Authors: Peter Straub
'Where you were before,' Rose said. 'This way.' She led them back into the woods. 'Where he was before?' Del asked. 'Where's that?' 'An old summerhouse,' Rose said, walking through fog and night but needing no light to see her way. 'The men were living there, but they're gone now.'
'Wait a second,' Tom said, stopping short.
'That
house? What's the point of going there?'
'The point is the tunnel, grumpy Tom,' she said. 'And the point of the tunnel is that it takes us out of here. I spent the whole day getting this ready — you'll see.'
'A tunnel,' Tom said; and Del repeated, 'A
tunnel,'
as if now they were truly on the way home.
'I've never gone all the way through it,' Rose said, still moving ahead through the fog, 'but I know it's there. I think it goes almost to Hilly Vale. We can stay in it all night. Then in the morning we can get out, walk to the station, and get on a train. There's an early train to Boston. I checked. They won't even miss you until late in the morning, and by then we'll be out of Vermont.' 'What about your grandmother?' Tom said. 'I'll call her from wherever we get to.' Her eyes rested questioningly on him for a moment.
2
Like wary animals, or like the ghosts of animals half-visible in the fog, they stepped away from the last of the woods. When Del saw the parklike area with its manicured lawns and artfully placed trees — here too the cold fog floated and accumulated in the hollows — he said, 'I never even knew this was here!'
Rose said, 'I think other people used to live here, a long time ago, but Mr. Collins made them leave.'
Tom nodded: the huge shining owl had driven them away.
'I think it used to be a resort,' Rose said. 'And I think the big house used to be a sort of nightclub and casino.'
'But why did they need a tunnel?' Tom asked.
'I guess it had something to do with bootlegging,' Rose told him.
'Sure,' Del said, suddenly knowledgeable. 'This side must be close to a little road. It wouldn't all have been walled in then. If they heard of a raid, they could hide the booze and wheels and stuff in the tunnel.'
'Only if the runnel went back to Shadowland,' Tom pointed out.
Rose said, 'Del's right. There is more than one tunnel. You'll see in a minute.' The shabby house was even more run-down in the fog. The rip in the porch screen gaped like a hungry mouth.
The three of them went toward the house. Tom kept seeing it in the past Rose and Del had drawn for him, in a postwar summer, surrounded by a few other houses like it — now fallen in — inhabited by men in blazers and boaters, women in dresses like the one Rose wore. There would be canoes, a man somewhere would be practicing the banjo, and ice cubes would chime in martini pitchers.
Good stuff. Prewar. Came in from Canada.
Nick, why don't we cross the lake and go up to the lodge tonight?
Good idea, sport. I want another fling at that wheel.
Say, you haven't heard anything about that owl Philly claims he saw last night?
No — that would have been later. 'Sweet Sue' was what the banjo was playing, ringing out
chinga-chink-chink, chinga-chink-chink
through the summer air.
Yes, let's try our hand at the lodge tonight. I feel lucky. Waft some gin this way, sport, if you'll be so kind.
'You daydreaming?' Rose called out. 'Or are you just afraid to come in?'
Tom went up on the porch with the other two. Rose led them into the house and switched on a single lamp. The old building looked as though no one had been in it since the magician's winged emissary had sent them all packing. Dust lay on all the ripped chairs, on the blurry carpet.
'Those men are set to go after tomorrow night,' Rose said. 'All their things are either thrown away or back at the house. Or maybe in one of the other tunnels.'
'Wait a second,' Del said. 'How many are there?'
'Three. Don't worry, I can find the right one.' She smiled at Tom. 'I put some sandwiches and a thermos and some blankets down there. We'll be all right tonight.'
'So where is this tunnel?' Del asked. 'Hey, if there are rats down there, you can shoot them.'
'I didn't see any rats,' Rose said, and gave Tom a speculative look.
'Well, I brought his gun,' Tom admitted. 'It's about a hundred years old. I don't know how to shoot it, anyhow.'
'The tunnel's this way.' Rose moved a dusty wicker table and pushed back the rug. A trapdoor lay flush against the wood. She bent down, put her finger through the ring, and swung the door up. 'Used to be how you got to the little cellar.' Wide concrete steps led down into blackness. 'They made the tunnels later.'
'Boy,' Del said. 'As simple as that.'
'You waiting for something?' Rose asked, and Del looked at both of them, uttered 'Oh' in a squeaking voice, and began to go slowly down the steps. 'There's a flashlight on the bottom step.'
'Found it. Come on, you guys.'
3
The tunnel was high enough to stand in. Packed earth made the floor and walls; timbers shored up the roof. When Rose shone the flashlight down its length, they could see it going deeper into the earth at a slight pitch, falling and falling. Where the light began to die — a long way off — it seemed to turn a corner.
'Well, you said you were going to take the low road,' Del said. 'This is really cool. Look how big it is! I thought we'd be crawling on our hands and knees.'
'Not a chance,' Rose said. 'Would I do that to you?' She gestured with the light as they walked along. The air changed, became colder and drier in the total blackness around the spreading beam.
At the juncture of the tunnel's three branches the flashlight picked out a little heap of things. The juncture was a circular cavern slightly taller than the tunnels themselves. The ceiling was rounded and intricately buttressed by a lattice of two-by-fours. 'Here's our bedroom,' Rose said. 'And blankets and food and stuff like that.' She knelt and lifted the blanket off the magician's wicker basket. 'I didn't think he'd miss this. Is anybody hungry?'
Tension had made the boys ravenous. Rose stood the flashlight on end in the center of the vaulted cavern and handed them ham sandwiches wrapped in wax paper. Collins' ham; Collins' wax paper, too, probably. Each of them ate leaning against a different wall, so they were only half-visible to each other. Enough of the light filtered out and down to dimly touch their faces.
Del asked, 'Which one of these tunnels do we take, Rose?'
'The one next to Tom.' Tom leaned over and turned to peer down it. A wave of cold air washed toward him from out of impenetrable dark. 'One of these used to connect to another summerhouse.' From the cold darkness of the tunnel Tom heard:
chinga-chink-chink, chinga-chink-chink
of the banjo
and an amateurish but sweet voice singingThere's a moon a-bove Dum da dum-dum Sweet Sue, just you.
'I think we ought to try to go to sleep,' he said. 'Toss me one of those blankets, please, Rose.' Her face blazed into color as she bent forward, throwing a plaid blanket toward him. 'Good idea,' she said. For a time they arranged the blankets on the hard floor.
'I don't suppose the rest of you hear anything,' Tom said.
'Hear anything?': Del. 'Just my imagination.'
Rose came forward into the center, her head and trunk floating in the light like the top of the woman, sawed in half in the old trick. She gave him a liquid, molten message from her pale eyes —
Forgive me?
Then the beam of the flashlight dipped like a flare along the curving walls and momentarily dazzled Tom, shining directly into his eyes. His shadow spread gigantically up the wall behind him. The beam swung away, and he saw Rose's body outlined against it — a wraith from the twenties in her green dress, wandering down here on whatever errands brought the resort people below ground.
Who was that lady I saw you with? Nicholas? Just a lady who can be in two places at once.
Those captured voices.
The beam found Rose's blanket already spread. Her shoes dropped gently to the packed ground. 'Good night, my loves.'
'Good night,' they said.
The flashlight clicked off, and seamless black covered them.
'Like floating,' Del said. 'Like being blind.'
'Yes,'
Rose breathed. Tom's heart went out to both of them.
He sprawled out on his blanket and covered himself against the chill.
Like being blind.
When he heard those captured voices drifting in the tunnels, he knew that nothing would be as easy as Del thought — that nothing had ever been that easy — and fear kept his eyes open, though he too was blind.
(splash of water: canoe paddle lifted and dripping, the gleam catching your eye from clear across the lake)
Two places at once, very handy, Nick.
Summers are for dalliance, dear boy.
Wife sick again, is she?
Something in the water, she says. Foolishness. Something in the gin, more likely.
Or something in the air. Philly saw that owl again last night.
There is no owl, dear boy. Trust me.
Don't trust him, Tom said to himself; there is, there is an owl.
Philly's darling wife is the only reason we tolerate him, after all. . . .
Then voices from later in the summer: he could hear the coming chill, the promise of dead leaves and gray freezing water.