by Brian Harmon
The two of them began to walk again, side by side as they had done before the old man stopped him.
“The trees in the Wood aren’t dead, you know. They’re as alive as you and me. They look dead, but they’re just waiting. They’re waiting for the light. You see, in the beginning, when that forest was growing, there was light in that world, but that was a very long time ago, much longer than you could ever imagine. When light returns to the Wood, they’ll live again. And if the light never returns, they’ll just keep on sleeping forever, sleeping and waiting. But they don’t need the sun. The light from your flashlight is all they really need. That’s why you can’t stay in one place for too long. The roots of the night trees are alive, too. They’ll come right through the rock to get to the light. But like snakes in the spring, they start out slow, lethargic. As long as you keep moving and keep the exposure to a minimum, the movement will remain almost unnoticeable to the human eye.”
Wayne remembered thinking a couple times that he saw one of the roots twitch as he passed by it and shuddered.
The old man smiled a little. “It is chilling to think about.”
“You told me the Sentinel Queen lied to me. What did you mean?”
“Oh yes. She made it sound like all of you were precious to her, didn’t she? She spoke to you like you were her own children, her voice filled with love and compassion. Perhaps that’s how she really felt toward Albert and Brandy. Probably Nicole, too. But she didn’t send you here to save Olivia. She sent you here to die.”
“I don’t understand.”
“She believes that her time is almost over. She’s right. The last of her children are dying. Once he is gone, she will die too. With her passing will come the end of what you call the ‘Temple of the Blind.’ It will eventually crumble and fall. The road will forever be closed.” He paused for a moment, perhaps letting Wayne digest what he’d already said. “I think she might actually believe that it’s her duty to see that silly prophecy pass before she dies.”
“Prophecy?”
“She told you that mankind first entered your world through the labyrinth you call the ‘Temple of the Blind.’ She thinks that it is mankind’s fate to return to the place from which it came. But the truth is that there is nothing for humanity on the other side of that labyrinth but death and destruction. If they reach their destination, if they find that doorway, the world as you know it will be over.”
“The end of the world?”
“Yes.”
“That’s pretty fucked up.”
“Very fucked up,” agreed the old man. “Something terrible will be unleashed if they succeed. I need you to stop them before that can happen.”
“Why me?”
“Because you’re the only one who can.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I know. Listen to me very carefully. I’ve had my eye on you for a long time.”
“Me?”
“Oh yeah. I know all about you.”
Wayne stared at him, suspicious.
“You’re a lot stronger than you think, Wayne. You’ve been torturing yourself for so long that you’ve grown harder than most men. You’ve become a survivor, a warrior of sorts. You really don’t realize your full potential.”
“I don’t understand what you want me to do. I can’t go back. The seals don’t open that way.”
“Do you know why Beverly sent you that letter, why she sent you to Gilbert House?”
Wayne was caught off guard by the sudden change in topic. “Because I fit the part. She said she was looking for somebody big.”
The old man shook his head. “No. She sent you that letter because the Sentinel Queen made her do it.”
Wayne remembered the Sentinel Queen telling them that psychic minds were easy to manipulate. She made Albert and Brandy leave their cars unlocked so that someone by the name of Peter Yowler could deliver the box and its key to them. She had worked them all like puppets. She could have done the same with Beverly. It probably would have been easy. Beverly was crazy, after all.
“You were not supposed to come away from Gilbert House alive.”
“She was trying to kill me?”
“Yes. Just as she’s trying to kill you now by sending you here.”
Wayne turned and stared into the darkness ahead. Something moved just beyond the reach of the light, but he hardly noticed it. He felt so confused. “But if I was supposed to die inside Gilbert House, then what were the others doing there? Albert, Brandy and Nicole?”
“I arranged that.”
“You?”
“Yes.”
“You were trying to kill them?”
The old man smiled. “No. Of course not. I knew how valuable they were to their Sentinel Queen. I knew that if they were there with you, then she would have no choice but to protect you all. It was the Sentinel Queen that got inside the creature’s head and distracted it. That’s why it didn’t kill you when it first appeared. It was disoriented, frightened by something inside its own head.” Wayne remembered when that thing first dropped out of the stairwell. He had wondered why it didn’t grab one of them. It seemed to have simply bolted back up into the darkness again. “It was also she who summoned the thing that snatched Olivia away.”
“Olivia…”
“Olivia should have died in that house. Those other two letters really were random. Olivia and her friends were just victims of blind circumstance.”
“But she didn’t.”
“No, she didn’t. She got away. She hid. And you found her.”
“Is she still alive?”
“Yes. For now. I want you to find her and get her out of there.”
“But why her? Why is she so important?”
“Because she’s important to you.”
Wayne opened his mouth to speak, meaning to ask what he meant, but he already knew. Olivia was important to him. He had promised her that he would protect her, that he would let nothing happen to her, but he had failed. Now he had a chance to make it right again. That meant a lot to him. It meant everything to him, in fact.
“I told you that the Sentinel Queen sent you here to die, but I think she knew I wouldn’t let it happen. She’s much wiser than that. By snatching Olivia into the Wood, she had an excuse to separate you from the others. She’s put a good deal of distance between you and them.”
These words made more sense than Wayne wanted to admit. “How do I get through the Wood? If those things out there are like you say, I can’t survive in that.”
“There is a way for everything, Wayne. Some things are impossible for some people, but nothing is impossible for everyone.”
Ahead of them, the eleventh seal came into view.
“This is the last fully intact seal, Wayne. They are a long ways toward breaking the twelfth. In another few thousand years, they’ll be through it, too.”
Wayne could have laughed. He made it sound as though they were about to be unleashed onto the world any day now, but at that rate it would be millions of years before they broke through. He put his hand on the circle and pushed open the eleventh seal.
“The Sentinel Queen would have had this road destroyed if she could. She doesn’t like it. She doesn’t like that the Wood is so close to her children. But it’s not hers to destroy. I won’t let her.”
“What is the Wood, exactly? Is it just another world, a parallel dimension?”
The old man considered this for a moment as Wayne closed the seal behind them. “Sort of, but it’s more than that. It’s connected to your world, entwined around it, if you can imagine. In some ways, it’s a barrier between your world and others, a sort of buffer zone that prevents crossovers.”
“So there are more worlds than just those two?”
“Oh yes.”
“How many?”
“I couldn’t tell you. There may be an infinite number of worlds. Or maybe just a few. I really don’t know.”
Wayne nodded, understanding. For a little while, the two of
them walked in silence as he pondered this information.
“The twelfth seal is just ahead,” announced the old man.
Wayne could not yet see the twelfth seal, but he did not doubt that the old man was correct.
“Do you have any more questions?”
“Yeah, the same one I asked before. How the hell am I supposed to survive out there?”
The old man smiled. “When you finally leave this road and step into the forest, stand with your back to the tunnel’s entrance and turn your head as far as it will go to your left. Look as far over your shoulder as you can without moving your body and go in exactly that direction. You’ll find the girl. As for the things in the Wood, there’s no way to avoid them. You’re presence will attract them. They’ll come to kill you, not because they want you dead, but because they don’t know what else to do. The poor, wretched things don’t really mean to be what they are. They can’t help it. But you can discourage them.” He unfastened the buttons on his coat and removed it. Wayne was not surprised to see that the old man was naked underneath. The blind man, the Sentinel Queen, even the monster in Gilbert House, had all been naked. They were all completely without modesty. This old man, naturally, was no different. “Here. There exist things out there that even they fear. The thing that took Olivia was one of them. This cloak has been washed with the scent of one of those things. It confuses them, makes them think you’re something else, even though they sense your life force. It won’t keep them off of you for long, but it should get you far enough.”
Wayne stopped and took the cloak. It felt strange in his hands. It was rough, like wool, but also slick, like vinyl, and there was an odd smell wafting from it, a smell like death and decay, but also a little like something else, something that was vaguely familiar to him, but that he could not quite place. He felt better as he slipped it on over his shoulders. It was, after all, the only protection he had for where he was going.
The old man flipped the hood up over Wayne’s head. “Good.”
Wayne looked at the old man. “What about you?”
“You have to leave me here. The twelfth seal will be just up ahead. I can’t come with you.”
“Will you be okay?”
The old man smiled. “Of course. Nothing in this tunnel can harm me. I’ll leave when I’m ready.”
“And what about when I find Olivia? Then what? Where do I go from there? How do I get out of the Wood?”
“You’ll find your way,” the old man said. “Trust me. The solution will show itself. Let’s just say you left a light on for you.”
Wayne looked at the old man, not comprehending.
“I like you, Wayne,” the old man said, not explaining what he meant by his previous comment. “You’re not the Sentinel Queen’s pick. She believes that Albert and Brandy are the ones who are going to save your world. But she’s wrong. You’re the one, Wayne. You and Olivia.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You don’t have to. Now hurry. Olivia needs you.”
Wayne hesitated. He did not understand everything yet. He was still confused. He still hadn’t comprehended the idea that the Sentinel Queen wanted him dead. Also, he did not want to be left alone again. But at last, he turned and began to walk.
He looked down at the cloak the old man had given him. He’d said that it should protect him, at least for a while. He hoped that was true because he sure as hell didn’t have any other defenses.
After a few more steps he turned and looked back. He expected the old man to be gone, vanished into thin air like a phantom. But he was still there, as real as he was naked. He lifted his hand in a final wave and gave him a reassuring smile.
Wayne walked away, still not sure what all this was about, thinking about Olivia Shadey and the Sentinel Queen and the end of the world.
Up ahead, the twelfth seal at last came into view. As Wayne looked upon it, he realized that he could hear a faint sound, like the distant pounding of axes chopping wood. As he drew closer, he wondered what was on the other side, trying so hard to get through. He didn’t want to open the seal, did not want to face whatever creatures were desperately trying to dig their way through these enormous stone slabs. But he knew he would have to. It really did not matter whether he had more faith in the old man or in the Sentinel Queen. He had nowhere to go but forward anyway. Even if the roots did not come after him like the old man said, he would eventually die of thirst.
He reached out and put his hand in the twelfth and final circle, took a deep breath, and pushed.
Chapter 13
As the cold air of the Wood whistled past the moving stone and into the last sealed chamber of the ancient tunnel, two gray fingers poked greedily through the crack, reaching, grasping with a desperation Wayne could never know.
His breath caught in his throat as the fingers held on for a moment. Whatever creature was attached to them hesitated, perhaps waiting for the seal to open wider or perhaps considering him the way he was considering it. They were not human fingers, at least not anymore. They were long and rotten, set nearly two inches apart, and he realized that the middle two digits were missing. The flesh was like flaking paint upon dried, hardened meat. The fingernails had been torn away.
Wayne stood frozen. He’d only perceived things in this tunnel until now. With the exception of the old man, who had proven himself real enough, it was all shadow and suggestion. But this was real. This was something tangible. He was staring at the fingers of what could only be described as a corpse.
A moment later, the fingers withdrew, vanishing again into the mysterious darkness behind the twelfth seal. There was an odd shuffling sound as it moved away, and another sound as well, like something heavy dragging across the dirt floor.
Wayne hesitated until long after the tunnel had again fallen silent, his heart hammering in his chest. He did not want to open this seal. He did not want to see what had been standing behind it. Hundreds of horror movies passed through his head from that churning beehive in his imagination. But he could not stay here. He had to keep moving. He had to face the Wood eventually.
At last, he took a deep breath. He braced himself for the worst he could imagine and pushed open the seal.
Nothing was waiting for him. Nothing attacked him. The tunnel ahead was identical to those behind him and just as empty. The owner of the two fingers had fled, and Wayne breathed a sigh of relief.
Immediately, he noticed that the air had changed. It was slightly cooler. And there was a subtle reek to it, like the lingering odor of something long rotten.
He stepped into the next section of the tunnel and turned to examine the back of the seal. It was badly battered. Chips of stone littered the floor and its thickness in some places had been reduced by several inches.
Its broken surface was darkened, as if someone had ground charcoal across the coarse stone, and strands of papery flesh clung to it in places. At his feet, there was a scattering of mummified appendages. Fingers. Toes. Teeth. Things unidentifiable.
Wayne backed away from the seal, a deep revulsion sweeping through his body.
All the damage that these creatures had done to the seal, all that chipping and scraping and pounding, not just for days or months or years, but possibly for millennia, and they’d done it all with bare hands, beating upon the stone, kicking and biting, shattering their fists and feet and jaws, and then their arms and legs, grating the flesh from their bodies upon the coarse stone.
Wayne could not fathom desperation like this. How could anything be so terrible? How could any existence be so utterly unbearable that it was worth this kind of torture?
He stepped forward, careful not to touch any of the repulsive appendages with his bare toes, and pushed the seal closed. It would probably take them to the end of time to break their way through all those other seals, but he didn’t want to give them any help. Let them spend the next ten thousand years finishing this one off first.
He turned away and began to walk again, but more quickly t
han before, his pace nearly a jog. Two more seals and he’d be out of this tunnel. The sooner he was out, the sooner he could find Olivia and the sooner both of them could get the hell out of this hell.
There was nothing standing between him and the thirteenth seal but anxiousness and apprehension. Within ten minutes, he found its shattered remains. The upper half had crumbled onto the bottom and pieces of stone were scattered for twenty yards in either direction, some too large to be picked up, yet they lay far from where they began. There was still a small portion of the circle left, but when Wayne put his hand on it, nothing happened. Apparently, broken circles opened no doors.
He climbed over the door instead, noticing as he did so that there were no dismembered appendages scattered on the ground here. He wondered how many thousands of years it had been since the thirteenth seal fell. Did all the flesh and bone littered around this door simply rot into dust? Or was there something out here that occasionally came along and cleaned up after them? A sort of undead scavenger feeding off the parts they left behind?
He considered it only briefly. He didn’t dare linger. He kept moving, afraid that he might lose his nerve if he stopped to think too much about anything.
A moment later, something appeared in front of him, something small and scrawny and black, squatted down low to the ground next to the tunnel wall. Its eyes were black tumors in its skull. It barred teeth that were as black as the rest of its body and then vanished back into the darkness without making a sound.
Wayne wondered if that was one of the creatures that the old man had warned him about, or if it was the tunnel playing one of its nasty tricks on him, but as with the absence of the dead flesh around the thirteenth seal, he wondered about it only briefly and without hesitating.
The distance between the thirteenth and fourteenth seals was not as far as the distance between the previous ones. In fact, only the first two had been closer together than these. He walked up to the littered remains of the fourteenth and final seal and shined his flashlight into the darkness that lay beyond it.
They had not merely punched through the fourteenth seal. They had decimated it. All that remained was a littering of stone. The largest chunk was perhaps two feet across. It looked as though someone had driven a bulldozer through it.