Under Angels
by Jace D. Albao (b. 1969)

Nobody but the three of us and the drone of a foghorn. We made our two-mile hump from Harold’s Place with the rucksacks of gear, cutting through sleepy side streets and dark alleyways, finally reaching the tall chain link fence that stood between us and the entrance to the tunnels under Los Angeles. Greamer’s tunnels.

Pete looked at his watch. 2AM on the nose.

“This is it. Thirty-second street portal.”

Mick’s rucksack landed on the other side of the rusted fence with the deadened clatter of a pillowcase full of spoons. He stuck his thick fingers through the chain link fence and shook it.

“Let’s hop it.”

Pete swung his heavy rucksack off his shoulder and tossed it over the deteriorated barbed wire along the top edge. He walked me a few meters to the corner of the fence, just off the sidewalk.

“You first, little soldier,” Pete said. “Get a wiggle on.”

Pete pulled back on a small inconspicuous portion of the fence that he’d cut years before, holding it open as I squeezed through.

Mick grabbed the top of the fence and pulled himself up like a heavy gymnast, heaving his body over the ineffective barbed wire and into the brush. He picked up his rucksack.

“How much time we got, brother?”

Pete wriggled through our opening in the fence and got to his feet. Pulling out a flashlight, he swung his rucksack over his shoulder and flipped the switch.

“It’s already two, man. Follow the dog. What kind of name is Spiri, anyway?”

I took point, marching us through the same dark fields we’d explored many, many times in the daylight. I knew the area like the back of my paw. The brush began getting taller as we hiked, with overgrown weeds taller than the tops of my ears.

“Under the battery, little soldier,” Pete told me. “Take us.”

We humped through the brushy gopher-infested fields to the clearing at the top edge of Battery Barlow-Saxton, a large concrete firing pit nearly the size of a football field. Barred openings and steel doors lined the pit’s concrete walls beneath layers of graffiti, with bridges and stairways descending down to the concrete floor.

Mick stood at the steep edge of the pit’s urban ruins, his bloodshot eyes adjusting in the moonlight.

“What’s this place for, brother?”

“Kicking ass.”

Before war planes, the battleships of the sea were built with extremely thick sides in order to withstand horizontal fire from enemy ships. Ship decks were therefore compromised, made paper thin, as there was no concern about downward fire from the sky. From our firing pit here at the back of the base, the United States Army could defend the shores of Los Angeles from any angle, blasting arced rounds into the sky, hitting ships with downward mortar fire. If our guys got the math right, they could sink an enemy ship eleven miles offshore.

Pete took his cell phone from his pocket and read the text on the display.

“Another one. The bastard–”

“From Rip? What’s it say?”

Pete shoved his phone back in his pocket. “Something about stopping to smell the roses.”

I kept us moving with Pete’s light shining behind me, descended the concrete stairs into the pit. Reaching the floor, I scouted out the edges and corners of the hard perimeter, taking a quick inventory with my nose. Nothing unusual.

“Over here,” Pete said.

Mick followed us across the pit to a barred gate in front of a doorway leading into the thick concrete wall. Pete pushed his way effortlessly through the loose gate, its hinges already broken.

“Took care of this the other day. Get your light out.”

I led us through the broken gate and down a tight concrete stairway descending underneath the battery into pitch darkness. Rusted doors lined the corridor, welded shut, corroded from lifetimes of dank ocean air. Metal piping ran across the low-hanging flaked concrete ceiling.

Pete glanced at his watch as we descended the black concrete stairwell.

“The window will be starting soon.”

The cascading narrow passage opened into a cold hard room, its floor littered with dust-covered office papers. Boxes remained stacked on shelves against one wall, desks and chairs still sat where they’d been abandoned many decades prior. The room was only one in a complex maze of offices connected by open doorways, with square glassless windows revealing adjacent rooms and halls through the concrete walls.

“Which window?” asked Mick.

“Window of time.”

Pete scanned the room with his flashlight.

“There are two possible portals,” Pete explained. “I’ve been to both a million times. Just never at this hour.”

The whole place smelled like wet newspaper with traces of skunk.

“The window starts at two twenty-five,” Pete continued, walking around the edge of the room, shining his light through the windows. “For about fifty minutes, we can get in. And out.”

Mick shined his flashlight on the top shelf against the wall. Square rotting tiles hung partially stuck to the ceiling, dripping with moisture and age. He set his light down and pulled boxes off the shelves, sifting through their contents and identifying them out loud.

“Medical supplies, brother. Bandages, even gas masks–”

“Leave ‘em.”

Pete stood at the edge of the room, shining his flashlight through the doorway into a black void.

“We need to find that door. Go, little soldier.”

The guys followed me with their flashlights down a dark corridor and into a machinery room. Loose cut wires dangled from sheet metal boxes mounted on white enamel-covered brick walls. Conduits ran up from the floors and across the ceiling above a giant machine of valves, cylinders, and iron chambers. Buttons, switches, and levers painted red collected dust on steel cabinet doors.

“Keep going, little soldier. Keep going.”

I took us through the machine room and along a curved passage of the underground complex toward the smell of gunpowder, entering a long hall full of empty metal canisters and other debris. One wall was made of unpainted cinder blocks.

“Aw, man,” Mick said from the rear. “Check this out, brother.”

Mick stood shining his flashlight down into a gaping hole in the floor exposing a crawl space of twisted metal, cobwebs, and a dead cat. Cats are far less interesting when they’re not moving.

“His tenth time down here,” Pete said, falling back to the rear and looking at his watch. “Ten minutes. It’s already a quarter after. Follow the dog–”

Mick followed my tail as I zig-zagged deeper through the halls and rooms of the complex, taking a shortcut through an old latrine. Wash basins with rotting hardware lined a mirrored wall. Passing through the latrine, Mick and I hung a left under an arched doorway and down a long narrow corridor.

“Right behind you, lucky thirteen,” Mick huffed. “Right behind you.”

Pete stood alone in the latrine behind us, frozen, facing the cracked mirror. He held his flashlight up toward his face, staring at a stranger.

“Boo!”

The mirror grinned.

“Hey, brother!” Mick shouted, his voice rolling through the cold halls to nowhere. “Lucky thirteen found something–”

Pete ran out of the latrine and followed Mick’s voice, finding us standing deep in a twisted passage blocked by a heavy steel door. It was either locked from behind or welded shut at the seams, with a sliding lever and latch that seemed to have melded into the door itself. Mick muscled the lever and kicked the door to no avail.

“Stuck, brother–”

Pete shined his flashlight on the door and looked at his watch.

“Sixty more seconds. Look out–”

Pete pulled the sliding lever. Nothing. He backed off and dropped his rucksack to the filthy floor.

“It’s about time,” Pete said. “This door stays shut, only opening at two twenty-five AM. It’ll open in a minute.”

“What’s on the other side?”

For a moment I thought Pete was going to slam Mick upside the head with his flashlight.

“Oh, right,” Mick said. “Rip’s tunnels. Sorry.”

Pete took a few slow breaths and looked at his watch, counting down to himself in silence. Nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two…

Pete pulled the lever. It didn’t budge. He pulled it again.

“Fuck me.”

“You sure this is it, brother?”

“Has to be. Only other place it could be is out in the chute. But I’m ninety percent sure this is the one. Chute’s a decoy. ”

Pete pulled the lever.

“I’ll be damned. Fuck.”

“Is your watch right?”

Pete pulled the lever again and kicked the door. Nothing.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

Pete looked at his watch. 2:26 AM. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone, reading the display.

“Shit, are you kidding me?”

“What is it?”

“Wrong door. I had the wrong door the whole time and Greamer knew it–”

“What’d he say?”

Pete picked up his rucksack and shouted with an angry urgency, his barking orders echoing through the underground complex.

“Out, little soldier, out! Now! Go, go, go!–”

I turned and began to quickly retrace our steps through the gnarled complex, sniffing our way back to the entrance. Pete and Mick followed closely behind.

“Move it!”

To be continued…

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