“What’s that got to do with the pilings?”
“New York Central sold the air rights to developers, which gave them the right to build in the area, but with no right to the ground itself. So to support their buildings, developers drove steel pilings deep into Manhattan’s bedrock. Without them, midtown Manhattan would literally fall right through the earth.”
“You make it sound dangerous.”
“It’s downright deadly if you consider the thousands of trains weaving through here every day, traveling at top speeds. It’s a wonder midtown hasn’t caved in yet.”
“Not that I care, but where’d you learn all that?”
I shrugged. “Back when I was still an archaeologist, I spent a few months studying these tunnels in great depth. Picked up a few things along the way, I guess.”
I led Beverly through a few twists and turns until we finally arrived at a large open space, consisting of crumbling maintenance shacks, half-completed structures, unused tracks, and rusty subway cars.
“Where are we?”
“Hidden layup yard. The MTA stores out-of-service trains here.”
“This wasn’t on Kolen’s and Adcock’s search grid.”
I shone my light around the space, surprised to find the area deserted. Something about it bothered me, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. “No, but it’s quiet and dry. Plus, it gives us easy access to the tunnels.”
“Wait, we’re not…”
“We sure are.”
A disgusted look appeared on her face. “We can’t sleep here.”
“Why not?”
“Well for starters, there aren’t any people around here. I thought you wanted to infiltrate a homeless community in order to gather information.”
“A couple of years back, a shanty town existed in this area. Unfortunately, it looks like they cleared out awhile back.”
“So, let’s go find them.”
I shook my head. “We could look all night and not find anyone. Better to get some rest and try again tomorrow.”
“So, it’s just you and me?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
She made a face. “Where am I supposed to sleep? On the ground?”
“You’ll see.”
I paced all the way to the rear of the layup yard. As I walked, my eyes passed over various graffiti messages that adorned the walls. Some I remembered. Some I didn’t.
One message in particular, which covered a five-foot by ten-foot swath of wall, caught my eye. Its text was written in black paint over a faded yellow background. The top line declared, “Page 134 — July 1, 1997.” As I passed by it, I glanced at the message.
This is my home. Our home. Anything but your home. We are the abandoned, the ignored, the hated. Society tossed us away years ago. But don’t pity us. Don’t you dare. Just leave us alone. Stop rooting us out, stop forcing us to the surface, and for God’s sake stop trying to normalize us. You already destroyed our lives. At least let us have our dignity.
The message was tagged with the moniker Ghost in the lower left corner. I’d never met the man, but I knew him by reputation. He was a legend among New York’s indigent population, partly due to his subway-based autobiography. The tunnel walls were his parchment. Spray paint was his quill.
During my previous life, I’d read more than one hundred of his entries. But based on the numbering, I knew that was just the tip of the iceberg.
“Where are we going?”
“Over there,” I replied. “All of the tracks down here are numbered. We’re going to camp right by that platform, at Track 61.”
“Wonderful. What could be better than sleeping on a nice, soft slab of concrete?”
I pointed at a rusty old subway car parked at the end of Track 61, just beyond the platform. “Actually, we’ll sleep in there. At the very least, it should keep the rats from eating our eyeballs.”
She shuddered. “Any other nightmarish facts you want to share about our sleeping quarters?”
“You should be proud. That’s FDR’s car. According to legend, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s people used it to transport him and his armor-plated Pierce Arrow car through the tunnels. That way, he could travel directly to his room at the Waldorf-Astoria without exposing his paralyzed legs to the public.”
Her eyes brightened. “Really?”
“Nope. It’s just a legend. His real subway car is housed in a museum somewhere down in Florida.”
“So that subway car isn’t important?
“Not unless you have a fascination with old Pennsylvania Railroad express-baggage cars from the 1940s.”
She frowned. “You really know how to make a girl feel special.”
“Hey, it’s free. And believe me, you’re worth every penny of that price.”
I walked over to the subway car and opened the rear door. Taking off my satchel, I pulled out two bottles of water and tossed one of them to Beverly.
She caught it easily. After taking a drink, she unzipped her bag and removed two plastic pouches.
I grabbed one from her. “This is supposed to be food?”
“It’s an MRE. What kind did you get?”
“Cheese tortellini.”
She smirked. “I hope you’ve got a strong stomach.”
I tore open the plastic pouch and dumped a number of packages into my hand. “How’s it work?”
“It’s not rocket science. That package on the right is a flameless cooker. You just open up the tortellini and dump it in there to warm it up. And in case you can’t figure it out, the plastic spoon is used for eating.”
I opened the tortellini package and prepared the meal. Then, I leaned against the car’s open door and started to eat it.
She adopted a serious expression. “So, what’s your story anyway?”
“What do you want to know?”
“Jack told me that you left here because of an incident. What happened?”
“Boy, you don’t beat around the bush, do you?”
“Are you surprised?”
I shrugged. “A couple of years ago, I worked as an urban archaeologist. I spent most of my career focused on Manhattan, with particular emphasis on the remains of New Amsterdam.”
“Never heard of it.”
“It was the first European settlement in Manhattan,” I replied. “It was founded by Dutch fur traders in 1614 and built on the southern tip of the island. Anyways, after extensive research of surviving records and old maps, I decided to see if I could find tangible remains of Cornelius van Tienhoven’s house.”
“He was important?”
“Extremely important. He sparked fights with Native Americans and probably caused the Peach Tree War. He vanished in 1656. Some think he was murdered, others think he fled the city to avoid the wrath of the Dutch West Indies Company.”
I took another bite. “To make a long story short, our work proved accurate and my team managed to uncover the house’s foundations. At that time, it was the single greatest moment of my life.”
“But something bad happened?”
My chest tightened. “As we excavated the walls, we built braces to keep them in place. One night, three diggers were working the site. A wall collapsed, killing them instantly.”
“What went wrong?”
“The braces failed. I still don’t understand it. I supervised their construction and placement. They should’ve held.”
She raised her eyebrows. “I see.”
Memories flashed across my mind. I saw the broken braces, smelled the corpses, felt the overwhelming sadness. My chest started to hurt. “Anyways, everything changed after that. My career was finished. My colleagues at the Explorer’s Society started to ignore me. That is, when they weren’t whispering behind my back. A few days later, I got an offer to head up a dig of a different sort. A treasure hunting dig. It went against everything I’d ever been taught. But it gave me the opportunity to get away for awhile. An opportunity to clear my head.”