8 Amusement Park Horror Books That'll Take You on a Wild Ride

In the summer of 1989, a local carnival in Shadows Creek, Florida, was the site of a horrific massacre. One dark night, a group of teenagers slaughtered a dozen people before vanishing into thin air.

There's never been any answers as to why they committed such an atrocity, how many of them partook, or where they went afterwards. But legends say the killers still roam the now abandoned carnival grounds in search of more blood.

Three decades later, best friends Sam and Rochelle are on a boring senior trip when they hear the gruesome story of Cirque Berserk. Eager for one last high school adventure, they and their friends sneak off to Shadows Creek to see if there's any truth to the urban legend.

What they find behind the gates of the carnival is a brutal night of bloodshed and betrayal.

FantasticLand has “guaranteed” fun since the 1970s. But when a hurricane decimates the Florida coast, the employees isolated inside the theme park are not having a good time, to say the least.

After five long weeks, the survivors are finally rescued from a horrific scene. Later, the photos hit the internet: heads on spikes decorating the outsides of the rides, and gore and bones strewn across the gift shops.

How could such an atrocity come to be from this group of mostly teenagers?

This book unfolds as an investigation and series of first-person interviews, revealing the vicious new way of life that took hold as tribes were formed.

One of the best parts of visiting a carnival is the selection—you can hop off one ride and jump on to another, or pivot to an arcade or snack stand when the mood strikes. So why not capture that same freedom of joy with an anthology?

This collection explores the darkness that lies at the heart of a carnival.

Find stories from Kristen Strassel, Meghan Schuler, Claire C. Riley, and more!

The challenge is simple: All you have to do is spend a week hiding in an abandoned amusement park without getting caught. If you win, you take home enough money to completely change your life.

Despite the fierce—and desperate—competition, Mack is confident she has what it takes to beat the others. She's always been an expert at hiding—after all, that's why she's alive and her family isn't.

Yet as the people around her start vanishing one after the other, Mack finds the competition is more nefarious than she could have ever imagined.

And the only chance of getting out alive may be getting the others to work together.

The students of Pritchett High would kill for an invitation to the legendary Senior Scavenge. But in 2020, Violet Warren and her friends are the lucky ones who get in.

The eight girls are tasked with breaking into the Poison Apple Carnival after hours to complete a scavenger hunt. When the sun rises, they'll celebrate their successes and the beginning of their last year of high school.

However, it seems there's something a little more sinister planned for this year's game. Moments after the girls find their way into the carnival grounds, a masked madman launches an attack against the group.

It seems this killer's motivations are personal. And as Violet watches her friends die in these strange attacks, she must not only fight for survival, but figure out what she could have done to earn such bloody hatred.

Wonderland is a retro haven of joy by day, complete with children hyped on cotton candy and iconic carnival rides. But in the darkness of night, an eeriness settles over the grounds.

Some may be unsettled by the creepy wax statues in the Clown Museum, while others give the House of Horrors a wide berth. But tonight's horror comes from the decaying corpse abandoned in the midway for the Wonderland workers to find.

It's a hell of a way to kick off Vanessa Castro's first day as Seaside, Washington's deputy police chief. And if the rotting homeless man weren't enough of a kicker, the missing teenage employee adds an extra layer of panic.

As Castro pieces together clues in these seemingly separate crimes, she finds her way into a decades-old missing persons case. The shady rumors about the amusement park's history may be true after all.

And though she moved to Seaside to escape her own scandal, she may have dropped her family into the middle of a twister killer's dark game.

Bennytown has stood as a beloved American theme park for nearly 60 years. Its mascot, Benny the Bunny, has become a cultural icon, and the park has brought joy to generations of children.

The wonder of this park is so palpable that Bennytown once saved the life of 16-year-old Noel Hallstrom. Now to repay the favor, Noel has applied for a summer job.

Despite the crummy hours and messy work, Noel is thrilled to be welcomed into the Bennytown family. That is, until he uncovers the darkness hiding beneath the surface.

The park is stalked by strange, mechanized mascots, and cultists in wooden Benny masks loom in the darkness. Even worse, the spirits of those who died in the park return each night, and the grounds transform into a dimension of madness and monsters.

And it seems the darkness of Bennytown may have designs on Noel.

Pro wrestler AJ Starr is gaining traction and popularity. His life is about to change forever, and to commemorate it, he wants one last party with his closest friends.

His choice of venue is the Saxon Hills theme park, even though it was left abandoned after its flagship ride burned down a decade ago. Legend says that after nine people died in the tragedy, the grounds are still haunted.

But AJ is fairly certain he knows the difference between fantasy and reality.

He has no idea how wrong he could be, nor how much of a nightmare he's about to step into.