What diseases did rats carry? Rabies? The Black Death?
No, no, no, I had to think positive. These were charming rats, like Remy the Rat, who wanted nothing more than to become a master chef in a five-star restaurant.
On today’s fine dining menu, teenager flesh! Nom nom nom!
I kept walking.
I didn’t feel it with my hands, but my face went right through a great big spider web. I frantically wiped it off of my cheeks and out of my hair. Don’t you hate walking through spider webs?
Don’t you hate how your neighbors see you and it looks like you’ve just suddenly decided to start clawing at your face for no reason? And you feel like you should go over and explain that no, you didn’t have a fit of insanity, you just walked through a web, but instead you keep walking and hope that they didn’t notice? I hate that.
There was something crawling on the back of my neck.
I yelped and slapped at it.
“What’s the matter with you?” asked Ribeye.
“There’s a tarantula on me!”
Okay, it couldn’t really be a tarantula, but it was a huge spider, and I had to get it off me before it laid eggs in my hair, which would immediately hatch into millions of other spiders. I smacked all over the back of my head until the spider scurried onto my fingers, at which point I yipped like a poodle and shook my hands as rapidly as I could.
Nothing seemed to be crawling on me anymore.
Was that a hissing sound?
I was definitely imagining things. There were no snakes down here.
“Are there snakes down here?” I asked.
“Are you an idiot? Keep walking.”
I bet there were snakes down here. Snakes and spiders and rats and alligators. It wouldn’t surprise me if there was a much deeper puddle ahead with a great white shark. Oh, this sewer sucked.
I was so distracted by the deadly wildlife that I’d forgotten to keep my arms extended, so I smacked into another wall. My nose still wasn’t bleeding. I have a resilient nose.
“Out of the way,” said Ribeye, shoving me aside. I heard some metal rattling and then some cursing and then some more metal rattling and then a curse word that even people who curse a lot don’t usually say.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“I think Gary locked the door.”
“Is that bad?”
“What do you think?”
Because there were snakes, spiders, rats, alligators, sharks, and probably a mountain lion down here, I guessed that it was probably pretty bad.
More rattling, more cursing, and then a few loud kicks.
“Can I help?” I asked. I wasn’t volunteering to kick (remember, toe issue), but I certainly didn’t want to be trapped down here.
“You can help by shutting up,” said Ribeye, kicking the door a few more times. He sounded like my mom when he said that, but I didn’t share this with him.
With the next kick, something definitely gave.
And then a little voice in my head said, Gosh, Tyler, I hate to bother you, but by any chance did you notice that the homicidal thug who kidnapped you is sort of distracted at the moment? I don’t want to be pushy or anything; I just thought it was kind of interesting that if you were inclined to make a move that would save your life, right now might be a pretty good time to consider it. Again, not trying to tell you what to do; only making an observation. Thanks!
The nonexistent voice in my head was right. Unless my plan to escape was to wait for a magic fairy to make everything all right, I needed to act, and now was the time. Though I had no weapons, it’s not like I was some scrawny weakling. I could hit hard.
I balled my hands together into a mighty double fist and then bashed him on the back of the head.
He fell.
Then he got right back up, grabbed me by the throat, and squeezed.
I kneed him in the hip, which was not where I was aiming.
He let go of my throat.
I tried to bite him but didn’t come anywhere close.
He dropped something in the dark. It didn’t clatter, so I was pretty sure it was the doll and not the gun. I hoped neither of us would step on it.
Ribeye did something else in the dark that sounded very much like he was taking a switchblade knife out of his pocket and snapping open the blade. You can guess how happy that sound made me.
He took a swing at me. I dodged backward, slipped on something slimy with my bad foot, and fell on my butt.
My hand came down on a rat, which let out a horrifying squeak as something inside of it snapped. I pulled my hand away from it in revulsion. The creature, twitching and rolling, bumped into my leg.
“I’m gonna cut you up,” said Ribeye.
It was true. I was going to be sliced and diced, and there was nothing I could do about it.
.well, except throw the rat.
I grabbed the squirming, squealing rodent by the tail and flung it at Ribeye. From his startled reaction, I’m pretty sure it hit him in the face. He responded with much more panic than I’d shown when I walked through the spider web.
I’d only expected a second or two of distraction, but Ribeye continued to flail around and bat at himself, leading me to believe that the half-crushed rat had gone down the front of his shirt.
I like to think that it bit him over and over as it slid down his chest. He sure acted like it did. Heh heh.
So far in this book, I’ve shared a bunch of things I’ve done that weren’t very smart, and I’ll share a few more before it’s over. However, I’m pleased to say that I did not waste the rat-down- the-shirt opportunity. I advocate peaceful solutions to conflict whenever possible, and there are very few circumstances under which it’s okay to bash somebody’s head against the wall. I feel that this was one of them. I’m not saying that you should expose somebody’s brain or anything like that, but if you’re following the Moral Code of Tyler Churchill, a few slams to help ease them into dreamland is acceptable.
I still couldn’t see anything, but the sound effects were Wham! Wham! “Aaah!” Wham! Squeak. Thud.
Ribeye and the rat went silent.
I quickly picked up the voodoo doll. I had never been happier to pick up a sewage-tainted doll in my entire life. I sighed with relief. All of my problems were solved, except for the one about my girlfriend and (former) best friend possibly walking into a deadly booby trap.
I ran back through the tunnel the way I had come. It hurt.
I reached the ladder without slipping on slime or being attacked by an alligator. “Is anybody up there?” I shouted.
“Tyler?” It was Adam.
Wow. He’d actually come to save me. I couldn’t believe it. “Adam! Don’t come down here! Don’t touch the trapdoor!” “Did you know that there are dead bodies all over the place?” He sounded more than a little distressed by this observation.
“Yes, I did! Just go back outside and wait for me. I know another way out.”
“Is any of this blood yours?”
“Yeah, but it’s okay. I got the doll.”
“I think I’m going to pass out.”
“You’ll be fine.”
“I’m really not feeling good, Tyler. I think I need to lie down.” “Fine. Do what you need to do. Just don’t come down here.” I turned and ran back through the tunnel. It hurt again. Ribeye had not regained consciousness. I listened for a moment to confirm that he was breathing and then bashed the door with my shoulder. Three hits, and it flew open. A small light bulb hung from the ceiling, revealing a ladder leading up.
I quickly climbed it, pushed open another trapdoor, and emerged next to a huge pile of metal scrap. I was in a small junkyard. I shut the trapdoor and looked around. There were rusty automobiles and random piles of unidentifiable metal everywhere, along with a small wooden building that I assumed was where they rang up your purchases.