Two Miles Down

by David McGowan

  “I don’t know, Bodge.”

  “But do you know what it is? Did you cut one, Gabe?”

  He wondered if Bodge had ever cracked a joke to him before. He didn’t think he had, and he clapped his meaty shoulder.

  “Good one, buddy.”

  Bodge beamed, his teeth shining like diamonds.

  “I do know what it is. It’s the Water Chamber.”

  “Is that a bad place?”

  “Well, it’s no vacation beauty spot, but we’re not going to hang around. We’re just going to get through and out the other side. You can do that, can’t you?”

  “Yeah, I’m brave, like you said.”

  “Good man. It’s not as bad as the Gypsum Chamber. At least you won’t boil your liver in the Water Chamber.”

  Bodge giggled. That was good. He had no clue of the horror that was just around the next corner. If he could stop Bodge from seeing the corpses in the water, he thought he’d cope. He wasn’t scared of the rats. In fact, he’d probably be delighted to see so many. Catching rats made Bodge proud. Perhaps that was why he didn’t remember coming through it before. There was no way around it, so Bodge had to have negotiated it on his way deeper into the SUIC.

  “You’re ready, I’m ready, so let’s do this.”

  He spoke without humor in his tone, trying to portray grim determination, trying to drive home to Bodge that this was serious business. The heat in the Water Chamber wouldn’t kill them like that in the Gypsum Chamber. It wasn’t so hot that they’d boil inside their skin, but there were other dangers.

  There was the danger of being driven insane by the stink of decay, of crumbling into a shivering heap with rats swarming over you in the fog of steam that rose from the water.

  There was the temptation to drink that water, even though you knew it would taste foul and probably kill you.

  And, of course, there was the possibility of running into Gang. Crossmen.

  “Listen to me, Bodge. You have to stick to me like glue when we get in there. You can’t go after the rats.”

  “But I’m good at hunting ‘em, and I’m hungry.”

  “I know you are, but there could be Crossmen in there, and it’s hard to see.”

  “We have our light.”

  “The water is hot, and that makes steam come off it. That’ll make it tough for us to see where we’re going, so we’re going to stick close to the wall. I’m not even going to take my hand off the wall, and I want you to put your hand, the one that isn’t hurt, on my shoulder.”

  “Like before?”

  “Yes, Bodge. Like before.”

  “Okay.”

  “And you promise you won’t go after the rats?”

  Bodge heaved out a sigh. “If you say not to.”

  “I do say not to, and I’m serious. Okay?”

  Bodge nodded.

  When Gabe turned away, Bodge put his hand on his shoulder and they turned the corner, on their way to what he thought was the last big obstacle to them reaching the Cotton Cave, and delivering Soames’s message.

  AS SOON AS THEY CROSSED the threshold into the Water Chamber, he felt Bodge’s grip tighten.

  “Ow Bodge, not so hard.”

  “I can’t help it,” Bodge said, his voice muffled because he had his bandaged hand over his mouth. Gabe wished he could do the same, but he knew he had to keep the lighter lit. He thought if he didn’t, Bodge would flip out. He had to keep his right hand on the damp, coarse wall too. It anchored him to his surroundings, made him feel he could make it through the cloying air and the rats. Hundreds of them, maybe even thousands, not afraid of humans in this place, because they were used to feeding on them. He felt one nip at his ankle and shook his foot to scare it away, a cry of disgust escaping him.

  He held the lighter up, trying to see how far they had to go, but it was useless. Rats swarmed about their feet, and steam hung like a sodden fog in the air, condensing on his skin and running down his body: the world’s most disgusting sauna.

  Bodge was right up against him, an overgrown shadow, clinging to the back of him. “Are we nearly out the other side? I feel chucky.”

  “Keep moving with me, and don’t vomit on me, please.”

  He was going to say more, tell Bodge things were already bad enough, but talking meant an open mouth, and more ingestion of the fumes that were making his eyes sting.

  He moved as quickly as he could, relieved that Bodge had kept his promise not to go after the rats. He seemed to be too busy trying to squeeze his fingers through the flesh of his shoulder but, after asking him two more times to relax his grip a little, Gabe gave up.

  “Okay.” Silence for a few moments, and Gabe thought Bodge was beginning to slow.

  “Keep moving, Bodge.”

  “It’s not so bad, Gabe. Don’t worry.”

  He was amazed at Bodge’s statement. Ten more steps, he told himself, and counted them off. Then he repeated the action, and repeated it again, but still the steam wasn’t thinning.

  “What’s that, Gabe? Is that the water?”

  “Don’t look at it, it’s dirty.”

  “We can’t drink it?”

  “No.”

  “And we really can’t catch the rats?”

  “No, Bodge. We have to keep moving.”

  “But I’m hungry.”

  “Tell me your name.” He was trying to distract Bodge from his urge to hunt rats, but more than that, he was trying to distract himself, disconnect himself from the fear that threatened to overtake him.

  “You know my name already. It’s Bodge.” He sounded confused, but not nearly as afraid as Gabe was.

  “No, Bodge. Tell me your real name.”

  “I don’t know, Gabe, I don’t know.”

  “You know what my real name is?”

  “Gabe, it’s Gabe.”

  “No, Bodge. My real name is Joshua. Joshua Gable. That’s why people call me Gabe. It’s my last name, only shortened.”

  They struggled on, and the steam started to thin. They were almost there. Another thirty paces, and they’d be out.

  “I can still call you Gabe, can’t I?”

  “Yes, we’re almost there, buddy. We’re almost there.”

  Ten or so paces later, they were there. The wall disappeared from under Gabe’s hand, and they emerged into a tunnel that sloped up and away from them.

  They didn’t notice the slope or have a chance to be relieved about making it through the Water Chamber, because there were two men in front of them.

  Two men, and four corpses.

  AFTER GETTING OUT OF the Water Chamber, Brett, or Thirty-Nine, or whoever he was, sat down to rest in a hollow that had been dug out of the wall. It was equidistant between the place he exited the Water Chamber, and an air hole that pushed hot air down into the SUIC from a world he hardly even remembered. He remembered his wife’s big blue eyes, and certain other parts of her that he hoped never to forget, but not a whole lot else. That was one of the things he hated about being down here – how easy it was to forget the things that were most important above – but he couldn’t spend all his time thinking about it, feeling sorry for himself.

  Leader had given him three days. After that, he would send one of the guards out to find him, and if he did that, then it wouldn’t matter what he was calling himself. He’d be spending a lot more time in the Water Chamber, reunited with Forty.

  As he recovered from the hell of the Water Chamber, he heard voices. Two men. He risked a quick glance out and saw them. They didn’t look familiar. One was a big black guy, and the other was a white guy with long hair that hung down in his eyes. The long hair made him think they were Regulars. The dark skin of the other made it difficult to tell in the low light of the tunnel, but Brett didn’t think either of these two had crosses on their foreheads.

  He listened, trying to hear what they were saying. They stopped the other side of the air hole, the whoosh of air muffling their conversation.

  Brett stayed right where he was. They c
ould be Rebels, heading toward Leader’s compound, a vanguard scoping out what was ahead. There might be fifteen or twenty more right behind them. The black guy could be Gang, he supposed, on his way to tell Leader he’d found a way up to the surface. Then he supposed something else: that was never going to happen. Same as a Regular and a Gang man traveling through these tunnels together was hugely unlikely.

  He hung tight, and after a few minutes he heard them start moving again. He listened to them talk as they passed his little hollow without giving it a glance.

  The first voice was slow. “I’m being brave so’s we can get to the Cotton Cave. There won’t be people fighting there too, will there?”

  People fighting. There won’t be people fighting.

  That meant something. That was significant. He felt excitement swell in his chest, and he listened hard. This might be the news he needed to take back to Leader. But there was nothing more. They cracked a joke about farting, and then one of them talked about how bad the place they were headed was. And about the rats. That last made Brett shiver. He hated Leader for sending him through that place.

  He pushed the thought of rats from his mind and listened to the two men. The snippet of conversation he’d heard made him certain they were both Regulars. Gang were assured in their speech, safe in the knowledge they had an army to back them up. These two didn’t sound assured, they sounded terrified. Brett could understand that. They were headed into the Water Chamber, after all.

  One issued a warning to his friend, talking about Crossmen. He was talking about Gang, Brett realized. It didn’t sound like they were part of any conspiracy behind their effort to get through the Water Chamber. In fact, the black guy had sounded relieved to be leaving the fighting behind, like he wanted no part in it.

  Was the fighting between Gang and Regulars? It wasn’t easy to hear of Gang fighting, maybe needing backup, while he was here, hiding from a couple of harmless-sounding Regulars.

  The sound of their voices decreased when they turned the corner, and Brett climbed out of the little hollow and followed them.

  He paused when he reached the corner around which they’d disappeared, listening intently, trying to block out the continual hum of air flooding from the air hole nearby. He couldn’t hear them, so he gathered all his nerve and crept toward the entrance to the Water Chamber, moving soundlessly through the dark, his heart beating fast against his ribs. He didn’t dare fire up a lighter in case they looked back and saw it.

  He focused hard, in the hope he’d hear them say something else about the fighting, but he heard nothing. Thinking they were out of earshot, he turned to leave, but paused when he heard raised voices. One of them asking the other his name. Bodge, if he heard it right. And the other, the one doing the coaxing? John Gable, or Joshua, or something similar.

  Massive fear in the voice, as it grew harder to hear. They were moving again, away from him, and he felt empathy for them. No one should have to suffer the Water Chamber. He would have to go through the trauma of it again, but before he did, he would have to travel deeper into the SUIC, find other Gang, and learn more about the fight they’d spoken of.

  They’d inadvertently helped him; there was something going on Leader would want to know about. He wasn’t simply being paranoid, something was brewing.

  He turned and left the Water Chamber behind him, firing up a lighter, and heading deeper into the SUIC. He’d figure out what was going on, and when he told Leader, he’d be rewarded.

  GABE AND BODGE FROZE. The two men did the same, their eyes wide. One tall, one short, both with long beards and even longer hair. They were both wiry, and they were both traumatized. Gabe could tell from the look in their eyes that they’d experienced terrible things down here. They looked like would-be murderers, mafioso caught in the act of transporting victims to go sleep with the fishes, or with the rats and the other bodies in the deep pool inside the Water Chamber. But the trauma and terror in their eyes wasn’t because they’d been caught with the corpses. No, it was something more than that, and Gabe thought the thing that inspired their terror was probably also the reason the men at their feet were dead.

  When all four alive men froze, one of the bodies continued to roll, and Gabe had to sidestep it. He watched it as it passed. Eyes wide open, staring, fixed. Definitely dead, there was no doubting that.

  The body clipped Bodge’s damaged ankle as he tried to move out of its way, making him yelp in pain, and causing its direction to change. It rolled into the wall, coming to a stop before reaching the entrance to the Water Chamber.

  Gabe held the lighter at chest height. No crosses on their foreheads, but the corpses at his feet made him wonder if he should try to get a rockknife out of the bag slung across his shoulder before the men came at them.

  All this happened in seconds, and before he had a chance to make up his mind, one of the two spoke.

  “It’s okay, they’re not Gang.”

  It seemed they’d been undergoing the same thought process Gabe had.

  “They’re like us, Gabe,” Bodge whispered. “They can help us find Rosselli in the Cotton Cave.”

  Bodge’s mention of the Cotton Cave and Rosselli caused an immediate reaction. They straightened, and one of the other bodies rolled over twice before coming up against a rock and stopping.

  The taller of the two spoke, his voice laced with weariness and fear. “Why are you going to the Cotton Cave? Why do you want Rosselli?”

  Gabe chose his words carefully, deciding to say nothing about the bodies. “We have a message for him, from Soames.”

  “Soames?” Both men’s eyes widened at the mention of the serial killer’s name, curiosity seeming to dampen their fear slightly.

  “Yes, Soames,” Gabe replied. Bodge, behind him, remained perfectly still.

  “How do you know Soames?” the smaller man asked.

  “We met him near the Cemetery, and he asked us to deliver a message. To Rosselli.”

  The taller of the two took a step forward. “Soames has been missing for months. Gang killed him.”

  “Not true.” Gabe switched the lighter from one hand to the other and placed the bag on the ground. “He gave us rockbowls, water, rice.”

  “You could have found that stuff. Anyway, we’re busy. Can’t you see we’re busy?”

  The edge of grief in the short man’s voice told Gabe they were not killers. Their air of twitchiness wasn’t due to them being caught getting rid of victims. It was fear, heartache, stress.

  The bolder of the two men spoke, arming sweat from his face. “You can’t go to the Cotton Cave, it’s not safe. The guards won’t let you in. Wouldn’t matter if they did, because Rosselli isn’t there.”

  “Can you take us to him?”

  “Can’t you see we’re busy?” the short man said again, and his friend spoke up. His friend seemed to be holding himself together a little better.

  “You want us to leave these men here, so we can take strangers to Rosselli, when we don’t even know your intentions?”

  Gabe offered his hand. “My name is Gabe. This is Bodge. We don’t intend to do anything to harm Rosselli, or you, or anyone in the Cotton Cave.”

  Bodge stepped forward, finding his voice. “I want to live in the Cotton Cave, and maybe even make some friends. I’m good at catching rats.”

  Both men had taken a step back when Bodge stepped forward, looking at him with tension in their postures. When they heard him speak, they relaxed, sensing nothing to fear in his approach.

  Their haunted look persisted as they glanced at one another, before finally taking turns shaking Gabe’s offered hand, and introducing themselves as Carmichael and Steele.

  Steele said, “Trust me, Bodge. You don’t want to be in the Cotton Cave right now.”

  “Why not?” Gabe asked.

  Carmichael gestured to the bodies. “Tell me what you see.”

  “I see dead bodies.”

  Steele nodded at the corpse that had rolled past Gabe and Bodge. “Tha
t’s my brother, Tom. He was only twenty-three.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “The rats, it must have been the rats,” Steele said, shaking his head and closing his eyes.

  “Some sort of plague,” Carmichael said. “It’s sweeping through the Cotton Cave, like having to worry about Gang blowing the place up wasn’t bad enough.”

  Gabe leant down to look closer at Steele’s brother, holding a hand in front of his nose and mouth. “What do you think it is? Rabies?”

  Steele shook his head. “All I know is one day he was fine, and a day later he was dead.”

  “It’s not rabies,” Carmichael said. “Rabies isn’t catching. This is, or at least I think it is. An average of three men a day dying, and more getting sick all the time. I think it’s the plague. I think the rats brought the plague in.”

  Gabe spoke cautiously, for fear of upsetting them even more. “So far as I know, plague isn’t catching either.”

  Carmichael looked anguished. “But it’s the fleas. They must be jumping from one person to the next.”

  “How long?” Gabe asked.

  “Huh?”

  “How long has this been going on?”

  “Since around the time Gang started trying to blow the whole place up.”

  “Listen, we need to get rid of these bodies before they start stinking the place up.” Carmichael crouched next to the body that had rolled up against the wall and pulled it away, turned it, then started rolling it toward the entrance to the Water Chamber.

  “That’s my brother you’re talking about. It’s my damn brother.”

  Gabe was surprised that Bodge didn’t flinch at the curse word.

  “You’re taking them to the Cemetery?” Gabe asked. “There was a major collapse back there, I’m not sure you’ll be able to get through.”

  “No.” Carmichael shook his head sadly. “We gotta get rid of ‘em quickly. No time to go all that way. There’s probably already more waiting for us.”

  “What then?”

  Carmichael nodded in the direction of the Water Chamber. “We gotta dump ‘em in the water. Wish we didn’t, but there’s no time.”