Crypt And Puck

She found the puck late that night.

At the bottom of the stairs where the crypt door met grainy, tough, salted old grass.  Stone and earth met in tuft country shapes on that stairwell floor.  There was a drain grate of grim iron and the smell of lime and lactating stone.

The puck was in the corner.  Made of seeming speckled ivory, the thing had shrunk and was half the treasure it once was.

She recognized it immediately.  Stooping, she pocketed it.  And then she considered the door.

The cold was nearly forgotten.  Her clothes were wet whispers against her clammy skin.

All she heard was the echo of code.  One-one-three-five.  One-one-three-five.  Under, over, across and then under.  The metal looked immovable.

She put on the gloves she’d been given and tried.  Once.  Twice.

The second time worked.  And it was smooth.  Smoother than it looked.  Smoother than she expected.

She paused but more in response to her third eye which had a sense of the dramatic, even now.

A useless, automated gesture for an absent audience.  Then she entered.

She should have been afraid.  But she’d forgotten that emotion.  She shut the door behind her.

And she forced her hand into a tight corduroy pocket.  The flashlight, a cold, red tube, issued a thin, rude wire of light through the ante-room.

Her sense of smell was nearly gone.  And the putrid vapour entrails that wafted under the next door went unnoticed.

That was the only door.

And she advanced.

Her shoes hissed quietly.  And that she heard.  She expected it.

Now the door.

But first a listen.

Dank silence.

She’d have to be quiet.  But she remained bold.

The clank didn’t come.  A tight, slow and easy squeeze of black metal was what worked.

She pulled.  And then the door swung back.

She moved with it and then peered in.

She could feel if not smell the rot and essence of the atmosphere under and beyond.

And she heard the sounds of the ghoulish play.  The stalagmites, the stone and the half-rink untended beyond.

To be continued

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