The Truth About What Happened

"Well that does it!" Marissa said to herself. "I blew my last chance!" She had liked working on the Haunted Freighter attraction in Willow Grove, New Jersey. She had actually enjoyed being a scare actor, especially when she did it well. That is until the night of the incident.

It had been on an evening, a few weeks ago. Marissa had been working in the brig. Which was a part of the ship that was partitioned from an adjacent walkway by a curtain of metal pipes hung on chains. Marissa loved playing the prisoner! It was so much fun to pretend to be a thug. Her huge frame and years of watching the reality TV show, Lockdown, had made it easy to bring life to the role.

Marissa's job had been easy, she just waited until people triggered the trap in the next room. That was her cue to slam herself as hard as she could against the "bars". "LET ME OUT!" She would scream. "I ONLY STABBED HIM A LITTLE!" Usually this was enough to send people bug eyed and frightened towards the next stage. In case it wasn't, Marrisa had a special area of the chained curtains she could exit through and ambush guests. It was exciting! So much better than the retail jobs she had worked at previously.

Then, just when everything had been looking up, the unthinkable happened. Marissa had just been doing her usual "I'm just an innocent psycopath" routine. The man had walked in alone, that was weird enough, most people came with at least one other friend. Marissa thought this would be easy; she rattled the bars as hard as she could. "Hey;" she wispered in what she hoped was a scary voice. She stepped back from the bars. The guy was standing there, staring at her with a look of hate in his eyes. Marissa barely had time to register this when the man stepped through into her cell. He grabbed her by the shoulders and began shaking Marissa as hard as he could.

She was frightened, she thought if she didn't get help she was going to die. She tried to call to her managers who were just on the other side of the door. The words wouldn't come out; she wasn't sure whether it was because her attacker was rattling her body so hard or fear, but there was silence where there should've been a scream.

Marissa was getting woozy but somehow remembered a self defence move she knew. She brought her arms beneath her attacker's and managed to push him off! "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" She yelled. The man stammered "I don't understand I thought--" Marissa was furious. "IT WAS AN ACT! GET OUT!" The man seemed cowed, he stepped back out of the guest path and began walking away. "I'm going to report this to my supevisor!" Marissa said. She pushed the button on her microphone radio. "760, this is Marissa in the brig;" she said. "A man wearing a white shirt, black shorts and white sneakers just attacked me." This was exactly what the man had been wearing. 

Her managers, all three of them, were there in an instant. They told Marissa she had done the right thing. The rest of the night was very confusing. At first Marissa felt fine but then her neck and head began to ache. She radioed her supervisor again and asked to be taken to the first aid station. While they were walking Marissa's supevisor, Velma spoke to her. "We got the guy;" Velma said. "Do you want to press charges?" Marissa was convinced what had happened to her wasn't right. "Yes!" She said. "That guy shook me! Totally not cool!"

In the trailer that served as the medical office, Marissa learned she wasn't the only walking wounded. Her friend, Pietro, who also worked on the Haunted Freighter, was sitting inside holding an ice pack to his chest. Apparently, the same guy who had attacked Marissa had punched Pietro so hard that the boy couldn't breathe. The paramedic checked both of them out. A pair of policemen took their statements and reviewed surveillance video of the incident. Both Marissa and Pietro signed reports and were asked if they wanted to press charges. Both said they did but Pietro was a minor and his mother made him drop charges. Once the police had left, the paramedic handed Marissa paperwork for workman's comp then told her to go home.

Weeks later Marissa was still not back to normal. The doctor had told her she had a concussion and needed rest. She couldn't focus or think. She would scream if one of her co-workers accidentally sneaked up on her. She began to have meltdowns. This would be triggered when some of the more agressive teens who walked through would flip her off or call her a bitch or some other horrible thing. Maybe she was just a wuss but sometimes Marissa ended up crying so hard she had to go home early.

The last straw had been when her boss, Mr. Brian Childress, called her into the office for an impromptu meeting. "Marissa, we've gotten complaints;" Brian said. "They claim you've been getting in altercations with guests." Marissa had no idea how that rumor had started. She hadn't hit anyone or gotten into physical fights with anyone. Tears began pouring down from her eyes. "I'm sorry, Sir;" she said. "I just have been too stressed. What with doctor visits and specialists and having to catch the bus!" She didn't know what he wanted to hear. "We're just concerned;" Brian said. "We don't know if you want to really be here or not."

They didn't fire Marissa. She tried to regain composure, but she couldn't. Her heart wasn't in her act that night. Then some boy saw Marissa in the dark charcoal makeup she was wearing. "Look!" He said to his friends. "It's the Hamburglar!" Marissa wasn't in a good place. She tearfully stepped back into the actors only area. She pushed the microphone on her costume. "760, I quit!" She shouted into the device. Minutes later the manager on duty, Kevin, came to talk with her. "Hey, Marissa;" he greeted her. "What's up?" Marissa remembered the words Kevin had told her a few days ago. "You're right, Kevin;" she said. "People are jerks…and I can't handle it! I am quitting." They asked her to stay until another person came to fill in her position. Marissa did and waited outside the Willow Grove amusement peir. 

She felt ashamed for quitting the one job she had had in years. What choice did she have? There was no chance anyone would want to hire her after this but her psyche couldn't take anymore.

Eventually, friends and family who knew about the attack Marissa had suffered on the Haunted Freighter wanted to know what had happened to the guy who had shook her. When she worked up the nerve, Marissa called the Willow Grove Police Department. A seargent asked her "This guy shook you." He said. "Do you want to press charges?"

"I did!"

"You'll have to go to city hall to get that set in motion."

"I will, Thank you."

Marissa hung up the phone, tired and disillusioned, she just wanted to put that night behind her. She couldn't though, her dream had been to be a police officer so that meant she had to know the outcome of any action taken. The phone rang again. It was Willow Grove Police Department. The same seargent she had spoken to earlier was on the line. "Marrisa?" He asked. "Yes, go ahead;" she said. There was a pause as the seargent refered to some notes. "I reviewed your case file;" he said. "I don't want you to waste your time. We had to let the suspect go because we couldn't tell wether he was white or Hispanic." Marissa gritted her teeth. "I won't come in then;" she said. "Thank you, seargent." She ended the call.

For a long time all she could feel was sad and angry. The man who shook her had done so much more than physical damage. Marissa felt worthless, helpless and powerless. Because of his stupid actions, Marissa had been forced to give up scare acting. The acute stress and nightmares didn't help either. She felt even more pathetic when she explained what happened to her to other people. She could never tell if they thought she was a coward, melodramatic or a liar. It made her want to punch something.

Finally, a better idea occured to her. The police might not care, her former employers didn't seem to want anything to do with the incident, but the truth had to come out. Marissa sat down on her couch and opened up her laptop. "Now I'll take my power back" she said. She began typing her story.