Day 51

There's an old children's play area nearby.
One of those foam-padding-everywhere, spit-soaked-plastic-ball-pit places.
Cheery paint, cheerier staff and food dripping with grease.

There's always been a lot of missing people here.
After the old place closed down I found them.
Some of them at least.

I went in at night, when security was low and everyone else was sleeping.
The smiles on the murals seemed wider than I remembered and I swear
their eyes followed me.
The foam padding had already been torn apart by whoever came before me.
The kitchen area looked ransacked and grease-stained, still the scent of food
lingered in the air.

Heading further into the complex I came across the ball-pit.
Empty of course, they'd taken all the balls when they moved out.
I stepped in and walked the length of it, for old times' sake.
The front right corner was hollow, peeling back the tattered foam I saw a handle.
It was well hidden, I'll give them that.
It took several good pulls before it finally opened.
The hinges seemed to be sticky with some unnameable grease.

There was a ladder heading down, my torch beam hit the floor, it wasn't
deeper than 7 feet.
A nasty fall for a kid, I wondered why this was here.
Maintenance maybe?
Holding the torch in my mouth I began to descend, nearly slipping on the
slick rungs.
The floor wasn't much cleaner but I noticed it had reddish streaks.
Kind of like someone had dragged paint buckets along it.

I headed down the tunnel opposite the ladder.
The streaks grew thicker along the ground, in some places I swear I saw hand
prints.
Tiny hand prints.
The tunnel ended in a large room.
A room full of bodies with most of their limbs missing.
Mostly children,some adults.
Their clothing was hanging on hooks at one end of the room.
To my horror I recognised a few missing friends' things and at least one police
uniform.

Further into the room were butcher's tools, stained and blunt with use.
Where were they taking the missing body parts?
I soon found out, there was a dumbwaiter in the very corner.
I'd almost missed it, someone had pushed a few empty boxes in front.
It was larger than they usually looked in the movies and seemed stable enough
so I climbed in and pulled myself up with the rope attached.

I hadn't realised how long the tunnel was, how large the room was.
The dumbwaiter took me to the back area of the kitchen.