He paused before entering the next passageand shined the flashlight up at the high ceiling. Nothing. At leastnothing he could see.

“Albert, you’re scaring me.”

He turned and looked at her. “I’m sorry,” hesaid.

“What is it? Tell me.”

He looked up at the ceiling again, stillparanoid. “I think I’m just a little spooked by the fear room,” heexplained at last, and realized that it was probably the truth.“I’m nervous.”

She stared at him with those soft blue eyes,piercing him with a gaze that was almost paralyzing.

“I’m sorry,” he said again.

“I’m trusting you.”

Struck from his thoughts, he stared back ather. “You can,” he said after a moment. “I promise.”

“Okay.” After another moment, she turned andshifted her gaze into the next room. Those ominous spikes seemed tobe waiting for her. “How do we get past this?”

Albert turned and looked ahead. She meant,of course, the hate room. “The same way we got through it the firsttime,” he replied. He handed her back the flashlight.

“Do you think we can?”

“We should be able to.”

She looked uncertain. “I don’t think Ican.”

“Of course you can. That last room was fear.You were already afraid. That’s probably why it got to you.” He didnot know if this was true or not, but it made a certain sort ofsense, and he needed her to think positively. “This is different.This is hate. You aren’t capable of hating.”

“Yes I am.”

“Are you capable of hating me?”

She stared at him, her lips trembling withwords that would not come. Of course she was not capable of hatinghim. Not after all they’d been through together. Not after hecarried her out of the fear room.

“You can do it.”

“But what if I can’t? What if somethinghappens?”

“What else can we do?”

Brandy nodded. He was right, of course.There was no other way back. If they couldn’t go this way theycouldn’t. It was as simple as that. All they could do was try.“Okay,” she said at last.

She eased out onto the ledge, still keepingher back to the wall as though it were only inches wide. Thethought of what would have happened to her if Albert hadn’t stoppedher from stepping out of the hate room still haunted her thoughtsand she felt as though just being near these spikes was temptingdeath.

When she reached the doorway to the hateroom, she stopped and removed her glasses. Once they were tuckedsafely into her purse, she took Albert’s hand and led him inside.The same gray shapes greeted her and for a moment she felt asthough she were back in the fear room, surrounded by terrors thatpretended to be memories.

Immediately, she became certain that she wasgoing to get turned around and walk right back into that horriblepit. She could almost feel those deadly spikes sliding through hertender body. But as she ventured deeper into the shadows, shediscovered that Albert was right. This room was not nearly asfrightening as the fear room. The shapes she saw were not familiar.They did not seem to mean anything.

She found this curious. Why should the sexroom and the fear room have such profound effects on them while thehate room seemed to have no effect at all? If the fear room wascapable of getting past her poor vision, why wasn’t this one?Perhaps Albert was right. Perhaps she was simply incapable ofhating.

She sure hadn’t been incapable of fuckingAlbert, though.

She weaved through the statues, using thesethoughts as a distraction. “How are you doing?” she asked.

“I’m okay,” replied Albert. “You?”

“I’m fine. I don’t get it.”

“I don’t either. I guess fear is just morenatural than hate.”

“And lust,” she reminded him.

“Yeah. I guess.”

The doorway materialized out of the gloomand Brandy felt an overwhelming sense of relief. She’d made itthrough. She stepped into the doorway and stopped. She could seethe shape of the man’s mouth, the rows of teeth above and below,and she could feel the coarse texture of the tongue beneath herbare feet, but she dared not make any assumptions. For all she knewthere could be two openings like this in the room. She did not wantto find another pit of spikes.

With her glasses on, she was able to verifythat she’d been correct. The angry sentinels stood waiting forthem, the nearest pair about to collide just in front of her.“We’re out,” she reported. “Watch your step.”

“Great job.”

“Thank you. You were right.”

“I’m glad. Come on.”

They hurried on, past the many statues tothe next passage. Albert felt an odd sort of disorientation as hewatched the statues run backward to their posts against the wallsand relax once more into their stiff sentinel positions. It waslike watching a roughly drawn cartoon.

They made their way down the passageway tothe drop-off they climbed on their way in. Albert paused atop itand gazed down. He’d forgotten about it. What was the purpose ofsuch a design, he wondered. And more than that, what caused thosestrange scratches in the stone. He’d seen nothing like it anywhereelse in this place.

“What’s wrong?”

Albert shook his head. “Just wondering aboutthis.”

“I really hate it when you wonder aboutthings.”

“Me too.” He dropped down off the ledge andthen turned and helped Brandy down. There was no sense thinking toohard about it. This was their only way out.

They hurried through the tunnel to the roundroom and from there Brandy headed straight for the tunnel fromwhich they’d originally come. She had taken several steps down itwhen she realized suddenly that she was alone.

Albert had stopped and was standing on theother side of the statue. He was gazing into the darkness of one ofthe other passages.

“Albert?”

“Shh…” He was standing with one ear cocked,listening. “You hear that?”

Brandy listened, her heart pounding withfright. At first she heard nothing but her own rapid pulse, then ittouched her ears, a small tapping sound, like somebody walking inhigh heels, except it was too close together to be clicking heels.It was almost a scuttering.

Albert stepped closer to the corridor,trying to see the source of the noise, but the darkness was toothick.

“Albert, come back.” As she said this, shestepped closer to him and shined her light toward the passage intowhich he was trying to see. With this light, somethingappeared.

It was just ahead of him, lying on thefloor. He stepped cautiously toward it and picked it up as athousand alarms began to go off in his brain, a few at first,slowly, but picking up speed until his whole world was one huge airraid siren.

It was a small piece of torn and tatteredwhite cotton. It was a piece of a sock.

The image that went through Albert’s mindwas of their underwear and socks strung up in the maze below thestone bridge. One of Brandy’s socks had been missing from theassortment, probably fallen to the floor where those noisycreatures were. But if this was Brandy’s sock…

Somewhere up ahead, something in thedarkness let out a huff of air and the rattling, shuffling,clattering sound they’d heard from that dark maze began to pourfrom the tunnel, this time louder and closer than ever.

“Run!” He turned and fled afterBrandy—who needed no encouragement from him—around the statue andthrough the passage that would lead them home. Behind him, thenoisy creature barreled after them.

Brandy reached the wall and grabbed onto theledge, desperately trying to scramble up it and into the highertunnel. Albert caught up with her and, grabbing her by the ankles,shoved her upwards and over the ledge. In the same motion, hegrabbed the ledge and swung himself upward with strength andagility he did not know was left in him. Just below him, somethinglarge and violent slammed into the wall, narrowly missing his barefoot as he lifted himself out of its path.

A savage sound rose up to them, heard evenover that terrible clattering noise, like something simultaneouslybeating itself against the wall and clawing at the stone.