Robert Rankin - Necrophenia

What to do now, though? Wander down a tunnel?

I wasn’t keen on that idea. The friend I mentioned earlier, who had once been in the TA, had also once worked for London Transport, on lifts and escalators. And he told me that it was forbidden for any London Transport sub-ground operative to walk down a tunnel unaccompanied.

‘Because,’ he told me, ‘if you fell over or got knocked down or something, the rats would eat you up.’

So not, perhaps, down the tunnel.

And, ‘So,’ I said to myself, ‘if I was a lost city of gold hereabouts, where would I have my hidden entrance?’

And an answer returned to me in an instant. And hidden this answer was. Because it would be hidden, wouldn’t it? Because if it hadn’t been hidden, then wartime travellers would have stumbled upon it. Wouldn’t they? And I agreed, with myself, that they would.

‘I think that maybe I should establish base camp right here, right now, get a fire going, get into my sleeping bag and eat the special chocolate, was my considered opinion. Finding this city might just take a bit longer than I might have hoped. And it would be best to go about searching for it all bright and fresh.

But do you know what? I didn’t do that. Because many-togged as that sleeping bag might have been and inviting to equally many, I had just spent ten years on my back and had probably had all the sleep I needed for the foreseeable future.

So, press on. But to where?

And now I considered the other stuff. I previously mentioned the other stuff, but only briefly and in passing and was in no way specific or indeed even hinted as to what the other stuff might be. And this I did because I didn’t know whether I would need to use the other stuff or not. And if I wasn’t going to use it, then I didn’t want to get the reader’s hopes up that I might use it, only to dash them down when I didn’t.

But now I considered the other stuff. Because the other stuff might just be the solution to finding the hidden entrance.

And so now I will name the other stuff specifically.

It was manufactured by ACME.

And it was dynamite.

A dozen sticks of it, with fuses.

Well, I couldn’t let dynamite slip by, could I? I mean, how many times in your life have you ever had the chance to let off a stick of dynamite? Probably never, that’s how many.

Dynamite! I divested myself of my multi-denominational rucksack, un-Velcroed the windproof, rainproof coverall top flap and dug down deep into the contents therein and came up with a stick of dynamite. And examined it by torchlight.

Dynamite! A red sealed tube, like in the movies, with a fuse sticking out of one end.

Dynamite! I gave it a little loving stroke.

In all truth, I had been looking for the slightest opportunity to use it. I had even thought of letting off a stick upstairs by the ticket booths, just to see how much damage it would do. But I wisely considered that at ground level it might draw some unwanted attention from passers-by.

But down here…

Dynamite!

‘Calm yourself, Tyler,’ I told myself. ‘It’s only dynamite.’

Only!

But I did calm myself down. And I had a good think. Where should I place this dynamite? Lowest point in the station seemed favourite. But surely I was there now. On the track, then? Sounded good. Whereabouts?

So many questions!

‘Right in the middle,’ I said to myself, and my words echoed up and then down the ancient platform.

I took myself, my rucksack and my torch and my dynamite along that platform until I had reached roughly the middle. And satisfying myself that this was roughly the middle and that I was now having a very exciting time, I laid down my rucksack and shone my super-torch onto the track. A rat scuttled by and I didn’t like that. But I did have the dynamite. So how much to use? How powerful was dynamite? How many seconds would I have to make away to a place of safety once I’d lit the fuse? How far was a place of safety?

Too many questions.

‘In answer to the first question, how much to use,’ I said in a whispery tone, ‘I have twelve sticks, so let’s say, well…’ And I counted on my fingers and made that thinking-face. ‘Six?’ I said. Yes, six sounded like a nice round figure. If there was a lost city below, then six sticks of dynamite should be able to blast a way through to it.

Six it was, then.

I fished out another five. And by the megawatt light of my most excellent torch, bound them together with a length of ACME Patented Climbing Cord. Cut to length with my multi-blade Swiss Army knife.

I got my rucksack back onto my shoulders, then took from my pocket my brand-new ACME Ever-Lite Varie-Flame lighter and thumbed it into flame. I figured that to light just the one fuse would probably be enough. And this I now did. Noting the wonderful fizz as it lit and all the pretty sparks.

And then I tossed the bundle of dynamite sticks down onto the railway track and took to my heels at the hurry-up. And if it was interesting, from a detached point of view, just how fast you can run when pursued by policemen firing guns at you, it was equally, if not more so, interesting to note that you can run even faster when faced with the possibility of being blown to pieces by dynamite.

So to speak.

I legged it up that platform and up those steps and all the way back to the ticket booths above. And I flung myself down into one of those booths and assumed that foetal position Fangio had favoured earlier in the day and I switched off my torch and covered my ears and held my breath and waited.

And I won’t draw things out. I reckon it couldn’t have been more than thirty seconds later when that dynamite went off. And it wasn’t deafening where I was, all huddled. But there was a terrific woomph! and a terrible shudder, as of an earthquake starting up. And then there was the dust. And I hadn’t really allowed for the dust. Or given the dust a moment’s thought. Even imagined that there would be any dust.

But that dust came rushing up the stairs and suddenly the darkness was a stifling darkness. A choking darkness. A fatally asphyxiating darkness.

And I coughed and croaked and spluttered in this lung-filling darkness and it was pretty horrible, I can tell you.

And I don’t know whether I passed out or not. But I do recall switching on my torch and finding myself looking like a grey snowman. And having to empty my nostrils and cough up clouds of dust. And then do a lot of manic pattings to restore myself to a measure of sartorial elegance.

‘I must remember in future about the dust,’ I said. In a hoarse and baritone voice. ‘But let’s go and look at the damage.’

And I descended once more to the platform of Mornington Crescent East (discontinued usage). And, shining my torch all around and about, declared that it was a mess.

It was now a most untidy platform, all smothered in great boulders and rocks and everything velvet with dust, and I steered my way between the boulders and rocks to view the epicentre of the concussion.

And shone my torch down into a very large hole indeed.

It was a real humdinger of a hole.

A veritable pit-shaft.

And as I flashed my flashlight down, I thought I discerned amongst gentle twirling risings of dusts a certain degree of twinkling.

And as I looked and as I saw, certain words came to me.

From my memory. Words I had once read in a book about the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun. And of how Howard Carter had knocked a small hole through the wall of the tomb and shone his torch inside.

‘What do you see?’ Howard had been asked.

And he said, ‘Wonderful things.’

And thus did I descend into the abyss.

Upon braided cord, secured by a chrome carabiner and employing certain belay devices, shock-absorbing lanyards and polyester webbing.