Zachery

I believe it was in 1982 that a group of us from Mt. Laurel, NJ went to Great Adventure in Jackson, NJ for…a great adventure. It all started when a young couple with their five-year-old son, Nuno, visited the States from the Azores. Nuno had trouble with his eyes and he was scheduled for surgery. My role in the excursion was to take pictures of Nuno and his parents as they went through the park, enjoying the rides and everything that the theme park had to offer. The pictures would be given to them to take back home as a memento of their trip.

It was a beautiful day as we wandered through the park. At most of the attractions, I snapped pictures and couldn’t help noticing the interaction between Nuno and his parents. They were having fun, and it was evident that the parents were doting on their small son. It started to affect me emotionally.

I was the kind of guy who was a bit of a loner. Being ill too often, hospitalized occasionally, having a rather depressing outlook for myself, I stayed pretty much to myself. I participated in the church activities in music, I had my hobbies, but I didn’t have an optimistic outlook about a normal future, such as personal companionship. I had my reasons, but to others they might not have been valid reasons. But that was my way of looking at things and I didn’t really let anyone know my deep feelings about anything.

Watching Nuno and his parents awakened a sense of needing to belong to the status quo, to participate in the normal routine of life, to have companionship with its accompanying sense of enjoying life together with someone special. After all, I was in my 30s. It was about time to leave my rather immature outlook and milquetoast disposition.

There were others in the group that day, including a couple of Portuguese ladies. We were attracted to the Haunted House exhibit, but there was quite a line, but we all queued up and slowly made our way toward the entrance. Small groups were periodically separated from the line to enter the Haunted House.

While we were waiting, a boy of about nine years old was also waiting in front of me. He appeared to be alone and he started to engage me in conversation. To be polite, I asked him questions in the process. He had been through the Haunted House before but he wanted to go again. His parents were in the park but they didn’t want to go through the line again. He was quite energetic and continued his chatter all the way through the line, mostly directed at me.

When we came to the front of the line, the park attendant separated a group out of the line, including the Mt. Laurel group I was with. The boy was forced to stay behind for the next group and the barrier was closed. Suddenly, the boy crowded through the barrier, came up to me, and standing tall and courageous, said, “Mister, do you mind if I hold your hand?” The audience around us chuckled in amusement. I was a little uncomfortable at the sudden personal attention, but I gamely replied, “Sure,” and I took him by the hand as we filed into the Haunted House. It’s good to know who you’re holding hands with so I asked him his name. “Zachery,” he replied. The Portuguese ladies smiled at the familiar name. “Zachariash,” they repeated in Portuguese.

The Haunted House was dark and intentionally forbidding. Witches and monsters, ghouls and goblins were situated at certain areas of the path attempting to thrill the passersby with scare tactics. Zachery knew where they all were. When we came to a monster, he’d switch to my right or left, opposite from it, taking my hand each time. He wasn’t scared now, he had someone with him!

We went through the rather dark hallways. There were recorded noises to add to the spooky atmosphere. One room was lit by strobe lights which flashed repeatedly. The whole walk through the house was quite exciting.

But there was something that horrified me for a few seconds as we walked through. It looked like a fire trap. Someone could light a match or lighter and it looked like it could ignite pretty fast.

When we came to the exit, Zachery spotted his parents close by in the crowd. They were smiling as I said, “This kid is one brave fellow.” My one disappointment about the incident was that I never took his picture.

This whole incident with Zachery gave me a certain confidence that I didn’t need to be the loner I thought myself to be. I can be sociable. I had made one little fellow happy for just being there for support. People like me. I should just like myself more. There are a lot of good things to enjoy in life besides keeping to one’s sorry self. Get out and look around at the possibilities.

Years later I found someone special. But that’s another story.

About two years later, it happened. On May 11, 1984, the Haunted House at Great Adventure in Jackson, New Jersey, was destroyed…and eight teenagers with it. There was a witness that said that a 14-year-old boy had used a lighter to go down a hallway where the strobe lights had malfunctioned and bumped into the wall, which ignited. The story can be seen here.