The Adventures of Alice and Max
Chapter 35: Alice and Max Inside the Castle

Darkness.
“Alice, Alice! I can’t see.”
“Me neither, Max! Shut it. Listen.”
Listening intently, they could hear rumblings underneath.
“We need to find a light of some kind,” Alice said. She went further and bumped into a wall and tried to find a torch, a flashlight, or anything to make the blackness bright. “Oh, hang on.”
Reaching into her bag, she pulled out her flashlight, turned it on, and shined it on Max. “You OK?”
“Yeah, I think-” Suddenly, he was grabbed by a wicked thing. Being raised by a large hand off of the cobblestones, he screamed, “Alice! Kill it! What is it?”
She fired at the darkness and it instantly dropped him. He ran to her side, breathing heavily and clutching her arm. “Max, let go! We gotta get outta here!” Shining the light, they saw a door and ran to it, opened it, and leaped out as jaws almost bit Max’s back.
Bolting outside into a vast hallway with beautiful paintings and torches decking the walls with a large royal carpet of flower patterns splayed out to many doorways of different colors and makes, the children were lost and confused.
“Where do we go?” Max whispered.
“Anywhere is our best bet. Come on.” Moving slowly and carefully, they opened a door as stairs led them down. “Come on,” Alice urged, softly.
Descending into a mysterious madness, Max was worried about anything strange that might be around the corner. Alice was determined as they came to a door and peeked out. White uniformed soldiers ran and screamed in different directions, running like chickens with their heads cut off.
“This way! They’re tryin’ to get through the windows!”
“How can they do that? What about the Queen’s magic?”
“It’s dwindling, I think! She’s losing strength!”
“Don’t let her hear that one, soldier! Keep moving! Shoot at those windows! Barricade them if you have to!”
As they went off into another chamber of the castle, the children moved without a sound, creeping along the edge of the hallway. There was a door to their right. They took it quickly.
They came to a small through way and burst out into a room like a cathedral. The ceiling was raised high above their heads with golden borders running all along the borders of the beautiful adornings and arches and intricate casings all sprawled magnificently. In the center of the massive chapel, up top, there was a dome, encircling everything and holding everything together in place. “Wow! This place is huge!” Max said, mesmerized. “I don’t think you can see this from outside.”
“I think it’s her magic. Come on. I think we’re close. I can sense it.” Moving through pews, and wading through the sea of statues all around of strange animals and ugly people and winged beings, they came to an altar. Silent, the kids took in the strange altar erected up high on a stone slab where dried blood was streaked.
“What goes on in here?” Max asked.
“Awful things, Max.” Alice saw the statue of a man’s torso and a weird toucan head with a colorful beak staring down at them. It had a long staff with strange herbs on the end and had a donkey’s legs and behind. The statue stood tall, triumphantly. Black candles were lit and shrunken heads decked high above, making a hideous chandelier of wickedness. “Let’s go Max.”
“No, I think… I think I want to stay,” he said in a strange tone. He inched forward.
“Max, what are you talking about?”
But Max didn’t hear her, he didn’t even respond to her, he kept looking up at the altar and the weird statue that loomed over them eerily. “I want to go up there…” He raced up the stone steps and reached his hands for something only seen by his big brown eyes.
“Max, what’re you talking about,” Alice said as she followed up behind him. Max rubbed the surface of the stone altar and bizarrely enough tried to sniff it like a dog and lick it. “If I can just taste it, I’ll be alive!”
“Max, snap out of it! You’re in a trance! Wake up!” Alice tried grabbing onto him, but he backhanded her. She tumbled all the way down the staircase clumsily. Utterly defeated, Alice stayed down.
Rising rather sheepishly and because she was bruised and battered like a rag doll, she fell on her knees and keeled over almost vomiting from the excitement her body had endured. “Max… I… stop. Please,” she whispered, barely audible.
But Max roared and pounded on the slab and shouted, “Where is it? Where is the scent? The flavor, the decadent taste. Never enough! Never enough!” He pounded like a psych patient who had seen better days. He foamed at the mouth like a rabid caged animal and he spat on the slab and talked to it like a small baby. “I want it! Give it to me, please!”
Alice had enough, she saw his disturbed state and yelled at the Queen, “Get away from him!”
Climbing the steps like a nimble forest creature, she tried to shake Max out of it as he guffawed in her face.
“Snap. Out. Of it,” she demanded.
But he laughed, “Oh, you think you can save him, don’t you, Alice?” Disturbed, she backed away and let him continue, “I know who you are, Alice.”
“Who are you? What’re you doing to my friend?” Alice demanded.
But he cackled deeply as he spit, “Don’t you? I am the thing that lurks in the darkness. I am that thing which you dare not utter in the deep dark night.”
“Stop it! Someone help!” Alice began to scream. She trembled and backed away slowly from poor Max.
But as she did, she saw a beam of light flash behind her. Turning, she was blinded by a white light. She shielded her eyes as she yelled, “Stop it! What’s happening?” Falling down, she huddled her body close together in the fetal position. Then opening her eyes, the light vanished.
Stunned, Max hung his head and looked dead.
“Max, are you-”
“I’ll be fine,” he said, yawning miserably.
“Here. Drink.” She got out a canteen. He drank the water quickly like a poor beggar as he breathed in and out softly. “Better?”
He looked like himself again but was confused as to what happened. His eyes remained calm and the bleakness from them had died down.
“Keep drinking,” Alice said, gently. “You’re dehydrated or something else… Caused you to do this. I think it was the Queen. She’s a devious one, the king said.”
He kept swigging the water quietly and then after sighing deeply said, “Well, I think it passed, Alice. I don’t know what came over me. I remember it all but something possessed me. Weird. Let’s keep going.”
“Are you sure,” she asked concerned.
“Alice… Yes. Let’s go. I wanna be done with this already,” he said, his eyes glazed over.
“I know, friend. I know,” she said genuinely. She slugged the bag over her shoulders as Max slowly rose.
Going to the left where a side door faced, they slid through again a tiny and long darkened hallway. They heard muffled shouts of soldiers. Explosions sounded in the distance and shots fired rapidly. The ceiling erupted above them as the hallway shook from the effects of blasts. Dirt and rock fell from the ceiling as they held their heads but nothing collapsed. They kept moving and moving through an endless maze of hallways all splitting off to other walkways until they found a single door down another lonely and dark hallway.
They approached it and tried the knob. Futilely, they couldn’t open it. Alice tried but nothing seemed to budge. After no luck, then Max tried yanking on it but it was still no use. Then she tried barging through it with her shoulder and then finally after she was tired and her side hurt, the mysterious door finally slightly opened.
Someone behind the door cracked it open and the children stood aghast, backing up. For they found a sudden surprise, the person behind the door was none other than the Queen of the City, smiling brightly and more beautiful than either one of them had imagined, welcoming them in as her most favorable guests.
To Be Continued…