Dr. Samantha Trace had spent the last hour at her desk. The more she tried to work, the less work she was able to do. Huitre was infuriating. What did she even see in him. And more importantly, what did he see in that mediocre Jordan woman? Huitre wasn’t even giving her information on the Jordan children anymore.
Luce was not going to be happy. Really, what was she supposed to do? Huitre was useless. Grater was more than useless. And now Luce was spending all this time with Ollie. At least Ollie appeared to behave around Luce. But that made her angry as well. What was it she felt? Irritation? Jealousy?
Ollie listens to Luce but not to me. No wonder Luce thinks I can’t get this job done. He thinks I can’t even parent my own child. Samantha Trace sat at her desk, her shaking hands balled into fists.
“But why?” Ollie whined to his mother.
Trace had marched from her office straight to the greenhouse where she found Ollie engaged in deep thought over how best to prune a shrub. The label read “Myrciaria Dubia.”
“Because I’ve decided we’re going to have a nice mother-son afternoon together.”
“But I’m supposed to finish this whole row before the end of the day.”
“Go with your mother, son. Everybody needs a break once-in-awhile, and it’s a beautiful day out.” Xander Luce appeared, seemingly out of nowhere.
Ollie’s shoulders slumped.
Samantha’s did too, humiliated that she needed her boss to get her son to want to spend time with her.
“Can we see animals, at the zoo maybe?” Ollie asked?
“I was thinking we’d go to the Burke instead.” Samantha replied.
“Ah, the natural history museum. That’s a fine choice.” Luce chimed in.
Samantha grimaced.
Ollie sighed. “All the animals there are already dead.”
§
Binny screamed.
“Zoe?” Gabe’s voice faltered.
Binny collected herself and motioned to the others to come close. “Everyone get back.”
The man was sitting up from where he had apparently been sleeping. Stacks of paperback books were stuffed under the bench. Radiating out from the bench on either side was an assortment of two liter plastic bottles missing their labels. Most were empty. Some contained a liquid that nobody wanted to guess at.
The man wore a military jacket with an American flag patch on the sleeve and a black backwards baseball cap. His hair was pulled back in a ponytail. Rubber bands made several mini-ponytails out of the long hair that covered most of his face. The remaining exposed skin was all deep crisscrossing lines.
“The library is closed for the day.” The man said.
Unsure of what to say, no one responded.
“Did the security guard let you in? Or was he not at his post. I’m going to report him.” The man wagged his finger as he spoke. “Breaking and entering is what it is. Just because the guard abandoned his post, doesn’t mean that you didn’t commit a crime breaking into the library. Don’t the posted hours mean anything to you?” The man was screaming.
Cassie started crying.
Zach yelled, “Run!”
The old man had stepped between the children and the door through which they’d entered the station. Going back the way they came wasn’t possible. Zach chose the tunnel heading left as it was slightly better lit. The other kids followed.
Cassie and Gabe couldn’t run as fast as the older children who slowed down to match their pace while encouraging them not to let up. The station platform ended with stairs that led to the tracks and the tunnel.
“You want us to run on the tracks?” Binny yelled at her brother, now on the verge of tears herself.
“There are no trains. It’s okay.” Zach tried to sound reassuring.
Zach looked around nervously for the first time noticing more men and women tentatively coming out of the shadows and looking to see what the commotion was about. In the distance the old man was still yelling that the library was closed and that rules were meant to be followed.
“You didn’t know there was a subway station up until two minutes ago. How do you know there are no trains?”
Penny noticed the gathering crowd and grabbed Binny’s arm.
“Ow.” Binny yelped.
“We have to go, now!” Penny’s eyes were wide as she showed Binny the crowd gathering in the distance.
“I vote tracks.” Zoe said and sailed down the stairs with Gabe in tow.
Everyone followed. After a couple of minutes, the younger kids were out of breath and needed to take a break. As best as Zach could tell, there didn’t seem to be any people in the tunnel itself, so they all stopped to catch their breath.
Zach shined his flashlight on the faces of his companions to see how they were doing and tried hard to ignore the fragments of advice from his father, being responsible and making good choices that were ringing repeatedly in his head.
“We’re going to be fine.” Zach said with more confidence than he felt.
“What was wrong with that man?” Cassie asked.
Zach paused for a moment, looking at the other older children for guidance that wasn’t forthcoming. Taking Cassie’s hand he said, “I’m not really sure. I don’t think he was a bad person. But I think he might be sick.”
“What do you suggest we do now? We just ran away from the only way out of here. We’re trapped. I told you this was a bad idea.” Binny was shaking.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. We’re all still fine. We’ll figure this out.” Zach turned to Zoe, “I’m sorry I got you into this. I promise, I’ll get us out.”
A look of anger flashed across Zoe’s face. “You got me into this? You did? You’re gonna get me out? I thought we were a team. You don’t make decisions for me. I make my own choices. You’re not responsible for me.”
Zach’s face fell. Zoe glared at him until he had no choice but to look away.
“There’s another way out.” Penny said calmly.
“What do you mean?” Binny said.
“Did you see any tunnel people passing us in our hideout?” Penny cracked a small smile.
“No.”
“Well they must have come from somewhere.” Penny raised her eyebrows to emphasize her point.
“Subway stations usually have exits to the street.” Zach rejoined the conversation tentatively.
“Not abandoned subway stations that aren’t open to the public.” Zoe responded.
Zach tried to look anywhere but at Zoe.
“So we keep going in this direction until we find an exit?” Zoe directed her question at Penny and Binny.
“It said this way to Sick’s Stadium on the sign.” Zach offered meekly.
“So?” Zoe snapped.
“So, remember last summer, that plaque by home plate?” Penny looked at Zoe, “Oh, you wouldn’t remember, cause you guys weren’t there. But there’s a drug company where there used to be a baseball stadium. We’ll tell you all about it on the way. We can definitely get home from there.”
They gathered Gabe and Cassie and started walking down the tunnel. As they saw the next station approaching, they doused their flashlights.
“I’m gonna run ahead and scout out the station. Wait here. I’ll be right back.” Zoe turned and ran in a crouch toward the dim lights of the next station.
It took a minute for her eyes to adjust but when they did she could see human shapes on both sides of the tracks. Some looked like they were sleeping. Some looked to be in conversation in small groups. The large tiled letters on the walls read “Jackson Street”. Zoe snuck back to the group.
“This station is filled with tunnel people and it’s not our station anyway. I say we walk right down the tracks. If we stay low and quiet, nobody will notice us.” Zoe reported.
“What do we do if there are tunnel people in our station?” Binny asked in a considerably more conciliatory voice than she had reserved for her brother.
“Let’s worry about one thing at a time.” Penny said.
With Zoe in the front, and Zach at the back of the line, the kids made it through Jackson Street station unscathed. Binny worried that Cassie might be too loud, or fidgety to follow Zoe’s plan, but the old man who had yelled at them had apparently given Cassie plenty of reason to follow instructions.
“Did you see any exits in the last station?” Penny asked.
Zach took another tentative step back into the discussion. “There were stairs on each side of the tracks in both of the previous stations.”
“So all we have to do is figure out how to get up the stairs in the Sick’s station without attracting any attention.” Penny concluded.
The six children walked in silence for several minutes as they contemplated the challenge ahead.
As they approached the now familiar hazy yellow light of the ad-hoc light bulbs the tunnel people had strung up in each station, everyone turned off their flashlights.
“I’ll run ahead and scout again.” Zoe volunteered.
But before she could leave, Binny grabbed her arm, and put her finger to her lips. Binny made sure everyone saw her signal, and then motioned everyone to crouch.
In the distance, from the center of the upcoming station, a hazy outline of a human being was moving in their direction.
Bunched up against the side of the trench where the trains would have run, the kids tried to make themselves as inconspicuous as possible. Each watched the shape as it moved slowly towards them.
Binny had ventured briefly into the minds of the tunnel people as they’d passed the last station. Their minds were like nothing she’d ever seen. She felt bad for having looked. For many of them, something was clearly wrong. Their thoughts were a jumble as if she was looking through a greasy crystal. Images were distorted and misshapen. For the few who had clearer images, they were coated in a dingy brown and grey. Everything Binny saw was either sad or scary.
Binny focused on the shape coming towards them, first with her eyes, and then with her inner eye. The figure was small – under five feet for sure. Binny guessed it was a woman though she wasn’t entirely sure why other than her size. The woman was wrapped in maybe half a dozen blankets. Wisps of long white hair escaped her makeshift hood in various places. Binny looked upward in her mind.
The woman’s thoughts came into Binny’s mind. Like with many of the tunnel people there were several pictures coming at once, projected as if on the facet of a gem. But unlike the blurry, misshapen images she’d seen from the others, these were crystal clear, and tinged a confident red.
Six facets showed six separate images. Each facet contained an image of one of the six kids in their small group. Zach, Cassie, Zoe, Gabe, Penny, and even Binny herself were all there. Not images of them now, crouched by the side of the tracks, faces all sooty and scared, but images of each of them at home, outside, in the woods, their faces bathed in bright sunlight. Images that this woman couldn’t have possibly seen. Binny froze.
“You guys run, I’ll keep her busy.” Zach suggested.
Zoe looked at Zach but her face didn’t betray her feelings.
“No. I looked. It’s okay.” Binny said, and then added I think in her mind’s voice.
Binny stood up from her crouching position with the others and took a step forward.
The woman, it was clearly a woman, and an ancient woman at that, made no effort to move any faster. The old woman’s face was a mountain range of crags and crevasses. Her small pug nose stuck out like Everest above the other mountains in the range. Despite the lack of light, the woman’s eyes were clear and a color Binny had never seen, not brown or hazel exactly, but almost orange – a bright orange.
The woman stopped only feet from where Binny was standing and doing her best not to shake.
“I’ve been waiting for you for tho long. Come thith way.” The woman’s voice was sweet and almost comforting, but her attempt to smile was anything but comforting as her mouth was completely without teeth.
Cassie let out a small yelp.
Binny turned to her sister to try and stop her from offending the old woman, but the woman had already turned on her heel assuming Binny and the others would follow.
The old woman walked with the same deliberate pace back in the direction from which she had come. Binny shrugged her shoulders and motioned for the others to follow.
As they approached the mouth of the tunnel that would open up into the station, the woman turned to the right. A staircase had been cut into the concrete. The woman went up the stairs. The kids followed.
After what seemed like an interminably slow ascent up multiple flights of stairs, the woman stopped on a landing and turned to the children.
Penny’s flashlight was on and gave the kids a much better view of the weathering the old woman’s face had sustained.
Gabe dug his nails into Zoe’s wrist until she gave him a look that could not be misinterpreted.
“It’th tho nice to thee you after all thith time.” The woman smiled again, and this time it succeeded in putting the kids more at ease. It was really only the missing teeth that made it seem creepy. If one imagined the teeth still being there, the expression seemed caring and genuine.
“You’ve seen us before?” Binny asked in as polite a voice as she could muster.
“You are all tho beautiful.” The woman closed her eyes as she said the last word as if she was remembering something.
“How did you see us?”
The old woman ignored Binny’s question. She scanned the faces of the children only to stop and lean her head forward when she spotted Cassie half hiding behind Zach.
“You dear. You. You are a little thparkler aren’t you.” The old woman was pointing unmistakably at Cassie now – the tip of her finger tracing small circles in the air. “I thee you shining dear. I thee you shining. Everyone will thee you shine.”
Cassie’s eyes grew wide. Zach put his hand on Cassie’s shoulder, holding her tight.
“OK. Off you go now children.” The old woman stepped to the side revealing another ladder – this one wooden and propped up against the wall. It rose up through the ceiling of the room in which they were standing. There was no other exit other than the way they’d come in.
Each kid scaled the ladder as the old woman made encouraging sounds until only Binny was left. Binny motioned for the woman to go first.
“Oh no dear. I can’t go up there. I’m not allowed.” The woman smiled again mercifully keeping her lips closed.
“Oh.” Binny said unsure of how to proceed.
The woman reached out to touch Binny’s hand, bringing Binny’s index finger up to her own head. “Did you get what you needed? In there?” The woman repeatedly tapped Binny’s finger on her own temple never taking her bright orange eyes off of Binny.
“Yes.” Binny said tentatively. Not knowing what else to say, Binny added, “Thank you.” and turned to scale the ladder.
When she reached the top of the ladder Binny found herself in a small roofed concrete space. She could tell it was above ground because bright sunlight streamed through a narrow gap in the concrete hitting Binny right in the eyes. She tried to look back down to see the old woman one more time but all she saw was darkness. She wasn’t sure if the woman was gone, or if the sunlight had just made her impossible to make out.
Zach was the only one left in the concrete space. Everyone else had already exited through one of the gaps. Zach helped Binny through one of the holes and onto the surrounding grass and then shimmied through himself.
The six of them found themselves sitting on the manicured grass on the edge of the Luce Laboratories campus. The greenhouse in which they’d hidden last summer was only feet away.