From the Occupy 2.5 Haunted Vacation Series | Posted 8:00 PM CDT

You couldn’t ask for a more wholesome summer afternoon. Families fill the grassy knolls, the smell of kettle corn and grilled hot dogs drifts through the air, and the sound of children laughing echoes off the pavement. Fairhaven Park is the very image of carefree innocence—except for one day a year.

Every August 24th, right around twilight, something changes.

The water in the splash fountains turns icy cold, even in the blazing sun. The breeze dies, and the air thickens like syrup. Parents call for their kids, but for just a moment, it’s as if time slows and the laughter warps—high-pitched, looping, like an old vinyl skipping.

There’s a reason the local playground moms call it The Day of the Echoing Giggle.

You see, long before the park was built, this land was home to the Fairhaven House for Wayward Children—a brick fortress of shadows and silence, demolished in the late 1950s after a scandal involving a cruel caretaker named Miss Elouise. Official reports say there was a boiler explosion. Unofficial ones say something else.

Locals whisper about locked basements, missing files, and a fire no one could explain.

And now, each year on August 24th, the spirits return. They don’t scream or moan. They play. They join the living in a dance of splashes and squeals—but as the sun dips below the trees, their giggles become hollow and the water around your children… darker.

Parents, take this seriously: count your kids before you go.

Because every so often, one walks away with someone who isn’t there.

And sometimes, just sometimes, a child no one recognizes is left behind.