A Bounce Before I Die by Sam Cheever

Author:Sam Cheever [Cheever, Sam]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Electric Prose Publications

14

Oops!

My feet touched down with a splash and I jerked backward in surprise, my bare arm sliding over slimy rock. “Ew!” I exclaimed a little too loudly. Jerking away from a wet concrete wall, I gave a violent twitch and covered my mouth. Too late. I’d given myself away.

Something heavy shifted in the darkness, the sound of claws scrabbling against the slick floor. Without thinking, I started moving, keeping to the shadows and using the skeletal forms jutting from the floor up and the ceiling down to fracture my movements and hopefully confuse whatever was coming my way.

I feared it was one of those oversized rats and shuddered at the thought. Battling one of those nasty things was bad enough in the water when they were focusing most of their attention on getting to the portal. I really didn’t want to face off with one on relatively dry ground.

Sweat coated my face and I had to keep drying my hands on my jeans so the blades I was clutching didn’t slide through my fingers.

The air was thick, redolent with something dark and sinister. The fact that I couldn’t see what was chasing me made it ten times worse. I was scared that by the time I did see the thing, it would be too late to get away.

Claws scratched against the ground, sounding much closer than they should have. A splash and a grunt, then the heavy sound of something moving through the quickly narrowing tunnel.

I shifted away from the noise, counting on the natural structures that looked like pitted and broken bone fragments to hide my flight.

Still, a beat later, the dense sliding sound was there again, always the same distance away. A rancid stench filled the underground space. A mix of feces, rotted vegetation and stale air thick with mildew. Every surface I touched was cold and slimy, like mucous from a giant slug.

I cracked my head on something and looked up to find the ceiling far too close. Then, spinning in a panicked circle, I realized the passage had shrunk to little more than the width of my outstretched arms.

Was I being herded? Was the passage going to end and I’d be trapped? And what about Elvo and Molly? I didn’t even know if I was in the right place. No. I shook off the doubt. One thing I’d learned since being dumped into the magical world was that it had rules. I mostly didn’t know any of the rules and they really didn’t make much sense to me, but they were there.

I might have popped into a totally different sub-dimensional construct, but I had to believe I’d landed there for a reason. I had to believe I would find Elvo there. And Molly. Please goddess, let my best friend be there too. I couldn’t shake the feeling that she was running out of time.

Icy water dripped from the curved ceiling of what could only be described as a sewer cavern. The bent and pitted protrusions around me resembled the ribcage of an ancient skeleton.

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