“I think we’re getting closer,” said Albert as he examined the new tunnel. This one was older than all the rest. Its walls were made of rough stone, the ceiling rounded. The floor was packed earth. But it was tall enough to walk upright. There was a pile of rock and dirt leading down to the floor, as though the newer tunnel had been built right through the older one.
Albert shoved his backpack through the hole and then crawled out after it, carefully maneuvering himself across the rocks. When he was clear, he turned and offered Brandy his hand.
“Oh wow.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you think this is one of those tunnels I was talking about earlier? The really old ones?”
“I don’t know. Sure looks ancient.”
“Wow.” She looked back at the hole through which they’d just crawled. The previous tunnel was actually a hollow cylinder of concrete protruding from the rubble. “Looks like they just built right over the top of it, doesn’t it? What do you think it was used for?”
“Without knowing exactly how old it is, I don’t think there’s any way to know.”
“Do you think it really predates the city?”
Albert considered it. The construction was definitely very rough. The surfaces were all uneven. It could have been built by anyone at any time. It certainly lacked the modern engineering of the newer, concrete tunnels, but that didn’t necessarily mean much. The ability to dig a successful tunnel in the first place suggested some level of modern technological understanding. Didn’t it? “I don’t think so,” he said at last. “I wonder if it would have survived the New Madrid earthquake.”
Brandy thought about it for a moment while she lit another cigarette. “I don’t know. It could have.”
Albert contemplated it for a moment. The New Madrid earthquake was one of the largest ever recorded in the United States. It was felt across over a million square miles. He wondered if such earthquake damage could account for the confusing labyrinth of tunnels. He supposed it was likely that some of the tunnels would have needed to be rerouted. But then again, hardly any disaster ever leveled everything man-made. There was a very good chance that this tunnel survived that quake. For all he knew, the rubble through which that last tunnel was laid was from an earthquake-induced cave-in.
“I guess there’s no way to know.”
“Maybe.” Albert paused and looked at the map again. “Or maybe the answer to this will tell us.”
“That would be cool.” She leaned in to take a look at the map and let out a smoky breath that danced across Albert’s face. She quickly waved it away, remembering that he did not smoke. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Albert said. “My mom smokes. I’m used to it. Bugs the hell out of my sister though.”
“You have a sister?” she asked as they started walking again.
“Yeah. Rebecca.”
“Older or younger?”
“Older. She’s twenty-five.”
“Did she go to school here, too?”
“No. She went to UMSL,” he replied, pronouncing the university by its acronym.
Brandy nodded. “I have some friends who go there. Why did you decide to come down here?”
“I guess I was looking for a reason to escape,” replied Albert. “Most of the people I went to high school with found colleges in the St. Louis area. I wanted something different.”
“Did you not have a lot of friends?”
“No, I had friends. A few, anyway.” But not very many. He supposed it was a pretty lonely existence where he grew up. It was not as though his family didn’t love him. He was close to his parents and he certainly had no quarrels with Becky, although when he was a boy he’d been the very epitome of the annoying younger brother. But he’d always had his space and they theirs and those spaces had always been respected. He spent most of his time with books and games. He didn’t have the vast number of friends that Becky had, and he didn’t have any interest in the sorts of activities that would have allowed him to make more. He also lacked the outgoingness of his sister, the cheerleader and homecoming queen. “How about you?” he asked. “Any brothers or sisters?”
Brandy shook her head. “I’m an only child. Daddy’s spoiled little girl.”
“I’ll bet you have him wrapped around your little finger.”
“Only a little bit.”
Ahead of them, the tunnel forked off. One branch sank into the darkness to the left, the other to the right. “That’s the last turn on the map. We go left.”
Brandy turned and shined the flashlight back the way they’d come. “Did you hear something?”
Albert turned and studied the tunnel. “No. Did you?”
“I don’t know. Probably not. I’m just paranoid.”
“Come on.”
They began to move again. They were getting close. Whatever it was the map was leading them toward—if it was leading anywhere at all—was at the end of that last tunnel. If there were any ill intentions involved in getting them down here they would soon find out.
“What do you suppose is down the right tunnel?”
“Probably closed off just like it was back there. Or caved in.”
They turned at the fork and started down what the map suggested was the last leg of their trip. They walked in silence, their conversation having died away completely. Every now and then one of them would glance back the way they came. Somehow the seed of paranoia had been planted and now they were overrun with it.
Albert looked again at Brandy. It seemed surreal to him that she was actually here. A week ago he could only have fantasized about spending an evening alone with her. Again he wondered what it was that made her decide to come with him. Was it really just the adventure of it all? He couldn’t help but hope that her decision was at least a little bit about him.
He turned forward again just in time to see a wall materialize out of the gloom. The two of them stopped and stared. It was a dead end.
“What the fuck?” Brandy turned and scanned the tunnel walls with her flashlight, trying to understand. They followed the map step by step, never faltering, they’d even waded that nasty, stagnant water, and for what? A dead end? She stared back the way they’d come, feeling like a rat in a maze with no solution. If whoever gave them the box and the key wanted them down here for sinister purposes, they were now literally up against a wall.
Albert walked closer to the wall. Something didn’t look right.
“What now?”
He didn’t reply. He was staring at this new wall. There was something about it.
“Did we take a wrong turn?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe we weren’t supposed to go down this tunnel. Maybe this tunnel wasn’t open when the map was drawn.” Her voice was beginning to rise, fear sliding up her throat in great, wet, slithering clumps. All those stories that scared the hell out of her when she was a girl, those stupid stories about the haunted tunnels and the old witches with rotting flesh and appetites for children began to rise from the forgotten depths of her memory. They eat you alive, one of her friends told her years ago when she was just a child. They eat you alive so you can feel every bite!
“I don’t think so.” Albert reached out and touched the wall. He ran his fingers down it, feeling the rough texture of the stone. It was different from the surrounding walls somehow. He pressed his palm against the cold stone and pushed. The stones tumbled out of the wall with surprisingly little effort and their dead-end collapsed into a pile at his feet.
Brandy stared at him in disbelief. “How did you know to do that?”
“Hell if I know.” He peered into the room that was hidden behind the wall, his eyes widening with disbelief.
“A false wall,” Brandy wondered. “A thousand people could have walked right up to that wall and just turned back. All these walls. All these tunnels. It would be like finding a glass of water in the ocean.” She turned her eyes away from the fallen stones and fixed them on Albert. “But you knew it would fall down.”