Puppet Night

”Uh, I don’t know; this park creeps me out. Besides, it’s getting dark”, Alicia said. “C’mon! There’s no one around! We have the whole place for ourselves”, Karla replied. Nina broke the silence for the first time in 2 hours of hanging with her friends to ask, “I wonder if the legend it’s true.” “What legend?” her friends ask. “Don’t you know? Land of Joy is said to be populated by puppets containing the souls of patrons who died in roller coaster and Ferris wheel accidents.” “Ooooooh! Now I want to see if it’s true”, Karla said, “Let’s go”.

The three of them climb the fence of what was once Land of Joy, an amusement park that went bankrupt because of their many lawsuits, and the owners were unable to sell it, and now it’s been abandoned for 10 years. Once they got in, they climbed on the different machines and took selfies on each one. They also took several group pictures to post on the group chat. A few pictures in the merry-go-round next to horses with dead eyes and peeling paint, a few more on the rusty spinning chairs, and the last ones on the bumping cars that have been in place for so long that their mechanisms corroded, rendering them unmovable.

The sky acquired an orange hue, but a scattered, ashy tone because of a rain cloud that started to empty down with a light sprinkle. As Karla walked towards the rollercoaster, the sprinkle became heavy rain, so the kids ran to the dilapidated food court and took shelter under the parts of the roof that were still intact. While waiting for the rain to stop, Karla looked in the direction of the gift shop and pointed to a lit candle in the window, saying “That’s weird”. “What?, asks Nina, “A lit candle? Maybe someone else had the same idea we had and is waiting inside the gift shop.” “Or, perhaps, it was lit by the possessed puppets”, Karla joked, adding, "let’s find out”.

They walked to the gift shop, skipping puddles and the parts of the food court where the roof gave way long ago. Alicia peeks through the window, while Karla and Nina go inside. “Hello? Is anybody there?”, yells Nina. No one answers. Nina yells again, “hello?”. They all hear some rustling that makes them jump. Karla says, “Whoevers there, I’m not afraid of you. Come out!” No one answers. The whole place is now darker except for the candle, so Karla and Nina start to get scared, but decide to investigate the origin of the sound. As they glance at the back room, they see a small dog that looked real was moving in a mechanic way. Its bark sounded like one of those stock dog sound effects. In one corner there was a cat that opened its eyes making a loud sound, like when one turns on a camera. Karla and Nina gasped and left the room.

Alicia, still peeking through the window, notices a wooden puppet with a stare that looked deep into the soul of anyone who caught its gaze. As the other two tried to leave the gift shop, the puppet, made to resemble a 1920s gentleman, moved his head, looked at them and greeted, “Hello darlings”. The kids screamed and bolted out of that gift shop into the food court general area. Another puppet walked towards them, this one modeled after a lady that wasn’t conventionally attractive but tried too hard to be pretty, blush circles and all. “Please don’t leave me. Please tell me I’m pretty”, she said. As they tried to run away, two more puppets, these ones modeled as lifelike baby dolls, approached them, saying “Mama... Mama… Mama” over and over again.

Nina and Kiara run out of the food court, Alicia trailing behind them, the three screaming all the way out. Outside it’s pouring now, and the park has one inch of water on the ground. As it keeps pouring, the Ferris wheel is on, with some loose cables sparking all around. Soon, the lights in other machines and one of the marquee signs got turned on as well. Circus music was playing, but it sounded like it was played from a warped, worn-out record in a player that was due for a needle replacement. Nina, Kiara, and Alicia looked around in panic, like animals in a cage. As they looked at the marquee sign, the gentleman puppet climbed on top of it with a pair of industrial scissors and said “Goodbye, darlings”, as he cut the cables holding the sign. As it was falling, the kids ran as fast as possible to get to the roller coaster wooden platform, to avoid the imminent electrocution. Nina and Alicia managed to climb to the platform, but Kiara wasn’t so lucky, so she got zapped.

The puppet proceeded to cut and drop more lit machines, still with exposed live wires, so the kids couldn’t escape alive. Looking around in panic, Alicia saw a grassy area behind the roller coaster with a wooden fence. She told Nina, “Hey, look. A green area and a fence with a gate. The ground is dirt, so we won’t get zapped there. Now we only have to sneak out and jump on the grass.” Nina nodded. “Ok, one, two, three!” Both of them jumped between the roller coaster rails towards the grass and ran as fast as possible to the fence, opened the gate, and left the abandoned park behind, running into the rainy night.