The modern display changed color.
It was a small movement, green to amber and back again, so brief Eli wondered whether the reflection from his flashlight had fooled him. He leaned closer without touching the equipment. A column of status symbols appeared and disappeared on the screen. He could read enough to identify the system as controlling portions of the building's air handling and electrically operated access points, but not enough to understand its complete sequence. Along a side wall stood two industrial cylinders attached to a bracket, their labels partly hidden from where he stood.
He knew almost nothing about them. Jonah had shown him how to recognize certain warning symbols, but the one rule he had repeated most often was that unfamiliar containers and altered electrical equipment were not things a child should investigate by putting his hands on them. Eli backed away from the cylinders and looked again at the list of names.
That was when he realized he had crossed the line between finding something interesting and finding something dangerous.
The machinery might have had an innocent explanation. A contractor might have been restoring old systems before a winter storm. A club official might have authorized the work and neglected to tell the rest of the members. But ordinary maintenance did not require a hidden access route, a handwritten roster, and fresh wiring in a room that appeared abandoned. Whatever the truth, Eli had enough evidence now to bring somebody responsible down here.
He turned toward the stairs and almost walked straight into a dark rectangle of shadow near the corner. For one terrible moment, he thought it was a person. Then his flashlight found a stack of old ventilation grilles leaning against the wall. He let out a breath and discovered that his hands had begun shaking after all.
"Okay," he whispered. "Okay. Go get help."
He made himself remember the route before leaving: eight steps, steel door, hatch beneath the platform, rear wall, then the covered porch. It was the sort of exercise Jonah had taught him to do in unfamiliar places, not because he expected disaster, but because memory became unreliable when fear took hold. Eli climbed carefully, closed the hatch as well as he could, and emerged into rain that had grown heavier while he was below.
Rascal was still beside the pallets, miserable and wet. He rose the moment Eli appeared, pressing his nose into the boy's palm and trembling with an anxiety that seemed to have nothing to do with the cold. Eli scratched the dog's head and wished fiercely that he could carry him home and never think about the hidden room again. Instead, he found a sheltered section near the fence, secured Rascal's leash so he could not run into the road, and promised him aloud that he would be back.
The clubhouse front steps looked taller when Eli approached them alone.