Deep Down Dead

by Steph Broadribb

  34

  The drive lasted an hour and forty-seven minutes. Neither of us spoke. We were past that, past trying to rationalise, past trying to convince each other that we would be in time. We didn’t know. So we said nothing. It just seemed easier that way.

  As I drove I tried not to think about all the times I’d not let Dakota to stay up late, or go with her friends to a place I thought too old for her, or watch a movie rated above her age. I’d done all those small things to protect her, yet when it really mattered, when the danger was real and present, I’d led her into it, smiling and telling her it would be an adventure. Now I knew for sure what I’d always feared deep down. I wasn’t fit to be a mom.

  But this wasn’t about me. Those final moments as she’d been taken replayed on a loop in my mind. I leant forward as if doing so would get me there faster. Those sons-of-bitches were going to pay.

  We passed the turn for Fernandina Beach and continued along the interstate. Up ahead, a blue sign with a picture of a grinning Percy Penguin – the signature character of DreamWorld Inc. – announced that there was one mile to go until the turn-off for Winter Wonderland. I felt sick, and then some.

  ‘Take the next right.’

  ‘Yeah, I got this.’ I took the turn on to Dreamtime Boulevard. A hundred yards ahead, a twenty-foot-high archway, glistening with fake ice, straddled the blacktop. Gateway to Wonderland was painted across it in huge silver letters. Piloting us through the archway and into the grounds I slowed up. There was no sign of any actual park.

  ‘Where the hell is it?’

  ‘We’re a way off yet. DreamWorld Inc. own hundreds of acres. They built the park right in the centre. Lets them get permits easy for latenight firework displays. And means they can control everything that goes in and out.’

  ‘So how’d you get in before?’

  ‘Through the front gate.’

  ‘What about your guns?’

  He shook his head. ‘Didn’t take any.’

  I believed him. As I’d suspected, Emerson’s police statement was false; and the two security guards had lied in their statements, too. I wondered how many people on the security team were corrupt. From the moment we entered the park, we’d have to assume they’d all be on the lookout for us.

  Finally, JT nodded ahead. ‘There’s the outer perimeter.’

  Up ahead, I saw a fifteen-foot wall of fake ice blocking our view.

  Shit. The place was huge. A fast getaway would be impossible.

  The gates were open. Beside them, a huge neon sign announced: Two miles to Wonderland. Following the line of cars in front, I took us through the gate.

  Inside, the grass was dyed blue and the trees sparkled with glittered silver leaves. It felt like I’d entered an old episode of The Twilight Zone and become stuck inside a twisted cartoon world. Fear spread like real ice across my body. Somewhere nearby, Emerson’s men were holding Dakota.

  JT was sitting real still, his jaw clenched tight. He was psyching himself up, mentally preparing himself for whatever we discovered. I knew then that he expected it to be bad news. I pushed that thought away. It wasn’t over until I knew for sure. Until then there was hope. After that, Emerson and his men would be as good as dead. I’d be sure to make that happen. ‘Is this the only way in?’

  ‘Yeah. Any other route and we’ll trip the alarms.’ He looked at me serious. ‘Don’t argue, I’ve tried before.’

  ‘Okay.’ I said, and wondered again about just who it was that’d driven him to confront Emerson. If Pops had been telling the truth, and JT had broken the terms of the deal made with Old Man Bonchese and crossed the state line, that person must be really damn special. JT would not have put himself back on the Miami Mob’s target list on a whim.

  Two miles into the park a white-toothed parking attendant, who looked like a college kid majoring in football, directed us into Chester Chipmunk Parking Lot Nine. The lot was immense. I’d never seen so many vehicles all in one place. There must have been four, maybe five thousand, and this was only one of the lots. I just hadn’t anticipated the scale of the place. As we coasted along, following the line, a smaller, bearded guy, beckoned us across the lot and parked us in Zone C14.

  I killed the engine and glanced at JT. ‘You ready?’

  He nodded.

  We left most of our weapons in the Mustang, no sense trying to smuggle them in – the metal detectors would pick them up in an instant. All I took was the small plastic canister of pepper spray disguised as a perfume bottle that fit real snug in my pocket. From the glovebox, JT pulled out a faded navy cap, a red bandana and a pair of sunglasses. I twisted my hair into a braid and tied the bandana like a headscarf, the knot tight around the back of my head. JT put on the glasses and pulled the cap low over his face. Not much of a disguise, but better than nothing.

  Slipping into the crowd, we followed the signs to the land-train – a line of six-person carriages pulled by a white tractor. The driver – a white-haired guy wearing a blue uniform, complete with hat and whistle – greeted each person with a smile and a theatrical, booming voice that bid ‘Welcome to your Winter Wonderland adventure.’ He stopped a little longer in front of each child, telling them this would be the best day of their life, ever.

  His words made me shudder, every time.

  Still, I forced a smile as he passed us, and hoped that he drove the train faster than he walked. He didn’t. The damn thing had a top speed of five miles an hour and stopped every few hundred yards to pick up more people from the Percy Penguin, Wally Walrus and Saskia Seal parking lots. By the time the driver announced that the land-train was now full and we would be proceeding direct to Winter Wonderland I thought I might burst with frustration.

  At the entrance turnstiles, we waited in line, the only silent pair among the throng of tourists all jabbering on and trying to keep their overexcited kids under control. We paid almost ninety dollars for a pair of day tickets, and walked through metal detectors clad in more fake ice and signposted as the Doorways to Wonderland.

  That’s when I heard it.

  ‘That’s the music,’ I whispered to JT.

  He nodded. ‘It only plays around Main Street.’

  That meant the place we were looking for had to be nearby, right in the busiest area of the park. It didn’t make sense. Why would they risk bringing Scott and Dakota here? Surely their cries would be heard by someone?

  The area was packed. We picked our way through the crowd as fast as we could, skirting past an English family looking for the bathroom, a group of Chinese students having their photo taken outside the castle, and the hordes of parents trying to keep up with their children as they ran, laughed and cried with excitement. JT stooped a little, trying to disguise his height, I guessed. I tried not to think about the security cameras that would be watching us. There was nothing to be done about them. We just had to move. Fast. I had to find Dakota.

  We hurried along Main Street and around the back of the SparkleDust Castle, a huge pale-blue building designed like an ancient fort, covered in fake ice and glittering turrets.

  The feeling of being stuck in the Twilight Zone cartoon remained. Although the park was designed to look like winter in New England – with artificial snow, plastic icicles hanging from the rooftops of the weatherboard-clad shops, and fake fires burning in the fireplaces – the colours all seemed too bright, too primary; like someone had technicoloured an old black-and-white film.

  The whole place felt out of whack. Incongruent. It made no sense to be walking down a faux-cobbled street, with fake powdered snow underfoot, when the temperature was pushing ninety in the shade. I hurried past Percy Penguin and his three penguin nephews wearing woollen hats and having their pictures taken with a never-ending line of kids, then paused, just for a moment, to gaze at the perfect, smiling faces of the SparkleDust Fairy Queen and King, posing in their carriage for a girl of about eleven to take a photo. As she took the picture on her cell, the child grinned, thanking the characters in a breathless voic
e.

  ‘Lori, you listening?’

  I turned away from the happy-ever-after bullshit, and got my head back in the game. ‘Sorry, what?’

  ‘Search this side of the street, I’ll check out the other.’

  I nodded. The ice caves, supposed homes of Percy Penguin’s nephews, but in fact large, moulded-plastic huts, were too public to be what we were looking for. Still, I paced along the street, peering into each one, just to be sure.

  The last one was different, though. Only the front half of the space was open, the rest was sectioned off. Hidden. The sign out front said: No entry except for Ice Elves. I was most certainly not an elf. But I ducked into the cave anyway.

  Inside, I saw that a lime-green screen separated the back of the cave from the front. As I approached, I heard voices. Two people. Talking on the other side of the screen. I tried to peer through a join in the screen’s panels. Saw nothing.

  Where the screen and the wall met, I spied a gap, big enough to give a better view. Crouching down, I squeezed myself between the wall and a two-foot-high ice-cube seat. I kept quiet. Tried to breathe shallow, exhale lightly, not attract attention. I knew if I was caught I had no explanation for why I was there.

  Wedged up against the fake ice cube, I peered through the half-inch gap between the screen and the wall and saw a large metal trapdoor swing up from the floor. Moments later a life-sized Saskia Seal character stepped up into the ice cave. The costumed characters travelled around the park beneath the ground.

  Was that where Emerson’s men were hiding Scott and Dakota? Surely they couldn’t be. I doubted it would be possible to hear the ‘Happy Holidays’ song so clearly, not unless they played it down there too.

  I hurried from the cave fast, crossed the street and caught up with JT. ‘There’s an underground passageway. It comes out in the last ice cave.’

  ‘I know.’

  I’d not expected that. ‘How?’

  ‘I found out when I was studying the blueprints before. They’re obsessed with keeping the fairy-tale illusion alive. No one playing a character can be seen in public without their full costume, or do anything inconsistent with their role. If they’re above ground, they’re in character.’

  ‘So it’s a no to Percy Penguin riding in a car or Bella Polar Bear smoking?’

  ‘Something like that. There are miles of underground tunnels beneath the park. They connect to all the main areas and the resort hotels. The characters only appear above ground when they’re ready to perform.’

  ‘I don’t think the call came from a tunnel.’

  ‘No. I doubt there’s a signal.’

  So we’d got nothing. Again. I needed a sign, a clue, something that told me where to look. But all we’d gotten was the song, and every place it played was open to the public: souvenir shops, juice bars, restaurants. Nowhere was private enough to hide people from view.

  I shuddered. ‘Where the hell haven’t we looked?’

  JT pointed up ahead. ‘Main Street ends at those gates. All the streets off this one lead around the park to the rollercoasters and other rides, but they don’t play the ‘Happy Holidays’ song there; they each have their own music.’

  I kept walking. Couldn’t bear to stop the search. ‘There has to be somewhere. They have to be close. How else would we have heard the song?’

  ‘Maybe they were moving them through the park. It could—’

  ‘No.’ I felt my lower lip quiver, pursed my lips together, refused to admit defeat. Stay strong and be tough, I told myself. You have to make this right.

  I turned away from JT, couldn’t let him see me like this. Glanced back down Main Street.

  That’s when I spotted it; about thirty metres back the way we’d first come, near the SparkleDust Castle. I couldn’t believe I’d not noticed before.

  I hurried towards the short section of wooden panel fencing. It was ten feet high and painted bright green with huge pictures of ice-cream sundaes dotted over it like polka-dots. A big sign announced: Coming soon: Percy Penguin’s Gourmet Ice Cream Parlour.

  JT was beside me now. ‘What about in there?’ I asked.

  He didn’t say anything, but I could tell he was thinking on it.

  The music was louder here, a speaker was attached to a lamppost right above the fenced-off area. I’d put good money on the song being audible in the construction area. And, although it was close to Main Street, the fence led away from the rest of the shops and attractions, so there were fewer visitors around.

  JT nodded. ‘We need to find a way in.’

  35

  A small gate was cut into the fence. It’d been almost invisible at first glance and was partly blocked by the snow-dusted conifers lining the perimeter of the nearest ice cave. The gate was locked – from the inside. We waited for a lull in the flow of tourists coming our way, and sneaked into the gap between the trees and the fence.

  It was a tight squeeze. JT, cramped up with his shoulder against the wooden panels, interlinked his fingers to form a makeshift stirrup. ‘I’ll give you a bunk up.’

  Putting my left foot into his hands, I hopped once and jumped, grabbing for the top of the fence. Swinging myself over, I landed, as catlike as I could, on the other side, wincing as the impact jarred my injured leg. Seconds later, the fence rattled and JT vaulted over to join me.

  Well, shit. If Main Street and the rest of Winter Wonderland were like a technicolour cartoon, this place was its alternative-reality nightmare. Aged by weather and lack of attention, the single-storey building in front of us had long since lost its shine and glitter. Tall grass with blue tips had grown up in the front-yard area, fire nettles and other weeds twisted around the foot-high pink lollipops and twisted-liquorice railings lining the porch.

  A faded sign, hanging from the railing, read ‘The Gingerbread Grotto’. I guessed they’d planned on demolishing it and building the ice-cream parlour in its place. From the look of it, the grotto had been designed to look like it was made from candy: gingerbread bricks and roof tiles, marzipan window frames and cute little shutters. But cracks split the walls, and pieces of the faux candy cladding had fallen away, exposing the wooden skeleton beneath. One side of the porch had collapsed. Beneath the pile of splintered wooden joists I could just make out the smiling face of a small, plastic penguin. Its right eye was missing.

  Despite the heat, I shivered. ‘This has to be it.’

  At the entrance, a battered ‘If you’re taller than this you can’t come in’ sign pointed just below my shoulder. I ducked my head and strode through the three-quarter-height doorway into the grotto.

  The place smelt musty and damp. It was claustrophobic in the gloom; I felt trapped, and fearful of what truth might await me. Even inside the grotto I could hear the ‘Happy Holidays’ song playing through the loudspeakers on Main Street. Such a saccharine-sweet song didn’t fit with this place. It felt creepy, like something from an R-rated horror movie.

  I glanced back. JT had taken his shades off and was following close behind me. He nodded. Aside from the small pepper spray canister I’d managed to conceal in my pocket, we had no weapons, no idea what we were up against, and no choice but to keep going. Dakota was depending on us.

  I moved faster along the low-ceilinged passage. Chunks of the faux peanut-butter-rendered walls had crumbled away, exposing the plasterboard beneath. At our feet cockroaches scuttled for cover, unaccustomed to the company.

  At the end of the passageway an archway led to the main room. Keeping my back flat to the wall, I peered through into the grotto.

  Empty. Or so I thought.

  I stepped into the room, and that’s when I saw him. In the far corner, beside a fake-chocolate-panelled fireplace hung with long stockings filled with gifts, stood a throne sculpted from hundreds of plastic candy canes. Bound to it, his ankles and wrists duct-taped to the canes, was Santa.

  Behind me in the passage, JT whispered, ‘Lori, what is it?’

  I stepped closer. Swallowed hard. Fought the n
ausea.

  Santa’s head had lolled back. His nose was shattered. Blood, red-brown, had congealed and crusted around its base and down his mouth, his chin. It had splattered his Santa suit, staining the white trim crimson.

  The song seemed to get louder. ‘Happy holidays all year round…’

  Purple bruising mottled his face. Eyes wide, bulging. Mouth open, as if still trying to scream.

  ‘Lori?’ JT’s voice was louder. ‘What the…’

  He moved past me, hurrying across the room. Put his fingers to the man’s neck, waited a couple of seconds, removed them. Cussing, he shook his head. ‘He’s dead.’

  ‘… a joyful place to laugh and sing…’

  ‘Is it—?’

  ‘Scott. He must have used the suit as a disguise. He said in his message he was going to get the device. Well, damn. He must have hidden it here in the park.’

  I felt panic rising in my chest. Stumbled across the crumbling mosaic floor to join JT. Scott’s interrogators had ripped open his tunic. He was a big guy, hadn’t needed padding to fill out the suit. From the dark bruising marbling his chest and ribs I saw he’d been worked over real hard. The breath caught in my throat. ‘Where’s Dakota?’

  ‘… come along and we’ll begin…’

  JT looked around the grotto. He strode across to a child-sized wooden chair lying on its side by the boarded-up window. The dust on the floor around it had been disturbed. ‘Not here, not now.’

  ‘… and have a happy holiday…’

  I fought the panic. Felt as if I was choking on the thick, mould-ridden air. ‘She watched Scott die?’

  ‘We don’t know that for sure.’

  ‘But the call, Scott was alive then, and Dakota was right there with him. She must’ve…’

  JT didn’t speak.

  I looked away. Did they force her to watch them torture Scott? How could they do that to a child? I imagined her crying, pleading for them to stop, them ignoring her, beating Scott anyways. His cries of agony, the gurgling as blood from his shattered nose filled his throat. Dakota afraid. Alone.