Why No One Can Be Declared Dead Inside This Theme Park

Why is it illegal to be declared dead inside the gates of “the most magical place on Earth”?

In 1971, a visionary named Elias Frost opened Wonder World in the humid swamps of central Florida. On paper, it was a family resort. In reality, Frost was building something else: a sovereign state with its own laws and a private experiment he called the Tomorrow Project—a prototype city where residents would never age, never sleep, and never leave.

To control what happened inside the park, he dug an entire network of underground tunnels called Utilidors. Officially, they were for moving trash and supplies. Workers whispered they were really for moving unhappy guests—the ones who stopped smiling.

The mascots wandering Wonder World weren’t actors in suits. Frost hated zippers. He hired a geneticist named Dr. Howard, a man with a strange d ...