Mischief // S.S. AU

13.

"Did we walk up here just to take cool instagram pictures in an old building that can fall apart at any moment?" I say while leaning against the wall by the exit.

"Actually, no." David said making his way towards me. "This isn't even the coolest thing about this place." He led us down a path that was just outside of the old building. We came to a stop in front of large rocks that had holes in them that looked like a doorway. "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the old Griffith Park Zoo."

"David how the hell..." I pull out my camera to get some more footage. "I didn't even know there was an old Griffith Park Zoo." Liza admits as we walk into the rock doorway. Towards the back of the area we're gates. Scotty tried to open one, but it was locked.

"I've already tried all of them." David admitted to us. "I've gotten in once and it just leads back to the house with the graffiti."

"Why have you never taken any of us here?" Gabbie asked as we walked back out of the cave-like room. "I used to come here al the time when I first moved here. I didn't really have any friends until I met Matt. Matt was the one who brought me here, first."

"This is the large animal area, the small ones are just a bunch of cages. They're all fenced off, but some of the gates are pulled back. " Matt tells us. "The only thing over there is the picnic area."

"I have the coolest friends." Gabbie says with a laugh. I turn my camera off.  "I heard rumors about this area being haunted." Scotty said as we sat on top of one of the rock picnic tables. "It was founded in the early 1900s. Apparently something bad happens to every one of the owners of the land." Matt tells us. "What were they killed by lions?" Liza let's out a laugh.

"No, no. This dates back like, a hundred and fifty years or something." Scotty tells the group. "I wrote a research paper over it last year. All of Griffith Park, not just the zoo, is cursed."

"Yeah, whatever." Gabbie rolls her eyes. "I doubt that."

"No seriously!" Matt speaks up. "This girl named Dona apparently placed the curse."

"Dona Petronilla." Scotty corrected. "Her uncle didn't leave anything behind to her in his will. No money, no property, nothing. So, in 1863 she shouted that nobody would ever gain any profit from this land. She said that the next owner of the land would die an untimely death and the other in blood and violence."

"Okay, ghost hunter. You're totally making this up." Gabbie argued.

"I'm serious!" Scotty let out a laugh. "You can even look it up. One of the guys died because he was shot in a local saloon. He was the one who negotiated the water rights, or whatever."

"Yeah, and Griffith himself was affected." Matt told us.

"He purchased the land in the early 1880s. Ten years after he purchased the property, he was shot by his business rival. He survived, though." David added on to Matt's statement.

"A few years later, he was freaked out. He started giving parts of the land to people for free."

"And then he shot his wife at the Santa Monica Hotel. She survived so he got sentenced for assault with a deadly weapon. He was known for being sober until the day it happened. He died of liver disease." Scotty claimed.

"Guys, come on. This isn't the Goonies. All of this is hard to believe." Gabby may not have believed them, but they sounded pretty convincing to me.

"No I promise! And the ghost of Petronillas uncle was seen at the party when Griffith transferred the land to the city! He invited everyone to hell and said he had brought demons with him. Everyone fled before anything could happen."

"In the 1990s they found ten dead bodies throughout all of the park." Matt spoke. "And in the 1930s an actress named Peg Entwistle jumped off of the H from the Hollywood Sign. That's why it's fenced off."

My eyes widened. "We were just there the other day!"

"I didn't know about that." David said in defense.

"There's also the story of the couple having sex on a picnic table that were crushed by a falling tree." Matt told the group with a small laugh.

"Can you imagine?" Liza tried to get her words out without laughing. "Oh babe I'm about to- BAM." She clapped her hands indicating the couple getting smashed.

"It says here on this website that a lady came here in 2010 with a film crew. She experienced a monkey accidently hanging himself, big game cats resorting to canabalism, and a Komodo dragon peeking out to spy on them." Scotty read from his phone.

"Why haven't we seen anything like that?" I say in a mocking dissapointed voice.

"I don't really believe that one." Liza admitted.

"Apparently there's a beast that haunts this place." Scotty said continuing to scroll through his phone. "Three guys were exploring late at night in 2005 but ran home after seeing a beast with green skin and red hair. It has black eyes but still had white, but the legs were very long and the back was bent backwards while the neck was bent forward."

"That's also unreliable." Gabbie spoke up. "I've never seen this beast walking around. Has anyone else ever seen it?"

"In 2009 a little boy was chased my an unusually large coyote, but there's no more reports of the green beast."

"That's what I thought."

"I found something about the merry go round, too. The parks mayor saw a man descending done a staircase but he disappeared when he hit the last step. A few days later, the same thing happened again."

"I'm starting to get goodbumps." Matt admitted. "I'm too big of a baby for this."

"Alright, I'll stop." Scotty put his phone up inside of his pocket.

"Can we go?" Gabbie asked the group and we all just laughed. "Yeah, lets go."

-

"David, why are we at a smoke shop?" I ask. "We aren't 18." I get out of the car, once again confused about the location David has taken us.

"You don't have to be, they don't ID here. The guy who works here is really cool." He holds the door open for us to walk in.

"David, hi!" The employee behind the counter asked. "I haven't seen you in a while."

"Hi Jason, I'm sorry. I've been super busy. I heard you got new stuff." David walks over to the counter to talk to this Jason guy. I find myself exploring around the store. The grinders are very nice, I notice Scotty was eyeballing one that looked like a pokeball. I make my way over to the inscents. Some of them reminded me of Colorado.

I walked over to the pipes to see if I want to buy any. All of them were so pretty and diverse. I picked up a tie dye glass blown pipe that was laying out on display. It was really pretty, but I didn't feel like spending sixty dollars on it. Especially since I just went on a huge shopping spree. I continue to look around the store. They had everything between hookahs and vape juice.

"I've never been to a smoke shop." I admit to Scotty as he walks over to me. "You figured I would have, especially since I'm from Colorado." He takes the pipe out of my hand to look at it himself. "This is basically all to it." He told me. "Jason has weed here. Although it's legal in California, Jason has strands that aren't. Plus, he doesn't have a license to sell it."

"How does he get away with it?" I ask as Scotty places the pipe down. "Well he doesn't tell people about it. You have to know people who know people who know Jason."

"I wonder how the first person discovered that Jason sells weird strands."

"Who knows? He's a weird guy." I smile at Scotty as he put his hand in mine. David told us he was done, so we made our way out of the small shop.