Week 42.3 – Blow’d Up Real Good

Previously: As Twain was escaping to the past, Digger was trapped by a cave-in and had just discovered something strange in the darkness. And now…

Laughter echoed all around Digger as he tried to figure out what his hand had found. It was cloth, heavy canvas, and there was something hard and lumpy inside it. It couldn’t be…

“Are you afraid, trapped here in the dark?” growled the Ghost’s voice from all around him. “The others, I’ll have to kill myself to keep them from escaping, but you I can just leave in here to smother until my servants dig your body out.”

“Servants?” Digger slipped his hand into the bag slowly. The Ghost apparently didn’t “see” things in the human sense, but Digger didn’t want to be obvious. As his fingers roamed the metallic surface of the object inside in the bag, he became sure that this was the Mask of El Coco.

“I can’t manifest my spirit too far from the crystals,” said the Ghost. “But I have possessed one man, who is coming here to take more crystals back to the palace, so I can possess more hosts. They will dig more crystals out of here to transport all over the world.”

How had the gotten in here? The cup was broken. Had Twain found another way to travel through time, or were there two masks, and the other one had just happened to be sitting deep in this cave?

“Why would they do that?” Digger asked.

“Because my spirit will travel with them,” the Ghost said as if Digger were an imbecile.

[blockquote type=”blockquote_quotes” align=”right”]Once again, he heard that sound in his head, like a distant chime…[/blockquote]As Digger explored the surface of the mask more thoroughly, his fingers found an odd depression, the sides sticky with old adhesive. Something had been taped there. And to one side, Digger’s fingers found a metallic lump with tape still stuck to it. He fitted the lump into the depression and smoothed the tape down.

“What good will that do?” Digger asked. “Looking to get romantic with somebody in Paris?”

“No, I want to destroy it,” said the Ghost, “and everyplace else.”

“Why?”

“I’m dead, and I’m angry,” said the Ghost. “That’s what I do.”

“Funny you should mention that,” Digger said. “You want to see what I do?”

He pulled out the mask and placed it over his face. Once again, he heard that sound in his head, like a distant chime, and felt the wave of disorientation flow over him. He was ready for it this time, though, and then it was as if someone had turned up the brightness control on a television. Suddenly, he could see the entire cavern in finer detail. Even better, he could feel the space around him again, could feel the subtle qualities of the stone under his feet and sense the movements of the men on the other side of the rockfall.

And once again, there was a familiar pain and weight on his arms. The red LED’s of the bogus seismometers blinked in the darkness.

“What are you doing?” asked the Ghost over the rising whine of the Drillers powering up.

“Guess,” Digger said and blasted at the wall.

Digger has his powers back, but you can’t beat a Ghost by punching it. How can he win? Don’t miss the next crucial episode!

To read from the beginning, click here…