The Closet

Chapter 7

            It was late and they were in a hurry.  Feeding off adrenaline, they were ready to start down the shaft only minutes after they’d hung up.  Their backpacks were stocked and their batteries were tested, so they climbed down the ladder in turns to the tunnel system below.  Their hypothesis that the tunnels extended to each of the kasernes still had to be tested and that was their goal that night.  So far as they could tell, there was really no evidence that soldiers had been in the tunnels recently. The only sign they had seen were the occasional shoe prints and there was no way of knowing how old they were. 

            Sticking with their plan, they decided to explore the tunnel to the southeast.  John had calculated on the map that Taylor barracks was 1 ½ miles in that direction. He figured that was about 30 minutes at a brisk pace so after they were assembled at the foot of the rope ladder, they moved out smartly.  Again, this tunnel was narrower than the first two they had been through.  After they had been walking about 15 minutes, the tunnel widened out into a sort of a room before it narrowed again and continued. Looking up from the “room”, they could see that the ceiling faded up beyond what their lights would illuminate, but there was no sign of a ladder or rope or of any other way of climbing into the space.

            Continuing down the narrowed tunnel, they walked for another 15 minutes when they came to its end. Once again there was a ladder shaft that they couldn’t reach, and this time there was no debris to build a platform with. Aggravated that they hadn’t brought a rope, they vowed they would find one before tomorrow night, but tonight they had little alternative but to retrace their steps. When they reached the room in the middle of the tunnel, John signaled for everyone to stop and be quiet.

“Listen,” he said and they all went silent. “Turn off your lamps and focus your senses on just your hearing.” 

Allie wasn’t crazy about the idea, but finally went along with it. In the dark they listened intently and heard quietly echoing down from above the sounds of automobile traffic. 

John switched on his light and asked, “What do you think of that?”

Jarom said, “It sounds like cars, a long way off.”

John agreed, “I think so too.  Where could it be coming from?”

Jarom answered, “I don’t know.  I think we need to take another look at the map and see if that gives us any clues.  We’re about half-way between our house and the end of the tunnel.“

Other than hearing the traffic sounds far off, the rest of their walk back was uneventful.  Reaching the ladder shaft to their closet, they turned south and began walking. Examining his map, John pointed out that Spinelli Barracks was 1 ½ miles away to the south. By this time their expectation was to find a matching shaft about 30 minutes out, and they weren’t disappointed.  At close to a mile-and-a-half, the tunnel ended with a familiar ladder hanging at the same height as the rim of a basketball hoop might be.  Not being able to dunk, however, was a problem, and they didn’t want to be disappointed again, so they were determined to figure out how to reach the ladder.  Jarom hit upon an idea.  He and John stood back to back and interlocked their arms and then reaching out with their legs began walking up opposite side walls of the shaft.  It was slow going, but they made progress.  When they had walked up to the height of the ladder, they both grabbed the bottom rung and swung their bodies down from it.  Letting loose with one hand, Jarom did a pull-up and then grabbed the second rung, and then the third. John repeated pull-up maneuver and shortly he was scrambling up the ladder behind Jarom.

At the top of the ladder, Jarom followed his own advice from the night before and put his ear against the trap door. There was nothing but silence on the other side, as far as he could tell. He noiselessly tripped the lock on the hinge mechanism and at first gently, and then firmly, pushed up on the front of the door.  Judging from the tight fit and the dirt and debris that fell on him as the door creaked open, it seemed that the door hadn’t been use in a long time.  The room the door opened into was dark and apparently unoccupied.  Shining his headlamp around the room, he could see that he was in a corner opposite a wall with a window. He crawled out into the room and made his way to the window, eager to see where he was. John followed him up into the room and he too went to the window. Looking out, they saw that they were on the ground floor at the edge of a large grassy field. There were long, two-story structures framing the field. 

John whispered in Jarom’s ear, “These look like barracks and a headquarters building.  See the flag poles?” he said pointing to the side of the field.  “That’s a parade field. We must be in Spinelli Barracks.”

The boys were no strangers to military buildings having spent their whole lives around them.  They had stood at attention while the flag had been raised and lowered many time on the Army posts where they had lived.  Looking around the room, they appeared to be in a ‘day room’ where soldiers might congregate when off duty.  There were couches and chairs and a pool table on one side of the room.  The trap door had been cunningly hidden in a corner of the room where it blended in to the rest of the wood floor.  The room smelled of detergent and the floor had a new coat of wax.  Since this was apparently a barracks, it was unusual that there was no one in the room this early in the evening. It was only 10:30 and soldiers were not known to keep prudent hours. 

“Maybe this company is in the field,” suggested Jarom.  It was common for Army units to do field training away from where they lived. 

“Could be,” responded his brother, “but someone might come in at any time.  We are pretty sure where we are now, so let’s get out of here.”

The boys were just lowering themselves through the trap door when the lights at the other end of the room came on and they heard the raucous voices of men who been out on the town and had too much to drink. They quickly pulled the trap door down after them, but the tight fit and the debris in the joint didn’t allow it to seat completely. John pushed it up a couple of inches and ran his finger around the door jamb flicking off small bits of dirt and tiny pebbles.  He once again tried to close the door and after hanging his full weight from a handle at the front of the door, popped it into place.  He locked the hinge.  Breathlessly, they waited to see if they had been noticed, but the men weren’t too observant in their current condition and they didn’t hear anyone approaching the door.

They scrambled down the ladder until they reached the bottom.  Jason and Allie were still waiting below and the younger siblings both began talking at once.

Jarom said, ”Wait until we get down and we’ll tell you all about it.” He grabbed the bottom rung and swung down like a gymnast until he was hanging straight down.  With arms extended, the soles of his shoes were only about 4 feet from the ground, and he dropped, landing safely.  John followed his example.

Jarom and John described what had happened and their conclusion about where they had been.  This confirmed their earlier supposition that the tunnels connected the different kasernes. To what purpose, they still didn’t know.  It was after 11PM when they finished describing their incursion to Allie and Jason.  They turned around and began making their way back to the central ladder-shaft. 

They came to the round room with its nine exits, but could barely control their panic when they saw that their rope ladder was gone.  Not only was their no way up, but someone had certainly taken their ladder. Someone else was down there! Climbing up as Jarom and Jason had done earlier was not possible because the walls were too far apart, and they were at a loss as to what to do. They tried to remember if they had seen anything that they could use to reach 10 feet in the air, but could think of nothing. It might be possible to carry stones back from the east tunnel, but it would take them the rest of the night to make a large enough pile, and that would still only get Allie onto the ladder. After considering their options, they decided that they would continue to explore, hoping find something that would help them out of their plight. They were concerned that there was someone else down there that apparently didn’t welcome their intrusion, but there was nothing they could do about it. They could only hope that they wouldn’t meet, or if they did, that he or she would be friendly.

The next tunnel ran to the southwest. Turley Barracks was about 2 miles away on John’s map, and this tunnel seemed larger than the last three. They kept up a steady pace and shortly came to a rickety wooden stairway. The stairway switched back and forth as it rose through a much larger opening, perhaps 10 feet in diameter. The stairs had been there a long time. Some of the treads were missing or rotten and they had to keep their lights trained down to keep from falling through a hole. They finally got to the top of the staircase, but it was blocked off by a stone slab about 3 feet above the top step. The slab was about two feet by four feet in dimension. It was not poured concrete like most everything else they had seen had been, and John wondered aloud if the stone could be moved.

“Jarom, squat here on the top step beside me with your back to the slab and let’s lift together,” he said.

They strained with their legs and could feel the slab move slightly, just as the tread they were standing on broke. Their legs went through and splintering wood tore their pant legs and scratched the skin, but they were able to catch themselves with their hands before they fell down to the level below. Jarom, and then John, pulled themselves out of the broken step. Their shirt backs were damp from contact with the stone and they were bruised, but not seriously hurt. 

Jarom exclaimed, “It moved!”

John agreed, “Yeah, it did a little, but with the step broken, how can we lift again?”

Meanwhile, Jason was looking at the stairs further down.  He saw several steps that had come loose on the sides and using part of a broken tread, he was able to pry two sound treads loose from separate locations in the staircase. He carried the lumber to the top and, after removing the broken pieces of the collapsed stair, laid them one on top of the other as a replacement.  He hoped that doubling the tread would give it enough strength to stand the weight of his brothers and the slab as they lifted. 

Once again Jarom and John took their places on the top step bent at the waist, and began to lift with their legs. One end of the stone barely separated from its seat, and then the gap widened. The boys were tiring rapidly with their exertion, and Jason reached up quickly and stuck a piece of the broken tread into the gap. The older boys rested a minute and then put their backs to it again, concentrating on the edge that had begun to move.  Each time they gained a little, Jason would prop it open a little more. There was no light coming through the crack; only a musty odor that they couldn’t identify. Cool air seeped down through the opening and with one more lift, Jason stuck a board through the opening far enough to be able to pry the stone up.  Together, they continued to lift and pry and the stone slab slid to the side.  Looking up, they saw that they were inside of a small building. John and then Jarom crawled up into it and stood looking at two stone boxes, one on either side of the stone slab. The boxes were about 3 foot wide and 6 feet long and maybe 18 inches tall. 

All at once Jarom whispered hoarsely, “I know what those are…..they’re coffins!”

By this time, all four of the children were standing crowdedly in the small structure.  Walking around to the front of the stone crypts, John could see a wrought iron gate chained shut. 

“We’re in a tomb,” he said.  “Now how do we get out through this chained gate?”

They looked at the gate carefully and realized that it was meant more for ornamentation than security.  Jarom wiggled the gate open and closed as far as the chain would allow.  It squeaked nosily, but no one seemed to be around to hear it.  He tried wiggling it and pulling up at the same time, and the hinge separated as the hinge-pins in the door post slipped out of the hinge on the gate. 

            “What do we do about the stone slab?” asked Jason. “Can we just leave it open like that?” 

            “For the time being, I think we should,” answered John. “Who knows?  We might need it again.”

They walked out of the tomb and looked around. Suddenly, Allie said excitedly, “I know where we are. We’re in the cemetery across the street from my school!”

            Jarom turned back to the gate on the tomb and reversed the process by which he had unhinged the gate, and when they walked away, it looked as if the tomb had not been intruded upon for decades.   

A minute’s walk through the cemetery confirmed what Allie had realized. The elementary school was indeed across the street and they were only a few hundred yards down the street from the entrance to Grant Circle. They began to walk up the street toward their house, turned into their neighborhood and then down their street.  When they arrived at their house, it was well past midnight; the time when good little children on a military installation in a foreign land would be abed. Unfortunately, the doors were locked and there was no way in. 

Quietly, so as to not arouse the neighbors or the military police, Jarom climbed a tree next to the carport from which he was able to climb onto its roof, but there was no window he could reach from there.  Meanwhile, Jason was examining the window well that led into the basement storage room, but there was a screen in place and the window was locked. 

John walked around to the back of the house to the fence that separated their half of the duplex’s yard from the Friedricksons’.  He could see that if he could stand on top of the fence, he could climb up onto the balcony of his parents’ bedroom. That looked like the most likely entry if the door wasn’t locked, but he would be just as close to the Friedricksons’ bedroom, so he would have to be extra stealthy.  He climbed up the fence and stood atop as his siblings watched in silence. Grabbing hold of the railing of the balcony, he began to climb up and over until he was safely and quietly outside his parents’ room. Holding his breath, he tried the door, and breathing a sigh of relief, he opened it. A few moments later, the downstairs door was open and everyone was inside.