Bad Glass

“Really, Floyd,” I assured him. “I’m as lost as you are.”

Finally, after a couple more seconds, he nodded, relenting. Then he turned and started down to the foyer.

The wire crossed over the side of the landing and proceeded down the wall, continuing to a doorway recessed beneath the stairs. The wire disappeared inside, squeezing between door and door frame.

Floyd nodded me forward, once again making me take the lead. His eyes were wide, and they kept darting back and forth between me and the door. His nerves were contagious. I paused with my hand on the doorknob, suddenly paralyzed by fear and doubt.

Is Devon waiting for us? I wondered. Does he have a weapon?

Or is there something worse in there? The thought made my blood pump cold inside my chest. Something not Devon. Or just part of Devon. An arm or a face, jutting out from a broom closet wall.

I cast the image aside and pulled the door open, releasing a gust of cold air that buffeted my face, making my eyes water. On the other side of the door there was a stairway leading down to a cellar. Only a couple of rough- hewn steps were visible in the dark, and the smell of damp earth gusted up from below.

“Fuck,” Floyd grunted. “Are we really going down there?”

“That depends. Do you want answers?”

Floyd let out another grunt. “I don’t know. I’m getting pretty good at living with mystery.”

“C’mon,” I prodded. “Shine your light on the steps.”

Floyd’s flashlight was tiny, and it barely scratched the thick veil of darkness. I took the stairs one step at a time, pausing to feel ahead with the tips of my toes. Our footsteps did not echo in the dark; every sound was absorbed and consumed inside a heavy, damp silence. I paused when we hit the concrete floor and fumbled my camera from around my neck. I worked the buttons from memory, turning on the LCD display and scrolling back to one of the pictures of Devon inside the house’s snow-shrouded window. It was a bright picture, and it lit the display like a fluorescent panel. I turned the camera around and used it to illuminate our surroundings.

The cellar was only partially finished. The walls and floor on the near side of the room were smooth stretches of dingy gray concrete, and the ceiling overhead was an exposed grid of joists. Three-quarters of the way across the room, the concrete gave way to damp earth, breaking off in a ragged arc that surrounded a hole in the far wall. The hole was a gaping dark void—about five feet around—and it absorbed the light from my camera, swallowing every trace like a giant hungry mouth.

“A tunnel,” Floyd whispered in surprised wonder. “A motherfucking tunnel!” I heard his jacket rustle as he sat down at the base of the stairs.

The dirt floor slanted down into the tunnel’s mouth. I panned the light across its width, finally noticing the thin white wire. It entered the tunnel halfway up its wall.

“Where’s the dirt?” Floyd asked. His voice remained a thin, breathless whisper. “The cellar’s empty. Where’d they put the dirt?”

I panned the camera around the room. Floyd was right: there were no mounds of displaced dirt, no equipment, nothing at all to support the logistics of such a massive project. “I guess it’s on the other side,” I said, taking a step toward the tunnel’s mouth.

Floyd was at my side in a matter of seconds, grabbing my elbow before I could even reach the damp earth. “You’re not serious,” he hissed, still keeping his voice low. “We can’t go in there. We have no idea what might be waiting.”

“Devon went this way,” I said. “He had to. There was nowhere else he could go! How dangerous could it be?”

“He could be working with anyone, Dean. And if he saw us, if he knows we’re following …” I heard him choke down a nervous swallow. “And that’s just the human threat. You’ve heard all of the stories. You know what could be waiting for us in there.”

He was right. I clenched my hand around the camera and felt the dull pain of my wounds ratchet into a white-hot bolt of fire. After I loosened my grip, the pain of my wounds continued, radiating all the way up the length of my forearm. The dogs had a tunnel just like this, I reminded myself. What if they’re in there, waiting?

“Just a little ways,” I said. “Just to see where the wire goes.”

Floyd’s hand remained on my elbow, an unyielding vise, holding me in place.

“Don’t you want to know what Devon’s doing?” I pleaded. “Don’t you want to know who he’s working with and why they’re watching us?” After a moment of silence, I let my voice drop down into a whisper: “C’mon, Floyd. He was asking about me!”

Finally, Floyd’s grip loosened on my arm. “Just a little ways,” he whispered. “Just in and out.”

I nodded and started forward.

I tried to take pictures inside the tunnel, but the camera refused to focus in the dark and its flashes illuminated nothing but dirt—just dirt and more dirt, proceeding into the distance. I tried to take a candid shot of Floyd in the tunnel behind me, but he wouldn’t cooperate; he just pushed me forward with a frustrated growl.

The tunnel slanted down. Its walls were marked with long regular grooves that looked too precise to be the work of unaided hands. Some type of earthmoving machine, I thought. Or a finishing tool, something to even out the dirt. The thin white wire was embedded in one of these grooves, about shoulder-high in the right-hand wall.

“Do you know what Devon used to do?” I asked, trying to push aside the claustrophobic silence. “Before the city went to hell?”

“I … I don’t know,” Floyd said. His voice was hesitant, shaky, torn between anger and fear. “Mac says he saw him working at a Jiffy Lube once, before all of this started, but Devon never says …” Floyd trailed off, suddenly lost in thought. “Wait a minute! Do you think he could be involved in this somehow? I mean, really involved? Do you think he helped get it started, working for the military, or terrorists, or something like that?” He paused abruptly, and when he continued, that brief spark of excitement was gone from his voice. Now there was nothing but breathless terror. “Or maybe he didn’t even exist back before all of this started. Maybe—”

“Get a grip, Floyd,” I said. “You’re starting to sound crazy.” I swung the light forward, indicating the wire. “Let’s just follow the line and find out where it goes.”

Floyd grunted at my abrupt dismissal, but he didn’t complain, following me wordlessly into the continuing dark.

After a couple of hundred yards, the walls of the tunnel fell away, opening into a circular room about ten feet wide. A chill broke over my flesh as soon as we entered; it felt at least ten degrees colder inside this small space. The ceiling remained low, and we had to stay hunched over to keep from hitting our heads.

I slowly panned the camera from left to right, spilling light across the dirt floor. There were tunnels reaching out in every direction, like spokes sprouting from a circular hub.

“What the hell is going on?” Floyd whispered, moving up to my side. “Who could have done this?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I wouldn’t even think it was possible.” I moved to the mouth of the nearest tunnel. Its dimensions seemed to match the earlier passage: about five feet around, with a flattened floor. A trickle of wind blew in from the darkness. It smelled of autumn leaves and fresh clean snow. “There are no supports on the walls or ceiling, nothing to prevent a collapse.” I drew my finger through the damp earth at my side, watching as it spilled to the floor. “Nobody would do it this way. It’s too dangerous. Damn near suicide.”

I turned and found Floyd perched on his knees in the middle of the room, his eyes pointed down at the floor. It was a strange position, and for a moment I thought I’d caught him in midprayer. Or maybe he’s fainting, I thought. Maybe this is all just too much for him and he’s ready to topple face- first into the dirt. Then he raised his hand and beckoned me over. He had his little flashlight out, and he was shining it down at a box embedded in the middle of the floor.

The box was constructed from matte-black industrial-grade plastic. It had eight thin white wires sprouting from its squat body—two on each side—and a corresponding row of pinpoint LEDs glowed on its top. I turned and raised my camera, following a wire across the floor and into one of the gaping maws.

“It’s a junction box,” Floyd said. “It links wires from all of these tunnels.”