A Necessary Kill by James P. Sumner

greasy and covered in a combination of mold, some kind of weird slime, and cobwebs.
    I get maybe fifteen feet in and begin to feel an involuntary anxiety. Only natural, being in such an enclosed space, I guess, even if you’re not claustrophobic. I take a moment to compose myself and calm down before pressing on, clearing my mind of any concerns it has.
    I hear Ruby climb in behind me. “Oh my God… this sucks.”
    “Will you quit moaning?” I shout back. “I don’t like it, either, but we have no other choice.”
    We shuffle on in silence and soon reach a junction where we can go either left or right. I move slightly to one side, making more space beside me for Ruby to move level.
    I look back at her. “What do you think?”
    She’s cursing under her breath as she moves next to me. “I don’t know… Ugh—I hate this! It was nicer in my cell. But you had to come along and ruin things for me, didn’t you! Oh, whatever…”
    “I’ll remember that when it’s time to pay you twenty million dollars…”
    She sighs, pauses, and looks down each direction before shrugging. “I dunno… right?”
    I smile. “Okay, right it is.”
    She sets off and I follow. I try to avert my eyes while still looking where I’m going because all I can see in front of me is Ruby’s ass. And she’s in a short dress without underwear…
    “You better not be looking at anything back there!” she says a little too playfully.
    “I’m doing my best…”
    The air’s becoming stagnant, and the smell of sewage is strong.
    I just had an awful thought…
    I hope the way in and out through these tunnels is marked in some way, otherwise we could be in here for days…
    My hand rests in something warm and sticky.
    I look down and sigh.
    Shit.

8
    12:59 EDT
    We’ve been in the tunnels for a half hour, maybe more. The entrance under the asylum feeds into the main network that runs beneath the city, which, thankfully, is much larger. There’s shallow water running along the middle of the tunnels, with walkways along both sides and connecting footbridges periodically along the way.
    Unfortunately, lighting is sporadic at best, and signs don’t appear regularly enough to be useful, unless you work down here for a living and understand how to navigate this… labyrinth.
    Yeah… we’re a little lost.
    We stop at another junction. “I hate you,” says Ruby.
    I nod. “Fair enough. I hate myself most days, too. You get used to it.”
    “Do you have any idea where we’re going?”
    “Yeah, because I often traverse the Baltimore sewer system…” I sigh, immediately angry with myself for being unnecessarily flippant. “Sorry. That was a little uncalled for.”
    She shakes her head. “No, it’s me. I stink and I’m frustrated and I’m filthy… but I’m grateful for you getting me out of there, and for the work.”
    “It’s alright. Let’s just focus on getting out of here . The good news is that if we’re lost, the chances of anyone finding us are pretty slim.”
    She shrugs. “True, but the streets above are gonna be crawling with Baltimore PD and, presumably, FBI agents, too—all searching for us.”
    “Well, let’s see where we end up—no sense getting ahead of ourselves. Come on.”
    We make our way across another bridge, moving over to the other side of the waterway. Up ahead, I see a sign on the near wall, which I point to. “That street name mean anything to you?”
    She squints in the gloom. “West 39th? Yeah… it’s a couple miles northeast of the asylum…” She laughs. “Oh my God—we must’ve traveled directly beneath the university! That’s great!”
    I smile. “I think we’ve been very fortunate to go in a consistently straight direction, under the circumstances, so I’m not complaining.”
    We speed up and turn the corner. It’s a dead end with a ladder ascending the wall. I follow it up with my gaze and see the pinprick of light from outside shining down through the manhole cover.
    I put a hand