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over. But he didn't want to do that. He'd have to clear the rubble away to seal up the gap or to open it permanently. Either way, the job needed doing.

He set to work with the pick. Mostly he just used it like a scraper, drawing the stones away from behind the furnace. As he cleared them away, more fell from the barrier. "Look at this," he said. "Easy. Not much of a barrier at all."

He turned to face her. She stood half-hiding behind the furnace.

"Flimsy," he said. "Like it was built by somebody little and not very strong."

Finally it had collapsed as much as it was going to. Then the work got tedious and slow as he bent over and picked up the stones and pitched them or hiked them across the cellar out of the way. Sylvie backed out of range. He was vaguely aware of her waiting by the stairs.

By the time the job was done, his back was aching from holding that bent-over pose. But the door into the tunnel was clear. Taking up the flashlight, he took a couple of steps into the tunnel.

"Wait!" Sylvie called from behind him.

He turned back, found her standing between the furnace and the foundation.

"I'm begging," she said. "Don't go." She looked almost frantic, and yet she spoke quietly.

"Tell me why not," he said.

"Because I like you."

"What, there's something terrible down there?"

"Yes."

"Some kind of monster?" He said it mockingly. "I'm not much afraid of a monster that couldn't get through that barricade."

"There's no monster now."

His patience was wearing thin. "Stop the mysteries and tell me!"

Sylvie started crying and leaned against the furnace, her head bowed.

This again, thought Don, too tired now to be sympathetic.

"I'm going, OK? I'll be fine."

"I know you'll be fine," she said, trying to control her crying. "My roommate's down there, all right? Lissy's down there."

If there was one thing Don didn't expect, it was that. And yet it fit. Why she couldn't leave. Why she hated the tunnel. "I don't think you mean she's living there."

"She was cheating," said Sylvie. "She spent all her time that last semester with her stupid boyfriend, she was going to flunk out. So she started stealing my work and copying it to write papers for her own classes. If she got caught we'd both be kicked out! Nobody would believe I wasn't helping her cheat."

"You killed her for cheating?"

"I didn't mean to!" Sylvie turned to face him. "You think I'd plan something like that? She was always in the tunnel. Our apartment was the only one with access to the basement. So she did keep her stash there, her stash, I never used that stuff. But she had pot, sometimes coke, and she and her boyfriend would go down there to get high and... so I knew where she was. I was just going to talk to her. Lay it on the line. She had to stop or I was going to the dean with it."

Sylvie didn't like to go down the tunnel when she knew Lissy was there, mostly because she could never be sure Lanny wasn't there too. He often came up the tunnel the other way to join Lissy there, so Sylvie had no way of knowing if they were together or not. That was a scene she didn't want to walk in on. Sex didn't bother her, or even the idea of seeing people doing it - you don't go to college for this many years without getting an eyeful now and then. What she didn't like was to see Lanny and Lissy doing it. She'd heard it often enough in the next bedroom. Lissy was a squealer and Lanny was a grunter. It sounded like a pig farm and it nauseated her. She couldn't shake the memory of Grandpa's pig farm, back when she still had family. She stood on the second rail from the top, with her daddy holding her up to make sure she didn't fall into or out of the sty. She must have been all of four years old. The pigs were all bigger than her. Like elephants, that's how they seemed. Huge fat muddy pink backs lurching and trotting around in the mud, muzzling the trough, making hideous noises, grunts and squeals. And there was Papaw, teasing her by telling her not to fall in, those pigs would be just as happy to eat little girl as slops. In memory she knew he meant well enough. He'd forgotten the terrors