imagining the dangers that could be lurking just out of sight. There had to be rats — he’d seen one creeping along the bottom of the drainage moat that ran all the way around the building only a couple of days ago. There’d be spiders and cockroaches, too. Maybe even black widow spiders, or brown recluses. Ryan had read all about them in a book on poisonous bugs he’d found in the library last summer, and it seemed like the worst ones — the black widows and brown recluses, like to live in dark places where you couldn’t see them. There could even be bats. He was pretty sure of that, though not as sure as he was of the rats, cockroaches, and spiders. But bats lived in caves, and the space around him had to be just as dark as a cave.
His skin crawling with just the thought of all the things that might be lurking in the inky darkness, he’d dropped back onto the closet floor and rummaged around in his drawers until he’d found the flashlight he used to read under the covers at night. When he turned it on, the bulb glowed brightly. He was just about to close the drawer when he remembered something else that was in the drawer. It was a knife. It wasn’t very big, and even though most of the scrimshaw was worn off its handle it was still one of Ryan’s favorite things. It had been his father’s, and he could still remember his father showing him how to hone the blade on a whetstone until it was so sharp you could cut your finger without even feeling it. He wasn’t supposed to carry it with him because if he forgot and took it to school he’d be expelled right then. But as he thought of all the things that might be in the space above the closet once again, he picked up the knife and slipped it into his pocket.
A moment later he was back up on the top shelf in the closet, peering once again into the darkness. But this time the beam of the flashlight cut through it, and even though he was pretty sure he’d seen something scamper away from the light, it wasn’t nearly as scary as it had been before.
There was about two feet of space between the ceiling of his room and the beams supporting the floor above. Not enough room for him to stand up in, but plenty if he crawled along on his hands and knees. All kinds of pipes and wires ran through the space, some of them looking like they’d been there forever, others looking pretty new. Then, as he shined the light toward the back of his room, he saw something that shouldn’t have been there at all.
Though it didn’t make any sense, it looked like three steps, starting from the ceiling on which he lay, and rising the two feet up to the floor above his head. But that didn’t make any sense — why would anyone build stairs in a crawlspace? But even as the question formed in his mind, so did an answer.
A secret passage! That was it — it had to be!
His fears suddenly forgotten, he started crawling across the rough boards that had been laid over the beams of the ceiling, clutching the flashlight in his hand and keeping his head low so he didn’t bang it on the joists above him, he crawled toward the steps as quickly — and silently — as he could. A few seconds later he was peering at a narrow staircase, less than three feet wide, that led steeply down to an equally narrow passageway. Ryan gazed at it for several seconds, then turned to peer back over his shoulder at the shaft of light still rising through the open trapdoor.
It seemed like the passageway had to be in the wall between his room and some room in the apartment next door, and when he twisted his neck to look upward, it seemed as if the steps ended one more floor up. But where did the passage downstairs lead? His heart racing, he crept onto the steep flight of steps and made his way down. As he descended into the narrow passage, the walls almost seemed to be closing in on him, and for a moment Ryan felt an almost overwhelming urge to scurry back up the steps, across the ceiling, and drop back into the safety — and light — of his room. But then he steeled himself against the fear; if he was going to find a way out, it was going to have to be through the passage.
He moved forward, and about thirty feet ahead came to a cross passage. He hesitated, trying to get his bearings, but in the confines of the narrow corridor, he couldn’t be certain which way he was going. And if he came to another intersection, and then another, he’d never find his way back. But even as the possibility of getting lost came into his mind, so did the answer. He fished in the right front pocket of his jeans and his fingers closed around his father’s knife. Taking it out of his pocket and flipping its blade open, he crouched down close to the floor and carved two small grooves into the wall, forming a tiny arrow that pointed toward the staircase. When he was done he straightened up and shined his light on the mark. Satisfied that it would barely even be visible to anyone who wasn’t looking for it, he chose a direction, and turned right. A few paces further along he suddenly froze, then waited, uncertain what it was that had caused him to stop.
Instinctively, Ryan snapped off the flashlight and held his breath, waiting.
After a few seconds that seemed like endless minutes, the pupils of his eyes expanded to the maximum in the near total darkness of the passageway, and he saw a tiny speck of light a few paces ahead. Once again he was seized by an urge to race back to his room; once again he conquered his fear. When the light didn’t move, and the sound didn’t come again, he finally crept forward, still not daring to turn on his flashlight, and feeling his way in the darkness with his hands and feet. And finally he found the source of the faint glimmer of light: there was a tiny hole in the wall of the passage, just low enough so that if he stood on his tiptoes, he could peer into it.
He pressed his eye to the hole, and for a moment the brightness of the light on the other side blinded him. But then his eye adjusted, and he realized he was looking into a room.
But not just any room.
It was Laurie’s bedroom.
But something was wrong — Laurie’s bed wasn’t made! The covers were kicked back, and the sheet was all rumpled. But Laurie always made her bed, every single morning. She wouldn’t even eat breakfast until she’d made her bed.
So why hadn’t she this morning?
Hadn’t she gone to school at all? Had she gotten sick again? Maybe she was in the bathroom, throwing up.
But if she was home — if she was sick — why hadn’t Tony told him?
And if he’d lied about Laurie, had he lied about his mother, too?
He wanted to call out, to let Laurie know he was there if she was close enough to hear him. But even as he opened his mouth, he changed his mind. What if not only Laurie heard him, but Tony too? Letting the breath he’d intended to use to call out to his sister escape silently into the darkness, Ryan tried to figure out what to do next. But there were only two choices — go back to his room, or keep going and try to find out where the passage went. Back in his room, all he could do was wait.
Abandoning the peephole and turning his flashlight back on, Ryan moved deeper into the passage.
He’d made another turn and gone down another flight of steps — marking every turn he made — and was halfway to the next intersection when he suddenly heard a voice.
His stepfather’s voice!
And heard it so clearly his blood ran cold and he froze in his tracks, certain he’d been discovered. But then he heard another voice — a voice that sounded kind of familiar, but that he couldn’t quite place.
“Your wife was a friend of hers,” the voice said. “We’re talking to everyone she knew. Is your wife here?”
Once again Ryan held his breath, but this time he pressed his ear to the wall even though the voices were so clear he didn’t need to.
And then, a few seconds later, he heard it: The Biddle Institute… West 82nd Street.
His mother was only a few blocks away! If he could just get out of the building he could go up there and find her, and then everything would be all right. And there had to be a way out — all he had to do was find it. But just as he was about to slip away into the darkness to begin exploring the maze he heard his stepfather’s voice again.
“If we’re about through,” Anthony Fleming was saying. “I’d like to go up and check on my son — he seems to have picked up a bug himself.”
Ryan froze. If his stepfather found his room empty and he couldn’t find a way out right away—
Trapped!
He’d be trapped, and there wouldn’t be any way to get away and—
His mind reeling at the thought of what Tony might do to him when he finally found him, Ryan hurried back the way he’d come, moving as fast as he could while still trying not to make a sound. But all the while he repeated two phrases over and over again, as terrified that he’d forget them as he was that his stepfather would catch him:
