Page 20 of Hell's Fear

“This seems related,” I mused, gazing at the holey boxes.

“Don’t tell me…” Alice murmured.

“Yeah, someone’s got to put their hand in and find something,” I finished.

“Ah fuck no!” Booth exclaimed and shoved his hands behind his back.

Nando quirked an eyebrow.

“I’m out!” Alice and I said together.

Razor took a deep breath. “If we encounter clowns later on, I’m going to be useless, so I’ll take one for the team.”

He stuck his hand in and winced. “Think this is jello!” After a few seconds, he pulled out a coin covered in jello. Razor pulled out nine more from the other boxes, and Tiny washed them in the bowl next to the ticket booth.

“Put them in the popcorn machine,” Nando said, and Tiny did so. With a swirling noise, the hand vanished, and the key dropped into the slot.

Razor hurriedly washed off gravy, jello, baked beans, custard, and all the rest of the gunk the boxes had been filled with. While he did, we warily opened the door and stepped into the next room.

“Oh, fuck no!” Blaze squeaked and tried to go back. We were on a platform in a long corridor covered in newspapers. There was a thin walkway in the middle, and both sides of it were filled with a luminous green, gooey substance. From the ceiling hung swinging axes. I guess we had to make our way across without falling in.

“Nope!” Razor snapped. “My sense of balance is shocking.”

Alice shoved forward and took a deep breath. “Someone has to go first, right?”

We watched as Alice looked at the axes, all going different speeds and stepped out. She got past the initial three just fine, but the fourth nearly knocked her off.

I squealed and closed my eyes, imaging Alice falling in, but she called out she was okay.

Alice got halfway across when the floor shook, and she staggered on the narrow pathway and began tipping. In desperation, Alice reached out and grabbed hold of an axe handle that dragged her in the other direction. As she fell backwards, Alice shoved up and wrapped herself around the axe handle.

My head comically swung back and forth in time with Alice.

“Diesel!” Alice wailed, and he didn’t hesitate. He moved out and made his way to Alice. The problem was the axe was going too fast for him to rescue her. I knew exactly where this was heading. As Alice lowered her legs to put her feet on the floor, Diesel reached up, and she dropped into his arms. Because the gap was so tiny, Diesel shifted and got knocked into the goo.

“Oops!” Alice giggled as she gazed at her glowing husband.

“The shit I do for you!” Diesel growled. Alice quickly scooted her way to the end as Diesel tried to move through the sludge. Suddenly, without warning, a wave appeared from under our feet and sent Diesel flying down to where Alice stood with wide eyes.

“Tell me that didn’t cover the path,” Nando groaned as Diesel hauled himself out.

“That just got ten times harder for everyone else,” Booth agreed.

They weren’t wrong. Plus, the axes had also sped up. Blaze, Nando, Booth, and I all safely made it across. In my case, I slid at the very end, but the guys pulled me to safety.

That left Razor and Tiny. We’d noticed that each time one of us got safe, the axes swung faster again. They were now swinging rapidly.

“We’ll do this together,” Tiny said. Razor nodded, stepped out, and instantly slipped. His arms windmilled, and he was going down when Tiny hooked his collar and yanked him backwards.

“Yeah, this isn’t a good idea,” Razor muttered.

“How about jumping from axe to axe?” Tiny suggested, and Razor nodded. He waited until an axe appeared and leapt onto it. He wriggled around to face the next, and as it approached, he reached out and jumped onto that. Seeing his plan working, Tiny copied Razor’s actions. They were fine until halfway across the floor shook, and the axes stopped moving.

Razor gingerly put his feet on the path and stepped over the one in his way. He made it two more blades before Tiny also climbed down. And that was their mistake. Once Tiny was down, the axes started swinging again, and both men were sent flying.

Tiny let out a shout as Razor yelped.

Tiny stood up, and my jaw dropped open.

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