Behind the Shrine

Lois hand hesitated above the bottle...and then her eyes were drawn back to the shrine. She held her phone ahead of her, to let the light play over it, examined the shadows...and realized that there was a space between the shrine and the cement wall beyond.

She picked her way carefully around the offerings, and saw that there was a substantial space—large enough for an adult person to lay down flat—and directly behind the idol, about three feet off the ground, the square shadow of an opening set into the wall. The reporter crouched down, and found that it was a tunnel, just wide and tall enough for an average-sized person to crawl through. Perhaps an escape route. Which, if that was the case, meant it was also a back door into whatever was going on here...

Lois shed her coat, tied it around her waist, then began to crawl through the tunnel, phone held in front of her to light the way. The first few feet were square and finished, showed the mark of power tools on the concrete. After that, the tunnel got progressively more crude, the cement giving way to broken brick and earth.

The reporter knew from her studies of Metropolis that this part of the tunnel must be in part of the old city—the 19th century Metropolis which had largely been torn down or built over as the city grew. She sweated in the heat and close confines, dust and dirt adhered to her bare arms, face, and neck, as she continued forward.

The thoughts of old Metropolis set Lois to thinking...about another cult, which had existed in this area, over a hundred years ago. Women had disappeared then too, though she struggled to remember the details. They were supposed to be Satanists—though to most Metropolitans, anything that wasn't one of the major religious groups was "Satanic."

Lois felt, as much as saw, as the tunnel narrowed. Fewer and fewer bricks, more and more compacted brown earth. She felt like she moved through the bowels of the world, and was glad she wasn't overly claustrophobic, as there wasn't enough room to turn around and go back the way she came. It felt like hours since she had first entered the tunnel, though a quick glance at the phone revealed it had only been a matter of minutes.

Finally, she saw a light ahead...and then something gave beneath her hand. Lois stopped, and stared down at her fingers clutched full of warm brown earth...yet the floor, the whole walls an ceiling of the tunnel seamed to pulse. Carefully, she scraped away the top layer of soil, and turned her phone's light downward to reveal a living patch of flesh, about as wide as her hand. With the reveal came the smell—a rank, heady barnyard odor. Lois struggled with nausea for a moment, then weighed her options. There were only two ways to go.