The Dead Tracks (53 page)

    He
nodded, discarding the torch on the floor. Then he raised the gun, placed his
left hand under the bottom of the grip and put the phone between his teeth. The
keypad faced out, the light from the display faintly orange in colour. His face
was a mix of nervousness and dread.

    We
both broke into a jog as we moved around the corner, footsteps echoing,
carrying along the corridor like a muffled drumbeat. There were two doors at
the end: a heavy one with rivets facing us, and a second submarine-style hatch
on the right. When we got to the one on the right, I reached down to the
handle. Healy's eyes snapped to a speaker above us and back to me. We both felt
it. A chill. A deep sense of unease. Then I gripped the handle tighter and
pushed the door the rest of the way.

    On
the other side was a long, narrow room, running for seventy feet. The stone
walls were uneven and the ceiling was low, as little as ten feet in places. It
was cold. Under our feet was green linoleum, and above our heads were strip
lights. The room was completely empty apart from a hospital bed in the centre.
Circling it was a full medical set-up: an ECG, a catheter, an IV tube and saline
bag, and electrodes looped around one of the bedposts. There was a metal
trolley off to the side, instruments laid out on top: surgeon's scissors,
scalpels, a mallet, retractors, forceps. The medical area was absolutely
spotless and brightly lit. The rest of the room looked like something from the
Middle Ages; a snapshot from the ruins of a medieval Castle.

    I
edged further in and could make out three white doors, partially obscured by
the shadows. None of them had handles. Only keyholes. The nearest to me was the
one Megan was in. I darted towards it, glancing back over my shoulder at Healy.
Except he wasn't there. Back in the corridor, he'd opened the door with the
rivets on. In front of him was a wall of solid blackness; a huge dark mouth.

    'Healy,
wait.'

    He
just stared at me. He looked dazed, like he suddenly wasn't sure what he was
doing. His finger wriggled at the trigger of the gun.

    'Don't
go in alone.'

    His
eyes drifted to the black space in front of him and then back to me. He knew I
was right. He knew it was better to wait, to go in with support. But he didn't
wait. Instead he raised the gun, put the phone between his teeth and stepped
through the door. Within a second, he was swallowed up and all that remained
was the glow of his phone.

    Shit.

    I
turned back to the room housing Megan. It was locked. The door moved in its
frame when I pressed a hand against it, and had a cheap, hollow kind of feel;
like two slabs of wood either side of an empty space.

    I
retreated a few steps, then glanced back into the darkness Healy had just
passed through. I needed to get to him. I needed to back him up. But I needed
to get to Megan more. Healy could handle himself. Megan couldn't. She'd been
gone six months and now all that separated us was a piece of wood.

    I
took another step away from the door.

    And
then I shoulder-charged it.

    It
cracked away from the frame, swinging full force into the wall. Megan didn't
even stir.

    'Megan?'

    I
moved around the bed so I could see her face.

    'Megan?'

    Nothing.
She was heavily sedated, her breathing soft. I put my phone between my teeth,
stepped up to the bed and lifted her off. She wasn't heavy, even eight months
into her pregnancy. When I brought her in towards me, her head rolled against
my chest and I could feel the swell of her belly.

    I
moved quickly, out into the white room and back into the corridor, pausing for
a moment at the door with the rivets. In the darkness, nothing came back. No
sound. No light. No movement. I almost called out to Healy, but felt his name
stop at my lips as the sound of static rose and fell around me. Deep inside, I
knew none of this was right. It was too easy so far. Everything was too easy.
But when I looked down at Megan, I let it go, and headed back up the corridor.
Past the windows. Through the hatch, to the ladder. Maybe there was an easier
way out, maybe there wasn't, but I couldn't afford to take a chance. I had to
get her out. I'd have to try and wake her. And then, once she was awake, I had
to get her up the ladder to safety.

    But
the ladder wasn't there.

    Looking
up, I could see the manhole cover was still open, a circle of blue sky visible,
but the ladder had retreated back into the space beneath. It was too far from
the floor to reach now.
He raised it.
He hadn't passed us, so the ladder
was either remotely operated or he'd been above ground and pulled it up
manually from the lip of the hole — which meant there was another exit. It
didn't matter now either way. The only option was to go back through the door
with the rivets, a thought that filled me with dread.
How the hell am I
going to keep her safe when I don't even know what's waiting for me
?

    I
laid Megan gently down on the floor, pushing her hair away from her face. She
felt cool. There was dried blood and snot around her nose, but otherwise she
looked okay. A little bigger around the face, but she was carrying most of the
baby weight at her front. Looking around, the only light was from the three
rooms in the next corridor; everything else was coated in darkness. I needed to
wake her before we could find the other exit — because, with her unconscious in
my arms, we were both easy targets.

    I
glanced down at her, trying to figure it out.

    And
this time her eyes were open.

    She
was looking up at me, wide-eyed, fear etched so clearly and completely in her
face, it was like she'd been frozen in ice. She shuffled back across the floor,
away from me, her hand covering her stomach, protecting herself and the life
she was carrying.

    'Megan,
it's okay,' I said softly, dropping to my knees.

    Her
eyes flickered again. She was scared.

    'My
name's David Raker.' I held up a hand, but stayed where I was. "Your mum
and dad sent me. I'm getting you out of here, okay?'

    Her eyes
filled with tears.

    'But
first I need your help. Can you help me, Megan?'

    I
looked around the room using the light from the phone. Towards the back were a
series of six-foot-long metal poles. 'Megan, I'm not going to let anything
happen to you. You and your baby are safe. But I need your help. I need to know
what you've seen of this place. I need to know how we can get out.'

    She
didn't say anything.

    'Megan?'

    Then the
static stopped. The silence crashed along the corridor. Five seconds of
absolute nothingness. We both looked up to the speaker above the hatch.

    And
then there was a cry.

    
'Noooooooooo!
No, no, no, no
.'

    Sound
suddenly crackled through it, every letter distorting. And my heart sank. It
was Healy.

    'You
fucking bastard! You fucking piece of shit!

    He'd
found Leanne.

    Healy
shouted something else, screamed it, but his words were twisted and broken; one
long, terrible wail. Then he burst into tears, waves of emotion consuming him.
He tried to talk over them. Tried to make sense. But, for a while, nothing came
out. Then eventually he just screamed again.

    
'Where
are you? Where the fuck are you
?

    My
heart was beating faster. My mind ticking over. Should I go and find Healy?
Should I take Megan with me? Should I take a chance on her staying safe? I
could get her to wedge the door shut with the metal poles. But then I'd be
hoping I found the surgeon first. It was a risk whatever I decided. Leaving her
here would invite him on to her. Take her with me and I didn't know what
awaited.

    Then
I realized something: Healy.

    His
crying was coming through the speakers, gradually getting louder as if the
volume was being turned up.

    Or
someone was getting closer to him.

    
'I'm
going to gut him, David'

    A
whisper through the speaker.

    Then
the feed cut out.

    Thirty
seconds later we were at the door with the rivets, stepping into the darkness.
I'd brought Megan with me, had her hand in mine. I could hear her breathing close
to my ear — soft, short, scared — and knew I was taking a risk. But I had to
get her and her baby to safety. And I had to get to Healy now too.

    We
moved inside. I felt a hesitation in her stride and glanced back. She looked
terrified. Her eyes widened, glistening in the blue glow from my phone. I
squeezed her hand and swung the light around. The room was big. It had ceilings
so high the light wouldn't stretch to them. There were no speakers inside this
part of the tunnel system, and as we inched further in, the static was replaced
by a gentle buzz, like an electrical current. It was freezing cold too. I could
feel a breeze at ankle level and chill air against my face and hands.

    
A
breeze. That means an exit
.

    There
was a red-brick wall about fifteen feet to our right, wooden crates stacked up
against it. We couldn't see where the room ended on our left. In front of us, a
path wound its way through more crates, some broken and empty, some unopened.
We must have been going for forty seconds when the buzz got louder. It was
definitely an electrical current — and powering something big.

    I
looked off to the right, the glow of my phone following.

    And
then it felt like my heart had hit my throat.

    Out of
the darkness, a series of mannequins appeared, all in a line, all looking
straight at us. Some were missing arms. Some legs. All of them were female and
completely unclothed, and all were attached to a base by a metal pole.

    They
were wearing latex masks.

    Milton
Sykes, over and over and over. Each mask slightly different, a prototype for
the next. Adjusted nose. Adjusted cheeks. Bigger chin. Smaller chin. More
prominent forehead. Different colouring. Some had torn and didn't hang as well.
Some looked completely realistic in the lack of light, only the dummy beneath
giving it away. Megan went to scream and then squeezed a hand against her
mouth, her breath whistling out of her nose in short bursts.

    A
noise from our left.

    I
swivelled and lifted up my phone. The blue light from it dropped off about
twenty feet away. I could see the polished concrete floor fade off into the
darkness, and some sort of base unit on the edge of the phone's glow. It looked
like a plinth. I took a couple of steps forward, pulling Megan along behind me,
and the blue light extended across the structure. Another step. Another. It was
definitely a plinth.

    Then
I realized what was lying on top.

    A
coffin.

    It
was completely transparent. Reinforced plastic. Every surface, every angle,
shone in the light from the phone. Inside it, at the bottom, I could see two
blocks — but then realized they weren't blocks. They were feet. I moved the
phone up the side of the coffin: feet, legs, hands, arms. It was a woman. Her head
was turned to the right, facing out at us, her hair hovering around her face in
snaking strands of blonde. She was naked and floating in formalin.

    'Fucking
hell,' I said quietly, stepping up to the coffin and looking down through the
top. Her skin had bleached white, but otherwise she could have been drifting
beneath the surface of the waves. Apart from her hair, she was completely
still, her body hardened, arms out to either side, legs together, eyes open.
She'd been operated on before she died: there was a scar along the side of her
face, running past her ear and around to the back. A facelift. The stitches
were still in place, but they didn't run all the way down. Level with the top
of the ear lobe they stopped, as if the surgeon had abandoned the procedure.
Flesh was visible where the stitches didn't continue.

    I
recognized her as Isabelle Connors.

    The
first woman to go missing two years before.

    I
glanced back at Megan. There were tears running down her face as she looked at
the woman in the coffin. I brought her into me, partly to shield her from the
sight of the woman looking out, and partly to quieten the sobs she was making.