The Red Water Slide

My name is Gerard. Me and my friend Bodi loved to get into mischief.
Sadly those days came to an end real quickly for both of us.... Here's my story.
Bodi and I had an extreme bond together as friends. We did everything together. If we shook hands on something, we meant it. Anyway, Bodi and I had a long weekend ahead of us and we had no idea what we were gonna do. After sitting in the hot sun for about an hour, this gave me an idea. Our plan was to sneak into the water park after hours so we had the whole park to ourselves. Just the thought of a whole closed water park to ourselves excited us. Later that night we packed everything from flashlights, to towels, to swim trunks. We hopped on our bikes and began our trip. The water park was about ten miles from where we lived. But we were used to riding long distances. After about a half hour, we stopped at a gas station to pick up a pack of cigs. We sat and enjoyed our Newport 100's and just talked for a bit. “This is gonna be the greatest night ever,” Bodi said.
I shook my head in agreement while taking another drag. “And having some good old Newports is sure to make the night better,” I said.
“Yeah, bro.”
“And you know damn well we're gonna be doing some sketchy shit on those slides,” Bodi replied. After we finished our smoke, we got going again. It was about another five minutes of riding before we arrived.
We hid our bikes in the bushes. The way to get in was super simple. There was a brick wall ledge next to the fence. So you could basically step over the fence once you were on there. We both got over and looked around. Most of the lights were still on. It was quite a sight. The place seemed so much bigger when it was empty. The first thing we went to was the water slides. One thing that was really strange was that the water slides still had water flowing down them. The racing slides were my favorite. We grabbed mats and ran up to them. “Man, the line for this thing is insane!” Bodi yelled, jokingly.
I started cracking up. “We're gonna be waiting here all night!” I yelled back. We both laughed. After many flights of stairs we made it to the top. Since there weren't any lifeguards, we both took this opportunity and got a huge running start. Both of us popped up off the slide a bit on the first hill. We felt so alive. The second time we went down we went even faster. After a while, it became a “Who can get more air on the hills?” contest. The final time we went down, we got a little too cocky. We ran up full speed and on the hill we purposely lifted our bodies off the slide. We got about six feet of air and it hurt pretty bad when we landed. We were okay, though. After dealing with the hard fall, we got out of the slide and sat down. We relaxed and lit up another Newport.
“That was fucking nutty, dude,” Bodi laughed.
“I know! If we went any higher we would have missed the whole pool.” We spent the next 10 minutes laughing at all the possible ridiculous outcomes that could have happened.
We decided to move to another section of the park. We quickly stopped at the pool with the high diving board and had a relaxing swim. After that, both of us went to the big slides that needed to be ridden with inner tubes but we just went down without one anyway. It was the most fun I'd had in a while. We continued to push the limits of certain slides, seeing how fast we could go down them and getting huge running starts. After a while, we were riding the walls of every turn. We started going backwards down all the slides. We did anything that was against the rules. It was only about two hours since we got into the park and we did pretty much everything. Everything except one section of the park that was in the corner. I could see in the distance that there were slides to be ridden. So we ran all the way over there. It looked like a kids' section because it was more of a playground than just regular slides. There were two slides at the top that were colored yellow and red. We made our way to the top and I noticed that the red one had its entrance blocked off with a traffic cone and a metal chain. I figured there was something wrong with it until I noticed that the water was still flowing down the slide. Bodi said to me, “Okay, I'll take the yellow one, and you take the red.” I immediately refused to go down the red slide. So I told Bodi to go down.
“Ugh! Fine, I'll go down it. But after I prove to you that it's safe you gotta go down it.”
“Okay,” I replied. We shook hands on it.
“I'll go down the yellow one then Bodi,” I told him.
“Alright,” he replied. We both went down at the same time. The yellow slide wasn’t fast but it was curvy and ended very quickly. The yellow slide's landing strip sat right next to the red one.
“Wow, that slide wasn’t that fun,” I laughed.
“Hey Bodi, how was the red one?” I didn't see Bodi. I waited a couple seconds for him. I figured his slide was longer. Until I stood up and realized that both slides had the same layout. I walked past the red slide's landing strip and saw something that made me almost pass out. Blocking the red slide's exit, there was a plank of wood that read, “Under Construction, slide is missing a piece of tube.” I stood there, motionless. Frozen in time, it felt like hours had passed before I snapped out of it and went to look for Bodi. Only seconds later, I saw where he fell out. Bodi fell a good 25 feet to the concrete. I could tell he smacked his head on a cross beam on the way down. There Bodi lay on his back; he had a huge gash across his forehead. Blood was leaking out into the shallow water. He slowly opened his eyes.
He spoke softly, “G-Gerard.”
“Yes Bodi?” I said, fighting the tears coming through.
“I-It's not s-safe,” he said.
I told him, “Bodi, you’re gonna be fine. Stay with me.” He gave me a slight smile and then closed his eyes. He was gone. Why him? I thought. Why couldn't it be me? Why didn't I just say neither of us should go down it?
I sat down and remembered we shook hands that I would go down after him. I never back down on a handshake. Call me crazy but it doesn’t matter what it is. I couldn’t live with the guilt in the back of my mind forever. I accepted the fact that it technically was me who persuaded him to go down the red slide in the first place. I sat down and had my last cigarette. My mind was rushing as I finished my Newport. I slowly walked back to the top of the slide. I was staring down the tube to my death. The dark-red tint of the slide made it look like the entrance to hell. I took the last drag on the cigarette and I sat down and pushed. “I'm coming for you Bodi,” I yelled. I picked up speed quickly around the first curve then immediately fell through the base of the slide. I smacked a metal support on the way down and then hit the ground just like Bodi did. Then, I went completely numb. Bodi was laying right beside me. I looked up at the stars as my vision slowly faded....
“Greatest… night… ever.”
Category:Places