Category: Road to Nowhere

(continued from The Watergate)

the whole room an eerie setting.

“This must be it,” Sarah said.

“Why didn’t we see it before?” Nathan wondered aloud.

“We don’t usually come to this side,” Sarah observed. “Besides, it is hid so well I think we wouldn’t be able to see it from the trail.”

Nathan looked at the ominous gate. It was a lot bigger than he expected. But then, it was a flood gate and it had to withstand a lot of pressure.

“Now, how do we get in?” Nathan said as he looked at Sarah. She was smiling her really happy smile.

“It won’t work,” Nathan said

Sarah relied still smiling, “of course it will.”

Nathan sighed. He knew it would. It was a bizarre and crazy enough that he knew it would work. He looked back from Sarah and into the woods. They were both smiling now. They didn’t go far into the woods before stopping and turning.

“Is this far enough?” Nathan questioned.

“Yeah,” Sarah answered. “Tell me again what Constance said about the Watergate.” Sarah remembered what he had told her but wanted to make sure he hadn’t left out any details.

Nathan repeated back the same story as before. When he was done they moved into a small cluster of trees that they could hide in better.

And there they waited. They waited for a long time.

Night fell and a cool breeze crept through the woods from Nathan and Sarah laid waiting. The moon was just a sliver in the sky, but it was a wide sliver. It hung over the woods like a grimacing smile, as if it knew what would come that night. Nathan started to get worried. He knew that they couldn’t stay out much later, but they needed to get behind the gate. Nathan lay in the grass listening to the gentle sound of the crickets and the wind.

The two talked for a little while longer but eventually fell asleep leaning against the trees in the cluster they were hiding in. Nathan’s imagination ran through the many different possibilities that could present themselves on the other side of the gate. He got so worried he almost didn’t want to go through with it. He almost didn’t want to be there, almost, but not quite.

(Editor’s note: This chapter preceeds “The Watergate”.)

Nathan and Sarah made it to the edge of the woods. This is where Constance had said the Watergate was. The bikes wouldn’t be very good through the forest so they hid them just off the road and started the trek to the pond near the other side of the forest. Time seemed to be still while the two hiked through the woods. They talked back and forth about their school work, their friends, their lives. The topic of the Watergate finally came up and the conversation stayed there for quite some time.

They crested Sar hill and paused for a break. They could see the pond from there. The slough that fed the pond seemed unusually still, like it knew what they were planning. It was the forest on the other side of the pond that made them worried.

“That’s where Constance said they would come from,” Sarah said.

“Did she say when they would arrive?” Nathan asked.

“No.”

“We should go down the hill then follow the edge of the forest until we find the Watergate.” Nathan said. He was hoping to not sound too scared.

They rested a little longer then headed down the hill. They were mostly silent going down the hill, both were thinking about what Constance had said. They wondered how Constance knew about the Watergate and what was in it that made it so secret.

The journey down the hill was finally over and the two slowly started making their way around
the pond through the edge of the forest. They had gone nearly all the way around the pond before they found what they guessed to be the Watergate. It was a large, round, rusty grate that looked very old. It almost looked like a man hole cover place in a large drain pipe in the side of the pond.

Sarah led down the hallway to the right. They walked for a bit before the hallway split again, this time one banked sharply to the left and the other led straight again. They took the left. This led them back to the entrance. They headed back to the left and saw that it split as well, one way straight and the other to the right where they had come from.

“Let’s go back down that other hallway,” Nathan said.

“Okay,” Sarah replied.

There didn’t seem to be a reason to whisper, they hadn’t seen anyone since getting through the gate. They looped around the hallway and to the left. They passed another door. This one was obviously special. It seemed to be made out of the same iron that the gate was made out of but had more elaborate ironwork on it. It looked a great deal like a back vault door, just without the combination lock. The continued past the door though. The room at the end of the hallway was giving a very faint green light that made the two very curios.

The room was blocked by a grate almost like prison bars. The walls and ceiling looked like plain rock, as was the floor. Sarah started looking for a latch to lift the door. Nathan started to laugh quietly.

“I suppose you know how to open the door,” Sarah said a little irritated.

Nathan smiled as has grabbed the gate gave it a gentle lift. It continued to lift until it was clear out of the way. He walked in with Sarah following closely behind.

Nathan spent several minutes examining every inch of the gate before Sarah started giggling.

“You didn’t see did you,” she finally asked.

“Yes, but I can’t see what they triggered,” Nathan retorted.

Sarah gently pushed Nathan away from the gate and repeated the motion of the figure. They both waited. Nathan was wondering what was on the other side when he realized that two hooded strangers were on the other side. He jumped when the gate started to open.

“The right touch,” Sarah said smiling in the moonlight.

The gate opened as it had before. The two waited just out of the way from the gate to make sure the way was clear. The gate opened into a dingy hallway with some hooks for hanging hats and jackets. The floor had a gold brown tiling that matched the wall boards the crept halfway up the wall. The rest of the walls and the ceiling were covered in a red and gold wall paper that looked ancient. Nothing was even, the walls had odd bulges and it was obvious that the floor had shifted since it was laid, like the hallway was battling with the dirt it was wrested in.

“I would never leave my stuff here,” Sarah whispered.

“You know would that it is fairly safe though,” Nathan replied as the continued down the hall.

There were a couple rooms immediately off the hallway then it split into three hallways, one in either direction and one straight ahead. The one straight ahead emptied into a large dank, dark room that was equally dingy as the hallway. As they passed one of the rooms they peered through the open door. It was a plain room with a dirty desk and an old office chair. They could see a lamp but the faint light was coming from behind the door. Neither one dared to venture inside the room further.

They continued down the hallway. The whole thing looked so unreal that Nathan wanted to run his hands down across the wall just to make sure it was real. Bad things happen when you touch things that you aren’t supposed to. Nathan put his hands in his pockets just to make sure.