Chapter 13: The Toilet and the Tunnels

I lied on my bed and looked out the bedroom window, watching the street as the day started its slow transition from afternoon to evening. The street outside was completely empty--no cars, no pedestrians, nothing that suggested life. Planted neatly on the nature strip were trees, and the leaves on these trees were falling. Each leaf trickled down slowly, zigzagging in the air as it glided down. When a leaf hit the pavement, the road, or the grass, it lied on the ground motionless, as if it were dead, yet the leaf seemed so alive when it was airborne.

I looked at the tree whose branches connected my bedroom window to Ella's bedroom window. The tree was shaking more than it should be. The wind was far too weak to explain the tree's movements.

I soon realized that Eddie was on the tree. He had finished climbing the trunk and had reached the branch that headed towards my bedroom window. He had climbed up this tree trunk from Nancy's backyard. When Eddie saw me looking at him, he smiled at me briefly and then kept crawling on the branch.

I opened my bedroom window and the little boy jumped inside my bedroom. He was dressed in blue tracksuit pants and a black jumper. I could clearly see underneath his black jumper a red t-shirt. His blonde hair was spiked up at the front. This was perhaps the first time I had ever seen him gel his hair. I didn't even know he had gel.

"Are you going anywhere?" I asked.

"Yeah, I'm goin' to Mark's house. He said I can pop by and check out that catalogue. I wanna see how hot these chicks are! You wanna come along?"

The word "chick" coming from Eddie's mouth sounded so strange. I never heard him use that word before, so I just stood and stared at him. He shifted around uncomfortably, probably regretting his use of the word.

"I have to eat dinner soon," I said.

"Mark's house is pretty close."

"Where is it?"

"Forty-six Black Street, Brighton," said Eddie, reading the business card in his hands. "That's about a ten minute walk from here."

"I don't think I want to see Mark. He doesn't like me."

"You should try be friends with him."

"I don't think I can. I've known him for a long time, and I don't like him."

"So you ain't coming?"

I shook my head. Eddie nodded but seemed disappointed. He walked back towards the bedroom window to leave. As I watched him climb down the tree, I turned back to my computer and stared at the monitor.

From my bed I could smell tonight's dinner--spinach gnocchi with sweet sauce. I walked out from my bedroom and headed for the top of the stairs. I froze when I realized that my parents were talking in the kitchen--talking about me. Even though I couldn't see them from where I was, I could still hear them.

Dad was speaking. "After Keith finishes dinner, we'll try talk him into cooperating with the police. I've already spoken to the detective at the station. His name's John Silencer."

"I don't know if the police is a good idea," said Mum. "Our little boy may have done something wrong, but we're his parents. Shouldn't we be protecting him?"

"We're not harming him," said Dad. "We're just trying to get him to help the police with their investigations. Maybe then we'll figure out what happened to Nancy's girls. He's our son, yes, but most importantly we have a duty to our society and to our community. We have to guide our son along the right path in life. This is what God wants from us. In return it's his Christian duty to obey and respect us because we're his parents."

"Do you think we've been getting respect from Keith lately?"

"Maybe I can enroll Keith in bible study classes," said Dad. "That'll give him a firm set of morals to live by. I get the feeling our son is aimless in life, like he's got nothing to live for, like he's..."

I walked back into my room and closed the door. I didn't want to hear anymore. My dad was going to call the police. He was going to enroll me in bible study classes. I didn't know which was worse. I had to get out of the house. Maybe I could live with Eddie for a while until my parents calmed down. Eddie wasn't at home though. He was at Mark's house.

I stared out from my bedroom window into Lily's bedroom window across the fence. Her bedroom was empty. Paper, pens, markers, rope, books, and toys were strewn all over the carpet. The room looked as if life had just been ripped from it suddenly. Every object in Lily's bedroom looked as still as a corpse.

Outside Nancy's house, on the pavement near the nature strip, I saw Mark. He was walking. He wore jeans and a black jacket. His hands were in his pockets. He walked underneath the trees as they showered him with leaves.

Although the weather didn't seem too cold, I took a warm grey jumper from the cupboard anyway. My parents might worry if I left the house. On a piece of paper I wrote a note for my parents and left it on the bed: GONE TO LIBRARY TO STUDY. I climbed out from my bedroom window and started to follow Mark, making sure I kept a safe distance behind the teenager.

As I walked along the pavement with my head down and my hands in my pockets, I kept thinking about whether I wanted to return home that night. Perhaps when I come home tonight the police will be waiting for me. Perhaps I could hide out in Eddie's bedroom, or maybe even in Lily's bedroom.

The thought of Lily's bed filled my mind with warmth. As she slept, she would have leaked girl juices all over her bed--on the blankets, the pillows, or the covers. There had to be remnants of the precious child, remnants I could inhale and taste, remnants I could sleep with one last time before they fade away forever. If I slept in her bed, maybe it was more likely she'd appear in my dreams. I just wanted to see her again.

I followed Mark all the way to Dendy Park. I had a feeling he'd be walking to the park, and when he had arrived at the park I knew he was heading straight for the female toilets.

I was ready this time. When Mark walked into the toilet, I grabbed a tree branch nearby and tiptoed quickly to the entrance. I peeked inside to see Mark slipping an access card of some sort into holes in the wall. A concrete door opened to reveal a staircase leading down. Mark walked down the stairs quickly. He walked so quickly it looked like he was late for something. When he left he allowed the door behind him to slowly swing shut. I ran inside the toilet and managed to reach the door before it swung shut. I used the tree branch to keep the door open, in case I needed an exit.

Sconces on the walls held flaming torches that lit the way. Since I had been too busy trying to keep the door from locking me out, Mark had walked off deep into the tunnels, and I had no idea where he was now.

The walls around me had rocks jutting out. These rocks looked so pointy and sharp that I feared impaling myself if I fell. In spite of the dangers of falling, I found myself walking rather fast. As I walked deeper and deeper into the tunnels the place seemed to get darker and the air seemed to get warmer and foggier. It felt like something was burning. My sniffing nose didn't detect anything unusual though, so I started to wonder whether I was just getting tired.

After walking around for fifteen minutes, something strange happened. For a while the tunnels seemed to get narrower and narrower, but all of a sudden I found myself in a wide open cavern. The place was as big as the basketball court at school. The rocks underneath my feet seemed slippery. I looked up and understood why. Water dripped from limestone stalactites at the roof of the cave, forming pools of water on the rock below. When I was in the tunnels there were small sconces on the walls with flaming torches attached. Now that I was in the cavern the torches seemed bigger. They were attached to poles that looked like they were shoved into holes in the rock below. The presence of human lighting here was evidence of considerable human activity. My reasoning was confirmed when I saw someone.