Fourth Chapter — Vainglory

High above the Desert of Even More Unpleasant Things, the Huey carrying our beloved Double Eleven was experiencing technical difficulties. Tuck was switching switches and toggling toggles in a frenzied manner that alarmed Double Eleven.

“Is something wrong, Tuck?” he asked with trepidation.

“Uh, the chopper isn’t responding and we’re running out of fuel,” he responded.

“Is that bad?” Double Eleven asked helplessly.

Tuck turned around and looked at him. “That depends,” he drawled. “If you’ve always wanted to die in a fiery explosion of metal and sand, then no.”

Double Eleven’s eyes grew wide, and he threw his arms around Tuck’s neck with tears streaming down his jubilant face. “The old gopher was right,” he cried, “you are da man!” Tuck extricated himself from Double Eleven’s grip and reached into a steel cabinet next to the door.

“Uh, yeah, well, I recommend you get yourself into this pretty quick,” he said, handing him a parachute while struggling into his own.

“Thanks, but no thanks,” Double Eleven replied, drying his tears and striding to the door. “I travel prepared for such emergencies.” He flung open the door and flung himself out. Tuck followed with aplomb, consternation stamped on his face. Below him, Double Eleven activated his ACME BatMan wings and glided safely to the ground. When Tuck landed, they took stock of their surroundings. The black sands stretched in all directions farther than the eye could see.

“Ooooh, aaaah,” they chorused as the Huey exploded in the distance. When they finished applauding, they began their trek in the general supposed direction of the Mountain of Unpleasant Things, spirits high and morale likewise.

* * * * *

As darkness fell, their spirits were low and their morale was lower. Double Eleven dropped in the sand and mumbled through the grit, “We’ll camp. Here.” He reached into his pocket—it was a rather deep pocket—and withdrew a large rubbery bundle. He struggled upright and began shaking it out. Opening a valve, he put his mouth to it and blew. Half an hour later he staked down the tent and opened the door flap. “Entrez vous, monsieur,” he said with a bow.

Tuck did so, asking over his shoulder, “So, Ex, what is the whole point of this mission, anyway? The old rodent neglected to tell me.”

Double Eleven paused, trying to remember. After a moment’s consideration, he answered darkly, “That I cannot divulge, for security reasons.” Then he brightened up and asked, “What do you think of our quarters?”

Tuck looked around, felt the carpet, and walked to the window. “It’s quite nice,” he replied, “but why didn’t we just visit that Gothic castle over there? It looks spacious enough.”

Double Eleven looked out the window. “You dolt!” he said, “why didn’t you say something before I hyperventilated over this lousy vinyl/rubber/velour contraption?”

“You didn’t ask,” Tuck answered simply.

Double Eleven kicked the tent and stalked away in the direction of the ominous looking fortress. As he neared the gate, a strange gust of wind rumpled his coiffure, giving him an unsettled feeling. He glanced over his shoulder to ascertain whether or not Tuck was following him, and to his dismay saw that the tent was nowhere in sight. So, he continued on toward the edifice. He looked down and noted with satisfaction that his forearms were nicely tanned. This was not surprising, due to the fact that he had been walking out in the hot sun all day, but it gladdened his heart to see it.

“Ha, I wish Seven Eleven were here to see this,” he gloated. “She burns so easily.” This thought, however, sobered him and he reflected soberly on his present mission. He tilted back his head to gaze in awe at the imposing turrets. Then a thought struck him. With a whump, he fell to the ground and gasped as the air slowly returned to his lungs. He struggled to his feet and turned in the previous direction of the tent. His eyes strained in the gathering gloom to catch sight of his comrade, but in vain. He began to fear that his vainglory would cost them both dearly, and he looked at his forearms with less satisfaction. “Drat, they’re burning,” he muttered, “which means they’ll soon peel in a most disgusting fashion.” Then another thought struck him, an unpleasant thought. How could he be getting sunburned in the gloaming?

“Drat!” he quoth again. “This is the Desert of Even More Unpleasant Things, so it goes without saying that unpleasant things such as this shall occur with increasing frequency!”

He turned and ran back to the deserted tent site. He was just in time to witness a rumpled fedora sinking into the sand. “Quicksand!” he screamed, and fell to digging madly at the sandy spot. Sand flew about his head as he put himself to the task of freeing his pilot. Slowly but surely, Tuck began to appear. This prompted Double Eleven to dig with increased madness.

In a short while, Tuck was free, and he struggled to his feet. “Do you think next time you could wait a little longer before deciding to do something?” Tuck commented.

“More sarcasm? Where were you hiding it all that time?” Double Eleven exclaimed sincerely.

“Under my hat,” Tuck responded with more sarcasm, picking his fedora out of the sand and slapping it against his leg. “Sooner or later we’re going to have to get inside that castle,” he added.

“Maybe if we knock on the gate it will open by itself,” Double Eleven said hopefully.

“You first,” Tuck told him.

They marched intrepidly up to the massive oaken doors, Double Eleven leading the way with his head held high and his forearms reddening. Tuck brushed sand out of his hair and stroked the stubble on his chin thoughtfully. He was looking at Double Eleven’s arms and wondering if they would burst into flames eventually. Just as he had that unlucky thought, Double Eleven screamed and threw himself onto the sand, where he rolled about like a madman.

“My arms, my arms, my beautiful bronzéd arms!” he cried in agony. As he struggled to his feet, he stared at his blackened forearms in consternation.

Tuck, meanwhile, took the initiative and rapped a resounding tattoo upon the gates, which opened silently of their own accord. The happy duo sauntered into the courtyard, jauntily surveying the crumbling ruins as the doors silently crashed shut. Double Eleven unhurriedly approached what appeared to be the main doors of the keep. He raised his fist to knock upon them, and they fell in upon themselves, crumbled to dust, and wafted away.

As he was about to enter, Tuck’s voice cut the stillness like a whip. Or perhaps it was his bullwhip. Whatever it was, it arrested Double Eleven’s progress and he gasped as a gigantic, bloodstained battle axe sliced into the floor in front of his toes.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Tuck muttered.

“Are you—hey, watch out!” Double Eleven dove and caught hold of Tuck’s bullwhip just as he fell through the yawning gap that had suddenly opened in the courtyard cobblestones. Double Eleven hauled him back up with some difficulty, just in time to save him from being crushed as the pit closed up again.

“Let’s get inside before something else happens,” urged Double Eleven. He helped Tuck though the doorway and onto an antique swooning couch. “You stay here and make yourself comfortable,” he told him kindly. “I’ll go up this seemingly endless flight of stairs and try to find the guestroom.”

True to his word, Double Eleven started up the seemingly endless flight of stairs, which was actually quite well-lit. At regular intervals along the wall, there were oil portraits of stuffy old ladies and gentlemen, each flanked by two candelabras, mounted on the wall. Double Eleven wisely broke one off of the wall, in case all the others were suddenly snuffed out by some foul gust.

He paused to read the nameplate of the portrait above the now empty spot on the wall where the candelabra had once hung. “Mordecai D. Mentedbaum,” he read out loud. “Hmm, wasn’t that the name of my sixth grade English teacher?” But then he shrugged away the thought, since the visage peering down at him from the painting did not resemble his old teacher in the least. He could not resist, however, studying the other portraits. They were all exceedingly ugly personages, and Double Eleven wrinkled his nose distastefully.

It was rather unsettling to find that, as he went up, they became less and less human in form. While not becoming bestial, per se, there was something in the expression of the eyes, the knit of the brow and the hunch of the shoulders that denoted denigration. Not the denigration caused by aging, but of a different sort, which Double Eleven couldn’t quite put his finger on. So he decided to stop caressing the canvas with his fingertips, and continued up the stairs.

Finally, he came to the top of the stairs. He stood still and peered down the darkened corridor that stretched before him for an indiscernible distance. There were no candelabras to light his way, but luckily he still clutched the one he’d ripped from the wall. He took a deep breath and was about to venture into the inky unknown, when, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that the last painting at the top of the stairs was that of a spectral form.

He gasped. It was none other than the insolent fiend who had kicked him in the pants and sent him sprawling over the side of the yacht! He rushed forward to read the plaque under the painting. But just as he got close enough to shine the light upon the bronze surface, a foul gust barreled down the corridor and snuffed out not only the candelabras on the walls, but the one in his hand as well.

“Drat!” he exclaimed. But then, to his horror, he noted that the form of the spectre was still visible, as it appeared to give off its own unearthly glow. He did have to admit it was interesting. Then he stumbled back and ran, tripping and slipping down the corridor, heading for certain doom.

Next Chapter:
Zenvieva

Tags: 1111, spectre, Tuck