Page 86 of Even in the Dark

We round the corner into another narrow hallway, only this one’s pitch black.

Fuck me.

“The door we need to get to is right at the end… Maybe twenty feet up ahead,” Scarlett says, almost like she knows why I’m hesitating.

I’m about to ask if there’s a light like in the other hallways, which at least had a lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. Dim, but better than nothing. But before I can ask, she’s got her phone out and using it as a flashlight to light up the dingy passage.

“Final stretch, I swear. And I promise it’ll be worth it.”

We walk to the end, just barely fitting side by side. Then through a heavy steel door and up a few stairs. And then we’re outside. Up on the roof and it’s… Holy crap. She’s right. This is so much better than pine nut muffins.

Taking up most of the front part of the roof like they own the joint, are six solid vintage-style neon letters, each about twelve feet high, spelling out the theater’s name: the BEACON. Every letter is a structure all its own; the front a glowing salmon kind of orange, with a rusty metal framework around it. We step out farther onto the roof, closer to the letters and the sprawling town of Sandy Haven beyond that. The warm glow from the lamplights and cars and windows. Twinkling lights from the harbor...The lighthouse farther down on Ocean Drive...

“Whoa,” I gasp.

“Right?” Scarlett laughs, clearly pleased with herself. Which she has every right to be. This knocks the pine nut muffins right out of the park. Good riddance, too.

“You and Seb figured out how to get up here when you were thirteen?” I ask, letting go of her hand to take a few steps towards the edge of the roof, to see exactly how high up we are.

High enough. No coming back if you stumbled over.

“Seb did. Getting into stuff he’s not supposed to has always kind of been his talent.” She rolls her eyes. “I mean, and football. Obviously.” She walks over and tugs at my shirt. “Don’t go so close to the edge… It freaks me out.”

See, why couldn’t I be freaked out by normal stuff like that?

I let her pull me back a couple paces, then follow her back to the outside of the covered space that led us out onto the roof.

“Oh my God, it’s still here!” She laughs, approaching a small rusted garbage can. “I wonder if…” She lifts the lid and practically squeals. “Boo-yah!” She pulls out two flat yellow and red packages about the length of a ruler. Hands one to me then starts tearing hers open. “Seb stashed these here… They’re flimsy wood airplane models he got at the dollar store. The pieces just snap together.” She demonstrates with her own. “See? Done… Then we fly them off the building, and later, when we go back down, we go out and see whose plane landed farthest from the building.”

She crumples up the paper packaging and stuffs it in her pocket. “Put yours together and we’ll race them.”

I rip open my plane kit and put it together. Feels like this thing is so flimsy, it won’t even last the flight down to the pavement. Sure as hell going to find out, though. I approach the edge, ready to launch it, and Scarlett pulls me back again.

“God, you’re as bad as Seb. You can’t go that close to the edge – that’s the rule. You have to stand here.” She draws a faint line with the toe of her boot against the thin layer of gravel covering the tar roof.

I do as I’m told. Stand at the line. And when Scarlett counts down from three, we both launch our planes. Mine does a smooth twirl, before swooping out beyond the building and then down, out of sight. Scarlett’s plane pretty much dive-bombs right out of the gate.

“That was just a practice run,” she says, going back and retrieving two more plane packets from the stash in the garbage pail. “That one didn’t count.”

“It totally counts.”

“Fine. Best of three,” she says.

“Cool.”

We put our second planes together and repeat the same launch process. This time, mine soars even more elegantly and farther out. Scarlett’s dive bombs again.

“What the hell?” she looks honest to God pissed. “How come I keep getting the defective ones?”

I scoff. “You don’t. You just suck at flying them is all.”

“I used to win all the time.”

“Sure.” I grin.

“I did.” She pushes the pieces together more firmly when she makes the next one, like that’s going to make any difference. I don’t tell her it’s the way she’s throwing her plane that’s setting her back.

The third and final round plays out the same as the first two. Mine glides and swoops before dipping towards the ground. Hers dive bombs.

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