There wasn’t much to do down there, so I’ll skip ahead. There was a point where one side of the shelter started to pile out, and Austin grabbed my hand, hard, and said, “We’re going. Don’t lose me,” and we shoved through as hard as we fuckin’ could. We got to the front, and he turned to me and said, “Keep up, little girl,” which was what he used to call me, and I said, “Don’t you lose me, boy,” and we started running. We head up to the Fairy Prairie, and he leads me to this, like, bunker underneath one of the snack bars. He had a key, and he kind of winked and said, “You don’t want to know how much I paid for this,” and we go in and it’s this security station, but it’s hard to see because the lights are out. He whips out a Maglite and says, “Start looking around for a bag,” and I run up and find this big bag in the snack bar that they used to deliver chips and that nasty ass nacho cheese shit, and by the time I get back, he’s got guns. Lots of guns.
I was kind of shocked because he was not a violent guy. Not violent. But he said, “Calm down. This is our ticket, baby,” and we stuffed them in the sack I found. Turns out, he heard from a security guard drunk on contraband Hot Damn about where the locker with all the guns was. I asked him why, and he said, “Folks are going to be coming for these. It’s best they don’t get them.” Then he said, if we needed to, we could sell them, and if we really, really needed to, we could use them to defend ourselves. I never fired a gun in my life, man. Not once. But he walked me through it, and it didn’t seem so hard. I never asked him how he knew what he was doing, but I figured he read a book or hustled someone at a shooting range or something like that.
Next thing was to find a hole to hide in, and he had just the place where he figured no one would go. Just to the north of the big Exclamation Point before you hit the World’s Circus is this big, stupid ride. It’s for kids, and it’s called Fantastic Folks from History, and it’s this cheesy-ass thing where you get in this railcar, and you go through all these historic places like ancient Egypt and Rome and France and shit. He knew there was this storage area behind the Revolutionary War part where they kept all sorts of stuff they don’t use anymore like broken ride parts and old costumes and all that. He said it was big and no one came there, and, most important, it would have light during the day because it wasn’t far from the exit. The whole ride kind of looped around on itself, and he was right. When we got there, there was this little sliver of light, and once your eyes adjusted, it let you see everything in the room. It was old and sad and creepy, and we loved it. It was our nest, man. No one bothered us, but the most important thing was it was big enough to put everything he found. He said the first couple of hours were going to be super important because folks were going to start checking on things soon. He said we needed to raid the cash drawers, then the gift shops, and then get food and water. So we did.
That first day and night, we didn’t stop moving. We found over $22,000 in cash, we grabbed flashlights and blankets and enough food to make it through a winter on Little House on the fucking Prairie. We finally collapsed, woke up, and did it again. We figured water would be a big deal, maybe bigger than the guns, so we started lugging pallets’ worth of water that we found in the storage areas. I would carry for a while, and he would be the lookout and then we’d switch and we did that until we were achy and sore and couldn’t do it anymore. The third night, he said it was time for the big haul, and I was like, “What, this isn’t big enough for you?” and he said, we’re heading to FresnoVille, up to the dorms. He had stolen a couple of hip waders from the maintenance guys, and his plan was to wade through the water that had rolled in between the park and the dorms and go through the rooms and bring back anything worth bringing. He said he knew there was weed and rubbers and cash and maybe more, and he wanted to be the guy who could hook you up with whatever you needed. That was why we worked so hard at the start. He said, “We need inventory if this is going to be a long haul.” Always hustling. That was my Austin.
In order to get to FresnoVille, we had to go north up through the World’s Circus. It rained every damn day we were in that park, and it was raining when we left. We get up there, and the first thing we see is a couple of the folks from up that way hanging out. Of course they know Austin. It’s all, “Hey, man, we were hoping to catch up with you,” and “Man, you gotta see what we found in the basement,” but he really politely told them we had somewhere else to be. One of them pulled him aside and said he was dying for a smoke and Austin pulled out a pack, gave it to the guy and said, “The first one’s free,” had a good laugh about it. Everything seemed cool up Circus way. I don’t know what the rest of those fools are talking about, killing and eating people and all that. It’s bullshit if you ask me. People are stupid and believe anything.
We kept heading north and then we hit the water, and it was fucking cold and it got deep fast. You would be stepping, and it would be like ankle, ankle, waist, you know? Each step was a different water level. There were a couple times when I was worried that we’d have to finally give up the ghost and start swimming, but it never came to that. We made it to the dorms, and of course Austin’s got a key. He was fumbling for it, and I’m like, “Man, you couldn’t get that door open if you wanted to. There’s too much water.” So we busted out a window with one of those big pieces of concrete you see lying around sometimes. It was a trip, throwing a huge piece of concrete through a big-ass window and knowing no one cared, and you would never, ever get in trouble for it. Strange, you know? We work our way inside, and the first thing we notice is it smells just toxic. The water outside is different than the water in there. I’m sure there was some sewage or something mixed in with it, because the second we get inside we start coughing and choking on how bad it smells. We grabbed a couple of curtains and held them up to our mouths as best we could, but that place was unlivable. Totally.
But no one had been there, and in a couple hours we’ve got a giant bag full of what we came for, and the dorm, it had everything we wanted. We made a couple thousand in cash, we found enough rubbers for Saturday night in Miami, and we even found a suitcase full of weed. A fucking suitcase! Who comes to work at an amusement park with a suitcase full of weed? Didn’t matter. It was ours now, and the suitcase kept the weed pretty dry. It was a nice suitcase. We also grabbed about a hundred smartphones. Whenever we saw one, plunk, we threw it in the bag. Might need them for later, you know? We headed back, and were home by dinner, like they say. We never did find out whose room it was that had the suitcase full of weed, but we did find some pretty freaky sex stuff in the rooms of some people we knew. I won’t go into it, plus the toys were no good anyway. They had been in that shitty smelling place for too long. I wasn’t putting them anywhere near my body.
The next morning we’re still kind of basking in our good luck when we notice the rash. Both of us had it. We figured the hip waders would have protected us a little, but whatever was in the water in the dorms, it got through that rubber and was burning up our skin something fierce. It hurt. Both Austin and I had these red blotches, and it wasn’t just like a rash, it was like, something is really wrong here. So the first order of business that morning was to head to the first aid station at the front of the park and pray they had something that could hold us over until the cavalry showed up and got our asses out of there. That meant walking up the Golden Road, but we weren’t worried. At that point, we hadn’t seen anything to make us worried. Nobody was threatening us. Everything seemed as cool as it could seem when you’re talking about an amusement park after a big-ass hurricane. When we got there, we got our first idea that something bad might be happening. We got to the road, and there was a fucking dead body, right there. It was a guy, we could tell that much, but his head was bashed in, and it looked like he’d been there a little while. He was all white and kind of gooey looking because he’d been out in the rain, I guess. No one bothered to move him or nothing. Then we hear, like, these whistles and clicks, and people start yelling at us, like, “Who are you?” and “What’s your deal?�
� and like that, and it’s these girls yelling from the shops and out the windows. Austin put his hands up, and I followed him, and we were like, we’re trying to get to the first aid station. Then Austin, I can tell he’s trying to figure out his angle. Finally, he pulls up his shirt and shows part of the rash and yells, “We need help. Can you please help us?” It was the “please” that did it, and one of the girls came out.
Her name was Clara and she was a right and proper bitch, but Austin talked her down, and she eventually led us north a little bit to this tent where a couple of girls were doing first aid. They were busy with other folks so they let us rifle through some of the ointments and whatnot in the first aid station. It wasn’t, like, a full-on doctor’s office or anything, but Austin, the dude somehow knew what we were looking for, and he found it. Clara had followed us up to the first aid tent and she was going on and on about how they’d heard rumors of dead bodies over by the Pirates and someone getting their hands cut off and it all seemed really stupid at the time. Like, not believable in the slightest, but she was sure it was happening. At one point, she asked me if I wanted to ditch Austin and stay in the shops. She said it was safer. I was on my best behavior partly because there was this other bitch on Clara’s right who was rocking a bow and arrow, like, one of those compound ones they use for hunting. I didn’t want to mess with that. Austin told her that we had whatever they needed, water or food or other stuff. Clara said “thanks but no thanks” and we started heading back, but it was obvious one of the girls from up the Golden Road was following us, trying to figure out where all our shit was. We gave her the slip, but it took a bit of time.
The ointment worked, but the next few days were like that. We would go find some people and ask them what was up, and they would act all paranoid like we were there to cut them up or something. Everybody wanted something, but nobody wanted to pay anything, and everyone just wanted to know where our stash was. And they all said stay away from the Pirates. Everyone said that, man, every single one. Some people who were cool earlier were not cool now. I mean, we even went back to the Circus, and no one was around and they had put up all these Halloween decorations that made it look all haunted. Everyone was closing up shop and hunkering down, and we were by ourselves and starting to get a little nervous. Austin was especially nervous because, this is going to sound stupid, but his charm wasn’t doing it anymore. He could turn on the smooth and give them as many pearly whites as he wanted, and people couldn’t get past how terrified they were. It was like those movies where people go to foreign countries and no one can communicate on basic stuff. It was like that. I don’t mean to be gross, but when you can’t sell rubbers to a park full of horny twentysomethings, shit is seriously fucked up. Plus, they all kept trying to follow us back to our stash.
We kind of got paranoid too. Austin’s idea was to start putting little packets of food and water in places in case we needed to hide for the night or something, so he started doing that. There were a couple nights there where he would be gone all night, and I would be just terrified out of my mind in that big empty room with all this stuff in it. I would smoke a little to calm down, and it kind of did the trick, but after a while even that was a problem in case someone smelled the smoke, so we quit that, too. One night, he was gone from six at night until, like, lunch the next day, and he told me there were people who knew he was in the area who were just waiting him out and it was really scaring him. Everyone knew who he was, and everyone knew he had stuff. He started carrying one of the handguns with him. I did too.
It just got a little worse, every day, and we got really good at hiding. I remember, one time there was a group of Pirates who came through the ride. They were so loud we heard them before they set foot in there, but the room we were in, it was one of those places where if you didn’t know it was there you could miss it. Plus, Austin and me, we put up bunches of fake moss and vines and shit so it was even harder to find. I don’t think they ever got close to finding us, but just hearing those dudes talk … that was enough to, like, elevate it. They were talking about their part of the park and how the dead bodies they hung up were doing. I remember hearing one of them say, “The bitch, she’s starting to bloat but that Deadpool near the ride, he’s still the same” and then they laughed about it. After they left, I kind of accepted for the first time that there were people who would kill us if they could, and I cried. I’m not proud of it, but I cried, and Austin wasn’t sure how to react. He held me and told me it would be OK, but I could tell he was full of shit. I knew him. He was scared too.
The night he didn’t come back, I wish I could tell you it was different than the other times, but it wasn’t. Eight hours went by and I kept telling myself, he’s coming back, and we’re going to hunker down and ride this out, and then four more hours went by, and I started panicking a little more, and by the evening I was a wreck. The next morning, I knew he was gone. I smoked, I drank what we found, and just got good and fucked up and cried for a couple of days. I would go back and forth between hoping he … never mind. This ain’t about me. This is about Austin. And Austin disappeared one night, and I never saw him or heard from him or even found out what happened. That’s part of why I’m talking to you. Somebody’s got to know. There’s got to be somebody who can help. This guy, this great guy who was the light of my life, was either killed or died on accident or something, and someone’s gotta know. This can’t just be one of those things that never get solved. Someone’s gotta know, and if they know, all I can do is what Austin did to those girls who gave us the first aid stuff. I can say please, just like Austin said please to those girls. Please, help me figure this out.
I will tell you one more thing. Once the weed and the booze wore off and once I kind of got done crying and ate something and got my head on straight, I realized something. I was angry. Time was, before I started working there, that I could be a hard-ass bitch, and when I quit my crying, I realized I was an angry, hard-ass bitch and I was sitting on a shitload of guns.
INTERVIEW 11: CLARA ANN CLARK
Gift Shop Manager, Leader of the ShopGirls.
I don’t know how many people you’ve interviewed, but I bet you aren’t going to hear too many people say this. Ready?
I was my best self, leading those girls. I reached my full potential. I was a hard-charging, badass leader, and I pushed girls to fight when they would have otherwise been victims. I was in charge of the Golden Road, and I didn’t give an inch to anybody. I didn’t know I had it in me, and I left part of my soul in that park, but I got something back. Something that’s changed my life for better and for worse. Mostly better.
I was in a kinda sorta leadership position before the hurricane. I had worked the summer before at several different shops along the Golden Road, depending on the current promotion. The regular gift shop, called the Fantastic Every Day Shop, that was where I landed most of the time, and it was a friendly enough place. I never had to work at the camera store or the donut shop. They both had wicked high turnover and that’s where I first heard the term “The Yellow Dick Road” to describe what most people thought of working the shops. You can still find the “Yellow Dick Road” Facebook page online where they all shared stories of shitty behavior by customers. But it was OK for me. Not great, by any stretch. It wasn’t what I wanted to do with my life, but it paid fine, and I didn’t have anything better going on, so I came back the next summer, the summer when it all happened. Since I came back for a second summer, they immediately put me in charge of a few things, so that’s how I knew everyone. I would arrange for deliveries and do schedules, and I was called a “manager” even though I never had any real power beyond handing out coupons to people who complained enough about the right sort of things.
So, I kind of knew everyone who worked in the shops. Now, this isn’t an official thing, and if you ever talk to Ritchie Fresno, ask him if this is true, but I always understood that the gift shops were staffed at least 90 percent by girls. You hear rumors about why. Some said it was
better for sales, which was probably true, some said market research showed you wanted females up front in hospitality for this reason, for that reason. I don’t know why they did it, but it was true. Most of the shops were run and staffed by girls. After a while, you don’t question it, just like you don’t question the process for everything. There was a very strict way they handled the shops, and while everything sort of made sense, they made you follow the rules whether they made sense or not. Everything was “regimented.” That’s the word they kept using. You also heard rumors that the gift shops made, like, ridiculous profits and that they were one of the main engines of growth at the company. I don’t know. I had to move a lot of boxes and do a lot of time sheets, that’s the sort of thing I knew about. And dealing with customers. My first summer I wasn’t far enough up the food chain, so I had to deal with anyone who got so angry they demanded to see a manager, and usually it was some overstressed mom or douchebag dad who’d been out in the sun too long. You gave them a coupon, you pretended to apologize, and that was usually it. Like I said, not so bad.
But there was this one time I want to tell you about. It’ll make sense in a second. This one time I get the call that there was an angry woman up front and I went up there and she immediately starts just screaming, “I won’t be treated like this” and “What are you all, idiots?” and worse stuff than that, and when I tried to give her the items for free, she wouldn’t stop. She was off on some sort of rage thing and couldn’t be talked down. At that point, I calmly ask the cashier to call a 117 for the store, which meant we needed security, but that usually takes a couple of minutes, and in the meantime, this woman has turned ugly and personal. She starts yelling at me about my hair and about how ugly I am, and when I say, “Ma’am, help me understand how we can help,” she shot back, “You’re too stupid to figure it out! I heard the other girls say so. They’re talking behind your back. You’re an awful manager.” For some reason, that really hurt and I started tearing up a little bit, and the second she saw my crying she went in for the kill. At one point she sounded like that bully from A Christmas Story, making faces and yelling, “You gonna cry now?” and calling me a “weak-kneed pussy,” and it was just so over the top. Security shows up, and I fill out the paperwork, but I couldn’t shake it. I had lost it in front of some staff members and I had let that woman get under my skin enough to where I broke down. It was the sort of thing I never talked about after that, even to my mom, but I remembered it. That woman’s face would show up before I went to bed and before I got in the shower, and I just thought, this is something I’m going to have to live with. I figured I’d have to move on with this kind of … I don’t know, this hidden thing that caused me pain and that got to me more than it should have.
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