The Shelter Read online

  There was litter everywhere inside the shelter, the same kind of detritus as above ground; every wall was covered in graffiti which looked like cave paintings in the shadows. A torn, dirty mattress was propped up in one corner, oozing stuffing. Dust floated and drifted, illuminated by the sunlight twenty feet above. Alan looked up at the two faces peering down at him. He waved, and Duncan waved back. Tom gave him the finger, grinning.

  "Mark?" Alan said, stooping to get into the main chamber. He straightened up inside, and stifled a yell as Mark stepped out the shadows. He was looking round, reading the graffiti on the walls.

  "Not much down here really," Mark said quietly. Alan could tell he was secretly relieved, but he sensed the older boy was obscurely disappointed too, and starting to get bored again. He was always wary when Mark was getting bored.

  Alan felt something hard beneath his foot in the trash; he bent downwards to pick whatever it was up. Mark wasn't looking, and Alan was glad, for what he found was a Swiss Army knife, like the one he'd had in Scouts before he'd quit. It had multiple blades and implements, and looked brand new. Maybe it wouldn't be such a bad day after all! Alan slipped it into his pocket, closing the main blade (which was open) as he did so. He didn't say anything about the knife to Mark.

  There was the ragged, echoing sound of breathing - Tom was coming down the ladder now, out of breath already, and the odd acoustics of the shelter were amplifying his panting, making it seem like the shelter itself was breathing. Alan and Mark looked at each other - 'fat bastard' they mouthed in unison and grinned.

  Alan looked around some more, at the cigarette butts and torn girlie mags on the floor; at the writing on the walls. Most of it was the usual stuff that bored kids scrawled on walls, but some of it seemed to be in some kind of foreign language that Alan didn't recognise. On one wall a life-size skeleton had been painted, so white it seemed to glow in the blackness - Alan felt a minor worry disappear. He traced the bones with his hand, not wanting to admit that he still felt an almost stifling feeing of unease - after all, what could harm him down here? The place was visibly empty.

  The ladder stopped squeaking - Tom had reached the bottom. He stood in the entranceway to the main chamber and stuck his head in to look around.

  "Cool," he said. Mark went over to talk to him; Alan heard them muttering and giggling, and tried to act as though he didn't feel excluded. He looked round the shelter some more, not knowing what else of interest he expected to see.

  When he saw it, his whole body seemed to lock for a second, as if his thoughts were stuttering and misfiring. His breath froze in his throat. It was a piece of graffiti on the far wall of the shelter, surrounded by spray-painted declarations of love, lust, and hate. A simple piece of graffiti that everyone had written at least once in their lives whether felt-tipped on a toilet wall, carved into a school desk, or painted on a park bench. It was just someone's name and the date they had written it.

  Martin Longhurst 12/7/89

  Alan stared at the words, sprayed white on the concrete wall. They already looked faded, had already been partially painted over by red streaks. The words didn't disappear like he wanted them to. Despite the fact that he had known Martin, the images that filled his mind weren't from real life but from the TV: the parental pleas for information; the school photos of Martin on rotation; a policeman admitting to the camera flashes that they had no leads and the angry twitching of a vein in his forehead as he said it. And Alan remembered that the twelfth of July was the day Martin had gone to the sweet shop and never been heard from again.

  He must have just told his mum that because he didn't want her to know he was coming here afterwards, Alan thought, like us. But how had he got the lid of the shelter open? One twelve year old boy couldn't have done that on his own, and he couldn't have been with friends or else they would have come forward by now. Alan imagined the lid of the shelter gaping open in the heat as the boy climbed down, then slowly shutting like a Venus fly trap. But that was ridiculous surely; Martin wasn't down here now. Just his name, in faded white paint.

  What happened to him, Alan thought, turning from the wall to show it to Mark and Tom. He wanted to get out of the shelter now, and forget all about Martin Longhurst, although he knew he'd have to tell people about what he'd found later. But the others were gone.

  Alan hadn't realised how afraid he was until his fear grew - and it was fear now, not just the unease he'd felt all day. He nearly cried out, but then he heard the squeak of the ladder - Mark and Tom were just climbing out of the shelter. They hadn't disappeared, they were just out of sight.

  "Hey wait for me!" he cried, unable to keep the relief from his voice as he ran towards the ladder shaft.

  He just had his hand on a rung of the ladder when the hatch of the shelter slammed shut above him, the clang echoing around the sudden darkness. The only light was a pencil-thin beam from a small hole in the top of the metal cover.

  "What the fuck are you doing!" Alan shouted (it was the first time he'd said that word). His voice leaped an octave in his shrunken throat. No one answered, but the sliver of light above him vanished. Alan took a second to work out that one of them must have leant over the hole to shout down to him.

  "Don't wet yourself!" It was Tom, clearly enjoying himself. "It's just a test. To see if you can get out by yourself. It's easy, we're all going to do it. Just climb up and push the lid with your shoulders. It's a test, to see if you're a pussy."

  "Let me out!" Alan shouted up into the blackness. "Mark, Duncan!"

  "Let yourself out. It's easy," Tom called back to the sound of general laughter from above. "We're, uh, all going to do it!"

  "Let me out!" he yelled. Already the darkness was getting to him. Despite the fact that he couldn't see a thing he felt claustrophobic, as if the walls were pressing in and he'd soon feel the touch of cold concrete against his skin as they moved like slow, gigantic jaws to crush him.

  This is the place Martin Longhurst died, a voice said in Alan's head, although he knew no such thing. It was an insidious little voice, such as those that repeated themselves inside his head when he couldn't sleep after the dreams. He shouted up at his friends again.

  There was no reply.

  "Bastards! Open the hatch!"

  There was still silence, and he leant against one of the walls of the shaft, his eyes straining pointlessly against the gloom. If it wasn't for the concrete pressed against his spine it would be easy to believe there were no walls here, just an endless blackness in which there could be anything. With a feeling like having a word on the tip of his tongue he knew this corresponded with vague ideas from the dreams he'd been having, the nightmares and fantasies. But he couldn't recollect any actual detail, it was all tantalisingly on the edge of thought.

  Oh why had he come here? He hadn't wanted to, right from the start. Neither had Mark - had the other two even? They'd come because he and Mark had, but had even those two thick bastards had the same nagging doubts? So why were they here, if no one had wanted to come? But they aren't here, Alan thought with another shudder of anger, and he knew for a fact that he really would make Tom undergo this 'test' when he got back to the surface. And if Tom wouldn't climb down, then Alan really would smash his head against the concrete. The same image as before in his head, blood on stone like a sacrifice...

  Alan thought he saw a shadow move in the darkness. He imagined Martin Longhurst out there in the blackness (that seemed to stretch for much further than fifteen feet), sneaking through the shelter, flesh peeled away to white bone, his mouth hanging open hungrily.

  "Stop fucking imagining things," Alan said out loud. He was surprised to find the swearing helped calm him, made him feel more an adult and so more in control. He'd obviously cursed loudly, for he heard muted giggles from above. He felt angry again, but his normal, boyish anger - he wouldn't give in to those idiots up there. He wouldn't shout out again or cry like a baby. There was nothing down here except litter and trash. He knew that, he'd seen that. But he d
idn't like the thought of climbing that squeaky ladder in the darkness. No, he'd just wait down here in silence, letting them get worried, not answering their queries if he was okay until they opened the shelter. Then who would be the pussies?

  He stood, clutching the first rung of the ladder as if it were the only thing keeping him afloat, and waited. He thought only of keeping his breathing slow and deep. The shelter was as silent as it was dark, and gradually he was lulled by it and his fear subsided.

  Then he saw something.

  Even then, his first thought was logical, that his eyes were deceiving him after straining against the blackness for so long. But neither then or afterwards did he really believe this.

  He saw three figures, sitting on the shelter floor; there was suddenly a light by which he could see them too. But the light seemed to radiate from the figures, rather than an external source; it seeped out of them to illuminate the dirty concrete floor, but only so far. Alan was still in darkness while the figures were illuminated, and they moved slowly and emphatically for him, like actors on a bright stage to an unseen audience.

  The figures were all boys, young men, about seventeen or eighteen, although it was hard for Alan to tell as their clothing was so old-fashioned. Despite their look of furtive rebellion, they all wore suits and ties done up tightly around their necks. The shelter was still dead silent, and the faintly glowing figures moved slowly, like film slowed down. Their mouths and hands moved; one of them grinned slowly, and the other two threw back their heads in silent, baying laughter.

  Alan had flattened himself against the concrete as soon as he'd seen the figures, and his heart seemed to be thumping in his body hard enough to echo back to him off the shelter walls. He couldn't have shouted up to the others now even if he'd tried, he felt so scared. But despite this, he quickly realised that, whatever the glowing figures were, they didn't seem to be aware of him. Even through his fear Alan could recognise the scene - boys who had come here to get away from their parents, to smoke and drink, and flick through the girlie magazines they had (which Alan could see were black and white and no more explicit than a tabloid page three). He didn't know when it had happened, but he guessed years ago - the fifties or sixties? There can't have been much to do in Clipston back then; there wasn't now.

  One of the boys tried to take the magazine from the one who was reading; there was a scuffle and the looks of laughter vanished from their faces.

  But why was he seeing this now?

  Alan had read a lot of boys' books with titles like Strange But True and as his fear lessened he started to think of explanations - were they ghosts? Psychic images? The only thing he was sure of as he watched the three boys rise, glaring at each other, was that they weren't alive, that this was all a glowing replay of something that had happened long ago.

  As quickly as they appeared the boys vanished. They didn't fade away, just disappeared. But there was still light; where the three boys had been were suddenly two men, fighting over a bottle of beer. The hostile looks on their faces caused Alan to shrink back again. The men both wore torn and badly fitting clothing; one wore a battered hat. They too glowed; they moved in the same slow motion, silent way that the boys had, and this made their combat look ridiculous and clumsy. Alan almost found it funny, until the one clutching the bottle of beer obviously decided he didn't want to drink from it anymore, and smashed it into the other's face. The second tramp fell backwards, frothing beer and blood leaking from the hands he clutched to his face. Alan watched a drop of red blood, glowing with the same interior light, fall to the concrete floor and splash in slow motion...

  (A voice called down tentatively from above but he didn't hear it.)

  The scene changed and Alan could see two teenagers kissing, embracing in the darkness. They both wore flared trousers, the boy had a leather jacket and was kissing the girls neck greedily like a vampire. He had his back to Alan and he could see the girl's face - she gasped silently and in slow motion, her eyes closed and her tongue and teeth vivid in the slow motion opening and closing of her mouth. Alan felt himself flush with embarrassment and excitement; the girl's eyes opened and she seemed to stare into his. Her eyes were bright blue and aglow; there was a rash of blood-red pimples on her forehead but Alan still found her face more arousing than any of the porno mags he'd seen up above. The boy's hand moved to her breast, she moved it away. The boy's hand moved again...

  There was a dirty mattress on the floor behind the couple (the same one that Alan could simultaneously see propped up in one corner of the shelter) and the boy suddenly pushed the girl hard so that she fell atop it. He kneeled on top of her before she could get up, and he felt her tits again. Even as Alan realised the girl was trying to push the boy off, he felt himself stiffen some more. What's wrong with me? he thought as he saw the girl pull away from the boy, stand, and run directly toward Alan. She ran with the slow, struggling movements of the glowing figures, and Alan saw her face looked ugly with tears and blood in her blonde hair; she'd obviously banged her head against the shelter wall when the boy had pushed her down. The boy was straightening behind her, and Alan was sure in his nightmares he was the boy now giving chase, not the fleeing girl... What's wrong with me? he though as the image came again of blood, insistent in his head as it had been all day.

  Get out of here, Alan thought, this isn't right and you need to get out of here... Another voice came from above, tight and maybe angry, but he barely heard it. His thoughts seemed barely his own, or barely significant, and as muffled as the voices calling down from outside. He couldn't look away from the figures that glowed and vanished and were replaced:

  A group of teenagers were playing cards and betting with pound notes; a large radio was dumb in the corner - the visions seemed to be moving closer to the present day. Alan looked away for a second, but he found the darkness of the rest of the shelter more scary than the slow-moving figures in front of him. When he looked back the youths were all on their feet, their mouths distorted and wide with anger, pound notes falling like feathers in the air.

  Then two drunken men, both pissing on the beaten looking body of a third.

  Then a set of glowing figures that he couldn't quite comprehend - they stood in a circle around a ring of fire on the shelter floor, blank-faced as if in a trance. There was something odd about their faces, something too stiff and unbending. Their arms and mouths moved slowly and rhythmically, and maybe it was an effect of the slow motion but the fire seemed to move in time to the same rhythm, and grow upwards. It was smokeless Alan realised, no wonder they weren't all choking in the confined shelter; but how could a fire be smokeless? The figures swayed, and Alan realised they were wearing masks.

  Before he had time to work out what they were masks of, the figures vanished.

  Then Alan saw Martin Longhurst.

  He recognised him immediately, the same chubby, freckled face that he'd seen on television, on MISSING posters flapping from lamp-posts around his home village. He still had on his school uniform, the police had mentioned in their bulletins he'd been wearing it the day he vanished.

  Martin also seemed to have a black eye, and his face looked puffy and red as if from crying. Has he been in a fight? Alan thought. Bullied? Martin, or this glowing likeness of him, was turning his head this way and that, and despite the slowness of the visions, Alan could tell the movements were frantic. As if he were casting about in the darkness.

  I can only see him, Alan thought, because his ghost... or whatever, is glowing. It doesn't mean he could see at the time. Martin whirled round, as if he'd heard a noise behind him; Alan saw the way his eyes were wide but not focused on anything, the way his pupils were dilated. He was convinced that whenever this had happened the first time, it had been in pitch blackness. And it made him realise how little he could actually see - just these glowing performances, distracting him from the surrounding blackness in which anything could be lurking. He told himself there was nothing down here, he'd seen there was nothing down here befo
re the others had shut him in.

  But even though Alan didn't think there was anything down here, Martin Longhurst certainly seemed to have. The ghostly boy was backing slowly away from where he'd turned now, his arms outstretched as if to ward something off. Alan noticed the boy's palms looked bright red...

  Every other scene I saw, Alan thought, I saw all the people there; they were all glowing. So how can there have been anybody else down here with Martin? I saw all the people...

  Martin's palms were burnt, Alan realised. He thought again of the masked men swaying in a ritual around a smokeless swaying fire. And he thought of the visions of blood on concrete he'd been having all day, and how blood could be part of a ritual too.

  ("Hey Alan!" Tom called from above. "You coming up? You've been down there nearly ten minutes!" There was another, background voice, and then Tom said "Shut it, retard!")

  Martin was crying now, sobbing; the hands he held out in front of him were trembling. He was still backing away slowly from something, and heading towards the ladder, towards where Alan was standing watching. He glanced behind a couple of times, but never bolted for the exit. As if he knew that the thing that was after him would be on him in an instant if he turned and ran. He's leading it right towards me, Alan thought, before correcting himself that there was nothing down here; even if there had been in Martin's time there wasn't now when he was watching it. He'd seen the shelter had been empty. But it was hard to believe this, when darkness pressed in from three out of four sides, and a terrified looking boy moved towards him from the forth.

  ("Let him out!" a voice cried from outside: Duncan's. There was the sound of metal on metal - tent pegs scraping against the shelter's hatch. Then there was a sound of scuffling, and Duncan shouted out...)

  Martin Longhurst's resolve obviously snapped, and he started to turn, his legs tensed to begin sprinting. No don't run, Alan thought vaguely, or it will stop playing games... Even as Martin started to run towards the ladder his ghostly playback slowed even more, as if someone was playing with Alan, extending the fun. Martin's face was stretched with horror, blank with the look of someone just awakened from a nightmare. One of his eyes was almost swollen shut from the bruises around it; the other looked too large and manic in his face.