The Green Beans, Volume 2: The Strange Genius of Lefty O'Houlihan
Page 14
Chapter Fourteen
Things Get Dicey
“Gah!” Maria cried in the dark. “Something grabbed me!”
“That’s just me,” Sara said, as she squeezed Maria’s hand. “I got ya, sis.”
“Whew,” Maria gasped. She spoke in a loud voice, so that the others could hear her over the music, and the banging noises that came from the vault. “Well, that’s a relief, considering all the weirdness I’ve witnessed in this basement. Okay, everybody else get in here and grab hold. We need to stick together.”
Neil and Jack agreed that this was sound advice, and they grabbed the hands of the sisters. Together, the four of them huddled together, waiting for their eyes to adjust to the darkness, with Nibbler in the very center of their gathering. His furry tail swept from side to side, brushing against the knees of the Beans.
Their company brought comfort to one another. For though this was an unsettling scenario, to say the least, they knew that their friendship was a thing that was solid and immovable, a thing that could be relied upon.
The stereo abruptly powered down. When the music stopped, so too did the thooming noise coming from the vault.
“I think my eyes are beginning to adjust to the darkness,” Neil said after a few moments of silence, during which there had been nothing but anxious breathing, and the clicking of Nibbler’s nails on the floor. “I think I can see well enough to get us back to the stairs.”
“Okay,” Jack said. “Well, then, I hereby suggest that we get out of here!”
“I second that notion,” Sara said.
“Yep,” Maria agreed. “A bit of regrouping under better light might be in order.”
As one, the five of them (including Nibbler, who remained within their close circle), began to carefully shuffle across the basement. After just a few steps, however, they realized that their eyes were perhaps not as well adjusted to the darkness as they had hoped.
The whole lot of them tripped over one of the many obstacles that filled the laboratory, causing a terrible commotion. They stumbled into one of the workbenches, and metal contraptions of unknown design tumbled to the floor, clanging, and banging, and creating a fuss.
In that moment of darkness and chaos, it sounded like the very end of the world. The Beans scrambled about, trying to regain their footing, and Nibbler woofed in alarm.
As they returned to their feet, once more grasping for the comfort of each other’s hands and the reassuring, curly fur of Nibbler, the lights of the basement flickered back to life, amid a hum of what seemed to be strained electricity. The popping of fuses could be heard in some distant corner, as well as a steady crackling of energy.
As the lighting returned, flickering and alternating between sheets of darkness, the eyes of the Beans were instinctively drawn back toward the vault. There, in the window that was set at the center of the massive door, they could see something.
Something… stirring. Something, distorted by the shadows of the vault and the smeared glass of the window. Something, perhaps monstrous, moving within.
“Tactical retreat!” Neil cried.
This was unanimously agreed upon, and the Beans, now aided by the return of the lighting, raced for the staircase. But they did not get far before the stereo once more powered to life, blasting music throughout the basement. In response to the funky tunes, the thing in the vault began banging against its confines, with what seemed a renewed and terrible fury.
Thoom! …Thoom! …Thoom!
So thunderous was the uproar that ushered forth from the vault, the entire house seemed to shake. The lights once more flickered, causing sporadic bursts of darkness. Dust and cobwebs fell from overhead, as the pounding impacts resonated.
Neil and Jack faltered as they engaged in retreat, falling to their backsides, scrambling in reverse. Jack’s backpack was still halfway open from when Jasper had inspected it, and several school supplies spilled out, but there was no time to worry about such things. Sara and Maria paused in their escape, grabbing the boys by their forearms and hauling them to their feet.
“Quit screwing around!” Maria ordered.
“Right now would be a real good time to skedaddle!” Sara added.
The lighting continued to flicker, but beneath that sporadic, sputtering illumination, their eyes were drawn to the vault door, where the ruckus was impossible to ignore. There, they saw the most inconceivable of developments: that solid, steel door… built to withstand the most aggressive of assaults… began to buckle.
At first, the door merely started to shudder in its massive frame. Then, the hinges began to bulge, from where they were fastened with industrial strength bolts. Finally… the door itself began to simply give. Dents appeared on the outside of that vault door, as incredible pressure was applied from the interior. Rivets relented beneath the onslaught, popping free, where they ricocheted around the chamber of the basement with pings and tings.
“Are you seeing this?” Jack asked his friends.
“It would be awfully hard to miss,” Sara assured him. Her voice was awed, as she studied the door in a mesmerized fashion.
Collectively, the wide eyes of the Beans were fixed on the vault. Nibbler barked at the door in an attempt to ward off whatever might lay within, but the pounding continued, undaunted by the Labradoodle’s warning. The door continued to buckle, and the metal became further distorted.
What could possibly be on the other side?
As the funk music blasted, the edge of the door screeched open by a narrow margin, and then by another hard earned inch. Slowly but steadily… the door was being forced open.
“Time to go!” Sara shouted, as she pulled Jack along.
“This is it!” Maria cried. She pushed Neil toward the stairs, breaking his transfixed gaze. “Let’s go, we can’t afford to dally anymore!”