The Haunted House Tour: Dunk Tank

The room we were ushered into was dark when we arrived. The only light came from a large tank of water that bubbled and seemed to be swarming with fish that glinted in the hidden light.

"Ok, we might as well hear the story to do with this," one of the other men in the party called. "At least it doesn't look like anyone could be injured in here, unless you plan on drowning them."

"Well, that is exactly the reason it is now a fish tank. We had two minor incidents. This used to be a 'dunk tank' exhibit; a pretty member of staff would sit on that bench over the tank and the guests on the tour would throw balls at that target you can just see in the dark corner over there. We had plenty of volunteers, because the weather was warmer; they looked on it as a chance to cool down and get paid to sit around, because it takes a very good throw to release the bench. But after the incidents and the weather getting colder volunteers dried up, so we converted it into a fish tank."

"You say 'incidents'; did anyone die?" someone else asked.

"Thankfully not. The first one was one of the girls got stuck; something caught on the bench as it fell to the side and she was stuck in the tank for a while until we could release her, so she could get to the ladder out of the tank at the back. The other incident was much more serious. The girl on the bench fell wrong and bashed her head on the glass, knocking herself out. It took three of us to get her out and then we had to give her the 'kiss of life'. Again no lasting harm, but there were fewer volunteers to sit on the bench after that."

The girl who had helped dress Chloe before her beheading, moved toward the tank and climbed the set of rungs up the side and shuffled onto the bench.

"Excuse me, miss, but you really ought to come back down; I fear it is not safe up there."

"I've been standing about for far too long; my feet are killing me. This is the first seat of any sort I've seen since I arrived at this place."

"But we haven't done any maintenance on that in a month and there may be some rot and you might fall in," objected Barnes.

The girl bounced her weight on the plank that supported her over the tank full of fish, shifting further from the access ladder in the process. The plank did not budge and the mechanism gave no sign of even feeling the strain.

Barnes was already moving up the ladder. At the top he said, "Be careful not to fall in, because the fish are dangerous."

As he reached for her, she asked "How can fish be dangerous?"

She pushed against the butler, causing him topple backward, as he said, "They're piranhas!"

Barnes tried to catch the momentum the girl had given him on the rail at the top of the ladder, but fell flailing his arms. His trajectory caused him to bounce off the target-plate of the mechanism. There was a frozen moment in which we all realised what was about to happen, but were powerless to prevent.

The girl's scream did not last long, because she was soon underwater as the plank-seat folded out from under her and into the side of the tank. She flailed about in the water and was enveloped in a swarm of fish. The water suddenly blossomed red around her and all we could do was watch in horror as the fish attacked. Soon after the water became cloudy with floating fragments of flesh then it became clearer again as the fragments were snapped up by members of the shoal. Soon the frenzy of activity close to surface of the tank abated and the fish returned to swimming about in their former calm manner, as a fleshless skeleton settled to the bottom of the tank.

As Barnes rose to his feet, trying to straighten his jacket, somebody of our number commented, "At least she didn't drown."

Barnes looked into the tank with its recently added ornament. He gave every appearance of suppressing the desire to vomit and hurried to the exit door.