Into the Dungeon

That night, our group gathered in the academy’s empty dojo before heading to the old shed.

Everyone had brought weapons of some kind in their duffle bags and sports luggage. We’d decided to go armed, just in case the thing in the shed had been more than just some poor lost soul trapped in the sewers.

I looked around at our motley group. Takeda and Endo were doing practice swings with metal bats, a popular item in every zombie flick ever made. I’d brought my ninjato sword and a few other items. Hayami, as I’d expected, had a genuine katana in an enameled scabbard. Erika wielded a finely crafted staff, made from polished ebony.

“Endo, I believe you brought the map?” Hayami asked.

Endo put his bat away, plopped down on the floor and rolled out the map of the underground tunnels he’d taken from his father.

We all knelt down on the dojo’s tatami mats and studied the map in silence. I noticed something immediately.

There was one corridor that ended abruptly. Someone had drawn a question mark past the dead end. I tapped this with my finger.

“Endo, is that tunnel sealed off?”

“Yeah, the construction workers blocked it with rocks and gravel.”

“Aren’t construction companies supposed to tell the government if they find fossils, ancient ruins, that kind of thing? So they can send in archeologists and researchers, maybe map things out?”

“That wasn’t necessary.” He gave me a scornful glare. “See the green shading? It represents the void spaces detected by hyperspectral remote sensing.”

His explanation was met with four blank stares.

He waved his hand at the map. “Just think of it as radar that finds tunnels and underground buildings, although that’s oversimplifying. I’ve been learning to operate the equipment.”

I looked at him with new respect. “That’s impressive. Up until now, I thought you were just another sports nut, but you seem to know this stuff.”

Unsure if he was being complimented or insulted, Endo settled for shrugging his shoulders. “I work with my dad sometimes.”

Kind of like the way I work with Uncle Kouki, I thought.

“So, no one bothered to look beyond this point?” I pointed at the question mark.

“Nah,” Endo replied. “Uh, well…” He fidgeted in his chair. “The foreman of the work crew thought he heard something.”

“What did he hear?”

“He thought he heard a wild animal howling beyond the entrance to the tunnel. After that, he and his workers couldn’t move fast enough to block the tunnel.”

Endo looked uncomfortable throughout his explanation. I couldn’t help wondering if there was something he wasn’t telling us.

Takeda sat with his arms crossed, rubbing his chin with his thumb. “So, how do we clear that blocked area? A shovelful at a time?”

Without hesitation, Erika leaned forward and tapped an area on Endo’s map to the west of the sealed-off area. I wasn’t surprised to see her pointing at the gray outline of a maintenance shed on the edge of the academy property line.

“We can go in here. Keisuke and I discovered a trap door in this old shed. It probably leads down to something…ah, yes. See? It’s right over this storm sewer.”

I leaned closer. Sure enough, the shed was right on top of a thick blue line indicating a large drainage pipe with plenty of room to maneuver. And the blue line connected to the unknown area shaded in green.

“I guess we’d better bring some rain boots or waders,” I said. But something more important was on my mind.

“Erika, some time back when you asked me for help, you said that ‘there was something in there’ and you needed me to help you get it.”

“And you want to know what I was talking about, right?” She pulled a sheet of paper out of her satchel and laid it on top of the map. It was an article from a news site. The headline read:

BANK OF JAPAN ROBBERY LARGEST EVER

““The BOJ heist!” I exclaimed. “They stole billions of yen worth of gold bullion, taken from the Hishikari mines. BOJ called Uncle in as a security consultant.”

I picked up the article and scanned it. “Yeah, here it is: ‘Police were able to capture all but one of the criminals, the driver, who remains at large.’” I couldn’t help but feel proud. “Thanks to Uncle Kouki, the police were able to find most of the robbers.”

“Yeah,” sneered Endo. “But the money was never found, and he didn’t catch everyone, did he?”

“I take back anything nice I said about you, Endo. Uncle isn’t responsible for catching the criminals, the police are. There really is nothing but muscle between your ears, is there?”

Endo’s eyes opened wide in anger. Before he could jump up and punch me, Hayami laid a hand on his shoulder. “Erika, you think this money has been hidden in these mazes? Why?”

“Two reasons,” Erika said. “According to the article, a truck matching the description of the one used in the robbery was last seen near here.” She took a mechanical pencil and circled an area on the map. It was on an access road near one of the big pipes connecting to the storm sewer under the old shed.

“Didn’t the police check that area thoroughly, though?” Takeda asked.

“Maybe they didn’t feel it was worth their time,” Erika suggested. “There’s a lot of underground construction there, they couldn’t possibly cover all of it.”

“There’s also several sinkholes in the area.” I grinned. “Maybe they heard a noise and got scared, like the foreman did.”

“What’s the second reason, Erika?” Takeda asked.

“I, uh, sometimes have really vivid dreams,” she said. Clearly embarrassed, she rubbed her hands together and fidgeted. “I call them ‘visions’ because they’re so vivid, like I was really there. After reading this article,” she tapped the clipping in my hands, “I had this dream. I can’t explain it, but I can feel something pulling me to these tunnels.”

“A hunch,” I said.

Erika glanced at me in surprise. “Yes, I guess you could call it that.”

She pressed her hand against the center of the map. “I have a hunch that there is something here in these tunnels, something of interest to all of us.”

She suddenly looked self-conscious. “I’m sorry, everyone, but other than this article and a dream, I don’t have anything to go on and no hard facts.”

“I believe you, Erika,” I said. I took the opportunity to lay my hand on hers. Maybe it was cheesy, but it did give me an excuse to touch her hand.

Takeda laid his hand on mine. “I believe both of you,” he said solemnly. “And just because I’m touching your hand doesn’t mean we’re going out, Keisuke.” This provoked some laughter that broke the tension in the room.

Endo followed suit, placing his hand on top of Takeda’s. “We all wanted to explore those tunnels anyway. Reasons don’t really matter.”

We all looked at Hayami.

She looked at each of us in turn, as if gauging our level of sincerity, before laying her hand on Endo’s. “We’re committed, then.” She pulled her hand away and sat back, as did Endo and Takeda.

I might have been just a little slow to pull my hand off of Erika’s, but she didn’t seem to mind.

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Fog rolled in that evening. It softened the harsh light from the full moon hanging overhead, but it didn’t make things appear any less eerie. The old shed where Erika and I had our little adventure looked even more ominous in the dark.

I could feel it in every fiber of my body, some kind of otherworldly energy that made sounds sharper, smells more intense.

Or maybe it was just adrenaline.

I led our group of five up the concrete steps to the shed door. The old lock opened with a snick noise that sounded like a switchblade. This time, I pocketed the padlock. No one was going to be confining us in the shed this time. Not with this lock, anyway.

My flashlight' beam cut through the darkness inside the shed, turning all the canvas-covered broken lawn machinery into black-outlined scarlet lumps.

“Why is your light red, Keisuke?” I heard Erika ask.

“This helps us keep our night vision for now. We’ll switch to regular light once we get in the tunnels, then we can all use our flashlights.”

The five of us made our way to the concealed trap door in the corner. There was only the occasional thump and curse when someone tripped on one of the many hazards strewn across the shed’s floor.

I was relieved to see that the rug hadn’t been moved since Erika and I had been here. Takeda pulled it aside while I kneeled down and unzipped my sling pack. I selected a couple of picks and went to work.

The lock clicked open after just a short time. “Nice!” Takeda said. Erika squeezed my arm in appreciation. Even Endo looked impressed.

“You seem to be really familiar with this lock,” Hayami said in a voice thick with suspicion. “Are you sure you haven’t opened this trap door before?”

I looked up at her, and was startled to see that her face looked absolutely demonic in the backsplash from my red night light. The reflection of the light from her eyes, no doubt.

“I think I’d remember if I did,” I replied, trying not to sound too annoyed. “No, I took photos of the lock when Erika and I were here and researched the best tool for the job.” I gripped the door’s handle.

“Everybody ready? I’m going to open it now.” There was a rustling noise as weapons were readied.

I heaved up and back. With a tortured creaking noise, the door swiveled open on its hinges. I lowered it carefully, trying to make as little noise as possible.

I switched to a high intensity white light and shined it into the opening.

A galvanized metal ladder led down into the darkness. The floor looked to be covered in dirty gravel and translucent brown water that flowed slowly past my beam.

I turned off the hand light, clipping it back on my belt, and turning on my headlamp. “I’ll go first,” I said. Cautiously, I lowered myself over the lip.

“Please be careful, Keisuke,” Erika said. Her face was the very picture of a concerned friend. Maybe, I thought as I climbed down, one day she’ll be more than just a friend.

In the back of my mind I remembered what Takeda had said about Hayami. “She’s not my girlfriend yet, Keisuke, but one of these days, I’ll make her mine.”

I wondered if either of us would get the woman of our dreams.

Just before I jumped off the ladder I shone my light in a circle, surveying the area around me. It was just like the map said it would be, a large drainage pipe that was almost four meters in diameter.

And thankfully, no monsters.

I looked up. “All clear! Come on down.”

--------------------------------------------

It was an easy walk through the storm sewer. The pipe we traveled through was big enough to warrant a narrow walkway made out of bricks on one side, so we didn’t  have to deal with splashing through the stagnant water and slipping on slime-filled rocks.

We finally came out of the drainage system to the section on the map marked in green. 

And it was easy to find because someone had been here before us.

Rocks, sand, and gravel were piled around the base of an old piece of corrugated metal leaning against the earthen wall.

“Endo,” I asked, “did your father’s work crew do this?”

“Not a chance,” he replied. “They always stayed on the other side of the academy’s property line.”

I checked the map again. “The entrance to the unexplored section should be just behind that sheet of siding.”

Takeda and Endo pulled the metal cover aside, letting it fall to the floor.

The rectangular entrance marking the beginning of the unknown, unexplored tunnels under the academy grounds lay in front of us. Eagerly, we all shined our lights into the tunnel beyond.

The walls were roughly carved out of the natural limestone in the area. I could see that the floor beyond the entrance was paved with slick concrete, marred by the occasional crack. Not at all as ancient as I’d thought.

Hayami had been studying the markings on the metal siding. “These are Imperial Japanese Army symbols.”

“Maybe this is an old tunnel system connecting underground bunkers that date back to the Pacific War.” I started to get excited. “It’ll be a huge historical find, even if we don’t discover anything else!”

“Awesome!” Takeda shouted. Erika clapped her hands, while Endo put on his usual sour face. Hayami just stared into the darkness of the tunnel.

“Okay, I’ll take the lead,” I said. “Endo and Takeda, you can come behind me and on either side. Erika and Hayami, you can be our rearguard.”

“Are you putting me in the rear because you’re worried that I might slip a blade between your ribs from behind, Keisuke?” Hayami asked. She sounded far too cheerful when she said that.

“No, it ‘s the fact that you’re strong enough to hold off anything on your own long enough for the rest of us to come to your aid,” I replied. And yes, to keep you from planting a knife in my back, I thought.

A strange noise sounded in the distance. Erika gasped. “Did you hear something?”

“Yeah.” I listened closely, as did everyone else, but didn’t hear anything. “What was that?”

“I don’t know. Could it have been an animal?” she asked.

“Maybe,” Hayami said. She unsheathed her katana, displaying a wicked looking blade that was probably forged by a master swordsmith and passed down from one generation of her family to the next.

We stepped into the tunnel with all of our lights on. And our weapons out.

The new tunnel was considerably larger than the storm sewer we’d been using. For one thing, it was at least five meters from the floor to the domed ceiling. Shaded incandescent lights, long dead and covered with cobwebs, hung down on frayed cords every few meters.

Our footsteps echoed hollowly off the walls. You could smell the scent of old motor oil and mildew everywhere.

After a short walk we came to an intersection in the hallway. I checked the map.

The left corridor was marked clearly on the map, terminating in a large room of some kind. I shone my light down the path.

As I was examining the left-hand tunnel Endo ran past me. Without hesitation he turned to the right.

“Hey, where do you think you’re going?”

“Gotta check on something,” he muttered over his shoulder as he swept by.

Takeda followed closely behind him. “Keisuke, I’ll go bring him back.”

“Takeda, no!” I had a really bad feeling, way down in my gut. “Takeda, Endo, get back here!”

Behind me I heard the squelching sound of wet rain boots as Erika and Hayami, who had been lagging behind, joined me.

“Why did they go off on their own?” Hayami demanded. She snatched the map out of my hands. “Keisuke, there’s a drop-off in that direction!”

“Huh? There is?”

And that’s when we heard a scream, coming from the right.