by Brian Harmon
What business did any of them have down here, for that matter? From what Wayne and Olivia told her, they had never met each other or the three people they were trying to catch up with before tonight. They were all three of them strangers, yet here they were, alone in the darkness, far too deep within the earth for their screams to be heard by anyone, forced to trust in one another like family.
They were naked, even! They were walking around down here completely nude, their most private parts on display before the eyes of people they’d known for mere hours! Why? It was insane. She couldn’t stop thinking about how utterly crazy this all was. She never would have believed herself capable of doing such a thing. Yet here she was.
And now that she was here, what was it she was supposed to do? The Sentinel Queen told her that she had no idea how the envelope found its way onto her window screen, or whose voice was in her head outside Gilbert House, instructing her to come here. She was an unexpected player in this game. Clearly someone intended for her to be here, but who? What was her role in it all? It was all so confusing.
What did she even have to give? She wasn’t special. She was quirky, but otherwise just a perfectly normal teenage girl. She was not psychic like Olivia or Albert or Brandy. Certainly not like Beverly had been. She was not courageous like Wayne. She would not have been capable of walking through that horrible tunnel all alone and scared to death. She certainly would not have been able to take on all those zombies. She probably wouldn’t even have been able to handle just one shuffling corpse without screaming herself into cardiac arrest. Neither did she have Olivia’s courage. Even with the Sentinel Queen’s gentle words in her head, assuring her that she would be okay, promising that someone was coming to find her, she would have been driven completely insane with terror after just an hour inside that dark restroom, much less after two long days. It did not make sense that she, just a gentle virgin in a harsh and emotionless world, would be chosen to come down here into this ancient, underground world, to strip off her modesty and walk naked through a nightmare labyrinth that, to her, had begun to feel a little like the valley of the shadow of death in that prayer her grandmother once taught her, the one that always made her shiver.
It was all so overwhelming. All of this was overwhelming. This whole place, the very reality of it all.
And even as she thought about all these things, her eyes kept drifting to Wayne. He was walking in front of her, his naked back and buttocks caked with stinking mud in the light of her flashlight. Until tonight, she had never seen a guy naked before. And until now, she had been too embarrassed to give him more than a fleeting glance. But she found that she was beginning to grow bolder as the night went on and now she found herself really looking at him, studying him, memorizing him.
He was a little soft around the middle, but he was still muscular. He had big arms and legs and broad shoulders. He also had a fairly attractive butt, she noticed. Maybe not the cutest she’d ever seen, but not bad…
It felt odd looking at him like this. It was sort of naughty. It gave her a nervous lump deep in her belly. And she was surprised to discover that she liked the way that naughty sensation made her feel. It made her body tingle a little. Even with the stench of the mud chamber still wafting from her body, she couldn’t help but feel a little sexy as she watched him walk, his strong thighs flexing rhythmically with his ever-urgent stride.
Was this what the sex room had done to her? Was this her punishment for ignoring Wayne’s warning and peeking at those insane statues? Was she now doomed to feel these urges all the time? Would she slowly lose herself to increasingly insatiable desires until there was nothing left of the girl she used to be? Or was this all perfectly natural? Maybe it was just her body’s way of telling her that she’d grown comfortable with hers and Wayne’s nudity. Perhaps this was nothing more than who she was and who she’d always been. She just needed the right circumstances to reveal it to herself.
Either way, it felt sort of good. And she found herself forgetting the Sentinel Queen and her unknown purpose as she studied Wayne’s masculine shape, enamored with these fascinating new feelings.
No, Rachel was definitely never going to believe this.
Chapter 32
The now too-familiar roar of the hounds rose from the silence ahead of them and grew louder as they approached the source. The air no longer reeked, but there remained a mustiness to remind them that they were not alone down here.
Brandy and Nicole grew nervous, just as they did each time they heard the sound. By now there was little reason to doubt that they were safely separated from the hounds and not at all likely to enter their territory unknowingly. And yet, they found it difficult to trust that they were really safe from them. They knew so little about these beasts, so little about this whole place. Far too little when it concerned their lives.
Albert, on the other hand, couldn’t help but swell with eagerness. It had been thirteen long months since he first heard the curiously hostile sound of a passing creature from a nearby corridor of the temple. He remembered how it filled him with terror that first time, freezing him in place. Ever since that moment, he’d wondered what these things were, what they looked like, how they made that amazingly dreadful noise.
On his way back out of the temple that night, one of them had very nearly run him down before he and Brandy could escape. At the time, he hadn’t known that the walls were what kept them reigned in. He hadn’t known he was safe and so he had kept running, straight through the frigid waters of the flooded passageway and across to the other side. He’d assumed that perhaps the creature couldn’t swim, that the water had been the reason it called off its pursuit. And even then he hadn’t lingered for fear that he was wrong and the creature might still be stalking them. Looking back now, he wished he’d been brave enough to peek over that ledge before fleeing. Then he would have known what he was up against. And he wouldn’t have lain awake in his bed night after night, wondering what it was that so nearly snapped off his feet.
But then again, that was only one of many mysteries that had kept him up at night. If not for the hounds, he’d have obsessed over the man with no eyes or the purpose of the emotion rooms or how the box made its way into his car.
Now, he found himself hoping each time he heard one of the hounds that it would be waiting for him when he reached the end of the passage, that it would finally reveal itself to him so that he no longer had to wonder.
Nothing bothered him more than an unsolved mystery.
Fortunately for him, his wait was nearly over.
At the end of the passage was a large chamber. The entire room belonged to the hounds, so that they stood at the mouth of the passage, six feet above the badly scarred floor, gazing out into blackness far too deep for their lights to pierce. The strange, clattering roar of the beasts was nearly deafening.
Brandy squeezed Albert’s hand and he read her thoughts as though she’d spoken them aloud: How do we really know they can’t jump out of there?
The answer to that was simple: they weren’t sure at all. For all they knew the damned things could have wings. But he didn’t think so. If they could get up into this part of the labyrinth, then why hadn’t they?
He could hear them moving around. They were here. Lots of them. Just beyond his vision. A jolt of childish excitement rushed through him. At any moment one of them might appear from the darkness and he would finally see them. After more than a year of knowing nothing more than that queer noise they made, he would finally know what they were.
And yet, they still remained frustratingly invisible. Seconds passed on. The noises moved around the chamber as they roamed, but none ventured into view. Next to him, Brandy and Nicole glanced at each other, anxious and ready to move on, afraid of allowing these things to get too near. He began to fear that the simple truth of what these things looked like would escape him yet again, and a deep disappointment welled up within him. He had a maddening urge to hurl his flashlight out into that darkness, for the
simple satisfaction of glimpsing even a shadow of these elusive creatures.
But then he saw one. It emerged at the edge of their vision, dashing from right to left, visible for only a second, but utterly and shockingly real.
Large, low to the ground and dark-colored, it did not move like any kind of canine. Nor did it move like anything else that Albert had ever seen. It was exceptionally fast for something on such short legs.
Brandy and Nicole saw it too, and immediately Albert felt a change in them both. Though their apprehension grew at the brief sight of the creature, their curiosity seemed to nail them down so that they no longer inched away from the ledge. They stood fascinated, staring into the chamber, waiting for it to reappear.
Another hound darted in and out of view, dashing across the floor as if playing, with a second and noticeably smaller creature close behind it. Again, they remained too distant and too fast to get a good look. Albert still could not tell how they were making that noise, but he could see that they had short, blunt heads and very little neck.
Then one of them wandered into the light much closer to them. Its head was down to the ground, sniffing the floor. It wasn’t making the noise that the others were, and Albert observed the many rows of upright scales that covered its body.
“I’ve never seen anything like it before,” said Nicole. “Where did they come from?”
“Maybe they’re some kind of extinct species,” Albert suggested. “Or something from another world, like the place we saw through Gilbert House’s windows.”
Brandy gripped Albert’s arm and pressed close to him. She didn’t like these things at all.
The hound lifted its blunt snout from the floor and sniffed at the air around it. A moment later, its body shivered and that familiar noise began. Albert watched it, fascinated.
“What’s it doing?” Brandy asked.
Its body rippled strangely, its skin seeming to vibrate with the sound that it made. Then it swung its snout toward them and rushed at them.
Brandy and Nicole both screamed and shrank away, but Albert did not budge. He stood and watched as the strange creature dashed across the scarred floor and threw itself into the wall beneath them.
“My god…” he sighed. These creatures were even more fascinating than he could have imagined. He knelt down in the mouth of the passage and shined his light down on top of the hound.
“What are you doing?” Brandy hissed.
But Albert paid her no attention. He studied the creature, taking it all in. He noted its two tails, its two separate spines. He could think of no other creature that was built like that. It had no hair, only the curious, blade-like scales, which stood upright in tight, crooked rows that ran the length of its body. They were in motion, slashing rapidly back and forth, many of them rubbing together in the process. It was the friction of these oscillating blades that made the noise that had for so long nagged at his curiosity. Different blades contacted differently. Some of them simply rubbed together, others slammed against each other. It was no wonder he couldn’t place the noise. It wasn’t a single sound, but rather hundreds of sounds at once, all of them blurring into a single, chaotic clamor with no two hounds sounding exactly the same.
“I’m pretty sure that tops the list of the scariest things I’ve ever seen,” Nicole said as she stood beside Albert, staring down at the agitated creature.
The man with no eyes had been honest with them. The creature thrashed angrily against the wall, but uselessly. It didn’t seem to be capable of jumping or climbing or even lifting itself onto its back legs to snarl up at them. It merely battered itself against the wall, its broad jaws snapping at the stone.
Another hound rushed out of the darkness and slammed into the wall next to the first. This one was slightly larger, and after a moment of trying to bite the wall, it turned and threw itself into the first hound, knocking it onto its side and sending a spray of blood into the air where their armored bodies collided.
Albert caught a glimpse of the smaller creature’s claws as it rolled over. Set into the padding of its paw were several long, pale protrusions that ran from the front of the foot all the way to the back, each one like the serrated blade of a knife. They were in neat rows, similar to the upright scales on its skin, but thicker and more durable-looking. Such curiously evolved claws were perfect for making all those scratches in the floor, especially over the course of thousands of years.
Other hounds appeared as they stood watching. Some rushed toward them, snapping and snarling at the stone, occasionally colliding with those that were already here and sending up sprays of blood wherever the slashing, blade-like scales bit into flesh. A couple more passed through the flashlight beams without taking notice of the commotion, perhaps having not yet caught the scent of the intruders. A much smaller one approached from the darkness, but lingered well beyond the reach of its larger pack mates, its blades slashing violently as it sniffed yearningly at the air.
Brandy and Nicole were standing with their hands pressed to their ears. The noise was deafening. It was amazing how loud these things were.
Albert did not move. He knelt there, above the creatures’ reach, staring down at them, amazed. This was an entirely new creature. No one in the world had ever seen anything like this. It was so alien. The magnitude of seeing such a thing was overwhelming. He could scarcely believe he was really looking at it.
They were every bit as violent as they’d been led to believe. They were even dangerous to each other. Looking down on them, Albert realized that all of them were covered in scars. One was missing one of its tails. Another had only three legs.
Brandy nudged at his elbow again, urging him to move. She didn’t like the way they were swarming.
Albert stood up. He knew Brandy was scared, knew that she wanted him to turn and leave, but he could not pull his eyes from them. They were terrifying, yet they were magnificent. Finally, after all this time, he was seeing them, and they were more than he could ever have imagined.
And yet, something wasn’t right.
He stared down at the hounds, watching them. He knew what they were now. He knew how they made their noise. He even knew how they’d scratched up the floors in their territory. And yet, he still felt incomplete somehow.
Brandy tugged at his arm, more forcefully this time, and finally he relented. He turned and walked with her, back toward the previous intersection and away from the quarreling beasts.
But even as he walked away, he found that he still had a strong urge to see the hounds.
As the noise began to fade behind them, he paused and looked back the way they came.
“What’s wrong?” Brandy asked.
Albert wasn’t sure. He felt a strong compulsion to turn and run back toward that room. But it wasn’t the same as what he’d felt as he stood looking into the meadow. This was different. This felt like…
“Feels like we were close back there,” he realized.
“Close to what?” Brandy asked.
“To the end,” Albert replied as he finally turned his eyes back to her. “I feel like we were close to the exit.”
“Back there?” Nicole asked doubtfully, gazing back toward the hound-infested chamber. If that was the exit, they couldn’t possibly reach it. Those monsters would skin them alive.
“No. Not there. Not exactly.”
“Then what?” Brandy pushed.
“I’m not sure.”
For a moment, the three of them stared back toward the hounds.
The answer was there somewhere. Albert was sure of it.
Chapter 33
In considerably less time than it had taken Albert, Brandy and Nicole, Wayne made his way from the City of the Blind’s north gate to the second pool of water. Behind him, Olivia and Andrea struggled to keep up with his brisk pace. He was eager to catch up (if that was even possible) and share what he had learned from the Sentinel Queen and the old man. Together, perhaps they could sort the truth from all the lies and determine what it was t
hey needed to do.
He did not even hesitate at the water’s edge. As Albert had done, he simply hopped into the water, assuming it would be easier to jump in all at once and get it over with.
Just like Albert, he was wrong.
Instantly, all the breath was sucked from his lungs. It actually seemed to him that his heart stopped beating, and perhaps it had skipped a beat or two. Water this cold was like a bolt of electricity, with all the gentleness of a baseball bat to the gut.
Olivia did not wait for his reaction. She jumped in after him, her feet entering the water even as Wayne was struggling up to the surface. She came up with a breathless gasp. “Oh my God!” she cried.
“Is it cold?” Andrea asked.
“Course not,” Wayne remarked, his lips quivering with the violence of his shivers as he turned and swam away from her. “Perfectly tepid.”
Andrea hesitated. Again she stood alone on the edge of a psychological cliff, pushing herself to jump, though every fiber of her being begged her to turn back. Desperately, she wished she’d rushed in as Olivia did, without waiting to see how it would affect Wayne. She did not want to go forward, did not want to torture herself anymore, but there was nowhere else to go. She was sure she could not survive the journey home by herself. If the emotion rooms didn’t kill her, the hounds likely would.
Wishing a little that she’d just stayed home, Andrea gripped her flashlight and jumped in. The cold was unbelievable. She could not help but wonder how deep the water must be to be so cold. At some point far below in the permanent darkness, was it completely frozen?
The swim to the other side of the chamber took less than a minute, but it felt much longer, as would any form of torture. Soon, the three of them climbed shivering and dripping onto dry stone. Earlier that night, Albert, Brandy and Nicole paused here to warm up by sharing body heat, but Wayne pushed on, warming himself by exertion instead, almost dragging his weary companions along.
