Choke: 2 (Pillage Trilogy (Pillogy)) (11 page)

Kate stared at me. “That’s still a bad idea.”

At the back of the cave there was a giant steel door with a thick latch. I pulled the pin from the latch and lifted it. We then rolled the large door to the side. Once it was open, I could instantly see why Whitey had helped me find this place. Of course it kind of bothered me that he hadn’t just said to look for a train track and hike up to a cave.

Behind the door was a massive cavern lit by a couple dozen bare lightbulbs hanging by the walls. This cavern was twice the size of the front one and as large as two indoor football fields put side to side. The ceiling was at least fifty feet high. All around the room there were wooden crates and hundreds of barrels. On one of the edges was a small, round spring filled with crystal clear water. And in the middle of the room, I saw four wooden posts that looked just like the ones that had once been in the conservatory. Next to each post was a short, leafy plant with thick, black leaves.

“This whole mountain’s hollow,” Wyatt said, impressed.

On the far end was a small, wooden door as well as a huge iron cage that fit into a carved-out side of the cave. We walked over to the wooden door and pulled it open. There was nothing but a long, dark tunnel behind it.

We ignored the tunnel for the moment and checked out the humongous cage. The bars were so tall and wide that we could easily slip between them. There was a giant-sized door with a pin in the lock.

We opened a couple of the wooden barrels and found they were filled with some sort of dry, cereal-looking stuff. Wyatt tried one and said they tasted like bark. We also looked into some of the crates. There was rope in one and old clothes in another. One was filled with ornate table lamps and fancy china.

Kate walked over to the four posts sticking out of the center of the massive cavern. Wyatt and I followed her. She touched one of the posts and then knelt down by the plant.

“These plants look different from the last ones,” she said, brushing the leaves.

“How do they even grow in this dark place?” I asked.

“You tell me,” she said. “You’re the one with the freaky plant connection.”

“They’re kinda cool-looking,” Wyatt spoke up. “I’ve never seen a plant with black leaves and white edges.”

Kate stood up and faced me. “So you’re supposed to find the stone and raise the dragon in here?”

“What?” Wyatt asked in surprise. “You still have one of those stones?”

I looked at Wyatt. His wet, dark hair was plastered to his head. The raindrops on his face made it look as though he had been crying.

Nobody besides my father and Kate knew about the single stone that had been produced when Pip had died. Well, that really white guy suspected, but he didn’t know for sure. I had kept the secret from Wyatt because I knew that if it ever got out we’d have people combing the mountains looking for it.

“Do you have another stone?” Wyatt persisted.

“Maybe.”

“That’ll grow a dragon?”

I nodded.

“And you didn’t tell me?” he yelled.

“He told me,” Kate said, making things worse.

“I couldn’t,” I insisted. “It’s too dangerous. You know what those last stones did.”

Wyatt had been the one to help me fight off some of the dragons. I had found him in Kingsplot where the dragons were pillaging. He had been hiding under a bench. Together we had destroyed most of the beasts.

“I know what they did,” Wyatt said, sounding hurt.

“My father made me promise not to tell.”

“You told Kate,” he reminded me.

“He did,” Kate said proudly.

“Would you stop exacerbating the situation?” I asked her, unconsciously using one of my new dictionary words as my voice echoed off the cavern walls. “Who cares when I told you, Wyatt? What matters is that now we have to find that stone and hatch the dragon so I can finish it.”

“What matters is that I get back home,” Kate said. “My parents will be waking up in a couple of hours, and I can’t . . . wait . . . do you hear that?”

“Hear what?” I asked quietly.

“It’s like a whistling, breathing sort of noise,” she said. “Do you hear it?”

“That’s just Wyatt,” I told her. “His nose hums when he breathes.”

“It’s true,” Wyatt admitted. “I’m going to get my adenoids . . .”

“Shhhhhhh,” Kate demanded. “Listen.”

I could hear something now. It sounded a bit like wind being sucked through a straw while the straw was being flapped around wildly.

“It’s coming from that door we opened,” I said nervously while pointing across the massive cavern to the far end.

“We should go,” Wyatt said, definitely scared now.

“We’ve gotta close the door,” I replied.

It was too late, the noise grew louder. Suddenly, huge bursts of what looked like thick, gray dust exploded from the openings. The gray cloud raced across the room, blocking lights and rolling toward us. Wyatt was already running for the front of the cave.

“Go!” I hollered.

“What is it?” Kate screamed back.

“I think they’re . . .” I was going to say bats, I mean, we were in a cave after all, but just then millions of thick, dusty moths swarmed around me, and I changed my guess. I started to yell something else, but some flew into my mouth, flapping their feathery, duster-like wings. There were so many they pushed me to the ground. It was a struggle to get back up.

“It must . . . the lights.” I barely heard Kate screech.

Her words were buried by the vibrating hum of millions of moth wings flapping. It was hard to see anything besides dark dots, but I stumbled in what I believed was the direction of the large metal door. I felt Kate bump up against the side of me, and I grabbed her arm. The moths were clinging to my face in thick patches. I could feel them working down into my shirt and moving up my pant legs. A hot and painful panic filled my body—I honestly never thought I’d die by moth.

I reached the wall and felt around with my free hand as I tried to see through all the moths. I found the door opening.
I could feel, and faintly see, the horde of moths swarming through the huge opening like a dirty river, into the large front cavern where the train was.

Kate fell to the ground, and I jerked her up as we pushed through the thick moths toward the moss wall. I didn’t know where Wyatt was or if he had already made it out. We reached the train and pulled ourselves forward as the moths swirled in great bulky patterns that batted us back and forth. My arms were covered and it felt like I was wearing a bug turban on top of my head. The noise was deafening, and it caused my brain to rattle around in my head.

The opening in the moss wall was much larger now that all the moths were moving out of it. Holding Kate’s hand, I got out of the cave and over to the stairs on the left side of the opening. Instantly the bugs thinned and I could see my arms and the stairs clearly. I looked back and viewed the stream of moths pouring out of the opening and moving into the dark night.

Kate was spitting and frantically whacking at her hair. I pulled my shirt off and started slapping my legs and back with it. I was tempted to take off my pants because there were hundreds of squirming bugs in them, but I was coherent enough to realize that if we survived this, Kate would tease me endlessly for wearing boxers that had dogs on them.

“Where’s Wyatt?” I yelled while digging moths out of my ears.

“He’s still in there,” Kate said, worried. “We have to get him.”

“Did you see all those things?” I wailed.

Kate was already moving back toward the moss opening. The insects were still swarming out of the cave. Thousands of them were as big as mice and millions were as small as Tic-Tacs with wings. Random beams of light shot out like lasers through the moths.

“You’ve got to go in and turn the lights off,” Kate said.

I looked around. “Me?”

“Yeah,” Kate replied. “Then maybe they’ll settle down.”

“But . . .”

“They won’t kill you,” Kate argued.

“Then Wyatt should be fine,” I argued back.

It was rainy and dark, and I couldn’t really see Kate all that clearly, but I knew exactly the kind of look she was giving me.

“All right,” I gave in. I figured since I still had them down my pants and in my hair I might as well do it. I waved my shirt like a helicopter and charged back into the opening. Moths splattered up against me like fat drops of water. One shot right into my mouth. I gagged and spit it out.

I got to the wall and groped around for the switch. The second I found it I threw it down, and the lights went off. The only light now came from the opening in the moss that showed a tiny sliver of the slightly less-dark outside world. The bugs began to head to the dim light and out of the cave.

I knelt down and covered my head. It seemed like forever before most of them were gone. I lifted my hands off of my head and looked around in the dark. I could see dots of them going out, but it seemed there were fewer in the cave.

I stood up. “Wyatt!”

I heard something call from the direction of the train. I held my arms in front of me and felt my way to the train.

“Wyatt!”

“Here!” he yelled back.

I felt for the door and then climbed up the few steps into the train. Moths kept hitting me on the face and arms, but the amount was bearable now.

“Wyatt!”

He shouted back, and I found him down on the floor hiding between two rows of train seats. He was shaking as I helped him up.

“You won’t tell any girls that I hid?” he asked worriedly as I helped him up.

“Probably not,” I answered, as if I actually spoke to any girls ever about anything.

“I just wanted to see the secret room,” he moaned.

“Sorry,” I apologized. “I thought you loved trains.”

“Not anymore.”

I helped Wyatt out of the train, and we left the cave as fast as we could. Kate was almost completely moth free and she helped swat bugs off Wyatt and me.

By the time I got home it was four-thirty in the morning. There was no way I could go straight to bed, so I took a shower and discovered smashed moths in places on my body that no moth should ever go.

After my shower I laid down in bed. My mind was racing a thousand miles an hour as I thought about what we had found and what it all meant. A hidden cave, a rusty old train with tracks that lead right up to the garage—it was all pretty confusing. I wanted my dad to be here so I could find out what he knew. I thought my mind was really buzzing, but I realized it was just a tiny moth in my ear.

“You’ve got to be kidding.” I quickly flicked it out.

I fell asleep to the sound of roosters crowing.

Illustration from page 19 of
The Grim Knot

CHAPTER 10

By the time I woke up, it technically was no longer Sunday morning. It was just after noon, and sunshine was streaming through my window. When I looked out, I couldn’t see a single cloud. Because the weather around the manor was usually overcast and wet, a truly clear day made everything amazing.

Millie chastised me for sleeping in and called me overindulgent. She then fed me the biggest lunch I had ever eaten. My father still hadn’t come back, and Millie was extremely concerned about it.

“He never leaves the manor,” she worried.

“He left a note,” I reminded her. “If he was in trouble, he would have just disappeared.”

Millie put a large slice of coconut cream pie on my plate and then sprinkled it with roasted coconut flakes. When she failed to offer me ice cream with it, I could tell that she was really upset.

“Maybe you should take a vacation,” I said kindly.

Millie stared at me. “Now what would I do with time off? I’d just sit around and worry even more about you and your father.”

“But wouldn’t it be more fun to worry about us if you were on a beach vacationing?”

“I burn easily,” Millie said as if that settled it.

I had wisely made plans to meet Kate and Wyatt near the field filled with boulders at two o’clock. So I still had a little time to myself. I ran back up to my floor and over to the south wing. I went through the small green door and slid open the mirror. The thin stairway was dark, but not as dark as before. I could see little cracks of light at the top of the walls and some slipping in under the bottom of them. I closed the mirror behind me and climbed the stairs.

I made it to the top of the slide and looked down. I could see the actual slide better. It was a highly polished wood, and the ceiling was so low I couldn’t believe I had made it down without severely hurting myself. There were torn cobwebs
everywhere.

“I survived last time,” I told myself as I sat down and pushed off.

The ride was much more enjoyable when I could sort of see. I flew around one of the corners and my right leg twisted throwing me down a different track. I hadn’t seen the fork in the slide the other night, but I could tell from all the intact cobwebs that nobody had been on the stretch I was now zipping down for quite some time. I whizzed around a sharp corner and then down a long dip. My shoulders bashed against the walls and my hands kept hitting the ceiling.

The slide came to an abrupt end in a long, skinny room with high walls. As I slowly stood up, I saw a small piece of wood about eye level hanging on one of the walls. I slid the wood to the side and there were two small peepholes. I looked through them, and I could see into one of the lavish rooms on the bottom floor in the main wing. It was a closed-off room and most of the furniture was covered with white sheets. It was actually one of the more furnished rooms. So many pieces of furniture from the manor had been sold by Millie and Thomas to pay for taxes when they thought they were in charge of the bills. Once my father explained to them that there was money in places they didn’t know about, the selling of furniture had ceased.