Ike Hamill - The Vivisectionist

“Can’t you just take the hinges off?” asked Ben. He pointed at the exposed hinges on the left side.

“Maybe,” said Jack. “Who has the screwdriver?”

“Right here,” Stephen pulled one from his pack and handed it to Jack.

Kneeling, Jack started with the bottom hinge. The pin was stubborn, but Jack got it started by wedging the blade of the screwdriver below its head and pounding the handle with his palm. The first inch was difficult, then the pin popped out. Jack moved on to the middle one.

“Lousy security,” said Ben. “Almost too easy. Maybe we should think about this for a second.”

“Could be anything,” said Stephen. “Poison gas, a shotgun pointed right at us, a midget with a hatchet — what’s the point in worrying about it? Wouldn’t he have killed us by now if he wanted to?”

“Didn’t he just try to kill us with the level-two ladder?” asked Ben. “Why would he stop now?”

“Bah,” said Stephen. “Seriously, don’t worry about it.”

“I’ll be back here,” said Ben.

The top pin was giving Jack trouble. “I think the door is sagging,” he said.

Stephen pushed up on one of the left-hand panels in the door to take the pressure off the hinge. One more hit from Jack and the pin flew up and out of the door.

“I think it’s going to fall open,” said Stephen. “Back up a little,” he said to Jack.

Gradually, Stephen let go of the door and it stayed upright. Jack came forward and used the screwdriver to lever the door from the hinge. Groaning and creaking, it fell off the hinges with a loud thump, but stayed upright. Jack and Stephen scrambled back.

“Hey — don’t worry about it, guys,” mocked Ben from several feet away.

“Go open it,” said Stephen.

“You do it,” Jack countered.

“Fine,” said Stephen. He approached the door and gingerly grabbed the middle hinge. Stuck against the floor and latch, the door wouldn’t budge. He grabbed it with both hands and had to rock it several times to pull it away from the frame. “Jesus, that thing is heavy as fuck,” he said. With one final tug the door came loose and slammed to the floor at their feet.

Jack and Stephen stared down. Still keeping his distance, Ben couldn’t see what was going on. “What’s there?” he pushed between them. Instead of looking through the doorway, his friends were studying a map painted on the door. The door had fallen towards them, so it was upside down, but so was the painting.

At the bottom of the drawing a yellow star was labeled “Go.” A Network of lines branched out from the yellow star, twisting and sometimes crossing one another. Where they came to a stop, most of the lines ended with a skull and crossbones. Some were just an oval with two eye-dots atop a wide “X” in white.

“Looks like more traps after all,” said Stephen. “Lots of them.”

Jack was counting under his breath — “Twenty-two traps. It’s going to take forever to get through here. I can’t see any pattern at all.”

“Start writing it down,” said Stephen.

“Yup,” said Jack. He pulled out his notebook and sat cross-legged next to the door.

Stephen leaned against the wall and looked at the map. “So we go straight, take our second right, the third left. Wait, is this the end?”

“Maybe,” said Ben. “But it could also be here.”

“I wonder what these traps are,” said Jack.

Ben stepped past Jack and the door and shone his light down the passage. “Pretty small in there — smaller than out here,” he said.

“So, is this level one we’re on now?” asked Stephen. “We came down from level two, so it must be back to one.”

“I haven’t seen any signs,” said Ben.

“There’s one right here,” said Jack. Ben turned around to see he was pointing at the corner of the door. “It says ‘Level 4,’” he said.

“Interesting numbering scheme,” said Stephen. “I guess it’s not based on height.”

“That means there’s also not a boss at the end of each level,” said Ben. “Unless you count the stairs and this little door.”

“Seem like pretty easy bosses,” said Stephen.

“I can just see down to the first turn-off,” Ben was looking down the hall again. “It’s like the walls absorb the light — you can hardly see any distance.”

Stephen added his light to Ben’s — “Your light is getting dim too. We should bring more batteries next time. Let’s go down there a little while Jack’s copying the map.”

“Yeah, go ahead, you can safely go down to the second right at least. Let me know if you can see anything funny down the first right,” said Jack.

“Okay,” said Stephen. “Right behind you, Ben.”

To make his way down this more narrow passage, Ben had to resort to almost crawling. It was only four feet high and he walked with one hand down on the floor.

“You weren’t kidding about the height,” said Stephen.

“Here’s the first right,” Ben paused ahead and waited for Stephen to catch up.

They both shone their lights down the passage — it went about ten feet and stopped abruptly with a black wall.

“Does this one end in a trap?” Stephen called back to Jack.

“Yeah,” Jack yelled back.

“I can’t see anything — you?” Ben asked Stephen.

“Nope. Guess we don’t want to find out, either,” Stephen replied. “We should mark it.”

Ben tried to mark the floor of the passage, but the floor, walls, and ceiling were too dark for the Sharpie to show up. “Hope we don’t have to get out of here in a hurry,” said Ben.

“What time is it, anyway?” Stephen asked.

Ben looked at his watch — “About ten till eleven. Why? You have to take a dump again?”

“Ha, ha,” said Stephen stoically. “When I do, you’ll be the first to know.”

“All these passages and traps and stuff. Would it have killed the guy to put in a bathroom?” asked Ben. “So the next right?”

“Yeah, straight then second right, and third left,” said Stephen.

“We should bring some masking tape or something,” said Ben.

“What for?” asked Stephen.

“We could make little arrows out of tape, since we can’t write on the floors here,” said Ben.

“Doesn’t Jack have duck tape?” pondered Stephen. “I think he does. Let me go find out.”

Stephen backtracked while Ben looked for the right turn. At the door, Jack was still reproducing the map in his notebook. He started putting all the side passages and the trap markers. Jack was busy erasing a line he had drawn out of scale when Stephen walked up.

“Do you think I need to do the whole thing?” Jack asked. “I think I can just draw a stub of a line for the ones that end up with a trap.”

“I think we need the whole thing,” said Stephen. “We want to make arrows out of duck tape to stick to the floor. Do you have it?”

“In my bag,” Jack waved at his backpack.

Stephen was pawing through Jack’s pack when they heard a thump from down the narrow passage.

“Did you hear that?” asked Stephen.

“Yeah,” said Jack as he cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled “BEN?”

They froze, Jack by the map and Stephen kneeling at Jack’s pack. They listened intently, but didn’t hear any more sounds.

“C’mon,” said Jack, jumping up and nearly hitting his head on the low ceiling.

“Hold up — take this,” Stephen held out Jack’s pack.

They got to the first intersection and pointed their flashlights down the right turn.

“He kept going when I turned back,” said Stephen. He led Jack further down the hall. They reached the second right turn, the one they had planned to take, but there was still no sign of Ben.

“He would have gone this way,” said Stephen. “We said straight, second right, third left.”