Catacombs of Terror! (18 page)

Filthy trotters stabbed me all over. Mouths full of sharp teeth snapped at me. The pigs were stampeding. I rolled through slime, cold water, and mud towards the wall and tried to make myself as small a target as I could. I pulled my arms up over my head and clenched my eyes tight shut. I waited for this nightmare to pass. I didn't know if it would. But I thought it might. And that was my only hope. I tried to keep hold of it, but I guess I passed out. Then I didn't need to worry about anything.

I couldn't have been out for long. A minute? Maybe two. The side of my face was in a freezing cold puddle of slimy water. I was glad it was cold—firstly, it woke me up, and secondly, I knew it couldn't have been blood. I lifted my head out of the water, and shuffled my legs into a crouching position. Maybe the pigs had gone. It was quiet. No, it wasn't. There was a scratchy, flailing sound, and some half-assed squeals. Wounded pigs, I guessed. And I could hear the faint echo of distant chanting. I couldn't see anything.

What I could feel was a whole lot of pain, all over. I was pain. It was pitch black. I hoped I still had my torch. I checked my pockets. Lucky. It was there. I noticed that my other hand was still gripping something. My gun. Also lucky. Some reflex had kept my hand clenched like a claw around it. I flicked the switch on the flash and swung the beam around slowly.

Fuck. What a mess. There was blood everywhere, and churned mud. About eight or nine pigs lay bleeding on the filthy flagstones. Most of them seemed to still be alive. Well, not very alive. But not very dead either. Some of them were threshing around and foaming at the mouth, blood and saliva all over their faces. There was pig shit everywhere. Their squeals sounded pathetic now, not frightening. The stench was fucking disgusting. But I wasn't about to start feeling sorry for them. And I wasn't about to waste any ammunition on putting them out of what looked like considerable misery. I struggled up to my feet, leaning against the wall for support. I swung the torch around some more.

No Stonehenge. No Kafka. I looked around for my broken whiskey bottle, then saw it stuck in the neck of a dead pig. I decided to leave it there. I searched my pockets for the other bottle and took a big drink. Then I had another. I put the bottle carefully back into my pocket. Now then. Where were Kafka and Stonehenge? Only one way to find out. I started walking. Gun in one hand. Flashlight in the other. Very pissed off.

I tried to figure out what might have happened. Maybe the other two had escaped up a side tunnel. I hadn't seen any yet, but that didn't mean there weren't any further on. I dreaded coming across a human body, lying maybe half-eaten in the muck and slime on the floor. What the fuck did these pigs do when they got it into their heads to eat someone? I didn't know. I reckoned that I'd had a lucky escape, what with blacking out and all. They must have missed me in the confusion of the stampede, when they didn't know what the hell was going on. A lucky break. Maybe things were starting to go my way. Yeah, well. That idea lasted about two seconds. If things were going my way I'd wake up in bed and this would all have been a nightmare. Some hope. Whatever. I just walked forward. Listening to that horrible chanting that just went on and on.

After a long time of nothing happening apart from water dripping on my head and a growing feeling of cold and hopelessness, I came to a crossroads. Maybe it was the one where the left-hand turning went to the spiral staircase that led up to the crypt. No good. I remembered the heavy coffin that me and Kafka had manhandled onto the trapdoor. No chance of escape that way. But I figured that I had to at least try to locate Kafka and Stonehenge. At least try. Give it a go. I swung the torch down the right-hand turning. There was something down there. Something huddled. Something human? I stepped carefully, slowly towards it. It didn't seem to be moving. I got close enough for the feeble beam from my flashlight to slide over the form. Human, yes. I moved closer, jiggled the beam. It was Kafka.

“Colin!” I hissed, bending towards him. He didn't move. I grabbed his shoulder and shifted him over. His head lolled. His eyes were shut. He looked in bad shape.

“Colin!” No luck. I checked him for injuries. Nothing obvious. Nothing I could see, anyway. I pulled the other whiskey bottle from my pocket. I had a deep drink, then poured a generous slug over Kafka's face. It seemed to help. Muscles moved beneath his muddy skin. His mouth opened slightly. I poured a little more.

“What the fuck . . . .”

“Evening, Colin. Welcome back.”

“What? Who . . . ? Martin . . . . Fucking hell, what happened? Shit, what is this stuff on my face?”

“Some of my whiskey. There's not much left, and what there is I'm going to drink.” I drank it.

“What happened?” whimpered Kafka again.

“Pigs. The Fleet Pigs. That's what happened. Remember? Big herd of huge white pigs. They stampeded. All over us. We got split up. I got unconscious. Some of the pigs got dead, but not many. I woke up in a pool of slime. Went looking for you. Wasted some whiskey on your ugly mug. And here we are. Any idea what happened to Stonehenge?”

Kafka wiped his face. It was streaked with whiskey-diluted mud. But no blood. He raised himself up on his elbows. Closed his eyes. Opened them again.

“I . . . I'm not sure. Let me think . . . . Yeah, the pigs. We lost you. Had to run, had to get away from them. They chased us. We couldn't shoot, couldn't turn round, running, no time. Stonehenge, he, he was in front of me . . . I don't know where . . . .” Kafka sat up straight, patted himself all over. He looked wildly around the floor. “My gun. It's gone!”

“Shit. That's not good. Not any of it. Can you stand up?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

I helped him get up. He seemed a little wobbly, but otherwise okay.

“This isn't going too well,” I said. “Chanting. Pigs. One gun lost. No Stonehenge. And it must be getting late.” I glanced at my watch. 11
P.M
. It was late. 11
P.M
.? How? But there it was, on the dial. Unless my watch was messing me around. Unless this place was messing my watch around. Whatever. I passed my gun to Kafka, held my flashlight between my teeth, and unstrapped the damn thing from my wrist. Dangled it between my finger and thumb. Dropped it. Ground it between my heel and the flagstones. Shone the flashlight on the broken remains.

“Stupid fucking watch has been nothing but trouble. Might have missed some of those meetings without it. I might not have ended up in this stinking sewer.”

“But you have ended up here. Almost as if you'd had
no choice
.”

The voice came from behind me. I nearly let out a yelp of surprise. Maybe I did. I wheeled round and saw Stonehenge.

“Fuck! Stonehenge! You scared the shit out of me!”

Stonehenge just stood there.

“Where the hell have you been? Are you okay?” I asked. But there was a slight tension in my forehead. An involuntary quizzical look was forming on my face. Stonehenge had his gun. He had it pointed at me. Joke? I didn't think so. My brain did a few somersaults, a couple of cartwheels, before it stopped fucking about and started working for a living. I accelerated through the last few days. Rewind. Fast forward. Looking for something—anything—that could explain what the hell Stonehenge was doing. Mind control. What had he told us about mind control? That AFFA had worked out how to do it? Shit, I wished that I'd paid a bit more attention.

“Stonehenge. AFFA are messing with your head. They're controlling your mind. Can you hear me? Do you understand? Do you understand?” I stared at him. A hard stare. I put everything I had into it. All my energy, out through my eyes. No dice.

“I am under the control of AFFA.” He spoke haltingly, as if he'd been programmed. Oh, shit. I tried again.

“Stonehenge! It's me, Martin Valpolicella. Think! We came down the hole. We were chased by the Fleet Pigs. We got split up. Wake up, Stonehenge!”

He was still standing there, pointing the gun at me. Staring straight at me. Expressionless. This wasn't going too well.

“Ah, come on! Stonehenge, for fuck's sake! Don't you remember? Meeting in the Old Green Tree? My office? You told me about this, you told me about AFFA, you told me and Kafka that they used mind control! Listen to me! AFFA are controlling your mind! Yours, Stonehenge! Do you understand? Do you?”

“I am under the control of AFFA. AFFA are controlling my mind. I will do what They tell me.”

I heard a sound behind me. I spun back round to face Kafka. He was standing straight up. He wasn't leaning, half-exhausted, against the wall any more. That in itself didn't bother me. What bothered me was the barrel of the gun I'd handed to him pointed straight at my stomach.

“I am under the control of AFFA,” he said, mechanically. “AFFA are telling me that Martin Valpolicella is a fucking gullible prick . . . .” He dissolved into giggles, but the gun didn't waver. He stopped giggling. And looked at me with scorn. Spoke in his normal voice.

“You fucking gullible prick. You walked right into it, didn't you? Walked right in, eyes wide open. We didn't even need to offer you any money. Not one penny. Oh, dear me. Dearie me.”

“What the . . . .” I felt something poking the small of my back. Something that was probably—no, definitely—Stonehenge's gun. Then I heard his voice, very close, very quiet.

“You've no idea how much fun this has been, Valpolicella. So much fun. It's been extremely difficult to keep a straight face. You behaving like the big man. Thinking that you were in control. Wonderful. It's added to the excitement quite a bit. Make sure he hasn't got any weapons, Colin.”

Kafka frisked me. There was nothing to find. He took my flashlight. I eyed the empty whiskey bottle I'd left on the flagstones. Maybe . . . . I stopped eyeing it. Too late. Kafka saw where I was looking, tutted, and kicked it far down the tunnel. I heard it smash, far away.

“Good, weren't we?” said Stonehenge. “You don't need to answer that. If we hadn't been, you wouldn't be here. You'd have smelt a rat. Or a pig.” He made some kind of laughing sound.

“Did you like our pigs? You don't need to answer that either. Pigs are very intelligent creatures. Though our pigs aren't quite—normal, they're very well trained. They can recognise faces, voices. They respond to simple commands. In that, they're very like dogs. Cleverer. Once you went over, we told them to leave you alone. We need you, you see. You're very important. Vital, even.”

I just looked at him. Part of me didn't believe what I was hearing. But most of me did. There were a lot of questions I wanted to ask. More importantly, I wanted to get out. Out of these catacombs. Out of this city. Just—out. Far away. But that didn't seem very likely. Stonehenge, or whoever he was, and Kafka had the guns. I'd been played for a sucker. Yeah, well. I
was
a sucker. I'd known that this whole business was way out of my league. I'd known that for a while. But I'd still gone along with it.

“Let's get moving. It's nearly time,” growled Stonehenge. “Come on, Valpolicella. Move it. Shift.”

Stonehenge shoved me forward. Kafka led the way. The bastard knew where he was going, that was for sure. I lost track of the lefts and the rights. After ten minutes I'd completely lost whatever sense of direction I might have had. The tunnels seemed endless. The chanting was still audible.
Memvola sintrompo, memvola sintrompo, kontentiga morto, kontentiga morto
. Then my name, over and over. Then the gobbledegook again. Over and over. I couldn't tell if it was getting louder. It still sounded a long way off. But I figured it was louder than when I'd first heard it. I figured we were going towards it. There was that, there was the trudging of our feet on the slimy flagstones, the constant dripping of water from the roof. Water was running down the walls in glistening rivulets. I had plenty of time to reflect on my situation. Even if I hadn't got two fucking double-dealing bastards with guns keeping me moving in the direction they wanted, I couldn't have got out of this labyrinth. Whatever I did I was fucked. No weapon. No idea where I was. There was nothing to do but think, and even that was futile. Why the hell hadn't I seen this coming? Okay. I tried to run through what had happened. The note, first of all. I should have chucked it in the bin. Burnt it. Anything. But I hadn't. Next, the e-mail from
valpolicellaneedtoknowthis
. Yeah. Or somebody needs Valpolicella. Then I'd met that girl actor. Then what? Charlcombe. The hole. Meeting Stonehenge in the Old Green Tree. Kafka. I remembered. I hadn't contacted Kafka. It'd been him that contacted me. That's what it had all been. People contacting me. But in the most esoteric ways. I couldn't fault their technique. They'd wanted to draw me in. They'd wanted me to believe, and I had. Shit. Okay. That much was clear. But what about the chamber at the bottom of the hole? What about the disgusting variety of darkness they had down here? The pigs? Those fucking things weren't normal porkers. No way.

“Hey, Stonehenge,” I said.

“What?”

“How much is true? How much of what you told me is true?”

“Most of it, Valpolicella,” he said from behind me. We trudged on.

“Okay, so most of it. What isn't?”

“A couple of things. It's not true that Karen is one of Us. And it's not true that Barry is going to wield the sacrificial weapon.”

“Karen's not . . .
you fucking bastards
!”

I stopped. “You . . . you . . . .” I couldn't speak. I couldn't believe the betrayal—my betrayal—of Karen. I was filled with hatred. For myself. A few lies down the line and I was ready to believe fucking anything. I was ready to believe the woman who meant more to me than anyone—
anyone
—ever before, was some demonic priestess in a brutal cabal of murdering egomaniacs. Evidently, I would believe
anything
. It didn't take much to convince me of the most outlandish craziness. Somehow that wasn't so bad, believing stuff that my eyes showed me. But to believe this—this—stuff—about Karen . . . .