Flames Came Rushing//Part 2

Flames Came Rushing//Part 2

The dark caresses his skin as they move swiftly along the unfinished tracks. The cloying moisture of underground places clings to his clothes and to the inside of his mouth. Every now and then Marten hands the makeshift torch to Neve and makes a mark on the right-hand rail with a piece of glow-in-the-dark chalk he stole from his little sister. It's a feeble sort of glow and the X's that trail behind them are little more than ghosts, something better seen out of the corner of an eye.

"Is there a point to all this?"

"You know better than to ask shit like that," Marten says as he finishes chalking another X. Of course there's a point. He pulls a miniature flashlight from his pocket and shines it around. Just as he thought—there's a junction ahead.

Two tunnels diverged in a dank underground, and they—they would take the one less travelled by.

Marten snorts. He hates Robert Frost, and both of the tunnels are equally unused.

"You got a coin, Nieve?"

"Ah ha ha, you're funny. Me, with money," Neve says. "And stop calling me 'snow.' You're no Latino boy, and neither am I." Despite his comment, he reaches into one of the various pockets on his Tripp jeans and pulls out a penny.

"My grandma lives in the Dominican Republic. They speak Spanish there. You know that."

"Yeah, whatever. Heads we go right," Neve says, and flips the coin with a light ting sound that echoes up and down the tunnels. He curses when he fumbles the catch, but another metallic echo reveals that it's fallen onto the track. "Let's see what Honest Abe has to say."

Abraham Lincoln doesn't say anything. He's face-down on the track, his memorial covering him like a coffin. "Tails then." Neve reaches to pick up the penny, but Marten slaps his hand away.

"Don't do that. It's bad luck, and you already had that bird this morning."

"Maaan, you know how broke I am right now—"

"Only 'cause you spend every paycheck on hair dye and concert tickets. Leave it." Marten starts to stand, but stops.

The penny is rattling. Neve is frozen, his fingers only an inch away from the vibrating coin. When Marten touches the track, a soft hum shoots through his bones. The metal is far too cold, especially for a humid night in June. Scaldingly cold, almost.

"It's probably the Amtrak train nearby. This track isn't even connected to the main line yet," Marten whispers when he sees how big Neve's eyes have gotten.

"How the hell do you know? Maybe they've been working on it."

"Because the other rail would be carrying an electric current. That's how the Metro trains work, dumbass." And also because…

"Have you touched the other rail?"

Slowly, Marten turns around and shines his flashlight on the opposite rail, which is thicker and covered with warning stickers about the voltage it's supposed to carry. Wouldn't it be humming or buzzing if it were live? He must have brushed his leg against it at least once already.

Neve stands and walks over to the possibly deadly strip of metal. "These boots have really thick rubber soles," he says, and cautiously places his foot against the rail.

Suddenly his body jerks and goes into spasms. He drops the torch and it rolls over the gravel in a cloud of sparks. Marten is on his feet instantly, as though electricity were racing through his body as well.

"Neve!"

But already Neve's convulsions have turned into convulsions of laughter. He doubles over and cackles, the sound amplified a hundred times by the environment. Marten can feel nonexistent hairs rising on the back of his neck and annoyance rising in his chest. Leave it to Neve. That had been their mothers' favorite saying when the two boys were young.

Still, the echoing laughter is creepy. The sounds bouncing around inside the tunnel—especially the two paths ahead—are hollow and otherworldly. Marten can feel them swooping around like bats, brushing his ears the way wings might, and making him nervous. He stands as still as possible.

"Shut up, Neve, it wasn't that funny."

"Sorry," says the green-haired kid between chuckles. "Your face was priceless. You have no sense of humor, I swear."

"I said, shut up."

Neve shuts up, but the laughter doesn't die. His grin falters as he picks up the flickering torch, which isn't offering much light any more. The shadows jump across his face. "Yeah, all right, that was a little weird. Let's…move on."

They take the tunnel on the left.

They forget the penny.