Chapter Six

  The big clear cube formed around us as I twisted the smaller Cube in my hands. Ethan yelped in fright, and I quickly hooked one of my arms around his to keep him from running away

  “Wh- What is this?” he squeaked.

  “Shush! trating.”

  Various pieces of sery fshed past, appearing and vanishing in a strobe light-ish pattern. I kept my eyes fixed on the Cube. ing was bad enough when it was just me. With Ethan here, one wrong turn could get us both killed — and the cil would definitely fire me if that happened. But if I was right, we would be arriving right…about…

  Now!

  I she st row of cubes into pce, and eared on top of an old building. Trees were growing wildly all around the pce, and the parking lot’s pavement was sun-bleached and cracked. Out by the road, which looked like it hadn’t seen a car sihe Model T, stood a tall sign with the words Fun Lane painted on it in colors that must have once been bright and cheerful.

  “See? That wasn’t too bad,” I said, dusting off my hands. “I meant to put us in the parking lot, but this is just as…”

  I paused and looked around.

  “Ethan?”

  “HENRY!”

  I rushed to the edge of the building, looked down, and fouhan hanging there by his fiips.

  “Oh, chi and waffles! Hold on!” I got to my knees, gently setting the Cube down beside me, and reached out for him. He grabbed my arm, and I heaved backwards, pulling him up onto the roof with me.

  “There we go!” I said with a grin. “Safe and sound.”

  Ethan y on his back, gasping like a fish I’d reeled out of the water. “What…the hell…was that?”

  I picked up the Cube. “This? It’s an Escher Cube. It lets you turaight through dimensions evehere’s no er to cut.”

  “Then what did you drop me off the building for?”

  I shrugged. “Sorry, it’s more of an art than a sce. e o’s find a way in.”

  I headed for the back of the building, ahan scurried up behind me a few seds ter.

  “Where are we?” he demanded.

  “Somewhere in Arkansas, I guess,” I said.

  “And what are we doing here?”

  “Exactly what you think.”

  There! I jogged over to where a trapdoor was waiting for us, the kind that maintenance workers use to e up here to do…maintehings. I gave it a tug, but it was locked. No problem. Drawing Sptsy, I extended her to warhammer form with a fliy wrist.

  Ethan stepped up beside me. “Wait, so there’s really one of those—”

  I smmed Sptsy down onto the trapdoor, bsting it off its hinges and down into the dark, abandoned depths of Fun Lane.

  “Yep!” I said cheerfully. I reached for the dder that led inside, but stopped whehan grabbed me by the arm.

  “And yht me here why?” he demanded.

  Rolling my eyes, I sat down with my legs dangling through the trapdoor and looked at him. “Fine, let’s just get this out of the way. You don’t want to be here. I don’t want you here either. All yoing to do is get in my ossibly die.”

  He took a step back.

  “But I work for the cil of Shnoob,” I went on. “And I didn’t think things through st night when I said I’d take care of you. What I meant was, ‘I’ll give him a pce to stay until this all blows over.’ What they heard was, ‘I’ll drag him all over creation with me like a puppy that doesn’t want to go for walkies.’”

  “And now I’m stuck with you,” he said ftly.

  I shrugged again. “I am also stuck with you, so don’t go thinking you’re special or anything, bub.”

  “Five me if I don’t jump for joy.”

  “And five me,” I snapped, standing up, “if I don’t weep dramatically. Now get down there!”

  He looked down the hole, and then took a step back. “Uh, no. One of those things almost killed me st night. I am not—”

  “Ethan, look,” I sighed and rubbed my forehead. “If there’s ohing in the world I know how to do, it’s fighting maiams. I won’t let it hurt you, okay?”

  “Did you tell my uhat too?”

  I froze. Etha me for a few seds, but then looked away and folded his arms.

  “Fine,” I snapped, stepping down onto the dder. “Stay here. But if you attraother maiam before I e back, I won’t be up here to help you.”

  He spun around. “Wait! Will that happen?”

  I ignored him and began to climb down.

  “Henry? On a scale of oo ten, how likely is it that’ll happen?”

  I waited until I reached the floor to answer. “Probably a two, maybe a three.”

  “Then—”

  “But it goes up every time you open your mouth!”

  I took a few steps away, then smiled to myself when I heard Ethan cmber down after me.

  “Okay, what do I do?” he asked.

  “Just stay close,” I said, making my way farther in. “But not, like, get-your-face-smashed-in-when-I-swing-Sptsy close.”

  “How reassuring.”

  “I knht?”

  We were in the building’s ste area. Empty metal racks cast eerie shadows, and our footsteps echoed like we were disturbing an old, fotten tomb. In the distance I could see the remains of a dipidated pizza kit. And there were the big double doors leading to the main part of the building. Throwing them open, I stepped through…

  A my breath cat my throat.

  This pce was huge! Sunlight shohrough the dusty gss doors up front, giving me a faint light to see by. Not much had bee behind after the pce closed, but what was still here told stories like hieroglyphs on a wall.

  I wandered absentmindedly over to where the restaurant’s tables stood, welded to the floor, and trailed my fihrough the dust. How many birthdays had been celebrated here, with pizza, cake, family, and friends? A little ways off, I could see a worn out roller skating rink. When I closed my eyes, I swore I could hear the echoes of 70’s music as people skated in the multicolored light of a disco ball. A climbing wall with half the pegs missing, bowling nes, squares in the faded carpet where arcade games had oood.

  And above everything else, ughter.

  I could smell it. Old ughter, more of a memory than anything, but a pce like this could without the joy it brought to people sinking into every surface. That’s why the maiam had e here. Emotion is as much a part of a kon as blood is to a human. As weird as it sounded, I almost felt like this broken down old building was a distaive of mine.

  “Doesn’t it make you sad?” I whispered.

  Ethan raised an eyebrow. “Does what make me sad?”

  “This!” I held my hands out in front of me. “This was all built to make people happy…to make them ugh…and now it’s just abandoned like yesterday’s garbage.”

  He looked around again. “Yeah, it sucks. Now you please focus on the monster?”

  Ign him, I walked over to the bowling nes, feeling strangely nostalgic despite never having been here before in my life. A few old pins still y scattered around.

  Thrown away. Fotten.

  “Isn’t that just like humanity?” I asked bitterly. “You build something for no other reason than t joy to people, and they shut it down. Why?”

  “I guess it didn’t make enough money. But what about—”

  “Money!” I spat, makihan jump. “Paper? Metal? You humans are always telling each other that money ’t buy happiness, but do you ever listen?”

  I kicked one of the pins, letting it roll across the fotten strip of wood.

  “Sometimes I wonder if you people even want to be happy,” I whispered. “Maybe kons like me are just wasting our time.”

  Ethan grabbed me by the arm. “You know what would make me happier than anything else in the world, Henry? For you to stop screwing around and kill this thing before it kills us!”

  I gave him a cold gre and yanked my arm away. “Fine. e on.”

  We made our way back to the ter of the building, and I turned in a slow circle. Still no sign of the maiam, but there were plenty of pces for it to hide. Dark party rooms, empty offices, an old three story pyground that was sagging on its supports. It would take hours to search the whole pce, and everywhere I didn’t find it would just increase our ces of it finding us first. Normally that wouldn’t have bothered me, but with Ethan here…

  Wait.

  Henry, you’re a genius!

  “Hey, Ethan, e here,” I said with a grin.

  Hesitantly, he came to stand beside me. “What?”

  I stomped on his foot.

  The effect was exactly what I was hoping for. His face went red, he leaned his head back, and he howled in pain. His voice echoed through the building, and with it came a surge of power that nearly knocked me off my feet. He quickly bit his tongue, his cry turning into a whimper, but I’d already gotten what I wanted.

  Somewhere deep in the bowels of Fun Lane, something moved.

  Ethan froze at the sound. “What did you just do?”

  I drew Sptsy agaiendio warhammer form. “I’m a Hunter, right? Nothing wrong with using a little bait.”

  “Bait?”

  “Yep! You should probably hide now.”

  There was a ctter from above us, and I looked up just in time to see a shadow flit by ohial rafters. Then it was gone. Pulling out my inhaler, I took a puff tthen me.

  “On sed thought,” I decided, “stay close.”

  There was a soft thud, and a pi rolling across the bowling nes. I spun to look, and just barely glimpsed something as it darted into one of the dark, empty offices.

  “Oh, you want to py hide and seek, huh?” I asked, and began to creep in that dire. Ethan tiptoed behind me.

  We reached the office, and I hurried to press my back against the wall outside the door. Ethan stopped a little ways bad took cover behind the bowling shoe ter. With my left hand I turned on my phone’s fshlight, and shortened Sptsy to one-handed length with my right. Then, taking a deep breath, I spun around and charged inside.

  It was empty.

  “What the…” I shined my light around, and a pit formed in my stomach when I saw that a couple of the ceiling tiles were knocked askew. “Cheesecake and mayonnaise!”

  Thehan screamed.

  I sprinted back out to see the maiam ging to the wall feet, reag one hand down toward Ethan who y terrified on the floor below. This one was thin and tall, its skin ed around its bones with nothing iween them. Arms and legs as long as I was tall ended in cws that let it climb around like a spider.

  eling magito my shoes, I unched myself toward it, swinging Sptsy as I went. The maiam let go just as I flew past, falling to nd on all fours. I hit the ground, my momentum sending me sliding down one of the old bowling nes, and spun. The maiam hissed at me, its long slimy tongue slitheriween its fangs, before hopping onto the ter that Ethan was hiding behind. I charged at it, raising Sptsy. Just as I swung, though, it sprang into the air, did a backflip…

  And then nded on top of me!

  “Gah!” I screamed when I felt its cold, cmmy hands grab my face. “Sweet holy enchidas, get it off, get it off, get it off!”

  I bucked and thrashed, but the maiam g to me like a cowboy at a rodeo. Cursing up a buffet, I ducked my head and ran straight toward a wall.

  “Eat crete!” I yelled.

  The maiam finally leaped off of me — and I realized too te that I couldn’t stop.

  Oh, poopoo pancakes, I thought a split sed before crashing headfirst into the wall. My visio white, and I only vaguely remember falling down. My head inning like a caffeinated ival ride. What had I been doing five seds ago? Did it matter? The only thing I wao do was eat a few of those chocote cabbages the giant bunny was giving away, ding dong, Rumpelstiltskin’s left butt cheek, I’m gonna go to college and bee a hippo.

  “Henry? Henry, help!”

  “Look, Granny,” I mumbled. “I drive a toilet.”

  “Henry! Hen- no, get away! Don’t you touch me! HENRYYYY!”

  I blinked. “I…what’s wrohan?”

  In a fsh, I was lucid again, and I scrambled to my feet just in time to see the maiam escape to the ceiling — with Ethan in its clutches.