Stephen (ed.) - The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 18

“ Most of the city is now underground and not above the surface, and I scarcely need list its innumerable tunnels, subterranean car parks, cellars, crypts, bunkers, basements, vaults, passageways, and sewers. Every building in London has an underside buried deep in the earth. Beneath our feet are the ruins of Anglo-Saxon Lundenwic and of Roman Londinium. The contemporary city will, in time, be swallowed up. This neon and concrete labyrinth will become an Atlantis of catacombs. The higher we build up, the deeper it is necessary to build down in order to support the structures above. All the nightmare sewage that we pump into the depths, all the foulness and corruption, the abortions, the faeces and scum, the blood and diseased mucus, but mostly the hair: what a feast for those underground beings that exist in darkness, and shun the sunlight! Those things below hate us and have every reason to do so .”

His attention kept jumping from the text to the series of bizarre black and white photographs throughout the book. Quite where Drayton had obtained them from was not made clear; they were not credited. They may even have come from his personal collection. What they showed was this:

(Front cover) A blurred humanoid figure seen from a passing tube train whose face is almost completely covered by its hair. Between the strands there seems to be a mouth lined with shark-like fangs. The haggard creature is backing into a siding, away from the light.

(pg.18) A photographic record of a series of exhumed graves with empty coffins whose bases had been torn apart.

(pg.33) A blueprint of a subterranean reverse-tower with forty-five storeys and access shafts radiating from it in all directions, some leading to burial grounds, others to sewers etc. bearing the legend “North End (Hampstead)”.

(pg.49) What appears to be a series of bloody, smeared handprints on the white wall tiles of British Museum Station during its use as an air-raid shelter circa 1941.

(pg.87) Human bones, including a skull, photographed lying alongside the tracks of an Underground tunnel.

(pg.102) Graffiti scrawled (in charcoal?) on the side of 1972 Mk. 1 train stock that reads “THE HUNGRY CANNOT SLEEP”, “WE CRAWL THROUGH GRAVES”, “THE DARKNESS BEHIND YOUR EYES” and “BELOW THERE IS ONLY PAIN”.

(pg.126) A sewer chamber choked by vast quantities of hair hanging from a curved ceiling of Victorian brickwork.

It was relatively easy for Gray to obtain a search warrant in order to enter the disused South Kentish Town station. Although above ground the building was now occupied by a massage parlour where once the ticket hall had been, all the subterranean shafts, corridors and other passageways were still owned by London Underground. Since their abandonment there had been no reason to maintain them and parts of the former station were unsafe. In order to gain access Gray had to agree to be accompanied by a track maintenance engineer who worked on that stretch of the Northern Line and who was familiar with the site.

This engineer, John Heath, arranged to meet Gray outside the massage parlour at the corner of Kentish Town Road and Castle Place. The inspector parked his car directly in front of the building and was struck by the fact that its exterior still had the appearance of an Underground Station, lacking only the familiar sign displayed outside. Hanging around in front of the entrance to the newsagents was a small man in a yellow safety helmet and boiler suit. He carried a heavy bag with a sub-contractors’ logo on it. His hands were entirely covered with a thick layer of soot. Doubtless it was the man who been assigned to assist Gray.

Heath looked just like a throwback to the 1960s. His hippie-length hair was brittle and grey as dust. Over his mouth and nose he wore a loose protective mask. He also wore a pair of John Lennon style glasses with thick lenses that made the eyes behind them look liquid. He was really quite horribly ridiculous.

After Gray had produced his police ID, the two went inside, and the Inspector explained their purpose to the owners of the massage parlour (who seemed relieved that the search was not connected with what went on at their premises). Then Heath, consulting a map of the structure, led Gray down into a storage cellar at the back of the establishment where access to the emergency stairs could be gained.

The old lift shafts were useless. Their cages and all the workings had been removed back when the station was closed in 1924, but the stairway to the upper lift landing and the emergency staircase to the lower lift landing were passable. The entry doors were padlocked and Heath sought and tried several keys drawn from his bag before he found the correct ones to use.

“They,” Heath said, his voice muffled by the baggy mask covering his mouth and nose, “told me why you want to get down here. Anyway it’s pointless. We already looked for Drayton. All you’re doing is putting yourself in danger.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” replied Gray, “just get on with it. You do your job and I’ll do mine, okay?”

“Watch your step as we go. These old passageways are treacherous. Even if you don’t wind up falling into a ventilation shaft, you might stumble in front of a passing train. Hear the noise?”

As he unlocked the door there came from far below in the depths the sound of carriages rumbling along distant tracks, followed moments later by a powerful draught of musty air.

Heath chuckled. He turned on a powerful torch and aimed its beam along the stairway and around to the dark-green tiled walls at the turn ahead. The steps were littered with debris.

Gray was amazed at how familiar and yet how strange their surroundings appeared. Like any Londoner he had used the tube system on innumerable occasions and had passed through the subterranean mazes of many stations, though always when they were illuminated by overhead strip lighting, with hurried passengers making their way to or from a platform. But here the darkness was in control and every echoing footfall reinforced the grim feeling of total isolation. And yet it was only the withdrawal of light and of other people that created this feeling: actually it was just the same as any other tube station would be after the services had stopped running. Except that this was no temporary interruption to be resumed in the morning. This really was what Carlos Miguel called Una estación fantasma .

“Did you know Adam Drayton?” Gray asked in order to break the gaunt silence between the sound of passing trains.

He could only see the back of Heath. The engineer’s slightly hunched form crept downwards along the steps, apparently intent solely upon what he was doing. But he finally responded after what seemed to be a considered pause.

“Oh yes,” Heath said, “I knew of him all right. He was legendary on the Northern Line. Kept stopping his train at odd places and holding up the services. Only worked at night, when it didn’t matter so much. The union stepped in to stop him getting the sack, said he was worried about safety.”

“Safety?”

“The union said it was faulty signals that were to blame. And strange noises on the track. Made him cautious. Better to be safe than sorry. Go-slow is preferable to taking chances. That’s what the union said.”

They had reached the bottom of the stairway and emerged onto the upper lift landing. The tiles here were a grimy cream and red colour. In the circle of light cast by Heath’s torch, he caught glimpses of advertising posters from the early 1920s that had been left up on the tiled walls of the corridor ahead; LIFEBUOY, BOVRIL, OXO, WRIGLEY’S and GUINNESS. Another tube train roared through one of the tunnels below and the accompanying blast of air flapped the torn parts of the posters.