“Hey, anybody get a picture of the flaming rats I killed? Wait—slayed is better. Anybody get a picture of the giant rats I slayed?”
Amy and Zack glared at him. Zack got in Robbie’s face, nearly nose to nose.
“Alex is down here. That’s why we are here.”
Robbie shrugged.
“I’m just saying, if we’ve gotta be here, we should at least take pictures. What if we see another ghost?”
Zack shook his head.
“Alex!” he shouted.
No answer. Nothing but the trickle of fouled water and the hum of the overhead lamps.
***
The three walked a little further, not knowing something watched them through a hole in the wall. Two bloodshot eyes peered out from a hole where a single brick had been removed.
CHAPTER 15
Robbie’s flashlight died along with the battery on his smart phone. He shoved it in his pocket and looked at the Xmen pack on Zack’s shoulder.
“Can I see that?” Robbie said.
Zack handed it to him as they stepped into and out of the grey water stream and crossed to the other side. Robbie unzipped it and reached inside. He pulled out a ragged teddy bear and chuckled.
“Don’t you dare,” Zack said. “He’s a little kid.”
“What?” Robbie said.
He stuffed the toy back into the pack and continued to smile like he couldn’t help it.
“I say we go home,” Amy said. “Who’s with me?”
Robbie looked at her, annoyed.
“Let’s keep moving,” Robbie said.
Zack ignored them both. He was searching for something, moving his light up and down, side to side, scanning the tunnel walls.
“Dumb aaaaand stuuupid,” she sang.
Zack spun toward her.
“What about Alex?”
She stared at him, one hand on her hip, lips pursed, eyes opened so wide they might have fallen out, rat guts on her forehead, clothes ruined, one skinned and still bleeding knee that would certainly get infected down there in the sewer.
“Ya know, it’s like I really don’t even know him that well. Besides, how many shots do you think we’ll have to get to cure all these diseases?”
“Amy!” Zack shouted.
Robbie laughed at them.
“What if it was you?” Zack said.
“Yeah? But it isn’t me. I’m not dumb and stupid. Boys always cause trouble and I always get all tangled up in it. You don’t see any lost girls down here, do ya?”
Zack’s eyes closed to slits and he pointed his flashlight directly at her. She squinted.
“There’s gonna be one if you don’t shut your face hole and help us,” he growled.
***
The eyes behind the missing brick continued to watch. Its brow wrinkled in apparent frustration and it let out a slight grunt, then disappeared into the darkness. A moment later, the missing brick slid back into place.
***
The corridor grew darker as more and more, the overhead light bulbs were either burned out or broken. The children moved slowly along the tunnel, with deliberate steps that echoed in the wet hallways, and stopped each time something dripped, creaked or scratched.
“You hear that? Was it a rat?” Robbie said.
“Calm down, Batman. Ya might tough it to death,” Amy said.
The tunnel ended in a tee, and became more complex than they had imagined. They looked down each branch, Amy winding her light, then Zack winding his. Each branch had branches of its own.
“There had got to be something marking these. Signs or numbers or something to help you find your way around.”
“Sure,” Amy said. “I’m sure there’s a directory just like at the mall. You are here. Burned rat is over by the food court. Sears is on the left.”
Zack shined his light around frantically until he found what he was seeking. A metal plaque, bolted to a set of bricks. He walked over to it, leaving the others to catch up, and wiped it with his gloved hand. In the brass, covered in green copper sulfate corrosion, the words “Nash Street” were stamped. He turned and looked at her with smug all over his face.
“See. Nash Street. We must be right underneath it. We should be able to follow these just like the roads in town. First, then Second Street that way, and Elm, then Poplar that way...”
“That’s pretty smart, bro. I didn’t think you had it in ya,” Amy said.
“It still doesn’t tell us which way to go to find Alex,” Robbie said.
“We’ll just have to pick one,” Zack said, reasoning their situation in his head. “We can stay on the main streets and call out for Alex. I’m sure we can find him that way.”
“Or…we could just go back the way we came. Up the ladder, back to the house, take a shower, maybe send the police an anonymous email,” Amy said.
Zack glared at her.
“Fine,” she said. “Go that way, toward 5th street. We’ll walk down each one. If we don’t find anything, we can go back the other way. What time is it anyway?”
Zack checked his watch. It was 8:37am.
“Twenty minutes to nine,” he said.
Amy stood in disbelief, looking at herself, at her brother and at Robbie.
“You mean we haven’t even been down here an hour?”
Zack shook his head.
“Dumb and stupid,” Amy muttered.
They started toward 5th street, walking slowly, covering every inch with their flashlights. The same bricks, same slime and same stink seemed to be everywhere. Then Zack’s light stopped on something, a plaque, like the first one he’d found. He rushed to wipe it off, careful to use the hand with the glove on it. Written on it in the same stamped letters, “1st Street.”
He turned to look at his sister and his friend and smiled, proud of himself. Knowing where they were and how to navigate gave the three a little renewed energy. It was one mystery solved. They turned and walked down the 1st street tunnel and were careful not to make unnecessary noise. Zack watched and listened, up one side of the corridor, and back down the other after they had reached its end. Once they were back on Nash Street, they headed for 2nd street, checked the brass plaque to make sure of where they were and turned to investigate that passage.
***
As the kids disappeared around the corner, a faint scraping sound echoed in the main tunnel. The Nash Street plaque, and the bricks it was attached to, slid back into the wall and disappeared. A face with bloodshot eyes looked out and checked in each direction for witnesses, then a light chuckle came from within. The face ducked from sight and a moment later, the bricks were replaced, only the plaque that was bolted to them read “Lancaster Street.”
CHAPTER 16
Brad rolled over in bed. He was bare, save for some lime green boxer shorts and a wide leather wrist band. His hair held an unnatural posture, combed by the pillow and the acne bumps on his cheeks were especially bright red, contrasting his pale skin. He’d kicked his blanket off, and it lay in a pile on the floor.
He clucked his tongue on the roof of his mouth a few times and covered his eyes with one forearm. One eye fluttered, then the other as he started to shiver in the cold. He reached his toes out, searching for the blanket, but only found the sheet, tangled in knots beneath his feet. His face scrunched into a frown and he was unhappy. One eye fluttered again, this time opening part way and looking around. He sat up on his elbows and a stream of sunshine, peeking in between the edge of his curtain and the window frame, hit him in the eyes.
“Ugh,” he said and shielded his face with one hand.
Brad peered lazily at his alarm clock. Big green numbers said 9:49. He struggled to stand and stretched as he yawned. When his own breath hit his nose, he grimaced and slapped at it. He rubbed his face and his hair, which moved with his hand, but stood straight up when he let go.
He walked out of his room, scratching himself and headed for the bathroom. When he passed Zack’s bedroom, he stopped. It wasn’t spotless. Drawe
rs were open. Things were in slight disarray. He shrugged and continued to the bathroom to relieve himself. After he flushed the toilet, he washed his hands and splashed some cold water on his face, checked himself out in the mirror and popped a couple zits.
He walked back by Zack’s room and glanced in again.
“Weird,” he said.
In the kitchen, he opened the fridge, pulled out a jug of orange juice and took several big gulps directly from the bottle. Then he paused and listened to the house.
“Zack?” he said. “Amy?”
Roscoe bumbled into the room, wagging his tail and Brad absently patted his head. The kitchen was clean for a change, only there was a sheet of paper on the table. He picked it up.
“Brad, back later. Zack and Amy.”
He crushed it in his fist.
“Shit. Shit! Mom is going to kill me.”
He dropped the jug of orange juice on the table and ran back to his room, grabbing a pair of jeans and jumping into them. Next, he pulled on a t-shirt dug from a pile of questionable laundry on the floor and slipped on some sneakers. Before he darted out the door, he spied a picture on his mirror of a sports car. He pulled it free of the scotch tape loops that held it and kissed it, then slapped it back on the mirror and rushed out the door.
Outside, he gave a quick glance at the front yard before running out back to the shed. The door was standing open, and their bikes were gone.
“Shit,” he repeated.
Back in the house, he grabbed a leather jacket from a hook by the door to the garage and stumbled through.
The garage door opened, letting the sunlight in like a long sealed tomb just opened. Inside, Brad pulled on a helmet, then kick started a dirt bike, the engine sputtered and whined in its high pitched voice as he screamed out of the driveway and down the street.
CHAPTER 17
Robbie walked ahead. Zack and Amy followed. The group was still silent, until Zack yelled, “Alex!”
Robbie jerked, startled by the noise and looked at him. Zack wasn’t paying attention, but kept watching his flashlight beam trace the bricks on the wall, and the slabs of concrete on the floor. Robbie shrugged, joining the others.
“Alex!” he yelled.
Zack smiled at him. It wasn’t a happy smile, but a grateful one. Nothing but trickling water replied to them.
“Zack, what do we do if we see another ghost? I mean, how do you know where to look?”
Amy interrupted, “Brad said this was part of the Underground Railroad. Maybe there’s a hidden passage or door somewhere.”
Zack stopped. The boys looked at each other.
“That’s brilliant,” Zack said.
They immediately began feeling the walls, Zack in his gloves. Robbie with bare hands. Amy stuck her tongue out.
“Yuck. Besides, guys. I don’t think we’ve got that kind of time,” she said.
Robbie stopped, leaning on the wall with his hands and looking back over his shoulder.
“What if we find all those dead bodies? The one’s that Crowe guy hid down here? What if their skeletons are all stuffed in the walls?”
His eyes widened as he turned around, lost in his own world of thought.
“What if they’re all gross, or if they think we’re Crowe and come after us?”
Amy’s eyes locked onto something above Robbie’s head.
“Robbie,” she said, calmly and quietly.
Robbie continued, not hearing her, “What if there’s a huge pile of toothless dead bodies in here?”
He gestured, insinuating a huge pile of dead bodies.
“R-Robbie,” Amy repeated.
“Do you think my parents would let me keep a skull in my room?” Robbie said.
“Robbie!” Amy shouted.
It snapped him out of his daydream.
“What?” he said.
She pointed, terrified, and couldn’t get any more words to come out. Instead, there was an audible squeak. Robbie’s face went pale. “Is it another rat?” he said.
She shook her head, never taking her eyes off the wall. Zack looked at Robbie, then up toward Amy’s view. There on the wall was a centipede, two feet long and as big around as a garden hose. Its legs rolled like ocean waves as it moved along the bricks, inches from Robbie’s head and just after Robbie stopped talking, it pulled its head back like a viper, poised to strike. Robbie leaned forward and turned his head to see the monstrous thing. It clicked its spiny mouth parts together. His face melted and tears rolled over his cheeks. The beast struck, but missed and Robbie lurched backward, stumbling over his own feet and falling butt-first into the grey water, landing on his backpack.
The splash revealed just how vile the sludge river was, splattering unmentionable substances on his face and clothing. Robbie clawed his way back to the concrete, dragging the waterlogged and stinking sack back with him.
***
A few yards down the tunnel, a familiar chuckle escaped another hole in the wall. The same dark, bloodshot eyes watched through that hole, and the smile beneath them was evident. Inside the wall, gnarled hands with yellowed fingernails—the same ones that pulled teeth from the manhole cover—yanked downward on a chain. Gears rolled, catching other gears in some sort of pulley system over the shadowed being’s head. The pulleys activated gears, and the clanking of metal and squeaking of rarely-used wheels filled the catacombs.
***
“What was that?” Zack said.
He and Amy were helping Robbie out of the sludge when the metal clanking sound startled them, they dropped Robbie and he splashed back into the water. Amy looked around, her flashlight darting this way and that. Robbie spat the filthy water out of his mouth and tried to wipe his face, but his hands were just as dirty and his clothes were soaked through.
“I don’t know,” Amy said.
They grabbed Robbie’s outstretched hands and pulled him back up so he could stand and then stepped away from him.
“Man, you stink,” Amy said.
“Thanks,” he said, still trying to spit the stuff out of his mouth and wipe it from his eyes.
In front of where Robbie stood, a rusty metal door opened slowly in the brick wall. As it moved, more centipedes crawled out, fell out, and then poured out onto the floor below. Other bugs, beetles, slugs, roaches joined them, along with spiders of every imaginable size. The wider it opened, the more the creatures flooded out, crawling over each other to freedom. Amy and Zack were searching the opposite walls for the source of the creaking sound, which echoed all around them.
When Robbie straightened up, he looked between them and gasped.
“Run,” he said in a choked whisper.
They turned to see why but Robbie had already broken into a sprint, heading back down the fourth street tunnel and emerging on Nash. Amy screamed at the sight of the bugs and they followed, running back toward 1st Street, not noticing the plaques had changed. All of the plaques had changed. Robbie gasped for air and grabbed Zack by the shoulder to stop him.
Zack recoiled from Robbie’s grubby hand. “Ew, don’t touch me,” he said.
“I can’t,” Robbie gasped. “I can’t run...any...more.”
The three stopped to take a breath.
“Where are we?” Amy said.
“This should be Nash Street,” Zack said.
He shone his flashlight around, looking for a sign and found one. When he walked closer to it, he saw the sign read, LANCASTER STREET.
“Did we turn around somewhere?” Zack said.
“Maybe,” Robbie said. “Dunno.”
Robbie ran his hand through his sewage caked hair, and it stayed exactly how he left it.
“Oh Robbie, that’s disgusting,” Amy said.
She shuddered and looked at her brother.
“So, I’m not going back that way. You saw the size of those bugs, right?” she said.
Robbie cringed and looked back at the way they’d come. Zack puzzled over their dilemma.
“I don’t unde
rstand,” he said.
He walked on past the center of the tunnel, back where Oak Street should have been. Instead, the sign said 1st.
“We got turned around somewhere. You got a compass?” he asked.
Robbie looked over his shoulder.
“In my bag.”
The pack dripped thick, chunky liquid. The others stared at it. He shrugged, unslung the bag and unzipped it. More goo poured out. He reached his hand inside and fished out the compass. The bezel was cracked, and it was full of water and other indescribable stuff.
Zack shook his head as Robbie tossed the compass into the sludge.
“Did we have a plan B?” Zack said.
“Was there a plan A?” Amy said.
She sniffed, and moved away from Robbie.
“Get away from me, you stink,” she said.
“Everything down here stinks. Maybe I should give you a hug,” he said.
“If you’d like to die. Go right ahead.”
“Cut it out,” Zack said.
Zack reached into his own bag and retrieved the prybar. He scraped an arrow shape into the concrete walk that pointed in the direction they were walking. He walked further down the tunnel, back toward the bugs, and scraped another.
“Great idea,” Amy said, “but where are you going?”
“If this is Lancaster, and that’s first...and we came from that way, the manhole we came down should be back this way, right?”
Robbie and Amy shrugged at each other.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Everything looks the same.”
“Which is why I’m making the arrows,” Zack said. “So we don’t get lost again.”
“As long as we skip the bug tunnel.”
“Maybe we should just find another manhole and get out of here,” Robbie said.
“Have you seen another one?” Zack asked.
He hadn’t, and that worried him. Amy shook her head.
“Come on,” Zack said as he pulled Amy by the arm.
He dragged her all the way to the next side tunnel, labeled 1ST STREET, before she yanked her arm free with a grunt. The three of them turned, shining their lights to the end. It wasn’t a dead end, but seemed to go on much further than any of the others they had traveled. The overhead lights were few and far between making the tunnel more like a cave.
“You sure you’re reading these right?” Amy asked.