Nightmare Island (A Partial Draft)

Chapter 7

Now, Lexie could see that Ren wanted more information, but since in all likeliness, he wasn't going to get that, so he knew he just had to chill out.

The explanation that they gave had something to do with some shady things done by the original owner of Dreamland. It was suggested by various sources that he was a member of the mob or something... and he bribed city officials to get his permits... even had a few of the resistant ones killed. Of course, there was no way of proving this, but when Aidan presented the evidence, it made complete sense.

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Emersyn didn't understand why everyone was so hung up on the whole ghost thing. She didn't believe in ghosts, she hadn't seen any of the things the others had, and she didn't give a single crap about any of it. She had no interest in pretending to be friends with these stupid ghost hunters- or whatever they were. And she resented the fact that Lexie seemed to really be interested in what the newcomers were saying. She was eating it up. What surprised Emersyn more than Lexie's interest in the paranormal was Ren! He was as bad as Lexie. And she didn't want anyone to get her started on the fact that Ren was completely crushing on Lexie. How dare he go against her orders! It infuriated her more than just about anything either of them had ever done in the history of the time they were friends. And that rekindled her anger and fury at the two people she regarded with a certain amount of regard... at least, Emersyn had about as much affection for Ren and Lexie as she did for anyone else... which was admittedly not very much.

After a while of listening to the interlopers talking and blubbering all about ghosts and all kinds of ridiculousness, she stopped paying attention and she went off with Maddox and Brent. They walked into one of the old attractions which was called Head Orders. Yeah, the name was sorta stupid, but the attraction had been pretty fun. The building had been made into a festival center for at least the atrium and the main chamber where guests could look at exhibits, or wait in line for Head Orders, or the more popular motion ride, Anatomy Battle... again, it was a stupid name... even while popular, Anatomy Battle had a tendency to make people sick. For one thing, I was a motion ride, and some people were wussies and couldn't handle them. Another thing was that the ride was about how the human body works... so it saw the screens displaying cell bodies floating in a river of blood... ick... but the ride was pretty fun, despite not being a rollercoaster.

Emersyn mostly just wished that there would be more actual rollercoasters around... but at least this had been a sort of ride.

Emersyn had gone to dreamland a lot when she was a kid, and up until it closed three years ago, she went just about every week or two during their normal season. She'd actually been there the weekend before the park closed. So, she found it a little odd upon entering the building- that everything looked a little bit like The Upside Down from Stranger Things.

And she wasn't the only one that found it weird, Brent mentioned that there were literal cobweb blankets over everything, even more-so than could be expected in a place which had been abandoned for three years.

"Did it look like this when you were here last?" Maddox asked, as if he wasn't interested, even though it was clear he was... He was so annoying, and she hated that she liked him so much. Every day with him was super frustrating. Maddox was so damn hot, and they would be perfect together, didn't he see? They could be so beautiful together.

Emersyn was ashamed to admit how much of her mental real-estate was taken up by thoughts of this man... but now, her thoughts abruptly shifted from thoughts of Maddox to those of fear as they walked into the room where the Head Orders attraction was. To her horror, the old animatronic figure who was the mascot of the show was in an upright position, not in his chair like he was supposed to be. Rudy was modeled after an adolesent boy, but he was scaled higher to make him easily seen on the top of his perch during the ride.