Speaker 1: Are they going to pump this out? Alec asked as
he stepped awkwardly into the flooded basement, the water rising
to just below his knees. I don't know, I said.
Are they renovating this place? I don't think so, I said,
it's just this mural there After, Well, we're gonna need
it dry, Alec grumbled. Can't run electricity down here like this.
You gonna need it for the imaging equipment too, Yeah,
I agreed. Plus, God knows what's in this water. Some
of these tunnels must lead off to the catacombs. You
can't be serious, he cried, his flashlight suddenly snapping from
one bare stone wall to another. Are there actually bodies
down there? It's a church, I said. They buried people here,
not recently, but yeah, it has catacombs. Don't worry. They're
not just stacked up like firewood in some room. There's
gates and stuff to stop people desegrating them. Alec shone
his light at the water lapping around his feet and
curled his lip. It was the color of old coffee.
I don't know how anyone can expect us to work
in these conditions for the money they're paying I'd work
waist deep in the Thames. I told him the guy's
last painting sold for seven million. Do you know how
excited the church was when they found out he'd be
down here in the seventies, whatever he put on the walls,
they charged them with vandalism then, But now there's money
on the line they want whatever he did restored, packed
up and sold alec coughed, where's the damn thing? Anyway?
I stopped momentarily to get my bearings down here. I
waved him on and we delved deeper into the basement.
As I led us through a strange mix of large
rooms and awkward tunnels carved directly into rock, some of
which you had to do just to fit. Many of
the rooms we passed had old boxes in them. One
head furniture draped once white sheets that were now moldy
and stained. Another had an old piano, the lids still up. Thankfully,
it wasn't far a few minutes at most. Once we
found the door, we both put our shoulders to it
and forced it open. Water must have built up, because
it came pouring out at waste height and nearly tug
us both of our feet. Bloody stinks. Alec cried over
the raw of water, but I ignored him. Once it was safe,
we stepped inside, and it was as if our lights
grew dimmer and the air colder, a distinct sense that
we crossed the threshold along an empty room where the
only sound was water dripping somewhere in the distance. I
was about to suggest we'd taken a wrong turn, but
then I saw one of the walls that had been
painted black, and there was something strange about it. It
was only when you let your eye linger that you
saw the brushstrokes, no thicker than my thumb. They covered
every inch of it and caught the dim light of
our torches, shimmering with the brief flashes of iridescent color
that were impossible to focus on. The longer I looked,
the more I saw the great depths in that work.
The texture alone was remarkable, like you were up high
and looking down on a vast stretch of unbroken ocean,
roiling waves made of slick black water, and the collar.
The closest comparison is what you see when you close
your eyes. The whole thing made my stomach churn, but
there was no dinner. Its artistic merit the kind of
thing I could imagine hanging on a wall in the
Tate modern No wonder the church wanted it restored and
transferred out of the basement, but it would be no
easy feet. It was huge. I don't I don't feel
too good. Alec wobbled momentarily before collapsing. I had to rush,
but I managed to catch him before his head went
beneath the water. Damn, I hissed as I struggled to
hold his weight with my arms beneath his shoulders. Panicking,
I looked around for somewhere to put him, but the
room was empty. If I let him go, he'd flopped
down and inevitably drown. But he was a big guy
and my arms were already getting tired. I had no
hope of making it all the way back to the stairs,
but I remembered that room was nearby, one with the furniture.
It'd have to two in a pinch. Struggling to keep
him upright, I dragged him slowly through the murky waters.
It wasn't easy. While the ground was firm, it was
still irregular, and I was walking backwards through knee high water.
My mind fluttered through all the possible outcomes of this situation,
and inevitably focused on the worst. He could drown, get
an infection, we could get lost. Those tunnels were tight
and confusing. I can imagine it so very easily, the
fear and panic of going around in circles, rough hewn stone,
wrapping in on itself. So every turn takes me back
to that place as my arms grow ever more tired.
What would I do in that situation, I wondered? Would
I let him drown? Or would I keep going until
I collapse from exhaustion? And how long would I last?
A few hours, a day, maybe more. It was a
silly idea, but it got my heart racing. Tried telling
myself that I had it under control. I had a plan,
a good one. Get him upright in one of those
old chairs. He'd probably just fainted because of the air
down there. Maybe he was more sensitive to it than most.
But while I tried to keep my eye on him,
watching for any signs of consciousness, I kept looking up
at the tunnel ahead. With each step, the darkness felt heavier,
and the lapping of the water grew so loud it
seemed to almost hurt my ears. And yet at the
same time, I could hear my every breath as clear
as if I was standing in total silence without any
real reason for it. A cold red crept over me.
I didn't feel alone down there, No matter how hard
I tried to dismiss it as a childish feeling, it
just kept getting stronger. Each time I looked up, I
expected to see something God knows what I thought would
be waiting for me, But it didn't matter. The mere
thought there was something in the dark or lurking beneath
the water was enough to make me hurry, even as
I kept reminding myself that was a great way to
make a mistake. Thank God, it wasn't far to the
room with the furniture. There was no door, so I
simply turned and plodded backwards until I saw a chair
that looked good enough. Sure it was disgusting and green
with mold and mildew, but all it had to do
was hold his weight. Alec is a good six inches
taller than me and built heavier too, so by the
time I lugged him onto the chair, I was exhausted
and had to stop and catch my breath and to
my knees, the entire body trembling I took a few
seconds to comfort myself before leaning over him and calling
his name. Alec, I cried, Alec. I gave him a
few gentle pats in the face. He seemed to stir,
but I couldn't say for sure. For goodness sake, I hissed,
hearing just the slightest hint of alarm in my voice
and trying to suppress it. Alec, wake up and let's
get the hell out of Someone pressed the key on
the piano, and everything inside me came to a screeching halt.
It was dull and off key, but there was no
mistaking the sound that had come from the nearby room.
I thought of there actually being someone else down there
made my skin tight and my head ice cold. Took
every ounce of willpower. I had to stand upright and
look towards the doorway Mike. Alec groaned, and I, damn it,
jumped out of my skin. I don't feel well, he muttered,
while rubbing his face. It's so dark in here, I
think I might be dreaming. As the initial shock left me,
I was flooded with relief and no longer being alone
in that horrible place. You fainted, I said, with as
friendly a laugh as I could manage. Must be the
air down here. We'll need respirators from here on in.
I'm cold, he moaned as he pushed himself upright. I
want to go home. Can I go home? Please? Damn right,
I said, while taking his elbow and leading him to
the exit. I felt a lot safer knowing it wasn't
just me facing the darkness, but I still found myself
hesitating as we passed the next room along. What is it?
Ali asked as he paused the look of the old piano. Nothing,
I muttered, before hurrying us both along. Someone had closed
the lid. It's like a different painting when photographed. Marie
pursed her lips as she looked at the camera display.
Something to do with how it catches the light. She
picked the tripod up and moved it several feet to
a right. She pressed the button, and the flash went
off in the dark room like a bolt of lightning
for an instant. The whole place was laid bare, roughly
hewn stone and stagnant water. Look, she called me over
it happened again. I stopped my work setting up the
fourth pomp at the far end of the room and
wandered over. So far I'd managed to pump out most
of the water, but it still lay an inch thick
along the ground. Of course, the rest of the tunnels
were still flooded. No hope there, so the room itself
was sealed off sand bags, had the only doorway with
further waterproofing from rubber tarps. I'd since spent days trying
to figure out where the last of the water in
that one room was coming from, and had been so
busy chasing leaks that I'd had to hire Marie to
help with the imaging. Looks funny, I said, as I
leaned over a shoulder and looked at the latest picture.
The wall appeared as an explosion of psychedelic colors, closer
to a tied eyed T shirt then the black obelisk.
It was in person, but it's a weird piece, very textured,
and the paint itself is quite unique. I'm not surprised
to behave strangely into a camera's flash. But look at it,
she said, I did, I replied, while wandering off, unwilling
to stare too long. It's weird. I don't like it,
she said, before quietly moving the tripod another few feet
along me. Neither, I snapped as I knelt down next
to the broken pump. So let's get on with it.
I need all the help I can get. All Right,
she touttered, where's your partner in crime anyway? Alex's not
been feeling well, I said, Ah, that's a shame. Always
liked al. Another flash. For a brief moment, my silhouette
was painted in the wall opposite the mural. I could
have sworn it was a different kind of black, as
if my shadow had texture brushstrokes. Even before I had
time to think about what I'd seen, Marie was suddenly
standing by me. Still no luck with that pump driving
me nuts, I said, well, I want to set the
X ray up now. It won't take long, but we'll
need to leave the room each time, or at least
I will, since this is something I do daily. I
thought about staying in that place alone, scrit I'll join you,
I said, Well, before we get going, I'm going to
need help getting it into position. Sure thing, I said,
as I took a hand to get up. It was
a big unit designed to capture high resolution images of
what lay beneath paintings and canvases, essential for seeing the
early work of a painter. In a few years I'd
spent in the archives of the National Gallery. I'd always
enjoy documenting the strange artifacts found beneath famous paintings. Sometimes
you could even see a timeline of the artist's process,
preliminary sketches, features removed background details added late into the process.
Most people don't see. There's more than one mona Lisa
lurking under all that paint. Okay, Marie said, as we
man handled the machine under the first little yellow marker
she'd put on the ground. First of four, I'll hit
the timer. Then we'll make our way to the corridor.
It'll be when it's done. Good to go. I nodded,
and she hit the button. We walked briskly to the
exit and climbed over the barricade, pulling aside the plastic
sheeting I draped over the doorway. Just as Marie was
on the other side, we heard the beep telling us
it was done. Then we were back inside, where she
remove the plate, put it into a waterproof duffel bag,
and the process began again. Each time we moved it
further down into the long room. Each time it took
a little longer to get back to the exit. It
was a pain in the ass, but necessary last one,
Marie exclaimed. We finally hauled on to the fourth yellow marker.
I'm actually curious to take a closer look at these pictures,
you know, she added, before pausing to look at the mural.
It's horrible to look at, but you have to admire
the skill that went into it. It's almost well familiar.
Her words trailed off, and she slowly tilted her head.
I had to give her a nudge to remind her
to press the button. She laughed, pressed it, and with
that we were both marching back towards the exit. I
quickly climbed over the barricade once more turned to help Marie,
but found myself staring at an empty doorway. The machine
beat to say it was done, and I poked my
head through the top and looked around, but couldn't see her. Confused,
I climbed back in and scanned the room nothing. The
machine was still there, humming away, but no sign of
the woman who until just a few seconds ago was
right behind me. Marie. I called out, but there was
only the sound of dripping water. I was baffled. I
couldn't understand where she had gone. She couldn't have gotten
past me into the hallway. It just didn't make sense.
But as the seconds turned a minute, confusion was replaced
with a chilling panic. Marie. I shouted again, and then
again and again. Each time my voice got a little louder,
and the repetitions grew closer together, until I was pacing furiously,
just screaming her name over and over. My voice grew hoarse.
I even stuck my head out into the corridor and
cried out, but there was never any response. I checked
every inch of that place, and when I didn't find her,
I checked every inch again. Part of me started to
visualize her eventual return to hope for it, started to
imagine that moment of relief, the sight of her appearing
at the doorway before explaining where she'd gone. I held
on to that fantasy so hard that at times it
felt as if I was alive in two worlds at once,
one where Marie and I were laughing about a slight misunderstanding,
and another where a woman could disappear into thin air.
Surely the latter isn't reality, I thought to myself, as
I shouted over and over this one has to be
the dream. But if it was a dream, I wasn't
waking up, and eventually I accepted that I had to
go get help. I didn't even grab my things before
stepping out into the corridor. I was in a rush,
desperate to get this nightmare over with, to get help,
and to find Maurice somewhere safe and sound. But I
only made it a few feet when I heard a
voice call out to me from behind, Mike, I don't
feel so good? Am I dreaming? She was leaning on
the doorway. I just left, eyes sunken and cheeks sallow.
Even her hair looked thinner. She looked like a woman
who just spent a week on a desert island. Geez,
I cried, before running over and grabbing her. She was
closed to collapse, wobbling back and forth and clutching the
door just to stay standing. Where the hell did you go?
It's so dark in here. I want to go home,
she said, in a quiet drone, like a child that's
been pulled out of a car crash. All right, all right,
I said, let me what is that? She was holding
something in her hands. Who was one of the plates
from the X ray machine? She didn't even register me
taking it from her down in the dark, it didn't
look like much, and being in a hurry, I simply
tugged it under one arm and helped her over the
barricade and into the water. Everything that followed was a
rust blur. I took her into the church, sat her
on a pew, and called for an ambulance. Paramedics quickly
arrived and rushed her off. Asking a few questions here
and there about what I think might have happened. I
had no real answers to speak of. But when I
mentioned she didn't ever respiate her honor, they all seemed
to take it as a given that she had carbon
monoxide poisoning. That was the official diagnosis for alec, and
I recognized the few of the paramedics from when I
called them out for him, so they must have connected
the dots. But carbon monoxide poisoning didn't explain why she
looked so thin, and I don't know broken. She looked
worse than awful. Seeing her in that state had terrified me.
At Least she's in fans, I told myself. As I
watched the ambulance doors close, I decided it was time
to call it a day and went to grab some
of the things I had left on a nearby bench
when I saw the slide Marie had been holding. The
light was a little better in the church, especially since
it was midday and that broken roof filled the place
with rays of amber light. I took the X ray
and held the back plate up, squinting to see what
it showed. It looked like a hurricane of swirls and
spiraling bone white shapes, a confusing mess of strange distortions
that reminded me distantly of the background of Van Go's
starry night. Only there in the middle of all those swirling,
rolling lines and growths was a woman, Marie. In fact,
I was sure of it, and she had both hands
clutched to the side of her head, like she was
screaming for her life. You saw it. The old man
who'd entered the door was practically skeletal, but he was
an infirm He glared at me with twitchy anticipation of
my answer. He seemed ready to explode. You saw the mural. Yes,
When my secretary got your phone call, I was ready
to dismiss you entirely. Slowly, he looked me up and
down like a piece of meat. You look intact, I was.
I tried speaking that. Something about the old man's intense
stare caught me off. Noticing this, he pulled the door
open and gestured inside his luxurious apartment with one eye.
Come in, he cried. I had my staff confirm you
really have done work in the church. I'm fascinated by
what you might have seen. I was told you bought
mister Halswell's paintings, I said, as he ushered me into
a room decorated with gleaming hardwood furniture and beautiful red
velvet wallpaper. A collection had an auction. I stammered, you
spent quite a lot of money on them. Yes, he replied,
while sitting opposite me. Halswell was touched, you know, spent
his life trying to exercise the things he saw. Ah right,
I stammered. I just wanted to know if you had
any information on the mural at the church. My boy,
you've actually seen it, which makes you far more of
an expert than I am. He spoke like he was
giving me the greatest compliment. I never had the nerve
to go. Look. I love my esoteric hobby as much
as anyone, but I prefer the occult, where it is
unlikely to do me any harm. Well, I'm just concerned.
I had two friends collapse in there, and one of
them well, I can't really explain it, but she went
missing for a while. The church aren't a lot of help,
but they told me to speak to you if I
wanted some information about the artist. Oh, the church has
no real record of that place, not properly anyway. What
is it? I asked, growing tired and wanting to cut
to the chase. What did George Housewell paint. I've had
two colleagues pass out down there, and now one of
them is in entering my calls. Please, I need answers.
George didn't paint anything, he said with a shrug. He
was sent down as a handyman and found it behind
the crates of old rubbish. Whatever he saw, he felt
compelled to paint over it, an attempt at censorship. He
wanted to hide it away. That's why he was charged
with vandalism by the old priest, who was long since dead.
But George's efforts were in vain. He could not unsee
what he had seen, and it would stick with him forever.
I don't understand the mural is. He leaned forward and grinned.
I could tell he was hoping for this. Yes, yes,
he whispered, Tell me about it. It's not just tar
on the wall, I said. It's more. It has a
kind of depth. There are brushstrokes all over, thousands, if
not millions. They don't look like they form a pattern,
but they do. It sits behind your eyes and burns
the sinuses. It's an impression of something. The darkness inside
a coffin. He looks featureless, but it isn't. Sometimes it's
as if it crawls, fascinating. Well, the brushstrokes don't surprise me,
he said, while sitting back with a satisfied grin. George
used his hands. But whatever he tried to hide it
didn't just go away because he painted over it. He
didn't erase anything, merely changed it. Gave it a different
face to wear. But if it didn't make it, who did?
He shrugged? Who knows? Those tunnels are so extensive because
there were multiple archaeological dig sites held there throughout the
nineteenth century. They found mosaics stated to the Romans first
arrival in Britain, along with pods and clay that were
even older. Some say the churches built atop it to
hide the darkness below, but that was too long ago
for anyone to remember. When I called the archbishop to
check if they had really sent you down there, they
seemed under the misconception George had created the mural from scratch,
but the painting on that wall predates us. All his
shoulders sagged and a look of defeat took over him
as he added, I wish I had the courage to
see it. I was afraid so often the truth can
be frightening. When I heard Helshall's daughter was auctioning off
some of his later works, I thought, I thought maybe
this could be a chance to catch a glimpse of it,
a way of seeing what George Halshall saw as retold
by him through new artistic expression. I sighed, this visit
hadn't really told me a great deal so far. Sensing
my disappointment, the old man smiled, would you like to
see them? His paintings? Suddenly he was the spry and
lively person who'd opened the door to me just a
short while ago. He sprang to his feet and clapped happily. Come, Come, Come,
he said, in a frantic tone, Come, there's something special.
Whatever George saw down there had really did a number
on him. He wasn't taking no for an answer. He
even reached out and grabbed my hand, pulling me along
like an excited child, until we arrived at a small
room he decorated as a gallery. The walls densely packed
with paintings and prints worth millions, some of which I
recognized as worth millions, but he strolled past them like
theym meant nothing. When he shoved me eagerly in front
of his newest collection, I understand why Halswell's paintings were
not pure black, spiritual relatives of the mural, but with
just enough light to see things beyond. They were detailed
and beautiful, at least in the artistic principles used to
make them, with forms and anatomy, the use of color
and space. But it was the contents that gripped me
and made me nauseous. There were seven, all showing an
array of people in various forms of torture and deprivation, flaying, amputation, drowning.
Bright white eyes stared at me from the wretched abyss.
But it was two of them in particular that had
me feeling like my heart was about to fall out
through my stomach. They showed me Marie and Alec thin
and Starle harved, weeping and broken, screaming into the emptiness,
and some unseen force dragged them into the icy black water.
It shouldn't be possible. George Haswell had died sixteen years prior.
There was no way he could have painted my friends.
But there was no mistaking the people in those images.
Christ It even showed Alex's tattoo. Whatever was buried down
there and found by George, the old man said, as
he savor the shock and terror on my face is
an open invitation to something no one wants to meet.
I would say best of luck to you and your colleagues,
but there's no point. You're already done for. Oh come on,
let me in. I banged on the door for the
tenth time without reply. Last time I'd seen Alec was
when i'd driven him home from the hospital after he collapsed,
and that had been three weeks ago. I just assumed
he had gone to stay with his parents, like he
told me he was going to do. But after I
saw those paintings, I had a terrible feeling that something
bad had happened. To him. I called his parents, hoping
he'd be there, but they told me they hadn't heard
from him, didn't even realize anything bad had happened. Half
an hour later and I was outside his door doing
everything I could to reach him. Come on, I shouted,
before knocking again, Marie's missing. Is she with you? Please?
I'll tell me you're both okay. Anxious and scared for
my friend, I put my ear to the door, hoping
I might hear him approaching. Only faint sounds of movement, irregular,
the slightest suggestion of someone talking. Al I cried, al
please open up. Something loud struck the door and made
me jump, and that sinking feeling in my chest grew worse.
He was alive, at least, but that didn't mean he
was okay, even if it meant making him mad. I
was going to have to get in there and check
on him. Thankfully, I had a spare key from a
long time ago and used it to pop the door
open just an inch or two and peer inside. But
there was only darkness. Al I cried to the small
opening and immediately regretted it. Something about the smell of
that place, mildew and damp, It made my skin crawl,
and the carpet was soggy, like there had been a
leak no one had bothered to fix. He reminded me
of the church basement, not just the water or the smell,
but the shadows, the distant sight of doorways leading into
empty spaces wreathed in darkness. I didn't want to announce
my presence in that place, but I had to let
Alec know I was entering his home. Alec, Alec, it's Mike,
are you in? There was a muffled bump way off
in the back, so I pushed the door open the
rest of the way before propping it in place with
a nearby extinguisher. The light that streamed in was feeble,
but it offered me slight comfort. Unfortunately, I only took
a few steps before the door slamb shut and I
was left in total darkness. Desperate, I grabbed my torch
and turned it on, and what I saw nearly made
me drop it again. There was someone staring at me
from a doorway at the far end of the hall,
sunken eyes and pale skin, hair thinning so badly. I
could see the scalp inflamed and roar and that expression
a dull but hateful glare, the drooling gaze of a
lobotomized killer. I didn't even recognize it as Alec at first.
It took a few seconds of being gripped with terror
before I realized it was my old friend leering at
me from a darkened room. Alec. I stuttered, are you okay?
He said nothing. He simply stepped backward and seemed to
dissolve into the very shadows. I summoned what little bravery
I had left and took a few careful steps towards
the doorway where he'd been, But I still couldn't see anything.
Only when I stood so close that I had one
hand on the jamb did I manage to get a
good look inside. Alec was crouched in the corner near
some broken furniture, nude and pale, spine jotting out between
distended shoulder blades like a starved survivor. He was muttering
quietly to himself the same phrase again and again. I
couldn't be certain, but it sounded like he was saying,
it's so dark in here. I wanted to call out
to him, but the words were caught in my throat.
When I saw his blackened fingertips and the buckets of
empty paint. He had remade the mural, or perhaps some
version of it, a dark and confusing mess of thick, glassy,
obsidian brushstrokes that covered an entire wall. His TV lay
smashed on the floor where he pulled it down, his
sofa pulled out, the coffee table tossed aside. It was
like he'd been in a mad rush to get at
the wall. Now everything in that place was broken, taken
to pieces. Worse, even a lot of it was rotten,
turning to filth and mold. It was as if the
church basement was crawling out of that black wall, musty
air and stagnant water seeping through the waxy paint to
taint everything it touched. Al I said, unable to hide
the tremor in my voice. We need to get out
of here now. He looked at me with teary, desperate eyes.
He says, if you want uspack, you know where to look.
With alarming speed, Out jumped upright and ran towards the wall,
where he disappeared into the paint, like a rock falling
into water. I thumped down into the water with a splash,
and immediately scanned the basement. Black water rippled away into
the distance as my chalky lights swept over old boxes
and broken shelves. I tried everything to hold onto that
sense of urgency and bravado that had compelled me to
come rushing over to the church. But in the face
of the aching darkness that lingered at the edge of
my torch light, I could already feel it slipping away.
I knew I had to go marching into those shadows,
deep into the tunnel, at the fire under the room
that would take me to the mural. I had to
save my friends. Every time I thought about leaving them
to their fate, I remembered that painting, the look on
their faces, agony and torture written in such despairing eyes.
If there was even a chance of reaching them, I
had to try. And giving Owl's words to me in
that apartment, there really was no doubt about where to look.
Each step was a struggle. The sound of water drove
my paranoia to new heights as I kept stopping, expecting
to hear the footsteps of some unseen pursuer, or perhaps
something up ahead. But it wasn't until I reached the
room with a piano that I finally heard the sound
of someone else down there with me music. I stopped,
not quite sure whether I could trust my senses. Was
I really hearing it or was my terrified mind just
conjuring the worst case scenario. But soon enough, the background
noise died down, and clear as day, I could hear
a dreadful song, a strange, discordant tone, weak and off key,
played with only the vague memory of real musical talent.
Shaken with terror, I dipped my light in a desperate
bid to make myself less visible, and approached the doorway.
Marie was sitting there waiting for me. I recognized her
as my friend, but this was not the woman I knew.
She had aged decades in the time since I'd last
seen her, and grown so thin she didn't even look
human any more, and her eyes, beady and black, nestled
above a manic and sadistic grin. There was anything but joyful.
He's taking his time with you, she said in a
lilting sing song, before rising to face me, her broken,
sagging body and full display with thick, knotted scars. This
was not the woman I'd put into that ambulance. Maybe
it was her after she'd survived a nuclear war. But no,
it simply wasn't possible that she could have changed so
radically in so little time. But that was her face,
twisted with hate and a kind of hunger, but still
her face. She looked ready to lunge at me, the
tense anticipation of a coming, and I really didn't like
the thought of those bitter and yellow nails scratching at
my face and eyes. But instead of leaping, she simply
giggled and slid quietly into the water, disappearing beneath the
black surface. I contemplated leaving and turned to look the
way I came, But some twenty meters away, my light
caught glimpse of Maurice's frightening face staring at me. I jumped,
shocked at how she managed to slip past me and
all the way over there without me noticing, And now
she waited, daring me to try and leave. I wanted to,
I wanted to march over there, but geez, the look
on her face. I decided I had no choice but
to move onwards to the mural. Maybe Alec would have
come to his senses and could help me. A slim hope,
but that was all I had to steel myself. So
I walked slowly to the final doorway and stepped over
the sand bag and into the room with a mural.
Everything was where we'd left it weeks before. Even the
old X ray machine was on its tripod. Slowly, a
kind of darkness seeped into my thoughts, and the air
grew dense and fluid, filling me up like I was
drowning in filth. I tried to keep my mind in
order and work out the next course of action, but
it was useless. I fell to my knees and started
to heave, but the harder I fought for breath, the
worse it became. Minutes stretched on, as the edges of
my vision pulsed red and black, and I realized it
was as if I was drowning but could not die.
And then a horrible notion started to burn its way
into my mind. Slowly, it came to me as a
powerful truth that all the time I'd spent outside that
room was a lie, just a kind of dream. All
the daylight i'd seen, the mornings waking in my own bed,
the sight of London's skyline and the sound of a
world made of bright and colorful things. Those memories were
just a thin plastic over a far deeper truth that
room Alexis collapsed, Marie's disappearance. They were the only real
things I'd experienced, and the cold and damp and dark
roar that remained to me. There was no outside world.
All of that was a dream, his dream. The only
thing that really existed was the ocean on the other
side of that wall, and everything else was dreamt up
by something that lay in its depths. I nearly collapsed
beneath the weight of those thoughts. Every breath was a struggle.
Every moment I tried to recall from my old life
was like passing a kidney stone. And then I heard
it a trickle. Looking towards the wall, I saw water
seeping out of the paint, like sweat from skin, slowly
at first, but then it grew and grew, until the
trickles turned to a steady pouring, leaks springing in a
dam that held back waters from another world. Eventually it
gave all at once. A great and terrifying torrent of
blackwater spewed from the painting. It did not last long,
a few seconds at most, but it was enough to
quite suddenly fill the room with another foot of water,
and once the foam and crashing waves dispelled, I saw him, Alec,
kneeling in front of the mural. It's your turn in
the dark now, he groaned, and all thoughts of rescue
fled my mind as I looked at him. What had
I even been thinking going there? What was I going
to do against that? You couldn't fight it, couldn't stab
it or kill it. And Alex's words had chilled me
to the bone. God No, I thought, No, I'm not
going there. He wants one of us back in there,
and it's only fair. It ain't me, Alec cried as
he rose to his full height. Whatever he'd been through,
he was in a far worse state than Marie. He
wasn't just starved, he was falling apart, his torso covered
in great weeping lesions, so large and deep that I
could see exposed muscle and bone beneath. It was as
if he'd been coughed up out of some giant belly,
half digested and barely alive. No, I muttered, Oh no, no,
we had our turns, he screamed. Suddenly we went in.
It's your turn now. I ran, launched myself over the
barricade and fled, screaming down the tunnel. I moved through
the water like I never had before. I wasted no
time looking behind me, didn't even waste energy and thoughts
of what was happening. There was only the need to
drive one leg forward through the water like a piston
in an engine. The burning and my muscles didn't matter.
The thunder of my beating heart so wild and furious
he felt like I might just collapse and die at
any second, didn't matter. None of it mattered. All that
existed to me in those desperate few minutes of flight
was the memory of the world above, sunlight, birds, smiling strangers,
and delicious food, my home and my bed, a world
where things made sense. I was crying when I finally
reached the basement and saw the stairs leading up to
the light. My heart quickened as I climbed up them
on all fours, and my hand reached out for the
final one. When the world exploded, pain red, something like
lightning seemed to shoot out of my mouth, spreading across
my face in terrible pulses of agony. I had slipped
and smashed my face onto the final stone step, catching
the very edge of my bottom teeth, shattering them into shards,
and now floated freely in my mouth. But that wasn't
what brought me out of the sh shock. No, what
brought me back into awareness was the feeling of cold
water rising over my shoulders and a hand clamping onto
my ankle with almost machine like strength. Alec had caught
me at the final moment. I was now dragging my
floating body back towards the darkness. I wasted no time
immediately thrashed and struggled to find my way back unto
my feet as he turned and pummeled me with ape
like blows. It's your turn, he bellowed. We spent our
time in the dark. In the frantic struggle, I saw
Marie crouched in the corner and sobbing. We were all
his anyway, she whined, like a petulant child. We all
have to take our turn one way or another. He
has us. She launched herself towards me, and I finally
lost all desire to help my friends. I hit her
as hard as I could, one solid blow in the face.
That scrawny little neck whipped back, and she disappeared beneath
the waves. Jeez, I still don't know if I killed her.
I only know that from that moment on, it was
just Alec trying to drag me back towards the mural.
He'd always been bigger and stronger than me, and while
he was a bone thin ghost of his former self,
he still held on to me with a steel grip,
using one hand while he rained terrible blows down on
my head with the other. Bloody and confused, I ended
up using one hand to cover my face while the
other groped desperately for anything I could use. Eventually I
found something cold and wet and slick, an old piece
of wood. I swung it as hard as I could,
and it broke across his face like rotten mulch. He
stopped and grinned. It hadn't even fazed him. But where
the old piece of wood had broken, I now clutched
the jagged collection of splinters, gritting my teeth and tapping
into what little reserves of anger I had left, I
reached forward and drove the few inches of broken wood
into the largest open wound of his gut. This time,
he didn't grin. He screamed and let go of me,
staring in horror at the filthy wood jutting out of
his flesh. My waisted not one second more, waiting for
him to recover. I ran up the stairs and up
into the open light of the church and slammed the
trap door shut with a heavy final thud. Alec and
Marie were found unresponsive in their homes just a few
weeks later. Not much was made of the painting on
Alex's wall, nor the one Marie had apparently made herself.
The police questioned me briefly, but seemed to ask a
lot of questions about drugs. I think, based on the
state of their homes, the police thought that Marie and
Alec had been addicts flooding mole decay. I did ask
the police to destroy the murals they had made in
their homes, but they told me it'd be down to
the landlord to deal with the repairs, although they said
that both apartments would likely have to be gutted and
rebuilt from scratch. Alec and Marie are still in hospital
to this day, comatose. It was years before I summoned
the strength to visit them, and even then I never
went further than the door to Alex's room. I merely
linger there and watched him for a moment, hoping that
I might convince myself that everything that had happened was
just some kind of sick dream. Hopes there were dashed
when Alec briefly came awake and turned to me. It's
your turn in his belly, he said, this life or
the next, you're going there, He grinned before collapsing back
into unconsciousness, and I left and never returned. Since then,
I've worked a number of jobs, the sole requirement being
that I never want to work on another painting again, retail, construction, factories, anything,
so long as I don't have to pick up a
brush or look at one's work. Alex's words in the
hospital have frightened me so deeply that I doubt the
fear will ever fade. Each night I dream I'm back
in that basement. Others I'm in a timeless void and
something terrible is looming towards me. A mouth bigger than
most football stadiums, ringed with teeth several stories high. Were
the worst are the ones where entrapped suffocating in total
darkness as some invisible fluids burns my skin but no
matter how much I scream or cry, I can't claw
my way to freedom. Instead, the more I thrash, the
more those ribbed, mucous covered wolves seem to compress around
me until I can hardly breathe. These dreams are growing
more frequent, and recently I have begun to worry that
Alec and Marie were right. It is my turn in
the darkness. It has always been my turn, this life
or the next. It's where I'm going. Oh maybe I'm
just going mad after all. I woke up this morning
to paint all over my hands, and the beginnings of
something strange, daubed in filthy fingers, streaks upon my wall.