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

“What do you know about the disused stations here on the Northern Line? Have you seen the others for yourself?” Gray asked.

“I know something. I’ve been in them all at one time or another. They have a bad reputation. The most significant is North End or the ‘Bull & Bush’ as the train operators like to call it.” Heath responded.

“Why significant?”

“The floodgates, y’know,” said Heath. “Instead of the tube station that was going to be there in 1906 they developed it into a central command centre. Certain stations on the network have the gates, but they’re all controlled from North End. Reckon the building goes down more than a thousand feet, though only the higher levels were initially used. It was started in the 1940s so they could stop the entire Underground system being flooded. Most of the gates were individually controlled before then.”

“How could the whole system be flooded?”

“If the Nazis had dropped a bomb in the Thames the tunnels under the river could have collapsed. Within ten minutes the Underground system would have been completely filled with water and submerged, y’know. Well, that’s what they said. Later on, in the early 1970s, they built a second zone of gates just outside stations like Shepherds Bush, Aldgate East and Bounds Green, before where the tracks emerge overground.”

“What have they got to do with flooding?”

“Nothing. But they thought people would go mental when the three-minute warnings went off and try to run along the tracks into the train tunnels to escape from Soviet atom bombs. Well, you get the idea . . .”

By now they’d reached the emergency spiral stairway, which led much further downward to the lower lift landing. It was considerably steeper than the previous stairway and Gray kept a hand against the wall as the two men descended. Their footfalls echoed as if ghosts were following close behind.

“Talking of weird stuff like that, you know about the Sentinel Train?” Heath asked. He didn’t wait for an answer before continuing with his topic, “First stop King William Street station along the abandoned spur, runs down to Borough without halting, then reverses up the Bank branch of the Northern Line. Only stops at the ghost stations along the route; nowhere else, goes on to City Road, right here to South Kentish Town, then back via Camden, before terminating at the deepest of all: North End, under Hamp-stead Heath. Anyway, I told you about that one, didn’t I? The Sentinel lets the inspection crews examine the stuff the public never sees. Company doesn’t leave the traction current to the rails on overnight, so a diesel locomotive pulls the old F Stock carriages. The train has a free run on the deserted tracks. Happens once a week or thereabouts. Every tube line has its own Sentinel.”

“Are you pulling my leg?” Gray replied testily. “That’s straight out of Drayton’s book. It seems to me you must have read it.”

They’d reached the lower lift landing.

“This passageway leads to the north and southbound platforms,” Heath said, “but they’re long gone.”

Were the idea not totally ridiculous Gray could have mistaken his companion for something dressed up in a boiler suit in order to pass as human. His colleagues at the Yard would have laughed at his suspicion. But he could not shake off the impression that, in the darkness, Heath’s appearance was genuinely similar to the figure that Gray had glimpsed peering out of the trellised gates of Kentish Town Station. That was only a few nights ago and one stop along the Northern Line from this ghost station. He’d seen it with his own eyes and the experience was not drawn from the pages of a crazy book like The Secret Underground . Gray could easily believe that this character Heath had not just read the volume but had stepped out from its pages into life.

“You didn’t answer my question.” Gray said. From his coat pocket he drew a packet of Benson & Hedges cigarettes.

“What one was that again?” Heath snuffled.

“The one about having read The Secret Underground .” Gray responded as he jammed one of the smokes between his lips and touched the end with the flame from a battered old Zippo. A faint smell of petrol wafted from the lighter. He drew on the cigarette and exhaled, sending curling blue smoke across the beam of Heath’s torch.

“Oh, that . . . look, you can’t smoke down here. It’s dangerous.”

“Do you see any ‘No Smoking’ signs around? Anyway I’m sure your mask will protect you.”

Heath paused and regarded the glowing tip of Gray’s cigarette. He finally came back to the point.

“Yeah, I’ve read that book. I know it off by heart. It’s a favourite of mine.”

From further back along the passageways Gray thought he detected a rustling noise, like a pile of leaves dispersed by the wind. But, before he was able to tell from which direction it came, the racket of a passing northbound train drowned them out. Gray thought he heard Heath muttering.

It sounded like “. . . bigmouth . . . Miguel . . . he’s sorted . . .” but most of these words were also lost in the roar.

It was obvious that Heath knew something about Drayton’s disappearance and may even have had a hand in it. Perhaps he was also dangerously obsessed with all those ghost stations and had come to regard Drayton as his rival. In any case, the place to interview Heath was back at the Yard, not here and now. Gray’s back and stomach ached; the old ruptures were playing up again. It was time to get back to the surface. There was nothing down here that was of any use to his investigation. Besides, although Heath was small, Gray feared that he was dealing with a lunatic.

There was that damn rustling again, like leaves! It sounded closer this time. Heath seemed not to notice it though and coldly regarded Gray smoking his cigarette, glaring through narrowed eyes that swam behind the thick lenses of his glasses.

“Well,” said Gray, “I’ve seen everything I want to see here. Let’s get back to the surface.

“All right,” Heath replied, “but you ain’t looked yet. To come all this way and not look at it would be a waste of my time and yours.”

“Look at what exactly?”

“Over there in the corner. Thirty yards, right up against the wall.” Heath flashed the torch’s beam onto what appeared to be a large pile of rags. “Go and see. I already know what it is. I’ll stay where I am. In case you’re worried, like.”

As he got nearer, Gray glanced back to make sure that Heath made no attempt to creep up on him. What he believed was a pile of rags was in fact a body slumped in the angle between wall and floor, its face turned towards the tiles. The back of its skull was smashed in. Dried blood caked the matted hair. As he turned the body over, Gray guessed that its face would be unfamiliar; he expected it to be Drayton, whom he’d never seen. But it was the Spaniard, Carlos Miguel. Heath had not moved an inch whilst Gray examined the corpse, but something living dropped from the darkness of the ceiling onto him and the impact drove the police inspector crashing to the floor.

His head struck the concrete and he blacked out.

Gray awoke in a tube train carriage. He felt nauseous with pain as consciousness returned. He ran his fingers over his head and found half a dozen scratches and wounds around his face and on the back of his skull. There was a stabbing pain in his stomach and he was aware of feeling wet around the seat of his trousers. The fall had reopened some of his old internal ruptures and blood was leaking out of his lower intestine.

Although racked with pain, he forced himself to take in the details of his surroundings. He was on a moving train, one that hurtled through the tunnels at breakneck speed.