Why, in heaven's name, had I left my cell phone in the car? How stupid could I be? Oh well, like sour grapes thinking, I decided it probably wouldn't have worked down here anyway. Of course it certainly couldn't work if I didn't have it.
We waited. The dim light had returned, but the stalker could still be very near. He could have come into this smaller tunnel. Then I heard something rattle nearby, something like a tin can. I tried not to tremble.
Whoever it was, he was certainly in our tunnel now, somewhere beyond the alcove. Had he come in silently and then walked beyond, passing us? If so, was he now turning and creeping back? He couldn't be sure where we were, could he?
Jeremy whimpered. I froze. Oh, gee! Had the man heard the sound? I squeezed Jeremy's arm, telegraphing, "Be quiet."
Something ran past my feet. A rat? I almost screamed. But I held the scream inside, and Jeremy apparently hadn't felt the animal brush past.
Whatever it was slunk across the floor. I saw it go, and it looked too big to be a rat, but in the darkness I couldn't really be sure. Then from a few feet away I heard a man whisper, "Shit!"
We held still. An eon later, I realized that I had seen no shadow shift, no change in light intensity, for quite some time. Had he moved away? Maybe. Scared of the rat? Or more likely, convinced the rat had been the source of the sound Jeremy had made. I had not heard him walk away. Had he slipped farther into the dark tunnel? Or gone back the way he had come?
Was he lying quietly in wait? Possibly inches away?
Did I know whether he was ahead of us— or behind us?
No.
What now? We couldn't very well go farther into this smaller tunnel, if the stalker had gone past. He'd probably double back eventually, when he didn't find us. We couldn't go back the way we had come, to the larger tunnel. He could be waiting there for us to try to get out. Near us, somewhere to the south, was the Grant Park Underground, a very large, two-level subterranean parking garage that could house six thousand cars and had lots of guards and cashiers and real, live people. If we could find it, we might get help. For now, we had to hold still.
While we waited, the bigger-than-a-rat creature came padding back. This time I looked carefully, trying to make use of the thin, almost colorless glow.
It was a cat! Only the general shape and the slinky movement told me. "You may have saved our lives," I whispered to it.
It didn't care. It sat down and licked a paw.
When I decided that our stalker couldn't still be nearby or we'd have heard him, I whispered to Jeremy. "Come with me. We have to be very quiet."
If I'd been alone, I might have been able to hunker down silently here behind the pillar all night, and hope the pursuer would give up and leave. Or maybe that he'd have to give up because otherwise his absence from the festival would be noticed, and as a result he'd later have no alibi. But we couldn't wait any longer. I didn't believe Jeremy could stand it. He'd been wonderful so far, but he was a little child, and he was very scared.
Not without reason.
I peered around the pillar as well as I could, but unless the man was using a flashlight somewhere down deep in the tunnel, my chance of seeing him was pretty close to nil. I listened, and listened some more. Once or twice I thought I picked up very distant, very faint sounds. But face it, the sounds could be rats. There might even be traffic noise from up above. No question there were ventilation grates a lot of places along these tunnels.
Holding Jeremy's hand, I ventured out of the alcove. "Be careful not to kick any trash," I whispered directly into his ear. He squeezed my hand instead of responding aloud.
Must remember later, when we've survived, to tell him that he's not only brave but also smart.
* * *
We must have looked like two cats ourselves, our body language softly sinuous, as we slunk along the tunnel. I had decided to take the small tunnel into the unknown, rather than go back to the bigger tunnel, reasoning the stalker most likely would eventually return the way he had come. He would probably try to trace us back to the vent where we had entered. Also, I was quite sure that Grant Park Underground was somewhat south of where we went into the grid. At the very least,
most
of it was south. To the east was Lake Michigan and to the west was Michigan Avenue. I was pretty sure we hadn't gone far enough west to be under Michigan Avenue in the old freight tunnels, but why take a chance? South it was.
The cat followed.
With eyes completely adapted to the dark by now, I could see a very faint hint of yellowish light ahead. Maybe I'd made the right choice.
Holding hands, we tiptoed along the cement floor of the tunnel, toward the distant illumination. If our stalker was sneaking up behind, he'd see us against the glow. But what else could we do? We had to find either some people or a way out of here, and where there's light, there should be people.
Now I was hurrying, almost pulling Jeremy, although careful not to tug on his arm, trying not to frighten him more than he was already.
The light grew stronger. The light at the end of the tunnel, I thought in my head— an oncoming train? —and I came close to giggling. I stifled it. That
really
would have freaked Jeremy.
There was a bend up ahead. When we reached it, I saw that the walls in this part of the tunnel were tiled with snow-white glossy ceramic squares. How weird! How useless! Maybe this was an abandoned subway stop. There were a dozen or more of those scattered under the city. As we came into the light, I saw— glory be! —cars! Parked cars.
"Come on, honey! We'll find a guard."
We ran. The cars were thinly scattered here, with a lot of empty spaces. We were at the far edge of this garage level, the less desirable parking spaces, and the few cars left must be the remnants of the overflow of the day workers who flooded into the Loop every morning. We would know as the cars grew more numerous that we were nearing the booths. People coming to the festival this evening would have parked as near the exits as possible. Which was exactly what I had done. Jeremy and I had parked on level one. My Jeep— so near and yet so far.
The tollbooths had cashiers, but the booths were at the top of the ramp, wherever that was. The place was just so damn huge! Guards patrolled on some random sort of schedule, though, and as we got closer to the center, finding one should be easy.
I heard footsteps. There must be a guard up ahead.
"Hurry, Jeremy!"
We ran. "Guard! Help!" I yelled.
My voice echoed off the tiled walls.
And so did the footsteps. They were an echo, too. In fact they came from behind us.
A shot spanged against one of the support pillars. "Quick," I said, pulling Jeremy along with me.
Maybe a guard would hear the shot and come running. Sure. But he'd get here after we were dead. Or be shot himself.
We ran flat out. Grant Park Underground has emergency call phones at intervals, installed here after a series of rapes several years ago. As we raced by, I grabbed one. I couldn't take the chance of stopping to actually
talk
on it, but I gave it a toss and left it hanging by its cord. Maybe that would bring a guard. Maybe each phone read out its location somewhere in a central security control booth. I hoped it did.
But I'd bet they'd get here too late.
We ran on, hearing slapping footsteps running behind us. I flipped another phone off its cradle as we pelted past.
There were access tunnels where drains and electric cables threaded their way out of the garage. They were much smaller than the tunnel we had been in before, but there were several of them. Maybe we could confuse the man pursuing us.
"This one," I said aloud, and then as Jeremy turned toward it, I waved my hand to another just beyond. A gamble, but maybe our guy heard me, and if so, would follow the wrong trail. We plunged inside.
As soon as we got in the narrow tunnel, I put a hand on Jeremy's chest, slowing him down. Then I walked rapidly, but with exaggerated care. He imitated me. There were bulbs in wire cages along here, but they were at best twenty-five watts and two out of every three were burned out. Very shoddy maintenance; what do we pay our taxes for? Twenty-five watts is plenty to see by, though, in an otherwise completely dark place. I was grateful for them but fearful that they would let our pursuer see us. When we passed into a dark stretch, I stopped and looked back at a light a hundred yards behind. No figure passed into that yellow glow. Maybe we were safe.
As long as we didn't get lost. We came to places where the tunnel branched. The first split was a narrow-angle fork, and it seemed a good idea to take the right-hand one, because it was smaller. Jeremy was a small child. I'm a short adult. Therefore the man who was chasing us had to be larger than we were, since virtually all adults are larger than I am. At the second, which was a T-junction, we took the left. Later a right. If we got completely lost and needed to come back, I should be able to remember that we'd gone right, left, and right again, alternately.
Something brushed against my ankle. I jumped in terror, hitting my head on the low cement ceiling.
The cat had followed us through the garage and into the new maze of tunnels.
Jeremy kept up with me. But he was making soft whimpering noises, quietly enough so I doubted he could be heard. The signal was clear, though. He was near the end of his rope. I could feel a buzzing in the hand I held against his back, as if his chest were full of bees.
* * *
The tunnel was not only cramped but extremely unsavory. The farther we walked, the more horrible the odor became. I had recently done a short article on nonlethal police crowd control devices. One of them was an odoriferous exploding pellet that delivered a stink so disgusting that any crowd hit with it dispersed fast. Skunks perfected this type of warfare eons ago. Horrible smells apparently demoralize human beings very quickly.
I knew this hideous moldy, fecal, vegetable-rot smell would eventually pull the heart and gumption out of Jeremy. Me, too. There was nothing to criticize when he finally crouched near the wall. "Aunt Cat, I'm scared. I can't go any farther."
"Aw, honey. Hold my hand."
"I'm scared, Aunt Cat. I'm really, really scared." For the first time, he started to cry, big, big tears. He was gulping and on the verge of panic. Before now he'd been frightened and hair-trigger tense, but I'd been able to keep him focused. This was serious. I hoped we were far enough away from our stalker so that stopping a few minutes wouldn't be disastrous. With the choices we had made of branching tunnels, the killer would have to be very lucky to be anywhere near us.
I thought it would help to talk seriously with Jeremy, beginning the conversation actually as a sort of therapy.
"Jeremy, you're a brave person. You're my very best buddy. This has been a lot for anybody to put up with, and you're doing very well."
"Really, Aunt Cat?"
"Shh. Not too loud. Jeremy, I don't mind telling you that I'm as scared as you are. But I think we've lost our hunter, and I know we're gonna get out of here."
He hesitated. Then he said, "Right-o, Aunt Cat."
"Right-o? Why the British accent?"
"Saw it on a James Bond video."
"Oh. And a very nice accent it is, too."
"I like James Bond," he said, squeezing my hand. "But not as good as the Wizard of Oz. The Oz books are very, very creative."
I smiled. "Indeed they are." You smile when a child says something that sounds adult, but you shouldn't; you're being condescending. I switched gears and nodded soberly.
"And it's a good thing there's a lot of them, isn't it?" he said.
Suddenly I knew what he was doing. He was chattering to
cheer me up!
To encourage
me
.
I said, "We really are having an adventure, aren't we, Jeremy?"
"Like Dorothy."
"Right. Tell you what. I'm the girl. I'll be Dorothy. What will you be?"
"The Cowardly Lion?"
"No, you're too brave."
"So was he. He just didn't know he was. But okay. I'll be the Scarecrow."
"Good."
Jeremy looked behind me. "And
he
can be the Cowardly Lion. He looks just like him."
"He who?" I jumped and spun around in fear, but— thank heaven! —it was just the cat again. In this light I could see that he was a patchy orange and white. Because my household has a VIP, a Very Important Parrot, I haven't specialized in cats. Was this color pattern called marmalade? If so, it was a very dirty marmalade cat. A marmalade tom? For the time being, we might think of him as a male cat. He generously permitted Jeremy to stroke his back.
I said, "Good. He helped us back there. He's got every right to come along if he wants to." The cat seemed to be getting used to us. After Jeremy stroked the cat, he picked him up in one arm, still rubbing his ears. I was about to tell Jeremy that strange cats, especially feral cats, don't like to be touched, but the animal lay in his arms purring. Jeremy relaxed visibly. Soothing the cat had drained the fear out of him. There was a red collar with white diamond patterns around the cat's neck, so dirty that I hadn't noticed it before. No tag was attached that I could see. After a minute or two the cat jumped down.
