Well this was a sorry situation he’d gotten himself into.
He struggled with the wire ties until he was exhausted, but it was no use. All he was doing was hurting his wrists. He was trapped down here. At least for a while.
Finally, he gave up and cursed. “This sucks.”
Across the room, his cell phone buzzed softly and the screen lit up. That would be Isabelle agreeing with him.
The light didn’t even offer any relief from the oppressive darkness. The phone had landed face down when it was dropped, so that the only light it gave off was a faint line in the dirt.
“I’m going to assume you’ve already called for help.”
The phone buzzed and lit up again. Of course she’d already called for help. By now Karen knew where he was and what kind of trouble he was in. But that didn’t make the waiting any more bearable. He was bound to a rusty gate, in an underground room at the end of a long tunnel. He could probably scream his head off and never be heard. There was a very faint light coming from the tunnel that led back out to the river path, but it wasn’t enough to even allow him to make out the shape of his own hand tied to the bar in front of his face.
Minutes ticked by, he was sure, but each one felt more like an hour. The wire ties were cutting painfully into his wrists and the position in which he’d been tied made it impossible to get comfortable. His body quickly began to ache.
But there was nothing he could do about that. He was stuck here until someone came to cut him loose, so he ignored the discomfort and focused on what he’d gained from his bizarre conversation with the young stranger.
Maybe he was being fooled, but he really didn’t think the guy was an agent. It sounded like he thought Eric was the agent. It seemed ridiculous, but it wasn’t the first time he’d been mistaken for one.
It was also possible that this had nothing to do with the agents. After all, he genuinely didn’t seem to know anything about a man in a red coat or even an “organization” for which such a man might work.
And what was he, if not an agent? He was too young to be any other kind of agent. He wasn’t disciplined enough to work for the government. And he was too hot under the collar to be some kind of journalist. In fact, the whole ordeal seemed personal to him.
What was it he said about men in Detroit?
He supposed the most important thing was that the young stranger knew about Karen. He knew they were together. He knew he was protecting her. And he knew their home address.
He had to find him again.
But how? He could be headed anywhere right now.
He’d been slowly twisting his hands back and forth, trying to loosen his bindings. The motion was making the gate creak on its hinges and the chain scrape the bars. Now, suddenly, he stopped moving and went silent. Had he heard something moving in the dark? Or was it only his god-awful imagination messing with him again?
Seconds ticked by. He could actually hear them. Thanks to his awkward bindings, his watch was right next to his head. But he heard nothing more.
Then, just before he gave up and let go of the breath he was holding, it came again. Footsteps in the dark.
The hair on the back of his neck stood up. His stomach clenched. Careful not to rattle the gate or the chain, he turned his head and looked around, eyes wide in the blackness, trying to use what little daylight reached this end of the tunnel.
But the footsteps weren’t coming from the room around him. They were coming from one of the tunnels. Specifically, they were coming from the tunnel behind the gate to which he was currently tied.
He turned his face forward and peered through the bars.
He could see nothing, but there was something there. Something moved in the dark. Slow. Purposeful.
He could almost follow it with his eyes. But it was too dark to make anything out.
It was getting closer.
Eric’s heart was pounding.
To hell with being quiet. He pried at the wire ties, rattling the gate, but he couldn’t get loose.
It was right there. Only a few feet away. Only a few inches.
The footsteps stopped.
A presence loomed before him. Whatever it was, he was certain it was staring him right in the face. And he was equally certain that it wasn’t human.
His betraying imagination offered him a possible outcome. Powerful, inhuman hands would reach through the bars and seize him. Then he would be pulled through the gate and to the other side, his limbs ripped from their sockets, his bones shattered. His organs ruptured.
When help arrived, there’d be nothing but a puddle of blood beneath these dripping bars. Maybe a dangling arm or two.
No. That was only his imagination. He usually loved having a great imagination. It could take written words in any good book and create beautiful worlds. It had helped him to cultivate his love for all manner of literature. But at times like these, it was horrible.
There was nothing there.
And yet he stared into that darkness between those bars, the hair still prickling at the back of his neck, his skin still crawling, his heart still pounding. Somehow, deep down, he knew it wasn’t just his imagination.
Something was there.
Very faintly, there came a sound, like a low, menacing growl, and at the same moment a hot, rancid breath blew into his face. He was no stranger to terror, but this seemed like a whole new level. He felt it deep down in his soul. It was primal. He was face to face with something more terrible than he could have ever imagined.
His knees went weak. Stars danced in front of his face.
Then, suddenly, there was light. It washed across him, illuminating the bars. Flashlights from behind him. Someone had come. Karen? Or was it the young stranger, back to try and force more answers from him? Or maybe it was the steampunk monk? It didn’t really matter. He’d be thrilled to see almost anybody at this point.
Anything was better than what stood on the other side of this gate.
For the briefest of instances, he saw it there, an awful shape looming in front of him, staring him in the face. It was death. It was doom. It was pure, primordial evil.
Then it was just gone.
The light grew brighter and cast shadows through the gate.
No one was there. No thing was there.
His heart still thundering, he turned and squinted into the brilliant shine of two flashlights.
“Well you got yourself into a mess, didn’t you?”
“Thank God! Get me out of this!” He turned and looked back down the locked tunnel, but there was nothing there. Was it only his imagination after all? He desperately wanted to believe that it was, but deep down, he was convinced that it wasn’t. “And get that light out my eyes.”
Paul lowered the flashlight and pulled a pair of wire cutters from his back pocket. “All right. Just hold on.”
“Wait,” said Kevin. He pulled out his cell phone and snapped a picture of Eric. “Karen’s going to want to see this.”
“Are you serious right now?”
“Quit clowning around,” said Paul. “But first, get one with me.” He stopped and posed beside Eric, like a hunter showing off his trophy.”
“Knock it off and get me loose!”
“All right,” sighed Paul. “Don’t bust a vessel.”
Paul was Eric’s brother. Seven years his senior, almost a full head taller, and considerably hairier, most people didn’t guess they were related at all. They looked almost nothing alike.
Kevin was Paul’s twenty-one-year-old son and Eric’s nephew. He was far stouter than either of them, built more like a football player than either a carpenter or an English teacher, which suited him perfectly well since that was precisely what earned him his college scholarship.
Both of them knew all about Eric’s past adventures.
With just two quick snips of the wire cutters, Eric was free. He promptly stepped away from the gate.
“What happened?” asked Paul. “Karen called me and said you were up to weirdness again and to drop everything and get my butt over here.” It was easy enough to imagine Karen saying just that. “Then, once I got all my tools loaded up and climbed into my truck, Isabelle called me and said somebody’d tied you up and left you in the dark.”
Eric rubbed at his wrists and stretched his back. “Yep. That pretty well sums it up.”
Kevin had gathered up his wallet, its spilled contents and his phone for him. Now he handed it back.
“Thank you.”
“Sure.”
THANKS KEVIN, said Isabelle.
Eric showed him the screen.
“Oh.” He leaned forward and talked into the phone. “You’re welcome, Izzy.” For some reason, he couldn’t grasp the concept that Isabelle was inside Eric’s head. He seemed to think that it was the phone, as if she literally existed within it, like a ghost inside the technology.
“Why would you even come down here?” asked Paul.
“A voice in my head told me to.”
“Oh.” It was a testament to just how much strangeness he’d witnessed that he simply let it go at that.
“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” reasoned Eric. “But then, I was tripping on some kind of mutant LSD at the time, too.”
“Why do you always have the most fun without us?” asked Kevin as he peered down the tunnel that led back to the river path.
“You’re a very selfish man,” agreed Paul.
Eric stuffed his cards and identification back into his wallet and returned it to his pocket. “I know. I’m a dick. And there’s nothing here anyway. I don’t even know what this place is.”
“It’s the old municipal tunnel system,” explained Paul. “Back in the early nineteen hundreds, they built these to connect the police station, courthouse, mayor’s office, jail and city hall. I guess it was supposed to let all the important city employees avoid the cold while running back and forth between buildings. Also I guess they probably thought it was a more secure way to move prisoners around.” He pointed to the door. “If you managed to break through that door, you’d end up in the basement of the police station.”
Eric frowned. “But we’re not anywhere near the court house…”
“Well, yeah. Not anymore. Only the police station and city hall are still in their original places. The others all moved. So they pretty much just use these for tornado shelters now.”
“How do you know these things?” wondered Eric.
“I’ve done a lot of contract work for the city.”
“Oh yeah.” Paul was friends with one of the city’s contractors. His carpentry business wasn’t very big, but he had a great reputation for quality work and staying on schedule.
Kevin had wandered into the tunnel. Now he yelled back at them, “Gate’s locked down here. We’ll have to backtrack to get out.”
Eric had expected as much. He looked back at the locked gate again. “What’s down there? Is there another way out?”
Paul glanced at the tunnel. “That’s where the jail used to be, but that’s a parking lot now, so there’s not even a door down there anymore. It’s a dead end.”
So there was no way there was anyone down there. It was impossible.
“We should get going,” suggested Paul.
Eric nodded. He was more than ready. And yet, he found himself hesitating for a moment as he stood there, gazing down that dead-end tunnel, wondering.
Did I imagine it? he thought.
LIKE I’VE TOLD YOU BEFORE, texted Isabelle, MY ENTIRE PERSPECTIVE OF YOUR SURROUNDINGS COMES FROM YOU. ANYTHING YOU SEE OR HEAR IS EXACTLY AS REAL TO ME AS IT IS TO YOU
That was pretty much the answer he expected from her.
But if it wasn’t my imagination…?
I JUST REALLY HOPE IT WAS YOUR IMAGINATION, BECAUSE THAT WAS REALLY TERRIFYING
It certainly was.
AND…
And?
Isabelle hesitated. Then she said, IT’S PROBABLY NOTHING
Eric waited.
IT’S PROBABLY BECAUSE THE WHOLE THING WAS A PRODUCT OF YOUR IMAGINATION. BECAUSE I’M IN YOUR HEAD ALL THE TIME. I KNOW A FEW THINGS ABOUT HOW YOU THINK
She did, indeed. Sometimes she knew him better than he did.
IT FELT FAMILIAR SOMEHOW
What does that mean?
LIKE I SAID. PROBABLY NOTHING. JUST GET MOVING. I DON’T LIKE IT THERE
Eric followed Paul and Kevin back through the tunnels and caught them up on the day’s events. He told them about the letters from 1962. The monsters roaming the hallways of the Goss Building. Karen’s odd behavior. The steampunk monk and his psycho water pistol. The hot-tempered young stranger.
He left off the part about the demonic figure in the locked tunnel, though. That seemed a little too crazy even for him.
“It’s the same sort of thing again,” marveled Paul. “Why is it always you?”
“I have no freaking idea.”
“And why the fuck don’t you carry a gun?” he added. “It’s not like this is your first rodeo.”
“What does it matter?” countered Eric. “He got the drop on me. He would’ve just taken it like he did my wallet and phone.”
“Maybe this time. But what about next time you run into one of those monsters? Or another psychotic cowboy? Remember him?”
“Of course I remember him,” replied Eric. You didn’t forget something like that.
“Then why would you go into this stuff unarmed?”
“I don’t know. Guns complicate things.”
“Sometimes,” Paul admitted. “And sometimes they simplify things. A lot.”
He wasn’t convinced. He couldn’t have simply carried one into the art gallery with him, even if he’d had one. There were gun laws. And if he ever got caught sneaking onto private property, it wasn’t going to look any better for him if he was armed.
It just didn’t seem like a good idea. It was asking for more trouble than it would solve, in his opinion.
“The real question,” said Kevin, “is what do we do now?”
Eric considered it. Hector’s first letter sent them straight to the cemetery, where the second letter was buried. That letter sent them to the Goss Building, where they eventually found the third letter. The only hint that letter gave them, however, was the vague mention of an “old folk’s home” which they somehow managed to trace to the Aberration Station, where there was no fourth letter. Instead, he ran into the steampunk monk, who drugged him and sent him stumbling to the entrance of these old tunnels, where he in turn was confronted by the young stranger. Just as Isabelle theorized at the beginning of this odd journey, nothing happened by chance. So why did that mysterious voice in his head send him here? What was he supposed to find in this place?
He could think of only a single clue that the stranger might’ve given him. “Have you guys ever heard the name ‘Rossetter’?”
Kevin shook his head.
Paul considered it for a moment. “Sounds familiar…but I can’t place it. Why?”
“Wire Ties asked me what I knew about Rossetter.”
“I’m not sure. Sorry.”
They reached the end of the final tunnel and stepped out into the bright sunlight. It was practically blinding after being trapped in the dark for so long.
No one was around. The only people they could see were two fishermen in a boat far downstream. The young stranger hadn’t lingered. He probably assumed he wouldn’t be able to call for help with his cell phone so far away.
Eric couldn’t help but wonder where he’d gone and what he was up to.