Catacombs of Terror! (20 page)

I sat there for a minute, taking it all in. But I still didn't know what I needed to know.

“Colin. Are you on my side?”

“You kill Karen. Her body is found, Barry informs his friends in the police top brass, you're arrested, everything goes to plan. AFFA really are controlling the world, Martin. More and more.”

“Whatever. Are you avoiding the fucking question?
Are you on my side?
”

“I've lied to you so much, about so much . . . . I pretended to be freaked out down here, pretending that I didn't know what was going on . . . . I've been involved with this for quite a while. I was just researching weird stuff, occult stuff, hidden local history about the city, and then—well, I was approached. I admit I was scared. But they played it as if—as if I could either be with them or not. And if not, I'd lose my job. For starters. I might have an accident, you know? But it's disgusting. I'm supposed to go out there and watch while you butcher Karen with a power saw. Saw her up, alive. It's foul, depraved fucking shit, Martin.”

“We can get out of this, Colin. We can. You've got a gun. You know the layout of these tunnels. We can do it. We've got to get out. That's all I want to do. We can worry about AFFA later. I just want to see the sky. Even if it's pouring with rain. Did you say
power saw
? Shit.”

Kafka was looking down at the ground. He'd been looking at it for a while. He was scraping the toe of his shoe across the black slime on the flagstones, making shiny arcs on it. I waited for him to respond. I got a little hypnotised by the movement of his toe and what it did to the mould.

“I wanted to help you. In the café. I tried to warn you off.”

I couldn't remember. I couldn't. Did he? “Yeah, Colin. You did. I was a fucking idiot. You tried, but you can try again. Now. Right now. Have you got the gun on you?”

“I tried to help you. I tried to stop you.”

“Cool. I know. But you've got to help me again. For the last time, I promise.”

“But you walked into it. Because you wanted to. Because your life was so ordinary. You wanted to be exciting.
A private investigator
, for fuck's sake. As if that job hasn't always been a load of crap. Chasing errant husbands for neurotic wives, or errant wives for neurotic husbands. Hassling debtors and defaulters. You really are a low-rent Philip Marlowe. Trying to live in a fiction. Trying to romanticise an overdraft. We wrote you the script. It landed on your doormat. And you fucking loved it. You stupid, stupid, mindless fuckwit.”

This wasn't sounding too great. Kafka had a point, for sure, but I wasn't sure it was strictly relevant right now. I knew he was my only chance. But I was losing him. I needed to bring him back.

“Colin! I don't care if you've lied, or if you tried to warn me out of this mess and I ignored you. It doesn't fucking matter. Look at me, Colin. I'm strapped to a freezing cold stone chair in a little cave sixty feet under the ground, and a gang of maniac cloned freaks are about to make me kill the woman I love. Help me. Do me a favour. Please.”

“You really love her?” muttered Kafka to the flagstones. Then he said it again, louder.

“You
really
love her?”

I nodded. I really did love Karen, even if I hadn't admitted it to myself until that moment. I looked at Kafka. Imploringly. I hate to say it, but that's the way I looked at him. He lifted his head. And he laughed at me. He laughed in my face. Then Barry walked in, smiling his sick sadistic smile, his words like poison in my ears.

“I'm so
glad
you love her. Very glad. Tonight, you will sacrifice her on the altar of AFFA. Your love will make the sacrifice more powerful. For lovers to kill . . . for one lover to murder the other, that is perfect. Most powerful. You are lovers. You are the killer. She is your victim.”

Frantic, I looked at Kafka. He made some sort of sick attempt at a smile, raised his eyebrows, and shook his head sadly.

“You are the killer. She is your victim,” he repeated, before turning round and walking out. He didn't look back.

“I've been listening to your conversation with Colin Kafka,” said Barry. His voice was silky smooth, his eyes staring, his presence seeping into my soul. Listening to him was like being smothered by a satin pillow soaked with cold sweat. “I
so
enjoyed your struggling attempts to persuade him to help you. Hopeless. There is no chance of escape. You will perform the sacrifice. If you decide not to, you will be thrown into the oubliette. Do you know what an oubliette is? It's a hole. A very deep, very deep hole. Like a well. We will break your limbs, every one. We will throw you into the oubliette below the altar. You'll be alive. But you won't be alone. There are others down there. They are no longer ‘alive' in the traditional sense, but . . . alive with maggots. Alive with corruption. Heaving with parasitic life. And you will lie there, in unbearable pain, waiting for the Fleet Pigs to come from the tunnels that radiate from the bottom of the oubliette. They will start to eat you alive. But they won't kill you. Oh no, they're
very
well trained. They'll leave you there on the heap of rotting bodies. You'll be alive. But not for very long, I shouldn't think. But long enough. Long enough for you to be very, very sorry that you weren't more
obedient.
It is your choice. You perform the sacrifice, or . . . .
What happens to you here is forever.
Everything is by fate ordained. And now it is time.”

He made a sort of gesture in the air and a couple of Robinsons came in. And a pair of each of the kidnap-motorway-kicking guys followed them. The Robinsons moved towards me. I struggled in the chair, but it was hopeless. They walked right up and started unbuckling the straps that held me down. They came loose but there was no time to fight, or even to start to fight. I was helpless. Six men were taking care of any inclination to resist that I might have had. They started dragging me out of the room, into the chamber. I felt very sad, all of a sudden. Very sad. But I didn't cry. It wouldn't have done any good. I didn't have a plan any more. I didn't have anything. They dragged me out into the chamber, where the CCTV monitors flickered and the huge vats of dry-cleaning fluid bubbled. Where Karen lay strapped to the altar.

They led me forward. Stonehenge stepped towards me. He was resting a three-foot wide wooden box on both forearms. It didn't have a lid. My head was forced down to look inside the box. It was lined with black velvet. Inside was a big power saw made of some silvery metal. It was very clean. The teeth on the circular blade looked very sharp. There was a wooden handle. A broad, curved trigger.

Stonehenge, still holding the box, turned and walked slowly towards the altar. The others were chanting and humming. I was made to follow him. He stopped right in front of Karen, whose eyes were staring wildly at me, at Stonehenge, and at the box. Whimpering sounds were escaping from behind her gag. There was a small set of steps rising to the foot of the altar. I was pushed up them. And I stood there, shaking, looking down at Karen. The bastards around me were chanting, “
Oubliette . . . oubliette . . . oubliette . . . .
” Someone pushed my head to one side. I looked down, past Karen, past the altar, down at the floor. I could see the side of a circular hole underneath the altar. Someone directed the beam of a light down the hole. I could see . . . something down there . . . bones . . . limbs . . . I tore my eyes away.

“Oubliette . . . oubliette . . . oubliette . . . by fate ordained . . . .”

I looked wildly around the chamber. All the hundreds of CCTV monitors were frozen, showing my face. The vats bubbled horribly in the green light that poured up through them. And AFFA stood in a circle around me and Karen and Stonehenge. Filthy water dripped like rain.

“Oubliette . . . oubliette . . . memvola sintrompo . . . memvola sintrompo . . . .”

Stonehenge turned to Barry, who had walked forward from the circle. Barry lifted the saw from the box. Stonehenge joined the circle. Barry stood at the head of the altar, staring at me with blank, dead eyes. Then the chanting stopped. Barry spoke in a low monotone.

“First you will remove her right arm. Then you will remove her left arm. Then you will remove her left leg. Then you will remove her right leg. Then you will make a deep incision from her stomach to her chest. And then . . . then you will remove her head.”

The chanting and the humming began again. Karen's eyes were wide with terror. This was worse than any hell I could imagine. I felt paralysed. The chanting filled my mind. The vats bubbled intensely. Barry moved closer, looking directly into my eyes, and held the saw out to me.

To my utmost horror, my arms lifted involuntarily to take it from him. I looked crazily from one arm to the other. These were
my
arms! I tried to resist, but somewhere the connections between my mind and my muscles had been broken. My body had been hijacked. My arms had defected. They were nothing to do with me, they had become the arms of a puppet—AFFA's puppet!

Screaming with anguish, in a fury against my rebellious body, I raised the saw above my head, and my fingers must have gently squeezed the trigger. The saw purred, then roared into horrible life above me. I stared down at Karen, shaking my head from side to side. No! This couldn't be happening!

The chanting grew louder and louder, and I could feel dozens of eyes burning into me. The clean, sweet smell of chloroethylene was palpable. The vibration of the saw ran down my arms and throbbed in my head. The bastards were fucking with my mind! They were controlling my body! They were going to make me saw Karen apart
while she was alive
, while she could see and feel what was happening to her! First her arms, then her legs, then . . . plunging the roaring, whirling blade into her torso! Then severing her head! No! No one could do this! It was inhuman, barbaric!

And now my arms were lowering the saw . . . . I could feel the terrible weight of it. The chanting was deafening. My arms were in front of me, both hands squeezing the trigger, holding the gleaming power saw at arm's length, the sharp teeth of the saw invisible as the blade spun at high speed. Karen was struggling madly against the straps, her head threshing from side to side, a high shrieking noise coming from her gagged mouth.

With a frantic effort I closed my mind to the chanting, to the screaming saw, to
everything
. I focused on Barry, on Stonehenge, on Kafka—on AFFA. If AFFA
meant
nothing, AFFA
were
nothing! I
could
beat them.

And then, with an effort of will I didn't know I had, I did it—I broke their control over me.

My muscles grinding, tearing, I held the spinning blade inches from Karen's right shoulder. AFFA were oblivious; chanting in unison, unseeing—and I moved the saw—I sliced the whirling sawblade through the straps that bound Karen to the altar. I'd done it in an instant. Then I leapt down and held the power saw at the bastards nearest to me, waving it slowly from side to side. Barry was looking around at the others, a crazy expression on his fat face. Stonehenge was looking back at him, shaking his head furiously, his eyes wide.

“Get the fuck away! Get back!” I screamed. All of my anger was back. It was alive, and it churned into a desire for pure violence. I was getting the hell out of there, and I was going to take Karen with me. Without looking at her, I grabbed her arm and pulled her down from the altar. She tore the gag from her mouth. I held her behind me, scanning the chamber for Kafka. Then I saw him.

“Kafka! Bastard!” Still holding Karen, I edged towards him. He cowered back.

“Come here!” I bellowed over the howl of the saw. “Throw me my gun,
you lying bastard
! Now!”

Out of the corner of my eye I noticed one of the Murnaus and some of the others moving towards me. I was a metre away from Kafka, the blade aimed at his chest. He threw his gun. Karen snatched it up from the flagstones. She pointed it at a few of them while I turned around and made a lunge at the ones trying to sneak up behind us. I got Murnau's hand with the saw. One of the versions of Murnau, anyway. Some fingers came away. There was some blood. Some screaming. I didn't care. Anyway, the slicing seemed to make the rest of the fuckers a little more cautious.

I waved the saw around some more. Karen swung the gun round the chamber, holding it in both hands. And then she pulled the trigger. And a version of Robinson went down onto his knees, howling with pain. I didn't look too carefully, but there was blood almost instantly. A belly shot. That particular version of Robinson wouldn't be much use any more. Shooting the bastard seemed to release something in Karen. She started firing all over the place. She got a little crazy, I guess. She hit a few of them, and she was screaming as loud as the AFFA guys who crumpled to the the floor. Louder, maybe. As far as I could tell, she got the other Robinson, the Murnau who still had all his fingers, and a couple of bastards I didn't know. I got the impression she was looking for Barry. But he was gone.

Pretty soon the rest of them were gone, too, running off along one of the tunnels. Karen started following them, still shooting. I yelled at her to stop. And I realised my finger was still curled tight on the trigger of the power saw, so I let go. Karen stopped shooting down the tunnel and turned towards me.

There was silence, except for the quiet bubbling of the chloroethylene vats. And a subdued whimpering sound, which I couldn't pinpoint at first. It was coming from behind my lips. Luckily they were clamped shut pretty tight.

“What the hell are
you
doing here?” asked Karen. I looked at her in some kind of shock. She was pointing the fucking gun at
me
.

“Wait,” I said. “Please don't point that thing at me.” I was still holding the saw, so I dropped it to the floor. She nodded upwards. I understood. So I raised my hands, very slowly.