THE UNDERTAKERS: Night of Monsters (Part Three)

And, below, one of my best friends stood engulfed in about a million giant Super Maggots.

Steiger had undoubtedly gone off to restore power to the building. My EMP had popped its circuit breakers. We had two minutes, maybe three, before the Corpse mad scientist reset them and the juice came back on. When it did, the current running through the walls and floor of this room would wake up all those hungry little things.

I had to get the Burgermeister out of there before that happened.

“Can you get across the room?” I asked, pointing at the door through which Steiger had gone.

“Think so,” he replied, sounding unhappy. Then, as I watched, he started sloshing through the chest-deep mass of sleeping maggots, making sad little retching noises with each step.

Sticking my pocketknife between my teeth with its flashlight pointing ahead, I began scuttling along the pipe. Straddling it as I was, I had to pull myself along with my hands and kind of jerk my hips forward to follow. It was slow — way slower than I would have liked — but it worked.

By the time we both reached the far wall, however, it was plain as day that neither of us could reach the door frame, much less the knob.

“Now what?” the Burgermeister asked me. His broad face looked a little green in the light from my pocketknife. I didn't blame him, being pretty sure I was wearing the same color.

Notice that he asked me: “Now what?”

Somehow or other, I've gotten this rep for — I don't know — improvising? For not just making it up as I go, but for making it up good. I'm not really sure how I earned that reputation, especially since whatever I wind up doing usually lands me neck deep in trouble.

Sometimes — like now — literally.

Anyway, that's me. Will Ritter: Idea Man.

I looked at the door. Then I looked at the Burgermeister standing below it. Then I looked at the door again.

“Put up your hands,” I said.

“What?”

I sighed. “Put your hands up over your head, palms up. In a second, I gonna jump off this pipe and try to hit your hands with my feet. When I do ... I mean the second I do ... I want you to throw me straight up. I'll try to grab the door.”

“You mean ... fling you again?” He did his best to grin.

“Just shut up and do it.”

Carefully, I twisted my body and got my sneakered feet under me. The pipe was thick, but it wasn't all that thick, and balancing on it was like balancing on a river log — except, thankfully, the pipe wasn't rolling. “Ready?”

Below me, Dave nodded. “Ready!”

I held my breath, took aim, said a silent little prayer, and jumped.

The Burgermeister monstrous palms found my feet. An instant later, my body hurtled straight up and I managed to catch the bottom of the door jam. At first, my grip failed, and I almost fell back into the maggot pit.  But I scrambled with my sneakers at the wall below the door and finally managed to hoist myself high enough to get one hand around the door knob.

I turned it.

Locked.

Figures.

With a moan, I let my full weight dangle from one hand while my other took the pocketknife from between my teeth. “Gotta shut off the flashlight to use the lock pick!” I called down. “It's gonna get dark again.”