The Man in the Web
A/N: Readers who are familiar with the Creepypasta "Grad Night in the Haunted Mansion" may notice some similarities between that story and this one. That is because this is a shameless imitation of "Grad Night," which is a wonderfully creepy tale set in Disneyland's Haunted Mansion attraction. I've written a very similar story but set it instead in the Walt Disney World version of the ride. They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and I'd go so far as to call this an homage because I loved "Grad Night in the Haunted Mansion." Just be aware that the two stories are similar.
This is based on the Haunted Mansion attraction at the Walt Disney World Resort, and all names regarding Disney parks belong to Disney.
Hope you enjoy!
Before I begin, I want to state for the record that I'm not crazy.
Oh I know, claiming that you're totally sane is usually a good indication that you're totally INsane, and making such a claim hardly makes people nod their heads in agreement. And after what I went through, it would be easy to dismiss my insistences as the ravings of a lunatic.
But I know I'm not crazy. I know what I saw – or more accurately, did not see, but heard and felt – that awful day. There are gaps in my recollection, sure, likely my brain's efforts to preserve itself from utter madness. Nevertheless, I know what I went through, and I have a pretty good idea of what happened to Parker and me that day in the Haunted Mansion.
It was the summer of 2004, and Parker and I, both Orlando locals and high school juniors, decided to spend a Saturday afternoon at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom. The park is comprised of six themed lands. Main Street USA is the entrance, a replica of a turn-of-the-century small town which leads up to Cinderella Castle standing at the center of the park. In front of the castle sits a hub with paths leading off in different directions to the other lands: Adventureland, themed as a wild tropical jungle village; Frontierland, a romanticized vision of the Old West; Liberty Square, a replication of colonial America; Fantasyland, themed as a storybook village with rides based around popular Disney movies; and Tomorrowland, a futuristic sci-fi space port. (There used to be a seventh land, Mickey's Toontown Fair, which stood between Fantasyland and Tomorrowland, but it was removed to make way for a massive expansion to Fantasyland in the early 2010s.)
Unlike most kids our age, Parker and I still loved Disney. We had never outgrown the magic and loved to go to Disney World at every available opportunity. And since we lived all of 45 minutes away from the resort, our opportunities were better than most others'. We loved everything about the Magic Kingdom: walking down Main Street toward Cinderella Castle, riding the rides, even resting on the benches to watch the other visitors hurry to and fro. We rarely rushed anywhere, preferring to take our time and absorb all the sights, sounds, and smells that made the Magic Kingdom, well, magical.
And without fail, we always made time to enjoy our favorite attraction: the Haunted Mansion.
You may find it odd that two teenage boys found the Haunted Mansion to be the best attraction on Disney property, especially with the presence of such thrill rides as Space Mountain in our midst. But there was something about the Mansion that made us love it: the attention to detail, the spooky ambience, the frightfully funny sight gags, the baffling special effects (most of which were simple magic tricks that had been used for centuries), it all made for a not-to-be-missed experience. We made a point of fitting it in whenever we visited the park, often riding it several times in a row, getting right back into line the moment we stepped out of the attraction exit. We knew the ride by heart, to the point that we could recite the Ghost Host's narration along with him, but we never grew tired of it.
On this particular day in the summer of 2004, Parker and I decided to hit the Haunted Mansion just as the daily parade was getting ready to start. The line was really short, as most park guests were gathered along the streets of Frontierland, waiting for the parade to begin. We hurried past them into neighboring Liberty Square, rounding the corner and facing our destination. Beyond the wrought iron front gate with its bat-shaped top, the Mansion loomed on its hill, a brick-and-stone Gothic manor house that blended in with its colonial surroundings. Yet there was something undeniably eerie about it. Two wings branched from a central tower, giving the house the appearance of a giant bat, or perhaps the claw of some monster preparing to grab at us. I remember I used to love how the Mansion screamed "haunted" without being rundown or decrepit. I've never been to Disneyland in California, but I've seen pictures of its version of the Haunted Mansion, and I always thought there wasn't much about the stately antebellum manor that made you think there was anything off about it. I mean, when you call your ride "The Haunted Mansion," shouldn't the mansion at least look like it ought to be haunted?
The day was hot and muggy, a typical summer afternoon in Orlando, so it was a relief to step under the awning that ran along the front of the house toward the side entrance. We gathered by the doors, next to a family plot with humorous epitaphs on the tombstones, each a tribute to the Imagineers (the people who design Disney parks and attractions – the word is a combination of "imagination" and "engineers") who helped create the Haunted Mansion. My personal favorite was "Here Lies Good Old Fred, A Great Big Rock Fell On His Head," while Parker preferred "Dear Departed Brother Dave, He Chased A Bear Into A Cave."
As we stood talking and making jokes about the tombstones I noticed a spider web hanging on the fence separating the graveyard from the queue area. I jumped back instinctively, noticing the big spider in the middle of it, waiting patiently for a fly to enter its nest. Parker laughed and started to tease me about my arachnophobia, which I've had since I was a small kid. I don't know why I'm scared of spiders, but I always have been, and Parker was always quick to remind me of my irrational fear.
Today, however, his teasing took on a different tone. "You know there's a giant spider on the ride, right?" he asked me.
This I already knew; in fact there were two giant spiders, just after the Music Room as the doom buggies (which is the name given to the ride vehicles) ascend the grand staircase. The first one would be on your right near the top. Then the doom buggies would turn around a partition to the left, revealing the second one as a kind of surprise since you couldn't see it prior to rounding that corner. They didn't move; in fact they didn't do anything at all. They did twitch a little bit, though I suspected at the time that this was due to fans placed behind them. But they just sat there in their webs and didn't do anything. Nevertheless, they did always make me nervous.
There was a pause. I refused to rise to Parker's bait. I was far too used to his teasing over my arachnophobia to even be offended. But then he continued, "You know, there was once going to be a man in the spider web."
He had my full attention then.
"Up at the grand staircase," he told me, "the Imagineers were going to put up a guy's body in one of the webs. He was supposed to scream and shriek as the doom buggies passed, and then they'd turn to face the spiders getting ready to eat him." I squirmed, and Parker laughed. "But he never made it into the ride. The Imagineers said it was too scary for kids."
I couldn't think of a single thing to say in response, but as it turned out I didn't have to reply, because at that moment the doors opened and we were ushered into the Mansion's Foyer.
The thought of the Man in the Web occupied my entire mind and I had no room left to focus on the attraction. Normally Parker and I would quote the script along the Ghost Host: "When hinges creak in door-less chambers, and strange and frightening sounds echo through the halls; whenever candle lights flicker where the air is deathly still – that is the time when ghosts are present, practicing their terror with ghoulish delight." But today only Parker recited the opening narration. I was too preoccupied to even notice the words were being said.
We were ushered into the Stretching Room, an octagonal portrait gallery with walls that appear to expand and stretch. As the Ghost Host's voice continued, asking us if the room was really stretching or was it our imaginations, I kept dwelling on the Man in the Web. Surely Parker was just pulling my leg and trying to be funny, but I kept seeing this figure hanging in a spider's web with a spider suspended above, creeping steadily toward him, and I couldn't help but shiver. It was my worst nightmare come to life.
But surely Disney couldn't have seriously been considering putting such a feature into the Haunted Mansion. I mean, yeah the ride could be a little dark; even here in the Stretching Room the Ghost Hose slyly suggests that we commit suicide in order to escape the chamber with no windows and no doors. At this point the lights go out and a hidden room is revealed above, where a rotting corpse dangles from a noose. But that was still playful, which really is the tone that permeates the entire attraction: spooky but playful, not threatening. The Man in the Web went against that idea entirely, and I almost convinced myself that Parker had just made it up by the time we made it out into the Load Area. I lagged behind a little, glancing to my right toward a nondescript door I knew to be the chicken exit, put in place on the chance someone decided they didn't want to ride after all. I'd never used it before: why would I? I loved the Haunted Mansion. But today, what with the nasty thoughts running around in my brain, I seriously considered it for a second or two before shaking myself mentally and telling myself to get a grip. I'd been on this ride hundreds of times, and there was nothing to be afraid of.
My hesitation delayed us so that when we reached the loading platform we were the only guests around. We boarded our doom buggy, two people alone in a line of black pod-shaped vehicles without another living soul in sight, and we set off into the realms of the Mansion. The closer we got to the grand staircase the more uneasy I became. I tried to tell myself that it was just my imagination, that Parker's story had spooked me and I was working myself up over nothing. But as we glided down the Portrait Corridor and into the Library I found myself shivering with nervous anticipation.
We entered the Music Room, where the piano was playing by itself, and turned to go up the grand staircase. This was probably the darkest area of the attraction, not in terms of scariness but literal darkness. The giant griffin that stood at the base of the stairs was barely visible, and as the doom buggy moved up the stairs the surroundings became darker and darker.
"Over there," Parker told me, and I looked to the left, following his pointing finger. In the gloom I could just make out the thin strands of a spider web. I had never noticed it before, and that made me even more uneasy. "That's where he was supposed to be," Parker whispered in my ear. "The Man in the Web."
I cringed and told him to stop, that it seriously wasn't funny and I didn't appreciate him trying to scare me like this. He snickered and didn't say anything more, and as we moved further up the stairs we came upon the first spider, which was neon orange and stood in its web off to the right of the doom buggy track. It was a hideous thing, and to anyone with arachnophobia it wasn't a pleasant thing to behold, twitching in its web with quiet noises coming from a speaker nearby. I shuddered and shifted away, but not too far because I knew that on the left would soon be another spider, hidden by the partition protruding from the wall.
Our car turned and we faced the second spider web, and I gasped. The web was empty.
They've just taken it down for refurbishment, I told myself. The prop just needs to be repainted, that's all.
Parker laughed, apparently sensing my train of thought. "Look out, the spider's on the prowl," he hissed. "Be careful, or you'll be the next Man in the Web."
I elbowed him in the stomach to get him to shut up, but it was too late. His words were already echoing inside my head and I was genuinely terrified. I tried to reassure myself that the prop was just being repainted or something. The Imagineers must have taken the second spider down for a paint job or repair. Surely there was a reasonable explanation as to why the spider was no longer in its web. Because it was, after all, just a prop; it had to be removed by a person or group of people. It couldn't remove itself.
The doom buggy moved on into a dark space, a little gap between the staircase and the parlor leading to the Endless Hallway and Corridor of Doors. It was pitch black and I couldn't see a thing. And then, just before the car turned toward the better-lit junction, the doom buggies stopped. "Playful spooks have interrupted our tour," said a voice over the loudspeaker. "Please remain seated in your doom buggy. We will proceed in just a moment."
Normally I didn't mind being stopped in the Haunted Mansion. Since the doom buggies are a continuously moving line of cars, stops are fairly frequent. The never-ending chain has to halt in order to allow handicapped people on or off. But usually there's something to look at, and pauses are welcome so you can take in some of the details you might miss when the doom buggies are constantly in motion. But here it was just darkness; there was nothing to see. Not to mention we were still far too close to the spider webs for my comfort. And with the idea that Parker had put into my head still niggling away, I found myself wishing, praying that the doom buggies would resume motion immediately.
And then something tapped the roof of our car.
I recoiled and shrank back into the recess of the doom buggy. "Parker it's not funny," I said. But Parker didn't reply.
There was silence for a moment. And then there was a strange sound, a sound I had never heard before and didn't know how to place. It was a kind of chirping noise, almost like a cricket but deeper, more guttural. It didn't sound like anything mechanical; it didn't sound remotely human either.
At almost the same moment, Parker kicked me in the leg, hard. I yelped and jerked away and told him to stop being an idiot, because he was suddenly flailing beside me in the doom buggy. I thought he was trying to scare me, and it was working. I yelled at him to knock it off and stop messing around but he kept jerking about. The whole doom buggy was rocking on the track.
And then suddenly it stopped. Everything stopped: the movement, the noise, everything except for the sound of my panicked breathing and my rapid heartbeat throbbing in my ears.
A few seconds later, the doom buggies resumed their forward motion, and the car emerged into the dimly lit hallway. I looked over at Parker to demand to know what the hell he was playing at.
But Parker wasn't there.
I stared at the empty seat beside me in utter disbelief, wondering how on earth Parker had gotten out of the doom buggy. It is physically impossible to leave the ride vehicle without setting off an alarm. For safety reasons, the ride is programmed to stop immediately if someone tries to get out. There's no way Parker could have just left the doom buggy without me knowing about it. Yet he had. There was no denying it: he was not in the car beside me. And there was no sign of him, no trace of his existence. It was as though I'd been riding by myself from the beginning. There was no explanation, no way of understanding, nothing. I was baffled, and I was scared.
I don't remember the rest of the ride after that. I was so afraid that something bad was going to happen to me. And I had no way of knowing if something bad had happened to Parker, except that, well, he wasn't there, and I couldn't think of any reason why he would have voluntarily left the doom buggy, particularly without setting off the alarm. So the only conclusion was that something bad had happened to him, but I couldn't for the life of me understand or explain what.
But I was afraid. I remember sitting as far back into the car as I could, making myself as small a target as possible and not moving again for the rest of the ride. The only other part I remember about the ride after that was toward the end, and even now, as then, I'm not sure I didn't imagine it. After moving through the Graveyard, which is the ride's climax, the doom buggies slide into a large crypt where guests encounter three Hitchhiking Ghosts. One is a portly man with a top hat and holding a carpetbag; the second is a tall, bony skeleton tipping a bowler hat; and the third is a short, bearded prisoner carrying a ball and chain. The doom buggies then turn and face a wall with three mirrors lined side-by-side. Moving sideways in front of the mirrors, guests find that one of the Hitchhiking Ghosts has indeed hitched a ride with them, seated beside them in their reflections. It's one of the most memorable scenes in the attraction with the simplest of explanations behind its magic.
But that day, I don't think I saw a Hitchhiking Ghost in my car. I'm not sure exactly what I did see, or if perhaps I was so shaken that I simply dreamed it up, but it looked like a vague mist sitting beside me, hovering exactly where Parker had been sitting at the beginning of the ride. It could have been a trick of the light, I suppose, a reflection off the glass or something. But I wasn't sure then and I'm not sure now, though I have my suspicions.
When the doom buggy finally pulled into the Unload Area, I hurtled out of the car and ran up to the Cast Member whose job it was to make sure everyone got off the ride safely. I told him that my friend had gone missing inside the attraction. He was skeptical at first, and looking back I can't say I blame him. I was semi-hysterical and in my panicked babbling I wasn't making much sense, but eventually the entire story came out. I told him what had happened, haltingly and with several repeats and jumps in the timeline. But when I mentioned the fact that the second spider web was empty, he seemed to take me seriously for the first time. He asked me to repeat the story from the beginning, which I did. All of this took several minutes, and I was trying the whole time not to panic, but also thinking the longer we took going over the story, the more time whatever had taken Parker had to…well, I didn't want to think about that.
I had just finished explaining for the second time everything that had happened and the Cast Member was looking uneasy, which only made my fear grow. But before he could suggest anything, a very big woman emerged from one of the doom buggies with her eight- or nine-year-old son. The kid looked indifferent, but his mother was very angry. She ignored me entirely and started complaining loudly to the Cast Member about the new scene that had been added to the ride. He was obviously confused, and I think part of that was because he was still considering what I had told him. He asked, "Ma'am, what are you talking about?"
And the woman replied that she didn't think it was right for there to be a figure, a man, in one of the spider webs by the staircase, his body wrapped up in a cocoon of webbing while the giant spider crouched above it.
…
That was the last time I rode the Haunted Mansion.
I don't remember much about the rest of that day. I remember being horrified and confused, but not much else. I know the ride was shut down immediately. The lights came on and the ride was evacuated at once. And I was taken away to a first aid station, where I was treated for shock. It did no good: I was too panicked and trying not to think about what I'd heard, but I couldn't not think about it, and I started to put the pieces together as to what must have happened.
Disney was never implicated in Parker's disappearance. There was an investigation, and I told the detectives what I knew, which wasn't much. I didn't dare mention that I thought one of the giant spiders had come to life and snatched my friend out of the doom buggy, for I was now convinced that was exactly what had happened, but who on earth would have believed me? I just told them what I knew, that the doom buggy had stopped in a dark portion of the ride, I had felt Parker being pulled from the car, and then when the doom buggies resumed motion and the lighting improved he was gone. It was all I knew and I thought it was enough, but months of investigation went by and the case went cold. Parker was never found.
I steered clear of Disney World for a while after that. I couldn't even say the word "Disney" without thinking of that spider that was missing from its web, or the terrible motions I'd felt in that doom buggy as Parker was dragged from it, the motions of a person fighting off a force much bigger and much stronger than he is. For a long time I tried to forget it ever happened, to dismiss the whole thing as a bad dream. But of course that didn't work because Parker was my best friend and I felt his absence keenly. So after a few months of nightmares, therapy, and telling investigators over and over what I had been through, I decided to do some digging on my own.
It turned out that Parker was right about the Man in the Web. I did some searching on the internet and found out that there was in fact supposed to be a skeletal corpse dangling from the spider web that Parker had indicated to me, on the left side of the track just before encountering the first spider on the right. I found a map of the attraction with markers indicating various props, including "Man in Web" to the left of the staircase. I even found a concept sketch of this figure by X. Atencio, one of the Imagineers who had worked on the Haunted Mansion. But no photos. And whether or not the figure was supposed to scream as Parker had told me I had no idea, because there was no record of there being a figure ever installed. He was supposed to be there, certainly, but either the figure never materialized – because, let's face it, the effect would have been far too grisly for a Disney attraction – or it was taken out in the early days of the ride's operation.
Or it was something else entirely.
And this is where I start to get very, very uneasy.
You see, in my research, I came across a little urban legend that turned out to be true. Not about the Haunted Mansion; in fact not even about Walt Disney World, but about the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction over at Disneyland in California. Apparently when the ride was under construction in the mid-sixties the Imagineers felt that the faux skeletons weren't convincing enough, so they borrowed real bodies, real skeletons from the UCLA Medical Center, dressed them up as pirates, and put them in the attraction. And for years, people passing by in boats never realized that those skeletons were real. Since then the bones have been removed and replaced with passable replicas, all save for a skull and crossbones hanging on a headboard, which apparently is still the real thing.
This fact sent a chill down my spine when I heard of it, because I realized that the same thing might have happened at the Walt Disney World Haunted Mansion. What if, say, they couldn't make convincing enough giant spiders for those two webs? And what if they decided to put two real, living spiders in the attraction, pretend they were fake and just hope they didn't move? Maybe they attached their feet to the webs somehow (it would explain the twitching, at least) or sedated them so that they stayed still. But mistakes happen, even at Disney parks. It sounds farfetched, I know, but when you combine that idea with what I saw and heard and felt and what that woman said later about there being a figure in the web…I'm not so sure.
And I wonder why the spiders were taken out and replaced with the Endless Staircase sequence.
In 2007, just three years after Parker's disappearance, the Haunted Mansion was closed for a massive refurbishment, which Disney dubbed a "Re-Haunting." A lot of the technology was updated with better sound quality and visual effects, and several show scenes were changed or replaced entirely. One of those scenes was the grand staircase. The two spiders and their webs were removed and replaced with an Endless Staircase, which featured stairs going in every direction, sometimes defying physics altogether, with ghostly green footprints appearing and disappearing on the steps.
Now of course Disney updates its rides all the time. New technologies, new ideas, it has to be given life somehow. And frankly, attractions do get stale. The technology becomes outdated or worn out, or maybe they just want to put something new in there so that return guests don't get bored with the same old stuff over and over again. It makes sense, and that's the official reason for the Endless Staircase. It was just another way to make the attraction fresh and new. But I can't help but wonder…what if Disney got tired of covering up after incidents like what happened to Parker? What if Disney grew tired of dealing with men in the webs?
Which of course begs the question: where are those spiders now?
I did go back to Disney World a few years ago, but I stayed out of the Haunted Mansion. I meant to go in; I meant to check out the new Endless Staircase for myself, but when I got to Liberty Square and saw the façade of the Mansion, I couldn't go in. I was too scared. The bat-shaped house, the ominous way it stood, things that had once intrigued me and fascinated me now filled me with a sense of dread that I couldn't counter. I stood for maybe ten minutes outside the gates, trying to will myself to go ride the attraction, telling myself that the spiders weren't there anymore, but I couldn't be sure of that. And ultimately I chickened out, I couldn't do it. I went over to Fantasyland and rode It's a Small World instead. To this day I haven't set foot in the Haunted Mansion again.
It's taken a while, but I've actually gotten more comfortable going back to the Magic Kingdom. And slowly, bit by bit I've been able to enjoy the park again, though I still stay away from the Haunted Mansion, as well as all of Liberty Square for that matter. I tend to go up as far as the Country Bear Jamboree in Frontierland before taking a side path into Adventureland and skipping Liberty Square entirely. Or if I'm coming from the other direction I go no further than It's a Small World, which is the last attraction in Fantasyland before entering Liberty Square. I avoid going near the Mansion at all cost because just the sight of the house sets me on edge and I just can't face it.
But now…now it's looking like I'll have to.
You see, the whole reason I'm writing all this down and confessing it at last is that the other day, I was at the Magic Kingdom, in Adventureland near the Jungle Cruise entrance. I heard somebody say that they'd lost track of their friend. They were young, college-aged, and they'd obviously been drinking. It was late in the afternoon and I think they'd been imbibing pretty thoroughly throughout the day. Obviously the Cast Member thought they were drunk too because she wasn't taking them very seriously. But they said that their friend had been with them on the Jungle Cruise, but when they got to the old crumbling temple the lights had all gone out. When they'd emerged from the temple he was gone without a trace.
My blood turned to ice when I heard this, because I knew something about that part of the Jungle Cruise ride, something that had prevented me from riding it ever since 2004. On the wall of the temple stands a great web with a giant spider in its center, identical to the ones that used to be in the Haunted Mansion.
I'm going to hand this manuscript over to a friend and let him do with it what he will. Hopefully he'll get it to the right people and they can start to do something about it. Because something must be done. Maybe the spiders aren't in the Haunted Mansion anymore, but there's still a spider in the Jungle Cruise attraction, and I don't know what else Disney is hiding. What other animals that we suppose are fake are actually real, and how many disappearances that go unsolved are rooted in Disney parks? I don't know the answers to any of these questions, but I've got to try to find out. For Parker. I don't think the Imagineers meant any harm when they installed those spiders, and I'm sure Disney takes every precaution it can to keep its guests safe – nothing destroys a theme park faster than safety concerns, after all – but this is getting out of control. Someone has to act, and it might as well be me.
After I finish this and give it to my friend, I'm going to return to the Magic Kingdom one more time.
And I'm going to ride the Haunted Mansion.
I've heard a lot about this Endless Staircase sequence. Apparently it's very convincing and very elaborate, complete with ghostly green footprints that appear on the steps and then disappear. I don't know if these footprints are Disney's special effects or if they are all that remains of the victims of the spiders that used to reside in that area. After all, there have long been rumors that the Haunted Mansion is actually haunted. And I keep remembering that mist I saw in the mirrors after Parker was taken, sitting exactly where he'd been before.
I think I'll try to contact Parker, see if he's still there. Maybe he knows more about this than I do; maybe he knows what really happened, because I don't. Or I do but I don't want to think about it because the thought is too terrible to comprehend. And I fully understand that those spiders might not be gone after all but still lurking somewhere in the Haunted Mansion, waiting for someone else to make a meal of.
After that, depending on what I find, I think I'll give the Jungle Cruise a ride too. I'll carry a flashlight with me, just in case the ride's lights fail again. If anything does happen, at least it won't catch me by surprise, and that might be just enough of an advantage for me to survive.
I'm going to close with this warning. I often hear people complain when Disney updates or makes changes to their favorite attractions. They say if it's not broken then don't fix it and they like the ride the way it is so there's no need to change it. But my warning is this: the next time Disney announces a change to one of their attractions, don't complain. Sometimes change is for the good, and as I've learned, there are some secrets that are best left buried, and some questions best left unanswered.
A/N: Yes, the Man in the Web is a real part of the Haunted Mansion's history. Not much is known about it, but for more information about it go to: longforgottenhauntedmansion . blogspot [dot com]/2014_09_01_archive . html (and remove the spaces). Also, this is a work of fiction and I'm not trying to accuse Disney of anything sinister or malicious. It's just a story.
I hope you enjoyed this little story! Go check out "Grad Night in the Haunted Mansion" if you haven't already, as well as its sequel "The Man With the Cane," which also takes place at the WDW Mansion. Please leave a review and tell me what you thought, and I hope to hear from you again soon!