from the rest, higher and with yellow supports. Simon and I sat on the platform and jumped down together, doing our best to ignore the smell of oil and urine that clawed at our throats. ‘If you touch it, just once, then you’ll be blown right out of those shiny new shoes. I watched a programme about it, about all the people that had been killed down here. Nasty stuff.’
I could feel the buzz in the air, the low whine in my ears, and the slightly metallic taste you get when you’re near something with a huge electrical charge. The lasttime I’d sensed it was on my first day in Furnace, standing in the wire compound they called the Barbecue. It wasn’t a pleasant memory.
‘And whatever you do,’ Zee said as he started making his way up the track, keeping one hand against the wall to steady himself. ‘And I’m talking to you, Alex, since you’ve just drank about a gallon of water, don’t take a piss. There was one guy in that programme who tried that and, well, I don’t need to tell you that wouldn’t be a pleasant way to die.’ He made a gruesome exploding sound and I was glad that I couldn’t see where his hands were.
We picked up the pace, entering the tunnel to the right-hand side of the station. It was dark in here, but my improved vision did what it was supposed to, picking apart the shadows to see the line stretching out to vanishing point. Mine weren’t the only silver eyes in the tunnel – tiny, glinting spots glared at us from beneath the tracks, desperate squeaks like fingernails on a blackboard.
Rats , I thought to myself, the word chilling me to the bone. I didn’t mind these furry ones – the worst that could happen down here was getting rodent crap on our shoes – but the sight of those demonic eyes up ahead made me think of the tunnels beneath Furnace, the warden’s horrific creations with the same name, the ones that had gone wrong, the creatures that had once been kids but which were now mindless freakswith ragged claws and razored teeth, which wanted to feast on blood …
‘Maybe you should take the lead, Alex,’ said Zee, interrupting my thoughts. ‘Can’t see squat in here.’
‘Sure,’ I said, squeezing past Simon then Zee, my heart pounding as I tripped over a foot and nearly sprawled into the death rail. I swore, the noise bouncing off the walls, like the tunnel was mocking me. Then I set off again, walking as fast as I dared, the end of the tunnel always the same distance ahead.
Eventually the light from the platform grew dim, then faded altogether. We were all used to darkness, keeping our breathing hushed and our mouths closed so we could let our ears guide us. There were noises down here, not just the click of clawed feet on concrete but the rise and fall of the wind as it gusted past us, and distant squeals that sounded like monsters but which I knew were the trains. Every time I heard those brakes I just about died, imagining lights blazing up in front of us as twenty tonnes of solid steel bulldozed this way. If that happened, if this line started working again, then we were history.
And after having seen the sun again, the worst thing I could think of was being a ghost trapped in these tunnels, so close to daylight and yet back underground. I gritted my teeth together so hard it hurt, increasing my pace. We had to have walked half a mile, at least. The next station couldn’t be far.
It was. I counted my heartbeats, three for every second, reaching a thousand, then two, and nearly five before I caught a glimmer of something at the end of thetunnel. We all stumbled towards it, blinking as the light became stronger. We peeked up over the platform – COLLIER’S POINT stencilled on the walls – and at first I thought it was deserted. Then I noticed the bodies, maybe five or six of them. Two were wearing body armour, two were in prison uniforms, and the last had been stripped down to his underwear, revealing the bullet holes in his pale flesh.
There were noises,
I could feel the buzz in the air, the low whine in my ears, and the slightly metallic taste you get when you’re near something with a huge electrical charge. The lasttime I’d sensed it was on my first day in Furnace, standing in the wire compound they called the Barbecue. It wasn’t a pleasant memory.
‘And whatever you do,’ Zee said as he started making his way up the track, keeping one hand against the wall to steady himself. ‘And I’m talking to you, Alex, since you’ve just drank about a gallon of water, don’t take a piss. There was one guy in that programme who tried that and, well, I don’t need to tell you that wouldn’t be a pleasant way to die.’ He made a gruesome exploding sound and I was glad that I couldn’t see where his hands were.
We picked up the pace, entering the tunnel to the right-hand side of the station. It was dark in here, but my improved vision did what it was supposed to, picking apart the shadows to see the line stretching out to vanishing point. Mine weren’t the only silver eyes in the tunnel – tiny, glinting spots glared at us from beneath the tracks, desperate squeaks like fingernails on a blackboard.
Rats , I thought to myself, the word chilling me to the bone. I didn’t mind these furry ones – the worst that could happen down here was getting rodent crap on our shoes – but the sight of those demonic eyes up ahead made me think of the tunnels beneath Furnace, the warden’s horrific creations with the same name, the ones that had gone wrong, the creatures that had once been kids but which were now mindless freakswith ragged claws and razored teeth, which wanted to feast on blood …
‘Maybe you should take the lead, Alex,’ said Zee, interrupting my thoughts. ‘Can’t see squat in here.’
‘Sure,’ I said, squeezing past Simon then Zee, my heart pounding as I tripped over a foot and nearly sprawled into the death rail. I swore, the noise bouncing off the walls, like the tunnel was mocking me. Then I set off again, walking as fast as I dared, the end of the tunnel always the same distance ahead.
Eventually the light from the platform grew dim, then faded altogether. We were all used to darkness, keeping our breathing hushed and our mouths closed so we could let our ears guide us. There were noises down here, not just the click of clawed feet on concrete but the rise and fall of the wind as it gusted past us, and distant squeals that sounded like monsters but which I knew were the trains. Every time I heard those brakes I just about died, imagining lights blazing up in front of us as twenty tonnes of solid steel bulldozed this way. If that happened, if this line started working again, then we were history.
And after having seen the sun again, the worst thing I could think of was being a ghost trapped in these tunnels, so close to daylight and yet back underground. I gritted my teeth together so hard it hurt, increasing my pace. We had to have walked half a mile, at least. The next station couldn’t be far.
It was. I counted my heartbeats, three for every second, reaching a thousand, then two, and nearly five before I caught a glimmer of something at the end of thetunnel. We all stumbled towards it, blinking as the light became stronger. We peeked up over the platform – COLLIER’S POINT stencilled on the walls – and at first I thought it was deserted. Then I noticed the bodies, maybe five or six of them. Two were wearing body armour, two were in prison uniforms, and the last had been stripped down to his underwear, revealing the bullet holes in his pale flesh.
There were noises,
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