The Secret Runners Read online

  This was a new world, one that I was privileged to observe from close range yet never be a part of. And I was happy with that.

  But then suddenly that world reached out and pulled me into its vortex in a most unexpected way.

  Someone invited my brother to the International Debutante Ball.

  RED

  The process by which eligible young ladies got selected to attend a major debutante ball was old-fashioned, intricate, and largely based on heritage and connections.

  The process of selecting the dashing young men who would escort those young ladies to such a ball was different.

  It was traditional that each debutante would be escorted by two cavaliers: one cadet from a military academy, and one civilian lad from a suitable family (if a girl had one, this was often her boyfriend).

  For the girls who did not know any local boys, an event called the Bachelor’s Brunch was held at a local restaurant. And in a world where it’s usually the guy who asks the girl out, it was a rare occasion where the girls got to assess the market and have their pick.

  In any case, Red and his lacrosse buddies had gone to the Bachelor’s Brunch on a lark. Given their inherent social cachet, Monmouth boys were always welcome at it, but Red and the guys had really just attended to watch from the edges. Then Red—cool, easygoing Red—had somehow got talking with a young debutante from San Antonio, and before you knew it, she’d asked him to be her civilian escort at the ball.

  It caused a happy sensation at Monmouth, and suddenly Red was—to use one of my dad’s favorite phrases—cooler than the other side of the pillow.

  As a result, he started to get invited to all the pre-parties in the two weeks before the ball.

  They were high-end affairs to which only the popular kids were invited. Of course, there was booze, weed, and Mol at all of them. They would go deep into the night, and Red would often return home to our apartment around three a.m.

  It was soon after the pre-parties began that I started to notice something on the inner forearms of the girls who went to them, girls like Misty, Hattie, and Verity.

  Discreet vertical strokes, written in black permanent marker just near the wrist.

  Misty had seven of the strokes, Hattie four, and Verity three.

  Some of the boys who were frequenting the pre-party circuit also exhibited similar vertical markings. Bo had four, and Dane Summerhays three.

  And then, in the early hours of the morning after the International Debutante Ball, my brother returned home, energized and adrenalized.

  He rushed into my room and shook me awake, his white bow tie dangling from his collar, sweat in his hair and on his forehead. I worried that he’d taken some amphetamine-type drug that had sent him off on a hyperactive bender.

  “Honest, Blue, I swear I haven’t taken anything,” he said breathlessly. “No. No. I’ve done something way better, way cooler than any drug. I’ll tell you, but you’ve got to swear—swear—that you’ll never tell a soul about it. Not Mom, not Dad, not Todd, and especially not Misty or any of the girls at school. They were there and they’d kill me if they knew I’d told you, but holy fucking shit, I’ve got to tell someone.”

  I’d never seen him like this. Red was never fazed by anything, and here he was babbling like an idiot.

  And then I saw his left wrist.

  There was a single vertical stroke on it. “What have you done?” I asked him slowly.

  THE SECRET RUNNERS OF NEW YORK

  To keep your secret is wisdom; but to expect others to keep it is folly.

  —Samuel Johnson

  The Tunnel Under the Park

  RED’S RUN

  Red began by telling me about the ball.

  It was a glittering affair. The Waldorf Astoria had been beautifully set up for the event, and no expense had been spared.

  There were two senators there, three ambassadors, the lieutenant governor of New York, plus at least four chairmen of Fortune 500 companies. Wives floated around in diamonds, air-kissing each other, while the debutantes shone in their white designer gowns.

  For the parents, the highlight was the formal part of the evening in which the debutantes were presented one by one. (The girls viewed this portion of the evening as an ordeal to be survived without tripping and, as Misty put it, “being totally humiliated for life.”)

  For the girls, the real fun would be at the after-parties.

  “Geez, Blue,” Red said. “We went from the Waldorf to the Van Bridens’ place, to the Colsarts’, and finally to a basement apartment on the East Side near the school.

  “I don’t even know who owned that little place, but there certainly weren’t any parents around, and it was pumping: some girls still in their debutante gowns, others in their after-gowns, cadets in military uniforms, and guys like me still in their penguin suits. Hattie and Verity showed up, plus Griff O’Dea, Dane, and some buddies of Bo’s.

  “It was a dope party. Everyone was drinking, smoking, laughing, having a good time. Beer, shooters, plus a little bit of coke and Xanax going around. Don’t worry, I didn’t take any.”

  “How was it with Verity?” I asked.

  Red smiled bashfully. “We mighta fooled around a little in the bedroom closet. But that’s not what I wanted to tell you about.”

  Now I was officially intrigued. Whatever my brother didn’t want me to divulge to anyone wasn’t the fact that he might’ve gotten to second base with Verity Keeley in a closet at the after-party.

  I couldn’t imagine what the big secret was.

  “Anyway,” Red said, “as the night goes on, the crowd disappears and soon it’s just a few of us: Misty, Hattie, Verity, Bo, Dane, Griff, and me.

  “And Misty says, ‘What do you say, kids?’ And she holds up that necklace she wears sometimes, the one with the yellow gem in the gold figure eight. ‘Who’s up for a run?’ ”

  Red gave me a knowing look. “Misty had been drinking all night and had popped a couple of bars, so she was acting pretty loose. Anyhow, Bo glances sideways at me and says, ‘What about Red? He’s never done it before. You think he’s—?’

  “Misty says, ‘Red’s cool. You can be trusted, can’t you, Red?’

  “ ‘I can keep a secret,’ I say, although I didn’t know what that secret was going to be.

  “Misty looks at Bo, who looks at Dane, who shrugs and says, ‘Hell, yeah.’ ”

  Red stood up and started pacing around my room. It was 5:55 a.m. He shook his head, remembering. His eyes darted manically, but I didn’t interrupt. I let him get to it in his own time.

  Finally, he said, “So we leave the apartment, cross Fifth Avenue, and go into Central Park. I mean, this is four a.m. It’s the middle of the frickin’ night. There’s no one around but homeless people and the odd garbage truck.

  “Our group walks on for a bit, over the 79th Street Transverse and deeper into the park before we arrive at some fenced-off little garden beside a bend in the Transverse. Bo said it was a ‘private conservancy garden,’ whatever that is. In any case, it’s hidden deep in the bushes, not far from the back of the Met. Seriously, if you didn’t know it was there, you’d never know.

  “Anyway, Misty has a key for the gate, and we all file into the private garden. In the corner is an old wooden gardener’s hatch sunken into the ground. Misty also has a key for that, and in we go.”

  “And…,” I said.

  Red said, “Under that hatch is a little miner’s cave with a bare dirt floor, and in the middle of that floor is a hole with a ladder going down into it.

  “The others, it looks like they’ve been here before, because they just flick on the flashlights on their phones and clamber down the ladder. I followed after them as Misty locked the hatch behind me.

  “Anyway, we go down two levels. It’s getting colder as we go down, and we are in,
like, old caves now, with walls made of hardpacked dirt or solid rock.

  “Then I dropped into the final cave, just as Bo flicked on a couple of portable arc lights attached to a diesel generator, and I stopped and said, ‘Holy shit.’ ”

  “What? What was there?” I asked.

  Red looked at me hard. “There was this weird ancient stone doorway, like the entrance to an old temple or something. I mean, it was seriously scary. It sort of stuck out from a wall of uneven rock, but it was perfectly cut, with squared-off edges, and it had ancient writing all over it.

  “It was just a doorway—no actual doors—and it was wide open. I could see some kind of tunnel or cave beyond it.”

  I nodded. I’d actually studied this. There had been all sorts of native tribes on Manhattan Island long before the Lenape Indians sold the island to the Dutch in 1626, reputedly for $24 worth of colored glass beads: the famous Manhattan Purchase. (Historians have since suggested that the price probably included more than just beads—weapons and tools like muskets and gunpowder, axes and adzes—but only the beads ever get mentioned.)

  Archaeologists had found evidence of burial grounds, cave shrines, and even some primitive catacombs. There was evidence that Mesoamerican tribes like the Olmecs, Toltecs, and Mayans had established settlements this far north. It was entirely possible that a stone structure or burial cave could exist underneath modern-day Central Park.

  Red went on, “On the floor in the exact middle of this ancient doorway is a little stone pyramid. It’s maybe two feet tall—barely higher than my knee—but it’s made of a strange kind of black stone that, unlike the rest of the doorway, is perfectly polished.

  “Misty steps forward, pulls the yellow gem from her necklace, and places it in a slot cut into the peak of the little pyramid. And then, oh my freaking God…”

  “What?” I asked. “What happened?”

  “You’re not going to believe me.”

  “I’ll try.”

  Red swallowed. “Some kind of mechanism within the little pyramid starts up, and the gem that Misty placed on its peak tilts abruptly and slides all the way down the opposite side of the pyramid, the tunnel side.

  “And then—bam!—a bright screen of rippling purple-and-black light springs to life from the pyramid and expands to fill the whole ancient doorway!

  “It’s tough to describe. I’ve never seen anything like it. The light stretches all the way across the doorway, completely filling it, like a spiderweb or a curtain, a vertical curtain of light.”

  “A curtain of light…,” I said doubtfully. “Coming from the knee-high pyramid on the floor?”

  Red held up his hands. “I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true. The others are clearly enjoying seeing my amazement so Bo says, ‘Go on, buddy, touch it. It won’t hurt you.’

  “So I reach forward and touch the shimmering purple curtain with my finger. It’s weird. It’s not air, but it’s not solid, either. It has surface tension. My finger made a little indentation in the wall of light, like I was pressing on a rubber sheet. Circles of purple light expanded from the spot where I touched it like ripples on a pond and then—whoosh—my whole hand went right through it to the wrist and I jerked back in shock, pulling my hand out. The others laughed at me.”

  I cocked my head. “Red. Are you sure you didn’t smoke some bad weed or eat a loaded brownie? Someone didn’t slip something into your drink?”

  “I swear, Blue, I had one beer and didn’t touch any of the drugs. This happened.”

  I was a little taken aback by his forcefulness.

  “Okay,” I said. “Go on.”

  “So Bo nods at the little pyramid on the ground and says to me, ‘Check out the gem.’

  “I look through the curtain of light. It’s translucent, so I can vaguely see through it. I see that Misty’s amber gem is now sitting near the base of the little pyramid, on the flank that’s on the other side of the curtain of light, out of reach.

  “I look at Bo, not sure what he means. He says, ‘There’s only one way to retrieve that gem, and that’s to step through.’

  “Misty holds up her wrist, the one with those weird marks on it, and says, ‘This is how you earn one of these, Red. One for each run.’

  “ ‘Each run?’ I say. ‘Where are we running? Through there?’ I nod at the doorway. I’m wondering what stepping through the wall of light might do to me. ‘It’s safe, isn’t it?’

  “ ‘More or less,’ Misty says. ‘You’ll have to jump through to find out. Follow us.’

  “And with that she grabs Bo’s hand and she leaps straight through the rippling curtain of light. Bo jumps through with her, and I can see their vague shapes on the other side.

  “Dane, Griff, and Hattie go next. They call from the other side, and their voices sound distant, muffled, even though they’re only a couple of feet away from me.

  “ ‘Jump through!’ Hattie calls.

  “ ‘Don’t be a pussy!’ Griff yells.

  “Then V grabs my hand and smiles at me. ‘Come on, big boy. I know how you feel. I was like that my first time. Let’s go run.’

  “And holding Verity’s hand, I jumped with her through the ancient doorway, leaping through the curtain of rippling purple light.”

  THE TUNNEL RUN

  Red landed on the other side of the ancient doorway.

  He stood in the same tunnel he had seen before. It actually stretched away for a lot farther than he’d originally thought.

  Now that he was inside it, he could see that its walls were covered in ancient symbols, pictures, and hieroglyphics. Creepy.

  He turned to look at the doorway behind him.

  From this side, the screen of light that filled the portal was a sickly yellow. The powerful beams of the arc lights on the other side filtered weakly through it, dimmed by their passage through the curtain. The immediate area around Red was bathed in a dull amber glow.

  “You can’t go back through,” Verity said, taking his hand and pressing it against the light curtain.

  This time, Red’s hand did not penetrate the wall of light. The screen of light bent a little, and he felt resistance against his fingers, but the wall of light did not give and his hand did not go through it.

  “You can only go one way through the portal,” Misty said, appearing beside them and extracting her gem from the inside flank of the little pyramid.

  A moment later, the entire curtain of light disappeared—retreating into the knee-high pyramid—and Red could suddenly see the entrance cave once again—only now it was different. It was completely dark.

  The arc lights were off.

  More than that. They were covered in a thick layer of dust and cobwebs.

  The cavern looked abandoned, like it had been abandoned for years.

  Red frowned with confusion and was about to say something when Verity tugged at his arm.

  “Don’t worry,” she said, “I’ll explain it all later. Come on, there’s an exit at the other end of this tunnel. No time to waste.”

  Misty and the others had already taken off down the tunnel, running, the lights of their smartphones bouncing away.

  Guided by Verity, Red dashed into the tunnel after them.

  The tunnel, he saw, was as ancient as the doorway, stone-walled and dead straight. It was as wide as perhaps two cars but low, maybe ten feet in height. Its walls tapered inward—wide at the bottom, narrower near the ceiling—making the whole thing trapezoidal.

  It looked almost ceremonial.

  At regular intervals, reinforced stone arches held up the ceiling, looking like the ribs of some colossal subterranean animal.

  After about four hundred yards of jogging—Red deduced later that this was somewhere around the middle of the tunnel—he saw a very strange thing.

  A well hole in the ceiling.

&
nbsp; An eight-foot-high heap of trash and other detritus lay underneath it, almost reaching the ceiling. The trash mound was made up of all sorts of odds and ends: bicycle wheels, clothing, discarded books, fast-food wrappers, sneakers.

  Bo, Misty, Dane, Griff, and Hattie had all stopped at the trash heap to wait for Red and V to catch up. Bo was poking around at some of the trash.

  “Take a look up into it.” Misty nodded at the well hole above the mound of garbage.

  Red stepped up awkwardly onto the pile and peered up into the well hole.

  The cylindrical shaft was narrow, maybe three feet across. Looking up into it was like looking through a telescope the wrong way, but there at the top of the shaft, Red could just make out the star-filled nighttime sky.

  “We think that whoever is up there has been throwing garbage down into the well,” Verity said. “It piles up here.”

  Red was peering up into the shaft when suddenly the shadow of a person wearing a hoodie popped into view at the top, shocking him.

  The figure blocked out the stars and seemed to look directly down at Red!

  Red jumped back, ducking out of view. But he knew that whoever it was had seen him, had seen the moving white light of his phone’s flashlight at the bottom of the well.

  A terrifying bloodcurdling shriek pierced the air as the figure at the top of the shaft cried out in fury. It was the scream of a man, yes, but it was more animal than human.

  Adrenaline shot through Red’s body.

  “What the fu—” he breathed.

  “Shit!” Bo said as he and the others took off down the tunnel.

  “Go! Go! Don’t stop!” Verity shoved Red forward and he resumed running, looking frantically behind him every few seconds.

  After another four hundred yards, the seven of them came to a second ancient doorway, identical to the first.

  This doorway also had a black knee-high pyramid sitting in the center of its maw.