Tales of Terror from the Tunnel's Mouth

by Chris Priestley

  She was also annoyed to hear that he insisted they move at the first opportunity because the house was haunted. Letting out a series of escalating sighs, she had listened to some nonsense about a crack in the wall and something the boy claimed to have seen through it.

  Philip’s mother had always found children and their overactive imaginations alarming, and it had taken all of her husband’s persuasive powers to convince her that they should have one of their own. She was, therefore, relieved when her son turned out to be refreshingly unimaginative. This new change in his character was disturbing.

  Philip’s father said that the best thing to do was simply to switch the rooms. If Philip did not want that room, then it could become the guest room. Philip could stay where he was and they could just change the decor of his room to something more suitable. As he pointed out, the room that was to have been Philip’s was larger, and so there really was not a problem.

  Philip no longer stood in the doorway to the room in which Benson and Tommy worked, but hurried past instead, both to avoid a glimpse of the dreaded wall and its sinister fissure, and to avoid any comment from Benson, who clearly enjoyed the boy’s discomfort.

  Benson eventually hung a door on the bedroom and so the work went on unseen. Philip would sometimes pause in the hall and stare at the door, at the light that leaked out from underneath.

  g

  Without the attentions of Philip or their employers, Benson and Tommy finished the room in no time at all and moved on to the entrance hall and staircase, as Philip’s mother had instructed.

  Philip had been standing in the upstairs hallway as the men moved their equipment out of the room and cleared away. Tommy gave Philip a wink. They left the door open. Philip hesitated and then, curiosity overwhelming his fear, stepped inside.

  He stood in the newly papered and painted room, the sun streaming in and lighting up a floating galaxy of dust particles. The room was so utterly transformed from when he had last seen it that it felt like a different room altogether.

  He knew that the crack must still be there under the layer of wallpaper, but it did not feel like it was there. It was as if the crack had never existed and so it was as though the room beyond it had never existed, nor its mysterious occupant. It was as if the whole thing had been a crack in his mind, a fissure in his imagination.

  Philip would still never have wanted to sleep in that room, but it was surprisingly easy just to stand there. He grinned, pleased at having overcome his dread of the place.

  The door slammed shut behind him and he ran to open it. He tried the doorknob but it was as if someone was holding it from the other side; it did not budge.

  ‘Mr Benson!’ shouted Philip, for he felt sure that was who it was. ‘Please – let me out!’

  There was no reply. He tugged again but to no avail.

  ‘Tommy!’ he shouted. ‘Is that you? Please let me out. Please!’

  But again, there was no reply. Philip took a deep breath and tried to be as quiet as possible. He hoped that whoever it was might think he had let go and relax their grip. He was about to give the doorknob a sudden yank, when he became aware of a noise behind him.

  At first he couldn’t locate where the noise was coming from. Whatever it was, it sounded as though it was moving. But where? The room was empty.

  He tried the door handle again but it was still jammed. He called out again, but no one came. The noise was getting louder. He wondered if it might be a mouse under the floorboards or up in the roof, but rejected this idea as soon as it was formed. The sound was not one of scampering feet. It was a slithering sound.

  Then he saw it: an almost imperceptible movement out of the corner of his eye. He peered, trying to see what it was, but there was nothing there but the wall and the wallpaper. Then it moved again.

  There was something under the wallpaper. It was hard to make out, but there it was – a definite and unmistakable ripple in the pattern, a ripple that was moving, and moving swiftly, across the wall.

  Philip watched the thing swimming beneath the surface of the paper, mesmerised by the undulating pattern and fearfully, but hypnotically, fascinated by the nature of this unseen, unknown thing. What, he wondered breathlessly, could it be?

  But even as he wondered this, Philip knew that it had something to do with the crack in the wall and the man – whoever he was. And sure enough, the rippling began to move in circles around that spot, circles that decreased in diameter at each rotation until eventually it sat quivering, its size and shape exactly mirroring the jagged hole beneath.

  Philip was being pulled in two directions: his body wanted to run – to at least hurl himself to the farthest corner of the room and away from that thing. It was as if the fibres of his muscles instinctively knew they had to carry Philip out of harm’s way. His brain, too, fizzed and crackled with fear and dread.

  But something else was keeping him rooted to the spot. It was some other part of Philip that pulsed with curiosity, with fascination – with desire. While every cell in his body, every jangling nerve, urged him to run, this hunger to know the power he could feel beyond that skin of patterned paper was irresistible.

  He reached out a hand and touched the paper. The ripple seemed merely like a bubble left behind when the paper had been hung. Philip took hold of it between his fingernails and ripped it, letting the torn fragment fall to the floor.

  He leaned forward, his heart pounding. The crack in the wall was no longer dark. A strange blue light emanated from it and Philip felt pulled towards its glow.

  He looked through and there, once again, was the room. It was bathed in the same dull blue glow that lit Philip’s wide eye as it peered through the crack.

  The room looked deserted now: a tattered, shabby, blank version of the room in which Philip stood. Then suddenly the man appeared, blocking out the room entirely, his wild, bloodshot eye only inches away from Philip’s.

  Philip recoiled as if he had been shot, falling backwards and scrabbling away to the other side of the room, staring back at the rip in the wallpaper and the crack, now dark once more, deep and dark like a wound. The doorknob rattled and the door swung open. Philip screamed.

  Benson walked into the room.

  ‘And what are you up to, eh?’ he said. He leaned forward. Philip could smell beer on his breath.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Philip. ‘I was just looking.’

  ‘Thought you was scared of this room, little man,’ said Benson with a leering grin. ‘Thought you said there was a ghostie in here.’

  Philip was staring at the other end of the room and Benson followed his gaze. He saw the ripped wallpaper and cursed under his breath.

  ‘Why don’t you run along, eh?’ hissed Benson between clenched teeth. ‘Ain’t you got something better to be doing than making extra work for me? I suppose you think it’s funny, do you? That your idea of a lark then, is it? Off with you before I –’

  Benson lifted his hand as though he was going to strike, but though Philip flinched, the blow never came. Benson might have been a bit drunk, but he wasn’t stupid.

  Philip took the opportunity to scramble to his feet. He stood staring at Benson and was filled with a sudden loathing for the man. How horrible he was, thought Philip. He was such a bully, such a brute. Someone ought to teach him a lesson.

  Benson’s eyes suddenly widened in horror and he backed away from Philip, his hands outstretched. He was mumbling to himself. Tears started rolling down his cheeks. He looked like an enormous baby. Philip could not help but laugh, as he followed him out of the room into the corridor.

  When Benson got to the stairwell, a new calm seemed to come over him. He sat on the banister, put first one leg and then the other, over it, and took one last look at Philip before falling forward, head first, on to the marble floor below.

  The sound of Benson’s head hitting the marble was unlike any Philip had ever heard before. It was followed rapidly by shouts from Tommy and hysterical screaming from the parlour maid.


  The expression on Benson’s face before he jumped had seemed to say, ‘Must I?’ It was the look of someone whose will was broken, of someone who had no choice but to obey. It was the look of a dog beaten into submission. It was an expression Philip had rather enjoyed.

  The commotion from downstairs grew in intensity, with footsteps clattering about in the hall. Philip heard someone take a few steps up the stairs, then go back down again. He saw no reason why he should get involved. He had never liked Benson, after all.

  He suddenly felt an odd twinge in his head – not quite pain, or, if it was pain, a strange, almost pleasurable one, like the feeling of ears popping. He went to his bedroom and looked in the mirror on his wardrobe.

  There was something different about Philip’s face. He could not have said what it was exactly, but he looked changed in some subtle way.

  He felt different too. Again, he would have struggled to say how. He was not ill, but he felt odd. He felt as if he were suddenly not large enough to contain all that was within him. He felt constrained by the limitations of his own body.

  Philip knew that something, someone, other than himself now inhabited his body. But instead of feeling horror at this parasite within, he experienced a strange sense of completeness. He accepted the presence willingly – more than willingly. He wanted it. He wanted it. More than anything in the world.

  g

  The Tunnel’s Mouth

  I slumped sideways at the end of the tale, as if I’d been held in the talons of some huge beast – a beast such as had leapt from the confines of the barrow to catch those two unfortunate brothers. But unlike that one, my imaginary beast had loosed its grip.

  The images were vivid as always, however unwelcome. I saw the dark man lunging towards the crack in the wall, I saw the broken-headed Benson lying in a pool of his own blood, and again I saw a flickering something lurking just out of sight.

  I felt utterly compelled to listen to this woman’s stories, but wondered if I would have the strength to hear another, for each one had sapped yet more of my energy, so that now it took a force of will to keep my eyes open.

  The strangeness of this last tale seemed particularly to stay with me and I now had the hardest job in ridding my mind of the fevered imaginings it inspired: of that demon the boy had become possessed by. I felt convinced that should I allow my eyes to close, I might find myself in that awful other room.

  Outside, darkness had deepened and some of its chill was seeping through the glass and the fabric of the carriage; I shivered at its touch. The light seemed to be draining from the sky. Night was coming.

  The Woman in White sat back in her seat, watching me with her usual inscrutable intensity. Her image was smudged now by my tired eyes, and she was becoming as blurred as her reflection in the compartment window.

  I tried in vain to marshal my brain and bully it into a more disciplined state. How long had we been sitting here? How long had my companions been asleep? I tapped the Bishop on the arm. Nothing.

  ‘Sir?’ I said.

  He slept on. I gave him a shove. Still no reaction. I clapped my hands loudly. None of the sleepers so much as twitched. The Woman in White smiled.

  A horrible thought now occurred to me. Perhaps this strange woman had drugged my companions. Or, if not drugged them, then affected them in some way as yet unknown to me.

  At the same music hall I mentioned earlier, I saw a man perform a startling feat of mental wizardry known as hypnotism. The man – Mesmero was his name – stood at the edge of the stage in the glare of the limelight, peering out unblinkingly. Then, with an almost supernatural hold over members of the audience, he encouraged people to behave in the most comical ways. By turns they were encouraged to bark like dogs, roll on the floor like infants in a tantrum or cavort like drunken sailors. One of our number was invited onstage and was made to fall asleep in an instant. Did this woman possess a similar gift? Had she hypnotised us?

  Perhaps she was even a murderess – such women did exist, I knew. Perhaps she had in some way delivered a poison to each of us in turn. And maybe, because of my youth, my resistance to it was stronger than that of my older fellow passengers. Had they already succumbed to its deadly effects? Perhaps the poison had yet to reach its fatal climax.

  This theory, however disturbing, would certainly explain her reticence in telling me her name and would account in some small degree for her peculiar manner.

  ‘I fear that something untoward has happened here,’ I said, looking at her all the time. Did I have enough strength to get to the door? I could use the surgeon’s briefcase to break the glass. Maybe the door would open from the other side.

  ‘Really?’ she murmured.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It can scarcely be normal for these men to have slept so soundly for so long.’ I clapped my hands and stamped my feet loudly. ‘Do you see?’ I shouted, my voice cracking. ‘Nothing rouses them.’

  I made no attempt to disguise the accusatory tone I knew was in my voice. I would not sit here quietly and simply let this woman work her evil on me. I was my father’s son, after all.

  ‘You seem very excitable suddenly,’ she said.

  And I wonder that you are so calm, I thought to myself, straining to remain fully awake. I wonder why it is that you are not more concerned about the state of these men, or why it is that we have sat in this train for goodness knows how long, with no word from anyone to tell us what is happening.

  The Woman in White smiled at me, and then looked out of the window seemingly without a care in the world.

  ‘And where has all this wondering got you?’ she said.

  I frowned, unable in that instant to recall whether or not I had spoken my thoughts aloud.

  ‘I do not know,’ I answered. I didn’t have the courage to accuse her directly of any crime without the evidence to substantiate it.

  I took out my watch and remembered that it had stopped. I shook it angrily and stood up to try the window once more, but it was still jammed. I banged on it angrily and leaned forward, grabbing the Farmer by the lapels of his coat and shaking him. He did not stir.

  ‘Calm yourself,’ said the Woman in White.

  ‘Calm yourself, you say?’ I shouted hysterically. ‘I think I’ve been calm long enough! What’s wrong with these men? What have you done to them?’

  ‘Done to them?’ she said, looking a little hurt. ‘You blame me for their condition?’

  ‘I . . . I . . . I think I do,’ I spluttered.

  ‘I assure you that I am not responsible,’ she said. ‘Please, sit down.’

  As soon as she said the words I felt as though my legs would not support me and it was all I could do to reach my seat before falling to the floor. I cursed my weakness and summoned up one last burst of energy to confront her and assert myself.

  ‘Miss, I must insist you tell me the time,’ I said, trying to think how I might gainfully proceed from here. Perhaps she had a gun in her bag. I was convinced now that I was dealing with someone who would stop at nothing to achieve whatever twisted goal she sought. What would Sherlock Holmes have done in my circumstances? I wondered.

  ‘The time?’ she asked with a smile.

  ‘Yes!’ I said loudly, hoping to show that I was made of sterner stuff than she may have imagined. I was pleased to see that this forcefulness had some effect. She looked at her watch and nodded to herself.

  ‘Why, it is your time, Robert,’ she said.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I said in exasperation.

  To my utter astonishment, she leaned across the carriage, grabbed my necktie and, before I quite knew what she was doing, she had pulled my face towards hers.

  We kissed. But this was not the gentle kiss I had shared with Chastity Manningtree, sheltering in the gazebo at my cousin’s wedding in the summer. This was not a shared kiss.

  She placed her free hand at the back of my head and thrust me into her face with a force and passion I would scarcely have believed a woman could possess.

  I s
truggled. I am sure I struggled. And yet there was something overpowering, something intoxicating, about her embrace. I felt myself falling as if from a great height into a mist-shrouded valley far below.

  I cannot say how long I fell or how long I would have continued to fall, but I was suddenly interrupted, snatched from this dream-like descent and hauled back.

  Instead of the soft lips of the storyteller against my mouth, I now felt an altogether different sensation. My eyes snapped open. A strange face was clamped to mine and I struggled free, gasping and coughing.

  ‘What on earth?!’ I spluttered, staring at the mustachioed man who, moments before, had seemingly been kissing me. I could see quite clearly now that he wore the black tunic and brass buttons of a police constable. But I struggled to comprehend the meaning of these things.

  ‘George here has saved your life, lad,’ said a second man I had not noticed until then but who was similarly attired and therefore also a policeman. ‘You was a goner for sure.’

  I stared at them in horror and confusion.

  ‘Mouth to mouth, they calls it,’ said the first policeman. I spat one of his moustache hairs from my mouth and looked about me, the sounds and smells of the area now flooding in.

  In my confused state I wondered if I had not died and gone to hell. And if this was the case, I wished that I had been allowed more opportunities to sin, for this seemed a rather excessive judgement on what had been a frankly dull and blameless life. But I was not dead. I could see that now.

  I had awoken to a scene that could have come from Mr Wells’ The War of the Worlds. The train lay on its side like a dead animal, smashed and twisted, split open, gored. All around, people were shouting and calling for help.

  With a jarring metal-on-metal screech, parts of the wreckage were pulled apart or dragged aside. Everywhere there were percussive clangs and clatters, the shattering of glass, the splintering of wood.

  My eyes needed more time to adjust to the darkness, for the sun had now dropped out of sight behind the hill through which the tunnel had been bored and, though there was a glow in the west, it was faint and eerie. Lanterns and torches moved this way and that like fireflies amid the gloom and the chaos.