Past, Future, & Present Danger (Book Two of The Absurd Misadventures of Captain Rescue)

by Joshua Price

  Captain Rescue shook the fog from his mind and answered, “I do believe I will.”

  He tried to mimic Shannon’s flawless execution by latching onto the drainage pipe and then flinging himself over the rooftop’s ledge. A fading scream and a thunderous crash indicated that it had not gone quite right. Freight, Charlie, and Dr. Malevolent glanced over the ledge and could see Captain Rescue three stories below in a garbage filled dumpster.

  “I’m okay!” he yelled up to them.

  Charlie and Dr. Malevolent slid down the drain page pipe like professionals, even with the bunny’s plush fur making it impossible to grip. They stared up at Freight, wondering why he had not followed yet. Perhaps he was afraid. Perhaps drainage pipes were his weakness. Perhaps Dr. Malevolent had him right where she wanted him. Freight stared over the ledge as Captain Rescue climbed from the dumpster and waved up to him. He shrugged, jumped, and let the dumpster break his fall too. Freight climbed out, flexed, and they followed their young escort to the haunted maintenance tunnels’ entrance. Perhaps he really wasn’t afraid of anything.

  Shannon backed away from the door. “You’re on your own from here on out! I’m not going any farther. Good luck!”

  Without another word, their young escort darted down the street fearing that if she waited around any longer, something would come out of the depths and eat her soul. The haunted maintenance tunnels sat sandwiched between two buildings, inset into a narrow brick wall. The weathered label upon the doorway read “_a_nt_nance”, although at one time it was sure to have read Maintenance.

  “I wonder who Aunt Nance is,” Captain Rescue said as he read the label to the best of his ability.

  “She’s dead.” Dr. Malevolent said coldly as Captain Rescue whimpered and Charlie approached the door.

  The bunny slipped a plush glove from his hand, grabbed hold of the doorknob, and then tugged at it, but the door refused to open. The years had not been kind to the door and its frame, and now the two had fused in an everlasting embrace of love—a bond not easily severed. Charlie decided to do something about this. Taking his other plush glove off and handing it to Dr. Malevolent, he grabbed the knob with both hands and placed his foot upon the doorframe. He gave the door a mighty tug, which broke their embrace and caused it to cry out as it opened and flooded the tunnels with light. The urban spelunkers scanned the entrance, checking for any ghosts that might be waiting to make their acquaintance, but the tunnels seemed unsurprisingly quiet. Then, without further ado, they entered the allegedly haunted maintenance tunnels.

  Chapter 12: The “Allegately” Haunted Maintenance Tunnels

  Proving that he had not been born in a barn, Captain Rescue closed the door behind him, engulfing the tunnels in darkness once more. From this point forward, the seconds passed slowly and the hero grew increasingly anxious. He was sure that ghosts would soon possess his body and force him to do the most ridiculous things, things more ridiculous than what he could manage on his own. Just prior to calling for an exorcism, Captain Rescue remembered something. He pushed his way through the others and unbuttoned a pouch along his utility belt.

  “I’ve got just the thing to lighten up the place.” He took out a snake-like flashlight and flipped it on.

  Dr. Malevolent laughed. “I’d hate to see the thing that’s compensating for.”

  He swung around, shining the narrow beam of light into her eyes. “I really don’t like what you’re implying, ma’am. This is a sophisticated crime fighting tool.”

  “Is that so?”

  “It’s compact, easy to conceal, easy to use, and only takes one triple-a battery.”

  Captain Rescue had not quite finished defending his pygmy flashlight when an even greater one engulfed its beam. While the two were busy bantering, Charlie had dug into his bottomless pouch for the heavy-duty flashlight he had stashed away. Captain Rescue stared at it and then at his miniature one. He discreetly switched his off and then slid it back into his utility belt.

  Charlie’s flashlight cut through the darkness drenched tunnels, and from what he and the others could glean, they employed an excess of grey and silver. From both the concrete ground and walls to the thick metal pipes along the ceiling. While claustrophobic and a bit eerie, there did not seem to be any ghosts lurking about, but ghosts never seem to make themselves known right away.

  “So, these are the infamous haunted tunnels we’ve heard so much about,” Charlie said as he scanned with his flashlight.

  Captain Rescue scratched his head. “I don’t think I heard about them before we got here.”

  “I was being facetious.”

  “Fah-see-shush?”

  “You are incorrigible.”

  “In-cor—”

  “Shut up,” the bunny interrupted. “These tunnels really don’t seem that bad.”

  “They sure don’t,” Dr. Malevolent said as she marched forward.

  After a childhood filled with desensitizing horror movies, the claustrophobic concrete and creaking pipes did not bother her in the least. On the other hand, as they snaked through the confusing tunnels, Captain Rescue gradually lost his nerve. He only had a loose grip on it in the first place. While the others navigated the tunnels with an air of nonchalance, Captain Rescue had to fight every step of the way to keep from becoming an emotional wreck. The farther the gang traveled, the more convinced he became that ghosts would soon come, steal his soul, and leave him a withered husk. He found each moment plagued with subtle sounds that overwhelmed his senses creeping in from every direction. A creak here, a whistle there, both morphed by his psyche into something far more sinister.

  While Charlie kept the heavy-duty flashlight steady and let the light crawl through the tunnels, Captain Rescue tried his best to keep calm. His eyes stayed away from the scary darkened bits and focused only on the soothing light, but every so often, he would see a faint shape moving somewhere close by. Captain Rescue tried to convince himself that his senses were teasing him, picking on him, but he could not fight the sensation that something wicked would soon transpire.

  After a few minutes, Captain Rescue saw what he thought was a sinister shadow snaking around one of the silvery pipes. He gasped and let out a screech. “Did you guys see that?!” He pointed towards the ceiling.

  “All I see is an idiot making a fool of himself,” Dr. Malevolent snarled. “The only scary thing you’ll find in these tunnels is me if you don’t pull yourself together.”

  With chattering teeth, Captain Rescue pointed at the stainless steel pipes while keeping his eyes fixated on what his mind tricked him into seeing. He followed them for some time, until he found himself impeded by a gigantic plush bunny that had stopped in front of him.

  “Is it a ghost?!” Captain Rescue cried out.

  Charlie gave a faint laugh. “Uh… no, I’m just not sure which way we need to go.”

  Captain Rescue glanced over the bunny’s shoulder. The forked path ahead gave no hint which way to proceed. He began to whimper. “We’re lost! We’re hopelessly lost! We’re never going to make it out of here alive!”

  Freight pointed at the fork, lending his opinion. “The pipes only follow one of the two paths. Let’s follow them.”

  Charlie shrugged. “I guess that’s a good a plan as any.”

  “But the pipes,” Captain Rescue said softly, eerily, “they are haunted.”

  “And if we get lost in these tunnels and you die, you’ll be the one haunting them.”

  “Onward!” Captain Rescue commanded, “I will not die down here! Not today! Not Ever!”

  “Now that’s the spirit,” Charlie said as he pressed forth down the stainless steel endowed path.

  The gang kept quiet as the bunny rabbit and his flashlight led them on. The tunnels called out to Captain Rescue, causing him to see ghosts wherever he could. He fought these temptations to the best of his meager ability. They had been in here nearly an hour, and aside from Captain Rescue’s incessant ghost hunting, they had not seen a single bit of evidence to
wards any kind of paranormal activity, but all of that that was about to change. Captain Rescue watched Charlie’s flashlight briefly illuminate a humanoid form going down a hallway.

  “What was that!?” he cried out.

  Dr. Malevolent snorted. “Here we go again.”

  “No, I saw it too,” Charlie shined his flashlight into the hallway as it passed on their right, but the blurry form had vanished.

  “A ghost!” Captain Rescue exclaimed.

  “Don’t be silly,” Dr. Malevolent scoffed, “ghosts don’t exist.”

  “That’s still up for debate!”

  “Debate it all you want, if ghosts exist we would have found some kind of substantial evidence by now.”

  “I’m sure you didn’t believe in bigfoot either… until they captured and tried to execute us!” Captain Rescue snapped at her.

  Dr. Malevolent growled at his unexpected use of logic.

  They continued on thinking that what they had seen was only a manifestation of Captain Rescue’s anxiety rubbing off on the others; not that they would ever admit it openly, but these tunnels were the epitome of creepy. Even with Dr. Malevolent’s desensitizing childhood, she found them unnerving, and Freight could feel the inkling of anxiety creeping through his spine, but his life spent bottling up anything that might not be considered manly meant that was just where stayed—bottled up. Regardless of their mental states, the adventurers’ adventure would soon take an unexpected turn, for a certain kind of spirit infested these tunnels, just not the ones they were expecting. Just ahead, a motionless figure stood in their path.

  They stopped dead and Charlie called out to it, “Hello? We thought we were alone down here.”

  The figure just stood there with its back to them as it twitched subtly.

  “Is it a ghost?” Captain Rescue asked quietly.

  The bunny rabbit shrugged as they neared the motionless figure, which wore a suede jacket and dark grey khakis, moth holes and dirt stains covering both. This person’s greasy and matted hair concealed much of its face and neck. Stench lines practically emanated from him or her; they had clearly spent the last few years hiding out down here.

  “Hello?” Charlie asked again.

  Sluggishly, the figure rotated. They noticed right off the bat that its face was missing the lower portion of its jaw, and a hunk of its tongue hung loosely from the back of its throat. It gurgled at them, brains spinning within its pale white eyes.

  “They’re like chips!” Captain Rescue squealed.

  “You can’t eat just one?” Charlie asked as he stepped backwards and the lumbering corpse shuffled towards them.

  “Wait,” Captain Rescue stopped, “you eat zombies?”

  “Nevermind.”

  Freight grabbed his shotgun to deal with this zombie the way God intended, by plastering its brains across the hallway, when Charlie pushed the barrel down and said, “We don’t wanna make any noise, what if there are others nearby?”

  Freight nodded and tossed Courtney into the air, letting her flip end over end, and then in one fluid motion, he snatched the barrel and crashed the end of it into the zombie’s soft-shelled skull. The corpse moaned and lurched forward just as Freight whacked it once more. It grew silent and twitched until he pulled the shotgun out of its cranium, at which point it fell to the ground. Freight nodded in approval of his actions, and then walked up to the corpse. Using his mammoth foot, he pushed the zombie aside as it left a trail of thick, congealed blood.

  After kneeling down and using the zombie’s dirty suede jacket to clean his beloved, Freight bellowed, “HOW I MISSED THESE LOVELY THINGS.”

  “It’s like a switch you just turn on, isn’t it? One minute you’re a rational upstanding citizen and then next you’re a crazy madman.”

  Freight cracked his knuckles. “THERE’S JUST SOMETHING ABOUT THE SMELL OF BRAINS ON CONCRETE.”

  “Well, I guess you could argue that zombies are a little easier to handle than semi intelligent apes with lasers.”

  Freight nodded. “AND BOY DO I HATE MONKEYS.” He pushed ahead of Charlie and then turned around for a moment, snatched the flashlight from his hands, and finished by saying, “I’LL TAKE IT FROM HERE.”

  Charlie sighed and grabbed his flashlight back. “I’m not letting you take anything anywhere while we still have subtlety on our side. I don’t think any of the zombies know we’re here yet.”

  “EXCEPT THAT ONE,” Freight said as he pointed towards the corpse lying on the ground, whose finger still twitched spontaneously.

  “Yes, except that one. Let’s keep moving. It’s probably a stupid idea to stay in one place for long.”

  Charlie’s grasp of the situation was second to none. He knew that while the urban spelunkers had not made much of a splash yet, they had certainly given off a distinctive stench known only to the nose of a zombie, a smell that signaled that fresh flesh worth munching was nearby. The bunny rabbit kept the slow but steady pace, careful not to make too much noise, but also careful not to dawdle for an undue amount of time. With each nook and cranny, he took a moment to inspect it with his flashlight before pressing forth. The seconds without a further encounter turned into minutes, and then those minutes piled atop one another like a heap of zombies. Perhaps that one corpse was just a fluke, some leftover from a certain outbreak a few years back.

  “You know,” Captain Rescue began, “it’s probably a good sign that we haven’t seen another zombie. Maybe there’s just the one!”

  “Yeah,” Dr. Malevolent laughed, “or the zombies are clustered so tightly together that when we do finally find another, he’ll be with fifty of his friends.”

  “Why do you have to be so negative?”

  “To offset your positivity, of course.”

  “Well, I don’t like it,” Captain Rescue pouted.

  “That’s just too bad.”

  Charlie pointed to a specific red pipe along the ceiling. “Let’s follow that red one there.”

  “Why the red one?” Dr. Malevolent questioned.

  “I don’t know, seems like a good idea.”

  Dr. Malevolent just shrugged. “Okay! I guess the worst-case scenario here is that we get hopelessly lost. Hopelessly lost and then eaten. Lead on, rabbit!”

  Led by the red pipe, they turned right down a hallway. Just ahead and smack dab in the middle of their path, a small group of six zombies had sat down to play Go Fish together; only they had eaten their cards, which left them hungry for more palatable dishes such as brains and flesh. Captain Rescue and his friends had just those delectable treats inside their fleshy vessels. Charlie stopped and motioned for everyone to back up discreetly. He hoped that the undead had not sensed them, but if the undead were good at one thing, it would be sensing the faintest hint of human flesh upon the air. They had already started the slow process of rising to their feet.

  Charlie leaned over and whispered into Freight’s ear, “Do your thing, but try to keep it quiet.”

  The gigantic man smiled, cracked his neck, and then swaggered towards the zombies as they got to their feet and commenced their shuffle towards him. One zombie instinctively led the others, and they soon fell into a triangular formation. The lead zombie outstretched its arms as it neared Freight, but before the zombie had a chance to realize what happened, the muscle bound man tore out its neck, leaving its head dangling from a loose connection of flesh and bone. After a few seconds spent comprehending its headless state, the zombie crumpled to the ground. His buddies crouched beside him and poked the zombie inquisitively before erupting into mournful moans for their lost Go Fisher. Freight wasted no time in grabbing the nearest zombie by the head, lifting it clean off the ground, and then slamming it cranium-first into the concrete wall. The zombie’s head popped like a grape, spreading its gooey brains all over. Freight released his grip, leaving the zombie glued to the concrete by means of its brain matter.

  The newly promoted lead zombie looked at its two snuffed friends, went into a rage, and shuffled as quickly as
it could towards Freight. It threw out its arms and lunged forward just as the giant took a single step backwards, avoiding the zombie as it tripped and stumbled to the ground. It lifted its head just as the supreme zombie slayer’s mammoth foot came crashing down on top of it. The corpse twitched spastically as Freight ground his heel into its skull until it grew still.

  The three remaining zombies crossed gazes and pieced the situation together. While this man was definitely well beyond their capabilities to eat, they would be stupid not to try anyway. Freight was an awfully big slab of meat, one that they could have feasted on for days. All three zombies, as if somehow coordinating as a team, lunged forward in hopes of overpowering the giant man, but this giant man had the strength of five not-so-dead men. In the briefest of seconds, Freight kicked the center zombie backwards, grabbed the heads of the other two, and smashed them together like a pair of rotten eggs. Malodorous brain matter splattered all over the narrow maintenance tunnels as the lifeless bodies fell together and slid to the ground as one.

  The last remaining zombie rose to its feet and moaned; its howls loosely translated to, “You bastard, who am I going to play Go Fish with now!”

  Freight, proving he had somehow become fluent in zombie, looked at Charlie as the zombie lumbered towards him. “YOU GOT ANY CARDS?”

  The bunny shrugged, opened up his pouch, and dug around for a deck. Soon, he pulled one out, gently opened it up, and withdrew a single card, which he handed to Freight. The giant man took aim and then launched it at the undead creature. The playing card embedded into its skull as the zombie stumbled backwards. It twitched and took another step forward just as another card found its way into the zombie’s skull, causing it to teeter faintly before collapsing atop one of its friends.

  “Where would we be without you,” Charlie said as he and he others tiptoed around the corpses.

  “DEAD!” Freight bellowed.

  Dr. Malevolent knelt down and investigated the carnage. “You appeared to have done some… practicing since we last fought these things.”

  “MAYBE.”