Albert dropped his arms from around her andgrasped her hips again, and then the two of them turned andbacktracked.

The statues in the sex room were a jumbledmess, but it was a mess that was reasonably easy to navigate. Thehate room was worse, but she had assumed it was because she wasblind. Now she realized that the rooms were getting morecomplicated, each one designed to be more of a maze than the last.She wondered what would happen if they could not find their wayback and quickly forced that thought away.

An odd form appeared ahead of her and to herright. It seemed human, but oddly stretched out of proportion. Shestared at it for a moment before it occurred to her that this wasone of the sentinels. He stood amid shorter statues, straight andtall, his arms outstretched over the heads of those formless thingsaround him.

She went toward him, wondering. There werenone of these statues in the sex room. Those were all human.

But she did not dwell on the statue’spresence for long. Behind it, she saw another statue that wasclearly not human. It was close to the floor, spread out across thespace it occupied, and there, just beyond this creature, wasa square opening, barely visible to her poor eyes in the palelight.

“I found the door!”

“Look first.”

Brandy was already taking her glasses fromher purse. “We’re not there yet.” She stepped around the sentinel,forcing herself to move slowly, watching each step, knowing that toforget the hate room was to forget to survive.

She edged around the last statue, a beastthat reminded her of an animal, but seemed twice as wide as itshould have been. She brushed it with her leg and felt a sharppain.

“Ouch!”

“What’s wrong?”

She touched her leg where the pain was andlifted her finger in front of her face. She was bleeding, but notbadly. “I cut myself.”

“What?”

“It’s not bad,” she assured him. “It was astatue. It’s got a claw or something. Be careful.”

“Okay.”

She pushed forward, encouraged by the sightof the door just ahead of her.

“We’re here,” she announced.

“Be careful.”

She slipped the glasses onto her face andpeered into the next room as she did in the hate room. She knew hermistake at once, but there was no undoing it. She turned, her eyessqueezed fiercely shut against the image that was already burnedinto her brain, and threw herself into Albert’s arms.

Albert stumbled backward a step, startled,and his eyes flew open.

He saw what Brandy had seen. He saw itclearly, even though the flashlight was sandwiched between theirbodies, its beam reduced to a narrow slit.

This door did not exit the fear room. Itentered another chamber of it.

The next room was narrow and curved, filledwith more statues like those that surrounded them. One stood outfrom the others, the first in the room, looming in front of them.He closed his eyes at once, frightened so badly he could not bearto look upon it, but still he saw the horrible image. In his headit went on and on, his mind unable to close its eye.

The statue showed a woman, naked like allthe rest down here. Her face was contorted into an expression ofterror and agony. She was up to her waist in a hole in the floor.Curved spikes rose from the rim of this hole and dug cruel gougesinto the flesh of her hips and waist. Three other people, two menand one woman, each as naked as the day they were born, wereshoving her down into the hole from where grotesque things thatlooked like something between tentacles and talons clawed at her,pulling her to her death below. The statue could have been the workof any artist obsessed with the macabre except for the terrifyingdetail. The terror and pain on the woman’s face and the mad glee inthe eyes of her murderers were too intense, too real foranyone other than a madman to recreate. But there was more to thestatue than just the intensity and the reality. There was somethingmuch deeper than just the image. What startled him, what terrifiedhim beyond his imagination, was the familiarity of thestatue. This scene was not something merely imagined by some madartist. This was a life-sized portrait of the past. Somewhere,sometime, lost in eternity, this event really took place. Themurderers were real. The woman was real. The thing in the hole wasreal…

A sound escaped him, a shrill utterance thatmight have been a scream or might have been a laugh or might havebeen his sanity fleeing his skull. He held Brandy tightly in hisarms and tried to force away the thing he saw, but he couldn’t.

“I want to go home!” Brandy sobbed.She was crying, terrified not only by what she saw but by what sheremembered, by what she could not possibly have known but somehowdid.

“Okay.” The mystery of this place seemedunimportant now. Nothing mattered now except getting home. He didnot care where the box came from or why it and the key were givento them. He did not want to go any farther. “Okay let’s go.”

She did not move. She held fast to him, hernaked body pressed firmly against his.

“You have to lead us back out.”

“I can’t!”

“You have to.”

“I can’t! I can’t go! I’m tooscared!”

“I can’t get us out of here, Brandy!”

“I can’t!” Her tears coursed down hischest. She was terrified beyond the limits of her courage. Shecould not turn back and face those things she’d stumbled pastagain.

He wanted to run, to just turn and flee backthe way they’d come. Had he been capable, he might have left herthere in the darkness, crying and screaming until she died offright, but he could not do that. He could not leave her there. Hepicked her up instead, cradling her in his arms, and began to walkback the way they’d come.

He banged his leg against the statue thatcut Brandy a few moments ago and felt the same sharp pain. Whateverit was, it was covered with claws or spikes or something. He couldfeel the blood trickling down his leg and the pain magnified thefear.

But he couldn’t run. To run would be to losecontrol. To lose control would be to die. This was no exaggerationand he knew it. Fear alone could kill and this place was terror inits purest form.

A blind man in a tomb of monsters, hewalked. His eyes tightly shut against the terrors that surroundedthem. Brandy still held the flashlight, and to look would be toinvite madness. He stumbled through the dark, guiding himself onlywith his feet, feeling his way around statue after statue, tryingto walk only in one direction, only in the direction from whichthey’d come, and found only one obstacle after another. His feetstruck stone limbs and more than once he bumped Brandy’s shoulderor leg into one of the many solid occupants of the room.

Panic welled up within him. He did not knowthe way out. He had a sick feeling he was only going in circles,that the two of them would be trapped in this room for hours,unable to find their way either forward or backward.

He wondered if his heart could actually lastthat long.

“Are we out yet?”

“I can’t find the way out.”

“What do we do?” She spoke in great, wetsobs.

“Just keep your eyes shut. Nothing can hurtyou here. I’ll get us out.”

“Hurry. Please.”

Albert knew there was only one way out, andhe knew that way might ruin him, turning his brain to mush,rendering him little more than a drooling shell. The terrors inhere were never meant to be looked upon. But there was Brandy tothink about. Even if it killed him, he had to look. He had to findthe door.

He steeled himself and took several deep,calming breaths. He tried to find reason in the madness, some rayof hope, and found one in remembering the sex room. Those statuesdid not take effect at first. They had time to study the statues,to examine them for what they were before their libidos went intooverdrive. He took one more deep breath and, against his everyinstinct, he opened his eyes.