Hunting Season

by P. T. Deutermann

  As she reached to release the seat belt, the damn car moved! Backward.

  She reflexively stomped down on the brakes, but nothing happened except that the brake pedal went all the way to the fire wall. The car gathered velocity and the cone of light, now in front of her, became fainter as the car rolled down an increasingly steep incline. A horrible scraping and screeching sound came from underneath, as if the car was dragging its drive train or exhaust system over concrete. She tried to turn around in her seat, but the damned belt had tightened a lot and she had to fight hard even to get her neck turned, trying to see behind her, but of course it was pitch-black. She yelled almost involuntarily as the car slid faster, but the noise from underneath was incredible—a cacophony of scraping and grinding metal that drowned out even her thoughts. Then came the giddy sensation of launching off a cliff as the car went airborne for a second before crashing down again on something very hard and then slewing sideways and down into—water!

  The vehicle stopped with a whooshing sound and then tilted ominously toward the driver’s side, admitting a tidal wave of ice-cold water over the windowsills. Amazingly, the second impact had activated the cabin dome light over her head, and Janet tried to see where she was as she mashed the seat belt button and rose up in the front seat. The black water engulfed the interior in an incredibly few seconds. Outside was utter darkness, but Janet had no choice. She ejected herself through the driver’s side window as the car filled completely and went down behind her, sucking at her legs as she scrambled to get away from it.

  The water was frigid. It went up her slacks and gripped her bare legs and thighs like an ice pack. Her chest felt squeezed and she had trouble catching her breath as she water in the darkness. Both her arms and her right leg stung from small cuts. She thought she saw the glow of the dome light beneath her, but then it was gone. She splashed around in the darkness for a minute before getting control other panic and slowing everything down. She regulated her breathing and made her strokes more deliberate. Two huge invisible bubbles burst onto the surface nearby, the second one bringing up the stink of gasoline. She

  felt one other shoes go and she kicked off the other one. The Sig in her shoulder rig felt like a brick, but she wasn’t ready to get rid of that quite yet. Then she remembered her lifesaving courses and took off her slacks. Treading water with just her feet, she brought the waist of the pants up to her face, zipped the zipper, and closed the button. Then she tied an awkward knot in the bottom of each leg of the pants, took a deep breath, ducked her head, and exhaled into the billowing waist of the slacks. She did this five more times before the pants legs inflated enough to hold her up. She moved between the two puffed-up trouser legs and relaxed, bobbing gently in the utter darkness. She caught the smell of gasoline and oil again as the drowned car began to give up some more of its fluids. She yelped when something large moved under the water, but it was just another air bubble. Then there was only silence.

  She tried to determine whether or not she was moving, but, without any visual references, it was impossible to tell. Probably not, she thought—that air bubble had come out of the car from almost directly beneath her. She called out, then listened as her voice reverberated from unseen walls. She knew there were flashlights in the car’s trunk, but she had no way of knowing exactly where the car was beneath her, and she was definitely not going to let go of her life preserver in this darkness. From somewhere above her and far away, she heard what sounded like a large piece of sheet metal falling onto concrete. Then silence.

  No, not quite silence. There was the sound of falling water somewhere nearby. Not a huge stream, but certainly a steady one. Dropping from a substantial height. She couldn’t tell where the sound was coming from.

  She began dog-paddling in what she hoped was a straight line, and within a minute, she bumped into what felt like a concrete wall. She stopped and felt the surface. It was smooth and slippery, as if covered in moss. She felt her way along the wall for several feet but encountered no other features.

  The sound of falling water seemed to be louder in this direction, but still far off. Her limbs were beginning to tremble in the cold, and she knew she had to get out of the water before hypothermia set in. She stopped to think. If this is a tunnel, then the opposite side ought to be straight across from this side. She flattened her back against the wall and then shoved away across the surface, her eyes closed as she tried to visualize a tunnel.

  She paddled for what seemed like forever before her fingertips touched a hard, slippery surface.

  She stopped. Had she gone in a circle? No, the falling water sound was coming from a different angle. Or at least she hoped so. She

  started her search again, this time bumping along the wall to her left, hand over hand, looking for a pipe or a ladder or steps—any protruding feature she could use to get her shivering body out of this water. She realized her chin was in the water, which meant it was time to refill her trouser legs. She bobbed under and exhaled five more times until she got her makeshift water wings back. Then she rested. Which way had she been going? The first tendril of despair wrapped around her gut and she wondered if she was just going to drown down here, alone, in this stygian blackness. She reached out for the wall, but it was gone. A lance of panic shot through her and she kicked out forcefully, only to bang her forehead on the wall.

  She reached out with both hands, bending forward into the Y of her inflated trousers, and rested again.

  Think, she told herself. This is a manmade tunnel complex. The car had been climbing a hill when it had fallen through one of those metal plate sections. The tunnel obviously conformed to the hill’s slope, which meant it ran down to some bottom or collection point. The tunnel had been big enough to accommodate a Crown Vie, so there had to be some ladders down here somewhere, some means by which the tunnel could be inspected or cleaned out. All she had to do was find one, then climb up out of the water. If she could get back to the original tunnel, the one under the main drag, she could get back to the point where the car had fallen through. After that—well, first things first.

  She continued her hand-over-hand search, stopping to listen and look for light. Finally, she realized she could no longer hear the sound of falling water. For some reason, that worried her, so she reversed course and went back the way she had come, going faster now, since this was wall she had already covered. Her legs were getting numb and her feet weren’t there at all. She tried to ignore what this meant and kept going. At last, she heard the falling water again, and this time she headed for that sound.

  She was heartened when she smelled gasoline again, and she actually felt a slipperiness in the water. This meant she was back to the point where the car had come down from that big tunnel. She stopped and looked up, imagining that she could see light, but she knew it was an illusion. She could see nothing.

  She kept going, past the oil slick from the car. The sound of falling water got steadily louder, and then she was in it, a small torrent of cold water dropping down from somewhere above. She stopped and put her head back, grateful to get the oil sheen off her face. Listening to the sound of the water, she realized there was a constant echo. Had

  she reached the end of this tunnel or pool or whatever it was? She kept going and immediately bumped up against a new wall. She followed it at what seemed like right angles to the direction she had been going for a distance of about twenty feet and then hit another wall, another right turn. So she had been right: This was the end of the cross tunnel. She felt the concrete and noticed that it was slippery underneath the water, although fairly dry above the waterline. She tried to think if this was different from what she had felt originally. It was getting hard to think. It was getting hard to do anything. Her chin was back in the water again, and this time she was less worried about that.

  She snapped out of it and refilled the trouser legs again. She remembered the CFR device, but it was gone, probably slipped out when she’d taken her pants off. She sputtered and blew water out
of her mouth forcefully just to make a noise and reached out for her wall. Her wall. That was a laugh. And then there was an ominous rumbling sound that originated somewhere way down to her right, a rumbling that seemed to be approaching. Dear God, what is that? she thought as she grabbed for the concrete, which was moving. Moving?

  Moving!

  No, it was not moving; she was moving, toward the rumbling sound.

  She grabbed again, but there was nothing to grab, just that slippery, mossy surface. She felt her fingernails breaking as she tried to stop herself, not wanting to go toward that awful sound. But go she did, faster as the noise got louder, her hand bouncing off the invisible wall, in a palpable current now, a rush of water as something huge happened in the tunnel. She tried to picture what was going on, but it made no difference if her eyes were open or shut—there was only blackness and that end-of-the-world noise.

  Then there were eddies and large air bubbles swirling around her bare legs, and a vicious sucking sound somewhere up ahead in the darkness.

  That’s when she really panicked, screaming and kicking to get back up the current, her hands and legs flailing desperately as the water became even more violent. As the sucking sound approached, her hand hit on something metal, a vertical thing, which she grabbed for in one final, desperate lunge even as the current turned her whole body horizontal. She hung on with everything she had, grappling frantically to get a second hand on it.

  Her semi-inflated trousers were swept away in the maelstrom. She closed her eyes and held on with a virtual death grip until she realized the sound was subsiding. She was hanging from the thing she

  had grabbed. The water was going away, was beneath her, as if some giant had opened the drain on the whole system.

  She probed with her left hand and found the other stanchion of what felt like a steel ladder. She felt for a rung to set her feet on and then let her head fall against another rung while she got control of her breathing.

  Below her, the water was subsiding into a rumble of air and noxious bubbles, and then it all went quiet, with the only sound being that other own breathing. Her legs felt suddenly, terribly exposed in the clammy air. She could hear the falling water again, far to her left, but this time it sounded as if it was falling onto concrete instead of into water. She looked up, but there was only darkness. She began to climb, and after fifteen rungs, she came to what seemed like a ledge. The ladder arms arched up over the edge, so that she could continue climbing and pull herself onto the ledge.

  It wasn’t wide, perhaps two, possibly three feet, but she sensed that it was above the water level. There was even a faint breeze, which felt warmer than the air down here.

  She rested for several minutes before she realized she could smell gasoline again. The fumes were strong and seemed to be coming from right below her. The falling water, now to her right as she sat on the ledge, was definitely falling on bare concrete. The tunnel system must be some kind of giant siphon, she thought, remembering that the moss on the wall had been underwater just before the thing emptied itself. The water got to a certain level, and the pressure in the tunnel overcame the pressure in a drain system of some kind and the whole thing dumped. She nodded to herself in the darkness. It was urgently important that she understand how it all worked, because it had been terrifying when the water had started to move. Overcoming panic meant substituting known, manmade things for the huge unknown forces that had taken her down the tunnel.

  Fumes, she thought. She wondered if perhaps the car had been washed down to this end of the tunnel, and whether or not it had gone out the drain. If the tunnel was empty, maybe she could get to the trunk and retrieve a flashlight. It meant climbing back down the ladder, and then letting go of the ladder as she groped around the bottom of the tunnel for the car. What if she got lost? Or couldn’t find the ladder again? She shivered at that thought, because she knew that the falling water was probably going to refill this thing.

  So go now. Do it. You must have light to find your way out of this nightmare.

  With a reluctant sigh, she groped around for the ladder arch and got back on it. She climbed down slowly, the rusty rungs hurting her bare feet. Finally, she reached the bottom, discovered water already standing on the floor of the tunnel. She put her back to the ladder and tried to think of a way to lay down a trail of some kind. The smell of gasoline was even stronger, which meant that the carcass of the car was close. She bent down to feel the bottom, and she discovered a crack or seam in the concrete that led directly away from the bottom rung of the ladder. It felt like old asphalt, hard yet soft when she pushed a finger into it. If she kept her hand on that and never let go, she could follow it back to the ladder.

  She tried it, going out six feet or so, then following it back to the ladder.

  It was all she had. She realized her eyes were closed, so she opened them. Better closed, she thought, because at least that way she could construct an image of what this place looked like. She stepped away from the ladder again, crouching down to keep her left hand firmly on the seam.

  She went all the way across the tunnel floor, through water that was getting deeper again, until she hit the opposite wall. No car. She went back, just to make damn sure she returned to the ladder again, and she did. She came back out to what she sensed was the middle of the tunnel, then said, “Hey!” She listened to the echo other own voice, and did it again. This time, she thought she detected an object to her left. She called out again, listening like a bat to the reflected sound. She turned ninety degrees to the left, felt behind her for the seam, and then, taking a deep breath and a major leap of faith, stepped out and away from the seam. She had gone ten steps when she realized that in this direction lay the main drain. Was she walking straight toward it?

  She called out again and sensed that there was something right in front of her. Was it the end of the tunnel, with some huge hole right in front of her? She began to take baby steps, her hands outstretched, trying not to think of how she would find the seam again, and then her hand ran into the smooth side of the car. She almost wept at the feel of it. She felt around until she could determine that the car was upright, with its nose to her right. She felt back along its side to her left until she came to the trunk. Which she was going to open how? She swore. The trunk latch release was a large button under the driver’s side armrest. Would it still work? She worked her way back to the front door and tried to open it, but it was jammed shut. She felt the jagged edges of the glass in the window frame. She put her hand through and then her head and chest, until she could retrieve the

  passenger-side floor mat. She put that over the window coaming and climbed through, trying not to cut her bare legs. The Sig hung up on something, but then she was through and was able to feel her way across the front seat. She was within six inches of the button when she felt the car begin to move, a slow leaning motion toward its left side.

  She screamed and scrambled back out. She felt the car settle back down.

  She crouched by the window, gasping, and tried to collect her thoughts. Damn thing must be balanced over what—the main drain? Was the drain big enough to suck down the whole car? Apparently not, or it would have already done so, right? Then why had it moved? God, she needed a light, any kind of light. She dared not climb over the hood; if it tilted, she might be thrown down into the drain. She realized the water was up to her mid calves And rising, she thought.

  Think, Janet, think. You need to reach that button. You have to go back in and try it again. She took a deep breath and climbed back into the front seat, being very careful about how quickly she moved. Then she drew the Sig out of its holster, hoping to use it to extend her reach. She knew right where that button was, even in the total darkness. She crept across the front seat, trying to keep her center of gravity over on the passenger side while stretching her arm out as far as it would go. The car didn’t move.

  She stretched another few inches, tapping the Sig under the steering column, then extracting it when it got tang
led in limp folds of the deflated air bag. She felt the car just barely sway, at which point she moved two feet back toward the passenger-side window. The car settled. She moved toward the driver’s side, carefully, very carefully now, lunged with the Sig, and banged down on where the button ought to be, then scrambled back as the car began to tip again. To her relief, it settled back. She crawled out the window and went to the back of the car. The trunk was still closed.

  Was the switch inoperative, or had she just missed it? She crept around the back of the car, keeping her hand on the trunk, until she got to the left-rear corner. She felt with her toes that the concrete dropped off, with the edge just inside the car’s flattened rear tire. She erased the image that formed—of some dreadful drop-off into oblivion waiting to swallow up the car and her with it. Have to try again, she thought, and went back to the passenger-side window.

  It took her four more tries before she heard the familiar chunking sound of the trunk hatch opening. She climbed out eagerly, reholstered her weapon, and went hand over hand back to the trunk, where she promptly hit her head on the raised hatch. Inside, everything was a total jumble, but at last her fingers found a rubberized flashlight.

  Crossing mental fingers, she switched it on. The bright white light hurt her eyes, but she didn’t mind one bit. She could see} She swept the light around her and saw that she was in a large concrete chamber, with the tunnel she had explored over to her left. It appeared to be about twenty feet square. A pool of black water covered the bottom 10 percent of the tunnel. She swept the light over to the walls of the chamber and found the ladder, and saw the ledge above. She could see nothing above that. She turned the light downward, toward the far side of the car, and stopped breathing.