Entering the room, zippo lit and in hand, Joe peers around and can see little beyond him besides old floorboards and the occasional pipe rising from out of the floor and traveling up into darkness. The pipes are large and varied in width—between one half foot to three feet wide in diameter—and Joe hears the sound of rushing liquid in most of them. Beneath the rushing though, coming from above, he also hears a low pitched—almost inaudible—percussive thump every few minutes or so. He shuffles along the left side of the wall, following it along, pipe after pipe looming in front of him, until he reaches a small alcove, two large pipes bending toward one another before continuing upward, standing like an archway to the entrance of the little space. He leans in and sees a defunct mattress amongst piles of rags as well as a tall pole leaning in a corner and beneath the pole, a lantern. “Ah!” he exclaims and speaking to no one, he says, “That should come in handy.” He squats down next to the lantern and goes about lighting it while suspiciously looking around his surroundings. “Hope whoever’s bed this is doesn’t mind terribly.” As the lantern comes to life, illuminating the alcove, he says, “I’ll be sure to pay them back for the lantern… somehow.”

Stepping back into the larger room, Joe peers about again and sees the room is more of a corridor lined with the large pipes that go on beyond what he can see, like peering into a giant organ. A number of the pipes veer off in diagonal directions, while some come up from the floor only to bend around again 180 degrees and head back through the floor. The layout is nothing he recognizes, confusing in fact, and the purpose of the room is even more obscured. There appear to be no valves or controls of any kind. He touches one of the pipes and it feels warm and slimy. Here and there he see clumps of fungus and it occurs to him that though there was light coming from the door, he sees no other source of light besides his lantern. Making his way to the center of the room, he checks his pocket to make sure the zippo is still there and then lifts the glass on the lantern and blows out the flame. The room goes dark and for a moment and his eyes play with his mind as apparitions appear to flit and move about the chamber. The room goes darker still, to complete black, but then, gradually, the pipes begin to re-appear as ghostly spotted shapes and Joe can see that the patches of fungus on them are actually faintly glowing. His eyes adjust and the glow increases until he can see a strange outline of the pipes leading off a long distance. The glow on the pipes merges and fades until he can see little more than a dark pistachio glob.

Heading back into the alcove for a brief moment, Joe also takes the pole from the corner, again promising himself to return it or pay for it somehow, but stops to look at the little mattress. The bottom of his shirt and his pants are soaked from the river and he realizes he has no idea what time it is or what day it is for the matter. It comes over him in a wave that he is tired and cold and has no idea where he is or where he is going. Walt had said he would catch up, so perhaps now was as good an opportunity as any to rest for a while. And the first sense of inspiration he’s felt in some time, he realizes, a fire would be nice. Re-lighting the lamp, Joe heads back to the stairs and from the top few removes old boards until he has ten or so and hauls them back to the alcove among the pipes. Stacking them on top of piles of old rags, he lights a fire with the zippo. It takes a few tries, but he eventually gets the pile burning. Seated on the mattress, he holds his hands out to the fire. Gradually it warms him, and he leans back on the mattress and drifts off into a dark sleep.

Read the whole thread: The Hunger Engine

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