Текст книги "Disney after Dark"

Автор книги: Ridley Pearson

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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 14 страниц)

19

Finn and Philby climbed into Splash Mountain’s waterway carefuly. The dark water was cold.

Finn didn’t like the feeling at all. “Are we sure,” he whispered to Philby, “that this is worth it?”

“Do we have a choice?”

They slogged their way through the first part of the ride, around some turns, and soon encountered a rubber conveyor incline that proved a tough climb. It grew darker the deeper they went into the ride. Aside from his cold, wet legs, Finn felt a different chill all through his body. He considered mentioning it to Philby, but he didn’t want to sound afraid like Charlene.

They climbed through a second tunnel, much longer and darker than the first. It had stairs on either side for maintenance and emergency evacuation. Only the orange night sky, and a slight glow from their holograms, offered any light. Once through this second tunnel, they rested briefly before passing a massive tree on their left. In one scene there was a ladder hanging from a branch, with a laundry line to their right. Here the water current was strong and the going more treacherous.

Philby said softly, “I think we ought to float.”

“What?”

“Float,” he repeated. Philby lowered himself fully into the water and leaned back. The water current quickly carried him away from Finn.

Reluctantly, Finn did the same, not wanting to be left behind.

Both boys maintained their balance and direction by keeping one hand on the steel rail meant to guide the ride’s boats.

“I’ve taken this ride a zillion times,” Philby said, “but this is pretty cool.”

Finn didn’t love being soaking wet, but he too was enjoying himself.

Then they entered a dark scene, a cavelike space filled with Audio-Animatronic figures. The characters, turned off for the night, all stood frozen in midgesture.

“Kinda creepy,” Finn said. He’d had enough. The going was perfectly flat here, the current slow. He grabbed the rail and prepared to climb out.

Philby dove forward, splashing them both, and grabbed hold of Finn.

“You can’t do that!” Philby warned him. “If we climb out, we’ll trip the alarm.”

“What alarm?” Finn challenged.

“They use infrared sensors to detect anyone who tries to get out of a log car during the ride.”

“But the ride’s shut down.”

“But is the infrared shut down?” Philby asked. “I doubt it. Besides, there are thirty-six hidden cameras along the ride. If we climb out, we’ll be photographed.”

“It’s pitch-black!”

“But we’re not,” he said, indicating his own glow. “We’ll be photographed, trust me. And if we’re photographed, we’re identified and busted,” Philby said.

“How do you know any of this stuff?”

“Can you spell Google?”

“And you waited until now to tell me this?” Finn asked.

“I wasn’t going to write you a report,” Philby snapped back irritably.

Finn’s fear grew more intense the deeper they ventured into this cave. They floated faster now as the route twisted and turned. The waist-deep water in the ride’s chute was getting deeper; and the water was flowing faster.

“If I remember right, we’re going into a small —drop,” Philby announced.

Both boys rushed down the drop. Finn’s head went underwater, and he heard something grinding. Something mechanical.

He bobbed to the surface. “Did you hear that?”

“The ride’s turned on,” Philby declared, his voice unsteady. “That means the log cars are moving.”

Finn recalled the marching dolls. He had no desire to try to outrace metal boats shaped to look like logs.

Another drop.

The water tried to swallow them. Both boys remained on their backs, arms extended to stay afloat. At the bottom, Finn looked ahead to see another tunnel approaching.

“I don’t like this!” he said.

As they neared the tunnel they saw lights and heard music playing. Voices sang, “You gotta keep moving along.”

The robot characters were moving; giant creatures with long noses and big bugged-out eyes rocked and danced. One threw a fishing line at the water.

Finn said, “I’m starting to think getting busted wouldn’t be too bad.”

“Not yet!” Philby announced. “We’ve got to hang in there.”

The two boys swam and bounced and bumped their way along the water route. They passed fake green hills and low-hanging tree branches, and a six-foot-tall rabbit holding a paintbrush.

These things looked devilish to Finn as he saw them looming above him.

“The ride takes a total of eleven minutes to complete,” Philby said. “If we’re halfway along—

and I bet we are—then the first log car shouldn’t arrive for another six minutes. By that time, we’ll only have a couple minutes to go.”

“Why doesn’t that sound terribly reassuring?”

Next were mountain backdrops and twelve-foot-high bears. Finn looked away, cold and shivering, and anticipated the arrival of a steel log.

“Clouds!” Philby announced.

Finn saw them in the backdrop. They were painted behind a mountain range. He wormed a hand into his pocket and donned the pair of 3-D glasses, just as Philby did.

Nothing. The clouds looked perfectly normal.

Finn squeezed the glasses back into his pocket with difficulty. “This is crazy,” he said. “What are we doing here?”

“The more important question,” Philby answered, “is who knows we’re in here, and why was the ride turned on?”

“If you’re trying to cheer me up, you’re not doing such a great job,” Finn fired back.

A giant rabbit jumped across the scene, and called out loudly, which caused Finn to splash in self-defense. Okay, Finn thought, now I’m defending myself against mechanical rabbits. What if these robots come alive the same way the dolls did? “Okay,” he said. “I would like to get out of here!”

“More clouds!” Philby announced.

Finn fumbled with his glasses again. Wearing them, he took in the clouds and sky. Still nothing.

nothing.

Presently, there were chipmunk voices singing something at such a high pitch and volume that Finn couldn’t understand a word. But he could feel the logs approaching. Philby kept glancing over his shoulder. He could feel them too.

A low male voice began narrating the ride. The scene became as dark as the inside of a stomach. The boys bounced off the rails and the chute walls. Bruised and cold, Finn grew increasingly desperate. “Exactly what are we doing here?” he asked as his head came up from underwater again.

“My bad, Finn,” Philby said. “But keep the glasses on. Okay? And keep an eye out for more clouds.”

A large wolf wearing a cowboy hat and holding a rabbit was saying something that was probably funny, though Finn wasn’t listening. His ears were tuned to the steady groan of the system—the approach of the log cars.

“Maybe we risk the cameras,” Finn suggested.

Philby said, “And have our DHIs removed from the park? I don’t think so!”

Finn knew this was right. He felt his courage gathering and was glad to have it back.

They slipped down a dip, traveling ever faster in the dark, churning water. Finn saw light up ahead. He felt a profound sense of gratitude. The end of the ride, in sight at last! But then he remembered where they were in the ride. Next up was—

A really big drop. The ride’s biggest drop of all. Its biggest thrill. Thrill or kill? Finn wondered.

He back-paddled, fighting the current.

“That baby’s about four stories, straight down,” Philby said. “Forty-five degrees. A million gallons of water driving you like a freight train.”

Their bodies slapped forward—closer to the edge—despite their vigorous splashing.

“It’ll either crush us,” Finn said, “or we’ll drown.”

Philby didn’t disagree.

Finn said more loudly, “I said: it’ll either crush us, or we’ll drown!”

“Yeah,” Philby said. “I think you’re right.” He rolled onto his stomach and tried to swim away from the drop, but it was no use: the water was too fast.

Finn also rolled over and started swimming. He tried for the edge, happy to climb out, even with the risk of getting busted, but the strong current prevented him from reaching the side. He panicked.

Though the two boys swam frantically, they were actually moving with the current toward the drop.

Philby said between strokes, “If we—could get—into a log—”

Was that possible? Finn wondered. It did seem the perfect solution.

How much longer until a log arrived? Finn wondered. He twisted his watch while flapping his other arm in an awkward crawl. Any moment, he decided. Between gulps of disgusting water he said, “Sounds like a plan. Keep swimming!” They were both still slipping backward despite their efforts. The ride’s dramatic plummet drew near.

It felt to Finn as if he were being sucked down a giant drain.

“We’re not thinking right!” he said. The first log appeared. It looked big and powerful, and it was coming right for them.

Still thinking out loud, Finn said, “We’re made of light, Philby. Holograms! We’re half light. We aren’t solid. Wayne talked about Einstein. About how we’re more space than atoms.” He couldn’t see Philby through all the splashing.

A voice surfaced. “I don’t think this is the best time to discuss physics,” Philby said. “Besides

–I probably know more about it than you do.”

They heard a loud bump! and whack! from the dark as the log grew closer.

“If we’re mostly light,” Finn proposed, “then water current can’t affect us. Light moves through water; it doesn’t get carried off by it.”

Driven by his newfound confidence, Finn rolled onto his back and stroked more gently.

Slowly, he pulled away from Philby, and with half the effort.

It’s all what I’m thinking, he realized.

Philby watched as Finn’s glowing body—brighter now—swam past him upstream. In doing so, Philby allowed himself to relax for a moment.

A moment too long.

Philby was sucked down the throat of the final plummet.

Time slowed. Philby tumbled through space and water, holding his breath and then sucking for air. His lungs burned. He couldn’t tell what was up or down. Then, amid the swirl of black, a hand appeared. A human hand. Glowing, as if it had been plugged into the wall. Behind that hand another shape formed. That shape was an arm, Finn’s arm.

Finn was inside the log car leaning over. The two boys locked hands, and Finn dragged Philby up and into the log. The log threw out a tremendous splash as it reached the bottom of the chute.

By the time Philby had righted himself, now sitting up, the log had snaked through the chute and entered yet another scene. This was the last scene, the most exotic of the attraction.

Finn and Philby scrambled for their glasses.

“How did you do that?” Philby asked.

“I’m not sure. But I think it was all in my head,” Finn replied.

Behind the paddleboat, Finn spotted large pink clouds in a big blue sky. His head swirled with the sounds of voices singing “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah.” He slipped on the eyeglasses.

There, behind the Showboat, he saw a bunch of clouds. In the middle of one of the biggest clouds he saw several big letters. They appeared to have been spray-painted: FME

When Finn lifted his glasses, the letters disappeared.

“Our first clue!” Finn whispered, looking for the exit.

20

“Where’s Maybeck?” Finn asked. The two girls didn’t answer right away. They seemed shocked to see him and Philby so wet and so pale.

“We don’t know.” Charlene sounded frightened.

“The sun!” Philby said. “Did you try the glasses?”

“Y, I, and R. Three letters! They look painted, added on later.” Willa replied excitedly.

“Same with us!” Philby said, “F, M, and E. We’re definitely on to something.”

Finn interrupted their glee. “Where—is—Maybeck?”

Charlene looked worried. “We got to the ride and he said he had something he had to check out. We told him we had to stick together, but he blew us off.”

“And he hasn’t come back,” Willa said angrily.

“Hasn’t come back?” Philby asked, finally realizing they had a serious problem on their hands.

“And this was, like, half an hour ago,” Charlene said.

“He kept checking his watch,” Willa complained. “He was nervous about something, like he was eager to get back.”

“Oh, no.” Finn heard himself moan.

“The button!” he and Philby said at once.

If Maybeck had taken the button from the apartment with him to the other side, he could leave them all stranded inside the Magic Kingdom until he returned. No one knew if the button would cross over or stay behind. But they didn’t want to wait to find out.

The four took off at a run.

They approached the castle with caution. It seemed a likely location for security guards. At night, light streamed up onto its stone exterior, the towering spires pointing like fingers into the dark sky. Crouched behind some thick bushes, just off the ramp that led up to the castle, the kids waited, listening intently and looking in all directions.

Charlene nudged Philby, who nudged Finn. A pair of pirates—figures from Pirates of the Caribbean, not humans—lurked in shadow just inside the castle’s first arch. Waiting. Their mechanical eyes never blinked.

Finn whispered, “I know those two! They were part of the group that attacked me.”

“You’re right,” said Philby. “I was there too, remember?”

“You think they’re waiting for us?” Charlene asked.

“No. How could they possibly know—?” Finn cut himself off.

“Maybeck,” Willa said. “You don’t think—?”

“Maybeck is not an Overtaker,” Philby declared.

“He could be a spy,” Charlene proposed.

“No way!” Finn said sharply. “If they’re waiting for us, it means Maybeck’s in trouble.”

“He’s been caught!” Willa said.

A chill passed through Finn. He waited a moment to see if it lingered—in case it meant that the witch was nearby. The feeling passed.

Philby said, “Didn’t Wayne say something about—”

“Secret ways into the castle,” Finn finished for him. “Yes, he did. And he also said if you took a wrong step in Escher’s Keep you ended up in the moat. But he never showed us any secret doors.”

“I know where one is,” Philby announced.

“What?” Finn said, astonished.

“VMK,” Philby explained. “I was in this room and I heard these two guys talking about counting stones. Castle stones: I’m positive that was it! I had no idea what they meant. But it could be a secret door, a way inside.”

“How many stones, and from where?” Willa asked. “We’ve got to hurry. Maybeck may need us.”

“I don’t remember, but the point is, there must be a stone you push to get inside.”

“But that’s in a computer game!” Charlene protested, sweeping one arm across the scene.

“This is real life!” They all looked at her glowing, transparent arm. “Or sort of,” she added.

“The game is part of real life,” Philby said.

“Follow me,” Finn said.

Together the four DHIs crept on their stomachs up to the wallof the castle, where they were now out of sight from the waiting pirates.

“Spread out,” Finn said. “Push every stone you can reach.”

They formed a long line, wrapping around the side of the castle, their backs to Tomorrowland, where the manicured lawn spilled down toward the moat. Finn pushed against the cool stone blocks. He started at knee height and pushed against every stone he could. Then he moved an arm’s length toward Charlene, immediately to his right, and started again.

A few minutes into this process Willa called out, “Got it!”

Finn and the others hurried over.

A door had opened in the wallof the castle.

It was pitch-black inside.

Philby said, “Always trust computer games.”

With no one stepping up, Finn took the lead. The chilly corridor smelled damp and old.

Philby entered last. He said, “Wait up! We’ve got to shut this thing.”

Willa turned to help him. She found an iron handle sticking out of the wall. She pushed and couldn’t move it, then leaned her weight onto it and it rotated toward the floor. The stone door made a sound like fingernails on a blackboard as it closed.

Finn was still very wet from his ordeal at Splash Mountain; his soaked clothes made him very cold now. He felt his way along the cool rock, tripped when he reached some stairs, and warned the others in a dry whisper to look out. Together they climbed the stairs, at the top of which Finn encountered a dead end. It was a stone wallthat didn’t budge when he leaned against it.

Charlene found an iron handle, just like the one Willa had found at the other end. The two girls leaned against it, and the wallin front of Finn moved open a crack. He and Philby pushed it farther open….

“The throne!” Finn said, recognizing where this door led.

They stepped into the throne room in the waiting area for Cinderella’s Royal Table. There were tapestries and flags on the walls. The throne was attached to the hidden door, so that when the door had opened the throne had moved with it. As a team they pushed the door back, but not before Philby had taken a moment to find the hidden switch, a wooden knob tucked away on the back of the throne itself. When this knob was moved, the door tripped open. They tried it once the door was back in place, and sure enough, it came open for them, offering them a way out, if needed.

Minutes later the three others followed Finn up Escher’s Keep. He had carefully memorized the way, but took his time, knowing one false step could—

“Thar they be!” came a gruff voice from behind and down below.

Finn and the others turned to see the same two Audio-Animatronic pirates standing at the base of Escher’s Keep. They appeared to be overwhelmed by the complications of the stairways, ladders, and platforms, all of which were interconnected in improbable ways.

One pirate was dressed in a blue coat, the other red. The one in red pulled out his knife and pointed up the stairs.

“Hurry!” Charlene cried out.

The sound of clunky mechanical legs echoed up the first stairway.

“We can’t hurry,” Finn replied. “We make a mistake and we end up in the moat, and that would mean security guards.”

The pirates continued to climb.

Philby said, “Besides, they won’t figure it out.”

But to his amazement, the two pirates made a lucky guess at the first platform and found the correct stairway. At the top, the red pirate turned left, but the blue one grabbed him by the shoulder and stopped him. They were frighteningly close to the kids now, only one stairway behind.

Finn remembered how to get onto the upside-down mirror stairs. He stepped on the correct tiles and then tested the stairway with his right foot. It was solid. He climbed, and the others followed. As they came out the end of a short tunnel their images appeared upside down to the pirates below.

“Avast!” the red pirate called out sharply.

He and the blue pirate hurried up the set of stairs in front of them. Charlene charged past Finn, clearly afraid. But Philby, Willa, and Finn watched from their inverted positions as the two pirates reached the next landing and tried to decide on a course. They argued between themselves.

“You wouldn’t know east if the sun was rising!”

“No? When was the last time you knew fore from aft?”

They stepped up onto a set of stairs, seemingly proud of their choice, and promptly vanished from sight amid a roar of rough-sounding words.

A moment later, two splashes.

Finn said, “And that would be the moat.”

A few minutes later the four kids rode the night-sky elevator to the apartment together. To their confusion, they found the remote button on the coffee table, exactly where Finn had left it.

“Either he came here and sent himself back,” Philby said, “leaving us the remote, or—”

“He never left here in the first place,” Finn completed.

“That might explain the pirates,” Willa said, still wondering if Maybeck was somehow a spy.

“Or it might tell us he’s been caught,” Philby suggested.

“What about the teepee?” Charlene asked. “Didn’t we say if we didn’t meet here, we’d meet there?”

“Yes, we did. You’re right,” Finn said.

“I don’t love the idea of going back the way we came,” Philby said. “Those clowns could return.”

Finn moved over to the silver Mickey plate on the wallby the window. “Wayne used the express lane,” he reminded.

“I’m not going first on that thing!” Charlene declared.

Finn said, “Then I will.” He hit the plate.

The floor fell out from under him, and he slid in his damp clothes down a twisting, steep exit tube. It was the best tube he’d ever ridden, including every water park he’d ever been to. It leveled off near the bottom, slowing him down, and he popped through a pair of doors and landed on a patch of grass in a shadowy nook outside the castle walls. He rolled out of the way and waited. A moment later, Willa came through. Then Charlene, and finally Philby.

Together, they made their way toward Frontierland, and the teepee, staying in shadow and hiding often.

They called for Maybeck inside the teepee. No answer. Then, at Philby’s urging, they climbed inside to get out of sight.

Finn said, “We have to find him before we go back.”

“But it’s late,” Charlene protested. “We have to get back. Listen, he’s the one who took off. He broke the rules. Why should we be the ones punished?”

Finn asked, “And if it was you left behind?”

“Shh!” Philby said.

The park suddenly seemed unusually quiet. It felt to Finn as if there were a thousand ears trained in their direction.

A rustle came from the bushes just on the other side of the teepee wall.

They heard footsteps. Someone circling the teepee.

I know you’re in there, said Maleficent in her dry, raspy voice. But Finn heard her in his head, not through his ears. Missing something, are we? She clucked her tongue. What a shame youdidn’t listen and obey. I told you to stay away from here. Nasty children. Nasty little children.

The footfalls continued around the teepee and reached the front door. The teepee’s interior grew steadily colder until the kids could see four plumes of their fogged breath emerging clearly from their invisible bodies.

Across from him, Finn heard a brief but sharp clatter of teeth. Charlene’s, no doubt.

The four plumes of fog stopped as all four held their breath. A gangly shadow stretched across the open doorway.

Maleficent’s voice sounded like slowly cracking glass. “You should have stayed away while you had the chance.” The shadow bent. Her oddly beautiful green face appeared in the open doorway.

Charlene screamed, jumped up, and fled the teepee, suddenly visible. She surprised the witch, who reeled back instinctively. Maleficent lunged at Charlene with her skinny arms and bony fingers, but Charlene was much too fast for her. Maleficent got only a piece of the girl’s black Tshirt. The shirt stretched, and Charlene was nearly pulled off her feet. But the shirt tore at the last second, leaving a scrap of cloth in Maleficent’s green hand.

Willa fled right behind Charlene. The witch missed her entirely.

Finn saw that Maleficent’s eyes were eerily bright. She had surprisingly pretty, high cheekbones, with a high forehead, black hair, and a strong chin. She wore a strange headdress, like two twisting horns that rose from the hood of her cape. Her inquisitive face explored the empty teepee.

“Why can’t I see you, you poor simple fools? Hmm? Have you got magic of your own? Do you?” Never taking her eyes off the inside of the teepee, she crouched. Her twisted green fingers with red nails couldn’t keep still. She scooped up a fist of sandy dirt from just outside the doorway.

Finn kept in shadow, remaining invisible. He moved carefully and quietly toward the door.

“Now, Finn Whitman, you shall deal with me,” the witch said, casting an arc of sand inside.

Briefly, a ghostly image of Philby’s left side appeared as the sand struck and stuck to him.

A clever witch at that, Finn thought.

Philby brushed off most of the sand, but not all. His ghostly image remained.

Maleficent stepped over the lip and into the teepee, heading right for Philby.

Finn jumped forward and shoved her to the dirt. It felt like he had rammed into a wallof ice.

“Run!” Finn shouted.

Philby jumped over the witch’s legs and sprang out of the teepee. He landed in the dirt, rolled, and came to his feet.

Finn also tripped over the lower lip of the teepee’s door. He, too, went down face-first into the dirt.

As Finn came to his feet, a crow flew from the teepee. The bird dove for Finn, its talons like dinner forks. Finn blocked the attack with his forearm and was off at a run.

The crow shrieked, rose high, circled once, and dove again, a flutter of feathers.

Finn ran hard and fast, thinking, She will not scare me. She will not scare me!

The bird dove again, this time striking the back of Finn’s head, its talons scratching his scalp.

Finn headed for the shore. He hit the water in a racer’s dive, knowing the crow couldn’t follow.

But the crow tucked its wings, lowered its head, and dove for the water’s black surface. Finn heard a big splash and then silence behind him.

Charlene, Philby, and Willa, already in the water, swam to shore and clambered up onto the bank and quickly out of sight.

Finn realized the bird—the witch—had gone into the water but had never come out.

At that very moment, he felt something wrap around his ankle. Slimy and cold, it dragged him under.

A giant, black eel. It climbed up Finn’s body, wrapped around his middle, and squeezed. And squeezed. Finn tore at it with his hands, but it was like trying to grab a giant slithering bar of soap.

The more he fought against it, the more it squeezed. He felt the wind being choked out of him. He couldn’t breathe. He was losing consciousness.

Finn heard a loud whine, like an…engine. The eel’s grip slackened just enough to allow Finn to take a breath.

Above him, Finn saw Philby in one of the jungle boats. Philby held the boat’s outboard motor tilted just above the water, its spinning propeller aimed at the eel.

As the propeller was just about to cut the eel like a meat grinder, the beast released its hold of Finn and slithered back down under the dark water. Finn pulled himself from the water as Philby ran the boat up on shore.

“We gotta go, right now!” Philby shouted to the girls. “We’ve got to get back to the apartment and get out of here.”

“Maybeck—” Finn said.

“We can’t wait!” Philby shouted.

“That’s what I’ve been telling you!” Charlene said.

“I hate leaving him behind,” Willa said, worried.

“We all do,” Philby said. “But they know we’re here. We’ve got to leave.”

Finn hardly heard any of this. He was not thinking of the water, nor the crow, nor the eel. He was, instead, thinking only this one thing, over and over: She knew my name. She knew my name.