Urban Gothic Page 16

  “Well,” Dookie whispered, “what you waiting for, Mr. Watkins?”

  Gritting his teeth, Perry raised one fist and knocked on the door. The wood thrummed beneath his knuckles, but nothing happened. The door remained closed, and there was no noise from inside. Perry knocked again, louder this time, but got the same result. He rapped a third time, more insistent, then stepped back and waited. After a moment, he glanced back over his shoulder.

  “You boys run around the sides and check the windows. Don’t let anybody see you. But peek inside and see if there are any lights on or anything.”

  They hesitated, obviously afraid to split up. They looked at one another and then up at him, their expressions unsure.

  “Go on,” he urged.

  “You heard the man,” Leo said. “Do it.”

  Jamal and Chris went to the right of the house, while Markus and Dookie took the left. Perry and Leo watched them disappear around the sides. To their eyes, it looked as though the shadows simply swallowed the four boys whole. Perry still couldn’t shake the feeling that they were being watched. He decided not to mention it to Leo. The teens were already spooked. There was no sense in making them any more uneasy.

  “What do you think we’ll find in there, Mr. Watkins?”

  Perry studied Leo for a moment before responding. A bright, inquisitive intelligence burned in the boy’s eyes. Perry had never noticed it until now. He suddenly felt guilty. His ears burned with shame. Many times over the years, he’d thought the worst of Leo and his friends, and why? Sure, they got up to no good once in a while, but what boy didn’t at some point in his life? No, the truth, Perry realized, was that he’d had no good reason to be suspicious and derisive of the kids all these years. They meant well, Leo especially. They were the future, and maybe the future wasn’t as bleak as Perry had always assumed it would be. Maybe they’d make a difference in the world—provided they made it out of this neighborhood alive.

  “I don’t know, Leo. I don’t know what we’ll find in there. But I want you to promise me something.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I want you to promise me that you’ll stay behind me, and that if something happens, you’ll run, and let me handle it.”

  “Shit. I ain’t no punk. I can take care of myself, Mr. Watkins.”

  “I know you can. And that’s why it’s important to me that you do as I say. So promise me, okay?”

  Leo shrugged. “Sure, whatever.”

  Perry smiled, looking at the teen with a sudden, immense swell of admiration. The sensation of being watched had passed. Leo shifted his feet, clearly uncomfortable with the scrutiny.

  “Um, no offense, Mr. Watkins? But I think I liked it better when you were grumpy and shit. I ain’t much for this touchy-feely Oprah shit, you know?”

  Perry snorted, trying to stifle his laughter. Leo chuckled along with him. They were still smiling when Chris, Jamal, Markus, and Dookie returned. All four were solemn.

  “What’d y’all see?” Leo asked.

  “Nothing,” Chris said. “The whole damn place is locked down tight. The windows are boarded over or bricked up. No back door, at least, not that we saw. Whoever is in there, they don’t want folks getting in.”

  “But people do get inside,” Perry reminded them. “If people couldn’t get inside, we wouldn’t be here right now. So, why would someone secure the whole house but not board over the front door, too?”

  “Dealers,” Markus said. “It’s gotta be. And we’re standing on the porch of their whole operation. We should jet before somebody sees us.”

  “It can’t be dealers,” Perry replied. “Normally, I’d agree with you. Ain’t no shortage of crack houses and meth labs in this city. But if this was a regular operation, we’d see people coming and going all the time. Fact is, we don’t. Usually this place is quiet. Even when somebody goes missing, there’s no disturbance or anything. No gunshots or screams.”

  He turned back to the door, studying it carefully. Then he motioned at the boys to follow him. They stepped back up onto the porch.

  “Stay behind me,” Perry told them. “I mean it. I don’t want any of you playing badass when we go in there.”

  The boys nodded in silence.

  Perry reached out and grasped the doorknob. It was cold and damp against his palm, despite the dry air. He turned it.

  “Shit.”

  “What’s wrong?” Dookie whispered.

  “The goddamned thing is locked.”

  Leo sighed. “So what do we do now?”

  Scowling, Perry shook another cigarette out of his pack.

  “Mr. Watkins? What do we do now?”

  “Hold up,” Perry said, fumbling for his lighter. “I’m thinking.”

  “You’d best think faster.”

  FIFTEEN

  Heather had almost resigned herself to never seeing light again when she noticed a glow in the distance. At first, she thought that her eyes were playing tricks on her, but the glow remained in place, slowly getting bigger as she walked toward it. She gasped, then coughed. The air still reeked of mud and filth, and each time she breathed through her nose, she felt like vomiting, so she tried to breathe through her mouth as much as possible. Her bare feet were numb beyond the point of pain. She was cold and wet and dirty and miserable, bleeding from dozens of shallow cuts and scratches, half out of her mind with fear, but all of that seemed to fade as the glow grew brighter. When she realized that she was actually able to see her surroundings now, albeit in shadow, Heather almost cried, overwhelmed with a conflicting mixture of relief and dread.

  The details of the walls around her were not overly encouraging. As she continued on and her eyes adjusted even more to the light, she noticed the rough wooden planks and half-rotten plywood sheets that had been used to shore up the sides of the sloping passageway. Black and red-tinted seepage trickled through the gaps between the boards like perspiration. The clay behind the wood was deep red, but she also noticed limestone peeking out between it. She recognized it from the semester they’d studied geology. Apparently this point of the tunnel joined up with a natural limestone cavern.

  She wondered whether Javier, Kerri, or Brett were still alive. If so, she hadn’t heard them since getting lost. She hadn’t heard her pursuers, either. The silence was oppressive and added to her misery. Heather focused on the light ahead. It was definitely getting brighter. She knew it for certain when she looked at her hands and saw the light pink color of her nail polish where before there had only been a vague gray hint of fingernails.

  The passageway began a sudden downward descent. She had no choice but to follow it. The makeshift walls vanished, replaced by natural stone. The air quality changed. Gone was the damp, bitter smell of mold and mud. As she continued forward, the air became acrid, drier than she would have expected. There were other new scents, as well. She smelled salt, of all things, and something that reminded her of mothballs.

  The ceiling grew progressively lower, and Heather was forced to crouch as she walked. Within another twenty feet, she had no choice but to drop to her hands and knees and crawl. Sharp rocks jabbed at her knees and palms, and water dripped from crevices in the stone ceiling above her, splattering onto her head and back. Then the ground leveled out again, and the tunnel rose slightly. The light grew bright enough to make her squint, and finally, Heather saw something other than more tunnel ahead of her.

  She crawled forward into a chamber that had been cleared out and shored up with thick columns of wood and metal pipes old and new. A few stalactites hung from the ceiling and stalagmites jutted from the floor, but most of the space was wide open. Heather had never been great at figuring distances, but she guessed the cave was about fifteen feet long and three times as wide as the tunnel had been. There were no other entrances or exits, save a small, irregular hole in the back wall. The crevice looked barely wide enough for a dog, let alone a human being. Satisfied that no one was hiding in the room. Heather clambered to her bare feet, flexing her joi
nts and staring around in disbelief.

  There was furniture down here. All of it was old and in a sad state of repair. Four metal cots ran along one wall, end to end, each of them with a scattering of moldering blankets, mildewed clothing, and scraps of newspaper covering them like nests. The fabrics appeared as old as the furniture, and most were nothing more than shreds. A card table sat crookedly against the opposite wall. The table was covered with yellowed papers and a few pieces of lumpy, misshapen pottery that looked crafted by a grade-school student.

  Heather moved into the chamber, squinting against the glare, and saw that the light came from an old kerosene lantern hung above the table. The flame was banked low, but even so, thick, oily smoke billowed from it. That explained the smell of salt and odd chemicals she’d noticed before.

  Most of the papers on the table were held down by whatever had enough weight to keep them still. Though there was little by way of a breeze, the smoke trail drifted toward the far wall, where it was swallowed up by the crevice.

  She didn’t know how long the room would remain deserted or if her pursuers were still on her trail. Heather scanned the papers quickly, just to see if she could find any information that might help her situation. They crinkled when she touched them. Heather frowned. The papers made no sense. Rather than ink, they looked like they’d been written using mud—or blood. The penmanship was crude, illegible. She pushed them out of the way, looking for anything that could be used as a weapon. A scattering of old photographs fell to the ground. She bent over and studied them. They were wrinkled and faded, but she could make out the faces well enough and the houses in the background. Judging by the clothing the people in the photographs were wearing, she guessed they dated back to the thirties. All of the homes looked like the one topside, except that they were new. Indeed, a few of the pictures seemed to feature this very same house.

  Heather placed the photographs back on the table. Then she shook her head and pinched her eyes shut for a moment. None of it made any sense. The photographs. The room. The booby-trapped dwelling. The caves. The killers. In the movies, there was always an explanation eventually, but this was real life, and so far, no answers were forthcoming. She’d watched her friends get butchered, and she still didn’t know why—or by whom.

  It occurred to Heather that since she was in a cave, maybe she was no longer beneath the house. She didn’t know how far underground she was, but maybe there was a slim chance she could get a cell phone signal. Deciding that it was safe enough to risk the light from her phone again, she pulled it from her jeans and slid it open. The cell phone showed no signal. She tried to dial 911 anyway. The phone beeped once, and the words CALL FAILED scrolled across the screen. Sighing, Heather took pictures of the paperwork, photos and the chamber, remembering that Javier had suggested they document as much as they could so that they could show it to the authorities once they escaped. He’d be proud that she’d remembered, if and when they were reunited. Biting her lip, she finished capturing the images and then put the phone away again. There was no sense in running the battery down while she still had another source of light.

  She shuffled some more of the papers around and found a tarnished butter knife that had been sharpened to a point. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to make her feel a little better. Next to the knife were some odd drawings—stick-figure diagrams of human anatomy and scenes of torture and mutilation. All had the same crude traits as the other papers. They seemed like the work of an evil, demented child.

  Before she could consider them further, something coughed in the distance, the sound echoing through the tunnel that she’d already left behind. Moving quickly, she snatched up the butter knife and carefully lifted the kerosene lantern from the hook on the wall. A small knob on the base of the lamp kept the flame low. She turned it to the right, and the knob moved with a grating squeak. As she twisted, the wick rose higher and caught fire, brightening the flame inside the lantern. Thick, black smoke guttered into the lamp’s chimney.

  Satisfied, Heather hurried over to the crevice at the rear of the cave. It would be a tight fit, but she had no choice. Kneeling, she crawled into the cramped space and crept forward. She found herself in another tunnel. The lantern hissed and spit as it was repeatedly jostled. The walls seemed to press in on her, and in a few places, she had to squeeze around rocks to make it through. Despite the tight quarters, she felt more at ease this time, due to the lantern and the knife. The tunnel rose steadily, and she followed it, hoping it led all the way to the surface.

  She thought about the neighborhood above, and how frightening and otherworldly it had seemed as they drove through it. Now she couldn’t wait to see it again. As far as Heather was concerned, compared to her current surrounding, the ghetto was heaven.

  She prayed as she continued her desperate ascent.

  ***

  Exhausted, Kerri lay still for a long while with her eyes closed. She had no idea how long she lay there. When she snapped out of it, her head and muscles ached, and her jaw was sore from gritting her teeth. She turned over slowly and licked her lips, tasting mud. She idly wondered what she looked like right now, after wallowing in filth and blood the entire night. What would Tyler think if. . .

  “Tyler . . .” Her voice cracked.

  No. She didn’t have time for that. It seemed all she’d done since his death was to bounce from one emotional extreme to the other. She’d been a wreck, then a female Rambo, and then a wreck again. She wanted to sleep. Just lay there in the mud and drift away.

  For a few minutes, she’d been having the most wonderful daydream—half memory and half flight of fancy. Toward the end of the last summer, she and Tyler and the gang had driven into New Jersey and made their way to Cape May one morning. The houses there were all beautiful and brightly painted, and there was a light house where they all went to the top of and took pictures. Later, when that got boring, they’d strolled along the boardwalk in Wildwood, riding the roller coasters and feeding french fries and funnel cakes to the seagulls. It had been a great day. Tyler had been in a great mood. In the arcade, he’d won her an atrociously pink stuffed gorilla with false eyelashes. She’d made him carry the oversized thing around for the next couple of hours. Somewhere at home was a picture of her, the ape, and Tyler all sitting together on the Ferris wheel, grinning like crazy, both of them sunburned to a darker red than the stuffed animal. That part of the daydream was all accurate memory.

  The fantasy involved all six of them going to Wildwood again. Tyler was right there with her, holding her hand and smiling as she talked with the others about how they were going to get out of the crazy house and the tunnels underneath it. He kept smiling, and so did all of the others. They behaved like there was nothing wrong, even when the dark shapes strode out of the ocean and stalked toward them down the boardwalk, stinking of mud and blood. Noigel was in the lead, and his hammer dripped blood.

  That was what had woke Kerri from her stupor.

  She spat, trying to clear the mud from her mouth. Then she sat up and groaned as her stiff muscles protested. There was a strange odor in the air, dry and autumnal. It wafted down from somewhere ahead of her. The darkness was impenetrable—a solid curtain of black. She wiggled her fingers in front of her face, but couldn’t see them. That was okay as far as Kerri was concerned. As much as she feared the dark, she feared being killed by Noigel and his fucked-up friends even more. If she couldn’t see anything, then maybe nothing could see her, either.

  Kerri crawled. The surface beneath her was stone, not mud, and while it was cold and felt as damp as the level above her had, there was no actual moisture beneath her hands. It was hard to tell which direction she was going in the dark, but she had a sensation of veering slowly to the right, farther and farther away from the trapdoor. She tested the floor and the walls and finally the ceiling, and discovered that the area was large enough for her to stand up. A moment later she did just that. It felt good to be walking again, even if she couldn’t see where she was going
. She held her arms out in front of her, fingers stretched as far as they would go, feeling her way.

  She’d gone a few more steps when something snagged her hair and pulled. Kerri screamed. Her hands fluttered to her head, slapping and clawing at the attacker. A second shriek died in her throat as she touched the impediment. She’d been expecting a hand, but what her fingers came in contact with instead was long and thin and made of wood. It didn’t fight back when she grasped it. Didn’t move at all. At first, she couldn’t figure out what it might be. A wooden tentacle? Some new booby trap? Then she realized what was tugging her hair. It was the bottom end of a tree root. She calmed down as she removed it from her hair. Kerri couldn’t remember seeing any trees in the area when they’d fled from the street gang. True, they’d had more immediate concerns and she hadn’t really been paying attention at the time, but she thought she’d remember if there had been trees. Here was a root, dangling down from unseen heights. She lifted her arms over her head and waved them around. Her fingertips brushed against more roots. There were definitely trees overhead. That meant either she was farther away from the house than she’d originally thought, or the trees were all dead and gone and their underground root systems were all that remained—nothing more than ghostly fingers, pulling her hair in an effort to remind humans that they’d once existed before the pavement and houses and concrete. She shivered at the thought. Kerri wondered whether the network of roots was keeping the ceiling from collapsing on her. If so, that was a good thing.