Kingdom Keepers VII (31 page)

F
INN COWERS WITH EACH EXPLOSION
in the sky, slowing him and Amanda. The blue outline surrounding him sputters and sparkles. Amanda, who can’t stop crying, pulls him along like he’s an unwilling ox.

“We have to go!” she says.

Finn looks as if he doesn’t recognize her, doesn’t know where he is.

“We’ve lost them.” Amanda stops, keeping Finn close to her. “Which way?”

Looking back toward It’s a Small World, she sees the Evil Queen and Tia Dalma walking calmly in their direction.

“Oh, great,” she says. Finn’s unresponsive and numb, a sea anchor she must drag along. She doesn’t know the park well at all. The proximity of the fireworks overhead only serves to confuse and frighten her. She steers him toward the Mad Tea Party, then, screened from the Overtakers by a pagoda, changes her mind and leads him past the entrance to the Matterhorn and in the direction of Finding Nemo. In doing so, she unknowingly takes the long way around, costing them more time.

“Come on, I need you, Finn!”

As they approach the Plaza, the crowd becomes obnoxiously thick, with everyone stopped and looking up at the brilliant display of color and sound. The park guests give no quarter, their feet firmly planted; they have no interest or intention of moving out of the way for anyone. They act as a human wall.

Light flickers behind Finn’s dazed eyes. He appears trapped in a state halfway between a material body and a DHI.

“Please!” she adds.

“I loved him.” Tears spring from his eyes and splash onto the pavement, tears that have nothing to do with projected light. This causes Amanda to cry all the harder.

“I know…I know.…” She wraps her arms around Finn and pulls him in and feels his convulsive sobs as her own. It feels right to hold him. Each overhead blast matches a corresponding shock radiating through Finn. She spins him, takes him from behind at the waist and guides him through the crowds. It’s slow going, like trying to push to the front of a parade. People complain and shoot impatient looks.

Finally, Finn stops. There’s no going forward without making more of a scene. Amanda rises on tiptoes. The crowds are illuminated in flashes beneath the pulsating colors overhead. Hands are raised as cheers sound roundabout.

“We’ve lost them,” she says. “Philby and the others,” she clarifies.

From within the castle, flowing out of the central tunnel like billowing smoke, come the wraiths that attacked the Studio Archives. The crowd cheers their arrival, waving and laughing, ignorantly welcoming the corresponding terror.

Seeing the wraiths, Amanda turns Finn around once more and takes him by the shoulders. He hasn’t seen them. “Listen to me, Finn Whitman. You need to do what you are so good at.” She glances up to see the wraiths beginning to circle the Plaza; they are looking down, clearly searching the crowd. “You need to let this go and all clear. We
both
need to all clear, right now, right away. Are you listening to me?”

She shakes him. Still nothing. It’s like a part of Finn has died with Wayne.

Several of the wraiths form a tighter circle over the path to the Royal Theater, spinning like a wheel. Amanda jumps up and down, trying to see, but it’s impossible, what with the flashes of light and the arms raised in cheers all around them.

“The others are in trouble!” she shouts, reaching her own conclusions. “Philby will have no choice but to return them.”
Boom! boom!
overhead. The wraiths continue in their wide circling, dipping and rising. “We’re going to miss the return. We need to all clear.
Right now,
Finn. You have to erase it. Forget it. Leave it behind. If it disappears, so can you.”

Finn stares back at her, his eyes blank and dull. Then he nods, and the last of his tears cascade down his cheeks. He starts to look up, but she grabs him by the hair—he must not show his face to the sky!

“We’re going to keep our heads down, we’re going to all clear, and we’re going to get out of here before…” She doesn’t dare tell him about the wraiths—he’ll want to fight them all. “Before all the crowds start trying to leave. I’ve got you by the arm. Close your eyes. The minute I see your blue line, I’ll try. And Finn, promise me, whatever you do, do not look up!”

He nods. Just before closing his eyes, he says, “I’m going to kill them all.”

“You will,” Amanda says. “You and me, both.”

T
HRONGS OF PEOPLE
have also opted to depart the park ahead of the massive flood of guests, using the distraction of the fireworks as a cover. Amanda joins them, steers Finn alongside families pushing strollers, the elderly, and those who are plain exhausted. As many people seem to be leaving Disneyland as there are staying behind. The crowd offers the two Keepers good cover.

A faint blue line sparkles on Finn’s neck and runs down his shoulders in bursts. It’s like he’s being struck by tiny bolts of lightning. The blue worms of electricity crawl and sputter, but fail to join in any kind of continuity. Amanda can’t remember witnessing anything like this partial all clear; it’s more like Maleficent’s fireballs, bundles of static electricity searching out a ground wire.

The pulses come more quickly now, flashes of pure brilliance. A small boy walking alongside them tugs his mother’s sleeve and points. Amanda directs Finn away from them. They can’t afford to be noticed.

Above the castle, the fireworks build to a finale. Some of those walking turn to face the spectacle. Finn and Amanda continue past, heads down. He is now outlined in pure blue; he guides Amanda, whose eyes squint shut as she exhales a long, slow breath. Her neck begins to sparkle.

By the time they reach the gates, Finn is too distracted by Amanda’s crossing over and the crush of guests to notice that he’s guiding them through a covered turnstile.

Seeing two kids move
through
the turnstile causes a Security guard to squint and lift his walkie-talkie to his lips.

* * *

Philby awakens in the Morgue, across and down the hall from the Crypt. He lay down in one of the aisles between the rows of file cabinets before crossing over; now it takes him a moment to orient himself. He has never asked the other Keepers if they suffer this same disassociation upon returning: he has no idea where he is or how he got there; he’s not even sure
who
he is. It’s horrifying, isolating, this sensation that he belongs to nothing, not the room he finds himself in, nor the body he looks down and sees.

But what troubles Philby most is that each time he crosses over, the disassociation upon his return lasts fractionally longer than the time before. Professor Philby is curious about the progressive nature of this sense of separation—what might cause it, what might prevent it. Philby the kid is plain scared by it, which is how he finds himself counting the seconds, hoping to identify where he is, who he is, and what he’s doing there.
Seven…eight…nine…

He’s got it! The fireworks. Wraiths, spinning overhead. The search in all directions for Finn or Amanda. His finger on the Return, knowing what must be done. The look in Willa’s eyes as it’s apparent that they’re not going to find Finn or Amanda…and that they can’t stay one minute longer.

Philby peers into the tunnel in the direction of the Crypt. Stepping out, he hears voices and darts back inside the Morgue, sneaking a look as he goes. It’s Brad and Joe. They pause to look in both directions. Philby leans back. When he next looks, they are gone, having entered the storage room that accesses the Crypt.

It’s after 9:00
P.M
., long past working hours. Their arrival suggests that someone reported seeing DHIs in Disneyland. Or maybe the wraiths, or the massive battle in Toontown. Joe and Brad are being held accountable for the chaos.

Philby looks down at his hand. He’s holding the Return.

Finn and Amanda’s only hope of getting back lies inside that lab down the hall. If he can’t return them, they will be stuck in SBS until he does—comatose here in this world, in serious danger as DHIs in the other.

* * *

With only a matter of yards to go until they reach the entrance to California Adventure, Amanda calls to Finn. “Do you hear that humming?”

Finn says nothing.

“It’s like summer, but louder,” she says. “Like cicadas,” she says. “Crickets.”

“It’s not crickets!” Finn grabs her hand and pulls her in the direction of the La Brea Bakery. A pair of Segways appears at the gate area, speeding toward them.

“How did you—?” Amanda asks.

“I remember that sound from Epcot. The Segways.”

They run hard, dodging around a ticket house. “This’ll slow ’em,” Finn says. They pass some palm trees and jump over a low barrier into the bakery’s courtyard, where they weave among umbrella-covered tables.

“That’s the back of Soarin’,” Amanda says. “My favorite ride.”

The monorail sweeps past.

The Security guys on Segways, blocked by the planter island, move briefly away from the Keepers in order to get around the obstruction. They attempt to keep an eye on the pair, but that means looking in the opposite direction from the one they’re traveling in. One Segway catches a wheel on the barrier, and its helmeted rider falls off.

“Now!” Finn says, leading Amanda up to the wall that serves as a boundary to California Adventure. “You’re blue!”

“You, too.”

It is a formidable moment for both, that instant in which one must trust the present, believe in the system, and demonstrate a total willingness to forget practical knowledge and commit. The commitment asks for an implied sacrifice: if they hit that wall running at full speed and are not one hundred percent DHI, they will go down in a bloody heap of broken bones, unconscious.

For safety’s sake, the Keepers like to test obstructions—run a hand through, stick their hologram heads inside—but there’s no time. Finn and Amanda need to vanish. The remaining Security guy will imagine they have run off, yet be fully aware that there’s nowhere they could have run without his seeing them. Next, he will assume they’re hiding. He and his fallen partner will kill time canvassing the area. They may call for backup.

Amanda and Finn aren’t looking ahead as they reach the wall. They aren’t squinting their eyes or expecting the worst. No.

At the moment of would-be contact, they turn their heads to each other. And they are smiling.

* * *

Finn and Amanda, now fully DHI, weave their way amid the pine trees at the side of Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel, slip under the monorail, pass through a backstage wall and, soon after, alongside a parked single-engine airplane, emerge onto the path near the entrance to Soarin’ Over California. To avoid the crowds, they remain on the perimeter. This proves to be their first mistake.

The second is not trusting their ears.

Taking long strides to cover as much ground as possible without breaking into an outright run, Finn and Amanda pass the twenty-foot-high bear standing outside Grizzly River Run. Behind them comes the sound of something breaking and crunching, followed by a steady
clomp, clomp, clomp
.

Amanda is focused not on these obvious sounds, but on the more disturbing drone of scratching and rubbing, like a thousand people running their fingernails along the teeth of a thousand combs in unison.

“That sound—it’s still there, and it isn’t Segways,” she says. “Listen!”

“Bear!” Finn says, glancing back. He steers Amanda with him into the Redwood Creek Challenge Trail. He has no time to think about Wayne, pushes the thought away.

“Hide!”

The giant River Run bear, wearing a floatation vest and carrying a paddle and a raft, hardly seems like an Overtaker. Amanda pushes Finn into the tunnel through Big Sir, Disney’s giant redwood tree.

There’s a second bear, a six-foot-tall honey-colored grizzly just outside the area. Breaking loose from its pedestal, it looks mean, moves as if sore, and drools hungrily.

The Challenge Trail, an obstacle course of stairs and rope bridges mostly covered by a roof, offers the two Keepers a place of refuge. The griz runs like a much bigger creature, each stride covering two yards. Finn and Amanda power up the stairs. The bear is behind them, close enough to paw at what’s left of their holograms. Their blue outlines sputter; their limbs tingle; they’re losing all clear.

Finn is first onto the rope bridge, deftly dancing across webbing that springs like a trampoline. Amanda takes two steps and falls through, bouncing the net and dropping Finn, who falls on his back.

The salivating griz charges for Amanda and goes into the net face first, his front legs slipping through the gaping holes in the webbing. He bites angrily, attempting to take her arm off. Instead, he snaps the section of rope nearest his snout, and his head falls through as well. In his struggles to get free, he only succeeds in ensnaring his hind legs.

Finn extricates himself from the net and rolls toward the border of woven nylon, which serves as a path. He hurries around and, seeing the bear rising up on its haunches, dives for Amanda, shaking the net. The bear falls again.

Together, Finn and Amanda roll for the far edge and escape across another rope bridge to a lookout beneath a shed roof. The golden bear is up on two legs like a human being, coming for them, dancing across the webbing.

“Overtaker,” Finn mumbles, recognizing sorcery when he sees it.

The golden is almost upon them. Finn pushes Amanda out of the way, stumbles backward, and is caught in the netting. The bear roars, lifts its ugly paw, armed with curving claws the size of kitchen knives—

And disappears.

Finn had shut his eyes before those claws took his face off, so when he opens them again and sees no bear, he’s thinking, This is what death is like: now you see me, now you don’t. He is somehow exactly where he was when the bear cleaved his head from his body. Amanda is exactly where she was too. He’s glad that he can still see Amanda, that heaven includes his friends. He looks around for Philby, for Willa, Charlene, and Maybeck. But it’s Amanda who remains with him, and that fact carries significance. His heart even skips a beat. Although he supposes that technically he no longer has a heart.

Amanda looks paralyzed, staring off into the sky as if tracking his spirit’s departure from his body. The thing is, he’s not up there; he’s down here, stuck in the net. Amanda isn’t looking into the sky; she’s looking at a twenty-foot-tall bear holding a golden bear by the scruff of its neck like a mama cat with her kitten. The River Run behemoth shakes her head at the golden and scrunches her face disapprovingly. The golden is all flailing paws and kicking legs.

Despite everything he’s seen over the years, Finn can’t believe that there’s really a slight grin on the River Run bear’s maw as she looks down at him and Amanda. But it’s there, all right.

Park guests are flocking to the River Run bear, who places the golden back on its perch—where it freezes in place, instantly—and tromps up the path to her place outside the attraction, where she also solidifies. There is applause, cheering, and—no matter that people can produce video of the event—no evidence it ever happened. Just the word of a few dozen tired park guests who claim to have witnessed the coolest show ever, yet another Disney rumor that will circulate for years in the lore of the Kingdom Keepers.

Amanda helps Finn out of the net and they quickly join the path again, moving away from the astonished crowd. Only then, as the terror of the past few minutes seeps out of her and her blue outline reappears, does her focus return to the strange sound they heard earlier.

“Do you hear it now?” Amanda says.

“Yeah, I do.”

“It doesn’t belong in the park, a sound like that.”

“No it doesn’t. What do you suppose it is?”

“I don’t know. It sounds like…summer…only deeper and louder.”

“Oh, dang! You’re right!” Finn says. “I hate it when you’re right!”