“A man with one watch knows what time it is. A man with two watches is never quite sure.” – Lee Segall
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There it was at the end of the hall. The skull glittered brightly in the distance. Its eye sockets round and smooth, carved to perfection. It was faced towards the low ceiling of black granite, and Charlie knew that it meant to signify hope. Once Charlie’s muddy, bloodstained hand closed around the back of that skull, there would be hope.
The bell knolled the time to be half an hour till two in the afternoon. He tightened his grip and kept going. A half hour more.
Hope to be free. Hope to defeat the army awaiting him on the other side of the mountain. Hope to rally Charlie’s fellow brethren in hope to build a new world. Hope to finally free Charlie’s family.
He could feel his legs aching, begging and screaming for something at which he did not heed. The world around him closed once more.
Almost there. So close. Charlie’s footsteps muted purposefully the sounds of Zak and his gang coming down behind him. It blocked out the fear. The hangman’s noose. If what Charlie had discovered in the caverns of ancient Rome were correct, then the moment Charlie touched the skull, he would be lifted to the topside, and the rest of the Aztec catacombs would collapse, taking his greatest enemy with it to a damned hell at last. Never to touch Charlie again.
His arms trembled from the strain, the sweat from the anticipation rolled from his glands like bees from a hive, running in rivulets down from his hairline, down his freshly shaven cheek, and plopping plop plop plop onto the cloth of his pants.
Charlie’s entire body screams with triumph as he leaps those last few inches. Charlie could feel his body suspended in the air; the dust motes swirling around him like ancient victory confetti.
The bell knolled again, and though his mind was elsewhere, Jared’s body tensed and the sweat turned cold. His door clanged and chattered before slowly opening; two men standing in the blinding light. They begin to walk forward, into the six by eight foot room, their faces carefully neutral and their eyes on the man on the cot in the corner.
Suddenly, Charlie’s ankle is shackled. Fingers, only four as the fifth had been cut off in a pitch-dark knife fight when their adventure had first begun, closed around the heroin’s ankle and pulled him to an abrupt stop, flopping him harshly to the ground. “No!”
“No!” He cries out, raising his eyes to the men, refusing to let this go. The men nod and grasp at his upper arms, pulling him to his feet. He lowers his eyes.
“You’ll never escape! We’ve got you now!” Cried Zak as he starts pulling back on Charlie’s ankle, grasping his calf with his other hand. Charlie kicks out, wrenching his shoulders to the side and moving onto his back, vaulting his feet into Zak’s face. The nasty crack that followed confirms a newly broken jaw. Charlie flips back around and starts to get to his feet, only five inches from the skull. “I’m so close.”
“I’m so close! Please!” He pleads with the men, looking into the faces in brief intervals before lowering his eyes. The men exchange glances, slowing their gate to allow the man time. They are almost to the end of the hallway, the door leading to a certain future.
“That ain’t meant for you, dirt.” Another of Zak’s gang snarls as he steps over the whimpering Zak to stomp on Charlie’s outreached hand. He shrieks aloud as a bone crunches and jabs a wild finger into the back of the goon’s knee, pinching at the tendon found there. The man cries out and falls to the side, allowing Charlie to crawl forward some more.
