Authors: Phil Tucker
"So, what, we're going to find ghosts or something?" Buck stepped forward and looked from Thomas to Eric. "I just want to get this clear, because this is all a little vague for me. What exactly is the problem?" Something in Eric's eyes caused Buck to frown, open his mouth and then close it again.
"I don't know what we're going to find," said Thomas. "All I know is that Henry disappeared down there. And that I'm going to go see what I can find. And if we find something--else--then, well, I'll deal with that when I get to it."
"Well, okay." Buck broke eye contact with Eric, unsettled. "I'm not scared of the dark, so I'm good to go. Do we need garlic?"
"Fuck you, Buck," said Julia. "This isn't funny. Eric, I'm sorry--"
"No, it's okay." Eric was smiling again. "I don't care. I don't care at all. He can laugh all he wants. Doesn't change anything. It just means he's ignorant. That's all."
"Okay, okay, let's just calm down," said Thomas. It wasn't that he felt a fight about to brew, but rather that he was himself becoming unsettled. Buck shrugged and walked toward the door, Eric watching him with a mocking smile.
"Do you have anything useful you can tell us, Eric?" asked Thomas, "Anything that can help?"
Eric considered Buck for a while longer, and then turned to Thomas. "I heard singing before Henry disappeared. An Irish voice. You can't quite make it out on the video, but the second time it was quite clear. If you hear singing, run."
"Okay, that's more than enough for me," said Buck angrily. "If we hear Irish shanties, we run. Got it. Okay, I'm done up here. I'll see you guys downstairs." So saying, he marched out the door, and began to descend the stairs heavily.
"Thank you," said Julia, "We'll let you know what we find."
Eric shrugged and turned back to a photograph of a cracked plant pot. "Okay. I hope it goes well." He frowned and raised the photograph as if to inspect it closely. Julia gave Thomas a helpless look, and then when he motioned questioningly toward the door, she nodded and walked past him after Buck.
"Take care, Eric," said Thomas. Eric didn't respond, instead continuing to scrutinize the shot. Thomas watched him for a moment longer, and then turned to follow Julia out of the room.
Buck was waiting by the car, arms crossed and staring fixedly at nothing in particular. Julia rounded the trunk and stood by the passenger door, not looking at him, waiting for Thomas. A frozen tableaux plumes of breath rising up from each set of nostrils, mouths tight lipped and expressions frozen. Thomas walked over, bouncing the car keys in the palm of his hand, and decided to simply unlock the doors and deal with it all within the confines of his car.
They drove on up the street, then took the first turn and then the second. Nobody spoke. Each stared fixedly out of a window, wrapped up in their own thoughts, but the silence was heavy with the expectation of being broken, with the questions that would be asked, like storm clouds pregnant with thunder. Thomas knew that both of them were waiting for him to broach the subject, had their lines ready, knew that he would, sooner or later, but delayed asking, delayed as long as he could, letting the tension grow acute until, stopped before a red light, he looked in the rear view mirror at Buck.
"So..." said Thomas. "What was all that about?" Julia glanced away from the poverty beyond her window to Thomas, and then forward, but Buck continued to stare out at the street.
Finally: "Nothing."
"Nothing?"
"Yeah, nothing. Why?" Buck's voice was uncharacteristically sharp.
"I don't know. Just asking. You seemed a little... tense in there. Confrontational, you know?" Julia was an active ball of silence, noticeably self-restrained.
"Yeah, well, whatever. That guy was full of shit, is all. I don't have much patience for that kind of stuff."
Green light. Thomas eased the car forward, nodding slowly. "Well, I can see where you're coming from. It sure sounds crazy. But... well. You sure you're okay? It looked like he was hitting a nerve or something."
Buck let loose a sharp bark of laughter, "A nerve? What, like he's reminding me of some childhood memory I've been blocking all these years about basements?"
Thomas frowned and shook his head, trying to keep his expression mild. "No, Buck. Not like that. Come on man. What's going on?"
Buck subsided. He looked back out the window, and they drove on in silence for a few minutes. "I don't know. I guess he creeped me out. All that crap about darkness and Irish singing and his weird ass house and crazy photographs. Just messed up, is all."
"Yeah." Thomas nodded. "It's pretty damn weird. You okay to go through with this? Go down into this building and all? I mean, you don't have to if you don't want to. I'd understand."
"No, I'm fine. I'm sorry if I'm tense. Just... yeah. I wanted to shake that guy, you know? Snap him out of it. All that weird, vague crap he was talking."
"It wasn't crap," said Julia.
"Oh no?" Buck sounded amused. "We supposed to believe that there are Irish ghosts down there, grabbing kids?"
Julia shook her head minutely, and looked back out the window. "You don't know shit, Buck," she said. "Something happened to Henry. Eric was there. He was there when it happened, and whatever it was fucked the hell out of him. I knew him before. When he was... in control. He had plans. He was going places. He had a future." She stared through her reflection at the abandoned houses and rotting strip malls as they filed by. "Now he's broken. He's going nowhere. Something happened to him. You don't know shit, Buck."
"Well, if that ain't the most constructive criticism I've ever heard," said Buck.
"Enough guys. Okay? Enough already. This is strange enough for all of us, so let's just calm down." Thomas looked at Buck again in the rear view mirror, and then at Julia. "I say we get this over with now. We're tense enough as it is without waiting till dark. All right?"
"Fine with me," muttered Buck.
"Sure," said Julia. "You got flashlights and shit?"
"Yes," said Thomas, easing off an on-ramp into traffic. "I do."
Chapter 11
The State Hospital loomed into the washed out sky, massive and heavy. Shattered windows behind wire mesh, the copper copes, the ponderous walls. All fenced off and strangely innocuous in the daylight. Thomas drove slowly around the perimeter, and then parked his Mercedes on the shoulder of the road.
"This isn't where we broke in last time," said Julia.
"I know." Thomas pushed open his door and stepped out of the car. "I've got wire cutters. I'm not jumping over fences."
Buck and Julia climbed out, and Thomas opened the trunk. Reaching in, he pulled out a black duffel bag from which he drew three flashlights which he handed out. A large bolt cutter came next, and glancing both ways along the street, he stepped up to the fence and began to nervously snip at each wire. They gave without any resistance, and soon he had a small crawl hole cut through. Buck stood by, idly clicking the flashlight on and off. When Thomas pulled the wire section free, he stepped up and gazed through at the building. "Can we get arrested for trespassing?"
Thomas walked over to the car and dumped the wire cutters. "I don't know. I wouldn't think so. It's not like murder or anything."
Julia walked up to the hole, and then ducked through. "You get yelled at and escorted off the premises. That's about it. Relax."
Thomas and Buck shared a look, and then followed her through. Thickets of grass stuck up through the crusts of ice and snow. The blades were long and brittle, whispering against their shins as the three of them crossed the wild lawn toward the massive brick building. Thomas remembered the initial invasion, the dark and the ladder, the camera and Henry running along. The almost innocent, adventurous nature of it all. Five months ago?
Julia led them into the shadow of the of the building, and then along the dark wall toward the hole. It gaped as it had in the video, burst open like a cyst in the edifice. Without looking behind, she clambered up and inside. Buck hitched his jeans up around his waist and followed suit, and Thomas did the same after a final glance at the grass, the distant streets and cars.
The room was illuminated by the white light from without, and though Thomas recognized some of the graffiti tags, it seemed distinct from the room he had seen in the video. Smaller, dirtier, devoid of mystery and threat. There was a faint smell of asbestos in the air, and it seemed dingy and dismal. He moved past Julia and toward the door, pushing it open to step out into the hallway.
"It's been awhile since I've been here," said Julia quietly. "It's pretty simple, though. Down the hall and then down the stairs."
Thomas nodded and walked down the dim hallway. Diffuse light filtered in through open doors. Underfoot, flakes of peeled paint crackled and crunched.
Snap crackle pop
, thought Thomas,
snap crackle pop
. He saw one of the old wooden wheelchairs in a room to his left, dusty and on its side, and shivered. Henry had walked this very hall. Twice. Dust hung in the air, and everything was still and silent but for their footsteps. He could almost hear the hushed whispers and laughter from the video, feel the tense excitement that had suffused the group. It was as if he walked in the presence of ghosts.
They stepped out into the hall that contained the stairwell. Everything had seemed so much larger on the tape. Thomas walked forward and stood at the head of the stairs. He turned on his flashlight and waited for that horrific scraping noise to sound from below. None came. Julia stopped alongside him and looked down into the darkness where his flashlight's beam played. She flicked hers on, and looked at him.
"You ready?" She sounded nervous, but steady. He studied her face, and then on impulse reached out to squeeze her shoulder.
"Yeah. Thanks for coming."
"No problem," said Buck drolly from behind them. "I'm always here for you,
amigo
."
Thomas smiled tightly, and began to walk down the steps. The others fell in step, and soon the dim and dusty sunlight was exchanged for shadow and dark. The steps were wide and shallow, and Thomas had to restrain himself from taking them two at a time. From rushing forward and diving into the darkness, racing into the lower depths and yelling out Henry's name, plunging mindlessly down corridors and halls, into the malevolent center of it all.
"So, the boiler room should be up ahead, right?" Thomas stopped and looked questioningly at Julia. She nodded slowly, looking up and down the hall they'd stepped out into, and then turning to the left.
"Eric had all the maps memorized. But I think I remember. This way." She began to walk, her flashlight wavering light from left to right. Buck clapped Thomas on the shoulder and stepped past him, turning his light to examine cracks and stains along the walls as they walked.
They proceeded in silence. Something heavy hung in the air. Not fear, but rather their anticipation of growing afraid. They walked deeper into the darkness, what little daylight that followed them left behind, but everything remained quotidian. The very lack of menacing overtones unnerved them more, as if they were being purposefully misled. Moving in the dark, Thomas found himself growing conscious of every step. Aware of each placing of his feet in the unknown murk beneath, moving tentatively as if expecting to hit a tripwire. Moving forward beyond the comfort of his senses.
Julia's flashlight lit up a heavy door. She paused, and then stepped forward to shove it open. It swung in with a groan, and she turned to face Buck and Thomas.
"Here you go. This is the boiler room. The steam tunnels lie beyond, and then the room with the stairs going down. And that's where, well." She paused. What she had not said hung heavy between them. Thomas could hear Buck's breathing. It sounded coarse, thick. The air felt warm.
"Yeah, Irish ghosts," said Buck. "How about we get a move on?"
Thomas walked through the door and shone the flashlight over the heavy organic machinery of the boiler room. Rust covered the tubes and pipes and bulging plates like a reptilian skin, heavily textured and dark. It must have made this room intolerably hot when it was active, he thought, drifting forward as he took his time to examine the walls and floor. The same room, the same darkness and insinuation of shapes in the corners. A sense of
déjà vu
suffused him.
"The tunnel entrance is over there around the corner," said Julia, aiming her light in the right direction.
"This place is perfect for shooting a horror movie, eh?" asked Buck, standing in the doorway. "I mean, perfect. All sorts of Freddy Krueger's could be hanging around here, feeling right at home."
"Relax, Buck," said Thomas, moving around the corner and up to a small steel door.
"Relax? I am relaxed. I'm fucking frosty here. I just would rather be at the Ritz Carlton, is all. Is that so weird?"
"No, but just relax. Okay?" Thomas tugged the door open. A corridor beyond filled with pipes. The steam tunnel. "What happened to Jimmy?" he asked, turning to look at Julia.
"Jimmy?"
"The guy who bolted in the video. The third guy who was really nervous. What happened to him?"
"Oh, yeah. Jimmy." Julia shrugged. "He made it out fine. He went up the stairs and out. We found him by the fence. He never came back out with us. I guess he got freaked out."
"Yes," said Thomas, smiling grimly. "I can understand that." Stepping forward, he eased himself into the tunnel, and began to walk carefully alongside the pipes. "Why didn't you guys join, I don't know, band or something? Yearbook? I mean, what's the attraction to these tunnels?" It was a stupid question, but Thomas didn't want silence. He didn't want to walk along in the dark, feeling alone, feeling isolated from the others. Conversation, he realized, was an illusion that could help keep the darkness at bay.
"I don't know. It was fun. It was a little dangerous, and I was bored. Going places we weren't supposed to be was a thrill, is all." Julia walked just behind him, her footsteps echoing alongside his. "I did it more because Eric was so into it. I used to like seeing how excited he'd get. And then I did it because it was fun to be with Henry while Eric was clueless." Thomas could almost hear her shrug.