Part 3: Return

"You're sure about this, Bobby?" Hank asked.

"Totally. She bought the house next to ours a few years ago. She turned the garage into this antique store."

"Hey, we're not the Chamber of Commerce," Eric interrupted. "Get to the point."

"This is the point. Our folks are out of town; they're due back sometime tonight. Our other neighbor, Mrs. Todd, saw Sheila open the store at nine yesterday morning, like always. Ten minutes later, she goes over to check on Sheila, finds the place empty. The rest of the day, she never showed up. I called again as soon as I got to town; there's still no sign of her."

"Alright," Diana said, standing up, "now we know why we're here."

"And where we have to go," Presto said, running his fingers through his auburn hair and glancing nervously through the door at the amusement park across the road.

"You don't have a problem with going back, do you?" Bobby asked, almost confronting Presto.

"No, no. I mean, of course we've gotta help Sheila if she's gone back. But how did she do it? You said she disappeared out of the shop."

"Unless it has a back door that she could slip out."

"No chance, Hank. The back door was locked, and the key was in the lock on the inside."

"Then how did she get back to the Realm?"

"Yeah, maybe it was part of a robbery..." Eric began.

"I checked out the shop. The only other thing missing was the doll."

"What doll? You mean the one she brought back?" Diana asked. "The gift from Ayisha?"

"That's it."

"I have a bad feeling about this," Presto said. "I think we may be getting in deep this time."

"Well, if we're going into the park, let's go," Hank said. "Has anyone figured out how we're getting in?"

"There's an employee entrance around back--" Diana began.

"Forget that," Eric interrupted. "We're going in through the main gate. Just leave it to me. I'll meet you guys in a minute; I just want to tell the office to hold our rooms."

"Yeah," Bobby muttered, looking around the sparse room, "like people are rushing to get in here." Still, it took only a minute for Eric to exchange words with the man in the office. He joined them in the gravel parking lot, and they started toward the park.

"I got one question, Bobby," Eric said. "Last night I looked through the phone book in my room, and I didn't see a Sheila O'Neill listed."

"You wouldn't. It's Sheila DiLeone."

"She got married? That's neat!" Presto said. "How long?"

"About three years. She got engaged five years ago."

Diana looked at Bobby in surprise. "You mean she was engaged when she saw me the last time and didn't say anything?"

"Well, I don't know. Did you ask her?"

"No," Diana said, looking down at the ground. "I guess I had a lot on my mind that day. She could have told me she'd robbed a bank, and I wouldn't have said anything about it."

"Well, that's the way she's always been," Bobby said, looking up and down the highway that separated the motel from the park. When the traffic cleared to nothing, they jogged across. "Sensitive to other people's feelings."

"Okay, let me do the talking," Eric told the others as they approached the gate. At this time of year, security at the shut-up park was minimal; a couple of rent-a-cops and some low-level roustabouts employed by the corporation that owned it. One of the latter was in the ticket booth reading a hunting magazine when he saw the five heading for his booth. He'd had to deal with fraternity pranks before, but seldom at this hour on a weekday.

One of the group reached into his sport coat, pulled out a wallet and held a driver's license up to the ticket window, asking authoritatively, "You work for Golden Amusements?"

"Yeah."

"We're from Harleigh Enterprises; let us in." The roustabout just sat and looked at them. "What, didn't they tell you we were coming?"

"Nope."

"Typical. Look; let me explain it to you. You work for Golden Amusements; Golden Amusements is wholly owned by Lakeside Recreations, and Lakeside's majority stockholder as of July 1 of this year is Harleigh Enterprises. Bottom line: You work for me. Now could you please open the gate?"

"What for?"

"Glad you asked. We'd gotten some complaints this summer about the Dungeons and Dragons ride. There are some safety problems that have to be examined. I know it's late, but it took things this long to work their way through the pipeline. This is my inspection crew." Eric vaguely waved at the others. Hank pulled out his wallet, flipped to his federal ID, stamped with the seal of the government. He only flashed it for a second, but that seemed to satisfy the roustabout. He opened the grill over the ticket window, reached below the counter and brought out some flashlights.

"You'll need these." Eric passed them to Hank and Presto while the roustabout unlocked the gate. "I'm not surprised about the complaints," he muttered. "That's one ride ain't been kept up proper. Just won't spend the money. You know where it is?"

"Of course."

"Just don't be too long about it." He relocked the gate and went back into his booth.

After they'd walked a few steps down the midway, heading toward the rear of the park, Diana said, "Very smooth, Eric; is this what you do for a living?"

"Sometimes. Hank, the ID was a nice touch."

"Thanks. Do you really own this park?"

"Haven't got a clue. I know we were negotiating for Lakeside Recreations a while back, and I saw this park on the list, but I never knew if the deal went through. It may still be hung up on some lawyer's desk somewhere."

The sky was overcast as they walked a midway that was otherwise deserted; all the booths were closed, all the rides were silent and still. A cool wind blew. There was still water in the pond near the Dungeons and Dragons ride, but dead autumn leaves floated on the pond.

"Talk about depressing," Presto said.

The group stopped short when they turned a corner and saw the Dungeons and Dragons ride.

Bobby shook his head. "How in hell did I ever think this was neat?"

Much of the paint had faded; flaked-off chips had never been touched-up. Some of the decorative statues showed the plaster underneath like a white scar. The waterproofing had worn off of the platform long ago, and it resembled planks of driftwood now.

"Look around for the power switch," Hank said. "Maybe we can get it running."

Eric shook his head. "I don't think so."

"Just once, Eric, don't be so negative," Presto advised.

"I'm not being negative; I'm just trying to--"

"Found it!" Bobby called out. The others gathered around him, at the far end and almost under the platform.

"So try it," Hank said. Bobby reached for the handle of the circuit box and pulled it. Nothing happened. He tried it twice more.

"I tried to tell you," Eric said, "there's a little thing called fire insurance. During the off-season they'll cut the power to most of the park, just to avoid something shorting out and burning it all to the ground."

"Then we follow the tracks," Presto said. "That is, we can, can't we?"

"Maintenance would have to."

"I guess that's why we've got flashlights," Diana said. "But what are we looking for?"

"The spot in the ride where we went through last time. Does anyone remember?" asked Hank.

"It's funny," Bobby said. "All this time I thought I remembered, but now I'm not sure."

The others took one last look around, before getting onto the platform, then descending three steps to walk on the track-bed, into the jaws of the dragon that formed the opening of the ride.

The roustabout spoke as if nobody had touched the ride in a decade. Actually, some new figures had been added, but for the most part everything was as the group had remembered it. Only now, it was all machinery and no illusion. The dragon that craned its neck in front of the car was just a head and neck on a swinging robot arm; the rest of the dragon, which seemed real enough when glimpsed in motion, was painted onto the wall. The fire from its mouth was only colored streamers turned into fire by clever lighting and a fan.

And yet--there were things in the ride now that only they could see, or at least understand. Around one bend they saw a five-headed dragon, each head a different color, and could name it Tiamat. Familiar zombies leaned over the tracks; gigantic mutant insects hung from the rafters. Eric, who had been dismissing the ride from a grown-up perspective as "totally bogus", turned one corner, and screamed as his flashlight's ray fell on a green-skinned monster; the very image of an Orc soldier.

This last statue made them all pause. "Unbelievable," Presto whispered.

"Eric," Hank said, "when we get back, you've got to find out who built this thing. This looks too much like the Realm to be an accident."

On they went, tapping on walls and floors, moving anything that could be moved by hand, searching without a single idea of what they were looking for, but sure that they would know it when they found it.

They rounded one corner and came on one of the new dioramas. It was a group of elves; tall and willowy, with pointed ears and long silver-blonde hair that hung well down their backs. They also had eyes that spoke of fierceness and determination as they prepared to do battle with beasts that were half-men, half-wolves.

The group was impressed. "We never saw anything like this in the Realm," Bobby said.

Diana added, "And I'm glad we didn't."

"I think this place is starting to get to us," Hank said. "Maybe we should change the subject."

"What do you suggest, a few choruses of 'Kumbaya'"?

"Er-ric--" Bobby started.

Presto interrupted. "Hey Bobby, why don't you tell us about Sheila. Who is this guy she married?"

"First off, he's a captain in the Army. Sheila met him when they were both going to State; I was just starting high school. She met him at some church group thing, and he came to our place to have dinner a few months later, around Valentine's Day. That would be early 1991.

"Have you guys met my parents? Our family's been Catholic since before we left Ireland, but my folks are from the real liberal part of the Church. They met at some Vietnam antiwar thing, y'know. Well, when Sheila shows up with this guy in full ROTC uniform--in the middle of the Gulf War--I thought she was trying to get herself shot down."

They came to what had seemed on the ride to be a swift, sharp drop; in the light of day it wasn't all that sharp, but still they had to walk down a short flight of steps to rejoin the tracks.

"I thought we were gonna have our own war, but it didn't go too bad. He gave us his point of view, my folks gave him theirs, and it went on for about two solid hours, but everybody stayed cool. That night, I heard my mom tell Sheila that he was 'one of the good ones'. They got engaged a couple of weeks later.

"At the wedding, I asked him if he wanted me to call him anything special. He said, 'If you're in the service, I'm Captain; if you're not, I'm Tommy.' He's pretty cool."

"So where is he now?" Diana asked.

"He's had to spend a few months in England. That's one hassle about Sheila marrying an Army guy; they send him all over the place on a minute's notice. He's supposed to be back now, somewhere on the East Coast, but--"

Bobby was interrupted by a loud CHUNK that echoed throughout the ride; a split-second later, the lights came on and the machinery started grinding noisily to life.

"Bobby, DUCK!" Hank called out. Bobby barely had time to sidestep a mechanical arm that swung a battleaxe in his direction.

"You think the guy at the gate did this?" Presto asked.

"No, he would have come with us the first time," Eric said. "Did anybody here hit a switch or something?"

"Don't think so," Hank said, "but let's be careful now."

As the full set of ride effects came to life, they found they were running an obstacle course. Machinery swung out from the walls and down from the ceiling; lights flashed; roars and groans and battle noises poured out of half-hidden speakers.

And the first car came through.

They were so busy dodging the effects that they hadn't been watching to see if the ride's cars were in motion. When the first car rounded a curve, it was within ten feet of Presto and Diana. He jumped off the track onto a catwalk; she jumped straight up and hung from a ceiling beam as the car roared past them and around a corner into another room.

"Why don't they put headlights on those things?" Eric complained.

Diana dropped back to the tracks and was about to answer Eric when, around the corner where the car had gone; a brilliant glow lit the room, like the flash from a welder's torch. Without being told, they knew it was what they were looking for, and the five ran to the curve.

This room, through moving walls and clever perspective, was built to give riders the impression that they were going out of a castle onto a drawbridge that was itself rising into the air. It was one of the few long straightaways of track on the ride; about forty feet from one curve to the next. They moved as quickly as they dared, but couldn't find any hint of a portal.

"Now what?" Bobby asked.

"Double back to the beginning of the room and wait for the next car," Hank said.

The next car actually arrived before they got back, and they had to scramble out of its way. They watched as the car rolled at the pace of a brisk walk down the corridor. About two-thirds of the way down, a band of blazing light appeared at the beginning of the car. As it passed through the light, the car seemed to the five to be compressed, as if part of the car was being diverted elsewhere.

Presto half-smiled; "Houston, we have our portal."

"Okay guys," Hank said. "We don't have much time. We walked right through that spot and nothing happened, so we're going to have to get in the car and ride through. And it's gonna have to be the next car; we may not get a chance after that. Bobby, get in the front seat with me; everyone else in the back."

"This is just great," Eric said, "jumping into a moving car while trespassing in an amusement park trying to get to the Twilight Zone."

"You got a problem being here, Eric?" Bobby challenged.

"No, but if I break my leg doing this, what am I supposed to tell my HMO?"

At that moment the third car came around the corner and into the corridor. Diana was the first one in, slipping quickly up the back of the car and into the center of the back seat. From there, she reached out to Presto and Eric and helped them aboard. Hank, on the left of the car, stepped into the front easily. But when Bobby stepped into the car, his foot slipped and he fell forward onto the front of the car, with one leg hanging off to the side.

"Help him in!" Hank called. He grabbed Bobby's collar, while Diana and Presto half-stood in their seats to get hold of whatever part of Bobby they could. They were still pulling Bobby back fully into the seat when the car hit the spot. Suddenly they were engulfed by the blinding light, and the last thing they remembered was seeming to float up and out of the car, then that they and the car seemed to accelerate a hundredfold.

Coming June15

Part 4: The Realm