by Brian Harmon
Wayne was as confused as ever. He did not know who to trust. One of them was lying to him. Perhaps they both were.
The others must reach their destination, Wayne. If they do not, your world is dead. There will never be another chance to make this happen. You must not interfere.
“I’m going to help them.”
I cannot stop you. If you feel you must go to them, then you must. They’ve left a trail that you can follow. You’ll even find that they’ve left you shortcuts to help you catch up. But remember, the future of your world depends on reaching that doorway.
Wayne didn’t know what she meant by a trail he could follow or shortcuts, but he supposed he’d figure that out when he reached the labyrinth.
“This is too weird,” Andrea exclaimed.
Yes, replied the Sentinel Queen. She stared at Andrea with her eyeless face. It is. And you, Andrea, are another mystery. Even to me.
“What do you mean?”
The “old man” of which Wayne speaks sent someone to steal that envelope from Beverly Bridger and deliver it to Albert Cross, to lure him and Brandy into Gilbert House. He used the same person I used to deliver the box and the key to them more than a year ago, but somehow it got sent to you instead. I do not know how it found you or why.
“I’m just lucky, I guess,” replied Andrea timidly. She did not know what else to say. She did not like the way the Sentinel Queen was “looking” at her. It made her nervous.
“She said a voice told her to follow us,” Olivia said thoughtfully.
“Yeah,” remembered Andrea. “That voice I heard in the woods. It said they’d need me.”
I’m sorry. I cannot tell you where that voice came from or to whom it belonged. It is another mystery.
“Everything’s a mystery,” Wayne challenged. “You aren’t even telling us anything! What is this doorway you claim is so important? Where does it lead? What is it for?”
I cannot tell you.
“Of course you can’t. But you expect me to believe that it’s going to save the world, when that old man says it’ll destroy it.”
He expected her to tell him that this was merely the way it was supposed to be, that she could tell him nothing more, but she surprised him by saying, The truth, Wayne, is that I don’t know what lies on the other side of that doorway. No one does.
“Then how the hell do you know its going to save the world or whatever?”
I just do.
“How?”
Faith.
“Of course. Well excuse me if my faith is a little thin right now. I’ve been through hell tonight, in case you haven’t been following along. That tunnel of yours was a real treat, by the way. I’ve been mauled by a hound. Olivia and I were both bitten by those…zombies…”
Don’t be concerned with those injuries, Assured the Sentinel Queen. You are not infected with anything from the corpses of the Wood. Even bacteria cannot survive there.
Wayne felt a wave of relief flow through him in spite of his anger. Even if there was no such thing as the zombie virus from those old horror movies, he had not known what sorts of diseases such creatures might carry.
The same is true of the hounds. They are clean. They carry no diseases and their bites are not toxic.
“So they’ve had all their shots, then,” Wayne remarked. “That’s good to know. Makes having my leg nearly chewed off so much better.”
I understand your anger, Wayne.
“Of course you do. You’re obviously so great with people.” He couldn’t help himself. After all that he had been through, he deserved more than this. She wasn’t even apologizing for what she put him through.
The end of the world is not waiting on the other side of that doorway, Wayne.
“But what if you’re wrong?”
I’m not. The doorway is the salvation of the world. Leaving it closed is what would destroy it.
“How can a doorway decide the fate of the world?” Andrea asked. “I don’t understand.”
“Well,” suggested Wayne, “if that doorway happens to stand between our world and a horde of flesh-eating zombies, opening it would be apocalyptically bad, wouldn’t it? Isn’t that how you described Gilbert House earlier? Destroy Gilbert House, throw open the door, destroy the world?”
The Sentinel Queen seemed somehow to smile. That is true. But Gilbert House was built by an obsessed genius who was tampering with things he had no hope of controlling.
“Yeah? And who built this place, exactly?”
The sentinels.
Wayne had to stop for a moment. “Wait. The sentinels? You mean those statues we’ve been seeing all over the place? The ones that look like—”
Me?
“Those things are real?” Andrea asked.
I’m real, am I not? The world has not always been so small.
Wayne rubbed tiredly at his temples. What did that even mean?
“So you’re a sentinel?” Andrea asked.
My father was a sentinel, she replied.
Wayne remembered her telling them when he came here with Albert, Brandy and Nicole that one of the fourteen women who passed through the Temple of the Blind remained in this city and gave birth to her. He had assumed that woman was human. This would certainly explain why she had such a strong resemblance to those statues.
But he still found it difficult to believe that those statues could be real beings. They had no faces. He could buy that they were probably psychic, like the Sentinel Queen, communicating telepathically, with no need for eyes or ears or voices, but how did they eat? How did they breathe? “So then what were the sentinels?” he asked. “Gods? Angels? Demons? Aliens? What?”
They were the sentinels. Nothing less.
“So no straight answer then,” Wayne deduced.
The Sentinel Queen stood before him, her empty face staring down at him, and said no more.
“Do the sentinels still exist?” Olivia asked.
Not that I know of. But then, I don’t have eyes in all the worlds. It is possible that they still exist. Somewhere.
“All the worlds?” Andrea inquired. “How many are there.”
No one knows for sure.
“That’s what the old man said,” Wayne recalled. He lowered his eyes from her featureless face and gazed at the eyeless man lying on the bare floor within the tiny room.
You are concerned about my son.
Wayne stared at the blind man. It surprised him to think of this ancient-looking man as her son. “Yeah,” he told her. “I am.”
He’s not dead. Not yet. But he will be soon. Like all my children, his time here with me has come to an end.
“How old was he?” Wayne asked.
Four hundred thirteen years.
Olivia and Andrea exchanged a look of surprise. Could anyone really live so long?
He lived much longer than many of my children, she explained, perhaps only by his will to not leave me alone, but my children all lived long lives. They did not know disease. And their sentinel blood gave them longevity.
“I’m sorry,” Wayne said.
Of course you are. Aren’t we all when life is at its end? Suddenly, she turned her face toward Olivia. Come here.
Olivia hesitated for a moment. She glanced at Wayne, unsure, and then cautiously took a step toward the Sentinel Queen, fearful, but curious.
Olivia Shadey. She reached out with her long, bony fingers and tenderly caressed Olivia’s cheek.
“You know me?”
Of course I do. We’ve already met.
“We have?” She stared at the woman’s outstretched hand. She moved so gracefully and yet she looked so awkward with those unnaturally long limbs.
Yes. Inside the second-floor restroom of Gilbert House. I was with you the whole time.
“You were?”
Though this woman had no features upon her face to do so, she seemed to smile at her. Don’t you remember me? I whispered to you. I eased your fear. I said, ‘You’ll be all right. Someone’s comi
ng for you. Just hold on a little longer.’ I kept you company the whole time you were in there. I kept you safe. She dragged the tips of her long fingers down Olivia’s cheek and beneath her chin. Then, in the same, fluid motion, she ran her bony knuckles affectionately up the other side of her face, sending a shiver down her spine. I was even with you in the Wood, telling you not to be afraid, that help was still coming.
Olivia stared up at her, astonished. The only thing that kept her sane throughout the past few days was that voice she’d thought was her own, deep inside her head, whispering to her to not be afraid, to just hold on a little longer. “That was you?”
I was with you both out there. I showed you the light in Gilbert House. I urged you in the right direction. I distracted the monster that chased you and made it go the wrong way.
Wayne remembered the way the towering monster crashed to the ground without any obvious reason. And later, inside Gilbert House, it had suddenly changed course again, crashing into the ceiling instead of following them down to the basement and out of the building.
All psychic things are susceptible to suggestion. By suggestion, I made Olivia control her fear and in the same manner I confused the beast and made it stumble.
This was not new information. The first time he met the Sentinel Queen, she told them that she could manipulate psychic minds. It was how she made Albert and Brandy leave their cars unlocked so she could deliver the box and its key. It was no stretch to think that she could use this same power to help Olivia retain her sanity for two days in an abandoned bathroom stall. And the old man had told him that she had used this ability to trip up the monster in Gilbert House.
Olivia stared at the Sentinel Queen as she ran her long hand over her dirty hair. “Are you saying that I’m psychic? Like Wayne said?”
Of course you are, the Sentinel Queen replied. I only wish that your friends had also been. I might have saved them as well. Unfortunately, their fear overwhelmed my ability to calm them and get them out.
Olivia lowered her eyes to the floor. This was all so strange. She was psychic. Was that the only reason she was still alive?
“Am I psychic?” Andrea asked.
No, replied the Sentinel Queen.
“Oh,” said Andrea. She sounded disappointed.
Wayne was even more confused now. That was her voice in Olivia’s head? Why would she be protecting Olivia if she was trying to kill him? “That old man said that you sent me into Gilbert House on purpose. To kill me.”
I did guide you to Gilbert House. I did it so that you would watch over Albert, Brandy and Nicole.
“Let me guess. It was the old man who sent them there to die, right?”
Not to die, the Sentinel Queen insisted. He knew I wouldn’t let that happen, just as I knew he wouldn’t let anything happen to you.
“Then what was the point?”
I believe Olivia was the point.
Wayne and Olivia looked at each other, confused.
He told you that those other two envelopes were random, but it was always his intention to lure Olivia into Gilbert House.
“What?” asked Olivia. “Why?” It was startling to think that someone could have sent her into that awful hell intentionally. What kind of monster would do something like that?
To manipulate Wayne, replied the Sentinel Queen.
“Me?” Wayne asked.
He knew that she was psychic and that I would be able to protect her from the beast inside. He also knew that I was aware of his plot to lure Albert and Brandy there. He knew I’d send you to keep them safe and that I would make sure Olivia was found.
“So she was a part of this all along?” Wayne asked.
Of course.
“Why?” Wayne demanded. “What’s the point of all that?”
To send you back to Albert and Brandy, replied the Sentinel Queen. To make them doubt their purpose and leave the doorway closed.
“Why not just go to them himself? Why not tell them what he told me? Or for that matter, why not just kill them?”
“Because she wouldn’t let him,” Olivia said, answering for the Sentinel Queen.
Wayne turned and stared at her for a moment. “Yeah,” he decided. “I guess she wouldn’t.”
It’s all very complicated, explained the Sentinel Queen.
Wayne nodded. “Yeah. No shit.”
According to the Sentinel Queen, the old man lied about her trying to kill him. He also lied about Olivia’s boyfriend receiving his letter from Beverly by chance. And he was sent to Gilbert House not to die, but to protect Albert, Brandy and Nicole.
One of them was clearly lying, but which one.
Olivia felt violated. She couldn’t believe someone would deliberately put her through all that psychological torment. It was bad enough when it had all been a random accident, but that someone might have actually orchestrated it all… She thought of Trish, and that horrible screaming that went on and on in the darkness. How could anyone consciously let that happen?
“He also said that my going to rescue Olivia was to put distance between me and the others,” Wayne added. “Did you arrange to have her taken into the Wood? Did you call the monster that took her?”
Olivia looked at Wayne, startled. Was all of her suffering deliberate?
The Sentinel Queen lifted her hands to her blank face in a gesture of weariness. I did not, she replied, her voice fading a little from their minds. That was another of his lies.
“Are you okay?” asked Andrea.
For now, she assured her. But she seemed to be growing dimmer somehow.
“Are they all right?” asked Wayne. “Albert and Brandy? Nicole?”
Yes. For now they are.
“How far ahead are they?”
She did not answer for a moment. She stood as she was, with her long hands pressed to the empty plane of her face. When she did speak, her voice was dimmer still, as if she were speaking to them from a great distance. I’m sorry, Wayne. I’m growing weary. Just know that if you continue forward, you all will be a part of something much greater than you can imagine, something that began long before I was brought into this world and will continue long after I am gone. The doorway is the future. Don’t let the man you met on your way to the Wood let you destroy that.
“I don’t know what to do,” Wayne said. “I don’t trust you.”
You don’t have to. Just trust yourself.
“I don’t even know what that means.”
I’m very tired, said the Sentinel Queen. My son is dying, and I will be dead soon after him.
Wayne wanted to say more, wanted to ask more, but she seemed to be fading like a candle at the end of its wax.
I’m very tired, she said again. I need to rest…but before you go, I owe you an apology, Wayne.
“An apology?”
Yes. When I took you into the first chamber of the road to the Wood, I told you I had something for you. In reality, I took something from you. It was selfish of me. It was wrong.
Wayne said nothing. He did not know what to say. She had essentially raped him. He’d awakened feeling dirty and violated. An apology seemed rather insignificant, in all honesty.
I seduced you, Wayne. I fornicated with you and it was not your fault. I am the Mother, the giver of life inside these walls. I can make you give yourself to me if I wish. When I took you in my hand, you did not have enough will to say no to me, even if I had not clouded your mind with your own desires.
Wayne remembered thinking about such women as Laura Swiff, Nicole Smart and even Olivia. He had spiraled into a sort of fantasy dream and lost consciousness. She had done all that to him?
It is why you feel such arousal when you look at me. All of you. I give off psychic urges. To be perfectly blunt, you could say that I am in heat. She lowered her long, bony hands to her belly. I apologize, Wayne. I did what I did to put myself with child. I intended to birth a new breed of children, a new race of keepers for the Temple of the Blind, with you as their father.
&n
bsp; Wayne did not know what to say. He was stunned. He stared at the Sentinel Queen’s belly. Was she saying…?
I succeeded in becoming pregnant, but still I failed. I can feel my deathwatch ticking. I will be dead within hours, alongside my last son, and with me will die your child. I’ve begun a life I cannot complete and I am deeply ashamed.
Wayne wanted to say something, but no words would come. He felt as though a storm of emotions were raging in his own head, beyond his control. That she seduced him was bad enough, but she took from him a child?
“Can we do anything?” Andrea asked. The thought of the child in this woman’s belly not having a chance to even be born made her sad. It was dreadfully unfair.
I had only one purpose in my long life. I was the keeper of this city, the guardian of the gate that leads back to the place from which we all came. Please don’t let my life, and the lives of all my children have been for nothing. Albert and Brandy must reach that door.
“What door? How do I even get there?”
Please go… Her voice had faded to a faint whisper. She was growing desperately weak.
Wayne hesitated a moment longer and then turned and walked away. He felt a wide range of emotions inside him, too many to even count. He felt violated, sad, angry. He felt both relieved and disappointed. He felt lost. They went on and on. He could practically feel them swirling around in his chest, whirling like a tornado.
Olivia and Andrea joined him as the Sentinel Queen disappeared back into the little stone room where her last son lay dying.
Wayne had so many more questions to ask, so many more things he wanted to know. He did not know whether to trust her or the old man and so he trusted neither of them. He needed to find Albert and Brandy and Nicole. Together, perhaps the six of them could find the truth among all the lies.
Behind them, the Sentinel Queen began to sing. Her sad song drifted after them, dragging their hearts into a deep sorrow as they walked toward the north gate and the mysteries that lay beyond it.
Chapter 29
As a little girl, Brandy wanted to be a movie star. Now she was studying history. As they walked the endless corridors of the labyrinth, she found herself remembering those old dreams and wondering whatever happened to that little girl. She supposed that as she grew more mature, so did her dreams. She no longer wanted fame, but just a pleasant future somewhere. She did not need to be rich, but merely comfortable. She wanted to someday take that vacation to Paris that she always wanted and live in a nice house and have two or three gorgeous children. More than that, she wanted to do it with Albert Cross. Looking at the blank walls around her, she was beginning to wonder if, just as those childhood dreams of riches and fame were lost in her transformation from girl to woman, these new dreams of simple bliss might soon be lost in a spray of warm blood and terrible screams.
