Enter the Core

by Peter Lerangis

  Alex was wiping clear the third painting, in which the three men, with a team of workers, were hiking down a tunnel. Everyone was covered with grime but Gaston Verne, who glowed with health. “What’s with the halo around Gaston’s head?” Alex asked.

  Kristin moved close to the image, shining her flashlight on the initials GV painted at the lower right. “Looks like the artist was Gaston. Guess he had a high opinion of himself.”

  But Max was staring at the final image, on the wall through which they had entered. It was a sea of grotesque faces, some wild-haired and completely bald, some with missing eyes and teeth. They were grasping at each other, screaming, clawing each other to pieces. One of the figures in the painting was a man whose face was covered with scars. Some of the scars were oozing fat worms. His hair was on fire, and he was screaming. In the back of his wide-open mouth was a T-bar, exactly like the one Alex had slid down the chute with.

  “This is crazy,” Max said. “It doesn’t have anything to do with the others. But it’s signed GV. And the guy in the center with the worms in his face? It’s Gaston.”

  “Weird,” Alex said. “Is he trying to tell us that’s what happened down here?”

  “We know he survived,” Max said. “And so did Jules Verne. This does not look like a survival scenario.”

  Alex nodded. “We also know Gaston was committed to an institution late in life. Maybe something happened down here. Maybe this is when he began to snap.”

  Max couldn’t take his eyes from the worm man’s—Gaston’s—face. The man seemed to be speaking to him, begging for help. “This is giving me the creeps,” he said. “Can we go now—?”

  Gaston’s left eye exploded, spewing rocks outward.

  “Aaaahhh!” Max fell backward, losing his balance, falling on his rear end.

  Alex picked him up and wrapped her arms around him, shieldeing him with her body. Stones were dropping from the ceiling now. A jagged crack came down from the ceiling through the painting of Saknussemm in his study, cracking the globe in two. The ground shook as if a train were passing inches underneath.

  “Move! Move!” Kristin said, shoving them both toward the opening. They made it through before it collapsed, and the entire outer wall imploded into the room.

  All three of them dived farther down the tunnel and scrambled to their feet. “That could have been us!” Max shouted.

  “What is going on here?” Alex screamed.

  “I told you the area was unstable!” Kristin replied.

  “Where do we go now?” Max demanded.

  Kristin’s mouth had dropped open. Her eyes were staring at something over Alex’s shoulder.

  Max and Alex spun around. Farther up the tunnel, something was moving toward them. “Is that an animal?” Max asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Alex said.

  It took the concentrated beam of three flashlights to reveal a round surface, round and pocked with holes, moving toward them.

  It was an enormous lava rock, filling the entire circumference of the tunnel.

  And it was rolling downhill toward them, like a killer bowling ball about to make a strike.

  30

  “RUN!” Kristin shouted.

  “No kidding!” Alex replied.

  They were practically flying down the tunnel.

  Running wasn’t the hard part. It was staying upright. The boulder was picking up speed, pushing air through the tunnel as it rolled. Max felt a gale wind at his back. He didn’t dare look over his shoulder. As he forced his legs forward, each step turned into a jump. Kristin was taking advantage of this, leaping with long strides. “Hurry!” she shouted.

  Alex lost her balance, tumbling forward as if she were falling down stairs. Max grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet. “Step with me!” he cried out. “Right . . . left . . . right . . .”

  They leaped like dancers, side by side, down the steep path. From behind them came the boulder’s steam-engine rumble. The thing was picking up speed. Spitting pebbles forward, directly into Max’s back.

  He tried to go faster, but his legs were killing him. To make matters worse, with each jump Alex’s head seemed to just barely graze the ceiling. “Keep your body lower!” Max said.

  “What?” Alex replied over the noise.

  “I said, keep your body—”

  With a dull crrrack, Alex’s head made contact with the stone above him. As she fell to the ground, her hand unclasped from Max’s. He stumbled and hit the ground himself, tumbling once and catching sight of Kristin’s panic-stricken face.

  “No-o-o-o-o!” came her voice from below them.

  Max had always heard that when you were about to die, your life flashed before you. But that was not a fact. All he could think about was that in about two seconds he was about to be Flat Stanley.

  He felt Alex’s hand reach for his as they slid out of control. Even though he didn’t like hand-holding, he felt lucky he was able to grab it.

  GRRRRRROCK!

  The sound was like a punch to the ears. Max felt his body lurch violently.

  And then, silence.

  Max curled himself into a ball. He could hear his own heart beating. That was a good sign.

  “Max?”

  It was Alex’s voice, soft and plaintive.

  Max swallowed. “Can you swallow when you’re dead?”

  “I don’t know,” Alex replied.

  Max looked up, directly into the face of the boulder. “Gyyyeeeeeh!” he screamed.

  It wasn’t moving. For a moment, Max thought he was caught in some bizarre slo-mo state, where everything seems frozen just before you die. He could see a tiny gnarled twig embedded in the boulder’s side, a pattern of dirt and rocks shaped a little like the continent of Antarctica. A couple of confused and very ugly beetles were crawling out a hole in the rock’s side.

  “Move!” came Kristin’s voice from down below. “Before that thing gets loose!”

  Gets loose. That meant it wasn’t loose. Meaning it was stuck. Physically. The tunnel was too narrow. The rock had jammed.

  Max didn’t have time for relief. Tunnels, he knew, could be altered. He lifted Alex to her feet. Linking arms, they stumbled after Kristin. All three of them crouched low, until the tunnel was little more than a crouch space. One by one they crawled through, curving left and then right, until the space widened again.

  Gasping for breath, Kristin dropped to her knees and then sat against the wall. “I . . . can’t . . .” she moaned.

  Max and Alex joined her, and for a long moment no one said a word, until Alex finally asked, “Are we safe?”

  “Maybe,” Kristin replied. “The boulder is not likely to fit through the tunnel we just crawled through. It’s stuck for now. But the stability of this whole volcano is compromised, so anything can happen.”

  “Plus,” Max said, “safe or not, we’re the ones who are stuck. We can’t go back.”

  “Oh, that little thing,” Alex said.

  Kristin began shivering, despite the heat. “I—I never said good-bye to Uncle Gunther. I didn’t leave a lunch for him. I was supposed to shop yesterday. How will he get by—”

  “Stop that!” Alex said. “You’ll see him again. We’re going to get out of here.”

  “You don’t understand,” Kristin went on. “He had such hopes for this mission. To him, you were like gods dropping from heaven. A chance to redeem the name Saknussemm.”

  Max and Alex stared at her. “Was he a big fan?” Alex asked.

  “Wait . . .” Max said. “Your name, Zax-Ericksson . . .”

  “Is made up,” Kristin said. “It sounds similar. I’m sorry I haven’t been completely honest with you. Arne Saknussemm was my great-great-great-grandfather, as Verne was yours. His career and worldwide reputation were flourishing, until the journey with the Vernes. That changed him. His theories became outlandish and embarrassing, his public demeanor eccentric. The Hobnagians—the ones who believed in the alien invasion—they took him as their patron saint. M
any named themselves after him. Some died trying to replicate the journey to the center of the Earth. Saknussemm died a laughingstock and a desperate man. Over time, people began to assume he never existed. Such was the power of Journey to the Center of the Earth’s imaginative story that people assumed Saknussemm was part of that fiction. That he was a figment of Verne’s imagination.”

  Alex struggled to stand. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

  “I didn’t think you’d believe me,” Kristin said. “Or respect me.”

  “What? I would believe and respect anything you said,” Max said with a shrug. “Because you’re you.”

  Kristin smiled wanly. “Thanks. That’s nice to hear. No one ever says that to me. I guess it’s a good thing to know. Before we all . . . you-know-what.”

  “Dude, we’ll do this,” Alex said, taking her hand. “We are a special breed, the doofus descendants of geniuses. We complement each other. You’re the competent one with the water glass half empty. I’m the maniac with the glass half full.”

  “I don’t care how much is in the glass, as long as it’s water and not hydrochloric acid,” Max remarked.

  “Remember what Mark Twain said,” Alex said. “‘Never, never, never give in!’ Or something like that.”

  “That was Winston Churchill,” Max corrected her, starting off down the tunnel. “And I agree. We may or may not get out of here, but I want the satisfaction of finding Niemand and Bitsy.”

  Kristin and Alex joined hands and began following. “I guess,” Kristin said, “that makes about as much sense as anything else.”

  The air became so thick and warm, it felt like they were swimming instead of walking. Max’s breaths rasped like a buzz saw. He was beginning to smell his own body odor. On the positive side, he’d put his flashlight away. The bioluminescence was washing the entire tunnel in a greenish light, brighter than ever. The walls seemed to be alive, undulating like giant serpents, but in the humidity Max found himself only able to walk a few steps before pausing to catch his breath.

  “Max! Maaaaaax!”

  Behind him, Alex was calling out his name, so he waited. Max had to blink away the sweat from his eyes to see her. It looked like Kristin was completely supporting Alex’s weight.

  “What?” Max said.

  Alex looked up wearily. “What what?”

  “You were calling,” Max said. “Max! Max!”

  “I thought that was you,” Kristin said.

  “Me calling myself?” Max replied.

  “Maaaaaax!”

  The hair on Max’s head stood on end. If his veins had hair, they would be standing too. Neither Kristin’s nor Alex’s lips were moving. The sound echoed upward from behind them. From farther down the tunnel.

  “B-B-Bitsy . . . ?” Alex whispered.

  Max shook his head. “The accent isn’t right.”

  “It’s one syllable, Max,” Alex said. “How can you tell—”

  “Maaaaax! Mack-mack-mack-maaaaaaa . . .”

  “See, that’s not British,” Max said.

  “It’s not humanish either,” Alex replied.

  “And it’s not really saying ‘Max,’” Kristin said. “I think it’s a caw. From a bird.”

  For the first time in hours, Alex’s face brightened. “Which means there must be an exit!” she said.

  Max spun around. There was light ahead. Birds. A way out of the volcano.

  “Wooooooo-HOOO!” He jumped, spinning in the air, then began running down the sharp slope of the tunnel. “Maaaax! That’s me! Max Max Max Max!”

  His feet slipped on the moss-covered rock. He slid, bracing his body like a skier. The tunnel angled right again, and he leaned into it.

  As he took the turn, the path dropped sharply. Max’s feet went out from under him. He windmilled his arms, trying to keep his balance. Panicked thoughts flashed through his brain. But below him was a wide circle of light. Light was better than dark. It meant something was there. Another chamber, with a floor.

  He grasped at the walls, but they were wet. There was no hope of any traction. As he tumbled, the opening drew closer, and now he could see that something was in it.

  It was a shape as round and dark as the boulder they had escaped.

  Great. Their hope for salvation had finally arrived, and he was about to become a human pancake. Max’s body caromed from wall to floor. He screamed, curling himself into a ball as he hurtled toward the big black lump.

  He hit hard. The air rushed from his lungs like a burst balloon. For a long moment he saw a field of black and red through his closed lids.

  Before he opened his eyes, he moved his fingers, toes, arms, legs. They were all there, all intact, nothing broken. He had no idea how he had managed to survive, but sometimes it was best not to question.

  As his unclosed his eyes and tried to focus, he heard a deep growl.

  He blinked. The boulder was covered with hair.

  And it was moving.

  31

  MAX tried to spring away. But whatever this thing was had a different idea. It held Max tight—with arms, legs, or tendrils, he couldn’t tell. But it was smothering him, smushing his face into its fur, lifting his feet off the ground.

  As he rose upward, Max kicked as hard as he could. His boots sank into the creature’s flesh but didn’t seem to have much effect. His face was jammed into a mass of mossy, dust-choked fur. He also caught a blast of something so rotten and foul that he almost passed out.

  Coughing, he jammed his flashlight upward. He was hitting something soft, so he repeated it again and again, as hard as he could. The creature’s grip loosened. It snorted and seemed to stagger. As Max tried to wriggle free, he heard a scream. Something sharp struck his left ankle.

  “Let go of him!” bellowed Kristin’s voice.

  The beast let out a guttural moan. It let go of Max and he fell to the ground. As he rolled away, Kristin flew over him, attacking the beast with her backpack. Behind her, Alex was just emerging from the tunnel, sliding headfirst. She scrabbled to her feet, took a moment to look, and raced toward Max.

  She pulled him away. They retreated far behind Kristin, who was now chasing after the beast with her backpack raised high.

  Max’s eyes were adjusting to the location. It was another “bubble” in the long tunnel, a widening, with a ceiling at least five stories high over a flat stone floor. By now they’d been in several of these underground openings, each deeper than the last. Each was hotter, more humid, and greener with the glow of the strange light-giving moss. Now the air was so thick, the fleeing beast seemed to be moving through tiny green clouds. Its outline was soft in the haze, almost liquid. It seemed to float along the wall, first upright and then on all fours—or maybe sixes or eights. It was impossible to tell much about the beast under its long, matted hair, which covered every inch of its body and dragged on the ground like a street sweeper.

  “What is that thing?” Alex whispered.

  “I don’t know,” Max said. “But compared to Kristin it’s a chicken.”

  They watched as their screaming Icelandic guide chased the creature, until it slinked into a cave in the wall and disappeared from sight.

  Kristin paused by the opening, panting. “What . . . did I . . . just do?”

  “That was awesome!” Alex said.

  When she looked up at them, her face was pale. “I . . . I was thinking about Uncle Gunther. About how he would protect me when we hiked volcanoes.”

  “He chased monsters?” Max asked.

  “No, muskrats,” Kristin said. “But still. I didn’t know I had that in me. I guess you guys are family now. This is what families do.”

  “Awww,” Alex said, putting her arm around Kristin.

  “It was hideous,” Kristin murmured. “All that hair. Maybe some kind of subterranean bear?”

  Max crept closer to the cave. “It’s a carnivore, that much I know. It was very happy to see me. And its breath smelled like half-digested dead human.”

  “Did it sm
ell like Chanel perfume?” Alex asked tentatively. “That’s what Bitsy wears.”

  Kristin put her hand over her mouth. “I don’t know whether to laugh or puke. That is disgusting.”

  “Snaefy?” Max called out, leaning into the cave opening. “Here, Snaefykins, nice Snaefy!”

  “Max, stop that!” Alex said. “That thing nearly killed you, and you’re giving it cute names and trying to lure it out?”

  “It’s scared.” Max paused by the cave entrance. “I surprised it. I don’t think it knew what to do with me. Maybe it never saw a human before.”

  “I will forbid us to go in there,” Kristin said.

  His eyes drifted to the top of the cave, where a crude star had been carved into the stone. “Do you see what I see?”

  “Cave carvings from primitive beasts?” Alex said,

  Let the North Star guide you. That had been Verne’s message. “Remember Verne’s message, about letting the star guide us?” Max asked. “A star is carved over this opening. Maybe we’re supposed to go inside.”

  A deep belch echoed from inside the cave opening, followed by a blast of putrid air. Max jumped back with a startled yell.

  Alex groaned and sank to the floor. Whatever energy she had summoned was draining again. “Let’s see . . . chase a monster and get eaten . . . stay in a cave and suffocate to death . . . eeny meeny miney mo . . .”

  “OK . . . OK, Verne said the North Star,” Kristin said. Her hands shaking, she was pointing a compass at the opening in the wall. “That opening is facing east.”

  “Right,” Max said. “I’ll keep looking.”

  Max gazed around the wide cavern. From what he could see, the walls were unbroken, solid except for the small cave. But in the eerie phosphorescent light, the stone seemed fluid and strange, weirdly alive. Despite the light, he cast no shadow of his own—yet other shadows appeared and disappeared. For a moment he saw Kristin fanning Alex with a paper folder, and the next moment they blended into the stone and disappeared. “The light plays tricks,” Max said.