Blood & Juniper

It's even darker in here but I can make out unusual, dirt-coated machinery, even read 'Danger' highlighted in red on an oily warning sticker. 'Do not operate this machine until you read the blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.' Do people actually read these things to be informed or out of sheer boredom?

The floorboards creak as I step in. It sounds like it might fall through. That's not comforting. I glance over and spot June with her hand on what appears to be a heafy, very rusty lever. 'I doubt she read the warning label.'

I creep over to her cautiously, "Uh, I don't think it's a good idea to touch anything in here."

"Watch your step," she cautions, looking down at my feet.

I focus on my footing, the boards seem to be stuck together and rock slightly with a hollow tapping in this spot. I ease off these suspicious boards, eyeing them as I back away.

A tired, old spring gives and the boards fall away in a cutout square. Dust billows revealing a deep pit in the floor.

I see June leap into the hole as freely as one would cannonball into an inviting pool. I inch over to peer down into the trench.

June waits expectantly a little more than a story below. She beckons with dancing fingers, "Well, don't be shy. Come along."

"I don't know, it looks kind of spooky down there."

She just laughs at me and hops off a grimy mattress lying below the trapdoor, "Nonsense, there's nothing to fear."

'Whatever you say, June…'

I step over the edge, not giving my rational half a chance to reconsider and drop into the unpleasant shaft. I crouch as I make contact with the lumpy, gross bedding, the rotting springs groan from within.

"Ick," I mutter, stepping off the bed only to hear an unmistakable crunch under my boots. Broken glass and nails. I survey the glittering shards sprinkled all around. I nearly choke on air remembering June is barefoot!

"Hey, be careful! There's broken glass!"

I whip around to see her walking right through it. She eyes me over her shoulder with a c.o.c.ked eyebrow, "Yes, what about it?"

I just stare dumbfounded at her exposed toes. She turns to me, twirling carefree in the shattered points.

I cringe, s.u.c.k.i.n.g air through my teeth, "Jeez, where are your shoes!"

She examines her b.a.r.e feet nonchalantly as if this has only just occurred to her, "Oh, yes. I couldn't be bothered with them."

She simpers, "It's not silver. Glass breaking through our skin is improbable and it would heal swiftly, in spite of it."

"Sometimes… I worry about you," I murmur as she pulls a rope by a short exit. The hinges of the trap door m.o.a.n as it swings closed with a click, locking back into place.

This room is as unwelcoming as a foreign jail. Offensive fragrances assault my senses, it smells of mildew, must and despair. Not to mention, it's super creepy down here.

I hear the rapid pulses of rodents living within the crumbling bricks as I examine the drab surroundings.

"You hang out here often?" I inquire dryly.

"Have you ever heard of the Shanghai tunnels? They are more well known in Portland. An underground labyrinth for the purpose of capture and slavery."

"Slavery? What the hell is the place?" Maybe it *is* some kind of prison.

"Around the time of the gold rush during the 1850's the careless and unfortunate were drugged, captured and sold. Shanghaied is what they called it. These tunnels lie just beneath this city and to sea cliff caves."

"So human trafficking? That's horrible!" the way she talks about it seems as though she were there, not as ancient history, "Were you around when this was taking place?"

"Enslavement hasn't ended, little dove. We will continue to take advantage of one another as long as we are able," she gestures for me to follow, ducking into the small exit. It looks like someone indiscriminately took a sledgehammer to it, "I settled down in Oregon about three decades ago. I wandered different parts of America before that and resided in Europe before that."

She leads me through a long thin path with scratchy walls. It's filthy and ramshackled. More broken glass and other sharp objects are scattered along the uneven ground. I spy an ancient pair of boots hidden in a soggy c.h.e.s.t. Besides June, who on earth would remove their shoes in this dump? Maybe they were f.o.r.c.i.b.l.y taken to prevent escape. What a horrid thought.

We pass many darkened doors and holes along the corridor. There are ropes and a bunch of decomposing cans hanging along a string in a row like some kind of depressing party streamer.

"Ugh, spiders," I swat at a dangling cobweb and duck under another, sneering at the big spider resting in the center, "This place is a disaster."

I might have been intrigued if it weren't so off-putting and gloomy.

"Yes, it's in absolute shambles but it is a convenient way to get around during the daylight hours," she says, taking a left into another rugged room. It's a hideous discoloration of brown.

The floor seems to be made of muddy paper mache, like the ground was created from rotting fliers and newspapers. There are many doors along a wall that seems to ooze puss. Mold spots the walls and creeps up to the low ceiling.

I see a bleak window cut out and blocked with thin jail bars. The room behind looks pewny and restrictive. I can't begin to imagine what kind of awful things happened down here.

She avoids the mystery doors, crouching under the shoddy hollowed out part of the walls instead.

I comment as we twist and turn in the deteriorating path, "I'd probably get lost in here."

"It is vast but there are many channels that lead to the surface. They connect to local stores, pubs, even into the bas.e.m.e.nts of private dwellings."

"That's so creepy! Do they even know about all this?"

She shrugs and continues forward. I spy a triple bunk bed through a crumbling peephole, crooked in a dark corner of another splotchy room. The spaces between the posts are so thin and uncomfortable looking. I, for one, wouldn't sleep on it.

We wind around a very cramped space that causes slight claustrophobia.

"You really seem to know your way around," I keep chatting to distract myself from the thought of bugs falling in my hair and down my shirt or the enclosure suddenly caving in while navigating the tight squeeze, "Do you come here by yourself? This place doesn't scare you at all?"

"I use these passages often. Why be afraid?"

"Oh, *I don't know*," I blurt sarcastically, "Because it's infested with creepy crawlies, is probably haunted and will crumble to pieces if the wind blows wrong."

She hums thoughtfully, "The ghost, insects and silence cannot harm you, Petite. It's stood the test of time for this long, why not a century more? It may be a place with a dark history but that is only a memory. You could say it's rather peaceful, now."

I think on her words as they are oddly comforting and her emotions somewhat soothing. I see a light and an end to the skinny path. I mutter a 'thank you' to whoever's listening, quicking my shuffle for the exit.

We pop out of the tight crack and into a massive cavern. I gawk up at a single industrial light encased in a wiry cylinder above. I glance back at the freaky split we crawled out of and back at the swinging orange bulb.

"There's a working light in here!"

"Mhm, this is a maintenance area for the sewage system."

I make a disgusted face as I look at her but keep my comments to myself. That explains one of the unpleasant smells.

She gestures like a tour guide, "There's another way back to the Shanghai tunnels just down the way, it leads to the center of New Corvis. The vent above the red door is most practical. And over here is the entrance to the main sewer."

She heads for the main sewer.

"Please tell me we are not going into the sewers," I w.h.i.n.e. This is not my idea of fun.

She stops to study me over her shoulder. She grins noting my lack of eagerness, "Merely passing through. You have my word, we shall not trudge into unsavory waters. Howbeit, this would be of no consequence to us."

"Maybe of no consequence to *you*!"

She throws a razzing hand with a scoff and pushes through the heavy door. I hear the lock scr.a.p.e and clang as she busts the handle that appears to have had several repairs already. I'll bet breaking and entering is a regular though lesser crime for June.

I wrinkle my nose as I reluctantly drag my feet behind. There's squealing and the skittering of tiny paws and bug legs. I swallow and wring my hands together, though the pests seem to run away from the sound of our intrusion.

There's a greenish blue glow to the sewer water beyond the railing. A sizable walkway lines the murky river and we, thankfully, stay dry on the sides.

The area is a gigantic pipe stretching on both sides and dropping off into nothing. Trickling water plunks softly on tin somewhere in the distance.

It doesn't look as horrific as I imagined. It smells of stagnant water and sulfur with a hint of something worse. Icky, but bearable. Maybe this area doesn't collect the grotesque stuff, though there's no way I'd put a toe in that questionable sludge.

We cross a metal bridge and it's almost like crossing a quaint pond. A diseased, nasty pond that might be pretty if it weren't a f.u.c.k.i.n.g sewer.

Juniper rolls something aside and crawls in an even smaller hole, it's a tight fit.

"Oh, hell no! I'm not going in there! Not a chance."

She has a singsong intonation, ghostly like tinkling crystal as she calls, "Better hurry. Before the rats take an interest in you."

I growl in irritation. It's either this hole or try to find my way back alone. I think I might kill my Maker.