We wade past all the topiaries—I remember there were four huge Exclamation Points on either side of the main entrance that were carved out of trees—and then into the park. It’s got this long main road before you can go any other direction, so we start walking it, and I’m in about the middle of the pack when I remember to turn my body camera on, but before I get the chance, this kid comes running up to us with his hand in the air. This isn’t on the video, but I remember him just singing our praises to the heavens. Turns out later it was that kid who stayed in the hotel all that time, Jason something. He came out of one of the stores in the front and sort of half jogged, half stumbled toward us, saying, “Thank God, thank Jesus, thank God,” over and over and over again. He was mumbling, trying to tell us six things at once. I saw that in a lot in the other towns, and I saw it a lot that day. A lot. The best thing to do with someone in that state is to get handcuffs on them so you’re damn sure they’re not going to hurt you and then sort it out later, and that’s what we did. I remember he had a huge grin on his face when someone in the back of our pack led him away. I thought at the time he was grinning like an idiot. I’ve heard his story since. That guy was not an idiot.
After that, I turned the camera on. I’ll walk you through the video.
Editor’s note: For formatting purposes, we will describe the scene on the video and follow it with Mr. Barnes’s commentary.
0:58—The video shows a group of Florida National Guard troops in full combat gear with their weapons raised in front of the camera. The camera is in the middle of the group. The camera views the body of “Paul,” the employee who fell off the building and was killed by Brock Hockney and is now in an advanced state of decay. Someone offscreen says, “Jesus, is that a person?”
At that point, we knew it was going to be a tough one. I had seen decayed bodies before. You’d be surprised at what humidity and rain can do to a body. Man, I’ve seen people who were in rough shape, I had even seen bodies as bad at this one, but it’s never something that becomes commonplace, you know? It’s the sort of thing that sticks with you. Other than that poor son of a bitch, I can tell you it smelled terrible in there. When I was talking to one of the survivors later on, he said he didn’t notice, so they must have gotten used to it, but to us it was this toxic mix of sewage and decaying food and some sort of chemical, I don’t know what, but it had this really acrid top layer to it. One of my friends mentioned later that whatever was causing the smell, there had to be a lot of it for it to hang around in such a wide open area.
1:42—The first survivor comes into view. She has been identified as Claire Hostetler, a ShopGirl who was most likely an archer for the group. Her hair is long, dark, and stringy, and she’s holding a dingy rag to her arm. The troops yell at her to get down. She is crying her entire time on camera.
Yeah, that’s the other thing they do. If someone has been in the muck for a month and we get there to rescue them, it’s either a million miles an hour or they shut down and you can’t get a word out of them. That’s pretty typical, honestly. That girl, she didn’t say a word as they put the cuffs on or led her to the back. It’s creepy, yeah, but not uncommon.
2:04—Girls begin streaming from the shops in pairs and groups of three. Almost all of them appear to be nursing injuries and helping those who are more seriously injured. One of the troops suddenly yells “Holy shit!” and guns are raised.
In the space of twenty seconds, we went from helping one girl to the back to being surrounded by girls who looked like that spooky chick from The Ring. Then Tony, he’s in the front, I hear him yell, and this is the first time my sleep-deprived brain makes the connection that I’m wearing a body camera and somebody is going to want to see this when I’m done, so I run to the front and there’s this row of bodies. They’re all girls and they’re laid out, I think there were a dozen or so [there were seven—ed], and they were all hurt in various ways, but each one of them had their head bashed in. Then someone had put ropes up, like those velvet ropes they use for crowds, and hooked them on those big gold-looking things with the heavy bases. By the looks of it, that’s what had been used to bash the heads in. It was pretty brutal, more brutal than most of the things we saw. The thing that stuck with me was, why lay them out, you know? Why would you do that unless you are totally off your gourd or some sort of monster?
7:16—The ShopGirls are cuffed and moved to the back of the line. The troops are moving up past the flaming tarp when an unidentified soldier says, “Isn’t there supposed to be a big Exclamation Point here?” and another unidentified soldier says, “Who do I look like? Ritchie Fresno?” The group is then split into smaller groups. Some head toward the Fairy Prairie and Fantastic Future World while others, including Barnes, head toward the Pirate Cove and the Hero Haven.
At this point the group had already splintered a bit and a few of us had stayed behind to help with the survivors. I knew it was going to be a while before we were reinforced, but I knew someone had called it in and there would be more help coming eventually. Like I keep saying, we had been through this before. One time there was this trailer park that had erupted into all-out war, and there were hundreds of people on both sides trying to kill each other, so there were a lot of bodies and a lot of injuries, too. We had to wait two days for the Red Cross to get their shit together and send out some ERVs [Emergency Response Vehicles—ed] and for transport to show up to get people out of there and into a processing station. Of course, in the meantime, these rednecks are still trying to kill each other, so we lost probably another seven or eight people waiting for help to show up. I was really hoping this wasn’t going to be one of those cases, but everyone was stretched way past their breaking point.
We come up on the Pirates first, and I don’t know what you’ve heard, but it wasn’t so bad. There were no bodies in sight, the streets were not running red with blood. It looked fine. It even smelled a little better than the other parts of the park.
13:15—Members of the Pirates are seen coming out of various buildings, each with their hands up. Brock Hockney is the first to reach the soldiers and he surrenders willingly, as do the rest. Some of them are injured, and they look unwashed, but there are no tears, and none of them say a word.
Of course, we found some terrible stuff when we actually went down into the ride where they were all living, but when we rolled up, they came out in a group with their hands up and didn’t give us any trouble. Look … I mean, we found stuff, yeah. I wasn’t part of that group, but they pulled some bodies out of there. They found a whole bunch in the areas behind the rides, like fifteen or twenty or something [it was seven—ed], but they were all so decomposed from the water it was hard to ID them. But if you ask me, the Pirates didn’t seem as bad as everyone made them out to be later. They were the easiest part of my job that day. They were a hell of a lot easier than the next group.
23:12—The Pirates have been processed, and the group comes up on the Deadpool camp and walks around the barriers of trash cans, pallets, and other items that had been erected. Immediately, a woman comes running at them holding a sword. When confronted with the soldiers, she immediately drops her sword and runs to the group, yelling, “I was ready to die. I was going to die today,” and other variants over and over.
That girl, I remember her name. Jill Van Meveren. After we got our initial sweep of the park done, I ended up sitting with her for a bit. She went on and on about how she thought every day she was going to fight and live, and that last day she said she knew it was over. She said something about the day: “This is done,” which, in her head, meant she was going to die. Apparently there had been some sort of big fight the day before, and she told me, “When that was over, I knew this was over. I knew I didn’t need to hang on anymore because it was done.” Again, that wasn’t anything I hadn’t heard before, but she put it really well, especially for a younger person.
The camera doesn’t show it, but the thing I remember most about that section of the park was it was really quiet.
We had a few more people come out, right after Jill did, but they were all really beaten up and could barely make it. One of them actually stumbled toward us like he was a zombie or something. I heard later that he was stumbling because he had an infection in his foot so bad it had started snaking its way up his circulatory system and toward his heart. A few antibiotics and he was fine, but the doctors said this kid shouldn’t have been able to walk with the condition of his legs, but he did. He saw us and knew we were the way out, and he did what he shouldn’t have been able to do. That was new. That kid, whoever he was, he held on a long time. I respect the hell out of that.
28:30—The group moves on to the World’s Circus. There is video of two masks that look like the ones worn by “the Warthogs” on the ground near the entrance.
Yeah, that. I have no idea if those are the masks or not, but I can tell you I talked to a couple folks who went into the hotel right across the way from the entrance, and they told me they had seen some shit. Keep in mind, I’m basically passing along rumors here, but I heard them from people who had spent the past three or four weeks with no reason to make anything up. I pulled apart frozen bodies huddled together as they died. I wouldn’t make that up if I hadn’t done it. So, what I heard was there were booby traps all over the first floor. There were trip wires, holes dug in weird places, and it all led up to this sort of makeshift stage and there were body parts all over it. This dude said there were parts of at least three bodies that he could make out. Maybe more. He said, I remember, you never know how good you are at putting together that particular puzzle until you have to.
The official line was “we found nothing unusual.” I can see why they did that. It’s a damn sight better than “they were butchering people in the hotel lobby.” I can’t imagine that would do much for the FantasticLand stock price, right? Plus, I don’t like thinking about who might be out there. It gives me the creeps.
31:03—Approaching the World’s Circus gate, the group of survivors made up of Freaks and Mole Men are sitting in a line. Glenn Guignol says, “It’s about fucking time.”
That guy, man. He’s no one I’d be friends with personally, but you got to hand it to him. We got them in handcuffs and sent them all out toward the entrance, and when we went through what they had created, it was really spooky and well done. I had an assault rifle in my hands, I knew it was all fake, and it still creeped me out. I was super impressed. A lot of them made it out. I went with that group to get them processed, and that’s the last piece of video you’ll see, me walking with these survivors through the wreckage of the Exclamation Point. No one was in a really talkative mood, which I can totally understand. We saw a few more bodies scattered, and this really weird thing happened when we got near the main entrance. Right off the shops someone had laid out all these bodies, and they were in our way so we had to, like, walk around them. The thing I remember was everyone sort of did it in their own way, you know? Some looked at the bodies and were very careful not to step on them, one guy was saying prayers, and most of them just looked straight ahead at the exit. I can’t say I blamed them.
After we got everyone out on the first sweep, we went back in and started going building by building, which was harder than you’d think it would be. Some people were so sick they couldn’t walk. I talked to one of the med guys afterward, and he said it was a mix of hypoglycemia and waterborne illnesses and some blood diseases and a whole host of other crap. We were going through that pink girly part of the park at one point and had just gone through one of the buildings off the main road that was, like, an employee locker room. We had just left, and one guy wanted to light up a cigarette and his lighter was dead, so he goes back in there and hears this whispering and follows it to a little crawl space behind the couch, and there’s this girl there. She’s skinny and sick and so weak she couldn’t even call out loud enough for us to find her. I remember this guy just coming out of the building with this frail, thin girl in his arms, and she’s grabbing onto him with everything she has left and was whispering something to him, and he whispered back and was moving as fast as he could toward the med vehicles. He came back about twenty minutes later, and there were tears in his eyes. We asked him what she said, and he said, “She was just saying ‘mommy’ over and over and over,” then he started crying, and we had to deal with that. There were a few of those. These kids were sick even though they had food, and they were killing each other even with enough to go around, right?
I heard reports that all the “good food” had gone bad and they were stuck eating cotton candy and sour cherry balls and all that crap. I don’t buy it. Yeah, the meat and everything had spoiled, but there were energy bars and restaurants full of starches, and they could have gotten by a little better, if you ask me. I saw people during the cleanup from Sadie stretch a little bit of food a long, long way. There was no real reason things had to get this bad.
So, the big question—why did I upload the video? Easy. I was paid. I had a feeling what I had was worth something, and I was one of the only ones smart enough to actually turn on a video camera. And I was totally right. I put together a thirty-second teaser and sent it off to all the news outlets, both the big ones and the online ones with big readership. I’m not going to tell you how much I made, but it was enough to make it worth my while. Yes, I was officially reprimanded, and yes, I’ve had a lot of people saying things like, “You’re profiting off the blood of these poor kids,” and stuff like that. Yes, I received a dishonorable discharge for the FNG, and a bunch of people think I’m an asshole. Think that if you want. My daughter gets to go to college. Plus, you’re paying me to be in your book. Don’t forget about that.
I didn’t kill these kids. I was just smart enough to make some money off it. I don’t lose any sleep from it. None at all.
INTERVIEW 21: EMMET R. KELLEY
Assistant Prosecutor for Florida’s 15th Judicial Circuit.
Son, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you, politics can be a bitch. A capital B, ball-bustin’, no-holds-barred bitch, yes sir. If you get into the game at all, you gotta know eventually that bitch is coming for you, and when she got me she tuned me up good and proper. That’s why I’m talking to you.
See, I was the lead prosecutor for Florida’s 15th District for six years. That may not seem like a long time, but I spent my whole life getting there. Private practice, Chamber of Commerce dinners, kissing the right asses, contact after contact, political dinners, eventually landing a job in the office and working my way to lead. Pretty traditional. Then you get a high-profile batch of cases where the law isn’t on your side, and suddenly you’re “ineffective” and “incompetent” and … let me get this quote right here, “so dumb someone should throw a toaster in the shower with him because he’s too stupid to live.” The Internet, apparently, can also be a bitch.
All right, then. Let’s back up. Like anyone, I was shocked and saddened by the response to Hurricane Sadie, but it really was a monumental job to get everyone out of their various communities. There was flooding further inland than anyone had ever imagined. Looked like Al Gore had a point after all. Next thing you know, towns with no infrastructure for flooding had people needing help and no way to get to them or help them, so they had to wait. They waited for the National Guard, and they waited for the Red Cross and boy howdy, they waited, and in the meantime there was violence and death all around. All around. Sadie hit us in September, and the first batch of cases started hitting two months to the day after she made landfall. They weren’t open-and-shut prosecutions. They were rough stuff. Murders where there were no reliable witnesses and basically no hard evidence, assaults that could have come from any number of perpetrators, thefts where chain of custody made no logical sense. We lost a lot of cases at first.
We had our winners, though. Jameis Clay, I put him in jail forever. That was the cannibal case where this mean-looking SOB killed five women and ate them. Honestly, I didn’t have much more to go on from an evidence standpoint, but I did have witness after w
itness who were positively sure of what they saw, and I had a defendant who … how should I put this delicately … you could picture taking a bite out of your arm. That make sense to you? It’s easy to prosecute someone for monstrous acts when the fella in question looks a lot like a monster. My thinking shifted a bit. After five or six cases, people were getting sick of the trials. Some of the media coverage dropped off. We could actually present a case without blonde bimbos on TV squawking about us twenty-four hours a day. We started to win here and there, and I had a good strategy going, which was to make the monsters seem as much like monsters as I could. If someone was big and scary, play that up. If they had a temper, be damn sure to get them riled. If they were creepy, make them seem like the creepiest sumbitch in the Sunshine State. And it was working, yes sir. I was getting a conviction here and conviction there. My boss wasn’t on my ass all the time. Which, unfortunately, brings me to FantasticLand.
I saw the video, same as everyone. But instead of running to my computers and blogging about it or vlogging about it or smogging about it or whatever the hell everyone does, I got a sinking feeling, like I had eaten something rotten and it was time to pay the dues. The part that really got me nervous is when they started hauling out petite teenage girls who had, if you believed the squawkers on TV, ripped people apart with their bare hands. It was tough to believe that the freshman rush at Florida State was capable of killing people. Then you got these kids, just out of school, green as green could possibly be, and the TV was saying “They’re killers! They’re killers!” I knew what was coming before it hit my office. When it finally got there, it was worse than I thought.
FantasticLand Page 26