“Wot the bloody ’ell is that?” Mudge stammered.
“’Tis horrible to look upon.” Weegee turned her face to Jon-Tom. “Where have you brought us, spellsinger?”
The monster was the size of several elephants. It had eighteen legs, all of them round, and as it thundered southward Jon-Tom could just make out the legend inscribed on its flank.
PIGGLY WIGGLY
Dumbfounded, he watched the eighteen-wheeler until it vanished into the woods. Fingers tugged insistently on his sleeve.
“Out with it, mate. You know where we are, don’t you?”
Jon-Tom didn’t reply, continued to gaze dazedly at the highway. Mudge turned away from him.
“’E’s bloody well out of it for now, ’e is.”
“There’s a sign of some sort.” Weegee waddled over to the wooden square that topped a post marking the end of a dirt road. She couldn’t make out the alien hieroglyphics on the other side but Jon-Tom could. Mudge dragged his friend over. The sight of the familiar lettering shocked him back to reality.
“It says, ‘Welcome to the Cave-With-No-Name’” and underneath, in smaller letters, “‘San Antonio – 64 Miles.’”
“‘San At-nonio’?” Mudge’s brows drew together and his whiskers twitched. The sun was beginning to set over the eastern horizon. At least that were unchanged from the real world, he reflected. “I know Jarrow and I know Lynchbany an’ Polastrindu an’ half a ’undred other cities, but I ain’t never ’eard o’ no San At-nonio.”
“I didn’t think Hell would have quite so many trees.” Weegee was examining a pair of acorns.
“We’re not in Hell,” Jon-Tom assured her. “Just Texas.”
“I don’t know where that is either.”
“My world.” A slow grin spread across Jon-Tom’s face. “We’ve crossed through to my world.” He walked back to the cave entrance. “‘Cave-With-No-Name.’ That’s appropriate. There must be a permanent passage down there between your world and mine. Whoever developed this cave started to run a new cable through to the chamber on your side and gave it up. Maybe ran out of money. This setup hasn’t been worked on in years, maybe decades. Clothahump often postulated that such permanent gateways might exist.”
“Wot makes you think ’tis permanent?”
“Want to go back and see if Kamaulk and Sasheem and the others are waiting for us by the ledge opening?”
“Not just right away, mate. I expect we could ’ang around ’ere for a day or two and then go back. Don’t know as ’ow I could stand it much longer than that.” He sniffed ostentatiously. “Air ’ere smells peculiar but not as you always told me.”
“That’s because we didn’t come out in the middle of a big city. Just as well. Would’ve caused quite a stir.” Bending, he picked up an empty metal container. It was brown, red, battered, and said DR. PEPPER on the side. It was the most beautiful thing he’d seen in over a year. He might’ve been fondling the Hope Diamond. Tears started from the corners of his eyes. “Home. Damn, I finally made it.”
Cautious was turning a slow circle. “So this your world, eh? Doen look so impressive to me.”
Jon-Tom couldn’t bring himself to cast the empty can aside. “We didn’t emerge in the most impressive neighborhood, for which we can all be grateful. The culture shock on both sides would’ve been too much to handle.” He took a deep breath, gestured toward the entrance to the cavern. “I think the rest of you’d better keep out of sight over there until I see if anybody’s home.”
Mudge frowned. “Why? We got bad breath or somethin’?”
“You don’t understand. In my world, people like you and Weegee and Cautious don’t talk.”
“Oh, right you are, mate. You told me that before.”
“What’s he talking about?” Weegee asked.
Mudge put his arm around her and directed her toward the cave. “I’ll explain it all to you, luv. It beggars understandin’, it does.”
As soon as his friends had concealed themselves Jon-Tom stepped up on the porch of the building which was at least as old as the wiring he’d encountered below. Clearly this was not one of the tourist highspots of the Lone Star state. He rapped twice on the screen door before noticing the small sign set inside.
GONE BOWLING – BACK IN A WEEK
Someone who knew how to relax, he reflected. On a hunch he opened the unsecured screen door and tried the door knob. Locked. He hunted around the opening. Displaying either country trustworthiness or bucolic naivete, the owner had left a key on top of the nearby light. He had to jiggle it in the lock but soon had the door open.
The sight froze him. So long, it had been so unbelievably long. So many extraordinary things had happened to him that he found himself paralyzed by the sight of the ordinary.
It was all real, from the souvenir postcards in the wire rack atop the candy counter to the telephone and cash register and rack of antlers. With difficulty he restrained himself from tearing into the neat rows of Milky Ways and Baby Ruths and Hershey’s with almonds.
The den of the old house had been converted into a greeting room for tourists. Snug and lined with pine, it fronted a single bedroom and a small unimpressive kitchen which nonetheless held out the promise of the first familiar food he’d seen in a year. He forced himself to stay clear of the refrigerator and pantry until he’d thoroughly checked the rest of the premises. There was a bathroom and a garage out back. The garage was empty.
A shout brought him back to the front porch. Mudge was peering around the edge of one of the doors that led to the cave. “Is it safe or ain’t it, mate? Do we come on in or run back down?”
“It’s okay, there’s nobody here now. Come on in.”
The otters and Cautious were fascinated by the plethora of unfamiliar objects that filled the old house. The kitchen in particular was a treasure house of alien delights, not the least of which took the form of half a dozen cans of Chicken of the Sea tuna. After Jon-Tom instructed him in the use of a can opener Mudge went a little berserk.
An hour later he was patting his bulging belly. “One thing about your world, mate: ’tis fillin’.” He held up a small oblong can. “Wot’s in ’ere?”
Jon-Tom had the lights on in the kitchen. It was getting pitch dark outside. “Sardines. Slow down. We don’t want to eat everything at once and I don’t know how I’m going to pay the owner for what we’ve eaten.”
“We’ll leave ’im an IOU.”
“You leave an IOU? That’d be a first.” He sipped slowly from a cold bottle of RC. Pure luxury sloshed down his throat. “It’s funny. All the spells Clothahump and I have tried over the past year, all the arcane tomes we’ve consulted, and here we stumble across a permanent link between our worlds because we’re running for our lives from a bunch of two-bit pirates.”
“If it is permanent and doesn’t close down on us while we’re sitting here stuffing our faces,” Weegee said darkly.
