IF: Bad Dreams

by Clayton Smith

  He had to keep running.

  All at once, he started to cry. Tears streamed down his face and blurred his vision. The doll sniffed the air and seemed as if it could smell his tears. Cole’s crying excited the little demon and whatever monster was holding its stick. The laughter grew even louder, and the creature in the darkness began breathing more heavily, more excitedly. It moved faster, too, until the marionette pressed itself against Cole’s skin every few steps.

  His back was covered in welts; movement was excruciating. Just pumping his arms to run caused sharp, stabbing pain in his skin. He cried as he ran, choking on his own sobs and stumbling blindly through the tunnel. He tripped over a loose clod of dirt and went sprawling face-first into the wet earth. He lay in the mud, crying, and realized he couldn’t get back up. His legs were too tired. His lungs were too exhausted. The fight drained out of him, and he went limp.

  “This is it,” he whispered through his tears.

  He closed his eyes and braced for the pain.

  “Cole!”

  Cole opened his eyes. Farther down the tunnel, he saw the glow of a second spotlight. A small, blonde girl was standing in its center.

  “Emma!”

  Cole scrambled to his feet and burst forward just as the doll came in for another pass. It caught the tail of his shirt, barely missing contact with his back. He sprinted forward, pushing on through the pain.

  “Cole! Help!”

  Emma started huffing and puffing in his direction, but he waved her back. “No!” he cried out. “Turn around! Go back!” The marionette’s giggling was echoing now…echoing despite the muffling of the tunnel walls.

  No, Cole realized. It’s not echoing. There’s another one. Emma is being chased by a doll demon, too.

  “Down here!” The order came from another voice somewhere to Cole’s right.

  He was absolutely positive that he would never, ever be happier to hear the Stranger’s voice than he was at that second.

  The tunnel forked suddenly, and while Emma ran at him from the left, he could see the Stranger in his own pool of light far off down to the right. He was waving Cole in. Willy and Etherie were already huddled against him.

  “Emma! This way!” Cole cried. He reached out and grabbed her hand, shielding her from the creature behind him and taking another searing burn in his shoulder blades as Emma rounded the corner and hustled down the tunnel on the right. He screamed in pain, but now he had hope—hope that the Stranger would save them, hope that they could survive. So he pushed on, helping Emma along, running now from two dancing dolls held by two hidden monsters.

  “Here!” the Stranger yelled. He was far too big for the tunnels and had to run hunched over, yet he still somehow moved with an easy grace. He led the way, and the four children followed closely on his heels, Cole bringing up the rear. More laughter filled the tunnel behind them. From the sound of it, even more laughing, dancing hangman dolls were closing in.

  One for each of us, Cole thought.

  They ran through the tunnels, twisting to the left, then to the right, then to the left again. The nightmare monsters jumbled down the tunnel behind them. The demons tripped over each other, grunting and snarling and shoving to push through, but they didn’t stop chasing the children, didn’t stop with their screeching laughter. The gap had widened a little between predators and prey, but it could close again quickly if the children slowed.

  Just when Cole thought his legs would give out beneath him, the cowboy skidded to a stop. He pressed himself flat against the tunnel wall and waved the children forward. “Go, go, go,” he said. They didn’t stop to ask questions. The children ran forward, past the Stranger. The ground under Cole’s feet changed from soft, wet dirt to something hard and flat. He looked down. He was running over a wooden plank in the earth.

  The door!

  The children ran over the trapdoor as the giggling dolls bore down on them. Cole realized with dismay that there was no handle on the door, nothing to grab or open it with, and that it was half-buried in the dirt. The Stranger dropped to his haunches and dug in the mud, searching out the corners. The giggling grew louder. The snuffling of the creatures filled the tunnel.

  “Hurry!” Cole said.

  The Stranger spat. He clawed wet dirt from the edges of the wood until he was able to squeeze his fingers into the space between. He grunted and heaved, and the door slowly pulled up from the muddy floor of the tunnel with a loud sucking sound. Cole leapt back as a screeching doll burst into the Stranger’s circle of light, moving in to burn the cowboy. But just as it made its dancing lunge forward, the Stranger ripped the rest of the door from the earth and flung it back. It smashed into the cornhusk doll, which sizzled into it, tendrils of gray smoke curling up lazily from the burn in the wood. The demon holding the doll on the stick slid to a stop just outside of the light. It breathed heavily, angrily. Cole realized that it couldn’t enter the light.

  It was a creature of the darkness.

  The space below the open door was as black as tar. There was no telling how far down the hole went, or where it led.

  The screeching laughter of the other four dolls rang through the tunnel as the rest of the creatures caught up, and their laughter turned to screams of frustration. The Stranger pointed into the hole. “Down! Now!”

  Willy went first, diving headlong into the darkness below.

  Cole helped Emma into the hole next. She plopped down ungracefully and screeched as she plunged into the earth. Then Etherie leapt in, seeming to float down into the darkness. The Stranger motioned for Cole to hurry.

  He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and threw himself into the pit.

  Chapter 4:

  In Which We Explore the Finer Points of Cave Dwelling

  Princess Polly was extremely displeased with her current accommodations.

  The rocks were too rocky, the darkness was too dark, and the loneliness was entirely too lonely. She had been waiting oh-so-patiently for some loyal subject or other to come rescue her and win the favor of the kingdom, but it was now clear to her that if she wanted to get out of this cave, she was going to have to do it herself.

  Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness now, as much as they could in the total darkness—which meant that most of the world she could see was black, and a very small bit, way off to the left and uppish, was a slightly grayer shade of black. That, she knew, was the light let in by the entrance to the cave. And the entrance was also the exit. So she lowered herself to her hands and knees and began to crawl forward, to the left, and uppish.

  She hoped a loyal subject wouldn’t choose this very time to appear and flick on a very bright light, catching her in the embarrassing act of crawling. A princess should only crawl when absolutely necessary. “But it is absolutely necessary,” she assured herself, remembering the open chasm not far to her right.

  She inched forward on her hands and knees, moving gingerly over the wet stones. She was actually glad she couldn’t see; she just knew that her dress was a mess, and she couldn’t bear to see it covered in mud. This situation did not improve when her hands got tangled in something hard, ropey, and slimy, and she went tumbling face-first into the mucky ground. She gasped and disentangled her fingers from the offending thing. It felt like a heavy vine, as big around as her arm, and covered in the same slick grime as the rest of the cave floor.

  She’d have to watch out for that.

  Elsewhere in the cave, there was water dripping…it was off to her right, in the general direction of the chasm and far away from the mouth of the cave, so she didn’t think it would be a good idea to go looking for it, even though she was awfully thirsty. If she found her way out, she knew, she could find some nice mother or father who would surely give her a tall glass of chocolate milk from the refrigerator instead.

  She crawled forward, and her hand touched another something, something that was de
finitely not a rock, but not a vine, either. She patted it blindly, trying to discern its full shape and very much hoping it wasn’t a sleeping snake. No…it felt like a thin, plastic tube. She slid her hand along the surface until she came to the end, where she felt a plastic knob.

  The knob was shaped like a star.

  “My wand!” she shrieked. She snatched it up and pushed the button that made the magic spells happen. The star tip burst into pink light, illuminating the world around her.

  It also illuminated the fact that she was much closer to the edge of the chasm than she thought. Her toes were three inches away.

  She screamed and tumbled backward, landing on her behind on the cave floor and smashing her elbow on a rock. “Ow!” she cried, rubbing it fiercely. She tapped the scrape with the magic wand, which helped a little. Then she struggled back to her feet and peered carefully over the edge of the canyon. It went down, down, down…much deeper than she could see with the pink light from her wand.

  “You saved me, wand,” she said. She kissed the star tip. It glowed happily in response.

  With the help of the pink light, she edged forward through the cave, careful to give the chasm a wide berth. The last thing she wanted to do was fall into the center of the earth. There were creatures down there; she knew there were, there had to be—big, ugly, fiery creatures with curved knives for claws and hot lava breath. There were all sorts of stories about monsters like that living deep in the earth.

  Polly scooted carefully along the floor of the cave, moving slowly so as not to slip. She didn’t know how the rocks could be so wet when it wasn’t even raining in the cave. She made a mental note to investigate later. She couldn’t get distracted now. She was determined to get to the opening of the cave. She wanted light. She wanted freedom.

  And, if she were being honest, she also really wanted to see that dragon.

  Of course, she knew dragons were dangerous, and that they were the natural enemy of the imprisoned princess. Her mother had read her enough bedtime stories for her to know that she was expected to sit patiently and wait for a handsome prince to come rescue her. But she didn’t much see the point in that; boys could take forever to do the easiest things, like tie their shoes and come inside when they were called. It could take a bajillion years for one to come slay her dragon. She didn’t have time for that. Besides, she wasn’t convinced that a boy could handle the dragon any better than she could. Willy would just wildly fling himself at the monster, she knew, and get eaten right away, and Cole would probably hide in a corner and not do anything at all. The Stranger might be able to handle it, but he was so grumpy, he might take the mean old dragon’s side, and then she’d be in real trouble. The dragon was bad enough; the dragon and the Stranger? Forget it.

  No. If Polly wanted out of this mess and out of this cave, she’d have to do it herself.

  She scooted closer and closer to the grayish shade of black, which was now becoming a slightly lighter grayish shade of black. There was definitely some sort of light filtering into the cave up there. With her wand held high, brightening the gloom with its pink glow, Polly pressed onward through the drippy, drafty cave.

  Mrraoooown…

  Someone—or something—moaned from deeper inside the cavern. Polly froze and instinctively clicked off her wand light. She was plunged back into total darkness. She held her breath and waited.

  Had she just been hearing things? The wind through the tunnel, maybe?

  Mrraoooown, the voice in the gloom moaned again, and this time, there was no mistaking it.

  Polly wasn’t alone.

  “Who’s there?” she demanded in her best tone of royal authority. The creature in the darkness did not respond. She clicked on the wand and held it up in the general direction of the moans. The light didn’t reach nearly far enough to show her who might be making the noises. “I said, who’s there!” she demanded, stomping her foot.

  The creature in the dark replied this time with the same long, melancholy groan.

  Polly sighed. If there was a monster in the cave, she’d have to defeat that, too. Otherwise, it would be free to eat her subjects, and if she let that happen, what sort of princess would she be?

  She looked to her left, toward the mouth of the cave, and then over to the right, where it was deeper and darker. Dragon or moaner? she thought. Moaner or dragon? Which should she banish from her new kingdom first?

  Then, Polly did something rather strange: she made a very logical, Colemine-like decision. “The dragon’s job is to guard the cave while I’m in here, he’s not going anywhere,” she reasoned. “The stupid moaning thing might leave before I can banish it, and then what would my subjects think?”

  So she decided to investigate the groaning first, then come back for the dragon.

  She turned around and pushed deeper into the cave, giving the canyon a wide berth. The rocky ground sloped downward, and the ceiling overhead plunged sharply, so low that Polly could reach up and brush the rocks there with her fingertips without even standing on her toes. The walls closed in a bit on the sides, too, and before long, Polly was slipping down a rough, rocky tunnel, so narrow that she could see the walls on either side. She crept forward, and the moans got louder…and louder…and louder. And then they were joined by a second set of moans, and a third. The closer she got to the noises, the more creatures she heard moaning in the darkness.

  She began to wonder if this had been a good idea.

  Before she could decide, though, she came to another huge crack in the cave floor. This one reached all the way from one cavern wall to the other, so there was no way around it. She could see the other side, but it was too far to jump. She’d never make it without a flying carpet or a winged unicorn or something to help her across. It looked like her trip into the belly of the cave had come to an end.

  That didn’t matter, though, because whatever creatures were making that weird moaning sound, they were doing it from the bottom of this new canyon.

  The moans rose up in a horrible symphony of sadness, filling the air and echoing off the stone. Polly peered down into the darkness, and beyond the rosy glow of the wand, she spied small blue lights swirling around near the bottom of the gulch. She got down on her belly and lowered the wand down as far as her arm would go. It didn’t help much; she could still only barely make out the bluish lights below. She flicked off the wand light, and as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, the blue lights below grew brighter, more intense. Soon, she could see the edges of the lights…and she realized that they weren’t lights at all, but faces. Glowing blue faces.

  She gasped at the sight.

  The sound carried down to the creatures below. The faces stopped moving, and they turned up in unison to face Polly. They were long and thin, those faces, with chins that stretched much farther than chins were supposed to stretch. They had hollow cheeks, and black holes where their eyes should be. The creatures wrenched open their mouths, letting their huge jaws fall wide, and they groaned, filling the chasm with their cold, lonely sound.

  Polly scrabbled back away from the edge and pressed a hand against her hammering heart. “Monsters,” she whispered to the darkness.

  Banishing a dragon was one thing…but a whole horde of monsters? That was something else entirely. They seemed to be stuck down in the canyon, which meant they didn’t pose a threat, at least not right now. “I don’t have to banish them at all, then,” she said. She was grateful for that.

  She clicked the wand back on and made her slow ascent back up to the main chamber of the cave. The mournful moans drifted to silence behind her as she carefully found her way back up the slippery rocks toward the dim light.

  She really had no idea how she was going to fight a dragon. She didn’t know if her wand had enough magic in it to stun the beast, much less destroy it. Stunning it would be okay, because she could sneak past it while it was frozen stiff…but the problem was, her
wand had never made that sort of magic before. It might not even be capable of it.

  She shuffled through some possible spells she could try as she tiptoed toward the opening of the cave. Slayifus dragonious seemed like a natural choice. Surely that would have some impact. Or she could try killio monstro, though she wasn’t really sure she wanted to actually kill the poor dragon; she really just wanted to get past it. Fall-o dragonious seemed promising, too…but if it really made the dragon fall, it could potentially fall right on top of her, and that would be a disaster. Or maybe, she thought as she wound her way around a corner where the gray light grew brighter, she could use a spell on herself. Something like invisiblo mio, or supercus strongidus. Either of those seemed likely to help her get past the dragon. But she’d never used those spells before, and she didn’t think trying them out against a dragon was a very good idea, just in case they went wrong.

  “Fine,” she said aloud, her voice echoing around the cave. She held the wand straight out, pointing it toward the grayish light, and performed a series of expanding figure eights. “Slayifus dragonious!” Then she tapped her wand in the air. “Boom!” She nodded, satisfied. Surely that would work.

  She didn’t have to wait long to find out.

  As she curved her way around the turn, the light suddenly grew very bright, and she shielded her eyes against the mid-day sun. The cave sloped upward again, this time to a large opening with blue sky visible on the other side. The light was so bright, it stabbed into the backs of her eyes. It was several minutes before she could bring her hand away from them without tears forming at the corners.

  Polly couldn’t see any dragon…but she could hear it, all right. Its breathing sounded like an idling semi-truck; the engine revved when it inhaled and rumbled when it exhaled. The vibration of it shook the stones under Polly’s feet; every time the dragon breathed, pebbles shook loose and clattered down the cave floor. Polly gulped hard and clicked off her wand again. She didn’t need it to see now, and she was going to need to save all its power for the dragon.