The Devil's Labyrinth Read Online Free PDF Page A

touched the wood something inside him told him to turn away.
    Instead, he pushed the door open.
    Beyond the door was a tiny chapel that held a confessional, two short pews, and an altar.
    A single candle stood burning on the altar.
    Above the altar hung an enormous crucifix—large enough to dominate a chamber ten times this size.
    A bloodied Christ hung from the cross, seeming to stare Brother Francis squarely in the eye.
    His own heart throbbing now, Brother Francis backed out of the chapel, reflexively crossing himself as he pulled the door closed.
    Turning away, he hurried back down the corridor.
    But a dozen steps later, he was no longer certain he was going in the right direction. He shone the flashlight both ways, but its rapidly yellowing beam quickly faded into darkness.
    Then the flashlight faltered and faded away.
    He slapped it on his palm, and for a brief moment the light flickered back on, but then went out for good.
    The throbbing of his heart grew into an audible pounding and the familiar heaviness of panic began to grip his chest.
    His skin began to crawl as, unbidden, his mind began to conjure what might be lurking in the corridor, creeping toward him.
    The chapel! If he could find his way back to the chapel, he could take the candle from the altar!
    But as quickly as the thought came, he knew it was hopeless—he had no idea which way the chapel was, and he could wander in the dark for hours without finding it.
    His heart began to race, and the panic that had begun in his chest spread through his body. Despite the stale chill of the air around him, a trickle of perspiration oozed down the side of his face.
    Then, from out of the darkness, a sound.
    Faint, barely audible, but a sound.
    “H-Hello?” Brother Francis said, his voice echoing oddly. Steeling himself, he spoke again: “Who is it? Is someone there?”
    No answer.
    He took a single step farther down the tunnel, but froze when the keys in his left hand jangled loudly.
    You’re not a child any longer,
he told himself, but the words did nothing to assuage the fear of the surrounding darkness that his brother had inculcated in his mind so many years ago.
    His rising panic suddenly threatening to overwhelm him, he instinctively reached for one of the walls to steady himself, and his fingers closed on a large padlock.
    Again he froze, listening.
    Silence.
    His fingers explored the lock, finding an enormous keyhole that felt like it would need an old skeleton key. Releasing the lock, he fumbled with the key ring until he found the largest of the keys, then tried to fit it to the lock.
    Too big.
    He tried a second key, then a third.
    The fourth one slid into the slot, turned, and the lock fell open. Brother Francis slipped the lock from its hasp, pushed the door open and groped the wall inside, silently uttering a prayer to whatever saint might watch out for things like light switches.
    A moment later his prayer was answered: he found a switch, flipped it, and a dim yellow bulb illuminated a small storeroom filled with slumping cardboard boxes.
    But no sign of Kip Adamson.
    He stood in the doorway to the storeroom, looking both ways into the endless darkness of the tunnel. Though his heart was no longer pounding as it had been a moment ago, Brother Francis was still loath to turn off the light. He had no real idea of where he was, and just the thought of trying to find his way out in pitch darkness made him shudder.
    Yet what choice was there? If he left the single dim bulb in the storeroom burning, its light would carry no farther than the end of the corridor in which he stood, and that was no more than twenty feet—thirty at the most.
    Then, from somewhere off to the right, he heard a sound.
    Voices.
    Distinct voices.
    The tendrils of panic falling away from him like leaves from a tree in the last days of fall, he reminded himself to tell Sister Margaret to have every burned-out bulb in the basements replaced, then called out into the darkness.