The Minotaurs of Maze World

by Eddie Patin

  It turned to run Jason’s way, showing the full width of its massive horns in shadow; the same horns that nearly killed Riley.

  Jason threw his rifle into his shoulder, leaned up against a tree, and put his front sight on the monstrous silhouette’s neck. As it started thundering and crashing through the woods at him, Jason let his breath hiss out, aimed carefully at the neck, moved his finger to the trigger...

  Then the minotaur suddenly changed course with surprising speed. It turned down the ridge and plummeting through the trees ... back to Ridgeview!

  "Shit!"

  Jason heard crashing, approaching steps, and saw the other Jason stumble into the tree line, rifle shouldered and aiming his way. When the other saw Jason 934 then looked down the ridge after the beast making as much noise as a truck rolling down the hill, he lowered his rifle, and ran to Jason 934, panting.

  "What happened?!" other Jason exclaimed, gasping for breath. "I shot it in the neck just like you said!"

  "It ran down the ridge!" Jason 934 replied. "Let’s go! We’ve got to take it down before—oh God! Where could it go? Back into the neighborhood!"

  The two of them plummeted after the beast, hardly in control of their legs as they flew down the ridge through the trees and snow. Jason felt a growing, insane sense of danger; afraid that he would slip and break his leg or something else bad at any moment. In hardly any time, both Jasons burst out of the thinning pine forest a good ways up the hill from the hiking trail.

  Jason immediately dropped to one knee, braced his rifle on the other, and took aim at the massive, black monster charging down the hill ahead of them. The minotaur threw up earth and snow behind it as it ran. Jason was shocked by the sight of the fleeing beast—it was so much bigger than a man! Seeing the minotaur down there—bounding over the hiking trail then toward the fenced-in yards across a wide slope of snow, surrounded by such a mundane setting—didn’t make sense. This monster didn’t fit in at all in this world!

  "Be careful!" the other Jason exclaimed, standing in waiting shock. "There are houses there!"

  Jason 934 let out his breath, put the pad of his gloved finger over the trigger, then began to squeeze. He didn’t know how much he could help—shooting the beast in the back—but he had to do something! He aimed for the base of the monster’s skull—right where its head connected with the massive, muscled neck—and pulled the trigger.

  The Rigby boomed and kicked hard into his shoulder. Jason immediately leapt to his feet, cycled the bolt, and ran on. He didn’t know whether he’d hit the minotaur or not—he probably did, but it didn’t penetrate.

  "Damn it!" the other Jason cried, running after him.

  Jason looked ahead at the path where the alpha was running and felt icy fear shoot up his spine. He saw someone he recognized in the fenced-in back yard—an old man standing with some sort of tool in his hands, staring blankly out from the back patio at the sound of the rifle shot and the earth-shaking approach of the big, black freight train of fur and horns heading for his house...

  It was Mr. Hines. Jason suddenly realized that their little dog was barking.

  An instant later, the alpha minotaur crashed through the Hines' fence like a big, shaggy wrecking ball and continued raging into their backyard. Mr. Hines dropped his tool, staring up at the monster in shock. The old man looked so small...

  "No!" Jason cried, running as fast as he could after the beast with heavy, chilling doom rising up from everywhere in his body. "Mr. Hines! Run!"

  The backyard was out of sight for a moment as Jason (and the other Jason) sprinted across the hiking trail then began powering up the slope to the huge break in the fence. There was a quick, high-pitched sound that made Jason imagine the dog being squished, a bone-chilling, deep snarl that made Jason’s stomach drop, and a loud crash that involved shattering glass.

  "Oh shit!" the other Jason cried. "Oh God—do you think—?!"

  Jason 934 crested the hill and ran into the yard, leaping over splintered fence pieces. A scene of devastation and gore slammed into him like a wall. He saw Mr. Hines’s body torn open and broken, twisted in the snow and dirt surrounded by broken bricks and shards of glass. He saw the old man’s entrails strewn and dragged from his body all the way into a massive hole broken through their back door as if the alpha had tracked his guts inside for a few steps on one of its hooves.

  The other Jason violently bent over and puked.

  Jason 934 stood in shock for a moment then looked down and saw a tangle of tawny hair mixed with a slop of bright red paste.

  The minotaur did squish the dog. It had yipped its last yip.

  There was suddenly a female scream inside the house—animalistic and full of raw terror.

  Both Jason’s exchanged horrified glances for an instant then ran on in pursuit. Jason 934 slowed down to navigate the wreckage of the wall and back door, then he raised his muzzle and followed the destruction through the laundry room and into the living room. It was easy to see where the alpha had shredded the popcorn ceiling and drywall, even crunching through wall frames and supports, tracking blood and huge clumps of mud and other debris across the floor then carpet.

  The scream went on and on. Mrs. Hines screamed, took a breath, and screamed again...

  Jason heard another crash, then Mrs. Hines’s noises abruptly stopped. There was another bigger crash with clattering sounds and shattering glass somewhere in the front of the house. Jason followed the path of destruction, cold fear coursing through his body in waves...

  Sick terror washed over him when Jason came across Mrs. Hines in the front room. She was a crumpled heap covered in fresh blood that seeped from all over her body, dressed in a pale yellow gown and thrown into a corner of the room. Her neck and one arm were clearly broken; twisted at odd angles. It looked like the alpha had just swatted the old lady across the room on its way to the front door.

  "Oh God..." Jason said.

  More crashes came from outside, then a heavy roar that shook the ground under Jason’s feet filled the air.

  "This can’t be happening!" the other Jason cried. "This is all my fault!"

  "Come on!" Jason 934 snapped, his heart bursting with sadness, revulsion, and terror. The adrenaline made his voice shake. "We’ve gotta stop it!"

  "Stop it before—" the other Jason added as they ran through the ruined house to the gaping hole that used to be the front door and the wall around it. They froze when they heard more screams.

  Jason 934 pushed through the minotaur-sized hole in the house of the front, immediately shocked to see a firetruck parked nearby and firemen in dingy, yellow suits hooking a line into a hydrant. Now, all of the firefighters were standing still and staring at where the minotaur had just exploded from the Hines’ house, charged across the street, and crashed through the front windows and wall of the house on the other side of Kestrel Drive. There were pieces of vinyl window framing still hanging and swinging back and forth.

  A woman screamed in there. A male voice in the house across the street bellowed out terrified, wordless sounds. Jason then heard the keening sound of a child screaming. There were deep, terrifying roars and grunts and crashes within...

  Jason’s heart crashed into his belly.

  People were in the street, too, staring in horror. A middle-aged woman was crying, her face stretching further and further into stark terror while her hands rose around her ears with each refreshed scream from inside the house.

  The minotaur was in there killing a family and tearing up the place.

  Jason looked at his counterpart from the past and saw the other Jason also staring in shock, the sunshine glistening in his wide, trembling blue eyes full of tears.

  Then Jason realized that he was crying too.

  "Hey, you two!" a voice shouted suddenly from one side. "Stop right there! Drop your weapons!"

  Jason snapped out of his shock as the horrific sounds coming from the house across the street continued. He looked to his left to see two police officers approaching,
pistols drawn and aiming at them.

  "There’s a minotaur in the house!" he shouted back at them. "We’re trying to stop it!"

  "I don’t care what you’re trying to do!" one officer bellowed, approaching slowly with measured steps, aiming his pistol straight at Jason's chest. He had a dark moustache and reflective sunglasses. "Drop your weapons or I will shoot you!"

  The other cop shouted, "Drop your weapons! Drop em or we'll shoot!" He was approaching just behind his partner, sidestepping into the street.

  Shit.

  Jason turned and ran back into the house. The other Jason followed, shell-shocked, eyes wide and mouth hanging open.

  How many people were dead now because of him? Jason 934 wondered, leading the other Jason back through the living room, down a hall, then through an open door into a nice, neat bedroom.

  Once the past Jason was into the bedroom with him, Jason 934 closed the door, lowered his rifle, and pulled up his OCS. He unlocked the screen, found the coordinates to ‘Going After Alpha’, and focused on rifting back to the same place and time again as intensely as he could...

  He had to try again.

  Jason heard a noise inside the house, then the policemen talking to each other in pursuit. He put one boot up against the bedroom door to wedge it shut as he worked at the OCS. He only needed a few seconds...

  Jason felt the connection—he felt the flex—then a rift opened up with a brilliant, orange flash and a loud snap right there in the bedroom. As the spinning fireball expanded into a disc, its fiery rim whirling faster and faster, shooting sputtering sparks off at the ceiling, the carpet, and everywhere else in the room, Jason hoped that they could get through to the other side before the cops burst through the door after them...

  The center of the portal rippled and smoothed out, eventually brightening from orange fire to a scene of white snow, showing Jason himself several steps away, pausing to reload his Rigby Magnum Mauser, just like before...

  "Ready?" Jason 934 exclaimed to the other Jason standing next to him in shock.

  "Are you insane?!"

  "Come on! Let’s make it right!"

  Jason felt the door thud against him. Then he abandoned it, rushing headlong toward the spiraling, roaring rift...

  Chapter 27

  Jason 934 ran headlong into the portal, immediately emerging back into the snow and sunshine of several minutes ago. He was looking at the back of himself once more, who was now spinning around in surprise...

  The second Jason stumbled through after him. Jason 934 looked back at the rift and released his hold on it, hoping that it would close before the cops shot him through the portal. Just before the roaring rift closed, he saw the police officers bursting through the bedroom door, their pistols leading the way, and they stopped, staring in awe at the spinning, orange rift whirling before them...

  The portal collapsed in on itself with a pop.

  Jason spun back around to the slope, expecting his third self to be just as surprised and need just as much explanation as the last one.

  The third Jason Leaper stood there, closing the bolt of his rifle while holding the rounds down to allow a fifth shot in the chamber—a trick Jason had learned from his father—staring in shock at the other two. He was the same Jason. Of course he was.

  "Oh God!" second Jason exclaimed, falling into the snow on his knees with a sob. "What the fuck?!"

  "It doesn’t matter now," Jason 934 commanded. "We’re back. We’ve got to not let that happen again."

  "But they’re dead! They’re dead because of us! Mr. and Mrs. Hines and that family! Oh God!"

  Jason looked down at number two, ignoring the third Jason, who stared in awe, trying to make sense of what was going on.

  "That’s in the future!" Jason 934 replied. "Come on now—get it together! We’ve gotta hurry! The three of us have a better chance of stopping it!"

  "What the hell going on?!" the third Jason Leaper suddenly shouted. "You guys are from the future?"

  "Yes!" Jason 934 replied. "Make sure your safety is on!"

  Jason three looked down at his Rigby, expressed surprise, then flicked it on. "Oh shit!"

  "Yeah—come on!" Jason 934 said. "The alpha ran north on Kestrel, bashed up some cars and shit, went through some backyards, then ran up to the ridge. We can kill it—I know exactly where it is!"

  "Why are there three of us?!" Jason three demanded.

  "I don’t know!" Jason 934 replied. "Time travel is weird shit!"

  "Hang on," the third one said. "Let’s fix the garage door first, or the cops will see that—"

  "Oh shit!" second Jason exclaimed suddenly, looking up from cradling his head in his hands. "My garage door!"

  "Oh yeah!" Jason 934 said. "Let’s do that real quick then catch up to the monster on the path!"

  They all burst into motion, running around the side of the house, cleaning up the shards of green-painted Masonite and shoving the broken panels back up into the tracks of the ceiling much faster than Jason 934 had done by himself before.

  "Reload!" Jason 934 said to his second self as the third Jason pulled the car into the garage. Both he and second Jason topped off their rifles after the last chase on the ridge.

  Once there was a semblance of normality to the front of Jason’s house again—it only took two minutes perhaps—the three of them took off around to the back, all hefting their .416 rifles, all plunging through the snow down the slope then through the thicket of trees along the game trail until they were running north on the hiking trail together.

  Jason 934 led the three of them through the same chase, up through the ridge once they found the trail, along the heavy sign of hoof-prints and splashes of blood, all the way until they were near the clearing again where the monster would be hiding. All the way, Jason #2 scanned around them, seemingly plagued by the weirdness of the Deja Vu that Jason 934 had experienced the first time around.

  This time, Jason felt like he was just going through a video game level again.

  He explained the last plan, then they all talked about how to improve it. The three of them crouched down out of sight together in the thick, snowy woods.

  "Well one of you should wait down the ridge to shoot up at it when it comes down," the third Jason said.

  "That’s suicide!" the second one replied. "We don’t even know if the first shot hurt it! It’ll just plow through whoever’s down there just like ... just like..." He started shuddering then shook his head, trying to clear the agony from his face.

  "Two of us should be down there," Jason 934 said. "I’ll be one of 'em. I started this. I’ll take the risky position."

  "That’s stupid!" the third Jason said. "Sounds like it only ran down that way when it saw you waiting on the other side. How do you know it’ll run down the ridge and not just keep going like you said happened the first time?"

  The three of them sat and contemplated for a moment, all nervously running a hand through their short hair in the same way.

  "Holy shit this is weird!" the second Jason exclaimed, looking up and noticing them all the same mannerisms.

  "Okay," Jason 934 said. "One of you go up in the same way as always and take the first shot. Me and the other one will wait down the ridge to intercept the alpha when it runs down the hill. We should be able to kill it with two rifles, being able to hit it from the front ... hopefully."

  The third Jason scoffed. "If it runs down that way..."

  "If it doesn’t," Jason 934 replied, "if it keeps heading around past the lake like the first time and gets away into the mountains, then we’ll do this again. We’ll do it a fourth time and have another Jason placed there next time to drive it down. We’ll do it fifty fucking times if we have to. We have to kill the alpha. It’s our responsibility!"

  "Jesus..." the second Jason muttered, staring down the hill.

  "Alright, fine," third Jason said, standing and hefting his Rigby. "But I’m taking that first shot. Sounds like both of you already did."

  "It doesn�
�t matter," Jason replied, "but whatever. Let’s go."

  They executed the same plan and made sure that Jason #3 put his phone on vibrate. This time, however, Jason 934 and his second self headed straight down the ridge instead of arcing around to the minotaur’s other side.

  Once the two of them walked down from the trees, they each chose a spot fifty yards below the tree line—good places for cover and support where they could triangulate onto where they remembered the minotaur ran out from the last time.

  They settled in. It was risky. The beast could just continue running north unopposed. But if that happened, they'd put Jason #4 there next time...

  Jason 934 leaned up against a boulder and trained his rifle on the trees, making sure that his chest was solid against the rock. His brace was cold and wet with melting snow, but it was solid, and Jason could keep his sights nice and still.

  He motioned to the other Jason that he was ready. Second Jason gave him the okay gesture from underwater SCUBA diving language. That’s right, Jason thought. We all used to SCUBA dive with Mom and Dad, years ago...

  Jason pulled out his phone and texted "Ready" to himself.

  The text came through a moment later and he turned his attention to the trees to wait...

  There were sirens down on Kestrel Drive behind him. Jason now knew that it was a firetruck and at least one police car. Hell—there were probably more. There was likely an ambulance down there if there was a firetruck, and—

  Jason's thoughts were interrupted by a loud boom from up the ridge. Birds scattered into the sky from the trees, flapping madly, and the report of the third Jason’s Rigby echoed on and on across the mountains...

  There was a roar—Jason expected that—and a cacophony of crashing and wood snapping started up in the forest. For a moment, Jason’s heart fell as he thought that—from the sound of it—that the beast was running away toward the lake.

  Then it burst from the trees out into the sunshine: huge and black as night with wide, sharp horns and a fierce, snarling face. The alpha minotaur's long, shaggy dark fur swayed as it paused for a moment.