Klutch dropped to one knee and brought his flashlight up alongside his handgun. The beam shined down the length of the barrel and illuminated the spot where the abandoned train tunnel continued to bend out of sight. A few seconds ago, someone or something had been there, watching us in silence.“Hold it right there!” Klutch’s voice boomed off the walls of the tunnel.
Just that fast, whatever had been there was gone, leaving in its place a few wisps of mist. That too disappeared in seconds, and it was hard to imagine later that anything had been there at all.
Just then there came to our ears an unusual sound from farther down the tunnel. It was a wet flapping sound like the flop of a windblown bed sheet on a clothesline.
Klutch snapped back to his feet. “Did you see anything?” he asked. He didn’t lower his gun or take his eyes from where the mist had been a few seconds ago. “Stay here with the body,” he said, more of an order than a request. “I’ll be right back.”
Klutch barreled down the tunnel in the direction of the unusual sound. His gun was up, ready for action, when he disappeared around the bend in the tunnel.
Just that fast, I was alone in the section of the tunnel where we’d found Stewart’s body. The sounds of Klutch’s running footsteps died off in the distance, and a coffin-like silence settled over the scene.
I looked down at Stewart’s body, and it was in that moment that my small flashlight began to wink on an off. I slapped the head of the light against my palm several times and prayed that the bulb or battery weren’t on the verge of failing. Finally, it came back on one last time before it suddenly quit altogether, leaving me in total darkness.
I gripped my small handgun tightly. Its weight was reassuring, a counterbalance to the almost overwhelming urge to run. I took several deep breaths, but found it impossible not to think about the thing that had killed the man at my feet.
Those thoughts were driven from mind when Klutch cried out. “Argh!” It wasn’t a sound of fear or panic, but a cry of surprise mixed with pain.
I slammed my light several more times against the palm of my hand, and it still refused to work. “Klutch!” I yelled. No answer.
I had no other choice but to go to his aid, so I stepped away from the corpse and groped my way down the tunnel. I trailed my left hand along the rough wall of the tunnel and tried to forget that this course would take me over the spot where we’d seen the mysterious mist a few minutes earlier.
“Klutch, answer me!” I shouted, trying to keep my voice level. Had he encountered the killer? If so, my shouts and the sounds of my approach were a dead giveaway as to my location. For this same reason, I abandoned the idea of trying to get my light going again. It would only telegraph my position to whatever could be waiting ahead in the darkness.
I slowed and continued as quiet as possible. I can only guess as to how far I walked like that. It seemed like a long way. I tested each footfall to ensure that I didn’t step into an unseen hole and snap my ankle like a dry-rotten matchstick.
I saw a faint glow ahead, and a few more steps revealed Klutch’s flashlight. It was on the floor, flush against the right side of the tunnel. Its beam was obscured and traveled up the wall at a weird angle, casting the scene in a shade of sickening, yellow light.
Klutch was prone across the tracks and wasn’t moving. My head on a swivel for unseen attackers, I ran to his flashlight, scooped it up and moved to his side. I knelt and my knees squelched in the guano. He was unconscious, but warm to the touch. I checked the pulse in his neck. It pounded strong and regular.
Klutch was a big man, but I grabbed him on the shoulder and at the hip and managed to turn him onto his back. I put my ear to his mouth and watched his chest. I was relieved to hear his breath and to see his chest rise and fall. Despite the fact that he was covered in guano, I could clearly see bright red blood oozing from a gash on the side of his head. Had he fallen in the darkness? Had someone gotten the drop on him and knocked him out with a blow to the head?
I shook him gently. “Klutch, Klutch.” I said in a low voice. “Wake up, man.” I looked around and listened. Outside the beam cast by the flashlight, the darkness was impenetrable. Anyone or anything could be watching me from somewhere in the darkness.
Where was Klutch’s gun? It wasn’t in his holster, and I didn’t see it anywhere on the floor nearby. It occurred to me that he might have a secondary weapon. I knew that many officers carried them, so I began patting him down, looking for another gun.
I thought I’d struck pay dirt when my hand fell on something hard and rigid clipped to his belt. It wasn’t a gun but his police radio. I pulled it off his belt, and it came away with a loud plastic pop.
I switched it on by twisting a knob on the top and pressed a button on the side to transmit. “Claiborne PD, do you copy this radio?” I released the transmitter and listened for a response. I tried several more times, but never received a response. We were too far in the woods and too deep within the tunnel for the small radio’s signal to reach the police headquarters.
I set the radio down and slapped Klutch hard across the face. “Klutch,” I called. “Hey, man. Wake up.” He reacted to the pain with a grimace, but remained unconscious.
It was at that moment that the sound of a footfall reached my ears. I began shining the light all around, and saw something that had escaped my notice, my attention being totally devoted to Klutch.
The tunnel 50 feet ahead was blocked by a giant mound of deadwood. All manner of tree trunks, limbs, sticks and leaves as well as a good bit of dirt and rocks had accumulated in the tunnel. It was a massive, impassible obstruction that blocked that end of the tunnel from floor to ceiling. The only plausible explanation for the debris that I could think of at the time was that it had washed there over time due to flashflood waters.
Forgetting about the noise that had drawn my attention to the debris pile, I turned my attention back to Klutch. He was still out, and two simple facts were apparent. He needed medical attention, and my only way out was back down the tunnel, past the corpse, into the dark woods beyond. That path would take me to Klutch’s car, where a power-boosted radio would allow me to call for help.
I didn’t want to leave Klutch alone and vulnerable, but what choice did I have? What if the killer came back? What would they do if they found the detective lying here before I could call for an ambulance? What if an animal was responsible for the earlier attack? It could be anywhere, and Klutch was in no shape to defend himself from an attack.
I jammed my gun back into the waistband of my pants, snapped Klutch’s radio to my belt and tried to sit him up. He was dead weight, and I grunted and puffed in my attempt to sit him up. I grabbed him by the front of his shirt and coat to keep him in place, and his head rolled sickly on top of his neck.
Before he could slump back into place, I squatted and grabbed one of his arms. Next, I positioned myself against him and tried to pick him up in a fireman’s carry. My legs burned with the effort, and it was all I could do to keep hold of his arm. With a great gasp of breath, I stopped and eased him gently back to the ground. He was just too big.
I rested for what seemed like a long time with my hands on my knees. I glanced at my wristwatch and saw that it was almost four o’clock in the morning, hours more until daylight.
It was in that instant that I instinctively reached for my handgun and felt a full load of adrenaline dump into my bloodstream in reaction to a loud bone-chilling hiss that came from back up the tunnel. Something was there and the approaching footfalls left no doubt in my mind that it was headed this way.
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