Storming the Kingdom (20 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY - TWO

Three Days Ago
Late Afternoon

T
he Grand Ballroom scene in the Walt Disney World Haunted Mansion is one of the most popular and memorable scenes for many of the guests who visit. There is so much to see as a rider travels in a Doom Buggy along a ninety-foot track that overlooks the scene. On one end of the Great Hall, there is a massive pipe organ being played by a ghost; there are portraits that come to life in a duel and fire shots at one another, while ghosts swing on a huge chandelier above the room. Pairs of ghosts appear, locked with one another in a whirling dance, and glide across the dance floor. A banquet table is decorated for an abandoned party that suddenly comes to life as ghost guests appear, including one who blows out the candles on a ghoulish cake that unexpectedly lights. The far right-hand side of the ghastly hall features a set of doors through which ghosts stream into the party from the blackness of night outside.

As ghosts appeared and disappeared entering the room, Grayson Hawkes leaned into the doorway, giving the ghosts room to pass, and waited. Looking up at the Doom Buggies above him, he could see that his quickly typed text to Shep had been received. The ride cars were now moving. He had instructed Shep to contact Operations and get the ride going. So not only was the Haunted Mansion fully functioning as an attraction, with the cars in motion, the only things missing were guests. But Hawk was throwing a different party, and the guests he was waiting for were Al Gann and the unknown assailant.

Hawk leaned in farther so he was standing completely visible in the doorway. Ghosts were streaking past him to enter the party. He glanced up toward where the Doom Buggies were passing by, blackened rolling tombstones that normally would be full of amazed guests. This time, he was waiting for someone who would be lurking behind them. Above him, he heard what he had been waiting for. The man who had already attempted to take his life could now see him. Standing behind the passing Doom Buggies, as each one rolled by him, he had a clear view of Hawk, waiting for him in the doorway in the ballroom. One level above, Hawk knew the assassin would be stunned to see him standing in the open, making himself an easy target, with no place to hide. Above the noise of the soundtrack, Hawk heard the muffled reaction as he surprised his attacker by daring him to take a shot at him, and then the confident statement the assassin hurled toward him.

“Grayson Hawkes, you are a fool.”

Hawk saw the muzzle flash as the bullet silently cleared the barrel of the handgun. The noise that followed was startling. Shattered glass pelted the ballroom floor in front of him as Hawk ducked back out of sight behind the door. He heard the sound of movement above him, he heard footsteps running, and he heard the command from the darkness to stop.

Hawk stood in the dark below the Doom Buggy track. His heart hammered in his chest, and he exhaled, trying to calm himself. His plan had fooled the attacker.

He had never actually been standing in the open, in the doorway. Instead, he had been part of the illusion of the Haunted Mansion. By using one of the oldest magician’s tricks in the book, a technique called Pepper’s Ghost, the Disney Imagi-neers had been entertaining and fooling guests for years. This time, Hawk had hoped his stalker would be a bit more anxious. He was stalking him through the haunted attraction. Surrounded by sound, effects, and eerie atmosphere, he had hoped he could force the shooter to think less clearly. Apparently he had been correct. The shooter did not notice, had forgotten, or never understood that there is a large pane of glass between the ride cars and the ballroom below. The floating and dancing ghosts that guests see are actually located above and below the track the Doom Buggy rides on. The audio-animatronics are lit up with light bulbs that fade on and off above them; it is their reflections that are seen in the glass. They are lined up to project onto the glass in such a way to appear on tables, in portraits, in chairs, and—most importantly to Hawk—in doorways.

As he dropped to the floor of the ballroom, he slid into the space beneath the ride track and redirected a light directly on him. He stood next to an electric carousel mechanism on which the half bodies of ghosts were mounted, and as the lights came on, it appeared they floated into the ballroom to the party. Hawk stood next to them as they rotated past, but his light remained on. Since he was dressed in jeans and a dark shirt, he didn’t appear to glow in the reflection; instead, he just appeared darker than he might normally look. In the dimly lit mansion, this created the illusion that he was standing in the doorway of the actual scene. The gunman had fired directly at his reflection. A silencer had prevented the shot from making a sound, but the glass partitions between the view of the guests and the real ballroom had shattered. Though pieces of the glass had fallen in front of Hawk, he was actually standing ten feet below the attacker the entire time. He had been safe from the line of fire and had effectively become part of the illusion.

This first part of his plan had worked exactly as he expected. He hoped the second part was unfolding above him. He had heard someone yell “Stop.” Hopefully, his friend and sheriff, Al, had made it into the attraction, had responded to the noise, and had caught the dark-haired menace. Hawk slowly began to make his way through the moving ghost props toward a door he trusted would carry him upstairs to the show level of the attraction. The stairway he found behind the door was dark and smelled of custodial supplies, but it deposited him back on the ride level. Stepping through the doorway, he saw the moving Doom Buggies gliding past, and he hesitated. The sounds filling the air around him were the sounds of the mansion itself. The spooky music echoed off the walls, and he stood there in the dark, unsure of his next move.

Hawk’s wait was short-lived; he heard footfalls coming toward him from the attic area. He flattened himself against the wall in the door frame and waited. If it was the assassin, the only advantage he had now was that the gunman didn’t know he was there. The element of surprise might allow him the chance to knock away the gun as he had in the hospital. If he could do that, he felt confident that he could subdue the attacker. Each footstep got closer. Hawk held his breath. His adrenaline surged. The footfalls were only a few strides away.

He saw the gun and lunged out to strike the gunman’s arm just above the wrist. He slammed his fist down and then threw an elbow toward the chin of the man now in front of him. As the arm dropped under the collision, he noticed the gun did not dislodge from the shooter’s hand. He tried to grab the arm wielding the gun to keep it pointed away from him when he heard sharp voice over the noise of the attraction.

“Hawk, it’s me. Al,” Al Gann barked at him.

Hawk turned back and stopped himself just before he threw another elbow. “Sorry.” Hawk released Al’s arm. “I thought you were…”

“I know what you thought.” Al rubbed his jaw where Hawk had elbowed him. “You nearly broke my wrist.”

“But you held on to the gun,” Hawk commented, very impressed.

“That’s because I’m tougher than you,” sneered his friend.

“Did you get him?”

“No.” Al relaxed just a bit and turned to face Hawk. “You didn’t tell me what you had planned. I heard glass shatter and then someone running. I yelled, but I wasn’t close enough to see who it was or catch them. Whoever it was has to be out of the attraction by now. We have security headed this way and are closing down the entire area, but there is no way we had the perimeter set up in time.”

“So why did you have your gun out?” Hawk looked puzzled.

“In case there was more than one shooter.” Al looked toward the shattered glass on the other side of the Doom Buggy track. “It could have worked, if I had more time to get here.”

“Sorry, I was…well, making it up as I went.”

“So what else is new?” Al shook his head. “Hawk, what are you thinking? Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

“No, I am trying to solve this mystery so this entire nightmare will stop…once and for all.”

He let those words sink in. Hawk knew that Al understood the nature of these mysteries created by Walt and the Imagineers. He realized that solving them did bring some resolution and had been necessary in the past. The concern this time was that the stakes had been ramped up to an entirely different level. Al had managed to give him just enough space to do what he needed to accomplish, but the risks were becoming so great that even Al couldn’t create enough of a buffer for Hawk.

“I thought we agreed that you would only tackle this kind of stuff in the resort after hours.” Al was clearly frustrated and worried.

“I know I did. I didn’t intend to end up inside the park like this.”

“Yes, I know, you were just making it up as you went.”

“Al, I’m sorry.” Hawk shifted gears as he often did as a leader and turned toward solving the immediate problem. “You said you have shut down the area?”

“Yes.”

“Then we can turn the lights on in here and search the attraction. Let’s make sure he’s gone.” Hawk began walking toward the entrance. “I need to do one more thing before you get me out of here, OK?”

“What’s that?”

“Find the next clue.”

After a flurry of phone calls and commands, Hawk led his friend through the winding pathway back toward the beginning of the ride. As they walked through Madame Leota’s Instrument Room, the Doom Buggies again were shut down and came to a dead stop. As they continued past the turn in the ride where guests went past the ticking clock, the lights came on inside the attraction. The soundtrack was turned off, and everything fell into a sudden silence as they moved. Their path took them through the viewing room and past the casket, into the room of staircases that headed in every direction imaginable, then finally into the room where a piano sat facing a large window that revealed the frightening night outside. Hawk stopped.

“I think this is it.” Hawk repeated the clue for himself and Al. “‘I am a container that holds keys for which there exist no locks…yet these keys are trying to unlock souls but cannot. Maybe they will unlock for you how to find that which you are searching for.’”

He pointed toward the piano.

“This is the answer to what you are looking for?” Al asked.

“No, but it’s probably another clue.” Hawk moved to the piano. “The clue confused me for a while. The container with keys for which there exist no locks had me mixed up. Then it dawned on me as I was hiding below the ride vehicles, trying to get my reflection to line up in the door just right, that a piano was a container of keys. The idea came from the organ keys playing in the ballroom. The keys have no locks to open, but I couldn’t figure out a connection between souls and the organ. And then I remembered the piano. The unlocking souls part is a Haunted Mansion story line reference. The organ is being played, but the ghosts are already loose in the attraction. The piano is being played
before
the ghosts and ghouls get unlocked…so to speak.”

Hawk moved to the back of the piano set piece. Opening the top, he peered down inside. A slight smile crossed his face. He had been right. There was another clue hidden here. A small wooden box, the top decorated with an image of the Walt Disney World Haunted Mansion on a stormy night. The box had no discernible lid, no drawers, no latches or openings. Hawk turned the highly collectible piece over in his hand and held it up for Al to see.

“Is that the clue?” Al wanted to make sure they had found it.

“I think so.” Hawk nodded and again looked at the box. “It’s a puzzle box. They used to sell them in Disneyland and Walt Disney world years ago. The clue must be inside, I just have to figure out how to open it.”

“Don’t do it now.” Al tilted his head toward the entrance of the ride. “We won’t be alone much longer.”

A Disney security team rounded the corner at that moment. They were searching the attraction for anything and anyone out of the ordinary. Hawk waved them on, and right behind them came another group of law enforcement officers. The mansion had gotten very crowded, and Hawk would need to open the puzzle box in private. Al moved over to him, placed a hand on his shoulder, and guided Hawk toward the entrance. As they opened the front doors of the mansion, they were greeted by another group of security cast members and police officers. They quickly assembled and formed a human perimeter around Hawk and Al as they slowly made their way through the empty waiting area back into the theme park. Hawk took inventory of the mess he had helped to create. The entire area was now blocked off with temporary barricades lined with cast members waving people along to bypass the area. He moved past them, and they reacted with a mixture of surprise, concern, and confusion at seeing the head of the company being protected by such a strong and obvious show of force. It was a sight that was never seen inside the Magic Kingdom. It broke the illusion of being in a magical place, safe from the reality of the world outside of the kingdom. Guests slowed and allowed this spectacle to pass. Hawk was very much aware of the unwanted attention they were drawing, but at the same time, he was responsible for creating this mess by not disappearing into the Utilidor earlier, when he knew it was the best thing to do.