Chapter Twenty-Five: Underworld

The underbelly of the Fantas Estate was dark and dusty; it felt like some kind of old root cellar. The smell of rotting wood and mildew was everywhere and to Tom, it felt as if he were passing through the intestines of some massive beast. It was unsettling, as if the whole house had just devoured them. Tom wondered quietly to himself if he would ever see the light of another day again. He envisioned in his mind, him and Kaplen wondering in the darkness for days without food or water. He envisioned them coming across some kind of man eating creature in the dark tunnels that now surrounded them. He could almost see it’s bulging red eyes and deformed features. It was absolutely amazing how the human brain could come up with grotesque images in times like these; how the mind could just bring panic and desperation into a situation by thinking about it too much.

Tom shook his head vigorously in an unsuccessful attempt to clear the images from his mind. Fear was an unwelcome guest at the moment. He needed to stay focused on the task at hand but he couldn’t pull away from his thoughts of how ugly the thing would look. A shiver ran down his spine as he thought about the creature and what it could do to them. Tom wasn’t much of a fighter, as a matter-of-fact, the thought of dying scared him more than he wanted to admit.

It’s not real; it’s not real, thought Tom as he took in a deep breath. He was trying to take control of his thoughts and feelings. The last thing he needed right now was to go into a complete panic attack. He folded his arms across his chest and gripped his sides with his fingers. He was trying to stop his breathing from moving up and down so much. He listened cautiously as the pipes over his head dripped and expanded randomly. It was eerie and unnerving to listen to. The more and more he thought about his situation, the more and more he didn’t want to be here. Maybe we should have gone back through the nightmare halls? Maybe that would have been safer?

“Try and keep up with me” whispered Kaplen through the darkness, “it would be a very bad thing if we got separated from one another down here,” he said, his voice bouncing softly of the walls and ceiling. The darkness seemed to encompass Kaplen completely, and the only indicator to Tom that he was with him at all was the fact that he could hear his heavy footfalls directly in front of him as he walked. It was almost impossible for Tom to follow the bodyguard. His black business suit was like camouflage against the benighted atmosphere.

“A lot of repair is needed around here” Kaplen pointed to the stones and wooden beams around him that were virtually impossible for Tom to make out in the darkness. “There are a lot of cracks and decay in this foundation. This is a very old building.” He cleared his throat and stepped over a pipe. “Would you believe that this building was built entirely on sand and lime stone from the beach? I didn’t believe it when I heard it as a boy, it sounded almost foolish that a house could stand on such principles, but it does.”

Tom reached out and placed a hand on the wall beside him. He wondered how Kaplen could see so clearly in the dark. He ran his fingers over the smooth rocks and cracks to stabilize himself as he went along. The air around him seemed to get colder and colder as they got deeper and deeper into the cellar. “How old did you say this house–” Tom stopped talking abruptly as his face collided with something stringy and sticky. He pulled back from it and whipped his arms around his head to get free from its entanglement. “What is this?” He yelled out, wiping the silky string off on his pants but found that it was very cohesive and resistant. Something big was crawling up his arm at the moment. It felt like soft baby fingers on his flesh. It almost tickled as it went along. It wasn’t until the thing was about to his bicep that he realized what it was. It felt like a spider. Tom lost all control at this moment, he started to scream and thrash around. His voice echoed wildly off the walls. 

Kaplen stopped at the weird noise and turned around. He studied Tom’s frantic movements in the darkness for a second. The young school teacher was slapping at his arm and body. He was shaking his limbs like a mad man. He looked terrified out of his mind. Kaplen stepped forward. He could see something crawling all over him. It was a thick, five legged creature. Tom was trying desperately to get it off. It was moving so rapidly, Tom couldn’t catch it even with his best efforts.

“Get it off! Get it off!” Yelled Tom as he staggered backward almost tripping over a lead pipe in the process. Kaplen came up to him and started patting his clothing. He was trying to slap the nasty looking creature away. The thing was making a weird sound. KI-O, KI-O, KI-O, KI-O. Its beady little eyes were glowing red hot now. Its saucer like body was throwing hairs left, right and center. It looked angry.

Kaplen waited patiently for the thing to come back over Tom’s shoulder. When it appeared he slapped the thing off and stepped on it several times with his shoe. The thing made a loud crunching noise as it was ground into the cement floor. Bright white guts began to ooze out from its shattered frame.

“What was that thing?” asked Tom franticly. He was still jerking around and slapping his clothes. His skin felt like it was going to slide off in disgust. He could still feel the thing crawling all around him. He could still feel it’s weird legs hooking into his T-shirt as it ran circles around his body.

“It was a Ki’o spider.”

“It certainly didn’t look like a spider” said Tom as he squinted down at the dead thing resting on the floor. He could barely see the legs twitching in the darkness. “It looks more like a severed hand!”

“Yeah, they do, they’re not part of the spider family at all. Their name is very misleading. They’re different from regular spiders in a lot of ways. The reason that they were given that name ‘Ki’o spider’ was because some stupid zoologist was too lazy to think of something better. ‘Ki’o’ is the sound they make when they attack.  They squeeze their prey to death with their legs, so it’s typically small animals or bugs.”

“Was that thing dangerous?”

“Hardly,” said Kaplen. “It doesn’t have any venom, and I think it might be an endangered species. There are only so many of them in the world today. They like cold dark places.”

“How big can they get?” Asked Tom, suppressing a shudder. He could just imagine one large enough that it could wrap itself all the way around his body and squeeze like a boa constrictor.

“I don’t know how big they can get. I haven’t seen a Ki’o spider in years, but I would think that they can get pretty big,” he turned and started walking back down the hall. Tom followed him closely, “do they make webs and stuff?” 

“I don’t know. Why?”

“Because I walked into a big, nasty web before I felt that thing crawl up my arm and onto my body. I was wondering if they make webs, I would like to avoid having another one on me.” Tom shivered.

Kaplen chuckled. “I see what you mean, but I don’t think they make webs… that might have been a real spider’s web you walked into. The Ki’o actually chases its food and grabs it. Once they have it they don’t let go until its dead.”

Tom shivered at this bizarre exchange in information and felt a rush of dread at what they could see next

“How old did you say this house was?”

“It’s old. Very, very old.”

“How old?”

“You certainly have a lot of questions, Mr. Hoffman,” stated Kaplen as he rounded a corner. “I’ve already told you how some of the rooms in this house were constructed by different family members at different times. Some parts of this house are twenty years old and others are more than a hundred years old. The Fantas Estate is constantly growing and expanding with each generation. One day Brian will be the master of the manner and he will add something special on to the house that will make it unique and interesting” Kaplen reached over and placed his index finger on the wall beside him. Tom watched as the bodyguard continued to walk forward into the darkness.

“So then there is no real answer to the question. The house is old and young, is that what you’re getting at?” Kaplen turned to face Tom with an approving smile.

“Well observed, Mr. Hoffman. But there is an answer,” said Kaplen. “The Fantas Family in general has been on this earth for centuries. The oldest part of the manor is nearly four hundred years old, this place dates back to the continental wars, and the day King Nel left with his people into the sea,” Kaplen stopped and looked at the two hallways in front of him. He didn’t quite know where to go from here. A tunnel ran to the right and the left. Tom couldn’t see Kaplen completely, but he knew that the bodyguard was having trouble with the direction. Both hallways appeared to stretch into eternity. The sound of pipes cracking was herd down each of them. The weird smell of salt water began to fill the air all around the tunnels. Occasionally the distant and unsettling sound of the powerful surf could be heard from overhead, echoing through the pipes they now stood in.

After a few minute of waiting Tom finally spoke up, “So, which way do we go from here? Is there a sign we can follow?”

Kaplen could hear the concern in Tom’s voice. He turned around and looked at the school teacher in the eyes. “There are a lot of the secret passageways under the Fantas House, but some are not secret passage ways at all. We have to be careful which way we go and which door we open.”

“What do you mean?” Tom was growing a little fearful.

“A lot of the tunnels that we think are secret tunnels are really huge water pipes that lead to the ocean. It’s one way in which the foundation of this house has lasted so long. A lot of the sea water that could have destroyed it years ago is being diverted back into the ocean. If we open the wrong hatch it will sink part of the Fantas House into the earth and, undoubtedly, kill us.” Kaplen turned and started walking down the left tunnel. He still kept his finger on the wall as he went along. His voice sang out lightly. He was humming a tune that Tom did not recognize.

Tom followed him, “wait just a minute, so what you are saying it that we are in a giant death maze, looking for Mr. Tash?”

“No, we are not in a death maze,” stated Kaplen firmly. He was getting sick of hearing Tom’s voice every three minutes. “Stop dramatizing every little thing we come across. The tunnels are easy to navigate, if you know what you are doing… you just need to know what to look for, that’s all.”

“Do you know what to look for?”

“I think so.” 

“Great!” said Tom sarcastically. “Just great!”

The two men pressed onward for what seemed like hours. In the darkness they seemed to turn and walk in all directions. They went left for a while then found another turn and went right for a while. The sounds of small creatures running along the floor at their feet were heard as they passed through a small chamber. Toms mind seemed to drift all over the place. He thought about the day’s events. He thought about Runts death. He thought about god and religion. He thought about hell and darkness. He thought about all these things and more as he followed the bodyguard deeper into the tunnels of the Fantas Estate. It was situations like these that got the creative juices flowing. Each new idea led to another avenue of thought and deception. Strange questions and feelings began to rise in Tom’s mind; questions that he had never considered before. It wasn’t until they came to the first hatch that Kaplen broke the silence. He sounded very serious.

“I think this is the door we take.”

Tom looked at the rusty old thing. It looked traitorous and old. The smell of sea water could be sensed coming from beyond its cracks. “how does one tell if a hatch has water behind it or not? Are there any signs to look out for?”

Kaplen reached out and gripped the door. He placed his ear on the cold, hard, metal and listened patiently. After a few minute he pulled away and looked over to Tom. He smiled really big and scooted closer to the door, “one can tell if there is water behind a door by doing this” the bodyguard grabbed the circular hatch and turned it quickly; He threw open the hatch and stood back. Tom’s heart almost jumped out of his chest. He braced himself for a wall of water to jump out from the threshold and smash his body, throwing it in every direction, just like the tidal sink hole had done to him just that morning. Kaplen let out a deep, throaty laugh as he saw Tom’s expression.

“Calm down Mr. Hoffman, it’s only another hallway, nothing to get excited about.” Kaplen’s voice sounded oddly cheery.

“I thought that....” Tom trailed off, looking down the dark hallway before him.

“You though that this door had water behind it, because you could smell it, right?” Kaplen leaned over and looked through the large hatch threshold before them.

“That’s why you don’t follow your nose down here.” Kaplen stepped into the circular passageway. “If you follow your nose, you’ll wind up dead. All the hatch doors to the tunnels have the same scent. The whole foundation is made up of the large pipes we’re walking through right now. Some have water in them and some don’t.

“So, is there a way to tell which door is safe?”

Kapeln continued to walk into the abyss with a smug look on his face. When the large man gave no response Tom asked again

“How can you know which ones have water behind them?”

“Well instead of using your nose, Mr. Hoffman, try using your ears.”

“Were you listening for water before you opened the hatch back there?”

 “That’s right. It’s hard to tell because the doors are so thick and there are no air pockets so actually hearing any sort of echoing or movement of the water can be tricky.

Tom placed his cold hands inside his pockets and breathed out a sigh. He listened passively to the echoes of their footfalls bounce off the inside of the large pipe-tunnel they were walking through. It felt colder by the second and Tom felt as if Kaplen were giving him the grand tour of a meat locker. He was half expecting to run into some dead animal carcass along the way. Tom hated the thought of them being in a meat locker. He had seen a documentary on channel 17 of meat lockers in Aggerton. All the precious cattle would be loaded into the grad ‘A’ slaughterhouse via a big open industrial door. Men in white rubber suits would then strap the dumb creatures down with big heavy chains, and when they weren’t looking they would auger out there brains with a giant ceiling tool to kill them. Once they were dead their bodies were sent down the line for processing and cleaning. The funny thing about it all is that the cattle before them didn’t seem to mind the killing. As soon as one of the creatures was dead another took its place.

Life can be so cruel, thought Tom. One minute you’re alive and well; the next you’re getting your brain ripped out and your skin peeled off. He reached up and fought off a cold chill that was running down his spine. He rubbed his arms with his hands for a while and breathed in and out slowly. His heart rate and circulation seemed like they were falling. Tom couldn’t tell if it was the atmosphere that was making him shake, or his grim thoughts. Everything was mixing together.

“I don’t want to be here anymore,” whined Tom, the frustration in his voice escalating.

Kaplen stopped abruptly and turned around. The sudden action was so fluid that Tom almost walked right into the bodyguards large frame. He had to side step just to miss the big guy. Kaplen was now string at him through the darkness. His eyes were like to dark pools of hatred. It was as if Kaplen had changed into some terrible beast, “Listen here you little prick, because I am only going to say this once, I don’t want you here any more then you want to be here. If it were up to me, I would have killed you and your little gay friends the moment they stepped into this house. You guys seem to disrupt the natural order of the  fantas house. You guys are like a disease,” he lifted a finger and shoved it into Tom’s chest, “the reason I haven’t killed you yet was because Mr. Tash sees a business opportunity in you and your company.”

“It’s not my company” mumbled Tom.

“It is now,” Kaplen smiled, “your friend made a deal with the devil… and it involves you and this map in a big way” he patted his suit coat pocket with the map in it, “I can’t say that the end will be what you wanted.”

“What does that mean?”

“You’ll see Mr. Hoffman, you’ll see.” Kaplen turned and started back down the hallway. Tom was going to call out to him when there came an eerie scream from behind. It sounded distant and muffled, as if someone were desperately yelling for help under-water. The strange voice seemed to bounce off all the walls and then fell quiet. Kaplen stopped abruptly and turned around. He looked over at Tom. The school teacher was looking down the hall where the scream had come from. The air gradually got colder as a cool wind picked up from the tunnels ahead. 

“What was that?”

Tom looked over to Kaplen and shrugged his shoulders.

“Did you–” Kaplen was cut off in mid sentence as the tunnels around them began to vibrate slowly. The sound of rushing water could be heard coming from down the hall. moisture began to splash across their cheeks and clothes.

“I think something happened?” stated Tom.

“Run!” yelled Kaplen over the roar.