He repositioned himself and tried again.This time the cover moved, but not without a great deal of effort.It slid across the concrete, grinding with enough noise, it seemed,to be heard from at least Memphis, but no one came to see what hewas doing. When the cover was pushed far enough over to allow themto enter, he stopped to catch his breath and peered into the thickdarkness below. Warm air rose up to meet his face and suddenly hewas struck by the magnitude of what he was doing.

Up until now he’d been single-mindedlyplaying along with the box, contemplating the mystery first and hisdoubts second. But now he was taking a fabulous risk. He wasgetting ready to trespass in what was undoubtedly very restricteduniversity property. If he and Brandy were caught in these tunnels,they would almost certainly face very serious charges. They couldbe expelled. They could be handed over to the city police andarrested. In his need to follow these clues he had managed to putboth himself and Brandy in a very vulnerable position. And yet,Brandy had ultimately chosen to come with him of her own freewill.

“Something wrong?”

Albert glanced up at her and then quicklylooked around. Still no one had appeared. “Just catching mybreath,” he replied. “Want me to go first?”

Brandy nodded quickly. He could tell she wasnervous about going down there, and he didn’t blame her.

“Okay.” An iron ladder was bolted to theconcrete on one wall of the tunnel. He placed his backpack on theground next to it and climbed carefully into the darkness. Hepaused once to withdraw one of the flashlights from the bag andthen descended into the tunnel.

For a brief moment he stood in the darkness,feeling the humid atmosphere. He knew that the tunnel stretchedsome distance in both directions, probably at least the full lengthof the sidewalk, and he allowed himself only that moment to feelthe vulnerability of his blindness before turning on theflashlight.

“Hand me the backpack.”

Brandy knelt down beside the hole andlowered the bag down to him.

Albert took it and slid his arms through thestraps. “Okay. Come on down. Watch your step.”

“Someone’s coming.”

“What?”

“Turn off the flashlight!”

Albert obeyed without delay. In an instanthe was swallowed by darkness. He looked up through the openingabove the ladder and saw that Brandy had vanished. Voices rose fromthe direction of the field house.

In the darkness, Albert felt terriblyvulnerable. He wasn’t able to examine the tunnel very well in theshort time the flashlight was on, but he’d seen enough to give hisimagination plenty to work with. The tunnel stretched beyond thereach of the beam in both directions. Huge pipes ran the entirelength of one wall while thick bundles of cables snaked along theother. Overhead was a freeway of water pipes. A locked switchbox ofsome sort was mounted near the ladder. The only other things he’dseen were concrete and shadows. The air was musty and warm. Farahead he could see a narrow, dim light casting eerie, motionlessshadows across the wall and lamplight drifted through a number ofgrates in the sidewalk. There was a grumbling of distant machinerythat suddenly sounded like the snoring of some enormous beast.Standing alone in the darkness, it was far too easy to imaginethings slinking toward him, nasty, drooling things with teeth andclaws. The walls began to close; the cables and pipes unfastenedthemselves and reached out for him. Claustrophobia crept over himand childhood terrors rose from long dormant chambers of hismind.

The voices grew closer, more audible. Boys.At least two of them. He could not hear the subject of theirconversation, but he heard when the subject changed.

“Whoa! Watch out.” One voice. Deep.Smooth.

“Yeah, that’s not dangerous at all.”Another voice, this one lighter. Softer.

Shadows passed over the opening and thevoices faded. Somebody changed the subject, a third voice, hethought, but wasn’t sure. It could have been the first again. Hefocused on their voices, tried to picture the people they belongedto and wondered how different they really were from what heimagined.

He didn’t like being blind. Without theability to view his surroundings, he was at the mercy of hisimagination, and his imagination could be surprisingly frightening.And he hated being frightened. Fear was an illogical reaction tothings like this. Fear should be reserved for human cruelty andnatural disasters, not for empty, dark corridors. Standing in thedarkness now, he thought he could almost feel the fur of somesnarling creature brushing against the leg of his pants.

When the voices were completely gone heconcentrated on the box and on his plan. The boys changing thesubject meant that the open entrance to the tunnel was alreadyforgotten. They probably assumed that it was left open by aforgetful maintenance worker or by some kids goofing around.

After what seemed like hours, he heard morefootsteps. Then another shadow fell across the opening and Brandy’svoice drifted down to him like the welcome ring of rescue vehiclesto a disaster scene. “They’re gone.”

Albert snapped on the flashlight with allthe force of a drowning man gasping for air. Light filled thetunnel again, mercifully chasing away the darkness and revealingnot a single drooling creature. There was not even a small rat toblame his irrationality on. As always when he found himselfrelieved of such situations where his imagination overpowered hissenses, he felt embarrassed. It seemed to him that Brandy must beable to see him blush, that he must have his silly childishnesswritten across his face in brilliant red hues.

“I couldn’t cover the hole. I just startedwalking. Went right past them and they didn’t even notice me. Iwent up past the field house and circled back.” She eased down ontothe ladder and began to descend. She sounded out of breath. “Ithink they noticed the hole.”

“Yeah, but they didn’t think much about it.”Her quick thinking impressed Albert. He might have tried to run andhide and most certainly would have attracted their curiosity. “Weshould be fine.”

Once Brandy was off the ladder, Alberthanded her the flashlight and then climbed up and slid the covernoisily back into place. It was a little bit easier from down here.Gravity worked with him more. When they were effectively sealed in,he removed the second flashlight, a can of spray paint and the boxfrom the backpack and slipped it on again. With only the extrabatteries inside, it was much lighter.

“That was really cool, actually,” Brandyremarked as he fumbled with the backpack. The girlish excitement inher voice lifted his spirits and helped to settle his nerves fromhis time in the dark. “I haven’t done anything like this since Iwas a little girl.”

“Did you sneak into a lot of tunnels whenyou were a kid?”

Brandy smiled. “Sort of. My cousins and Iused to sneak into our grandma’s basement when no one was looking.We weren’t supposed to be down there, but it was so cool andcreepy. It had this narrow little stairway and the floor was alwaysa little muddy.” Those days seemed so far away now. It had beenfour or five years since she’d really spent any time with any ofher cousins. She was the youngest of the five and they were allgrown up now. The others were all married or engaged. It was kindof sad. Thinking back on it now, it felt less like she’d outgrownher childhood and more like life had outgrown her.

Albert chuckled at the thought of hercreeping around in an old basement. “Sounds like some of the stuffI used to do.” He thought of his grandparents’ farm. The old,leaning barn. The cellar. Plenty of places he wasn’t supposed togo, but always did. That was so long ago. Could he possibly alreadybe so old as to have such distant memories?

“I guess that’s part of the reason I wantedto do this,” Brandy said. “It makes me feel like a kid on a bigadventure.” She gazed around wonderingly. It was a warm feeling,getting that old jolt she remembered from her childhoodadventures.