The Lodge had been there forever or so it seemed....
Four local girls had disappeared and the police seemed to be doing very little about it.
When Biff Johnson cub reporter for the Times-Inquirer decided to investigate he was shocked to find that there was a pattern of similar disappearances! As far back as the newspaper archives went, four or five girls disappeared once every 20 years....none were ever found.
He approached his editor who was also the publisher and told him he thought he was on to something and it might be big...he wanted to investigate the missing girls. His editor looked at him thoughtfully for a moment and told him that he should report his findings directly to him and gave him the OK to do the story!!!!
As the young reporter left the room the editor reached for his phone.....
Three of the girls friends had told him that they had recently talked a great deal about going to lavish parties at the Lodge! The fourth girl was a bit of a loner but her landlady said she had seen her go out, dressed to the nines, and be picked up in a sleek black limousine!!!
His next stop was Police Headquarters where the Chief told him repeatedly that there was no connection between the disappearances and the Lodge. Despite the friends statements the Chief absolutely ruled out the Lodge as part of his investigation!
As the young reporter left the room the Chief reached for his phone.....
That night he approached the Lodge on foot after leaving his car out of sight. It surprised him when he found the door unlocked and unguarded! Hearing voices, he quietly crept down the hall and slowly cracked open the door to try and see who was there! Then a strong hand grabbed him from behind and held a cloth over his nose and the world swam and it all went black!!!
He came to in a large room filled with men....he recognized the Mayor, the Police Chief several of the wealthiest men in town and his editor!!!! His hands were bound and stranger still he was dressed in womens lingerie!
"What's going on? What are you doing! Why am I dressed like this?"
The Mayor sighed, "Young man, this Lodge has been here since 1823! In all that time the membership has been very exclusive! The men in this room are all descendants of the Founders! It was right at the beginning that they discovered that underneath this Lodge was the richest gold mine ever discovered! Originally they made use of slave labor but after the Civil War there were no new slaves available so the Founders wisely brought in some local women as breeding stock and they bred only the strongest, most simpleminded slaves and as those came of age a generation later they repeated the process!"
"You mean you...."
"As I was saying, they repeated the process, just as subsequent generations of Lodge members have done every twenty years since then!"
"But that would mean..."
"It means we have an army of miners toiling under this mountain who know no other life, who have never seen the light of day! And we have just provided them with this generations breeders!
"You inhuman bastards!!!! You monsters!!! I'll stop you!!! I'll tell the world!!!"
The men laughed coldly and he was dragged to the lowest level where locked bars covered the opening to the mines! The miners stared up as the barred trap door was opened!
"Now you know why you're dressed as you are! We considered using you as a miner but you are far to small and weak for that, so we decided to give you to the miners as breeding stock! They won't really mind the difference! As they say Any Port in a Storm will do. Goodbye Mr. Johnson!"
As the huge hard hands reached up and grabbed his ankles and started to pull him down, he screamed!
"No, please god no!!!!"
The men chuckled as they returned to the meeting room! It was time for brandy and cigars!!!!
