“You boys run around the sides and check the windows. Don’t let anybody see you. But peek inside and see if there are any lights on or anything.”
They hesitated, obviously afraid to split up. They looked at one another and then up at him, their expressions unsure.
“Go on,” he urged.
“You heard the man,” Leo said. “Do it.”
Jamal and Chris went to the right of the house, while Markus and Dookie took the left. Perry and Leo watched them disappear around the sides. To their eyes, it looked as though the shadows simply swallowed the four boys whole. Perry still couldn’t shake the feeling that they were being watched. He decided not to mention it to Leo. The teens were already spooked. There was no sense in making them any more uneasy.
“What do you think we’ll find in there, Mr. Watkins?”
Perry studied Leo for a moment before responding. A bright, inquisitive intelligence burned in the boy’s eyes. Perry had never noticed it until now. He suddenly felt guilty. His ears burned with shame. Many times over the years, he’d thought the worst of Leo and his friends, and why? Sure, they got up to no good once in a while, but what boy didn’t at some point in his life? No, the truth, Perry realized, was that he’d had no good reason to be suspicious and derisive of the kids all these years. They meant well, Leo especially. They were the future, and maybe the future wasn’t as bleak as Perry had always assumed it would be. Maybe they’d make a difference in the world—provided they made it out of this neighborhood alive.
“I don’t know, Leo. I don’t know what we’ll find in there. But I want you to promise me something.”
“What’s that?”
“I want you to promise me that you’ll stay behind me, and that if something happens, you’ll run, and let me handle it.”
“Shit. I ain’t no punk. I can take care of myself, Mr. Watkins.”
“I know you can. And that’s why it’s important to me that you do as I say. So promise me, okay?”
Leo shrugged. “Sure, whatever.”
Perry smiled, looking at the teen with a sudden, immense swell of admiration. The sensation of being watched had passed. Leo shifted his feet, clearly uncomfortable with the scrutiny.
“Um, no offense, Mr. Watkins? But I think I liked it better when you were grumpy and shit. I ain’t much for this touchy-feely Oprah shit, you know?”
Perry snorted, trying to stifle his laughter. Leo chuckled along with him. They were still smiling when Chris, Jamal, Markus, and Dookie returned. All four were solemn.
“What’d y’all see?” Leo asked.
“Nothing,” Chris said. “The whole damn place is locked down tight. The windows are boarded over or bricked up. No back door, at least, not that we saw. Whoever is in there, they don’t want folks getting in.”
“But people do get inside,” Perry reminded them. “If people couldn’t get inside, we wouldn’t be here right now. So, why would someone secure the whole house but not board over the front door, too?”
“Dealers,” Markus said. “It’s gotta be. And we’re standing on the porch of their whole operation. We should jet before somebody sees us.”
“It can’t be dealers,” Perry replied. “Normally, I’d agree with you. Ain’t no shortage of crack houses and meth labs in this city. But if this was a regular operation, we’d see people coming and going all the time. Fact is, we don’t. Usually this place is quiet. Even when somebody goes missing, there’s no disturbance or anything. No gunshots or screams.”
He turned back to the door, studying it carefully. Then he motioned at the boys to follow him. They stepped back up onto the porch.
“Stay behind me,” Perry told them. “I mean it. I don’t want any of you playing badass when we go in there.”
The boys nodded in silence.
Perry reached out and grasped the doorknob. It was cold and damp against his palm, despite the dry air. He turned it.
“Shit.”
“What’s wrong?” Dookie whispered.
“The goddamned thing is locked.”
Leo sighed. “So what do we do now?”
Scowling, Perry shook another cigarette out of his pack.
“Mr. Watkins? What do we do now?”
“Hold up,” Perry said, fumbling for his lighter. “I’m thinking.”
“You’d best think faster.”
FIFTEEN
Heather had almost resigned herself to never seeing light again when she noticed a glow in the distance. At first, she thought that her eyes were playing tricks on her, but the glow remained in place, slowly getting bigger as she walked toward it. She gasped, then coughed. The air still reeked of mud and filth, and each time she breathed through her nose, she felt like vomiting, so she tried to breathe through her mouth as much as possible. Her bare feet were numb beyond the point of pain. She was cold and wet and dirty and miserable, bleeding from dozens of shallow cuts and scratches, half out of her mind with fear, but all of that seemed to fade as the glow grew brighter. When she realized that she was actually able to see her surroundings now, albeit in shadow, Heather almost cried, overwhelmed with a conflicting mixture of relief and dread.
The details of the walls around her were not overly encouraging. As she continued on and her eyes adjusted even more to the light, she noticed the rough wooden planks and half-rotten plywood sheets that had been used to shore up the sides of the sloping passageway. Black and red-tinted seepage trickled through the gaps between the boards like perspiration. The clay behind the wood was deep red, but she also noticed limestone peeking out between it. She recognized it from the semester they’d studied geology. Apparently this point of the tunnel joined up with a natural limestone cavern.
She wondered whether Javier, Kerri, or Brett were still alive. If so, she hadn’t heard them since getting lost. She hadn’t heard her pursuers, either. The silence was oppressive and added to her misery. Heather focused on the light ahead. It was definitely getting brighter. She knew it for certain when she looked at her hands and saw the light pink color of her nail polish where before there had only been a vague gray hint of fingernails.
The passageway began a sudden downward descent. She had no choice but to follow it. The makeshift walls vanished, replaced by natural stone. The air quality changed. Gone was the damp, bitter smell of mold and mud. As she continued forward, the air became acrid, drier than she would have expected. There were other new scents, as well. She smelled salt, of all things, and something that reminded her of mothballs.
The ceiling grew progressively lower, and Heather was forced to crouch as she walked. Within another twenty feet, she had no choice but to drop to her hands and knees and crawl. Sharp rocks jabbed at her knees and palms, and water dripped from crevices in the stone ceiling above her, splattering onto her head and back. Then the ground leveled out again, and the tunnel rose slightly. The light grew bright enough to make her squint, and finally, Heather saw something other than more tunnel ahead of her.
She crawled forward into a chamber that had been cleared out and shored up with thick columns of wood and metal pipes old and new. A few stalactites hung from the ceiling and stalagmites jutted from the floor, but most of the space was wide open. Heather had never been great at figuring distances, but she guessed the cave was about fifteen feet long and three times as wide as the tunnel had been. There were no other entrances or exits, save a small, irregular hole in the back wall. The crevice looked barely wide enough for a dog, let alone a human being. Satisfied that no one was hiding in the room. Heather clambered to her bare feet, flexing her joints and staring around in disbelief.