The Cracks in the Labyrinth

Chapter 18 (Part 4)

"What's in there?" Adam asked her again.

"The truth." Wan and frail, Vera leaned an arm on the bathroom door. "Or at least its consequences." She began to twist the knob open.

"Wait! I'm not sure I want to have anything more to do with this." He stepped back, feeling the walls closing in. As opposed to the bright living room, this narrow corridor, dim as a tunnel, seemed out of place with the rest of the apartment, like it belonged to a different construction altogether. "I... I only came to see you. Get proof that I wasn't delirious."

"You can't hide forever."

"It's not about that." He would have noticed an unpleasantness in the air sooner if it wasn't for the constant and distracting wailing, growing louder. "Unlike yours, my family is still here. They need me."

"And us? We need you too." She stood motionless for a moment as if weighing what to say next. "I've been trying to get the team back together, but they won't listen. Maybe you'll convince them to—"

"To do what?"

"Face this!" Vera coughed and lost her balance; she'd have fallen if Adam hadn't held her, wrapping her arm over his shoulders. "I am scared, honey."

"Me too," he admitted, meeting her eyes.

"They are everywhere. Inside us, even."

"Please, stop." To keep listening would mean leaving behind his ordinary life forever.

"We all looked up to you in the team. I know if you call them, they'll come, and we can fight back."

"Do you need to lie down?" It surprised him how little she weighed. Underneath her baggy pitch-black clothes, she must have been all skin and fragile bones.

Vera kissed him on the mouth. Her dry lips felt cold against his. "After all these years, I finally get you to hold me in your arms," she put her hand on his shoulder and straightened up her back, finding her own balance. "Reality is always more disappointing than fantasy."

Is she confusing me with Santiago? He wondered, unsure of what to do next.

"Before I met Santi, I might as well have been a Landing Signal Officer waving you with neon paddles to make a move." She smiled. "But, you only had eyes for Evelia."

Where was all of this coming from? Why had she said nothing about this? Did his friend know? What could she gain from this confession now? To sway you, answered a voice in the back of his brain. She's toying with your feelings to trick you into doing what she wants. All women are the same.

"Vera, listen," he murmured. "I am leaving—"

Once she opened the door, the stench hit him like a punch in the nose. It was that same unnatural smell from the underground parking lot, but tenfold stronger.

"Perhaps you're telling yourself this is the fetor of corpses rotting in the stagnant black water of a sewer, but that's your mind trying to give meaning to something incomprehensible to us." She stared at him. "I described it as the torn out insides of a Lovecraftian octopus splattered over the tall, slimy cliff of a forsaken British beach. But hey, I always wanted to be a writer as a kid."

"Jesus Christ! Close the door!"

"No." She shouted, covering her mouth and nose with her forearm. "See for yourself."

Adam struggled to move. All he could do was keep himself from retching.

"Vera, please."

"Look!"