I don't want to alarm you, but Manchester is in danger. It might be a good idea to start packing an emergency evacuation suitcase, just in case. The city's danger does not come from any of the sources you might expect-acid rain, minor league baseball, rogue meter maids-it comes from another direction entirely: underground.
As with many ugly situations, the danger isn't readily apparent, so I beg your patience as I build a case slowly and methodically:
Get in your car and go to the corner of Mammoth and Candia roads in the northeast corner of the city. Drive the half-mile or so to the on-ramp for I-93 South.
Notice anything unusual?
Ah-ha! I can see it in the puzzled expression on your face. You noticed that there are at least 38 manhole covers in that three-block stretch of road. In places, there are clusters of three or four manhole covers just feet away from other clusters.
Why?
What is under the street that is so fascinating that somebody needs that much access to it? Do sewer and electrical workers need to go below the street that often? Also, even if large numbers of municipal workers needed to go below, why would they each need their own manhole? Couldn't they take turns with one or two? Why 38?
Unless… What if large numbers of men needed to go through the holes simultaneously? A strike-force, if you will. Interesting...
Now, drive that stretch of road again. Notice anything else?
Yes, There is a large number of smaller manhole covers-maybe six inches in diameter-scattered over the same area.
Why would normal municipal workers need tiny, little manholes like that? Obviously, electrical and sewer workers can't fit through them, particularly if they belong to a union, so why have such small openings? If they need to snake fiber-optic cables or something down below the street, why not use the big manholes? There are certainly enough of them.
The mystery deepens.
When I was in Seventh Grade, Roger O'Donnell came into school all excited one day. He pulled us aside at lunch and told us about a great movie he'd seen the night before. He'd sneaked downstairs around midnight to watch Monster Horror Chiller Theater and had caught a movie called something like, Alien Bug Monsters Versus the Mole People (my memory is a little fuzzy on the specific title). This forgotten classic was great, he told us-at least the part he'd seen before his mom caught him and made him go back upstairs to bed. It involved, as the title hints, a subterranean civilization of highly evolved moles, who had to defend their city from an invasion of alien bugs. The coolest scene, according to Roger, was when one of the mole-men, before he left for the Front, enjoyed a last-minute conjugal visit with his wife.
"It was so cool!" Roger told us. "The took off their clothes and everything! You couldn't see anything, though-only fur."
This idea was so intriguing that it has haunted me for 25 years.
So, put these three pieces of seemingly unrelated evidence together and what do you have? Here's my theory:
Manchester is sitting above an underground city of giant, mutant prairie dogs just waiting for an opportunity to strike. Look at the location of these so-called "manhole covers." They are just blocks away from our hospitals, highways and convenience stores. Without warning, they could swarm out from hiding, 38 at a time and strike.
Granted, even 38 prairie dogs, be they ever so giant and mutant, would have a hard time cutting off our transportation, medical and beer infrastructure, but keep in mind that these would be waves of 38 mutant warriors-38 plus 38, plus 38 equals a butt-load of mutant prairie dogs!
Particularly if they soften us up first by sending their giant albino pythons through the smaller holes. (You were wondering when I'd get to them, weren't you?)
Now, I can hear your arguments, "Hey, these manholes have been there for years, what makes you think the giant, mutant prairie dogs will attack us now?"
That's a good question. Think about it though-we are distracted; our attention is elsewhere. Why not attack now? Actually, we've been pretty lucky so far this year. For the first time in years, we've actually gotten a lot of snow and cold temperatures, keeping the mutants dormant. Also, at the moment, they are still sleeping off the feasts and excesses of their holiest day of the year, Ground Hog's Day.
But the weather is getting warmer. The snow is melting. We are getting more and more distracted. The giant mutant prairie dogs are coming.
