Chapter 18: Jim Enters the Tunnel

Jim followed the man with the box as he made his way toward Houston Street. The man with the box took a left turn on Houston Street and headed east. Jim kept pace with him but tried to maintain a buffer of at least a half a block between them so as not to be noticed. Jim soon found this difficult because he kept getting caught behind don't walk signs at intersections. The man with the box hit every single light. Each time he approached an intersection, the light changed and he could cross the street without fear of oncoming traffic. The man with the box never moderated his pace. He never had to speed up or slow down. The lights seemed to change for him. By the time Jim got to the intersections, he would be lucky if the walk sign was still blinking. On a few occasions, he had to cross the street against the light and dodge traffic in order to keep pace. Jim decided to move closer to the man with the box. The streets were crowded enough that Jim thought he could get away with it without being noticed.

Jim moved to within about ten feet of the man with the box. He had a chance to look him over. The man with the box was probably about 5'8 or 5'9-at least three inches shorter than Jim. His hair was graying on the sides and it was thinning a bit on the top, although you'd only know it if you three inches taller than him and following him. He wasn't a big man but he was sinewy and muscular, like he may have been an athlete when he was younger. Whatever the man was carrying in the box must have been heavy because Jim could see that it was causing the muscles in the man's arms to strain and flex. He had the same build that Jim saw on the day laborers in Los Angeles who ended up doing construction work. The skilled stuff was left to the union guys so the day laborers ended up spending their days hauling bricks and two-by-fours. Jim tried to get a look at the man's face but it was too difficult without announcing himself. All Jim could see were the outlines of the man's sharp, thin features. 

The streets were crowded but Jim's target simply walked in a straight line, letting other people get out of his way as he walked. Jim had less luck, finding himself dodging left and right to avoid collisions. As they walked across Broadway and further east into the East Village, the crowds thinned. There was a block or two where Jim and his target were the only two people on the entire block. Jim tried to act as casual as possible. The man with the box never turned around, never looked back. He just kept walking. They walked across the Bowery. Finally, as they approached Second Avenue, Jim watched the man with the box descend a flight of stairs into a subway station. Jim waited a moment before following him down. Then he followed the stranger down the stairwell. 

The station was quiet, almost silent. It was an F Train station headed back west, the direction from which Jim and the man with the box had just come. Either a train had come moments earlier or not many people got on the F Train going west from this station. Jim didn't hear anyone. All Jim heard was a dripping sound coming from inside the subway tunnel. He heard no talking, no footsteps. When he got to the bottom of the stairs, he looked around. The station was empty. The man with the box was gone. There was another entrance to the station opposite the one had just come down. Jim ran to it and looked up the staircase to see if the man with the box was there. The stairs were empty. Jim cursed himself, thinking that he'd lost his target already. Where could he have gone? Jim thought to himself. Then Jim realized that there was one other way out of the station. He stepped to the edge of the subway platform, leaned forward and looked down the long, dark tunnel above the tracks. First he looked east since that was the direction they'd been walking. The tunnel to the east appeared empty. There were lights following the tracks. There was no way that the man with the box could have gone fast enough to clear Jim's view from there. Then Jim turned and looked west. The lights in the subway tunnel were dim, casting a deep yellow glow on the walls beside the tracks. There was room enough in each subway tunnel for the train and little else, though there were random openings in the walls leading to the tracks heading in the other direction. Jim's eyes followed the tracks and this time, in the distance, Jim could make out a small figure, really nothing more than a shadow in the yellow light, walking away from him, carrying a box.

Jim had to decide what to do. If he waited too long, the man would be gone. He could try to follow him again tomorrow. He could hope that the man would walk past Madam Huldah's again and Jim could pick up his trail again. But what would that get him? He'd likely end up right here again-unless he confronted him. Jim knew that confronting the man on the street would be counterproductive. Not only would the guy be unlikely to talk, but he'd put his guard up. No, if Jim wanted to know what the guy was up to, he had to follow him now. He had to see where the man was going. Jim was afraid. He was afraid of oncoming trains. He was afraid of the third rail. Those fears weren't enough to stop him. What scared Jim the most was that he might miss his opportunity to find out where the man with the box was going. Jim stopped and listened for any oncoming trains. He tried not to move, even holding his breath for a moment so he wouldn't drowned out the sound of a faraway oncoming train with the sound of his own breathing. He didn't hear a train. He didn't hear anything except the sound of his own heart beating in his chest. 

Then he hunched down placed one hand on the subway platform. He swung his legs onto the tracks, careful not to overstep and stumble on to the third rail. Jim had no idea if the stories he'd heard about the third rail were true, if it was really deadly to the touch, but he wasn't planning on testing the veracity of the stories. The man with the box had made quite a bit of distance between himself and Jim while Jim had been hesitating so Jim began to move down the tracks with purpose. 

It was strange feeling walking away from the subway platform into the tunnels. Jim felt more like he was entering a cave than a tunnel. In moments, the light from the subway platform receded behind him and all the illumination that was left was the pale yellow lights suspended on the side of the tunnel. Jim could hear a constant dripping sound as water cascaded down the walls around him. Other tunnels branched off from this one, some lit, most dark. Jim took a moment to peer down one with no lights. He could only see about five feet into it before the darkness ate the tunnel whole. As Jim got farther from the train station, the sound of scurrying rates joined the constant dripping sound as the only sounds that Jim could hear. The rats sounded like chirping birds with claws instead of wings, scratching their way across the cold concrete. Jim didn't see any of the rats up close but as he passed each dark tunnel shooting off from his, he could see things scurrying inside the darkness. He could see the reflection of light off the eyes countless rats right before they ran away each time Jim looked at them.

The man with the box kept walking along the same tracks. Jim figured that it wouldn't be long before they reached the next F Train station and wondered what the man had planned. The man was only about twenty feet in front of Jim now. Jim knew that he wouldn't be able to hide now if the man ever looked behind him but the man never did. Then Jim heard a rumbling sound. It was followed by an eerie dance in front of him. Rats ran across the tracks only a few feet from him. Rats he hadn't even seen were now scurrying right in front of his feet. They were readying themselves for the oncoming train. Jim looked up to see where the man with the box was. He was still walking at the same pace he had been the whole time. He didn't even turn his head at the sound of the oncoming train. Jim looked back. In the distance, he could see the training barreling down the tracks towards him. He could run, trying to catch up with the man with the box, trying to make it to the next station but he soon realized there was no time for that. The train was coming fast and every moment of thought was another moment wasted. Jim began sweating; suddenly feeling the tunnels stiflingly heat. He looked at the oncoming train. There was no light on the front of the subway train. Instead there were just two windows, one for the conductor and one for the passengers. A little boy was staring ahead through the passenger window. His jaw dropped when he saw Jim, now only twenty or so feet in front of the oncoming train. Finally, jolted into action, Jim ran forward, away from the oncoming train, looking for side tunnel that he could escape into. After a few steps, one of his feet sloshed in a puddle between subway tracks. He kept running, one foot now heavier than the other with the weight of the water. The train was now only about ten feet from him. He could hear the screech of the brakes on the track as the conductor tried to slow the train down, but he knew that it wouldn't stop before it reached him. Then Jim saw a small opening to his right. He took two quick steps and leapt to avoid hitting the third rail. His leap was a dive into utter blackness. There was little grace to it. Jim tried to keep his feet but stumbled and fell to the ground. He rolled over on his back and, a moment after he entered the darkness, watched the train go by. Lying there in the darkness, Jim could see into the windows of the lit train and look at the riders. They couldn't see him, covered as he was by the shadows. Each car was only about half full of people, people reading, people playing games on their phones, people talking to each other. Jim lay on the ground and watched. In a flash, the train was gone and with it, the light was gone too. Jim was now lying in almost complete darkness. The only light Jim could see was the dim yellowness coming from the entrance that Jim had just leapt through. Jim stood up and walked back towards the light.