Project ELE (11 page)

I look through the items and find the boots. Those are also a 'one size fits all.' They look like clown shoes if you ask me. They are so big that they can fit over our tennis shoes.

"Sweet! Look what I found," Connor exclaims from inside the crate. He brings out a small box placing it at my feet.

"What is it?" I ask.

He pries it open and pulls out a-- clothespin?

"Connor, why would we need clothespins? We have laundry facilities upstairs."

Connor gives a small laugh and jumps up. He opens the clothespin and says, "So we don't have to smell the poo!" He opens the wooden pin and holds it over the bridge of his nose. "See," He says in a nasal voice before he lets go of the clothespin all together. "Ta-ahhh! Owww!" His eyes are watering as he quickly pulls it off his nose.

We break out in hysterical laughter as he rubs the bridge of his now-red schnozzle. He glares at us and says, "That freaking hurt!" He crosses his arms over his chest to show us his displeasure with our laughter.

"I say bring those pins along Connor. We can always use them as a weapon against the sewer rats!" Claire jokes and puts her arm around Connor in a playful, conciliatory gesture. He blushes. All of the frustration is gone from his expression and he just looks at Claire with big dopey, infatuated eyes.

"Or the alligators. We can pin their mouths shut!" Alec jests.

The sweet look on Connor's face gives way to an annoyed grimace. "Very funny guys."

Claire's laugh diffuses the tension and Connor eventually joins in with the rest of us.

"Oh! There's still one more thing we need," says Claire. "Flashlights." We all give her a mmhmm and begin searching the contents. Thankfully, stuffed in the corner, there is a small box labeled flashlights.

"Let's just hope they have batteries," I mumble to myself.

We each grab a pair of gloves, waders, boots, goggles and a flashlight and start changing. Once I get mine on I turn to the others. I almost pee myself at the sight of them. I immediately begin laughing hysterically unable to control myself.

We look absolutely ridiculous. Our goggles are way too big for our face, and the waders in and of themselves are a sight to be seen with the way they hike up to our armpits and hang from suspenders.

We gain control over ourselves and start closing things up, boots squeaking as we waddle about.

I feel like a penguin hobbling around with these clown shoes on. I stop mid stride, "Wait. Why exactly are we wearing all this gear now? Can't we take it off? At least the boots, until we get there?" I reach down and take off the boots leaving my shoes on underneath and the others follow suite.

"Okay," Alec begins. "I guess we need to figure out where the sewer lines start, or at least where we can gain access to them."

All three of them turn to look at me. "What?" I say. "Oh, yeah, photographic memory." As if I need to remind myself.

I look around at where we are. "Well, if memory serves me right, and it usually does, there's some sort of entrance a few feet to the left of the rear elevator. I'm not sure what kind of entrance it is, but it had the lines on the blueprint like it was a door of some sort."

"Alright then, let’s get this show on the road," Connor says with a little too much enthusiasm.

It doesn't take us long before we can see the elevator shaft about twenty feet ahead of us. Claire stops suddenly and holds out her hand to quiet us, not that we were making much noise in the first place. "Do you hear that?" Claire whispers.

We all stop and look around listening to the silence. Then I hear it, a small clanking sound coming from the direction of the elevators.

"We need to hide, and fast," Alec whispers in a panic. He ushers us all in behind a large grouping of boxes near the rear wall. We get as far back as we can and kneel on the ground. We are all huddled close together.

I'm leaning against Alec and my nose is so close to his neck that I can smell his aftershave. It smells like mint and spices. Alec holds his finger up to his lips to quiet us.

I notice that the boxes are all labeled with the number three. I cringe, hoping that the odd number isn't some sort of omen. My heart starts pounding and I pray that I don't have another one of those panic attacks.

We hear the sound of the elevator coming to a stop and the doors open. Instantly I hear Candy’s trademark laugh as her and her minions step off the elevator. I squeeze back further into our corner trying to become one with the box behind us.

Alec must sense my anxiousness because I feel his hand enclose mine. I freeze not knowing what to do. Heat rushes to my cheeks. I've never really held a boys hand before, at least not a boy that I'm not related to. It feels comfortable and safe. It also feels--I don't know, different.

I'm pulled back to the situation at hand when I hear several pairs of footsteps staggering around on the hard cement floor. "Dude, she is totally wasted," a male voice says.

"I ammm not," I hear Candy say accenting the 't'. She sounds completely out of it, drunk even. I hear a heavy thud on the floor and one of the people mutters a slew of cuss words.

"Help her up man, she keeps falling." This guy doesn't sound that sober either. Their steps move closer to where we are and I try and scoot back more in hopes of becoming invisible. I feel Alec's arms wrap around me. My heart flutters but for a different reason this time. He's the only thing keeping me grounded right now. With the way things are sounding out there, God only knows what would happen if they found us. They seem pretty wasted, but I have no doubt that Candy will tattle on us in an instant. Not that they should be down here in the first place, but who would get in trouble in that situation, the rich kids or us?

"Did you find the--stuff?" Candy asks slurring the words together. She lets out a loud laugh and I cringe.

"Oh man, she is so out of it," one of the guys says. "Here you take her so I can try and find the box." The footsteps stop only a few feet from us. I can see them clearly now and hold my breath. If they were to turn around, we would be spotted for sure. There are three of them: Candy, Zack, and some other guy who is holding Candy up. I don't know his name, but I remember seeing him before in Zack's room.

The guy hands Candy over to Zack who has to stagger back a few steps as he adjusts to the added weight of his sister. "Hurry up man; she's getting heavy."

The guy holds his tablet and presses a few buttons. "K, it says medical supplies should be on the next row, about four boxes down. It'll have a red cross label on the side." Zack repositions Candy and they begin walking away.

I listen to their heavy footsteps as they move further and further away. I suddenly feel light headed and realize I hadn't breathed. I let out a swoosh of breath, feeling remarkably safer now that they aren't so close.

"I'm going to see if the coast is clear," Alec whispers a minute later. "Just stay here." Alec squeezes my shoulders and gets up from behind me. The sudden loss of his touch makes me feel cold. He was the only thing keeping me from going into panic mode.

I watch as Alec peeks around the corner. He stays there for a moment then comes back towards us. "Okay, they're far enough away now that they won’t be able to see us if we're quiet. Let's just go quickly so they don't find out we're here." Alec tells us in a hushed whisper. We all nod our heads and slowly get up. Alec goes to the corner again and makes sure the coast is still clear.

He ushers us forward with his hand and leads us out into the open. I walk quickly and quietly feeling utterly exposed. I really don't want to find out what would happen if they saw us or what type of reprimand we would receive if we get caught down here.

We manage to get past the elevators and to the area where the blueprints said a door should be. I don't find a door but I do find a large metal grate located on the back wall just feet from where I'm standing. I quietly walk towards it pointing to it so the others will see. This has to be it! It's about four feet in diameter so it's definitely large enough for the normal human to move through it. I run my fingers along the edges of the grate trying to find a way to open it. Disappointment elopes me as I figure out you'd need a screwdriver to get it open. I put my head in my hand frustrated with the situation. We got this far only to be stopped by a few simple screws.

I feel a tap on my shoulder and look back to find Connor standing there holding out a swiss-army-knife. He whispers, "May I?"

I nod my head and smile as he goes to work. He works quickly and quietly handing me each screw as he takes them out. Two minutes and eight screws later, Connor starts to remove the grate. It makes a small scraping sound. He immediately stops and we listen to see if they heard us. We breathe a sigh of relief when we hear no sign of Candy or her minions.

With the exception of a few more squeaks, Connor manages to shimmy the grate off fairly quietly. The crawl space is large enough to crawl through comfortably so I silently volunteer to go first. I put on my boots and get on my hands and knees. I crawl in awkwardly and the others follow behind.

The concrete tubes are cold and hard against my knees. I move forward far enough to allow everyone room to get inside and then I wait. Connor is the last to crawl in. After he's inside he grabs the grate off the floor and sets it up against the wall. It makes a small thud and I inwardly cringe. Connor snaps around and waves his hand for me to hurry up and go. I crawl through the shaft as quickly as I can. The further we move away from the opening the darker the tunnels get. We don't want to chance turning on the flashlights just yet so I move along through the dark, using nothing but my memory as a guide. Soon I come up on a turn and am grateful, as I know it will give us the cover we so desperately need.

Once we're all huddled together around the corner I call them in together for a quick meeting. Connor turns on a flashlight from the back and illuminates our group. My eyes feel a bit blinded by the white light but it's nice not to be wrapped in absolute darkness. "Okay, so right now we're in a shaft that leads to the sewers. There's going to be a lot of twists and turns and uphill/downhill climbs before we're going to get there. Just stay with me okay? I know exactly where I'm going." I nod my head and turn back around not waiting for confirmation from my friends. The last thing I need is someone to doubt me, which could make me doubt myself. Lord only knows where we'd end up then.

Crawling around in the tunnels makes for an interesting challenge. The light from the flashlight bounces up and down against the concrete walls with Connor's movements. I don't know how he's holding it while crawling, but I'm grateful for the light even though it's bouncing all over the place. With all the gear on we end up squeaking and making all kinds of racket. My knees and hands are sore from bearing the weight of my body. Thankfully we don't have much further to go. We round the last uphill turn and almost run smack dab into a large metal plate. "Well, I guess this is it," I say. We are finally in a spot that gives us all standing room so we slowly get up. If I didn't know better, I'd say you could hear the creaking of our knees as we stood.

Alec looks at me bewildered. "I still can't believe you just did that from memory. I wouldn't have been able to do that in a thousand years!" I give him a small laugh.

"Seriously, Willow. You really do rock," Connor says. Claire gives an agreeing smile and inwardly, I feel like a million bucks.

"Okay, so I guess we'd better get ready. This is probably going to be pretty nasty." We all pull our goggles on and Connor moves up to the front to help get the metal plate off. Alec moves past me to help Connor who hands Claire the flashlight. She points it at them. Connor's knife comes in handy again as he pulls out more screws. He sets them on the ground and he and Alec start moving the plate away.

My eyes transfix on Alec's arms as the strain of the heavy plate becomes apparent. His muscles tense as they work to lower it to the ground. I didn't realize how muscular and strong Alec was.

"Willow." Alec calls my name.

I immediately snap out of my trance and feel embarrassed. They've set the plate on the floor and he's motioning for me to lead us again. I wonder if he noticed me staring. I clear my throat. "Okay, let’s move." I inwardly laugh as my voice sounds flustered.

We have to crouch to walk through the opening but we get to stand back up on the other side. I look around and notice that we are standing on a large platform.

Claire moves to the ledge and illuminates the nine-foot drop down to the sewer tunnel with her flashlight.

Without hesitation, Alec jumps down gracefully followed by Connor.

Claire and I inch up towards the edge. Both of us take our goggles off to get a better view. "Isn't there a ladder or something," I say to no one in particular. Alec comes towards me and reaches out his hands. "Here, I'll catch you. Just jump."

I stare at him blankly. "Just jump?" Ha, it's that easy.

He pulls his goggles off too and then nods his head.

I can't believe I'm going to do this. I squeeze my eyes shut and take the plunge. I feel a slight free-fall feeling in my stomach before a pair of hands wrap around my waist. My fall is broken and I'm lowered slowly to the ground. I open my eyes to find Alec's hands still around my waist. "You okay?" he asks.

I nod my head, afraid to talk for fear my voice might break. Butterflies are dancing in my stomach and my pulse is speeding up. I imagine that I can feel the warmth of his hands around my waist but logically I know that it's impossible for his body heat to transfer through the thick rubber lining of my waders.