“Let’s not think about that.” He took herhand and led her forward, more quickly this time. He could not getthe wounded statues off his mind, those deep gouges cut into solidstone. What could have made scratches like that?

A wall appeared out of the darkness ahead ofthem, six feet high, to the floor of another tunnel. It wasidentical to the place that had awaited them at the end of theflooded tunnel, but leading up instead of down.

Albert grasped the ledge and lifted himselfup into the upper tunnel. It wasn’t easy. He had to get a jump onit. For someone who didn’t have the strength to lift their ownbody, this could prove a difficult, if not impossible, obstacle. Hedoubted if someone overweight or elderly would be able to manageit. But then again, perhaps they wouldn’t have gotten this far tobegin with.

Once he had his legs beneath him, he turnedand took Brandy’s hands, helping her up.

This tunnel was also too short to standfully erect, so they again stood slightly hunched as they gazedinto the darkness ahead. Albert looked down at the floor andnoticed that there were no scratches in the stone up here. As hestarted forward again, he wondered why.

Chapter 14

The next room was unnervingly familiar. Itwas about twenty feet wide and high, far too long to see across.Like in the last room of this size, statues stood against the wallon either side, faceless sentinels posing out a dire warning.

“Oh fuck no!” blurted Brandy.

Albert stared at the statues. He could seethree pairs of them, and already he knew they were different fromthe others. They changed, like the ones prior to the sex room, butnot in the same way. These did not grow more aroused. Their penisesremained limp, but their hands changed, slowly lifting from theirsides, their freakish fingers curling into fists.

They moved forward, watching with mountinghorror as each new pair of sentinels appeared from the gloom,acting out their warning for what lay ahead. One by one, frame byframe, each sentinel curled his hands into fists and lifted them,their long biceps swelling, straining beneath flesh of stone. Theveins in their wrists and forearms popped, practically pumping withthe silent pulse of a pounding stone heart. They tilted back theirheads in utter rage, a silent, faceless scream, a noiseless shriek,with the cords straining on their necks and their bodies seeming toripple with uncontrollable anger. Then they stepped away from thewall. They actually ran at their opposites, motionless frames froma horribly realistic movie, the final pair frozen in mid-stride,hell bent with murderous rage, three more steps each from killingeach other.

The face that waited on the far wall did notstartle them, but only because they expected it. The expressionthat waited there, however, scared the hell out of them. This was adifferent face from that in the last chamber. This was the face ofa man with blazing eyes, wild hair and a lush beard. Like the facethat framed the door to the sex room, it was perfect in everydetail, from the hair to the eyelashes to the spittle on his lips.He looked as though he could lash out and swallow them both.

“Fuck.”

Albert found Brandy’s choice of wordsperfectly appropriate.

“Well, my dear Rudman,” said Albert, doing afairly lame Sherlock Holmes impression. “What do you surmise mighthappen if we enter this fellow’s oral cavity?”

“I’d say we’ll probably try and kill eachother.”

“Not good.”

“No. How do we get through there?”

Albert thought for a moment, remembering thesex room and the things it made them do. They could not enter thisroom. If they did they’d kill each other. He couldn’t imagine how,but they would, whether they meant to or not. It’s what the statuestold them, and so far they had not lied. “The sex room was filledwith statues. It was like a big, three-dimensional porno. It got usall turned on and we couldn’t control ourselves.”

“That doesn’t sound right.”

“I know.”

“I’m not going to lie, I’ve seen pornographybefore. It really doesn’t have that effect on me.”

He stole a glance at her, wondering. Hecould not imagine her sitting down to watch porn. Although the ideaof her doing so was strangely arousing. Or perhaps that was justthe sex room. “Maybe there was something else,” he offered.“Pheromones, maybe, or something subliminal.”

“Maybe all of those things to work.”

“But it stopped when the lights went out,”he wondered.

“Maybe it takes all those things.”

“Yeah. Or maybe it’s all visual.” He lookedat her, wondering. “Either way… When you take off your glasses, howwell can you see?”

“Hardly at all. I have really bad eyes.”

Albert nodded. “Nearsighted?”

“Yes.”

“How far?”

“I don’t know. I can see stuff, it’s justall fuzzy.”

“How far away are things clear? Three orfour feet?”

“More like one.”

“When I shined the light back in on you inthe sex room, did you feel anything?”

“No. But I was scared.”

“Me too, but I could have come in and doneit all again as soon as I looked in there.”

Brandy stared at him, shocked. She wasunnerved by the fact that he felt that yearning while she was blindand scared. Could he have forced himself on her? Could he haveattacked her right there and had his way with her? That would havebeen worse than the first time. That would have been rape,nothing more, nothing less.

Would someone else have done it?

“So if you take off your glasses and I closemy eyes, do you think you could navigate us through this roomwithout getting crazy?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. Seems logical. Iguess.”

Albert looked at the man’s face,considering. “That might just work.” But there was something else.“The big question is, why have another one of these rooms? If wegot through the other one, we’re bound to know how to get throughthis one.”

“Do you think there’s something else inthere?”

“Something else, something different, Idon’t know. I just think whoever built this place would be smarterthan that.”

Brandy took off her glasses and slipped theminto her purse. The world around her was reduced to blurry shapesand colors. And with the exception of Albert, all of those colorswere gray. “Well, I guess we have no other choice.”

“Right.” He took her hand and squeezed it, asort of mental fastening of the seatbelt. “I’ll keep my eyesclosed. I’ll be relying on you. Try not to look at anything, evenif you can’t see it very well.”

“Okay.”

Albert handed her the flashlight. “Becareful. Don’t hurt yourself. Go slow and easy.”

Brandy squeezed his hand in return,fastening her own mental seatbelt, and they began to walk. Theystepped over the man’s lips and teeth, onto his tongue and duckedinto the next room. Immediately the world in front of her was ajumbled maze of gray shadows and forms. Her heart was pounding.“Still have your eyes closed?”

“Yeah, but it’s tempting.”

“Don’t you dare!”

“Don’t worry. I just mean, think about it.In our society, sex is such a big deal. Nudity is taboo.Pornography is considered filthy. We teach our kids modesty andtell them not to look at the naked women on HBO. But what if youvisited a society of people who don’t blush at the sight of nakedbodies, who aren’t ashamed of being naked or seeing someone elsenaked? If people just walked around naked all the time, just satand watched people having sex all the time, had sex whenever theywanted with whomever they wanted, there would be no fascinationwith it. People wouldn’t care. Just like seeing people kiss is nobig deal to us. In a society where kissing was taboo there would beall sorts of fascination with it. So I can sort of understand thatlast room. I think that everybody is turned on by pornography tosome small degree, even if they don’t want to admit it. Even ifthey’re more horrified and disgusted by it, they’re probably stilljust a little turned on by it, even if that only disgusts andhorrifies them more. If you were bombarded with that, life-sized,three-dimensional and in your face, and probably combined withother stuff, maybe something subconscious, something subliminal,maybe, I can almost see how that would drive us into a fit of lustand make us lose control. But this room, I don’t understand. Whatcould possibly drive us to hate? Especially if it’s merely bysight?”