by David Simms
“Isn’t that a person?” Luke pointed to a tall figure against the near wall, out of reach of the firestorm.
The little man found his tears dripping onto his lips, causing an ear-to-ear grin to form. “Man,” he cried, “I guess Tony Iommi came to this place once before. That’s how we get across and hopefully live.”
Luke didn’t get it, yet. “But isn’t that just a man-suit? A model of a warrior? It has no weapons and it looks old.”
“Exactly.”
“What is that thing made of, anyway? Could it fight the fire?”
Again, Otis grinned. “Of course it can. It’s solid iron, man.”
“What do we do with it, wear it?”
Otis had already found a latch on the side of the being and was working its spring. “If this can actually fit us and help us walk, we might be able to get to the other side.”
“Like the chicken?”
“So, you’ve heard that joke?” Otis felt like ribbing Luke, but even he had his limits. “Many times, even the chicken met a truck before he found his home.”
They both felt for the many latches and found that they existed only on the outside. But there was another, a smaller one, behind it. “Maybe we can both wear them?”
“Buddy,” the smaller teen said, “unless this thing is made of aluminum foil, I doubt I’d be able to take more than a couple of steps in it before dropping.” He tried lifting it and couldn’t. His muscles couldn’t handle the job. Drums gave him power in this world, but not complete strength. It didn’t take much to humble him anymore.
Luke recoiled. “But, then you’d be burned alive!”
“Not if you walked with your arms protecting me. Some things aren’t that hard to figure. Those fireballs are hitting the cavern at a certain angle, but not every angle. If you walk to the exit in one direction, off center as it may be, we’ll get there unscathed. Well, at least I will.”
“You’d do that? Take that chance?”
Otis sat down as he opened the boots of the iron suit, the one for Luke. “Buddy, you haven’t heard much about my plight. Sure, I’ve got the women. Sure, I’ve got the friends and the music. But, there are a few things that I don’t have and one of them is time.”
Luke stepped into the leg as several balls bounced off the floor and careened into the far wall, bursting into red flames. One of them could easily ricochet into them if a stray rock diverted it. Otis wondered briefly how quickly one of them would die if just one fireball struck. There wasn’t any water to put out the fire and even with his healing powers in this River-led world, he doubted anyone could survive a direct impact.
“What do you mean?”
Otis found that fighting back the tears became easier each time he told the tale, but now that he had a purpose, a legacy to fight for, another creased his eye.
“I was born with a death sentence. Mom didn’t expect me to last a year. The doctors said five. When we went to the genetic experts, they told us that if I graduated grade school, it would be a miracle.”
“But, how?” Luke stood still as the other teen locked him up latch by latch. Now he had both legs and his lower torso snapped into place.
“Is it comfortable?” Otis had to keep Luke on his heels if this was going to work.
The boy grimaced. “It feels like wearing a metal coffin, but if it means I don’t become a human bonfire, I guess I have no choice.”
“Then shut your yap and let me do this.” He wanted, no, he needed to help save his friends. “I’ve had my nose broken by a pen tossed at my face. My arm fractured when I slipped out of a desk. A leg snapped by trying to run to first base.”
“What’s first base?”
As Otis snapped Luke into the upper torso, he smiled. “Something you deal with on a first date. Maybe I’ll hook you up with a friend one day and you’ll find out.”
Otis wondered if he’d ever get to kiss a girl, one who liked him for himself, not because he was a novelty. He would never tell anyone that in the band, even Poe. She’d understand, but he couldn’t do it without breaking down.
“Then, what’s second? How many are there?”
“Too many for my taste.”
“But you seem so strong here.” The bigger boy wriggled into place as Otis lifted the helmet for a sizing.
“It’s the drum. Maybe the River’s effect on us. But, take me back home and my bones are like tissue paper. Every day is a crap shoot.”
Luke’s eyes regarded him with confusion. “Then stay here. Live like there’s a million tomorrows.” The boy beamed. “We have girls here, too. The others, the musicians, they seem to think our girls are okay.”
A big grin stretched Otis’ face to the point of near pain. “You’re tempting a poor boy who is about to live one of the greatest lyrics in history. Tempting. But it’s not real and it’s not me.”
“What’s real? Is it where you were born or where you find yourself? Somehow, I think your mother and father would want what’s best for you.”
Otis slammed the iron face shut on Luke. “Ow! I can’t see right.” The drummer turned the mask until the boy claimed his vision was clear.
“It’s not about what they want. It’s my life.”
“Will you think about it?” The voice sounded tinny and much farther away. The boy in the iron suit took a cautionary step, then another. Both seemed balanced, but unnatural. “Will you at least consider staying? We need someone who lives the music like you do.”
Otis just shook his head. It was too much to consider when you already had your death date carved in your head and couldn’t foresee life past your own senior prom.
“Let’s make Ozzy proud.”
And they began the journey through the fire.
Both watched the rain of fireballs streak across the cavern, shot from tubes by some active magma strain deep within the mountain.
Otis thought, if this thing ever blew…
One softball-sized blaze buzzed his head, searing a curl of hair. Even though it passed in a blur, the heat caused his skin to tighten in pain. “First time I’ve ever had a cave burn,” he shouted to the boy in the iron mask. The smell of burnt hair turned his nose, reminding him of a barbeque gone wrong.
Luke began to walk, one heavy step after another. Otis hurried in front of him, judging the trajectory of the deadly balls with his own steps. The clang of the metal joints reminded Otis of the Renaissance Faire in New York, where knights jousted and swordplay occurred daily. He wished he was there now, walking through the shady, cool paths with his family, sucking down an Italian ice, surrounded by ladies clad in medieval attire.
Instead, he felt sweat run off him in streams that did nothing to lower the temperature. “You okay in there?”
Another clang as Luke fought to keep his footing. Otis knew that if the boy fell, there would be no rising. Otis didn’t have the strength to help and with the weight of the suit and barrage of lava balls, he would be a sitting duck. A cooked one, too.
“No sweat,” the other replied, but his breathing already sounded labored.
A basketball-sized flame struck him dead center in the chest. He staggered, but held his ground. “Get. Under. Me. Now.” Pain sounded in his voice.
Otis looked around for protection. None showed itself. Across the cavern, no shelter was present. As open as a football field with opponents that put the hardest hitting Giants and Jets to shame, the area stood barren and deadly.
He recalled the film he saw in history class about World War I and trench warfare. Soldiers on both sides waited in deep ditches that ran miles in either direction. They shook in fear, awaiting the whistle or siren that screamed at them to leave the relative safety of the trench and venture into the open graveyard where protection existed only in hopes and prayers. When they left their safe haven the young soldiers found countless bullet-riddled bodies where the only barriers existed in the form of razor wire.
He and Luke had even less to block incoming death. Should he stand behind or under Luk
e? Did it even matter? Logic told him Luke was probably right; the greatest safety from a mass of molten rock obliterating him would be under the armored suit, but he didn’t wish to be a coward. He wanted to be in the suit, to be the hero for once.
Not happening this time, he thought as he looked up at the suit that likely inspired the song. Never could he have fit in there and walk. As long as Luke moved steadily, they should be fine. The teen held his arms up, forming a protective barrier as Otis huddled beneath.
Another fireball slammed the iron with a metallic clash. This time, it bounced off the teen’s head. A glob of rock stuck to the helmet and sizzled.
Otis looked around for a stick to strike it off, but the cavern floor was barren save for more rocks. He grabbed one and yelled at his comrade.
“Lean down!”
No reply.
“Bend down!” he screamed, noticing that the rock still burned at the helmet. It stuck like crazy glue to the surface. It likely wouldn’t burn through, but the temperature must be near seven hundred degrees.
Just as Luke appeared to listen to him, turning his head and gazing through the fine slits, another shot struck the metal in the upper thigh, a few inches from Otis’ head. The heat bowled him over, partly from surprise but also from the wave that threw furnace temperatures into his face, causing his skin to burn. It probably wasn’t much, but a bad sunburn hurt like no other. Otis imagined how it would feel if any of the liquid rock or flame touched his flesh.
It wouldn’t be like the movies, he thought, where it just sloughed off like pudding, or would it? He’d faced some horrible pain in his life from broken and shattered bones and torn muscles, but he knew this pain would trump all other. He looked to the other side where the supposed exit was—a bunch of rocks, a hole in the wall that he hoped led to his friends.
How many more of these direct hits could Luke take? How many steps would it take until he reached the safe zone?
Luke moved his right leg, the one hit by the fireball. He seemed a little less determined and less in stride, but still he moved. His breathing flowed from the mouth hole in gasps, as though he had been sprinting at high altitudes.
“I can’t.”
“What?” Otis barely heard him.
“Breathe,” a small, shaken voice said. “Burning. Up.”
He imagined the worst, how the teen looked under the mask, if his flesh bubbled like fried chicken. He would never touch Kentucky Fried Chicken again.
At least twenty feet remained until they would reach the far wall. Either they sped up or they would fry like Kentucky Fried’s special blend.
More and more fire showered them, four then five big ones striking hard. Two barely missed Otis.
“Move!” He yelled, begging Luke to shake free of his stupor. The teen needed to move faster if they were to survive.
Just as he moved again, fate slapped their hopes to the ground.
The boy toppled over with a resounding thud.
Chapter Twenty-Two
He likely never even saw the massive fireball that dropped him. He fell face first and nearly bounced off of the floor. Otis knew it was over. There was only a slim chance he could even unlock the clasps and remove the mask. Even so, if Luke remained conscious, Otis could never move him to safety.
He pushed at the boy. He needed to turn him over and see if he still breathed.
Please don’t hit me, he begged at the tubes from the cavern ceiling, though in his mind, he awaited the final blow. He wondered if he would even feel it, even see it, or if it would mercifully happen so fast that he only would see a flash of light before the blackness.
The iron suit barely budged. And it cooked, paining his fingers. He stripped off his shirt and wrapped it around both hands. He pushed and pushed. His skinny arms failed to turn Luke over. They felt weaker than ever. Some things never changed.
Two more balls hit, one to the left, one to the right.
A backbeat? Whoa.
Otis counted, first in his head, then by tapping on the iron suit.
One, two. One, two.
Bass, snare. Bass, snare.
He waited for more. It came. A higher pitched burst off to the left; a few seconds later one pitched to the right—just like cymbal crashes.
Why hadn’t he noticed it before? It couldn’t be this simple, could it? Deadly, but simple. Make the right moves and live. One wrong one and burn like that Def Leppard song.
At least, he thought, it wasn’t as random as being pummeled by great balls of fire.
If his new friend wasn’t in the process of being barbequed, he just might have smiled at the irony.
“Luke,” he said. “If you can hear me, roll over.”
He heaved and pushed again. Nothing. “Please.” He shoved with all his might—nothing.
Then a groan emerged from deep within.
“It’s alive!” Luke definitely missed that joke.
Otis turned him slightly and took the opportunity, launching himself into the boy with a painful body block. As Luke’s head turned, the latch for the helmet showed itself.
Otis wrapped his hand in his shirt and flipped it open. The heat seared the material but the latch popped wide. He wasted no time placing his small hands on either side and pulled. Hard.
With a sickening sound, akin to cutting open a turkey wrapped in foil, the helmet slid off.
Otis bit back a cry.
Luke’s face was covered in blisters and his mouth dropped in pain.
“Kill me,” said the twin.
Something in Otis snapped. “Seriously? What lame movie did you get that from? We don’t play that game here. Get. Up.”
Wrapping his hands tighter, he unlatched the rest of the suit and helped the teen out of it. Most of Luke’s flesh was reddened but not damaged much. Otis turned the boy’s head, carefully, toward the exit. Neither paid much attention to the rain of fire around them. Until they moved, heat was the biggest worry.
“Think you can make twenty feet or so?”
Luke shook his head.
“Tough. We’re going.”
“But,” Luke wheezed. “No. Protection.”
Sometimes, the iron ain’t in the suit, Otis heard his grandmother’s voice reverberate in his head. Sometimes, it’s much deeper.Why hadn’t he thought of that earlier? The old woman had always pointed him in the right direction. Without her advice, his parents might have given up on him years ago and listened to some idiot doctor who believed he had no chance to live this long.
Go, Grandma.
He stared at the path he formed in his head, punctuated by the rhythms he both saw and heard in his head. If only he could help Luke move in time with the rhythms. If only. The weight differential might be too much.
“Okay, farm boy. We move. Now. I pull, you move with me. Otherwise, we both cook.
You want to fry, that’s fine, but don’t make me burn out with you when I’m trying to keep your butt alive.”
Luke half-stood, partially holding back from his injuries, but partially from not wanting to see Otis killed for helping him. Otis saw this as all too obvious and knew he just had to get the boy moving, not thinking about what might happen.
“If we don’t get out, your sister might be dead as well.”
“Nope,” he replied. “She’s smarter than me. She’ll find a way.”
Otis groaned in despair. Was this how he sounded when the pain kept him up at night, crying to his parents?
“Well, I’m not going to tell her you died a wuss. You want to, go ahead, but please get off your swollen, barbequed crack and do it so I can live for another hour or so.”
Luke cried out as he pushed himself off the floor on knees covered in blisters and burns.
“Twenty feet?”
“Yep.”
“Then what?”
Otis started into the dark of the exit. It looked almost too tight for a human to fit through.
“Don’t rush me. I haven’t thought that far ahead, yet. Just imagine yo
u have rhythm and follow me. Please. I don’t want to be something’s fried chicken tonight. Not enough meat on me for anything. I’d be shorting them way too much. You, on the other hand—”
Another cry, but one with movement. “I’m coming.”
Then they were off.
Otis waited for the fireball then pulled Luke along. The bass.
He waited for the snare then pulled again. Both flamers missed them by hairs, but missed just the same. As long as they kept with it, they had a chance to make it to the crack in the wall.
* * * *
Otis imagined being behind his drum set and holding the sticks in his hands. He controlled the beat. Without the steady beat, the song fell apart. The band would suck. Everyone would know it was him, his mistake. But, only one mistake was allowed here.
“No way am I screwing up this song,” he said to himself.
A crash singed his hair, leaving another streak of charred hair behind. Other than that, they maneuvered the distance, only to find the opening in the exit as small as he feared; too small for Luke.
The teen began to cry, not for himself, but obviously for his sister and family. This must have been his first attempt at actually living and he blew the deal.
Luke picked up a cooling piece of rock in one hand, not caring about the heat. He slammed it into the wall above the crack with a stream of words Otis could only imagine were curses in his village.
Another groan sounded, but not from the teen.
Otis put his ear to the wall. Seriously? “Hey. Hit it again.”
“What?” Luke had nearly gone over the edge to looneyville.
“That rock ball in your hand. Hit the wall with it again. Now. Hard.”
The boy did and the groan repeated. Otis wondered why and he spread his hands all over the surface, feeling for something. Anything. Nothing.
Then, there it was.
The simplest of symbols.
Lightning from the sky. Thunder usually followed. The carved bolt gave him the confidence he needed to try once more. He picked up his own cooled off ball of rock and told Luke what to do.