"Uncle Gerry's Family Fun Zone"

"Uncle Gerry's Family Fun Zone" is the second tale in the seventh episode of the sixth season of The Nosleep Podcast. It concerns a couple who have different accounts of a night they broke into an abandoned building. Written by Jimmy Juliano, it has a running time of 33:40 and was originally performed by Nikolle Doolin, Mike DelGaudio, and David Cummings. It is the 660th tale overall on the podcast.

## Summary

A man explains that after the death of his wife, he is left to care for his 9 year old son alone. Inspired by NPR's stories about American life, he decides to make a pastime out of interviewing. He purchases recording equipment and intends on recording the stories of his friends and relatives. He decides to first interview a married couple he's friends with, Will and Caroline, about how they met. After interviewing him, Will sketches a mock-up of an Uncle Sam poster with a goat head, advertising a children's play place by the name of Uncle Gerry's Family Fun Zone. The man explains that he had interviewed Caroline the day before, and she had given a different account surrounding the event involving Uncle Gerry's Family Fun Zone. They both ask the man to not tell the other of the contents of their interview.

Caroline and the man had dated in college for a short time, something that they now joke happened in a parallel universe. They decide that their relationship wasn't supposed to happen and two separate universes collided for a brief time. Shortly after, Caroline started dating Will and the three remained friends. Caroline and Will's relationship predates college, as they had went to high school together. It is during this time that the events around Uncle Gerry's took place.

The story then moves to an excerpt of Caroline's interview. She explains that in high school, she knew of Will but they weren't friends. Because of this, she can't pinpoint when exactly they first met, but she can remember the first interaction they had. Caroline was writing for the school paper about a local legend. According to the legend, a man named Gerry inherited a piece of land in the late '70s, building a children's play place by the name of Uncle Gerry's Family Fun Zone. The play place is barnyard themed, the walls being painted red and white to appear like a barn and silo. According to the legend, one day a 4-year old boy took a slide into a large ball pit, completely disappearing. No trace of the boy is ever found, even after emptying the pit. The only thing found at the bottom is a shoe and a trapdoor leading to a small, dead-end crawlspace. After the disappearance, Gerry skips town and the place is left abandoned, still out in the woods somewhere.

The man asks if the story is real, to which Caroline responds that every kid in town thought it was. She explains that the story went that Uncle Gerry's was some hellhole that needed to be fed. She theorizes that it was just a cautionary tale to prevent kids from wandering too far into the woods.

Will joins the newspaper club to help Caroline with her research, saying that they sifted through old newspapers and books for stories about Uncle Gerry's. They are unable to find a record of it existing, even talking to the police. She says the police had heard of Uncle Gerry's, but had nothing factual proving its existence. She says that her plan after that was to just get an oral history of the place, collecting stories about it from people. However, Will comes to her and says he knows where Uncle Gerry's actually is. He says he got the directions from a book, the directions written on a piece of paper shoved inside. At this point, the man tries to shut down the interview, but Caroline insists they continue, saying she wants him to know what happened.

She explains that their plan was for Will to go first, then Caroline would come a bit later. The directions are obtuse and take her through backroads, but get her to Uncle Gerry's, Will already there. She says after that Will looked and acted different. Will was less intimate and shy, acting more robotic and cold. Caroline starts to verge the conversation to how her life might be different if her and the man stayed together. The man attempts to shut it down again, but Caroline insists they continue. She says they've been together nine years with no kids and Will doesn't look at her the same. She says something went wrong with their relationship and it started that night in Uncle Gerry's.

Will and Caroline grab flashlights and follow a path through brush, leading them to the front of Uncle Gerry's Family Fun Zone. It's still stylized to look like a barn and silo. Caroline describes that the building seemed to almost materialize in front of them, and that it was too well kept for being so old and abandoned. They enter through large double doors, Will going in first. Right in front of them is a giant fiberglass goat statue, about seven feet in height. It stands on its hind legs with its front arms reaching out as if for a photo op. The entire inside of Uncle Gerry's has similar fiberglass farm animals, all standing on their hind legs with their arms reaching out. Most of them are covered in a black soot substance. Caroline runs her finger through some stuck to a sheep, remarking that it was almost wet and gooey and about half an inch thick. The rest of Uncle Gerry's is full of slides, jungle gyms, and other playground equipment. The darkness of the place causes them to get lost, walking around for longer than the place should have taken to explore. They come across a maze with wooden walls, painted to have corn stalks on them. They both decide against going inside, continuing to explore. They eventually find the ball pit at the center of the barn, nearly 40 feet wide and six feet deep. They use a ladder to descend into the pit, the crawlspace hatch in the center.

They open the hatch, entering the crawlspace. Reaching a dead end about 20 feet in, they hear the sound of something jumping into the pit. Footsteps walk towards the hatch as both Caroline and Will turn off their flashlights, covering each other's mouths. Caroline's leg begins to tremble, Will calming it with his free hand. The thing at the other end of the tunnel stares at Will and Caroline, silently observing them as they both remain still and quiet, eyes shut. The hatch eventually slams shut. After waiting in the dark for a while, they crawl to the hatch and run from the barn, driving into the night.

The pair never publish the article. Caroline decides that they stumbled across something they were never supposed to see, and whatever was in the crawlspace let them off with a warning. Caroline steers the conversation back to their relationship, the man quickly turning off the recording. Caroline leaves, making him promise not to share anything with Will.

Will's interview starts normal enough, although quickly changes to Uncle Gerry's Family Fun Zone. The man tries to avoid the conversation subject, but is unable to. Will sketches the Uncle Sam style poster from before, then giving his account of what happened at Uncle Gerry's.

Will explains that he first saw Caroline in class sketching the poster Will drew, saying that he was inexplicably drawn to it and Caroline. Will asks her what Uncle Gerry's Family Fun Zone is. Caroline tells him the legend of Uncle Gerry's, saying it was the most famous one in their town. Will had never heard of it, and neither had anyone he asked, despite Caroline's insistence that it was an incredibly famous story in their town. Will decides to join the newspaper club to find out more about Caroline and the legend she's obsessed with. They interview several people, none of them having heard of Uncle Gerry's before.

One night at home, after being unable to find any leads on Uncle Gerry's, Will spots an bundled up old man walking down his street. The man stops at the end of Will's driveway, slipping out a piece of paper and putting it in his mailbox. The man then snaps his head and looks right at Will, who quickly ducks down. When he looks again, the man is gone. The next day, Will goes to his mailbox to see directions hastily scribbled on a napkin.

Will tells Caroline that he found directions to Uncle Gerry's but lies about how he came upon them. He gives her directions to the place, telling her he'll check it out first. However, he gives her purposefully incorrect directions that should send her in the opposite direction of Uncle Gerry's. He follows the directions to Uncle Gerry's finding the massive building. Despite giving her the wrong directions, Caroline arrives right after Will. It is at this point that Will truly realizes that there is something deeply wrong about Caroline, Uncle Gerry's, and the old man.

He tells the man of some of Caroline's strange behavior. She continually came over to Will's house, although showed far greater interest in his 2 year old brother. He says that her fascination with his brother was unnatural, like she needed him for something. Deep down, Will feels this is all related to Uncle Gerry's, fearing that Caroline is trying to find the place and offer up his brother as a sacrifice.

Will decides that there are some forces of evil in the world he will never understand, and that Caroline had gotten wrapped up in it. Will gives an account of the inside of Uncle Gerry's, although it differs from Caroline's in several ways. In his version, Caroline is incredibly excited about the place, dragging Will through the corn maze and the rest of the barn. They finally come across the center ball pit, opening the hatch. They enter the crawlspace, hearing something else walking above them. Will thinks it might be the old man, but that is quickly proven impossible by the inhuman steps. Will's leg begins to shake, Caroline holding his leg in place. Caroline is incredibly calm through the ordeal, even as a figure opens the hatch and leans into the crawlspace. An inhuman figure peers at them as Caroline grins in delight. All of a sudden, it sniffs the air and hisses out in a raspy tone that the pair are not young enough. It slams the hatch and disappears. Will and Caroline retreat to their cars.

When the man asks why he's telling him this, Will tells the man that someone needed to know. He asks why he married Caroline in the first place, explaining that someone had to marry her, and it had to be him. Will says that there are evil things that grabbed hold of Caroline, but that she's doing better. She didn't write the article and never spoke of Uncle Gerry's again. Will expresses hope that the evil is gone, but is waiting for it to come back. He tells the man that Caroline wants to have kids, but he got a vasectomy in secret back in college. He refuses to give Caroline a baby after everything he knows. The man tells him that she'll find out eventually, asking what he'll do when she does. He responds by saying he doesn't know.

The man sells his recording equipment after the interviews, but not before transcribing their interviews and keeping it on a USB drive in his closet. He's disturbed by the secrets and lies they've kept since the event. He says that Will and Caroline came over for dinner a few weeks after the interviews, acting normally. They touch each other intimately, leading the man to think that all is well. The next day Caroline comes back to retrieve her sweater. She catches a glance of the man's 9 year old son, smiling and saying that he's not young enough.

## Cast

Mike DelGaudio as the man

David Cummings as Will

Nikolle Doolin as Caroline