And Crawling Things Lurk

Jackie was pleased with his progress this morning, but not enough to set it aside and join the others. And, for that, he was proud of himself. The bottle he had handed to Joe when they met him at the bottom of the slope an hour ago was probably getting low, and they’d soon be starting to hint about him going up after another one. He probably would, but not yet. He was in a rhythm, and he didn’t want to stop.

He had gone to the hardware store the day before right after Evans drove away. He told the clerk what he wanted to do and asked for the best file they had for the job. The guy gave him a funny look, but he sold him a file and a wooden handle to put on it. He wondered at the time if Evans would think it was big enough. Then he had gone straight to the Hole and started putting the spear together. He used the file on the end of the wooden rod after all, just enough to get the pipe on it a few inches before pounding it onto the rock, driving the wooden shaft at least ten inches into the pipe to a rock-solid fit. That only took him about ten minutes. He found a good comfortable position then, sitting on the crate at his space, and started filing.

He was surprised how well the file cut through the iron of the pipe, but also impatient for it to cut faster. He probably shouldn’t have been, but he was also surprised at how often he had to stop to rest his tiring muscles. And the blisters he developed made each delayed return to work that much more painful. How long had it been since his body had had physical demands put to it other than surviving his binges? He stowed the stuff in Josie’s space and made it home in time for dinner with Gramma.

This morning, bearing his gift of the bottle, he had come down to the Hole right after Gramma got some breakfast into him. Nothing was said of the lack of manners in their teasing the day before, not that he expected it. In fact, if he had made any hint or suggestion of such a thing, they would probably have buried him in more laughter. In their world, a world he knew well and shared with them, laughter was one of the few things they could have without having to panhandle for the coins to pay for it. Eager to get started on his project again, even wearing a pair of old gardener’s gloves Gramma let him have, he took only a single pull on the bottle before letting the others have it.

The gloves did make a difference – he could grip the file hard enough again to get it to bite into the iron – but the pain was still there. He tried to keep his focus on his progress and how well the forming weapon was matching his initial mental image of what it should look like, but the pain in his hands was a distraction. He still stopped frequently to give his arms and shoulders a rest, but the pain in his hands was a constant thing.

The design he had worked out in his mind, pretty much a copy of what his memories dredged up of the one the other guy had made in survival training, called for a tapering point about six inches long with over a foot of intact pipe behind that. That would give him a sharp, penetrating tip without weakening it too much. When he began opening up the side of the pipe with the file, though, he discovered he had rammed the wood to within four or five inches of the other end. That was okay, though. It wouldn’t be any problem filing and shaping the wood to blend in with the taper. And it made a good plug for the pipe, too.

Under his hand, the taper became even and true, with the last few inches beyond the plug honed to cutting edges. He gazed upon it with pride while making light brushes with the file to remove perceived minute imperfections. Then, satisfied, he set the file down and held the spear up at arm’s length for all to admire, if anyone happened to be looking.

He was tempted to make a few practice throws, but stopped himself. It’d be just his luck to have it glance off something, slam into something else, and snap in two. Just that quick and it’d all be over. He could start over again, but he didn’t think he would, not after everyone got through laughing at him. He’d just get a few bottles to climb into and maybe never come out. Besides, his spear wasn’t made to be thrown, anyway. It wasn’t one of Erica’s javelins. He didn’t know if it was even balanced the way either Joe or Ed said it should be.

This one was for jabbing, thrusting, stabbing. He wanted to feel the shaft in his hands when the head he had fashioned pierced that thing’s heart, and it screamed, and it shook, and it died. Then he could look Josie in the eye and... If he killed it, Josie probably wouldn’t come back. She wouldn’t have a reason to. But, if he killed it, at least the others would be safe. Maybe, that’s all she was after – getting it killed so she could rest in peace. Yeah, he wanted to feel it die.

But now he was finished with the forging of his dragon-slayer. He had abused long-unused muscles and soft hands while sitting in the summer sun, and he had foresworn refreshment. Now he wanted to celebrate. He deserved to celebrate. He’d even let the others celebrate with him. He got up and headed up the slope on the well-worn path to the bottle shop.

A block and a half away and a few minutes after Jackie had gone past it, Don pulled over to the curb outside the door to Vasov Shipping and informed the dispatcher where he would be. Then, turning to his passenger, he asked, “You sure you’ve got everything? I don’t see a kitchen sink anywhere.”

Carl’s chuckle was a deep basso. “I keep that in my left hip pocket. You sure you want to come along?”

“Hey, I’m not about to let you go back in there by yourself. If you didn’t come out when I thought you should, I’d have to go in and find you, or what was left of you, and I don’t know if I could handle another solo search of this place. I nearly messed by britches last time.”

On the sidewalk, Don watched while Carl loaded his gear onto and over shoulders, around his waist, into pockets, and wherever else he could stick the variety of things he thought he might need. Much of it, like the climbing harness with two coils of rope, a full canteen of drinking water, and a bundle of glow sticks probably wouldn’t be needed if he didn’t find the connection to a deep cavern he was hoping for. On the other hand, he explained, if he needed them, he might really need them.

Don entered first then held the door open for Carl after confirming nothing was waiting to jump them. Gesturing for Carl to lead off, he said, “Okay, you gonna be able to find that hole at the bottom of a hole at the bottom of a hole, again?”

“After some of the caves I’ve blundered through, this place is a breeze.” Carl held out his right hand, which sported what appeared to be a second watch. “A good compass helps, too.”

He led the way across the first open space. Don didn’t bother blocking the door open since they were both carrying large flashlights. Don tried to keep track of the route, but after a few turns he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to find his way out again – good enough reason to make sure they didn’t get separated. They stepped out of a hallway, and he was pretty sure that, even in the glaring beams of their flashlights cutting through depths of shadowy shapes, he recognized the space before them. He and Carl had scared the hell out of each other there the day before.

He followed Carl down the rickety wooden stairway into the cellar where he looked around at the earthen walls and hard-packed dirt floor. He couldn’t imagine what the Vasov people had used it for. Ahead, Carl stopped at a dark round spot on the floor that turned out to be a hole three-feet across.

Carl aimed his light down the hole, and it reflected off muddy brown water maybe fifteen feet down. He said, “See on this side over here, just above the water there’s a hole off to the side. From up here you can’t see far enough into it to see if it’s any more than a shallow gouge in the wall or if it’s an actual side tunnel. It looks like it might be high enough to stand up in. Well, if I was your size, anyway, and if I hunched over.”

With his first rope tied off to a heavy, ceiling support beam, Carl cinched down his harness and lowered himself into the well. As soon as he stepped into the tunnel and out of sight, Don started listening for sounds, rustlings, thumpings, screams, anything. But he heard nothing. It seemed longer, but the hands on his watch that he kept near his line of sight while watching the tunnel entrance informed him it was much less than a minute before Carl reappeared at the tunnel entrance. “Coming back up,” he called out.

After Don helped him over the lip and back on solid footing, Carl shook his head and said, “Well, that was a waste of time. It goes about thirty or forty feet with a couple of jogs where they hit rock, still in that same direction,” he pointed to the south, “and it stops at a solid rock wall I guess they decided they couldn’t go around. They probably could have cut through it in time, but didn’t try. No telling how thick it might be.”

“Maybe they didn’t really need the tunnel as bad as they first thought.”

“I don’t know. It was quite an undertaking, even no farther than they went, for something that wasn’t important. More likely, they decided to dig it from another location that would bypass the rock.” He began reloading his gear over shoulders and into pockets. “Like I said, there are other cellars.”

“I can’t figure out why they dug a cellar, let alone a well with a side tunnel. If it was a well, I doubt if they would have gotten anything but salt water this close to the river. It fills up from the bay with every turn of the tide, you know. And why would they be digging tunnels? Vasov Shipping shipped stuff. They weren’t a mining company…or well diggers.”

Carl finished coiling his rope and draped it over his shoulder. “Were they the original owners, or did someone else build this place?”

“They built it back around the time of the gold rush, I understand. It started as a shipping terminal for barging trees from up north down the river to a couple of sawmills down the bay. Plus, they moved other stuff in and out of the area until the highway and railroads put ’em out of business. But I can’t see they’d have any use for tunnels.”

“Uh oh. Watch out for those assumptions. They’ll get you into trouble.” Hunching his shoulder to settle his load, Carl started up the stairs.

As Don fell in behind his companion, he said, “Yeah, like assuming anything a drunk sees when he’s drunk is just spirits from the bottle.”

With the bright summer sun glaring in her eyes, Muri tried to shield them with her hand but gave up when it kept getting knocked away. Carrie was screaming on one side of her and Michelle on the other, and every time the runner rounded a base, Michelle jabbed her in the side again and grabbed her shoulder to shake. The girls behind them on the next row up were even louder. She almost cheered when the third baseman made the tag out on the runner, ending short what everyone was trying to cheer into a homerun. But she didn’t. After all, it was still her team, even if it was Tory doing the running. And, of course, Tory was still the hero even though he was the third out of the final inning. His hit had driven in the winning run.

Muri let herself be swept out of the park with the joyful crowd, even joining in much of the after-game cheering, but when everyone headed for Dairy Queen for the celebration, she begged off. She couldn’t even expect Carrie to leave with her since her twin brother was the team’s center fielder. So, claiming a headache, she turned towards home, waving at the others while wearing a big grin to match theirs. She just couldn’t face the prospect of heaping praise on Tory, deserved or not.

She didn’t really want to go home, though, and considered stopping at the library. That was always something she enjoyed, even if it was nothing but working on homework. Today she could just browse the shelves, maybe find something just for the fun of reading. To Muri, the library was a true treasure trove. But before she got there, she got to thinking about Jackie and his spear project and wondered how it was going. She’d just go down to the Hole and find out.

Winding through the maze along the southern exterior wall, and then poking into a number of offices and storerooms, Don and Carl found other cellars. However, most were merely small holes with shelves for storage. Then they found another one with a well. They had just made their descent far enough down the stairs to allow the door to close above them – just in time to block out the rustlings of another door echoing through the silence of the place.

At first it was just a click as a mechanism released. Then, with a heavier click and a light scrape, the entire lower tiled scene of the mosaic on the hallway’s end-wall, from one simulated column to the other and from floor to cornice, swung away on hidden hinges and became one with the darkness beyond. Into the shadowy hallway from the even darker space behind the wall came an old, dilapidated shopping cart containing nothing but an old blanket and with a wheel that squeaked with every rotation. Behind the cart emerged a small, shuffling figure in an old, brown muslin dress from a century past and more.

Sofia was hungry again.