Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-25157377-20140725054112/@comment-25157377-20140727085412

Here's the final edit of the story. Please let me know what you think.

Ever since she was a little girl, 14-year-old Nicole had a fascination of exploring unfamiliar places. She actually enjoyed getting lost and trying to find her way back home. For this expedition, she wanted to explore a patch of forest she recently discovered near her house. She brought along a flashlight in case there were any dark places worthy of investigation. It was cool outside, so she decided to wear her favorite white scarf to keep warm.

The forest was about two blocks down her street. A small dirt path winded through it, and there was still plenty of daylight to see everything without the flashlight. Nicole was giddy with anticipation of what lied ahead.

As she walked along the path, there were several places where separate trails split off into different directions.

“Well, surely I’ll be back another time,” Nicole said to herself. “Eventually, I’ll explore every one of these paths to see where they lead to.”

After walking around for a while, a cool breeze picked up, sending chills down her spine. The wind was blowing in the direction of one of the paths.

It was as if the wind wanted her to follow it.

She walked down the separate path for another minute and found herself in a dark, shady grove.

The gusts of cold air came to a sudden halt. There was nothing more than a few trees surrounding her. Nicole noticed something hidden among a tangled mass of branches. She whipped out her flashlight and shined it on the object. What she saw surprised her.

There was a sign with the words “FUN TOWN” written in bright red letters with an arrow pointing towards a small passage among the trees. She gasped with her astounding discovery.

“I think I found an amusement park!”

Without a moment to lose, she ran down the path in a hurry to see what wonders were in store at Fun Town.

She arrived in a large, open field blanketed with fog. Her heart dropped when she saw Fun Town behind a locked iron gate. Fun Town was closed, and looked like it had been closed for years.

“Well, shoot. I was really hoping to have a little fun.” Nicole looked towards the carnival and desperately wished to see what it was like inside. Then, another thought struck her.

“Why was it closed down?”

It was 6:30, and the sun was beginning to set.

“It’s getting late. I’d better head home.” Nicole slowly walked away in great disappointment.

Before she got past the trees, she heard a horrible screeching sound behind her. She was shocked to find that the gates to Fun Town mysteriously opened by themselves.

“Now’s my chance,” Nicole whispered lightly. She sprinted towards the gates and slipped past them surreptitiously.

Nicole found herself surrounded by old tents full of holes, rides threatening to fall apart, and food booths that smelled of rot and deterioration.

Fun Town was now a ghost town.

“How could someone just leave this park out here abandoned?” She walked around the carnival and saw all sorts of wonderful things gone to ruins. Among these was a funhouse with its once brilliant colors now faded and peeling, the infrastructure falling apart one rotten board at a time.

She walked around the grounds, peeking into tents, only to find boxes filled with junk and other trivial things all smelling of mildew.

Eventually, she came across an old sideshow tent with vintage freak posters lining the outside of it. There was one featuring the 600-pound woman, another starring the man with half a body.

As Nicole walked past the posters, she noticed a funhouse mirror on the end. It was caked in mud and other questionable substances. She looked down and saw a small plaque just below the mirror. It read:

A TRUE ABOMINATION OF GOD

When she looked back up, her reflection was hellish. She saw herself as a living corpse with her eyes sunken into her head, skin crawling with maggots, and bones partially exposed.

She screamed and ran away as fast as she could.

“What was that?” She could not believe what she saw. “That couldn’t have been real.”

Nicole shook it off and just assumed it was a prop used in a haunted house. She continued to explore the grounds for some time. It made her feel sad seeing all the beautifully painted buildings and rides all gone to waste. At one time, Fun Town must have been an amazing place for children of all ages. She wished she could have experienced it during its glory days.

Brown and yellow leaves covered the ground as autumn settled in. Nicole loved the crunching sound they made as she stepped on them. After passing through a midway of empty, decomposing carnival game booths, she found a red barn with the words “Petting Zoo” written above the door. She knew that there was no way there would still be animals in there, but she decided to have a look inside.

There was nothing out of the ordinary in the barn. However, the smell was almost too much to bear. Rotting hay and feces was not a good combination. It was so dark inside, that Nicole had to get out the flashlight to take a look around. It was very quiet inside the barn.

Suddenly, Nicole heard something rustling in the corner behind metal bars. She pointed her flashlight to see what it was. Her heart started racing when she saw a large, black figure hobbling towards her. It was a horse with its ankles in iron shackles. The poor thing was in very bad shape. It was blind in both eyes and its back was U-shaped from so many people riding it. Bleeding whip slashes covered the horse’s body and it looked like it hadn’t eaten in weeks.

Near the horse’s stall was a box of feed. Nicole had no idea if feeding the horse the old food would be a good idea, but it was all that was available. She grabbed a handful and held it up to the horse in the hopes that it could smell it. It slowly walked towards her and nibbled on it until it was all gone.

As Nicole got another handful, the horse began dry heaving. She backed away from it, her heart pounding in her chest. It vomited violently all over the floor. Some of it got onto her shoes. When she looked down…

- she found herself standing in a puddle of blood.

The horse’s knees gave in, and it collapsed in a heap. She shrieked in absolute terror and ran out of the barn, refusing to look back.

She ran to a nearby building and stopped to catch her breath.

Nicole turned around to see what she was leaning up against. It was a haunted house with a plastic skeleton sitting on the porch steps. She never liked going into haunted houses by herself, but since there was no way the fake monsters could come alive without electricity, she gained the courage to take a look inside.

Nicole slowly walked through the front door and turned on her flashlight. It was a little creepy inside, but nothing she couldn’t handle. It smelled even worse inside the haunted house than in the barn. The place was infested with mold.

As she walked down the first corridor, nothing was out of the ordinary. However, the carpet she was walking on was wet and squishy, probably from the rain leaking through the roof. She turned the next corner…

- and stood completely still.

At the end of the narrow hallway was a pair of yellow eyes staring directly at her. She could hear the creature quietly growling. Nicole carefully took a step back…

- making a loose floorboard squeak.

Just then, the thing dashed towards her. She sprinted for the entrance and jumped off the stairs in a single bound. When she turned around, she saw a large Rottweiler coming towards her. It had foam dribbling from its mouth and looked like it wanted to attack.

“Somebody! Please help me!” She screamed for dear life as she ran away from the rabid dog.

Nicole ran between two buildings to try and hide. She went as far back as she could until she was standing against a fence. The dog quickly found her cowering in the alley. It ran towards her at full speed.

She braced herself by putting her arms over her face. When the dog came up to her, she closed her eyes and screamed as it jumped onto her.

Nicole trembled for a second, and then opened her eyes.

The dog had vanished.

Sweat was pouring down her face as she tried to recover from the trauma. She walked out from between the buildings and took deep breaths to calm herself down.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing here, girl? Don’t you know what this place is?”

Nicole’s heart jumped as she looked around for the voice’s owner.

An old man with a long, gray beard walked towards her with an angry look in his eyes. He wore tattered clothes and had an eye patch covering his right eye.

“I…I was just exploring the woods and I…,” she tried to explain. A look of fear washed over his face. He looked Nicole dead in the eye.

“Back when I was a boy, I was an avid explorer such as yourself. When I discovered Fun Town, it was in disrepair, much like it is now. Like you, I wanted to see inside and possibly uncover lost treasures.” He swallowed a heavy lump in his throat.

“As I wandered around the park, I had horrific visions of child abuse and animal cruelty. I tried to escape, but when I got to the entrance, the gate was locked,” he sobbed lightly.

“After that, Fun Town turned me into a slave. When I tried to run away, it took over my body and forced me to gouge out my right eye.” The old man lifted up his eye patch to reveal an eye socket drenched in dried blood. Nicole gasped in horror.

“This place is evil. It is a monster that lures in children and either eats them alive or enslaves them for all eternity. Please, leave this horrible place. Go back home where it is safe. Never come back. I do not want you to suffer like me.”

Nicole staggered away from the old man nervously and headed for the entrance. She stopped and turned around to say something to the old man before she left.

“Hey, I wanted to say sorry for…”

The old man was gone.

“What did he mean when he said Fun Town was evil?” Nicole felt a little uneasy. “This place is creepy, but not evil. I think he’s just crazy.”

It was now 8:00 and almost too dark to see.

Nicole turned on her flashlight and walked towards the entrance. She was overwhelmed with relief as she looked at the front gate wide open. On her way there, something sparkled brilliantly in the light that she hadn’t noticed before. She walked over to it to discover bits and pieces of broken glass in front of an old mirror maze.

Her curiosity was getting the best of her.

“Oh, what’s one peek going to hurt?” She shined her flashlight inside the mirror maze and saw lots of shattered mirrors at the entrance.

“Well, it should make the maze a little easier to navigate with some of the mirrors broken.” She carefully stepped over the glass shards and started down the hall of mirrors.

Something was weird about the way the maze was shaped. The paths in the maze were similar to the ones in the forest when she started her journey. She tried to recreate the paths she took to arrive in Fun Town.

As she made her way deeper into the maze, it got very dark. She wouldn’t be able to see anything if she didn’t have her flashlight. The mirrors towards the back were in perfect condition, as if no one had ever made it to the end.

After about ten minutes of winding through the mirrors, she found herself in a round room with mirrors surrounding her on all sides. There was no light in the room except for her flashlight. She looked all around the room to see if there was a door leading out of the maze. Not being able to find one, she started to make her way back to where she came from.

“Where’s the path I took to get in here?” She made a grim discovery.

The hall leading to the room was gone.

There was no way out.

She was trapped.

Nicole began pounding her fists on one of the mirrors to try and get out. She managed to break the glass, cutting her hand in the process.

Blood started dripping on the floor. She flashed her light on the mirror and screamed.

The blood was seeping through the cracks in the mirror.

The maze was alive.

Nicole started to panic. Hoping the old man was probably nearby, she started calling for help.

“Help me! Help me!”

She got a response back.

“Help me! Help me!” The voice calling back was hers, but it sounded malicious.

She looked into the mirrors, and froze.

She could see her reflection in all the mirrors, but they were all smiling.

“HELP ME! HELP ME!”

The reflections yelled back, sarcastically:

“HELP ME! HELP ME!”

The maze was a monster, mocking her cries for help. Nicole was being tortured for her poor decision. She sat down against one of the mirrors, buried her head in her arms, and cried. The mirrors continued taunting and laughing at her.

Suddenly, the mirror Nicole was sitting against felt very warm and wet…

- like the inside of a person’s mouth.

She could feel the ground move beneath her. The mirrors were closing in on her. If she didn’t act fast, she would be eaten alive.

She tried to break another mirror, but her hands were hurt too badly to continue. As she waited to accept her fate, the batteries in her flashlight died, leaving her in complete darkness.

Later that night, Nicole’s parents called the police, frantic about their daughter’s disappearance. A search party was organized to try and find Nicole in the woods.

After hours of searching, one of the police officers found a sign that read “FUN TOWN” among tangled branches. There was a smiling skull painted on it. When he followed the direction the sign was pointing, he came to a large, open field…

- nothing was there.