Brian Keene - Kill Whitey

I’d never been claustrophobic, but I was at that moment. I felt the weight of the industrial complex crushing down on us. It was suddenly hard to breathe. My chest tightened and my throat constricted. The darkness pressed against me. Something tickled my ankle below the surface and I squeezed Sondra’s hand hard enough to make her cry out.

“What is wrong?”

I didn’t respond. What was down here with us? What was hiding in the dark, watching us even now? Rats, certainly. Wouldn’t be a sewer without some fucking rats. Cockroaches and beetles. Worms, of course, and maybe even leeches. Possums, raccoons, other vermin—rabid or just pissed off that humans were trespassing in their hood. Probably snakes, too. Pennsylvania had water snakes, black snakes, copperheads, rattlers, and harmless little garter snakes. I shuddered, thinking back on Whitey’s story about cutting off the black snake’s head and watching it continue to wriggle. What if one swam right between my legs? I’d never be able to see it in the dark. I’d never been afraid of snakes before, but the darkness has a way of changing your fears.

We needed a light, but none was forthcoming. I tried to figure out how far we’d gone. I hadn’t heard the grating move, but surely Whitey knew where we were. Maybe we’d gone too far to hear it. But if the cops had caught Whitey and entered the sewers, we’d have heard them and seen their flashlight beams. Instead, there was more darkness.

You know the old adage about when you die, you see a bright light at the end of the tunnel? Right then, I would have happily let Whitey shoot me through the head if it meant I’d see that light. Any light would have been better than this—even if it meant finality.

Sondra pulled me to a sudden stop. The water swirled past us. I couldn’t hear her breathing.

“Sondra? What’s—”

“Is something there,” she whispered. “In the dark.”

We stood still, holding our breath. Then I heard it, too. A splash, followed by a soft grunt. The sound faded. The water got colder.

Or maybe it was just me.

I led Sondra onward. We didn’t speak. We didn’t have to. We both knew who it was.

Eventually, I felt a warm draft of air on my face. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from, but it brought the stench of burning fuel with it. I figured we must be beneath the wreckage of the police cars. There was no sign of activity—no sirens or radios or shouting. Maybe we were too far underground to hear them. We continued down the passage, moving faster now. The pipe got bigger, tall enough that we could both stand up without banging our heads. The breeze faded and the cloying dampness returned. Something—a rat, maybe—squeaked in the darkness. I looked around in vain, trying to catch a glimpse, and that was when I saw the light at the end of our tunnel.

Except that it was at the wrong end. It was behind us.

Sondra must have noticed it to, because she drew closer to me. I felt her body press against mine. She was shivering.

Back there in the darkness was a soft, blue glow. It was too faint to be a flashlight and too focused to be a flame. As it drew nearer, I figured out what it was—a cell phone, flipped open to illuminate the way.

“Ew kaht eshkayp,” Whitey called. “Shtop wunnig.”

His bizarre speech patterns were even more distorted as they echoed down the pipe.

Wunnig…nig…nig…

“We must have really fucked you up with that soda machine,” I shouted. “Why don’t you just give it up?”

Up…up…up…

Instead of answering me, Whitey growled. The cell phone’s illumination drew closer. Suddenly, there was a flash of white light. The report followed a second later. The bullet whizzed by us.

“Hit the deck,” I shouted, flinging myself into the water.

Sondra stood there, staring into the darkness. The gunshot reverberated through the pipe.

“Sondra!” I grabbed her leg and yanked her down.

Whitey fired a second shot. The bullet whined overhead, ricocheting off the walls.

“Come on,” I said.

We ran, not caring now about whether anyone could hear us or not. It was pointless. Whitey knew where we were. Maybe we’d get lucky. Maybe the cops would hear the gunshots and storm the sewer. I cast a glance over my shoulder as we fled. He didn’t shoot at us again. Maybe he was out of bullets or trying to save ammunition until he had a clearer target. The cell phone’s glow grew smaller. Whitey was having trouble keeping up.

Then we saw daylight up ahead, streaming down through another sewer grate. Dust particles floated in the beams. Pausing, I stretched, trying to reach the iron bars, but the grate was too high. We ran on, passing more grates along the way. I guessed that we were beyond the industrial park now—maybe running alongside a road or some suburban street. The drains were evenly spaced, probably used for storm run-off.

Our surroundings soon became clearer. The stagnant water wasn’t flowing in this section of pipe, because it had been choked off with garbage. There were leaves, food wrappers, empty bottles, crushed beer cans, cigarette butts, and other blocking the pipe, and a thin layer of rust-colored scum clung to it all. My nose wrinkled in disgust. Then I realized that the surface wasn’t as still as I’d first thought. There was movement in the water. Mosquito larvae wriggled around our feet. Again, I thought of the cut on Sondra’s foot. Something scurried to my right. I turned to see cockroaches scuttling up the curved tunnel walls. Shuddering, I looked behind us again. There was no sign of our pursuer.“We’ve lost him,” I said. “That soda machine must have fucked Whitey up more than we thought. He’s slowing down. If we can keep ahead of him, we might actually make it the fuck out of here alive.”

“He will keep coming,” Sondra moaned. “Even in this condition, he is…what is word? Determined? But he is weak now. Maybe we can kill after all.”

“Maybe,” I agreed, thinking of Rasputin finally succumbing to death when he was trapped beneath the ice, “but I don’t intend to stick around and find out. Let’s keep moving.”

The pipe walls rumbled, sending ripples through the sludge. The cockroaches scurried away. A big truck roared overhead, its tires humming on the asphalt, the motor rumbling.

“We must be under a main road,” I said. “Maybe we’re far enough away that the cops won’t find us. Maybe they’re still searching the machine shop or some of the other abandoned buildings. If so, we might be in luck.”

Sondra’s expression changed from helpless to hopeful. When she spoke, the resignation was gone from her voice.

“What will we do, Larry?”

“First thing,” I told her, “is to find a way out of this fucking sewer. I’m sure by now that the cops know who we are, so they’ll be watching the airlines and shit. But I’ve got some money on me. We can hitch a ride to Harrisburg or York and make it to the Greyhound terminal.”

“Will the bus people not be looking for us, too?”

“We don’t need identification or a credit card to get a ticket. We can pay cash, no questions asked. They don’t give a fuck who we are.”

“They do not check for terrorists?”

“Hell, no. They’re too busy checking little old ladies at the airport.”

She looked doubtful, but said nothing.

“So,” I continued, “we’ll hop a bus and ride out of town—some place where Whitey can never find us. You said it yourself. He’s getting weaker. If we keep running, and he doesn’t get the baby, maybe he’ll just fall down and die. I mean, even Rasputin hadn’t taken the damage that son of a bitch has today. Maybe he’s close to death.”

“That would be nice.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “It would.”