It happened an hour ago, This amusement park is one of the few places we can have fun in our town, and I went with a group of friends to celebrate a birthday. During the indoor horror water ride, our flume stopped abruptly, and an announcement said there was some sort of malfunction. They opened all the lights and told us a staff member would come over to help us evacuate.
The ride is technically a zombie zoo ride, so at first we were fascinated. They didn’t turn off the animatronics, and we got to see just how much effort they put into their look and movement. Some zombies were chained, the others were in cages, most had limbs missing, all were screaming nonsense and writhing due to ‘electric shock’, covered in sores and blood. What added to everything was the smell of iron, rot, and swamp water.
A few of my friends began to panic, but I’ve seen worse as a med student, so I was pretty calm and tried to calm them down, reminding them that these were all fake. But it was this medical knowledge that made me certain I saw a real body in the water just beside our flume on my side.
There were a few zombie bodies in the canal, it was part of the ride, but being this close to this one, I saw it had all the proper signs of water decay, and I knew with one hundred percent certainty it wasn’t a prop. I assumed it was a staff member tasked with jump-scaring the riders, but he suffered a fatal accident.
I didn’t want to scare my friends, so I waited until the staff came to help us disembark. Standing on the walkway, I pulled a staff member aside and gestured to the body. He seemed shocked at first but then he laughed and said it was just a dummy, like all the others they had in the water.
His reaction made me feel uncomfortable. I told him to please call an ambulance because as a med student I was certain it was a real body. He stopped laughing and told me to please follow the other riders out and stop wasting his time.
The moment we got out, the guy I talked to began whispering to the other staff members, and I felt a chill go down my spine when they started eyeing me. I was certain they knew it was a real body. The chill spread across my skin as I wondered if it was someone they had murdered and decided to hide in this way. This was not only horrifying, it was utterly unhygienic.
I told my friends what I saw, and I was practically shaking as I called the police. The police dismissed my concerns, but I didn’t give up as I told them I was a med student and I could tell the body was a real person. I insisted they investigate because I was certain something sinister happened on this ride.
The police eventually showed up, and I waited outside with my friends, my pulse racing as we watched them march in. It didn’t take them even five minutes before they walked out laughing with a few staff members. The staff said they were honored that their ride was realistic enough it made a med student call the police. I admit I felt embarrassed as my friends laughed, saying I was the one calming them down only to then create this whole fuss.
As much as I didn’t want to go in there again, I asked to see proof that it was a dummy to ease my mind. The staff said they would be more than happy to accommodate after the last ride goes through. That’s in forty-five minutes, so I’m waiting. My friends are waiting with me, and I appreciate their support because I’m honestly still very unsettled. I haven’t stopped shaking, and I don’t know when my pulse will settle down. Hopefully after I see that the body is indeed just the work of very skilled people. I’m curious as to how they made it that realistic.
I’ll update after the tour if anyone else is curious too.