by David Wood
“Down to the cellar...where we went the last time,” Tony replied, trying to keep his voice as low as possible.
Billy grimaced as he turned away towards the kitchen and the trapdoor they had discovered on their last visit.
Whoever had been here had also discovered the trapdoor. Tony remembered that they had left it open...he had been too busy trying to get out as quickly as possible to worry about closing trapdoors. But now, as they entered the kitchen, they saw that the hatch had been closed.
And not just closed. A shiny, new, padlock gleamed in the lock.
“Somebody else comes here.” Tony whispered, and Billy nodded in reply.
“Maybe we’d better just get out.” Tony said, but in his heart he knew Billy better than that, and was proved right when Billy bent down and pulled at the trapdoor.
“The wood is rotten through. All we need to do is push something under this lip,” he said, running a finger along the edge of the door. “And we can have it up in no time. Stay here.”
Before Tony could protest Billy had gone.
The quiet fell on him. Through the kitchen window he could see that the sun was still beating down outside, but in here it was cold…cold and dry, and somehow musty, like old books gone damp.
He was about to leave to look for Billy when the boy returned carrying an iron bar...part of an old railing.
“I got this out in the garden,” Billy said. “I had to rip the shit out of a fence.”
That brought another fit of giggles, and Tony began to believe that everything would be okay.
Two minutes later they were standing above the hole, looking down into the blackness beneath, each waiting for the other to make the first move.
“So what did your Granddad say about this?” Billy asked, delaying the moment when they would have to descend into the dark.
“We have to go down...where we were before. There’s an old storeroom there...we must have missed it the last time...that’s where he locked them in. That’s where we find the door.” Tony replied, reading from the map.
“Your Granddad was full of shit...you know that?” Billy said as he lowered himself into the hole, slowly, being careful to keep his feet on the rungs of the ladder. Tony clipped the flashlight to his belt and folded the map back into his pocket before following.
As they descended the light got dimmer and Tony could only just see Billy’s blonde head when he looked down.
He started to tremble about halfway down and his legs went weak for a moment, but he pulled himself together, determined never again to show any cowardice when Billy was around.
So they went down and the air got colder and the silence descended with them.
Billy was waiting at the bottom. Tony could just make out his pale face as he spoke.
“So what now Batman? And put that torch on...I don’t like being down in the dark.”
That was the first time Tony had ever heard Billy admitting fear and he felt a small thrill of pleasure...this place was getting to him.
Tony took out the map again and had to squint to read it in the dim torchlight.
“Over there, in the left-hand corner,” he pointed with the torch, lighting the rough walls.
“There should be a storeroom where the scientists kept their equipment. Granddad said that….”
Billy interrupted him. “Yeah, yeah. Just shut up about your Granddad for a bit.”
Their voices set up echoes around the room, whispers coming back from all sides as they followed the torch beam. The chamber came to an end at a corner that turned right into a smaller room.
The floor here was littered with debris, pieces of sacking, empty beer cans, wine bottles, cigarette ends and Chinese takeaway cartons.
“Looks like your Granddad got here before us,” said Billy, laughing as he jigged out of reach of the swinging torch. He started to say something else but Tony had seen a grayer patch on the wall.
He swung the torch around and there it was…Granddad’s door.
It was metal and, judging by the dents in it and the scrapes on its surface, it had stood up to many attempts to force it open. The only significant feature in an otherwise empty expanse of steel was the small-shadowed keyhole.
“What do you know? The old bastard was right,” Billy whispered. In the dim torchlight Tony could see the beginnings of doubt come into his eyes. “What do we do now?”
“We go in of course,” Tony replied, taking the key from his pocket.
It fit perfectly, turning easily in the lock with a loud click. The door swung open revealing a greater blackness beyond.
Up till this point Tony had wondered about Granddad’s stories. Part of him knew that there were no Morlocks...the same part that knew there was no Santa Claus.
But that didn’t stop him waiting for the sound of sleigh bells at Christmas and it wasn’t going to stop him finding out what was down that corridor.
He shone the torch around. The corridor led to another chamber barely ten feet away but the torch beam was stopped by blackness. He moved forward, gesturing for Billy to follow.
“Come on then. We didn’t come all this way for nothing.” Tony’s voice echoed, booming, much louder than before and the words continued, fading down the path ahead.
The path sloped slightly downwards and he noticed the puffs of dust being kicked up by their feet. Nobody had been this way for a long time.
The corridor led to a door that lay open. Beyond this was a large room that was still in blackness. They stopped as the torch lit up the open door and Billy’s face widened into a grin as he read the notice.
R.N.A.D. BUNKER 186A/2
NO UNAUTHORISED PERSONNEL BEYOND THIS POINT
“RNAD...that’s part of the Navy. My Uncle Tom works for them. Morlocks my arse...it’s just an old air raid shelter.”
Leaning over he pressed a light switch at the door-side. To their surprise the light in the room beyond came on, pale and flickering but enough to light the room’s contents.
The room was twenty feet long by ten feet wide and the only furniture in it was six bunk beds...twelve berths in all. Anything else that might at one time have been stored there had long since been removed.
Tony turned off the torch and attached it to his belt as they moved into the room.
Billy was entranced.
“Hey, this is some place. We could turn it into a secret den...you know, bring food and cigarettes and stuff up here and nobody would ever know where we were...wouldn’t that be great?”
Tony wasn’t so sure. “But what about the Morlocks?”
“Morlocks schmorlocks,” Billy said. “Haven’t you sussed it yet? Your senile old Granddad was having you on...spinning a tale to keep you happy.”
He shook his head at Tony’s gullibility as he bounced on a bunk on the other side of the room, slapping his hands against the wall behind him. Suddenly he stopped and began to tap on the wall, concentrating on a different part of it each time.
“Hey. It’s hollow behind here,” he shouted across at Tony. “There must be a secret tunnel or something. Help me find something we can use to break through.”
“I don’t know about that” Tony replied while backing away. “We don’t know what’s on the other side. What if Granddad was right?”
Tony was still shaking his head as Billy started to unscrew a leg from one of the bunks.
“Don’t be so daft,” Billy said, his face a picture of concentration as he worked on a wing nut. “There’s no such thing as Morlocks...your Granddad got the story from a film...my Dad told me about it.”
Sudden tears welled in the corners of Tony’s eyes.
“And what does your dad know about anything...he’s just an old drunk.”
As soon as he said it he clamped a hand over his mouth. That was one of the things they never spoke about.
Any other subject was fair game, but the two taboo subjects...Billy’s dads’ drinking and Tony’s fathers’ use of his fists...they were never to be mention
ed.
Billy didn’t even seem to have noticed though...he had succeeded in getting the metal leg off the bed and started to attack the wall, knocking chunks out of the plaster with fast, furious jabs.
Soon he had reached the wooden struts behind the top layer. He turned back and smiled at Tony, and Tony almost ran then...Billy’s face was caked with sweat and plaster...a dull gray coating through which only his blue eyes showed with any color.
“Come on Tony, give us a hand here...we’re nearly through.”
But still Tony didn’t move. Behind his eyes pictures were playing, lurid scenes of bloodletting as a hand came from the other side, a gray hairy arm that tore at Billy’s face even as it pulled him dragging and screaming down to the bowels of the earth.
It didn’t happen…not in that way.
Tony watched as Billy smashed his way through the loose timbers and poked his head and shoulders through the resulting gap.
“Hey,” Billy shouted, his voice muffled. “Come over here with that torch will you...it looks like there’s a cave through here, and it’s dark.”
At first Tony still refused to move. It took another shout from Billy, more insistent this time, before he could join his friend at the hole in the wall.
As he approached the hole his legs started to tremble again, but he forced the fear aside as he peered through to the space beyond the hole.
“Here,” Billy said, pointing off to the left. “Shine the torch over here.”
The torchlight showed the boys a rough-hewn chamber, some ten feet wide. Lank gray mosses hung from the stone, wafting sluggishly in the slight breeze that flowed through the hole.
But what got Billy excited was the thing he’d pointed to.
Over in the left of the room was another entrance, a passage off the blackness.
“Hey. Caves. Come on.” And, before Tony could stop him, he had pushed himself through the hole and down into the chamber.
“Well?” Billy said, his blue eyes shining in the reflected torch beam. “Are you coming? Or are you still waiting for the Morlocks?”
He turned his back to Tony and shouted, his voice ringing harshly against the rock walls.
“Come out come out wherever you are.” He put his hand to his ear and struck an exaggerated listening pose that he held for long seconds before turning back to Tony.
“Nope. No Morlocks here. Come on...there’s only the two of us here, and there might be treasure and stuff down here.”
The thought of treasure was what got Tony moving.
“Indiana Jones would’ve been in and out already.” Billy said, and that was what got Tony over the lip of the hole and down to join Billy.
“Shine the torch over there,” Billy said, pointing at the entrance they’d noticed previously.
Tony did as he was told, but the light seemed to be soaked up by the blackness, barely penetrating a foot into the passage.
“Looks like we’ll have to go in,” Billy said, and stepped forward. He stopped when Tony failed to follow.
“I can’t Billy. I just can’t,” Tony said, trying hard to keep back the tears. “Granddad said they were in there. Don’t go…they’ll get you…I know they will.”
Billy snorted. “Just stay here,” he said, taking the torch out of Tony’s hand. “I won’t be long.”
Billy moved off down the corridor and Tony was left alone in the half-dark, only the dim glow that managed to seep through the hole to give him light. Soon silence fell around him as Billy’s footsteps receded into the distance.
The pictures were back behind his eyes again…Billy being carried by a gray, hulking thing…Billy being taken down to where the giant rats ran…Billy being fed into some infernal machine. He had already turned back to the hole, to his escape, when he heard heavy footsteps running up the corridor towards him. He closed his eyes and screamed as a gray thing lunged at him from the blackness, a scream that stopped as soon as Billy slapped him across the cheek.
“Stop that,” Billy said. “It’s only me.” He took Tony by the hand and led him towards the corridor. “Just wait till you see what I’ve found. Fame and fortune...that’s what.”
Tony let himself be led, but his nerves were jangling and adrenaline pumped through every muscle, ready to run at the first sound even while they went deeper into the dark.
“It’s just along here,” Billy said and, despite his fear, Tony felt curious. He’d never seen Billy so excited. It must be something special to get him this worked up.
He saw just how special a minute later when they emerged into a narrow, musty chamber and Billy shone the torch around.
The room was ancient. Even Tony, with his limited experience in such things, could see that it was older than the rest of the house...by a long way. The stone was gray and somehow slimy, glistening in the light from the torch. But that wasn’t what had Billy so excited.
Billy moved to his left and directed the torch to the center of the room, to the thing that sat there.
It was stone, seven feet long, four feet wide and four feet high, carved out of one block of green, almost translucent marble. From where Tony stood, it looked like there was a sword stuck into the top of the block. The hilt gleamed golden in the torchlight and a large jewel refracted the light and sparkled.
“It’s a diamond,” Billy whispered. “That’s what it is...a diamond.” He pushed Tony towards the block. “But that’s not all. Come and have a closer look.” He took Tony by the arm and, keeping the torch on the sword, they shuffled forward.
It was only when they moved closer that Tony saw the truth of it...the stone had been hollowed out from the top and the sword was not sticking out of the marble. No…it was struck through the ribs of a skeleton.
The boys moved closer, eyes wide as Billy moved the torch beam down the length of the body, taking in the gray bones, the shriveled, wiry strands of hair and finally, the great wound in the ribs where the sword had struck.
Billy went closer, shining the light into the chest cavity.
“Look. There,” he pointed. “His heart.”
What was left of it was an encrusted, blackened mass, three inches of sword slicing it so that it was almost in two pieces. But Tony had noticed something else; something that looked like bound black leather. He leaned forward to get a closer look.
“No…I saw it first,” Billy shouted.
Before Tony could stop him Billy clasped the sword hilt with one hand and, with no apparent effort, drew it from the body. He danced away from Tony, and tried to lift the sword above his head but it was too heavy and the weight carried it backward over his shoulder to fall to the floor with a clang that resounded around the chamber.
Tony took one step forward, ready to berate the older boy so he only caught a glimpse, a fleeting movement, of the skeletal hand which grabbed him round the neck, cutting off his words and flinging him, sprawling, to the ground.
He lay there, stunned, listening to the cracking, whispering sounds from above him, the shifting of weight from within the sarcophagus. And then he saw the first fingertip, the first finger, then the second, then the whole broad hand as the fist clenched, slowly.
The skeleton rose, up and up, like a phoenix from the ashes, jerking and twitching, as if filmed in stop motion. Soon it stood above him, looking down over the rim of the sarcophagus, the dead skull grinning inanely as the creature clenched and unclenched the old cracked bones of its fists, the ribs creaking as the arms moved slowly, testing their strength.
Bones banged together like dead wood as it jumped, falling to the ground like a bird with a broken wing, ungainly, bent and ugly. More bones cracked.
Tony could only see it in silhouette, jet black against the shadows, as it pulled itself up to its full height, filling the space between himself and Billy.
The bony arms spread out to their full extent, almost touching the walls on either side, two vast, black shadows, framed darker against the walls, flickering with tension as the fists creaked open and shut, open
and shut.
Billy screamed, a yell of defiance, and the torch beam swung wildly around the room as he thrust the sword forward, spearing the skeleton through the pelvis. The yell turned to one of triumph, then just as quickly to despair as the skeleton yanked the sword free from his grasp and threw it aside.
There was a creak, as of old bones shifting, and the creature’s jaw dropped open, twin gray fangs sliding from the ruined bone as its head lowered to Billy’s neck.
Tony was only able to watch, rooted to the spot as the razor sharp fangs tore through Billy’s skin, leaving twin grooves nearly four inches long, grooves which welled blackly with blood.
The skeleton’s head bent further, neck bones cracking in protest and the jawbone began to chew. Tony stood, frozen in horror, as goblets of flesh and blood passed through the wasted gullet.
His eyes widened as the tissue fell through the rib cage, but didn’t stop…it hung, a boiling mess of gore, just under the ribs, growing as more blood joined it, pulsing in time with the chewing motions.
And still the creature chewed, and still the ball of Billy’s blood grew. As Tony looked on it began to writhe with its own life. Twin tendrils, as fine as hair, grew from the ooze, twining themselves around the aged bones, growing thicker with every pulse, threading their way through and around the skeleton, knitting flesh onto the frame.
Thicker strands, three of them, grew upwards, surrounding the blackening mass of the heart which seemed to soak up the blood, throbbing and pulsing as its color changed: to purple, then to maroon, then to shining, living red. More and more material flowed into it as Billy’s life was drained and the ancient heart grew and, slowly, began to pump.
Billy’s body lay in the creature’s arms, his torso now strangely deflated, growing more so with every second. Finally, after what seemed an age, the creature raised its head and dropped the lifeless body to the floor. The head turned...no bones creaking this time, and Tony looked into the face of evil.
Red flesh hung loosely from the cheeks. The hair, so recently merely wisps of gray, was thick and vibrant, shot with streaks of blackness. But it was the eyes that did it…the eyes that caused Tony to flee, shrieking in terror…the red, bloodshot eyes that stared at Tony with naked hunger.