by Dustin Brady
“Pssssssssssst.”
“What do you want, Eric?” I asked while still keeping an eye on the jungle.
“Pssssssssssst.”
“Come on, spit it out. I’m in no mood.”
“PSSSSSSSSSSSST.”
“WHAT?!” I turned around to see that Eric could not have made the “psst” sound because Charlie had his hand over his mouth. Charlie may have made the sound, but I would bet a lot of money that it was the giant snake hovering over Charlie’s shoulder. I started to scream, and Eric put his hand over my mouth.
The snake looked like one of the cobras-on-wheels that had been chasing us earlier, but this one was bigger. Much bigger. It looked like one of those blow-up animals they put on top of car dealerships to announce sales, except if the dealership were super weird and decided that an evil black snake would help them sell more cars. This snake floated in the darkness behind the level and stared at us. I waited for it to eat us all in one bite. Finally, it opened its mouth. I cringed. But instead of lunging, it spoke.
“Hi.”
The voice was really strange. I know I should have been more freaked out by a giant video game snake talking to me in the first place, but I just couldn’t get over the voice. It was like Elmer Fudd crossed with Winnie the Pooh. We all looked at each other. Finally, Eric responded. “Hi, Talking Snake.”
“Charlie,” the snake said. “This is your dad.”
Should it have surprised me that a digital talking snake was claiming to be Charlie’s dad? Of course. It is impossible for a video game snake to be anyone’s dad, except maybe a baby video game snake. However, after all the things I’d already seen, I was not surprised even a little bit. Charlie, on the other hand, looked like his mind had exploded.
“Uh, hi,” Charlie said.
“Charlie, I’m so glad you’re safe,” the snake continued. “I can’t see you—I’m typing all this on a computer. Is the family with you?”
“Dad, where are you?”
“I’m fine,” the snake said. “Just, please tell me the family is all there safe with you.”
“Dad, I’m so sorry. The robot was coming, and … ”
Charlie couldn’t bring himself to finish the sentence, so I did. “I put in the code early,” I said.
“Who’s that?” the snake asked.
“It’s Jesse Rigsby. I pulled Charlie and Eric into the game because the robot was about to kill us.”
The snake went silent. I imagined Mr. Gregory trying to process everything I’d just told him.
“I’m really sorry,” I said. “It was the only thing I could think of in the moment. Roger was about to chop off Charlie’s nose, and then the robot version of you was looking at Eric with these scary, red eyes, and … ”
“Does he know you’re here,” the snake interrupted.
“Who? The robot?”
“He’s in here with us,” Eric said.
“Now?” the snake asked. “Right now?!”
Even though the snake couldn’t change its expression, I felt the panic coming from Mr. Gregory.
“Yeah,” I whispered.
“Then they know,” the snake said to itself. “They’ll be here any second.”
“Who will be where? How do we get back out?”
“You get out by beating the game, but that’s not safe,” the snake said. “You have to … ” The snake froze.
“We have to what?!”
Suddenly, the snake blooped and started disappearing and reappearing. It tried to say something every time it reappeared. “TH-TH-TH-TH-TH … ”
We all leaned in closer. “What is it?!”
Suddenly, the blinking stopped. The snake was gone. We all stared into the blackness for a while wondering what to do. Then, the snake reappeared for just a moment to whisper a two-word message.
“They’re here.”
Chapter 10
Pee Butter Poopies
“Who’s here?!” I whipped my head back to the jungle. I didn’t see anyone.
“Hey guys,” Charlie said. “Do you think we shooooooo … ”
“Charlie, are you OK?” I spun around to see that Charlie had frozen in place. His eyes looked panicked, but his mouth wouldn’t move. He continued to “oooooo.” Then I noticed that the black edge of the level had begun to creep forward and was currently covering part of Charlie’s left hand. “Help him!” I yelled, pointing at the hand. Eric quickly yanked Charlie away.
As soon as Charlie broke free from the blackness, he gulped for breath. “I couldn’t move a muscle!” Then he looked down at his video game hand—or rather, half a video game hand. The part that had been covered in blackness was now gone. “WHAT HAPPENED TO MY HAND?!”
“Does it hurt?” Eric asked.
Charlie took a second to breathe. “No.” He examined his half-hand. “No, it doesn’t. It just looks like a spatula. Is it gonna grow back?”
I was too busy staring at the blackness to answer. Eric had pulled Charlie a good five feet away from the edge, but now the edge seemed to be creeping toward us. “I don’t think we can stay here,” I said. Eric and Charlie both looked up, noticed the same thing I did, and took off into the jungle.
“Is the RMG doing this?” Eric asked as we hurdled the first two snakes.
“That’s my guess,” I answered, ducking underneath a toucan. As we ran through the level, I worked on a new plan. Inside the video game or out in the real world, our goal remained the same—rescue Mr. Gregory. But we couldn’t do much to help him if we were constantly running from the RMG. My mind raced to figure out a way to take the robot out. Charlie interrupted my thoughts by screeching to a halt right in front of me.
“We’ve got a problem,” he said.
I looked ahead to see that we’d made it back to the swinging vine. Charlie held up his spatula hand. “I don’t think I can grab anything with this.”
“You don’t know unless you try,” Eric suggested.
“Yeah, but if it doesn’t work, then I go back to the beginning of the level, right? Well, that’s gone. If I die now, I’ll probably be gone for good.”
We stood in silence for a few moments. Finally, Eric picked up Charlie.
“What are you doing?” Charlie asked.
“Remember the guy throwing coconuts on the title screen when you turned on the game in your basement? I’ll bet I can throw you across the pit!”
“I’m not a coconut!”
“Eric, I don’t … ”
Before I could finish my objection, Eric hurled Charlie across the pit like King Kong. “Did you see that?! THAT WAS AWESOME!”
“Eric, you can’t do stuff like that on your own,” I lectured.
“It worked, didn’t it? I just … Hey. Where’s Charlie?”
I looked across the pit. Charlie was gone.
“CHARLIE!” I screamed in panic.
Charlie poked his head out from behind a rock. “Over here! Sorry, I was just getting the extra life behind this rock.”
Eric and I swung over the pit to catch up with Charlie. Once we did, Eric pointed to a cave opening up ahead. “What’s that?”
“The entrance to the second level!” Charlie said.
“Sweet!” Eric started walking toward the cave.
“Wait,” I warned. “We haven’t seen the RMG yet.”
“Right.”
“What if he’s pushing us toward the cave? What if he’s waiting for us in there so he can pick us off one by one?”
That stopped Charlie. He thought for a second. “Then what are we supposed to do?”
“What if we get him to come to us instead?” I explained my plan. Eric and I could hide behind the rock while Charlie poked his head into the cave to lure out the RMG. Charlie would then lead the RMG to the edge of the pit, and at the last second,
I’d throw Eric into the RMG, knocking him into the pit.
“I have another idea,” a voice said behind us.
We all spun around. The snake had returned. “Snake Mr. Gregory!” Eric yelled.
“We don’t have much time,” the snake said. He motioned with his head, and a door appeared. “You need to get in here.”
Eric started to walk to the door. I grabbed him before he could open it. “The RMG is gone, and now you show up,” I said to the snake. “How do we know you’re really Mr. Gregory?”
“Please go through the door,” the snake said. “They could find this any second.”
That was not the reassuring answer we were looking for. “I think you need to tell us more than that,” Charlie said.
“Charlie, listen,” the snake replied. “I’m helping the bad guys for now, which means … ”
“You’re doing what?!” Charlie yelped.
“For now!” the snake repeated. “They’ve locked me in this office building, and they keep threatening to hurt you and the family. To protect you, I built Doom Island level by level on different computers around here behind their backs. I thought that hiding you inside the game would finally give me the chance to destroy the thing they’re making me build, but all it did was trap you in a world that they can erase with one keystroke. They’re working on doing that right now.”
“Is that why everything is disappearing behind us?” I asked.
“Yes, but only the first level. They found that one because I kept it on a computer I work on all the time, but there’s another level further in the game that they don’t know about yet. This door is a shortcut to that level. Please. Walk inside. You can get to a safe— ” The snake stopped talking.
“A safe what?” Eric asked.
I shook my head. I had no idea if we could trust the snake, but we had to make a decision fast. The darkness had already caught up to the pit. “Can you prove to us that you’re really Mr. Gregory?” I asked.
The snake nodded. “Pee butter poopies.”
“Uh okayyyyy,” Eric finally said. “Thank you, Mr. Snake. That was very helpful, but … ”
“Pee butter poopies,” the snake repeated. “Charlie, you remember.”
Charlie nodded. “The first time my dad and I beat Doom Island together, we went out for ice cream. I wanted the peanut butter–chocolate chunk ice cream, but I couldn’t really say ‘peanut butter,’ and I thought that the chocolate chunks looked like little poops. So I stood at the counter repeating ‘pee butter poopies’ a bunch of times until my dad figured it out. We still laugh about it now.” A small block tear appeared on Charlie’s face.
I put my hand on Charlie’s shoulder. “Charlie, maybe that is your dad. But even if it is, going through that door just keeps us safe—it doesn’t help him or your family. If we follow my plan, we can take out the RMG and still have time to rescue your dad.”
“I trust my dad,” Charlie said.
“I didn’t say I don’t trust him. I just think we need to stick to the plan.”
Charlie turned to the snake. “Love you, Dad.”
“Love you lots, kiddo,” the snake replied.
With that, Charlie opened the door and walked inside.
“Charlie, wait!” I tried to reach through the door to grab him, but it was too late. I looked back to see that the darkness had finished crossing the pit.
“What are we going to do?” Eric asked.
What else could we do? Charlie had left us no choice. I followed Charlie through the door.
Chapter 11
Lions’ Den
As soon as I stepped through the door, I started floating. Whoa. I grabbed for the handle to force my feet back to the ground, but the handle had disappeared. In fact, everything was gone except for blue stuff and colorful trees. Blue stuff and colorful trees? Suddenly, everything made sense. Water and coral! We were underwater!
I panicked and swam upward as fast as I could, only to discover a ceiling. An underwater cave?! My lungs began to burn as I clawed along the ceiling, desperately searching for air pockets.
“Jesse!” Eric yelled behind me. I stopped struggling for a second. During the summer, Eric and I play a game at the pool where one person sings something underwater, and the other guesses the song. Eric does the same thing every time, “Blub blub blubbity-blub,” and then tries to claim that it’s everything from “Jingle Bells” to the national anthem. But this time, his underwater voice sounded crystal clear. Almost normal. I spun around. Eric and Charlie were calmly floating behind me wearing snorkels and flippers.
“You can breathe down here,” Charlie said, tapping his snorkel.
I reached up and felt a snorkel in my own mouth. I shook my head. Nope, nope, nope. Snorkels have to be sticking out of the water to work. I wasn’t stupid.
“It’s an old video game,” Charlie assured me. “It’s not realistic.”
I finally took a breath—not so much because I trusted Charlie, but because I was about to pass out.
“See?” Charlie said. “Pretty cool.”
Now that I could finally breathe, I took the opportunity to yell at Charlie. “What would be pretty cool is if you’d include us in your decisions instead of going off on your own!”
“I wasn’t going off on my own,” Charlie shot back. “I was leading the group!”
“Well, you just led us away from our only chance to save your dad!”
“Hey, Jesse,” Eric said. “Chill. We’ll figure out a way to help Mr. Gregory from here, OK?” He turned to Charlie. “As long as we’re down here, mind showing us around?”
Charlie took a second to settle down and nodded. “This is actually a pretty cool level. Follow me.”
I stopped for a few deep breaths, then fell in line for the tour. As long as we were here, might as well make the most of it. After all, how many times do you get to breathe underwater?
Charlie turned around. “Watch out for … ”
Just then, a blocky, gray shark-shaped blob shot out of a hole below us. Without missing a beat, Charlie aimed his snorkel at it and blew a bubble. When the bubble hit the creature, it blinked red and disappeared.
“Wait, did you just kill a shark by blowing a bubble at it?!” Eric asked.
“It was 1986. I don’t think they tried too hard to make any of this make sense,” Charlie said.
Eric shook his head. “Even so … ”
We bubble-blasted two more sharks and a swordfish before Charlie pointed out a treasure chest. “Check it out,” he said. “Jesse, do you want the invincibility orb this time?”
I understood that Charlie was trying to be nice to me to smooth things over from earlier, and I appreciated the gesture. I swam down and opened the chest. But instead of a finding a glowing circle inside, I found a piece of paper. I picked it up.
“Charlie,” I read aloud. “I need to tell you what’s going on in case I don’t make it.” I looked around.
“What does the rest of the note say?” Eric asked.
“That’s it.”
“Maybe the rest of the message is in the other treasure chests!” Charlie suggested.
We swam as fast as we could to the next treasure chest. Charlie opened this one. “Max Reuben is the man who kidnapped me.” Charlie looked up, confused. “Is that the guy from Lions’ Den?”
I was just as confused as Charlie. “Yeah, I think so.” I shook my head. “This is so weird. I know he’s really mean on the show, but it’s just a show, right?”
“What show?” Eric asked. “What’s Lions’ Den?”
“It’s a Shark Tank rip-off where billionaires give money to inventors,” I answered. As we swam to the next treasure chest, Charlie and I explained that Max Reuben was a billionaire on the show who’d nicknamed himself “Mr. Nice Guy” as a joke because he was always the mean
est. He’d offer deals then take them back just to be cruel. He’d make fun of people. One time, he even broke a guy’s invention on purpose. It always seemed like he was auditioning for the role of a supervillain in a comic book movie or at least a spot on Shark Tank.
Charlie cleared out a few squids with his snorkel before opening the next treasure chest. “Max has an evil plan for my technology.”
“What’s the plan?!” Eric complained. “Come on, are we going to have to open 200 more treasure chests to get this whole message?”
“Be patient,” Charlie said before squeezing through a small opening in the wall. Eric and I followed. The opening sucked us through a series of tubes before dumping us into a small, dark room with a treasure chest at the bottom. “Here we go,” I said as I swam down and opened it.
It was empty.
“Maybe the paper fell out somewhere,” Charlie suggested. He looked next to the treasure chest, while I felt around inside.
When I reached into the chest, I looked down and noticed my hand. It had fingers. I held it up to my face. That’s when I noticed something even weirder. I could bend my elbow now. “Guys, what’s going on?”
Charlie turned and gasped. That made Eric turn. He screamed. “You’re turning back to normal!” Charlie said.
I noticed that skin was spreading from the hand that had been inside the treasure chest to the rest of my body. My chest got heavy as it turned from blocks to normal clothes. The water suddenly felt cold against my skin. I took a couple big breaths, then sucked a few drops of water into my nose. I opened my mouth to take another big gulp, and water rushed in.
I couldn’t breathe underwater anymore.
Chapter 12
Marshy Mallow’s
As soon as Charlie figured out what was going on, he hooked his block arm around my real one and pulled me into another tube. We quickly popped out the other side and started swimming like crazy. Eric sped ahead and began clearing out enemies with his snorkel. Swordfish. Gone. Octopus. Gone. Shark …
