SHIP'S LOG:

WonderFly9000

Milt McGee 1/2/2026 10:58pm

Tom regained his composure upon learning the various horrors we needed to pass through were mere apparitions.

"It's a thing they do with the light," I explained, walking through the tentacles of Utramec. "Once you figure out about the first one, the rest are easy because you know they're just tricks. So what's the point, right?" I asked. "Not much of a deterrent once you make it through Cowmumble. So why create a whole host?"

We walked through the virulent, oozing hives of Besmarcher's thighs, down the heaving one-way throat of Skim-e-Chey, the flaming malestrom that is Ichae the Mind Annihilator, and all the others in the brochure.

"Marketing, that's why," I answered myself. "If you're not part of the blithering masses, the everyday folk with their debilitating superstitions, then you're suddenly part of an elite in-crowd. You're already won over at that point."

We had passed the last of the pantheon, and entered the Vestibule of Waiting.

"And, I won't lie," I said. "That feeling like you're an insider makes the next part infinitely terrifying."

"The Sales Recorder will see you now," the Voice from Nowhere said.

Milt McGee 9/5/2025 11:05pm

"Sheesh Tom," I said. "If that's got your kitty knickers in a knot then I'm not sure you're going to be able to make it too far along down here."

What had Tom paralyzed with fear was an avatar of Cowmumble, one of the pantheon of demons in the Underland brochure.

"Th.. th... the... udderrrrrrrz..." Tom was able to mumble.

It's true, the fiery udders, along with the gruesome horns and needle sharp fangs of Cowmumble were terrifying, and even more so when animated.

"It's not even interactive, Tom," I said. "See, look?"

I walked down the tunnel till I came to the apparition, where I waved my hand it front of its eyes, stuck my head into its mouth, then walked right through it.

"This is just the intro," I told him. Tom's hackles had already lowered a notch. "When it's a real danger, you'll know it, Trust me. C'mon."

And we walked on down the hall.

Milt McGee 5/14/2025 9:47pm

Tom's hackles were rising.

The ice had tapered off, and the tunnels had their crawly, rooty look that I'd tried to forget. Only the occasional nightmare.

And the wailing. The haunting, tragic, forlorn cries. And what comes next.

"Meeeeeorrw...."

I'd never heard Tom make that sound before. He'd been a cat that had never shown fear.

"C'mon Tom." I turned to look back and shined my flashlight on him. He looked like a different Tom, his hair on end in every direction, sticking out through his camo.

"Meeeeeowrlllllll....."

Then I turned back down the tunnel and saw what he was looking at.

Milt McGee 1/20/2025 10:59pm

Tom was sore on account of his fall down the ice stairs.

"I know we're supposed to land on our feet, but ice is unfair," he mewled.

He was sore about other stuff too.

"So wait a minute. You sold the milk to, well, I don't even wanna say it..."

"We're probably better off if you don't, Tom. And it was more like a trade."

We were headed deeper into the tunnels beneath this particular Horrendous Peak of Underland. We had flashlights.

"And now here we are, in broad daylight, not even sneaking in like proper burglars, marching right into their... temple?"

"It's more of a service entrance," I answered. "And, you see, Tom, well... what lives down here, it ain't what people think. They ain't like how you'd figure people like you and me would act. Or how a mob boss, or a kingpin, or a war lord even might be set up."

Tom stopped shuffling down the tunnel and turned and put his flashlight on me.

"Well what are they like then?"

That's when we started to hear the wails.

Milt McGee 9/25/2024 10:04pm

The path down into the depths of this particular Horrendous Peak of Underland (one of the thirteen) was an icy spiral staircase.

"Watch your step," I told Tom.

"Ow!!!!!!"

thump thump thump thump thump thump thump

Milt McGee 6/4/2024 11:13pm

"What's the matter? You bunch of scaredy cats!" hollered Tom.

Tom's mountain cat commandos were indeed scaredy cats. So scared, in fact, they had been temporarily turned into bone. They stood white and immobile along the deck, staring out into space. I'd told them not to look directly into the empty eye sockets of the enormous cat skull as we flew into its mouth.

"Hush Tom!," I called softly.

The enormous cat skull sat upon one of the 13 Most Horrendous Peaks of Underland. And with the giant empty eye sockets and the spaces between the teeth and jaw, it wasn't pitch black in the cat skull's mouth. At least not during the day.

Tom hung off the bow, whiskers and nose in the air.

"I still can't smell anything," he said. "But take a look down there..."

It was the entrance I'd visited when I made my devil's bargain.

Al 2/12/2024 10:24pm

What? You said your guys were tough?

(muffled meows)

You knew he was headed to Underland. You didn't share that with your muscle?

(muffled meows)

Well you're going to lose him unless somebody follows him in. I've given you everything you needed. It's not on me if this doesn't pan out.

(muffled meows)

I said don't worry about Patsy. She knows what's good for her.

Milt McGee 10/19/2023 10:38pm

"Well ain't that a sight to see!" hollered Tom, hanging over the rail near the bow. "Whooo-eeee!"

The rest of Tom's crew wasn't quite as excited. Deeply disturbed would have been more like it.

We'd threaded the The Needles and entered Underland. Past where maps end and there are no brochures, but every sky pilot and air trooper and even grade school kits knew the stories, and they weren't far from the truth. From this altitude, the landscape of ragged mountain ranges and decrepit woods looked like a wasteland of bones and rotting corpses. From experience, I knew it was like that on the ground too.

"Aw, c'mon boys," hollered Tom. "No risk, no reward! And we're going for the biggest score there is!"

Some of Tom's cats made a halfhearted cheer. The rest were still frozen in fear. And for good reason. Nobody in their right mind would want to face the entities that made Underland their home.

When you steal milk from Gods, the only ones you can fence it to are real Devils.

Milt McGee 7/16/2023 9:05pm

Tom and his band of mountain cat commandos made good crew. They were well disciplined, came well supplied with their own rations, and took up just about as much space and weight as a full load of milk bottles, so the WonderFly9000 wasn't too overburdened.

They were freebooters, and Tom had fallen into a windfall he'd never dreamed could come true. I explained the plan in detail.

"You're just putting me on," he asked over the eastern edges of the hinterlands.

"No, I'm afraid not.

And days later, as we skirted the coast of the Breakfast Sea.

"This all can't be true, is it?"

"I'm afraid it is, Tom."

And, as The Needles came in sight over the western horizon:

"You're really not fooling, are you?"

"No I'm not fooling, Tom."

Milt McGee 3/29/2023 11:54pm

It was clear that Tom had a special feeling for milk.

"Yeah, as a little kitten I used to sleepwalk quite a bit."

The rest of Tom's mountain cat commandos had fallen asleep, gently snoring here and there about the decks of the WonderFly9000. But Tom had a kind of preternatural energy about him. We stayed up talking on the bridge, looking out over the tops of the trees we were anchored to.

"We lived in a barn in a valley at the edge of a forest. I'd get up in the middle of the night... no memory of any of this, mind you... and somehow make it down from the hayloft. My momma'd wake up and take a count and find I wasn't there, but after awhile she knew where she could find me."

"Where's that?"

"Sitting up right in the middle of the field, starin' up at the Milky Way with my tongue out."

"Aw, that's cute."

"Yeah, but I'd have a splash of milk on my nose. Or my forehead, or my tongue sometimes. Devil's Milk my momma'd call it. I'd get a whippin."

"Oh, that's too bad," I said.

"She was a mean old queen. But that whippin'd wake me up. And you know what? When I woke up I'd taste that milk. And that's a taste you don't ever forget."

"And that's why you and I are especially well suited, Tom," I said. "Because that's right where we're headed."