Albert nodded. “I think I do.”
“It probably sounds stupid, doesn’t it?”
“Not at all.” It was the truth. There was something very sweet in her ability to imagine such a thing. It was far fetched as all hell, of course. To begin with, somebody sent them the map to get them here. Why would they pass the credit for such an incredible discovery to them? But there was no doubt in his mind that such a place could exist. A mobster gunned down in a police standoff would undoubtedly leave many secrets untold, but for something like that to exist here of all places…
But then again, why not?
“But you don’t have any idea at all what you want to find?”
“I guess not. I mean, it’s not so much what we find as that we find something at all, you know? It’s like the way I wanted to solve the puzzles on the box. It wasn’t what I expected to find, it was that I could find it.”
He stood there a moment, considering what he’d just said. “For me, it’s not really where I’m going as how I get there. Does that sound lame?”
Brandy smiled. “No. Not at all. I think maybe you’ve just got your priorities straight.”
Albert shrugged. “I guess I’m not really all that imaginative. I tend to look at the world logically. Mathematically, I guess.”
“I don’t know. I think it takes a good amount of imagination to solve puzzles like you do.”
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
They began to walk again.
After a moment Albert said, “I think I’d value knowledge more than treasure. I’d love to uncover a secret.”
Brandy smiled. “Like an eighty-year-old gangster hideout?”
Albert laughed. “Yeah. Just like that.”
They continued forward and soon they were distracted by a loud buzzing noise from somewhere ahead. Albert recognized the sound at once. Flies. Lots of them. A tunnel branched off to the right ahead of them and the noise intensified as they approached it.
“Tell me we’re not going that way.”
Albert looked down at the map. “No. We go straight.”
“Good.”
As they passed, Albert caught a brief, overwhelming whiff of decomposing flesh. Rat, he thought, pushing forward. Rats lived in places like these and they must die somewhere. But once the tunnel was behind him and the buzzing noise was fading, he wondered if he should have stopped to check the carcass. He remembered what Brandy told him the other day about students disappearing over the years. They could have received a mysterious box, too. Her words were humbling at the time and now he found them chilling. Suddenly it was far too easy to imagine that the rotting, maggot-ridden thing he left unseen in the darkness was a human corpse. What if she had been right about the sender of the box having malicious intentions and he just missed their only warning?
That’s stupid. And yet, there was no stupidity in being cautious. They still didn’t know who sent them the box and key.
But it was too late now. If he turned back he would have to voice his irrational thoughts and that would only serve to frighten Brandy.
But Brandy was already frightened. This place was far creepier than she imagined it would be. She reached into her purse and pulled out her cell phone. “No signal,” she said after staring at the screen for a moment.
“Lot of concrete and rock between us and the tower, I’d imagine.”
“Yeah.” She put it back in her purse without turning it off. The idea that she could no longer phone for help made her uneasy.
Ahead of them, the tunnel opened onto another one. The map said they would turn right here and then take the next left after that. Then they’d be nearing the end. There weren’t very many passages left on the map.
But it wasn’t quite that easy. Although the passage they were now approaching was large enough to walk comfortably in, even side-by-side if they wished—the first of its kind in a while—its floor lay beneath four inches of standing water.
For a moment, the two of them stood in silence. They did not need to speak. They were both thinking the same thoughts. The imagination held no end to the things that could be in that stagnant and trash-littered water, from human filth and garbage juice to dead rats and live snakes.
Albert stepped up to the water’s edge and shined his flashlight into the darkness ahead.
“I’m…” Brandy’s voice failed her. There were no words to describe the disgust she felt at the thought of what she knew Albert was thinking. “No. I’m not wading through that.”
“Maybe it’s just rainwater.”
“And maybe it’s not.”
The water was murky, but he could see the bottom. It was spotted with garbage, dead leaves and cigarette butts and a shimmering, oily film covered the surface. There was no current. He peered as far as his light would reach in both directions and then, satisfied that there were no bloodthirsty crocodiles waiting to snap off his legs, he stepped out into the water.
“Oh, gross!”
There was an icy sting to the water, and a smell wafted up from beneath him, like an old damp cellar, but with a subtle yet unmistakable swampy stench. “It’s okay. It’s only runoff from the street.”
Brandy made a sound that was more a growl than a response.
“Come on. It’s not that bad.”
“I’m not getting my shoes in that.”
Albert felt a pang of impatience. He understood that it was not an entirely pleasant idea, but he could certainly think of much worse situations than having to wade through dirty water. “So take them off.”
“No way!”
They stood there, staring at each other. Albert saw the cobwebs on her shirt and in her hair and felt his impatience drain away as quickly as it came. He was eager to reach the destination on the map. His curiosity was driving him. He hadn’t really been aware of what she must be feeling. He opened his mouth to apologize, but she didn’t give him the chance. With a frustrated groan, she stepped off into the water. Her face twisted into an expression of pure disgust as it spilled over her heels and soaked into her socks.
Albert stood there a moment, watching her. He suddenly felt very bad.
“Well come on!” she snapped when he didn’t move, and he turned quickly to lead the way. He still wanted to apologize, but he sensed it would do no good.
They waded on, their flashlight beams reflecting off the rippling surface of the water, making the moldy concrete walls shimmer. The next turn was about twenty feet down the tunnel, and the small but dry passageway that awaited them was a welcome sight.
“That was horrible.”
“It was just drainage.”
“I don’t care.”
“I’m sorry.”
Brandy shook her head. “Forget it.” In the end, it was her decision to follow him. It wasn’t his fault that the passage was flooded. “Are we almost there yet?”
“I think we are.” Assuming these next few tunnels aren’t twenty miles long, he thought but didn’t say. The map so far was accurate, but by no means to scale.
The next tunnel turned out to be only a few yards ahead and was extremely small, forcing them to continue once again on their hands and knees. It was too short for Albert to crawl through while wearing his backpack, so he removed it and pushed it ahead of him. At the very least it made a good tool for clearing out the cobwebs, although there seemed to be far less of them down here than there were in earlier tunnels.
Albert wondered what purpose a tunnel this small actually served. Was it some kind of overflow pipe? If water periodically filled this passage, it might explain the fewer spiders.
“We make a left up here somewhere.”
About thirty feet into the tunnel, a hole had been knocked into the wall on the left and a larger tunnel, set lower than the one they were currently crawling through, was visible beyond.