by M. D. Massey
Kenny was fumbling with a guy rope when I caught up to him. I slashed it in two and drove my shoulder into the boat’s stern.
“Pink? Your favorite color is pink?” I yelled as I strained against the fuchsia hull.
“It looked purple to me, fuckwad. What can I say, I like Prince!”
Kenny threw the remains of the rope into the ship and jumped in, drawing the pistol again and leaning over the starboard side to shoot at the rapidly advancing spiders. I finally got the boat in the water, splashing through the shallows for several more feet as I struggled to get us well out into the lake. I prayed there wasn’t anything worse than the spiders under its surface. Once the water reached my waist, I jumped into the boat.
My chest heaved from the exertion of the battle, but we needed to get farther from the shore. As I recalled, some spiders could swim and even walk on water, using the surface tension to their advantage. I doubted that natural physics would allow an eight-hundred-pound spider to walk on water, but I also had no idea if those fuckers could hold their breath. So, I grabbed the pole from the bottom of the boat and started poling us away from shore. Kenny was still taking pot-shots at the spiders on the beach behind us.
“Stop shooting,” I ordered. “We may need the ammo later.”
He complied, holstering the weapon with a snorting laugh, one that soon turned into hysterical laughter. Soon the kid was rolling around in the bottom of the boat, and I worried he was losing it.
“Dude, are you alright?”
Kenny sat up, wiping his eyes and stifling a few giggles. “Yeah, I’m fine. We’re about to get eaten by a herd of giant freaking spiders, and you’re worried about riding in a pink boat. Wow, do you have gender identity issues or what?”
I kept poling us out into the middle of the lake, toward the exit tunnel, checking the ceiling above us to ensure no spiders were about to drop down on us. “Technically, a group of spiders is known as a cluster, not a herd. And I’m quite secure in my manhood, thank you very much.”
Kenny looked over his shoulder at the spiders on the shore one last time, then cast me a sideways glance and smirked. “You are such a walking penile erection. But you saved my ass, for sure—so I’m going to cut you a break.”
“Gee, thanks, Captain Shit-crumb.” Just as he opened his mouth to deliver a scathing reply, I stopped him cold. “By the way, good shooting back there.”
Kenny squinted at me, then leaned back against the starboard gunwale and kicked his feet up on the other side. “Meh, I guess you’re alright. For a dick-diddling ass-munch, that is.”
7
“So, how’d you get powers and stuff?”
Kenny was sitting in the front of the boat, chomping on an energy bar I’d given him from my Bag while I poled the boat down the tunnel. There was a slight current, so the going had been easy thus far. All I had to do was keep the boat from crashing into the walls… and duck to avoid the occasional trap.
Earlier, I’d nearly been decapitated by a huge circular saw blade that had swung out from the wall. Other traps had included a giant wooden sledge hammer, a Swiss ball-sized boxing glove on a spring-loaded arm, and an animatronic clown holding a fire hose that was actually a flamethrower.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I replied as I scanned the walls and ceiling ahead.
“Oh, come on. Seriously? So far, we’ve run into a goblin obsessed with summoning some crazy clown god, and giant cave spiders. You keep wiggling your fingers and mumbling under your breath in a foreign language that I don’t recognize. It’s gotta be magic, right? Then there’s the fighting—you really do remind me of Buffy, you know that?”
“Not Angel or Spike?”
“Naw, man, they’re monsters.” He paused and narrowed his eyes. “You’re not a monster, are you?”
“Nope, completely human.” Almost, anyway. “I’m what some call a ‘born champion.’ Maybe one in a thousand humans are born with peak-human abilities, and the theory is that we were created—or that we evolved—as a way to balance the scales between our species and supernatural predators.”
“Hah! So you are Buffy.”
“More or less.”
“Cool.” Kenny scratched his head. “One in a thousand is a lot. Why haven’t I run into one of these champions before?”
“Because supernatural creatures are drawn to us, like moths to a flame. Except usually it’s the would-be human champion who gets burned. The first brush a champion has with the supernatural almost always ends up being fatal. Trust me, it may sound cool to have abilities beyond that of a normal human, but it’s a major pain in the ass most of the time.”
“Like how?”
“For example, when I was just a few years older than you, an ancient fae vampire tried to kill me because he had a grudge against my family.”
“What’s a fae?” Kenny asked.
“The more common term is ‘fairy,’ although they’re anything but something out of a modern fairy tale. Fae typically lack any sort of empathy whatsoever—in fact, most of the ones I’ve met are complete sociopaths. Some fae look like elves from fiction and legend, beautiful and deadly. Others are much less refined, like the goblin you ran into earlier. And a few are completely monstrous, powerful and frightening beyond your worst nightmares.”
“Worse than those giant spiders?”
“Way worse.”
Kenny stood up quickly, nearly capsizing the boat. “Holy crap… you’re telling me it’s real, all of it? Bigfoot, zombies, the Loch Ness Monster, vampires, werewolves, mummies, and all that other stuff?”
“Bigfoot and zombies are debatable. But yeah, the rest is pretty much real—and that’s the problem. I’ve had nothing but trouble with the fae and other supernaturals since that vampire came after me. If I had my way, I’d have never found out that fae and monsters are real.”
Kenny sat up and turned to face me. “You’re kidding, right? We totally kicked ass against those spiders back there. Sure, I was scared shitless, but this is the most fun I’ve had in like, ever. How could you not like fighting monsters for a living?”
“I never said I did it for a living—although sometimes I do get paid for it. But mostly, I get sucked into a scheme some semi-immortal creature has cooked up—and almost always against my will. Right now, the local queen of the fae is blackmailing me to be her errand boy—which really sucks because I hate those pricks. And besides that, people die doing this work. A lot.”
Kenny rubbed his forehead with his palm. “Who died? Someone close to you? It must be, the way you’re all bitter and cynical and stuff.”
I considered whether or not I wanted to get into my personal issues with a twelve-year-old kid I’d just met. But I could tell where this was headed for Kenny, and if I could discourage him from pursuing the supernatural further, I would.
“My girlfriend. Trust me, I know what you’re thinking. You just found out about this crazy world that exists just beneath our own—a world where monsters are real and where you can fight them like a real-life video game. But the thing is, in real life you don’t get multiple lives. You don’t get to reload your last checkpoint or save. You make one mistake, and that’s it. You’re a goner. Or you get someone else killed, and then you have to live with it for the rest of your life.
“Believe me when I say there’s no upside to this life. You can’t tell anyone what you do, because that would just draw them into your world and potentially put them in danger. Or they’d try to have you committed. It doesn’t always pay the greatest, and it’s hard to hold down a regular job when you’re out hunting monsters into the wee hours every night. And you’re always looking over your shoulder. Always.
“Do yourself a favor, kid. After we find your friend and get out of here, when this is all over, just forget it ever happened. If you’re lucky, this will be your only brush with the supernatural world, and you’ll get to live out the rest of your life as a normal person. Goodness knows I wish I could.”
Kenny cro
ssed his arms. “I’ll think about it. But shit, man, how the hell can anyone just go back to their old life once they find out all that stuff is real?”
I poled us down the tunnel toward a pinpoint of light up ahead. “That, my man, is a very good question. But if you value your life and the lives of the people you care about, that is exactly what you’ll do.”
8
As we neared the end of the tunnel it opened up slightly, and the current became slightly stronger. A huge, arrow-shaped, lighted sign ahead pointed to another cave opening, with “EXIT!” spelled out in flashing, multi-colored bulbs. The current seemed to be taking us toward that opening, and the closer we got, the faster we went.
“Something’s not right here,” I said.
Kenny cocked his head and held a hand up to his ear. “Hey, do you hear that? It sounds like the ocean or something.”
I focused in on what my ears were telling me, instead of what I was seeing. “Shit. That’s not the ocean. It’s a waterfall.” I looked around frantically for a means of escape. All I saw were smooth stone walls to the left and right, but if the goblins used this waterway then there had to be another exit nearby. As we sped toward the exit and our premature demise, I switched to my second sight and looked at the walls again.
There.
“Kenny, get ready to jump.”
“Jump where?”
“Just trust me, okay? When I say go, jump at that wall like your life depends on it.” I helped him balance near the starboard gunwale. “Get ready. Wait, wait… jump, now!”
Kenny gave me a look that said if he died it would be my fault, then he jumped for the wall, disappearing through it. I jumped right after, landing in an awkward heap on top of him.
“Ow! Damn, Buffy, you need to go on a diet.”
The roar of the waterfall filled the small side tunnel we’d landed in. I disentangled myself from the kid and stood, then stuck my head back through the illusion—just in time to watch our boat pass beneath the flashing exit sign to its doom.
Well, at least we dodged that bullet. Shit.
I pulled back and helped Kenny to his feet. “You alright?”
He rubbed the side of his torso and winced. “I think you broke my ribs, you moose. Geez, give me a second.”
Kenny leaned against the wall of the narrow passage, kneading his ribs and giving me dirty looks. I decided to scout ahead while he recovered, noting that the passage continued ahead at a slight incline. It was unlit, but I could see light where the tunnel ended, approximately fifty feet ahead.
When I returned from my brief scouting expedition, Kenny pushed off the wall with a groan.
“Anything broken?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I don’t think so. How’d you know there was a tunnel hidden there?”
“I guessed.”
“Seriously? You bet our lives on a guess?”
I chuckled. “No, you goof. I knew there had to be an exit somewhere, so when I couldn’t see one I scanned the area in the magical spectrum.”
“Huh?”
I wiggled my fingers in the air in front of his face. “Magical powers. I can ‘see’ magic—not with my eyes, but in my mind’s eye with my second sight. It’s one of the first things you learn to do when you study magic.”
Kenny’s face grew thoughtful. “Can anyone learn how to do that?”
“Sure, if you have the talent.” I stood silent for a moment, just looking at him. “Didn’t anything I said earlier sink in with you?”
“Yeah, yeah—the supernatural world is dangerous, leave it alone, blah, blah, blah. Didn’t thirty years of ‘say no to drugs’ teach adults anything? You tell a kid that something is bad or dangerous, and what’s the first thing they’re going to do? Duh, they’re going to go check it out, that’s what.”
My shirt felt warm and wet, so I checked my wound; it was bleeding again. I was definitely going to need stitches. “Well, it’s your funeral. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Kenny flipped me off.
“On that note, let’s go find your friend so we can get the hell out of here and never see each other again.”
The kid rolled his eyes, crossed his arms, and looked away. “Whatever.”
I let him sulk and headed up the tunnel. As the roar of the waterfall faded behind us, new sounds echoed through the small passage, giving us a hint of what was ahead. We heard a bunch of what I assumed were goblins, chanting something about a clown god rising from the circus clown underworld—or something to that effect. Steady, booming drum beats punctuated the chants.
We snuck to the end of the tunnel, crawling the last few feet on our bellies. The tunnel exited on a sort of balcony ledge, roughly thirty feet above a vast circular chamber. The ledge followed the chamber wall around both sides, until it met on the side opposite us at a staircase that led down to the floor of the chamber. Beneath us, dozens of goblins dressed as clowns danced around an altar, stomping their feet and waving various bladed weapons as they chanted in a prosodic rhythm. Two drummers beat large hollow logs with the femur bones of some huge animal or creature.
And at the center of it all, tied on the altar, was a chubby blond-headed kid about Kenny’s age.
“Chants and drumming. That’s not cliché at all,” I quipped. I pointed at the altar. “The illustrious Derp, I presume?”
9
Kenny nodded, eyes narrow and a grim look of determination on his face. He began to stand as he reached for the pistol I’d loaned him. I quickly grabbed his arm and pulled him back down before he was noticed.
“Whoa there, sport… not so fast. We need a plan.”
“They’re about to sacrifice Derp!”
“I can see that, but if you haven’t noticed, we’re outnumbered about twenty to one. We need to either cause a distraction, so you can free Derp and sneak him out while I hold them off, or we need to take them all out at once.”
“Can’t you just blast them with fireballs or magic lightning or something?”
I shook my head. “A better magician or druid could, but I’m just not that good at magic.”
Kenny snorted. “Some magician you are. Can’t you at least cast an illusion, to get their attention or scare them off?”
I snapped my fingers. “That’s it! Ever see The Princess Bride?”
“Duh. Do you have a holocaust cloak and a wheelbarrow in that bag?”
“Nope, but I have something better. Look, I’m going to distract the goblins from up here, and when I do, I need you to be in position on the other side of this chamber. As soon as the goblins are looking at me, you’re going to cut Derp loose and make a run for it. Got it?”
He nodded. “Yeah, I can do that. But what about you?”
“If my plan goes well, I’ll scare the goblins away and we’ll all get the hell out of here alive.”
“And if not?”
“It was nice knowing you, kid.”
Kenny scratched behind his ear. “You are such a dork. Everything that comes out of your mouth sounds like a line from an eighties action movie.”
“Cartman, what a lovely, heartfelt sentiment. I’m touched.”
“See what I mean? Don’t get yourself killed, nerd, because I may not be able to find my way out of here alone.” He took off before I could reply, scrambling around the edge of the chamber at a low crawl.
I had to admit, the kid was growing on me.
I opened my Craneskin Bag and shifted through all the crap Sabine and I had picked out at the Halloween store, looking through the masks and outfits to find the one I wanted: Pennywise, the clown from Stephen King’s IT.
“Man, if I’m too late and these assholes actually manage to summon something like Pennywise or Vermoud the Clown God of Destruction, I’m might just shit my pants,” I muttered to myself, searching for more supplies.
Within minutes, I’d put together a reasonably believable costume, which consisted of the Pennywise outfit, lots of fake blood, and my real sword and war club—just in case.
I also had some magically-enhanced smoke bombs and M-80s scattered on the floor around me, which I intended to use for special effects. I set my tactical flashlight on strobe, propping it up so it pointed at the wall behind me. As I stood, I cast a cantrip to amplify my voice.
“WHO DARES SUMMON ME INTO THEIR PRESENCE?” I shouted in the deepest, most intimidating voice I could muster. My words echoed across the chamber, and I muttered the cantrip to light the smoke bombs.
The drumming and chanting below stopped, and the goblins turned their eyes up to the balcony where I stood. They began muttering and arguing amongst themselves, trying to decide whether or not I was the real clown god.
“COME CLOSER, MY CHILDREN, SO I CAN SEE WHO WISHES TO SERVE ME.”
A few goblins began to shuffle my way, then more followed. Soon, the entire goblin clan was assembled below me. I waited to speak until Kenny had cut Derp loose and snuck out the tunnel we’d entered through. I tried to get his attention by surreptitiously motioning at another exit tunnel, but my antics drew odd stares from the goblins at ground level. Shit.
“PROSTRATE YOURSELVES IN MY PRESENCE!” I yelled suddenly.
The goblins looked at each other in confusion, and one or two stuck their hands down the back of their clown pants.
“NO, I MEANT… OH, NEVER MIND. KNEEL, FOOLS!”
Several of the goblin clowns nodded in understanding, and they dropped to their knees while doing the “I’m not worthy” bow, over and over. Others soon followed, but one goblin remained unconvinced—the one Kenny and I had run into when we’d first entered the fun house. His clothes had dried somewhat, but it was the same clown. He stood there, arms crossed, rubbing his chin and eyeballing me. I decided I’d better head his dissent off at the pass, before he turned the tables.