Tall Tale TV!
SciFi and Fantasy Short Story Audiobooks.
Of Monsters and Mushrooms by Lesley Herron
Chapter 8, Hericium
Attila stirred, his brain slowly turning back on.
Everything hurt.
He hadn't opened his eyes yet, but he could feel the warmth of the fire next to him.
"Oh...is that...," Attila mumbled, sniffing the air.
"Bacon?"
Brig never spoiled them with bacon.
It was just too expensive for them.
Attila tried sitting up, but found he couldn't make his body move much passed a feeble wiggle,
even though there was the temptation of crisp, sizzling pork motivating him.
He didn't want to open his eyes just yet.
He wanted to hold onto the strange dream he had been having.
The memories were starting to fragment, but he could remember a few things.
There was a doctor?
And a man in a red coat?
It was like trying to keep a firm grasp on water, as the fragments began to slip away.
There was definitely a hamster.
That much he was sure about, even if it was wearing a pair of combat boots.
Attila groaned, his hangover starting to kick in.
His head throbbed and his throat was dry and itchy.
He could taste the dust in his mouth, and would have to reprimand Brig later for letting
him fall asleep on his stomach.
Unable to coordinate his motor skills, Attila settled for laying on the cold hard ground,
content with smelling the food.
He gave up on trying to hold onto faded remnants of his dream, and opened his eye.
The night sky was shrouded and dotted with stars.
Attila could see a tinge of green invading his peripheral.
Daybreak was on it's way.
Suddenly a familiar flooding of blinding light seared through his good eye and directly into
the back of his skull.
He let out a scream of pain and recoiled, trying to shield his face with his hand.
"It's okay!
He's Alive."
Even through a response of groans, Attila recognized that voice.
It certainly hadn't been a dream.
"What happened!?
Where are we?," Attila blurted out as he sat upright to escape the flashlight.
Pain erupted throughout his body as his neurons slowly realized he had changed positions.
Attila struggled through it to focus on the most important issue.
"Where's the food!?"
Errik chuckled as he tucked away his pen light.
"We saved you a plate."
Attila snatched the food from Errik's outstretched hands.
Food was, perhaps, too generous of a term.
He stared at the lump of gray porridge.
It looked as if someone had added water to dried out potatoes and then crushed them into
a general shape of a lopsided pancake and grilled them.
Well, burnt them.
Attila made a face and poked at it, cautiously, with a finger.
It jiggled.
He raised an eyebrow at Errik.
"Don't give me that look.," Errik started, jabbing a finger over at his brother.
"He made it."
Vel grimaced at being tossed beneath the proverbial bus.
"Hey!
If you want me to build something, I can build it.," he said, his voice irritable with
a tinge of hurt.
"If you want me to break something, I can do that.
If you want me to take you to a monster infested gate through underground tunnels, I can do
that too.
But I can't do all that -and- cook.
So shut up and eat it."
Something didn't seem to add up.
There was a large gap in Attila's memory.
The last thing he could remember was Vel calling them over to look at a rat, but instead there
had been...something clicked back into place.
Attila scowled over at Evan.
"Not cool, man."
Evan smiled, his face full of unashamed laughter.
"Not my fault you can't take a punch.," he taunted, that grin never faltering.
"Who's 'cute' now, ya' big baby?"
Attila made a noise of both surprise and insult.
"Why you little..."
Attila picked up one of the gooey 'pancakes' and made to toss it at Evan.
"Hey!," Vel barked again.
"You throw that and I -will- make you eat it off the ground!"
Evan was on his feet, pulling out a pair of tiny knives.
"Bring it on, poncho boy!"
Errik stepped in between the three of them, pushing Attila back.
He didn't want to have to drag his friend any further into the caves then they already
had.
"Evan, you said you know the way out of here.
Hopefully you really do and that this isn't some ruse to rob us."
"Of course I know the way outta here.
And if I wanted to rob ya' I wouldn't have waited 'till we were this far into the caves
ta do it.
I ought ta charge you extra for saying that!," Evan snapped, brandishing his tiny knives
angrily.
Errik raised his hands in surrender.
"Whoa, sorry!
Just making light of the situation.
So...where do we go from here?"
Evan seemed to relax.
"Well we're still in the cavern.
But we've about reached the ruins of the ol' Under Well.
Gotta get to the world pillar, then it's just up and out.
Should only take like, eh, six hours or so."
Errik could remember the moment when he first laid his eyes upon the original gleaming city
of Under Well, with all it's bright lights and sparkling gems.
He could almost remember how it glowed with a warmth that filled him with a happiness
that, really, had nothing to do with the actual lights.
Now it was less than a shadow of it's former glory, a broken pile of rubble and decay.
What were once spotless shining surfaces, were now dulled with dust and debris.
Broken homes, shattered pathways, and sink holes dotted the landscapes.
Borer Worms.
They had suddenly appeared, with no warning.
No one was sure where they came from, and while they did not feast on flesh, they had
been highly territorial.
The beasts fought with one another, and the inhabitants of the Under Well.
The city fought back, and in the end eradicated them all.
But not before the clash brought down the ceiling.
That all-protecting canopy that had kept out the toxic mushroom spores.
The inhabitants were forced to flea, and recreate their metropolis deeper in the bowels of what
was once a great aquifer.
What was left was a twisting maze of caves, tunnels, and remnants of an old city.
There at the heart of the Under Well, just like in the newer one, was a less grand version
of the towering spire of ivory stone.
But a sinkhole beneath it had caused it's collapse, and the once gleaming beacon was
now shattered into pieces, creating a path that disappeared into the thick of the glowing
mushroom forest.
"That's what we gotta use to get out of here.," Evan said, pointing to the spire.
He used his tiny hand to gesture to the other end of the broken ivory summit.
The mushrooms teetered and towered over each other, competing with one another to be the
tallest.
The largest mushroom loomed above the rest, it's cap resting neatly, and conveniently,
against an outcropping that led to a large storm drain.
"Just make sure to have your breathers ready."
"Mph mpho mmph mphhph mmmph-mmm!," Attila exclaimed over a full mouth.
Errik turned to find Attila half way through eating one of the leftover 'pancakes'.
He gave Attila a questioning look.
With a bit of effort, Attila managed to pry his jaw open.
"What?
They're not that bad after you get past the outer crust.
They're just...a bit hard to chew."
He took another bite, chewed it for a few moments, and swallowed hard, before he repeated
himself, " I thought you said they weren't dangerous?"
"Those ones aren't.," Errik stated, pointing at the glowing forest.
"But what's drifting down from the gap in the ceiling there is.
We're fine here though, just don't get too close before putting on your mask."
Content with that answer, Attila took another bite of his 'pancake', and followed behind
Evan.
The kid was leading the group, and more than once they had lost sight of him behind the
bits of rubble that littered the street.
They slid down a loose dirt slope, and came level with the edge of the ruins.
Several tunnels tore up out of the ground, pathways left courtesy of the worms.
Errik and Vel, thankfully, had missed out on the upheaval, and as a result had never
seen one of the creatures in the flesh.
But the size of some of the tunnels indicated that the largest ones had been about ten feet
in diameter.
Errik shook away that thought, and was grateful they had been driven to extinction nearly
a century ago.
"This tunnel leads straight to the mushrooms.
We could easily follow this one there and avoid all this unstable terrain.," Evan
mentioned, stopping at the entrance to a tunnel that towered over them.
"But I hear running water over that way, so we should resupply before we head topside."
"Holy cannoli!," Attila replied.
"Was this made by one of those worm things?"
Vel raised a brow, his face impassive.
"What else do you think it could be?"
Attila scratched at his eye patch, shrugged.
"Okay but, do we really want to stroll right in there like it's a road to a candy kingdom
or something?
What if one of them attacks us in there?"
Attila gave an uneasy glance at the tunnel's dark entrance before sidestepping it to follow
the group.
"Don't worry.," Errik replied, giving Attila a reassuring pat on the shoulder.
Since his hand was still wrapped in cement, it knocked Attila forward a step or two.
"There aren't any worms in there.
They've been dead for decades."
Attila smiled, his shoulders relaxing despite the bruising slap to them.
"Oh good.
That makes our job easy!"
Vel stopped walking, turning around to face Attila with a suspicious glare.
"What job?," he and Errik asked simultaneously.
"You know.
The job Madam Whisper wanted us to do?"
Attila looked back and forth between the two blank stares facing him.
"To kill the borer worms?"
Vel's eyebrows shot up.
"What?"
Errik grabbed Attila by the poncho and hauled him closer.
"The Borer Worms are back?
AND YOU DIDN'T TELL US?!"
Attila pulled a face.
Usually Vel was the one to lose his temper and Errik kept his cool.
Confused at the sudden reversal of roles, Attila opened his mouth to respond.
Vel pushed Errik out of the way and grabbed Attila by the poncho, lifting him off his
feet.
"And you promised to kill them?"
He jerked Attila closer until their faces were almost touching.
"With just THE THREE OF US?!?"
There's that temper, Attila thought, wincing at being yelled at.
But surely he had told them.
But, then again they had been pretty busy.
"Maybe I did forget.
But why did you think she let us leave with duffle bags full of gear?"
Errik pointed an accusing finger at him.
"We thought it was because you did the horizontal rattle!"
"Even -I'm- not that good.," Attila scoffed.
Vel was tightening his grip on the poncho with his mechanical hand, pulling the fabric
tighter and tighter around Attila's neck.
"You...sunnova-" "Hey!"
Evan jumped on a toppled statue of an animal bound general, some thirty feet away.
"If you three jerks are done arguing about who's the prettiest, it sounds like we're
getting close to the water.
I just need one of ya' to spot it.
My line of sight is...limited."
Vel dropped Attila, who's face had started to drain of color, and cocked an ear, trying
to locate the source of the gurgling stream.
It was echoing off the cavern's tall ceiling, bouncing around until it was almost impossible
to tell where it was coming from.
It almost sounded like the scuttling of feet.
Thousands of scurrying feet.
"I don't...," Vel paused, straining to find the direction of sound.
"I don't think that's water."
The sound of skittering grew suddenly louder, until it was almost deafening.
A wall, some thirty feet away crumbled to dust as a long, serpentine body smashed through
it.
What Madam Whisper had generously called a worm was so far from it, that it was almost
comical.
Uncurling itself to nearly the length of a bus, was a long, segmented creature as wide
as a man.
It's body was encased in a thick, dull gray armor.
Two sets of legs jutted out at every segment on it's body, each one ending in a hard sharp
point.
Two giant stingers split from the tip of it's tail end, and it's face was a rounded bony
mass of recessed eye sockets surrounding a three sided jaw.
The creature began to rear up at it's mid way point, making itself taller as it opened
it's hard billed mouth and let out a cry that shook the ground.
And then it dove, snapping it's jaws around Evan and leaving behind only a single tiny
combat boot.
"IAN!," Attila cried out, his hand outstretched in Evan's direction.
"Run.," Errik choked out, as the creature began scurrying towards them at an alarming
pace.
It was if he was telling only himself this, as his voice was barely a whisper.
He tried to take his own advice, but he found himself unable to move his legs.
It was as if he were trapped in quicksand.
He watched in horror as the worm reared it's body back before snapping forward again, moving
with lightning speed straight for him.
It's hard billed mouth split open into three sections, offering him a view of it's circular
maw filled with thousands of tiny, flat teeth.
Vel reached out and slammed his metal fist in the side of the worm's head.
The worm spiraled off course and flew past Errik, it's feet clacking against his arm
as it passed.
Vel dived on top of the creature, struggling to reach the neck of the wriggling mass.
"If you're done just standing there all useless like, you could give me a hand!,"
he cried out, not just to Errik but Attila as well.
At the sound of an order, Attila sprang into action.
He reached into one of the duffle bags and hauled out a can of bug repellent.
"Hold it still!"
Vel was straddling the creature, as it bucked and writhed beneath him, trying to damage
it with blows to it's bony spine.
"No you idiot!
We need-" The worm slammed itself into a large stalagmite trying to dislodge it's rider.
"Ow."
Vel managed to hang on, but just barely.
Errik remained frozen.
There were just too many legs.
Nobody had ever said they had legs!
Who the hell named these things!?
They were clearly -not- worms.
Attila ran into the path of the creature, waving his hands frantically in the air.
"Yo!
Look at me you over sized roly poly!"
The worm swung around, opening it's jaws wide.
And Attila tossed the canister into the worm's open maw.
He let out a loud whoop of laughter as it crunched down.
A small -pop- sounded as the canister exploded.
The worm spit out the broken pieces and began charging Attila, who turned tail and ran.
"What was that about?," Vel cried out.
He reached down, grabbing on the beasts legs near what would be the knee joint and yanked
back hard.
The appendage was never designed to move passed a certain range, and it snapped clean off.
The worm lurched to a stop, letting out a shrill shriek in agony.
"I thought it would explode it's head or something!," Attila complained.
"Guaranteed to work on all insects my ass."
The worm tried it's best to wriggle itself around and bite Vel, it's jaws snapping and
gnashing angrily.
But it's armor plating, again, restricted it's range.
Vel gave a small snort of laughter as he reached down and removed another leg.
Attila decided to take a page out of Vel's book and rushed in, grabbing one of the appendages.
"This is for Alvin!"
He wrenched up on the leg, but lacked the upper body strength that Vel had.
"HRN!"
The worm flexed the leg Attila was attempting to remove and it sent him sprawling into one
of the large tunnels that peppered the landscape.
"Waaaauh!"
Errik shook his head, trying to snap out of his paralysis.
Just pretend it's a snake.
He told himself.
Snakes don't have legs.
He looked over at his brother, who was prying off another leg, aiding in Errik's self delusion.
It wasn't a bad strategy, hobbling the creature, but it wasn't a solution.
Even if they had removed all of it's front legs, it would still be able to move.
And if they went for the back legs, they would be in range of it's mouth.
The answer to their problem was elementary.
They were screwed.
"Oh crap..."
Vel let go of the leg he was trying to pry from the beast and watched as the creature
reared up, higher into the air.
It reached the pinnacle of it's arc, and began to topple backwards.
The worm was going to crush him by falling on him.
Vel threw himself to the side, as the beast crashed into the ground.
But now he was extracted, and the worm was out for revenge.
Errik watched in horror as the worm stumbled after Vel, it's limping gate causing it to
fall over every few strides.
Skitter skitter crash.
Skitter skitter crash.
"Get the fifty cal!," Vel yelled.
Errik blinked.
"The what?"
Vel dived out of the way as the worm gave a lopsided lunge.
He was backed into a small alcove in the cavern wall.
"The big ass gun!"
"Oh!"
Errik ran over to the duffle bag, and pulled out a ridiculously powerful looking rifle.
"Now what?"
"Now what!?," Vel repeated angrily, a touch of sarcasm on his words.
His hands shooting up to push against the worm's head, trying to keep the beast from
crushing him.
"NOW SHOOT IT!"
Errik hoisted the gun into the crook of his shoulder.
"No need to get snippy.," he mumbled as he lined up the shot.
He reached for the trigger, but his cement cast clanked against the side of the trigger
guard.
He tried several more times from various angles.
"What the hell-" Vel was pushed hard against the wall of the alcove as the creature maneuvered
it's giant head to fit in the tiny space.
"-is taking so long!"
"I'm trying!"
Errik tried reversing hands, but without the ability to grip the barrel, the gun just kept
slipping out of his hands.
"I think we need a plan b!"
Vel let loose a string of expletives that seemed to offend even the worm.
"Fine!
But don't blame me if I shoot you by mistake!"
He lined up the rifle with his good hand, using his cement fist for support, and pulled
the trigger.
BAM!
Errik felt his shoulder dislocate from the kickback, and his wrist hyper extend as the
gun checked itself out of his grip.
He sucked air through his grit teeth, and opened his eyes.
The bullet seemed to have connected with the worm, right near it's face, but ricocheted
off it's armor and buried itself into a stalactite somewhere above it.
Vel watched, in horror, as the worm freed itself and tore off straight for Errik.
He had no way to intercept, as the worm was now between the two of them.
"Errik!
Run!"
Errik froze again, the mass of legs and exoskeleton bearing down on him.
The jaws split apart and it lunged.
His primal instincts took over, and he swatted at it.
The concrete cast around his hand shattered and the worm slumped to it's side, dazed.
"Did you just bitch slap it?," Vel asked, having extricated himself from the alcove
to move next to his brother.
He spotted Errik's left arm hanging limp at his side.
"Are you okay."
Errik winced and nodded.
"I'm fine, it just needs to-" The monster's tail end thrashed angrily against
the cavern floor, trying to line up it's stingers.
The resulting rumble shook the entire cave, and rattled the stalagmites.
Another angry thrash and a slew of sharp jagged rocks began dropping from the ceiling.
Errik and Vel narrowly avoided two large stalactites, as a third slammed into the worm.
Blood, the color of sapphires, began to ooze from the creatures wound as it's front end
flailed and screeched in pain.
Suddenly a dagger burst out of one of it's eye sockets, and the worm gave a final spasm.
The dagger retracted, only to exit from another eye socket.
The worm toppled over, finally dead, and Evan climbed out from between it's slack jaws.
He was covered head to toe in slime, blue blood, and digestive juices.
He pointed his little knife at Vel.
"I'm chargin' extra for this!"
Vel couldn't help the smile that crept up on his face.
"Tenacious little squirt, aren't you?"
"Um, Vel.
About my shoulder?," Errik whimpered.
"Oh, right!"
Vel reached over and jerked up on Errik's arm, forcing the joint roughly back into it's
socket.
His brother let out his own string of expletives, and Vel laughed.
"Oh, don't be such a baby.
Look at Evan.
He got eaten alive.," he said, gesturing to the kid, who was using a severed worm leg
to scrape goop off himself.
"You don't see him complaining."
Errik gave his brother a dirty look.
"Speaking of complainers...," he paused, looking around.
"Where's Attila?"
Attila heaved on the leg, his mighty muscles bulging with the effort.
The creatures leg did not break off as it had for Vel.
There must be some sort of trick.
But no worries, there wasn't an insect alive that could stand up to the great Slayer of
the Forty!
Suddenly, Attila was flying through the air.
He didn't recall initiating a tactical retreat, but what other explanation could there be?
After he was the great- "Oof!"
All the air left Attila's lungs as he landed hard and slid across the ground.
His momentum carried him over the lip of a steep vertical shaft.
As the battle slipped away from view, he let loose a heroic battle cry to inspire his comrades.
"Waaaahhh!"
The shaft dropped a good fifty feet before it began to gently level out.
Attila slid down the tunnel ramp, before coming, face first, to a halt.
He pushed himself up, spitting out a mouthful of dirt and gravel.
The soft glow of small cave mushrooms lit the way, illuminating the single shaft.
He couldn't go back, the climb back up would be impossible to scale.
Onward then, into the unknown!
After half an hour of searching, the group decided Attila was either lost, dead, or had
run away.
In any event, they reasoned that he knew their target was the storm drain above the collapsed
tower.
And a vote, two to one, decreed to stop looking, and let him find his own way up.
They would head for the summit and wait for him there.
The encounter with the worm left them a more than a little reluctant to travel the tunnels,
so they opted for the slow trek through the ruins of old Under Well.
The ascent up to the storm drain was possibly more terrifying than the giant worm.
The tower was a smooth round ramp laying on a steep angle.
Coated with a luminous mucous, it was slick and slippery.
Errik nearly slid off the edge twice, only to be saved by quickly grabbing a hold of
his brother's red duster.
"Sorry!," he called out each time.
After cresting the uppermost part of the tower, they were forced to climb their way up through
the mushroom forest.
At this point Errik pulled out a breather for himself, and modified a spare to fit over
Evan's entire head.
Vel simply pressed a small button on his coat collar and a sinister metal mask slid into
place over his features.
Safe from the snowfall of spores they began leaping from crown to crown.
Or in Evan's case, being tossed from crown to crown.
Vel and Errik made a bit of a game out of seeing who could toss him further.
Evan was less than amused.
Attila plucked another glowing mushroom as he walked through the tunnel, tucking it into
his hat band next to twenty some odd others.
After walking into several walls in especially dark portions of the cave, he had decided
he need a light source.
His solution was to strap glowing mushrooms to every available surface of his body.
On the plus side he was now putting off more light than an industrial flood lamp, but he
also looked like a shaved, glowing yeti with a bad case of the boils.
He was very proud of his bright idea.
Attila approached another fork in the tunnel.
The eighth so far.
He shined himself down both pathways before choosing the one that sloped upwards the most,
going on the assumption that eventually it would lead him topside.
He'd had to retrace his steps more than once when a path had suddenly curved too sharp
for him to advance, but all in all it wasn't a bad way to travel.
And then he saw it.
Daylight!
"Yes!"
And then realized daylight meant he had left the cave all together, and his friends.
"No!"
He slumped a little, and turned around.
Pouting, he snatched another mushroom off the wall and jammed it into his belt with
a huff.
Errik looked out at the city expanse below them.
There was still no sign of Attila.
"You guys think he's okay?"
"Who cares?," grunted Vel, as he made a face and chucked their bag of gear to the
next mushroom.
"If he doesn't show, that just means we can go home."
Errik was gingerly wrapping his hand with a length of fabric ripped from his coat.
It would have to do until they got to the surface, and he could safely raid the contents
of their duffle bag.
"Yeah, but I still kind of feel bad."
He cinched the fabric tight and flexed his fingers gingerly.
It wasn't as good as an actual cast, but at least this one didn't weigh ten pounds.
Evan laid a tiny hand on Errik's shin, reassuringly.
"Look at it this way.
You only dragged him down here, so it's not your fault he's most likely dead or dying
of dehydration.
It could happen to anybody!"
Errik picked up the pint sized teen by his jacket and flung him like a shot put.
"Nice distance.," Vel grunted.
The mushroom they were standing on gave an ominous rumble.
Dirt fell from the ceiling, coating them in a fine layer of dust.
"What the hell was that?," Vel asked in a growl, his metal shifting and bristling
as if he were readying himself for another fight.
"We killed the worm right?
So perhaps it's just the cavern...settling?," Errik offered.
They were still several jumps away from the storm drain.
"Uh, guys.
You might wanna hurry it up.
There's somethin' down there."
Evan was peering over the edge of the mushroom cap, pointing at something in the dark below.
Errik and Vel leaned over the edge.
And in unison, they both sighed, "Dammit."
The mushroom began to shake violently as a massive worm began skittering it's way up
the stalk, and it began to lean under the creature's massive weight.
Vel grabbed Errik by his coat and hauled him up, shoving him towards the next mushroom.
"Go!"
Errik and Vel leapt the rapidly growing divide, rolling as they landed.
The mushroom they had just vacated began to topple as a worm the size of legend clambered
atop it's crown.
It was wider than both of them were tall, a true behemoth of the arthropod world.
Errik grabbed the bag of gear and moved to throw it to the next landing.
"Leave it!," Vel barked.
"I'll grab short stuff here and let's go!"
"Hey!," Evan protested as Vel unceremoniously picked him up by the arm like a rag doll.
The worm tried to propel itself at them from the toppling stalk, but fell short and latched
onto the trunk of their mushroom nearly halfway down.
The crown beneath them began to shake and buck as the creature started charging it's
way up towards them.
One more leap and they were close enough to scale up the stone wall to the storm drain.
The drain itself was massive.
A tank could drive through this tunnel with ease.
Or, as luck would have it, a giant killer worm.
"Evan!
How far to the exit?," Vel called back, as they pelted down the tunnel.
Evan was clinging to Vel's back with his little arms wrapped around his neck.
"Not too far.
Just go left, right, two lefts and another right."
"Two rights and a left?"
"No!
Left, right, two lefts-" "Just tell us when we get there!," snapped
Errik from behind them.
The tunnel was starting to shake, stones falling from the ceiling as the worm hurled itself
down the corridor.
They reached the first fork.
"Left!," cried Evan, tugging on Vel's collar as if he was steering.
They rounded the bend and cried out in pain, throwing their arms up to shield their eyes.
Through the fabric of his coat, Errik could just make out something moving around.
Glowing like a roman candle.
"What the hell is that!?"
"Heh hey!
I found you guys!," Attila said, literally beaming with joy.
"What are you...how...what?"
"Who cares!," Vel shouted, pushing past the human glow-stick.
"We need to move!"
Dust and rock erupted behind them as the worm continued to plow through the tunnel.
It skittered to a sharp halt, it's lengthy segmented body piling up behind it like a
traffic jam.
It's dozen or so eyes blinked furiously as it tried to asses the situation.
Attila assumed a wide stance, his hands poised by his sides, fingers twitching like a gunfight
waiting for high noon.
"You guys go!
I got this!"
When no one replied, Attila looked over his shoulder to see they had already abandoned
him.
"Oh.
Come on!
That was such a great line too!"
He refocused his attention on the worm.
This was it.
The last one had escaped his wrath.
But this one would face the full might of the Great Slayer!
The worm chittered, clacking it's jaws uncertainly.
This glowing creature wasn't running.
And it smelled like rotten mushrooms.
The worm wasn't quite sure what to make of it.
Was it food?
Was it challenging him?
"Waaahh!," yelled the little mushroom beast and it began throwing little chunks
of itself in the worm's direction.
That meant, what, a challenge?
"Right!
Go right!
No your other right!," Evan shouted in Vel's ear.
"The exit is right up there!"
"Guys!," Errik panted.
"Where's Attila?"
Vel looked over his shoulder and swore.
"Not again!"
He pulled Evan off his back and handed him to Errik.
"You guys go, I'll head back and save the idiot."
Vel sprinted back the way he had come.
Frigging moron and his frigging quest.
If they frigging survived this he'd frigging kill him.
How hard was it to keep up?
He hit the next fork in the tunnel.
Was it left or right?
Dammit.
"Attila!," Vel called down the tunnels.
No answer.
Great, so now he was going to get himself hopelessly lost in a tunnel with a giant centipede
worm thing just to find the guy he couldn't stand.
Why the hell had he gone after him?
A sound echoed down the corridor to the right.
Vel cocked his ear as the sound began to get louder.
"aaAAHH!," Attila screeched, as he pelted down the path towards Vel, lobbing grenades
over his shoulder.
"RUN YOU IDIOT!"
A series of deafening explosions rattled the tunnel, causing huge chunks of ceiling to
fall around them.
The screams of the worm echoed behind them, fury tinging the shrill sound wave.
Vel scrabbled, wide eyed, behind Attila.
Two more grenades flew over Vel's head.
"Are...you...INSANE!?," he roared, but the explosions and the sound of the collapsing
tunnel drowned him out.
Vel could see the exit, but he could also see the ceiling above them starting to buckle.
He grabbed Attila by the mushroom and dove, the ground swallowing the cave behind them.
The dirt settled around them, shafts of sun breaking through the cloud of dust and debris.
The cries of the worm had ceased, and the ground was no longer shaking.
Attila pushed himself up to his feet, and the sun lit him from behind, much like a hero
from a storybook.
"Yeah!"
This was part 8 of the epic, ongoing series by Lesley Herron.
Of Monsters to Mushrooms is a crossover fanfiction mixing her own characters and settings with
a few of those created by Author J.D. Wiley.
What started as a four chapter short story has now evolved into a full length novel with
over 20 chapters planned out already.
When Lesley isn't torturing poor Attila, or subjecting Vel to mental anguish, she loves
to draw, craft, and binge watch Netflix.
WWAAAAaaaahhhhhh.
. . . . . . .aaaaaAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!
Well that was fun!
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