by Simon Clark
Ben glanced up as Elmo descended the ladder. The old African moved with athletic ease; the guy's wiry body could have been that of a youth rather than an octogenarian. Above him, Trajan's blond head appeared over the boat's side as he waited for his turn to descend. 'Well, we know what happened to April. One of those things attacked her.'
'You were fortunate that they didn't do to you what they did to those men last night,' Elmo responded.
Ben asked, 'So you weren't bitten?'
'No, just thrown aside like a piece of trash.'
'Then you were lucky.'
'Lucky? I lost my fiancee. How lucky is that?'
As Elmo reached the ground Ben heard his phone. He checked his pockets but it wasn't there. Then he remembered. 'Trajan, I gave you my phone.'
Trajan picked it up from the bottom of the boat and checked the screen. 'Someone called Raj calling.'
Ben held out his hand as Trajan dropped it down to him. He thumbed the button. 'Hello, Raj, what's wrong?' Raj's voice was breathless in his ear. 'April Connor?' Ben echoed.
Trajan clambered down the ladder. 'April? There's some news?' He jumped to the ground. 'Ben, what is it? Have the police found her?'
Ben concentrated on listening to Raj. The man sounded traumatized. 'Okay,' Ben told him. 'Take it easy. I'll call you later.'
'Well?'
It was Elmo who spoke first. 'You should brace yourself for bad news.'
Trajan ran his fingers through his hair. 'Ben, tell me. Now!'
'Okay. But as Elmo says: it's not exactly what you've been wanting to hear.'
'What do you mean?'
'That was a friend of mine. He's had a visit from April.'
'Tonight?'
'About an hour ago.'
'Is she still there?'
'Trajan, listen.'
'Don't prevaricate, Ben. Is she hurt?'
'No, definitely not hurt. At least…' He took a breath as Trajan groaned in anguish. 'Raj was in a state of shock. He wasn't expressing himself well, but this is what he told me. April turned up at his door at two in the morning with a man.'
'What man?'
'April wanted my address, then she and the guy started acting weird. Raj said the way they looked at him became extremely odd. Then they tried to attack him.'
'Attack?' Elmo Kigoma asked. 'How attack?'
'This is the bad news.' Ben looked Trajan in the eye. 'The pair of them tried to bite Raj.'
'Oh, God… Where are they now?'
'Raj was lucky enough to have kept the security chain on the door so they didn't reach him. After he managed to lock the door they simply vanished.'
One of the phones on the ground began to chirp. In a sudden burst of anger Trajan stamped it into silence. 'We need to go to where this Raj guy lives and start searching for April.'
Elmo shook his head. 'Don't you see the sun? Those two will be long gone. If they're a product of Edshu, then they're a product of darkness, and belong to darkness.'
Trajan frowned. 'What do you mean?'
'They'll hide away in daylight hours.'
'But we should still search for them.'
Ben shook his head. 'In a city this size? Where do we begin?'
'But we can't stand here doing nothing,' Trajan told them.
In the pause that followed the birds began to sing as the sun rose. As it became brighter there was a second, more chilling dawn chorus. The phones that littered the ground began to ring. Ben realized that even idiots like the ones that attacked him last night had families, too. As wives and parents discovered the men hadn't come home they'd begun to call. Half a dozen phones sounded their individual ring tones: snatches of popular song and comedy catchphrases pumped from the little speakers. 'Answer me, you lazy goon' and a robotic, 'Oh, master, put your mouth to my sexy, plastic body.' And an aggressive: 'You what, you what, you what!' As the ring tones filled the dawn air the phones flashed there in the grass.
'We shouldn't stay here any longer,' Elmo told them. 'I'm done with my boat. The Mayor can have it. There are more pressing matters now.'
Ben blinked as the sun's rays fell on him. 'But where now?'
'You should both get some sleep,' Elmo told them. 'I've my own rituals to observe. Edshu is a tough chap to please. Though I still remember what my family did when I was a boy to encourage the old rascal to move on and do no more harm.'
'Edshu?' Trajan was perplexed.
'I'll explain later,' Ben told him.
'Get some rest first,' Elmo said. 'Now it's daylight it's time to sleep. You must be refreshed before you look for your friend. You'll need all your strength, believe me.'
The unanswered phones still cried out in a way that was strangely forlorn.
'I'll go back to my apartment. The police might call if they find her.' Trajan paused. 'Ben, you're welcome to come back if you can sleep on a couch.'
Ben nodded. 'That's fine for me.' He yawned. 'I'll give Raj a call later. We can talk to him then.'
'I go this way.' Elmo indicated a path that led through the trees. 'There is work for me at home. I'll ask the gods and ancestors of my old village to intercede on our behalf.' He gave a grim smile. 'Sometimes Edshu listens to them. Sometimes he tells them to go to hell.' He reached into his shirt pocket. 'Here. This is my card with my telephone number.' His jaw tightened. 'Call me if lives depend on it.'
Ben and Trajan said their farewells to Elmo and walked through the park in the direction of Tower Bridge. Before they'd gone more than ten paces the old African called to them. 'By the way, you should know this fact, gentlemen. If my rituals are successful and Edshu moves on, then his creatures will be of no use to him. So…' He clicked his fingers to indicate something vanishing. '… if you plan to rescue your friend, you must do it soon.'
TWENTY-TWO
The moment Trajan stepped through the door into his apartment he noticed it. 'Ben, can you smell that?'
'Something's turned.' Ben flinched. 'Have you left the fridge door open?'
When Trajan turned to Ben his face blazed with triumph. 'She's back home.' He picked up a key with orange string tied around the fob. 'Emergency key. We keep it in the plant pot out on the landing, just in case one of us is locked out.'
That sickly sweet smell triggered alarm bells in Ben's head. 'Remember what Raj told us: April isn't herself.'
'But she's back.' Excitement animated him. 'If she's home I can take care of her.' He rushed along the hallway. 'April?'
'Wait, Trajan. Easy does it.'
'April?'
'We don't know what we're getting into. Take it slowly; she might…'
Trajan didn't listen. He burst through the living-room door. 'April, are you, uh…'
Ben followed to find the blinds down to cheat the room of the morning sun.
'She's got to be here,' Trajan insisted. 'Only April knew about the key.'
'April might have been here,' Ben allowed. 'There was nothing to stop her leaving again.'
'She wouldn't.'
'Trajan, something happened to her. From what Raj says-'
'She's in shock. That's all.'
Ben saw that the man willed himself to believe his fiancee was alright as he darted across the landing. 'If she's tired she'll have gone to bed.'
This time Ben did grab him to stop his headlong dash into the bedroom. 'Wait. Raj said she was with this guy.' Ben shot a meaningful glance at the closed door.
'Ben? What are you suggesting?'
'Come on, Trajan. Don't be so naive.'
'Let go.'
'If she was with him at two in the morning when she visited Raj's house, then she might not be alone now.'
'I'm going in there, so get your hands off me.'
'Okay,' Ben said. 'But be warned; you might be in for a shock.'
'Understood.' He jerked his arm away, then shoved open the door.
For a moment Ben imagined he saw shadows on the bed coupling in ecstasy. As he passed through the doorway into the room, however, he saw that imagination
had played a trick. The bed was empty.
'She was here.' Trajan grimaced at the sickly-sweet odor that hung in the air.
'Or still is,' Ben whispered. 'Try under the bed.'
Trajan hesitated for a second as no doubt nightmarish scenarios buzzed through his mind. Then with a renewed determination he dropped to his knees to check the space between the bed frame and the floor. Ben squatted too. The heavy-duty blackout blind kept out the sun, so precious little daylight was available to them. Nevertheless, Ben stared at that shadowed void until his eyes became accustomed to the gloom. And there, in near darkness, curled up on her side like a sleeping child, was April Connor. He could just make out the blue mottle around her lips, and the dark rings beneath her eyes. Even her eyelids had darkness in them, as if the skin had absorbed something of the midnight shadows. Her short hair was spiked with a sticky material. The black dress was filthy, while a large rip revealed her grey skin at the waist. Ben guessed that's where they'd find the bite mark.
'She's breathing,' Trajan confirmed. 'I can hear it.'
'Is she alone?'
Trajan awarded Ben a pain-filled glance, then checked. A moment later he sighed with relief. 'Yes, she is.'
'Good. But there's a chance her friend might be around, too.'
'If he is I'll throw him out into the street.'
'Don't do anything rash. Remember what happened to the gang last night.'
Trajan grunted. 'You mean, you don't want me to end up as breakfast?'
'Something like that.'
They searched the rest of the apartment. Five minutes later Trajan called from the hallway. 'Ben? In here.'
Ben found Trajan staring into the cloakroom beside the front door. It was little bigger than an upright coffin, but sitting there with knees raised and his back to the wall was an olive-skinned guy aged around thirty. He'd unhooked the coats from the pegs then piled them over himself. Only his face was uncovered in that windowless cell. His eyes had sunk into his head and his cheeks were hollow. He wore that same kind of shrunken grimace that Egyptian mummies wore when their lips shriveled back. Here, the guy's lips had shrunk enough to reveal large white teeth that were tipped with gold crowns.
'So,' Ben breathed, 'they came here to escape the daylight.' He glanced at Trajan. 'I'm assuming he's alive, too?'
Trajan reached out as if to check the pulse in the man's neck. Only he stopped short, reluctant to make contact with the dead-looking flesh. Ben held the back of his hand under the stranger's nostrils.
'I can feel him exhale.' Ben shrugged. 'So he appears to be alive.'
'Appears to be,' Trajan murmured. 'It's time to call the police.'
'The police? You're kidding.'
'Ben, we need professional help.'
'What the police'll do is take them to some specialized medical unit.'
'That's what we want, isn't it?'
'The only person with knowledge about this is Elmo Kigoma. We'll call him.'
Only it wasn't going to be that simple.
TWENTY-THREE
For Roma it's webcams. For her brothers Juno and Hadrian it's dirt-bikes. While Roma browsed her favourite webcams they revved the bikes hard on that hot Wyoming evening as the scent of clematis crept in to perfume her room. Roma broke away from the computer and leaned out of the window, squinting as the sun struck her in the eyes. Her brothers cranked their bike motors into a frenzy of skull-piercing screaming.
'Hey!' she shouted. 'I went to the dentist this afternoon! Three fillings! Don't you idiots know the meaning of charity?'
They didn't hear her as they tore away down the track, their bikes flinging up clouds of dust.
'Good riddance!' Roma yelled after them. 'Keep going east! Go the long way round through China!' She touched her lip that was still numb after forty-five minutes in the dentist's chair. The scream of the drill as it tore through tooth enamel still resonated in her ears. In this little town of one hundred and eighty people the drive to the city was usually a treat - a treat that climaxed with pizza and ice cream. Today, the city visit for thirteen-year-old Roma Langelli was anything but a treat. Three fillings, jeez. At least she could spend some time gratifying her webcam fascination. In a tiny town that sat on a dusty American prairie there was precious little to do at the best of times. There wasn't a single store here; school was a fifty-minute bus-ride away, so Roma escaped boredom through the webcams that were her eye on the outside world. With her friends she'd devised games: Weirdest Webcam (a school for ventriloquists in Quebec); Most Boring Webcam: this had lots of competition. After all, most webcams that come streaming into your computer via the internet are simply static views of streets, beaches, industrial plants, or skylines. Of course, the cameras had no human operators. They were like CCTV; simply fixed to walls or posts and left to film all by themselves. This afternoon Sue had sent a link to a webcam that filmed patients in a dentist's chair in New York - ha, ha, very funny, Sue. Roma experimentally chewed her lip. The anesthetic was wearing off now so she felt a slight tingle. Also, her tongue encountered gritty bits of amalgam in the bottom of her mouth: filling leftovers. Yuk.
After rinsing her mouth from a water bottle she scrolled through a list of webcams that beamed pictures from around the world. Now for her revenge against Sue for her choice of live dental surgery. Last week Roma discovered a webcam that showed views of stomach-churning intensity; this was guaranteed to gross Sue out. Before e-mailing the link Roma decided to check that the camera was still active, so her friend wouldn't simply be confronted with a blank screen or error message (no fun to be had if Sue didn't suffer at least a teeny bit). She moved the on-screen cursor down the webcam list until she found the link marked 'River Fleet Ancillary Branch'. From previous visits to this website she knew that the River Fleet was a river that ran through a tunnel under the streets of London on the other side of the world. And this 'ancillary branch' of the River Fleet was nothing but a great, humongous sewer.
Roma clicked on the camera icon; a second later a box opened up on the computer screen to reveal a view of a genuine London sewer that must be two hundred years old at least. Jeez, the place is a big watery dungeon. Mentally, she composed her e-mail:
Hi, Sue,
Check this place of unrivaled beauty. Heh-heh. Look at it then tell me what you think those stalactites are made of that are hanging from the roof.
She grinned as she watched a picture that in real time revealed what was happening in the London sewer thousands of miles away. The camera must be set on a beam that ran across the throat of the circular tunnel. There were also lights to reveal the curving brick walls that were shades of brown and tangerine. The tunnel rose up a series of brick steps. Tumbling down those was water (and, boy-oh-boy, other stuff) at a depth of what appeared to be knee-high. Unlike most webcams that showed static views of churches or the Grand Canyon or whatever, this actually had a lot going on. Water-levels constantly rose and fell, due to bathroom usage in the buildings above, or storm water surges. Sometimes the waterfall created by the steps was a trickle, sometimes a full-blooded torrent that bubbled and foamed. Then here's the gross stuff. Hanging from the roof were what appeared to be stalactites anything up to two feet long. Only they weren't rigid. Sometimes a breeze blew along the tunnel, then they'd swing pendulum-like. The River Fleet website helpfully explained that these stalactites were composed of a build-up of toilet paper and faeces.
Roma chuckled as she imagined her friend wrinkling her nose while exclaiming, 'Ugh! Poo alert!'
Then came a sight even more gross than those literally shitty tunnel decorations. Rats. Big, hairy, bristly, juicy, yellow-toothed sewer rats. The slimy wet rats scrambled up and down those steps in the places that were free of water. Rat noses would sniff the air savoring those subterranean odors. Sometimes - uck, uck! - the big London sewer rats with their bristly backs would sit on their haunches, hold a morsel, in their front claws then nibble away with such an expression of bliss on their ratty faces.
Wait…
it gets better (or worse!) than that. This would make Sue squeal out loud. Sometimes rats would climb on to the structure that supported the webcam. Then, without warning, a rat's snout would suddenly loom in to fill the screen. At that moment you could believe a monster rat the size of a bull haunted London's sewers. As the mouth dominated the lens you could even see its bright yellow teeth that would be magnified to the size of gigantic fangs with icky bits of brown stuff stuck to them. Roma found herself laughing as she imagined Sue's shriek of disgust.
More gritty particles surfaced on her tongue. Ugh, dental work. She reached for the bottle of water again as she watched what sewercam revealed. In a hotel someone flushed and a moment later a condom came bobbing along the stream. Her eyes were drawn into the depths of the tunnel where the arching wall vanished into the distance. That dark maw beyond sewercam's lights was hypnotic. The more she stared into the shadows of underground London the more she fancied she could see shapes moving. She'd watched a dozen times before, and it always turned out to be her imagination, or maybe it was simply steam caused by hot bathwater being discharged into the icy, cold sewer.
Only today it was going to be totally different. Roma watched the screen as figures emerged from the shadows. One appeared to be in the lead; its feet splashed down in the sewer water as it ran along the tunnel; its movements were frantic; it was like it fled in panic. When the figure reached the illuminated area, it staggered and had to support itself with the iron handrail set into the brickwork. The webcam supplied vision only, not sound. So even though the figure of a young man in a leather jacket opened his mouth to yell like fury Roma could hear absolutely nothing. He reached the top of the waterfall then descended the steps where the brown fluid tumbled. The guy was exhausted. Blood trickled from his eye, and there was this look on his face. The expression of terror became a force in its own right that leapt from the computer screen to seize hold of Roma's heart and squeeze it so hard she could hardly breathe. Even so, her eyes locked on those images; she couldn't avert them. No matter what happened next.
