Read Online Empire's End by David Dunwoody - Free Book Online

There was a tunnel, and
another door, sodden wood bulging with just a few tiny holes
letting some cool air push through. Pungent, but cool.
    “What do you think the city was like back
then? When it was New New York?” Jarrett asked.
    Alex stared at a blank wall. “All I know is,
it was always the same down here.”
    “Definitely a sewer behind this door,” Keane
grunted as he tugged at the old, swollen wood. “But there’s gotta
be something more. This passage wasn’t carved out so some guys
could clean shit outta the pipes.”
    “Language.”
    “Yeah,” Keane mumbled. “I’ll bet this was
here before the sewers. I’ll bet they came later and took this up
as part of ‘em, but this used to be something else—something—”
    The door roared as it fell apart, an icy wind
with the smell of rancid waste smacking each man in the face. Then
it was gone. A gaping hole remained.
    “Blew my torch out,” Keane whistled.
    “Here’s another.”
    “I can get this one to go again. No
problem.”
    Jarrett approached the opening on trembling
legs. There was a black vacuum, a soundless, sightless void.
    “Here,” Alex said, and tossed his torch
through the doorway.
    It splashed, and fizzled, but didn’t go out.
It illuminated the six-foot drop, managed by ladder, and the
cavernous sewer tunnel extending from right there to the end of the
world in both directions.
    “Lookit this,” Keane said, perched in the
doorway with eyes wide. “It’s huge. By Adam, you could drive a
truck through this here! Two trucks! What were they flushin’?” he
laughed, and it echoed throughout the system, making Alex’s skin
crawl.
    “Keep it quiet.”
    “You honestly think there’s anything down
here? We had to kill that door to get through!”
    “Don’t stir up the rats!” Alex hissed. Keane
threw his hands out in mock horror. “God forbid I should have to
mash a few rat heads.”
    “Rat king,” Jarrett said, “could fit through
there. Big enough for a rat king.”
    “Rat kings aren’t real.” Alex shot a stern
look at Keane, who just rolled his eyes. “But there are almost
certainly rats in there infected with the Plague or something else
and I don’t want to mess with ‘em.”
    “So we’re not going in there?” Keane
pouted.
    “Are you kidding?”
    “What’d we come down here for? What’d I rip
apart that door for?”
    “It’s just a sewer! There isn’t any gold down
here, man! Do you see anything but a little river of shit water?
There aren’t any other tunnels or doors or anything. It’s just a
big-ass sewer, that’s all. I’m sorry,” Alex sighed. “I wish there
was something down here. It would’ve made this day worthwhile. But
there’s not.”
    They all felt the rumble.
    “What do you think that was?” Keane
asked.
    “Maybe...” Alex leaned through the doorway
into the tunnel, feeling the slight breeze. “Maybe there’s water
down here. Maybe there’s like some sort of river system that still
exists, and it shifts things around. Could be natural caverns
underneath all this.”
    “Wouldn’t that be something to see,” Keane
said, smiling at Jarrett.
    “We’re not sight-seeing, though, we’re—” And
then Alex fell.
    It was a jarring drop, not lethal, not
frightening, just jarring. Painful and shitty and wet. He landed in
a fetid slop and knew his ankle had turned. “GOD! FUCK!” It
probably was just a sprain. Just a sprain, Keane could haul him up
if he could just grab that ladder. Alex looked at his hands, looked
for cuts in the dying light of the thrown torch. He couldn’t see
shit for shit.
    “Keane, gimme a hand. I’m okay.”
    Jarrett’s head shot into the tunnel. “Are you
all right?”
    “I just said I’m fine,” Alex grumbled. He sat
up and scooted his butt forward a little, sloshing in the muck. He
was going to stink for days. The group hadn’t come across fresh
water in a week, and it would probably be another damn week before
they did. Alex saw the coming