Dark Lord Rob's DarkForce

I Know a Way Out of Hell

       So we stood there on the far side of the Doorway to Hell, the bad side, the wrong side, with a stink that was either explosive gas or the smell of the Pit creeping up toward us, down beneath a house that was due to sink into a mud-hole at any moment (if it didn't explode first) while a war threatened to break out upstairs. Things couldn't have been worse, really. Then they got worse.
        It started with a low rumbling, somewhere down the tunnel. It was the sort of noise that might have been made by a growling elephant, or a purring 747. Really low, really deep. Sounded like it was coming from somewhere way, way down the tunnel, maybe miles away, even.
        "What's that?" I asked, in my lowest and most fear-quavered whisper.
        "Not sure," Nathan replied.
        Nathan unsure? That's when I really got worried.
        "Whatever it is, it's coming this way," I said, and it was true. The sound was growing gradually louder, as if whatever was making it (goblin army on the march? hippos playing tubas?) was slowly and steadily making its way up the tunnel.
        "It's not 'coming this way', Twonky," Nathan said, disparagingly. "You're implying that it's some sort of conscious thing. It's not. It's a natural phenomenon, related to the sinkhole and the swamp gas. Most likely."
        Before I could say anything the 'phenomenon" let out another of those long ghost-moans, a sonorous howl that rose above the background rumble and floated above it like a balloon of terror above a cloud of raw panic. (And there's a metaphor for ya, Mr. Pulitzer!). My goose pimples had turned into ostrich-pimples, and I saw not a few of the duckling variety springing up on Nathan's neck and forearms.
        "We should probably work on getting out of here," Nathan said, quietly.
        My response, I'm sorry to say, was unprintable in a publication such as this. (Hint: a three word phrase, beginning with "no" and ending with "Sherlock"). "Any ideas?" Was how it finished off.
        Nathan studied the door. There was no handle or latch on our side, which made sense seeing as the door had been designed primarily to keep "things" (real or imaginary - and at this point I still suspect that even Nathan was starting to incline toward the former hypothesis) on this side - and a doorknob and a welcome mat would sort of defeat the purpose.
        There was, however, a keyhole.
        "That's odd." Nathan said. My opinion was that, given everything else we'd seen over the past few hours, a keyhole in a knobless door was hardly worth commenting on. But I kept my opinion to myself, for once, as Nathan bent down to look through the keyhole.

Next: Nathan Gets an Awful Eyeful