“We go in,” he said, gleefully.
“I was afraid you were gonna say that,” Roland whimpered.
With a serious glare, I ordered, “Let’s go.”
Shockingly, from behind us came four numbing words…
“I’m coming with you.”
“Evilicity,” Roland said, shocked.
“Don’t call me that!” she snapped back. Felicity must have followed us from the gymnasium to the library. Talk about the last thing we needed now, my newest wannabe crush.
“This isn’t a good time, Felicity,” I said, as if I had a raging headache.
“I’m coming with you,” she said, again.
“Why, you don’t even know what’s going on!” Roland quipped.
“Neither do you guys!” she shot back. “But I do know that something’s wrong with this school again.”
I focused my attention on her, and asked, “Why do you say that?”
“Duh! You’re not the only ones who have noticed the disappearing students, the changing hallways, the strange hold a certain new teacher seems to have over this school.”
“Ms. Strickland,” I said, easing my tone. She nodded, slowly.
“Lucas, I think somethings coming. Something dangerous,” she frowned.
I whipped around to the gaping hole in the wall and swore, “Not on my watch.”
Taylor stepped forward and leaned his head into the dark cave-like entrance. He crinkled his nose as he did, signaling the first hint of a wet, musky breeze. When the smell hit the rest of us, we jerked backwards as if we had been slapped.
“Ugh…that stinks!” Taylor mumbled from under his arm as it covered his mouth and nose.
“It smells like mildew and…” I tried to find the right words. Felicity found them for me.
She whispered, “Sour milk.”
“Whatever it is, it can’t be good,” Roland said, searching all of our faces for reassurance. “Maybe we should rethink this.”
“There’s nothing to rethink. We’re here now. We’re going in there. We’re going to figure out what Ms. Strickland’s secret is. Now’s not the time to get cold feet,” I scolded.
“It’s not cold feet,” Roland snapped back. With bugged out eyeballs, he gazed into the blackness of the hole in the wall, and added, “It’s frozen feet.”
“You can do this, Ro. Trust me. I need you, big guy,” I assured him. He nervously smiled and nodded yes. Taylor smiled excitedly and pushed past us, back towards the front of the library. He called out over his shoulder.
“Hang on! I almost forgot!”
“T?” I called back. Urgently, he jumped over the main checkout desk and scavenged the shelving below it. Books and paper fell to the floor as he made a small mess. Finally, he grabbed something with his hand and ran back to us in seconds. Gripped within his fist was a long and sporty hockey stick. He smiled down at us and winked.
“My old pride and joy! The librarian, Ms. Logan, detained it last season when I ran in here with it.”
“Why would you bring a hockey stick into the library?” Felicity asked, annoyed. Taylor cringed before looking my way.
“Oh, yeah, I remember that day,” I winced. “Tay ever-so-gently persuaded a certain hooligan to rethink his bullying ways before I was turned into his next victim.” I blushed at the embarrassing memory.
“Come on, let’s not waste anymore time,” Taylor insisted, and walked to the front of our ragtag crew. He shifted the hockey stick over his wide shoulders and looked deeply into the endless darkness. “Besides, what’s the worst that could be in there?”
Famous last words.
Suddenly, the surrounding walls began to vibrate and a dull roar emitted from the blackness. Before we could react, a dozen tentacles shot from the evil cavity and wrapped themselves around our arms and legs.
“Oh, crap!” I yelled. The purplish-black tentacles were coated in a silvery slime that seemed to be hissing as it touched our clothes. Small twisting barbs dug into the surface of our skin bringing numbness and shock. Felicity screamed as she was jerked through the hole instantly. Roland grabbed onto the side of the wall but it crumbled through his fingers as the alien squid arms squeezed around him, smothering his cries for help as he disappeared into the unknown.
“Lucas! Hold on!” Taylor ordered, with a thwack of his stick that cut through one of the limbs. Bubbling black blood sprayed everywhere, painting the room in filth. “Grab the stick!”
“I’m trying!” My hands slid along the blade of the stick as it was heavily coated in blood. Another set of tentacles slithered around our waists and chests, yanking with all their might. Taylor stood his ground for a moment but the monstrous arms were too strong for me. My feet jutted upward sending me inside the opening. Taylor doubled his effort and slammed himself down to one knee, fighting to keep his grip on the stick.
“Hold on!” he bellowed. More arms stuck to him like vines as I dangled helplessly in front of his eyes. My grasp was weakening and he could see it. There was only a few desperate seconds left for me.
“Tay, get out of here,” I choked out.
“Never,” he grunted. With one last disobedient nudge, he lunged forward smashing half the writhing arms into the side of the wall, crushing them completely. With a giant thud Taylor and I were sucked into the darkness and down a deep hole. It felt as if we were falling forever.
Taylor called out in the blackness, “Don’t let go, Luc!”
“Affirmative!” I wailed.
The many different arms seemed to want to separate us as we fell but could never completely sever our grips on the stick. The fall into this hell seemed to grow endless. One minute went by, and then another. The entire time Tay and I wrestled with the angry tentacles. Finally, I had had enough. With a jerk of my arm I tore it free from the last remaining tentacle and screamed as loud as I could.
“Ripley!”
In a blinding flash Ripley exploded above us, hovering just inches above our heads. Taylor watched as Ripley’s fiery breath lit the corridor above us. Ripley spun around, swiftly placing itself below us and with a combustable smile, illuminated everything all around the darkness. The light disintegrated the many torturous arms in a burst of ash.
“Woohoo!” Taylor celebrated wildly, while we still fell at a deadly rate. In the new light I could see everything. The hole we were in was alive and lined with buglike vertebrae. Each spine shaped ridge seemed to move as if we were being swallowed by a large beast. Maybe we were. The thought paralyzed me. Taylor quickly snapped me from my horrifying daydream.
“There’s the floor!” he hollered. Below us the end of the line was approaching fast. Ripley changed shape again into a smoky ball of white electricity and glowing embers. In seconds Taylor and I were cocooned as we slammed into the bottom of the hole in a safe crash.
“What a rush!” I chuckled, and found my footing. Ripley morphed back into the familiar dragon shape I preferred, still ablaze in bright light, and Taylor smacked the ground with his war-torn hockey stick.
“How do we taste, you scumbag hole?” he instigated. I searched the bottom of the pit, looking in every direction for some kind of way out. It looked as if we were in a large domed room decorated with all different sized bone-like vertebrae, just like the walls from the earlier free-fall. It was big enough that we couldn’t see every detail.
“Roland!” I called out, and it echoed once, then stopped. No response. “Felicity!” I yelled, even louder. Still nothing.
“They’re gone,” Taylor sighed. His hands choked the grip on his weapon even tighter. “We have to find them, Luc.”
“I know,” I said, desperately. In an instant, things quickly turned much worse.
“Fight,” Ripley warned out loud, instead of inside my brain.
“Fight?” Taylor asked, looking all around. “Fight what?”
“Fight.”
“What’s going on, Rip?” I asked, filling with uneasiness.
“They’re here.”
“Who? Who??
?s here?” Taylor panicked. He and I searched everywhere but the room was so big that Ripley’s light only showed us half of our surroundings.
“They’re here,” Ripley warned again, in a calm robotic voice.
In a shiver, I reluctantly asked, “How many?”
In a low and defensive growl, Ripley announced, “All of them.”
“Show me,” I demanded. Ripley swelled with burning fire and popped in a giant flash of silvery light. It illuminated the entire space, revealing that we were surrounded by millions of spider-snake serpents of every size. Some as tiny as earthworms, and others the size of anacondas. All of them with buzzing rows of fangs that secreted sparkling saliva. Their wicked eyes burning with red-hot hate.
Slowly, I stumbled next to Taylor, and mumbled, “Tay?”
He tightened next to me, gripping his hockey stick like a sword, and wheezed, “What?”
“This was the stupidest plan I’ve ever thought of.”
LEVEL 20
MY DEMONS
The wall of twisting serpents rose up above us blocking our view of the underground pit. They made a sickening grinding sound that we could feel deep inside our chests. In the darkness they were barely backlit by Ripley’s burning light. Their mouths stretched open wider than it seemed possible. Taylor and I prepared ourselves for the worst.
Fangs everywhere.
Ripley’s dragon body elongated itself, mimicking the attacking monsters. With a tight coil Ripley wrapped around Taylor and I in a protective circle. Taylor spun his hockey stick inside his hand and exhaled a worried puff of air. Our fighting stance only enticed our attackers more and their sharp limbs clicked wildly, reaching for us with malicious intent.
Claws everywhere.
“Are you ready for this?” Taylor asked me. I searched around desperately looking for any way out. There was none. We were surrounded.
“No. Are you?” I asked back.
With a crazy grin, Taylor leaned into me, and promised, “I’m always ready.”
The army of snakes fell onto us like a tidal wave smothering us with their menacing snarls and slithering bodies.
Screams everywhere.
Blackness rocked me backward, sending me to the cold ground in a crash. Taylor swung his stick with the force of a sledgehammer. Bodies of alien snakes split into pieces, showering us with their nasty innards. Ripley silently fought back with fiery bursts of energy and spinning blasts of light that seemed to freeze the swarm of monsters in place. They were paralyzed for only the moment the flash of light lasted, before lurching toward us again, and again.
Taylor and I stumbled backwards until our backs were pressing against one another. Ripley ripped to shreds every serpent that dared break our invisible bubble, but it didn’t matter, the more serpents that fell away, the more that filled their empty space. At this rate, we would never get out of here. It was becoming a losing battle.
“I think we need a new plan!” I yelled.
“And fast!” Taylor agreed. He lunged again with a chop of his stick to the jaw of one of the larger serpents. The swipe took the monsters bottom jaw clean off. “What do we do, Luc?”
Ripley snapped toward the closest batch of snakes and they retreated just out of reach. The rest of the swarm followed, backing up from us. Quickly, they twisted around each other like a rope the size and width of a building. Claws and teeth peeked from the growing torso. As the monolith of demon serpents swiveled unevenly above us, my heart raced with fear.
“This looks bad. What do we do?” Taylor cried out.
I was too scared to answer, so Ripley answered for me.
“Get down.”
Taylor and I huddled down, both of us grabbing onto the dirty ground below us. Ripley morphed into a large ball of smoke that engulfed us completely. The magical cocoon blocked the sight of the towering beasts. Tiny sparkles of gold lightning slithered through the smoke barrier and if I hadn’t been so terrified at the time, I would have enjoyed the spectacle, but I couldn’t. A barrage of sound washed over us like a rushing locomotive. Ripley’s body thickened even more and in my head I could hear my magical protector’s voice.
~ Be strong. ~
With a thunderous crash the tower of demons crumbled over the top us, trying with all their might to extinguish us. Millions of spider-snake mouths screeched in anger or pain, I wasn’t completely sure which. Our bubble of smoke shook violently, slamming Taylor and I into each other. His granite-like jaw smashed into my forehead almost knocking me unconscious. Everything began to spin inside our circled shield. Suddenly, it felt as if we were tumbling backwards. Another loud crash on top of us and it was obvious we were in motion, rolling like a pair of trapped guinea pigs in one of those plastic see-through balls. In my head, Ripley gave one last order.
~ Brace yourself. ~
With the force of an earthquake we collided with something and our racing bubble disappeared all around us. Ripley hovered just above Taylor and I as we spilled to the floor. The texture of the ground had changed and it was immediately obvious we weren’t in the same room anymore. Taylor rolled over wincing in pain and grabbing the small of his back. I held my head for a moment, shaking the fogginess from my eyes.
“T, are you okay?”
“Ugh…what just happened? Sounded like we exploded,” Taylor cringed. When my eyes refocused on our situation, I fell silent. Taylor nudged me again. “Luc? You okay? Lucas?”
Slowly, I stood up and pointed Taylor’s worried face in the direction behind us. He spun around with his mouth agape, speechless.
“Impossible,” I whispered, through tight teeth.
The last attack on us apparently smashed our bubble through the wall of the room we were in before. Like a cave within a crater, we had accidentally stumbled upon the real secret of Ms. Strickland and her snake-like henchmen.
Taylor gasped out loud, “What is this place?”
Letting the sight before us sink in completely, I said, “A nest.”
The room was larger than the last one and stunk even worse. Along the walls and ceiling were dripping mounds and pockets of filth that looked like giant blisters. They were expanding and retracting as if they were breathing. Inside of them floated green slime and the outline of bodies. Human bodies. One for each massive blister. They looked horrifying but the victims still appeared to be alive. I watched as the room seemed to inhale everything around it as if it were a gigantic lung. It was unbelievable that this hidden cave under our school was almost organic, almost alive.
“If you think that’s bad, Luc, look up…”
Above us, strung to the ceiling were hundreds of long slimy stalactites pointing down at us. All the missing students and faculty were woven into the awful icicles. Threads of bright fluorescent light seemed to be spun around each person and dangled to the floor, or stuck to the breathing blisters against the walls. Energy was streaming through the threads, draining the bodies of their life force and leaving them in a coma-like state. That’s when we saw Roland and Felicity, already wrapped in the sticky threads like a fresh meal knotted in a otherworldly spiderweb.
“Roland!” I called out.
“Is he still alive?” Taylor asked, upset.
“I don’t know. I think so.”
Urgently, we ran to where Roland and Felicity hung like rag dolls with their eyes and mouths slimed shut. I tried, in vain, to reach Roland with an awkward leap. They were just out of my reach. Flustered, I ran a nervous hand along the back of my neck, and glanced downward. Stealing my attention was a gold band winking up at me. It was one the Jynshee Rings stuck in the piled up dirt beneath my feet. I picked it up and studied its golden surface with one finger. It was covered in a thin film of saliva. Taylor and I both looked at each other before raising our heads to Felicity’s lifeless body above us.
“She must have dropped the ring during her cocooning process,” I deducted. Taylor began to fill with dread.
“What do we do, Luc?”
Without any hesitation, I s
aid, “Save them. We save them all.”
“How?”
I fell quiet, losing my nerve a little. I had no idea what to do. In my head I could feel Ripley awakening again but before I could acknowledge it, Taylor looked over his shoulder and took a giant step backwards.
“Round two,” he joked, horrified. A wall of slithering shadows rose up over the top of us, covering Taylor and I in a blanket of shade. The vicious serpents hissed and clicked, readying their sidewinding necks for their next attack. I stepped backwards, aligning my shoulders with Taylor’s. Our eyes were mesmerized by the curtain of fangs and spit.
“Ripley, please tell me you’re ready for them again?” I asked, tasting the humidity all around. Ripley materialized in front of us with wings outstretched and hope spinning inside fiery pupils.
~ No fear. ~
“No fear,” I silently whispered. Taylor nodded my way and spun his hockey stick within his grasp like a samurai. Before he could unleash his wrath an ear-piercing screech rang out everywhere. Every serpent locked in place, completely silent. For a quick moment they resembled an abstract painting. A dark and evil work of art.
“Why are they waiting?” Taylor asked, feeling as confused as I was. The energy all around the Nest immediately shifted. Another screech echoed everywhere and in a matter of seconds, everything changed.
The tsunami of serpents receded away, taking only enough time to navigate the dark room and climb back up the hole we originally fell through. They called out in a choir of frenetic excitement as they disappeared back to the surface level.
“Where are they going now?” Taylor rumbled. I turned back to Roland and Felicity, and frowned. Knowing instantly that the rest of the students were in jeopardy, I gasped…