We’d explored it quite a few times. From what we’d found, we knew that other people used the place. There was writing on the concrete walls, some of it pretty weird and sick. And there was always a lot of junk scattered around: empty booze bottles, smashed beer cans and cigarette packs, a ratty blanket or two, even an old, stained mattress. Clothes, too. Like a flat, dirty sneaker, a sock, somebody’s old underwear, a pair of pants.
Once, we got pretty excited when we spotted a bra. Jim had picked it up. It was caked with dry mud, and one of the shoulder straps was torn loose.
Our best discovery was a copy of Penthouse magazine. It must’ve gotten soaked a while before we found it, because its pages were all stiff and swollen, and a lot of them were stuck together. We peeled them apart and got to see quite a few pictures. We took that magazine with us, and Jim kept it hidden in his room.
Our most revolting discovery was a used condom. We didn’t touch that.
The creepiest thing we ever found down there, I guess, was the remains of a campfire - a circle of scorched rocks around a heap of ashes. In with the ashes were a couple of charred cans and a whole bunch of small bones. We figured they were probably turkey bones, or something. Until I found the skull. I picked it up and blew off the ashes. It had a short snout and pointed teeth. Jim said, ‘God, that’s a cat!’ I yelled and dropped it. The skull hit a rock and shattered.
After that, we’d stayed clear of the underpass.
I sure didn’t look forward to going back tonight.
I would’ve chickened out except for one thing: it was the perfect place for making George wish he’d never messed with us.
Too soon, we got there.
Jim halted just short of where the bridge’s guard rail started. We stood there, silent, and waited for a car to pass. When it was out of sight, another set of headlights showed in the distance. Jim must’ve figured the driver couldn’t see us yet. He whispered, ‘This way, quick,’ and stepped off the sidewalk.
‘Where we going?’ George asked.
‘It’s a great place,’ I told him. ‘Nice and private.’
Before the car got much closer, we followed Jim into the trees. We were hidden by the time it whooshed by. We crept past a few trees, then began climbing down a steep, bushy slope toward the tracks. To the right, the tracks stretched off across an empty field, shiny in the moonlight. To the left, they vanished in the black mouth of the underpass.
A couple more cars sped by, but they didn’t worry me. We were low enough for the guard rail to prevent anyone from seeing us.
The weeds were dewy. They made my jeans wet to the knees. I slipped once or twice. George landed on his butt once. But finally we made it down the slope and climbed a small embankment to the tracks.
‘That’s our place,’ I told George.
‘Under there?’ He didn’t sound thrilled.
Jefferson Avenue was four lanes wide, so the dark area beneath it looked like a tunnel. We could see the gray of moonlight at the other end, but it was too dim to show us much of anything in the underpass.
‘Hope nobody’s there,’ I muttered.
‘Keep your eyes peeled,' Jim said. ‘And get ready to run like hell.’
‘Can’t we just stay here?’ George asked.
Jim shook his head. ‘Somebody might see us from the road. Let’s go.’
‘I don’t know,’ George said.
‘You wanted to come along,’ I reminded him.
‘Yeah, but…’
‘Hey,’ Jim said. ‘If you want to run around with the big guys, you’ve gotta do what we do.’
‘Or you can go on home,’ I said. ‘It’s up to you, but we’re going in there.’
He hung back while Jim and I stepped over a rail and started walking down the middle of the tracks toward the underpass. I really hoped George would chicken out. I didn’t want to go under there, didn’t want to nail him, wanted only to have him out of our lives so we could hurry on to Cyndi’s house.
But he shrugged and came after us.
There were two sets of tracks. They ran side by side, several yards apart. Ahead of us, broad concrete supports stood between them.
We waited until we were just under the edge of the bridge, then switched on our flashlights. George dug into the paper sack and came up with a big, six-volt lantern.
‘All right,' Jim whispered.
We shined our beams into the darkness. George’s was really huge and bright. We swept our lights all over the place before going any further.
‘Looks okay,' Jim murmured.
It didn’t look okay. Not at all. But at least we didn’t spot anyone.
Jim aimed his beam at the nearest support. The concrete was scrawled with names and dirty words and dates and drawings. The drawings were pretty crude. The biggest was an old one that I’d seen plenty of times before. It showed a cartoonish gal with huge tits and her legs spread apart. Jim and I used to call her ‘The Beave.’ Since the last time we’d been here, somebody’d added a mammoth erection just underneath her. It was aimed between her legs, and squirting like a geyser.
Normally, we would’ve had a good time studying the artwork and making remarks. But George was with us. And we were in a hurry to get to Cyndi’s. And this was night.
Neither of us got cute.
‘Check the other side, George,’ Jim said.
‘Me?’
‘You got the good light. Make sure nobody’s hiding behind those things.’
‘Aw, geez.’
‘Just do it,’ I told him. ‘We don’t want some damn wino jumping us.’
George moaned, but did as he was told. He crept past the support, shined his lantern behind it, raised the light to check the backsides of the other three supports, and swung it every which way. ‘Okay over there,’ he said, his voice shaking. He hurried back to our side of the tunnel. ‘Want me to open the wine?’
‘Might as well,’ Jim said.
George squatted, set down his sack, and lifted out the bottle. He stood up with it. Jim held his light on its neck while George picked at the foil with a dirty fingernail.
I took the opportunity to look around. I stayed put, but swept my light here and there. It gleamed off the glass of an empty bottle a few feet away. Over near the wall was a rag, maybe a shirt. It was surrounded by broken glass, cans, mashed cigarette packs. Halfway up the wall was an enormous black Swastika. I’d seen it before, but the drawing beside it was new to me - a rump with a hard-on shoved into its hole.
I decided to quit looking around.
George had the wine bottle clamped between his legs, a Swiss Army knife in his hands. He pried out the knife’s corkscrew, then bent over and started twisting it into the top of the bottle.
Once it was in deep, he started pulling and grunting.
‘Awful tight,’ he muttered.
‘Why don’t you give it a try,’ Jim said to me.
George handed over the bottle. I set my flashlight on the ground, pinned the bottle between my legs the same way he’d done, and tugged on the knife.
At first, the cork wouldn’t give.
‘Hurry it up,’ Jim said. ‘We don’t wanta be late to Cyndi’s.’
It moved just a little.
Then it slid out fast. As it popped free, Jim shot an arm across George’s chest, whipped a leg behind him, and flung him backwards. George yelped with surprise. Grunted when he slammed the ground.