by Stephen Pope
I’ve always kept the number for my cell phone listed. It makes me a target for a lot of cold calls and telemarketers, but it also makes me the man to call when there’s a problem at work and there aren’t any other senior level engineers around. I’ve gotten my name listed as a secondary on more projects than most of the department heads, simply by letting everyone know that I’m available. There’s more to the job than just knowing how to build things, and I put my job first.
Or I used to. I threw my cell phone away weeks ago, and I’ve thrown out other things since then, too. I don’t know if I’m getting better or worse.
I was working late, again, and it rang. Before I answered it I tried to remember if I was supposed to be having dinner with Kelly. The last time I stood her up, she ordered half the stuff on the menu and left the waiter a hundred-dollar-tip, all of it going on the card that I’d used to make the reservation.
But it was Monday, and I know better than to schedule a date on Monday. I haven’t gotten out of the office before eleven o’clock on a Monday night since I started working for the Steen Brothers.
“Hello?”
“Craig?”
“This is Craig. Who am I speaking with?
“It’s Tony Lane! How the heck have you been?”
I almost said, ‘Who?’ Then, when it hit me who I was talking to, my whole train of thought went right out the window, and I knew that every bit of work that I’d done for the last hour was wasted. I really thought about saying, ‘Sorry, wrong number,’ and hanging up. I didn’t have time for this.
“Wow, Tony. How long has it been?”
“A couple of years, I think. What are you working on these days?”
It had actually been over three years since I’d seen Tony, but it didn’t surprise me that he couldn’t remember. I had once watched him spend an hour looking for his car in an open parking lot.
We passed a few minutes exchanging the sort of meaningless crap that people do when they only barely know each other, and I dropped four subtle hints to try to find out the point of his call. If I had wanted to keep in touch with him, I would have.
“Say Tony, it’s great to hear from you, but I’m here at the office, and I get paid to finish the work that they give me here. Can we make date to get together sometime?”
“Yeah! Sure! I’d love to do that. Umm, there was one thing, though. I was hoping you could help me out with something.”
It actually relieved me to hear that. I figured that, depending on what kind of answer that he got, he might decide to call someone else next time.
“What do you need?”
“Well, do you remember Wonderland?”
I did, and not fondly. There’s more to the job than just knowing how to build things, and back then I hadn’t learned enough to know that some people conceive ‘projects’ without having any intention of finishing them. The person, who I believed was currently appealing his sentence for a fraud conviction, had somehow gotten backing to build a huge amusement park outside a little town somewhere in the Texas boonies. He had been very good at painting a glamourous image to cover up the demographics of a place that less than a hundred non-residents drove past in a year. He’d gotten tax breaks, special water and power rates, and some very lenient zoning concessions from the local county government, and everyone started losing money the minute that construction began. Three times the damned thing had changed hands in the year that I’d worked there, and every new owner had a different vision. When they told us that the project was being suspended indefinitely, we couldn’t even throw a party. Most of our paychecks had bounced.
“Don’t tell me you’re trying to get that thing put together again.”
“Actually, it’s done. The rides have all been certified, and they’re already bringing in small groups to screen the attractions. You wouldn’t believe what they’ve done to this place. They called me back a couple of days ago to design some new features.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“Well, it’s almost midnight out here, and the place has closed down. I thought there would still be a clean up crew or somebody hanging around, but it looks like I was wrong.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Well, the truth is, I’m lost.”
I tried not to laugh. I really, really tried, and finally I cracked up and laughed until I had to wipe the tears out of my eyes. That was Tony Lane. He was a freelance mechanical engineer who survived by working on projects like Wonderland. If he had an ounce of dedication, or even drive, he’d own his own firm, but he was the sort of person who would show up for a meeting in shorts and a tee-shirt and not even notice that the rest of us were wearing suits. There had been a planning session where he’d shown up with the wrong designs, then simply flipped them over and sketched out the right ones from scratch. It took him a little over three minutes to reproduce a set of computer generated orthographic designs, and he explained every detail as he drew it. After the meeting, I‘d gone back to the drafting room and reprinted a new set from the files that we’d saved, then laid Tony’s drawings over mine and held them up to the light. They had matched, down to the printed text on the dimension lines. It had scared the shit out of me to realize there was someone alive who could do that. I’d tried to hate him, knowing that he could very easily take my job without even breaking a sweat. But he wasn’t like that. He’d rather corner you and ask you how feasible it would be to build an underwater roller coaster. That’s what he was like.
“God, I’m sorry, Tony. I really don’t mean to laugh.”
“Come on, Craig. I’d be laughing myself if it wasn’t so dark. This place is damned creepy.”
I hadn’t realized until then that his voice had that far-away sound to it that you get from an outdoor call, and I began to get an idea of the spot he was in. It’s never been a coincidence that amusement parks are hard to find your way around in. It makes them more fun to explore, and once you decide to leave, it takes you longer to get to the exit, and you have to pass by more attractions that are designed to separate you from your money. That’s the bottom line.
“Where are you?”
“Right outside the manager’s office. I was working on a new house for Escherville when I looked up and noticed the time.”
“Don’t they have some security personnel somewhere?”
“I really don’t know. I thought I remembered the way out, but I’ve been going in circles for a half-hour. They might have a phone list, but I can’t get back in the office. I guess they set the door to lock behind me.”
I smiled since he couldn’t see me. He hadn’t changed.
“Ok. To get to the main gate you’re going to have to get out of the administration section first. Start walking east.”
“East.” Off he went.
“By the way, how the hell did you track me down?”
“Sheer luck. I remembered that you were from New York, and the operator was really helpful. You weren’t the first person that I tried to call, but McPhearson’s number isn’t listed. I’m lucky you were home.”
“I’m at the office.”
McPhearson?
Grant Mcphearson. Gray eyes. White hair. The last one to buy the park, and apparently, the one who had kept it. He’d had his own vision for Wonderland, all right.
“It needs to be real,” he’d said the first time I’d ever laid eyes on him. “There have to be bones holding up the monsters and blood on the knives of the men who guard the dungeons. When they walk in I want them to feel stone under their feet and know that there are secrets buried beneath it. When they fly, make them think they will never fall, and when they fall, make them realize that they are going to be killed when they hit the ground. Make them believe it. Make it real, mister Wilshire.” That was what he’d said when I’d shown him some of my team’s preliminary designs, and that had been all that he’d said.
Jesus, how had I ever forgotten about that lunatic?
“Ok. I’m coming to the big fountain now.”
“Right. The big fountain. There should be three other walkways leading away from it. Take the one on the opposite side.”
“Hang on. I’m having to grope around here.”
“Why?”
“I told you. It’s pitch black out here.”
“The lights aren’t on?”
“Hell no. I can’t see ten feet in front of me.”
“Can you find the walkway?”
“Now I can. It’s got bushes on either side?”
“That’s it. It should take you past a couple of exhibits, then to the midway.”
“I’ve got to go slow. I can’t see shit here.”
He was starting to breathe a little fast, and I could sympathize. I got stuck in an elevator once during a brownout, and I don’t care how big your prick is. When you’re blind, it’s different.
“Did you ever get Torrington to submit the plans for your ride? The Inverter?”
“Sort of. He took a set and promised to pass them around.”
“If they don’t buy it, show it to someone else. That was a damned good concept.”
“Thanks. Is it far to the midway? This path curves, and I can’t see too far ahead.”
“Not that far.” I was trying to remember all of the details. If they hadn’t made any major revisions, the administration buildings would be at the center of the park. If I got him to the midway he could go south through the rides until he reached the fence, which he could follow to the main gate.
Then what?
“Tony, if I get you to the gate, are you going to be able to get out?”
“Fuck. I hadn’t thought of that. But I suppose if I can’t find an exit, I can always hop the fence.”
“Maybe.” Unless the fence had spikes, which I believed it did. “We’ll find some way to get you out.”
“Thanks Craig. I owe you one. You and the girl at the mall who talked me into buying this phone.”
I laughed, and got up to stretch my legs. My shoes were off, and I could feel the warm, expensive carpet under my feet. Every light in the office was on. Talking to Tony was like watching something on TV.
“Now I’m coming to a clearing. It looks like a big park or something.”
“What? Describe it.”
“Well, I can’t see a lot, but there are some trees, two benches right by me, and a couple of footpaths that lead into what looks like a garden.”
“Hang on a second.”
I walked over to the printer and pulled out a sheet of paper. At my desk, I began to sketch a quick map of Wonderland from what I could remember.
I recognized the place he was describing. The idea had been to give Mom and Dad a quiet place to sit down where the kids could play and not be able to wander out of sight. But it should have been north of the shops, not east.
“Hold up. Can you see Grimm’s Tower? Those red warning lights are supposed to come on automatically.”
“Ummm, yeah! I can see them.”
“As you’re facing the park, is the tower in front of or behind you?”
“In front, off to my left.”
Damn. He’d gone in the wrong direction. No way they had moved the tower.
“Ok, you screwed up. You need to go back the way you came.”
“Hey!”
Technology is a wonderful thing. It can give guys like me the means to a pretty nice life. It can also let some idiot blow your eardrum out from several states away. Tony had just yelled into his phone.
“Hey! Wait!”
I could still hear him over the ringing in my ear, so I waited until he stopped yelling.
“Tony?”
“Craig!”
“Do you know what the fuck you just did?”
“There’s someone else here. He ran off!”
“What?”
“I saw someone in the garden. At first I thought it was a tall bush, but he was wearing an overcoat or something.”
“Where’d he go?”
I don’t know. I – Wait.”
Patience is a character flaw as far as I am concerned. I gave him fifteen seconds that I timed on my watch.
“Tony, tell me what’s going on!”
“I can’t find my damn briefcase!”
“I don’t understand.”
“I was carrying my briefcase. When I took off after that guy I set it down. Now I think it’s gone.”
“Well find it and let’s get going. If you can’t find it just let me get you to the gate and you can come back tomorrow.”
“I’m telling you it’s gone! I dropped it by this bench and now I can’t find it anywhere! I think that asshole took it!”
I had my eyes closed and I was rubbing my temples. There was a stress/strain calculation on my desk that was not solving itself. It wouldn’t do any good to explain to Tony that a person sneaking around a closed amusement park at night was probably not the kind of person that he should be chasing. It also wouldn’t do any good to promise to buy him a dozen new deluxe leather briefcases with an inflatable rubber fuck-doll in each one. If I wanted to get rid of Tony, I had to appeal to his kind of logic.
“Tony, do you want to try to catch him?”
“Hell yes! I had a book I was reading in there!”
“Then listen. I’ll take you on a short cut to the main gate. You can dial nine-one-one from a pay phone there.”
“Cool. Which way do I go?”
At last. “Go back along that trail, toward the shops. Once you come out there, walk away from Grimm’s Tower.”
“All right. I’m going.”
While he walked, I kept sketching. If he’d gone north instead of east, and ended up at the park, then he needed to head toward Pirate River. He could follow it to the rest of the rides. From there I could get him to the fence.
“Where are you now?”
“Still on the trail. It’s starting to mist a little.”
“Does it look like it might rain?”
“It looks like dark. God, I can barely see the bushes now.”
I was getting tired of holding his hand and wasting my time. Just find the gate, Tony.
There was an odd hum, and some kind of crackling on the line. Someone yelled and I jumped like I’d been shot.
“Tony?”
“I can’t fucking see!”
I’d never heard him get angry before, not like that.
“Tony, what’s wrong?”
“They flicked the lights on and off! They turned every damn light in the place on and then shut them right off again!”
“Tony, get the hell out of there. Something weird is going on.”
Click. White noise. The connection had been broken.
After a few seconds, I hung my cell phone up and stared at it. Of course I should call the police, and tell them what? There’s a scatterbrained genius running around your amusement park, and there’s also someone on the premises who likes to steal briefcases and turn on the lights?
I put my cell phone down and used the phone on my desk. When the operator finally answered, all I heard were old women laughing in the background. One of them was mine.
“Information. For what area code?” She was still laughing.
“I don’t know. I need the number for the police department in Lanett, Texas. It’s up in the panhandle.”
“Ok. Do you know what area code that’s in?”
I am not an asshole. I am precise.
“The first three words out of my mouth were, ‘I don’t know.’ That means that I do not know the area code. I’m trying to call the police because I was on the phone with a friend in Lanett, and he thought he heard someone else in the house. I can not fucking remember the number or the area code!”
“Sir, don’t use that language with me!”
My cell rang.
“Fuck you.”
I don’t know if she heard me or not, because I was already picking my cell phone up.
“Tony!”
Something hissed, then crackled. That hum was back, and this time I could tell that it was really something else, some kind of music or distorted singing. The rhythm irritated me, like looking at someone with a nervous tic in their eye, or feeling your pulse in a decaying tooth.
“Tony?”
“Craig!”
He was yelling again, but it didn’t hurt this time. The signal seemed fainter.
“Tony, get the fuck out of that park!”
“No problem. Some of the lights are on. Point me in the right direction and I’m out of here.”
“Get back to the shops!”
I wondered why Tony had called me instead of Williams, or Porterfield. Porterfield would have had an easier time dealing with all of it. That throb or pulse was coming in clearer than anything else, and I had to force myself to not bob my head in time with it.
Crackle. “- here.”
“What?”
“I’m at the shops!”
“Head east, away from the tower!”
Throb. Throb-throb. Hunger.
“What?” I thought about telling him I needed to hang up so I could send the police to him. He probably wouldn’t remember I was on my cell.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Tony, give me your number. This static is getting bad.”
I wrote it on my map. I was getting a headache and my stomach was queasy.
“Where are you now?”
“In Escherville, in front of the House of Stairs.”
He’d wandered a bit to the north, but that was fine. He was still headed in the right direction.
“Can you see?”
“Yeah. The street lights are on.”
The music dipped, then rose. My pulse followed it.
“What the hell is playing in the background? Have they got the PA system running?”
“No. It’s live music. I think there’s some kind of private costume party going on. Some of the buildings are lit inside.”
“Then you can get out!”
“No. I can hear some of what they’re saying, or singing, and it’s not in English. They’ve redecorated some of the buildings for this, too. I don’t recognize half of what I’m seeing.”
“Talk to somebody. They’ve got to have -“
”No! Just get me out!”
Was there something he wasn’t telling me? His voice sounded funny, like he was jumping up and down.
Or running.
“Keep going east. When you hit the river, turn right, to the south.”
“Do you remember that weekend we all had to work late? When Porterfield ordered three different orders of pizza?”
“And he only paid for the first one to show up?”
“Yeah. I still can’t believe he did that.”
Tony was rambling, pushing the silence away. He was definitely running.
“Was it your idea to not put any street signs in this damn thing?”
“You don’t need street signs, just get to the river.”
“This damn street is curving! I can’t see the tower anymore! Shit!”
Enough. I hung up. With the music gone, my head stopped aching almost completely.
I didn’t call him back right away. He needed my help, and he could damn well be a bit more appreciative. I had my own life.
After I swallowed two aspirin, I punched in his number. I was sitting at my desk with my map in front of me. All I had to do was get him to the gate. Then my hands would quit shaking.
“Craig!”
“Yeah. Connection got broken again.”
“I’m right back where I started! I never turned off the main street, and I’m right back at the House of Stairs!”
That was impossible. The streets in Escherville all ran in straight lines, north to south or east to west. Maybe one of the taller buildings was blocking his view of Grimm’s Tower, but unless he turned around he could not have ended up back at the entrance.
“Tony, be straight with me. Are you drunk?”
“You son of a bitch! You and your bunch of stuck up assholes designed this place! You can’t even get me to the fucking gate!”
“You really are a loser, Tony. Do you realize that every minute I spend trying to help you is costing me money? Unlike you, I have an actual job!”
The sound came out of the speaker of my phone so hard that it shook it my hand, and I swear that the windows in the office vibrated. It was – a sound, like a thick slurping, or the lowing of a cow, but what it felt like inside was the hungry crying of a baby. There was there desperate sense of need. My ear was ringing, and for a second I couldn’t hear anything else. When everything became quiet I could hear Tony as clear as day.
“God.”
He said it like a prayer. There was the sound of rushing wind, then the phone went dead again.
I sat there for a minute, then got up to look outside. The walls were all window at this level, and it seemed I could see the entire city. I even thought I could pick out Kelly’s apartment building. Everything was miles upon miles of straight lines and sharp angles, every inch cut and shaped with tools and reason. It was Man working his will on the earth. It was Civilization.
That sound was Madness.
I did call back. My fingers were sweaty and shaking as I pushed the buttons, and I was afraid to put the phone to my ear. I wondered if everything wouldn’t be better if I just turned it off.
It rang a couple of times, and when it picked up there was a moment where I could hear some kind of excited babbling. Dozens, maybe hundreds of different voices were all talking at once. But it wasn’t just talking, it was frenzied, incoherent. Then the phone hung up.
I dialed again. This time I heard the voices almost immediately, and then it was dead quiet. Again the connection was broken.
I hit redial. The phone picked up.
“For God’s sake, stop it! They can hear you!”
He hung up.
I called the operator again, and told the same lie to a different lady. She was helpful enough to transfer me right to the police in Lanett. I guess I sounded scared enough.
While I was on the line with the police, I kept looking at my cell phone. On the little screen there were three black bars above the battery icon. Six bars meant that the phone was fully charged. The manual recommended charging it at two bars.
The cops agreed to go to the park. All I told them was that Tony was lost. I didn’t like using that word.
I waited for them to call back. I wondered when Tony had last charged his battery. He’d brought the wrong plans to that meeting. I couldn’t remember how many times he’d forgotten his pen and had borrowed mine, then never returned it.
I don’t know how long I waited. I surfed around on the web, hoping to find an updated map of the park. When I had to use the bathroom I went in the tiny trashcan under my desk.
When I heard the ring I picked up my desk phone before I realized it was my cell. It was going to be Kelly, or my mother.
“Tony!”
At first he didn’t answer, and when he did, I nearly didn’t recognize his voice. It was different somehow.
“Craig. Craig. Get out here. Tell them to, to go counter-clockwise. Counter-clockwise. I think that’s how I got lost. They need to use something. String, breadcrumbs.”
His voice wasn’t getting fainter, it was the signal. How many of those bars did his phone have left?
“Tony, find the fence. Climb it. It may cut you, but you can get out!”
He laughed. I think he was laughing at himself.
“No fence. No out. They wanted to feed me to it. I don’t see how. Too big.”
He laughed again.
“Help me.”
Then he was gone.
I got the story in pieces, in random order. It wasn’t too hard. The cops called me back and told me what they could. I had a local newspaper mail me every edition that had anything to do with the story. I also found a service that can send taped copies of almost any news broadcast in the U.S.
It all made perfect sense. Tony was working late. He got locked in. He wandered around by Pirate River, where there weren’t many lights, his attention on talking to me. He fell into the waterway. He drowned.
They never found his briefcase, or his cell phone. Since that night I’ve thrown mine away.
I didn’t go home that night, or any of the other nights. I stayed at Kelly’s place, not telling her anything. A week later, Tommy Steen called me into his office and we came to an agreement. I would get two weeks of sick leave, and then I could turn in my resignation. His generosity surprised me.
I nearly didn’t make it. On my first day off I moped around drinking beer and watching Kelly’s collection of movies, feeling sorry for myself. When Kelly got back that evening I started a fight. On the second day I got out and drove a few miles and then walked around a few more. I found a park and fed some ducks. I filled up my car with gas and used a pay phone to call my mother, asking her if the key to the cabin upstate was still tucked under that loose shingle. On my way out of town I stopped at the law firm where Kelly worked. First I told her I was quitting my job, then I invited her to spend a few days with me at the cabin. She declined.
Those days alone let me think about it, and eventually I was able to sleep. I couldn’t make sense of any of it, so I didn’t try. Whatever had happened, I couldn’t change it. Tony was dead, but I was alive.
The drive back was easier than it could have been, even when I stopped off at Kelly’s and she slammed the door in my face.
Walking in, I realized that I still liked my apartment. All of the walls and floors were strong and solid, and there were places like the flannel couch and the heated waterbed where you could wrap yourself up and forget the rest of the world. I remembered that I could see the sunrise from my kitchen window and the sunset from my bedroom. I wanted to figure out a way to keep it, even after I opened the manila envelope that Kelly had left on the counter and found the shredded remains of all the pictures she’d ever taken of me.
I was alive, so I started to get on with living. I threw the envelope in the trash, got myself a drink, and checked for messages on my answering machine.
The background noise was that same faraway echo, with a thousand lunatics cackling somewhere nearby. I could hear the wind, and Tony. My cellular carrier had automatically transferred the call to my home when I hadn’t answered my cell phone.
His voice had that same difference in it, like when someone programs a computer to synthesize a human voice. But the fear came through crystal clear, just like the despair.
He said the same phrase three times before the connection was broken.
I can’t get out.
I unplugged the machine and threw it in the trash. I did the same thing with both of the telephones in the apartment.
I tried to take a shower, but in the middle of it I got out and went to the kitchen. I got my answering machine out of the trash can and took it to the balcony. My hands were shaking so badly that I didn’t even try to use the charcoal, I just poured on the lighter fluid and lit a match. I kept adding more fluid until there was nothing put a charred mass at the bottom of my grill.
I couldn’t take the chance. Even if I’d smashed it before tossing it out, I don’t know enough about electronic components to be able to recognize the memory chip, the one that records the call, and the time and the date.
I’d always gone in for all the bells and whistles. The machine gave the time automatically.
I’d missed Tony’s call by less than fifteen minutes.
About the Author
Stephen Pope has been writing off and on for a while, mostly for his own enjoyment. This story was previously reviewed by Mike Resnick at a workshop.
©2009 Stephen Pope
