The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 22

by Stephen Jones

  “Any questions?” Mr Hardacre asked finally.

  For a long moment there was silence, and then Simon Lawson tentatively raised a hand.

  “Is the mine haunted?”

  The shadows occupying the wrinkles in Mr Hardacre’s face deepened as he frowned. “Haunted?”

  “Yes . . . I mean . . . well, people must have died down here. Accidents and that. So I just wondered whether there were any, like, stories or legends or anything . . .”

  Tess glanced at the boy, but in the gloom he was nothing but a hunched shadow.

  “Ghosts, eh?” Mr Hardacre said, and this time he smiled, the shadows flocking to his widening mouth. “Well, I don’t know about that, but have you come across the story of the fallen boy on your travels today?”

  There was a general shaking of heads.

  “There’s a bench with a plaque on it outside the sweet shop,” Mr Hardacre said. “It’s dedicated to Michael Rowan, who died at the age of thirteen on March 16, 1865. Did anyone see that?”

  A few hands went up, though Tess herself had not noticed the plaque.

  “Well, there’s a strange little story associated with him,” Mr Hardcastle said. “Not a ghost story exactly, but still . . . sad. And a bit creepy.

  “The mine, as I told you earlier, was founded in 1832. However there’s a secondary shaft, which we’ll see in a few minutes, which was created in 1865. The reason for this was that after thirty years of mining, the seams on this level were all but exhausted. It was decided, therefore, to mine deeper – and so the secondary shaft was created, in the hope that further seams would be discovered on a lower level.

  “One of the most prominent miners at that time – he was a sort of manager, answerable directly to the mine owner – was a man called William Rowan. By all accounts, Rowan was not popular. He was a bear of a man, and something of a bully, and he had a son, Michael, who was apparently much the same.

  “One of the victims of Michael’s bullying was a young lad called Luke Pellant. The story goes that Michael chased Luke into the mine one night and that in the darkness Michael ended up losing his way and falling down the secondary shaft. It was just a big hole in the ground at that point, and back in those days there were no safety barriers or anything like that. Anyway, when Luke told everyone what had happened, a rescue operation was mounted, but of course it was too late – the lad had fallen eighty feet or so onto solid rock and was pretty much smashed to pieces.

  “Although Luke claimed that Michael had fallen, Michael’s father, William Rowan, didn’t believe him. He accused Luke of pushing his son down the shaft, of murdering him, and he swore he’d see the boy brought to trial and punished. The general view, however, was that Michael’s death had been nothing but the result of a terrible accident, and one that he had brought on himself. When nothing came of Rowan’s campaign to see Luke brought to justice, Rowan was furious.

  “A few weeks later, Luke disappeared, and it seems that although Rowan was initially suspected of having had something to do with it, Rowan himself put it about that the boy had fled out of guilt or shame for what he had done. In any event, nothing ever came of the incident – until about twenty years ago, when they were excavating the ground down by the quayside to lay the foundations for the information centre. During the excavation some bones were found – an almost entire skeleton, in fact – which tests revealed were about a hundred and fifty years old, and were those of a boy somewhere between the ages of ten and fifteen.” Mr Hardacre shrugged. “It’s never been proven, but the general consensus is that William Rowan abducted and killed Luke Pellant and buried his remains down by the river. Of course, the Rowan family, who are still quite prominent in the area, refuse to accept it, and had the bench erected as a sort of . . . well, a sort of statement of defiance, I suppose.”

  “Are there any members of the Pellant family still about?” Tess asked.

  Mr Hardacre shook his head. “Not that I know of. Not in these parts anyway.”

  “So the bad kid gets remembered and the good one gets forgotten,” one of the girls piped up. “That is so not fair.”

  Mr Hardacre shrugged. “I don’t think it makes much difference after all this time. Although if it’s any consolation, Michael Rowan, despite the commemorative bench, is not regarded fondly around these parts. The locals call him the ‘fallen boy’, not only because he fell down the shaft, but also because, in their eyes, he – and his father – had fallen from grace.”

  “So does Michael Rowan’s ghost haunt the mine then?” Simon Lawson asked.

  Mr Hardacre smiled. “Not that I know of. Shall we carry on?”

  He started the train up again and they went deeper, the engine creaking and grinding as they chugged downhill. The tunnel became narrower, the walls more jagged and uneven, and Tess had to suppress a wave of claustrophobia when she looked up at the black ceiling and got the impression that it was crushing down on them, closing them in.

  She was relieved several minutes later when the tunnel abruptly widened and they found themselves in a natural arena-like cavern, the walls and ceiling sloping away on all sides, giving a sudden disorientating sense of space. Once again, Mr Hardacre eased back on the brake and the engine groaned to a halt.

  “Right,” he said, “who fancies a bit of mining?”

  This time the response was not quite as enthusiastic. Tess and Yvonne ushered the children out of the train and ordered them to follow Mr Hardacre, who led them across to what looked like a huge, squared-off well, surrounded by a metre-high wall. The shaft of the ‘well’, a raft-sized square of impenetrable blackness, had been overlaid with a sheet of thick but rusty wire mesh.

  “This is the secondary shaft I was telling you about,” he said.

  “The one that the boy fell down?” one of the girls asked.

  “That’s right. This shaft has been unused since the mine closed a hundred years ago. Even before then it was prone to floods and cave-ins.”

  “Are there any plans to open the shaft up again?” asked Yvonne.

  Hardacre shook his head. “It would cost too much money. And there’s nothing to see down there that you can’t see up here.” He raised a finger. “Now, remember I told you that children often used to sit down here for hours in the darkness, waiting for their fathers to finish work? Well, when I said darkness, I meant darkness. I was talking about the kind we don’t usually experience in this modern age. The kind where you literally can’t see your hand in front of your face. How many of you want to know what that kind of darkness is like?”

  Tess glanced around. Most of the hands were going up, though some of the children looked nervous.

  “All right then,” Mr Hardacre said. “But when the lights go off, I want you all to stand absolutely still. We don’t want any accidents. Okay?”

  There was a murmur of assent.

  Mr Hardacre crossed to a chunky plastic box on the wall, which had once been white but was now grimed and smeared with black fingerprints. The box had a single switch in its centre, and thick black wires snaked out of the top of it, leading to the ceiling of the tunnel, along the length of which, Tess noticed, were a series of dimly illuminated light bulbs. Mr Hardacre switched off the lamp on his miner’s helmet and then looked around at the group and smiled, evidently relishing the moment.

  “Ready?” he said, and before anyone could answer he pressed his finger down on the switch.

  There was a loud click, like a bone snapping, and the world vanished. Around her, Tess heard a brief, shrill chorus of alarmed squeals, which then seemed to abruptly cut off, leaving a silence and a darkness that felt skin-tight, constrictive. For a few seconds Tess was convinced that she could no longer move; she felt her throat closing up, her chest tightening. She couldn’t shake the notion that she was all at once utterly alone. With an effort she raised her hand in front of her face, but she couldn’t see it, she couldn’t see anything.

  She didn’t realise she was holding her breath, waiting for something to
happen, until she heard a scuffle of movement to her left. Then, for the third time in twenty minutes, Matthew Bellings cried out, his familiar, teeth-grating mewl of protest echoing jaggedly in the confined space. Immediately the light clicked back on and the world was restored. Blinking, somewhat dazed, Tess looked around her.

  The children were standing in little groups, all except for Matthew. He was standing alone, in their midst but isolated. Tess focused on him, and her heart gave a sudden lurch. Matthew’s face was scored with streaks of blackness. It was as if the darkness had not allowed him fully to return, as if it had eaten part of him away.

  But of course that was nonsense. The black streaks were not darkness; they were simply dirt. Clearly someone had stepped up behind Matthew when the lights were out and had smeared begrimed hands across his cheeks. The question was—

  “Who did this?” Yvonne snapped, stepping forward.

  Tess’s colleague was quivering with rage, pointing at Matthew but sweeping her burning gaze around the rest of the class. The children stared back at her silently or looked down at the floor.

  “What did Mr Hardacre tell you?” she continued. And when again she was met with silence, she shouted, “Well?”

  “He told us to stand still so there wouldn’t be any accidents, miss,” replied Julie Steele, whose dark fringe half-obscured her chubby face.

  “Yes he did, Julie. So why did one of you decide to be an idiot and do the exact opposite?”

  Again, silence. Angrily Yvonne said, “Right, well there’s only one way to resolve this. Everyone hold out your hands.”

  There was a shuffling, a collective glancing around, and then hands appeared, palms up, for inspection. Tess looked from one pair to the next, her gaze skittering. As far as she could see, they were all white, unsullied.

  But not all the children had complied with Yvonne’s instructions. At the back of the largest group, partly concealed by their classmates, were two crouching, whispering figures. They appeared to be facing each other, holding hands. And then Tess realised that they were not holding hands, but that one was cleaning the hands of the other.

  “You two,” she shouted, pointing, striding across.

  Two guilty heads snapped up. Beneath the yellow bulbs of their hard hats, Tess recognised the faces of Jason Hayes and Francesca Parks.

  Yvonne had joined her now. With her curly red hair streaming from beneath her own hard hat, she looked faintly ridiculous, but no one was laughing.

  “Come here!” she hissed, her furiously sibilant voice echoing around the cavern.

  Jason and Francesca shuffled forward. Francesca was holding a begrimed Wet Wipe.

  “Jason Hayes, show me your hands,” Yvonne ordered.

  Jason hesitated, but the expression on his face was almost resigned. Slowly he turned over his hands, revealing his palms. Despite Francesca’s ministrations they were still mostly black.

  And so, a split-second later, was everything else.

  Just as they had a couple of minutes before, the lights in the tunnel suddenly went out. This time, caught unawares, the screams from some of the children were louder, edged with panic. There was shuffling movement and someone called out; from the sounds they made, either they or someone else appeared to stumble and fall. Yvonne’s furious voice rose above the melee:

  “Everyone just stand still! Mr Hardacre, what’s going on?”

  Tess heard the click-click, click-click of their guide testing the light switch.

  “Must be a power cut,” he said. “Hang on a sec.”

  There was a smaller click and suddenly a thin beam of white light cut through the blackness. It was the lamp on Mr Hardacre’s helmet. The beam bobbed and shivered, playing across the walls and the faces of the children as he moved his head.

  “No need to panic,” he said. “We’ll just get back on the train. I’ll soon have us out of here.”

  “Miss?” said a voice in the darkness.

  Tess turned, but the children were little more than shadowy shapes.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Jason’s gone, miss,” the voice said, and now Tess recognised it as belonging to Francesca Parks. “He’s not here.”

  “What do you mean – gone?” snapped Yvonne.

  “I don’t know, miss,” said Francesca. “He was standing right next to me. But when the light came back on, he’d . . . disappeared.”

  Yvonne huffed. “Oh, this is ridiculous. What is that little idiot playing at?”

  “Matthew Bellings has gone too, miss,” one of the boys said.

  Tess felt as though the situation was spiralling out of control. “What?” she said. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, miss. He was right there.” A shadowy shape raised an arm, pointing at the spot where Matthew had been standing a few seconds before.

  “Matthew?” Tess called, looking around. “Jason?”

  There was no response. Tess and Yvonne looked at each other. Tess saw a flicker of fear in her colleague’s eyes.

  “Let’s get the other children on the train,” Yvonne said. “Count them to make sure we haven’t lost anyone else.”

  They did it as quickly as the darkness would allow, while Mr Hardacre did a quick recce of the tunnels leading off from the central cavern, shining his helmet-mounted light down each one and calling the boys’ names.

  Finally he returned, shaking his head. “I’ll put a call through to the main office,” he said. “Find out what—”

  “Listen,” said Tess.

  “What—” Yvonne began, but Tess held up a hand for silence.

  “I heard something . . . There it is again!”

  They all listened now. From somewhere ahead of them and to their left came a scraping, a shuffling, as if someone or something was emerging from a burrow, scrabbling towards the light. Mr Hardacre walked slowly forwards, placing his feet with care on the uneven ground, the beam of light from his helmet sweeping across the cavern walls.

  Several of the children gasped as something suddenly tumbled out of one of the side tunnels. Tess saw white hands clawing at the ground, eyes flashing as a face turned towards them.

  “Matthew!” she shouted and ran forward, ignoring Mr Hardacre’s warning about minding her footing.

  Matthew was on his hands and knees, shivering with fear, his eyes wide and staring. His face was black with dirt. His mouth was hanging open, and as Tess approached him a string of drool fell from his lips and spattered on the ground.

  She dropped to her knees, gathered him up in her arms. He flinched and then relaxed, clutching at her as though craving her warmth.

  “Matthew,” she said softly. “What happened? Do you know where Jason is?”

  Matthew looked up at her. He was clearly dazed, confused.

  “He called me Michael,” he whispered.

  “Who did?” asked Tess. “Jason, you mean?”

  Matthew shook his head. “He called me Michael. He thought . . . he said . . .”

  Suddenly his face crumpled and he began to sob.

  As Tess hugged him tight, trying to comfort him, Hardacre slipped past her, into the tunnel. Yvonne, bringing up the rear, panting a little, crouched down beside her. Before Yvonne could say anything, Tess gently transferred Matthew into her colleague’s arms and muttered, “Look after him.”

  She stood up shakily. She could still see the white light from Hardacre’s lamp shimmering across the walls of the side tunnel – and then he turned a corner and all at once they were plunged into blackness again.

  Tess stepped forward, feeling her way into the tunnel. She moved sideways, crab-like, her hands sliding along the rocky walls, her feet probing ahead. With every step she couldn’t help but imagine a precipice in front of her, a gaping abyss. She told herself she was being foolish, but she couldn’t shake the idea from her mind.

  Then she rounded a corner and suddenly saw thin slivers of ice-white light limning the jags and crevices of the tunnel ahead.

  “Mr Hardacre, wait!�
�� she called and hurried towards him.

  She flinched as he turned towards her, the light from his lamp flashing across her vision, blinding her.

  “What are you doing here?” he said almost angrily. “You should have stayed in the cavern with the children.”

  “Yvonne’s with them,” Tess said. “Jason is one of my pupils. I couldn’t just wait around in the darkness, doing nothing.”

  Hardacre made an exasperated sound, but he said, “Come on then. But be careful.”

  They moved on down the tunnel, Hardacre leading the way, his lamplight sliding across the glossy walls. Down here the world was stark and primal. A world of rock and silence, of harsh white and deep black, nothing in between.

  “How deep does this tunnel go?” Tess whispered.

  Hardacre’s shoulders hunched in a shrug. “A mile maybe.”

  “Will it—” Tess began, but then she stopped.

  There was a figure crouching in the tunnel ahead.

  It was on its haunches, bent forward, its back to them. It was naked, its forehead resting against the rocky wall. It reminded Tess of a child playing hide-and-seek, counting to a hundred before standing up and shouting, “Coming, ready or not.”

  Hardacre had halted too. Tess stepped up beside him.

  “Jason?” she said.

  The figure didn’t respond. Tess slipped by Hardacre, moving towards it.

  “Be careful, miss,” Hardacre said.

  “It’s all right,” Tess replied, though her stomach was crawling with nerves. “There’s nothing to be frightened of.”

  She was within arm’s reach of the figure now. She could see the nubs of its vertebrae, the white skin streaked blackly with grime.

  “Jason,” she said again, and reached out to touch the figure’s shoulder. It was freezing cold.

  Unbalanced by her touch, the figure rocked backwards. It tumbled over like a turtle on to its back, still in a crouching position, its hands crossed in front of its belly, its knees drawn up.