The Beasts Of Valhalla

flying things that flapped all around him. He was very close to the mouth of a small cave, and could make it there if he wasn't blinded or knocked off the steps.

Garth was huddled on the floor, trembling, his arms wrapped around his body. 'Mongo, I'm sorry,' he said in a voice that quavered with fear. 'I… can't seem to…'

'It's all right!' I shouted as I picked up a piece of sculpture and hurled it at the shield. 'You're doing fine! Just hang on!'

The sculpture bounced off the shield. I picked up the piano stool by two legs, spun around a couple of times and hurled that; it bounced back and almost took my head off.

Shhh.

Holding Whisper above my head with both hands, I charged forward, stabbed at the Plexiglas; Whisper's point penetrated the shield, and her blade slid down as easily as if I'd been slicing cheese. I cut out a window, which blew back over my head as the superheated air inside Mount Doom immediately rushed toward the cooler air and lower pressure of the Treasure Room. Instantly, my nostrils were filled with the odor of death and heat.

'South!' I screamed at Lippitt through the opening, holding on to the edges of the window with both hands to keep from being blown backward. 'Head south!'

He couldn't hear me, of course, but I'd created enough of a commotion to distract the flappers-which were now riding the rushing air currents directly toward the window.

'South!' I screamed again, accentuating the movement of my mouth in the hope that he could read my lips. 'South! South!'

Then I ducked as one of the flying things, lidless eyes wide and toothed jaws agape, crashed through the opening-and into the face of Siegfried Loge, who had struggled to his feet and was coming up behind me. He screamed, reeled around, and clawed at the thing that was clawing at his face.

'Mongo, fire!' Garth shouted. He had risen to his feet and was holding his head with both hands. 'Fire! It's coming up! I can smell it! We have to get out of here!'

Cutting out the window had instantly transformed the Treasure Room, the open corridor and the ranch house beyond into a kind of superchimney. There was about to be one dandy of a chimney fire, and it did seem a good idea to absent ourselves; the problem was that I could hear a lot of running footsteps in the corridor.

'The elevator!' I shouted, ducking and running toward Garth as a blast of flame, smoke, and a roasted flapper shot over my head. 'Hit the elevator button!'

Although he was still shaking with terror, Garth managed to press the button next to the elevator. The door opened with gratifying quickness; I grabbed Garth's shirt with both hands, dragged him in after me, punched the single button inside. The door sighed shut on a Treasure Room rapidly filling with flame, smoke, poison gas, blown- in dead flappers, and screaming Warriors.

Now that I'd transformed the neighborhood into a fairly serious inferno, it remained to be seen whether the elevator, which had to pass through that neighborhood, was going to work. Nothing was happening; there was only the one button, and on our previous trip I'd noticed that the door opened when the button was pressed a second time. That didn't seem like a good idea.

In frustration, I kicked a wall. The elevator jerked up a few feet, stopped. I kicked the wall again. Twice. Once again the elevator jerked upward-but this time it kept going, through a kaleidoscope of stone and fire, all the way to the top. I pushed the button to open the door. Nothing happened. I kicked the wall; nothing happened.

Shhh.

I jammed Whisper between the edge of the door and the jamb, jimmied her back and forth. The door opened and we stepped out into the animal laboratory, where the glass cages had already been restocked. We started toward the entrance at the far end, came to an abrupt halt when the door opened and Obie Loge and Golly came in.

Obie Loge wasn't going to fool with any tranquilizer guns; he saw us, drew his machine pistol from his holster, aimed and fired off a burst as Garth and I dove behind one of the steel columns that supported the glass enclosures.

Another burst. Bullets ricocheted crazily back and forth between the steel columns, but somehow managed to miss Garth and me. Glass shattered, and suddenly the cool air was filled with terrible smells and terrible screams; fluids sprayed over us, tormented creatures flopped to the floor all around, quivered, crawled, rolled.

Garth wrapped his handkerchief around his hand, picked up a long, jagged shard of glass, looked at me and made a circling motion with his hand; there was still fear in his face, but it was tempered now with determination, dampened by my brother's incredible courage. I nodded to him, then darted across open space to the next row of cages, crouched, and waited as more bullets ricocheted around.

The understanding between Garth and me was unspoken, but clear; whoever got the first shot at the kid and the gorilla would go for them, sacrificing his life if need be. One of us had to survive and escape Ramdor.

Project Valhalla had to be stopped.

Suddenly the firing stopped. There was the sound of something metallic falling to the floor, then another scream-this one human.

A few seconds later Golly came strolling down between the rows with a screaming, struggling Obie Loge draped over her shoulder. Garth and I straightened up, glanced at each other, then watched Golly open the waste chute and casually dump Obie Loge down it. His screams were abruptly cut off as the cover slammed shut.

If there is such a thing as a gorilla grin, that's what Golly was wearing.

GOLLY WASTE FUCKING OBIE

Yes, indeedy. And suddenly I knew how I was going to get to Mr. Lippitt, who, if he had made it into a cave in time to escape the holocaust in the chasm, could probably use a little help, as well as provide some very helpful information.

'You are the most beautiful gorilla in the whole world,' I said as I went up to Golly, wrapped my arms around her neck and planted a very wet kiss on her wrinkled brow. Then I turned to Garth. 'Go back to the van and wait for me. I'll see you later.'

Garth smiled tentatively. 'You will, huh? Where the hell are you going?'

'Garth, I will see you,' I said as I closed my eyes, took off my glasses and put them in their case in a pocket in my overalls. I reached out, found the handle on the waste chute cover. 'You just get your ass out of here and back to the van. Don't worry; I know what I'm doing.'

'Mongo, no!!'

'Don't worry,' I repeated as I pulled open the cover and executed a rather neat little hop and roll into the waste chute. 'Ciao.'

It was a fast track down, made even faster by slicks on the metal left by decomposing or devolving animals. I landed hard on the pile of bones, scattering them, and immediately started slashing with Whisper. But Whisper wasn't needed, at least not at the moment. The little critters who fed at the bottom of the waste chute were occupied elsewhere; there were indeed a lot of crunching and munching sounds down there, and they were all coming from a writhing mound of black hair, teeth and tentacles to my right, at the base of the bone pile. If he hadn't been at the bottom of the mound, Obie Loge probably would have immensely enjoyed the spectacle.

I rolled to my left, just in time to avoid being squashed by Garth as he came crashing into the pile of bones.

'Mongo!' he cried, groping in the darkness until he found me, then squeezing my arms so hard I thought they'd break. 'Are you all right? I can't see a damn thing!'

'I'm all right, I can see, and what the fuck are you doing here? — not necessarily in that order.'

He didn't have time to answer as the next tourist landed and bowled us both over. I just managed to grab her hand and pull her back as she started to slide down toward the writhing mound-which was now starting to move in our direction.

GOLLY FUCKING HELP

'Let's get out of here,' I said, grabbing Garth's hand and sliding down the pile of bones.

Golly, who could apparently also see by the faint, cold, chemical luminescence given off by fungus growing on the walls of the burnt-out mine tunnel, followed. Keeping a tight grip on Garth's hand, I ran down the tunnel, turned into the first one branching to the right. Golly loped up beside me, and I slowed to a fast walk.

'How's the head?' I asked Garth.

'I'm scared out of my fucking mind, Mongo, and it's a good thing for you I am. If I weren't, I'd probably break