Chapter 25 #2
“You’ll wait for me?” I asked. “I mean, you’ll probably get through the ducts first. If I don’t get there in time, you won’t pull the lever?”
“Nope.”
“That kind of ruins it for you, though.”
“Well,” his right shoulder rose and fell lazily, “the victory won’t be as sweet if I don’t have my friend to share it with. Stars burn brighter when more eyes are on them.”
I smiled.
“And you’ll wait for me?” he asked. “If you get there first?”
“Of course.”
Again, he was beaming at me.
“So,” he shook his head, “there are two entrances to the duct work. One, uh, over there by the worktable, and one over there.”
Auggie pointed across the considerable length of the barn to where a jumble of ductwork led.
I’d never really paid much attention to the barn.
My focus was usually on small parts of Auggie’s installation art.
Or on Auggie himself. But the barn was massive.
When I’d first considered Auggie’s observatory maze, I thought it’d be a piece of cake.
Taking in the massive interior of the barn around me, and all of the ductwork, knowing that there were twists and turns and dead ends—and that I’d have to crawl through it—I wasn’t so confident.
The cavernous wooden room, though I wasn’t great with measurements by sight, was seventy-five to one-hundred feet wide and long.
The ceiling seemed to reach to the heavens, but was probably only twenty or twenty-five feet above us.
Any hayloft that had once been in place had obviously been removed so Auggie had all the space to work on his installation art.
The silo was massive, so a loft would have gotten in the way.
I couldn’t even estimate how much ductwork roped around the room—or where Auggie could have gotten all of it—but it trailed everywhere that wasn’t directly around his worktable.
Just from eyeballing it, I knew that if Auggie and I met in the same section, we would barely be able to squeeze past each other.
Auggie was a smaller guy, and I was average.
If we could run through tunnels to our destination, ten minutes would probably have been plenty of time to figure out the maze.
On our hands and knees, it had to be impossible.
My heart thumped a little harder, thinking about crawling into the narrow space and finding my way in the dark.
Also, having been laid out in a barn for who knew how long, there could potentially be rats or bugs—maybe even an overly friendly raccoon or possum.
I couldn’t believe that Auggie had hosed down and scrubbed all of the ductwork, so there could also be rust and grime.
Maybe sharp edges that I could snag my shirt on or cut myself on.
“Are the ducts…are they clean?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Auggie nodded slowly. “I mean, they’re dusty from being in the barn for so long, but there’s nothing gross.”
“What about animals?”
He laughed.
“I de-skunked them myself.”
“So, no spiders or anything?”
He winced. “I can’t guarantee that, but I’ve been crawling through them almost every night, so I don’t think any animals have found them to be a suitable home. Most things that like to live in dark, small spaces don’t like to be disturbed all of the time.”
Every night. Auggie had been testing the installation art almost every night.
When he pulled the lever, lights came on and the skylight was open.
If he didn’t make it to the lever inside the silo in time, the skylight closed.
He always practiced around midnight. And he hadn’t figured out his maze yet.
That’s why I’d see the lights at night and their sudden disappearance at midnight.
I smiled to myself. Another Possibly mystery solved.
“So?” Auggie perked up. “Are you still up for it? It’s nearly eleven-fifty.”
Ten-minute timer. He starts his maze at eleven-fifty.
Yup. Mystery solved. The barn wasn’t a dance club or a hideout for secret government agents, or a docking port for space aliens. Auggie’s art installation had been the culprit all along.
“Um, yeah,” I said. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”
“Do you want to go in by my workbench or at the other side of the room?” he asked.
“Which do you usually use?”
“Workbench entrance.”
“I’ll take the other one.” I gestured vaguely to the other side of the barn. “I haven’t been in either and I don’t want you going in blind when you’re maybe starting to learn the other one’s twists and turns.”
He scoffed. “Yeah. Not likely. It’s pretty twisty and turn-y.”
We both laughed, then Auggie nodded his head towards the other side of the barn.
“Get ready,” he said. “Take your position, sir.”
Suddenly, filled with excitement and no longer with concern and dread, I jogged across the barn, the shadows enveloping me.
It took me a second in the low lighting at the other side of the barn to find the opening to the ductwork.
But once I found it, I stood next to it and waved across the room at Auggie.
“Find it?” he hollered.
“Got it!” I answered.
“Okay,” he said as he walked over to the lever on the outside of the silo and gripped it in his hand, “once I pull down, the timer starts. Go right away. Don’t waste time. We’ve got this!”
I held a thumb up.
“Got it!”
“Ready?”
“Ready!”
I watched Auggie smile at me from his spot next to the silo, hoping that I wouldn’t let him down.
If he got to the silo’s interior and I didn’t, I’d feel awful for ruining his success—especially after he had been trying for so long.
Regardless, I was going to do my best. If I messed up, Auggie would forgive me.
And we could try again. And again. Night after night.
Until we finally laid under the stars together. The thought made me smile.
A mechanical grinding sound emanated from the silo as Auggie’s hand pulled down on the lever.
The interior of the barn flooded with lights and I blinked at the sudden blindness it caused.
I barely had time to look up at the ceiling to see what looked like millions of twinkling Christmas lights shining down on us from the ceiling yards over our heads.
I could only tell the skylight had opened thanks to a dark rectangle in the middle of all of the brightness.
“Go!” Auggie screamed gleefully.
I jerked at his command, grinning stupidly. Then I raced to the opening in the ductwork on my side of the barn, fell to my hands and knees, and crawled inside.
Absolute darkness overwhelmed me as I slid into the metal tunnel; I froze.
What would happen if I couldn’t find my way into the silo?
What would happen if I couldn’t retrace my route and back out of the tunnels?
Would I have to scream for help and have Auggie locate me so that he could cut me out of the ductwork with some tool?
My heart began to thunder in my chest again and I twitched as imaginary spiders crawled along my arms. Panting, barely inside the dark ductwork, I considered crawling the few feet back out of the tunnel and hollering at Auggie to do the maze without me.
After a few seconds, the darkness seemed to soften, most likely from the light that was peeking in from behind me through the ductwork’s opening.
I convinced myself to ignore the phantom creepy-crawly feeling in my arms, and took slow, deep breaths.
It dawned on me that the bright lights that came on when the lever was pulled was probably to make it harder to adjust to the darkness of the ductwork.
It was probably part of the experience of Auggie’s art installation. That made me give a small smile.
Jerk.
As my pupils dilated and adjusted to the inky blackness, I realized that being able to see well would make the maze less of a challenge.
What was the point of a maze and the reward at the end if I didn’t have to work for it?
Time was ticking by, and though I had no concept of how many seconds had passed as I simply waited near the entrance to the ductwork, I knew our time was finite.
If I didn’t move as quickly as possible, if I didn’t make good guesses about where to turn, I would never make it through to the silo in time.
The worst that could happen was that I would run out of time and fail the maze.
If that happened, and I couldn’t find my way out, Auggie would have a plan to save me.
He traversed the maze on his own dozens of times and had gotten himself out.
What did I actually have to worry about? Bumping my head?
With a grin, I urged myself forward, crawling on my hands and knees through the dark metal tunnel.
As I made myself move from the entrance into the ductwork, I moved cautiously, unsure of what was ahead and unable to see it.
However, after a few moments of nothing but empty space around me, and only brushing up against the side of the ductwork once or twice, I found my courage.
I picked up my pace and began crawling like a baby after the distracted family cat.
When I plowed face first into a dead end, I cursed under my breath, rattled by the sudden stop.
I wanted to get mad at myself for letting my guard down, but a grin came to my face instead.
The bump hadn’t hurt anything but my pride.
The ductwork wasn’t solid steel or anything—and how fast can one go on their hands and knees anyway?
I reached out to my left and found another barrier.
When I reached to my right, I found empty space, and waved my hand around to make sure I wouldn’t turn and hit my head again.
Becoming fairly confident that turning right would lead down another clear path, I shifted and pushed forward.