London Revenant by Williams Conrad

Author:Williams, Conrad
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Published: 2014-01-30T05:00:00+00:00

scampering along the tunnel, Monck ignored the litter ghosts rising on currents of warm air, the rats, the distant thunder of trains. His senses were primed for other, more subtle signals. His knife was out, though he couldn’t remember where he’d come by it. He seemed to have been running for an age, but his lungs were up to it. The burn in them was a comfort to him. It meant life, after all. He’d stolen a ride from Lancaster Gate, train-surfing the Central Line to Holborn, where he had switched to this abandoned offshoot of the Piccadilly Line.

‘Blore,’ he whispered, then louder: ‘Blore!’ The name ricocheted lazily off the dirty, curved walls. There was no answer. He’d heard rumour that one of his lairs was down here, somewhere along the disused portion of tunnel that terminated at the dead station Aldwych. The only illumination came from the lamp clutched under his arm, filched from a worksite somewhere around Queensway; it spilled a manic, inaccurate clown light that picked out movement in the walls where Monck reasoned there could be none. His boots gritted in the dust-packed mess between the rails. He checked each emergency duct, each ventilation shaft. Most of them were tightly locked or nailed shut. Others had become nests for rats; he could see their baleful eyes fixing him when he stepped too close. It was unnerving, seeing such creatures display a total lack of concern for him. He hoped they would not be the only ones.

After another ten minutes of fruitless poking around, he was ready to give up on the tunnel, when he reached a short platform. The bull’s-eye Tube sign on the wall read Strand. The platform was strewn with paint pots, brushes and rolls of masking tape. A ladder, a spirit level and several large plastic buckets had also been left behind. It looked as though the platform was still being used by underground staff testing new finishes for Southwark’s station: a section of the naked wall had been filled in with trompe l’oeils: columns and freshly painted backgrounds with that station’s Tube sign featuring predominantly. Part of the platform floor had been retiled with primrose and blue diamonds; part was a dark, military grey with pastel shades hop-scotching randomly through it. Something about the Tube stop’s stillness, its unfinished appearance, its inbetween-ness, made him hang back a while; he didn’t like it. Blore’s smell was all over the place.

Monck doused the lamp and allowed his eyes to become accustomed to the fresh dark. Stealthily, he leapt up on to the platform, removing the lamp from his shoulder and leaving it by the mouth of the tunnel. He edged forward, head cocked for new sounds that might alert him to Blore’s presence.

Always moving, he left the exposed stretch of platform – buffers signalled the end of the line up ahead – and entered the corridor that led to a stairwell up to the surface. A door to his left swung on its hinges. The grime encrusted sign on it read Sub Station.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.