“I don’t intend to blow anything up, Beth. I think the noise will be enough. People will probably discuss it as something new on the ride they didn’t see before.”
“Let’s hope so.” Beth was getting really nervous about all this. “No other way?”
“Not that I can come up with. Lance?”
“Just make sure the cameras don’t pick up the flame,” Lance cautiously warned. “Any flame will light up the monitor like a 1000 watt light bulb…. Being infrared, those cameras pick up heat signals from any size flame and magnify it like a flash bulb going off. However, that part of the ride should be a dead zone. We should be okay with it. I think it will work.”
The three were quiet for a moment. Lance spoke first. “This is Tuesday. It’s always the slowest day at the Park. Who knows? We could have a boat all to ourselves.”
“That would be nice. Oh, we do need to sit in the back row of the second boat. There won’t be anyone behind us for a while.”
Lance agreed with her. “That row only seats three, max. We could ensure the row by requesting it at the loading dock.”
“Right. Okay, anything else?” Adam looked from Lance to Beth. “You ready to do this?”
Beth nodded. Lance gave a ghost of a smile. “Okay. Then let’s do it.”
When Lance said he forgot his jacket, they stopped by his place on the way to the Park. Telling them to wait in the truck, Lance would only be a minute. They thought he took an awful lot of time just to pick up a jacket. But Lance’s demeanor on his return prohibited any kidding around. Once he slid back in the cab of the Silverado, he fairly ordered Adam to “drive on.”
Adam let it go. There were more important things to worry about right now. Now all they had to do was find the perfect place to jump.
Sitting in the rear seat, their boat was propelled forward and settled into the dark bayou after leaving the loading dock. Lance turned to check the dispatch tower and saw the woman inside was busy with the next two boats loading. He faced forward and the three rode silently through the water and down the waterfalls. At the bottom of the second fall when everyone was looking at the sandy beach, they excitedly pointed at an obvious pathway through the rocky walls illuminated by a soft blue light. It was just past an overhead waterfall and a little pool that contained remains of a wrecked boat. The pathway was opposite the beach scene on the right side of the boat. It drew no attention from the other guests in the boat who were busy pointing out things on the beach—including a wayward crab whose claws opened and closed and a few seagulls among the two not-so-lucky pirate skeletons that were propped up against a rock with swords poking through their rib cages. The blue path went straight for a few feet and then disappeared behind the white rocks. They tried to trace an imaginary path to the Captain’s Quarters. Looking backwards as they sailed past the bedroom, on the left side they saw the opening of a tunnel. Blocked by a large sea chest, it wasn’t very high and they’d have to crawl, but a passageway was there. Just a few feet beyond the tunnel were the ornate bed and its grisly remains.
They saw no openings in the Treasure Room, but they did see an opening in the dark long tunnel. This opening, though, looked more like a dead end. Then they spotted an illuminated green Exit sign indicating that it was probably a place for cast members to enter the ride or, more likely, an emergency exit for guests if something happened inside the cavern.
Still silent, the three looked at each other and nodded in agreement. The blue tunnel was the place.
Back at the loading dock for their second trip, the cast member on load named Leslie was happy to seat Lance anywhere he asked. It was late afternoon and people were going to dinner or lining up for the big parade down Main Street. They practically walked onto their boat.
“Hope this slim crowd keeps up.” Beth kept her voice at a whisper as she leaned across Adam in the last row. She was on the left side of the nearly empty boat. It was agreed that she would jump first, then Adam, and Lance would follow. If there was a problem or if Lance felt he couldn’t make it without detection, he would wait and make another trip around. They hoped that wouldn’t be necessary because Beth and Adam would be stuck in an unfamiliar area of the ride for possibly twenty minutes, the time it would take Lance to finish the ride and get back in another boat.
They didn’t see Lance signal the Dispatch Operator as they floated away. There were only seven other people in their boat—two in the front seat, three in the second seat, and two people in row three. No one had been seated in front of them. Lance had taken care of that. Patty always came through for him. He would pay her back when all of this was over, thinking he could afford to buy her something then.
Not knowing they had some extra time now that the following boats were being delayed, Beth found her mouth dry and her palms sweaty. They hadn’t needed to take off their jackets. Nobody on the boat gave them a second look.
“Get ready,” Adam whispered as they neared the second waterfall. “Remember, just step up and walk quickly into the tunnel. Try not to make too much sound. I’ll be right behind you.” The three had decided the best way to exit the boat was not to jump but to simply step from the boat onto the adjacent path that ran parallel with the boat. Jumping might make it rock and draw unwanted attention from the other riders or their foot might slip even though the side was layered with non-slip, textured adhesive.
After the waterfall, she edged over in her wet seat. Left hand on the head rail behind her and her right hand gripping the rail in front of them, Beth brought her feet up and was in a low crouch.
“Now!” Adam stood and helped Beth up and out of the boat by holding her at the waist until she was safely on the concrete path.
When Beth’s feet were secure, she took off toward the blue passageway. It narrowed as it headed back, but there was still enough room. She could hear Adam and then Lance behind her. They moved through the passage until it forked off in two directions. The left path led directly to a black door, probably backstage where the employees would be. The right path led to the small hole in the wall they had seen earlier.
Breathing hard, they paused and took some deep breaths. “Did you hear anything behind us?” Beth looked behind the two men.
Lance told her no, that nobody even looked back when she and Adam left. “The boat hardly rocked at all when you got out. I didn’t take time to look back to see if anyone noticed us, but I’m sure we’re in the clear…at least for the moment.”
Lance peered through the hole. “I see plenty of room behind the Captain’s bed. Get behind there and wait. We have a little time before the next boat passes.”
“Shouldn’t it have come by now?”
Lance gave a brief smile. “There was a little delay at the dock. Just hurry.” There was always a chance one of the passengers reported the back seat was suddenly empty.
Adam went first and shoved the chest a little further forward so they could get past it. Once at the bed, he crouched out of sight. Listening for the screams from the waterfall, Beth sprinted the short distance after him. Lance had to get on his knees to be completely out of sight. “What did you do at the dock, Lance?”
“We don’t have time to talk. Take off your jackets and put on these bandanas I got from Patty. At least now we look more the part. Remember to freeze in place if we get spotted.”
Standing by the bed’s headboard, Lance was looking over the skeleton’s bony shoulder at the map. “Don’t touch it!” Beth became frantic as Lance ran his fingers over the map’s wording.
They heard a scream from the falls and the familiar whoosh of a boat hitting the water at the bottom. “Get ready to duck back behind the bed!”
They were out of sight when the next two boats slowly passed by. Lance counted the time. “Okay, they’re in the Treasure room. Go!”
The map was actually folded in half. They could see the word Indian—probably Indian Ocean. They tried seeing what was under the fold as the red X didn’t seem to have any specific location. “Duck!” La
nce called out in a rushed whisper.
“Already? Sheesh.” Adam was the last to squat down.
“Get off my foot, Lance!” Beth winced.
“Quit pushing!”
“Shh, Adam! This part of the ride doesn’t have any noise except the harpsichord.”
“Will you two knock it off?” Beth hissed.
They fell silent as Lance counted the moments. “Go.”
“Where’s the Captain pointing? Is that important?” Beth looked at the bony finger that seemed to point at a portion of the map, while the other hand held a large magnifying glass.
“It looks like it’s in the middle of the ocean. What’s that land mass there? Do you think the hand has been moved?” Lance glanced over his shoulder, his ears alert to any noise.
“I’m sure it’s been moved many times by the cleaning crew or maintenance, or during ride rehabs…” Adam’s words were cut off by the next set of screams.
“Duck!”
“This is going to take forever! Why don’t we bring the map back here?”
“Shh. You aren’t going to move anything, Adam!”
“My knees hurt on these rocks.”
“They aren’t real rocks, Lance. Quit complaining,” Adam told him with a grin.
“But they really hurt.”
“I’m going to strangle both of you!”
“Okay. Clear.” Lance peered around the corner of the headboard and could see the last boat was gone. “Go.”
Lance didn’t pay attention to Beth’s warning and moved the bony hand. Adam put his finger on the X on the map. Beth slapped at Adam’s hand when Lance again hissed, “Duck!”
They moved behind the bed as the next two boats came around the bend. Only this time something was different. A panel had slid open beneath the headboard where the mattress would have been if it had been a real bed. The three looked at each other with surprised and excited looks. Adam was first to crawl inside the opening, closely followed by Beth. Lance got his feet inside just as the panel slid shut behind him.
“Okay, who did this?” Beth asked. “What did you touch up there?”
Lance and Adam shrugged in the darkness, neither sure if the passage opened because Lance moved the hand or because Adam pushed something that may have been under the map.
Lance tried to look around. “Where are we?” Only a sliver of light could be seen coming through a thin gap at the bottom of the hidden panel.
Adam had crawled forward as each person followed him in. There was still plenty of room in front of him. “Hold on a second. Don’t push, Beth. Let me get my lighter.”
“Sorry.”
“Okay, let’s get some light in here,” as he pulled the lighter from his pocket.
“Hope there’s no gas down here.”
“Depends on what you had for lunch, Lance.”
“Will you two stop it!?” Nervous, Beth’s heart was beating hard in her chest.
They heard a muffled click and could see Adam adjusting the flame. More light appeared. In front of them their secret tunnel widened and kept going. Within twenty feet they came to a handrail. His light held in front of him, Adam found a set of steps carved into the rock, sloping downwards. “Careful. There’s stairs here. Hold the handrail.”
As they slowly descended, they noticed the sounds of the ride didn’t reach them. The way the stairs angled to the left, they figured they must be under the Treasure Room.
“Any light switch?” Lance wanted to know as he brought up the rear.
“Don’t know if that’s a good idea.” Still in front, Adam answered. “We don’t know how close we are to a door or an exit. It might show.”
Beth was awed. “We did it. We found the secret hiding place. He hid it right under the Treasure Room. All those years, all those people riding by it, and the treasure was right there!”
“Well, we haven’t found anything yet. Keep going, Adam.” Lance nodded ahead and resisted giving Adam a push.
In the limited light, Adam walked forward and came to a dead end. When he lowered the light, he then noticed that there was something in the wall. ‘”I found something! I think…yes, it’s a handle!”
Lance took the lighter from him. “Let me see.” He held the flame up and outlined the wall around the tunnel walls. “Yes, it’s a door. And, it’s locked. Look.”
They crowded around him to see a heavy door made to resemble the rock surrounding it. The handle was a black lever-like bar that stuck out of a small hole in the heavy metal plate mounted low. Lance knocked on the door, not to be heard, but to feel how the door was constructed. There was almost no sound as the door was obviously extremely thick. He pushed on the handle. It didn’t move.
“Looks like this door isn’t going anywhere.” Understanding Lance’s movements, Adam still looked around for himself. “See down there?”
At his point, Lance who lowered the flame to where the handle protruded. “Looks like a hole for some kind of skeleton key.” Lance looked closely at the little opening, hoping to see if he could see what might lie beyond the locked door. “Can’t see anything.” Lance stood up and faced them. “But I think I have the key.” Adam’s and Beth’s surprise could be seen in the dancing light of the flame.
“What do you mean?” Beth asked.
Lance reached inside his coat.
“He’s got a gun!” Beth gasped when she saw the barrel of what looked like a .38 caliber hand gun.
He chuckled. “Right on time, Captain Obvious. You would’ve disappointed me.” Beth’s face changed from confusion to fear as Lance’s tone morphed into hateful sarcasm.
Adam moved to stand in front of Beth. “What are you doing, man? What’s with the gun?”
“I’m not going to shoot you...well, not yet, anyway. Just the lock.”
“That’s not funny, Lance,” Adam spat out nervously, his hands balled into fists.
“I’m not laughing.”
Beth was close to tears. “What’s the matter with you, Lance? You can’t do this. It’s us. We’re your best friends.”
“Quit looking at me like that, Beth! This is hard enough as it is.”
“You fire that gun and you’ll have Security on us.” She just threw that out there, hoping in some way that he would put the gun down, give his charming smile, and tell them he was just joking.
But Lance wasn’t joking. And he didn’t flash his usual smile. Instead, Lance chuckled. It was an awful sound filled with anger, desperation and irony. “I am Security.”
“What?” Beth whispered.
Now that their eyes were adjusting to the half-light, they could see that Lance looked angry. “Are you more surprised that I have a gun or that I have a job?” Disgusted, he shook his head. “How did you think I knew so many people here? When we first came back from Missouri I was already planning ahead. You seemed happy to fly by the seat of your pants, Adam. I…I knew there was more at stake here than some paper stocks and nostalgic pins. And I needed a back-up plan.”
“You mean ‘we’ needed a back-up plan, right, buddy?”
“You’re welcome to keep what we found so far, Adam. But this,” he waved the gun towards the door, “I’m afraid I need it more than you do.”
“You’re rich, Lance! You’ve always had money. What about your new car?”
“You mean the car my father had repossessed? He hasn’t been very happy with my expenditures or my life. I was told my townhouse was next. He gave me a choice in Boston—work for him or get cut off.”
“I thought you were a trust fund brat.” Adam called Lance by a name Beth had labeled him years ago.
“Was,” Lance corrected. “Yes, I was. Seems the old man can do whatever he wants with Grandfather’s money. It turns out that as the three of us were flying off to Tobago, my father changed the wording of the Trust. As the guardian of our family’s estate and holdings, he said he can’t support my indolent lifestyle, saying this action was for my own good.” Lance paced the floor as the bitter words spat out of h
is mouth. “I’m broke. Except for my salary here, of course...which, Beth can attest, isn’t going to make anyone rich by any means.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Beth was heartbroken. “We would have helped you…somehow.”
Lance looked away from her hurt-filled eyes. He now wished she hadn’t come, wished she wasn’t mixed up in this. “What can I say? Embarrassment? Pride? Anger? Humiliation? Take your pick.” He waved the gun in the air as he ranted and Beth flinched. He then looked down at the door. “Enough of this sentimental drivel. Once I find what’s in here, and get it out, I have a feeling I’ll be well taken care of.” Lance seemed smug when he added, “And I won’t need any stupid trust fund.”
Adam had to edge in front of Beth again. She wouldn’t stay put. “Are you going to kill us, Lance?”
“I didn’t plan on it, no. But things change from one awful day to the next. Stand back, down the tunnel a ways. But don’t try to go anywhere.”
Adam and Beth moved back a few steps. Adam crouched over Beth and shielded her as Lance aimed at the handle and fired. Beth, holding her hands tightly over her ears, gave a small, terrified shriek that was absorbed into Adam’s chest. With his arms tight around her, he could feel Beth shaking like a leaf. The muffled gunshot hit straight on, making a bright momentary spark off the metal plate, only to ricochet away. The slug buried itself into the rock wall of the tunnel a few feet in front of Adam. He looked at the mark in the wall and pulled Beth back a few more feet.
“Blasted door.” Lance kept mumbling to himself as he fired another shot which again had no effect. This time the slug angled down to the floor where it skipped and flew past Adam and Beth. “This always worked in the movies.”
Still protecting Beth, Adam snapped. “This ain’t a movie, Lance. That door isn’t going to be opened by bullets. That’s a real gun you’re holding,” Adam pointed out. “And we’re your real friends.”
“If this was a movie, I’d have gotten the girl and the money by now,” was the disgusted reply. Lance looked down at the metal plate. “Wait, what’s this?” Looking at the marks on the metal plate, he lowered the light below the plate. There he saw for the first time words etched in the metal along the bottom border of the plate. Adam and Beth inched closer. Lance stood up and pointed the gun at the pair. “Don’t get any ideas.” He felt no satisfaction when they cowered away from the barrel aimed at them.
Sometimes Dead Men DO Tell Tales! Page 34
