I crawled for about ten feet, and then emerged into a very small room that allowed me to stand. The walls were a combination of heavily tinted Plexiglas and mirrors, and there were three possible exits. Colorful lights flashed from the ceiling, giving the place an atmosphere like a disco. I guessed that when the place was finished, Daniel would add the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever in the background.
We took the exit to the left. It twisted and turned a couple of times, and then broke off into two more possible paths.
I scraped an “X” on one of the mirrors with the machete. “So we’ll know where we’ve been,” I explained.
We followed the path to the left again. Through some of the plexiglass walls, I could see other parts of the maze, but there was no way to tell at this point how large it was.
There was a knock.
Daniel stood next to us, separated only by the clear wall. He pointed at me, and then ran his index finger over his throat, letting us know that it was curtains time.
Chapter 23
THERE WAS a loud rumble behind us. Daniel winked at me, then moved out of sight.
That was okay. I knew I was going to have to face him again, and better here than in an open space where he could mow us down with his machine gun, not that I noticed him carrying it. Much better to be trapped in a confusing maze.
At the next intersection, I scratched another “X” on the mirror and we took the path to the right. After about twenty feet and six turns, it dead-ended. We heard more rumbling.
“See if you can kick through the mirror,” I suggested to Roger.
He kicked the mirror several times, and though the glass cracked it was clear that we weren’t going to be able to break through. So we went back the way we came, returning to the intersection.
The “X” was gone.
“Did I miss something?” I wondered aloud. “I marked it, right?”
“You marked it,” said Charlotte. “I know what that sound is. The maze is moving.”
Okay, that was most definitely not cool, but again, I had to look on the bright side. Daniel and the others would be just as disoriented as we were. Maybe.
We continued to weave through the maze. At one point I could see Stan, enthusiastically smoking a cigarette about three panels of Plexiglas away. Seconds after that I saw Josie, limping.
Our next path twisted for approximately fifty feet without any new options. After rounding a completely mirrored corner we came face-to-face with a human-sized stone gargoyle. It was an imp-like creature with unnecessarily large fangs and clawed hands raised high over its head. As per the Daniel Rankin touch, it was also wearing headphones. There was just barely enough room to squeeze past it.
Three separate foot-long blades burst out, one from the gargoyle’s head, one from the chest, and one from the leg, all in a vertical line, blocking the path. A second later, the blades snapped back and another set of similar blades burst forth, these about five inches to the left of the first set. As these retracted, yet another set popped out, followed by the original set, and so on in that delightful sequence.
Beyond the gargoyle, separated by a panel, I saw Mortimer, with dried blood under his nose. He noticed us and shouted. “They’re by the southeast gargoyle!”
If we turned back they’d have us trapped. So I moved as close to the source of the nearest set of blades as possible without getting in their way. The blades popped out. The instant they retracted, I moved forward.
I beat the second set of blades. They snapped out right behind me, grazing the back of Foster’s jacket.
And I beat the third set of blades, nearly falling over as I lunged into the next part of the maze.
I turned back toward Roger and Charlotte. “Just follow my lead and-”
“Look out!” Roger shouted.
I spun around, machete raised, and nearly ended up with a meat hook through my face. Stan held one in each hand, and lashed out with the second one, slashing across my cheek before I could deflect it. I took a swing with the machete, clumsily batting it against the maze wall since there was so little room to maneuver.
I wondered what happened to the machine guns. Most likely the van was easily replaceable, but Daniel didn’t like the idea of damaging his precious maze of death.
Stan’s next swing was a downward slice. Though I tried to move back, the meat hook tore through the jacket, slashing across my chest in the process, and became lodged in the material. Stan yanked on the meat hook, pulling me toward him.
I tried to jam the machete through some part of his body, but again there wasn’t room. So instead I leaned forward and tried to bite him. He had the same idea at the same moment, and our teeth collided with a clack.
We stared at each other, a little embarrassed.
Then he smacked me on the side of the head with the non-pointy side of the other meat hook, and shoved me toward the gargoyle. I tried to resist, but with my bare feet I couldn’t get enough traction. I could hear the blades snapping right behind me.
I kneed him in the groin again. It seemed almost unfair to handle the situation in such a way, but these weren’t exactly times to be worried about fighting honorably. As he moaned in agony, I twisted our bodies around, forcing him to be on the side with the gargoyle.
He punched me in the stomach. Hard. I doubled over with dry heaves. And then I looked up to see him raise the free meat hook high above his head.
Reaching over the gargoyle, Roger grabbed the meat hook and tried to tug it out of his grip. Stan refused to let go…and that’s when the floor started moving. The entire section with the gargoyle and the rest of us shifted, throwing everybody off balance, and causing Stan to topple against the gargoyle.
The third set of blades burst forth, the center blade going right through his side. Stan opened his mouth, but no sound emerged. His lit cigarette dropped to the floor. As the blades retracted, he stumbled back another step and was caught by all three of the second set of blades. When those snapped back, his body fell onto the first set. While he should have fallen to the floor at this point, his meat hook was caught on the gargoyle’s arm, causing the first set of blades to get him a good half-dozen more times before Roger freed it.
Stan was quite dead.
Another section of maze began to slide next to ours. I got the impression that the maze was set up like one of those puzzles where you slide one square piece at a time until you’re able to correctly arrange them into a picture. Whenever I try to do those I end up with some kind of pseudo-Picasso surrealist nightmare.
Though this would have been a fine time to stand there and just gag for a few hours, we had to move. Roger squeezed his way through the blades, getting a nasty cut on his elbow but suffering far less than Stan. Charlotte made it through just as we saw Daniel running down our old path. Since the maze had shifted, he’d have to take a slightly different route to the gargoyle, but Stan was definitely visible through the clear walls from his vantage point.
We didn’t stick around long enough to see his reaction to Stan’s closed-casket-funeral body, though we did hear his scream of fury. We selected the center path of three and continued moving through the maze.
“You’re dead, Mayhem!” Daniel screamed. “ Corpus delicti! ”
His words chilled me. Which was pretty weird, considering that after all I’d been through so far, the simple fact of Daniel informing me that I might perhaps be in a spot of trouble shouldn’t have been much of a mood-breaker. Must’ve been his delivery.
After a couple more turns, we reached a narrow wooden door. I didn’t especially feel like seeking out more keys, but this one didn’t appear to have a lock. I opened it and immediately saw hundreds of razor blades falling toward me. I got out of the way right before the razor blade-lined ironing board fell. It was classic slapstick: the unexpected ironing board dropping out of the closet, smacking the poor bozo on the forehead. Thank goodness I’d been able to avoid the uproarious facial lacerations.