The Maze The Lost Labyrinth

CHAPTER 7



I didn't get much work done when I got back to the office. I kept looking at Karen's phone number on that receipt and letting my mind wander off in labyrinthine directions. A couple of times I picked up my cell and thought about how the conversation might go if I were to call her. I imagined her voice, thought about the way she had looked at me in the restaurant, and tried to remember the last time Amy had looked at me that way. I was tempted, and no matter how much I tried not to think about her, my mind was like a boomerang, eventually circling back to Karen and her thinly veiled offer.

Your wife never has to know.

I told myself I had some very important choices to make, and I wasn‘t sure what to do. There should have been no choice to make. I should have been doing whatever it took to mend the schism between me and Amy, but somewhere in my perception of the future, the road before me had forked. No longer was there only one path to choose. Now, there were two.

I drove toward the address on that receipt, mulling over my options. I would just cruise past and see where she lived. I wasn’t going to stop. That wasn’t the kind of man I was- I was merely curious. She and I had history, and it was logical that I was interested in the life she had carved out for herself.

Of course, it was an excuse. I was looking for a reason to go over there and see Karen. Since running into her again at the restaurant, I hadn’t been able to get her out of my head.

I guess there was a part of me that wondered what might have happened if Karen hadn’t moved away. I never really stopped caring about her. Sure, over time the love had faded to little more than a series of fond memories that I replayed in my mind every now and again, but we never went through the nasty breakup that tears so many couples apart. We ended on a sad note, but the feelings had never truly gone away. This was a door of opportunity, a gateway to the past that could change everything. I merely had to decide if I was going to walk through that door or let it slam in my face.

I think there was a part of me that didn’t really believe anything would happen. I had never been unfaithful to Amy, and I didn’t really believe I’d allow myself to cross that line. The other part of me was excited about the fact that the line was there to be crossed. I wasn’t thinking straight at that point. I wasn’t considering how much I was about to hurt Amy or how Peter’s life might turn out without me there day after day to mold and guide him. I had been miserable for quite a while, and I was driving in search of happiness. If only I had realized my family had nothing to do with the misery. The source of that pain came from within. I was about to punish the wrong people.

I know the logic was flawed. Too many emotions flared, and my mind raced in a thousand different directions. It was like the lynchpin holding my life together had just been pulled, and things were falling apart before my very eyes. I honestly wasn’t sure I could put the pieces back together, and as a result, I didn’t focus on that.

I knew the apartment complex where Karen lived and had little trouble finding it. Part of me hoped that she wouldn’t be home, but another part of me was expectant--almost giddy. I wanted to see her again, and no amount of denial on my part would change the way my heart felt.

Once in the parking lot, I sat in the car for a while, listening to the whir of the engine. My palms were sweaty, and I ran through a hundred different scenarios in my head. What was I doing here? Deep down, I knew the answer. I wasn’t here to tell Karen to leave me alone. I was here because there was a nagging part of my brain that wouldn’t stop asking that one simple question that has caused so much damage throughout history: What if?

I thought about Amy for a moment, considered how devastated she would be, and quickly pushed the thought out of my mind. I couldn’t focus on that. If this was it for me and Amy, could I afford to pass up a chance to rekindle a flame with the first true love of my life?

All I wanted to do was spend a few minutes talking with Karen so I could satisfy my curiosity. I wanted to see if the old spark was still there. Part of me hoped I could prove to myself that the feelings were dead and buried, and I could gain a certain amount of closure on a situation that had never truly been resolved. Part of me hoped the old spark was still there.

Although I hadn’t done anything that couldn’t be reversed at this point, I found myself looking over my shoulder as I got out of the car. I wondered if there was anyone nearby I might know, anyone who might drive by and see me in the parking lot of Karen’s apartment building. The world around me, however, didn’t seem to care.

I trudged up the stairs to the second floor, wondering what I would do or say once I arrived at the door. The rational, logical part of me knew the best thing was to turn around right away, get in my car, and drive back home. I didn’t want to do that.

Did I really want to go through with this? There was still time to turn back. Did I really want to knock on that door?

I thought about it for a moment and realized that I did want to be here. I drove here with a defined purpose-my mind was made up.

Your wife never has to know.

Something else made me hesitate before knocking, something I hadn’t considered on the way over here. It wasn’t some random passerby I needed to worry about seeing me here. Someone very specific was out to get me. They had gone to the trouble of leaving Amy a note in an attempt to prove that I was being unfaithful. I still wasn’t sure of the motive, but I was sure that I was being watched. Maybe they were watching me now.

I looked around frantically; a dog’s bark made me jump. I then heard a steady clicking sound that made me stiffen in fear. I knew that noise all too well. Although Peter was only two, I had taken hundreds if not thousands of photographs of him, and I was all too familiar with the sound that a camera makes with each new exposure. I turned toward the sound and saw him. A figure wearing an angel mask stood at the end of the walkway, snapping picture after picture of me. The figure waved at me playfully, and then turned to flee.

I ran after him like my life depended on it. I needed to catch him and ruin the photographs before he had a chance to send them to Amy and seal my fate. I didn’t want someone else writing my future for me, and Angel Face was doing his best to assert some level of control over my life. It angered me, and made me chase him with every bit of energy I had. I was in good shape, and Angel Face was portly and slow. Yet, what he lacked in speed and agility, he more than made up for in cleverness. I was just about to turn the corner at the end of the walkway and head down the stairs in pursuit when I realized he had been waiting for me the entire time. The moment I turned the corner and noticed him standing there was the moment I saw the gun in his hand.

I tried to retreat, but I was too close. I heard an explosion and felt something like a sledgehammer rip into the side of my head. I remember hitting the concrete, thinking that this wasn’t the way I was supposed to die, and trying to say one last prayer to ask for forgiveness. I felt blood pooling around my face, spilling my life out in hot, crimson bursts.

My arms and legs went numb, and one lonely tear traced its way down my cheek until it dripped into the sticky blood. I waited to see a tunnel filled with light like so many people reported when on the verge of death. Then, I remembered where I was and what I had been about to do, and I wasn’t sure that I could expect that sort of scenario. A place with wailing and gnashing of teeth might have been more suited to me.

At first I wasn’t sure what I was hearing. It was almost like a ringing in my head, but the noise wasn’t internal. It sounded like hammers banging away. I heard the chuffing of machinery. I heard laughter and whispers. I heard a door open, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw something reflected in my own blood that frightened me almost as much as the prospect of death. Like something from a dream, I saw a maze, wavering in and out of focus on the surface of the scarlet puddle.

One moment I was there at Karen’s apartment, gunshot and dying. The next I was lost inside that dreadful labyrinth with no idea what to do.