Albert had stopped and was standing on the other side of the statue. He was gazing into the darkness of one of the other passages.
“Albert?”
“Shh…” He was standing with one ear cocked, listening. “You hear that?”
Brandy listened, her heart pounding with fright. At first she heard nothing but her own rapid pulse, then it touched her ears, a small tapping sound, like somebody walking in high heels, except it was too close together to be clicking heels. It was almost a scuttering.
Albert stepped closer to the corridor, trying to see the source of the noise, but the darkness was too thick.
“Albert, come back.” As she said this, she stepped closer to him and shined her light toward the passage into which he was trying to see. With this light, something appeared.
It was just ahead of him, lying on the floor. He stepped cautiously toward it and picked it up as a thousand alarms began to go off in his brain, a few at first, slowly, but picking up speed until his whole world was one huge air raid siren.
It was a small piece of torn and tattered white cotton. It was a piece of a sock.
The image that went through Albert’s mind was of their underwear and socks strung up in the maze below the stone bridge. One of Brandy’s socks had been missing from the assortment, probably fallen to the floor where those noisy creatures were. But if this was Brandy’s sock…
Somewhere up ahead, something in the darkness let out a huff of air and the rattling, shuffling, clattering sound they’d heard from that dark maze began to pour from the tunnel, this time louder and closer than ever.
“Run!” He turned and fled after Brandy—who needed no encouragement from him—around the statue and through the passage that would lead them home. Behind him, the noisy creature barreled after them.
Brandy reached the wall and grabbed onto the ledge, desperately trying to scramble up it and into the higher tunnel. Albert caught up with her and, grabbing her by the ankles, shoved her upwards and over the ledge. In the same motion, he grabbed the ledge and swung himself upward with strength and agility he did not know was left in him. Just below him, something large and violent slammed into the wall, narrowly missing his bare foot as he lifted himself out of its path.
A savage sound rose up to them, heard even over that terrible clattering noise, like something simultaneously beating itself against the wall and clawing at the stone.
Albert and Brandy ran, not waiting for it to climb up and continue its pursuit.
They fled down the tunnel to the waiting pool and plunged into the water. The cold was just as intense as the first time. It sucked the breath from their lungs, but they dared not linger. They swam as hard as they could, propelling themselves through the frigid water. The sound of their splashing echoed through the tunnels around them and the waves crashed against the walls in the narrow confines of the passage.
They crossed the pool much more quickly than they did the first time, but still they moved too slowly. They kept looking back over their shoulders, terrified that something dark and deadly was right behind them, snapping at their kicking feet.
Not until they reached the other side did they pause. Gasping, they collapsed onto the floor, and with water dripping from their shivering bodies, they stared back across the pool, searching for any sign of their mysterious pursuer.
“What the fuck was that?” Brandy hissed, her teeth chattering violently. She held the flashlight as steadily as she could, but still the light danced across the tunnel walls as her hands trembled with adrenaline and the quaking of her shivers. Her eyes were wide with terror, her lips quivering in the cold.
Behind them, there was no sign of the creature. The water tossed and rocked in the wake of their furious swimming. At its edge, the paint can clanked against the stone floor as it rose and fell in the waves.
“I don’t know,” Albert replied. He was out of breath but not yet ready to quit running. “We should keep going,” he said, snatching the paint can from the water. “We don’t know if it can swim.”
He stuffed the can into his backpack and the two of them continued up the tunnel. He didn’t know if it would do them any good or not, but it certainly wasn’t going to be of any use floating in that pool. Halfway up the incline, the lid to the can was still resting undisturbed on the floor, but he chose not to take the time to pick it up.
They hurried past the praying statue and retraced their way back through the maze to the back door of the sex room.
Chapter 21
They didn’t discuss the sex room as they approached it. Brandy had already removed her glasses and was stuffing them into her purse. She was still afraid of this room, but at the moment the only alternative to going through it was to go back to where that creature was, and even the fear room sounded like a better option than that. She grasped Albert’s cold hand and led him through the doorway.
Albert closed his eyes and tried hard not to think of what they’d done in here. Hopefully they could cross this room as easily as they crossed the hate room just a little while ago.
But as the dark shapes began to swim around her, Brandy began to realize that this room was different from the other two. She could not see the pornography around her, but she remembered it. That gray blob over there was a woman on her knees, performing oral sex on a man who looked like he might kill her if she stopped. One of the woman’s hands was stuffed between her thighs, touching herself. The very memory of that statue gave her a nervous knot in her stomach. Desire swam up from some dark place deep inside her. She was disgusted to realize that she wanted to put her glasses back on and look at it again.
Nearby was another shape she remembered: A woman on her hands and knees, clawing at the stone beneath her as a man took her from behind. Her expression was agonizing ecstasy. Beyond that, she could still somehow see a woman straddling a man’s face, her fingers buried in his hair as she ground her hips against him. It seemed that she must be suffocating him, but he didn’t appear to be concerned with escaping. In fact, he appeared to be pulling her closer.
She tried to move between the statues without looking at them, but even from the corners of her eyes, the obscene shapes teased her.
She couldn’t escape it. Everywhere she looked, another statue reformed itself from murky shadows into vivid memories. And it was far too easy to picture herself in these women’s places, enjoying the same insatiable pleasures. She didn’t want to lose herself again to that uncontrollable lust, but she could feel the wanting. It was so hard to resist, especially when it was so easy. All she had to do was turn around and she could have him again…
“Albert…”
“Right here.”
“Oh, Albert…”
“What is it?”
“Not working…” She stopped, her knees pressed together against the terrible wanting in her body. She bent forward, breathing rapidly. “I can still see it.” Though she was terrified, she found that she wanted. She craved it. It was like a nicotine addiction, only so much more intense.
“No! Close your eyes!”
“I did…” She turned toward him, letting go of his hand, and groped for that part of him that she wanted so much, the part of him that was meant for giving her pleasure. She needed that part of him.
It was already beginning to grow erect—his memories of the room did that much by itself—but her touch was an instant stimulant. The feel of her fingers on his skin was more than he could bear. He wouldn’t be able to resist her for long, even without looking at the statues.
Albert wanted to open his eyes. He wanted to see those statues. For the first time in his life, he understood how sex could be an addiction, how some people could fall into such a darkness of sexual wanting. Every muscle in his body was tense with yearning.