again. As Jake’s other senses sharpened in an attempt to compensate for his lack of sight, he had a vague perception of other tunnels around him. The muffled sounds of ancient, laboring machinery would grow loud for a moment, then fade as the stone foundations of the city drew close around them again. Drafts blew intermittently against his skin, sometimes warm, sometimes chilly. Their splashing footfalls echoed briefly as they passed the intersecting tunnels from which these stenchy breaths blew, and once Jake nearly brained himself on some metal object jutting down from the ceiling. He slapped at it with one hand and felt something that might have been a large valve-wheel. After that he waved his hands as he trotted along in an attempt to read the air ahead of him.
Gasher guided him with taps to the shoulders, as a waggoner might have guided his oxen. They moved at a good clip, trotting but not running. Gasher got enough of his breath back to first hum and then begin singing in a low, surprisingly tuneful tenor voice.
“Ribble-ti-tibble-ti-ting-ting-ting,
I’ll get a job and buy yer a ring,
When I get my mitts
On yer jiggly tits,
Ribble-ti-tibble-ti-ting-ting-ting!
O ribble-ti-tibble,
I just wanter fiddle,
Fiddle around with your ting-ting-ting!”
There were five or six more verses along this line before Gasher quit. “Now you sing somethin, squint.”
“I don’t know anything,” Jake puffed. He hoped he sounded more out of breath than he actually was. He didn’t know if it would do him any good or not, but down here in the dark any edge seemed worth trying for.
Gasher brought his elbow down in the center of Jake’s back, almost hard enough to send him sprawling into the ankle-high water running sluggishly through the tunnel they were traversing. “You better know sommat, ’less you want me to rip your ever-lovin spine right outcher back.” He paused, then added: “There’s haunts down here, boy. They live inside the fuckin machines, so they do. Singin keeps em off . . . don’t you know that? Now sing!”
Jake thought hard, not wanting to earn another love-tap from Gasher, and came up with a song he’d learned in summer day camp at the age of seven or eight. He opened his mouth and began to bawl it into the darkness, listening to the echoes bounce back amid the sounds of running water, falling water, and ancient thudding machinery.
“My girl’s a corker, she’s a New Yorker,
I buy her everything to keep her in style,
She got a pair of hips
Just like two battleships,
Oh boy, that’s how my money goes.
My girl’s a dilly, she comes from Philly,
I buy her everything to keep her in style,
She’s got a pair of eyes
Just like two pizza pies,
Oh boy, that’s how—”
Gasher reached out, seized Jake’s ears as if they were jug-handles, and yanked him to a stop. “There’s a hole right ahead of yer,” he said. “With a voice like yours, squint, it’d be doin the world a mercy to letcher fall in, so it would, but Tick-Tock wouldn’t approve at all, so I reckon ye’re safe for a little longer.” Gasher’s hands left Jake’s ears, which burned like fire, and fastened on the back of his shirt. “Now lean forward until you feel the ladder on the t’other side. And mind you don’t slip and drag us both down!”
Jake leaned cautiously forward, hands outstretched, terrified of falling into a pit he couldn’t see. As he groped for the ladder, he became aware of warm air—clean and almost fragrant—whooshing past his face, and a faint blush of rose-colored light from beneath him. His fingers touched a steel rung and closed over it. The bite-wounds on his left hand broke open again, and he felt warm blood running across his palm.
“Got it?” Gasher asked.
“Yes.”
“Then climb down! What are you waitin for, gods damn it!” Gasher let go of his shirt, and Jake could imagine him drawing his foot back, meaning to hurry him along with a kick in the ass. Jake stepped across the faintly glimmering gap and began to descend the ladder, using his hurt hand as little as possible. This time the rungs were clear of moss and oil, and hardly rusted at all. The shaft was very long and as Jake went down, hurrying to keep Gasher from stepping on his hands with his thick-soled boots, he found himself remembering a movie he’d once seen on TV—Journey to the Center of the Earth.
The throb of machinery grew louder and the rosy glow grew stronger. The machines still didn’t sound