“This almost looks like a window.”
“But that?s crazy,” Weezy said. “Who?d put a window underground?”
Jack shone his beam within and saw more walls and what looked like another doorway. He stepped inside and found a partially collapsed stone ceiling. Rocky debris littered the space.
Through the second doorway lay another space, this one even more choked with debris.
“You know …,” Weezy said, close behind him, “this almost looks like a house.” “Exactly what I was thinking. A very small house, but a house.”
They returned to the passageway and moved on. They passed a rock-and-dirt-choked area where something appeared to have collapsed. And then on the right, another doorway leading into what looked like another little house.
And farther along they came to a wider passage crossing theirs. Jack positioned himself at the center of the intersection and turned in a full circle, beaming his flash in all directions.
Back the way they had come he could see the shaft of light from the trapdoor opening, but he was sure they?d progressed beyond the walls of the Lodge. Down the three other paths he found darkness and the hint of other doorways and windows.
“Oh my god,” Weezy said as she turned with him. “You know what this is?”
“It … it looks like a town.”
“Exactly! Jack, we?ve discovered a buried town!”
“Who would bury a town?”
“It?s not so much buried as built over. It happens all the time. Look at the ancient city of Troy.
Archeologists think there are eight cities on that site, one built over another time and time again.
It?s a layer cake. And York, En gland, is built over a Roman town, and sections of Rome and London are built over previous towns and cities.”
Jack looked around. “So you think we?re in one of those lost towns of the Pines you?re always talking about?”
“Yes and no. I think this is an ancient, early settlement. Maybe these people built the megalith pyramid out in the Pines. Somewhere along the way, the original Quakerton—what we call Old Town—was built over it.” She started jumping up and down in a sort of Snoopy happy dance.
“This is amazing!
Jack could see how it could have been built over—the passages were all roofed with stone.
“Well, if these used to be their streets, why did they cover them? I mean, it?s like an ancient mall.”
“Maybe they were hiding from someone or something.”
“Like what?”
Weezy shrugged. “How should I know?”
“I thought you knew all this stuff.”
“In everything I?ve read about the Pines, lost towns were mentioned, but never anything like this. This wasn?t even hinted at. Not once. Oh, God, this is
Then they stood in silence a moment, each turning and beaming light down the passages.
“Well,” Jack said finally, letting his light come to rest on Weezy. “What do you want to do?”
“I want to explore—I really do. We may never get another chance.” She chewed her lip. “But I have this awful, terrible fear …”
“Of what?”
“That someone is going to come down to the basement, see the door open, and close it.”
Jack?s stomach lurched. He looked back along their original passage and was reassured by the warm glow shining from the ceiling.
“You had to say that? You
“Sorry. It?s just that it?s my worst nightmare.”
“Well, thanks, because now you?ve just made it mine. Let?s get out of here.”
Before Weezy could reply, Jack heard a high-pitched sound. He touched her arm.
“You hear that?”
She cocked her head and stood statue still for a heartbeat or two as the sound rose and fell in pitch and volume. She closed her eyes and looked like she was in a trance.
“That?s what I heard on the tour. I think it?s a voice.”
Now that she mentioned it, it did sound something like a voice.
Suddenly she gasped as her eyes flew open.
“Jack, it?s a child!”
12
After listening awhile longer, concentrating with everything he had, Jack had to agree. It wasn?t a cat.
“Yeah. It does sound sort of like a kid.” A small, very scared kid. “Cody!”
“Oh, no!” Weezy said. “You think Drexler kidnapped him and locked him down here?”
As weird and creepy as Mr. Drexler was, Jack didn?t think so.
“Think about it: How would he get him down here? Not through that door we used—we?re the first to open that thing in a
“Okay. So maybe it wasn?t him. But if it?s Cody, how did he get down here?”
“I don?t know. Maybe he fell in somewhere and couldn?t get out. We?ll worry about that later.”
He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted,
They stood statue still and silent, waiting. And then it came … faint, faraway, even higher pitched, but unmistakable.
Jack wanted to cheer. He was alive! Cody was alive, and they?d found him!
“We hear you, Cody!” Jack called. “We?re coming to get you! Just keep talking!”
But he didn?t keep talking. He started crying, and the relief and terror in the sound tore at Jack.
He grabbed Weezy?s arm. “Let?s go.”
But she held back, looking over her shoulder. Jack followed her gaze and saw the shaft of light from the trapdoor. He remembered her fear of someone closing it and locking them down here.
Yeah, but they couldn?t leave Cody. Not after what he?d already been through. Handing her his flashlight, he said, “Wait here.”
He ran back toward the trapdoor. Along the way he encountered water sooner than expected. It was spreading and deepening, and had reached all the way to the first doorway now. At the base of the trapdoor ladder it was ankle deep and
That stone barrier at the other end must have sprung more leaks, or the existing ones had enlarged.
He rushed up the ladder to the cellar and checked beneath the trapdoor. The pyramid had fallen out when they?d lifted the door. He pulled a chair over to the opening, then lifted the door and wedged it against it. Then he reinserted the pyramid in the cavity and began turning. It took only a fraction of the effort he?d needed to open it.
As he turned he watched three latches—top, bottom, and side—slide out. He?d thought there was only one. Man, they sure must have wanted to keep people out of that passage down there.
And then a thought struck: Or had they wanted to keep something down there from coming up?
Don?t go there, he told himself.
He pulled the pyramid from the cavity, pushed the door back, and then checked out his handiwork: With the latches locked out, the door couldn?t close.
And without the pyramid—which Jack was going to take with him—no way anyone could
retract the latches.
Unless, of course, they had another pyramid.
Don?t go there either, he thought.
He slipped through the doorway and down the ladder to the passage—
—where the water was now about an inch
