Chapter Twenty-One

Otis and Luke landed in a pile of limbs as the slide ended in a dead end.

“Ouch,” Otis cried, even as the bigger teen took the brunt of the landing. “The last time I hit something like that, I was in intensive care for two months.”

Luke brushed himself off. “I think this is what your people call the eye of the storm,” he said.

Both boys looked across the flat, oval room and saw that the exit tunnel appeared to be more like the eye of a needle from across the cavern. Otis wondered if it existed a hundred or thousand feet away. The further from them, the bigger the hole would be; the nearer, the smaller their chances of squeezing through it.

“Oh, no.” Otis picked up his drum. “I knew I should’ve skipped that side of beef this morning.”

Luke either missed the sarcasm or simply found the idea of impending death more compelling than a joke without meaning. He merely scanned the setting and looked worried when he found nothing to threaten them from reaching that tiny exit.

“At least it’s an easy walk to a slow death. Maybe we can drum through it?”

Then the rain began and their world turned to fire. Both teens hit the ground and covered their heads.

“Guess we’ll be hot rockin’ tonight,” Otis said.

Luke stared, mouth gaping, but finally found his voice. “Better to burn out, don’t they say?”

“Man, you don’t know how right that sounds, but how bad I think it’ll feel.”

As they watched the ceiling open up its lava tubes and shoot out balls of burning, flaming molten rock, Otis did something he hadn’t done in over a year. He prayed as a tear met his eye.

To get this far only to fail the others, he thought. They’d lived for each other. Even though he was the only one with a tight family and everything a kid could want, his friends were what had sustained him through the tough times. They knew his pain and accepted him as he was, for however long he would be on the earth. Death would likely come soon enough for him. He just hoped it wasn’t before they’d saved Muddy’s brother and actually accomplished something.

“Isn’t that a person?” Luke pointed to a tall figure against the near wall, out of reach of the firestorm.

The little man found his tears dripping onto his lips, causing an ear-to-ear grin to form. “Man,” he cried, “I guess Tony Iommi came to this place once before. That’s how we get across and hopefully live.”

Luke didn’t get it, yet. “But isn’t that just a man-suit? A model of a warrior? It has no weapons and it looks old.”

“Exactly.”

“What is that thing made of, anyway? Could it fight the fire?”

Again, Otis grinned. “Of course it can. It’s solid iron, man.”

“What do we do with it, wear it?”

Otis had already found a latch on the side of the being and was working its spring. “If this can actually fit us and help us walk, we might be able to get to the other side.”

“Like the chicken?”

“So, you’ve heard that joke?” Otis felt like ribbing Luke, but even he had his limits. “Many times, even the chicken met a truck before he found his home.”

They both felt for the many latches and found that they existed only on the outside. But there was another, a smaller one, behind it. “Maybe we can both wear them?”

“Buddy,” the smaller teen said, “unless this thing is made of aluminum foil, I doubt I’d be able to take more than a couple of steps in it before dropping.” He tried lifting it and couldn’t. His muscles couldn’t handle the job. Drums gave him power in this world, but not complete strength. It didn’t take much to humble him anymore.

Luke recoiled. “But, then you’d be burned alive!”

“Not if you walked with your arms protecting me. Some things aren’t that hard to figure. Those fireballs are hitting the cavern at a certain angle, but not every angle. If you walk to the exit in one direction, off center as it may be, we’ll get there unscathed. Well, at least I will.”

“You’d do that? Take that chance?”

Otis sat down as he opened the boots of the iron suit, the one for Luke. “Buddy, you haven’t heard much about my plight. Sure, I’ve got the women. Sure, I’ve got the friends and the music. But, there are a few things that I don’t have and one of them is time.”

Luke stepped into the leg as several balls bounced off the floor and careened into the far wall, bursting into red flames. One of them could easily ricochet into them if a stray rock diverted it. Otis wondered briefly how quickly one of them would die if just one fireball struck. There wasn’t any water to put out the fire and even with his healing powers in this River-led world, he doubted anyone could survive a direct impact.

“What do you mean?”

Otis found that fighting back the tears became easier each time he told the tale, but now that he had a purpose, a legacy to fight for, another creased his eye.

“I was born with a death sentence. Mom didn’t expect me to last a year. The doctors said five. When we went to the genetic experts, they told us that if I graduated grade school, it would be a miracle.”

“But, how?” Luke stood still as the other teen locked him up latch by latch. Now he had both legs and his lower torso snapped into place.

“Is it comfortable?” Otis had to keep Luke on his heels if this was going to work.

The boy grimaced. “It feels like wearing a metal coffin, but if it means I don’t become a human bonfire, I guess I have no choice.”

“Then shut your yap and let me do this.” He wanted, no, he needed to help save his friends. “I’ve had my nose broken by a pen tossed at my face. My arm fractured when I slipped out of a desk. A leg snapped by trying to run to first base.”

“What’s first base?”

As Otis snapped Luke into the upper torso, he smiled. “Something you deal with on a first date. Maybe I’ll hook you up with a friend one day and you’ll find out.”

Otis wondered if he’d ever get to kiss a girl, one who liked him for himself, not because he was a novelty. He would never tell anyone that in the band, even Poe. She’d understand, but he couldn’t do it without breaking down.

“Then, what’s second? How many are there?”

“Too many for my taste.”

“But you seem so strong here.” The bigger boy wriggled into place as Otis lifted the helmet for a sizing.

“It’s the drum. Maybe the River’s effect on us. But, take me back home and my bones are like tissue paper. Every day is a crap shoot.”

Luke’s eyes regarded him with confusion. “Then stay here. Live like there’s a million tomorrows.” The boy beamed. “We have girls here, too. The others, the musicians, they seem to think our girls are okay.”

A big grin stretched Otis’ face to the point of near pain. “You’re tempting a poor boy who is about to live one of the greatest lyrics in history. Tempting. But it’s not real and it’s not me.”

“What’s real? Is it where you were born or where you find yourself? Somehow, I think your mother and father would want what’s best for you.”

Otis slammed the iron face shut on Luke. “Ow! I can’t see right.” The drummer turned the mask until the boy claimed his vision was clear.

“It’s not about what they want. It’s my life.”

“Will you think about it?” The voice sounded tinny and much farther away. The boy in the iron suit took a cautionary step, then another. Both seemed balanced, but unnatural. “Will you at least consider staying? We need someone who lives the music like you do.”

Otis just shook his head. It was too much to consider when you already had your death date carved in your head and couldn’t foresee life past your own senior prom.

“Let’s make Ozzy proud.”

And they began the journey through the fire.

Both watched the rain of fireballs streak across the cavern, shot from tubes by some active magma strain deep within the mountain.

Otis thought, if this thing ever blew…

One softball-sized blaze buzzed his head, searing a curl of hair. Even though it passed in a blur, the heat caused his skin to tighten in pain. “First time I’ve ever had a cave burn,” he shouted to the boy in the iron mask. The smell of burnt hair turned his nose, reminding him of a barbeque gone wrong.

Luke began to walk, one heavy step after another. Otis hurried in front of him, judging the trajectory of the deadly balls with his own steps. The clang of the metal joints reminded Otis of the Renaissance Faire in New York, where knights jousted and swordplay occurred daily. He wished he was there now, walking through the shady, cool paths with his family, sucking down an Italian ice, surrounded by ladies clad in medieval attire.

Instead, he felt sweat run off him in streams that did nothing to lower the temperature. “You okay in there?”

Another clang as Luke fought to keep his footing. Otis knew that if the boy fell, there would be no rising. Otis didn’t have the strength to help and with the weight of the suit and barrage of lava balls, he would be a sitting duck. A cooked one, too.

“No sweat,” the other replied, but his breathing already sounded labored.

A basketball-sized flame struck him dead center in the chest. He staggered, but held his ground. “Get. Under. Me. Now.” Pain sounded in his voice.

Otis looked around for protection. None showed itself. Across the cavern, no shelter was present. As open as a football field with opponents that put the hardest hitting Giants and Jets to shame, the area stood barren and deadly.

He recalled the film he saw in history class about World War I and trench warfare. Soldiers on both sides waited in deep ditches that ran miles in either direction. They shook in fear, awaiting the whistle or siren that screamed at them to leave the relative safety of the trench and venture into the open graveyard where protection existed only in hopes and prayers. When they left their safe haven the young soldiers found countless bullet-riddled bodies where the only barriers existed in the form of razor wire.

He and Luke had even less to block incoming death. Should he stand behind or under Luke? Did it even matter? Logic told him Luke was probably right; the greatest safety from a mass of molten rock obliterating him would be under the armored suit, but he didn’t wish to be a coward. He wanted to be in the suit, to be the hero for once.

Not happening this time, he thought as he looked up at the suit that likely inspired the song. Never could he have fit in there and walk. As long as Luke moved steadily, they should be fine. The teen held his arms up, forming a protective barrier as Otis huddled beneath.

Another fireball slammed the iron with a metallic clash. This time, it bounced off the teen’s head. A glob of rock stuck to the helmet and sizzled.

Otis looked around for a stick to strike it off, but the cavern floor was barren save for more rocks. He grabbed one and yelled at his comrade.

“Lean down!”

No reply.

“Bend down!” he screamed, noticing that the rock still burned at the helmet. It stuck like crazy glue to the surface. It likely wouldn’t burn through, but the temperature must be near seven hundred degrees.

Just as Luke appeared to listen to him, turning his head and gazing through the fine slits, another shot struck the metal in the upper thigh, a few inches from Otis’ head. The heat bowled him over, partly from surprise but also from the wave that threw furnace temperatures into his face, causing his skin to burn. It probably wasn’t much, but a bad sunburn hurt like no other. Otis imagined how it would feel if any of the liquid rock or flame touched his flesh.

It wouldn’t be like the movies, he thought, where it just sloughed off like pudding, or would it? He’d faced some horrible pain in his life from broken and shattered bones and torn muscles, but he knew this pain would trump all other. He looked to the other side where the supposed exit was—a bunch of rocks, a hole in the wall that he hoped led to his friends.

How many more of these direct hits could Luke take? How many steps would it take until he reached the safe zone?

Luke moved his right leg, the one hit by the fireball. He seemed a little less determined and less in stride, but still he moved. His breathing flowed from the mouth hole in gasps, as though he had been sprinting at high altitudes.

“I can’t.”

“What?” Otis barely heard him.

“Breathe,” a small, shaken voice said. “Burning. Up.”

He imagined the worst, how the teen looked under the mask, if his flesh bubbled like fried chicken. He would never touch Kentucky Fried Chicken again.

At least twenty feet remained until they would reach the far wall. Either they sped up or they would fry like Kentucky Fried’s special blend.

More and more fire showered them, four then five big ones striking hard. Two barely missed Otis.

“Move!” He yelled, begging Luke to shake free of his stupor. The teen needed to move faster if they were to survive.

Just as he moved again, fate slapped their hopes to the ground.

The boy toppled over with a resounding thud.