Catacombs of Terror! by Stanley Donwood Page B

couple of hundred feet the floor stopped and there were steps going upwards. We didn’t stop. I don’t know how far behind us the squealing was, and I didn’t care. We plunged up the steps, which wound in tighter and tighter circles until it was obvious we were running fast up a spiral stairway. I don’t know where I got my energy from. Terror, I guess. The steps went on and on, until I smacked my head on something hard. I fell back against Kafka, but somehow he caught me and we stumbled on the stone steps beneath what felt like wood.
    â€œIt’s a trapdoor,” shrieked Kafka, “push against it! Push it!”
    I got my upper back under the wood and pushed as hard as I could. Kafka squeezed up next to me and added his strength. Suddenly, with an ancient sucking sound, the trapdoor flipped up and slammed over. We scrambled out, grabbed the door and swung it back over the hole. It shuddered tightly over the darkness and we sat splayed over it, heaving with exhaustion. I think Kafka puked on the floor. I didn’t feel too good myself.
    I sensed that we were in some kind of room. Nothing else registered for a while. We sat there, gasping, wheezing, puking. And then everything was still. We slowly got our breathing back into some semblance of normality. A lot of puffing and blowing, but nothing too bad. Eventually I thought I’d use some of mine to speak.
    â€œWhat, in the name of hell, was that?”
    â€œI don’t know,” Kafka managed to say, “and I don’t give a fuck. Where are we?”
    It was a good question.
    â€œWhy didn’t you use that fucking gun?”
    Another good question. My answer, that I’d forgotten about it, was so stupid that I didn’t let it out of my mouth. But anyway, it wouldn’t have done any good. I didn’t know what to shoot at. I didn’t know where it, or they, were. Whether bullets would have worked. That place seemed beyond guns. The bullets would probably have slowed down, or fallen to the ground straight from the mouth of the barrel, or turned back at us. I didn’t know.
    â€œI don’t know. Have you still got your flashlight?”
    â€œYeah. It must have got itself turned off.”
    â€œWell, turn it back on.” He did. I almost wished he hadn’t. We were in a room, okay. I’d been right about that. A room lined with incredibly dusty, cobwebbed coffins. Dust was everywhere. No one had been in here for a very, very long time. They hadn’t thought to employ a cleaner. The inhabitants wouldn’t have appreciated it anyhow. I noticed that the beam from the flashlight was bright. The batteries were fine.
    â€œThis is nice,” I said. “Comparatively speaking. Quiet clientele. Peaceable.”
    â€œWhat the fuck is wrong with you?” spat Kafka harshly. “We’re in a fucking crypt, fuck knows where, and you sit there making smart remarks. How are we going to get out of here, you moron?”
    Much as I dislike being called a moron, especially by a reporter, I could see that he had a point. We were, as he had so helpfully pointed out, in a crypt. I had an idea that crypts were not good places to hang around in. We were going to have to do some more physical exertion. There was a door at the end of the room, which was a sort of coffin-lined corridor.
    â€œYou’re right.” The phrase was getting easier for me. “We’ve got to bust out of that door. But first, maybe we should put something heavy over this trapdoor.”
    â€œLike what?”
    I just swept my eyes around the crypt.
    â€œYou’re kidding me? Surely?”
    I shook my head. “Remember that noise?”
    Kafka nodded. He closed his eyes for about a minute. Then we manhandled a coffin off the shelves and placed it diagonally across the trapdoor. It wasn’t a nice thing to do, but it didn’t rate too badly in the context of the last few hours.
    â€œOkay. Let’s get the