Uncanny Tales of Crush and Pound 8
by Christopher D. Carter, © 2013
Text and Illustration Copyright © 2013 Christopher D. Carter
All Rights Reserved
Also by Christopher D. Carter available at ebook retailers:
Uncanny Tales of Crush and Pound 1
Uncanny Tales of Crush and Pound 2
Uncanny Tales of Crush and Pound 3
Uncanny Tales of Crush and Pound 4
Uncanny Tales of Crush and Pound 5
Uncanny Tales of Crush and Pound 6
Uncanny Tales of Crush and Pound 7
Uncanny Tales of Crush and Pound Annual 1
Uncanny Tales of Crush and Pound Annual 2
Discover other titles by Christopher D. Carter at
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Next Issue
About the Author
Chapter 1
*
Roach’s Den
*
Pound and Shad walked down the dark hallway with their last torch held up high, and the rounded walls seemed to absorb the light as it flickered in the murky underworld. Every once in a while, Pound could hear the light footsteps of cockroaches following behind them just outside of the light, and he asked himself how he had gotten involved in such an adventure.
“If Dr. Tatum were here right now, I’d tell her what she could do with this job,” he thought to himself. But no matter what he wished he could do at the moment, he had to stay alert and get out of the insect hive where he found himself trapped. With the ever-shortening torch in one arm, Shad suddenly held up his other arm against Pound’s chest and stopped him from moving forward.
“Can you smell it?” Shad asked as he sniffed the stale air of the cave. “I think we’re headed to the center of the hive,” he continued as his upper lip seemed to curl with the rotten smell that traveled through the tunnel.
“That’s not good news, if you ask me,” Pound commented and turned around to look at the cave behind. “Can we go back the way we came?” Shad shook his head in response as if he were at his wit’s end.
“No. We can’t go back, friend,” he answered, and he nervously scratched an itch on his chest. Then he picked up a leftover root and heated it with the fire from the torch so that the dried pulp began to smolder. Once the root had flickered into a warm glow, Shad reared back to pitch the root into the dark. Tossing the flaming stick into the cave behind them, the light dispersed the darkness and scattered the array of giant cockroaches that followed close behind. There were literally dozens of the pests tracking them just out of range of the torch, and Pound realized that there was no turning back. They would have to go ahead to the center of the hive and hope that there was a way out.
As they continued on, the tunnel sloped downward at an angle, and the dampness of the ground beneath their feet seeped into their shoes. With every step, Pound’s feet sank deeper into the muddy surface, and as the angle of the tunnel became steeper, he started to feel uncomfortable without a hand rail to stabilize himself. Shad, on the other hand, seemed to be hiking down the tunnel quite well, and without slowing his pace, the dwarf pressed forward to descend deeper into the heart of the cave. Finally, with both feet turned sideways and sliding down the hill, Pound dropped to his knees and unraveled the thick rope that he carried around his shoulder. He then wrapped it once around his waist and then once around Shad’s waist so that the two men were connected.
“Since this climb downward seems to be no problem for you, then can you help me?” Pound requested of the dwarf in frustration. It was not a question derived from anger with the little green fellow. Rather, Pound doubted his own abilities, and fear was the source of his frustration at the moment. “The last thing I want to do is fall headlong into another one of those roaches.” Shad could hardly blame him, and the little green fellow seemed more than willing to lend his body weight as an anchor to stabilize Pound. But the angle of the descent gradually increased such that even Shad had trouble maintaining his balance. The light that emanated from deep within the tunnel grew with every step, and Pound had a feeling that there was no escaping their fate. He turned back once to look at Shad, and then he dove forward into the muddy trail, jerking the diminutive companion along for the ride as they careened down the nearly vertical drop into the bright light of the hive below.
Pound closed his eyes and prayed as he waited for the sudden stop that always comes at the bottom, but to his great relief, the two adventurers landed in what felt like a safety net. On the first bounce, the rope that bound the two men together stretched tight. Though blinded by the light, Pound knew that he had to pull Shad in closer so that they could control the bounces together. With a tug, he jerked the little man closer and wound the rope several turns around his arm before striking the net and bouncing up once again.
“Shad! I’m reeling you in,” Pound called out as he tugged the fellow in a little closer with each bounce. Within seconds he could make out the dwarf’s shadow through the intensity of light as it bounced high above him, and with outstretched arms, he caught him in a final short bounce upward. “Kind of reminds you of a bouncy house, huh?”
“A what! Put me down this instant!” Shad exclaimed and squirmed out of his arms and onto the net. “You’ve got us in a mess now, fellow,” he said as he looked around with a squint to try to block the brightness of the light that shined from below. “What possessed you to jump like that?!”
“We couldn’t stay up there in the tunnel forever, and I had a hunch that jumping was the right thing to do,” Pound explained and shrugged nonchalantly.
“Let me know ahead of time if you get any more hunches. You are very lucky that we didn’t die from the fall, though I don’t know where we are.”
“Me either,” Pound replied and placed both hands up to his eyes like binoculars. “If I could just see what’s up there,” he said as his eyes strained to discern the ceiling above. “It’s like being on the surface of the sun.”
“You’re not making any sense. What’s the sun?” Shad asked.
“The sun is the name of the star that gives light to the earth,” Pound answered. “Except that there’s no heat coming from the source, only light. Which is strange in itself,” he puzzled. “Let’s keep moving,” he suggested, and then he tugged at the rope that connected the two.
“Great idea,” Shad answered with a hint of sarcasm. “But I do have to give you some credit with the rope. If we weren’t tied together, we would never be able to find one another in this near blinding light.” Onward they trekked across the bouncy net, unable to see where they were headed or what was in store for them. Pound knew that the worst thing they could do was wait for something to happen, so he kept his eyes focused ahead into the intense sparkle for what seemed like hours until the net began to slowly tighten beneath their feet. Then something horizontal began to materialize before them, and they stepped up onto a ledge of stone. A few feet further past the ledge, another stone appeared and seemed to mate up with the first, and in wariness to their surroundings, they carefully stepped across the crack. Though they still could not see where exactly they were going, they were hesitant about proceeding away from the safety of the net that had saved them from the fall.
“The next stone appears to be a step,” Pound voiced aloud and disregarded the dwarf’s grunts of sarcasm. “I am in favor of taking the stairs if it leads us out.”
“After you then, bright eyes,” Shad remarked in his cynical tone. “I wish to get out of this hole once and for all, and this seems like the only way that it’s going to happen,” he g
ruffed through gritted teeth. “How did I get stuck with you, anyways?”
“You picked me, remember?” Pound reminded him, though he did not know why he was wasting the effort when he should be paying attention to where they were going. As he stared up ahead, he could just make out another corner of a step leading upward, and another, and then another. The steps ascended in this manner for a dozen more paces until the direction of the landing turned sharply another direction. Following along closely, Shad kept up, prompted vigorously by his surly attitude. Grumpy and agitated as he was, Shad did provide companionship, and Pound was thankful that he was not alone in this strange experience.
The intensity of the light itself was dreamlike, and Pound wondered if maybe they had not been caught by a net. Maybe he had imagined bouncing on the net, arguing with Shad, and climbing the stairs. Maybe they had reached the sudden stop at the bottom, and this was some strange form of heaven.
“No. Heaven wouldn’t have such cranky companions,” Pound thought to himself. Pausing for a moment to get his bearings, he was bumped from behind when Shad’s feet kicked his ankles, and the dwarf grunted in disgust. Then Pound was absolutely certain they were not in heaven, and since there was no heat, he surmised they were probably not in hell either, though he questioned whether the dwarf was not some semblance of the devil in a short cantankerous body with clumsy feet. He quickly spotted the next step, and they continued winding their way upward through the light, and the further away from the net that they traveled, the dimmer the light became. Soon they were twisting through a spiral of bright yellow stairs that led upward to a white ceiling above, and through the brilliance of the light, four corners took shape in the white top surface of the gigantic room. Pound reached out his hand to touch the pale surface, and he felt the smoothness of the edges as his fingers contacted the seams where the corners met to form a door. Pressing upward, the soft white surface gave way as darkness peeled inward and swirled into the radiance of the room, mixing and churning in flows of light and dark air.
Looking back at the dwarf, Pound lifted his eyebrows in silent questioning, and Shad shrugged his shoulders as if he had no clue or care whether opening the door was the right thing to do or not. Pound made the decision himself, and going with his gut, he shoved the door open to clang against the ceiling as it rested in the darkness above. Pound then followed the steps upward into the darkness and waited for Shad to step out with him. Once Shad was through the portal, Pound closed the door to a crack with only his fingers holding a separation between the two volumes, one room of light below and one room of dark above. He held it partially open for several minutes, and with the intensity of the light still bleeding in through the crack, his eyes refused to adjust to the darkness of the room around him. Finally and with much reluctance, he let the door fall closed, and the darkness enveloped them. Within a couple of minutes, Pound could faintly make out the tracings of Shad’s body as his pupils adjusted to the new status quo.
“Are you ready to keep going?” Shad asked with a sigh, and Pound could just picture in his mind the crossed arms and scowl that went along with the question.
“Sure,” Pound replied as he stood to his feet and looked around in all directions. He was not ready to go, but more importantly, he was not ready to listen to the dwarf’s mutterings. As blinded by the darkness now as he was by the light before, he could see nothing anywhere he looked. “After you, then.”