The Maze - The Lost Labyrinth Part 15

Carl finished the knot. "I'm praying for you.

Darrell Gene stopped smiling.

Chapter 29.

Through the forbidden fruit, I saw the look of righteous indignation in Darrell Gene Rankin's eyes. I saw the impossibly sharp edge of the knife. I saw the fearlessness with which he moved about my living room, gesturing wildly with the blade as if he were some sort of teacher lecturing on the finer points of torture. I saw a vicious flute-playing demon and his horde of imps covering every inch of my house like the worst kind of pest infestation. I saw Darrell Gene grab Amy and threaten to kill her if Carl Beckett didn't do what he was told.

Suddenly, there wasn't time to be leisurely about my exploration of the maze. There wasn't time to contemplate each and every turn logically and guess which way might lead to an exit. I had to get out of this place, and I had to get out quickly. Lives, not just feelings, were at stake now.

I ignored the robotic serpent's laughter and ran from the Hall of Silicon Eden as if Asterion himself was hot on my heels. I ran, calling out for Connie, for G.o.d, for anyone within earshot who could show me the way out. No one answered my cries.

I ran to a part of the maze that was different from every other part I had been to thus far, and I had to stop for a brief second to marvel at the strangeness of it all.

Bull skulls were mounted on stakes and set at intervals along the path. Candles were ingeniously inserted into the hollowed out eye sockets. Small pools of dried wax puddled beneath the skulls.

Memories of my sins, like brittle leaves, were scattered about the dead landscape in the form of written notes.

"Liar." "Deceiver." "Backslider."

I wanted to rake all of those leaves into a pile and set fire to them, hoping to start fresh in the spring. Yet I knew that wasn't the way Nature worked. You didn't get a second chance to live your life. The mistakes you made were as immutable and permanent as scars. I felt like I had been mutilated beyond recognition.

Although I hated myself for what I'd become, my priority was escaping this labyrinth. There was no telling what kind of horrible things Darrell Gene was doing by now. Motivated by the thought, I ran ahead and found myself in what looked and smelled like a slaughterhouse.

The nightmare began, amidst a blanketing of dark fog that gave even the sharpest edges of the slaughterhouse a soft, fuzzy appearance. I looked around for something with which to defend myself and spotted a corroded iron rack mounted to one wall that was loaded down with sledgehammers. No doubt these were the weapons of destruction in this place, and I wasted no time grabbing one. I looked around for any sign of a threat and held my breath that I might escape from this place unscathed. The hallways were quiet and shadowy, save for the buzzing of insect wings and the oppressive nothingness of silence as it settled on everything like a fine blanketing of snow.

Large stainless steel kettles used to de-hair animals and ready them for processing lined both walls. The de-hairing kettles were full of boiling water and partially bleached skulls which bobbed to the surface like fishing corks. Some were bull skulls. Some were human. I tried not to consider the implications of that.

Exhausted from my exploits, I dragged the sledgehammer along behind me, listening to the sc.r.a.ping sound the hammer made as it kissed the concrete floor. Clouds of steam roiled out of the kettles, materializing into strange shapes with bovine features; the slaughterhouse appeared to be haunted by the ghosts of long-dead cattle. The ghost cows marched single file down a sloping unlit path toward unknown darkness. One of them stopped to watch me and stared at me until I understood that it wanted me to follow. Somehow, I knew this wasn't the end of the line for me. There was a deeper, darker place I was destined for. I was bound for the killing floor. The sledgehammer positively thrummed in my hands.

The killing floor stank of fresh blood, recently released bowels, and fear. There weren't any cows awaiting a blow from my sledgehammer. Instead, there were shadowy figures chained up along both walls. They groaned and grunted and wept and cursed.

The sledgehammer felt alive in my hands as if it was excited by the prospect of a ma.s.s killing. I dropped the weapon in disgust, wanting nothing to do with this. All I wanted was to rescue my family from Darrell Gene Rankin.

"This isn't a time to go soft." I heard a familiar voice "Now, more than ever, you need to be strong. Resolute."

"Connie." I was glad to hear from her again.

"You've come a long way, Jamie, but this isn't over yet. You've still got some difficult things to face."

"More difficult than a three-headed dog that guards the gate to Hades? More difficult than a field full of razor-blade flowers? More difficult than running away from a bloodthirsty minotaur?"

"You've been through a lot. There's no denying that. But this may be the most difficult thing you've faced."

"I'm not killing anyone."

"Not even if it meant saving your family."

I gritted my teeth. "Never say never, right?"

"I told you this would be difficult."

"I feel like I'm a p.a.w.n in somebody's chess game."

"There are consequences for everything you do. This maze is designed to reinforce that fact."

"I don't want to murder anyone."

"Not murder. Maybe a form of suicide. I suppose it's all in how you look at it."

"Suicide?"

The room brightened just a little, and I caught a glimpse of one of the figures chained against the wall. That prisoner looked an awful lot like me. The light brightened a little more and I realized that all of them looked just like me.

"Welcome to the Hall of Cain."

"Cain?" I felt deeply apprehensive. I couldn't help wondering if the hall's namesake would make an appearance like Barabbas and the Crucified Thief. Somehow, I imagined the world's first murderer to be a frightening character.

There was no mystery about what I was supposed to do here on the killing floor. This was a place of death. The sledgehammer was an instrument of death. And the fine pink mist that covered the walls like a Rorschach collage was a testimony on death, written by those who had experienced it. My role here was executioner.

Although the men chained up like criminals awaiting the firing squad looked like me in nearly every respect, there were subtle differences. Each of them embodied something in me that I needed to change.

The first one I approached glared at me with hatred in his eyes. I had been this man once, casting a judgmental eye upon everyone except myself.

"Kill him, and never see him again."

"I don't know if I can." I took a deep breath.

"Just remember the things I've told you before. Use them to put this into perspective."

I sighed and stared into the eyes of a man who could have been my twin. "This is just symbolic. Everything I do here is an exercise in changing the state of my heart. This is little more than excising a cancer."

"You're getting it. It seems you're finally starting to learn."

"I must die daily."

"You must," Connie said. "And here's your chance."

"You're weak!" The doppelganger spat the words at me. "You're pitiful! You always have been and you always will be. All you think about and care about is yourself. You think you're better than most people. You're wrong!"

I picked up the sledgehammer, goaded on by my double's spiteful words. I saw a glint of fear in his eyes.

"Connie?" I said, keeping my eyes firmly trained on the prisoner.

"Yes?"

"You mentioned something about killing these men to save my family. If I bash this guy's skull in, will it keep Darrell Gene Rankin at bay until I can figure a way out of here?"

"Every step toward your rebirth puts you one step closer to freedom. Asterion delights in games and has set up these little stipulations for success to make the maze more interesting to him and to give you reason to persevere."

"So the answer is yes."

"I would pick up that hammer."

My double realized that I was a lot stronger than he had given me credit for. "You can't kill me!" There was a note of pleading in his voice. "I'm you. You're me. We're both part of the same thing. Killing me would be like cutting off your own hand."

I froze, remembering that room with all the excised organs floating around in formaldehyde. I remembered the empty jars with my name on them.

"If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out." I grunted as I struggled with the weight of the sledge.

It only took one swing from the twenty-pound hammer to kill the hatred inside me. The mirror image of me that was chained to the wall fell like one of the angels cast out of Heaven. The moment the deed was done, it felt like the hand that had been squeezing my heart relaxed a little. It also felt like the top of my head was going to explode.

I screamed and dropped the sledgehammer, clutching both sides of my skull. Thin trickles of blood ran from both ears and from the corners of my eyes.

"Connie?"

"Change sometimes involves pain, Jamie. It hurts to think about the people we used to be. But this pain won't kill you."

"Let me guess." I gasped through the pain. "It will only make me stronger."

"Exactly."

Once the screaming white-hot needles of agony dulled, I struggled to my feet and moved down the line to the next version of me that needed to be vanquished. Although the weight of the sledgehammer hadn't changed, it felt lighter in my hands somehow.

"Well aren't you Mr. High-and-Mighty all of a sudden?"

The arrogance inside me spoke, using the lips of the next clone in line.

"You think you're so good now, don't you? All it takes is a little conviction and suddenly you're Mother Teresa."

Ignoring the prospect of pain, I swung the hammer as hard as I could this time. The chains binding the prisoner's hands rattled as he slumped against the slaughterhouse wall. This time the ensuing pain felt like a rope was wrapped around my neck. I clawed and gasped for air, but I didn't fall. Instead, I stared at that dead part of me and smiled, grateful that I'd made one more improvement in my life. Suddenly, I could breathe again.

By now the other flaws in my heart saw what was going to happen to them, and they weren't at all happy about it. They taunted, jeered, cursed, and flung insults at me. I tried not to listen, focusing instead on thoughts of my family and how I was doing this for them.

"You're getting pretty good at this," Connie said as I murdered greed in cold blood and tried hard to ignore the gut-wrenching torment that followed.

"This is hard work!" I gasped for breath, exhausted from all the swinging. "I didn't realize there would be so many of them. It's no wonder this maze is so big. It had to be to hold all of my vices and shortcomings."

Connie laughed and urged me on to the last standing figure.

"It's okay to admit that you don't love Amy anymore," he said to me. "Karen's a beautiful woman, and she's been thinking about you ever since she laid eyes on you again in that restaurant. Although you may not want to admit it, you're still in love with her. Your heart won't lead you astray."

I silenced that lie and fell against the wall, panting and struggling for breath. Although I was tired, I felt invigorated too, like a hot air balloon with no sandbags, floating higher and higher into the sky. My soul felt free to fly.

The spilled blood from my recently executed victims pooled on the killing floor, slowly trickling toward an iron grate. I saw my own reflection cast in that slick of maroon, but I also saw visions of home. Judith and Carl Beckett and Amy were being held hostage in my living room. Darrell Gene seemed agitated and angry. He also seemed different somehow. He was maniacal- possessed.

Inexplicably, I heard a strange, subtle music that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention. Someone was playing a set of pipes in my living room. With each crescendo of the music, Darrell Gene lashed out wildly with the knife while talking to someone I couldn't see. He was discussing my family with an unseen enemy, and he didn't seem at all happy about it. I remembered that leathery-winged demon on my roof I had seen earlier, and I knew that's who it was.

Time was running out. For the moment, however, everyone was still alive.

I just hoped I could escape the maze in time to make sure they stayed that way.

Chapter 30.

"I'm praying for you," Carl said. The words were like a blasting cap rigged to dynamite and Darrell Gene exploded as a result.

Before Carl could react, Darrell Gene threw Amy to the ground and moved toward him, needling him in the back with the tip of the knife. He pushed hard enough to pierce the skin. Carl whimpered but refused to cry out. Darrell Gene pushed a little harder, driving the blade in about a half-inch. Carl gritted his teeth and groaned, crying out to G.o.d to help him.

"Don't ever tell me something like that again," Darrell Gene hissed. "The last thing I need is prayer. That's what people kept telling my daddy and me after mama left. 'We're praying for you,' they'd say. But I know they never did. They were nothing but a bunch of liars. And even if there were some of them who remembered us at night, it didn't do any good. My life still turned out miserably."

"You don't have to do this," Judith reminded her captor. "You could let us go and we'd forget the whole thing."

"I know I don't have to. But it's kind of fun watching you squirm."

"G.o.d loves you," Carl bled onto the carpet. "Nothing you can do will change that."

"Shut up!" Darrell Gene placed his hands over his ears. "Don't say another word to me, or I promise I'll cut you again!"

Carl wisely kept his mouth shut, but Amy wasn't about to be bullied into silence. Although it wasn't clear what she was saying, it was obvious that she was praying too.

"And just what do you think you're doing?" He grabbed Amy by the hair and dragged her toward him.

"Let me go!" Amy struggled in Darrell Gene's grasp. The big man wrapped both arms around her and squeezed as hard as he could, cutting her air supply off. Amy coughed and gasped for air, unable to speak.

"She's praying for you too." Judith struggled to free her hands from the telephone wire restraints. "So am I. If you're going to kill us because of that, then go ahead. "

"Oh, I won't kill you. I'll just cut your tongues out so you can't pray."

His tirade was cut short by the slamming of a car door outside. A note of panic registered on Darrell Gene's face and he raced to the window, wondering who was here, if the cops had somehow been notified. What he saw, however, put a smile on his face. "This just keeps getting better and better."

There was something about the way he said it that made Amy want to be sick. What she saw through the window did the trick. The hamburger she'd eaten earlier in the van came back up almost immediately and it was several seconds before she could stop heaving up bile and half-digested French fries.

"No." She wiped the slime from her lips.

"What is it?" Judith was startled by her daughter's sudden reaction.

"It's Peter. For some reason, Brenda's bringing him back."