Chemical Gardens Read online

  I don’t know whether I should be relieved or worried at this realization. I suppose it’s better than finding myself in an underground volcano but at the same time, what are the chances that anyone will find me down here? And since when did the historic underground go down so deep? Last I knew, it was only a few dozen feet or so.

  Not that I pay a lot of attention to the whole tourist aspect of Seattle, but I’m able to recall a little of the story: back in the 1800’s downtown Seattle was pretty far below sea level, which caused flooding and, if memory serves, some kind of plumbing problems as well. Evidently, it got pretty bad because after a while people decided they didn’t like the smell of shit or some damn thing, so they moved the streets up, but still left the shops and bars below. People would be walking up on the sidewalk and if they wanted a loaf of bread or a glass of beer, they literally had to climb down these ladders to get to the other sidewalk down below, where all the cool places were.

  Apparently, it was as if most of the world was existing on top of a maze—walking, driving, living—but they could look down over the edge of the maze and see other people walking around down there, shopping, sweeping, whatever.

  I don’t know how long this crazy set-up lasted, but I guess eventually people tired of it and the shop owners and barkeepers had to move their businesses up to the regular street level and when they did so, most of the buildings down there were destroyed and the areas filled in and built over. But some places weren’t filled in at all. Some were just built over and forgotten, so now, beneath Seattle there are all these hollow places where stores and barber shops and saloons once stood. A lot of the crap got left behind too, mostly just junk like barrels and cash registers, benches, tools, bottles.

  Many of the people who actually live in Seattle don’t give much thought to what’s below them but the tourists eat that crap up. They go on Underground tours, buy Underground mementos, take Underground pictures. Hell, I’ve even heard that people can get married down there.

  Or rather…down here.

  A scraping sound behind me causes me to whirl around and face the van again. I think maybe what I heard was the scuttling of a rat or some other subterranean creature until it comes again, accompanied by what can only be the voice of a human groaning in prolonged misery.

  I step around the van, expecting to see another earthquake victim like myself, but instead there is no one. At least, no one immediately visible. Then movement catches my eye and I look down. A thick, white, obviously male, arm protrudes from under the body of my van, the fingernails scratching at the cobblestone as if the owner of the arm is searching for purchase, something to grasp onto to enable them to pull themselves out from under what must be a ton or two of twisted metal.

  “Fuck!” I hiss and hurry over, dropping to one knee beside the arm. “Oh my God! Don’t worry!” I realize I sound ridiculous but I have no idea of what to say to a guy who is crushed but somehow still alive. “I’m gonna try to help you!” I shout, assuming that whoever is under there is probably having some difficulty hearing, what with their head being squashed and all.

  Putting aside my guitar case, I straighten up and press my body into the roof of the van, trying with all my might to push it. Then it occurs to me that unless a human skid-mark smeared across the ground is what I’m after, I should actually be trying to lift the van instead.

  “Jesus.” I take a step back, trying to appraise the situation when the hand flexes once and then goes limp.

  Horrified, I hunker down again, grabbing the hand in my own. “Hey! Hey, don’t give up! We’ll get you out of there, I promise.”

  I have no idea what I’m even saying, just repeating the nonsense that people in movies say, but I know it’s already too late for whoever it is that my van fell on.

  Releasing his hand, I say in my most somber voice, “I’m sorry my van killed you. I bet you were a kick-ass guy and I hope you can find it in your dead heart to forgive me.”

  The dead man’s arm responds by abruptly bursting into flames.

  “Shit!” I jump back, startled. The arm burns quickly, as if it’s made of tissue paper, and before I can even register what’s happening, it’s gone, reduced to a thin line of black ash.

  Mouth agape, I stare down at the remains with a million expletives running through my mind until a strange slithery sound diverts my attention.

  With slow reluctance, I turn around to find small shadows moving all around me, coming out of corners and from behind all the various junk strewn about. When my eyes adjust, I see they aren’t shadows at all but little gray creatures of some kind, humanoid but for their exceptionally long arms and umbrella-shaped heads.

  I backpedal as more and more of the creatures emerge from their hiding places, all moving slowly, as if they are scared of me.

  The boldest and the tallest—about knee high—of the creatures approaches me with evident trepidation, pure white eyes glowing in its gray face. It blinks slowly at me, and says, “You killed Commander Salamander.”

  I feel faint and then realize it’s because I’m not breathing. I force myself to push the pent up air out of my lungs but it doesn’t help much. My head still swoons and the creature speaks again, louder: “You killed Commander Salamander.”

  “What?” I press my back hard into the van, hoping it holds me up. “No, I didn’t. Who?”

  The creature gestures with its long stick arm at the line of ash I’m now standing in. “You killed him.”

  “No, I didn’t. I mean, not on purpose! It was an accident! The earthquake—”

  “Commander Salamander is dead!” the creature shouts suddenly, causing a stir among his fellow creatures. They all become emboldened, crowding closer around the tall one, white eyes on me, murmuring to each other.

  “I’m sorry!” I yell, certain I’m about to be sprayed with acid blood or choked with an invisible hand. “It wasn’t my fault! The van fell into the hole and—”

  But the creatures aren’t listening to me. They’re becoming more and more excited, hopping around and raising their voices. I see two of them give each other high-fives.

  Puzzled, I watch them, becoming more and more certain that the guy under the van being dead is a good thing. Too fascinated by what appears to be a sudden celebration, I don’t immediately notice the blond guy that surfs over on a clear hoverboard, but when I do, it just adds to my confusion. Dressed only in swimming trunks, he seems happy as well, and hops off his board to come stand by me. Bobbing his head, he says, “Dude, you totally made their day!”

  “I didn’t do anything!” I say. “It was the earthquake!”

  He looks at me, tossing the long hair out of his eyes. “So, you’re like, the new Underlord, huh? Gnarly!”

  The tallest creature steps forward and offers me an odd little bow, bending himself over until his fleshy umbrella head almost touches the ground. “The new Underlord!” he shouts at the ground.

  I cringe slightly, vaguely disgusted, then ask, “What the fuck are you?”

  The creature straightens up and says, “We are known as Kreepkins! And you have saved us from the evil Underlord Commander Salamander!”

  “That dude was a bummer,” the blond surfer says.

  “We are eternally in your service!”

  “IN YOUR SERVICE!” the Kreepkins shout in unison.

  “Wait a second,” I say. “You guys look like a cross between mushrooms and…and I don’t know what. Spiders, maybe?”

  “Kreepkins.” The surfer nods.

  Bewildered, I turn to him. “Who are you?”

  He laughs and says, “Dude, I’m Chad. I’m, like…you know…an Underlord too. Kinda. But, see, mostly I just chill.” He bobs his head and gives me a crooked smile.

  I nod, though I have no fucking clue what he’s talking about. “I see…”

  “So, you and me,” he continues, “we’re like…on the same team, dude!”

  A few seconds pass with me trying to make sense of what he’s saying, but then I give i
t up and ask, “How do I get the hell out of here?”

  “What?” Chad looks at me as if I’d just spoken in Swahili.

  “I need to get out of here. You know, back up to the surface, with the rest of the normal world. Is there an elevator or something?”

  Chad’s face remains blank and then he suddenly laughs again. “Oh, riiiight. I get it!”

  Rolling my eyes, I turn back to the Kreepkins who are still engaged in some sort of surreal jubilee, dancing with each other. Some of them are even singing. Or, at least, I think they’re singing. Something about a salamander crushed beneath the karmic wheels of fate.

  “Why are they called Kreepkins?” I ask Chad.

  He shrugs. “I guess ‘cause they’re creepy but kinda cute too.”

  We watch the creepy little creatures dance and sing for a minute or two and then I decide that I’ve seen enough.

  “You know what,” I say to no one in particular, “I think I’ll just find my own way out.” I grab my guitar case and start weaving around the dancing toadstool-spider thingies, anxious to be gone.

  I don’t get more than a few paces away from the crowd however, when someone yells, “Just where the fuck do you think you’re going?”

  Frowning, I pause and turn back, trying to determine where the voice came from as the little Kreepkins all scuttle back into their hiding places. Then the owner of the voice falls out of the air, with the sound of huge leathery wings flapping. This new addition to the party lands directly in front of me, does a dramatic twirl, spinning around and using the wings as if they were a cape before coming to a stop to glare at me with gleaming silver eyes.

  It is a demon of some sort, or so it seems, though distinctly female and vaguely familiar despite the shiny beetle-black carapace and pale yellow thorns covering its head like a sadistic helmet.

  “Give me that guitar,” the thing hisses at me through scaly gray lips. “It’s mine! Give it here!” A claw-like hand reaches for me, dagger nails clicking together with a menacing sound.

  Once again, I’m backpedaling frantically, a squeak of alarm in my throat, but then something about the demon—if that’s what it is—something about the shape of its face…her face, makes me pause in my retreat. I peer more closely at the features, then say, “Wanda?” Oddly, the demon bears a striking resemblance to Wanda Drago, the woman I bought my guitar from. The woman who has been harassing me for money she knows I don’t have at the moment.

  At the sound of my voice, the demon only snarls, advancing on me. “I want that guitar!”

  Then the surfer dude, Chad, is beside me, facing the demon without any trace of fear. “You need to chill out,” he tells it. “You’re, like, spewing all this negative energy and it’s bumming everyone out.”

  The demon turns its attention to him, silver eyes like glimmering pools of mercury, catching lantern-light. “Stay out of this, Chad,” it tells him. “This is between me and my brother’s killer!”

  “Brother!” I gasp. “The guy under the van is your brother?”

  “Was! Now give me that guitar before I infest your every orifice with squirming maggots!”

  I crinkle my nose in distaste and glance at Chad. “Can she really do that?”

  He shrugs and reaches a hand towards my guitar case.

  “Hey!” I jerk it out of his reach, switching it to my other hand, but his vague spacey smile offers reassurance and so I hand it over to him without complaint.

  Chad holds the case by its curved waist, holding it up to eye-level, then gently kisses it and hands it back to me.

  This bizarre ritual seems to infuriate the demon, who hisses again and shakes an angry fist at him. “You little prick! Why can’t you just mind your own business.”

  “The Underground is my business,” he says. “And I’m all about the peace, dude.” He grins then, as if he expects the demon to share his sentiment. When she only continues to sputter obscenities, he turns back to me.

  “What the fuck was that?” I ask.

  “What?”

  “The kissing and shit. Are you like a surfer priest or something?”

  He laughs. “No way, dude. I just gave it some of my happy mojo.”

  “Happy mojo?”

  “Yeah. You know, like, for protection.”

  I think about this for a second. Then: “Protection from her?” I look at the demon, who promptly gives me the finger.

  Chad nods, still smiling like a little kid, his long hair falling into his eyes.

  “I will get that guitar!” The demon growls. “Happy mojo or not! And while I’m at it, I think I’ll take your precious little life too!”

  Indignant, I grunt like her threats don’t intimidate me in the slightest. “Do you know how much I paid for this guitar? It’s a genuine Sweet Tooth! I’m not just gonna hand it over to whoever wants it! Not even a skanky-ass bully like you!”

  The demon roars, spittle flying, and tries to lunge at me but Chad deftly keeps himself between us. “For real, dude, I sense another aftershock coming,” he tells the demon. “If you’re not careful, another car could, like, totally crush you too. It’s that whole karma thing. You should be careful.”

  This statement seems to alarm the demon. She flinches and looks up at the hole high above us as if she expects to see an entire fleet of falling vehicles that very second.

  “It’s probably safer for you back at your condo,” Chad adds, then jumps at her, wiggling his fingers in her face. “Happy mojo!”

  Yelping, the demon leaps away from him, her eyes bright with hate, her black wings lifting her a full five feet off the ground. Quickly, her gaze shifts to me and she hisses, “I’ll be back for you, ho-bag! Watch your ass!”

  And with that, she whirls up through the air and flies away down one of the many black tunnels surrounding us, the sound of her wings lingering long after she’s disappeared from sight.

  Chad laughs again. “Dude, you totally have an enemy now.”

  Staring into the darkness after her, I say, “Nothing new about that.”

  He stops laughing, his face bemused. “Huh?”

  “She’s never liked me much.”

  “Huh?”

  I shake my head. “Never mind. Just tell me how to get out of here, okay?”

  “What do you mean? You can’t leave. You’re, like, the new Underlord.”

  “Yeah, sure, whatever. Where do I go to get back up to the surface?”

  He looks wounded and confused, as if I’ve just told him I won’t be his best friend after all, but then he says, “I’m not really sure. No one’s ever asked me that before.”

  “What do you mean, no one’s ever asked you that before? How do you get back up?” His face remains blank, so I say, “When you leave here, how do you get back up?”

  There is a long moment of silence in which I assume his pretty blond beach boy wheels are turning. Finally, he seems to understand the question and says, “Oh, I’ve never been up there, so I don’t know.”

  I’m tempted to argue with him—how could he have ‘never been up there’?—but instead I ask, “Well, who can tell me then? One of those Umbrella heads?”

  “Kreepkins,” he corrects. “But, none of them have ever been up there either. None of us have.”

  “That’s impossible!” I snap. “You don’t live down here, for crying out loud!”

  “Yes, we do. Where else would we live?”

  Staring at him, I point up. “How about Seattle? Above ground?”

  Another pause and then he snaps his fingers and smiles. “I know! You could ask the Metal Priestess!”

  “The what?”

  Nodding, proud of himself, he says, “The Metal Priestess. She knows everything.”

  “Okaaaay. And where might I find this Priestess?”

  “She lives either in or near the Chemical Gardens. At least that’s what I’ve heard. Never been there myself.”

  “Wait. Back up. Chemical Gardens?”

  “Yep, that’s what they say.”
<
br />   “Listen, Chad, I don’t want to seem ungrateful, but I’ve never heard of a place in Washington called Chemical Gardens. Are you sure it’s not a club or something?”

  Chad’s smile slips a notch and he regards me with a look that says he thinks I’m dumber than dirt. “Like I said, I’ve never been there, but I’ve heard it’s really nice. Green and pretty.”

  “Green and pretty.” I sigh and glance at the Kreepkins who are now gathering around us once more. “Okay, how do I get there?”

  “There’s only one way,” Chad says ominously.

  “The black sewer sludge!” one of the Kreepkins shouts and then they’re all shouting it, over and over. It becomes a weird chant, deafening in this echoing chamber. “The black sewer sludge! The black sewer sludge!”

  I decide I’m not feeling so good and want to sit down, but I want to get out of there even more. “All this excitement is getting to me,” I yell at Chad to be heard over the chanting Kreepkins. “Is there a bus or something?”

  He shakes his head. “You totally have to follow the black sewer sludge.”

  “Yeah, I got that part. Where is it?”

  “Right behind you, dude.” He points and I turn to see what is definitely a stream of black sewer sludge flowing nearby, although flowing isn’t really the right word. It’s more like chugging sluggishly, almost as it were alive but sleepy and slow, thick with its own weight.

  I study the sludgy stream for a moment. “Gross.”

  “Yeah,” Chad agrees. “That’s why not too many folks go to the Chemical Gardens. They say it’s nice once you get there, but the trip over is a total drag.”

  I’m pretty sure I don’t like the sound of that but decide I’d rather not pursue it. Instead, I shift my guitar case to my other hand and say, “Well, no time like the present I guess. Any chance you want to come along?”

  Chad actually looks frightened by the prospect but quickly tries to cover it up by laughing. “Thanks, dude, but I need to catch some wind. There’s supposed to be some wild zephyrs tonight.” He nods towards his hoverboard, which is still hovering nearby.

  “Okay,” I say. “But you really should try to get out of here one of these days. There’s a whole world over your head, you know.”