Chapter 33
The steps aren’t that steep. There’s only about ten or so. At the bottom, Ellis flicks a switch and the trap door above them closes.
Sadie can see the room is well lit and large. It’s obviously some kind of storage area. The walls are lined with shelves, and boxes are stacked around the sides. Halloween and Christmas decorations poke out of the top. There’s another door at the opposite end of the room, leading who knows where.
In the middle, at a battered table surrounded by folding chairs, sit Ramona and Dax. There’s a six-pack of beer on the table, bags of crisps and what looks suspiciously like a small bag of weed.
‘Hey!’ Dax raises a hand.
‘Well, good evening,’ Ramona warbles in a terrible faux British accent.
Sadie raises a hand and looks around. ‘What the hell is this place?’
‘It’s one of the old storage basements,’ Ellis says, wandering over to the table and grabbing two cans of beer.
She hands one to Sadie. Sadie hesitates and then accepts it.
She’s had alcohol before, of course, but she’s a little surprised to see Ellis and her friends drinking.
She thought they were more uptight about it here, especially with the legal age being twenty-one.
Also, she isn’t wild about beer, but she guesses it’ll do.
She takes a sip and tries not to wrinkle her nose.
‘One of?’ she queries.
‘Yeah, there are half a dozen or so around Serenity Falls. They connect via underground tunnels.’
‘What? Why?’
‘It’s a hangover from the park,’ Dax says. ‘Y’know how they have a big underground system beneath Winsom Wonderland?’
Sadie knows about it. Miles of tunnels running beneath the theme park for the staff and performers to get around and for scenery and costumes to be transported without ruining the Winsom magic.
‘Yeah. But why here?’
‘Harold Winsom didn’t want the residents to see staff in overalls out doing stuff around town. He wanted decorations to go up and costumes and props to appear as if by magic. Apparently, there used to be these cool little trucks that trundled around the tunnels.’
‘Used to?’
‘They don’t use the tunnels any more,’ Ellis says. ‘There was a bad storm, and the tunnels got flooded. Apparently, someone drowned.’
‘Shit.’
‘Yeah. They’re supposed to be sealed off so no one can get down, but I guess they forgot about the one under the old Ghost Train.’
‘How do you know all this?’
Ramona grins. ‘My dad’s the mayor.’ She chugs some beer. ‘Which isn’t as grand as it sounds. He just gets to dress up in a robe a few times a year. Anyway, he can’t help spilling a few secrets, especially after a glass of wine.’
Sadie raises her eyebrows. ‘Okay.’ She glances at the door set into the opposite wall. ‘So, can you get out of here into the tunnels?’
Ramona shakes her head. ‘You don’t want to try that. There are miles of them, and most just end up in dead ends.’
‘And when it rains, some of them still flood,’ Dax adds.
Ellis sits on an upturned crate next to Dax and Ramona.
Sadie looks around again. ‘So, you guys come down here to hang out a lot?’
Ramona nods. ‘Yeah, it’s private. No one can eavesdrop.’
‘But no one can know about it,’ Ellis stresses. ‘No one.’
Sadie stares around at them. ‘Okay. Fine.’
Dax pushes a crate towards her with his foot. Sadie sits and takes another swig from her beer. It doesn’t taste any better.
She clears her throat. ‘Yesterday, in the diner … were you guys serious about Frankie?’
‘You really want to know?’ Ramona asks.
‘Yeah.’
‘Because it seemed like you thought we were talking shit?’
Sadie hesitates, and then says, ‘There’s been some weird stuff happening.’
‘What sort of weird stuff?’ Ellis asks.
Sadie looks around at the group. She’s not used to sharing, especially stuff that could get her ridiculed. But Ellis showed her this place, she thinks. She has to trust someone, at some point.
‘Okay …’ She recounts what her dad told her about seeing Frankie/Arnie on the security cameras and the creepy balloons.
‘Whoah,’ Ellis says. ‘Sounds like someone really wants to freak you out.’
‘No shit.’
When Sadie gets to the lights in the ghost house and the weird phone calls, Ramona holds up a hand.
‘Wait. You’ve been waking up at night?’
‘Yeah.’
Ramona shakes her head. ‘Nope. That doesn’t happen.’
‘What? Why?’
‘Everyone here goes to sleep at eleven and wakes around seven,’ Ellis says.
‘Well, that can’t be everyone.’
But suddenly she hears the voice again: ‘You shouldn’t be awake.’
‘I’ve tried staying awake,’ Dax says. ‘But every time, I fall asleep dead on eleven.’
‘Me too,’ Ramona says.
Ellis nods. ‘Haven’t you noticed?’ she asks Sadie.
Sadie thinks about her dad. A lifelong insomniac, but here, falling asleep like clockwork every night.
‘I’ve noticed my dad is sleeping, and he never sleeps.’
‘But not you?’
‘No.’
They look at each other.
‘So, maybe it doesn’t work on you?’ Ellis says.
‘What?’
Ramona holds up her wrist. ‘The bracelets. We’re pretty sure they use them to control people’s sleep, and maybe other stuff, too.’
Sadie just stares at her. She wants to laugh, but then she remembers how the bracelet was pulsing on her dad’s wrist that night. And smart watches can monitor pretty much everything from your heart rate to how well you sleep, so maybe it isn’t so far-fetched.
‘Who’s they?’ she asks.
‘The Conservators. I mean, they control everything here. Like everything.’
‘That’s pretty seriously fucked up,’ she says.
‘Oh, that’s just one of the fucked-up things,’ Ramona says. ‘There’s the curfew, the ghost houses, the fact people just disappear, like Chris and his family.’
It takes Sadie a moment, and then she remembers: Chris was the kid who swapped costumes with Frankie.
‘What do you think happened to them?’
Ramona shrugs. ‘I don’t know, but I do know Chris isn’t a nice guy, although he pretends to be. He set Frankie up.’
Sadie lets this settle. ‘But why? Why would someone want to hurt Frankie?’
There’s a pause. Dax glances at Ramona. ‘You’re gonna have to tell the whole story.’
‘Okay,’ she says. ‘I work part time in the library. About a week ago, Frankie came in and asked if he could look at some newspaper archives. I said sure, but he had to book in with Miss Green, the head librarian, and she was on lunch. Frankie freaked. Asked if I could do him a favour and keep it a secret.’
‘Why?’
‘He said it was safer if I didn’t know. He was acting kind of paranoid – maybe too much weed, but I liked Frankie, so I agreed. He gave me a list of dates, and I found the right reels. He was in the archive room for an hour or so, copied a load of stuff, and then he left.’
‘You don’t know what he looked up?’
Ramona shakes her head. ‘No, but I was curious, so I photocopied the list he gave me.’
She reaches into a bag by her side and takes out a sheet of paper.
‘These are the six dates Frankie was interested in – see?’
27th October 1991
19th May 1997
22nd June 1997
12th March 1998
13th April 2008
17th September 2012
Sadie looks at her. ‘What’s so important about these dates?’
‘I don’t know, and I couldn’t check after he left because Miss Green came back. It was a couple of days before I was on my own again.’ She pauses. ‘And when I went to load up the reels, they’d gone.’
‘Gone?’
‘Yep. Not filed. Not stored anywhere. Gone.’ She pauses. ‘A few days after that, Frankie’s dead.’
She lets this hang. Sadie feels a chill.
‘You think someone killed him because of what was on those reels?’
‘Frankie wasn’t exactly the curious type. I don’t know where he got that list of dates or why they mattered. But something shook him up.’
‘What happened to the copies he made?’ Sadie asks.
‘Good question. I guess whoever killed him has them.’
Sadie considers. ‘Maybe. But if Frankie was paranoid, he might have hidden them or given copies to someone? Is there anyone he would have confided in?’
They look at each other. And then Ramona says: ‘Shit. Of course!’