Into the Deep
It took them all but 20 minutes to converge on the coffee shop again, geared up and ready to go. A new sense of excitement started buzzing through them. As each of them gathered their things they had the chance to reflect on this plan and found fewer and fewer reasons to say no. All but Rosie who still held her hesitation, but she had grown used to being the nervous one out of the group. Always did she feel that it was a bad idea, yet they always had fun. By the end of each excursion she found herself glad she went or sometimes more realistically glad she wasn’t left behind.
She assumed that this would be no different. As each of them leapt feet first into the unknown (usually Jack and Prudence first) she would ultimately follow and find that she had worked herself up unnecessarily.
They piled into the car, her squished in the middle- tightly grasping Ben’s hand in her right; Lee to her left. Prudence of course was driving and without fail Jack would take shotgun, either to establish his dominance or so he could fiddle with the radio until Prudence went nuts. They didn’t have much to say on the way up that wasn’t already said in the shop. Adventure, mystery, the town sucks; they ran out of topics pretty soon. Luckily it wasn’t too far of a drive, it just happened to be up the steepest hill in town- on the northeast side. The part of town that if wandered far enough into one would most certainly die of exposure before reaching the next town over. Ravenwood, Cedar Creek and anything else Crestwood kids would find fun was to the southwest. The next closest town was to the northwest; to the east was miles of trees. They lived inland enough that going to the beach was always a hassle, but close enough that it was always possible. It was the Crestwood conundrum.
They eventually reached the top, it offered no view except for the street below them but even that was so muddled by trees that they couldn’t even get a good look at the town. Prudence parked and they hopped out like eager beavers. They all followed Lee as he was the one who knew where it was (though he only had the faint recollection of his father’s drunken ramblings to go off of) and with some semblance of luck found it after a few minutes of wandering. However there was one small problem.
“Shit.”
“This is it, right?” Ben asked.
“It’s supposed to be.”
“Then what’s that grate doing there, I thought you said this was the access point?”
“Well I didn’t know.”
“Calm down ladies, I got this. Papa Jack always comes prepared.” He stepped forward.
Prudence laughed, “Except when he isn’t.”
“That was ONE TIME. When are you gonna let it go?”
“When’s the next blue moon?”
“Alright wise ass, you wanna do it?”
“No no, by all means Papa Jack. Do your thing.” She snickered.
He knelt down and pulled out his multi-tool. The grate was put on in a slapdash manner, just a few bolts kept them from their journey and Jack wasn’t going to let that stop him. With a few turns and a couple more profanities he yanked the red metal grate free, exposing the larger than normal storm drain.
“There. Happy?”
“Typically.”
“Alright guys, settle down.” Lee said.
“Yeah, get a room already.” Ben snarked.
Then in unison they turned to him, “Oh ha ha.” Then looked at each other awkwardly.
“So now what?” Ben asked. They all looked at Lee, except Jack who looked at Prudence.
“Well, it should be easy enough for us to fit, we just gotta lay down and slink in.”
“Slink?” Jack snorted.
“What?”
“Nothing, you just don’t hear slink very often.”
“Well, who’s going first?” Prudence asked with a smile.
This was a typical question of the group, whether they were jumping off a cliff into the ocean, sledding down the snowy hills in winter, or as fate would have it climbing into a storm drain.
Jack turned to Prudence (and it was always one of them since they were always trying to oneup each other) “Well I would say ladies first but there might be a big ol’ monster down there and I wouldn’t want you to wet your panties.”
“Trust me hun, you haven’t been able to wet my panties in a loong time.”
“DAMN!” Ben laughed. Jack just looked dumbfounded, he had no comeback ready.
“Whatever.” He said as he laid on his stomach and began to slink his way through.
Prudence lined up another shot, “Ah so I guess it IS ladies first then.”
“Wow, that was wicked original Prude, you should do stand up.”
“Just get in there so I can go!”
Jack managed to get through the storm drain and onto the level below, but found that he would have to slink once again to get into the actual sewers. There wasn’t any easy way to climb inside; only face down and carefully. When he landed on solid ground he fumbled with his flashlight. “Alright I’m in.”
“What’s it look like?” Ben called down.
“Just a bunch of concrete, nothing special yet.”
“Is there sewage?” Rosie asked but not loud enough for Jack to hear.
“Is there sewage?” Prudence did that favor.
“Nah...Dry as...as...I don’t know, something witty.”
“Wow, Prudie you really did a number on his funny bone.” Ben laughed.
“I know, I think I broke it!”
“Ha ha.” He shouted back. “Are y’all coming or not?”
Prudence looked at the others with a grin, the adventure was on. She quickly followed Jack’s movements and got down. “That was easy enough.” She flipped on her flashlight. “You were right, there really isn’t anything to see.”
“Yet!” Lee exclaimed as he followed suit. With any luck his dad would be proven right, and he could feel proud about getting them to go along with it. Especially if they were excited as he was.
“Rosie,” Ben said as he turned to her, “We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”
“No no, it’s okay. I just get nerves, y’know?”
He smiled, “Yeah I know. You want to go next?”
“No you go, I’ll be right behind you.”
“You’re not gonna run away and leave me with the weirdos are you?”
“WE HEARD THAT!”
He shouted back down, “You know I mean that as a compliment.”
She smiled and looked down, she knew she could muster the courage, eventually. “No I won’t.”
He kissed her on the forehead, “I’ll see you soon then.” and proceeded to head down after.
Okay, you can do this Rose. You just have to be brave. It may seem like a crazy idea, but you’re with Ben- he wouldn’t let anything happen to you. Just gotta get up the courage. Here we go…. Any moment now. You can do this. We’re just gonna...do this. Come on Rose, you don’t want to get left behind now. They’ll have all these great stories that you won’t be apart of. All it takes is once and they could realize they’re better off without you and then-
“COME ON ROSEBUD! Shake a leg.” Jack shouted from the depths.
“Coming!” She said weakly before she got on her stomach like the others did. Her whole body was shaking, though it always did when she was about to plunge into the unknown after them.
She arrived and it wasn’t as dark as she was expecting, partly because they all had their flashlights on and partly because nothing is ever as dark as she expects. Ben caught her as she stumbled in. Thankful to be with him again, she grabbed his hand tightly and turned on her own light.
“Alright, well since there’s only one way this tunnel leads, I motion that we head that way.” Jack pointed his beam of light down the stretch of concrete. The light wasn’t strong enough to penetrate the depths so it still was the darkness that they’d be walking into.
“Where’d you come up with that brilliant plan? You’re a regular Einstein!” Prudence laughed.
Ben was short, “Are y’all going to be picking at each other all day? Cause it’s gonna get real old real damn quick at this rate.” They both looked at him, then each other and realized he was right.
“C’mon guys, let’s just go.” Lee lead the way, for the first time he actually lead them.
They walked for a few minutes in silence, looking around but seeing nothing but the solid concrete walls and the blackness ahead. Their lights swung wildly in all directions but never landed on anything interesting. Rosie started to well up with fear again as she had a new thought. She squeezed Bens hand and he turned to her to listen.
“What if there’s rats?” She whispered the last word as if it were a dirty one.
He smiled at her. “Don’t worry. I had rats as a kid, they’re not as bad as the movies make them out to be. They rarely ever bite and if they do it doesn’t really hurt. Like a small pinch.” This eased her mind.
“Here! There’s some stairs!” Lee was excited to see his light hit something of interest. There indeed were stairs that lead downwards, hugging one side of the wall. The rest of the path became a steep slope so the water could flow. They got in single file and gripped the railing as they descended; all but Jack. He took a running leap and slid down the slope at a rapid rate, yelling with excitement and filling the tunnel with reverberating echoes. Prudence rolled her eyes. When they reached the bottom he was dusting himself off with a huge grin. Prudence kept her mouth shut, careful not to pick at him even though her mind was racing with all sorts of insults.
They kept walking and began to round a curve in the path. It still was the only one available to them but the stairs lead them to believe that there might actually be something to this journey; it was seeming less like a sewer and more like the tunnels Lee had talked about. Another indication came when their flashlights fell on some graffitti. Nothing of note, but it did confirm that people actually came down here before; people besides them that is.
“Hey look!” Prudence’s light caught it first, a fork in their road. It split off in three directions. The two to either side stayed at the same level, while the one directly ahead was another set of stairs (and a slope) leading deeper.
“Finally!” Jack sighed. They reached the mouth of it and stopped. Majority rule wouldn’t work here so they each said which direction they wanted to go. Rosie stayed quiet but it was assumed she agreed with Ben. “Alright. Let’s do this.” He said with a sigh. They each stashed their lights below their arms and played rock paper scissors. Ben was out and so was Rosie. Lee, Prudence and Jack shot again. Prudence beat Lee so the path on the left was out, and Jack beat her; though it didn’t matter since they both chose to go deeper. Well, at least it’ll be harder to get lost this way; we just have to head straight back up. Rosie thought to herself. They continued down the stairs, this time with Jack leading the way.
“What, no slope sliding this time?” Ben laughed.
“Nah. It was fun and all, but it hella bruised my feet.”
They continued on the steps, they were longer this time; it seemed like they would just keep going down and down and down. Eventually they reached the bottom and Ben threw his light to the right.
“It’s a damn good thing you didn’t.” He said. His light showed that at the bottom of the slope was a hole leading straight down.
“Ha...yeah.” Holy shit I almost did. Jack threw the nervous thought out of his mind and kept walking.
They kept down the boring path for a little while and eventually a sense of bored restlessness settled on each of them. Rosie of course, was always the exception, feeling a sense of frightened anxiousness. That feeling sat with them for close to five minutes when they found a door on their right hand side. It was steel and looked as though it hadn’t been touched in ages. Not even spiders wanted anything to do with it. Nothing but dust. There was a string of numbers on the door but it was too scratched out and faded to read.
“This looks promising.” Lee said.
“What do you say gang? Wanna see what’s behind door number blah blah?” Jack smiled, hand already on the handle.
“Do it!” Prudence said, not even caring to harass him, just excited to finally see something.
He tried to fling it open but it was seriously stuck. He tried again but even with both hands it wasn’t budging. “Maybe it’s locked?” Ben suggested. “Nah, I can...errgh….feel it moving, it just...ARRRGH...needs to…” and with one final try he was flung backwards as it yielded.
“Oh god!” The general consensus as a pungent odor came wafting out at them. The air had been locked in for decades, having all that time to putrefy. “Great...we found the limburger thorage fathility.” Jack said through a pinched nose. Prudence held hers tightly as she was the first to step in.
“Oh man you guyth, look at thith.” She swung her flashlight around and soon the others followed in giving the room almost enough light to fill it completely. They all had to pinch their noses tight to avoid the horrific smell.
What they found were a series of mattresses lining the wall (four of them), canned food stacked against the corner like a little pyramid, but most importantly; Japanese graffiti.
“Holy crap. Thith ith the hiding thpot.” Prudence was astonished.
“The wha?” Jack asked.
“The hiding thpot. Where the Japaneth people came to ethcape the campth.”
He smiled. “I know, I jutht wanted to hear you thay that again.”
She smacked him lightly but he flinched anyways. She was too excited. Finally something worth checking out. Finally an adventure!
“Maybe thereth more to the thorieth after all.” Ben said.
“Thee? I told you guyth.” Lee said.
“OH god...I found the thource of the thmell.” Prudence shined her light at a rusted coffee can.
“Jutht...don’t look inthide.”
“What ith it?” Rosie asked, full of curiosity at this point; her fear had quickly been replaced by it.
“It wath their pith bucket.”
“And I found the thit.” Jack seemed almost happy to point it out.
“Can we get out of thith thmelly room thoon?” Ben seemed almost nauseous at the thought of 70 year old feces.
“Pleath!” Rosie said, though not out of nervousness any more, just in the same boat as Ben.
They all filed out except Prudence.
“Come on Prudenth!”
“Hold on, I thee thomething.” She walked over to the far end of the room and picked up a small black and white photograph of three Japanese women, decked out in military garb but posing in an almost pin-up fashion. They were the 40s equivalent of Charlie’s Angels.
“Come on or I’m gonna lock you in!” Jack shouted, tears welling up in his eyes.
“No! I’m coming, I’m coming.” She pocketed the photo and quickly left.
It took some effort but she, Jack, and Ben managed to push the door tightly closed again. They could release their noses but the smell was still thick in the air.
“God it’s like it crawled into my freakin’ nostrils.” Jack said rubbing his face vigorously.
“I can taste it.” Ben said, smacking his lips “And that really bums me out.”
“But see, this kinda proves it! This actually was a refuge!” Prudence happily showed them the photograph now that she had a hand free. “Think about what else is down here!”
“The story about the bootleggers is probably true too!” Said Rosie, finally into it. She loved history, and even more than that was discovering parts of history normally left out of books.
“See, I told you guys. My dad may be a drunk but he ain’t no liar.” Lee said proudly.
None of them touched that.
They left the door behind and continued on, finally able to breath again, and excited for whatever lie ahead.
⤝ ⛛ ⤞
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