Sixth Grade Beginnings

Chapter 44

The moment the door closed behind them, the voices of their friends began to drown out in the distance, as they were gradually getting further and further away. Stinky shined his flashlight far out in the distance, illuminating a large steel stairwell that went further and further down. With a gulp, he grasped the railing next to him and began to descend slowly, and carefully. Their steps echoed loudly all around them, in almost a deafening way, making the eerie feeling of their unknown destination even stronger.

"What are you, scared?" Curly asked with a condescending sneer, as he pushed Stinky out of his way and led the charge down the stairs. "Come on, faster, faster!" He demanded, "Before everyone else gets to the goods before us!"

The implication caused Stinky to scratch his head. "But Curly, if someone else finds it before us, it'll just mean that it's not down here..."

"Yeah? So?" Curly stopped and sharply turned his head around, surprising his companion and causing him to halt. "It's not every day that we get to explore a gem like this, and if we take slow, baby steps down these stairs then that only increases the probability of them finding it and ending this adventure! I will not have it!" A howl of laughter erupted from the boy as he turned back around and galloped down the stairs. "Now mush, mush you dead legged mule! There's so little time, and so much to see!"

"Geez..." Stinky sighed, rolling his eyes but continued on steadily, shaking his head in vexation. He could understand the kid being excited, in his own way, but knew rushing head first into the basement of a decrepit building certainly wasn't smart.

A few sets of stairs later, Curly's energized gallop started to slow down, eventually to a casual walk due to a slight setback of exhaustion, and soon they were both walking at the same pace once again.

"Just how much further do you think it is till we get to the bottom? I reckon we're half way to China by now." Stinky frowned, shining his flashlight all around them and knocking a few cobwebs from out of his way.

"Don't be ridiculous, we'd reach the pits of Hell before we got there!" Curly replied coarsely, before pointing his light down to their destination. "Can't be too much further... I can at least see the floor, now."

The temperature around them seemed to change to something much colder, as their shoes finally touched the cement floor. They both shined their flashlights around them, revealing a very large room with a few cylindrical structural pillars holding up the ceiling.

"Wilikers..." Stinky gasped, feeling compelled to walk further into the room. He then remembered the walkie-talkie in his back pocket, and pulled it out. The red light on the device was solid, indicating that it was still on and working. He pressed the small button on the side of it, and brought it to his face. "Testing, testing..." He spoke into it. "We've reached the bottom. Can anyone hear me? Over."

A few seconds of silence, and eventually some crackling came from the speaker.

"Hearing you loud and clear!" Gerald's voice replied back. "You guys okay? What do you see? Over."

"Not a whole lot yet..." Stinky frowned, shining the light behind the stairwell, seeing nothing, then pointing it back in front of them into the large and empty room, revealing some piles of old and broken wood planks. "This place is a lot bigger than I expected, though. I'll let cha' know if we find anything worth mentioning. Over and out."

Curly, now full of pep once again, walked past his tall, lanky partner and continued onward. He shined his light on the wall to their left, and became intrigued as he noticed a metal door, with an old phone hung on the wall next to it. "Interesting..." He commented as he continued to walk a few more feet forward and revealed 4 more, even larger metal doors, similar to that belonging to a garage, and some sort of metal plate lining the floor just beneath them. "I think we might be in some sort of... receiving bay..." he said, before standing on top of one of the metal floor pieces, and jumped. He could feel some give beneath him, and promptly got off.