by Brian Harmon
“I see stairs,” Wayne said as he paused to catch his breath. He was a level below Albert, moving much slower than everyone else. Between his screaming leg and his weary muscles, it was becoming difficult to lift himself up to each level. By comparison, Brandy, Nicole and Olivia were already on the level above Albert and Andrea was already waiting for them on the next level. He was not surprised, since she was easily more suited to this task than the rest of them. She was the youngest, the lightest and the most rested.
“I see them, too,” Albert replied.
“Wonder how high it goes.”
Albert could not even speculate. For all he knew, they were at the very bottom of the temple and preparing to climb to the very top. If the chasm they saw was any indication, this labyrinth was unimaginably enormous. He wouldn’t be surprised if those steps went on for miles.
“And what about that Caggo thing? Do you have a plan for dealing with it? Because I remember we didn’t do so hot taking on the thing in Gilbert House.”
Albert definitely remembered that. It didn’t seem like a terribly good sign of things to come. “I don’t,” he confessed. “I don’t even know what the hell it is.”
Wayne nodded. He’d expected as much. He didn’t have any ideas, either. How could he, when he didn’t even know what they were up against? He could only trust that they would be capable of handling whatever it was when the time came. “And what about the Sentinel Queen’s doorway? Have you decided what you’re going to do about that?”
Another very good question. According to the Sentinel Queen, they were here to open some kind of door. But according to the old man Wayne met on his frightening side-journey, that doorway would only lead to some kind of apocalyptic doom. “Hopefully I’ll know when I get there.”
“Hopefully,” agreed Wayne. He could not say one way or the other what to do about the doorway. And it didn’t seem that important right now anyway. Right now their only concern was climbing the tower and not getting their heads ripped off by the Caggo.
He swept the empty room behind him with his light and then glanced up at the others. Albert was still standing on the next level, preparing to climb to the next, but the others had all climbed one higher. He had to pick up his pace. If they spread out too much, he was sure the Caggo would waste no time dropping out of the darkness and seizing one of them. His eyes specifically rose to Andrea, who was higher up than everyone else and all by herself. She was vulnerable there. He wanted to yell up to her and tell her to stay with the others.
But she wasn’t the one in the most danger.
At that moment, the beast shrieked again, its terrible voice filling the chamber and drowning out even the constant roar of the hounds. It went on and on, warbling like the mad screams of the tortured damned, a sound that chilled them each to their very bones.
And it came not down from the tower above them, but up.
The Caggo was below them.
Chapter 48
Albert stood frozen, his hands gripping the ledge above. If the Caggo was below them, then it wasn’t the girls who were in the most danger. He turned and looked at Wayne, who was staring back at him from the lower level with wide, startled eyes.
“Hurry!” Albert urged, motioning for the others to climb ahead of him. “To the top!” Then he turned and knelt above Wayne, seizing both his arms and trying to help lift him.
“I’m not leaving you behind!” Brandy insisted.
“I’ll be right behind you. Just go.”
But Brandy turned and dropped back down to the previous step, unwilling to go without him.
“Just go,” yelled Wayne.
“Just come on,” Albert countered.
Andrea scurried up over the next wall and then turned and looked back down at the others. Nicole and Olivia were climbing up to the level just below her, but Brandy was two levels below them, looking down at Albert and Wayne.
She glanced up above her and saw that the tower walls were only a few tiers away. She didn’t dare race too far ahead. What if the Caggo got there first? She was certain she was no match for the monster alone. She was hardly a match for anyone.
Wayne managed to get his feet beneath him and stood up, hissing a little at the pain in his leg. “I’m good,” he said, responding to the worried look on Albert’s face. “Just get everyone to the top.”
“I intend to,” Albert said, his eyes scanning the darkness beneath them. There was no sign of the creature down there. But then again, what the hell was he even looking for? For all he knew, it could be invisible. Or it could fly. He glanced up the tower and saw that Brandy was still there, just above him, watching him. “Get moving,” he snapped. “The faster we all get to the top of the tower, the sooner we can all get out of here.”
“I’m not leaving you!”
Nicole helped Olivia up the next rise and then swung herself up after her, ignoring the aching in her arms and legs as Andrea nimbly climbed ahead of them. They were almost there. Only a couple more.
Albert knelt down and braced himself to give Wayne a boost, his eyes searching the darkness below him, watching for the inevitable flash of movement.
Brandy took a step back to give Wayne room as she scanned the space below them with her light. Still there was nothing. Why wasn’t it attacking? What was it waiting for?
Albert had just stood up and grabbed the ledge to pull himself up to her when something large and pale darted by in the darkness below him, visible for only an instant and then gone.
“Albert!”
Recognizing the terror in her voice, Albert let go of the ledge and spun around, searching for whatever she had seen.
“Hurry up!” she cried.
His back against the wall, Albert scanned the darkness all around him. He could see nothing. All he could hear was the constant droning of the damn hounds.
Wayne, too, had turned and was looking for whatever had startled Brandy. But it was gone, vanished back into the shadows from which it had come.
Brandy was sure she hadn’t imagined it. She found herself remembering the thing that attacked them inside Gilbert House. Big. Pale. Fleshy. Unrelenting. It had nearly killed Albert and Wayne and now here they were again, right in the Caggo’s murderous path.
Nicole and Olivia climbed upward without stopping, urged along by Brandy’s frightful shouts below.
Andrea paused each time, waiting for them to catch up before ascending, staying one tier ahead of them and keeping her light on them as much as possible.
Only one more remained between her and the top of the tower’s base. Then they could make a run for the steps.
“Hurry!” Brandy shouted. She shined her light left and right, worried now that the Caggo was circling around them, determined to attack them from the side or even from above.
Albert nodded. “Yeah. All right.” He turned and gripped the ledge again. At the same instant, Wayne turned and nudged Brandy toward the wall, urging her to climb.
It was at that moment that the Caggo pounced. Brandy saw it as she began to move toward the wall, just before she could turn away. It bounded up the side of the tower’s base in long, quick strides, like a jungle cat leaping from tree branch to tree branch.
Brandy screamed.
Wayne spun around, his flashlight raised, ready to bludgeon with it if needed. He saw it immediately, but he had no time to react. The thing was even faster than the monster in Gilbert House. It reached its target in the space of a few rapid heartbeats.
Albert never had a chance to see it coming. It hit him as he was pulling himself up. It did not sink claws into him, nor did it tear him with its teeth. Instead, it simply threw itself against him, mashing him violently against the stone. He felt a sharp pain as the box inside his backpack was shoved into his back. The very next second, the Caggo was off him and he fell hard onto the floor, gasping for breath as his flashlight skittered across the stone and out of his reach.
“Everybody go!” Wayne shouted. “Get to the top!”
&n
bsp; Andrea quickly scurried up the last level and then bolted to the left, her eyes lifted to the stairs above her. Behind her, Olivia and Nicole hoisted themselves up as quickly as they could. But Brandy could not move. She stood there, staring down at Albert, one hand pressed to her mouth, too terrified to even cry out.
Albert knew he had to get up, knew he had to defend himself somehow before the monster came back, but he could barely move. He lifted his head to try and see his attacker, but before he could gain even a glimpse of what stood over him, the Caggo struck out with its foot, kicking him in the side of his face with enough force to roll him across the stone floor. A blinding flash of pain drove deep into his head and for a moment the world swirled out of control into a maelstrom of disoriented agony and confusion.
Brandy watched in terror as Albert flopped onto his belly and then lay there motionless, terrified that the monster had broken his neck. She couldn’t even think about running. Her whole world seemed to be tethered to her lover’s deathly still body and the horrible monster that stood over him.
Wayne dropped down behind the Caggo as it approached Albert again and threw himself at the creature, determined to knock it off balance, but the beast was as clever as it was fast. It turned suddenly and caught him in the chest with its elbow, knocking him back. Without pausing, it lunged at him, striking him across his head with a large, meaty hand and sending him staggering back and over the ledge to land heavily on the step below.
Then, in the moment of stillness that followed, the monster turned its face toward Brandy.
She had pictured the Caggo as some horrible, alien thing, ten feet tall with wickedly sharp teeth, jaws dripping drool and huge claws designed to shred and tear. But this was nothing at all like she’d pictured. This thing was about the same size as Wayne, considerably smaller than the monster they encountered in Gilbert House, even. It was as pale as a corpse, with no hair and no eyes. Its brow was round and flawless, without even the faint impression of sockets, like those of the Sentinel Queen. It had no enormous jaws or teeth. Instead, its mouth was nothing more than a small slit. Alternately, its nose was large and flat. It had no visible claws, either, just two huge hands that looked like great bald paws, its fingers short and plump. Like the Keeper who greeted them at the beginning of the labyrinth, it had an abundance of flesh. But whereas the Keeper had appeared simply too small for its skin, this thing’s hide was stretched out in odd places, as if parts of its body had been bloated at some point and then deflated. Loose flesh dangled from its meaty jowls and neck and hung in thick folds from its chest and waist. Its belly was swollen and fat and dangled like a jiggling mass of pale dough over its hips in a grotesque sort of loincloth. Its feet, like its hands, were short and round, but wide and heavy, looking almost elephantine, with its round toes poking out from under the folds of fatty flesh that pooled around its thick ankles.
It didn’t look capable of moving with such speed and agility, but then again, Gilbert House’s troll-like resident hadn’t seemed capable of such speed either.
Wayne regained his feet and heaved himself back up to where the Caggo stood. He could hold this thing off. It wasn’t so big. Not really. He was just as formidable as it was. He’d taken on much bigger monsters than this tonight already. He screamed at Brandy to run, to hurry up to the top of the tower.
But Brandy could not move. She could not tear her eyes away from the horrible monster that was now turning its strange face toward Wayne again.
Olivia reached the top of the base and dared a look back down just in time to see the monster lunge at Wayne. It knocked him back, sending both him and it over the ledge and slamming him hard onto the stone floor of the lower level once more. His flashlight spun away into the darkness and winked out of existence in the cacophony of the raging hounds below. She cried out for him and even moved toward the edge, wanting to go to him, to help him before the monster could kill him, but Nicole held her back.
“We have to keep going!” she said. “Hurry!”
Andrea reached the corner of the tower and ran around it, her eyes fixed on the steps above her as they drew closer and closer to her. A little farther and she would reach the bottom.
Wayne held up his arms, shielding himself as the Caggo straddled his body and battered him with its powerful paws. It was remarkably fast. He’d barely had time to brace himself before it shoved him over the ledge and dropped down on top of him. Now it was all he could do to squirm backward across the stone, trying to get out from under it before it beat him to death.
If he could only reach the next ledge…
Finally breaking her paralysis, Brandy dropped down and knelt over Albert. She had feared the worst, but he was already beginning to rise to his feet, his eyes fixed on the creature below him.
“Get to the top,” he told her as he retrieved his dropped flashlight. “Find the way out.”
“I won’t!”
But Albert dropped to the lower level and began moving toward the Caggo.
Wayne pushed himself backward with his feet until he felt the floor disappear beneath his head and shoulders, then he twisted himself around and dropped down from beneath the monster’s violent hands. As soon as he hit the hard floor, he rolled over and began to crawl across the stone as quickly as he could before it could drop down on top of him again.
He wished now that he had not brought his glasses. Though they had been valuable in helping him through the emotion rooms, they now were at risk of being broken and leaving him permanently blind down here in this deadly darkness.
Behind him, he heard the monster’s bare feet slap against the stone and another of those fierce shrieks split the air at his back. He stood up as fast as he could manage and turned to face it.
Andrea reached the bottom of the stairs and began to climb, pausing only when she saw Nicole’s light racing around the corner below her. She called out to them to hurry, but they needed no encouragement. They had both heard the murderous shriek of the monster.
“Just go!” Nicole shouted up to her. “Get to the top! We’ll be right behind you!”
The Caggo lurched forward and struck Wayne in the chest, knocking him back.
Again, he threw his arms up, trying to protect himself, but the creature merely battered his bare arms, driving him farther back. He could not get any kind of advantage. He was like a child struggling against it. How could he ever have thought that he was any kind of match for this thing? It was like taking on a machine.
Suddenly, he found himself back in Gilbert House’s courtyard, surrounded by the groping dead. This was practically the same situation. The only difference was that now there was only one monster. Just like then, it struck him that he might not survive this.
Albert dropped down behind the Caggo and rushed toward it, but again, the monster was too fast. It turned and knocked him up against the wall, sending a starburst of colorful dancing stars across his line of vision.
Wayne stumbled back a few more steps and then peered between his upraised arms just in time to catch one more blow from the monster. This time, its heavy fist sank hard into his gut, flushing the air violently from his lungs. He staggered backward, gasping for air, and slumped to the floor. The creature lurched forward once more and landed its massive fist against the side of his head, sending him sprawling.
It then turned and seized Albert’s head in one huge hand and shoved him aside, almost lifting him off his feet with its massive strength.
Albert staggered a few steps and then stumbled and fell to the floor. He couldn’t believe how strong this thing was. He had no chance of defending himself. He couldn’t seem to harm it and yet it was tossing him around like a toy. He tried to get to his feet again, tried to get up so that he could get some distance between him and it, but the creature kicked him again, this time in his side, and he was knocked over the ledge with a painful yelp.
Brandy cried out for him and dropped down another step, desperate to help him. But she froze as the creature lifted its head
up and sniffed at the air around it, the flesh of its jaws jiggling grotesquely. She didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t let it harm Albert again, but she was certain that she stood no chance against it. If Wayne was no match for it, she had no prayer of standing up to it alone.
Suddenly, the Caggo turned its hideous face toward her and her paralysis broke. She turned to run, grabbing the next ledge to pull herself up, but it was already too late. It leapt up at her. In the space of a single heartbeat, it had her in its huge paws.
Nicole and Olivia raced up the steps and around the corner in time to look down and see the Caggo lift Brandy up over its head, her feet kicking wildly, a shrill scream escaping her. Her flashlight fell from her hands as she searched for something to hold onto and landed at the Caggo’s feet.
Albert leapt up, a hellish fireball of terror erupting from his heart. He tried to climb over the ledge, tried to reach the beast before it could harm her, but there was no time.
It was already too late.
Nicole lurched forward, screaming her best friend’s name, terrified of what she knew was about to happen, and she would have fallen if Olivia had not stayed her.
The Caggo turned and threw Brandy out into the darkness.
Albert felt his heart stutter in his chest, threatening to stop utterly and drop him dead where he stood.
Nicole watched from above, helpless to do anything more. “Land safe!” she sighed, a fleeting prayer, a hopeless hope, as her best friend sailed through the air like a tossed doll. And the words rang over and over in her mind. Please, she thought. Please land safe…
Albert could think nothing at all.
For a moment Brandy was there, rotating end over end, shrieking with terror, and then she was swallowed by the darkness. An instant later, Brandy Rudman’s scream was cut suddenly and sickeningly short and all that remained was the frenzied roar of the hounds.
Chapter 49