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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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