This is a long, but really funny recollection of an amusement park haunted house that no longer exists - worth the read. Come on, you got the time. Yes you do. Oh fine, well I thought it was funny.
From X-entertainment, "I was going to save this for Halloween, but it can't wait. Longtime readers know of my fascination and love for a small but substantial beach/boardwalk community called Wildwood, located in as South Jersey as South Jersey gets. It's a magical place that I've been to with family and friends, year after year since I was literally just a baby. Sadly, I haven't been there for a few years now, either because I'm too old or because it's gotten too expensive or because it's changed so much, the excuses rotating from season to season. Sure, it ain't what it used to be, but even if it's half of what it used to be, I really should go back. It's always been my home away from home.
Still, there's a more genuine reason why I've been reluctant to return. There's this "Castle Dracula" amusement ride, which had been there for decades, and if you count older versions of the ride where it wasn't so Dracula-themed, parts of it had been standing for nearly a century. I loved Castle Dracula so, so much. In 2002, a couple of teenagers snuck into the thing during Wildwood's off-season (where it's a comparable ghost town), somehow managing to set the place ablaze using crude torches. Whether they meant to do it or not, I think it's pretty clear that somehow, someday, I'm going to have to find these kids and destroy them. The end result was a positively ruined and unsalvageable Castle Dracula that had its remnants smashed and cleared away by a wrecking crew, never to return. I don't know if I want to ever see the spot where it once stood. It'll hurt me much more than any missing amusement ride should.
In lieu of driving two hours to hold a candlelight vigil, I'll pay my respects with this article. Most of you have not seen Castle Dracula, much less heard about it outside of a couple of references in very old X-E articles. Bear with me on this, please. Sometimes, I gotta do one just for me."
Go here for hilarity:
1 comment:
This reminds me of the haunted house in Crescent Park, which doesn't exist anymore (the merry-go-round does, since it has landmark status. For a while it was surrounded by an amusement park). They had two separate ones, one you walked through and one you rode through. The ride-through one wasn't so scary, but the first time I tried the walk-through one with my mom, we caught sight of the first dark room and all I saw was what looked like the edge of a picture frame resting on the floor and the tip of a cowboy boot, and I bailed. Can't really explain the fear, they didn't even have dressed-up people in there. One of those weird, dream-like kid kind of fears that overwhelm you like all the dark nights there ever were.
Tried it again the next summer, it didn't even seem as dark. I just recall a lot of black lights and flourescent paint, and a hallway with curved walls and a curvy (bumpy) floor that made you stumble and sway as you walked through it. I probably recall that one detail because my older cousins told me about it the year I was too scared.
Anyway, not so scary that time.
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