The Smoky Corridor

95

Kurt Snertz was clawing and clambering his way back up the chute.

He fought the slant by jamming his butt up against the ceiling and scrabbling forward on his elbows and knees.

He was only three feet up the tube when he heard a slobbery snarl below him.

But the thing did not climb in after him.

Maybe that weird tattoo was some kind of stop sign for giant gophers. Whatever. Kurt was out of the slide and in the room with the dirt floor.

He was going to live.

Jennings, too.

No way was Kurt Snertz sliding back down this coal chute to kill the wuss.

Not with a rabid gopher with laser-beam eyeballs growling up his butt.