The Chaos Order (Fanghunters Book Three) (43 page)

He was finding it hard to concentrate. His back ached, he was sweating like a pig, his heart was pounding like a meat mallet. He needed to count, and count well, or it was all over.

He tried to swallow, but his mouth was dry. “Okay, okay,” he said to himself. “There’s a three second gap somewhere.” And that would be his chance.

The spikes flew down once, then retracted for three seconds. “There!” he snapped. “Just after the one slash, which comes after the three slashes, before the one second wait and the two slashes.” His eyes crossed in confusion. The spikes continued to slam down ahead of him.

“Oh, man.” He grabbed his head. All around him, the spikes clanging into stone reverberated. In the near distance beyond the spikes was the square exit. It was oh so tantalizingly close.

Yet so, so far away.

The obstacle in front of him was the devil incarnate. “Goddamned Mayans!” he snarled to himself, watching those spikes. “Why’d they have to be so damn clever? Why couldn’t they just be a bunch of videogame heads? And why’d the damn aliens have to get in contact with them!”

No, they just had to be super intricate and intelligent, didn’t they? Just to piss off they guy who was gonna come by sometime in the far future and slay the vampire locked inside in an attempt to save humanity itself.

He stopped and gazed at the air ahead of him.
Man, that shit’s deep.

He snapped out of his malaise. “Get with the program, Dom,” he said to himself in exasperation. He rubbed his eyes. Then checked the spikes again. The sequence had been lost from his short-term memory and he was back to square one.

Slash-slash-slash.

Okay, go!

He went to make a move, when the spikes slammed down just ahead of him. He cowered back, his heart skipping a beat.

He caught his breath. “You idiot,” he scolded himself. “You were almost acupunctured.”

Come on, think, Dom. Count.
He began counting, all the while, the sweat pouring, the flame on his torch diminishing.

He got
slash-slash-slash
, one second,
slash
, three seconds,
slash-slash
, one second wait. Cycle.

Okay, I got this.
A bit of Zen was what he needed, a moment of calm. He cooled his breathing; his heart began to slow. He closed his eyes, and imagined himself lying on a beach of golden sand, the deep, blue sea stretching out to the horizon. He was laid out on a hammock strung up between two coconut trees. With the sound of the sea waves, he counted:
splash-splash-splash
. Three splashes. Then, a coconut fell and hit the ground. Then another wave.
Splash
. Another couple of coconuts. One more wave.
Splash
. Then three more coconuts. Another wave.
Splash
. Then—

His eyes flicked open.

THREE WAVES!

Now’s the time! He dashed forward, going for gold, now or never, the final hurdle. The goal in the near distance, a dark square of glory. A crawl to victory!

His limbs worked as hard and as fast as they could, every sinew strained. He passed beneath the spikes, now in the center of the madness; his torso dead center, ready to be impaled by the ingenious, ancient trap he was caught within, ready to pop those lungs and that heart, burst them open in a sea of gore, ready to spray that blood all over the cavity he was trapped within. His precious fluids would gurgle in his throat while he desperately clawed onto life as it flickered away like the flame on his torch, his eyes first turning bleary, then closing forever. The spikes would continue to impale him further, digging into that dead meat without mercy, until the flesh rotted away and all that was left was a rag-covered skeleton, its bony hand clutching onto that torch lit by the Zippo given to him by Mary Lou from Kentucky a zillion moons before when he was young and free and happy and not crawling through ancient Mayan temples to fight vampires, when the very notion would’ve been a total insane joke, and the future was a complete mystery, the reality of it as alien as rocks from Mars.

He pumped his arms and legs furiously, propelling himself beneath that horrific space with all his might, desperate to survive, his very essence, his very nature being tested to its max. How much do you want to live, Dom? How much?

His knees screamed in agony as they pounded against the hard stone, the palm of his free hand slapping down alongside it, releasing a comical sound like bare buttocks being spanked. The taste of his heart was unpleasant, metallic, his tortured groans like banshee wails in his ears.

Keep going, keep going!

He kept his head steady, his stare focused on that square exit; his goal, his destination. In his mind he was counting.
One
.
A bit further.
Two
.
A little bit more.
THREE!

He released an agonized groan, just as he tucked his legs as tight into his chest as possible.

SLASH-CLANG!

He threw his head down and stared between his legs with hot eyes. The spikes were down, and he was past them.

I made it! I made it! Ha ha, I made it!
his disbelieving mind jabbered.

He collapsed onto his stomach, a sack of severed nerves. His hot breathing bounced back up at him off the stone floor. Relief wormed its way through every part of him; his limbs, his organs, his veins. An absent laugh then escaped him. It quickly evolved into full blown laughter, his cheek pressed against the stone floor, his body juddering. Behind him, the spikes continued with their
slash-clang
song. Dom laughed in their direction; stupid things still coming down trying to impale him when he was through them.

“You stupid assholes!” Dom shouted back at them. And just when he did, they stopped. The whirring cogs and mechanics came to an abrupt halt, and it turned as quiet as a library.

Dom frowned. “Huh?”

He got up on his haunches.
What happened?

He glanced down. There was a small section of stone that had been depressed when he collapsed down on it. He gave himself an ironic chuckle. He’d hit another pressure plate to turn the mechanism off.

“You crazy Mayans,” he said to himself with a rueful grin. They were ingenious, no doubt about it.

But, as much as he wanted to stay and admire ancient civilizations, he needed to get going. Besides, he wanted to get outta that damn tunnel. He pushed his torch forward. Up ahead was the exit. Now, it was just a case of getting out.

With a grin on his face, he got going. “Stupid spikes, can’t get me now, can you?” he said over his shoulder. He faced the exit, his tongue caught between his teeth, a smugness blossoming inside him. Those spikes weren’t any threat now, they were nothing, and—

His knee sunk into another pressure plate.

He stopped dead, his smile vanishing faster than a magician’s assistant.

The
slash-clang
of the spikes started up again, this time with more frequency. One after the other.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
In a relentless motion.

He whipped his head back, pushing his torch over his shoulder behind him to see what was going on.

He gulped in terror. Spikes were shooting out of the side walls in horizontal patterns and they were heading up the tunnel toward him. He spun his head left and right. And now his torch illuminated them: the holes in the walls either side of him, running all the way to the end of the tunnel. Holes housing spikes that were about to be triggered.

His eyes popped.
Holy shit!

He dropped his torch, got both palms down on stone, and scuttled along like a wind-up toy, his heart bashing his ribs with everything it had.

Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!

Behind him, the clang of the spikes grew with more intensity as they drew closer. They were catching him up; he had to outrun them or he’d be skewered. He snatched a quick look up; the exit, that haven, that solace was getting bigger, but still oh so far away. So, so far away.

And behind him the sounds of terror were growing louder by the second;
swish-clang! Swish-clang! SWISH-CLANG!

Dom raced for that rectangular exit, his body working overtime, sore pain jolting up his hands and knees.

Come on, Dom!
he urged himself.
Come on! PLEASE!

He kept on going through the darkness, that ominous clang behind him still drawing in, getting closer. Closer. Winning the race.

Swish-clang! Swish-clang! SWISH-CLANG!

Where the hell’s this exit!
It was like being chased by a shark and land was just within reach.

Go! Go! Go! Go!
his mind gibbered in an insane staccato.
Just a little more!

His ears pricked. There was an almighty clang just behind him.

Something cold and hard scraped against the sole of his foot.

A petrified scream bolted from his chest.

The impact caused him to stumble. He went into a leap of faith, desperate to get away from those spikes. With a wail of agony, he pounced like a tiger, his fate a complete mystery. He threw his knees into his chest. His hands came back down, his palms slapping on the stone like dead fish.

Without hesitation, he rolled onto his back, his chest heaving. He was expecting spikes to rip him in half, but everything was silent. No more clangs, no more whir of machinery.

He stared at the darkness. What happened? What happened?

He whipped out his Zippo and sparked her up. The flame burned, lighting up a large room.

He’d somehow made it through the tunnel.

He began touching his body, expecting to find blood on his hand. It was clean; he was in the clear. His head fell back against the stone, a joyful groan escaping him. “Oh, man, I made it.” He balled his free hand into a fist. “Yes! I made it!” he said through clenched teeth.

He sat up and shone his light toward the crawlspace exit ahead of him. It was now blocked by horizontal spikes. He frowned, his eyes falling on something else. He moved in close, his jaw dropping in disbelief. Something had been impaled to the tunnel wall by the last set of spikes. It was a sneaker.
His
sneaker. He glanced down at his foot; his toes wriggled beneath his sock. A chill shot up his spine from that bare foot. He looked back at his impaled sneaker and gulped. “That could’ve been my foot.”

Or my leg, or my head.

An inescapable laugh burst out of his chest. He pointed at the Nike sneaker and cackled, the sound echoing all around him in that underground dungeon.

“Just do it, huh? Yeah, I
just
did,” he said. “Just,” he added with a nervy breath.

He got his bearings. His Zippo didn’t light up much of the new chamber he was in. So, he edged along, being so careful not to step on any more goddamned pressure plates. Now with only one sneaker, the coldness of the stone floor was apparent. He shivered.

He wondered what else this place had in store for him.

It’s a fun house, a box of tricks. Aren’t you having fun, Dom?
he asked himself.

“Time of my life,” he replied to the dank, ancient atmosphere, looking left and right in the height of paranoia.

He took another step and stopped. A tingle ran up and down his spine. He closed his eyes, taking an involuntary breath. He knew what that was. Vampire venom was nearby.

“Magdalena,” he said in a soft whisper. She was giving off her signal. Calling him. “You
are
real.” He took a shuddering breath. Fear was working its way into his limbs, but alongside it was something else. Excitement. He was close, so close. He just hoped he didn’t mess up now.

He looked about him. He was worried about walking into another trap. He needed more light. He pushed his Zippo toward the wall. It lit up another torch.
Nice.

He went and grabbed it, lit it and turned to face the room he was in. It was around twenty-thirty feet long. Opposite him was a solid wall, but he could make out the outline of a door embedded within it. The doorway to Magdalena’s chamber? He hoped so.

His legs wanted to march right up to it, but his instincts had learned from bitter experience to never do such a thing. He arced his torch left and right; he lit up more of those crazy faces. The Mayan gods were snarling and leering and gesticulating at him from the surrounding walls, left, right, behind and ahead. That meant more blow darts ready to rain on him if he made a bad move.

He bit his lower lip and looked down at his feet. On the floor ahead of him was a tic-tac-toe style grid of many repeating squares, spanning the length and breadth of the room. Each square was slightly protruding. Dom nodded. Pressure plates. Painted on the stones were different faces. Dom recognized Magdalena, but there were others. One looked like the Troy guy from back at the Hermosillo pyramid.

Dom worked it out in his mind. He had no choice but to step on the squares to make it through the room. And yeah, he had to step on the right faces, or it was Skeleton Guy time. But, which squares were the safe ones?