Trolley No. 1852

they’d whispered their arcane manner of writing: a form of gematria, the substitution of numbers for letters. Once learned of all the Pyramidiles’ harrowing secrets, el-Aheb ruled the ancient outlands, to slaughter, pillage, rape, and defile, all in the name of the Pyramidiles, who lived on realms not of this earth or even this solar system, but in the screaming upside-down crevices between space and time; indeed, the Pyramidiles, the Putrid-Flesh Gods; eyeless, brain-filled masses of otherworldly organa, each the size of a mountain and, suspiciously, the shape of a pyramid…

What an intriguing and ultimately macabre old legend!

With more iron clatter and a swoosh, the previously unrelieved darkness broke—much to my commendation —as Trolley No. 1852 at last exited the deleterious tunnel and now roved down more dim, tenement-lined streets. Looking behind me, I noted that the overhead power-cables were no longer in evidence, and we seemed to be traveling along railways so long out of use that their heavy wooden ledgers had gone to rot. I could only assume that batteries now provided the trolley its propulsion, for how else could this be without the connexion of the overhead electricity cables?

“Almost there,” Erwin whispered.

Through more stone archways the sullen car delved; archways in the most decrepit brick walls; block-rimmed maws agape and garlanded by sickly ivy. Next, we crept through a series of grotesque yet captivating courtyards of what could only be abandoned edifices, each bizarrely interconnected by narrower archways. This was the old city, no doubt, one of several urban nooks left to disrepair and rendered tenantless via the contagion of outside squalor and ruination; truly we were traveling amid the very bowels of New York. Grainy wedges of moonlight cast a feeble pallor over all as broken statues watched the trolley from neglected sconces and rats scurried about fieldstone tiles and garbage-filled fountain basins. But it was in one of these eldritch inner- courtyards that the trolley suddenly slowed, jostled, then squealed to a stop…

I looked about, nearly at a loss for words. This courtyard stood in no less disintegration than the others: festooned by ivy, verminous with weeds. Rotten fabrics hung from the stone rails of second-, third-, and fourth-story verandas, while numerous once-fine marble statues stood armless, headless, and stained by lichens and bird- waste.

“What is this place, Erwin?” I whispered.

“This is it,” he told me. “Don’t be fooled by how it looks outside; I think they do it on purpose.”

I could only imagine he meant a deliberate subterfuge was at hand, to throw off suspicions of the uninvited, for who would think that any desirous activity could possibly take place behind so unkempt and dismal a facade?

Erwin and I were the last in line as the passengers all stood up to file in utter silence off the car. When I happened a glance to my pocket-watch, I saw that it was 4:12 a.m. As the queue moved down the aisle, however, I took notice, first, of the trolley’s position; it had stopped mid-yard, yet the rusted tracks continued forward to disappear beneath a great iron-beamed and rivet-studded door set solidly within yet another wide stone arch. Was it the shifting moonlight or my strained imagination that made me believe I saw traces of an oily, ill-coloured mist leaking through the door’s seams? What I noticed next must’ve been still another trick of poor-light: my glimpse forward, past the slowly descending line of debarking passengers, threw my gaze onto the motionless form of the motorman, who remained in his piloting cubby, his broad back to us, and his hand on the vehicle’s controller handle—his hand, I say…

My stomach knotted.

His hand, though I only glimpsed it for a moment, appeared as no hand at all but a cluster of rather stout worms wrapped about the controller handle’s end. Just as disturbing as the morphology of the hand was its colour: a bloodless white splotched with ill-toned green…

When a stiff chill passed, I realised it must either be dirtied utility gloves or some regrettable genetic malady.

The line dwindled; before I stepped off, my gaze felt preternaturally summoned to my left. There I spied the capped conductor staring right at me through the mask-like deadpan facial expression…

Gads!

I deboarded in haste and hurried up to Erwin who was following the others in. A rotten, wood-plank sign hung upon the transom of worm-eaten but iron-strapped door. The letters on the sign appeared branded in char: 1852 Club.

Torches, not electric bulbs, lit an expansive and ornately decor’d atrium which borrowed much from the greater Georgian period; clearly, this place must once have been an exorbitant hotel. Swirling dark mosaic tile-work could be seen in the gaps between Old World throw rugs; a marble fountain gushed crystalline water through the mouth of a horned cherub. Pilastered walls surrounded all; while great winding staircases rose upward from each end, to the first of three splendidly railed stair-halls which steeply overlooked the atrium below.

I allowed Erwin to take the lead; he and most of the others seemed nearly at home here, and all walked at once to a long, fringe-linened banquet table which sat heaped with fresh fruits and (much to my displeasure) ice-filled bins loaded with half-shelled oysters. It was to the latter that most of the men repaired, greedily slurping down the hideous, lumpen things one after another. As I most infrangibly detested all shellfish—most especially oysters, which made me think of grey phlegm—I made every attempt to appear at ease while sampling some tidbits of fruits and a glass of some superb vegetable juice. Eventually to Erwin I whispered, “So… where are the, uh—”

“The girls? Before you know it,” he promised with a guilty grin, “they’ll be all about.”

Only moments after he’d made this assurance, every face turned upward at the detection of svelte motion. Upon the fourth stair-hall my gaze held, on the stunning woman who’d just appeared: a raven-haired, Cleopatra- faced figure whose voluptuous curves and thrusting bosom were made even more pronounced by a diaphanous, black evening dress.

“That’s her,” Erwin sighed in awe. “Miss Aheb…”

Ensconced torches burned to either side as this shimmering vision of feminine beauty leaned over the carven rail and smiled.

“Welcome, gentlemen, all of you,” issued a lilting and vaguely accented voice. The words echoed. “Your presence is much appreciated and, as you will soon see, the very exclusive 1852 Club will do everything in its power to reward you for the privilege your esteemed presence…”

What an odd thing to announce… as denotations such as “esteemed” and “privileged” hardly described this lot of respectful yet otherwise brawny and likely not-well-educated working-classers. I struggled to identify the seductive woman’s sweetly flowing accent; yet I’ll admit that the mere sight of her compacted beauty filched my breath. There was something about her mien, her very deportment. Even at this precipitous distance, her physique’s details seemed to gleam via some supernal clarity, as though an incorporeal magnifier hung invisibly before her: the poreless white valley of her bosom, the relief of the papillae of her magnificent breasts, the diamond-like sparkle of perfect teeth within the titillant smile— all of these traits seemed amalgamated into a single focus which left every man below speechless and irretrievably enraptured.

Erwin elbowed me. “What did I tell you, huh?”

“I’ll confess,” I said, still staring up, “that I dismissed your description earlier as the stuff of exaggeration, but now… I stand corrected.”

Her voice swirled downward, a spiriferous aural wraith; and from the painfully seductrene lips, warm words flowed, “and, now, my good and vital men, may you go forth in the natural pursuit of your pleasure as is the gracious will of our benefactors…”

The room hushed in the lovely echo’s wake but I frowned. Even the clearly distracted Erwin seemed flummoxed by the words.

“What d’ya s’pose she means by that?” Erwin said in a wee voice.

Benefactors? I wondered. “You’ve got me. ‘Natural pursuit’ notwithstanding, I sorely doubt that her reference to ‘benefactors’ can be a spiritual reference, nor a reference to the popular Judeo- Christian God, no, not in a whorehouse.”

I paused to chuckle at my ever-guilt-ridden friend but when I re-glanced upward?

Miss Aheb was gone.

A modest murmuring of approval rose in the room—at once—as a procession of over a dozen women moved