"But what if the Colonists come out before we reach it?" Will asked. "There's no way they can miss us."
"They're on a break," Cal replied, shaking his head at Will. "We'll be OK if we go right now."
Chester chimed in. "We could always back off… into the tunnel again and wait until the train's gone."
"That could be hours. We've got to go now," Cal said, his voice brimming with irritation. "While we've still got the chance."
"Hang back," Chester immediately countered, turning to Cal.
"Go now," Cal insisted tetchily.
"No, we—" Chester came back at him, but Cal raised his voice and didn't let him finish.
"You don't know anything," he sneered.
"Who died and made you boss?" Chester swiveled around to his friend, looking for support. "You're not going to listen to this, are you, Will? He' just a stupid brat."
"Shut up," Will hissed through gritted teeth, his eyes on the station.
"I saw we—" Cal declaimed loudly.
Will shot out his hand and clapped it roughly over his brother's mouth. "I said shut it, Cal. Two of them. Over there," he whispered urgently into Cal's ear, then slowly took his hand away.
Cal and Chester sought out the two railwaymen, who were standing under a portico that ran along the front of several of the station buildings. They had just emerged from one of the shacks, and strains of bizarre music filtered across to the boys through the open door.
They were wearing bulky blue uniforms and some type of breathing apparatus over their heads, and as the boys watched they lifted these up so they could drink from the large tankards each of them had in his hands. Even from where the boys were positioned, they could hear the men's grumbling tones as they stepped a few paces forward and stopped, idly perusing the train, and then turned to point out something in the gantry high above it.
After several minutes, they turned on their heels and went back inside the shack, slamming the door behind them.
"Right! Let's go!" Cal said. He chose to look only at Will, studiously avoiding Chester.
"Cut it out," Will growled. "We go when we all decide. We're in this together."
Cal started to reply, his upper lip lifted in an aggressive snarl.
"This isn't some children's game, you know," Will shot at him before he could speak.
The younger boy huffed loudly and, rather than continue to challenge Will, turned on Chester, glowering fiercely.
"You… you Topsoiler!" Cal spat.
Chester was completely unfazed by this and, raising an eyebrow, gave Will a small shrug.
So they remained there, Will and Chester carefully watching the frontage of the station while Cal drew pictures in the dirt that had a remarkable resemblance to Chester, with squarish bodies and blocky heads. Every so often he chuckled evilly to himself and wiped them over, only to begin drawing again.
After five minutes with no further sign of the railwaymen, Will spoke. "Right, I reckon they've settled in. I say we should go now. Happy, Chester?"
Chester gave a single nod, looking distinctly unhappy.
"At last," Cal said, leaping to his feet and rubbing his hands together to shake off the dust. In an instant he was in the full glare of the lights on the open ground, striding cockily away.
"What's his problem?" Chester said to Will. "He's going to get us all killed."
In the darkness by the cavern wall, they stepped between the pair of ramps and discovered that there was indeed a way through, a sizable cleft in the rock. Cal had struck it lucky with his suggestion and wasn't going to let this go unnoticed.
"I was r—" he started.
"Yeah, I know, I know," Will interrupted. "This time."
"What are those?" Chester said, noticing a number of structures as they entered a new stretch of tunnel. They were almost buried by large drifts of silt along one side of the wall. Some were like huge cubicles and others were circular in shape. Odd pieces of metal and debris lay discarded around them. The boys approached one of the structures, which, close up, looked like a giant honeycomb built of gray brick. As Will was wading through the silt to get closer, his foot flipped something over. He stooped to retrieve whatever it was. Hard, flat, and with undulating edges, it fit the palm of his hand. He kept hold of it as he went up to the honeycomb structure.
"There'll be a hatch down here," Cal said, pushing past his brother. He cleared the accumulated silt away at the base of the structure with his boot. Sure enough, there was a smallish door, about a foot and a half square, which, as he squatted down and yanked it open a little, squealed loudly on dry hinges. Dark ash spilled out.
"How did you know that?" Will asked.
Rising to his feet, Cal snatched the object from his brother's grip and rapped it hard against the rounded surface of the structure beside him. The object gave off a dull but slightly glassy sound, and fragments broke from it. "This is a piece of slag." He swung his foot at a pile of dirt, sending it flying. "And I'm willing to bet there'll be some charcoal under all this."
"So?" Chester inquired.
"So these are furnaces," Cal replied confidently.
"Really?" Will said, bending to peer in through the hatch.
"Yes, I've seen these before, in the foundries in the South Cavern of the Colony." Cal lifted his chin and regarded Chester truculently, as if he had proved his superiority over the older boy. "The Coprolites must've been smelting pig iron here."
"An age ago, by the looks of it," Will said, gazing around the place.
Cal nodded, and, there being nothing else worthy of note, they trooped along the tunnel in silence.
"He's a smart aleck," Chester said when Cal was far enough ahead to be out of earshot.
"Look, Chester," Will replied in a low voice, "he's probably scared stiff by this place, like all the Colonists are. And don't forget, he's a lot younger than either of us. He's just a kid."
"That's no excuse."
"No, it's not, but you have to make a bit of an allowance," Will suggested.
"That's no good down here, Will, and you know it!" Chester blurted. Noticing that Cal had heard his outburst and turned to look at them curiously. Chester immediately dropped his voice. "There's no room for anyone to mess up. What, do you think we can ask the Styx for a second chance, like having another life in some stupid video game? Get real, will you?"
"He won't let us down," Will said.
"Are you willing to bet your life — your one life — on that?" Chester asked him.
Will just shook his head as they continued to plod along. He knew that there was nothing he could say to change his friend's opinion, and maybe Chester was right.
Away from the furnaces and the mounds of silt, they found the floor of the tunnel compacted, as if many feet had trodden it into a firm surface. Although they kept to the main tunnel, every so often smaller passages spun off from it. Some of these were high enough to stand in, but the majority were mere crawlways. The boys had no intention of leaving the main thoroughfare, and they eventually came to a place where the tunnel split.
"So, which way now?" Chester asked as he and Will neared Cal, who had come to a stop. The boy had spotted something lying at the base of the wall and went over to it, nudging it with his toe cap. It was a signpost of bleached, splintery wood with two "hands" affixed to the top of a broken-off stake, their fingerlike extensions pointing in opposite directions. Cal picked up the stake and held it so Will could read the barely legible writing carved into each.
"This says Crevice Town, which must be the tunnel to the right. This…" he faltered, "I can't quite make it out… the end's been chewed off… I think it says The Great something or other?"
"The Great Plain," Cal volunteered immediately.
Will and Chester regarded him with not a little surprise.
"Heard my Uncle Tam's friends talk about it once," he explained.
"Well, what else did you hear? And what's this town like? Is it a Coprolite place?" Will asked him.
"I don't know."
"Come on, should we go there?" Will pressed him.
"I really don't know anything more," Call replied indifferently, letting the sign slide to the ground.
"Well, I like the sound of the town. Bet my dad would have gone there. What do you think, Chester, do we go that way?"
"Whatever," Chester answered, still staring distrustfully at Cal.
But as they ambled along, it became evident in only a few hours that the route they'd chosen wasn't a main thoroughfare like the tunnel they'd left behind. The floor was rougher and loosely packed, with large chunks of stone strewn across it, suggesting that it wasn't used very often. And, even worse, they were forced to climb over large falls of rock where the roof or walls had partially collapsed.
Just as they began to deliberate whether to turn back, they rounded a corner and their lights cut a swath through the darkness to reveal a structure barring their path. It was regular and clearly man-made.
"So there is something here after all," Will said with a gush of relief.
As they neared the obstruction, the tunnel ballooned into a larger cavity. Their lights revealed a tall, fencelike structure with two towers, each about thirty feet in height, which formed a gateway of sorts. Stretching high between the towers, a metal panel proclaimed CREVICE TOWN in crude cut-out letters.
Crunching on the cinders and gravel, they ventured cautiously forward. On either side, the tall fence ran uninterrupted, completely blocking the width of the cavern. There was nowhere else to go but under the open gateway. Nodding at one another, they crept through it.
"Looks like a ghost town," Chester said, observing the rows of huts arranged on either side of the central avenue where they were now walking. "There can't be anyone living here," he added hopefully.
If any of the boys had been nursing the illusion that the huts might be occupied, this was dispelled as soon as they saw the condition they were in. Many had simply collapsed in on themselves. Of those that were still standing, their doors were open or missing altogether, and every single window was broken.
"Just going to check inside this one," Will said. With Chester waiting nervously behind him, he negotiated his way through a pile of timber in the threshold, gripping the doorjamb to steady himself. The whole structure groaned and heaved ominously.
"Be careful, Will!" Chester warned, moving a safe distance back in case the hut came crashing down. "Looks a bit dodgy."
"Yeah," Will muttered, but he was not going to be deterred. He ventured farther inside and shone his light around as he threaded his way through the debris scattered across the floor.
"It's full of bunk beds," he reported back to the others.
"Bunk beds?" Cal echoed inquiringly from outside while Will continued to nose around the interior. There was a splintery crash as his foot went through the floor.
"Blast!" He extricated his foot, and began to carefully reverse out again. He'd seen enough, given the parlous condition of the floor. "Nothing here," he shouted, and returned outside.
They continued down the central avenue until Cal broke the silence.
"Can you smell that?" he asked Will suddenly. "It's sharp, like—"
"Ammonia. Yes," Will cut in. He played his light on the area in front of his feet. "It seems to be coming from… from the ground. It feels sort of damp," he observed, grinding the ball of his foot into the cavern floor and then squatting down. He took a pinch of the soil and held it under his nose. "Phew, it is this stuff. It stinks! Looks like dried bird droppings. Isn't it called guano?"
"Birds. That's OK," Chester said in a relieved voice, recalling the harmless flock they'd encountered in the Colony.
"No, not birds, this is different," Will immediately corrected himself. "And it's sort of fresh. It feels really squidgy."
"Oh crikey," Chester sputtered, looking frantically in all directions.
"Yuck! There are things in it," Will observed, adjusting his weight from one leg to the other as he remained squatting.
"What things?" Chester all but jumped into the air.
"Insects. See them?"
Shining their lights by their feet, Chester and Cal saw what Will was talking about. Beetles the size of well-fed cockroaches crawled ponderously over the slimy surface of the amassed droppings. They had creamy-white carapaces, and their similarly colored feelers twitched rhythmically as they went. Other, darker insects were around them, but these were harder to observe, apparently more sensitive to the light, since they scuttled rapidly away.
As the boys watched, just within their pooled circle of light a large beetle flapped open its carapace. Will chuckled with fascination as its wings hummed into life with the sound of a clockwork toy and it took to ungainly flight. Once in the air, it weaved erratically from side to side until it vanished from view, into the gloom.
"There's a complete ecosystem here," Will said, engrossed by the variety of insects he was finding. As he scratched around in the droppings, he uncovered a large, engorged, pale-colored grub as big as his thumb.
"Grab that. We might be able to eat it," Cal said.
"Ewww!" quivered Chester, stamping his feet. "Don't be gross!"
"No, no, he's being serious," Will said flatly.
"Can we just get going again?" Chester begged.
Will reluctantly pulled himself away from the insects and they resumed their walk down the central avenue. They were at the last of the huts when Will beckoned them to a halt again.
"Feel that breeze? I think it's coming from up there," Will observed. "This whole area has some type of netting over it. Look at the holes."
They peered above the tops of the huts, where they could see a layer of mesh. Weighed down with debris, in some places it sagged so much it almost touched the roofs of the huts, while in others the mesh was absent altogether. They tried to shine their lights up through one of these openings, past the torn strands of the mesh and into the void high above. But the orbs weren't strong enough, and only revealed an ominous darkness.
"So that could be the crevice this place was named after?" Will pondered aloud.
"HEY!" Cal hollered at the top his voice, making the other two start. Vague echoes of his shout reverberated across the void. "It's big," he said unnecessarily.
Then they heard a noise.
Gentle to begin with, similar to the sound when pages of a book are being fanned through, it was growing louder at an alarming rate.
Something was stirring, waking.
"More beetles?" Chester asked, hoping that was all it was.
"Uh, no, I don't think so," Will said, scanning the space above their heads. "That shout might not have been such a great idea, Cal."
Chester immediately turned on the younger boy. "What have you done now, you little jerk?" he said in an urgent whisper.
Cal made a face.
All of a sudden, from holes in the mesh up above the boys' heads, dark shapes dipped down, swooping at them. Their wingspans were huge and their screeches echoed off the walls like unearthly, high-pitched feedback, hitting the very limits of the boys' hearing.
"Bats!" Cal yelled, recognizing the sound right away. Chester howled in panic as he and Will remained rooted to the spot, mesmerized by the spectacle of the hurtling mammals.
"Run, you idiots!" Cal bawled at them, already taking to his heels.
Within seconds, the air was thick with the flying animals. They flicked past so quickly that Will couldn't keep track of any single one.
"This isn't good!" he exclaimed as leathery wings thrummed currents of dry air around their heads. The bats began to plunge at the boys, swerving aside just at the last moment.
Will and Chester raced down the avenue after Cal, not thinking, not caring, where they were going as long as they got away from the onslaught of airborne monsters. They were driven by a single thought, almost a primordial fear: to escape from these screeching, oversized beasts.
As if in answer to their plight, a house loomed out of the darkness ahead. At two stories high, its a
ustere façade towered over the low huts. It appeared to be constructed of a light-colored stone, and all its windows were shuttered.
"Quick! Over here!" Cal cried as he spotted that the front door was slightly ajar.
In the midst of all this nightmarish confusion, Will glanced behind just in time to see a particularly large bat hurtle straight into the back of Chester's head. He heard the soft thud as it struck. The size of a soccer ball, its body was black and solid. The collision sent Chester sprawling. Will raced over to help his friend, while trying to protect his own face with his arm.
Shouting, he pulled Chester to his feet. And with the boy slightly dazed and running unsteadily, Will guided him toward the strange house. Will was lashing out in front of himself, trying to ward off the beasts, when one careened into his rucksack. He was knocked sideways but managed to keep his balance by hanging on to the still-befuddled Chester.
Will saw that the bat had dropped to the ground, one of its wings twisted and flapping uselessly. A second one flicked down, alighting next to the first. Then yet more, until the injured animal was almost completely hidden from sight by clambering bats. As the felled creature struggled futilely to get away, trying to crawl from under the others, Will saw them snapping at it, their tiny pinlike teeth colored scarlet with blood. They attacked mercilessly, nipping at its thorax and abdomen as it began to squeal in pain.
Ducking and stumbling with Chester beside him, Will continued along the remainder of the avenue. They staggered up the front steps of the house, under the porch, then through the door. Cal slammed it shut behind them. Several bangs followed as bats dashed against it, then others brushed their winds over its surface. This fracas soon died down, leaving only their strange piping calls.
The boys found they were in an imposing hallway replete with a large chandelier, its intricate design gray and furred with dust. A pair of elegantly curving staircases, which swept up to a landing, flanked this foyer. The place appeared to be empty; there was no furniture and just the odd tatter of curling wallpaper hung on the dark walls. It looked as though it had been uninhabited for years.
Will and Cal began to wade through the dust, which was nearly as thick as driven snow. Chester, still shaken, leaned over by the front door, panting heavily.