Alex Reynard
The Library
Alex Reynard's Online Books
Part Six
For the rest of the journey, they stuck to small talk. Piffle asked how things had changed in the land of the living since her departure from it. Toby was glad for the subject switch. He rattled off all the technological advances that came to mind, and ended up being stunned at just how many she'd never heard of. He'd mention one innovation, then have to explain three or four others to help Piffle grasp the concept. She was slack-jawed with wonder the whole time. Toby began to realize that she'd been stuck in Phobiopolis for a very, very long time.
On the other hand, Toby showed the same expression of amazed disbelief just as often. Sometimes when he tried to ease Piffle into an idea, she'd laugh and say she knew perfectly well what that was, since Phobiopolans had their own version. Toby was dumbstruck that a world like this could have its own technology. Some of it sounded indistinguishable from magic.
Soon enough they turned a corner on the path and the village of Stoma came into view. Toby was immediately reminded of pictures he'd seen of old trading post towns from pioneer days.
Stoma was a rather miserable-looking place surrounded by tall pines. The town's name was painted in tar across a stretched animal skin held up by poles. Toby saw houses, small shops, plus a few pillbug-shaped storage barns. The buildings sagged as if huddled close in fear. Colors were dulled and depressing. Brown, grey, more brown, more grey. All the houses were up on stilts. Toby had sometimes seen similar construction at the beach. This area didn't seem like it was at risk of flooding though, but there might be other reasons for the elevation. Stampedes of flesh-eating slugs, maybe?
Toby noticed a long, long pole at the town's edge and startled when he saw what was chained to the top of it. A birdcage contained a huge, moving eyeball. There were more of them too. The poles were spaced around the town, one every thirty feet. The eyes all slowly rotated as he and Piffle approached. 'It has to be their security system.'
As they drew closer, Toby asked, "Those eyes... they watch out for monsters coming from the woods, don't they?"
"Yup. Good deduction."
"They're, um... not going to think you're one, are they?"
Piffle laughed a bit more than he expected at that. "You'll see," she replied.
And a moment later he did. As they approached an open-air market, Toby realized that Piffle fit right in here.
At least half the people he saw seemed mutated somehow. Here was a man with ears where his eyes should have been. Here was another fella with fish fins instead of arms. Someone whose skin had been replaced by silver pebbles. Someone with an enormously long nose and two spindly arms extending from the nostrils, the tiny hands sorting produce into a shopping basket. The only thing keeping them from being terrifying was that they all looked so bored and downtrodden.
Toby tried not to stare. Though he couldn't keep from wondering what had caused such grim deformities. Was it just being in this place? Piffle had implied something like that. He began to wonder what kind of an effect Phobiopolis might have on him after a while. He vowed to keep his normal shape for as long as possible.
No one seemed to care much about Toby and Piffle, which was good, because he didn't think he could manage a normal conversation with any of these misshappen citzens. Stoma's people went about their business with a minimum of talk. They were dressed in simple clothing from no definite time period, but all in sullen colors and most with alterations to accommodate unusual features.
The strangest thing of all though was that there were so few adults. Toby and Piffle were eye-level with most of the town.
"Why are there so many children?" he whispered.
"It's just something that happens when you come here," the hamsterfly said. "Everyone starts out little. The best guess going around is that kids are more susceptible to nightmares. Kids feel types of fear that grownups forget. And whatever Phobiopolis is made of, it wants us to feel that type of fear. So it makes us small. Anyone you see here who's an adult, it means they've actually been here long enough to grow up again."
That was a chilling thought. Toby suddenly remembered the Mushroom Woman, who looked so old and withered. He felt a pang of deep sympathy for her.
"Not always though," Piffle added. "In Phobiopolis, you only get older if you actually want to. So however someone looks, that only means that they're at least that age."
"Bizarre..."
The pair passed without notice along Stoma's main street. Soon they were close enough to the market to see the wares on display, and finally some color made itself apparent. Toby saw plenty of normal-looking fruits, vegetables, nuts, berries, sweets and meats. There were odder wares too. Dice that seemed to be walnuts. Tangerines that struggled. Someone was selling a huge amount of what looked and smelled like dryer lint. Another furson had jars and jars of fingernails. Another was selling edible Halloween masks.
"What's safe to eat here?" Toby asked, cringing away from a plate of hairy carrots.
"Oh, we're not gonna eat raw stuff. Though we can scoot back here later if anything catches your fancy. I just wanted a quick peek. See what's new since the last time I dropped in, y'know? For now, I thought we'd sit down in a restaurant and relax and have something hot served to us."
Toby's eyes lit up. "That sounds wonderful! I wouldn't have thought that'd be available. This place looks kinda medieval."
She chuckled. "Ancient stuff and modern stuff clash all the time in Phobiopolis. Sometimes you're not even sure if you're indoors or out. Which reminds me, didn't you say you wanted a shower first?"
Vigorous nodding.
Piffle steered them away from the market towards Stoma's main street. Somewhere in the west, the sky had turned orange from sunset. Shadows clung like ivy. Toby noticed how most of the townspeople kept their heads down and walked in stiff silence from Point A to B. 'They could have named this place Cold Shoulder,' he thought. He supposed that living so close to a forest full of arachnopuses and wolfmonsters and big red rustbeasts would leave anyone on edge after a while.
Every house in town leaned. Nothing was more than two stories. Everywhere Toby looked, he saw drab-colored buildings on wooden legs. Some of them were incomplete: missing roofs and walls. He saw a woman walk right up the stairs of her house, through the missing front wall, and sit down in an armchair.
He also noticed that, aside from the name-skin where they'd entered, none of the signs around town had any writing. Just pictographs. Toby wondered if these people were too rural to be literate, or if people from all over the world passed through, so a single language would be insufficient. 'Maybe a bit of both.'
What Piffle had said about Phobiopolis attracting anachronisms turned out to be perfectly true as well. Despite the town itself looking like a peasant village from a fantasy story, there were out-of-place objects everywhere. A payphone. A lawnmower. Someone was sitting on the corner looking down at their laptop. Toby's mind boggled a bit, trying to figure out how a realm like this could have internet. Then again, if this was a land made of dreams, then anything imaginable was to be considered possible.
As if to prove that hypothesis, Toby walked by a bush made of arms. A few of the hands grasped weakly at him as he passed. He tried not to squeal as he jumped away. He wondered if the creepy thing had a purpose or if it had just grown there like that.
"There's the showers, Toby," Piffle pointed out.
"What? Where?" He was dragged out of his thoughts and looked to where she was pointing. He blanched. He'd expected they'd have to find a hotel or something first. But no, right there on the street-corner was a cluster of showerheads raining down warm water. "Um... We can't... People will see us!"
Piffle was already slipping her blouse over her head. "Don't have a fit! Everyone'll look away. It's what's polite." She shucked her skirt and bloomers (Toby blushed and turned 180 degrees) and hung them in a convenient basket. "Almost nobody showers the normal way here. That's because you're helpless and blind in an enclosed space. A perfect time for bad stuff to leap out and pounce ya. Much safer to just do your rub-a-dub-dubbin' in the open air." She stepped under the spray and cooed in pleasure at its warmth.
Toby stood there in the street, fidgeting in hesitation.
"You can leave your pajamas on!" Piffle called out. "No one'll think that's weird!"
That was a definite relief. Toby walked towards the showers, keeping his head turned away from Piffle's direction to preserve her modesty. Though she wasn't showing any shame. She was humming happily to herself as she squeezed liquid soap from buds on a vine that entwined the shower's pipe.
Toby put a paw out. The water seemed okay. He wasn't happy about walking around in wet pajamas afterwards, but the alternative was not even worth considering. Plus, the pajamas needed a wash too.
He stepped under the water. Immediately, a huge fraction of his tension dissolved.
This was bliss. Toby didn't even think about getting clean for the first few minutes. He simply luxuriated in finally feeling something overwhelmingly pleasant. The water was exactly the right temperature and the spray had a nice massaging pressure to it.
Eventually he felt around for the plant-thingies he'd seen Piffle use. He found a bud and squoze. It felt uncomfortably like a huge zit emptying into his palm, but the effluvium certainly smelled like normal soap. And Piffle was rubbing it all over herself without a care. So, when in Rome...
The soap tingled nicely when he applied it to his fur. Toby sighed in much-needed relief and started losing himself in invigorating cleanliness.
***
Piffle had long since gotten re-dressed and was sitting on a nearby bench when Toby finished up. He'd scrubbed every nook and cranny of himself. Just being clean did wonders for his mood. "Wow, that was fantastic! Sorry if I kept you waiting."
Piffle kicked her feet back and forth. "Everything's copacetic, Toby. You looked like you were really enjoying yourself. I didn't mind waiting."
Toby's cheeks reddened. "You were watching me?"
Giggling. "A bit. Just to check if you were done yet. I didn't see anything naughty."
"...Allright then." He walked over to sit down beside her on the bench.
As he did, he realized he was already dry. "What?" He patted himself up and down. His pajamas felt like he'd just put on a new pair.
His confusion amused Piffle. "You stopped thinking about being wet, so now you aren't. Convenient, huh?"
"Very!" He leaned back against the wrought iron and stretched. Looking around, he noticed that the street was nearly deserted now. The sun was going down, and there were probably very good reasons to stay inside at night in a place like this. "What else can you tell me about Stoma? Why would anyone build a town right next to a forest full of dangerous creatures?"
"Well, for starters, the people here aren't helpless. Remember the eye-cages? Look up past 'em." She pointed high in the sky and Toby craned his neck.
"Whoa..." Floating high above the town was a slowly-rotating ball of jammed-together gun barrels. From how clearly Toby could make out details, he guessed its distance masked how huge it truly was. He had no idea how they got it to stay up there, but it certainly did look like it could blast just about anything into dust.
"Plus, the forest itself's a big reason. Lots of wild plants grow here that can be harvested for foodstuffs." She grinned. "I like that word, 'foodstuffs'. Oh, and also there's the hills nearby where they mine stuff. The road brings in travelers and the river brings boats."
"River?"
She pointed behind them. "There's a little valley right behind us."
Toby cocked his ears and could hear a faint flowing. "Oh yeah. I guess that explains the houses all up on stilts."
Piffle's antennae swiveled around; something she did when she was thinking, like twiddling her thumbs. "Maybe? I've always wondered that myself. The river'd have to flow uphill to flood anything here. Though that's not 'zactly impossible."
Toby nodded. "It's weird to think that people actually live here. Like, actually have a somewhat normal life in a place like this. When I first got here, I was so scared out of my skin I thought hiding in my cave was the only possible way to survive. I thought I'd get ripped to shreds if I so much as ran and grabbed some berries to eat."
"You'd be surprised," Piffle said. "I think you can get used to anywhere if you live there long enough. Think about the explorers down at the South Pole. Or tribes who wander the desert. There's places on Earth way worse than here. And no matter how scary a place may be, if there's food 'n water 'n somewhere to sleep, eventually someone'll put down roots."
"That's true," Toby conceded. "Maybe it's hard for me to imagine it because I barely ever get to explore beyond my bedroom. I'm not the trailblazer type. Remember earlier when I was talking about my old life? Even remembering all my symptoms, it still scares me less than feeling how helpless I am here. I know I'd be going back to day after day laying around sick in my bed, and yet... at least I know how to do that. At least it's familiar."
Piffle reached over to feel the sleeve of his pajamas. The fuzzy fabric was quite comforting. "Normal's nice, but I like novelty a lot more. Maybe it's 'cause I got wings? I like to use 'em and fly as far as I can. Brave the wild wilderness and all that jazz. Maybe I can be a good influence on you? Teach you how to enjoy traveling far and wide and sighting the seven sees?"
Toby chuckled a little. Then his stomach rumbled. "How about we go travel to that diner over there?"
"Just what I was thinking!"
The diner was possibly the most normal-looking building in town, which was a bit strange to say considering it was shaped like a rocketship. It at least looked like something that could have existed on Earth at some point.
It was almost obnoxiously lively in comparison to the shops around it, making them look like saggy paper bags in comparison. The main part of the building was a gleaming white concrete spaceship with crimson on its fins and nosecone. A line of porthole-shaped windows dotted the side. Up on top was a cockpit bubble that looked like you could climb up inside it. Pots of bright flowers encircled the red brick foundation. Floating above the restaurant was its sizzling orange neon name: "OUTERSPACE EATS."
Toby was genuinely smiling as he ran up to look in the windows. More red and white inside, joined by endless chrome details. There was a wide counter shaped like Saturn's rings, with asteroid-patterned barstools all around. The booths were puffy candy-apple leather and looked glorious to sit on.
Piffle peered too. "This definitely wasn't here the last time I came to town!" she said. "It looks brand new!"
Toby hopped up the front steps and opened the door. A tinkly bell overhead signaled their presence. Toby shivered pleasantly at how the chilly checkerboard tile felt under his bare feet.
When the door shut behind them, Toby suddenly felt troubled by what Piffle had said. 'This place looks brand new.' It did. The floor was spotless. The seats and tabletops sparkled. It was all like a model in a museum.
There was also no one else around. No customers. No one behind the cash register. No sounds coming from the kitchen.
He sniffed. No scent of food being cooked. Toby's brow furrowed. "Um, either this place was just built today and we're the very first customers, or I think we might be trespassing."
Piffle looked uneasy too. "Dunno. The door was open though."
Toby noticed something else. No menus. Nothing on the tables, and the lite-up letterboard above the counter was completely blank.
The little ball of dread in Toby's stomach blossomed into a full-fledged tingling stormcloud.
His voice trembled a little as he turned to Piffle and whispered, "This is a trap, isn't it? "
She nodded. She looked worried too, but more than that, she looked deeply apologetic.
He shook his head. He looked into her eyes and kept his voice low. "You don't have to feel sorry. I wanted to come in here. It's my fault. Let's just quietly leave and maybe whatever's in here won't get us."
He turned around.
Someone had already blocked the door with a scarecrow.
Toby jumped back. It wasn't really a scarecrow, but what else to call it? It was a tall male mannequin wearing a tuxedo. Its head was the size of a ping pong ball, and just as featureless. Broomstick-thin arms and legs. Limp white gloves with empty fingers hung out of its sleeves.
Toby and Piffle stared at it for a moment. Toby could feel his knees quivering in anticipation for the thing to suddenly come alive. And when it did, it still surprised him so bad he toppled backwards onto the tile and konked his head on a stool.
"Good day! Good day!" it shouted at them. "Welcome to our fine establishment! Thank you for choosing us for your eatering needs!" Its voice was a late-night infomercial with the volume turned to max, played through a bad phone connection. Its arms gesticulated crazily, fingerless gloves flapping all around.
Toby clutched Piffle's leg. "Tell me this is normal here!!"
She shook her head. "I've never seen anything like it before!"
The waiter/scarecrow/broomstick thing came closer to them, arms raised, gliding like it was on rollerskates. "My existence is to provide you with the finest dining experience you have ever dreamed of! Come this way please! You are valued customers, deserving of a valued environment! This way to the choice exclusive premium table area!"
Toby shrieked as the waiterthing swooped in and snatched him up by the back of his shirt. It set the mouse on his feet and pressed its open palms to his and Piffle's backs. "Right this way! Right this way!"
Its hands were bulldozers. Toby and Piffle most definitely did not want to follow this artificial bigmouth, but they had no choice. Where he pushed, they went. It was like the floor beneath them had turned into an air hockey table.
Despite their struggles, the waiterthing easily maneuvered them past the booths into the kitchen. The stainless steel had obviously never seen a moment's use. The stovetops were spotless. There weren't even any ingredients to be seen.
The waiterthing's buzzy voice never shut up. "Special perks for special customers! One day aware! Our super deluxe specialty evening food intake extravaganza awaits you! Your business is appreciated!"
Toby had thought for a moment that the kitchen itself was their destination; that they were going to be chopped up and made into a blue plate special. But the waiterthing scooted them straight past, towards a dimly-lit hallway ending in a plain beige door. The door opened itself at the waiterthing's approach, revealing a staircase descending into blackness.
Piffle's antennae raised up in dismay. "Oh no..."
"What? What is it!?" Toby yelped.
"Now I know why the houses are all up on stilts," she said with a gulp. "It's to prevent basements."
"Basements!?"
She looked at him as if this should have been obvious. "We're in the land of nightmares, Toby! What's the worst place you could be in a nightmare?"
Toby suddenly lost the power of rational thought.
As the waiter easily pushed him past the doorway onto the first step of the crumbling, swaying wooden stairs, Toby flailed and screamed like a madman. He flexed his meager claws and did everything his instincts could come up with to stop himself moving forward and downward. He shredded the waiterthing's tuxedo sleeve to ribbons. He gouged ruts in the railing. He kicked at the stairs till his toes sparkled with pain. Even tumbling down and breaking a few limbs at the bottom was a preferential outcome.
"TOBY! TRY TO CALM DOWN!"
The hamstergirl's shrill voice cut through his delirium like a hatchet. He looked to her: his pupils had dilated enormously.
She tried to appear only mildly concerned, even as the broomstick-man continued to kidnap them. She had to raise her voice a bit to be heard clearly over its ongoing prattle. "I've been in a lot of spots like this before. Screaming doesn't help. That's lesson three. The best thing to do is to just keep mum and look around. We don't know where it's taking us, or whether it'll even be all that bad when we get there."
"But you just said basements are bad!" Toby sputtered.
She nodded. "I know, I know. They almost always are. But we don't know what kind of bad, so let's not lose our heads yet. Maybe it's telling the truth and we really are being taken somewhere to have a meal."
"I doubt that..."
They reached the bottom of the staircase and both of them cringed at the feel of the grimy, bone-cold cement floor.
"Maybe it's just malfunctioning and it's gonna take us to a table and serve us engine parts dipped in gravy, and all we gotta do is smile and pretend to eat it and then it'll let us go," Piffle postulated.
That sounded like an overly-optimistic best case scenario, but then again, the hamsterfly did know this realm better than he did. Toby pulled in deep breaths and tried to keep himself balanced.
The environment did not help. This place looked like a typical basement, but magnified by the lens of a small child's fears. The architecture was stretched and the angles were sharp as knives. Everything was cloaked in deep shadows. There were mounds of old boxes, spilled paint cans, and the stench of moldy, waterlogged books. The only light came from the hallway at the top of the stairs. When the door closed and blackness snatched away his sight, Toby couldn't hold back a high-pitched wail.
"Don't worry, I can still see!" Piffle called out. "Antennys, remember?"
The waiterthing continued to ramble on about customer service and extraordinary dining opportunities, but its voice was starting to splinter into bursts of static. Something down here was distorting its signals. Nevertheless, it turned sharply and started pushing Toby and Piffle in a new direction.
Toby skidded his heels, kicked at the ground, and even lifted both feet up in the air. Nothing slowed him. "Can you 'see' where we're going?" he shouted to Piffle.
She actually managed a tiny giggle. "You don't have to yell so loud; I'm still right beside you."
"Sorry," he said quieter. "I'm not feeling very normal right now."
"Oh, I understand. First that nasty octopus and now this. And you're probly still hungry too! Poor Toby!"
He hadn't even realized until now that, yes, he was still hungry.
Piffle's antennae were circling. "I don't see anything too terrible just yet," she reported. "Although if I'm right, this place is WAAAY bigger than just the glimpse we got! It feels like it goes on for miles down here!"
Drops of water could be heard all around them, and if the echoes could be trusted, wherever they were was cavernous. Toby could feel the dampness in the air like a wet glove covering his face. It stank too. The perfume of rot and mildew made him lightheaded. His bare feet kept stepping in patches of sticky moisture or scratchy sand.
'DON'T THINK ABOUT GERMS OR YOU'LL GO INSANE,' he firmly warned himself. It was probably good advice. He hadn't gotten sick so far. Maybe germs didn't even exist down here? 'Wishful thinking,' he admonished himself. 'If this is all a big nightmare, there's probably big horrible supergerms and I just haven't run into any yet.' His imagination conjured up the lovely image of a thousand-pound bacterium wriggling towards him on its squirming flagella, then forcing its way down his throat till he was stretched tight as a blimp. 'I told you to stop thinking about that!!' he screamed at his brain.
By now the waiterthing's voice had been replaced entirely by static, except for occasional bursts of faux-cheerful syllables. This thankfully meant Piffle didn't have to raise her voice to be understood anymore. "My eyes are starting to adjust, Toby," she informed him. "So there's gotta be light here somewhere."
Toby stared ahead and blinked a lot. He couldn't tell if he was starting to see emerging shapes or if his eyes were just making patterns out of nothing.
But Piffle was right, and eventually the pair of them could discern that they were being guided through someplace far different than the relatively-normal basement area they'd been in before. It was still too dim for details, but they could make out endless, endless arches all around them. The light seemed to come from a thin fog that drifted along the ceiling.
This place reminded Toby of an underground parking garage. One in particular that he remembered from when he was much younger and Mommy would take him to see a respiratory specialist downtown. Toby hated it. The claustrophobia-inducing ceiling, the ceaseless concrete. Most of all, the way every sound was magnified so loud that faraway tire squeals sounded like the rippling howls of ghosts.
This place was like that, but mixed with what he'd expect from an old sewer, or the catacombs beneath a church. When he could see a little clearer, he realized that the arches were aligned in a hexagonal pattern, exactly duplicated over and over like a house of mirrors. But Toby didn't think this was an illusion. All his senses were telling him that wherever they were, it extended for miles beyond the edges of his perception.
Their footsteps sounded like the rhythmic chopping of a woodcutter's axe.
Toby had a bad realization. "What if this place doesn't end? What if this waiterthing just keeps on pushing us forever?" His mind's eye saw it walking on and on, sputtering static, holding two clattering skeletons dressed in the tatters of a sailor suit and pajamas.
Piffle tried to look on the bright side. "Well then at least we can spend time getting to know each other better. And if it gets too boring, we can fall asleep and just enjoy the ride!"
He gaped at her. He didn't know whether her optimism was admirable or if it would eventually drive him crazy. He winced at stepping on something that felt a lot like a cobweb, then tried frantically to brush it off his toes.
"LAAAA!!!" Piffle suddenly burst out with an opera note. She giggled at how long and loudly it echoed. "La-fa-da-la-na-na-na-laaaaa! Gee whiz! The acoustics down here are the bee's knees! We could probably be a mile apart and still hold a conversation!"
In the dim foglight, Toby could see that Piffle's smile had returned, full-force and undented. He didn't know if her lack of fear came from experience or insanity, but it did help a little. It was harder to be terrified nearby someone who so defiantly wasn't. He tried to sing a note too, but all that came out was a gasping croak. "I think I'm too on edge to sing."
"Nice try at least," she praised. She reached across the waiterthing's torso to pat her mousefriend on the shoulder. "And I know you're scared. I'm just trying to help with that. Let me know if I start driving you batty."
"You're not. And thank you." He tried to smile. "Although maybe if I lose my mind I'll be less scared," he weakly joked.
She giggled. "There, see? Just talking or trying to smile usually helps chase spookiness away. The more you think about the awful things that could happen, that's just helping your fear drive you cuckoo. Don't give it any help! The more you get your mind off it, the more likely you'll be able to put your mind onto working out what you oughtter do when you find out what's going on."
Toby was quiet for a moment, then a trace of a genuine smile appeared. "That sounds like really good advice, Piffle. Lesson four, I'm guessing?"
She beamed. "You bet! I'm happy to be helpful, Toby! And always keep in mind: all the terrible stuff your brains upchuck when you're worrying? That's almost never what ends up really happening. So if you dwell on it anyway, it's like studying the wrong subject before a test."
Toby made a 'That's a good point' sound. "I'll try to keep that in mind."
"Bzzzzzzzzzzp nff kssssssssstttt!" said the waiterthing.
Toby realized that, for a second there, he hadn't been concentrating on his surroundings at all. And, as often happened in dreams, he now found himself in a completely new place with absolutely no idea of how or when he'd gotten there.
And Piffle was right. His worries hadn't even come close to imagining this.
It was a workhouse designed by someone who'd never heard of gravity. Every surface was a floor. Out of every floor rose the black, rusting, scorching shape of some nightmarish machinery. Every machine had dozens of gears spinning within it. Every set of gears was being kept in motion by the slow, plodding push of haggard child. Every child's clothes were ragged and caked with soot. Every child's face was slack and devoid of expression. Every child's eye stared straight ahead, unseeing. Every child's head was adorned with a large, upside-down teacup. A literal teacup, with a blinking radio antenna coming out of it.
And there was water, water everywhere. Walls and ceiling too. Salty and shin deep. If the gargantuan room had suddenly rotated 180 degrees, it would still look exactly the same. As soon as Toby's eyes became aware of the water, the roar of its constant sloshing filled his ears and drove out everything else. The machines roared too, but beneath the din of the water their sound was mostly a bass rumble that vibrated up through his feet and made his stomach unsettled.
The waiterthing made some kind of announcing proclamation, but it was lost among the noise of the factory. Toby stared in petrified silence at these hellish surroundings. At the black smoke and flames the machines churned out. At the way the dull, crumbling metal gears intersected at impossible angles. At the blank-faced children working themselves to skeletons, turning the wheels around and around forever.
And then the real horror hit: Toby realized that he and Piffle, very soon, would be given their own spot pushing a gear.
He didn't scream. He couldn't. He was beyond that. He simply went rigid as an icicle as the waiterthing trundled him on and on.
The water splashed up to Toby's chest at times. All around in every direction hung banners, colors faded, bearing slogans like "MISERY LOVES COMPANY" and "SUFFERING IS DIVINE". The amount of machines and children powering the machines never seemed to end. And there were no guards forcing them to keep on. Was it those teacups? Mind control helmets; they had to be. Did the children ever sleep? Did they ever eat? If one of them died at the wheel, were they simply trampled by the others until they were worn down to a smooth stain beneath the water?
Then Toby realized he was ascending. He snapped his eyes away from the machines and machinelike children to see that he and Piffle were being led up a rickety metal staircase that wobbled worryingly with their steps. The waiterthing was steering them towards a tin-sided foreman's office. When they reached the top of the staircase, the waiterthing knocked on the door by banging it's tiny head against the metal.
Toby looked down and saw a welcome mat. Somehow, it was that particular detail that made him vomit in his mouth a little.
The door swung open and gobbled them up. The factory's sounds stopped dead. Silence. Despite the fact the little shack's windows were just holes cut in metal.
Inside, the foreman's nook was almost cozy. There was a fireplace and some fat armchairs decorated in doilies. Bookshelves and a big desk.
The waiterthing's voice crackled back to life. "It is your supreme pleasure to be introduced to the impresario of this operation, our grand benefactor, Doctor Dacryphilia!"
What Toby had assumed to be a life-sized statue in the corner rotated around to face them, and Toby's whole body juddered.
He could not take much more of this. Every time he thought his fear had peaked, it smashed through its own ceiling to reach new heights.
The Doctor looked like a man in a Mardi Gras costume. A tuxedo just like the waiterthing, but with a head as grotesquely huge as the waiter's was tiny. His hands, too, were elephantine. Fat rectangular slabs with fingers big around as tissue boxes. And his head... It had to be a giant wooden mask, it just had to be. The face was dominated by an ivory-colored possum snout jutting out like a cliff. A showman's smile stretched across the whole ridiculous length of it, showing off more spiky little teeth than Toby could count. On top was a stovepipe hat big enough to run sewage through. And his eyes were huge and cartoonish, painted on, with big pie-shaped pupils. The paint was cracking and big wooden tears dripped constantly out, hitting the floor with a sound like falling popsicle sticks.
The waiterthing shoved Toby and Piffle forward, and suddenly their hands were being viciously shaken by the Doctor. Both of them yelped in pain. The Doctor's grip was crushing and left behind scores of splinters.
"That's the spirit!!" the Doctor exclaimed heartily at hearing their shrieks.
Toby felt a fresh wave of revulsion at seeing the Doctor's face move. It wasn't a mask. Oh god, it was his real face. It moved and blinked, creaking and littering paint flakes everywhere.
The Doctor addressed his servant. "Kudos on finding another pair of strong, hardy volunteers for our enterprise, Number 32!"
"My existence is to provide you with the finest dining experience you have ever dreamed of!" it said as it saluted.
"Be off now, lad. Back to the diner. There'll always be more poor unfortunates who need us to provide them with guidance."
The waiterthing turned and let itself out of the office, leaving Toby and Piffle alone with their new owner. Now they were held in place by nothing more than their own fear.
Doctor Dacryphilia clapped his hands together with a crunch. "My, my, my! Aren't you adorable! But you'll look so much better with tears running down your cheeks! What are your names? You first, little boy!"
Toby's mouth opened and trembled a little bit. "T-t-t-" came out, but that was all.
"Tut tut!" said the Doctor. "Oh well, it's not like you'll be needing it anymore! And you, young filly?"
Piffle shook her head to clear away the shock of this place. Then she stamped her foot and looked the Doctor right in the eye. "My name is Shimmer-Thistle Whisper-Kimmy Vivilandria Lavender Dorabelle Loribelle Trixi Fizzy Piffle McPerricone. And I happen to like that name and I think I'll be keeping it, thankyouverymuch." Her tone was polite but resolute. It was always worth first trying to talk one's way out of a situation like this.
Doctor Dacryphilia's mouth turned over in a clown's frown. "Oh, that simply will not do. You have far too strong a sense of self-identity. But rejoice! Soon you'll be wiped clean! Soon you'll understand that the only true joy in life comes from mindless, backbreaking monotony!" He giggled obscenely.
Toby looked over to Piffle and saw her expression was set in a firm little pout. She seemed to be handling this better than him, so he'd let her do the talking while he tried not to splash terror-puke all down his pajamas.
"That doesn't sound like fun," Piffle stated.
"It doesn't! Not at all!" he agreed with insane cheer. He rushed over to a large blackboard on the wall and started pointing things out as he spoke (though this was meaningless, as the chalk was long since smeared to illegibility). "You little lost bunnies have no idea what you're missing! You lack purpose! But that's where I come in! I'm the purpose-merchant! And I sell my wares for free!!" He did a little pirouette. Toby noticed that he'd once had a tail, but it had been chopped off at the root and left to scab horribly over.
The Doctor continued. "You see, right now your life is directionless. You go from place to place always seeking happiness or comfort. But you're not going to find it! The only true happiness is misery! That's why I so selflessly let all my dear darlings toil forever in my factory."
"What do you make?" Piffle asked.
"NOTHING!!" he boomed, and was so overjoyed by the idea he hugged himself. Wooden tears flew all over the office, clattering like spilled peanuts. "That's the point! It's pointlessness perfected! Impossibly hard work, for eternity, all for no reason and no benefit! That's the magic secret! Because once you've been pushing gears here for a week or so and your mind breaks into a thousand tiny little china pieces, only then can you know true peace! Salvation! Transcendence! It's only when you drill past the lowest depths of ultimate suffering do you reach pure euphoria!"
He pranced around the office, toppling papers and books all over the floor. "Oh you'll have so much fun never having fun again! Every day you'll wake up and be fed a deliciously-undelicious bowl of 100% wallpaper paste. Then it's off to the factory floor! And you'll push, push, push all day long! No talking, no thinking, no smiling. Your bones will ache like they're full of fire and your muscles will slowly digest themselves. Then, when you've reached the limits of physical exhaustion, we scrape you up and send you to bed to sleep for a luxurious one-hundred-and-twenty minutes per night! Doesn't that sound wonderful!?"
Piffle was trembling a bit but tried not to show it. "The idea is certainly intriguing, Mister Dacra-whateveryournameis."
He grinned so hard she could hear his timber crack. "Doctor," he enunciated, "Da-cra-FEEL-i-a."
"Yes, thank you." She curtseyed. "And it's a very generous offer. But I promised my friend Toby I'd help him get home, and I just couldn't live with myself if I ever broke a promise. Do you understand?"
Toby was awed by her calmness. That she could keep herself sane enough to speak to this monstrosity. His own throat felt like sandpaper. Maybe she could actually get them out of this.
The Doctor's grin persisted. He put a mammoth paw on Piffle's shoulder. "My dear sweet thing, that is a beautifully noble sentiment," he said softly. "But don't you see? You've already honored your obligation. You've already fulfilled your promise."
He leaned in close, till his dead, wooden eyes filled her vision. "This is home."
Piffle gulped.
Then she and Toby both screamed in surprise as something heavy and cold clamped down on their ankles. They looked down to realize that their feet had been caught in cast iron shackles, held just far apart enough that they were forced to keep standing or fall over. They were both jerked suddenly sideways.
A door on the far side of the office opened up, revealing a twisted track that led deeper into the factory, down to where new and different machines waited to change them into something else. They were caught on a conveyor, like cars in a haunted house.
"Bye bye now!" sang the Doctor as he waved a hanky at them. "You'll thank me someday! Well, actually you won't because your brains will be far too damaged for language soon enough. But the sentiment rings true nonetheless! Au revoir! Have a nice day!!"
The shackles carried Toby and Piffle out the door and it slammed behind them. Inside the office, they heard Doctor Dacryphilia screaming with laughter, or sobbing, or both.
Piffle stared ahead. Both she and Toby were struck speechless for a while. Not that it mattered. The cacophony of the factory and the water would have drowned out anything they could have said anyway.
The hamsterfly turned to Toby and he could see tears (real tears, not wooden) shining in her eyes. Her expression said more than words possibly could: 'I'm so sorry.'
Toby was shaking like a leaf, nearly insensible from fright, but he still managed to meet his friend's eyes and give her a nod that said, 'I forgive you. This isn't your fault.'
She nodded back in gratitude, then reached out to take hold of his hand. He accepted her paw in his, and squeezed.
The conveyor belt twisted and turned like a corkscrew smashed to unrecognition. They were ferried farther and farther into the factory, and the sheer size of it was almost enough to drive all thoughts of escape out of their heads. It wasn't just one room. There were rooms upon rooms. Literally. This place extended in all directions. Gravity was towards anyplace where one could stand and work on a machine. 'Upside down' was a laughably meaningless idea here.
There were other machines. Machines that were operated by pulleys, levers or buttons. Everywhere, children moved in robotic repetition. Looking closely, one could see the tracks their endless tears had eroded through the dirt on their cheeks.
Then up ahead was the place where Toby and Piffle's new lives would begin. Toby could see other children on the conveyor belt. They struggled their hearts out, but each one in turn was positioned in front of a bellows, and a cloud of thick pink smoke was blown into their faces. Their struggles ceased, one by one. Then they were moved on to where a little thin knife sliced around their head in a circle, and their scalp and skull were neatly lifted away to reveal pink brains. A bright shiny teacup was lowered down, then screwed into place. The light on its antenna lit up, then the child walked off the conveyor to a line of long cafeteria tables, where the first of their many meals of paste was waiting.
Piffle was ahead of Toby. He would have to watch her being put through the process before it happened to him. Somehow, that made it infinitely worse.
His every breath shook his lungs. He hadn't even noticed until now the repulsive aroma of rust and smoke and standing water. He held Piffle's paw tighter. Tears were already wetting his own cheeks.
'It'll be okay, Toby,' Piffle mouthed to him.
And that just made him cry harder. Here at this moment when all hope was lost, her first priority was reassuring him.
Closer and closer they were pulled towards the bellows. The conveyor machine growled as it ratcheted them ahead, inch by inch. It pulled Piffle away from Toby to place her in front of the nozzle. Their hands were pulled apart.
She reached out to him. And she smiled.
Then Toby flinched as the machines coughed a blast of brainwashing gas right into her face. He saw her expression contort. First into a sneeze, then into horror, then resistance, then struggle, then nothing. When the conveyor belt pulled her onwards, her face was as blank as a sheet of new paper.
Piffle had been erased. Made into one of the hopeless millions.
That made something in Toby shift. Suddenly he felt the stirrings of a new feeling within him, stronger than his fear.
He didn't have a name for it, but it wanted into his driver's seat, and he let it.
Without conscious thought, he was suddenly fighting against his shackles with a fury that should have been impossible. He planted one foot, then pulled hard on the other. The pain was like plunging his ankle into a bonfire, but the sensation was somehow faraway enough to deal with. He was disassociated from it. It didn't matter. He tried the other foot. Warm trickles of blood ran down his fur. Good. A sign of progress.
Then he was in front of the dingy brass nozzle. In mere seconds it would squirt out a chemical cloud that would steal his will away. He would not allow it. He used one hand to force his mouth shut and the other to plug his nostrils so tight he felt the inner membranes tear.
The pink gas shot out, enveloping him in its noxious color. It stung his eyes like nothing else he'd ever experienced. It was like being blasted at point-blank range with a faceful of disinfectant. Toby did not allow his awareness to concentrate on the gas. Instead, every neuron in his brain was routed towards forcing more willpower into his legs.
The smoke stopped. The conveyor tugged him forwards, towards the machine with the knife and the teacup.
With a hot splash of red, Toby yanked one of his feet free.
That at least gave him enough room to dodge as the scalpel began trying in vain to slice off the top of his head. He could hear it whizzing around, whining like a mosquito. Purely on reflex, he shot his hand out, grabbed its neck, and bent it. The knife came loose and clattered to the ground. The other machine tried to plop a teacup down on him, but since his skull was still intact, it merely fell off and shattered.
The sound of porcelain breaking must have triggered some alarm, because Toby suddenly heard the splashing of water around him intensify. Rhythmically. Long legs running through the water towards him.
Fortunately, the conveyor thought that Toby was now finished with his induction, so it let his other ankle free. He wouldn't have to repeat his feat of wrenching it loose. He didn't dare look down. He didn't need to see what he'd done to know how torn up his foot was. He could feel the brass trumpet notes of pain it was sending through him, and of course the hot, wet blood.
Despite that, he started running.
He doubled back along the conveyor track. He didn't allow himself to breathe again until he was well past the bellows. Then he took his hands away and gulped down so much air it made his vision twinkle. His lungs had been starving for it, and gobbled it gratefully.
Toby did not think for a heartbeat about the enormous impossibility of escape. He did not think at all. The expression on his face was unreadable, but his eyes were open painfully wide and his ears were spread out like radar dishes. He existed for only two things now: alertness and speed. He ignored all the signals his legs were sending about how much pain they were in and how they couldn't possibly be expected to keep running this fast. 'Shut up and work,' his nerves told them.
He could see his pursuers now. More waiterthings. Dozens of them. They'd come out of nowhere, all waving their arms frantically and stomping through the water in a beeline towards him. Not a single one of the laboring children so much as looked up at the sight.
At least, not at first. Then a few did. And a few more.
Toby sure as hell didn't notice. His attention was devoted to the narrow conveyor belt and the approaching waiterthings. He knew if one of those monsters touched him, it could scoot him right back towards the pink smoke dispenser. So he couldn't let one touch him. Not even once.
Up ahead, one was climbing up onto the track.
Toby jumped, sailing over it with a foot of clearance.
He hit the metal and it didn't even slow his stride. He simply could not afford to stumble, so he didn't.
This was a type of fear Toby had never felt before. This was fear refined to immaculate purity. This was fear that didn't have time for worry or quaking or pissing his pants. This was 100% survival instinct. This was blot-out-the-rest-of-the-universe-and-stay-alive-type fear.
Toby did not allow himself to think about the fact that he was currently running loop-de-loops, and should have long since fallen off into the water. The lack of gravity in this place worked in his favor. 'Down' was the metal track below him, 'up' wasn't even worth considering.
Then ahead was Doctor Dacryphilia's office. Toby was momentarily startled he'd come so far so fast, but he didn't let thinking slow him down. Since he knew that barging through the office would mean getting caught, he'd have to go around somehow.
Or over!
When he reached the tin door, Toby jumped up and sank his meager claws into the aluminum roof. He scrambled up the side of the wall with a series of ear-ringing bangs. His kicking feet shook the whole shack.
From inside, the Doctor roared, "SOMEONE'S BEING UNGRATEFUL!!!"
Toby did not let the deafening voice rattle him. It couldn't. He was already at the zenith of his fear. He literally could not feel more scared.
Not even when he reached the edge of the roof and saw that he'd have to jump about ten feet straight down and land past the office steps. Landing directly on them would shatter his ankles. Landing in the water might too, but it was still a better chance.
Toby thought about none of this. He simply jumped.
For a few seconds that felt much longer, he flew. The air lashed at his cheeks, blowing the tears sideways away from his eyes.
Then he landed in the water and rolled. He felt pain splinter and shriek all across his body. From his legs where he'd landed, to his palms where he'd braced himself, to his nose where his face had been driven into the concrete beneath the water.
He came up sputtering. The toxic, salty, metallic taste of the water in his mouth barely registered. As he stood, he happened to see behind him.
Four hundred waiterthings were chasing him. Or more. Their arms were outstretched; gloves waving like tree leaves.
Toby continued to run. It was harder now that he was sloshing through water, but he continued to run.
The waiterthings were getting closer. He could hear their idiot bleating. "Sir, come back! Sir! You've made a mistake! The dining area is not that way! Sir! Sir!"
They were made to exist down here. They probably moved through this water every day. Toby had never needed to run through water in his entire life.
But if they caught him, he would stay here forever.
Toby kept running.
He ran even as he remembered he had no idea how he'd even gotten to this place. One moment he'd been in the basement catacombs, then he'd been here. He couldn't remember a door or a portal or a vortex or anything. His attention had been elsewhere, and then it had happened.
What if that was the only way in or out?
He'd have to make it happen again. How!? How could he make himself stop thinking about escaping?
Piffle. That was how.
His eyes stared ahead at the seemingly-infinite factory floor he was running towards, but all he could see was her face. Those ruby-red eyes that had once disgusted him. Now they reminded him of unique jewels. Her sailor suit. Her helpfulness. Her selflessness. And more than anything else, that smile of hers. That bucktoothed doorway to an endless realm of optimism. She had been instructive when he'd been confused, calm when he'd been voiceless with terror, joyful when he'd been-
AND YOU LEFT HER BEHIND.
That single thought was seared across his mind like the words had been branded directly onto his eyeballs. Toby skidded, lost all coordination, and very nearly fell flat on his face. But he recovered enough to keep on running. It was much easier now without the water.
Past the thousands of mirrored arches, away from the thundering factory and back into dark silence, the full weight of Toby's realization fell upon him like a spiked hammer. He had left her behind.
And... and he couldn't go back for her.
His legs would not stop running. He couldn't even bring himself to order them to. He couldn't even bear to look back.
He had left her behind. Correction: he was leaving her behind.
Fresh tears came. Toby stared on ahead through the growing darkness, realizing what a monster he was. How much longer would it have taken to grab her? He would have only needed to take three, maybe four steps towards her, and then turn to run. But no. She wouldn't have come with him anyway. She'd already been given one of those reprogramming teacups. She would have resisted, actively held him back. Then the waiterthings would have caught them both and it would have all been for nothing.
Toby did not know where the waiterthings had gone. He dimly realized that the only running footsteps he could hear now were his own.
But maybe his touch would have snapped her out of it. Maybe he could have knocked the teacup away. Maybe she could have grabbed him and spread her wings and flown them both away to safety.
There were endless maybes and only one fact: He hadn't even tried.
Toby sobbed and felt shame consume him. But he didn't stop running.
He ran until the last traces of light had faded completely away and he was shrouded in total darkness. He ran until nothing existed but the sound of his footfalls and the sound of his breath.
Pain abruptly smashed him in the ribs.
He was too winded to shout, so he only made a thin wheeze as he laid on the concrete and agony danced all over his body. He couldn't even see his own nose. But his hand was lying on something wooden.
For an instant, he was over 100% certain it was the hand of Doctor Dacryphilia, about to lift him up and give him a great big hug.
But no, as he felt around, he realized it was the bottom step of a staircase. That was what had tripped him.
The staircase! The basement!
His body was finally registering all the strain and stress he'd just put it through. He groped his way to the railing and used it to pull himself to his feet. He felt as feeble as if he were made of ash. Everything hurt. He moved as slow as a centenarian.
The conveyor, the factory, and the dark tunnels had all zipped past in a blur. But now, just hauling himself up a simple staircase felt like a week's journey. The effort to pull himself up each step was excruciating. The decaying wooden rail came off in thin little chunks wherever he grasped it, filling him with the worry that it might snap and send him tumbling down to the bottom where he'd have to start all over again. Assuming he didn't sprain an ankle when he landed.
By the time he got to the top of the stairs, he had been reduced to crawling on all fours. But finally his hand bonked into something flat and vertical, and he welcomed the pain. It meant, finally, an exit. He hoisted himself up to standing again and felt around for the doorknob.
He expected light when he opened the door, but none came. Though the darkness seemed a little less complete once he was through. He remembered the sun had been setting when he and Piffle had approached the diner. He had no idea how much time had passed since. It might be midnight now.
Bits of plaster made skittering sounds as his paws sent them tumbling along the floor. He felt his way along the hallway. It seemed much shorter than he remembered it. And he knew he'd turned left after the kitchen, but the only way he could go now was right.
Finally, up ahead there was a bit of moonlight. He limped towards it.
This wasn't a kitchen.
And this wasn't the diner. He was in someone's livingroom. When he walked towards the windows, he looked around him and saw a long-abandoned place. The floor was thick with dust and what little furniture remained had been toppled over or smashed.
Hands shaking, Toby walked towards where he assumed the front door would be and felt around for the knob. A cold flutter of night wind rushed through the crack when he turned it. He walked out.
This was not Stoma. He had no idea where this was.
He was standing on the front steps of a large brown-brick townhouse. In front of him was a cobblestone road, along which many more identical residences sat in sleepy silence. Gas lamps lit the street. And everywhere there were craters. Wherever Toby was, it had been through a war. There wasn't a building in sight that was fully intact. Rubble filled every front yard. Not a single window he saw was intact. He stepped away from the house he'd emerged in and looked up to see that its entire second floor had been blown away.
He treaded carefully past the piles of bricks on the sidewalk, dizzy with confusion. The hazy yellow gaslight didn't help. He had no idea where this was. He could be a million miles away. It dawned on him that once he'd made it back to the catacombs, he'd picked a direction without thinking and ran. How could he have possibly thought he could find his way back to where he'd come from?
Maybe the catacombs were some kind of subterranean nexus world. Toby had seen enough science fiction to understand the concept. It could be like a joining place; a hub to an unimaginable amount of destinations. There could be thousands of basement staircases down there, leading to a thousand different locations.
Even if he went back in search of Piffle, the likelihood of finding the factory again was microscopic.
He turned around in a circle. The light from the gas lamps blurred the world into a greasy smear.
"Where am I?" he found himself saying.
From across the street, a bundle of rags moved. Toby hadn't even noticed it before. Someone was sitting on the stoop of the house across from him. They were wearing a mound of old, ratty coats.
Two almond eyes shone out. Two little glimmers, like teeth.
The furson spoke softly, but Toby could hear their words as clearly as if they'd been whispered directly into his ear:
"Cherrywood, cherrywood,
Chocolate and waste
Your eyes smell so good
Might I ask for a taste?"
Toby took off running, just as fast as before, without a single thought as to where.
*****