Keal winked at David. “You heard the man.” He vanished into an antechamber.
David stopped at Xander’s open door. His brother was standing in front of the portal, hands and foot positioned as Keal had instructed. He had a stovepipe hat balanced on top of his shaggy hair, a white scarf draped over one shoulder.
“Nothing,” Xander yelled.
Listening for that word from Xander and Keal had become almost subconscious for David. He didn’t realize he was doing it, but between
Opening door
and
Door closed
, if one of them missed saying
Nothing
, David noticed. At first he’d thought it was stupid; now he saw that it was a great way to keep track of each other. If one of them accidentally went over, help was no more than fifteen or twenty seconds behind.
We may get this down after all
, he thought. An organized rescue party. He liked that.
He went to the next door on the left and went in. He cringed at one of the items hanging on a hook: a shrunken head. Not much bigger than an apple, the face was perfectly preserved, if a bit distorted. Eyes closed. Pursed lips. Squashed nose. Long black hair came out of the scalp and looped around the hook.
I hope that’s fake
, he thought, but he knew better.
The other items were a stone knife, a coil of twine, a brace-let made of unidentifiable hairy objects, and a stained blanket. Leaning against the wall, rising up from the bench, was what appeared to be a long wooden drinking straw. So he could keep his hands free to brace himself, David chose the items he could shove into his pockets: knife, twine, and hairy bracelet, which felt the way it looked, prickly and a bit oily. He said, “
Eeeww
,” as Toria would say. Then: “Opening door!”
The portal swirled with greens and browns. A wet, woodsy fragrance drifted in, then the smell of burning wood. The swirling faded, first becoming mostly transparent, then disap-pearing altogether. The blurry landscape before him cleared, and he was looking through trees into a clearing. A half dozen men crouched around a raging fire. They were dressed in loincloths and necklaces with dangling sticklike things—
Bones
? David wondered. The bottom half of each man’s face was painted bright red. They seemed only to be talking to one another, but their appearance alone scared David spitless.
He saw more of the long drinking straws. A man held one, resting it on the ground like a king with his scepter. Another was lashed to a different man’s back. David suspected they were weapons, maybe bows. That made him think that these people were primitive warriors. If they were half as fierce as they looked, he felt sorry for whoever met them in battle.
Remembering the signal, he said, “Nothing.” It came out barely a whisper. He didn’t think sounds penetrated the por-tal from the antechamber. Xander had spoken to him when he’d gone into the jungle world—his first time over—but his brother’s lips had moved without any words reaching David’s ears. But he didn’t exactly want to take a chance.
I’d rather get a berserker’s attention
, David thought.
Well . . .
maybe
.
He turned to yell over his shoulder. “N—“
“Door closed!” Xander yelled.
David tried again: “Nothing!”
He turned back to the portal and jumped at a blur of movement directly in front of him. A warrior had leaped into view from the side, wild-eyed and screaming.
F
RIDAY
, 5:12
P. M
.
The warrior’s high-pitched voice reached David as if through a pillow. He glared at David as though at the most hideous thing he had ever seen. His red-painted jaw snapped shut, and opened again, drawing David’s eye to a mouthful of tiny, pointed teeth.
Before David could leap away and slam the door, a hand shot through the portal and grabbed his right wrist.
“Aaaaahhhhh!” David screeched. He yanked on his arm, but the warrior’s hand was like a vise. The man’s skin was brown and leathery. His fingernails were black and sharp.
David’s hand slipped off the wall and went into the portal, pulled in by the crazy man. The muscles in his legs strained to keep him in the antechamber. He squeezed his fingers around the edge of the door, but his broken arm throbbed and felt ready to pull apart, mid-forearm. He had no strength in that arm, and his fingers began slipping off the door.
“Heeeeelp!”
On the other side of the portal, the warrior held David’s wrist in both hands, tugging. He twisted his shoulders and bounced up and down to pull David through. Beyond the man, past the trees, the other warriors had sprung up, pointing and shifting their heads to figure out what was happening. They started for him.
“David!” Xander yelled behind him. David felt his broth-er’s arms wrap around his torso. Xander heaved back, pulling David with him. His hand returned to the antechamber, encircled by the cannibal’s hands.
The warrior tugged, reclaiming David’s hand and wrist. Xander’s arms slipped higher, over David’s chest. The tug-of-war over David’s upper body caused his leg to slip out from under him. It swung forward like a pendulum—right through the portal.
The warrior released his grip on his wrist and seized hold of his ankle.
David’s leg went farther into the other world, and he could no long keep his foot pressed against the wall. His foot swiv-eled, slipped off the wall and through the portal. The man grabbed that leg as well. Now he had both of David’s ankles in his hands.
Both boys fell, Xander to the floor, David on top of him. David went farther into the portal. He looked down over his body and saw that everything below his waist was in the war-rior’s world. His blue-jeaned legs appeared a few degrees out of alignment with the rest of his body, and a little blurry, as though they were under the surface of a clear lake.
Beyond his knees and feet, the man’s eyes rolled insanely. His teeth flashed as his mouth opened and closed, opened and closed, like a snapping dog’s.
“I can’t help you like this!” Xander yelled from under him. He shifted and pushed himself out from under David, keeping one arm over David’s chest. He got to his knees at David’s shoulder and grabbed David’s arm—right at the break.
David let out a howl of pain.
Xander shifted his grip to David’s bicep.
Something sailed over David’s face and made a thunking sound in the wall behind him. He looked through the por-tal to see the other warriors in the forest now. One raised a wooden straw. He put one end to his mouth and pointed the other end at the brothers.
A blowgun!
“Xander!” David screamed. “They’re shooting at us!”
“What?” Xander said and looked.
As if by magic, a knitting-needle-sized dart appeared in Xander’s chest—up high by his shoulder. He cried out, but he did not release his hold on David’s arm. He gaped at the thing protruding from his chest.
“Xander!” David said. He felt his brother’s grip loosen.
“I . . . don’t feel . . . so good.” Xander fell forward, on top of David’s arm. But he was still moving. His hand found David’s chin and pushed. He was continuing his fight, trying to keep the man from taking David.
Two more warriors rushed up to the portal. Their arms came into the antechamber, grabbing for Xander. One of them got a grip on his hair and pulled. Xander slid toward the other world.
“No . . . !” David yelled.
A big foot stomped down next to him. Keal leaned over Xander, held the barrel of a pistol inches from the arm holding Xander’s hair, and fired. The sound sent clattering bells through David’s brain. And that was all right, for it had freed his brother. Keal pulled him into the middle of the antechamber.
The man holding David’s leg pulled. He went through— stopping only when he snagged his arm against the doorjamb. Everything below his chest was in the other world. The portal itself messed with his insides. His stomach rolled, seeming to tighten and loosen, fast as a hummingbird’s heart. He gagged, feeling the contents of his stomach start to come up.
A shocking, blinding flash of pain kept him from puking. He raised his head. The man was
biting
his leg. It dawned on him: these weren’t just warriors, they were
cannibals
.
Keal lowered his knee into David’s chest, pinning him down and blocking his view. He pointed the pistol.
“Keal, no!” David said, pushing the words through clenched teeth. He wanted Keal to shoot, but at the same time he
didn’t
want that. David had intruded into the cannibal’s world; as bad as the situation was, somehow it didn’t seem fair to just
kill
them.
The gun roared again, and David thrashed his legs. Pain still shot up from the bite wound, but he was free! Keal grabbed his waistband, rose, and half pulled, half tossed David back into the antechamber.
The gun spoke again:
Bam!
Then Keal backed away from the portal and slammed the door.
F
RIDAY
, 5:15
P. M
.
David sat up and grabbed his leg. Blood had seeped through his jeans in two semicircles on either side of his shinbone. Little bite holes showed themselves like tiny mouths, opening and closing as he moved. Somehow worse—grosser—was the slime between and around the bite marks. Saliva.
Cannibals
, he thought, sure he was right. He hoped he didn’t get an infection. Who knew what kind of diseases those—
Then he remembered, and turned to find Xander.
His brother was lying on his stomach, his legs and arms barely moving. He was gasping for breath.
“Xander!” David yelled. “Keal, Xander’s hurt, hurt bad!”
Keal knelt beside Xander and rolled him over. “Xander?” he said. He shook his shoulders.
Xander tried to lift his head. It clunked back to the floor. “Can’t . . . breathe . . . “
“The dart!” David said, pointing. It had collapsed flat against Xander’s chest by his fall to the floor.
Keal plucked it out and examined the tip. David could see blood, but it didn’t seem to have gone in very far.
“Is it poison?” David asked.
Keal nodded. “Probably curare.” He leaned over Xander and placed his palms low on his chest. He pushed down, relaxed, pushed again. Air rushed out of Xander’s mouth with each push.
“Better?” Keal asked.
Xander wheezed. “Y-yeah.” He gasped.
Keal continued pushing, relaxing, pushing.
David scooted along the floor to his brother’s side. “Is it his heart?” he said.
“His lungs,” Keal answered. “Or actually, the muscles that work the lungs. Curare is a fast-acting poison. It relaxes the muscles to the point that you can’t breathe. If we don’t get an antidote in him fast . . . “ He closed his mouth and appeared to concentrate on working Xander’s lungs for him.
“What?” David said. “What will happen if he doesn’t get the antidote? Keal!”
“He’ll suffocate,” Keal said. “All right? He’ll suffocate.”
Xander gasped. His face rolled toward David. His lids were droopy, but David saw the fear in his eyes.
David reached out and squeezed his hand. “You’ll be okay, Xander. We’ll take care of you. Right, Keal? We can get him to the hospital in time. Tell me we can!”
“Yeah,” Keal said. “We can do that.”
Push, relax, push
. “We gotta move him, though, and keep helping him breathe.”
“I can do it,” David said. “You pull him, I’ll make sure he breathes.”
“Can’t . . . “ Xander gasped. “Can’t . . . feel . . . my . . . legs . . .arms.”
“The poison is paralyzing your muscles,” Keal explained. “It’s not permanent, Xander. Don’t worry. When the poison wears off or gets neutralized by an antidote, everything will return to normal. We just have to keep you breathing in the meantime.”
Xander gasped, gasped . . . helped by Keal’s pushing. It was the worst thing David had ever seen. He moaned, dropped his head, and began sobbing.
“David!” Keal said. “Not now! Get a hold of yourself. Now! Xander needs you.”
David’s crying hitched to a jerky stop like an eighteen-wheeler slamming on its brakes. He pushed the tears away, said, “What do I do?”
“See what I’m doing?” Keal said. “Down, up. Time it with your own breathing. Relax when you inhale, push when you exhale.”
“I can do that.”
“But not too hard. You’ll get a feel for it when—“
Wind blew in from under the door. It swirled around them. The dart Keal had tossed aside zipped along the floor and through the gap. David spotted another dart sticking in the wall beside the hallway door—the one he had seen flash past his face. It vibrated, popped out of the wall, spun in the wind, and disappeared under the door.
He felt his pant leg flapping around. He watched the can-nibal’s spit come off his jeans, form into tiny beads in the air, and fly away.
Xander pulled in a breath, deep and full, like a man break-ing the surface after too long underwater. He exhaled, sucked in more air.