The Jungle Ride, Chapter Two

Mini-Flash Juniper had said she didn’t like it, and she might have known her Special Program precognition would prove as tiresomely reliable as ever.

Their car had scarcely rounded the first artificial rock-formation, putting itself out of sight of equipment-operators and redcoats, when Maureen scrambled from the moving conveyance and made eager signs for everyone else to do the same. Pat, frowning more than ever, followed her first then reached for Mini-Flash Juniper at once to help her out after him.

“Spare me the faceful, I’m not Calvin,” complained the counter-Juniper, clambering out leggily last. They stood in the narrow space by trackside as the carriages rumbled away.

“Quick,” Maureen instructed, “before anyone sees.”

Her companions watched wondering as she touched the side of a piece of scenery, which swung open in silence to disclose a dark tunnel and steps leading down.

“Found this secret door the first time I went on!” announced Maureen with a grin, and made no greater hesitation than this to gallop into the cavemouth.

The others saw little choice but to follow, so did. One thing Mini-Flash Juniper could say for her week of striving to coax Pat and Maureen out of their candy-sticks dependency was that she’d had far more success with the former. She watched him now as he looked around in the deepening gloom, evidently able to apprehend his sister was leading the way to nothing good. Maureen on the other hand had all too often mocked at Mini-Flash Juniper’s efforts, and as today remained giddy and reckless in the manner that suited her horrid hosts’ designs.

From the foot of the stairs a subterranean passage stretched. It was dim, but the five red and green lights on Maureen’s forehead were not the only source of illumination.

“Now, what I reckon is,” she proceeded, crossing over to the first of the small lit windows in the tunnel wall, “this was like a ghost train for older kids which they weren’t allowed to open. I mean, just look at it! It’s better than renting a horror video!”

Mini-Flash Juniper peered, as her other self and Pat did the same. The glass was thick and grimy, bearing burn-marks as might that of an old electric oven, but through it Juniper could make out the shape of a small boy’s shoulders and head. He was hooked up to a body-harness, not entirely unlike that which Flashsatsumas used, but the design of this one seemed by comparison cruelly short on comfort. The motion of its occupant supported this impression, for he stirred and jerked as though in the throes of a restless dream.

“That’s some animatronics,” breathed gleeful Maureen. “Looks well real!”

Although typically pale, Mini-Flash Juniper was setting a new standard.

For she saw, where Maureen could not, that the little boy was no puppet.

Numbly she followed as her unwitting guide continued the ghastly tour. In the next window was a ginger-haired girl, wearing pigtails and suffering likewise the ministrations of a skeletal steel rack. Juniper knew about capacitors, and could tell the biggest difference between these frames and the one in her chalet was that the latter served only to recharge Flashsatsumas and regulate his power-flow. What was going on here, by contrast, was the ruthless leeching of supernal force from those who happened to possess it.

Children with special abilities. They must have been camp guests once.

Mini-Flash Juniper thought of the big boy who’d come after Calvin at the BMX track, and knew at last what destination the former had had in mind for her friend.

All the windows but the final one, which was a little way down from the others, looked into the same large chamber where the feverish prisoners languished alike. “Now,” enthused Maureen, in tones of one poised to whip out the pièce de résistance. “Get an eyeful of this. I don’t even know how they did it!”

Juniper might have enlightened her, for she at least perceived no surprises beyond the pane at tunnel’s end. Only the hunching back and bulbous dome of a form far larger and grossly out of proportion to any man, its flesh lit as by prismatic fluctuations which seemed to emanate from itself. The hideous thing was twisting dials and scrutinizing monitors on a rusty iron control panel at which it sat in a high-arched chair.

It was an unenviable position for Mini-Flash Juniper, to be alone among her companions in knowing they gazed upon the enemy.

No sooner had she thought that than the enemy turned and gazed back at them, smiling.

Not until the third time around the jungle ride did Flashsatsumas notice the counter-Piloshiki had etched a scarlet lipstick “X” on one of the fake rocks.

From there it wasn’t difficult to discover the hidden door, or for Flashsatsumas with Calvin and Miss Ugly to follow in the footsteps of their four friends. What had been a dead end was now bathed in an ominous fiery light, for the last section of tunnel-wall had swung open, window and all, transforming itself to an entryway. This, and the sound of a malevolent voice which grew ever louder as the trio neared, impressed upon them the need to hurry.

From around the edge of the arch Flashsatsumas and company peered inside.

The private chamber, with its operations board and a heavy gate to the left which closed off the prison, was on the one hand a well-supplied scientific control-room. It seemed however to be doubling as a medieval dungeon, for against the far wall four figures hung in leaden fetters, two on either side of the monitor-panel. It was Pat and Maureen and the Juniper duo, suspended helpless, albeit upright rather than by the ankles.

Calvin was very glad they’d all been spared that additional discomfort, and made a point of reminding himself of it at once.

Stalking before the captives holding court was an appalling apparition, drawn from among the camp’s monstrous managers, this one affecting golden armour on top of his iridescent flesh. It was Gachna, master of chains, whose vanity all but equalled his vileness.

“Pah!” issued from that one, as he completed his study of the struggling Maureen and Pat. “The merest dregs of our present intake, it seems. Not so much as a noteworthy talent between the pair, although it would be going too far to claim they are utterly without use. They have after all brought with them pretty prizes who have come to interest us greatly!”

Mini-Flash Juniper and the counter-Juniper clenched their teeth and fought all the more to burst their manacles, but in vain.

“And which of you lovelies,” Gachna resumed, “carries today the sacrosanct sprig which laid impetuous Lasser low?” He paused for a minute to chuckle in amusement. “So, unforthcoming, are we? Then let us see how long our little Judas-goat must suffer, before the information I crave is volunteered!”

He moved his misshapen hand, and the chains wrapping Maureen began to tighten.

She cried aloud, and Pat and the Junipers no less lustily, but none of this could drown out the terrible steady clanks of the retracting bonds.

Gachna held his hand aloft where it was, and leered.

“Presto,” whispered Miss Ugly by the arch.

END OF CHAPTER TWO