Under the Boardwalk

by Barbara Cool Lee

  "And what about Windy and Zac?" she whispered.

  Kyle straightened up. "Well, I'm not gonna just sit here while Tom's bleeding his life away out there."

  They went back through the arched doorway into the blackness of the haunted house. They stood for a couple of minutes in the murkiness until their eyes adjusted to the dark, then started back along the track.

  They passed King Kong and the headless horseman, then they stopped. Around the next corner was the flying saucer. That was where Charlie and Julian had stopped before. Kyle motioned for her to stay behind him. They crept up to the corner. Charlie and Julian's voices could still be heard, but they seemed to be coming from farther away. Kyle leaned around the corner, then gestured for her to follow him.

  Around the corner Hallie saw the silver glitter of the flying saucer, tipped onto its side and blocking the track. Now that her vision was better, she could make out the outlines of a large open trap door where the saucer had stood, with light streaming out from the hole in the floor. She touched Kyle's sleeve and he turned around. She pointed down. "Are they in the cellar?" she mouthed.

  He shrugged his shoulders and pointed down the track to the trap door. They stepped carefully around a bald alien who'd been knocked over in their way, then crept toward the service door to the outside. It still stood open to the night air, and they could see the glow of the van's headlights outside.

  "He's heavy," Charlie said from just outside the door. Both Kyle and Hallie froze.

  "Just shut up and help me get him inside in case anybody else comes along asking questions." Julian's voice, as before, made Hallie want to cower into some dark hole and hide. "I went to a lot of trouble to get the hot dog van. I don't want anything outside that'll look out of place."

  She heard a shuffling sound, and pictured them dragging poor Tom along the ground. She started back along the track away from the noise, but Kyle held back.

  "Come on!" she whispered to him, pulling on his sleeve. "They're coming."

  Kyle shook his head. He looked around him. "I've got to find some kind of weapon," he muttered.

  "No!" she whispered fiercely. "They've both got guns. You can't outrun a bullet, Kyle." She put one hand on his shoulder. The thought of him lying on the pavement, a circle of red spreading across his chest, made her almost physically sick with fear. "I know men like him, Kyle. He'll kill you."

  Kyle stood there, as if rooted to the ground. Hallie could hear Julian and Charlie getting closer. She dragged at Kyle's arm and he reluctantly allowed her to lead him back along the track.

  "This way," he whispered. "Maybe they'll pass us and we can get outside." He pointed to the vampire display. The nightgown-clad lady sat at her vanity, brushing her hair, while the vampire stood poised above her. They ducked into the shadow of the vanity and crouched down on the floor. They huddled together as the voices got closer.

  "There." Julian grunted. Hallie heard more shuffling around, and footsteps on the floor close by. She couldn't see anything from where she sat, and she felt an overwhelming urge to peek out and see what was going on, but she didn't dare. "We're running late. Leave him there and get back to work," Julian said. His voice sounded so close she wanted to cry.

  Charlie murmured something and then Hallie heard her footsteps go back outside. Hallie squeezed Kyle's hand. He shook his head at her. "Julian," he mouthed, and pointed directly in front of the vampire display. Hallie held herself still and waited.

  Several minutes passed. Hallie heard a lot of shuffling and then more footsteps. Finally, Kyle tapped her shoulder and took her by the hand. He motioned for her to follow him. He set off on a circular route around the back of the displays, heading back toward the center of the haunted house. She followed him, creeping along as quietly as she could. Now that the first rush of adrenalin had worn off, her muscles felt stiff, and it seemed difficult to move.

  They stopped within sight of the trap door. "They're camped out right in front of the outside door," Kyle whispered. "I don't think we're going to have a chance to get out that way."

  "What're we going to do?" she asked. She looked around them. They were surrounded by displays with frozen mannequins staring at them. There had to be a way out.

  "I'm going down." He pointed to the trap door. "I've gotta see if the kids are down there. Let me check it out first," he whispered.

  They looked down into the trap door. There was a set of steps leading down, faintly lit by a light somewhere below.

  He started down, but his footsteps sounded loud on the stairs. The sound seemed to echo in the building and they both held their breath. The murmur of Charlie and Julian's voices continued unabated, and they both sighed with relief.

  Hallie watched him disappear into the hole beneath her. She watched the hole for what seemed like a long time, but nothing happened. Her neck felt sore from leaning down and staring into the darkness. She rubbed it, and looked around her.

  There was a mannequin sitting on the floor in front of the school bus. She hadn't noticed that before. She stared at it and one of its legs moved.

  Hallie jumped back, hitting the track rail, which made an absurdly loud rattle. She froze, staring at the mannequin in front of her. She saw a glistening pair of eyes stare back at her. She held her breath, all the while straining her ears to hear Julian and Charlie. They still talked together back by the entrance. She took a step toward the figure on the floor.

  Hallie saw a slender boy, hands and wrists tied with zip ties. A shock of hair fell across his face, and she could see the glint of familiar green eyes. A gag was tied across his mouth, obscuring the lower half of his face. "Chris!" she whispered. "How did you get here?" She was on her knees in front of him. He pulled away from her, as if scared. "We were counting on you to call the sheriff when we didn't get back." Her hands fumbled at the ties. "Turn around." His hands were tied behind his back. She pushed him and he grunted into his gag, almost a stifled cry.

  "I'm sorry. Are you hurt?"

  He nodded, and gestured with his head toward his shoulder.

  "I'll try to be careful," she whispered. She leaned forward so she could reach his wrists. The zip ties were biting into his wrists. She worked on the knots, but they were hopeless. She finally gave up. "I need a knife or something to cut them."

  She bent down to his ankles, and saw those ties seemed to be looser. "We've got to get you out of here," she whispered. She noticed his sneakers were badly worn, with holes in them. She fought with the knots, but they were tight, as if he had been straining against them. He grunted, and she looked up. "The gag!" she whispered. "Sorry." She pulled it off him.

  "My glasses," he whispered. "They're in my pocket." He nodded toward the chest pocket in his shirt.

  She reached into the pocket. Sure enough, there was a pair of glasses there. "I never noticed you wearing glasses before," she whispered back.

  "Please put them on me," he whispered. She did, and then started on the ankle ties again. She stared at his worn sneakers. He never wears his good sneakers to work, they get skanky.

  She looked up at his face. It was rounder than Chris's, and he was more slightly built. She'd know him anywhere. His face was the picture she'd stapled to a hundred telephone poles. "Zac!" she whispered.

  He nodded. "You're Hallie, right? Windy's friend."

  She nodded, working furiously on the knots.

  "There's a bunch of tools over by the aliens," he whispered. "Julian was messing with them."

  She dashed over there, and saw an opened toolbox. She got a pair of pliers and came back.

  "There," she whispered, cutting the last zip tie. She threw the ties aside. "Can you stand up?" She helped him to his feet. "We've got to get you out of here."

  Zac sagged against the front of the school bus. "Are you hurt?" she whispered.

  He shook his head. Was he okay, or was it just adolescent bravado? She couldn't tell in the dark. She took hold of his hand. "Hey, look, both of us are shaking."

  "How are we go
ing to get out of here?" he whispered.

  "In a body bag," said a voice from behind them.

  ~*~

  CHAPTER TEN

  Julian had a gun in one hand and a flashlight in the other. He jabbed the gun into Hallie's side and shone the light straight in her eyes. "You again? Haven't you learned to stop snooping around?" The gun hurt, pressed against her ribs, but Hallie stood still. He looked at Zac. "I see you got his legs untied," he snarled. "Good."

  Zac smirked at Julian. "Want me to tap dance, JJ?"

  Julian swung the gun around to point it at Zac. "Watch it, kid."

  Zac shrugged his shoulders. "Hi, Charlie," he said as Charlie came up behind Julian.

  Charlie smiled at him. Her eyes widened when she saw Hallie. "What's she doing here?"

  "Getting in the way, just like before," Julian said.

  Charlie stepped forward. "We can use her, too, honey," she said softly. "There's a lot of stuff to move." She put a hand on his arm. "You said no one was going to get hurt as long as we got clean away."

  There was a trace of an accusation in her tone, and Julian didn't miss it. He turned to her with raised eyebrows. "Who's fault is it?" He moved closer to her and his voice was menacing. "It's your fault you couldn't get that guy out of here. You killed him, not me."

  Charlie's eyes widened in horror.

  "Killed who?" Zac whispered.

  "Tom," Hallie whispered back. Zac gasped.

  Julian turned toward Hallie again. "I thought I'd taken care of you when I ran you off the road in that stupid little car."

  He smirked when he saw her confused look. "Yeah. You really don't remember anything, do you? Doesn't matter now."

  "Where's Windy?"

  "Come see," he said, pointing with the gun toward the open trap door.

  Had Kyle found Windy? She had to distract Julian to give Kyle time. "Why did you try to choke me, Julian?"

  He smiled. "Charlie said you were getting close to the mark with all your stupid questions about the carousel. I wasn't going to take the chance on your wrecking this deal."

  "What deal?" she asked. She looked at the displays around them. What was he talking about?

  "You mean you still don't know?" Zac said. "Charlie seemed to think you were getting close."

  "Charlie talks too much," Julian said. "Not that it matters."

  "You're going to let them go, JJ, aren't you?" Charlie said softly. "You promised."

  "Sure, baby, sure." His voice sounded completely different from the snarling accusations of a minute ago, soothing, reassuring. Hallie had heard that soothing voice before, in David Cooper's promises: you do what I want, baby, and I'll take care of you. They'd all be dead as soon as Julian completed his deal, whatever it was.

  "You promise?" Charlie whispered.

  Hallie heard an echo of her own voice in that submissive question. Don't listen to him, she silently pleaded. Men like him use you for their own ends. They tell you you're nothing without them, and then they strip away your dignity and pride until there's nothing left of you.

  "Move," Julian said to Hallie. Hallie jumped back a foot. He brushed past her to the cellar door. A cord dangled down into the hole. She hadn't noticed that before. Julian plugged it in, and suddenly a pool of yellow light shone up out of the hole. Great. With the lights on, Kyle had just lost the element of surprise.

  Julian gestured at Hallie. "Take her downstairs," he said to Charlie. "And you," he said to Hallie, "remember this." He pointed his gun at Zac's head. "Don't mess with me." Hallie nodded.

  Charlie gestured with her gun for Hallie to go down the stairs. She did, with Charlie following close behind. At the bottom she looked around her, and gasped. In the harsh glare of the work lights the room glittered with gold and glass jewels and a hundred shining glass eyes staring back at her. She gaped at the sight. Boxes had been thrown helter skelter into the corners, and a large open area had been cleared in the middle of the room. Piled in the middle were at least fifty carousel horses.

  Everywhere horses. Dozens and dozens of carved horses, each more lifelike than the last.

  "It's the Illions," Windy said.

  "Windy!" Hallie ran over to where Windy was tied up to a bunch of pipes in the corner. "You're all right?"

  "I'm all right," she said. She looked a bit ragged and tired, but she was alive. Hallie hugged her. "You're alive. Thank God. But what's going on?"

  "Don't you know?" she asked. "This was the surprise."

  Charlie came over to them and quickly cut the zip ties binding Windy.

  Windy rubbed her wrists and nodded at Charlie. "She overheard Zac and me talking about what we'd found. Then when Julian bumped the Little Guy off the road, and you got run off the side of the hill, I was sure it was the last time I'd ever see you."

  "I didn't remember any of it," Hallie said.

  "Yeah. They finally told me that you had amnesia. Gee, girl, you picked a fine time to lose your memory."

  "But this—" Hallie looked around at all the horses. "This was the big secret you were going to tell me?"

  "Of course. The Illions."

  "My Illions," Julian corrected her. He had joined them again.

  "So what's an Illions?"

  "So you didn't figure it out?" Windy said.

  "No. I don't understand."

  Windy looked at Julian. "Go ahead," Julian said. "She might as well know everything." Julian lit a cigarette.

  Windy turned back to Hallie. "Marcus Charles Illions," she recited. "Considered to be one of the greatest carousel carvers ever."

  Hallie nodded. "Yes, I read the newspaper clippings about the antique carousel being destroyed, but—it was destroyed...." She looked around. "Wasn't it?"

  Windy smiled. "That's what we thought."

  "And you just happened to come down here and find it?"

  She laughed and shook her head. "You don't know what this place looked like. The horses were buried behind fifty years of crap. I never would have found them if I hadn't been looking for them."

  She must have looked confused, because Windy explained: "There was this newspaper article, about the fire that happened here—"

  "—when your parents died? I saw it. But it said they died trying to save the carousel..."

  "...and they were overcome by fumes from burning fiberglass and died."

  Hallie's eyes widened.

  "Exactly," Windy said. "What fiberglass? These horses are made of wood. So I did a little more research and found out that my grandparents had updated most of the rides regularly, especially back in the 1940s and '50s. Back in those days an old wooden carousel would have been considered a piece of junk by most people. It would have been considered an upgrade to replace it with a shiny, new, factory-made fiberglass one."

  "But nobody knew about it?"

  She shrugged. "My grandparents must have known—but they died a long time ago. My parents would have known, too—but they were killed in the fire. By the time the carousel collectors' market went looking for the old wooden carousel horses, nobody had ever seen them at this park, and anyone who checked would assume it had been destroyed. You have to realize, until recently, people were chopping the old wooden horses up for firewood. Nobody put together that the carousel wasn't found twenty years ago, and of course anyone looking since would assume it had burned. With all the business records had been destroyed in the fire, there just wasn't any way to put together what had really happened."

  Hallie sighed. "And then you found the diary mention of the basement storage room."

  "Yeah. Zac was convinced the carousel destroyed in the fire was made of fiberglass. And then I found mention of another storage place we'd never heard of. If the carousel was anywhere, that's where it would be."

  Hallie shook her head. "But all this." She turned to Julian, who lounged against yet another King Kong with a bored expression on his face, and the gun aimed right at her stomach. "I mean I get that this is a great find for the Madrigal family. But it's just an old carous
el. Why the guns?"

  Julian snickered. "It's not just an old carousel, baby, it's over four million dollars, on the hoof, so to speak." He laughed at his own joke. "Collectors buy 'em and put 'em in their living rooms so they can show the world how rich they are."

  "But how are you going to sell a whole carousel?" she asked.

  He went over to the stairs. "Charlie!" he shouted. "Get that kid tied up again and get down here."

  "A lot of carousels have been lost over the years. He can sell the horses individually over time and make up any story he wants," Windy said softly. "As long as there's no one around to contradict him."

  He went up the stairs and quickly returned with Charlie trailing behind him.

  "Curiosity satisfied?" Julian asked. He stubbed out his cigarette on the floor. He took out a knife and cut the zip-ties on Windy's legs and hauled her to her feet by her bound wrists. "You're going to help lift all this junk. For now, get over there." He pointed to the corner with his gun. "Keep an eye on them," he said to Charlie. "I don't want anybody sneaking up behind me."

  Kyle. Where was he? Hallie tried to look around without being obvious. Had he found a way out? JJ motioned again with the gun, and she and Windy backed up into the corner of the basement.

  "The Wurlitzer!" Hallie said.

  "Huh?" Windy said.

  "It was in the diary, too."

  This band organ was even bigger than the one in the attic. It was covered in painted scenes of Pajaro Bay. She recognized the wharf, and the houses on the hill.

  Windy leaned up against one side of the machine, looking worn out. Hallie leaned against the other side and watched Charlie and JJ. "Keep an eye on them," he told Charlie again.

  She pointed her gun at them, a scared look on her face.

  Julian started to work, going through all the stuff, tossing aside things he didn't think were valuable, pulling out the horses and gathering them in the center of the room. He'd put his gun in the waistband of his jeans, but Hallie didn't think it would take him long to pull it out and fire.

  Hallie glanced back at Charlie. Would Charlie really shoot them? Hallie tried to gauge her expression. She tried to recall her own frame of mind back when she'd been trapped under Dave Cooper's evil influence. Charlie believed at least half of the lies JJ was telling her, but seeing Tom shot had shaken her badly. Could they use that?