Chapter 3
After everyone had landed and composed themselves they agreed that it
would be best if they stuck together for a little while longer in case Becher
was somewhere close by. Nick, being the only one would read the book offered to
lead and no one argued.
"What if this is some twisted Wonderland and we all die?" Nathan
asked.
Everyone ignored him. Now that they were actually in Wonderland they were
all more scared then before, even Nick. He led them down a long hallway, which
had a very low ceiling. Everyone but Eric had to duck to avoid hitting their
heads on the lamps that lined the ceiling. There were multiple doors on each
side of the hallway. They tried opening a few but Nick assured them that they
would all be locked. Eventually they ran into a table. On it, was a bottle that
read "DRINK ME", a small key and a large key that was shaped like a heart.
"What are these for, Nick?" Eric asked.
"Well the small keys for an area down the hall, the potion will shrink
you so you can get into the room and as for the other key, well it wasn't in the
book.," Nick said.
John picked up the heart shaped key.
"You think it's for another room down the hall?" John asked.
"No harm in checking," said Nick.
So John went up and down the hall. Sure enough there was a door with a
heart shaped lock. The key fit and when John turned it there was a click and it
slowly opened. Beyond the door all they could see were some trees, a few hills
and a stream.
"Well we don't know if the key was there when Becher passed through so I
guess this is worth checking out," Paul said.
"You guys wanna check it out or should we?" Steve asked.
"Well this wasn't in the book was it?" Nate asked.
"Nope. Nothing like this at all," Nick said.
"Well then," Nathan said, "we should check it out. You guys can take the
small key and check out the garden through the little curtain," Nathan
said.
"OK then. Good luck," Eric said.
With that Paul, John, and Nate stepped through the door. As it did it
slammed shut behind them. No one paid much attention to Nate's last comment. Nor
did they realize that Nick had never mentioned the small key opened a door
behind a curtain, which led to a garden…..
Eric, Holly, and Steve all followed Nick back to the table. Nick picked
the small key up and put it in his pocket. He noticed that the heart shaped key
was now sitting back on the table.
"OK, now we each drink a little bit of this potion and it should shrink
us. It will happen quickly. We'll shrink down to about a foot. Everyone
understand?" Nick asked.
They all mumbled in agreement.
"OK here goes," Nick said.
He took a sip from the bottle and quickly passed it on to Steve. Sure
enough Nick began to shrink. Steve resisted the urge to kick Nick across the
room, took a sip, and passed it to Holly. She did the same passing the bottle to
Eric. Eric grasped the bottle and tears began to well up in his eyes. This was
the first time in his life he'd ever been the tallest in a room and needless to
say it was a very emotional situation. Slowly he drank from the last bit of
liquid from the bottle and shrunk down to everyone else's size.
"Took you long enough," Steve mumbled.
"OK now that we're all down here let's go over a few things," Nick began,
"If Nathan's "evil Wonderland" theory is right then we should come back
here."
He walked passed Eric and whispered "Watch this."
He went under the table and picked up a piece of caked which clearly read
"EAT ME."
"If we get in trouble you eat this and you'll grow," Nick explained,
"Holly, care to demonstrate?"
"Sure," Holly said.
Nick took the cake and walked towards her. When he got close he pretended
to trip, the cake left his hands and landed all over the top of Holly's
shirt.
"Ack!" Holly yelped.
Nick stood there staring at Holly's chest expecting it to grow. Holly
wiped some of the frosting off and looked up at Nick.
"What are you staring at?! Pervert!" Holly yelled.
She slapped him across the face.
"Ouch! Was that really necessary? I didn't mean too…" Nick said trying to
sound innocent.
"Well you don't have to walk around with frosting all over your shirt!"
Holly yelled hysterically.
It was obvious she was mad about something else so Nick tried to lighten
the mood.
"Well if you don't want frosting on your shirt you can always take it
off," Nick said.
"Ughhh," Holly groaned, "Steve stop him from talking to me like
that!"
"Uh…stop it Nick ..or ..I'll.. um…do something…" Steve said trailing off.
Eric made a noise, which sounded like the cracking of a whip.
"Hey what was that for?! I'm not whipped!" Steve yelled "Holly tell them
I'm not whipped!"
"Don't worry Stevie. You don't have to pay any attention to them," Holly
said.
Eric and Nick just laughed. Steve stuck his hands in his pockets and just
mumbled.
"Well I guess we should get going then," Eric suggested.
Nick took the key out of his pocket and led them down the hall. He pulled
back the curtain and stuck they key in the lock. He turned, it, heard a click,
then pushed the door open.
Inside was a beautiful garden. There were flowers, trees, and fountains.
Even Nick admitted he liked the place.
"Well I want to warn you guys, this area belongs to the Queen of Hearts.
She's a little too into the whole decapitation thing so be careful," Nick
said.
This didn't do much to comfort anybody but by now everyone was a little
worried about Becher. What if the queen had caught him and cut his head off?
Wait, actually, come to think of it everyone had completely forgotten about
Becher. No one really cared. They were more interested in saving themselves then
him. Well actually they weren't THAT worried. Holly was thinking about Steve.
Steve was thinking about being whipped. Nick was contemplating if he should ask
Holly if he could help "clean" her shirt, and Eric was thinking how cool it
would've been to squash Nick, Steve, and Holly, and lived the rest of his life
as the tallest person in the room. In fact they were all so wrapped up in
thought that none of them noticed the three, armed card guards coming their
way…
Becher
was still lying on a mushroom smoking a hookah. By now the caterpillar had
returned with another hookah and was lying next to Becher smoking in
silence.
"Sorry
I kicked you," Becher said.
"Ah
you know. Things like that happen when you're a drug addict. No big deal," said
the caterpillar.
"Friends?"
asked Becher.
"Friends,"
replied the caterpillar.
"Let's
never fight again man," Becher said with tears in his eyes.
He
and the caterpillar embraced. They held the embrace for a while then they went
back to staring at the sky, puffing away on their hookahs.
As
soon as Paul, Nate, and John stepped through the door it slammed shut. The
landscape went from bright and sunny to dark and gloomy in the blink of an eye.
The entire place looked dead. Trees began to appear all around them. The sun
disappeared and the sky opened up and it began to rain. More and more trees
appeared around them and soon they were in the center of a dense forest nowhere
near the door where they had answered. This all happened in about half a
minute.
"What
just happened?" John asked.
"I
have no idea," Paul said apparently dumbfounded.
Nathan
remained silent.
"Come
on. We should get going," John said.
"Going
where? We have no idea where we are or where to began looking. This whole thing
was a mistake," Paul said rather gloomily.
"Gersky,
relax," Nathan said.
"Shut
up Nate. Why should I relax? Why'd we split up in the first place? What if they
find Becher? Then what? They have to come look for us? What, are we all morons?"
Paul yelled.
"Gee,
so nice of you to speak up now," John said sarcastically.
"Let's
stop bickering and get going. I don't think it really matters which direction we
go in but I'll pick one anyway. West OK with everyone?" Nate asked.
Paul
and John both murmured a yes. Nate was uncharacteristically taking
initiative. He began to lead they
way through the dense forest. The rain only seemed to pour harder and the ground
began turning into mud. Soon, everyone was soaked and morale began to fall
almost as fast as the rain. After about fifteen minutes they'd stopped talking
to each other all together, they just blindly followed Nate. This is what caused
John to walk right into Nate.
"Hey?
What'd you stop for!?" John yelled irately.
"Look!"
Nathan yelled pointing ahead of him.
Directly
in front of them was a clearing in the forest. There was a fire burning brightly
in the middle. Surrounding the fire was three logs set up like benches. The
oddest thing was that there was absolutely no rain falling in the forest, like
there was a giant, invisible umbrella overhead. But then again they were in
Wonderland so something like this didn't seem very unusual. They were all so
wet, cold, angry, and tired, that the thought that this may be a trap never
crossed one of their minds.
They
each sat down on a log and immediately began warming themselves by the fire.
Paul opened his back pack (which was surprisingly dry) and took out a few cans
of pop. He passed one to John and Nate. For the next twenty minutes they sat
silently basking in the warmth of the fire. Suddenly, John broke the silence.
"Did
you see that?" he yelled.
"No.
What was it?" Nate asked.
"Two
bright yellow eyes. Something's watching us," he said hoarsely.
"You're
tired. You're just seeing things," Paul said.
And
that's when the attack came. They heard branches and a large gray creature dove
forward from the forest. If they'd had to guess they would have called it a
werewolf, and they would've been right indeed. It stood upright like a man and
was roughly seven feet tall. Its head was that of a wolf. Like John had said
they eyes glew bright yellow. Its head was like that of a wolf and it had long
sharp fangs. The body was covered in gray fur and there were sharp claws on both
its hands and feet. It stared at them and snarled. They all remained sitting,
panic stricken.
"On
the count of three, run," Nathan began, "1...2..."
But
before he reached three the werewolf lunged through the air tackling Nate. It
knocked Nathan off the log and sent his head crashing into the ground. Paul
heard the sound of flesh tearing and saw blood. He shrieked in pure terror.
"Do
something!" John yelled, leaping to his feet.
Now
John may have been brave but he didn't exactly win many points in the
intelligence category. He did the first thing that came to mind, and leapt at
the wolf just as it had done to Nathan. It stopped hacking away at Nate for a
moment, caught John by the neck in midair, and tossed him like a rag doll,
twenty feet through the air. With a loud thud, John crashed into a tree. Paul
was sure that that had been enough to knock John out(and he was right).
"Great.
Now it's up to me," he thought.
Fortunately
for him the werewolf had stopped hacking away at Nate for the time being so he
had time to think. The first thing that came to mind was that he should run. It
was only interested in Nathan and he might actually have been able to escape.
Plus, it had just manhandled John who was much stronger then Paul. But he
couldn't leave his friends to die like that even if it got him killed himself.
At least it wouldn't be a coward's death. He looked around on the ground for
something to use as a weapon. He noticed a large rock and a broken branch. He
picked them both up. His hands were shaking and he had to stop himself from
running more then once but he heaved the rock with all his might at the back of
the wolf's head. It connected with surprising force. The werewolf growled in
pain and turned his head around to see where this attack had come from. His eyes
were fixed on Paul. They looked like bright flames and they sent chills down his
pine. It turned around completely and snarled at Paul. Paul knew the attack was
coming. He'd made up his mind that he didn't care about Nate and that he should
run. But he couldn't. He was frozen. The wolf left the ground and tackled Paul
just as it had done Nathan. Paul didn't even have time to raise the branch in
defense. The wolf hit him with so much force that he thought he'd broken a rib.
Paul tried to force himself up but the wolf held him down with one arm. Its
other arm came crashing down into his side. He felt the claws dig into his side
and the warm blood that began to flow from his skin. Almost like a reflex Paul's
arm flew through the air towards the werewolf's face. Luckily, he was still
holding onto the branch. It slammed into the wolf's jaw with so much force that
the branch snapped in half. The wolf howled in pain and brought his hand down
against Paul's forehead. His claws sliced Paul's cheek. The pain was too much for Paul. He began
to lose consciousness.
"At
least I won't feel it when he tears my lungs out," Paul thought.
But
Paul didn't feel anything. He forced his eyes open and the wolf was no longer on
top of him. In fact the last thing he saw before he blacked out was the wolf
retreating into the forest with Nathan's limp body slung over his