Unto The Night

Unto The Night
Amazon.com/ron koppelberger

Friday, June 21, 2013

Underground Goblin

Underground Goblin
Ron Koppelberger
He was libel for the hopelessness of the situation. The trespass, the screw up, the jerk in the machinery. Sky Rent scratched his lower lip, there was a gold stud in the corner of his mouth and it had become infected, leaking blood and itching like crazy. Sky wore black grease paint beneath both eyes and he was shaved in a Mohawk, his cloths were torn and dirty, he hadn’t changed in a month and he knew he probably smelled like a dead skunk. The underground passage had been closed off for nearly a month now and he had explored the confines from top to bottom. He had nearly starved to death but the rats made his hunger abate just a little bit, enough to keep him alive and away from the Goblin.
His drinking water was the runoff from the local storm sewers and his bed was concrete, drain pipe concrete. His new friends had said the best underground club is tough to get to but it will be worth it. He had followed their directions after tieing on a terrific drunk. He had stumbled into the storm pipe thinking he was on the way to Caste Galley the new club in town. After wandering around for a few hours he had gotten tired, exhausted consigned and near the protests of societies mainstream. He lay down in the cool dark pipe and slept. Two days passed and when he awoke he was lost. The only way out was the main storm drain and that’s where the goblin was.
He made his way to the goblin and paused for a moment, the Goblin lay in a rotting heap in the center of the trickling storm water. He cringed and shielded his eyes. The body smelled awful, the Goblin in the underground, the monster in the dark soft squishy and horrific. He couldn’t bring himself to walk past it, his eyes had adjusted to the dark early on and he could see the glow from a manhole cover about three or four hundred yards down the pipe.
He coughed and screamed, something had moved near the Goblin, he jumped back and nearly slipped on the curving edge of the pipe. “What the hell is that? “ he yelled to the empty tunnel. His voice echoed around him repeating his question.
He supposed he would have to bypass the goblin at some point and finally he did make up his mind to escape. He had eaten sewer rats and drank storm water for nearly a month now and if he didn’t get out soon he’d die here he thought as he neared the Goblin. He stood close to the Goblin and held his breath. The smell was overwhelming, the body had lain in the storm water and remained viscous and leaking even after a month. Feeling his way past the lump in the center of the floor he slipped and fell directly on top of the Goblin. Screaming he flailed his arms and choked as a puff of noxious gas sprayed from the Goblin. “YIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!” he screamed again as his hand slid across the rotting flesh of the Goblin. He got to his knees and crawled across the body as it groaned with decay. Once past the Goblin he sat against the edge of the tunnel and cried for a moment. His black grease paint smeared and covering his checks. The rest was a blur from that point forward. He made it to the outside after fumbling around for a couple of hours. It had been dark outside and no one had seen him climb out of the drain pipe. He staggered the rest of the way back to his apartment. He found the apartment door locked, they probably figured he was dead, there was crime scene tape across the front door. He tore the tape off and broke the lock. It looked the same. He went to the small bathroom and slipped off his cloths as he climbed into the shower. He thought about the Goblin for a moment as he washed the grime from his body. In the light of the bathroom he could see his ribs sticking out, he had lost a lot of weight. After showering he found some Coco Puffs in the cupboard and ate the entire box.
He prayed for the first time in years and it gave him some comfort to know that he had survived the Goblin and the advent of darkness. He would never forget that month in the storm drain and the fear that he had felt surviving in the darkness of an underground Goblins secret sleep.

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