You Think You Know a Gloom Chapter 15

For a while it seemed as though Penny was just driving the group through a bottomless pit of fire. It was boiling hot all around the coach. Clive and Barker’s reigns caught ablaze and started burning all the way up to Penny’s hands.
“Can one of you kids toss me a pair of oven mitts back there?” she asked to the passengers inside.
Everyone inside the coach took off layers and turned up the air conditioning to the max. Misery and Poe were in absolute agony, being dressed in elegant clothes and black feathers. Skull Boy popped off his hands for his friends to use as fans.

The only one to be having any real fun was Iris. “Wahooo! Hello underworld, thy name is Iris,” she called sticking her head out the window.

“Get your head back in the coach before someone sees you,” Penny snapped back.

“Awww. It’s a little bit cooler stick your head out in the fire,” Iris said. “Besides, who is gonna see me down here?”

Penny fixed her eyes back on the road and a stairway of molten rock ahead of them. A large sign read:

You may not pass into the Domain of Darkness if you have a clean soul, clean thoughts, good intentions, free will, kindness or severe back problems. If you don’t possess any of these thing, we hope to see you rot with us.

A lizard creature was standing next to the sign. When he saw the coach and Penny driving it approaching he dashed down the stairwell.

The undead horses drove the coach down and over the stairwell. They nearly flew a couple times through the air, with no ground beneath the coach to keep going. The passengers inside screamed in fear and excitement.
One could here Frank and Len go from cheering things like; “It’s just like one of the rides back in Gloomsville,” to screaming; “tell Skull Boy’s boss I love her!”

“Halt!” They cried. “You are not permitted to go any further!”

Penny whipped the reigns of her horses and they flew through the crowd. She started to hear laughing and grunts amongst the screams of agony. Iris was now on the roof of the coach, hitting harpies over the face with Frank and Len’s guitar.

“Yeah, you take that you no good Ruby snatcher!” she said.

“Iris! Get down from there!” Penny called.  

“They were trying to get in the coach! What else was I going to do?”  

Penny kept driving, commanding the horses to go further and further into the darkness. Misery and Skull Boy pulled Iris inside when the last of the harpies gave up and retreated.

“Miss Dreadful,” Poe said poking his head out the driver’s window, “is this the wrong time to ask questions?”

“Could be. It depends on the question.”

“Aha, good. Because I just have to ask, WHAT ARE THOSE THINGS FOLLOWING US?!”

The harpies had disappeared but at this point they were walking alongside the lava canals, Clive and Barker neighing at passers by to move out of the way. Penny looked behind the coach and saw a pack of monstrous canines chasing after them, their eyes blazing and their razor sharp teeth dripping with drool.

“Black dogs,” she said. “Don’t worry they aren’t very fast. My horses can outrun them. We might have to break a few skulls if we want to make it to Ruby at all.

“How do we even know where Ruby is down here?” Skull Boy asked.

Penny saw the twisted top of Chaney’s tower break through the ceiling of the domain. Colorful characters poured out of the bottom entrance screaming with fear.  

“Trust me. I know where to go.”  

~ ~ ~

Penny’s coach eventually lost the pack of black dogs in the mob running from Chaney’s tower. Most of them were knocked into the canal or gave up chasing them when they saw how close they were getting to the tower of their master. When she was close Penny stopped the coach to pat her horses for their hard work.

“You can all come out now,” she said. “We’re here.”

The door flung open and Poe flopped on to the hard ground sweating and panting. “Oh sweet ground! How I’ve missed you!” He began kissing the floor until the horrible sent of burnt feathers reached his nostrils, and an agonizing burning sensation triggered his reflexes. Poe cawed and jumped back into the coach.
“On second thought, maybe I’ll stay here!”

“You never told us that the ground was on fire down here Penny,” Skull Boy said, skipping in place so his shoes wouldn’t burn.

“It’s not “on fire” Skull Boy,” Penny said, “it’s molten rock. You’re either born fire proof or you get special shoes for this kinda place.” Penny lifted up her dress to reveal grey, metal shoes.

“Well-ouch-do you-ouch-have any more special shoes with you?” Len asked as he and his brother tried to hold onto the coach and not touch the ground.

“No…I probably should have thought this out more. No one ever wants fire proof shoes because they’ve yet to invent a pair that breathes just right,” Penny admitted, blushing.

“It’s not so bad,” Misery assured stepping on to the ground. Her dress burned away and she let out her mandatory “ow” of approval.

“What do you think you’re doing?” said a sudden, slimy voice. The group turned to see the crowd departed and the malicious face of Misto staring back at them.

All of Ruby’s friends gasped in utter disgust. “You!”

“What have you done with our friend?” Skull Boy demanded.

Misto ignored Skull Boy and passed by him and the rest of his entourage to meet Penny face to face.
“It’s been so long, Penny. You weren’t the first person that came to mind when I heard a break in was taking place now on the day of all days. Still, I never thought you would stoop so low as to follow the whims of a bunch of school children.”

“Hey, you can’t say that about us,” Iris said.

“Yeah! The only one of us that’s ever been to school is Poe,” Frank said.

“I guess you can say it’s just like old times then,” Penny said with a smirk. “Speaking of which, I’d like to drop Clive and Barker off in your stables if you don’t mind.”

“Enough!” Misto screeched. His eyes burned and gradually he slipped out of his coat and revealed his grotesque body to its fullest, ugliest detail. He had no arms or legs and fangs that dripped a light green poison that sizzled when it dripped on the floor.
“Do you know how hard it was getting this lot of…surface rats out of the way? I slaved away for weeks arranging everything to be just so in that joke they call a community. And that was after I slaved away for months making sure it was your daughter that decided to change her name to Gloom instead of ‘princess of strife’. I’ve earned this glory! You aren’t taking it away so easily!”

Skull Boy gritted his teeth. He nearly put his foot down back on the burning ground but Penny stopped him. She backed up against the group and pulled out a black, leather whip out of her hair.
“You gotta run as fast as you can for the entrance of that tower. It will hurt but when you get to the entrance you’ll see the stones won’t burn you. Ruby will be at the top,” Penny whispered while gritting her teeth.

“What about you Miss Dreadful?” Poe asked.

Penny cracked her whip in the direction of Misto and ran towards the canal.
He followed her and wasn’t able to hear her yell, “I’ll catch up,” in time before the group took off.

Misery didn’t seem to mind the burning, even if it was a little more than usual, and Poe was able to fly. The rest of the group was in agony. Skull Boy’s shoes burned away and soon he was left walking on melting rubber from the underside of his sneakers. Frank and Len took long brisk steps, or at least as tried to with the body they had.

For once Iris was totally lost at what to do. She started doing a cartwheel and then half way through realized why that was a bad decision. The rock burned her hands and arm. Iris fell over and handed on her behind before withering around on her back in pain.
“Aaaaugh!” she cried. “Guys, help me!”

The rest of the group had made it to the entrance and tending their own wounds by the time Iris had fallen down. “Don’t worry Iris,” Poe said. “Help is on the way!”  

Poe was not the best flier, more of a hovering-type bird than anything else, and Iris was much heavier than him. This didn’t stop him from letting her hold onto his feet and carry her as high as he could over the burning floor. Once they landed on the steps of the entrance Misery and the twins immediately checked on Iris’ wounds.

“Yikes,” Frank and Len said, “those burn marks are pretty nasty.”

“It’s not that bad,” Iris said, wincing as she tried to stand.

“That’s a third degree burn,” Misery said. “ Oh no! I left my first aid back on the coach. What are we gonna do Skull Boy?”

Skull Boy was already making his way up the stairs of the tower with bits of melting shoe trailing behind him. “You guys try and take care of Iris. See if you can back to the coach if it comes to that.”

“But where are you going?” Poe asked.

“To find Ruby before anything else goes wrong.” Then he disappeared up the stairs.