Free The Goonies by James Kahn Page A

In a couple seconds the others followed. I suddenly realized
     I wasn't last anymore. I was leading.
    I held on to the stone wall again and led us, twisting down. We all stopped halfway, though, in the middle of the same step,
     because at the same time we heard the same thing.
    A low growling and a rattling of chains.

Chapter 4
    The Roar of the Thing… An Unusual Fireplace… A Frozen Corpse… The Return of the Fratellis… Chunk Escapes… We Enter the Tunnels…
     Chester Copperpot… The Swarming… Pirate Gold.
    “Chunk,” said Stef, “I hope that's your stomach.”
    “No,” I whispered. “That's the ‘it’.”
    The Thing roared louder, like it was bragging or something. Pretty damn scary.
    “Sounds sorta like Kong,” said Chunk.
    “No, it's partly human, I think,” I said.
    We kept on walking until we reached the bottom and kind of collected in a group at the end of the corridor.
    “C'mon, wanna see it?” I asked everybody. I felt kind of like it was my Thing now. And as things go, it was pretty cool.
    They just shook their heads “No way” though.
    “Don't worry, it's chained up.” I led on.
    We all stayed pretty close together, pretty quiet. I mean
I
knew the Thing was chained up safe enough; I just wasn't sure
It
knew.
    As we got close to the door I heard Andy whisper, “I don't want to see it, Brand. Stay with me, okay?” So theystayed behind, in front of a door across the hall. I saw Brand put his arm around her, so I knew what they were up to.
    We reached the door—it was closed now. I grabbed the doorknob, twisted it slowly, and suddenly from behind the door came the
     loudest, horriblest roar I'd ever heard, like Godzilla dying and the whole hallway was a Dolby speaker or something.
    Anyway, we all jumped back and fell every which way into Andy and Brand, who were just getting kissy, and all of us tumbled
     through the door across the hall.
    The doubloon fell out of my pocket and rolled along the floor, but Chunk caught it just before it fell into a drain and put
     it in
his
pocket.
    I looked around. We were in a big stone room that must've been a kitchen once. There was a giant wallfreezer near the door,
     a couple huge sinks, an old rusty stove, a glass water cooler, and a bunch of pots over the stove. It was pretty filthy, too,
     but it was obviously being used, because there was still a small fire going in the stone fireplace at the near wall.
    But the weird thing was that against the outer wall was a big, black, metal printing press. Above the press was a window to
     the outside, and beside the window was a newspaper photo of Mama, Jake, and Francis.
    Chunk went straight for the water cooler and started to guzzle. I grabbed a fireplace poker and went to the center of the
     floor. “Guess this is as good a place as any to start diggin'.” I lifted the poker as high as I could and jammed it down on
     the concrete floor.
    All that happened was that it made my teeth chatter.
    Brand shook his head. “You sure you're not adopted? I mean, are we from the same family?” He looked over at Andy, who definitely
     didn't want to be there. “C'mon,Mikey,” he said, “you're embarrassin' me. There's nothin' buried under here, damn it. This is the twentieth century, in case
     you haven't heard.”
    “Hey, I know how to get through the cement,” said Mouth. “Just put Hershey's all over the floor and let Chunk eat through
     it—turn stone into sludge, just smear it with fudge, and give Chunk a nudge.”
    Chunk still had his head turned up under the Sparkletts' nozzle, but he stood fast when he heard that. “Okay, Mouth,” he said
     like Popeye, “‘that's all I can stands, and I can't stands no more… ’”
    The thing is, he knocked over the water jug when he stood up, and it crashed to the ground in a million pieces.
    The water flowed across the floor to the fireplace and trickled into the open grating under the logs. There was a little hissing,
     but what amazed me was that there