The Whittier Trilogy

by Michael W. Layne

  Trent suddenly felt his exhaustion melting away under the deluge of adrenaline that had just shot through his veins.

  “That. Sounds. Pretty damn good to me,” he said as he opened the door to his room and let her in.

  Before he could say anything else, Zana was on him, grabbing his hair and kissing him deeply.

  Within sixty seconds, they were both completely naked and entwined within each other on top of the perfectly made bed.

  They used their hands and fingers to explore every part of each other they could think of, until each was ready to burst. Zana pushed gently back from Trent, and he thought that maybe she was changing her mind. Then she flipped over, sprawled flat on her stomach in front of him, and slightly parted her legs—wide enough for Trent to see.

  As easily as he could list the reasons that this woman was a bad idea for him, he paid no attention to any of them. Instead, he dropped forward and covered her naked body with his.

  She started pushing back against him with her ass, more insistent with each pulse.

  For a fleeting moment, he thought about how he was wearing no protection and the fact that she was most likely not on birth control. He worried also about whether she was an intravenous drug user. Or whether she had ever turned tricks on the side to survive.

  He worried about all of these things right up to the point when he entered her.

  And then all was forgotten.

  One half-hour later, they both collapsed, exhausted, and covered in each other’s sweat and bodily fluids.

  The exhaustion from the day and his two shows that night caught up to him in an instant, like a train suddenly bearing down on him around a corner of track. He managed to pull Zana close to him and to get them both under the blankets before passing out with a smile on his face—one of the first true smiles he had managed since Alaska.

  When he woke up the next morning, he kept his eyes closed and inhaled the smell of Zana’s sex that still lingered on the sheets and in his nostrils. That, combined with the faint scent of almonds, was enough to make Trent delirious.

  There was something about this woman to which he was becoming addicted, and most of him didn’t mind it one single bit.

  As he lay there, he felt Zana’s weight shift in the bed, and as he moved closer, she pushed her ass toward him again. He held her hips firmly as he pulled her on top of him. Even though neither of them were fully awake, they were already having sex again.

  He wished he could wake up this way every morning.

  This time, Zana was calmer but more intense. Just as Trent was getting ready to orgasm, Zana stopped and reached back to put a hand on his stomach.

  “After we’re done here,” she said, craning her neck back so she could see his face, “I want to have some breakfast with you. And then I want you to visit my friends with me. I want you to at least see where I live. OK?”

  Trent knew that she was not playing fair, asking him to agree to her terms right before he was about to finish, but for some reason, he couldn’t quite bring himself to be angry with her. He simply nodded and told her that they could go wherever the hell she wanted after breakfast—as long as she agreed to letting him drink about five cups of coffee first to help him recover from almost being fucked to death.

  Zana laughed and pushed back slower and harder. She drew him into her and then pushed him almost all the way out again and again until Trent thought he would lose his mind completely.

  Within seconds, Trent and Zana climaxed together.

  If not for his overwhelming physical hunger—a craving that was more intense than usual upon waking—and his need for caffeine, he might have never left the hotel bed that morning at all.

  As it was, after a quick and needed shower that almost resulted in another bout of sex, Trent and Zana got dressed and headed down to the lobby for some much needed fuel at the all-you-can-eat breakfast bar.

  Buddy shot Trent a raised eyebrow from behind the front desk as the two of them strolled past him, through the mostly quiet casino, and into the bar area where breakfast was set up. When they arrived, there were only a handful of hotel customers picking through the array of muffins, hard-boiled eggs, and bagels.

  In any other town, Trent would have supposed that the rest of the hotel guests had already eaten since it was almost 10 a.m., but because this was Las Vegas, he figured that most of the hotel’s customers were still sleeping off their hangovers instead.

  Zana immediately attacked the food bar as if she hadn’t eaten in a while. Trent suspected that somehow she managed to eat daily, especially after having seen her healthy curves when she was naked, but he also suspected that she didn’t often get a chance to eat very much at one sitting. Just as man’s primal ancestors had likely done, she seemed to be stuffing herself as much as possible as a precaution against potential times of famine in the future.

  After breakfast, they had to force themselves to stand up. Both of their bellies were slightly distended, and Trent knew that if they didn’t start walking around soon, he’d quickly become very sleepy as the carbs from breakfast began to take effect.

  Taking Zana by her hand, he headed for the strip in the mid-morning sun. Before they had even gone the necessary block, Trent stopped and snapped his fingers. He asked Zana if she knew how to get to the pawn shop from the television show or if there was possibly a drugstore close by instead.

  “You promised you’d come see where I live,” Zana said.

  “I know you’re probably used to it in the tunnels, but if I’m going down there, I’m going to need a flashlight. Preferably a big, heavy one that can double as a weapon…”

  Zana shook her head slightly, looking down at the ground.

  “I’m telling you, it’s safer under Vegas than it is up here,” she said.

  “Other than the murdering Troll, of course,” Trent said, immediately regretting bringing up the killer’s name again.

  “Smart ass. Yes, other than the Troll,” Zana said as she turned down a side street before they reached the strip. “Come on. There’s a drug store just a couple of blocks this way.”

  Trent took her hand in his again when they stopped for a moment at a curb to wait for traffic.

  Zana looked up at him and smiled.

  At the drug store, they found a heavy black mag light—just the kind Trent was looking for. To be safe, he bought one for her as well. Zana accepted the gift but claimed that she typically navigated the tunnels in complete darkness—that after living down there long enough, one’s vision improved enough to get around even in the complete absence of light.

  Trent recalled a few recent articles that claimed new evidence showing that at least some percentage of the population could indeed see in total darkness, but he still wondered how much of that was true for the people living under Vegas and how much was simply bravado.

  Chapter 16

  WITHIN FIFTEEN MINUTES, they were back on their way to the main Las Vegas strip. That part of town had a different vibe in the daylight, still festive, but not quite as dangerous. As they walked along, Trent thought that he would have fit in much better on the strip if he had worn his baggy black suit instead of just his jeans and T-shirt. In a town where everything was about the show, he felt a little naked without his stage costume, even though it would not have been very practical to wear while exploring a desert town like Las Vegas. It would probably be cooler in the tunnels, but up top it was already in the 80s.

  He had to admit to himself that despite his reluctance to get involved with Zana’s situation, he really was curious to see where she and her friends lived. The concept that there was a population thriving under the great city of Las Vegas fascinated him. And although he was sure there were plenty of mentally ill and drug-ridden people calling the tunnels home, there were obviously some apparently sane people living down there as well.

  In a couple of blocks, Zana led Trent down another side street and then down another one until they were in a back alley where Trent was sure tourists sel
dom visited.

  When they first turned into the alley, a stray dog with a Labrador-shaped head and the pronounced body of a Whippet approached them cautiously. The dog seemed to recognize and accept Zana, but when the animal saw Trent, it pulled back its lips and growled. Zana shoed the dog away while Trent looked on, stunned.

  “Dogs usually love me,” Trent said.

  “Dogs can sense things that most humans can’t,” she said.

  Trent muttered something under his breath that he hoped Zana could not hear as he followed her to a manhole cover in the middle of the alley.

  “Here’s where we enter,” she said, pointing to the iron disc with the words CITY OF LAS VEGAS STORM DRAIN emblazoned on it. “It’s the fastest way to get to camp.”

  Trent crouched down to lift the heavy manhole cover, but Zana told him to wait. He stood up and watched as she undid her parachute cord belt with its shiny metal bars attached at both ends, and removed it from her waist.

  She bent over and pushed one of the three-inch metal bars that acted as part of her belt buckle through the single hole in the manhole cover. She stood up and tugged on the cord—the metal bar acting as an anchor against the underside of the cover. Once she was sure it was secure, she handed Trent the other end of her belt.

  “Pull,” she said.

  Trent turned around with his back to the manhole and ran the durable parachute cord over his shoulder. He held tightly to the metal bar on his end of the cord and walked forward. The heavy iron manhole cover moved easily out of its recessed resting place. From the look on Zana’s face, she was surprised at how effortlessly Trent had performed the task.

  “Pretty good, tough guy,” she said. “Now come over here and lift one side of this thing for a second, if you don’t mind.”

  Trent knelt down and lifted up one side of the manhole cover while Zana pulled the durable cord through so the metal tube Trent had been holding was now snug against the top of the cover.

  Zana motioned for Trent to enter the dark manhole first.

  After a moment of hesitation, he slipped into the narrow shaft and climbed partway down the steel rungs embedded in the concrete wall. Zana followed a second later. She pressed her back against the concrete wall of the shaft, then ran the cord she was holding around one of the ladder rungs to create a makeshift pulley. Once that was in place, she tugged on the cord as the manhole cover slid back into place above her head.

  With the world above closed off to him, Trent carefully continued down the rungs.

  “Smells musty down here,” he said. “Don’t your things get washed away living in the tunnels?”

  “You learn how to live light,” she said. “And people put things up on blocks of wood. Most folks are pretty good unless there’s a really bad flood. I think the tunnels have drainage holes built into them to keep them from flooding all the way.”

  When they reached the tunnel floor, about twenty feet below the street, Trent switched on his mag light and swept a beam of bright whitish yellow light across the octagon-shaped tunnel. The ceiling was just high enough for the six-foot Trent to stand up straight.

  Zana did not turn on her flashlight.

  She did, however, carry it like a weapon, held at the ready by her side. Seeing this, Trent thought that perhaps she didn’t feel as safe in the tunnels as she claimed to.

  Zana took the lead as they traveled through tunnel after tunnel. They wove deeper and deeper into the underground web with Trent easily keeping track of each left and right turn that they took along the way. Even though the tunnels were not used for sewage, they were dotted everywhere with piles of discarded trash and home goods. Graffiti was everywhere—some of it was pretty artistic, but most of the tags were just poorly written words that amounted to wall litter.

  Trent also noticed with some interest that, as they traveled farther into the tunnel system, there were increasing numbers of video cameras mounted in wireframe cages along the tunnel walls. Whenever they approached one, a red light on the camera would start to blink. He knew logically that these kinds of cameras were usually not monitored by live humans, but their presence made him feel like he was being watched nonetheless. Whoever had access to the data from these cameras could see almost everything that happened below the streets of Vegas.

  When Trent asked Zana about the cameras and who owned them, she just shrugged. She figured they were there for the maintenance crews that came down every once in a while, but Trent doubted that the city would have spent the money to install a system this expensive in tunnels that officially were used only for storm runoff.

  As they worked their way through the tunnels, they passed other people walking slowly along in the opposite direction, most of whom Zana seemed to know as she greeted them with a wave and a friendly word. Some of the residents barely acknowledged her presence, but others were just as cheerful as they passed. Still more were lying, unconscious along the tunnel floors. All of the ones who were awake looked curiously at Trent as if he were an alien visitor to their world—which of course, was not too far from the truth.

  Along the way, the tunnel widened or narrowed at unpredictable intervals, sometimes presenting a standard ceiling height of about seven feet and other times expanding to over twenty feet in height.

  One side tunnel that they passed had a ceiling of only four feet, and Trent was silently glad that Zana had not led him into that one. Even though it didn’t rain very often in Las Vegas, seeing the small side tunnel reminded Trent that he would never want to get caught down here when it did.

  He noted that there were no sediment lines along the tunnel walls to show how high the water could rise, mainly because when the tunnels filled up, the water was moving so fast there was no time for it to settle and to leave any sediment behind. The tunnels probably flooded rapidly and dissipated just as quickly.

  After about another half-hour of walking, the tunnel opened up into a large chamber with high ceilings. In the center of the chamber was a concrete slab about four-feet high and twenty feet in both length and width. It was as if the builders had created a large concrete platform on which they could set a large piece of equipment and have it elevated off the main floor of the tunnel. From a practical standpoint, the structure offered a perch on which people could find some degree of safety if ever caught in an underground flash flood.

  A makeshift camp made of different materials such as carpets, drapes, cardboard and random sizes and shapes of lumber covered the majority of the platform like a miniature version of a shanty town built on a concrete island. The whole camp was poorly lit by a few kerosene lamps placed around the edge of the flimsy edifices.

  As they approached, Zana called out.

  “Yo, guys!” she called out into the large concrete room. “Your long lost leader has returned, so you can stop your worrying!”

  The two young men from the alley the day before slowly rose from a couple of the cardboard shelters, along with another man, this one tall and lanky with a curly black head of hair that stood up like a clown’s wig. Unlike Zana, they all looked to be in desperate need of a shower, although Trent decided not to bring up the issue of hygiene as the three men approached him.

  “This here is Bozo,” Zana said, motioning to the tall man with the big hair.

  Trent shook his hand while taking in the surreal scenery of the camp.

  “OK, I got him down here,” Zana said. “Now, tell him, guys. Tell him about the Troll.”

  Chapter 17

  “YOU MIGHT WANNA have a seat for this,” Bozo said with a smile that was missing several teeth.

  Trent looked around, then sat down on a milk crate that looked like it had been turned over for just such a purpose.

  “I know you probably don’t believe us ‘bout this Troll, Mr. Walker, but I’m telling you that it’s real. Very real. And I’ve seen the thing. And smelled it. The creature smells horrible, by the way. You ever smell something really really bad down here all of a sudden, just start running. That means that the Tr
oll is close by!”

  “Did you actually see this Troll kill your friend that Zana was telling me about?” Trent said.

  “You mean, Sarah? Nah, I wasn’t around for that. I saw the creature a different time. But that was terrible about Sarah, man. She was so sweet…”

  Trent looked up at Zana, who implored him with her eyes to listen to the rest of Bozo’s story.

  Trent sighed and turned back to Bozo.

  “It was maybe three months ago,” Bozo said. “I was coming back from my shift at the gas station, close to two or three in the morning. Old man kept me late helping him with inventory. Not much traffic in the tunnels that time in the morning—so that was good at least.

  “I was just turning this corner when I smelled something terrible, like a bunch of dead fish. Nearly made me puke, man. Then I heard something growl at me, and I just stopped cold. Didn’t move a muscle. I can see pretty good in the dark, but it was really black down here that night, and I couldn’t see shit more than a foot in front of my face, know what I mean?

  “Anyway, I finally got my act together enough to run. I made it as far as from here to there,” Bozo said, pointing to a wall about twenty feet away. “And then I could just feel it, like something was closing in on me. We got these little hidey holes all around here in the tunnels. Like an opening in the wall where someone can hide. And I was lucky there was a hidey hole right there, so I slid in and tucked back there as far back as I could go. Then I just waited.

  “I was maybe six feet back from the main tunnel. Just sitting there, listening for that growling again. I thought maybe it was a dog or one of them wild cats. I knew I might be screwed hiding in there, but at least I could kick ‘em if some animal came in after me.

  “And that’s when that smell hit me again. Stomach started turning over. Ugh. But I still didn’t hear nothing. Next thing I knew, there was this big ol’ gnarly, scabby hand coming at me out of the darkness. I saw those fingers coming straight at me, and then they just stopped, ‘bout two inches from my face. Whatever was on the other end was trying real hard to squeeze in far enough to get me, but thank God it was too big to fit.