Bjorn This Way: A Bjorn Trilogeé Adventure

Chapter Four

San Francisco is notorious for its secret tunnels. They were mostly built in the late 1800's and early 1900's, and used for such things as transporting illegal substances, human trafficking, access to secret locations and as a place where poor shanghaied souls were kept. This was one of those tunnels.

The walls were made of roughly worked stone, the color of brown and wet with moisture. The floor was smooth, but made of dirt. A gas lantern on the wall lit up the first one hundred feet of the tunnel, but after that it was just utter darkness. As Bjorn walked he kicked up dust, causing him to cough softly. The entire place smelled like a musty basement and was more humid than a jungle. Bjorn followed the light as far as it would go and then pushed onward into the blackness.

He walked slowly with one hand on the wet stone wall, trying to keep his bearings. After a few unsteady moments, he stopped ... and listened. He thought that he heard a sound, a tiny shuffling noise, but a noise nonetheless. Bjorn carried on, but at a slower pace. Then he saw a light in the distance, it was a small circle and slowly bobbed back and forth. It seemed to be approaching.

"Hello!" he called out. The voice echoed down the hallway.

"HELLO!" Femmy answered loudly through the beard communicator. Bjorn shuttered from the shrilly unexpected sound. "I'm not talking to you. Be quite!"

"WHAT?" answered Femmy.

"I said shut up!"

"Who me?" answered a voice from down the tunnel.

"Not you, I'm talking to my beard. Uh, I mean to nobody in particular."

"Ah-so, I see" said the stranger, now becoming clearer to Bjorn's adjusting eyes.

The man was dressed in a white button-up shirt and white flowing pants. He wore, what Bjorn had heard described as, a coolie hat. Bjorn could tell that the man was Asian, but something was off about this guy.

"You rook rike you could ruse a right" said the Chinaman with a toothy smile.

"What? A light? yeah I sure could" Bjorn answered.

"Well forrow me." The Chinaman said as he turned and walked down the tunnel.

This guy could easily be leading Bjorn to his death but he really had no other choice. The place was so dark that he feared getting hopelessly lost. Plus if worst comes to worst, he can just kill this dude.

After a few minutes of awkward silence, Bjorn chimed in. "So are you like some kind of usher or something?" The Chinaman shook his head "Oh no no, me could never dance that good."

The two men walked-on down the dusty tunnel, illuminated only by the light of the Chinaman's small candle lamp. They twisted around corners, encountered various forks and seemingly began to walk at an incline. The air suddenly turned cooler and Bjorn felt a breeze. A steady pounding echoed through Bjorn's chest. At first he thought it was his heartbeat, but soon he realized that it was the effect of some rhythmic bass tone. "I was just wondering were exactly you are taking me?" Bjorn asked

"To the prace you want to go"

"Which is where?"

"Right here!" the Chinaman said as he pointed to a steel door.

"Wow ok. Thanks I guess" Bjorn reached for the glass doorknob. "Hey, I didn't quite catch your name."

"The name is Harry Wang."

"That's literally the dumbest name" Bjorn said

The Chinaman just winked, snuffed out the candle and was gone.