My Intuition Never Lies
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I’ve never liked the word psychic. It’s too much like “psychopath.” I can’t really be a psychopath and I don’t like people calling me that either. Psychopaths, maybe? That’s better. Anyway…
“What the hell?” The voice was so loud it echoed down into the street. “Where is everybody? Where are they hiding these kids?”
It was a familiar voice. A man in an expensive suit, with dark eyes and a short black beard. He turned to look over his shoulder at me but stopped when he saw my face. His jaw dropped open. Then he grabbed for his earpiece.
“We’re under attack! We need backup!”
He ran past me as fast as he could without actually running. But he did have to slow down to avoid colliding with the pedestrians who’d just gotten out of the way of the speeding car. When he came up on the corner where I stood, his hands were clamped around his ear.
“You there,” he said. “Get in here now.”
The driver had parked right in front of me and I couldn’t move until he pulled back onto the street. I got a glimpse inside. There were two kids sitting in the front seat and a third one hanging upside-down from the roof by her knees. She wore a white dress; it looked new, but then everything about that kid always appeared to be brand new. Her hair was blond like she’d been dipped in flour.
I stepped into the car and shut the door. “What happened?”
They were all silent for a moment. I thought they might be afraid of me or something because they didn’t answer my question, even when I asked it again. They all looked away as they spoke, which I found strange since none of them were related. But then again, I guess we weren’t exactly family.
“A car came out of nowhere,” said the woman who rode in the back. She held her head, which seemed a little wobbly. And when she moved, the hem of her gown flipped up to expose a pair of panties. This is why I should always wear pants. I’m a good friend, so I tried not to stare. But I do have to say, the crotch of those undies was quite impressive.
“I was going fast enough for us all to get off,” added the boy riding shotgun. He wore a gray jacket and a pair of jeans that made him look taller than he really was. “But the girl didn’t want to jump.”
His sister, still hanging upside-down, grunted. Then she started singing:
“When you see a sign,
Don’t be so rude as to ignore,
If you don’t follow what it says,
And if you don’t know how,
Just let me know…”
The boy took the next verse, trying his best to sing along with her. At least he was trying. I could tell he wasn’t a very good singer but I couldn’t help thinking this was some kind of weird sextet.
“…And I’ll show you how,” the girl sang after him, “to get your groove on, baby, ’cause it’s time for a dance.”
That last part sounded more like a growl.
“She was going too slow,” the boy finished the song, “and there are lots of things that she should have seen.”
“Like our van,” the woman driving said, and she glanced sideways at me while rolling down her window. “Couldn’t you stop sooner?”
“No, ma’am,” I said and gave my most sincere smile, “but I can promise we won’t leave any dents.”
There were three adults, including myself, and four children riding in the van. All the adults were wearing suits and carrying briefcases. The kids, however, were dressed in their favorite clothing.
The youngest child wore only a pair of pink shorts, but the rest of his ensemble consisted of a blue shirt and a pair of sandals. They were old but still new looking and he hadn’t yet begun to develop calluses on his feet. He sat in the middle of the van, swinging his legs back and forth while holding a book in his lap. He read silently to himself, oblivious to everything else.
The second kid looked like he could be twelve years old, but he was actually sixteen. Like the younger one, he wore a pair of shorts, but they were much larger and hung loosely off his hips. And they weren’t pink. Instead, they were black and decorated with a picture of a clown.
That clown would scare anyone off the road. But I’d come across worse things, and the young man’s face had a pleasant glow to it. He smiled at me and winked when he caught my attention.
The two girls were different from each other but somehow similar. One wore a bright red dress, though not quite as fancy as the girl in shorts. It was short, revealing a lot of leg. But the girl kept it wrapped around herself tightly, so no one had to worry about seeing her underwear. She held a large purse at her side.
Her companion had long black hair and wore a pair of overalls; she was small, barely reaching my shoulder height. She looked to be in her early teens, but there wasn’t much about her that seemed adolescent. She was older than she looked and acted like an adult, except perhaps when she laughed.
Her voice was sweet and high-pitched, making people think she was a bit younger than she really was. She held a box of candy in her hands and giggled nervously whenever I got close.
It was hard for me to tell how many siblings they were since all six of them were wearing the same clothes. But there were seven pairs of shoes lying on the floor of the van behind my seat and eight sets of sunglasses. Six kids, ten parents. And nine sets of keys hanging on the ignition.
The driver rolled down the windows all the way and turned up the radio so everyone could hear it better, even though it was already pretty loud. A song by some band called “Toads” came on and they all sang together:
“…You can find it on the map
And if you get lost you’re screwed
‘Cause, it’s too late to go back…”
They must’ve been playing some game because the boy in front of me tapped his sister on the knee to remind her that she needed to sing a certain line, then he started again. This time I tried to join in too:
“…So when you see a sign,
Don’t be so rude to ignore,
If you don’t know where to start,
Let me know, oh…”
I didn’t sound half bad for someone who rarely sang in public. The others laughed at me, though.
“Stop it,” I said with a grin, “you guys need to give me another chance.”
“What are you smiling for?” the boy asked. “You don’t sound like you belong here.”
He was right about that, but I couldn’t help laughing. The girl with the red dress looked over at us and giggled.
“We’ve never heard such a cute little tune,” she said, and I blushed when I realized she thought of me as a boy.
But it was too funny for me to let pass without comment. I grinned and gave her my best look, but the boys all snickered at me instead.
“…Well, I hope you feel better now,” the driver said after taking a deep breath. Then she leaned out the window and pointed ahead, telling us to hurry up.
Our journey began.
***
We left town fast, and we didn’t slow down once. Even the police car sitting just ahead of us didn’t bother chasing us. I guess our ride was faster than the law enforcement vehicle.
After we drove for a few miles, the sun rose above the horizon. It was getting hot, and my face glowed in the bright light of day. We were going to hit the highway soon. But the road was still empty and the sky was clear. No clouds or rain for us.
That was fine with me. If it rained, it might ruin my vision. I wouldn’t be able to tell where we were going anymore.
Ahead, the road curved sharply. I could already see what lay beyond it. I’d hoped they were wrong about their destination being on the other side of that curve—but no. We had to go straight and turn back, and there was nowhere else to go besides that curve.
This place, this stretch of land, was so big that I couldn’t see how far we’d gone, but we should have been somewhere in the middle of nowhere. But that didn’t seem to matter. Our van passed through the trees, over the grassy plains, and onto the dirt road leading into the forest.
There weren’t any more vehicles around and no houses anywhere near us. Just a single lane and an open field before we reached the forest’s edge, which was thick as ever, but now with something new growing from within.
Rocks covered the ground and made things difficult, but we drove right over them and kept going. There were some fallen trees along the way, but they weren’t blocking the road; they’d already been cleared away. And we soon arrived at the entrance of a tunnel.
I’d always imagined a tunnel would lead underground, but it wasn’t like that at all. I was looking out the window, watching the sunlight fade and the forest’s branches block the daylight, when it occurred to me that we were driving deeper and deeper into the woods. I turned my eyes back to the inside of the van, wondering why the kids and adults all seemed so excited.
Then I saw what they were staring out the window.
We were passing under the water tower, only about fifty yards in front of me. I watched as its top disappeared from view, disappearing completely when the tunnel narrowed and ended. From that point on, it was a dead end.
Water fell down all around us and dripped off the sides of the truck bed. The air grew steadily hotter until I felt sweat forming on my brow. When we finally stopped moving, it took a moment for me to notice anything at all. I looked forward to seeing if anyone had noticed us first. They hadn’t.
The water tower stood tall against the night sky, but now it appeared small and weak compared to this thing. The water gushing from its opening seemed pale in comparison with the power that emanated from it, pouring down toward the earth below. I stared at that giant structure for a long while.
And then I knew: I’d seen these walls before.
They had a pattern—a symbol—like the one etched into my arm. It wasn’t quite the same, but I recognized that font. And it wasn’t just the symbol either; there was a word written next to it that I knew very well by now.
“Tunnel,” I whispered to myself. “It’s got to be Tunnel.”
“Who cares?” the driver said over my shoulder. “Why are you staring at that? What’s up with you tonight?”
I shook my head to make sure I wasn’t imagining things, but she didn’t believe me. She must not have seen the water tower either. She turned to face forward again, and that was fine with me.
I wanted to take another look at Tunnel before we passed underneath, so I opened the door and stepped outside to stare at the massive wall. A cold breeze blew past, making me shiver. I looked at the sky, trying to find some stars or even a moonlight reflection in the dark waters of the lake, but there was nothing.
The sun had set, and the world was black around me. The water tower loomed tall above me, casting an ominous shadow. As far as tunnels went, this thing was a monster.
But that wasn’t what concerned me. That was the easy part. Tunnels had existed for ages and they always led to somewhere else. But this thing … this was a different kind of tunnel.
It was a passage to somewhere else.
An old, abandoned mine, perhaps? A cave system? A secret underwater base? An ancient temple? A lost city? A portal to hell? Or maybe, deep underground somewhere was a gate to heaven itself.
What lay on the other side of the Tunnel? No matter where it led, I could see no good coming from it. This place was not like any other, and it scared the hell out of me.
***
“Let’s get moving,” the man said over my shoulder.
I jumped, startled, and then looked behind me. It had come from him, not me. I tried to hide my reaction, but he must have noticed the way my hands gripped the door handle. He must have noticed because his expression changed when he saw me looking back at him.
“You okay?” he asked. “You don’t look so great.”
I smiled and nodded. The wind was blowing hard, but I couldn’t shake the chill creeping down my spine. The water tower loomed over me, and the thought of walking beneath it gave me nightmares. My stomach lurched, and I almost threw up.
“Don’t worry,” the woman beside him said. “He’ll be all right once we’re gone. It’s not like we can stop, anyway.” She was smiling too, as though she’d said something funny, but her eyes weren’t laughing anymore. In fact, they were cold and empty.
She turned to me. “You should’ve been quiet when you came up here, boy.”
“I’m sorry,” I said quietly.
“That wasn’t your fault, kid. We didn’t want to tell you. Now let’s go.”
I glanced at the truck bed, hoping to see the others. I couldn’t see them anywhere. All I saw was an endless void ahead of us, stretching endlessly into the darkness. I didn’t know how high we were in the sky now—it must have gotten awfully dark very quickly since we’d been driving through the night.
There was nothing but blue sky on either side of us now, and I realized how much I missed seeing the stars and moonlight glinting off the water. The air was dry and hot. The ground felt hard.
As the two adults walked away, I looked for anything else I might recognize. I’d seen the lake before, but there was only one building nearby—the water tower—and it wasn’t big enough to have been a town. And it had certainly been empty when I looked at it earlier. Maybe I’d just imagined it.
But no, there it was again. Another tunnel leads under the water tower.
My heart raced. Was that it? Had I finally found the answer to my questions? But how could it possibly lead anywhere else?
A few miles later, the water tower stopped at a small dirt road lined with trees. I could see a single street sign hanging crookedly from its post near a wooden porch; it read “Cottonwood Street.”
The house nearest the street seemed to have fallen into disrepair and decay, though there was no indication of whether it had been built recently or long ago. Trees crowded around it, blocking my view of the rest of the block, and I wondered if there was anyone who lived there. If so, I hoped they wouldn’t mind being visited by strangers.
The road ended at an enormous gate, made of steel, with a metal sign overhead reading “Pine View Estates.” The guardhouse was closed tight, and an armed guard stood inside it, peeking at us from behind a glass window. When he saw us, he pointed a gun out toward the cab over and yelled for everyone to get out of sight, then waved us in.
As we drove past, the woman leaned out of the truck and spat on the guard, who turned his head in time to get it in his eye.
They argued briefly before he fired his weapon through the windshield, striking the woman square in the chest. She slumped against the steering wheel and fell unconscious, leaving the man alone to drive the truck.
I looked in her direction, but couldn’t bring myself to watch her die. What would happen to me next? Would I die like her, or did I need to do something more before I followed in her footsteps? Or was she simply meant to teach me some sort of lesson about not interfering?
The End