I knew I didn’t have a choice in the matter, Lyssa made the decision to take the storm drain and that was that. It took us five and a half hours of walking through a maze of the narrowest hallways, stairs, and tunnels mankind ever conceived of, before we finally reached the dam’s runoff pipe.
It’s huge.
I mean, gigantic.
But still as large as it is, the light that leaks in from the storm drains isn’t enough for me to see my hand in front of my face. Unfortunately, it is enough to see the tiny specks of light stretch out for miles. I mean, we could walk for hours and not feel like we made any progress.
It’s a depressing thought.
I had to argue for half an hour to go first because she was adamant that she would lead the way. But I just couldn’t have that. I mean, if she fell in a giant hole in the ground, I’d be dead anyway. There was no way I’d find my way out. But if I fell in, she’d still be able to make it to safety. She argued that the map didn’t show any dry wells, but my point was that the map was incredibly vague. An orange line, after all, doesn’t explain anything but general direction.
I impressed myself, mostly because I won.
I like winning.
Though I’m not used to it, actually; to be honest, I never win arguments.
Which sort of tells me, she really wanted me to go first. Which makes this a hollow victory.
So what, I’ll take it.
I start out walking down the tunnel with a single candle lighting my way. We actually have these hand-cranking flashlights, but Lyssa was worried that the light might carry too far and be seen from above through the storm-drain grates. She thought the candles would be so dim we’d see the light from the grates before we got to them and we could blow them out.
At the time, I thought it was a good idea, but now that I’m baby stepping a twenty mile walk through a drain pipe and barely seeing the ground where I’m placing my feet, I’m reconsidering. Lyssa is hanging back just far enough where she said her eyes adjusted to the light the candle made without making her blind.
Like me.
I thought this route was stupid before, I’m beginning to think it’s the biggest mistake I’ve ever made. At this rate, I would be lucky to get to Vancouver by the spring.
I stop walking.
It takes about five minutes for Lyssa to reach me.
“What’s the matter? Why did you stop?”
I sigh and turn to face her. “This is crazy! We ‘ve walked about two hundred and fifty yards in the last two hours. At this rate, it’s going to take a month to get there!”
Lyssa does not like being second-guessed. She snaps at me, “Well, what do you think we should do?”
I didn’t have a plan. I never really plan anything. I just sort of react to things. It’s at times like this that I really wish I did plan things.
All I know is what I see. An endless blackness heading down a seemingly endless slope.
Suddenly, I knew just what we should do. It came to me in a flash. I wonder if that’s how everything worked for my father. One second there is no answer in sight and then suddenly it was just right in front of his eyes.
“You said this tunnel leads all the way to bay right?”
Lyssa rolls her eyes. “I’ve told you that I thousand times genius.”
“Good, then let’s ride the sled.”
Lyssa stares at me for a moment, staring at me like she didn’t hear me and then says, “What?”
“We ride the sled. The whole tunnel has to run downhill the whole way or the water would pool. The tunnel is bone dry right now, because it’s winter. We get a good running start we should roll the whole way.”
“Genius, we were walking really slowly because we can’t see. How is going faster going to improve that?”
“Well, since we’re going faster, we can afford to use the lights. Even if those killers see the light and I’m still not convinced they will, we’ll be going too fast to catch. And there is no way for them to get the horses down here. So they’ll have no idea what direction we are heading, unless they have the utility map. And since they are traveling over land, there’s no reason they would. Trust me, it’s a good plan.”
She looks at me like I have ten heads. “It most definitely is not anything even remotely like a good plan!”
I get defensive. “Why because you didn’t think of it?”
“Not at all. I’m open to ideas, just not suicide.”
I raise my voice a little. “Will you, for this one time, try something new and stop talking and listen for a change! We need to get to the bay. And what’s more, we need to get there faster than the guys who may very well be hunting us right this very minute. Besides, we can steer the sled easily with the leader, your dad definitely looked like he had that in mind when he designed it, if you ask me. And as long as we are pointing both the lights ahead of us, we should see any dry wells or obstructions long before we get to them.”
Lyssa stamps her foot, “There is no way I’m riding that thing down a tunnel I have never even walked down! It is stupid, reckless, and crazy! Absolutely not!”
“You can drive.”
“Okay then.”
* * *
It takes us ten minutes to get the flashlights out and to rig the sled so Lyssa can steer it. She insists we practice braking and emergency steering techniques. It’s probably a good idea, but I just want to get going.
I feel like a sitting duck in this tunnel. I don’t know if there is anything down here, that might be hunting us, but I don’t want to stick around to find out.
After like a hundred drills, we finally get in position.
Lyssa sits at the front even though it’s actually easier for her to steer if she sits in the back, but she can’t see around me. Besides, with me in the back, I can kneel on the sled so that every once in a while, I can jump out and push us along or even just use my leg to give us a shove. You know, if we hit a flat spot.
So we get in position. “I’m just gonna give us a few running steps and then jump on the back,” I say.
“Okay, but only a few. Let’s take things really slow for a while.”
I sigh. “You’re the boss.”
I grab the sled by the rails and start to push it, running two steps, then jumping in. I barely make it. The sled shoots off with such force, it takes me off guard. Not careening to our deaths out of control fast, just faster than I thought we’d go.
“Man, I almost didn’t make it on! I didn’t think we’d go that quick.”
“I know I’m probably imagining it, but are we speeding up?”
It certainly felt that way to me, but I took that as a good thing. I knew Lyssa wouldn’t. “Not to me.”
We’re only going about eight to nine miles an hour, but in the small tunnel with the lights in front, it feels like we are going much faster. Besides, I’ve never moved faster than human speed before, so nine miles an hour feels like a hundred!
“Hey, does it look like the tunnel ends up ahead?”
I look and it does. “Shoot, yeah, I’ll hit the brakes.”
I reach down for the brakes, but never make it.
The tunnel’s angle radically shifts from a gentle six-degree slope, to a breakneck seventeen-degree slope in a fraction of a second. We instantly speed up from a not so comfortable nine miles an hour to thirty-five in a heartbeat.
I’m bouncing all around; this sled is not designed to move this fast and unlike Lyssa, I’m not sitting down. I was barely on one knee and the other slid over the rail when I jumped in. I am barely able to hold on.
Lyssa is screaming out, “BRAKE! BRAKE!”
I’m screaming, “HELP, I’M FALLING OFF!”
Then up ahead in the beam of the lights, I see what looks like a dry well.
We’re dead.