Enter the Core

by Peter Lerangis

  It made Max very glad he had never gone to camp.

  But he wasn’t really listening to her. His ears were picking up something else.

  The pulsing had not stopped.

  It had begun, very faintly, in the last chamber. At first he thought it was the talismans. Then, when it didn’t stop, he’d figured it was the sound of creaky old gears from the sliding track. He’d first heard the pulsing when Kristin used the hidden lever to move the T-handle. Maybe, he thought, the mechanism lost its stopping ability and it needed oiling.

  But that was then. They had been traveling in this passageway for a long time. Max had no clue how long—maybe three hours, maybe thirty minutes. It was so hard to tell. The temperature had climbed steadily, and everyone was exhausted and achy from the steady descent. Max’s eyes stung from the coal dust running down from his forehead in rivers of sweat. And through all of that, the sound had just gotten louder.

  The trouble was, it was too hard to notice over Alex’s performance. “Guys?” Max called out. “Do you hear that noise?”

  “His name is myyyy name toooo—” Alex cut herself off in midverse. “Excuse me, it’s called singing,” she snapped. “And I won Best Vocalist of the Summer in Gosling Cabin—”

  “I’m not talking about your singing,” Max said. “I mean the thumping noise. Listen. It’s not normal.”

  Alex fell silent for the first time in way too long. Her heavy footsteps grew light. Kristin leaned forward, her eyes narrowed, as if that would help her hearing. “I hear it too,” she said. “Sounds like a dance club.”

  Stopping in her tracks, Alex let out a cackle. “Maybe that’s where the creature with the huge footprints was going. The Dinosaur Disco.”

  “With its famous Mastodon Mosh Pit,” Kristin added.

  “And a paw-cranked Jurassic Jukebox.”

  As the two broke into laughter, Max shook his head. “Are you doing that because you’re scared?” Max said.

  Both Kristin and Alex looked at him blankly.

  “Laughing at jokes that aren’t funny is a sign that you’re really scared. That is a fact I learned from my mom. I used to do it a lot. And now when it happens I just shhhhh.” Max put his finger to his mouth.

  In the quiet, the thumping echoed again.

  Alex and Max crept forward in the tunnel. The sound was getting louder. As they followed a sharp bend to the left, Max could see a rectangle of greenish light at the end of the corridor.

  And a shadow passing across it.

  He stiffened. “Did you see that?”

  “Y—” Kristin said, choking on the word.

  Alex fingered her talisman. “This thing isn’t making me feel brave anymore.”

  “What should we do?” Kristin asked.

  Thump thump thump thump . . .

  The sound was distracting Max. It was different now. A little slower. And he could hear other sounds too, high-pitched, like distant instruments and voices. The fear of the animal was short-circuiting with the absolute weirdness of the pulse. The two things canceled each other out, and all Max wanted to do was rush into the light.

  “That’s music,” he said, rushing forward.

  Kristin held him back. “That’s impossible.”

  “Don’t . . . make . . . any . . . sound,” Alex whispered. Creeping forward, she held tight to her talisman with one hand and trained the flashlight straight ahead with the other.

  As the green rectangle grew larger, Max could hear the distinct plinking of a piano. The wail of a saxophone. He stopped short. “‘Born to Run,’” he said.

  “We’ve come too far for that,” Kristin whispered.

  “No, that’s the name of the song,” Max said. “Bruce Springsteen. He’s my dad’s favorite. Listens to him all the time. He says this was the only music that calmed me down when I was a colicky baby. But I don’t feel calm now.”

  They quickened their pace. The rectangle of light was coming from a big hole in the tunnel wall to the right.

  Ahead of them the tunnel kept descending, but they weren’t interested in that right now. Max, Alex, and Kristin flattened their backs to the wall as they neared the sound. The chords of the song were clear now. As they edged toward the green-lit opening, Alex peered inside. Max wanted to see too, so he dropped to his knees and crawled around her.

  “Aaaaaah!” Alex screamed.

  “What?” Max said.

  “Sssshhhh!” Kristin shushed.

  “Why did you do that? I thought you were that animal!” Alex whispered.

  But Max didn’t reply. He was staring into a room about ten feet high and ten feet across. The walls glowed with green moss, and against one of them was a lopsided table made of stones. On top of the table was a small metallic object barely visible in the dim light.

  “Is that . . . a cell phone?” Kristin asked.

  Max stood. As he walked into the room, he looked right and left. It was empty. It was also too small for anyone to hide in, human or animal.

  The song ended, and another one began. It was some Europop dance tune Max had never heard before. He was close enough to see the phone now. Its screen was off, so he lifted it up and pressed the On button. The light was so bright, he had to turn away for a moment.

  When he turned back, the screen showed a keypad, with an image underneath. It was a selfie of a smiling blonde girl about Alex’s age with duck lips and dark sunglasses in front of a pool.

  Max’s hand was shaking so hard he nearly dropped the phone, but Alex cupped her hands under his.

  “Is that—?” Kristin asked.

  Alex nodded. “Bitsy.”

  28

  “SHE’S here . . .” Alex’s face was growing redder.

  “I’m not so sure,” Max said softly.

  “I hate her, Max. I hate her with all my soul.” Alex held up the phone and screamed into the screen, “I hate you, Bitsy Bentham!”

  “Alex,” Max said, “maybe she’s not here—”

  “This is her phone, Max, of course she is!”

  As she reared back to throw Bitsy’s phone against the wall, Max snatched it out of her hand. “Just listen to me—”

  Alex ran for the entrance and called out into the long passageway. “Where are you? Come back here and give us back what you stole!”

  Max raced out and blocked Alex’s way. “You are five years older than me, and you are acting like a baby. If Bitsy is here, we should be quiet and sneaky. We don’t want her to know.”

  “Too late now,” Kristin said. “You just woke up the reindeer in Siberia.”

  “Take a deep breath and think,” Max said. “We just found a phone on a table, with the music playing. Don’t you think that fact is weird? I mean, who would ever do that? It’s bonkers, right? Like something in a movie.”

  Alex and Kristin exchanged a silent, baffled glance.

  “OK, so I’m thinking if this were a movie, what happens in the next scene?” Max went on. “Boom. Booby trap! Or evil scar-face person jumps out of hiding! Or a note on the phone says, ‘Darling, will you call for takeout, I’m going to sleep,’ even though—dun, dun, dun—there’s no Wi-Fi. Depending on the kind of movie. But none of that happened. Which makes me think, maybe she didn’t mean for the phone to be here. Maybe someone else brought it. Or something else. Do you catch my drift?”

  He looked hopefully from Kristin to Alex.

  “No,” they said together.

  Max gestured toward the ground, shining his flashlight around. “All these footsteps in the coal dust? They’re ours. But when we got in here, there were no human footprints. Just the creature’s.”

  Alex looked up, her eyes growing wider. “And in the chamber we slid into, prints were under the T-bar.”

  “And in the tunnel on the way down here,” Kristin added.

  Max nodded. “Those footsteps were in all those places. All belonging to that . . . thing.”

  Even in the darkness, Max could tell Kristin had grown pale. “Oh dear. Do you think . . . ?”<
br />
  “That the creature ate Bitsy while she was trying to get help on her phone, hoping there might be cell connection, out of total irrational desperation, only to accidentally activate her playlist and drop it to this table?” Max said. “Yes.”

  “Max, that is horrible,” Alex grumbled.

  Kristin gulped. “But plausible. We don’t know what this creature is, or how it looks, but it does appear to be four-legged, so in a worst-case scenario I suppose it could happen.”

  “What if there are more of them?” Alex said. “What if Brandon . . . ?”

  As her voice trailed off, Kristin took a deep breath and looked out into the long tunnel. “What do you think we should do? I forgot to pack artillery.”

  “I noticed something else,” Max said. “The bioluminescence is getting brighter. The temperature is rising and the air is wet. We’re getting closer to a water source. If Bitsy and Niemand are still alive, maybe they’ll be there.”

  Alex smiled wearily and pulled her talisman out of her pocket. “I have the . . . chrysanthemum . . .”

  “Ægishjálmr,” Kristin corrected her. “Supposed to ward off all harm. According to legend. I repeat—legend.”

  “Right.” Max set down his pack, yanked it open, and pulled out the two bones he had taken. Setting them down on the ground, he rooted around for a hunting knife.

  With the knife, he scored a diagonal line near the ends of each bone. Then, one by one, he smacked both of them into the rock wall. They shattered cleanly on the diagonal lines.

  Now each of the bones had an end as sharply pointed as a shark’s tooth. He held them out to Alex and Kristin with a smile. “I’ll take the knife, and you take these.”

  The two tentatively grabbed their weapons. Max pocketed the knife and slung his pack over his shoulders. “In this movie,” he said, “we win.”

  They left the room carefully, moving slowly, stopping at any strange sound. They’d only gone a few hundred feet when Alex stopped. She shone her light on the wall of the cave, on an inscription Max had missed.

  Kristin pulled out a pad of paper and pencil and translated the tunes into letters.

  Felicitations, vous etes a mi-chemin

  “No . . .” Alex said, her chest heaving in and out. “Just . . . no.”

  Kristin and Max were staring at the carving in the wall with curiosity. “That’s what it means—‘just no’?” Kristin asked.

  “‘Félicitations, vous êtes à mi-chemin . . . ’” Alex let out a deep breath and leaned against the wall. Her eyes were red and her skin had become blotchy. “It means ‘Congratulations, you have come halfway.’”

  Kristin moaned. “Oh, dear.”

  Alex sank to her knees. “I—I need to rest . . .”

  Max knelt next to her. “Halfway is awesome, Alex. The second half always goes quicker.”

  “You’re so eager. I like that.” Alex gave him a wan smile.

  “What does the second line say?” Max asked.

  “Follow the North Star,” Alex replied.

  “That’s helpful,” Kristin said.

  “That’s sarcastic,” Max said.

  Alex reached into her pocket and handed Max her talisman. “Take this. You and Kristin do a little reconnaissance if you want. Tell me what you see. Keep an eye out for Brandon. By the time you get back, I’ll be ready to do wind sprints.”

  Kristin sat down next to her. “We will not leave without you.”

  Max looked down the tunnel. It had all looked exactly the same for such a long time, but now he was hearing a soft whooshing sound, like a waterfall. “I think we’re close to something,” he said. “But sound is so weird here.”

  “Tell me we’re near a waterfall,” Alex said, “and I’ll be the happiest person on earth.”

  “I don’t like the idea of splitting up,” Kristin said.

  Alex put a hand on her arm. “It’s OK, Max, if you stay within our eyesight. If you don’t, I will personally kill you. That was sarcasm, but you get the message.”

  Max nodded. The moss down here was almost enough to light the way. With his flashlight in one hand and his knife in the other, he began walking. The slight rest had only made the pain in his legs worse. He grimaced as his muscles seized up. The tunnel walls had gradually changed from hard, undulating, moss-covered lava to a rockier surface, like stacks of small boulders.

  Granite, Max figured. They were down into the bedrock of the Earth. As he paused to wipe sweat from his brow, he felt a rumbling from below him.

  He stopped. His legs stiffened, as if tiny creatures were pulling on each of his leg muscles like cello strings. “Ow ow ow . . .” he moaned. “Charley horse!”

  “It’s all the downhill walking!” Kristin called out. “Your legs aren’t used to it. Stretch them in the opposite direction! Work against the pain.”

  Gritting his teeth, Max turned to the wall. He let his body drop forward, arms extended. His palms hit a flat slab of rock not much larger than his hands. He planted his feet behind him, lowered his heels to the ground, and pushed.

  The rock shuddered. Then with a grinding ssshhhhuck, it slid into the wall.

  Max gasped. He had no reason to expect the wall to be hollow. But the rock dropped out of sight, leaving a big hole.

  Max grabbed onto the hole’s ledge for balance.

  From inside, a pair of eyes stared back.

  29

  MAX sprinted back up the tunnel, too shocked to scream.

  Kristin and Alex were frozen, staring at him. “What happened?” Kristin asked.

  “Eyes . . .” Max glanced back over his shoulder. A small pile of rubble marked where he’d pushed the rock into a wall. He exhaled hard, trying to the release the fishy stink from his nostrils. “The rock . . . I pushed it all the way through . . . there was a room . . . two eyes . . .”

  Alex was sitting forward, her face beaded with sweat, her eyes bloodshot. “Max, are you saying you saw someone in a room in the wall?”

  “Yes!” Max blurted.

  As Kristin sprinted down the tunnel to see, Max helped Alex onto her feet. They both followed after Kristin, gathering around the hole formed by the missing stone. Kristin was beaming her flashlight inside the room.

  It wasn’t very large, maybe eight feet across. On the opposite wall was a painting of three men. One was wearing a stuffy-looking suit and carrying a cane. He was stroking his gray beard and looking down skeptically at a chest-high world globe on a stand. Next to him was a younger, hatless man with dark hair and angry eyes. He was staring at the third guy. With long, stringy hair, dressed in a long robe, the third one seemed like a lost wizard from a Harry Potter movie. His robe was decorated with runic symbols, but his strongest feature was his eyes. They were large, wild, and sad. And they looked straight out from the painting toward the hole.

  “Wait,” Alex murmured, “that’s who you saw? A painting?”

  “My bad,” Max said. “Those eyes looked so real.”

  Kristin was backing away from the wall. “Saknussemm . . .” she whispered. “Max, stand back a minute and look at the hole you made. There’s a reason the rock pushed inward so easily. It fell from above and was never secured. There used to be a doorway here. Look at the whole wall, and then look at the pattern right in front of us.”

  Max and Alex stepped back. Looking left and right, up and down the tunnel, Max could see that the wall was smooth and unbroken. But the section right in front of them was different. There, rocks had piled up from floor to ceiling, about five feet wide, sealing up what must have been an entranceway. Above them the ceiling looked like it had partially collapsed. A boulder plugged up most of the space up there, and Max figured it had probably fallen into place from above and got stuck.

  “The caves can be unstable,” Kristin said. “With each shift of the earth, each quake or eruption, things like this happen. Nature wants to fill space, and these tunnels are spaces. They collapse. New seams form in the rock. Then everything’s stable again until the next event.
Obviously there was a collapse here many years ago.”

  “But why is that room here?” Alex asked. “Who are those people in the painting? And who painted them?”

  “There’s a series of paintings all around the room,” Kristin said. “You can’t really see all of them from the outside. They’re covered with moss and cobwebs.”

  “I think the bearded guy is Verne,” Alex said. “Let’s get in there and see the other paintings. These could be his next set of clues.”

  “How? We can’t take apart the wall if it’s not stable,” Max pointed out.

  “I think we’re OK,” Alex said, examining the stones. “Look at the rocks above the hole—they’re huge. And they’re really jammed in there, holding all the weight. The ones below are sitting there like loose change. We just need to knock a few over and climb inside. Come on, it won’t take long.”

  Alex picked up a rock that was directly under the one Max had dislodged. With a grunt, she pulled it out into the tunnel. Max and Kristin joined her, and before long they had made a hole big enough to fit through. Kristin was the first to step in. Max helped Alex, who was still sweating like crazy and breathing hard.

  Kristin got to work wiping away coal dust and moss from the walls. One by one, all four paintings were revealed. Each had the same three guys. In the first, the shabby, bearded man was at a desk, bent over a scroll filled with futhark letters. The other two guys floated in the air, facing each other angrily, like figures in a dream. The older one was leaning on his cane and the hatless guy looked young, handsome, and angry. “Jules and Gaston Verne!” Alex said. “It’s got to be them! But who’s the dude in the center?”

  “That would be Arne Saknussemm,” Kristin said.

  “You said that name before,” Max said.

  “He was in Journey to the Center of the Earth,” Alex said. “The fictional scholar who left all the Icelandic runes for Liedenbrock.”

  “He was not fictional,” Kristin said softly. “He was a brilliant man, a sage like Nostradamus or Rasputin—and like them, he had some unorthodox ideas. He was the one who believed the continents floated above one connected sea. Gaston revered Saknussemm. He convinced Jules to meet him in Reykjavík. This second painting represents this meeting, where they are agreeing to penetrate the Earth! They believed they would release the healing serum into the water supply and let it spread like an elixir of life throughout the world!”