Kingdom Keepers VII Read online

  The track bends to the right. Finn had hoped to ride to the park entrance, but his plan is foiled by the occupied rear bench, which keeps him and Willa from climbing over and into the car. They can’t very well be seen holding on to the back of the last car as the train pulls out of the next station, Mickey’s Toontown, so they’ll have to get off. Hopefully he and Willa can find a way to sneak out of Toontown and work their way back to the train tracks farther up the line, Finn thinks. The stop he wants is without question the park entrance.

  As the train slows, Finn and Willa lower themselves and get their feet moving to match the train’s speed. They finally let go and move to join the disembarking passengers with no one the wiser, and Finn leads Willa under the train bridge and onto the entrance path for Toontown.

  Seeing the gigantic It’s a Small World entrance to her right, Willa cringes. “I’ll never look at that ride the same way again,” she says.

  “None of us will.”

  “I’m afraid to go in there.”

  “No kidding.”

  “You, too?”

  “Not exactly afraid,” Finn answers honestly. “Apprehensive? Cautious? I don’t think I’ve been back since the dolls came alive.”

  Willa says, “Hey, Toontown should be closed for the fireworks by now. What’s with that?”

  “No idea.”

  “You think they’d change that? They never change that!”

  “I think we need to forget about it and get behind Small World if we’re going to get back to the train. We can cut over by Roger Rabbit’s Car Toon Spin and disappear into the woods.”

  “That makes sense. But the thing is, Finn, Toontown should be closed.”

  “Forget about it!”

  “It has so many character attractions, it’s like an army base for the good Disney characters.”

  “A place the OTs would keep under watch.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Hadn’t thought of it that way,” Finn says. “You’re right. So, let’s make it harder for them to spot us. But we can’t lose sight of each other.” Finn gradually moves away from her. Her concern about Toontown has set him on edge. He knows better than to think that any Keeper is ever completely safe in the parks. And at a time like this, they are at a heightened risk.

  The ambush comes from behind, led by a strange-looking guy and a group of six gangly weasels costumed like people and walking on their hind legs. The guy acts like he owns Toontown the way a sheriff owns a Wild West town. A bizarre figure with a pale, rubbery face and oversize eyes, the man wears a black undertaker’s suit. His weasel-bodied minions aren’t much to look at either.

  Willa, the Keepers’ foremost Disney historian, spots them and signals Finn. After a few moments’ reflection, she recognizes the man as Judge Doom, from Who Framed Roger Rabbit? He’s an obscure character, but his role as a sadistic executioner is well documented. He must have emerged from the Car Toon Spin, or maybe he’s been following them since Toontown station. Near the station is the tent hosting the Mickey’s Magical Map show. Its original plotline included Judge Doom and other Disney villains, all of whom were eventually scratched from the storyline. There’s nothing more troublesome than an out-of-work villain.

  Willa moves closer to Finn.

  “You know who that is?” she says.

  “Negative.”

  “Well, I do!” She gives Finn a capsule biography. “His arrival can’t be considered coincidence. He’s on a mission. He’s the closest thing the kingdom—and the Overtakers—have to an assassin. He loves money, and will do anything for it—including kill a pair of sometimes holograms.”

  It’s the “sometimes” part that has Finn worried. If he or Willa loses their all clear, it’ll be a disaster. The idea of a known killer following them turns his stomach sour. If something horrible were to happen to any DHI, there’s no telling what might become of the associated kid asleep back in the studio. The idea of being stuck in a permanent coma is so chilling for Finn that he misses a step, stumbles, and has to recover.

  “Get out of here! Head for the train tracks,” Finn says. “I’ll meet you.”

  “What if Wayne’s here?” she cries. Most everyone in Toontown is a friend to the Kingdom; it would make a good hiding place for Wayne. “Judge Doom may not know about us. He could be after Wayne!”

  “Not know about us? He’s looking right at us!” Finn contemplates their predicament. “I know we’re supposed to be in pairs, but we’ve got to separate. You get to the tracks!”

  Finn moves more deeply into the Toontown cul-de-sac, keeping Goofy’s Playhouse on his left. His plan works: Judge Doom follows him. But Finn only counts three of the wiry weasels.

  Inside, it’s a madhouse, a press of bodies with the smell of soiled diapers and perspiration hanging in the air. Families jostle and hurry to reach attractions before the park’s imminent closing. Impatience, fatigue, and foul tempers show on the parents’ faces, while the kids look half asleep and ready to cry.

  Finn has a choice to make; he decides to err on the side of self-preservation, knowing the Cryptos won’t like hearing he has made a show of himself. The Disney Hosts Interactive have been shut down for the night. The appearance of any DHI will raise eyebrows.

  Finn focuses on remaining all clear as his DHI passes through the guests like a ghost. Many are too self-absorbed to see him or, if they do, to believe what they’ve seen. Seconds later, he’s put a physical wall of park visitors between himself and Judge Doom, a human shield. Finn is relieved to have Doom’s visage shielded from him; the guy’s rubbery face is so horrid, a mask of creepily too-flexible flesh with high cheekbones and fat lips.

  And Finn just can’t get Willa’s mentioning Wayne out of his head.

  Finn’s DHI continues through the crowd, passing through everyone in his way. He wins some oohs and ahs, but is surprised by how little notice is taken. At twilight, he’s more a shadow than a person, a spectral vision rather than reality.

  Finn is approaching the Chip ’n Dale Treehouse when he feels a powerful force turn his head to his right. Mickey’s House looms before him. The missing Mickey: Wayne’s primary concern during their covert meeting in Club 33.

  Finn glances back quickly: no sign of Judge Doom. He walks between the house and its separate garage, passes a CAST MEMBERS ONLY door, and, walking around back until he’s out of view of the guests, steps up and through the building’s exterior wall and into a passageway.

  He’s inside.

  * * *

  Willa is not about to let Finn fend off Judge Doom alone. Slowing, she glances back. Of the six weasels she counted before, three are now following her. For now, she’ll have to think with her feet, hoping to outmaneuver or outrun them.

  The three weasels resemble walking cartoon figures and, as such, cannot avoid attracting attention. Quickly, they draw a small crowd. Is this something she can use against them?

  Willa stops, turns, working to retain her full DHI.

  “Hey, fellas!” she calls out. More guests turn. Parents grab their children by the hands and spin them, making sure they don’t miss what appears to be part of the Disneyland show.

  Willa remembers these six more clearly now: they are Judge Doom’s Toon Patrol. In the movie, they are indestructible in battle, but end up laughing themselves to death.

  She focuses on Finn’s pinprick of light at the end of a dark tunnel, inwardly superimposing the image across her vision. Taking a deep breath, she walks up to and through the three weasels, making them spin around as they try to follow the path of this strange being that has just walked right through them. She reverses direction and repeats the effect—now she has the Doom’s minions literally spinning in circles. This wins laughter from the crowd, and from the Toon Patrol as well.

  The stunt works against the creatures briefly, but the cruelest looking one, who she recognizes as Psycho, sees through her ruse.

  “Boys!” he says. Psycho reaches out for her, but swipes his paw right through her ho
logram. He looks at his own hand, eyes bugged out in confusion.

  Willa doubles back through their group again. Two of the weasels bump into each other; she jumps clean out of the way, maintaining her all clear so that they bang their heads together, and watches as their knees wobble. Adults in the crowd gasp. The kids applaud.

  Psycho remains standing. “Hey, little girl!” He charges her.

  Willa steps out of the way; she’s no Charlene, always itching for a direct confrontation. She kicks the weasel from behind. The crowd erupts in cheers. More people join the throng surrounding the four: now it’s a full-on show.

  Psycho pivots and backhands Willa across the cheek. He makes contact; her head snaps to the side.

  The force of the blow shows Willa she’s failed to maintain her all clear. She attributes this not to the violence, but to the look in Psycho’s eyes. His name befits him: he’s wild, crazed, ready to tear her head from her shoulders. She doesn’t appreciate being called “little girl,” either; the insult triggers her temper even as it reminds her of her mortality. She’s vulnerable, and she has to remember that. She has to calm down. But that’s impossible.

  Psycho strikes her again—hard. The crowd is evenly split; the kids cheer loudly; the adults are uncertain of just what they are watching. Willa lowers her shoulder and hits Psycho in the gut, driving him back into the other weasels, who look dazed, still recovering from their head thumping. But none of them are laughing, and that’s the only thing that can kill them—Willa knows they’re otherwise indestructible.

  Finn told her to head to the train, but plans change. How can he expect her to leave him? She has a choice to make. It’s never really a choice at all.

  “I DON’T RECOMMEND THIS,” Charlene says as she walks alongside Maybeck from the Heraldry Shoppe to Snow White’s Scary Adventures. “All it can be is trouble. Who do you think made that armor come alive?”

  “And why would she do that unless we were getting close?” Maybeck says. “You stay out here. I’ll go in.”

  “No way! We go together or not at all.”

  “Don’t run so fast!” he says. “And lose the clichés.”

  “This is me,” Charlene says. It’s one of Maybeck’s favorite lines; he grimaces wryly in recognition.

  With the fireworks show approaching, the waiting line is mercifully short. They climb into one of the cars. Charlene nudges Maybeck; looking back, he sees that the Cast Member has her arm out, preventing other guests from boarding.

  “Why would she do that?” Charlene asks. “Put us on here by ourselves?”

  “Not good,” Maybeck says. His arms sparkle. He looks over at Charlene, whose hologram is also degrading. “Partial shadow,” he says.

  Charlene studies them both, nods. “Honestly? I don’t mind so much.”

  Doors open in front of them, revealing the cabin’s cheery sitting room. Drying clothes hang on a line in front of the hearth. The seat jerks left; they face a chest of drawers and see Snow White, happily climbing a set of stairs, a flaming oil lamp in hand. The Dwarfs are playing and reading.

  It’s suddenly dark.

  The Queen’s voice: “Now to take care of Snow White!”

  Next they’re in the woods under a full moon; an instant later, the car plunges into the claustrophobic mines.

  The ride stops. Maybeck mutters a word he should not. The music remains inappropriately happy, as if it’s trying to balance the oppressive darkness.

  “Visitors, I see!”

  They spin around in their seats.

  The Evil Queen. Not a character. Not a hologram. The real deal.

  Maybeck and Charlene jump out of the car and take off running, their holograms sputtering and digitizing. They lose their legs, their arms—then regain them an instant later.

  Alarms sound; a man’s voice tells everyone to remain in their seats.

  Maybeck pushes open the doors to the next scene. The Queen stands reflected in a full-length mirror. She turns, and the old hag stands before them. But not an Audio-Animatronic: a threat.

  The hag throws an apple at Charlene, who deftly drops and slides on her knees. The projectile flies harmlessly over her head. They’re surrounded by evil laughter and the sounds of crows.

  The hag reappears in front of them. “Going somewhere?”

  Maybeck skids to a stop, wondering where she came from.

  “Shadow! Sides!” Charlene shouts.

  She disappears, leaving Maybeck all alone.

  * * *

  Finn steps through a wall fashioned out of plastic grating and finds himself in a hallway, facing Mickey’s laundry room. He hurries toward it; he’ll search the upstairs first. It’s an area where guests are not allowed, and thus a likely spot for Wayne to take shelter.

  In the laundry room, he skids to a stop, staring at the washing machine. His stomach turns violently: Mickey’s big white gloves appear to be pressed against the machine’s glass, buffeted by waves of water, as if the mouse is desperate to escape. Wayne implied that the mouse was missing.…Finn realizes that it isn’t Mickey drowning, only his laundry being washed—but the effect is still disquieting. Finn pulls on the washer door, but it’s fixed permanently, a part of the display. Finn’s mission feels all the more urgent—he has questions only Wayne can answer.

  Reaching the house’s front entrance, where guests first arrive, Finn sees a child safety door with PLUTO painted on it across the stairway. He’s so fixated on getting upstairs that he barely glances over his shoulder to check if he is being followed.

  There’s no one behind him, nothing but a broom from the laundry room leaning against the wall behind an old-fashioned radio. If it had eyes, it would command an ideal view of both the entrance area and the living room. Mickey and, to an extent, the Keepers, have an unpleasant history with Disney brooms dating back to Fantasia. Thankfully, this one just appears to be an ordinary old broom.

  Finn studies the entrance area, looking through the doorway to the outside and, seeing no one about to enter, zips up the stairs, his DHI passing through the waist-high PLUTO door like wind through a picket fence.

  Finn sees two more doors: one straight ahead down the hall, the other to his right, and therefore visible from the entranceway. He walks through the door to the right. And steps into…

  Air. Finn is falling—the door turns out to lead into the vaulted ceiling of the sitting room below. He lands in front of the fireplace. A guest hurries forward to help Finn but reaches out and can’t take hold of his projected arm. The man staggers back, astonished; he’s never seen a DHI before.

  “What’s…going…on?” he gasps. “Ghosts!” he shouts, sounding like a little kid. His screams ricochet off the walls. Mickey’s House clears as if someone yelled Fire!

  Finn is left alone.

  And in that instant he hears the sound of bristles brushing the floor. The sound grows more clear and specific: the bristles are moving in his direction. Someone scrubbing the floor? While guests are still in the park?

  “Hello?” Finn calls out.

  The scrubbing continues, coming toward him. Not scrubbing…more like sweeping.

  Like a broom.

  * * *

  Maybeck and Charlene are in DHI shadow on opposite sides of the dark forest when a high-pitched man’s voice rings out from behind the old hag.

  “Always making trouble, you ugly troll.”

  Maybeck moves to see who’s speaking. It’s a very short, older man with a white beard but no mustache, and wire-rimmed glasses. Only when six similar-looking men emerge from the dark does Maybeck identify the leader as Doc, one of the Seven Dwarfs.

  “Ugly, ugly, troll,” Doc says.

  The hag spins, furious. “Go away, little man! You’re nothing but a nuisance! Another step and I’ll—”

  “What? Toss us an apple?”

  One of the six—Happy?—bellows with laughter. “Toss us an apple!” he repeats, amused.

  Maybeck steps out of DHI shadow, signaling Charlene to join him.
His leg is better now, nearly back to normal; the exercise has helped it.

  “You’ll never be beautiful again!” Doc says to the hag. “How can we see any beauty in you when we’ve seen that?” He points at her wizened face.

  Maybeck takes Charlene by the hand and leads her off; the Queen’s too obsessed with the dwarfs’ insults to notice.

  “I hope they’ll be all right,” Charlene says.

  Maybeck pushes through another set of doors; the ride is stopped, and Cast Members are consoling impatient park visitors.

  “You there!” a man calls out.

  Charlene pulls on Maybeck; together, their DHIs dissolve into and through the wall. The people they leave behind stand, gawking, wondering what it is they’ve just witnessed.

  UNABLE TO RUN FOR FEAR of attracting unwanted attention, and intentionally avoiding the route Maybeck and Charlene have taken through the castle, Philby, Jess, and Amanda take a longer, slower route to Toontown Station, passing by Big Thunder Ranch and slipping through the heart of Fantasyland.

  None of the three states the obvious: that they are taking a big chance, and following nothing more than Jess’s vision. She’s right more often than she’s wrong, but that does little to console them. If this is a bad lead, they are wasting huge amounts of precious time.

  “Fireworks soon,” Philby says, recalling the rendezvous he established.

  “We can’t return without him,” says Amanda.

  “We’ll regroup, switch around, change plans. Don’t worry: we’re not leaving without him.”

  “Them,” Jess says, correcting him. “Don’t forget Willa.”

  “As if Philby would forget Willa!” Amanda snorts.

  Philby smiles.

  “You should do that more often,” Amanda says.

  “Do what?”

  “Never mind.”

  Philby asks several more times, but Amanda’s dropped it; she doesn’t want him to think she’s flirting. Boys tend to misread such things.…

  Approaching the Toontown Station is a disappointment. The area’s quiet, with just a few people milling around. There’s a crowd outside It’s a Small World and a number of guests leaving Toontown.