Hellhole

by Jonathan Maberry

A shape sprints ahead down the hallway.

  “Contact! Police, halt!”

  Then there’s just chaos as the officers pursue the figure, the world tilting and crashing on screen as the soggies sprint and Liz has to look away. When she glances back, they’ve captured a thrashing, raving gangbanger, the man’s eyes like white bulging circles onscreen.

  “You see the truth! We have you now!” the guy’s ranting, a frothing explosion of spit and bared teeth, and the unimpressed police turn him over and pin him, then strap his wrists with plastic ties.

  “Ground floor clear. One captured.”

  “You’re trapped in here with ME!”

  “Roger, Alpha. Proceed to First Level.”

  “There is no First Level. We DOWN. We beneath in the pits. ALL laid out.”

  “Wait, Alpha. What’s he saying?”

  Shepherd crackles in. “Suspect’s reality-challenged, Chief. Proceeding to stairwell.”

  “—walking over it right now. So close. You keep going, you keep going—”

  “Shepherd. Eyes on a lower level?”

  “Observed no stairs down.”

  One of the other SOG steps toward the man: “Someone shut him up—”

  “Alpha. Hold.”

  Someone: “What’s God saying?”

  “All, hold,” Shepherd commands. “Awaiting instruction, Command.”

  “We’re coming in.” The Head of Operations rips off his mic, signals some of the uniforms to shadow paramedics to the downed residents at the front of the building, another group to accompany him to hold the stairwells. “You—” He points to her two favorite drug squad detectives. “With me.”

  Austin takes off at a run. Liz and Fozz stand a moment, stunned.

  “Shit!” Fozz yelps. “Go!”

  Before she can follow him, the Deputy Commissioner grabs her arm.

  “Why should I let you?”

  “I can play the game, Daniel.”

  He says nothing. Just keeps giving that hard look.

  “I’ll make sure I forget to mention the Commissioner. This is your op after all, right? Should help your tilt.”

  He lets her go.

  3 – RE-ORGANIZATION PROTOCOL

  IT’S WEIRD. THE incapacitated gangbangers in the courtyard are already rousing when they pass, and, before the paramedics can tend them, are fighting to get free. The uniformed police have to cuff them and end up dragging them away even as the frenzied residents bite at their metal bonds, breaking teeth and tearing their mouths to shreds. Liz tries not to look at the smeared concrete spreading out from the big man’s body.

  The corridor smells dank and the carpet squelches beneath their feet, as if the whole building’s begun to liquefy. Black mold honeycombs the ceilings in some of the rooms. Liz covers her mouth and follows the thick backs of the detectives down the long hallway and around a bend, passing guards training their weapons up at silent stairwells. At the end of the next corridor, the black-clad soggies guard a hogtied and very agitated man. As they get closer, Liz can see his pinprick pupils and she fights a sudden burst of anger. How anyone can give their life away—

  But she knows why people succumb to drugs. She’d seen firsthand those who choose the easy way out.

  “—on the list?” the Head of Operations is asking the drug squad detectives ahead.

  Collins nods. “The second in command. ‘Roach’. Real name: Pharcel Ibrahim.”

  “Pharcel?” Shepherd says. “That’s sweet.”

  Roach grins at them. Casts his rolling eyes at the Head of Operations. “And God saw all that he had made, and behold the world turned to black.”

  The Chief stares at him, at the use of his name. “Hell you say?”

  “Where are your soldiers?” Detective Austin steps in. “You going to let us just waltz in here?”

  “No, no, they went to meet you. They’re out there now, still running.” The banger giggles and his eyes become whites as his head lurches back.

  “This is a waste of—”

  Collins cuts off the nearby SOG officer. “How many of your friends you want to lose? How many residents endangered as we work upwards? Map the building and we’ll cut a deal. Reduce our risk; we’ll make sure you get an easy ride.”

  “Ride, ride. We ride the pony. And she smiles just before she falls, but we’re too far to catch her—”

  Detective Collins gapes at him. Then launches in, grabs the guy by the throat before anyone can stop him. “The fuck, you talking about my daughter?”

  “Falling. Always falling. We’re all falling.” Roach cackles laughter as Collins squeezes.

  “Detective.” The Head of Ops—Liz really wishes someone would give her a name for him, because she’s not calling him God—grabs his man by the back of the neck and forcefully hauls him back. Collins’ face is about to blow.

  “The fuck you know—”

  “He doesn’t know anything. He’s scattergunning, pushing buttons.” The Chief steps in, grabs Roach’s hair. Forces him to focus. “Cut the act. Tell us what we want to know. Or you never see the sky again.”

  “The sky is a lie.”

  “Chief,” Shepherd says. “We’re losing time. First thing, they’ll burn the lot. If the gardens are on the floors above, we could have a disaster. The whole place’ll go up.”

  “Not above. Not above.” Roach’s head rolls forward like it’s too big for his neck.

  “He’s stalling. There’s nothing below us.”

  “So sure what you can’t see.” Roach swings his heavy head up, takes them all in, rolls his vision until focusing past Shepherd’s shoulder on Detective Austin. “The man there now. Alone in his room, dying. Waiting to be forgiven. But only angels forgive.”

  “Shut him up!” God barks and Shepherd snaps open a pocket for a gag.

  Austin looks like he’s seen a ghost, backs up wiping his mouth. “He’s scoped us. They’ve got intel on us.” He looks at the others. “That’s not scattergunning. He knows.”

  Roach manages to see past the shoulders. “All connected. Just have to tap in.” He grins at Liz, as if seeing the only woman there for the first time. “All have a dog in the fight. All trying to escape the ghosts—” Everyone’s looking at her and she can only raise her hands in confusion, not let them see the explosions his words cause in her, then Shepherd grabs the guy’s head, brings up the thick material to slam it in his mouth, and Roach focuses on him: “You’ll all die here. You’ll watch them fall. Just like the boat.”

  Shepherd freezes and the welling anger stays his hand long enough for Roach to rock slightly to one side—and the whole time he’s been working behind his back at his bonds, skinning the ties down over his flesh, degloving his hands to get free, and he shoulder-slams upwards into the police officer, knocking Shepherd off-balance—and then he launches to one side, legs kick out, and there’s a BANG and everyone crouches.

  The surrounding SOG train their weapons in an instant, but Roach is no longer there. “Anyone shot?” the Head of Ops demands, seeing the blood on the floor, but Shepherd isn’t listening. The vent low to the floor is now a gaping hole in the mildewed wall and he creeps toward it.

  “Fuck. Trapdoor.”

  “Are you shitting me?” Collins says.

  One of the other SOG moves toward the hole, shines his gunlight down. The rusted rungs of a crude ladder jammed into the narrow shaft are just visible. Cold air escapes, chills Liz to the bone. How did he know—

  “You smell that?” the SOG officer asks Shepherd.

  The Commander nods. “Ammonia. Hydroponics run-off.” He hand-signals his men and they don gas masks. “Let’s go—”

  And then they disappear one by one into the hole, leaving the rest of them in the vacuum of the corridor.

  4 ‒ PAYDAY

  WITHOUT THE MONITORS, they can only listen as the radio barks. “Pursuing—Stay tight—Jacko, Hutch, cover the flank—Got obs ahead... Jesus, look at that.” The distant sound of their footsteps, then startled shouts below
from whoever they’ve encountered. “Police! Freeze!” The staccato tapping of non-lethal pellets. Then: “We got Roach.”

  The Head of Ops doesn’t interject through all this, just calmly talks off to one side with the Command Post, getting updates on their vision. “You can see what? How long are they?”

  Shepherd radios in. “Multiple suspects arrested. Workers. Site secured. Chief, you need to see this.”

  “Roger, Alpha.” God grins at his troops. “Ready for presents?”

  They wait until admin staff ferry in gas masks, then one by one begin to climb into the hole and the swallowing darkness within.

  “The whole tour?” Austin asks her and Fozz. Her face says it all. “Then stay close. And we give you any instructions—run, stand still, don’t breathe—you do it.” Liz starts to open her mouth— “This time just say yes.”

  She nods.

  She’d never worn a mask and it fogs immediately and she wants to rip it off to clear it, knows that’s the last thing she can do. The sound of her breathing echoes in her ears. The world narrows and she focuses on the moving shapes in front of her as they descend the makeshift ladder about twenty feet and then hit the damp floor of the tunnel.

  There’d been talk of a myriad of tunnels beneath the CBD for years. Hidden underground passages linking the hospitals, allowing escape from Parliament if needed to the nearby train stations, even networking the police and fire stations in case of attack during the wars. She knew some of these mythical routes were indeed real—had even used the access tunnels beneath the old Age building to the local watering holes, a necessity once for journos looking to steal more drinking time.

  But this is something else. There’d long been rumors of US WWII troops digging vast tunnels linking strategic parts of Melbourne to their campgrounds at Royal Park in the inner suburb of Parkville, the spidered network said to crisscross the city boasting vast bunkers at various points housing ammunition dumps. D2S must have discovered part of it. And restored a massive section beneath everyone’s noses.

  Glancing around as they walk, Liz takes in the machine-dug precision of the rectangular subterranean highway, the polished concrete dimly lit with a low-bulb, blastproof fluorescent lighting system. The tunnel is meters wide, accommodating enough for two-lane vehicles if necessary. The figures ahead look dwarfed and insignificant somehow, as if blithely walking into the gullet of some giant primeval creature.

  The further the observational party walks, the hotter the air gets and her breath begins to steam. She demonstrates it in wonder for Fozz, but he’s not looking at her, instead staring up at the dripping green roof. Ever the germophobe. He sees Liz looking over and taps his mask, gives a thumbs-up: thank god for this little lifesaver. She can barely see him through fog.

  There’s a gasp from one of the drug squad guys and Liz looks back to see the world opening up before them. The roof disappears high above as they enter the mouth of a great room and it’s then they discover the true scope of D2S’s drug empire. Vast banks of mature marijuana plants line the disused ammo bunkers underground, bathing beneath an immense succession of artificial lights. Fozz goes crazy taking pics and Collins and Austin try to get in shot.

  A group of workers in plastic suits and masks have been apprehended by the SOG and now writhe at their feet. Roach and two other bangers lie beside them. Roach cackles through a freshly-applied gag, eyes rolling.

  “Not gonna listen to his shit again,” Shepherd explains. “You got your payload, Chief.”

  “My God.” The Head of Ops walks a long tray of plants, stares at the unending line hugging the wall down and around the slight bend in the distance. “How can this be possible?”

  One of the SOG guys is checking a hand-held air tester. “Clear.”

  Collins removes his mask and Liz stares at him. “Biggest problems are Red P in meth labs getting in your lungs. Worst risk here is starting a fire and dying really fucking high.”

  Another of the SOG guys, “Mad Dog” she thinks it is, hangs back watching the way they’ve come, shotgun down but ready. Liz is close enough to hear Shepherd double back. “Why you antsy?”

  “They kept running at us, man. That shit wasn’t right. You see their eyes—”

  “Stay liquid. All right?” Shepherd raps the man’s helmet. Focuses him. “We’ve seen worse.”

  Liz shudders to think what that might mean. “But where the fuck are they all?” Mad Dog says low. “There should have been dozens of bangers—”

  “Maybe they’re all whacked out upstairs. They look in control? We got the drop, all that matters. The boys’ll hold the fort.”

  “Yes, boss.”

  “I want to see how far this goes. You and Halo hold here.”

  Mad Dog twitches a nod.

  Shepherd passes, sees her watching. “We have a problem?”

  It takes her a moment to realize he’s talking about the shooting. She shakes her head. She has bigger fish to fry. And she’s just found a smoking gun. Let the government try to explain away the effects of criminalizing low-level drugs now. She’d have her justice—

  “Good. I won’t shoot you both, too.”

  Austin laughs. But Liz can see a tightness around Shepherd’s eyes. He’s unsettled by all of this as well—the weird behavior of those possibly affected by the drug, the scale of the operation down here, the difficulty they’d have securing the whole place.

  If he’s unsettled, where does that leave the rest of them?

  The plants are bizarre, but Liz can’t quite make out why until she moves closer and realizes that their somehow muted color isn’t due to the mask she was wearing. The leaves of the mutated trees are darker than normal, beyond a dark green to almost a black, like they’ve been burnt, somehow leached of pigment growing down here despite the warm lights arranged every two feet ad infinitum.

  They’re fascinating, and she wants to reach out and touch the darkened fronds, something about the feathered patterns calling to her. And yet something fundamentally wrong about their entire existence screaming anathema at the same time.

  “Like a negative image,” Fozz says softly, chimping at his viewscreen, doing that “oo” mouth snappers do at a good shot. Maybe that’s it. Because the plants are so familiar and yet unlike anything she’s ever seen. That anyone’s ever seen.

  “Black Lung’s real, hey?” Austin breathes. “This is some hinky shit. Doing the world a favor when we burn this to hell.”

  Collins claps his shoulder. “Amen to that. Biggest crop I’ve ever seen though.”

  “And it’s still going,” Shepherd says. He checks the bonds on the cackling Roach and his men. The gangbanger tries to get in one last taunt at them, but everyone ignores him. The suited workers lie beside them, resigned and seething. “You good?” Mad Dog nods. “Stay on the radio.”

  The SOG unit stalk ahead out the vast ammo room and down the concrete tunnel. Liz follows in their wake with God and the drug squad guys. Fozz spray-and-prays the long line of plants, frowning. “Light’s shit. They’re gonna bleed out, even with the fast lens.”

  “You can always use my phone,” Collins offers.

  Fozz glowers, hit right where a snapper-boy hurts.

  The black-clad troops move silently ahead, stepping through the gathering puddles like lithe cats. It’s only then Liz looks down and notices the increasing lengths of water beneath their feet. The further they go, the more the walls seem to bead with sweat too, and as she looks at the passing plants she can see droplets of moisture on the leaves now. Then she sees a drop pull a leaf off the nearest black lung plant and fly upwards to the roof—

  She staggers, hits her back to the wall. The next drop falls and splashes on the metal of the tray beneath. A trick of the light. She’s seeing things.

  But as her hand slides on the slime of the wall, it suddenly sticks like a flytrap and for a moment she feels she’s being pulled backwards into the concrete and everything shimmers around her as she sinks into the choking bosom of the wall.<
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  She flails, trying to pull free, and then freezes when she sees the girl in the distance. A small figure in white moving ahead of them, flickering in and out of sight at the end of the gunlights’ range. An ice chill dances up the back of Liz’s neck into her hair. It’s like death’s fingers gripping her skull.

  They’re not alone.

  What would a little girl be doing down here? She has to be seeing things, has to be imagining it—

  The girl stops. Starts to turn. And the burning horror flares up Liz’s throat and she knows she can’t see her face, can’t look into the blackness of her eyes–

  She jerks her hand clear of the wall, falls forward to her knees, and the girl in white winks out of sight.

  Liz kneels panting, staring ahead. There’s nothing there. She drops her head and it’s like the bottom of the puddle beneath her is stretching away, becoming depthless. Then her stomach contracts and she convulses and almost vomits.

  The raver on hands and knees vomiting a great stream—

  No, no, that can’t be what’s happening—

  Fozz notices her fall, comes back to help, ever vigilant. Then the radio crackles, echoing in the narrow confines.

  “...all of them— We can’t hold—”

  Shepherd and the SOG team freeze. “Repeat. Interference.”

  It’s one of the uniformed officers at the stairwells. “Killing everyone. They’re fucking ripping them apart...insane—” There’s a scream, a sound like growing thunder, then he cuts out.

  “Halo: report.”

  “Contact! We got movement upstairs. Shots fired. Oh shit, Commander. They’re coming down the shaft.”

  Shepherd doubles back, face stretched like thin paper across his bones. “Numbers. What’re we facing?”

  “Oh Jesus. All of them. It’s all of them Shep—”

  The whole team’s radios short out inexplicably as if short-circuited, small bangs and puffs of smoke whispering from the gaps in the plastic, then the sound of semi-automatic gunfire reverberates through the enclosed space.

  “Are they shooting at civilians?” one of the soggies—Jacko, Liz thinks he’s called—asks. “What the hell are they doing?”