by Brian Harmon
Wayne stood in the doorway, startled by the thought. “How should I do that, exactly?”
“Use your hand to shield your eyes and check the floor. Try to see as little as possible. If there are more statues, close your eyes and put the glasses back on.”
Wayne did as Albert said. The next room was a fourth chamber.
As he stepped through the door, looking at it through Brandy’s eyes, he saw that many more spikes protruded from the clustered statues, threatening to pierce the flesh and organs of anyone foolish enough to get careless.
He took a deep breath, warned the others of the situation and then began to weave his way through the many statues.
Time slowed to a crawl as his eyes picked out shapes that reminded him of things he’d rather not see, things that made him want to break and run, to just get the hell out of there. But of course that would be committing suicide. He walked slowly, deliberately meticulous, gently prodding the darkness with his toes with every step he took and holding his hands before him to guard against unseen spikes. To be this afraid and not be able to run was sheer hell. The only thing keeping him alive was his willpower, and that seemed to be fading fast.
He managed, however, to keep his eyes forward, looking at the room only through the glasses. He hadn’t been sure he’d be able to do that, but he found that Albert’s bizarre experience was enough to sufficiently scare the hell out of him. He did not want that to happen to him.
The room went forward and then curved left in a sharp U-turn. It was hard to navigate, hard to tell which way was forward and which way was back while weaving through the statues, especially when one was forced to concentrate hard on not looking at the dozens of stone figures that blocked the way at every turn.
Twice, the needle tip of an unseen spike gouged rudely into Wayne’s skin, once in his arm and once in the soft meat of his right thigh. Another spike managed to scrape Brandy’s hip as she walked past it, and she cursed loudly at it, but more in fear than in pain, Wayne thought.
Images of blood and death and terror bombarded him as he walked, trying to push past his mental defenses, reducing them much as a virus would whittle down his immune system. By the time he saw the next door, his body was trembling, his fists clamped together, white-knuckling the flashlight, his teeth clenched so hard he’d begun to feel sharp bolts of pain in his jaws. He had to draw on every ounce of his will just to keep moving.
Now he understood what Albert had been talking about. He couldn’t imagine being in the sex room now. If the urges associated with that room were anything like what he felt now, then he could see how a person really could kill himself trying to satisfy such insane lust. Thank God he didn’t give into temptation and sneak a peek at those statues.
He had almost reached the door when he felt a sharp, agonizing pain in his stomach.
Oh God! he thought as cold terror filled him. The images had become too much for him. He’d stopped being careful. When he saw the door, he stopped looking for the spikes, stopped watching for the real danger, wanting only to get away from those that were imaginary.
He looked down slowly, shielding his eyes from the horrors that loomed all around him, and lifted the glasses to examine his situation.
“Wayne?” Brandy asked, her voice trembling. “Something wrong?”
It was just an illusion. That was all. Like the one Albert suffered. He stared down at his stomach, looking at the tall, stone spike that came at him from the floor at such an angle as to spear him in the lower-right side of his belly.
It was just an illusion.
He could see the blood trickling down his waist.
“Wayne?” Brandy again, sounding more concerned.
It wasn’t an illusion. This was real. Real blood. Real pain. Real trouble. He backed up slowly, pulling himself off the spike. He had not impaled himself very deeply, but he was a long ways from the nearest emergency room.
“What’s wrong?” Nicole asked.
Wayne looked up at the door. This one appeared to be clear of the spikes that had circled the last one. Instead there were three more of these long, sharply angled spines protruding from the floor. “Nothing,” he said. “There are some spikes coming out of the floor over here. Follow me close.”
He embraced the pain and pushed on, using it to focus his attention.
The next room was yet another chamber. It was a smaller room, but was more densely populated with statues than any of the others. Wayne did not hesitate. He moved on, keenly alert for more deadly spikes.
Almost at once, he spied the next door, but statues blocked it. He would have to go around, get to it from the other side.
“I’m going to try and get us through this room,” he explained. “Then we’ll have to switch off again.”
“That’s fine,” Albert told him. “Stop whenever you have to.”
Wayne held his free hand firmly to his belly. He could feel warm, slick blood on his fingers. He hoped he could last that long.
The trip through this room took much longer than the rest. At an agonizingly slow pace, they worked their way between closely placed statues and past clusters of stone spikes. All four of them collected small cuts, scrapes and bruises along the way. Twice, they found themselves cornered and had to backtrack, and once they came back to the door from which they’d entered.
Horrible images surfaced in Wayne’s mind every step of the way. Several times he stopped and squeezed his eyes closed, convincing himself that there was not something large and hairy stalking them on the ceiling or swarms of little, scurrying things spilling from the mouth of a screaming statue or gnarled, diseased hands reaching out for them from the darkness just beyond his vision. He could not understand why he was so convinced that these things were real. How could these statues possibly affect them like this? What kind of twisted mind could conceive of such a thing?
The four of them circled around and around until Wayne felt that he had finally reached his breaking point. And then, at last, the door was just ahead.
Wayne felt weak, drained, as though he’d spent the day doing hard labor instead of wandering this dark labyrinth. Feeling a little dizzy, thinking he must be well on his way to bleeding to death, he stood in the doorway leading out of the fear room’s fifth chamber. He removed Brandy’s glasses and peered into the next room. He peeked just a little at first, and then some more, and finally he braced himself and opened his eyes to the room ahead.
“Well, guys,” Wayne said. “The good news is we’re out of the fear room.” He turned and gave Brandy back her glasses.
“And the bad news?” Asked Albert.
“See for yourselves.”
Albert, Brandy and Nicole opened their eyes. The sixth chamber of the fear room was not a room of statues, but a room of stone spikes. There were thousands of them, standing up from the floor at random angles and heights, protruding from the walls and ceiling. Half a dozen columns stood in this room and these were each covered in long, deadly thorns. On the floor, covering almost every available square inch beyond the small area of smooth stone on which they stood, were literally thousands of tiny, needle-like spikes, each one pointing straight up.
“Watch your step,” Wayne said. He turned and leaned against the wall beside the fear room door.
“Wayne, you’re bleeding!” Nicole exclaimed.
“Yeah. I walked into one of those spikes.”
“Oh my god!” cried Brandy. “Are you okay?”
Wayne shook his head. “I don’t know.”
Chapter 14
“Oh, that doesn’t look bad,” sighed Nicole. She was kneeling in front of Wayne, gently wiping away the blood with some gauze from Albert’s first aid kit and examining the gash. “It’s a pretty good cut,” she admitted, “a little deep, but it’s already stopped bleeding.”
Wayne looked down at himself for the first time and realized that he was not really bleeding to death. He hadn’t bled very much at all, in fact. It had run down his waist and to about the middle o
f his thigh, but that was all. “Then why do I feel so weak?” he asked.
“Do you ever get queasy at the sight of your own blood?” inquired Nicole.
Wayne shook his head. “Never.”
Nicole thought for a moment. “Maybe it has something to do with those rooms, then.”
He considered this. He did start to feel awful shaky in there. He was still trembling, in fact. “Yeah,” he decided. “I think you’re right. Mental exertion, I guess.”
“You were leading for a long time,” Albert agreed. “Longer than I did.”
Wayne nodded and looked down at Nicole as she pressed a bandage over his wound. “How do you all feel?”
“I’m fine,” Brandy replied.
“Yeah,” Agreed Nicole as she stood up. “A little jittery, but that’s all.”
“Other than that weird attack I had,” Albert added, “I’m perfectly fine.”
Wayne nodded. “Then you don’t think those spikes were poisoned, do you?”
Albert, Brandy and Nicole exchanged uneasy looks. Each of them had sustained some sort of cut, scrape or poke from at least one of those hateful things. If there was poison involved, then they had all been exposed.
“I took a pretty good poke early on,” Albert said, looking down at the dried spot of blood on his arm. “I think if they were poisoned I’d probably be feeling it, too.”
Wayne nodded. “Yeah. You’re right. I just don’t understand. It felt like I’d really hurt myself back there. I could’ve sworn I was bleeding to death.”
“Maybe it was another illusion,” Albert offered. “Like what happened to me, but based on a real injury instead of an imaginary attack.”
Wayne nodded. “That could be right. I guess.” He stood up straight, shaking it off. He felt embarrassed. He couldn’t believe he’d created such drama over such a superficial injury. “I’ll be fine. We should keep moving.”
Albert hesitated. He wanted Wayne to regain his strength before moving on, but the four of them could not remain huddled here for much longer. They needed to keep moving. The blind man had made it clear that they needed to hurry. And he had no doubt that the longer they were down here, the more likely they were to attract a hound. Those creatures might already have grown bored with the underwear and begun to wander farther out into the temple. “Are you sure you can go on?”
“Yeah. I’ll be fine.” Wayne looked out at the tiny spikes on the floor, focusing his thoughts on the obstacles before them. He wanted to put this embarrassing injury behind him as quickly as possible. “Looks like there’s a path.”
There were small patches on the floor where there were no spikes, forming a sort of stepping stone path for them to follow.
“A safe path,” Albert agreed.
“Seems to defeat the purpose,” observed Wayne.
“Not really. This is the Temple of the Blind. The only way to get through those rooms back there was to be blind to the statues. But if you couldn’t see the rooms, you couldn’t see the path.”
That made sense. “You wouldn’t be able to find a way across if you couldn’t see,” Wayne reasoned. “So technically, a blind person couldn’t get through the Temple of the Blind. You have to be able to go back and forth, like we’re doing.”
“Exactly,” Albert agreed. “No one can accidentally stumble through it. You’d have to use something to blind yourself, like Brandy’s glasses, or else feel your way around the rooms in the dark, which obviously isn’t recommended with all these spikes.”
“There weren’t any spikes in the first room,” Wayne recalled. “It probably would have been safe to just feel our way through there in the dark.”
“I don’t think I’d want to feel my way through that room,” opined Nicole.
Brandy giggled. “You could probably still put an eye out in there,” she agreed.
“I suppose you’re right,” remarked Wayne, grinning a little.
“I guess it’s more like the Temple of the Nearsighted, huh,” said Brandy.
Albert laughed. “Yeah. I guess it is.” He stepped forward, examining the path ahead. “I think the rooms were designed to get harder each time. You can’t ever get too confident that way. It’s probably some kind of test.”
“And we passed the test?” asked Nicole.
“Well, we’re still alive,” Albert replied. “I’d call that a pass.”
“Tough grading curve,” remarked Brandy.
“Let’s go then,” urged Wayne. He wasn’t eager to see what the next test would be, but he certainly didn’t want to stay here all night.
“I’ll go first,” Albert volunteered. “Everyone stay back a little bit.” He walked up to the edge of the spiked floor and stepped onto the first “stepping stone” that led across the room. He then stepped carefully from one to the next, grimacing a little at the thought of what all those little needles would feel like if he missed and planted his bare foot on them. It would hurt like hell, no doubt, and probably send him stumbling back and into one of the many larger spikes.
“Be careful,” Brandy pleaded. She could barely stand to watch.
“I am,” he promised. With every step, he expected something more, some nasty little surprise, but there was nothing. Carefully, he made his way past the thorny columns to the doorway beyond.
The final step was a long one, requiring him to jump over the spikes, but it was hardly difficult. Once he was within the safety of the far door, he turned back and beckoned the others to follow.
One by one, the remaining three made their way cautiously across the spiked room to join him.
Chapter 15
The passage that led from the spike-filled room was just high enough for Wayne to walk through without being hunched forward and wide enough for Albert and Brandy to walk side by side and hand in hand. But the tunnel was sloped downward at such an angle that they were carried forward as they walked, forcing them to consciously slow down lest they risk slipping on the smooth stone floor.
“How are you feeling?” Albert asked, speaking to Wayne. “Any better?”
“Yeah, actually.” His strength was coming back to him. “I guess it was the fear room after all.”
“Mental exertion,” Albert agreed. “And probably a little bit of whatever those statues do to you.”
Wayne nodded. “I guess so.”
Nicole looked at Wayne, who was walking beside her. Their nudity had been forgotten by all but the slight chill in the air. The four of them could have been walking around in bathing suits. “You know,” she said to him, “you haven’t told us much about yourself.”
Wayne shrugged. “I don’t know much about you either,” he retorted.
Nicole smiled. “Yeah. Fair enough. Let’s see… I grew up here in Briar Hills—well, up there in Briar Hills—and so did Brandy. We’re both juniors in college and we’ve been friends since we were kids. I’m a Special Education major and she’s majoring in History. We’re both twenty-one so when we get out of here you can take us both out for drinks.” She flashed him a bright smile before continuing. “Albert’s a sophomore and one of those Computer Science geeks. He’s from St. Louis and he’s not twenty-one so he has to stay home.”
Albert turned and gave Brandy a comically hurt look that sent her into a fit of giggles.
“I’m not working right now but Brandy works at the mall at Old Navy and Albert just recently started working at Staples. They met last year in chemistry class and got mixed up in all this stuff when someone sent them the box and its key. Now they live together.”
Wayne nodded. “I see,” he said, although he still wasn’t entirely clear on the whole box story.
“So now you know stuff about us. Now it’s your turn.”
Wayne gave her an amused grunt. “Okay. Well, I’m originally from Springfield, but I’ve lived in Dunnen since I was about four. That’s where I went to school. I’m a senior and I’m majoring in Art.”
“Art?” Nicole interrupted, interested. “You didn’t strike me as
an artist.”
Wayne shrugged. “I had three or four majors when I first came here. Finally, I just picked art. I like it. It works for me. I’m good at it.”
Nicole nodded. “Do you work?”
“No. I’m a slacker. There’s not much else to tell, really.”
“Well,” corrected Brandy, “except for you doing your roommate’s girlfriend.”
“Hey, I never actually did her. Besides, she hit on me, not the other way around. And I wouldn’t have even considered doing it if I hadn’t caught my roommate fooling around on her.”
Nicole gaped at him. “No way!”
“Oh yeah. Some little blonde bimbo.”
Brandy laughed. “I can see where the principles could get a little hazy there.”
Wayne laughed. “That’s what I’m saying!” He was feeling much better, actually. The stress of being in the fear room, of focusing so hard on seeing the spikes while not seeing the statues must have been a little too much for his brain. It was like trying to function without sleep.
He remembered clutching his belly as he walked and thinking that he must be slowly bleeding to death. Had that been something similar to what Albert experienced, when he thought something had attacked him and that he was dying? He supposed that if the statues could do that to Albert, then they certainly could make him believe that a superficial cut from one of those spikes was a mortal wound.
“So what kind of art do you do?” Nicole asked.
He shrugged. “Drawing. Painting. I had a sculpting class last year and really sucked at it. But I’ve been working a lot on computers lately. I’m not that great, but I’m okay. I guess.”
Nicole smiled at him. “That’s cool. I can’t draw shit.”
They fell into silence again as they walked, each of them wondering how long this tunnel would last. It seemed endless. They’d been walking for a long time and still there was no end in sight. The monotony of the gray stone was almost maddening.
“How close do you suppose we are to the end of this thing?” Wayne asked.
“No idea,” Albert replied. “Could be just ahead, could be we’ve barely started.”