The Hunt for Dark Infinity

Chapter 19

A shot of elation and relief surged through Tick’s nerves, like he’d been rescued from a burning building. There it was, their escape! He even took a step toward it before reason pulled his thoughts back to reality. Sofia grabbed his arm.

“No!” she screamed.

“I know!” he answered, looking down at his feet. His toes were within inches of the red line. The world around them shook and roared, as if they were in a small building pummeled by a tornado. The wind had picked up, rustling their hair and clothes.

Paul stared at the open door, his eyes glazed over.

“Don’t even think about it!” Sofia shouted at him. “No matter what, remember? If we run, we die!”

Paul snapped out of his daze, looked at Tick. “Dude, it’s right there!”

“Whoever it is, they’re just tempting us!” Tick yelled.

He moved as close to Paul as he could, then pulled Sofia in. “Link arms!” He could barely hear his own voice.

Sofia obeyed immediately, but Paul hesitated, the wind ripping at his shirt.

“Do it!” Tick yelled.

Paul’s face sank into a frown as he wrapped his arm around Sofia’s elbow, then his other around Tick’s. All this time, the door remained open, staying open far longer than it ever had before. This was all planned out, Tick thought. But by who?

From the way they stood, only Sofia faced the onrushing nightmare, her face set in cold fear, eyes wide, mouth in a tight line. The air swirled around them, making them sway dangerously close to the line. Tick thought Sofia’s hair might simply fly off at any second. And the noise. The noise. Like screaming brakes and revved jet engines and pounding hammers and hissing steam-a chorus of terrible sounds that pierced Tick’s ears with sharp pain.

Finally, as if giving in to some inevitable fate, he twisted his neck to look behind him.

The thing was very close now, dark and hideous, spinning upside down and right side up again, corkscrewing as it sped toward them, faster and faster. Tick squinted, thinking the panic must have scrambled his brain-what he was looking at didn’t make any sense.

The poem had been more accurate than he’d thought. The train was not a train at all. It wasn’t a car, truck, or plane. It wasn’t even a spaceship. The thing thundering toward them at unbelievable speeds was an animal. The biggest, strangest, ugliest beast Tick had ever seen.

“What…” he said, trailing off, knowing his friends couldn’t hear him. Nothing made sense anymore. Nothing.

As the beast got closer, Tick felt the fear in him swell, burning like fire, surging through his veins, hurting him. The animal had at least a dozen sets of thick, muscled legs, almost a blur as they churned back and forth to move the creature in its twisting pattern. Its huge head spun but, impossibly, didn’t turn as quickly as the rest of its body, as if the legs were on springs or gears. Dark, scaly skin covered a hideous head, spikes and stunted bones sticking out in random places, enormous teeth jutting from its mouth.

As it approached within a half-mile, then a quarter-mile, Tick felt more scared than ever before, despite the things he’d been through. His mind couldn’t come up with any possible explanation why a gigantic glass tube would exist in the middle of the desert, made for a terrible beast to run through at ridiculous speeds. Confusion and fear mingled together inside his brain, squeezing his thoughts until his head pounded with a drumming pain.

Wink us away, he thought. Time’s almost up, wink us away. Wink us away. WINK US AWAY! The wind, the noise-the horrible noise. What is making that stupid noise? He thought he heard a scream, maybe two. Maybe it was him.

When the beast was only fifty feet away, growling and snapping its jaws and twisting and pumping its powerful legs, bulleting toward them, everything went crazy.

For the slightest of moments, a hush swallowed the area, the noise ending in an abrupt clap of empty silence. Then a booming, deep toll, like millions of huge bells and French horns playing at once, rang out, drowning out all other sound. Tick let go of Paul and Sofia and clapped his hands over his ears. The volume became unbearable; the ache in his head became a splitting pain behind his eyes.

The entire tunnel rocked upward and crashed back to the ground, sending a web of cracks shooting in all directions, spreading like a branching tree with the sound of ice breaking over a frozen lake. Tick crashed to the ground, his knees buckling from the impact; Paul fell on top of him, then Sofia.

Somehow Tick got out the words, “Stay in the box!”

In both directions, the tunnel started warping — impossible waves rippling in the glass up and down its length. The massive beast had stopped a few feet away, its many legs coming to a rest on the bottom of the tube. Its head swiveled around at the chaos as if it were as frightened as the humans. The deep, vibrating horn-like sound continued to boom through the air.

Tick and the others scrambled to the center of the square and clasped arms around each other, huddled on top of the still-glowing words of the poem. Everything shook, much worse than before. The glass rippled and cracked; the tunnel bounced in places like a writhing worm. The beast let out a roar, its huge mouth opening to show dozens of teeth; saliva flew everywhere. Still, the sound of it was nothing compared to the clanging, ear-piercing toll of the mysterious bells.

“What’s happening?” Sofia shouted. Tick barely heard her and had no answer.

The creature moved toward them, anger ignited in its black eyes that looked through a hooded brow of horns and scales. Almost on top of them, it roared again, this time louder. The air reeked of something foul and rotten.

“Stay in the box!” Tick shouted again. Wink us away. Wink us away.

WINK US AWAY!

The beast lunged at them, its legs catapulting it into the air. Its outermost horn came within inches of Tick’s face when something suddenly slammed the whole creature away from them and against the wall of the tunnel to their right, where the door still stood open-though it was way too small for the beast. The glass exploded outward, the huge animal crashing through and into a steep desert dune.

As it landed, sending up a massive spray of sand, large sections of the tunnel began melting into liquid, forming huge flying globs that looked like molten silver as they moved through the air. More and more of them appeared, completely destroying the tunnel except for the small spot on which Tick and the others stood. All at once, the melted glass hurtled toward the monster, engulfing the beast completely. The liquid hardened back into glass, tinkling and crackling.

As quickly as it had started, everything stopped. Tick sat next to Paul and Sofia, all of them squeezing each other, gasping to catch their breath. Only a few dozen feet away stood a horrific sculpture of glass, twisted and bent, parts of the poor animal’s body sticking out here and there. One large horn jutted from the front, pointing at them as if it had all been their fault.

No one said a word. They had stayed in the square. They had done what they were supposed to, despite everything.

A few seconds later, someone winked them away to another Reality.