Blazer’s Forgotten Fun Zone

Any child born and raised around the end of the 90s and early 2000s will probably know what place I’m talking about. If you live outside of the town of Radcliff or, hell even outside of Kentucky, this place may be foreign to you.

To make it short and sweet, Blazer’s Fun Zone is the byproduct of a Chuck E Cheese wannabe mixed with one of those gyms that have trampoline floors and foam block pits. It was founded in 2008, which some people consider to be a pretty unlucky time to open a kid’s entertainment center.

I was one of the thousands of groups of children who got to experience what this place was like. it has arcades, play areas, a skating rink, and a laser tag arena. To us kids, it was the only place to have fun in the entire city, but then of course some nerdy kid would brag about how Chuck E Cheese was better, and then get picked on by other kids. other than that, this place was a kid’s wonderland.

I currently live in Indiana with my soon-to-be wife. I’d say it was around spring when I was reminded of that place again, me and my girlfriend were tidying up the house and looking at things that were left by old homeowners and such.

There were boxes of children’s books, board games, and a plastic toy chest that looked like it had been melted by the sun. after moving tons of boxes around, something caught my eye, so I decided to move closer, I saw a lightly dusted poster that clung to the plywood wall it stood on,

the biggest piece of text on it read “ARCADE, INFLATABLES, PARTIES, FOOD, AND FUN!” printed with slightly faded neon green font. The logo was placed right in the middle of the page, I recognized it and quickly thought back to the times I’d been at Blazer’s, the rest of the text included a phone number, the address, and a website link, but something was off.

The address was for a location in Marysville Kentucky. Last time I checked there was only one location, I was sure of it.

I decided to search it up on Google, and what I found was… interesting to say the least.

There was a pin for a place called Blazer’s Fun Zone in Marysville, but it was located in a patch of forest next to an interstate, and from the satellite view I was able to make out a somewhat unused turnoff section.

I knew that it would be weird to ask my girlfriend about it, so I regrettably kept the info to myself and I told her later that day that I felt tired and needed some time off. She agreed and I convinced her to go on a small vacation to Marysville.

We stayed at a hotel and figured this was the only break that we were gonna have. It was around 6 PM when I told her that I was gonna look for other places we could visit, she offered to ride along but I declined knowing that she needed some rest after she had to carry a shopping cart’s worth of items into our hotel room.

I drove off and made my way to where that turnoff was, luckily it was easy to spot due to the pizza shop that was conveniently close by. I parked the car for a moment, the headlights piercing through the twilight-lit roadway, at that moment I doubted myself. I kept thinking that it was a bad idea and that I might get jumped by some homeless dude that could live there for all I know, but after that brief pause I cautiously drove through the turnoff and on to a rough asphalt road.

By now the forest obscured most of the remaining sunlight and gave the road an eerie look, the car’s headlights acting as the only reliable source of light I had, the ambient sounds of the forest mixed with the sound of the car creeping across that winding road.

Eventually, I made it to what appeared to be a weathered and beaten parking lot, and looming in the middle of it was a large paint-chipped building.

I parked my car and started walking closer. I noticed small details on the building in front of me, the logo looked just as withered as the rest of the building, decorative bushes that you would see at any fast food restaurant had grown more some even having vines that trailed up the building, and small amounts of trash seemed to be scattered across the whole area, but not to the point that it looked like a landfill.

Some bare scaffoldings at the top section of the building looked like they had once held a billboard that was now either taken down or lost to time.

Looking at this building gave me a sad feeling seeing a place I used to go to looking just as depressed as any other stranger you would see in your day-to-day life, but at the same time I felt different. I stood out from this separate location that I never even heard about.

Me being the curious bastard I am, wanted to take a peek inside and see if anything was intact. I tried the front door to see if people bothered locking the place up, but before I even tried to open the door I was greeted by the familiar look of plywood again, and a dusty closed sign.

With some disappointment, I decided to look for other ways of entry. After some quick lurking I found a battered door that served as an employees entrance. I went checking for locks on the door and soon enough I did find the lock…

it lay on the ground in a rusted state, seeming to have been broken recently.

I already knew that this was a bad sign, and two scenarios popped into my head, either the place had been trashed, or someone was using this place as a home or a hiding spot.

With those in mind, I cautiously opened the door.

A hallway stood before me, it had multiple selections of doors that were either sealed up, or busted down.

Out of the four that were open I chose one to my right, and I was greeted to the slightly intact remains of a dining area.

Pizza boxes, cups and cans littered the tables. The smell of that room was moist and foul as I coughed and struggled to get used to the environment.

After choking on the stench, I walked slowly through what remained of the area, a large structure of plastic tunnels, burrows, and slides was packed in the center, and a loose hanging net wall surrounded the whole thing also showing signs of wear and tear.

To my left was the remains of the arcade, some cabinets still intact while others looked trashed. Ahead of me was a decorative pathway to the inflatable obstacle course, with additional signs pointing towards multiple activity areas.

Each wall and painted area was faded and dull, while grime seemed to gather up in spots showing how aged the whole building was.

I continued walking forward Till I noticed something intriguing.

There, right in front of a now discarded set of tables stood a stage, a stage that looked a little too familiar.

All of my thoughts stopped as I continued gazing at that stage. The curtains were purple with a continuous pattern of fire decorated the top and bottom of each curtain, due to the condition of the building, they were just as battered, and were thin enough to look through. oversized silhouettes stood behind them, non-moving, and lifeless.

Those silhouettes were unmistakable, the stage, the curtains. this wasn’t any ordinary stage, this was a stage that housed animatronic entertainers.

This made me even more curious, Why did this location have an animatronic band? For as long as I could remember the mascots at Blazer’s were ALWAYS people dressed in costumes, was this place unique?

These questions that filled my head were soon answered by the loud screeching of loudspeakers, and a garbled voice echoed over me.

“LADIES, GENTLEMEN, AND KIDS OF ALL KINDS! BLAZER AND HIS FRIENDS HAVE COME TO PERFORM A SONG OF YOUR LIKING, SO GATHER UP QUICKLY BECAUSE BLAZER IS READY FOR THE SHOW!”

Soon enough I heard the sounds of winches, pulleys, and other mechanical noises as the curtain was pulled open. The stage lights were lit, some functioning fine with only one of them Bursting, emitting tiny sparks and smoke afterward.

The robot band that stood before me looked strangely intact but still dusted and stained by the decrepit conditions. Blazer stood center and firm, and standing beside him were two characters I had never seen before. Both of them were supposed to be dragons, each one unique yet similar, one was blue, and the other was red. The red dragon was sitting at a drum set while the blue one held an electric guitar that had that 70s paper cup design plastered on it.

Before I had the chance to look any further, a song slowly echoed from the stage as the characters jolted to life and performed. The song they were singing sounded like a cover of “One” by Three Dog Night, but the lyrics were weirdly improvised.

It all seemed natural till the second verse came in.

“No is the saddest word that you’ll ever know

Yes is the one you expect, but you never do

And if one is the loneliest number then you know it too

That bye is the saddest word that you’ll ever know”

I remained speechless, but then the song jolted and repeated the verse.

“No is the saddest word that you’ll ever know-”

And then it happened again.

“No is the saddest word that you’ll-”

And again.

“No is the saddest word-”

It kept repeating till it was stuck in a loop of saying “No”, and every time it repeated, it would slowly get faster.

I was about to start walking toward the dining area to avoid getting creeped out further when I suddenly heard a loud demanding voice.

“Where do you think you’re going?!”

I froze, the hair on my neck stood straight up, I looked back at the band noticing that they had frozen, the eyes of each character seemed to look straight at me. Soon enough the voice broke the silence again, but this time Blazer opened his mouth.

“Sit down, or GET OUT!”

The booming voice echoed around me as the loudspeakers started to screech again.

Without any second thoughts I sprinted my way back to the dining room, but as soon as I ran, the sounds of fast and heavy footsteps followed, I looked behind me, and to this day I still regret making that decision, because what I saw shook me to my very core.

standing roughly ten feet away from me was Blazer himself, his mask was loosely sliding to one side, and he was close enough to make out some keen details. Something seemed to be trickling down his arms, it was too dark to see what it was, but I hoped it wasn’t what I thought.

But the scariest thing was that his robotic eyes were dangling loose from his head, the eyes were rolled back only showing blank white spaces. The moment I laid my eyes upon that thing, bolting towards me, I screamed and ran at a track runner’s pace. I bolted out of the building and toward my car, frantically pressing the unlock button on my car’s key fob.

I climbed in, started the car, and hit the gas pedal harder than I’ve ever had in my life, swerving my car back onto that shitty asphalt road. In the rear-view mirror I caught the final glimpse of that thing, it was waving goodbye, almost as if it knew that I wouldn’t come back.

I returned back to my apartment, it was quite late, and my girlfriend asked me if I had found any worthwhile places to visit. luckily I wasn’t willing to lie through my teeth this time and I did have a list of places that I found before my “brief exploration”.

I woke up a few minutes ago and decided to type this out now because now I’m getting worried. I went to the news channel that morning and there was a breaking story, it was about a child from a nearby house who went missing.

I only assume he found his way to that evil place, I don’t know what type of fate he suffered, but I just pray he isn’t dead.

If you are local to this place, please don’t be stupid enough to attempt what I did. If this story works as a warning then please listen to it. whatever happened to that forgotten place is best left a mystery.