It was chaos. Light leaked through the red plastic around him, making the walls glow like neon. He closed his eyes tight as the overwhelming smell of chlorine flooded his nostrils. He could feel his body twisting and turning through the curves, his skin sliding along with the river. It was fun. Definitely fun -- but he hadn't gotten to the drop yet. That was where things would get hairy.
Down, down, down, hurtling through the darkness. Kyle certainly felt like a torpedo; the name didn't lie. And he hadn't gotten an ounce of water in his eyes yet. He kept them squeezed close. When he got to the bottom he'd open them, just so Aaron wouldn't rip him apart for being a baby.
He knew he was nearing the drop. The slide was almost out of curves. He thought briefly that they should've called the ride the Long Intestine, before he shoved school out of his mind again. Not cool, he told himself. Concentrate. He wanted to get all the details down in his mind. Already he was formulating a grand story to tell his classmates -- he had to make the experience as scary as possible. It would help to --
His stomach suddenly plummeted. He was hurtling through the slide at incredible speeds, like he had jumped off a cliff. He opened his eyes cautiously, too excited to keep his common sense.
Fwoosh! His foot hit the water at an odd angle and some shot into his eye. Crying out, he blinked furiously, trying to soothe the burning.
WHUMP!
Kyle screamed. He yelled and cried and reached for his leg. He had hit something and come to a stop.
Someone was blocking the slide.
Moans below him. Blinking through his waterlogged eyes, he thought he could make out a shape, a human figure. His foot was shoved up against someone's swim trunks.
Oh god, Kyle thought. It's Aaron.
It was indeed Aaron, and they were both stuck as water streamed around them, as the sun heated up the tube like a microwave. The air was almost unbearably humid.
"Aaron!" Kyle cried, his face scrunched up, his leg twisted in pain, possibly broken. "Aaron! What the hell!?"
"I'm stuck," Aaron whimpered, voice muffled. He sobbed. "Kyle, help. Help, Kyle."
"I can't help you, idiot! My leg is up your butt!"
Aaron moaned. "Oh God. I'm sorry. I'll go to church, you sadistic freak, just help us."
Kyle paused for a moment, sucking in the thick air. Trying to figure out what had happened.
"Aaron!" he gasped.
"... what?"
"Why -- why are we stuck?"
"This fat WHALE is caught in the slide!" Aaron managed. "He's too big! Fatty!"
"Shut up, kidlets!" came a booming voice from below Aaron. Kyle could hear the man's laboured breathing. "I'm going to kill you when I get out of here! I'm sick of you two, not getting along! Didn't your momma teach you any DAMN MANNERS?"
Kyle recognized that voice. Of course -- it was the man who had scolded them earlier.
"You blubbery walrus," Aaron said between sobs. "You've killed us all, you bastard. Just 'cause you couldn't lay off the cheetos."
Kyle's mind flashed to his classmates, who were once again sitting on sweat-stained couches. He saw their cheese-coated fingers and spittle-smeared lips. He felt a sudden urge to beat their faces in with a baseball bat.
The air was growing suffocating, putrid. The fat man's body odour contaminated the precious oxygen. What felt like gallons of sweat rolled down Kyle's face. The water still rushed by them; apparently there was enough space for it to continue flowing, but not enough for the sorry group to proceed on its way. Kyle wondered for a moment whether he could completely block the tunnel with his body to increase the water pressure, but he couldn't move enough. His leg was paralyzed, and any twitch or slight adjustment brought a stab of pain.
"What're we going to do?" Aaron went on. "My neck, Kyle. I'm going to be in a wheelchair."
"Shut up, you retard baby, or I'm going to tell everyone at school about how you couldn't handle the Torpedo Tube. You nervous, Aaron? You NERVOUS?"
"I'm going to kill you!" Aaron cried. "I'm going to rip your throat out!"
Kyle's mind raced. There had to be a way out of this claustrophobic hellhole. He couldn't scramble back up the slide; his leg was too busted for that. He knew any solution was going to rely on the fat man.
"Hey!" Kyle called, wincing in pain. "Dude! Whoever's blocking the tunnel!"
"Yeah?"
"Can you move? Can you move at all?"
"If I could move, don't you think I would have by now?"
"We're toast," Aaron said. "Soggy toast. This sucks! This is the worst vacation ever!"
Kyle was fed up with his brother, and he was finally in a position to do something about it. With his good leg he kicked Aaron where it hurt.
His scream echoed through the tube.
"That's it, Pitstain McGee!" called the fat man, who was getting an earful of Aaron's anguish. "I am going to eat you!"
The tube began shaking. This way, that way. It seemed the whale had a new motivation, a driving force that reinvigorated his latent muscles. He was going to get Aaron if it was the last thing he did.
Kyle thought it very well might be.
"That's it!" Kyle shouted. "Get him!"
"No! Let go of me!" Aaron wailed.
Kyle imagined the whale pulling Aaron's hair out.
"Move your flabs!" Aaron yelled.
"Yes!" said Kyle. "Move them! Move your flabs!"
He was. The whale squirmed in the tube, waving his arms around in the water, desperately attempting to hurt Aaron. The air grew heavier, laden with moisture, breath, and the stench of sweat.
Kyle groaned. He couldn't take it much longer. He was suffocating in this licorice coffin. Dying under the sun's blanket of heat.
"Move!" he shouted. "Move, man!"
Then he heard something that almost made him pass out right there. A swishing sound. The sound of another person coming down the slide.
Kyle's head would be crushed. He would be smothered, sandwiched between two people. It was too much. He panicked. He yelled and screamed, beating the sides of the tube with his fists.
"Help us!" he cried. "Help me!"
Aaron's feet kicked this way and that, narrowly missing Kyle's face but splashing water into his eyes.
"He's eating me, Kyle! He's biting me! AAAARGH!"
The swooshing sound grew louder. The person was rounding the curves, sliding through the intestine, ready to be pushed out. Kyle rubbed his burning eyes, glanced up above.
He saw feet. A tall man. He was speeding, down down down, a rocket. A torpedo.
Kyle knew it was over. His life had ended. He would be reduced to a sunburnt paste. Aaron had been right. He was going to be shoveled out of the park in a bulldozer. What would his parents think? More importantly, what would his friends think? Too bad about that Kyle. Got to ride the most awesome slide in the universe, but ended up as sewage.
Lame. Definitely lame.
The tall man was almost upon him. He could see the revelation in the man's eyes, the sudden panic.
"MOVE!" Kyle shouted to the whale. "MOOOOOOVE!"
And then, a miracle. Kyle was an inch away from being stabbed in the eye by the man's toenail. But while Aaron was being eaten, the whale's flabs shifted ever-so-slightly, and the pipe was suddenly unclogged. The whole group was swept down the slide.
Kyle flew, stealing away from danger at the last second.
Aaron screamed. Kyle screamed. The tall man screamed. The whale raged, having been robbed of his meal.
The group picked up speed, barreling down the torpedo chute. Kyle saw a literal light at the end of the tunnel; and before he could think about protecting his twisted leg they shot out into the sun, soaring through the air. He felt suspended in time for a moment, like he was flying. He sucked in a huge breath. Then gravity caught up. He plummeted and struck the water painfully. His mouth slammed into Aaron's foot, sending a bloody tooth twirling. The tall man missed Kyle's head, splashing down just a foot away.
Kyle managed to surface, flailing like a seal under attack from a shark. His bad leg dangled below him, useless. The chlorine in his eyes felt like acid.
Treading water pitifully, he was able to reach the edge of the pool and haul himself onto the concrete. He lay there crying, all thought driven out of his head by the knife in his leg.
The world was noise and darkness. People shouted in alarm.
Kyle just wanted it to end.
The medics on-site were called over to where Kyle, Aaron, and the whale sat writhing on the pavement. The tall man had somehow escaped the ordeal with nary a scratch. He simply stood over the group, bewildered and shaken.
The ride was shut down for the day. The attendant descended the stairs, frantically pleading his innocence. The park manager came an hour later, and an investigation was launched. Turned out there was supposed to be a second attendant at the bottom of the slide who would give a signal when a person had splashed down in the pool and exited safely. This employee was found slacking off, eating a sno-cone.
The surfer-attendant was obviously not following regulations, as he let people go down the slide before getting any signal from below. He was promptly fired.
"Oh no way, brah."
Kyle and Aaron's parents accompanied them to the hospital. Kyle had a broken leg, and Aaron's spine was severely messed up.
Kyle couldn't believe it. Who would've thought his summer vacation would end with a cast?
He coughed. Something was stuck in his throat.
Gagging, he reached his hand into his mouth and brought out a soggy scrap.
A band-aid.
"Kyle," Aaron muttered from the adjacent bed. "When we get home, I'm going to kill you for kicking me."
"Great. Something to look forward to."
When school started up again in autumn, Kyle's classmates found him morose and unusually silent. Everyone was confused until it got out that the Wetlands had closed its brand-new slide, the Torpedo Tube, due to a lawsuit from Kyle's family -- and some fat dude.
It was generally agreed that Kyle and Aaron were the two least-awesome kids in school.
