by D Haltinner
“Probably a herd of rats.”
“Pack.”
“What?”
“A pack of rats.”
“Either way, you shouldn’t be down there.”
“Give it up.” Troy stepped into the north tunnel, holding his cell phone out in front of him like a flashlight.
“Where are you going?” Darren said into the shaft.
“To find out what the noise is.” Troy’s voice echoed back.
“What does it sound like?”
“I don’t know, almost like an old machine. Like a steam press or something. Just a clunk followed by a hiss, over and over.”
“Maybe it’s just the boilers.”
“That kind of a noise? Doubt that.”
“Just come back,” Darren said.
“You can leave.” Troy’s voice was sounding further away.
“I may just do that.”
Darren knew he couldn’t though. There was no telling what was down there, and if Troy got hurt, no one would know until they stumbled upon the open hatch. And if the employees didn’t check around the building to make sure it was empty when they closed, it could be tomorrow until someone else stumbled upon the open hatch. Even then, who’s to say someone would crawl down there and look to find the hurt Troy. They might just close it and put the shelf back, trapping him down there until Darren realized that Troy never came back. He was the only person who knew that Troy was down there.
The light of Troy’s cell phone grew dimmer as he moved further from the shaft. It blinked out, only to reappear a moment later as Troy must have pushed another button after the light timed out.
Just let him go, Darren told himself. You aren’t his babysitter, and you’re not his friend either. So just let him go. If he gets hurt, that’s his problem. If he gets caught, that’s his own problem. Just worry about yourself right now.
The light grew dimmer and dimmer, and soon Darren couldn’t see it over the lights around him.
“Troy?” Darren called into the shaft. He didn’t want to raise his voice too high in case he would attract someone’s attention, but then again, if the rusted hinges didn’t make someone curious enough to find the source, why would someone yelling?
“Troy!” Darren called louder.
No response.
The air floating out of the shaft smelled reminiscent of a cellar of an old house. Humid with a hint of mold.
Old.
Very old.
Darren called down into the shaft again, but no response came.
Where the bloody hell did Troy go? He should be able to still hear Darren’s voice. He was in a corridor made out of cement after all. Darren’s voice should be echoing all the way up and down the tunnel.
Could he be hurt? Probably not. Troy was only gone for a couple of minutes. Darren would have been able to hear any cries for help.
“Help me mister Arab terrorist,” Darren said, trying to mimic Troy’s husky voice.
Let the asshole fend for himself. He’s the one who wanted to go down there, so let him find his own way out. Tomorrow, ask the professor for a new partner. Or just do the paper and don’t put his name on it. Don’t worry about him, he isn’t the responsibility of anyone except himself.
Darren stood up and tried to look around the shelves toward the clock. He didn’t bring a watch, and he didn’t have a cell phone like Troy did. Who would he call anyways? He has no friends, just Rachel, and why she dates him, he has no idea. No use in calling his parents, they ask too many questions. It took a government grant for low-income families and a scholarship just to get away from them for nine months.
He followed Rachel to UW-Redfern even after Madison offered him a full scholarship that would supplement the grant. It was days like today that made him regret his choice. He didn’t even see Rachel that much now. She slept all weekend after her parties and was too busy with school work to see him during the week. They had breaks between classes at different times and they never crossed each other’s paths moving from building to building either.
Should have just gone to Madison.
But Rachel begged and pleaded, and Darren could never say no.
And now he’s here. Standing over a hidden hatch in the Fredrickson Memorial Library at UW-Redfern, waiting for some asshole to climb back out of the bowels of the earth hours after he should already be sleeping.
“Library closes in five minutes,” a smooth voice said over the loudspeaker.
“Bloody hell,” Darren mumbled.
He leaned back down to the shaft and yelled for Troy again.
No response.
“I’m leaving!" Darren yelled. “You can explain all this yourself after you get caught.”
Still no response.
Enough of this. Troy’s a grown man, he can fend for himself.
Darren rose and followed the rows of bookcases back toward the study areas where he and Troy left their backpacks. He grabbed his and left the building, smiling at the librarian as he passed her.
She locked the door behind him.
Chapter 2
Darren walked through the dark at a brisk pace, passing by the other campus buildings without a glance. He shoved his hands deep into his pockets in an attempt to protect them from the fall air clawing at him from the cross breeze. The side walk was damp from the forming dew, the streetlights above it disappearing into the void beneath Darren’s feet.
Darren’s backpack bounced against his back, warning others of his presence with its rhythmic thunking. The occasional car whipped by, deadening the sound of his bag for a moment at a time, but even those were few and far between. He hadn’t even passed or spotted another person since he left the library. Everyone else was smarter than he was and tucked away in bed.
But no, Darren had to try and fit in and stay up like the other people his age. But where were they all? Not outside, that’s for sure. He didn’t even want to be out here.
A car zipped past him on College Street, leaving a thick cloud of black exhaust behind it. The bloom hung suspended in the air for a minute before it dissipated into the night, leaving behind the stench of burning oil and rubber.
Should have waved them down. Told them to call for help for Troy.
Bloody idiot that Troy was.
The guy couldn’t leave well enough alone, and now he was somewhere below the library, maybe hurt. Darren figured it was best just to leave the guy to his own whims, no matter how stupid they were, but that didn’t stop him from worrying.
Troy could be hurt. He could even be lost, there was no telling what kind of twists and turns were along the tunnel he found, wherever it went.
If Troy did get hurt, would Darren take some of the blame? He did his best to convince the guy not to go. He did everything short of physically stopping him. He couldn’t get in trouble, could he? They could blame him for not reporting it to the campus police or even the librarian, but Darren didn’t want to be a snitch.
Just leave Troy alone and get him out of your head. You did the best you could to stop him, so just let it go. Worry about yourself.
Darren glanced over at the approaching dormitories, wondering if the tunnel could stretch across the campus, all the way to the dorms.
Probably not. What would be the point? It was just some sort of maintenance area. Maybe years ago they used to use steam to heat the building, and the tunnel was where the pipes ran.
It made sense. Some old building and complexes still have high pressure steam around for them. Not that safe, but still effective. They need some way to get to the pipes without having to dig them up every time they found a leak, and the tunnels had to have been put in when the building was built. So why not? They could even be used as tornado shelters.
But somehow, it didn’t sound right. And it didn’t explain the sound that Troy said he heard. Nor did it explain the lack of pipes beneath the hatch.
But what else could it be?
The gray towers of the dormitories loomed nearby. There were four
of them, labeled by their cardinal directions, all clustered into a group between College Street and Washington Street at the north end of campus. Each one stretched five stories high, every other floor rotated between male and female in all four buildings.
Just past the dorms at the intersection of Riverside Road was the parking lot designated for the students living on campus. Smaller parking lots for the commuters were scattered across the campus with larger ones by the Redfern Athletics Center and the Jefferson Arts Center for the theatre.
UW-Redfern was built in the center of the city, just a few blocks from the downtown stretch. It was bordered by Washington and Lacuna streets, with College Street running down the middle of the campus. Riverside Road blocked off the north end, while the south area was bordered by Main Ave that led off to the downtown area.
Most of the surrounding area was residential, a mix of small apartments and duplexes for the most part. The students with more money lived in the cheap (sometimes rundown) complexes, but most filled the dormitories. Across Washington Street was where the bars joined the picture, surrounded by a couple of competing minimarts and a sole Presbyterian church. The density of bars was highest closer to the dorms, thinning out as they moved away.
The bars seemed like the place to be for the juniors and seniors old enough-or the younger students with good enough fake IDs. All weekend, day and night, the bars were full, but on weeknights such as this, the crowds were kept to a minimum by the-small amount of-sense of responsibility the students had for school work.
Just south of the dorms, connected by a series of paved walkways, was the dining hall. After that were the Fredrickson Memorial Library, Rosch Hall, and the Jefferson Arts Center Across College Street was the T. Sommers Sciences building, Painter Hall and McCormick Hall tucked behind it, the administrative building, followed by the Student Union and the campus park, ending with the Athletic Center across the street from the dorms.
The sororities and fraternities were across Riverside Road, but the students of Redfern seemed to have little interest in them-their memberships were at historic lows and there were even rumors of two of them locking their doors this winter when for sale signs went up.
Darren slid his backpack straps up his shoulder higher when he could see the northwest dorm looming ahead, and picked up the pace. Most of the lights were off in the windows of the southwest dorm he skidded by, only the occasional dim glow of a TV or computer screen could be seen drifting out of a few rooms.
Darren passed the southwest building and turned onto the walkways between that building and his own. He could see Rachel’s building-the northeast-up ahead, and he counted the windows three high and four across to her window. The light was off in her room-even she was asleep this late at night.
Darren plunged his hands deep into his pockets again and picked up the pace toward the dorm’s front door. He swung his hip at the RF reader beside the door, it beeped and turned green, and he pulled a hand out of his pocket to pull the door open, and stepped inside.
The stale air of the dorm filled in around Darren, trying to escape out of the door before it swung shut. The hall was silent, only the light hum of the bathroom exhaust fan made it down the tiled corridor. The dorm office door sat closed across from the entryway, the red light of its card reader flickering in and out from a dying LED.
The hallway stretched east and west to both sides of the dormitory, ending at stairwells on both sides. A single elevator sat on the west end, but only students with medical clearance were allowed to use it, and the elevator worked off of the ID cards in order to police its use.
Darren headed down the east corridor, keeping his head down, watching the black streaks of shoes drift in lines across the aging tile. He noted no lights drifting out of any of the rooms he passed, and wished he was asleep in his bed just like everyone else was. He got to the stairwell, pushed the door open, and began to climb the stairs up to the fifth floor.
The trek upwards was growing easier by the day, but it was still hard enough that he was sweating by the time he made it to his own room. The stairwell smelled like mold and brought back the memory of the shaft below the library. Darren tried to shake the train of thought from his head when it moved onto the manhole cover still in his dreams from Kingston.
Darren reached the fifth floor, panting only a slight amount, and pushed open the door. A large hole in the drywall beside the first door always caught Darren’s eye when he entered the floor, probably left by a student moving an old garage sale love seat into his room. Darren didn’t bring any furniture with him, in fact he brought almost nothing. A few books, an old computer he bought at a used computer store in Kingston, and clothes-that was about it. He didn’t need much.
Room 567 came up on Darren’s right. He let the reader scan his card through his pocket and pushed inside when the door unlocked. Light blasted him in the face, allowing him to see his roommate at his desk on the left.
Jack Coleman was a bit of a redneck, but in contrast to the stereotype, Jack spent every available minute typing away on his computer. His eyes glowed with the reflection of his monitor as he strained to read what was on the screen. His thinning hair was unusual for a sophomore, but Darren couldn’t picture him any other way.
“I’m surprised to see you’re up,” Darren said. He shut the door and tossed his backpack onto his desk on the right of the door.
“What time is it?” Jack asked, keeping his eyes glued to the screen.
“Almost one.”
“Already? Time flies by sometimes.”
“I thought you had to work tonight?”
“I did. I was done at eleven.”
Darren went to the dresser behind the desk and pulled out his bag of bathroom supplies from the top drawer. “I should have been in bed then.”
“Yeah, you usually are. What’s up?”
Darren’s opened his mouth, about to spill the beans about Troy’s adventure, but stopped himself. He should just keep that to himself. He’s only known Jack for a month, so there was no telling how big Jack’s mouth was yet.
“Just had to do some research for a paper,” Darren said.
“Glad my dad doesn’t do research papers.”
His father was the statistics professor. Jack got a free ride because of his dad’s length of employment at Redfern, but his dad forced him to get a job to make sure Jack would learn how to prioritize and also understand the importance of managing money and time. You were never too old to learn the basics of adult life from your father.
“What kind if paper would he make us write for statistics?” Darren asked. “A biography on Pascal or something?”
“He wouldn’t make us write anything unless it was in purely numerical form,” Jack said. He looked up from the computer monitor. “But he will give us so many tests that it will take a statistics professor to average it all.”
Darren laughed. “We’ll probably get graded off of the standard deviation too.”
Jack nodded.
“I meant that as a joke.”
“It’s hardly a joke.”
“You mean he will?”
Jack nodded. “It is statistics after all.”
“I better stay at the front of the curve.”
“Good idea.” Jack turned back to his computer.
Darren started for the door, intending to head to the bathroom and get ready for bed, but stopped himself. He turned to look at the back of Jack’s head. “You have been here awhile.”
“Yeah.”
“Have you ever heard anything about an old tornado or fallout shelter under any of the buildings?”
“Not that I can think of, why?”
“Just a rumor I heard.”
“Let me guess,” Jack said, eyes locked on his computer screen, fingers typing away. “Someone told you about an old party that went on for days, in some underground room.”
Darren frowned. “No-” Then he thought about it. “I mean yeah, similar to that at least.”
“That rumor’s traveled around since sixty-seven. It gets changed and modernized, but the just of it always stays the same."
“No truth to it?”
“Maybe at some point there was. I can ask my dad.”
“No, that’s okay. I’m sure it’s just an urban legend.”
“Probably.”
Darren opened the door and stepped out, toilet bag in hand. He walked to the bathroom and set his bag on the long counter of sinks, picking the cleanest of the six of them. He brushed his teeth, thinking about the shaft, and the tunnel it led to.
He couldn’t get it out of his head. Troy was somewhere down below the library, maybe even stumbling upon the old room Jack’s rumor spoke of. If Troy does make it back, he wouldn’t keep his mouth shut, and he’d tell people about what was down there. Soon, the administration would find out, and Darren would find himself out of a scholarship for his involvement. All because of a partner Darren didn’t even want, letting curiosity get the best of him.
Darren almost wished Troy was hurt. But if he was hurt, and someone found him, the same outcome would still occur, and Darren would have to say good bye to his scholarship still.
Darren shook his head. He was growing more and more pessimistic as the minutes went by since he left the library. He won’t know what happened with Troy until the morning anyways. He can go to the library first thing and see if the hatch had been found by anyone, and if Troy is alright.
And find out how deep of shit he’s now in.
Maybe Darren will get lucky and Troy will take the entire blame. It would serve the guy right for trying to sneak around where he’s not supposed to. Darren did try to stop him after all.
Darren finished up in the bathroom and headed back to the room. Jack was still typing away at the computer, not an ounce of fatigue in his eyes.
“What did you do all day on the computer anyways?” Darren asked as he put his bag away and dug out something to sleep in. “I know you can’t have that much homework, and you’re not majoring in computer science.”
“Just talking to people.”