SIXTEEN
So they crawled.
And crawled and crawled, and then crawled some more.
This is how it feels to be a bug, Robert thought. A person could walk the entire length of Lovecraft Middle School in about five minutes. But here in the ducts, down on his belly, advancing just two inches at a time, that same journey was going to take all afternoon.
Even worse, the ducts were stifling hot. Robert felt as if he was in an oven and soon wished he had removed his jacket. Sweat dripped down his forehead and stung his eyes. The only relief came when they passed beneath one of the large circular fans, spaced every twenty feet or so. A warm breeze was better than no breeze at all.
Sometimes, the duct would fork, and the three of them would stop to discuss the best way forward. Sometimes they passed vents offering views into classrooms and offices; they learned that this particular duct brought heat to Principal Slater’s office, the cafeteria, and a space that appeared to be the faculty lounge. Occasionally, they would hear or see a teacher working late, and Glenn would give the signal to freeze. Then they would all lie silent and wait until the teacher moved on.
After more than an hour of crawling, the duct finally widened into a sort of hub. Five other ducts extended from there, like spokes on a wheel. Robert, Glenn, and Karina had just enough room to sit up and face one another.
“Which way?” Robert asked.
Not one of them had any idea.
“We must be getting close,” Karina said.
Glenn aimed his flashlight into the different passages. Each one looked identical. Robert felt as if he was in one of those cornfield mazes where every path looked exactly the same; there was no way for him to orient himself. At this rate, they would be trapped behind the walls all night.
“This one,” Karina pointed.
To Robert and Glenn, it seemed like she had chosen at random.
“How do you know?” Robert asked.
“Take a whiff,” Karina said.
Robert placed his head in the duct, inhaled deeply, and immediately wished he hadn’t. It smelled like the back of a garbage truck.
“Oh, man, that reeks!” Glenn exclaimed.
“It must be the food supply,” Karina said. “All those bugs have to be eating something.”
“And if we find the food supply, I bet we find Pip and Squeak,” Robert said. “Let’s go.”
Glenn pulled the front of his shirt up and over his nose and then led the way into the passage. Until this point, the crawling had been merely uncomfortable. Now, with the stink of rotten garbage, it became unbearable—and the more they crawled, the worse the odor grew.
Yet they were definitely on the right track. After another few minutes in the cramped passage, Glenn announced that they had company. Sure enough, Robert felt a housefly land on his arm. Then another and another. Here and there on the sides of the vent were tiny white blobs, what appeared to be larvae.
“Every time I think this can’t get more disgusting,” Karina said, “the school finds new ways to surprise me.”
“They can’t touch you, and you can’t touch them,” Robert reminded her.
“But they’re all touching me,” Glenn chimed in.
Five o’clock came and went, and still they were only creeping along. A swarm of black flies had settled on Robert’s head, shoulders, and back. He’d stopped shaking them off—there were too many and they were relentless. He realized he wasn’t going to be home in time for dinner, that his mother would be worried sick, but what could he do? He was beginning to think they would be trapped inside the stifling vents forever.
“Uh-oh,” Glenn said.
“Uh-oh what?” Robert asked apprehensively.
They had reached a three-foot gap. It looked remarkably similar to the chasm that had swallowed Pip and Squeak, and Robert realized he was facing their same predicament. The passage continued on the other side of the gap, but there was no way they could make it across. They couldn’t leap very far while crawling on their hands and knees.
Glenn pointed his flashlight into the chasm, and all three looked down. The airshaft dropped more than twenty feet into darkness.
“The basement’s down there,” Karina said. “It has to be.”
“Anybody bring a rope?” Glenn asked.
“I wish,” Robert said.
They had only three options, and none of them were good: Leaping across the chasm to other side was impossible. Backtracking through the vents to the auditorium would take hours. And dropping into a bottomless pit was the worst choice of all. It meant falling to an all-but-certain death.
“We’re stuck,” Robert said.
“You’re forgetting about me,” Karina said. “I can go check it out. If it’s safe when I get to the bottom, I’ll call up and let you know.”
“And if it’s not?” Robert asked.
“What’s the worst that could happen?”
On a purely logical level, Robert knew Karina was right—it’s not like she could die twice. But all the same, the idea of her jumping into a bottomless pit made him nervous. Anything could be waiting down there. There was no telling what Howard and Tillinghast had planned for the basement.
“I’ll be fine,” Karina assured him. “Make some room.”
She squeezed past the two boys, crawling up to the precipice and diving over the edge headfirst. Her figure vanished into the darkness without a sound. As the moments slowly passed, Robert started to worry that they’d made a terrible miscalculation. Maybe Karina could die twice. Or maybe, in the basement of Lovecraft Middle School, lurked a fate even worse than death—
Then her voice rose out of the darkness:
“All right.”
Glenn insisted on a little more information. He leaned over the edge and shouted into the void. “What do you mean, ‘all right’? What’s down there?”
“You can jump.” Karina’s voice was tinny and soft; it sounded like it was a million miles away. “You won’t get hurt.”
“Why not? What’s down there?”
“Um … you’ll see. Just keep your mouths closed.”
Glenn and Robert exchanged nervous glances: Keep your mouths closed?
“I’ll go first,” Robert volunteered.
He swung his legs over the edge of the chasm and dropped feetfirst. The fall lasted only a few seconds, but time seemed to pass in slow motion. The aluminum panels of the duct blurred past. Flies pinged off his face and hands, as if he were flying through a dense swarm. As he reached the bottom the airshaft grew brighter and brighter, and then he was sailing out of the vent, dropping from the ceiling into a large subterranean room. And the whole time Robert was afraid to look down. He feared that—despite Karina’s promises—he would see a solid concrete floor rushing up to meet him.
Instead, he landed on a cloud.
Or at least that’s what it felt like—this soft, spongy surface that absorbed the impact of his fall. Robert sat up and looked around. He was in the basement mechanical room—and he was up to his waist in a Dumpster full of wet rice.
“Get out!” Karina yelled. She was standing on the side of the garbage bin, gesturing for Robert to move as quickly as possible, but he didn’t understand the urgency.
“I’m fine,” he said. “That didn’t even hurt.”
“Keep your mouth shut,” she said. “Just get out!”
“What’s the big deal? It’s only garbage.”
And the garbage wasn’t even particularly disgusting. Here and there were moldy peaches, apple cores, and other rotting fruits, but most of the bin was filled with white rice.
Many thousands of grains of squirming white rice.
Robert’s eyes narrowed.
Maggots.