Reliquary

The reporter followed the stooped, low figure, moving ahead of him in the dim light. Once in a while the rumble of a nearby train would fill the dank space; Smithback could feel the sound more in his bones than his ears.

They began walking northward along what seemed to be an endless tu

“Mephisto keeps the nearest entrances to our community secret.”

Smithback nodded, making a wide detour around the swollen body of a dead dog. It wasn’t surprising these tu

Soon, the tu

“How’d you get that key?” Smithback asked.

“We have many skills in our community,” the man replied, pulling open the door and ushering the journalist through.

As the door shut behind Smithback, the blackness of night rushed forward to meet him. Realizing how much he’d instinctively relied on the dim light that had filtered down from the grates, Smithback had a sudden feeling of panic.

“Don’t you have a flashlight?” he stammered.

There was a scratching sound, then the flaring of a wooden match. In the flickering illumination, Smithback saw a series of cement steps leading downward as far as the matchlight penetrated.

Tail Gu

“Satisfied?” came the dull, monotonic voice.

“No,” Smithback replied quickly. “Light another.”

“When it is necessary.”

Smithback felt his way down the staircase, his hands spread on the cool slick walls for balance. They descended for what seemed an eternity. Suddenly, another match flared, and Smithback saw that the stairs ended in an enormous railroad tu

“Where are we now?” Smithback asked.

“Track 100,” the man said. “Two levels down.”

“Are we there yet?”

The match flickered out, and darkness descended again.

“Follow me,” came the voice. “When I say stop, you stop. Immediately.”

They ventured onto the tracks. Smithback found himself fighting down panic once again as he stumbled over the iron rails.

“Stop,” came the voice. Smithback halted as another match flared. “See that?” Tail Gu

The match died out. Smithback heard the man take a few steps in the close, humid darkness.

“Light another!” he cried.

A match flared. Smithback took a broad step over the third rail.

“Are there any more of those?” he asked, pointing to the rail.

“Yes,” the little man said. “I’ll show you.”

“Jesus,” said Smithback as the match died. “What happens if you step on one?”

“The current explodes your body, blows off your arms, legs, and head,” the disembodied voice said. There was a pause. “It’s always better not to step on it.”

A match flared again, illuminating another yellow-painted rail. Smithback stepped gingerly over it, then watched as Tail Gu

“We go down here,” Tail Gu

Smithback could feel a hot draft coming up from below, tinged with a foul odor that made his gorge rise. Interwoven with the stench Smithback thought he caught, for a moment, the smell of wood smoke.

“Down?” he asked in disbelief, turning his face away. “Again? What, you mean slide in there on my belly?”

But his companion was already wriggling his way through.

“No way,” Smithback called out, squatting down near the hole. “Listen, I’m not going down there. If this Mephisto wants to talk, he has to come up here.”

There was a silence, and then Tail Gu

“He’s go

There was a long silence.

“You still with me?” Smithback asked.

“Wait there,” the voice demanded suddenly.

“You’re leaving? Give me some matches,” Smithback pleaded. Something poked him in the knee and he cried out in surprise. It was Tail Gu

“Is that all?” Smithback asked, counting the three matches by touch.

“All I can spare,” came the voice, faint now and moving away. There were some more words, but Smithback could not make them out.

Silence descended. Smithback leaned back against the wall, afraid to sit down, clutching the matches tightly in one hand. He cursed himself for being foolish enough to follow the man down here. No story is worth this, he thought. Could he get back with only three matches? He shut his eyes and concentrated, trying to remember every twist and turn that had brought him here. Eventually, he gave up: the three matches would barely get him across those electrified rails.

When his knees began to protest he rose from the squatting position. He stared into the lightless tu

“Scriblerian!” a ghostly, incorporeal voice sounded from the hole at his feet.

“What?” Smithback yelped, spi

“I am addressing William Smithback, scriblerian, am I not?” The voice was cracked and low, a sinister sing-song rising from the depths beneath him.

“Yes, yes, I’m Smithback. Bill Smithback. Who are you?” he called, unsettled at speaking to this disembodied voice out of the darkness.

“Mephisto,”came the voice, drawing the s of the name into a fierce hiss.”

“What took you so long?” Smithback replied nervously, stooping down again toward the hole in the cinder block.

“It is a long way up.”

Smithback paused a minute, contemplating how this man—now standing somewhere below his feet—had needed to travel several levels up to reach this place. “Are you coming up?” he asked.

“No! You should feel honored, scriblerian. This is as close as I have been to the surface in five years.”

“Why is that?” Smithback asked, groping in the darkness for the microcassette recorder.

“Because this is my domain. I am lord of all you survey.”

“But I don’t see anything.”

A dry chuckle rose from the hole in the cinder block. “Wrong! You see blackness. And blackness is my domain. Above your head the trains rumble past, the surface dwellers scurry on their pointless errands. But the territory below Central Park—Route 666, the Ho Chi Minh trail, the Blockhouse—is mine.”

Smithback thought for a moment. The ironic place-name of Route 666 made sense. But the others confused him. “The Ho Chi Minh trail,” he echoed. “What’s that?”

“A community, like the rest,” hissed the voice. “Joined now with mine, for protection. Once upon a time, we knew the trail well. Many of us here fought in that cynical struggle against an i