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ARCHIVIST
Statement of…Sam McLaughlin, regarding their employment under Gardenview Educational Center and Museum. Original statement given July 14th, 2002. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London. Statement begins.
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT)
Honestly, I don’t even know why I’m here. It’s not like you can do anything about it - I’ve tried to get in myself. I guess my position was pretty low-rung all things considered, so security won’t let me back in the building. Doubt you’ll have any better luck than me, even with your academic credentials. And it’s… not like I have any proof to give you either, so this is probably just a complete waste of my time.
Still, what the hell else am I supposed to do? Just - leave them there? I don’t even know what scares me the most - the idea that they’re trapped in there forever or that…those things that I saw might break out someday.
I’m rambling. Sorry. You know Gardenview Park? It was, uh, over in the States, so I’m not sure how well known it is over here. I was over on a student visa studying at the University of Michigan at the time, and I desperately needed a job. My family was paying for my engineering degree best they could, but it wasn’t enough and I really didn’t want to deal with student loans. The problem was… most of the entry-level positions I could apply for that would accommodate my college schedule weren’t nearly enough for me to help contribute to the cost - so I was scrounging around for basically anything that paid me higher than minimum wage.
Gardenview Park was just about a 30 minute drive from Ann Arbor, and you wouldn’t believe how much space everything in the US has until you see it with your own eyes. The place was huge. The Education Center itself stood isolated from everything else, and was largely the reason families took their children to see the park in the first place. You couldn’t even just walk to the museum normally, you had to take a train that looped around the place. And as much as I like it when the States finally take a page outta the rest of the world’s book and start banking on public transportation, it just felt like a complete waste of time. The kids loved it though, so that’s probably what counted most in the end.
The whole process of actually getting the job at the Education Center was…weird. Really weird. I was interviewed by a man named Arthur Walton, the supposed founder. Gardenview Education Center was based on this cartoon show that ran on a lot of the cable channels across the US, and apparently he and a woman named Delilah Keen had created the franchise almost entirely from scratch. Arthur, he was…well the first word that comes to mind is “eccentric” but I’m not entirely sure if that does him justice. When he walked in to give me the interview he was wearing a bright rainbow-striped vest and a striped green and white tie. He was an older man - late 40s, maybe? He had a streak of grey hair and some slight wrinkles on his face, but talked with such an animated liveliness that I wondered where that energy even came from.
He told me I would be working with state-of-the-art animatronics, something about fluid motions and realistic responses to stimuli. “Gardenview’s pride and joy” as he called it. Unfortunately I wasn’t gonna be doing any actual maintenance on them, much to my disappointment. In fact I was told in no uncertain circumstances to ever try looking at the physical mechanisms of the Toons themselves, since it required specialized training that they certainly weren’t giving out to any random engineering student. Oh, uh, they were also called Toons, by the way. Did I - did I mention that?
Arthur explained I would instead be supervising the toons' interactions with the children that visited the Education Center - making sure they weren’t damaged, they were behaving appropriately, and that they were monitored at nearly all times during the park’s open hours. It all sounded rather strange and I certainly wasn’t the best at working with the public, let alone children, but the pay was beyond anything I could’ve hoped for anywhere else so I said I could start immediately. I didn’t even think twice when I had a couple dozen NDAs shoved in my arms, I just thought it had to do with the intellectual property of the show. I’m…now just realizing I could probably get in a lot of trouble by saying this to you if the company still has a legal team, so I’d - prefer if you keep my name out of any investigations.
I only ever realized just how bizarre everything was on my first day of the job about a week later, when I met the Toon I would be stationed with. The Toons all had serial numbers, but I don’t think anyone ever actually used them outside of official documents. The Toon I was tasked with taking care of was named “Sprout”, and I was taken aback almost immediately upon meeting the thing. There were joints that were certainly similar to robots that I had seen at my time in university, but they moved so...fluidly and dynamically that it took me a while to even process what I was looking at. And when Sprout turned over to me and smiled I nearly fell over in shock. It - it certainly wasn’t like there was anything wrong, it was just– this had to be something of a mechanical marvel! There was no delay that most machines need when processing their next action, no sounds of whirring or churning, I couldn’t even identify anything on Sprout’s body that resembled a screw or nail! In fact, the only thing that pointed to them being artificial in any sort were the doll-like joints on their arms and legs, though it certainly didn’t put me at ease. It was uncanny.
I felt a slap on the back of my shoulder as Arthur made himself known, seemingly quite humored at my state of shock. According to him, the Toons themselves were “The closest to magic anyone could ever hope for” in terms of technology. I know he tried to explain it to me but the mechanisms he was trying to describe were so vague and far from anything I knew about as an engineer that it flew right over my head. I was still a bit amazed and more than a little frightened as Sprout took my hand and led me away. In my slightly dazed state it took me a while to realize that Sprout was talking, and it certainly didn’t sound like it was coming out of any voicebox or speaker system.
I should’ve likely done something, should’ve - asked what the hell was going on or how any of this was possible but I…I really needed this job, and I had little to no idea as to what could actually be going on, so I…followed. I just nodded and followed, listening on as Sprout continued to talk to me in a way that sounded more human than anything I had ever heard out of a machine.
And, for a while, that was just my life. I never found the courage to really ask about what was going on, and the more I paid attention the more I was certain that the Toons being animatronics was a straight up, blatant lie - or at best simply a half truth. I followed Sprout around for every single day, watching him pick up quirks and habits, make and eat physical food, have complex relationships with the other Toons that he interacted with- it was honestly a little surreal. If I closed my eyes while listening to them talk, I could imagine regular people you'd see anywhere else - having that exact same conversation I was hearing in front of me. I’ve got a younger brother back home in Hackney, y’know? Sometimes Sprout just sounded so like him that it gave me a sharp pang of sadness I could never fully figure out.
The months went by, and at some point I just sorta gave up trying to find a concrete answer and just… rolled with it. Maybe it was some kind of magic, maybe it was some sort of illusion that I just wasn’t privy to due to trade secrets, but I decided I cared more about my paycheck at the end of the week than discovering what kind of hidden secrets Gardenview was doing behind the scenes. I wanted to learn more about it in my classes at first? But - nothing in my ECE courses made any mention of anything Gardenview was doing at all. I thought considering the “technological marvels” and being so close by to the university it would at least get mentioned, but sometimes it felt like I was the only one who even knew about it. The kids and parents never even seemed to notice anything was amiss though, who I thankfully didn’t have to interact with much unless there was some form of conflict on the museum grounds.
My fellow “Toon Handlers” as we were called - were friendly enough. There weren’t as many as I would’ve thought, not every Toon in the Education Center had their own designated person to monitor them - something I found a little strange considering the immense amount of money that had to be involved in whatever the hell the Toons actually were. There were about…5 of us in total? I don’t remember their last names but they were Devan, Austin, Me, Shanon, and…Veronica? I think her name was Veronica, I didn’t hear her talk much. All of them had been there a lot longer than me, and showed me the ropes whenever I had any questions - since there wasn’t really a lot of corporate oversight. They talked to the Toons like old friends, would gossip about what they’d been doing during lunch breaks, and after a while I realized the other handlers were… just like me. They cared a lot more about their job than finding some “grand truth”. I never actually - saw Delilah? Arthur was the only one of the founders that I ever ran into while on shift, and seemingly seemed to be the spokesperson for Gardenview Education Center itself. I don’t know what she did behind the scenes or what her role was in the day-to-day, but I would sometimes see notes that Arthur and Delilah were writing to each other strewn across Arthur’s office.
It was…fine. Weird, probably something illegal, but it was fine. It only ever started to get weird once the… “ichor” started showing up everywhere.
It started out subtly, you know? I never actually saw the stuff until the toons started to have accidents in the dining room kitchen. Whenever they’d get cut, instead of tearing or scratching, they would…This is going to sound insane, but they… it was like blood. A dark, inky substance that stained anything it touched, seeping its way into the surface. I’d usually send them to get checked out by the founders, I never fixed them up myself. Arthur told me this… “ichor” was essential for how the toons’ functions worked, but it started to get, well - everywhere? For how excitable Arthur usually was, he’d usually get…real evasive at the subject. Said that was mostly Delilah's expertise. None of us pressed him about it, so I just…tried to pretend it didn’t exist. It wasn’t part of my job, so it didn’t matter.
First were the machines. Rooms would be put under for maintenance, only to be reopened a couple days later. They would be covered in pipes and tubes, thrumming and churning ichor across the building like an industrial bloodstream. If a pipe burst or a machine failed in some way, the entire floor was quarantined until it was fixed. None of us were allowed to go in there, let alone the guests and children. Then the lead toon - a flower named Dandy, uh - he kept disappearing. During the middle of the day, while the Education Center was open, there would be hours at a time where he was completely missing. Kids kept asking where he’d gone, we had to gently reassure them that he’d be coming back anytime now, but…genuinely nobody, even his own handler seemed to know where he went. Whenever he’d come back, he’d just say he was… “figuring something out” with the founders.
Why would a robot be programmed with shifty eyes? Or jittering hands?
I didn't want to pay attention to it, I didn't want to notice it. I needed this job. I kept my head low for months - whatever was going on there I didn’t want to know. I didn't pay attention to how human the toons were, I didn’t pay attention to how I never saw Delilah, despite the fact that apparently all the toons were made by her. I didn't pay attention to the ichor, or the machines, or any of it. If I didn’t press further, if I didn’t care, if I just stuck to me and Sprout, nothing could happen. We’d be safe.
I got attached to him, you know? Despite him and his best friend being right bastards, he was mine. He was who I looked after. Who, not - not what. And now he’s. Fuck, he’s…
It’s funny, how much you can ignore when you decide you want to.
It all happened so fast. It wasn’t even - the museum wasn’t even open, thank God for that. The museum had been shut down for routine maintenance. A lot of the machines had been breaking and causing ichor to spill all over the goddamn place - how anyone managed to get it out of the carpets is beyond me. We were all used to it at this point, but Sprout had told me that he had left his friendship bracelet in one of the rooms sectioned off. Stupid, I know, and he should’ve known better than to leave the bloody thing just hanging around. But the way he looked so distraught when he lost it, well…I might be stubbornly ignorant, but I suppose I’m a bit of a pushover too. Probably why I lasted there as long as I did.
Now we obviously weren’t allowed to go in areas with leaks, but I wasn’t going to take that for an answer. The elevators were far too loud to use without notifying someone nearby, but there were sets of stairs used for emergencies or staff use only. I crept down as quietly as I could, ignoring the churn of the pipes that sat directly above my head. It was one of the lower floors, covered head to toe in dinosaur replicas and placards about prehistory. It wasn’t as popular as some of the other areas, but it was one of my favorites. It felt the most like an actual museum, with so much information you could come a couple dozen times and catch something new every time. Although it was the last time I could think of the place without feeling a…deep sense of dread.
Puddles of deep, viscous fluid covered the floor in stark puddles, spreading out at jutting angles but never fully seeping into the floor. The machines were empty of their vats of ichor, and there was an eerie quietness that felt so wrong for a place usually full of life. There were no children running around, no excited voice rambling on about the “Albertosaurus” or something like that - it was just silent.
I don’t know why I started getting creeped out. I had been on this same floor dozens of times when the park was closed, it wasn’t like there was anything all that different. The sound of shuffling in the distance, or the dripping sound of ichor? It was probably just wherever the pipe had burst. The more I tried to put it out of my head, the more it wormed its way back in. Every sound, every visual in the corner that I couldn’t quite get a look at was…something. I didn’t know what, but it was something.
And then I found the bracelet.
Like I had struck the pressure on a bear trap, a loud roar broke the silence before I could swipe it from its spot. I froze, trying to find the supposed source when a dark puddle of ichor seemed to form at my feet, like it was seeping up from the ground itself. I didn’t know what I was looking at - I didn’t know what was happening. I wanted so badly to just take the bracelet and run, to just pretend I had never seen anything - but before I could a long, black vine extended itself from the newly formed puddle. It writhed its way from the surface, twisting and coiling and reaching for me. I fell down before it could grab at my ankles, screaming at this impossibility when -
Footsteps. Loud, pounding footsteps began to barrel their way towards me. I didn’t get the time to see where they were coming from, not at first, but it didn’t matter. I ran. I scrambled up on my feet and I ran. It was in the opposite direction of the stairs I had come from but I didn’t care. I didn’t even register a second form in front of me before I barrelled into another shape and toppled back onto the floor. It looked like Boxten, one of the toons back upstairs, but he looked…wrong. So so wrong. Ichor was dripping down nearly every open orifice on his body, pouring out from his head like it had split. Out from the top of his head came a large hand that slashed like a wild animal, digging into my arm like teeth before I could push it off of me. It WASN’T Boxten, it COULDN’T be Boxten, but it was like he was nothing but ichor-covered wounds that bled into the already soaked floor. Pain coursed through my arm as I tried to leave, yanking the hand off of my skin and taking off in a blind sprint. The footsteps still came, louder now, and the more I looked around for a form of escape the more of those things appeared in the corner of my eye. More deformed abominations, twitching and spasming towards me in a way that could never be human.
I was going to die. I was going to die to something I had no clue how to comprehend because I never bothered to pay attention to it.
The blood pumping in my ears was so strong that I almost didn’t notice when the elevator opened. The familiar ding was so relieving I might have cried, adrenaline coursing through my veins as the last of my strength carried me towards my supposed rescue. Those things were still hot on my tail but I didn’t care. Even if I had never seen Delilah Keen before, I knew it was her the second I met her gaze. Her expression was cold, but not cruel. Her hands were covered in the same ichor that flowed across my arm in rivulets. There was a somber look in her eyes as she saw my shambling state, with no sense of alarm or surprise. She reached out a hand to pull me in, and for the first time I turned around to get a look at the footsteps behind me.
It…It looked like Sprout. My Sprout. Except my Sprout…he - he wasn’t that tall. He didn’t have claws bigger than the size of my head, or legs that bent and swayed like branches in a storm.
My Sprout didn’t wail like that when the door slammed in its face.
None of us said a word as we made our way back up. From the looks of things, Delilah looked somewhat injured as well, but I couldn’t bring it up. I couldn’t say anything. I just sat on the floor, clutching my arm in pain and trying to ignore my own growing tears.
Gardenview shut down the next day, after I had been sent home. I wasn’t fired, surprisingly, but none of us officially were. From what I heard from Shannon, similar “workplace incidents” had happened all around the same time, and the place had to be evacuated. There wasn’t even a proper explanation we could give to the kids, just that it had to go. Security made their way around the perimeter soon after, so I…can’t go back.
But the toons are still there. They’re still IN there. I haven’t been able to get into contact with Arthur or Delilah through any of their previous lines of communication, and from what little I could find the press couldn’t seem to find them either. I don’t know where they are or what they’re doing but - they can’t just leave them in there. Those are…those toons are living and breathing people just like we are, and the things they’re trapped with certainly are not. They can’t be. Not after what I saw.
I just wished I hadn’t ignored it for so long. Maybe then I could still see Sprout.
I miss him.
ARCHIVIST
Statement ends.
An interesting statement, though one that leaves a lot more questions than answers. In most segments I am prone to disregard the ramblings of…living cartoons and their twisted counterparts, but Tim and Sasha did some digging into some local newspapers that detailed the various incidents around Gardenview Education Center and Museum. It is, indeed, a real place, and the cartoon that it was based off of ran uninterrupted from 1987 to 2002.
Information is a lot harder to find in foreign territory, as we don’t have the connections in America as we do here in London, but we were able to uncover some photographs. Although photography was apparently discouraged at the museum, there are many pictures online of the various exhibits, including these… “state-of-the-art animatronics” mentioned in Mx. Laughlin’s statement. Not only that, but there are many articles about the supposed closure of the park itself, and the disappearance of Arthur Walton and Delilah Keen. Our investigations into finding their current whereabouts for any sort of corroboration have come up short. Considering we do not have the full names of other coworkers that Mx. Laughlin had, any other communication with former members of Gardenview will take significantly more resources. Resources that we unfortunately, do not have.
Still, there is one thing that rubs me the wrong way. The way that Laughlin talks about humanity…and the way that it can be distorted. It puts me in mind of other statements, but I can’t pinpoint which exactly. Either way, more research needs to be put into this one. I may not believe Mx. Laughlin’s testimony…but there certainly is a lot more than meets the eye.
End Recording.
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