The Forty First Wink Read online

  Disoriented, Marty felt cold, yielding plastic beneath him and gingerly wobbled to his feet. To his right, Kate was steadying herself against the wall, and apparently equally just as unsteady. As Marty was about to enquire about Timbers' whereabouts, he appeared at Kate's left shoulder, before disappearing again behind her. Seconds later he reappeared, an excited grin stretched across his face, before vanishing once more. It wasn't until Timbers' third bounce that Marty realized what they were all standing on. Glancing down, he, too, attempted a cautious bounce on what was indeed a completely inflatable floor. His shoes squeaked and rasped on the plastic, producing a sound that would have drawn muffled giggles from any adolescents who happened to be in the room.

  From behind Kate, Timbers giggled. "Someone step on a duck?"

  Without even waiting for the indignant reply, which would surely have followed, Timbers sprang from behind Kate. "This is brilliant!" he declared emphatically, coming to a stop, but still bouncing in front of Marty. Catching the little pirate on an ascent, Marty plucked Timbers out of the air, drawing a sharp, "Arr!" of alarm as he did so, before heading unsteadily over to where Kate was propped.

  "Why are you so cheerful? You've just been boat-jacked, remember? Oh, and we're being chased by…well you saw them," Marty reminded the struggling corsair in his arms.

  Timbers ceased his wriggling and set his jaw defiantly. "We'll get to them, and we'll get away. Probably. In my experience, you take fun where you can find it. And anyway, I'm a pirate! We're reckless and have no regard for our own personal safety. It's kind of my job to not give a rat's ass."

  Marty considered replying, but could find no flaw in the beaming buccaneer's logic.

  "Looks like there's a way through over there." Kate pointed to the far end of the wobbly room which tapered and eventually became an equally wobbly looking corridor.

  Above them, three dull, booming thuds rang out loudly from the main entrance doors. Two and a half pairs of eyes shot upwards to the source of the knocking, and the leering, jagged voice which issued from the other side of the door shortly afterwards.

  "Hello…hello…hello!" The final hello was shrieked with such gleeful ferocity, and was followed by such a disjointed torrent of manic, high pitched giggling that it almost ripped the door from its hinges.

  Then, the door was ripped from its hinges. As it hurtled through the air towards Marty, everything seemed to slow down, leaving him with what seemed like an age to ponder why it was always the dreams about unpleasant things that did this. Things never moved in slow motion when you have suddenly discovered you can fly or have invented an exciting new kind of sandwich. No, it only seemed to give you time to fully absorb and enjoy the many tentacled, slobbering things in the dark or the pointy things that loomed calamitously overhead while you stand rooted to the spot.

  Marty realized the reason he was rooted to the spot was because of all this pondering, and threw himself heroically towards Kate, sending her bouncing against the wall as the door plodded past at a pace that made his grand gesture now seem somewhat unnecessary. Splinters hung around it like orbiting satellites as it floated past, spinning and fanning out like some kind of languid shotgun blast.

  As shadows fell upon them, Marty remembered why the door was now making its way gradually into the room and glanced upward before grabbing Kate by the hand, Timbers by the leg, and bounding towards the corridor on the far side of the room.

  The shadow casters were descending through the air from the torn open doorway, floating downwards, almost in flight, Marty could make out every grease-painted sneer and sinuously contorted (yet brightly clothed) limb. He could see every manically glinting, bulging eyeball, and several rows of wickedly crooked, yellow pointed teeth, which clowns really had no business having.

  "Stop gandering and get a move on," Timbers yelped as he dangled upside down from Marty's grasp, clutching his hat to his head with one hand, and struggling to draw his cutlass with the other. As they reached the corridor, Marty risked another glance over his shoulder. The horrific clowns that had glided hideously but nonchalantly to the floor had now landed and were moving, bounding, and darting after them. Jerky and unnatural, whooping and squealing, chuckling and barking. More worryingly, they were moving unerringly quickly, legs and arms flailing like rabid monkeys in a disco. A bouncing cacophony of big top abomination.

  Having barely slowed to assess the onrushing carnage, Marty, Kate, and Timbers sprang into the corridor with the carnival from hell mere feet behind them. Pale, gnarled hands grasped at air, which seconds before, had been occupied by two people and a tiny pirate. The floor below dropped into a steep slope after a few vaulting strides, and Marty heard what sounded like a balloon being squeezed as their pursuers jammed into the passageway that was fast becoming more of a chute.

  Had the current situation not carried the very real threat of brightly colored, but unspeakably freakish, danger behind them, ricocheting along an inflatable tunnel before suddenly hurtling headlong down a fiercely steep slide might have held some amusement and entertainment for Marty.

  Timbers, however, was not so philosophical in his assessment of the level of peril they found themselves in, and signaled his approval of the blow up rollercoaster they were now riding with an enthusiastic, "Yahoooooooooo!" which terminated sharply as the tunnel came to an abrupt end and deposited them like water from a tap into a huge circular chamber.

  Thankfully, the room beneath them was as buoyant as the one from which they had fled, making their landing more ungainly than bone crunching. Timbers was first to his feet, straightening his hat and gazing gleefully at the lofty ceiling. "We have got to do that again!" he whooped, dusting himself off and bouncing on the spot.

  Kate rolled her eyes as she also struggled to stand. "Is he always like this?"

  As he scanned for an exit, Marty stopped and almost smiled. "To be honest, before today he was a lot quieter."

  Seeing no immediate means of escape, Marty lurched to his feet and turned full circle. Although much bigger than the first room, this mighty arena was equally inflated, its concaved walls forming a vast, padded dome. "Can anyone see a way out?" he asked, "because we're going to have company in about no seconds flat, and we need to not be here."

  Marty glanced at the hole in the ceiling. They couldn't be far behind, and he had already come up with one plan today.

  Kate stumbled forward a few jaunty steps, grabbing Marty's shoulder for support. "There isn't one. In a dream there doesn't have to be. It doesn't have to make sense, does it?" She sighed. Momentarily distracted by Kate's hand on his shoulder, Marty was caught completely unawares as something small and swift shot past him. Staggering backwards, he squinted at the nimble and distinctly pirate-shaped blur as it sped past, arrowing towards the nearest wall.

  Timbers hit the side of the dome at speed and with some force, sending the plastic bulging inwards and holding him briefly in place before Newton's law took over. The tiny buccaneer flew backwards, pinwheeling and skittering across the floor, arriving in an undignified heap at Marty's feet. The wall quivered and shook, emitting a comical sound one might only expect a cartoon spring to make, but remained unbroken.

  Struggling to his feet, he darted a sheepish glance at Marty. "Nope, that didn't work." He shrugged.

  Glancing up at the hole in the ceiling again, which would surely be filled with white grinning faces at any moment, Kate flung her hands up in frustration and made her own attempt to break through the plastic barrier, failing in an equally spectacular fashion.

  "Okay, so now what?" Her voice carried a hint of panic, rising in pitch at the end of the question as the huge floor suddenly lurched sideways.

  Knocking the trio off their already unsteady feet, the room continued in what was now a definite clockwise rotation, gaining speed and whirring like a wind turbine. Marty felt himself sliding towards the edge of the dome while the room picked up still more speed. Timbers shot past Marty’s head for the second time in
as many minutes, albeit unwittingly this time.

  The entire chamber spun at a rate that sent Marty pinballing after Timbers, who was pressed face first against the plastic of the dome. Marty crashed into the wall next to him, the sound of the whirring room and muffled pirate complaints filling his ears. Then a new sound joined the chaotic concerto, an awful shrieking, whopping, giggling sound that Marty had heard before. He strained to look up as the hole in the ceiling birthed six cackling freaks into the room below.

  #

  The whirling chamber settled into a more pedestrian rotation, and Marty was able to peer backwards over his shoulder as he, Timbers and Kate slid from the wall, arriving back on not-so-solid ground with a slumping half-bounce.

  Behind them, the clowns hit the floor and sprang in all directions like so many demented Jack-in-the-boxes. Twisting and contorting impossibly in midair, three of their number had been propelled in the direction of the slumped trio. Marty struggled to his feet but was still finding the motion of the room far too mobile for his liking. He lurched to one side, just as a wickedly taloned hand within a tattered white glove swatted at what would have been his head seconds earlier, and tumbled over to where Timbers had somehow managed to best gravity. The tiny pirate was on his feet, struggling with his cutlass.

  The owner of the hand landed feet away and leered over at the pair, crouching as if to pounce while gurgling a throaty chuckle in their direction. Marty froze in its gaze, and Timbers heroically fell on his backside as the tiny sword at his side refused to budge from its sheath. Whooping with demonic delight, the grotesque jester sprang forward, reaching and grasping with its outstretched claws, looming over Marty and Timbers like a vulture swooping down on its lunch.

  Marty flinched as a foot shot past his head and planted itself into the leering visage of the onrushing harlequin, connecting with a crunch and a faint honk as its bright red nose absorbed the full force of Kate's size six in what must surely have been a display of either a small degree of martial arts skill or a large degree of luck.

  The dented clown flew backwards like a rag doll into two of his cohorts, sending them sprawling on the spinning floor, as Marty turned to regard the triumphant Kate. She stood over him with her arms planted firmly on her hips.

  "Yeah!" she spat. "I…I can't think of anything witty to say…"

  Marty snapped out of the admiring hypnosis, which had momentarily taken him out of the situation, and grabbed Kate's hand. "No need, we've got to move."

  To their left, Timbers shrugged. "I'd have gone with, juggle that!' Sweeping him up by his collar, Marty made a break for the far wall, with Timbers still conjuring one-liners. "No, no, I've got a better one. 'This ain’t no custard pie.’"

  Time again seemed to slow to a crawl, and as they fled, three clowns closed on them, bouncing and shrieking as they gained. Marty felt a hand on his shoulder, and spun. Twisting and falling, he evaded another wickedly hooked haymaker as he half-skidded, half-bounced into the fetal position. A clown shaped figure whipped past him as he fell, and reached for him, missing by inches. Jabbing a foot upwards, Marty connected with something hard and sinuous and heard a shrill squeal as the figure wheeled away, bumping and jarring violently against the ever turning walls.

  To Marty's right, Timbers had taken fetal to the next level and was balled up tightly, colliding with a group of ominous figures in front of them, like a swashbuckling bowling ball, which sent them crashing to the rapidly rotating floor. Still they came, springing back to their feet as quickly as they had been knocked off them. Marty and Kate were running out of places to bounce to, while Timbers was now simply whirling in a tight circle, threatening with various colorful pirate expletives to keel haul anyone who came near him.

  Two clowns converged on the tiny corsair, and the force of their landing sent him shooting upwards and out of their reach. Unfortunately, this put them within reach of Timbers' companions, and reach they did.

  Marty felt a cold, claw-like hand clamp round his ankle. Its owner screeched with manic delight as though it had been fishing and had just gotten a bite. The hand began to reel Marty in, and he flailed backwards with both arms, inadvertently catching a random clown face with one fist, and removing a clump of bright blue hair from a second clown head with the other. Both injured freaks fell like demolished chimney stacks on either side of him, but still Marty skidded backwards, ensnared by the ghostly white, taloned pincer at his feet. Mustering his courage, Marty twisted to face his captor and, with the best battle cry he could manage, drove towards it shoulder first.

  The figure, its eyes manic and bulging, let out a gleeful cackle, releasing Marty and spreading its arms wide in beckoning anticipation. Marty ploughed forward, missing his target as it lunged to one side, still chuckling mockingly. It watched as momentum carried Marty onwards and into the hunched shape of another clown which was bearing down on Kate, cornered and flailing at her tormentor. It buckled as Marty inadvertently, but effectively, lifted it off the ground and sent it skittering away.

  Kate struggled to her feet on the still spinning floor, and Marty turned from where he had landed, his eyes locking on the looming figure of the braying harlequin he had shot past moments earlier. It slithered forward, squealing with delight and reaching with twisting, grabbing hands. Now towering over Kate and Marty, the giggling jester advanced, grasping and snarling with teeth bared. Had gravity not taken its course, those hands and teeth may have found their mark. It was Timbers, however, on his way back down to earth, who found his target. Landing with a resounding thud, the tiny captain dropped feet first onto the unsuspecting head of the ghoulish attacker, who went down like a dirty joke at a formal dinner party.

  His mind reeling with simultaneous shock and relief, Marty scrambled to his feet, rocking against the momentum of the room. He grabbed Kate's hand and steadied himself. "If we don't get out of here soon, we're going to run out of luck and incredibly fortuitous Kung Fu moves."

  Timbers had arrived at his side, and managed to wrestle his cutlass from its sheath. "Couldn't agree more," he cried, triumphantly holding the miniature sword over his head. "A wise man once said, if in doubt, give it a clout."

  Suddenly realizing the intention, Marty's eyes widened. "Who said that?"

  Timbers paused, twirling the cutlass in midair. "Me. Just then," he retorted proudly, before driving the blade firmly into the inflated plastic at his feet.

  At that moment, the world seemed to explode. A deafening pop was followed by a huge rush of air as everything suddenly shrank. Timbers had carved a jagged tear into the floor, and what seemed like a hurricane was now escaping from it. The little captain shot into the air again, meeting the rapidly diminishing ceiling and rebounding off it like a cork from a bottle. Kate and Marty were flung backwards as the room around them imploded loudly and violently.

  With the sound of a deflating balloon, which would undoubtedly have drawn sniggers from Timbers, had he not been pinballing from floor to ceiling, the great chamber of the Zero G Fun House shriveled and shrank in on itself, collapsing around clown, human, and toy pirate alike.

  Finally everything settled into so much plastic sheeting, with the faint sound of escaping air still issuing from the tear in the floor, leaving several prostrate bumps in what was now no more than a vast groundsheet.

  From the hole that Timbers had carved, Marty's head squeezed out into the afternoon sun. He wrestled himself free, pulling Kate out behind him. He glanced here and there for signs of clownish assault, but none was immediately forthcoming, although some of the prostrate bumps were stirring. The one closest to him wriggled and struggled, before a shiny silver blade shot upwards, cleaving a second fissure in what had once been the Zero G Fun House.

  Poking his head out of the hole he made, Timbers' one good eye blinked in the bright sunshine. "My plan worked then," he chirped, squirming to his feet.

  Kate was first to her feet, running over to where the little pirate stood, and hoisting him up in her
arms. "You saved us!" She yelled, laughing and twirling him around.

  Timbers seemed momentarily coy. "Please, no more spinning," he implored. She set him down, and he dusted himself off theatrically. "If you want something done right, ask a pirate," he mumbled, his roguish grin rapidly reappearing.

  Sighing with relief, Marty shot a wink at his pint sized compadre. "Nice work, captain, now how about we make a move before this Peepers guy gets here to dig his chuckle buddies out?"

  Timbers wasn't smiling anymore. He was pointing. "That Peepers guy?" A shaky finger pointed past Marty at a shadow watching from the path behind them.

  Mr. Peepers stood shrouded in darkness at the brow of the hill above, and seemed to float out into the light as Marty turned to follow the pointing finger. He was indeed noticeably larger than the clowns they had escaped from moments ago, although he sported the same devilish grin and insanely bulging eyes. The trio froze as he descended towards them, his gaze cold and hypnotizing, his progress purposeful and impending. As Marty watched, rooted to the spot, a mighty shadow passed over them. Snapped from his trance, he glanced upwards as the looming darkness was joined by a deafening roar and a smothering rush of wind.

  The Flying Fathom appeared like the rising sun behind them. It passed overhead and angled in a tight arc, which bought the ship to within meters of the ground. As it swooped in front of Marty and his companions, a rope ladder cascaded from the deck.

  Not wishing to become any more acquainted with the leering circus freak closing in on them, Marty lunged for the trailing ladder as it swept past. He caught a handful of rungs and turned to his friends as the Fathom dragged him along.

  Before he could say, "Move it! Holding down a floating pirate ship isn't as easy as it sounds," Kate was at his side and already past the first few rungs of the ladder. Marty took larger steps now, bounding, floating steps as the Fathom banked and picked up speed. Timbers had, however, vaulted onto the bottom rung of the ladder and beamed up at his friend.