CreepsMcPasta Creepypasta Radio - "Has anyone been to Chester's Kidzone" Creepypasta

Starting point is 00:00:01 When I was a kid, my dad would leave me alone in various places while he went off the drink. The most frequent of these was a laundromat that happened to be across the street from his favourite local bar. Sometimes he would take me to do the laundry with him before telling me he had to step out for a few minutes. Dad would give me some quarters for the arcade machine in the back of the laundromat, one of those racing games with an attached steering wheel. To be honest, I kind of liked being left at the laundromat. I didn't have video games at home and the arcade. machine was a nice escape.

Starting point is 00:00:33 Anyway, this story isn't about the laundromat. But the fact that I like that game so damn much might explain why dad thought that Chester's kid's own looked like a perfect place to leave me while he drowned his sorrows. I believe I was eight at the time. I was stuck running errands with my father on a hot summer

Starting point is 00:00:51 day and he drove out to a hardware store located in a strip mall off the highway. The strip mall consisted of two long run-down buildings which faced each other at a right Among the various businesses these buildings contained, all of which had seen better days, was the dive bar at the end of the strip. After we left the store, Dad looked longily at the bar. He wanted to go in, but he didn't know what to do with me.

Starting point is 00:01:18 I watched him reluctantly fight off temptation as we walked to the car. Dad was putting the keys in the ignition, when he paused, looking at something in the distance. At the end of one of the buildings, tucked into an easy-to-eat-earned. Miss corner of a strip mall was a set of double doors underneath cartoon font signage. Jester's Kid Zone. Dad pulled the keys out of the ignition and retrieved his wallet. Here, he said, handing me three dollar bills, go play some games in that arcade. I'll come get you in an hour.

Starting point is 00:01:51 I'd been to Jockey Cheese a few times and I was sure three bucks wouldn't buy enough tokens to play for an hour. I also knew better than to challenge Dad. I walked sheepishly through the double doors as he headed to the far end of the strip mall. I don't remember everything about Chester's kid's own, so I won't try to fill in the blanks, but I do remember a few things vividly. The first thing I noticed was that there were no adults in sight, just a handful of other kids. There was a snack counter, but no employees behind it. Kids would wander up to the glass and retrieve prepackaged snacks and candy before running back out to the arcade floor.

Starting point is 00:02:27 I took a pretzel myself. but it was stale. Tocons were dispensed by a machine that took dollar bills. To my surprise, the three dollars I brought were more than enough. After I fed it the first dollar, tokens began pouring out. The receptacle where the tokens landed overflowed with gold coins. I stuffed my pockets until they couldn't hold any more. As I walked away to check out the arcade floor,

Starting point is 00:02:52 I heard the clinking of tokens still dropping out. To my eight-year-old eyes, the arcade floor seemed huge. much larger than the building looked from the outside. Unoccupied game machines crisscrossed the floor in a maze-like fashion, kids occasionally scampering between them before disappearing again. The interior of Chester's Kid Zone was bathed in a dark shade of purple. I recall the souls of my sneakers stick into the carpets as I walked across the arcade. They hadn't been cleaned recently, if ever.

Starting point is 00:03:24 In fact, the whole place was dingy. Once or twice I saw a mouse skitter across. the floor. Long cracks ran up the walls, which were bare, except for a few haphazardly hung photos of Chester, the establishment's mascot. I didn't recognize most of the arcade machines. Those I was familiar with had handwritten out-of-order signs taped to their screens. I tried my hand at some of the others, but found most of them strange and difficult to play. In one game, I have a fussy memory of, I used the joystick to guide a player character through a never-ending array of hallways. Wolf-like creatures lurk the hallways,

Starting point is 00:04:01 tracing the player character. There was no way to fight them off. The machine didn't even have any buttons aside from the joystick. The player character just ran through the virtual hallways until the wall of things caught up and tore him limb from limb, computer generated blood,

Starting point is 00:04:16 eventually splatching the screen, so I couldn't see anything anymore. I've since scoured websites that catalog old arcade games from the era, but I can't seem to find anything about this one. The other children struck me as a bit off. They mostly kept themselves playing alone And I was painfully aware of what the other kids were wearing

Starting point is 00:04:37 From oversized stained t-shirts to torn jeans The kids at Chester's wore clothing even more ragged Than the hand-me-downs I got teased for at school I bumped into one of the other kids As he darted out from behind a row of gaming machines A boy about my age Sporting a bowl cut which had grown slightly too long He seemed nervous

Starting point is 00:04:58 I could tell that behind the mop of hair obscuring his eyes. He was looking at his feet. I'm Ricky, he said shyly. When I play? I was just glad to have made a friend in the odd place. Ricky and I spent more time playing arcade games than talking. When I asked how long he'd been there, he just shrugged. We'd been playing games for a while when a sound like a tornadoes iron emanated from the far wall, where an elevated stage sat behind a set of purple curtains.

Starting point is 00:05:31 That means it's showtime, Ricky said. We have to go watch. Ricky and I, along with every other kid at Chester's, took seats at the set of tables in front of the stage. The curtains opened to reveal a tall animatronic figure I recognized as Chester. Chester was an anthropomorphic animal, like a badger or weasel.

Starting point is 00:05:54 At least, I think that's what it was supposed to be. It had various points of articulation, able to rotate its head and body, raise its arms up and down and move its eyes in various directions. It wore a mechanics' jumpsuit, complete with a name tag, dark smears that looked like oil stains covered the outfit. The Chester Animatronic went on to perform a show, most of which was unremarkable.

Starting point is 00:06:18 I only distinctly recall two things. One is a song and dance in which the animatronic shimmied unnaturally, its mouth flapping open and shut as a speaker somewhere inside playing an off-key jingle. Fun, fun, fun, fun, and Chester's Kid Zone, here is your place to escape. Laugh and play at Chester's Kid Zone, you can stay here every day.

Starting point is 00:06:40 The second thing is the end of the performance. After completing its routine, the animatronic clumsily clapped his hands together. It's time to pick the special guest. The animatronic's head swiveled slowly as if scanning the crowd. Some of the other kids squirmed. Chester's head stopped mid-swivel

Starting point is 00:07:00 before the animatronic raised its left arm and it was pointing to a boy who sat alone at a table a few dozen feet from Ricky and I You're today's special guest Chester exclaimed Come on up Me? The boy whimpered Come on up

Starting point is 00:07:19 The animatronic repeated His voice suddenly almost deafening The boy stood up and walked onto the stage The animatronic raised his arm awkwardly. The boy winced, and he saw that the animatronic was gripping him by the back of the neck, the way you grab a dog by its scruff. That's all for today. See you tomorrow, Chester said, pleasantly.

Starting point is 00:07:43 The curtains began to draw. The boy in stage was trembling. Just before the drapes closed fully, the dark stain spread across his pant leg. What's going on? I asked Ricky. I felt uneasy. Just part of the show, he replied,

Starting point is 00:08:01 I want to go playing the tubes. Ricky gestured towards the structure across the building, a massive elevated jungle gym, an interconnected set of plastic tubes that snaked across the ceiling. Kids could enter and exit the tubes via networks of four towers with walls made of netting intended to be climbed,

Starting point is 00:08:20 enclosed slides and even a fire pole. Sure, I said. As I followed Ricky towards the tubes, he turned. Just watch out, he said. There's a weird girl in there sometimes. Ricky and I climbed up and began to crawl through the plastic tubes together. Through portal-like windows, we could see the arcade floor below. The tubes had an unpleasant smell.

Starting point is 00:08:48 As I followed Ricky throughout its twists and turns, he got stronger. By the time we approached the sharp curve, the stench was overpowering. Ricky crawled far enough to peek around the curve and started to back pedal. He made a full turn so he was now facing me. She's here, he whispered. I'm going back, use the fire pole. She can't slide down. Ricky squeezed past me, crawling in the direction we came from.

Starting point is 00:09:18 I wondered what bothered Ricky about this girl? I needed to see for myself. I continued crawling, making sure not. to breathe through my nose as I got closer. Finally, I reached the other side of the curve. The plastic tube reached its end in a circular chamber several yards ahead. In the chamber was a girl several years older than me. She was filthy.

Starting point is 00:09:43 Her matted hair pulled on the floor of the tube around a dress so tattered, it barely clung to a body. More disturbing, she lacked a single limb. What should have been each arm or leg ended in a rough stump. The fact that she was even able to remain upright was a feat. She hunched low to the ground, chewing frantically on something small and furry trapped between her armstumps. Beside her was a putre pile of what looked like fur and guts. The stack of neatly separated pink tails confirmed that the girl had been eating rats.

Starting point is 00:10:18 She didn't know I was there. I began to crawl in reverse, trying to make each knee fall as soft as possible. I'd almost gotten back around the curve when the squeak of my sneaker against plastic echoed through the tube. The girl snapped her head upwards, fixing a wild gaze on me. Red liquid dribbled down her chin. She snarled. I frantically turned my body to crawl in the other direction.

Starting point is 00:10:43 Sensing that I was leaving, she dropped the rat and began to scramble towards me. I crawled madly back through the tubes. I looked back and saw her advancing in a prone position much faster than anyone without a single limb should ever be able to crawl. I kept going, navigating bends and forks in the tubes, not knowing if they'd trapped me in another dead-end chamber. The whole time I had thumping behind me as the girl propelled herself through the tubes. Finally, I came across the tube with a hole in the floor and a metal bar extending through it.

Starting point is 00:11:13 I gripped the fire pole and wrapped my legs around it. Angry, hyper-shrieking came from above as I slid down to ground level. Back on the arcade floor, I looked up at the tubes. The limless girl glared at me from one of the portal windows, her eyes burning with rage. I fled, making my way to the front of the establishment and pushing through the double doors. I ran all the way down to the other end of the strip mall and right into the bar my father was in. I knew I'd get a beating for that later, but that was better than spending another second in Chester's Kid Zone. I never heard a thing about Chester's Kid Zone from anyone again.

Starting point is 00:11:52 I passed by this trip mall a few years later, and all that remained was an empty retail space. Until now, I've only thought of Chester's and brief flashes. I guess I don't like to think about it. The memory makes me feel dirty like Chester's was, and trapped, like I'm still in the tubes, scrambling to find the exit, the limless girl thumping just around the bend.

Starting point is 00:12:16 But recently, I decided, I want to know more about Chester's. If nothing else, I want to confirm that it was real, and not just a childhood fever dream I convinced myself was true. I asked my father about the day he dropped me off at Chester's kid's own, but he didn't know what I was talking about. Not surprising. Dad's lost this memory the same place he lost everything else,

Starting point is 00:12:40 at the bottom of a bottle. I searched online to find any information I'd go about Chester's, but I had no luck with either current or historical business. listings. I eventually came across a thread in an obscure forum where a couple of posters vaguely referred to Chester's. The locations they mentioned, several of them were nowhere near me, but the general descriptions were accurate. When I pulled up the website again this morning, the thread was gone. The link I saved redirected to a 404 page. And that's how I ended up here. At this point, I just want to know that I'm not crazy. To anyone listening to,

Starting point is 00:13:18 to this. Have you ever been to Chester's Kid Zone?

CreepsMcPasta Creepypasta Radio - "Has anyone been to Chester's Kidzone" Creepypasta

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