“JESUS,” I RASP. Nobody answers.
Throwing caution to the wind, I let Willow’s name rip from my throat. I scream it again and again and again. But she doesn’t come to save me either.
I sprint to the end of the hall, assuming Willow must have beaten me there, and I’m faced with a choice: left or right. A cold, familiar dread trickles down my neck, still trapped, but it’s accompanied by an unfamiliar fear. From behind me, I can hear the clip clop of something hoofed in hot pursuit.
I glance down one, then the other hallway, but Willow is nowhere to be seen, so I throw myself down the left-hand passageway at random. I start screaming, “You left me! You left me! You left me!” as I run.
I jog past doors and potted plants and weave down every new intersection, desperate to lose the sounds still trailing me. When I turn a corner and again see the blue light of the sleeping city, I lunge for it.
It’s the first bridge I encounter without my guide. The rain outside deluges the glass panes, creating the illusion of a tunnel spanning a sunken city. As I race by, I imagine fabled Atlantis, but the thought is fleeting, as hooves clatter onto the bridge behind me.
I look back. Nothing’s there. I don’t stop running, and I quickly leave the waterlogged bridge behind.
I take a right-hand turn at my next fork, panting as I go, “Of course. Of course. There is no monster—” when suddenly the sound of pursuit isn’t behind—it’s further ahead, coming down the corridor.
I claw at the wall, skid to a stop, and turn hard on my heel. I race back to the intersection, choose a different fork.
But I’ve only gone about twenty paces when I realize that the sound is still in front of me. I might be screaming, I’m not sure. All I hear is the slow, methodic placement of one hoof in front of another, bearing down on me, closing the gap—
I run to the nearest door, tug on the handle, and hammer on the door when it doesn’t open at my touch. I run to a second door, then a third, and by the time I’m at the fifth and it’s still locked, I’m screaming, “Willow! What kind of guide are you?”
The eighth door I assault miraculously does open, but I’m not expecting it to. I turn the handle and throw my shoulder into it and go spilling through in an unceremonious heap, my already battered body hitting the hard tile like a sack of hammers. My Stetson falls off and lies upturned against the wall, two feet away.
I pick myself off the ground and scuttle to the open doorway on my hands and knees. Whatever is following me, still so close, hasn’t materialized outside of my doorway yet, so I ease the door closed and hope that my pursuer may pass me by. I sit with my back against the door.
Now with one ear pressed against the door, I finally breathe.
Whatever’s been chasing me paces nearby. It sounds like it’s right outside. But it’s not getting nearer or further. It’s the same rhythmic sound over and over and—
I sit, frozen against the door-frame. I’m terrified that if I try to creep away—if I so much as reach for my fallen hat—then the monster will hear me move. I sit for ten minutes, at a stalemate with my pursuer.
My windbreaker’s bulky pocket digs awkwardly into my back. I relax my vigilance long enough to adjust my clothing and pull the Gideon New Testament from the offending pocket. The sound outside the door doesn’t change.
The book is worse for wear, having been pinned behind me. The cover now sports a large diagonal crease and a number of pages are loose and wrinkled. The Bible flips open when I set it on the ground, to another one of the defacer’s Italian stanzas in red ink:
Oh pietosa colei che mi soccorse!
Tu duca, tu segnore e tu maestro
Gibberish. I close the book, and wish that Willow would somehow find me, save me.
More minutes pass. I press my ear hard against the door, incredulous that whatever’s chasing me is still stomping around outside. Sure enough, I can hear the clip clop, clip clop from the hall I’ve left behind.
I sigh. Then I stop and listen again. I listen harder and try to ignore the blood pounding in my ears. No, it’s not a clack of hooves on linoleum ... it’s more of a hmm—a mechanical sound. And it’s too consistent, a steady kcht kcht as opposed to a clip clop.
I put the Bible back in my pocket and gently peel myself from the doorway. I ease the door open ever so slightly and stick my eye to the crack, peering out at the empty corridor I’d fled down half an hour beforehand. But I can’t see the source of the noise from my angle. It’s coming from somewhere down the corridor to my left, behind the door.
I open the door further ajar, but there still seems to be no reaction from my pursuer. In a fit of bravery—or is it stupidity?—I yank the door wide and stick my head out.
No monster. Of course there’s no monster.
I can still hear the sound, but the more I listen, the less it sounds like hooves. It sounds entirely artificial, in fact. I leave the door open behind me, and creep towards the sound.
There is no horror around the next corner.
Instead, I see a photocopier. It spits out sheet after sheet, and issues forth a steady, consistent kcht kcht sound. The copies it’s making have overflowed its outbound tray and now litter the floor, forming small mounds of paper beneath the photocopier.
Plain white paper echoing through the halls had me running for my life.
My heart starts beating again in relief. I exhale the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. I laugh.
I’m delusional! Too long alone! Too long without food and water, maybe! Christ, I’m so accustomed to silence that a photocopier has me panicking. I walk over to the machine, soaking in relief and cold sweat. I pick up a page to inspect what someone is so keen to make so many copies of....
“YOU ARE HERE.”
Three words, typed in a plain font in the centre of every page. Over and over again ... hundreds of copies. You are here.
Willow finds me there. I look up from the page to see her peering wide-eyed around the corner I’d peeked out from moments ago. She storms down the hall and cuffs me over the head.
“You jerk!” she says. “I can’t believe you lost me.”
Then she locks me in a hug and I’m too surprised to return the gesture. Instead, I flap an accusatory piece of paper at her. “You left me behind! Aren’t you supposed to be my guide?”
Willow snatches the page from my hand and scans the words typed on it. She says, “You—you had to stop to make photocopies?”
“Photoco—no. This is the Minotaur. We were being chased by a photocopier.”
Willow looks down at the piece of paper, reads aloud, “You are here.” She looks up at me. “What Minotaur?”
I realize that I’m not sure what Willow was running from. I open my mouth to change the topic back to my abandonment, but Willow shakes her head and interrupts me before I start.
“Never mind,” she says. “Not really important. What is important is this: I’ve found another bridge, and there’s something you need to see.”
“I crossed a bridge. Without you.” My voice carries an accusation, but at this Willow smiles broadly and puts her hand on my arm.
“Well then,” she says, “there might still be hope for you. Who knows, by the end of all this, maybe you’ll be able to make it on your own.”