by Fiona Shaw
–I’ll go first, Ollie said. –Gimme your torch. Soon as we’re out of sight, I’ll flick it on. Ready?
Jake shut his eyes. He pictured his grandparents and a house by the sea. He’d seen a photo once. He thought of Jet and the gang. Ollie’s hand was on his arm. –All right, he said.
The next train pulled out, leaving the platform nearly empty. A glance from Ollie. This was it. Vaulting the warning barrier, they jumped down beside the rails and walked fast into the tunnel.
The ground was rough and Jake could feel the sharp hardcore through his boots. He moved carefully, following in Ollie’s steps. The tunnel smelled of dirt and rubber. It was hot. Ollie was coughing. The noises from the platform had disappeared the moment they were inside the tunnel and all Jake could hear now was a low hum. As they followed the curve, the darkness sucked them in and Jake put a hand to the tunnel wall to steady himself, running his fingers along the bricks. The soot was thick, and soft as feathers. It was dense. Ollie turned on the torch and a thin beam of light hit the wall beyond them. Something scurried across the beam, black in the black dust.
–What are we looking for? Jake said.
Ollie shook his head. –Don’t know. Anything.
Banks of cables snaked along the wall beside them and blackened girders curved like ribs around the tunnel.
–Which rail’s the electric one? Jake said, and Ollie shook his head again.
Jake’s heart seemed to be beating very fast and he tried to get deeper breaths. He could taste the filthy air in his mouth and at the back of his throat. The hum on the rails was growing louder, it was pulsing, and he could hear a rumble that must be the next train. Like a beast in its cave, it sounded, just waking up. But they hadn’t been walking more than a minute, surely. They must still have another minute till the next train came.
Keep a hand on the wall, keep a hand on the wall, he told himself. We’ll see the way out soon. There will be a way out. Sweat prickled his skin. This was the dark of all his old fears. This was the dark for real.
Ollie was walking faster, and the torch beam was jagging from side to side, touching the black walls of the tunnel, striking the cold silver steel of the rails.
–I can’t see, Jake said, but only to himself. The hum of the rails was in his chest now. The boys started to run, stumbling through the dark.
Better to die near someone. That was his thought, like a voice in his head, and he saw his mum and dad in the car together, imagined them, eyes open, holding hands, beneath the water.
Ahead of them, the tunnel straightened out, stretching away in a straight line, and now, at its farthest point, Jake saw a beam of light.
The train!
It came so fast towards them, its headlights lighting up the tunnel dark, and in seconds the hum became a roar, filling Jake’s head, sucking the air from his lungs, dazzling him.
–JAKE! A voice was screaming somewhere, and Ollie was grabbing him, pulling him sideways, and he fell hard to the ground as the train thundered past, a blur of steel and red, and it was quiet again, quiet again, quiet again, except for the train’s beat dying away on the lines.
Jake lay still, winded. His pulse was banging in his ears and something had happened to his leg.
–Where are we? he said.
Ollie shone the torch around. They were in some kind of passageway. It seemed to be cut out of the rock, stretching away into the ground. Its walls were as black as the tunnel’s and at the furthest reach of the torch beam, near the top of the passageway, was a small, whitewashed O sign. Turning the torch on himself, Ollie grinned and made a whoop of triumph.
Jake put his fingers to his leg and they came away, gritty with dirt and sticky with blood.
–I was a dead man back there, he said. –You saved me.
–Give me your hand, Ollie said, and he pulled Jake to his feet. –You all right? He shone the torch on to Jake’s face, making him blink. –You don’t look great. You got black smudges all over, and to be honest, your face looks grey underneath.
–I’m fine, Jake said, and he nodded to be more convincing. –Besides, you look just the same. Black smears, all that.
–Let’s go then, Ollie said. –Cos they must be close by. We’ll find them any time now.
And Jake didn’t voice his fear, the fear he knew Ollie had too, that they wouldn’t find the gang. That they’d have gone already.
The passageway stretched down deeper underground. They might have been walking to the centre of the earth. Jake lost all sense of space and time. His body hurt and his mind was scared, but he kept as close to Ollie as he could, and put one foot in front of the other and kept on walking. Once, as they turned a corner, someone disappeared ahead of them. He was sure it was a person, but it was gone before he could be sure.
–D’you see that? he said, and Ollie had looked back at him with wide, scared eyes.
Eventually the passageway opened up: a vaulted space, brick-walled and half-lit with thin, fluorescent strips.
They stood in the middle of it, and looked around them.
–What is this place? Ollie said.
A long wooden bench ran the length of one side with wooden lockers beneath like the ones in school for where you put your shoes. At the far end, three tunnels led away out of sight. They were numbered: 62, 63 and 64, and Tunnel 63 had a yellow triangle sign and a zigzag arrow with a cartoon outline of a man lying down beneath it and some words Jake couldn’t make out. He sat down on the bench.
–The others must’ve come through here. Maybe they left something. Like a sign for us, he said.
It was good to sit down. He was suddenly very tired.
–Maybe, Ollie said. –If they had time. He was walking round the edge. –Smells like the river, he said. –One of these tunnels. Smells mouldy. Don’t like it. I want our gang. Even Davie. He sat down beside Jake. –What if … He shook his head. –No. They’ll come and find us. They’re my family. Our family.
Jake was watching the man on the sign. He was getting up from under the arrow and he glowed in the grey fluorescent light. The man was standing up in the sign now, and turning his head, beckoning.
He shut his eyes. He was too tired to move.
But the man was still there, behind his eyelids, and he was calling to him.
–This way. Come and join us, Jakey.
It was a voice Jake knew, like he knew his own name.
–Dad, he whispered.
–We’ll hold your hand, said his mum’s voice. –Keep you from the dark. Always. Always.
Down that tunnel. That’s where they were. Clear as day, and alive.
Fighting his exhaustion, Jake stood. The black walls shimmered in front of him. He took a deep breath, to drink as much as he could of the warm air. His legs were shaky and he felt hot. Burning from the inside. Hot as anything. The air from the tunnel drifted towards him. It smelled fresh now, not mouldy at all. It smelled of trees, and reeds, and the wind.
–Come on, Jakey, the voices said. They knew about the river. They were in the river already, waiting for him.
He walked towards Tunnel 63, towards their voices. The river would cool him down. The man in the sign was waiting. He smiled at Jake, a kind smile, and beckoned, and Jake stepped into the tunnel.
Jake hit the floor with a crash, headlong, the side of his face against the concrete, smelling its bitter, dank smell. He smelled the river and he smiled, because there was his dad and there was his mum, and he felt the grit of the ground against his cheek, and someone was holding his legs, pulling him backwards, and he could hear Ollie’s voice, muffled, like it was underwater. Then everything was quiet.
Twenty-two
A long way off, a dog was barking. Something brushed across his forehead and Jake swiped at it. Everything smelled of soot.
–Porca vacca, you’re awake! That was Ollie’s voice, but so loud that Jake put his hands to his ears. His arms felt heavy as stone and a pulse of pain throbbed across his skull. He opened his eyes. Grey light, then
Ollie’s head, his face, looming in. Dirt was smeared over his face, and his breath stank. The room stank, and everything was loud.
–Quiet, Jake said. –So thirsty. His voice was rusty, hoarse, and his tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth.
Ollie sat back on his haunches and laughed. –You’ve been away with the fairies. Burning up, hot as hell, and shouting crazy, crazy stuff. He reached into Jake’s rucksack and pulled out a carton of juice.
Jake made to sit up, but something was cutting into him, pinning him down. –Gimme the drink! He reached up to his chest and felt rope tight across him. –What’ve you done to me?
Ollie’s face was serious. –Tied you to the bench. Had to. You were heading down that tunnel. The one with the danger sign. I had to drag you back, wasn’t easy. You were so strong, and so crazy. Shouting and shouting, saying your mum was there, your dad, and Jet. So I tied you up. Found some washing line in your rucksack. Only way to keep you safe. You’ve been out for two days, Jake.
While Ollie unpicked the knots, Jake tried to think, but his head was a fog. Where was the dog? Was it Jet?
–You’ve been ranting nearly the whole time, Ollie said. –Loud sometimes, whispering sometimes, like you were talking to someone, but not me. Just once you were quiet, and that’s when I thought you were for it because you went limp, like a dead man, but your eyes were still open. For hours, Jake. Hours and hours.
Jake licked his lips. They were cracked and sore. –I need water, he said.
–Two days, Jake. You’ve been out for two days. I thought I was going out of my head. Tried to get some juice into you, but I reckon most of it went down your neck.
Ollie passed Jake the carton of juice, and leaning up on an elbow, Jake drank it down, the whole thing. Ollie was shouting at him not to finish it, it was the only drink they had, but Jake couldn’t stop.
Then something else pushed into Jake’s mind. His mum and dad. They’d been here; he could still feel his mum’s hand on his hair. They’d called to him, and he’d wanted to go.
–Where are they? He grabbed at Ollie’s jacket. –Where are they?
–Get off. Ollie pulled away, stared at him. –Who?
–My mum and dad. They were in Tunnel Sixty-three. They wanted me to go with them. Where are they?
Ollie pulled the washing line out from under Jake. He shook his head. –It was a fever dream, he said. –A wish. There’s other people down here. I mean, not our gang, not that I’ve found yet. That must be what you heard, because I heard them too.
–No. I saw it for real. You weren’t here, and they were, and they called me. My mum had on the scarf I gave her for her birthday. The one with blue and red sailboats.
But there was a line in Ollie’s forehead, and he looked sad. –Your parents are dead, Jake. You saw them in a dream.
Jake sat up, head spinning, fingers fuzzy. He looked across the space and felt his mum and dad slip away from him, fainter and fainter, and then they were gone.
Gone again.
He could feel it in his chest like a pain, the feeling he had, the sadness.
Ollie filled Jake in on his lost time: Ollie’s exploring, the options they had. Tunnel 62 ended at a locked gate, and Tunnel 64 at a river.
–But it’s not a river we could cross, Ollie said. –It’s like a torrent. I can’t see how the gang could have crossed it either. And it’s dirty. Really dirty. There’s stuff in it, stuff like from your toilet, and dead things. And I saw rats. Big rats.
–What about Tunnel Sixty-three?
–Last one I went into. I know it was your fever, but I was spooked when you saw your mum and dad down there. The torch was giving out, so I couldn’t see properly, whether there were Outwalker signs. Anyway, I nearly fell over an edge of the ground – like, the ground just stopped. Disappeared. I couldn’t help myself, I yelled out.
–So how deep is it? Jake said.
–I don’t know. That’s when the torch died.
–Maybe we can get down with the washing line, Jake said. –Even in the dark. Drop a pebble to hear the bottom, give us an idea of how deep it is. Secure it at the top and …
Ollie was shaking his head. –We’d be mad. We don’t even know if it’s the right tunnel. He’d been euphoric when Jake woke up, but now his voice was flat and dead. Dead as the light in this place, flat as its old air.
–But maybe my parents appearing is a sign, Jake said. He knew it wasn’t logical, but they’d been so real. His mum had been wearing her silver starfish earrings. His dad’s chin was stubbly, like he hadn’t shaved that day.
–Stop there, Ollie said, –because now you’re really scaring me. We are not going to drop down a black hole because you saw your dead parents in a fever dream.
–So what then? Sit here and die of thirst?
–No, we go back up. Back the way we came, soon as possible. Out of the tunnel, back through the station. Ollie was putting on his rucksack as he spoke, like he’d made up his mind.
–But the others must have gone somewhere, Jake said. –You’re sure we can’t cross the river?
–It’ll drown us and spit us up god knows where. Miles away, probably. If they’ve gone in there, then they’re dead. And if we go in, we’ll just be some drowned boys nobody knows and they’ll bury us in a grave with no name.
A shiver crawled over Jake’s skin. He saw the dead dog in the pile of rubbish, could feel the smell of it in his nostrils. What if Jet …? But he mustn’t think that, and he shook the thought away.
–We gotta try and get across, he said. –We might drown, but we’re dead boys, deffo, if we go back the way we came. Good as dead. You saw the screens same as I did. They’re hunting for us up there, on the streets above our heads, Ollie. For you and me. Not for the gang. For you and me. We’re murderers now. If we go back, they’ll catch us, and hub us, and lock us away in one of those Home Academies for really bad kids and we’ll never get out. I’ll never see Jet again, you’ll never see your dad, we’ll never see the gang. He slammed his hand down on the bench with frustration. –Come on! Think! He was yelling, but he couldn’t help himself. They couldn’t come all this way just to turn around and hand themselves in.
He stood up, and felt his legs go from under him, grabbing the bench just in time to fall back down on it.
–Stupido, Ollie said. –You haven’t eaten for two days. He rummaged in his rucksack and found a slab of malt loaf. It was sticky and sweet and it made Jake feel sick. But he swallowed down a chunk. You’ll feel better for some food. His mother’s voice, but only in his mind this time.
–Ollie? he said, because he didn’t want to hear his mother’s voice now. Not his mother’s or his father’s. He didn’t want to be sad, and he didn’t want to think on dead things. Not dead in any river. Maybe this was it, this room, and him and Ollie; and someone would find them years from now, just skeletons left inside their clothes.
He shook his head. Bad thoughts.
–Ollie, he said again, louder, wanting to tell him he wasn’t mad at him really, that they could still get to Scotland, just the two of them, that it would be all right.
But Ollie didn’t answer. He was on his feet, and walking over to the tunnels. Walking like a boy who’s seen a ghost, Jake thought, and his skin prickled.
–Ollie, he said once more, his voice urgent.
Ollie stood at the entrance to Tunnel 64 and stared into the black. –Listen, he said, and faint, very faint, Jake heard a dog’s bark.
Twenty-three
Jet came hurtling with his lead trailing, a black fur bullet. Tearing past Ollie, he knocked Jake backwards, licking his face, then stepping back and barking at him, like he used to bark at squirrels, and his tail whipping from side to side. And Jake grabbed hold of him and held on, because Jet felt like the difference between life and death.
Poacher and Martha came out of the tunnel, blinking. Poacher was scratching at his dreads like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. They stood and stared at the two boys, and Jak
e and Ollie stood and stared back. Then Poacher got this huge grin on his face, punched the air. Ollie whooped, and Jake, and then Martha was hugging them like they were her own boys, which maybe they were, in a way, and it all started Jet up with his barking again.
They’d brought food and water, which was musty-tasting, like it had sat around too long.
–It’s safe, Poacher said. –Boiled.
Martha had brought her medicine bag, and while Ollie described Jake’s fever, she cleaned the wound on Jake’s leg and dusted it with sweet-smelling powder and covered it with a big plaster. She rummaged in her rucksack. –Chew this. She gave him a dried strip of wood. –Willow bark.
Then everyone tried to talk at once, Jet too, till Poacher clapped his hands.
–Later. We gotta get going. We found you, is what matters. But we gotta git out. These tunnels ain’t a way through London fer us. Too dangerous. So you two stay here, Jet too, rest up some more. We kin leave yer the water. An’ Martha an’ me’ll go fetch the others. Be back in less’n an hour. Then we kin head out, whole gang, back the way you came in …
–No, Jake said. –We can’t.
–The tunnels are making Cass sicker, Jake. No fresh air, no daylight. It’s like a tomb. Martha’s voice was gentle, but firm. –She needs to be above ground, else she won’t—
–Not the same way. We can’t go out the same way we came in.
–What? Why not? Poacher was tapping his boot, impatient to go.
Jake tried to think, but his brain was still addled from his fever.
–Because we killed a man. Ollie said it, his voice a whisper.
Poacher and Martha just stared at him. Then Martha sat down, hands either side of her on the bench. –You what? she said.
–He fell, Jake said. –From an escalator when we were escaping. We didn’t mean for him to die.
–But he wouldn’t have fallen if he hadn’t been chasing us. He’d still be alive, and he’s got children, Martha. He’s got children …