December Park(123)

The realization of what we were looking at took several moments to settle into each of us. I think Michael started to laugh first. Eventually, we all began to chuckle, though my heart was still racing, and I felt sweat rolling down my ribs and soaking my shirt.

It was a f*cking mannequin.

“Holy shit,” Michael said, still laughing. Sweat beaded his forehead. He pointed at us. “You should see the looks on your faces. Ha!”

“What about your face?” Peter scowled, still looking rattled. “Not to mention I think you shit your pants when that door swung open.”

Adrian bent down beside me, and together we stared at the dummy.

“I really thought we had something here.” I couldn’t hide the apologetic tone to my voice. Not five minutes ago I was praying Michael wouldn’t be able to get the lock open because I didn’t want to face whatever hideousness was beneath the sheet, and now I felt a sinking disappointment so great it was like a lead weight dragging me beneath the surface of the sea.

Still laughing, Michael staggered backward and mopped tears from his eyes. “Holy shit, that was fun. You guys really had me going, you know that?”

“We weren’t trying to trick you, idiot,” Peter said.

“Well,” Scott said, looking up and playing the beam of his flashlight across the rafters in the exposed ceiling, “we’re in here now. We should look around.”

There were two more flashlights in Adrian’s backpack. Peter and I grabbed one each and joined in the search, overturning items and peeking beneath benches shrouded in cobwebs. There were many loose boards propped up against the walls, covering a vast assortment of random junk—dented metal trash cans, a basketball backboard without the hoop, dust-covered whiskey bottles that looked like they had rolled off a pirate ship, and moldering cardboard hamburger containers.

“Those don’t look so old,” I commented, resting my light on one of the cardboard food containers. The Quickman’s faded logo—a Greek god with feathers on his shoes—stood out on the top of the container.

“Probably left here by some homeless guy,” Peter said.

“Yeah, but how would he have gotten in?”

Peter shrugged.

Something creaked and both Peter and I froze, our flashlight beams crisscrossing each other like searchlights.

“Did you—?” I began as the floor underneath one of Peter’s feet gave way.

He cried out and dropped his flashlight, and I instinctively snatched his arm. He sank into the floor. Letting go of my flashlight, I dropped to both knees and grabbed him around the shoulder, though he had already ceased falling. The rent in the floorboards was only big enough to accommodate one of Peter’s legs; though he sank down to his thigh, he was in no danger of plummeting any farther. Unless, of course, the rest of the floor surrendered under his weight . . .

The other guys hurried over, their footfalls like the galloping of horses on an old fishing pier. Peter gripped my arm, trying to hoist himself out of the hole. I attempted to lift him out, but he was too heavy.

“What happened?” Scott said, shining a light on both of us. “Oh, wow.” His voice was like the ringing of a tiny bell.

“I’m okay,” Peter grunted. “Just . . . stuck . . .”

“Give me a hand,” I said, beckoning to the others.

Michael and Adrian slipped their arms around Peter while Scott braced himself against me and grabbed one of Peter’s hands, which he had to pry off my shirt. We extricated him from the hole, the jagged teeth of the rotten floorboards scraping the exposed flesh of his leg. Blood streaked his calf and trickled down to his sock. None of the wounds were serious, but the blood looked a little overwhelming.

“Does it hurt bad?” I asked.

“Stings,” he said. He plucked splinters of wood from his leg.

“This place hates you,” I told him, thinking of the splinter he’d gotten on our previous visit.

I picked up my flashlight, leaned over, and shined my light down the hole. It was deep, and I was abruptly all too conscious—and distrusting—of the floorboards beneath us.

Adrian bent down and broke some loose pieces of wood away from the hole; the pieces came away as angry-looking spears.

Beside me, Scott crawled closer to the hole on his hands and knees. He looked down into it, too. “Man, that’s deep.”

I realized that we were on the farthest end of Harting Farms and that beyond Farrington Road and the surrounding woods the town ended at a cliff overlooking the Chesapeake Bay. I recalled the holes and caverns I had glimpsed from the water when I was younger. The train depot had apparently been built over one of them. All of a sudden, it was as though my hearing intensified, and I was able to discern every creak and groan and tilt of not only the floorboards but the entire framework of the building.

“We should probably get out of here before this whole place comes tumbling down around us,” I suggested.

“Don’t be such a chickenshit,” Michael commented. “If we’re careful and watch where we’re—”

His words were cut off as he backed into a stack of boards leaning against the wall. He lost his balance and toppled backward, splintering some of the boards through the middle and sending the rest down in a cascade on top of him where he lay slumped on the filthy floor.

Now Peter laughed. “What were you saying about being more careful?”