Harry couldn't decide whether to laugh or cry at the sight. The image captured on the CCTV footage burned in his mind; a secret he couldn't reveal to any of mourners. He wanted the ceremony, with its empty words and cold promises, to end. His gaze slid across Emma's parents, unable to fix on their wet, drawn faces. He couldn't bear to look at her friends, their designer clothes and insect eyed sunglasses monstrously out of place in the sombre surroundings. Gravestones and tombs littered the cemetery, a thin scab of dirt covering a city of the dead.
The rain intensified and the priest's voice crumbled under the constant hiss. A winch squeaked and the casket descended until it made a small splash. Thick clots of mud were cast into the hole, splattering the casket. Roses followed in a tumbling shower of petals. An unspoken signal sent the mourners scuttling away, umbrellas shivering in the breeze.
Harry gazed into the hole, aware that the gravedigger waited impatiently to one side. He couldn't come to grips with the glossy box half-sunken in the mud, nor the thought of the hunk of white flesh encased inside. Gripped by remorse, Harry stumbled away. Fumbling in his jacket for his mobile, he thumbed Standish's number. An automated message stepped through several options, then a tired voice came on the line.
'Metropolitan Police. How may I direct your call?'
'I want to speak to Detective Standish.' Harry listened to the pause stretch and stretch until he thought he had been disconnected.
'Detective Standish isn't in this morning. Who's calling?'
Harry gave his name. The response was stiff. 'Standish hasn't been seen since he went off shift last night. Do you know where he might be, Mr Jenkins?'
Harry felt an icy sensation creep across his scalp. 'Is he expected today?'
'He is. I'll ask again, do you know where he is?' Harry heard anger and suspicion at the other end of the line.
'No, no…I. No, I haven't spoken to him since yesterday. He…I have to go.' Harry hung up, silencing the insistent voice. He watched Emma's parents duck into their car. It joined a convoy of vehicles edging across the muddy car park, the lead vehicles disappearing around a bend. Looking up the hill, Harry saw the gravedigger shovelling earth into the grave. He imagined the casket, wallowing in the muck, mud raining down on it. And he saw again the static picture on the television; Emma hunched over a bin, her hair clotted with filth, eyes burning with hunger.
'Standish,' he whispered. He ran to his car.
***
Hunkered deep within his coat, Harry watched people scurry by, steam leaking from their nostrils into the chill night air. Music blared, a car roared, wheels skidded on the wet road. Several men staggered out of a bar, filling the air with raucous laughter before disappearing down a dark alley. Harry checked his watch again. Now or never.
He descended the stairs, his shadow stretching behind him. The air was humid, the tiles dull and greasy looking. The concourse bent, then bent again, advertising posters shouting silently at him. Apart from a cleaner rattling a bucket around with the aid of his mop, Harry was alone. Rounding a barricade, he glanced at the ticket booths, windows dark. Behind the glass, a shadow crept away.
A train rumbled deep underground, the tremors throbbing through his feet. Climbing awkwardly over the ticket barrier, Harry hurried to the stilled escalators and slowly jogged down, feeling off balance without the familiar rattling movement.
The certainty he had felt at the cemetery evaporated by the time he reached the bottom. Guilt had taken him many places in the last year, away from friends and family and into dark places he wasn't entirely sure he had escaped. Reaching into his jacket pocket, he pulled out a photo of Emma, smiling coyly at the camera. He felt a surge of bittersweet nostalgia, of memories gone slightly sour, of time lost and old regrets. More rumblings, and the air swirled, gusted. Sighing, he tucked the photo away and rounded the corner onto the first platform.
People waited listlessly, their strength leached by the humidity and the late hour. The platform was a bleak concrete tube covered in stained tiles, lit at intervals by banks of flickering fluorescents. Overflowing bins stood sentinel, their innards there for all to see through the clear plastic. Both ends of the tunnel echoed hollowly. Pulling the photo out, Harry started. Approaching everyone, he thrust Emma's photo in their faces, insistently asking if they had seen her. Most of the people were hard eyed and uncommunicative. The rest were off-hand, distant, or simply rude. Leaving them to their fumbled conversations and disinterest, Harry made for the next platform.
The night dragged on. He wound deeper and deeper, slogged along platforms clogged with rubbish and filled with a muffled dragon's roar that set his teeth on edge. With each descent, the air grew colder and the light murkier. The speakers hanging from the ceilings buzzed expectantly, the electronic hum eating away at his self-control.
'Just look at the bloody photo, will you?' he pleaded, his anger mounting. The couple ignored him for a moment, then the man, a thin, pale youth with distant, unfocused eyes squinted at the picture.
'Pretty face,' he mumbled, turning away. The girl giggled. Harry bunched his hands, crumpling the photo. He stalked towards the end of the platform and the final set of escalators.
'You don't want to go down there, man. You'll be sorry.' The girl giggled again, her thin, derisory laughter following him.
Stepping off the escalator, Harry saw banks of fluorescent lights flickering weakly, punctuating the murk with dazzling bursts. A recorded station announcement mumbled distantly. The walls shone with condensation. Scattered puddles of water added to the oppressive isolation.
The first platform lay empty. Another rumble, which sounded impossibly like it came from beneath his feet, sent dust sifting from the ceiling. The sound of his footsteps chased him the length of the platform. A headache began to grip tight. Ignoring the rising throb, he crossed to the last platform.
A few people waited, their faces screwed up against the world. Their responses were the same. A shake of the head or a dismissive grunt. His headache was now a rising tide. Slumping onto a bench, Harry winced as the cold bit through his clothes.
Closing his eyes, he tilted his pounding head against the tiles. Enough. He considered his options. Home, he thought, and felt something curdle inside his chest. An empty house, an empty bed and a lifetime of unanswered questions.
'Got a dollar, mate?'
Harry's eyes snapped open. A short man stood in front of him, a hopeful smile lighting an otherwise haggard face. Faded, stained clothes hung loose on his spare frame. For all his quiet desperation, his eyes glowed with an inner fire that suggested religious fervour or an all-consuming hunger.
Harry almost told him to go away, but thought better of it. Pulling out Emma's picture, he smoothed it over one knee and held it up.
'Have you seen her?'
The beggar peered at it for a while, his face almost comically intent. Finally, he smiled, and Harry felt his heart lurch.
'Sure. Sure, I've seen her.' His face screwed up. 'Don't know why you'd want to, mister. But I've seen her.'
'When?' Harry tried to keep the eagerness out of his voice.
'Oh, earlier, I reckon. A fella asked after her, same as you. I pointed her out to him. What was his name? Standard? Stanley?'
'Standish?'
'Yeah, that's right. Standish. Didn't look happy to see her. They took off together.'
'Where?' Harry struggled to his feet, his head pounding.
'Down there.' The beggar pointed towards the tunnel mouth.
Harry looked at the beggar, then at the gaping tunnel. He shook his head.
'Piss off mate. I’m not in the mood for jokes.'
The beggar's face fell. 'I did see her, really,' he mumbled, shuffling away.
Watching him go, Harry glanced up at the overhead monitors and calculated how long until his train arrived. He swore. Closing his eyes, he felt the clutching pain in his head worsen. A foetid breath of warm air swirled around him and he jerked upright. The platform pitched and yawed and he al
most vomited. Squeezing his eyes shut, he wiped a hand over his face, trying to order his thoughts.
When he looked again, the world had returned to an even keel. Exhaling slowly, he peered down the platform. The lights jittered and fizzed at intervals along the low, constricting ceiling. Shadows buried the far end of the platform. Harry thought he saw two figures squirming against each other in the gloom. A bank of lights shuddered, sending staccato bursts pulsing towards him. A sharp crack sounded and the darkness drew closer.
Harry jumped when something brushed his leg. Turning into a rising breeze, he watched a crumpled newspaper crawl away. A train blasted through, the driver a barely glimpsed silhouette grinning in the shuddering light. Brakes squealed and the carriages slowed to a halt. The doors jerked open amidst a chorus of beeps. Passengers boarded, leaving Harry alone with the beggar, who rummaged through a bin.
The doors surged together and the train accelerated away, sucking up a storm of rubbish in its wake. Blank eyed passengers stared at him, the carriages disappearing one by one as the train fed itself into the tunnel.
Uneasy, Harry stared at the monitor. The details of his train eventually updated in reassuring white letters, cheering him a little. A fizzing burst of static and another bank of lights failed. He rubbed at grainy eyes. More figures crowded the dark.
'Bloody hell.' His head felt stuffed with cotton. Tinny rattling drew his attention and he squinted. The beggar had crushed an aluminium can underfoot and picked it up. Harry saw him smile.
He began kicking the can from foot to foot, dancing around in a jigging circle. Harry heard a distant rolling throb. The beggar faltered and the can spun from his lunging foot. It bounced over the edge and onto the tracks with a thin clatter.
Sagging, the beggar inched nervously over to the edge and peered onto the tracks. Harry felt his guts squirm. The beggar looked beyond Harry to the yawning tunnel's empty maw, his thin face stitched with worry. Harry thought guiltily of the gold coin nestling in his pocket. Surely for the sake of a few cents he'd leave the can be?
The little man hovered indecisively, then, his face resolute, he scuttled over and disappeared from sight. Swearing, Harry lurched to his feet. He saw a hand reach out of the gloom and scramble for purchase.
'Hang on, mate,' he called, hurrying along the platform. Half way there, a rising electrical crackle made the hair on his neck bristle. The chill deepened and his teeth chattered. The lights overhead flickered, grew thin, the milky light falling away into darkness.
The hand spasmed and Harry heard a sound, whispered along on a current of air, swirl around him. It had the shape of words, thin and sibilant, underscored by a crunching noise that sent him stumbling into the brighter light further up the platform.
Feeling exposed, he fell to his knees and slid along the tiles until he fetched up at the edge of the platform. Peering down, he saw the flotsam and jetsam of everyday life lying between the tracks; cans, newspapers, food wrappers. The beggar lay face down in the clutter, an arm draped over a track and his legs lost in the margins of the gloom.
'Hey fella, are you ok - '
Then Harry was scrambling back across the tiles until he collided with the wall, a fist jammed in his mouth to choke back a scream. An image was scorched into his mind, so vile he wanted to scrub his memory down to the core. He couldn't look again, but nevertheless, he saw.
A limp hand, unfurled, fingernails black with grime. The face, turned towards the platform, pale and pinched, eyes wide with shock. His threadbare jacket had ridden up a little, revealing the small of his back. Beyond that narrow expanse of skin, loops of intestines with ragged ends trailed away from his stomach cavity into the dark. His legs…Harry’s mind slid away.
Harry heard a giggle, a high-pitched whine that spoke of madness and depravity. Something broke, a loud splintering sound, followed by gentle slurps. Shooting to his feet, he backed away, eyes locked on the darkness swarming along the tracks. More movement in the shadows. Realising how narrow his island of light had become, Harry ran for the exits.
At the lifts, he tapped frantically at the buttons, crying out in frustration at the lack of response. Lunging towards the silent escalators, he climbed the static treads, panicked breathing whistling in his ears.
He stopped at the top, cursing. Shutters barred the way to the next level. Rattling them in frustration, he turned back. Stuttering light filled the high ceiling with marching shadows. A distant horn sounded and he looked at his watch.
'Christ, the train.' Bolting down the escalator, Harry slid around the corner and stumbled to a halt.
More lights died in a spectacular explosion of white, leaving him marooned beneath a nest of fluorescents that dimmed and surged in buzzing fits. Silent figures massed within the shadows. Their eyes glittered and he thought he heard a low, ghastly chuckle.
'What the fuck's going on?' he cried out, his voice echoing flatly. Monitors along the platform fizzed, their images shuddering in unison. One by one, they failed, the last reflecting Harry's ghostly, distorted reflection before it went black.
Panic filled him. Conscious only of the need to escape, Harry jumped off the platform and ran into the tunnel, chased by a rising murmur. Inside, the frigid air tasted of metal and oil. Dim lights punctuated the ceiling. Deeper into the tunnel he felt the ground tremble, the vibrations making the bones in his legs throb. Goosebumps stippled his skin. Wind ruffled his hair. His eyes widened.
'Jesus, no.' Looking frantically around, he spotted an EXIT sign stencilled high on a wall. Beneath it a plaque bore an arrow and the legend '100 metres.' He ran, building up to a ragged sprint when shrieks of metal on metal reached him.
Harry glanced over his shoulder. Twin shafts of light from the train sitting at the darkened platform pinned him to the darkness. Pale shapes moved between the beams, snuffling faces bent low to the ground.
The next sign read '50 metres' and despair engulfed him. A horn sounded and the train lurched forward, smoothly building up speed. A figure in the driver's cabin leaned forward, its bleached face a cackling skull. The lights swept over him, revealing a gap cut into the wall. With the train bearing down on him, Harry pitched himself into the notch.
An end clatter of metal overlaid by a thin, whistling shriek overwhelmed him. The terrible pressure squeezed his eardrums until he cried out in pain. Piss drenched his groin. The horn howled one final, triumphant time, then the pressure eased, leaving behind a cacophony of falling echoes.
Pressed against the wall, Harry felt his heart jar painfully against his ribs. Once on his feet, he reeled like a drunk. Numb fingers fumbled for his phone. Pressing a button, he summoned a wisp of light from the screen. Holding the mobile high, he saw a shape resolve from the darkness.
It huddled at the rear of the notch. Leaning closer, Harry choked back a mouthful of bile. Torn clothing hung from the limp body. All that remained of the head was a mass of glistening muscle and bone. Chunks had been torn from the neck and most of its fingers were missing. The chest was a turmoil of savaged flesh; cracked ribs poking into the air. The stomach cavity was open to the air, a sewer of blood and shit. Swallowing, Harry allowed his gaze to travel the length of the ravaged body until he stopped at the worn shoes. A memory loosened itself from his numbed brain.
'Oh God. Standish?'
Scrambling backwards onto the tracks, Harry watched the figure fall into the darkness. Away from the light, it was just a memory, an idle thought with no shape, no texture, no menace. A ragged, scraping sound startled him and he swung his arm up, the phone's light casting a wan halo. A face emerged from the gloom. His blood ran cold.
'Emma?' It was impossible to believe that the neat, polished woman he had left at the pub was this sagging, stinking ruin standing before him. Even with the filthy rags and the vermin crawling through her greasy, snarled hair, he instantly recognised her face. Glimmering eyes from within deep, shadowy sockets met his. Her pale lips worked.
'Come to me.' Her mouth parted sluggishly, voice
thick with desire. Hope flared in his chest and Harry fell into her embrace. He felt her hands claw at his back. Then they were kissing, deeply, passionately. He gagged at the taste but she surged against him, trapping him with her arms. Her hands fluttered around his head before settling on either side of his face.
'God, Em. Where have you been?' Fingers dug into his scalp.
'Careful Em, you're hurti-' He froze. Struggling against her wiry grip, he looked into narrowed, blood-filled eyes. Hooking his head down, she mashed her yellowed, stiff face against his. He felt her skin shift. Teeth nipped his lips. With difficulty, he forced her back, rubbing at the coppery wetness smeared across his mouth.
In the dim light, Harry saw other figures surrounding him. The stench of rot and sweat made him dizzy. Staggering around, he desperately looked for a way out. The circle tightened into a noose. The faces of his tormentors sagged and looked ill-fitting. Only their eyes seemed alive.
Emma cocked her head, reminding Harry of a praying mantis. Her face twisted into snarl. Then he looked harder and saw that her entire face had shifted to one side. A cheek sat where her mouth should be. Her lips hung loose around her chin. An ear obscured an eye, the other glinting at him from under a loose flap of skin. His vision blurred.
'No,' he whispered, watching her shuffle closer. Lifting her hands left hand on a silk cushion in a box six feet deep, the wrist chewed, a voice screamed at him, she grabbed her hair and tugged, her features losing their structure like a deflating balloon. Underneath, raw flesh gleamed around a grinning hole full of teeth.
A chorus of laughter, which grew and grew, swamped his screams and then they fell on him, feasting.
Afterword
When Stephen invited me to contribute to Ill at Ease 2, I was gobsmacked. And delighted. And then not a little panicked.
And then I got down to work. Often with my writing, it is a single image that provides the impetus. In my tale of road vengeance, the image of an upturned Volkswagon provided the kernel of the story. Sometimes it is simply a word, like widdershins, in my story, 'Widdershins', that makes me reach for my laptop.
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