After he had surveyed his

After he had surveyed his surroundings to make sure that the coast was clear, Trent entered the underbelly of Portland through an old utility entrance under the rising, steel-grated skeleton of St. John’s Bridge. As he ducked through an open section of chain link fence near one of the bridge’s main columns, he could see the bustle of traffic high above him roaring over the iron-meshed grills - black rubber tires created that comforting sound of ‘home’ as they roared over the metal grates.
Once inside the small, trash-strewn, fenced perimeter of the concrete pillar, Trent scanned the area around him again. Seeing that no one had followed him and that it was safe to proceed, he hurried along through the garden of discarded plastic bottles, mouldy, sun-bleached newspapers, rotted boards, broken glass and used condoms until he had reached a small manhole covered with a rusted iron cover. Again, Trent took a look around and when he was finally convinced that all was safe, he lifted the cover off and slipped down into the darkness that led into the belly of Portland.
Trent placed his foot on the first rusted rung of an iron ladder. The ladder was nothing more than a rickety series of iron strips sunk into the concrete wall that had once been used by Portland city workers decades earlier. When only Trent’s head remained above ground level, he held on to the top rung with a white- knuckle grip. With his free hand he pulled the cover back over the hole and continued the climb down until his feet were firmly planted.
As soon as Trent’s feet hit the concave concrete of the old sewer tributary beneath him, he immediately went into a dead run, hoping that whatever he had just seen above ground would not follow him.
Trent ran through the dark sewer until his heart pumped acid into his veins, making the muscles in his thighs, calves and feet burn. He exhaled; his breath hung in the cold air like a rain cloud. Then he ran some more. He was lucky his instinct guided him through the darkness of these tunnels; he knew them like the back of his hand after living on, and below, the streets of Portland for the last three years. Only when his body could not withstand any more of the abuse, did he stop for a rest on a dimly lit brick ledge under a grate. Above him through the metal grill the noon sun hung in the smog-filled, grey sky, and Trent could hear the bustling of midday traffic, the honking of angry car horns and the patter of pedestrians who went about their business above ground. As Trent sought to catch his breath, he eased back and rested his head against the crumbling, brick-lined sewer wall to relax for awhile to enjoy a cigarette that he fished out of the inside pocket of his denim jacket.
As Trent took in the first stale drag from his cigarette, he pondered over what had just transpired. Maybe he had just imagined it, hadn’t really seen what he thought he had seen in Cathedral Park only a few minutes ago. Perhaps his eyes were playing tricks on him.
Still, Trent had lived on these streets for three years. Down on his luck or not, Trent knew damn well that you have to keep a good head on your shoulders to survive on the streets of Portland - and whatever the hell it was that he had seen, it seemed real enough to him and he wasn't prone to flights of fancy or seeing things that weren't there.
The image played over in his mind again, burned into the backs of his eyes and he could still see it when he blinked - indelible. He wondered why it was that he felt safe down here in the ghost that was once a city, beneath the beast above that was Portland; surely there was considerably more safety in the vast numbers of people on the streets, safety in the sunlight, safety in the day time, above ground, safety in reality and normality. But this was his reality, this was his normal, and this was where he felt safest.
That wasn't right kept ringing inside his head. It was something that should hide in dark places, something that had no place being up-top, on the outside, all the way up there with the regular folks.
He remembered all the old urban legends he'd heard over the years, things his grandfather had told him when he was a little boy on his Gramp’s knee and he thought the old man was 837 years old. He remembered stuff he'd heard at school - from kids and teachers, things he had overheard in coffee shops and bars, out on the street...and under it. Those were the worst ones - the one's he'd heard down here. And yet this was his home, this was the place he felt safe.
In particular, he remembered a story that Guitar John, one of the oldest guys who lived underneath Portland, had told him when he first came underground. At the time he thought that maybe the old hippy who liked to talk to his own hand was just trying to freak the ‘new kid’ out as a part of Trent‘s rite of passage to acceptance in his new home. Still, the grizzled man’s story about a little girl’s disembodied head screaming through the tunnels un-nerved him due to the man‘s flair for vivid details. For weeks after that, Trent would move very cautiously through the tunnels on this side of the city, half expecting something from an old horror movie to jump out from every blind corner he went around. And when the old rusted pipes that ran along the sides of the tunnels would creak and emit inhuman groans that emanated from throughout the entire tunnel system, Trent’s fear would erupt into a dead and blind run that led him haphazardly into sections of dark tunnels that were unknown to him.
Not too bright, nor brave for sixteen years old, but that seemed like a lifetime ago to Trent after being under the streets for three years. He was a man now, wily, street-wise, always ready with a broken bottle to slice into flesh if some newbie got out of hand down here and needed to be cowed.
But it was safer way down here than it was sleeping rough on the dirty streets and the filthy alleys of Portland. They'll fucking kill you for your cardboard quilt as soon as look at you, he was told by a stinking old drunk who turned out to be a famous writer once upon a time, but was now only notorious for being a hopeless drunkard. ‘Sit-ups’ they called him, on account of him having to sleep sitting up in order to avoid choking on his own vomit every night.
He had some chilling memories of being up top when he first got to Portland. Memories that still made beads of cold sweat spider down his spine and a look of child-like fear freeze his gaze whenever he allowed them into his head.
Now, panting in the underbelly of the city like Jonah in the guts of the whale, he felt that way again - too young and too green to be here, the reek of nievety coming off him like stale sweat. He was a little boy again hiding beneath the covers from the monster under the bed, pissing himself rather than put one foot out and onto the floor in case some thing grabbed it, the teenager wondering whether or not to take the shortcut through the cemetery just to make it home on time or take the well-lit way and be roasted alive for being late.
They were all closing in on him now - all the things he’d ever had to live with or get over or deal with. All those things that he’d overcome to get where he was, be by himself, not bothered by anybody anymore. He was a non-person, yes, not even a government statistic, he was nobody. And he’d worked damn hard to become him.