The Slide at the End of the Street
Some urban legends spawn from secrets kept too long. Charburg was a town with many secrets, and I could feel it all around me.
I was the town rebel, the outlier with no friends, no family, no interest in the affairs of the town. I always kept to myself, minded my own business, and never sought attention. I merely existed, unbothered, and yet this bothered everyone else, it seemed.
Charburg was a deeply religious town, full of churches, and the entire community felt more like a cult. Living alone in a decaying part of town, my home was a light blue bungalow with a dandelion yellow porch swing that knocked against the wooden wall when there was a gentle breeze.
The neighborhood was mostly vacant, many of the homes abandoned and in a derelict state of decay. I had only recently moved in, as I had taken a remote job as a technical writer for a concrete equipment company. I had chosen Charburg for the peace and quiet it provided.
Over the years, I had heard and read about local legends and myths, as the subject intrigued me. One in particular involved a peculiar double slide that sat toward the end of my street. The slide was in a peculiar position in the corner of an empty park, which was nothing more than an open field with a few remnants of other playground equipment, park benches, and the remains of a crumbling fountain. The park had seen better days.
The slide itself was strange, aged with some rusty rungs, some of which seemed to be missing. It was actually two stainless steel slides in one, going off in two directions.
The park was at the end of Charburg Street, which ran across the whole town. The slide was situated in the corner of the park, which had a paved path that intersected Charburg Street, which dead-ended at the edge of some woods that bordered two sides of the park. A few yards down from the corner was a lone, rusty street lamp post, which had long since been burnt out and unused in years.
The locals referred to this lone slide as "the slide at the end of the street," as well as some other chilling titles, such as "Suicide Slide" and "Death Slide." The town believed the park was haunted, or cursed, as nearly no one ever used it, even when the weather was pleasant. The stigma surrounding the sinister slide was that it somehow caused children to commit suicide through supernatural means.
Over the decades, starting in 1966, when the park had been built, there had been numerous incidents of children hanging themselves from the rungs, or by cutting themselves on the sharp edges of the stainless steel slide. There were five cases where the children simply vanished without a trace, having last been seen at or near the slide.
The last reported incident had happened decades ago, on November 11, 1991. Since then, the park remained largely unused. Playground equipment and other objects fell into disrepair over the years and were removed. Only the lone double slide remained.
Curious about the legends, I looked further into the history, as I was planning to write a book about it. I found that in every documented case, all the children had written journals about their dreams prior to their self-destruction. The journal entries were all dark and depressing and hopeless. The general consensus was that the children had all developed feelings of isolation and depression, but no one seemed to notice, or care, or even check in on their obvious state of mental decay. They all simply gave up, without warning.
A disturbing pattern emerged, as I pieced together the timeline of incidents. Firstly, every single child had been 11 years old at time of death or disappearance. Secondly, every disappearance seemed to take place roughly every 40 months. Digging deeper and doing some calculations, I determined that the incidents had been exactly 1,221 days apart.
Why did the incidents suddenly stop in 1991? Nothing strange had happened since then, and it seemed that the slide's sinister history had been largely forgotten, now lost to local legend and lore.
~~~~~~~~
One evening, during the twilight hours when fog obscured my vision of the park, I went for a walk. As I stood there, staring at the strange slide, I felt an ominous aura about it. It was eerily silent and still, and in deep thought, I contemplated the sorrowful memory of this specific spot.
As I stood, I suddenly heard a faint and muffled giggling disembodied voice. It sounded like children playing, possibly, but I couldn't be sure. Were the rumors actually true? Was this place haunted?
I heard the ghostly giggling again, but it seemed to sound closer. Nope. I turned around and headed back to my house a few doors down the street.
Unsettled, I felt relieved to be back inside. I heated up a TV dinner in the microwave, and went into the back room, which was a beige room. The room had a desk with only a laptop, which I was using to write my book. On the walls were cork and white boards plastered with photocopies of news articles, photos, and data that I had found at the local library.
As I ate, I typed away, trying not to think about the ghostly voices. I typed well into the night, and I hadn't heard any more strange sounds.
~~~~~~~~
The next morning, I was awoken by a horrifyingly blood-curdling scream of a woman. It was early, and I looked outside through the front living room window, but saw nothing due to dense fog. Had I dreamed the scream? I went back to bed and drifted off to sleep.
~~~~~~~~
I was jolted awake, but this time by a knock on my front door. Groggy and out of it, I answered the door in only my boxers. Before me on my porch were two police officers, and they asked to speak with me about an incident, and I excused myself to put on some clothes.
The officers explained that there had been an 11-year-old boy found dead on the slide at the end of the street. He had gone missing a couple days ago, and that his mother had been out looking for him and found him this morning.
Asked if I knew anything surrounding the incident, I told the police about the sounds I had heard the evening before, and that I must have heard the mother's scream earlier that morning.
I had gotten a distinct vibe from the police that I was a suspect. I was the only resident within proximity to the park, as every house for several blocks around the area were unoccupied or abandoned.
The tone I had gotten from the police was a little hostile, but I was not worried. They left, and that was that. I knew I was innocent and had nothing to do with the boy's death.
So... after decades of nothing, it had happened again.
~~~~~~~~
Evening came, twilight set in, and the fog hadn't lifted all day. It was eerie, but I was focused on writing my book. As I grew hungry, I got up to heat another bland TV dinner in the microwave.
While the microwave was humming, I heard muffled playful screams and laughing come from outside. I went to the front living room window, and I looked up and down the street. When looking toward the park, I could barely make out five silhouettes moving around in the fog. They appeared to be five children, four girls and one boy, dancing in the fading light.
They were causing a bit of a commotion, and I wanted peace as I wrote. Bunch of hooligans. The ding from the microwave went off, and I went back to writing. After a few moments, I didn't hear the children playing anymore, and all was silent and peaceful.
~~~~~~~~
The following day, the fog was still dense and very much present. Everything was silent and still during the day, but when twilight came, I heard the children playing again.
I went and looked out, and this time, I saw the five children dancing around on my front lawn. Goddam whippersnappers. "Get off my lawn!" I barked at them through the window.
Seeming as if they didn't hear me, they kept dancing. All five were wearing matching blood-red dance outfits, but I couldn't see their faces clearly. After a few moments, they ran off into the mist.
~~~~~~~~
On the third day after the incident, the fog still hadn't lifted, and the world outside remained a shroud of mist and mystery. As the day went on, I grew increasingly dreadful of the coming evening. I knew the phantom children would reappear. Although part of me was practical and believed they were just a group of kids from a nearby neighborhood who probably wanted to explore, another part of me suspected they were eldritch entities.
Twilight set in, but I heard no sounds. As I felt a sense of relief as I continued writing, I was able to focus. After a couple hours went by after finishing my microwave mac 'n cheese for dinner, I thought I heard muffled laughing come from my living room.
Suddenly, I felt cold, my mind filled with dread, and I knew the phantom children were present. I peeked around the corner from my back room, and I saw the five children seated on my beige couch, laughing and whispering amongst themselves, clinging to the turquoise throw pillows. Goddam whispering whippersnappers!
"Who are you!" I demanded, trying to be brave.
All five stared at me, and I could see them clearly in the soft light. Two of the four girls appeared to be identical twins with blonde hair and blue eyes. The other two girls also had blue eyes, but one was a red head, and the other a brunette. The boy, seated in the middle with two girls on either side of him, came as a disturbing shock to me. He was an 11-year-old version of myself, but a slightly warped and uncanny version, as if I was misremembering myself. He had brown eyes, brown hair, and looked somewhat scraggly.
"I'm Charlie," said the boy. "I'm 11, and this is my dance troupe."
"I'm Charlize, and I'm also 11," said the red-head girl.
"I'm Charissa. I'm 11, too," said the brunette girl.
"Cherith and Chelsea," said the two identical blonde twins in unison. "We're 11."
I stared at the twins for a moment. I remembered having a childhood friend named Cherith who had lived a few doors down from me, and we had played together often.
"What do you want? Why are you in my house?" I asked, trying to maintain my composure.
"We come from the slide at the end of the street," they all said together, as if rehearsed. "We're here to bring you a message."
"What message?"
All five stared at me in total silence, wide-eyed, looking ominously hungry for something.
"Y'alls want water?" I dumbly said, growing more alarmed by the second.
After a moment of an awkward silent staring contest, they finally spoke up.
"You're a guilty predator, and you must come with us. Join our cult, and be redeemed!" said Charlize with a sinister smile.
"We caught you staring at us," added the twins. "We know what sort of loser you are. You deserve death."
"Our religion can restore you. Join us under the sacred slide!" chimed in Charissa.
"We know you've backslidden. Church is the right choice," said the twins with an ominous tone.
This was all bullshit, and it was obvious to me, and I was now simply annoyed. They were children, sure, but they weren't real and neither were their stupid games. It felt like my time was being wasted. I had a book to write.
"Please leave. Now," I simply said.
They all sat silent for a moment, staring at me, seemingly trying to analyze me.
"Believe as we believe. Before it's too late. Or you'll meet your fate," finally said Charlize in a chilling tone.
Then, as I turned to ignore them further in hopes that they would go away, I heard a grisly crunching sound. I turned back, and all five children mutated and morphed and merged into a single grotesque creature that resembled a mangled human corpse fused with centipedes and spiders and other bugs.
Horrified, my dumb ass went into the kitchen to grab bug spray from under the kitchen sink. When I came back into the living room, the creature had vanished, and there was no sign it had been there.
~~~~~~~~
I awoke the next morning, clinging to the can of bug spray, as if it would save me from a supernatural entity. For the first time in several days, there was no fog outside. It was a clear day, and so I went out for a walk. Carrying my can of bug spray, I wanted to feel safe in case that monster reappeared.
Immediately, I could tell something was off. The first thing I noticed was that all the surrounding homes were no longer abandoned. They were all now occupied, and in a pristine state, with some strange and surreal aesthetics added to them, such as strangely curved corners and sculptures.
The neighborhood was no longer the gloomy and derelict and quiet place I had come to know for years. It was full of life, thriving with strange and uncanny faces I had never seen before. As I walked around, it felt more like I was in a commune, or some other cult-like community. Everyone stared at me as I walked by, minding my own business.
I walked back to the park, and as I half expected, it too was in pristine condition. All the playground equipment, benches, and even the fountain was flowing, as if brand new.
It felt like I was now in another reality. What had happened while I slept? Had I somehow "slidden" into another dimension? What was going on? I was so confused and lost.
As I came to the corner of the park, Charlie, Cherith, Chelsea, Charissa, and Charlize appeared around the slide, seemingly out of thin air.
In an ominously haunting tone and in unison, the five children said, "Your fate will you meet, here at the slide at the end of the street."
I pulled out my can of bug spray and pointed it at them. "Try me," I said.