“What do you think it is?” Nicole asked. “The Caggo, I mean.”
“Could be anything,” replied Albert. “After the Sentinel Queen and the Keeper and that thing in Gilbert House, I couldn’t even begin to guess. Probably something really nasty. Or, for all we know, ‘Caggo’ could just be another name for a bear. That wouldn’t be much worse, really.”
“Hopefully we’ll never find out,” Brandy said.
The three of them had not seen any sign of the reservoir system or the hounds’ passages since leaving the chasm behind them half an hour ago. Instead, they had encountered several more hills, some climbing, others descending, a few rising and falling like the backs of mythical sea creatures, until they no longer had any idea how high or how deep they might be.
They walked on for a few minutes without speaking and soon the silence began to feel uneasy to Nicole. She wanted to jump at every little noise they made, thinking that the Caggo was right behind them or waiting just beyond the next turn. “Do you have any ideas about where we’ll end up if we solve this thing?” she asked, hoping to take her mind off the monster.
“I assume it’ll take us to wherever the Sentinel Queen wants us to go. To whatever place those fourteen pregnant women were coming from when they passed through the City of the Blind. To ‘where all humanity began,’ wherever that is.”
“What does that mean, exactly?” Brandy asked. “Where did humanity begin?”
“In some primordial ooze just like everything else,” Albert replied. “No one really knows. Africa, I thought, but apparently it was a tunnel in the Midwest of what would eventually become the United States of America.”
“That’s a little odd, since the earliest civilizations were on the other side of the world,” Nicole added.
“That’s true,” Albert admitted.
“Is history wrong?”
“History before records is just speculation and scientific guesses,” Albert explained. “I think the margin of error has always been there and if you throw in something like the City of the Blind, then I think that margin of error grows quite a bit.”
“Maybe it doesn’t have anything to do with history and science,” Brandy suggested. “Maybe this is about the Garden of Eden.”
Albert shrugged. “Just as likely, I suppose.” Although he’d never really believed in an actual, physical Garden of Eden. He always thought it was a metaphor. But was it any less believable than the Temple of the Blind? Thinking about it now, he realized it wouldn’t surprise him at all if that was exactly what awaited them at the end of this journey.
“Wherever it is we’re going,” Nicole said, “they spared no expense in keeping people away from it.”
“This place is unreal” Albert agreed. “Without help, I can’t imagine anyone ever even finding their way in, much less back out.”
“Why even have all that if no one can get through it?” Nicole asked.
Albert again shook his head. He did not know. No one knew. If they were lucky, they’d live to be the first to find out.
He walked on for a while in silence, watching his flashlight beam as it slowly gave up its struggle against the darkness. “That’s it for my batteries,” he said as he stopped and removed his backpack.
“I’m so glad we have more than one of these,” Nicole observed. “Can you imagine being down here by yourself and having to change the batteries in your flashlight?” She shuddered at the idea of having to sit down here in the dark for even a moment.
Brandy compared hers to Nicole’s. “I think mine’s going, too,” she worried.
“We’ve still got plenty of batteries,” Albert assured her. “We’ll get as much use as we can out of each one and hopefully they’ll last long enough for us to find our way out of here.”
“And if they don’t?” Brandy asked.
His light shining at full strength again, he slipped his arms back into the backpack and resumed walking. “We’ll worry about it when we get there, I guess.”
They followed the current passage as it curved to the left and chose left when it ended in an adjoining tunnel. In just a short amount of time, the path dead-ended and they had to back up and make a right instead. This tunnel curved to the right and led them to a fork at which they chose right. About fifty paces later, they found themselves exiting from the left side of the fork, having gone only in a small circle. They were going nowhere at all.
Brandy closed her eyes as Albert led them back the way they’d come, squeezing his elbow and trying hard not to be discouraged. She was beginning to feel as though she were in a dream. It seemed so long ago that she woke in her own bed, fearful of a ringing phone. It felt like days ago, perhaps weeks or even months, yet it had been only a matter of hours. Back then, she had never heard of Wendell Gilbert or Gilbert House. She had never dreamed of a City of the Blind or a Sentinel Queen. Yet here she was now, lost in an ancient labyrinth, trying to find some mysterious doorway she knew nothing about. It was impossible. There was no way this nightmare could be real, yet it was because of this place, because of the Temple of the Blind, that she had Albert in her life. If not for the sex room and the hate room and the fear room and all those other chambers they explored the last time they were inside this underground hell, she would not have him in her life. So if the dream was real, why shouldn’t the nightmare also be real?
They backtracked out of the area where all the passages dead-ended and then turned left where they’d previously made a right.
Soon they found themselves at another intersection and the beams of their flashlights fell on a crooked yellow line.
“Shit,” Brandy spat.
“It’s okay,” Albert said. “At least we know we’ve been here.”
“What do we do?” Nicole asked.
Albert considered their options, trying to remember how far back the last untaken tunnel was. “Let’s go forward,” he decided. “We’ll take the next unmarked passage.”
They pushed on, drawing a green line over the yellow, indicating that they had traveled this way twice. The two colors would also help them distinguish the approximate time that they traveled these paths. The yellow lines always came before the green ones. Soon they reached an intersection where they had previously taken a right and turned left. Within five minutes, this newest tunnel abruptly ended.
“This is impossible,” Brandy groaned. “There’s got to be a better way.” She opened up her dying flashlight and traded the dead batteries for fresh ones from Albert’s backpack.
“Just relax,” Albert said, although relaxed was one thing he was not. The longer he was in these tunnels, the more anxious he became. “We can’t let ourselves get discouraged. We sure as hell can’t panic. We just have to stay calm. That’s our best bet.”
Brandy dropped the dead batteries into the backpack and zipped it back up. Hopefully it would be a long time before they needed any more.