“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.”
“When I look at a map online, I must have missed the option where you get to see all the underground tunnels.” Zoe joked.
“There isn’t one.” Zach replied in a serious tone. I was looking at survey map from 1962.
“1962?” Binny stopped in her tracks. “Are you serious? Who knows what’s happened since then.”
“Earthquakes. Two of them. Two major ones anyway.” Penny said. She didn’t notice at first that everyone was staring at her. “I did a report on earthquakes for school. I wanted to get to know the area.”
“We’re not going to die.” Zach reassured Binny.
“Tell that to the people who made your map.” Binny said. And then sarcastically she added, “Oh wait, you can’t. They’re all already dead.”
§
“How can you eat? We’re literally in a sewer.” Binny asked.
Penny munched on one some chips as they walked. “I’m hongree.” Penny said through a mouthful of chips.
Binny rolled her eyes.
Zach, who was leading their single file group, came to a stop. “This is the turn.” Zach pointed right, “The Cherry line continues this way.” Zach kept walking.
“How deep do you think we are?” Gabe asked, trying to put a brave face on his nervousness.
“I can’t sense anyone but us.” Binny offered. “But I don’t really know how far I can ‘see’.”
“Are you looking inside me right now?” Zoe’s voice had an edge.
“No.” Binny explained. “I can kinda zoom out so I’m not looking at anything specific. I just see dots where everyone is.” Binny kept to herself that all the dots she saw in her mind’s eye had a cracked texture that signified nervousness. All but Cassie’s anyway.
But after awhile even Cassie’s excitement was starting to wear thin. “How much longer? This is boring.”
Even Zach had to admit that the 1911 East Cherry Sewer Line had little to offer in the way of variety. By counting his steps Zach estimated they’d walked about a mile. They hadn’t gone particularly fast, and Zach was conscious of the fact that they’d have to retrace their steps just to get home. “Just a little longer.”
Zach told himself that he would absolutely definitely turn them around after two more minutes of walking. After all, they could always come back and explore further another day. And then, all of a sudden, the floor under them expanded to fill the width of the tunnel and straight ahead there was nothing but brick.
“Well that was anti-climactic.” Penny pronounced.
“At least we’re alive.” Binny mumbled.
“What’s anti-kly-maxic?” Gabe asked.
“It means, that we didn’t find anything exciting.” Zoe explained to her little brother.
“I’m pretty okay with that actually.” Binny said. Binny insisted everyone take a break for a moment, sitting on the stone walkway, drinking some water, and resting before they resumed their journey back to the shelter.
“This is the worst seat ever!” Cassie was sitting up above the walkway, against the curved wall, but hunched over. “Why would they put this metal here?” Cassie complained.
“What metal?” Zoe asked.
In the darkness, nobody’s flashlight had happened upon the series of metal rungs sticking out of the stone wall right before the dead end. All at once, the light from several flashlights coalesced on the ladder and followed its path upward.
“We’re not done yet.” Zach smiled.
Zach offered to go first, while Zoe insisted on bringing up the rear. She said it was to make sure everyone got up the ladder safely. Zach put his flashlight in his pocket as he climbed. When he emerged at the top of the ladder, he could see, dimly, but still, there was light coming from somewhere.
Zach walked around the small room he’d climbed into and touched the smooth tiled walls as each of the other children made it to the top of the ladder behind him. The room was small, but there was a door that wasn’t completely closed. That’s where the light was coming from. Zach opened the door.
Zach had ridden the subway before on a Jordan family trip to New York City. But Zach had never heard of a Seattle subway. The sign across the tracks, spelled out “Cherry Street (Garfield)” very clearly in large letters made of small mosaic tiles. On either side was smaller lettering, also made of inlaid colorful tile: “Sick’s Stadium” accompanied by an arrow to the left, and “Washington (University)” with an arrow to the right.
Lonely lightbulbs had been strung up haphazardly in random locations round the station giving everything even more of a yellowish quality than the space already had on its own.
“This is not supposed to be here.” Zach said to the others in a low voice.
“You’re not supposed to be here.” A man said from a bench five feet behind the assembled children.