Kid vs. Squid by Greg van Eekhout

Author:Greg van Eekhout
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Published: 2010-08-31T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 11

Banging my knees and elbows and head, I rattled down a metal chute in the dark until coming out an opening and dropping through empty air. I was grateful when something cushioned my landing.

“Getoffameyoulummox!”

That was Trudy.

“Sorry,” I said, rolling off her and helping her up.

Muffled sounds from the battle above echoed down the chute as Trudy moved her flashlight beam through the dark space. We were standing on the narrow concrete edge of an underground river. A strong current flowed down the channel.

“I think this is a ride,” Trudy said. “Or at least it used to be.”

We’d seen the ruins of roller coasters and tossaround-throw-up rides up above. This appeared to be the inevitable scary Tunnel of Love.

Trudy pointed her flashlight above our heads. “Hey, are those … bats?”

Trapped like flies inside sheets of cobwebs, bats the size of kites leered down at us with glow-in-the-dark eyes.

“Fake bats,” I said. “But let’s get out of here in case I’m wrong.”

We jogged along the water’s edge, and then, when the space narrowed, scraped along the wall until there wasn’t even enough room for that.

“I guess we go swimming,” Trudy said.

“My clothes still haven’t dried from the last time we went swimming. I haven’t been dry since my plane from Phoenix landed. My socks never stop squishing and my underwear chafes.”

“Are you done complaining?”

“I’m not complaining actually. I’m getting used to being soaked and salty.”

“That could be the result of the Flotsam curse,” Trudy mused. “Some kind of psychological adjustment to the idea that we’re going to spend fall and winter and spring adrift on the seas.”

“Okay, actually, I was complaining. I’d give anything for a change of pants.”

A creak of wood and sloshing of water interrupted me before I could speak longingly of warm socks and underwear from the dryer. Trudy and I braced ourselves for the next new danger in the dark.

A miniature pirate ship approached, the paint chipped but still gaudy where it remained. From a mast no higher than my head flew the skull and crossbones, carved out of wood.

“It’s not a tunnel of love without a ship built for two,” I said, and since the boat was heading in the same direction we were—out, hopefully—we climbed aboard.

This wasn’t my first time in a spooky tunnel of love—they always had one at the Arizona State Fair— but this was my first time riding one alone with a girl. Ordinarily it would have been weird, crammed so close beside each other, wondering if we were supposed to hold hands or do other stuff. But I felt comfortable with Trudy. We were at war, and there was nobody I’d have rather had in a foxhole with me. And, come to think of it, she smelled kind of good.

Then she aimed her flashlight in my face and blew my eyeballs to smithereens.

“Hello? Blindness? Ouch?”

“Sorry,” she said, redirecting the light to the tunnel walls. The tunnel was lined with murals painted in the same style as those we’d seen up in the palace.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.