Chapter 24 - The Elevator Below the Elevator
The gray-coated man's photograph stayed in my mind long after we left the Caretaker's Office.
Someone had been following me long before I bought the house.
Or perhaps...
Long before I even knew the house existed.
Rick suddenly sprinted toward the rear of the office.
He stopped beside an old freight elevator hidden behind stacks of dusty filing cabinets.
Unlike every other machine underground, this elevator still hummed with electricity.
A brass plaque beside the gate read:
AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY
Below it, someone had scratched another message into the metal years ago.
THERE IS NO LOWEST FLOOR.
The realtor pulled the gate open.
Inside, the control panel contained no numbered buttons.
Only strange symbols.
A circle.
A square.
A triangle.
An eye.
And at the very bottom...
A blank metal plate with no marking at all.
The elderly woman stared at it.
"I've never seen this elevator before."
"You lived down here."
"They never allowed us past the second level."
Rick stepped inside.
The moment his paws touched the elevator floor, the blank metal plate illuminated by itself.
A soft mechanical voice echoed overhead.
"Recognition complete."
"Subject R-17 confirmed."
Without anyone pressing a button, the elevator gate slammed shut.
The cabin lurched downward.
Not smoothly.
Violently.
As though it had been released instead of lowered.
The indicator above the door displayed impossible numbers.
-1.
-3.
-7.
-12.
The numbers kept decreasing.
There was no basement deep enough for this.
The elevator continued descending for nearly four minutes.
No building could possibly extend this far underground.
Finally, it stopped.
The gate slowly opened.
Beyond it stretched a cavern so enormous that my flashlight couldn't reach the ceiling.
Hundreds of houses stood inside the darkness.
Complete houses.
Entire streets.
Streetlights.
Mailboxes.
Playgrounds.
A perfect suburban neighborhood...
Hidden beneath the earth.
None of the houses had windows facing outside.
Every one faced another house.
Like a town built only for watching itself.
Then lights began turning on.
One house after another.
May you like
As though someone knew we had arrived.
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