Down the tunnels, dodging stalactites, jumping pipes. The clicks and jabbers of the bogey horde behind them. The fugitives ducked behind a rock wall.
whispered Willow.
“No!” heaved Levi. “I’m not leaving without Twila!”
pleaded Willow. Her voice stopped short when she saw the determination on their faces.
“Willow!”
Levi started to run back to her, but the bogey horde engulfed her tiny body.
“Look out!” screamed Kat, grabbing his shoulder. They dove behind a vat and hugged its metal walls as the workers dragged the struggling Willow back up the tunnel.
“We have to help Willow!” Levi said.
“Not now!” hissed Kat. “We’ve got bigger problems!”
A voice boomed above them:
They looked up in horror at the familiar gargantuan monster chained to the vat they were hiding behind.
said Heckbender.
Levi and Kat looked unconvinced.
agreed Heckbender.
Kat pointed to Heckbender’s shackles. “Ha! You couldn’t get us even if you wanted! Slynderfell has you chained!”
Heckbender sighed.
“Speaking of the Boojum,” said Levi gingerly, “would you, uh, maybe—”
“ Heckbender combed his gill filaments reflectively. He pointed to a giant padlock attached to his shackles. The keyhole was hexagon-shaped. The shape of a gemstone cherry.
Kat hefted the cane, then paused. “How do we know you won’t gobble us up once we free you?”
Heckbender grinned. He waited, then sighed again.
They were interrupted by an ear-hair-singeing cry:
groaned Heckbender.
Slynderfell and a platoon of workers emerged from an adjacent tunnel.
Kat plunged the cane’s gemstone cherry into the keyhole. Slynderfell and his underlings stopped cold as Heckbender’s chains went limp and his shackles fell to the ground with a clang.
Heckbender turned his bulging orbs on Levi and Kat. He blinked his left orb. He blinked his right orb. He blinked his rudimentary peripheral orb clusters.
Levi and Kat held their breath.
Heckbender turned to the factory workers.
he boomed.
said Slynderfell, though his voice sounded less confident.
said Heckbender.
There was a pause. Finally Skeebs spoke:
mumbled Gerber.
said LaMantia.
screeched Slynderfell.
said Heckbender.
snarled Slynderfell.
“And what happens when the humans are all used up?” asked Kat abruptly. She elbowed Levi.
“Uh, right,” added Levi after a moment. “Who will be the Boojum’s prey then? Maybe the Boojum is already grooming his next flock of sheep.”
The factory workers chittered nervously and fumbled with their ill-fitting clothes.
bellowed Heckbender. He swung a shackle over his head and slammed it into a sherbet vat.
The vat exploded. The workers cheered.
Heckbender roared:
“C’mon,” whispered Kat, tugging Levi’s arm. They slipped past the rioting workers, dashed down the main tunnel, veered left, darted right, slipped left, and dove through the stone arches Heckbender had described.
“Willow’s still up there somewhere!” panted Levi.
“She’ll have to fend for herself,” said Kat. “Plus she was working for the bad guys, remember?”
“She saved our lives!”
“Going back now won’t save Willow,” said Kat at last. She turned toward the descending black. “Only one thing to do.”
The air rattled in Levi’s chest as he inhaled.
“I know,” he whispered.
Their hands found each other in the dark.
“We’re coming, Twila.”