Author’s Note: This story also won a writing contest back in the day, but it could never find a home in any publications. Time to release it from the hard drive. I remember nothing about how I got the idea for this story. I enjoy its 1950s Ray Bradbury flavor, however…

ALLIE, BUBBA AND FORTIETH STREET THIEVERY: a short story by Steve Ruthenbeck

Allie and Bubba hunkered under Fortieth Street bushes and cased the joint. The castle stood surreal and archaic in the midst of modern times, bathed in the yellow glow of sodium streetlights. Its turrets and parapets stuck out in stark contrast to the sloping roofs of the well-to-do homes surrounding it.

“There it is,” Allie said. His red hair and overbite earned him a nomination to the Hayseed Hall of Fame, but his high IQ prevented acceptance. The fantasy image the castle projected fired his imagination. It was like a fairy tale, and they were part of the story — the thieves robbing the king’s treasure. The newspaper article that started the quest ran through Allie’s mind.

Fortieth Street Castle?

By John Lewison

Everton Post News Reporter

Everyone has heard the old saying, “A man’s home is his castle.” Walk down Fortieth Street and you’ll see that old saying come to life for billionaire Edgar Roth.

“I always wanted a castle,” Roth said. “So, I built one.”

Roth’s castle/home features all the classic ingredients: wall, tower, moat, secret passages and even a “treasure room” where Roth keeps his most valuable possessions.

“I love the medieval times,” Roth said. “Since I don’t have a time machine, building a castle seemed like the next best thing. It puts me in another world where I’m a king. Now, if I could only find a dragon…”

Construction of the fabulous site began in—

Allie smiled.

“What’s so funny?” Bubba asked. Visions of the treasure room danced in Bubba’s shaved head. What would it contain? Jewels? Gold coins? Diamonds? Probably more like cash and bonds, but that would work, too — that would work just fine. A hungry gleam put a sparkle in Bubba’s eyes.

“What’s so funny?” Allie volleyed back. “It’s an honest-to-god castle, man, and we’re going to rob it. How can you not smile?

On cue, a full moon came out and made the place shine like an LSD-fueled dream. A slow grin spread Bubba’s lips. “Yeah, we are going to rob a castle…if Bobby shows up. What time is it?”

“Quarter after two.”

“Bobby said two sharp. Night will go the way of the dodo bird in a little over three hours.” Bubba thought about it. “To hell with Bobby. Whatever’s in the treasure room will go a lot further split two ways instead of three.”

“Bobby’ll be mad. It’s his gig.”

“Too bad for Bobby. Tardiness is a breach of contract.”

“But he has the map.”

“Correction,” Bubba held up a sheet of paper. “Bobby has a map.”

“Where’d you get that? You didn’t roll Bobby, did you?”

“Course not,” Bubba perished the thought. “Although the feeb deserves it for being so trusting. Since Bobby was dumb enough to leave his plans with me overnight, I figured I might as well make a copy.”

“Not cool, Bubba.”

“Your girlfriend thought I was cool last night,” Bubba winked.

A joke-wink, surely, Allie reassured himself. No way Melanie would cheat on him. Plus, no way Bubba would be that big of a backstabber. Copying a map was one thing. Stealing your best bud’s girl was another. Scowling, Allie snatched the map from Bubba’s hand and studied the castle’s blueprints. In time, the scowl became a grin. “Looks like a piece of cake. Let’s get this show on the road.”

“My man!” Bubba slapped Allie on the back.

Ten minutes later, they stood at the castle’s back wall. The barrier stood twelve feet high and ringed the entire property. A wrought-iron gate marked its only opening. Since Allie and Bubba weren’t Girl Scouts selling cookies, that didn’t do them much good. They had to procure their own means of entrance.

Bubba reached into Allie’s backpack and pulled out a coil of rope with a claw on one end. “I bet there aren’t too many burglars using one of these anymore. Just up and over the wall, how do you like that?”

“It’s not just a job,” Allie agreed. “It’s an adventure.”

Bubba cast the hook, and it snagged a parapet on the first try. “Ladies first.”

Up, down Allie. Up, down Bubba.

They hunkered in the shadows and surveyed the situation. Trees dotted a well-tended lawn, looking all imperial. The castle and moat stood dead ahead.

“What about watchdogs?” Allie asked.

“If Roth had watchdogs, they’d be chewing our asses already. All we have to worry about is crossing that moat. I hope you brought your rubbers. I used all mine on your girlfriend.” Bubba elbowed Allie and ran off toward the castle.

“Jerk,” Allie muttered.

Ten-feet wide and ten-feet deep sized up the moat. Fish swam in its lighted depths, reddish gold things the size of forty-five-ounce beer bottles. Allie observed them with some enjoyment. Watching fish swim always colored his outlook tranquil. The fish darted through the water as Bubba prepared to lower himself in and swim for it. Roth needed a pool cleaner, though. It looked like a bunch of sticks littered the bottom of the moat. Then again, didn’t sticks float?

“Wait!” Allie whisper-shouted.

Bubba paused. “What’s with the histrionics?”

“Those sticks look like bones to you?”

The two of them leaned forward and peered into the moat’s depths with an attention to detail that would have made Sherlock Holmes look like an Alzheimer’s patient. The bottom of the moat was indeed littered with what looked like pork ribs and T-bones. Fish flitted among them, nibbling.

Allie spit his gum in the water.

Splot!

The fish reacted with crazy speed, darting toward the gum en masse. Hungry eyes glittered. Nasty teeth flashed like sewing machine needles.

Bubba’s face twisted with revulsion. He hated biting things — chewing things — eating things. “What are they?”
            “Piranha.”

“Great,” Bubba said it like a swear word. “No wonder Roth doesn’t have any watchdogs. He has watchfish. How do we get across?”

Allie scanned the area for a solution, and his eyes lit up with success. He led Bubba to a flagpole, removed Bubba’s backpack and unrolled a sleeve of tools. It contained wrenches, pliers…and a hacksaw.

Bubba smiled. “Get to it, brainiac.”

Allie sawed. Bubba caught the flagpole as it toppled and carried it to the moat. There, Allie dug a hole with a foldable spade. Bubba tamped the flagpole and leaned it across the water until it rested against the castle’s wall.

“Your idea.” Bubba eyed the piranha. “Your honor.”

“You’re all heart.” Allie tossed his pack across and swung beneath the pole. He shimmied. The pole developed a noticeable sag as he made progress. Allie sank lower as he reached the halfway point. Fish gathered. “Uh-oh, don’t do this to me, pole…” The pole obliged and stopped sagging with Allie’s back six inches above the water. He whewed and snaked the rest of the way across. “Next!”

“Wonderful,” Bubba said. “I was hoping it wouldn’t work, then I wouldn’t have to do it.” He weighed twenty pounds more than Allie. Sweat dripped from his brow as he laid hands on the pole. The fish seemed to stare up at him and chant:

We like Bubba meat, yes we do!

We like Bubba meat, it’s good for you!

Chomp! Chomp! CHOMP!
            “That treasure room better be loaded.” Bubba slung himself beneath the pole. It shook, worse than with Allie. Bubba swallowed his dread and went hand-over-hand. The pole sank lower…lower. The water got closer…closer. Fish gathered like they were throwing a Welcome Home Bubba Party.

Bubba closed his eyes and sank to within three inches of the moat’s surface. He imagined getting shredded by all those teeth, the water growing cloudy with his blood, and, of course, the pain. “Not like this, no way, not like this!”

“Keep coming, Bubba, you’re okay…”

Bubba opened his eyes and breathed a sigh of relief. He stopped sinking with his back two inches from the water. “Thank, Neptune.” He pulled himself along. Unnoticed by him, the lace of his jacket’s waistband trailed in the water.

The fish noticed. They closed.

“Uhm…Bubba…”

“What?”

“You might want to hurry.”

“What do you mean hurry?’

“I mean, hurry!”

Bubba looked down and got the impression of zooming teeth in a cheesy 3-D movie kind of way. So much for thanking Neptune. Bubba shimmied faster. The pole swayed. The piranha came like mini-torpedoes, stabbing sleek heads out of the water. Bubba contained a shriek as they thumped into his back. Several fish hooked their teeth into his jacket where they hung and flapped. Bubba’s fists blurred across the pole until he reached the other side and dismounted.

“Get them off me!”

Allie slapped at the fish eating Bubba’s warm-up. They hit the ground, flopping like they suffered from epileptic fits.

“Bastards!” Bubba hissed. He stomped the fish, mashing their guts through splits in their sides. “Goddamn!” Bubba breathed. “Triple goddamn in a busted-up handcart; them sons of bitches almost had me!”

“Don’t say goddamn,” Allie warned. “Blasphemy’s bad luck.”

“Are you kidding me?” Bubba asked. “I almost get eaten and you’re worried about Sunday School mojo? I’ll say whatever I want because I almost got ate, man! Get it? I almost got ate! If there is one way I don’t want to go out, that is it! Now give me the goddamn rope, Sunday School Boy!”

“You’re asking for it,” Allie went on. “Bad luck aplenty.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, there’s no such thing as luck.” Bubba cast the rope up the thirty-foot tower, and it caught on the first try. “There’s only skill.” He handed the end of the rope to Allie. “Know what I mean, jellybean?”

“I hope so, for your sake.”

Moments later, the two of them stood on top of the tower. Lights stretched away to the horizon. It made for a strange view, like they stood in the past and looked into the future. Perhaps Roth had a point in the newspaper article. It was a different world in the castle — an oasis of magic on a dismal Earth.

As suspected, the tower door stood unlocked. Who would lock a door on top of a thirty-foot tower surrounded by a piranha-filled moat anyway?

A fireplace lit the room, illuminating a combination of modern and medieval times. A bear skin rug lay on the floor in front of a big-screen TV. A log-frame couch held leather cushions while a stone console housed a stereo. Speakers emitted soft flute music. Tapestries and modern paintings hung on the walls.

“Man,” Bubba said. “The rich sure have poor taste.”

“Tell me about it,” Allie agreed. “You’re rich, and your place looks like something out of Cindy Lauper’s id.”

“Whatever,” Bubba bristled. “I’m just getting by…barely.”

Allie rolled his eyes. Bubba was what they called a Hobbyist. He didn’t need what he stole, but he needed to steal. Allie faced a bookcase, which was filled with everything from Shakespeare to Richard Matheson.

“How does it work?” Bubba asked.

“How does it always work?” Allie replied with a kid’s grin. He started tipping books and tipped them back in again if nothing happened. Halfway through the third shelf, he got it — a Chuck Norris biography. “Bingo!” A hidden mechanism clicked, and the bookcase swung out, revealing a stairway.

Bubba shook his head as they started down. “An actual passageway behind a bookcase, Roth must really be off his rocker—”

The next step gave way and Bubba tumbled into free fall. Before a riser’s edge cracked his skull open, the stairs tilted and formed a slide. Clothes whisked on stone and curse words echoed as Bubba and Allie shot twists and turns, gathering speed. They rebounded off walls, trying to grab for purchase and failing. A hundred feet later, the slide vomited them onto level ground.

Allie’s eyes gradually focused on a chamber lit by torches. Upon closer inspection, he saw the torches were electric, the kind advertised in magazines with the words, realistic flame. The chamber contained two doorways: one blocked by a steel door and the one they slid through.

Slam!

Okay, make that two doorways blocked by steel doors. Tupperware had nothing on Allie and Bubba’s state of sealed.

Bubba palmed a bloody lip. “What’s this happy crappy?”

“A trap,” Allie answered. “The cops are probably on their way. We should have waited for Bobby. He would have known about this stuff.”

“Bobby doesn’t know his backside from a hole in the ground. We—”

“Hark, thieves, do not fear! For no lawmen now draw near!”

Bubba searched for the source of the disembodied voice.

Allie spotted a wall-mounted speaker. “That you, Roth?”

“You speak true,” the voice continued in rhyming couplets. “And I assure you. No lawmen will come. That would ruin our fun.”

Bubba’s eyes narrowed: “What fun?”           

“If you beat the challenges three, along with besting me, you may take all you want and go free!” The door blocking the forward passage slid open with a rasp of rock on steel. Allie and Bubba exchanged wary looks.

“What do you think?” Allie asked.

Bubba shrugged. “You act like there’s a choice.” He grabbed two torches and handed one to Allie. “You go first.” They started down the passage, crouching under the low ceiling. “What does he mean challenges three?”

“Haven’t you ever read Tolkien?”

“If it doesn’t have a centerfold in it, I don’t read it.”

“Puzzles,” Allie explained. “If we figure them out, we get out. It’s very medieval, and, in case you haven’t noticed, Roth is nuts on the subject.”

“So that’s his game,” Bubba nodded. “I can dig it. It’s better than cops and cavity searches.” The tunnel eventually opened into a large room. “Good deal,” Bubba said. “I need to straighten up. My back’s killing me.”

Allie restrained his partner. “Wait. Look.” In the middle of the floor, just visible in the torchlight — a puddle of something. Allie’s brow furrowed. The floor was made up of a checkerboard pattern of stone blocks. Realization followed observation. “Follow me,” Allie directed. “Only step where I step.” He moved into the room, tapping each block with the torch before he put weight on it.

Bubba followed close behind. “Just like Raiders of the Lost Ark, huh?” As they neared the puddle, its color became clear — red.

“Blood,” Allie deducted, then considered. “Better back off, Bubba.” He tapped the block beneath the puddle with his torch, standing well away.

Shuukt!

A section of wall sprang open, and a rack of spears shot out.

Allie and Bubba screamed, for a man dangled from the spears, pierced through the chest. His dead eyes stared at them.

“Bobby!” Allie cried.

Bubba, never the sentimental type, growled, “That slippery little twerp screwed us! He came early to get the goods for himself.”

Allie’s voice went hoarse. “We have to take him down.”

“Whatever, he’s a Judas.”

“He’s my friend…” Something in Allie’s eyes told Bubba that he should be more sympathetic. Bubba tried.

“No, he was your friend. Now he’s meat. If we want to get out of here, lugging a corpse around isn’t going to improve our odds. Catch my drift?”

Allie did, but it took a couple of grabs. “All right.” He swallowed his remorse and moved on, testing blocks until they reached the opposite passageway. 

Roth’s voice came over a speaker: “Kudos! That challenge was a freebie, more or less. I never had a chance to clean up the previous mess. That gave you a clue, which helped you through. No more hints, though. Time’s wasting, let’s go!”

“Dr. Seuss renaissance freak,” Allie mumbled.

“What did you call me?” Roth asked.

“He called you a freak!” Bubba shouted and pushed Allie forward. “Come on, let’s get this guy for what he did to Bobby, huh?”

“Right on,” Allie’s jaw went grim.

Grisly paintings covered the walls of the next passage: people being burned at the stake and enduring other methods of torture.

“Psycho renaissance freak,” Bubba amended Allie’s earlier pronouncement as they came to another room. A door blocked the opposite passage. A lock gleamed on its hasp. In addition, a steel ring protruded from the floor. Attached to the ring was a key mounted on two horseshoes that had their ends chained together.

“If you found the last challenge piercing,” Roth’s voice crackled over a speaker. “You’ll find this one smashing!”

A slice of wall slid out behind Allie and Bubba and rumbled forward on hydraulics. Bubba put a shoulder against it. “Help me!”

Allie threw his weight against the stone, as well, but it did no good. The stone plug pushed them into the room and effectively closed off the entrance.

Groans of heavy machinery filled the air.

“I don’t like the sound of that,” Bubba said.

Rough grinding. Then the ceiling started…to…descend…

“The key!” Allie shouted. “We have to get the key!”

They raced to the center of the room and dropped to their knees over the world’s most complicated keyring. Bubba grabbed the steel loop and pulled until his arms felt like they’d pop out of their sockets. The key wouldn’t budge.

The ceiling screeched as it sank, like giant fingernails on a giant chalkboard.

“Let go!” Allie shouldered in on Bubba.

“No, help me pull it!”

“Let go!” Allie insisted. It’s a puzzle! We have to figure it out!”

Bubba released his grip as the truth of Allie’s remark hit him. They studied the contraption like students taking the test of their lives.

The ceiling, meanwhile, dropped two feet. Eight more and they’d be paste.

“I got it!” Bubba cried. The key slid around the circuit of chained horseshoes. He manipulated it back and forth…and accomplished nothing. “Goddamn it!”

“Don’t blaspheme!” Allie shouted. “It’s bad luck—”

Bubba shoved a finger in Allie’s face. “Don’t you dare say one word about luck or blasphemy, not one goddamn word unless it’s how to get this key off this loop!”

Allie shut up, apparently in agreement that his attention was better served on getting a key from point A to point B to prevent their being squashed into jelly.

The ceiling sank another two feet. Bubba noticed faint stains marred its surface. Someone, probably Roth, had tried to scrub them clean, but the signs that the ceiling had turned other folks into raspberry mush was painfully obvious.

Roth should try Perioxiclean, Bubba thought wildly then forced his eyes away from the ceiling and back to the task at hand. It did no good. He couldn’t see how the key came off the loop. No break in the fastenings unless — the hacksaw!

No, not enough time.

The ceiling dropped another foot — halfway to oblivion now.

“Ha!” Allie cried out in a tone that made Bubba want to kiss him. “It’s like this puzzle my orthodontist had in his waiting room when I was a kid!”

“Then solve it!”

The ceiling dropped another foot. Bubba could reach up and touch it now.

And he was on his knees…

Allie twisted the horseshoes together, dropping the chains into alignment with their U-shapes. That opened the ends of the horseshoes up so Allie could slide them out of the loop, thus freeing the key. “Tada!”

“Tada the door, you idiot!” Bubba shoved Allie toward the exit. They crawled as the ceiling dropped. Horrified, Bubba saw that it was only a foot away from sinking below the level of the door’s lock. “Move!”

Allie jammed the key in the lock. “It won’t turn! It’s too stiff!”

“Get out of the way!” Bubba tossed Allie aside and grabbed the key. The lock was stiff. “Come on, you rusted piece of junk!” He twisted the key with every bit of strength he possessed. Just when he thought he was either going to have a bowel movement or go blind, the key turned, and the door fell open. Bubba lunged through and looked back like Lot’s wife. The ceiling now forced Allie onto his belly. He squirmed along the floor, his face a white oval of panic. He didn’t have enough room to use his arms.

“Bubba! Help!”

Bubba grabbed Allie’s hands and yanked. Allie popped through the door as the ceiling met the floor with a loud crunch and a puff of dust.

“Congratulations,” Roth’s voice crackled. “You made it through that room. Now forward…onto your doooooom!”

Bubba rolled over, breathing heavy and cocking a thumb at the speaker. “You know what I like best about this guy?”

“No,” Allie gasped for breath. “What?”

“He’s so positive.”

Allie smiled. Soon laughter leaked through his lips in a burst of nervous relief. Bubba joined him. They cackled on the floor like raving loons.

“Don’t laugh at me,” Roth growled. Allie and Bubba were powerless to stop, however. After the intensity of the last room, laughter was the only response their emotions could handle. “I said, stop laughing at me!”

“And sensitive, too,” Bubba squeezed out between guffaws. “How much you want to bet he was one of those fat kids who drooled over the women on the covers of Conan paperbacks?”

“Sticks and stones,” Roth said, words cold with menace even over a loudspeaker. He signed off with an electronic click.

Eventually, Allie and Bubba’s laughter tapered off, as well. Exhaustion came in its wake. They could have laid there for hours, but that’s not how the game worked. A slot in the wall opened up, and a noxious gas poured out. Neither Allie nor Bubba had any interest in experiencing what it would do to their lungs. They hustled into the next passageway with their hands over their mouths and noses.

“Jerkwad could have let us rest a little longer,” Bubba grumbled.

Allie didn’t reply. The trophies distracted him. Skulls and bones filled nooks in the passageway’s walls. Allie examined a skeleton hand with a ring on it. Stanley Wallace had a ring like that. Allie hadn’t seen Stanley in months.

Allie gulped, wondering if his bones would end up here, too. Suddenly, he never wanted to do another robbery again. He just wanted to go home to Melanie and get a job at Wal-Mart if that’s what it took to get by.

Bubba paused at Stanley’s hand, too — long enough to pocket the ring.

Shortly, Allie and Bubba emerged into a room larger than the rest. The door on the opposite wall stood eight feet tall. Clinks and rattles sounded behind it.

“What do you suppose that is?” Bubba asked.

“Challenge number three?” Allie guessed.

The door burst open, and an armored knight jangled out, polished to a mirror sheen. Purple cloth flapped at his waist. A large plume of feathers stuck up from his helmet. The figure carried a shield and sword.

“Ho, thieves, ‘tis I, Roth!” the figure roared, “here to lop thy heads off!”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Bubba said tonelessly.

Roth, not kidding, floated in on a wave of clanks, his sword raised.

“Move!” Allie pushed Bubba to the side and darted in the opposite direction. “He can’t go after us both!”

Roth eenie-meenie-mighty-moed Allie, who almost wet his pants when Roth swung his sword in a vicious arc. Instead of soiling himself, Allie screamed and ducked. The blade bit into the wall, throwing sparks and chunks of stone.

“Come for my treasure!” Roth shouted. “You’ll never have it, is my wager!”

Allie regrouped with Bubba. “Any ideas?”

“Yeah, watch out for his sword.”

Roth moved in like a lion stalking a pair of gazelles. “Here, I rule everything! Here, I am a king!” Roth lunged again. Allie and Bubba split apart. The sword swished between them and struck the floor with a loud clang.

Allie shot left. Bubba went right — not quick enough.

Roth spun, swinging his shield. It struck Bubba’s shoulder, knocking him to the floor. Roth rose up to deliver the killing blow.

“And I was never fat!” he screamed.

Allie plowed into Roth like a linebacker hitting a wide receiver. Roth didn’t go down, but the impact knocked his sword off target. The strike missed cleaving Bubba’s face in two by mere inches. Bubba rolled to his feet. He and Allie huddled against the opposite wall as Roth advanced once more.

“Think of something!” Bubba demanded.

Allie shrugged off his backpack.

“Right!” Bubba exclaimed with an air of eureka. “The tools!” Bubba pulled implements out of his own pack. The best he could come up with was a wrench. He flung it at Roth, and it bounced off the man’s helmet. The armored behemoth laughed.

“If that’s the best you can do, then I truly pity you!”

“Forget the tools!” Allie cried. “The rope!” He handed one end to Bubba and took the clawed end for himself. “Let’s take his head off!”

Understanding dawned on Bubba. They charged Roth with the rope stretched between them, trying to clothesline their adversary. Roth countered by bringing up his sword and slicing the rope in two. The resulting loss of tension sent Bubba sprawling on the floor and Allie spinning off in the other direction.

“Rope?” Roth raved. “Dopes! Rope! Dopes!”

Bubba crab-scrambled along the floor until he hit the wall. Roth loomed over him like a metal giant. Bubba wondered what a sword chopping into his brain would feel like and couldn’t think of a single comforting answer.

“Hey, chrome-dome!”

Roth spun toward the sound of Allie’s voice.

Allie swung the clawed rope above his head, lasso-style. “Take a good look! It’s not just a rope! It’s a hook!” Allie threw the claw through the air, and the hook wrapped around Roth’s neck like a bola. Allie yanked as hard as he could, jerking Roth off balance. The man toppled with a loud crash, and his sword clattered away.

Taking advantage, Bubba dove for the weapon and rolled to his feet while Roth struggled to stand. Bubba approached the man, dragging the blade across the floor. It sang with razor clarity, causing Roth to look up. His eyes stared through the faceplate, wide behind a pair of horn-rimmed glasses.

“Mercy,” Roth begged.

Bubba swung like a pro golfer, and Roth’s head flew across the room where it struck the wall and clattered to the floor like an oversized shot-put.

“You got him!” Allie clapped a hand on Bubba’s shoulder. “We did it!”
            “Yeah,” Bubba huffed. It was the only word that fit out between breaths.

Allie headed for the door. “Come on! The treasure must be through here!” Now that they were victorious, he forgot all about his vow to go straight. He wanted to bring home the bacon to Melanie, preferably gold bacon.

“Hey, Allie…”

Allie turned and his joy became confusion.

Bubba pointed the sword at Allie’s chest. “I hate to do this,” he confessed. “But like I said before, a treasure goes a lot further split two ways instead of three…and it goes even further when it isn’t split at all.”

“Bubba?” Allie’s eyes shone with disbelief. “You can’t roll me. We’re pals.”

“That’s the rotten part of it,” Bubba agreed. “If it was just for me, I wouldn’t do it, especially after you got me through this place alive…but Melanie asked me to, and I can’t say no to a babe like that.”

A sharp pang stabbed Allie’s face. “Melanie?” And then a sharper pang of steel stabbed Allie’s heart and shut him up forever.

Bubba withdrew the sword. Allie’s body thudded to the ground, and his blood made a sound like running water. Bubba dropped the blade, suddenly overcome with fatigue. The thought of the treasure room gave him strength, though.

It was his — all his.

Bubba staggered through the open door.

Oh my…

The treasure room was everything Bubba imagined…and more. Gold chests. Piles of gems. Mounds of jewelry. Bubba whooped, diving into the riches. He picked up a handful of coins, threw them into the air and let them rain down on his head. He laughed, giddy as a schoolboy. He opened a silver chest full of…cash and bonds!

Bubba laughed harder, raising his head and howling with joy.

Then the treasure room door slammed shut with a hollow boom. Bubba’s laughter cut off. He ran to the door and tried to open it. It wouldn’t budge.

But there had to be another way out. Bubba looked around, a thought worming through the back of his mind — a horribly unsettling thought.

“No!” he said. “We beat the challenges three!”

Beat the challenges three…take all you want and go free!

That’s what Roth said.

But was it?

Now that Bubba thought back, he realized there was something else.

If you beat the challenges three…along with besting me…

They faced two challenges…and Roth.

That meant one challenge remained.

“What is it?” Bubba shouted. “What’s the final challenge, you crazy bastard? It doesn’t matter! I’ll beat it like I beat you!”

Without Allie? You wouldn’t have beaten anything without Allie.

“Shut up!” Bubba cursed the truth.

Something moved behind the mound of treasure — something big.

“What is it?” Bubba cried again.

A twenty-five-foot lizard slithered out from behind the piles of wealth. Sharp claws clicked on the floor as it scurried toward Bubba with hungry reptilian eyes. A forked tongue darted over foot-long fangs shiny with mucous. The beast hissed like a steam engine, and flames dripped from its nostrils.

“Goddamn,” Bubba blasphemed. “Roth did find a dragon.”

That was bad luck for Bubba…