He left, a couple of nurses hurrying after him, and Abby pulled a chair up close beside David’s bed. She took his small hand in hers and pressed her face against his thin shoulder. She felt the gentle rise and fall of his chest as he took shallow breaths. Silent tears ran down her face, dampening the sheet he lay beneath. She wished Tom was with her. She longed to have a solid shoulder to lean on, to have someone else ask the difficult questions, to allow someone else to take the burden, if only for a minute.
But of course, even if Tom was there, this was a burden Abby would never be able to pass on. Unless David recovered, she would bear this pain for the rest of her life.
“Come back to me, Davey”, she whispered to her son. “I love you so much; please come back.”
* * *
DAVID RAN DOWN the tunnel, his feet splashing in the filthy water that lay stagnant in the bottom of the pipe. The hollow sound of his own panting breath echoed down the tunnel and filled his ears.
Though some part of him still lay in the forcefully bright hospital room, David’s consciousness was back in the tunnels. Back in the place the darkness consuming him came from.
The Shadows. He knew its name now—or at least a name others called it by, though it didn’t think of its self as a thing that could be named. An ancient thing, it came from a time before words were even used.
He hid in the place he thought the Shadows would last think to look. This place was the Shadows home and though David found himself running through these tunnels, the Shadows didn’t sense him here. David couldn’t be sure, but he thought the Shadows assumed he was trapped, receding inside of himself in his hospital bed.
In some ways, the Shadows was right. But he’d gone to another level now, a depth so deep he hadn’t even know this place existed. He’d retracted somewhere deep inside himself, hiding from the thing watching him. The thing taking over him. The thing waiting for him to die.
David didn’t understand how, but he no longer wore his special hospital pyjamas. Instead, he wore his favourite trainers, jeans, and a sweatshirt. Water soaked through the soles of his trainers, making his feet squelch around inside, and splashed up the back of his jeans, weighing them down so they slapped around his legs.
He never even considered the possibility of this being a dream. Nothing felt more real, running through these cold, dark tunnels. The cold pinched his skin and he smelled damp permeating the air.
Despite the tunnels being dark, David was able to see. A strange type of fluorescent light emitted from the walls, lighting the way with a strange, green glow. To David, the stuff on the walls looked like the goo in a toy he had gotten one Christmas. He’d needed to add water and the alien inside had filled with the same sort of green goo now glowing on the walls.
He was grateful for the light; the thought of being down here in the pitch black was terrifying.
David continued to run. He enjoyed the sensation of strength in his legs, the steady thump of his heart, the deep contraction and expansion of his lungs. So much time had passed since he’d been able to run like this. Recently, simply getting out of bed to use the bathroom left him exhausted.
Ahead, the tunnel split into two.
Without even thinking, he took the tunnel veering to the left. Though he enjoyed feeling normal again, another, more uncomfortable sensation niggled at him. He felt like he was looking for something, but couldn’t remember what—like walking into a room, intent on getting something, only for the object to disappear from his mind.
It wasn’t the Shadows he searched for, but something else. Yet somehow he found himself drawn towards the Shadows; the dark seething mass at its epicentre. Though he knew a part hid inside his body, still lying on the hospital bed, far more resided down here. The Shadows could be in so many places all at the same time, but the centre somehow processed all the information and it called to him like a beacon.
David didn’t know how he knew all this, or even how he knew what people called it, but he suspected some kind of telepathy from the part trying to kill him, the part trying to get out.
For the moment, the frightening layered voices that had haunted him had stopped, but he was terrified of them coming back. They seemed to crowd his mind the same way the exhaustion did after he’d gone through a strong bout of chemo. They stopped him thinking clearly and David wondered if that was the reason the Shadows used them.
The whispering voices of all the people it had taken before.
Chapter 18
SINCE TOM VOLUNTEERED to go into the water, his position within the group had changed. Now the others looked to him for leadership. Even Sky had lost the scornful expression she seemed to have favoured only for him and started to take his suggestions seriously.
Between Tom, Billy, and Sky, they carried Jo’s body away from the hole and propped her against the tunnel wall. Each of them felt terrible about abandoning her body, but they told each other they would find a way to get her back out again once this thing was over.
Tom didn’t say what he really thought—that the chances were none of them would make it out again, never mind worrying about dragging Jo’s fifteen stone body out with them.
Despite his earlier protests, he was grateful Samantha had convinced him to shed his clothing before going into the water. He couldn’t imagine trying to move about wearing wet jeans in the freezing cold.
The entrance to the next level wasn’t a hole like the ones he’d dropped through in the London Underground tunnels. Instead, the place he’d pulled Jo’s body from looked more like an oversized animal burrow into the rock.
Now heading up the group, he crouched to slide through the gap in the stone floor the water had flowed through. It wasn’t a sheer drop; instead the ground beneath his feet sloped downwards.
Tom slowly edged his way down, using his hands on the walls either side to brace himself. Though a tight fit, it at least gave him enough traction to stop himself from simply sliding to the bottom. Trying to push his nerves to the pit of his stomach—unsure of what would be waiting for him down there—he moved deeper into the hole.
The scraping of feet on rock came from behind as one of the others started to make their descent. Suddenly, the scrape turned into a cry of alarm and Tom barely had the chance to think before someone collided into him from behind.
Tom lost both his footing and his grip on the wall, his palms scraping painfully against the rock surface. He panicked and grappled at the walls and the floor, trying to get his footing. In a bundle of limbs, they plummeted down the chute, leaving Tom’s stomach far behind. He had a moment to register that it felt like Billy’s scrawny body entangled with his own, when they both popped out of the bottom. They fell through the air and landed in a heap on a hard stone floor.
“Ouch.” Tom groaned as pain shot up his right side where he’d hit.
Billy moaned in unison beside him.
Sky’s feet appeared from the bottom of the hole and she dropped the six feet Tom and Billy had just fallen. She landed cat-like, with both feet on the ground.
“Hey, are you guys all right?” she asked. “That would have been hell of a—”
She stopped, her attention diverted. Her mouth dropped open and she stared around her.
Samantha jumped down, shortly followed by Otto. Samantha opened her mouth to say something to Tom and Billy still lying on the ground, but then she too noticed Sky staring like a woman who had just seen a long dead relative and she looked up, her eyes widening in surprise.
His fall all but forgotten, Tom got to his feet. He knew he had the same expression of amazement plastered on his face.
They found themselves in another huge cavern, but this one was easily four times the size of the cavern the group camped in the previous night. The stone roof climbed high above, the walls towering over them like a cliff face. But the size wasn’t the only thing catching their attention.
A strange fluorescent light covered the cavern walls.
Tom took a number of shaky steps to the
closest wall and ran his forefinger across its surface. Withdrawing his hand, he saw the light had come off on his finger.
He rubbed his thumb and forefinger together. He had expected the substance to be slimy like mucus, but instead it was dry and powdery—more like dried spores of a fungi or pollen.
Whatever the stuff was, it gave off enough light to be able to see without the need of their flashlights. One by one, they clicked off their torches, saving the battery life.
The cavern was beautiful.
Tom’s mouth dropped open in awe. Giant stalactites hung from the ceiling. But they were not like normal stalactites. Each one radiated a different colour, shimmering like prisms in sunlight—flashing pinks, blues, and greens. They were beautiful, but lethally sharp.
And that was not all.
A faint hum filled Tom’s ears—a resonance—like a tuning fork. Its pitch changed gradually as though singing. The sound filled the air, but it was not threatening at all. It was gentle and calming.
“What is this place?” he said in hushed tones.
“I’ve heard rumours about it,” said Sky, “but I’ve never been down this far before, that I can remember. From what I’ve heard, it’s the realm that borders what is man-made and what is the real Underlife. From here on in, magic has the power, not science.”
“More magic?”
“Yeah, and not the ‘pulling rabbits out of hats’ kind either. This is nasty stuff.”
“But this place doesn’t feel bad,” said Samantha, turning a full circle, staring up and the ceiling. “If anything it feels kind of... good.”
“Don’t let that fool you. The Underlife will lull you into a false sense of security. Keep your wits about you.”
Absorbed in their surroundings, they separated, wandering around the cavern with their necks craned, staring at the icicle light show happening above their heads. It was enough to steal the thoughts from any sane man’s head, the beauty more majestic and supernatural than even the Northern Lights.
All except Otto who remained crouched on the ground, his bald head in his big hands.
Tom glanced back at him nervously.
Was he still cut up over Jo?
Otto had been so cold after Jo died. He’d seemed detached from everything ever since. Perhaps he was suffering from some kind of post-traumatic stress, but his reaction seemed disproportionate. Even Billy wasn’t acting this way and he probably had more reason than anyone to blame himself. Anyway, these people had lived hard lives and this wouldn’t be the first time they’d experienced terrible things.
He was sure Otto had seen worse in his life.
Tom turned his attention back to the cavern. Something about the far end didn’t look right. He couldn’t figure out what was wrong. The dimensions seemed skewed, as though the ground didn’t stretch far enough to meet the walls.
He frowned. Though battered and bruised from his fall, every muscle aching as though he’d done the hardest workout of his life, he forced his limbs to move and crossed the uneven stone floor of the cavern toward the part that had caught his attention.
His suspicions proved to be correct.
About fifteen feet from the wall, the cavern floor stopped. At the edge, a cliff face fell away into a black void. Beyond the drop, the cavern wall rose out of the dark, reaching and curving upwards to form the rest of the cavern roof.
Cautiously, Tom stood at the edge and peered down. A sheer cliff face dropped into the bowels of the earth.
Once again, he had to remind himself that this place existed somewhere deep beneath the busy streets of London. Images of the city collapsing into this fathomless pit flashed through his mind. People were so scared of terrorist attacks when this deadly drop lay beneath their feet.
A wave of vertigo rushed over him and he stepped back. The last thing he wanted to do was fall.
* * *
TOM WASN’T THE only one who had noticed Otto’s strange behaviour. Samantha had known him for a long time and though she didn’t always agree with the methods he used to get what he wanted, he had always been a good leader. Even if the things he did upset individuals, he always acted for the group. She didn’t understand why he had suddenly become so withdrawn. He didn’t seem to care anymore.
While the others wandered off to explore more of the cavern, Samantha walked towards him.
He sat with his head in his hands, looking to anyone as though he had the weight of the world on his shoulders.
It must be because of Jo, she thought.
Even so, the explanation didn’t sit right. Otto had seen people die before. The Underlife was a hard world, with violence and death being the norm down here, yet he had never reacted this way before.
Even if he held himself to blame, she didn’t think he was responsible for Jo’s death and she couldn’t watch someone suffering without doing something to try to help.
She reached down to touch his shoulder.
“Hey, are you—”
Before her fingers made contact, Otto leapt away as though she had burnt him.
“Don’t touch me!” For a black man, his face was strangely devoid of colour.
Samantha stared at him in alarm. She barely recognised him. His eyes had the same strange glaze she’d seen in many drug addicts.
“Sorry,” she said. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay. You’ve been acting weird since Jo’s death.”
“It wasn’t me!” he hissed.
“No, I know that. No one is blaming you, Otto.”
“Just stay away from me.”
Hurt and confused, she did as he asked and walked away. She looked around to see if any of the others had noticed his outburst, but they were all absorbed in the place around them, in the strange magic its walls seemed to exude.
Above her head, the stalactites shimmered and shined their pinks and green in the soft hue of the walls. The others had their attention focused on something at the far end of the cavern, peering down at something out of Samantha’s sight.
She began to walk towards them, preferring to be in their company than being so close to Otto. She wasn’t sure she trusted him anymore.
A cracking from high above stopped her dead. The sound was a deep tearing; a rupturing of the stone.
Frowning, she looked up. A deep, jagged line appeared in the cavern roof, rupturing one of the razor-sharp spears directly above her. She stood staring, frozen in place, directly beneath.
Samantha could see what was about to happen like a premonition, yet she found herself unable to move.
Strong hands grabbed her bare wrists, yanking her from her feet, pulling her backwards. For a moment, she flew through the air. Then she hit the ground, all of the air bursting from her lungs, every muscle jarring. Her teeth cracked together, narrowly missing her tongue.
Like an explosion—so loud her ears hurt—the huge icicle shattered where she’d stood only moments before. She cowered on the ground, her hands over her head, as small shards of calcium carbonate hit her skin like shrapnel.
A strange tingling spread through her limbs, like all of her body had fallen asleep and she was getting pins and needles. Was the sensation due to shock? When she’d been pulled out of the way, something had passed through her like a jolt of electricity. Now, her blood felt as though it had been filled with a million buzzing insects, as though it were trying to climb out of her own skin.
She didn’t feel right. In fact, she felt very, very wrong.
Samantha lay on the ground, staring at the shattered stalactite. Blood trickled from where a piece of the stalactite had cut her. It ran down her forehead and dribbled into her eye, creating a red haze over her vision.
Otto was on his knees behind her. Slowly, he lifted his hands in front of his face, staring at them as though they didn’t belong to him. Then he tilted his face to the roof and roared like an animal in pain.
Chapter 19
AT THE SOUND of the roof fracturing, Tom’s head snapped around just as one of the huge stalactite
s hit the ground and exploded in a million pieces. His initial thought, when Otto’s yell followed the crash, was that Otto had been hurt, but then he saw Samantha lying on the ground and realised what had happened.
They all started forward, but Tom put out an arm and halted Sky and Billy in their tracks.
“Wait here,” he told them. “If the roof in that part of the cavern is unstable, there is no point in putting all ourselves in danger.”
Three sets of eyes lifted to the hundreds of stalactites above their heads. They were exposed and vulnerable, with nowhere to hide.
Leaving Sky and Billie near the drop, Tom rushed over to Samantha. Otto was on his knees behind her, his head hung. Tom crouched down beside them, his hand on Samantha’s arm.
“My God. Are you okay?”
Samantha didn’t answer. Tiny cuts covered her face and arms. More blood trickled from a larger cut on her forehead, running into her eye. She stared, through the blood and past Tom, at the shattered stalactite on the ground.
The possibility and horror of what had almost happened hit him. Otto had saved Samantha’s life.
“Jesus, Otto.” Tom turned his attention to the big man. “You saved her life. If you hadn’t moved so quickly...”
He couldn’t even bring himself to give voice to his thoughts.
“I have to do it.” Otto spoke into his hands. “I can’t allow this to continue.”
“Do what? What are you talking about?”
Otto lifted his face, staring at the two people waiting for them.
Tom frowned and pulled away, looking at Otto’s face more intensely. The man’s eyes seemed strange—as though a film of oil swam across the pupils. Tom’s gaze flicked to Samantha and saw the same affliction.
“Are you okay?” Tom asked, sudden nerves spiking in his belly. Something wasn’t right. “Sky?” he called, turning away from Otto to get the girl’s attention. But he didn’t have time.
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