BLOOD OF THE SPRINGTIDE (PART IV)

David’s lips stretched about his teeth as he remembered his discovery. “No, I found it this way. The lock and chain were just gone.”

“Hey, hey, alright!” Rafael buoyed in the water with excitement. “Hey Aaron!” he shouted back.

“What?”

“The lock and chain are off the door! We can go into the tunnel now!”

“What? Really? Sweet!” He dove into the water and swam briskly toward his friends.

David opened the door and began wading through the clean, shallow, run-off. The aqueduct slanted slightly upward, and the water flowed down in a mellow current about a foot or so deep. A dim light could be seen about a quarter mile up ahead, creating a shadowy visibility in the otherwise pitch black air.

“You guys coming?”

“Hell yeah,” said Tim, following behind his friend. The other two were right behind him and the boys began to journey together up the tunnel. After a short time it opened up into a large cement room with a pool much like the one that they had just left, except this one was only about two feet deep. There were a couple of light fixtures fixed into the wall, one of either side. A cement ledge surrounded the pool, with a depression along the opening of the outgoing tunnel to allow the water to flow down at a tempered pace. Another tunnel opened into the room in front of them, built about a foot over the ledge. There was a metal door built into the left-hand wall. Rafael went along the ledge toward it and tried the metal door knob, it was locked.

“Locked,” he informed his friends. They began to explore the tunnel leading further into the hills. It was dark and shadowy with dim light coming again from about a quarter mile ahead.

“Another room?” asked Aaron.

“Must be,” said Tim. “What do you guys think?”

“It’s getting colder,” stated David, shivering a bit.

“Well this is run-off,” proclaimed Tim. “There’s no sun in here to heat it up. Come on David, when are we going to have this chance again? Someone from the city is going lock that gate up tomorrow.”

“You know it,” Rafael agreed. “One more pool and then we’ll turn around.”

“Yeah, one more David,” quipped Aaron. “You can take the cold just a bit longer. I mean we’re kinda used to it now and it ain’t that bad.”

“OK. OK, let’s check it out.”

They were half way up the tunnel when it suddenly rumbled with the sound of a large amount of water rushing nearby, as if a valve had been opened. Then there was the whoosh of air being sucked out of a room, a thunderous clap, followed by the choke and cry of a man sobbing, fading away into the distance. The boys stood frozen. It was impossible to tell where the actions creating the sounds had originated from, and the boys looked up and down the tunnel and saw nothing out of the ordinary.

“What the hell was that?” Aaron asked without expecting a reply, and he received none. They waited a few minutes in silence, wide eyed and attentive. Nothing stirred, and maybe it wasn’t anything to be too concerned about.

“Come on, let’s just check this last pool out and then we’ll go,” Tim urged his younger friends.

“What if that was some city worker in here and he locked the gate on the way out?” asked David.

“Nah, he would have seen our bikes and yelled up here. It probably came from further up. We’re only going a little ways more.” Somehow Tim’s logic made sense to them and they proceeded on their way, although quieter and with more caution. When they came to the lit opening they found that it was indeed another open room with ledge, door and pool. Except this time the room was larger and there were three tunnel archways along the opposite wall through which water flowed in. The pool here was about a foot deeper and the boys, except for David, waded out into it to splash around.

“Wow, this just keeps getting more interesting,” said Aaron. “Kinda want to keep exploring.”

David wasn’t having any of that. “No, let’s go,” he requested. He turned to head back down the tunnel and fear shot through him like winter wind whipping through a city street.