The door was in front of him, slightly tohis right. It was only five or six steps away. But between it andhim stood a great, twisted shape that sent a jolt of utter horrorstraight through his very soul.

It was facing the other way, toward thedoor, poised to greet anyone coming in. Albert was staring at thetwisted, boiling flesh of its back, unable to see its face, andstill it terrified him. He might has well have opened his eyes andgazed upon the real thing as it stumbled toward him, inches fromrending the flesh from his face.

He squeezed his eyes shut again, but it wastoo late. His mind was filled with horrors that he could not unsee.It was as if he actually lived through the terrors this statuedepicted. The visions in his head (Dead! They’re all dead!) were asvivid as his own memories. He shuddered with fright, fighting tokeep his grip on Brandy, trying to keep his own legs fromcollapsing beneath him. How was this happening? How did thesehorrible images (So many of them!) get into his head? It couldn’tbe real. It had to be (They won’t die!) some kind ofhallucination.

Somehow, he managed to take a step forward,and then another. His feet felt numb. He could not feel the floorbeneath him anymore. His knees were shaking. He opened his eyesagain and tried to stare only at the doorway. That was his onlygoal. He just needed to reach the doorway. If he could just getBrandy that far, then even if he dropped dead of fright, at leastshe’d have a chance at getting home.

His stomach boiled with fear. His headpounded. He walked forward, unable to completely ignore the thingsaround him. Even from the corners of his eyes he saw them, thoseterrible images of death and blood and creatures from a past he wasnever meant to know.

He already knew that these things wouldhaunt his dreams for the rest of his life.

Albert emerged from the door of the fearroom, stepping over the stone tongue and teeth of the woman whosehorrible fate he’d almost shared. Brandy’s frail, trembling bodystill cradled in his arms, he walked shivering away from themysteries that lay beyond.

They had forfeited.

Game over.

Chapter 19

Albert did not stop when he stepped out ofthe fear room. He walked on, Brandy’s trembling body still heldtightly against him, the flashlight still pressed between them.“It’s okay,” he told her. “We’re out. We’re okay.” He kept tellingher this, kept assuring her, but he felt like a liar. It wasokay. They were out. But he did not yet know if hewould ever be okay again. Images haunted his mind. His head ached.His back ached the way it did when one shivered too hard for toolong. His very lungs seemed to ache with fright.

There were things in his thoughts now,shadowy things, like dark memories struggling to surface. He triedto stare forward, tried to look only where he was going, trying tosuppress the urge to shriek in utter terror.

The fear did not begin to subside untilafter he passed the last of the sentinels and entered the passagethat led to the next room. It was then that he finally looked downat Brandy and found that she was staring up at him, her blue eyesshadowy in the darkness, but still as soft and brilliant as ever.The expression on her face was impossible to read. It could havebeen relief, it could have been gratitude, it could have been loveor it could have been nothing at all. She made no effort to be putdown, and he made no effort to put her down. He walked on throughthe huge and unsettlingly empty room to the spiraling staircasefrom which they’d descended, cradling her in his arms, liking theway she felt, letting her body’s weight and softness and warmthoccupy his mind so that the terrors could not grow. He climbedseven of the steep steps before finally stopping and lowering hergently onto them, as though unwilling to set her on the same flooras those terrible statues.

For a moment he stood staring at her. Shelay before him, staring back at him, her hands clamped around theflashlight at her bosom, one leg dangling off the edge of thestaircase, the other bent slightly, her foot resting on the stepbelow her. Her hair was still kinky from their earlier swim and herskin was pocked with gooseflesh. He could see the slit of her sexbetween her parted thighs, uncovered, unhidden, but he felt not atrace of the sex room’s arousal at the sight. He saw only herbeauty, her anguish, her need. He needed to take care of her. Shedepended on him, just as he depended on her. Without each otherthey neither one would make it back to the surface. They were rightto turn around. The answers weren’t worth it. They didn’t matter.All that mattered was Brandy. All that mattered was Albert. The twoof them were the only things down here that mattered at all and heintended to get them both safely home.

He bent and took her hands, wrapping them inhis so that she did not have to release the flashlight she wasstill clutching. Her cheeks were still wet with the tears she’dcried in the fear room, but she was not crying now.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

He shook his head. “Don’t be.” He smiled thebest smile he could manage to reassure her, and it touched hisheart when she gave him a little smile back. “Let’s get youhome.”

As she let him help her to her feet, shehappened to glimpse the blood on his knee. “You’re hurt…”

Albert looked down at his leg. He’d hardlyrealized. “I bumped into that statue that cut you.”

Brandy looked down at her own leg. Justabove her right knee, on the outer thigh, there were three smallcuts. The top one had bled a small trail down over the lower two,but those had just barely beaded with blood. The cuts on Albert’sleft knee, however, were considerably deeper. A trail of blood ranall the way down to his ankle.

“I’m okay,” he assured her. “It’s notbleeding anymore.”

But she wasn’t entirely convinced. Her cutshad stung. They still stung, now that she thought about it.No matter what he said, his had to be hurting him.

“Let’s go home.”

She looked down at him from the upper step,her blue eyes soft and caring. “But what about the answers you werelooking for?”

Albert smiled. “Fuck it.”

Brandy returned the smile. “Yeah. Fuckit.”

As they climbed, Albert thought about theroom they turned away from, that mysterious lair of terror. Whatfantastic things could lie beyond such a border? Treasure? Maybe,but he doubted it. Besides, more important to him than treasure wasdiscovery; the discovery of a secret truth that he felt mustlie waiting to be found. The truth of the box alone was worth theadventure. Why? Who? He yearned to know these things, but not atany cost. Not at the cost of Brandy Rudman. Not at the cost of hisown sanity. He stared at her naked bottom as they climbed, studiedthe rhythmic pumping of her buttocks and thighs, and could not helpbut sigh at the thought of returning this beauty to the surface,where he would have to share her with the rest of the world.

Naturally the trip up the steps was muchslower than the trip down, and a deep silence fell between them asthey climbed.

It was Brandy who broke this thoughtfulsilence with a question that surprised Albert: “Are you mad atme?”

“No. Of course not.”

“You were quiet.”

“Just thinking.”

“About what?”

“This place. And the box.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?”

“You want to keep going.”

“Only part of me.”

Brandy was silent for a moment, thinking.Albert could hear her labored breathing, could see the small beadsof sweat that were forming on her back.

Albert said, “The other part of me is scaredas hell.”

She looked down at him, smiled, but saidnothing. She was pleased that he was scared too. It made her feelbetter, but still she felt bad for turning back, for leaving thisadventure behind. She felt ashamed of her fear, but she wantedbadly to go home.