by Brian Harmon
But for all that, Charlie was still his friend, and Wayne still had to live with him. He did not want to start any fights. Given Wayne’s admittedly short temper, he began to spend more and more time in his room in hopes of avoiding the otherwise imminent conflict. And since Charlie was usually preoccupied with his own life, one that helped keep him out of Wayne’s hair, they’d managed so far to coexist peacefully.
Another burst of laughter exploded from the living room, followed by a spray of obscenities. Wayne did not know what triggered the outburst, nor did he care. Laura Swiff was an entirely different matter. She was a short girl, not skinny, but far from obese, with short, curly black hair and those horrible, penetrating eyes. She and Charlie had been dating for almost six months and her very presence made Wayne uncomfortable.
He first met her at the end of the previous semester, around the time he and Charlie were starting to look for apartments. Wayne thought that she was a nice girl—a little loud and a little more than a little vulgar—but nice. She was friendly, outgoing, and certainly not unattractive.
They moved into this apartment in early July and immediately Laura began spending a lot of her time here. She often spent the night, especially on weekends, sleeping in Charlie’s bedroom, occasionally making more noise than Wayne found appropriate, but otherwise without trouble. Occasionally, she would even drop by and hang around while Charlie was at work or in class, apparently having nothing better to do than sit in front of the television and wait for him to come home. It was on one of these occasions, just after the start of the semester, that she came on to him.
Wayne never laid a hand on her. Unnerved and uncomfortable, he simply made up some excuse about not feeling well and retreated to his bedroom, leaving her alone on the couch. He was tempted, of course, even aroused. She was not Wayne’s idea of drop dead gorgeous, but she was pretty, even somewhat sexy with those eyes and that almost predatory gaze in which she’d fixed him. But he’d resisted her and for this he was proud.
He never told Charlie. That was something he believed was between the two of them and that would right itself someday. The act of being untrue was proof of an inability to be true and that was enough for him. Eventually, her true nature would reveal itself, he was sure.
For the next few weeks, he was inwardly resentful of Laura’s continued presence at the apartment. He did not like that Charlie was still dating her. But he did not intend to be the one to tell him why. He also thought it was incredibly brazen of her to keep returning here after what she’d done. And the way she still looked at him... He couldn’t believe that Charlie couldn’t see that. He’d actually begun to feel a little sorry for his clueless roommate.
Then, about two weeks ago, Charlie came home late one night with a skinny blonde girl.
Wayne was dumbfounded. All the time he’d spent feeling bad for Charlie, all that time resenting Laura for her unfaithfulness, and Charlie was no better than she.
He deserved to be cheated on.
Wayne decided right then that if Laura ever offered herself to him again, he might just take her. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone, after all.
But that didn’t make it any easier to be around Laura. There was still something unnerving about the way she blatantly stared at him when she was there, especially right in front of Charlie like that. It was obscene.
There was another brief outburst from the living room as Laura called Charlie an asshole, accompanied by a string of very Laura-like adjectives, and Wayne turned on his stereo. He did not want to listen to them. He did not want to think about them.
He picked up the envelope he’d received the previous day and held it in front of him. It was an ordinary, white, number-ten envelope. No name or address was written on it. It could have been intended for anyone. It could have been from anyone. Perhaps it was its mysterious origins that made it so very hard for him to ignore its contents.
It seemed to have found him by nothing more than random chance. Deciding that it would be preferable to get an early start on his term paper than spend yet another awkward evening with Charlie and Laura, he’d gone to the library instead of walking home after his Microeconomics class.
He’d climbed to the second floor, bypassing the first floor periodicals and reference sections and walking straight to the nonfiction subjects. There was no particular reason that he chose to start up here. It simply seemed like the quietest part of the library at that precise moment.
He found a table in one corner, claimed it by placing his backpack on it, and then began browsing the titles. He could not say just how long he spent looking for the books he eventually chose. It could have been five minutes or half an hour, but it was long enough. When he returned to his seat, the envelope was waiting for him beside his backpack.
He’d thought that it must have been left for him by mistake, meant for someone else, but when he opened it and took out the letter within, the first line told him it was no mistake.
There was yet another outburst from the other room. This time, it grew in volume and Wayne realized that Laura and Charlie were moving from the living room to the bedroom.
He knew they weren’t going in there to sleep. It was too early.
For a moment, he remembered Laura’s muddy green eyes and the way they tracked him across the room as he walked, like the eyes of a hungry lion watching its prey, and he wondered if she was really thinking about Charlie in there.
Immediately, he chased this thought away and turned up his stereo another notch.
He turned his attention back to the envelope, thinking of the offer it contained, and thinking about how he’d turned that offer down. He couldn’t help but wonder what might have been if he’d chosen differently.
Chapter 6
Quivering shapes in shades of gray floated before her eyes and darkness swallowed her whole into its fearsome belly. Brandy groaned softly in her sleep as things she could not see hovered before her, her eyes useless. She was lost, weaving in and out of things that were sometimes hands, sometimes legs, sometimes heads and sometimes things she could scarcely comprehend. Though she could not see, she could imagine, and the things that her eyes could not perceive, her brain somehow did, remembering things so terrible they threatened her very sanity, things she never knew, never experienced, but still was somehow able to recall.
Within the blurry darkness, among the jumbled knot of things unseen but somehow remembered, something moved. She glimpsed it for just an instant, creeping through the frozen horrors that surrounded her, subtly, stealthily, remaining just beyond her range of vision. She wanted to scream, but she was frozen with terror, unable to move more than her eyes, which darted from shadow to shadow in panic so fierce it burned like molten lead in her stomach.
Suddenly, it came at her, a face that was not a face, a thing without flesh or bone, a thing that was not there at all, but somehow was. It rushed at her, something terrible, and was on her before she could even scream.
She sat up, a breathless scream on her lips, and before she could remember where she was, she was encircled in Albert’s arms.
“It’s okay,” Albert soothed, but his eyes were wide and worried in the darkness. He did not know what had caused him to rise from his sleep, but he was certain that they were not alone. He searched the room around them, looking for shadows and shapes that should not have been there, but nothing was out of place, no one was there.
Yet he still felt it, a strange and oddly familiar presence that reminded him of—
There was a loud beep, sudden enough to startle them both, and then only silence. The presence was gone at once. They were alone.
“Albert?”
“It’s okay.” Albert was staring at the blinking green light on the nightstand. The answering machine. He’d turned off the ringer on the bedroom phone so that they could sleep in on their days off without being disturbed by any early morning wrong numbers or telemarketers, but he’d left the answering machine hooked up in the bedroom in case so
meone left an important message. Someone had called while they were sleeping, and like the call he received the night before while preparing dinner for the girls, and like the two that followed it throughout the evening, no one was there. There was only that strange silence. It went on and on until the answering machine timed out, and while the line was open…
“Come on,” he said, urging Brandy back onto her pillow. “Go back to sleep. It was just a bad dream.”
But he didn’t entirely believe that.
Chapter 7
Nicole paused in front of the bathroom mirror and listened to the ringing of the phone. Something was very wrong. She could feel it.
After dinner, Albert had insisted that Nicole spend the night. It was an unnecessary gesture. After all, she was a big girl, perfectly capable of licking her own wounds without troubling her friends, but she did not refuse. She’d had a few drinks and she was emotional and she truly wanted their company. But she felt as though her timing was terrible. Something seemed to be going on, something they weren’t telling her. And it seemed to have something to do with these telephone calls.
There were three of them the previous evening: one before dinner, one immediately following and one as they were getting ready for bed. Each time, there was no one on the other end. It didn’t strike her as all that unusual, since everyone received dead calls now and then, but something about them seemed to disturb Albert.
The phone rang three more times throughout the night while they were sleeping, and each time she’d awaked a little more frightened. Why would someone call so late? Was it a prank?
Now, as she stood in the bathroom, listening to the ringing of the phone again, she couldn’t help but wonder what was going on. No one had picked it up after five rings, and she knew that both Albert and Brandy were awake.
She quickly finished tying back her hair and then opened the door and stepped out into the hallway. From the bedroom, she heard the answering machine pick up and Brandy’s voice rise from the speaker, perkily confirming that the caller had reached Albert and Brandy’s home and should please leave a message.
But there was no message. Only a long silence followed the beep.
Albert and Brandy stood in front of the machine. Brandy held her hands to her mouth as she stared down at it. Albert stared off through the wall, his eyes distracted as if by some distant memory. For a moment, it almost seemed as if they were caught in some kind of bizarre trance.
Suddenly, Brandy reached out and shut off the machine, cutting off nothing but the eerie silence.
“What’s up, you guys?” Nicole asked from the open doorway.
Brandy turned and looked at her. She did not reply, but Nicole could see something strange in her eyes. She looked as if she were deathly afraid, as if something about that strange silence had filled her with unthinkable dread.
“Those things in the maze,” Albert said. He was speaking to Brandy.
Brandy’s eyes drifted to him and she nodded.
“What?” Nicole didn’t understand. What maze? What was he talking about?
Albert looked at Nicole now, his eyes still distant, distracted, but also thoughtful. “Did you…think of anything…feel anything, maybe…when that was playing?”
Nicole shook her head. “It was just silence. No one was there.”
“Because you weren’t there,” he said, almost absently, making no sense at all. “You don’t have anything to remember. Not like we do.”
“What?”
But he didn’t answer her. He left the bedroom in silence, brushing past her as he turned down the hallway and walked toward the living room.
Nicole looked back at Brandy. “I don’t get it.”
Brandy shook her head, started to speak, then closed her mouth and followed quickly after Albert.
For a moment, Nicole only stood there, watching after her. What did Albert mean when he said that she had nothing to remember? What didn’t she remember?
When she entered the living room a moment later, Albert had turned and embraced Brandy. He was telling her that it was okay, that she shouldn’t be afraid. “It’s just…a message,” he soothed.
“What kind of message?” Brandy asked.
“He’s calling us back.”
“Who’s calling you?” Nicole asked. “Back where?”
Albert looked up at her, his calm, strong eyes locked on her, but she could tell that he wasn’t really seeing her. He looked strange, exhilarated, but in a tired sort of way. He shook his head, slowly, left and right, his expression thoughtful.
Finally, it came to her. “Is this about that place you guys went?” Nicole’s heart jumped as she began to realize the truth. “It is, isn’t it?”
After their adventure in the temple, Albert and Brandy agreed to keep their discovery a secret. There were several reasons, not the least of which included the illicit sex they’d engaged in and their nakedness as they explored those strange corridors. After all, they’d been little more than strangers when they entered the service tunnel, acquainted only by the short time they’d spent as lab partners in Chemistry class, and in a strange room at the end of a long maze of underground tunnels, they’d dropped to the floor and screwed like animals. In no way did they intend to tell just anyone about that. Most people wouldn’t be capable of understanding. It would only embarrass them. But their sluttish behavior was only one reason. If some foolish person were to venture down there to confirm their story, he could find himself in some real danger. They didn’t have that place to themselves, after all.
The one person they chose to confide in was Brandy’s oldest and best friend. They told Nicole the story from start to finish, every small detail, from the moment Albert found the box to their goodbye kiss in the parking lot. They left nothing out. Not even the sex.
Nicole had believed every word they said, and still did. They swore it was true, after all, swore they weren’t pulling her leg and that they weren’t doing drugs or any other thing that would have made them hallucinate these things, and that was all she’d needed. Brandy had never lied to her and she didn’t think that Albert would, either. She’d simply listened to them with the increasingly rapt attention of a child immersed in a particularly exciting bedtime story. She would take their secret to the grave because she loved them and respected them. She’d even hoped that, should they ever decide to go back, they would take her with them. In fact, she’d been a little disappointed that she did not get to go along the first time.
But these phone calls frightened her. This message—or whatever it was—suggested not merely something new and strange, but something supernatural, something that actually possessed the ability to reach out and ensnare her friends, even in the safety of their own home.
“What are you going to do?” Nicole aimed her question directly at Albert. Although the youngest of the three of them, he was the strongest, both physically and mentally. He was very intelligent and Nicole thought that he might be the bravest person she’d ever known. In the short time since she first met him, she’d already grown to admire him considerably. He brought her best friend safely back from that dangerous labyrinth, for starters. He was Brandy’s hero. And that made him a hero to her as well.
But Albert did not have an answer for her. He merely shook his head. “I’m going to think,” he said, his brow already furrowed in that thoughtful way of his. “I’ve got to think.”
Chapter 8
When Wayne awoke that morning, the first thing he thought about was the envelope. He kept wondering if he should have accepted the mysterious offer. It was a stupid thing to wonder. He realized this every time he thought about it. A strange letter found its way into his possession, in which a bizarre favor is asked of him without so much as the courtesy of a signature. It would have been reckless to even consider it. But still he wondered what might have happened.
He slipped out from beneath the sheets and began to dress. It was the money. A thousand dollars was a lot of cash to a college student, especially
one who was paying his own way. It made him want to do the job. It also made him extremely curious as to why someone would pay so much money for a task that sounded so simple.
Wayne left his room and walked to the kitchen, still puzzling over the letter. There was an idea creeping into his head and he found this idea disturbing, so he concentrated not on the letter, but on his thirst. He could really go for a drink of water. Ice water, preferably, or maybe some juice or milk would be easier. Although when he saw who stood in the kitchen, he wished feverishly that he’d gone thirsty.
“Good morning.”
Wayne almost flinched at the sound of Laura’s voice. She was standing in front of the sink with her back against the counter, a slice of toast in her hand. Her muddy green eyes were locked on him and he was caught in their gaze with nowhere to run. “Hi,” he said, wondering if he sounded as uncomfortable as he felt. “How are you?”
Laura shrugged. “Good.” She was wearing one of Charlie’s old tee shirts like a short dress, revealing a startling amount of leg, and he caught himself wondering if she was wearing anything beneath it. “Toast?”
Wayne shook his head. “I don’t really eat breakfast.” He opened the refrigerator and peered in, trying not to look at those eyes. Juice. He definitely wanted juice. Or milk if there wasn’t any.
“Most important meal of the day.”
“That’s what they say, but I’m just not hungry in the mornings.” No juice. Great. Wonderful. Milk was fine. Perfect, in fact.
“Charlie’s in class,” Laura said, and it was like reminding a condemned man that there was a noose around his neck. “I don’t have class ‘til noon.”
Where the hell was the milk? “I have a ten o’clock.” He forced himself to look at Laura, forced himself to smile a little. “I don’t like the early classes.” As he’d expected, she was looking right at him, her eyes burrowing into his. Did a sort of hunger lurk in them, or was that only his imagination? He supposed he could be imagining it. Who was to say that she was still interested in him after he refused her last advances?
