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.”

“Knowing our luck,” Brandy said, “we probably aren’t anywhere near done.”

“Maybe this place just keeps on going forever,” Nicole added.

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” said Albert.

“How many clues do you have left in your box?” Wayne asked.

“Two.”

Again, silence fell over them. The passage went on and on, until each of them had begun to wonder if it would ever end. How far down could they possibly go? How deep into the earth had they already traveled? It didn’t seem possible that anything could go so deep.

But the passage did eventually end and the room that awaited them at the bottom was almost as big as the entrances to the emotion rooms.

They exited from one of several dozen doorways and walked out into the open chamber.

Brandy fished in Albert’s backpack and removed the tube of sidewalk chalk. Albert had seen this at the store a few months ago and purchased it on a whim. It had seemed a much more useful tool for marking the way than the paint can. She used it to mark both sides of the passage they had just exited (Albert was amused to see that she wrote “Brandy + Albert” on one side in a big heart) and then returned the chalk to the tube.

In the very center, they found a single stone sentinel. It stood not straight and stiff like many of its kind, but in a casual pose, with its feet slightly apart and one arm dangling at its side. Its other hand was lifted, its long fingers curled into a sort of half-fist. Its head was cocked to one side. Even without a face, the sentinel seemed caught in a moment of pondering, confused by the many passages that surrounded it, as if wondering which way it should go.

Albert barely acknowledged the statue in the center of the room. He could see its meaning, and it was nothing he hadn’t already guessed for himself. Only one way was the right way. The rest would take them to the maze or to some other horrible place they did not want to go. The real question was, which way was the right way?

The box would tell.

He did not have to retrieve it from the backpack. He knew what was inside. He’d looked the items over more times than he could count, daydreaming about this fantastic place, wondering what secrets may lie hidden beyond the fear room.

He began on the right and circled the room, shining his flashlight into each tunnel as he passed it. So far, the clues had been near the entrance to the tunnel he was supposed to take. This time would be no different.

On the far side of the room, in one of the last passageways that led off to the right, Albert spied something on the floor.

He stepped into the tunnel for a closer look and felt his stomach roll over as he realized what he was looking at. He stopped walking and actually took a step back.

“What is it?” Brandy asked from behind him.

Albert braced himself. This wasn’t likely to be pleasant, but he had to go on. He walked up to the thing and knelt beside it for a closer look.

“Is that what I think it is?” Wayne asked, sounding sick.

Albert did not have to reply. Before him lay the mummified remains of a man. He leaned over it, examining it. There were no visible scars, no markings to indicate how he had died, not so much as a torn piece of clothing. After seeing the shattered bones in and around the decision room, he did not think that the hounds had been involved. But what did he really know about them? He still hadn’t even seen one.

The man was lying in a pose that seemed unnatural, and Albert soon realized why. It looked to him as though the body had been dragged here from somewhere else in the temple. He could see where the shoulders of the man’s jacket had been gripped while he was being moved.

The man was dressed to an earlier time, in a dark gray suit with a vest and tie, but he was well disheveled. The clothes themselves were covered with gray, clotted stains. From the left breast pocket of his vest hung a silver chain.

“It’s Wendell Gilbert,” Albert said, as fascinated by the body as he was repulsed by it. He stared at the corpse’s white hair and shriveled face, still vaguely able to see the man from the newspaper clipping he now carried in his box. “This is where the pocket watch came from.”

Wayne and the girls slowly approached him, looking almost as though they expected Wendell to sit up and say boo.

“So this is what happened to him,” Brandy said thoughtfully.

Albert nodded. “Looks like he was after the same thing we are. Whatever that is.”

“I’d say he didn’t make it,” said Wayne.

“He made it a long way,” Albert pointed out. “Especially considering he’s still wearing his clothes.”

“Hey, yeah,” Nicole said. “Why did he get to keep his clothes?” She crossed her arms over her breasts as she was again reminded that she was naked.

“Don’t complain,” Wayne said. “You’re naked, but he’s dead. I’d say you got the better end of the deal.”

She was hardly able to dispute that reasoning.

Albert reached out and touched the corpse, patting at its chest and belly, repulsed by the hardness of the body. It was more like touching wood than flesh.

“What are you doing?” Brandy asked. She sounded disgusted and Albert could hardly blame her.

“I was hoping he’d have a journal on him, something we could use, but I guess not.” He rose to his feet and looked down the tunnel ahead. “I guess we’re going this way.”

Wayne reached down and pulled a chunk of the gray stuff from one of Gilbert’s sleeves. “It’s mortar,” he said, looking up at Albert.

“I know. I saw that.”

“What does it mean?” asked Nicole.

“It means,” explained Albert, “that Wendell Gilbert came here right after he built those brick walls inside Gilbert House.” He looked down at the hands, the fingers half-curled in death. Even after all these decades, he could still see the gray residue that was caked on them. These were the very same hands that had smeared the mortar across the walls on the first floor of Gilbert House all those decades ago.

Brandy and Nicole stared at the body, unable to reply.

“He didn’t even bother to change,” Albert continued.

“What does that mean to us?” Nicole asked. “Is it important?”

Albert shook his head. “I don’t know. Probably not. It’s just curious. It certainly helps connect Gilbert House to the temple.” He turned and shined his light down the tunnel, wondering what lay ahead. “Come on. Let’s go.”

The four of them began to walk again.

“Bye, Wendell,” Wayne said humorlessly as he walked past the corpse. He did not feel too sorry for him. This was, after all, the maniac who built Gilbert House. Perhaps the old man had only gotten what he deserved.