by Jeff Strand
He glared at me and put his shirt back on. “Fine, whatever.” He increased the display until it read 5000, then pressed the button.
After his yelp, he ended up on the ground as well. The display now showed a down arrow.
“So what, we just do this until we’re baked?” he demanded.
“We could wait for Charlotte.”
“Wait for Charlotte to what?” she asked, scaring the absolute living shit out of us.
“Hey, in the mood for a nice refreshing electric shock?” I asked, when I could breathe again.
“I’m always in the mood for a nice refreshing electric shock,” she replied.
We explained the setup to her, and she set the display to 4500. She pressed the button, and a third golden key dropped into the slot.
“I’m pretty sure that’s not fair,” Roger observed, flexing his aching hand.
At the end of the path was a large, gold plated door. There were four locks, one on top of the other, but we only had three keys.
We went back down the path, but as far as we could tell we’d hit all the available games. The carnival probably wasn’t finished yet. The shooting gallery skeleton tried to kill us again, but we were expecting it and ducked well before the bullets came our way.
“So…” said Roger. “What next?”
“If we could get those overweight corpses rolling, we could probably break the door down with them,” I said.
“Did anybody check to see if the door was actually locked?” asked Charlotte.
“Of course the door is locked.”
“Uh-huh. I take night classes…well, I did a year ago when I had a life…and I’ve seen groups of twenty-five people standing outside of an unlocked classroom door because they all just assumed that the first person was standing there because it was locked.”
“That’s a fascinating insight into human psychology,” Roger said. “I vote we test it out.”
We returned to the gold-plated door. It was locked.
I inserted the three keys into their proper locks and tested the door again, but it still wouldn’t open.
“So what do we do?” I asked. “It could be hidden somewhere around here, or it could just be missing altogether. Maybe when he adds the Bumper Car Bloodbath it’ll have the fourth key.”
“Maybe the clown knows,” said Roger.
“Maybe you should…” I trailed off as I thought of something. “Maybe you’re right! Remember what the clown said?” I asked, hurrying back down the path.
“He said ‘die’ a few times,” Roger recalled.
“He also said to find them, to sniff them out.” We stopped, ducked under the skeleton’s fire, and stood in front of the clown. Its red nose popped right off. Inside was the fourth golden key.
“You are the coolest human being on the face of the earth,” said Roger.
It fit the fourth lock, and we moved into the next area.
It contained only a small passageway, low enough that we’d have to crawl through it. Another fake corpse was standing over the entrance, so we’d have to crawl between its legs. I never wanted to see another artificial cadaver for the rest of my life.
Dripping red letters proclaimed “Welcome To The Fun-Filled Maze Of Amusement And Splatter!”
“I’ll go first,” I said in a moment of bravery that passed as quickly as it had come. I got down on my hands and knees and crawled into the tunnel. Roger followed, and Charlotte followed him.
I crawled for about ten feet, and then emerged into a very small room that allowed me to stand. The walls were a combination of heavily tinted Plexiglas and mirrors, and there were three possible exits. Colorful lights flashed from the ceiling, giving the place an atmosphere like a disco. I guessed that when the place was finished, Daniel would add the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever in the background.
We took the exit to the left. It twisted and turned a couple of times, and then broke off into two more possible paths.
I scraped an “X” on one of the mirrors with the machete. “So we’ll know where we’ve been,” I explained.
We followed the path to the left again. Through some of the plexiglass walls, I could see other parts of the maze, but there was no way to tell at this point how large it was.
There was a knock.
Daniel stood next to us, separated only by the clear wall. He pointed at me, and then ran his index finger over his throat, letting us know that it was curtains time.
Chapter 23
THERE WAS a loud rumble behind us. Daniel winked at me, then moved out of sight.
That was okay. I knew I was going to have to face him again, and better here than in an open space where he could mow us down with his machine gun, not that I noticed him carrying it. Much better to be trapped in a confusing maze.
At the next intersection, I scratched another “X” on the mirror and we took the path to the right. After about twenty feet and six turns, it dead-ended. We heard more rumbling.
“See if you can kick through the mirror,” I suggested to Roger.
He kicked the mirror several times, and though the glass cracked it was clear that we weren’t going to be able to break through. So we went back the way we came, returning to the intersection.
The “X” was gone.
“Did I miss something?” I wondered aloud. “I marked it, right?”
“You marked it,” said Charlotte. “I know what that sound is. The maze is moving.”
Okay, that was most definitely not cool, but again, I had to look on the bright side. Daniel and the others would be just as disoriented as we were. Maybe.
We continued to weave through the maze. At one point I could see Stan, enthusiastically smoking a cigarette about three panels of Plexiglas away. Seconds after that I saw Josie, limping.
Our next path twisted for approximately fifty feet without any new options. After rounding a completely mirrored corner we came face-to-face with a human-sized stone gargoyle. It was an imp-like creature with unnecessarily large fangs and clawed hands raised high over its head. As per the Daniel Rankin touch, it was also wearing headphones. There was just barely enough room to squeeze past it.
Three separate foot-long blades burst out, one from the gargoyle’s head, one from the chest, and one from the leg, all in a vertical line, blocking the path. A second later, the blades snapped back and another set of similar blades burst forth, these about five inches to the left of the first set. As these retracted, yet another set popped out, followed by the original set, and so on in that delightful sequence.
Beyond the gargoyle, separated by a panel, I saw Mortimer, with dried blood under his nose. He noticed us and shouted. “They’re by the southeast gargoyle!”
If we turned back they’d have us trapped. So I moved as close to the source of the nearest set of blades as possible without getting in their way. The blades popped out. The instant they retracted, I moved forward.
I beat the second set of blades. They snapped out right behind me, grazing the back of Foster’s jacket.
And I beat the third set of blades, nearly falling over as I lunged into the next part of the maze.
I turned back toward Roger and Charlotte. “Just follow my lead and-”
“Look out!” Roger shouted.
I spun around, machete raised, and nearly ended up with a meat hook through my face. Stan held one in each hand, and lashed out with the second one, slashing across my cheek before I could deflect it. I took a swing with the machete, clumsily batting it against the maze wall since there was so little room to maneuver.
I wondered what happened to the machine guns. Most likely the van was easily replaceable, but Daniel didn’t like the idea of damaging his precious maze of death.
Stan’s next swing was a downward slice. Though I tried to move back, the meat hook tore through the jacket, slashing across my chest in the process, and became lodged in the material. Stan yanked on the meat hook, pulling me toward him.
I tried to jam the machete through s
ome part of his body, but again there wasn’t room. So instead I leaned forward and tried to bite him. He had the same idea at the same moment, and our teeth collided with a clack.
We stared at each other, a little embarrassed.
Then he smacked me on the side of the head with the non-pointy side of the other meat hook, and shoved me toward the gargoyle. I tried to resist, but with my bare feet I couldn’t get enough traction. I could hear the blades snapping right behind me.
I kneed him in the groin again. It seemed almost unfair to handle the situation in such a way, but these weren’t exactly times to be worried about fighting honorably. As he moaned in agony, I twisted our bodies around, forcing him to be on the side with the gargoyle.
He punched me in the stomach. Hard. I doubled over with dry heaves. And then I looked up to see him raise the free meat hook high above his head.
Reaching over the gargoyle, Roger grabbed the meat hook and tried to tug it out of his grip. Stan refused to let go…and that’s when the floor started moving. The entire section with the gargoyle and the rest of us shifted, throwing everybody off balance, and causing Stan to topple against the gargoyle.
The third set of blades burst forth, the center blade going right through his side. Stan opened his mouth, but no sound emerged. His lit cigarette dropped to the floor. As the blades retracted, he stumbled back another step and was caught by all three of the second set of blades. When those snapped back, his body fell onto the first set. While he should have fallen to the floor at this point, his meat hook was caught on the gargoyle’s arm, causing the first set of blades to get him a good half-dozen more times before Roger freed it.
Stan was quite dead.
Another section of maze began to slide next to ours. I got the impression that the maze was set up like one of those puzzles where you slide one square piece at a time until you’re able to correctly arrange them into a picture. Whenever I try to do those I end up with some kind of pseudo-Picasso surrealist nightmare.
Though this would have been a fine time to stand there and just gag for a few hours, we had to move. Roger squeezed his way through the blades, getting a nasty cut on his elbow but suffering far less than Stan. Charlotte made it through just as we saw Daniel running down our old path. Since the maze had shifted, he’d have to take a slightly different route to the gargoyle, but Stan was definitely visible through the clear walls from his vantage point.
We didn’t stick around long enough to see his reaction to Stan’s closed-casket-funeral body, though we did hear his scream of fury. We selected the center path of three and continued moving through the maze.
“You’re dead, Mayhem!” Daniel screamed. “ Corpus delicti! ”
His words chilled me. Which was pretty weird, considering that after all I’d been through so far, the simple fact of Daniel informing me that I might perhaps be in a spot of trouble shouldn’t have been much of a mood-breaker. Must’ve been his delivery.
After a couple more turns, we reached a narrow wooden door. I didn’t especially feel like seeking out more keys, but this one didn’t appear to have a lock. I opened it and immediately saw hundreds of razor blades falling toward me. I got out of the way right before the razor blade-lined ironing board fell. It was classic slapstick: the unexpected ironing board dropping out of the closet, smacking the poor bozo on the forehead. Thank goodness I’d been able to avoid the uproarious facial lacerations.
We retraced our path and moved on. The maze was undeniably disorienting, but I felt confident that we were at least moving in the same general direction. Well, until we found ourselves back at Stan’s body.
Naturally, Roger had a smart-ass comment, but in his anxiety he completely messed up the timing and the phrasing, so it’s not worth repeating.
“Okay, so, what do you think about splitting up?” I asked. “If one of us finds the exit, they can call out to everyone else, sort of guide them in the right direction.”
“And give away our position,” Charlotte noted.
“Right. But we have no idea how big this thing is, or where we’re supposed to be headed. We could be wandering around for days.”
“That’s probably a good idea,” said Roger. “As long as I’ve got my trusty meat hook, I should be okay.”
“All right, then,” I said. “Everyone pick a path.”
I had a very strong temptation to give Roger a good-bye hug in case I never saw him again, but I resisted it. We each took our separate paths, myself to the right, Roger straight ahead, and Charlotte to the left.
My path quickly came to a dead end, so I cheated and went down Roger’s path, just as he was returning.
“Yours a dead end, too?” he asked.
I nodded. Together we followed Charlotte ’s path, which very shortly separated into two. I took the right and Roger took the left.
I peeked at myself in one of the mirrored walls. Ugh. Not a glamorous sight. If Helen ever saw me like this, I’d be practicing forced abstinence for the rest of my life.
Two turns and a quick glimpse of Mortimer later, I was at another door. Now, past experience told me that I probably did not want to open this door, but then again, it could also be the way out. All these risks were doing wonders for my machismo. There wasn’t room for me to stand to the side of the door when I opened it, so I settled for turning the doorknob carefully and easing it open inch by inch.
When I was satisfied that nothing sharp or heavy was going to drop out on me, I opened it all the way. Inside was a mummy. A pretty darn cool mummy, almost a dead-on replica of Boris Karloff in his dusty bandages, but it didn’t seem to have any function beyond just standing there, being a mummy.
I closed the door and moved on, promptly walking into a wall. It was bound to happen with all these clear walls and mirrors, so I could only be thankful that it had happened while I was alone.
After another half-minute or so of wandering, the floor began to move under my feet. As it slid, it revealed another section of the maze…where Daniel stood.
I raised my machete, and he raised his revolver. The tip of my weapon was practically touching the barrel of his.
“Well, well,” he said. “You’re pretty damn impressive, I’ve gotta give you that. How’d you like the gasoline shower?”
“Is that what was that was supposed to be? All it did was trickle a little bit,” I said, just to piss him off.
Daniel frowned. “That’s fine. It wasn’t really completely ready to go yet.”
“So where’d your fancy machine gun go?” I asked, trying to keep him occupied while I waited for a good chance to run for cover.
“The last thing I need is for you or your friends to get a hold of a machine gun, don’t you think?”
“I thought you just didn’t want to shoot up the maze.”
“That, too.”
“So what’s up with the mummy? Was it supposed to attack me or something?”
“It’s a placeholder. That’s where the rattlesnakes are going to go.”
“Cool. I hope they weren’t too hard to smuggle into Alaska, because we accidentally killed a few of them.”
“Why would you kill innocent snakes in an aquarium?”
“It got knocked over. Sorry about that.”
“As long as you didn’t do it on purpose. So, have you formulated some brilliant escape plan while we’ve been talking? There’s not a chandelier above my head, is there?”
“Nah,” I admitted. “I’m pretty well screwed, actually.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. And now I’m going to shoot you.”
I instinctively held the machete in front of me, like a very narrow shield, as Daniel pulled the trigger.
Now, if somebody had said to me last week, “Andrew, guess what? You’re going to be standing in a big maze, and the main bad guy is going to have a gun pointed at you, and you’re going to gab for a while, then he’s going to fire. But you’ll have instinctively held this machete in front of you, and not only will the bullet hit the machete
right around where you heart would’ve been, but the bullet will ricochet off the blade and hit the main bad guy in his gun-shooting arm. Oh, yeah, and you’ll really look like crap,” the only part I would have believed was the part about me looking like crap
But it happened. Daniel fired. The bullet struck the machete blade, knocking the flat edge against me with painful force, and then ricocheted off and struck Daniel in the upper arm. His hand opened, and the gun dropped out of his grip.
I was, to put it lightly, pretty damn surprised. Almost too surprised to take a swing at Daniel with the machete. Unfortunately, with my hands throbbing violently from the fact that they’d been holding the machete when it took a bullet, it wasn’t a very good swing.
It was, however, a good enough swing to convince Daniel that he needed to get out of there. And so he turned and ran through one of the maze paths. I picked up his revolver, trying to count how many times we’d played musical guns since the vacation began.
The maze split off into two paths again, but I could hear Daniel’s footsteps to the right. I followed him, smacking into a mirror this time, but continued the pursuit.
Chapter 24
NOT ONLY did I have the sound of Daniel’s footsteps to follow, but he was also emitting a stream of outrageously creative profanity, so I was able to keep on his trail.
A door opened and slammed shut just ahead.
I promptly hit a dead end, but quickly retraced my path, took the other branch, and found the door. Though the plan was to regroup at the exit, I didn’t want to lose my chance when Daniel was on the defensive. So I let out one of those piercing whistles I used to love so dearly in elementary school silent reading time to help guide Roger and Charlotte in the right direction, and then opened the door.
The next room was the largest one yet, and looked like nothing so much as an underground warehouse. The room was probably two hundred feet square, and filled with piles and piles of machinery, vicious-looking implements of torture, and props. There was a stack of artificial corpses that must’ve been fifteen feet high.
I saw Daniel duck behind an electric chair and fired, but the bullet struck the arm of the chair. Keeping a safe distance in case he’d somehow armed himself, I ran to the side to get a better shooting angle, but he was gone.