The air was filled with the stink of sweat and chlorine as I ascended the steps to the newly completed water slide. It was advertised proudly as the tallest in a hundred mile radius, and I believed it. I’ve never dealt well with heights, and looking down over the edge of the railing made me feel a bit queasy. I wasn’t sure how I was going to endure actually sliding down the attraction itself.
My boyfriend, Craig, squeezed my hand slightly. The grip comforted me, it reminded me that I was safe and stable, not falling to my death on the concrete below.
“Are you doing okay?” he asked, looking at me worriedly.
“Yes, sorry, I’m fine, just a bit nervous about heights.” I felt embarrassed. Craig was always such a thrill seeker, he was into roller coasters, hang gliding, he even went skydiving once. I didn’t want to ruin this for him.
Someone behind me in line yelled for us to get moving, so I snapped myself out of my fear and kept climbing up the stairs. The wind made me nervous, you could feel ever so slightly how the structure would move with it, like the breathing of some giant animal. I felt like I was a mile up in the sky, even though the water slide’s full height was only a little over 70 feet.
After what felt like hours of climbing, we reached the top. The round entrance of the slide yawned before us, it reminded me of the mouth of a basking shark. Water rushed down the tube, creating a constant gentle roar that made it a little difficult to hear. One by one, the park patrons in front of us were guided by the bored-looking attendant into the slide, after which he’d start a stop watch and look at it for about 30 seconds. I figured that was how he made sure there nobody bumped into one another on the way down. Eventually, it was just Craig and I left in line. I was shaking, extremely nervous, and Craig could tell. He put a hand on my shoulder and told me “It’s gonna be alright Stephanie, I’ll see you down at the bottom.” His gold tooth, a souvenir from an accident while rock climbing, glinted faintly in the sun as he smiled at me.
The attendant motioned for Craig to go next, and with a last loving look towards me he was pushed down into the slide, whooping and laughing as the rushing water carried him down.
The park attendant started the stopwatch. I felt the time ticking away in my head, second by second. While I knew I’d be able to do it, I was still nervous, and it felt like time slowed down as my heart pounded like a jackhammer. Finally, the attendant motioned me forward.
I stepped towards the slide entrance, about to close my eyes and rocket down the cool water to my boyfriend below, when suddenly I heard the sound of the attendant’s radio go off. “John, don’t let anyone else go down. We have a problem, the last 3 people didn’t come out the other side.”
I stopped, still as a statue. I was inches away from the slide entrance. If that message came a couple seconds later, I would have gone down as well. This fact haunts me.
We were escorted back down to the bottom of the ride, though there was much grumbling from the various bratty teenagers and crotchety old tourists. Most went off to other attractions in the park, but I stayed at the bottom, nearly petrified with fear. I saw two paramedics climb up to the top of the ride and I feared the worst. They carried a long coil of rope, I assume to try and pull out the trapped park goers. Water was no longer flowing out of the end of the slide, they must have turned it off to make sure nobody was hurt or drowned due to the blockage.
I waited for 5 minutes. Then 10. Then 20. Nothing happened, the paramedics were still up there. My heart was beating so fast I thought it would explode in my chest. I’d never before felt so powerless in my entire life.
The smell hit me first. It was acrid and acidic, the kind of smell that makes you want to gag. A trickle of greasy, chunky, yellow-green fluid seeped out of the end of the slide, looking for all the world like vomit. Then came the sound of rushing water. I was initially overjoyed, I thought maybe someone threw up, but that they were able to get them out, that Craig would be safe.
I was wrong.
A stinking torrent of reeking slime and bloody chunks of meat rushed out the end of the slide, the spray splashing on my face. It burned as I screamed and wiped it off. I could see bones and organs floating in the disgusting slop, sizzling as they were slowly dissolved. Out of the muck, a horrible, dissolving figure tried to crawl out, a barely humanoid mass of melting flesh and partially exposed bones. It raised its head towards me and moaned something that sounded “stoff oh nee”, before its lower jaw fell off, landing on the ground with sickening plop. I screamed when I saw the gold tooth shine out from the rapidly liquefying flesh.
I don’t know what happened to Craig. The official story is that somehow some clog dissolving fluid got accidentally mixed into the water instead of chlorine, but that’s a lie. It doesn’t explain how he vanished for 20 minutes. It doesn’t explain how the paramedics’ 100 foot coil of rope never reached the bottom of a 72 foot tall water slide. It doesn’t explain why the remains smelled like stomach acid, not lye. I don’t think I’ll ever get an explanation. All I know is that I will never go down a water slide ever again.