by Brian Harmon
“Knowing our luck,” Brandy said, “we probably aren’t anywhere near done.”
“Maybe this place just keeps on going forever,” Nicole added.
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” said Albert.
“How many clues do you have left in your box?” Wayne asked.
“Two.”
Again, silence fell over them. The passage went on and on, until each of them had begun to wonder if it would ever end. How far down could they possibly go? How deep into the earth had they already traveled? It didn’t seem possible that anything could go so deep.
But the passage did eventually end and the room that awaited them at the bottom was almost as big as the entrances to the emotion rooms.
They exited from one of several dozen doorways and walked out into the open chamber.
Brandy fished in Albert’s backpack and removed the tube of sidewalk chalk. Albert had seen this at the store a few months ago and purchased it on a whim. It had seemed a much more useful tool for marking the way than the paint can. She used it to mark both sides of the passage they had just exited (Albert was amused to see that she wrote “Brandy + Albert” on one side in a big heart) and then returned the chalk to the tube.
In the very center, they found a single stone sentinel. It stood not straight and stiff like many of its kind, but in a casual pose, with its feet slightly apart and one arm dangling at its side. Its other hand was lifted, its long fingers curled into a sort of half-fist. Its head was cocked to one side. Even without a face, the sentinel seemed caught in a moment of pondering, confused by the many passages that surrounded it, as if wondering which way it should go.
Albert barely acknowledged the statue in the center of the room. He could see its meaning, and it was nothing he hadn’t already guessed for himself. Only one way was the right way. The rest would take them to the maze or to some other horrible place they did not want to go. The real question was, which way was the right way?
The box would tell.
He did not have to retrieve it from the backpack. He knew what was inside. He’d looked the items over more times than he could count, daydreaming about this fantastic place, wondering what secrets may lie hidden beyond the fear room.
He began on the right and circled the room, shining his flashlight into each tunnel as he passed it. So far, the clues had been near the entrance to the tunnel he was supposed to take. This time would be no different.
On the far side of the room, in one of the last passageways that led off to the right, Albert spied something on the floor.
He stepped into the tunnel for a closer look and felt his stomach roll over as he realized what he was looking at. He stopped walking and actually took a step back.
“What is it?” Brandy asked from behind him.
Albert braced himself. This wasn’t likely to be pleasant, but he had to go on. He walked up to the thing and knelt beside it for a closer look.
“Is that what I think it is?” Wayne asked, sounding sick.
Albert did not have to reply. Before him lay the mummified remains of a man. He leaned over it, examining it. There were no visible scars, no markings to indicate how he had died, not so much as a torn piece of clothing. After seeing the shattered bones in and around the decision room, he did not think that the hounds had been involved. But what did he really know about them? He still hadn’t even seen one.
The man was lying in a pose that seemed unnatural, and Albert soon realized why. It looked to him as though the body had been dragged here from somewhere else in the temple. He could see where the shoulders of the man’s jacket had been gripped while he was being moved.
The man was dressed to an earlier time, in a dark gray suit with a vest and tie, but he was well disheveled. The clothes themselves were covered with gray, clotted stains. From the left breast pocket of his vest hung a silver chain.
“It’s Wendell Gilbert,” Albert said, as fascinated by the body as he was repulsed by it. He stared at the corpse’s white hair and shriveled face, still vaguely able to see the man from the newspaper clipping he now carried in his box. “This is where the pocket watch came from.”
Wayne and the girls slowly approached him, looking almost as though they expected Wendell to sit up and say boo.
“So this is what happened to him,” Brandy said thoughtfully.
Albert nodded. “Looks like he was after the same thing we are. Whatever that is.”
“I’d say he didn’t make it,” said Wayne.
“He made it a long way,” Albert pointed out. “Especially considering he’s still wearing his clothes.”
“Hey, yeah,” Nicole said. “Why did he get to keep his clothes?” She crossed her arms over her breasts as she was again reminded that she was naked.
“Don’t complain,” Wayne said. “You’re naked, but he’s dead. I’d say you got the better end of the deal.”
She was hardly able to dispute that reasoning.
Albert reached out and touched the corpse, patting at its chest and belly, repulsed by the hardness of the body. It was more like touching wood than flesh.
“What are you doing?” Brandy asked. She sounded disgusted and Albert could hardly blame her.
“I was hoping he’d have a journal on him, something we could use, but I guess not.” He rose to his feet and looked down the tunnel ahead. “I guess we’re going this way.”
Wayne reached down and pulled a chunk of the gray stuff from one of Gilbert’s sleeves. “It’s mortar,” he said, looking up at Albert.
“I know. I saw that.”
“What does it mean?” asked Nicole.
“It means,” explained Albert, “that Wendell Gilbert came here right after he built those brick walls inside Gilbert House.” He looked down at the hands, the fingers half-curled in death. Even after all these decades, he could still see the gray residue that was caked on them. These were the very same hands that had smeared the mortar across the walls on the first floor of Gilbert House all those decades ago.
Brandy and Nicole stared at the body, unable to reply.
“He didn’t even bother to change,” Albert continued.
“What does that mean to us?” Nicole asked. “Is it important?”
Albert shook his head. “I don’t know. Probably not. It’s just curious. It certainly helps connect Gilbert House to the temple.” He turned and shined his light down the tunnel, wondering what lay ahead. “Come on. Let’s go.”
The four of them began to walk again.
“Bye, Wendell,” Wayne said humorlessly as he walked past the corpse. He did not feel too sorry for him. This was, after all, the maniac who built Gilbert House. Perhaps the old man had only gotten what he deserved.
Chapter 16
The room at the end of this newest passage was empty, with a tall ceiling and a second door straight across from the first. It was almost identical to the one in which Beverly Bridger apparently went mad. The only difference was that this room was slightly larger.
Albert looked up at the ceiling, a feeling of deep uneasiness flowing into him, growing into something like dread. In what must have been his imagination, he faintly heard that far away sound of a chain as it rattled once and then fell silent.
“Something wrong?” asked Brandy. It seemed a stupid question to her. Of course something was wrong. She could see it in Albert’s face. His expression always gave away his concern.
Albert shook his head. “It’s just…”
“Like the other one,” Nicole finished for him. “It’s like the one Beverly was afraid of.”
Albert nodded. “Yeah. Feels creepy here.”
Wayne looked up at the ceiling. There was only cold stone and emptiness. “I don’t feel any different than I did in the last room.”
Nicole agreed. She didn’t feel any difference either, but there was still something creepy about the room.
Brandy said nothing. Perhaps she did feel something, a creepy little tingle, an odd urge to brace herself for something scary
, or maybe that was all in her imagination. After what happened to Beverly, she kept expecting some invisible talon to slash out of the darkness and tear out her heart.
“Let’s just keep moving,” Albert said. He did not like the empty rooms, especially after Beverly’s reaction to the first one. He had an odd feeling that if he possessed that psychic connection to a deeper, more intricate world that she apparently did, the room might not look so empty after all.
The four of them hurried through this room and into the next tunnel. Nothing attacked them as they crossed. Nothing tried to stop them. The room was empty. They were alone.
Ahead of them, a short distance down this next tunnel, Albert spied another abrupt drop and he forgot about the empty room. He peered into the lower passage with his flashlight. The floor of the lower tunnel was about six feet down, just like the ones they’d previously encountered.
He climbed down and searched the passage ahead with his light, his head cocked, listening.
Brandy sat down on the ledge behind him, meaning to follow him, but Albert motioned for her to stay back. “What is it?” she asked.
Albert hushed her. “Hounds,” he explained after a moment.
“What?” Brandy sounded startled. “Do you see them?”
“No. Don’t hear any, either, but they’re here. Or at least they’ve been here before.”
“How can you tell?”
“Scratches on the floor.”
“The hounds made those?” Brandy asked.
Albert nodded. “I’m going to assume they did. The only other surfaces that were scratched up like this were in the room where we found that first one, the room with the dying sentinels. The blind man said they couldn’t jump, so places like these must be like cattle guards to them.”
“So what do we do?” Wayne asked.
“We be careful. Come on.” He turned and gave Brandy and Nicole a hand. Then he stepped back and gave Wayne room to hop down.
“Hey,” Wayne said, sounding concerned. “That weird blind guy said these things hunt by smell, right?”
“That’s right,” Albert confirmed. “That’s why we had to go naked. I know it doesn’t make any sense. If they can smell our clothes they can smell us.”
“And I know they can smell blood.” Wayne held out his hand, which was still smeared with dried blood from the cut on his belly.
Albert stared at Wayne’s bloody hand for a moment. He was right. He had almost overlooked that detail. “Let’s just hope that they’re all still keeping busy trying to get at our underwear.”
“But last time you were down here,” Nicole said, more than a little afraid, “One of them found its way back.”
Albert nodded. “I know. If you hear that noise, head for higher ground. Remember, they can’t jump.”
“Says the creepy blind guy who stole our clothes,” Wayne added.
He was right. They were trusting the word of a strange man who hadn’t even allowed them a complete explanation. “It’s all we’ve got,” Albert replied.
The four of them continued on, each of them feeling jumpy, afraid that at any moment one of those horrible things would lunge out of the darkness, snapping and drooling.
“So you had a close encounter with one of these things?” asked Wayne.
“Damn near took my leg off,” Albert recounted.
“So did you see what they look like?”
“No. We were too busy running for our lives.”
Wayne nodded. That figured. He wished he had some idea what it was they were up against. The unknown was always the most frightening.
The passage leading to the next room was longer than any of them would have liked. Albert wondered as he walked what the hounds were. Just the word “hound” made him think of hellish canines or raging wolves, but no dog that he could imagine would make the kinds of sounds they had heard while standing over that maze. So what the hell were they?
The tunnel suddenly opened up and the four of them stopped and gaped. They were standing on a stone bridge spanning what appeared to be an enormous chasm. It was only about thirty feet across, but they could see no walls for as far as their lights would reach both left and right, nor could they see a ceiling or a floor.
“Oh my god,” said Nicole. She stared down into the darkness below them, amazed by the sheer size of this place. “It’s like a canyon.” On either side of them there was a sort of railing, a two and a half foot segment of wall, perhaps to keep the hounds from plunging to their doom.
To their left, just within sight, another bridge spanned the seemingly bottomless gap, connecting two nearby tunnels. On their right and below them was another. A third loomed above them on the right, barely visible in the darkness.
The walls were not coarse rock, but the same smooth stone they had been seeing since they entered the temple. Whoever built the Temple of the Blind built this chasm along with it. But for what purpose?
Albert could also make out several open passages in the chasm wall without bridges, and he could too easily imagine rushing through the labyrinth, perhaps running from one of the hounds, and plunging into that bottomless darkness.
“It’s enormous,” Brandy marveled. “How big do you think this place is?”
Albert shook his head as he gazed down. He wished he’d thought to buy some flares. He could have dropped one of them over the edge to see how far down it fell. “Gilbert House was in another world. For all we know, we could be in that world now, or in some entirely other world. This labyrinth could be as big as a planet and we wouldn’t have a clue.”
Nicole stared down into the darkness below. She thought she could make out another bridge way down there somewhere, but she couldn’t quite see that far. “How long do you think we could be down here?”
“There’s no telling,” Albert replied. “But the blind man seems to think we can do it, so it can’t be too far. Besides, my box is almost used up. There’s only one clue left.”
“We should really keep moving,” urged Wayne. He was looking back the way they’d come and thinking about the scratches on the floor.
Albert nodded. “You’re right. Let’s go.” He started forward, thinking again about those flares. He could kick himself for not thinking of that. He could have dropped one off that other bridge, too, the one that stretched out over the maze. Maybe they could have caught a quick look at one of the hounds that way. Then he’d at least have some idea what they were up against.
Beyond the chasm, the passage led forward for another fifty yards before it abruptly ended in a wide chamber. Here, there were four new passages to choose from.
A sentinel stood guard at the center of this chamber. Like most of his kind, he offered no help. He was facing them as they entered, and stood with his feet together and his arms inquisitively outstretched, illustrating the choice with which they were faced.
The statue’s feet and legs were covered in the same scratches that marred the floor around it.
As Albert walked to the first of these four tunnels, searching for the clue he knew had to be here somewhere, Nicole stopped and sat down on the cold, stone floor in front of the statue. “My feet are killing me,” she groaned.
“Mine too,” admitted Brandy. She leaned against the wall and rubbed her aching left foot.
Albert could feel the pain in his feet as well, but he dared not stop here to rest, not where there were scratches in the stone.
He found what he was looking for in the second tunnel. It was farther away than the other items had been, perhaps kicked out of place by one of the hounds, but it was there, the handle of an old, rusted dagger. He bent and picked it up, examining it. The blade had been shattered at its hilt, broken clean, but the piece in his backpack had been broken off at an angle. This indicated that there was at least one more piece of the blade, but he saw no sign of it in this passage.
But then again, there were also no bones in this passage. He’d seen no bones at all since the decision room, in fact. He remembered the way Wen
dell Gilbert’s body had looked, how it had apparently been dragged to its final resting place from wherever he originally fell. He wondered how far people had actually made it through this labyrinth in the past. Surely no one could have gotten this far without the kind of clues he’d been given in the box. The blind man must have taken this dagger from another part of the labyrinth. The remaining piece or pieces were probably still where it was originally dropped.
“Something wrong?” asked Nicole.
“No. Just thinking.”
“About what?”
“Just stuff. Nothing important. Come on. This is the way.”
But before they could move, a noise rose in the darkness. It was a distant sound, but a violent one, a sudden roar that sounded more mechanical than organic. It was a hound.
“Come on,” Albert urged. “Hurry.”
Nicole was off the floor and at Albert’s side in a flash. Brandy and Wayne both hesitated a moment, their eyes wide, their ears sharp and alert, listening to the distant sound of apparent death, but then they, too, were moving.
The four of them rushed into the next passage. Behind them, the noise of the hound began to fade, the source apparently moving in the other direction, but they hurried anyway, terrified that it may still catch their scent and give chase.
In their fright, this tunnel seemed to go on forever, but soon enough the wall appeared ahead of them, the next passage elevated safely beyond the reach of the still-unseen hounds.
“God,” Wayne said, panting. He turned and stared back as the others climbed into the higher passage. “I really don’t like those things.”
Albert nodded agreement. “It’s such an odd noise they make. I can’t place it.”
“What do you think they are?” Brandy asked.
Albert had no idea. Nobody did. But the appearance of this one helped to support Albert’s theory about the scratches in the floor. There definitely seemed to be a connection between them. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s keep moving. My box is used up. We’ve got to be close now.”
Chapter 17
