“Who are you?” The simple words echoed through the concrete grotto, but Terah was still confused by the disappearance of the couple in the room. Instinct kicked in and he turned to face his accuser. Dressed in layered rags like he was, the owner of the voice looked hardly old enough to be a runaway.
“California,” he said, knowing the homeless often named themselves. Given that he was wanted, it was safer that way.
“I’ll call you Cal. I’m Michigan.”
“Mich, then.”
“What ya starin’ at, Cal? Most guys don’t like to let their guard down, even for a second.”
Terah ignored the question. “What are you doing here, Mich?” Now that the age dynamic had kicked in, he felt a little superiority.
“I live here.”
“In an asylum?”
“Very good, Sherlock. You figured it out. This is one of those places everyone knows you shouldn’t know about.”
“You’re awfully young—”
“You dint answer my question. What were ya starin’ at, Cal?”
The young man’s self possession struck Terah. He had the confidence of a homeowner defending his property. “Just looking around.”
“Man, it’s bad enough ya won’t tell me your name, but ya lie to me in my own house.”
Truth was, Terah didn’t have much experience with the homeless community. He’d fled Raritan cold, and settled in Stanton Station, trying to blend in. Then the fire. Was honesty the best policy? A guy his age should be able to lie his way out of a situation with this kid who was barely twenty, if that. Still, trust was trust.
“I thought I heard some other people.”
“The ones havin’ sex?”
It felt like the violation of some sacred statute talking to a guy so young about this. “Well, uh, yes.”
“Don’t get all embarrassed, man. I know all about the stuff.”
Locker room braggadocio. “So where’d they go?”
“Who, man?”
“The couple in this room. They friends of yours?”
“I live here alone, Cal. There’s nobody else here.”
“What’m I?”
“I heard ya come in. Hell, the dead coulda heard ya comin’ in. Haven’t been at this long, have ya?”
Terah failed at lying. From a young age telling the truth had been beaten into him. A deadly feature for a man on the run. “No, I haven’t. I just lost my job.”
“Ya sound like ya had a life.”
“Well, if you must know, I used to be a professor.”
“A professor?” His eyebrows shot up. “I’ve run across lots of high school drop-outs. Some college kids who couldn’t get jobs. Even a lawyer or two. But a professor—”
“Hey Mich,” Terah interrupted, “I hate to contradict anyone, but I just saw a couple of other people in this room.”
Mich boldly stepped in. “Then where are they?” He shrugged.
Terah followed him. The room was like many of the others, at one time a dormitory. A stained mattress on rusty springs stood right in the center. Terah put a gloveless hand on it. Stone cold. If there’d been people on it seconds ago it should still be warm.
“Man, I wouldn’t be touchin’ that if I were you.” Mich stared at his hand. “Who knows what happened in here.”
“I suspect,” Terah said, pulling a worn glove back on, “that rumors about asylums are worse than the reality was. These were often state funded institutions. They had inspections and rules.”
Mich wasn’t in the mood for a lecture. “Anybody follow ya here?”
Terah thought of his tracks in the snow. “Not that I know of.”
“I can’t have anyone findin’ me here. If they’re on your heels I gotta throw you out.”
“Nobody’s after me that I know of. I’m just trying to keep out of the cold.”
“Nobody’s after a missin’ professor? Doesn’t sound right to me.”
“Look, I don’t have to explain the higher education industry to you. The fact is there are too many professors and too few jobs. I’ve known professors living out of their cars just to hold onto the dream of an adjunct university job.”
“Sucks for them. Hey, I can let ya stay as long as nobody comes lookin’ for ya, but ya gotta live by my rules. Agreed?”
Terah knew this kid was smarter in the ways of the world than he’d ever been. He nodded.
“First rule, no fires in open spaces. They attract attention. Follow me.”
Terah had no choice. The young man led him back to the stairs. “I think there’s somethin’ fucked up about this place. Take these stairs—pyramids have powers. Why’d they design an asylum like this? Wouldn’t inmates be fallin’ down open stairs like this all the time? Doesn’t make sense.” At the bottom he pointed out the obvious. “Completely symmetrical. If you hadn’t left your shit over there, I’m positive you wouldn’t be able to tell which way ya come in. All the corridors have the same two turns. Why confuse the insane like that? Wouldn’t ya want to make an asylum simple to navigate? Somethin’ weird was goin’ on here. I marked the way. But first,” he walked past Terah’s pack and tinfoil blanket, down the corridor to the front door. He set a long, broken board against it. “Not enough to stop someone comin’ in. That’d make ‘em suspicious. It’ll fall if someone pushes the door. Advance warnin’, cheaper than ADA.”
“Wouldn’t an intruder think it was deliberately set?”
“Possibly, but did you? This place is deterioratin’. Could be a fallen door frame for all they’d know. If I blockaded the door they’d know someone was in here, for sure.” He led Terah back into the main room and around the pyramid of central stairs.
Although it wasn’t obvious, a red splotch near the floor marked the opening across from where Terah spent the night. It would’ve been mistaken as part of the graffiti, if you didn’t know. Mich pointed out each location with red splotches, all at differing heights and near authentic spray paint logos. He’d made a map of the maze. When he stepped through a door, Terah followed, then hesitated. They were at the top of a stairway leading down.
“Gotta be careful here, Cal. No lights.” He slipped something from his pocket. A flashlight. The dark would’ve been complete without it. Underground, under tons of concrete, Terah shivered. Claustrophobia set in—all they could see was what Mich’s light illuminated. “Once you get down to this level, go left at every opportunity. I put some paint, but you can find where you’re going by keeping left.” It felt like entering a tomb. Terah instinctively hunched over. He’d glimpsed rusted pipes overhead. At last the came to a boiler room.
The scrape of a match on metal. A lantern lit. Mich held it up, giving a vague indication of the size of the place. “We’re about as deep into the belly of the beast as we can go,” he explained. “I can light a fire in here, inside one of the old boilers—they’ve been dry for decades—and any smoke leaks slowly from the pipes around the building. Doesn’t send any kind of warning that someone’s here. No fires anywhere else. My house, my rules.”
Terah nodded. “How long have you been here?”
“Long enough,” Mich said, stoking a small fire. “Long enough not to mind a little company.”
Was that good or bad? Terah realized he was deep underground with a guy he just met, and his intentions were unknown.
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