by Jeff Dixon
As he dropped to the floor of the ballroom, he slid into the space beneath the ride track and redirected a light directly on him. He stood next to an electric carousel mechanism on which the half bodies of ghosts were mounted, and as the lights came on, it appeared they floated into the ballroom to the party. Hawk stood next to them as they rotated past, but his light remained on. Since he was dressed in jeans and a dark shirt, he didn’t appear to glow in the reflection; instead, he just appeared darker than he might normally look. In the dimly lit mansion, this created the illusion that he was standing in the doorway of the actual scene. The gunman had fired directly at his reflection. A silencer had prevented the shot from making a sound, but the glass partitions between the view of the guests and the real ballroom had shattered. Though pieces of the glass had fallen in front of Hawk, he was actually standing ten feet below the attacker the entire time. He had been safe from the line of fire and had effectively become part of the illusion.
This first part of his plan had worked exactly as he expected. He hoped the second part was unfolding above him. He had heard someone yell “Stop.” Hopefully, his friend and sheriff, Al, had made it into the attraction, had responded to the noise, and had caught the dark-haired menace. Hawk slowly began to make his way through the moving ghost props toward a door he trusted would carry him upstairs to the show level of the attraction. The stairway he found behind the door was dark and smelled of custodial supplies, but it deposited him back on the ride level. Stepping through the doorway, he saw the moving Doom Buggies gliding past, and he hesitated. The sounds filling the air around him were the sounds of the mansion itself. The spooky music echoed off the walls, and he stood there in the dark, unsure of his next move.
Hawk’s wait was short-lived; he heard footfalls coming toward him from the attic area. He flattened himself against the wall in the door frame and waited. If it was the assassin, the only advantage he had now was that the gunman didn’t know he was there. The element of surprise might allow him the chance to knock away the gun as he had in the hospital. If he could do that, he felt confident that he could subdue the attacker. Each footstep got closer. Hawk held his breath. His adrenaline surged. The footfalls were only a few strides away.
He saw the gun and lunged out to strike the gunman’s arm just above the wrist. He slammed his fist down and then threw an elbow toward the chin of the man now in front of him. As the arm dropped under the collision, he noticed the gun did not dislodge from the shooter’s hand. He tried to grab the arm wielding the gun to keep it pointed away from him when he heard sharp voice over the noise of the attraction.
“Hawk, it’s me. Al,” Al Gann barked at him.
Hawk turned back and stopped himself just before he threw another elbow. “Sorry.” Hawk released Al’s arm. “I thought you were…”
“I know what you thought.” Al rubbed his jaw where Hawk had elbowed him. “You nearly broke my wrist.”
“But you held on to the gun,” Hawk commented, very impressed.
“That’s because I’m tougher than you,” sneered his friend.
“Did you get him?”
“No.” Al relaxed just a bit and turned to face Hawk. “You didn’t tell me what you had planned. I heard glass shatter and then someone running. I yelled, but I wasn’t close enough to see who it was or catch them. Whoever it was has to be out of the attraction by now. We have security headed this way and are closing down the entire area, but there is no way we had the perimeter set up in time.”
“So why did you have your gun out?” Hawk looked puzzled.
“In case there was more than one shooter.” Al looked toward the shattered glass on the other side of the Doom Buggy track. “It could have worked, if I had more time to get here.”
“Sorry, I was…well, making it up as I went.”
“So what else is new?” Al shook his head. “Hawk, what are you thinking? Are you trying to get yourself killed?”
“No, I am trying to solve this mystery so this entire nightmare will stop…once and for all.”
He let those words sink in. Hawk knew that Al understood the nature of these mysteries created by Walt and the Imagineers. He realized that solving them did bring some resolution and had been necessary in the past. The concern this time was that the stakes had been ramped up to an entirely different level. Al had managed to give him just enough space to do what he needed to accomplish, but the risks were becoming so great that even Al couldn’t create enough of a buffer for Hawk.
“I thought we agreed that you would only tackle this kind of stuff in the resort after hours.” Al was clearly frustrated and worried.
“I know I did. I didn’t intend to end up inside the park like this.”
“Yes, I know, you were just making it up as you went.”
“Al, I’m sorry.” Hawk shifted gears as he often did as a leader and turned toward solving the immediate problem. “You said you have shut down the area?”
“Yes.”
“Then we can turn the lights on in here and search the attraction. Let’s make sure he’s gone.” Hawk began walking toward the entrance. “I need to do one more thing before you get me out of here, OK?”
“What’s that?”
“Find the next clue.”
After a flurry of phone calls and commands, Hawk led his friend through the winding pathway back toward the beginning of the ride. As they walked through Madame Leota’s Instrument Room, the Doom Buggies again were shut down and came to a dead stop. As they continued past the turn in the ride where guests went past the ticking clock, the lights came on inside the attraction. The soundtrack was turned off, and everything fell into a sudden silence as they moved. Their path took them through the viewing room and past the casket, into the room of staircases that headed in every direction imaginable, then finally into the room where a piano sat facing a large window that revealed the frightening night outside. Hawk stopped.
“I think this is it.” Hawk repeated the clue for himself and Al. “‘I am a container that holds keys for which there exist no locks…yet these keys are trying to unlock souls but cannot. Maybe they will unlock for you how to find that which you are searching for.’”
He pointed toward the piano.
“This is the answer to what you are looking for?” Al asked.
“No, but it’s probably another clue.” Hawk moved to the piano. “The clue confused me for a while. The container with keys for which there exist no locks had me mixed up. Then it dawned on me as I was hiding below the ride vehicles, trying to get my reflection to line up in the door just right, that a piano was a container of keys. The idea came from the organ keys playing in the ballroom. The keys have no locks to open, but I couldn’t figure out a connection between souls and the organ. And then I remembered the piano. The unlocking souls part is a Haunted Mansion story line reference. The organ is being played, but the ghosts are already loose in the attraction. The piano is being played before the ghosts and ghouls get unlocked…so to speak.”
Hawk moved to the back of the piano set piece. Opening the top, he peered down inside. A slight smile crossed his face. He had been right. There was another clue hidden here. A small wooden box, the top decorated with an image of the Walt Disney World Haunted Mansion on a stormy night. The box had no discernible lid, no drawers, no latches or openings. Hawk turned the highly collectible piece over in his hand and held it up for Al to see.
“Is that the clue?” Al wanted to make sure they had found it.
“I think so.” Hawk nodded and again looked at the box. “It’s a puzzle box. They used to sell them in Disneyland and Walt Disney world years ago. The clue must be inside, I just have to figure out how to open it.”
“Don’t do it now.” Al tilted his head toward the entrance of the ride. “We won’t be alone much longer.”
A Disney security team rounded the corner at that moment. They were searching the attraction for anything and anyone out of the ordinary. Hawk waved them on, and right behind them came
another group of law enforcement officers. The mansion had gotten very crowded, and Hawk would need to open the puzzle box in private. Al moved over to him, placed a hand on his shoulder, and guided Hawk toward the entrance. As they opened the front doors of the mansion, they were greeted by another group of security cast members and police officers. They quickly assembled and formed a human perimeter around Hawk and Al as they slowly made their way through the empty waiting area back into the theme park. Hawk took inventory of the mess he had helped to create. The entire area was now blocked off with temporary barricades lined with cast members waving people along to bypass the area. He moved past them, and they reacted with a mixture of surprise, concern, and confusion at seeing the head of the company being protected by such a strong and obvious show of force. It was a sight that was never seen inside the Magic Kingdom. It broke the illusion of being in a magical place, safe from the reality of the world outside of the kingdom. Guests slowed and allowed this spectacle to pass. Hawk was very much aware of the unwanted attention they were drawing, but at the same time, he was responsible for creating this mess by not disappearing into the Utilidor earlier, when he knew it was the best thing to do.
Over his shoulder, he heard the voice of Al Gann trying to reassure him. “Don’t worry about how this looks or the mess we have on our hands. The guests are safe, you are safe, and right now that’s all that matters. You can handle cleaning up the mess later. Let’s get you off the main walkways and back home.” Gann gave him a reassuring pat on the back.
Hawk nodded agreement, and the entire group stepped through a cast member entrance in Liberty Square, out of sight, and they headed toward his apartment through the backstage area.
If the dark-haired man was watching Hawk’s progress, he was keeping himself well hidden.
CHAPTER THIRTY - THREE
Three Days Ago
Evening
The puzzle box was a secret panel chest. It could be opened only when a specific combination of movements was discovered by the user. Hawk had called Shep to satisfy his curiosity about what had been happening in the Haunted Mansion. Having Shep’s assistance had almost allowed him to capture his attacker. Hawk was frustrated that he had been so close. Having the assassin out of the mix would not have solved the mystery, but it would have given him more breathing room and eliminated one of the threats hanging over him. He had also told Shep about finding the box inside the piano and asked him to find out what he could about it. Shep had done some research and decided to hand deliver the information to Hawk at the Fire Station apartment.
The box had been constructed by a small company in Hikone, Japan. Made using a variety of wood species, this was an original souvenir sold in the Magic Kingdom when it opened in 1971. The boxes had been available for three years, and then the factory in Japan closed down. The cost of making the boxes was too high; they couldn’t produce them and continue to keep their profit margins, so they went out of business. Suddenly the value of these wooden souvenirs increased significantly. Shep had told Hawk that these items were highly desirable in the Disneyana collectible marketplace. The boxes could be worth hundreds of dollars today because they were of high-quality craftsmanship and never were going to be available again.
“Are you going to ever get it open?” Shep sighed as he watched Hawk.
The wooden puzzle box sat on the table. Hawk had been fiddling with it for some time. Trying various combinations of how it might open had been unsuccessful until he finally saw a pattern in how it was interconnected. Gently he pushed on the narrow end of the box, and a thin sliver of wood slid sideways, revealing a mechanism beneath. Reaching inside, he felt a small block of wood that served as a wedge or some kind of lock. He carefully removed it. After he did, the side of the box slid downward along a hidden groove. Once the side of the box had shifted downward, the top lid of the box could be slid and removed. With the top now off the box, he could see inside the small rectangular chamber. It was empty. He raised his eyebrows.
Breathing deeply, he knew there was something else that he had to do with the box. The other end of the box, the one that had not yet been moved, was where he focused his attention. Since the opposite side had been shifted and the top had been removed, he could see the faintest trace of what appeared to be a tongue-and-groove insert. He placed his finger on the top of this side of the box and pressed down to see if it would slide like the other end. It did not. Reversing his approach, he placed his finger on the bottom of the side and pressed up. It shifted slightly and then released. This end of the box slid up and locked into position. Now Hawk turned the end of the box he had just moved toward him. He saw it. Now revealed as the box side had been moved upward, there was an insert and a drawer that was hidden in the bottom of the box. He reached in and grabbed the small handle and pulled it toward him. The wooden drawer slid toward him and revealed its contents. A small piece of folded-up paper. He retrieved the paper, opened it, and saw the familiar handwriting of Farren Rales once again.
Hawk placed the note on the table and looked up at Shep, who smiled approvingly at the discovery. The both leaned in so they could read the words scrawled on the paper.
“A song from the past will reach your ears…It is a tune that touches some of your fears. A world with no Mickey is a terrible sign of what happened here in 1939.”
“It’s always another clue,” Shep said softly, “but never the answer.”
“That’s true,” Hawk agreed. “But whatever we’re looking for, as always, is something that has to be hidden so well that no one else can find it.”
“I just wish sometimes that Farren would have come out and told you what you needed to know.”
“Me too…sometimes.” Hawk glanced toward his friend. “But you already know that the things we’ve learned as we unlock the secrets Walt Disney left for us are important for us to know. They are the story within the story.” He paused and then looked back down at the clue on the table. “And our reality, where we always are having to protect these secrets, is why they have to be hidden so carefully. Because others want them so badly.”
Shep finished the thought. “And will do whatever it takes to get them.”
“Exactly.”
The two allowed silence to fill the space around them as they both mentally read and reread the clue in front of them. Hawk spun the paper around toward Shep so he didn’t have to read it upside down from the opposite side of the table. Hawk leaned back in his chair and looked out the window toward Main Street, U.S.A., which was glowing as all of the lights were on and night had settled over the Magic Kingdom. In just a few hours, all of the parks would be closed, and the guests moving through them would migrate back toward their hotels, homes, and other destinations.
He rubbed his chin and closed his eyes, trying to think about the clue, but was distracted by today’s fiasco at the Haunted Mansion. The attraction was shut down indefinitely. It was officially a crime scene, so it was crawling with law enforcement investigators. Hawk knew they would get in and out as quickly as possible. That didn’t concern him as much as the damage he had helped to create inside the attraction. The ballroom scene would have to be repaired. The massive glass panels used to reflect the images so perfectly were custom-made and would take time to get replaced. That meant the attraction would be out of commission for an indefinite time, and guests could not enjoy it. And he was personally responsible. He squeezed his eyes shut even tighter, wishing he could magically make the problem better. But he knew that the magic in the resort that people enjoyed and often took for granted happened only because of hard work and dedication. One of the lines he had said in an interview that had become one of his most quoted was “The secret to making magic happen is doing the hard work so well that it makes it look easy.” This was not an easy fix. It was not easy to clean up, it was not easy to explain…it was going to take a lot of hard work to make it right and get the attraction opened again.
Shep tapped on the table, and Hawk snapped his attention back
to his friend seated across from him.
“Do you have any idea what the clue means?” Shep spun it back toward Hawk.
“Let’s break it down.” Hawk refocused his attention on the clue. “‘A song from the past will reach your ears…’ I’ve got nothing on this part yet. ‘It is a tune that touches some of your fears.’ To me that might mean someplace that scares you.”
“Like the Haunted Mansion?” Shep studied the clue.
“Sure, but since we found it in the mansion, it has to mean something else.”
“OK, how about Pirates of the Caribbean? It’s dark and scary.” Shep paused. “Or the caves on Tom Sawyer island? They’re dark and spooky. And Stitch’s Great Escape still has that whole Alien Encounter vibe…very scary stuff. The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror is just flat-out creepy and scary to me. Dinosaur in Animal Kingdom is loud, terrifying, and takes you back in time. That could be it…” Shep didn’t seem to notice Hawk break into a wide smile as he listened to his friend talk. “Expedition Everest is frightening, and if it’s just a ride itself that could be scary, then Space Mountain is a good choice as well. Ah, man, but Rock ’n’ Roller Coaster will scare you to death. And don’t forget at Disney Quest there’s Pirates of the Caribbean—Battle for Buccaneer Gold. You get shot at with cannonballs, it’s dark, there are skeletons… that is pretty high on the creep-you-out meter as well—” Now Shep noticed Hawk smiling at him. “What?”
“I didn’t realize that so many places at Walt Disney World scared you.” Hawk laughed.
“You said it might mean some places that scare you,” Shep said in defense of himself. “I was just helping you out.”
“Oh, that’s good. For a minute, I thought you were telling me places that you were actually a little scared of yourself,” Hawk pressed.
