The Whittier Trilogy

by Michael W. Layne

  The fact that Helen and John had a semi-permanent residence in the tunnels gave him hope, but their section of tunnel was perpendicular to the main pathway leading away from the city to its water source of Lake Meade.

  As Trent contemplated his next move, he noticed scratch marks in the concrete and some dried blood on the ledge of the entrance to the smaller tunnel. Anyone could have left those marks, but the blood looked relatively fresh, and Trent’s instincts told him that the scratches could easily have been made by Zana as she struggled with her captors.

  Trent steeled himself and ducked into the tunnel. He began moving at a fairly high speed even though the lower ceilings forced him to stoop over and to sometimes touch the ground with his hands for balance and to help propel himself forward.

  After about a quarter of a mile, the tunnel opened back up to the normal seven-foot tall ceilings, and Trent was able to stand up completely once again. As he stretched out of reflex, he noted to himself that his back wasn’t sore, nor were his legs tired. In fact, he felt almost invigorated.

  As he continued on, the tunnel sloped down at a steep angle, providing a natural path for water to travel when the tunnel system was doing the job for which it was intended. Every fifty yards or so, he saw another caged video camera mounted to the wall. And every time he drew near, the red light of the camera started blinking. After the first half dozen cameras, he got tired of destroying them, and regressed to simply flipping each one off as he passed by.

  At one point, Trent decided to try an experiment. He stopped just past one of the video cameras with its flashing red light, turned off his flashlight, and waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness.

  He knew that red light wouldn’t ruin his night vision, and he was quietly thankful that he ate enough salads to keep his Vitamin A levels high. He was pleased that after only five minutes or so, he was able to see well enough to move effortlessly through the tunnel, and that every time he passed a video camera, just as John had claimed, he was able to see even more clearly with just the small amount of illumination from the camera’s blinking red light.

  Just as he was feeling comfortable walking around the tunnels without the use of his flashlight, he saw a light farther down the tunnel. He approached it cautiously, his eyes searing in pain as he neared its source. Ready for anything, he was relieved to find that the side wall of the tunnel opened up to a steep slope that led to an underground parking garage.

  As he stopped and looked out at the concrete parking lot that seemed to glow under the harsh fluorescent underground lights, Trent had to hold his hand over his eyes as they struggled to adjust to the painful glare. The support columns interspersed among the few cars that were parked this far down reminded him of man-made stalagmites rising up to the ceiling of a giant, artificial cave.

  He reflected for a moment on how surreal it was to be so far underground, in the middle of an underground world of homeless people and monsters, and then suddenly to be in a parking garage at least partially filled with what looked to be quite expensive sports cars.

  No sooner had Trent stepped more than a few feet into the garage, than the area erupted in a painful on-and-off-again electronic shriek, probably set off by a motion detector meant to scare away intruders from the tunnels.

  As tempting as it was to find and take the elevator or the stairs up to what Trent was pretty sure was the Paradise Hotel just east of the strip, he remained focused on finding Zana and ducked back into the tunnel so that his eyes could begin to adjust to the darkness yet again before moving on.

  Even though he chose to stay in the tunnels and to continue tracking the creature, he made a mental note to take this way to the surface on the way back since it was closer and much more convenient than the manhole.

  With his eyes once again adjusted to the near pitch blackness, he increased his speed to a slow run.

  For what seemed like an hour, Trent continued down the straight tunnel, coming upon a homeless person every once in a while, but fewer and fewer as he went deeper into the tunnel system. Most of the people he saw were making do the best they could with large pieces of cardboard and carpet remnants. None of them had the kind of setup that John and Helen had cobbled together.

  For the most part, the people he passed didn’t even look up when he ran by. Trent tried talking to one of them who looked more aware of his surroundings than some of the others down that far in the tunnels. Trent asked him if he knew Zana, but the man mumbled something about walruses and went back to using his fingers to count items in front of him that only he could see.

  Since the tunnel hadn’t branched off in so long, Trent knew that he had to be going in the right direction still, but he was beginning to doubt himself anyway.

  Even as he was contemplating turning around again, he came across a tunnel running perpendicular to the one he was in. He hated to ruin his night vision, but wanted to take a look further into this new tunnel before exploring it.

  So he closed his eyes and turned on his flashlight. Gradually, he was able to open his eyes and see again as he took a moment to rest.

  Trent slouched down on the floor and contemplated his position.

  He was sitting in an underground tunnel system, probably at least a quarter of a mile under the city, in complete darkness with only a single flashlight and no spare batteries—and he was searching for a woman he barely knew, regardless of how strong the connection was that he felt for her.

  Trent was suddenly tired, and the concrete under him felt as comfortable as the softest down. As he tried to force himself to rally, he suddenly caught a familiar odor in the air.

  This time, it was the scent of almonds.

  Chapter 30

  TRENT SPRANG to his feet.

  The smell of Zana was faint, but it was definitely there.

  He tried to relax and let his senses take over. When he did, he could almost see her scent like a trail of vapor winding down the tunnel in front of him. He switched off his flashlight again, so that he would not lose the element of surprise if he needed it.

  He forced himself to move slowly as his eyes readjusted, but as soon as he could see, he bolted with renewed vigor into the pitch-dark tunnel, certain of his path for the first time.

  As he sped along, Zana’s scent grew stronger, and his spirits lifted.

  When it felt like he was almost upon her, Trent slowed down and tried to walk as quietly as possible, even though there was nothing in front of him or behind him for as far as he could see.

  Just utter darkness and silence.

  He continued on, letting his nose lead the way, but he soon realized that Zana’s scent was growing fainter and being replaced with the now familiar stench of dead and rotting fish. There had been no turn offs along the way, but whether her trail had just vanished or had been covered up by the smell of the young Troll, he could not tell.

  Cursing in a barely audible voice, Trent turned his flashlight on and very slowly retraced his steps until he started picking up her scent again. For a moment, he wondered if his sense of smell was heightened from what it usually was or if Zana had just worn a lot of perfume. His memory from back in his hotel room was that the smell of almonds on her had been subtle and faint. He tried not to think about whether he was losing his mind or whether his senses were really becoming sharper as he went deeper into the subterranean world beneath Las Vegas.

  Within another minute or so, he had zeroed in on the spot where Zana’s scent was the strongest. He scanned the floor, the ceiling, and the walls with the beam from his flashlight, looking for any clue he might have missed the first time through.

  As he examined the floor more closely, he noticed faint tread marks pressed into the concrete floor, which he thought was odd given how far into the tunnels he was.

  He had missed it before, but the normally smooth tunnel wall on his left was slightly out of place. When he stepped back, he could just tell that there was a large concrete slab inset into the wall of the tunnel, almost like a thi
ck, heavy door with no apparent handle.

  Trent moved his hand along the edge of the slab and felt a slight breeze. He moved his nose to what looked like a crack between the slab and the tunnel wall, and there it was—a strong mix of dead fish and rotten meat—certainly powerful enough to overpower Zana’s perfume.

  Trent set his flashlight down on the floor to provide some ambient light, then leaned into the slab with his shoulder.

  Nothing.

  He stretched his arms out as far as they would go, but they were not quite long enough to reach from one end of the slab to the other. Frustrated, he moved to one side of the giant piece of concrete and tried to wedge his fingers into the small space between the slab and the tunnel wall.

  Again, nothing, as he was unable to jam his fingers in far enough to get any leverage.

  Trent backed away and assessed the situation. Assuming the slab really was some kind of a door, there had to a trigger or a switch somewhere in the tunnel that opened it. Trent searched near the slab of concrete, looking for any kind of hidden depression or button but found none.

  Then he thought about the young Troll. A creature like that would be strong enough and big enough that it wouldn’t need a handle or a switch to open the slab.

  All it would have to do is push.

  Trent threw himself at the slab with his shoulder as hard as he could and was surprised when it moved slightly.

  The sound of the scraping concrete echoed throughout the tunnel.

  He stood still for a moment until the sound stopped reverberating and things returned to dead silence.

  Bracing his hands against the slab, Trent leaned into the concrete door and pushed with all his might.

  The slab moved inwards more easily than he imagined it would, and Trent figured that the door must be on some kind of roller system or maybe even perfectly balanced like the Egyptians had done when engineering some of their greatest edifices in the times of the Pharaohs.

  He pushed the slab inward even further until he was able to slip inside the tunnel that lay beyond. As soon as he was inside, he was enveloped in a wash of dim light and a cloud of horrific odor. Trent hurried back into the main tunnel just long enough to grab his flashlight. Since he had missed the slab the first time through the tunnel, he wanted to make sure no other details escaped him when he was this close to finding a potential clue that could lead him to Zana.

  Unlike the rest of the tunnels Trent had been in for the last couple of hours, this passageway sloped upward at a noticeable grade, and as he followed the tunnel farther along, the hair on the back of his neck stood on end. He crouched down like an animal before continuing on—his instincts awakened—his senses warning him that danger was close.

  Scanning ahead as he went, Trent saw human skulls and the crushed remains of skeletons littering the tunnel floor. As best he could tell, this part of the tunnel had not been swept clean by water for a very long time, if ever.

  Another fifty feet brought Trent to a large concrete room with twenty-foot high ceilings. From the back of the room, a ray of muted light filtered down from above, illuminating everything in a soft wash of twilight. The whole chamber reminded him of a twenty-foot high by forty-foot long concrete box buried far below the bright streets of Las Vegas.

  The floor of the main room was lined with straw and more bones, and at the back corner was a giant pile of hay that was built up at least ten-feet high.

  The whole place reeked of rotting death, and Trent covered his nose with his suit sleeve in an attempt not to retch.

  Without a doubt, he was sure that he had found the home of the Troll.

  Upon quick inspection, he could tell that the room was devoid of life. No men in suits. No trolls. And no Zana.

  Maybe she had passed by the entrance to this tunnel much like he had almost done, and her scent had been obliterated by the odor from this room.

  He decided to finish looking through the rest of the chamber, and then to go back out to the tunnel where he might have a chance of finding Zana’s scent again.

  Trent started picking his way through some of the hay and searching for anything that might be a clue. As it turned out, the giant pile of hay at the back of the room was actually a ten-foot high, raised concrete section of the room that made a kind of loft in the room’s back corner. Trent jumped and easily grabbed the top of the platform with his hands and pulled himself up.

  He suspected that the stone door to the room had been balanced in such a way as to make it easy to push in once enough force was applied, but he had no excuse for why he had just scaled the side of a ten-foot high concrete wall with no more effort than if he had been hopping onto a kitchen counter.

  Something had been changing in him all week, both inside and out. And those changes seemed to be happening more rapidly as the week wore on. He could not deny that he was stronger, could see better, and that his olfactory senses were heightened. His instincts and intuition had been growing sharper all day as well. But even more so, all week long, he had felt more aggressive and on edge than normal—reacting to things more like an animal than a human.

  The changes in his mental state and his senses were much easier to explain than his strictly physical changes. Lack of sleep alone, combined with low glucose levels from not eating enough could make anyone irritable. And there was plenty of evidence to show that humans adjusted quickly to their surroundings, including darkness and times of stress that required enhanced strength to survive.

  But as much as he was confused and intrigued by what was going on within his own mind and body, he could figure those things out later. As best he could tell, it was probably getting close to nightfall up top, and although he thought that he had been close to finding Zana, he had once again hit a dead end.

  Even though he was ready to get out of the awful smelling room, Trent scanned the top of the hay-covered slab with his flashlight.

  Strangely, the first things he spotted were several pairs of women’s panties. He had suspected and even feared that he might find a lot of different atrocities in the Troll’s lair, but he had not expected one of them to be female lingerie.

  At least there were no skeletal remains on top of the slab, although there were several dried animal skins laid out here and there like blankets spread out across the hay.

  He moved in closer to examine one of the animal skins. The color was pinkish-brown, and in the middle of it, the shape of a squatty diamond surrounded by a circle was burned into the hide. Trent turned away and tried not to dwell on the realization that the animal skins had once belonged to human beings such as himself.

  He craned his neck back and saw that above him was another small chimney-like structure that seemed to lead all the way to the outside world. Through it, Trent could actually see a faint spot of light that must have been the night sky.

  When he lowered his gaze to search the room again, he noticed another of the video cameras encased in a metal cage mounted high on the wall, close to the ceiling. The fact that its red light was blinking was not a surprise. Whoever was behind those cameras knew that Trent had found the Troll’s home.

  In the distance, from the direction of the main tunnel, Trent heard the faint echo of an unearthly howl. The sound lasted for a full minute before vanishing into the stillness of the tunnels.

  As the silence of the room engulfed him again, Trent felt tired. More tired than he had felt in a very long time. Without realizing that he was doing so, he sunk to his knees and found it almost impossible to keep his eyes open or to keep his mind focused. He held his hand in front of his face and marveled at how he suddenly had two right hands.

  With a curious scowl, Trent looked down into the main room and saw that he had been joined by two men in white dinner jackets. That was strange enough, but what really struck him was that the men, although blurry and out of focus, appeared to be wearing gas masks.

  His mind desperately raced to figure out why men in white jackets would be wearing gas masks in the tunnels under L
as Vegas as he collapsed into the hay and fell fast asleep.

  Chapter 31

  AS THE HUNTER busily attended to his preparations, he sneered in disappointment at how predictable the mentalist had been thus far. Once the black-haired woman had been captured, the foolish man had chased after her like a monkey running for a fallen banana.

  And when Mr. Walker had stumbled upon the Troll’s lair, capturing him had been almost too easy.

  The Hunter already had a system in place, of course, to summon the Troll when needed—a simple mechanism next to where the creature slept that released an odorless chemical usually reserved for anesthetizing cows. When it was activated, the Troll perceived that it was falling asleep, and while it was unconscious, the Hunter’s men could do anything from gathering the creature for the monthly hunt, to injecting it with inoculations and vitamin shots to keep it healthy.

  The same system had proven equally as effective on Mr. Walker, although the gas had not worked as quickly as the Hunter would have expected.

  At least all of his prey were finally assembled now. It was just in time, as some last minute networking had yielded the Hunter two new clients, each of whom had paid handsomely for the opportunity to join the evening’s unique festivities.

  In the hotels and casinos above, a man could bet on almost anything. But even Las Vegas had its laws—observed its limits. Down below, the Hunter made his own rules and catered to an elite clientele he viewed as extreme gamblers—men who were not satisfied with the mundane offerings of such petty games as high stakes black jack and roulette.