Рита Браун - Claws And Effect

"There's something over the trapdoor but since it's a sliding door, we could try." Pewter didn't like the cold, damp hole.

"Try what? To open the door?" Tucker asked.

"Yeah, press the button and see what happens." Pewter reached out with her paw.

"Pewter, no," Murphy ordered. "You don't know what's sitting on the trapdoor. You don't know what will fall down. Hospitals have all kinds of stuff like sulfuric acid. Whatever he put up there he figured would either hold us or hurt us. He's a quick thinker. Remember Larry Johnson."

"And he's merciless. Remember Hank Brevard and Tussie Logan," Tucker thoughtfully added.

"My hunch is, he'll come back. He doesn't know who's down here but he suspects something. And he has to come back to kill Bobby. He heard the carton drop. I know he did. He was moving up faster than the humans could hear." Mrs. Murphy's tail twitched back and forth. She was agitated.

"I don't fancy being a duck in a shooting gallery," Pewter wailed.

"Get a grip," Tucker growled.

"I'm as tough as you are. I'm expressing my feelings, that's all."

"Express them once we're out of this mess." Mrs. Murphy prowled along the walls. "Pewter, take that wall. Tucker, the back. Listen for anything. If this was part of the Underground Railroad then there has to be a tunnel off this room. They had to get the slaves out of here somehow."

"Why couldn't they take them out in the middle of the night? Out the back door?" Pewter did, however, go to the wall to listen.

"If everyone is still telling stories about the Underground Railroad, this place was closely watched. Since no one was ever caught, I believe they had tunnels or at least one tunnel." Murphy strained to hear anything in the walls.

"Hey." Pewter's green eyes glittered. "Rats."

Mrs. Murphy and Tucker trotted over, putting their ears to the wall. They could hear the claws click as the rats moved about; occasionally they'd catch a snippet of conversation.

"Now, how do we get in?" Tucker sniffed the floor, moving along the wall. "Nothing but mildew."

"Pewter, you check the ceiling, I'll study the wall." Mrs. Murphy slowly walked along the wall.

"Why am I checking the ceiling?" Pewter rankled at taking orders and she'd been taking too many, in her mind.

"Maybe the way they got out was to crawl between the ceiling and the floorboards upstairs."

"Murphy," Tucker said, "the rats sound lower than that."

"We've got to try everything." Murphy walked the length of the wall, then returned, stopping at a large stone at the base. "Tucker, Pewter, let's push. This might be it."

They grunted and groaned, feeling the stone budge.

"Harry!" Tucker barked.

Harry turned from Bobby to see her three friends pushing the stone. She walked over, knelt down, putting her own shoulder to the large stone. Sure enough it rolled in. "Coop!"

Cooper turned her flashlight into the small dark cavern and a narrow tunnel appeared, rats scurrying in all directions. One would have to walk hunched over but it could be done. "It was part of the Underground Railroad!"

"He's back!" Tucker barked as she heard the heavy burden being slowly slid off the trapdoor.

"He knows we're here now," Murphy warned after Tucker barked.

Harry heard it, too. She ran back and cut the lights. "Let's go." She ducked down and squeezed into the tunnel, crawling on all fours. Cooper followed as the animals ran past them. The two women rolled the stone back in place, then stood up, bending over to keep from bumping their heads.

"Bobby, we left Bobby." Harry's face bled white.

"Harry, we'll have to leave him to God. Let's hope whoever this is comes after us first. He had to have heard Tucker."

"Sorry," Tucker whimpered.

"No time for that," Mrs. Murphy crisply meowed. "We've got to go wherever this leads and hope we make it." She shot ahead followed by Pewter, who was feeling claustrophobic.

The humans ran along as fast as they could, flashlight bobbling. Harry noticed scratchings along the wall. She reached for Cooper's hand, halting her for a moment. She took the flashlight, turning it on the wall. It read: Bappy Crewes, age 26m 1853. They ran along knowing that Bappy, buried in the wall, never found freedom. Right now they hoped that they would.

"He's rolling the stone." Tucker could hear behind them.

"Nip at their heels, Tucker. Make them go faster. We don't know what's at the end of this and it might take us a little time to figure it out."

"Oh, great," Pewter moaned when Murphy said that.

"Your eyes are the best. Run ahead. Maybe you can figure it out," Tucker told the cats.

The two cats sped away as the light dimmed. The tunnel turned hard right. The rats cursed them. They skidded, turned right, then finally reached the end of the tunnel. They waited a moment while their eyes adjusted. They could see the flashlight shining on the wall where the tunnel turned right.

"We have to go up. There's no other way," Pewter observed.

"Oh, thank the Great Cat in the Sky." Murphy breathed a prayer. A ladder made from six-inch tree trunks lay on its side. "Maybe we can make it."

Harry and Cooper now turned right; they were running harder now because whoever was behind them was firing into the dark.

Harry saw the ladder since Murphy was helpfully sitting on it. The two women hoisted it up. Cooper turned to train her gun on the turn in the tunnel.

"Get up and push with all your might!" the deputy said be-tween gritted teeth.

Harry's foot went through one rotted rung but the rest were okay. She pushed and the top opened with surprising ease. She reached down, picking up Murphy, whom she tossed up. Then she did the same for Pewter and finally she carried Tucker, much heavier, under her arm.

She turned back for Coop, who extinguished the flashlight so as not to give their pursuer, who was approaching the right-hand turn, a target. Cooper, in great shape, leapt up, grabbing the top rung. She was out of the tunnel in moments.

"Where are we?" Pewter asked.

Harry quickly flopped down the heavy lid. "Let's get out of here."

"We're in the old switching station." Cooper was amazed. "My God, they literally put them on the trains."

"Smart people, our ancestors." Harry opened the door to the old switching station and they plunged into the darkness, running for all they were worth.

"Down here." Cynthia scrambled down a ditch by the side of the railroad tracks, the typical drainage ditch. "Lie flat. If he comes out I might be able to drop him."

They waited for fifteen minutes in the bitter cold but the door to the switching station never opened.

The railroad, begun by Claudius Crozet in 1849, had been in continuous use since then, with upgrades. The small switching station had been replaced by computers housed in large stations in the major cities. A nerve network fanned out from there, so the individual stations had fallen into disuse.

"Let's go back." Coop, shivering, stood up, brushing herself off.