by Susan Berran
“AARRRR . . . OOWWW . . . SAM, JARED!”
The BEAST was right behind us, it was about to pounce, it was . . . hang on . . . it knew our names!? It must have already gotten Booga and TOFFEE and . . . and . . . what’s-his-name, you know, the other guy.
We leapt up off our backs and bounced across one animal like it was a trampoline, booted a couple of smaller ones up the backside and out of the way and then sprinted around another bunch of weird BEASTS with vicious, man eating teeth and gut-ripping claws.
“Light ahead!” I yelled.
Finally, through the exit and way up ahead in the distance I could see a faint light. We still had a chance.
“Run, Jared, run!” I yelled. It was only faint, but it was definitely light! Whether it was another group with a torch, or the way out, we didn’t care. The BEAST behind us would hopefully start a fight with the BEAR and all the other ‘THINGS’ on its way through. We were going to make it after all!
“EERRRR . . . OOWWW . . . AARRRR . . . SAM, JARED!!” It wasn’t stopping, it wasn’t slowing down, actually it seemed to be coming faster than before. NOTHING WAS STOPPING IT!
“C’mon Jared we’re nearly there!” I yelled with my lungs burning from the chase. Every breath was total Agony. It felt like my rib cage was about to explode and chuck-up my organs all over the place.
We were so close and it was obvious now that it wasn’t just another group with a torch up ahead. As we made our way towards the exit, we could just make out that there was only one more small chamber to go through, with the exit on the other side. It was the way out . . . this time we were SURE!
We raced along in the darkness, nothing could stop us now. Nothing could be worse than what we’d been through. So no matter what, we had to keep going.
We raced into the last chamber . . . just a few more metres and we’d be . . .
“Aarrhhh!” . . . SMACK!
My feet flew up into the air and kicked myself in the head. . . THAT HURT . . . as Jared suddenly SMACKED into the back of me. All of a sudden, we were both ‘dancing’ around like insane Orangutans, trying to grab for anything in the dark to stay standing up.
SMASH . . . SLIP . . . splash!
We smacked into walls and CRASHED through everything around us, sending stuff flying through the air. Something that sounded like eggs were SMASHING to the ground and splattering their contents all over us like a thousand POPPING zits. In the slippery, SLIMY goop, we lost our footing and smacked to the ground, spinning around and around, totally OUT OF CONTROL. By the time that we finally stopped I was flat-out keeping my guts down, everything was still spinning like CRAZY.
“Eewww . . . slime!!” Jared said as he flung his hands about in the air and splattered the goop all over the place . . . including on me.
I stared into the darkness and slowly began to make out shapes, shadow . . . egg-shells . . . no it couldn’t be . . . bodies! HUMAN BODIES! They must have been propped up against the wall and we’d knocked them down . . . eewWw!
But what’s worse than bodies? BODY PARTS! Yep, as I scanned the area about us I could see scraps of bodies, there were parts everywhere, it was sooo gross. Oh no, not the little kids! Was this all that was left of the other kids and maybe a teacher or two?
With the dull night light now streaming in from the exit, we couldn’t see a lot of detail, but we could see enough.
“Give me a hand” Jared called from under a pile of bodies. “Thank”
“But I’m over here” I replied as I struggled to my feet.
“Aarrhhhh!” Jared screamed as he realised that he’d grabbed ‘SOMEONE ELSE’S’ hand. He threw it so hard that it flew through the air like a boomerang, somersaulting around my head and then it went straight back to Jared and slapped him in the back of the head. SLAP!
As we ran for the exit our feet slipped and slid all over the place. It felt like we were treading on slimy water-balloons and rotten fruit. But we knew exactly what we were treading on . . . all about us were lungs, hearts, stomachs, intestines . . . eyes! There were bits of organs everywhere and we had no choice but to smoosh right through them. It was like a people butcher shop killing field in there.
And we could tell that they weren’t just human remains either, some of the parts belonged to animals as well. Whatever had happened in there, we weren’t going to stop and investigate, or stay long enough to become part of the collection. We had the exit in sight and we weren’t stopping for anyone, or ANYTHING.
With the last of our strength almost gone, we reached the exit and finally knew that we were going to get outta there.
We’d made it!
We stood at the exit and sucked in the clean air . . . with just one more step we’d be outside and through the archway . . .
“Aaarrrhhhh!!”
A MASSIVE HAIRY CLAW grabbed us from behind and clamped down onto my shoulder and Jared’s, digging its flesh ripping nails into our bodies like a steel vice.
IT HAD US!
Thinking fast I whipped out my Incredibly Awesome Instant Animal Attacker Whacker . . . my yoyo . . . and slid the loop over my finger. Then I threw it out in front of me as hard as I could, spinning it with everything that I had. With a yank of the wrist I flicked it straight back over my shoulder, WHACK!
“#@//#!!!”
The creature instantly released its DEADLY grip from the both of us and stumbled backwards. Jared and I both turned with our sling shots loaded. In a split second we fired our very last shot.
Splatt! splatt!
Yes! Both shots hit right on target, splattering their disgustingly DEADLY loads, dead centre of the face.
YES WE DID IT!
We’d smacked it right in the face . . . the face of . . . of . . . of Mrs Duckson?!
“EERRRR . . . OOWWW!”
Hey, that noise, the groaning, the whimpering. That’s what we’d heard chasing us.
“EERRRR . . . OOWWW!”
It was coming from Mrs Duckson! She was looking really pale and her eyes were sort of rolling about loosely in her head and she had the biggest black and purple eye that I’d ever seen in my whole life.
“Oops, that was the yoyo . . . sorry.” I said quietly. WOW, I’m a good shot.
There was yellowy-greenish nappy goop dripping from her spiked black hair and sliding down under her collar and into her open shirt front. While tiny bits of colourful veggies dripped from her ears and nostrils one of the dirty white nappies was still sitting on top of her head.
I thought she was going to throw up right there on the spot.
Apparently she hadn’t disappeared, or been eaten after all. She’d been trying to catch up with us ever since we’d left. She told us that when we’d all had sandwiches for tea the night before, all the kids, our mums and Miss Croonarc had the same thing to eat. Everyone that is, except for her. It turns out that Mrs Duckson is allergic to a whole bunch of stuff. So she had a yoghurt that had been sitting in the bus glove box all day, on the hottest day this summer. The moaning and groaning that we’d heard the night before was Mrs Duckson running to and from the toilet with really bad diarrhoea and an even worse upset stomach. That’s why Miss Croonarc was looking so freaky the next morning, she was running back and forth looking after Mrs Duckson all day.
EewWw! That was enough to make anyone want to heave.
So, she hadn’t disappeared, she was just chucking up all day and night and resting in the bus, which meant that the disgusting FURRY ‘BIG FOOT’ that brushed against Jared that night was actually just the thick, HAIRY leg of Mrs Duckson . . . EEWWW YUKKK!
It seems that she came looking for us to give us the map when Booga, WHEEZY and TOFFEE had found their way back out to the start. All the groaning and moaning was her still trying to keep her guts down.
Understandably, with all the damage that Jared and me had caused, the museum doesn’t allow the school night time self tours anymore.
They reckon it’s going to take ages to clean our sticky finger marks and chew
ing gum arrows off the walls and clean and replace the broken Egyp-tian hieroglyphs . . . and the dinosaur skeletons will take at least six months or so to untangle and put back together again and repair all the broken bones . . . and we reckon there would be BLOOD splattered all about a caveman’s home, so we’d actually done them a favour by making it more realistic. And we never touched the planetarium dome, well apart from pinching some ‘stars’ and wrecking some seating and cupboards and stuff . . . and how were we supposed to know that all of those the stupid DEADLY insects weren’t alive. So of course we had to splatter them, WOULDN’T YOU?!
We’re just glad that they only want the ‘experts’ to clean all that poop out of the fur of the stuffed prehistoric animals, that’s gonna be pretty gross. And luckily they’ve just found the last of the body parts exhibit . . . the eyeballs were just rolling about in the room somewhere. At least they didn’t get squished like most of the other bits.
It’s not our fault the stupid torch got smashed so we couldn’t tell what was what.
Me and Jared have been banned for life from ever entering the museum again, THANK GOODNESS! We reckon it’d be totally boring in the daytime anyway.
Mrs Duckson reckons Jared and me can come on another school excursion when she’s teaching at a school on the other side of the moon.
Anyway, the school’s finally going to check out the caves at TOFFEE’S place next week.
Now that should be fun.
. . . I needed to stop the bleeding, it wasn’t much, but enough that something might be able to smell it, and that was the last thing I wanted.
“Actually, that was the second last thing I wanted - the last thing I wanted was to mess my pants, and when I saw that blood, . . . well let’s just say, it was close.”
It was magnificent and as I shone my torch down the tunnel’s entrance, I suddenly realised how completely alone I really was. Maybe I should’ve waited for Jared after all.
Toe-jam, . . . yum . . .
Damn, I can’t reach it!
Don’t you just hate that?
You’re sitting on the edge of your bed in just your undies, and all you want to do is use your finger to dig between your toes and drag out the fluff, and sweat, and dirt all chunked together like a huge dob of mouldy, smelly mud.
Be careful though; remove it from its home, it might not be too happy about the move . . .
Ohh Crappp!!!
Fluff Butt just pooped right in the middle of the lounge room rug.
And not just some teeny tiny hardly noticeable little minor accident that mum probably won’t notice . . . oooh no!
This was the mother load . . . a week’s worth of tinned food; chunky beef tongue, chicken liver and lamb’s brain in gravy . . . all mooshing together; dissolving, rotting, for at least a week in the gastric juices of the dog’s stomach.
All deposited at once in a huge greeny-browny-yellowish dump!!
Sam and Jared are on holidays . . . in the most dangerous place on the planet.
With the poisonous plants, ferocious animals, tree-swinging hippies and Smelly Melly’s deadli-est fungus-growing, chunky chuck-up nappies yet!
This time, adventure is hot on their heels . . . and they just might not be able to keep their stomach contents down.
The Author
I like writing, I like animals,
I like Caramello chocolates . . .
but most of all I love Andrena’s Pavlovas!
www.susanberran.com
