December Park

by Ronald Malfi

  “Wait,” I called to Adrian, but he had already gone into the hole. The curtain of ivy and vines swung back over the opening.

  Scott went next. The tallest of us, he bent over and paused halfway into the opening. I thought he might back out and call it off. But he didn’t.

  I took a breath, stepped onto the concrete lip, and urged myself forward into the darkness. The air was stagnant and thick, the temperature at least ten degrees warmer since there was no breeze inside. Bent forward at the waist, I inched my way into the pipe, the soles of my sneakers grinding on the accumulated debris while the concrete ceiling brushed against the top of my head. Just ahead of me, the beams of Scott’s and Adrian’s flashlights ticked back and forth along the walls. I heard their respiration clearly, their sneakers scuffing over muddy grit.

  “Hey,” I half whispered, and even that was like a shout in this tomb-like echo chamber. “Do you see any opening up ahead, Adrian? At the other end?”

  “No,” he returned, his voice the disembodied drone of a ghost.

  Wonderful, I thought.

  Directly behind me, the beam from Michael’s flashlight projected my shadow against the curved wall to my right. One of his hands fell against my back. “Jesus,” he whispered. “There’s probably bats down here. And rats. Possums, too. Shit. There could be anything.” He wasn’t saying this to spook me, I realized; he was saying it because he was suddenly fearful of all those things. “Don’t walk too fast, Angie.” And I felt him ball up a fistful of my shirt.

  I took another step and felt my sneaker sink down into something. I paused and pointed the flashlight to the ground. Moist black sludge had engulfed my foot. Grimacing, I extracted it with a squelching sound. Bits of gunk pattered to the curved floor of the pipe.

  “Just what exactly are we collecting from down here?” I said to no one in particular.

  “Anything,” Scott said. “Anything at all.”

  I reached down and fingered something shiny and metallic out of the muck. It was the pull tab from a soda or beer can. Holding it between two fingers, I was about to pitch it when Michael’s face came up close to mine.

  “He said anything. That’s anything.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I said, unraveling the plastic shopping bag and dropping the pull tab inside it.

  “Stinks in here, too,” Michael went on. “It’s like walking through a giant anus.”

  “Don’t make me laugh,” Peter said from the back of the line. “I might throw up.”

  A few feet ahead of me in the darkness, Scott paused. I sensed him moving around, the beam of his flashlight washing across the confined walls of the pipe.

  Peter asked what was going on.

  “The walls,” Scott said. “Check ’em out.”

  I shined my light on the wall to my left. It looked like corrugated concrete, nothing special. I kept walking, running my hand along the wall, until the concrete ended and my hand fell on jagged brown stone. “What just happened?” I muttered.

  “This isn’t a pipe at all,” Scott said. “It’s like some natural tunnel under the street. The concrete was just the end cap.”

  I grazed the rock with my fingertips. All of a sudden I was a little kid again in the johnboat out on the bay with Charles. Charles was pointing up to the face of the cliff and at all the openings in the rock. Holes. Tunnels.

  “Just keep moving,” I urged Scott.

  We pushed on. The toes of my sneakers unearthed rusted soda cans, bottle caps, and the rubber heel of a boot from the river of muck that ran down the center of the pipe. Not sure what role any of these items might play, I stowed them in my plastic shopping bag along with the pull tab.

  “Shit,” Scott said. He froze, his light trained on something on the ground. With one foot, he moved the gunk around.

  “What is it?” I said.

  “A hypodermic needle.”

  “Oh, Christ. Don’t pick that up.”

  He crouched right above it, staring at it. When he looked up, he said, “Adrian? What do you think?”

  “I’ll pick it up,” Adrian said.

  “Dude,” Michael said to him from over my shoulder, “that thing could have hepatitis or AIDS or some shit on it.”

  “I’ll be careful.” Adrian bent down in front of Scott and gingerly lifted the item out of the muck. I glimpsed the translucent tubular body and the gleam of the needle. Pinched between two fingers, Adrian studied it.

  “What is he doing?” Peter said.

  “Here.” Scott twisted the head off his flashlight. The bulb went dead, and he slid two chunky batteries out of the flashlight’s shaft and into the pocket of his jeans. “Put it in here,” he told Adrian.

  Adrian dropped the hypodermic needle into the flashlight, and Scott twisted the cap back on.

  “Great,” Michael said. “Now all we gotta do is get that sucker to the CDC and we’re golden.”

  “I’ve got no light now,” Scott said to Adrian. “Go slow. I’ll stay close behind you.”

  Just then, a low resonant moan resounded through the tunnel. I felt the hair on the nape of my neck prickle. Michael tightened his grip on my shirt.

  “What is that?” Peter said.

  “The ghosts of lost children,” Michael responded. No doubt he’d meant it to be humorous, to break the tension, but no one laughed.

  “It’s just the wind,” I said, “blowing through the tunnel.”

  “No,” said Adrian. “That’s the Piper’s song.”

  Scott paused and said, “You guys got your knives, right?”

  “For what?” Michael said. “To cut our way out of here when the whole fucking tunnel collapses or to ward off a swarm of mutant-sized sewer rats when they come in for the kill?”

  “Pleasant thoughts,” Peter commented, his voice hollow.

  “Seriously,” I added. “You’re not cheering me up, Mikey.”

  “Don’t call me Mikey.”

  We kept moving. One thing was for certain: I wouldn’t be able to remain hunched over like this for an extended period of time. I already felt the muscles tightening in my back, and my neck was beginning to hurt. “Any light up ahead yet?”

  “No,” came Adrian’s response.

  I cast my flashlight’s beam on the ground as I walked. There was nothing but crumbled bits of rock covered in a mat of putrid black sludge. Whitish weeds sprouted like hair from the sludge. Rivulets of water trickled through it. The smell reminded me of the watermen’s shacks along the Cape. Also, the boys’ restrooms at school.

  “What’s that?” Michael said, his arm shooting out past my head as he pointed to something on the floor of the tunnel.

  I turned the flashlight on it. “An old tennis ball.” It was brown with age and slimy with blackish-green moss.

  “I spotted it,” he said. “It’s mine.”

  “Be my guest,” I said, stepping over the reeking tennis ball.

  That ghostly moan rose up again, sounding all too human and causing my heart to beat faster.

  “Boom-boom diddum daddum waddem shoo,” Michael sang in a low voice, as if in concert with the moan. “And they swam and they swam right out to the sea—”

  “Shut up,” Peter told him. “You’re creeping me out.”

  The windy moan eventually tapered off, but now a much deeper sound seemed to be coming from all around us. It reminded me of the hum the washing machine made when I would lie in my bed and listen to it through the floor.

  “What is that?” Peter said.

  “It’s the traffic up above, I think,” Scott said. “We’re probably heading beneath the highway.”

  “Holy shit,” Michael whispered.

  As we progressed, the droning grew louder and more resonant. Soon the rush of passing automobiles was perfectly audible directly above our heads through the layers of bedrock. We were beneath Governor Highway. With each passing vehicle, the tunnel seemed to vibrate, and I imagined I could feel the heat from the cars’ exhaust as they zoomed by. I was sweating profusely, th
e stillness of the air in the tunnel like that of a locked mausoleum.

  “Where do you think this tunnel comes out?” I said to the darkness.

  “What if it doesn’t?” Peter said. “What if it goes on for miles until it dead-ends?”

  “I can’t walk like this for miles. My back’s gonna break.”

  “Or what if the floor breaks apart and we fall into it?” he went on. “We’d be down there with broken necks waiting to die. It could take days. Weeks, even.”

  I ran one hand along the rocky wall. “Is it me or is this tunnel getting smaller and smaller?”

  “No one would ever find us,” Peter went on.

  “Hey,” Michael broke in. “I feel like the filling in an asshole sandwich. How ’bout talking about something else, huh?”

  “If this goes straight across the highway,” I said, “then we’re heading toward the Superstore plaza.”

  “What if we came up through the floor of a bank vault?” said Scott. “That would be awesome.”

  “Or a sub shop,” said Peter. “I’m starving.”

  After the drone of the highway traffic receded into the darkness behind us, Adrian said, “I think I see light up ahead. A little pinpoint of daylight.”

  “Thank God,” Michael groaned. He hadn’t let go of my shirt the entire time.

  I pushed against Scott’s back, feeling the sweat that had dampened his shirt. It was a lot of sweat. But then I realized there was water dripping from the crevices in the rock above our heads. Like walking straight into a spiderweb, I frantically swiped the cold water off my face and out of my eyes. When I opened my eyes, I thought I could see the widening disc of daylight at the other end of the tunnel, too.

  “Shit,” Scott uttered. This was followed by the sound of something metal clanging on the floor of the tunnel. Ahead of him, Adrian’s flashlight clattered to the ground.

  “What happened?” I said.

  Scott said, “Adrian?”

  “There’s . . . something . . . ,” Adrian mumbled.

  I shined my flashlight beam over Scott’s shoulder as Adrian bent down and picked something up off the ground. I took a small step, and my right foot came down on something that threatened to roll out from under me. Glancing down, I saw that it was Adrian’s flashlight. “Here,” I said and toed it over to Scott, who grabbed it and handed it to Adrian.

  “Look,” Michael said. “Can we get out of here or what?”

  “Yeah,” Peter seconded.

  We hurried toward the circle of daylight, spilling one by one out into the cool wind and silver-gray skies of an overcast afternoon. It had started to rain while we were underground, the raindrops feeling like blessed salvation on my sweat-sticky flesh. I massaged rainwater onto my hot face and breathed the fresh air. Thunder cracked.

  We were in the ditch behind the Superstore parking lot. Muddy water swirled about my feet, soaking the cuffs of my jeans.

  Adrian stood beside me, casually examining the item he had just found in the tunnel. It was an iron fleur-de-lis, and it looked heavy.

  “Cool,” I said.

  Adrian opened his shopping bag and dropped it inside.

  Just then, lightning burst on the other side of the plaza. The rain came down harder. We climbed out of the ditch and crossed the narrow band of asphalt that ran behind the Superstore’s loading docks. Green and silver awnings hung over the loading bays, and we crowded beneath one just as the rain came down in a torrent.

  Peter dug a pack of Pall Malls out of his pocket. Peering into the pack, he said, “Shoot. I’ve only got one left.”

  Another whip crack of thunder caused us all to jump.

  “Well,” Michael said, slinging an arm around Adrian’s neck. There were streaks of black mud on Michael’s face. “Was it everything you hoped it would be?”

  Rain had speckled the lenses of Adrian’s glasses. He grinned at Michael, then turned and looked toward the ditch. “What if the killer got her right here?”

  Peter sucked on his cigarette, then passed it to Scott. “What do you mean?”

  Adrian pointed to the ditch. “What if Courtney Cole made it out of December Park, across the highway, and was crossing the road back here when she ran into the killer? He could have killed her over there, then carried her through the tunnel to the woods to throw off the police. Did you guys see the way the water flowed through the tunnel? Maybe the locket broke right here and got washed out to the other end of the tunnel.”

  “That still doesn’t help us any,” I said.

  “But if that’s what happened, then the police were definitely looking in the wrong place for clues.” Adrian took his glasses off, wiped the lenses with the hem of his shirt, and slid them back on. He motioned toward the far side of the ditch. “What’s beyond those trees?”

  “More trees,” I said, plucking the cigarette from Scott’s mouth and sticking it into my own.

  “There’s neighborhoods back there, too,” Peter said, pointing to the west.

  “Which neighborhoods? Like, did any of the missing kids live there?”

  Peter and I had ridden our bikes through all the missing kids’ neighborhoods, so we both nodded.

  “Two blocks over is Shore Acre Road,” I said. “The Demorest kid lived out that way. He was the first one to go missing back in August.”

  “But it’s totally residential,” Peter countered. “Angie and I went up and down every street. Unless the killer lives in one of the houses, he ain’t hiding out anywhere.”

  “Maybe he does live in one of those houses,” Scott interjected. “For all we know, he could just be a normal guy most of the time, right? Isn’t that why Michael’s been making a list of suspects?”

  “My list!” Michael dug his notepad out of the rear pocket of his jeans. He flipped through the pages, scanning the notes. “Old lady Schubert. She’s the only one who lives on Shore Acre Road.”

  “Yes, of course,” Peter said. “She probably ran the Cole girl over in her wheelchair, then clubbed her to death with her cane.”

  Michael frowned. “Why would she have a cane if she’s in a wheelchair?”

  Peter rolled his eyes.

  “If the killer lives on this side of the highway and also killed the Cole girl here, why was her body found in the Dead Woods?” Scott asked, taking the cigarette back from me. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  We all considered this in mutual silence for nearly a full minute. The rain continued to come down in sheets.

  “Unless,” I suggested, “the cops are right, and he killed Courtney in the park after all, and he was planning to carry her body back here, where maybe he lives.”

  “Yeah?” Adrian said.

  “Well, think about it. He kills her in December Park, carries her through the woods toward Counterpoint Lane but decides not to risk it and leaves her there. Maybe he takes the heart-shaped locket with him but drops it as he crosses the street.”

  “Not the street,” Adrian said. “The tunnel. He would have used the tunnel so no one would have seen him.”

  “But why would he just drop her in the woods?” Peter said. “He didn’t do that with anyone else. Why leave her body for police to find but hide the others?”

  No one had an explanation for that.

  Adrian pointed east, toward the heavy black shroud of trees. “What’s over that way?”

  “More woods,” I said.

  “Okay, but what’s beyond the woods?”

  “The Butterfield farm. Then the Shallows.”

  “What’s the Shallows?”

  “An inlet with a beach and a marina. Some houses.”

  Adrian sucked on his lower lip and looked west, where Shore Acre Road and the Demorest house were hidden behind the rain and the trees.

  “What’s the plan for all this junk, anyway?” Michael said, holding up his mud-streaked shopping bag. He opened it, and I peered inside, glimpsing the mossy tennis ball, a soggy cardboard juice box, and several rust-orange bottle caps.

  “We h
ang on to it, keep it as evidence,” said Adrian.

  Michael shrugged.

  We stood around in silence, listening to the rain. We had reached an impasse.

  “So what do we do now?” Scott asked eventually.

  “I’m out of cigarettes and I’m hungry,” Peter said. “Let’s run over to the Quickman.”

  We sprinted across the loading docks in the rain and hopped onto the awning-covered sidewalk of the plaza’s strip mall. Lightning slammed down beyond the trees on the far side of the highway. A moment later, the sky roared.

  “Hey,” Scott said, pausing in front of the RadioShack. A TV in the window informed us of Kurt Cobain’s suicide, and we all watched in silent disbelief. Scott undid the Nirvana patch he had on the sleeve of his jacket and pinned it over his heart.

  “What happens now?” Peter asked no one in particular. It seemed that while we weren’t looking, occupied as we were with the Piper, the world had stolen something important from us.

  After a time, and in contemplative silence, we continued on our way toward the Quickman, though none of us felt much like eating anymore.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Discoveries

  The following day, I was bum-rushed by Mr. Mattingly out in the hallway after his class let out. “Do you have a minute, Angelo?”

  “I guess,” I said. I nodded at Adrian to go on without me.

  Adrian looked at Mr. Mattingly with something akin to distrust in his eyes. Then he turned and merged into the sea of students.

  Mr. Mattingly’s smile was warm. “We’ve got about two and a half more months left before the end of the school year. I was wondering if you’d given any further thought to what we’d discussed about next year.”

  “AP English?” I shrugged and tried my damnedest to look disinterested when, in truth, I had been dreading this confrontation since Mr. Mattingly had first approached me about it. It had been so long, I had mistakenly thought he’d forgotten about it. “No, not really. It kind of slipped my mind.”

  “I have to turn my recommendations in next week. I’d like to put your name on the list but only if you want to do it.”

  “Aren’t those AP classes for kids going to college next year? Seniors, I mean.”