Catacombs of Terror! (19 page)

Fuck, I deserved it all. I deserved everything they could throw at me. I wished they hadn't called those fucking pigs off. Better to be eaten alive by mutant pigs than to be me.

“Get a move on.” That was Kafka. He sounded impatient. Maybe he looked impatient. I couldn't tell. It was pretty dark, and there was some stuff in my eyes that made everything blurry. I shuffled onwards. Whatever was going to happen, I was condemned. By myself.

“Everything—all that stuff about mind control and whatever—is true?”

“Yes.”

We walked and walked. I was a husk. My feet trod onwards, but they weren't anything to do with me. The chanting went on. I heard my name repeated, droning into my head. I'd have wanted the earth to swallow me up if it hadn't done it already. I was in hell.

“That chanting,” I muttered. “What's it saying?”

“
Memvola sintrompo
. It means ‘
self-willed self-deception.
' That's you, Valpolicella. You were chosen. But, you know, you could have walked away. You chose this. They're chanting about you. You'll see.”

“But—but everyone said I was going to be arrested for murder!”

Stonehenge just laughed. “Like I said, you'll see.”

That seemed to be the end of the conversation. Self-willed self-deception? Yeah, well. I couldn't argue with that. I didn't want to. It was true. The chanting was definitely louder now. I kept stumbling. They kept shoving me onwards. I'd lost any kind of will or determination. All sense of time was gone. Everything was eternal. This was no time and every time. Maybe I'd been here forever, marching down these sloping flagstones, deeper and deeper into the ground. The muddy water dripped on me. Hell. Hell. Hell.

There was light ahead. Kafka was silhouetted against it. Greenish, bluish light, with a kind of flickering to it. The chanting was very loud now, and echoing. Kafka stopped and turned towards me. The light glowed like a mouldering halo around him.

“This is it, Valpolicella. Showtime. You ready?”

I might have nodded. I might have just stood there. I don't remember.

“Okay. It's your big moment. Come on.”

The chanting suddenly stopped. I was led further. There was more of the light. Suddenly there was no more tunnel. Kafka stepped out of the way and I stood, blinking, trying to see what was in front of me. I was in a huge chamber. There was a stink of something clean and sweet, a nastily pungent odour. There were people in the chamber. People. Lots of them. Looking at me. The chamber was immense, shaped like the one under Charlcombe. Round the walls, fixed to the rock, were banks of flickering TV monitors, hundreds of them, ranged all the way around the vastness of the chambers. All showing CCTV footage from the city above, or scanning through thousands of faces, scanning, scanning . . . until they stopped. On my face. My face, at different times, in different places. But all me. All me.

I stopped looking at the monitors. Evenly spaced around the cavernous chamber were five huge glass vats filled with fluid, lit from beneath, with millions of tiny bubbles rising through them. That was the chloroethylene, I guessed. I looked at the people.

Oh, fuck. There were several I didn't recognise. But among them were Mario Murnau and Robinson from the CCTV control room. And the smartly dressed thugs who'd driven me out to the motorway and kicked my head in. The creeps Kafka had been interviewing in the Lud Club. The security guard we'd left trussed up at the edge of the Charlcombe dig. But not just
one
of them.
More
than one. It was too horrible. But there were
two
Murnaus.
Two
Robinsons.
Two
security guards. Two. Two of all of them. Identical twins? Not a fucking chance. These bastards were fucking cloned.

And facing me, glaring but grinning sadistically—Barry Eliot. The clones were in a circle around something in the centre of the chamber. Stonehenge's gun prodded at my back. I took a few steps forward, and the circle parted. The people on either side of Barry moved away from him. There was something behind him, but he obscured it.

“Welcome,” he said. His voice echoed in the silence. None of the other mutant maniacs said a word. And then he moved away so I could see what was behind him. An altar, dead centre, underneath the highest point of the chamber. It was deeply carved with some pretty repellent stuff. Twisted limbs. Demonic faces. It looked very old, and very, very evil. Strapped down to it, bound and gagged, was Karen.

My powers of recollection aren't a top-class operation at the best of times, but exactly what happened next is nowhere to be found in my memory. I think I may have freaked out a little. Called some people some names. Made some sort of violent attempt to hurt people. Like I say, it's all kind of vague. Whatever happened ended up with me being restrained from doing whatever it was I wanted to do.

The only thing I knew was that Karen was straining against the straps that held her down and I was straining against the arms that held me back. Some of the people made some of their own violent attempts to hurt me, but I didn't notice. I was more angry about my stupid, stupid belief in their lies than anything else. They'd played me for a sucker, and they'd fed me lies. And I'd believed them. I'd believed them.

I made a desperate attempt to break the grasp of whoever it was that was holding me. I wanted to get to Karen. But there were too many of them. I felt like a wild beast, shackled and brought down. I was kneeling on the flagstones, my arms held halfway up my back. They could do anything they liked. Anything. I was helpless. And very, very unhappy. But this wasn't the time to complain. Yeah, well.

Kafka and Stonehenge grabbed me around my upper arms. Murnau and Robinson helped them in some way. All of them were laughing. Fuck it, I didn't see anything funny about anything. I guess that's how the butt of any joke feels. They dragged me out of the chamber into some other room. The decor didn't surprise me. Rock and clay walls, flagstone floor, mould, damp. No doors or exits apart from the one I'd been dragged through. No escape. Nothing new there.

They put me in some kind of stone chair with straps that did up tight. They left the room. Still having a laugh. The situation was hilarious. Oh, for sure. Then Barry came in.

Barry was a fat-faced, thick-lipped, well-fed looking bastard. Facial muscles crunched over his eyebrows. He had a terse mouth. A receding hairline that made his forehead look like it was aiming for the ceiling. I was kind of dazed, but he didn't care about that. He stared at me in a way that I didn't care for at all.

“Who are you?” he spat. I wasn't prepared for that question. I didn't know what to say. The fucker knew exactly who I was. He'd threatened to kill me a couple of weeks ago, a threat that now looked maybe less empty than it had at the time.

“Who—are—you?” he said again. Slower. But the same words. I thought that I'd better answer.

“Martin Valpolicella. Licensed private investigator. As if you didn't know.”

“Martin . . . Valpolicella . . . .” He seemed to be chewing my name, tasting it, trying to fit it into something. His eyeballs went for a wander, then came home. He looked as if he was fucked up on some strange drug. He stared at me again.

“And . . . why are you here . . . Martin Valpolicella . . . ?”

“Kind of a long story, Mister Barry Eliot . . . . But I guess you know all about that, seeing as you were the bastard who fucking well set me up in the first place! For sleeping with your wife, who you've got tied to a fucking table out there! You crazy . . . .”

My voice died away. I gave up. I couldn't think of anything to call him. I had some words, sure. But they weren't enough. Anyway, even if they had been enough they wouldn't have done any good. Barry was smiling, leering, his pupils huge.

“Your words mean nothing in this place. But you are here. And you are here for a reason. And I know that reason. You do not. Whatever you think, whatever you have constructed in your mind, whatever history you have invented for yourself—is irrelevant. There is only one thing that you need to know. One thing only. Do you understand?”

I shrugged, then nodded, or something. Whatever.

“What happens to you here is forever.”

He turned and walked towards the opening that led to the chamber. I wanted to say something, but no words would come. He was gone. I was alone, strapped to the stone chair. What the hell was he on about? I didn't understand. But I knew I was in trouble. A whole lot of trouble.

I tested the bonds that held me to the chair. Maybe there'd be some slack. No dice. I wasn't going anywhere. When I stopped struggling the enormity of the horror that faced me came rushing through my mind. Pigs. Clones. And Karen, out in the chamber, strapped to that infernal altar as securely as I was strapped to this goddamn chair.

I started to sweat—a freezing cold sweat that pricked my skin and ran down my forehead and burned like frost in my eyes. I fought with the fear, and I almost lost. But not quite. Okay, so this was the tightest spot I'd ever been in. But I wasn't ready to give in. Not yet, anyway. Feverishly I tried to come up with some sort of plan.

Then Stonehenge sauntered in. Looking pretty goddamn pleased with himself. He walked around me a couple of times. Then he stopped behind me. It was irritating, but I didn't try to turn my head. No point.

“I hope you're feeling fit and strong,” he said quietly. “Full of beans. Ready for anything.”

I didn't bother to say anything. There were a lot of things I could have said, and the choicest words were bubbling up in my throat, but I kept it all back. I figured that the more energy I kept hold of the better chance I had of getting out of this situation.

“And I hope you're not squeamish.”

It was getting harder to keep silent. Squeamish?

“Oh, and that you're not bothered by the sight of blood. The smell of blood.”

Not liking the sound of something had become second nature to me. Normal, even. But I definitely didn't like the sound of this at all. But I still didn't say anything. Stonehenge made a dismissive kind of noise through his nose, and walked out. So. I was alone again. The chanting continued out in the chamber. Nothing was making any kind of sense. I decided to wait until it did. I didn't have to wait long.

Stonehenge had only been gone a couple of minutes before Kafka, one of the Murnau creatures, and a Robinson came in. Behind them were two versions of the sleazebags who'd left me face down in a field by the motorway. I wondered idly if there was a clone of Kafka somewhere. Whatever. Kafka seemed to be in charge. He was, well, swaggering, or at least attempting to. But he was potentially my only ally in this mess. I couldn't figure this out. Was he acting? Or, playing a double game, double-acting? I was going to have to get him alone, to engineer the situation so that the clones would leave us alone. It was time to break my silence.

“Nice place, Colin,” I said. “What's the word?
Salubrious
?
Very salubrious. I like the way the ceiling drips so much. Ever thought of supplying your friends with umbrellas? Or maybe raincoats.” Not rapier-sharp, but the best I could do.

“Funny. I'm laughing.
Ha. Ha.
You've got a very important role here, Valpolicella. You're very important. I realise that you're not used to being important, but we'll let that slide.”

“What are you saying, Colin?”

“You're going to perform the sacrifice.”

I closed my eyes. This was bad. Very bad. This was not cool. And nor was I.

"They want me to kill Karen?"

Kafka nodded, slowly. And smiled. Not a pretty sight. His mouth made a smiling shape, but his eyes bored straight into mine. The other creeps were—what were they doing? They were making a low humming noise.
Hmmmmmmmmm . . . .
Expressionless. Mouths closed. Very nearly imperceptible. And, given the situation, pretty sinister. Pretty fucking spooky.

“Colin, for fuck's sake tell those bastards to stop humming. It's starting to annoy me. Tell them to get out. I want to talk to you about this. Alone.” My voice sounded kind of strange to me. Like I was trying not to cry or something.

Kafka seemed to think for a couple of seconds. He looked a bit more human. Maybe. Then he turned and muttered something to the others. They nodded slightly, and left the room.

Neither of us spoke for a while. I sat there, strapped on to my cold chair. I looked at Colin. And he looked at me. I was running scripts through my head, super fast. Trying to figure an angle that might work. Trying to figure out whose side Kafka was on. Their side? Or maybe—maybe, just maybe mine. Maybe.

“Colin, what's the deal? What the hell is going on?” He looked back at the entrance to the chamber. No one there. We had been left alone. As he spoke, he kept darting his eyes back towards the main chamber, where the chanting droned on and on.

“Bad shit, Martin. Everything Stonehenge told you—it's true. Except about Barry and Karen. She's the sacrifice. The idea is, you do it. You perform the rite. You—you kill her. With a saw. It's horrible. Barry chose you, because Karen was having an affair with you. It's not that he cares about her, because he doesn't. She's expendable. Well, she is now. He's been taking her eggs from her ovaries since just after they were married. He used to be a surgeon—but the stuff Stonehenge told you about her storing his sperm, well, she's not been using him . . . he's been using her. They use the eggs to make clones. Take an egg, add a couple of chromosomes, and bingo. They accelerate development, and within a year . . . more AFFA disciples, who never question anything, who believe in the ultimate power of AFFA—which really does mean ‘
nothing
,' by the way. But something about the process he's been using has gone wrong. She's become infertile. No more eggs. And then, at the same time, AFFA need a sacrifice. Karen's not productive any more, and . . . well. AFFA need more eggs. Barry needs a new wife. You can guess how They'll play it. His present wife, Karen, is found brutally murdered. Barry gets loads of sympathy, gets married again after a decent interval. AFFA really need eggs.
They're all men
, in case you hadn't noticed.”