The Spiral Slide

The old amusement park had been closed for decades, its rusted gates a silent testament to forgotten summers. Locals whispered that the land was cursed, built over the remains of a fever hospital where hundreds had perished, their bodies buried in unmarked graves. When the park was constructed in the 1960s, the contractors simply paved over the cemetery, leaving the dead to sleep beneath the asphalt and the merry-go-round.

My friend Lila and I were amateur paranormal investigators. We had visited countless abandoned sites, but the amusement park was our holy grail. We had heard the stories: children’s laughter echoing through the empty rides, the faint smell of ozone and sickness, and the occasional glimpse of a figure in a white nurse’s uniform. But we were skeptics, armed with our digital recorders and spirit boxes, ready to debunk.

We entered through a gap in the fence, the chain-link groaning as we slipped through. The park was a ghost of itself: the Ferris wheel listed to one side, its cables frayed; the bumper cars were rusted husks; and the centerpiece, the Spiral Slide, towered above us, its corkscrew loops a jagged silhouette against the moon. We decided to start at the carousel, hoping to catch some EVPs.

Our equipment began to go haywire almost immediately. The spirit box spat out fragments of words: ‘cold,’ ‘lost,’ ‘mother.’ Lila held her digital voice recorder, her hand trembling slightly. Then the carousel lurched, the wooden horses creaking as if they were trying to move. We both froze, but it stopped as suddenly as it started. We exchanged a glance, a silent agreement to move on.

We made our way to the Spiral Slide, its entrance a dark maw. The slide was a maze of enclosed tubes, twisting and turning like a serpent. At the base, we set up our equipment, but the spirit box was silent, the EMF meter flat. Lila, ever braver, decided to climb up to the top to place a recorder. Her footsteps echoed on the metal stairs as she ascended.

She reached the top platform, a small opening that led into the slide’s mouth. She peered inside, and I saw her silhouette hesitate. ‘It’s pitch black in here,’ she called down. ‘It shouldn’t be—the panels are corrugated, there should be gaps.’ I told her to be careful, but she had already crawled in, her flashlight beam cutting through the dark.

I watched from below, my heart pounding. The seconds stretched into minutes. Then her voice came over the walkie-talkie, muffled and strange. ‘There’s a room in here. It’s not a slide, it’s a room. There are beds. A whole ward. I can see the outlines.’ I told her to get out, but she was already deeper in. Then the walkie-talkie crackled, and I heard a voice that wasn’t hers. It was a woman’s voice, soft and pleading.

‘Please, miss, find my baby.’

Lila screamed. The flashlight flickered and died. I shouted for her, but the only response was a low, guttural laugh that seemed to come from everywhere. I scrambled up the stairs, my own flashlight shaking in my hand, but when I reached the top, the opening was sealed, a solid wall of metal where the slide should have been. I pounded on it, screaming her name, but the metal was icy cold, and the echo of my voice came back to me as a whisper.

I called the police, and they arrived with search dogs. They tore the slide apart, but there was no sign of Lila. The only thing they found was her voice recorder, still running, lying on the ground where she had dropped it. When I played it back later, I heard her voice, calm and distant, saying, ‘It’s a nursery. They put the fever children here. They never got to go down the slide. They never got to play.’

I never went back to that park. But sometimes, at night, I hear the creak of the carousel, and a child’s voice whispering, ‘Mommy, I want to ride the slide.’ And I know, somewhere deep inside that twisted metal, Lila is still there, waiting for someone to find her way out.