The Keep of Ages (The Vault of Dreamers #3)

She taps her keyboard so the upper layer settles back down on top of the lower one, and her glasses flicker again with colored reflections.

“The park is supposed to be shut down like all the rest of the OEZ,” she says. “Technically, nobody’s allowed in, but people are curious. They sneak in sometimes. I know because I used to see them. I left a few cameras behind, off the grid. Simple, solar-powered cameras to satisfy my curiosity. I used to see kids trespassing now and then. A few old hippies, too. Harmless picnickers, really. Then, one day, maybe seven or eight years ago, I noticed a truck pull in.”

She taps her keyboard again. The 3-D map recedes, and the projection of a flat screen comes forward into the same space. It shows a grainy, black-and-white film of a truck driving slowly around the potholes of an old road. It passes near the camera and Lavinia freezes the frame. “Forge Ice Cream” it says on the side of the truck in clear letters.

But that’s not possible, I think, dumbstruck.

“Seems a little odd that someone at an abandoned theme park is ordering ice cream, don’t you think?” she says.

My mind’s racing. “Linus and I had a theory,” I say. “We never knew for sure. But we thought human bodies were being delivered to Forge in the freezer compartments of those ice cream trucks.”

She doesn’t bat an eye. “Shortly after I saw that, all of my cameras went dead except for one,” she says. “This one here, out by the road. It’s practically useless.”

She shows me a view of a deserted, overgrown road. It could be anywhere.

“Did you tell anybody about the ice cream truck?” I ask.

“What would I say? That I kept illegal surveillance cameras going on Grisly Valley? That I was concerned about unorthodox deliveries?” She straightens back and folds her arms across her chest. “Since then, there’ve been rumors the park is haunted. People say the lights and the rides go on sometimes when nobody’s there.”

“Do you believe them?”

She shrugs. “I’d like to get some new cameras back on the property. That’s what you can do for me.” She runs her fingers over her computer, and some grainy footage of the road starts playing.

“If the vault of dreamers is at the park, down in one of those big rooms, someone has to be living there, taking care of them,” I say.

“That’s possible, as long as they’re doing it in secret,” she says. “It’s the perfect place, really. It’s officially off-limits, so anything could happen there.”

As it starts to sinks in, I get a prickle of anxious foreboding. This could be it. The vault of dreamers could be right there, a few miles away, at Grisly.

“You never went to look and be sure?” I ask.

“No. I didn’t want to,” she says. She pauses her footage on the view of the lonely road, then backs it up and starts it forward again, slow motion. “But now look at this. This was from this morning, just before dawn.”

A pair of headlights comes slowly into view. Details are hard to make out, but the vehicle has the shape of a delivery truck. Lavinia freezes on it.

A sick feeling turns in my gut. “My family could be in there,” I say.

Without replying, she fast-forwards through the footage, and half an hour later, the truck comes back out again and passes under the camera.

“That’s all I’ve got,” she says, her expression solemn.

The timing would work. It’s all adding up. If the vault of dreamers truly exists at Grisly Valley, my family could be hostage there. In fact, a huge number of dreamers could be waiting there, like in the picture I saw. It’s starting to feel real. Dangerous.

Lavinia opens the door of the closet so that air and light from outside can shift in. I blink as my eyes adjust. I expect her to lead me out of the closet, but she stays seated beside me, rubbing her thumb into her palm, as if her hand aches. A faint trace of lemon dust clings to her sleeve.

“I wish I knew why you were here,” Lavinia says quietly.

“What do you mean? Dubbs sent me.”

She shakes her head deliberately. “No. It feels like a giant hand has reached down to shuffle up the tidy furniture of my dollhouse life.” She turns the wedding band on her finger. “My daughter and my granddaughter both died of radiation poisoning after the incident at Olbaid.”

“I’m so sorry.”

Lavinia goes on as if she’s barely heard me. “The cemetery wouldn’t take them. They had a new policy based on ignorance. In any case, I should have buried them myself, back at our old place, but my son-in-law wouldn’t agree, so we sent their bodies to Grisly.” Her smile is both bitter and sad. “Ironic, isn’t it? The horror theme park became a burial ground.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I don’t care to go into the logistics with you,” she says. “I’ll just ask you, once you’re there, to please have respect for the dead.”





9



THE DRAGON OF GRISLY VALLEY

OVER THE NIGHT, I study the 3-D map of Grisly Valley until I can see every turn and angle in my mind’s eye. According to Lavinia, cell phone coverage in the OEZ is spotty at best, so using a GPS map is out. It’s best to have my directions memorized, with the understanding that it may look different in person, aside from major landmarks. Once I think I know the map, Lavinia gives me a set of fancy goggles, tabs me up with a few sensors, and drops me into an expanded version of the map so I can practice exploring it in full-scale virtual reality. This involves bumping into the walls of the closet until I get the knack of stroking my steps along the floor to propel myself through the virtual set. The virtual streets and buildings, the concession stands and rides, even the garbage cans and streetlamps all shimmer with articulated, artificial brightness. It’s pretty cool, actually.

After I learn my way around the street level of Grisly Valley, Lavinia advises me to sleep for a while to cement what I’ve learned. That reminds me of Forge. She offers me the bed in the spare bedroom, and I crawl under the covers beneath the painting of the seashore. My dreams are full of Grisly Valley, and I wake late the next morning to the sound of Tiny purring in the crook of my bent knees.

“Hey, girl,” I say, and curl my fingers around her flinching ears. My mouth feels dry and my muscles stiff, but for once I didn’t wake from a nightmare, and I feel well rested for the first time in ages.

The first thing I do is check for news from Peggy on the wild chance she’s heard something, but there’s no change on her Facebook profile. On the floor beside me is a paper I drew the night before, when I was testing my memory of the map. I’m lifting the paper to puzzle over it when one of my phones buzzes. I have to sort through the bunch of them in my backpack until I find the right one, and it’s Burnham. With a pinch of remorse, I realize I should have called him sooner, when 240 Mallorca turned out to be a good lead. Also, Thea wanted me to talk to him about her, and I never did.

“Hey,” I say, picking up. “How are you doing?”

“Good,” he says. “Where are you now?”

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