Tunnels 02, Deeper

wasn't it?" she said, holding the shirt in front of the cat's scarred muzzle. "My son, Seth, wore this... and so he... he must have dug this place! Goodness, I never knew he'd gotten quite this far down!"
    For a few seconds, she peered around the excavation with renewed interest. But then she was thrown once more into a tumult of conflicting emotions. Before the note, she'd have been in raptures about being here in her son's excavation, as if it brought her closer to him. But now, she couldn't enjoy the discovery -- indeed, she felt uneasy in the place, uneasy about the hands that had created it.
    Another thought exploded in her mind. She turned to the animal, which hadn't once averted its unwinking eyes from her. "Cal? Were you Cal's Hunter?"
    At the mention of the name, the cat twitched a cheek, drops of moisture on its long whiskers sparkling in her light.
    She raised her eyebrows at the animal. "You were , weren't you?" she spluttered.
    With a frown, she sank deeper into thought for a few seconds. If this cat was indeed Cal's, then it might substantiate what Joe Waites had written in his note: that Seth had forced Cal to go with him Topsoil before dragging him down to the Deeps. That would explain the cat's presence here -- it had accompanied Cal when he had escaped to the surface.
    "So, somehow, you got out of the Colony with... with Seth?" she said, thinking out loud. "But you know him as Will , don't you?" She carefully enunciated the name again, watching for a reaction from the cat. But this time there was no sign of recognition.
    She fell silent. If it was true that Cal had been on the surface, then was everything else true about Seth? The implications were too much for her. It was as if all her love for her eldest son was slowly being sucked out of her to make room for something ugly and vengeful.
    "Cal," she said, wanting to see the animal's reaction again. It cocked its head toward her, then slid its eyes back to the entrance of the excavation.
    Wishing the cat were able to answer all the hundreds of questions knocking around her confused mind, she let her head sink back against the chair. She found herself gradually succumbing to sheer fatigue. Hearing the shifting and groaning of the timbers around her and the occasional patter of falling soil, she briefly took in the various roots dangling from the roof above, before her eyelids grew too heavy. As her finger slipped from the button on her flashlight, the chamber was plunged into darkness, and she was almost at once asleep.

     

8

    The boys retraced their steps past the flickering blue flame and back into the railway tunnel. In a little more than twenty minutes, they reached where the train had come to a stop.
    Crouched by the guard's car, its dust-filmed windows now dark, they looked down the locomotive's lone line to where the engine sat. But nobody was in evidence -- it seemed the train was completely unattended.
    Then they moved their attention to the rest of the space. From what they could see, the cavern before them was at least several hundred feet from side to side.
    "So this is the Miners' Station," Will said under his breath, focusing on the area to the left of the cavern, which was dotted with a line of lights. It didn't look like much, consisting of a row of rather ordinary, single-story shacks.
    "Not exactly platform nine and three-quarters, is it?" Chester muttered.
    "No... I thought it would be far bigger," Will said in a disappointed voice. "Hardly remarkable," he added, using the phrase his father would utter when unimpressed by something.
    "Nobody sticks around here for long," Cal said.
    Chester looked distinctly uncomfortable. "I don't think we should, either," he whispered nervously. "Where is everybody? The guard and the train driver?"
    "Inside the buildings, probably," Cal told him.
    There was a noise, a muted rumbling like distant thunder, and then a huge clattering began.
    "What's that?" Chester exclaimed with alarm as they all shrank back into the tunnel.
    Cal was pointing above the train. "No, look, they're just loading up for the return journey."
    They saw large chutes poised above the higher-sided train cars. At least the diameter of an average trash can, they were cylindrical and appeared to be made from sections of sheet metal riveted together. Something was gushing from their mouths at great speed and hitting the metal beds of the freight cars with a massive clamor.
    "Now's our chance!" Cal urged the others. He got up