Fogbound- Empire in Flames

by Gareth Clegg

  He took the notes from the waterproof satchel, flicking through and holding them close to the dim glow from the arc-lamp. “There should be a ladder around two hundred yards ahead of us, on the left. From what I can tell, there are other chambers off to the right, but I have no details where they lead.”

  “Let’s hope it isn’t more bleeders,” Simmons said. He checked his pistol. The Mauser looked fine, no damp or dirt in sight and loaded with ten rounds. He snapped the mechanism shut, trying his best to minimise the noise.

  “Ready with the lamp?” he asked. Bazalgette nodded in the near darkness.

  With the pistol aimed in the general direction of the stumbling sounds ahead, Simmons covered his eyes with his left hand. “Now.”

  Light erupted around him, even through the soft leather covering his view. A thrum accompanied it, rising in pitch behind him.

  He squinted as he pulled his hand aside, the bright red brickwork seemed illuminated by a small sun. It cast his elongated shadow down onto the tunnel floor below. Four shambling figures turned their heads, shielding ruined faces with arms draped in ragged cloth.

  His first shot took the nearest creature in the face, the sound echoing from the walls of the enclosed space. It collapsed with a loud splash. The other three staggered towards them, still covering their bleeding sockets from the arc-lamp’s intense glare.

  Two more shots rang out, felling another of the fiends. The last pair stumbled onwards, oblivious of the weir they would need to climb. His next shot hit the nearest in the forehead. It slumped as if it were a grotesque puppet and someone had cut its strings.

  “Simmons,” yelled Bazalgette.

  The final creature was only a few feet away, stepping into the main flow of effluence where it cascaded over the lip of the weir. It moaned, a pitiful noise issuing from its ruined face. Tears of thick blood oozed between writhing tendrils of red weed, painting streaks from its eyes, nose and what remained of its tattered lips. Yellowed, fractures of teeth gnashed together as the thing lunged to grab at Simmons.

  Two rapid shots and the creature fell into the churning weir. Its broken-nailed fingers slapped onto the stone inches from his good leg, then slumped back into the bubbling red froth, its body flipping and turning in the undertow.

  “Are you all right?” Simmons asked, reaching to reloaded his pistol. It was a reflex, but he paused, realising it wasn’t necessary. He’d become used to reloading his six-shot Webley revolver. He would have to adjust to the Mauser’s ten-round magazine.

  “Yes,” came Bazalgette’s breathy response from behind him. “That was a bit close.”

  “Well, I thought I was running low on ammo. Wanted to make those last shots counted.”

  “But it almost—”

  “Yes, yes. It all sounds quiet for now. Let’s see if we can find this ladder while we have the chance.”

  Simmons drew one of the stripper clips from his coat and replenished six rounds into the Mauser. It was a surprisingly simple task, and he always preferred having a fully loaded weapon.

  The arc-lamp flooded the area with light. Narrow steps led down either side of the weir and Bazalgette offered a hand for Simmons to negotiate the slippery stairs

  It seemed much more pungent here. Was it the churning sewage water? Simmons was about to mention it, but Bazalgette beat him to it. “Is it just me, or is there a different smell here?”

  “I was going to ask the same thing,” Simmons said as a low howl issued from the dark recesses on the southern wall opposite them. Others joined it—many others.

  “Run, Bazalgette. Run!”

  Figures shambled from the dark alcoves, echoing each other’s morbid song.

  Bazalgette pointed. “The access way is up there.”

  “Go,” Simmons said.

  “But what about you?”

  “Bleeders are slow. Even I should be able to keep ahead of them.” Simmons turned to face the growing crowd of tainted bodies lumbering towards him. He stepped backwards, making sure his footing was secure. This should be fine. Yes, there were a lot, and the thought of struggling to climb a ladder with them approaching was a little daunting, but it was doable.

  A throat-tearing roar reverberated through the tunnels.

  Bazalgette stopped in his tracks, turning back to Simmons. “What was that?”

  Simmons felt his stomach drop. He had only heard a sound like that once before, and he hadn’t hung around to see what made it.

  Bleeders exploded into the air as something immense burst through between them. It scattered half a dozen of the weed-infested creatures who bounced from the walls, bones splintering as they fell. The enormous beast bellowed, spittle, blood and brown ichor sprayed from its vast maw.

  “Bloater,” Simmons shouted, turning and trying to run despite the splinted leg slowing him. “Bazalgette, get the hell out of here.”

  Bazalgette sprinted for the access point, and Simmons did his best to follow. Something whistled past, impacting on the wall a few feet away. A sickening crunch exploded off the brickwork, leaving a sack of broken bones and a spray of God-awful ichor that made him gag.

  He coughed, fighting to stop the bile from rising further in his throat. With a shake of his head, he struggled to grasp what was happening. That thing is throwing damned bleeders at me.

  The glow from Bazalgette’s arc-lamp bounced as he sprinted to their destination. Behind, the sloshing of bleeders pushing through the stream of sewage seemed closer. Simmons dare not look back for fear of tripping. The bloater roared again, and by instinct, he dodged to the side. Just as well, another rotting body shot past clipping him and sending him sprawling onto hands and knees in the dirty water.

  He strove forward, pain burning in his leg. Not far now. He was almost to the exit, to safety. He clawed his way upright, willing himself to make progress. The bleeders were catching up, but it was all fine, it was only another twenty yards—he was going to make it.

  “Simmons,” came the distraught call from ahead.

  “What, are you all right?”

  “There’s no ladder.”

  22

  “What do you mean?” Simmons asked. He heard the disbelief in his voice and fought to keep calm. How can there be no ladder? This was the way out—the only way out.

  The bloater showed it hadn’t done with them as another body exploded against the wall. Simmons ducked around the corner and glanced back. The mass of creatures shambling towards them split as the monstrous beast broke into the edge of the lamplight.

  It was enormous, head and shoulders above the sea of bleeders. Its swollen torso looked ready to burst, a huge barrel-chested monster, over-inflated like a giant airship.

  Black gore oozed from rips where its grey flesh could no longer contain the strain. A web of dark veins covered its skin and writhed where thick cords of red weed erupted from the wide gashes in its body. Thinner tendrils probed the air from the blood-stained eye sockets, sniffing out its prey.

  Bazalgette was frantic. “It should be here, this is the access way to the upper levels, but it’s gone.”

  Simmons grasped Bazalgette by the shoulders. “All right, calm down. Where could it be? It can’t have just disappeared.”

  He held his friend’s wide-eyed gaze until he saw the terror retreat. Bazalgette’s breathing slowed a little. “Let me look again.”

  They both rounded the wall into the small antechamber that contained a circular hole in the ceiling. Bazalgette rushed over and projected the blinding beam of the arc-lamp upward.

  “My God. It’s there, about ten feet up.”

  Simmons limped across the tunnel, leaving Bazalgette frantically reaching for the rusted ladder with a crowbar. “Bazalgette, shine the light on me now.”

  “What are you doing? We’ve got to get out of here.”

  “Just do it, man.”

  The bright beam cut through the darkness, casting a large shadow of movement as Simmons ripped his rifle from its case and brought it to bear.


  The mass of stumbling creatures was less than twenty feet away. They still headed toward the source of the light until the .303 shell shattered the dark with a gout of flame from the end of the left barrel.

  It slammed three of the shambling crowd back, their uncaring brethren trampling over them. They turned to focus on Simmons and the ear-splitting scream from his hunting rifle.

  A roar of anger and vile hatred burst from the group and reverberated from the sewer walls. Well, that’s got its attention.

  Simmons aimed at the nearest cluster of bleeders and unleashed the second barrel into their midst. He took another step back, a little further from the safety of the escape route his friend was still struggling to provide.

  “Come on, you filthy blighters,” he screamed at the mass of writhing flesh, ensuring he stayed in the arc-lamp’s beam. He snapped the rifle open, ejecting the spent cartridges with a soft popping sound, and replaced them from his bandolier in a swift, practised motion.

  Checking behind, there was room to retreat further into a side tunnel, but if he made it that far, there would be no getting out. Even with their stumbling progress forward, the creatures were moving as fast as he could withdraw. Damned leg, he thought, waddling his way back along the line of Arclight.

  “Over here. Over here,” Simmons yelled at the horde. A chorus of groans, moans and guttural sounds, wet and fleshy, turned towards him. A loud crunch nearby released a spray of rancid smelling gore, splattering his coat. Damn, that was too close. The corpse had flown through the darkness, striking one of the many pillars lining the sewage channel. It had shielded him from the rotten mass that would otherwise have floored him.

  His mind raced as he calculated the most likely trajectory back to its origin and fired both barrels in rapid succession. The first shot hit the wall somewhere in the darkness, skittering off into the distance. The second, however, rewarded him with an enraged roar of pain and the wet sucking sound of flesh ripped from its frame. How do you like that, beastie?

  Instead of the crash of the massive creature hitting the ground, an even louder bellow thundered around the tunnel walls. Heavy footsteps followed, splashing through the muddy sewer water, picking up speed.

  Oh good, I’ve made it angrier, he thought while he repeated the instinctive reloading action. A clang from across the passage and the shriek of rusted metal announced sections of the ladder releasing their ages old embrace to slide apart.

  “Simmons,” Bazalgette shouted, his foot alighting on the lowest rung.

  “Get out. I’ll draw them off.”

  “No.”

  “It’s the only way. Please, just go, save yourself.”

  The beam from the arc-lamp wavered as Bazalgette picked it from the ground and started the ascent to safety.

  As the light leaked away, Simmons felt the weight of the darkness pressing in, suffocating. The unbearable stench of rotten flesh made him gag, and the sound of their slow shuffling gait was lost in the splashing approach of the behemoth beyond.

  He stepped back, feeling the tunnel wall press against him. End of the line. He rammed the rifle butt into the brickwork, supported by just his right arm, and pulled the trigger unleashing both barrels.

  The muzzle-flash illuminated the full horror of the crowd of bleeders all around. Their arms groped for him, tendrils of weed writhing mere inches from his face. Bodies exploded, clearing a small area before him, replaced by the massive shadowy bulk of the bloater barrelling towards him.

  A soft click and the scene hung there illuminated by the dying glow from the rifle rounds. He pulled his left hand from within his jacket, revealing the ornate silver filigree of the timepiece he had taken from the Officer at the cemetery. The pocket watch was ticking backwards from thirty seconds—twenty-nine, twenty-eight.

  He pushed through the macabre statues and headed for the glow where the arc-lamp still illuminated the base of the ladder. Though disgusted by the grim mass of inanimate horrors, he forced his way through, expecting at any moment for their greedy hands to pull him down into their grisly embrace.

  The watch continued its smooth and methodical countdown—twenty-two, twenty-one.

  Blood and gore smeared his garments as he squeezed past the tightly packed nightmarish mob. One last row of the creatures ahead of him and then an open space clear to the ladder. He would make it with time to spare.

  His eye, ever-present on the second hand of Dent’s timepiece, noted it approaching fifteen seconds as his foot caught, tripping him. Struggling to regain a stable footing, he stamped down onto something mushy and felt his injured leg slip from under him. He flailed, trying to restore his balance, clutching for anything to break his fall. But only ruined flesh and tattered garments slipped between his grasping fingers.

  He hit the ground with a thump, not even noticing the smell as the sewage water splashed into his face. The all-pervading stench of the creatures masked everything.

  No, No, No. Get up. Get to the ladder before time runs out.

  Scrambling forward on hands and knees, he crawled between the final rotting bodies blocking him from the hope of escape.

  He drove two of the remaining bleeders to the ground, their soft flesh breaking his fall. The last thing he needed was being winded and struggling for breath.

  With the butt of his weapon as a crutch, he pushed himself to his feet and hobbled towards the ladder, like some crazed marionette.

  The pocket watch was relentless. Five, four, three. Simmons secured the rifle-strap across his shoulder as his foot reached the bottom rung and he pulled his aching body upward.

  A strange sensation filled the air, and his ears popped. Chaotic sound shattered the silence from the central tunnel. Moans, screams and bellows reverberated through his skull as he dragged himself up the ladder, two arms securing his weight before hopping up a rung onto his good leg.

  Light burst into his view from above. “Simmons?” came the shocked voice of his friend ten feet above him. “My God, you’re alive.”

  Simmons stared up into the blazing heart of a thousand suns, shading his eyes. “Keep climbing, and get that damned lamp out of my face.”

  With the terror left far behind, they made good progress through the upper levels of the sewer and eventually popped up near Oxford Circus.

  It had taken them over three hours to get here from the ladder ascent. Streaks of grey light flooded into the tunnel as Bazalgette lifted the cover, which protested with squeals of metal long left untouched.

  “There is activity,” Bazalgette said. “But it doesn’t seem out of the ordinary, street vendors and workers by the look of them.”

  Simmons thought for a while. “We need to hole up for a while and work out where we go from here.”

  “We’re a long way from Whitechapel.”

  “That’s true, and as the Black Guard knew me by name, we have to assume they will have found out where my lodgings are. Too risky, we need somewhere else.”

  “My workshop is close,” Bazalgette said. “We could walk there in around thirty minutes.”

  Simmons grimaced. “In my state, it’s likely to take somewhat longer and might attract too much attention. We should try to get a cab.”

  Bazalgette nodded. “Right. I’ll go see what I can find then come back for you.”

  Darkness enveloped Simmons as the cover lowered with a dull metallic clang. A tiny crescent of light played on the wall beside him, cast from the gap where the lid didn’t entirely seal. He sat, leaning against the curved brick, yawned and closed his eyes.

  Simmons snapped awake to the grating sound of the cover being pried open. Blinding light flooded in, bathing the filthy sewer in colour. A silhouette appeared against the dull morning sky.

  “Sorry, there wasn’t much traffic about,” said Bazalgette. “I had to make my way to Oxford Street, but I’ve got a cab waiting for us.”

  He reached down, and Simmons gladly accepted a helping hand up from the ladder to ground level.

  Bazalgette led hi
m through a maze of narrow alleys teeming with rough-clad figures. Men, women and children followed their passage with wary eyes then shied away as the smell hit them. If their stench offended these dregs of society, God alone knew how they would fare in polite company.

  Simmons hobbled onto the main street to a waiting hansom cab, the driver ready with reins and whip in hand. The cabbie grimaced as they approached. Bazalgette opened the side door, helping Simmons up into the plush red leather seating.

  “It’s all right. I’ve paid him for the mess,” Bazalgette said. “Though to be honest, I’m not sure he understood the full extent of how filthy we would be.”

  “Give him two extra shillings and tell him we don’t want to be remembered. That should do the job.”

  Simmons collapsed into the cab, pain flaring in his leg. Bazalgette climbed into the seat beside him ,and within seconds, they pulled away into the busy traffic heading north.

  Bazalgette had told the cabbie to drop them two streets away from his workshop. Simmons was surprised at how pleased he was that Bazalgette hadn’t announced his exact address as he might have done just a few days before. Perhaps he’s learning not to trust people at last? Now there’s real progress.

  After a short journey through the backstreets, Bazalgette pointed to the three-storey building ahead of them. The double doors were of sturdy metal construction and looked large enough to drive a cart through. The structure seemed a little worse for wear, discoloured brickwork alongside peeling paint drew a picture of silent neglect.

  He opened the complex lock on a door that led into a cellar. Several loud mechanical clacks and it pushed open. “Welcome to my humble abode,” Bazalgette said and gestured for Simmons to enter.

  In stark contrast to the messy exterior, the interior was both lavish and pristine. Damn, he must have an army or servants keeping it tidy.

  “It’s,” Simmons paused, struggling for the right word, “lovely.” He cringed, was that the best he could come up with?