The Night Crew
By: Deep Roller
A/N: This is what happens when I am left to my own devices for hours on end. Before we begin I just want to clear up a few things. I do not work at Pirates, so any information about how the ride maintenance works or anything like that is wrong, wrong, wrong. I don't need this pointed out to me. Also, since I don't work at Pirates, I'm not giving any Disney secrets away, so it's all good. 'S why it s fiction, and all. This is not based on actual people OR events. If it were, I would cry.
Disclaimer: I do not own any pirates, of the Caribbean or otherwise. I am not doing this for the sweet, sweet profits. Any resemblance to any people, living or dead, is unintentional. Any humor found within is unintentional. Please keep your hands and arms inside the story at all times.
"Okay, who wants to do the walk-through tonight?" Annabelle asked cheerfully, looking around at the small gaggle of people grouped around her. Lydia tucked back behind her peers and tried to become invisible. It didn't work so well when Alex, the guy she was trying to hide behind, felt her nudging him forward in her efforts to scoot back.
"Annabelle, I think Lydia wants to!" Alex piped up cheerfully, encircling Lydia with his arm and bringing her into the forefront. "She was telling me she wanted to do it, and how she never gets to." Annabelle rolled her eyes at Alex before looking straight at Lydia with n expression that made Lydia feel guilty to her very soul, as she was sure the look was intended to. "Would you do the walk-through, Lydia?"Annabelle asked, turning the look on just a bit more.
"Can't Cherie do it?" Lydia asked faintly, feeling the lack of power in her voice. She knew that in Annabelle's mind, the decision was already made. But she would try her best to get out of it, oh yes. She would go out valiantly. "Cherie left an hour ago, and Victor has to get home, before you say anything. He already asked me earlier if he could leave right after we cycled everyone out. That leaves you and Terrence. You're the only other two who are signed off to do walk-throughs, besides me."
"So why can't you-"
"I've got to help Stephanie and show her how to close down a few things." Lydia looked hopefully over at Terrence, but Terrence had already turned on his heel and begun striding back along the queue on trash patrol. It was just as well, Lydia thought, she had already bargained off at least five walk-throughs onto Terrence and owed him an obscene amount of vending machine money. "All right, I'll do it," Lydia said with a huge sigh.
"Thanks, Lyd! Annabelle said cheerfully, slapping a ring of keys and a radio into Lydia's hand. Lydia glanced over at Alex, despising the very core of his being and wishing passionately for a way to get back at him for this. It came to her in a moment and her smirk was truly alarming in its deviousness. "Annabelle?" She called as her lead was heading off with Stephanie. When Annabelle turned, eyebrows raised, Lydia continued, " I was thinking that Alex ought to be my dock person tonight, since he' s going to be trained on walk-through soon. That okay?"
"Sure! Alex, grab a radio and tune to channel four," Annabelle instructed before turning a shoulder to Alex's protests.
"You conniving little-"
"Watch it, Alex, we're in Disney you know!" Lydia sang sweetly, petting Alex lightly on the shoulder. "This means you get to sit on the dock and wait for me while I do my walk-through. And no messing with the radio, or I sneak back through and push you into the water."
"You wouldn't," Alex said confidently.
"Oh really? You volunteered me for an extra thirty minutes of work. More if there's an issue and we have to get maintenance or custodial in here. I could be watching Scrubs season four that just came in the mail today, or eating some of the brownies my roommate is making, or any number of things that do not involve walking through a darkened ride populated by scary robots. You'd better believe I would." Lydia spared him one last scowl before heading back to the control tower to grab a flashlight. After tuning her own radio, she slipped down the stairs and into one of the back hallways. Alex shook his head and went to sit at the loading dock.
Lydia always did her best to avoid walk-throughs for several reasons. She didn't particularly like the solitude involved, as she was armed only with her flashlight and a crackling radio for company. Starting up in the morning was one thing, turning on all the lights and the audio and the animatronics was sort of reassuring to her. But at night, when it was shutting down, and it was so very, very quiet, it was positively eerie. The knowledge that there were maybe three or four people, if that, left in the area wasn't terribly comforting. And also, everything was so still under that bizarre, somehow flat maintenance lighting that it gave her a very unsettled effect. She had particularly wanted to escape the duty tonight, for Annabelle had mentioned that the access lights that normally lit the walkways and scenes after hours were being difficult. That meant that the first hallway she went through was completely dark, save for her flashlight. She vowed to get the walk-through over with as quickly as possible. Shining her light over the desert island scene, she resisted shivering a bit. Two of the access lights were out and it cast the marooned skeletons in a shadowed, horror-film sort of light. She thought for a moment that the one sprawled on the sand with a sword in his back was closer to the shore than it had been, but then remembered that the light was askance and her state of mind was slightly heightened as well. Turning, she moved along the way. Noticing a soft drink bottle bobbing to the surface as she emerged from the next access hallway, she knelt down and reached out to swipe it. It twirled away from her fingers and floated across the track, and she muttered as she got back to her feet. Going back to the access hallway, she went to the small closet inlet by the first set of stairs and pulled out the hip waders.
"Costuming is going to love me when they see this all soaked with water," she muttered as she buckled the rubber boots to her belt. Holding her radio high in one hand and her flashlight in the other, she stepped into the water and let out a yelp when her foot splashed deeper than she expected it to. Water splashed onto her pants above the boots, and she grumbled at her own misjudgment. Almost losing her balance, she stood for a minute before walking carefully towards the bottle. She reached out and snatched it with a shout of triumph that bounced off the wall and startled her. She turned and stepped hastily back up to the side to continue her walk-through. Putting the bottle down with resolve to go back for it, she moved on to the next section of the ride. The skeleton parts of the ride weren't terrible, she thought as she shined her light on the storm-stranded skeleton, the bar scene, and the captain's quarters in turn. They were, after all, just skeletons. Some people might not have agreed with her, of course, stating that skeletons were the creepiest things about the walk-through. Alex, for instance, was severely creeped out by them. Personally, Lydia found the other robots much creepier, the ones that actually looked like people. Especially the newer robots that had smoother movement. She just didn't trust them, which was an odd thing to think about animatronics. Right as she was about to take the stairs past the cannon battle, she noticed another piece of litter bobbing along. What was it with people? Could they not just hold onto their trash until they could find a trash can? Or was it just that they waited until they got on the ride and then used it as a trash can?
Feeling rather disgruntled at this point, she stepped back into the water, with more caution this time, and slogged forward toward the wrapper. It drifted into the long, dark cave that segued into the cannon battle, now lit with access lights. Marching determinedly as the water sloshed against her, Lydia didn't notice for a moment that the lights had all spontaneously gone out. She was walking along in the utter blackness now, her eyes still on the prize. Pausing, she reasoned that the lights would be back in a moment, so she switched on her flashlight and kept going. She would be damned if she had to call out and take more time to do this silly walk-through. She grabbed the floating wrapper and figured she might as well walk through the whole cave to the next station. By the time she reached the cannon battle, the lights still hadn't come back on. Lydia reached for her radio to see if Alex was having the same problem, when a splashing sound caught her attention. It was so quiet in the ride that the sound, much like her earlier exclamation, was very, very loud.
She sloshed past Barbossa leading his raid against the blockaded prison and headed for the hapless mayor being dunked in the well. What had that splash been? She climbed up onto the tableaux and shined her light onto the well. She felt a terrible shock of alarm when she couldn't see the mayor mannequin. Had maintenance been here and she was unaware of it? That made no sense, though. There was no record of it, and they definitely would have shut the ride down. She shined her light down the well, just to humor herself and prove that...that what? Why, that there had been an unscheduled stop by maintenance, of course. That there was no well, only a space big enough to hold enough of the mayor dummy to allow him to disappear from view for a moment.
The flashlight revealed a dim gleam, way down at the bottom. "What? No way..." Lydia muttered to herself, refusing to believe that this was happening. "That is not a well, that is not-" Suddenly, inexorably, she felt as though she were being watched. She turned very slowly, training her flashlight on the pirate who was responsible for dunking the mayor in the well. He looked almost as though he was staring right at her. And the other three fellows, bound and waiting their turn in the dunk tank, seemed to be looking at her as well when she regarded them. "Calm down, nobody is looking at you," Lydia said to herself, clutching her flashlight. She didn't care all of a sudden if she didn't finish her walk-through. This wasn't feeling right to her at all, and special circumstances were preventing her from doing her job. She would radio maintenance and have one of them come out and do it instead. Anything, so long as she could get out of here. A clacking noise made her whirl around and flick her flashlight beam upward. She could feel someone watching her up there, and could swear she saw a gleam of an eye. Hastily, she swept her light over the rest of the display.
An immensely loud sound made her shriek and bolt past the dunking scene, tumbling end over end into a row of dresses. Sitting amidst the pile of brocade and bright cloth, she put a hand to her heart to feel it racing madly. Her flashlight had left her hand at some point, and she was in darkness again. She could see a small pool of light what seemed like miles away, but her mind was buzzing so loudly she hardly registered losing the flashlight. Something was very, very wrong, here. She hastily flicked on the radio and began shouting into it. "Alex?! Alex, are you there??"
"Lyd...-s the ma...lights out...etter come ba...will send a bo...belle left about ten min...said to let. ..it-" A sharp crackle was followed by a soft fizzing sound as the radio tried to work. She had a feeling Alex was on channel three, as the reception on that channel was particularly spotty.
"Alex, if you can hear me, just stay there! You can't send a boat because I don't think anything is working, but that's ridiculous because I just heard a-" A tap on her shoulder caused her to freeze. Something strange and glowing fell into her lap and it took a good minute to realize that it was her flashlight, though she hadn't made a move to reach for it. Lydia was terrified to turn around for a moment, before realizing it was probably somebody from maintenance, come to help her get back. In relief, she half-turned and began to stand up, only to come face to face with Captain Jack Sparrow himself, head tilted and dark eyes glinting curiously at her.
"You dropped that," he said, indicating the flashlight with one finger. Lydia stayed silent for approximately three seconds before she let out an impressive scream and scrabbled backward awkwardly. A few shouts began to echo through the ride in the direction she had come from, and she felt a sharp yank on her wrist. "Now you've gone and blown me cover. Come on, then, time for running!" Before she knew it, Lydia was being yanked up and forward. She looked back over her shoulder just long enough to see four very angry, very serious looking pirates waving swords and beginning to give chase. Without thinking, Lydia pulled free of Jack's grip and dashed for the nearest access door. She flung it open, threw herself inside, and tried to shut it on him, to no avail.
"You! Out!! Stay out there!!" She shouted at him, waving her radio. Somehow, he managed to slide past her before she shut the door. For good measure, she bolted the door against any other would-be intruders before attempting to wave him off with her radio again. He followed the antenna with his eyes for a moment before delicately pinching at it and sliding the radio from her strengthless grip.
"Yes indeed. That's the idea, darling, I do want out. You see, you seem know a way out of here, and I aim to find a way out of here, a way that I don't know. So I will need you to show me that way out of here that I don't know so that I may indeed know the way out just as you directed."
"That made no sense!" Lydia said in disbelief. "You're a robot, you can't be talking"
"No, I'm actually a pirate. And I'm also in a lot of trouble. So are you, if you want to know the truth. Sooner you show me out of here, the sooner this all goes away. So what do you say?" Before Lydia could open her mouth, there was a crackle on the radio and she could hear Alex shouting.
"Lydia!! Lydia help!"