There was a tunnel not terribly far from town. It lay just beyond the train tracks, the path dusted with falling leaves. It would attract young party-goers, as a last-ditch alternative to getting wasted if Alan at the corner store spotted their fake IDs. Pickup trucks and minivans would park by the abandoned train station, and they would hike through the woods. This had become routine for those in the know, like the seasonal rain that passed through the mountains.
The call of an awakening owl.
The creaking of the trees in the wind.
The closing of a car door.
As they hiked, Michael tossed a discarded blunt into the treeline. That part terrified Nicholas. His shoulders tensed up when he saw Michael throw that fire hazard out into the dark. He wanted to lurch toward it and stamp it out with his boot, but with Abby walking next to him, Nicholas didn’t want to give up his position, nor did he want to have to explain himself.
Tonight, Abby wore a pink coat with a fuzzy collar and tight jeans that Nicholas mindfully avoided looking at for too long. He had always avoided looking at her for too long. Every second seemed to stop time, and there was no telling if he held his gaze for one beat too many.
He’d sit outside the circles that Michael and Isabelle had formed at lunch. Abby had always made him feel like he was there in the heart of it, even when Michael would ignore him. When Michael floated the idea of revisiting that tunnel, Nicholas found himself pretending to have not heard him.
“You should come with us,” Abby later told Nicholas during the crowd rush when Spanish let out. A blur of students shoved past their shoulders.
He agreed immediately, but spent the night arguing with himself over her use of should. He was unsure if it sounded enthusiastic, and there was no way he was giving her a reason to second-guess her decisions now. He certainly wouldn’t have made the hike if it weren’t for her being there. The place terrified him, though he didn’t know why. He had dodged every opportunity to go before.
That changed tonight. Just stop thinking.
Up ahead, Michael wore brown cargo pants and a tank top despite the chill in the air. Nicholas, dressed for the autumn weather in a dark brown Mackinaw, buttoned to the top over dark pants and hiking boots, immediately felt like he had misunderstood the assignment. Nicholas assumed Michael was willing to risk a head cold in order to show off his arms, though he found them underwhelming. But it wasn’t him that Michael was trying to impress.
Isabelle walked next to Michael, all dolled up with too much blush to Nicholas’s taste, in rhinestone pants and a purple low-collar shirt, with a bright flannel tied up at a knot above her waist. With Michael’s hand free from the joint, he draped his arm over Isabelle’s shoulder and pointed up at the stars.
“See that one there?” Michael asked.
Isabelle stared blankly in that general direction, and then she scowled.
“That one’s Pluto,” he stated proudly. Michael hadn’t had anything to drink, but his speech was still slurred. He had fallen into the habit of being inebriated and didn’t even need the buzz to behave that way.
“No, it’s not,” Isabelle said and slumped Michael’s arm off her shoulder.
“Sure it is,” Michael dug in. He glanced over his shoulder at Nicholas and Abby. “The brightest planet in the sky. Right, Nick?”
Nicholas stifled a wince. He hated the nickname. Single-syllable names were stupid, and Michael knew that.
Nicholas cleared his throat. “NASA says that Pluto is technically a dwarf planet now.” He could feel Abby glance over at him. He didn’t want to make eye contact. Was she going to laugh at him? “And that’s not Pluto. That’s Sirius. Not a planet. A solar system. It’s about eight point two light-years away.”
“Our neighbor,” Abby mused.
Finally, Nicholas felt it was appropriate to look at her.
God, she’s pretty, he thought. He had always loved her auburn hair. It fell around her shoulders and provided such a stark contrast to her bright collar. She wore more makeup tonight than she usually did at school. Her dark eyeliner curled into a wing.
Michael leered over his shoulder. “See? That’s why we let him come along.” He snaked his arm around Isabelle’s shoulder again, and for some reason, she allowed it. “Now we won’t get lost.” The two snickered at each other. Nicholas figured it was best to let Michael win whatever little game he was playing. It was always easier that way.
“You’re in Astronomy with Mr. Schulz, right?” Abby asked. Nicholas hadn’t noticed that she was walking closer to him now. He could smell her perfume, but couldn’t figure out what fragrance it was supposed to be.
“Yeah,” Nicholas said. “It’s dumb, but I like it.”
“It’s not dumb,” Abby said.
“It’s a little dumb,” Michael sniped, then turned his attention back to his hushed conversation with Isabelle.
“He was in it, too,” Nicholas whispered.
“Not for very long, it seems,” Abby added. She brushed a strand of her hair over her ear. She always did that when she was unsure of what to say. “What got you into it?”
“My dad,” Nicholas said. “He got me a telescope when I turned seventeen. It was one of the last things he gave me.” He felt the stutter beginning to overtake him halfway through his sentence, and he couldn’t even bring himself to finish it.
Abby’s eyes widened for a second. “Oh my god.” Her hand shot to her mouth. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have – ”
The whole town knew.
“No, no, it’s – it’s – fine.” Nicholas shook his head, hoping the stutter would fall out of his ears. He took a sharp inhale. “Not your fault.”
He had slowed his pace. Michael and Isabelle walked several feet ahead of them. Then Michael stumbled. Did he trip on something? Michael seemed to have regained his footing, and the two of them walked uneasily with their hands outstretched.
“I will never get used to that,” Michael laughed. Isabelle flung herself at Michael and threw her arms around his waist.
“Nicholas,” Abby reached out and grabbed his hand. His heart shot up into his throat. “Just wait a minute.”
Was she about to kiss me? Did I brush my teeth?
He glanced at her hand in his. “What’s wrong?” He asked.
What’s wrong? Did I really just –
“There’s something you need to know about the tunnel,” Abby said.
Michael and Isabelle both shouted something unintelligible. Michael raised his hands to the sky. “Who the fuck needs astronomy now?” he howled.
“What do you mean?” Nicholas asked Abby.
She smiled, but there was something dark behind her eyes. Was she scared? “It’s really fun in there. You’re going to love it. But you need to be careful. There’s something wrong with it.”
Nicholas felt a nervous laugh escape his lips. “What?”
Her other hand clasped over his. “It’s really hard to explain. Just don’t freak out,” Abby said. She began to walk backward towards the others. “Everything is about to become very different.”
She was right. She took two more steps and then shivered. Her whole body jolted and waved. She threw her head back and gasped. Her hair draped down in front of her eyes. She made no effort to brush it away. Her shoulders and hips continued to jostle. Nicholas felt an odd sensuality to this sudden outburst that overpowered his confusion.
“You ready?” she practically moaned. Her breath heaved as she gently pulled Nicholas toward her. He took a step forward, and the sudden vertigo nearly toppled him.
The hairs on the back of his neck stiffened, and he felt a cold chill overtake him. Just a moment previously, he had felt the certainty and stability of solid ground. It was a sensation that he never needed to prepare for. He never needed to notice it.
In an instant, that was yanked away from him. His vision pulsed, and the dark forest around him became fuzzy with his footsteps. He lost his footing, but Abby steadied him. Nicholas trembled, and his legs buckled. It reminded him of those terrifying moments on a roller coaster, just before the cart was plunged down into the earth below.
He wheezed and groaned. It was involuntary and sudden. He would’ve been embarrassed if he didn’t feel like he was about to slip and fall off the face of the earth. For that reason, an outburst felt warranted. He looked to the treeline and saw the bristles shuddering, but he felt no wind on his skin.
He shut his eyes for a moment and breathed. He wanted to scream. He wanted to curl inward on himself. He felt so heavy.
But then he felt Abby. He felt her breath on his cheek. He felt her legs on his waist. He felt her breasts on his chest. He lost all sense of balance and did not know why. But she kept him afloat on what he once assumed was dry land.
Nicholas opened his eyes. He could see the top of Abby’s head as she nuzzled into the crook of his neck. She pulled back a moment when she felt him shift. Her lips were curled in what wasn’t fully a grin. Her cheeks puffed out like she was holding back a deep exhale. Her eyes glanced skyward, and she pressed a finger to her lips, urging Nicholas to stay quiet. He slowly followed her eyeline and looked to the night sky above him.
Nothing. He saw absolutely nothing at all. The treetops extended to a pure, impossibly expansive void. The stars were gone.
They’re gone. How can they be gone?
Just minutes ago, he could spot the constellations, the planets that were actually visible in the sky. There was no moon, there was no north star, there was no Sirius. Just endless black.
Nicholas’s mind raced to rationalize. A cloud layer, it had to be. But there were no clouds tonight. The air was deathly still. On nights like these, he’d lug his telescope, gifted by his father, out to the driveway and sketch the night away with mindless triangulation and chart crafting. The activity only offered intrinsic value since he couldn’t show his father his notes anymore.
He opened his mouth – to comment, to question, to scream – he had no idea what would spill out, but Abby pressed her palm over his mouth and shook her head. Her eyes glowed with excitement and ecstasy.
“No, no, no,” she whispered. “None of that. We’re here to enjoy ourselves. Just stop thinking.”
He shut his eyes. He couldn’t stop thinking. Never in his life could he stop thinking. He didn’t even want to come here. Another night he could’ve passed at home, and he wouldn’t have batted an eye.
The stars had been wiped away. The moon had vanished. Something had happened, and he couldn’t intellectualize it. His breathing steadied. His heart slowed. He looked into Abby’s eyes, and for the first time, nothing mattered.
There was a glow behind her irises. That was enough to ground him. Nicholas found himself smiling. He was elated and couldn’t shake the carnal need to push deeper into the forest. He had no doubt he shared that glow with her. Abby turned, her hand still pressed in his, and led him through the dark.
Nicholas’s vision swam with every step, but he found himself adjusting to his new sense of balance rapidly. Far ahead, Michael and Isabelle cracked glowsticks, which illuminated their faces like a signal fire. Nicholas matched his footsteps with Abby, and the two joined the others.
“I’m shocked you didn’t lose your lunch,” Michael told Nicholas as they passed.
“Shush,” Abby said.
Michael laughed to himself, amused enough on his own. He hurled his glowstick forward, and the tunnel materialized before them.
The concrete cylinder was an enormous maw, too vast and deep for the light to reach. As soon as they passed the threshold, all sound had been cut from the forest. Nicholas heard nothing, not even his shoes on the concrete. Just his breath, his heartbeat, and the breath of Abby near him. Isabelle handed Abby a glowstick, and she raised it up before her.
The tunnel was fractured. Multiple wide passages jutted outward from the main path, each one as large and imposing as the last. It made no sense to Nicholas. This was a train tunnel, but there were no tracks. There was no reason for this place to be a labyrinth. Passageways for miles. Passageways in the ceiling. It was an unmappable series of tunnels incompatible with trains and foot traffic. It brought images of a coral reef to Nicholas’ mind. A complex structure built on top of itself.
Michael hooked his arms around Isabelle’s waist and pulled her into the left tunnel. She giggled, and the two vanished from view, but the luminance from their glowsticks broadcast their position.
“Come on,” Abby whispered, and the two took the central tunnel. Abby trained her head forward and ignored the other paths. Curiosity bit at Nicholas. He found himself peering into the darkness with each one they passed, but Abby maintained a steady pace and practically pulled him along with her. She knew what she wanted. Nicholas loved that, but still had to push away the urge to break free.
He was with her.
Alone.
Isn’t that what he wanted?
“Here,” Abby’s voice broke the silence. They stood before yet another nexus, with branching paths inviting Nicholas in. Abby gently turned his head toward her. Nicholas blinked away the distractions in his peripheral vision.
She set down the glow stick, and Nicholas thought he saw the thing not settle into the concrete but instead lay suspended several inches above it. It must’ve been a trick of the light. Then he noticed Abby’s hair. Tufts of it floated upwards like the two of them were seated at the bottom of a swimming pool. It flowed unnaturally in a current he couldn’t feel.
“That’s a neat trick…” Nicholas found himself saying.
“That’s nothing.” She snaked her fingers through her flowing hair and tied it back in a bun. Besides the loose tufts around her ears that flowed freely, the newfound stability of her hair helped Nicholas feel more grounded. It didn’t last.
She jumped backwards into the tunnel, and her body simply stayed there. She was inches above the ground, and she was stuck in a small perpetual roll. She flailed her arms wildly like a terrified bird, but she laughed. Her thrashing steadied her after some time, and of all the things he had experienced tonight, this gave Nicholas the most pause. He was disoriented; there were tricks of light, and a strange pressure change in the tunnel. It had to be that simple.
It had to be.
But then Abby beckoned him to join her, with her arms outstretched as if to catch him, and finally, without thinking, Nicholas ascended. The weight left him, lifted from his shoulders, and he wanted to gasp. He wanted to cry. He wanted to float away forever. But tonight, he wouldn’t leave her.
Abby reached out and secured her hand around Nicholas’s arm as he floated up to meet her. The two orbited one another, bathed in the neon green haze of the glowstick, their shadows flickering against the concrete, always moving and shifting. It was almost as if they were surrounded by others. They couldn’t even hear Michael and Isabelle off in the nearby tunnels.
Why would you ever leave this place? Nicholas wondered.
“We all have to go home eventually,” Abby answered, and Nicholas realized he had asked his question out loud. “Maybe out there just makes us appreciate our time in here all the more.”
“It doesn’t hurt in here.” Nicholas found his hand pressed into hers as the two absently mirrored one another.
“What doesn’t?” she asked.
“I don’t know. I feel like I’m going to cry. I don’t know why.”
“You can cry. There’s nothing wrong with that. I cried my first time in here.”
So he did. His shoulders heaved, and it took all he had just to stop himself from wailing. She cradled his head, and he sobbed into the fuzzy collar of her pink coat. It felt like he was meant to be here. In this moment, with Abby.
They lost track of time, as every moment to Nicholas felt like an eternity tangled up in her. The taste of her lips, the softness of her hair. He could finally confirm so many questions he had asked himself in the late hours of lonely nights. Everything finally made sense in a place that made no sense.
Except for one thing.
Who was whispering? He had tried to ignore it. He’d feel a presence behind him. There’d be a murmur or movement in the corner of his eye. But every time he turned to the shadows that inhabited the further reaches of the tunnel, Abby would gently turn his head back to face her.
“What is that?” he asked several minutes or hours later.
“It’s nothing,” Abby said. “I don’t hear anything. Just ignore it.” Her voice was heavy with fatigue. The two had needed to constantly steady themselves as they floated and rotated; occasionally, they’d drift too close to the concrete and would need to lightly kick back off into the orbit they generated. Abby’s eyes closed as she curled up into a fetal position and stilled her movements.
When Nicholas heard that voice again, he couldn’t let it go. Abby looked comfortable where she was, and he would only be gone a moment. Something was speaking to him, and he couldn’t decipher what it was saying. He grabbed one of the glowsticks and swam deeper into the tunnel. He looked over his shoulder and saw Abby's shape in the center of the tunnel, floating there like a lily pad.
“Hello?” Nicholas whispered. “I can barely hear you.”
It replied.
“Where are you?” Nicholas asked.
It replied.
Nicholas felt his blood run cold. “Why do you sound like him?”
It was silent.
He swam forward more, his glowstick extended out before him, squinting against the harsh neon glow. The darkness of the tunnel was suffocating, and the light barely made a difference besides painting his arms in a sickly hue.
He felt the fear creep up the back of his neck. The brisk tension made it want to lock up and freeze. He had to turn back. He knew that was the right decision.
But he couldn’t make it. He had to know what lurked in this impossible place.
***
Nicholas was unsure how much time had passed before the glowstick began to fade.
He should have turned back long ago. He should have stopped once the tunnel began to curve. Before he had reached yet another nexus. Before he noticed that the graffiti and human relics began to vanish. Before the smooth concrete had shifted to jagged stone. He could feel jagged stones press into the palms of his hands when the cave became too narrow to even crouch through. Any time those instincts screamed at him that he had traveled too far, that he had dug too deep, he would hear it.
That voice was always just out of reach. Always around another turn.
Most nights, he would awake sweating and gasping in his bed. The sound of his father hitting the floor down the hall had awoken him over a year ago. He had fallen at work less than a year before that, but had refused treatment. He’d brushed aside the paramedics ushering him into the ambulance and returned to his shift. If he couldn’t see it, then it wasn’t there.
But Nicholas had noticed his father’s limp, how much his head ached. It was a mystery he couldn’t afford to solve, so he found his clarity at the bottom of a bottle, at the end of the next cigarette. Nicholas wasn't sure if he could ever forgive him for that solution, but he knew in the back of his mind there was no alternative. It was the hand his father had been dealt, as if fate had placed that shadow in his cranium.
That night, so many months, so many lifetimes ago, Nicholas heard his father collapse in his bedroom. He had dragged the nightstand down with him. That crash rippled off the stones that now surrounded him; its echo stung his ears and rattled his teeth.
That night, the hallway stretched for miles, the light spilling under the door. Nicholas was so tired. His body was so heavy. He had heard a bump in the night, so what? He had class in the morning; he turned to face the wall, pulling the covers over his head, curling up under their warmth.
Frigid stones now pressed against his side as he cowered in the darkness of this new tunnel. His voice was too sore from howling. No one could hear him. He had to turn back. Why hadn’t he turned back? His fingers clenched around soft fabric, wishing he could pull it over his head and deny the choice that he had made that night
No – that he made tonight. Nicholas screamed out Abby’s name one final time before he felt his voice snuffed out by an oppressive darkness and impossible weight in a tunnel that made no sense. In a place he shouldn’t be. A place that shouldn’t be.
He trudged forward, directionless, until he slammed into a soft wall that caked his skin in a warm residue. Nicholas blindly ran his hands along the hidden surface and could hear his fingers sloshing against whatever it was. The flexible ground beneath his feet began to quake, and whatever it was that he had touched began to shift.
Nicholas instinctively cowered and shut his eyes, trading the darkness of the tunnel for the darkness that he had created. When everything stilled, he opened them once more.
And he saw a light. He saw a miracle. He saw that he had somehow found his way back. It had to have been Abby, or Michael, or Isabelle; he had found one of their glowsticks. He plowed forward, pushed through the phlegm around him, squeezed through the sharp, crooked stones that tore at his flesh, and then his eyes adjusted.
The light was not green. It was not a glowstick. It was amber and distant, but growing larger. As it barreled toward him, it revealed the cavern walls as pink veins and pulsating skin. Nicholas screamed, and the thing he had crawled into screamed back at him.
When Nicholas’s father passed, and the doctors confirmed the time of death, Nicholas sat in the hall, his head in his hands, weeping silently because he lacked the strength to burn the world, so it could match his sorrow and rage. So he wouldn’t be alone at the bottom of the pit. No one came to help him.
Just days later, he had turned eighteen. A number that dictated his readiness to step out into the world, alone, and pretend to live. Just like on that day when the only person in Nicholas’s life who had his back had vanished in an instant, Nicholas had once again fallen through the cracks of the world and vanished with a whimper.
***
When Abby emerged from the tunnel and felt her stomach drop with gravity’s sudden return, she braced herself against the concrete wall of the tunnel and sucked in a hard breath, trying her best not to vomit when Michael and Isabelle stumbled their way from the yawning abyss. Michael was still adjusting his belt, and Isabelle walked several feet behind him. Her eyes focused on nothing as her thoughts were miles away from here.
“I’m fucking exhausted,” Michael mumbled. He turned to Abby. “You got everything?”
She nodded. Michael dug a flashlight from his bag that he had left at the entrance, and the beam shot out into the night, illuminating the shifting trees that shimmered and waved in an unfelt current.
“So,” Abby shot a forced smile towards Isabelle. “How was it?”
“I’ll tell you later,” she said dryly, her tone irritated. Isabelle walked past Abby, but not before adding, “I hope you got something out of this, at least.”
Abby did. Her experience in the tunnel had warmed her, and her mind wandered back to memories of –
She froze.
Memories of –
She felt a creeping dread overtake her for a moment and looked back at the tunnel. The sight of it shot a cold jolt through her heart, but she couldn’t piece together why. Darkness and silence were the only answers she found. She patted her pockets. She inspected the ground. She took one step back onto the concrete before she felt Isabelle’s hand on her shoulder.
“Hey,” she said, suddenly alert. She searched Abby’s face for an answer before she asked, “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” Abby answered, despite not believing it. She backed away from the tunnel, a place that now seemed imposing. That inky blackness now felt like a natural warning, urging her to keep moving, to run and never look back. She felt her muscles tense and her throat tighten. Her eyes welled up as an instinct screamed at her to flee, a sense that had never steered her wrong before.
“I w-want to leave,” Abby weakly stated.
“We are,” Isabelle answered softly. She took Abby’s hand and guided her away from the tunnel. As the two caught up to Michael on the cold path through the woods, Abby couldn’t stop looking over her shoulder.
It was always like this. That place was enticing for its otherness; it offered a rush that she knew couldn’t be found anywhere else. But she was always left shaken. The darkness and dust from that place clung to her skin. Marking her, dragging her back to that weightless place, where she could just let go.
She swore to herself again. That was the last time she would ever set foot in that horrific place.
But this was her idea. Wasn’t it?
Abby had always hated the tunnel. She hated how small she felt in a place that might take her in its jaws at any moment. She hated the tunnel for how it always left her feeling like she had forgotten something.