by Sikes, AJ
Brand stared and marveled at the sight. Traded laughter came from somewhere in the throng, distinct deep guffaws mingled and mixed with throaty chuckles and higher pitched cackling. Brand followed as his traveling companions dismounted their handcar and moved to join the bustling activity. Mihalyi turned to him at the edge of the crowd, a smile of pride and approval creasing his face.
“You see?”
“I see. Yeah. Where does this track lead to?”
“Edge of city. Close to edge. Railyard. Trains there to take us out of city.”
“And how about the soldiers?”
“Governor has not soldiers there. All are here,” the gypsy said, pointing a finger at the roof of the tunnel. “I leave now with my people. Good luck, Mitchell Brand. We count on you.”
“Eh?”
The gypsy motioned for Brand to turn around. He did and saw Dana Reynolds stood on the handcar they’d taken. She smiled and lifted her eyebrows at him, drumming her fingers on the lever arm.
Brand watched the gypsies and negroes load their cargo and begin their departure. Handcars rolled in a steady stream down the tunnel, their lanterns glowing like fireflies until they winked out of sight.
“Nuts to this,” he said and stepped back to the handcar where Dana helped him aboard.
#
They pumped the lever arm in a rapid cadence to move the car down the tunnel. The squeak of the wheels against the rails gave Brand the distraction he needed. Overhead, the bombs continued to fall around the neighborhood. Brand was sure the roof would crash in on them in a shower of rock and flame. When the squeaking of the handcar wasn’t enough to keep him from tumbling into memories of the trenches, he gave conversation a shot. It worked well enough, he found out, but he wasn’t too happy with what Dana Reynolds had to say.
“You’ll need protection out there, Brand. Besides,” she said, “I’m not letting the Governor get off easy on this.”
“You think one girl with a sword and a shotgun is enough to send the Governor’s boys running?”
“I think somebody needs to fight back, yes. And it’s more than just one girl with a sword. There’s a resistance up there. Right now. Trading shots with those soldiers. Men and women who stayed behind.”
“What the hell for?”
“Because they didn’t want to give up so easily. Maybe they wanted to help their friends in that tunnel behind us. Make enough ruckus. Slow the Governor down. They think that train will get them out. But I’m not convinced.”
They kept up their conversation while they pumped the handle and rode the track further away from the speak. After a while, Dana paused and caught her breath while Brand did the lion’s share of moving the handcar. She gave him a breather a few minutes later.
After two more stretches of tunnel with breaks for each of them, they pulled up to a platform set into the wall. Above the damp wooden structure, the roof had been hollowed out, allowing for one or two people to stand level with the floor of the handcar. Dana stepped from the car to the platform and reached a hand over to help Brand. He nodded, but made it across on his own. Dana spun on her heel and stepped to the tunnel wall. Brand saw the outline of a door cut into the earth. He lifted the lantern from the handcar and saw a heavy layer of burlap and canvas had been draped to conceal the door.
“Who’re we hiding the door from?” he asked.
“If the Governor finds these tunnels, he’ll probably just dynamite them. Like the Mayor did. But if he sends his boys down here, and I think he might, we wanted to have as much protection as possible.”
“You’ve been in with these gypsies how long? Seems you’re part of their crew, but I don’t get that you’re one of them. Not properly, at any rate.”
“No. I’m not a member of their community. I work for them. Same as I work for anyone who’s got the right color money.”
“Does that include the Governor?”
Brand knew he shouldn’t have asked. The woman’s tough girl act rankled him though, and he didn’t know how else to play his hand. She stepped close and looked at him hard.
“If the Governor paid me to stick you in the eye, I might take him up on it. Otherwise, it’d be no deal. Any more funny stuff, Brand?”
He sniffed and gave her his smile that was half sneer. “No, Miss—I mean Dana. No more from me. Lead they way. Please.”
She pushed the door open and they entered a tunnel with a concrete floor. Brand’s feet were unsteady at first on the foreign stone surface. Two short lengths of tunnel later, they emerged through a second entrance to the curio shop cellar.
Outside, the bombs had stopped falling. At least for now, Brand thought. Gunfire crackled and popped still, echoing into the cellar through the doorway that led to the street.
“We should close that up,” Dana said and went to the door. The secret shelf that Stevie Five Sticks had come through was closed. Brand went to it and tried to find a hidden catch that might open it.
“Don’t bother,” Dana said. “It can only be opened from the tunnel side, just like the one we came through. “Let’s get an eye on the street, hey?”
They went upstairs and into the front parlor where Brand had stormed around the last time he was in the house. The soldiers had come through and left their mark. The chair was upended and much of the furnishings showed signs of being kicked or struck with rifle butts. A glow radiated through the cracked windows and Brand went to examine the street outside.
His jaw hung open as he took in the damage. Across the street, burned out husks of houses and shops stared back at him like a forest of corpses. Overturned carts and wagons filled the roadway. Brand went to the foyer and pushed aside the shattered door and went onto the porch. Down the street, moving away from the curio shop, teams of soldiers continued their trail of destruction. They went into homes, lighting fires and smashing windows before moving on.
“There aren’t any bodies in the street,” Brand said. “Where’d the people go? They weren’t all taken out in that march earlier.”
“You saw them down there, Brand. In the tunnels. Most of them. Hell, almost all of them. Nothing but a gang or two left up here, like I said. Trying to fight back. Buy their comrades some time.”
Brand was angry now. Angry as hell that it had come this far and that he’d been powerless to stop it. He knew, reading that bulletin the soldier tacked to the door. He knew and he raged, but he couldn’t think of a way to prevent it from happening. Still, seeing it now, on the street in front of him, in the splintered bits of wood hanging in the doorframe at his back— Fury burned in his gut and sent a haze of blood over his eyes.
“Who’s up here? Do you know who they are? I mean names, sister.”
“Your pal, Stevie Five Sticks and his friends. A few others. What’s—”
“Where are they?” he cut in, growling and barely keeping his voice down. The soldiers might hear him. So what. Let them.
“Follow the bullets, Brand. Like you used to do,” Dana said and moved away, going down the first two steps before Brand caught up to her and put a hand on her shoulder.
“Hey. I’m here to get a story and to get that story to the people who need to hear it. Now how’s about you make nice and lend me some help. I thought that’s why you came along, isn’t it?”
Dana knocked his hand aside. “I came along to get back to where the action was, Brand. You can follow and get your story in my wake, or you can take your chances looking for Five Sticks and his bunch. Make your choice whenever you like, but I’m leaving before the soldiers come by to break up our lover’s quarrel.” She gave him a salute and he felt his hand snap to his brow in reply. Then Dana Reynolds and her sword disappeared into the night while bullets peppered a wall nearby and someone screamed.
“Like I used to do. Dammit, sister, you know me too well,” Brand said
as he ran toward the gunfire and shouts, toward the sounds of war.
Chapter 38
Aiden and the professor watched the gunfire rain down into the neighborhood. Bursts of flickering light swelled into blossoms and receded, leaving only the heavy dark shapes of gunships soaring overhead.
“What do we do, mister? Ain’t there a way out of here?”
“Indeed, as I said. We must leave, and our departure is now overdue. Come.”
Aiden followed the professor down the steps, through his cellar, and into the tunnels once more. He accepted the crank torch the professor handed him and kept up a steady glow of light to illuminate their path. Explosions overhead knocked earth and dust from the tunnel roof. Aiden’s heart stuck in his throat. With every step, he feared the tunnel would fall in, trapping them in a grave no one would ever find. His parents would never know what happened to him.
“Mister?”
“Yes, Mr. Conroy?”
“Some G-men took my folks away. Do you know what happened to ‘em?”
“I can surmise where they may have been taken, but I cannot say for certain.”
More explosions and the sound of gunfire came to Aiden’s ears. “You think they’re still alive, mister? Not out there getting. . .” Aiden couldn’t bring himself to say the words. He could barely manage to think of his parents because his mind wanted to tell him they were dead. He knew that wasn’t a sure thing, but not knowing felt worse somehow, like a weight that threatened to be true and would be true when it finally crushed him into the ground. That dread grew unbearable as he moved through the darkness with only this strange man who called himself a professor for company and protection.
“I gotta find ‘em, mister,” Aiden said as they turned a corner. The tunnel ended in a wooden panel with a catch on one side. Before reaching to open the door, Aiden turned around and faced the professor. “I gotta find my Ma and Pa. If you got any ideas for where to start looking, I’d be obliged to you for sharing.”
“Through that door, Mr. Conroy, is a place where you will find safety and, if we have arrived in a timely manner, perhaps even one who might help you in your quest to find your parents.”
“Talk straight with me, okay, mister? I can’t half follow you when you—”
“Mr. Brand. Your former supervisor. He should be on the other side of that door, or not too far from it. He will need that device you have tucked into your coat.”
“How do you know all this? What gives?”
The professor went on, like he hadn’t even heard Aiden’s questions.
“Together, the two of you stand a greater chance of success than if either of you were to spend this night acting alone.”
“What is this, mister? What are you talking about and how do you know Mr. Brand is out there?”
“I have said before, Mr. Conroy, that I am loathe to dismiss with Inquiry. No truer statement could I speak. The god lives within me and I within him. And now, I must depart for a more appropriate setting.”
The professor brushed a hand through the air beside his head and stepped out of the dim light from the fading crank torch. Aiden’s mouth fell open as the darkness surrounded the professor and seemed to swallow him whole.
“Mister, wha—”
And then the man was gone, the darkness falling into place where he’d once stood. Aiden stood shivering in the black, afraid and alone. His fingers coiled around a handle and he realized he’d stopped working the crank torch. With a shudder of fright, Aiden spun and aimed the torch light at the door behind him. A simple catch to one side let it fall open.
Aiden stepped out of the tunnel and into a dimly lit cellar lined with shelves full of household items, tools, and bits of fabric and leather. A single light bulb warmed the space, but only just. Aiden roamed the shelves with his gaze, looking for something he could use as a weapon. His eye fixed on a shelf on the opposite wall that had two pistols on it. Aiden darted across the room and snatched up one of the guns. He’d fired a revolver before, just like the one he now held. Next to the guns was a box of bullets.
He put the crank torch down and went to load the revolver, dropping the first two bullets he picked up. Aiden breathed deep and settled his shivering hands. With the gun fully loaded and a handful of cartridges in his pocket, he turned to regard the room. The cellar was empty. A door set into one wall was closed and barred. Across from the door a set of steps led into the house above. Aiden slowly moved to the stairs.
He thought about going back for the crank torch, but decided he’d rather have at least one free hand. The pistol weighed down his wrist and arm like a hunk of stone. He fought to ignore the feelings. His favorite radio shows were the ones where the good guys always had pea shooters trained on the bad guys at the end. Aiden tried to hold the weapon like his radio heroes would, but the cold metal and rough wooden grip made the gun feel too large in his hand. He pocketed it. The gun’s weight sank in next to the bullets, dragging his coat against his shoulder.
Aiden put a foot onto the bottom step and waited there, ready to run back into the tunnel if he heard anything like a threat from upstairs. He heard nothing and put his foot on the next step, and the next. He reached the top and peered into the dark corners of the house. To one side was a sitting room where a chair was turned over and the other furniture looked beat up and ruined. To the other side was a little breakfast nook. The table top had been smashed and broken glass littered the kitchen floor nearby. A cold wind blew through the house, followed by the sounds of gunfire and shouting from outside.
Staying low, Aiden crept further into the house, going for the overturned chair. He’d hide behind it. Outside the house, to the front, he heard voices. Angry voices, a man and woman arguing. Gunshots rang out from behind the house and a man shouted in pain. Aiden flinched and tucked himself into a corner beside a cracked up side table. He fished the gun out of his pocket and aimed it at the front door.
More gunfire and shouting filled the night air outside and seemed to surround the house. Aiden’s lip quivered and he squeezed off a shot from the pistol. The loud report scared him and he dropped the gun between his feet. Picking up the gun, Aiden remembered what the professor had told him before he disappeared into the darkness. Aiden had to find his folks, and Mr. Brand was supposed to be up here. He could help. Mr. Brand could help him find his parents, and maybe Aiden could help his old boss somehow.
Creeping out of his hiding place, Aiden moved to the front door and looked outside at the ruined street. Blackened, shattered buildings looked back at him. Voices came to him from about a block away, and more gunfire from almost right overhead. He heard the bullets hitting the ground and kicking up chips of stone and dirt. A team of soldiers came into view from the right, moving low and staying close to the porch. Aiden ducked inside and begged, silently, for the soldiers to keep moving.
He heard foosteps on the stairs. Aiden bolted, running through the house, into the kitchen and the washroom beyond, to the back door. He drew up at the door, snuck a glance outside. Silhouetted figures struggled against the wall of the next house, a flickering firelight casting a glow around them that made Aiden think of the stories he’d heard of damnation and torment. The awkward angles and violent movement put a lump in his throat that no amount of swallowing could dislodge.
Mr. Brand’s voice broke through the sounds of fighting and Aiden moved to open the back door. Another voice came to him then, from inside the house.
“I know you’re in here, kid. I saw you run.”
Chapter 39
Emma whipped her hand out of her pocket, feeling the cold metal of the revolver like a bee sting in her palm. She and Eddie darted from their hiding place and tore across pavement and muddy earth to the next block. Emma saw only one shot for them. Go back, deeper into the neighborhood. Things seemed quieter now. No explosions rocked the night or shook the gro
und beneath their feet. Emma searched the sky. The gunships were still there, circling. But they weren’t firing. At least not now. This was their one chance.
They could stay in the shadows. They could find Nagy’s cellar again. Maybe get lucky enough to find another way into the tunnels.
At the next house they pulled up beside the back stoop. Across a wide alley, gates stood open along the length of a fence. Emma shot her eyes up and down the alley, peering into every corner and shadow for any sign of soldiers. When she saw nothing but snowmelt and the pitch of night, she stepped out of hiding and ran through the mud to the first gate. She halted and turned. Eddie hadn’t moved. In the dim light she could barely make out his hand, waving her back. She cursed under her breath and looked again for movement around the area before running back to Eddie.
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
“I’m staying hid. The hell are you doing running around like this? Where you think we’re going to anyway?”
“The tunnels. It’s the only place we’ll be safe. Those soldiers—”
As if on cue, a man’s voice broke into the quiet around them.
“Over here!”
Eddie and Emma moved as one, her hand in his, across the alley, through the gate and into the yard beyond. Eddie pulled the gate closed and they stood with their backs to the fence. Emma held her breath until she heard the soldiers in the alley.
“I heard voices.”
“Go left. I’ll take right.”