No man can be called friendless who has God and the companionship of good books.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
ePub
A4Chapter 41
T
HE FUZZY AMBER SPOT CRAWLED BLACK MARKS ON THE BRICK.Stenciled letters, faded and chipped.
I inched the light along, forcing my addled brain to fill in the blanks, form words, derive meaning,
ALEX DRE DE S VE ET DU PAR L FONT INE
Street names.
Rue Alexandre-de-Sève Rue du parc Lafontaine.
An intersection.
Dear God, that corner was just blocks from the lab!
The brackish water. The stench.
The tunnel had to be a sewer. Did it underlie one of those streets?
But I’d awakened in a tomb.
It made no sense.
The bitter cold was jumbling my newly emerging cognition.
I struggled for a mental map of the terrain overhead.
Veterans Park. The entrance ramp toward the Jacques-Cartier Bridge. Rue Logan. Malo. Avenue Papineau. De Lorimier.
Another flash. Not recent. This synapse came from way, way back. From a written page.
Veterans Park was the site of the Old Military Burying Ground.
Had I been sealed in a tomb built for dead soldiers?
No way. Those graves were exhumed and moved in the forties.
Had some been missed? Raines was an urban archaeologist. He’d know about cemeteries. Tombs. Sewers.
My abductor had to be Raines.
I was starting to feel dizzy.
How much time had passed since I’d left the tomb? How long until I succumbed to hypothermia?
I tried to think clearly.
My brain screamed one word.
Move!
Jaw clamped against the tremors, I resumed hunchbacking forward, palm skimming the wall.
The downhill slope sharpened.
The murmuring-gurgling-slapping grew louder.
Water now lapped my ankles.
I slogged on, beam reduced to one strip of amber filament.
Another ten feet and I came to an opening, round, the lower half filled with broken brick and debris. From beyond came the unmistakable rush of moving water.
I pointed the beam through the gap.
The sewer I occupied was joining another. A main collector? Water ran through the larger shaft, a knee-deep river of swirling black sludge.
My eyes squinted for detail the light couldn’t find. Saw only a collision of shadows.
My ears told me the current was swift, strong enough to sweep my feet from under me.
My only choice lay behind me.
The tomb. The silent dead.
Don’t be stupid. You’ll never get back into it. The opening is too high.
It was then that the beam died altogether.
Desperate, I shook the flashlight.
The bulb sputtered to life, wavered, went out for good.
Using the cadence of my hammering heart, I hypnotized myself calm. You’re OK! You’re OK!
How long since I’d left the tomb? An hour? A minute? Time still meant nothing.
Plan your next move. Think. You have to keep moving.
Then, over the watery snarl, my ears picked out another sound. Grating, like metal scraping concrete.
Craning my head into the junction, I peered in both directions down the main line.
To the left, light seeped from a circular opening in the tunnel’s arched dome.
Had it been there before? Had I missed it?
No.
Then how?
A manhole!
Someone was entering the sewer!
As I stared, two legs appeared. A torso. A human figure began descending a ladder now visible against the curved tunnel wall.
“I’m here.” Pure instinct. Yet the cry was feeble.
The figure continued its downward climb.
“Je suis ici.” Still hoarse, hardly above a whisper.
Two more rungs. The figure gleamed oddly, as though made of satin or plastic.
“Help me!” This time I shouted with all my strength. “Please!”
The figure froze.
“Over here.” My shout echoed.
The figure scrabbled down the last few rungs, then scuttled into shadow.
I waited, blades of hope and fear windmilling in my chest.
Had I imagined it? Was I hallucinating?
No, the man was real.
Why didn’t he answer?
My stomach curdled at a terrifying thought.
The man was not a city worker.
My abductor had returned to finish me off!
It had to be Raines.
But no.
Raines was a gorilla. The figure on the ladder had long spider legs.
Spider.
The spider on my face.
Duclos’s “spider” tooth.
The itsy bitsy spider went up the waterspout …
My lids felt heavy.
I allowed them to drift down.
Briel took the spider tooth from Bergeron’s tub and placed it with the Lac Saint-Jean child.
Down came the rain and washed the spider out …
Like I’d soon be washed out.
In a sewer.
What do you explore?
Underground stuff.
Drainsplorers.
Joe.
Joe had access to the tub.
Not Briel.
I had a key.
Joe had a key.
I was so tired. I wanted to drag myself back uphill to the tomb. To hide.
Spine to the wall, I slid downward into the fetid water. Hugged my knees in an attempt to preserve heat.
A million miles away I heard splashing. Shouting.
No. Not distant.
Here.
Now.
Dragging my lids apart, I muscled myself forward and peeked into the intersecting sewer.
A two-headed monster-marionette stumbled and splashed in the pale circle of gray cast by the open manhole. Four legs struggled in the swirling black water, two glistening, two dark. Four arms flailed.
As I watched, the marionette-monster exploded down the middle. Two puppets emerged. Both were tall and lanky. One wore a tassled hat. The other had hair that was spiked on top.
Spike lurched left.
Tassle lunged after and grapple-hooked Spike around the throat.
Both puppets toppled backward but were not swept away. Their thrashing sent waves cascading outward into the darkness.
Angry shouting bounced down the tube. I could not catch words.
My vision was swimming.
I blinked. Still the images seemed disjointed, like frames of film disconnected by edits.
Spike staggered to his feet.
Tassle clung to Spike’s leg, was dragged.
Spike turned and kicked out with one foot.
Tassle’s head snapped back. He pinwheeled, then fell. Filthy brown water covered his face.
Spike slogged toward the ladder.
Tassle struggled to his feet, pistoned, caught Spike from behind and drove him face-first into the wall.
Spike’s hands flew up and his neck whiplashed.
Tassle body-slammed Spike a second time, harder.
Spike’s head again smashed brick.
Tassle stepped back.
Spike slid downward into the watery scum.
“Here.” Barely a whisper. “I’m here.”
With that, I crawled to a hidden corner of my mind. To the reassuring cadence of blood pulsing in my inner ear.
The sewer evaporated. The water. The cold. The rats.
Moments, or hours, later I saw a flashlight bob toward me.
Time passed. Or didn’t.
I became aware of a presence. Of my shoulders being raised. Deep rasping breaths. The smell of wet wool. Male sweat. Warmth.
I forced my eyes open.
A face floated inches from mine.
Slowly, the features shaped up.
“Hold on, buttercup.”
