Lyle’s eye was on the other side, staring back. “There you are, Booger. I know you can see me because the peephole just got dark. Come out here. We have some unfinished business to take care of.”
Alan ducked away from the peephole, but it was too late. Lyle wasn’t going away.
“Open the door, clown!” Lyle commanded with another pound on the door.
He was sure that opening the door would result in his own beating. If only Lyle’s friends hadn’t shown up earlier, Spanky might have prevented this situation. Instead of Alan being a prisoner inside his own apartment, Lyle might have invited him over for a beer so he could apologize for all of his past bullying.
Lyle pounded the door again, interrupting Alan’s thoughts of what might have been. “I knew it. You’ve always been a coward. I knew you wouldn’t come out here and face me man to man. You just better be prepared to watch your back, Booger, because I’ll be watching. You can’t stay in there forever—coward.”
Alan looked through the peephole to see Lyle turning to leave. The immediate threat of bodily injury was replaced by Lyle’s stinging words. The truth was eminently more painful than any beating he might sustain if he simply opened the door and faced Lyle’s wrath. Spanky might be able to prevent future beatings, but hiding now would negate all of Peepers’ work. He was proud of his progress in facing his fears and he wasn’t about to give Lyle the power to take that away.
Lyle stopped at his own door when he heard the unlatching deadbolt from behind. He turned to see Alan’s door open. Alan stepped out and stared back without expression.
Lyle grinned and sauntered closer to his target. Alan’s blank stare never lost contact with Lyle’s squinted eyes. Lyle leaned in to closely examine his prey. He looked up at Alan and snarled like a vicious animal.
“So, pizza boy does have a spine,” he said as he moved from side to side, looking for weakness in Alan’s stoic face. Alan’s eyes casually followed.
Lyle grew impatient at his inability to break Alan’s resolve. He turned and took a step out of Alan’s personal space. Then, without warning, he turned with his arms spread and lunged to within inches of Alan’s face. “Boo!” he shouted.
Unfazed, Alan kept his body and expression as relaxed as if he were having a casual conversation with friends. His head leaned slightly forward and down and in a soft voice he said, “I’m not a coward, Lyle. You don’t scare me and I would suggest we just forget about what you did this morning.”
Alan didn’t realize how volatile his offer of reconciliation would be interpreted by Lyle. As blood flushed Lyle’s twitching face, Alan slowly withdrew, returning his head upright.
Bubbling over with uncontrollable rage, Lyle’s chest puffed out as his arms drew back with clenched fists cocked and ready for an all-out assault. In the most severe violation of personal space, his wiry frame rose to the balls of his feet as he tiptoed to close the inches between them, shoving his chest into Alan’s. As he fiercely challenged his opponent, spittle projected from his frothing mouth. “Forget about it?” he said. “Who the hell do you think you are telling me to forget about it? I’ll be the one who decides when this is over. And believe me, Booger, this ain’t over—till I say it’s over.” Lyle’s precarious balancing act faltered as the toes of his right foot temporarily gave out. His chest slid sideways down Alan’s before he could reposition his toes and reestablish his position.
Alan calmly raised his arm, turned his head, and wiped the splatter of saliva from his face.
Lyle snorted his disapproval and pinned Alan tight to the wall with two hard chest thrusts. As Alan waited for Lyle to shift into fighting mode, he wasn’t thinking about the resulting pain or visit to the emergency room. Instead he was noticing Lyle’s eyes. It occurred to him that in all the years he’d lived across the hall from him, he never looked into Lyle’s eyes. They were green. In addition to the color of his eyes, the rhythmic throbbing of a vein in Lyle’s forehead also fascinated him. It pulsed three times to every twitch of his right nostril.
His trance was broken when Lyle lost his footing again and attempted to make it look like a purposeful move as he backed off and punched the wall beside Alan’s shoulder. Alan flinched, but Lyle didn’t notice because he was looking at the floor as he paced in front of Alan.
“So, this is how it’s gonna be?” Lyle fumed. “You aren’t going to fight back, huh? You’re just gonna stand there and let me hit you without defending yourself?” He waited for Alan’s reply.
“Lyle, I don’t want to fight you. I never wanted to fight you, but I’m tired of looking over my shoulder. I’m tired of hiding from you. So, if you feel you must fight me, I’m not going to run away, but I’m also not going to let you hurt me without fighting back. I will defend myself.”
“Shut up!” Lyle yelled. “You don’t speak unless I tell you to.”
“But you asked me—”
“I said shut up!” His pacing intensified. Then as if Alan hadn’t answered his question, he said, “Well, I’m not going to hit someone who won’t fight back. I fight fair.”
Alan started to correct him when Lyle quickly cut him off. “I know what I can do. I know how to get even with you, you stupid clown.” He turned and ran down the stairs. Alan was confused but curious to know where he went. He walked down the stairs and as he turned the corner in the direction Lyle ran, he heard glass smashing.
Alan’s car was parked in front of the building next door, and Lyle broke his passenger side window. Gripping a brick, he looked back at Alan and laughed and hopped around like the Riddler from Batman.
“What are you going to do about it, Booger?” Before Alan could respond, he dropped the brick and ran in the opposite direction, laughing and occasionally glancing back until he disappeared from sight.
Alan decided to wait till the next morning to clean up the mess. The bully was still out there somewhere, and with Lyle’s crazed state of mind, Alan didn’t want to take any chances of running into him. He felt lucky to have escaped physical injury, but he didn’t want to press his luck. He returned to his apartment, locked the door, and peeked through the peephole.
Turning away from the door, he closed his eyes, lowered his head, and took in a deep breath. He held it in for a few seconds. He exhaled and slowly opened his eyes, raised his head, and focused on the sculpting and casting supplies neatly stacked in the corner of the room.
Chapter 17
Huddled tightly together beneath the building that housed the Labyrinth, Todd and his two fraternity brothers quietly waited as carnival employees escorted the last guests from the grounds and began securing the structures for the night. The three boys had wedged themselves in a space so cramped that with their bellies on the dirt, there was only an inch or two of clearance above. Corrugated metal panels blocked the crawlspace’s access to all but the small area below the building’s rear steps.
The Ringmaster and other workers left twenty minutes earlier. The boys grew impatient as their muscles cramped from the long wait for Geno to leave for the night. From their position below the structure, they could hear Geno’s footsteps mixed with thundering sounds of panels being dragged inches above them in what must have been a major transformation inside.
“Let’s go, Todd. He’s never going to leave.”
“Patience,” Todd whispered. “We’ve waited this long. We can’t leave now.”
“How much longer do you want to wait? I say we leave if he doesn’t come out in the next five minutes,” the third boy said.
“Okay,” Todd said. “Ten more minutes. If he doesn’t come out in the next ten minutes, we’ll blow out of here.”
One boy rested his head on his hand while Todd kept watch through the steel grid landing above. The boys raised their heads as the sound of footsteps came from directly above. The three braced as Todd shushed his friends. Geno opened the door and stepped onto the grid above them.
“Finally,” whispered the boy to the right of Todd. Todd turned towar
d his friend and angrily placed his index finger over his closed lips.
Unaware of the spectators below, Geno turned and closed the door. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a key.
“Oh shit, he’s locking it,” Todd whispered. The boy next to him gave him a nudge. Todd turned to see his finger over his lips. The next three unmistakable sounds they heard were the key slipping into the lock, the clicking sound of the deadbolt, and finally, the key sliding out of the locked door.
The heads of the defeated thrill-seeking trio simultaneously lowered to the dirt. It never occurred to them that the building would be locked. In an instant, their plan and uncomfortably long wait were foiled with the simple sounds of a door locking.
With their heads still in the dirt, two more sounds alerted the boys. First was the tinty metallic clang above them. That was quickly followed by an almost indistinguishable tap on the hard dirt below Geno’s feet. Heads raised as all six eyes locked on the source of the sound. Light reflected off the tiny object less than a foot from their noses. It was the key to the Haunted Labyrinth of Mirrors. After locking the door, Geno had fumbled it as he attempted to return the key to his pocket. It clanged on the metal grate before slipping through one of the narrow slits to the ground below the stairs. Appearing to be a silver arrow alerting Geno to the intruders hiding place, the pointed end was aimed directly at Todd—the ringleader.
“Oh, great,” Geno said.
One of the boys became anxious and whispered, “It’s over now. He’s going to see us when he looks for the key.”
Todd shot the boy a glance to shut him up. As Geno walked down the steps, Todd moved his head as close as possible to the key and blew a short burst of breath in front of it, kicking up a tiny cloud of dust. He succeeded in dimming the reflective surface, making it harder to spot in the dark of night.
Geno stepped off the last step and leaned to look for the key below. Todd’s trick was working, but if Geno lowered to his knees and crawled under the steps, they knew they would be discovered. Geno hovered in a half-hunched position for an eternity while the boys lay motionless, awaiting their fate.
Finally, Geno returned to an upright position. The boys’ muscles relaxed as they assumed Geno gave up his search for the key.
“Where did I put that flashlight?” Geno said.
“Shit!” Todd whispered.
“Oh, that’s right, It’s locked inside,” Geno said. “Oh well, the place is locked tight for the night. I guess I’ll find it in the morning.” He turned and walked away.
With Geno gone, the boys’ muscles relaxed and Todd grabbed the key. He shoved against his friends and shimmied out from below the building. He dusted himself off and walked up the steps while the others stood and stretched below.
“C’mon, guys. Let’s see what’s inside this place,” Todd said.
The two reluctantly followed and stood with Todd on the landing.
“Okay, where are your flashlights?” Todd asked as he retrieved a small flashlight from his own pocket. The boys reached for their own flashlights.
“Mine’s missing,” one of them said as he pressed all of his pockets. “It must have fallen out while we were under the building.”
“Forget about it. Two should be enough,” Todd said. Then he clicked the switch of his flashlight. It burned bright for about five seconds before quickly dimming to total darkness. Todd slapped it a few times and clicked the switch on and off a few more times. The light didn’t return. He returned it to his pocket and focused on the third boy.
“Turn yours on,” he said. The boy clicked it on. Again, it burned bright for a few seconds before dying.
“I don’t understand. I just put new batteries in it before we left. It should work.”
Todd grabbed the flashlight from him and tossed it to the ground. “Forget about the flashlights. Do you guys have lighters on you?”
Todd and one of the boys pulled out their lighters. The third boy shrugged his shoulders and said he didn’t smoke. The two successfully tested their lighters.
The one without a lighter started walking down the steps.
“I’ll wait for you out here,” he said.
“What the hell?” Todd said. “Don’t tell me you’re chickening out.”
“I’m not going in there without a flashlight or a lighter.”
“Here,” Todd said as he reached out to offer his lighter to his friend.
“No, that’s okay, Todd. To be honest, I’m starting to get the creeps. Call me chicken, but I’m not going in there. Keep your lighter.”
“Are you kidding me? We waited for hours under the building for this. Then we got lucky when that guy dropped the key right in front of us. You can’t chicken out now. We’ll never get another chance.”
As Todd waited for a reply from the boy at the bottom of the steps, the other boy nudged his arm. Todd looked back to see his hand holding out his own lighter for Todd to take. Todd took the lighter and the boy walked down to join the first.
“You too?” Todd exclaimed.
“Sorry, Todd, but something about this isn’t right. That flashlight had new batteries. Something drained them and I think it came from inside the building. I’ve seen it happen a thousand times on those shows I watch. We’ll wait for you out here.”
“You can’t be serious. I’ll tell you what drained the batteries. Time drained them. Old batteries lose their power. I’d bet they were sitting on the store shelf for years before you bought them. Besides, we have lighters. They might even be better because it’ll be spookier with the flickering light from my miniature torch here.” He laughed as he flicked on his lighter and adjusted the flame to maximum height.
His friends wouldn’t budge. No amount of name-calling or threats to out them as pussies back at the frat house would change their minds. Todd knew he would be going in alone. He shook his head and told them they would regret their decision.
One more test of the lighters and he turned to unlock the door. He opened the door wide and offered his friends one last chance to join him. They didn’t reply. Todd smiled and stepped inside. The door slowly closed behind him.
“Did Todd do that?” one of the boys said.
“I don’t know. He must have.”
“Why would he close the door behind him?”
“You know Todd. He’s probably just trying to freak us out.”
“Good point.”
From the flickering glow of the lighter held out in front of him, Todd cautiously stepped through the maze of mirrors. Narrow pathways ended with countless choices of left or right decisions. After making at least twenty directional decisions, he wondered if the only haunting thing about the labyrinth was in a person’s sense of desperation in finding the exit. And while he wasn’t claustrophobic, he was beginning to show signs of his own desperation. He proved himself to his friends and looked forward to exercising his boasting rights upon exiting.
Ten feet ahead of him was another fork in the road. “Where’s the exit to this place?” he mumbled. Standing at the end of the path, he looked right. His flame only revealed the first five to ten feet of the path. Darkness lay beyond the reach of his light. He looked left to a dead end four feet in.
“That’s it! I’m just getting deeper into this maze. Maybe I can find my way back—” He turned to the hallway he just walked from and saw his own reflection three feet in front of him. Without making a sound, the pathway had somehow closed behind him. Retracing his steps wasn’t an option. He turned again to review his previous choices. To the right was a long dark path and to his left was a dead end. However, when he looked to his right, the pathway was now glowing dimly from a hidden light source. He glanced again to his left choice, where seconds earlier his path was blocked by a solid mirror wall. Now he was looking at a wooden door.
“Wow! These mirrors sure can trick the mind,” he said.
Naturally, he chose the door to his left. He took a few steps forward and confidently reached for the do
or’s knob. As he did, his fingers curled into his palm. The handle wasn’t real. He mashed his hand into another mirror.
“What? But it looked so real. Now I’m starting to see how people might get freaked out in here. That’s an awesome illusion.” He turned to take the only path left to him. Using the light in the room, he returned his lighter to his pocket and started down the long straight path. Ten paces turned to twenty. Twenty turned to forty. The exterior of the building was only about forty feet square, yet he just walked five times that distance in a straight line with no end in sight. His pace quickened as he grew anxious to find an end of the passage. His jog progressed into an all out, minute long sprint.
“What’s happening?” he said as he stopped to catch his breath. He looked down to the floor. “It must be some sort of treadmill.” He kicked the floor in search of the hidden track tricking his mind. The floor didn’t give up any of its secrets. Todd returned upright. As he stared down the endless corridor, the walls began to swell outward as the distance closed in front of him. Silently, the narrow hall transformed into a half circle. He turned to look behind, only to discover he was standing in the center of an eight-foot-diameter room with no exits.
Still unwilling to accept a supernatural cause for the illusions he was experiencing, he stepped forward and reached out to feel the mirrored panel. His hand pressed against it, proving it was real. He removed his hand, leaving a smudged print on the high gloss panel. As he tested the next panel, the walls started spinning around him, allowing him to touch every panel in the room without taking a step. With each confirmed touch, his hands went faster and faster, slapping each panel as they flew by in a blur, until his dizzying frenzy to find an exit resulted in a loss of balance. He fell backwards to the floor and the walls stopped spinning. He sat disoriented in the center of the room; the room was unchanged except for a four-foot-high ring of smudge marks left by his hands after hitting each panel multiple times.
Wheezing and defeated from the experience, he retrieved an inhaler from his pocket. He shook it hard and exhaled the air in his lungs. Then he closed his lips around the opening, squeezed, and took in a deep breath. He held in the medicinal mist as long as possible before coughing it out. Two more deep breaths of air, and his ability to breathe was restored, allowing him to return to his feet and reassess his situation.