Daffy stumbled to a halt and leaned against the wall, panting heavily. If this were a cartoon, he thought, he would probably need to open his chest and visibly fan his also panting heart until it calmed down enough that he could safely replace it, but for now, he was just trying to catch his breath and stop the shaking.
He had never been afraid of worms before Jane Prentiss started stalking the Archives, but then, he’d never had reason to. Now, however, he was adding them to spiders in his mental tally of least favorite things in the world and was never going fishing again. Not that those were the same kind of worms, but still.
Where were the others? He didn’t know, couldn’t even begin to guess. Wile E had got separated from them early on, running out in a display of heroics Daffy would never have credited him with to alert Porky, who had stopped to pick up the tape recorder he’d dropped and not realized the worms were there. Porky had eventually burst through the wall of the room where Daffy and Tweety had been hiding from the worms, unable to say where Wile E was precisely but confident that he himself was unharmed, if lightheaded and far…well, loonier than usual due to having inhaled too much gas from the fire extinguishers, which weren’t nearly as harmless as they were on set—Daffy suspected the foam in the prop ones was actually shaving cream or something similar, and even if it was real, those weren’t carbon dioxide extinguishers…he guessed. It was irrelevant, really, but if he worried about that, he wouldn’t have to think about the worms.
There were so many worms.
The tunnels under the Institute were obviously stone catacombs, purpose built rooms and corridors and passageways, even if they didn’t seem to lead anywhere. Daffy had spent his fair share of time underground, traveling with Bugs in their younger days, mostly in the fifties and sixties, so he knew his rabbit tunnels. Actually, he thought he might have tripped over one, briefly, that had only been partially filled in. Still…these were built by humans, for humans, and as such they were probably way less logical than the straightforward attempts to get from point A to point B that Bugs usually dug, even if those did kind of meander.
They were also, and Daffy could not stress this enough, full of worms. Actually, that was probably an exaggeration; most of the worms were up in the Archives, and probably up in the rest of the Institute by now. But there were still some down in the tunnels, and they were faster, quieter, and way more aggressive than they were up in the Archives, something they had discovered while trying to navigate the tunnels when a whole bunch of them had appeared all at once. Daffy had screamed, Porky had screamed, Tweety had tried to go for a fire extinguisher, and in the chaos and confusion someone had dropped the flashlight and they’d all scattered. Or at least Daffy assumed they had scattered.
He had lost track of his assistants.
“It’th fine,” he told himself through gulps of air. “We’re the heroeth. Everybody will come through thmelling like rotheth. There’th going to be a miracle, a deuth exth machina, if you will, and the wormth will jutht…go away. Bugth will do thomething. He’th surely got thomething up thothe exthpenthive thleeveth of hith. I’m not going back there, I’ll tell you that much. I’m a coward. Everybody knowth that.”
Everybody knows that. Daffy stopped and turned that phrase over in his mind. For the first time, he actually heard the way he said it—not in a matter of fact way, not dismissively, not even like he was trying to convince himself. It was…dejected. Resigned. He was a coward. Everybody knew it. Nobody expected anything more of him.
He ran over the roles he’d played in his lifetime, the cartoons he’d been in. What had he been? An annoyance. An antagonist. A schemer. A con artist. A punchline. A punching bag. A bully. Had he ever been a hero?
Could he ever be a hero?
Did anyone ever expect him to be one?
His assistants—Porky, Tweety…they had followed him. Him, not Duck Dodgers or Robin Hood or whoever else he was playing. There were no cameras, no scripts, no costumes, no props. This was the real world and this was a real job, and maybe they’d put up with him more than anything at the beginning, but they followed him, they listened to him. They counted on him. Didn’t they?
He took a deep, shuddering breath, then another. Then he straightened up and put his hands on his hips.
“Now, lithten here, Duck,” he said firmly. “You’ve been given a rethponthibility. Bugth didn’t jutht trutht you with the job, he truthted you with the aththithtanth and their thafety. The otherth follow you. You have to take care of them, jutht like you take care of yourthelf. You don’t have to thtop being a coward. Nobody exthpectth that of you. But even a coward can do the right thing, for onthe in your mitherable life. Thith ithn’t a cartoon. The only way you can be sure that you, or anyone elthe, thurviveth thith epithode ith to go back there and make sure of it yourthelf. Bugth might be in charge of the Inthtitute, but he’th not in charge of the Archiveth—and how’th he thuppothed to know what’th down here? The world ith watching you, Daffy Duck, and they’re watching to thee if you’re worthy of thith pothition, of thith role, of thith moment. Whether you want it or not, you’re not going to be able to live with yourthelf if the only way you thurvive ith by thacrifithing everybody elthe.” He stabbed a finger determinedly in the air and shouted, “Tho get back there and do thomething!”
Turning on his heel, he backed up to give himself a running start, then sped back down the tunnels the way he’d come.
He almost tripped over something and nearly screamed before he registered the metallic sound against the stone. Looking down, squinting in the dark, he noticed that it was a fire extinguisher; when he picked it up and shook it, it felt full, or at least full enough. Probably it was the one he himself had dropped on his initial flight. He tucked it under his arm and kept running.
He heard a sound from somewhere up ahead, or at least it sounded like somewhere up ahead—he couldn’t be completely sure, sound traveled funny down here. He hoped it was ahead of him, because it sounded like Porky crying out in terror, so that was the direction he was heading.
“Hang on, Porkthter ol’ pal, I’m coming!” he yelled. He could hear the thin edge of panic in his own voice and just hoped he would have the presence of mind to operate the fire extinguisher successfully. Bob knew he’d never managed to do it properly before, but…well, as he kept reminding himself, this was no cartoon. This was real life, and in real life, he was more than just the comic relief or the butt of the joke.
He hoped.
Bursting around a corner, he found Porky pressed against what looked like a door, rattling the knob and yanking on it; it didn’t budge. He was yelling in absolute terror as he pulled fruitlessly on it. Daffy would have asked why he didn’t give up and go on down the hall if he hadn’t seen the wave of white squirming nearly silently towards him.
“Thtay away from him, you filthy vermin!” Daffy yelled. He aimed the nozzle at the worms and pulled the trigger.
To his relief, a cloud of white gas hissed out the end, coating the worms as it did so. Just like the ones upstairs did, these shriveled and died as the gas hit them. That was probably the usual response of something that had been deprived of oxygen, just accelerated because of how tiny their lungs were and how little room for air there was in them to begin with, but it was a relief to see just the same. Daffy kept spraying until he was sure all the worms were dead, then ran forward and grabbed Porky’s arm.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “They didn’t bite you, did they?”
“Eh-n, eh-n, eh-n, eh-no,” Porky stammered, but his pupils were still pinpoints of terror in the dark, which was truly only a response a Toon would have—humans’ pupils usually blew out with fear, but with Toons big eyes were just signs of surprise or patheticness. “W-where have you b-been? I-I thought I lost you—”
“It’th fine. I’m fine. Have you theen Tweety?” Daffy’s leg was beginning to shake. The adrenaline that had driven him since he first saw the worms was leaving him in fits and spurts, and the ankle that had been bitten by the worm before they made it to Document Storage was beginning to throb in pain.
“N-n-n-n-no, not s-since the eh-w, eh-w, eh-w, eh-w, eh-w, eh—s-since we all got attacked.” Porky grabbed Daffy’s arm. “Here, y-you can’t walk—let me, eh, h-help you.”
Daffy considered arguing, then decided against it. “Thankth, pal. Let’th try and find the way out of thith plathe. Hopefully we’ll run into Tweety on the way.”
Naturally, they didn’t. They wound their way through the confusing maze of stone tunnels. They didn’t run into a lot of worms, but that was less comforting than Daffy would have expected. Several times they came upon doors, but some didn’t open, some opened to blank stone, and only one or two opened to small, enclosed rooms rather than new corridors or, crucially, ways out of the tunnels themselves. Porky and Daffy didn’t speak much. There wasn’t really any need, especially since every step, or hobble, sent a renewed throb of agony up Daffy’s entire body.
He wasn’t used to pain lingering.
Suddenly, Porky stuttered to a halt, nearly sending Daffy to the ground. He clutched at Porky’s arm. “What’th wrong?” Instinctively, he dropped his voice to a whisper.
“L-look,” Porky whispered back, pointing ahead of them.
Daffy looked. Just outside the weak, crazed beam of light from the flashlight Porky had managed to retrieve was a stone step, rising up above them. Daffy took a deep breath. “Hot damn. That’th our ticket out of thith plathe. Come on. Tweety’th probably already waiting for uth upthtairth.”
“Yeah,” Porky agreed. “Let’s eh-t, eh-t, eh-t, eh-try it.”
They hop-climbed the steps, which terminated at a trapdoor. Daffy held out a hand to stop Porky, then reached into his pocket and pulled out the tape recorder he’d secreted there when he and Tweety had followed Porky into the tunnels.
“Eh-r, eh-r, eh-r, eh-r-really, Daffy?” Porky said, sounding slightly annoyed.
“I want a record of thith.” Daffy clicked the recorder back on. “Right, we’re recording again. Porky and I have come through the corridorth, but we’re thtill in the tunnelth themthelveth. It’th very confuthing down here, lotth of twithtth and turnth and falthe doorth. Not tho many wormth here, but—”
“We eh-l, eh-l, eh-l-lost Tweety,” Porky interrupted.
“I wath getting to that,” Daffy said patiently. “There wath an attack at one point, and we all got theparated. Porky and I found one another again, but there’th been no thign of Tweety anywhere. We have, however found thome thtepth going up. They theem to end in a wooden trap door. We’re hoping it leadth to the Archiveth, but we’re not thure at thith point. All that matterth, though, ith that it’th out.” He looked up. “You ready, Porky?”
“R-eh, r-eh, r-eh, r-eh, r-ready, Daffy,” Porky agreed.
Daffy put his free hand on the trap door; Porky did the same. “One—two—three!”
They both reached up and pushed as hard as they could. The trap door yielded to their combined efforts and shot upwards, and sure enough, they emerged into the Archives.
Standing directly in front of them was a grinning figure straight out of Daffy’s worst nightmare. She was exactly what Porky had described in his statement—not tall, but not short, with long, filthy dark hair, grey skin, a ragged overcoat, and more holes than a burning film strip.
“Do you hear the singing?” she asked them, in a voice that should have been impossible with the number of worms moving in and out of her throat.
Porky and Daffy grabbed one another and let voice to full throated screams of terror. As she advanced towards them, Daffy heard the distinctive but, under the circumstances, incredibly ominous click of the recorder switching off in his hand.