Exploring with My Big Brother

"Sorry to scare you, but as for the car I wish I knew," said Tyler, listening to his car to see if the strange noises from the engine would continue when there was silence. Utter silence.

Without warning, the engine cut out, the headlights were extinguished within a second as were the internal lights and the windscreen wipers stopped mid-stroke.

"We've stopped completely," Tyler said, as he tried to re-start the car to no response at all.

"I noticed," I said. "Have you got roadside assistance?"

"Yeah, of course," said Tyler. He then paused and laughed sheepishly. "Oh wait, no. I was a bit short of cash, so I let it slide."

I must have been around our father too much, as I found myself thinking 'Tyler, you twit!' but unlike Dad, I didn't say it aloud. Instead I thought up a possible solution to the problem.

"I've got roadside assistance, even though I don't own a car," I said. "You know, in case something happens when I'm driving Mum's car. We'll say I was driving, hopefully I might be covered."

I reached for my phone and stopped in dismay as I tried to turn it on. The screen was blank. Totally blank, not just no reception or no bars, nothing at all. I had charged it this morning. Frantically, I pressed the button on and off several times, nothing at all, not even a flicker.

"What about your phone?" I asked my brother, feeling dismayed again as Tyler's phone was completely dead too.

"Nothing," I sighed, before shaking my head in frustration. "So where are we anyway?"

"In a place that should bring back a few memories," Tyler said.

I looked out of the car at our surroundings. Tyler's car was parked in a bus bay, but there was no danger of him obstructing the next bus that turned up. That's because no buses ran along here anymore. They hadn't for close to a decade now.

The bus stop was dilapidated, vandalized and falling apart, and the bus arrival times had faded over time. Taking off my seatbelt, I got out of the car and looked at my surroundings, Tyler exiting out of the driver's side.

"Wow, I haven't been here in ages," I said, my mind filled with nostalgic childhood memories.

"Yeah, we had some fun times here before it closed down," Tyler said. He smiled. "Except when you came here with Karen, I guess."

I smiled thinly, but did not say anything. As was the case earlier, some raindrops still fell but not enough for Tyler and me to get wet.

Ahead of us lay a vast car park. But no cars parked here, at least not for 10 years. The asphalt was decaying and weeds were growing through potholes, the lines barely visible. No cars could park here anyway, the entire area was fenced off.

The car park had once serviced a theme park, Wild Animal World. There were a number of theme parks around the Gold Coast, some just north at Coomera, several at the Oxenford side of the Pacific Motorway and one at Main Beach. They were a major tourist attraction for Queensland, and locals loved them too.

Years earlier Wild Animal World had been a major Queensland theme park too. Combining an open range zoo with lots of different animal exhibits, shows, rides and entertainment, it had opened in March 1991 and been a huge hit.

"Such a pity this place closed down," said Tyler, looking through the darkness to where the theme park's main buildings stood. The Gold Coast's other theme parks had of course closed for the night and now everyone had departed. But Wild Animal World's last paying guest departed for the last time in December 2009.

"Yeah, it was," I said. "Funny thing really, I've been thinking about this place a lot lately."

"Why's that?"

"It's part of a group assignment I'm doing in one of my units. Analyzing a failed business and the reasons why it failed."

"Most of the time I would say that wouldn't be very interesting," laughed Tyler. "But given you're studying this place, it seems a bit more exciting. So why did they close down?"

"Money basically, or lack of it," I said. "It was always more expensive to run than the other theme parks, but up until 2001 it was very profitable and a major tourist attraction and a real cash cow. The world changed a lot after September 11 and there was a downturn which was sort of the first signs of trouble ahead. The park wasn't part of a group like the other theme parks, so no super-passes to get in, and it was always more expensive. It was sold to an overseas company who didn't keep with the times and modernize like the other theme parks, so it started to fall further and further behind in the mid-2000s. Rides weren't maintained and updated, things started to show their age, and it became the park that people would miss out if they were stretched for time on their holidays."

I thought more about my research. "There was a lot of competition from the other theme parks and zoos and wildlife parks around the Gold Coast, in Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast. The owners lost a heap of money on a failed resort at the site, and the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 sealed its fate. By late 2009 it was bleeding cash, and when they saw how much they had lost in the September 2009 school holidays and with losses and debt mounting, the bank called in receivers and the owners put the park into administration a few weeks out from Christmas 2009. The doors were shut and it was liquidated the next year. There were other problems too, but becoming financially insolvent was the main reason it closed down."

"So it's just sat here for nearly 10 years going to ruin," said Tyler. "It's Helensvale, it would be pretty valuable land."

"Yeah, the site's been sold quite a few times in 10 years since," I said. "One group wanted to turn it into a new type of theme park, but that market is already saturated. There was talk of turning it into a shopping center, but there's already so many shopping centers on the Gold Coast, so that wouldn't have been profitable. It was also suggested turning it into a direct factory outlet shopping precinct, but they already have those in Labrador and at Brisbane Airport -- how many DFO's can you fit into South Queensland? A golf course and resort was also suggested, but again, how many golf courses do you need on the Gold Coast?"

"True, golf is boring," said Tyler. I picked up my small backpack and then my mobile phone, but still it was completely blank, as was Tyler's phone.

Tyler opened the back of his car, and brought out a large torch. "Now we're here, let's have a look around."

"Shouldn't we start walking back towards Helensvale?" I asked. "We can't stay here all night."

"Come on, just for five minutes or so, it will be fun," Tyler assured me.

Reluctantly, I nodded. "Okay then, just five minutes."

A path had once led from the bus stop around the car park, although the bus would stop at the front entrance to the theme park proper. The concrete was now cracked and full of long grass and weeds and Tyler's torch beam lit the way as we skirted the perimeter fence. I kept a close watch at ground level for certain long, legless reptilian creatures that one might find in an area like this!

We edged closer to the now defunct Wild Animal World theme park, and could see the derelict and dilapidated buildings that once formed the front entrance and administration block, restaurants, function center and gift shops. Through the dim, drizzly night we could see the large roller coasters, now largely over-taken by vegetation as they rusted and rotted away as the years passed by. My memory took me back to when I was a little girl, enjoying fun days here with family and friends. I think my primary school class when I was nine would have been one of the last school trips here, before the park shut down forever a few months later.

It made me feel quite sad looking at the ruins of such a nice place from my younger years, and I turned to go back but Tyler said, "Want to see more?"

"Sorry?" asked, my eyes following the direction to where my brother was indicating with the torch.

A gate in the fence was opened, somebody obviously having cut through the chain and pad-lock to gain entry. "Let's go in and take a look around," said Tyler.

"No, that wouldn't be a good idea," I said. "Look at that."

I pointed at a sign which read, 'KEEP OUT -- PRIVATE PROPERTY -- TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED'.

Tyler laughed and shrugged. "I don't see any cops around, do you?"

I looked at the abandoned theme park buildings and roller coasters through the darkness. It was an eerie sight, and a lightning strike illuminating the structures followed by a distant roll of thunder made it worse. Some bats flying through nearby trees and the intermittent moonlight through the rainclouds made it worse.

"No Tyler, it's not a good idea," I said. "I don't want to."

"Come on, it will be fun," Tyler urged me. "Lots of people do it, it's called urban exploring."

"Yes, but it's dark, it's raining and there could be barbed wire, dangerous junk and broken glass," I said, my petite figure trembling as more forks of lighting lit the stormy skies, my tummy feeling like it was full of butterflies and feeling like I could piss my little panties. "There could be dangerous people in there, squatters or junkies on meth or crack. There could be needles, snakes or dangerous feral animals, we don't know what we'll find in there, or what will find us."

"That's part of the fun,' said Tyler. "I mean we'll be careful. If we see anyone strange we'll get away from them. But think of it this way, we'll get to relive old memories and have a new adventure at the same time. Plus it will help you with your university assignment."

I could hear distant traffic from the Pacific Motorway, and the even more distant sound of a train on the Gold Coast -- Brisbane line. I didn't really want to be here, I wanted to be where they were lights and people, and on my way home safe and sound to Brisbane.

"Come on Matilda, don't be a scaredy-cat," laughed Tyler. "You always stick by the rules, always do the right thing. Live a little, just once. What are you, chicken?"

My brother made chicken noises at me, and I thought about what he said. It was true I was always doing the right thing, always sticking to the rules, not stepping out of line. Much of that probably had to do with being raised by strict older parents.

Despite my strong misgivings, I blurted out, "Okay, okay, I'll come in there with you. But if we see one weirdo or drug addict, or if anything strange happens, I'm out of here. And if the police do turn up and arrest us for trespassing, or if one of us gets injured, then you can explain yourself to Dad."

"Trust me, it will be fine, we'll have a great time," Tyler promised me as with the greatest reluctance I followed my older brother who at 40 should have known better than to go into an abandoned theme park by night. I heard owls hooting, and other sounds of the Australian bush that added to my disquiet. Not helping was the amount of household junk -- old sofas, armchairs, fridges, TVs, building supplies and other garbage that vandals had disposed of in the car park, either by tossing it over the fence or taking it through the open gate.

I hoped very much that we would not meet any of these vandals here tonight, but then another darker thought crossed my mind. If people were dumping junk here, perhaps murderers were dumping bodies at the site too? Perhaps a serial killer was here tonight doing just this, and my brother and I would join the ranks of his victims if he saw us and eliminated us as witnesses.

And if we didn't meet murderers, perhaps organized criminals were using the abandoned park to store drugs, stolen property and cash? If this was the case, Tyler and I might again find ourselves murdered as we had seen too much.

I tried to tell myself it was all my imagination but my nerves persisted as I followed my brother to the main entrance. The administration buildings and what had once been the main gift shop had some windows boarded up, and in other cases the boards had been ripped off and the windows smashed. The windows were covered in no end of graffiti. Some of it was just mindless tags, others were offensive slogans and symbols like swastikas, and others were just swear words. Just what pleasure could people get from spraying the words fuck, shit and cunt on a building? I thought it was just babies and toddlers that liked to scribble on walls. Clearly I was wrong.

In bright yellow paint somebody had painted something that caught my attention more. It read 'Get the fuck out of here, this place is fucking haunted.' Underneath in red spray paint somebody else had written, 'Yeah, came in here to tag, went home with worst nightmares.'

Normally, I wouldn't have thought too much about this, but while doing online research for my university assignment I had looked at discussions about the closed park on social media sites. There were some comments that identified the abandoned site as being the scariest place in Queensland. However, some other comments came from other people about when the park was open.

One employee said she felt an uncomfortable feeling when there out of hours looking after the animals. Another employee, a ride attendant, said that the place always had a bad feeling she could never explain. Another young woman wasn't an employee, but she had spent a night there at her friend's birthday celebration when she was aged 11. Things like this -- celebrations for groups of kids, corporate functions, weddings and the like -- were commonly held at Wild Animal World, but this girl said she had heard odd things during the night.

I said nothing about this to Tyler, who looked up at the once grand entrance to the park. Atop the building stood the statues of the park's two main animal mascots, a male lion dressed as a king and a female tiger dressed as a queen. They had watched visitors by their thousands come in through the entrance when the park was in its hey-day during the 1990s and early 2000s, watched guest numbers fall away as things began to decline through the mid-2000s and were still standing there looking at the ruins of their kingdom a decade after the theme park fell into administration and shut its doors for the last time.

Outside stood another statue of a baboon dressed as a bogan in football shorts and a black tee-shirt. The baboon's name had been Barry, and back in the days when the park was open there was a sign next to the statue introducing Barry to visitors. It was advised that Barry had been removed and banned from the park due to numerous violations of the park's rules, such as messing around on the slides in the waterpark, playing the fool on rides, pushing in for lines and feeding and playing silly games with the animals. It then advised visitors if they behaved like Barry, they would be removed and banned from the park too. The sign was still there, but faded now and covered in graffiti.

When the park was open, visitors had to go to a line of ticket kiosks at the front entrance to gain admittance, and then through some turnstiles to get into the park proper. As was the case with the gate in the fence, a gate at the entrance had been broken into and allowed Tyler and I to enter the abandoned theme park by night, only the light of my brother's torch and intermittent moonlight allowing us to see where we were going.

The gift shop was close to the exit, but there was no merchandise to be seen now. Some shelving was still there as were the counters, but thanks to windows having been smashed lots of rubbish had drifted in there over the years.

"Let's check it out," Tyler said, me reluctantly following my brother inside.

We shone the light around, and I stopped short as two yellow eyes were illuminated by the torch beam. I jumped back in shock, as the two menacing eyes revealed themselves to belong to a cat, an enormous black cat. It was the biggest cat I had ever seen, more like a miniature black panther.

Angry at its territory being disturbed, the cat set back its ears and let out a menacing yowl, then hissed at Tyler and I, showing us its sharp yellowed teeth, before running off growling and hissing. Tyler looked at my alarmed expression and laughed. "Scared you, did it?"

"What do you think?" I asked, recovering my breath. "I've never seen a cat that big before, and that thing is vicious."

"Some of those feral cats grow pretty big," said Tyler. He again grinned. "And what were you expecting? We are in Wild Animal World. There's probably heaps of wild cats in here."

Worrying about what else might be lurking in the darkness of the abandoned gift shop, I said, "Come on Tyler, there's nothing to see here, let's get moving."

Tyler smiled. "How about a souvenir of our visit?"

To my astonishment, Tyler reached onto a shelf and pulled out a large 'Wild Animal World' beach towel, which was still wrapped in its original plastic, and had the price tag attached.

I was shocked. "Really? That's sat there nearly 10 years and nobody's moved it or taken it?"

"I guess, although it's pretty strange," Tyler said. "Anyway, I'm not complaining, and I don't think we're going to get busted for shoplifting."

Tyler pointed at a sign near the gift shop exit that stated that shoplifting was a crime and all offenders would be removed from and banned from the park and prosecuted. "I don't think we're going to get arrested for shoplifting."

"No, but we might get arrested for trespass if the cops turn up," I said as Tyler souvenired the beach towel, worrying that we might have tripped some sort of alarm when we entered the property, or somebody had seen us and notified the police.

"You worry way too much, Matilda," my brother said.

"You don't worry enough, Tyler," I countered, as we made our way along what had been the main streets of the inner park.

Most of the buildings were boarded up, but had been broken into at some time, and all were vandalized, graffiti sprayed everywhere. Rubbish was strewn everywhere -- I was careful of where I stood - and evidently this place had been occupied by homeless squatters at some point. Makeshift belongings and empty boxes of goon cask wine everywhere and the start of a tent city. There were even shopping trolleys, how they got here I couldn't work out. But there were no signs of any homeless people tonight.

"I wonder where all the homeless people are?" Tyler mused.

"I don't want to know, thank you very much," I said primly, looking up and seeing a hive of bees on an adjacent building and instinctively stepping away.

"Look, here's where you and Zac had fun where you were little kids," commented Tyler, pointing at a large, ornate roundabout in the center of several paths meeting. The roundabout was built in an Edwardian era style, and instead of just horses had lots of different animals around the world for the kids to ride on. And the last kids to ride on the roundabout would now be aged in their mid-teens and in high school. The mechanical animals had sat still and silent for a decade since then, never to go again.

Or at least it should have been silent. Faintly, I heard the sound of music, organ music like one might hear on a roundabout. I pushed my brother on the arm. "Oh ha-ha Tyler, very funny."

"What's that?"

"Playing that old music on your phone to scare me."

My brother looked puzzled. "Matilda, I can't hear anything, and my phone is dead like yours."

"It must have started working again," I asserted, still looking at the roundabout and listening to the eerie music that sounded like it was from the 1920s.

Tyler got out his phone, and it was completely dead, as was mine -- and the eerie organ music stopped as mysteriously as it started.

"Tyler, I really think we should go now," I said, casting nervous glances around myself.

"What's the rush? We're here now, might as well have a good look around," said Tyler. "Remember, it's to help you with your assignment too."