“I just don’t know what we’re going
to do, Leanne. The savings account is dry. When’s the mortgage due? The eighth?
Hell’s bells.”
There was a vulnerability that I had
never seen before, and it seemed to shatter the image that I had of him. For
months after, years even, it had changed the way I looked at him. To hear such
a strong guy look so weak, had filled me with fear.
I turned at Lou. I was outvoted, and
I knew it. I tried to make my face seem friendly.
“Nothing’s going to happen to you,” I
said.
***
We found the tunnels a mile and a
quarter away. The entrance was in the middle of a field, a stone staircase cut
into the grass. The mouth was covered with overgrown weeds, and green moss
lined the concrete steps. I could only see a few feet into it, because after
that it melded with the darkness and even daylight couldn’t penetrate it.
We each made sure that we had our
weapons handy. I ordered Ben to stay by my side. He complained that he wanted
to walk next to Charlie, but I was firm. Reggie, Mel and Gregor held kerosene
lamps. I asked Lou to carry one, but she insisted on only holding her crowbar.
The tunnels were black and damp. The
darkness was so thick that I could smell it, and it fused with the musty aroma
of the concrete. Water dripped from unseen places and made pattering sounds on
the floor. For a while I turned at every drip, expecting an infected to step
out of the shadows, but I quickly became used to it. The air was cold, but at
the same time it was constricting, as though it was too thick to breathe. When
the Allies had dug the tunnels they hadn’t spared a second to make them seem
welcoming. I wondered if people had been built of sterner stuff back then.
The tunnels followed a straight path.
Charlie said we would have to move through them for a few miles before coming
out at in a field north of Larkton and Grey Fume.
Gregor began to whistle as we walked.
It wasn’t a happy tune. It seemed sombre, like something that should have been
played on a lonely violin. The noise travelled through the tunnels and echoed
off the walls.
“What the hell?” said Mel.
I snapped my head at her.
“Something just moved,” she said.
She raised her lamp in front of her.
The flame tussled with the darkness, illuminating the wall on her left. On the
stone, “B12-C” was written in faded black paint. When she moved the lamp and
lit the floor in front of her, I saw what she meant.
Scurrying along the floor, close to
the wall as if it was hugging it, was a black rat. Its fur was damp and patchy.
It moved quickly, but stopped every few seconds and turned its little head
toward us. I couldn’t tell if it was wary of us, or if it was turning its head
to make sure we were following it. I couldn’t shake the feeling that the rat
was trying to guide us deeper into the tunnels.
Get a grip
, I thought.
Ben clutched my hand. I felt his
fingers wrap around my palm, so I gave them a squeeze.
“Don’t worry buddy,” I said.
My words echoed back through the
darkness.
Buddy…uddy…uddy.
The rat disappeared from view. As we
carried on walking through the black, we all bunched in closer together. It was
like there was an unspoken pact that this place was scary as hell, and that we
needed the reassuring proximity of each other. The only person who didn’t was
Gregor. He walked behind us, a few feet away, not bothering to mute the booming
sounds his big boots made on the concrete.
“This isn’t good,” said Charlie,
ahead of me.
We all stopped.
“What’s going on, doc?” said Mel.
Charlie took a few paces forward. He
lifted his lamp, and cast a glow over the tunnel in front of him. He shook his
head, and then took a few steps back.
“We’ve got a problem.”
The tunnel ahead of us had caved in,
filling the passage way with tumbled stone. We had passed several points that
split off to the left and the right, but we knew that the path we had to take
was a straight one. Now, it was blocked with so much concrete that we would
never be able to get through.
“Maybe we can move it,” said Lou.
Charlie shook his head.
“I wouldn’t touch it. A system like
this, you don’t know how weak the structure is. You could kick a pebble and
send the whole thing crashing down.”
“So what now?” said Mel. As the light
from the lamp shined on her face, I saw that her skin was damp with sweat. I
put my hands to my armpits and felt that they were wet. Maybe it was hotter
down here than I thought.
“The tunnel branched off to the right
about ten minutes behind us. We could go back, take the turning, follow it for
a while and then head down the first left turning we see. That should set us on
the path again.”
Lou crossed her arms. She held her
crowbar tight in her right hand.
“Or we could a wrong turning. Then
another one. Then before you know if we’re stuck here.”
“So what do we do then?” I said. “It
seems that the only option we have is go right, or go back. And I don’t want
all this to have been for nothing. We don’t have indefinite supplies; this
wasn’t meant to be a long journey.”
“I say we think about this
carefully,” said Charlie.
“I say you shut up,” said Lou. Her
voice was tense now.
Ben squeezed my hand tighter. It was
good to know that he trusted me. I felt like I was finally living up to my role
as protector.
“Come on guys. Settle down. We need
to keep our heads.”
A sound boomed out from behind us. I
felt adrenaline rush through me as if it was injected with a needle. I pulled
Ben nearer to me, and with my free hand I grabbed my knife. Mel spun around and
lifted her lamp into the darkness behind us.
Gregor stood there, with a rat
squashed under his boot. Relief washed through me. Then, from the sides of the
tunnel, another black rat scuttled out. Two more joined it. They kept their
distance, looking at us with curiosity.
To my right, Reggie shuddered.
“Rats,” he said. “Hate them.”
“Is there anything you’re not scared
of?” said Mel.
Reggie ignored her.
“Seriously,” Mel carried on. “Why’d
you come on this trip? You hate stalkers, you can’t handle the infected. And
now rats.”
“I’m just as much use as you.”
“Oh, bullshit. You can’t even-”
I held my hand up.
“Quiet a minute.”
From somewhere in the distance, deep
in the tunnels, came a sound. It was faint, but seemed to be getting louder. It
sounded like the tide, like water rushing over the concrete floors. Was it
raining outside? Had the tunnels started to flood? Images crossed my mind of a
torrential wave crashing through the darkness, ready to sweep us up and drown
us.
As I listened to it, I realised that
the sound wasn’t coming from behind us. It was coming from the darkness ahead,
just beyond the concrete that obstructed our way. It grew louder and louder,
and the hairs on my arms stood up. I realised that it was a flood alright, just
not a flood of water. Something else.
“Oh fuck!” shouted Lou.
It crossed my mind to tell her to
watch her language in front of Ben. Then I saw the first rat squeeze its way
through the holes in the obstruction ahead. It was followed by another and
another, and soon dozens of furry bodies were squashing their way through the
cave-in. They squirmed through spaces that seemed impossibly tight. Their
clawed limbs guided them over damp stone. Soon the floor in front of us was
writhing with them, a living carpet of dark fur, their squeaks and sequels
echoing in the pitch black.
Ben’s fingers trembled against mine.
I heard him make a cry, a sound of fear so involuntary that it sent a chill
through me.
“We need to go. Now.”
My words were clipped, my breaths
short. As the dozens of rats became hundreds, we fled through the darkness and
into the tunnels behind us. Our steps were panicked drumbeats that sprang off
the walls. The rats followed behind us, so many of them that it sounded like a
tidal wave chasing us into the abyss.
We reached the point where the tunnel
turned.
“This way,” I said.
“Not straight on?” said Mel, her
voice tense.
“We need to lose them.”
I gripped Ben’s hand and turned the
corner so quickly I almost flung him around with me. Charlie ran at my side.
Mel and Lou followed, and at the back of the group were Reggie and Gregor. The
rats followed us. The squeaks sounded harsh, as though they shouted threats at
us as they chased us deeper into their lair.
My lungs began to burn. The air
turned impossibly stuffy. Ben stumbled and fell to the floor. I bent down and
lifted him up and he put his arms around my shoulders. The bullet-wound scar on
my leg cried out at me and sent pain tearing through my thigh.
We followed the tunnel without taking
much care in to making sure we were going the right way. Finally we saw
daylight ahead of us, glowing in the darkness like a halo.
Thank god for
that
, I thought.
“They’re getting closer,” shouted
Lou, her voice breathless.
As I got within a few feet of the
exit, there was a crashing sound behind me, followed by a shriek of pain. I
turned around. I didn’t have a lamp of my own so I couldn’t see what had
happened, but I realised that the others were no longer running. I couldn’t
make out their figures in the darkness, but I saw the glows of Mel and Reggie’s
kerosene flames.
I ran over to them. When I reached
them I stopped, and cold dread filled me. One of the tunnel walls had caved in
and the stone had tumbled down. Next to it, Lou was on the floor. A concrete
block was on top of her left calf, and it looked like it had crushed right
through the bone.
Lou didn’t make a sound. I expected
her to scream or shout, but it was as if shock had already settled over her,
blunting her nerve endings for now so that she could feel it later. If there
was a later.
Gregor walked away from us.
“They’re coming,” he said.
Sure enough we heard the tidal wave
of rats as they rushed towards us. Mel and Reggie set their lamps on the floor.
They each took hold of the rock on Lou’s leg and lifted it. This time Lou did
cry out. Her anguished shout bounced from wall to wall and melded with the
patters of the rats to create a gruesome orchestra.
I heard a groaning sound behind me. I
turned around to see a crowd of infected walking down the steps of the tunnel
exit. Daylight slid over their faces and revealed their open mouths and dark
stares. Their features were quickly replaced with black shadows as they moved
further down the steps, toward us.
Of all the shitty luck
, I thought.
Rats on one side,
infected on the other.
“This way,” said Charlie. He glanced
at the infected, and his eyes widened.
His voice had a tremor to it. He
pointed to his right, to another branching of the tunnel.
“She can’t walk,” said Mel, bending
down to Lou.
Ahead of me, Reggie gave a shout of
pain. There was a booming sound, and then a horrible, flat squeak as he crushed
a rat under his foot.