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18

 

There was enough water in the tunnel to make a spotty reflection of the glow from the ceiling strip and show up the rats that moved away ahead of me just out of BB gun range. I stopped a couple of times to listen, in case somebody was waiting for me up ahead and making noises. I didn't hear anything. That made me feel lonelier than ever.

The tunnel ended at a stair like the one I'd come down. The steps went up forty feet and ended in a landing just big enough to stand on. There was a wooden panel in front of me, with something chalked on the back of it in block letters: HINGES AT LEFT. WATCH FOR TRAFFIC FROM KITCHEN.

He was still with me. The thought didn't help much. From here, with all he knew, he'd gone on to get killed, an item that had probably netted two inches on an inside page; I felt over the panel, put a little weight against the right edge, then a little more. Nothing moved. That meant I could go back home and forget the whole thing. I gave it one last push and it swung out and dust sifted down and I could see a light coming through a vertical space at the end of a passage about a foot wide between the wall and a slab of sheet metal that would be the back of the heat plant. Past that, there was a big room with long tables and cabinets built in along one wall and a half-open door into another big room with a light and men in black sitting around a table. Just then something behind me made a clack! like a round sliding into a chamber, and I went as stiff as Automat Jell-O. Then a blower started up and sheet metal around me started to thrum. I let some air out and got my mouth back over my teeth and moved out along the wall. From here I had a better view of the room beyond the door. There were four men in there, with cards in their hands. A clock on the wall over their heads said seven-twenty-eight. It was well into the morning, but there was no sunlight shining in, which meant no windows. I filed that observation away and one of the men laid down his hand and stood up. So did the other three. One of them said something and they moved out of sight, acting like fellows remembering a missed appointment.

I worked my way along the side of the walk-in reefer and located three bolt heads that looked like the other ones but which turned, with a little persuasion, and let a piece of solid-looking wall ride straight back on oiled rails. I rushed in past it into a tight space and got it closed behind me. What I was in now was a tight vertical shaft thirty inches in diameter with six-inch rods going up in a spiral and a smell of old dust. The wall of the shaft and the rods both had the soapy feel of a high polymer plastic. I checked to be sure my gun was riding around front where I could get at it, and started up.

* * *

It was a nice easy climb for the first few dozen turns. Then my back started to ache from the bent-over position and my arches started to feel the rods and my hands were slippery with sweat and it was a long way down. All the light I had to see by was a creepy pale green glow that came from the plastic itself. I reminded myself of one of those restless corpses that grandpa used to tell me about before the DTs got him; the kind they had back in the old country that used to come out from under tombstones on the night of the new moon. Only this time I was the spook. I decided to give up that line of thought before I scared myself to death and just then somebody tapped me on the shoulder.

 

 

 

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Framed