A Midsummer Night at The Rumble Zone

Tunnels of every color and shape snake around The Rumble Zone. Even though we have the place to ourselves tonight, we won’t have time to explore them all. They looked a lot bigger when we were six or seven and starting out in the Boys & Girls Club.

Ten years later, one of us might get stuck.

“Okay!” Max says. “Here’s how this is going to work. Two teams. Red and blue. You can hide your flag anywhere inside the tunnels, but the ball pits are off-limits. If you get tagged in enemy territory, you have to go back to your home base for a minute. And no puppy guarding.”

Drawing an invisible line, he divides the complex in two. Then the captains pick their mates. Conrad, leader of the blue team, rubs his chin. “Paige, you’re with me.”

She does a mock curtsy. The rim of her skirt kisses the ground. Anybody crawling behind her would get quite the view. She always has to be the hottest one around.

“I’ll go with Abella!” Max says.

Shit. He actually picked me. Ahead of everybody else. Paige and I are on different teams. What a bastard.

I play it cool. He high-fives me. Conrad picks again. Soon, the teams are selected. Me and the reds sprint up a staircase leading into the tunnels. Max enters first, then I follow. Immediately, my knees hurt. My back scrapes against the top of the tunnels. I know this’ll be a fun night, but we’re getting too old for stuff like this.

“Bill,” Max says, “hide the flag inside that piece of foam… the one wrapped around the pole.”

He steps out onto a net hanging over a drop and sets the flag inside it. Then we disburse.

I head down a purple tunnel leading towards the enemy territory. Keeping my hands on the ground, I hop forward like a bunny rabbit. It takes the weight off my burning knees.

“HOLY FUCK!” One of my teammates shouts before scampering down a tunnel across from me. Did somebody tag him?

I continue into enemy territory. My heart bounces against my ribs. A blast of adrenaline courses through me. This is fun after all.

Clock… clock… clock…

I freeze. Somebody is ahead of me, clicking their tongue. I inch backwards…

“Don’t worry, I won’t bite! Come out here where I can see you!”

The bottom falls out of my stomach. My hands are damp. I don’t recognize the voice. It doesn’t belong to anybody from the Boys & Girls Club. I crawl forward into a large circular tunnel.

The voice doesn’t belong to a human. Instead, the creature is a cross between a nutcracker and the fattest infant in history. His square-shaped jaw opens and shuts over and over. “How do ya do? My name’s Phuck!”

Adrenaline punches my stomach. My legs shake. Fear paralyzes me.

“Say, wanna see a funny trick?” he says. “Watch this!”

Conrad crawls down an intersection in front of us. He spots me and darts forward.

Phuck snaps his sausage fingers.

Conrad stops. His head grows hairier. Horns protrude from his scalp. His nose balloons into a snout.

“Holy… shit…” I mutter.

A bull’s head. That’s what he’s got now. A fucking bull’s head on his shoulders. All we need now is a matador.

He roars. The noise echoes throughout the tunnels. Grabbing tufts of his fur, he tries to rip it off as if he’s wearing a Halloween mask.

“Toro!” Phuck says. “Toro! Olé!”

Knocking around the tunnels, Conrad rushes back the way he came. I remember how to crawl and turn around…

“Slow down there!” Phuck says. “You’ll want to see this! I just ran into Paige! She was naked!”

No way. No fucking way.

“You’re lying.”

“Scout’s honor! She’s right down there, girlfriend! You can thank me later!” He points at the tunnel to my left. Keeping my distance, I walk around Phuck and race down it. He stays behind. I come to the end of the tunnel. It opens out onto a standing area with foam beams set into the ground. Almost like punching bags.

“Uh-oh! You’re not supposed to be here!”

Excitement burns in my veins. It’s Paige. She comes around one of the beams…

I gasp. She’s totally nude. Her skirt and top are gone. I commit everything to memory. Her melon-sized breasts, her toned stomach, her perfect sex.

“I could tag you and send you back home to mommy,” she says. “You’re in my territory now!”

I can’t breathe. All I can do is stare at her.

“Abella? Hello? Anybody home?”

My face is on fire. There’s no way she can’t see it. Slowly, a grin cuts her face in two.

“You like my skirt, don’t you?” She spins around and wags her butt at me. The surge of arousal is almost painful.

Hold on. Does she realize that I can see her naked? She thinks that she’s still fully clothed. It’s one of Phuck’s tricks.

“Ha! Maybe I should wear this outfit more often!” Walking up to me, she gives me a peck on the cheek. “See you later, gal pal.”

She goes into the tunnel I came from. My legs wobble. I stumble across the standing area to the next tunnel and fall onto my knees. Is this all a dream? That’s got to be it. I must’ve passed out or something.

I go inside a transparent tunnel. The entrance to the facility is beneath me. With each step I take, the exit stretches back. I crawl forward again. It retreats further. “What the hell?”

I employ my bunny hopping technique and move as fast as I can. The exit shoots away from me. It’s like I’m on a fucking treadmill. Rivers of sweat pour off of my forehead. The air inside the tunnel is stale. My lungs have had it.

Little by little, I get closer to the end of the tunnel. I’m going to have a heart attack before I make it. I push myself as hard as I can. Every joint in my body aches. I put on a final burst of speed…

Leaping forward, I make it to the next tunnel. I collapse into a heap. This is worse than the mile run in school.

“Don’t quit now! Night’s still young! You’ve got a flag to find!” I hear Phuck’s voice, but I can’t see the fucker. A black fog spews into the tunnels. Incredibly, it’s not toxic. I breathe normally.

Waving my hands in front of me, I inch forward. It’s like somebody turned off all the lights in the facility. I run into a wall. The tunnel veers to the right. I go around the corner…

Suddenly, the ground disappears. I crawl out onto thin air. Gravity does its thing. I start to fall.

Shooting my hands out, I grab onto the edge of the next tunnel. I feel every single ounce of my body weight in my fingers. I don’t know how far up I am. The fog obscures my vision. Gusts whip my clothing around. It’s like I’m in the sky or something. My muscles strain. I try to pull myself up. The surface of the tunnel is so fucking slick…

I can’t do pull-ups at school, but I’ve got the strength to do one now. My muscles ripple. I force myself up onto my chest and scoot into the tunnel. “Phew… what the fuck…”

Is Phuck causing all this to happen? What the hell is he? Some kind of demon?

No way. They don’t exist. This is all happening in my head. But since when are dreams this vivid?

My body tenses. Somebody’s coming down the tunnel. Is it Phuck?

No. It’s Max. Thank God.

“What the hell’s going on?” I ask. “Did you see-”

He barrels past without looking at me. Either he’s ignoring me or he’s freaking out. I’m going with the second.

Whoosh!

Water gushes through the tunnel, smacking into me. In seconds, I’m submerged. I didn’t have a chance to take a good breath. I’ll run out of air in seconds.

There’s nowhere to go. The whole tunnel system has been flooded. But at least I don’t have to crawl anymore. Pushing against the walls, I swim through the tunnels. If I don’t find the exit soon, I’ll drown.

Pressure builds inside my head. I fight like hell to not take a breath. All I can do is swim. My lungs are on fire. I need oxygen…

Going around a corner, I spot an opening in the ceiling. A ladder goes up to another level. The water hasn’t filled it up.

Kicking myself off from the wall, I make it over to the opening just as my throat spasms. I inhale a mouthful of water. It feels like lava inside my lungs.

Pulling myself up the ladder, I break into a coughing fit. My throat burns. I vomit again and again. But at least I can breathe. The air rushing into my lungs is manna from heaven.

Climbing up to the second level of tunnels, I continue on. My wet hands squeak on the floor. A few minutes later, I come to a dead end. The tunnel has a play steering wheel mounted inside. There’s a ribbon tied around it.

The blue team’s flag. “Oh, hell yes…”

I scamper into the alcove, untie the flag, and haul ass out. I’m probably getting close to the end of the tunnels. They only lead in one direction now. My heartrate quickens. This is it.

“Whoa horsey! Don’t buck your good friend, Phuck!”

Chock chock… chock chock…

Are those… hooves? The noise grows louder.

Phuck rockets around the corner astride a white horse. He holds a bow with an arrow nocked. “I’m Conquest, mother-fucker! Just like the Bible!”

He shoots the arrow. It flies past my ear and clatters off a wall. Taking another from his quiver, he nocks it and takes aim.

I don’t have time to think. Only to move. I hurtle down the tunnels, away from Phuck. Arrows ricochet off the walls. One of them hits me in the left butt cheek. Though my jeans keep it from penetrating, it stings like a wasp. “YAOUCH!”

“It’s the end of the world, baby!” Phuck says. “The end of the world!”

The arrows keep flying. Phuck gains on me. The hooves grow louder…

Bingo. There it is. The end of the tunnel.

“Oh, no! You can’t leave yet! I want you to meet Death, Famine, and War! They’re my bestest buds!”

I practically fly down the tunnel and out into the stairwell. Phuck’s horse skids to a stop. He must not be able to leave.

“I guess when you gotta go, you gotta go!” he says. “Hope you had a fun time at The Rumble Zone! But you won’t remember any of this. The moment that you wake up tomorrow, you’ll think it was all a dream. So, good night unto you!”