Vampire Close by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

* * * *

Fiona's shoulders brushed against the cold, damp walls. She had to shrug them together and pivot with each step as she descended the coiled stone staircase. Anything could pop out at her from behind the blind curve and she had no room to defend herself. No room.

The walls and the dark were closing in around her, the blackness dwarfing the thin beam from her torch. She was being engulfed.

A knot squirmed in the pit of her stomach. Her instincts frantically chanted to get out, get out now. Fiona swiped at a cluster of cobwebs that sprang to sudden illumination in front of her. Not fun. Not fun.

She stumbled and grazed her palm on a bit of rough stone in the wall as the steps came to an abrupt end at the mouth of a low archway that forced her to duck to enter. The tunnel itself was no taller. The hair atop her head skimmed along the ceiling. She tried to duck lower.

But then she couldn't breathe.

No, that was ridiculous. There was nothing to worry about. Granted, she was bent double, squeezing through a cramped passageway, deep below the city's streets. And there were insects. But not to worry. She might be crawling into her own grave, and those were undoubtedly some muckle-big creepy-crawlies skittering in the darkness beyond her torch's shaft of light, but not to worry.

Just breathe.

Ignore the walls.

And whatever you do, keep moving.

She wiped her palm on her trousers as she crept forward. She had known this place would be unbearable. Seeking strength in the familiar, Fiona tightened her grip on her torch and focused on the click, click of her spiked boot heels upon the stone floor. One never knew when one might need an extra spike. Fiona's breath came shallow and quick. When would this tunnel end? And isn't that wall moving inward?

Attempting not to panic, she braced her hand against the wall. No, it was simply curving. She followed the curve of the tunnel.

And then she saw the light.

Fiona scrambled out into a large stone room, airy by comparison, with high ceilings and low arched doorways leading off to other portions of the catacombs. Lit by a bare safety bulb hanging incongruously from the antiquated ceiling, the room was clearly part of the underground Edinburgh shown to tourists. Why tourists should want to visit the built-over remains of ancient streets Fiona often wondered.

Over the centuries, these subterranean vaults had witnessed unbearable desolation and they reeked of it. Medieval Edinburgh's protective battlement, the Flodden Wall, effectively shut in the populace—the Netherbow gate became known as the World's End because it was considered unsafe to live beyond it. So over the centuries, as teeming Edinburgh grew to fair bursting behind the wall, there had been nowhere else for the people to go but down. Cellars had been built upon cellars. Later, streets were built on top of streets. And always it was the most vulnerable, the most destitute who were forced to seek this plutonic shelter.

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