City of Darkness

by D P Wright

  “Yes, unfortunately.”

  “Ok. Everyone turn on your torches. If the power is going to be out then there will be the darkness for those creature to appear in. Opek, you and Bendle, once you have opened that door, stay close between myself at the front and Doc who will bring up the rear. Ok?”

  Both Opek and Bendle spoke in unison, “Yes sir!”

  Opek already had his suit secured and was checking to make sure his son’s was on correctly. He spoke slowly to him, “It will be dark, stay in the light.” He adjusted the brightness of his son’s lamp by twisting it clockwise and placed a finger under his chin. He raised Bendle’s face up so that he was looking into the eyes of his father. Opek smiled and playfully tapped his son’s visor before looking up at Kessler and Doc.

  After a nod from the detective, Opek, with a heave and a puff of his cheeks, pulled down the wrench, turning the valve which hissed and whined and eventually, with a loud metallic clunk, the bulkhead disappeared into the walls of the tunnel. Immediately Kessler’s ears popped and the group was hit with a torrent of hot air that brought with it the smell of death and decay. Their four beams of light pierced the darkness a few feet ahead of them, revealing the ravaged state of the tunnel. Oil dripped from torn pipes covering everything in its greasy slime. Shredded wires, capacitors, relays and insulation foam hung from the ceiling and lay scattered throughout the shaft. Everything had a heavy industrial, chemical stench to it.

  “It’s worse than I thought.” Opek ran over a particularly large hole in the side of a conduit and shook his head with worry, “Oh my, this just isn’t right. This will take a long time to fix, if it can be fixed at all.”

  Bendle put his arm around his father, smiling reassuringly, “Don’t worry, pa. Us Techs can fix anything.”

  “You’re right, son. Of course, you’re right.”

  “Opek, I think we have more to worry about than the state of this tunnel.” Doc scratched his head and looked at Kessler in exasperation.

  “You don’t understand, doctor. A lot of time, energy and lives went into creating the machines and the infrastructure that power the furnaces. Raw plasma is such an unforgiving resource, extremely difficult to find, nearly impossible to harness. Many Techs have fallen to bless Dis with the energy that everyone takes for granted. I know personally eighteen techs that died servicing these tunnels this past year. I hate to see their work desecrated, destroyed like this.” He hugged Bendle as he inspected the wreckage, “Look son, this is the conduit that Tech Higgs built to carry the plasma overflow away from the Core Tunnel’s generator. Do you remember the problems he had keeping the flow stable?”

  “I do, pa but he did it in the end.”

  “Yes, he did. Look, there is his field dampener, he had to wait weeks to get that sent down from above.” Opek shook his head, “A real shame.”

  Kessler interrupted, “Doc’s right, Opek. We don’t have time to stand around here, it’s not safe.”

  Opek’s gaze went from the torn conduit to Kessler. Behind his visor tears streamed down over his cheeks and into his beard, “Lead the way, Mr Kessler.”

  The group shuffled through what was left of the tunnel, piercing the thick shroud of darkness with their shaking light. Every so often something would brush up against Kessler’s burly figure or catch on Doc’s rifle making the two jump with a start. After a while the detective stopped and raised his hand for those behind him to follow suit.

  “What is it Kes?”

  “Can you smell it?”

  “Yes.” Doc replied from the rear of the group, “For a second there I thought we would get away without seeing them again.

  Opek spoke, his upbeat tone in stark contrast to Doc’s wavering stutter, “We’re nearly there. In a few moments we’ll come to a ventilation duct which looks out over the furnace room.”

  They continued crawling. The potent, sweet smell intensified with every step, and with it the barbed reality of impending danger. A dull noise began as a hum, a throb in their ears above the hiss and wheeze of their respirators and the metallic clunk of their footfalls on the tunnel floor. Very quickly the sound developed into a series of long drones that vibrated through every pipe, tube, wire and duct.

  “What is that noise?” Doc shouted over the din.

  “Seems to be coming from all directions. You can hear them, put your head close to the pipes and listen.” Kessler looked ahead and then behind them where, beyond the groups light, the darkness lurked. “Ahead or behind us, it’s hard to tell, I can’t see anything.”

  Doc stammered as the noise increased to a clamour, “What else does this damned place have in store for us?” He pulled his hood tight over his head in an attempt to drown out the sound.

  The group stood still, waving their torchlight around them trying to keep the darkness at bay. The sickly-sweet stench had reached an unbearable intensity. Opek tapped Kessler on the shoulder, “What now, Mr Kessler?”

  An ear-piercing, sustained scream stopped him replying. He staggered back as the screeching wail thundered through the tunnel, nearly tripping over the two Techs who sat on the floor, eyes shut against the terror, holding on to one another in sheer fright. Doc yelled as he waved his rifle manically at the darkness which threatened to devour their small juddering island of light.

  “Make it stop!” Bendle cried, his small hands covering his ears.

  The unmistakable, feral sound of the Seekers’ barks and howls could now be heard over the booming clatter.

  Doc whimpered, “Oh no.”

  Claws and fangs leapt from the shadows and penetrated their shaking light. Immediately the scorching burst of Kessler’s Luther joined the cacophony with a barrage of plasma rounds, each blast banishing the darkness with brief pulses of sheer white light revealing glimpses of the horror unfolding around them. The crack of Doc’s Lazarus rifle exploded behind Kessler as its razor sharp steel filament shells sliced through scales, skin and bone.

  As the chaos raged a shrill yelp from behind alerted the detective to the flailing arms of the doctor as he lost his footing and fell to a tide of Seekers who swarmed over them. Opek swung his piston wrench wildly and Bendle’s magma torch spat flames.

  “Doctor!” Opek yelled.

  “There are too many of them!” Kessler struggled to keep a grip of his carbine as Seekers grappled with his arm.

  Bendle squealed as one of the beasts took hold of his foot. Opek lunged for him but in an instant he was gone, pulled into the frenzied horde. “Bendle!” Opek screamed as he threw himself at the monsters but was immediately blown back by a sudden explosion of heat. He tumbled into the detective who fell back into arms, legs, claws, an entanglement of bodies, as long tendrils of flames raced along the walls of the tunnel.

  Opek’s squeal came from underneath a pile of the vicious beasts, “The flames are catching the oil!”

  Kessler wrestled with a claw which threatened to rake across his face, “Run, if you can!” His words were cut short by a calamitous roar as a searing fireball flashed across them. The detective closed his eyes as panicked squeals and screams were abruptly consumed by the explosive flames and he awaited the inevitable, waited for the fire to take him, waited for the light of the flames to release him from his pain.

  *

  “Remarkable really.” Someone coughed, a hacking, wheezing sound and then continued, “I cannot believe it.”

  “Ugh…” Kessler moaned. His voice grating across a bone-dry throat.

  “Doctor, Mr Kessler is awake.” Opek’s unmistakable high-pitched voice.

  Kessler tried to open his eyes, “What… what…”

  “Happened? I tell you what happened, old friend. We actually survived, a bit frazzled perhaps, but we survived. All thanks to Bendle and his magma stick.”

  “But the Seekers? There were so many.”

  “All gone, burnt to a crisp.” Doc reached down and pulled Kessler’s still smoking body to his feet.

  Bendle stood by Opek who had his arms protectivel
y round his son, “Pa is always telling me to keep my flames away from the machine oil. Very flammable.” Bendle smiled through a blackened, tarnished helmet.

  “The leaking oil which these tunnels are caked with is extremely flammable and these heat suits…” Doc coughed and took on more water, “they’re flame proof, they shielded us from the inferno. Fascinating material.”

  Kessler tensed and tried to breathe. He looked around the tunnel and tried to piece together the reasons why he was still standing, still surviving. Darkness had returned and, with it, thick acrid smoke which clung to the dead air. Their torches and the Tech’s lanterns tried unsuccessfully to carve their way through the dense fog, only allowing him to see a few inches ahead. However, emerging from the thick murk, the grotesque charred remains of the horde lay in smouldering piles all around them, clogging the tunnel’s confined space with their smoking corpses. A familiar nervous rattle brought the detective’s attention to his shaking left hand which he quickly held still with his right. He looked up to see the Doc, Opek and Bendle all staring at him. “So what now, Mr Kessler?” Opek still held his blood-soaked piston wrench in both his hands.

  “Yes, what now, Kes?” Doc winced as he shuffled his weight away from his injured leg.

  The three looked at the detective and waited for his instruction, waited for him to tell them what to do next, tell them that everything was going to be ok. After taking a moment to breathe some Ox he relaxed and smiled back at the burnt, charred group, “We get out of this damn tunnel.”

  DANCE OF THE MACABRE

  As the group walked through the smoking remains of the Seekers a deep booming sound emerged from the darkness ahead of them. At first it began as a low, repetitive drone but quickly its volume increased.

  “More monsters?” Doc stuttered.

  “No. The sound is different.” Kessler had stopped and held his hand out for the group to do the same.

  “It sounds like…”

  “Music,” Opek finished Kessler’s sentence for him.

  Kessler led the group tentatively forward. Soon they arrived at the end of the tunnel and he peered down through a wire-mesh grate to the furnace room below. Bright lights flashed every few seconds bathing the area briefly in a strobe effect of cold white that seemed to pulse to a heavy, bass beat of music. Between each shock of light, the darkness revealed walls covered in graffiti which glowed yellows, reds and blues, all revealing the toxic phrase, the words that had brought Kessler so much grief, dread, pain and agony – ‘Lux Ferre’. He stared out across the room at those words, almost lost in a trance as the music, the lights and the gaudy collage of colours all seemed to dance in unison, transfixing him and drawing the detective towards them. He leaned forward, pressing himself against the grating, as if he was trying to reach out and touch the vile words that had haunted his dreams. It came loose and fell to the floor below, Doc grabbed his heat suit and pulled him back into the tunnel. “Easy there, Kes,” he shouted over the noise into Kessler’s ear. Doc looked down, beyond the detective and into the room, “It’s like some low city trance club.” Below him was a sea of writhing bodies which gyrated, warped and twisted over one another as if in communal ecstasy, all moving as one to the rhythm of the music and the pulse of the lights. It was difficult to focus on the features of any one individual as the bodies were entwined together but gradually small details began to emerge and through the intermittent strobe lighting a flash of red, the same overalls worn by Opek and Bendle, a torn tunic, a cap with the Epsom logo and white boots, revealed themselves. All had grey, gaunt, burnt faces. Those without shades or optics revealed the now familiar black voids where the whites of their eyes should have been. Doc retreated back into the tunnel, “So many, seems like what’s left of the town is down there. Look at their eyes, all high on Lux, and their skin, without heat suits they are rotting away. How can they still be alive?”

  Kessler let out a low sigh and looked at Doc wide eyed, “Am I like them?”

  “Like who?”

  Kessler raised his voice over the din and spoke without averting his gaze away from the furnace room, “Am I like them, the Chaff? Beck said that only the good souls were taken, leaving the bad to get burned out on this junk. I wonder how bad mine really is.” His hands went up to his helmet. All he wanted to do was to claw at his eyes. Anything to get rid of the itch.

  “Kes, calm down. Look at me.” Doc pulled the detective’s hands away from his visor and stared into his bloodshot eyes, “Look at me,” he repeated, “you are nothing like them. If you were you wouldn’t be here. You have come all this way to save Beth and try and make a better life for you and Macy. You are different than them. And besides, I have not been taken and, as you know, if souls do exist then I have a very fine and handsome one.” Doc smiled through his visor.

  Kessler nodded.

  Doc coughed into his vent, the white, sporadic glare from the lights revealing the harsh angles of his broken, bloody nose and the deep purple swell of his eye, “I must look some sight.” He had noticed Kessler staring at his face and smiled back with his cracked-tooth grin.

  The detective returned the smile, “Nothing a couple of sessions in your skin lab wouldn’t fix.”

  “I will send you the bill.”

  Kessler took another glance into the room and saw in its centre, the large, square metal box that he assumed to be the furnace block. It towered up through the sprawl of flailing hands, bodies and feet. An intricate network of pipes led from the block up to the ceiling above and from them hung the powerful torches from which the intense staccato barrage of light originated. Kessler looked at Bendle and then up to his father, “Any ideas?”

  Opek shook his head. “Sorry sir. Your friend and our way back up city lie beyond those doors, right across the other side of the furnace room.” Opek pointed to the other side of the room.

  “There are too many of them, they’d swarm over us. We wouldn’t make it.” Kessler looked at the thousands of densely packed bodies and despaired. “We’ve seen citizens taken by Lux before and they are vicious.”

  All three stared down at the hundreds of Chaff who twisted and ground to the hammering beat. Soon the pitch of the tunes changed to an almighty whine and the strobe lighting, in a flash, blanketed the room in stark white light. Doc shouted over the constant scream, “What is happening?”

  Liquid exploded from pipes hanging from the ceiling spraying all the Chaff below. The crowd began to roar as they looked up and, with mouths open, drank the deluge. Soon, the lights turned to darkness again as the music lowered to a deep, thumping rhythm and the strobe lighting resumed its rapid pulse. “They’re feeding on Lux. That is why they come here.” Opek sighed loudly, “Of course, that’s it!”

  “What?” Kessler and Doc spoke in unison.

  Opek looked pleased with himself, “The Chaff, with their bodies full of this chem, are no danger to us. It’s only when they crave more that you have to be wary. Bendle and I learnt that lesson quickly while hiding in the tunnels all this time. We should move now whilst their hunger is satisfied.” Opek again pointed across the room.

  “What? Just walk right through?” Doc did not sound convinced.

  “Quickly, doctor. We don’t have much time.”

  Doc looked at Kessler who shrugged his shoulders, “You heard him, let’s go.”

  “This is crazy,” Doc stammered.

  “What part of the last few days has not been crazy?” Kessler braced himself to jump down.

  Doc peered down at the hundreds of bodies dancing their grim trance, “True,” Doc agreed, “well at least there does not appear to be any Seekers down there.”

  Kessler held his Luther before him and Doc quickly followed with his rifle, “No, but I’m not taking any chances.” Kessler replaced the power cell in his carbine and, holding it aloft, after a brief pause with a look of pure, grim determination, he jumped down to the floor below with a thud, landing close to a group of Chaff who twitched and jolted to the music, their head
s looking up with mouths open, completely oblivious to his presence. Doc landed awkwardly next to him but immediately sprung up with his rifle raised. He backed up to the wall and aimed his weapon at the hordes surrounding them.

  Kessler looked up to see the dangling legs of Bendle plummeting towards him. He had to react quickly, forcing his sim-starved muscles into action. He bit down hard on his vent as he lunged and caught the flailing Tech. Opek peered down and raised his thumb to confirm his son had landed ok before he quickly followed.

  The group stood still, frozen in place as they stared into the throng. After a few moments Doc spoke, his voice nearly lost in the cacophony, “Maybe the Tech is right? Maybe they will not notice us?”

  “Just stay close and follow me. Doc, I’ll go first and you follow behind like back in the tunnel. Don’t let Opek and Bendle out of your sight.”

  Kessler strode forward and the other three quickly followed his lead. A wall of limbs and bodies, clammy and drenched in sweat, immediately pressed up against them. Kessler grabbed the neck of one reveller, a round face with a small, pointed nose with large, spiked hair. Its pitch-black eyes seemed to only look inward at whatever was playing out in its mind. He threw it to the side. Doc kicked and punched his way through, often using his rifle to bludgeon any who threatened to bar his way. As Opek had said, the Chaff did not seem to notice them, instead their attention was locked into playing out the final act of their debauched play. Fists pumped the air, long, dirty nails clawed skin, faces tensed in silent screams.

  It did not take long for them to become lost in the mayhem and wave after wave of gyrating bodies threatened to drown the group. Kessler found it hard to breathe as a hand caught hold of his suit and pulled at his helmet. He grabbed hold of it and twisted it hard away from him. Even over the wail of the music he heard the sickening crack of bone and snap of tendons. He turned to see a young women, or what was left of one, with deep sunken dark eyes and skin a sickening blue, grey colour. Her body was shrivelled, her dirty clothes tattered rags that hung from a bony frame. Her face had a tattoo along one side that ran down her neck which would have looked pretty once. Kessler let go of her now limp arm which, from a sickening jagged piece of shattered bone, flailed about wildly as she continued her automaton trance. He went to move forward but had lost his bearings. He twisted and turned until the reassuring sight of the furnace block came into view, the hundreds of pipes and wiring towering above him meaning that he had made it halfway across the room.