PHILADELPHIA, PA
The sewers of Philadelphia never smelled good, but on a hot summer day the stench approached unbearable. Roger Barnes gagged as he lowered himself through the manhole.
"Jesus Christ, throw me down the menthol Tay."
Tayamora Hrung wrinkled his nose as he looked down through the open hole in the street.
"What an incredible smell you've discovered!"
Last week Roger found out Tay, who had immigrated here from somewhere in Asia a few years ago, had never seen Star Wars. Naturally Roger loaned him his copy. Now the younger man was taking every opportunity to quote the film. That line had become an instant favorite, and in their line of work was often appropriate.
"Yeah, real funny. The menthol Tay!"
Tay tossed down the heavy green glass bottle, and Roger held his breath while he unscrewed the cap. He smeared the viscous gel over his mustache. It didn't entirely block the scent of warm, rotting effluvia, but Roger no longer felt the need to throw up on his boots.
Switching his flashlight on Roger looked down the long, narrow tunnel. He had to crouch down to move through these older tubes, built back in the late nineteenth century. They said people back then were shorter, and as Roger's helmet scraped along the low ceiling he believed it.
Tay dropped down behind him. "You see the blockage yet?"
Roger prodded the darkness with his flashlight, but it revealed nothing. "I don't see a damn thing."
Sewage had overflowed from the main line a few blocks back, dumping into the storm drains and bringing the stench of Philadelphia's dark secrets to the surface. Roger and Tay had to find out what was causing the blockage. Which is why they were down here.
Roger crept forward a bit farther and the light from his torch found something that glistened. Roger duckwalked towards the obstruction and let out a low whistle.
"What the hell is this?"
The entire tunnel was clogged with some kind of organic matter. A twisted knot of thick wet tubes of slimy purple something, studded along it's length with large, dull white thorns. Roger's mind fumbled with what he was seeing, trying to put a name to the weird mass before him.
"You find something?"
"Yeah. Something. I don't know what the hell this is, it's like. I don't know. Maybe it's some kind of giant worm?"
Roger had seen some pretty weird stuff down in these tunnels, everything from blind fish the size of your fist to freakish clumps of something his superiors assured him were "harmless tube worms."
Roger reached out to touch the mass, glad he'd remembered to put his heavy duty rubber gloves on. The mass was soft, spongy, and he was able to easily press his fingers into it.
"Might be some kind of vegetation?"
Suddenly the mass shifted, the long thick coils rolling over each other. One of the white thorns burst, spraying a viscous yellow-white fluid in Roger's face. He gagged and stumbled back, falling hard on his ass as he clawed at his face. It burned where it touched his skin.
Tay scrambled forward and grabbed Roger's shoulders, dragging him away. He was shouting in a language that Roger didn't recognize. Roger tried to assure him that he was all right, but as he tried to speak he found he was choking on something.
A circle of light appeared above him, sunlight pouring through the open manhole. Roger felt a strange calm pass through him as the small circle of light faded and went dark. Tay shook Roger's shoulders, begging him to stay conscious.
