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EPISODE 45
Safe... they were safe... the Slacks,
Timmy, Spot... but… they were, also, in the dark.
Darkness.
Absolute and utter.
Darkness... night of eye, stillness of ear.
Then, footsteps. Rusting. Growling.
Footsteps! Wet and harsh, tentative on
old, soggy wood.
"A rat!" called a small
voice. Afraid, but
also proud. Timmy.
"How do you know that it's only a
rat?" asked Howard Slack. "I
can't see anything. It's dark in here."
"I hear it," Timmy
answered. Something sniffed and
growled. "Spot hears it. Smells
it! Don't you?"
"Well, after all," sighed
Howard, "the house was almost in the country. So I guess, now, this is the country... or under it, maybe."
If there's a rat," Betty surmised
from another, deeper depth of the darkness, "don't they have to come and
go from somewhere? So there will be a
hole."
"Unless the hole is big enough
for rats, but not for people to escape through," Howard said, and kicked
up a thin spray of mud and water. Squish!
"I wish you hadn't said
that," Betty worried. "You're
getting just like Waldo... always thinking of the bad things that can
happen. It's like Candid Camera."
Howard shot her a wasted look in the
dark. "Durwood
Kirby doesn't murder people," he
said, icily.
"Well, you're the one with the
matches." Howard frowned and kicked
at the mud. What did the matches have to
do with Candid Camera? "Can't you
light one?"
"We'd better not," he
determined. "I have only one book, and
it's not quite full. Who knows how long
we'll be down here?"
They began to walk downstairs. With each step, the mud and slime and oldness magnified; what sounded like
distant thumps and screams as they passed the downstairs faded as they
continued past the basement and further down.
Stepping through the years in darkness. Silent steps on clammy
wood.
And, then, a muffled
splash.
"Betty," Howard grunted,
"I think I've reached the bottom.
It's even wetter down here... slimy.
But not deep. Now, I'll light
that match."
The match struck deep, burned cleanly
without motion one way or another to indicate wind- or a way out. All around the fugitives loomed walls of dirt
and rock.
"A cave!" cried Timmy,
pointing past the match through dimnesses towards the
dark. The dark that was not quite so
dark, owing to the match, narrowed to a tunnel that seemed to proceed
indefinitely. Betty, Spot and Timmy
stepped down into the dirty water.
"Watch out!" Betty cried.
Howard lowered his match. Half-submerged was something dark and rusty,
armed with jagged, metal teeth.
"Golly!" Timmy
wondered. "It's a bear trap!"
"What would that be doing here," asked Howard, puzzled. "Step this way, around it. I saw some old boards and poles that
way. Ouch!"
The little flame had burned down to
his fingertips, and darkness fell with sudden, splashing footprints. And, after that, the sudden, snapping trap.
"Howard!" Betty shrieked.
"I'm all right, honey. I just threw a piece of wood back there, to
spring the trap. It's dangerous. Someone might injure themselves. And I've got a stick to feel if there are any
more. Timmy... best to keep Spot behind
us. Ready? Let's go!"
"Where?"
Betty asked from the darkness.
"Forward!" Howard
replied. Off they went... into a cloak
of darkness and, except for soggy footsteps, silence. Even Spot appeared to inhale light and exhale
silence.
Now and again, Betty would ask to
light another match.
"Not yet," Howard would
reply, poking his stick forward for emphasis.
Presently, her pleadings overcome his
economies. "Yukk!"
she grimaced, "there's something under here. Howard, light another match."
"Alright, I'll look around,"
he gave in. He struck a second match,
which, like the first, burned straight up.
Howard bent to examine the floor of the tunnel. Up burned the flame and Howard dropped
it. There was a soft, dark sizzle, then
more silence.
"Did you see anything?"
Betty asked.
"Nothing!"
Howard said, disgustedly. "Soggy
newspapers, cigar butts, expired shopping coupons. They were so old and wet and falling-apart, I
couldn't even see where they were
from. Maybe Waldo comes down here...
Timmy? Gee, I wish I had a
flashlight."
"There's a flashlight,"
Timmy volunteered. "A
lot of them! Dad keeps them in the secret panels in the
dead, stuffed fish. He has these
switches that make them go on and off..."
"A lot of good to us, down
here," scowled Howard. "Well,
let's keep going."
And they walked on, for what could
have been hours through the tunnel... Howard dowsing for those bear traps, rats
and other dangers lying concealed in the dark.
Two bear traps later, Betty began
asking Howard to light another match.
"No!" he vowed, and kicked
at the dirty water.
"Honey," Betty tried, a few
steps alter, "there's something I always wanted to know, and now... now
that it might, you know, matter... not matter, anymore..."
"I understand," said
Howard. "Why the
hell not? Go on..."
"In the
morning, when you go to work?"
Betty drew her fingers up into claws, then fists, and beat helplessly
against her thighs. "When I'll be
ironing or giving the girls a bath, and I'll be wondering what it is that men do all day..."
It's dark,
Howard realized... she can't see what I must be thinking...
"What I mean is... what it's like
to have a job. All I see is that you go
out in the morning and you come back tired, and every other Friday we get
paid. Are you happy?" she asked,
after a brief pause.
"Let's keep walking," Howard
huffed. But, after a few soggy steps, he
seemed to change his mind. "Gee,
that's a tough one. It's always the
same, but different, too... for example, if I don't have any appointments for
Monday mornings? I get on the phone
there, in the office, with my list of prospects, and I'm on the phone until
eleven... until twelve, or twelve fifteen, sometimes, setting up
appointments. The first period I like to
fill is Monday afternoon... obviously!... then Tuesday morning and so on, and
that means that, usually Wednesday afternoon or, sometimes, Thursdays, I'm back
on the phone, filling up... hey!"
A scuffle and a splash had been the
cause of interruption.
"Howard!" Betty cried, and
Timmy stepped forward, nudging through the mud for bear traps.
"Mr. Slack?"
Spot growled, then
barked three times.
"I'm OK," Howard
answered. "There's a little place
here, a little dip... not too deep, but slippery..."
"I feel where it begins, Mr.
Slack," said Timmy.
"Me too," said Betty. "I guess everyone's alright."
"OK, I'm going again,"
Howard told them. "Wait, my
stick," he added. "Got it!"
"Anyway," he continued, as
they resumed trekking, "I try to have three appointments Monday, five
Tuesday, three more appointments Wednesday morning and then, if I go back to he phone, I'll have five on
Thursday and three or four on Friday, which fills my week completely before
meetings begin Friday, three o'clock. Or a little later, usually.
Harvey's always late and Wayne... gee, I guess it will be different now,
that part. Anyway, that makes eighteen
appointments a week... on the average... and, out of those, I'll probably write
up one new life, two property and two or three automobile, unless it's
raining. People think,
when it rains."
"Gee, that's fascinating,"
Betty answered. "I'd rather be
working than watching the girls, and watching Concentration. So, I guess
you're happy after all! Even this would
be a happy place... if only we could see it..."
"I think they used it in the
war," Timmy announced.
Howard tightened his grip on the bear
trap stick. "The
war?"
"Well, Dad said, in the war, that
slaves and rebels, the deserting ones, they'd go down into tunnels like this
one and walk to Canada. That's how they
escaped. He says it was an underground
railroad, once, but I don't feel any tracks.
Old Great-Grandpa Gray told him.
He's... you know, now..."
"Well, I'm sure they found their
way out before Canada. Hey... I think
I've found something!"
And without Betty's even having to
ask, Howard lit one of their precious matches.
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