The hallway was spacious and warm, and they both became aware of a potpourri of smells — cooking, fire smoke — and of human habitation. It was laid out just like any normal house; wide stairs started halfway down the corridor, with brass carpet rails at the base of each riser. Waxed wood paneling ran up to a handrail, above which was wallpaper of light and dark green stripes. Portraits in ornate, dull-gold-colored frames hung on the walls, depicting sturdy-looking people with huge shoulders and pale faces. Chester was peering at one of these when a terrible thought struck him.
"They look just like the men who chased us," he said. "Oh, great, we're in a house that belongs to one of those nutters, aren't we? This is a freaking nuttytown!" he added as the awful realization hit him.
"Listen!" Will hissed. Chester stood riveted to the spot as Will cocked an ear in the direction of the stairs, but there was nothing, only an oppressive silence.
"I thought I heard… no…," he said and moved toward the open doorway to their left, then looked cautiously around the corner. "This is awesome!" He couldn't help himself — he had to go in. And by this time, Chester was also being swept along by the need to know more.
A cheery fire crackled in the hearth. Around the walls were small pictures and silhouettes in brass and gilt frames. One in particular caught Will's eye: The Martineau House, he read on the inscription below. It was a small oil painting of what appeared to be a stately home surrounded by rolling grasslands.
By the fireplace were chairs upholstered in a dark red material with a dull sheen. There was a dining table in one corner and in another a musical instrument that Will recognized as a harpsichord. In addition to the light from the fire the room was lit by two tennis-ball size spheres suspended from the ceiling in ornate pinchbeck cages. The whole thing brought to Will's mind a museum his father had taken him to with a display called "How We Used To Live." As he looked around, he reflected that this room wouldn't have been out of place there.
Chester sidled up to the dining room table, where two plain white bone-china cups sat in their saucers.
"There's something in these," he said with an expression of sheer surprise. "Looks like tea!"
He hesitantly touched the side of one of the cups and looked up at Will, even more startled.
"It's still warm. What's going on here? Where are all the people?"
"Don't know," Will replied. "It's like… like…"
They looked at each other with dumbfounded expressions.
"I honestly don't know what it's like," Will admitted.
"Let's just get out of here," Chester said, and they both bolted for the door. As they reached the sidewalk again, Chester collided with Will as he stopped dead.
"What are we running for?" Will asked.
"Uh… The… Well…," Chester blathered in confusion as he struggled to put his concerns into words. For a moment they lingered indecisively under the sublime radiance of a streetlight. Then Chester noticed with dismay that Will was staring intently at the road as it curved into the distance. "Come on, Will. Let's just go home." Chester shivered as he glanced back at the house and up at the windows, certain someone was there. "This place gives me the creeps."
"No, Will replied, not even looking at his friend. "Let's follow the road for a bit. See where it goes. Then we can leave. I promise — all right?" he said, already striding off.
Chester stood his ground for a moment, looking longingly across the road at the metal doorway through which they had first come. Then, with a groan of resignation, he followed Will along the line of houses. Many had lights in their windows, but as far as they could tell there were no signs of any occupants.
As they came to the last house in the row, where the road curved off to the left, Will paused for a moment, deliberating whether to go on or call it a day. His voice squeaking with desperation, Chester started pleading that enough was enough and that they should turn back when they became aware of a sound behind them. It began like the rustling of leaves but quickly grew in intensity to a dry, rippling cacophony.
"What the—" Will exclaimed.
Shooting down from the roof, a flock of birds he size of sparrows dived down toward them like living tracer bullets. Will and Chester instinctively ducked, raising their arms to shield their faces as the pure white birds whirled around them in synchronized agitation.
Will began to laugh. "Birds! It's only birds!" he said, swatting at the mischievous flock but never making contact. Chester lowered his arms and began to laugh, too, a little nervously, as the birds darted between them. Then, as quickly as they'd appeared, the birds swept upward and vanished around the bend in the tunnel. Will straightened up and staggered a few steps after them, then froze.
"Shops!" he announced with a startled voice.
"Huh?" Chester said.
Sure enough, down one side of the street stretched a parade of bowfronted shops. Without speaking, they both began to walk toward them.
"This is unreal," Chester muttered as they reached the first shop, with windows of handblown glass that distorted the wares inside like badly made lenses.
"Jacobsen Cloths," Chester read from the shop sign, then peered at the rolls of material laid out in the eerie, green-lit interior.
"A grocer's," Will said as they moved on.
"And this one's some sort of hardware shop," Chester observed.
Will gazed up at the arching roof of the cavern. "You know, by now we must nearly be under Main Street."
Peering into the windows and soaking up the strangeness of the ancient shops, they kept walking, driven by their careless curiosity, until they came to a place where the tunnel split into three. The center fork appeared to descend into the earth at a steep angle.
"OK, that's it," Chester said resolutely. "We're leaving now. I'm not going to get lost down here." All his instincts were screaming that they should turn back.
"All right," Will agreed, "but—"
He was just stepping off the sidewalk onto the cobbled road when there was an earsplitting crash of iron on stone. In a blinding flash, four white horses bore down on him, sparks spraying from their hooves, breathing hard and pulling behind them a sinister black coach. Will didn't have time to react, because at that very instant they were both yanked off their feet and hoisted into the air by the scruffs of their necks.
A single man held them both, dangling helplessly, in his huge gnarled hands. "Interlopers!" the man shouted, his voice fierce and gravelly as he lifted the pair up to his face and inspected them with a look of repugnance. Will tried to bring his shovel up to beat him off, but it was wrested from his grasp.
The man was wearing a ridiculously small helmet and a dark blue uniform of coarse material that rasped as he moved. Beside a row of dull buttons, Will caught sight of a five-pointed star of orange-gold material stitched onto the coat. Their massive, menacing captor was clearly some sort of policeman.
"Help," Chester mouthed silently at his friend, his voice deserting him as they were buffeted about in the man's viselike grip.
"We've been expecting you," the man rumbled.
"What?" Will stared at him blankly.
"Your father said you'd be joining us before long."
"My father? Where's my father? What have you done with him? Put me down!" Will tried to swivel around, kicking out at the man.
"No use wriggling." The man hoisted the struggling boy even higher in the air and sniffed at him. "Topsoilers. Disgusting!"
Will sniffed back.
"Don’t smell too good yourself."
The man gave Will a look of withering scorn, then held up Chester and sniffed at him, too. In sheer desperation, Chester tried to head-butt the man. He jerked his face away, but not before Chester, with a wild swing of his arm, had swiped his helmet. It spun from his head, exposing his pale scalp, which was covered with short tufts of wispy white hair.