A Smaller Hell

by A. J. Reid

  Heaving the shelves out of the way brought on a sweat, despite being able to see my breath in the cold air of the room. I rifled through all the items in Lay Away, first looking for something heavy with which to smash the lock from the wooden panel, then something that might grip it so that I could wrench it from its fastenings. Giving up on this, I looked for anything which might cut it or saw through it. There were one or two tools, but nothing heavy-duty enough. Most of the Lay Away stuff was already wrapped up and lying under various trees all over town.

  As the tree pulsed slowly to its maximum brightness, it illuminated a corner of the room I had not searched. There, on its own, stood a black umbrella. Upon closer inspection, the ornate ivory handle gave it away as Miss Allister's. It seemed unusual that she would leave it here when it was still snowing so heavily outside. I unscrewed the handle and retrieved the key for the padlock. After I had passed through the opening, I did my best to pull the shelves back to the wall, but found it difficult to gain a decent footing to do so from the secret room. I grabbed the umbrella, put the key back in the handle and screwed it back on, before using the hooked handle to pull the bookcase back again. My tracks were now satisfactorily covered, so I stood up, brushed myself down and leant on the black brolly while I surveyed what was to be my hideout until the party was in full swing.

  Descent

  I let an hour pass to be sure that the building would be vacated, eventually using my legs to push out the bookcase again. When I emerged into the darkness of Lay Away, there was absolute silence. I stood up, noticing a sheet of paper had been slid under the door. On one side was a mobile phone number and on the other:

  Dear intruder,

  Three options are available to you:

  1. Exit this room and set off the alarm system, which is directly linked to police headquarters.

  2. Wait in this room until 8 a.m. 27th December, running the risk of expiring from dehydration.

  3. Call me to discuss the terms of your release.

  Yours sincerely,

  D. Doyle

  As I tried to wrench open the door leading back into the store, it became obvious that I had also been locked in.

  I pulled back the bookcase and crawled back inside the old Lay Away. Feeling unwell, I struggled on to the Persian rug covering the centre of the room and lay flat on my back. Unable to get comfortable, I removed the rug to examine the source of my discomfort: a bulky, ancient padlock holding shut a trap door. I yanked on the door to see if it was ancient enough to have degraded to the point of being breakable. No such luck.

  I sat atop the hatch for a few minutes before I had an idea. Having retrieved Miss Allister's brolly from across the room, I tipped the key out into my hand from the handle. It fit into the padlock, clunking the mechanism open as I turned it. Lifting back the door, there was a warm gust of air and a certain smell: that of the ale in the Captain’s Rest. There was another scent there too: more like the demon cellar, from which Rachel and I had been chased: the smell of decay.

  The hole in the floor was of a decent size, and upon lowering myself into it, I found the rough rungs of an old wooden ladder. Beneath me, I could hear the wind rushing through the tunnels, and yet I felt no significant breeze. I was in complete darkness and the further I travelled downwards, the warmer the air became. Eventually, my feet clanked against a grate, but I had no room to attempt to unhook or unlock it, so I kicked it through and it fell to the ground with a crash. It seemed to take a while to fall, so I screwed Doyle’s note up into a ball and held my lighter to the corner of it, allowing it to catch before dropping it through the gap left by the forced grate. It fell to the ground about fifteen feet below: far enough to break a leg.

  The fall winded me, but I got myself back to my feet, listening to the lonely drip echo in the cavernous room. Using my lighter, I scouted around for anything that might prove useful as I pushed forward into the unknown. There was an ancient box of crumbling tools, several plates, clay flagons and pipes, like the Captain’s. A bundle of rags in the corner of the room wiped in the sludge inside some old oil cans and coupled with a pick axe handle made an adequate torch. I held it aloft as I searched for an exit of some kind, brushing my hands over the cold sandstone blocks of the walls. It was bigger than I had first thought and there was a sturdy oak table running down each side of the room. I held my torch up as high as I could, surprised to find only the smallest patch of damp in the seam where the ceiling met the wall. Having wrapped some more rags around the flame, I began my journey to the ends of the tables. There were massive wooden benches underneath, which led me to believe that this must have been some sort of dining hall for the workers. Looking at the tables more closely, I found some ancient graffiti. Most involved very basic sums, presumably concerning wagers between the workers. Some names were scratched into the wood, and there were even some concise declarations of love. I ran my fingers over Fred + Margaret 1852, and the heart encircling it.

  If it hadn’t been for the torch, I would have crashed into the trellis gate. The iron was as black as the tunnel that lay beyond it. Wrapping my hands around the bars, I found them to be even colder than the icy wind blowing through them and had to peel my fingers off them.

  The half-moon shape of the trellis extended into the sandstone to prevent it being easily removed. It stood about eight feet high and six feet wide and, judging by the thickness of the bars, would have weighed the best part of a tonne. I imagined Commander Tanner's men defending from within the darkness with flintlock pistols and muskets against the invaders; the frustrated foreign curses echoing through the tunnels as their dead piled up, and the cheers of the English as they successfully defended their hideout.

  Inspecting the small doorway in the trellis, I found it to be secured with an ancient chain, the heft of which I had never seen before. The links were an inch thick, and as black and cold as the rest of the gate. I found Miss Allister's key and tried it in the lock. It came undone with an unexpected smoothness, given the serious, antique nature of these security measures. Pushing open the tiny door with a creak that echoed deep into the tunnels, I managed to squeeze myself through, suddenly grateful for the time I had spent living in the abandoned house, eating little more than Twiglets.

  As I wandered further into the tunnel, I heard water and saw that in the walls every fifteen feet or so, there were nooks big enough for a man to take cover. Every nook made me nervous enough to illuminate it first with the torch before passing by it, but all I found were a few flagons with rotted corks lying next to them.

  I walked for ten minutes, experiencing no change in the nature of my surroundings and seeing no sign of any exit. There was no other path to follow, so despite my burgeoning claustrophobia, I pressed onwards, my footsteps echoing long into the darkness both behind me and ahead. When my torch finally went out, I threw the charred stump to the ground.

  I must have covered a good kilometre in darkness before the lantern appeared. My breath was clouding in front of me, obscuring my view, so I closed my mouth for a few seconds as I approached. I caught sight of a crumpled black blazer on the floor and soon after, sparks of light and the taste of blood. The blow had been hard enough to buckle my knees, but I managed to get myself back on my feet before any more punches landed. My assailant had retreated a good ten feet, towering in front of the lantern as he rolled up the sleeves of his white shirt and tightened his braces. His voice was thick and deep, removing any doubt as to who he might be:

  ‘Come with me.’

  ‘Where’s Rachel?’ I asked.

  ‘Down here,’ Graziano said, looking further down the tunnel.

  As he turned his head, I stepped forward with the heaviest overhand right I could. It landed squarely on the side of Graziano’s jaw, and although he staggered, I might as well have been punching a breezeblock. He didn’t fall over and start having a seizure, as Chapman had done. His speed in countering was shocking, and I was suddenly in the middle of a storm of bloodstained white cotton and dang
erous giant fists clobbering my arms which were only just protecting my face. There was little opportunity to use my feet to move out of his way because of the dimensions of the tunnel, so I fought dirty, reaching down for a handful of the sandy grit beneath my shoes. I could hear Graziano’s heavy breathing, giving me a clear idea of his position until he suddenly fell silent. I listened intently, holding my own breath so that I might hear the slightest movement. I heard the faintest intake of breath from the nearest nook, so I threw the grit where I guessed his eyes would be and aimed a right hook into his trunk, hoping that his arms would be raised up as he rubbed his eyes. It was like thumping a dense bale of hay, but I heard his breath escape in a rush. I continued my assault with both fists until I could feel the blood and spit on my knuckles. He forced out another breath and collapsed sideways on to the floor of the tunnel. My right hand was on fire, probably broken. I picked up a large stone which had fallen from the wall of the tunnel and crept towards Graziano’s shuddering body.

  ‘Get up.’

  Graziano did not respond. He simply continued to shake gently whilst lying on the ground. A noise began to emanate from the mound of expensive cotton, silk and leather lying before me.

  Well aware that this could be some kind of tactic, I approached with the broken stone held above my head. I grabbed hold of his blood-spattered shirt and rolled him over with my other hand. What I saw made me drop the stone on to my foot and recoil not in pain, but in horror at what I had done. Graziano sobbed and held his shaking hand to the wound above his eye, as a child might clutch a grazed knee. Blood flowed quite freely from the wound. I manoeuvred his vast, limp frame against the wall of the tunnel, his face screwed up with pain and his lip trembling. I panicked that I might not be able to undo what I had done and quickly kneeled down to staunch the flow of blood. As I wiped the blood from his face and drew the lantern nearer, it became obvious that he had suffered some much more devastating injury in the past.

  ‘Thank you,’ he mumbled, looking down at his shaking hands.

  I cleaned the last few bits of grit and blood from his face and loosened his tie, which he had kept tied tight throughout the battle. His neck relaxed and he let out a sigh of relief.

  ‘Ms. Doyle will be angry if I take it off,’ he murmured, pressing his hand to the loosened knot.

  I removed the tie completely and turned it into a compress for his wound. He held it there while he looked at me with a confused expression, before leaning forwards and resting his heavy head upon my shoulder. I thought of Graziano’s admission to me, blurted out in Doyle’s office the first time I laid eyes on him:

  I … killed a man.

  Beati Mundo Corde

  I kept Graziano in front of me for the remainder of our trek through the tunnels. He kept looking round at me every fifty steps or so, like a child who had been caught wrongdoing and was being marched back to his mother. His fear made me wonder just how many of those scars on his head, face and hands had been acquired in his boxing career, and how many had been inflicted to satisfy Doyle’s sadistic requirements. I still wanted to ask him which man he had killed, but not until I had a clear escape route.

  I finally felt the bitter sea wind on my face, then the barnacles and seaweed underfoot. The chaotic wind howled and ragged us about as we both tried to step down the sharp decline in the tunnel toward the gate. The seaweed did not make it easy, so Graziano and I held on to each other and took one wall each, using any irregularities in the rock as grips to prevent ourselves sliding into the tormented, frothy black water crashing around the tunnel’s exit.

  We both ended up knee deep in the freezing water, eventually. I wondered what venomous, slimy sea creatures were swimming between my legs before a larger problem presented itself: one of the giant, old padlocks was holding us in. Graziano turned a key in the lock and it dropped into the blackness of the estuary with a splash, letting us out of the tunnels and into the night. I was now thigh-deep in water so cold that it felt as if it were burning. A blizzard crashed heavy black waves against the colossal sea wall further up the coast and Christmas lights danced on the far shore as we thrust ourselves through the water. Graziano cried out as one of his feet became stuck in the muddy sand. I turned back and reached down to free his foot, the limb working free, but the shoe remaining where it was.

  ‘Which way?’

  Graziano pointed with one of his thick fingers towards the ferry being thrown about in the churning black soup of the river, only just visible through the snowstorm. If the marina had been on this side of the river, I would have borrowed a dinghy, but there was nothing. We staggered on to the sand and I looked at the ferry in the distance, where Doyle had Rachel.

  ‘We have to get out there,’ I said, beckoning him to follow me as I strode westwards along the shore, closer to the ferry.

  When there was no response, and I couldn’t hear his heavy footsteps behind me, I looked back to see Graziano standing motionless in the same spot. His feet, one unprotected, were sinking into the black sand as he stared down at them. His bloodstained driver’s outfit made him look like a huge, injured penguin.

  ‘Are you alright?’

  ‘I can’t feel,’ he announced.

  Through the snow, I could make out the dim lights of the ferry terminal, closed down for the night. Everything seemed so far away through the swirling kaleidoscope of snow and darkness. Graziano had already begun to limp and the ferry appeared no closer than when we had first emerged from the tunnel. His lips were blue and he was holding his jacket tightly around him, his bloodied tie still dangling from his breezeblock head. Looking around at the black sand and mud, although there were many small coves for shelter, the cold wind raged through each one. Just as I began to lose hope of reaching the ferry at all, we rounded a corner of the sea wall and the stormy night air was carved in two by the bow of a boat, like a giant wooden nose peeking into my nightmare. Graziano stood up straight as a dark shadow appeared on deck.

  ‘All aboard,’ said the Captain.

  As we climbed up the rope ladder and on to the boat, he greeted us both with a slap on the back.

  Inside the cabin, the Captain handed us two heavy blankets to wrap around our shoulders and flung open the door of his wood burner, the bright red glow of the embers radiating heat into the cabin.

  ‘Rachel’s aboard the ferry,’ I chattered through my teeth, still freezing.

  ‘With that witch, I suppose?’

  I nodded, while Graziano just shivered.

  The galley door flew open and to my surprise, Miss Allister emerged, carrying a large pot of stew and a ladle. She went back into the galley and returned with bowls, spoons, crusty bread and a large clay flagon, such as I had seen in the Captain’s Rest. Leaving the flagon aside, she served up the stew, glancing at me and shaking her head, but smiling at Graziano.

  ‘Miss Allister?’

  I tried catching her eye, but she ignored me.

  ‘Hmph,’ she grunted and turned away to fetch more.

  She placed Graziano’s chunk of bread down gently, before ramming mine endways into the middle of my bowl of stew. I couldn’t imagine what I had done to anger her so. Even the Captain looked sheepish as she stormed in and out of the room before seating herself at the table.

  ‘Miss Allister, thank you for the …’ I began.

  ‘You really ought to be ashamed of yourself,’ she interrupted, pointing her spoon at me. ‘Look at this boy’s head.’

  Graziano smiled and stew ran down the sides of his mouth. He continued to shovel the steaming food into his face, while my spoon was held by my lips.

  ‘But he … I was only defending myself,’ I pleaded.

  ‘You’re lucky someone didn’t get hurt,’ Miss Allister said, waving her spoon at me across the table.

  ‘You eat up now. We’ll say no more about it, but no more fighting,’ she said, now waving her spoon at both me and Graziano, who had already emptied his bowl.

  ‘How about a drink?’ the captain said, p
icking up the ancient flagon in one giant hand and uncorking it with the other. He took a drink before handing it to me.

  I drank and within seconds, my bones felt warmed. I intended only to take a few mouthfuls of the stew before reminding everyone of the urgency of my circumstances. As soon as I began to chew the steaming food before me, all my withered parts were replenished. I finished the bowl and took another swig of brandy, afterwards wiping my mouth on my sleeve. Miss Allister now smiled at me and walked over to my side. She crouched down and wiped my face with her apron.

  ‘Pearl? Your name is Pearl?’ I asked Miss Allister, casting a glance in the Captain’s direction.

  Only weeks before, I had been working in the call-centre and returning to an empty flat every night to talk to ghosts in the photographs. I would toast them with a bottle of wine. Then another … and another, until I could toast no more and had penetrated the glass of the frames, warping time in the process, melting in amongst the faded colours of memories triggered by the photographs. We were together again, albeit in a reduced sense. I would circle their laughing bodies in the photographs, feeling the fabric of their clothing, marveling at how soft their skin was and the suppleness of their hair. The smells of family barbecues, the way laughter reverberated around our house, fishing trips with my father and laughing with my mother.