Catacombs of Terror! (21 page)

“So?” she asked again. “What
are
you doing here, Martin? Is this another trick?”

“It's not a trick,” I replied as calmly as I could. I tried to keep my voice steady. I don't remember how successful I was. “The bastards suckered me. I thought . . . ah, hell. I thought a lot of crap. Stonehenge and Kafka . . . .”

Karen was looking blankly at me, a little crease between her eyebrows. She was as beautiful as ever. If a little distraught.

“Who is
Stonehenge
and who's
Kafka
? Come on. Convince me that this isn't a trick and I won't shoot you. I don't want to shoot you. But I might have to.”

I sighed. My hands were starting to go a little numb. “I was set up. I was deceived. They told me a lot of lies. They told me I was going to be arrested for murder. They enticed me down here—I didn't know what was going on, I thought—well, never mind what I thought. It'd take too long to explain. But honestly. This is not a trick. Can I put my hands down now?”

She thought about it for a second. Then she nodded. She lowered the gun. But it was still aiming roughly in my direction, I noticed.

“I don't know what's true any more,” she groaned. “They told me so many crazy things . . . Barry . . . he told me that they'd used my eggs,
my eggs
, from my
ovaries
, for God's sake, to make clones . . . . They were controlling my mind, or something . . . it was ludicrous, but . . . .” She tailed off, still looking at me.

“Can I trust you?”

I nodded. “You can trust me. You might not find it easy, but it's true. I'm the only fucker you
can
trust. And we've got to get the fuck out of here. But first . . . .”

I picked the silver power saw up from the floor and walked over to the altar. Without looking down, I dropped the thing down into the oubliette. I turned back to Karen.

“I don't know about my mind, but those bastards were controlling my body. No idea how. But I came . . . close . . . to using that fucking saw on you. I'm so sorry.”

“I thought that was the end. I thought you were with them, that you were one of them . . . I couldn't believe it. When I saw you here, it was—the worst part.”

I looked at her. She was still in her work clothes. But they were muddy now, and torn. I could see red weals on her wrists where she'd been strapped to the altar. I walked up to her and we embraced, but clumsily. It was—awkward.

“We've got to get out of here . . . ” I muttered, breaking away. I couldn't escape the thought that I had betrayed Karen. I had
believed
the lies that AFFA had told me. And I had put something inside the space between us. Something like broken glass. Or terrible thorns. Karen didn't know what it was, or why it was there, but she could feel it, too. Something vital that had worked for both of us was broken, and I had no idea if it could be mended.

“Do you know the way out?” she asked. I shook my head.

“I have no idea. But I got in. So we . . . can get out.” I spoke with a confidence I didn't feel. Karen passed me the gun.

“You'd better take this, Martin,” she said. “I think I've used it enough for now. I probably wasted a lot of bullets.”

I looked around the chamber and tried to remember which tunnel I'd been led in through. I was pretty sure I chose right. I wasn't too bothered though. At least, we weren't going to be heading down the one the surviving members of AFFA had escaped along. Right. For sure. I walked over to one of the corpses on the floor. I rolled it over with my foot, rummaged around, and found a flashlight in a pocket.

“Come on,” I said. “I think this is the right one.” I passed the flashlight to Karen. I took a last glance around the chamber. There were five bodies twisted on the cold flagstones. Pity it wasn't more.

“Any idea how many of them there are?” asked Karen.

“There were twenty-three. Minus five, now.” I pointed at the bodies on the bloodied flagstones. “Eighteen left. And two of us. Not very good odds,” I muttered.

I wondered if I'd done the right thing by getting rid of the power saw. I guessed that I had. After all, I'd nearly butchered Karen with it. I never wanted to see it again. Anyway, I wasn't about to clamber down into a fucking oubliette full of decomposed corpses to get it. I started thinking about what weapons AFFA might have at their disposal. But I stopped thinking about that pretty quickly. It wasn't a cheerful line of thought.

We didn't talk much, back in the catacombs. We were listening. Listening for anything that wasn't water dripping or our own feet on the flagstones. Or our own breathing. Our hearts beating. Some time passed. Then some more of it did the same. A rogue thought found its way into my head.

“Do you know anything about the pigs?” I asked Karen quietly.

“What pigs?”

“Oh, um, nothing . . . .”

Eighteen of AFFA left. Two of us. One gun. And flesh-eating pigs. I wished I'd searched all the bodies in the chamber. Located some more guns. Whatever. I wasn't about to go back. Then I remembered something. I fished around in my pocket until I found something damp and papery. I pulled out Stonehenge's map.

“Hang on,” I said. “Shine the flashlight on this.”

“What's that?”

“A map of these tunnels,” I said. “Probably no use. Probably designed to confuse. Probably wildly, deliberately inaccurate. But still—it's a map.” I turned it around until I thought I had it the right way up.

“Okay . . . ” I said slowly. I slid the gun into my pocket. I pointed at the map. “I think this is the chamber we just left. And I think that . . . this . . . is the chamber under Charlcombe, which is where I came in. It's the only way out that I know. There was another one, but it's got a very heavy coffin blocking it.”

“What?”

“Doesn't matter. We've got to get to Charlcombe. Probably it's about a mile and a half away. If we're going in the right direction. And that's a pretty big if. But look. If we keep going along here . . . have you noticed any side tunnels from this one, so far?”

Karen shook her head, muttered, “No . . . .”

“Okay then. We follow this tunnel until we get to a turning to the right. We take that. Then we take the first left that we come to. Then, then we go straight on until we come to the third right-hand turning. Then we come to a crossroads. We take the left. Then straight on to Charlcombe. Looks like a hell of a long way. So. Right, left, third right, left.”

Karen nodded again. Then she sighed. A deep, long sigh.

“And do you think we can make it?” Her voice was small. And doubtful.

“We can make it,” I said. My voice sounded the same. Small, doubtful, coming from an exhausted human far below the surface of the earth, soaking wet, very cold. Very small. Very doubtful. “Let's get a move on. Right, left, third right, left, up and out.”

I took the gun out of my pocket. Put the map in. We carried on. Nothing happened. We walked quickly, sometimes jogged. We found a turning to the right. Took it. Took the next left. Nothing happened. I had a terrible feeling that we could be taking turnings in this dripping nightmare of a maze forever, map or no map.

Maybe we were already dead. After all the horrors that had happened to us, this was maybe a reasonable conclusion. That we were going round and round, exhausted, maybe pursued, on and on for all eternity. In hell. Fuelled only by a glimmer of hope that we could escape. But in reality there
was
no chance. No chance of escape.
By fate ordained . . . .

I kept the feeling to myself. It was bad enough in my head. I didn't want it getting out. Some more nothing happened. More turnings. I counted them. Fuck, it was a long way. It felt like we'd been walking for days. Weeks. And then we reached a third turning.

“Everything's been right, according to the map,” I said. My voice was a harsh croak. I cleared my throat. “We can't be more than half a mile from Charlcombe. But something's been bothering me.”

Karen didn't say anything. She left enough space to have asked me what the fuck was bothering me. So I told her.

“I came down here with two of those AFFA fuckers. Stonehenge and Kafka. One of them—Kafka—was even an old acquaintance of mine. Bastard. Wish you'd killed him. Anyway, I thought they were kosher. But
they
know that the only way out
I
know is the one we're headed for. Charlcombe. And I'm thinking that maybe, when we get there, they'll be waiting for us.”

“So what are we going to do?” Karen was staring at me, a yellowish glint in her eyes from the flashlight.

I let a long breath out through my teeth.

“Don't know. Not a fucking idea. Kill as many of them as we can?”

“You . . . idiot! Why didn't you say this
before
? Give me that map.”

I leant back against the wet mud of the wall while Karen inspected the map with the flashlight. Fuck it, I'd done enough already. For the first time in a while I remembered that I wanted a cigarette very badly. And a drink. But neither of them were as important to me as getting out of this place. I guess that's what being trapped in hell will do for you. Give you a sense of perspective. Put things in proportion. But I still had a good think about cigarettes.

“These markings . . . ” said Karen after a few minutes had passed. Or a few hours. I didn't know.

“ . . . they look like they could be exits. Have a look.”

I had a look. She was right. They could have been exits. They could have been anything else, too. Three dots in red could mean a lot of things. But I liked the idea that the dots marked places we could get out. There was one that seemed to be close to where we stood. If we were where we thought we were. Karen wanted to check it out. So did I. And that's what we did.

And it was a mistake.

Anything else would have been a mistake. Everything else would have been a mistake. We followed the map. There were a few turnings we took, and the tunnels got a little narrower. Darker. I'd got used to the occasional clouds of sulphurous fog, but even they seemed to be denser. And then we came to the place marked with the three dots on the map.

It was a small round chamber, much smaller than the one under Charlcombe. But I remembered the size of that one being different each time I'd descended into it. What was that all about? More mind control? Or did the tunnels really change size and shape? Whatever. It wasn't relevant.

The chamber we'd come to was probably big enough for about five people. Very high ceiling, though. Too high to see. There were no other tunnels from it, just the one we'd entered from. It didn't go anywhere. But there was a rope hanging down, slick and wet, running with water, suspended exactly in the centre of the circular chamber.

“Rope,” I said numbly. Was this the way out?

“How far down do you think we are?” asked Karen.

“Not sure. At least sixty feet. Probably more.” Even if it was fifty feet, or forty, it was going to be tough climbing a soaking rope. What bothered me was the lack of light from wherever it was that the rope was anchored. It could lead to another level of catacombs. But at least we'd be closer to the surface. It was possible that Stonehenge didn't realise I had the map. Or that he'd forgotten. The rope was our only chance. We had to take it.

“Do you want to go first?” I asked Karen. I was being practical. If she fell, she'd knock me off. Land on me at the bottom. It might kill me. That would be okay. Landing on me might save her. That was okay, too. She nodded. She grabbed hold of the rope.

And as it took her weight there was a sudden glare of greenish light. And the walls of the chamber grew away from us. And two tunnels opened like terrible mouths from the pulsating mud walls as they oozed back over flagstones slick with mould.

And people emerged from both tunnels, walking towards us.

And the people were AFFA.

And they were all carrying grey power saws.

And they walked into the growing, green-lit chamber in pairs.

And they filed in, taking positions around the walls of the now huge chamber.

And then, the last of the cabal, Barry Eliot, walked in. He held a golden power saw in his hands. And as I stared, open-mouthed, I heard Karen screaming. She was attached to the rope, as if she was
glued
there by her hands. She couldn't let go. She hung from her arms, her feet dangling pathetically a foot from the floor. Helpless. And all around me, holding saws aimed at me, AFFA laughed. They laughed. All of them. In unison. Soullessly. Laughing.

And Barry walked forward.

And he pulled on the trigger of the gold power saw.

And it purred, then roared, as he advanced towards Karen's suspended body. He raised the saw. I knew exactly what he was going to do. AFFA stopped laughing. Barry moved closer, the saw howling in his hands.

And there was only one thing I could do.

I pointed my gun. And I put a bullet through Karen's head.

It doesn't matter what happened after that. Nothing I had done had made any difference to anything. I had never been in control. I had never been anything other than an amusing puppet.
By fate ordained.
It was Monday 13th July.

I'm sitting on the edge of the bed in my flat. I'm waiting for the police to arrive. They're going to charge me with Karen's murder.

And as I sit here, I can see out of my window. It's stopped raining. And I think the sun's going to come out. Yeah. Well.

Stanley Donwood (the pen name of Dan Rickwood) is best known for being the “in-house” illustrator for Radiohead, having created all of their album and poster art since 1994. Donwood's other works of fiction include
Slowly Downward
and
Household Worms
, both published by Tangent, and
Humor
, a collection of old and new work, published by Faber.