The Goonies

by James Kahn

  We helped Brand up just as a loud whirring noise filled the room. Data, drawn to the biggest gadget around, had turned on the printing press,

  We walked over to him as he was picking up the last page rolling off. It was a freshly printed sheet of perfect counterfeit fifty-dollar bills.

  “Bogus bills,” said Brand. “Check it out,” said Data, handing me the page.

  “I knew those people were from the ozone.”

  Stef pulled the news photo of our hosts off the wall. “Oh, God, I knew I recognized these faces,” she said. “This is the Fratelli mob. They were on the news. Jake just broke out of prison, and there was this high-speed car chase, and they're wanted everywhere, and—

  “See! You guys never believe me,” said Chunk, still trying to get the freezer open. “And now look what you got yourselves into.…”

  Suddenly the freezer door flew open.

  And standing inside was a dead body.

  Frozen solid, his eyes wide-open. With a bullet hole in the center of his forehead. And an FBI badge pinned to his lapel.

  He was one of the two guys in dark suits we saw go in the restaurant earlier in the day. He was bound and gagged now, and halfway zipped into a green plastic bag. The one that wouldn't fit into the trunk.

  And then, like it was in slow motion or something, the body fell forward and hit the floor. Almost hit Chunk—he was so petrified he didn't move—until the body crashed to the cement, and then we all moved, and I mean fast.

  Out the door, down the hall, up the stairs. But not very far up the stairs. Because in the lounge above us we heard voices.

  The Fratellis were home.

  And then, at the top of the staircase, we heard the basement door open.

  We turned without a word and ran back to the counterfeiting room and shut the door.

  I took a suck on my inhaler.

  Chunk was shivering. “Mommy! Daddy! Uncle Wormer!” Over and over. I remember that's also the way he calmed himself down the night after he snuck in to see Friday the 13th, Part II.

  “Oh, Jesus,” whispered Andy, and crossed herself.

  Chunk saw that, and I guess he figured he'd try anything if it would help, but he was Jewish, so he outlined a Jewish star over his chest and stomach.

  “What are we gonna do?” said Brand.

  “We gotta get him back in the freezer,” I said, “or they'll know we been here.”

  Chunk got behind the body and pulled, while the rest of us got in front and pushed, except Andy, who just stood there stiff as the stiff, whispering, “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.”

  We could hear the Fratellis coming down the stairs, but we finally got the corpse up on its feet, pushed it into the freezer, and closed the door. We didn't realize yet that we'd pushed Chunk in with the body.

  We ran to the fireplace. I grabbed a shovel and motioned everyone else down into the passage below the false floor—first things first, but I figured as long as we were escaping from the Fratellis, we might as well check out the buried treasure at the same time.

  All the kids went down the hole except Brand. “Geez, it looks kinda small,” he said.

  “Yeah, like the elevator. Remember?” I said.

  “I told you to shut up about that.” He started to smack me a good one, but Mama's voice was getting closer, and besides, Andy was watching him from below, and he didn't want to look chickenshit in front of her for sure. So he swallowed it and crawled down in there with the rest.

  I went in last. Once I was down there I pulled the grating back over our heads, and then stuck the shovel up through the grating and pulled the logs and sticks back on top of it, and then took Stef's lighter and Data took Andy's matches, and we relit the fire from underneath.

  And then Mama and the boys came in.

  I could see them through the grate. Jake went right to the freezer, but before he could open the door very far, Mama spotted the broken water cooler and knew somethin' was up.

  “Let's go check your brother,” she said, real raspy. It was pretty obvious to me who the Thing in the next room took after in the voice department.

  The Fratelli family left to check on junior. I could still hear her saying, “He better not've busted them chains again. I ain't goin' back to the zoo for another set,” when the freezer door opened the rest of the way and Chunk slid out from behind the corpse. That was the first time I realized he wasn't with us.

  “Chunk!” I yelled in a whisper.

  He ran over to the fireplace. In his Hawaiian shirt he reminded me of a plate of frozen Jell-O with fresh fruit in it, but I didn't say anything.

  “Guys?” he said, holding his hands over the fire to warm up. “Lemme in! Quick, c'mon!”

  There wasn't any time for that, though. The gang would be back in a second.

  “You gotta get outta here, Chunk,” I whispered. “Get the police.” I saw the window above the press. “Use the window! Up there!”

  He looked over to the wall and started to shake his head, but then we all heard the Fratellis coming back. So he jumped up on the printing press, pulled open the tiny dirty window, and crawled out, just as Mama, Jake, and Francis reentered.

  “I knew he couldn't break those chains,” said Mama.

  “Maybe it was one o' them tremors, Ma,” said Jake.

  “Yeah.” Francis nodded. “I remember that happened once—”

  “Shut up,” said Ma. “C'mon. We gotta move the other one.” She pointed to the freezer.

  The boys nodded and dragged the body out. “You boys take care o' that,” Mama went on. “I'm gonna stay behind and look around, make sure none o' them ‘tremors’ is still nosin' around to start up again.”

  I figured it was time for us to ease on down the road a little, so I scooted back with the others.

  We were in a narrow tunnel surrounded by smooth rocks and hard earth and shored up by an occasional beam of tar-soaked timber. The tunnel headed down at a slant, getting wider as it went but totally black as soon as we got away from the feeble firelight above us. So even when it got wide enough to stand, we just huddled together for a minute, scared to walk any farther into the darkness, trying to take stock of everything we'd just been through.

  We were hidden from the murderers, Chunk was gone for help, every step from here on might bring us to pirate gold. It was wild and scary and it felt like we'd made it past the first couple of dangers like pros almost, and I was like high or something.

  Andy was more like something. “Oh, my God, I saw my first dead body,” she whispered.

  “Okay, look guys,” said Brand, “I'm the oldest, so I'll call the shots. First, let's find a way outta here—heads up, maybe we'll see a manhole cover.”

  That seemed like a dumb idea, but I didn't say so. I turned to Data instead. “Hey, Data, you got any light on you?”

  “Yeah, in case of emergencies. When I'm walking home from school and some big guys stop me for money, I pretend like I'm real scared, and then I reach in my pocket and pull this cord and say ‘Bully blinders!’” He sort of whisper-shouted the last words as he pulled the cord in his pocket.

  Two eight-millimeter movie projector lamps on his belt burst on with this incredibly bright light that was so blinding, we all had to cover our eyes.

  And then about three seconds later the lights went out.

  “Only problem,” Data mumbled, “batteries don't live so long.” So he reached into his backpack. “So… I have father's backyard light.” He pulled out a large battery lantern and flipped it on. It lit up the passageway.

  Brand took it from him. “Okay, I'll walk ahead with the light.…”

  “Walk? said Mouth. “What about run, son, and when you're done, you run some more, till you know you've won…” he started rappin'.

  There was a little cluster of nervous laughter.

  And then we began our journey.

  We walked for a long time. The tunnel twisted around in every direction, sometimes getting bigger, sometimes narrowin
g, sometimes widening to the size of a cave, sometimes splitting into three or four forks. After three turns I was totally lost. So we just kept heading upward as well as we could—at least to freedom, if not booty.

  After a while we came to a surprise sight: In a wide, low cavern, pipes came down from the clay ceiling, dangling into our space, crossing over each other, and bending back up again. All different sizes, mostly pretty rusty, tangled with lots of tree roots and creepers..

  Whatever they were from, it meant we were probably pretty close to the surface here.

  Stef jabbed Mouth. “Your old man's a plumber. What kind of pipes are those?”

  Mouth checked it out. “Gas pipes, electrical, sewage, plumbing, hot water, cold water, pressure pipes.…”

  “Water pipes?” said Brand. “Hey, you think if we started hangin' on 'em, somebody upstairs might hear?”

  Mouth nodded and pulled out the wrench he always carried in his back pocket. The rest of us picked up rocks. And we all started bangin' away.

  Nobody answered, though, so we clowned around a little, just to relax—began swingin' on the pipes like Tarzan or walkin' on some of the bigger ones like they were balance beams, and Andy tried her Mary Lou Retton imitation but fell, and Brand hung upside down from one, which I think is his natural position.

  Mouth began working on one of the fittings with his wrench, trying to unscrew it. Between him and us, it wasn't long before a dozen pipes were leaking and spewing water. Some, under pressure, even started to move by themselves, and it was weird and kind of mysterious, like a huge underground engine or something.

  We started really goofin' on 'em then—pullin' and pushin' and bashin'. Water was spraying all over, and some of the pipes actually sank to the ground and pulled fixtures down from the surface with them, shower nozzles and fountains and spigots and stuff.

  And then all hell broke loose. The pipes were bouncing righteously, smashing into the earth walls on overdrive, with steam and water hissing everywhere. It got scary fast, like in the middle of a laugh we all knew we should be somewhere else.

  “What's happening?” yelled Stef.

  “We wrecked the pressure valves,” yelled Mouth. “We better get outta here!”

  We got outta there. On to the next tunnel.

  “Geez,” said Brand, “you'd think somebody would've noticed.” He sounded pretty glum. I think we all agreed, but were just too ragged-out to agree out loud. So we just kept walking.

  We were wet now, which made us cold, and cold, which made us scared. Somehow dark and lost and cold is a lot worse than just dark and lost. So we walked huddled together for warmth and company. Reminded me of Robin Hood and his merry men, hiding in the forest from evil Prince John, keeping each other's spirits up with stories and songs and games.

  “Anybody know any stories or songs or games?” I said.

  Mouth started singin' the “Funeral March,” and Brand said, “Yeah, you hear the one about the kid brother who was buried alive?”

  Well, maybe it wasn't exactly like Robin Hood.

  After a while we reached a long passageway with an uneven floor, all jutting rocks, and sharp inclines. About halfway down it we saw something funny—a gum wrapper, a tin cigar tube, and an old mildewed bible.

  We stopped like an animal with too many legs.

  “Somebody else was here before us,” I whispered.

  “Maybe they're still here,” said Data, looking around.

  “Maybe we better hope they're not,” said Stef.

  Andy stopped doing Hail Marys long enough to start blabbering and wandering. “An hour ago Troy was looking down my shirt. There's nothing so wrong with that, is there? But, no, I had to get all vain and huffy, so now instead of cruising down the coast with Troy, I'm down here talking about my body to the walls. I mean, it's a nice body, and how many more years do I have before—” She stopped so still, I could almost hear her turning white. And then she pointed. “—before I start looking like him.”

  We all looked in the direction of her finger. On the floor, against the wall, lay a decayed skeleton.

  We sort of ran slowly over to it. Its legs were pinned under a giant boulder. I looked up at the ceiling. There was a whole string of boulders, dangling from heavy chains, along the entire length of this tunnel.

  All at once I knew what had happened here, and how, and why, and it all made sense.

  I spoke softly to the ghost that told me. “You did this, One-Eyed Willy, didn't you? This is one of your tricks. And you wouldn't have gone to all this trouble to keep people out unless you had somethin' awful big to hide, would you, Willy?”

  And I think 1 heard old Willy smile.

  Like I just knew from that moment on, I was right on his wavelength. There was something between us, reaching across all those centuries, pulling us together. Maybe he was my patron saint. Is that possible? Saint Willy? Or maybe I was related to him. Like his genes got passed down generation to generation, and some of 'em ended up in me, and it was that part of me that knew what he was up to all along the way.

  We looked close at the skeleton. He was dressed up in miner's clothes with a miner's hat and tools—shovels, picks, stuff like that.

  “This must be Chester Copperpot,” said Data.

  “Who?” said Stef.

  “The last guy who went looking for One-Eyed Willy's gold. The newspaper said he went in but he never came out—that was back in 1935.”

  “Find his wallet,” said Brand. He wasn't about to do it himself, though.

  “No way am I touchin' that dude,” said Mouth. “You find his wallet.”

  “I'll get it, you nerds,” said Stef, and reached into the skeleton's pants. I told you she was tough enough.

  “She reaches into guys' pants all the time.” Mouth laughed about a second before Stef kicked him a good one in the calf, which shut him up.

  She found the wallet and pulled it out, but at the last second, swear to God, the skeleton's hand closed on it and wouldn't let go. If it were me, I'd have let the sucker keep his damn wallet, but Stef had gone that far, and she wanted to go all the way. So she tugged, and he tugged back, and she finally pulled the thing free, and a couple of the skeleton's fingers fell off, to boot. Freaked me out, kind of.

  Stef opened the wallet, and sure enough, the old guy's name was on a crumbling card inside—Chester Copperpot.

  Data whispered, “Geez, if he didn't make it out—and he was supposed to be an expert—what about us?” Then he had another thought, so he reached into his pack and pulled out a couple dozen small red thingies made of caps, and set a couple down on the floor.

  “What're you doin'?” I said.

  “Setting booby traps,” said Data. “In case anybody follows us. We'll hear them coming.”

  That's when I noticed the medallion hanging around the skeleton's neck. I grabbed it and studied it close. It was copper, and it was shaped like a key with a skull at one end, with three irregular holes cut into it for the eyes and nose.

  For some reason I wondered if it fit onto the map somehow, so I took out the old parchment and tried comparing points.

  Meanwhile Data started transferring junk from Chester Copperpot's pack to his own—road flares, matches, a compass, a big knife.…

  This last item was the last straw for Andy. She flipped out and started runnin' down the tunnel, yelling, “Let's get out of here! Come on! We've got to keep moving!”

  She was running right for a tree branch lying on the floor against the wall, and then I noticed there were branches just like it, spaced regularly along the floor, stuck into the wall, right at places near where the boulders were hanging.

  Like triggers.

  “Andy! Stop!” I shouted.

  But it was too late. Her foot snapped the first branch.

  I heard this humongous creaking sound, and the first boulder began to waver. And suddenly, without thinking, all the kids ran after her. Now, I wasn't very strong, but I was pretty fast—faster than old Chester, anyway—so
I raced along with everyone else. Playing Beat the Boulder.

  And did they fall! Just missed me twice, once so close that the wind of the fall knocked me over. But the noise alone was enough to kill anyone with half a brain. Fortunately we'd parked our brains elsewhere temporarily.

  Anyway, we all made it somehow, finally, to the far wall, as the last boulder crashed behind us by a hair, shattering into rubble. We huddled there a minute, shaking and holding our ears, scared and buzzed, and only slowly realized we were at a dead end.

  It was a big stone wall with a small circular boulder stuck into it at the bottom. And gradually, as our ears stopped ringing, we were aware of another sound—behind the wall.

  “Listen!” said Stef, real excited. “There's somethin' behind there!”

  “Maybe it's a way out,” said Andy.

  Brand took it as his big chance to be Macho Rescue-Man. He gave Andy a wink, yanked off his shirt, and flexed. Andy blushed, Mouth woo-wooed, I tried to make a muscle, Data rolled his eyes, and Brand put his shoulder to the boulder.

  Nothing happened at first, but then, after a lot of grunting and sweating and isometrics by Brand, the thing began to give.

  Brand was a lot of kinds of jerks sometimes, but he was strong, I'll give him that.

  Slowly the rock moved more and more, with a sound of crunching stone. And suddenly it just rolled away down the slope of the floor, leaving a hole in the wall.

  Everyone applauded, and Brand did his typical fake-modesty trip. I poked my head into the opening. Total blackness. But there was still that sound, only much louder now. Sort of a squeaking, rubbing, whupping.

  “Hey, Data, bring the light,” I said. It wasn't the kind of sound I wanted to walk into blind.

  Brand stuck his head in. “Hello! Hello! Anybody here?”

  And the next thing I knew, there was a screech and a flapping, and about a thousand bats came flying out of the hole.

  They were in our hair, in our clothes, big black wings and sharp pointy teeth and red eyes and evil garbles. We knocked at them, we tried to hide behind the big rocks, we yelled—I think it was the most disgusting thing that ever happened to me in my life.