Cyclops Road

by Jeff Strand

  Send only your disbeliever. All others will perish.

  "This is devastating," says Harriett. "I thought we'd all go together."

  "So I'm going to play really, really stupid for a minute," I say. "What exactly does this mean?"

  "It means that, to acquire the weapon, you'd have to descend into the well by yourself."

  I nod. "That's what I thought it meant, but I wanted a second opinion."

  "I'm sorry, Evan," says Harriett. "I had no idea."

  "I'm not real inclined to go down there."

  "I understand."

  "We have another disbeliever, don't we? Maraud?"

  Maraud shakes his head. "I'm skeptical, yeah, but not a disbeliever. Not after those dreams."

  "I'm skeptical too," says Jeannie. "But obviously I believe to some degree, or I wouldn't have flown here and left my grandson in charge of my business."

  "I'm totally a believer," says Seth. "Otherwise I'd go down there in a heartbeat."

  I lean over the side and gaze into the well. There's a rusty metal ladder on the inside that leads down into complete darkness. It does not look inviting.

  "Okay, I'm not, I just, I think...um, I'm not...crap."

  Harriett looks like she's near tears. "I've said all along that this is optional. Nobody is going to make you do this."

  I can tell there's a "but" coming.

  "But lives are at stake," she says. "Many lives. And to save them, I'll have to go down there myself."

  "It says that you'll perish."

  "I know. But I've spent my whole life preparing for this. It's a risk I'll have to take. I can't walk away."

  I sigh with frustration. "Okay. Fine. Fine. I will climb down into the dark scary well. You guys won't let anything happen to me, right?"

  "Not a chance," says Seth. "We'll give you moral support the entire way, I promise."

  "You'll be a hero," Harriett tells me.

  "Don't butter me up," I say. "I'd better not die down there."

  "I'm confident that you won't."

  "If I die, I'm haunting every single one of you," I say. "I'm not sure how to arrange that, but I'll figure that shit out."

  I take the flashlight from Seth, turn it on, and shine it down into the well. I can't see the bottom, just a dark void.

  I guess I'd assumed that there would be no well, so I hadn't considered whether I would actually go down there. Most likely, I would have volunteered to be the guy to keep watch up above. I'm not remotely convinced that some magical force will kill Harriett if she goes down there instead of me, but it feels awful to let her take the risk.

  Does that make me a believer?

  No. I just don't want to be an asshole.

  It's a well. How dangerous can it be?

  I pick up a rock and drop it down. It takes about ten seconds to hear the clack as it lands. At least it wasn't a splash. And at least the well isn't bottomless.

  "If you hear me scream, I expect somebody to come down and rescue me," I say.

  "We will," Harriett promises.

  "What exactly am I looking for?"

  "I don't know. Some sort of weapon."

  "What if it's a nuclear warhead that I can't get back up the ladder?"

  "We'll worry about that if it happens."

  "All right." I sit on the side of the well and swing my legs over the edge. I take a deep breath to work up my courage, although again, it's just a well. I'm not jogging over a minefield. Everything is going to be simply dandy.

  I climb onto the ladder. Feels reasonably secure. There's no immediate indication that it's going to collapse and send me plummeting to my death.

  I glare at each of the others in turn, Maraud-style, and then slowly climb down. This isn't so frightening. In fact, it's a grand adventure. How many people get to climb down into an ancient well? I can't think of a single person that I know who's had this experience. They'll probably be jealous when I tell them about it later, after I don't die.

  "You're doing wonderfully," says Harriett.

  "I've gone down four rungs."

  "You're still doing wonderfully. We adore you."

  I continue climbing. After another ten or so rungs, I start to believe my own hype about it not being that scary. It's fine. The ladder is secure, the oxygen level seems fine, and I don't hear any growling around me. No problem. Everything is delightful.

  "Excellent job so far, Evan," Harriet calls down. "You are the finest climber I've ever seen."

  "You rock, Evan," says Seth.

  "Enough," I tell them. "I'll shriek if I need you."

  I'm about fifty feet down in the well when I shine the flashlight beam over an engraving that's as large as I am. It depicts a face. A demon face. Horns, an evil fanged smile...all of the things you do not want to see when you're climbing down into a dark well.

  The message seems to be: Hi there! You're descending into Hell!

  The demon face has both of its eyes.

  "Is everything all right down there?" asks Harriett. "Are you just taking a rest break? It's perfectly okay if you are."

  "There's a demon face," I say. "A terrifying demon face."

  "You mean, floating in the air?"

  "No. It's carved into the bricks." I'd take a picture of it, but I don't think I can shine the light on the engraving, use my cell phone, and hold the ladder at the same time.

  "I don't know what that might be," says Harriett.

  "I assume it's just to weed out the chickenshits. I'll keep going."

  Warning signs don't get much more explicit than a giant demon head, but I'm a non-believer, right?

  I resume the climb. No danger here. Everything is superb. I'm forty-four years old and I don't believe in demons gnawing my feet off.

  I climb down about another fifty feet before I see the second demon head. This one isn't smiling. I honestly don't know if that's better or worse. I'm not sure if the demon is annoyed that I've continued descending, or if he's thinking, hey, if the grinning demon face didn't scare you away, there's not much else I can do.

  "We've got another demon head!" I call up.

  "I apologize," Harriett calls down.

  I'd like very much to begin climbing in the opposite direction now, but no, they're merely engravings. Pants-crappingly scary engravings, yet still just engravings. I'm not going to wuss out over some pictures.

  Another fifty feet down, yep, there's another demon face. This one has its mouth open, bellowing in rage. Now it's getting harder to breathe.

  Will anybody even mourn me if I perish down here? Or will they say, look, it's always a tragedy when a human being loses his life, but he climbed past three demon heads, for fuck's sake! What did he think was going to happen?

  I decide not to report this one. I take a moment to gather my courage and/or shoo away my sanity, and resume climbing.

  The fourth demon head is grinning again. It's also three-dimensional. It's this big stone head protruding from the side of the well, and I don't care how much you scoff at the supernatural, this thing looks like it's going to bite you.

  The fifth and sixth demon heads are also stone sculptures. It's starting to feel like this is a bottomless pit.

  Finally, shining the light downward reveals a stone floor. I climb past the seventh demon head, this one with its tongue lolling out of its mouth, and step off the ladder.

  There are a lot of dead leaves on the floor, but just the one rock that I'd dropped earlier. I'm glad to see that there are no skeletons. I'm not glad to see that my only option, aside from climbing back up, is a small circular hole, shaped like a mouse hole in a cartoon. I'll have to crawl.

  I crouch down and shine the flashlight into it. I can't see the end. Wonderful.

  "I have to crawl into a dark hole!" I shout up to my buddies on the surface. "Thank you so much!"

  "We love you!" Seth calls down.

  I'm certainly not going to quit now, so after some unpleasant muttering under my breath, I crawl into the hole. I'm sure it's filled wi
th rats a-plenty. What a joyous treat this is.

  It's not so tight that I scrape my back against the stone ceiling, but it's far from spacious. After I crawl a few body-lengths into the tunnel, I can see that it starts to gradually slope downward, toward an unknown destination.

  A piece of stone gives way beneath my right hand.

  It kind of feels like I pressed a button. I hear a loud thud behind me. There's not really room to turn around, but I'm able to look over my shoulder and see that the exit has been sealed.

  Okay, time for a panic attack.

  "Hey!" I shout. "Can you guys hear me?"

  There's no response.

  I shout it again, as loudly as I possibly can, punctuated with harsh profanity.

  Either they can't hear me, or I can't hear their response.

  Though I know I'm meant to forge onward, I'm going to remain in a constant state of anxiety until I know that I can get out of here. So I push on the piece of stone over and over, hoping that it works as an on/off switch. Nothing happens.

  I crawl backwards to the entrance, and kick the new stone wall a few times. It doesn't budge. I want to keep kicking and kicking until something happens, but that "something" will probably be my foot breaking, so I stop.

  I take a few long, deep breaths in an unsuccessful effort to calm myself, and then start crawling forward again. I have no choice. I'll just have to hope that the person who designed this well wasn't the kind of fiend who would trap somebody down here to starve to death.

  I've never encountered the "feeling like the walls are closing in on you" sensation before, but it's here, full force. I really just want to curl into a ball and cry.

  If I hear scurrying, that's it. I'm done. Catatonia for life.

  The downward slope isn't enough to make me feel like I'm slipping, but it's definitely unnerving. There's really nothing good I can say about this place.

  Oh, look at that. Demon faces engraved on the stone floor where I'm crawling, just for me.

  I can't believe that Harriett, Seth, Maraud, and Jeannie all get to relax up there in the comfy woods. It's not fair, especially since I'm the one who keeps having to pay for stuff. That's going to change.

  On the plus side: still no rats.

  Then I reach an inscription. Unlike the other one, this hasn't been worn down by the elements, and the words are perfectly clear.

  Fall with balance.

  Well, the actual meaning isn't clear. Fall with balance? It doesn't sound like something I want to try. I suspect that I won't have a choice in the matter.

  After a little more crawling, I reach a hole in the floor. I shine the flashlight down into it and see iron spikes. Lots of iron spikes. There's a bare patch of the floor below that's maybe one square foot, but everything else is covered with spikes.

  Apparently, my job is to jump down there. If I climb down and hold on to the edge of the hole, I estimate that I'll dangle about four feet above the floor. I have to land on the empty square, and then sustain my balance, or I'll topple over and get a body full of spikes.

  I'm middle-aged. I'm not supposed to be performing feats of athleticism.

  Harriett would be awesome at this. I'm sure she'd drop down there and remain statue-still, like a gymnast.

  I'm again relieved that there are no skeletons, left there as evidence that others have screwed this up. Although I suppose somebody could have cleaned up the bones, to be considerate to future jumpers.

  I can sit up here and whimper, or I can get it over with. The longer I ruminate, the less happy I will be about the idea of falling onto a couple dozen spikes.

  Of course, I can't hold on to the flashlight and the edge of the hole at the same time, so I'm going to have to drop in the dark. I'm sure the person who designed this place knew that.

  I dangle my legs over the side and position them exactly where they need to be for the landing. I'm going to have to turn around so that I can hold on while I lower myself, but if I can keep my feet in the same spot, they'll remain spike-free. That can't be too difficult, right?

  I wedge the flashlight into the waist of my pants, awkwardly turn around while trying to keep my legs in the same place, and then lower myself further into the hole. I'm pleasantly surprised by my upper body strength, although I think it's only because of the adrenaline.

  Once my arms are fully extended, I brace myself for impact. I suddenly decide that I don't want to do this, and would much rather crawl all the way back to where I started and kick on the wall some more, but my fingers are slipping.

  I let go, half-voluntarily.

  An instant of free-fall.

  I can almost feel the spike piercing the sole of my foot and bursting through the top.

  But it doesn't. I land hard, biting the side of my mouth.

  Then I start to topple forward.

  I fling my arms out, trying to regain my balance.

  I'm hopping on one freaking foot to keep from falling over.

  Am I going to get a spike through the brain, or will they just impale my non-vital organs, allowing me the luxury of a slow death?

  And then...I'm balanced.

  I let out a laugh of relief that, quite frankly, makes me sound insane. I'm glad nobody heard it.

  I take the flashlight out of my pants and shine it around the room. It's a pretty small room, maybe ten feet by ten feet, and there's another tunnel on the other side.

  I have to walk over there, but there's enough room for my feet to fit between the spikes. If I topple over now, it'll be out of sheer clumsiness and I'll deserve my fate.

  Somehow I make it to the other side without doing anything clumsy, and then I crawl into the next tunnel. What kind of psychopath builds a place like this? Seriously. It seems like an incredible amount of labor for what is, presumably, extremely limited attendance. The construction and design team isn't even seeing the results, unless there's a webcam mounted somewhere that I haven't noticed. Underground tunnels like this can't be easy to make. If nothing else, why would you want to haul all of those bricks along that ridiculous road to get here? There's no income to be generated from this kind of project. Who does this?

  This time, the tunnel slopes upward. Maybe that means I'm getting a little further from Hell.

  The flashlight flickers. It had damn well better not die on me. I will break it into a billion pieces against the rock, I swear.

  I crawl into another room. This one is also about ten feet by ten feet, though not as tall as the spiked room. When I stand up, I have to duck a bit to keep my head from hitting the ceiling.

  Imbedded into the opposite wall are square rocks with the letters A through Z. They're in alphabetical order, not the QWERTY keyboard setup. I walk over there and read the inscription carved above the letters.

  Answer this riddle. A wrong answer is your demise.

  I have but one eye. Horns blow at my approach.

  Ah, my first official Cyclops mention. This riddle's not so hard.

  No, wait. Why would horns blow at a Cyclops's approach? That sounds more like a storm. Taken out of context, I'd immediately say that the answer was "storm," unless they were going for something more specific like "hurricane" or "tornado," but I'm down here to get a weapon to fight a Cyclops, so...

  Is this riddle a trick question?

  Is the Cyclops supposed to be a ruler? You'd blow horns at the approach of your Cyclops overlord, wouldn't you?

  Crap. It's a stupidly easy riddle if the answer is "storm," but maybe the whole point is to verify that I'm here to acquire a Cyclops-killing weapon.

  If they're going to expend this much effort into building this place, they should have hired better testers for the riddle.

  Storm or Cyclops? Storm or Cyclops?

  Trick question, or verification of the quest?

  Technically, "storm" makes the most sense as an answer to the question, so I'm going to go with that and pray that the riddle-writer isn't dicking me over.

  As I push each letter, it makes a sound
like a hammer striking an anvil. S-T-O-R...I hesitate before pushing the M. If I'm wrong, it will be the last M that I ever push. That said, there doesn't seem to be any way to undo my choices, so M it is.

  I wonder how I'll meet my demise? Will the floor drop out beneath me? Will a trapdoor open in the ceiling, spilling out thousands of scorpions? Will the whole place just explode?

  I push the M.

  The entrance to another tunnel slides open. Guess I got it right.

  How many more of these tests am I going to go through? You've got to figure that if there are too many of them, at some point they're just constructing challenges that nobody will ever do.

  I crawl into the tunnel. This one is quite a bit smaller. Maraud would probably get stuck, so it's good that it's not his claustrophobic ass down here. If I'd known I'd be crawling around on rock, I'd have brought some kneepads. Or stayed home.

  The tunnel gets narrower as I move through it, and for a very short moment, not even a second, I get stuck. It's amazing how much panic you can squeeze into less than a second. Though I don't scream, I do let out the loudest gasp of my life while my stomach drops, my heart freezes, and my testicles retract. But I push through it and continue to crawl until I emerge into another room.

  This room is smaller than the others. There's a stone pedestal in the center. Another tunnel, which I'm sure I'll get to crawl into soon, is blocked by thick steel bars.

  Upon the pedestal is inscribed: Place all of your possessions here. Then walk the path bare.

  I'm not a fan of the idea of letting go of my flashlight, but I suppose I should continue to follow the rules. I place the flashlight on the pedestal, and then my wallet.

  Am I really supposed to take off my clothes? Have these challenges suddenly gone all pervy? It's not like there's even anybody around to see me, and I'm not overly modest anyway, but the idea of stripping naked down here does seem a bit peculiar.

  Well, I've come this far. I don't want to tell Harriett that I risked spike-impalement but balked at exposing my genitals.

  I take off all of my clothes and place them on the pedestal, along with the flashlight. Then I stand there, nekkid, waiting for something to happen.