by Amy Cross
I look down and see a dismembered head in the mud. I pick it up and find that it's an old man's head, with various wires and tubes sticking out of it. It means nothing to me, so I drop it in the dirt. Climbing out of the grave, I look across the moonlit cemetery. That head wasn't down there before. Someone else has been in this grave.
With no time to waste, I make my way across London. All around me in the streets, humans are crowding in and out of bars and pubs, like the detestable animals that they are. They should be thankful that I merely walk past them. Were I not in such a hurry, I would gut every single one of them, slicing open their bellies and ripping out their intestines. That's all that humans are good for. Vermin. They infest this city with their noise, their dirt and their big ideas. But let them laugh for now. One day, they will be wiped off the face of the planet.
Finally I am able to make my way down below the surface, beyond the parts of this wretched city that are within reach of humans. But as I approach the pit, I hear voices. Pausing, I immediately recognise the sound of three werewolves engaged in conversation. I remain in the shadows near the top of the pit.
"Come on," one of the voices, a female, is saying. She sounds tense and nervous. "Let's get on with this. The sooner we head down there, the sooner we can find Duncan and come back up". That name. Duncan. It seems I'm not the only one who's looking for him. But I don't intend to bring him back up. I intend to bury him.
"Good luck," says another voice, male this time. It's a familiar voice, though I can't quite recall where I have heard it before. "Hey, you never know. Maybe this time in a few days, we'll all be sitting around in a pub somewhere, laughing about things".
"Maybe," says the female voice. "We can stand here talking all day, but at some point we're gonna have to start moving. Why wait?"
"She's right," says a third voice. Female again, and quite unfamiliar. There is as much fear in this voice as in the first, if not more. "We're putting this off".
"Bye," says the first female voice. I hear her walking away, and the voices die down. They must be heading down the tunnel, down into the Underworld. I allow a smile to cross my lips. The chances of these fools surviving down there are minimal, and even if they do live more than a few hours, I'll easily be able to finish them off.
I step out of the shadows for a moment, but then I hear a sound in the pit and I step back. Someone is climbing back out, and after a moment a male werewolf appears at the top. I recognise him immediately as Matt DiMera, an acquaintance of Duncan's and the wolf who was doomed to spend the rest of his life in the pit. The idea that he could now be walking freely is somewhat disturbing, but at least he has the wisdom not to head down into the Underworld. He chose to remain here, in the Overworld. To be safe. To survive.
He walks towards me. He hasn't spotted me yet, lurking in the shadows.
"Hello," I say, stepping in front of him.
He stops, and I can see that he instantly recognises me. The look of fear on his face is priceless.
"I see you decided not to follow your friends down into the Underworld," I say. "Very wise. We both know what'll happen to them down there. If the Flesh Weavers don't get them, the Golvs will. And if the Golves don't them... I'll get them".
Matt just looks at me, a mixture of shock and fear in his eyes. He looks around. For what? An escape route? A weapon? To be honest, I'd respect him more if he just came right out and attacked me. At least that way he'd be something of a challenge. As it is, he looks more likely to just roll over and die, which would be somewhat anti-climactic. I can afford to wait a moment, to toy with him. Those girls won't get very far down the tunnel before I catch up to them anyway.
"I remember you from years ago," I say, stepping towards Matt. "You were always very talkative. What's changed? Or is it just that you don't have anything to say to me? Or that you know there's nothing you can say that will save your miserable life".
I can see in his eyes that he's trying to think of a way out of this. He's trying to decide whether to stand his ground, or to run. He can't decide, and his indecision will be his downfall.
"Well," he says, his voice sounding nervous, "you know what they say. If you -" And suddenly, he turns and runs to the pit, jumping straight down. I follow, and I land right on top of him at the bottom. We both instantly change to our wolf forms and I take his neck in my mouth and bite hard, feeling his hot blood flowing into my mouth. Before he has a chance to fight back, I bite again, this time ripping a chunk from the side of his face. With a third bite, I tear off part of his neck and his blood sprays from the wound. I look at his eyes and see him losing consciousness.
He will never wake up.
Barely even panting, and with not a scratch on my body, I consider my options. He's dead, but being a werewolf he will quickly recover. I could take him to hallowed ground and bury him, to finish him off and prevent him from ever recovering, but that tactic failed with Duncan. I need to do something more brutal. I look up at the entrance to the tunnel. Those two girls are getting further and further ahead of me with every passing second, but it won't take me too long to catch up with them, not if I run in my wolf form while they apparently choose to walk as humans. So I have a little time to kill here.
I lean down and tear away a large chunk of Matt DiMera's neck. There is only one way to make absolutely sure that he will stay dead forever. It's the same way that I should have used with Duncan, and that I plan to use on him when I catch up with him this time. Slowly, ravenously, I start to eat Matt DiMera's body.
3
"Do you hear that?" Darla asks.
We stop. This tunnel seems to have been going on forever, and we've been walking for so long that I've lost track of time completely. "What?" I ask.
"Silence," Darla says. "No trains. We haven't heard a passing tube train in an adjacent tunnel for hours now". She has a pensive, concerned look on her face. "Do you remember what Matt said? When we stop hearing trains in tunnels, that means we're halfway to the Underworld".
"Great," I say, smiling nervously. "I guess we'll be there in a few more hours, then".
We walk on.
"Are you scared?" Darla asks.
"I don't know," I say. "Are you?"
"Fuck yeah". She smiles. "Come on, darling. You can tell me. It's natural to be scared. In fact, if you're not scared, I'm turning back right now 'cause you're clearly a psychopath".
I smile, for the first time in days. "Okay," I say. "I'm scared. But what else can we do?"
"Nothing," Darla says. "I guess I can understand why Matt stayed behind. Nothing could have persuaded him to come down here. He'd rather stay safe back at the entrance to the tunnel".
"It's not his fault," I say. "Like you said earlier, he's been down here once already. It doesn't sound like it's exactly Disneyland in the Underworld".
"We need a plan," says Darla, stopping suddenly.
"What do you mean?" I ask, stopping a few paces ahead of her.
"We're blundering into this without a plan," Darla says. "When we get into the Underworld, then what?"
"We find Duncan," I say. "I can already sense him, we just have to follow my instincts until we find him".
"I know," Darla says, "but do you really think it'll be that easy? You heard what Matt said, there's all sorts of creatures down there. Seriously dangerous things. Do you reckon they're gonna just stand aside and wave as we walk past?" She stares at me. "Come on. We bump into a Flesh Weaver. What do you do?"
I shake my head. "How can I plan when I don't even know what a Flesh Weaver looks like?" I ask.
"Exactly!" Darla says. "You know less than me, and I don't know anything. Fact check, Jess. We're very, very unlikely to just bump into a Flesh Weaver, because they don't tend to wander about looking for victims. They delegate all the nasty stuff to the Loom People. But neither of us really -"
"I know!" I say, interrupting her. "But we can't plan for every eventuality, can we?"
"No," Darla says, "but put it like this. The tunnel
opens out into the Underworld, right?"
"Right," I say.
"So if you were a hungry, nasty creature looking for a snack," she continues, "wouldn't your first priority be to hang around the end of the tunnel, waiting to attack anything that comes out?"
I open my mouth to argue with her, but then I realise that there's nothing I can say. She's right. We're walking straight into danger. We're almost certain to be attacked by something pretty nasty once we get into the Underworld. But what's the alternative? We have to keep going. And if Darla's too scared...
"You can turn back," I say.
"No..." Darla replies.
"I mean it," I say. "This isn't your battle. You don't know Duncan. You've never even met him? Why are you here anyway? Why are you marching into certain danger for someone you've never met?"
She sighs. "I've met you," she says. "And I like you. And I want to help you. And what's the alternative? Go and crawl into bed and hope the bogeyman doesn't come for me? You're my friend. You saved my life back at the carnival, you did it again in the Blaum Building, and I owe you. And I want to hang out with you". She steps closer. "Look, the truth is, I..." She pauses. "I... I just want to help, that's all. Okay?"
I nod. "Sorry," I say. "I guess I'm just worried I'm going to get us both killed".
"Nah," says Darla. "You won't get us killed. What'll get us killed is some huge worm with millions of teeth, or a Golv that tries to eat us with its eyes, or God forbid we wander into the path of Black Annis. Whatever. If I'd stayed back there with Matt, maybe I'd have got so bored I'd have tripped and smashed my head open and died right there. Accidents happen. And anyway, we're werewolves. We're tough. It takes a lot to kill us, and even if we do die, I doubt there's much hallowed ground down in the Underworld. So unless we actually get eaten -"
"Which can happen," I say.
"Which can happen," she repeats. "But unless it does, we'll be okay. Okay?"
"Okay," I say, and we keep walking.
After what feels like many more hours, we finally find that the tunnel is starting to get wider. It feels as if it's opening out, and eventually we noticed that in the far distance there appears to be a fork in the route. Sure enough, we get there and find that there's a stone wall ahead of us, and we have a choice: we either go left, or right. In both directions, there appears to be nothing more than more tunnel.
"Matt never mentioned this," I say, puzzled.
"Maybe it's new," Darla says.
I give her a dubious look.
"Well..." She pauses. "Even down in the Underworld, they must redecorate from time to time".
"Which way?" I ask.
Darla looks in both directions. "Right is right," she says. "It's always right. And there's probably not a wrong way. They're just different".
I try to get a clear impression of Duncan, but although I can sense his presence, he still seems to be far away and I can't work out any kind of direction.
"Right," I say. "If you say right, we'll go right".
We head down the tunnel to the right, but we've only got a few paces when we hear a hideous, blood-curdling scream coming from somewhere up ahead. It sounds like some kind of animal being slaughtered, and it's so horrific it actually sends shivers down my spine.
"Left?" Darla asks.
"Left," I say, and we turn around, taking the left tunnel instead. This time there are no screams and we keep walking for a while as the tunnel slowly curves around to the right. After a little while, we spot something up ahead and soon we come to a small wooden door. We stop and stare at it.
"We have to open it," Darla says.
"I know," I reply.
We stare at it some more.
"I don't hear any screaming," Darla says. "That's a good sign".
I nod.
Darla puts her ear up against the door and listens. "I don't hear anything," she says. "Not a peep".
I step forward, put my hand on the door handle and turn it. The bolt clicks open, and Darla steps aside as I slowly pull the door towards us.
We stare at the Underworld laid out before us.
"Fucking fuck," says Darla, a sense of awe in her voice. "That is not what I was expecting".
4
This tunnel seems to go on forever, and it doesn't help that I'm bloated from having just eaten Matt DiMera. To be sure that there was no way he could possibly survive, I ate everything - his flesh, his muscle, his organs, his hair, even his bones. I chewed him up, grinding him between my teeth, but now I feel kind of heavy. That'll pass, but for now it slows me down somewhat. If I'd been able to run as I'd hoped, I would have already caught up with those two girls by now, and their heads would be separated from their bodies. As it is, I have to shift from my wolf to my human form, just so that I can stay upright as I walk along the tunnel and digest my unexpected meal. Still, I won't lose too much time.
It has been a long time since I was down in the Underworld. I have no reason to spend much time there; only a madman would go down there unless he had no other choice. The creatures that live in those ruins do so for a reason: there is nowhere else on Earth where they would be accepted, where their activities and their predilections would be tolerated. The surface world has a tendency to slaughter anything that it considers to be vile or evil. Down here, things are a little different. Down here, such creatures can go about their daily business without being bothered, pausing only for occasional squabbles with one another. It's a dark, rich kingdom of horrors and a place that would drive most men mad the moment that they opened one of the doors and stepped into the Underworld's vast caverns.
Ahead, I can hear Duncan. He's still far away, but I'm definitely getting closer. And I can tell that he's still weak, and he's not moving. That's good; it means he still hasn't regained his legs, so he must have crawled somewhere so he can try to recover in peace. He's wise to do so: not only am I on his trail, but there are myriad other creatures down there that will pick him off if they get a chance. Werewolf meat is something of a delicacy, and there'll be plenty of antipedes and Golvs eager to get sample, not to mention the Flesh Weavers who would give anything to get hold of werewolf skin for their looms. So it's somehow rather appropriate that I will inevitably come across Duncan hidden away in some cave, cowering for his very life. Perhaps when I have finally killed him, I will consume his meat but save his flesh for the Weavers. They would pay me a good price for such a prize. And that would be the final triumph: to sell Duncan's carcass so that it can be woven into the most beautiful fabrics.
And of course if I can sense Duncan, then he can sense me. He knows I'm coming. With every step I take, he grows more fearful.
5
A city. A whole city. Buried deep beneath London. With buildings and streets and everything you would expect of a city. Sure, the buildings are all made of stone and wood, and the streets are cracked, but it's still recognisably a city, carved out of light red stone and spreading as far as the eye can see in this vast cavern. It looks to be as big as London, if not bigger, and the only real difference is that this place seems to be totally deserted. Totally empty.
"It's so big," Darla says as we scrabble down a small rock-face onto the edge of a small road. "How many fucking people lived here?"
"How did it get down here?" I ask, walking over to a building and touching the dusty stone.
"Deliberately sunk," Darla says. "When the humans decided to build their London, they drilled shafts to undermine the stability of the wolf structures. Gradually the whole wolf city crashed through here".
I look through a window, staring at the bare, dark interior. "But this didn't happen," I say. I turn to Darla. "I know enough about history to know that London has been here... forever".
"The two Londons co-existed," Darla says. "Wolf buildings next to human buildings. But some time, a few hundred years ago, all the wolf buildings were sunk down here. That's why there are gaps in these ruins. And then, once the wolf buildings were gone, the humans built new ones in their place". She
suddenly runs over and pulls me away from the little window. "Careful," she says. "Keep away from doors and windows. Some of these buildings are probably occupied by... things".
We walk down a wide street, with empty stone buildings on either side. Far above us, the roof of the cavern stretches across the entire city. It's strange to think that these streets were once bustling with activity. But once the city sank, the werewolves quickly moved on, allowing other things to take control. When you think about it like that, this place is still eerily quiet and calm. After all those stories about monstrous creatures, it's hard not to wonder why the whole city seems to be so still and quiet. Perhaps Matt was wrong. Perhaps there were creatures here once, but now they're gone?
"Are you picking anything up?" Darla asks. "Any sign of Duncan?"
I concentrate and quickly realise that I can just about sense him somewhere in the distance. He's definitely down here, but that's about all I can work out so far. It's frustrating, but my sense of him is slowly getting stronger. I'm pretty sure I'll be able to to find him if we just keep looking. "He's here," I say calmly. "I'm just not sure where".
Darla suddenly stops walking. She seems to be listening to something. "Did you hear that?" she whispers.
I look around at the empty stone buildings. "What?" I reply quietly.
"Something," she says, staying completely still. "Quick," she adds, grabbing me and pulling me through a door and into one of the buildings.
"I thought you said -"
"Sshh," she interrupts.
I'm about to reply when I realise that I can hear something too. A kind of scrabbling sound, like someone struggling along the road. It's really clear and distinct now, and it's getting closer, and now there's a second noise, which sounds like... well, it sounds like the wheels of a wooden cart, but it can't be that...