Page 22 of Close Your Eyes and Count to 10

The wind howled and moaned, traveling through hallways and stairwells, swirling down elevator shafts. Adele didn’t believe in ghosts, but if a place could be haunted, this would be it.

It was precisely the kind of situation she’d warn her kids to stay away from, but there she was, stepping into Enchantments with Malinka. She scampered over a fallen beam in her path, looking up to see where it had come from. The ceiling, high above, was riven with holes, the sky visible.

A high chain-link fence obviously erected to keep people out had been cut down the center and rolled back to either side. Another huge sign readingKeep Outin three languages had been cast to the side and was covered in spray paint and grime. They moved past the jagged remains of the fence, careful of the sharp edges.

Excitement was an electric current through Adele’s nerves, dread a drumbeat. When was the last time she’d felt soalive? Not lying in bed worrying about how she was going to take care of her kids; not sitting in a car line or in her windowless office trying to help students who often didn’t seem to want help or to even be paying attention; not struggling to complete her online degree so that she could keep the job that she wasn’tquite qualifiedto do when contracts were reviewed and re-upped at the end of the year.

Here in this wild place,a dormant part of herself was stirring from slumber.

If she closed her eyes, she could imagine the grand past of Enchantments: luxury cars purring in the circular drive, wealthy guests entering, doors held wide-open for them. The glittering chandeliers, the lobby music, the pop of champagne corks.

Once a glittering, hidden destination for the very rich, now a ruin. Mysterious. Dramatic.

“Look at this,” said Malinka. She had a powerful light on her pack, and she shined it around the space. “Over here.”

They stood now at the empty elevator shaft where Adele saw a deep crack in the concrete.

“There are others,” Malinka went on. “There. And there.”

Her light fell on more wide fissures, rising from the floor, traveling up the walls.

“That can’t be good,” said Adele. “How long do you think before it collapses?”

Malinka shrugged, tracing one with her finger. The walls were covered with graffiti: names and dates, declarations of love, defiance, anger, warnings, cartoons, illegible scribbles. On the back wall of the empty elevator shaft, someone had spray paintedFree Candywith an arrow pointing down. Creepy but funny. Adele snapped a picture for Blake, who would definitely find it hilarious.

“Hopefully not in the next couple of days?” said Malinka, offering Adele a confident wink. The very young. They didn’t know how unstable the world could be. How very unforgiving the consequences of missteps. Adele envied her, not a little.

You’ll die here, someone had written in red scrawl.

Surely the people at Extreme had been telling the truth when they claimed to have inspected the site and found it safe enough for their challenge. Right?

Adele flipped on her own pack light. The winding concrete staircase leading upstairs seemed solid enough if slippery with mold and wet earth. Were those footprints? Yes, large boot tracks leading up the stairs. Probably the Extreme team had been all over this place, and Malinka said she’d already been through. Adele headed up.

She’d had a few moments to check out the satellite views of the property that Blake had sent of the site from WholeEarthNow.

Probably the hotel itself is not the best place to hide. Too predictable, and Extreme has likely scoped out every inch of that place, he’d advised via text.If it was me, I’d go for one of the casitas.

Adele had seen on the images how paths from the hotel led past the pool to a smattering of small houses in the woods. Inside the hotel now, she knew that Blake was right. Things were too wide-open here, many of the hallways exposed to the grand lobby, sounds carrying.

Still, she’d check it out. She climbed carefully up.

At the landing, a long hallway unspooled into darkness.

“Have you been up this way?” she asked. But Malinka, who she could have sworn was right behind her, was gone.

“Malinka?” Adele’s voice bounced off the concrete walls.

No answer. Some distant sound carried on the air, but Adele couldn’t make it out. She couldn’t worry about Malinka, who seemed as intrepid and courageous as Adele wished she still was.

It was nice to have company, but truthfully, she should do the recon on her own. After all, when it came down to it, she’d only have herself to rely on.

She pointed her light ahead.

Doors punctuated the hallway that seemed to have no end.

She pushed into the first one, heaving it against the heavy draft coming from the open glassless window frame. As she walked through the abandoned guest room, she found it stripped bare—all fixtures,furniture, and decor gone, a grim concrete shell like a jail cell. Graffiti on every surface, water dripping from the ceiling.

She stepped through the room onto the balcony and looked out.

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