Running With The Horde (Book 2): Delusions of Monsters (22 page)

Dear Bill,

In spite of our phone call I do hope this additional information will convince you this is all dreadfully real. I regret to inform you that I have located listening devices in my phones as well as high-tech cameras throughout my home. They’ve clearly been in place for a very long time. Someone has been monitoring Wanda and I. For your own good you should assume they heard our conversation. I suspect they will be coming for me so I am sending you the evidence I have in the hope you can succeed where I have failed.

All my best,

Chip

“Well, we know one thing for sure,” Bill said with a sad smile, “I am a real shitty friend.”

The Present

The ball peen hammer was my only weapon, it was tucked snugly into my belt. In my hands I held a homemade torch made from a scrap of the railing. Thanks to the crates of liquor I had a bountiful supply of fuel for it.

At the mouth of the tunnel I found a faded white X painted on the ground. I assumed this was an indicator that I would find more such symbols to mark the way through the tunnel. This was troubling to me because the symbols would seem to indicate there would be choices to make which in turn made it an almost certainty that I would get myself lost. I felt okay about it though. I had always prided myself on having a strong sense of direction. I was confident I would find my way to the other side of the river.

The ceiling looked to be around eight feet tall. As long as that stayed true I would be able to stand the whole time which was an added bonus. In truth it wouldn’t have mattered if I had to crawl on my hands and knees through a series of animal nests. A lost tunnel under a major metropolitan city was probably the neatest thing I could have imagined for myself so I was going through it no matter what. I cinched up my trousers, adjusted the torch in my hand and spit twice over my right shoulder for absolutely no reason and stepped into my grand adventure.

The path in front of me appeared to be part of a system of naturally formed caves with patches of manmade support evident in places where the tunnel seemed unsafe to pass through. The light thrown off by my torch gave my journey an ominous feel as I walked under rotting support beams thick with ancient cob webs. Some were so large I had to duck or crawl under to avoid them. I came to the first fork in the path and was relieved to find another X branching off to the right. The air grew colder and the sound of rushing water over my head grew louder as the tunnel wound its way deeper into the Earth. Everything beyond my small circle of light was pitch black. Evidence of human and animal presence was strewn about on the stone floor. I stumbled over tiny bones and early 20
th
century garbage. I wondered if I was the first person to traverse this path in almost a hundred years.

I successfully navigated through three more tunnel intersections finding the marker each time in approximately the same position. By this time the adventure had worn thin. I was getting very nervous wandering through these abandoned tunnels all alone. The endless black made it seem like the walls were closing in though I knew that had to be a trick my cruel mind was playing on me.

Eventually I came to larger intersection where I stood dumbfounded in the middle of a junction connecting four different tunnels. Holding my lantern near the ground I searched for some sign of faded white paint. My pulse quickened and my breath grew short as I inspected the mouths of the three new openings. If there had been a marker, it was long since gone. I debated going back the way I’d come but I knew the Creep was back there somewhere and there was still no way I could get out of that cellar.

The paths all looked the same. I considered the pattern my journey had taken me thus far. The first tunnel had been marked on the path to the right. The second path had been marked on the left and the third back to the right. To me this seemed like a logical trail under the river to the city crisscrossing from right to left. But this fourth junction presented no marker and three choices. Logically I should choose the middle path which by all rights should lead farther south across the Mississippi River. So, of course, I chose the path to the right.

After a few dozen steps I came to the first tripwire. I was lucky, if I hadn’t been studying the ground in front of me so intently looking for spiders, I would have missed the wire. Instead, I saw it, a razor thin strand gleaming in my torchlight. I considered turning around right then and going back to the middle tunnel but decided to move forward. This was, after all, a clear sign that someone had passed through this tunnel at some point. The tripwire was there for a reason.

Gingerly, I stepped over it, my sphincter clenched up tight. I had no desire to see what happened if the wire was broken. My imagination ran wild with poison darts and giant rolling boulders. Needless to say my progress slowed considerably in lieu of other potential booby traps. I tiptoed over another wire approximately a hundred paces from the first and ducked under a third a few steps further in. By this point I was so upset I just wanted to run. I was almost glad Mandy wasn’t with me or we would have both been toast. I pushed back my fear and panic and pressed on.

One quarter of a thrilling mile later my tunnel ended at the mouth of a cobweb covered cave. I checked for traps and tripwires at the entrance but found none so I did a spider check, brushed the webs away and stepped inside.

The cave was about the size of a small room with no outlet aside from the entrance I stood in. My light illuminated several barrels and a few wooden crates. I was irritated that I had come to a dead end but the treasure hunter in me was a little excited to see what all those tripwires had been guarding.

I set my torch down carefully by the entrance, leaning it against the stone wall where it made the room dance in strange shadows. I pulled the flashlight out and made for the merchandise. The barrels contained some type of murky sludge. To my untrained nose it smelled like oil. The boxes had been sealed but time and moisture had done the heavy lifting for me. I didn’t even have to pull out my hammer to pry the lids off. They just popped up in my hands when I pulled. Inside were stacks of oily cylindrical metal cartridges full of bullets. I recognized them as the kind that fit into tommy-guns. I then realized I had stumbled into the gun depot for whatever mob outfit had been operating down here during Eva’s time.

Walking over to one of the barrels, I tried to push it over. I had no desire to stick my arm into the oil but I couldn’t budge it. Moving against the rear wall to use it as leverage I braced my back and put both feet on the side of the barrel and gave it a mighty shove. Much like the crates, the wood in the barrels was also rotten. My feet cracked right through the wood with a dull pop. I fell to the ground on my ass and cursed as oil began spilling over my legs. The damaged barrel gave up the ghost with a series of cracks as I scrambled out of the way to the racket of clattering metal hitting the ground in a pile.

Soaked with oil and irritated I inspected the pile of guns to find I had been correct. There were tommy-guns along with a handful of Luger pistols. Thirty minutes later I had located the ammo for the pistols and had two of them loaded and stuffed into my wet pants. The tommy-gun I selected looked almost new glistening with oil. Affixing the ammo cartridge to it took a while to figure out but I got there eventually.

I had no pack to carry additional cartridges in. They were bulky and heavy as shit but I wanted to bring as many as I could so I removed my jacket and pulled off my hooded sweatshirt to make an improvised sack out of it. I was able to carry four more cartridges and tie it around my neck like a sling. Additional bullets for the pistols went into my jacket pockets. I considered firing off a few rounds to see if the guns and ammo were still functional but I was worried what that might do to the infrastructure of the tunnel and didn’t want to risk a cave in. It would have to be a surprise if they worked. I left the hidden gun depot looking and feeling like a badass, homeless, gangster marine soaked in grime, blood and oil.

Each step I took as I retraced my steps echoed through the tunnels like a coin-counting machine. If there were others making their way through the tunnel system the sound had to be terrifying or at least confusing. I trudged along holding my torch way out in front of my body so I wouldn’t light myself on fire. I ducked under the first trip wire and stepped over the other two until I made it back to the four way junction. I stood in silence for a moment but heard nothing. For the time being, I was still alone in the tunnels.

This time I choose the more logical middle path to my immediate right. On and on the tunnel went, my light illuminating only the precious couple of feet in front of me. After the first few hundred yards I stopped worrying about booby traps and picked up the pace, anxious to get out of the tunnels altogether.

At times the path dove steeply into the earth and then skyrocketed back up. There were large pools of murky water to slog through and the cavern walls were sweating with slime. At one point the air was cold enough for me to see my breath. The journey was arduous to say the least. I was exhausted, freezing, sore and ready to be done hiking. To make matters worse the tommy-gun and ammo grew heavier with every step I took.

The noise of the river began to diminish as the path took quite a dip. I lost my footing and practically rolled down the incline, the torch flying out of my grasp. It sizzled out as it came to rest in the puddle of stagnant water pooled in the valley of the cave floor. I dropped to my knees next to it with a groan. I was sick to my stomach as I contemplated finishing the rest of my journey in darkness.

I was deep into the throes of a serious tantrum when I realized I could still actually see the burned out torch lying in the puddle. I could see the puddle as well and my knees and the path. There was light! I glanced up the crest of the path to ascertain the source. There was a soft glow emanating from the top.

I hauled myself up, adjusted the ammo sling so both the gun and the reserve ammo canisters now rested on my back and began climbing to the top. The tunnel at this point was steep enough that I needed my hands as well. Large spikes had been drilled into the rock at some point in time, so ancient they were rusty. The only way up was to use the spikes like a makeshift ladder. Taking care not to cut myself I used them to pull myself up a few feet at a time. This clearly wasn’t the original design as there were large gaps between some of the spikes.

As I was nearing the top, the walls of the tunnel began shaking and a moment later a muffled whumpf reached my ears. The shaking continued as chunks of rock dislodged from above and all around me. The larger pieces miraculously missed me but I was pelted by more than my fair share of smaller stones. My feet slipped as a spike I’d been standing on snapped off. I was hanging by my right arm, the large rusty nail digging painfully into my fingers.

I thought about letting go for a moment and sliding back down to the floor below me but claustrophobia induced adrenaline caused me to hang on. I didn’t know what was happening and I was petrified at the thought of being buried alive. With every ounce of reserve energy I had left I was able to grab the spike with my left hand and complete what I considered to be a monumental pull up. With the spike at about neck level, I kicked around with my feet until I gained purchase enough to shimmy to the top of the crest.

I laid on my belly as the tunnel continued making terrible shifting sounds. Dust and debris floated down from the ceiling. When at last things seemed to settle down I felt comfortable moving again. I got up and glanced back down the steep hill. The ambient light disappeared after only a few feet and it looked like I was staring into the mouth of some great beast. I turned away from the valley and found the source of the light that I’d found so comforting.

The light was coming through a gaping hole in the ceiling of the cave. I couldn’t reach the edge but I could see there was a room above the tunnel I stood in. In the ceiling of that room was the familiar shape of a grated manhole cover. I was standing below the sewer. I had obviously made it across the river.

In the dim light I inspected the rest of my surroundings. The rubble from the ceiling cave-in was spread out on the ground in piles around my feet and from the looks of things had been there a very long time. As I examined the ground I spotted the edge of something I was becoming all too familiar with buried beneath chunks of old concrete and tunnel rock. A minute or two of heavy lifting later I had partially uncovered my prize, the skeletal remains of a long dead body.

With a heavy sigh I knelt to the ground near the remains and completed the uncovering process, tossing the larger boulders down the hill I’d climbed up with a little more anger than was probably necessary. Truth be told I was tired of dead bodies, ancient or otherwise. Judging by the size of the skeleton, the person had been a man. He had been wearing overalls when he’d fallen through the hole. They all but disintegrated when I touched them but I found an identification badge that had at one time been affixed to a leather belt. The ID had been laminated so it had held up rather well given the conditions. The type written text was faded but still visible next to an unsmiling thumbnail photo of the deceased, one Grover Hanson, Maintenance Clerk Grade 3, in the sanitation department for the city of Minneapolis. The year on the badge was 1963.

I could almost picture it. Maybe it’s a Tuesday probably just before lunch or right after. He is doing a routine inspection in some long unused part of the sewer system. Something happens that requires or compels him into the particular section of sewer above. He is a large man with a heavy step. He comes clomping through the room giving no thought to the moldering cement floor beneath his feet. He does not know that this section of sewer is built on a honeycomb of natural caves. Thus he never considers the concrete right under the manhole cover might have been weakened over time from the constant drainage above. Maybe the earth beneath had moved as well further weakening that section of flooring. Whatever the case it was the perfect marriage of chance and providence that led poor Grover to that section of the floor. His feet came down in their usual manner, an explosion of unthinking force. He hears the floor crack and feels the ground shift but is too slow to put two and two together in time to leap to safety.