The Box

by Brian Harmon

Brandy looked down at the flashlight. She remembered him telling her that she could take it and go, that she could just leave him down here in the darkness. She’d actually been tempted to do just that. Now she felt ashamed of that urge. “I couldn’t have done that,” she said at last, and realized that it was the truth. “I couldn’t have gotten out on my own. I would’ve been too scared.” She looked at him again, but he was not looking back at her. “Besides, I couldn’t just leave you there. What if you never came back? You couldn’t have found your way out of here in the dark and I never could’ve lived with myself for just leaving you to die.”

  Albert stared into the darkness. “But I could’ve been the bad guy.”

  “I don’t think you are. If you were, I think I would’ve found out before now.”

  “You could’ve called the police. They would’ve come to get me.”

  “True. But what if they came down here and found you dead?”

  Albert could think of no response for that.

  “Then I’d live with the guilt for sure and they’d probably put me away for abandoning you like that.”

  “I’m sure they would’ve understood.”

  “Can we please not talk about this? It’s upsetting me.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be.” She smiled a little. Perhaps he was the bad guy, but if so, he was hiding it very well. It didn’t really matter anyway. By the time they’d reached the sex room, she was already at his mercy and would be until they were back above ground.

  And so far he’d been a perfect gentleman. Except for that whole sex room thing, of course. But she hadn’t exactly played hard-to-get back there.

  No, he didn’t fit the part of a killer. In fact, he was the only thing making her feel remotely safe down here. Although she would admit that his ability to solve the puzzles in this place was extremely creepy at times.

  “Ready to go on?” Albert asked, standing up.

  “Yeah.”

  The two of them had barely completed another lap around the hole when the ground finally came into view.

  A short passage led into the next room and as Albert peered inside, he saw that it was cavernous, perhaps the size of the maze they spied from the bridge, its ceiling far too high to see with what light they carried.

  “Wow.”

  “Yeah.” Albert gazed around at the room as he passed through it. He expected to find something down here. He expected to see a statue materialize out of the gloom, another bridge, more water, some sort of obstacle to overcome, but the room was empty. Again Albert felt that strange sense of wrongness. This room shouldn’t have been here. It served no visible purpose, yet here it was. He looked around, paranoid, feeling as though something was watching them, waiting for them to drop their guard, perhaps.

  But there was nothing.

  Before them appeared a huge wall of stone and a small corridor leading through it. There was nothing more to the room. It was just a vast, empty space. Albert supposed that it could have been intended for some purpose other than traps and obstacles. It could have been a banquet hall of some sort, for example. But he didn’t think so. Nothing else in this labyrinth seemed to serve any purpose other than to impede their way forward.

  They ducked into the short passage in the far wall and into the next room. Here, they stopped and stood. Albert’s musings about the empty room behind them vanished from his thoughts at once. They stood side-by-side, staring forward, neither of them surprised, but both of them nearly sick at the reality of the sight before them.

  “Fuck.”

  “Fuck,” Albert agreed.

  The room was twenty feet high and twenty feet wide. Too far to see the other end. Three pairs of sentinels were visible, lined up against the walls on either side. The first were standing straight, their feet together, hands at their sides, grotesquely long penises limp and pointed at the floor. Like their brothers in the last two rooms like this, each pair was slightly different than the one before.

  What more could this hellish place give them? It already drove them to lust and tried to make them hate. But Albert already knew what was coming. He knew because he was surprised it wasn’t the first.

  Brandy took his hand and the two of them started forward, watching as the sentinels slowly mimed out their message. They raised their hands, not to threaten, as they did the last time, but to defend. They bent their knees and sank into a crouch as their long, thin arms crossed before their empty faces. Soon they were sitting, their knees sprawled out, their faces uplifted in an expressionless shriek. There was no aggression in them now. The final pair of sentinels sat with their backs arched and their necks stretched out as they threw their heads back in what could only have been a howl of such ferocious terror that even without faces, they appeared to have completely plunged into madness.

  The face that appeared in the far wall made their stomachs boil with acid, their hearts pound like machines and their skin tingle with gooseflesh despite the sweat clinging to their weary bodies. It was the face of a woman, but different from the first one. This woman was heavier, her face rounder, her features pudgier. She was fairer than the lusting woman and had a mole under her right eye. Her mouth was open in a frozen and silent scream so fierce that, had she been real, her vocal cords could not possibly have gone undamaged. Her eyes bulged with terror, her lips peeled back. It was the face of sudden madness, of fright so terrible it could kill.

  “Albert, I don’t know if I can.”

  “Of course you can.”

  “No. I’m scared.”

  “So am I.”

  “Please, Albert.”

  He turned and squeezed her hand. “This has got to be the last one. The only emotion as powerful as lust, hate and fear is love and I doubt if Cupid’s got a pad down here.” It was a lie though. He was sure that any mind sick enough to create these three rooms was also capable of forcing other emotions into dangerous levels. Sorrow, and even joy, could become too much to bear under the right circumstances.

  She stared at him, pleading with her eyes, and it broke his heart.

  “You did wonderful in the hate room. You didn’t feel any hate at all.”

  “But I didn’t feel any hate before I went in. I’m already scared.”

  “But you won’t be any more scared if you don’t let yourself be. I’ll be right beside you, holding onto you the whole time. I promise.”

  She stared at him, suddenly trembling with fright. “I don’t know.”

  “I do. You’re a brave girl. I’ve seen it.”

  “I’m scared.”

  “I know.”

  “What if I can’t go on? What if we get in there and I can’t go any farther?”

  “Then we’ll turn around.”

  She stared up at him, her eyes pleading. “Promise?”

  “Promise. I wouldn’t make you go on. You know that.” He gazed into her eyes, pleading with her. “I just want you to try.”

  Brandy did know that. Even in the short time they’d spent together in this strange labyrinth of stone, she somehow knew that he would take care of her. Something deep inside her heart knew with certainty that he was not deceiving her.

  She took a deep breath, gathered strength from his touch and his honest eyes and then removed her glasses. She stepped up to the woman’s face and stared at her, terrified of what lay waiting in her throat.

  Albert stepped behind her and put his hands on her bare hips. “I’m right behind you.”

  “You said earlier, before we went into the hate room…why have another room like this when, if you got through one, you probably knew the secret?”

  “Yes I did.”

  “Well?”

  “I’m right here. I’m not going to let anything hurt you. Be as careful as you can. Watch where you step; watch what you touch. I’ll be right here the whole time.”

  She took another deep breath and stepped into the woman’s mouth.

  Chapter 18

  Shapes in gray materialized as Brandy
entered the fear room. For the first time in her life, she wished her eyes were actually worse than they were. A single stone statue stood before her. She could not tell if it was male or female, human or otherwise, but its arms were outstretched, almost a cruciform pose. She felt her way around it, gently feeling her way across the floor, her bare toes tracing the unseen path before her.

  This room was bigger than the others. She could feel it. All around her, limbs were reaching toward her. She turned right, then left, then right again, slipping around statues of things she knew would drive her mad if she could see them.

  Seeking distraction, she began to sing softly to herself as she walked, trying to focus on the words to Robert Frost’s poem, “The Road Less Traveled,” that she used to sing in choir when she was in high school.

  An aisle spread out before her between the gray forms, and the silhouette of a woman appeared at its end. This woman was on her knees, bent painfully backward. Brandy could barely see it, but from her angle the profile of the breasts and chin and upturned face were clear, and she could only imagine what might have caused her to take that pose. Something was standing in front of the woman, something big and animal-like, something that she could not make out at all, but that scared her nonetheless, as though the shape reminded her of something, something locked away deep in her mind, something forgotten all her life, too terrible to remember.

  “How are you doing?” Albert asked.

  “Okay. I’m scared. I don’t think this room’s as nice as the last one. It still scares me.”

  “That’s because you’re scared of it.”

  “No. There’s something else.”

  There was a pause from Albert as he considered this and then, “Just hang in there, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “And be careful.”

  “I am.”

  Every step was painfully cautious, her mind flooded with agonizing certainty that the next would bring unspeakable pain. Beneath her bare feet was cool stone, smooth and hard, and she tried to focus on that, tried to see only the floor, the flat, cold surface that could be her undoing if it should suddenly end, but all around her, hulking figures loomed, figures that were almost unseen by her poor eyes, but were there nonetheless, as much in her mind as in the room. She felt Albert squeeze her hips reassuringly and tried to focus on that, tried to focus on him, on his companionship, on his friendship, on his courage, and when she could not, she focused on his sexuality, on the sex room and what they’d done together. She forced herself to remember how he felt inside her, how they’d attacked each other and did what could not possibly be called making love even by the most perverse joker. They “fucked.” That’s what they did. The two of them, no telling how many miles underground, in a room full of stone pornography, threw away all their modesty and shame and morals and they fucked each other like animals. She recalled the act—what she could remember of it—and focused on it, though she’d hardly let herself think of it until now. She grew hot, her stomach knotting. She reminded herself that they were still naked and that she could have him again if she wanted. He wouldn’t turn her down, not even down here. She reminded herself of this and it made her hotter, more excited. She could have turned around and fucked him again, as hard and loveless as she did in the sex room, right there amid the ageless terror of the fear room. She knew she could. That sexuality scared her. That excitement terrified her. The effects of the sex room were still with her and embracing it was like embracing a deadly sea snake, its slimy, coiling body writhing against her skin, but she embraced it nonetheless. She gorged herself on it, for the fear of her lust was not as great as her fear of the fear. Yet the terror of the fear room was still there. The fear still surrounded her. Even unrestrained lust could not push it back entirely.

  She stopped. Before her, amid the dark, shapeless forms, something stood blocking her path, something that was a good head shorter than she, but made up for its height in breadth. She told herself she could see nothing, not a thing, only shadows and forms and blurry gray blobs, but she could not take her eyes off it. It was familiar to her, like a forgotten childhood boogeyman lurking in the closet, peering out at her from the darkness and grinning hungrily. A memory rushed back to her, a memory buried so deep inside her brain that it could not possibly have been her own. A cloudless sky, a burning sun, dunes of sand… She closed her eyes and forced away the image. That memory was not her own. That was the memory of a desert and she had never in her life been to a desert. But the image persisted. There was something in the sand, something hungry and clever and merciless.

  “What’s wrong?”

  She realized that she was standing motionless, completely distracted by those creepy thoughts. “Nothing,” she replied. But it wasn’t nothing. She started forward again, walking around the stone creature. She did not look at it again. She kept her eyes aimed firmly forward, yet it was still there, tempting her. She could see things in her mind, horrible things, things (screaming, terrible screaming) that could only be from her own imagination but somehow weren’t. These things were all real. She slipped around the statue, turned to avoid another one and was suddenly in a corner of stone. Blurred faces stared back at her, all of them screaming, some in terror, some in terrible glee, others in complete madness. Panic shot through her like an electric bolt.

  “Albert!”

  “I’m here.” He could feel her rapid breathing. He pulled her back against him and felt the hammering of her heart.

  “The path is blocked!”

  “It’s okay. Just backtrack a little.”

  “I can’t!”

  He let go of her hips and slipped his arms around her, hugging her. “They’re just stone. This room’s just an obstacle. We can get past it.”

  Brandy shook her head. “I’m too scared.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “I can’t.”

  He hugged her closer. “You’re braver than this. I know you are. You’re the bravest girl I’ve ever known. Look what you’ve already done. Don’t let some stupid statues get the better of you.” These were big words to speak for someone as scared as he was. He told her to go on, begged her to get a grip and keep moving, but his own brain was screaming at him to turn back. He could not see the statues at all, and still he was afraid. He could not imagine how terrified she must be, seeing all the things she saw, even with her eyes in her purse and the world a permanent cloud of haze. “I know you’re stronger than that,” he whispered into her ear.

  Brandy sniffed back the tears that had formed in her eyes. The terror was intense, but Albert was right. They were just stone, and reason was reason. They could not hurt her. “Okay.”

  Albert dropped his arms from around her and grasped her hips again, and then the two of them turned and backtracked.

  The statues in the sex room were a jumbled mess, but it was a mess that was reasonably easy to navigate. The hate room was worse, but she had assumed it was because she was blind. Now she realized that the rooms were getting more complicated, each one designed to be more of a maze than the last. She wondered what would happen if they could not find their way back and quickly forced that thought away.

  An odd form appeared ahead of her and to her right. It seemed human, but oddly stretched out of proportion. She stared at it for a moment before it occurred to her that this was one of the sentinels. He stood amid shorter statues, straight and tall, his arms outstretched over the heads of those formless things around him.

  She went toward him, wondering. There were none of these statues in the sex room. Those were all human.

  But she did not dwell on the statue’s presence for long. Behind it, she saw another statue that was clearly not human. It was close to the floor, spread out across the space it occupied, and there, just beyond this creature, was a square opening, barely visible to her poor eyes in the pale light.

  “I found the door!”

  “Look first.”

  Brandy was already taking her glasses from her purse. “We�
��re not there yet.” She stepped around the sentinel, forcing herself to move slowly, watching each step, knowing that to forget the hate room was to forget to survive.

  She edged around the last statue, a beast that reminded her of an animal, but seemed twice as wide as it should have been. She brushed it with her leg and felt a sharp pain.

  “Ouch!”

  “What’s wrong?”

  She touched her leg where the pain was and lifted her finger in front of her face. She was bleeding, but not badly. “I cut myself.”

  “What?”

  “It’s not bad,” she assured him. “It was a statue. It’s got a claw or something. Be careful.”

  “Okay.”

  She pushed forward, encouraged by the sight of the door just ahead of her.

  “We’re here,” she announced.

  “Be careful.”

  She slipped the glasses onto her face and peered into the next room as she did in the hate room. She knew her mistake at once, but there was no undoing it. She turned, her eyes squeezed fiercely shut against the image that was already burned into her brain, and threw herself into Albert’s arms.

  Albert stumbled backward a step, startled, and his eyes flew open.

  He saw what Brandy had seen. He saw it clearly, even though the flashlight was sandwiched between their bodies, its beam reduced to a narrow slit.

  This door did not exit the fear room. It entered another chamber of it.

  The next room was narrow and curved, filled with more statues like those that surrounded them. One stood out from the others, the first in the room, looming in front of them. He closed his eyes at once, frightened so badly he could not bear to look upon it, but still he saw the horrible image. In his head it went on and on, his mind unable to close its eye.

  The statue showed a woman, naked like all the rest down here. Her face was contorted into an expression of terror and agony. She was up to her waist in a hole in the floor. Curved spikes rose from the rim of this hole and dug cruel gouges into the flesh of her hips and waist. Three other people, two men and one woman, each as naked as the day they were born, were shoving her down into the hole from where grotesque things that looked like something between tentacles and talons clawed at her, pulling her to her death below. The statue could have been the work of any artist obsessed with the macabre except for the terrifying detail. The terror and pain on the woman’s face and the mad glee in the eyes of her murderers were too intense, too real for anyone other than a madman to recreate. But there was more to the statue than just the intensity and the reality. There was something much deeper than just the image. What startled him, what terrified him beyond his imagination, was the familiarity of the statue. This scene was not something merely imagined by some mad artist. This was a life-sized portrait of the past. Somewhere, sometime, lost in eternity, this event really took place. The murderers were real. The woman was real. The thing in the hole was real…