“Yeah.”

He slipped the stone back into the box,along with the other piece of the dismembered digit, and thenslipped the box into the backpack. He also took the paint can fromBrandy and dropped it into the bag. Finally, he slung the backpackover his shoulders, dropped into the hole and shined his flashlightinto the next passage, chasing away the shadows. “Okay. Come ondown.”

Brandy hesitated for just a moment,wondering about his ability to solve these strange puzzles, almostwithout thinking, almost as though he already knew the way. A partof her wanted to turn and run, to just leave him here and get thehell out while she still could, but she was afraid to go backalone. She was also admittedly curious about where this strangeplace would lead them. With doubt gnawing at her mind, she followedAlbert deeper still into the darkness.

Chapter 9

This next tunnel was too short to allow themto walk upright, but it was not as long as many of the similarpassages they’d already traveled. It quickly opened into a largechamber at least twenty feet wide and high. This room was made ofthe same smooth, dark stone that the first room was built from, andwas far too long for the flashlights to penetrate to the otherend.

Along the walls, more of those strange,faceless statues stood like guards.

“Wow,” marveled Brandy.

Albert nodded in agreement. Theirflashlights could pick up three pairs of the faceless sentinels,but no farther, and the darkness beyond was disturbing to him. Hefelt 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. Hedidn’t quite grasp it yet, but there was something strange aboutthem. They were not all the same.

He took several steps into the room, hiseyes moving from one statue to another, trying to understand whathe was seeing. They really were like sentinels, diligentlywatching, guarding these weird chambers for reasons he could notimagine. As he walked deeper into the room, he found himselfremembering what Brandy told him about some of the tunnels beingolder than the city, carved out of the earth in ancient times, andhe shuddered at the thought of standing in such a timelessplace.

The fourth pair appeared from the gloom andhe realized exactly what it was that was different about each ofthem. He stopped and swept his light across the four on his left,then on his right, reassuring himself that he was, indeed, seeingthe strange scene he now perceived. With each pair of statues, asingle thing changed. They stood in the same position, hands attheir sides, feet together, rigid, alert, but as they moved fartherinto the room, each pair of sentinels was…as odd as itseemed…slightly more aroused than the one before it. Theirmassive penises were actually growing progressively stiffer thedeeper 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 thandisgust.

“They definitely had an infatuation with themale body.” Albert continued to walk, amazed at how the statuescontinued to appear, one pair after another, each more obscene thanthe last, but only marginally. The subtleness of the change betweeneach sentinel was so slight that it was difficult to see, but asthey appeared one by one from the darkness, it was too easy toimagine the stone organs becoming engorged with blood, almost as ifit was his and Brandy’s very presence that excited them. His eyeswere drawn forward as he walked and he wondered what they wouldfind at the end, when these stone sentinels were no longer mildlyamorous 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 andexamined the sentinels. “This place is so freaky. I hate how darkit is.”

“I know. There’s no lighting at all. Nofixtures. No switches.”

“Maybe it predates electricity.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised. But there aren’teven places to hang torches. It’s almost like this place was meantto remain in the dark.”

“That’s really creepy,” Brandy replied,squeezing his hand a little harder.

Albert glanced at her. He didn’t mean tokeep scaring her. “I know.”

On either side of them, the statues stood.Somehow, their blank faces made it easier to imagine that they werewatching them.

“It’s all just so weird,” Brandy said.

“It is. It looks like the set for an X-ratedIndiana Jones movie.”

Brandy laughed. “It does, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah. All you need is a giant bouldershaped like a woman’s breast rolling down the middle of theroom.”

Again Brandy laughed, and it gave them bothcourage. It was hard to be afraid of something that made youlaugh.

“Indiana Jones and the Temple of the HappySentinels,” Albert said, and Brandy laughed so heartily that shehad 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 ofthem, 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 thenearest statue. “I can’t believe how realistic they are, even forbeing all out of proportion.” She ran her fingertips down the chestand stomach of the statue, admiring the craftsmanship of thesculpture. “Who do you think put them here?”

“Don’t know.” He was studying the statue’sface, that blank, empty void that was all the artist had allowedthem of human expression. Even blind, deaf and mute, it retained astrange illusion of wisdom and understanding. In its own facelessway it seemed to be contemplating something, perhaps its ownsexuality, with a deepness that was nearly frightening, but thatwas more his imagination than anything he saw on the smooth, emptycurve that was its face.

“What purpose do they serve?”

“Maybe none. Maybe no more purpose than apainting on a wall. Just a decoration. Or maybe they’re asimportant to whoever made them as the cross or a sculpture ofJesus. Or maybe they were to help somebody navigate thesecorridors.” He shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe they serve a veryimportant purpose that we can’t possibly imagine.”

Brandy touched the smooth surface of thesentinel’s groin, just above the penis, her fingertips sliding overit gracefully, delicately. They had no hair at all. “So realistic,”she observed. She slid her hand down, below the penis to thetesticles, which dangled like two heavy plums in their stone pouch.With the tip of her index finger, she followed the folds andwrinkles of its anatomy. It seemed as though it should give to hertouch, folding and lifting like real flesh, but it was only stone.At last she lifted her hand to the penis itself. With her thumb andher fore and middle fingers, she softly grasped the giant memberand traced its arc all the way to its tip, feeling the wrinkles andthe veins as her fingertips slid along its cold, hard flesh.

Albert felt a nervous knot form in his chestas he watched her. There was something terribly erotic about theway she touched the statue. Though only stone, it seemed that itdefied all laws of nature by not becoming instantly and fully erectat her sensuous touch.

“They’re uncircumcised,” Brandy observed asshe traced the end of the stone foreskin with the tip of her middlefinger. “Makes them look kind of uncivilized.” She took her handaway from the statue’s genitals and wiped it on her jeans as thoughshe expected it to be dirty. “No. ‘Uncivilized’ is the wrong word.Primitive, maybe, or…I don’t know. I’m not good with words. I meanif they were circumcised, they would seem more modern to me. Ifthese things were really, really old, they might not have inventedcircumcision yet. Do you get what I’m trying to say?” She turnedand looked at Albert, wanting to know if he understood what she wastrying so awkwardly to say, but he was staring back the way they’dcome, his flashlight fixed on the darkness behind them. “Albert?”She aimed her flashlight in the same direction, trying to see whathe was looking at. “Something wrong?”