Chapter 5 - Gonna Be Gross

  The crack was a tight squeeze for me, but thankfully the passage on the other side was a bit bigger than the entry. I was able to stand up inside, and while the ceiling wasn’t that much above my head, it was high enough I wasn’t going to be scraping my scalp, provided I walked with care.

  It was easier for the kids. Once I was inside they all bundled along behind me, stepping inside quickly. Manuel brought up the rear, holding his fast-fading glow stick aloft like it was a torch.

  “Good job with the light,” I told him. “Tell me when it goes out, and we’ll get you a replacement.”

  It was smart to make sure the kids could all see where they were putting their feet, and the second light helped them feel more comfortable, too. It might even stop one of them from being ambushed again.

  He flashed me a grin. “Will do, Mister Castle!”

  “Stay close, kids. We don’t know what’s in here, so nobody stray far from the group.” With that warning, I moved deeper into the tunnel.

  The walls here weren’t concrete like out in the T tunnel. These were stone instead, and interestingly they were dry. I’d thought we were still under the Charles River, but if there was no moisture on the walls of this cave, maybe we’d already crossed back onto land?

  Or maybe not. My foot kicked the soil under it, stirring some of it up. It was like fine sand. I reached down to touch it, and sure enough, the stuff felt like dried silt. Maybe this place had once been under water, then. We’d want to be very careful, moving forward—but that was already on the docket, so it didn’t change things.

  We pushed on, the glow stick on the end of my spear lighting the way ahead. The passage kept going roughly straight for about fifteen feet, but then forked, branching in two directions. Fortunately, Emmy’s trail was even more visible in the sand than it had been in the dirt. Her tracks weren’t the only ones, either. Something else had walked through here, something with very small feet.

  Mice, maybe? Birds? I had no idea. The tracks didn’t have much form to them. But it was like someone stabbed the sand hundreds of times with a pencil or something.

  Emmy’s trail led down the right-hand branch, so we pushed on. We’d only gone another ten feet when I heard Manuel call out from the rear of our group.

  “Bugs!”

  I whirled, but at first I couldn’t see much. Too many other kids between us, but they quickly moved out of the way so I could pass. With the kids darting off to the walls, I raced forward toward Manuel, who stood there holding his glow stick like it was a glowing sword.

  On the tunnel floor ahead of him was…well, he was right. It was a bug. It looked like one of those little grey bugs, the ones with tons of legs. Some folks call them pill bugs, others rolly-pollies. They were usually about the size of a pinkie nail. Cute little things. I used to play with them as a kid. They didn’t bite people and were pretty harmless.

  Typically, they were harmless. I wasn’t so sure about this one because it was the size of a large house cat.

  It scuttled forward, darting toward me. Little antennae wiggled in front of it, and it strode forward with confidence on far too many legs to count.

  If this was still the same world I’d woke up in, I’d think the creature was a cute curiosity. Maybe I’d try to catch it. Examine it. Bring it to a lab somewhere. Science was cool, and adding to the collective knowledge of humanity was awesome.

  I just wasn’t willing to take that chance, not with everything I’d seen since the lights went out.

  I made a quick stab with the spear at the center of the thing’s armored back, but the weapon bounced off without working. The thing reared back some and hissed at me. I stabbed again, but it dropped its body down before I could hit, and the blow bounced off its carapace again. Shit, these guys were tough!

  It must have had enough at that point, because it rolled itself into a tight ball, the plates overlapping in a way that was going to make it tough to get a spear through. I bonked it with the spear, and it just rolled a foot toward the wall.

  “Kids, turn away. This is probably gonna be gross,” I said as I stepped closer. Some of them looked away, others didn’t. I didn’t have time to force the issue, not if we wanted to save Emmy.

  I raised my foot and then stomped down as hard as I could.

  My sneaker came down with way more force than I was used to exerting. The shell cracked apart and then there were bug guts everywhere. The stuff was on my shoe and spattered in a little circle around where I’d stomped. The pill bug was definitely dead, anyway, so it wasn’t going to hurt anyone.

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  “That is so cool,” Manuel said. He reached out to touch it and I saw the flash of something shining in his palm for just a moment before it flickered and vanished. “Whoa! What was that?”

  I rushed to his side. “You okay? Did a crystal appear when you touched the bug?”

  “Yeah! How’d you know?” Manuel said.

  “Same thing happened for the other monsters.” I held up a hand. “Vanished right into my hand, too. That happen to you?”

  “Yeah. It’s so weird. I can still see the crystal in my head,” he told me. “It says I have more Agility, now. So I can dodge better.”

  Strength for me and now Agility for Manuel. I’d hoped to keep the kids as unaffected by all of this as possible, but it was quickly becoming clear that simply wasn’t in the cards. Now we had two examples of what the stones could do, though, and my gut was screaming that I’d seen things along these lines before.

  Which was true. I had. In video games, though. Not in the real world! Monsters in some games would drop things that powered you up, right? Or experience points that leveled you up, which was more or less the same thing. It seemed like these crystals did something similar.

  Of course, that made zero sense. There was no way that should be. But nothing I’d seen since the power died made any more sense, so who was I to judge?

  “Be careful back here,” I told Manuel. If the stone did make him more agile, he was definitely the best kid to leave as rear guard. “You see anything else, you call me.”

  “Will do, Mister Castle.”

  I shifted back to the front of our party again and pressed on. The passage twisted, and there were two more branches going off in other directions, but we pressed on, always following the trail left by Emmy’s shoes. Finally, I heard noises from somewhere ahead. I held a finger to my lips for silence, then walked forward slowly, working hard to keep my steps as silent as possible.

  As soon as I’d rounded the corner, I saw her. Emmy was right there, just six feet ahead. In the dim glow from my spear she looked unconscious. Her eyes were closed, her arms limp at her sides, her heels dragging to make those two furrows we’d used to follow her.

  Dragging her down the passage were two more of the pill bugs. So much for them being harmless; I was pretty confident that they weren’t dragging her into their lair for her own good.

  One of the bugs spotted me, or maybe it was my light. Both of them dropped her and turned back to examine me. Their little antennae wiggled in the air for a few seconds.

  Then they rushed me!

  I let out a yelp and took an involuntary step back. Then I got my wits back together and stabbed down as hard as I could into one of the bugs. This time I had a better feel for how tough the carapace was, and my spear punched right through. The pill bug wiggled on the end of the spear, transfixed there.

  The second bug kept coming, though. It rushed in, grabbed my sneaker in its forelegs, and bit down. I let out another yelp as I felt pressure from mandibles squeeze my foot—but there was no pain. It hadn’t bit through. I shook my foot and it let go, backing away.

  All at once it rushed in again, and this time it started climbing my leg. I let out a mighty shout at that, shaking my leg hard to loosen the hold, without much luck. It was up to my knee in a flash and about to take another stab at biting me. I wasn’t sure if my jeans would hold out those little jaws as well as the sneakers did, so I punched it in the head as hard as I could.

  The head crumpled. It was very dead, and my hand was now absolutely disgusting.

  A crystal appeared in my palm. It made sense. I’d killed it and was still touching it when it died. Like before, the crystal didn’t sink into me. Those other slots were all still locked, and I didn’t know how to open them up. Until I did, I apparently wasn’t going to be able to add more stones. That was unfortunate, because I could sure use more of them.

  I quickly tapped the second dead bug as I went forward to check on Emmy. It gave me yet another unusable stone, so I slipped both of them into the same pocket I’d store the first spare.

  Then I was at Emmy’s side, checking her over. She was still breathing, thank god, but when I tried to rouse her, she showed no signs of waking.

  “Is she okay?” Maria asked, coming up close.

  “I think so. She’s just sleeping right now. She should wake soon.” I hoped so, anyway. With Emmy knocked out, I was in a pickle.

  I could carry her or fight. I couldn’t do both at the same time, not against the sorts of creatures we’d been running into. The kids couldn’t carry her; they wouldn’t be nearly strong enough. They couldn’t fight, either. I set the spear against the cave wall and kept checking the girl for injuries.

  At last I found one. There was a small bit, just two incisions each a centimeter or so long, right above her left ankle. The area was a little red and swollen, but otherwise didn’t look too bad. That discovery gave me a better picture of what happened, though.

  One of the bugs must have seen her and snuck up behind her while we were walking down the tunnel. It got close enough to bite, and their chompers must carry some sort of venom that knocks prey out. Emmy went out like a light, and then the bugs hauled her into their tunnel. Probably they had a larder in this place somewhere they wanted to stock, or something of the sort.

  That wasn’t going to happen. I leaned in and scooped her into my arms, putting her over my left shoulder so I could still carry the spear in my right hand. It wouldn’t be easy to use the weapon while carrying her, but I’d have to do my best. At least my Strength did seem to be much better than it had been. Between the way I’d shattered the bug with my bare hand and the ease with which I picked up Emmy, I’d never felt so strong before.

  “You got her?” Mike asked.

  “I do. Now, let’s get all of us out of here, shall we?” I said.

  The kids let me past them, so I could move back to what had been the rear of our formation and lead us out. “Manuel, keep your spot in the back. Tell me instantly if you see anything that could even possibly be dangerous, all right?”

  “You got it!”

  I felt like shit for putting the kid in danger, but of all of them, he was the only one who’d absorbed one of those crystals. If the one I’d gotten really did boost my Strength, which it seemed to have, then his probably really boosted his Agility. He’d have a better chance at dodging an attack than any of the other children.

  We pressed on, back-tracking through the tunnels, following the path our shoes had made on the way in. The sooner I got all of us out of this place, the better I’d feel!