\"The Labyrinth\" by Francis Stevens Mystery Horror Pulp Fiction Novella
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EnglishVoice Age
Middle Aged (35-54)Accents
North American (General) North American (US Midwest- Chicago, Great Lakes)Transcript
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I meekly obeyed as he started off through the underbrush at right angles to the rocky slant which had apparently ended our connection with the automobile. Don't you think the mystery could be decently canned? Now, I pleaded as I caught up with him, I'd like to know what we're doing going up Jacob's ladder. I believe you are crazy. Thanks. I call the place Jacob's ladder because only an angel could use it conveniently an angel or a small boy as he spoke. Rax ducked and plunged beneath a dark mass which on following, I identified as the low spreading bows of a balsam pine emerging into yet blackish shadow. A match flared in Rex's hand. We seemed to be standing at the bottom of a narrow fissure in the rock above the walls, drew together ending far up in a threadlike slit of stars. There were loose pebbles underfoot. Sometime a stream had flowed here from out the stony heart of Kildare Mountain. What do you think of the Asgard Heights? Back hallway? My friend inquired, you'll have to show me name the big idea. And at last, Rex condescended to explain years ago, it seemed his people had owned a summer cottage located some two miles distant July and August Rex used to play happy barefoot kid. And in that capacity, he joined a band of desperate Briggs heirs of several neighboring cottages to whose captaincy he won by discovery of this very rift in the Heights stronghold. I don't believe old Mason ever had an idea where some of his best fruit went to. Mason was the Iron and Copper King from the heirs of whose estate Charles had acquired the Heights Briggs, you know, are bound to be unscrupulous. He trusted his fencing, but there's a sort of plateau above here in my Jacob's ladder leads up inside the fence. It's not conspicuous at the top. And that good old balsam hides all the lower part. If our mothers had ever guessed the broken necks we risked and the forbidden fruit we got away with, they'd have seen visions of undertakers, wagons or criminal futures for us. All right. Gee, we were some desperate bandits. I was feeling very sorry for Rex just then blindly, almost joyously. He was approaching that before which this folly of secret stairways and stolen apples would be scorched and shriveled to nothing. He evidently proposed to rescue his promised bride after the best style of any serial movie. How would he face the sordid truth of his betrayal? If Rex observed in me any lack of response to his own enthusiasm, he made no comment but turned and led the way yet further into the yawning depths, stumbling after, I wondered if I had cold blooded nerve enough to pitch him off the top of this mysterious stair. Once we were up, it some such drastic method was needed. It seemed if I wish to prevent a greater disaster. But the actual site of Jacob's letter, as he had named it, Jarred me out of my murderous meditations and recalled to me that I had a neck of my own to break the crevice had narrowed sharply till further progress along the stream bed became difficult. Suddenly, I collided with Rex who had come up to another halt. Where do we go up? I inquired right here by the light of another match. I saw that he had seated himself on a projection of the rock and was calmly unlacing his shoes. He stopped to wave an airy gesture toward the converging walls above I craned my neck and groaned. Jacob's ladder is right. We'd be merry little angels before we ever finished that stunt. You're dreaming man, come home. Did you expect an elevator? His tones were injured. Stay here. If you're afraid he fastened his shoes together by the laces and slung them around his neck. Then with a straight upward spring, he caught at a jutting ledge found in visible foothold for his stockinged toes, half turned and a moment later was braced diagonally across the chasm just above my head. So long. He called hauntingly I'll tell Ronnie how anxious you were for her, which reminded me in a moment, Rex was again on his upward way yielding me room to follow. He shouted down a few words of encouragement and approval, but he needn't have bothered. So long as I had breath in me, I had simply got to stay in the rescue business. It wasn't Charles though, from whom I expected to save Ronnie once we found her.