The Box by Brian Harmon Page B

there was something ominous about the darkness beyond that turn.
    What the hell was he thinking coming down here? He’d actually been willing to come here alone! What would have happened then? What would have become of him? He hurried on, trembling with anxiousness, bracing himself against whatever horror was certain to come charging out of that darkness beyond the light.
    But nothing came after him. He turned left, into the light, and there was his flashlight. It was lying motionless on the ground. Beside it, another passage went right. Beyond it, about fifteen feet away, the corridor broke into a tee and went both left and right.
    He rushed to the flashlight and snatched it off the ground. He half expected a trap, but he could no longer stand not having it in his hand.
    He gazed up the tunnel to the right. There were no more passages to be seen in that direction for as far as the light would reach.
    All these corridors… This was some kind of maze. And the flashlight seemed to be leading him toward this passage.
    A part of him wanted badly to see where that passage led, despite the fear he felt, but he could do no such thing. He needed to get back to Brandy.
    He made his way back to the previous passage, gave the tunnel to the left a brief glimpse with the flashlight and then continued back the way he’d come. He did not like this at all. The whole idea of not being alone gave him chills all the way to his soul. The fact that this presence managed to steal his flashlight intensified that chill until his whole body trembled with anxious anticipation.
    “Albert?”
    He heard her voice as he rounded the turn in the corridor. She’d awakened before he could return after all.
    “ Albert ? Where are you ?” There was panic in her voice, and he could hardly blame her. He should not have left her back there.
    “I’m here, Brandy.” He broke into a sprint and hurried back to the room where he’d left her.
    Brandy froze in the flashlight beam like a deer in headlights. She was on all fours, crawling around on the cold floor, searching for her clothes and her glasses and of course for him. She was still stark naked, her golden hair dangling around her startled face, her blue eyes wide and frightened, tears streaming down her cheeks. Beside her was the flashlight she’d been carrying. The lens was broken and it offered no light. Albert vaguely remembered the sound of it hitting the ground when she threw herself at him.
    Not a stitch of their clothing could be seen.
    “Albert?”
    He was staring at her there amid the statues, her naked breasts accented by gravity, her nipples erect from the chill, her bare buttocks up in the air, her whole body covered in gooseflesh, and again he was stricken with that bizarre and fierce arousal, that animal lust.
    He closed his eyes, squeezing them hard against the strange urges he felt, and in just a moment he felt himself calming. What the hell was wrong with him?
    “Albert, is that you?”
    Again he opened his eyes. Brandy was getting to her feet now, modestly covering her breasts but not that other part. That part of her was fair and golden, a small tuft of lovely blonde, a place forbidden to his eyes, but unlocked in a moment of strange lust. Suddenly he was aroused again, as stiff as the last pair of sentinels in the previous room.
    He turned and bolted from the doorway, turning away from Brandy and the room entirely.
    “ Albert! ” She began to cry again, utterly terrified, and Albert felt sick to have left her in the dark like that. “Albert! Don’t leave me!”
    “It’s okay. I’m right here.”
    “ Come back !”
    “Come to me!”
    “ Albert , please !”
    “I can’t !” He growled with frustration. He wanted to go to her, but he couldn’t, and he didn’t even know why. “What the fuck !”
    “Where are you?” She was getting closer now.
    “I’m right outside the door.” He shined the light at the door, not looking at it. “You can see the light,