Chapter 15
The Discovery
The storm: into the underground, the truth revealed
Cecelia had been warming herself in the morning sunshine when a dark cold cloud blew in. It gave her a chill and it was a sign that this might be the day to inact her plan. The Medicane storm was crawling in off the sea, and it came with winds impatiently banging against the windows, asking to bring the rain inside with them. As the storm came to land and sat on top of the city, water was driven under Cecelia’s window sash. Cecelia dabbed at it with her finger and felt it’s icy touch. Yes, time for her plan.
In the bathroom, where Aurelio couldn’t see, she opened the window fully, and in her living space she managed to pull down the top window just a crack behind the flitting curtain. This gave the wind a path to follow, allowing it to enter and exit. It blew up and down with the gusts, so she hoped that Aurelio wouldn’t notice. He did.
“Why is that curtain blowing?” he bellowed.
She jumped. “It’s nothing,” Cecelia blurted before she could think, then she focused her mind, “I mean the storm. I just tried to close that window. The top sash is always falling down. Let me try again.”
Cecelia concealed her smile as she walked over to the window, fiddled with it shaking it up and down. She managed to get it to release a bit more and open another inch. Perfect. This created a stronger cross breeze with flecks of water wetting the curtain and floor.
“It’s broken,” she said, “I couldn’t get it to go up, it just keeps falling down further.”
Aurelio tilted his head down to look at her with his two top eyes, which made it easier for him to see her expression. His fangs clicked as they stabbed past each other, a gesture of frustration that Cecelia knew well.
“I can’t deal with this cold,” he muttered, and moved slowly into the far corner. The cold was affecting him quickly making old injured leg stiffen and drag. Looking like an old man in need of a cane, he struggled to get himself into his sleeping spot, curling his legs in. He was already slowing down from the cold. Aurelio had a little hammock with a curtain that he would retreat into, and this day he tucked himself in deep.
‘Good’, thought Cecelia, ‘He won’t be able to see me.’
After a few minutes she called quietly, “Aurelio...Aurelio...I think I fixed the window.” She waited a few more minutes, “Aurelio?” she poked him from underneath with the broom handle. There was no movement in response.
Already wrapped in her jacket, she grabbed her flashlight, and crept past Aurelio’s sleeping spot. She didn’t need to tiptoe for all the racket the cyclone was throwing at their windows, but she did out of habit. She walked past him and saw the rope that had been her ankle leash, which was now covered in grey dust. Fearing the chasms he had warned her about, she picked up the rope and wrapped the end around her wrist and held on tightly. She didn’t want to use her light yet, so she shuffled her feet across the floor, then tapped with her toe out in front to feel for the chasm. A slight crack that went down an inch made her jump, but regaining composure she cautiously reached her toe over the edge. She almost laughed at herself when she banged her toe so quickly, and her leg kept bending because she expected a huge drop. This toppled her back, made her slap her hand into the thick gritty dust on the floor, and then startled she jumping back up frantically wiped her hand off on her pants.
This tiptoeing wasn’t going to work if she was going to get anywhere. She needed light, so covering the end of the flashlight with her hand she turned it on. The orange glow that came from between her fingers was just enough to show the flat floor extending out in front of her and to the right. There had been a door and a wall long fallen away, and she had just stepped over what was left of the threshold. Moving to the right put her down a wide walkway where she felt safer to reveal her light.
Cecelia took her hand off the front of the flashlight and screamed, “Aurelio! I, uh, I thought you were...I mean, I didn’t know you were here.” On top of the abandoned ticket machines sat Aurelio, but he wasn’t moving. “Aurelio?” Cecelia moved a little closer and shined the light directly on him.
He was sitting there with his legs splayed out more than usual, belly resting on the top of the ticket machine. His legs were more tan than the usual yellow-green, and more transparent. All of him was more transparent. She jumped back when she noticed more legs next to him. Another spider. Then shining her flashlight down the row of machines she saw more spiders that got smaller and smaller the further they went. Not much smaller, but the distance made them appear half size.
Cecelia jumped back, but none of the spiders moved. Calling back to her all the bravery that just run down the hallway without her, Cecelia moved in closer again. Still no movement, except the slight billowing of a small web that had been built behind the knee of one of the legs. This must be one of the babies, thought Cecelia. She wanted to smash it, but the bigger spider was standing sentinel.
“Why don’t you say something?” she yelled at the spider. It didn’t move, so she grabbed a chunk of cement that had fallen off the wall, and threw it with another yell, “Stop staring at me.”
The spider form crumbled like a dried up flower taken out by a falling tree. All the pieces separated and fell flat except for the one knee with the web, which held together but fell flat to the side. This leg knocked the spider next to the first, which also crumbled. The other spiders didn’t move, just staring forward in the gauntlet that she would have to pass through. She didn’t know how she was going to get past them, until the little spider climbed over the leg and repelled down the front of the ticket machine.
Even this little, she didn’t want to have an encounter with it again. The feeling of the shower and crawling legs ran down her back with a shiver. It was the life of this little creature that helped her realize that all of these spiders were just Aurelio’s moldings. “Maybe that’s why you hide sometimes,” she spoke to the third spider, “You molt and get all soft and vulnerable.” Cecelia scoffed at the line of spiders, but ran past them all the same.
Past the spider shells she went down a flight of stairs. The space was broad, a hallway for masses of people. The passage was filled with debris to the left where it went up some stairs to another forgotten entrance from the surface that had been closed off. It was open to the right, a long tunnel that she couldn’t see the end of. Part of the ceiling had collapsed, revealing the rebar structure. There was a smooth low curved metal shape, that as she drew nearer to she recognized as an escalator, and along side that there were writhing cables tied down and followed the escalator into the depths below. She grabbed the handrail, expecting it to pull her onto the top moving step, but nothing was moving. She laughed at herself, but the momentum she expected pushed her forward with a jolt onto the first shallow step. She pointed the flashlight into the depths, and inhaled slowly trying to steady herself. The storm created a vacuum that pulled air up. It had a stagnant, unwholesome quality that felt thick in her lungs.
Cecelia retreated back to where the wall now ended and took gasping breaths. The initial deep breath had overwhelmed her, but the howelling winds gusted some fresh air back into this tunnel. Pulling her shirt up over her mouth to keep clinging smell away, she turned back. She could now smell her own breath mixed with the smell coming from below, and the occasional puff of fresh air from behind. At this moment she almost lost her nerve, reasoning to herself that if she went back to get a mint that would help, but also knowing that if she went back that she wouldn’t come back here again. The leash had also run out, so she unwound her wrist and pushed forward.
Breathing through her mouth with one hand holding her shirt close, the other with the flashlight she carefully started descending the escalator. The whistles and moans of the storm were fading, giving way to the tick tick of water dripping with an echo. She thought she could hear water running and trickling. The escalator steps felt strangely shallow, the distance unknown descending into this abyss. Her flashlight illuminated just a short distance in front of her, highlighting cobwebs hanging down like unwashed hair, the dust on the steps, and the waves of cables following her down. The handrail was surprisingly without dust; she didn’t know that Aurelio would slide down on his belly wiping it clean. On the steps and the walls the dust had little scoop shapes carved out where Aurelio would put a claw down to balance himself. Cecelia’s hand caught a bit of web trailing next to the hand rail. It was the same as the soft smooth web he had made her hammock from. It shouldn’t have been, but it was reassuring because of its familiarity.
Cecelia took each step furtively focusing on each bit of dust, web, step, and railing she could see. It was almost monotonous in its similarity, so when she finally saw the escalator stairs flatten and the floor before her she was so glad to be at the end of the descent. Here was where the water was dripping, right there at the end of the escalator, where the tunnel ceiling met the platform ceiling. It had increased to an irregular shower all along the length of the crack, which made a wall of random drips that captured the light with sparkles, making the space beyond look like a black hole. She could not go around the shower. Having forgotten the leash, she jumped through getting hair wet, and cutting cold down her back.
She shook with chills, but was it from the cold water or the feeling of the soft grey bundles she bumped into with her jump into the previously dark space. The silk was old, dirty and had lost its flexibility. It gave way to the pressure of her hand with a crackle, and she felt something thin and hard underneath. Quickly righting herself, clenching her fist, Cecelia forced her mind to focus on the feeling of her nails digging into her palm.
Her eyes were closed, with a grimace and her hand pumping her nails into the heel of her hand until the pain went to her wrist she opened her eyes again. She had turned her head away from the bundled shapes and was already looking away from them to the right when her eyes peeled open. She could make out the edge of the subway platform and further down the station than before as the hanging signs caught the light. They were so covered in dust that they seemed out of focus. In the farthest distance she could see the hint of shapes that hung down, appeared like billowing clouds. And others that lay on the platform like piled rocks. These shapes were neither of these things.
Cecelia walked over to the edge of the platform, shining her light down to the tracks. A stream was running by, kicked up by the railroad ties into regular waves that splashed in rhythm. There were more leaks coming from above as the city streets had started to flood with the onslaught of rain and high waves from the sea. She knew nothing of the calamity that was happening above, other than to wonder where so much water was coming from. There was some protection for her due to the water proof construction, but that was failing.
She continued to walk along the platform, looking down to the stream, so that she could avoid looking at the shapes as long as possible. The platform sounded long, with the soft muffled echo of her footsteps that drifted off. Cecelia looked back to the path before her, keeping her eyes down. She told herself that it was because she wanted to be aware of any holes, but she really wanted to avoid looking at the shapes that were her objective. On the floor the dust was thick, but with paisley shaped scoops of Aurelio’s paw prints, one on top of another, going in different directions. They followed a regular path about 8 feet wide, and in places there were wide cleared spots from where Aurelio had dragged his prey.
Cecelia noticed a long echo opening up to her left, on the other side of the tracks. Her mind instantly went to her childhood fears, imagining something monstrous lurking down there. Maybe a dragon or troll, or maybe even alligators or rats or the Echidna that her brothers told her rose up from the waters of rotting flesh to eat little girls and helpless creatures.. The thought of rats being a reality made her shiver and recoil. The thought of the Echidna eating the rats repulsed her. Oh, how she hated rats, and feared the Echidna.
The fact that there was no wind in this tunnel didn’t come into her thoughts, rather just the heaviness of the air that forced itself into her nostrils. There was another opening of dripping water from the wall to the tracks that caused rivulets to push a path through the dust. She carefully stepped over this, but not seeing that the water had puddled she was quickly down on her side.
With a soundless slide her leg had gone out from underneath her, then a huge thump her left hip and elbow hit the concrete. The dust had formed a sticky slime that instantly soaked into her clothing. With her right hand she pulled back her long hair, which was now heavy with the wet dust, sticking it to her back. She set her hand down in one of the swoosh prints, hoping for a solid place to right herself, but it was still wet and slippery. She couldn’t get a good footing, so she was forced to get onto her hands and knees, and then slowly shimmy herself into an awkward table shape. She pushed herself back to a squat and slowly rose straight up.
Her hand was no longer holding her shirt over her face, and she didn’t want to put her hand back with all the muck on it. Cecelia continued walking carefully, putting each toe down to feel for each step. As she walked she rubbed her hands off on the few dry spots of her clothing. Her clothing was now streaked and mottled by grey ooze and soaked through. She continued to try to clean her hands, rubbing them together and around, which formed little balls of sticky dust that clung to the hairs on the back of her hand and between her fingers.
It wasn’t far before she found a zone of dead sound. She tested it with her voice, at tentative, “hey!” It felt as if her voice was muffled by a thick scarf. She was at the shapes. The path made by Aurelio’s steps that she had been following had cleared path that now branched out into a pattern like a tree. She thought it pretty, but still didn’t want to let herself think about what really made these patterns.
She thought she heard a moan, but couldn’t tell where it was coming from. She echoed the moan as in answer and listened. Her breathing became fast, shallow and focused in her upper chest. There was a desire for and revulsion to reaching out and feel the orbs; she was frozen. But she needed to know. She knew that she must move forward. Still stepping forward on her toes, she tapped around with each step cautiously.
There was something that her foot touched, something springy and sticky. It gave way under her foot gently, but then stuck to her foot. Cecelia tried to pull her foot back, but the sticky thread had caught her. Cecelia flailed and shook her leg wildly about as if this were the first time she had touched a web in the dark. She was no longer willing to be in this trap, so she fought and pulled hard. She didn’t get far as it was quite heavy. It yanked her foot, and down she went again.
Having headed off into an unknown direction, she found herself falling into one of the downed orbs. It was springy and soft, but pushed back like a soft water balloon. Cecelia tried to take a slow breath, but the strong rotten smell prevented her from breathing deeply. She closed her eyes and pulled in both her lips biting them with resolve. Once again she was on her left side, so she pushed against the orb with her right hand. It broke open, her hand went in deep, to the elbow. It was cold and thick. The acrid smell punched forth, assaulting her nostrils and eyes. It was so strong that she felt her skin shrinking back.
She rolled away onto her back, pulling her arm out. The trail of cold viscous liquid trailed across her other arm and body, soaking her in the stench. Trying to rub her arm clean, gently so as not to break open the pod in a different area, she shimmied herself down to the floor, and scooted away on her bottom. She was sobbing and moaning. There was an answer of moaning, but she was unsure if it was someone else or an echo.
Her foot was still stuck. She frantically shook her foot back and forth, rubbing it against the ground until the silks let go. Afraid to stand, Cecelia crawled and squirmed across the floor trying to find the rivulet she had passed. Her flashlight was ahead, which was a good thing because she would have been too afraid to go back to get it. In the crawling she saw a watch, and then a shoe.
This made her stop for a moment, as she scanned the floor. From this low down angle she was able to see other debris. More shoes, a belt, items she began to recognize from the various dates that she had had. Things that she had been attracted to, things she admired, things she thought she wanted. The faces of the men they belonged to had been lost in her mind. Had she even been interested in them, or just their things.
She turned and sat facing back at the shaped, shining the flashlight on them. They were the same as Lorelei, some longer, some wider. She had to know for certain, so she shined the flashlight from behind a shape and saw the bones, the outline of a body in the thickness of the web. These were the men she had brought home, they were here. She now understood that this had been their fate. The realization hit her inner core, deep down in her soul, and her soul’s grief overcame her with retching. She knelt with her head bowed in sorrow. The sorrow overcame her making her curl up like a snail retreating into itself, then she vomited down the front of herself.
Covered with wet dust, vomit, and the liquified remains of one of her dates, Cecelia had become the Echidna of the sewers that she had feared.
Returning back to the surface, getting swept away in the flood
She sat in her own filth, panting and trying to reason what to do. She didn’t know what to do, except to get out of this place. Wobbling as she rose, she shined her flashlight down the platform and tried not to look back. Cecelia walked slowly, still feeling unsteady and unsure if she were going to throw up again. She held one hand forward shining the light, the other outstretched to the side as if she were going to grab a railing to help herself walk straight.
The crack along the ceiling by the escalator was pouring out a sheet of water, and chucks of the concrete ceiling lay about. She jumped through the cold water, and slipped on the treads of the escalator. Able to catch herself in an awkward four-legged pose, she reached up with her left to grab the handrail leaving a wet sloppy handprint of muck.
Cecelia climbed back up the unmoving escalator through the water that was crawling down the steps, her feet slipping back a bit with each step. Each place she grabbed with her hands left an ever decreasing print. Cecelia’s breath was shallow, hyperventilating, and her head was swimming for lack of oxygen. She tried to breath deeper, but her own stench caused her to cough and start to heave. She forced it back down for fear of increasing her own reek. She lifted her hand to wipe her face, then recoiled from the sight of own hand. It appeared deformed as the slice had caught some gelatinous clumps and stuck them to her arm like huge leeches.
Cecelia was trying to understand the full reality of what she had seen. She knew that it was all her fault, and was shaking with the shock of the smell and sensation of the familiar silk encapsulating something so repugnant. She forced the idea that that repugnance was what was left of one of her dates out of her mind. The thought was too awful and her guilt associated with this too overwhelming.
She looked down at her soiled feet as she climbed and saw that the flow of water was piling up on her feet, as a new stream was coming from the tunnel ceiling. It was dripping fast, starting to open up like a shower head. A chunk of ceiling cracked off, hitting her hand hard with a jagged edge. She didn’t see the new gush of blood mixing with the slime that clung. She didn’t notice the sting on her hand, because she was looking in fear at the increasing flow of water down the steps. The water was starting to come fast from the ceiling and the top of the escalator, far more than the trickling that she had seen on her decent. Urgency rose in her pushing aside her inner tribunal for the moment.
The back room was puddled, and when she emerged from Aurelio’s lair she found standing water. Aurelio was still tucked in the corner as the whole place was damp and windblown. Cecelia rushed past him heedlessly, frantic to get away from Aurelio, afraid of what dangers the flooding brought. People were running in both directions down her little alley. Cecelia bumped into a tall man who was kicking waves of water before him. He had been looking down, trying to navigate his way through the rising waters.
Gasping at the smell, he backed up a step and saw this seemingly disfigured person in front of him, blood dripping from her hand, grime and webs lashed around her legs. She looked like a beaten prisoner with wild eyes of a mental escapee. “Are you OK?” he asked dumbly, realizing that she certainly wasn’t.
“The dead. They’re dead. Piles,” Cecelia gasped. “I didn’t know. I really didn’t. No, I knew. I should have known.”
“No, who’s dead? Are there people hurt? Do we need to go help them? Where are they?” he asked in panicked tones. He had believed that this flood was nothing more than an inconvenience, maybe some property damage, and now he was alarmed. “What happened to you? Where did you come from?”
“Up. I came up from below. Up, the tunnels. The subway.”
“There’s no subway station around here. Where were you? Where did you come from?”
“Down.”
The tall man looked behind him, down the path to her apartment and started to step that way. “Here?”
“NO! Don’t go. It’s horrible. They’re all gone. Don’t go!”
“What if someone needs help?”
Cecelia screamed with spit shooting out with her utterance turning back down the alley, “You can’t help! It’s all my fault! I did it, I killed them.”
The man reached out to grab her, hold her there, but the slime on her arm had made her too slippery. All he heard her say was: you can’t… His thoughts quickly returned to getting home to his family, after he washed his hands in the brackish waters.
Rounding the corner Cecelia splashed into a boiling puddle, like a spring, brown water was surging from the manhole. The water pushed at her feet causing her to side step to stay upright. Over her own stench, Cecelia was able to catch the waft of sulfur and the pungency of stirred up sewer. She stepped back again, unsure where to go she looked down the street she had been heading to. It was water covering the alleys from building foundation to the other side’s building foundation.
Cecelia turned around, heading right down the next alley, still hoping to get out of the flood, but stumbled into a new surge of water. All the rain was flowing from rooftop to the next roof, then as a wall into the street. The surge was so strong that her feet were swept from beneath her. She fell hard on her side, grabbing at a sign post. Her hands had become slipperier as the slime was moistened by the rain, and she lost her grip as the water continued to push her down the street. A man on near by steps grabbed at her, grabbing her injured hand. She screamed in pain, pulling her hand away. The gash on her hand was now obvious to her, a flap of flesh hanging to the side. The man grabbed her clothes and pulled her up halfway, she let go of the pole causing her to roll into the water more. He couldn’t hold her alone, so the pull of the water took her away. Thankfully this was in level area, so the water was flowing quickly but smoothly.
Cecelia tried to swim up stream, but all she could see was that she was flowing quickly past door, sign, tree. ‘To the side,’ she thought. The current worked against her as it braided itself in and out, rolling over and under with each obstacle. She pulled and kicked, tried two grab at poles or trees, but the whirlpools they created pushed her around them instead.
A side stream flowed in, catching her in an eddy. She moved slowly as she spun with this new current, and was caught in the debris pushed against a utility box. Her foot caught in a scooter, holding her down so that her head was pushed under the flow of water. She wondered how long she could stay under, was this her fate, would anyone find her, know her, recognize her, care about her. She started counting, 1, 2, 3….her other foot pushing, kicking against the scooter as she tried to dislodge their other. 31, 32, 33, she spun around with the water so that it forced itself up her nose. Her foot was now twisted around, still caught in the scooter. The scooter was pushed around too, it turned down stream and onto its side releasing her foot.
Cecelia was now heading down the stream head first, back into the center of the flow. Suddenly she was flowing into Plaça de Nova, where the water was flowing swiftly into, but had room were spread out and slowed down. Her hands touched bottom where she could feel the cobbles. The flow was still too fast to stand, but she was able to roll over, to grip enough with her feet and knees and hands to move towards the stairs of the Cathedral of Barcelona.
There was a man standing there who immediately saw her, stepped down into the flow and reached out for her. By now Cecelia had been washed of the slime and webs. She was somewhat clean looking, with just bits of branches and leaves in her hair and still the clinging slim. Cecelia looked at her hand, the flap of skin, the flow of blood—it was a strange relief to see her own blood, her own humanity, a wound that meant life not the slime of death.
The man pulled her to the stairs out of the water, and took her hand into his gently to look at it. “You’re hurt,” he said. “Are you hurt anywhere else?”
Cecelia was unaware of her body for all the trauma she had just experienced, she had to stop and think about each limb, her torso, what signals were her nerves sending to her brain. Her ankle was throbbing from the scooter, she was coughing up water, and blowing more water out her nose, she felt lightheaded. “I don’t know,” she said, “I think I’m ok.” She took a step forward and her ankle screamed in pain. “No, that hurts,” she said, now looking up.
”You!” he said. “My Cecelia! I’ve been looking all over for you! And to find you here.”
Cecelia pulled away, fearful of his wrath, misinterpreting his enthusiasm for anger.
“Here, let me help,” he picked her up and carried her to the top of the stairs, out of the water.