Radley's Labyrinth for Horny Monsters, Annabelle Hawthorne [smart ebook reader TXT] 📗

hygiene. The other kids had called him Piranha Pete because he had bitten so many kids in elementary school, and the name had stuck. Pete had tormented Mike relentlessly for being the new kid.

Somehow, Pete had found out that Mike’s mom was a drunk and had started ragging on Mike about it. His bouncing from home to home had been common knowledge, and on the day Pete had suggested that Mike shared a bed with his mom, Mike had swung his backpack and smashed Pete in the mouth, turning his face into a bloody mess. Mike had run and hidden in this exact spot for nearly an hour until a teacher had heard Pete swearing in the halls and had kicked the bully out.

Ratu stepped out of their hiding place, and Mike followed her. They were in the hallway now, and all was quiet. She turned to look at him.

“What’s a piranha—”

Mike put his hand over her mouth and pulled her back to their hiding spot, a cold feeling forming in his gut. The world seemed to drop out from beneath him, the warning was so strong. It took a few seconds before he heard it, the solid clunk of something like a table leg smacking the ground repeatedly. It slowly grew closer, but Mike had the strange feeling that if they ran, they were dead.

Ratu’s eyes went wide in terror when the smell of stale tobacco washed over them. She dug her fingers into Mike’s arm, tears forming in the corners of her eyes. Through the gap beneath the trash can, Mike saw a large figure pass by. The clunking was the sound of a peg leg made of iron, and the figure blocked most of the light in the hall. It was grumbling something in a language he didn’t recognize.

The figure kept moving, and Mike heard it climbing up the stairs, one step at a time. He wondered how many steps there were, counting to himself as the sound diminished. Up above, they could hear it walking slowly down the eighth-grade hall.

“What the fuck is that?” Mike whispered, taking his hand off her mouth.

“Baba Yaga,” she replied. “It all makes sense now. Why we’re children, the white clothes, everything.”

“Give me the short version.”

“She eats the souls of children. Like a sacrifice, sort of.”

“Wait, I thought you said she was the one who sealed the artifact away? Doesn’t that make her good?”

“That’s just it. She used to be. She’s very, very old. Folklore about her is conflicting. There are stories of people she helped and then stuff like this. But mostly this.”

“But why?”

“The artifact is dangerous. It affects all beings on this side of Creation differently. I can only assume that Baba Yaga was affected.”

“But I thought she sealed it away only a few decades ago?”

“It’s an artifact from a place where time and space have no meaning, remember?” Ratu shook her head. “Poor Baba Yaga.”

“That doesn’t explain why we’re here. Or why she wants to eat us.”

“My best guess is that her intent is to prevent someone from using the artifact. She laid a trap for anyone who opened the box, and we were the lucky ones.” She bit her lower lip, putting her head against Mike’s shoulder. “We need to get out of this place and back to the real world.”

“How fast can she run with that leg?”

“Not very. I’m guessing she didn’t expect us to hide.”

“The shadow children?”

“Meant to capture us.”

“Lockers?”

“Alarms.”

“Middle school?”

“To terrify you. It all makes sense now, the components of the spell. She eats children, so she needed to put you in the scariest place you had ever been.”

“Then she should have put me somewhere with my mother. We wouldn’t have stood a chance.” Mike gave the can a push, moving it just far enough that they could stand. “I’m guessing once we start moving, the lockers will sound the alarm and she will come limping. If we can get to the front of the building, we should be able to get away.”

“Let me stretch first.” Ratu hopped up and down on her tiptoes. “I’ve never felt so many kinks in my body before. I don’t like being stuck this way.”

“For what it’s worth, you were a cute kid.” Mike patted her head. “I totally would have asked you to the sock hop.”

“What the fuck is a sock hop?”

Mike didn’t answer, peeking down the hallway. In the distance, he could hear Baba Yaga’s metal leg clunking away. Shaking his hands, he pushed the can farther out, letting both of them free. “If we can avoid being spotted, the lockers shouldn’t go off.”

“How do you suggest we do that?”

Mike smiled. “You should know.” He wiggled his hand back and forth, making a wave.

“Serpentine movement.” Ratu grinned. Gazing down the hall, she nodded. “The doors are staggered. Due to the position of the lockers, they can’t see each other, which means we can cross at the blind spots.”

“And by moving against the wall, we will go under the windows, so they shouldn’t see us.” Up above, they heard the clattering of buckets, followed by loud swearing. “We need to get going.”

They took turns, one of them keeping watch while the other crawled up against the door. Mike discovered that he could just see the edge of the glass from a certain spot in the middle of the hall. When the shadows were watching, they blotted out the light, making it easy for them to be avoided. Keeping a close eye on the clock, he noticed that time wasn’t consistent. The minute hand would often move three times as fast, then suddenly stop in place. Sliding beneath one of the last doors, Mike gritted his teeth, the clock at the end of the hall showing there were only a couple of minutes left.

Mike met Ratu at the end of the hall, and once they entered the lobby, they broke into a run, the double doors leading outside in view. They hit the first set of doors hard,