The woman soldier spoke in an emotionless voice that reminded me of a TV announcer. “It was shut down and abandoned after several violent events resulting in the deaths of park attendees. To be precise, 231 attendees were killed, and another seven injured or maimed.”
I could barely believe my ears. That was a huge disaster… The number of lives lost here was in the triple digits. Why? How in the world did that happen?
“Every one of the deaths was bizarre. For instance, the unicorn on the merry-go-round broke from its support beam and plunged toward an attendee standing in front of it. The attendee died, impaled by the unicorn’s horn.”
It was hard to believe she seriously meant someone actually died in such an implausible way. What would get put down on the death certificate? “Died instantly due to impalement by unicorn?” What would he tell everyone when he got to the other side? But seriously, this was no joking matter.
“For reasons unknown, an attendee on the freefall ride ‘Scream Machine’ removed his safety harness and jumped off. The gondola car was set to rise and fall vertically—and it was no different, that day. It pounded him until he was as flat as a pancake,” she said, and continued with yet another story, one that would dissuade me from ever wanting to visit another theme park so long as I lived.
“If the nature of the accidents was limited to those examples, they could be attributed to design flaws in the attractions… However, there were other incidents. Stranger ones.”
Talking must have joggled her memory, for she quickly moved from one incident to the next. “For example, a couple on the teacups ride inexplicably melted while it was spinning at high speeds… When the ride came to a stop, the cup was full of their boiling blood.”
That was definitely crazy. There was no rational explanation for that.
I was starting to understand why the park had earned its Euclid classification.
“There was also an instance where a ride operator saw all of the passengers on the Ferris wheel turn into infants when it suddenly spun backwards one rotation. It proceeded to resume turning in the correct direction, but at an accelerated speed. This time, all of the passengers disembarked as seniors,” she said, adding that several of them consequentially passed away due to old age.
There was no hope of rationalizing something like that. I was smack in the middle of a theme park where such strange things happened one after the next. Overcome with horror, I began to tremble.
Afraid she went too far when she saw me shaking in my boots, the woman soldier covered her mouth with both hands and fell silent. She flashed me a quick look with her eyes that seemed to say, “I’m sorry.”
“These aren’t the most pleasant stories to hear, are they…? Anyway, the theme park shut down after there was a slew of such incidents. Since its closure, pretty much all of the tourists and urban explorers who occasionally wander in here have fallen prey to it and died. Not even the Foundation knows exactly how many victims it has claimed.”
Why would anyone wander into such an obviously dangerous theme park? I’d be way too scared to go anywhere near it.
“Well, some foolish kids like it for the thrill, since it’s a famous horror spot. It’s also located by a rather densely populated town. Some people try to slip through as a shortcut.”
The commander grunted. “That’s precisely why the SCP Foundation can’t wipe it off the face of the Earth with an air strike, even though it’s an obviously dangerous SCP object. It’d take a toll on the civilian population and surrounding town.” He was happy to join in the conversation now that he’d found some decent chairs. He offered one to the lady soldier and even one to me before he plunked down.
“The Foundation’s immediate containment protocol to keep people away is to purchase all of the land and buildings surrounding the Carnival of Horrors—this theme park—to physically seal it off from the outside world. That, and establish a media blackout. But I think that’s not near enough, personally,” he said.
“The Foundation’s motto is to Secure, Contain, and Protect,” said the woman. “Just because it’s dangerous doesn’t mean we can destroy any SCP object at the drop of a hat… But I feel like I’m preaching to the choir.”
Oh, wow! There was an idiom I recognized! I bet the translation collar converted the English idiom to a Japanese equivalent. Horribly off-topic to think about it at that moment, though.
The commander didn’t seem to mind that I wasn’t paying attention. He continued the serious conversation with the woman soldier. “I realize we can’t just eradicate the thing, but we’re still striving to analyze the anomalous events that occur within the Carnival of Horrors and devise countermeasures to neutralize them. That’s why we were dispatched. We’re to assess the situation and learn as much as possible about the Carnival of Horrors.”
Although the woman soldier agreed with him, she weakly shook her head. “But so far, it feels like we’ve been grasping at straws… To top it off, we were somehow separated from the rest of the unit. We’re cut off from the outside, too, since none of our radios work. It’s like we’re stranded in this theme park. What is the plan from here, Commander?”
“I’m still working on it. As I’ve said, it’s been my priority to regroup, but this is starting to smell fishy… It might be wise to pull out while we still can,” the commander admitted, slightly contorting his dependable, rock-hard face with regret. He let out a heavy sigh.
The next moment, the sound of screams and gunfire filled the air.