Maze of Traps

I come from a family who are well-known for their heartless and depraved nature, and up until recently I was no different. I've been a master of poisons since I was a small child, I've always been obsessed with death, and I come from a long line of spies and assassins. I've always been proud of my evil heritage, and why shouldn't I be? I've killed many innocent people, including children, without remorse, and my family all loved me for my ruthlessness, so why should I feel any remorse?

Well, that's what I thought up until recently, when something changed my mind. Now, I'm sure most of you are probably wondering what could possibly be so horrible that even a child killer such as myself couldn't take it. Well, I've heard that putting your story out there for people to see can help ease the pain, so I guess I might as well tell you what happened.

It all started on Monday, June the 17th, when my son Ian Cormac came downstairs from his room and announced that the free tickets for an Evanescence concert on Friday night that he'd earned in some internet competition he'd entered had arrived. Most parents would have been surprised at this news, but my wife Isabel and I are both used to Ian winning random things from internet contests. Last year, he'd won a cruise to the Bahamas for the whole family, and the year before that he'd earned a trip to Paris.

This year, he'd apparently earned seven tickets to an Evanescence concert, which was the prize he'd chosen because he liked Evanescence, and also because he wanted to help me punish his sister, Natalie, for stealing her mother's lipstick. I'd told Natalie that her punishment for that misdeed would be going to the next concert Ian attended, (Ian liked rock and metal and Natalie liked rap and pop) so Ian had asked for seven tickets, one for him, one for Natalie, and one each for his friends Luke Walker, Drake Malburn, Jake Maverick, Peter Curtis, and Dallas Swanson.

Natalie, who was apparently aware of what Ian had been doing on the computer in his room, ran downstairs screaming "Ian! What did you earn this time? A vecation? Where are we going, Venice?"

Ian held up his hand to forestall the stream of questions and held up the tickets with a sly smile on his face.

"Oh, don't tell me. One of those tickets is for me, isn't it? I have to go with you to that stupid concert, won't I?"

"Yes, Natalie, you most certainly will," I said cheerfully.

Natalie took a closer look at the tickets in Ian's hand.

"Evanescence, huh? Oh well, I guess it could be a lot worse, at least it's not Disturbed."

"Thanks for being optimistic about this, Natalie," said Ian. "That's exactly what you should do when you're being punished; look on the brightside!"

"Thanks for the advice, Mr. Tattletale," Natalie said coldly as she walked back to her room.

When the night of the concert came, Isabel and I told the children to be careful, hugged them goodbye and sent them on their way. I will forever regret letting them go, and so will Isabel. It's not really our fault, of course; we didn't know at the time that that was to be the last time we ever saw our children alive.

We waited all night for Ian and Natalie to return, but they never did. At one point we tried calling them, but they didn't answer. Now I was really getting worried. Before they left, I'd made sure to check that at least one of them had a cellphone in their pocket. Isabel wanted to call the police, but I told her we should wait until tomorrow to see if they might unexpectedly turn up. She argued at first, but once I assured her that if they weren't back by morning we would call the police she agreed to wait.

Despite my strong words, I had to admit to myself that I was every bit as worried about the children as Isabel was. As a result I spent most of the night lying awake, staring at the ceiling. When I did fall asleep I was haunted by nightmares of madmen with guns and knives doing gruesome medical experiments on my Ian, Natalie, and all of their friends. Eventually, I decided that I'd rather lie awake all night then endure more of those dreams.

The next day Ian and Natalie still hadn't returned.

"Can we call the police now, Viktor?" said Isabel glaring at me. I could tell she wasn't happy with me for not doing this in the first place.

"Yes, and we should have done that last night."

Isabel sighed deeply. "That's what I was trying to tell-. Oh well, we can worry about that later. Right now, it's time to call the police and see if they can find our children."

Isabel walked to the phone and dialed 911.

"Hello, sir. This is the Cormac residence, Isabel speaking. Sir, I wish to report that our children, Ian and Natalie, have gone missing. What? This isn't the first missing child report you've received today? Who are the others?"

I felt the blood freeze in my veins. I looked at Isabel and knew she was thinking the same thing I was. Her next words confirmed my fears.

"Yes, they all went to an Evanescence concert with my children last night. The last time I saw Ian and Natalie, they were leaving for that concert. They never came back, and judging from what you said, none of their friends did, either. Thank you, sir," said Isabel hanging up the phone.

She turned to look at me and for a moment we just stood there looking at each other with wide, fear-filled eyes. Finally, I decided to break the silence.

"Luke, Jake, Drake, Peter, and Dallas are missing too?" I asked in a terrified whisper.

"No, Peter isn't missing. At least, the police chief didn't say anything about him," said Isabel.

I sighed with relief. If one of the children had returned, then we would be able to find out what happened to the others.

I turned to Isabel and said "Maybe we should give Mrs. Curtis a call, see if Peter's there, and ask for information about the other children."

She nodded in agreement, picked up the phone, and dialed the Curtis' number.

"Hello, is this Gretchin Curtis? This is Isabel Cormac, Ian's mom. No, I most certainly am not fine. As you probably know, my children went to a concert last night. Well, they never came back, and according to the police officer I talked to, none of the others did, either. He didn't say anything about Peter, though. I just wanted to ask if Peter's there. Good, at least one of Ian's friends turned up. Do you know anything about the other's disappearances? Well, people use diaries to write their feelings. When he gets done writing, look at what he wrote and see if it tells you anything. Okay, bye." Isabel hung up the phone.

Isabel turned to me and said "Peter's there, all right, but Gretchin said he was acting oddly. Apparently he got up, ate breakfast, and went upstairs to his room, and has stayed in there writing in his diary ever since."

We sat and waited for the what seemed like an eternity. Finally, the police arrived along with the other children's parents. We could tell by the look on the officer's face that he didn't have good news for us. He told us to come with him because "These were our children, and we should see what happened to them for ourselves", but I knew the real reason he didn't tell us: he didn't want to say what had happened out loud.

We got into the back of one of the police cars parked in our driveway and away we went. The police took us to an old, deserted building that looked like it had been built during the colonial times. I was wondering why we had stopped at this ruin, when the police told us to follow them.

They led us into the building, which was full of rats, spiders, and cockroaches. I wish I'd known then what I was to find there. I wouldn't have even thought about the creepycrawlies that resided in that old building had that been the case.

We followed the officers into what must have once been used as a storage room. One of them pulled back the old, tattered rug to reveal a trap door. The man opened the door, which creaked on rusty hinges, to reveal a dark, musty stairway. They led us through the trap door, down two seperate staircases, and into a dark, cold, and damp celler.

I've never liked dark places, and I downright hate places that are both dark and damp. Worse then that are dark, wet, confined places; I absolutely loathe those! Still worse are places that are dark, wet, confined, and underground, those are the type of places I can't even stand. That also happened to be the type of place this celler was, and that, along with the fact that it smelled of rotting corpses, made me want to leave as soon as possible.

The police turned on the lights, and I immediately wished they hadn't. There were gasps of horrer from all sides, and some people even screamed. If it wasn't for the fact that I was too anxious to eat breakfast that morning I would have vomited. Lying on the dusty wooden floor were six horribly mutilated bodies. With a start, I realized that they were the corpses of Ian, Natalie, and the other missing children.

Isabel and a few of the other parents ran towards the disgusting pile of lifeless bodies, crying in grief and horrer. I, meanwhile, looked around the room and made a disgusted noise in my throat. The walls of the celler were decorated with hundreds of skins. Bat skins, fox skins, squirrel skins, rabbit skins, racoon skins, and, most disturbingly, human skins. On the far side of the room, there was a table and chair made of human bones. On the table were a pancreas, kidneys, liver, and stomach on a platter along with glasses of what looked like blood.

Shaking my head in disgust, I turned my head back to the bodies of my children, and noticed something I hadn't before. The corpses were all covered in what looked like bite marks, human bite marks. "Great," I thought. "That's all the world needs. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in London. Even worse, my children are some of the victims." I may have been a cold-blooded killer, but no amount of murders could prepare me for this!

Most of the parents had been too absorbed in their children's bodies to notice what I'd noticed, but now they looked around and saw the gruesome decor. People screamed in terrer, woman fell into their husbands arms, sobbing hystarically, and I put my arms around Isabel and held her close as she sobbed into my chest. We stood around and mourned our terrible loss until the police suggested that we go. I wasn't about to argue with them. I'd seen enough blood and guts to last me a lifetime.

The phone rang almost as soon as we got home. Isabel ran to pick it up, and I followed without hesitation.

"Hello, this is the Cormac residence, Isabel speaking. Oh, hi Gretchin. What? It made the news? Good, that means more people will know about it. What did he write? What a great idea. Really? Thank you so much! Okay, bye."

"What was that about?" I asked.

"Apparently our children's deaths made the news, and they even showed a picture of that dreadful celler. More importantly is the fact that Peter finished writing in his diary, and Gretchin has his permission to show it to all of the parents who lost children today, and we get to read it first."

"I guess Peter wrote something important, huh?" I said.

"I guess so," Isabel replied.

We waited for only a short amount of time, but it seemed like forever. The anticipation was almost unbearable. The desire to know what happened to Ian and Natalie made the wait seem longer then it actually was.

When Gretchin finally arrived with the diary, I asked angrily what had took her so long. She looked confused and told me that it had only been ten minutes since she called.

As soon as Gretchin left, Isabel and I opened up the diary and started reading. What I read that day will forever haunt me. The following is what Peter wrote.

Dear diary,          

My parents are always telling me that I shouldn't do things unless I'm absolutely positive that it's safe, and last night I realized they were right. I realized that when I made the worst mistake of my life, a mistake that got all of my friends killed, and almost got me killed.

Last Monday, my friend Drake Malburn received a letter inviting him and any friends of his to The Maze of Traps, which was apparently some sort of obsticle coarse in the form of an underground maze. There were ten traps in all, and anyone who made it through the whole maze would win one millian euros. Drake, being the adventurous person that he was, thought this would be a great oppertunity to have an adventure. Such a great oppertunity that he decided to invite me and all of his other friends to go with him.

Ian Cormac, like Drake, was an adventurous soul who saw The Maze of Traps as a chance to go on an adventure. Jake Maverick and Dallas Swanson didn't hesitate to say yes. Anything that gives them an oppertunity to show how tough they are is okay to them. Luke Walker told Drake that he shouldn't trust that kind of mail, but if any of the traps gave him an oppertunity to show off his muscles, he would go. Drake told him that at least one of them probably would and he agreed to go.

I groaned softly to myself. I did not trust that letter as far as I could throw a truckload of pianos, and everyone else thought it would be a great idea to accept that phony invitation. Part of the reason I didn't trust that thing was because it said to come on Friday night and not tell our parents. The rest of it was that my parents had told me a million times not to trust letters like that one.

As much as I thought this was a bad idea, I chose not to voice my opinion because I could tell just by looking at them that my friends wouldn't change their minds. I could've just stayed home, of course, but I wasn't going to let all six of my friends walk into a possible danger zone without me, so I ended up going with them.

"But I'm not sneaking out of my house in the middle of the night without my parents permission," I said.

"I have that problem solved," said Ian. "I'm competing in another internet competition, and one of the prizes is tickets to an Evanescence concert on Friday night. If I win, we can lie and say we're going to the concert, while we're really going to The Maze of Traps. The only problem is that my sister, Natalie, got in trouble and her punishment is going to the next concert I attend, so she'll have to come with us."

Jake and Dallas made it quite clear that they didn't care one way or the other. Drake thought it might be a good learning experiance for Natalie. Luke said he couldn't see why she couldn't go. "After all," he said. "We'll be there to protect her." For my part, I simply said "Why not" and left it at that.

So Ian asked Natalie if she would like to go with us to The Maze of Traps. Ian always said that he and his sister are mirror opposites of each other, but they obviously had something in common, because Natalie said she did indeed want to go with us just so she could have an adventure, just like Ian.

Friday night arrived,and we all gathered at Drake's house. We jumped into the carand drove toward The Maze of Traps. We reached the address and stopped. We saw what looked like the entrance to a subway.

Drake turned towards us. "Well, I guess this is it," he said casually.

We walked down the stairs and through the entrance, and we were amazed by what we saw. There before us was a huge labyrinth that stretched as far as the eye could see. The round, cathedral-sized chamber in which it resided in was dimly lit by torches that lined the wall. Despite how beautiful it looked, I couldn't help thinking it looked like a dungeon in some anciant castle.

We walked towards the entrance of the maze. There was a sign that said "Welcome to The Maze of Traps, the funnest and trickiest obsticle coarse ever!"

We entered the maze and looked around. There were two seperate paths stretching out in opposite directions and a sign with an arrow on it that pointed down the left trail.

"They have signs telling us which way to go and everything," said Dallas. "This should be easy."

We took the left path as instructed and followed it until we reached a plain, wooden door with a number one on it.

"A door?" asked Ian. "Why would there be a door in the middle of a maze?"

"Allow me," said Luke, stepping forward and pointing at the sign on the door. "On the other side of this door, you will find your first trap. This trap is easy, but be warned, they get harder and harder as you go along," he read.

"Well? Open it!" said Jake impatiantly.

Luke obediantly opened the door. We saw what looked like the living room in Ian and Natalie's house, The Cormac Estate. Beautiful ornaments hung from the ceiling, and an expensive looking leather couch sat in the center of the room.

Wait a minute, I thought. A room in the middle of a maze made up entirely of narrow paths? That wasn't scientifically possible! I shook my head. It's probably just some kind of illusion made by incredibly high tech machinary, I told myself.

We walked across the room, and as we went the couch seemed to get bigger. Luke, who was leading us, stopped so abruptly that we all crashed into each other.

"Come on," I said impatiantly. "It's just an illusion, we can go right through it."

That turned out to be a mistake. As soon as we made contact with it, the couch exploded into enough Halloween decorations to last ten families twenty years. The explosion was so powerful that we were all knocked off our feet and nearly buried alive under a bunch of toilet paper ghosts, paper bats, jack o' lanturns, and vampire teeth. Just to add to the Halloween theme, the song This is Halloween from The Nightmare Before Christmas started playing. I've never been afraid of Jack Skellington, but for some reason the very mention of his name, along with the haunting voices of all those monsters, made me feel uneasy.

I don't know why, but that song was made me want to get out of that room is quickly as possible. In my haste to leave, I was the first to reach the exit. Despite my desire to get out of Halloweenville, I was generous enough to hold the door open for the others. When I was quite sure everyone had made it through, I jumped out of theroom and slammed the door behind me.

"I've had enough Halloween to last me a lifetime," said Drake. "I am never celebrating that holiday again."

"Me neither," said Luke. "I don't know why, but that room really disturbed me."

"It shouldn't have been scary, but it was," said Ian.

"I agree with you guys," I said. "If I ever try to celebrate Halloween OR watch The Nightmare Before Christmas again, all I'll be able to think about is that room."

"So what's next, the Christmas room?" asked Dallas.

"It had better not be," said Natalie. "If this maze ruins BOTH of my favorite holidays, I'm going to find and kill whoever sent Drake that invitation."

"I don't see what's so scary about that room" said Jake. "To me it was almost childishly tame."

"Me too," said Dallas.

"Well, you two have stronger stomachs than the rest of us," said Ian.

"Enough standing around talking," said Drake. "Let's get going so we can leave. That first room alone was enough to make me want to leave as soon as possible."

In the past few minutes since leaving the room, I'd been so absorbed in the conversation that I hadn't even bothered to see where we were. Looking around, I now realized we were back in the maze. Following Drake's instructions, we immediately set off towards door number two, and whatever trap lay beyond it.

As we walked, I tried to shake the feeling of unease that I'd had since leaving The Halloween Expllosion Room, as I decided it should be called, but no matter how hard I tried to convince myself that everything was going to be fine, I didn't believe it. Even now, I can't explain what was making me uneasy. Maybe it was the growing couch, which I'd earlier dismissed as an optical illusion, or may be it was almost drowning in a sea of Halloween merchindise. Or maybe, it was because I knew way deep down that something terrible was about to happen.

We went straight until we came to a sign telling us to take a right, and then we went left, and then we went right again, and then we went left again before finally arriving at a door with a number two on it. This door was a little fancier than the last one because while door number one had been just a plain, brown door, this one was painted red. The number on the first door had been white, but this one had a grey number.

"Well, what are we waiting for!" said Dallas. "Let's Go bust some traps!"

"Oh, no you don't" said Luke. "This is The Maze of Traps, and that does NOT sound like the type of place to run into a room without thinking about it, does it, Dallas?"

"I guess not," said Dallas with a sigh.

"Right, so I'm going to walk in slowly and carefully so I don't- AHAA!" Luke screamed as he was literally sucked into room number two.

"Luke!" Dallas cried as he did exactly what Luke told him NOT to do. He ran into the room and was immediately sucked in after Luke.

"Come on," said Jake. "If that's how the room wants us to enter, than that's how we WILL enter!"

He ran into the room, and the rest of us followed. We were all immediately sucked into the room and loxcked in bubbles.

Looking around, I saw that room number two was full of giant soap bubbles, seven of which held me and my friends. It was a huge room, about the size of the Roman coliseum. The walls were made up of several white squares, making it look like a bath house, or something. My first thought was that it looked like an advertisement for baby shampoo.

"What kind of trap is this?" Dallas shouted at anyone who would listen.

"I think we're supposed to wait until these bubbles float down to a height that we can fall from without getting crushed, and then pop them," said Drake.

Just to demonstrate, he put as much pressure as possible on the bottom of his bubble to make it go down faster. As soon as it was at what he thought was a safe level, he popped it.

"Come on, it's not hard, it's easy!" he called to us.

"Too easy," said Dallas, copying Drake.

Soon all of us were out except Natalie, who seemed to be too light to push the bubble. Ian was yelling encouragements at her.

"Come on Natalie!" Ian shouted. "You can do it!"

Suddenly, Luke held up a hand to stop him, and shouted to Natalie: "Don't bother trying to push it! Just let it float to the ground on it's own!"

This would have been a good idea had the bubble not decided to move horizontally instead of vertically the minute Luke brought it up.

"What now?" said Drake.

"There's only one more option," I said. I pulled out the switchblade I always carried with me and threw it at Natalie's bubble. As the bubble popped, Ian ran to catch his sister.

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