The Hanging Hill

17

Zack and Zipper climbed the loading dock steps.

The wide warehouse door had been rolled down tight, so they went into the theater through a smaller door off to the side. As soon as it slid shut behind them, they were plunged into inky blackness.

“Hello?”

Zack realized he and Zipper were backstage. Faint light glowed up ahead, leaking through the doorways and windows cut into scenery panels.

“Hello?”

He walked toward the light, past long tables covered with brown paper and filled with all sorts of hand props for the Dracula musical. Wooden stakes. Strings of garlic cloves. Jars of fake blood.

“Hello?”

His voice echoed off the stage’s towering brick walls.

He put Zipper down. The dog’s toenails clicked across the bare floor as he headed downstage toward a door in a wall made out of wooden slats and tightly stretched canvas.

Through that doorway, Zack could see the bare bulb glowing inside its metal cage—the same pole lamp he had seen last night from up in the box seats.

“What are you doing here?”

It was the grizzled old janitor. Wilbur Kimble. He came shuffling across the stage, pushing a wobble-wheeled mop bucket.

“Sorry. I guess we came in the wrong door and got lost.”

“Bad place to get lost.”

Kimble moved closer. In the harsh light of the single naked bulb, Zack could see that unlike the mannequin-faced Mrs. Stone, this guy was creased like a sunbaked mud pie.

“You in the show?” the old man asked.

“No, sir.”

“Good.”

“Yeah,” said Zack, trying to sound friendly. “Because I can’t really sing or act. I can dance a little—but not the kind of dancing people would actually pay money to see someone do.”

The old man wasn’t smiling.

“Beware Pandemonium!” he whispered dramatically.

“Hunh?”

“Beware Pandemonium!”

“Oh-kay. Will do. Thanks.”

The old man pointed a gnarled finger toward a red exit sign. “Go! Get out of here before it’s too late!”

“Yes, sir!” Zack turned and almost tripped over the thick electrical cable snaking across the floor.

“Careful, boy! You’ll pull down the ghost light!”

Zack froze. “The what?”

The old man gestured toward the solitary lamp.

“The ghost light. It burns onstage all night, every night.”

Great. A ghost light.

The janitor creaked his rolling bucket forward. “Every theater has one. You know why we call it a ghost light?”

Zack thought fast. “Um, because if you didn’t leave it on, people would stumble around in the dark, fall off the stage, crack open their skulls, and turn into ghosts?”

The old man shook his head then peered into the darkness above their heads. “No. We leave it on as a courtesy. To help all the ghosts haunting this theater find the children who shouldn’t be here!”

Zack looked up into the dim fly space climbing high above the stage. It was filled with ropes and scenery panels and curtains and darkness.

He couldn’t see any floating fiends or phantoms.

But that didn’t mean they weren’t up there, biding their time, waiting for a chance to swoop down and terrify Zack.

They’d probably all heard how special he was.