Chapter 4: What happens in Amity Park, stays in Amity Park!
In a small town like thiers, people know each other. They care for each other and they know them. When Danny and Sam moved in here, the people start to tell various rumours. It was not difficult. Danny, the young, slim, awkward and nervous, but also friendly and helpful man from Arkansas but without Southern-American dialect and Sam, the rational, sarcastic, forceful, bossy, passionate, strong-willed goth girl from California who was also good-hearthed and caring for others. When they arrived, they were just married for a week or two. A quick, spontaneous wedding in a Las Vegas' drive-in chapel and a 1.700 mile car-ride later and they arrived here.
Now 17 years later, both were just 2 of 22 thousand humans in this town. Living an uneventful life, with thier children. Sam was actually a well known person in town and in nearby Rockford, known for her environmental auctions. Nobody actually knew anything about thier life before they moved here. Both were born in Illinois and moved back because this was thier home. That's what they told and not more. Some people thought that they were runaways. There were rumors... some of them pretty disgusting... and seeing the scars that covered Danny's back did only prove them.
Someone called the police to calm down the hysteric couple. They arrived only minutes later and only found a messy living-room. No 'ghosts', no 'demons', no 'monsters' and no 'portal' to a laboratory...
It took a while to realize that the people glared on Danny's scars like they were an attraction. Sam pulled Danny's shirt down and start to shooe the kids and the neighbours away while the police searched the house, escorted them in and showed them that everything was fine... despite the mess...
"But..." Danny was shocked. The 'portal' was gone. And expect the mess, there was no trace that ever something happened in here. "... but... It was here..."
"He's right, officer!" Sam yelled upset. "It was right here. It stole our pictures from the wall..."
"It?" one of the officers asked confused.
"Yes... IT!" Danny moaned. "It attacked me and than it turned into a boy. And than it vanished..."
"Vanished?" the other officer asked much more confused.
"Yes! Within a second... poof and it was gone! Like it... turned invisible!" Danny explained.
"Invisible?"
"Officers, please... I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes." Sam told. "Not the 'invisible boy' but that vortex of green energy..."
"Did you took any medicine?"
"Shall we call someone for you?"
"NO!" both Fenton's yelled before someone knocked on the front door.
Thier friend's, the Anderson's arrived. The news about the 'incident' in the Fenton's house and Danny's back were already the number one matter in town... The police left after the Anderson's arrived and that it was sure that the Fenton's were not alone.
"Oh, what a mess..." Randy said. Danny and Sam just nooded.
Book's were thrown out of the shelves. The ground was covered with papers and other stuff. Pictures and decoration fell of the walls. The living-room looked like after a heavy earthquake. And in the middle of the chaos, Danny and Sam were just able to stare on the wall and be sad. Sad and shocked. Thier friends mentioned the tension.
"Shall we help you to tidy up?" Ellen asked.
"No..." Sam murmured. "I want you two to sit down... right here... let's just sit..."
Together with thier friends they sat down on the couch to stare on the wall for another half an hour...
"Ehmm... Danny, Sam... you wanna... talk about it?" Randy finally asked to break the silence.
Danny and Sam looked on each other before Sam said: "About what?"
"About... this!" Randy respond, pointing on the mess and the damages.
Danny told them everything. About the 'prancing green lights' and the 'ghosts' and how they invaded thier living-room threw the portal. About the people he saw the first time and his mother he saw now...
"You think I am crazy, right?"
"No... If Sam saw her, too?" Ellen respond.
"She is dead!" Danny continued. "She died when... when..."
"When... It happened in Amity Park?" Ellen continued. "Everyone knows what happened there!Hey, guys what happened in Amity Park is..."
"Everyone knows it! But not everyone experienced it!" Sam cut her off. Finally she stood up to walk up and down. Still glaring on the wall all the time. "But what has Amity Park to do with... this?"
"At least we know now that I am not crazy..." Danny said before he mentioned thier friends confused looks. "Aww... really... you think I am crazy..."
"Well, we were not here when it happened!"
"And maybe, we understand better when we hear the full story."
Danny and Sam looked on each other. Both only nooded.
"Just... please don't tell it around. I don't want the people … about it." Sam requested when she sat down again. This time on the armchair so she could face thier friends. Now Danny lift up to sit down next to Sam on the armrest of the armchair.
"It is true! Me and Sam, we... are from Amity Park! We left after... you know... It has maybe nothing to do with that what happned here. That's impossible. But..." Danny murmured and start to tell the story...
Amity Park, Illinois was a nice, fast growing city an not only the hometown of Danny, Sam, thier families and friends. It was the place where they were born and grew up. Amity Park was a very livable place. 'A nice place to live!' or 'A safe place to live!' were written on the city's welcome-signs. After finishing college, Danny's parents moved to Amity Park to found thier business in the early 60s. Than in 1963 his sister was born. Danny in 1966. The city grew fast... very fast in the late 60s and in the 70s. Thousands of people came to Amity Park as many big companies opened branches there. Amity Park became a wealthy industrial centre. Companies like the 'Axion Labs' or other high-tech companies provided well paid jobs. More and more homes and big buildings were build when they attend to school. But not everything was as fine as everyone believed...
Actually the city grew a little bit too fast. The city's infrastructure was overburden. Residental area's were build close around industrial plants. The supply with energy became harder for the authorities. The city's gas-tanks were too small. Pipelines for fuel were not big enough... Most people in town didn't care. They lived thier lives. Not mentioning that 30 to 40 trucks with natural gas and fuel had to supply the city additionally just to prevent a collapse of the supply. And so in the early 80s, Amity Park slowly turned into a ticking time-bomb. The cities authorities were just interested in the growth of the city, in profit and publicitiy. Danny and Sam had thier own problems...
Danny lived with his family in an townhouse directly at a crossroad in a quite neigbourhood of Amity Park. Sam lived in a richer neigbourhood with her wealthy parents and her grandmother. Among with thier friend Tucker, they were the 'outsiders' at school. But they arranged with thier lives. They had plans for the future. Not only to survive High-School but for the future...
"You two were already together in High-School?" Ellen interrupted Danny's story.
"Oh, no... we were close friends but... later on that..." Danny said and continued with the story.
By 1982 Amity Park had 83.000 inhabitants, a very low unemployment rate and was one of the richest cities of Illinois. Nobody mentioned that the cities infrastructure was overburden. But it became obvious since more and more tank trucks had to come. The streets were almost always full and jammed. It was a difficult mix of corruption, greediness, lack of responsibility and ignorance that let two overworked and tired truck-drivers to depart in the early morning hours of September 2nd 1982, to deliver thier loads consisting of natural gas nor fuel respectively to Amity Park. They were both late and in rush...
Danny and Sam each had to deal with thier familiy issues...
Danny's parents were a bit too focused on thier 'business' or whatever they did in thier basement-lab, neighter Danny nor his sister were allowed to enter without thier guidance. He sometimes felt like invisible. Sometimes embarrased by the over-the-top personality of his father. It was worse enough that he was an outsider at school but at home it hurt a little bit more. And Sam was in a kind of 'permanent conflict' with her parents. Sam's family was actually very wealthy. But they were not accepting Sam's 'nonconformity'. Sam would describe her parents as snobbish and a caricature of snootiness. She wanted to be individual. The only person in her family who understood her seemed to be her grandmother, whom she loved very deeply and had a very close relationship to. Her parents were apt to express thier wealth in lavish ways. Sam did not want to use her parents wealth for her advantage. Telling nobody about it, she wanted to find true friends. And she did so in Danny and Tucker. But both really loved thier parents...
But September 2nd 1982 was not a normal day...
School just started again after summer the day before. Danny and Sam were involved in a huge fight with the school's A-listeners... all in all one thing led to the other and Danny's parents were not there for him when he needed them. Or to explain it the easy way: The school gave them a call but they did not pick up, leaving Danny alone to deal with his problems. At home was a huge fight that continued in the morning. He was alone with them... his sister moved out for college several months before but she announced that she would visit them in a couple of days. Danny did not want to tell too much... but that they he was so dissappointed that he said some really 'bad' things to his parents... things he really regret... thier fight ended with Danny storming out and leaving for school... leaving his parents alone at home...
Sam meanwhile had a fight with her parents, too. They never liked the Fenton's. They did not know the reason. Thier parents never told them. When Sam left the house her parents prohibited her to see Danny anymore and look for 'better' friends... According to her parents, she should had befried the A-listeners. Or other 'rich' stutdents. Sam was so mad on them. She knew the A-listeners and couldn't stand anyone of them for how they treated others... Including her friends Danny and Tucker...
It was propably one of the worst days of thier life... but Danny decided to skip the drama at school with Dash, the other A-listeners, with Mr. Lancer... the city was about to experience it's own drama...
One of the overworked truck-drivers meanwhile lost control over his truck and crashed into the other one in the middle of the city. Both tanks leaked... and so thousands of gallons of gasoline and natural gas drained into the city's sewer-system... unmentioned by the arriving police who took the two truck-driver's away for interrogation. The explosive mix filled the sewers quickly... Nobody knew how it finally happened. According to the official investigation report, two welders repairing a pipeline a mile away started it. But it was never proved. And the two welders were the first who died when the gas in the sewers light up...
There was a bright flash. The explosion light up the sky. Everything was forgotten when Danny and the others looked out of the window and saw the big fireball-mushroomcloud rising up over the city. The shockwave was so strong that the windows shattered... and than the hell broke out over Amity Park...
A fire roller shot threw the city's sewer system. Flashing flames shot out of gullys and manhole covers. At some places the flames were so strong that whole cars, that were parked over them were lift into the air like they were just toys. After a few seconds, the fire reached one of the city's fuel tanks. The explosion was so strong that whole areas were destroyed within seconds. There was a huge chaos...
In school, Danny, his friends, the rest of the class and thier teacher only saw the gigantic mushroom-cloud and thier first thought was: This is an nuclear-attack. It was 1982! The cold-war era! There was such a chaos. Thier classmates hid all under thier tables. Danny was pushed down on the ground and hit the floor with his head. After that everything went black...
"I woke up a few minutes later, when Sam found me!" Danny continued. "The fire was already raging on more than hundred places in town..."
The befriended couple looked on him in worry.
"Your parents died in that explosion, right?" Randy asked.
Danny nooded. "All that chaos everyhwere! I don't know how long it take to get out of school and back to my house... it was terrible..."
The authorities were overwhelmed with the situation. The city grew so fast that there were not enough fire-departments, firefighters and other emergency equipment. The fire's spread quickly, destroying more and more buildings. Industrial facilities that were close to residental areas exploded and set many homes on fire. The people felt left alone. Some decided to flee out of the city. Others tried to safe thier homes by themself. The city's gouvernment needed hours to contact the national guard. Other cities send fire-trucks, too. Lootings were in progress. The city was sinking into anarchy and chaos while fire was raining from the sky...
Danny, Sam, Tucker and the other students were ordered to stay in school and wait for thier parents or for further instructions. But Danny, Sam and several others were not willing to wait and left for themself. Danny did not know how long it take to get back to his neighbourhood. An hour... maybe two... but he was never able to get close to his home... He saw flames. His street was on fire. He was not able to get close to his house. But he could see that nearly every house in his street was on fire. But the police did not let him in. They took him, put him into a bus and drove him back to his school, that was now officially turned into a emergency-shelter. He desperately tried to find his parents. But they were nowhere to be found...
"So they took you to an emergency-shelter?"
"But how you got this burns?"
"My school... was the Casper High!" Danny answered, shocking the couple. As they knew what happened in the Casper High during the Amity-Park-inferno...
When Danny returned to the Casper High the place was overcrowded with people fleeing from the fire and seeking for help. He found his friend Tucker there, too. He was not able to find his parents. Tucker, too. At some point, Sam arrived back in school, too. Her parents tried to force her to flee out of town. But she refused because she did not want to leave without her friends. The people had nothing to eat. There were injured people with burns, broken bones and other severe injuries. And no one of them got help. Or they had to wait hours before someone helped them. The school nurse's office was overcrowded... Civil protection and disaster control failed completely... A scandal the courts had to handle for years...
Danny skipped the part where the A-listners tried to keep control over the crowd and continued with the finally decided but too late initiated evacuation, because the fire start to get closer to the school. With busses and trucks the people were evacuated.
"Oh... my... gosh..." Ellen interrupted Danny and looked on him like she got the enlightenment. "Now I understand everything... You are 'Andy' from the movie... you were that boy who..."
"SSHHH... Shut up, Ellen!" Danny ranted. "Yeah,... Thanks to the A-listeners, and half of them died when thier truck crashed in the fire, me, Sam and our other friends were among the remaining 62 people left behind... Hollywood dramatized a little bit too much when they decided to make a movie about it. I never agreed to the script. But... in some points the movie was right..."
The evacuation was stopped. Danny and the others were trapped. All around them was fire. At some point a helicopter spotted them on the roof. But it was already too hot and too windy to evacuate them with helicopters. A helicopter-crash into the school's stadium, like it was shown in the movie never happened. But the fire reached the school anyway. So the fire-brigade finally returned with thier trucks. Danny and who knows how many people gathered together in the school's entrace hall while the fire-brigade prepared a 'water tunnel' for the trapped people to flee. However, some freaked out and left. The air outside was so hot that every breath hurt so terribly...
"It's okay... Danny!" Ellen said. "You don't have to continue! We saw the movie!"
Danny did not mention it but a tear ran down his face. He had to think about these horrible moments. They were left alone, so it was up to them to survive. Without really thinking about it, Danny took a fire hose. Luckily there was still water in the tanks when he sprayed every single person when it left and ran inbetween the burning buildings to the fire brigade to get evacuated. The school was already on fire. He remembered thier friend Valerie. Once an A-listener, than violated by them because she was not 'rich enough' anymore... she ran out before the fire-brigade started the water-tunnel and they saw her stumbling between the burning cars. Her clouthes burst into flames... He remembered Tucker. His best friend. He and several others left the school and only made it the half way, before a nearby building collapsed. Killing him and the rest of the group when a falling scaffolding crashed on them. Danny was the last one to leave... The fire hose meanwhile burst, he had to toss himself in the water on the ground to get wet before he left... The heat... it was like standing directly in an oven... Fire everywhere around him when he finally reached the water tunnel. But his clouthes were already on fire...
"The next thing, I remember is that I woke up in a provisional hospital at the river. Sam was right next to me, but her parents arrived just a minute later and took her with them. That was the temporarily last time I saw her..." Danny finished. His voice was trembling. Thier friends were shocked but also spellbound to his story. "Sam..."
Sam became malancholy. She became that everytime she had to think about the disaster. Her voice was full of sadness. "One-thousand one-hundred sixty-seven people lost thier lives. Seven thousand got injured... We were 62 people that were trapped in the school. 39 survived! Including us! Only 39 of 62! Two-thirds of the city burned down. And more than the half of the inhabitants lost everything..."
"Gosh... And... your parents...?"
"They were never found!" Danny explained. His voice was still full of sorrow. "Our house was miles away from the main-detonation. But however the fire somehow arrived our street. Later I figured out that the explosion hit our house directly. My parents were propably in thier lab in the basement. Not even mentioning that the house over them exploded. All houses in our street burned down. Just a few minutes after the big explosion downtown..."
"And than you moved to Arkansas?"
"Yeah! After I was brought to a special hospital for burn victims, my sister had to sell the property where our house once stood to pay my hospital bills. I'm just glad that she was not in town when it happened. We lost everything. Really everything. Today, I don't even have a photo of them. And I could still slap myself for what I said to them when we saw each other for the last time. My sister often tells me that I am just suffering from 'survivor's-guilt'. But what I said to them was not really 'friendly'. My sister was in college and not able to take me. So after recovering in the hospital I was send to my aunt Alicia in Arkansas. My mother grew up there. I had to spend months with rehab and all that stuff. I finished High-School there."
"And I was forced to move with my parents to California. Our house was was just slightly damaged but my snobish parents were not willing to stay in a destroyed city. I never wanted to leave Amity Park. It was my home. Everyone I knew was there. But no... My parents took me and my granny and we moved into one of this gated communities near Los Angeles. Of course it had to be one of this snooty places my parent's thought that there will live people like them. And Amity Park did not fully recover till today..."
"Oh, that's sad... so you two were ripped apart..."
"We were not together back then, Ellen!" Sam replied. "Well, Danny was send to Arkansas and I was taken to California. We haven't seen each other for years. I had no clue what happened to Danny or to some others. My parents even reproached me that I went back to the school instead of fleeing covardly out of town like they did. They even did not want me to get in touch with anyone there. And than they took me into one of this snooty private... you know that doesn't matter now."
"After recovering and finishing a new small-town High School in Spittoon, Arkansas, a place that is litterally living behind the moon and sharing a small, one-bedroom cabin in the woods with my aunt for years I started college. And I finally got in touch with Sam again..."
"How? Now I am curious!" Ellen said.
"My granny helped me to find him. She was the only one in the family who understood me..." Sam raved. "And now this... 'something' took my only photo of her!"
"The old lady on the photo over the TV was your granny?" Randy asked.
"Yeah..." Sam said and stood up to knock against the wall. "What the hell was that? Danny, how did it start?"
"Do you want it to happen again?" Danny asked shocked.
"No!" Sam said while she knocked on different places across the wall. "I just... want to know what's going on here."
"Aww... I was on the phone, talking with that guy from Wisconsin! And than the TV start to flicker..."
"The TV, of course!" Randy said and took the remote controller. Both Sam and Danny wanted to stop him but it was too late.
The TV start to run. Normally, for a few seconds. But soon it start to flicker again...
A cold windgust blew threw the room again... now mentioned by the other couple, too...
"...TURN IT OFF... TURN IT OFF..." a voice echoed threw the room and with a loud scream Sam pulled the plug out of the socket... A bright green flash shoot out of the wall. Everyone screamed when the light bulb over them exploded with a loud bang...
And then was silence again. Creepy silence. Sam turned around and looked up. The lamp was swinging. Sam was still holding the cable of the TV and looked around. Searching for the little green flashes again...
"Who spoke?" Randy asked scared and dropped the remote. He and his wife were horrified.
"My... My... father..." Danny wailed. That was his father's voice. "...that was my father...
"Didn't you just tell us that he is dead?" Ellen asked shocked.
That was enough... All four carefully sneaked out of the living-room and than ran out threw the front door and out of the 'haunted-house'...
Please Review and keep well!