Chapter 12: The Labyrinth of Discovery
Courage and Kevin found themselves standing at the top of a flight of stairs. Before them lay an enormous cavern. The walls and ceiling were made out of solid rock, while the floor was composed of dirt and gravel. The cavern was about a football field wide and at least two football fields long. The ceiling towered about fifty feet overhead. What caught their attention, however, was what was contained in this underground room. Taking up almost all available floor space was an elaborate labyrinth (tongue-twister!), with clay walls that were ten feet high! In the middle of this giant maze was a large pillar of stone connecting the ceiling to the floor. A spiral staircase swirled its way up around the pillar until it vanished into the ceiling. Courage had a hunch that the staircase led to a building somewhere in Nowhere. He thought this because, all along the ceiling, a vast network of pipes and cables were seen branching out like a spiderweb. The entire town of Nowhere was standing right above Courage's head! The room was silent, except for the crackling sounds of torches that were placed wherever there was a wall. This explained where the orange light was coming from.
Kevin and Courage stood in awe, unable to speak. Finally, Kevin mumbled, "What kind of power could do something like this?"
Someone very powerful, thought Courage. The only question was, who?
"Have you ever seen anything like this?" whispered Courage to Kevin.
"I've been to the caverns at Carlsbad, Courage, but they didn't have a giant rat maze in the middle of it."
"What do we do, Kevin?"
"...We'll have to go through it."
Courage whined. He wished there was another way. From their vantage point at the top of the stairs, they could see into the interior of the labyrinth. It looked dark and foreboding, even with the torches. From the floor of the cavern, the walls would be too high to look over.
Hearing Courage whining, Kevin turned to him. "Look, Courage. It's obvious someone put all this here for us to get through. We're not going to just turn back now. Not with our families at stake. Besides, it could be worse."
Courage ducked, half expecting something worse to immediately happen, but, surprisingly, nothing did! So, Courage took a deep breath and said, "Let's go." He walked carefully down the steps, followed by Kevin.
When they arrived at the cavern's floor, the single entrance to the labyrinth was visible. It was about six feet wide and had no warnings or diagrams or anything on it.
As they approached the entrance, Kevin spontaneously said, "You know, this kinda reminds me of a movie I once saw."
"Really?" asked Courage, hoping it would help them get through the maze.
"Yeah. It starred David Bowie, and..."
"Never mind, never mind. I don't wanna know," said Courage, his hopes dashed.
(The movie's name is, of course, "Labyrinth".)
They stopped at the entrance. "How are we going to get through this?" asked Courage.
"Don't worry," said Kevin. "This shouldn't be too hard. Even a blind man could get through this!"
Courage looked at Kevin as though he'd lost his mind. "What??"
"It's true! I read it in a puzzle book once. It said that a blind man can get through any maze if he follows a simple rule: if he just keeps his right hand on the right wall or his left hand on the left wall, he will eventually make it out of the maze!" (This trick really does work!)
Courage sighed. He didn't have any ideas, so he observed as Kevin put his right hand against the wall and ran into the labyrinth. Courage rushed off after him.
Of course, the book never mentioned how long it would take before you actually got out of the maze. Courage and Kevin arrived at so many dead ends, that Courage began to wonder if they would ever see the end of the maze at all. He was just about to tell Kevin this, when suddenly, Kevin and Courage arrived at a clearing. In the middle of the clearing stood the stone pillar. It looked so much bigger up close, almost as big as the trunk of a redwood tree. The spiral staircase was just wide enough for Courage and Kevin to walk up without worrying about falling off the edge. Kevin stared up at the pillar as his heart sank. How was he going to be able to get to the top with his "condition"?
"Hey, Kevin! Are you coming?" asked Courage, who was on the first step of the staircase.
"Uh, yeah." Kevin slowly approached the stairs and followed Courage.
Halfway up the stairs, Courage looked out to see the labyrinth spread out across the cavern. He and Kevin were about thirty feet above the ground, and yet Courage didn't feel queasy at all. Heights were always something that Courage never seemed to be too scared of.
Courage looked back to see that Kevin wasn't behind him. He walked down a few steps and discovered Kevin plastered against the side of the column.
"Are you OK?" asked Courage.
"Oh yeah. It's just that I, uh, have a....slight fear of...uh...heights. That's all."
Courage was astounded by the sudden irony. Courage the cowardly dog was less afraid of something than Kevin! He had always seen Kevin as a fearless, aggressive kid, but now, seeing him cowering against the wall was almost as ridiculous as everything that had occurred so far that night.
Courage grabbed Kevin's hand. "C'mon. It's okay." Slowly, step by step, Kevin and Courage inched their way up the steps until they reached the ceiling. The steps kept going up past the ceiling, so Kevin and Courage continued climbing.
It wasn't long before the boy and the dog reached the end of the staircase. It led to a small, bare room only three feet high! A large metal panel was situated right above their heads. It didn't take long for them to figure out that the ceiling of the room must also be part of the floor of a building in Nowhere. Without a word, Kevin pushed up against the panel until it came loose. Kevin then pushed the panel aside along the building's floor. They had discovered a secret passage into...
Kevin recognized the building they were now in and gasped. Courage had also poked his head up from the trapdoor. He was amazed at where they were.
They were back at the museum!
The passage had brought them up to a spot directly behind the pedestal that contained the silver dollar. Kevin and Courage stood up inside the museum. The only light was coming from the streetlights outside. But there was something else going on outside as well. Courage and Kevin took a step toward the front door to get a better look and stopped, horrified at what they saw.
Through the glass entrance doors of the museum, Courage the cowardly dog and Kevin the terrified teen witnessed a riot going on outside. People in their night clothes were running everywhere and being attacked! But these people were not being attacked by other people. They were being attacked by monsters! Large humanoid bipeds with black fur and ape-like hands that grabbed at people and tossed them aside. Four-legged scaly creatures with sharp fangs biting and clawing at anyone in sight. Winged bats as large as a car dived out of the sky to chase after their prey. It was impossible to not hear the sounds of car alarms going off and glass shattering everywhere. And screaming. Lots of screaming.
Courage and Kevin tried their best to hide on the floor behind the coin's pedestal. Courage sat in Kevin's lap, clutching at his shirt. Kevin's arms wrapped around Courage and held on tight.
Kevin began mumbling. "Shadowy things chasing after people. Flying through the air. Attacking people. Just like in my nightmare!" Courage began shivering along with Kevin. The mayhem outside seemed to be getting closer.
As they sat there, shaking and crying, Kevin looked up at the wall. Once again, he stared into the eyes of the portraits of Reginald Baggs and Joseph Williams.
"Look, Courage. Look at the picture of Joseph." Courage turned around and his watery eyes glanced up at the portrait.
"My mother's great-grandfather. Last time I was here, I saw these portraits. The family resemblance of Reginald to Eustace was undeniable, but Joseph looks so much like my mother. The shape of the face. The eyes. The neck. I knew right away that they were related."
This is all very touching, thought Courage, but any minute now those creatures could smash open the door and discover them.
Kevin continued. "It's such a shame that so much hatred was sparked between these two friends. If only there was some way to mend it after all this time."
At that moment, Courage suddenly felt cold all over. He felt as though all the warmth in him was sucked out. Courage had peculiar feeling that someone else was in the room with them! Kevin must have sensed it too because he suddenly called out, "Who's there?"
They looked around the room, but saw nobody. Kevin was about to say something when he suddenly shouted out, "Look!" and pointed to the silver dollar coin.
The coin was usually contained within a glass case on the pedestal. But somehow the coin was now without any protection. The glass case was discovered on the floor several feet away. Courage gulped. Kevin knew neither him nor Courage touched the case in any way. So how did it get there?
Kevin leaned closer to the dollar coin. He then turned back to the portraits. "The dollar is the key," Kevin whispered.
Courage gasped. It was the message that Kevin kept e-mailing to him! Courage looked at the silver dollar with growing intensity. Could this coin be the key to ending this 150 year old nightmare?
A loud thud at the door made Kevin and Courage jump. A dark....thing was trying to force its way into the museum. Without thinking, Courage jumped back into the trapdoor. Instantly, Kevin reached out, grabbed the coin, and put it into his pocket. He then jumped into the trapdoor, grabbed the panel, and slid it into place just as he heard the glass doors shatter into a million pieces.
(Whew. That was close.)
(Sit tight for the next equally thrilling chapter... "Chapter 13: Saving Sandy")