Chapter Seventeen: Entanglement

“But all the while a very uncomfortable thought was growing inside him.”

-The Hobbit: Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire

            Ulla looked much the same as she had when they first met her; very well dressed (this time in a red dress), immaculately clean, her curly blond hair done up stylishly, her arrogant, beautiful face supremely bored. She didn’t seem the least surprised at their appearance (bloody, bruised, dirty, and bound in a giant web), and merely came in and stood with her arms folded, surveying them with distaste.

“I thought it might be Nelson or someone,” She went on            “What on Earth are you doing here?”

            “Trying to leave,” said Helen. “What are you doing here?”

            “Oh, I was bored and I thought I’d take a walk,” she answered. “The sun gets rather tiresome sometimes, don’t you agree?”

            “No,” they both said at once.

            “Well, it does,” she said, as though that settled the matter. “So, I came wandering down here to see if there was anything interesting.”

            “You just…walked down here?” Helen asked. “By yourself?”

            “Bruce and Miguel got eaten by that damn snake,” she said irritably. “And since dear Donny won’t lend me any replacement servants, yes, I am by myself at the moment.”

            Helen and Hendricks glanced at each other. Ulla’s obvious disregard for the whole ‘the island is being overrun with monsters’ situation was creepy; as though she weren’t experiencing the same reality that they were. Neither felt the urge to investigate any further, even if they had thought it was wise to do so.

            “I, uh, don’t suppose you could help us get this stuff off?” Hendricks asked (It couldn’t hurt to ask, he thought).

            “Me? Help you?” Ulla laughed; a shrill, haughty laugh that, though it was obviously genuine, was all the more frightening for that fact.

            “Oh, people are always expecting me to do things for them, aren’t they?” she went on. “Just like Donald; always demanding that I help him. I buy him an island. I fund his little ‘save-the-world’ project. I go through nine-months of ulcers because he insists on keeping the little devils. And what do I get for it?”

            “Wait, what?” Hendricks exclaimed. “What was that last one?”

            “I wanted to get rid of them,” she said. “I told him that I had my own plans and my own life to live, and I didn’t intend to wait for a few months to get on with them, but he begged and he threatened and I just had to give in. He’s so selfish, you know?”

            “You mean…you and he…”

            “Yes, we were engaged at one point,” said Ulla. “Not that it’s any of your business. Dodged a bullet there, didn’t I? Or nearly; had to deliver his little brood before I could really get away.”

            “Prosser has children?” Helen asked in horror.

            “Well, he had children,” said Ulla carelessly. “I don’t know if he still does; fed them to one of his pets as likely as not. Twin boys. And a lot of trouble they were, too.”

            “What were their names?” Helen asked automatically.

            “I don’t know that they had names,” said Ulla. “I certainly didn’t give them any! I handed them off to Donny as soon as I could, I can tell you that.”

            Helen stared at her. Much as she had disliked Ulla previously, the casual way she said all of this – as if it were meaningless gossip that had nothing at all to do with her – made Helen utterly hate the woman.

            “You know,” said Ulla. “I believe Donald wants me to kill you.”

            There was a very tense pause.

            “Are you…going to?” Hendricks asked.

            Ulla shrugged.

            “I suppose so,” she said. “Though I confess part of me wants to leave you alone just to spite him.”

            “Why do you do so much for him?” Hendricks asked.

            “Oh, there’s nothing special about that,” said Ulla. “It’s simply that he’s privy to certain information that would be very bothersome to me if it were to get out.”

            “Blackmail, then?”

            “If you like,” she said.

            “Wait, though,” said Helen. “Whatever it is, I imagine that if he exposes you, he won’t be able to rely on your money anymore, right?”

            Ulla frowned at her.

            “Yes, that’s true.”

            “So, if he ruins you, he’ll ruin himself as well,” Hendricks pointed out, catching on.

            “I suppose so,” said Ulla.

            “That means he’s bluffing!” said Helen. “He wouldn’t dare risk ruining his crazy dream, so he’d never actually expose you! He just wants you to think he will so he can keep pumping you for cash.”

            Ulla looked at them very hard for a long time. They waited with baited breath.

            “I’ll have to talk to him about this,” she said at last.

            “Uh, you know,” said Hendricks. “That…might not be a good idea. He’s liable to react badly if he thinks your threatening his master plan.”

            Ulla laughed again, and it was just as disturbing as before. “Oh, dear, I’m not afraid of him!” she said. “I’m untouchable, remember? But, there still remains the question of whether I should kill you.”

            “What?” said Helen. “Buy why would you?”

            “Because I don’t like you, darling,” she said lazily. “You’re an annoying little slut whom the world would be better off without.”

            Helen automatically took a step forward, but Hendricks caught her arm with a warning look.

            “But on the other hand, it would be very tedious, when you’re certainly going to get eaten by one of Donald’s pets anyway, so why should I bother? Yes, I think I’ll leave you for now. Consider it my good deed for the year. Oh, and just because I’m feeling extra generous, I suppose I’ll tell you that that webbing can only be cut by heat. I really hope we don’t meet again; I’d simply have to kill you if we did.”

            Ulla gave them a mean smile that said only too plainly that she didn’t think they would, turned, and walked out without further adieu.

            Hendricks took a long, relieved breath.

            “That,” he said. “Was close.”

            “I think we could have taken her,” said Helen.

            “Yeah, I’m not betting on it,” said Hendricks. “Anyone who can be that casual at a time like this is someone I’m not going to mess around with. Prosser probably made her up like Charles or Hank.”

            “Do you think she’d let him?”

            “Do I think she would want to be invulnerable and inhumanly strong?”

            “Okay, stupid question. Now what about this?” she indicated the web that was covering her arm and hanging down like a cloak. “How are we going to burn this off without burning ourselves?

            “Well, I suppose the first thing is to find some way of burning it at all,” Hendricks pointed out. “But…let’s let her get a head start first.”

            “Good idea. Uh, do you mind if we sit down for a while?”

            Hendricks was glad she asked, and they sank down against the wall with a relieved sigh.

            They sat in silence for a few moments, each enjoying the sensation of relief to their stiff and tired limbs.

            “Hey, Hendricks?” Helen said suddenly.

            “Yeah?”

            “Do you like soccer?”

            “Not really,” Hendricks admitted, a little surprised by the question. “I prefer baseball.”

            Helen grimaced. “Eh, baseball’s too slow for me.”

            “Well, you know,” he said. “It’s all about the strategy and creating tension.”

            “Which is just a fancy way of saying that it’s boring,” she said.

            “At least it’s not just a bunch of guys running around kicking a ball for three hours.”

            “That’s the point, though,” she said. “You have to think on your feet and have a lot of endurance. Heck, soccer’s probably why I’m still going! I’ll have to be sure to let Coach Wheeler know that.”

            “Yeah, but baseball is about thinking period,” said Hendricks. “Planning, picking your play, making the best use of resources. You know; it’s a thinking man’s game.”

            “Until you get hit in the head with a ball.”

            They both laughed.

            “Hey, Helen?”

            “What?”

            “Maybe…after we escape, you’d like to come to a game with me and I can…try to convert you?”

            Helen looked at him with a surprised, but not unwelcoming expression.

            “Okay,” she said. “But only if I can take you to a soccer game afterwards so you can see how much better it is.”

            He smiled.

            “Deal.”

            There was a pause.

             “I think she’s got a big enough lead now,” said Helen. “We probably should get a move on.”

            Hendricks nodded and they heaved themselves up, which took some effort and coordination on their part (and a few tries before they managed it).

            “Okay,” said Helen once they were on their feet again. “Where are we going?”

            “I thought,” said Hendricks. “That we’d just go the same way we were going; toward the docks, but keeping our eyes peeled for anything that we can use to get this stuff off along the way.”

            “What if we don’t find anything?”

            “Then I say we just grab the first boat we find and full steam ahead. We can get it taken care of after we escape.”

            “That’s fair,” she said.

            They checked that the coast was clear and then set off, limping along in their absurd, potato-sack-race manner. The crowbar was still stuck to Hendricks’s right hand, which he couldn’t open.           

            A short way down the corridor, they paused at a four-way junction, looking up and down the halls.

            “Where now?” Hendricks asked.    

            “Let me think…” said Helen. “I kind of lost my sense of direction.”

            “Well, we were going…that way, I think…

            “I think it’s this way…”

            “Wait, what’s that down…”

            “Careful!”

            “Aaagh!”

            Helen suddenly found herself looking up into the Hendricks’s face and trying to get her breath back. It had been knocked out when he landed on top of her.

            “We need to get this fixed,” he said, twitching the web.

            Helen nodded.

            “Off…” she gasped.

            “Oh, right.” Hendricks rolled off of her. She breathed deeply.

            “Sorry,” he said.

            “Don’t worry about it,” she sighed. “So what did you see?”

            “I thought I might have seen a machine shop,” he said. “Through the window down that way.” He pointed over his head. “Might be a torch or something in there.”

“Sounds good,” said Helen. “Oh, great; now we need to get up again.”

            When they had managed to struggle to their feet again, they went to investigate. Hendricks had indeed seen a small machine shop with a large glass window looking out onto the corridor.

            They paused outside of it, peering in through the glass. It was fairly small shop, but from what they could see it had a torch, at least, and there didn’t seem to be anyone in there. Nevertheless, the two of them exchanged a very doubtful look.

            “It just seems…” Hendricks muttered.

            “Too easy,” Helen finished for him.

            They hesitated and looked closer.

            “Well,” Hendricks said after a few more moments. “I guess it’s not going to get any better from just standing here.”

            “I guess,” she said.

            She grasped his hand. He wanted to do the same, but that was the hand that was stuck around his crowbar.

            They both took a deep breath and opened the door.

            Nothing especially frightening happened. They moved into the shop, keeping a sharp lookout for any movement. But they saw none. All was still.

            They stopped. Helen picked up an acetylene torch from the workbench and tried it. It started to life on the second try.

            “Okay,” she said. “Here goes…”

            “Wait, do you know how to use that thing?” Hendricks asked.   

            “Well, I think so,” she said. “I did just turn it on.”

            “Have you ever used one before?”

            “Yeah, in shop class.”

            “Have you used one since?”

            “No, but all I’m going to do is cut some web; it’s not like I’m going to be spot welding something.”

            “I suppose,” said Hendricks. “Okay, just wanted to make sure…”

            At that moment there was horrible noise from right behind them. They both whipped around, but the wrong way so that they only succeeded in slamming into each other and Hendricks very nearly had a chunk of his torso burned out with the torch. From this very awkward position, however, they were able to see…

            They stared. If the creature had been a very little faster, that might have been it for them, but they couldn’t help it. Of all the bizarre things they had seen so far, this was most definitely the most bizarre.

            It was a giant toad. Or rather, a giant half-toad. Its left side had the brown, wrinkly appearance of any garden toad, except that it was the size of a Great Dane. Its right side, however, simply wasn’t there. There was no outline, no faintest trace of shape or color to it; the workbench behind was clearly visible as though there was nothing but air in between. Yet the toad held itself perfectly balanced on its two legs, without the slightest sign of awkwardness or difficulty.

            They saw all this in a moment as the toad waddled toward them, making a horrible gurgling noise. Then, all of a sudden, it sprang forward, its mouth opened revealing a row of sharp, tiny teeth running around the brim.

            Hendricks swung around to untangle himself and free his arm. He caught the toad on the head with the crowbar, but in the effort doing so he pulled Helen off balance, and of course when she fell he was pulled down on top of her again. 

            The half-toad, however, backed off, gurgling in pain and staggering about. As it turned away, its empty right side turned towards Hendricks…and suddenly, he found he wasn’t looking at anything at all.

            But Hendricks didn’t have time to puzzle this phenomenon out. He struggled upwards, helping a slightly-squashed Helen up alongside him. The half-toad turned back to them, growling. Hendricks sprang forward and swung at it again, pulling Helen off balance again, but managing to hit the half-toad another blow before ending up on top of her for the third time.

            “Will you stop that?!” Helen gasped.

            The half-toad came up, it’s half-mouth open wide, its eyes bulging. Hendricks swung again, hitting it up under its jaw. He seized the top of its nose, pulled himself up as far as he could, and began wailing on its head again and again. The half-toad struggled, groaned, and then was still.

            “Is it…dead?” Helen asked (she was still very short of breath from all the times Hendricks had fallen on her).

            “I think so,” said Hendricks, rolling off of her and poking it a few times. It didn’t move. “Yeah, it’s dead.”  

            “Okay, so what the hell else is it!?”

             Hendricks didn’t have the slightest idea. He jabbed at it with his crowbar again, feeling where the other half should have been. He found, to his slight surprise, that there was something there. He felt it with his free hand. It was the same molted, slimy flesh as the rest of the creature. He looked at his hand and yelped.

            “What is it?” Helen asked.

            He showed her. She yelped too.

            Hendricks’s palm had turned transparent where it had touched the toad. When he held it up and looked at it, he could see Helen right through it. But then, when he turned it towards her, he saw the back of his hand normally.

            “It’s invisible,” he said in awe, looking down at the dead half-toad. “Or, at least, half-invisible. And it rubbed off on me!”

            “Does this mean you’re going to turn invisible too?” Helen asked.        

            “It’d be kinda useful if it did,” Hendricks pointed out.

            “Yeah, except that I suppose most of the monsters would still be able to smell you,” she said in rather disappointed voice. “Still, it’d be helpful if we run into any guards or Charles.”

            “Oh, well, doesn’t matter,” said Hendrcks. “It’s wearing off already.

            And it was. Hendricks’s hand was almost completely visible again. Not only that, but the right side of the dead toad was also appearing, bit by bit, as whatever kept it invisible faded away with its death.

            Hendricks felt the small part of the toad that remained invisible again and examined his now-clear fingers; whatever it was, it didn’t feel like anything, and it didn’t last very long.

            “So,” said Helen. “Prosser can make things invisible.”

            “I guess,” said Hendricks. “Lucky it doesn’t seem to work very well. Come on, let’s get this stuff off.”

            Helen picked up the torch (which she had thrown aside to avoid any accidents) and lit it again. They pulled the web taut between them and she started running it down the length. The web snapped almost instantly upon contact with the flame, so that it only took a few seconds for them to separate themselves from one another.

            “That’s better!” sighed Helen, cutting as much loose webbing away from herself as she could without burning herself. “I like you, but I don’t think I can stand that much close contact.”

            She grinned and handed him the torch. Hendricks chuckled, but at the same time was rather nervously trying to gauge how much she was joking.

            “What about this?” he said when he had gotten as much webbing off as he could. He held up his right hand, which was stuck fast around the crowbar.

            “Oh, yeah,” said Helen. She took his hand and examined it, grimacing.

            “I hate to say this,” she said. “But it looks like we’re going to have to do this the, ah, old fashioned way.

            “What?!” said Hendricks. “Helen, I’m not slicing up my other had just to let go of something I’m going to be carrying around most of the time anyway!”

            “What if you need to drop it? What if you need to grab something else?”

            “Two torn up hands aren’t gonna do much better,” he pointed out. “And at least this thing has a hook, so it’s not like it makes me completely helpless.”

            Helen considered this.

            “It’s your hand,” she conceded. “But are you sure?”

            “I’ve had my hands ripped open before,” he said. “Trust me; this is better.”

            “Okay then,” she sighed. “Sure it doesn’t hurt?”

            “Oh, yeah, it hurts,” said Hendricks. “But it’d hurt a lot more to take it off.”

            “I suppose,” she said. “Alright then. Let’s try to make it to the docks; I think we should be almost there…”           

            “Uh, Helen?”

            “What?”

            “I just thought of something.”

            “Well?”

            Hendricks bit his lip. He really didn’t want to say what he thought he must.

            “You remember what Nelson said, about how they’re just getting started.”

            Helen didn’t respond, but from the way she turned a little paler he thought she knew exactly what he was going to say.

            “And now we just learned that he’s working on making things invisible, and, well, who knows what else he’s got going.”

            She still didn’t answer, but her face fell into an almost pleading look, as though she were begging him not to go on.”

            “So, it just occurred to me,” he continued, trying not to look her in the face. “That we…if there’s anything we can do about it, we really ought to.”

            “What can we do?” she asked.

            “Well, Dr. Prosser said he keeps that metal formula in his private lab, and from what Nelson said that’s probably where that universal-whatsit is kept as well. I mean, if we could get in there…”

            “We can’t!” said Helen. “I told you, it’s being guarded!”

            “I know,” he said. “But…look, we can’t just not do anything!”

            Helen clenched her teeth and looked skyward, as though praying for something to prove him wrong.

            “This is really stupid,” she said.

            “Yeah,” he conceded. “But, you know, the fate of the world is kind of at stake here.”

            She looked at him, very pale, gave an attempt at an encouraging smile, and nodded.

            “But look,” he said suddenly. “There’s no need for both of us to go. I’ll get you to the boats, and then you can get away and I’ll follow you when…when it’s done.”

            “No!” she exclaimed. “If we are going to do this – and, again, it’s really stupid – then we’re both going. In the first place, you don’t know whether you’ll be able to get back to the docks afterwards...”

            “Which is all the more reason to go now and at least get you off,” he pointed out. “I mean, that’s kind of the point of this whole thing, isn’t it?”

            “And if you’re going to try to try to break into what’s probably going to be the most heavily guarded room on the island,” she went on, ignoring this. “You’re going to need help! I mean, odds are it’s not going to work either way, but the only way it might is if we work together. So, no, I’m not going to leave – even assuming I could, which we’ve admitted is doubtful – and let you run a suicide mission without me.”

            She fixed him with a fierce, determined look, and for a second he could easily believe she was a governor’s daughter.

            “Okay, okay!” he said. “If you insist. Now, uh, do you know which way to his lab?”

            “I think I can guess,” she said. 

Next Week: 

Chapter Eighteen:  In the Lion's Den