by Collen Houck
We continued onward through the dark passageway, twisting through the underground labyrinth. My torch cast a flickering light on the walls, creating frightening shadows that danced around me in sinister circles. As we made our way through the tomblike catacomb, we frequently came upon open areas that branched off. Ren had to stop and smell each opening before choosing the one that he felt was leading us in the right direction.
Shortly after passing through one of the open areas, a terrifying sound shook the passage. A metallic hammering grated loudly, blasted its noise through the maze, and a sharp-spiked iron gate slammed to the
ground right behind me. I spun around quickly and cried out in fright. I suddenly realized that not only were we in an ancient dark maze, it was an ancient dark maze full of booby traps.
Ren moved up beside me and walked very close, close enough for me to keep my hand on his neck. I dug my fingers into his fur and held on tight for reassurance. Three turns later, I heard a quiet hum emanating from the passageway ahead. The hum increased in volume the farther we went. Turning a corner, Ren stopped and looked directly ahead. His fur stood straight up and crackled against my fingers. I raised my torch to see why he had stopped and gripped his fur as I started shaking.
The corridor ahead was moving. Giant black beetles, as big as baseballs, were lazily crawling over one another, obstructing the entire passageway ahead. The strange aberrations seemed to limit their movements to the corridor directly ahead of us.
“Uh…Ren, are you sure we need to go down that direction? This other passageway looks a little better.”
He took a step closer to the edge of the passage. I reluctantly took a step closer too. They were huge with shiny black exoskeletons, six long and hairy legs, quivering antennae, and two pointed mandibles on
the front that clacked back and forth like sharp scissors. Some of the bugs even cracked open thick black wings and hummed heavily as they flew to the opposite wall. Their prickly legs even allowed them
to stick to the ceiling.
I looked at Ren and gulped as he started forward and took another step, determined to go through the passage. He looked back at me.
“Okay, Ren, I’ll do it. But this will really,really freak me out. I’mrunning the entire way, so don’t expect
me to wait for you.”
I took a few steps back, tightened my ponytail to make sure none of them would get in my hair, and began to sprint. Squishing my eyes to slits, I ran, screaming in the back of my throat the entire way with my lips tightly closed. I darted through the passage as quickly as possible and almost lost my balance a few times when my boots rolled across several bugs at once, crunching them. I had a horrible image flash
through my mind of me landing in the hoard face down and resolved to be more careful with my footing.
It felt like I was running on a giant roll of bubble wrap, and every step popped several giant, juicy bubbles. The beetles burst like ketchup packets and splattered green slime in every direction. This action,
of course, disturbed their brother bugs. Several of them took to flight and started swarming around my body, landing on my jeans, shirt, and hair. I was at least able to bat them away from my face with my free
hand, which got poked by their pinchers several times.
Finally making it to the other side, I began shaking my body in great convulsions to rid myself of any hitchhikers. I had to reach up and grab a couple that wouldn’t detach, including one that was climbing up
my ponytail. Then I began scraping my shoes against the wall and looked around for Ren.
He was running toward me fast through the now buzzing passageway, and with a great leap, he landed next to me and shook himself fiercely. Several bugs still clung to his fur, and I pushed them off with the butt of my torch. One of them had pinched his ear hard and it was bleeding. Luckily for me, I’d made it through without any of them pinching me to the point of bleeding.
“I guess it helps to wear clothes, Ren. They end up pinching your clothes instead of your skin. Poor tiger. You have squished bugs all over your paws. Yuck! At least I have the benefit of wearing shoes.”
He shook each paw in turn, and I helped him pry bug bodies from between his toe pads. Shuddering one last time, I doubled my pace to put as much distance between us and the bugs as I could.
About ten turns later, I stepped on a stone that sank into the ground. Freezing in place, I waited for the next booby trap to spring. The walls started to shake, and small metal panels slid back. Sharp, spiky, metal barbs emerged from the wall all along the passageway…and that wasn’t all! Not only werespikes sticking out of the walls, but the trap was compounded by slick, black oil that poured out of stone pipes to cover the floor.
Ren changed to a man.
“There’s poison on the tips of the spikes, Kelsey. I can smell it. Stay in the middle. There’s enough room
for us to pass through, but don’t allow yourself to be evenscratched by those barbs.”
I took another look at the long pointy spikes and shivered, “But what if I slip?”
“Hold on tightly to my fur. I’ll use my claws to anchor us as we go, and we’ll goslowly . Don’t rush through this one.”
He changed back into a tiger. I adjusted my backpack and tightly gripped the scruff of Ren’s neck. He stepped gingerly into the pool of oil, testing it with one paw first. His paw slipped a little, and I watched as his claws emerged and sank through the oil and into the dirt floor. He forced them deep into oily ground. After locking his leg, he then took another step and sank those claws in. Once that paw was firmly in place, he had to yank hard to get his other foot back up.
It was a painstakingly tedious process. Each deadly spike was placed at random intervals so I couldn’t even get comfortable with a rhythm. I had to focus all my attention on them. There was one by my calf, then my neck, my head, my stomach. I started counting and stopped after fifty. My entire frame shook from clenching my muscles and moving stiffly for so long. All it would take was one second of slipped concentration, one wrong step and I’d be dead.
I was glad Ren was taking his time because, as we walked through, there was barely enough room for both of us to walk side by side. We only had about an inch on either side of us. I planted my feet carefully. Sweat dripped down my face. About halfway through, I screamed. I must have stepped into a particularly oily place because my boot slipped out from under me. My knee buckled and I staggered and grabbed Ren’s fur. This spike was aimed at my chest but luckily I twisted at the last second and my backpack took the spike and not my arm. Ren froze in place and waited patiently for me to right myself.
I panted and righted myself limb by trembling limb. I don’t know how I didn’t end up impaled. I got lucky, very lucky. We continued on going even slower and finally emerged on the other end shaky but safe. I collapsed on the dirt floor and groaned, rubbing my stiff neck. “After the spikes, the bugs don’t seem so bad anymore. I think I’d rather do the bugs again than that one.” Ren licked my arm and I petted his head.
After a brief rest, we went on. We walked through several more turns without event. I was just beginning to let my guard down when a noise set off again and a doorway sunk down behind us.
Another
doorway started descending ahead of us, and we ran for it but didn’t make it. Well, Rencould have made it, but he wouldn’t go through it without me.
A rushing sound started banging against pipes overhead, and a panel opened in the ceiling. A moment later, we were knocked to the floor by a mountain of water that fell on top of us. It quickly began filling the chamber. The water was already up to my knees by the time I was able to stand up.
“What do we do? Can you swim? It’ll go over your head first!”
He changed to a man. “Tigers can swim. I can hold my breath longer as a tiger than as a man.”
The water was now up to our waists, and he quickly pulled me past the surging pipe and over to the back door. By the time we got there I was
floating. Ren dove under looking for a way out the door.
When his head popped back up, he shouted, “There’s a seal indentation on the door! See if you can insert it and twist it like you did before!”
I nodded and took a deep breath. Diving under the water, I felt along the door for the mark. I finally found it, but I was running out of air. Struggling for the surface, I kicked hard, weighed down by the heavy backpack and the seal around my neck. Ren reached down under the water, grabbed my bag, and yanked me to the surface.
His head was hitting the ceiling now. We would drown any minute. I took a few deep breaths.
“You can do this, Kells. Try again.”
I took another breath and pulled the seal from around my neck. He let go of my bag, and I dove again, pulling myself down to the spot that I’d found before. I pressed the seal into the groove and twisted it one way and the other, but it wouldn’t budge. Ren had changed back into a tiger and was now swimming
down to me. His paws tore at the water, and the motion swept the fur back from his face, making him look scary, like a white striped sea monster. The grimace he wore showing his pointed teeth didn’t help.
I
was losing air again. I knew the chamber had filled and there were no more options.
Frustrated and terrified, I beat against the seal and felt a slight movement. I panicked. This was where I would die. I would never be found. No one would hold a funeral for me. What would it feel like to drown? It would be fast. It only takes a minute or two. My dead corpse would be bloated and swollen, floating next to Ren’s tiger body forever. I wondered briefly if the bugs could get in and nibble on me.
That seemed worse than the dying, somehow. Ren could hold his breath longer. He’d watch me die.I wonder how he’d feel about that. Would he regret it? Would he feel guilty? Would he pound against the door himself?
I fought against the desperation to swim to the top. There was no more top. There was no more air up there. I beat on it again, harder, and I felt a whoosh. The door began to rise, and the seal fell out. I reached down desperately and was just able to grab the ribbon between two fingers as the water spilled out of the door, taking me along with it.
The water dumped us into the next corridor and then slid down through drain holes, leaving the floor sopping and muddy. I gasped and coughed, sucking in deep breaths. I looked at Ren and started laughing, then coughed again. Even gagging, I still laughed.
“Ren,”giggle-cough , “you look like a,”cough-cough-giggle , “drowned cat!”
He must not have seen the humor in it. He huffed, then walked right up next to me and shook himself like
a dog, spraying water and mud all over me.
I sputtered, “Hey! Thanks a lot! Well, I don’t care. It’s still funny.”
Now his fur stood up in wet spikes.
I tried to squeeze all the water out of my clothes, slipped the seal around my neck, and decided to check the cameras to make sure no water had gotten in the bags. I dumped the soggy contents of the bag onto the floor. The items fell in a muddy puddle that splashed my soaked clothes. Except for the soggy food, everything else looked well contained. Thanks to Mr. Kadam’s foresight, all the cameras looked intact.
“Well, we can’t eat, but other than that, we’re good.”
I grudgingly got up again. Uncomfortable and soaked, I grumbled for at least the next ten minutes. My boots made squishing noises, and my wet clothes chaffed.
“The bright side is that we washed off the bugs and the oil,” I said.
I pulled out a flashlight and shook it. It sloshed wetly inside, but it still worked. We took a few left turns and a right and came upon a long corridor, longer than any of the others had been. Ren and I started making our way through. About halfway down, Ren stopped, jumped in front of me, and started forcing me to move backward.
“Great, what is it now? Scorpions?”
At that moment, a great rumbling noise shook the tunnel. The sandy ground I had just been standing on…collapsed. I scrambled backward as more of the floor crumbled and plunged down into a deep chasm. The quaking stopped suddenly, and I crawled to the edge to look down. Holding my flashlight over the edge didn’t help much because I still couldn’t see how deep the drop-off was.
Frustrated, I shrieked out to the hole,“Wonderful! Who do you think I am? Indiana Jones? Well, I gotta tell ya, there ain’t no whip in this bag!” I groaned and turned to Ren.
Indicating the path across the chasm, I said, “And I supposethis direction is where we need to go,right
?”
Ren bent his head down and peered into the rift, then walked back and forth along the edge, examining the walls and peering at the path that continued on the other side. I moved to the side and sat with my back to the wall, pulled out a water bottle from the bag, took a long drink, and shut my eyes for a moment.
I felt a hand pick mine up.
“Are you okay?”
“If you mean am I injured, then the answer is no. If you mean am I ‘okay’ as in I-am-confident-I’m-sane, the answer is still no.”
He grimaced. “We have to find a way to get across the chasm.”
“You’re certainly welcome to give it a try.” I waved him off and went back to drinking my water.
He moved to the edge and peered across, looking speculatively at the distance. He changed back to a tiger, trotted a few paces back in the direction we had come from, turned, and ran at full speed toward the hole.
“Ren, no!” I screamed.
He leapt, clearing the hole easily, and landed lightly on his front paws. Then he trotted a short distance away and did the same thing coming back. He landed at my feet and changed back to human form.
“Kells, I have an idea.”
“Oh, this I’ve got to hear. I just hope you don’t plan on includingme in this scheme of yours. Ah…I know. Let me guess. You want to tie a rope to your tail, leap across, tie it off, and then have me pull my body across the rope, right?”
He cocked his head as if considering it then shook his head. “No, you don’t have the strength to do something like that. Plus, we have no rope and nothing to tie a rope to.”
“Right. So what’s the plan?”
He picked up my hands. “What I’m proposing will be much easier.If you can trust me.”
I was going to be sick. “Itrust you. It’s just…,” I looked into his concerned blue eyes and sighed.
“Okay, what do I have to do?”
“You saw that I was able to clear the gap pretty well as a tiger, right? So what I need you to do is to stand right at the edge and wait for me. I’ll run to the end of the tunnel, build up my speed, and leap as a tiger. At the same time, I want you to jump up and grab me around my neck. I’ll change to a man in midair so that I can hold onto you, and we’ll fall together to the other side.”
I barked out a loud laugh. “You’rekidding , right?”
He ignored my skepticism. “We’ll have to time it precisely, and you’ll have to jump too, in the same direction, because if you don’t, I’ll just hit you full power and drive us both over the edge.”
“You’reserious ? You seriously want me to do this?”
“Yes, I’m serious. Come on. Stand here while I make a few practice runs.”
“Can’t we just find another corridor or something?”
“There aren’t any. This is the right way.”
Reluctantly, I stood near the edge and grimaced as I watched him leap back and forth a few times.
Observing the rhythm of his running and jumping, I began to grasp the idea of what he wanted me to do, and then all too quickly he was back in front of me again.
“I can’t believe you’ve talked me into doing this. Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure. Are you ready?”
“No! Give me a minute to mentally write a last will and testament.”
“Kells, it’ll be fine.”
“Sure it will. Alright, let me take in my surroundings. I want t
o make sure I can record every minute of this experience in my journal. Of course, that’s probably a moot point because I’m assuming that I’m going to die in the jump anyway.”
He put his hand on my cheek, looked in my eyes, and said fiercely, “Kelsey, trust me. I willnot let you fall.”
I nodded and tightened the shoulder straps of my bag, then moved nervously to the edge of the chasm.
He changed back to tiger form and ran all the way to the end of the tunnel. He crouched down and then surged forward in a rush of speed. This huge animal was charging, barreling toward me. All my instincts said to run—run as fast as I could in the other direction. The fear of the chasm behind me dwindled in comparison to being run down by an animal of his size.
I almost shut my eyes in fear, but I pulled myself together at the last possible second, ran two steps, and hurtled my body into the void. Ren took a mighty leap at exactly the same time. I reached out to wrap my
arms around his neck.
I desperately began clutching at his fur, sensing myself falling, and then felt arms grab me around my waist. He pulled me tightly to his chest, and we rolled in the air so that he was under me. We hit the dirt floor on the other side of the chasm with a heavy thump that knocked the wind out of me, and we bumped and skidded along for a bit on Ren’s back.
I picked myself up and sucked a huge breath of air into my collapsed lungs. Once I could breathe again, I examined Ren’s back. His white shirt was dirty and torn, and his skin was scratched and bleeding in several places. I took a wet shirt from the bag and cleaned his scratches, removing little pieces of gravel embedded in his skin.
When I was finished, I stood in front of him and grabbed him around the waist in a fierce hug. He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me close.