Tunnels 02, Deeper

perfectly white, like freshly shelled boiled eggs, with no sign of a pupil or an iris whatsoever. They were the only solid, cohesive area of color on him, and all the more shocking for it.
    A gnarled-looking hand, like a sun-dried root, poked out of the shawl and described a circle as he spoke.
    "Got anything for yer old mucker?" Cox lisped loudly, with a spray of spittle. "Anything fer the poor old man who taught ya all yer know? How's about one of these choice youngsters?"
    "I owe you nothing. Just leave," Drake answered stonily. "Before I--"
    "Is them the boys the Blackheads is looking fer? Where are yer keepin' them 'idden away, Drakey?" Like a cobra about to strike, his head jutted forward, the white unseeing eyes sliding over Will and Cal, with Chester lurking terrified behind them. Will saw the thick crosses of darkened scars, one over each eye, and the matrix of many more gray gashes across the coal-black skin of his cheeks.
    "Their young scent is so" -- the man quickly wiped his nose with a swipe from the gnarled hand -- "nice and clean."
    "You spend too much time in these parts... you look like you're on your last legs, Cox. Perhaps you'd like me to help you along?" Drake said dryly as he held up the stove gun. The man's head swiveled toward him.
    "No need fer that, Drakey, not toward yer old friend."
    Then the shape bowed with great ceremony and instantly vanished from the area of light. Chester and Cal were still staring at the place where he'd been, but Will was looking at Drake. He couldn't help but notice that Drake's hands were gripping the stove gun so tightly that his knuckles were white.
    Drake turned to the waiting boys.
    "That charmer was Tom Cox. I'd rather have the company of the Styx any time than that twisted abomination of a man. He's as sick on the inside as he looks on the outside." Drake drew breath tremulously. "You could've so easily ended up in his clutches, If Elliott and I hadn't reached you first." His eyes fell to the stove gun in his hand, and, as if he was surprised to find it still poised for use, he lowered it. "Cox and his kind are the reason we don't spend much time on the plain. And you can see what the radiation will do to you, eventually."
    He slotted the stove gun back into the pad on his thigh. "We should be on our way." He swung his head to where Tom Cox had been, his gaze lingering on the spot, seeing shadows that the three boys couldn't begin to imagine. Then he led them away, all the time checking to make sure the old man wasn't following behind.

    * * * * *

    On another occasion, Will had spent a night of unbroken sleep, punctuated by a series of the deepest dreams. He was just drifting off again when he was roused by Elliott's voice from the corridor. It was so faint and unreal, he wasn't sure if he'd really heard it or had been dreaming again. As he sat up, Chester trudged into the room. He was sopping wet, suggesting he had just swum through the sump.
    "All right, Will?" he asked.
    "Yes, I think so," Will replied groggily. "Been on patrol?"
    "Yeah... just doing the rounds. All quiet out there. Nothing happening," Chester said cheerfully as he took off his boots. He spoke with a casual, soldierly acquiescence, as if he was doing only what he was duty-bound to do, and doing it with a forced heartiness.
    It suddenly struck Will how much their friendship had changed over the past two months, as if Cal's brush with death in the sugar trap and the introduction of Drake and Elliott, especially Elliott, had somehow redrawn the geometry of their relationships. As he lay back in his narrow bed with his arms crossed behind his head, the recollection of how his and Chester's friendship once had been flashed through his mind. In his sleep-numbed state, Will was able to take up its warmth gratefully and pretend that nothing had changed. He listened as Chester took off his wet clothes, and felt like he could say whatever he wanted to him.
    "It's funny," Will spoke softly, so as not to wake his brother.
    "What is?" Chester asked, folding his pants as if he were getting his school uniform ready for the next day.
    "I had a dream."
    "Right," Chester said distractedly, hooking his drenched socks over a couple of nails in the wall so they would dry.
    "It was really weird. I was somewhere warm and sunny," Will spoke slowly, trying hard to remember, since the dream was already growing distant. "Nothing mattered, nothing was important. There was a girl there, too. I don't know who she