But that was before she realized the utility tunnels were still accessible. Harlan was supposed to have filled them in, out of respect for the people who died there years ago, out of respect for the teenager who almost did.
The scratching in the coffin increases so exponentially that Harlan would need at least eight arms to execute such cacophony. When the lid explodes off the coffin, Vic buries herself deeper in the dresses, grabs another stiletto and brandishes them like hatchets as the corpse’s pitted face rises above the edge. Harlan Fell’s eyes are pale gray, his skin like bleached driftwood, but there’s life in his lips. They’re theatrically red, and his teeth glimmer Borax white in the musty room.
“You can end this now, Victoria. One wish, and this can all be over.”
She shakes her head so much it nauseates her. She says, “no” until it’s just a nonsensical moan.
The corpse chuckles like a brush fire.
“Very well. More fun for us.”
With a howl, the cadaver lunges at Vic in the costume rack, but she narrowly avoids his skeletal grasp and whips around with the shoe in her fist. The stiletto heel pierces her father’s temple and the twisted things inside, and all at once, Harlan’s corpse pops like a balloon spraying hundreds of tiny opalescent crustaceans around the chamber. Vic crushes as many as she can, but the majority avoid the hammering and join like water droplets forming pearly pools in the corners of the costume room.
“Remember this,” they hiss from all angles, “we gave you the chance to save them.”
Their bodies shimmer with mimetic camouflage and they disappear into the walls and ceiling like white twinkle lights dying all around her.
“I hear her!” someone shouts. “She’s down here!”
Vic is still holding the shoes when Tiffany Law jogs into the chamber.
“Are you okay, Ms. Fell? Did you get lost?”
She shakes her head and tosses the heels aside. “I’m fine.”
The ice-blond actress screws a bloody tissue into her nostril and sniffs. “You’ve been down here for ten minutes. Is it safe or not?”
With a huff, she says, “Not,” and shoves Tiffany from the prop room. She doesn’t get far pushing her down the main corridor, however, before they collide with Rina Bestler, a former competitive figure skater, and Raymond Burke, a beefy but jittery first-time security guard who swings his flashlight beam over the scabby walls. They ask her what’s happening, what the plan is, but Vic keeps her mouth clamped shut as they pass the faded maps of the tunnel’s chambers and entrances. The drawings seemed so much bigger when she was a kid. The ladder too, stretching up into the massive watchtower at the center of the theme park built along Calvert Cliffs; it seems like a flimsy plaything now, not a gateway to the horrifying storm that struck Fell’s Fairy Funland out of the blue just one hour ago.
Planting her feet, Rina latches onto a rusted warm-up barre and forces Vic to stop. “I need you to tell me exactly where we’re going, Ms. Fell. And who the hell were you talking to down there?” She tilts her head as if the correct angle will spill her boss’ secrets, but despite the insistence in her rigid stance, her left pinkie finger twitches like a worm on a hook.
It’s the first time since they met that Rina Bestler has shown a chink in the lofty and impenetrable air she boasted as a competitive figure skater. She’s too young to have experienced Fell’s Fairy Funland in its heyday and its revival in the mid-90s, but the cast of the new and improved park often discussed the legendary storm that struck in the winter of 1991. They called it the “Ghost Hurricane” because it appeared out of nowhere, with not a single indicator that a storm would break across a clear blue sky, raise the Chesapeake Bay over the cliffs, and decimate fifty acres of Calvert Cliffs State Park. The Ghost flooded and thrashed the attractions that day, killing nearly a dozen off-season employees.
Rina only heard about it in passing, however. She didn’t get along with most of the other actors, partly because of the local celebrity’s spectacular fall from grace in an underage drunk driving accident the previous year, but also because spending most of her life in pursuit of Olympic gold left her frightfully inept in most social situations. Add in the fact that many actors would’ve preferred it if Tiffany Law were cast as Fairy Funland’s lead character, Princess Papillon, and Rina tended to keep to herself.
Vic fielded all sorts of complaints about the former figure skater’s icy attitude, but when it came down to it, Rina’s scandal was exactly the kind of publicity she needed for the grand reopening of her father’s once-revered theme park.
“I’ll explain everything once we’re safe,” she says. “But we need to get to the bridge. The water didn’t reach the house last time. It’s our only chance.”
Tiffany wails so theatrically the tissue shoots from her nose. “That’s what we came to tell you! The bridge is gone!”
She hopes Tiffany’s just being dramatic again. The girl whose mother originated the role of Princess Papillon in 1975 was certain she’d get the part for the grand reopening and was vehemently vocal about her displeasure that the focus of a scandal had stolen her legacy. Whenever Rina winced after a landing or stretched her calves longer than usual, Tiffany offered herself as an understudy, usually with a braggadocious twirl.
But Raymond’s expression confirms Tiffany reply. It’s not just drama. It’s the end of the line… again.
The security guard’s voice catches in his throat. Clearing it, he says, “There’s no path to the house anymore. The police are on their way, but we lost contact when HQ got submerged, so there’s no telling when they’ll be able to get to us, especially if we’re down here.” He takes off his glasses and wipes off dirt with his soaked shirt, which makes matters worse. “If the watchtower goes, we’ll be trapped in these tunnels for God only knows how long.” He wipes the glasses again and sets them on his nose as he squints at Ms. Fell. “Except you know, don’t you? You’ve been stuck down here before.”
“Why are we even discussing this?” Tiffany squeals. “There’s no way I’m going back out there. You saw what happened to Chelsea. To Mrs. Popper and her kid. It picked them up; it dangled them in the air—” Her voice disappears into a whimper, and she throws herself against Raymond’s chest, which seems to disturb him as much as the omnipresent thunder vibrating the tunnels.
Vic hadn’t seen Chelsea, nor Maria and Elias Popper — she’d hoped they were still out there, actually — but she knows precisely what Tiffany means. She was in the watchtower when the Ghost struck in ‘91. Though she often had birthday parties there as a child, Harlan opened up during the off-season and paid the actors double to let her have the run of the park on Adoption Day.
“To preside over the entire fairy realm,” he said, because there was no proving the former orphan wasn’t part fairy herself.
Vic despised the reason but enjoyed the solitude. Until the storm began.
She was standing at the eastern window that day, the pane propped open and music entrancing her so completely that her ice cream started melting down her wrist. She was licking it off, her eyes fixed on the Ferris wheel, when the first bouts of lightning struck. She didn’t recognize it as lightning at the time, though. The sky brightened temporarily, but it seemed more like clouds clearing than the warning it should’ve been. The thunder came soon after, disturbingly persistent with jags of non-stop rolling and rumbling that shook the earth. And as the azure sky twinkled above, harsh and violent winds troubled the Chesapeake beyond the cliffside barrier.