MicroHorror

1968, and the Rolling Stones were battling Beatlemania. “Jumping Jack Flash” fought it out with “Back in the USSR” in every record shop and coffee bar in London. This music wasn’t to Joe Kenton’s taste. At thirty-seven he was hooked on Elvis and there could be no substitute. He wore his hair in the same style and spoke, unconsciously, with a Memphis inflection.

That morning, Joe was playing with his kids in Kennington Park. He’d just bought the four-year-old twin girls ice cream cones when Jane appeared, red in the face and breathless.

“Joe, they need you urgently at Stockwell station. I’ll take the kids home.”

***

The Victoria Line, the deepest tunnel dug for London’s subway system since 1906, was under construction. It would eventually link Walthamstow in the North East and Brixton in the South. Joe was a manager on the project.

“Glad they managed to locate you!” Reggie Styles, the local project manager, enthused.

“What happened, Mr. Styles?”

“Part of the tunnel’s down between here and Vauxhall. It was bored yesterday and the cladding was just going in.”

“Is it the roof or a wall?”

“Strangest thing, it’s the floor. There’s a bloody great hole about fifteen feet wide.”

“Anyone hurt?”

“Not as far as we know, but there are two men missing. Must have fallen through.”

“The rescue services are on their way?”

“No, Joe, we have to keep this quiet if we can. You know we’ve been criticized on safety issues lately. This is the company’s biggest contract and we can’t risk losing it, unless it’s absolutely unavoidable.”

***

The hole was a surprisingly regular oval shape in appearance.

“The earth is almost red, not the dark yellow Thames valley stuff we’re used to.”

“Joe, forget the geology; we need to clear this up.”

The wet mud glinted slickly in the light from their torches. Joe and Reggie lowered themselves the thirty feet or so to the yielding floor of a vast cavern.

Joe found his arm being tugged. Reggie pointed to the ground a little to the left of them, where two construction hardhats were partially embedded. Moving closer, Joe saw one of the hats was effectively crushed. What could do that?

Sticking close together, they pushed on through the darkness. Joe became convinced he could hear a high-pitched piping sound, almost a tune. There was something in the unfamiliar modulation that made him shudder.

Up ahead the darkness gave way to a dim redness. A sickly sweet smell emanated from the same direction. The two men mentally restrained themselves from rushing back to the clean London air.

It took a few minutes to reach the source of the light. The walls here glowed as if banked coals heated them.

“We’ve found what we were looking for.” Joe pointed to a strange tangle of limbs a few yards away.

As they approached, the piping sound increased, became a veritable conversation.

“I don’t like this,“ Reggie said. “It’s not natural.”

Bloody, shredded clothing and the workers mangled and snapped bones clung together like giant owl pellets.

“We need to get the police,” Joe said. He turned his torch above him, looking for the source of the high pitched notes that were making his skull rattle. The beam picked out score upon score of jagged yellow-white rocks. Clinging to these, bloated forms, seeming a hellish amalgam of giant toad and earthworm, whistled hideously.

“What the hell?”

“Run!” Reggie shouted, stumbling back toward safety.

Joe followed, dropping the light in his own panic. In the darkness he heard his companion start to scream. He too started to shout as the creatures rained down from above.

He scrambled on his hands and knees to escape the slimy, clinging forms. Then suddenly, their piping increased and they scattered.

For a brief second Joe regained his feet, then the soft floor undulated and he fell on his back, watching in horror as the red glow showed the cavern’s mouth closing on him.

• Copyright: © 2009 Mark Dalligan