Sound carried funny through the tunnel, too, and he wondered if creaking in the rock around him was one of those famous California earthquakes or merely a heavy truck passing by on the street overhead.
Unfortunately, hearing anything became difficult soon enough, as Owen began a monologue into his phone about being in thebelly of the beastand how he wasrisking his life to uncover the truth of the Skid Row Screamer.
Trevor couldn’t help but shake his head. Man, the guy was such a total doofus.
Desperate for a distraction from Owen’s nonstop talking, Trevor found his mind wandering. His thoughts naturally found their way to Jenna. A big part of that was how amazing it had been to wake up with her in his arms this morning, but the other part was how thrilled he’d been when she’d decided not to come with them on this morning’s recon mission. Even if her reasoning had more to do with her fear of going underground and her ongoing spat with Connor. Still, Trevor would have been freaking out if she was down here with them. Themere thought made his heart thump hard and his claws threaten to come out. He never ever wanted to consider Jenna being in danger. Just another sign of how far he was falling for her.
Trevor reached a Y intersection in the tunnel with two passages snaking off into the darkness. He stopped in the open space before the branches, making room for everyone else to gather around in the tight space. Owen and Isaac nervously swept their flashlights all over the place.
“I was hoping this tunnel would lead straight into the center of the creatures’ territory, but apparently, we’re not going to get that lucky,” Trevor said. “So we have a decision to make—stay together and pick one tunnel to follow, or split up.”
“We should split up,” Connor said firmly before anyone could get another word in. “Mike and I will go left and the rest of you can go right. We can cover more ground that way.”
Trevor wasn’t surprised Connor wanted to split up or that he refused to be teamed up with him. It had been hard enough getting him to come down into the tunnels in the first place, and Trevor suspected most of that was because his friend couldn’t stand the sight of him right now. Then again, maybe he was giving himself too much credit. Maybe the reason Connor hadn’t wanted to come was because he believed that if he never saw a ghoul with his own eyes, then he wouldn’t have to face the factthat he’d done everything Jenna had accused him of—namely abandoning her and Hannah.
“I don’t think splitting up is the best idea,” Isaac pointed out. “That’s what happens in every sci-fi and horror movie right before people start getting eaten.”
Trevor couldn’t necessarily disagree with that logic. Splitting up usually did bring scary things out of the woodwork. But in this case, there wasn’t much they could do about it. If they stayed together in one large group, the chances of finding anything down here weren’t good. For all they knew, they could end up wandering around down here for days. They didn’t have that much time to waste, especially because Jenna would almost certainly come looking for him if he was gone too long, and that was flat-out unacceptable.
In the end, Connor did go left with Mike, but they took Isaac with them. Trevor, Hale, and Owen went right. It seemed a concession that everyone could live with.
“We go as far as we can for an hour,” Trevor said. “Then, regardless of what either of our teams discover, we turn around and rendezvous back here. No exceptions. If one team comes back here and the other hasn’t shown within five minutes, that means something is wrong, and the first team goes into rescue mode at that point.”
Trevor hoped that never became necessary, butit needed to be said. They had to have a plan in case everything went sideways. Mike and Hale nodded as if that made complete sense while Owen and Isaac looked more nervous than before. Like they finally figured out that this was all real. Connor didn’t look as if he cared one way or another.
The tunnel Trevor and his small team moved through began descending at a steady slant, becoming wider and wider the farther they went. Within a few hundred feet, they were all able to stand up and walk, even if he and Hale still had to lean over to keep from hitting their heads on the ceiling.
“Why does a creature that’s barely three feet tall need to dig a tunnel that’s six feet high?” Hale asked softly as he made another chalk mark on the rough wall. “That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.”
“Wait a minute,” Owen said, turning to shine his light in Hale’s direction. “You’ve seen one of the Screamers, too? When?”
“Screamers?” Hale said curiously, looking back and forth between Owen and Trevor.
“That’s what the locals call these things, no doubt thanks to Owen, I’m sure,” Trevor said, turning to focus his attention on the passage ahead of them. “And no, Owen, Hale has never seen one of them. But he has seen the life-size sculptures that Jenna did. They’re perfect in every detail.”
“Jenna sculpted life-size models of these things?” Owen said, his voice rising a little. “And she neverbothered to show them to me or my crew? Why not?”
“You might want to keep your voice down,” Trevor said calmly, glancing over his shoulder at him. “Unless you want to come face-to-face with the creatures much sooner than you want.”
Owen looked ready to argue for a moment but then finally nodded and lowered his voice. “I just don’t understand why she didn’t show us right from the beginning.”
“Maybe it was because you seemed to make a joke out of everything when she took you to the alley where her sister got kidnapped,” Trevor said, biting back a growl at the memory of Jenna telling him that story. “She thought you were nothing but a bunch of jerks with no intention of ever actually helping her, so why would she bother to show you anything?”
Owen had the grace to look ashamed at that.
They continued moving along the tunnel in silence for a while. Trevor kept an eye on his watch as they passed several smaller passages to the left and right of their pathway. Without comment, they all decided to stay with the main tunnel. It seemed clear it was obviously heading somewhere important.
“Have you noticed these holes in the walls?” Owen said a little while later, stopping to shine his light into one that was about twenty inches indiameter and positioned about waist height. “You think they’re air holes or something like that? If they are, they don’t smell very fresh at all.” He made a face. “Actually, they smell like a skunk.”
Trevor and Hale both leaned in close. Considering the fact that they were at least three or four hundred feet underground, the hole could be home to skunks, he supposed. But from the strong musky scent coming out of the small opening, it was obvious that one or more ghouls regularly moved through it.
“They might dig these for air movement,” Trevor said. “But I also think they use them to travel through as well.”
“We’d better be careful then,” Hale murmured, sticking his head completely in the hole to look around. “If the creatures realize we’re here, these holes will let them surround us damn quick.”
“Which is a good reason to make sure they never realize we’re here,” Trevor pointed out before turning to keep leading the way through the tunnel.
Another dozen side passages later, the tunnel leveled out, opening onto what could only be described as a main concourse, over seven feet in height and wide enough to drive a small car through it. Trevor looked around, expecting to see Mike and his team waiting for them, but there was no sign of them. He couldn’t even get a whiff of their scents. Then again, who knew how expansive thesetunnels were? Mike and the others could be miles away by now along that other passage they’d taken. Hell, they could be back on the surface already for all anyone knew.
