Chris Ward - The Cold Pools

It wasn’t a question because they all knew the answer. Simon cocked his head. ‘We have to hope he doesn’t tell them about this station.’

‘I’m sorry, guys. I just wanted him to be one of us.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Marta said. ‘St. Cannerwells is off their turf. The Cross Jumpers rarely leave Charing Cross East.’

‘What about the rumours?’

Paul and Marta were quiet for a moment. The Cross Jumpers didn’t ply their trade in secret like the Tube Riders did. Word got around quickly and that word was that the Cross Jumpers had a new leader.

‘Why would he want to start a turf war?’ Paul said. ‘It doesn’t make sense.’

‘They don’t like us. They want us finished.’

‘What for? There are only five — shit, four — of us left. We’re hardly worth the effort.’

Marta gave them a grim smile. ‘It’s not about how many of us there are. It’s about our legend .’ She put her hands on her hips and gave them her best rock star pose, the thick dreads of her hair hanging against the sides of her face. ‘We’re the mighty Tube Riders, baby.’

In squats, underground clubs and illegal bars all across London GUA, people talked in hushed tones about the ghosts that appeared at the windows of the Underground trains. There were a thousand rumours about what the newspapers had dubbed “Tube Riders”, a name the original gang had gladly adopted. They were only half-jokingly considered wraiths or demons disturbed by all the noise, or the ghosts of generations of kids who’d committed suicide down in the dark tunnels by throwing themselves under the trains. Only a month ago Marta had found an article in an illegal magazine that claimed the entire London Underground network was haunted and claiming that it should be shut down.

Simon grinned. ‘It is kind of cool.’

‘The Cross Jumpers don’t like it because no one gives a shit about them,’ Marta said. ‘They’re scared to ride like we do and everyone knows it. That’s why they’re prepared to start a turf war. If they can find us, of course.’

Simon glanced back down the platform. ‘You know Switch will want to fight them,’ he said. ‘Pitched battle and all that? Tally ho, charge of the bloody Light Brigade.’

Marta noticed a trickle of sweat meander its way down Paul’s face. ‘Well, he’s on his own,’ he said. ‘How many knives can he hold at once?’

‘Come on, let’s get out of here,’ Simon said. ‘I don’t feel like riding anymore today.’

Marta looked down the platform. ‘Switch! We’re going!’

The other man looked up and then jogged over.

‘I reckon that was seventeen feet,’ he said as he reached them, grinning inanely. His bad eye twitched at them as though he was trying to suggest something. ‘I hit that third mat out, near the front edge. That’s about the seventeen feet mark, isn’t it?’

‘Not bad,’ Marta said, feigning interest. ‘That beats my best.’

‘And mine,’ Simon said.

‘Ah, we all know you’re a pussy.’ Switch tried to wink with his other eye, but it just made him look epileptic. He patted Paul on the shoulder. ‘Only Paul has better, eh. And that’s why you don’t ride any more, isn’t it? Don’t need to now you’ve proved your point, eh?’

‘Okay, leave it out,’ Paul said, looking down at the platform.

‘Come on man, don’t cry! That ride was awesome! A Tube Rider legend!’

‘Switch, can it,’ Simon said, and although Switch gave Paul a lopsided grin he shut up and began picking grime off the hooks of his clawboard instead.

Marta remembered the day Paul had made twelve feet. His clawboard had got jammed in the rail, maybe by a small piece of gravel caught in the railing or an accumulation of packed dirt. He’d managed to free his hands just in time, but he’d landed bad and been left with three broken ribs and a fractured collarbone. That wasn’t the worst, though. Marta could still remember his screams when he realised the board was stuck. If there were ghosts down here with them, that had been the sound of one of them possessing his body. That spine-splitting shriek had been no sound a man should make. It made her shiver even now, two years later.

They headed back towards the stairs, their clawboards slung over their shoulders. The escalator had stopped working years ago, and now its metal teeth were rusted and gummed up with litter and dust. They climbed up into darkness, emerging on to the old ticket corridor. A couple more emergency lights helped them past the old turnstiles, some boarded-up newsstands and an old donut store. Another staircase at the end led them up to the surface. Their feet rustled through piles of leaves blown in by the wind, while all around them the smell of unwashed bodies and the decomposing remains of takeout food hung in the air. They weren’t the only people to use the station; at night it was common for tramps to bunk down behind the metal barrier of the entranceway. They rarely went far inside, though. Mega Britain’s illegal magazines had seen to it that only the desperate or the very brave went into abandoned London Underground stations.

Marta went out first and waited for the others. It was a cold October day, the sky a leaking grey bucket that spat rain on her leather tunic and ripped jeans. St. Cannerwells backed on to a bleak park, a rusty iron fence separated them from a slope of untended grass, a cracked, root-rippled concrete path and a small pond filled with litter. Supermarket trolleys protruded from the brown water like half-submerged wrecks; paper-cup boats floated amongst the icebergs of old cardboard boxes while around them trees clacked their bare branches together in mocking applause.

‘See you tomorrow?’ Marta asked.

‘I’m working but I’ll come over when I’m done,’ Simon said.

‘I have some stuff to do but yeah, I’ll try,’ Paul said.

‘Switch?’

The little man was tapping the palm of his left hand with the index finger of his right, muttering under his breath.

‘I’ll take that as a yes.’

As the others said their goodbyes and left, Marta stood for a moment, looking out across the park towards the huge elevated highway overpass that rose above the city to the south. Half finished, it arched up out of the terraces and housing blocks to the east, rising steadily to a height of five hundred feet. There, at the point where it should have begun its gradual decent to the west, it just ended, sawn off, amputated.

Years ago, she remembered her father standing here with her, telling her about the future. Things had been better then. She’d still been going to school, still believed the world was good, still had dreams about getting a good job like a lawyer or an architect and hadn’t started to do the deplorable things that made her wake up shivering, just to get food or the items she needed to survive.

He had taken her hand and given it a little squeeze. She still remembered the warmth of his skin, the strength and assurance in those fingers. With his other arm he had pointed up at the overpass, in those days busy with scaffolding, cranes and ant-like construction workers, and told her how one day they would take their car, and drive right up over it and out of the city. The government was going to open up London Greater Urban Area again, he said. Let the city people out, and the people from the Greater Forest Areas back in. The smoggy, grey skies of London GUA would clear, the sirens would stop wailing all night, and people would be able to take the chains and the deadlocks off their doors. She remembered how happy she’d felt with her father’s arms around her, holding her close, protecting her.

But something had happened. She didn’t know everything — no one did — but things had changed. The government hadn’t done any of those things. The construction stopped, the skies remained grey, and life got even worse. Riots waited around every street corner. People disappeared without warning amid tearful rumours that the Huntsmen were set to return.