The Back Door

The old freight elevator had seen better decades. It had the slightly industrial smell of old paint and grease, the numbers worn off the plastic buttons. There was something else to the smell too, Lois noticed—a familiar antispectic smell underneath it all—but she couldn't quite place it. Rat shivered as he guided Lois in and shut the door. As the cage began to descend, Lois stared into the eye of the camera in the corner of the elevator.

"Are they watching us?" The heat began to increase as they descended.

"Camera's don't work." Rat said. "Ain't nothing going on tonight. Th-the sabbat ain't for a couple days."

Lois could see the the goth sweat, and from more than just the rising heat. Her eyes were drawn once again to those stains on his pants where she'd wiped her hand after his ejaculation. The goth looked younger now, and scared. His lips worked, almost as if in a prayer, and Lois felt drawn to them...

The elevator clanked softly into its landing. Lois turned as the doors opened with a series of soft clanks. A warm, wet waft of air slammed Lois in the face. It was hot as a grow-house in the basement, and she immediately started to perspire. The air, too was rank with a kind of animal odor—a gym or bathhouse smell, human bodies. The thump of the music upstairs barely penetrated.

Lois stepped out of the cage and gazed around at was once an underground parking garage: bare concrete walls and floors, painted concrete columns, drains set in the floor. Most of the fluorescents were dead or flickered fitfully, leaving most of the place in shadow. Every surface had been tagged, as if generations of graffiti artists had come to ply their trade...provided that their trade consisted entirely of crude erotic works, interspersed with what looked like runes or symbols, picked out in black and white against the red and pink of cartoon vulvas and penises. The reporter in Lois picked out lines of cuneiform, Egyptian hieroglyphics, and more obscure alphabets.

The brightest lights were on a black door set into the wall opposite the elevator—probably originally the offices for this part of the building. The graffiti that surrounded the door took on an H.R. Giger-esque quality. Cocks and cunts seemed to flow into each other with a machine precision, hints of exoskeleton ribbing here and there. She stepped forward, searched the tags for a signature. Took out her cellphone—zero bars, no surprise—and snapped a few pictures.

"This way," Rat said, as he took the lead. Lois followed him into the dark. She noticed he seemed...different, since the elevator. He carried himself lighter, more confidently. Sweat dripped from her temples, and already had begun to pool at breast and armpit, crotch and waist. Her shirt and panties were already soaked as they turned away from the Black Door. Rat led her along along the wall. After about forty feet, it ended at a corner. The drunk reporter felt her knees wobble, and leaned against the wall. Heat and drink were telling on her; she could almost feel the 'XXX' churn in her stomach, but she kept it down and staggered on after Rat. The Black Door had been opposite of the freight elevator at the very end of the garage—probably an office space, originally—but if Lois' mental map was correct, then the freight elevator would be in the far right corner of the club, and if it was built symmetrical that must mean that in the far left corner would be...

Lois and Rat rounded another corner, to see another freight elevator...and another, much more mundane door. Even if it was locked, it would at least be an unexpected approach. She smiled to herself as she staggered towards it, but Rat suddenly through his arm up to block her path. "Hold up." he said, and now even the tone of his voice was different. "I sense..."

Out of the darkness there came a grumble, a whisper that echoed through the empty garage, formed into words...

Strange lovers intrude where they are wanted not,

Slattern and spook,

The damned congregate about this spot,

To read from the lusty book!

"Oh, not him..." Rat said.

Lois spun around, her sweat flung about in a circle. The musky jockstrap odor of the garage had suddenly intensified. It reminded her of when she'd done a piece on horse breeders, the reek in the stable from the stallions...

A great sniff broke the momentary silence.

Whore's breath, cum guzzler,

With a belly full of seed,

Dripping snatch, joy buzzer,

Do you seek what you need?

"Rat," Lois asked. "Do you know who this is?"

"Rat's not home," the goth said. "Call me Boston. And unless I miss my guess, this is..."