Ruins of the Mind

by Jason Stadtlander

  UPON HER RETURN to the tracks, Heidi stood just shy of the metal rails near the mouth of the culvert, trying to dredge up enough nerve to venture inside once again. She neared the entrance and listened—no sound except the wind.

  Heidi grabbed the flashlight out of her bag, a high-intensity LED designed for defensive purposes. The light had two modes: bright or blinding. It was designed to either blind an attacker or be used as a signal. The back of the flashlight had serrated edges for defense that could be shoved into someone’s skin to ward them off. Her father had always been fearful someone might attack and hurt her, a worry which she thought was unfounded. But Heidi was tall and attractive—so her parents told her—and she must be cautious. As far as Heidi was concerned, never having cared for girly things like makeup or clothes, she was just one of the guys. A pair of worn blue jeans, a T-shirt and her Red Sox cap were all she wanted and needed at the age of fourteen.

  The bright beam from her flashlight revealed a storm drain culvert going back at least fifty feet. She climbed up onto the rim of the concrete tunnel opening. It was a dark, grayish green from the water that regularly poured out, but the remainder of the opening was dry and relatively clean. There were bits of grass, sticks, rotted leaves and stones along the base of the pipe. With Heidi being five feet, five inches tall, she had to scrunch down a bit to fit into the confining three-foot space. She knelt down and walked like a frog with her knees bent, edging her way methodically through the tunnel.

  Ten feet into the culvert, her long blonde hair caught on something. She turned carefully and saw her hair looped around some mineral substance that had seeped down through the metal, forming a tiny stalactite.

  Heidi grabbed at her hair, pulling it into a bun, and stuck it inside her Red Sox cap. Crawling farther into the tunnel, she was thankful she was thin and lanky. “You’re not lanky, you’re beautiful,” her mother had told her. Yet the children at school referred to her as the “gangling lank,” viewing her as tall, thin and awkward.

  After Heidi had maneuvered fifty feet through the tunnel, she turned, looking back toward the entrance. It now seemed far away, a narrow port of light in the distance. In her imaginings, she had always wondered if when people die and see a tunnel, is this what it looks like?

  Turning back in the direction of her adventure, she saw a sliver of light that was much farther away than the light to the culvert entrance. She continued along the corrugated metal tube with her hat’s button scraping along the ribs of the wall, creating a clicking noise. It sounded eerily similar to the sound she had heard when the train passed by earlier today. She looked ahead in the distance, seeing nothing more than debris along the floor and metal walls on either side.

  An intersecting flash of fear hit. It occurred to Heidi that if something dangerous hid within the metal tube, she might not be able to move backward quickly enough to exit safely. Heidi stopped, considering this, and looked back toward the entrance. It was at least seventy-five feet away, too far to reach quickly. Again, she turned to look deeper into the tunnel. It’s okay. There’s nothing down here. You were probably imagining those sounds earlier. Keep your imagination in check. Chillax! She knew with near certainty, however, that what she had heard was real.

  Twenty more feet. Forty more feet. The light ahead of her was growing a little brighter—not much, but a little. Heidi turned off her flashlight and the pitch-blackness swallowed her. She looked nervously in both directions. It took a minute or two for her vision to adapt to the darkness, but she could now see some sort of blue hue ahead. There was no sound except a faint drip coming from somewhere undetermined.

  Heidi turned her light back on and continued down the tunnel. Another forty feet, and she was at the lip of an entrance to a small concrete room. The light was shining through four holes of a manhole cover at the top of the room, and there was a ladder along the left side. The room itself was close to ten feet tall, about four square feet, and had two other tunnels connecting it.

  The first tunnel was directly across from her. The second was down by the floor and apparently went deeper into the ground, explaining why the floor was dry. The floor itself had a trough of sorts that led to the pipe. This lower pipe was far too small to climb through, only about ten inches in diameter. The upper two pipes must be for overflow, with the bottom one being the normal drain.

  Heidi moved over to the ladder and climbed down to floor level. It was a relief to stand up straight again, but she was uncertain what direction to take. She didn’t see much point in going out through the manhole, assuming she could even lift the lid, but she was curious as to where it led. Heidi finally decided to continue down the other three-foot diameter pipe, but first she wanted to see where the manhole took her.

  She climbed up the ladder and listened for several minutes, wanting to be sure that by opening the lid she wouldn’t be squished by a car. Heidi heard nothing above but a passing airplane and chirping birds, so she slowly pushed it open.

  Surprised by the weight of the cover, she wondered if something might be lying on top of it. Heidi pushed hard to lift the lid and it only opened a few inches, but a few inches was all she needed. She could see green grass and a few tombstones; apparently, her portal led out to a road running through the cemetery. She let the manhole cover close gently and looked at the walls of the small room. She suddenly realized that there were dead, buried bodies only yards from her, and the thought sent chills up her spine.

  Moving over to the ladder, she grabbed her flashlight again and pointed it down the long pipe that continued on. Although the light revealed nothing unusual, she couldn’t shake the sense that she was being watched. Come on, she thought.

  Heidi climbed into the pipe and continued her trek down the tunnel. She didn’t know what she was looking for, but she followed her curiosity. Mom and Dad would kill me if they knew I was down here, but that’s exactly what makes it exciting. Still, she had visions of herself getting stuck or trapped—just how would she explain that to her parents? She pulled her cell phone out of her bag. It read “No Service.” She sighed. Of course it doesn’t have service, you moron—you’re underground. Why’d you even bother bringing it with you? She stowed the phone.

  Heidi continued her journey, going deeper. If her bearings were right, the pipe led gradually uphill, and she was pretty sure it was slowly leading her to the hill approaching the water tower. After a few hundred feet, she heard something—a scratching or a clawing. Heidi paused, looking deeply into the tunnel in front of her, squinting in an attempt to see whatever it was.

  Her flashlight illuminated at least fifty feet in front of her, but no movement was detected. Crouched down, she continued waddling, looking downward to avoid debris falling into her eyes. The farther she ventured, the less she looked in front of her, focusing instead on the less-obvious nuances of her tunneled confinement.

  Imaginary threats raced through her mind—of water flooding the passageway, drowning her instantly and pushing her body back out to the tracks. She could imagine the police explaining to her mother, “Well, ma’am, it doesn’t make much sense. Her body was run over by the train, but that’s not what actually killed her—cause of death was drowning. Oh—and she died wearing a backpack full of granola bars and batteries.” Heidi laughed aloud at the idea of the ensuing confusion that would surely be caused by the backpack with granola bars and batteries inside. What a combo.

  Her laugh echoed up the tube. Then strangely, she heard a deep, forced laugh echo back. Heidi went rigid. Looking straight ahead, her attention turned keenly focused. What was that laughing back at her? Just an echo of your own voice, you idiot. No, she knew that wasn’t the case. There had been a lengthy pause between each laugh, and the second laugh sounded much different from hers.

  Still in a crouched position, she stared hard through the darkness. Her beam of light sliced through the ink-jet interior. She saw nothing. But what were those shining objects there? She looked more closely, trying to get a read on whatever it was
she was seeing. It appeared to be glimmering rings of some sort.

  Heidi moved slowly, inching her way closer, then froze. No, not rings—eyes. Four of them, peering at her through the darkness. She saw two eyes on each side of whatever this was positioned in vertical pairs. They were unblinking and staring in her direction. They disappeared…then reappeared.

  She heard an old man’s voice say, “Go away. Leave me alone.” But had she really heard his voice, or did she just think she had?

  “Hello?” she called nervously down the tube. Heidi’s voice echoed strangely off the metal walls. The shining eyes continued staring in her direction for several seconds and then disappeared. That skittering, scratching noise was moving away from her, and then suddenly it was gone.

  Heidi waited a moment, her heart rate quickening. Although she had an awareness of just how trapped she was down here, she wasn’t terribly afraid. There was an unusual, musty scent to the tunnel, but the air was cool and damp, soothing to her skin—cooler in contrast to the air outside.

  Heidi continued moving ahead. The farther she edged into the tunnel, the darker it was in the distance. After a hundred feet or so, the passageway turned to concrete and became a little smaller. She heard the odd, skittering sound again; it conjured up an image of dog’s claws on a wooden floor.

  Heidi listened carefully. She heard the old man’s voice again and it sounded frightened and distant. “Don’t go any further. I am not ready to talk to you,” she thought he said. Heidi called out, “Mister, I’m not going to hurt you—I promise. Just let me see you, okay?”

  Heidi crawled another sixty feet, thinking she must be at least four or five hundred feet from the entrance to the tunnel by now. Her light dissipated about thirty feet in front of her. She crawled in that direction and saw why.

  There was a crack in the side of the concrete tunnel that led into a space off to the left. Heidi paused at the opening and looked in. The crack itself was less than two feet wide with the surface of the floor dropping off about two feet into the space. She looked inside and saw a small cavern, perhaps ten feet wide by four feet tall. There was a passageway that led out the back side of the cavern.

  “Hello?” she called out. “Is someone here?” Heidi darted the light back and forth around the small room. There was nothing but dirt, rock debris and a little water on the floor.

  “Are you in here?” she asked tentatively. While slipping through the crack, her backpack hooked on an outcropping of the fractured concrete tunnel. Heidi freed the snag and stepped into the room.

  The room possessed a dampness and smelled of mud. She crouched inside the small space which, at its highest point, was only about four or five feet tall. The walls were solid granite and moist with water. The floor, fairly clean with small stones and rocks along the edges, was formed of hard-packed dirt. It was evident to Heidi that the floor had been packed down by years of walking.

  Near the entrance to the right, in soil that was loose, Heidi thought she saw footprints. She moved to take a closer look. If they were footprints, they were unlike any she had ever seen before. There were two distinct partial impressions, each one long and ending in a point, with two toes on the end. She knelt closer to study them, turning her head sideways at first to determine which way was up and then turning her head back the other way.

  “Please. Leave now. We don’t want you here yet,” the old man in her head said, his voice sounding as if it were coming from back in the tunnel. She took off her backpack and set it down gently, and then she peeked out through the culvert wall opening into the storm drain. Heidi flashed her light, first one way then the other, but no one was there.

  She heard a quiet rustling behind her. Heidi turned around slowly to see two long, gray appendages reaching out, tugging at her backpack; to her dismay, it was some kind of a creature she had never before seen in any book. It had two large mirrored eyes and stood staring at her.

  A fierce, high-pitched scream, dampened only slightly by the dirt floor, flew from her mouth and reverberated off the stone walls. In her head, she heard the old man screaming, too, but in a lower voice. The creature was also crouching down on only two thin legs, its knees pointing at an impossible angle as it bent toward her.

  Suddenly, the creature threw its arms over its face in a defensive move. Heidi stopped screaming but supported her slackened body against the rock face. She was breathing heavily, unsure what to make of this thing in front of her.

  Then it crouched down again, trembling in fear, its gangling arms still covering its face. It had a smooth gray appearance to its skin, no hair and wore some sort of suit that resembled a sweat suit—except that it ran all the way from the creature’s neck down to its ankles. The suit itself was made from some sort of rainbow-like material that shimmered under her flashlight. She realized then that she was pointing the light directly at its eyes and kindly lowered the beam. The creature’s trembling gradually lessened and it lowered its arms hesitantly.

  The two stared at each other, transfixed by the bizarre encounter. Heidi now saw that the creature did indeed have four eyes: two large, oval, saucer-like eyes and two additional small eyes above the large ones. The large ones blinked with curiosity, but the smaller eyes didn’t blink at all. Strangely, they didn’t appear to have pupils or irises. Instead, they were like mirrors, showing only the reflection of Heidi, the cavern itself and the beam of her flashlight. The creature had no discernible nose, a small mouth and a thin, sinewy neck. Heidi also noted that it appeared quite fragile.

  The creature glanced down at her backpack and then back up at her face. It ceased its trembling entirely.

  “Do you understand me? Can you talk?” Heidi said cautiously.

  Looking at her, the creature blinked once, cocked its head to the side like a dog and nodded. “Can you hear me?” She heard the voice of an old man again, yet she was certain the creature’s mouth had not moved.

  “That was you—talking to me earlier?” Heidi inquired.

  “Yes. We try not to…talk with humans.”

  “Just what are…” Heidi stopped, afraid she would offend it, and then finished with, “I mean who are you?”

  “You meant to say what am I?”

  “Well, yes…and who.”

  “I am ter’roc.”

  That was weird. “That’s your name? Ter’roc?”

  “Apologies. No—we are the ter’roc.” Its speech was slow paced and deliberate.

  The creature looked down at the cavern floor. It seemed troubled, uncertain how to get its point across. Then it looked back up at her, not saying a word.

  “We?” Heidi questioned, looking nervously around the cavern, expecting more creatures to emerge from the walls. Both of them said nothing for nearly a minute, but to Heidi it felt considerably longer.

  “We,” the creature said, pointing to itself, “…are the ter’roc. I am Sam’loc. That is my name. It has been many years since we have communicated with humans.”

  “I’m Heidi,” she said softly, pointing to herself. She looked at Sam’loc, unsure of what to say next. Meeting some unidentified underground creature wasn’t something she had expected when she came down here to explore. A raccoon possibly. Maybe a badger. Hell—even a colony of rats. But some spindly creature with large saucer eyes that looked like mirrors who talked inside her head? No way.

  Sam’loc’s words in her head broke the silence. “Heidi, why are you down here?” His head was cocked to the side in query.

  She shrugged. “I was just curious, I guess. Wanted to snoop around some and see what I could find. Why are you down here?”

  “We have been here a very long time,” he answered.

  “How long…exactly?” Heidi pushed.

  He paused before speaking his thoughts in her mind.

  “About two hundred thousand…” He looked down at the floor, searching for the right words, and continued, “…solar rotations?”

  “You mean years?” Heidi tried to clarify.

 
“Years—yes.”

  “Two hundred thousand years? Holy shit!” she yelled, her face red, and then she quickly followed that with an apologetic, “Oh—sorry.”

  “Sorry? Why do you apologize?”

  “I said ‘shit’—it’s a bad word.”

  Sam’loc showed no reaction. He just stared at her with his shining eyes, blinking.

  Something suddenly occurred to Heidi. “Wait a minute—you speak English,” she stated, realizing that the creature understood her words.

  “Not exactly. I hear your thoughts and understand. You can hear mine. Although I do understand your spoken language, we have no need to communicate in that way.”

  “But in my head you speak English.”

  “No. That is how your mind perceives my thoughts.”

  Now that was some revelation. Heidi had questions, and sensing them, Sam’loc responded before any formed completely in her mind.

  “I will talk to you. But you must give me your word that you will not speak to anyone about the ter’roc…at least not yet.”

  Heidi’s sarcastic mind began churning. Who am I going to tell? Oh, hi Dad. Guess what? I found some strange creature in an underground pipe over by the railroad tracks…

  “Why do you do that?” Sam’loc inquired.

  “Do what?” she asked, confused.

  “You think something in contradiction to what you say?”

  Heidi didn’t understand the question. The beam of her flashlight illuminated the dark cavern, creating an eerie light that lit up Sam’loc, making him appear more human than he was. It dawned on her that Sam’loc might have been referring to her internal thoughts, especially if he used her thoughts to actually communicate with her. “Are you referring to when I tell myself something in my head?” she asked, attempting to clarify.

  “Yes. You say something in another part of your brain…here,” he said as he tapped the left side of his head.