Categories > Original > Sci-Fi > Ward Below
The catacombs were empty, as they had been when he entered. The endless tunnels of brick and concrete, iron and cinderblock went on and on and on without end, seemingly straight lines stretching for miles only to loop back in on themselves. He was beginning to think of it no longer in terms associated with railroads of a strictly linear track that went only from Point A to Point B with a couple of lesser stops in between. There was nothing straight about it. There were no right angles, no corners or edges, just loops and bends stretched out so far that they only seemed straight. There was nothing linear here, only a tangled nest of tunnels new and old, snarled together without rhyme or reason like the vaults of an anthill. And yet the tube map insisted on making sense of the whole thing, tried in vain to lay it all out in neat little colored lines that ran parallel to one another. That was all well and good for the more recent stations but England was a big country and the tube ran a long way. The oldest tunnels went back a hundred and ten years or so, in the days when locomotives were still powered by coal and steam and not electricity.
At least the lights were on. The flat fluorescent lamps shone yellow but comforting from their rusty sconces in the ceiling. It was nice to return to some semblance of civilization. Posters of recent plays and movies had been pasted to the little recesses in the walls, chocolate and soda sat more or less fresh in the vending machines, and the water in the fountains was cold if flavored strongly with iron and chlorine. Things had been a bit tighter in the old Victorian passages. True, some of them were still used now and aside from the decorative stonework could hardly be recognized as the antiques that they were. Some, however, had only recently been cleaned up and others not at all. Those had been a little eerie. If not for the fact that he knew perfectly well that the whole thing was staged, that he was being filmed and monitored every step of the way except inside the restrooms, he would have been a little afraid. Just a little. They hadn't given him the cell phone for no reason. He glanced down at the little plastic box with the stubbed antenna and smiled a little at the softly glowing screen. The battery would last for days yet. It wouldn't take him that long to reach the station, even on foot.
Even though the trains in that area had been shut off, it was still a little disconcerting to walk those huge, unpainted passages of bare, black iron by himself. He knew in his head that the electrical currents had been turned off, but apparently not all of them. He'd seen the rail junctions sparking and fizzing with blue energy in the dim passage lights and had warily kept his distance. Even if it was only a TV stunt, not everything in here was safe. He had to remember that every step he took he walked closer to a cruel prank against his own pride. It was all a set up. He just had to remember that.
His watch, evidently, was in on the joke. He glanced at it every now and again, just to make sure of his speed, to see how long he'd spent in an area. Sometimes minutes had gone by, sometimes hours. It was easy to lose track in the black tunnels that connected one station to the next. He was beginning to think of them as that- the black tunnels- it wasn't just from a lack of light either. Had they been better lit, he was entirely certain that they would have been black anyway. That was just the color that they were. It made it easier to think about for some reason. Having tunnels that were colored black instead of suffering from a lack of lighting somehow made them easier to walk through. It was like changing channels on TV- going from a color picture to black and white static and back again as the signal returned. The stations were the show and the tunnels were the static. He couldn't imagine the BBC was filming him in such atrocious lighting anyway. He fancied they must show the commercials then and he smiled to himself at the thought.
"You have two weeks in which to reach your destination Mr. Ward. Your mode of transit will be your own two feet and your only aid will be your wits. You will be given no help, no directions, no assistance whatsoever. You will, however, be provided with some items to help you in your journey.
"For instance, you will be provided with six glow sticks. You may use them at your convenience but please remember each spent stick will cost you $100.00 of your prize money. Also, should you become hopelessly lost or- heaven forbid- injured or incapacitated in some way, you may use this cellular phone. Just push the button and it will automatically dial our broadcast office and we will come down straight away to your rescue. This phone is, however, to be used as a last resort. Should you make use of it, you will forfeit your prize money entirely.
"For your safety we have cleared the rail tracks and turned of the electricity. We have also temporarily shut off the various tube stations for the duration of the proceedings so that no one will be able to interfere and jeopardize your chances of winning. The lights and emergency beacons will remain on at all times for your convenience and safety. Also, any disused passages or those under repair or construction have been clearly marked and barricaded. Please do not attempt to use those in your journey.
"You will be filmed, for our judges and audience at home in order to monitor your progress. Please remember, any outside aid will render you disqualified. You have 168 hours. GO!"
That had been two days ago. It felt longer, but his watch said it was only the 18th. He'd gone down at 8AM on the 16th, down into one of the little-used Victorian hatches and into it's cheerfully lit yet dilapidated mouth. He couldn't help feeling a little nervous in its plastered vaults, clean yet just shabby enough to make one wonder. Were they truly safe? Would the wiring in the walls spark and catch fire? Was it kept in decent enough repair to truly function? He supposed it must. After all, the BBC would not have let him down here if it wasn't safe, right? Right, he told himself. It was a ploy, a deliberate plot to get his fears to work against him. They wanted to see how soon he'd crack. Well, the joke was on them. He wouldn't crack. He and his friends had often joked that he'd cracked a long time ago, but it wasn't his sanity that was at issue, it was his nerves.
He didn't really fear the solidness of British construction. Not really. After all, the tube had stood for this long, hadn't it? The stones were solid and expertly placed. It hadn't been built by idiots, but by master craftsmen utilizing the most advanced technology available in their times. Thank God he wasn't in France, where the tubes in parts of that country shared space with what they called "the passages of the dead", literal catacombs full of miscellaneous bones all stacked and piled together. Since it was impossible to sort out what belonged to who after a flood had washed the bones into the railways in the early part of the last century, the calcified remains had been built into literal walls and supports. There were notices that read something to the effect of "WARNING: Beyond this point are the catacombs. Do not enter. If you do, we will not come looking for you. Consider yourself warned." Ward didn't think he could have dealt with that.
As it was, the various tunnels were almost startlingly boring. The lack of events during his journey of black and that curious, flaking off-white color that the underground stations had been painted was one of virtually unbroken silence. Ward had thought of whistling or humming or even talking to himself initially but soon thought better of it for two reasons: one, because he knew he was being filmed and two, he didn't like the way his voice resounded off the walls. It only emphasized the lack of humanity.
It was surprisingly easy to get along in the tunnels and stations. There were vending machines all over and while he soon grew tired of the little bits of plastic-wrapped food he didn't grow hungry. He'd made sure to bring a pocket full of change for the occasion and he still had plenty left. The restrooms were clean and while lacking showers, proved adequate enough. It wasn't as if he had a fresh change of clothes or a towel to dry off with anyway. The floor or benches were hard and a little cold, but doable. While it took some time to get used to sleeping with the lights on, he was glad they never went out.
Ward was tall and he made sure he had hiked until he could hardly stand before he quit for the day. Pockets full of cheese crackers and chocolate he faced the tunnels as well prepared as it was possible to be. The long dark stretches no longer really bothered him that much. It was all part of the act, part of the show, and he was going to make the viewers suffer for their fun. He was not going to be a cheap thrill. Any surprises or upstarts were subtle and usually handled with grace and competence. They were only little things like a stubborn vending machine (a little pounding had persuaded it) or a locked men's room (there was no one else around so he finally got to see what the inside of the ladies room looked like- it had been rather unexciting and predictably pink) that were dealt with accordingly. So far he had caught every one of the curves they'd thrown at him. He nearly fumbled one, however, on the sixth night when the lights suddenly and inexplicably went out.
He stopped where he was, dead in his tracks in the middle of the rails at the center of one of the long tunnels. The emergency lights still gleamed a small yet reassuring green along the tunnel walls. He stopped and collected himself for a moment before going on. It was a prank. They were messing with him, trying to freak him out. That was all. Just keep going. And he did. The darkness didn't truly bother him all that much. He had already decided that the tunnels would be black anyway even if lit by floodlights. They were painted that way for effect. Even if it wasn't true, it made him feel better and helped him go on without fear. He briefly thought about sacrificing one of the glow sticks when he came to a fork in the tunnel. Holding up his scavenged tube map to one of the weak green lights, he determined he ought to go left instead of right and did so. Stations, tunnels, stations, tunnels, it went that way for hours with only the Christmassy glow of red "EXIT" signs and green tunnel lamps to light his way.
And then those went out too.
The sudden and utter silence of the blackness that had abruptly swallowed up everything including Ward himself made him stop and shiver. The lack of the ever-present background noise of the hum of fluorescent lights and the constant, distant throb of generators suddenly died along with the remaining light, plummeting all into a silent, disorienting void. Slowly, the vague trickle of running water and condensation dripping from cold pipes surrounded by warm air trickled down to his stifled ears followed by the still more distant sighs and moans of the tunnels as they inhaled surface air and exhaled shallow currents of only mildly stagnant warm breath. Kneeling, he took hold of the steel rail track the better to orient himself. They were just trying to psyche him out that was all. He needn't sacrifice one of his glow sticks just yet; he still had a path. Ward had paid attention in history class. When one's sunshine lamp went out in the mines, workers were to find their way back to the surface by tracing the rails for the mule carts back up to the surface. This wasn't a mine in Wales, mercifully, but the same trick would do quite well. Rising, he kept one foot against the rail at all times, leading himself onward.
It wasn't until the second day and a three-fingered fork in the rails that he finally snapped one of his precious glow sticks. The prize money wouldn't do him any good if he got lost and never reached his destination. It would still be a lot of money. Glow sticks only lasted about forty-two hours, twenty-four as a decent flashlight and so Ward hurried more than he previously had. Never did he run flat out, it was entirely too dark for that. Still, he did his best to cover as much distance as possible. He was tall and his long legs slowly yet steadily ate up the miles. He felt like an Angler fish, swimming alone at the bottom of the sea where the only light was his own, suspended before his eyes and glowing softly yellow-green. No prey ever came to him, however. That was probably just as well. Ward wasn't sure what he would have done had he encountered anyone along the way. So far the tunnels had been devoid of human life. Not even a bum had been found huddled on one of the many benches and he had seen surprisingly few rats. If anyone or anything saw his little light bobbing along through the darkness of the long hole, they must not have been interested.
He had been expecting the lights to go back on at any minute, for the peevish yellow light to suddenly glare down and half blind him after wallowing in the blackness for so long. Six days and three glow sticks later, nothing had happened. That made thirteen days he'd been down here. His deadline had been fourteen, he'd actually made it in eleven and had spent the last two hoping someone would show up. He hadn't arrived at the wrong place. The word "FINISH" was printed clear enough in painted letters on the floor and the banner hung on the wall, but the lights were still off and no one was there. He'd tried going up the stairs and into the station but the exit had been barred. Blast doors, meant for a bomb shelter, locked from the outside and too big and heavy to try to maneuver off their hinges blocked his path. Either there really had been a power-out or else this was some sort of twist. It had to be. If the power-out were for real someone would have come down after him. This must be another plot device. It must. They wanted to see him use up the last of his sticks and then press the panic button on his phone. They wanted to see him lose, to see him fail. Ward was many things but he was not a quitter. He could best a couple of BBC execs. After all, there was nothing in the darkness that had not been there in the light. He didn't need to waste any more glow sticks. He would wait here until they gave up.
Someone must have given ground because two days later, the lights came back on. However, no one showed up. He stayed at the station, busying himself by cleaning up with supplies he found in a broom closet. He ran out of change on the third day and then simply pried the vending machine open. The fallout doors, however, remained impassable. Distantly he wondered if something had gone wrong but refused to think about it. On the seventh day he finally gave up, took out the phone, and pushed the button.
The battery was dead.
At least the lights were on. The flat fluorescent lamps shone yellow but comforting from their rusty sconces in the ceiling. It was nice to return to some semblance of civilization. Posters of recent plays and movies had been pasted to the little recesses in the walls, chocolate and soda sat more or less fresh in the vending machines, and the water in the fountains was cold if flavored strongly with iron and chlorine. Things had been a bit tighter in the old Victorian passages. True, some of them were still used now and aside from the decorative stonework could hardly be recognized as the antiques that they were. Some, however, had only recently been cleaned up and others not at all. Those had been a little eerie. If not for the fact that he knew perfectly well that the whole thing was staged, that he was being filmed and monitored every step of the way except inside the restrooms, he would have been a little afraid. Just a little. They hadn't given him the cell phone for no reason. He glanced down at the little plastic box with the stubbed antenna and smiled a little at the softly glowing screen. The battery would last for days yet. It wouldn't take him that long to reach the station, even on foot.
Even though the trains in that area had been shut off, it was still a little disconcerting to walk those huge, unpainted passages of bare, black iron by himself. He knew in his head that the electrical currents had been turned off, but apparently not all of them. He'd seen the rail junctions sparking and fizzing with blue energy in the dim passage lights and had warily kept his distance. Even if it was only a TV stunt, not everything in here was safe. He had to remember that every step he took he walked closer to a cruel prank against his own pride. It was all a set up. He just had to remember that.
His watch, evidently, was in on the joke. He glanced at it every now and again, just to make sure of his speed, to see how long he'd spent in an area. Sometimes minutes had gone by, sometimes hours. It was easy to lose track in the black tunnels that connected one station to the next. He was beginning to think of them as that- the black tunnels- it wasn't just from a lack of light either. Had they been better lit, he was entirely certain that they would have been black anyway. That was just the color that they were. It made it easier to think about for some reason. Having tunnels that were colored black instead of suffering from a lack of lighting somehow made them easier to walk through. It was like changing channels on TV- going from a color picture to black and white static and back again as the signal returned. The stations were the show and the tunnels were the static. He couldn't imagine the BBC was filming him in such atrocious lighting anyway. He fancied they must show the commercials then and he smiled to himself at the thought.
"You have two weeks in which to reach your destination Mr. Ward. Your mode of transit will be your own two feet and your only aid will be your wits. You will be given no help, no directions, no assistance whatsoever. You will, however, be provided with some items to help you in your journey.
"For instance, you will be provided with six glow sticks. You may use them at your convenience but please remember each spent stick will cost you $100.00 of your prize money. Also, should you become hopelessly lost or- heaven forbid- injured or incapacitated in some way, you may use this cellular phone. Just push the button and it will automatically dial our broadcast office and we will come down straight away to your rescue. This phone is, however, to be used as a last resort. Should you make use of it, you will forfeit your prize money entirely.
"For your safety we have cleared the rail tracks and turned of the electricity. We have also temporarily shut off the various tube stations for the duration of the proceedings so that no one will be able to interfere and jeopardize your chances of winning. The lights and emergency beacons will remain on at all times for your convenience and safety. Also, any disused passages or those under repair or construction have been clearly marked and barricaded. Please do not attempt to use those in your journey.
"You will be filmed, for our judges and audience at home in order to monitor your progress. Please remember, any outside aid will render you disqualified. You have 168 hours. GO!"
That had been two days ago. It felt longer, but his watch said it was only the 18th. He'd gone down at 8AM on the 16th, down into one of the little-used Victorian hatches and into it's cheerfully lit yet dilapidated mouth. He couldn't help feeling a little nervous in its plastered vaults, clean yet just shabby enough to make one wonder. Were they truly safe? Would the wiring in the walls spark and catch fire? Was it kept in decent enough repair to truly function? He supposed it must. After all, the BBC would not have let him down here if it wasn't safe, right? Right, he told himself. It was a ploy, a deliberate plot to get his fears to work against him. They wanted to see how soon he'd crack. Well, the joke was on them. He wouldn't crack. He and his friends had often joked that he'd cracked a long time ago, but it wasn't his sanity that was at issue, it was his nerves.
He didn't really fear the solidness of British construction. Not really. After all, the tube had stood for this long, hadn't it? The stones were solid and expertly placed. It hadn't been built by idiots, but by master craftsmen utilizing the most advanced technology available in their times. Thank God he wasn't in France, where the tubes in parts of that country shared space with what they called "the passages of the dead", literal catacombs full of miscellaneous bones all stacked and piled together. Since it was impossible to sort out what belonged to who after a flood had washed the bones into the railways in the early part of the last century, the calcified remains had been built into literal walls and supports. There were notices that read something to the effect of "WARNING: Beyond this point are the catacombs. Do not enter. If you do, we will not come looking for you. Consider yourself warned." Ward didn't think he could have dealt with that.
As it was, the various tunnels were almost startlingly boring. The lack of events during his journey of black and that curious, flaking off-white color that the underground stations had been painted was one of virtually unbroken silence. Ward had thought of whistling or humming or even talking to himself initially but soon thought better of it for two reasons: one, because he knew he was being filmed and two, he didn't like the way his voice resounded off the walls. It only emphasized the lack of humanity.
It was surprisingly easy to get along in the tunnels and stations. There were vending machines all over and while he soon grew tired of the little bits of plastic-wrapped food he didn't grow hungry. He'd made sure to bring a pocket full of change for the occasion and he still had plenty left. The restrooms were clean and while lacking showers, proved adequate enough. It wasn't as if he had a fresh change of clothes or a towel to dry off with anyway. The floor or benches were hard and a little cold, but doable. While it took some time to get used to sleeping with the lights on, he was glad they never went out.
Ward was tall and he made sure he had hiked until he could hardly stand before he quit for the day. Pockets full of cheese crackers and chocolate he faced the tunnels as well prepared as it was possible to be. The long dark stretches no longer really bothered him that much. It was all part of the act, part of the show, and he was going to make the viewers suffer for their fun. He was not going to be a cheap thrill. Any surprises or upstarts were subtle and usually handled with grace and competence. They were only little things like a stubborn vending machine (a little pounding had persuaded it) or a locked men's room (there was no one else around so he finally got to see what the inside of the ladies room looked like- it had been rather unexciting and predictably pink) that were dealt with accordingly. So far he had caught every one of the curves they'd thrown at him. He nearly fumbled one, however, on the sixth night when the lights suddenly and inexplicably went out.
He stopped where he was, dead in his tracks in the middle of the rails at the center of one of the long tunnels. The emergency lights still gleamed a small yet reassuring green along the tunnel walls. He stopped and collected himself for a moment before going on. It was a prank. They were messing with him, trying to freak him out. That was all. Just keep going. And he did. The darkness didn't truly bother him all that much. He had already decided that the tunnels would be black anyway even if lit by floodlights. They were painted that way for effect. Even if it wasn't true, it made him feel better and helped him go on without fear. He briefly thought about sacrificing one of the glow sticks when he came to a fork in the tunnel. Holding up his scavenged tube map to one of the weak green lights, he determined he ought to go left instead of right and did so. Stations, tunnels, stations, tunnels, it went that way for hours with only the Christmassy glow of red "EXIT" signs and green tunnel lamps to light his way.
And then those went out too.
The sudden and utter silence of the blackness that had abruptly swallowed up everything including Ward himself made him stop and shiver. The lack of the ever-present background noise of the hum of fluorescent lights and the constant, distant throb of generators suddenly died along with the remaining light, plummeting all into a silent, disorienting void. Slowly, the vague trickle of running water and condensation dripping from cold pipes surrounded by warm air trickled down to his stifled ears followed by the still more distant sighs and moans of the tunnels as they inhaled surface air and exhaled shallow currents of only mildly stagnant warm breath. Kneeling, he took hold of the steel rail track the better to orient himself. They were just trying to psyche him out that was all. He needn't sacrifice one of his glow sticks just yet; he still had a path. Ward had paid attention in history class. When one's sunshine lamp went out in the mines, workers were to find their way back to the surface by tracing the rails for the mule carts back up to the surface. This wasn't a mine in Wales, mercifully, but the same trick would do quite well. Rising, he kept one foot against the rail at all times, leading himself onward.
It wasn't until the second day and a three-fingered fork in the rails that he finally snapped one of his precious glow sticks. The prize money wouldn't do him any good if he got lost and never reached his destination. It would still be a lot of money. Glow sticks only lasted about forty-two hours, twenty-four as a decent flashlight and so Ward hurried more than he previously had. Never did he run flat out, it was entirely too dark for that. Still, he did his best to cover as much distance as possible. He was tall and his long legs slowly yet steadily ate up the miles. He felt like an Angler fish, swimming alone at the bottom of the sea where the only light was his own, suspended before his eyes and glowing softly yellow-green. No prey ever came to him, however. That was probably just as well. Ward wasn't sure what he would have done had he encountered anyone along the way. So far the tunnels had been devoid of human life. Not even a bum had been found huddled on one of the many benches and he had seen surprisingly few rats. If anyone or anything saw his little light bobbing along through the darkness of the long hole, they must not have been interested.
He had been expecting the lights to go back on at any minute, for the peevish yellow light to suddenly glare down and half blind him after wallowing in the blackness for so long. Six days and three glow sticks later, nothing had happened. That made thirteen days he'd been down here. His deadline had been fourteen, he'd actually made it in eleven and had spent the last two hoping someone would show up. He hadn't arrived at the wrong place. The word "FINISH" was printed clear enough in painted letters on the floor and the banner hung on the wall, but the lights were still off and no one was there. He'd tried going up the stairs and into the station but the exit had been barred. Blast doors, meant for a bomb shelter, locked from the outside and too big and heavy to try to maneuver off their hinges blocked his path. Either there really had been a power-out or else this was some sort of twist. It had to be. If the power-out were for real someone would have come down after him. This must be another plot device. It must. They wanted to see him use up the last of his sticks and then press the panic button on his phone. They wanted to see him lose, to see him fail. Ward was many things but he was not a quitter. He could best a couple of BBC execs. After all, there was nothing in the darkness that had not been there in the light. He didn't need to waste any more glow sticks. He would wait here until they gave up.
Someone must have given ground because two days later, the lights came back on. However, no one showed up. He stayed at the station, busying himself by cleaning up with supplies he found in a broom closet. He ran out of change on the third day and then simply pried the vending machine open. The fallout doors, however, remained impassable. Distantly he wondered if something had gone wrong but refused to think about it. On the seventh day he finally gave up, took out the phone, and pushed the button.
The battery was dead.
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