Page 32 of Identity Unknown
“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.”