His breath rasped in the silence. A strange, mournful moan rose from the pipes at the foot of the ladder.
He didn’t wait. Couldn’t. Slithered down the ladder in absolute darkness. There was a high-pitched noise inside his head. His feet were cold and wet. He couldn’t see his feet or anything else.
The pocket penlight!
He snapped it on. Walls on every side of him. Trapped! He was trapped! No. Calm down. He’d been down here before and survived.
He shone the penlight upward. The door in the floor was ten feet above him. He stooped. The horizontal pipe led away in two directions, neither welcoming. He’d lost his bearings. Which way did he go last time he was down here? Couldn’t remember.
He tried to think. And then, above him, the door in the floor groaned again. Daylight flashed round its edges. Someone was panting, hauling the door open. The detectives! They’d found him.
He skidded along the pipe, splashing, banging his head. Hands against the sides, cold, damp metal. Through the pools of water on the floor. Splash, splash, splash. It was stuffy. Moist and stale. The pipe curved to the right. Which way was he heading? South? North? Underneath the park? Didn’t matter. He had to get away.
He tried to run. The pipe wasn’t tall enough for him to stand, so he loped along like a hunchback. Came to a junction. Zigged to the left. Another junction. Zagged right. Anything to confuse his pursuers, to throw them off his tracks.
He stopped again and listened hard. No footsteps now. He waited as long as he could hold his breath. Had he lost them? Maybe.
And something bubbled up from deep inside him. Something that pushed the panic aside. Rage. A furious rage.
The mayor had taken Pernille from her papa. From her home. From the only kindness she’d ever known. It made him want to roar with anger, to thump the walls. How could the mayor do that? He had to help Pernille. Rescue her. How? What could he do?
He picked his way forward. The pipe rang, and water splashed. And then he heard something else. A sudden rush of dank air. A breeze against his back. What was that? A moan. A long, mournful wail. What in pity’s name was that? The moan echoed and petered away. All he could hear was his own breathing.
And then footsteps. Behind him. They’d found him! Heavy breathing and the thud, thud, thud of feet. He ran, bashed his shoulders again and again, grazed the top of his head on unseen metal. The beam of the pocket penlight veered in every direction but no direction that helped.
“Hey!” someone called out back there in the pipes. A male voice. It rang and echoed and harried him as he hurried to escape. He took a right turn and a left—didn’t have a clue where he was heading, just trying to put distance between the detectives and himself.
His foot caught against something. Maybe a rivet, maybe the lip of a section of a pipe. He went sprawling in the dark. The pocket penlight slipped from his hand. He smacked his knee, and his vision blurred, and his hands fell flat in icy water. He scrambled for the flashlight. Dropped it again. There was panting behind him. Footsteps ringing.
“Stop!” came the voice, rolling and roiling in the dark. And then, “Help!”
It echoed over and over till he was absolutely sure. The voice had cried, “Help!”
And now the footsteps were thudding really close, around the corner, any moment. He grabbed the flashlight and shone it back along the pipe into a pair of startled eyes. The full weight of a human body knocked Frederik down, into a pool of chilling water. The body tumbled over him. There was a wail and a crash and a massive splash, and the body seemed to lay still.
Then it groaned. Twisted. Curled into a ball and hugged itself in the shadows.
“I think I sprained my wrist,” it said.
But it wasn’t a detective’s voice at all. Not the deep boom of Mortensen or Martensen. It was a boy.
Frederik pointed the penlight. A pair of eyes blinked back in the gloom. Both of them blue and one of them blackened. A puzzle of fair hair. A nose that was squashed and wonky, as though it had been broken more than once. A rather terrified expression.
“Claus?” Frederik said, astonished. “Calamity Claus? What are you doing down here?”
Chapter 14
Surrounded
“What am I doing down here?” Calamity wailed, and it rang around the pipes. “What are you doing down here? I’m just following you!”
“Why? Why are you following me?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who’s with you?”
“No one.”
“No one at all? No detectives?”
“Detectives?” Claus almost jumped out of his pants. “Where?”
“All right, all right. Calm down.”
“Calm down?”
“And stop repeating everything I say!” Frederik rested his back against the metal wall. He was aching in so many places they seemed to merge into one. He listened intently for more than a minute. No more footsteps. No voices. No one else was down here. Only him and, for reasons he couldn’t fathom, Calamity Claus.
Calamity Claus, as everyone knew, was the most accident-prone person on Frederik’s Hill. It was said that he’d been struck by lightning, a bus, a blackboard, and a number of bats, both the sporting kind and the flying rodent kind. He’d fallen off a bridge, a dock, a dog, and a bus—the same bus that struck him, coincidentally. He’d broken his tibia, fibula, ulna and scapula, fingers, nose, and toes. Most people wouldn’t stand near him, for fear of getting caught up in it all.
“So,” Calamity said in the dark. “What happens now?”
Another sudden rush of air whistled through the pipes with a howl and a moan.
“What was that?” he panicked.
“Nothing,” Frederik told him. “Ignore it. It’s normal.”
“Normal? There’s someone down here. Or something. Is there something down here?”
“Only us.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.” But he had to steel himself to believe that. “I’m sure,” he said again.
“No zombies?”
Frederik laughed. Didn’t mean to, but couldn’t help it.
“It’s not funny!” Calamity yelped. “Why are we down here anyway? And where’s that weird girl you hang around with?”
“Something happened to her,” Frederik said. “Something bad.” And a darkness washed over him, crushed his spirits. Pernille was gone. Taken from her beloved papa. And from Frederik.
“I knew it,” said Calamity. “I could tell you needed help.”
Frederik squinted at him in the gloom. “When?”
“In the park. You ran right by us, looking scared out of your wits. I called after you. You didn’t even stop.”
“I was in a hurry,” Frederik told him. He struggled to his feet and made sure his limbs were intact. He had a number of bruises, he was sure, and his clothes were wet and cold. “Come on. Get up. We can’t stay here. Which way was I heading? That way, I think.”
“How far is the exit?” Calamity asked.
“No idea.”
“What?”
“You heard,” Frederik sighed. The pocket penlight lit the floor a few yards ahead.
“Why are you being so unfriendly? I only wanted to help you.”
“Why?”
“Because you saved me from falling off the observation tower.”
“I did?”
“You did.”
“I forgot about that.”
“Well, I didn’t,” said Calamity, trudging along behind him in the damp and the dark.
Awful moans rose from the distance and rushed at them, echoing. Calamity covered his head with his arms and whimpered. “I don’t like this. It’s zombies.”
“No, it isn’t.” Frederik tried to remember how he’d got out the last time he was down here. It had been luck. Fluke. H
e hadn’t known where he was then, and he didn’t know now.
Another howl from somewhere far ahead, in absolute darkness. “What was that?” hissed Calamity.
Frederik paused. He waited for the ghostly noise to subside. He waited a long time. To get his bearings. To make sure nothing came out of the darkness. He was cold and frightened. Not of zombies, necessarily, but of never getting out. If he never got out, who would help Pernille?
He set off again with leaden legs. His feet were freezing. His back ached from bending and his belly ached with fear. He had no idea how many turns they’d taken. No way of getting back to the door in the floor. They shuffled. They trudged. Frederik hummed to himself for a bit, but the echoes were weird and Calamity begged him to stop. They took a left and a right and another left. The pipes were corroded. Patches of rust. Strange, green stains. Little stalactites gathered under joints.
“The zombies are down here,” Calamity said. “I know it.”
“No, they are not.”
How was he going to help Pernille? How could he get her out of Municipal Hall? The mayor had her now. The mayor was a monster.
“Help!” Calamity yelled out. “Help me! I’m trapped!” A mocking echo bounced back and forth and wouldn’t stop. “Get me out!” He shoved Frederik aside and ran.
“Wait!” Frederik chased. He gave in to the fear. Ran till his lungs burned. Lost his footing, banged his knee, limped for a bit. Didn’t stop. Terrible screeches rang around the pipe, taunting them.
“Help!” Calamity hollered.
The pocket penlight went out. Frederik collided with metal in absolute darkness. The penlight came on again. Flickering. The battery was going to fail. They had to find a way out. They sprinted. Around a corner. Wider again! The pipes were getting broader and broader. Now they could stand, and the floor was flat. A great arterial tube leading right through the hill. They didn’t stop. No matter how much his legs hurt. They had to get out.
And there was the end! Suddenly. Dead ahead. A huge metal hatch in the end of the pipe, and a big, rusty wheel. A valve. Frederik threw himself at it. Tried to turn it. It wouldn’t budge. Not even a squeak. He strained and he grunted. Calamity tried to help. Didn’t. Knocked Frederik’s arm, and he dropped the penlight, and they were in darkness again.
“No!” Frederik thrashed his hands around in freezing water. Where was it? Couldn’t find it. Tried the valve one more time, completely blind, and suddenly it gave. Half a turn. Another.
It swung inward like a door. Dim light spilled from beyond. They ran through the gap and Frederik was suddenly falling, spinning, thud! Winded and still. On a chilly floor. A pain in his elbow. A twisted ankle. An urge to yell and yell and yell. But not the courage. Calamity panted and moaned at his side.
Frederik opened his eyes after a long, long wait.
It was dark, but not completely.
There were lights. Little ones, dotted here and there. Dirty brown walls, running with moisture. Tubes and ducts. Rusted joints. The empty ringing of water dripping on steel inside a vast underground chamber. The Cisterns. They had made it to the Cisterns!
“Come on,” he grunted. “Follow me.”
He started to crawl. His knees were soaked. He didn’t have the strength to avoid the puddles. He hauled himself to an archway. Terrible howls rang around them. From every angle. Groaning. Moaning. He willed himself onward. Into a shadowy underground hall of arches and corroded metal.
“Aaaagh!” Calamity yelled. “Who’s that?”
A yard ahead of them, staring at them, Frederik saw a face. A cold, gray face peering out of the shadows.
“Zombies!” Calamity howled, grabbing at Frederik’s arm. “They’re everywhere! We’re surrounded!”
And he was right. One hundred cold, ghastly faces leered at them from the gloom.
Frederik knew right away they were statues. Of course he did. Just stone. Old, carved stone. He fought to get a grip.
After thirty seconds or so, he opened his eyes. A bit. He sort of squinted between his eyelashes.
He stayed very still. Played dead. Maybe they wouldn’t see him.
No. He wasn’t thinking straight. They couldn’t see. They were not zombies. They were statues. They weren’t looking at him.
And yet, they were. All of them. Hundreds of them. A yard away, a man was peering right at him from the dark. A middle-aged man from the middle ages. Eyes and mouth sunk deep in shadow. A craggy nose and the thick twists of a beard.
At his shoulder, another, deathly pale. Wrapped in a cloak. A creepy smile. Why was it smiling like that? It wasn’t. No. It was only a statue. And so was that one. Hard frown, floppy hat. Just a statue. And that one with the bulging eyes. And that one with the stick and the snarl. They were surrounded. Lost in a crowd. A lifeless crowd. Silent. Staring. Terrifying.
The mayor’s long-lost marbles.
Calamity was whimpering. “Which way out of here?”
Where was the exit? There had to be an exit. They were inside a massive underground tank. Lines of lime dribbled down the rust. There was a terrible groaning coming from somewhere. In front and behind. All around them. They had to get out.
They picked their way among the marbles. It was horrible. A man in a three-cornered hat watched them. A deep crack split his chest. A woman in gray, her coat drawn close to her throat, a jagged fracture across her belly.
“I’m sorry,” Calamity whimpered.
Another marble leaned toward them, one arm missing, glaring, barring the way.
“Excuse us. We’ll leave.”
Frederik pushed between them. He tried not to look at them. They crowded in on him. An elderly woman, a young man in uniform, a beggar with a cup. An old man, clutching his head in anguish. Frederik swallowed a lump of fear. Told himself they were statues. Only statues.
Unnatural voices yawned from somewhere and nowhere.
“Stop that,” Calamity cried out. “Please stop that.”
They ran, little splashes underfoot. A dark archway broke through the wall ahead. They hurried through. The wall was many yards thick. A single candle flickered in a nook. Where candles were lit, there had to be people! Live ones. Actual ones. Warm, speaking, breathing ones you could talk to and plead for help.
They staggered into another vast chamber of damp and silhouettes. Candles in jars, burning without a flicker in the still, soggy air. More statues. Broken. Shattered. Heads scowling. Arms, hands, fingers, shoes. He shivered and shivered again. And those voices moaned in the background all the time.
Frederik followed the wall around a corner and almost shouted in relief. Stairs! Stone stairs, leading up from the wet to a black double door. A green, glowing sign. Exit.
He ran up the steps. He lunged at the door. Bounced off it like a rubber ball, and was suddenly tumbling down the stairs again, knocking Calamity into a heap.
“Please, no. Please, no.”
He went again, two steps at a time, placed his hands flat on the doors, and heaved with everything he had.
No movement. Not a hair. The exit was shut tight.
They huddled against the door for more than an hour. Frederik mostly kept his eyes shut. Whenever he opened them, the mayor’s marbles were out there in the darkness, watching. It was terribly cold. He tried jiggling, waving his arms, breathing into his hands. It did no good.
“In case this is it,” Calamity whispered in the dark, “the end for us both, I just want to say I’m sorry for the times I was mean to you. And your weird friend.”
“Pernille isn’t weird. Well, she is. But not the way you meant it.”
The moaning in the Cisterns seemed never to stop.
“Why were you mean to us?” he asked.
Calamity thought for a while. “So I’d fit in. With them. Erica Engel, Frederik Dahl Dalby, Erik the Awkward. So long as they were mocking you, they weren
’t mocking me.”
“They do it to you?”
“I have a lot of accidents. I can’t help it. I get it from my dad. Anyway, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“I do worry about it. I’m worried about everything. I’m trapped underground with hundreds of zombies. You were right all along.”
The stone faces stared from the shadows. It was awful. But he had been right. And Rasmus had been right. The mayor’s missing marbles were hidden down here, and everyone had forgotten they existed.
Or so Her Ladyship believed.
But if Frederik were to remind them, if people found out the marbles were here, the mayor would be humiliated, surely? There was a twist of anger in his belly every time he thought about the mayor. Could her secret become his weapon? A way to turn the town against her and get Pernille back?
Suddenly, something was rattling by his head. He jumped up and his leg cramped. He lost his balance and fell a few steps. Calamity fell down them all.
The doors swung open, and soft light spilled about them.
They scrambled up. Limped from the wet and cold into a tight hallway. No one there. Stairs. A blur of daylight above. Frederik was too afraid to call out. He stumbled one painful step at a time. Up and up and into a gift shop.
He stopped, entirely surprised.
They had clambered out of a nightmare and into a gift shop?
Chapter 15
Taking Stock
The walls of the gift shop were sloping glass. A little transparent pyramid. Outside was midevening and grass and trees. Fading postcards on racks, books on a shelf, and a layer of dust over everything. There was a desk with an ancient cash register. And a sign. The Cisterns, it said. Closed to the Public. Strictly No Admittance.
Frederik Sandwich and the Mayor Who Lost Her Marbles Page 10
