“What?”
“The things in the box. I started thinking they were all pieces to a puzzle. If I could just solve the puzzle, I’d understand what it all meant. But I couldn’t figure out how they all fit together. Now I realize my mistake. I was missing a place to put all the pieces of the puzzle. A game board. That’s what this place is. It’s one big game board.” He shined his flashlight into the left tunnel, the one both nearest to the statue’s broken hand and where he’d found the missing piece. “We go this way.”
He looked into the tunnel he’d just pointed out and wondered. Did someone break off that finger intentionally? As impressive as these statues were, that seemed awfully rash. Wasn’t there a better way to lead them through than by defacing these…whatever they were? But then again, he didn’t know what the value of these things might be, and even less idea what the value might be to whoever sent them the box.
“Well,” Albert said, a little nervous. “Let’s get moving. Should I go first?”
“Yeah.”
He slipped the stone back into the box, along with the other piece of the dismembered digit, and then slipped the box into the backpack. He also took the paint can from Brandy and dropped it into the bag. Finally, he slung the backpack over his shoulders, dropped into the hole and shined his flashlight into the next passage, chasing away the shadows. “Okay. Come on down.”
Brandy hesitated for just a moment, wondering about his ability to solve these strange puzzles, almost without thinking, almost as though he already knew the way. A part of her wanted to turn and run, to just leave him here and get the hell out while she still could, but she was afraid to go back alone. She was also admittedly curious about where this strange place would lead them. With doubt gnawing at her mind, she followed Albert deeper still into the darkness.
Chapter 9
This next tunnel was too short to allow them to walk upright, but it was not as long as many of the similar passages they’d already traveled. It quickly opened into a large chamber at least twenty feet wide and high. This room was made of the same smooth, dark stone that the first room was built from, and was far too long for the flashlights to penetrate to the other end.
Along the walls, more of those strange, faceless statues stood like guards.
“Wow,” marveled Brandy.
Albert nodded in agreement. Their flashlights could pick up three pairs of the faceless sentinels, but no farther, and the darkness beyond was disturbing to him. He felt that something was there, lying silently in the shadows, waiting for them, perhaps watching them.
“Somebody was sure proud of these guys.” Brandy was running her flashlight over one of the statues.
Albert was studying those up ahead. He didn’t quite grasp it yet, but there was something strange about them. They were not all the same.
He took several steps into the room, his eyes moving from one statue to another, trying to understand what he was seeing. They really were like sentinels, diligently watching, guarding these weird chambers for reasons he could not imagine. As he walked deeper into the room, he found himself remembering what Brandy told him about some of the tunnels being older than the city, carved out of the earth in ancient times, and he shuddered at the thought of standing in such a timeless place.
The fourth pair appeared from the gloom and he realized exactly what it was that was different about each of them. He stopped and swept his light across the four on his left, then on his right, reassuring himself that he was, indeed, seeing the strange scene he now perceived. With each pair of statues, a single thing changed. They stood in the same position, hands at their sides, feet together, rigid, alert, but as they moved farther into the room, each pair of sentinels was…as odd as it seemed…slightly more aroused than the one before it. Their massive penises were actually growing progressively stiffer the deeper into the room they went.
“Somebody has a really sick sense of humor,” Brandy said, but there seemed to be more anxiety in her voice than disgust.
“They definitely had an infatuation with the male body.” Albert continued to walk, amazed at how the statues continued to appear, one pair after another, each more obscene than the last, but only marginally. The subtleness of the change between each sentinel was so slight that it was difficult to see, but as they appeared one by one from the darkness, it was too easy to imagine the stone organs becoming engorged with blood, almost as if it was his and Brandy’s very presence that excited them. His eyes were drawn forward as he walked and he wondered what they would find at the end, when these stone sentinels were no longer mildly amorous but outright horny and wielding full-sized boners.
Perhaps Brandy wondered the same thing, because just then her cold hand slipped into his and squeezed.
“You mind?”
“No. Of course not.”
She gave him a smile and then turned and examined the sentinels. “This place is so freaky. I hate how dark it is.”
“I know. There’s no lighting at all. No fixtures. No switches.”
“Maybe it predates electricity.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised. But there aren’t even places to hang torches. It’s almost like this place was meant to remain in the dark.”
“That’s really creepy,” Brandy replied, squeezing his hand a little harder.
Albert glanced at her. He didn’t mean to keep scaring her. “I know.”
On either side of them, the statues stood. Somehow, their blank faces made it easier to imagine that they were watching them.
“It’s all just so weird,” Brandy said.
“It is. It looks like the set for an X-rated Indiana Jones movie.”
Brandy laughed. “It does, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah. All you need is a giant boulder shaped like a woman’s breast rolling down the middle of the room.”
Again Brandy laughed, and it gave them both courage. It was hard to be afraid of something that made you laugh.
“Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Happy Sentinels,” Albert said, and Brandy laughed so heartily that she had to stop and wipe away tears.
Up ahead another pair of sentinels appeared. Albert had lost count by now, but their penises hovered in front of them, almost parallel with the floor.
“That’s too funny.”
Albert smiled. He was glad she was laughing. It made him feel better to know that she felt better.
Brandy tugged at his hand and led him to the nearest statue. “I can’t believe how realistic they are, even for being all out of proportion.” She ran her fingertips down the chest and stomach of the statue, admiring the craftsmanship of the sculpture. “Who do you think put them here?”
“Don’t know.” He was studying the statue’s face, that blank, empty void that was all the artist had allowed them of human expression. Even blind, deaf and mute, it retained a strange illusion of wisdom and understanding. In its own faceless way it seemed to be contemplating something, perhaps its own sexuality, with a deepness that was nearly frightening, but that was more his imagination than anything he saw on the smooth, empty curve that was its face.
“What purpose do they serve?”
“Maybe none. Maybe no more purpose than a painting on a wall. Just a decoration. Or maybe they’re as important to whoever made them as the cross or a sculpture of Jesus. Or maybe they were to help somebody navigate these corridors.” He shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe they serve a very important purpose that we can’t possibly imagine.”
Brandy touched the smooth surface of the sentinel’s groin, just above the penis, her fingertips sliding over it gracefully, delicately. They had no hair at all. “So realistic,” she observed. She slid her hand down, below the penis to the testicles, which dangled like two heavy plums in their stone pouch. With the tip of her index finger, she followed the folds and wrinkles of its anatomy. It seemed as though it should give to her touch, folding and lifting like real flesh, but it was only stone. At last she lifted her hand to the penis itself. With her thumb and her fore and middle fingers, she softly grasped the giant member and traced its arc all the way to its tip, feeling the wrinkles and the veins as her fingertips slid along its cold, hard flesh.