Paranormal After Dark

by Rebecca Hamilton

  Tom’s heart crawled up his throat and every muscle froze. “Are the Shadows making that noise?”

  “Don’t believe everything you hear,” Otto shouted back. “Pretend it’s not happening.”

  Sam’s hand slipped into his own and she pulled him down so his ear was level with her mouth.

  “It’s the fear,” she said, her breath hot against his skin. “The fear makes you more susceptible.”

  “What?”

  “It’ll do things—show you things—to terrify you.” She shouted over the noise. “It wants you to go into the flight response and run so it’ll know where you are. This is the Shadow’s way of priming you, of making you easier prey.”

  “And it’s coming?”

  “It’s already here.”

  CLANG... CLANG... CLANG...

  The noise seemed to press down upon them, each reverberation thumping through the air, the sound hitting them from above.

  Tom shined the torch across the reservoir, seeking the amoeboid, oil-like thing he had seen the day before. His torch light skimmed across the motionless, black water and he realised how similar the two substances were. Could the Shadows swim? Could it be beneath the water, waiting to infect its next victim?

  The thought made him step away from the edge, his back pressing against the reservoir wall.

  “Don’t move,” Samantha hissed. “It can’t sense you if you don’t move.”

  “I don’t even know where it is.”

  “It doesn’t matter. The Shadows will know exactly where you are.”

  Everyone stood motionless on the confines of the ledge. Above them, the pipes continued their incessant banging; a noise that would reverberate in their ears for hours after it had finally stopped.

  They waited with shallow breath and thumping hearts. Why wasn’t it showing itself? The whispers floated past them like a breeze, rising and lulling, the muted madness of the ones that had already been consumed. They were embroiled in a battle of wills—the Shadows hiding within the darkness, the people frozen in time, hardly daring to breathe—each waiting for the other to make the first move.

  Then it appeared.

  Tendrils spun out of the water, slipping silently onto the concrete edge. Someone let out a stifled squeal, a hand muffling the sound. Six beams of light were trained on the Shadows as it slid across the concrete, sending out smaller tentacles as though searching them out. Like a snake’s tongue, the strange substance was sensitive, waiting to feel the vibrations move through the earth to locate its next victim.

  The air was electrified; panic mounting among the six people.

  Billy had been the last one to leave the tunnel, so he stood at the back, closest to where the Shadows had left the water. The thing was only ten feet from him.

  “Go! Go! Go!” he suddenly shouted, shoving Jo ahead of him.

  He threw himself into the water, the splash catching all of their attention.

  Tom stood with his mouth open, his torch focused on the man flailing around in the thick, black water. The stuff slipped like tar; a strange coiling, pouring motion following Billy into the water at an incredibly fast speed. A fierce hiss of whispers filled the air, like the sound of gale-force winds ripping through the branches of a tree.

  Jo shoved Tom with all her weight, throwing him forward, and he realised what he was supposed to be doing and got his feet moving.

  They fell over each other, each person hustling the one in front along the narrow ledge, none moving fast enough for the people behind. On the other side of the reservoir, another exit led into another cylindrical tunnel and it was to this they ran.

  Tom’s foot slipped, perilously close to the edge, but he managed to keep his balance and kept going. Part of him expected something black and terrible to wrap itself around his ankle and drag him down into the madness.

  One after the other, they ran into the adjoining tunnel, hunching over to squeeze through. Thankfully, this length of tunnel was short and it emptied into a much larger one. They poured through, panic driving them.

  The group stood gasping for breath, hands on knees, doubled over from the exertion and the adrenaline. Tom’s legs shook and his head spun. The thumping on the pipes continued, but came fainter now.

  “Keep moving,” Otto ordered, straightening up. “We need to keep moving.”

  “What about Billy?” said Jo. “We need to help Billy.”

  “We can’t. If there’s a chance he’s been infected, he might infect the rest of us.”

  Movement came from behind them and all heads turned.

  “Move people! Move!” Otto shouted.

  A figure emerged, heading towards them through the cylindrical tunnel they’d come from.

  “It’s Billy, for Christ’s sake,” said Jo, anger heating her voice. “You can’t run from him.”

  “I’m okay,” Billy shouted from the tunnel, his voice hollow. “The Shadows didn’t touch me. I’m okay.”

  He emerged from the black of the tunnel, water dripping from his hair and clothing. His face appeared white in the torchlight, but otherwise he didn’t look any the worse for his ordeal.

  “Jesus, Billy,” said Jo. “What the hell were you thinking?”

  Billy grabbed a handful of his shirt and twisted the material, wringing water onto the floor. “Someone needed to distract it. I couldn’t think of any other way to get out.”

  “Has it gone?” Sam’s voice shook with fear. “Has it really gone?

  “For the moment.”

  They were in a brick tunnel, similar to the old tube tunnels, only much smaller. A brick ledge ran on either side, built to allow people to walk along the side of the tunnel when sewerage ran through the channel. The ground was like slurry beneath foot, the smell thick and cloying, like public bathrooms that hadn’t been cleaned in a long time. But all of this faded into the background under the shadow of what had just happened.

  Tom turned to Otto. The rat, Bugs, still sat on his shoulder and Tom had to resist reaching out and knocking the filthy creature to the ground. He was furious. From what he’d seen, when it came to this thing, everyone around him was as inept as he was.

  “We are running away from it, but aren’t I supposed to be fighting?”

  Otto stared at him, frustrated at Tom’s confrontation. “I know you’re scared, but the stuff you see isn’t really it. We need to get to the heart, to where the conscious part lives. That’s where we found you when you were a child and where the Shadows stayed for the last thirty years.”

  “Oh, great. So the stuff we ran from isn’t even the main act!”

  “We don’t have time for this now,” said Otto. “We have to keep moving.”

  “He’ll never have time for it,” said Sky.

  Tom rounded on her. “What the hell is your problem?” he demanded. “Do you think I want to be here? Do you think this is fun for me and I’ve come down into this hellhole to piss you off?”

  Sky scowled. “I don’t give a crap what you think. I’m only here because of the people I trust, not because of some outsider who has come to save the day.”

  Tom stared at her, incredulous. “The people you trust apparently trust in me, though I have no idea why. So, I guess if you really do trust them, you will also have to trust that they made the right call.”

  Her blue eyes narrowed and she put her hands on her hips. “Like you have, you mean?”

  Otto intervened. “Give it a rest, Sky. Just do your job and get us there. You don’t need to have an opinion about what happens afterwards.”

  Jo put her hands out. “Please don’t do this now, guys. We’ve got enough to worry about without us attacking each other. And in case you didn’t notice, Billy threw himself in the water so we could get away and all you’re doing is ignoring him.”

  “Sorry, Billy,” Otto said, turning to look at the much smaller man. “But how do we know the Shadows didn’t touch you?

  “For Christ’s sake!” Jo said, not giving Billy a chance to answer. “Ho
w do we trust anyone then? How can we be sure Samantha isn’t infected? Or Sky? How do we know you are not infected?”

  “Don’t be stupid, Otto,” Billy said. “You can see I’m not infected. You’ve seen the ones who are—they’re basically zombies, for fuck’s sake.”

  Samantha stepped forward “We shouldn’t be wasting time like this. Otto was right when he said we needed to keep moving.”

  Tension simmered in the tunnel; the confined space not room enough for the emotions held within its walls.

  Sky spun back around and stomped off down the tunnel. Otto let out a deep sigh, that of a frustrated father finally giving in to his persistent and difficult daughter, and then followed.

  The rest had little choice but to do the same.

  Chapter 12

  TOM’S EARLIEST MEMORY was of mistrust.

  He didn’t remember the name of the first family he’d been placed with—perhaps Mc-something, like McDonald or McDougal—but he couldn’t be certain. His main memory was of pulling up outside of a house in the social worker’s car and being faced with two, tall strangers who were supposed to care for him. Kids filled the property—toddlers, teenagers, both boys and girls. They all shouted over the top of each other and physically fought each other, punching, kicking, screaming, to get whatever the other one had.

  When he thought back to that moment, the overwhelming feeling of complete and total mistrust in everyone swamped him—mistrust in the social workers, in the foster carers, in the children he was forced to live with. He was just another face to them, another couple of quid in their pocket, or more competition, depending on perspective. He’d only stayed with that particular family for a matter of weeks before being moved on. Luckily, it took only another two families before he eventually found the one he’d grown up with, the people he thought of as ‘mum and dad.’

  But beneath that first memory resided another one—the memory of a longing for something else, something more, though he had no idea at that time what he yearned for. He’d had no experience of family life, yet, even at such a young age, he’d been desperate for security.

  Was his lack of a stable home the reason he’d been so eager to start up a family of his own? He had only been twenty-five when he met Abby, a time when most of his friends spent their time clubbing and having one-night stands, but he’d fallen in love with her in a matter of days. Even younger than him, she’d laughed off his offers of marriage. Most men would have run at her constant rejection, but Abby had done it in such a way he knew her refusals wouldn’t last forever. He simply needed to be patient.

  So, he waited and, in the end he, got his reward—his own family.

  Now he might lose the thing he’d wanted most in life and the madness happening around him was his only chance to save them. Once again, he was being asked to put his trust in complete strangers.

  * * *

  IN THE LAST hour or so, Tom had lost track of which direction the sewer system took. Did London still sprawl over their heads or had their journey taken them beyond the city? Any thought of getting closer to the surface soon diminished once they’d entered these tunnels. The floor of the sewer had a distinct downward slope, designed to let gravity do the work, Tom guessed.

  Once again the torches had been switched off to conserve battery power. The sewers ran straight, the ground relatively smooth. They walked skirting the edge, using the wall for guidance. The dark still unnerved Tom, but he somehow knew where to place his feet and how to find the notches in the walls when he needed to keep his balance.

  One thing he couldn’t get used to was the smell. The sewers might no longer be used, but whatever shit had been down here when the sewers were abandoned certainly hadn’t gone anywhere. Though dried up to a certain extent, it still stank in the way he would expect remnants of human waste to smell and Tom walked with his shirt sleeve held over his nose and mouth.

  The threat of the Shadows remained at the forefront of his mind. His ears strained at every sound—the footsteps of the group, the trickle of distant running water, the squeals and scurries of rats in the darkness. But the one sound he actually listened for—the terrible static whispers of the thing they called the Shadows—didn’t materialise. Every so often, he thought he heard it and froze, causing the people behind to collide with him and curse. Each time, he ignored their protests and listened, certain he’d heard something. Yet, over and over again, his mind played tricks on him.

  Several hours had passed when Otto suddenly stopped and switched on his flashlight. The beam of light lit up a good-sized cubbyhole set aside from the tunnel. When the sewers were used, workers would have rested in the cubby.

  “We can stop here,” Otto said. “I’m guessing we could all do with a break.”

  Tom barely registered the other man’s words. The sight of this simple, secret place moved something inside of him and for a moment he didn’t even remember to breathe. He stepped forward and placed his hand against the brick.

  When his warm palm touched the cold, hard stone, a jolt went through him, a physical realignment of his brain, of his consciousness. Everything seemed strange. He was aware of the people around him, but they didn’t seem real. It was as though they were ghosts.

  Tom had been here before.

  He didn’t know if he’d been here as a child or if he’d somehow visited this place in his dreams, but he knew this place.

  The memory made him gasp out loud. He felt younger. His fingers felt smaller and thinner. The stones he touched existed not only in this place, but in a time when he was just a boy. Two periods in his life coexisted and he experienced them both simultaneously.

  Somewhere in the distance, he was aware of Samantha speaking to him and of Otto putting a hand on her arm to stop her.

  Deep in the pit of his belly, a gnawing ache spread into his chest; a terrible emptiness inside of him. He recognised the sensation as hunger, a hunger he’d never had to experience as an adult. It was the sort of hunger that didn’t come from a late lunch or a missed meal, but was the result of months, even years, of never knowing where his next meal would come from.

  The brick’s surface felt rough beneath his fingertips. Sounds seemed sharper, the air around him overly sweet with sewage. Goosebumps prickled his skin, brought on by the cold that had ingrained itself within him, working its way down to his bones.

  Was this how he felt as a child, cold and hungry with a strange over-awareness of his surroundings? Had he lost the sensation as he entered adulthood or just because he had left the Underlife?

  For a moment, he thought he might step right into the past, leave the present behind and disappear into his past self, but then the flash was gone. Tom found himself right back where he started—standing in front of the cubbyhole with five expectant faces staring at him.

  “Shit!”

  Tom put his head in his hands and sank to his knees. Nausea washed over him and the tunnel spun in a slow, stomach-lurching movement.

  Samantha finally got to ask the question she had tried to a moment earlier. “Are you okay, Tom?”

  He nodded, his face still in his hands, waiting for the sickness to subside.

  The others all climbed into the cubby. They squatted down or used their bags as seats. No one else spoke to him. Each person rustled in their bags, pulling out drinks and food or an extra sweatshirt. Tom sensed the awkwardness around him. Were they embarrassed for him or scared?

  Otto’s large, heavy hand made contact with his shoulder and he looked up. The big man hadn’t joined the others in the cubby, but stood beside him, Bugs curled around his neck.

  “You remembered,” Otto said. It was not a question. “Do you believe us now?”

  “I remembered. Not much, but I remembered being down here. I believe you about that at least.”

  Otto smiled. “That is good. And don’t worry, the rest will come back to you in time.”

  “How much time do we have?” he asked, but Otto ignored the question. Tom sighed. “I’m scared of w
hat I am going to remember,” he admitted. “Why else would my brain have blocked everything out if it wasn’t something terrible?”

  “Perhaps to exist in the normal world, your child’s mind needed to forget this place ever existed. There is magic down here—dark magic—and I don’t mean spells or illusions. Things exist down here that the people above ground would never be able to comprehend. They’re the things of peoples’ nightmares, the things they convince themselves don’t exist after they watch a scary movie and go to bed in the dark. But down here they can and do exist and it’s up to us to make sure the two worlds never meet.”

  “You mean it’s up to me.”

  “On this occasion, yes, Tom, it is up to you. Remember you had something to do with the Shadows getting out. Whatever you did last time, you must have somehow absorbed some of the magic and passed it onto your son. If the boy dies...”

  “That ‘boy’ is my son,” Tom said, anger close beneath the surface.

  “I’m sorry.” Otto cleared his throat and started again. “I fear your son’s death will release the Shadows to the upper world.”

  “I don’t want that to happen, but nothing is more important to me than saving David.”

  “We know that, Tom. What better reason could there be to prove you’re the right man for the job.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  Needing to rest, Tom and Otto joined the rest of the group. The cubby was just big enough so each of them had a little space around them. At least they weren’t sitting on top of one another. Considering the current atmosphere, that was a good thing. Jo remained frosty with Otto because of his insistence at leaving Billy behind and Sky wasn’t speaking to any of them.

  Tom’s experience had left him both shaken and weirdly embarrassed. He felt like the others were all looking at him like he was a freak, or at least, trying not to look at him.

  He no longer had any doubts about having been in this place before. He knew now the dreams he’d experienced all his life were more than just dreams, they were memories. For years, his mind had been trying to make him remember, but only now, face to face with this place, had his conscious mind finally given way.