Bad Glass

“It’s a junction box,” Floyd said. “It links wires from all of these tunnels.”

“A network?”

“A secret underground network,” Floyd said, glancing up at the dirt above our heads. “And I mean that in both a literal and figurative sense.”

After a moment of silence—both of us lost in thought—I stood up and started taking pictures of the box. “For Charlie,” I muttered when Floyd glanced up. “He knows about this type of shit, right? He might be able to tell us something.” The light from Floyd’s flashlight helped me focus on the box. I got a couple of midrange shots, then cranked the lens down into macro mode to catch the finer details.

When I was done, I settled back into a crouch and started to flip through the pictures on the LCD screen. The pictures looked good. The focus was sharp, especially on the macro shots, and I could make out a product number on the box’s bottom edge: PDL-0001A.

As the seconds stretched into minutes, Floyd started to fidget at my side. He stood up and paced the length of the room a couple of times, then moved over to the mouth of one of the tunnels. He pointed his flashlight down the tunnel’s length, but its meager light did nothing to illuminate that inky-black space.

When I finished checking out my shots, I glanced up and saw his outline in the dark. Its edges were barely visible, gradients of gray in a sea of black. It was a beautiful scene: Floyd standing at the mouth of the tunnel, staring into its deepest, darkest heart. I raised the camera and took a couple of pictures. The strobe flash shattered the darkness, replacing black with omnipresent earthy brown. And in those brief instances, Floyd’s bright clothing stood out like a neon sign, a flare of color in an otherwise drab world.

Suddenly, Floyd let out a startled gasp and stumbled back from the opening. The gasp was a panicked, frantic sound, a loud hisssssssss, like the sound of gas leaking from a pressurized tank.

He dropped his flashlight, plunging the chamber into complete and total darkness.

I fumbled with the camera, turning it back around and frantically working the buttons with my uninjured hand. By the time I had it lit, Floyd was at my side, his hand gripping my arm. “Did you see him?” he whispered, his face pressed up against my ear. “Down the tunnel? In the flash?”

“I didn’t see a thing,” I said. “What is it? What did you see?”

“It can’t be,” he whispered. “Those eyes, those eyes … like they were underwater, like they’ve been underwater for a year. Since … since …” Then a deep shiver ratcheted through his bones, stealing his voice.

And I could see his fear. All of it. It was in his eyes, the scathing, terrified depths of the thing, that primal, bestial terror. He watched the tunnel for a couple more seconds, then abruptly turned my way, fixing me with that same unbreakable stare.

“Let’s go. Let’s go right now!”

He pulled me to my feet, not waiting for an answer, and plunged us into the nearest tunnel.

Photograph. October 20, 10:50 P.M. Naked flesh:

Abstract blur of Caucasian skin. Gold candlelight on open denim. The barest shape of an erection, jutting out of indigo blue. And stretched lips.

It is a simple image. All blurred colors, with no sharp lines. Too abstract to be pornography. Too explicit to be art.

At first, I thought we were lost. I thought Floyd had pulled us into the wrong tunnel.

There was just dirt around us—damp, featureless dirt. Nothing to distinguish one tunnel from another, nothing to recognize, to cling to in the dark. We’ve come too far, I told myself. We should be in the cellar by now!

I imagined us wandering, lost, through these tunnels.

The camera battery would die soon. Without its light, the darkness and dirt would swallow us whole. And then we’d be really and truly lost. We’d be buried alive.

Using our hands. Stumbling blind. Moving deeper and deeper underground.

And what would that do to Floyd? I wondered, peering into the darkness ahead. He was already freaking out. Much more of this and he’d be a complete nutjob, panicked and hyperventilating.

Finally, without warning, we reached the cellar. Floyd let out a loud sigh of relief, breath hitching in his throat. Then he pulled me from the mouth of the tunnel, out onto the concrete floor. When I paused, lifting the camera to view the empty room once again, Floyd continued on without me, dropping my arm and darting ahead into the gloom. His feet made a terrible racket as he stumbled his way up the dimly lit steps.

The door banged open above me, letting light into the cellar. After the darkness, that dim gray rectangle burned like a supernova at the top of the stairs.