Tales of Terror from the Tunnel's Mouth

by Chris Priestley

  Fighting his revulsion at touching the corpse, Roland leaned down to close Cutter’s eyes. He thought it would be a nice touch and he had seen a man do it once when an old fellow had dropped dead outside the Dog and Duck.

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  But just as he was about to close the eyelids, Roland jerked back, embarrassed to hear the squeal of panic he emitted. Something was moving inside Cutter’s mouth.

  A fat fly poked its head out into the daylight; its bottle-green body emerged seconds later. The boys all stared, frozen, as the fly gave its wings a tremulous flutter and then took off, buzzing lazily away.

  The sound of Norris vomiting behind him brought Roland to his senses.

  ‘I hate flies,’ he said.

  ‘Who doesn’t!’ hissed Jack.

  ‘That’s disgusting,’ said Rabbit, his voice breaking under the strain of fighting the urge to sob. ‘Cover him up, somebody, before every fly in this filthy place crawls down his throat.’

  ‘Cover him?’ said Roland. ‘What with, precisely? Are you offering your coat?’

  ‘No!’ said Rabbit, screwing up his face. ‘There’s got to be something.’ But a quick look round showed that there was not.

  ‘We’d better go and fetch someone instead of just standing here. Otherwise it will look like we did it,’ said Jack. ‘Norris – go and fetch my pa and tell him what’s happened.’

  Roland was annoyed that it had been Jack rather than him who had taken the lead, but it was so clearly the right thing to do he could say nothing and merely nodded sullenly as Norris looked to him for confirmation.

  Norris was happy to leave Cutter’s body and, without saying a word, set off down the hill towards the town centre and the butcher’s shop owned by Jack’s father.

  Roland was calm now. All dread of Cutter’s body was gone. Despite Jack’s intervention, he felt in control of himself and of the boys around him.

  ‘It’s their fault,’ said Rabbit, pointing to the navvies working on the new houses. ‘It’s them what disturbed the graves.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Jack. ‘Look at them. What do we need all these houses for? Who wants to see all that brick and slate and sash windows and all that? This ain’t London.’

  Jack stared at Roland. It was Roland’s father who had bought the land and was paying for those houses. Roland grinned and shook his head. Did Jack really think he could intimidate him?

  ‘Who cares what they’re building or what they’re building it with?’ said Rabbit. ‘It’s the fact that they dug into them graves. It’s a plague pit, they say.’

  ‘It ain’t a plague pit,’ said Figg.

  ‘What is it, then?’ said Roland dismissively.

  ‘It’s the old workhouse they knocked down before they started building,’ replied Figg. ‘There was an outbreak of fever there, a hundred years or so back. There was little children in there and they just locked ’em up and let ’em die. That’s what my old man says, anyway.’

  ‘And your father would know, wouldn’t he?’ said Roland with a sneer. ‘He hasn’t set foot out of the house for years, except to go down the pub. And it’s not as if he’s a great one for reading, either.’

  ‘You don’t have to read books to know there was a workhouse there,’ said Jack coldly. ‘Everyone knows that. That’s why the Whispering Boy is doing this.’

  ‘There is no Whispering Boy,’ said Roland.

  ‘Yes there is.’

  ‘No there isn’t,’ said Roland.

  ‘Yes there is,’ said Jack, clenching his fists. ‘I seen him with my own eyes.’

  Everyone turned to look at him.

  ‘Well, how is it that you haven’t mentioned it before?’ said Roland.

  Jack shook his head.

  ‘I don’t know. I suppose I thought you wouldn’t believe me,’ he said.

  ‘Who says we will now?’ said Roland with a smirk.

  ‘Let him talk,’ said Figg. ‘Go on, Jack. Tell us what you saw.’

  ‘It was the day they found the bricklayer,’ said Jack, sitting down on the wall. ‘He was the first one, remember. With Cutter, that makes five now.’

  ‘All right,’ said Roland. ‘We can count.’ He smiled at Rabbit. ‘Well, most of us can. What about the bricklayer?’

  ‘I saw him just before he died,’ said Jack. ‘He walked past me, like, and then after a minute or two I heard this weird noise.’

  ‘Whispering?’ asked Roland.

  ‘No – not whispering. More like gasping. Or hissing. And then I turned and instead of the bricklayer – who I know now was lying in the ditch with that expression on his face, same as what Cutter has – there was this boy standing there . . . only – I can’t rightly explain.’

  ‘Can’t explain?’ said Roland. ‘What did he look like, then?’

  ‘I can’t hardly say,’ said Jack shaking his head.

  ‘Can’t hardly say?’ repeated Roland with a grin.

  Jack frowned. ‘You calling me a liar?’

  ‘I’m not calling you anything,’ said Roland. Jack may have been small, but he was tough. He wasn’t someone to push too hard unless you were looking for a fight. There would be a time and a place for that, thought Roland. But now wasn’t it. ‘All I’m saying is either you saw him or you didn’t.’

  ‘And I did,’ said Jack.

  ‘Well then,’ said Roland. ‘What did he look like?’

  ‘It ain’t that simple,’ said Jack. ‘One minute there was no one there and the next there was. Then there wasn’t again.’

  Roland spat and sniffed and turned to Jack with the look of someone who had heard just about everything.

  ‘So when he was there – in between the times when he wasn’t – what did he look like?’

  ‘That’s just it,’ said Jack. ‘He didn’t really look like anything.’

  ‘He must have looked like a boy, though,’ said Roland, smiling. ‘Or else we would be talking about the Whispering Dog or the Whispering Kettle or whatever, wouldn’t we?’

  ‘He looked like a boy all right,’ said Jack. ‘But only the shape of a boy. He was like a shadow or something. It was like he was made out of smoke.’

  ‘Made out of smoke?’ said Roland with a laugh. ‘Listen to yourself, friend. Made out of smoke?’

  ‘I’m just telling you what I saw,’ said Jack. ‘Don’t ask if you don’t want to hear the answer, all right?’

  Jack looked at Roland with an expression that left no one in any doubt that as far as he was concerned, the conversation was ended.

  Roland promised himself to have that fight with Jack, and to have it soon. He would make sure that when it happened, it would be on his terms. He had already begun to carry a short metal bar in his coat pocket for just such an occasion.

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  Jack Landon’s father, the butcher, arrived in due course, led by Norris. He hailed his son and Jack showed him the body. He had already sent word for the constable and he knelt down and looked at Cutter lying on the patch of wasteland.

  Landon had never been fond of the boy, but even so it was a sorry end and his mother would be distraught. He had wanted to see for himself that this was not some kind of evil prank before asking his wife to break the news, but now he sent Norris back down the hill to the shop.

  Landon looked at Roland and nodded, acknowledging by force of habit that this boy was the child of gentry. But he did so reluctantly. Roland’s father might be rich and a justice of the peace, but Landon didn’t like the way he and his family lorded it over everyone. A fly landed on the back of his hand and he flicked it away in disgust. He might need the father, but there was no harm in causing a bit of trouble for the son, he thought to himself. No harm at all.

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  At dinner that evening, Roland saw his father signal to his mother with a slight tilt of the head, and she got to her feet immediately, saying that she would leave the men to their talking; she had a letter she needed to write. She gave Roland a pained smile as she left.

  ‘Now
then,’ said Roland’s father, lifting his napkin from his lap and dropping it on to the table. ‘I thought we might have a little chat, you and I – man to man, as it were.’

  He lit a cigar and blew a cloud of noxious grey smoke across the room.

  ‘What would you like to talk about, Father?’ said Roland indifferently.

  ‘I bumped into Mr Landon in the bank this afternoon,’ he said. ‘He tells me that you were there when that poor lad’s body was found.’

  ‘Yes, Father,’ said Roland. ‘I was.’

  ‘Could you tell me what you were doing there?’

  ‘I wasn’t doing anything, Father,’ he replied. ‘I was with some friends, that’s all.’

  ‘Friends,’ snorted his father. ‘Can you really call that band of pickpockets, and goodness knows what else, your friends?’

  ‘I don’t know what you want me to say,’ said Roland, looking away.

  ‘Landon tells me you’re in league with these ruffians, that you think yourself their leader.’

  ‘His own son is among them!’ said Roland, waving his arms in exasperation. ‘How can he criticise me?’

  ‘His opinion matters not one jot,’ said Roland’s father. ‘It is I who find this behaviour unacceptable!’

  Roland knew that there was no point in replying and so he looked down at his empty plate. A fly was crawling across it and it brought back the memory of Cutter. He made a swipe for it, but missed.

  ‘This has to stop!’ said his father.

  ‘Really, Father,’ said Roland. ‘I can’t see what harm it does anyone. Am I not to be allowed to choose my own company?’

  ‘No,’ said his father, stubbing out his cigar angrily. ‘No, you are not!’

  He glared at Roland, and then took a deep breath, trying to keep his promise to his wife to hold his temper.

  ‘I’ve spoken to the headmaster at Hethering Court,’ he continued after a moment, his voice at a more normal level. ‘We have decided that it would be in everyone’s interest if you did not return to the school at the end of the holidays.’

  This statement took Roland completely by surprise. He had expected some ban on leaving the house or from associating with riff-raff, but not this. He could not stop himself grinning.

  ‘I can see by your expression,’ said his father, ‘that the idea of ending your time at Hethering Court School will not unduly disturb you.’

  ‘I should say not,’ said Roland. ‘I can’t abide the place.’ But then a thought occurred to him. ‘Which school am I to go to instead?’

  His father laced his fingers together and cracked his knuckles loudly.

  ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Well, that’s just it. You’re not going back to school at all.’

  Roland frowned, confused. What exactly was going on here?

  ‘I don’t understand,’ he said.

  ‘I think we both know that you’re never going to amount to very much academically,’ said his father. ‘Oh, you’re clever enough – too clever, I often think – but you don’t care about all that, do you?’

  Roland didn’t reply.

  ‘I was never a great one for books myself, son. Perhaps we have more in common than we think, eh?’

  Roland’s expression made it transparent that he believed this to be very, very unlikely.

  ‘I have managed to secure you a place in the East India Company,’ continued his father. ‘You’ve always wanted to travel.’

  ‘No I haven’t,’ said Roland.

  ‘You leave for Bombay a week on Tuesday.’

  For once Roland was speechless. He stared at his father in disbelief.

  ‘It’ll make a man of you, my boy,’ he said. ‘It’ll make a man of you.’

  Roland knew that there was nothing to be done. He and his father were not so very different: once he had made up his mind, there would be no changing it. But Roland was determined not to give his father the satisfaction of thinking he had in any way bested him.

  Instead Roland accepted his fate without further argument or emotion. Within an hour, he had fully adjusted himself to this new prospect and even saw that it might be an improvement on his tedious life in England.

  But he felt that there needed to be some definite break with his past life. It wouldn’t feel right to simply step from one life to the next without some kind of marker.

  Beside, he had unfinished business. Though it was almost inevitable that Jack Landon would take his place, Roland didn’t see why the boy should inherit his leadership so quietly and painlessly. He had no wish to say goodbye to the other members of his gang. He had no affection for any of those boys. The business he had with Jack was for him and him alone.

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  Roland waited near Landon’s butcher’s shop on the high street until he saw Jack leaving and heading off through the alleyway that ran alongside. He caught up with him before he had reached the end.

  ‘What do you want?’ said Jack, turning at the sound of Roland’s voice.

  ‘I just came to tell you I’m going away in a few days,’ said Roland.

  ‘Yeah?’ said Jack, with a feigned lack of interest. ‘Good.’

  He began to walk away.

  ‘Meet me up by the new houses,’ Roland called after him. ‘Where we found Cutter. At sundown. Or are you the coward I always thought you were?’

  Jack turned back to face him again.

  ‘I ain’t scared of you,’ he said calmly. ‘I ain’t never been scared of you. It’s my pa that’s scared of your father, that’s all. If it wasn’t for him I’d have done for you years ago. Sundown it is. I look forward to it.’

  Roland had hoped to spook Jack by arranging to meet him at the place they’d found Cutter’s body, but it seemed to have had little effect. He had noted the expression on Jack’s face: it was one that contemplated victory.

  Roland had to admit that Jack would be a formidable opponent. He was tough and dogged, proud and strong. But he had one major weakness. Despite his rough and ragged background, he was essentially good and fair-minded.

  Roland was ready to exploit this. As he walked back down to the high street, he felt the metal bar in his pocket and smiled. He had no intention of risking defeat at the hands of this ragamuffin. Roland was going to show him why he had been the leader and not Jack.

  Perhaps he would put a brick through Landon’s window before he left, too, and teach that fat butcher to keep his nose out of other people’s business.

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  As Roland reached the top of the hill that evening, he could see Jack standing in the shadow of one of the few remaining walls of the old workhouse buildings. He chuckled to himself. Maybe he had Jack all wrong. He had taken him for the kind who would step straight up to a fight, not skulk about in the shadows.

  But when Roland walked a little further on, he realised that the figure ahead could not be Jack, for Jack was lying on the road in front of him, flies crawling across his face – a face distorted into the same expression Cutter had worn when they’d found him.

  The flies rose as one as Roland cautiously approached and flew towards the boy who stood by the wall. Roland heard the noise, registering the strange hissing, rustling sound that had given the Whispering Boy his name, as the figure began to move out of the darkness.

  He took the metal bar from his coat pocket and waved it above his head, taking comfort from the weight of it in his hand. Whoever this boy was, Roland was not going to run. He had never run in his life.

  ‘You think I’m scared of you?’ he said, his voice thin and shaking. ‘I’ll cave your skull in, whoever you are.’

  He almost added, ‘Whatever you are,’ because now that he looked again he could see exactly what Jack had meant by him looking like smoke. He was more shadow than boy. What was he wearing?

  The Whispering Boy stopped when Roland spoke. Maybe he had frightened him with the metal. He waved it again. The Whispering Boy began to come towards him.

  But this movement was as strange as the boy’s appearance, for though
the ground on which they both stood was uneven and strewn with brick rubble, the Whispering Boy seemed to move as though he were sliding across a polished ballroom floor. The whispering noise grew in volume.

  Roland was beginning to think that running might indeed be the best option and, besides, there was no one here to witness his retreat. But just as he was thinking this, a big fat fly flew straight at him. He nearly brained himself with the metal bar trying to swat it away.

  But then another came, and another, and another, and in a few fateful, hideous seconds Roland realised what was happening, though his mind struggled to cope with the information.

  The Whispering Boy was only the shape of a boy and nothing more and that shape was formed from flies, countless flies, their sibilant movements causing a continual hiss like the whisper of a thousand souls.

  Roland turned to run, but the flies were quicker than even his thoughts. They flew to his face, smothering him, wrapping themselves around his mouth and nose like a living scarf.

  Roland clenched his mouth shut and tried to keep the flies out of his nose but he couldn’t block it and breathe. His mind struggled against the inevitability of his fate. His lips parted ever so slightly, and the flies took their chance.

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  The flies re-formed into the shape of the Whispering Boy, though more raggedly this time, as if their discipline was all spent.

  Away they went, now in the form of a boy, now merely a cloud of flies, now nothing, now a boy once more. They shimmered and shifted and dissolved until once again they were nothing. Flies and nothing more.

  *

  While the Woman in White had been recounting her tale, I had been utterly caught up in it, my mind entirely concentrated on the listening and picturing of the words. I was there. I saw the Whispering Boy. I saw those flies. I witnessed that awful death.

  But yet again, I felt that I was not the only witness to those events. Something flickered at the very edge of my vision, something that was never there when I looked, something that was always a blur, a faint trace, a ghostly mirage.

  As soon as the story ended, it was as if the listening had used up an enormous amount of my strength and energy. Vampire-like, those tales were draining me.