AT FIRST, THE CHILDREN felt weird as they ran past neighbor after neighbor walking calmly toward Dr. Fell’s house armed with an assortment of kitchen implements. None of those they passed took any notice of them, focused as they were on answering the freaky telepathic call that was luring them down the street. Stephanie and Jonathan Bloom were oblivious to their children’s passing, and Cecilia Pinkblossom barely gave her daughter a glance as Nancy rushed by. Nancy paused only long enough to identify the turkey baster her mother held in her hands.

After quickly weaving their way through the mesmerized residents of Hardscrabble Street, the children came suddenly in sight of the home of Dr. Fell and discovered a very serious problem with their off-the-cuff plan to run into the house, find Old Lady Witherton, and help her defeat Dr. Fell.

The house was no longer there.

The eerie green ball of flame that had lit up the night sky moments before had left nothing but rubble in its wake, and the three children stood momentarily confused by the lack of a building into which they could dash.

“Maybe she won?” asked Gail.

“Don’t you think if she’d won, we wouldn’t still be dealing with the march of the living brainless?” responded Nancy, thumbing behind her at the wide circle of neighborhood residents slowly but surely advancing on the site of the explosion.

“Well, she can’t have lost yet either,” said Gail. “Or else Dr. Fell would’ve called everybody off.”

“They’re underground,” said Jerry. “In the chamber of that…thing.”

“So how do we get down there?” asked Nancy.

But just as she said it, she realized the answer. As did Gail and Jerry. All three turned to look at the massive, untouched, impossible play structure standing ominously in the darkness. Slight shivers shimmied down each of their spines as they all independently got the odd sensation that as much as they were looking at the play structure, it was looking right back at them.

“I think Christian Gloomfellow said there was a dungeon section over there behind the scale model of Notre Dame,” said Jerry as they entered the labyrinthine play structure.

“No,” corrected Nancy, climbing up a rope ladder. “That’s a World War One trench. I remember Gabby Plaugestein saying the dungeon was right in front of the alien spaceship.”

“Wait,” called out Gail. “I remember Albert Rottingsly saying there was a pixie bog in front of the spaceship, not a dungeon.”

Jerry wormed his way through the window of a mad scientist’s laboratory. “Gore Oozewuld once told me there were big sewer tunnels in the Roman section,” he said. “That might be a way in.”

“What about Atlantis?” asked Nancy, sliding down a fire pole into the cockpit of a stealth bomber. “Didn’t Hannah Festerworth mention an Atlantis section once?”

“The tombs!” exclaimed Jerry. “I remember Bud Fetidsky talking about a series of tombs, like from Indiana Jones. I think he said they were just past the pirate ship.”

Though they hated to admit it, all three children quickly realized that since they’d never spent all that much time actually playing on the play structure, they had no idea where to go or how to get there.

“Guys, this isn’t working,” said Gail, swinging over to a square platform that had most recently seen use as a dance stage, a kickboxing arena, and a floor for gymnastic routines. “We can’t just run off in different directions. We need to stick together.”

Nancy climbed across the wings of the stealth bomber, jumped over to a swaying bridge, then hopped over the back of a wooden dragon to join Gail on the platform. “You’re right,” she said. “If we go up against Dr. Fell one by one, we don’t stand a chance.”

Jerry popped his head up from beneath the platform. “So we need a plan of attack,” he said as the two girls reached down and hauled him up onto the platform. “A way to get through this labyrinth and find him.”

“And Old Lady Witherton,” added Gail quietly.

“All right.” Nancy paced along the edge of the platform. “We’ve obviously all heard different things about this place, so we can’t trust anything we’ve been told. Where does that leave us?”

“We have to just search,” said Gail. “Together.”

A muffled roar suddenly reverberated from somewhere deep within the playground, causing all three to jump.

“What was that?” asked Nancy.

“You know very well what that was,” answered Gail.

Nancy nodded, trying not to shake from fear.

“I don’t think we have time to do a complete search,” warned Jerry. “All our zombie-like friends and family will be here any minute, and once that happens, it’s game over. We need to be smart.”

“So be smart,” snapped Nancy. “That’s your thing, isn’t it?”

Jerry opened his mouth to shoot off a retort but then realized that in her own way, Nancy had just complimented him. “OK, OK. True or false. The playground seems bigger almost every day.”

“True,” answered Gail.

“True or false. Some things in here actually seem to move around so they’re never in the same place.”

“True,” answered Nancy.

“True or false. Wherever that cavern of his is, it was here from the very beginning. He needed a place to keep his…creature.”

“True,” answered Gail and Nancy together.

“So what does that tell us?” asked Jerry.

The girls just looked at him, so he answered his own question. “It tells us that it isn’t moving around. That it’s probably under the middle of the playground. And that the middle of the playground probably hasn’t been moving around. So all we have to do is figure out what part of this thing has stayed the same the whole time it’s been here.”

It took maybe half a second, but then all three of them turned and peered out and up into the mass of towers and spires and skyscrapers that dotted the roof of the play structure. And in the midst of these—higher than anything else—stood the mast of the pirate ship.

After wading through the swamp bog, running through the circus tent, swinging across the lava pit, and climbing over the ruins of Pompeii, Gail, Nancy, and Jerry finally arrived on the deck of the pirate ship. Jerry and Nancy quickly fanned out, searching for a trapdoor or other secret entrance, while Gail found herself drawn to a spot on the deck beneath the mighty mast, which dominated the landscape.

“Gail! Come on!” shouted Nancy. “Help us find the way in!”

“This is where that boy fell,” said Gail, stopping her companions in their tracks. Silently, Nancy and Jerry walked over to join Gail in staring down at the deck.

“Leo something, wasn’t it?” asked Nancy.

“Leonid Hazardfall,” corrected Jerry. “That’s where he died.”

“That’s where Dr. Fell killed him,” corrected Nancy.

“Before bringing him back to life by stealing years of his life away,” finished Gail. “Just like he did to Old Lady Witherton. Back when she was Young Girl Witherton. Can you even imagine?”

“Losing my childhood?” asked Nancy. “No.”

“Old Lady Witherton says he’s been doing this for over five hundred years,” said Jerry. “Think how many childhoods he’s stolen. How many lives he destroyed.”

“That’s why we’re stopping him,” announced Gail. “Not for us. It’s too late for Leonid Hazardfall and Bud Fetidsky and everyone else in our neighborhood who’s had years ripped away from them. But this is where it ends.”

“This is where it ends,” agreed Nancy.

“This is where it ends,” agreed Jerry.

The three of them quietly spread out and got to work. They searched every nook and cranny of the pirate ship, climbed up every pole and mast, opened up every empty barrel. Finally, Nancy hauled aside a massive coil of rope, and there it was—a deep, dark hole leading down into an even deeper, darker nothing. The three stood around the rim of the hole, squinting and peering and trying to make out anything down there. But it was no good. It was as if light itself refused to shine into the depths of Dr. Fell’s lair.

There was no need to speak. The three children nodded to one another, clasped hands, and dropped into the void.