Kingdom Keepers the Return Book 3

by Ridley Pearson

  “Go!” Amanda hissed, pushing Charlene down the tunnel. “Hurry!”

  The two girls sprinted off, struggling to navigate the narrow space between the raw concrete walls in the dark. When a glow of light spread out behind them, Amanda tugged Charlene down onto the dusty floor.

  “What’s going on?” came a boy’s voice from the break room.

  “I don’t know. I thought we shut the door….” Shane’s voice, much closer.

  “Wind,” said a girl who had to be Thia. “It happens.”

  The glow lessened as the door shut. Amanda and Charlene waited as muffled voices stirred from beyond.

  “Phew,” Charlene whispered. “That was—”

  “—close?” Shane’s voice, from down the corridor. He’d closed the door without going back into the break room.

  Amanda and Charlene clambered to their feet and sprinted. But running blindly through the dead spaces inside a castle wall proved impossible. Both girls smacked into an unseen barrier. Charlene fell.

  Shane came up from behind at a run. Amanda and Charlene could not allow their faces to be seen, could not afford to be easily recognized by whoever these people were. Instinctively, hating the necessity of it, Amanda raised her hands, palms out, and pushed.

  She couldn’t see what transpired, but she knew at least Shane was sailing through the air. In seconds, she heard a painful groaning. It made her sick; she wanted to run back and make sure her target was okay. Having such an ability wasn’t always a good thing.

  Bending, she helped Charlene up. They returned the way they’d come, soon reaching a slice of light that guided them forward. Both were fast runners. They put Shane and the darkened corridor quickly behind them. They climbed, finding themselves under the bandstand’s platform. Reaching the shed door, they paused to crack the door to make sure they were in the clear and they ventured outside. They hurried to a distant bench and collapsed, winded.

  Neither girl spoke for several minutes.

  “What just happened?” Charlene asked at last, breathlessly. “Is that even possible?”

  “Is what possible?” panted Amanda, equally winded.

  “Think about it! If those two were trying to spy on Wayne—on us!—could they possibly be Cast Members?”

  “Interesting.”

  “And the tunnel, the route they took…there’s no way that’s a Cast Member thing.”

  “Agreed,” said Amanda. “But it could be a Cast Member shortcut or something that they use without permission.”

  “I suppose.”

  “I heard a boy’s voice. Shane, maybe.”

  “Yeah, same.” Charlene sounded puzzled and not at all pleased. “So they’re Cast Members, but they aren’t because they’re spies. They’re using what at best are unofficial secret routes to move through the park.”

  “Agents for—”

  “Do not go there!” Charlene snapped. “I mean, this is 1955. They can’t possibly be…” She didn’t finish voicing her thought. She wanted Amanda to come to the same conclusion and, by doing so, to see things her way. To agree with her.

  Amanda took a while to speak. At last, she breathed, “Yeah…I think maybe they’re part of the Overtakers.”

  AMERY HOLLINGSWORTH JR. stayed away from the grave. An odd figure of a man with an upturned cleft chin, deep-set hollow eyes, and oversize, elongated ears, he watched from a comfortable distance as the digging continued. At 3:30 a.m., an overhead shroud of fog glowed yellow from the sulfur streetlamps down on Sunset Boulevard.

  The hillside cemetery, less than a mile from the Chateau Marmont apartment building, occupied a small pocket of land on a terraced bench between two meandering cul-de-sacs. Virtually unknown to all except nearby residents, it suffered from a decade of neglect. Dry, auburn, waist-high weeds obscured all but the most ornate and ostentatious gravestones. The same grasses and vines had engulfed the rusting wrought-iron fence that had once majestically guarded the afterlife. Hollingsworth took care with his cigarette ash to avoid setting the lot on fire.

  The Cajun Traveler stood nearby the digging, so still he might have been carved like some of the other statuary. A peculiar-looking thing in an ill-fitting, moth-eaten oversize brown suit with white pinstripes, the Traveler hadn’t moved a muscle in well over forty-five minutes. He waited with the patience of a leopard, his eyes trained down onto the digging, awaiting the reveal.

  The men shoveling glanced in his direction as little as possible, though they acted as if he were their foreman.

  It was the second grave to be exhumed. The first held a coffin that contained a corpse embalmed prior to burial so that its prunelike skin still clung to its aged bones, looking a good deal like an overcooked Christmas turkey. The Traveler had waved off the diggers, moving them to this new plot.

  The second coffin revealed itself a few minutes later and apparently looked promising to the Traveler. His lack of motion told the two to continue their work. Decades of dry rot left the wood coffin lid a mass of decay. Judging by the teeth marks around several of the holes, burrowing varmints and rodents had made a hotel of the place, and perhaps a snack shack as well. The two men tried to remove the lid, but it crumbled and fell in. A cloud of sawdust rose, driving the men backward to where one fell over while the other fanned the air with a thick, calloused hand.

  The Traveler moved to the edge of the pit, avoiding the piles of sandy earth. He didn’t exactly walk; it was more like a glide. Hollingsworth stepped closer himself, wanting to hear the Traveler if the man should speak.

  “Youse tell me. Is dem dere bones done white as teeth?”

  The worker still standing forced himself to peer down into the coffin. He called for his buddy to pass him a flashlight. It was a big device, with a large DC battery on a metal handle with what looked like a small automobile headlight mounted to pivot. When the man closest to the coffin switched it on, the light shot fifty yards or more across the pallid gravestones, throwing black shadows and illuminating sun-faded plastic memorial flowers. He tilted it down and it was like he’d set the coffin on fire.

  The worker cussed and jumped back, throwing a beacon of light high into the dusty air.

  “It’s a mess. A nest maybe.”

  “A mess of dem bones?”

  “Bones. White hair. A skull with no jaw.” He cussed a second time.

  Without looking behind him, the Traveler knew exactly where Hollingsworth was standing. The Cajun turned and nodded. Hollingsworth swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing.

  “Get those bones into the bag, boys,” Hollingsworth said, “and pass them over here. Then fill her in. The other one, too. Then you’re done for the night. And remember, I’m paying you to keep your mouths shut. You don’t, and you’re going to get a visit from my friend here. Nobody wants that.”

  The standing worker jammed his hands together at the crotches of his fingers in order to drive his gloves on securely.

  With trepidation, he reached in and began digging out the bones.

  THANKFULLY, NO ONE HAD thought to ask about the five teens, who’d not been seen in more than two weeks. The parents had been appeased, for now, with reassurances that their kids were safe.

  The studio infirmary wasn’t talked about much. Joe Garlington was one of only a handful of executives who had any reason to know it existed. Decades before, when the studio had been built miles from any reliable hospital, the company had constructed a small medical center to provide emergency care for their grips, electricians, and the occasional actor hurt while shooting a film. With the advent of better roads and better health care, the medical center fell into disuse; it had been kept clean and available for emergencies, but hadn’t served any real purpose since 1987, when a worker had taken a nasty fall.

  Joe nodded to the security guard outside the twin doors. Recognizing the head of Disney Imagineering, the guard made haste to unlock them.

  “Anything to report?” Joe asked him.

  “The nurses come in, the nurses come out. I ve
rify their IDs against the list. That’s all I know, sir. All I need to know. No unauthorized visitors.”

  “Okay. Good enough.”

  The guard checked down the hallway to make sure no one was watching, and admitted the boss.

  Having never been modernized, the infirmary looked like something from a film set. Six beds, aligned in dormitory fashion along the opposing walls, were iron-framed, and raised and lowered by a hand crank. The overhead lights were 1960s tube lighting, the flooring powder-blue linoleum. The privacy windows were divided, the lower panes fogged architectural glass, the uppers clear. Alongside each bed stood a steel side table painted army gray. The room was overly warm and smelled of disinfectant.

  “How are they?” Joe asked the female nurse. A male nurse worked a computer at the far end of the room.

  “Stable. Steady.”

  “Active?”

  “Yes, sir. We’ve seen a good deal of muscle reflex, ankle and wrist movement. Vitals are good.”

  Sleeping on top of five of the beds, wearing 1950s costumes, were two girls in crinoline skirts—Charlene and Willa—and two boys in work clothes—Finn and Philby. The remaining boy, Maybeck, had chosen a dapper suit. Side by side, the Kingdom Keepers slept not-so-peacefully.

  A young woman in regular clothing occupied the sixth bed. Her vaguely Asian eyes and dark hair lent her an astonishing beauty. Amanda. Occupying a foldaway cot next to her was Jessica, or Jess.

  All were connected to IV bags and an umbilical network of wires that monitored their vital signs. At times, their cheek muscles twitched, causing their lips to move. A shoulder flexed; a leg tensed. Joe found it discomfiting to watch.

  “No bedsores?” he asked the nurse.

  “No, sir. We’re rolling them and moving them as per our instructions. So far, so good.” The nurse was lovely to look at, no older than twenty-five, with rich brown eyes. But her kind face held an expression of grave concern.

  “You can ask whatever you like,” Joe said, seeing the desire in her.

  “It’s just…they’ve been comatose for two weeks now. I wonder if transferring them to a hospital isn’t the proper—”

  “They’re fine, I assure you. The monitoring of their vitals is of critical importance. You and your team are doing everything just right. Thank you so much.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Garlington.”

  “I need you to set up another cot, please. I need to sleep here tonight.”

  “Here?”

  “Yes, for security’s sake. I’ll be up and gone before the park opens. I won’t need any medical attention, just privacy.” He saw the woman’s confused expression and felt bad. “I know this makes no sense to you. It’s complicated, as we explained at the start. I can’t go home, you see? A hotel is out. Should I by any chance extend my nap beyond the park opening tomorrow morning, should I go past the twelve-hour mark…well, at that point I might need some fluids, if that’s what you think is right.”

  The nurse nodded, frightened despite her efforts to appear otherwise.

  “That’s not going to happen,” Joe said softly. “An ounce of prevention.”

  The nurse inhaled, exhaled ever so slowly, and stood taller. “Yes, sir.”

  “That’s the spirit,” Joe said. “Now let’s get that cot, shall we?”

  Joe double-checked with the Imagineers on the location of the Return before going to sleep. The all-important fob was the key to his coming back from hologram to human. The computer imaging required to construct his hologram had taken ten hours the previous night and six hours of voice recording during business hours. He was ready for some rest.

  He shut his eyes at 10:00 p.m., by which time both Disneyland and California Adventure were closed. At 10:17 p.m. he fell fast asleep—the first crucial step to crossing over as a DHI.

  * * *

  Joe Garlington woke on the warm concrete at the base of the Partners statue. It was a clear California night. The sky offered no stars, only a city glow and the red flashing sparkle of planes in flight. It took him a long moment to recall his mission and test his surroundings.

  “I’ve done it,” he eventually said aloud, his voice vaguely electronic, nasal. The computer rendering of his DHI had been rushed. Color definition had suffered; his clothes looked pale. And his voice sounded robotic. But it would do.

  He came to his feet—though his hologram moved in jerky motions, it did move—squared his shoulders, and took a look around at the dark park. So this was what the Kingdom Keepers felt like when they crossed over. A tingling throughout, one’s limbs glowing slightly. A dizzying sense of weightlessness combined with the ability to stand upright and move.

  Joe tested his walking, reached out to touch a bush. His glowing hand passed through the leaves and branches. He had no intention of taking the time to try to work with his hologram to perfect his abilities. He’d crossed over on a particular mission. He had work to do. And quickly.

  Wayne Kresky’s early efforts to bring holograms into the park at night had been largely inspired by a physicist’s work at the University of Central Florida. The man had theorized that the realm of live-projected holograms would, by necessity, include the projected subject’s ability to see into “the ether,” defined by Merriam-Webster as:

  A medium that in the wave theory of light permeates all space and transmits transverse waves.

  Wayne took this definition to heart. A firm believer that Walt Disney’s characters would live forever, he believed them a part of the ether as well. He’d consulted physicists at Cal Tech and MIT, had spoken to theorists at Michigan University and Vanderbilt. Technologies had been tested. Success had come after seven years. Finn Whitman had proved the theories.

  True to form, one of the early reports from Finn, the first boy to cross over as a DHI, was his ability to see Disney characters. The real characters, not the costumed actors park guests saw by day.

  Joe Garlington was hoping to confirm these stories for himself, because he needed help. If he failed to connect with the real Disney characters, then Disneyland and California Adventure might be smoking ruins within a matter of days or weeks.

  His jerky hologram stuttered down Main Street USA. Joe continued to work hard to grasp the feeling of weightlessness. Of nothingness. His mind-body wanted to convince him he was in a dream state; his mind-consciousness understood that being projected as pure light allowed him a material presence. He wasn’t cells, but particles. He wasn’t exactly human, but that didn’t mean he didn’t exist. He was here; he was just different.

  In their relative innocence, he thought, maybe the teens had an easier time “going with it.” For his part, Joe found himself resisting his condition. Then, as he calmed, a limb or part of his body would vaporize, light particles dislodging from his image like clusters of butterflies. Only by stopping and working to accept his condition could he attract the escaping sparkles of color back into his hologram.

  “Interesting,” he said to no one. I have to believe to survive, he thought. Then he laughed. Walt Disney would have loved this!

  As Joe approached Disney Clothiers, he glanced to his right and saw a line of silhouettes atop the rooflines at the back of the terrace. Human silhouettes. Men wearing tams, holding…brooms. He moved toward them, passing tables with collapsed umbrellas at their centers. A hint of humidity hung in the air, not quite fog but working on it.

  “Bert?” Joe called up.

  One of the figures moved. “Oi! Who’s asking, then?” He slid down the roof tiles, caught his broom head on the gutter as he fell, and landed in some shrubbery as softly as a robin on a lawn.

  “The name’s Joe.”

  “Good solid name is Joe.” Bert extended his dirty hand for Joe to shake.

  “I welcome the greeting, but you see…”—he swept his hologram through Bert’s hand—“I’m not quite all here, in a manner of speaking.”

  “Light on your feet,” said Bert, amusing himself to no end. He whistled and waved an arm. The ten or so sweeps shot down
the downspouts and joined him.

  “I could use some help,” Joe said. “Mr. Disney, too. It’s that important.”

  “You need say no more, friend! A kite? A flying car?”

  “An introduction to Mary,” Joe said. “And Mickey. The Mad Hatter. The Fairy Godmother. I need them all, Bert. I need to call a meeting, a secret one. The villains must not hear of it. Mr. Disney wouldn’t want that.”

  “And a big meeting it would be, your lordship!”

  “I’m no lord. Far from it. But a gentleman, I hope. You see, we’re under threat, Bert. We’re kites in a storm, all of us. But if we can act as a group…”

  “As to that,” Bert said, “I can point you in the right direction, tell you where to find my Mary. But you see, friend, the animals and us…We tips our caps to ’em, me boys and me.” The sweeps nodded in agreement. “We’s cordial and such to all of God’s creatures.”

  “Except them bats!” one of the sweeps called out. “Them bats comin’ out of the chimney!” The others laughed along with him.

  “We dance and we make merry. Sure we do! But as to what you might call any real conversation twixt them and us, ’tis few and far between. Ain’t a real lot a sweep has in common with a chipmunk reared up on its hind legs.”

  “Or a dog with ears as long as its tongue,” cried another sweep.

  “But you could get word to them?” Joe asked.

  “I could try, I suppose,” said Bert, “but it might just be that your efforts would carry a ways further than my own. As to where you’d find them, well, it isn’t so difficult this time of night. They tend to carry on down to the Troubadour Tavern.”

  “And the villains?” Joe asked.

  “Was a time they was organized, something to be afraid of. Not so much anymore. Them kids took care of that. Them that’s left’s a sorry lot, all scattered about. You find ’em picking food from the rubbish. I might feel bad for ’em if I didn’t dislike ’em so much!”

  His boys crowed and cheered. Several patted Bert on the back.