Page 36 of One Adult, Please

We follow Beck into the warehouse. Joel's wrench is up. My friendship paddle is up. My stomach is somewhere around my ankles but the rest of me is functional and that's going to have to be enough.

The warehouse is enormous. The flashlight catches glimpses: shelving units stacked with parts, tool racks along the walls, workbenches covered in half-assembled ride components. A coaster train sits on a section of track in the center of the floor, partially disassembled, its fiberglass shell removed to expose the mechanical skeleton underneath. It looks like a dinosaur fossil if dinosaurs had been built by engineers who cared about load ratings and passenger safety restraints.

The air smells like grease and metal and dust. Just the honest stink of a workspace that's been sealed up and left alone.

Something clanks in the dark.

I stop so fast Joel bumps my shoulder.

"Did everyone hear that?" I whisper.

"Yes," Joel says.

"No," Beck says at the same time, which isn't comforting because Beck says no with the cheerful confidence of a man who thinks denial is a sport.

The clank comes again. Metal on metal. Slow. Repeating.

Joel lifts his wrench. Beck shifts his grip on the axe. I raise the friendship paddle and try very hard not to think about the fact that I've already used this thing on one wrong person today and apparently violence has a loyalty program.

The flashlight sweeps left.

A chain hangs from the ceiling near the coaster train, swaying gently. At the end of it, a loose hook taps against the metal frame.

Clank.

Clank.

Clank.

No wrong people. Just a chain. Just a normal industrial horror noise made by a normal industrial murder hook in a normal industrial murder shed.

"I hate buildings," I say.

Beck sweeps the flashlight. Left wall. Right wall. Back corner.

We clear it properly after that. Joel takes the left wall, Beck takes the right, and I stay between them with the friendship paddle raised while we check every aisle, workbench, storage cage, and dark space beneath the coaster train.

Nothing lunges. Nothing chews. Nothing turns out to be worse than a hanging chain with excellent timing.

"Clear," Joel says at last.

"What's in here? What can we use?" I ask.

The answer is: everything.

The warehouse is a goldmine. Tool racks with wrenches, screwdrivers, pry bars, bolt cutters. Spare ride parts that can be repurposed as barricade material. Welding equipment that Beck's eyes lock onto. Zip ties in bulk. Cable. Chain. Industrial-grade adhesive. A first-aid kit the size of a suitcase mounted on the wall near the workbench.

"This is the best room in the park," Beck says, running his hands along the welding setup.

"The fish tube is the best room because it's where I slept and the sharks are nice. But this is the second best room."

Joel's already loading a tote bag. He takes tools by category, grouping them, nesting smaller items inside larger ones, maximizing space with the expertise of someone who has opinions about load distribution.

He finds a laminated binder in a wall pocket and goes still.

"What is it?" I ask.

"Maintenance schematic."