I’m going to get everything off my chest, I have been seeing them since I quit my job and I don’t think I will be able to convince you, before they come. I won’t be able to tell it twice; What I have seen shakes me to my core. I need you to believe me.
I had just got out of university and found my first job on the underground, maintaining the tube tunnels beneath London: kilometres of wide cavernous tunnels that are black as night even during the day. The job seemed great, lots of pay for monitoring cameras and walking about underused passages to every now and then fix a broken pipe. I did both the night and daytime shifts with; each having their own rules. You know the usual things, always check the cams always for broken equipment within the tunnels, if so, always check what trains are running in that area and which tunnels they are taking. Safety first. These were the rules management gave me, but upon arriving for my first day shift, I found a very different set placed upon my small desk. I walked over and stared downwards as they caught my eye. The page had almost yellowed with the left-hand side having 3 separate regular holes stapled into it. There were 2 glaring underlined phrases at the top and bottom of the page: Day Rules, Night Rules. It read:
Rules for the day.
rule 1, always be checking cameras, especially the one pointed at the Y intersection, outside station ***********
Rule 2, if you need to leave the monitoring station, for any reason, always take a strong torch, they do not like strong lights.
Rule 3, when outside the monitoring room for any reason, do not under any circumstances make loud noises, unless masked by a train or something else, otherwise they will wake up.
Rule 4, it should not be active during the day, but if you fail to follow rule three, it will find you, stay completely still and resort to your torch if you feel threatened.
Rule 5, if you see any movement from the right tunnel of y intersection mentioned previously, do not exit the monitoring room
Rule 6, never enter the right tunnel
The place where the night rules had been listed was absent, a cleft in the page as though somebody had torn straight through it.
I was unnerved to say the least, with the little voice in the back of my head telling me it was fake. Still I decided to follow the rules despite my scepticism, it is not as though they are directly impacting my work or make me do anything to ludicrous.
So, I did as I was told, I watched cameras, listened to music, scrolled through reddit. That shift was overall quite relaxing. I managed to find the camera the rules were talking about in the top right of the monitor, it showed the two tunnels, with a single red bulb giving light to the area. I squinted. There seemed to be something in the tunnel, it was short and thin, almost unnaturally so, slightly hunched over by the side of the tracks. A lever?. I ignored it, standing up to wipe the screen and lean in again, it did seriously look like the lever, with how almost ruler straight the outline stood. I noticed a burst pipe on another of the cameras, it was in one of the small maintenance tunnels, not too far from my room. I got up from the desk, drumming my fingers and standing with a sigh, picked up my torch from the hangar, put on my protective gear and headed out into what seemed to be a void. Lengths of endless dimly lit tunnels, I kept looking at my map. The monotonous corridors stretched on, endless lengths of concrete and metal. I heard something, it was quick and quiet, I struggle to remember, it was almost abrasive, like something blunt scraping against the concrete wall. I reached the burst pipe, bringing out the tools on my belt to start repairing it, there were long thin gashes across the pipe, not large, quite small, but deep enough to break the thin metal casting on the series of pipes. I quizzically glance at the camera in the corner. The quiet caused me to stir, lifting my shoulders down and up, slowly broken with the regular hum of the white light above me, looking up from my work every now and then, I managed to get into a rhythm. I should have brought my headphones.
A sudden pop pulled me out of my stupor, a crash, the sound of breaking glass. Flinching I almost hit the roof of the tunnel as it became cloaked in darkness. A knot began to form in my stomach as I felt tension creep across my face, rule 3, whatever the rule meant by something finding me, whether it was a prank by the night shift guy last night or whether the rules were actually real I did not want to find out. I decided the best form of action would be to quietly sneak back to the monitoring room, it was not that far and the lights at the distant end of the tunnel were still on. I started to move ever so quietly putting one foot Infront of the other, keeping my ears pricked, not easing the sudden paranoia.
I was close, I could see the door to the monitoring room at the other end of the corridor as I rounded the corner, suddenly bathed in light, it became slightly blurred as my eyes struggle to adjust, walking forward, and rubbing my eyes.
I turned around, I don’t know why, maybe it was instinct, or divine intervention, but that doesn’t matter now. What I saw curling from around the corner, was a pair of hands, subtly slinking, I almost missed them, they were nearly as pale as the grey wall. The nails gave them away. Black and long, ending in cracked and blunt ends.
I didn’t want to look any further, dashing to the monitoring room I slammed the door shut-locking it in an instant. Falling to my knees.
I told myself I had hallucinated, I cried and lamented it over and over. It is just my surroundings, being cooped up in a room underground, the fuzziness in my eyes that were getting used to the glaring lights of the hallway endlessly watching or being cooped up in a room underground and watching cameras will do that to a person.
Cameras
I scrambled into my chair, whizzing the mouse around, the screen popped up. The camera outside my room showed nothing, nothing outside my door, nothing in the hallway, nothing where the light bulb had popped.
The clock in the corner of the screen chimed, my shift was nearly over. But to leave, I would have to walk outside and back through those passages. I waited a while, just sitting there, watching the seconds rise.
I finally wrestled the courage to peek through the small window, through the grating, I pulled the handle, it made a clicking, then a large groaning noise as I tiptoed out of the door. The tension in the air was palpable, and the eerie silence stung my ears.
I had gotten halfway by the time it started, at first, I could barely hear it, a distant sound that blended in with noises of creaking rails, pipes and the sound of trains going by, it sounded like the wind, I told myself, but as it became louder and louder, I stopped, and listened. It was like someone throwing marbles or dashing the concrete with gravel, it happened in short rapid bursts. I had just rounded a corner. The noise was still far off, 40 metres maybe? Then it stopped, silence once again filled the tunnel.
I started to walk on slowly, keeping my head turned to one side. It all happened at once. Several large pops, the high-pitched breaking of glass. The sound became aggravated, almost clumsy, coming towards me rapidly.
I started to run, rounding corners as fast as I could, I wanted to make sure not to see what was making the noise, who knows what might happen to me if I did.
My panting was gradually drowned out by the soothing noise of footsteps and talking. Slamming the steel gate of the station shut.
After the first day, I was to say the least, confused, and perplexed. I just sat at home thinking about it, again and again. It terrified me. I wanted to quit then and there, save myself the trouble if I was right. But I had student loans to pay, and the sum was not getting any lower. So as the schedule demanded, the night after, I descended.
I still held on, that I might have imagined it, that maybe, it was all a bad dream. But I could see where the bulbs had popped, a thin stretch of mangled wires and sharp glass.
I stared into the hallway and an abyss stared back, only 5 lights had blown but that corner seemed to lead to nowhere.
As I pushed through the darkness, I noticed the walls, small, thin, slightly curved lines, like the leaves of a palm tree scratched into the concrete, they covered the following walls, like a malign infection growing in the concrete.
I opened the door to my workstation and started to work, I took no chances this time I watched the cameras more, switching between them and anything that I could use to pass the time, the slow blinking red light at the Y intersection. I thought I was going to go insane, as the hours dragged by. I was ripped from my work as a ghastly sound played over the cameras, all of them seemed to play it at once, a guttural scream, as though the last breath of an abandoned and dying child were being released. It howled, it whined on and on. I laid low in my chair, as though it could see me, but after 2 minutes the sound stopped, and it ambled out of the tunnel.
My mind was a whirl of thought and maniacal screeching, should I leave the office? If so, where should I go? How fast is it? Do I have enough time to reach the surface?. I felt the seconds fly by. I caught it again, I nodded, so that’s what was making that sound last night, I almost marvelled at it, in the concrete tunnels, I squinted at the screen, I am reluctant to call it human, it had all the right limbs in the right places. It moved slowly, purposefully. Gradually digging its hands into the concrete wall with outstretched arms, it had a rhythmic yet stunted movement, as though effort was required, to move each individual joint and tendon. It stopped, its arms beginning to shake as they sunk further into the walls.
I pulled the last remnants of my sanity together and started to run, I knew I would be at a disadvantage in the small tunnels, so I headed towards the tube tunnels close by. I stopped panting, grasping my chest and the air, I froze, not speaking, not panting. A pair of hands curled round the side of the corner behind me with palpable glee, as it took its first step around the corner, I could finally gaze upon the nightmare. It was tall, hunched to stop its head scraping against the roof, yet its long arms reached down and touched the floor, it covered its eyes looking downwards, the individual parts of its spine rose like a concave herald. That smile, thin and taught. Plastered across a malshapen body and skull.
Suddenly, the area was coated with darkness, and inky blackness that seemed to swim across my vision. I stood still. Almost stopping my breathing, with trying to focus on stopping my shaking hands. After what seemed like seconds. It began to move. Slowly shuffling from left to right, right to left and back again. It started to scratch the walls. By this time only a small sliver of self, held back my hysteria.
But it continued, moving around in front of me. Until the sound of straining and nails on a hard surface. Silence. I held my mouth and nose with my hands, crouching down. Silence. Then breathing. Loud and from my left side, breathing in and out. I could feel it, hitting my ear, wet and warm. The lights came back on. I looked up, its thin body was strung out along the ceiling grappling onto the nearby walls, it clicked its head to one side.
I dashed towards the nearby maintenance door, that sound following me, the sounds of marbles scattered on a hard floor, as that sound was etched into my brain, I could now pick out each individual nail scraping against the walls.
I do not remember much more after that, the smell of metal and brick dust, the blinking red light in the distance, illuminating the wide opening. I followed the tracks, running until I could not run anymore, I must have slammed it hard enough. A light in the distance, a station, I wretched away the last of my stamina.
I stood, scared, shivering holding my flashlight tight, the beam reflecting the golden archway, bathing the platform, the crest, recognisable to all and below it, Per purum sanguinem, the large, bolted door, slightly ajar.