Tunnels 02, Deeper

rather small -- there was absolutely no way they would have accommodated someone even of Cal's size, let alone an adult.
    "Cots?" he spoke aloud. Over each diminutive bed was a circular metal cage of flaking, rusted iron, still locked into position. "Not for babies?" Cal said, horrified. It was like a maternity ward from a nightmare.
    "For Coprolite babies," Drake answered as they caught up with Elliott. She pushed through a pair of swinging doors, one of which began to creak loudly from its single hinge. She immediately caught the door, stilling it.
    Cal and Drake followed her out into the adjoining corridor, which was lined with warped shelves. On these was a variety of obscure, arcane-looking equipment, corroded to dull browns or bleeding verdigris. Cal's gaze settled on a floor-standing machine with rotted bellows and four glass cylinders protruding from its top. Next to it stood what was evidently a foot pump.
    Looking up, he noticed a wooden wall rack housing all manner of lethally pointed instruments, many rusted in place on their rests. Next to this was a chart. Although it was badly affected by mildew, he could make out angular pictures and bizarre writing. He had no idea what it meant and no time to make sense of it.
    Tramping through pools of cloudy water, they passed down several more narrow corridors. These were empty except for networks of broad pipes running the lengths of their ceilings, from which old lagging and skeins of cobwebs hung.
    And then they turned off into a room. It was L-shaped and stacked floor to ceiling with massive glass cylinders. While he and Drake waited for the signal from Elliott, Cal's attention was caught by the contents of one of the jars.
    It contained a man's head in cross section. It had been cut very precisely from the top of the cranium down, so the brain and everything inside the skull was visible. Somehow it didn't look real -- it was difficult to imagine it had ever been a person. Cal made the mistake of leaning over to examine the jar from the other side. As the light from his lantern penetrated the yellowy fluid in which the head was immersed, he saw a single staring eye and the growth of dark bristles on the man's bleached-white skin, as if he hadn't shaved that morning.
    Cal gasped. It was real, all right.
    He turned away, it was so ghoulish. But then his eyes alighted on things just as bad in other jars. Floating, hideously deformed beings, some whole and others partially dissected.
    They moved quietly into another area -- octagonal and dominated by a single solid porcelain plinth in the very center. Corroded metal bands looped over the plinth, obviously to hold the subject in place.
    "Butchers!" Drake muttered as Cal glimpsed scattered tools -- scalpels, giant forceps, and other bizarre medical implements -- in the shards of broken glass covering the floor.
    "Oh, no," Cal blurted, a chill spreading through his gut. Although this room didn't have anything like the ghastly specimens he'd just seen, the most awful feeling hung in the air. It was as though the echoes lingered on, of the acute pain and suffering that had been perpetrated within its walls, from many years ago.
    "This place is full of ghosts," Drake said in sympathy.
    "Yes," the boy replied, shivering.
    "Don't worry, we're not stopping," Drake assured him, and they pushed through into a larger corridor -- it resembled the one they'd been in before, with the oddly slanting sides. They trekked down this until Drake brought them to a stop. Cal caught the suggestion of a breeze on his face again -- they must have reached the other side of the Bunker. He leaned heavily on his walking stick, grateful to rest his leg, and tried not to think about what he'd just seen.
    Drake listened for a while, peering through the lens over his eye, before turning his miner's light on to a low setting. In front of them was a naturally formed area, circular and about a hundred feet in diameter, with an uneven rock floor. Cal counted as many as ten lava tubes leading off from it in different directions.
    "Tuck yourself down in one of those, Cal," Drake whispered, pointing randomly at the lava tubes as he wandered out into the open. Elliott had remained behind, crouching low at the exit of the Bunker.
    Drake noticed Cal wasn't following him. "Get moving, will you?" The boy groaned and took a few reluctant steps. "Elliott and I are going to split up and look for Will, but you keep watch here. Chances are he could pass this way,"