Chapter Twenty-Two

He likely never even saw the massive fireball that dropped him. He fell face first and nearly bounced off of the floor. Otis knew it was over. There was only a slim chance he could even unlock the clasps and remove the mask. Even so, if Luke remained conscious, Otis could never move him to safety.

He pushed at the boy. He needed to turn him over and see if he still breathed.

Please don’t hit me, he begged at the tubes from the cavern ceiling, though in his mind, he awaited the final blow. He wondered if he would even feel it, even see it, or if it would mercifully happen so fast that he only would see a flash of light before the blackness.

The iron suit barely budged. And it cooked, paining his fingers. He stripped off his shirt and wrapped it around both hands. He pushed and pushed. His skinny arms failed to turn Luke over. They felt weaker than ever. Some things never changed.

Two more balls hit, one to the left, one to the right.

A backbeat? Whoa.

Otis counted, first in his head, then by tapping on the iron suit.

One, two. One, two.

Bass, snare. Bass, snare.

He waited for more. It came. A higher pitched burst off to the left; a few seconds later one pitched to the right—just like cymbal crashes.

Why hadn’t he noticed it before? It couldn’t be this simple, could it? Deadly, but simple. Make the right moves and live. One wrong one and burn like that Def Leppard song.

At least, he thought, it wasn’t as random as being pummeled by great balls of fire.

If his new friend wasn’t in the process of being barbequed, he just might have smiled at the irony.

“Luke,” he said. “If you can hear me, roll over.”

He heaved and pushed again. Nothing. “Please.” He shoved with all his might—nothing.

Then a groan emerged from deep within.

“It’s alive!” Luke definitely missed that joke.

Otis turned him slightly and took the opportunity, launching himself into the boy with a painful body block. As Luke’s head turned, the latch for the helmet showed itself.

Otis wrapped his hand in his shirt and flipped it open. The heat seared the material but the latch popped wide. He wasted no time placing his small hands on either side and pulled. Hard.

With a sickening sound, akin to cutting open a turkey wrapped in foil, the helmet slid off.

Otis bit back a cry.

Luke’s face was covered in blisters and his mouth dropped in pain.

“Kill me,” said the twin.

Something in Otis snapped. “Seriously? What lame movie did you get that from? We don’t play that game here. Get. Up.”

Wrapping his hands tighter, he unlatched the rest of the suit and helped the teen out of it. Most of Luke’s flesh was reddened but not damaged much. Otis turned the boy’s head, carefully, toward the exit. Neither paid much attention to the rain of fire around them. Until they moved, heat was the biggest worry.

“Think you can make twenty feet or so?”

Luke shook his head.

“Tough. We’re going.”

“But,” Luke wheezed. “No. Protection.”

Sometimes, the iron ain’t in the suit, Otis heard his grandmother’s voice reverberate in his head. Sometimes, it’s much deeper.Why hadn’t he thought of that earlier? The old woman had always pointed him in the right direction. Without her advice, his parents might have given up on him years ago and listened to some idiot doctor who believed he had no chance to live this long.

Go, Grandma.

He stared at the path he formed in his head, punctuated by the rhythms he both saw and heard in his head. If only he could help Luke move in time with the rhythms. If only. The weight differential might be too much.

“Okay, farm boy. We move. Now. I pull, you move with me. Otherwise, we both cook.

You want to fry, that’s fine, but don’t make me burn out with you when I’m trying to keep your butt alive.”

Luke half-stood, partially holding back from his injuries, but partially from not wanting to see Otis killed for helping him. Otis saw this as all too obvious and knew he just had to get the boy moving, not thinking about what might happen.

“If we don’t get out, your sister might be dead as well.”

“Nope,” he replied. “She’s smarter than me. She’ll find a way.”

Otis groaned in despair. Was this how he sounded when the pain kept him up at night, crying to his parents?

“Well, I’m not going to tell her you died a wuss. You want to, go ahead, but please get off your swollen, barbequed crack and do it so I can live for another hour or so.”

Luke cried out as he pushed himself off the floor on knees covered in blisters and burns.

“Twenty feet?”

“Yep.”

“Then what?”

Otis started into the dark of the exit. It looked almost too tight for a human to fit through.

“Don’t rush me. I haven’t thought that far ahead, yet. Just imagine you have rhythm and follow me. Please. I don’t want to be something’s fried chicken tonight. Not enough meat on me for anything. I’d be shorting them way too much. You, on the other hand—”

Another cry, but one with movement. “I’m coming.”

Then they were off.

Otis waited for the fireball then pulled Luke along. The bass.

He waited for the snare then pulled again. Both flamers missed them by hairs, but missed just the same. As long as they kept with it, they had a chance to make it to the crack in the wall.

* * * *

Otis imagined being behind his drum set and holding the sticks in his hands. He controlled the beat. Without the steady beat, the song fell apart. The band would suck. Everyone would know it was him, his mistake. But, only one mistake was allowed here.

“No way am I screwing up this song,” he said to himself.

A crash singed his hair, leaving another streak of charred hair behind. Other than that, they maneuvered the distance, only to find the opening in the exit as small as he feared; too small for Luke.

The teen began to cry, not for himself, but obviously for his sister and family. This must have been his first attempt at actually living and he blew the deal.

Luke picked up a cooling piece of rock in one hand, not caring about the heat. He slammed it into the wall above the crack with a stream of words Otis could only imagine were curses in his village.

Another groan sounded, but not from the teen.

Otis put his ear to the wall. Seriously? “Hey. Hit it again.”

“What?” Luke had nearly gone over the edge to looneyville.

“That rock ball in your hand. Hit the wall with it again. Now. Hard.”

The boy did and the groan repeated. Otis wondered why and he spread his hands all over the surface, feeling for something. Anything. Nothing.

Then, there it was.

The simplest of symbols.

Lightning from the sky. Thunder usually followed. The carved bolt gave him the confidence he needed to try once more. He picked up his own cooled off ball of rock and told Luke what to do.

After a four count, they hit either side of the crack, dead in the center of the drum cymbal. Again, one more time in the most basic of rhythms which created rock music.

Like magic from the corniest of movies, the wall opened a foot wider and showed them freedom.

“It worked!” Luke dropped the ball and completely missed the wall of fire rushing at both of them from behind.

The opening must have triggered a back draft of some kind and within seconds, the cavern lit up like the Rockefeller tree on Christmas—doused in gasoline.

All Otis could think was that this must be how the people on Hiroshima felt right before the first atomic bomb hit. A massive heat fist sucked all of the air from their lungs as it struck.

The firewall slammed both of them with a death hand and flung them straight through—right into the arms of the final test.

As Otis felt consciousness fading and air finding its way into his body, he couldn’t believe his eyes. “I think we’re gonna be okay,” he said, right before the darkness took him.