by Brian Harmon
“I don’t think that’s what you were supposed to do,” Olivia said.
Nicole was opening her mouth to respond when a ball of fire suddenly erupted from the box, burning her hand and sending all three of them sprawling to the floor.
Outside the tower, the sudden “whoosh” of flames was startling. Wayne jumped and turned toward the sound, staring at the brilliant flames that blossomed from the darkness and revealed what the shadows had been hiding. For a moment he was transfixed by the sight. The entire chamber was illuminated, its massiveness unveiled to them for the first time. Giant stone beams appeared overhead, crisscrossing like the enormous fibers of some incredibly vast spider’s web, bathing the ceiling above them in deep, undulating shadows. In the center, the tower stood like a grand monument, much taller than he expected, a great, stone monolith, at least six stories tall with steps spiraling around and up its four sides. There were several openings in the walls of the tower, narrow slits, like windows, but located in odd places, as if haphazardly strewn across its smooth surface. Each one revealed a sliver of the inferno that had been ignited within, glowing like the wicked eyes of devils in the gloom.
Brandy cried out for Nicole. She was up there somewhere, with Olivia and Andrea, and now the whole tower was burning. Were they burning too? The thought was more than she could bear.
Something began to rumble deep in the stone beneath their feet and Wayne lowered his eyes to the floor. What was going on? Was this supposed to be happening? “What did they do?” he wondered, but his voice was lost in the chaos of the hounds below and the inferno above.
Nicole, Olivia and Andrea gained their feet and fled down the stone steps to the open doorway at the top of the outer stairs. Far below them, deep within the tower, another chamber erupted, intensifying the blaze. The box into which Nicole’s blood had vanished exploded in a great billowing fireball, engulfing the top of the tower in flames and hurling chunks of smoking stone to rain down like hellish hail.
A column of fire raced up between the massive stone beams to the dome-shaped ceiling above and vanished into a large, chimney-like hole that had been impossible to see for the shadows until now.
Nicole emerged from the tower and hurriedly began to descend the narrow stairway, her hands pressed to the wall beside her for support, her eyes drawn to the dizzying drop that waited mere inches to her left. If she should stumble and fall, she would meet the stone floor below at a brutal speed.
Behind her, Olivia’s heart thumped harder as the flames illuminated the floor far below, but she dared not linger. Whatever they had set in motion would not be stopped, and she had a strong feeling that they should put as much distance as possible between them and the little room at the top of the tower.
Andrea was last to leave the tower and was barely out of the way when flames belched violently from the doorway behind her. She screamed, terrified, as the heat pounded against her bare shoulders and back, threatening to burn her alive.
Another shudder raced up the tower as yet another chamber erupted into flame. This time, the entire labyrinth began to quake, threatening to shake them off the narrow steps and send them plunging to certain death.
Wayne saw them as they rounded the corner of the tower and hurried down the steps. Relieved that they were still okay, if only for the moment, he turned and crossed the stone beam as quickly as he dared to Albert’s side.
“I think that’s our cue,” he declared. He handed Albert back his flashlight and then bent and scooped Brandy up into his arms. His eyes returned to the tower, where the girls were still descending the steps as fast as their weary legs would carry them, racing the expanding conflagration that had already engulfed the top of the tower above them.
“What the hell did they do?” Albert asked.
Wayne shook his head. “Whatever it was, I hope they did it right.”
There was an enormous concussion from somewhere far below their feet, like a thunderclap. The very stone reverberated beneath them with the force. A second later, a large section of the tower’s base fell in with a resounding boom. It did not collapse, but rather shifted, as though whatever chaos was taking place below this chamber had knocked away some hidden support and allowed the stones on this part of the tower to drop ten feet straight down, neatly revealing the exit for which they had been searching.
“That’s it!” Wayne yelled. He made his way back across the beam, still cradling Brandy in his arms. He wobbled frightfully beneath her extra weight, but maintained his balance. It was easier without the hounds stalking his every movement. They were now running away, rapidly fleeing this chamber and the pandemonium that had erupted from it.
Nicole looked over her shoulder. They had descended nearly half the steps by now, but still she could feel the heat. The flames were growing, engulfing more and more of the tower above them. If the inferno kept growing at this rate, they wouldn’t make it. And yet she did not dare go any faster. She was already afraid that she would trip and fall, or sprain an ankle and go sprawling over the side, but the thought of being burned alive was equally unthinkable.
Wayne rushed over to the newly revealed exit, still cradling Brandy in his arms, and peered down at the waiting tunnel. It led away from the tower, beneath the floor from which the hounds were quickly vanishing.
Brandy did not look at the new passage. She was staring up at the tower, watching, holding her breath as she waited for Nicole and Olivia and Andrea to round the corner of the steps and come back into view. She clung to Wayne’s neck, hardly feeling his body against her, her hands clenched into nervous fists behind him. “Come on…” she breathed. “Come on, Nikki… Please…”
Below them, the ground shook as yet another chamber ignited in the deep, blazing belly of the tower and the inferno lurched upward with a resounding roar, sending more chunks of stone, some as big as the hounds, raining down around the tower.
“My God…” Wayne breathed, squinting up into the blaze. It was swelling, creeping ever farther down the tower walls, engulfing it little by little. It was too bright to look directly into. He could feel the intense heat from where he stood and could only imagine how hot it must be upon that narrow stairway.
Seconds passed like minutes as debris rained down around them. Albert watched with a combination of terror and awe. It was like standing at the base of an erupting volcano (or at least how he imagined standing at the base of an erupting volcano would be like). Smoking streamers sailed down through the air. Large chunks of stone crashed against the tower’s base. It was overwhelmingly frightening, and yet he could not look away. His heart hammered in his chest. He could barely feel the throbbing of his broken arm as he waited breathlessly for his friends to appear.
When they finally came around the corner and back into view, each of them breathed a tentative sigh of relief. Now, they had only to cross the nearest face and turn one more corner. Then they would be nearly to the bottom.
But they were still in terrible danger. Smoking bits of rubble were falling down around them and the intense heat from the flames was only growing stronger.
A large hunk of stone, nearly the size of a man, dropped from the top of the tower, trailing a tail of smoke and flames behind it and missing Andrea by only a few naked feet. Her scream was clear and shrill, even over all the noise, but she did not stop. She covered her head and pushed on, one step at a time.
“Hurry!” cried Nicole, her eyes fixed on the corner of the tower ahead of them. They were almost there. They wouldn’t even have to go all the way to the bottom step; they could simply jump over the side when they were close enough to the floor to land safely.
But another loud concussion filled the chamber, shaking the entire labyrinth, and Olivia teetered for a moment, her balance thrown. She threw her arms out, her heart catching in her throat, unable to even scream. And then Andrea had her, seizing her shoulder and pulling her back so that they both sat down hard on the steps.
“Oh god!” Olivia panted. “Oh god!”
“It’s okay,” Andrea promised, still clutching her.
“Come on!” Nicole called back as she reached the corner. Other, smaller concussions were shaking the floor beneath them, each one stronger than the previous. The last big explosion had set off some sort of chain reaction and she was sure they didn’t want to still be on this tower when it reached its apex.
“What is that?” Albert asked, his eyes sweeping the stone at his feet.
“Nothing good,” Wayne knew. And within seconds the rumbling worked its way up into the tower and a massive fireball erupted from the top with a terrible, thunderous boom.
Nicole did not dare glance up. She jumped down from the steps as a wave of heat washed down over them. Her bare skin prickled with its intensity. Any hotter and her flesh would begin to burn. She scanned the dark room around her, trying to gain her bearings, her heart racing. “Where are they?” she asked. “Where do we go?”
“This way!” Andrea shouted. Finally off of the treacherous steps, she grabbed Olivia’s hand and led them around the side of the tower. Once around the corner, they could see the others standing at the bottom of the base, waiting for them.
There was no sign of the Caggo, but they had little time to consider their luck. As if reminding them of the peril they still faced, a fireball the size of a pickup truck slammed into the tower’s base directly in front of them and cracked in half, spilling flames and debris down the side in a fiery cascade.
Screaming, they darted between the flaming boulder and the tower wall and began their final descent as more fire and stone rained down from above.
Their backs and shoulders were hot, as though they had lain too long on their bellies under a hot summer sun. Something stung Nicole’s left shoulder. A stone the size of a bowling ball bounced over their heads, narrowly missing Olivia. Andrea staggered briefly as her bare foot came down on a broken chunk of stone, but managed to keep her balance. Something sizzled through the air between Nicole and Olivia. They expected to be struck dead at any moment, and yet somehow they kept going.
They dropped down one level after another, as quickly as they dared, their feet aching with the effort, and soon they were nearing the bottom.
“Just a little farther,” Wayne said, speaking softly, as though willing his thoughts to them. He could almost imagine the entire tower exploding into one final fireball, swallowing the three of them in a great, flaming hell, incinerating them just when they thought they’d escaped. His heart thundered against his ribs and he felt as if his blood was rapidly draining from his body. “Come on…”
He was also gripping Brandy far too tightly in his arms, but she barely noticed. She, too, was staring up at them, praying for them, hoping desperately that she wasn’t about to watch any of them die.
“Go!” Albert screamed as the three neared the bottom of the base, and Wayne turned and looked at him, distracted. “Now!”
Wayne looked up at the approaching girls once more and then turned and dropped into the hole with Brandy still in his arms.
“Hurry!” Albert screamed at the others. “This way!”
Nicole and Olivia reached the bottom and ran to where Albert was standing. They hesitated only a moment before following Wayne into the mysterious new tunnel.
Andrea paused at Albert’s side and turned to look back up at what they’d been running from. Flames were shooting upward with such intensity that it made her eyes water to look upon them.
“Go!” Albert yelled, screaming with all his breath to be heard over the noise.
There was another crash, much softer than any of the others, and high above them a piece of fire seemed to step out of the inferno. Andrea stared up at it, her face hot even from this distance. A piece of stone, easily the size of a railway car, fell outward and crashed against the stairs, breaking in two. These two halves, still in flames, plummeted toward them.
For a few frantic heartbeats, she couldn’t move. She stood there, staring at these two great hunks of fire and stone as they raced toward her.
“Go!” With his good arm, Albert grabbed her and shoved her toward the exit, almost knocking her into the hole, but it was enough for her to regain her composure. She jumped down and vanished into the tunnel after the others.
Albert jumped in behind her, and when he landed, his arm sent a jolt of agony through his body, freezing him for a moment. Above him, one of the stones struck dangerously close to the hole and like an electric shock it set him in motion. He sprinted into the tunnel as a storm of smoking stones rained down around him.
Wayne had not stopped until he was almost fifty yards into the tunnel, and he did not relax until he watched the last of his friends enter the passage behind him.
“Oh God!” Olivia sobbed. She stopped walking and dropped onto her knees on the hard stone. “That was so scary!”
“That was…probably the coolest thing…I’ve ever done,” Andrea panted. She leaned against the tunnel wall, ignoring the bewildered looks Nicole and Olivia gave her.
“Where’s the Caggo?” Olivia asked.
“Caggo’s dead,” Wayne assured them all. “Albert fed him to the hounds.”
“Sweet!” exclaimed Andrea between breaths. “Albert rocks.”
“Wayne rocks,” Albert corrected her as he approached. “I would’ve ended up just like the Caggo if he hadn’t hauled me out of there.”
Brandy looked up at Wayne, her eyes shimmering. He had saved Albert’s life?
“I should’ve been there sooner,” Wayne lamented. “Took me too long to find where that thing knocked my glasses to.”
“Took you just long enough, I’d say,” Albert said, remembering the two hounds that were speeding toward him in those final, critical seconds.
Nicole did not care about the Caggo. She did not care about the hounds. She did not care about her injured hand or the uncomfortable heat that was radiating from her naked back and shoulders. She went straight to Brandy and took her hand, her eyes already filled with tears. “Oh my God,” she said between breaths. “Are you okay?”
Brandy nodded. “I think so. I just hit my head.” She looked up at Wayne. “You can put me down now. I think I’ll be okay.”
Wayne looked down at her, distracted. In all the excitement, he’d hardly realized he was still holding her. Gently, as though she were the most fragile thing in the world, he put her down on her own feet.
“I thought you were gone,” Nicole sobbed as she embraced her best friend.
“I did too.” Now she could feel the pain in the rest of her body. Her whole back ached, and especially her bottom. It was a miracle she hadn’t broken her back or cracked open her skull.
Wayne’s eyes drifted up to the ceiling of the tunnel. There was a noise, he realized, very faint under the roar of the flames above them.
Olivia caught sight of Albert and gasped. “Oh God!”
“It’s okay,” Albert assured her. “It’s mostly the Caggo’s blood.” But even as he said this he saw her eyes fall on the gash in his arm
“It doesn’t look okay.”
Nicole and Brandy turned now to look at him. Neither of them had realized that he was injured.
“It’s broke,” Albert confessed. “Snapped it when the Caggo threw me to the hounds.”
“Oh my god!” cried Brandy. She pulled away from Nicole and held her arms out to him. She wanted to do something, but she was afraid that if she embraced him she would hurt him.
“Guys,” Wayne interrupted, his voice urgent. “I think we should get out of here.”
“What is it?” Albert asked, but now he heard it too. It was sort of a creak and a groan at the same time, as though the walls of the labyrinth were slowly pulling apart. They all turned and looked back down the tunnel toward the glowing entrance. They could still hear the roar of the flames above them, but the light was fading. There was something eerie in this growing darkness, something bad.
Albert felt his heart sink with dread. “The curse,” he said, suddenly remembering wha
t the Keeper had said. It had warned them not to linger, but here they were, just standing here, waiting for whatever they’d unleashed to walk right up to them.
“I think you’re right,” replied Wayne. He took the flashlight from Albert and nudged him forward. “Go! Everyone run!”
The six of them turned and raced down the tunnel, away from the dark thing that was moving toward them through the labyrinth.
Chapter 51
Brandy’s head was pounding. Never in her life had she experienced such a throbbing headache. All she wanted to do was lie down and sleep until the agony went away, but she pushed on, running as fast as she could, reminding herself that Albert must be hurting far worse than she right now. He was running beside her, clutching his broken arm. Even at a glance she could see the way he locked his jaw tight against the pain, as if forcing down a scream of agony. She had merely bumped her head. Even given the likeliness of a concussion, he would still be hurting long after she recovered.
Assuming any of them lived that long.
Andrea again took the lead. She could still feel the heat of the flames on her skin. It felt as if she had a sunburn covering most of her back. But even given this and the pain she felt in her feet and legs from climbing and then descending all those stairs, she was in better shape than anyone else down here.
Olivia and Nicole were running almost side-by-side, trying to keep up with their lither companion. Nicole’s hand still hurt, but she dared not look at it. She did not want to know how bad it was, especially not now, not when she could do nothing about it anyway. She glanced over at Olivia instead and saw clearly the fear in her eyes. The poor girl had been running or hiding from some dire peril after another for days. How did she manage to keep going through all this?
