The creepiness that Albert felt that evening behind Juggers Hall was gone before he fell asleep that night and by the next morning he couldn’t wait to see what was in those tunnels.
He spent the morning planning, trying to decide the best way to proceed. He needed some supplies. Flashlights for sure, with plenty of extra batteries, and it wouldn’t hurt to have a plan to keep from getting lost.
It was maddening. He grew more and more eager to see what mysteries waited beneath the sidewalks. If the map on the box was true, then it was certainly more than just a simple steam tunnel stretching out from the power plant. It would have to be connected directly to the city sewer system, and even then the tunnels would have to be much more complicated than a city this size would really require. The map itself was simply a set of lines depicting only the path he would be taking, but along the way there were dozens of short lines branching off the main path, suggesting intersections that could lead anywhere. It seemed like so much for a city where the college made up a fair percentage of the population. He wondered if there was something hidden down there, something fantastic.
He drove to the local Wal-Mart and purchased his supplies, preparing himself for what he was sure would be a fantastic adventure. And later, before lecture, he told Brandy of his discoveries, only to be brought back to earth with a resounding crash.
“The sewers?”
“Well, not sewers,” Albert replied, already sure of what she was thinking. “They’re some sort of tunnels. They’re probably connected to the sewers somewhere, but I think they’re mostly service tunnels running from the power plant. Steam tunnels, probably.”
“That’s crazy.”
“Maybe. But who knows.”
Brandy did not reply. She was searching the contents of her purse for some lip-gloss.
“You in?”
She turned and looked at him as though he’d lost his mind. “What do you mean am I ‘in’?”
“I mean I’d like to go down there and look around. I want to see where the map takes us.”
She gave him a look that was all she needed to say, her eyes narrowed, her nose wrinkled, a genuine “are you nuts” expression if ever he’d seen one. “No way.”
Albert looked down at his notebook. She’d succeeded in making him feel perfectly silly.
“I don’t care if there’s a million dollars in gold and jewels down there, I wouldn’t wade through sewage for anything.” She went back to looking for her lip-gloss. “Besides, what makes you sure there’s anything down there anyway?”
“Maybe there’s not. Maybe there is. Weirder shit’s happened.”
“Touché.”
“I bought some supplies. I think it’s worth a look.”
“You’re crazy. Somebody gave us that box to get us to go down there. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t care much for the thought of being underground in the dark, maybe too far down for anyone to hear me screaming, and knowing that somebody I don’t know knows I’m down there.”
Albert nodded. He couldn’t really argue that logic.
“This isn’t the world’s safest campus, you know. Remember a couple of years ago when two students disappeared?”
“I hadn’t heard about that.”
“One in the winter, one in the spring. Never found. Somebody else was murdered a year or two before that, too. A girl. Raped and strangled. They found her in the bushes near the Cube.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. They all could have received a mysterious box, too.”
Albert could think of no reply. She was right, of course. He remembered that weird paranoia he’d felt after he located the tunnel entrance. He wondered again at the odds of correctly solving the clues in such a short amount of time.
Brandy had been speaking to him, but not looking at him. Now she turned and looked directly at him, her blue eyes brilliant. “Just stay above ground, okay? You’re a nice guy. Don’t get yourself killed.”
That pretty much settled it. After class he came home and sat down at his desk. He felt like a first class idiot. He’d spent good money on flashlights and batteries, and all for a stupid expedition that made no sense to anyone but himself. There was no proof that there was anything down there. There was nothing but a map and a box full of junk. Furthermore, she was absolutely right when she said that somebody gave them the box, somebody whose intentions had obviously been for them to follow the map, but who neglected to mention why. In a country where there were something like thirty-five serial killers active at any given time and somewhere someone turned up missing, raped, brutalized or murdered almost hourly, it was far more likely that such a map would lead to a sociopath than to a treasure.
Above all, Albert Cross was a logical-minded person, and he could not deny that, logically, nothing about the box made any sense.
That night, he took the box with all its contents, locked it and then placed it and the key inside the plastic bag with the things he’d bought that morning. He then dropped the entire box into his bottom desk drawer and closed it.