Detective Rez Chamba in... The Case of the Restless Shovel

Chapter 10: Underground Cult

DACUMOG looked into Rez's eyes sharply. "What are you trying to say here now, Rez?" He said accusingly. "That my uncle became a ghost and scares children?"

"Not exactly," Rez said calmly. "Your Uncle might have died symbolically and has risen to be a new person. I mean, he survived the fall, but the tragedy changed him. His mind was changed.
"You said that he was gone missing just after your parents died when you were five years old. How old are you now? Ten?"

"No. I am already fifteen." Dacumog wondered why Rez is asking that.

Doc Caridad lit up. "That was exactly ten years ago! Just about the time when people started to talk about a so-called Shadow! A year later, my wife died, mysteriously!"

"Something very bad might have happened to him and he has a new perspective in life right now," Rez added.

"Basically, he became crazy or mad," Fred batted in. "And he decided to hide from the world of light and literally live underground or in the dark world, and will kill anyone who will discover him! "

Rez shot an angry gaze on Fred, to make him stop. Then he said to Dacumog, "Perhaps, he was the one who took the shovel, as a symbol of your long lost tribe, or it might be a key to find a great fortune hidden by your ancestors inside this tunnel."

The sisters began to feel excited again upon hearing Rez to be finally on their side. They jokingly sneered on their father, as they mouthed the words, 'We told you so.'

Doc Caridad ignored his twins. "And how did Hugo know about that, if it was?' he said primarily to Rez and Dacumog.

"We don't know yet for sure how?" Rez mumbled.

He leaned nearer to the sidings of the tunnel to inspect it better, when, he happened to notice something on the rocky wall at his right side. "What is that?"

A pattern of chiseled lines were arranged to form the figure of a star.

Under it, were other chiseled markings or lines resembling some form of ancient letters.

"That is our language!" Dacumog excitedly exclaimed, as he rushed to inspect the wall better.

Doc Caridad forgot his tiredness and got up to gather himself with them.

"May I take a look?" He said as he wrestled his way towards the writings. "Hmmm.... Yeah..., this is really the Damundo dialect!"

"Can you read it, Doc?" Fred inquired.

"I think I might, if Dacumog will be able to guide me." He looked back to Dacúmog.

"I am not an expert of our own writings," the young boy said. "We were forbidden to study the writings of the tribe. Only the Firstborns are given the privilege to learn both the old and the new version of our language."

He approached nearer to the wall where the writings were and squinted his eyes. "I know some of the letters. This one is a letter D in English, but I am not so sure. Some of our letters can have multiple equivalents to the English alphabets, and I think, some of our words use two kinds of letters: the old ones and the new ones."

"If this is D, then this is also a D, possibly," Doc Caridad said excitedly. "I think I can read now the whole writings. It says:

"Under the leadership of the Star of our God, Damúndog, we, the chosen ones, will rise from under the ground, after the world above, ends!"

Doc Caridad furrowed his eyebrows. "There is some more phrases written below, but I can't read it. It was like written in a different tongue. But .."

They all gasped when they heard a raspy sound, as if coming from beyond the pitch black end of the tunnel, like a low growl of a predatory animal.

"GRRRA....THEE....! EAT....THEE..!"