Creatures of the Pool

by Ramsey Campbell

  One narrow passage carries straight on, while the other bends sharply to the left, further inland. The bend is the nearest place to hide, but tracks lead along the second passage. There are none in its neighbour. I go swiftly but as good as silently to the junction, where I turn to Lucinda. I finger my lips again and point ahead, then indicate the flashlight and wave my hand over it as though extinguishing a candle. I have to hope this is eloquent enough as I hurry into the tunnel.

  How far can we go before the men are close enough to see our light? I would run if I could be sure of staying unheard. The soft footfalls behind me sound closer—they can hardly be growing larger. I glance back to find Lucinda wide-eyed with the dimness. I’m sure the men are nearly at the bend, and I repeat my gestures to conjure silence and darkness. The gestures won’t work by themselves. I press my spine against the wall and take hold of Lucinda’s arm to help me communicate or perhaps just for reassurance as I switch the flashlight off.

  At once I might as well have no eyes. In one sense the absolute blackness is reassuring; my parents must be safely out of sight, since whatever light they’re using is. I have time to wonder how irrationally I’m behaving, not to mention why, before the large flat footsteps reach the section of tunnel that splits in half. At once my anxiety makes far too much sense, because Wrigley and Maddock are finding their way with no light of any kind.

  I feel as if I’m dreaming their approach, an impression the blackness exacerbates. Can’t they be wearing equipment that lets them see in the dark? It seems unnecessary, and it would mean they can see us. I wish Lucinda wouldn’t draw any attention by moving, even though she has only closed a hand over mine on her arm. She increases her grip as the loose heavy footfalls advance. They sound too soft for shoes, and I have the unpleasant fancy that the men have left their clothes elsewhere—under the bridge, perhaps. There’s a slithery element to the footsteps, and a clumsiness that might suggest the searchers haven’t quite decided how to walk. As they halt at the division of the tunnels Lucinda clenches her hand on mine, and I imagine eyes swelling huge to peer at us out of the dark. My mouth is parched with holding my breath by the time the footsteps veer into the adjacent tunnel.

  They haven’t reached the bend when I almost drop the flashlight. Either Wrigley or Maddock has begun to bellow “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” and his colleague is quick to join in, though not to find the same key. At least the disordered chorus should keep my parents away from them. As the song recedes around the bend, I have to assume that the performers are mocking the version they heard. Perhaps the tunnel is distorting the sounds, which are growing so parodic that I could imagine they’re emerging from mouths without much of a shape or at least lacking a constant one. It isn’t a notion I enjoy having in the dark. I wait until the voices seem muffled by distance, and then I force myself to wait for another few breaths before reviving the flashlight beam.

  Lucinda clutches at my arm, and I turn to see her squeezing her eyes tight as if they’ve grown too used to the dark. Some seconds pass before she blinks. In a moment she does so more widely, and she speaks—her lips move, at any rate. “What is it?” she seems to be asking.

  I shake my head and shrug and raise my brows to their fullest elevation and stretch my arms wide, thumping the wall with the flashlight. The rubber casing mutes the impact, but I’m yearning to take the noise back as Lucinda repeats her question loud enough for me to hear, unless it’s a variation. “What are they—”

  “Talk later,” I just about murmur. When she looks dissatisfied I nod in the direction of the song, which is so malformed by now that it suggests the croaking mouths have grown even more uncertain of their shape. “Do you want them getting to my parents?”

  “What do you think they—”

  “I don’t want to think.” All this whispering is no good for my nerves. Lucinda’s fingers stretch to cling to my arm, but I ease it free. “No time,” I mutter as I set off along the tunnel.

  Has hitting the wall damaged the flashlight? The beam appears to flicker, and my heartbeat flutters in response. Surely the light is wavering just with my haste. Wrigley and Maddock have fallen silent, even their ponderously purposeful tread. Either they’re out of earshot or they’ve halted to listen. They can’t hear Lucinda if I can’t, and I’m finding more stealth myself. I do my best to steady the beam as it discovers an object as tall as the roof ahead. It must be another division of the tunnels. The blurred prints on the discoloured floor will show which way my parents have gone. The dim edge of the flashlight beam snatches at the obstruction as I make for it, until I’m forced to acknowledge that I’ve been seeing and then trying to see what I wanted to be there. It isn’t a junction. The roof has collapsed.

  There’s a gap at the top of the mound of clay and bricks, but it’s just a few inches wide and high, and almost eight feet above the floor. My parents could never have scaled the mound. Nobody has climbed it; the dents that suggest otherwise would belong to the hands and feet of someone far too large to fit through the gap. I swing around, lowering the flashlight as Lucinda’s eyes wince. “They’ve gone the other way,” I whisper.

  “Quick, then.”

  I wonder why she isn’t following her own advice until she holds out her hand. Perhaps she’s had enough of being blinded. She takes the flashlight with both hands and turns it back the way we came. Her movements are defter than mine; although I have almost to run to keep up with her, the beam hardly wobbles. As it spills beyond the junction I manage to overtake her. “Let me have it now,” I mouth.

  “It was making me feel seasick.”

  Is there a glimmer of rebuke in her eyes? I could think she feels distrusted. I need to believe I have some control of the situation, that’s all. She plants the flashlight in my hand, but I don’t immediately send the beam into the left-hand passage. Why are Wrigley and Maddock so silent? Are they creeping after my parents, in which case they must be taking an inhuman amount of care, or waiting for them to betray where they are? As I dodge into the passage I aim the flashlight at the floor, causing a fall of darkness that looks not much less solid than earth.

  I can’t help thinking of the collapsed roof. How old is the tunnel—how weakened by its history? I could imagine that the unstable hovering dark is poised to seep into my head like someone else’s dream. The bend in the tunnel resembles one, since it shows no sign of growing straight. Are we being led towards some part of the site of the Pool? Perhaps that’s unavoidable, but trying to grasp which section of the city we’re beneath feels too much like an invitation to a reverie that’s waiting to be entertained. The subterranean dark can’t suffocate my consciousness, but it’s so much of a relief to see the tunnel straighten out at last that I risk lifting the flashlight beam.

  The tunnel has begun to slope upwards. At the limit of the vista of glistening brick that the beam strains to illuminate there’s unrelieved darkness. My parents have to be in or surely beyond this, and it must be concealing Wrigley and Maddock. I need to be quiet but equally quick. I’m taking some comfort from achieving both, while Lucinda keeps up her surreptitiousness at my back, when I falter, raising the beam that I’d lowered. To the left is a side tunnel.

  I want it to be a dead end, and that’s what I see when I reach the entrance, but only a bend is blocking my view. I hold the beam low and strain my ears until they feel waterlogged with silence. When Lucinda parts her lips I gesture so fiercely that she seems to think I’m waving her away. As I beckon to her, a movement that comes close to slapping my apologetic face, I hear a distant voice.

  It’s my mother. She seems to be protesting, and I’m afraid Wrigley and Maddock may have found my parents. I swing the flashlight beam along the main tunnel towards her voice, revealing only emptiness, nothing like footprints. I’ve advanced just a few paces when my mother finishes speaking, and I hold my breath. She must be waiting for an answer, because in a moment she has one. “It’s this way,” her companion declares.

  He’s my father. They wer
e simply arguing. I’m restraining a shout for fear of silencing them when a voice says “That’s them.”

  If it isn’t Wrigley it’s Maddock, and it’s behind me. As I spin around, the flashlight beam comes too. Lucinda’s eyes look enlarged by dismay. We’re alone in the tunnel. I don’t want the beam to reach into the side passage, and I jerk the flashlight up. In a moment the tunnels are swamped by utter blackness.

  I have the absurd and useless fancy that I’ve brought it upon us by wishing to stay inconspicuous. A rubbery thud is followed by two heavier metallic ones, and the flashlight gives up most of its weight. As I hear the batteries trundle away a second voice says “Them for sure.”

  Wrigley and Maddock must have been standing still to listen, because now I hear them start towards us. I can’t tell how far away they are, but the sloppy footfalls are so ponderous that they might be deliberately lingering over the chase. Do they think their quarry can’t escape? Trying to understand them only aggravates my panic. I don’t know what Lucinda murmurs as she plants a hand on my arm, but I’m reminded not just of her presence. “Camera,” I whisper dry-mouthed. “Flash.”

  Her hand leaves my arm, and I feel more alone in the dark than I ought to. As the footfalls advance, sounding somehow inconsistent, I urge “Flash, quick.”

  “I have to switch it on, Gavin.”

  Why hasn’t she, or does she mean she’s done so? Presumably she had to fumble in her handbag. In a moment there’s a thin electronic whine, and then the glow of the sensor reddens the tunnel around us. It doesn’t show me the batteries, and a glance behind me is no help. The flash goes off, displaying the route all the way back to the bend without a battery in sight. “Try again,” I mutter desperately as the dark falls on us. “The other tunnel.”

  “It’s recharging. It takes a few seconds.”

  How much of her calm is an effort or even a pretence? If it’s meant to reassure me as well as herself, it doesn’t work for me. The camera begins to whine about its task, but the ill-matched footsteps are louder. They sound close to the main tunnel, and I blurt “No time.”

  Lucinda closes her fingers around my arm. “Let me past, then.”

  She slips between me and the wall before I can ask “What are you doing?”

  Since she has released my arm I’m not sure where she is, and I can’t help starting as her moist breath enters my ear. “We don’t need the torch,” she whispers. “We can use the flash if we have to, but it’s straight on for a long way now.”

  She means the route the flashlight showed, of course. She leaves me with a last whisper. “Stay close to me.”

  Is this advice or a plea? I’m just able to hear her striding ahead. If she’s so confident despite the blackness, surely I can be. I seem to sense the walls as a solid chill on either side of me. There’s no point in clutching the useless flashlight, and I drop it, hoping it may trip up a pursuer or two. I lurch blindly forward and am beginning to pick up speed when the sounds of pursuit emerge from the side tunnel. They’re oddly imprecise, which makes me all the more anxious to keep up with Lucinda. I can, and silently too. They don’t seem to be gaining on us. I’m wishing my parents would make some noise, to reassure me that we’re catching up with them, when Lucinda murmurs “Careful. There’s a bend.”

  Can I sense it? Her voice is moving to the right, and I think I’m distinguishing the presence of the walls, two looming blocks of stony damp and chill. I feel I’m keeping them more or less the same distance from me as I follow Lucinda. Certainly I’m aware when the curve ends, though perhaps that’s because she’s advancing straight ahead. We’ve left the undefined sounds of pursuit beyond it. I’m beginning to think I can ignore my sightless state when I bump into Lucinda, who has halted. “Wait,” she whispers. “What are we going to do now?”

  She hasn’t finished speaking when the sensor reddens the darkness, revealing that the way ahead is less straightforward. In another moment the flash shows me that we’ve reached a second fork. As my eyes wince I make out that the right-hand passage carries on while its neighbour bends left. What’s the point of that or indeed of the whole underground system? Blackness fills my aching eyes again and seems to flood my mind. I’m trying to think of an answer for Lucinda when she murmurs “You go ahead, Gavin.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’ll go the other way. One of us will find Deryck and Gillian.”

  I can’t call to them. Any response would alert Wrigley and Maddock. I feel robbed of speech, and before I can answer Lucinda, she whispers “Take this.”

  She’s pressing the camera into my hand. “What about you?” I protest.

  “I’ll find my way, don’t worry. I’m used to it now. Go on, quick. No time.”

  “But couldn’t we—” I blurt, a pathetic attempt to delay her, since I’ve no idea what to add. She closes my fingers around the camera and plants a swift kiss—hardly more than a touch of flesh and a hint of moisture—on my cheek.

  The lingering sensation seems to elongate the moment, unless my yearning to prolong it does. As it leaves me I realise she has too. “Wait,” I mouth, but I can’t risk hindering her further when footfalls are padding or otherwise advancing to the bend behind us. They sound too close for me to dare to use the flash. Instead I thumb the button halfway down to trigger the sensor. The division of the tunnel glows like embers, and I glimpse Lucinda striding fast but soundlessly along the left-hand passage. Without hesitation she vanishes into it like a creature of the dark.

  I can’t hesitate either. I send the meagre glow along the other tunnel to remind me exactly where the walls are, and then I lift the strap of the camera over my head and set forth into the blackness. I was afraid that without Lucinda my instincts would fail me, but this doesn’t seem to be the case; so long as I proceed straight ahead I’m able to avoid the walls. It isn’t fear of a collision in the dark that halts me, it’s my mother. “We’re there again,” she’s saying in a tone that distance renders obscure. “It’s so huge.”

  “We’ll get through it, love.”

  I can’t remember the last time my father addressed her so affectionately, or is it meant to reassure her? They’re in the same tunnel as me, and I start forward before faltering. Have I time to fetch Lucinda? I’m shuffling around to stay clear of the walls when I hear Wrigley and Maddock reach the junction. Their disconcertingly assorted footfalls and their thick breaths, which apparently require some slobbering, aren’t the only noises. Lucinda has started to run. “I hear something in its hole,” says Wrigley or Maddock.

  “Halt in the name of the law.”

  This sounds unsettlingly old-fashioned. Perhaps it’s meant to be a joke. The policeman doesn’t shout it, he pronounces it as a remark. It earns a slobbery laugh from his companion, who says “Let’s show them what we’re here for.”

  While this may not be ominous in itself, their burst of throaty mirth is. Their amusement trails off as it enters the other tunnel. I can’t bear it or the thought that they’re after Lucinda, even if she’s trying to decoy them away from my parents. “Why don’t you leave us all alone,” I blurt.

  I don’t shout, but I don’t restrain my voice either, and it brings a response. “There’s another of them.”

  “All yours.”

  Stealth is pointless now, and I aim the camera at the junction. When the sensor doesn’t reach I use the flash, calling out “It’ll take more than one of you in your condition.”

  I hardly know what I’m saying. Besides revealing nobody, the flash has blinded me, stopping up my eyes with pallid after-images. The undefined shapes have begun to expand and grow as red as a sensor when in the distance my mother cries “Was that you, Gavin?”

  “It’s me. I’m coming,” I shout but face the junction while I say “I’ve found my parents. Sorry to have troubled you. We don’t need you any more.”

  Perhaps I’m trying to clutch at some remnant of normality as I wait for my eyes to recover. “Was that you, Gavin?” says a voice in t
he other tunnel.

  He doesn’t have to croak so much to sound mocking, but his companion does too. “You called us up. Can’t just send us back.”

  As a soft heavy tread—at least, a series of noises that suggests leathery bags are being dropped and dragged along the floor—starts towards me I stumble around, thumbing the camera button. The redness of my vision solidifies, forming into dim bricks underfoot and to either side. The moment I’m sure where the walls are I release the button and stride ahead.

  I can make as much noise as I like, which seems to give me the confidence to lengthen my strides. I might risk sprinting, although surely I should check no bend is imminent, or would the acoustic warn me? I’m growing convinced that I can sense the route somehow. In a way the problem is the absence of distractions: I can’t hear Lucinda or my parents. Wrigley and Maddock are silent too, even whichever of them is following me. Surely he can’t have fallen too far behind to be audible; is he managing to keep his sounds to himself, however close he is? I imagine a bloated shape gaining on me with huge but unnaturally soundless leaps, reaching out an elongated arm to seize me with lengthened fingers. What if this isn’t only my imagination? I can’t bear not seeing. As I take hold of the camera I realise that the flash needn’t blind me. Better still, it should blind any pursuer.

  I narrow my eyes as I spin around and press the button. For at least a second it produces only the glow of the sensor, and then the sight I was leaving behind rears up with the flash. It’s an empty tunnel.

  Although my slitted eyes wince, I can see that the passage is deserted all the way back to the junction. Did nobody follow me after all? As reddened darkness fills my vision I wonder if I could have passed another tunnel without noticing. Suppose not just the pursuer but my parents are in there? I thumb the button, to be rewarded by the electronic whine. I’m growing both dry-mouthed and clammy with frustration, a contrast that suggests my body no longer knows how to process the water that is its fundamental element, when my mother says “Never mind shushing me, Deryck. Where has he gone?”