by Mark Morris
The grey stone pillars either side of the gated entrance to Queens Road Cemetery resembled sentry boxes petrified by time or ancient magic. The gates had been closed for the night, but Benny scaled them easily despite his age, dropping to the ground on the other side as soundless as a cat. Not to be outdone, I clambered up and over too, though my landing wasn’t quite so elegant. Benny shot out a hand and grabbed my arm as I stumbled.
‘Careful, son. You don’t want to do yourself a mischief.’
Although flanked on all sides by residential streets, the cemetery was large enough for the majority of it to remain in darkness. Immediately beyond the gates the place looked neat and tidy, but closer inspection revealed that the graves, many of which had been here for well over a century, were in generally poor repair. Headstones were leaning or broken, monuments eroded and toppled, and many of the plots appeared to have succumbed to subsidence. Some of the long, flat stones which capped the graves were lying so aslant that it looked as if their occupants had pushed them up from below.
Barely making a sound on the gravel underfoot, Benny led the way towards a cluster of buildings. Silhouetted by darkness, the tall, slender belfry hemmed in by its pair of chapels looked as Gothic and forbidding as any haunted house. We passed through an arch beneath the long pointing finger of the belfry, and were plunged into instant icy darkness. Even when we emerged on the other side it was barely more enticing. Here, away from the public gaze, was where the cemetery was really falling to rack and ruin. The grass and weeds grew longer here, some of them so high that only the tips of gravestones could be seen, like the heads of drowning sailors slipping beneath an undulating sea. Undaunted, Benny pushed on and I followed, neither of us speaking. Struggling through the undergrowth, I jumped when I spied a figure lying in the long grass, only to realise that it was a stone angel as tall as a man, which had been pushed or fallen over and was now lying on its outstretched wings.
Eventually we came to a stone crypt, the entrance to which was enclosed by an iron fence whose railings had either rusted to almost nothing or were missing entirely. The crypt resembled a bomb shelter, albeit one fashioned with a Victorian penchant for over-elaboration. Into the lintel above the doorway was carved what I assumed was the name of the family whose mortal remains were incarcerated here, but it was too weathered, and my surroundings too dark, for me to make out the letters. The entrance to the crypt was a sturdy oak door behind a pair of fancy iron gates.
‘This is the place,’ Benny said.
‘We’re meeting your contact here?’ I asked dubiously, peering at the surrounding foliage, which was rustling and shifting like a restless congregation.
‘Not out here,’ Benny said, and nodded towards the crypt entrance. ‘Down there.’
I stared at him. ‘You’re kidding me.’
‘Why would I be? It’s as good a place as any.’
‘But we’ll be hemmed in. What if it’s a trap?’
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the gun which I’d last seen pointing at my face. ‘It won’t be. But just in case…’
I shook my head. ‘That won’t do any good, Benny. You saw the thing that attacked your house. Bullets would be useless against something like that.’
Scowling, he said, ‘Know what your problem is, Alex? You worry too much. Come on.’ He stepped through the gap in the railings and walked up to the door of the crypt.
I expected him to rap on the gates with his gun or perhaps push his hand through the metalwork and knock on the door, but instead he reached out and, accompanied by the thin squeal of unoiled metal, tugged open first one gate and then the other. He grabbed the ornate brass doorknob, twisted it and pushed. The door grated inwards, revealing an expanding edge of darkness.
‘How did you know it would be open?’ I asked suspiciously.
‘How do you think? I was informed.’
The door yawned wider. As Benny stepped forward I stood where I was, wary of committing myself. Behind me I heard a sound – a creak or a click. I twisted, peering into the shadows, but if there was something moving among the graves it was concealed within the restless stirring of the bushes and long grass.
‘Are you coming or not?’ Benny said. I turned back to see him standing in the open doorway. He was holding the gun loosely, its muzzle pointing at the ground. Behind him I could make out the top of a flight of wide stone steps descending into blackness. I patted my stomach, reassured by the solid weight of the heart in my inside pocket.
‘Suppose so.’
Benny gave a curt nod and turned to face the darkness within the crypt. As he started down, I glanced behind me again and then followed. I wasn’t sure about this – in fact, I couldn’t shake off the feeling that this was a really bad idea. But what choice did I have? If there was a chance of finding out anything about Kate’s whereabouts, then I had to take it. Passing beyond the threshold and into the crypt was like entering an icebox. Already Benny was descending into the gloom, his gun held out before him. The floor beneath my feet was gritty, each step I took echoing crisply back from the walls and ceiling. Benny, by contrast, was as silent as ever. Clenching my teeth, I picked my way down.
It was so dark I didn’t know I’d reached the bottom of the steps until I stretched ahead with my foot to find I was back on level ground. Glancing behind me, I saw the crypt entrance was nothing but a tiny blotch of brownish dimness above. Wondering what would happen if someone were to slam the door and lock us in, I experienced a brief surge of muscle-tightening claustrophobia. Then I forced myself to calm down and think logically. Benny had his gun and I had the heart and both of us had mobile phones to provide light, should we need it, and a means of communicating with the outside world. So if we were locked in we’d have plenty of options for escape. Which meant we had nothing to worry about on that score.
Peering into the blackness and seeing nothing, I thought about using the light from my phone, but was reluctant to draw attention to myself. I hissed Benny’s name, and when he didn’t respond, I raised my voice to an urgent rasp. ‘Benny, where are you?’
There was a click and mustard-coloured flame bloomed from the lighter in Benny’s left hand. His face was a sickly yellow mask, his eyes twitching pools of shadow. The light glinted on the gun in Benny’s other hand, and provided enough illumination for me to make out a low-ceilinged stone cavern with curved walls, which tapered to impenetrable blackness behind him.
‘Boo,’ he said mildly.
I forced a smile. ‘So where’s this contact of yours?’
Instead of answering, he said, ‘Did you ever wonder why I took you under my wing in Pentonville, Alex? Why I looked out for you?’
Wondering whether it was a rhetorical question, I shrugged. ‘I hoped it was because you liked me, or because you saw something in me. Something… worthwhile maybe.’
The shadows on his face shifted as his lips curved in a thin smile. ‘Oh, I’ve got nothing against you, Alex. You’re an okay guy. But the answer’s simpler than that. I did it for money.’
I frowned. ‘Money? You mean… someone paid you to look after me?’
‘Yep.’
‘Who?’ I asked, baffled.
‘Ah,’ he said mildly, ‘now that I can’t answer. If I told you, I’d have to kill you.’
There was silence for a moment. My mind was whirling. ‘I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘Why would someone pay you? And how did they know we were in the same prison?’
‘You clearly have influential friends,’ Benny said heavily.
‘If I do I wish they’d show themselves. I could do with some help at the moment.’
‘You could probably do with more than you realise.’
‘What do you mean?’
Benny sighed. ‘You haven’t asked me why I’m telling you this now, after all these years.’
Dread crawled in my stomach. ‘Go on then – why are you telling me?’
‘Because I’ve had a better offer. Sorry, Alex. Not that I give a shit
one way or the other, but I just wanted you to know this is nothing personal.’
Casually he raised the gun and pointed it at my chest. For the second time in less than twenty-four hours I stared at the muzzle and tried to imagine what it would feel like if a piece of red-hot metal travelling at seven hundred miles an hour tore into the soft flesh of my body. Would there be much pain? Would I die instantly or would there be a split second when I’d comprehend the full terror and agony of what was happening? My hand itched to touch the weight of the heart in my pocket, but I didn’t dare move.
I tried to speak and found that I couldn’t. I was so scared my throat felt as though it had swelled, stifling my voice. Muscles jumped in my left leg and I pressed my foot harder to the ground in an attempt to quell them. I wanted to close my eyes, but at the same time I felt compelled to keep them open for what might be my last moments of consciousness.
As if reading my thoughts, Benny said, ‘I’m not going to shoot you if that’s what you’re worried about. My job was just to bring you here.’
Whether it was this reassurance or my own willpower that enabled me to speak I don’t know, but with an effort I croaked, ‘For who?’
Benny shrugged. ‘Your guess is as good as mine. All I know is that a lot of money was paid into my bank account this morning – more than enough to make this little trip worth the risk.’
I was surprised and also oddly grateful to feel anger surge through me, loosening my throat still further. Recklessly I said, ‘I thought you were smart, Benny, but you’re not. You’re a fucking idiot.’
I thought he might get angry, but I didn’t care. However, contrary as ever, Benny laughed. ‘I’m not the one who blindly followed an armed criminal into a hole in the ground.’
‘No, but that doesn’t mean you won’t be as dead as me when the Wolves of London show up. And then what good will your money do you?’
Again he shrugged, as though the prospect of his own death didn’t bother him. ‘At least Lesley’ll be well provided for.’ He flourished the gun. ‘And if anyone does try to take me down, they’ll find themselves with a fucking battle on their hands.’
I was about to make a disparaging remark when the scrape of stone echoed through the crypt, making me jump. Benny spun round, raising the lighter above his head. Insipid ochre light flowed into the blackness, giving our surroundings a murky definition. Behind Benny the low-ceilinged room opened out, and I saw a row of cobweb-festooned sarcophagi, their lids coated in a fine layer of dust and shrivelled leaves. The stone lid of one of the sarcophagi was lying askew, revealing a triangle of darkness, which was all we could see of the tomb beneath. A flurry of disturbed dust sparkled and spun in the light, which suggested that the sound had been caused by the lid being pushed aside from within.
‘What the fuck?’ Benny muttered, and then, as though reacting to his voice, the lid moved again. With a grinding of stone on stone it slid all the way across until its weight caused it to tilt and crash to the floor.
The echoes were still ringing through the dimly lit room when the occupant of the sarcophagus sat up.
At first, in the dim and wavering light, partly concealed by a rolling wave of pale dust, I thought I was watching the emergence of some vast, spindly-limbed spider. Then, as the dust cleared, I saw something long and white rising into the air and realised it was a face. I gasped and stepped back, recognising the tall man I had seen at Incognito. As he (or it) stretched out his long legs, which I had seen him use to leap from one rooftop to another across a gap of eight metres, and began to clamber from the tomb, I glanced nervously around, looking for any sign of his entourage of clockwork grotesques.
No sooner had the thought crossed my mind than I heard whirring and clicking sounds behind me. Turning, I saw that flooding in through the crypt entrance were dozens of waddling, lopsided, scuttling things. Benny was still directing the light towards the monstrosity unfolding itself from the stone coffin, which meant that the more nightmarish details of the descending freak show were temporarily hidden from view. Even so, I got the impression that leading the pack was some sort of armoured metallic crab spouting angry puffs of steam from apertures in its back as it lurched from step to step, and what appeared to be the frantically spinning workings of a grandfather clock atop a thrashing tangle of tentacles.
Then Benny spun round with the lighter, sending wavering blocks of light and shadow careening across the walls. As buttery illumination washed over the descending hordes I was assailed with a barrage of nightmarish images. I glimpsed a pair of bloodshot eyes glaring from a quivering mass of flesh inside a bell jar; an open mouth with serrated metal teeth in the shrunken, eyeless face of a child; a human hand, dragging what appeared to be a miniature cannon that had been fused to its wrist; a monstrous amalgamation of what appeared to be Siamese twins and some sort of wheelchair-like device, that moved not on wheels but on juddering, steam-driven pistons that tentatively probed the way ahead like the white sticks of the blind.
‘What is this?’ Benny’s voice was a snarl, but I’m certain I detected a waver of fear in it. He spun back to face the tall man. ‘Who the fuck are you people?’
Despite my own fear, I felt a savage satisfaction at seeing him so rattled.
‘Out of your depth, are you, Benny?’ I said. ‘All this a bit outside your comfort zone?’
He turned smartly to face me, the light swooping again. ‘Shut your fucking mouth or I’ll shoot you where you stand,’ he barked.
The tall man had unfolded himself fully from the sarcophagus now and was standing up. His movements were precise, unhurried. He made me think again of a spider, one which knew its victims were wrapped up tight in its web and couldn’t escape. As he rose to his full height, he was forced to bend almost double, his upper body stretching along the ceiling like an elongated shadow. He towered over us, his thin slash of a mouth opening wetly in a red smile. The flat discs of his spectacle lenses reflected the yellow flame from Benny’s lighter, which made it look as if glowing embers burned in his eye sockets.
Benny looked up at him and licked his lips. Though he still brandished his gun, he now looked no more dangerous than a small boy playing at cowboys.
‘I don’t know who you are, mate, and I don’t care,’ he said, fear roughening his voice, bringing his natural London accent to the fore, ‘but I’ve done what you wanted, I’ve brought him here’ – he jerked the gun in my direction – ‘and now I’m going to leave.’ He turned and took a couple of paces towards the stone steps, and then he hesitated, halted.
The menagerie, still wheezing and puffing and whirring and clanking, had come to a stop. They were ranged across the steps, some of them still halfway up, forming an impenetrable barrier. Somewhere in the darkness above our heads I heard things darting and buzzing, their tiny motors making me think of robotic flies. In the gloom I could hear the squelch of wet flesh too, as it expanded and contracted in tortuous respiration.
Benny waved his gun from side to side, a nervous and rather pathetic gesture. ‘Out of my way.’
The menagerie didn’t move. Benny levelled the gun at the centre of the mass of flesh and clockwork bodies.
‘I said out of my way.’
Despite the threat the menagerie remained motionless. Suddenly there was a sharp clicking like ratchets aligning or tumblers falling into place, and to my surprise the tall man spoke.
‘I would advise you against threatening us, little man.’ His voice was plummy, the words pompous and a mite archaic. It was not entirely a human voice, however. It was underpinned by an insectile buzz, as though filtered through a vocoder.
Scowling, Benny looked up at the looming white face. ‘We had a deal. I made the delivery you asked for. So if you don’t mind, I’d like to leave.’
The tall man’s face gave nothing away, but I had the impression he was considering the request. Finally he said, ‘Very well. Go.’
Benny looked momentarily surprised, then gave a grim nod. ‘Thank you.’
That was when it happened. I had a split-second impression of what seemed like a colony of bats, disturbed by some commotion, suddenly exploding into life around me, and then I was plunged into darkness. My immediate assumption was that Benny’s lighter had gone out, but then I realised that I was standing in silence too. I could no longer hear the clicks and whirrs and the fleshy, wet billows of breath from the clockwork creatures; nor could I hear the crunch of grit underfoot when I shifted my feet. The sensation was akin to the one I’d experienced in Benny’s house almost twenty-four hours earlier, when the four of us had been engulfed by living darkness. The difference this time, though, was that I didn’t feel as though my spirits were being crushed, stifled; on the contrary, I felt enclosed in a protective pocket, in a place where nothing could touch me. Even so, I had no idea how I would free myself. I didn’t know which way was forward and which was back. I had lost all sense of direction.
I slipped my hand into the pocket of my jacket and squeezed the heart, but it was cold, unresponsive. Okay, I thought, okay.
‘Hello?’ I called, but the sound was flat, dead, devoid of echo. I took the heart from my pocket, squeezed it, stroked it.
‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Come on.’
And then I saw a light.
I tensed – was this something to do with the heart? It didn’t feel like it, but I couldn’t be sure. The light glimmered brighter, as if something or someone was approaching. Nervously I slipped the heart back into my pocket, squinting to make out what appeared to be a dark shape, or at least some kind of nucleus, in the centre of the light. I couldn’t run or hide; there was nowhere to go. The light drifted closer, a soft effulgence, and suddenly I saw that there was a shape within it.