The Box (The Temple of the Blind #1)

  Chapter 22

  Somehow the tunnel leading back to Briar Hills was more frightening than those they were leaving behind. Behind them was the thief who stole their clothes and a vast labyrinth that was home to a pack of ferocious creatures they had no way of even imagining. Yet those tunnels were smooth and clean, of polished stone, like a well-kept palace. In contrast, these walls were of raw earth and rocks, less like a temple than a catacomb. Albert could almost imagine the walls falling away around them and revealing chamber after chamber of human remains, some of them still glistening with rot.

  “Do you think that thing could still be following us?” asked Brandy as Albert paused to examine the first fork in the tunnel.

  “I don’t know,” he replied. “I don’t think so. I haven’t heard anything out of it since we went in the water. It seems like it would’ve caught up by now. Maybe we lost it in the water. Maybe it can’t swim.”

  “Maybe. What do you think it was?”

  Albert shook his head. “I can’t even imagine.” As far as he could see in all three directions, the tunnels were empty, so he continued on, leading the way.

  “Are there any animals that could make that noise, do you think? Anything known?”

  “I don’t know. I sure as hell couldn’t recognize it.”

  “It sounded sort of like a rattlesnake, didn’t it? A little bit? Do you think it could be a new species? Something nobody’s ever seen before?”

  Albert shook his head. Somebody might have seen them, he thought but didn’t say. He remembered the bones they’d seen as they approached the room with the dying statues and wondered again if they could have been human. Even if they weren’t, even if they were the bones of something native to those dark passages, what he experienced in that tunnel was enough to tell him that they weren’t just a bunch of overly friendly collies. That thing tried to take his leg off. If he’d been just a little slower getting over that wall…

  He couldn’t think about that. Not now. Not when there was still so far to go. They reached the place where the newer tunnel was built through this far older one and he paused to peer both ways. He still expected something to jump out at them from the darkness, some dangerous figure unwilling to let them leave these tunnels with what they saw. When nothing stirred in the shadows, he stuffed the backpack into the narrow passage and then climbed in behind it.

  When they crawled out of the next tunnel and stood up, Brandy suddenly said, “I feel like we’re not done.”

  Albert looked back at her, curious. “What?”

  “We’re not done. We didn’t finish.” She was staring down at the floor, her brow furrowed as though she were trying hard to understand her own thoughts. “We were given that box. We were brought together. We were brought down here. But we didn’t finish. We only got so far and we stopped.” She looked up at him. “I feel like it’s very important that we didn’t finish.”

  Albert stared at her for a moment. She was right. He could feel it too. There was something in the back of his mind. There was the curiosity, of course, the wondering of what could possibly be beyond that fear room, but that was not all. It was like she just said: It felt very important that they didn’t finish. It felt to him almost as though they’d set out to disarm a bomb but left before cutting the last wire.

  They walked on without speaking, their thoughts dwelling on this odd feeling. But as the next passage came into sight, they remembered what awaited them, and Brandy cursed into the silence.

  Albert stared down at the stagnant water, understanding exactly how she felt. He, too, had forgotten about the flooded tunnel they waded through on their way in.

  “There’s another way right?”

  Albert shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

  She made a noise that was almost a retch.

  “It’s only water. We’ve been through worse tonight.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  He was impatient with her the first time they came to this tunnel, but he felt none of that now. He simply didn’t have it in him to be irritated with her. Besides, he understood. The first time might have warranted those feelings, when they were both wearing shoes. This time, however, they were both naked. Wading barefoot into that sludge, rainwater or not, made his skin crawl just to think about.

  “We don’t have any choice.”

  “I know.”

  “You going to be okay?”

  She looked up at him, her eyes soft and kind. He was so nice to her. She felt almost ashamed of herself to be complaining about such a small thing, especially after the fear room.

  She steeled herself, determined not to let her courage falter again, and squeezed his hand. “Yeah,” she replied. “Let’s get it over with.”

  Together, they stepped off into the cold and stagnant water. The Concrete beneath it was slimy and something that was probably a piece of trash brushed past her right foot. It almost made her scream, but she bit her lip and endured it.

  “Almost there,” Albert assured her, and when she looked up she saw the green mark she left on the tunnel wall what seemed like an eternity ago.

  “Thank god,” she sighed.

  “You’re doing great.”

  “I’m trying.” She looked at him again and drew courage from his presence.

  They wasted no time getting out of the water when they finally reached the next tunnel. The sliminess they each felt on the submerged floor of that tunnel seemed to have climbed up their legs and backs all the way to their brains.

  “That was awful,” hissed Brandy.

  Albert agreed. They both took a moment to wipe their feet on the dry concrete, trying to rid themselves of that sliminess.

  From there, they followed the green marks back the way they came.

  For a long time, neither of them spoke. Brandy found herself staring at Albert and remembering the fear room.

  She never said anything to him as he was carrying her away from that terrible place and she did not intend to say anything, at least not yet. But she knew what he did for her. She knew what he risked to save her. She saw it in his face. She saw the look in his eyes, the blank, distant expression, the twitchy sort of panic that washed over them. She saw the way his lips quivered, the way his skin was flushed of color.

  She lost control in there, just as they’d both lost control in the sex room. She lost control and she lost her ability to lead them. It was because of this, because she became so frightened, because she could not go on with her poor eyes, that he was forced to use his instead. He opened his eyes to find the door so that he could carry her to safety.

  She stopped suspecting him of any evil at that moment, while staring up into his terrified face as he carried her in his arms like some fairy tale hero, holding her, protecting her, even though he could hardly find the courage to protect himself.

  Albert caught her looking at him and asked what was on her mind.

  “Nothing,” she replied. Somehow, it just didn’t seem right to try and explain it to him. Not now, anyway.

  He studied her expression for a moment, trying to read her, but soon gave up. He turned his attention back to the tunnel walls. His biggest concern was that they might have forgotten to mark a passage somewhere. After all they’d been through, he didn’t want to wind up getting lost now, but luck was currently with them. Soon they found the rusty ladder that would take them back up into the service tunnels below the campus.

  Neither of them ever imagined that they would be so happy to see streetlights from the dark side of a sewer grate, but there it was, as wonderful and as welcome as a lighthouse beacon to a fogged-in vessel.

  They were almost out now. At the end of this tunnel lay the last. From there, one final ladder waited to take them up into the world above.

  After turning the final corner and taking a few hurried steps, they both stopped and stared. There,
lying in a neat pile at the foot of the ladder, were their clothes.

  They should have been thrilled to have them back. After all, without them they would be streaking back to their homes, risking humiliation, indecent exposure charges or both, but shadowing the excitement over having them back was the paranoia and uneasiness of knowing that they were beaten here.

  “Albert…”

  “I know.” He searched the tunnel in both directions, but nothing stirred.

  Brandy knelt over the clothes and examined them. Their shirts, pants and shoes were all there. Only the items they’d seen from the bridge were missing, and that certainly did not surprise her.

  “Here,” she said, handing Albert his jeans and shirt. “It feels like your wallet and keys are still inside.”

  “That’s good.” He watched with some sadness as Brandy quickly pulled on her shirt and pants and then began to slip on her shoes. Such wasted beauty.

  He put his own clothes on, not really liking the feel of being without his underwear. Also, their shoes were still damp from wading that flooded tunnel the first time, but he dared not complain. The ladder to the street was within reach, they were no longer naked and they were alive. Now they had only to go home.

  Albert stepped up onto the ladder, listened for a moment for voices or footsteps, and then slid the cover noisily open, letting in the welcoming lamplight from above.

  “Albert!”

  He jumped down, alarmed, and spun toward Brandy, but when he saw her wide eyes fixed over his shoulder, he knew he’d looked the wrong way first. He turned around, his heart pounding, and found himself face to face with a man with no eyes.

  He stood at least six and a half feet tall, with a thin, nearly lipless mouth, sharp nose and two shallow, fleshy craters where his eyes should have been. He had no hair anywhere on his body, and was as naked as he and Brandy had been a moment before.

  Albert backed away, careful to keep himself between this grotesque stranger and Brandy.

  The man stepped toward them, sniffing at the air like an animal until he was mere inches from Albert’s face. He then paused, seeming almost to stare at him, blind yet somehow seeing.

  He took Albert’s hand and placed something in it.

  “Another day.” He spoke these words slowly, enunciating each syllable as if speaking were something he rarely did, his voice hoarse and raw. Then he walked past them and disappeared into the tunnel, apparently heading back to the labyrinth from which they’d just come.

  After watching him leave, Albert looked at what the blind man placed in his hand. It was an old leather pouch, about twice as big as the one in which Brandy found the key to the box. It was heavy. He handed the flashlight to Brandy and dumped the contents into his open hand.

  “Wow,” said Brandy.

  In Albert’s palm were twenty-three very old gold coins of various origins. Some of them were American, some Spanish, some French, some British, some impossible to identify, minted by hand in ages lost. He picked up one of these older ones and studied it. One side was blank. On the other was a symbol he didn’t recognize, two lines twisted curiously together. It could have meant anything. He had no concept of the value of old coins, but they were all valuable, if only for the gold from which they were minted. Yet the blind man gave them to him without hesitation.

  Albert put the coins back in their pouch. “Let’s get out of here,” he said.

  Brandy climbed the ladder first and Albert took the time to give a wondering gaze back they way they’d come.