Lunatics Radio Hour
Lunatics Library 36: Amusement Park Horror Stories
Abby and Alan present amusement park themed horror stories. Ever wondered what dark secrets lurk beneath the thrills of amusement parks? We have unearthed a trio of harrowing tales that will chill you to the bone and make you question the shadows behind the carousel lights.
Our journey kicks off with a look into the world of amusement park horror, a genre ripe with untapped potential. We recount the nerve-wracking experiences of a security guard in an abandoned park, where his reality is as twisted as the rusted rides he patrols. Our first story was written by John K Peck, follow John online twitter.com/johnkpeck and johnkpeck.com. Necropolis was narrated by Jon C Cook of the Fadò podcast.
But the terror doesn't stop at the creaking gates of deserted attractions. Join us as we dive into Sara Luke's riveting story, "Splashdown," which masterfully intertwines the themes of loss, family, and survival against the backdrop of a decaying water park. Follow Sara on Instagram @saraluke25.
Finally we share a story by Cooper Shreves, about the less-than-ideal escapades at Adventure Landing, providing a chilling testament to the mishaps and memories made in these playgrounds of joy turned graveyards of innocence. So, tune in, hold on tight, and prepare for an expedition into the eerie enigma of carnivals and water parks that will forever alter your view of where you find your fun.
lunaticsproject.com
Get Lunatics Merch here. Join the discussion on Discord. Listen to the paranormal playlist I curate for Vurbl, updated weekly! Check out Abby's book Horror Stories. Available in eBook and paperback. Music by Michaela Papa, Alan Kudan & Jordan Moser. Poster Art by Pilar Keprta @pilar.kep.
What's it like to be a Cattle Rancher? FBI Special Agent? Professional Santa? Find out!
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
Abby and Alan present amusement park themed horror stories. Ever wondered what dark secrets lurk beneath the thrills of amusement parks? We have unearthed a trio of harrowing tales that will chill you to the bone and make you question the shadows behind the carousel lights.
Our journey kicks off with a look into the world of amusement park horror, a genre ripe with untapped potential. We recount the nerve-wracking experiences of a security guard in an abandoned park, where his reality is as twisted as the rusted rides he patrols. Our first story was written by John K Peck, follow John online twitter.com/johnkpeck and johnkpeck.com. Necropolis was narrated by Jon C Cook of the Fadò podcast.
But the terror doesn't stop at the creaking gates of deserted attractions. Join us as we dive into Sara Luke's riveting story, "Splashdown," which masterfully intertwines the themes of loss, family, and survival against the backdrop of a decaying water park. Follow Sara on Instagram @saraluke25.
Finally we share a story by Cooper Shreves, about the less-than-ideal escapades at Adventure Landing, providing a chilling testament to the mishaps and memories made in these playgrounds of joy turned graveyards of innocence. So, tune in, hold on tight, and prepare for an expedition into the eerie enigma of carnivals and water parks that will forever alter your view of where you find your fun.
lunaticsproject.com
Get Lunatics Merch here. Join the discussion on Discord. Listen to the paranormal playlist I curate for Vurbl, updated weekly! Check out Abby's book Horror Stories. Available in eBook and paperback. Music by Michaela Papa, Alan Kudan & Jordan Moser. Poster Art by Pilar Keprta @pilar.kep.
What's it like to be a Cattle Rancher? FBI Special Agent? Professional Santa? Find out!
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
Hello everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Lunatics Radio Hour podcast. I am Abby Branker sitting here with Alan Kudin.
Speaker 2:Hello.
Speaker 1:Today we are going to present to you three amusement park themed horror stories.
Speaker 2:That's fun.
Speaker 1:Very fun. I'm so excited about this and, if you missed last week's episode, we talked all about the history of amusement parks sort of broadly, but also the intersection with horror, with urban legends, with very strange history, so that was a super fun episode for me.
Speaker 2:I was a little disappointed in that. Most of the history just has to do with accidents that have happened. Things get shut down and then it's just kind of creepy because it's shut down Not that there's like a monster that lives in a theme park.
Speaker 1:But there are some urban legends and ghost stories that we talked about, like the Japanese amusement park where they believe the woman birthed a snake. That whole thing was pretty rock and roll.
Speaker 2:The snake thing was kind of cool. I'll give you that one. I just wish there was more of it, sure. That's fair, but I guess that's why we're here.
Speaker 1:We can't rewrite history.
Speaker 2:Sure, we absolutely can. White people have been doing it for generations.
Speaker 1:We have some, not to say old friends, but old friends of the podcast returning to us today, which is very special. It's been a long time since some of these folks have been, since I think all of these folks have been featured, both writers and narrators.
Speaker 2:I have no idea who's on the docket for today, so that's exciting.
Speaker 1:As usual. Yes, I also want to mention two additional amusement park films that we had recommended to us by a very, very trusted source, our film encyclopedia friend, sean Redlitz, who sat us down and said listen, you two not all amusement park horror films are terrible. One of them actually, he said, isn't great but it has an amazing name, which is the incredibly strange creatures who stopped living and became mixed up zombies. That one, he said, wasn't groundbreaking, but it has a great name and a great poster. The other one is a film simply called the Amusement Park, I believe. Thank you, sean. We trust Sean's judgment quite implicitly and we're happy to share those recommendations on.
Speaker 2:I would be very excited to see some high quality amusement park horror.
Speaker 1:Indeed, it seems overdue for the most part.
Speaker 2:I really feel like it's an untapped market. Sorry, it's more like this vast field and everyone's just taking little shovelfuls out. No one's done any kind of deep expedition to really get what's in there. It's so rife for horror.
Speaker 1:I think the best one that I can think of besides Carnival of Souls, which again really isn't for the most part, amusement park horror, is Hellfest, that one from 2018, we watched it, I think, during the pandemic. It feels scary throughout the whole thing and it's set squarely in an amusement park like horror night situation the whole time. It's not exactly my horror film, but it is probably the best example that I can really think of beyond what we focused on last episode.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that one specifically feels more like haunted house vibes. We talked about this in the episode, Even though and it all takes place in is it a horror-themed park? I think so.
Speaker 1:I think it's supposed to be a regular park. That's having a horror night.
Speaker 2:Right right.
Speaker 1:A fright night, yeah.
Speaker 2:What I really want to see is almost like a Five Nights at Freddy's type thing, where it is off-brand Disney World and then it becomes horrific. It's a perfectly normal amusement park, but at night the fucking Mickey goes in murders, which I'm sure we're actually going to see a few of these in the very near future, now that Mickey Mouse is in the public domain.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I think they're already announcing all kinds of films.
Speaker 2:There's already two horror comedies out. I say horror comedies. I haven't seen these. I don't know if they're actually funny or scary. They immediately likened them to the Winnie the Pooh Blood and Honey.
Speaker 1:Oh terrible, I really dislike that.
Speaker 2:I love the idea of it, though I haven't seen it. You saw it.
Speaker 1:Blood and Honey.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're very brave.
Speaker 1:I've watched it. It was laughably bad in my opinion.
Speaker 2:But the idea of a big-budget mascot-murdery movie sounds cool. Again, it really is just Five Nights at Freddy's, where there's an abandoned amusement park. Some guy has to just watch it at night and the fucking animatronics or the mascots, the suits come to life. That's spooky.
Speaker 1:That is spooky.
Speaker 2:I'd watch that.
Speaker 1:It's interesting. You just reminded me by mentioning Five Nights at Freddy's, that which this is our second year doing it, but in the end of 2023, we had People Vote and Nominate on the best horror films that came out in 2023. It was really interesting to me that Five Nights at Freddy's got thrown around a little bit, in that the votes are final and they're up on our website if you guys want to check out what the general public has said is the best horror of 2023. Good for Five Nights at Freddy's because I think when we watched it it felt like, okay, this is a horror film for kids, but it doesn't mean it's not worth looking at its attributes.
Speaker 2:I appreciated that they dialed things back. They kept it far more accessible.
Speaker 1:I guess the reason why that's surprising is just that the game is so scary and the movie didn't feel that scary. The whole point of the game is that it's scary.
Speaker 2:That's an excellent point. The game is famous for its jump scares. There's absolutely nothing graphic in the first game at all. It's just things pop out and give you a spook it's terrifying.
Speaker 1:It's actually very, very scary and it's gritty and it's all these things.
Speaker 2:It's unsettling.
Speaker 1:Yes, it's unsettling.
Speaker 2:But it's incredible. They just build this air of tension and anxiety. That's amazing. It is, but it's a gimmicky game To translate it to a movie. You could go in a few different directions. One thing that they chose and what they went for is character building, which I don't give a shit about in terms of Five Nights at Freddy's Lore, but so many people out there do. The lore is very, very deep. There's full novels. There's actual novels in the Five Nights at Freddy's universe Before the later games and the novels and everything that really just went and ironed out what the lore was. There was so much open-ended speculation and that's what made shit fun. But the movie sort of did that in terms of fleshing things out, but they didn't lean hard at all into actually scaring people, which I felt.
Speaker 2:so I was so disappointed by I want to see a scary Five Nights at Freddy's, and apparently there's the Nick Cage one.
Speaker 1:Oh, oh, oh, I know you're talking about Willy's Wonderland.
Speaker 2:Yes, which I have not seen, but every time I have expressed my grievances with Five Nights at Freddy's, it's You've been pointed in that direction?
Speaker 1:I've been pointed in that direction. Yeah, I haven't either, but I have some friends who texted me when they saw it and they were like you need to watch this immediately.
Speaker 2:So I'm excited. I love Nick Cage.
Speaker 1:He's amazing.
Speaker 2:Of course. Oh, I never finished that crazy movie, prisoners of the Ghostland.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:I can't. I only watched about the first 30 minutes of the film before I just got busy, but it was frickin' wild. I really gotta circle back this movie. I'm not 100% sure what it's about. I know Nick Cage is hired to rescue somebody. I think there's like a post-apocalyptic wasteland or something, or maybe it's hell, but they implant bombs in his testicles and his neck and other things in case he has impure thoughts.
Speaker 1:Oh, my God.
Speaker 2:Very strange. And there's like people that get imprisoned inside mannequins voluntarily.
Speaker 1:Wow, like they're souls.
Speaker 2:Unclear.
Speaker 1:Okay, what's it called?
Speaker 2:Prisoners of the Ghostland.
Speaker 1:Okay, so yeah, it sounds like we'll have to watch that.
Speaker 2:Fairly recent film too. What?
Speaker 1:year 2021. All right, very recent indeed, okay.
Speaker 2:Okay, here we go. Nicholas Cage plays a bank robber who is freed from jail by a wealthy warlord in order to locate the latter's missing granddaughter.
Speaker 1:That's the tagline.
Speaker 2:Yes, the catch. Cage's character is forced to wear a leather suit, covers and explosives to keep him in line, including two next to his testicles that will explode when he becomes aroused.
Speaker 1:Yikes.
Speaker 2:It's crazy.
Speaker 1:Okay, sounds crazy. Well, without further ado, let us start the stories, if you will.
Speaker 2:Oh right, we're here for that.
Speaker 1:That's what we're here for, yes, not just to talk about Nick Cage and his impure thoughts. So the first story comes to us. This is this writer's debut on Lunatics Radio Hour John K Peck. This story was first published in Dark Horses Magazine and I want to tell you guys a little bit about John, because, again, he's a first time Lunatics writer. He's a Berlin based writer. He's also a musician and a letterpress printer, which is incredibly cool. His stories have appeared in Interzone, pyre, cold Signal, dark Horses and Void Space. He's also a frequent contributor to McSweeney's Internet Tendency. It has appeared in two McSweeney's anthologies and I'm going to link everything you need to find John below, but his Twitter is John K Peck and JohnKpeckcom is how you can find him. This story is read for us by one of my absolute favorite narrators. So, without further ado, let's play the story and then we'll come back and we'll talk about it.
Speaker 3:Nick Robles Red high John K Peck. Red high John Seacook.
Speaker 4:He remains in the space between waking and sleep for as long as he can, feeling the unremembered dream fall away as the contours of the world solidify around him. As the yellow-orange glow of daylight swells gently beyond his closed eyelids, various sounds emerge birds, cars, sirens. A word takes shape in his brain Tuesday, then canine footsteps, claws ticking against the hardwood floor. He steals himself to open his eyes. The job is simple enough and it gives him plenty of time alone. The compound he's hired to guard consists mostly of a former theme park, as well as some additional outbuildings, all abandoned several years before and awaiting reconstruction or demolition. The years have given the buildings and roads a gentle, rounded look, windows hazy, with dust plants sprouting between bricks, painted signs paled by age and sun. He has a standard route that takes about ninety minutes, meaning he can walk it four times per shift, with time left over for other tasks. As he walks, he breathes in the strange dust and mildew smell of the abandoned buildings, feeling the early fall sunlight on his face, watching as the shadows lengthen over the course of the afternoon and evening. This time of year his shifts end right at sundown and as he chains the park gates shut, he can watch the sun set over the distant downtown skyline, he holds himself inside the half-dream, feeling its strange coolness still within him. A word takes shape in his brain Thursday. Another word. October Sounds distant but persistent. A strange skittering across stone, a small whimper, then the familiar yellow-orange light behind his lids, the tick of canine feet on the floor, and he lets the world take shape as he is pulled into waking.
Speaker 4:Fall turns to winter. The paths and roads of the park take on new tones during the late-shift darkness Blacks, greys, dark crimson's, cut through with the occasional pale white beam from the spotlights set up on the rooftops. He varies his route, taking the narrow alleys between buildings, peering through dust-covered windows to make out the dark-scattered interiors, his flashlight beam revealing drop-cloths draped over heaps of debris, detached stoves pulled away from walls, toppled chairs and tables, shattered glass that glints back at him like stars in a nighttime sky. One afternoon, the sun already low in the sky, he turns down a narrow alley off one of the larger roads. He's never taken the route before, and after a few turns the alley opens into a wider space between several buildings. The walls that border the space appear much older, with peeling paint and wood and metal eaves that look ready to fall in any moment.
Speaker 4:The late-afternoon light grows dimmer and he clicks his flashlight on, passing it over the aged walls and iron-barred windows. The far wall looks especially old. Its wooden boards are warped and have large gaps between them, and much of its white paint is flaked off. Drawing the flashlight beam upward, he sees what appear to be words painted in a vintage carnival style. Despite their dilapidated condition, they remain legible. Beyond these walls, the city of the dead. Enter if you dare hold on to your soul. Below the words is a large skull floating over a desert-like silhouetted landscape of hills, maces and rock pillars.
Speaker 4:To the left of the small mural is what appears to have once been a door but is now covered by boards. To the right is a small barred window. He approaches it and points his flashlight inside. The window is filthy and all he can make out within is vague debris on a dusty concrete floor. Somewhere at the periphery of his hearing he picks up a faint sound, at first like a bird or the squeak of a window shutter. Moved by the wind, it grows louder and begins to take on a different tone, like the wheeze of labored breathing. He shivers despite his down jacket and steps back from the window Seeing how dark the sky has become. He quickly turns and leaves via the alleyway.
Speaker 4:He holds himself inside the half-dream, feeling its strange coolness. A word takes shape Friday, another December, a third, which he can't make out but sounds something like cropless as distant but persistent, a strange skittering across stone, labored breathing through many thin nostrils. The light behind his lids is faint but present after a few moments, the padding of canine feet on the floor. Slow, cautious, he will not be pulled into waking in such a dark season. He knows he must place himself into the world, choose to partake in the incarnation of another day. The day is dim, beset by a strange haze that only allows the faintest sunlight to filter through. He walks his rounds automatically, sticking to the main roads and paths.
Speaker 4:He's been sleeping worse lately, which is unusual for him, particularly during the darker winter months. Though his job is simple enough and doesn't require much attention, he nonetheless finds that the more exhausted and underslept he is, the longer the days drag on. Finally, long after the sun has set, his shift ends. As he locks and chains the main gate, he looks up at the night sky to the west. At first he can see a few dim stars, but they soon flicker into darkness. The train home is empty, which he doesn't mind, and the streets are deserted.
Speaker 4:On his walk home from the station, he lets himself into his apartment, walks and feeds the dog and then eats and turns on the TV, but can't keep his eyes open. He makes his way into bed and as soon as he lies down he feels himself being dragged into sleep, forcefully, actively pulled from waking to dream. Darkness, cool, unmoving air, dust and mildew. The dream is all around him. He just needs to wake his dream self to it. Someone, his mother perhaps, holds him in her arms saying Wake up, you're back in Necropolis.
Speaker 4:It was just a nightmare. Shuffling and dragging of something toward him in the darkness across cold, dust-covered stone, whimpering through countless nostrils, on a beak-like snout, pulled and dragged by many legs, evoking meaningless words from a fading, useless, soon-to-be-forgotten dream. Dog, canine, pet. His mother's voice again. We were calling out, asking where everyone had gone. We're all here, we're all here. He feels the cold vastness of the world taking shape around him, sees only blackness beyond his eyelids, hearing distant cries like sirens or wails, muffled as if heard through countless fathoms of salt-water. Closer, his mother's voice, again, telling him it's all right, you're safe at home, you're back with your people. She continues stroking his face reassuringly with what some might call hands, telling him what day and year it is in an unending word, a deep, modulating groan forced through countless trachea and glottal passages. He breathes deeply, feeling hot acid tears on his face and steals himself to open his eyes.
Speaker 2:Abby, I'm gonna be honest with you.
Speaker 1:Tell me.
Speaker 2:I had to pause.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And reread it three more times.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:This story goes well beyond my fifth grade reading level.
Speaker 1:Yes, well, you don't have a fifth grade reading level, but I would call it more of a third grade reading level.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, you can fuck off. Having done a deep academic dive into this piece, I think I get it. Okay, it took a minute, but I think I get it Tell us. So our guy our hero our guy, yeah, yeah, he's dead. Yeah, and he was dreaming of not being dead, I think.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:I think he's in the Necropolis.
Speaker 1:Yeah, with his family, which anyone who doesn't know, of course, in Necropolis is a city of the dead, a very, very, very large graveyard.
Speaker 2:And he's having this ethereal dream of being a guard Maybe that's what he did when he was alive, yeah, and just like benign things like his time feeding his dog and watching TV, but keeps coming back to this like hell-like purgatory. That is his current state of being.
Speaker 1:Well, I appreciate a story that doesn't just hand you everything, that A, gives the reader and listener a chance to bring their own interpretation to it, but also B, you know, is a little bit more elevated perhaps and a little more poetic than other types of stories.
Speaker 1:So I really was drawn to this story in a lot of ways and I actually have a few different interpretations that I feel like could be what's happening here, and I only can imagine that it's purposely sort of, you know, written in this way. Well, yes, I do think, kind of, at the end you have you hear like the sirens and the distant and the tears and there's some sort of event that has happened and you keep returning throughout the story to this dream-like state of him kind of going through his route in life at this place and, right, there's a lot of different ways you can, lots of different meaning and things that you can infuse into that across as you're reading. But I think it's super cool and what it really brings to mind for me is Carnival of Souls in a way, again, a movie that I really like that you're not as much of a fan of.
Speaker 5:No.
Speaker 1:But kind of like the theme park has this liminal place right Even with the writing, the carnival style writing on the wall of beyond these walls, the city of the dead enter if you dare hold on to your soul. It creates sort of like this liminal place and I think that amusement parks can totally be a liminal place. So I loved that about it. And again I have a few different versions of what could happen and I kind of like not knowing exactly what the intention is. You know.
Speaker 2:You know, it's kind of a cool thing to think about. You know, like when people see ghosts, like think about a haunted hotel.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And you see a ghost, they always say like oh yeah, if you come during nights, you can see the woman walking down carrying her bullshit. Right, okay, you know. And it's like a repetitive behavior that can be observed. Sure what if, when people see ghosts, it's because the dead are dreaming?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's, interesting, and like they're not really.
Speaker 2:They're not awake, so they're like think of how foggy dreams are them in. The world of the living is just like their dream world, so it's very ethereal. They're not interacting with people and when they do, it's like really fucked up, like you do in dreams.
Speaker 1:I never thought of the dead as being beings that sleep before, but it's interesting, I do think it's cool, yeah, and that's why I like this kind of thing, because it sparks new ideas, and I think John did. John K Peck, first time writer for Lunatics, did an amazing job and I'm very grateful that he shared it Because, again, I do think a lot of the references that we have for amusement park horror are either, as we talked about earlier today, like very, very, very straightforward.
Speaker 2:Low brow.
Speaker 1:Low brow, exactly, thank you, but there's so much room to explore it in a more, you know, experimental, I suppose, way and a less verbatim, way, less of like a killer Mickey on the loose right, something that's a little more thought provoking, and I think that this story does that well.
Speaker 2:And, as always, John Seacook what a guy.
Speaker 1:Oh my god, such an incredible voice for narration and did such an excellent job with this story. I don't know why, but when I first read John K Peck's story I thought of John Cook, which is interesting because John Cook usually for us I feel like I've put him, I've character typecast him a little bit in a box of old timey literature and this story obviously is not that at all.
Speaker 2:But quite contemporary.
Speaker 1:Quite contemporary. And I thought John is going to be great for this and I think, again, both Johns did an amazing job. So so again, thought provoking to your point, like Alan and I have kind of between recording, then debating different theories, and I think that's a fun thing to walk away from a story with.
Speaker 2:It was a beautiful pairing.
Speaker 1:A beautiful pairing, a match made in Disneyland, if you will.
Speaker 2:Like smoked Gouda and spicy pickles.
Speaker 1:Shall we move on to the next story of the day.
Speaker 2:Who's up next?
Speaker 1:Next up we have our friend. Well, you know what? Before I talk about her, let's roll the tape and then we'll come back.
Speaker 2:Deal. Splashdown. Written and read by Cyril Luke.
Speaker 5:I got a plan. There's some stuff to figure out and put in place, but still I got a plan. My sister too. We got a plan. I guess you could say me and Tara always been close. From the second mom and daddy brought her home from the hospital. We just clicked. I'm three years older but I think she's the one who guides me. Mama used to say she brought us balance. I'm a hothead, like mama, I'm the hard one, and Tara is a softness. She's special. Everything I do I do to protect that softness.
Speaker 5:We both work at our town's water park. Splashdown Water park is a pretty loose term for it. It's really just an old water slide, a wave pool and a lazy river that kids love to piss in. It's kind of a dump. I've been here since I was 13 and Tara just started picking up shifts last summer. One of us working just wasn't enough. Heck. Even with the two of us it's hard to keep up. She was becoming something of a sports star at school. Before she had to start helping me out, she insisted on dropping volleyball. I begged her not to do it. It's too much to ask of a kid. She's not your typical kid, though, in classic Tara fashion. After she told me she quit, she just smiled, hugged me and said it's gonna be okay, hannah, it wasn't always this way. Now I know it ain't my place to question God, but I'm still trying to figure out what his fucking plan was with all this.
Speaker 5:Every year my grandparents would take mama and daddy and daddy's brother, uncle Lee, on a trip to the big casino a state over. They'd make a whole weekend out of it, while us kids stayed at home. Grandma and grandpa were always so proud to be able to put everybody up at a decent place. It was the one time of the year when they would really treat themselves. Mama and daddy love those casino trips. They couldn't wait until I was old enough to start going. On their last trip, about three years ago, their charter bus driver decided to join in on some of the festivities before heading home. As he was driving, he passed out and hit a semi-head on. The cops said they thought his blood alcohol level was three times over the legal limit when the bus flipped and rolled off the highway. No one made it out Well, no one, except my Uncle Lee.
Speaker 5:Uncle Lee has been rotten from the start. There ain't no better way to put it. Even his own parents couldn't stand him. There was just always something off with him. Him and daddy never really got along, I guess on account of daddy always being something of the golden child. He was awful to everyone. I could never understand why they kept letting him come around. I think when I got older I realized that it was because deep down they really feared him. My daddy never trusted him.
Speaker 5:He used to tell me about how, when they were kids, uncle Lee would let his friends beat him up His own brother Daddy said Uncle Lee would just watch and laugh and laugh. He also told me another story Years ago. One night when my daddy and Uncle Lee were drinking, they got into it, cussing and arguing back and forth. My uncle Lee got so worked up he told daddy he'd kill him, just like you done the last fool that crossed him. At first daddy thought he was just bullshitting, but the details he told him felt too real.
Speaker 5:Uncle Lee had won big in some card game a few years prior. A few of the other players tried to call him out for cheating and he didn't take too kindly to it. He stormed out and as he was heading to his car in the alley one of the guys decided he wasn't quite ready to let it go. Uncle Lee said he whipped out his pocket knife and stabbed the man right in his throat. He even said he smoked a cigarette and watched while he bled out. It chilled daddy right to the bone. The next day he tried to ask him about it again, but Uncle Lee acted like he didn't have any idea what he was talking about. He laughed it off and blamed it on the booze. But daddy knew and he told me as a warning. There was more he wanted to tell me too, but he never got the chance. Some of it. He said I had to wait until I was older. Sometimes I think this is all one big joke that God's playing, leaving us here alone in this shitty city and having Uncle Lee be the one to survive. We even got to deal with him at the water park. He warmed his way into a job there after he started dating the owner's daughter.
Speaker 5:A few years back, when our parents died, the court wanted us to move in with Uncle Lee. I refused and told them we were gonna stay right where we were. I was close enough to being legal that he never really pushed it. Mom and daddy took effort our whole lives to never leave us alone for too long with my uncle. They'd turn in their graves if they knew how close we were to living in the same house. I could never let that happen.
Speaker 5:After the accident there was a big lawsuit filed by the survivors families and Uncle Lee. Now my mama taught me it's not polite to talk about money, so I'll just say we did pretty well for ourselves. Turns out, the bus driver had some previous incidents involving alcohol that had been largely ignored, so we got the bus company to pay up, and the casino as well, for serving them that much alcohol in the first place. Seeing as how we got a share for each family member loss, we rewarded enough money to set ourselves up for well pretty much for good, if we played our cards right. The only problem is that because we were minors, the court decided to appoint our sole living family member as our conservator, our Uncle Lee. I was supposed to get our money when I turned legal, but Uncle Lee made sure that didn't happen.
Speaker 5:A couple of months before my 18th birthday I got busted for underage drinking in a parked car with some of my buddies. My friends had no clue how the cops had known and looked for us. But I did. It was him. He was always watching. After that they decided not to let me get control of the money until I was 21. Us drinking in a car made things a lot more harsh. They said I couldn't be trusted to care for myself and for my little sister with my troubling lifestyle. The judge actually gave a decent performance as he expressed great concern for Tara and me even through, and how disappointed my grandparents would be. I guess Judge Bennett didn't know how many times I'd seen him leave an Uncle Lee's office all those late nights when I was helping close up With all our money, lee had most of the town officials in his pockets.
Speaker 5:No one was concerned about helping us. They gambled with him, drank with him and did God knows what else with them. He's already been a mean son of a bitch his whole life. Now that he has enough money to feed all his demons whatever they want, he's taken full advantage. His drug habit gets worse by the day. Being around him is its own special hell, but I'm afraid to leave and lose everything. I'm 19 now and Tara's 15. The idea of waiting two more years for what's already been owed to us for the last three is unbearable. It's all a sick game to him. The money, the way he holds it over us, pulling it away right when we get within reach.
Speaker 5:Uncle Lee is one of those types that doesn't really trust banks. He keeps everything, mostly in cash, in this obnoxiously large safe in his office that's splashdown. He gives us a monthly allowance from it and it's never enough. That fucking safe. It taunts me every day. My future's sitting feet away from me, locked away in that big cold ass box. I've mostly stopped now, but early on after the accident I begged Uncle Lee countless times to let us control our share or to at least give us a big chunk of it at once. But he refuses. He loves it and deep down I know when I hit 21, he'll think of another excuse to keep it from us. And it's getting worse. Uncle Lee cut both of our pay at splashdown last year. He says with our allowance it all evens out. He tells us he's keeping us humble, only looking out for our safety. He says two young girls like us with money like that need guidance. One sick game. Every allowance day I struggle not to rip the bills out of his hands as he slowly counts my share, always making sure to put a few of the bills back in the safe before handing me the small stack.
Speaker 5:Together with their jobs, mama and Daddy and my grandparents made it work, but keeping up with the rent for this house between Tara and me is proven to be near impossible. I do my best to keep us here in this house, our family's house, because it's the last part of them we have left, aside from the money. I try not to let Tara see me worry, but Tara knows me better than I know myself. She sees it all. I miss my family deeply. I miss being loved and protected. I feel like me and Tara are so untethered now, so unconnected to anything good. Life is nothing but mediocre now. It all seems to become more and more meaningless as the seconds slip by in this trap of a town. Sometimes I forget if I really even liked it when my family was here or if they just distracted me. I feel myself changing, fading, even these days.
Speaker 5:I mostly do office work at Splashdown. I do some of the bookkeeping and answering emails and whatnot, but mostly I watch Uncle Lee, and that's safe. He usually fills his days with either talking shit to someone on the phone, creeping on the park guests or playing in that goddamn safe. He counts the bills over and over again as if they're going to disappear. Some days he takes out big stacks, some days he places them in. He's obsessed. But then again I'm the one watching him in the safe every day. Now Maybe I'm obsessed too. Uncle Lee has really let the place go to hell.
Speaker 5:Splashdown was actually a decent place when we were kids. Most days it feels like it's just Tara and me left here now. Before he took over, it was actually Runwell too. He's a terrible manager. He messes with people's hours and pay until they either quit or just disappear. The drugs have him slipping big time. He blanks and forgets meetings, doesn't give a shit about having things repaired the owner is ancient and sick now and lets him do whatever he wants with it. Most of my simple joys are gone. I'm starting to feel something in me growing Anger towards Uncle Lee and our shit circumstances in this dull town, a different and quieter rage than I've known before.
Speaker 5:I start to notice Tara acting funny, a little more quiet and serious. Kind of seemed out of nowhere. I thought she was just having a bad day or something, but then it turned into a bad week. Finally, one night she came up to me with a sad look in her eyes and asked if we could talk. I instantly had a blast of guilt hit my gut. She'd traded a few shifts with me that month so she could get more comfortable doing office work. The shifts were longer and if we could both do them then we'd be able to pull in more money for the bills. But that also meant she might have to be around Uncle Lee more.
Speaker 5:She started to tell me how one night she was doing something on the computer and needed some more paper for the printer. She couldn't find anybody by the front desk. So she went into Uncle Lee's office. He hadn't been in all day and she honestly didn't think he'd care. As she was searching around the room, he came in, assumed she was snooping and immediately flipped out. He started screaming at her and as soon as she tried to explain herself, he shoved her hard. She fell back and tripped over a chair. She lifted her shirt to show me a deep purple bruise on her back. My world stopped. She hadn't told me because she was scared. Scared what I would do, scared what Uncle Lee would do, she said.
Speaker 5:After that, instead of apologizing. He started treating her even worse, staring at her any time she made a move, making her do unnecessary work like cleaning the toilets, cutting the lunch break, even yelling at her if she didn't move fast enough. He was too chicken shit to treat her like that in front of me. My blood boiled and my heart ached over the idea of my baby sister being beat down like that. The idea of her walking on eggshells and being afraid to talk to me about it made me so sad she had been alone and I had failed her. How much more could she take? Do whatever you want to me, but fuck with my sister, and there's hell to pay. I held her face in my hands and wiped her tears and then, like she'd done to me so many times, I told her it was going to be okay. From that moment on it was like a seed was planted.
Speaker 5:I didn't sleep that night. Instead, I stayed up, splitting my time between crying power, smoking joints and shooting whiskey. Then I realized what I really wanted to do. I'd have done it right then, and there too, if I had a gun, but really I'm glad I didn't, because the more I thought about it, the more I realized there was a way to get everything we wanted. So, like I said, my sister and me we got a plan.
Speaker 5:Now back to that safe. The cash stash in there is huge, more than enough for us to get set up somewhere. There's something else in there too Pills. Uncle Lee keeps bags and bags of those things with the money for his own personal use and to sell. He loves the idea of himself as some kind of drug lord. I think his arrogance is the reason he leaves the safe open so often. His office door too. He wants to taunt me. He knows how torturous it is for me to have to see it and he thinks I'm too weak to try anything. He could never imagine the horrors I harbor in my mind for him.
Speaker 5:Those drugs and that safe had been in my mind. We could easily pawn him off on one of my old high school friends there, pretty hot ticket around here, and that money on top of the cash we'd take would be on set us up. But then I decided we don't really need it. It's the one place where I draw the line. I think about what mama and daddy and grandma and grandpa would think. I guess it's kinda funny how I feel like they'd forgive murder before that They'd seen what the drugs had done to the town, what they'd done to Uncle Lee. Mama was very vocal about it. I figure us leaving those drugs behind is one little less bit of ugliness for us to spread into the world. I never even talked to Tara about it.
Speaker 5:I have a friend who can get us a gun for cheap, so he does. We practice shooting in a field right by Splashdown. After my night shifts we wait a little bit to make sure Uncle Lee has already hit the road home. We drink a few beers, which I don't feel one bit bad about letting Tara partake in With what we've both seen. We deserve to be treated like adults anyway. We also listen to the radio and sing old songs our mama used to love. Landslide is our favorite. Always makes Tara tear up. No one gives a second thought to the sound of a gun going off out here At this hour. People in these parts know how to mind their business. I teach Tara how to hold the gun steady and hit her target, just like daddy did for me. I don't know if he'd exactly approve of all this, but either way I know he's watching over us.
Speaker 5:There's a reason we've waited a little bit. We want the plan solid. Tara has me go over at countless times so that she can be sure we start getting our alibi set up, so no one questions it. When we're gone Weeks prior, we both start telling people we're taking a trip to spread our family's ashes around. That time I tell myself we really will find the perfect place when this is all done. More importantly, we wait because we want as much cash as possible in the safe when we hit it. I've noticed that Uncle Lee does something of a restock at the start of every quarter. He puts a chunk of me and Tara's money and some of his gambling wins in the safe every few months as a way to limit his bank visits. If we time it right, we can make it happen right after the refill.
Speaker 5:I lose sleep waiting and worrying, but we gotta see it through. I decide I'm gonna get Uncle Lee to open the safe by telling him I need extra cash for Tara's school clothes and supplies as soon as he's in. I'll do it. I've practiced the moment so many times and I'm ready At this point. I find myself almost excited for it. After I shoot him, we'll pack up the money and spread some of the drugs around the office a little make it look like a deal gone bad. It's a story everyone in town will buy. That's the beauty of it. We'll be at least a state over by the time anyone finds him, and the sick thing is, I doubt anyone will really care when they do.
Speaker 5:I wait and watch. While I sit in the lifeguard stand, uncle Lee smugly makes his rounds. He leers at the teenage girls in their bathing suits and makes passes at their mothers, giving them handshakes that linger too long. The sound of his vulgar laugh irks my soul. Vulgar, that's the word. Everything about the man is vulgar. I grow to hate it. Here working at this water park, all around me the patrons reek of boredom and gluttony. They shovel the shitty park food in their mouths and indiscreetly take swigs of the alcohol that they sneak in. I see Uncle Lee exchange pills to several of them for wadded up cash. Everyone's too stoned to care about hiding anything. Not that anyone would give a fuck. I'd be lying if I said that killing Uncle Lee is just about tearing the money. I hate him. I've always hated him. Most of all, I resent him being here instead of them. To this day they still aren't sure how he even made it out of that bus.
Speaker 5:I fantasize about finishing the job. My anger is starting to consume me. To ease it, I try to think about life after we leave. Maybe we'll actually get a chance to properly mourn what we've lost. I imagine getting a nice peaceful place near some water. I'd love to swim somewhere far away from Splashdown.
Speaker 5:None of this is sitting right with Tara. I guess I thought she'd be more fired up at this point, like me, but then again, that's the thing, tara ain't like me. She finally tells me what's been on her mind. She doesn't want me to do it, she begs me not to do it. I don't know what to say. Tara just wants peace. She wants us to be totally free of this place and that man. When we go, she tells me she's afraid of what killing Uncle Lee will do to me. To tell you the truth, I'm a little afraid too. I struggle to find words. I'm ashamed of how much I've started to want it, to need it really. But when I look in Tara's eyes I know who I am and what's important. She needs me. I can't be the thing that ruins Tara. So we adjust.
Speaker 5:We decide we can still take the money without getting rid of Uncle Lee. After all, I still have the gun and we still have a plan. I think I pictured both of us being nervous the day of, but instead we're laser focused and everything's going well. That should worry me, but I keep moving. I wait until the day of to ask him for the money so he doesn't have time to make up some excuse and blow me off. I tell him how Tara's starting her junior year soon and we need to go shopping at the outlets just outside town. He huffs and puffs at first, but I stay firm and he finally relents. I also tell him I'll take less next time. He gives us our allowance. He loves that part. He tells me he'll give it to me.
Speaker 5:Before we leave for the night, I made sure that Tara was working with me, made some bullshit excuse about teaching her the accounting software. When our shift finally ends, we silently wait for Uncle Lee to finish up. The air is tense as our nerves finally start to hit us. Uncle Lee yells my name. Tara, gives me a weak smile and I slowly make my way into his office as he chastises me for holding up his plans. He does his usual show of counting the bills before stopping. As he looks up to me, he sneers and starts to run his big fat mouth. Don't you go making a habit of this kind of shit, you hear? I nodded him when I would normally throw some smart reply back. I'm waiting for the perfect moment. He asked me what my problem is. I tell him nothing, but he doesn't believe me. Just as I see his mind start to race, I know I have to act. I pull the gun out on him as Tara rushes behind me and over to the safe.
Speaker 5:Uncle Lee doesn't even have time to process what's hit him. He starts to stand up and I move in, keeping the gun pointed right between his eyes. I can see he's shaking and for a second I almost laugh. Tara moves quickly and quietly. She's going to fill her duffel bag to the brim with cash and she's not going to waste a single second.
Speaker 5:We sit in silent for a moment while he sees with rage. Y'all think y'all pretty clever, don't you? Especially you Hannah. Tara's weak like her daddy, but you Just like your bitch mother. I spit on him and he spits back. I urge Tara to hurry because honestly, I don't know how much longer I can last before I rip him apart with my bare hands. Fuck off Lee Lee. He growled. That's Uncle Lee to you, you disrespectful bitch. We ain't family, no more. I say to him coolly I wonder what's taken Tara so long as I pushed the gun to Uncle Lee's temple. The power I feel right now is incredible. I regret promising Tara I wouldn't do it. There's no telling what Uncle Lee would do if he knew this thing wasn't loaded.
Speaker 5:Tara finally finishes and joins me. She avoids eye contact even now, afraid of that poor excuse of a man. He stares at her anyway as I push her towards the door, I snap at him you sit your ass right here until after you hear us pull off or I'll shoot you dead. You fucking hear me. He gives a weak nod and we share a final glare.
Speaker 5:As Tara and I jog out of the building, there's a rush of relief as the summer air hits our faces For the first time in weeks. Tara laughs and seems light. She tells me it went smoother than she thought it would. I start to respond and the wind is suddenly knocked out of me as Uncle Lee bursts out of the building, tackling me down the steps. I slowly regain my composure, but then start to feel sick. When I realize that he now has the gun, I stand up and lock eyes with Tara. The bag of money sits at our feet, in between us. We know in just a second the plan is going to fall to shit Right.
Speaker 5:Then Uncle Lee raises the gun towards Tara and pulls the trigger. I went to let out a groan, even though I know it's empty. Uncle Lee stands confused as the gun clicks and nothing else happens. Then it all hits him and for that moment it's worth it to see him realize he's been duped. He starts laughing hysterically at our stupidity. I myself can admit it was a mistake. Now, damn, we almost had it. Then it gets furious and before I get a chance to think, he slammed the gun into the side of my head.
Speaker 5:I see white for a few seconds before coming back to reality and look up to see Uncle Lee dragging Tara off in a headlock. How could things be going this wrong this quickly? I catch up to him and start to swing blindly on Uncle Lee. Nothing stops him and he starts to strangle Tara. I go into a full panic and the only thing I can think to do is throw myself at his feet in an attempt to trip him. Somehow it works and he falls, freeing Tara in the process. He smacks his head hard on the concrete ground and crawls around groaning in pain, before lying on his back right by the lazy river.
Speaker 5:I inch closer and closer towards him and before he even sees it coming, I jump on him, almost knocking him in Half of his body hangs hovering right above the slowly moving water while he tries to pull himself up. I try my all to avoid it and yet here it is, right in front of me, a chance to finish the job. I force his head back under the water. Tara can't bear to watch. She sobs quietly and turns away. I keep my eyes right on his the whole time as he struggles. Initially I see red, but soon a deep peace passes over me as the life slips away from him.
Speaker 5:After helping Tara to her feet, we both stare at each other, unsure of what move to make next. We sob and collapse into each other's arms. The rest is easy and goes according to the original plan. I spread some of the pills around and flushed the rest, happy to be rid of them. Tara asks if we'll ever come back. I say maybe a little bit down the road for the rest of our money. But who can really tell? It's silent between us for a while on the road.
Speaker 5:Eventually, tara says she wants to show me something. She smiles as she opens her duffel and holds up two bags of pills. My heart sinks as she explains. When I was getting the money I saw the pills and it hit me we can flip them and use the money for a new car. I can't even answer her. She's proud, thinking she's done something to help. I look up at her in the rear view mirror feeling utterly defeated. For some reason, after everything that's happened to us and I mean everything this is the most painful. I don't want to upset Tara, so I flip on the radio and try to change the mood. The familiar tune starts up and Tara takes the first verse. As usual. We belt out the chorus of landslide as the scenery whips past her windows. She squeezes my hand tight and I think of mama and daddy.
Speaker 1:What a beautiful haunting, deep, complex story.
Speaker 2:Can I be honest with you?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I don't really like Uncle Lee.
Speaker 1:No, Uncle Lee's a villain.
Speaker 2:They need family counseling. Real bad. I mean no, they don't. That guy got his just desserts. There you go. I mean I do enjoy a good tale of a von Kiel side.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:Am I saying that right?
Speaker 1:A von Kiel side.
Speaker 2:A von Kiel side.
Speaker 1:Uncle side.
Speaker 2:Yeah, uncle side, I could see this story playing out as a feature film.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, and it's just like such a deep, rich world that Sarah has created, and loved hearing her character voices. Loved hearing her narration voice the whole time too, because she is so talented. Not only did she write it, she also voiced it for us. And, yeah, I saved this one to experience for the first time now as we were recording, and I just thought it was so beautiful. I'm really proud of her. I really love it.
Speaker 2:I think the use of a water park was a great choice. Yeah yeah, originally I was a little curious of like how is this going to tie into like haunted amusement parks, but instead the backdrop of a place where children are supposed to experience joy being the setting for this like just terrible life that these two girls have been thrust into? It was a really cool juxtaposition.
Speaker 1:And then sort of as the crime scene right, like at the end, where everything went down, murdered in the Lazy River.
Speaker 1:Murdered in the Lazy River and I mean we've talked about this in the last episode too Kind of like the. In your hometown there's an abandoned water park and I think we all are pretty familiar with like water parks on their way out, you know, and what it means to be a crummy sort of water park in a small town, and so that imagery was really cool and the way she used it here to kind of tell us everything we needed to know about the town and the people and all that because they think it's sort of anchoring in a way, Because again, a lot of us have a sense of what that is and what in what state a town is in right when it has kind of like this, this dried up mom and pop water park.
Speaker 2:It is kind of a trope, isn't it?
Speaker 1:How like these the gentle trope.
Speaker 2:Well, these decayed amusement parks or water parks or whatever it is Also just being associated with these, like garbage humans that run them.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, I think people become garbage humans when, instead of shutting something down that isn't getting the right maintenance, they're allowing children to experience rides or waterslides or whatever that aren't safe, like, obviously there's a lot of complexity to that sort of statement, because people need money to live and blah, blah, blah. But when you're kind of in the position where you are making the choice to prioritize profit over safety, then it becomes easy to kind of paint a picture of the owner.
Speaker 2:Profit over nieces. That's what Uncle Lee says.
Speaker 1:That's what he says yeah, yeah Again. Beautiful, beautiful. What an emotionally deep story for our amusement park episode.
Speaker 2:I think this is my favorite Sarah Luke story.
Speaker 1:I agree. I mean, I really again am in love with the story and I she's such a great writer. I hope she she does more stories or novels, because wow.
Speaker 2:Looking forward to it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, looking forward to it. Two for two so far, some two great stories, and we have one final story to round out our episode, which is a bit of a hybrid story, highly inspired by true events.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay, let's do it.
Speaker 1:Here we go.
Speaker 3:Adventure landing. Written by a couple of shrieves. Written by Abby Brinker.
Speaker 1:Growing up my grandma's main way to entertain me and my cousins was to take us to Adventure Central up here in Maine. It's never been exactly the safest amusement park, but it was only 20 minutes away and it was a blast. I remember my favorite part used to be running around the water park and crawling through the pirate ship covered in water and then drying off in a windy submarine ride in the kiddos section. My grandma still talks about the creepy old Elvis shows she used to love to take us to. I don't think they do those shows anymore. She stopped taking us when I was in the fifth grade. Now I say it wasn't the safest because there were way too many incidents when I was very young and amusement park employee didn't strap a man into a roller coaster called the zombie screen machine correctly. When the ride went sideways he fell out and drowned in the lake in the middle of the roller coaster. I suspect that's why my parents never took me there In fifth grade.
Speaker 1:My whole grade took a field trip to Adventure Central. One of the first rides I went on was something called the Star Blaster and it lifted you up and down at top speeds and I was an underweight, tiny kid. So when the ride blasted off I immediately slammed my nose into the hard metal railing. Later that day I went on the zombie screen machine the same ride the man fell out of. I didn't fall out, but I'm assuming I was not up to the requirements for the ride, because I did bruise a rib pretty badly and had to go to the emergency room the next day. Luckily I didn't go on any other rides because the power had gone out and all the rides were down. Some of my friends were stuck in rides for over an hour. In high school my friend who worked at Adventure Landing was put in charge of being a lifeguard at the kiddie pool, despite not having any training, so it was never the safest park. My second year of college my boyfriend and I decided to take his older brother to Adventure Landing for Fright Fest. His brother is absolutely obsessed with anything to do with amusement parks or Disney, so he was pretty excited to go.
Speaker 1:The park was done up for Halloween but it didn't live up to my childhood memories. When I was a kid they used to fill the big fountain in the middle of the park with red food coloring so it looked like blood. They hadn't done that this time. My favorite part of the Halloween decorations was the bumper cars. They installed flashing lights and the place was filled with fog. It looked and sounded like a gay club, so I loved it Really.
Speaker 1:The only creepy part of the whole place was the actor they had following people around. He was vaguely blue and drenched in water. He dripped as he walked, his clothes were torn like a zombies and he was dragging his foot the whole time as he followed us. It really only got super creepy when we all stopped for food.
Speaker 1:There was a shitty pizza place at Adventure Landing, right where the Ferris wheel used to be before it got torn down for being a hazard. He even followed us there. He stood in the kitty corn maze, which was only maybe a foot of corn, and stared at me. My boyfriend was occupied talking to a family dressed up as characters from Pirates of the Caribbean and his brother was looking up facts about Adventure Landing, so I don't think they noticed the guy. As we left the park, the guy followed us out until he was standing in the wooded area with a couple other drowned zombie actors just staring. When we got out to our car, we found a whole pizza with my boyfriend's last name on the receipt, right on the hood of his car. We didn't order a pizza, but it was really good.
Speaker 2:Abby, I love this so much, everything about this like I'm getting serious goosebumps vibes from here Building up to be maybe something big and you get a little spook I fucking love it.
Speaker 1:And I did talk to Cooper about this because I was wondering if this was a real story or a fiction story. And Cooper told me that parts of it were inspired by True Events but that the park itself was totally a fictionalized version of the park. So I thought that was kind of cool.
Speaker 2:And you're getting this big build where they're being tailed by who's seemingly the zombie version of the guy that died on the ride and then drowned and then just nope, he's just one of the actors and they bring in pizza.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I love it. That's great. It feels also like a very atmospheric way to end our amusement park. This is the true American amusement park story.
Speaker 2:Yeah or, like it could, even could have been the zombie version of the guy. It's actually never explicitly stated one way or the other, but it is undeniable that they provided pizza, which is just charming.
Speaker 1:It's charming, very charming. Now I want pizza. I'm quite hungry.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Cooper, More of these please.
Speaker 1:Thank you, cooper, yes, and thank you to everybody who wrote stories and narrated stories for us today. Cooper is now the researcher and historian for New Era Paranormal, which is a group based out of Western New York and the Buffalo area, and I'm going to leave, of course, all of the links for all of our contributors today in the description of this podcast. So please follow them on social media and support them, because we are very grateful to have their work featured on today's episode.
Speaker 2:And we can't glance over that beautiful narration, Abby.
Speaker 1:Oh well, I was hoping that we would.
Speaker 2:You really brought it to life. Thank you, and I got to say I think you are one of, if not the biggest, contributor to this podcast.
Speaker 1:Thank you, you're welcome. Thank you guys, so much for listening. This concludes our amusement park journey, the intersection of horror and amusement parks, and, if you haven't already checked it out, there's a ton of supplemental articles, I would say on our website, lunaticsprojectcom. If you click on articles, we have deep dives into abandoned amusement parks with photos, some of our favorite amusement park films, historic photos from Coney Island from the 18 and 1900s. So lots of extra sort of visual content on both on social media, of course, and also on our website. So lunaticsprojectcom, that's a great way for you guys to see everything we have going on in one place.
Speaker 2:If you want to follow more Abby Branker, you can check out films about lunatics at gmailcom. No.
Speaker 1:No, if you want more from us, you can follow us at the Lunatics Project or Lunatics Project anywhere on social media. Nice try, though I don't.
Speaker 2:But no as the narrator.
Speaker 1:As the narrator. You can check out the Lunatics Project on Instagram. You'll hear my voice on all kinds of cringey reels.
Speaker 2:So that's it for amusement parks.
Speaker 1:That's it. What a bang, what a way to start off the year and very excited about some of the upcoming topics. One thing I do want to say if you are a writer, if we have writers listening, please reach out if you'd like to be added to our writers mailing list. I send kind of the list of upcoming topics so that you can submit either stories you've already written or new stories If you want to write some. I try to give you guys as much time as possible to write some short stories for the upcoming episodes. So please let me know, reach out to us at filminsportlunaticscom or DM us on any platform and I will get you added to that mailing list. Anything else, alan, any closing remarks on theme parks, anything poignant to leave us on here?
Speaker 2:Having gone through a few of these stories, I feel that, like deep, deep horror in amusement parks hasn't been explored heavily for a reason. Yeah, it's easiest fit is using it as a backdrop for either something spooky or just some heavy life shit.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that's where it really thrives. Not to say that you can't do some heavy conventional horror. I just haven't seen it yet.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so an untapped market out there, and let us know. Let us know if we're missing any major films. That will scratch Alan's itch, but otherwise the hunt continues.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, I'm sad to see this one go, but I know what we got coming up and it's cool.
Speaker 1:It's very cool. Yeah, I'm super excited. We have a very. We have a wide range of topics. I'll say some for Alan, some for me and, yes, very excited for the next few months here.
Speaker 2:Well, it's the next one, specifically, that I'm most excited for.
Speaker 1:Really.
Speaker 2:But I can't say it, that's right.
Speaker 1:Well, we'll see you guys in a few weeks and all will be revealed, but until then, stay safe, stay spooky, and we'll talk to you soon. Bye, bye.