The World Beneath

Chapter 9

Edison at his side, Joe hiked through the tunnels toward his destination. The only illumination came from his flashlight — a bubble of brightness that disappeared a few paces ahead of and behind them. Unlike the tunnel on which his house sat, which was covered with simple planks, sharp stones covered the ground here. Two lines of silver tracks ran down the tunnel’s center, and a third rail sat to one side. Remembering his training, Edison avoided the third rail and walked by the opposite side track.

Joe had paced around his house for a couple of hours, wanting to go back and check out the abandoned train car again, but afraid that Rebar would still be there. Then he’d tried to sleep. Eventually he’d given up and convinced himself that he would just go and take a peek. If Rebar was still there, he’d go to bed and try later. The trains would be running soon, and that would probably chase Rebar back outside.

It seemed like a good plan in his well-lit parlor with the electric fire crackling by his feet and stout steel doors between himself and danger. Now, in the tunnels, where a crazy man with a hammer lurked, it seemed like the worst kind of stupidity.

Still, for the first time in a long time, Joe had a mystery to explore.

As they drew closer to the field of tracks where he and Edison usually played fetch, he slowed. Edison stuck close to his heels, as if sensing that this was serious business.

He’d run. At the first sign of trouble, he’d run. If he maintained enough distance between them, Rebar wouldn’t catch him. Besides, the man was probably long gone. Joe wished that he believed his own words.

When he reached the tracks, he examined the spot where he’d seen the abandoned train car. It was dark. He relaxed. Rebar had taken his lantern and gone home, wherever that might be. Joe could poke around the skeletons and the train car and try to figure out why a homeless veteran had known about it and broken it open. He’d even be able to film it for later analysis.

Then he would call the city and report it. Someone ought to identify the dead men. Their families might have been waiting decades to learn their fate.

Joe walked toward the pillar. The bricked-in structure was behind pillar nine. Scarlet flashed in his head. Nine.

Slowly, the tunnel grew darker. The faint glow of the old-fashioned light bulbs faded behind him until he could barely see where he was going. But he didn’t put on his night-vision goggles. If Rebar was there with a light, he could blind Joe in an instant. Instead, he counted on Edison to find the way forward.

His heartbeat quickened when he passed the pillar. A slow glance around in the dark didn’t reveal anyone, so he switched on his flashlight. His beam picked out a distant pile of broken brick. He’d found the room that Rebar had broken open.

He shone his light around in a circle to see if Rebar was still there. Near as Joe could tell, he was alone. Still, for several minutes he scanned the area. No sign of movement. No unusual sounds.

Slowly, he crept forward to the pile of broken bricks, anxious to see the secret room again but beset with an uneasy feeling. What if Rebar was inside with the light off and his hammer ready?

Joe hesitated before he pulled out his phone. He kept his phone in a special cell phone holder. He called it his pocket-size Faraday cage, because it blocked incoming and outgoing signals. Nobody could reach him, and even the cell phone towers didn’t know where he was. As long as he kept the phone in there, he was off the grid.

It didn’t matter down here. There was no signal anyway. He filmed the pile of bricks, the darkness beyond, and the floor. Edison touched his nose to his knee, and Joe jumped. He took a deep breath and listened for trouble. He heard only a faraway train, Edison’s rapid breathing, his own pounding heart, and rocks rolling underfoot — nothing amiss.

As he neared the pile of bricks, Edison snarled. Joe stopped in surprise — the dog had never made a sound like that before. His hackles stood straight, and a low growl came from deep in his chest. Edison barked.

“What is it?” he asked, wishing that the dog could answer.

Edison barked again, ending with a growl.

Joe swung the flashlight around. Still no one. He stopped and tried to listen, but Edison’s growl made that impossible, and he didn’t want to shush him. If something upset his stolid dog, Joe wanted him to make noise.

A low rumble grew to a roar. Joe jerked around in time to see a train thunder into the tunnel, across the tracks just past where they’d played fetch, and on toward Grand Central Terminal.

When the noise died away, Edison had stopped growling, but he stared at the broken wall, tail tucked between his legs but head up. Something in there scared him, but he was clearly trying to fight his fear and protect Joe if he had to.

Joe could walk away. He didn’t need to know what that room contained, not really. Doubtless, he could lead a happy life without ever looking.

Not true.

He inched toward the hole that Rebar had smashed into the brick wall and stuck his head inside. The beam of his flashlight stabbed into the room, as if eager to show him the secrets inside.

A lot had changed since his last visit.

A handful of small brown creatures moved about in the center of the room. Joe’s heart thudded in his chest. Edison’s growl changed to a loud bark that echoed around the enclosed space. A few brown bits broke off from the group and ran to the corners. His stomach roiled.

Rats.

He shone the flashlight beam on the object they’d been climbing on. He made out a tan camouflage jacket like the one that Rebar had been wearing hours before. Dark patches stained the collar and sleeves. The jacket covered a corpse. Rebar?

Any hopes that this person had died of natural causes were dashed when he saw the hammer in the dust next to the body. Stains darkened the hammer’s silver head. His light played across rusty splashes on the blue train car, lingered over streaks and smears. The man had been beaten to death.

Bile rose in Joe’s throat, and he fought it back. This was a crime scene now, and he wasn’t going to puke his DNA all over it. He closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths. Sensing his distress, Edison whined.

“Sit,” he ordered. Whatever had happened here, it was over now. He should take Edison and go immediately.

But the pull of curiosity was too strong.

He peered back through the hole to examine the rest of the car. Someone had moved the skeletons of the doctor and the soldier, dragging them from the side of the room into the center and piling them on top of each other like pickup sticks. The skeleton on top of the car had been left alone. Someone had also flipped the bodies over and turned their pockets inside out. Rebar, or his killer, must have been searching the bodies of these long-dead men.

Joe pulled out his cell phone and filmed the scene inside from where he stood, hoping that his flashlight would give enough illumination. Then he filmed the whole area, sweeping the light and camera in a circle.

He couldn’t shake a feeling of dread. He’d seen enough. He trotted back toward the well-lit tracks and home. He’d have a cell phone signal there, and he could call the police.

They had cleared the tunnel and crossed most of the unused tracks when Edison stopped, turned back toward the direction from which they’d come, and barked a warning. Joe spun, angling the light behind him. A shadow flitted to the side so quickly that he wasn’t sure he had seen it. Gooseflesh ran up his arms.

He backed toward the tracks where the trains still ran. A sound that he’d heard only on television cut through the dry tunnel air. The racking of the slide of a gun.

“Stay,” whispered a man’s voice. “Or I will put a bullet in your back.”

Joe’s heart raced, but he froze, one foot on the track, the other on a railroad tie. Edison growled and took a step toward the voice.

“I’ve never liked dogs,” the voice whispered again.

“Shh.” Joe hushed Edison. “Heel.”

This was probably the man who had killed Rebar. Options for escape clicked through Joe’s mind — run and hope for the best, charge the gun and pray for a miracle, or try to talk his way out of this. “What do you want?”

“Did the dead man ever give you anything?”

If he told the truth and answered no, would the man shoot him? “I didn’t know him.”

“I will shoot you first in your left shoulder,” the man said conversationally. “You’re left-handed, I see, and it will take them months to repair the damage, if they can.”

Joe held his breath, afraid to move.

“I can probably shoot you four or five times before you die.”

The colors for those numbers flashed through his head — green, brown.

“You look like you’re more determined than people would think, and I bet you’ll tell me what I want after the third shot, which is quite respectable, as most people talk after one. I’m rarely wrong about these things.”

The track vibrated under Joe’s sneaker. His mind stayed surprisingly calm, working through the data that he had — Joe was exposed and in the light, the other man impossible to see in the darkness. The other man had a gun and might be a murderer, Joe was unarmed and had to think about Edison’s safety, too. The tracks hummed louder. That was what Joe had. Just that. The 5:47 (brown, green, slate) train on the Harlem line.

“Think carefully,” said the voice. “And let’s start again. Did that man back there give you any documents?”

“No. I didn’t know him.” Joe remembered the papers stuffed in Rebar’s pockets. He hadn’t seen them just now when he filmed the body. But, if this man had killed Rebar, surely he must have been the one who took the papers.

The tracks’ humming grew to a roar. A train barreled down the tracks upon which Joe stood. The engineer saw Joe, and his eyes widened. Joe was right in his path.

Out of the corner of his eye, Joe saw the shadows that concealed the man twitch. Joe was certain that he was aiming his gun.

“Heel,” Joe yelled. He spun, then jumped to the other side of the tracks mere feet ahead of the moving train. Edison’s solid form pressed close to his right leg. Joe ducked against the side of the tunnel before the train reached them, pulling Edison down, too.

The man with the gun was on the other side of the moving train, so Joe was safe from a bullet for now, but not out of danger. Yet.

The train barreled past, cars passing so close that Joe could have reached out and touched them. If he hadn’t jumped when he had, he’d have been cut to hamburger by the wheels. His body wanted to flatten itself against the side of the tunnel and wait, but his brain wouldn’t let it.

He had to use the train as a shield.

Joe ran. On one side was the unforgiving stone of the tunnel, on the other the moving train. Heat and light blasted off its metal walls. The moving air pushed him sideways, and he fought to stay upright. If he lost his footing, he would be chopped to mincemeat under the wheels.

He snatched a quick glance to the side. He needed a tunnel, an open door, anything that would let him and Edison hide or escape.

No exits.