She reached inside, pulled out a flashlight, and started down. I crouched and shone my penlight to see a ladder. I started after her.
"You need to--" she began, then stopped as she saw I was already shutting the hatch behind me.
The ladder only went about six feet. When I stood, I could reach up and touch the ceiling. The dirt floor was damp, and I could smell the river and hear water trickling down a distant wall.
As I looked around, I said, "Shadowy mystery stalkers? Hidden escape hatches? Creepy subterranean tunnels? My mother tried to get me to take social work for my master's. I told her it was boring. I was so wrong."
Aunika snorted and set off, saying, "Keep your voice down."
"Because sound echoes. Radio silence, then."
"Don't strain yourself."
I looked around as we walked. It was indeed a subterranean tunnel. Like The Count of Monte Cristo, locked away in a dungeon, digging your way out with a rusty spoon, and creeping along the rat-infested warren of abandoned passages deep below the prison. At least this one didn't seem to have rats.
I ogled as we went, touching a rusted metal pipe, leaning into a dark side passage.
"This isn't a sightseeing tour," Aunika whispered back.
"Life is a sightseeing tour," I said. "By the way, do you know how old these tunnels are? They're definitely not part of the original city system for transporting goods to and from the railroad. For those, they had to put in a foot of concrete and run sump pumps to keep them dry." I touched a rivulet, running through a groove at least a half-inch deep, worn by decades of such rivulets. "They really skimped here. Tunnels built for nefarious purposes, I'm guessing. Or by government contract."
She shook her head and continued on. When she heard a beep, she looked back to see me getting out my phone.
"Taking pictures now?" she said.
I shook my head. "Calling my boyfriend."
"You need a guy to come rescue you?"
I waggled my gun. "I have that part covered, but given the situation, I'm going to let someone know where I am. I'm a feminist; I'm not an idiot. And...no cell service. Naturally."
A pipe clanged ahead. When I went still, Aunika looked at me and said, "Now what?"
"You didn't hear..."
Her expression told me I didn't need to finish that sentence. I started forward, only to catch the whisper of voices. When asked if she heard them, she screwed up her face.
"Shit, you really are crazy, aren't you?"
I was about to answer when another voice came, speaking a language I didn't recognize, but loud enough that there was no way Aunika wouldn't hear. A shadowy figure slid past ahead. When she didn't see that, I cursed under my breath.
"What now?" she said.
"Nothing. Just...ignore me."
"I'm trying to. Really, really trying to."
She resumed walking. I caught snatches of voices and saw more streaks of movement as a vision encroached on the world of the living. That was not a good omen. It meant I was teetering on the edge of a full-blown vision.
Not now. Please, not now.
I kept my eyes open, as I mentally recited Dickinson's "There Is Another Sky," but stopped short because, well, there was another place here, another world, and I was desperately trying to stay out of it. I switched to Dylan Thomas's "Do Not Go Gently into That Good Night," which seemed thematically appropriate. The voices faded, and I stayed firmly in these subterranean tunnels, my penlight beam shining on Aunika's back.
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"You doing okay?" she asked.
I nodded, and she peered at me, as if not quite convinced.