Stephen Jones - The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror. Vol 15

People didn’t disappear into walls. Only ghosts did that and Bernie didn’t believe in ghosts. Ilyas was real. The more he thought about it, the more he was convinced that there was a way underground. Probably several ways.

He made up his mind and bought himself the most powerful torch he could find, and some spare batteries. He chose a Saturday night for his exploration, after the trains had ceased to run on the branch line, and caught the night-service bus into town. If graffiti artists could get onto the railway line so, Bernie reasoned, could he.

The subways, now totally deserted, resounded to the echoes of his footsteps. Bernie was torn between increasing the resonance of the sounds by stamping his feet and a desire for silence — since he was about to break the law.

The station was locked up as expected but next to the old part was a rutted car-parking lot surrounded by a high chain-link fence. Bernie glanced around quickly before sauntering in through the gate. He had expected to have to climb the swaying fence but it lay trampled in the dirt by other feet. He crossed boldly. To his left the old part of the station was secured from intruders, the fencing topped with vicious twists of barbed wire.

Bernie stepped over the rusting rails and walked round, past the sign that warned NO PASSENGERS BEYOND THIS POINT.

Finally, he stood between the rails, looking into the maw of the tunnel. It was lightless. A solid wall of dark, facing him. Beckoning. His heart thudded with excitement — and with fear. Bernie took two steps inside, then another two. The sound of the gravel beneath his feet was loud but muffled, as though the black air tried to erase his presence while the curved walls wanted to advertise it. He felt everything was being focused back on him.

He looked back and was reassured by the paler arch that marked the cavernous mouth, an orange-tinted grey fed by the lights of the city above. Bernie switched on his torch and began to walk slowly, swinging the beam from side to side, scanning the soot-coloured brickwork for doorways, anything that would suggest a way underground. A rat, startled by the light, scuttled along the bottom of the wall and vanished into a recess. Bernie ran his hands over the brickwork, hunting for an opening. Nothing.

He went on.

At one point he switched off the torch and just stood. The darkness was total. Out of sight of either tunnel mouth it enfolded him gently. Far above he could hear the occasional rumble of passing cars. There was the odd tick of metal and mortar contracting. Bernie shivered. It was cooler than he had expected. It was supposed to get warmer, the further you went underground.

He found it almost by accident. A streamer of paper had caught on the cable that was strung between the lamps. It stirred in a ghostly breeze as the torch beam flashed past it. Bernie looked upwards, expecting to see some shaft burrowing from the tunnel’s roof to the surface and creating a draught. There was none. Neither was there a discernible wind blowing through the tunnel itself. He stood still wondering if his own movements had caused the fluttering. But no — the strip still jigged about in the torchlight.

Bernie crouched next to it, feeling for the airstream. He traced it to a crack at the base of the wall in another of the alcoves. He pushed tentatively. The brickwork seemed solid until he tapped it. It had a hollow ring. There was no fastening that he could see. He pushed harder, in all the places and directions that he could think of.

He grinned in the darkness as a panel slipped suddenly sideways. He shone the torch through the opening. It was a service passage running parallel with the tunnel and connected with it by a short linking corridor, five paces long. Cables and pipes stretched in both directions, but there was room for a small man to move carefully between them.

Bernie jumped as the panel slid and snicked back into place. He felt a momentary rise of panic as his beam caught the blank, closed wall. A quick check showed how easy it was to open again.

Bernie turned right towards Snow Hill. It was damp here, condensation forming and dripping from the ducts to form intermittent puddles. Some pipes gurgled with the passage of water through them.

There was a grille in the wall a little way along that slid to the side like the door of an old-fashioned lift. Peering through, Bernie could see steps spiralling down. The passage was tiled with pale blue. It reminded him of the steps leading down to the lower levels of some of London ’s Underground stations. He’d spent a week’s holiday there two years ago, haunting the network and wishing he could follow the trains that burrowed into the earth like giant worms.

The gate was secured by a rusted padlock. Bernie stared longingly into the inviting gloom before searching for something to break it with. The penknife he always carried was too flimsy, the blade bending as he twisted it in the catch. He needed a more sturdy length of metal, like a screwdriver. He cast around, without much hope, for something suitable. The piece of wood he found snapped the moment he applied force to it.

Bernie tugged viciously at the padlock in his frustration. The loop snapped. It lay in the palm of his hand for a few moments before he realized what had happened. Then he carefully put it in his pocket. Passing through the gate, he pulled it almost closed behind him, satisfied that he could get out easily.

His footsteps echoed, the sound bouncing and reflecting from the curving walls, continuing after he stopped. It was almost as if there were someone simultaneously in front of and behind him.

There was someone behind him. Another pair of shoes keeping time with him. But not quite. The click of the heels was slightly different to the slap of his trainers.

“Who’s there?” Bernie called. The cry stretched. Amplified by the stairs, it was returned to him altered: “Hoos sair”.

Bernie dithered, knowing he was trespassing. As long as he remained still, so did the other. He tried tiptoeing down, then, flashing the torch suddenly behind him, miscalculated and bashed it against the wall. The light flickered.

“You don’t scare me,” he whispered into the darkness.

“Scairee,” it came back.

The torch went out.

“Scairee,” the echo repeated.

Bernie froze. Being underground wasn’t quite so much fun any more.

He started to creep back up the steps, fingers of one hand touching the tiles, the other holding the torch up as a club.

He encountered no one.

He stumbled on the top step and sprawled across the floor, hitting his head on the gate. He hauled himself to his feet and pulled at the grid. It didn’t move. He tugged again. And heard laughing.

He thought it was just the gurgle in the pipes above him, but it continued. Chuckling at first, then louder. A demented sound. Bernie shook and rattled the gate.

“Let me out,” he shouted.

“Ow, ow, ow,” came the reply from behind him.

He clasped his hands over his ears to shut out the sounds.

He could wait, he thought, wait until morning. Until someone came.

But perhaps no one ever came.

He brushed a tickle from his cheek. It was wet. A tear. He wiped his face on his sleeve. Men didn’t cry. And there must be another way. Besides, whoever it was had been behind him.

Without light, Bernie picked his way down the stairs again, feeling for every step with his toes before committing himself. It made his legs ache. But there were no echoes.

As he descended he became aware that he could see. Not clearly. Just the dim outline of his outstretched hand. There were lights below. People.

Bernie stopped. People had locked him in. His throat was dry, his head sore and he could smell his own sweat. He edged round the last bend.