Secret of the Labyrinth (The Temple of the Blind #5)

by Brian Harmon

  Albert nodded, but he lingered another moment, hoping for a fleeting glance at something extraordinary.

  The mysterious roar of the hounds faded away behind them and they resumed their blind trek through the labyrinth. Albert turned left at the next intersection, and then left again. Then straight ahead. Then right. Before long, he’d lost track of which direction he was traveling. Not that he had known which way was which in this insane temple since he first stepped foot in it.

  A few times, they encountered intersections where the buzzing of the hounds could be heard from somewhere deep inside one of the passageways. They chose to avoid them and continue their search in the silent corridors. None of them wanted to risk having to cross another of those treacherous bridges any time soon. The next one might not be nearly as wide as the last. Or as sturdy.

  Eventually, they made their way to the end of a long passageway, where they found themselves looking out at another large chamber.

  But this one was different.

  It felt different.

  “What is it?” Brandy asked, although she was sure she already knew. The chamber was wrong somehow. It was ominous. Sinister.

  Albert stared into the enormous emptiness for a moment, contemplating it. Then, at last, he spoke it aloud: “It’s the meadow.”

  Chapter 20

  “Do you guys think I’m talking too much?”

  Wayne almost laughed. It came bubbling up from inside him like a geyser, filling his throat and mouth. It took a significant amount of effort to hold it back. “Why would you say that?” he asked, marveling at the evenness of his voice.

  The three of them had entered the fear room and had already managed to navigate the first two rooms, but Wayne was already feeling the weariness that plagued him on his first visit to this awful place.

  “I just do that sometimes,” Andrea replied, her eyes still tightly closed. “It bugs my dad. He makes fun of me.”

  Wayne could scarcely imagine why. “You’re definitely chatty,” he told her. “But I don’t mind.” This was the truth, actually. In this chamber, any distraction from the statues around him was more than welcome.

  “I think it’s nice,” Olivia agreed. “Takes my mind off things a little.” The darkness, she discovered, was a little easier to bear when it was filled with the girl’s sweet chatter.

  “That’s good,” Andrea said, squeezing Olivia’s hand. “Because when I get nervous I sometimes talk more than when I’m not and right now I’m pretty nervous.”

  Olivia squeezed her hand in return. “That’s okay.”

  “Yeah,” Wayne said. “You can keep us entertained so we don’t freak out in here.”

  “You guys are really nice,” Andrea said. “Thanks for letting me come along.”

  “I didn’t think I had a choice,” Wayne said, easing around a statue that made him want for some reason to look at the floor and watch for little slimy things. He had no idea what these things might be, but he was suddenly very certain that he never wanted to step on one of them.

  “I guess you didn’t,” Andrea replied.

  “I just can’t believe you both wanted to come,” Wayne said. “It just floors me.”

  “We’re complicated girls,” Olivia said.

  Andrea giggled.

  “I guess,” said Wayne.

  “We can help,” Andrea told him. “We have useful qualities.”

  “Like what?” he asked, amused.

  “You just said I’m keeping you distracted, didn’t you?”

  “That’s right,” Wayne admitted. “You are doing that.” Although he could have used a little more distraction. He was beginning to feel jumpy, his nerves already a little frayed. How many rooms did this place have again? He couldn’t quite remember.

  “And Olivia knows what her qualities are.”

  “Yeah,” said Olivia. “Sitting on a toilet seat for two days. I’m really good at that.”

  Wayne laughed. “I can’t imagine it. You’re a tough chick.”

  “I guess I am.”

  “I wouldn’t have made it,” Andrea decided. “I would’ve gone completely nuts.”

  “There were times I thought I might,” Olivia remembered.

  Andrea shuddered at the thought.

  Wayne kept his eyes half-open, trying to block out the things he saw lurking in his peripheral vision. This was harder than the last time he did it. His eyes had been inferior for as long as he could remember, forcing him to wear glasses for years when he was a boy, but now they were failing him because they were not inferior enough.

  He was beginning to wonder if he was capable of making it past all of this without going utterly mad.

  A large shape loomed before Wayne, blocking the path forward. It was difficult to see the way past it without glimpsing details that fixed themselves firmly into his mind and filled him with uneasiness. It seemed to be reaching out for him with many arms. And he could not help but think that there was something disturbing about the mass of shadows at its center, as if the thing’s belly were bloated and bulging, filled with something unspeakably vile.

  No. That wasn’t possible. He couldn’t possibly know such a thing. He couldn’t see that well. It was only shadows and shades of gray.

  And yet he found himself thinking for some reason of an old dirt road and thick smoke hanging in the air.

  Wayne stopped and closed his eyes. He wanted nothing more than to catch up with Albert, Brandy and Nicole as quickly as possible, but he had to make time in here. He couldn’t do this himself unless he rested. He had to let the horrible thoughts fade in his mind or they would accumulate and overwhelm him. Albert made that mistake and he experienced a gruesome death-hallucination that scared the hell out of everyone.

  He didn’t care to experience that for himself.

  “Wayne?” called Olivia, concerned.

  “It’s okay,” he assured her. “I’m just taking a second. The statues in here put some weird things in your head. If you push yourself for too long it can really get to you.”

  “What’s it like?” Andrea asked suddenly.

  “You don’t want to know,” Wayne assured her.

  “I do. I want to know what you’re going through. I want to know what you’re doing for us.”

  Wayne considered it for a moment. He didn’t really want to focus on it, but talking seemed like a good idea somehow. It would help him to ignore that strange, cold breath that was currently falling across his bare shoulder.

  “The statues are…unthinkable,” he began. “Most of them are monsters, of some sort. Things you can’t even imagine. Big ones. Small ones. All shapes and sizes. It doesn’t just make you feel scared. It makes you feel like these things are real, that they’ve always been real. You just know they’re real. Every one of them seems to have a story and it’s terrifying. Sometimes I can hear it growl at me. Sometimes I feel it touching me. Sometimes I just feel absolutely certain there’s something there, right beside me, ready to strike. You know it’s too terrifying to look at, but you feel like you have to look, like something bad is going to happen if you don’t. But if you do… That’s when it gets you.”

  Olivia shuddered at the thought. Her time in Gilbert House had left her with a keen impression of what her imagination was capable of producing. She could scarcely imagine the added terror of being surrounded by things that actually added their own horrors.

  “It’s all different sensations. Albert and Brandy said it’s different than the sex room. There, the images just kind of…get to you somehow. Like it’s all subliminal. It just makes you feel like you can’t control yourself.”

  Andrea considered telling him that she’d peeked in the sex room, that she knew a little bit about how that felt, but she bit back the words, still too embarrassed to admit what she’d done. She remained silent and anxiously chewed her lower lip.

  “But here,” Wayne continued, “you walk away absolutely certain that everything in here is real. And you don’t leave it behind when you
go. You keep it. Maybe forever.”

  “My god…” sighed Olivia.

  “Wow,” agreed Andrea.

  “I know. It’s like being in a nightmare, the way they feel so real while you’re stuck in them. It doesn’t matter how irrational the situation is or whether you know none of it can possibly be real or even if you know it’s a nightmare. While you’re asleep, it’s as real as anything you could wake up to.”

  He opened his eyes and fixed his gaze on the floor directly ahead of him. The fears were still there. He could still see that smoky dirt road. It still felt as if things were watching him. But at least that disturbingly cold breath was no longer falling across his neck.

  “Sounds awful,” Olivia said.

  “It is,” Wayne assured her. “It’s worse than you can imagine because it’s worse than I can ever describe it. It feels…indescribably bad in here.”

  Olivia gave his hand a gentle squeeze. “We’re right here if you need us for anything.”

  Wayne turned his head a little, as if to look over his shoulder at her, but he closed his eyes as he did it, not daring to risk glimpsing any more of these demented statues than was absolutely necessary. “Thanks.”

  “We’re all in this together.”

  “That’s right!” exclaimed Andrea. “We’re a team. Like it or not.”

  Wayne smiled. Like it or not. That was definitely true. He liked having them here. They really were helping him. He didn’t know what he’d do if he didn’t have them to distract him from these stone nightmares. But he felt nearly sick at the thought that he might be leading them into something neither of them could handle.

  God, he hoped he was strong enough to keep them both safe.

  Chapter 21

  Albert stood there, staring into the large chamber. Near his feet, the smooth floor of the passage gave way to coarse, black soil. Farther away, at the very edge of their flashlights’ reach, he could see the gently rippling surface of a small pond and what appeared to be the naked branches of a shadowy tree stretched out over it.

  The meadow.

  It was not difficult to understand why the Keeper warned them to stay away from this place. There was something wrong with this chamber. He could feel it, like a faint vibration in his very thoughts. A queer energy radiated from within. It was a bad place. And yet there was something about it that called to him, that made him want to go inside, to see what secrets were hidden there.

  “The Keeper said we can’t go in there,” Nicole said, as if everyone needed reminding.

  “I know,” said Albert. “It’s a dangerous place.”

  “It’s bad,” Brandy agreed.

  And yet…

  “It doesn’t look like a meadow,” Brandy observed. “I thought meadows were grassy.”

  “What kind of grass did you think would be growing down here in the dark?” challenged Nicole.

  “I don’t know,” defended Brandy. “I just pictured a grassy meadow. That’s what a meadow is. Grass.”

  “Maybe ‘meadow’ has a different meaning to whoever built this place,” suggested Albert. “Maybe it has another definition. Like a lagoon. On a tropical island, a lagoon is a great place for a romantic walk. Where my grandparents live, it’s the nasty green hole where things go when you flush them down the toilet.”

  “Gross,” said Nicole.

  Albert stepped a little closer, willing his flashlight to reach deeper into the shadows and show him something more.

  “What are you doing?” Nicole asked.

  “Just looking.”

  “What’s there to look at?” Nicole didn’t like this place. Not at all. Even without the psychic abilities the Sentinel Queen claimed Albert and Brandy possessed, she could feel that there was something wrong here. “The Keeper said to stay away from this place. I don’t know how much we can trust that…thing…but this is a subject I definitely think I agree with him on.”

  Brandy nodded. “I think you’re right. It feels…bad…in there.” She turned and looked at Nicole and her eyes looked strangely distracted. “I can’t explain it.”

  “Did you see that?” Albert asked.

  “What?” said Nicole and Brandy simultaneously.

  “There’s something in there.”

  “Where?” asked Brandy.

  Nicole stepped up beside him and looked out at where he was aiming his flashlight. “I don’t see anything,” she told him.

  “I thought I saw something moving,” Albert explained. It was just a shadow, but it was definitely there. Something small and dark, moving quickly across the ground.

  “I still don’t see anything,” Nicole said after watching for a moment. “Come on. Let’s get the fuck out of here. This place is creeping me out.”

  She was right. There was something wrong with this place. But there was something moving out there. A small shape. He started to take one more step forward. He just wanted a quick glimpse at whatever that was.

  Nicole seized his arm and halted him, digging her nails painfully into his flesh. “What the fuck are you doing?” she demanded.

  “Ouch,” he said flatly, finally pulling his eyes from that room and looking at her. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  “I was just trying to see what’s in there.”

  “You were trying to go in there!” she corrected him, gesturing at his feet.

  When Albert looked down, he saw that his raised foot was hovering just above the black soil.

  He pulled his foot back, startled, and backed away.

  “What are you thinking?” Nicole asked.

  Albert shook his head. “I don’t know,” he confessed. “I just really wanted to see…” His eyes had drifted back into the meadow as he spoke. Now his voice died away as he stared past Nicole at the chamber the Keeper warned them about.

  Curious, Nicole turned to see what had caught his attention.

  “Do you see them too?” he asked.

  Nicole nodded. “Uh-huh.”

  “What are they?” Brandy asked.

  Out in the meadow, lots of things were moving now. The ground churned with dark, scuttling shapes. As they watched, the coarse soil heaved upward and then sank again. Black, shadowy shapes slithered just into view and then out again. Something the size of a small cat emerged from the ground and scurried out of sight.

  “I don’t know…” breathed Albert.

  “Can we go now?” Nicole asked.

  “Please?” added Brandy.

  Albert nodded. No longer did he find the chamber compelling in any way. All he felt when he looked in there now was a rapidly rising panic. The Keeper had been right. This was a place to be avoided. A bad place. A place of pain and misery and death.

  Nicole took him by the arm, more gently this time, and urged him to move away. “You’re starting to scare me,” she whispered.

  These words were enough to draw his attention from the meadow. He looked at her, gazed into her eyes. “I’m sorry…”

  “Just come on,” she begged. “Let’s just go. Please?”

  Albert nodded. His eyes became more alert at once. “I’m sorry,” he said again, more firmly this time. “You’re right. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

  She let go of his arm and placed her hands on his cheeks. She leaned close to him, her nose nearly touching his, as if about to tell him something very intimate. “You’re a dickhead,” she told him. “That’s what’s wrong with you. And if you go all hypnotized on me like that again while we’re down here, I’m going to put my knee in your balls. Is that clear?”

  Albert’s mouth twitched into an amused grin. “Crystal.”

  “Good.”

  She smiled at him and then turned and looked at Brandy who was standing next to them, watching them. “The same goes for you, too.”

  “As everyone can plainly see,” she replied, spreading her hands in front of her naked hips, “I don’t have any balls.”

  “I’ll think of something,�
� Nicole promised. “Now let’s please get the hell out of here.”

  Chapter 22

  Wayne’s whole body trembled as he approached the doorway between the final chamber of the fear room and the second spike room. His teeth clenched, his knuckles white upon the handle of his flashlight, he fought the urge to vomit. He’d made this second trip through the fear room in much less time than the first, but with no less mental exertion. In fact, he could almost feel himself teetering at the very edge of consciousness. Waves of vertigo washed over him. He could feel things crawling on him. They slithered up his legs, scuttled through his hair and wriggled into his ears. There were even things moving around inside him, burrowing beneath his skin, swimming through his veins, squirming through his guts. But none of it was real. Not anymore. Not to him.

  But somewhere out there…a very long time ago…

  The worst part was the way the room made it all seem so vividly real. He could not help but believe that these things had actually happened out there somewhere, in some long lost time. And if these horrendous things ever existed…what was keeping them from returning?

  He forced himself to focus on the doorway, on avoiding the wicked spikes that jutted up at various angles from the floor on either side of the opening, threatening to gouge out his eyes if he was not careful.

  As before, he’d run into one of those damned spikes while trying to feel his way around the monstrous statues, this time taking it in his right arm instead of his belly, and in his state of weariness, he again felt as though he were bleeding to death.

  Fortunately, he’d somehow managed to keep from suffering the same, horrifying illusion of being slain that had temporarily crippled Albert when he was last in there. But there were several times when panic nearly overwhelmed him. Many times, he’d had to stop and close his eyes and force himself to calm down. Once, he actually had to bite back a scream as he made himself accept that there was not actually something cold and bony crawling up his back.

  He hadn’t realized until tonight just how much willpower he could muster. He might have been proud of himself if he didn’t feel like such an exhausted wimp.