4~

"Where victims struggle, and leave no trace,

In Nature's awesome, raw embrace."

Marcie mulled the passage around in her stressed-out head, once more, coming up with the same frustrating blankness she encountered before. She felt like a dog chasing its tail, and just getting dizzy, for her troubles.

Which was why she decided to take a drive up to 1 Hill Street, to reunite with a person who knew Gatorsburg inside and out, a woman she had the pleasure of meeting and living under during the Pageant of Gators.

Marcie entered the hotel's antique-appointed foyer, but didn't need to inquire to the owner's whereabouts. Greta Gator, the proprietress of The Dancing Gator Hotel, stood behind the counter, watching the girl walk through the front of the lobby and head for her. Happy recognition did the rest.

"Why, you're that Fleach girl, aren't you?" Greta asked, brightening upon seeing her. "I never expected you to come back so soon, child!"

"Hi, Miss Gator," Marcie nodded.

Greta waved that away. "Now, you know better than that. Call me Greta, child, now, what can I do for you? Are you and that handsome father of yours staying over again?"

Marcie had to smile at that. The fact that Greta still carried a crush on Winslow made this trip less stressful than it had been. "Not this time, Greta. I came back to look for someone, and I was hoping that you could help me. Since you're a native, I figured you might know something about this town."

With a proud grin, Greta waved that away, as well. "Aw, you don't have to butter me up, girl, even though I have been crawlin' around this place since I was a fry. Who are you lookin' for?"

"Do you know a man named Benton Quest?" Marcie asked.

Greta shrugged. "Can't say that I have."

Marcie sighed, fearing to hit a dead-end. "Well, and this is going to sound strange," she said, pensively. "But I can find him. The only way, however, is to solve this riddle. Could I tell it to you?"

"Sure thing," the woman nodded.

"There are dangers you will have to face,

When you find Benton's hiding place,

Where victims struggle, and leave no trace,

In Nature's awesome, raw embrace."

Greta leaned over the counter and rested on her elbows, deep in thought. She hummed and scratched her red hair in puzzlement, then, sighed her decision.

"Hmm. 'Where victims struggle, and leave no trace/In Nature's awesome, raw embrace?' I don't know about this Benton fella, but it sounds an awful lot like this riddle's talkin' about the swamps, probably the Source Swamps."

"The swamps?" The realization not only dawned on a thunderstruck Marcie, it was blinding her with its obvious light.

"Oh, yeah, child," Greta explained, matter-of-factly. "People have been disappearing in those swamplands for years. Considerin' the wildlife in there, I wouldn't be, at all, surprised."

Marcie was tempted to smack her own forehead in embarrassment. "I could," she muttered. "I can't believe that the answer was that simple. If it was Deeds, as a snake, he would've bit me. Quest must really want me to find him, bad. I mean, he didn't even try, this time."

"This Quest fella might be holed up in Bellow Mansion," Greta offered.

The sound of a new clue perked Marcie out of her mental self-flagellation. "Bellow Mansion? What's that?"

"An old domicile that sat on the edge of Bellow Lake, in the Source Swamps. Pretty popular place in its heyday."

Marcie gave it some thought. It was certainly a long shot, but any lead was a good lead, she learned. Then, she remembered Greta's help, and flashed a grin of gratitude. "Thank you, so much, Greta. You don't know it, but you helped me out more than you know! Thank you! Thank you!"

That much gratefulness took the hotelier by surprise. "Well, my pleasure, suguh! I hope you find who you're lookin' for. Be careful going up there, though, and yourself have a nice day."

Marcie didn't know if that could accomplished, but said, "I will." She turned to leave, but then stopped when Greta called out to her.

"Oh, and tell that hunka-hunk of burnin' Winslow...that my door is always open."

Marcie raised her eyebrows, as she considered such a risqué request, but then told her, honestly, "I will, and thanks, again! I'll never forget this."

Greta waved, as Marcie reached the doorway. "Bye-bye, child!"

Marcie skipped back through the parking lot to her car and jumped in. She would need a few things in the next hours, or so. A map of the town, more information on this Bellow Mansion...and a lab coat.

And then, after all of that, a prayer. She knew she would need that most of all.


Long cleared of the debris that choked the path after the town's flash flood, Marcie drove up the road that led to the wet highlands. She could see, from the corner of her eye, the occasional corpses of uprooted trees and dead shrubbery lying by the side of the road, extending the life of the woodlands, as they were being passed by, and the deep and dangerous swamps beckoned.

According to the pamphlet of landmarks that she had purchased along with a map, from Snapper's Cybercafe and Souvenir Shop, Bellow Mansion was built in the 1900's by wealthy leather tycoon, Seymour Bellow, a descendant of the cartographer, Alvin Bellow, who discovered the lake that dominated the Source Swamps. In honor of that, Seymour had his home built by the edge of one of Bellow Lake's inlets.

It wasn't too long before the disappearances started, however. First, was Mrs. Bellow, then, his visiting father, then, several members of the serving staff, including the chauffeur and the cook, and then, finally Seymour, himself.

No evidence of foul play was ever discovered, but, perhaps, having alligators roam freely inside the mansion, might have had something to do with it, for poor, mad Seymour prided himself on being the most loving of the town's gator population. The place was avoided, soon after, and quickly fell into disrepair in the humidity of the area.

'At least, until Quest got his hands on it, somehow,' Marcie thought.

Committing the map's route to memory, she glanced over to one side of the road to the lake beyond the copses of cypress trees and willows, following the path that wound beside it. The lake was beautiful in the sunlight, yet made Marcie give it the respect it earned in the wake of the flooding, since the lake gave birth to its deadly floodwaters.

Marcie slowed down, after noticing a path leading from the side of the road, up ahead.

That might have been it, Marcie hoped. An artery cleared of all the growth that sprung up after the fall of Bellow Mansion, made from the varied construction vehicles that had to have come through to reinforce the ruins of the mansion without changing its weathered appearance, while at the same time, creating space underneath, to house Quest's hidden laboratories.

How he managed to do all of this without alerting the town's elders was beyond her. The sound of construction work, alone, would have been sufficient to make people curious enough to investigate or, at the very least, speculate.

It didn't matter in the grand scheme of things, as she turned into the rough-made side road. That it was still clear enough to drive through, told her that traffic continued to flow through, here.

The bumps on the path, however, were getting so rough in places, that Marcie feared that it would destroy her car's suspension, but, eventually, the road opened up to a bright, lakeside clearing that once served as the mansion's front lawn, but now, served as a lot for a small fleet of parked buses,.

Prudence demanded that Marcie park the Clue Cruiser off to the side of the clearing, away from its entrance, and far enough from the mansion that it wouldn't arouse any attention.

She stepped out of the car, wearing a pristine, white lab coat, her usually unkempt hair, gathered in a wild ponytail with a store-bought Scrunchy. Leaning against the car door, she gazed at the ancient building that stood before her in the lake's sun-reflected glare.

It was a huge Southern-style mansion that wore its moldy patina proudly. Dark, broken windows invoked thoughts of grand, haunted houses in the most glorious traditions of Southern Gothic tales, and a distorted roof now housed only resting bats and night birds of various descriptions. It was, as hiding places went, perfect.

A woman's voice broke the mansion's hold on Marcie. "Hey! Are you coming in late?"

"Huh?"

"Sorry I startled you. I was just taking in the scenery, before I went back to work. I saw you there, so I was asking if you were late for work?"

Marcie regarded the speaker, a heavy-set woman clad in a lab coat, walking from the direction of the small pier that stood on the edge of the mighty lake. "Uh, yeah. I just drove in."

"If you got up earlier, you could've been picked up in one of the shuttle buses, there." She suggested, pointing a thumb to the buses in the lot.

"Oh, uh, I'll do that, next time," Marcie nodded in understanding.

"Well, you better hurry in," the woman said with a good-natured shrug, heading for the mansion. "You don't want to get the boss mad."

Marcie had a good idea who the "boss" was. "You're right! We don't want that. I'll just follow you."

They both walked past the buses and trod through the wide, weed-choked front yard of the property. As they approached the mansion's rough facade, Marcie's escort took a quizzical glance at her.

"I don't think I've seen you here, before. Are you new?"

The woman's words were said for conversation's sake, but it still raised warning flags in Marcie.

'Just be cool and think,' she thought to calm her anxiety. 'You'll get through this.'

"Yep. I was hired just last week," Marcie lied.

The woman nodded, satisfied. "Well, don't worry. I'll give you the nickel tour while I get to my department. What's your name?"

That caught Marcie off-guard, but, luckily, the woman hadn't noticed her hesitation. "Uh, Margo Freep. Yours?"

"Tanya," the woman said, while they walked up the weather-beaten stairs to the decrepit porch. "Well, here we are."

Marcie casually looked around at the rotted condition of the place from up close, and was about to commend Quest on maintaining the look of the big house, when her eyes spotted something that made her gasp and freeze at the same time. A large, scarred alligator, resting by the front doors, like a guard dog.

Tanya walked towards the reclining reptile, taking out a green and white plastic card from her coat pocket.

"Wait! Wait!" Marcie yelled, but Tanya simply chuckled.

"Boy, you are new, aren't you?" she said, as Marcie followed Tanya's ID card-carrying hand down to the gator's stiffly opening maw, and then tensed in terror for her associate.

Tanya waved the card inside the alligator's mouth, as if taunting it, but then, the reptile bade in a tinny, electronic voice, "Enter."

Marcie, now understanding that this fake gator was just part of Quest's mansion camouflage, and relieved not to see a mauling take place, followed suit, taking the purloined ID card out of her own coat pocket, and waving it within the gator's mouth. However, the gator was now strangely silent.

Marcie's stomach started to grow sick with worry. What if the card's code just told Dr. Quest who had used it? She was expecting to see a platoon of guards burst through the front doors with the express duty of detaining her until the good doctor got his hands on her.

Tanya, watching this quiet drama play out, suggested to Marcie, "Wave it again." Marcie complied, and this time, she was rewarded.

"Enter," said the gator, and the satisfying sound of heavy locks unlatching in the doors gave them permission to enter.

Tanya walked in, and Marcie took a quiet, quivering breath, before she walked through the threshold. So far, the disguise was working, but she couldn't help but think of only worse-case scenarios, before the trap was sprung, and she stood face-to face with Benton Quest.

From the center of the disheveled foyer, the teen saw an elevator shaft, whose top went through the room's ceiling, looking incongruous against the rotted Southern decor.

Tanya pressed her ID card against the small, glass plate near the shaft's door, opening it.

"I know that this'll sound funny," Marcie pensively told Tanya, as she followed her into the elevator car. "But, all of you get paid, don't you?"

That brought a chuckle from the woman. "Sure, we do. Why?"

"I don't know," Marcie explained with a shrug, before the car's doors closed, and they descended. "It just feels a like a cult, or something."