Chapter 2 - Beneath the City Streets

Renald could barely see the ghostly outlines of Abby as she sat in her chair, nervously holding the quivering candle.

"I don't get it. One minute everything was fine, and then the power went out and everyone started freaking out," Abby mused.

"You should see outside," Renald replied. "Gridlock traffic, people pouring out of buildings en masse, confusion, uncertainty everywhere. It's not bad yet, but I'm sure..."

"I wonder how long this will last. Ted left a little while ago; he said I could leave, too, but I volunteered to stay until close in case any clients came in."

"That was awfully nice of Ted to leave so suddenly. I'm sure..."

Before Renald could finish, a tremendous earth-shattering boom split the air while the office shook violently. Wall hangings crashed to the floor, bookshelves toppled over, glass windows exploded, and Renald fell violently backwards. Abby remained safe in her chair, but the small candle in her hands fell to the floor, extinguishing the small light that illuminated the modicum of space between them.

"Renald, are you okay?" Abby asked as she went over to help her colleague.

"I'm, er, I'm okay, thanks. Just hurt my back a bit," he replied while pulling himself up.

"God, that was loud. I wonder if that was an earthquake," Abby wondered.

"It certainly felt like one," Renald replied.

"We've got to get out of here, Renald. This building is over 100 years old, and it's not exactly earthquake-proof." She noticed the chandelier near the front door all over the floor. "God knows how long the old metal support beams would hold out if another quake hit us."

"All right. Let's go."

Abby and Renald felt their way along the wall, guided by the small amount of light pouring in from windows in other rooms, until they reached the stairway door. Once they found the plexiglas doors leading to the outside world, Abby and Renald witnessed the breathless effects of the earthquake. Most of the surrounding office buildings looked okay, but there were cracked roads and wrecked vehicles everywhere: cars in telephone polls, trucks in storefronts, cars on top of other cars. Next to the wrecks, people seemed to be helping and talking, rather than fighting and arguing, about the gigantic tremor that nearly killed them all.

It took a moment for Renald to notice the most striking feature of the post-quake horizon: nothing. Nearby buildings were still intact, but there was nothing but smoke and fire in the distance. It looked as though Renald and Abby were surrounded by a vast wall of fire that separated their city from the outside world.

"Oh my God. The city is on fire," Abby observed in dumbfounded awe.

"This was something more than just an earthquake," Renald muttered as he craned his neck to get a slightly better view of the carnage. "We need to get closer to downtown. That's where the fire is coming from."

"Are you crazy? We don't know what the hell happened over there! I'm going home."

"How? It looks like your car is about five feet below the parking lot, and check out the roads; they're all cracked, sunken, and crowded with accidents and people. Man, I thought the potholes around here were bad before..."

"Shit." Abby pulled out her cell phone, which appeared to have power. She dialed a number and got a busy signal.
"Great. Even the damn cell phone network is down, and I can't walk home; it would take me at least five hours."

"Well, I don't know about you, but I'm going downtown. Maybe we can find out what's going on," Renald decided.

"I guess we don't have a choice."

Renald and Abby trekked along the main roads of the city as they wended their way downtown where the Financial District now lay in ruins. After nearly an hour of hiking over crashed cars, rubbled streets, and piles of trash on every street corner, they arrived at what used to be Stone Corporate Bank, the largest bank in the state. All that was left of SCB was a gigantic hole in the ground that state and local police sealed off with yellow tape. A crowd thronged around the ruins of the once-proud hub of state capital flow.

"I don't believe this. I don't believe any of this," Abby remarked.

As if Stone's collapse wasn't bad enough, Abby and Renald looked around and saw similar sites in the vicinity. J. K. Splatz Advertising, Sterling Communications, Landmark Medical, Cotillard Federal Savings Bank, and every other major building on the same block as Stone was completely gone. Meanwhile, firefighters struggled to put out the remaining fires on surrounding blocks. The city looked like Rome during Nero's terrible conflagration twenty centuries previously.

"There's something odd about all of this," Renald observed as he looked around in amazement.

"Well, yeah, the whole city lost power and then suffered an earthquake."

"Yes, but something more happened in this area. Stone Bank Plaza is completely gone while the surrounding blocks are on fire, and the rest of the city, though shaken up, is relatively okay. Something extraordinary is going on."

"Maybe it was a meteor?" Abby guessed.

"Possibly, but I don't know. There was an old man at City Hall today who told me something about destruction and our time coming to an end. It was..."

Out of the corner of his eye, Renald suddenly saw the old man with the fedora; he was standing on the other side of the Stone crater, not far from the train station.

"Good lord, there he is!"

"Who?" Abby asked.

"The old man! He's the one I just told you about. He's just standing there, looking at everyone."

Indeed, no sooner had Renald made that declaration than the old man looked up at him and gently tipped his hat before walking away, seemingly in the direction of the train station.

"We've got to follow him," Renald muttered.

"Why?"

"Because I think he knows something about what's going on. No one else is going to be able to help us, so we might as well try to ask the old man."

"I don't know. I just want to find out how to go home; this is all too crazy for me."

"Well, I'm going to follow him. Good luck."

Renald began walking in the direction of the train station, at least a quarter of a mile behind the old man. It was hard to see over the hordes obstructing his view around Stone Plaza. Thankfully, the crowds thinned out as Renald moved away from the plaza and closer to the station several blocks over. There were gridlocked cars everywhere, and people were talking on every corner about what was going on, but Renald managed to keep his eye on the old man, who moved briskly despite his hobbled gait.

As Renald rounded the corner of the Federal Courthouse about five blocks from Stone Plaza, he finally approached the train platforms in front of the station. The old man entered an elevator shaft and appeared to take it down. Unfortunately, Renald couldn't tell which floor button the octogenarian selected until he actually reached the old rusty shaft, which had only one button on it: "Basement B". Before hitting the button, Renald looked above and noticed the "Elevator Control Shaft" sign before catching "Out of Order" painted hastily beneath it.

"Very strange," Renald murmured.

After a moment of initial hesitation, he hit the "Basement B" button and waited for the clunky elevator to come back up. Renald almost feared that the old man would be inside when the doors opened. Thankfully, the box was empty, so Renald cautiously crept inside. There were no buttons inside; all he could do was wait for the doors to close. It became obvious to him that there were no lights in the old elevator, so when the doors closed, he was completely bathed in blackness.

"Great. It's a good thing I brought my cell phone."

Goosebumps crawled across Renald's pallid skin as the elevator took a lifetime to reach Basement B, whatever that meant. When the creaky metal box finally reached its destination, the door slid open and a dirt tunnel snaked its way around a corner from the entrance of the elevator shaft. Renald thought about going back up to the surface, but he figured this was the only way to find out what was going on, and he didn't go back on anything once he decided to take action, so Renald began walking slowly into the wormhole and kept close to the right wall. Old lights hanging from strings in the ceiling guided him through the dank, airless passage until he came to a dead end. There was a dirt wall with a wooden door on it that housed a small placard: "Custodian."

"This is it," Renald whispered. "I'm either going to be killed or die of fright. At least I had a good life."

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and prepared for the worst before he knocked on the door quickly three times. After a few seconds of silence, the door opened slightly into a void of darkness. From within the black space came a soft, angelic voice.

"Welcome. I've been expecting you."