Cryptotrappers!

Cryptotrappers- King of the Skeletons

Thursday 19th. I hardly slept again. The late time of which we returned from the festivities, the mind numbing confusion of the night before. Nothing I knew could be solidly stated as fact anymore. Maybe that was why the sun was already fairly high in the sky when I finally awoke from the sleep that eventually came. The night was exhaustive for everyone. Sid had likely gotten only a few hours sleep, and Randy was still getting his. Sid and I decided to let him wake up on his own, he needed it after what he had to ordeal. In the main hall, Eva sat in near silence, only illuminated by the soft white glow of her computer sleep. The clattering of the keyboard was deafening in the dead silence.
"Did you even sleep?" Sid asked in the gentlest tone he could muster. Eva shot a look down to the clock on her computer before groggily but still cheerily responding "Apparently not."
It was then Lucy entered the room from the shop front.
"Eva, permission to run the mission for today if nothing's on?" she asked cheerily. "There's an article in the newspaper about a report of some sort of Gashadokuro at an abandoned theme park nearby. It's closed to the public but I'm fairly sure we could pull some strings and get access. So unless we have some specified cryptid you need us to hunt down, that sounds like a thread we could follow."
Eva looked past her screen at Lucy, then to the rest of us.
"Right, you all heard her." she began in almost her typical tone. "Get everything you need set up for tackling a Gashadokuro. I'll remain here and continue my work here. The rest of you try and complete this mission!"

"What do you think she was doing all night?" Randy asked us, finally joining us after waking up.
"If I had to take a guess." I pondered. "I'd say she spent the night trying to look up what happened in the aftermath of the Gallows Incident to try and find the link to what happened last night. It seems like the sort of thing she would do in this scenario."
Everyone nodded in general agreement. We reached the equipment centre and began packing.
"We gonna need rifles?" Sid generally asked.
"It's a skeleton so I doubt they'll be useful. Still, no harm though just in case, right?" Lucy confirmed. Sid gave a nod and tossed a few darts in with the guns. Meanwhile, I grabbed one or two large nets and a coil of rope.
"It's not going to be on fire, is it Lucy." I tentatively asked. "Cause honestly it is already way too soon for me to fight another thirty foot inferno creature."
Lucy pondered for a few seconds before responding. "I don't see any reason it should be flaming. You should be fine. When did you fight a thirty foot inferno demon, anyway?"
"Ask Eva, she was there. It was a while back now, she might remember it better." I explained.

It wasn't particularly long until we were fully ready. I figured that a Phoenix would be more useful at a stakeout than at an interview, so I brought Seth along. Despite my efforts to say a farewell to Eva, she was already back on her laptop, so I didn't disturb her. Outside, Lucy marked the park on a map for all of us, and with that, we drove off to seek the bones that devour.

It was very obvious that we were in the right place when we arrived. It looked exactly how you'd expect a dilapidated park to look. Grey, lifeless, with the broken Ferris wheel and destroyed signs.
"This place looks smashed up. I don't think this Gashadokuro is a recent addition." I noted. Lucy pondered for a few minutes as we explored before responding with a very valid question.
"Where did it come from though?" she asked. "These things form from, mass death, or so I've heard. So what the hell, in a theme park of all places, could cause enough death for this to form?"
It was, unfortunately, a question none of us could answer, despite our efforts. I could see that Randy was itching to fully explore, so I made the executive decision to split everyone up to search. The park was small, so we would all have a small sector each. Randy had the area around the single large roller coaster. Sid had the various small attractions in the far right corner. Lucy took the Ferris wheel and rides around. And I was left with the job of exploring the ghost train.

From the outset, the ghost train was one of the largest and most noticeable rides in the park. The sign, once likely a vibrant black, was greyed and decrepit, just like the rest of the park. Just as I expected, the train itself was broken, worn away by rust from inactivity, abandoned. But at least there wouldn't be a queue. After a brief perimeter check of the building the train was situated in, I took to the tracks, pulled out my flashlight and delved inside.