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

“Bye Mom! Bye Dad! I’ll see you later!” 14-year-old Nicole was excited to be exploring a patch of forest she recently discovered near her house. She was just about to walk out the door when her mother stopped her.

“Now don’t stay out too late, Nicole. We want you home before it gets dark.” It was 5:00 in the evening, and the sun was making its way to the horizon.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be back soon,” she replied.

“Do you have your cell phone in case one of us needs to get a hold of you?”

Nicole reached into her jeans pocket and pulled out her phone.

“Got it!”

“Okay, sweetie. Have fun, and please be careful.”

“Alright, see ya.”

Ever since she was a little girl, Nicole had a fascination of exploring unfamiliar places. She actually enjoyed getting lost and trying to find her way back home. For this exploration, she decided to bring a flashlight in case there were any dark places worthy of investigation. It was cool, so she decided to wear her favorite white scarf to keep warm.

About two blocks down her street was a forest with a small dirt path winding 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 on for a few more yards 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. Then, 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 sky was getting dark.

“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.

The first thing to catch her eye was 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 and found a red barn with the words “Petting Zoo” written above the door.

She knew 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 horse was in very bad shape. It was blind in both eyes and its back was U-shaped from so many people riding it. Bleeding ulcers 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. She looked down and saw a puddle of blood. The horse’s knees gave in and it collapsed in a heap. She screamed in absolute terror and ran out of the barn, refusing to look back.

“I have to get out of here!” She started for the gates. Without warning, a large Rottweiler jumped out from behind a trash can. It had foam dribbling from its mouth and looked like it wanted to attack. Nicole was paralyzed. She slowly moved towards the nearest tent to try and hide. The instant she made a move, the dog barked and dashed towards her.

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

Suddenly, a shot rang out. Nicole immediately dropped to the ground. When she looked up, an old man carrying a pistol looked down at her angrily. He was dressed in tattered clothes and was blind in his right eye.

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

“I…I was just exploring the woods and I…,” she tried to explain. He was not amused.

“Don’t give me any of that bullshit! You need to get out of here. This place is evil. I try to prevent it from eating stupid kids like you. Now get! NEVER COME BACK!”

She got up quickly and ran to the gates, sweat pouring down her face. When she turned around, the old man was gone.

“What did he mean when he said Fun Town was evil?” Nicole was feeling irritated. “This place is old and abandoned, but not evil. I think he’s just crazy.”

It was 8:00 and was almost too dark to see. Nicole heard her phone ring.

“Uh oh. My parents are gonna be pretty upset.” She took her phone out of her pocket and answered it.

Something was wrong. All she could hear was garbled sound.

“Must not be a good signal here.” She hung up the phone and turned on her flashlight. She took one last look at Fun Town before heading home. There was something sparkling 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 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!” Her voice echoed off the mirrors like in a cave.

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. She tried yelling again:

“HELP ME! HELP ME!”

The reflections yelled back, sarcastically:

“HELP ME! HELP ME!”

The maze was a monster, mocking her cries for help. She was being tortured for her poor decisions. Nicole 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.

The next day, police sent out a search party to try and find Nicole in the woods. After hours of searching, they came up empty handed.

By the end of the day, one of them 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.

There was nothing there.

All that he could find lying in the grass was a white scarf stained with blood.  