“Excellent! Here's what you should write on that note.”
Suddenly, the chattering inside Darrell Gene's house went from a white-noise murmuring to a deafening roar that sounded like feedback. Yet, he understood every word.
To the untrained eye, Darrell Gene’s house was nothing special. His small two-bedroom single-story with red brick and a small yard that boasted more dirt than grass was empty. An angel viewing the scene from overhead saw something very different. The place was infested.
Demons in The Piper's employ swarmed around the house like ants stirred into a frenzy, spewing curses and blasphemies. From the looks of things they had set up camp on his doorstep. Darrell Gene scarcely noticed the difference.
He was too busy writing down what he had been told and preparing to deliver the note. Nervously, he looked both ways before crossing the street, ran to his neighbor's mailbox and did what he had been told to do.
“Very good,” the voice told him. “Now, grab your cell phone and hurry to this address. I need you to snap a photograph and send a simple text.”
Darrell Gene was already headed out the door toward his truck.
Chapter 6
The air was filled with noise. Clanging steel. Chuffing engines. Grinding gears. Smashing rocks. It sounded like it was raining hammers.
Iron gates locked into place. Waters rushed to fill unseen moats. Deadly machinery was set to trigger even deadlier devices. The construction of the maze was almost complete.
Bricks were laid using grief as a mortar. Walls were cemented into place with sorrow. Lights were forsaken in favor of darkness. Crude agonizing designs were etched into the floors, and the history of one man’s sin was scrawled in painstaking detail on every inch of the dreadful place.
Amy might have heard the noises of construction, but Peter screamed too loudly for her to think straight. Although he was only two years old, he sensed that something was wrong, that there was turmoil in his house.
As calmly as she could under the circumstances, Amy got Peter a sippy cup of juice, kissed him gently on the head, and put him in bed. She went to the couch and collapsed in an exhausted heap, weeping as she read the note that someone had dropped in their mailbox.
Was it possible? Had Jamie really done such a thing? When she asked him about his loyalty to her earlier in the day, she hadn't been all that worried. More than anything else, she wanted to hear him say that he loved her and that he would never do anything like that to hurt her. Never in her wildest dreams would she have imagined that there might have been any actual guilt. She felt like a fool.
She paced about the living room, alternately crying and wringing her hands. She picked up her phone and put it back down. A couple of times she grabbed the car keys. She even went as far as to dig the suitcase out of the hall closet, but she wasn’t going to leave. Not yet anyway.
All she had to go on was a crudely scrawled anonymous note accusing her husband of infidelity; that wasn’t worth risking Peter’s happiness. She wanted to hear Jamie’s side of things, especially now that she had a name to go along with the crime.
Although it hurt like a thousand knives to the heart, Amy read the note one last time and wept openly.
“Ur husband is having an affair with Karen.”
With trembling hands, she picked up the phone and dialed her husband's number. She had to know and couldn't wait any longer. The not knowing was killing her.
“Hey,” Jamie said. “What's up? I'm sorry I didn't get to call you at lunch.”
“I just got a note about you.” Amy struggled to keep her voice from cracking. “Who is Karen?”
“Karen?” Jamie repeated. He tried to seem clueless but overcompensated in the process.
“Yes, Karen. Who is she?”
“Just a friend. Why are you asking?”
“The note says you are having an affair with her. Is that true?”
Jamie went quiet on the other end, and struggled to find his voice.
“Who told you that?”
“I don't know. They left a note. That's not what's important though. I need to know if it's true.”
“Absolutely not!”
“Then why would someone say that?”
Jamie wasn't sure how to respond. His mind raced, trying to piece together what was happening to him.
“Is it true? Say something, Jamie! Talk to me! Are you cheating on me? When I asked you this morning, I was only mildly concerned. Now, I'm scared to death. Is there someone else?”
Jamie sighed. “No, there's no one else. Just you.”
“So you haven't talked to this woman? You don't have her phone number? What is your connection to her?”
Jamie stuttered and stammered, knowing how everything was going to look.
“She's an old girlfriend. I haven't seen her since high school.”
“But you've seen her recently.”
“I just saw her today for the first time in years. I haven't slept with her.”
“You can be unfaithful without sex.” Amy seethed. “I need to know the whole story here!”
“I will come home so we can talk about this.”
“You can talk to me now!”
“I think it's better if we do this in person. It’s not what you think.”
“Don't you dare come home!” Amy broke down in tears, although she had vowed not to. “I don't want to see your face right now!”
“Amy...”
“I can either pack mine and Peter's things or you can pack yours. The choice is yours.”
“Babe, please...”
Amy hung up on him.
She collapsed in a crumpled heap on the kitchen floor, sobbing so hard her breath came in ragged hitches. This wasn't supposed to happen to her.
What nobody bothered to tell Amy was that, in every war, collateral damage was inevitable.
Those tears flowed even harder a few moments later when a photo popped up in her text folder from a number she didn't recognize. Amy shrieked when she saw a time-stamped picture of Jamie taken at lunch earlier in the day. She didn't have to read the waitress' name tag to know that the raven-haired beauty was Karen. Karen's hand was on top of Jamie's, and she wore a smile reminiscent of any man-eating predator.
It was a look of hunger.
Chapter 7
I didn't get much work done when I got back to the office. I kept looking at Karen's phone number on that receipt and letting my mind wander off in labyrinthine directions. A couple of times I picked up my cell and thought about how the conversation might go if I were to call her. I imagined her voice, thought about the way she had looked at me in the restaurant, and tried to remember the last time Amy had looked at me that way. I was tempted, and no matter how much I tried not to think about her, my mind was like a boomerang, eventually circling back to Karen and her thinly veiled offer.
Your wife never has to know.
I told myself I had some very important choices to make, and I wasn‘t sure what to do. There should have been no choice to make. I should have been doing whatever it took to mend the schism between me and Amy, but somewhere in my perception of the future, the road before me had forked. No longer was there only one path to choose. Now, there were two.
I drove toward the address on that receipt, mulling over my options. I would just cruise past and see where she lived. I wasn’t going to stop. That wasn’t the kind of man I was- I was merely curious. She and I had history, and it was logical that I was interested in the life she had carved out for herself.
Of course, it was an excuse. I was looking for a reason to go over there and see Karen. Since running into her again at the restaurant, I hadn’t been able to get her out of my head.
I guess there was a part of me that wondered what might have happened if Karen hadn’t moved away. I never really stopped caring about her. Sure, over time the love had faded to little more than a series of fond memories that I replayed in my mind every now and again, but we never went through the nasty breakup that tears
so many couples apart. We ended on a sad note, but the feelings had never truly gone away. This was a door of opportunity, a gateway to the past that could change everything. I merely had to decide if I was going to walk through that door or let it slam in my face.
I think there was a part of me that didn’t really believe anything would happen. I had never been unfaithful to Amy, and I didn’t really believe I’d allow myself to cross that line. The other part of me was excited about the fact that the line was there to be crossed. I wasn’t thinking straight at that point. I wasn’t considering how much I was about to hurt Amy or how Peter’s life might turn out without me there day after day to mold and guide him. I had been miserable for quite a while, and I was driving in search of happiness. If only I had realized my family had nothing to do with the misery. The source of that pain came from within. I was about to punish the wrong people.
I know the logic was flawed. Too many emotions flared, and my mind raced in a thousand different directions. It was like the lynchpin holding my life together had just been pulled, and things were falling apart before my very eyes. I honestly wasn’t sure I could put the pieces back together, and as a result, I didn’t focus on that.
I knew the apartment complex where Karen lived and had little trouble finding it. Part of me hoped that she wouldn’t be home, but another part of me was expectant--almost giddy. I wanted to see her again, and no amount of denial on my part would change the way my heart felt.
Once in the parking lot, I sat in the car for a while, listening to the whir of the engine. My palms were sweaty, and I ran through a hundred different scenarios in my head. What was I doing here? Deep down, I knew the answer. I wasn’t here to tell Karen to leave me alone. I was here because there was a nagging part of my brain that wouldn’t stop asking that one simple question that has caused so much damage throughout history: What if?
I thought about Amy for a moment, considered how devastated she would be, and quickly pushed the thought out of my mind. I couldn’t focus on that. If this was it for me and Amy, could I afford to pass up a chance to rekindle a flame with the first true love of my life?
All I wanted to do was spend a few minutes talking with Karen so I could satisfy my curiosity. I wanted to see if the old spark was still there. Part of me hoped I could prove to myself that the feelings were dead and buried, and I could gain a certain amount of closure on a situation that had never truly been resolved. Part of me hoped the old spark was still there.
Although I hadn’t done anything that couldn’t be reversed at this point, I found myself looking over my shoulder as I got out of the car. I wondered if there was anyone nearby I might know, anyone who might drive by and see me in the parking lot of Karen’s apartment building. The world around me, however, didn’t seem to care.
I trudged up the stairs to the second floor, wondering what I would do or say once I arrived at the door. The rational, logical part of me knew the best thing was to turn around right away, get in my car, and drive back home. I didn’t want to do that.
Did I really want to go through with this? There was still time to turn back. Did I really want to knock on that door?
I thought about it for a moment and realized that I did want to be here. I drove here with a defined purpose-my mind was made up.
Your wife never has to know.
Something else made me hesitate before knocking, something I hadn’t considered on the way over here. It wasn’t some random passerby I needed to worry about seeing me here. Someone very specific was out to get me. They had gone to the trouble of leaving Amy a note in an attempt to prove that I was being unfaithful. I still wasn’t sure of the motive, but I was sure that I was being watched. Maybe they were watching me now.
I looked around frantically; a dog’s bark made me jump. I then heard a steady clicking sound that made me stiffen in fear. I knew that noise all too well. Although Peter was only two, I had taken hundreds if not thousands of photographs of him, and I was all too familiar with the sound that a camera makes with each new exposure. I turned toward the sound and saw him. A figure wearing an angel mask stood at the end of the walkway, snapping picture after picture of me. The figure waved at me playfully, and then turned to flee.
I ran after him like my life depended on it. I needed to catch him and ruin the photographs before he had a chance to send them to Amy and seal my fate. I didn’t want someone else writing my future for me, and Angel Face was doing his best to assert some level of control over my life. It angered me, and made me chase him with every bit of energy I had. I was in good shape, and Angel Face was portly and slow. Yet, what he lacked in speed and agility, he more than made up for in cleverness. I was just about to turn the corner at the end of the walkway and head down the stairs in pursuit when I realized he had been waiting for me the entire time. The moment I turned the corner and noticed him standing there was the moment I saw the gun in his hand.
I tried to retreat, but I was too close. I heard an explosion and felt something like a sledgehammer rip into the side of my head. I remember hitting the concrete, thinking that this wasn’t the way I was supposed to die, and trying to say one last prayer to ask for forgiveness. I felt blood pooling around my face, spilling my life out in hot, crimson bursts.
My arms and legs went numb, and one lonely tear traced its way down my cheek until it dripped into the sticky blood. I waited to see a tunnel filled with light like so many people reported when on the verge of death. Then, I remembered where I was and what I had been about to do, and I wasn’t sure that I could expect that sort of scenario. A place with wailing and gnashing of teeth might have been more suited to me.
At first I wasn’t sure what I was hearing. It was almost like a ringing in my head, but the noise wasn’t internal. It sounded like hammers banging away. I heard the chuffing of machinery. I heard laughter and whispers. I heard a door open, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw something reflected in my own blood that frightened me almost as much as the prospect of death. Like something from a dream, I saw a maze, wavering in and out of focus on the surface of the scarlet puddle.
One moment I was there at Karen’s apartment, gunshot and dying. The next I was lost inside that dreadful labyrinth with no idea what to do.
Chapter 8
The walls pulsed with indigo light, calling to mind icy winter, bleak barren landscapes, and a frigid chill that invaded the bones. The walls were smooth like newly blown glass, but I couldn‘t see my reflection in them. I ran my fingers over the slick, polished surface and noticed a strange series of glyphs, letters, numbers, and pictograms that lit up beneath my touch. It was like looking at a space-age version of the Egyptian pyramids or something designed by aliens. Karen’s apartment was nowhere to be found; if it was there, it was buried underneath a neon cryptogram.
I studied my surroundings for a moment, confused as to how I’d gotten here. I’d heard of people entering fugue states before and making trips through town that they didn’t remember. but this was different. For starters, this place looked nothing like the town where I lived-or any town for that matter.
For a moment, I wondered if I had been abducted by extraterrestrials, but I realized that I wasn’t on a ship of any kind. Or if I was on a ship, it didn’t seem to be moving. I didn’t really think that was the case anyway. This felt more like a structure of some sort than a craft capable of movement. And since I had never heard of anyone being taken to an alien city or an intergalactic prison outside of pulpy sci-fi novels, I disregarded that explanation. Besides, I didn’t believe in aliens.
Then, I remembered the photographer…and the gun. I raised my hand to my temple and expected to touch blood, but there was no wound. How was that possible? I distinctly remembered the life leaking out of me and the light fading from my eyes. There was no way I had healed so quickly. Was I dead? If so, that left only two options.
Was this Hell? I didn’t know, but I didn‘t really think so. It was an odd place for sure, yet I wasn’t miserable. I knew that He
ll was a place of agony and torment. This wasn’t that sort of place. It certainly wasn’t Heaven either because I was far from happy. Which left what? Purgatory? Like aliens, I didn’t believe in Purgatory. So where was I? And how had I gone from a gunshot wound in the head to this dark labyrinth?
I ran my fingers along the smooth surface of the wall to prove to myself that it was real. I was surprised: the temperature had dropped about twenty degrees since the last time I touched it. The wall felt like it was covered in solid ice. I shivered and hugged myself for warmth.
Everything about this place felt strange and foreign, but there were familiarities which made it all the more confusing. I studied the characters that were embedded in the walls, and watched the way they pulsed with light. I saw one shaped like a star and gently pressed it with my index finger.
Gears began to grind behind the walls, chains creaked under pressure, and the room began to revolve. The movements of the room weren’t pronounced enough that I had trouble keeping my balance or feared for my own safety. It was more like riding an escalator or an elevator, only in a circular motion rather than up and down.
Gradually the room completed half a revolution, and the gears locked into place with a cold, iron clank. Convinced that whatever I had set into motion was complete, I decided to try another symbol. This time I chose a trapezoid.
The end result of my experimentation wasn’t as noticeable as before. Somewhere in the darkness, I heard doors opening and closing. I also heard what I thought were walls shifting and sliding into place, but I couldn’t be sure of much because it was hard to see anything.
This certainly wasn’t Karen‘s apartment.
But if I wasn’t at Karen’s apartment, dreaming, dead, or on some extraterrestrial spacecraft, then where was I? In my college days, I had done a little experimenting with the usual drugs, and nothing I had ever experienced compared to this.
The Maze - the Lost Labyrinth Page 2
