The Last Shift
The park had been called Neon Wild back when it still opened its gates.
Now, the paint on the rusted entrance sign had peeled away so thoroughly that only fragments remained:
NON W LD
The missing letters made it look less like a name and more like something half-forgotten. A curse worn thin by weather.
The employees still came back every night.
Not for nostalgia.
Not for a paycheck—nobody paid them anymore.
They came because habit is a chain that never asks permission.
There were five of them.
Mara, operations manager.
Tomás, maintenance technician.
Luna, performer and makeup artist.
Guille, roller coaster operator.
And Balú, the guy who spent entire summers sweating inside a fluorescent bear costume.
They met at nine every evening with flashlights and thermoses of coffee.
They checked bolts.
Wiped grime from clouded windows.
Sometimes they fired up one of the generators, just to watch trembling light spill across abandoned carnival booths as though some lonely ghost still wanted to play.
Nobody visited anymore.
Except the occasional TikTok kid looking for an urban-exploration challenge.
Lately, not even those.
The news had become an endless stream of outbreaks, bites, quarantines, and emergency broadcasts from the other side of the river.
The park sat in a forgotten stretch of land between nowhere and nowhere else.
A perfect place to disappear.
“Let’s record tonight,” Luna said.
She was already setting up her ring light.
“Let’s do a livestream. #NeonBackstage.”
“For who?” Tomás grumbled, testing the weight of a wrench in his hand.
“Nobody watches.”
“There are always eyes watching,” Mara said.
“Even if they’re not the ones you want.”
Then she started the generator.
The lights of the Spiral Wheel flickered awake.
A musicless carousel turned a quarter revolution under a push of wind.
The smell of stale rain mixed with traces of burnt sugar from cotton candy that should have disappeared months ago.
Luna adjusted her makeup.
Guille checked the control panel for Comet’s Throat, the park’s signature roller coaster.
Balú squeezed himself into the bear suit and practiced a ridiculous dance routine meant to improve morale.
It didn’t.
At 9:13 PM, the first comment appeared on Luna’s livestream.
“See?” she said triumphantly.
“‘Go into the haunted house alone or it doesn’t count.’”
She laughed.
“So creative.”
“Don’t,” Guille said.
“That place creeps me out.”
“Everything gets creepy if you stare at it long enough,” Mara replied.
“Let’s move.”
The Haunted House sat near the edge of the property.
A black rectangular building with an entrance shaped like a screaming mouth.
Inside were narrow corridors, motion sensors, and animatronics that used to leap out with prerecorded growls.
Now they sat dead in the dark.
Or so everyone believed.
Luna smeared expired fake blood across her face.
It smelled sweet.
Metallic.
Wrong.
She lifted her phone.
“Welcome to Neon Wild After Hours,” she announced.
“We’re the last employees still showing up.”
“If you want to see what opening a theme park looks like while the world is shutting down, stick around.”
“#OneWayTrip #ZombieShift”
The chat immediately exploded.
❤️❤️❤️
FAKE
show something real
bite your arm lol
do a jump scare
They moved deeper inside.
The first hallway smelled like mold and damp rags.
In one corner stood a clown animatronic without its mask.
Its plastic skull was exposed.
Wires hung from its face like dried worms.
Guille swept his flashlight toward the back of the corridor.
Something moved.
Not much.
Just enough.
“Rats,” Tomás said.
He didn’t sound convinced.
Because they all knew it wasn’t rats.
First came the scraping.
Fingernails dragging across concrete.
Then something wetter.
A thick, slow sound.
Like an enormous tongue licking the floor.
Luna pointed her camera toward the darkness.
The chat detonated.
WTF
WHAT IS THAT
TURN UP THE BRIGHTNESS
NOPE NOPE NOPE
A child knelt near the far wall.
He wore an old Neon Wild employee shirt.
The fabric was torn nearly to rags.
His hands clawed at a crack in the tile floor as though he were trying to dig underneath the building.
His pupils had shrunk to pinpoints.
A strand of thick saliva hung from the corner of his mouth.
Then he looked up.
Everyone saw his teeth.
Or what remained of them.
The front ones were gone.
The exposed gums looked like carnivorous flowers.
Mara stopped breathing.
“That’s the security guard’s nephew.”
Nobody answered.
“He disappeared two weeks ago.”
Tomás swallowed.
“No.”
His voice came out hollow.
“That isn’t him anymore.”
The child moved.
Fast.
Not human fast.
Wrong fast.
His body launched forward on all fours in a crooked diagonal motion, like an insect trapped inside a human skeleton and trying to pilot it.
Guille stepped between them and raised his flashlight.
The boy slammed face-first into the lens.
The impact made a hollow cracking sound.
Something burst.
Not blood.
Something thicker.
Dark jelly sprayed across the floor.
Pale chunks floated inside it like grains of rice suspended in crude oil.
The smell hit them instantly.
Rotting meat.
Ammonia.
Something fermented beyond recognition.
“Back up,” Mara ordered.
The child stood.
Tendons crackled beneath his skin.
His mouth opened wider than it should have.
He chewed the air.
The sound was worse than any growl.
Then he charged again.
And again.
And again.
Smashing his forehead into the flashlight until skin split, bone shattered, and the front of his skull collapsed into a wet ruin.
Guille dropped the light.
Tomás didn’t hesitate.
The wrench came down on the side of the boy’s head.
CRACK.
The child staggered.
The second blow shattered his cheekbone.
One eye popped loose and dangled from a strand of nerve tissue, swinging like a pendulum.
Luna lowered her phone.
The chat went insane.
FAKE
MORE LIGHT
HIT HIM AGAIN
THIS IS SICK
DON’T STOP
“End the stream,” Guille said.
“No.”
Luna’s hands were shaking.
“If this is real, somebody needs to see it.”
Tomás swung again.
The wrench buried itself deep inside the skull.
The child released a wet sigh.
Then collapsed.
The dark organic soup spilled across the floor and soaked into their shoes.
For several seconds, nobody moved.
Nobody spoke.
Outside, wind brushed against the side of a tent.
It sounded almost like applause.
