Chapter 1: Pacific Village
The year is 2025 and the small coastal suburb of Pacific Village bustled with activity. Cars sped down the street, parent’s were walking through the park with strollers, the trucks made deliveries to the local stores.
The town was quite small, and located just north of Venice beach and the Santa Monica Pier. There was a highschool in the small town, a large amount of residential houses, and a few small shopping centres. On the edge of the small town, tucked into the border of the national forest, was an abandoned amusement park.
Thunder Park had been retired in the late 1980’s and had become overgrown with weeds. Occasionally the park would appear in the newspapers as people reflected on the rising costs of rent in Los Angeles suburbs. The retired theme park was closed to the public, most people headed to the Santa Monica Pier instead.
The waterslides of Thunder Park were drained, the roller coaster tracks had rusted and collapsed in some sections and the haunted train coaster actually looked haunted. Cobwebs covered Thunder Park. The gravel parking lot was chained closed.
On the other side of the town was Pacific Village High School. The campus was massive, and had many different modern buildings. Inside a senior’s chemistry classroom, the teacher was giving a presentation to a class filled with students.
“The compounds were combined to create gunpowder, this was first accomplished in the 9th century, by China.” The teacher said sitting in her chair, her eyes kept darting to the screen of her computer, where she was watching a soap opera with subtitles in a small window.
At the back of the classroom, students were talking to each other quietly.
“My brother was talking about this place, an abandoned theme park. He reckons it’s a mad spot to bring a girl.” Michael said to his friend Luke. “You should invite Elise.” Mike said with a wink.
Luke looked across the classroom at a blonde girl. She was Luke's crush and one of his closest friends.
“Hey Elise,” Luke whispered. She was writing something and didn’t hear, so Luke threw a pencil at her. It hit her on the leg and clattered on the floor. She picked it up and looked behind her.
“What?” She asked with a curious smile.
“Come to this theme park with us.” Luke said. “We’re going to the abandoned theme park after class.”
“The what?” She asked.
“The abandoned theme park, it’s in the jungle.” Mike whispered.
“Thunder Park.” Luke said.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She said.
“The gunpowder was used in bombs, and then the first guns arrived around twelve hundred AD. They were simple handheld cannons. Write this down guys, it will be on the test.” The teacher said, the characters on her drama show had just kissed passionately on a cliffside.
Luke opened the Google images search for Thunder Park and started showing her the photos. Some retro photos with faded colours had been uploaded, showing the heyday of the park. The walkways were bustling with people dressed in denim outfits and wearing rock band tees. The other newer high resolution photos showed drone footage and explorer photos. The park had lots of graffiti in the pictures.
“Cool,” Elise said. “I’ll come with you guys.” She handed Luke his phone.
Luke smiled and looked out the window, waiting for the bell.
After class, Luke waited in the parking lot for his friends to show up. He drove an old pickup. The truck had four wheel drive and a solid body tub. It was dented, and had some paint scratches, but the clear coat was still shiny, and the glossy red paint had not faded.
Michael arrived with another friend, Matt, a footballer. Elise arrived after that.
“Glad you’re coming today, Elise. Are you excited?” Luke said, smiling warmly.
“I don’t know. I literally don’t know.” She said, a little confused by it all.
Brian, another footballer, and Troy, an african american footballer arrived from the school doors next.
“What’s poppin, bitches?” Troy said, dapping up Mike.
“Bouta get blazed and listen to some D12,” Mike said, pulling out a small bag of weed.
“Hell yeah,” Troy said, and he pulled out a lighter and started flicking the sparks at people.
“Yo, you got the bluetooth speaker, Brian?” Matt asked.
“Bluetooth speaker, right here. Fully charged, and Luke is banned from the Aux.” Brian said, and the whole group of boys laughed.
“What, why?” Luke asked.
“Because you play Chicago, bro, and it’s too slow. Listen to this song,” Brian said and started looking through his phone playlists.
“Chicago is a good fucking band.” Luke said, he looked at Elise and she shrugged. Aint Nuttin But Music by D12 started to blast from Brian’s bluetooth speaker and some passing highschool girls looked at the group of boys in disdain.
The music spurred on the boys and they started bobbing their bodies to the drum beat.
“Alright get in guys.” Luke said. “Elise gets to ride shotgun,” He said, and looked in her eyes.
“Nah, why bro,” Mike said, throwing his body over the door to the passenger side entrance.
“Mike.” Luke said, and he stared at him with a bizarre face. Mike understood.
“Whatever, Elise, it’s all yours.” He said, he then opened the rear door and hopped inside.
“We don’t have enough seats for everyone.” Luke said, doing a headcount.
“I can take my car,” Brian said. He pointed to a tiny sedan. It had a mismatched colour bumper, but it was fuel economical. “Come on, Black Mamba.” He said, grabbing Troy by the head playfully.
“Fuck yeah, riding shotgun.” Troy said. They got into the sedan and drove away.
Luke started his car and loaded up his passengers. They started driving through the small town towards the outskirts. They drove for a short time and then arrived at the chained parking lot and parked in the driveway.
“My service is so bad here,” Elise said, noticing her bars had dropped to almost zero. Her newsfeed had stopped loading on her phone.
“Oh no, now you have to live in the moment,” Luke joked sarcastically. Luke got out of his car and walked to Brian and Troy. They were standing by the chain.
Brian pulled some bolt cutters from the backseat of his car and looked at the assembled teenagers.
“Ladies and gentlemen.” Brian said confidently, “Let’s go ride some roller coasters.” He clipped the chain and it fell to the ground. The teenagers got back into their cars and drove into the carpark. They parked on the edge of the concrete, close to the forest. The two cars were the only cars in sight.
They got out of the cars and locked the doors. They walked towards the gates of the abandoned theme park.
Troy stopped them.
“Hey guys, wait,” He said. “I gotta wait for Kayla.”
“Whipped!” Matt yelled.
“Hey, at least I’ve got a girlfriend.” Troy said calmly.
“Yeah but you’re always hanging out with her, you never even go online anymore.” Matt said.
“Yeah well, I hate that game anyway. I liked the last one way better.” Troy said. “Maybe you need to touch some grass.” The boys laughed.
They arrived at the locked front gates. They looked like jail bars. They were locked with a short chain. Brian used the bolt cutters again and the boys rolled the gates open.
“Wait here, Kayla will be here soon.” Troy said.
“Well, I’m going to start rolling a joint,” Matt said. He pulled out his bag of leaf and inspected it. He had some finely chopped green and a lighter inside. He pulled a rolling paper from his pocket and started to make a big jay.
“Hey, Elise, did you listen to that song that I sent?” Luke asked.
“Which one?” She responded.
“It’s the link I sent you last night.” He said.
“I’ll look at it now.” She pulled out her phone and started to open her messages.
“It’s alright, just look at it later.” He smiled. “What are you doing this weekend, anyways?”
“Probably just stay at home and not do my chemistry assignment.” She said, “It’s not like I’m going to be a scientist.”
“I’m almost finished with mine, I can send it to you and you can copy it but change the words.”
“Maybe,” she said, “so how long are we staying here?”
“Maybe nine or maybe ten?” Luke said. “We normally go to a park and smoke and listen to music. Then we walk to the burger place for some snacks.”
“Are we going to get in trouble?” She asked.
“Nah, not at all,” Luke said, “We’re highschool kids, Mike’s brother brings his girlfriend here all the time. I don’t think this place has tough security, they just don’t care at all.”
“Ok well, could you take me home if it gets too late?” Elise said. She was unsure whether she should be there.
“Definitely.” He said, smiling at her.
A small light blue hatchback car rolled into the parking lot and parked next to the other cars. Kayla got out of the car. She was a blonde girl with fake nails and she was dressed in jeans, and a singlet under Troy’s oversized letterman highschool jacket.
“Hi baby!” She squealed. She wandered over to the group, kissed Troy on the lips and they started making out. Everyone else rolled their eyes and they all started walking inside the abandoned park.
Chapter 2: The Red Bullet Coaster.
The teenagers wandered around the park, the sun had gotten quite low.
At sunset they found a park bench next to the Red Bullet Coaster, the largest ride in the park. They sat down and looked at the rusty steel beams supporting the red painted steel track. Some roller coaster carriages lay in the grass by the bottom of the track.
The park was filled with weeds, but it was maintained well enough. There were locks and chains on most of the buildings and the tallest weeds were sprayed with poison around the main areas of the park. Vines had completely covered some of the buildings and rides. They were in a small food court area around a green mossy fountain. The fountain had stagnant water in the bottom, with tadpoles swimming in the black water.
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They had started to smoke and play some music. Everyone smoked a little and they passed the joint around. Some of the newer smokers coughed a lot. Elise only smoked a few drags because she was in a strange place and wanted to keep her wits about in case of security guards and Luke only smoked a few puffs because he wanted to be safe on the road.
The highschoolers were joking and laughing long into the night and they decided to start a small campfire around eight. They started the fire in a circle of broken footpath stones and used scrap wood from a skip bin they’d found behind one of the attractions. The bluetooth speaker was playing loud music across the quiet park. Drum and bass tracks bounced as the highschoolers mimed dj-ing on decks. They inhaled the smoke of the weed and felt their stress of life alleviate.
Luke grabbed the phone from Matt and the group booed.
“Here we go, mister Chicago.” Brian joked.
“No, I got this one!” Luke said. He pressed on the song’s picture and Bob Marley - Three Little Birds began to play. The opening notes were met with a chorus of cheers from the assembled boys.
They all joined in singing around the fire.
“Don’t worry- about a thing!” They sang. “Cause every little thing - is gonna be alright!”
They bobbed to the sound of the reggae music and were stunned when something massive flew overhead.
Right above them a metallic craft, a spaceship, crashed into the supports of the Red Bullet Coaster and impacted the ground. The spaceship landed with a huge blast of dirt and debris. The cool sounds of Bob Marley echoed over the quiet scenery. The crash had started small fires on the ground in spots. The impact crater filled the area with smoke.
Matt stepped closer and saw something emerge from the crash. It looked like a giant wolf, it was missing all of it’s fur. It stood on two hind legs and Matt realised it was almost 12 feet tall. The wolf creature looked around and then scampered into the smoke and disappeared from view.
“D-Did you guys see that fucking thing?” Matt hollered.
“Yeah,” Luke said.
“We should go,” Elise said to Luke. He noticed she was scared.
“Yeah,” Luke said, “We’ll take a couple of photos then we’ll go, right guys?” Luke said, trying to force them to agree.
“Fine, a couple of photos.” Troy said. They all started to vlog the incident.
“Yoo! Some crazy shit just went down at the, uh, The Rocket Cola Theme Park in Pacific Village. Bruh this shit is unreal. Fucking Alien Spaceship type Shit, cuh.” Troy said into his selfie camera. He posed with the alien ship in the background.
“Hey guys, this is Matt Harvey, I am here next to what might be humanity’s first contact with aliens. We are at 102 Pacific Royal Road. Me and my friends were exploring an abandoned theme park when this thing literally crashed right in front of us.” Matt said to his camera. The alien ship also smoked in the background. Matt didn’t realise he’d caught the creature stalking him in the fog.
The teenagers then ran and got into their cars and sped away as fast as possible.
Chapter 3: The Monster From Outer Space
Luke drove Elise home. He could tell she was upset.
“What the fuck just happened?” Luke asked.
“What the fuck came out of that spaceship?” She asked Luke.
“What the fuck just happened?” Luke asked again. “Mike. Why do I ever listen to Mike? His ideas are shit, I could have gone home, played some video games and had a normal fucking day.” Luke vented.
“I’m too stoned for this.” Elise said. “I’m scared.”
“It’s okay. I’ll drive you home.” Luke said. He went quiet and they stopped at a traffic light. He put his phone password in, then started playing a song over bluetooth.
Elise laughed as ‘If You Leave Me Now’ by Chicago started playing.
“I love this song,” Luke said.
“What was that song you sent me, by the way?” She asked.
“Oh it’s this one,” Luke pulled to the side of the quiet road and started to play ‘Listen To Your Heart’ by Roxette. He started driving again.
He started singing to her as they drove home. He’d rehearsed every word. She laughed and went along with it. She couldn’t stop smiling. Luke was being very energetic with his karaoke.
As he sang, the quiet town of Pacific Village glowed in the night.
A security guard arrived at the driveway and saw the broken chain.
“Fucking kids.” The fat man said. He drove his car further into the parking lot and right up to the entrance. He grabbed a slice of pizza from the box on his passenger seat and wandered into the park. The gates were still wide open.
The man saw a lot of smoke ahead and returned to the boot of his car. He grabbed a fire extinguisher from the back and started to walk inside.
“Poseidon’s Mother.” He said. “What the fucking crikey bingo fuckin bullshit is this shit?” The old man cursed.
He looked at the crashed spaceship and put out a few of the stray fires. He wandered up to the spaceship and it towered above him. He heard a noise behind him.
The security guard turned around and spotted something tall in the smoke near him. He cursed and started to run for his car. The monster started to chase him.
The monster ran on all fours. It had grey skin and a long snout. It had sharp teeth that bulged from its jaw, a grotesque assortment of slimy yellow fangs. The eyes were completely black, like a shark. It rushed at the security guard and attacked.
The guard turned around to defend himself with the fire extinguisher. The beast bit down on the compressed container and the extinguisher foam escaped from the bite marks. The beast dropped the extinguisher and the guard shot twice.
The alien wolf grabbed the man in its jaw and twisted. It used its front claws to hold him down and ripped the security guard’s head clean off. The four legged creature then stood up on two legs and dragged the body towards the crash site. The security guard’s car was still running, the driver door was open and the cab light was on. The pizza was still warm.
Chapter 4: Matt’s Stupid Fucking Idea
“We’re going to be rich,” Matt whispered to the boys. They were all gathered by a park bench during lunchtime. Some of them were sitting on the tabletop. They were all drinking a different coloured energy drink.
“Teacher!” Troy whispered.
The students all hid their energy drinks until the teacher walked past.
“We have to go back there and get more footage.” Matt said again. “If we post this shit on the internet we’ll be famous. Like, dude I gotta pay for college somehow. The gods are giving us this one. We just go in, take a few pictures, and go back out. The smoke would have cleared, and we can fly my dad’s drone above it. We can sell them to the news.”
“I’m in,” Troy said. “I’m not a pussy.”
“I’m not a pussy either!” Luke said.
“I’m not a pussy either,” Brian said.
“I’m not a pussy,” Mike said.
“Good,” Troy responded.
“Good,” Brian said.
“Good,” Luke said.
“And I want a piece of the spaceship for my wall.” Matt said, with a determined tone.
“Me too, dude that would be sick!” Brian shouted. The boys all laughed and began to plan their night.
A different teacher walked past and looked at them suspiciously. The boys all hid their energy drinks from view.
Luke got a text.
Elise: Heyy, I was wondering what you’re doin tonite? 🤓
Luke smiled and started typing.
Later that night, Luke, Matt, Michael, Brian, Troy, Elise and Kayla drove into the parking lot of Thunder Park in two cars. The sun was about to set, they had half an hour of daylight left. Luke saw the security car and they cursed.
They turned back around and drove away. The security car had its lights turned on and it was still running. The driver’s door was wide open. They drove away and parked up the street.
Luke got out of his car and walked to Brian’s window.
“The security guard is right there.” Luke said. “His car is still running.”
“Maybe he’s going to leave soon.” Brian said.
“Maybe the monster got him.” Troy joked. He didn’t get a laugh from anybody. “C’mon guys, I’m just saying, cause we saw that.” Troy just stopped talking mid sentence.
The boys walked a little while to the gravel driveway to the Thunder park. They were dressed in black clothes now. They had planned to be more discreet. Most of their clothes still had logos. They waited for a while. The sun had gone down now. The car was still running, and nobody returned to attend it.
The security car, a twenty year old sedan, was licking the last petrol from the tank. It tried to keep going on fumes but it sputtered and the engine stopped. The lights dimmed considerably as the battery started to die too.
“What the fuck?” Troy whispered.
Matt started crouch-walking towards the car. He looked strange trying to crouch and run across the wide open carpark. The rest of the group started to follow him. They appeared in the red glow of the car’s tail lights and saw a grimy scene. Blood covered the ground. Matt picked up a fire extinguisher and saw the bite marks.
“Shit.” Matt said. He looked through the holes in the steel cylinder and could see light on the other side.
The other boys looked at the blood and goosebumps flared on their spines. Elise grabbed Brian’s arm and Troy hugged Kayla. Luke looked at Elise and Brian and felt odd. He walked forward towards the spaceship.
Matt followed closely behind Luke, and Michael inspected the interior of the car. He looked at the pizza and saw it was already quite old.
Michael ran after Luke and Matt.
Luke turned on his flashlight and approached the crash site. They saw some small fires still burning in a small vicinity. The dust cloud had settled. In a deep crater was a large steel spacecraft. It had a very strange marking that looked like an alien language. It was propelled by very four large jet engines that could rotate and spin freely. There seemed to be a glass window cockpit at the front of the spacecraft.
Luke and Matt wandered to the front. It was half-buried in dirt, so they had to kneel to see into the cockpit. Luke crouched down and stared through a large hole in the cockpit glass. What he saw shocked him.
Inside the cockpit was a small grey man in a metallic silver jumpsuit. The man’s head was quite large, his eyes were black. His jumpsuit had writing on it, but it was in the same alien language. This alien was dead, his body had been stabbed by a large piece of shrapnel, the alien also showed signs of being eaten. It was missing some limbs and had vicious claw marks covering its body. Luke took out his camera and snapped a photo.
Luke saw Elise arrive with Brian, Troy and Kayla. Luke hyped himself up, closed his eyes and when he opened them, He jumped into the cockpit. He used his flashlight in one hand and his phone to film in the other. Matt, spurred on by the balls of his friend, jumped in shortly after.
Luke and Matt started looking around, the cockpit was designed for the smaller aliens. They both filmed as they walked inside. The walls were made of strangely alien forms. They walked into a large area in the middle of the ship. There were cages.
Luke and Matt heard a sound from the cockpit. They turned around.
It was Elise.
“You shouldn't be in here,” Luke whispered angrily.
“Fuck you,” Elise said.
Luke, Matt and Elise walked deeper, their flashlights lit up the interior of the cages. One of the cages held a dead cow. Most of the cages were empty, they varied in sizes.
“Holy shit,” Matt whispered, “They abducted a fucking human.” Matt called Luke and Elise over to the cage he was shining his flashlight on. There was a dead astronaut in the cage. He had a Russian flag on his uniform. He lay motionless against the wall.
They took photos and walked further, another cage held a humanoid alien robot. It was dismantled and wires were sticking out of the case. What Luke saw next chilled him to the bone.
A massive cage had been ripped open. Luke couldn’t believe the strength of the creature. Luke heard something terrifying. Raspy, laboured breathing.
He shone his flashlight down the hallway. The spaceship echoed as the thing in the darkness moved and something metal dropped. Luke held his torch in front of him and walked slowly towards the sound.
He rounded a corner and saw a grey alien man covered in scars, he was bleeding onto the floor. He looked up at luke. He was alive.
Chapter 5: The Hunter
The alien winced and pointed at a small device on the wall. Matthew grabbed it and brought it over. The alien grabbed the device and held it to his worst wound. It began healing, his wounds closed. The alien, during this healing process passed out.
They heard another clang. This time from a different part of the ship, it was a much louder sound.
They left the sleeping alien to check it out.
They came across a cage holding a creature concealed by a tattered black cloth, it was breathing rapidly and clicking occasionally, The creature’s cloth cage cover was ripped to shreds and gently floating in the spaceship’s oxygen filter.
Elise moved close to the cage and looked closer, Matthew pulled her back just in time, a long, grey arm, with razor sharp claws reached out and slashed at the air where Elise had just standing.
She screamed and they all ran for the exit.
The metal smashing sound increased in volume. Luke peeked down the dim corridor and saw the creature inside the cage in a frenzy, trying to break out.
The alien appeared beside Luke with a laser rifle and fired full auto into the cage.
A barrage of blue plasma balls flew from the blaster and the creature started to shriek. The alien shot almost a hundred rounds into the cage, until the creature inside the cage died.
The alien looked at Jon, then pointed at the empty broken cage, and then he pointed to the now “dead” second creature. The alien handed Luke the metallic chrome futuristic blaster and hit the floor. Luke leaned closer and saw the alien was still managing to breathe, Jason put the laser gun in his jeans at the back and he grabbed the small alien like it was a toddler. Matt helped Elise to reach for Michael’s hand. She climbed out of the cockpit. Jason helped Matt to climb out next, and then he passed the Grey man up to the boys. Then they reached down and pulled Luke from the cockpit.
The alien was lying unconscious on the table, breathing gently with lots of difficulty. Luke handed the alien device to the girls and Kayla held the healing beam above the gray man. Luke inspected the laser gun he’d just been handed.
“I think there’s another one of those creatures here, we need to leave.”
“What about him?” Matt asked, pointing to the alien on the table.
“We should sell him to the FBI.” Michael said.
“No that’s slavery, you fucking cunt,” Troy said to Michael and grabbed him by the shoulder. ‘
From the roof of a nearby building, the alien wolf watched and breathed silently but very quickly. The monster was unseen and unheard, but it watched very closely. It had only met only of these things before.
“Let’s just wake him up and ask him to kill the other monster.” Troy continued. “It’s his monster after all. Did you say you found a human in there?”
“And a cow,” Matt said.
“See, fuck this little grey dude?” Troy said. “Heal him up and then let him deal with it. Let’s go.”
“Hey fuckwads. This is our fucking territory.” A voice called out.
“Oh shit.” Mike said.
Three guys from the Pacific Valley Football team were standing across from them. They were wearing purple and white letterman jackets. All three of the teenagers were quite tall and strong.
“You better not have touched our fucking weed patch you little fuckin shits. Get the fuck out of here.” One of the footballer’s said. In the dim light, the footballers were blinded by the flashlights, and could not see much in the dark.
The footballers walked away, they were tossing a pig skin between them in the dark and laughing wildly.
“Guy’s wait, don’t go out there, there’s a monster. There’s an alien.” Matt called out, trying to warn them
“You fucking pussy” A different footballer called back. “OoooooH. Aliens.”
“That’s some bullshit man, anyways I was fucking this chick Taylor the other day.” The footballer continued. The guys he was with started laughing. They walked towards the Haunted Train Coaster to collect their weed plants. They disappeared into the darkness.
The grey wolf was no longer on the rooftop either.
Chapter 6: Killer
The grey alien woke up on the table. It looked at the humans around him and he ran to a nearby wall and cowered.
Matt approached him and crouched.
He held up a fist to bump and pointed at himself. “Matt”
The alien blinked and understood perfectly. The alien started to tell the humans the story of his ship crash landing, and the danger they faced.
“Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt Matt MATT MATT, Matt, Matt, Matt.” The alien said. He realised he should have paid attention to his classes in English at Alien University.
The alien got frustrated and walked back to the crashed ship. He climbed inside and the group stayed outside.
The alien emerged later wearing a high tech battle suit, he carried a laser weapon and a roomba-like walking robot.
The alien walked into the middle of the road and deployed the device, a radar dish appeared and started to beep.
The teens all guessed it was to contact a rescue team.
The alien tried to tell the group to leave in his native language because of the grave and dire danger, but the teens could not understand.
They heard a scream in the distance. The footballers
They all ran to the direction of the sound.
The waterpark, murky green water sat at a low level in all of the pools, plants had begun to grow inside some of the ponds and slides.
On the middle of the footpath, they found a slashed up letterman belonging to one of the footballers.
The alien took the lead and walked carefully in front of everyone, using his turtle-roomba scanner to try to detect signs of life.
The scanner detected motion and they looked to see one of the Football players running towards them.
“It fucking got Christian!” The teenager screamed, tears were streaming down his face. “What the fuck was that thing?” He howled. “Let’s go, let’s fucking go, let’s fucking go.”
“Holy shit what the fuck is that alien doing with a gun?” The football player continued.
“He’s on our side, I hope.” Luke said.
“Have you guys seen Daniel?” The football player asked. “He was at the haunted house trying to hide, I fucking tried to save Christian. I tried to save him.”
The grey alien scanned the darkness with his eyes.