Ok so here goes. Again I worked at Kings Island for nine seasons or so, mostly in Merchandise. I worked two shifts in food and spent a year in Loss Prevention.
All the usual ghost stories I heard about were posted two blog entries ago. What follows is my account of the unexplained that I saw.
Please note, I do NOT claim that these really are ghost stories, but they are weird and I was a little creeped out.
Both events occurred in Action Zone, the area of the park near Drop Zone.
For the first, the year was probably 2003, I can't remember but I was an assistant supervisor of the store On Location, directly below Drop Zone and X-Treme Skyflyer. It was an earlier night, after close. We'd finished up fast. There was no one in the store but me. I'd already sent my last employee home, shut the big garage doors out front and I was finishing up my stock order for the next day.
I was sitting at the office desk in that store. To give you the layout, it's a long narrow stockroom with an island shelving unit in the middle. There was one door to the sales floor, which I could not see from where I sat since it was around the corner, and a door that exited outside, which was immediately to my left.
I could see from this position, about 75 percent of the stockroom. So I'm sitting there filling out this form and I hear what sounds like someone pulling a cardboard box off a shelf. I'm not phased at this point because teenagers don't know how to stack stuff in a stockroom so things move or fall plenty.
Just as I'm getting up to go I hear it again, followed by the sound of a box hitting the floor. I can't see it from where I am. I walk around the corner and see an unopened box of 'Unicorn pops" (the 2 footlong spiral sucker candy on a stick) had fallen.
This is a little weird since it's a long heavy box and I can see where it had been sitting, but I pick it up and put it back. I go back to the desk and gather my things and right before I leave, the same thing happens again.
That's how I've usually told that story I think. But there's a caveat I don't think I usually tell, probably because it takes away my certainty of the events and some creepy fun. When the box fell again, I didn't go look. I got the hell out of Dodge. Also, since I wasn't an early shift the next day, I didn't ever see whether that box, or some other box had fallen. Still, it was as Jimmy Kimmel playing Karl Malone would say, "a spooky time."
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The other incident happened a year or two later I think. I'm really not sure now, it might have been the same year. I do know that I'd just closed up shop at On Location, but I don't think it was my store at that point.
Nevertheless, I'd gone back to the store to get something and I decided to take a slightly different path back to the Resale office near the front of the park. The usual path people take from Action Zone to the front takes them along the Festhaus, to the front gate.
I chose, because I thought it might save a few steps, that I'd head past Stunt Crew Grill and Congo Falls to a little used path that comes out next to the old Paramount Theatre.
So I'm heading that way and I pass Delirium and the ride's PA gives the "Smoking is not permitted in lines at Kings Island" speech. I assume it's on a timer and whatever. Then as I pass Congo Falls it does the same. I then hear Drop Zone's PA do it. I keep walking and as I get on the path, FaceOffs system does the same thing.
I mentioned it to someone in passing later and they told me that those messages get played when someone hits a button.
Was someone messing with me? Maybe. Still was weird.
Anywho, that's really all I got. Other than that the dark empty amusement park does often seem spooky, because dark empty amusement parks will do that.
Even in broad daylight, the place can be pretty creepy when its empty. A few years ago I was walking down Coney Mall to untie the flaps on the Vortex ride photo booth (about 1/2 hour before the park opened). As I passed the walkway leading to Rivertown, I smelled cigarette smoke. (I had quit smoking long before this.) I turned to see who was there...just me.
ReplyDelete"The Incident
ReplyDeleteI don’t remember anything obvious that happens during the day. I get really pissed and almost set fire to the house because my mom brings home chicken again. Good thing I don’t. After that, things start going pretty good cause she tells me she’s going on vacation in a week, and that’s the closest thing to having her dead.
Later that night, my mom and I are watching a show about crunchy peanut butter and Derek Wood calls up. He starts telling me about how Jeff Trenton just started whaling on his neighbor over a stolen Cabo Chicken Sub Sandwich. I mean I know they’re good, but I’m like, Damn. He then says he has to go take a piss for a second and he’ll be right back. I look over at my mom and she’s pretty shocked about all the work that goes into making one jar of peanut butter. Then I think I see her scratch her crotch, but I don’t know for sure.
It’s possible. Although her diet has been quite neutral, and she hasn’t been eating much sugar. Anyway, listen to this. All of a sudden Derek comes back on the phone, and he’s emotional as fuck. It’s like his mouth is really dry, but he STILL keeps swallowing.
Apparently, he put some Hot Pockets in the microwave before he went to the bathroom. Then, when he got back, the microwave was empty and the Hot Pockets were already on the counter. He says he can’t even chew them because of the fear inside. Hearing this, both of my elbows buckle, and, except for the usual stream of shaved vaginas, my mind goes completely blank.
I can’t believe a thing like this could happen to someone I party with. First off, I’m a skeptic. I’m not somebody who’s wild about ghosts; so I’m the last person to say it’s a butler from Mars or something like that. But there is no fucking way that the plate of Hot Pockets could have slid out of a closed microwave and onto the counter from natural forces. Derek then tells me he has to go and I’m like “OK” and I finish watching that peanut butter show with my bitch mom.
OK, there is a possibility that Derek just forgot he took the Hot Pocket4 out of the microwave, something he’s never done in his life. But this is impossible for two reasons: (1) I’ve known Derek for over two years and that’s something he -wouldn’t do. (2) This is totally something a ghost would do. (Trust me, if I were making this shit up, I’d be saying it was like ten Hot Pockets floating, not one. I’m not a dude who just says stuff.)"