Chimera Book One

Chapter Fourteen

They landed on an enormous rubbish heap, their fall broken by large chunks of yellow foam and slashed sofa cushions.  The rubbish heap was contained inside a cavernous chamber, its buttressed walls running wet with rainbow-slicks of oil.  The chamber was illuminated by the flicker of fluorescent tubes that dangled from the walls on lengths of electrical wire.  To his disgust, Kyp saw the walls were crawling with ankle-snatchers. More of them scuttled amongst the rubbish heap, their fingers worming through the refuse. 

A terrible noise came echoing out of large tunnels in the base of the chamber wall, a cacophony of whining metal, breaking glass and splintering wood.  The noise was followed by eruptions of sparks. The sparks were followed by screams, and then everything was silent.

‘This terrible place!’ cried Jamie. ‘I wish we’d never run away! It was Joe’s idea. I don’t know why I listen to him.  He thinks he’s so great because he’s seven minutes older. Seven minutes, like, big deal.  He’s always getting me into trouble, getting me to do stupid things, like when he told me cat food was delicious in a sandwich.’

Kyp looked at Jamie.  He touched him on the shoulder. ‘You will see him again, I promise.’

‘Not now,’ despaired Jamie. ‘Look at us! We’re –.’ He stared at the walls.  ‘Who knows where we are!’

‘We’ll figure something out.’

Jamie glared at him. ‘This isn’t how it was supposed to turn out.  None of this.’

A new noise assailed their ears, the piercing wail of sirens. The chamber lit up with an array of revolving lights, as out of the tunnels appeared dinosaur-like creatures with yellow skin, and massive jaws supported on long necks.  Their eyes were as large and bright as headlamps and instead of legs, they propelled themselves forwards on one black, rubbery-foot.  The yellow monsters began to scale the rubbish heap, taking great scoops of debris into their mouths.  The heap quaked violently.

‘We have to get out of here,’ said Kyp. ‘Through the tunnels – quickly.’

‘Don’t!’ said a voice. ‘You mustn’t.’

The two boys turned to see a figure drag itself out of the rubbish heap, a hooded apparition of oily rags. ‘If you enter the tunnels you’ll be killed,’ it said.

One of the dinosaur creatures had already made it as far as the summit of the rubbish heap. Its eyes burned brightly, an avalanche of junk falling from its jaws.

‘Too late,’ the figure said. ‘It’s seen you.’

With a roar, the monster dragged itself towards them.

The figure stepped to one side to reveal the shaft from which it had emerged.

‘Down there?’ said Kyp.  He gave a sigh. ‘Why is it always down?’

The yellow monster was nearly upon them.

The hooded figure disappeared back into the hole.  The monster roared again.  The two boys looked at each other and then down they went too, half-falling, half-sliding into the rubbish heap.  They slithered between slabs of age-old junk and spiralled down drainpipes until, with a rather soggy plopping sound, they slid headfirst into a large cave.

Kyp yanked Jamie back to his feet, away from their mysterious rescuer, who sloughed its rags to reveal a battered suit of armour.

‘Shovelisks are nasty brutes,’ it said, ‘but an insignificant nemesis compared with the maiden-eater, Firemingus, the black-bellied dragon of Erith-on-Swill.’

The suit of armour walked towards them extending its left arm in greeting.  Its right arm was missing.

‘Sir Regulus Ferric, at your service.  Apologies if my appearance alarmed you.  Such camouflage is necessary if one is to avoid unwanted attention in the Plummet Pit.’

Kyp tried not to stare too obviously at the cavity below the suit of armour’s right shoulder.

‘An old war wound,’ explained Sir Regulus. ‘Now, please, you must come with me.’

Jamie crossed his arms. ‘I’m not going anywhere.  We need to go back. Madame Chartreuse has my brother.  What about the tunnels we saw?’

Sir Regulus shook his head.  ‘Beyond them lies the Oddznbodz Abattoir.’

‘We heard screams,’ said Kyp.

‘The sound of inmates being dismantled alive.’

'But can we get out that way?’ asked Jamie.  ‘Can we get out?’

‘Nothing gets out.  Nothing survives that place. You have to come with me now.  Deep beneath the rubbish heap there’s a colony that evaded the shovelisks and the horrors of the Abattoir.  As their numbers have grown they’ve built a city.  It will be your home now too.’

‘I’m not going to live in some underground city for the rest of my life,’ protested Jamie.  ‘My brother, he’s in danger.  We can’t stay here.  Kyp, we can’t.’

‘I quite agree,’ a new voice said, as out of the shadows trotted a white horse, the sort on which Kyp had ridden countless times on the carousel at the Thrill-A-Minute fairground.  Once beautiful, the stallion’s flanks were peeling and discoloured, its golden mane grubby with grease.

‘Dirty they may be, Regulus, but I can see well enough they still possess their Elsewhere Light,’ it continued. ‘An Elsewhere Light, here!  We have rules, and you know their reason.  You better than most.’ 

‘Had I not intervened the shovelisks would have delivered them to the dismantlers.’

‘I thought I made it clear after your rescue of that impudent troublemaker, Fusby.  You are not to go up to the Plummet Pit, Regulus.  You’re a Jetsamelite now.  You cannot make amends for your past. Your heroic days are over.   Now leave us.  Reacquaint yourself with the Jetsamelite Code, and stay away from Fusby.  I don’t trust him.  I trust the two of you together still less.’

Sir Regulus left without argument.

To the two boys, the carousel stallion said, ‘You’re not welcome here. Go, and do so quickly.’

‘Go where exactly?’ asked Jamie.

‘I don’t care.  Just leave before you’re seen.’

‘Too late,’ said Kyp.

The cave was filled with movement.  Hat stands that moved like stick insects dropped down from above to investigate the two boys with inquisitive prods. A grubby armchair-ape shuffled forwards to sniff them. A plump, pink soffalo with tiny pointed feet blinked at them from beneath tassel-like eyelashes.  Knitted glove squids shimmied above their heads, propelling their colourful bodies through the air in fits and starts.  Comb centipedes scuttled between their feet.           

Kyp looked down to see a small knitted clown holding his hand.

‘Give it to me!’ the clown implored, tugging Kyp’s fingers. ‘Just a little piece, that’s all.  The Widows will do the rest.’

A yellow glove squid grabbed Kyp’s other hand, its short stubby tentacles enveloping his fingers.

‘Don’t be selfish,’ it squealed. ‘Give it to me! Give it to me!’

‘I asked first!’ snarled the clown. ‘It’s mine.  Mine!’

The carousel stallion reared up on his hind legs, scattering the crush of creatures to the edge of the cave. 

‘Silence!  You have forgotten yourselves!’

‘Then tell them to leave,’ demanded the clown.  ‘Their presence here mocks the Jetsamelite Decree!’

The crowd jeered in agreement and Kyp began to fear the metamorphs would attack. 

Suddenly, the whole cavern shook.  The ceiling slumped. Squirts of smelly water gouted from the walls.

‘Heap-quake!’ cried the metamorphs.

‘The shovelisks have returned to the Plummet Pit,’ said the carousel stallion. ‘To the safety of Flotsam Potshole.  Quickly!’