CHAPTER#100

Colliding with a pile of desks, Mike slid to a stop. The massive room he was in was a giant cube made of the entire school folded up. Stairs and doorways were scattered in every direction with no logic in their orientation.

"Mike?" At his name, Mike looked up. Ratu was standing on the ceiling, which was at least thirty feet up.

"What sort of David Bowie bullshit is this?" Mike muttered, disentangling himself. Surveying the room, he saw that the gym door was now halfway up the far wall, turned sideways.

"That's still the exit," Ratu said. "If we can get through the door, then we will be out of Baba's spell."

"That is correct." The thick voice made them both look back. Standing in a large doorway was Baba Yaga. She was upside down to Mike, on the same floor as Ratu. "But bad little children must be punished."

"Get to the door, Mike!" Ratu ran away from Baba, the old witch's metal leg clunking against the ceiling while she followed behind. Mike tried to keep track of them, but Ratu disappeared through a doorway.

Mike ran across the floor, passing through a doorway of his own. The room inside had a slight curve to it, and Mike realized by the time he was climbing through a broken window that the door was now at a forty five degree angle to him.

"So fucking weird," he muttered, careful not to cut himself. He was on a flight of stairs now that terminated on a small platform. A doorway was within jumping distance, so he leapt across. Beneath him, Ratu was on the wall hiding behind a column. Baba Yaga was sniffing the air, moving in on her.

"Hey!" Mike waved his hands. "Hey, over here!" Baba stopped just short of Ratu's pillar, her watery eyes focusing on Mike. "Anyone ever tell you that you look like a potato fucked a bag of ugly?"

Mike expected a lot of reactions, but Baba Yaga ripping up a floorboard and hurling it at him like a javelin was not one of them. He moved away from the ledge, running up a flight of stairs when Baba's hand gripped the ledge, pulling herself into his reference frame.

"Oh shit." Mike was at the top of the stairs, and it was a wall. With Baba closing in, he leapt off the side toward another platform below. The platform turned out to be the ceiling of another part of the room, and he ended up crashing into a pile of toppled lockers, the muscles in his back and neck tightening up.

"Mike!" Ratu was on the wall above him. "She's right behind you!"

Moving quickly, Mike was barely on his feet when Baba crashed into the lockers, her meaty hands clenching and then opening, revealing dirty fingernails. The air was thick with the smell of stale tobacco. Running away from her, he saw a sideways door in the wall. Using a desk, he climbed into the door frame and pushed the door open. As soon as he crossed the boundary, gravity shifted and he fell onto the floor of the newest room, his stomach protesting.

"Urgh." Covering his mouth, he stumbled forward, trying to regain his bearings. Baba's ugly face appeared in the door, but a trash can fell from above her, knocking her to the ground.

"Keep moving!" Ratu cried out, and he heard the pattering of her feet, and then the slamming of a door.

Passing through another door, he ran up a twisting flight of stairs and ducked through a window. Baba Yaga was now twenty feet above him, shaking her fists as he disappeared through a set of double doors. He spotted Ratu through an open door, but she was sideways, trying to fit between a pair of lockers. Baba came close to nabbing him when he opened a door that she was on the other side of, but he was able to climb the stairs behind him faster than she could. Another time he spotted her below him, and he dropped a trash can on her. It arced through the air, gravity shifting before colliding with the witch and knocking her down. Mike was getting the hang of this place, but still had no idea where the fuck he was going.

Descending a set of stairs that terminated over open air, he realized that he was looking straight down at the exit. The door was thirty feet straight down from him, and Ratu was almost there.

Baba Yaga dropped down in front of Ratu, nearly crushing her. Ratu screamed, falling backward onto the ground, and Baba grabbed her by the front of her dress, her huge hands nearly encircling the struggling girl.

Baba sniffed Ratu's face, a toothy grin spreading across her face. Opening her mouth wide, she lifted Ratu into her maw, the naga's head easily fitting between her teeth.

Ratu screamed.

There was no time for thought, only action. Mike jumped off the stairs, arms across his chest and feet down, his body a human missile. His stomach jumped into his throat, and the distorted gravity of the room fought over which direction to take him. His fall provided plenty of velocity, and he collided solidly with Baba, knocking her and Ratu onto the hard wood of the gym. They slid across the floor together, Baba's hands grasping for purchase.

"Go!" He cried. "Get out!"

Ratu stood up on wobbly legs. Baba was only a few feet away, struggling to get her metal leg under her. Ratu grabbed onto his wrist, her legs pumping hard to pull him toward the exit. Mike's whole body was numb from the collision, and all he could do was watch the witch rise and the naga strain, wondering who would be faster.

"I'll use your eyes in soup," Baba mumbled, shuffling toward them. Mike's legs twitched, and he started pushing against the floor with the heels of his feet allowing Ratu to pull him even faster. "I will tan you and use your skin as a blanket. I will make sausage out of your guts."

His eyes stuck on the witch, Mike heard the clicking of the gym door's bar behind him. Focusing all his attention on arm that Ratu wasn't pulling, he lifted his hand and flipped Baba Yaga the bird.

Freezing cold air flooded the room when the gym door opened. Baba covered her face against the blast of air, and Ratu pulled Mike through. The world distorted all around him, and they both tumbled through space.