Embers & Ash by T.M. Goeglein Page B

vacuum
pop!
and I peered into darkness. Until now, it had felt like fate was perpetually against me, sitting on one side of a table with a stacked deck while I sat on the other trying to guess what cards it held. I needed one real answer that would help me save my family, and the notebook had provided it—ultimate power existed.
    Turning to Doug, I said, “Ready?”
    â€œI was born ready.” He smiled. “I’ve always wanted to say that.”
    One step, and then another, as the door sealed behind us.
    The Outfit had turned Chicago into its own personal monster by feeding it a steady diet of violence and lies.
    We flicked on our helmet lights, descending into the belly of the beast.

7
    AS WE LEFT THE SURFACE BEHIND, I THOUGHT of the Hemingway novel we were studying in Ms. Ishikawa’s class,
The Sun Also Rises.
    Not down here.
    We’d entered a place nearly devoid of daylight. Natural color was replaced by shades of gray, and although it was late morning, it seemed like dusk. Feeble illumination streamed through a distant sewer grate, eaten up by gloom. It’s said that when people lose the ability to see, other senses grow stronger, and something like that felt true now. Sounds and smells were more intense, more present. The city’s innards gurgled, hissed, and dripped while the air filled with rich earthiness one moment, human putrescence the next, the funk of chemicals after that, and then a potpourri of all three.
    Our deep descent from Club Molasses ended at a rusty door.
    As we moved down a stone staircase, I showed Doug the painted hands on the wall pointing the way. They’d been applied more than half a century earlier to guide fleeing Outfit members, when Joe Little created the Capone Doors and tunnels. We stood at the rusty door, feeling the rush of wind beneath it and hearing the ghoulish shriek of brakes as a train slowed to a halt on the other side. Nearly six months ago, I’d yanked open that secret entrance to a subway platform and leaped into a train car, narrowly eluding Uncle Buddy. Today, however, wasn’t about escape; it was about discovery, and I pointed a flashlight into the shadows. Riveted beams rose from floor to ceiling. The wall supporting the staircase was solid brick. The other wall, before us, held only the rusty door. The rest of the musty space revealed no other way in or out.
    â€œWhat now?” Doug said.
    â€œWe need a pointing hand to show us the way.”
    He walked in a circle shining his flashlight up and down, and stopped, toeing at the ground. “Help me,” he said, and I joined him, kicking away a layer of silt until a hand indicated a square of metal with a recessed latch. Doug pulled on it and the door in the floor sprung open, revealing a dark pit. We looked at each other. “Ladies first,” he said.
    â€œThanks a lot, pal.”
    â€œThere’s the top of a ladder, attached to the wall. See it?”
    â€œYeah, but where does it end?” I said, my flashlight beam swallowed away.
    â€œDown there . . . somewhere.”
    â€œThat’s comforting.” I lowered myself inside, my hands and feet finding the rungs. “See you on the other—” I said, as the ladder’s ancient bolts pulled free and I fell, landing with a painful
thud.
The ladder clanged nearby, missing me by inches. I sat up on my elbows, seeing the circle of light from Doug’s miner’s helmet.
    â€œAre you okay?” he said.
    â€œPeachy.” I groaned. “This hole’s not deep enough to kill, only wound.” I stood, brushed myself off, and looked up. “You can’t jump. I got lucky but you might break something.”
    â€œNo problem!” he said. I heard the
chink
of metal on metal, the rope unfurled at my feet, and Doug shimmied down beside me.
    â€œVery slick. What did you tie it to?”
    â€œDid
Cliffhanger
teach you nothing? I didn’t tie it, I hooked it to a