The Madrona Heroes Register: Underneath It All

Chapter 19 - The 1911 East Cherry Street Sewer Tunnel

“Awesome.” Cassie and Gabe uttered the word in unison stretching it out over several seconds.

Zoe had to put a hand on Gabe’s shoulder before he walked through the open metal door and headed down the dark tunnel on his own.

“Before you get super excited, it’s a sewer.” Zach laughed.

“Ewww. Gross.” Binny said.

Zoe wrinkled her nose.

“Don’t worry, it hasn’t been in use for sixty or seventy years.” Zach smiled. “I’m pretty sure we just found the 1911 East Cherry Sewer Tunnel.”

“So the poop is really really old?” Penny added.

Gabe and Cassie laughed, hard.

“How did you know what it was called?” Zoe asked Zach.

“I was trying to figure out where the shelter came from and I found all sorts of information about all the various tunnels under the city. Nothing about the shelter though. It got me wondering, what other spaces are under the city that aren’t on the official maps.”

“So coooool.” Cassie was inching forward trying to get a good look at what was through the door.

“We have to explore it.” Penny said.

“What?” Binny exclaimed.

“We have to. It’s a secret tunnel.” Penny responded.

“It’s a sewer.” Binny said. Finding no sympathetic faces in her audience, she added, “It’s not safe.”

“I agree we need to be careful. Normally they don’t dig tunnels within fifty feet of each other, but it looks like they placed this shelter near the tunnel on purpose. It’s kind of a secret escape hatch. I’m guessing they wouldn’t have done that if they didn’t think it could handle people using it.”

“Isn’t this distracting us from our main mission?” Binny tried another tack.

“I think, depending on where this leads it could help us with our main mission. What if it gave us our own secret way to get around the neighborhood without getting noticed?”

Binny pursed her lips as she considered Zach’s answer. It didn’t seem completely crazy.

“Where do you think it goes?” Zoe asked.

“Let’s find out.” Penny said rubbing her hands together.

§

It took another hour for them to complete all the precautions Binny insisted on before she would agree to venture into the tunnel. Cell phones were checked for text messages, more food and water was snuck surreptitiously, batteries were restocked, and a makeshift first aid kit was assembled from purloined items from the medicine cabinets in the kids’ houses.

Zach thought that there were only two real dangers – getting lost and cave-ins. He discounted the first one because he would memorize the way with incredible precision. He kept the second worry to himself. He was pretty sure a first-aid kit wouldn’t help much with either possibility but its presence made Binny feel better so he agreed.

The walls of the tunnel bowed in the middle and tapered at the top and bottom. The sewage would have run along the floor of the tunnel which was now dry. A t-shaped platform rose above the floor providing a walkway for the children. The tunnel was lined with stone. At regular intervals, brick arches would brace and support the ceiling above their heads.

“I think this is the right way to go.” Zach said after heading to the left through the shelter’s escape hatch as they’d all started calling it. “I’m pretty sure either direction is a dead end, but this way there should be a right turn that heads west. I want to see where that one goes. The map wasn’t very clear.”