They took a few tentative steps into the cylindrical room, their boots ringing out against the undulating sheet-metal flooring and their flashlight beams illuminating yet another door in front of them.
"Seems we only have one way to go," Will said, striding toward it.
"These chambers look like something out of a submarine," Chester muttered under his breath.
Standing on tiptoe, Will looked through the small glass porthole, but couldn't make out anything on the other side. And when he tried to shine his flashlight through it, the grease and the scratches on the ancient surface only refracted the beam, so that the glass became more opaque than ever.
"Useless," he said to himself.
Passing his flashlight to Chester, he rotated the three handles and then pushed against the door. "It's stuck!" he grunted. He tried again without success. "Give me a hand, will you?"
Chester joined in, and with their shoulders braced against the door they pushed and shoved with all their might. Suddenly it burst open with a loud hiss and a massive rush of air, and they stumbled through into the unknown.
Their boots now ground on cobblestones as they regained their footing and straightened up. Before them was a scene that they both knew, for as long as they lived, they would never forget.
It was a street.
They found themselves in a huge space almost as wide as a highway, which curved off into the distance to their left and right. And looking across to the opposite side, they saw the road was lit by a row of tall street lamps.
But what stood beyond these lights, on the far side of the cavern, was what really took their breath away. Stretching as far as they could see, in both directions, were houses.
As if in a trance, Will and Chester moved toward this apparition. As they did so, the door slammed shut behind them with such force that they both wheeled around.
"A breeze?" Chester asked his friend, with a baffled expression.
Will shrugged in response — he could definitely feel a faint draft on his face. He put his head back and sniffed, catching the stale mustiness in the air. Chester was shining his flashlight at the door and then began to play it over the wall above, illuminating the huge blocks of stone that formed it. He raised the circle of light, higher and higher, and their eyes were compelled to follow the wall up into the shadows above, where it met the opposing wall in a gentle arch, like the vaulted roof of a huge cathedral.
"What is all this, Will? What is this place?" Chester asked, grabbing him by the arm.
"I don't know — I've never heard about anything like this before," Will replied, staring wide-eyed around the huge street. "It's truly awesome."
"What do we do now?"
"I think we… we should have a look around, don't you? This is just incredible," Will marveled. He struggled to order his thoughts, infused with the first heady rush of discovery and consumed with the irresistible urge to explore and to learn more. "Must record it," he muttered as he hoisted out his camera and began to take photographs.
"Will, don't! The flash!"
"Oops, sorry." He slung the camera around his neck. "Got a little carried away there." Without another word to Chester, he suddenly strode across the cobblestones toward the houses. Chester followed behind his fellow explorer, half crouched and grumbling under his breath as he scanned up and down the road for any sign of life.
The buildings appeared to be carved out of the very walls themselves, like semi-excavated architectural fossils. Their roofs were fused with the gently arching walls behind, and where one might have expected chimneys there was an intricate network of brick ducts sprouting from the tops, which ran up the walls and disappeared above, like petrified smoke plumes. As they reached the sidewalk, the only sound apart from their footfalls was a low humming, which seemed to be coming from the very ground itself. They paused briefly to inspect one of the streetlights.
"It's like the—"
"Yes," Will interrupted, unconsciously touching his pocket where his father's luminescent orb was carefully wrapped in a handkerchief. The glass sphere of the streetlight was a much larger version of this, almost the size of a soccer ball, and held in place by a four-pronged claw atop a cast-iron post. A pair of snow-white moths circled erratically about it like epileptic moons, their dry wings fluttering against the surface of the glass.
Will stiffened abruptly and, lifting his head back, sniffed again — looking not unlike the eyeless rat on the cogwheel.
"What's up?" Chester asked with trepidation. "Not more trouble?"
"No, just thought… I smelled something. It was kind of like… ammonia… something sharp. Didn't you notice it?"
"No." Chester sniffed several times. "I hope it's not poisonous."
"Well, it's gone now, whatever it was. And we're fine, aren't we?"
"Suppose so. But do you think anyone really lives here?" Chester replied as he looked up at the windows of the buildings. They turned their attention to the nearest houses, silent and ominous, as if daring them to approach.
"I don't know."
"Well, what's it all doing here, then?"
"Only one way to find out," Will said as they crept gingerly toward the house. It was simple and elegant, constructed of sandstone masonry, almost Georgian in style. They could just make out heavily embroidered curtains behind the twelve-paned windows on either side of the front door, which was painted with thick green gloss and had on it a door knocker and bell push of deeply burnished brass.
"One sixty-seven," Will said in wonder as he spotted the digits above the knocker.
"What is this place?" Chester was whispering as Will caught a faint flicker of light in a chink between the curtains. It shimmered, as if it came from a fire.
"Shhh!" he said as he crept over and crouched down below the window, then slowly rose above the sill and peered with one eye through the small gap. His mouth gaped open in silent awe. He could see a fire burning in a hearth. Above this was a dark mantelpiece on which there were various glass ornaments. And as the light from the fire danced around the room, he could just make out some chairs and a sofa, and the walls, which were covered in framed pictures of varying sizes.
"Come on, what's there?" Chester said nervously, continually looking back at the empty street as Will squashed his face against the dirty pane of glass.
"You won't believe this!" Will replied, moving aside to let his friend see for himself. Chester eagerly pressed his nose against the window.
"Wow! It's a real room!" he said, turning to look at Will, only to find him already on the move, working his way along the front of the house. He stopped as he reached the corner of the building.
"Hey! Wait for me," Chester hissed, terrified he was going to be left behind.
Between this building and the next one in the row, a short alley ran straight back to the tunnel wall. Will poked his head around the corner and, once he was satisfied it was clear, beckoned to Chester that they should move on to the next house.
"This one's number is 166," Will said as he examined its front door, which was almost identical to the one on the first house. He tiptoed to the window but was unable to see anything at all through the dark panes.
"What's there?" Chester asked.
Will held a finger to his lips, then retraced his steps back to the front door. Looking at it closely, a thought occurred to him and his eyes narrowed. Recognizing the look, Chester reached out to try to stop him, spluttering, "Will, no!"
But it was too late. Will had barely touched the door when it swung inward. They exchanged glances and then both inched slowly inside, twinges of excitement and fear simultaneously surging through them.