The House That Death Built

by Michaelbrent Collings

  The laser lights shifted, as though in answer. For a moment the countdown disappeared. In its place, the outlines of four red skulls gleamed on four white walls.

  Then the countdown resumed.

  1:39….

  1:38….

  The skulls never quite disappeared, though. Every few seconds they would take the place of one of the numbers. A reminder of what would happen when the timer reached zero.

  Kayla strode toward the door. Which made sense, since it was the only remaining way out.

  But nothing made sense here.

  Aaron looked at the spot where the picture had been affixed. Another map. Another rectangle, another red area, another spot marked in green.

  He looked at it for a moment, frowning. This time the red and green weren't marked as a box and an "X." Instead they were just shaded portions of a simple rectangle. One black line became red for a short section, another became green on a different side of the shape.

  He experienced an instant of confusion – what did these markings mean? – then it snapped into place.

  Kayla was reaching for the knob.

  "No, wait! That's the wrong –"

  She grabbed the brass fixture.

  Something sizzled.

  Kayla screamed. She held up her hand, and Aaron saw with horror that the palm of the glove she had been wearing was gone, burnt away. The skin beneath sloughed off in ragged sheets. No blood – whatever had happened, it had so utterly destroyed the blood vessels that nothing flowed from them. They just burned, then charred, then disintegrated.

  The sizzling sound continued, as did Kayla's screams.

  Acid. Someone coated the doorknob with acid.

  The sizzling slowly stopped as Aaron watched. So did Kayla's screams, which petered into sobs. She clutched her hand tightly to her chest. "Not fair," she said. "Not fair. This isn't fair."

  1:18…

  1:17….

  Rob was swiveling back and forth between the countdown on the wall closest to him and the door to the hall. Aaron knew what he was thinking – he was thinking it himself.

  Acid on the doorknob. But Kayla grabbed it. Did it all come off on her?

  Does that mean we can get through there?

  Or is there something else waiting for us?

  "That's the only way out," said Rob. He didn't seem to notice Kayla, his attention fully taken by his possibilities of escape.

  He'd leave us here if it meant he could walk away. Wouldn't even think about it.

  Aaron felt sudden disgust. Not for Rob, but for himself.

  Why did I get into this?

  I had no choice. Dee –

  Liar. You chose this.

  Aaron looked back at the card – the map. His hands were shaking so badly he had to consciously will them to be still or he wouldn't even be able to see the small drawing.

  He stepped to a spot near the wall across from the fireplace. "Here."

  Rob started to join him, but turned and put an arm around Kayla's shoulders and helped her gently over. She had her good hand wrapped hard around the wrist of her bad one. The blood and dust that coated her face made her haunted eyes stand out in sharp relief. She looked like the victim of a virulent plague, no longer worried about death but waiting for it as a welcome relief.

  Aaron was surprised that Rob helped her over – that wasn't like him. Then he understood: the last escape had occurred only when all of them had stood in the right spot together – maybe they all had to be together to escape this room, too.

  Rob wasn't being kind, he was hedging his bets.

  Maybe not just bringing her over to be in the right spot with him, maybe he's counting on using her as a shield.

  Doesn't matter. Just get out of here. Get back to Dee.

  They stood at the spot. Waited.

  1:08….

  "Nothing's happening," said Rob.

  Aaron looked at the paper again, even though he knew what it would tell him.

  "This is it. This is the spot," he said. He pointed out the features. "There's the door, marked in red. So this has to be…." His voice fell away.

  "What?" said Rob. "What is it?"

  Aaron showed him, pointing at the small map. "Last time the drawing showed a green 'X.'"

  "So?"

  "So this time it's just part of the outer perimeter – just a green line." He looked at the map, then looked at the wall they stood before. "We have to go through."

  "How do we go through a wall?" said Kayla. Her voice was as dull and listless as her eyes. But she hadn't given up completely. Aaron was surprised how glad he was of that fact. She, like the rest of the group, had held him in contempt at best, been outright hostile at worst.

  But she doesn't deserve this.

  None of us do.

  (except me)

  Aaron took off his gloves. He rubbed his hands along the wall, feeling a bit foolish that he was really looking for something as clichéd as a hidden button or switch, but unable to come up with anything better.

  A moment later, Rob and Kayla joined him. They swept their hands back and forth – Kayla using her good hand while she kept the injured one shoved hard against her chest.

  Aaron let them keep feeling their way across the blank wall, abandoning the search for a moment so he could remove something from one of his pockets.

  The 3M Littman Master Cardiology stethoscope was the gold standard among surgeons and trauma doctors. It had a tunable diaphragm, allowing listeners to hear both low- and high-frequency sounds; an amplifier that could turn the volume up so the faintest sounds could be made out; and – perhaps one of the most important factors for ER doctors – the ear tips were designed to block out ambient noise and allow you to listen to breathing and heartbeat without having to weed out external sounds.

  All of that made it an excellent tool for safecrackers, too.

  Aaron popped the ear pieces in, then held the diaphragm against the wall in front of him. The gentle swish of Rob's and Kayla's fingers against the wall turned to loud thrums in his ears, but he tuned them out as background immediately.

  0:35….

  He tapped on the wall. Listened to the vibration it returned.

  He moved the stethoscope over a foot. Tapped again. Another spot. Another.

  0:25….

  0:24….

  He tapped. And this time found what he had been looking for. The wall itself was solid construction, no spots that seemed thinner and that might be easily broken into.

  But this spot was different. Only the slightest of changes in the tone of his tap, and anyone but a trained safecracker –

  (anyone but a criminal)

  – might have missed it.

  He put the stethoscope away, drawing out the light he had used to illuminate the fingerprints on the safe earlier.

  Seems like it happened so long ago. A lifetime.

  Certainly, for Tommy, that was exactly how long ago it had been: the length of a life, punctuated by his death.

  Aaron turned the light on. Ran it over the wall in the general area he had heard the difference.

  A smudge of fingertips glowed on one spot.

  Kayla and Rob had stopped searching and were now watching him closely.

  "What –" began Kayla.

  Aaron shook his head quickly, indicating she should be silent. He closed his eyes, blocking everything out but the task at hand.

  He reached out and lay his fingertips on the wall. Traced them back and forth, feeling for….

  There!

  He pulled a pen knife from another pocket. Pushed the tip against the nearly microscopic seam his sensitive fingers had found. Nothing happened for a moment, then the point sunk a millimeter into the wall. He wiggled the knife, and the blade pushed in a bit further. He pulled it back and forth as it sank, and soon a seam was visible to the eye.

  He kept wiggling. Pushing. Wiggling. Pushing.

  As soon as it was big enough, Aaron shoved the knife back in his pocket and jammed his fingers
into the crack, which went from the floor to the ceiling. He pulled.

  Nothing budged.

  "Help me!" he shouted. He glanced at the wall.

  0:15….

  Kayla and Rob each put their fingers into the crack. Pulled. The wall started to slide beneath their fingers. Even though he'd been expecting something like that to happen, the sensation of the wall itself moving was so strange Aaron nearly let go for a moment.

  They pulled, inch by inch.

  And as soon as the opening was wide enough – barely big enough to allow for a single person – Rob shoved both Aaron and Kayla out of the way. Kayla went down on her butt with a scream of pain. Rob didn't spare a single backward glance. Just shoved sideways through the crack, exhaling so he could get through the tight squeeze.

  0:05….

  0:04….

  Aaron saw the countdown. Knew he had to get out.

  Gotta live. Gotta get back to Dee.

  He turned away from the opening. Grabbed Kayla. Jerked her to her feet.

  0:03….

  0:02….

  He pulled himself through the opening.

  0:01….

  Yanked her after.

  Kayla squeezed through at the last possible moment. Her trailing leg exited the empty room only a fraction of an instant before the countdown ended.

  Aaron heard a sound he'd never heard before. It reminded him of a sword being unsheathed, or perhaps a knife being sharpened. But this was faster – both quieter and at the same time more lethal.

  He could see beyond Kayla, into the room they had just left.

  Nothing. Four walls. Skulls flashing on the walls. A table.

  The table fell. It separated into five pieces as it did: two-foot lengths of each leg collapsed in one direction, while the table top and the upper foot of each leg affixed to it fell in another.

  Aaron couldn't process it at first. It just looked like the table had spontaneously separated at an atomic level, electrons giving up their hold on one another so the legs fell apart at even heights.

  Something had cut the table. Had slashed across it so quickly and cleanly that the table had a full two seconds to wonder what had happened before falling to pieces.

  Aaron replayed the sound. That snick, with a metallic undertone that chilled. He thought of Tommy, tumbling into a wire so strong and fine it became a monofilament razor.

  He looked at the table again. And knew this was what would happen if that same line were whipped through the room at knee level. He shuddered as the weight of what they had just avoided crashed down on him.

  Then the wall slid back into place of its own accord. Shutting them out of the empty room… and into the next trap.

  32

  TJ picked his way forward in absolute darkness, wondering what was happening and how he had come to be caught up in it.

  Someone tried to hang Sue. Who would do that?

  That was the thought that kept pinging through his head as he inched his way forward: a thought with no satisfactory answer. He knew he was hiding from bigger questions – what was going on in general and how did they get out of it chief among them – but he couldn't seem to care. All that really mattered was that Sue was in danger. And he had no idea how to get her out of it.

  He didn't even know where he was, exactly. He had followed Susan into the trapdoor –

  (Who has a trapdoor beneath their bed?)

  – and found himself in a crawlspace of sorts. Sickeningly tight at first, it had broadened out into a tunnel in a few feet. Still claustrophobic, but he could at least get all the way to hands and knees instead of having to worm his way forward on his belly.

  Where are we going?

  What are we going to do?

  He had no answer to either question. He knew Sue was ahead, he could hear her scraping her way softly forward, but that was about the sum of his knowledge.

  Then he realized that he could see. It had been pitch black when he started forward, but now something illuminated the space. Not much, just a bare glow that turned everything into dusky shades of black on black. But he could make out the general outlines of his hands below him, the dim shading of Sue as she moved ahead.

  On his left, it was just a blank wall – the same kind of featureless expanse you'd probably see after being put in a coffin. To the right, though, it wasn't featureless at all. He could make out giant gears, wheels, and pulleys. Machinery of an unknown design, though it reminded him a bit of the inside of a huge clock.

  Something clicked. The machinery began moving, the rumbling click of gears' teeth biting into levers, shifting cables.

  What the hell –

  "Susan?" he whispered. The sound drowned out his words, so he raised his voice and said again, "Sue? What's happening?"

  She kept shuffling forward. The gears kept turning. Then there was a sharp click as the gears sprung something free. He heard a snick from somewhere overhead and then the machinery stopped. He didn't know what had just happened, but it sounded ominous.

  The image of an animal in a snare flitted through his mind. A small creature caught in a loop, then yanked high into the air where it would twitch helplessly until the hunter came to butcher it.

  He wasn't sure why the image came, but it made him shiver. He'd never seen or heard of anything like the machine to his side. But he knew in his gut that it was a dangerous thing, a bad thing.

  How can it even be here? Who built it?

  No answers. Only questions.

  "Sue, where are we going?"

  She finally spoke. Not to answer, though. It was just the same thing she'd already said. The words made his guts curl, made bile rise in his throat.

  "They did it. They really did it. I can't believe they did it. They did it…."

  She crawled on. He followed.

  And feared.

  33

  Rob saw what happened in the room behind them. Heard the sound, saw a flash of something that glimmered in the air, then the table fell to pieces.

  This is impossible. Impossible.

  But it wasn't, of course. Unreasonable, unlikely, unfair, yes –

  (why does everything happen to me?)

  – but clearly not impossible, because it was happening to him right now.

  They had come through what looked like a solid wall. The moment after the trap sprung in the room they had just left, that wall slid shut behind them of its own accord, becoming a wall again.

  They had entered the next room in line.

  The game room.

  Calling it that, even in his mind, made Rob want to cringe.

  What game are we going to play now?

  And what happens if I lose?

  That was the important question. He didn't really care what the game was, didn't really mind that the others were playing. The only thing that mattered was how he could get through it. Everything – and everyone – else was secondary.

  The game room was as cavernous as every other space in this horrible place. A rectangular room that in more normal times would be the envy of anyone. On the outer wall, a sixty-inch television sat on a cabinet. The cabinet itself had glass doors, allowing him to see the gaming consoles – everything Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo had ever dreamed up or probably would dream up in the next five years – the Blu-ray player, the DVR, and a couple other rectangles of metal and plastic he couldn't even identify at first glance.

  A dart board hung in a cabinet affixed to another wall, professional-quality with chalk scoreboards and different-colored darts in neat rows.

  A couch sat against another wall.

  An air hockey table hunkered in the middle of it all. A wood body clad in aluminum rails, the words "GOLD STANDARD HOCKEY" written in gold lettering on the sides. A red puck and two white mallets sitting inert on the blue table top. The kind of thing that brought to mind dates at an arcade, or pizza places, or any of a million other good memories.

  Now, in this place, it looked like a dark monster.

  Espec
ially with the folded card sitting at the far end of the table.

  Kayla coughed. She sagged against the wall they had just come through. The sawdust on her face had mixed with her sweat and her brother's blood to create a cracking mask that amplified her pained expression. She still had her wounded hand –

  (how did that happen how did they know someone would try the door?)

  – still jammed in the crook of her other elbow.

  Aaron moved slowly around the side of the hockey table, heading for the card.

  "Stop!" shouted Rob. To his credit, Aaron froze instantly.

  At least he can get that right.

  It's his fault we're here. If he'd just gotten the safe open the way he should've….

  Rob knew he wasn't talking about tonight's job. He was talking about the one that had started his downward slide. The slide that had ended here.

  His fault. All of it.

  "What is it?" said Aaron. He had been about to take another step when Rob spoke, and even now he was balanced on his toes, leaning forward as though waiting for gravity to tumble him into his next step.

  "How did they get all this going?"

  Aaron shook his head. "I don't – what do you mean?"

  "The freaks in the masks. Happyface and Sadface. The people doing this. How did they get it all going so fast? The doors and that bulletproof shield and… and everything?"

  Aaron shrugged. "Automatic. Has to be. They couldn't be triggering things manually, not and have them so precise and fast."

  "Yeah," said Rob. He looked around. "But triggered by what? And what will trigger this room?"

  "Thermal sensor?" Kayla said. Her voice was weak and ragged, but at least she had her head in the game. Rob had thought she might have completely checked out mentally. Which didn't mean she'd be useless, he guessed – sometimes when you're being chased by wolves, you don't need to be faster than they are to get away… you just need to throw them someone slower than you are.

  Rob shook his head. "A thermal or a motion sensor would have triggered the second we came in. This…. Something's starting things up after we get in each room." He looked around. "I don't see any cams."