“That’s right, I don’t. No petting or provoking the wildlife on our trip.”
He pretends to huff. “You’re no fun.”
“Sitting in the ER all the time isn’t fun.”
“True, true.” He shakes his head. “What ride do you wanna go on first? I wanna go on the Coffin Cruise. And I wanna see Werewolf Village.”
“What did I say about provoking the wildlife?”
Todd huffs. “You don’t even think anything in that park could be real!”
“But if it was, you would be provoking the werewolves. You would provoke them anyway. And what if they just have wolves there, instead?”
“It’s worth a try.”
“It’s really not.”
“What’s the worst that could happen?”
“The ER. Again.”
“You take everything so seriously,” he rolls his eyes.
She frowns. “Your health is serious to me.”
“Aww, your health is serious to me, too!”
“Don’t change the sub–”
“So what rides do you wanna go on?” He smiles at her, innocently. As innocently as he’s able to pass, given everything he’s ever done in his life.
“...House of Mirrors.” She puts her chin on his shoulder. “I figured you would want to go to the Guilloutine Museum.”
“I don’t think the House of Mirrors counts as a ‘ride’.” He says, jokingly. “And I do! I also want to see the spider shack!”
Sloane pulls away and grabs his hand, shaking the finger with the spider bite in front of his face.
“Sloane, they’re not going to have free-roaming spiders.”
She kisses her teeth. “Probably not, but I know you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’d find a way to get bitten by a spider even if it’s behind glass.” She drops his hand.
“Wow, zero faith in me. I should’ve just gone on vacation with my mom and sister.”
“Dramatic, much?” She plops her head back on his shoulder finally. “I’ll keep you safe, even if you won't. Even if you’re such a pain.”
“I’m worth it?”
“Don’t push it.”
He snorts, beaming, and leans his head back on top of hers in turn.
Lucy pulls into an empty parking space by the Stagger Inn and stops the car. The Inn looks like an old, run-down European castle: absolutely decrepit, threatening to fall apart during the week they’re staying there. It’s perfect!
It’s not actually going to fall apart, after all. It’s a theme park! The park wouldn’t have survived operations past the 70s if it was unsafe.
“You know, I heard they built this hotel with parts of real haunted houses!” She says as her family and Todd get out of the car.
Sloane raises an eyebrow at her. “Mom, really? Real haunted houses?”
“Are you going to stand there and tell me there’s absolutely zero possibility haunted houses actually exist? You? A little snake monster?”
“I’m just trying to stay realistic,” she shrugs.
“You? A little snake monster?” Todd says, mimicking Lucy’s voice scarily well. That boy has a bright future in some science lab. Or prison.
Sloane crosses her arms. “I have been expanding my horizons on what is and isn’t possible. Snake monsters are possible, evidently. I just don’t think free-roaming, visible ghosts as they are depicted in the media are. How would they?”
“I can’t believe this. My own daughter doesn’t believe in ghosts.” She shakes her head. “You believe in ghosts, right, Todd?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You’re my favorite son.”
“Sweet. Hear that, babe? We’re gonna be in one of those child marriages.”
Sloane rolls her eyes at him. “I just think it’s more plausible that consciousness just–”
“Well don’t get all philosophical,” Todd hands her one of her fanny packs. This is her vacation one, not to be confused with her camping one, or her hiking one, or her snowboarding one. She huffs as she puts it on around her waist.
Lucy’s husband walks over and ruffles Sloane’s hair. “You can tell me about your philosophic musings.”
“Thanks, dad.” Sloane helps him heave their suitcases out of the trunk.
Lucy takes a moment to stretch her legs after the drive. For some reason, it feels like it took them way longer to get here than it actually did. She takes a breath and grabs the suitcase she and her husband share.
“Honey, let me take that,” he reaches for the suitcase, only for Lucy to pull it away from him.
“No. Mine.” She says sweetly. She has the super strength in the relationship, after all.
“But you already drove us all the way here! The least I can do is take the bags,” he grabs at it again to no avail.
“You can take our backpack.”
He relents, slinging the backpack over his shoulder. He turns to the kids. “Everyone has their things?”
They both nod.
“Right! Then let’s go.” He leads the way down the little stone path to the front doors of the hotel. Lucy swears she can hear distant screams of terror the closer they get to it. Oh, she finds the little details of the park’s theme just darling! They enter through the heavy doors.
The lobby is just what you’d expect from a spooky theme park. There’s a check-in desk manned by a person in a costume, large horns protruding from its head. Lucy remembers reading something about the staff consisting of ‘Horrors’: large, green monsters. They look bored, mindlessly staring at the screen of a computer model Lucy last saw in the 90s. Around the lobby are sofas and benches, all decorated with skeletons sitting comfortably, propped with different accessories to make them look as though they are engaged in some kind of activity. The one on the sofa next to the check-in desk is reading a book. How charming!
“Hello!” Lucy greets the person in the costume, who looks up at her uninterested. “We have a room booked for three days?”
He squints at the computer screen again. They really did a fine job on that costume, Lucy can’t even tell it’s not real. “Spencer?”
“That’s us!”
He types on his computer, hands her a waiver for them to sign, and then gives her their room keys, a map, and an activity brochure. She distributes the keys (one for her, one for her husband, and Todd’s mother insisted on paying for an individual room for him) and allows Todd to snatch away the brochure, then they head through the hotel to find their rooms. Todd’s is directly next to theirs, and they leave him to unpack while the rest of them get their own room ready. Sloane claims the double bed near the wall-length curtains, but when she pulls it back, she discovers one measly house window. It’s off-center on the wall. She promptly draws the curtains again and gets to putting her clothes away. Aww, baby’s first hotel disappointment.
Lucy pulls her close and kisses her head. “We won’t be much at the hotel, anyway.”
She pouts. “I was hoping to get a good view of the park.”
“You will, sweetheart.” She pats her head and works on putting her own clothes away. “Could you check on Todd when you’re done?”
And she’s smiling again. “I can do it now.”
“Unpack first, honey.”
Sloane makes a disappointed noise, but continues unpacking anyway, claiming a handful of drawers in the provided dresser. Once she’s all done, she hurries off into the next room. Lucy and her husband finish emptying out their bag and sit on the bed, planning on what they should do next, and where they should go first.
“We could go down into the dining area before exploring the park,” her husband suggests. “I’m sure the kids would want a bite.”
“Do you think Todd will find anything to eat?” He’s very particular about food, ever since a traumatic event that happened in middle school. Lucy doesn’t exactly know the details, but she knows he’s really worried about food and stuff now. Her husband wraps an arm around her shoulders.
“He’ll find something. If not here, then in the park! Don’t worry.”
She nods, right as Sloane and Todd come back into the room. She’s holding his hand, so cute! “Todd’s done unpacking.”
Todd smiles and nods affirmatively. Lucy fills them in on their plan and they all head back to the small, shaky little elevator and make their way downstairs. This elevator should count as a ride of its own… Lucy wonders how they managed to make it shake so much and still work just fine. Sloane subtly clings to Todd’s arm, only releasing him once the doors open and they enter the lobby again. They go into the dining room and look through the menu. A lot of it is themed to scares, with worm-and-eyeball spaghetti and meatballs, zombie nuggets, etc. Todd looks so visibly grossed out by all of it that they decide to just go off-site to eat. Besides, none of it looked good aside from the horror aspect, and it was so overpriced! Maybe capitalism is part of the horror experience. What could possibly be scarier, after all?
After getting fast food, they come back and decide to set out on their first park day. Stagger Inn is nestled between the other attractions of the park, so it provides a good place to start. (Which, well, was probably the intended design. And allows them to drop her husband off for whatever he’ll spend his time doing.) They just have to pick a direction to explore. They decide on the path they didn’t use to drive here and start walking. They reach a more crowded area of the park, and Lucy catches a glimpse of the rides that were advertised on their website. Oh, but which one to go on first?
“I wanna go on the Roller Ghoster,” Sloane says, pointing at the ride. So, they’re going on the Roller Ghoster, then! It’s a dark ride! Why they called it Roller Ghoster when it’s not actually a rollercoaster seems to be one of the great mysteries of this park.
They stand in line and shuffle to the entrance of a castle-looking structure. Once it’s their turn, they’re seated in a cart and each given a small bucketfull of foam balls. They are told to throw them at the ghosts that will attack them during the ride. Sloane rolls her eyes.
“How would throwing balls at ghosts even work? They’re incorporeal, it would just go through them!” One of the staff members lets out a groan. Sloane tosses a ball between her hands. She accidentally drops it when the cart starts moving.
“Maybe they just get so annoyed by people throwing balls at them they leave.” Todd suggests, taking three of the balls and putting them in his lap before grabbing another.
“Yeah. Or they take pity on whoever tried to defeat them via chucking a foam ball of all things at them, and they leave so they won’t hurt their feelings.” Sloane looks up. The first ghost is leaping at their cart. Sloane lazily tosses her ball at it. The ghost poofs away. “Or they just disintegrate via the power of the ball, sure.”
“Ooh! That’s fun!” Lucy grabs a few of the balls herself, ready to throw them at the incoming ghosts. She and Todd take it very seriously, even if her little bundle of joy is acting more like a little bundle of sourpuss. A helpful staff member helps them out of their cart at the end of the ride.
“Good thing you got all those ghosts before they got you!” The Horror says. “That would have been bad!”
“Why? What would have happened?” Sloane asks, challengingly.
The Horror puts a hand on Sloane’s shoulder and looms over her. Sloane doesn’t look impressed. “They would have dragged you down into the depths with them. Down into the underworld where they tear your soul out of your body.”
“Hey, that sounds more fun than the ride was!” Sloane shakes the Horror’s hand off her shoulder and walks over to Lucy’s side. “So, where are we going next?”
Todd pipes up. “I wanna go to the Coffin Cruise.”
Lucy looks at the map she printed out. “That’s not too far, sure!”
Todd beams and wraps an arm around Sloane’s shoulder. “We can share a coffin.”
“You think you’re sooo romantic.” Still, Sloane smiles. He keeps his arm around her as they all go to their next attraction, paying no serious attention to all the signs claiming this ride was one of the more dangerous ones. There’s no real danger here, Lucy’s sure of it.
And if there is, she’ll simply kill anything that threatens her sweet little girl.
And/or Todd.
Sloane is having fun. Really, she is! Tearing apart the logic of this whole park is enriching for her, and it helps with her nerves. She rolls her eyes at all the signs they pass, threatening them that doom awaits them at the end of this relaxing looking coffin ride. The coffins look very small. She hopes she and Todd are able to share anyway, it’s not like either of them are very tall. Yet. She has hopes that he’ll grow a few more inches, utterly unfounded since she’s never met his father and he’s already taller than his mother.
“One person per coffin,” the costumed worker by the ride tells them.
Sloane pulls Todd over to her. “Could we share? Please?” Sloane is aware that asking something like that at a theme park that probably, hopefully, has a lot of safety measures in place is not very smart. But it never hurts to ask, and she noticed Todd frowning a bit upon hearing the rule.
The staff member shrugs. “Sure, if you two can fit, go ahead!”
They do fit. Snugly, just how they want. They settle into the coffin, the lid looming over them. Sloane notices unorthodox hinges attaching the lid to the rest of the coffin. Now, why would it need hinges that are clearly some sort of mechanism, instead of simple door hinges? Sloane turns her head to Todd.
“Five bucks the lid is going to close at some point during the ride.”
He beams, knowing she must have some thought up her sleeve. “Oh! You think?” Sloane points, and Todd’s eyes follow the tip of her finger to the hinges. He takes her hand, smiling and proud of her. Maybe proud of being with her. “Awesome. This is perfect. And, you know. You can hold on to me if you get scared.”
“I’m not scared.” Not even at the concept of temporarily being trapped in a very small, coffin-shaped space. “I am the least scared. And besides, I don’t need to be scared of anything. I’m a monster, remember?”
He nods, his smile widening a bit. “Oh yeah, babe, I know.”
The ride is slow, the coffin gently flows down the narrow stream past all kinds of different little scenes. She wonders how many other young couples use this as a tunnel of love.
“Oh, look,” Sloane says while they pass through a green, gooey, swampy-looking place. She points at something floating in the water. “A brain. In a swamp.”
Todd looks past her. “A natural place for a brain to be. There’s another one!”
Just as the words leave Todd’s mouth, another brain bubbles to the surface. And another. And another.
“This must be one smart swamp. Maybe the river water is Brain Juice?” Todd laughs at his own jokes. He thinks he’s so funny. Sloane smiles. That’s one of the things she likes about him. She likes so many things about him…
Todd lifts his head out of the coffin. “Is that a waterfall back there?”
Sloane pulls Todd back down. “You don’t want your head out there when the coffin shuts. And no, there’s no waterfall back there.”
“There might be,” Todd leans his head against her.
“There isn’t, though. Sloane looks up at the leaves from the trees surrounding them. The sky only sparingly peeks through the foliage. It doesn’t look as scary as it’s probably intending to be in the light of day. And then, suddenly, she can’t see anything. The lid of the coffin slams shut with a loud SLAM! Sloane jumps a bit.
“Don’t worry, babe, I’m here.”
“Shut up.”
“I’ll give you your five bucks from my spending money when we go back to the hotel.”
“I don’t want it.” She holds him tight. Protectively, she swears. “Is the ride going faster or is that just me?”
“I think that’s just you.” She feels him run a hand through her hair. “When do you think the door’s gonna open again?”
“Soon. Very soon. Like, right now.” It does not open right now. It also doesn’t open after a few seconds pass like Sloane hopes. Is it going to open? What a question. Of course it is. Why wouldn’t it?
… Is there something crawling on her leg? She looks down. She can’t see in the dark. She reaches a hand to her leg, then jerks it away. Oh, yeah. Something’s crawling on her leg. That’s fun. That’s not scary at all.
“I think there’s something on my arm.” Todd says. Sloane can feel him moving his hand. “Oh, cool! A spider! …Uh oh.”
Sloane shrieks. The small space in the coffin is quickly filling up with spiders. Is that intentional? It sure seems like it! What kind of sicko would design a ride like this?!
“Uh, S-Sloane?” Todd presses himself against Sloane, away from the ever-expanding sea of spiders. Where are those even coming from?!
Sloane screams, she raises her fists and starts punching and kicking at the coffin lid. She feels him try to pull a trembling arm around her, but she gives the lid a good kick and it goes sailing off. She watches a solitary spider on Todd’s cheek scamper away from the light of day. They sit up, panting like they just narrowly escaped drowning. Sloane’s eyes dart around. The ride is still going, but there’s no way she’s staying in a coffin filled with spiders!!! She stands up and jumps out of the ride, onto the grass of the forest surrounding the ride. She holds out a hand for Todd to take and pulls him away, too. He only steps in a little bit of water, lacking her unnatural grace. As soon as he’s safe on the ground with her, she starts shaking, swatting at the stray spiders remaining on her body.
“Gross! Gross! Ew! Ew! Gross! Did I miss any? Gross!” She twists her neck to look down her back.
“You’re good,” Todd says, equally shaken up. He grabs his pant leg with both hands and shakes it, making all the spiders drop into the grass and scuttle away. He takes a breath, then shudders. “I didn’t like that. Too worm-ish.”
“Me neither.” She looks around herself. “Where are we?”
“Somewhere we’re probably not supposed to be.”
Sloane looks down at the winding path their empty coffin is gently floating along. And then it suddenly disappears. No, wait. It falls. Sloane’s eyes widen. She walks along the river to where the coffin vanished. “There is a waterfall here!”
“I’m keeping my five bucks,” he smirks.
She looks over the edge and watches the coffin descend down. It turns over, then smashes to pieces on a sharp rock protruding from the water. “Who designed this?!”
Todd joins her, following her gaze. “Oh.” He takes her hand and pulls her away from the edge. “Good thing we weren’t in there.”
“Yeah! Good thing!” She lets out a huff, stomping along the river in the opposite direction. “What the heck was that?! That’s not safe!”
“Maybe we strayed off-course…?”
“Oh, they better hope we just strayed off-course!” Her hands are balled to fists. And then a spike of fear jams straight through her heart. “Todd.”
“Wh–”
“Todd, my mom is in a coffin.”
His eyes widen a bit. He looks at the river. “She went in after us, right? Have we seen any other coffins?”
Sloane shakes her head and bites her lip. “No? I don’t think so? Did we?!”
“I don’t think we did. So she’s not in danger yet?”
“Wh- what if the river splits at some point? What if she went down a different path? What if she doesn’t have spiders, but something else horrible?” She grabs him and starts shaking him. “What if I’m an orphan!”
“Your dad is at the hotel!” He huffs, putting his hands on her elbows and forcing her to stop. “Take a breath, we’ll find her. We should find someone who works here and have them show us to the ride exit and we’ll meet her when she gets out of her coffin. Okay?”
Sloane forces herself to take a breath. Her hands unfurl and she drops them at her sides. “Okay…”
Todd takes her hand, holding it as they walk along the riverbank until they find one of the green monster employees. Todd literally waves them down, which gets them escorted back to the start of the ride. Sloane almost shrieks when she sees her mom standing by the entrance, chatting with one of the employees. She drops Todd’s hand and runs over, launching herself at her mom.
“Mooooom!!!” She whines, wrapping her arms around her.
Lucy stumbles back a bit, but manages to catch her precious daughter. There’s no world in which she would ever let her hit the ground. “Oough– honey! I’m here, everything’s okay. Was the ride too scary?”
Sloane pulls away and looks up at her in disbelief. “Our coffin shut on us then filled with spiders and after we got out we watched it fall down a waterfall and shatter on some spikey rocks!”
“Wha–?” Lucy stares at her, then looks over at Todd. He looks frazzled, nodding quickly.
“Yeah,” he says quickly. “That happened. Didn’t like.”
“Ooh, poor kids…” She opens her arms, pulling Todd into a hug when he hesitates. “Do you two want to go back to the hotel and call it a day?”
“I wanna go home,” Sloane sniffles. “I don’t think it’s safe here.”
Lucy looks over at Todd, who nods in agreement. “Okay, honey. We’ll go back to the hotel and get your father and head right home, okay?”
She nods a lot. If the Coffin Cruise was that bad, who knows what would happen if they went on any of the other rides. She clings to her mother’s hand. “I hope dad’s okay…”
“Oh, honey, why wouldn’t he be? He’s safe and sound at the hotel.” She caresses Sloane’s hair. “We’ll take him, and we’ll get right out of here.”
She leads both children by the hand out of the park and back to Stagger Inn, leaving them together in Todd’s room to pack up his things while she goes to find her husband. He’s in the hotel spa, nursing a literal burn from a hot stone and looking miserable. “Hey, honey. What’re you doing back so soon?”
“Shshsh– what happened to you??”
He groans. “The spa was, uh… A little hotter than I thought it would be. I tried to cool it off in the cool bath, but the water was literally freezing and turning to ice. So I passed on that.” He looks at the burn. “Do you think I should see a doctor, or am I fine?”
“Doctor,” she grabs his hand. “We’re going home. I’m not staying somewhere that puts our baby and my husband in danger.”
“Huh?” He stumbles after her. “What happened to our baby??”
“She and Todd almost went sailing off a cliff. And there were spiders. And a coffin. The point is, she’s seriously upset and we need to leave.” She takes a turn to the elevator, then stops. She turns and pulls her husband along to the stairs instead. With their current luck, the elevator will probably get stuck. Or fall. Something along those lines, she’s sure of it. She hurries up the stairs and to their room. Sloane is in the middle of moving her clothes back into her suitcase, Todd watching from an armchair with his bags pooled around his feet. She looks up at them.
“Dad!” She cries. “What happened to you?”
Her dad smiles a bit and pats her shoulder. “Just a little burn, nothing to worry about, sweetheart. I heard you had a really bad time–”
Lucy hisses at him, pushing an empty bag into his hand. “We can talk in the car on the way home!”
“Yes, honey. You are so right, honey.” He quickly steps over to the dresser and moves all of their clothes into the bag. Lucy slings their backpack over her shoulder while her husband takes the suitcase. She makes sure the children have every little thing they brought with them and ushers them right out the door.
Then goes back in to throw the key cards back at the receptionist and dramatically announce that she will be calling about a refund tomorrow morning during business hours.
Then she helps her husband Tetris everything back into the car, and off they drive. Straight out of the front gate and back to whence they came. Unbelievable, that place! How is it even still operational? While she zooms back home, her husband takes care of the children’s emotions. They get home in a little over half the time it took them to get there in the first place, and they unpack the car before getting back in and going straight to the ER to be checked for spider bites and treated for one solitary burn.
And, because it couldn’t be any other way, Todd’s entire body is covered in them, while Sloane is entirely unblemished. Lucy pinches the bridge of her nose. He must be a magnet for these sorts of things. His mother is not going to be happy. But then again, is she ever?
Lizzy Morris wakes up to another great day of work, this time in a Saw-themed AirBNB that she really hopes won’t kill her. She got the Amanda's pig mask themed room, while Luke is in the Billy the Puppet themed loft. They’ll do a little bit of vlogging, then they’ll go to a nearby cafe for breakfast, where she will edit that footage as well as the sponsorship segments they filmed in bulk before their flight the previous day. Then they’ll come back to the AirBNB, film a house tour, and she’ll film an aesthetic Summerween Movie Night TikTok with a It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown audio overlaid. Then more editing, then she’ll watch whatever movie won the poll for her next review, and then she’ll write that review. Fun!
She goes through this routine perfectly, donning a cropped skull t-shirt and ripped tights and a relatable messy bun. She hates it. She can’t wait until the hype around that other horror girl’s big haircut wears off so she can get into a less 2010s make-up vlogger style. But she goes to the cafe with her work laptop, covered in the stickers they sell as merch, and starts editing while Luke checks her emails for her on her phone. That is, until he snorts. “The snake hater is at it again.”
“Oh no,” Lizzy looks around her laptop to look at him, sure her eyes are shining. This is one of the best parts of their job (aside from all of the fun stuff, the money, the creative fulfillment, the money, the ability to endlessly indulge in a fascination they’ve had since childhood, the money…) “What’d they say this time?”
Luke clears his throat. “‘I want to retract my previous comment,’ ooh, a change of heart! Good start! ‘I wasn’t aware this wasn’t a fandom ARG thing. Anyway, HorrorLand’s the pits, sorry you had to go through all that. Still think liveblogging all that is loser behaviour though.’”
Lizzy snorts, minimizing the tab with her editing software (which, surprise surprise, is NOT the software sponsoring whatever video they’re gonna be posting next Wednesday) and opening up their YouTube community tab. She creates a poll with screenshots of both comments.
Hey guys! My old HorrorLand Theme Park review got a bad comment from an unbeliever, who just doubled down after their trip. Since we’re staying at @deadhouses’ EPIC Saw AirBNB this weekend, I thought we would pull a Saw 3D opening and make this public. Do we block SpencerSnake2908? Make sure to comment your reasoning for or against!
- Lizzy
She lets Luke read it over and sends it to Clay over discord. Once they all agree, she posts it and goes back to editing while Luke schedules a text reminding her to check the results tomorrow. An engaged-with viewerbase is a happy viewerbase, after all. She works some more, until Luke starts laughing again. He slides her phone over to her, “Check that out.”
Lizzy peers down at one of the first comments on the post, from someone by the username of @LizCofVS.
block her that's my bestie she's really cool she's just also little fucking hater and i'm so embarrased right now
She howls, sliding her phone back over to him and burying her face in her hands. “Well! Guess that settles it!”
About six minutes after posting a make-up comment on EscapeHorrorland.com with her tail between her legs, Sloane’s phone lights up with the glow of a text from one of her best friends. Lizzy!
‘Sloane I’m coming over to your house and I’m going to slap you.’
Well, that’s not very nice.
‘What did I do???’
A screenshot pops up in their chat. She looks through it. It’s both of her comments on that awful horror blog.
‘How do you know about that?’Lizzy sends another screenshot, this time with her commenting with her YouTube channel’s account to claim Sloane as her best friend and to be ashamed of it.
‘They posted it on their community tab with a poll to decide if you should get blocked or not!!!! Girl this is SO embarrassing’
‘Calm down! It’s not like they know it’s ME me. + there’s no way for them to know you’re affiliated with me.’
‘:O MY ASS GOT OUTTED???’Sloane throws her phone to the other side of her bed with a huff. She hates horror. What a stupid genre.
‘Don’t :O me! You embarrassed me in front of my FAVORITE streamer/youtuber!!!’
‘DID YOU TELL THEM TO BLOCK ME?!???!’
‘YOU DESERVE IT.’
‘ET FUCKING TU LIZZY?????’
‘🖕’
‘>:(‘
Lucy sits in her chair, watching Yellowstone with her husband while he nurses the small stone-shaped burn on his shoulder. She’s about to get up to get him an icepack, when a familiar ad blares to life on their smart TV screen. HORRORLAND! TOTALLY X-TREME PARK 4 ALL AGES! TASTE THE FEAR AS YOU–
“NO!” She grabs the remote and repeatedly slams her finger on the button to skip the ad. “Shut up!”
“Honey–” Her husband reaches for the remote.
She hisses at him, repeatedly clicking a few more times before jamming her fingertip into the power button. The TV shuts off and she throws the remote onto the couch with a huff. “No more TV! We’re done with TV!”
Amusement glints in his eyes as he leans back against the couch, only to wince when his injured shoulder meets the soft plush. “Okay, honey. No more TV.”
“Let’s get a dumb TV that doesn’t play any ads and exclusively watch physical movies and shows on DVD.” She crosses her arms. Her husband leans over and presses a kiss to her cheek.
“Let’s not go that far, huh? The ads have to stop eventually.”
“Mmm… We’ll see about that.”
“Don’t be so dramatic!” He calls as she walks off into the kitchen for that ice pack. “Everything has to come to an end eventually!”