Enter the Core

by Peter Lerangis

  “Is it tricky enough to hide an escape route?” Alex called out.

  Max kept walking slowly along the wall. Shady forms seemed to pass before him like ghosts. Black holes bubbled and closed like fish mouths. So when he spotted a grayish circle in the floor, he slowed down and approached warily.

  He fell to his knees, crawled forward, and looked over. There wasn’t much to see—inside was the same wash of greenish light, the same shapes and shadows, only deeper. But the dull whooshing sound was unmistakably louder. So was the burst of salty, wet air.

  This close, he could make out a strange symbol beneath the bottom rim of the hole, which looked like some kind of new runic talisman. But his eyes were drawn to a star at the top.

  “Kristin!” he blurted. “Am I north?”

  “Yes!” was Kristin’s instant answer. She and Alex emerged from the eerie thick light and stopped by his side, looking downward.

  With a shrill caw, something enormous passed from right to left. Max recoiled and sprang to his feet. “Gahhh!” he gasped.

  “It’s a hole,” Alex said with a look of horror, “deep enough for a bird to be flying below us.”

  “What’s a bird doing down here?” Max squeaked.

  “Good question,” Kristin said. “But we must be getting close. This was the more northern star of the two. Verne may have left the other star as a decoy. I’m guessing he was nervous that the wrong person might stumble onto this secret.”

  “It’s different too,” Max murmured. “It’s not like the other star. One ray is way longer than the other.”

  “Maybe it’s pointing to something,” Alex suggested.

  Max’s eyes snapped to the right, following the path of the long pointer. The wall was thick with moss, but he could see the faint outline of a carving. In a moment Kristin was wiping the area clear with a cloth.

  As the carving underneath became clear, she smiled. “Max and Alex, say hello to Lásabrjótur.”

  “Hello, Las . . . L . . .” Max tried. “I don’t think I can.”

  “What does it mean?” Alex asked.

  “Lásabrjótur is the lock breaker,” Kristin said. “It allows the bearer to open any lock without needing a key.”

  “I don’t see a lock,” Max pointed out. “Also, even if we did find a lock, how are we supposed to use this thing? It’s not removable like the last one.”

  “Excellent questions.” Kristin drew closer to it. “I also don’t understand the little arrow. That’s not supposed to be there.”

  “Monster graffiti?” Alex suggested.

  Max shrugged. “Well, OK, it’s pointing to the middle, right? So maybe he’s giving us an instruction. Like, ‘Press here.’”

  He held up his right index finger. Carefully he touched the carving at the place the arrow pointed to, the circle at dead center.

  Nothing happened.

  “I felt a little give,” Max said. “I think.”

  “It’s old,” Alex countered. “Press harder.”

  Max reached into his backpack for one of his retractable poles and unsnapped it to its full height. “Hey, dude,” he said, “I didn’t use you in the climb down here, so maybe you can help me now.”

  Rearing back, he shoved the end of the pole into the little circle. It sank into the rock with a dull click.

  As the button slowly popped back out, the square around the carving moved outward. “Stand back!” Kristin shouted. “Keep your feet clear!”

  But the whole thing did not fall out. It was trying to open like a lid, hinged at the bottom. Max leaned forward, grabbing firmly along the top side of the square. Alex and Kristin joined him.

  “Heave . . .” Alex said, “ho!”

  They pulled as hard as they could. The square fell open along the bottom edge, breaking its old, rusted hinge and crashing to the ground. Max, Alex, and Kristin jumped aside as a crowd of small creatures scurried out of the hole—lizards, salamanders, ants, spiders, and a small furry mole with one eye.

  “Ew,” Max groaned.

  “Party time,” Alex said.

  Waiting for the animals to clear, Max stepped onto the rubble and peered inside. Just behind the broken door was a kind of metal plate, a square carved with yet another Lásabrjótur symbol. “Whoa, there’s your talisman,” Alex said.

  “You have one and I have one,” Max said. “Maybe Kristin can wear this one around her neck.”

  He dug his fingers around the edges of the metal square and pulled it outward. It came loose easily, and Max handed it to Kristin. “Now we’re even. If only we can figure out how to get down there.”

  “Um, Max?” Alex said.

  She was looking at the square. Her flashlight was trained on a thick chain that lay inside, coiled like a giant sleeping snake.

  Max reached in and began pulling. It was rusted, and it shed cobwebs and insects as it emerged into the light. Kristin and Alex joined him, yanking out the heavy chain onto the ground, where the end of it spilled out over the debris.

  They pulled and pulled. Yards of chain slid out, enough to completely cover the debris with coiled links. But the other end of the chain remained inside the square hole. It seemed to be jammed. “Pull harder!” Kristin urged.

  “No . . .” Max was shining his flashlight into the depths. “I think that’s all there is. Looks like it’s attached at the other end. Bolted right into the rock at the back wall.”

  Alex stared over the expanse of metal, shaking her head in bafflement. “Why on earth—?”

  “I think we’re supposed to take it from on Earth,” Max said, looking down the hole, “to in Earth.”

  32

  AS Max slid down the chain, he thought about evolution.

  It made absolutely no sense to him that human beings could not fly. If evolution was survival of the fittest, and dinosaurs evolved into birds, then why didn’t mammals?

  “How are you doing, Max?” called Kristin’s voice from the top of the hole. “We can’t see you!”

  He swung gently on the chain, which was wrapped around him in a complicated arrangement that Kristin assured him would prevent falling. “I am very uncomfortable!” Max called back.

  “Keep doing what I told you!” Kristin shouted back. “If the chain is too short, or you lose your nerve, we’ll pull you back up. Remember, loosen, slide, loosen, slide—and whatever you do, don’t look down!”

  Holding tight to the chain with his feet, Max slid his upper body down into a kind of squat. Then he slid his feet lower, clamped them, and started the process again. He tried looking down once, but all he saw was a thick green soup of moving shadows. That was scary. In his life he had hang glided into a river valley in Russia, flown a hot-air balloon in Mexico, and swum through an underground cavern in Greece. But at least in those places you could see where you were going. Not seeing was worse.

  Loosen. Slide. Don’t look down.

  It all seemed so awkward and unnecessary. He had thought about human flight a lot, in his bedroom, while making models of prehistoric creatures. Rhamphorhynchuses and pteranodons always looked angry, predatory, and not so bright. But their descendants sixty-five million years later, hawks and sparrows, did fine. People with wings would be awesome. And they would never have to drop into a green underground cavern hanging from a hundred-fifty-year-old chain.

  Loosen. Slide. Don’t look down.

  “Still there?” Alex called down.

  “And what about gills?” Max called back. “We should have them too!”

  “What are you talking about?” Alex said.

  “It’s so unfair!” Max replied.

  The air had definitely thickened. It was salty and wet. You could bite into it. It smelled weird too. It was how the shower water smelled in a campsite in Canada when he was little. Sulfur, his dad had explained.

  So maybe Iceland was connected under the earth—to the RV camp in Canada!

  “Ha!” Laughing at that thought was not a good idea. It made Max slip down the chain. The metal links
hurt if you weren’t controlling the speed. He couldn’t help crying out in pain.

  “Do you need us to pull you back?” Alex shouted. “What’s up?”

  He was swinging now. The chain had slipped, and his right leg dangled. He tried to pull the leg back, but that made him rotate. And rotating made him sick.

  “My leg let go!” he called upward.

  “Was that a no?”

  “No!” Max said. “It was a yes!”

  “Yes?”

  Max’s swinging had become spinning. The distant shadows bubbled in and out of sight, like he was trapped in a gigantic green lava lamp. The distant whooshing sound had grown to a roar. He wanted to puke.

  “Yes yes yes yes yes yes!”

  “OK!” came Alex’s answer.

  The sudden upward jerk made him loosen his grip. The chain was coated with wet, slimy moisture, and he slipped downward. “Not so fast!”

  The next pull was even more sudden. As he gripped tight, one of the shadows began darkening, growing before his eyes. It angled toward him from above, its sides churning up and down until they became unmistakably the shape of wings. A shrill squawk penetrated the green, goopy air. Two bright yellow eyes emerged, the eyeballs vertical black slits that were focused on Max.

  “Faster!” he shouted, trying to pull himself upward, hand over hand.

  He could see it clearly now, its blood-red skin a stark contrast against the green air. Its body was scaly and thin, and it seemed too small for its own long, torpedo-shaped head. Three crooked fingers poked out from the top of its leathery wings, which were hinged like those of a giant bat.

  With a final thrust, it tucked its wings into its torso and dived. Max spun one last time and found himself staring at an orange-red tongue and four rows of gleaming, pointed teeth.

  33

  MAX did the only thing he could do, which was let go of the chain.

  The creature did the only thing it could do, which was to grab whatever it could with its talons.

  Which, unfortunately, happened to be Max’s hair.

  Max felt himself rise, in ridiculous pain. He let out a scream that seemed to come up from below his toenails. He couldn’t imagine anything worse than this.

  Until the flying beast let go. Or maybe it was the hair that let go from his head. At any rate, the pain had ended, but he was plummeting. His mouth dropped open to scream again. His arms and legs pumped, as if that would do anything. For a moment he thought about his mom.

  His legs hit the surface below. But instead of being squashed, he broke through. He felt his body jerk backward as he kept plunging. Air rushed from his lungs as if they’d been squeezed by a fist. He couldn’t inhale, and he couldn’t see. He was tumbling slowly, gritting his teeth against the pain.

  It felt like he’d landed in water. Or maybe some kind of warm underground pudding.

  Instincts kicked in, and he thrust his arms downward into the liquid. He opened his eyes into a thick green murk. He could see light coming from above but couldn’t gauge if it was inches or miles away.

  Thrust . . . thrust . . .

  His lungs began aching and he felt light-headed. He wished he had paid more attention in swim class, instead of running around the pool stepping on only blue tiles.

  “Gyyyaaahh!”

  His head broke through the surface. Air slammed into his mouth. As his chest heaved, his gulps sounded like the barking of a sea lion. He flailed his arms to stay afloat. This stuff didn’t taste much like water, but more like a cocktail of obnoxious flavors—rusted metal, rotten eggs, dead fish, salt. He spat out as much as he could, but the taste lingered. His eyes scanned the thick atmosphere, but the flying creature was gone. All he could hear now were distant screams.

  “Maaaaax!”

  That one, he knew, was Alex.

  “I’m OK!” he yelled back. Now he could see the chain swinging above him. The last link was about ten feet above the surface. “Come down, the water’s warm! But bring a weapon! There’s a pterodactyl!”

  Not too far away, Max spotted what looked like a coast, so he swam toward it. It took about five strokes before it dawned on him that he shouldn’t be able to do this, because he wasn’t a good swimmer.

  He panicked for a moment. But even that panic did not sink him. He was floating without having to do much. That meant the water was buoyant. Like the Great Salt Lake. People could float easily in the Great Salt Lake because of the salt. They could float in oceans easier than lakes. These were facts. So he stopped being afraid and made his way toward the coast. After a few minutes he felt his boots touch the bottom and began to walk. He was nearly out of the water when he heard a loud splash behind him.

  Alex’s head was emerging from below. And Kristin was jumping in after her. “Over here!” Max shouted, waving.

  The two swam toward him. Or rather, Kristin swam with her arm around Alex, who was trying as hard as she could. “Are you hurt?” Kristin called out.

  “No,” Max replied, “I let go of the chain before the pterodactyl’s beak cut me in half.”

  Now the two were on their feet, slogging toward him slowly. “That’s weird,” Alex said. “Everything sounds muffled down here. I thought you said pterodactyl.”

  “It might have been a rhamphorhynchus,” Max said. “I didn’t get a chance to examine it that closely. Although it did pull a clump of my hair out.”

  Alex headed toward him with a weak smile and open arms. “Your hair looks bad, but I’m just glad you’re alive, cousin!”

  “No hugging.” Max ran away, his boots crunching on a surface that looked like sand but felt like a sea of broken glass. He stopped, scooping a handful of bright-green flakes. “Whoa, what is this stuff?”

  Kristin was craning her neck, gazing around as if trying to memorize every detail. “Shushed crells, I believe. Erm, crushed shells. Perhaps stained by a high concentration of algae . . .” She let out a deep exhalation. “I’m sorry. Everything is distracting me. This is the strangest ecosystem I’ve ever seen.”

  The massive soupy fog was rising up from the water now, billowing on a breeze and separating into clouds like green balloons. In an instant, a luminous neon-green lake began bursting into sight as if a curtain was rising over it from front to back. The water stretched to a horizon Max couldn’t see, its surface smooth and unbroken.

  “This thing is as big as Lake Michigan,” Alex said under her breath. “And . . . that light! It’s like someone snuck a green moon down here and hid it behind the clouds.”

  “We are a kilometer under the Earth,” Kristin said. “It should be pitch-black. The bioluminescence should be a smattering of pinpricks from plankton and moss. This volume and brightness—it’s the stuff of fiction! It’s not like a moon. It’s like someone collected the material of all the world’s fireflies, magnified the light to a power of a thousand, and exploded it across this sky. No wonder Verne never tried to convince anyone this was nonfiction. Who would believe him?”

  “Somehow that makes me want to cry,” Max said.

  Kristin nodded. “What do you think is the likelihood that Niemand and his daughter made it this far alive?”

  “Not very,” Alex said. “After that phone, we haven’t seen any sign. I’m not even thinking about them at this point, guys. I’m thinking about us. And getting home. We are in survival mode.” She began walking along the shore, squinting into the distance. “We have to be careful. We know there’s wildlife down here. I thought I saw something in the water just as we dropped from that chain, Kristin. I think that’s it—that thing down the shore.”

  Max glanced in that direction. The lifted fog had revealed a big dark lump swimming toward the shore.

  No. Not swimming. Floating. Bobbling like some lifeless piece of driftwood. “Looks dead to me,” Max said.

  But Alex was headed toward it. She was trying to run, but her ankles were buckling beneath her. “Wait up!” Max shouted.

  He and Kristin ran after her and caught up quickly. “That’s
not your normal way of running,” Max said.

  “No kidding,” Alex growled. “I think I have Snuffle sickness.”

  “Is that a real thing?” Max asked.

  “No, but that is.”

  The floating carcass had washed up onto the shore. It did not have a torpedo-shaped head or red skin or a body covered with matted hair.

  It was wearing clothes, and it looked human.

  Max and Kristin picked up the pace and reached the body first. It was facedown in the green flaky sand, half immersed in the lake. Up close, Max could see it was a man, and he wore a soggy shirt and khaki pants.

  As Max knelt before him, Kristin ran around the other side.

  Alex staggered up to them at the moment they carefully turned over the body of Brandon Barker.

  34

  ALEX was kneeling by Brandon as Kristin applied chest compressions. This time, the resuscitation was not working. Brandon’s skin was pale, and his chest wasn’t moving. His head, which still had the gash from his first fall, now had a new one, twice as long and much bloodier.

  “Sorry . . .” Kristin said softly, pulling away for the last time.

  Alex nodded, holding back sobs. “Yeah. I was kind of expecting this.” She let her head sink into Brandon’s chest, wrapping her hand gently around his head. “He wasn’t as lucky as we were.”

  Max felt numb.

  Death was numbness. Brandon would never not be numb.

  It didn’t feel right. Brandon had slid the wrong way. He’d done exactly what Max had done, but he’d leaned too far to the right. And that was it. His airplanes would never feel Brandon’s hands on their controls. People would not hear his stories as he flew them to new places. Alex really, really liked him. And now he had been taken from her forever.

  Max liked Brandon too. He’d never really thought about that. Brandon could be annoying, but that was only because he took Alex away from Max. You never really knew how you felt about someone until you thought about your life without them. And when Max did, it was as if he were surrounded by skunk. Sadness all over. Brandon was a part of everything he and Alex had done.