reached a wide alleyway and kept running. The smash of shattered buildings thundered from behind as the monster forced its way after them, destroying everything in its path.
“We’re almost there!” Sofia answered.
They rounded the next corner to see Sally running straight toward them, covered in dirt, his face lit up with fear. “Dadgum world’s endin’!” he screamed. Then his eyes rose up to look over them, his mouth falling open. “How’d it get so big!”
Sofia grabbed Sally by the arm as she ran past. “Just come on!”
He stumbled until he got his feet set and joined the escape.
Tick saw it before Sofia pointed. A crooked sign indicating The Sordid Swine, swinging on a single pathetic chain. The clanging sounds of pursuit were getting closer and closer.
Paul passed Sofia, ripping the wooden door of the shop open. All four of them stumbled across the threshold and into The Sordid Swine without so much as a peek behind them, afraid that looking would somehow allow the metal monster to gain ground. Sally was last, slamming the door shut, leaving them in almost complete darkness. A shaft of pale light from a small window gave the musty room a haunted glow. The place was empty except for a crooked wooden chair in the corner.
“What now?” Sofia whispered.
Before anyone could answer, something smashed into the wall from the other side, shaking the room and sending a cascade of debris rattling down the brick walls. The group instinctively ran across the room to get as far away from the door as possible, pressing their backs against the brick wall. The giant metaspide slammed into the wall again, then again; a hinge broke, rattling to the floor. Light seeped through the broken door.
“What are we supposed to do now!” Sofia yelled.
Another crash rattled the door-half of it broke apart and tumbled to the ground. The spider was too big to fit through the hole, but a nasty-looking piece of steel came shooting in, sharp as a blade on one edge, swiping around like a cat trying to get a mouse out of its hole. It was nowhere close to them.
Yet.
“Tick,” Paul said, “sure’d be nice for you to use those nifty superhuman winking powers right about now.”
“Would you shut up-I don’t know how I did that!” Tick yelled back, sick of everyone expecting him to be the stinkin’ Wizard of Oz. He wished he hadn’t said it as soon as it came out.
“Whoa,” Paul said, looking hurt. “Sorry, dude.”
“Guess we were wrong about the anagram thing,” Sofia said.
“No, we weren’t,” Tick said, pushing aside his regret at yelling at Paul. “There has to be something. Think. ”
The huge metaspide slammed into the door again, making the hole bigger. Several bricks clattered across the ground. Its blade-arm swiped a little closer, only a few feet away.
“You chirrun better get me on out dis here mess,” Sally said. “Ain’t too particular ’bout how ya’ll do it, neither.” He grimaced as the metal arm swung close enough to stir his hair as it passed.
“The only thing in here is that stupid chair,” Paul said. The rickety thing sat in the corner, looking like a sad punishment place for a naughty child.
“Well,” Tick said, “then maybe we’re supposed to do something with it.” He felt defensive, like his inability to recreate the winking trick he’d pulled off in the Thirteenth Reality made him responsible to figure out another solution.
“What can we do with a chair? ” Paul retorted.
“I don’t know!” Tick snapped back. The room shook again with another ram from the spider; an alarming chunk of the entrance crumbled to the ground, the hole getting wider. A second metal arm squeezed through, two rough blades attached at the end, snapping together like alligator jaws.
“Boys!” Sofia said. Tick was shocked to see her smiling. “You’re so busy thinking, you forgot to use your brains.”
With a smirk, she darted over to the corner, ignoring the steel blade of death that sliced through the air a few inches from her shoulder. Then she sat down on the chair.
The second her bottom touched the warped wood of the seat, she disappeared.
Chapter 14
Tick felt like an idiot. Sofia was right; sometimes they thought too much.
He grabbed Paul by the shoulders and pushed him toward the chair, following right behind. “Hurry!” A blade whipped past his left shoulder, slicing his shirt.
Paul reached back and shoved Tick against the bricks. “Careful, dude. Inch along the wall.”
Sally stood next to the chair, looking confused as he glanced back and forth between the chair and Tick. Paul and Tick scooted along the wall until they reached the corner.
“Sit down, Sally!” Paul yelled. “Don’t worry, it’ll take you somewhere safe.”
Sally didn’t reply but leaned toward Tick’s ear until Tick could feel Sally’s beard scratching his cheek.
“What are you doing?” Tick asked, feeling uncomfortable. “You need to tell me something?”
“Just lookin’ at yer dadgum ear, boy.”
Before Tick could stop him, Sally reached up and rammed his pinky finger into Tick’s ear canal. Tick stumbled backward into Paul’s arms, a sharp pain exploding inside his head like an eardrum had just ruptured. The pain went away as soon as it had come, and Paul helped him back to his feet.
“What’d you do that for?” Tick yelled at Sally, glaring at the man who’d seemed completely harmless until that very moment.
“Weep to yer mama, boy, not me.”
Sally sat down on the chair, not bothering to hide the grin on his face. He shrugged his shoulders as if to say, Sorry, can’t help myself, and disappeared.
“What in the world was that all about?” Paul asked.
“No idea,” Tick replied. “But we’ve gotta get out of here.”
“You first,” Paul said.
Tick wanted to argue, act brave, be the last one out. Then he realized that’d be the stupidest thing in the world and hurried to sit on the chair. Every second they wasted meant the spider was that much closer.
He had just enough time to see the entire front of the building collapse in a swirl of dust and flashes of metal before everything around him turned bright.
Sofia stood on a slippery slope of rust-colored sand, squinting in the brilliant sunlight at the small, iron chair that stood rigid on top of the dune as if held in place by magic. She’d stood up and gotten away from it the second she’d winked there, not wanting someone else to come through and squish her.
Tick showed up a minute later, an instantaneous appearance that shocked her even though she’d been expecting it. There was no effect-no smoke, no sound. One moment the chair was empty. The next, it wasn’t. Tick’s face looked like he’d just bungee-jumped off the world’s tallest bridge.
“What took you so long? Hurry. Get up,” Sofia said, slipping in the sand as she stepped forward to help him, sliding down the steep dune. The hot sand seemed to find its way through every teeny hole of her clothes and scratch at her skin.
Tick didn’t answer, but stood up and was making his way down the loose sand to Sofia when Paul appeared, a small cut on his right cheek.
“Dang thing got me,” he said, wiping the blood away with his fingers. “Couple more seconds and I’d be…”
He trailed off, looking around him with huge eyes.
With her friends safe, Sofia finally had a chance to take a good look at their surroundings as well.
