Broken Angels

89

It seemed to take forever. Jessica had fallen only once-slipping on an icy patch on what seemed like a paved path.

The lights she had observed from the stream came from a one-story house. It was still a good distance away, but Jessica saw that she was now in a complex of dilapidated buildings, built around a maze of narrow canals.

Some of the buildings looked like shops in a small Scandinavian village. Others were made to resemble seaport structures. As she wove her way along the banks of the canals, moving deeper into the complex, there were more buildings, more dioramas. All were decrepit, timeworn, broken.

Jessica knew where she was. She had entered the theme park. She had entered StoryBook River.

She found herself a hundred feet away from a building that might have been a re-creation of a Danish schoolhouse.

Inside was candlelight. Bright candlelight. Shadows flickered and danced.

She instinctively went for her weapon, but her holster was empty. She crept closer to the building. In front of her was the widest canal she had yet seen. It led to a boathouse. To her left, thirty or forty feet away, was a small footbridge spanning the canal. At one end of the bridge was a statue holding a lighted kerosene lamp. It cast an eerie copper glow on the night.

As she got closer to the bridge, she realized the figure on it was not a statue at all. It was a man. A man standing on the overpass, staring at the sky.

When Jessica stepped within a few feet of the bridge her heart skipped a beat.

The man was Joshua Bontrager.

And his hands were covered with blood.