Chapter 12

CHAPTER 12

T he first order of business is the camping toilet I instructed Marino to bring, and now that I’m thinking about it, I wonder where it is. When asked, he shrugs, telling me we’ll have to make do without it.

“Easy for you to say,” I reply as we make our way through the wind and rain. “Your equipment’s different from mine.”

“Sorry about that, Doc. I was going to bring it but got distracted.”

“I’ve managed before and will again.” Already, I’m soaked to the skin, and I suppose taking to the woods won’t make much difference.

“Your best bet are the restrooms inside the Witch’s Castle,” Tron suggests. “Nothing works and the place is a stinking mess but at least it’s right here and you’re out of the weather. When I was in there earlier, I heard something scuttling about. Rats, squirrels, maybe raccoons.”

“I’ll go with you,” Marino tells me.

“Give us your gear and we’ll meet you in the blue tent,” Lucy says, and we hand over our scene cases.

Marino and I step around puddles, half walking, half trotting through the heavy rain. Our booted feet thud across the familiar wooden drawbridge leading to the castle, a shell of what it once was due to vandalism and neglect. The thatch roof is collapsing in places, the windows broken out, the walls defaced with spray-painted graffiti. The black front door with its brass broom knocker is off the hinges and on the ground.

Broken glass crunches beneath our boots as we walk inside, dripping water everywhere we step. Turning on our cell phone flashlights, we shine them around as I’m bombarded by memories of when Lucy and I used to come here. I envision the fake bats that darted and dive-bombed overhead on wires from the ceiling. Every room was filled with recordings of screams and maniacal laughter.

We’d climb the stone steps inside the prison tower while video projections on the walls showed the Wicked Witch scowling and cackling while staring into her crystal ball. I envision scary Winkie guards standing sentry in their bearskin caps, at intervals crossing their halberd spears to block our passage. It was startling when they’d break into their chant.

“ Oh-Ee-Yah…! ”

Even though we knew it was coming it would snap us to attention. Lucy’s eyes would widen. Then both of us would laugh.

“ Ee-Oh-Ah…!”

Climbing to the rooftop platform, we’d take the Flying Monkey zipline, something that went against the very fabric of my being. Thrill-seekers willing and otherwise streaked over the moat, the poison garden and the guard hut where enemies of Winkie Country were tried for trumped-up crimes. The ride ended at the roller coaster, the Wicked Witch’s laughter sounding while we hurled along the tracks.

The castle’s gutted shops and snack bar have been spray painted with vulgar graffiti that doesn’t seem to have a point, everything in ruins. I remember that the restrooms are past the stone stairs on the other side of the shadowy open area cluttered with overturned tables and chairs. The crystal ball is missing from the fortune-telling machine where you’d feed in a dollar and hear your future predicted.

“I’ll be super quick and waiting for you right here.” Marino heads to the men’s room.

Shining my phone’s flashlight, I’m careful where I step, pushing through the ladies’ room door. The air is stale and foul as I enter a stall, the toilet bowl empty and stained brown. I’m digging tissues out of a pocket when something clatters upstairs, sounding like a metal object falling to the floor.

Then I barely make out a strain of eerie music playing. I could swear I hear the Winkie guards chanting, and fear tickles up my spine. I strain to listen. Nothing now. I zip up my pants, barely breathing as I detect faint footsteps overhead. I hear mumbling and muttering as I pass mirrors over the sinks, my reflection dim in dirty shards of broken glass.

“Hello?” I call out as my heart thumps. “Anybody up there?”

Silence.

I hurry out of the ladies’ room as Marino draws his gun, shining his damn light in my face. For an instant, I’m blind, almost running into him.

“Who the hell were you talking to? What’s going on?” His light moves as he probes for danger. “You hear something…?”

“Shhhhh.” I point my light straight up. “Footsteps.”

Both of us listen. Nothing.

“Possible it was the wind making noise?” he suggests as it howls around the building, rain blowing in through open windows.

“That’s not what I heard. It sounded like someone or something walking and mumbling.” I’m sure of it. “And I thought I heard music.”

“I’d better go up there and look around just to be safe.” He says this with a decided lack of enthusiasm. “You stay here.”

“Not happening. I’ll be right behind you at all times.” I’m mindful that he has his gun drawn.

Our feet scuff quietly as we climb the stone steps, painting our lights over profanity and vulgar cartoons sullying every surface. The castle’s second floor used to be a buzzing place, people queuing up for the zipline, the air electric with nerve-jangling excitement. The space is empty now, the air tasting like dust, the loud din of excited children a distant echo.

“While I was in the bathroom I heard something clatter overhead,” I tell Marino while looking around. “Something hard, possibly made of metal.”

“Well, for sure something’s been in here.”

Marino shines his light obliquely across the wooden floor. He paints over broken glass, twisted window screens and other debris, the dust and dirt disturbed in places.

“The question is how recently,” he adds.

“And what was it?”

I look around for dried feces and other evidence that critters might be visiting. I don’t notice anything that catches my attention, just a lot of dead bugs, cobwebs, a mummified mouse, the carcasses and faded wings of moths.

“Anybody here? Hello?” Marino calls out, gripping his pistol in both hands, the barrel pointed up. “HELLO?”

Nothing. I shine my light around. A chilly wind gusts in, a hanging wooden sign banging against the wall.

“I think that’s what you heard.” Marino suggests what he wants to believe.

“It’s not, and it might have been coming from the roof,” I decide.

“Better take a look,” he says with a sigh. “And just hope we don’t have a problem in this dump since our phones aren’t going to work in the freakin’ Quiet Zone.”

We return to the stairs, climbing up to the zipline platform, the thatch overhang caved in, water dripping and splashing.

Moving closer to the edge of the zipline platform, I shine my light on the taut steel cable stretching toward the roller-coaster tracks in the rainy overcast. Missing are the pulleys and trolleys, and the harnesses passengers would wear while flying through the air.

“No way in hell I’d ever get on something like that.” Marino stares out at the cable, faint like a pencil stroke vanishing in roiling grayness.

“It wasn’t my favorite thing, but Lucy couldn’t get enough.” I can see the joy on her face as she’d strap on a helmet.

“That figures. Anything that might kill you, and she’s the first to sign up,” Marino says as the Winkie chant starts and stops again. “What the hell?” He glances around, startled.

“I heard the same thing while I was in the bathroom.”

“Coming from where?”

“I have no idea. Except there are a lot of speakers around because of the music and other special effects once piped in.”

“Most of the speakers I’m seeing have their damn wires hanging out,” Marino says. “And the power’s been turned off for years. Let’s get out of here.”

I’m on his heels as we hurry down the stone steps, back through the main floor, over broken glass and out the front door into the downpour. Following him across the wooden drawbridge, I keep looking back at the castle feeling something watching, lightning shimmering, the windows gaping like empty eye sockets.

We reach the blue tent, ducking inside where Tron and Lucy wait with two Secret Service crime scene investigators I’ve not met. They’re ready with towels for us to dry off. Marino begins unpacking Level-A PPE, chartreuse green with vapor-tight seams. The two of us will be wearing full containment coveralls and breathing apparatuses. Our equipment will protect us from most hazards.

But not gamma rays should the body be radioactive after an exposure to a vehicle of nonhuman origin, for example. If that’s the case, other measures will have to be taken. What those are, I’m not sure. The prospect of a UAP isn’t something I’ve dealt with in practice. I pass around the snacks I carried in my briefcase, helping myself to peanuts that taste divine, my breakfast with Benton a long time ago.

Sitting down on top of a Pelican case, I take off my boots, tucking my pants cuffs into my socks. I pull on the PPE coveralls as a Secret Service investigator named Rob begins explaining what’s been done so far.

“The state police assisted in securing the scene until we could get here from the closest field offices,” he’s saying in a West Virginia accent, his face boyishly cute, his carrot-red hair cropped short.

“Let’s hope they don’t run their mouths,” Marino says, chugging Gatorade.

“Good luck with that,” replies the other investigator, Daniel, gray-haired with piercing blue eyes. “I’m surprised it’s not all over the news already.”

“The cops here earlier don’t know much beyond the likelihood that the victim is Sal Giordano since he’s missing,” Tron replies, signaling that the detail about the UAP hasn’t been shared.

“What do they think happened to him?” Marino wants to know.

“They were spinning a lot of theories while waiting around, including that someone killed him and made it look like extraterrestrials did it,” Tron explains. “You know, because he’s known as the ET Whisperer. They speculated that the crop circle was faked to create a panic.”

“What about the vinegary smell Lucy described to me?” I ask.

“I noticed it too when we first got here,” Tron adds. “It’s long gone now.”

“By the time we rolled up, I didn’t notice any smells. But when I saw the pink circle of flowers around the body?” Daniel says. “That was pretty freaky. Do we have an explanation that makes sense?” He looks at Lucy.

“I don’t know how you’d fake what I saw. It was caused by a rotating force that bent grass and blew flower petals in a clockwise direction,” she answers.

“Unfortunately, the crop circle’s been disturbed if not completely destroyed by the rain,” Tron explains. “But we’ve got plenty of video and photographs of what it looked like.”

“What rotating force might we be talking about?” Rob asks Lucy as I zip up my coveralls. “Something like a helicopter?”

“Speaking of?? You sure yours didn’t blow shit all over the place when you found the body?” Marino pins Lucy with a stare. “Maybe you hovered over it not realizing it was causing a crop circle. That’s the most logical explanation.”

“Not possible,” she says. “Tron and I spotted the body at two hundred feet above the ground. I didn’t fly directly over it and landed in the parking lot where the chopper is now. We went the rest of the way on foot. And the main rotor blades spin counterclockwise. Not clockwise.”

“I’m assuming the body has been protected from the rain.” I get back to what’s most important to me. “What else do I need to know before taking a look?”

“It’s been inside the other tent almost the entire time,” Rob replies.

“Before that I was here with the state police,” Tron says. “I made sure they stayed away from the body. No one’s touched it.”

“Or been near it without appropriate PPE protection?” I make sure.

“I was suited up when I took the temp with an IR thermometer,” Rob says. “You know, point and shoot at the forehead. I didn’t have to touch anything, the temp ninety-six degrees.”

As I’m listening, I’m hoping like hell the body’s not contagious with some unknown virus. And dear God, don’t let the scene be radioactive. Otherwise, everyone is in trouble.

“And the ambient temperature?” I ask.

“Seventy-five degrees,” Rob replies.

“At what time?”

“Around ten.”

“Was the body in the sun at that time?” I’m making calculations in my head.

“Sunrise was at oh-six-hundred hours. So, yes, and had been for a while.”

“The sun would have made the surface of the skin warmer,” I explain. “I doubt his core temp was as high as indicated by infrared. And what time was it when the enclosure went up?”

“About a half hour later.” It’s Daniel who answers.

“You get a sense that anyone besides us has been in this park in recent memory?” Marino directs this at Tron. “Any sign that someone might have been scoping out the place in advance, for example?”

“Nothing I saw, but I was wondering the same thing when we landed here after spotting the body,” she says. “I kept thinking that whoever did this checked out the place first, did a dry run.”

“How can you be sure nobody else is here even as we speak, as big as the theme park is?” Marino then asks.

“A hundred acres with a lot of places to hide. The visibility’s terrible, and we’re in the Quiet Zone,” Tron replies. “You’re right, we can’t be sure of anything.”

“We did a recon of the main buildings but no way we could search every inch of the entire park,” Rob explains. “We didn’t find any sign that someone had been here recently. Although several times we heard something strange.”

“So did we inside the castle a few minutes ago.” Marino works his legs into the coveralls, staring through the tent’s opening as if something might be out there. “The doc thought she heard someone walking around, and both of us heard music.”

“Music?” Tron frowns. “From where?”

“I don’t know,” Marino says. “But something weird is going on.”

“When we were looking around Emerald City, we heard something in the brush close by,” Rob goes on. “Now and then we’d hear it moaning, mumbling, making eerie sounds as it followed in the woods. We couldn’t see what it was and I didn’t want to go poking around to find out.”

“Maybe a coyote or a fox?” Daniel offers. “I don’t think a bear would make the sounds we heard.”

“I can only imagine the wildlife that’s taken over this place,” Tron comments.