Free The Box by Brian Harmon Page A

we are.” Assuming these next few tunnels aren’t twenty miles long , he thought but didn’t say. The map so far was accurate, but by no means to scale.
    The next tunnel turned out to be only a few yards ahead and was extremely small, forcing them to continue once again on their hands and knees. It was too short for Albert to crawl through while wearing his backpack, so he removed it and pushed it ahead of him. At the very least it made a good tool for clearing out the cobwebs, although there seemed to be far less of them down here than there were in earlier tunnels.
    Albert wondered what purpose a tunnel this small actually served. Was it some kind of overflow pipe? If water periodically filled this passage, it might explain the fewer spiders.
    “We make a left up here somewhere.”
    About thirty feet into the tunnel, a hole had been knocked into the wall on the left and a larger tunnel, set lower than the one they were currently crawling through, was visible beyond.
    “I think we’re getting closer,” said Albert as he examined the new tunnel. This one was older than all the rest. Its walls were made of rough stone, the ceiling rounded. The floor was packed earth. But it was tall enough to walk upright. There was a pile of rock and dirt leading down to the floor, as though the newer tunnel had been built right through the older one.
    Albert shoved his backpack through the hole and then crawled out after it, carefully maneuvering himself across the rocks. When he was clear, he turned and offered Brandy his hand.
    “Oh wow.”
    “Yeah.”
    “Do you think this is one of those tunnels I was talking about earlier? The really old ones?”
    “I don’t know. Sure looks ancient.”
    “Wow.” She looked back at the hole through which they’d just crawled. The previous tunnel was actually a hollow cylinder of concrete protruding from the rubble. “Looks like they just built right over the top of it, doesn’t it? What do you think it was used for?”
    “Without knowing exactly how old it is, I don’t think there’s any way to know.”
    “Do you think it really predates the city?”
    Albert considered it. The construction was definitely very rough. The surfaces were all uneven. It could have been built by anyone at any time. It certainly lacked the modern engineering of the newer, concrete tunnels, but that didn’t necessarily mean much. The ability to dig a successful tunnel in the first place suggested some level of modern technological understanding. Didn’t it? “I don’t think so,” he said at last. “I wonder if it would have survived the New Madrid earthquake.”
    Brandy thought about it for a moment while she lit another cigarette. “I don’t know. It could have.”
    Albert contemplated it for a moment. The New Madrid earthquake was one of the largest ever recorded in the United States. It was felt across over a million square miles. He wondered if such earthquake damage could account for the confusing labyrinth of tunnels. He supposed it was likely that some of the tunnels would have needed to be rerouted. But then again, hardly any disaster ever leveled everything man-made. There was a very good chance that this tunnel survived that quake. For all he knew, the rubble through which that last tunnel was laid was from an earthquake-induced cave-in.
    “I guess there’s no way to know.”
    “Maybe.” Albert paused and looked at the map again. “Or maybe the answer to this will tell us.”
    “That would be cool.” She leaned in to take a look at the map and let out a smoky breath that danced across Albert’s face. She quickly waved it away, remembering that he did not smoke. “I’m sorry.”
    “It’s okay,” Albert said. “My mom smokes. I’m used to it. Bugs the hell out of my sister though.”
    “You have a sister?” she asked as they started walking again.
    “Yeah. Rebecca.”
    “Older or younger?”
    “Older. She’s twenty-five.”
    “Did she go to school here, too?”
    “No.