UNDER US BUBBLED THE putrid yellow-white mass of solid, liquid, gas.
“Yo! What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Chief Hayes shouted behind us.
His footsteps pounded dully on the basement floor.
“We’re ready, Pytho!” Ariana screamed into the crevice. “If you want us, come and get us!”
Chief Hayes grabbed my left arm. I resisted, but I was off-balance.
I didn’t see what happened next. I was falling backward in the chief’s vice grip.
But I heard Ariana’s shattering scream. And I felt something clammy lash around my other arm.
For a moment, I thought the arm would rip off like a celery stalk. Instead, Chief Hayes let go — and my feet left the ground.
I saw Ariana beside me, flailing, borne on one thick, oozing tentacle.
Our eyes locked for a split second. Fear shot between us like lightning.
The tendrils lowered us quickly. My stomach lurched, and by the time we reached bottom, I was fighting the urge to puke.
We tumbled to the ground, a dozen or so yards from each other. The tendrils retracted into the smoking crevice in front of the three-seated column.
“Welcome!” Jonas’s voice bellowed from above.
I did not look at him. I was staring at the tentacles. They looked different. The one that had carried me had two small black lesions. Ariana’s looked as if someone had taken a chunk out of it.
One glance at Ariana, and I knew she had noticed, too.
“Hold me,” she said, scrambling to her feet.
I ran toward her, arms open.
Rrrrommmmm!
A tentacle shot out of the small crack. It caught me on the jaw and sent me flying backward.
I saw Ariana reach into her backpack. She pulled out the bottle and opened it.
The tentacle whipped around her, tying her arms to her sides.
With her wrist, she tilted the bottle and let it spill.
TSSSSSSSSSSS …
Smoke flashed from the tentacle. Ooze gushed upward. It stiffened, then unwound itself in one jerk.
Something beyond noise, deafening and unearthly, welled up from the crack. I felt it vibrate my bones, echo in the chambers of my body. The noise expressed pain so intense, it brought tears to my own eyes.
As the tentacle dragged itself back into the crack, Ariana raced over to me. We threw our arms around each other.
“That was dumb,” Reggie Borden said. “Really colossally stupid.”
“Have you both chosen to die?” Jonas asked. “Will neither of you join us?”
Ariana and I stepped toward the crack, ignoring the voices. “How long will you last,” Ariana asked, “if we stay together against you?”
“Separate!” Jonas commanded.
“This will not work!” Annabelle cried. “Pytho will destroy you!”
I looked into the deep gash. Against the steep wall, amid the roiling smoke, I could see a large, round pipe opening.
My breath caught in my throat. “That’s where the bodies went,” I murmured.
The rumbling began again. Ariana began tilting the bottle.
BOOOOOMM!
Suddenly the ground split between Ariana and me. Fighting to keep balance, we let go of each other.
“Ariana!”
She was reaching toward me. I extended my arm.
Our fingers locked. They stayed together for a second, then slipped.
I slid off the broken ledge. Desperately I grabbed for it. My hands slapped uselessly against the slimy surface.
I plunged downward, crying out at the top of my lungs.
Dark droplets fell around me from above. Some glanced against the wall, sizzling.
The smoke now blinded and choked me. I landed on my side and blacked out.
When my eyes opened, Ariana was beside me, grimacing with pain. The cola bottle was in pieces a few feet away. I reached out with aching arms and held her with all the strength I had left.
“Stop this nonsense!”
Reggie’s voice was changing, becoming distorted and higher-pitched. Ariana and I glanced upward.
At the top of the tripod, the three priests were gyrating. Their movements were jerky and involuntary, as if cockroaches had crawled into their robes. Their eyes bulged, and their mouths seemed to be peeling backward, stretching across their faces.
“What’s going on?” I called out.
“Leave Pytho … alone!” Reggie struggled to say. “Stop-op pouring the chemical-ical. Releasssssse each other. Pytho will go will go … back to ssssleep. She promises.”
“And when will she return?” I asked. “What is it, twenty-two years from now? Then eleven? Ready to eat our kids? You think we want to let that happen?”
“Stop! Go ’way!”
The voice was Annabelle’s, but the tone was like a baby’s — pleading, almost crying.
Crrrack!
I jumped. A moldering chunk had fallen from the wall above, shattering at my feet.
Ariana and I looked up. The walls had become mottled with black and gray spots.
Reggie, Annabelle, and Jonas were now babbling in their seats. No, they were attached to their seats. Their feet had melded into the calcified stalk below them.
Ariana’s arm tightened. “My god …” she murmured. “What is happening?”
As we watched, Reggie’s face bulged in all directions. His ear pointed upward, then ruptured bloodlessly. A tendril emerged from his head, growing and twisting. It looked cancerous, chipped and covered with tiny lesions.
In an accelerating rhythm, tendrils ripped their way out of the other two.
“Yuth aaabba iggrashashasha rammm-mahh …”
They were moving their mouths, oblivious to pain, spouting nonsense.
Ariana was turning green. “We’re killing her,” she said.
Slowly, a crooked and creaking tentacle rose out of the crevice. It hovered over our heads, its point flapping lifelessly. It grew, slowly winding and spiraling into a tight coil.
Then, suddenly, it lashed out with blinding force.
Ariana and I fell to the ground. The chamber jolted again and again. We bounced violently. My nose smashed into the floor.
When I sat up, I saw what the tentacle was attacking: the wall. With each thrust, it chopped a deep hole, higher and higher. It didn’t stop until it was out of sight.
Then it fell silent. The tentacle lost its rigidity and fell back into the crevice with a tremendous crash.
I took Ariana’s hand. Together we walked to the vertical holes. The lowest one was about four feet up.
“Come on,” I said.
I gave Ariana a boost. She stepped into the foothold and began climbing.