by Alan K Baker
Much appreciation also to Anna Torborg for some wonderfully judicious editing (and for pointing out a couple of very silly mistakes!).
To all my friends at work: thank you for making it easier to drag myself away from the computer and go into the office each morning. Your friendship means more to me than I can say.
Finally, much gratitude to the late great Clark Ashton Smith (1893-1961), for countless spine-tingling weird tales, not least ‘The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis’, which is one of my favourite science fiction stories of Mars – so much so that I couldn’t resist placing my Martian Parliament on the ‘Plain of Yoh-Vombis’. Wherever you are now, Clark, I hope you don’t mind!
A sneak peak from...
The
Feaster from the Stars
A BLACKWOOD & HARRINGTON MYSTERY
...coming soon from Snowbooks
CHAPTER 1:
The Kennington Loop
Alfie Morgan hated being in this part of the network.
He had been a train driver on the Central and South London Railway for nearly ten years and had grown used to the noise and darkness of the Underground, the heat and the cramped conditions and the sheer strangeness of ploughing through the miles of deep-level tunnels which wound beneath the bustling streets of London.
He had grown used to all that… but he had never grown used to being in the Kennington Loop, and he suspected that he never would.
The Loop was at the southern end of the Central and South London line and was exactly what its name suggested: a loop of tunnel which enabled southbound trains to turn around past Kennington Station before entering the northbound Charing Cross branch platform.
There were several things which annoyed Alfie about the Loop, things which made him uneasy and jittery, so that he always found himself counting the minutes until he was out of it and back in the main tunnels. For one thing, its diameter was such that the tunnel curved tightly around, causing the wheels of the trains screeched loudly, almost plaintively on the tracks; for another, there were frequent delays, during which trains were held in the tunnel for up to twenty minutes before being allowed to exit into Charing Cross.
At times like this, the drivers found themselves sitting alone in the subterranean darkness (for no train ever carried passengers into the Loop, and precious few inhabitants of the metropolis even knew of its existence), strangely mindful of the two hundred feet of London clay pressing down upon them, cutting them off from the light and air of the outside world.
It was nearly ten o’clock in the evening when Alfie pulled out of Kennington Station and headed into the Loop, leaving the subdued light of the station’s gas lamps behind and plunging into a darkness only fitfully relieved by the lead carriage’s electric headlights. The air was hot and close and carried upon it a strange taint: a combination of machine oil and the musty ancientness of the surrounding earth.
The train’s wheels began their expected screeching and squealing as they turned upon the tightly curving track, and Alfie tried to ignore the eerie sound as he gripped the engine throttle. The tunnel curved away into the pitch-black distance, the ugly ribbing of its cast iron reinforcement segments catching the light and giving Alfie the unsettling impression that he and his train had been swallowed up by some ravenous denizen of the earth’s depths.
Alfie wished that he were anywhere on the Tube but here, and he envied the construction crews and maintenance men who were at present working elsewhere on the network, replacing the electrified tracks with the new atmospheric railway system. They still had to work in the tunnels, of course, but at least there were lots of them around; at least they had company, and Alfie imagined the good-natured banter that would lighten all the hard work.
The atmospheric railway was a technological marvel of the modern age. Alfie had wanted to take his family to see the working model of it that had been on display at the Greater Exhibition in Hyde Park the previous month, but that madman from Venus had put paid to that idea when he attacked the New Crystal Palace with a stolen Martian fighting machine. What a mess that had been! They were still picking up the pieces and rebuilding the sections of the palace which had been destroyed by the maniac. Alfie had read about it in the illustrated papers; it had all been part of some plan to get Earth and Mars to go to war with each other, and it was only by the grace of God that the villain hadn’t succeeded.
Bloody Venusians, thought Alfie as he recalled how the life of Her Majesty herself had been under threat during the attack. A load of bloody buggers, that’s what they are! Why can’t they keep to themselves without messing around in our affairs?
Alfie cursed aloud as a red signal light came into view, like a baleful eye in the darkness. He applied the brakes and brought his train to a halt. Must be clearing the platform at Charing Cross. Oh well, at least that damned screeching’s stopped for a while.
As he sat in the darkness and the silence, Alfie thought again of the maintenance crews and how he’d have given anything to join them. As far as he understood it, the atmospheric railway system worked by means of a sealed metal tube running between the tracks, to which each railway carriage would be attached. The trains would be propelled by compressed air generated by the new Vansittart-Siddeley Ultra-compressors, which were being installed at pumping stations throughout the network. The idea had been tried once before back in the 1860s, in the early days of the Underground, but it had been abandoned because of the issue of keeping the metal tube properly sealed, so that the compressed air couldn’t leak out.
That problem had now been solved, thanks to the use of Martian rubber of the same type that was used in the self-sealing neck rings of their breathing apparatus. It was amazing stuff, to be sure. Alfie had seen it being installed at Notting Hill Gate a couple of weeks ago. Strange stuff it was, completely sealing the pressure tube between the tracks, without even a seam visible – until a train passed over, whereupon it opened to admit the short pylon connecting the train with its drive cylinder. A clever bunch, those Martians, and no mistake!
A distant rumble sounded in the darkness, making the stationary train tremble very slightly, and Alfie cocked his head to one side, trying to gauge its direction and distance. Was that the train leaving the Charing Cross platform? Could he get going at last and take himself out of this infernal bloody tunnel?
The signal light remained on red, however, and so Alfie heaved a great sigh of nervous irritation and waited.
Presently, another sound disturbed the hot, heavy silence, and Alfie glanced over his shoulder in momentary confusion. It sounded like the clack of an interconnecting door shutting, back along the train. Alfie’s experienced ear told him that the sound had come from one of the doors separating the last two carriages … but that couldn’t be true. He was alone on the train: the guard, old Vic Tandy, had got off at Kennington. He had waved to Alfie from the platform as the train headed for the tunnel leading to the Loop.
Alfie sat still and listened.
A few moments later, there was another clack – closer this time. The sound was coming from the interconnecting doors. Alfie frowned. Perhaps Vic had jumped back onboard before the train entered the tunnel – bloody stupid thing to do, if he had. Vic knew better than to do something like that: more than one passenger on the Tube had met an untimely – and very messy – end trying to jump onto a moving train via the interconnecting doors.
And why would he want to, anyway? Alfie wondered, as he gazed through the front window of the driver’s cab, wishing that the red signal light would hurry up and change.
Another clack, a little louder still…
Alfie turned and peered through the window of the door between the driver’s cab and the passenger compartment. The carriages curved away into the dark distance. Their gas lamps had been turned off; the only light came from the driver’s cab, and it was barely enough to illuminate the lead carriage.
Clack.
Alfie stood up and leaned towards the door, pressing his face against the window. His hand tr
embled as he undid the latch and pulled the door open. ‘Vic?’ he called, his voice sounding flat and dull in the confined space of the carriage. ‘Vic… is that you, mate?’
No answer came from the darkness.
It must be Vic, he thought. Who else could it be… who else?
Clack.
‘Vic! Answer me, you old bastard!’
Why don’t you answer, Vic?
Clack.
Alfie’s mouth had gone dry, and his tongue felt like sandpaper as he licked his lips. His breathing sounded loud in his ears. The last sound had come from close by, between the second and third carriages, he reckoned. There was no doubt that whoever was on the train was making his way towards the front.
Alfie quickly closed the door again and glanced back through the front window at the signal. It was still on red. He thought of the stories he had recently heard, both at work and in his local pub afterwards… stories of things being seen in the tunnels – strange things, horrible things. He’d laughed at them and paid them no mind, but now…
Clack.
That was from the doors connecting the first and second carriages.
‘Go away!’ The words sprang suddenly to Alfie’s lips, almost as if they had been said by someone else. ‘You shouldn’t be here, whoever you are. I’ll have the police on you as soon as I…’
Alfie stopped, for he could see no one in the half-light of the carriage. And yet… the door leading to the second carriage had opened and closed. It had…
He glanced back once again at the signal light, and then at the throttle. It would be more than his job was worth to pass the light at red – but at least he’d be out of the tunnel. Suddenly, Alfie didn’t care about his job. He’d get another one and never come into the bloody Tube Railway again.
I’ll take it slow, he thought. I’ll stop just before Charing Cross, and then I’ll jump out and go the rest of the way on foot. That’s what I’ll do.
He was about to sit back down in the driver’s seat and open the throttle when a sound from the carriage made him stop, a sound so strange that at first he was unsure that it was a sound. It was a grunt, a low moan, a sigh, a flapping of wings and a stirring of sheets, a movement in the air that was not quite movement and yet not quite stillness. Alfie stood there, frozen in place, not daring to move as he stared through the front window at the red signal light which shone dully like an ancient star in the blackness of space. He held his breath until it burned in his lungs, and then slowly let it out.
Oh God… oh God.
The sound came to his ears again; it was directly behind him, on the other side of the door leading to the passenger compartment.
Slowly, Alfie turned around. He didn’t want to, and yet he couldn’t help himself. He had to see what was making that sound. He leaned forward towards the window, and peered once again into the compartment.
And then Alfie Morgan began to scream.
Outside, the signal light turned from red to green, but the train remained where it was, in the Kennington Loop.
