Tales from Adventureland the Doomsday Device

by Jason Lethcoe

  Andy didn’t even glance up as he walked through the door. In his opinion, Bungalow Bob was absolutely anything but reasonable. But instead of saying so, he simply mumbled, “Thanks for the tip,” and walked inside.

  The next thing he knew, his world was plunged into total darkness as the heavy door swung shut behind him.

  Andy felt forward in the darkness, hoping to find something solid. Taking a few hesitant steps forward, he felt his fingers brush against a wall.

  At least it’s not slimy, Andy thought. He had no idea what was waiting for him in the maze, but somehow it would have been worse if the wall had been covered with some kind of wet or sticky substance that he couldn’t see.

  And please don’t let there be any mummies. Please, please, please…

  Even though he was far from Egypt and the pyramids, there was a chance Bungalow Bob had an artifact that could summon one—and Andy certainly didn’t want to go through that horrifying experience again!

  Andy moved his feet close to the base of the wall, thinking that if there were any pits or traps in front of him, he had a better chance of avoiding them if he stayed close to it. He walked with one foot placed directly in front of the other, creeping slowly and testing with his toe at each step.

  It might take me a while, but he didn’t say anything about a time limit. Better safe than sorry.

  Test. Step. Test. Step.

  He proceeded this way for several minutes. Even though his eyes had had time to adjust to the darkness, he still wasn’t able to see a thing.

  Perhaps it’s magic, Andy thought. But that thought made him feel even more worried about the “monsters” Bungalow Bob had mentioned. If they were magical creatures, what kind of weapons would be needed to kill them?

  He decided that it was best to try to just take on each challenge as it presented itself and forced himself to stay focused.

  After a few more minutes of walking, he came to his first turn. He felt the corners of the stone wall with his fingers, probing as he went along. While he was feeling his way, his hand brushed against something sticking out of the stones. Andy carefully felt along its surface.

  “It’s a switch,” he said aloud, startled by the discovery. It reminded him of the one he’d found back at the pyramid, but it was a bit different in size and structure. He realized with a start that it felt just like a light switch! He was about to push on it when he paused.

  His first thought had been that the switch would turn on the lights. But what if it’s only made to make a person think that? People don’t like to be in the dark. What could be a more welcome discovery than a light switch?

  Andy lowered his hand. As much as he wanted to flick the switch, some instinct told him that it was far too convenient and obvious.

  “I’ll bet it isn’t a light switch at all. In fact, I bet it would set off some kind of a trap. Not going to do that,” he whispered. “Got to stay sharp!”

  And with mixed feelings he moved onward, fearing the dark but feeling some kind of inward certainty that he’d successfully passed the first test.

  He followed the corridor as it wound around to the right. Whenever he was presented with the option of turning left, he reasoned that it would be better to stick to the right in hopes that it would eventually lead him out of the maze. He’d read somewhere that if one followed this rule from the entry point of a maze, the probability of finding one’s way out increased substantially.

  He’d been proceeding this way cautiously for some time when his toe bumped something hard on the floor in front of him. Reaching down very carefully, he tentatively touched the object.

  I wonder what that is, Andy thought. For a minute he considered what to do. It might, of course, be a trap. But since the witch doctor had mentioned that there were also things placed in the maze to help him, he felt that he had no choice but to investigate it.

  Andy picked it up. The object felt cool and smooth, like a flat piece of metal that was about six inches square. It also had irregular blocks cut out of its surface. Although he couldn’t for the life of him figure out what it was for, he couldn’t help feeling he’d found something worth keeping. Since it was too big to pocket, he slipped it underneath his shirt and continued forward.

  He hadn’t gone more than ten steps when a flicker of light down a passageway on his right caught his attention. After he’d spent so much time in the dark, it flared with an incandescent brightness that seemed much more powerful than it really was.

  A candle!

  Relief washed over him. He felt like primitive man as he gazed at the small light, glad that it could chase away the dangerous shadows and unknown dangers that lurked in the darkness.

  He wanted to run toward it. But once again, he fought his impulse and kept his head. He stared at the light and waited to see if there was any movement within the area of its glow.

  And he was glad he did.

  After about five minutes of waiting, a shadow flicked past the wall. Andy couldn’t tell exactly what made it, but it looked like some kind of large claw or mandible.

  There’s something waiting near that candle.

  He shuddered. Andy knew that whatever it was, it was certainly going to be dangerous. He wondered what the “monsters” Bungalow Bob had mentioned would look like.

  He said there would be weapons, too, Andy thought. I wonder where they are.

  He gazed around, looking to see if he could find any clues. For some time he didn’t notice anything unusual. The feeble light didn’t do much to illuminate the wall in his immediate vicinity. But after a few more minutes of searching, he spotted something at the bottom of the wall across from where he was crouching.

  It appeared to be a small tube or cylinder, just visible where the shadows of the wall met the first bit of light thrown by the candle.

  Stepping carefully and quietly, he crept across to the other side, hoping all the while that he wouldn’t alert whatever monster hid near the candle to his presence.

  He reached the small cylinder without incident and, after picking it up, found that the cap on its end could open. He reached inside and withdrew its contents.

  A scroll?

  Andy tilted the paper in the direction of the candle flame and could just barely make out the writing upon it.

  Three kittens without mittens went up the hill,

  and placed three stones into a well.

  Up goes Jack and down falls Jill,

  Two kittens come tumbling after.

  Humpty fell from the edge

  onto the stones below.

  But all turned right on the fateful night,

  As all children surely know.

  “Complete nonsense!” Andy whispered quietly. But he recognized some of the references in the poem as Mother Goose rhymes, so at least that was something.

  There’s something here…but what is it?

  He reread the lines of the poem. But as he tried to make sense of the writing, he just ended up confusing himself more. What in the world could kittens, Jack and Jill, and Humpty Dumpty have to do with the situation he was in? He tried rearranging the words, hoping they might be a code of some kind.

  They weren’t.

  He reversed the letters, hoping they might spell something backward.

  Nothing.

  After several minutes of this, he was suddenly startled by the gong of the Potentate’s Doomsday Device. He flinched automatically, but was relieved to find that Bungalow Bob’s magic still kept him from feeling any effects.

  But the chime did do something. Perhaps it was because it distracted him from his train of thought, but suddenly a new idea occurred to him. He looked down at the paper, measuring its size with his eyes.

  Then he withdrew the metal plate he’d found from beneath his shirt and laid it directly on top of the page.

  It fit perfectly.

  And better still, Andy suddenly knew the reason for the carved holes in the plate. When laid directly on the sheet, the plate covered certain words an
d revealed others, sending him a clear message:

  Three kittens without mittens went up the hill,

  and placed three stones into a well.

  Up goes Jack and down falls Jill,

  Two kittens come tumbling after.

  Humpty fell from the edge

  onto the stones below.

  But all turned right on the fateful night,

  As all children surely know.

  Andy glanced at the place at the bottom of the wall where he’d found the scroll. Three stones up, two from the edge. Turn right. Feeling excited, he counted three stones up and then counted in two more from the edge of the wall.

  “Turn right,” he whispered.

  And reaching out to the stone that he’d located, he placed his palm against it and turned his hand clockwise.

  There was a small pop, and the stone fell out of the wall into Andy’s hand. Looking inside the spot where it had been, Andy was immensely relieved to see the hilt of a small dagger waiting inside.

  He removed it and examined it in the dim light. It was beautifully made, and its edges gleamed.

  Andy glanced back at the candle. Whatever was waiting there for him was going to get a surprise.

  He rose from his crouched position and, clenching the dagger tightly in his hand, moved slowly forward on the balls of his feet.

  Come and get it.

  The candle was standing on a large, somewhat rickety table that blocked any further progress down the right side of the maze. And as Andy drew closer, little by little he was able to make out more of the shadowy something that he’d seen earlier. The monster was hiding underneath the table, crouching there and waiting for its victim. He couldn’t quite tell its shape, but Andy noticed a pair of dark eyes glittering in the shadows and a strange insect-like clicking sound.

  Andy shuddered and tried not to think of all the creepy-crawly things he hated. He raised his knife, displaying it where the eyes beneath the table could see it, and said in as brave a voice as he could muster, “Let me pass!”

  The strange clicking grew agitated. And then the thing began to move, scuttling slowly into the candlelight and revealing its hideous form for the first time.

  Andy involuntarily drew back a step. His face grew slack with horror and his eyes were wide. He’d never seen such a thing!

  Its body was covered with sharp spikes and its muzzle was vaguely mammalian. The eyes were dark and intelligent. But the monster also possessed a wicked-looking ebony tail that curved over its back like a scorpion’s and had matching, huge razor-sharp claws. These latter appendages were responsible for the clicking noises that Andy had heard earlier, and they snapped like pliers as the creature advanced.

  “Stay back!” Andy cried.

  The monster stopped and gazed at Andy for a long moment. Then, to his surprise, it spoke in a high, raspy voice.

  “I am the Scorpupine. Will you hear what I have to say?”

  Andy was taken aback. He hadn’t expected to be questioned by the creature. Once again, his instinct was to protect himself, to attack the horrible thing or run away. But like before, Andy felt that by operating with logic rather than feeling, he might have a chance to beat the maze.

  “All right,” Andy said in a slightly quavery voice. “Tell me.”

  The terrifying creature drew a breath and then began to recite,

  “Threaten me at your peril,

  My sting it never fails,

  My claws are iron vises,

  And dead men tell no tales.

  “If you would win and save your life,

  Your blade will not suffice,

  For my armor never will be cut

  No matter how sharp the knife.

  “Quickly you must find a way,

  Or prepare to meet your grave,

  But cross the line and take a fall,

  And only then will you be saved.”

  Andy stared, trying to think about what he’d just heard. Although he’d been listening intently, he needed to hear it again to try to sort it out.

  It’s another riddle, he surmised.

  Gathering his courage, he asked, “Could you please repeat that?”

  The Scorpupine did. But Andy noticed that while doing so it inched closer toward a clearly indicated demarcation line on the maze floor, one that was closer to where Andy was standing. It was a circle of stones that had been embedded around the circumference of the table, about three or four feet from the table’s edges.

  Andy tried not to panic. Seeing the creature come closer was terrifying. But he forced himself instead to repeat the rhyme in his head and work on sorting out what it meant.

  Threaten me at your peril,

  My sting it never fails,

  My claws are iron vises,

  And dead men tell no tales.

  That part seemed fairly simple. But there was one line that stood out in Andy’s mind: Dead men tell no tales.

  Sounds like something a pirate would say, Andy thought. He, of course, had read Treasure Island several times and knew most of the book by heart. He thought about the second verse.

  If you would win and save your life

  Your blade will not suffice,

  For my armor never will be cut

  No matter how sharp the knife.

  Well, that seems self-explanatory, too, Andy thought. Of course, it could be lying to get me to let my guard down. He glanced at the glittering knife he’d found. If it wasn’t for fighting the monster, then what was it for? It was just too convenient that the monster would mention a blade in the rhyme if it didn’t have significance. It had to mean something more than stating the obvious.

  Andy blew out a breath and, after running a hand through his sandy hair, considered the third verse.

  Quickly you must find a way,

  Or prepare to meet your grave,

  But cross the line and take a fall,

  And only then will you be saved.

  Out of all the verses, this one seemed the most cryptic and the most important. He didn’t like the Quickly you must find a way / Or prepare to meet your grave part, because that put the pressure on. How long did he actually have to solve the puzzle?

  He glanced at the beast and noticed that while he’d been thinking, it had pressed even closer and was now perched right at the edge of the line. It was only a couple of feet from where he stood. Andy didn’t know whether or not the stones that separated him from the monster would keep it at bay, but he also didn’t want to wait too long to find out.

  But cross the line and take a fall,

  And only then will you be saved.

  Andy glanced at the line that separated them. He didn’t like the sound of what that phrase implicated. Could it really be suggesting that he step over the line and fall down in front of the Scorpupine, giving up like a dog that had been beaten by a bigger one?

  It certainly seems that way, Andy thought grimly. The creature’s eyes bored into Andy’s own as if it were trying to read what he was thinking. The large pincers snapped. Instinctively, Andy knew that he didn’t have much time left.

  He had just resolved to take a step closer to the monster when he suddenly remembered something.

  Dead men tell no tales.…Cross the line.

  There was a connection there. In nautical terms, a “line” was a rope on a ship. Could “crossing the line” mean something else?

  He glanced around the walls and noticed something that he hadn’t before. Because of the candle on the table and the monster beneath it, his eyes had been automatically drawn downward. But just above him, tied around a hook, was a rope. It disappeared into a hole in the wall.

  The monster clicked its claws with agitation. The stinger on its tail rose into the air. Andy glanced down at his knife and suddenly realized that “crossing the line” with the blade could mean cutting the rope.

  The monster seemed to guess what Andy was thinking and charged forward, its deadly claws raised and its stinger poised to strike! Andy quickly swiped a
t the rope, severing it in two.

  With a sharp click, a hidden trapdoor opened beneath his feet and he was suddenly tumbling down into the darkness. The stinger of the Scorpupine thudded into the lid of the trapdoor, missing Andy by an inch.

  When he hit the bottom, it was with some relief that he found there was a straw mattress placed there to cushion his landing. But his relief was short-lived when he looked around the dimly lit dungeon into which he’d fallen and saw what was scattered around him.

  Skeletons!

  He gazed at the piles of red skulls with revulsion. Were they covered in blood? Then he noticed that on the other side of the room was a pile of blackened skulls, looking to Andy as if they’d been burned in a fire. He tried not to retch.

  Then, with sudden clarity, he realized the import of his situation.

  All these people must have failed Bungalow Bob’s maze and never gotten out. Could it be that these were the other candidates for apprenticeship?

  With dawning horror, Andy took in his surroundings. The trapdoor above him had closed again, and at first glance, it seemed as if there were no other way out.

  The room, which was only about twelve feet wide by twelve feet across, was lit by a dim phosphorescent glow. The floor was the most unusual part of the cell. It was divided into a grid pattern of dark and pale tiles and looked very dirty and unkempt.

  Please, let there be a clue or something! he thought desperately. The whole thing didn’t make sense! He knew that he’d been clever in figuring out the monster’s riddle. Why, then, had he ended up here, at an apparent dead end?

  After searching the entire cell for a way out, he came to a grim conclusion. “This is it,” he said softly. “I’m going to be down here forever, trapped like those guys.” He glanced over at the skulls.

  He sat down and thought about Bungalow Bob and his strange obsession. How could anyone treat people’s lives with such a cavalier attitude? It seemed like everything was some kind of sick game to the old witch doctor.

  And then, with sudden clarity, a light popped on in Andy’s head. He chuckled quietly to himself. Of course. The answer was so simple it was almost childish.