Beneath The Surface

by Simon Strantzas

  He waited until he was sure she had gone before trying the door. The metal bar was colder than he’d expected, and it wouldn’t budge for him. Gibbons stuffed his hands beneath his arms to warm them and stepped with hunched shoulders into the snow.

  It was as though Heaven itself hated him. It poured down day-after-day of biting snow, blanketing the streets with ice until Gibbons could no longer tell them apart. No doubt his assigned case worker was waiting several ice-encrusted blocks away, practicing shaking her head with that uncaring look of hers and mouthing the same sentences he’d heard countless times before: “Gibbons, you’ve got to pull yourself together;” or perhaps, “the only thing you’ve lost is you.” Nothing she said made a difference though. He knew he couldn’t go back, not until he made sense of everything. But the only way to do that was to figure out where to start, and he hadn’t been able to do that until he accidentally heard the two men in line at the Good Shepherd Mission. After that, everything became clear to him.

  He recognized neither man — both were sagging, their faces sallow and pale, and they blinked repeatedly as though unused to even the brightness of the low-wattage lights. Gibbons paid them little attention, too lost in his thoughts of Beverly, until they mentioned the underground path. Then his mind crawled out of itself and he leaned surreptitiously closer.

  The path had been sealed off for years, its every entrance boarded and locked. Trapped between the office buildings above and the subway below, it stretched beneath the heart of the city. No one had officially set foot in its narrow corridors since it had been hastily sealed, and yet the rumor persisted that somewhere one of the entrances had been missed by the crew who had done the work, neglected after an accident took one of the workers’ lives. If the story was true, though — and Gibbons knew many who believed it — no one had managed to find that needle in the city’s haystack of alleys.

  Yet somehow the two men in line before him had discovered it. A loose door, a shattered window, Gibbons couldn’t be sure, but they spoke as if they’d been inside, discussing the barest of light and the captured heat from the power system of the subway system below. The men said that some stores were intact, the owners unable to rescue any merchandise before the municipal government locked the path down. They said, if desired, one might live down there safely, perhaps forever.

  But another thought occurred to Gibbons. It was down there among the tiny stores that formed the underground walls that he had first set eyes on Beverly as she sat alone at a table eating her lunch. To truly understand what had happened to him wouldn’t he have to start there? Start at the beginning?

  The two crumpled men stopped talking and were looking at Gibbons and he realized his eavesdropping had been too obvious. Surely if he turned his head it would persuade them they were mistaken, but they were not fooled and instead showed their backs to Gibbons when they retreated to the opposite end of the lunchroom. There they recommenced their whispering.

  But Gibbons was sure he had heard enough to find their discovery. It was simply a matter of narrowing the options down to the right location. As many boarded entrances as the underground passage had, that number was finite, and it would only be a matter of time until he discovered the way of gaining access to those abandoned corridors.

  • • •

  The day had almost disappeared behind the dark cloud of snow falling. His green overcoat was soaked through and he knew he needed to find shelter before nightfall. Yet, he was forty minutes from the Good Shepherd, and even if he could make it back through the storm there was no guarantee he would find a bed waiting for him. It was better he kept searching — the entrance had to be close.

  Snow stung Gibbons’s face as he inched his way along Front Street, stepping to avoid the drifts that piled up against the towering skyscrapers and gathered in the corners. Behind the cloudy windows of the office buildings slipped dry shapes that peeked out at the world slowly freezing over. Other windows remained dark and Gibbons saw his reflection there as he passed before them. He turned away and his reflection did the same a fraction quicker, though he knew that was impossible. He shrugged and put both his hands beneath his arms for warmth. Behind him the trail of footprints filled in quickly with snow, fading away as if he never really left them at all.

  It was at the corner where York and Front intersected that he noticed the two figures, and realized the concrete box in the sidewalk they circled marked the top of a staircase leading down. Gibbons halted and remained still, unwilling to make any movement that might betray his presence.

  They were tall and lean, bundled for the weather like one might bundle a child, covered indistinguishably from head to toe. Gibbons watched them descend the stairwell one at a time until they disappeared beneath the sidewalk like dark shadows against bright snow.

  Gibbons shivered as he waited for them to re-emerge. The wind had become fiercer, whipping hard flakes against his uncovered face, but he did not blink, not until he was sure those two figures would not return. Then Gibbons pulled his coat close and stepped across the ice toward where they had entered.

  Three walls waist-high surrounded the opening. The bottom of the stairwell was filled with garbage bags and aluminum cans covered in an icy crust that reflected the clouded light. On its inner wall a boarded door stood slightly ajar, a sliver of darkness peering out.

  Gibbons descended, gripping the railing with white-knuckled care, careful to walk in the footprints already before him to disguise his presence. He inspected the open door, placing a hand over the crack until his fingers tingled with the cool warmth it radiated, then jerked the door open by inches in the narrow confines of the stairwell until he created enough room to push through. The buttons of his coat caught on the frame and pulled loose, disappearing forever in the blanket of snow and garbage.

  From the inside, the door closed easily. It took a few moments for his eyes to become accustomed to the light and then he moved forward, taking caution to avoid being heard by the two men he had followed. Above him was a string of low-hanging bulbs that tinkled from the vibration of the trains running beneath. The light was not strong but there was enough that Gibbons could make out some of the edifices that still remained unscathed. There was no sign of the other two beyond the shadow of wet footprints scattered around his feet like the remnants of a passing crowd.

  The passages were tight, far tighter than Gibbons remembered. What once was designed to double commercial real estate had turned over time into a burial for it. He could barely believe the number of hours he spent walking along those paths in his former life, moving from subway to office to food court and back again without having to take a single step outside in the sunlight.

  But it had been so long since Gibbons had been down there that he could no longer recognize where he was. The stores, those that remained, were strangely unfamiliar, as though they had been replaced in the intervening time since the path’s closing — which was impossible of course. Nevertheless, he realized that locating the bench where he and Beverly had first met would not be easy. At least he was protected from the storm and had nothing but time to unravel his thoughts.

  If he could find the bench, and maybe sit there for a moment, he could make sense of everything that had happened between him and Beverly. Things would be clearer there; he knew it. Everything would be illuminated and placed into proper order, and once straightened he would finally be able to trace just where he lost everything. That was the key: to find that exact moment, and he could only find it by beginning at the beginning.

  He walked through the dim corridors, his ears numb from the rattle of the subway so close below him. In the slight illumination he saw the bare windows of shops empty or ravaged, their dusty floors littered with the tiny footprints of rodents running unchallenged. Did he also hear the sound of their tiny matted bodies squeezing through the cracks and holes dotting the abandoned space?

  Ahead of him, shards of broken glass littered the floor, reflecting light like the surface of some sub
terranean river, and it wasn’t until he stepped into the wider intersection of passages that he saw the window display.

  Unlike the others, the display in front of him had been neither broken nor emptied. A thin layer of dust blanketed everything within it, and the lights hanging above brightly illuminated the mannequin it contained. The figure had fallen forward over time, its raised hand resting upon the murky glass that encased it. Gibbons looked at the bare figure with its frozen wooden limbs and felt an irrational kinship to it. He raised his own fingers to the glass to wipe free some of the dust. As he touched the smooth surface, a vibration travelled through it and up his arm. He drew his hand away immediately and rubbed it as he heard the train below his feet continue past.

  He had to keep moving if he was to find the bench. He continued into the spare light, and as he walked he could feel the weight of his wet overcoat on his shoulders. They began to ache, and the damp heat that seemed to be steadily increasing since he entered the path earlier only intensified the feeling. Clouds of humidity rose past his face, and he had to stop and peel the coat from his skin just to breathe. He looked around and found a small corner at the juncture of two stores where he could fold it over and hide it until he finished his search. He made a mental note of where it was so he might return for it, then turned and looked at the path before him. Were the ghosts of all those people who had once travelled it now watching him? He shivered, and continued forward into the increasing darkness.

  He stopped when he found the plastic map kiosk, though it wasn’t until he stood inches in front of it and faced his warped reflection that he understood what it was. Along its scratched surface ran a jumble of colored lines and boxes, each indicating a separate store along the underground’s various routes. The legend for the map, however, was written far too small for Gibbons to decipher in the fading light, and he cursed himself for leaving his matches in his coat pocket. Instead, he tried to study the layout in what light he had to determine where in the system he might be. The lines, though, seemed arbitrary and none of the structures corresponded with the simple boxes depicted. Even an indicator of the map’s location on itself was missing. He found nothing to alleviate his growing sense of displacement.

  He had only a general sense of where he was, but knew he wanted to be somewhere in the west end of the labyrinth. He took whatever passages he could find in that direction, following them into the gloom. Even if he made a wrong turn, he reasoned, the underground was still only four blocks wide. Surely if he reached a dead end, he need only retrace his steps and try another direction. He knew that even the most well-worn paths could sometimes end in an unexpected place.

  Beneath his feet the noise of the subway was getting louder. Gibbons had to be somewhere above the University line. Lights flickered momentarily as the train passed, dancing the shadows along the narrow path around him.

  He arrived at a large seating area lit by another bright window display that cast long shadows from the feet of the bolted-down tables. For a moment, Gibbons thought the spot was familiar, but the geometry of the area was wrong somehow, much more angled than anything he remembered.

  The display case was not as glaring as the last, if only because it was fuller. Inside it stood another mannequin, thin gossamer webs connected to its shoulders and glittering in the harsh light. It wore a pair of brown corduroy pants, not much different than Gibbons’s own, that looked soiled from years in the damp environment. The backdrop, some bare cityscape, had also been affected — the cardboard base warped by twisting lines of wrinkles. One of the lamps — large and round and the size of Gibbons’s head — had fallen from the ceiling and collided with the mannequin’s extended right arm. The limb had spun on its hinge and stopped at an inhuman angle, creating a thick dark crack that extended from elbow to wrist.

  Was its wooden face staring directly at Gibbons, despite having no feature with which to do so? He couldn’t be certain.

  The light from the case illuminated two branching corridors, both filled with shadows. From the depths of the passage to his left, running at a right angle to his entrance, he sensed the dark rumbling of something approaching. Surely it was another train rattling the glass strewn across the floor of the path, but Gibbons’s unease increased the longer he stared down the passage’s blackened maw. He took the second one instead, and only imagined the whisper of movement that faded behind him as he moved further away.

  In the indistinct light the narrow passage seemed to have constricted further and Gibbons wondered if he stretched his arms out wide would he not be able to touch both walls at once? He dragged his fingers against them, hoping to find an unseen opening, anything that might direct him to the place that he and Beverly had met. He knew it was close — he could feel it — and once he found the place he knew he would be able to make sense out of everything. The confusion would be gone, replaced with a kind of understanding he’d never had before. He only needed to get there, but all he saw were endless black corridors lit by a string of swinging bulbs. They rattled every time the floor shook, and since Gibbons’s entrance they had only become worse.

  What at first was a distant rumble from far underground, quickly built upon itself the further he progressed. One more turn of the corridor and the train sounded as if it were right on top of him. It passed beneath with a stunning noise that vibrated the inside of Gibbons’s chest and the sound expanded outward until it shook all the windows around him in their frames. The lamps above danced on their wires, swinging wildly back-and-forth against each other. Gibbons barely had time to protect himself when a cable snapped and whipped against the wall, dropping the weight of the lamp upon him. He lifted his right arm to shield his face and there was a sickening crack as his arm went cold and numb. He cradled it instinctively, shots of blind pain racing under his closed eyes.

  When he opened them again he was sitting down, unsure if he’d blacked out. Peeling back the sleeve of his frayed sweater he examined his throbbing arm. It was half its original width. He felt ill and had to look away as he covered it once more.

  What was still lit by the remaining bulbs began to spin around him as he pulled himself up. He looked at his feet, concentrating on remaining upright until the sensation passed. The broken lamp lay there, its enormous glass bulb reflecting the corridor’s remaining light in its shards. He realized the rest of them could come down at any moment — already two had fallen, and he wondered just how safe he was.

  A sickly thought occurred to Gibbons. At the last display, that with the mannequin in the brown corduroys . . . something had happened to its arm as well. The coincidence was unsettling. He looked back into the darkness, but could not see a trace of where he’d been. The floor began to hum, the vibrations shaking his knees, and Gibbons moved forward quickly before the next train passed.

  The light had all but gone; his surroundings had been reduced to a series of shapes barely discernable in the shadows. Ahead, the path transformed into a gleaming black hole like a pool in the night, and he realized it was another plastic map kiosk standing in the middle of the passage, though unlike the other it was cracked as though it had been struck repeatedly. Still, he scoured it, desperate to find some pattern to the boxes that might describe where he was. The layout defied him however — it refused to coalesce, as though the map were playing a trick on him. That thought was nonsense. Instead, he had to face the truth: he was lost, stuck in a maze of black tunnels, and the only door out was closed and somewhere behind him at the other end of his twisted path. He felt snared by the shadows.

  A noise that couldn’t have been the patter of feet echoed through the dark corridor. Gibbons fled, his hurt arm pressed close, while he tried to keep his panic at bay. He rounded a curve and a rectangle of bright light was revealed a few short yards way. He stopped cold.

  Lying there behind thin walls of dirty glass were hundreds of wooden body parts — hands and limbs and feet — piled inexpertly beneath a green blanket. No, Gibbons thought, squinting closer, not a blanket. A
coat.

  Gibbons’s green overcoat.

  It was still damp and he could see the empty space of the buttons he’d lost. The mannequin who wore it lay face down on the pile of limbs. Was it posed as if it were running, its left hand covering its face? Gibbons pressed closer to the glass, his whole body numb. The display began to shake and Gibbons watched as the coated figure rolled back and forth, though surely it couldn’t be struggling to stand.

  He backed away, not wanting to look any longer, but when he turned he found the sight burned into his eyes. He saw it wherever he looked.

  He ran away, though each step sent a jolt of pain racing through his misshapen arm. The passages blurred by as he tried to find a way free of the labyrinth. The walls of stores seemed almost on top of him, and he tried to remind himself that no matter how it felt they weren’t really squeezed so close that they scraped his limbs as he passed between them.

  He stumbled over debris, dozens of dark shapes that lay cold in the shadows that had settled on the floor. His ears pounded with every step — his breath heaved in and out. The path twisted around him, throwing up walls where none should have been. Crackling lamps flickered erratically above his head. He cornered the passage just as the lights finally failed completely, and what seemed like hands underfoot but couldn’t have been reached out and tangled up his legs. He fell, his bad arm forward, and instead of the ground felt hard wood collide with his ribs. He screamed and cradled his throbbing arm.