The Temple of the Blind (The Temple of the Blind #3)

by Brian Harmon

  He tried to clear his mind as he focused on the path ahead. Another statue stood ahead of him and he squeezed his eyes into narrow slits to avoid seeing anything more than gray blobs in the gloom as he passed.

  He asked if everyone was still doing okay.

  Everyone replied that they were fine.

  “I guess you were right,” Beverly said. “I can’t see any statues. All I see in my head are…shades of gray.”

  “Which is exactly what I see,” Albert marveled. It seemed to him that, being psychic, she probably had some sort of mysterious ability to see what others saw. Brandy saw all of the statues when she first entered the sex room and, because she was with them in her dreams that night, so did Beverly. When Brandy tried to pass through the sex room the second time, she remembered the things she saw the first time. The blurry shapes somehow retained their meaning, even though her sight was significantly hindered. This time, when Nicole used Brandy’s glasses, she was able to pass through it with ease because she could not discern the shapes she saw through them. But Beverly could both see what Nicole was seeing and remember the statues from her dream. She had no memories of these statues because none of them had ever seen them.

  Of course, this was nothing more than a theory. He had no way of knowing how Beverly’s psychic abilities worked or how these rooms worked. The important thing was that Beverly was not feeling anything from the hate room.

  But Wayne did not loosen his grip on Beverly’s wrist. He was relieved that she was still in control of herself, but he did not dare take the chance that she might still lose it.

  Albert was just beginning to wonder if he’d somehow become turned around when he finally caught sight of the opening that led out of the hate room. Relieved, he turned his attention on the danger that lurked just beyond that doorway. “I think this is it,” he said, moving toward the exit. “Remember, don’t anybody push or I’m a pincushion.”

  Brandy squeezed his hand tightly, not at all liking the mental image of him tumbling into those hateful spikes.

  “Okay. We’re here. Just stop and wait a minute. Don’t open your eyes.”

  Albert stepped through the doorway and removed Brandy’s glasses. Ahead of him, just as he remembered, the floor dropped off into a deadly pit of wicked stone spikes. The mere sight of them was enough to drive all other thoughts from his mind.

  He stepped cautiously onto the narrow ledge and sidled away from the door. He then turned and gave Brandy her glasses back. “We’ll go one at a time.”

  Brandy put her glasses on and looked down. She could almost feel the tips of those awful spikes. Without getting any closer to the pit than necessary, she followed Albert out of the hate room. Behind her, Nicole did the same.

  “That’s not even funny,” Wayne observed, staring at the spiked pit.

  “Nothing about this place is funny,” Brandy said.

  Albert ducked into the next passage, still holding onto Brandy’s hand. Behind them, Nicole followed close.

  With the dangers finally behind them, Wayne relinquished his grip on Beverly’s arm and entered the next passage behind the others. But Beverly did not immediately follow. Instead, she lingered there, her eyes fixed on the spikes. They were terrible things, wickedly sharp. One of those had the potential to pass right through a human being and find no resistance at all. It was difficult to look into this pit and not picture a human body lying at the bottom.

  But these grisly imaginings were not what made her pause to reflect upon the pit. As she stared at it, she felt a strange sensation, as though there was something important about it, something very significant, as though she had seen it somewhere before, and not when Albert and Brandy were here. It was like something from an old nightmare that she couldn’t quite remember.

  Albert, Brandy and Nicole stood in the next chamber, their flashlights scanning the walls. “I remember this room,” said Albert. “It doesn’t make any sense. It’s like they forgot to furnish it or something.”

  Nicole studied the blank walls and ceiling. Albert had talked of this room a few times, the room that he’d found curiously pointless, and it was not hard to see why. It was just an empty square room, a little more than fifteen feet across, with a tall ceiling and another narrow passage on the opposite side that was identical to the one from which they’d just entered. It served no apparent purpose.

  “I don’t know what it’s for,” Albert said, still bothered by it, but not willing to spend much time on it. Perhaps it was nothing. Maybe it was simply here to allow travelers to rest once they’d conquered the hate room. Or maybe this was where the survivors of that room could conveniently finish killing each other should they make it all the way past the spiked pit in their blind rage. There was no way he was likely to understand the minds of those who built this place. He began to walk toward the next passage and Brandy and Nicole followed.

  Wayne crossed the room behind them, shining his flashlight onto the walls and ceiling, relieved to be safely past the perils of the hate room and its deadly pit.

  Beverly at last pulled her eyes away from the gruesome spikes and ducked into the short passage to catch up with the others. She was still thinking about that pit, about how easily fragile life could be torn from its shell by such a thing, and wondering why she found it so vividly significant and appalling. A horrible shiver had begun to creep up her spine. She glanced back at it once more, and could almost see blood dripping down the wicked skewers. She suddenly wanted to get as far from that room as she could. That place had the morbid feel of an open grave. It was a bad place. She turned away from it, not wanting anything more to do with it, and peered into the “empty” room through which her young companions were already passing.

  Her shriek was heart-stopping. Startled, Wayne spun to face her, certain that some murderous horror had appeared from an unseen crevice. Albert, Nicole and Brandy likewise turned to see, their eyes wide and afraid.

  Beverly was standing just within the passage, screaming at the top of her lungs at something above them, her terrified eyes almost bulging with fright. She staggered backward, as though something were attacking her, but there was nothing there. The room was still empty.

  She whipped her head back, as if an invisible snake had just struck at her face. The top of her head struck the passage’s ceiling, but she didn’t seem to notice. She crossed her arms over her eyes, protecting herself from whatever it was that was terrifying her, or perhaps just blocking out whatever horrible vision had instilled such terror.

  Wayne stared at her, unable to understand what had frightened her. The room was silent except for her shrieking. There was nothing at all. The room was empty. But Beverly did not seem to believe that. She staggered backward, through the passage from which she’d come, and Wayne suddenly realized that she was going to back right into the pit.

  He bolted toward her, his voice joining hers as he cried out for her to stop.

  Albert, too, bolted after her as he realized what was about to happen, leaving the girls to stand and gawk in horror at the spectacle before them.

  Beverly did not see any of them. Her arms were crossed over her eyes, her face hidden, still screaming, still lost in a storm of unthinkable terror as she backed toward the very pit from which she had not been able to pull her eyes only seconds before. She did not hear Wayne’s shouts of warning, did not realize that one more step would tumble her into those giant stone needles and silence her screams forever.

  Wayne rushed through the short passage, his arms outstretched, reaching out for her as her heel rocked off the edge of the pit. He saw her begin to sway back, her arms parting slightly as the realization of what was about to happen seemed to come to her. He snatched at her, his fingers grazing her arm and her breast, feeling for one second the cool touch of her bare skin…but nothing more.

  She had thought, just moments ago, that the deadly room had the eerie, significant feel of a grave. Her grave. Her tomb. She had been psychic her entire life, at the mercy of keen, other
worldly senses she never wanted. It had always tortured her, and in the end, when it could have saved her, it utterly failed her. She did not recognize her own death in that wicked pit, only the horror of death in general. The deep warning of the queer, personal significance of this very spot had, in fact, fatally distracted her.

  Beverly Bridger, and all of her mysteries, fell…and her screams were silenced in one sickening instant.

  Albert caught up with Wayne, but could only stand beside him and stare. Beverly lay in the pit, her head tilted up a little, one hand propped up by the wrist on one spike, the other, her hurt one, lying on the floor beside her. Six separate spikes protruded from her belly and chest, another from her neck. One came right through her left breast, misshaping it slightly as her body’s weight pulled her down onto it. Three had gone through her left thigh and another through the calf. Her right leg was sticking up in the air, one of the spikes having torn a gash from the back of her knee to her ankle as she fell. Blood flowed slowly from her punctured body and spread around her in a gruesome pool. Her flashlight lay at the bottom of the pit, a few feet from her body, illuminating the whole gory scene.

  The two of them stared for a moment, unable to speak or act.

  “I tried to save her,” Wayne said, almost absently. He felt numb with shock. He felt as though he’d suddenly fallen asleep and begun to dream.

  “I know,” Albert assured him. “That was good of you.” He put his hand on Wayne’s shoulder. “It’s okay.”

  “What happened?” Brandy asked. She and Nicole were standing at the other end of the tunnel, unwilling to come any closer. Her tone told him that she already knew.

  “She’s dead,” Albert said, his voice sounding very far away to himself.

  “Oh my god…” Nicole sounded sick. “What happened?” She knew, of course, what killed her. Her imagination was brutally honest on that subject. She didn’t need to look into that pit to know that she had fallen victim to those ghastly spikes. But what brought her to that end? It was as though she had suddenly gone crazy again, the way she did when Albert had reached out to her in the entrance to the sex room, his only intention to try and help her.

  Albert shook his head. He honestly had no idea. He turned and walked away from the bloody scene, back to Brandy and Nicole, who each looked as shocked as he felt.

  For a long time, Wayne stood staring at Beverly’s naked and lifeless body. He remembered grabbing her outside of Gilbert House, remembered slinging her around and hurling her into the brush, tearing the buttons from her shirt and spraining her wrist. Later, he had been no gentler when he threw her to the floor in the entrance to the sex room. He had even jerked her out of the sex room after she nearly lost control, his temper flaring, hating her for even being alive.

  And now she was dead.

  Brandy and Nicole stood together, silent and shocked, unable to believe what had transpired. It happened so quickly. She was literally just here. And now she was gone forever. Albert put his arms around them both, unable to get the image of her lifeless body out of his head.

  What the hell happened? Why did she begin screaming like that? It didn’t make sense. There was nothing in this room, not even one of those faceless sentinel statues. He looked up at the dark ceiling, the place where her terrified eyes had fixed before she covered her face and retreated to her death.

  “I’m sorry,” Wayne said softly, speaking to Beverly. He was sorry. He was damn sorry. He didn’t feel like he’d ever loved himself, but now he was beginning to feel like the most insufferable ass who ever lived. He had tragically failed two women in only a few short hours.

  In the silence, Albert stared up at the ceiling, looking at the darkness, looking into it. Perhaps there was more here than met the eye, perhaps this room was not so pointless or empty after all.

  Wayne turned away, leaving Beverly behind him, and joined the others. For a moment, he stood next to them as they held each other in an intimate silence. Then, without saying a word, he walked past them, toward the next tunnel. Nicole followed after him, her heart breaking at the sight of his misery, and Brandy followed next.

  Albert hesitated, still staring at the ceiling. Beverly had told them that she was psychic. Did that give her a wider perspective of the world? Were there things out there that she could see that were hidden from the eyes of others?

  He walked across the room to the passage his friends had already entered. He ducked inside, then paused and looked back. Perhaps it was his imagination, but for just an instant, he thought he heard something, a soft sound, sort of like chains rattling in the distance.

  Chapter 10

  “What’s that noise?” Wayne felt as though he were struggling with sleep, his thoughts refusing to focus, his every movement sluggish. He had done no more than walk across the room and duck into the next tunnel, had walked only perhaps twenty or twenty-five yards from where Beverly’s body lay, yet the world had slowed almost to a stop and not minutes but hours seemed to have passed. This thick emptiness into which he was sinking was comforting, like death to the sick and weary, yet there was something wrong with the emptiness. There was that noise, like a frenzied buzzing of bees somewhere nearby and growing closer.

  “The hounds,” Albert replied, his voice as distant as the ocean to Wayne’s ears.

  The hounds, Wayne thought. The hounds are deaf and blind but they smell. The hounds are fast, but they can’t jump. The hounds are… What? What were the hounds? To him they were just the words of some creepy old blind man, but what were they? What was that god-awful sound they were making? They were some sort of dog, he suspected, perhaps bald and eyeless like the man who made them leave their clothes behind. What are they doing? He wondered, lost in his own head.

  “Wayne?” Nicole’s voice, soft and soothing. “Are you okay?”

  Nicole was pretty. Very pretty. She was nice, too. He liked her. He mentally shook himself, clearing his head a little. “Yeah,” he replied. He looked at her, actually focusing his eyes on something for the first time since turning away from Beverly’s body. She was walking beside him, her brilliant eyes fixed on his, genuine concern painted on her pretty face. She was still naked, still lovely, still alive.

  He snapped back a little, as though splashed with cool water. She was still alive. So were Albert and Brandy. So was he, damn it! If he was going to stay that way, and he intended to for a while yet, then he was going to have to just bottle what happened to Beverly.

  “You sure?” Nicole had stopped trying to hide her nudity. Her breasts swayed voluptuously as she walked and he realized as he noticed this that he’d forgotten completely about being naked, his own body just as revealed as hers.

  “Yeah. I’m okay.” He suddenly felt very self-conscious and insecure. As he felt his neck grow hot with a blush, he realized that he really wasn’t okay. He was in shock, his mind running on auxiliary power alone. For reasons he could not understand, he thought of Laura Swiff and her muddy green eyes and short, black hair.

  “He’ll come back to us,” Albert assured Nicole.

  The four of them—four once again—stepped out of the tunnel. The enormous stone bridge stretched out in front of them. Four sentinels and three more tunnels waited at its far end. Beneath them, the shadowy maze stood like the ruins of an ancient city, stretching out seemingly forever into the darkness. The hounds rattled and shuffled and clicked unseen in the shadows between those walls. To Albert and Brandy, it was as awesome a sight as the first night they looked upon it, and to Nicole, it surpassed her wildest dreams.

  To the right and far below, the noise of the hounds was concentrated. A chaos of noise rose from the base of an enormous stone column. Buzzing, clicking, grinding. Above this racket of what was certainly a great many creatures, aligned in a neat row, were five pairs of socks. Five pairs of underpants were hung above them and three bras were hung above these. The blind man had arranged them together, just as he’d done the last time. Brandy’s pink bra was just above her little, pink thong a
nd Nicole’s lacy black bra and matching panties were equally displayed, as was Beverly’s mismatch of white bra and flowered panties. To creatures whose only eyes and ears were their noses, it must have seemed that five people were hanging there, tantalizingly out of their reach, taunting them.

  “I can’t see them,” Nicole said, gazing down into the shadows.

  “Maybe that’s a good thing,” Albert said. He stared for a moment longer at their undergarments, at that price they’d all paid to safely pass these mysterious creatures, and then continued on across the bridge.

  The four sentinels still stood their ground, still stared blankly ahead and still refused to offer help to any weary travelers, but Albert already knew which of the three tunnels would lead them forward and not down into that terrible place below or to some other unthinkable fate.

  Wayne and Brandy started forward after Albert, but Nicole lagged behind, fascinated by the maze and all its mysteries. “Wasn’t there a Greek hero who faced the Minotaur in a place like this?”

  Albert paused, his eyes drawn to the walls far below. “Yeah,” he said. He felt as though the air around him had just grown a little thinner. It was an easy thing to picture, a fantastic thing to wonder. Of course this wasn’t the same place. That was preposterous. But the idea had a magical quality to it. “I don’t remember the story, really, but—”

  “The Labyrinth of Crete,” Wayne said, as if in a daze. He, too, had stopped and was staring down at the dark walls below. “An enormous, spiraling maze, with no way out. It was underground, and in the center was the monster, half man, half bull. It lived on the flesh of sacrificial victims.”

  Everyone had turned and was staring at him as though he’d just performed some fantastic magic trick.

  “The hero who slew him was Theseus.” He looked up at Albert with eyes that were still a little dim. “You look surprised.”

  Albert shrugged. “Didn’t know you were into mythology.”