Tunnels 01, Tunnels

growing louder. As they listened, Will could have sworn he caught a scratchy whispering, so close that he flinched. He pulled Cal back a couple of steps, convinced that they'd stumbled headlong into the Styx Division. However, Cal swore he hadn't heard anything at all, and after a while they nervously resumed their journey.
    Then from the distance came the bloodcurdling baying of a dog -- there was no question about it this time. Cal tightened his grip on Bartleby's leash as the cat raised his head high, his ears pricking up. Although neither boy said anything to the other, they were both thinking the same thing: The need for them to get through the city as rapidly as they could had become all the more pressing.
    Creeping along, their hearts were pounding as Will referred to Tam's map and repeatedly checked his compass with his shaking hands in an attempt to fix their position. In truth, the visibility was so poor he had only the roughest idea where they were. For all he knew, they could be wandering in circles. They seemed to be making no headway at all, and Will was at his wits' end. What a great leader he was turning out to be!
    He finally brought them to a halt, and they huddled down in the lee of a crumbling wall. In low whispers they debated what to do next.
    "If we start running it won't matter if we come across a patrol. We can easily shake them off in this," Cal suggested quietly, his eyes darting left and right under the moisture-spotted lenses of his gas mask. "We just keep running."
    "Yeah, right," Will replied. "So you really think you could outrun one of those dogs? I'd like to see that."
    Cal humphed angrily in response.
    Will went on. "Look, we don't have a clue where we are, and if we have to make a run for it, we'll probably hit a dead end or something..."
    'But once we're in the Labyrinth, they'll never catch us," Cal insisted.
    "Fine, but we've got to get there first, and for all we know it's still a long way off." Will couldn't believe his brother's absurd suggestion. It dawned on him that a couple of months ago he might have been the one advocating the crazy dash through the streets of the city. Somehow, he'd changed. Now he was the sober one, and Cal was the impulsive, headstrong youngster, chock-full of madcap confidence and willing to risk all.
    The furious whispered exchange continued, growing more and more heated until Cal finally relented. It was to be the softly-softly approach; they would inch their way to the far edge of the city, keeping the sounds of their footsteps to a minimum and melting into the fog if anyone, or anything, came close.
    As they stepped over hunks of rubble, Bartleby's head was jerking in all directions, scenting the air and the ground, when all of a sudden he stopped. Despite Cal's best efforts to pull on the leash, the cat refused to move -- he'd lowered his body as if he were hunting something, his wide head close to the ground and his skeletal tail sticking straight out behind him. His ears were pointing and twitching like radar dishes.
    "Where are they," Cal whispered frantically. Will didn't answer but instead reached into the side pockets of Cal's backpack and yanked out two large firecrackers. He also took out Auntie Jean's little plastic disposable lighter from an inner pocket in his jacket and held it ready in his hand.
    "Come on, Bart," Cal was whispering into the cat's ear as he knelt beside him. "It's all right."
    What little hair Bartleby had was bristling now. Cal managed to draw the cat around, and they tiptoed in the opposite direction as if walking on eggshells, Will at the rear with the firecrackers poised in his hands.
    They followed a wall as it curved gently around, Cal feeling the coarse masonry with his free hand as if it were some incomprehensible form of Braille. Will was walking backward, checking behind them. Seeing nothing but the forbidding clouds, and coming to the conclusion that it was futile to try to place any reliance on sight in these conditions, he spun around only to blunder into a granite plinth. He recoiled as the leering face of a huge marble head reared out of the parting mist. Laughing at himself, he warily stepped around it and found his brother waiting only a few feet ahead.
    They had gone about twenty paces when the fog mysteriously folded back to reveal a length of cobbled street before them. Will hastily wiped the moisture from his eyepieces and let his gaze ride with the retreating margins of the fog. Bit by bit the