Creepers

10 P.M.
7

In the darkness to Balenger's right, the crash of the waves on the beach seemed louder than when he'd arrived. His heart beat faster. The October breeze strengthened, blowing sand that stung his face. Clang. Clang. Like a fractured bell, the strip of flapping sheet metal whacked harder against a wall in the abandoned building two blocks farther north. The sound wore on Balenger's nerves as he, Cora, and Rick surveyed their desolate surroundings. Cracked sidewalks. Weeds in ravaged lots. A few sagging buildings silhouetted against the night.

But in the foreground were the seven stories of the Paragon Hotel. In the starry darkness, it did resemble a Mayan pyramid. As Balenger approached, the hotel seemed to grow, the symmetry of its receding levels capped by the penthouse. In moonlight, it so resembled art-deco buildings from the 1920s that Carlisle seemed to have been able to peer into the future.

Balenger turned toward his companions. "You said the three of you were in Professor Conklin's history class in Buffalo. Do you still keep in touch between your yearly expeditions?"

"Not as much as we used to," Rick answered.

"Holidays. Birthdays. That sort of thing. Vinnie's in Syracuse. We're in Boston. Stuff gets in the way," Cora added.

"But in those days, we sure were close. Hell, Vinnie and Cora used to date," Rick said. "Before she and I got serious."

"Wasn't that uncomfortable, the three of you hanging out together?"

"Not really," Cora answered. "Vinnie and I were never an item. We just had fun together."

"Why do you suppose the professor chose the three of you?"

"I don't understand."

"Over the years, he must have had plenty of other students to choose from. Why you?"

"I guess I always assumed he just liked us," Cora said.

Balenger nodded, thinking, And maybe the professor liked Cora in particular, liked to look at her, invited her then-boyfriends to make her feel comfortable and disguise the interest of an aging man whose wife was dead.

Balenger tensed, seeing a figure rise eerily from the weeds. It rose straight up and stopped at stomach level, as if materializing from the earth.

He took a moment to realize that the figure was Vinnie and that he seemed to levitate from a shadowy opening in the ground.

"Over here."

Balenger saw a circular hole, a manhole cover next to it. Vinnie disappeared belowground. Balenger and Cora went next, descending a metal ladder bolted to a concrete wall.

The clang of the sheet metal in the condominium building became fainter. The air got cooler, with a smell of moisture and must. Balenger's boots sounded on concrete as he reached the bottom.

The darkness thickened. Metal scraped as Rick came down the ladder and tugged the manhole cover into place. It was a mark of his strength that he was able to do so. Finally, the darkness was complete, and the outside clang could no longer be heard.

Balenger became conscious of the sound of his breathing. He couldn't seem to get enough air, as if the darkness were something pressed against his face. Although the tunnel was cold, he sweated. He relaxed only slightly when the light on a hard hat gleamed. It was above the professor's bearded face, the hat's brim casting a shadow down Conklin's heavy cheeks. A moment later, the light on Vinnie's hat went on.

Then Balenger heard Rick arrive at the bottom, heard the scratch of zippers and cloth as Rick and Cora took their hard hats from their knapsacks. Balenger did the same, feeling uncomfortable from the weight he put on his head.

Everybody spread out, trying not to crowd each other. At the same time, Balenger sensed they wanted to remain close. Their five headlamps bobbed and veered as they studied a tunnel. Puddles reflected their lights.

"The city's so eager for urban renewal," Conklin said, "all I had to do was hint I was a developer and ask for the charts of storm drains and utility tunnels. The clerk even made photocopies for me."

"And this leads to the hotel?" Vinnie asked.

"With a few detours. Carlisle put in this tunnel arrangement. He had a long-term vision and knew that his hotel's electrical system was bound to need updating. To avoid periodic excavation to get at incoming wires, he had these tunnels constructed for ready access. To keep animals from chewing the wires, everything's bundled in these pipes. The tunnels also act as a drainage system. In wet weather, the area near the beach can get marshy. To avoid that, Carlisle had drainage tile buried around the hotel. Rain and snowmelt seep into these tunnels and exit under the boardwalk. That explains the puddles down here. The drainage system is one reason the hotel lasted more than a century while others had their foundations rot."

They took thick belts from their knapsacks. The belts had loops, clips, and pouches, reminding Balenger of the utility belts that electricians and carpenters wore. He was also reminded of police and military belts. Walkie-talkies, flashlights, cameras, and other equipment were quickly attached to them. Balenger did the same, adjusting the weight around his hips. Then everyone put on work gloves.

"We're wearing Petzl cavers' headlamps," the professor told Balenger. "They're capable of switching between halogen and LED bulbs, depending on how much light you need. At the extreme, the batteries can last two hundred and eighty hours before they need changing. That's one thing we don't need to worry about. But there are others. Safety check," he told the group.

Vinnie, Cora, and Rick pulled small electronic devices from their knapsacks. Balenger remembered seeing them on the bed earlier, unable to identify them. His companions pressed buttons and watched dials.

"Normal," Cora said.

"We're checking for carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and methane," Rick told Balenger. "All of them are odorless. I've got a slight reading on methane. It barely registers."

"Regardless," the professor said, "if you feel dizzy, sick to your stomach, headachy, uncoordinated, let us know immediately. Don't wait till you think you might be in trouble. By the time symptoms are serious, we might be too far into the tunnel to be able to evacuate. We'll check the meters often."

Balenger listened to the echo of their footsteps and breathing. In the lead, the professor glanced periodically at a diagram.

The tunnel was only five feet high and forced them to stoop. Rusted pipes ran along the walls and the ceiling. As the group splashed through puddles, Balenger was thankful for the advice to wear waterproof construction boots.

"Smells like the ocean," Vinnie said.

"We're just above the high-tide mark," Conklin explained. "During the 1944 hurricane, these tunnels were flooded."

"Here's something for your article," Vinnie told Balenger. "Walt Whitman was one of the first urban explorers."

"Whitman?"

"The poet. In 1861, he was a reporter in Brooklyn. He wrote about exploring the abandoned Atlantic Avenue subway tunnel. That tunnel was dug in 1844, the first of its kind, but already, seventeen years later, it was obsolete. In 1980, another urban explorer rediscovered the same tunnel, which had been blocked off and forgotten for more than a century."

"Look out!" Cora yelled.

"Are you okay?" Rick held out a hand.

"A rat." Cora tilted her helmet's light up toward a section of pipe in front of them.

A pink-eyed rat glared and scurried away, its long tail sliding along the pipe.

"I've seen so many, you'd think I'd have gotten used to them by now," Cora said.

"Looks like it has a friend."

Ahead, a second rat joined the first and raced along the pipe.

Now a half-dozen rats scurried. Now a dozen.

Balenger tasted something bitter.

"If they spend their lives down here, they're blind," Conklin said. "They're not reacting to the lights but to the sounds we make and the scent we give off."

Balenger heard their claws scratching along the pipe. The rats vanished into a hole through which an adjoining pipe emerged from the wall on the right.

A rectangular opening appeared on the left. Their wavering lights revealed a wide rusted pipe that blocked the lower way.

"We go through here," Conklin said.

Vinnie, Cora, and Rick checked their air meters.

"Normal," Vinnie and Cora said.

Rick breathed hard. "The methane's still borderline."

The professor kept his light aimed toward the rusted pipe. He asked Balenger, "Did you take my advice and get a tetanus booster?"

"You bet. But maybe I should have gotten something for rabies or distemper."

"Why is that?"

"The rats are back."

Five feet farther along, several glared from a pipe. The headlamps illuminated the red at the back of their sightless eyes.

"Are they checking out the new neighbors," Rick wondered, "or figuring how to bite a chunk out of us for dinner?"

"Very funny," Cora said.

"That big one looks like he could eat a couple of fingers."

"Rick, if you want sex in this century…"

"Okay, okay. Sorry. I'll get rid of them." Rick pulled a water pistol from his jacket and stepped toward the rats, who remained in place, refusing to budge from the pipe. "Here's the deal, guys. It's either my wife or you." He frowned. "For God's sake…"

"What's the matter?"

"One of them has two tails. Another's got three ears. Some kind of genetic defect from inbreeding. Get the hell out of here." Rick squeezed the pistol's trigger, spraying liquid over them.

Balenger heard several shrieks that tightened his spine as the misshapen rats stampeded into another hole beside a pipe. "What's in the water pistol?"

"Vinegar. If we get caught, it seems a lot more innocent than mace or pepper spray."

Now Balenger smelled it. His nostrils felt pinched.

"I don't suppose anybody took a photograph," Conklin said.

"Shit." Vinnie gestured in exasperation. "I was just standing here, not doing anything. Sorry. It won't happen again."

Vinnie's camera, a compact digital Canon, was in a case attached to his belt. He pulled it out and turned it on, pressing the flash button to capture the image of a one-eyed rat poking its head from a hole next to a pipe.

Spiderwebs filled the space above the wide pipe. Rick's gloved hands brushed them away.

"I don't see any brown recluses." Balenger knew that Rick referred to a hermit species of spider whose bite could be fatal. The young man squirmed over the obstacle, his legs briefly straddling it, hence the description of these kinds of pipes as "ball busters." His shoes crunched down on the other side, where he rose, knees bent, and aimed his helmet's light along the new tunnel. "Everything's fine… except for the skeleton."

"What?" Balenger asked.

"Of an animal. Can't tell what kind. But it's bigger than a rat."

Vinnie climbed over the pipe and crouched next to him. "That belonged to a cat."

"How do you know?"

"The low forehead and the slightly forward shape of the jaw. Plus, the teeth aren't big enough to be a dog's."

One by one, the rest of the group squirmed over the pipe, their clothes scraping on rust. Conklin came last. Balenger noticed that the elderly man breathed with effort, his weight making it difficult for him to get over.

"How come you know so much about animal skeletons?" Cora asked Vinnie.

"Just cat skeletons. When I was a kid, I happened to dig up one in my backyard."

"You must have been a charming kid, digging up your parents' yard."

"Looking for gold."

"Find any?"

"An old piece of glass."

Balenger kept staring at the skeleton. "How do you suppose the cat got in here?"

"How did the rats get in here? Animals find a way," the professor said.

"I wonder what killed it."

"Couldn't have been starvation, not with all the rats around here," Vinnie said.

"Maybe the rats killed it," Rick said.

"Funnier and funnier," Cora told him.

"Well, this isn't funny. Here's another skeleton." Vinnie pointed. "And another. And another."

Their headlamps flickered over the numerous bones.

"What the hell happened here?" Balenger asked.

The tunnel became silent, except for the sound of their breathing.

"The hurricane," Cora said.

"What do you mean?"

"The professor said the hurricane flooded the tunnels. These four cats tried to get away by following this tunnel upward. See how it rises? But the water caught them anyhow. When it finally receded, their bodies were blocked by that pipe. Instead of floating away, they sank to the bottom here."

"You think these bones date all the way back to 1944?" Balenger asked.

"Why not? There's no earth to help them decompose."

"Cora, if you were still in my class, I'd give you an A." The professor put a hand on her shoulder.

Balenger noticed that the hand stayed longer than necessary.