Nightfall (Devil's Night #4) - Penelope Douglas Page 0,207

trying to get my attention from the window of his Jag.

I cut him off. “Just follow me!” I told him.

Not giving him a chance to argue, I sped off in his G-Class with the supplies, and with Alex and Damon, while Michael and Rika followed in his other car.

It didn’t take us long to reach the warehouse, which was usually dormant the rest of the year, but now alive with activity as the famed Coldfield.

As it was otherwise known in October when it was transformed into a haunted theme park.

This was where we partied in high school, the abandoned factory a playground for kids who wanted some shelter from the weather for them and three hundred of their closest friends and a few kegs of beer.

This was where Misha came to write his songs and lose himself when the pain of Annie’s death was too much to bear.

This was where Damon, Kai, and I beat up Emmy’s brother, getting drunk and making my knuckles bleed until I couldn’t feel anything else that night.

This was where I found out I had something to bring to the table. Something worth a damn to our future.

“What are we doing here?” Michael asked as we walked past the lines of patrons waiting to get inside.

Howls and creaky sound effects filled the air as fog hovered above the ground and “Pumped Up Kicks” by 3TEETH blasted over the speakers. The smell of hot dogs and popcorn drifted up my nostrils, and squeals went off behind me as the actors jumped up on a group of girls. Men and women in masks stood around, all creepy and frozen and shit, staring at people in the distance and trying to scare the crap out of them.

Kai and Banks jogged to catch up to us, and I looked past the gate, seeing Rory and Micah standing near the beverage cart.

I didn’t stop. Heading into the warehouse, tarp and walls constructed to create various chambers hung around, creating a tunnel, and Micah and Rory fell in line, following.

The cold, wet dark hung everywhere, and we jetted past patrons laughing and screaming at the actors hanging in the rafters above and trying to grab for them.

I stepped into a room and dug a ring of fifteen-thousand keys out of my bag, finding the one that accessed the doors in the Mad Scientist section of the park. Passing the boiling vats of body parts and lava lamps of eyeballs, I fit the key into the door, opened it, and ushered everyone inside.

Michael stood back, his eyes narrowed on me. “You own Coldfield? You?”

I gave him a tight smile.

I paid for it. I helped design it. But I hired managers to handle everything else. I took part in it when I wanted to, but I knew I wasn’t fit to deal with the business side there for a while, so I installed a seasonal team that would.

And good thing too, since I was gone for a long time.

We entered the hallway, and I locked the door behind us, opening up another one and turning on the light inside.

Rock walls and steps, like the catacombs, burrowed into the ground, darkness consuming what lay beneath.

“What is this?” Rika asked me.

I half-smiled. “This is Coldfield.”

The real one.

Leading the way, I momentarily regretted not calling Misha for this, as I knew he’d love it, but I didn’t want him involved. Not for this.

I descended the stairs, winding through the tunnels as electric-powered lanterns lit our way, and the rush of the river and the sea hit the walls all around us.

A track laid ahead, and I threw my bag into one of the cars with the containers of gasoline I’d had put here yesterday in one of the many calls I’d made.

Kai looked around at the rooms and tunnels forking off in different directions. “I can’t believe we didn’t know this was real.”

“You knew about this?” Banks asked him.

But it was Damon who replied as he looked around, “A few whispers from the old timers here and there, but I didn’t know anyone who’d actually been here.”

“What is this place?” Rika asked me.

I checked the supplies on the rail riders, making sure we had everything I’d instructed. “Remember how we learned the town was settled in the thirties?”

“Not true?” Rika teased.

I shook my head. “No.”

That was either a lie or misinformation.

“Two-hundred years ago, the river forked off into three streams instead of just one, and the settlers built bridges to cross them.” I gestured to them