“Connie, where’s Midnight?”
“You mean the dog? He’s here someplace. You just don’t need him anymore.”
“Where did he come from?”
“Where do you think he came from?”
“Prayer?”
“Although you didn’t know it, at the time you were praying for deliverance, Amy was praying for you too. So was Judith. Your wife wants to forgive you.”
“So why can’t I go to them?”
“You aren’t ready yet. You’re getting there though.”
“Are you The Architect? Someone by that name was mentioned in one of the notes I read.”
Connie laughed. This time it wasn’t the laugh of a little girl but the husky chuckle of a woman. “No, I’m not The Architect. But you know who it is.”
“I don’t.”
“Think about it. This labyrinth was constructed based on the blueprint of your life.”
“So I’m The Architect?”
“It makes sense, doesn‘t it?”
That revelation brought up a very distinct possibility that filled me with more hope than I had been filled with in a long time. “So is it reasonable to assume that I’m to blame for the lack of exits in this place.”
“It is. You’ve been so complacent and contented with your gradual decline into immorality that you haven’t wanted a way out. The exit has always been there if you wanted it badly enough.’
“I want it,” I said. “I do.”
“Then prove it. The only way to do that is to make the exit appear. If it‘s there, all you have to do is walk out, never to set foot in this place again. If it‘s not there, then you aren’t truly ready for it. Remember you can stumble around in darkness as long as you‘d like. It‘s up to you to find your way out of here.”
“I’ve got to truly want to give up my old life and start anew.”
“You will die in this place one way or another.”
“Yes, he will.”
Asterion’s voice was more imposing than it had ever been before. This wasn’t the helpful, stoic creature that had watched me defeat Cerberus. Asterion was bloodthirsty now, and I was the source of his discontent.
“I thought you were just overseeing the festivities here. I didn’t realize you were one of the tests.”
“I’m the ultimate test.”
“I don’t understand.”
Connie spoke up. “You should run now.”
“I’ll give you five seconds head start,” the minotaur said. “Then I will come to kill you. For what it’s worth, Darrell Gene Rankin is with Amy and Judith in your house even as we speak. If you win, your family will live and Darrell Gene will be burdened to consider his misdeeds. If you lose, there’s no telling what he might do. Darrell Gene’s a very strong man, you know, and he‘s hated your family from the moment he saw you. The results, I expect, won‘t be pleasant.”
The thought of Darrell Gene in my house made me physically ill, but I knew there was nothing I could do about it aside from playing the game that the minotaur had laid out for me. Confused and frightened, I did the only thing I could do.
I ran toward the light at the end of what still seemed to be an impossibly long tunnel.
Chapter 26
I had a very familiar sensation of déjà vu as I tried to escape the minotaur’s wrath. I heard him chasing me, snorting and bellowing like a wild animal caught in a trap. As I rounded a corner, I realized those sounds were actually coming from me.
“Can’t you help me, Connie?” I gasped for air
“I really shouldn’t.” Her voice came at me from a hundred different directions. “This is your test.”
“Yes, you should! I think I’ve made it abundantly clear that I want to change my ways. I’ve endured test after test and lived to tell about them. I’ve wept. I’ve ached. I’ve fallen to my knees and prayed a prayer that was sincere enough to make a dog named Midnight manifest to help me. Cut me some slack here.”
Connie didn’t answer right away. The maze, it seemed, was pondering my request.
“When the passageway forks up ahead, go left. Asterion knows the true purpose of this place, but sometimes he forgets and lapses back into old behaviors. No doubt he’s remembering the days when humans were fed to him as offerings.”
“He wants to eat me?”
“Just your sins.”
“So why wouldn’t I let him? That’s the whole point of this exercise.”
“He would have to eat his way through your ribcage to get to your soul. You probably wouldn’t live more than ten seconds after that.”
“That’s a good enough reason for me.” I took the left hand path as I’d been directed.
At this point, I was running just as hard and as fast as my legs would carry me. I almost didn’t stop in time to avoid falling into the pool.
“Whoa!” I stopped to catch my breath. “You didn’t warn me about this.”
This was actually an underground cavern of some sort that had its own private lake.
“Immerse yourself. You can hide in there. It‘s the only way.”
It was only as I jumped in that I realized something was wrong. The water wasn’t cold like it should have been. It was tepid, and thicker than any water had a right to be. It was like I was swimming in a reservoir of motor oil, but that wasn’t exactly right either. The smell was wrong. This place had the stench of open cuts and emergency rooms.
“Blood!” I dog-paddled to stay afloat. “This is a lake of blood.”
“Better than a lake of fire,” Connie said. “Now do as I told you and immerse yourself. You do want to live, right?”
“It will never work.”
“Trust me. I know Asterion better than you do. I also know the way this place works. The minotaur has sniffed you out by your sins. Blood is the only thing that can cover sins. If you go under, you’ll be invisible to the minotaur.”
The approaching sound of hooves on stone convinced me to dive deeper into the crimson pool when nothing else could. Being submerged in blood was like being back in the womb, insulated from all sight and sound. I had absolutely no idea what was going on above me. For all I knew the minotaur was getting ready to jump in after me. I hoped Connie knew what she was talking about.
I must have held my breath for a full minute before the need for oxygen forced me to the surface again. I gasped for air the moment I emerged from the pool. Thankfully Asterion was gone. No doubt he had gone back to the fork and taken the right passageway, thinking I might have chosen that route instead.
“This isn’t Christ’s blood.” I swam to the edge of the pool and hauled myself out. “How did it protect me?”
“It’s symbolic,” Connie said. “Haven’t you been taking notes this entire time?”
“Symbolic. Right. Is my family going to be safe since I eluded capture?”
“If Asterion is anything, he’s honest. If he told you your family will be safe, then there won’t be a hair on their heads that’s harmed.”
“Darrell Gene Rankin is in my house.”
“True. But God is dealing with him. You don‘t have anything to worry about.”
“Is God dealing with him because of the things that are going on in this maze?”
“God works in mysterious ways.”
“So I’m learning.”
“I’m going away now,” Connie said. “I’ve helped enough for the moment. I’ll be back when you need me.”
I didn’t get a chance to argue. Connie was gone again.
Cautiously, I emerged from the cave on the far side. I was still wary of running into Asterion, but there was no sign of him. Instead there were various souvenirs of the man I’d become scattered about. An empty whiskey bottle. An adult video receipt. Around one bend, there was an emaciated bank account statement that suffered from a terminal case of compulsive gambling. Hiding in another dark corner was a police report for DUI. Then there was the broken clock whose only purpose was to remind me of all the time I had wasted on selfi
sh pleasures that could have been better spent with Amy and Peter. Would my torments ever end?
Although the labyrinth was dark, the walls glowed with a purple effulgence as if illuminated by black light. Strange indecipherable glyphs and sequences of raised numerals tattooed the polished stone hallways. The labyrinth was just as weird as it had always been, and I was just as lost.
I didn’t know which way to go now, what to do or which side Asterion would be on the next time we met. The best I could tell, everything in this place was designed to make me reevaluate my life and my behavior. In that respect, the labyrinth was functioning marvelously. I was scared to death of the man I’d become. In confirmation of that fear, I nearly jumped out of my skin when I heard a sonorous thudding sound reverberate through the maze.
Boom!
The sound was loud enough that I could feel it, jarring my bones and rattling the fillings in my teeth.
Boom!
It reminded me of a rock concert I’d gone to in my rowdier days. I’d had front row seats. The bass was elevated at such a level that each new thud and beat was like a slap to the face.
Boom!
It sounded like a giant hammering away at an enormous door.
“Connie?” I hoped she might still be close by, but Connie wasn’t in much of a giving mood at the moment. It was up to me to figure out what was causing all the commotion. I just wasn’t sure I wanted to.
Boom!
It was the kind of concussion that would accompany the demolition of a skyscraper by dynamite.
Boom!….
--came the cannon fire.
Boom!….
--was the sound of two cars colliding head-on at ninety miles per hour.
The noise seemed to come from everywhere, like Connie’s voice, only much, much louder.
“Why won’t it stop?” I placed both hands over my ears to help block out the roar.
The thunderous sound suddenly stopped as quickly as it had begun. I wondered if I was to blame. Still, I knew there wasn’t time for quiet introspection. There was only time to keep pushing forward and to react in whatever way the maze demanded. My family was depending on me although they didn’t realize it.
I walked ahead bravely, hoping Asterion hadn’t figured out where I was. I wasn’t even sure where I was until I saw a sign.
“The Hall of Silicon Eden.” I read the notation carved into the base of a statue made in the likeness of a snake devouring its own tail.
Chapter 27
Even before I reached the beginning of the hallway, I heard the static. It sounded like white noise from a million televisions. The cacophony was loud enough to make me cover my ears, and I shivered involuntarily at the thought of electronic snow.
My imagination went wild at what might lie ahead. I prepared myself for cybernetic storms, frequent white-hot crackles of lightning, and a lifeless, bleak landscape overwhelmed by nuclear winter. That picture in my mind changed once the static was replaced by a barrage of voices that spoke in serious, authoritarian, and clearly enunciated sentences. It was like listening to those same million televisions when they were all tuned in to news stations from around the globe. Although it was impossible to discern what was being said, I heard a similar tone being used every night at six and ten o’clock by the local talking heads.
The media spoke and I tried to listen, but it was hard to dial in to a specific voice. As is so often the case, the media said a lot while really saying nothing at all. Despite the sheer volume of words, their message was lost on me. I wondered how many other messages were missing their mark in this place.
I ignored the voices for the moment and progressed deeper into the maze, keeping an eye out for anything scaly. That snake statue made me wary of serpents. Something crackled underneath my feet, and I froze, not sure of what I had stepped on. Looking down I saw that it was a skin that had been shed, but not like any I had seen before.
It felt a little like aluminum and crinkled easily in my fist. Ordinarily I would have thought it was just trash that had found its way out of the garbage can. But this was different. This was one continuous piece of ultra-thin sheet metal that was patterned and stamped to resemble reptile skin.
A name was stamped on the backside of the skin in blue ink.
“Daedalus.”
I chuckled. This place didn’t fail to miss a detail. Daedalus was the original architect of the labyrinth at Crete. Apparently, he had expanded his repertoire since those days and now worked on things like synthetic snake skin. I wondered what other parts of this place he might be responsible for.
I thought about the image of the snake devouring itself and wondered what that had to do with the news media---or with me. Everything in the maze was tied together, and I had no reason to suspect that this was any different. But I just couldn’t make any kind of connection between the two. The snake in this case was symbolic of the circular pattern of life. Life existed because of death. Death was a direct byproduct of life. You couldn’t have one without the other. I knew all that, and yet I knew nothing.
I pondered the mystery as I walked deeper into the Hall of Silicon Eden. I could hear the droning hum of something that sounded like an electrical transformer. The hair on my head and on my forearms stood at attention, and I felt the static in the air. Snake sigils had been emblazoned into the cobblestones beneath my feet.
“Please don‘t let there be a real snake.”
I prayed that this was one of those symbolic tests the maze was so fond of. Anything literal would send me running and shrieking in the opposite direction like a schoolgirl. I hated snakes.
I kept my eyes open for anything slithering and listened for the sound of hissing. Even the most mundane of things seemed terrifying here, and I could only imagine what sort of perverse twist the maze could put on something as menacing as a serpent.
I turned abruptly at the end of the hallway and found myself in a bizarre sort of orchard. Row upon row of crystalline trees filled the passageway, glimmering as if they were made of diamonds. I realized that wasn’t the case, however, when I saw the series of ones and zeroes imprinted on each leaf, on every inch of bark, on every limb, on every piece of fruit. Designed in binary, these trees were made of silicon and clear plastic and platinum. They were wired and coursing with electricity. They shimmered in the darkness, wavering in and out of focus on the horizon. It was like watching quicksilver on a desert highway.
Cautiously, still looking for a snake of some sort, I walked through the grove of binary-imprinted trees, listening to them sway in a wind generated by nuclear fallout. The ground beneath my feet was studded with circuitry and paved with microchips. Up ahead, something cried out with a roar that was made up of white noise and the buzz of free-flowing alternating current. The sound was enough to make me jump and look over my shoulder.
I approached one of the trees that had a low-hanging branch and studied the fruit intently for a moment. It was an apple-shaped fruit that seemed better suited to watching than eating. A image flashed across its translucent skin like a scene on a television screen. The snippet of video showed me getting into my car in preparation for the trip across town to Karen’s apartment.
Although I’d gotten no clues as to the purpose of this place, I knew what I was watching. This was the exact moment that the idea to cheat on Amy had solidified in my mind. I had gone to the car, still reeling from the fight with Amy, considering the possibility of infidelity while also thinking I might go there with the intention of telling Karen to leave me alone. The moment I opened the car door, however, was the moment I knew what the true desires of my heart were.
All of the fruit on the trees, in fact, were running video feeds of various scenes from my life. I watched myself doing everything from taking out the garbage to eating lunch with Amy and Peter to laying eyes on Karen for the first time in twenty years at Adam’s Ribs. It was like an electronic diary of sorts, chronicling every aspect of my existence. I was watching a reality television show of myself.<
br />
“Ah, forbidden fruit. How ssssweet it is!” A garbled, electronic voice called to me from the top of the tree. I jumped back, frightened. At first I didn’t see anything hiding there. Then I noticed the sparkle of diamond eyes and saw the movement of rotors, of gears grinding, of pistons locking into place. A forked tongue made of platinum moved in and out of a glimmering silver mouth. Eyes like black marbles studied me as if I were some sort of germ underneath the lens of a microscope.
“Your heart is on display for all to ssssee.” The serpent sounded like a victim of throat cancer. “You’re like a walking museum of iniquity, and I, for one, would willingly pay for a ticket to tour this exhibit. In fact, I suspect the world would pay to see. The ratings would be through the roof if something like this was broadcast in every household.”
“My life is not a television show. My problems are private, and I‘d prefer to keep them that way.”
“But there is so much entertainment value to be had in the suffering of others. You would have a bonafide hit on your hands.”
“My life isn‘t as bad as you make it out to be! There are some far worse than me.”
“But none of them are trapped in this maze,” the serpent said. “Just think what an interesting reality show your life would make. People would tune in week after week to see if you would make the right choice or if you would sssscrew up like you humans are so acutely prone to do.”
“What do you want?” I was more irritated now than scared.
“What does anyone truly want? Life, liberty, the pursuit of carnal knowledge.”
“Ah, I get it.” I snapped my fingers as I understood what the serpent stood for. “The snake that devours its tail. It makes sense to me now.”
“You think you have a clue?”
“You’re part of what’s wrong with the world today, but we’re to blame too. We are the creator of the same problem that kills us.”
“Pleeeeassssse elaborate.”
“We blame the media for their part in the demoralization of society, for their willingness to showcase the worst in people, for their uncanny knack of portraying humanity in the worst possible light. They go for the most sensational, sordid stories they can find, focusing on lust, greed, immorality, and a hundred other kinds of sin instead of zooming their cameras in on all the good that’s being done in the world. But we encourage it with our remote controls. We tune in to watch mankind stumble and we feed the snake.”
The Maze - the Lost Labyrinth Page 13