Home for Horny Monsters Ch. 023

After a few minutes of this, they got through the first section. Tink slid ahead of them, her bare ass on the ice, then returned to declare a more serious cave-in up ahead. The others started to work again, and Beth stood back, marveling at how they all worked together.

I want to help.

Beth pulled Jenny out of the bag around her hip, running her fingers over the porcelain doll's features. Looking at the others, she realized that she didn't have the strength or magic to help them.

But Jenny would.

"Let's do it."

-

"Ow." Mike sat up, blinking rapidly. Unable to see, he wondered if he had gone blind. Waving his hand in front of his face, he snapped his fingers. At least he still had his hearing. Standing carefully, he stuck his arms out, feeling around the edges of the room. He smashed his fingers painfully into the wall, cursing silently to himself. Moving around the room, he stumbled over something small and then crashed into a stack of objects that made a huge racket when it tumbled over on him.

"God damnit!" Pushing his way free of the pile of objects, he found the wall again. Moving across, he felt the knob of a door. Moving his hands around the door, he found the switch and flicked it. Blinking away the sudden intrusion of light, he saw that he was inside of a large broom closet with a drain in the corner. Stunned, he looked at the mess of buckets and mops he had tipped over.

Where the fuck was he?

A small groan came from beneath the mess he had made. Kneeling down, he pushed away the mess to reveal a young girl with long, dark hair. She opened her eyes, her vision slowly focusing on Mike's face.

"Are you okay?" Mike asked. Something was wrong with his voice. It came out at a higher pitch.

"Mike?" The girl sat up, her hair falling across her face. Mike saw the scale patterns on her neck and shoulders. She wore a simple white dress with flowers on it that reminded him of lotus blossoms.

"Ratu?" He helped her up. "What happened to you?"

"What happened to us." She corrected him. Directing Mike to the other side of the broom closet, he saw a small mirror over the drain. Looking into it, he saw that his short hair was longer and slightly tousled, a haircut he hadn't seen since his thirteenth birthday when his mother had started calling him a little girl.

Mouth opening and closing in disbelief, he lifted the white shirt he was wearing. The scars on his chest and stomach were still there.

"Why are we little kids?" Mike asked, leaning closer to the mirror. One of his eyes was the wrong color. It was a swirling sea foam green that reminded him of Naia's hair. Pulling his hair back for a better look, he found a shock of stark white hair beneath that reminded him of Cecilia. "Is this the Dreamscape? Or somewhere else?"

"I'm going to have to get back to you on that. I haven't been this young since before Jesus was born." Ratu was looking at herself in the mirror. She quickly pulled her hair back out of her face, fastening it with a piece of ribbon she had pulled off of her wrist. Closing her eyes, her skin became mottled all over, her snake pattern briefly appearing and disappearing. "And it would appear that I'm stuck this way. No transformations."

"Where are we?" Mike asked, picking up the brooms and mops.

"A broom closet."

"That's not a helpful answer."

"Well it's the only one I have." Ratu turned away from the mirror, her hair flaring out dramatically. "This could be a side effect of the artifact, but I suspect something else is involved. While we are here, trust nobody, not even me."

"That sounds a little dramatic." Mike tested the doorknob. "It's unlocked. We should check it out."

"Hold on." Ratu searched all around. "I don't see the goggles lying around."

"I suspect our bodies aren't actually here," Mike said.

"If we aren't in our bodies, than we are in spirit form." Ratu shook her head. "That doesn't bode well at all."

Mike took his hand off the doorknob. "How so?"

"Spiritual injury is some of the worst kind," she said, grabbing him by the wrist. "Think of it like phantom limbs. If I cut off your hand, that doesn't damage your soul. Your body feels a phantom limb not only because of misfiring nerves, but because your soul still has a hand - well, metaphorically speaking. What happens if the opposite occurs? Injury to the soul while the body is intact?"

"I imagine bad stuff," he answered.

"Your immortal soul is only immortal if it passes over to where the bad things can't harm it. If you die here, you cease to exist."

Mike shivered. "That doesn't sound good."

"You are severely understating our circumstances! You should be terrified!"

"Last week my soul was almost eaten by a succubus." Mike put his hand back on the knob. "In the Dreamscape. I had several days of being afraid like this, and I came to a singular conclusion." He pushed on the door, swinging it outward.

"Well?" Ratu asked.

"Better to go down swinging," Mike said with a wink. Ratu rolled her eyes, then followed him out of the broom closet. They were standing in a long hallway with several doors and lockers in both directions. The lights above flickered ominously.

"What is this place?" Ratu asked.

"The worst place on Earth," Mike answered. "Etheridge Middle School." He recognized the hall they stood in now. It was on the upper level where the eighth graders had their classes. How many times had he been pushed down in this hallway alone? The names of his tormentors had long ago faded - even though he had hated them, he had to go home to the worst of them all.

"Really? A middle school?"

"Yep." Moving carefully out into the hall, he signaled for Ratu to follow. "The good news is that I know the way out."

"What's the bad news?"

"It's still a middle school." Walking quietly, Mike peered into the closest classroom through the window in the door. Shadow children sat in their chairs, their gaze directed toward the front of the room. Stepping back from the door, he bumped into Ratu, his hand quickly finding hers.

"What is it?" She asked. Mike put a finger to his lips, and they moved back to the window together for a closer look. This time, the shadow children turned their heads simultaneously to look back. Though they lacked faces, each child had a set of glowing red eyes. Mike and Ratu ducked away from the window, moving into the center of the hall.

"Shit, shit, shit," Mike hissed, pulling Ratu behind him. They moved against the lockers, pressing their backs against the cool metal. "What were those things?"

"I don't know," she replied. They stood there for several seconds, waiting to be followed, but nothing happened. "Now what?"

"We need to get out of here before class gets out." Mike tightened his grip on Ratu's hand. "Let's go."

"When does class get out?"

Mike pointed at the clock at the end of the hall. The analog clock lacked numbers, but still had hands. The minute hand was about twelve minutes from the top of the hour. "About seven minutes. Classes always got out at five til the hour."

"Let's go then." They moved quickly, but quietly toward the end of the hall. They had moved past a few doors when Mike saw that a shadow figure was watching them through the glass of one of the last doors. Behind them, the lockers opened and closed, creating a symphony of slamming metal that drove them to run. Turning down the stairs at the end of the hall, Mike slid down the railing out of habit. Ratu met him at the bottom. Above them, the lockers grew louder, and the lockers on the ground floor began slamming as well.

"Why are they doing that?" Ratu yelled, her hands over her ears.

"I don't know!" Mike froze in place when he heard the bell ring. There was no way that seven minutes had passed, so he pulled on Ratu's hand, leading her to a small gap between the lockers. Grabbing a nearby trash can, Mike pushed it in front of the gap, squeezing behind it and pulling it in place. As the doors of the classrooms opened, Mike pulled even harder on the can, lodging it into the wall. The base of the can was narrower than the top, and Mike knelt down next to Ratu who had already pulled her legs against her chest.

The hallway filled with hundreds of whispering voices, the lockers having stopped their banging. In the gaps toward the bottom, Mike could see their shadowy legs, moving back and forth. Sweat beaded up on his brow, and Ratu wrapped both of her arms around his, squeezing him tightly. His legs tingling from the tight fit, he breathed as quietly as he could, convinced that the shadow children would see him.

They sat this way for several minutes, and then the warning bell rang. The shadows disappeared, and classroom doors shut, leaving the two of them in silence.

"How did you know this would work?" Ratu asked, her voice barely a whisper.

"Piranha Pete." Pete had been one of Mike's bully's, a nasty kid with an overbite and braces that made him look like a rodent with bad hygiene. The other kids called him Piranha Pete because he had bitten so many kids in elementary school and the name had stuck. Pete had tormented Mike relentlessly for being the new kid.

Somehow, Pete had found out that Mike's mom was a drunk, and started ragging on Mike about it. Bouncing from home to home was common knowledge, and on the day Pete suggested that Mike shared a bed with his mom, Mike swung his backpack and smashed Pete in the mouth, turning his face into a bloody mess. Mike ran from Pete, and had hidden in this exact spot for nearly an hour until a teacher had heard Pete swearing in the halls and kicked the bully out.

"What's a Piranha - " Mike put his hand over Ratu's mouth, a cold feeling forming in his gut. The world seemed to drop out from beneath him, the warning was so strong. It took a few seconds before he heard it, the solid clunk of something like a table leg smacking the ground repeatedly. It slowly grew closer, but Mike had the strange feeling that if they ran, they were dead.

Ratu's eyes went wide in terror when the smell of stale tobacco washed over them. She dug her fingers into Mike's arm, tears forming in the corners of her eyes from the stench. Through the gap near the bottom, Mike saw a large figure pass in front of the trash can. The clunking was the sound of a peg leg made of iron, and the figure blocked most of the light in the hall. It was grumbling something in a language he didn't recognize. The figure kept moving, but now he could hear it moving up. The stairs, one step at a time. He wondered how many steps there were, counting to himself as the sound diminished. Up above, they could hear it walking slowly down the eighth grade hall.

"What the fuck is that?" Mike whispered, taking his hand off her mouth.

"Baba Yaga," she replied. "It all makes sense now. Why we're children, the white clothes, everything."

"Give me the short version."

"She eats the souls of children. Like a sacrifice, sort of."

"Wait, I thought you said she was the one who sealed the artifact away? Doesn't that make her good?"

"That's just it. She used to be. She's very, very old. Old folklore about her is conflicting. There are stories of people she helped, and then stuff like this. But mostly this."

"But why?"

"The artifact is dangerous. It affects all beings on this side of Creation differently. I can only assume that Baba Yaga was affected."

"But I thought she sealed it away only a few decades ago?"

"It's an artifact from a place where time and space have no meaning." Ratu shook her head. "Poor Baba Yaga."

"That doesn't explain why we're here," Mike hissed. "Or why she wants to eat us!"

"My best guess is that her intent is to prevent someone from using it. She laid a trap for anyone who opened the box, and we were the lucky ones." She bit her lower lip, putting her head against Mike's shoulder. "We need to get out of this place and back to the real world."

"How fast can she run with that leg?"

"Not very. I'm guessing she didn't expect us to hide."

"The shadow children?"

"Meant to capture us."

"Lockers?"

"Alarms."

"Middle school?"

"To terrify you. It all makes sense now, the components of the spell. She eats children, so she needed to put you in the scariest place you had ever been."

"Then she should have put me somewhere with my mother. We wouldn't have stood a chance." Mike gave the can a push, moving it just far enough that they could stand. "I'm guessing once we start moving, the lockers will sound the alarm and she will come limping. If we can get to the front of the building, I think we should be able to get away."

"Let me stretch first." Ratu hopped up and down on her tiptoes. "I've never felt so many kinks in my body before. I don't like being stuck this way."

"For what it's worth, you were a cute kid." Mike patted her head. "I totally would have asked you to the sock hop."

"What the fuck is a sock hop?"

Mike didn't answer, peeking down the hallway. In the distance, he could hear Baba Yaga's metal leg clunking away. Shaking his hands, he pushed the can farther out, letting both of them free. "If we can avoid being spotted, the lockers shouldn't go off."

"How do you suggest we do that?"

Mike smiled. "You should know." He waved his hand back and forth, making a wave.

"Serpentine movement down the hall." Ratu grinned. Gazing down the hall, she nodded. "The doors are staggered. Due to the position of the lockers, they can't see each other, which means we can cross at the blind spots."

"And by moving against the wall, we will go under the windows, so they shouldn't see us." Up above, they heard the clattering of buckets followed by loud swearing. "We need to get going."

They took turns, one of them keeping watch while the other crawled up against the door. Mike discovered that he could just see the edge of the glass from a certain spot in the middle of the hall. When the shadows were watching, they blotted out the light, making it easy for them to be avoided. Keeping a close eye on the clock, he noticed that time wasn't consistent. The minute hand would often move three times as fast, then suddenly stop in place. Sliding beneath one of the last doors, Mike gritted his teeth, the clock at the end of the hall showing there was only a couple of minutes left.

Meeting Ratu at the end of the hall, they broke into a run once they entered the lobby, the double doors leading them outside in view. They hit the first set of doors hard, causing them to spring open. Mike was ahead of Ratu when he slammed into the second door. This door didn't budge at all, causing Mike to bounce off the door, landing on his butt.

"Fuck!" Mike rolled onto his side, holding his face. It had been the first thing to hit the glass. "See if you can open it!"

"It won't," she said, helping him up. "It doesn't go outside."

"What do you mean it doesn't..." Standing, Mike saw that the window of the door wasn't actually glass. The outside world was painted on a rocky surface, the door embedded in it.

"We need to find another way out," she said. "Are there any other doors that go outside?"

"A few," Mike said, but the ringing of the bell silenced him. He and Ratu crammed themselves into opposite corners of the entryway, a blind spot from the lobby caused by the large number of school posters that had been plastered to the glass. They put hands to their ears to shut out the orchestra of whispers that filled the air.

The flurry of activity outside the doors made his heart leap into his throat several times as the shadows bumped against the push bars, causing them to click. However, with the fact that the front door was actually fake, none of the shadows stepped into the miniature lobby. Several minutes passed, and the shadows vanished once more.

Ratu started to stand, but Mike felt like he was going to be sick. He motioned for her to stay, and the sound of metal clunking on the tile of the front lobby made her shrink down. Mike turned his head toward the glass, realizing there was a very small gap between a poster about recycling and a D.A.R.E poster with a cop car on it. Pressing his face against the glass, he could see Baba Yaga step into the lobby.

She was old and fat, wearing the kind of clothes old Russian women wore in movies. Her head was comically big, her face easily the size of a hubcap. Large, hairy moles had been planted across her face, and her squashed nose was made of dull, unpolished iron. She bared her frightful yellow teeth, swiveling her head from side to side. She was muttering to herself.

"Bad children should be punished, gonna make soup, gonna make bread." Her words became unintelligible as she slipped into another language, and then another after that. Mike was fairly certain she was mumbling in Spanish when she shoved her way through the doors opposite where she came in, wandering down toward the cafeteria.

Holy fuck, he mouthed at Ratu. The coast clear, she scurried across toward him.

"We need to find the way out," she told him. "She built this place from the corners of your mind. This isn't the exit for a reason."

"To be honest, I hated going home." He looked at the painted scenery of the outside world. "Home meant my mother. At the end of the day, it felt like a prison sentence."

"That's part of the puzzle. You didn't see these doors as an exit. So where would your brain have put it?"

"I honestly have no idea, but..." An idea came to him. "Oh shit."

"Oh shit, what?"

"The gym." He looked back through the gap. "My favorite class was gym. Not because I was any good at it, but because we got to go outside and run the nature trail."

"Nature trail?"

"Yeah, we had a little river that ran by the school. The gym teacher would take us along the nature trail, and I used to sneak off into the bushes and read books that I had stashed away before school." It was the only place he could be alone with his thoughts. "There's a door in the back of the gym that leads outside to the basketball courts and the nature trail."

"Okay, so why the big deal?"

"It's a gym class. The shadows seem to be preprogrammed to go about their day until we are spotted. That means a giant room full of them." Mike flinched when they heard a door slam in the distance. "I'm not sure how we could make it to the door... wait, I know! The first five minutes of class are when we change clothes, so the gym should be empty."

"But not a real five minutes."

"No, but it should give us enough time. We need to get close to the gym and find a hiding spot so that..." A flash of movement caught Mike's eye through the gap, but all he could make out was a flash of blonde hair disappearing around the corner.

"What is it?"

"Thought I saw something." He shook his head, focusing on the task at hand. "There should be a set of recycle bins across from the gym. If we can hide in those, we can wait until the bell rings."

"Then let's do it." She helped him stand, and the quietly pulled the doors open. The long halls of the school had taken on a sinister presence, and the two of them slowed whenever they neared a set of windows. They crawled on their hands and feet beneath the large windows that looked into the computer lab. Mike heard the silent clicking of keyboards, wondering what sort of things the shadows could be typing. The only way to find out would likely result in death, so he would have to be satisfied with never knowing.

Nearing the gym, they spotted the large bins, but had to wait. Baba Yaga was limping around near the entrance to the gym, sniffing through her giant nose. Clearly tracking something, she frowned, her whole face shifting down, and then stormed off toward a nearby set of stairs. Once she was out of view, they scrambled down the hall and stood in front of the bins. They were about four feet tall and full of plastic bottles. Mike helped Ratu in, careful not to make any noise. Once she had her footing, she braced him as he slid across the top, and they lowered the lid on top of them, leaving a tiny gap through which to see.