A new possibility opened up for Alex. He felt like he was falling down a well, waiting to hit bottom.
“The door to the afterlife was opened.” Todtman paused and looked down. “I told her there was a risk.”
“So now there’s a door to the afterlife?” said Ren, exasperated.
Todtman turned to her, his eyebrows high with surprise. “Yes, of course. There are many.”
“And what got out?” asked Alex. “Of the doors?”
“Whatever was waiting, it seems. That includes the Stung Man, of course. We don’t know who else … The Death Walkers were waiting — how many of them got out, though? It could be any of them; it could be all of them. They are certainly all quite dangerous. Men and women whose hearts were heavy with evil thousands of years ago — well, I doubt they’ve gotten nicer with time.”
Alex had one last flash of recognition, but this one was more like a lightning bolt. He reached the bottom of the well. He crashed down. “This is all my fault …”
He looked up at Todtman, hoping he would say something reassuring, tell Alex he’d completely misunderstood.
But Todtman said nothing, just kept walking.
Alex struggled to find words — sorry, maybe, though sorry didn’t remotely cut it — but his throat was clamped shut. All this because of him. All this so he could live. The Stung Man with his wet, malevolent eyes, the little mummy who couldn’t sleep. His mom, missing. And all because of him.
Ren looked from Alex to Todtman and opened her mouth, but seemed to think better of it. Instead, she took a step closer to Alex and simply walked next to him. Emotional Support Position.
The group took one final turn. They were near the center of the park now. They were alone in a park that was too empty, too quiet. They stuck to the center of the path.
“So why do they need Alex’s mom?” Ren finally said, a few steps later. “I mean, if all this is true.”
“Perhaps because they know she knows how to use the Spells,” said Todtman. “Though she would need the amulet. I’m not sure they’ve made that connection yet.”
Alex looked at him. Did that put her in less danger, or more? Todtman’s expression gave nothing away.
“I’m grounded, you know?” said Ren. “My parents just think it was a robbery last night, but still.”
Alex realized she was talking just to talk now, that she needed to hear the sound of a human voice in this empty place.
“I mean, I know I don’t seem grounded, but they don’t really check …”
“We’re almost there,” interrupted Todtman. “You can smell it now.”
Alex breathed in through his nose. It was a rank smell, not overpowering yet, but not good.
They were walking up a small hill, approaching the top.
“Smells like wet dog,” said Ren.
They reached the top of the little hill and looked down.
“No,” said Todtman. “It smells like death.”
They gazed down on the park’s main sanitation substation. Workers in green coveralls and white masks were standing on a platform and shoveling dead animals into a massive metal shipping container. Alex saw squirrels and pigeons by the shovelful, along with some stray cats and even ducks and geese.
So many of them, tossed onto the pile like heavy, wet pillows.
The scorpions, Alex thought.
“I have to include you in this now, Alex,” said Todtman softly. “I didn’t want to, but I cannot use the scarab and I think it is the key. I need you both to see how big this is. And how dangerous. This” — he gestured to the gruesome scene in front of them — “is just the beginning. The Order has always been powerful, but now the Death Walkers are returning, as the cult had long hoped they would. They are working together, and that is a very dangerous combination.”
Dangerous, thought Alex. There’s that word again.
But it didn’t matter.
“It’s my mom,” he said with a sharp nod of his head. “And my fault. I’m in.”
Todtman regarded Ren solemnly. “Ren, you are a smart girl, and I suppose you can make up your own mind, but I would prefer it if you were not involved.”
They were all quiet for a while, the scrape of shovels the only thing to break the silence.
Ren spoke first.
“You don’t want me ‘involved’?” she asked. Her voice was quiet, but Alex recognized the fierce look on her face.
“No.”
“Well, tough,” she said. “Alex is my best friend. And his mom is my third-favorite parent.”
Todtman’s expression remained flat, unmoved.
“Just the same,” he said, “I see no reason to endanger your life, too.”
“Friends stick together,” Ren said. “It’s nonnegotiable.”
Alex felt a huge rush of gratitude. He didn’t want Ren mixed up in this mess, but he didn’t know how he could do this without her.
“And anyway,” she said, “I know where the Stung Man and Al-Dab’u went.”
Now Todtman’s expression changed. It was pure surprise.
“Where they went?” said Todtman.
“Yeah, how they got away from you at the museum, with the Stung Man still moving so slowly …”
“How?” said Todtman.
“I’ll tell you,” she said as they turned and began the walk back to Fifth Avenue. “But it smells even worse than this place.”
Alex didn’t care what it smelled like. He wasn’t the logical list maker that Ren was, but he’d figured something out in his little bedroom office the night before, a pure logic equation that kept running through his mind:
The Order has Mom. If I find Al-Dab’u and the Stung Man, I find Mom.
He looked over at Ren, but she didn’t notice. Her hands were balled into fists, and he knew her mind was grinding away at all this.
Their mission had changed, but he still had exactly the right partner.
“You look ridiculous,” Alex said to Ren.
They had just dropped through a drain in the floor of the Met’s subbasement and were in an old sewer tunnel. Ren had rubber boots on her feet, a mask on her face, and a white plastic suit everywhere else. The suit was way too big for her, so the sleeves and legs were bunched up with thick rubber bands. All of the gear had come from Todtman, courtesy of a trip to the Home Depot on Fifty-Ninth.
“I guess sewer suits don’t come in petite sizes,” she said, swinging a large flashlight back and forth in front of her. The beam lit a stream of dark, soup-thick water passing by below them. The masks were designed to filter out things like fiberglass insulation and cement dust, but did little for the smell.
“I think these suits are supposed to be for painting,” said Alex.
“This place could use a good paint job,” said Ren as she swung her flashlight across the moldy, filth-caked top of the old sewer tunnel.
“How did you know this connected to the museum, anyway?” said Alex.
“My dad mentioned it once: ‘drainage subbasement.’ I’d been thinking about how the two of them managed to just disappear. How could the Stung Man have outrun Todtman? Plus there were guards at all the exits, because of the blackout. They couldn’t just magically disappear — I think — so, where could they have gone?” She swung her flashlight around again. “No guards here.”
Alex managed a nervous laugh. He was at least as scared as he was grossed out, and the chatter helped. Remember why you’re here, he told himself. Remember the mission. If Al-Dab’u and the Stung Man really exited this way, then they needed to figure out where they went. He fingered his amulet to calm his nerves a little.
Ren was holding her flashlight in her left hand and wielding a small crowbar in her right. He wasn’t sure how much good that would do …
Alex swept his flashlight in front of him and tried to find a clear spot to put his foot down. They were walking along a thin ledge, just above the slow-flowing sludge. He stopped for a moment to check their printout of the Upper East Side sewer system w
ith the flashlight.
“We are totally doing Todtman’s dirty work,” said Ren.
“I’m not sure I’d want to be him at the museum today, either,” said Alex.
“This is still tougher,” said Ren, stomping her boot down in the muck to make her point. “Not many people could do this.”
Alex didn’t disagree with either statement, but he didn’t really see where she was going with it. “Okay,” he said.
“Like, do you think Jesse could do this?”
“Jesse Blatz?”
“Yeah, just for example.”
“You need to get over that kid. You’re just as smart as him.”
“I’m maybe sixty percent as smart as him,” she said and whacked at the air with her crowbar. “Just answer the question.”
“Do I think he could do this?”
“Yeah.”
“Walk through toilet water? Probably.”
“I don’t mean that. I mean, I don’t know, get chased by a mummy and then chase it back.”
“Then, no. I don’t think he could do this.”
Ren’s white mask bobbed up and down in an emphatic nod. “I don’t, either.”
Alex took a few more steps through the turgid muck. “He’s too smart to.”
They both chuckled. It echoed slightly in the tunnel and they nervously swung their flashlights from side to side in the darkness.
The ledge narrowed and Alex gave up on it and stepped off so he was up to his ankles in a slowly flowing, stew-thick stream. They trudged on quietly for a while. It was quiet except for the squelching of their feet. It was horrible down here, but it was just the two of them — at least he hoped it was. He felt like he could say anything. And hadn’t Ren just done that?
“Hey, Ren?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you think this …” He took a few more steps. “Never mind.”
“What?”
“Okay. Well. Do you think this is all my fault?”
“No way! Don’t be dumb,” she said — and then very quickly changed the subject. “Anyway, we have to concentrate. Keep your eyes open.”
“What exactly are we looking for? It’s not like they would’ve left footprints.”
This time he stomped his foot to make his point.
“Look for scraps of cloth,” said Ren. “That thing’s, like, mummy garb didn’t look too secure.”
Alex stopped to check the sewer map again and something solid bumped into his boot. He swung his flashlight around, but whatever it was had already drifted downstream. A few minutes later, something else floated by. This time, he got his flashlight on it. It was a dead rat. “Gross,” he said.
“I saw one of those, too,” Ren called from up on the ledge.
After another ten minutes of trudging straight ahead, they came to a T-shaped junction in the pipes. Alex located it on the map. “Which way?” he said.
Both passages smelled terrible. They swept their flashlights in one direction: nothing. Then the other: “Is that another rat?” said Ren.
It was. And this one was up out of the water, lying dead on its side on the narrow walking ledge. Ren headed toward it.
“I guess we’re going this way,” said Alex, following along.
Ren bent down over the dead rodent, and Alex leaned over her shoulder for a look. “Does it seem weird that we haven’t seen any live rats down here?” he said.
“I think I know why,” said Ren, holding her flashlight closer to the carcass. “See that?”
Alex saw. “It’s a sting.”
“Well,” said Ren, “not exactly a footprint, but …”
They followed the trail of dead rats for what felt like five miles — and smelled like fifty. Every movement and every sound made them jump. It wasn’t just the certainty of dead rats and the possibility of live scorpions that had them on edge. They were alone, in the dark. And the Stung Man could be anywhere.
Todtman was sure he would be long gone, that the sewer was “a route and not a destination.” But Todtman wasn’t there.
As Alex walked, he frequently had to stoop down to avoid bumping his head. Ren, not so much. Finally, the passage began to slope slightly upward. The floors got drier and pipes ceased to pour filth in on them. There were even occasional slivers of daylight filtering in from above. It all came to a dead end at a battered concrete wall.
Alex smacked the wall. He’d been so sure they were going to find something.
They hadn’t seen a dead rat for a while now and seemed to have run out of leads. Alex checked the map again. “I think maybe we’re near Lexington Avenue,” he said.
Ren inched her flashlight beam slowly across the concrete, and that’s when they saw it: a dark, narrow gash that didn’t catch the light. There was a vertical gap in the wall.
Alex walked over to it, took a deep breath, and ducked his head through.
“See anything?” said Ren.
“It looks like another tunnel, but it’s too dark to tell.”
He stood still.
“Wait … I think I feel something.”
“I feel it, too,” confirmed Ren. “It’s getting stronger.”
It started as a faint rumbling — just a tickle in the soles of Alex’s boots — but it quickly grew strong enough to rattle his teeth. For a few seconds, Alex was afraid it was an earthquake. I do NOT want to die down here, he thought. Then he saw a bright round light in the distance and yanked his head back through the gap as it approached.
He had to shout to be heard over the noise: “It’s the subway!”
The rumbling reached a crescendo as the train whipped by on the other side. They could see the lights and hear the wind from the subway cars.
As soon as it passed by, Ren rushed forward and stuck her head through the gap. It was wide enough that she could have squeezed through it if she wanted.
“What was it?” asked Alex.
She pulled her head back in: “The 4 train. Downtown express. We’re under Lexington Avenue!”
Alex felt like hitting the wall again — maybe punching it this time. “If they got into the subway tunnels, they could be anywhere now.”
Ren kept quiet. She didn’t have an answer to that.
They had to trudge back through the sewer, back through dead rats and unspeakably gross sludge, to get to the closest manhole. They marched together in silence. Ren coughed because of the smell every once in a while, and Alex’s mind was on his mother. Eventually, they spotted the narrow steel rungs of the little ladder. Alex went up first with the crowbar. It was the first time he’d really tested his new strength.
His muscles began burning almost immediately, unaccustomed to the effort. He wanted to take a break, but didn’t want Ren to see him fail. He put all his weight into one big push, and the heavy lid finally popped loose.
Timing the traffic was tougher, and Alex was too impatient to wait. He’d been down there long enough. He listened for the first break in traffic and then muscled the manhole cover aside.
“Wait!” called Ren, a few rungs below.
Alex popped his head out to look and a taxi nearly whack-a-moled him. He ducked down and reached up to see if his head was still there. He tried again: all clear. He scrambled up the little ladder, then stood there with his hand out in a stop sign.
There was only so official a twelve-year-old was going to look in late-afternoon traffic, but the suit and mask helped. Ren scrambled up after him, then they pushed and kicked the lid back in place and sprinted to the curb. A sidewalk full of shoppers stared at them. They were so relieved to be back in the daylight that they barely noticed.
“Gas leak,” said Ren matter-of-factly. “Everything’s okay now, though.”
They hurried around the corner and peeled off their filth-splattered plastic suits. Ren took the opportunity to scold Alex about the taxi. “You took a lot of dumb chances back there,” she said. “Wading through that sludge — what if you’d stepped on something sharp? And you almost lost your head rushing in
to traffic.”
Alex shrugged. He was done with being careful about every little move. He took out his phone. “We think they went into the subway tunnels,” he said when Todtman picked up. “Because that’s where the trail leads. And also because we really, really don’t want to go back into the sewer.”
Alex’s aunt and uncle still weren’t home when he got back to the apartment that evening. The door to Luke’s room was open, and Alex ducked his head in. The walls were covered in posters. Alex was expecting football and baseball, but what he saw was mostly track and a lot of Olympic rings. Luke was on a mat on the floor doing yoga. Alex decided not to comment. Because: muscles. “Olympics, huh?” he said instead.
“That’s the plan,” said Luke, continuing to stare at the ceiling, as the pose required.
“What, like, event?” Alex was in shaky territory here. There were only a few events he really knew about.
“Decathlon.”
Alex did, however, speak more ancient Greek than most kids. “That means ten — ten events?”
Luke changed positions. If Alex had to give this one a name, he’d call it Improbable Crab pose. “Yeah, ten events,” said Luke, “but I got a strategy. If I get really good at one of them, I can just switch and concentrate on that. It’s called specialization.”
Luke pronounced the word like it was a fancy French dessert.
“That’s a lot of work,” said Alex.
“I like the work,” said Luke, his muscles beginning to tremble with the strain of the pose. “Problem is it’s expensive. Camps, coaches, travel. ’Rents kind of aren’t having it.” Luke collapsed onto the mat and wiped the sweat from his face with his forearm. He looked over and flashed a quick, unhappy smile. “Say I should just play football.”
Alex gave him his best I hear ya, man headshake, but what he was really thinking about was his struggle with the manhole cover and how he still got winded so quickly. “Hey, Luke,” he said, “think you could show me some of those poses sometime?”
“Sure thing, little man,” he said. Alex wished he wouldn’t call him that. Luke was a good six inches taller than him but only a year and a half older.
Alex knew he needed to shower — and probably shower again — but he was eager to get back to his little room. He needed to practice with the amulet. He told himself that even if they hadn’t found the Stung Man today, they would eventually. That would mean another confrontation — on enemy turf this time.
Book of the Dead Page 9
