We retraced our path and moved on. The maze was undeniably disorienting, but I felt confident that we were at least moving in the same general direction. Well, until we found ourselves back at Stan’s body.

Naturally, Roger had a smart-ass comment, but in his anxiety he completely messed up the timing and the phrasing, so it’s not worth repeating.

“Okay, so, what do you think about splitting up?” I asked. “If one of us finds the exit, they can call out to everyone else, sort of guide them in the right direction.”

“And give away our position,” Charlotte noted.

“Right. But we have no idea how big this thing is, or where we’re supposed to be headed. We could be wandering around for days.”

“That’s probably a good idea,” said Roger. “As long as I’ve got my trusty meat hook, I should be okay.”

“All right, then,” I said. “Everyone pick a path.”

I had a very strong temptation to give Roger a good-bye hug in case I never saw him again, but I resisted it. We each took our separate paths, myself to the right, Roger straight ahead, and Charlotte to the left.

My path quickly came to a dead end, so I cheated and went down Roger’s path, just as he was returning.

“Yours a dead end, too?” he asked.

I nodded. Together we followed Charlotte ’s path, which very shortly separated into two. I took the right and Roger took the left.

I peeked at myself in one of the mirrored walls. Ugh. Not a glamorous sight. If Helen ever saw me like this, I’d be practicing forced abstinence for the rest of my life.

Two turns and a quick glimpse of Mortimer later, I was at another door. Now, past experience told me that I probably did not want to open this door, but then again, it could also be the way out. All these risks were doing wonders for my machismo. There wasn’t room for me to stand to the side of the door when I opened it, so I settled for turning the doorknob carefully and easing it open inch by inch.

When I was satisfied that nothing sharp or heavy was going to drop out on me, I opened it all the way. Inside was a mummy. A pretty darn cool mummy, almost a dead-on replica of Boris Karloff in his dusty bandages, but it didn’t seem to have any function beyond just standing there, being a mummy.

I closed the door and moved on, promptly walking into a wall. It was bound to happen with all these clear walls and mirrors, so I could only be thankful that it had happened while I was alone.

After another half-minute or so of wandering, the floor began to move under my feet. As it slid, it revealed another section of the maze…where Daniel stood.

I raised my machete, and he raised his revolver. The tip of my weapon was practically touching the barrel of his.

“Well, well,” he said. “You’re pretty damn impressive, I’ve gotta give you that. How’d you like the gasoline shower?”

“Is that what was that was supposed to be? All it did was trickle a little bit,” I said, just to piss him off.

Daniel frowned. “That’s fine. It wasn’t really completely ready to go yet.”

“So where’d your fancy machine gun go?” I asked, trying to keep him occupied while I waited for a good chance to run for cover.

“The last thing I need is for you or your friends to get a hold of a machine gun, don’t you think?”

“I thought you just didn’t want to shoot up the maze.”

“That, too.”

“So what’s up with the mummy? Was it supposed to attack me or something?”

“It’s a placeholder. That’s where the rattlesnakes are going to go.”

“Cool. I hope they weren’t too hard to smuggle into Alaska, because we accidentally killed a few of them.”

“Why would you kill innocent snakes in an aquarium?”

“It got knocked over. Sorry about that.”

“As long as you didn’t do it on purpose. So, have you formulated some brilliant escape plan while we’ve been talking? There’s not a chandelier above my head, is there?”

“Nah,” I admitted. “I’m pretty well screwed, actually.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. And now I’m going to shoot you.”

I instinctively held the machete in front of me, like a very narrow shield, as Daniel pulled the trigger.

Now, if somebody had said to me last week, “Andrew, guess what? You’re going to be standing in a big maze, and the main bad guy is going to have a gun pointed at you, and you’re going to gab for a while, then he’s going to fire. But you’ll have instinctively held this machete in front of you, and not only will the bullet hit the machete right around where you heart would’ve been, but the bullet will ricochet off the blade and hit the main bad guy in his gun-shooting arm. Oh, yeah, and you’ll really look like crap,” the only part I would have believed was the part about me looking like crap

But it happened. Daniel fired. The bullet struck the machete blade, knocking the flat edge against me with painful force, and then ricocheted off and struck Daniel in the upper arm. His hand opened, and the gun dropped out of his grip.

I was, to put it lightly, pretty damn surprised. Almost too surprised to take a swing at Daniel with the machete. Unfortunately, with my hands throbbing violently from the fact that they’d been holding the machete when it took a bullet, it wasn’t a very good swing.

It was, however, a good enough swing to convince Daniel that he needed to get out of there. And so he turned and ran through one of the maze paths. I picked up his revolver, trying to count how many times we’d played musical guns since the vacation began.

The maze split off into two paths again, but I could hear Daniel’s footsteps to the right. I followed him, smacking into a mirror this time, but continued the pursuit.

Chapter 24

NOT ONLY did I have the sound of Daniel’s footsteps to follow, but he was also emitting a stream of outrageously creative profanity, so I was able to keep on his trail.

A door opened and slammed shut just ahead.

I promptly hit a dead end, but quickly retraced my path, took the other branch, and found the door. Though the plan was to regroup at the exit, I didn’t want to lose my chance when Daniel was on the defensive. So I let out one of those piercing whistles I used to love so dearly in elementary school silent reading time to help guide Roger and Charlotte in the right direction, and then opened the door.

The next room was the largest one yet, and looked like nothing so much as an underground warehouse. The room was probably two hundred feet square, and filled with piles and piles of machinery, vicious-looking implements of torture, and props. There was a stack of artificial corpses that must’ve been fifteen feet high.

I saw Daniel duck behind an electric chair and fired, but the bullet struck the arm of the chair. Keeping a safe distance in case he’d somehow armed himself, I ran to the side to get a better shooting angle, but he was gone.

A three-foot scorpion flew through the air at me. Without thinking, I blew the plastic creature away, which had obviously been Daniel’s intent. I had three bullets left, at the most, so I had to be careful.

A slightly larger octopus was launched at me from behind a display of ballerina bodies impaled on lances. It landed on the ground in front of my feet with a splat. “Dude, you’re throwing rubber mollusks,” I pointed out. “It’s time to give up.”

“Never!” Daniel shouted as he hurled a football over the display. I didn’t get a very good look at it, but I’m pretty sure it had squished roaches stuck to it.

The football hit the ground and black smoke began to pour from each of the ends. I hurried away from it, taking cover behind a medieval stretching rack with a large replica of Gumby on it.

The door opened, and Mortimer entered. As he shielded his eyes from the smoke, I took aim and fired. And missed. Mortimer turned toward the rack in surprise, and I pulled the trigger again, only to be rewarded with a click.