by M. C. Atwood
In my peripheral vision, I see angels dropping from the sky left and right. And then feel bodies standing next to mine.
“Jesus Christ, why are we getting involved?” Ashley stands beside me, wielding a long bloody spear. Gretchen is on the other side of her, swinging a metal pipe with bits of hair stuck to it. Dylan has inexplicably found a torch that he is swinging around like a baseball bat.
This, it seems, is what we do now. Stand in front of mortal danger. Alone together.
The five of us back up into each other so that we can see on every side. Paul says, almost apologetically, “I couldn’t just stand there.”
Nobody says anything, but I can hear each of us breathing, I can tell who’s who by the cadence of their inhalations, the sound of their panting.
The fighting has lessened, a swoop here and there, and the little captain centaur, his face a bloody mess, his scalp showing oozy patches where his hair has been torn out, gallops up to us and speaks to Paul. “Young sir, you’ve fought bravely. We can hold off these angels—it is a fair fight now. But you, you must get through. Go now. The mouth is closing.”
And sure enough, the monster mouth that we need to go through to get out is opening and closing. The teeth go up and down—chomp, chomp. I can imagine my leg snapping in there. I swallow. A low growl rumbles through the doorway, audible even over the groans of the fallen carouselers and angels.
I take a quick look around. The place looks like a horror movie. Blood, body parts, and hair coat the floor. All of us are covered and smeared with blood. And our choice? Stay here, or go through the monster’s mouth.
Dylan says, “Dudes. Let’s go be monster poop.”
DYLAN
Gretch says, “We have to time this right. Who goes first?”
Ashley sticks her spear up at an angel flying by, but misses. She says, “You go first. We’ll go in the order we’re standing.”
Meaning Ashley goes last. Crazy. I thought she’d be more likely to use our bodies as monster entree, not let us go first.
A pang of guilt kicks at me. Not nice, bro, thinking things like that. So I say, “I’ll go last,” and then pull Ashley in front of me. Gretch flips her head around to me, but I yell, “You need to go now.”
Because, sure enough, the mouth is open. And fucker’s going to close in a second if I’ve got the rhythm right. Gretchen is the closest and she has to go right now or wait and keep us all waiting in this brutal nightmare of a room.
You know, in Vacation Bible School, they never told us that angels were douchemunches. They didn’t tell us much, though, except: you’ll burn in hell for masturbating, gay people are the devil, and liberals are godless, soul-sucking, country-hating, baby-killing communists who will be left when we rapture. I never really believed any of it, though. I don’t know much, but in the Bible shit I’ve read it seems that Jesus was a way cool dude who probably would have hated VBS and would have DEF given all his money to the poor. Unlike my parents and the people in my church. But I’m the liar here, supposedly.
I nod at Gretch and she says, “Make it through. All of you.” And then she grits her teeth and flips her head around.
She runs the two steps to the mouth. I hold my breath.
Just before she jumps through, she slips on some blood, messing up her torque. She tries to regain her balance, but yo, she is half-in and half-out of the mouth. The mouth about to chomp.
“GRETCHEN!” I yell and a panic flame shoots through my body. Just as the monster’s teeth crunch down, Gretch tucks herself into a ball and somersaults in. Teeth slam down and she’s out of sight.
I hold my chest and sag against Ashley in front of me. Fuck-a-doodle-doo. An angel swoops down at us, but all I do is stick my torch straight up in the air—thank you St. Bernard, dude dog, with your actually useful basket of first aid, including a lighter—and burn the fucker. It screams and swoops off.
The monster opens its mouth again.
Violet yells, “Go, Paul!” But instead, he pushes her forward and she has no choice but to run for it or wait for the next run.
The mouth, I can tell, is going up and down faster, so Violet speeds up and dives in, just as the mouth closes.
Two in.
The mouth is def moving faster now, so Ashley says, “We need to get closer and just dive in, when we can,” and both Paul and me nod.
Fuck. The mouth is a chomping machine. The air from the movement is like a fan blowing in my face. Up, down, up, down . . . Maybe 4 seconds between chomps now.
We move to the side of the mouth and fight off any angels that come at us almost like we’re so bored of it. Fucking angels. I almost wish for the dolls to come back. At least they can’t fly.
After a few chomps, Paul yells, “Jump, Ashley!” She’s taking in the chomping of the mouth, silently counting—I can see her lips move. Like girl’s doing double Dutch or something. She takes a look at us and then takes a deep breath.
Then she dives. A tooth chomps on a piece of her foot bandage that has unraveled, but she’s through. The teeth now have a bloody bandage attached to them. I stifle a totally inappropriate laugh-dagger that shoots through me. Monster dude has some Ashley between his teeth.
I look to Paul and am about to say, “You go, man,” when the guy yells, “Don’t wait for me.” And then he shoves me hard.
I see teeth in front of me and then dark space. I land in something sticky and wet and feel hands pulling me up.
Violet’s eyes are the first I can see, almost glowing in the dark. “Where’s Paul?” She says, voice panic-shaky. And then the ground below me moves.
PAUL
The teeth are chomping so fast now, I don’t think I can get through.
I put my arm out to test it, but my arm almost gets chomped off.
I’m stuck in here with deranged angels. Deranged angels I’ve pissed off.
Oops.
Violet is on the other side of the teeth. And I have been avoiding her looks this whole time like a big jerk. Now she’ll never know. She’ll never know how I feel. And I’ll never get to kiss her.
An angel swoops by my head and smacks my face with something sharp. I feel blood run down my cheek and then look up to see the angel fall like a dead lump of flesh, an arrow sticking out of her heart. Captain Tidbittles runs to me. “We’ll help.”
Before I can react, a unicorn with a pole through it and a huge bite on its neck trots up to us. Just as another angel swoops at me, something jumps at it and grabs it in its teeth.
A saber-toothed tiger.
Whaa?
I feel something furry and muscly rub against me, sleek. I feel a rumbling that moves through me; it’s so deep.
The other tiger is rubbing up against me. And purring. It knocks its head under my hand for a pet. So. I pet it.
I am petting a saber-toothed tiger.
It licks my hand. I decide to just run with it. “What’s the plan?”
The captain says, “Indeed. Sparkles here will stick his pole between the beast’s jaws and keep them open long enough for you to pass through.”
I can’t help myself. Some things you have to take a stand on. “Sparkles? Really? The unicorn’s name is Sparkles? Also, we just met a really jerky unicorn . . .”
The unicorn gives me an indignant look and whinnies. The captain looks genuinely confused. “What’s wrong with the name Sparkles? And I’ll have you know this unicorn is of great character!”
The tiger puts its head under my hand again. I pet it, feeling more than a little uneasy. Nice kitty. Blood drips down my cheek and I swipe at it.
Okay. Sparkles. The unicorn of integrity. I hope that’s true. “Won’t the mouth chomp down on, uh, Sparkles?” I cringe a little. I have dressed in tights and a cape, quoted Shakespeare to myself constantly, and danced a medieval dance with my mother, yet saying the unicorn’s name makes my w
hole body cringe. I mean, come on. Sparkles.
The captain pets the unicorn and the unicorn whinnies again and looks back at the captain. He hesitates. “It’s a possibility.” But I can tell by both their expressions that it’s more than a possibility.
“Why are you helping me?” I ask.
The captain winks. “I can’t just stand here and watch, can I? You didn’t, young sir. You were brave.” He leans into me, and I lean down to look him in the eye. They are bright blue and intense. “Make this worth it. Do not let Sparkles’ sacrifice be in vain.”
I wait a second before answering. I’m not sure it’s right to let this creature sacrifice itself for me. But then I see its proud, fierce eyes and the blood running down its neck.
If I were him, I’d want to die fast in a monster’s teeth rather than slow from an angel’s bite.
I nod and feel my eyes fill up. “Thank you,” is all I can say. “You are the best unicorn I have ever met.” And it’s true. Sparkles stomps a hoof.
We turn to the monster’s teeth, which are now chomping down at an alarming rate.
The captain says, “Okay. We must time this right. Here we go, Sparkles.”
“One . . .”
“Two . . .” I see the unicorn’s muscles bunch up.
“Three!”
The unicorn jumps and somehow manages to lodge itself in the monster’s mouth at the very part where it could stop the chomping. There is a 12-inch gap for me to jump through. Already I see the pole in the unicorn bending.
“NOW!” yells the captain.
I jump.
I land on a pile of people and hear a pop and a whinny. I flip around, thinking Sparkles has been crushed. But there is no blood on the teeth.
Sparkles made it. SPARKLES MADE IT!
I whoop loud and yell, “YES, SPARKLES!”
Somehow, I am lifted up and put on my feet. The floor moves and the walls are red and squishy. Something wet and gooey drips down my front, my head.
Oh, god. We’re in an esophagus. The monster’s esophagus.
Ashley says to the rest of the group, “Ew! Monster spit. And P.S. I think Paul’s got head trauma. He just yelled ‘yes Sparkles.’”
Blood and monster spit drip down my chin. But Sparkles the unicorn made it. And for the first time in a long time, I don’t feel scared.
ASHLEY
“Sparkles is a unicorn,” Paul says as we try to make our way through the grossest hallway ever. “A really brave unicorn.” Walking in this throat makes me feel bad for every single hamburger I’ve eaten. But at least it’s squishy and isn’t so hard on my untoweled foot.
The hallway is totally dark now because the mouth has stopped moving and is closed shut. How we all made it, I’ll never know.
But clearly there’s some brain damage among us. I let it go, though. “Okay. Yay, Sparkles the unicorn. Anyway, what’s next?” The pain in my foot is intensifying.
Violet, who is leading the way, reaches the end of the esophagus and steps out. I hear her feet squish.
She turns back and says, “Cask room.”
We all join her on the carpet, out of the godforsaken monster throat. I am officially never going to be a surgeon.
The room is huge. I mean, like, huge. It’s cavernous, but of course, like the rest of this stupid hoarder House, it’s packed with stuff. The room is lit by red lanterns everywhere, so the whole place has a dim red pall.
The things I can see are gigantic. Big casks with asshole smiling male masks on the front of them. Bridges that crisscross the room in different places. A cannon. The largest organ I’ve ever seen. Freud much, House? Figurines of saints and woodland creatures. Fake trees.
And then I hear the dreaded patter of little feet.
Gretchen says, “Oh, fuck me.”
I clear my throat.
We see a doll on a bridge in the middle of the room. It keeps running, though.
Violet sighs.
Paul says, “How’d they get in here? The monster mouth is clearly closed.”
Dylan adds, “They must have run ahead. I mean . . . from the beginning of the tour. You know what I’m saying?”
Violet looks around, brow furrowed. She steps up to a cask with a face on it. The face is a weathered green, like copper left in the rain.
“Can you help us?” she asks.
Can’t say I blame her for trying—nothing makes sense in this place—but I still say: “Jesus, Violet. Give it up. This place wants us dead.”
“No,” Paul says. “Not all of it, remember? Some things are fine. Like Sparkles.”
Before I can say, “duh, I know,” and “what’s with you and that unicorn?” the cask says, “The young man speaks the truth. But I’ve got to be honest with you. I’m afraid I do want you dead.”
It actually sounds remorseful. Whatever.
“We need to get through this room, now,” I growl. I start limping forward. As I pass a small statue of a wizard guy with a long beard and a staff, it says, “I can help.”
Violet hears it, too, and catches up with me.
She says, “Thank you!”
I glare at her. When will she learn not to trust these things? Or anyone for that matter? She is way too nice. This world will eat her alive. This House will, literally.
Violet asks, “Do you know how this works? Like, were you able to talk until we came into the world?”
The wizard stretches himself out and yawns. He’s only about knee-height, but I step back anyway.
“Oh, no. This is why I’m more than happy to help. I’ve been stuck in this position for ages, you see, until you came in. I’ve played this game before. But sadly, I lost. I’ll help you win, though! At least I’ll try! The only thing we can do really is try.” He smiles big.
Violet says, “Aha!”
I stare at her. We all do.
She says, like she’s explaining to her goddamn kindergarten class. “I suspected as much from the last room. Remember when we stood on the ramp to the carousel and only heard one voice talking? And then we got to the room and this huge war started? I think we ‘activate’ a room or something when we enter it.”
The wizard says cheerfully, “Oh, and after that, we all can follow you, as luck would have it. We don’t go back to sleep once you’re gone. You’ve set us in motion.”
I nod. “So, like in the whale room, that’s why we didn’t drown right away. Because the room was only activated once we were in there.”
Violet nods, her eyes shining.
Dylan says. “Sweet! So how does that help?”
We look at each other.
Violet says, “I suppose it really doesn’t.”
But I interrupt because all of a sudden I am furious with this whole thing. Everything. The House, my feet, Gretchen, everything. “It doesn’t help. Except now we KNOW we can’t get out of this House. Because everything is alive and it’s a DEATH TRAP.”
Tears come to my eyes, but I refuse to let them fall. “Let’s just go. Let’s just get this over with.” I charge ahead, limping hard, tears finally breaking through and falling.
I can hear them walking behind me.
The wizard, from way behind says, “Oh, I’ll come with you and help. Don’t fear!”
Great. A stalking wizard.
The room is so big that only when I go over the first bridge do I finally get a sense of where the exit is. There is one long hallway. One way out looks to be by the organ. The other way takes us down a winding hall that leads to somewhere I can’t see.
I remember this now. The way by the organ leads to a café.
With huge windows . . .
I turn around fast, almost knocking Gretchen over. I didn’t realize she was so close. Sweat starts in my armpits. Swallowing, I say, “There’s another café over there. It’s got these hug
e windows. Maybe we can get out.”
There’s laughter all around, but I don’t even bother looking at the animal heads or figures or statues or whatever it’s coming from.
The wizard says, “Maybe!” And peeks around Paul, who is bringing up the rear of our group, with a smile.
Jesus Christ, that is one perky wizard.
Gretchen says softly, “It’s worth a try.” Her breath is close to me. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a suit of armor. And I notice that some of the figurines look like they’ve moved closer.
I keep my voice low and say, “This is a good time to sprint through the room again. We are going to that door.” I point to where the organ is and then trace my finger around the path. “After this bridge, we have a pathway, then another bridge, and then the door. On my count, we’ll go fast and try to outrun anything that might come after us.”
The wizard stage whispers, “Okay,” and gives us a thumbs up.
All five of us look back at him. I shake my head. Gretchen says, “Jesus.”
And then I count, “One. Two. Three,” and sprint.
GRETCHEN
Ashley runs faster than I think she possibly could with one of her feet detoweled. Must be from all her personal trainers and swanky gym memberships. Still, somewhere in my brain I am admiring her calf muscles and, well, if I’m honest, other parts. This isn’t the first time I’ve checked out a girl—but it is totally the first time I’ve checked out a girl I hate. Or used to hate. Or something. I don’t know anything anymore.
I remember Dylan and look back. He’s doing okay. The wizard, however, is totally huffing.
He says between pants, “You guys . . . fast . . . wait . . .” But I roll my eyes. Losing this little guy wouldn’t totally suck. Though he does seem harmless.
