“No choice,” said Cooper. He lay down on top of the safe and stuck his hand deep inside, pushing through the webbed opening and feeling around the writhing mass of legs for the box. A moment later, his hand fell on something hard and he pulled it out. At first it was so covered in spiders, he wasn’t sure what he’d found. He held it over the bottomless pit and shook it until enough of the creepy crawlers fell off that he recognized the box he’d stolen from the Blackmoore building. When he managed to clear away the last of the spiders, he stuffed the box into his backpack and zipped it closed. From his waist utility sack, he pulled out a small plastic spray bottle and spritzed himself all over. Spiders jumped off him by the dozens. Others fell off and scrambled back inside the safe.

“What is that stuff?” said Phil.

“Holy water, wolf piss, cayenne pepper, and garlic. Kind of my all-in-one bastard repellent.”

“Keep spraying it. It’s working.”

Coop couldn’t argue with that, so he spent a few more minutes coating himself in the stuff, until every spider he could see was gone.

“Please, Inspector Gadget, can we go home before someone drops rabid Easter bunnies on us?”

“Don’t worry—I’m already on the way,” said Coop. He jumped and grabbed the pendulum axle at the ceiling and began working his way hand over hand to the door. He was feeling particularly good about that maneuver . . . until something hissed and brushed his hand. Coop looked up and saw a tarantula that looked to be the size of a Cadillac hubcap rearing up on its hind legs and waving its front four legs in the air like it was going to pounce. Phil grunted like he’d been punched in his ectoplasmic gut. Coop remained silent, because he had lost not only the ability to speak but also his grip on the axle.

As he fell, Coop reached out and grabbed one of the swinging pendulums. That was the good news. The bad news was that he and Phil were now carried in dizzying arcs back and forth across the room. The hallway door was no more than twenty feet away, but there were three more pendulums between them and the way out. Coop looked up and saw the tarantula climbing down the pendulum he was clinging to and did the only semirational thing he could think of. He jumped to the next pendulum, catching it just as it passed by.

Phil didn’t scream this time. In fact, he felt like dead weight in Coop’s head. Can ghosts faint? Coop wondered. Deciding to explore that bit of trivia later, he leapt to the next pendulum. Just one more until he could jump back into the hall and the way out. As he checked his timing, preparing to jump, his goggles went black.