Andy was a beachboy type with white-blond hair and a healthy complexion
and freckles that were like waterspots on warm, dry sand. He would have
looked more at home in Miami or California; in New York, he seemed
misplaced. Now, however, he was so pale that, by contrast, his freckles
looked like dark holes in his face. His eyes were wild. He was
trembling.
“What’s wrong?” Ted asked.
“Back there,”) Andy said shakily. “In the branch tunnel. Just this
side of the manhole.”
“Something there? What?”
Andy glanced back. “They didn’t follow me. Thank God. I was afraid
they were after me.”
Ted Gernsby frowned. “What’re you talking about?”
Andy started to speak, hesitated, shook his head.
Looking sheepish, yet still frightened, he said, “You wouldn’t believe
it. Not in a million years. I don’t believe it, and I’m the one who
saw it!”
Impatient, Ted unclipped his own flashlight from the tool belt around
his waist. He started back toward the branch drain.
“Wait! ” Andy said. “It might be . . . dangerous to go back there.”
“Why?” Ted demanded, exasperated with him.
“Eyes.” Andy shivered. “That’s what I saw first. A lot of eyes shining
in the dark, there inside the mouth of the branch line.”
“Is that all? Listen, you saw a few rats. Nothing to worry about. When
you’ve been on this job a while, you’ll get used to them.”
“Not rats,” Andy said adamantly. “Rats have red eyes, don’t they? These
were white. Or . . . sort of silvery. Silvery-white eyes. Very
bright. It wasn’t that they reflected my flashlight. No. I didn’t
even have the flash on them when I first spotted them. They glowed.
Glowing eyes, with their own light. I mean . . . like
jack-o’-lantern eyes. Little spots of fire, flickering. So then I
turned the flash on them, and they were right there, no more than six
feet from me, the most incredible damned things. Right there!”
“What?” Ted demanded. “You still haven’t told me what you saw.”
In a tremulous voice, Andy told him.
It was the craziest story Ted had ever heard, but he listened without
comment, and although he was sure it couldn’t be true, he felt a quiver
of fear pass through him. Then, in spite of Andy’s protests, he went
back to the branch tunnel to have a look for himself. He didn’t find
anything at all, let alone the monsters he’d heard described. He even
went into the tributary for a short distance, probing with the beam of
his flashlight.
Nothing.
He returned to the work site.
Andy was waiting in the pool of light cast by the big lamps. He eyed
the surrounding darkness with suspicion. He was still pale.
“Nothing there,” Ted said.
“A minute ago, there was.”
Ted switched off his flashlight, snapped it onto his tool belt. He
jammed his hands into the fur-lined pockets of his quilted jacket.
He said, “This is the first time you’ve been sub-street with me.”
“So?”
“Ever been in a place like this before?”
Andy said, “You mean in a sewer?”
“It’s not a sewer. Storm drain. You ever been underground? ”
“No. What’s that got to do with it?”
“Ever been in a crowded theater and suddenly felt . . .
closed in?”
“I’m not claustrophobic,” Andy said defensively.
“Nothing to be ashamed of, you know. I’ve seen it happen before. A guy
is a little uncomfortable in small rooms, elevators, crowded places,
though not so uncomfortable that you’d say he was claustrophobic. Then
he comes down here on a repair job for the first time, and he starts
feeling cramped up, starts to shake, gets short of breath, feels the
walls closing in, starts hearing things, imagining things. If that’s
the case with you, don’t worry about it. Doesn’t mean you’ll be fired
or anything like that. Hell, no! They’ll just make sure they don’t
give you another underground assignment; that’s all.”
“I saw those things, Ted.”
“Nothing’s there.”
“I saw them.”
Down the hall from the late Dominick Carramazza’s hotel suite, the next
room was large and pleasant, with a queen-size bed, a writing desk, a
bureau, a chest of drawers, and two chairs. The color scheme was coral