Precursor

Max and Sherman, twelve and ten respectively, were hard at play in their small neighborhood on the edge of Plainfield, Indiana.

Today, they were in the backyard of a vacant home a few blocks from their house playing America versus Middle East terrorist with Max doing the honors as the terrorist. He had a high scratchy voice which didn’t exactly help his bad-guy persona, but he was tall enough. Sherman was the generic navy seal carrying his gun, a metal pole that folded in the middle.

They were in the vacant home’s backyard fighting in a pretend battle with their thrown-together weapons. It was a pretense for a little innocent suburban breaking and entering.

After slashing back and forth with their homemade weapons, Max crept up to the house’s rear window. Palming the glass, he pushed and pulled on it and, to his surprise, it slid open.

Max looked at Sherman with a large grin and said, “Cool. That was easy.”

“Maybe too easy,” said Sherman.

“You worry too much.”

There was an air-conditioning unit under the window. It had quite a few cobwebs on the sides. Max stood on the unit and, on his tiptoes, surveyed the room with his flashlight. The place seemed empty.

After climbing in, they did a quick walk-through. Since it was easy to get in, maybe they weren’t alone. It wouldn’t be the first time they’d found people in these vacant homes.

Max heard the depressed economy was the main reason for all the vacant homes. He thought that meant jobs were hard to come by. He knew about the container factory shutdown. Some of his friends at school moved away because of it. And there was that shopping center that was now an Amazon warehouse, although Max figured that was probably a wash. But these particular issues didn’t seem to affect their parents. They were still working.

When he and his brother were out playing Navy Seal and terrorist, none of that boring grownup stuff seemed very important.

After checking out the second floor and finding no evidence of any intruders other than themselves, they relaxed a little. When they went back down, Sherman noticed a door under the stairs. He figured it was probably a closet but when he opened the door, there was another set of steps that led down into the darkness. He used his flashlight to confirm what appeared to be an empty basement below, with only a few scraps of paper left behind.

Max nodded at Sherman. “Wanna give it a look?”

“Of course. We’ve come this far.”

They walked around this big empty room, uniformly rectangular except for a floor to ceiling closet-shaped structure in the corner. It seemed to be part of the room but what purpose it served wasn’t immediately clear. There was no access point. It was painted white like the rest of the room. Max noticed a painted-over panel on the face of the structure. He pulled out his pocket knife and started picking at the edges. Sherman aimed his flashlight at the panel. He absentmindedly flicked a switch on the center post and the lights came on. He smiled at Max.

About that time, the panel responded to Max’s efforts and swung open. What lay beneath was some sort of entry code device with a key pad and a digital number window currently showing zeros.

“That looks like the one at Jerry’s place,” said Sherman. “But why is it here?”

“At Jerry’s place, you could get in the gate if you had the right code…”

“Uh huh. So, what happens here if you have the right code?”

“Good question,” said Max.

Max stood back and said to Sherman, “Ya know, at Jerry’s place, his code was his street address plus his apartment number…”

“So, you think this one’s the street address?”

Sherman pulled out his phone and turned it on. He looked for the picture he’d taken only minutes before. He said, “It’s 1414.”

“So, this goes on your Instagram account, I take it?” asked Max.

“Probably not. I don’t generally like posting evidence of a crime to my account,” said Sherman. “At least, not one I’m committing.”

Max smiled.

“Let’s give this a shot.” Max punched in 1414 and hit enter.

They both looked at each other, their expressions neutral. A few seconds later, somewhere beneath their feet a machine whirred seemingly far below. And within another few seconds the white wall next to the panel on the featureless structure disappeared, revealing an open elevator.

“Cool!! I wish we had one of these in our house.” Sherman ran into the elevator.

Max stood still. He’d never witnessed a wall just vanish before his eyes. “What the hell is this?”

After a few seconds, Max entered while slowly checking the walls. There was a small brass plaque centered on the rear wall. It read Capable Engineering in three inch embossed red letters. The exposed walls were covered with a dull, gold, cloth-like material with a ribbed corduroy surface. A highly polished, dark brown wooden hand rail lined the room at about waist height. An elaborate, deco-style, white frosted light fixture filled most of the ceiling above Max and Sherman.

And, like any elevator, there was a control panel next to the door with one significant difference: this panel only had one button.

So, of course, Sherman just had to push that one button, suddenly and without warning.

The doors shut and they started going down. Max and Sherman looked at each other.

“What the hell?” said Max. “Down?”

The elevator descended like any normal elevator would, except after about ten seconds it slowed to a stop and began to move laterally. It did that for ten more seconds, then slowed to a stop again and continued its descent for another twenty seconds. It certainly felt like no elevator ride Max had ever experienced although he’d only ever been on a couple of rides.

When they finally stopped, the doors opened to a vast room with high ceilings, barely visible because of the very low lighting. It was dead quiet. They’d both pulled out flashlights. The words “Plainfield Station” were painted in white above the tracks of what appeared to be a subway station.

The two brothers walked along the edge of the room shining flashlights at the wall of elevators, each one identical with a keypad to the left of each door and a light box above, the only one lit was the one they’d left. It read 1414. The entire length of the curved wall housed these elevator doors, framed by ornate carved oak.

In the space between the elevators and the train gully stood a series of kiosks. These five similar structures had octagonal counters with a space for a person to stand, all made of that same dark oak. Presumably, train schedules and other information once sat on the hard polished counters. The boys ran from kiosk to kiosk, searching each one for possible clues. The only information they were able to find was the occasional Capable Engineering placard.

However, placed where everyone could see, there was one unique placard in one of the kiosks that had a long list of names. Max pulled out his knife and proceeded to pry it off. As he did so, he speculated on the age of this station. It seemed quite old, as if it were from some ancient black and white movie and yet in great shape, as if it had just closed within the past year. Max couldn’t get over that someone had an elevator in their home that led to this. He imagined those other elevators must lead to other homes.

“It’s weird, don’t ya think?” said Sherman.

“You could say so. I would also say it’s nuts.”

“Or maybe, off the rails,” said Sherman.

“If you told me this was here below our neighborhood, I would not have believed you.” The room smelled musty.

The two collected a number of souvenirs including a plaque that detailed those responsible for this seemingly impossible train station, and they took a lot of pictures.

Max and Sherman returned to the open elevator with 1414 shining in the light box above. Max stuffed the plaque in his backpack. As he reached out to press the button, a low rumble could be both felt and heard. They froze. The low rumble rapidly increased.

Max whispered, ”Train’s coming!” They smiled broadly at each other. As the noise increased, a light coming from the left flashed and grew in size. The room lit brightly as the train blew through the station. It passed too quickly to really see, although Max imagined what he saw in that split second was a rather conventional looking old subway train. The droning noise dissipated quickly until there was only silence.

Sherman seemed stunned. “Wow, that was way cool! What kind of train was that?”

Speechless and stunned, Max shrugged and pushed the button. “Time to go back.”

The same herky-jerky ride they’d experienced on the way down was duplicated on the way up, only in reverse. However, as he thought about it, he realized what must be happening. Each one of these elevators that travelled down to the subway couldn’t be straight up and down. Maybe only a few. Must have cost a fortune, thought Max. He imagined the maze of tunnels that must lie under his neighborhood.

They slowed to a stop and the doors opened to the same basement they’d left. The boys ran out, stopped, and turned as the door closed with the plain featureless wall reappearing as if by magic, like it had never not been there.

They ran up the basement steps and climbed out the open window. Max closed the window right after Sherman came through.

“Can’t wait to tell Mom and Dad,” said Sherman with a smile on his face.

Max shook his head. “We’re not telling anybody about this, Sherm. Not yet.”