Dark Lord Rob's DarkForce

The Realm of the Damned

     We dug away at the mud-encrusted stonework with our hands; it was pretty crumbly, and we were able to pull out enough bricks to give us a large enough hole to crawl through. Shining the light through said hole, we weren't able to see much of anything other than some stone walls like those in the tunnel we'd left not so long ago. "Be funny if we climb out and we're right at the same spot where we left from," I said.
     "Since it would be violation of geometric notions of the nature of objects in space for us to travel so far and end up in the same spot," Nathan said, "I'd agree, yeah, it would be funny."
     If we'd been Abbot and Costello or Siskel and Ebert there'd have been a fight over who gets to not go first at this point; but Nathan was Gung Ho! so he lifted his shoulders through the hole and pulled himself up onto the stone floor above.
     There was silence for a moment, then a soft, almost reverent "Wow."
     "What is it?" I yelled, both irreverent and impatient.
     Nathan stuck his head back through the hole and looked down at me in the mud. "I think we did it. I think we're on the other side of the door."
     "How do you figure? Are there sulphur pits, flayed sinners, guys with pitchforks, what?"
     "See for yourself." Nathan reached a hand down to me and helped me up through the hole (making a bit too much of a display of having to work hard to tug me through... come on, I'm a bit 'husky' but I ain't Fat Albert)(Hey, Hey, Hey!).
     But I did agree with Nathan once I saw what was on the walls above me. Wow.
     I pulled myself up through the hole, and Nathan helped me to my feet, then cast the flashlight beam around the room, and it was incredible; I don't know what they're called, frescoes, or dioramas, or etchings, or three-dimensional cartoons... whatever, there were thousands of them, the wall had been carved into a teeming mass of tiny figures, each one of them different, most of them human. Most were portrayed in action; and most of that action involved torment, usually receiving. What we saw was a tumult of bodies caught in mid-writhe, being lashed, burned, speared, stabbed, sword-hacked, pitch-forked, etcetera - all manner of mean, ugly, nasty stuff. One guy was even being kicked in the butt by one demon with a particularly gleeful expression... oh, yes, it was demons doing the inflicting, tall old black-winged horned demons.
     "What is this?" I said, out loud.
     "Bas-relief," Nathan replied.
     "I knew that!" I lied. "I meant..."
     "I know what you meant." He grinned, then gestured widely with his arm. "This is the answer to our mystery."
     I looked blank, so he continued. "That old occultist must have carved this, along with some artsy friends; it even has the right look to it, all art deco. So Bre'r Woodbine comes down here, not a little stoned, sees this and freaks out, thinks he's stumbled into hell and is seeing visions of the Damned. Runs out screaming, starts church." He clapped me on the shoulder. "Congratulations, Twonky, another case closed."
     Before I could answer there was a strange deep sound from further along in the tunnel, way further; it was a long, low, slow hissing, like someone was letting the air out of God's dirt-bike.
     "Maybe we should keep this case open just a little longer," I whispered.

Next: Company's Coming...