by Greg Cox
The totem dived at her. Talons, claws, and fangs raced each other to rend her tender flesh. The thunderbird’s fearsome screech hurt her ears. The bear and the mountain lion were eager for their turn. Their gaping jaws slathered impossibly.
But Claudia was ready for them. She aimed the hose at the oncoming creature, holding it up with one hand while the other spun the metal handle next to it. The valve stuck at first, but then it rotated freely, opening the tap. A pump beneath the floor chugged to life. The hose stiffened in her grip. Instead of water, a thick stream of purple goo sprayed from its nozzle.
“That’s more like it!” She directed the goo at the totem. “Open wide!”
Easier said than done. The totem banked sharply to the left, dodging the spray while still coming at her. Claudia gulped, finding it harder than she expected to control the spray and send it where it belonged. She was a geek girl, darn it, not a firefighter! Claudia felt like she was trying to shoot down an angry hornet with a squirt gun. Why couldn’t the stupid totem just stay still for a moment? Didn’t it know she was trying to neutralize it?
The Indian arts-and-crafts project flew in descending circles above her. Claudia spun around, practically wrapping herself in the hose as she tried unsuccessfully to catch the totem in the purple spew. Cawing and snarling in harmony, the hostile artifact dived for her. She jumped out of the way and swung the hose around to defend herself. The totem veered away from the spray. The mountain lion’s front paw slashed at a length of hose between her and the column. Sharp claws sliced through the hose. Unchecked goo gushed onto the floor.
“Uh-oh.”
CHAPTER
15
WAREHOUSE 13
The severed end of the hose went limp in her grasp. The spray from the nozzle slowed to a trickle. Claudia shook it violently, but only a few drips fell out.
You know, she thought, I don’t remember this being covered in the manual.
The totem came swooping back around. She hurled the now-useless hose at the creature like an old-time TV mobster flinging his empty gun at Superman—and with about as much effect. The nozzle bounced harmlessly off the thunderbird’s crest, barely slowing it down.
“Feet, don’t fail me now!”
She made tracks away from the totem. A spreading puddle of goo threatened to slip her up, but she bounded over it without missing a step. An intersection beckoned, and she ducked around a corner in hopes of losing the creature . . .
. . . only to run headfirst into a full-size New England lighthouse.
The whitewashed brick structure rose at least fifty feet above the floor, dwarfing the surrounding shelves. A red steel cupola crowned the lighthouse, whose upper chamber was dark, its lamp long extinguished. The tower blocked the aisle completely. There was no way around it.
“Great,” she muttered. “What genius left a lighthouse lying around?”
The totem was right behind her. A weathered wooden door faced her.
The only way out was up.
“Please don’t be locked!”
She shoved the door, which swung open before her. She darted over the threshold and slammed the door shut behind her. The totem crashed into it a moment later, the impact rattling the heavy oak door. Frustrated growls and squawks penetrated the building. Claws scraped angrily at the wood.
The totem wasn’t giving up. Claudia threw herself against the other side of the door, holding it shut with her body. The soles of her sneakers were braced against the rough cement floor of the lighthouse. The creature pounded against the door like a battering ram. Every blow jarred her spine. The solid oak bulged inward. The hinges started tearing loose.
She searched the murky interior of the building for something to bolt the door with. A spiral staircase led to the lamp room above. A few cobwebbed trunks and coils of rope offered little hope. By the time she could shove the jumbled jetsam against the door, the totem would already be inside.
“Go away!” she shouted through the door. “Find somebody else to harass! Shoo!”
Wood splintered. A lion’s claw tore through the door, only a handsbreadth from her head. Another claw, this one belonging to the bear, broke through next to her hip.
Yelping, she jumped away from the door, which was knocked off its hinges. The shredded remains of the door crashed to the floor. The totem lunged forward, but its outstretched wings were too big for the opening. Screeching impatiently, it had to back up and fold its wings against its sides in order to squeeze through the narrow doorway.
Claudia took advantage of the delay to make for the staircase. She took the steps two at a time, the decrepit iron structure wobbling beneath her tread. The totem burst into the lighthouse right behind her. Three sets of carved wooden nostrils sniffed the air. Painted eyes turned upward, spotting its prey. The totem dropped onto its bear and lion legs, then charged up the stairs on all eights. The thunderbird led the way, its wooden feathers ruffling. The monster climbed the staircase with surprising speed. Bird, lion, and bear moved in sync with each other, much to Claudia’s annoyance.
Did they have to work together so well?
She reached the top of the stairs only slightly ahead of the totem. A glass-walled chamber held the lamp and lenses. A complicated array of polished silver mirrors surrounded an old-fashioned kerosene lantern. She flung the door shut and bolted it securely.
Taking a second to catch her breath, she considered her options. Was there any way to use the lighthouse to signal Artie for help? She quickly inspected the lantern but couldn’t figure out how she was supposed to light it. Claudia didn’t smoke, but even if she did, smoking was strictly verboten in the Warehouse. She had no matches, no lighter, not even a pair of sticks to rub together. Why couldn’t this stupid lighthouse have come with an electric lamp instead . . . ?
She searched her pockets anyway, hoping to find a miniature soldering iron or something, but time was not on her side. Triple growls announced that the totem had reached the top of the stairs. It rammed itself against the door once more. The hinges went flying off.
Drat!
A open metal gallery circled the lantern room. She rushed out onto the balcony and leaned over the safety rail, looking for an escape route. The top of a tall shelf was only a few yards below, but separated from the lighthouse by a gap of at least five feet. She scrambled over the railing and faced the gap. Could she make the jump? It was a long way down if she missed, and this time there was no zip line to hold her up. She peered over the edge.
I don’t know about this. . . .
The relentless totem didn’t give her any choice. Glass shattered as it crashed through the window behind her. She could feel the thunderbird’s hot breath at her neck. It smelled of sawdust.
“Geronimo!”
Trusting her fate to the fickle whims of gravity, she leaped from the balcony. Her life flashed before her eyes as though dancing across a certain zoetrope several aisles over. She closed her eyes, afraid to look down, and didn’t open them until her feet hit the shelf a long heartbeat later. She fell forward into a roll, then sprang to her feet, frankly amazed not to find herself spattered way down below. A dislodged birdcage hit the floor instead. It landed with a loud metallic clang. Better it than me, Claudia thought.
“And she sticks the landing!”
She would have an appreciated a moment to savor her death-defying feat, but the grumpy totem refused to oblige. The bear snarled at her from atop the lighthouse. The thunderbird spread its wings and took flight. The entire monster swooped down from the balcony.
“Ohmigod,” she exclaimed. “Give it a rest!”
This routine system check was turning into a real workout. She ran along the top of the shelf, jumping over and around the topmost collection of artifacts as though the shelf were the world’s most cluttered balance beam. She deftly evaded Bill Clinton’s saxophone, only to step onto a loose waffle iron, which slid out from beneath her sneaker. Oops! She lost her balance and teetered along the brink. Her arms semaphored mad
ly to keep her from falling. Both feet landed back on the shelf. She gasped out loud. That had been a close one.
A few more inches and she would have been a Claudia pancake.
She kicked the waffle iron out of the way. Glancing back over her shoulder, she saw the totem gliding toward her again. She looked around for something—anything—that might increase her odds of reaching drinking age.
A judge’s gavel? A ventriloquist’s dummy? A chunk of Halley’s comet?
None of those struck her as very useful at the moment. To buy time, she snatched an artist’s easel and hurled it at the totem. Growling at the top of his timber lungs, the mountain lion knocked it aside with a sweep of its paw. The lightweight wooden easel crashed to earth twenty feet below. Claudia winced at the clatter.
“Sorry, Artie,” she blurted. “You, too, Renoir.”
The totem was still coming. Was there anything else she could use? She was running out of shelf and hope until she spied a large wooden barrel stacked at the end of the shelf. Sturdy pine staves were held in place by rusty metal bands. A postcard of Niagara Falls was stapled to the side of the barrel. The faded souvenir showed a smiling daredevil in turn-of-the-century swimming trunks emerging from the very same barrel as Niagara cascaded majestically behind him. He had clearly just survived a reckless plunge over the fabled falls.
The things people do to make history . . .
A wild idea hit her. Wresting the lid off the top of the barrel, she dived inside just as the thunderbird’s talons nearly grazed her again. Bear and lion claws barely missed her as well. Watching her fingers, she pulled the lid down and worked it back into place. The barrel was cramped and dark and smelled of pickles but was big enough for her to huddle inside. Peering out through a crack between the staves, she glimpsed the totem circling around for another go. Her northwestern nemesis obviously had no intention of abandoning the hunt.
She knew better than to expect the barrel to protect her for long. Memories of the totem clawing through the lighthouse doors were still disgustingly fresh in her mind. But maybe the barrel could provide a way out? After all, if it could survive going over the falls . . .
There was no time to think about it. Bracing her knees and shoulders against the inside of the barrel, she rocked back and forth while doing her best to ignore the squawk-growl-roars getting louder by the moment. The totem sounded like it was right on top of her.
Inertia held the barrel stubbornly in place. She threw her full weight, such as it was, against the left side of the barrel, finally producing the desired result. The barrel tilted to one side, then toppled over the edge of the shelf. It plunged toward the floor with Claudia inside. Her stomach climbed up her throat. Wincing in anticipation, she curled up into a tight little ball and braced for impact. If only there had been time to read the instructions . . . !
What if the barrel just magically pickled cucumbers or something?
It hit the floor with a resounding thud but, miraculously, not enough to flatten her. As she had hoped, the artifact had somehow shielded her from the full force of the crash landing, just as it had for that thrill seeker at Niagara back in the day. No bones appeared to be broken.
So far.
Landing on its side, the barrel rolled wildly down an unknown aisle. Claudia tumbled inside like a load of laundry in a spin dryer. “Ouch, ouch, triple ouch!” she yelped every time she smacked against the inside of the barrel. Thank goodness she was still wearing those knee and elbow pads from before, but she found herself longing for the discarded crash helmet. Her bruises were getting bruises. Not to mention splinters.
Just when she thought the thrill ride was never going to end, the barrel, well, barreled into something solid and unyielding, bringing it to a brutal stop. She caught her breath and took a moment to let her head stop spinning, then kicked the lid off the barrel. Woozy as a punch-drunk fighter, yet stoked to be alive, she crawled out of the barrel on her hands and knees. A quick look around revealed that the barrel had come to a stop against a tall obsidian obelisk engraved with arcane Celtic runes. The imposing monument reeked of antiquity and bygone pagan rites.
She didn’t have a clue what it was.
Claudia climbed unsteadily to her feet. For a few minutes the entire Warehouse seemed to whirl around her like a vomit comet. She leaned against the obelisk to keep from falling.
“Wow,” she gasped “What a rush!”
A sudden desire to do it again came over her. As her surroundings gradually stopped rotating, she gazed up at the surrounding shelves, wondering how she could get the barrel back up to the top again. Maybe if she rigged up some kind of block and tackle apparatus?
“Whoa!” she blurted, catching herself. What the heck am I thinking?
She cast a suspicious glance at the barrel, lying oh-so-innocently next to the obelisk. It had kept her safe going over the edge, sure, but what was the catch? Most artifacts came with a sting, and she had a sneaky feeling that she was experiencing the flip side of the barrel’s special properties right now. Besides saving your life, did it also turn you into a danger junkie?
It sure felt like it. Even knowing better, it was all she could do to keep from climbing back inside the barrel for another spin. Maybe there were some basement stairs around here somewhere? She could ride the barrel all the way down. . . .
A blood-chilling growl snapped her out it. She slapped herself across the face, just to be sure, then looked around anxiously for the totem. The tripartite terror was nowhere in sight, but she could hear it snarling a short way back. It sounded way too close for comfort.
Escape was still the order of the day. The obelisk rested at the center of a four-way intersection, but which way to go. Left? Right? Straight ahead? Turning around was not an option, not with the totem right behind her.
“Eenie, meenie . . .”
Choosing at random, she dashed to the right, trying to put as much distance as possible between her and the barrel. This was her chance, she realized, to give the indefatigable totem the slip.
With any luck, the darn thing wouldn’t know which way she went!
The totem pole hunted for its flame-haired prey. Gliding low down the halls of this strange, immense longhouse, it spied the wooden barrel lying out of place beside a spire of polished black rock. The hunter recognized the barrel as the one the girl had rode to elude it before. It snarled at the memory.
The creature touched down upon the floor. Lion and Bear took turns sniffing the barrel, while Bird peered inside. The man-made nest was empty now; their prey had fled the barrel, although her enticing scent lingered. Six nostrils flared. Three sets of jaws watered. It had been caged for too long. Three empty stomachs craved human meat. It licked its fangs.
Turning away from the barrel, the totem inspected the crossroad before it. All three heads sniffed the air, trying to catch the girl’s scent, but the great longhouse was filled with too many confusing odors. Bear turned left. Lion looked right. Bird flapped its wings and tried to fly straight ahead, only to be held back by the other two. It cawed indignantly.
Conflicting intentions halted the totem, which found itself pulling in three directions at once. For a brief interval it appeared frozen in indecision, unable to reach a consensus. Then a harsh, wrenching sound, like creaking timbers, echoed off the crowded shelves. Joined for generations, the stacked creatures strained against each other. Determined growls and screeches added to the cacophony. Painted wood cracked and splintered like bones.
Bird broke free first. It tore loose from Lion’s shoulders, taking flight on its own. It swooped and soared overhead, enjoying its newfound liberty. No longer encumbered by the upper carving, Lion and Bear fought and pulled in opposite directions before tearing noisily apart. Lion sprang from atop Bear, landing nimbly upon the floor. The beasts growled and roared in triumph. Not bothering to bid farewell to their former partners, they split away from each other.
