Screaming Sabrina Scarecrow

T.W: Contains content of a girl being kidnapped and drugged.

Sabrina had always had a low fear tolerance. She didn’t like to watch scary movies or tv shows, didn’t like haunted houses or theme parks, she didn’t even like to be scared by her friends. She was already a nervous person and submitting herself to scary things seemed unnecessary to her. Her friends however, felt the opposite. They were all obsessed with horror movies and all things creepy. So, of course, Halloween was their favorite time of year. Each year they would beg Sabrina to join them for their horror movie marathon or come with them to a spooky theme park. Every year, Sabrina would decline and they would make fun of her for being such a scaredy-cat. This year however, they were particularly convincing. Sabrina finally gave in and decided to join them at the local screampark. She was so nervous she thought she might throw up as they drove to the park. After getting tickets and walking through the gate, Sabrina got her first glimpse of what she was to endure for the next few hours. And she didn’t like it one bit.

“I don’t think I can do this.” She said to her friend Morgan, as she turned around to leave.

“You did not just pay $20 to turn around and go home after 2 seconds.” Morgan said to her, grabbing her arm and dragging her further into the park.

“I really don’t know why you’re so scared Sab,” their friend Peter said to her, “what is the worst that could happen? It’s a freaking theme park.”

Sabrina just nodded and walked with them, keeping her eyes straight ahead, trying not to look at the attractions on either side of them. She couldn’t help but notice that the scare actors walking around were grabbing onto people’s shoulders and hands.

“I thought the actors weren’t allowed to touch people.” She said to Morgan. “Isn’t that like the only way they can guarantee our safety?”

“Some parks are like that but at this one they can touch you as long as you don’t have the ‘No Boo’ necklace on.” Morgan told her as she pointed to a little kid walking by with a glowing green necklace that said ‘No Boo’.

“I don’t want the actors to touch me. Where can I get one of those?” Sabrina asked.

“They’re $50 Sab,” Morgan told her. “And we would have to go all the way back to the ticket booth to get one. It’s no fun if the actors aren’t allowed to scare you away. Just stick it out and you’ll be thanking us for bringing you at the end.”

Sabrina’s stomach was a mess of nerves, ‘yea right’ she thought as her friends led her deeper into the park. The park was poorly lit, adding to the spooky atmosphere, leaving many places covered in shadow. Glancing into a dark corner, Sabriana swore she saw one of the scare actors with their hand over a person’s mouth, dragging them further into the dark. But when she took a closer look, there was no one there. She shook her head, thinking she must be imagining things because she was so nervous. She shivered and moved closer to Morgan.

“Just push through this Sabrina” She told herself. “It’s not going to be that bad.”

After scoping out the park and all the attractions, her friends decided to go into a haunted house first. Sabrina kept her eyes on the ground, her hand firmly gripping Morgan’s as they entered. She jumped at every creak of the floorboards, her heart beating wildly, telling her to get the hell out of there. Things on the walls jumped out at them, making their group let out a collective scream. Haunting music played, and more screams could be heard throughout the house. Sabrina’s heart pumped faster and louder the deeper they ventured. They entered a large room that was decorated as a living room, with torn-up couches and walls covered in blood and other things Sabriana didn’t want to think about. There was a suit of armor in the corner that began advancing towards them when they entered. Everyone backed away screaming, pushing into Sabrina, and making her crash into something behind her. Sabrina turned around to find a tall, dark figure looming over her. The figure had a long black cloak covering its body and a pointed hood covering its head. She peered into the figure's face and saw ghoulish features looking down at her from under the hood with a wide, evil smile. She screamed and tried to scramble away when the figure grabbed onto her arm. It pulled her close to itself and bent down to whisper in her ear

“You’ve got a pretty scream. You’re mine now.”

Sabrina screamed louder, attempting to twist out of the figure’s grip but they grabbed onto her hair and pulled, making her shriek

“Ow, ow. Get off! Get off!”

But try as she might, Sabrina couldn’t get out of the figure’s grip. She continued to scream, calling to her friends for help. Her friends glanced at her, screaming at the figure that had hold of her. They backed away as she reached towards them, desperate for their help to escape.

“Help me! He’s hurting me! This is not funny guys, please help!” She began to sob, still struggling against the figure’s grip, which was starting to burn her scalp and arm. Her friends' faces changed as they realized that she might actually be in danger, but just as they stepped towards her, another figure came out from behind her and her kidnapper, screaming at the group in front of them. He was dressed in an outfit that looked like the human body, just inside out. With organs, tendons, and muscles all over, dripping with blood and gore. The face of the person was part skeleton, with drapes of skin peeling off, revealing bloodied eyes and sharp teeth. It was a horrific sight to look at and her friends screamed with terror and ran the other way. Sabrina was hysterical at this point, screaming and crying as the figure began dragging her into the hidden hallway he had entered from. She grasped around her for anything to hold onto but the walls were slick and flat. The figure that had scared her friends away turned around and followed them into the hallway, picking Sabrina’s feet up as they advanced further backwards. She tried to kick at the figure but they held onto her feet tight so no matter how much she struggled she couldn’t get either figure to loosen their grip. They carried her from the hallway into a dingy room, with a single lightbulb hanging from a string on the ceiling. There was a chair in the middle of the room and a table off to the side with an assortment of chemicals, paint, and tools. A door closed behind the skinned figure and blended into the wall so well that she couldn’t even tell there was a door there. Sabrina, now sobbing hysterically, began begging her kidnappers

“Let me go. Let me go please. This isn’t funny. Please, please let me go.”

They simply ignored her, lowering her into the chair and began to tie her up with rope. Once she was strapped to the chair, so tightly that she had no chance of escaping, they turned to the table and its assortment of contents. They began picking paints and scraps of fabric and assembling them in the center of the table. The tall dark figure turned to her and began painting her face with red, yellow and brown paint. She tried to bite his hand but he just cupped her chin, forcing her mouth shut and kept painting her face. The skinned figure came over with a bottle full of some clear liquid. The hooded figure forced her mouth open and the skinned figure poured the liquid down her throat. She tried not to swallow and spit it out but they poured so much that she couldn’t keep it from pouring into her throat. She immediately began feeling strange, her panic settled and her brain fogged. She looked at the figures around her lazily and wondered why she had been so scared of them. She slumped into the chair as they continued their work on her. The skinned figure then began ripping her cowgirl costume and gluing and sewing different patches of fabric to her overalls. The hooded figure moved to painting her neck and arms, making them look scratched, bruised and dirty. The skinned figure finished with her clothes and moved to her hair, taking out the pigtail braids and adding pieces of straw and a liquid that looked like blood. Both figures stepped back and looked at her, nodded and began putting their utensils away.

“What’s your name?” The skinned figure asked her, leaning on the table and turning to look at her.

“Sabrina,” she told him with a lazy smile. “My friends are going to be looking for me.” she told them.

“No they won’t” The skinned figure said, a smile creeping onto his face. “At the end of the house there’s a hypnosis station. The manic psychic will hypnotize your friends to forget you ever came to the park with them. By the time anyone realizes you’re missing you will be unrecognizable.”

“Hypnosis? Like with the spinning spiral and everything? Really?” Sabrina said to the skinned man mockingly. “Hypnosis is a myth. It doesn’t really work.”

“You think so?” Asked the tall figure, now turning around to look at Sabrina as well. “You believe we couldn’t hypnotize you?”

“Absolutly not” Sabrina told them confidently. “I have very good control of my mind. Even if I could be hypnotized, I would figure it out and break out of the illusion.”

“Care to test out that theory?” The skinned man asked as the hooded figure walked out of Sabrina’s line of eyesight. A projection of a black and white spiral appeared on the wall in front of Sabrina. She looked from the spiral to the skinned man with a condescending expression on her face. She looked back at the spiral, then found herself unable to look away. She tried to swivel her head back to look at the skinned man, but she couldn’t take her eyes off of the projection in front of her. She felt something near her ear and then heard the voice of the hooded figure speak.

“You can never leave this park. You will have no outside connection to the world. This is your home, forever. You can never leave this park. You will have no outside connection to the world. This is your home, forever…” The hooded figure repeated those statements over and over until Sabrina began to say them herself.

“I can never leave this park. I will have no outside connection to the world. This is my home, forever. I can never leave this park. I will have no outside connection to the world. This is my home, forever…”

She said these sentences over and over again until she began to believe them herself. This was her home. Forever. Suddenly, the projection turned off. The spiral was gone and Sabriana stopped repeating the phrases. She shook her head as if waking up from a dream. She looked at the two figures in front of her and felt the stupor from the clear liquid wear off. Her heart began beating faster and her breath became short. She felt scared and panicked and remembered what these two had done to her. She began screaming at the top of her lungs.

“Help! Somebody help me!” she screamed over and over. The two figures looked at her with pitied expressions. They looked at each other, nodded and moved towards her. She struggled against the ropes they had tied around her while also attempting to shy away from them. They reached for her bonds and began untying her. They removed her ropes and grabbed her hands and feet, lifting her up like they had before and carrying her through a different hidden door behind her. She continued screaming and crying for help, but there seemed to be no one around to hear her cries. They carried her through a series of hallways, turning right and left at what seemed like random times. Finally they arrived at another door, and pushing it open they walked up to the edge of a corn field. They pushed into the corn stalks to a cleared out path and up to a wooden scarecrow post that was standing on the side of the path. They spun Sabrina around, lifted her up, and tied her onto the post. Her hands stretched out on either side and her feet were placed on a little block and bound around the bottom. Her voice was hoarse from all the screaming and tears streamed down her face. She was now hanging from the wooden post, looking down at the skinned man and hooded figure. They both stood looking at her for a minute, then clapped their hands.

“Guess this is goodbye.” The skinned man said to her. He turned around and began walking down the path, away from her and the hooded man.

“See you later tonight Screaming Sabriana” The hooded figure said and he followed the skinned man down the path.

“Wait. Please!” She begged, her voice cracking and giving out, “Don’t leave me here please!”

Both figures turned a corner and disappeared. Some time went by, Sabrina didn’t know how long, before she heard voices coming up the path. Frantic, she started screaming

“Help me! Help me please! Get me down from here!”

A group of teenagers rounded the corner and into her line of sight. She struggled against the ropes tying her to the stand, towards the group and continued her cries for help. They looked up at her with frightened eyes and screamed in her face. She realized slowly that they thought she was just another one of the scare actors, putting on a show for them.

“Please,” she begged more frantically, “I’m real. I’m Sabrina. Please help me down. Save me!”

But the group just continued on their way, past her further into the corn maze. This continued throughout the night, everyone laughed or screamed at her desperation and continued on their way without a second glance. As the night drew on, Sabrina thought back to the events that had unfolded to bring her to this moment. In doing so, she remembered something. “I can never leave this park. I will have no outside connection to the world. This is my home, forever. I can never leave this park. I will have no outside connection to the world. This is my home, forever…”

She began to sob hysterically, fully convinced that the hypnotized belief was true and that she was stuck in this park forever.

Night turned into day, again and again. Sabrina continued screaming and begging the people walking by to help her, but no one ever believed that she wasn’t just another actor.

For years to come, when the scare park would open, Screaming Sabrina Scarecrow would be featured in the corn maze. She became an iconic figure within the park and was an attraction there until the day she died.