I Took a Walk Episode Seven The Pipe

Earning this bonus could cost Jimmy his life

Hours later, a sudden blinding light shocked him. In utter surprise, he fell, immersing himself once more in blackness.

Panic threatened, but was easier to push aside. There was some place he could see nearby.

Once again, he had landed on his backside, unsure of his orientation. Was he hopelessly lost now? Rolling over was far easier this time, as was getting up. Making sure he was calm and ready for the blinding light, he took three steps forward.

Blackness remained.

No matter, he backed up three steps. Shifting his shoulder slightly to the right, he stepped off in the new direction three steps.

Blackness.

Once more, he backed up and shifted his shoulders. Two steps later, the blinding light hit his eyes.

When his vision adjusted and he turned slightly, he recognized his head was in a small, concrete drainpipe. It was only luck he encountered it. Had it been even two inches higher, his eyes would have passed under it. That factor, combined with the pipe’s slope, only left one direction he could go. In the distance, the red eyes of a rat looked back at him. He shivered.

Two steps in that direction and the rat turned and fled, revealing far more of the pipe to him.

It definitely had a slope to it. He began counting aloud to have a better since of how long that slope was.

“I am stupid one.”

“I am stupid two.”

At “I am stupid 87,” the lights went out, and he took a step back.

The light was back. He knew he needed to begin stooping to keep that light in the pipe. He hunched some and began moving forward.

 A few steps forward, the light cut out again, forcing him to hunch lower.

Then lower again.

He was half bent over when he was sure that up ahead was a bend or junction in the pipe.

Sweat beaded Jimmy’s brow as he worked his way forward, being careful to not only stay in the pipe but not slip and fall and possibly lose that pipe all together.

Did that junction ahead mean joining a lower pipe that he could not follow?

The echo in his helmet brought to attention that he was breathing hard again.

A mistake could kill him. He stopped moving forward and placed his hands on his knees to maintain that crouch better.

In, two, three, four.

Out, two, three, four.

In, two, three, four.

Out, two, three, four.

In, two, three, four.

Out, two, three, four.

Only when he had himself and his breathing under control did he begin creeping forward step by slow step.

Then he found moving forward on his knees worked better.

In time, that changed to hands and knees.

That pipe edge and the wall a short distance beyond it crept closer and closer.

Damn it, the echo in the helmet let him know he was breathing too hard again. He continued forward the last few yards.

His head passed over that lip.

It turned down!

“God damn mother fucking pipe!”

His helmet light cut off as he raised his head some.

There was light below him! Beyond his heads-up display.

Heart thudding in his ears, he clicked it off.

The light was dim, but certainly there. The way out was near.

This pipe dropped into a lower one, as he feared, and there were two directions below him. He began studying it, trying to figure out the direction the light came from. Yet that dim and defuse light left no sharp shadows to point the way.

Then it struck him. The light being that defused, the opening might be a long way off or there might be a right angle involved. Or more than one. Even if he determined the direction the light came from, following that one direction could take him deeper underground again, not to the surface.

He had to figure this out.

It certainly wasn’t back the way he came, but left, right and straight ahead were equally valid choices.