“That’s the point, I think.”
“You’re funny.” But he’s not amused. The hologram of his arm is partially degraded and sparking. His left side from his hip down is much the same.
“You don’t look so hot,” she says.
“You’re missing half your face, Sleeping Beauty.”
“What?” Charlene takes great pride in her looks. People have been telling her how pretty she is for as long as she can remember. There’s a mirror behind the bar.
“Don’t you dare,” Maybeck says. “Take my word for it: You look like the mayor in the second Batman movie.”
“The guy with the rotting face? Oh, way to help out!”
“We’ll fit right in,” he says. “We look like zombies, right?”
She looks him over. “I see what you mean.”
“We’re perfect. Trust me.”
“I do trust you.”
She wins Maybeck’s attention. For a moment he seems to be on the verge of saying something serious to her—a rare event for him. But what comes out is, “You look so disgusting.”
She wishes he wasn’t so predictable, but then again that’s what she finds reassuring. You never know what’s going to come out of his mouth and yet you can count on it being sarcastic and amusing. “I guess if we’re going to do this…”
Maybeck follows her as she hugs the wall of the train station and cuts through the cemetery. Charlene ducks under a waiting-line tape.
“What’s up?” Maybeck says.
“In Disneyland the stretching room is actually an elevator. It won’t be turned on. We have to go around.”
“How can you possibly know all that?”
“I do what’s impossible for you: I read.”
“Ha-ha.” He’s not laughing.
She hurries up the small rise through the trees and around the house, cutting in to the exit. They enter the ride from this side, walking the mansion backward. This approach means they start out in the hitchhiking ghost tunnel, dodging their way through the frozen Doom Buggies, before entering the climax of the attraction: the graveyard. Charlene, in the lead, slows down, walking tentatively.
There’s no music and virtually no light beyond the glow of their DHIs. Before them are crooked gravestones (some topped with carved heads), freestanding tombs, cobwebs, skeletons, and corpses. Nothing moves. There’s not a spit of wind or a click of sound. It’s as if the world has died and they have walked into the gray heart of it.
“This is freaking me out,” she says.
“Yeah, okay.” He sounds concerned. “There!” he says, causing Charlene to jump.
“Terry!”
“A tomb.” He points out a square stone structure low to the floor. “Check out the stones. The coloring.”
Charlene steps closer. “How’d you see that?”
“Because I respect the artwork that goes into these things. Wouldn’t mind being a Disney artist someday.”
He’s spotted a feathering of black soot spread in long fingers across the stones. The fat ends of the flares form a straight line where the stones intersect. Charlene studies the pattern more closely.
“It’s like a wind or something.”
“Or…a door,” Maybeck says. “Something came out of there with a wind behind it. A strong wind that carried the dust.” He wipes his fingers on the stone, cutting a line through the feathered soot as if he’s dragging a finger through colored writing on a white board at school. “A trapdoor.”
“A hidden door,” she whispers.
“Agreed.” Equally soft.
“As in: maybe we leave it that way.”
“Maybe not,” Maybeck says. He eases her aside. Their imperfect DHIs sputter and turn grainy and transparent.
“I—am—not—liking—this,” Charlene says.
Maybeck hoists his one decent hand. It moves more slowly than he intends, making the motion awkward and unpredictable. He opens his palm—slowly—against the tomb’s stacked stones and feels for a hidden trigger to unlock the door.
All at once the ride turns on: lights, motion, music. Charlene lets out a yip of terror. Maybeck falls back and bumps into a gravestone. It’s the bumping he doesn’t like—the shock and associated scare of the ride coming alive knocks him out of pure v1.6 DHI and into the mix of human and hologram that makes v1.6 so dangerous.
An eerie song blares from unseen speakers. A row of ghost heads sings. The explosion of action and noise makes it difficult for Maybeck and Charlene to recover.
“Terry! The—”
“Trapdoor!” Maybeck says.
Add to the music the sound of grinding stone.
The tomb door is coming open.
* * *
Finn hears what sounds like wind through branches. But there are no trees here, no breeze.
“Finn!” Willa calls breathlessly.
“I hear it,” he says. Whatever it is, it’s coming toward them. “Don’t let it scare you.”
“Oh, sure!”
Not a wind. Not exactly. More like…slithering.
“Version 1.6,” he reminds them both. “Keep yourself pure.”
Finn calms his thoughts. As a projected image, no harm can come to him. But in the back of his mind lurks a more virulent thought: they are not fully 1.6. Philby managed to cross them over, but with obvious design flaws, improperly rendered movement, and lower resolution. What if these inherent problems with their current projections also prevent them from being fully transparent? What if, no matter how hard they try for all clear, it’s an unattainable condition?
Eels! The oddly colored pinprick eyes of Flotsam and Jetsam penetrate the dark. The twins are on land, moving like a combination of python and cobra.
The eels move closer. Easily four feet long and thicker than Finn’s arm, the two creatures look perfectly comfortable out of water. Finn never liked them in the movie; in the flesh, he realizes they were given a makeover for film. They’re green skinned, reminding him of Maleficent, but scars and poorly healed wounds cover their slimy hides. They’re mouth breathers; their ugly lips turn down in disgusted frowns to reveal rows of spiked narrow teeth, sharp as needles. Their eerie, serpentine movement is deceptive and hypnotic.
Finn imagines himself in deep space: no sound, no gravity. He tingles all over, suggesting all clear. He’s safe—for now. He steps forward, putting himself between the eels and Willa.
Flotsam strikes at Finn’s ankle, deceptively fast, his jaws opening wide. The eel chomps down, with a clap of teeth as they bite into nothing but light.
Willa lets out a shriek.
For Finn, the trick is control: when to be transparent, and when to solidify to grab or touch or…kick. Flotsam works to make a second attack on Finn.
Willa’s high-speed brain computes Flotsam’s course. She kicks the eel as if it were a lawn hose and sends it flying.
Faced with fight or flight, Jetsam flows the short distance across the floor, aiming himself at Willa. Finn turns to intercept it, but too late. The green moray unlocks its jaw, aiming for Willa’s knee. She hasn’t had time to make sure she’s pure hologram. She’s going to lose her leg from the knee down. Worse: injuries sustained as DHIs typically transfer back to bed with you. If she loses her leg here…
The eel’s teeth mere inches from Willa’s knee, Jetsam’s head slams to the floor with a loud report. Willa has sagged, nearly fainted with fear, but Finn catches her.
The bent tines of a trident pin the eel’s head to the ground. Finn follows the shaft of the trident to a girl’s hand, the hand to an arm.
“Storey!” he whispers with such gratitude that the name sounds worshipful.
* * *
Wraiths!
The ghostly aliens flow from the opened tomb like smoke. The music, lights, and ghoulish sounds overwhelm Maybeck and Charlene, who are briefly transfixed.
The smoky trail coils high above, circles, and turns. The lead wraith dives for the Keepers.
In a flash, Charlene scoops up a pile of ce
metery soil and tosses it high into the air, blinding the lead wraith. Its dreadful screech is louder than the attraction’s theme song. Maybeck pivots and pulls on a smaller tombstone, heaving it forward and back until it’s dislodged. Lifting it in both hands like a swimming pool paddleboard, he swings it with perfect timing. The lead wraith loops overhead and dives; Maybeck connects. It vaporizes into black dust. He takes out the second wraith with his backhand, and the third with another forehand strike.
Charlene remains collected and strains to pull the tomb’s stone door further open. Despite his early successes, Maybeck is losing the battle behind her; the wraiths separate and attack from all directions. One attaches to Maybeck’s back; his DHI drains of color. Charlene picks up a brick and lays into the hooded head of the parasite, clobbering it and winning a glass-shattering cry. It lets go of Maybeck and thrusts its skull face out of the shadow, smack into Charlene’s face.
She screams, swings, and splits its skull with the brick. It decomposes to powder and rains down on her like charcoal ash.
“In here!” she hollers, widening the gap in the door with one heroic tug.
“You—have—got—to be kidding!” Maybeck vaporizes two more wraiths, but it’s a losing battle.
Charlene grabs Maybeck by the arm and hauls him through the square black hole. She hears him land a good distance below. With a mighty heave, she pulls the tomb’s trapdoor shut. Sudden silence. They can hear nothing but the dull thumping of the music.
“Terry?”
Her foot catches on a ladder’s rung. She climbs down.
Maybeck’s glowing DHI lies prostrate on the cellar floor.
“If I’d been fully myself,” Maybeck says, “I’d have broken my neck with that fall, and you would have killed me.”
“If you’d been fully yourself, that wraith on your back would have killed you, and I’d have been hauling your corpse through that door.”
They’re both out of breath. Charlene wipes sweat from her eyes.
“I always thought this place was haunted for real,” Maybeck says.
“We’re in the cellar of the old house.”
“Yep.”
Stacks of antiques clutter the whole space. Civil War artifacts, tintypes, hat stands, and a boar’s head are piled in heaps beneath the rusted pipes suspended from the overhead floor joists. A pale light bleeds from a rectangular shape—a doorway?—a good distance away.
“Suppose that leads outside?” he asks.
“Worth a look.”
Charlene helps Maybeck to his feet. He takes the lead, breaking some cobwebs for her. The two pass an antique vanity with an oval mirror. On the vanity, a pair of scissors glints in the light. There’s an ivory-handled hairbrush, a box of face powder. A collection of pearls and other jewelry hangs from an ornate stand. Along the wall is an army cot, and next to it an old steamer trunk.
Charlene approaches the vanity. Touches the hairbrush. She pulls a strand of hair away.
“It’s black.”
“Save the estate sale shopping for another time.”
“That would be Leota.”
“Who?”
“In the Haunted Mansion. The story. Madame Leota was in love with Master Gracey. She killed Constance, his blond bride, and stuck her in a trunk in the attic, hoping that with Constance gone, Master Gracey would love her instead. But it backfired. Gracey hanged himself. People think Leota died of old age and returned to haunt the mansion.”
“Don’t talk like this is real.”
“Because?” Charlene asks. “It’s obvious a bunch of kids can’t become holograms. A bunch of Disney villains couldn’t possibly be responsible for killing Dillard Cole.”
“Okay…okay! Sorry.”
“There’s no dust on the vanity. The mirror has been wiped clean.”
“Listen to you! You’re trying to freak me out—and it’s working.”
Charlene points to the trunk. “That’s a trunk. It’s big enough for—”
“Now you’re just being mean,” Maybeck says.
A woman’s laugh coos out of the dark. It grows to a cackle.
Charlene whispers hoarsely, “What if the wraiths wanted us down here?”
“What if ghost stories are real?” comes the voice from the dark. “You clever girl.”
“I know that voice!” Charlene says in a hush. “It’s Madame Leota!”
Maybeck’s DHI stretches out, reaching for what was once a wall decoration of two crossed Civil War sabers. He concentrates, allowing his DHI to physically grab the handle of one of the swords and wrestle it free of its scabbard. He hoists it two-handed, prepared to do battle.
An emaciated form with an ancient, withered face appears out of the dark. The deeply creased skin is sucked back over high cheekbones like fruit left too long in the sun. The eyes are the gray-blue of lake ice, the nose withered to a black hole beneath what appears to be a shriveled red chili pepper. The specter’s cracked lips have been smeared with red greasepaint, forming a hideous cavity absent of teeth but occupied by a black tongue that ticks back and forth like a clock’s pendulum.
“That’s…her.” Charlene can barely speak.
With fingers like her former nose and a neck like a turkey’s, Madame Leota is the single most hideous human, female or male, the two have ever seen.
“Wait! He didn’t want to marry her?” Maybeck says to Charlene. “Go figure.”
The ancient Leota glides forward. “We always have room for two more.”
“Get some original material,” Maybeck says.
Charlene is apoplectic, unable to move. She stares at Maybeck in awe. Grunts, but cannot speak.
Seeing this, Leota turns toward the girl.
“No you don’t, sweetheart.” Maybeck swings the sword down. It swipes right through the ghost’s arm and clangs onto the stone floor.
Leota reaches out for Maybeck while stepping toward the paralyzed Charlene. The ghost’s arm passes through Maybeck’s DHI. Leota looks at him, puzzled.
“You ain’t the only ghost in the kingdom, gorgeous,” Maybeck says.
Leota’s jaw disconnects as her chin drops to her collarbone. She shrieks and directs herself at Charlene, only inches from the girl’s face.
After several seconds, Charlene’s hair begins to blow back; Maybeck realizes she’s lost her DHI.
“Dance with me?” he says, closing his eyes and running his entire DHI body through Leota’s ghost. Leota spins twice before Maybeck steps out of her. It takes her only a fraction of a second to reorient herself.
In that time, Maybeck reaches for Charlene, who’s gone ashen white—Leota has scared the life out of her. Her DHI fades to gray, pixelating and beginning to lose form. Charlene is melting before his eyes.
“All clear, Charlie.” Maybeck says the words as warmly as he’s ever spoken two words in his life.
Leota is in his face, wailing her tortured cry. He feels himself slipping. He feels cold but to accept the cold is to welcome death.
He has no idea where it comes from—abject fear, a lack of doubt—but he returns Leota’s cry with an agonized howl of his own that blends in an eerie harmony with hers. But as his shriek bends downward at the end and begins to clash with her sound, Maybeck sees Leota tremble. So he slides his pitch down further into a dark, grating dissonance, making her shudder. No fear! he chides himself.
He moves himself to feel no ill will, to push away his desire for vengeance and a sense of disgust. In all the noise, he finds quiet. The pixelated particles pushed by the ghost’s bellowing draw back into his projected form and he feels stronger. Louder.
Leota backs up a step.
“Duck!” shouts Charlene, and he obeys, having forgotten about her. For a few moments, until he forced himself to wake up, Leota owned him.
Maybeck drops to the floor and looks up to see Charlene holding the vanity’s oval mirror up to Leota’s face.
The screeching stops in that instant. The ghost’s eyes narrow and flare. She swoons at the
sight of the horrid face looking back at her. Emitting a series of pitiful groans and complaints, Leota sheds black tears and slowly backs up, returning to the shadows. Maybeck has never heard a sound so miserable and heartbroken, so full of grief and loathing at the same time.
“She hates herself,” Charlene says before Maybeck can ask. “Hates what she did to Gracey. Hates what she’s become.”
“But how could you poss—”
“I’m a woman, Terry! That’s something you’re going to figure out one of these days.”
He stares at her, dumbstruck.
Charlene grabs his hand and pulls him toward the beckoning light.
* * *
“I thought that was you!” Storey Ming says to Finn. She seems to ignore Willa entirely.
The Keepers met Storey aboard the Disney Dream cruise ship during the Panama passage. An elusive girl the Keepers believe is allied with Wayne, she came to their aid on multiple occasions. Finn has come to rely upon her. Charlene, Willa, and Amanda are less generous; they claim that there’s something “off” about Storey and believe she’s after Finn. He thinks back to their kiss on the Dream, but immediately pushes the thought away.
“What are you doing here?” he gasps instead, looking down at the writhing Jetsam.
“Me? I headed here the minute we docked. This is it. The ultimate destination. Disneyland. Where it all started. Where it all ends…if they have their way.”
“How did you find us?” Willa asks.
It seems to take Storey a great deal of effort to turn toward Willa. “You found me,” she says.
Storey squats to address Jetsam. “We’ve had our run-ins before, haven’t we, you ugly green leech?” She wiggles the bent trident, choking down on the eel. “Now, get back into your scene and stay away from this area, or I’ll skewer you and roast you for supper.” She pulls a fragment of a sandwich from her pocket and throws it far into the dark, then lifts the trident. With one shake of its tail, the eel vanishes into the dark. A moment later they can hear it feeding.
“I’ve been hiding in here the past few days—since that newspaper story about the earthquake down in Mexico.” Storey motions them deeper into the dark. There’s a mattress on the floor, a bowl of water, and a wrinkled face towel. “Staying out of the park because of the security cameras. Luckily, there’s a Dumpster backstage and plenty of perfectly good food is thrown away with all the ugly stuff. I remembered what you said about how dangerous the parks could be at night. I’ve been hoping to see you all. And here you are!”
Kingdom Keepers VII Page 10
