Read Online Tunnels 02, Deeper by Roderick Gordon, Brian Williams - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Roderick Gordon, Brian Williams
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of them look more alive. Despite all the hardships they had suffered, they appeared to be happy. The doubts fell from his mind, and he felt in control of himself again. He knew it all had to be worth it.
"We're not going to cross this river," he announced. "Let's just go back to the railway track."
"Yes," Chester and Cal both immediately answered.
"Fine. That's decided, then," Will said, nodding to himself as the threesome turned together and walked side by side by side back down the pier.
7
Sarah strolled casually down
Main Street
, in no particular hurry. She couldn't explain it to herself, but there was something deeply reassuring about returning to the place where she had first broken out to the surface.
It was as if by coming back, she was reaffirming that the specter she'd been running from for so very long now, the Colony hidden down below, really did exist. There'd been occasions in the past when she'd actually wondered if she wasn't just imagining the entire thing, if the whole basis of her life wasn't just some elaborate self-delusion.
It was just after seven in the evening and the interior of the rather uninspiring Victorian building that proclaimed itself to be the HighfieldMuseum was in darkness. Farther along from the museum, she noticed with some surprise that Clarke Brothers, the greengrocers, appeared to have closed up shop. The shutters, painted with many coats of a treacly pea-green gloss, were firmly sealed. They must have been that way for some time, since a thick crust of fliers covered them, the most prominent advertising some recently reunited boy band and a New Year's used car sale.
Sarah drew to a halt and stared at the shop. For generations, the population of the Colony had relied on the Clarkes for regular consignments of fresh fruit and vegetables. There were other Topsoil suppliers, but the brothers and their forebears had been trusted allies for as long as anyone could remember. Short of the possibility that they had both died, she knew they would have never closed shop, not voluntarily.
She contemplated the sealed shutters of the storefront one last time, then moved on. The closing of Clarke Brothers bore out what the note from the dead mailbox had said: The Colony was subject to a lockdown, and the majority of the above-ground supply links had been severed. It underlined just how far things must have gone down below.
Several miles later, Sarah rounded the corner onto
Broadlands Avenue
. As she approached the Burrowses' house, she saw that its curtains were drawn and there was no sign of life anywhere in the place, either. Quite the opposite: A discarded packing crate under the lean-to, and the unkempt front garden, spoke to her of months of neglect. She didn't slow as she walked past it, glimpsing in the corner of her eye an uprooted real estate agent's sign in the long grass behind the chain-link fence. She continued along the row of identical houses to the end of the avenue, where an alleyway took her through to the Common.
Sarah put her head back and flared her nostrils, drawing the air into her lungs, a mix of the city and the countryside smells. Exhaust fumes and the slightly sour scent of massed people fought with the wet grass and fresh vegetation around her.
Sarah kept to the perimeter path for several hundred yards and then ducked into the foliage, pushing her way through the trees and shrubs until she could see the backs of the houses on
Broadlands Avenue
. Moving stealthily from one to another, she observed the occupants from the ends of their gardens. In one, an elderly couple sat stiffly at a dining table, drinking soup. In another, an obese man in a vest and underpants was smoking while he read the paper.
The inhabitants of the subsequent two houses were lost to her, as both had their curtains pulled, but in the next, a young woman was standing by the windows and playing with a baby, bouncing it up and down. Sarah stopped, compelled to watch the woman's
"We're not going to cross this river," he announced. "Let's just go back to the railway track."
"Yes," Chester and Cal both immediately answered.
"Fine. That's decided, then," Will said, nodding to himself as the threesome turned together and walked side by side by side back down the pier.
7
Sarah strolled casually down
Main Street
, in no particular hurry. She couldn't explain it to herself, but there was something deeply reassuring about returning to the place where she had first broken out to the surface.
It was as if by coming back, she was reaffirming that the specter she'd been running from for so very long now, the Colony hidden down below, really did exist. There'd been occasions in the past when she'd actually wondered if she wasn't just imagining the entire thing, if the whole basis of her life wasn't just some elaborate self-delusion.
It was just after seven in the evening and the interior of the rather uninspiring Victorian building that proclaimed itself to be the HighfieldMuseum was in darkness. Farther along from the museum, she noticed with some surprise that Clarke Brothers, the greengrocers, appeared to have closed up shop. The shutters, painted with many coats of a treacly pea-green gloss, were firmly sealed. They must have been that way for some time, since a thick crust of fliers covered them, the most prominent advertising some recently reunited boy band and a New Year's used car sale.
Sarah drew to a halt and stared at the shop. For generations, the population of the Colony had relied on the Clarkes for regular consignments of fresh fruit and vegetables. There were other Topsoil suppliers, but the brothers and their forebears had been trusted allies for as long as anyone could remember. Short of the possibility that they had both died, she knew they would have never closed shop, not voluntarily.
She contemplated the sealed shutters of the storefront one last time, then moved on. The closing of Clarke Brothers bore out what the note from the dead mailbox had said: The Colony was subject to a lockdown, and the majority of the above-ground supply links had been severed. It underlined just how far things must have gone down below.
Several miles later, Sarah rounded the corner onto
Broadlands Avenue
. As she approached the Burrowses' house, she saw that its curtains were drawn and there was no sign of life anywhere in the place, either. Quite the opposite: A discarded packing crate under the lean-to, and the unkempt front garden, spoke to her of months of neglect. She didn't slow as she walked past it, glimpsing in the corner of her eye an uprooted real estate agent's sign in the long grass behind the chain-link fence. She continued along the row of identical houses to the end of the avenue, where an alleyway took her through to the Common.
Sarah put her head back and flared her nostrils, drawing the air into her lungs, a mix of the city and the countryside smells. Exhaust fumes and the slightly sour scent of massed people fought with the wet grass and fresh vegetation around her.
Sarah kept to the perimeter path for several hundred yards and then ducked into the foliage, pushing her way through the trees and shrubs until she could see the backs of the houses on
Broadlands Avenue
. Moving stealthily from one to another, she observed the occupants from the ends of their gardens. In one, an elderly couple sat stiffly at a dining table, drinking soup. In another, an obese man in a vest and underpants was smoking while he read the paper.
The inhabitants of the subsequent two houses were lost to her, as both had their curtains pulled, but in the next, a young woman was standing by the windows and playing with a baby, bouncing it up and down. Sarah stopped, compelled to watch the woman's
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