The Thing At Black Hole Lake

by Dashe Roberts

  But Milo didn’t stop. He ran straight into the water and jumped into his kayak, casting off on to the lake. The men didn’t pursue him: they were too busy securing the sizable stag. They hoisted him into the air, teetering precariously as he was pulled up beneath the helicopter. The security goons jumped on to the remaining ropes, and were themselves pulled up into the helicopter’s cabin in turn. The chopper dipped its nose and sped off towards the Nu Co. complex.

  What do I do, what do I do, what do I do? Milo paddled frantically, the rain pounding on his hood synching with the beat of his heart.

  Cliff’s Edge

  The fire crackled behind Lucy’s damp parka, which was slung over the back of a chair by the Arkhipovs’ brick fireplace. Seated cross-legged on the floral couch, Lucy thrashed Tex’s shirtless avatar with her electrified green beast. She picked up Tex’s beefcake, did a backflip and slammed him across the video game screen, the words “KO” appearing in dripping red letters. Boo ya.

  “If I did not know any better,” said Tex, “I might think you had some aggression to work out.”

  “I told you,” said Lucy, “I don’t wanna talk about it.” She took a swig of hot chocolate. Anna Arkhipov had made a large batch when Lucy showed up at the door looking like something Errol had pulled out of a bog.

  “Would you like more pretzels, Lucy dear?” Tex’s mother called from the kitchen.

  Lucy inspected the empty party bowl. “Yes, please, Mrs Arkhipov!”

  “And we will also take the leftover Halloween candy,” called Tex.

  Anna poked her head around the door frame. “I told you, Alexei, only three pieces per day.”

  Tex squeezed Lucy’s cheeks until she resembled a chipmunk. “But look at this sad girl. She needs sugar.”

  Sighing, Anna disappeared and returned with a bowl of candy. “Do not tell Toli.” She gestured upstairs towards her youngest son’s bedroom.

  “Please.” Tex grabbed a bite-sized chocolate bar. “His music can be heard a block away. He has no idea we are even here.”

  Anna waltzed back into the kitchen, humming “Looking for Freedom” by David Hasselhoff.

  Tex stretched his thumbs. “Time for a new game.” He picked out another cartridge and inserted it into the console.

  Lucy pouted.

  “Okay, seriously, what is up?” Tex plopped on to the couch beside her. “Is it Feesh?

  Lucy grunted. “I don’t wanna talk about that dingus.”

  “Aha. And why is he a dingus this time?”

  The pair chose their cars and characters.

  “The truth is,” said Lucy, “Fish and I have a fundamental incompatibility in the way we assimilate an ever-shifting reality.”

  “That sounds serious.”

  “Let’s go!” announced the game.

  Tex and Lucy shimmied on the couch, thumbs flailing as they tried to beat each other to the finish line.

  “But I thought –” Tex whooped as his car dodged the oil slick Lucy shot at him – “you guys were star-crossed besties.”

  Lucy’s car hit a ramp and nearly careened off the edge of the rainbow-coloured road. “I think we’re just crossed.” She hammered the A button, activating the turbo boost. “And besides,” she said, slamming Tex’s vehicle into a wall, “you’re my bestie.”

  “Eat this!” Tex shot a jet of fire in Lucy’s skeletal avatar’s face, leaving her to languish in a cloud of smoke as he crossed the finish line. This guy knows the meaning of true friendship.

  KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK!

  Someone pounded insistently on the front door.

  “Alexei,” yelled his mother. “My hands are soapy, will you get that?”

  Tex hit pause and answered the door.

  A bedraggled boy wearing what looked like a hazmat suit stood on the front porch, dripping with sweat and rain. His bike lay haphazardly at the foot of the porch.

  “Is Lucy here?” Milo panted.

  “Speak of the devil.” Tex glanced over his shoulder.

  What on the round blue Earth is HE doing here? Lucy mouthed the word “NO” to Tex.

  “Sorry,” said Tex. “She says she is not here.”

  Milo shivered in the cold.

  “But it is wet as an octopus disco out there,” said Tex. “Come on inside.”

  “Sorry,” said Milo, “there’s no time. Can you tell her this is really important?”

  Curiosity getting the best of her, Lucy came to the door. “What?” she asked flatly.

  “I need your help,” said Milo.

  “How did you know I was here?”

  “You weren’t at your house. I figured this is the next place you’d be.” Milo spoke rapidly. “Listen, you have to come with me. Please.”

  “Come with you? You said you didn’t trust me. And, you know what, I’m not sure I trust you—”

  Milo grabbed her by the shoulders. “It’s Thingus.”

  Lucy’s face fell. “What happened?”

  “What’s Thingus?” said Tex, sifting through the candy bowl.

  “It was my dad’s security team,” said Milo, his voice cracking. “They showed up in a helicopter with all this gunk and gadgets. Lucy, they took Thingus.”

  “They took Thingus!” she exclaimed.

  “What is THINGUS?” Tex asked again.

  Lucy grabbed her damp parka, knocking over the chair it was draped over. “Thanks for the eats, Mrs Arkhipov!” she yelled as she shoved her rain boots on and ran out the door after Milo.

  “Thingus schmingus,” Tex grumbled.

  He turned round just in time to see Toli snatch the candy bowl from the coffee table and run upstairs.

  “Come back with that, you fart dragon!” Tex shouted, slamming the front door behind him.

  Lucy struggled to keep up with Milo as he raced ahead on the slick roadway.

  “I don’t understand,” she huffed. “How did they catch him? Why didn’t he transform into a small creature and hide?”

  “They surprised us,” Milo yelled over his shoulder. “Then they disabled Thingus with this horrible pink goo.”

  Lucy gasped. The pink smoke at the geodesic dome. That’s what all the sap is for. Nu Co. is making a weapon against the Pretenders!

  They flew round a bend. Lucy skidded on a patch of leaves, but she righted her bike before she slid into the trees. Milo hardly seemed to notice.

  “What do you think they’re going to do to Thingus?” asked Milo. His face was lit by the ghostly red glow of his bike light, his brow tight with worry.

  Lucy tried to push the word “dissect” to the back of her mind. “I really don’t know.”

  “I just thought…” Milo trailed off. “You seem to know all there is to know about everything that’s happening around here.”

  “You have no idea how much I wish that was true,” Lucy responded.

  When they reached the top of Nu Co.’s driveway, the security gate was locked. Though the parking lot had a scattering of cars in it, the factory appeared to be shuttered and empty.

  Lucy stuck her fingers through the chain-link fence. “I bet they took Thingus to the secret lab.”

  “Secret lab?” said Milo.

  “There’s a hidden entrance in the middle of the orchard,” said Lucy. “That’s where they’re taking all the sap.”

  “Take me there,” said Milo.

  Lucy scaled the chain-link fence, Milo scrambling after her.

  They raced down the driveway, their breath fogging in the cold night air, the cascading sheets of rain muffling their footsteps. Without warning Milo tackled Lucy from behind and yanked her into the foliage at the side of the road.

  “Hey!” she yelped.

  He silenced her with a finger to her lips, then pointed up. A drone with a sweeping spotlight flew across the driveway ahead of them.

  Their rescue mission had nearly ended as soon as it had begun. They’d have to be careful from here on out. Which is going to be difficult, considering Milo’s dressed like Bi
g Bird.

  “About your clothes…” said Lucy.

  Without hesitation Milo stripped off his raincoat and trousers, revealing a pair of khakis and a black fleece jacket. Although he’d be soaked in seconds, he was much less likely to be seen. Lucy handed him her purple scarf and he wrapped it around his head like a balaclava.

  Slipping in and out of the trees, they made their way towards the centre of the orchard. Milo scanned the skies, pulling Lucy this way or that to avoid detection. At last, they reached the thick grove of sticky pines surrounding the geodesic dome.

  Milo and Lucy ducked through the undergrowth to the edge of the grove, then hid behind a heavy indigo tree branch. The white dome glowed in the darkness, illuminated by dim lights. Today, the smoke emanating from the pipe on the top of the futuristic building was a pale blue colour, rather than pink.

  Guess they’re working on some new experimental monstrosity.

  A stocky man stood watch on the grated porch, an earpiece snaking along his soft chin. Mr Murl. Of course Fisher’s most heinous henchman was guarding the entrance. Instead of a suit and tie, he wore a set of black military-style tactical gear. What’s he up to?

  “Are you sure this is the right place?” Milo whispered. “It’s not nearly big enough to house a secret lab.”

  “It’s in there,” said Lucy. “Trust me.”

  “How do we get past Murl?” Milo lamented. “They’re probably experimenting on Thingus as we speak.”

  CRACKKKKK! A bolt of lightning struck the orchard about thirty metres north. Lucy and Milo jumped in alarm.

  “What was that?” Unnerved, Murl stalked off his post towards the treeline. “You sure that’s just normal lightning?” He paused, listening to someone on his earpiece. “Send a drone,” he barked, then turned back towards the dome.

  Dratsicle sticks.

  Milo’s teeth chattered. How long could they wait out here before he got hypothermia?

  Come on. Think, Lucita! There’s gotta be a way past this slugmunch.

  MYYOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWW WWWWWNNGGRRRRR.

  A high-pitched wail, like the cry of a demonic baby, rang out from the area where the lightning had struck.

  “Is that a cat?” Murl said to whoever was on the other end of the line.

  MWWWOOOOOWOWWWWWWW WWRRRR! The yowl sounded again, louder and more insistent.

  “Cats make that noise?” whispered Milo.

  “It’s called caterwauling,” said Lucy. “They do it when they’re fighting over territory and stuff. They don’t normally come out in the rain, though.” She remembered the local weatherman morphing into a feline just the other day. “I’ll bet it’s not really a cat, though.”

  “You think it’s a Pretender?”

  Lucy nodded, feeling a tremendous rush of relief at finally being able to speak about such things with her friend. “Maybe they’re coming for Thingus.”

  Milo’s expression looked somewhere between heartened and horrified.

  I hope the Pretenders are here. We could use all the help we can get.

  “I’m telling you,” Murl snarled, “that ain’t no normal cat.” He pulled a high-tech-looking tranquilliser gun from its holster and took off into the trees.

  “Let’s go,” said Lucy.

  Quickly, the kids raced over to the entrance to the geodesic structure. Milo yanked on the heavy door, but it wouldn’t budge.

  Lucy pointed to the number pad on the wall. “You need a code to get in.”

  “A code?” Milo ripped the scarf off his head and threw it on the ground. “What are we supposed to do now?”

  “Relax, Fish.”

  “Relax? Thingus is in danger and there’s nothing we can do and you want me to relax? If we don’t—”

  “I’ve got the code right here.” Lucy waved her unicorn notebook in front of his face.

  Milo stopped pacing. “You do?” He threw his arms round her. “You’re a superhero.”

  Blushing, Lucy punched the numbers into the keypad. It beeped, and with a CLICK the heavy door opened.

  “I’ll never doubt you again,” said Milo, hustling through the doorway.

  “I want that in writing.” Lucy snatched up her scarf and slipped inside, bracing herself for Mr Fisher’s latest house of horrors.

  Subterranean Science

  Milo burst into the small white dome and gasped at what resembled the aftermath of a bubblegum explosion: the smooth white floor and curved geodesic walls were spattered with streaks of pink goo. Clearly, Thingus had been here, and he’d struggled mightily against his captors.

  The dome wasn’t a laboratory, but rather an entrance chamber containing nothing but a set of three silver elevator doors. The call buttons pointed in only one direction: down.

  “I guess the secret lab is more of an underground lair,” said Lucy.

  “Don’t call my dad’s lab a lair.”

  They headed into the middle elevator, which was also covered in smears of pink goo. Thingus must be so frightened, worried Milo. If only his father knew that the shapeshifter wasn’t a monster, none of this would be happening. I wonder if Dad’s scared, too. Then he remembered seeing photos of his father out lion hunting in Mozambique. He hadn’t seemed scared then.

  The buttons on the elevator wall indicated there were three floors below ground: “minus one”, “minus two” and “minus three”. Milo pushed “minus one”, and the elevator began to whirr. We’re coming for you, Thingus.

  “What do we do if they catch us?” asked Lucy.

  “We could tell the truth. Maybe my dad would let Thingus go?”

  “As much as I’d like to believe that, do you really think it would work?”

  Milo didn’t respond. They both knew the answer.

  The elevator doors opened with a DUNG, revealing a dank hall with walls composed of multicoloured stones arranged in swirling patterns.

  “This is like the tunnel under the factory,” whispered Lucy. “Where we found the missing people.”

  They were rather far from the factory now, but Milo remembered that the tunnel beneath it had seemed to stretch on and on. Here, the old corridor had been modernised. The craggy ceiling had been outfitted with stark fluorescent lights, and the walls with sturdy silver hatch doors.

  Cautiously, Milo and Lucy crept along the cobblestone floor. They peeked through a small window in the first door on the left and spied a white-walled room filled with scientific equipment. Several people in lab coats worked diligently inside, fiddling with microscopes, test tubes and Bunsen burners.

  A woman in a hairnet and goggles placed a beaker containing a dark, syrupy substance over one of the burners. She added a yellow liquid to the beaker with an eyedropper. The substance bubbled and emitted a plume of sky-blue smoke.

  “What do you think they’re making in there?” whispered Lucy.

  Just then, a pair of male scientists strolled from the back of the room towards the door.

  Milo ducked below the window, pulling Lucy down with him. “Someone’s coming.”

  They raced across the hall into an unused presentation room containing worktables and filing cabinets.

  Now they could hear the men’s voices in the hallway: “The sap’s chemical structure is incredibly malleable,” said the first voice. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “And it’s so abundant,” said the second. “It’s coming from the trees, but surely it can’t all be coming FROM the trees.”

  The men’s footsteps clacked across the stone corridor.

  “They’re headed in here,” whispered Lucy. “Hide!”

  They scurried under a table at the back of the room. A moment later, the men entered.

  “It’s remarkable, isn’t it?” said the first man, the elder of the two. He had close-cropped white hair and sun-speckled skin. “There are still so many undiscovered treasures in the unkempt backwaters of this great nation.” He lowered himself stiffly into an ergonomic chair.

  Lucy’s face contorted into a sneer.
“That’s Doctor VINK,” she mouthed, then mimed sticking her finger down her throat.

  According to Milo’s father, Vink was an expert in psychobiology, neurobotany and golf. Milo had met him a few times before. The last time had been under the factory, where the doctor had been performing experiments on the missing people.

  “I still can’t wrap my head round the potential value of these resources,” said the younger man, whom Milo didn’t recognise. He was stout and bespectacled, with an impeccably groomed beard. Rifling through a drawer, he chose a file and handed it to Vink. “Fisher was right. This sap is miraculous. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  Doctor Vink examined the file. “But before these resources can be fully exploited, Doctor Bell, the local threat must be eliminated.”

  “Speaking of which,” said Bell, “have the tests begun on our new guest downstairs?”

  Lucy gripped Milo’s wrist.

  They’re talking about Thingus. Milo’s jaw clenched. He’s not on this floor.

  Vink smirked. “The deviant organism is contained for now. Feisty things, these Pretenders.”

  Lucy dug her nails into Milo’s skin. “Ouch,” he hissed.

  Bell turned. “Did you hear something?”

  A startled scream echoed down the hallway.

  Vink stood up so fast both he and his chair nearly toppled over.

  A small black-and-white animal scrabbled past their door and down the hallway, chased by a gaggle of people in white coats.

  “Was that a cat?” asked Vink.

  “We’re not lab-testing felines, are we?” said Doctor Bell.

  Grumbling, the men hurried out into the hallway and followed the group to the right.

  “Let’s go,” said Milo.

  The pair raced out of the room in the opposite direction and hurtled into the elevator. Panting, Lucy’s hand hovered over the buttons. “Which floor?”

  “I don’t know,” said Milo. “They just said he was downstairs.”

  Lucy shrugged and pressed the button for the bottom level, “minus three”. The elevator kicked into action, continuing its downwards journey for what seemed like an age. Milo shifted anxiously. Come on, come on, come on. How far underground were they going?