Sewer Rats (3 page)

“Any boundaries in there? In Cadets, they limit the size of the field for war games. Otherwise we could be down there for hours.”

“You'll find out soon enough that the boundaries are set by the size of the tunnels. Most of the sewers are too small to move through.”

“Got it,” Mr. Army said. It looked like he wanted to salute.

“Good luck,” Micky said.

Mr. Army rubbed at his mustache. “We don't need luck.”

“If you say so,” Micky said. He pointed at the sky. “One other thing. It's clear now, but you never know in an hour or two. If it starts to rain and you see any water in the tunnels, the game is off. No matter if one team is up by five warriors. Everyone leaves the tunnel and we come back to fight another day. Got it?”

“Got it.” Mr. Army turned and faced his gang.

“Men, prepare for battle,” he barked.

They all put their helmets on at the same time. They looked like robots.

“About face,” Mr. Army barked.

They all turned toward the black hole of the tunnel. They didn't move toward it though.

“Move out, men,” Mr. Army said.

The Medford guys began to march. The guy who reached the tunnel first held the door open so the others could slip inside. One by one, they stepped into the darkness of the tunnel. Each one of them had to crouch to move inside.

When they were all inside, Mr. Army barked out again. This time his voice had a weird echo from the concrete walls of the tunnel.

“Let the operation begin,” he said.

All together, they began to march forward. The echo of their footsteps continued to reach us long after they had disappeared into the darkness.

And then there was silence, broken only by the whistling of the wind in the trees.

We waited ten minutes to open our duffel bags and take out our paintball guns. There was no sense in having all the stuff out in the open, just in case somebody wandered along and decided to ask questions.

We loaded our paintballs. Think of gum balls filled with paint. That's what a paintball bullet is. An expensive paintball gun is accurate up to one hundred feet away.

Does it hurt when a paintball hits you? It's about the same as getting hit by a tennis ball,
a really fast tennis ball. That's why we wore layers of clothing for protection: sweatshirts with jean jackets over top. We also made sure our necks were covered with scarves. Get hit there, and you'd have a bruise for weeks.

All of us had pump-action guns. The semi-automatics fired paintballs faster, but none of us could afford the more expensive guns or all the ammo they wasted. Not even the Cooper twins, because, rich as their parents were, they hated giving money to their sons.

Once the paintball guns were loaded, we took our helmets from our backpacks. We put the helmets in place, visors up. We checked our flashlights. Then we were ready. We counted down the final seconds.

Exactly thirty minutes after the Medford gang had gone into the tunnels, we followed. Micky held the gate open for us to go inside. He let it fall behind him. We all stepped forward into the darkness.

Twenty steps into the tunnel, we stopped. We waited for our eyes to adjust to the dark. We had not put the visors down on
our helmets yet. There was no need. We had a half hour of our own to get ready for battle.

As we waited, I took a deep breath. Like always, the approaching panic felt like a ball of spiders in my stomach. I reminded myself who I was.

Zantor, soldier of the galaxy. His nerves are steel cold bands as he plunges deep into the alien nest. Upon him depends the freedom of the entire galaxy. Zantor will defeat the enemy. Zantor has never failed. Women of great beauty wait to adore him upon his return. Women of great great beauty. Women who will
—

“Jim,” Micky whispered. “Take us there, buddy.”

“Sure,” I said. I told myself I would get back to Zantor and his beautiful women as soon as I had a chance.

I moved to the front of our short line and began to lead. They followed. All of us wore Nike's with soft soles. I was the only one who didn't have to duck as we walked through the cool darkness of the tunnel.
That was one thing that really helped me in the tunnels.

The other thing was my mind map. I knew exactly where to go.

For some reason, I am good at making maps in my head. All I do is pretend I'm a bird looking down. I keep track of turns and twists, and I never get lost in the tunnels.

Not that getting lost for long is something anyone would have to worry about. For one thing, it's not totally dark. Every forty or fifty steps, there are grates above. Or, in some tunnels, manhole covers. These openings not only let in water, but light.

Also, there is a difference in size between the main tunnel and all the others. The main tunnel is big enough to walk through nearly standing. The tunnels that feed into the main tunnel are a foot and a half smaller. You have to crouch to get through them. These connect to even smaller tunnels that you need to crawl through.

So if you ever want to get out, you just follow a small tunnel to a bigger tunnel, and a bigger tunnel to the main tunnel.

How do you know which direction to go?

Easy. Drop a marble.

All of the tunnels slope toward the main tunnel. If they didn't, the water would never drain out. Watch which way the marble rolls, and you'll know which way to go.

Of course we didn't want out. We wanted to reach the central part of the tunnels. Which is why my mental map was so helpful. I knew exactly how to get us there.

I turned my flashlight on and hung it from the back of my pants. The sunlight from the grates was enough to allow me to see where I was going, so I didn't need the flashlight myself. By hanging it behind me, I made it easier for everyone else to follow me.

At each grate in the gutters above, we passed through beams of sunlight. It was colder in the tunnel than it had been outside. Mist seemed to hang in those sunlight beams. Our breath made a weird soft sound as it bounced off the concrete walls. The tunnel smelled like a mixture of dirty socks and rotting tomatoes.

Even with my mental map, I didn't like it much here. Above were buses and cars. The concrete of the tunnels was old and cracked in places. It had rained a lot over the last month. I wondered if the dirt was heavy with water and ready to cave through the old concrete.

Then my mind really started working. I told myself it could rain hard and fast and trap us with floodwater. Rats could swarm us. Or maybe pythons had escaped from pet stores and found a place down here. And a guy always heard about alligators loose in the sewer tunnels below New York and—

STOP! I told myself.

This was Zantor, galaxy soldier, leading his troops. He feared nothing
.

I turned my mind back to getting us to our mousetrap spot. It was far ahead in the semi-darkness, where three tunnels joined the main tunnel, like spokes at the center of a wheel.

In the center of the main tunnel, a manhole cover gave good light. That's where we would plant the flag. It would be easy to
see and would draw the Medford guys like mice to cheese.

And we would be hiding in the side tunnels, ready to gun them down.

That, at least, was the plan.

Ten minutes later, we arrived at the place we called the mousetrap. Above was the manhole cover. The light coming through the circles in the cover made ghostly white plates on the tunnel floor. The rumble of cars overhead was hardly louder than the sound of someone clearing their throat.

For a few seconds, none of us spoke. Something about the tunnels always made a person quiet.

“All right,” Micky finally whispered. “Jim, buddy, you plant the flag.”

There was a ladder leading down from the manhole. I climbed halfway up the ladder. With an old shoelace, I tied the flagpole to a ladder rung. The shaft of light fell on the edge of the flag.

I climbed back down.

“Good,” Micky said. “Now we guard it. Lisa, you get everyone in the positions we went through last night.”

“You both packed blankets, right?” she asked the Cooper twins. “After Micky called you last night.”

“Right,” Al said. “He said we'd be on the ground.”

“Exactly.” Lisa pointed down at the first small tunnel. “Both of you take that tunnel. Follow it until you come to the cross tunnel. When you get to there, lie on the ground feet to feet, with one of you facing each direction. Your blankets should help you. And remember, no noise.”

They left, ducking to move through the smaller tunnel.

“Carter...” She spit on the ground. She could have been clearing her throat. But I didn't think so. Not by the tone of her voice. “You take the far tunnel. If you go about fifteen steps up the tunnel, you'll find a big breaker box. You can hide behind it.”

Not only were these tunnels used to drain water, they held a lot of underground pipes and wiring.

“Sure,” he said in a cheerful voice. It sounded like he was going to do his best to remain sweet, no matter how Lisa treated him. “A breaker box?”

“For telephone wires,” Micky said. “There's no danger from electricity.”

“Cool,” Carter said.

Lisa spit on the ground again. “Take your spot. Wait and don't move until me or Micky calls you out. Don't even scratch your nose. Your best chance is if they don't know you're there.”

“Gotcha,” Carter said. “Whatever it takes.”

He disappeared into the darkness of the far tunnel.

“Micky's got the third small tunnel,” Lisa told me. “And I'm going back up the main tunnel. They might try to sneak in behind us.”

“I take my usual spot?” I asked.

“Yup,” she said. “You're our ace in the hole. If they get past any of us, we need you to be good. Real good.”

No fears
, I thought.
Zantor is the best
.

Micky and Lisa split and went in opposite directions. In a few seconds they were just dark shadows. Then nothing.

I went to the side of the main tunnel. Large plastic pipes ran along the side of the tunnel. I guessed they held cables for television. The plastic protected them from water damage.

More important, the pipes were great protection for me. I could slide underneath them and be totally hidden from anyone who came to take the flag.

If any of the Medford school warriors managed to get this far, I would wait until they were halfway up the ladder. Then I would roll out from under the pipes and come out, firing paintball bullets.

I set my paintball rifle down and pulled a blanket out of my backpack. It would make my wait on the concrete easier. I knelt down and smoothed the blanket on the rough floor of the tunnel.

I crawled on it. I hoped no bugs wanted to drop from the pipes above into my ear.

I checked my glow-in-the-dark watch. Five minutes until the battle started.

I thought of the Medford warriors. Somewhere in the tunnels they were getting ready to hunt us down. Would they spread out or come at us in a wave?

The spiders of panic began to wriggle again in my stomach.

Zantor lives for moments like this. Moments that would strain a lesser man's heart to the point of failure. Zantor does not fear. No. The most awesome warrior in the galaxy feeds on the fear of others.

The spiders of panic went away.

I was grateful that sunlight squeezed through the small holes of the manhole cover. Without those pale circles of light, it would have been completely dark.

I can't stand complete darkness. Once, when I was little, I accidentally locked myself in a dark room. No one found me for hours. All I remember is screaming and imagining bugs crawling over my leg. And...
Zantor has no bad memories
, I told myself.
Zantor is a rock. He feels nothing
.

That got my mind back to the paintball war.

Zantor strains his razor sharp hearing for the sound of approaching aliens. Zantor waits with patience. Zantor is the greatest hunter of them all
.

I waited. And waited some more.

When the sound did arrive, it took a moment for me to understand what I was hearing.

Blam! Blam! Blam!

It was the thud of paintball bullets. Followed by a loud scream of pain.

And as the scream died, I heard the pounding of feet running down the tunnel— away from me.

At first, I did nothing. Not because I was afraid. It surprised me, but I was too busy trying to figure out what was happening.

Beyond me, in the darkness, I heard moaning.

“Oh man,” a voice croaked. “This hurts. I can hardly breath. Help me. Somebody help me.”

Still I did nothing. Maybe the Medford warriors were trying to fake us out. A month
earlier, we had done the same thing to another team. Lisa pretended to be hurt. When the other team came out of hiding, we splattered them with paintballs.

“Micky?” the voice croaked. “Lisa? Jimmy? Help me...”

Using names didn't mean anything. The Medford guys knew all of us by name. Anyone in paintball did. The Sewer Rats were legends among all the warriors. It would be easy for them to call out our names to fool us.

“Come on. I can't see. Jimmy, help me. Lisa...Micky...”

The voice died again, like whoever was calling could hardly get enough air into his lungs.

Zantor, soldier of the galaxy, was hidden in the battlefield. He heard his name. Was it an alien trick? Or did someone truly need him? Zantor must think quickly
.

All right, I thought. The Cooper twins were farther away, so it couldn't be one of them. If it was, one would be helping the other. Or I would be hearing two voices.

Not them then. If it was Micky, he wouldn't have called out his own name. Same with Lisa. So if it was any of us, it had to be Carter.

“Blind...help...hurry...”

Sounds fool you in the tunnel. You never know where they're coming from. It could be Carter at the breaker box or one of the Medford warriors somewhere else.