Pink hair she had, bright pink hair. But that didn’t interest Clifford as much as the cleavage and ample breasts that the constituent displayed. With a certain vulgar pride, he thought. But it didn’t stop him from taking surreptitious glances at them. It was all he could do to keep concentrating on the woman’s face. Brassy is what people used to say, although you probably couldn’t say that anymore. She told him she lived in one of the old council houses in the middle of town. Erected with haste in the great social building era of the fifties. The woman told him her tale of woe and he made all the right noises. Nodded and tutted in all the right places. Said he would take it up with the right agency. Promised he would get to the bottom of it, but these sorts of things don’t happen overnight, she had to understand that. The woman said she was grateful for his time and hoped to hear back from him in due course. She had, she told him, exhausted all other reasonable channels. He thanked her for bringing the matter to his attention.
When she left, and the image of her pink hair and ample breasts left with her, Clifford pondered how much capital he could make from her situation. He thought minimal, so he got his secretary to send out an official personalised response letter in the post. And that is as far as it went, until the following summer.
* * *
Haillee had moved into her new house in September the previous year, with her two young children and her new partner, her ex having run off ‘up north’ with that slut from Tesco. She used stronger terms for both when piqued. In the end, it was asbestos and the condemnation of a section of her old council estate that helped her relocation. The new development was built on the site of the old air base, which centuries before had been the home of a monastery and its grounds. Her house was in the section owned by the housing association, the one right at the back of the development. An addition that had been tacked on to fill quotas, much to the annoyance of the residents of all the privately owned properties. There were issues with the build almost immediately. Her previous home, the old 1950’s council house, despite its problems – the asbestos, mould, weirdly coloured bathroom suite, and persistent condensation – seemed more solid. And it had a garden you could actually run in before you hit the fence at the end. This thing she lived in now seemed to be made of cardboard. And the architects must have assumed that 21st-century people didn’t have any possessions they needed to store away. Certainly not clothes in a wardrobe. As though society had reverted back to an earlier, possession-free age. Everything was scaled down to some ridiculous minimum, no doubt modelled by an algorithm in a developer’s office. But it was new and shiny and mould-free. And she was grateful for that.
It was eight months after moving in that the first of the problems in the garden occurred. What was, in reality, an often muddy area of grass abutting a tiny patio. It was garden enough for the kids, who were glad of their plastic slide and Wendy house. Kids aren’t fussy when they are a certain age. The age when they haven’t been told too much or have access to their own smartphone. Towards the corner of the rear fence, a shallow dip had materialised. It had become more noticeable as Shawn, Haillee’s partner, mowed the lawn. From the patio end, you could see the grass was longer where the ground had sunk. It was only a small patch to start with, two feet square and two inches deep. In a few weeks, it had spread to four feet square and three inches deep. The couple commented on it, but that’s as far as it went. Life was busy; the patch made little impact on the children’s play. In June, a small fissure, an inch wide, appeared near the edge of the dip.
“Do you think we should call Bloomfield?” Shawn said, standing at the edge of the dip. Haillee was next to him vaping, the children behind, all staring at the anomaly in their garden.
“Probably. There’s obviously something wrong.” Haillee said after puffing out a strawberry-scented cloud. “I’ll call them.”
It took two weeks for the repairs engineer to turn up. Somewhat taciturn but friendly enough. The man had developed this skill of non-verbal commitment after many years with the company. You never make promises, especially ones you have no control over implementing. He poked his foot into the dip, took some photos, and then called his office to explain what he’d seen. He left the couple, promising that the office would be in touch soon to see what could be done. It was another two weeks before Haillee got the letter explaining that Bloomfield would monitor the situation. In the meantime, she should inform them if there was any change in the dip. She showed the letter to Shawn.
“How can they monitor the situation? They mean us monitor the situation, don’t they?”
“What else did you imagine they would do?” Haillee replied.
Shawn shrugged. “I don’t really know. But it’s out there now. They know about it.”
That same night, after the kids were asleep and the television had been turned off, Haillee went to check the French doors were locked. She stood at the glass pane listening to the wind whistling outside. It was an odd sort of noise. What made it strange was it had been a perfectly calm day. There was none of the buffeting you get with a high wind. There were no trees or shrubs in the garden to bend to it either, making it hard to gauge.
Two days later, on Saturday, after the kids had been put to bed, Haillee and Shawn sat in the garden, drinking and vaping. It was a warm, still summer evening. As dusk fell, a faint, low-pitched whistling noise began to emerge with the darkness.
“Can you hear that?” Haillee asked Shawn.
“Er, yeah, sounds like wind.”
“Yes,” Haillee raised her arm in the still air, “but where is it?”
She got up off the plastic garden chair and walked into the middle of the garden. The noise seemed to be coming from the back.
“Shawn.” Haillee turned and beckoned to her partner, urging him to get up.
He joined her and they both stared into the gloom near the back fence. It sounded like the noise was coming from the dip. Haillee used her phone torch and the couple crept towards the fence. When the dip came into view, they saw the narrow fissure had widened. The low, rushing wind noise sounded like it was emanating from it. The couple looked at each other with wide eyes. Then back at the anomaly. For a moment they stood in amazement. That was until Haillee, less inebriated than her partner, saw movement in the ground. An undulation, like a ripple, that traversed the length of the fissure. She grabbed Shawn’s arm and they both ran back to the house like frightened children.
On Sunday morning, Haillee went out into the garden while the kids were watching cartoons. It was warm, the sky dappled with clean clouds. She wandered over to the dip, feeling more secure in the daylight. The fissure had reverted to the narrow split of yesterday morning. There was no movement in the soil. No whistling wind. She sighed and put it down to imagination fuelled by alcohol and darkness. Late morning saw the garden bathed in sunlight, and the kids took advantage of the warmth. Evie, her eldest, was obviously the princess, she made that quite clear. She had the outfit, including the plastic tiara, to prove it. Noah, her youngest, was happy to do whatever his big sister told him. Even if that meant occasionally he had to be a princess, too. Or an ugly witch. In the outfit, if required.
Haillee was in the kitchen when she heard the scream. Glass shatteringly high pitched. The kind that only small girls can produce. Noah had joined in as well. Haillee dropped the laundry basket she was holding to the floor, head pricking up at the sound. She darted towards the rear of the house and the French doors, almost clattering into Noah as he came tearing in the opposite direction. Evie was at the dip, her face twisted in fear and wet from tears. Her left leg looked shorter than her right. When Haillee reached her, she realised it looked that way because her daughter’s leg was trapped in the ground. The dip had increased in size and swallowed Evie up to her shin. Her mother didn’t panic, instead grabbing her daughter in a secure, calming bear hug. She felt the rhythmical sobs of her child against her chest, then, without fuss, lifted her as gently as possible from her trap. Haillee raised Evie face to face and reassured her that it would be okay. She backed away from the dip and then went into the lounge, surprised at how calm she had been.
The calmness eventually manifested itself into anger as the day wore on. On Monday, Haillee called the local newspaper, and Shawn backed her up one hundred per cent.
* * *
No one likes to be last on any list, especially one about your effectiveness in your job. It wasn’t an official poll carried out by the House, because they weren’t inclined to do such things, being an enclosed, self-serving club. Nevertheless, the poll was carried out online by a large and well-respected organisation, generating tens of thousands of responses. You had to supply your name and constituency for validation. Clifford Montague-Gray didn’t really do online, but his attention to it was brought about by the party whip, who wasn’t best pleased. Being ranked #650 for satisfaction, out of 650 members of parliament, should jar anyone’s conscience. It made the papers, of course, but Clifford declined to comment. It would take the discovery of him kidnapping children and eating them to lose his seat in the commons. That’s how secure it was. He’d held it for over thirty years. It was feasible that he could employ a doppelganger for some of his appearances and get away with it.
His secretary, Kath, brought him a copy of one of the newspapers that carried the story. It was a local one from his East Gloucestershire constituency. But that wasn’t the story she wanted him to read. On page five was a photo of a woman with pink hair, standing in a garden with her partner and two children. None of them were smiling for the picture. Next to this was a photo of a depression in the ground. It was surrounded by steel fencing pins linked by red and white plastic warning tape. His secretary jabbed her finger on the page.
“It mentions you. You met her some time ago, she says, and you promised to look into a problem she had with her previous property, one she had rented from a different housing association. If you read the interview, she says she hasn’t bothered this time because of the lack of action. That may be directed at you personally, I don’t know. It might be a gripe about the whole system. Her overriding sense was like being a rat in a maze. Constantly coming up against barriers and dead ends.”
Clifford squinted his eyes up at the colour image on the page. He vaguely remembered her face, but he definitely remembered the hair. And the boobs, obviously. The story lambasted everyone from the housing association to the councillors, and him. She was scathing. Her daughter had been traumatised. What was supposed to be a safe space, for her children to enjoy, had turned out to be perilous.
“It’s not great,” his secretary continued. “Perhaps you could mitigate some of the negativity of that ranking by actually doing something. Bring some pressure to bear.”
The jibe stung Clifford. Kath was a woman who tended not to pull punches. Without her, he’d probably spend most of his time at his club. Or napping on one of the benches in the House. He asked her to get the wheels in motion for a meeting with the woman, preferably at her property. He wanted to make sure to get the best photo opportunity and the most traction out of the visit.
* * *
Haillee was shocked when she got the official letter some days later. She read it over several times before showing it to Shawn.
“It’s because of that satisfaction ranking thing that came out. Isn’t it? It’s got to be.” Shawn looked up at Haillee when he’d read it. “Twat. I’ll give him a piece of my mind.”
“No. You let me do that. I don’t think swearing at him is going to help. I don’t imagine he’ll be alone either. It’s going to be a photo opportunity, isn’t it? He’s not doing it for a favour, is he? It’s political capital. But I’ll fucking hold him to it this time. I’m sick of being fobbed off.”
Shawn just stared at his partner, awed.
* * *
Bloomfield had promised to send someone higher up the food chain to assess the situation and to contact the developer to ask for information about the land behind her property. The area was earmarked as an area of special natural interest, but it just looked like scrubland to Haillee. Sometimes she could hear older kids over there, drinking and mucking about. They never bothered her, but some of the other residents carped on about it. The kids had nothing to do in town. Nowhere to go and call their own. What did people expect? Before Clifford was due, Haillee had a call from the Bloomfield office to say the manager would be out to visit her on the same day. Coincidence? The local press would no doubt cover the meeting. It would be a busy garden if they all arrived at the same time.
The night before the meeting, Shawn stood outside the French doors, leaning against the wall, vaping. It was another still, calm evening and dusk was turning to night. Haillee joined him with a bottle of WKD in each hand. He took one and they dinked bottles before both taking a glug. As the last vestige of light was swamped in darkness, a low-pitched wind started. The couple looked at each other before turning their attention to the rear of the garden. Shawn paced a couple of steps, wet his finger and probed the air with it. Then he turned back to Haillee.
“There’s no wind, babe.”
Like someone blowing over the top of an empty bottle, the noise increased in pitch a little. She joined him and they made tentative steps towards the rear of the garden, holding their mobiles out as torches. They watched, mesmerised, as the fissure seemed to be moving again, like the narrow mouth of some obscure, primitive creature. The wind noise reminded Haillee of a whispered breathing. She shivered at the thought of it. They watched as the dip sank a little more. Shawn felt the pressure of Haillee’s hand on his arm and nearly screamed.
“Oh Jesus, what the fuck is it? What the fuck is it?”
“I don’t know, Shawn. I don’t like it, it’s just wrong.”
The pair of them didn’t run like frightened children this time. Instead, they crept back to the house, backwards at first, lest some venomous creature leap from the dip and devour them. They locked the French doors and shut the curtains, in silence.
* * *
The next day, their visitors arrived more or less at the same time. A woman from the local paper, her photographer; which seemed like overkill to Haillee, Clifford Montague-Gray, his secretary; a middle-aged woman who looked as sharp as a tack, and the landscaping team manager from Bloomfield. All within twenty minutes of each other. The press arrived first, and Haillee took them into the garden with Shawn and the kids in tow. They were intrigued at the sight of the dip, which had by now outgrown its taped-off cordon. It was nearly eight by four feet and almost six inches deep. Like the footprint of a giant robot. The fissure had grown to three inches wide, in places, and ran the length of the back edge of the dip.
“What caused it?” The reporter asked.
“How do we know? It just appeared!”
Haillee put her hand on Shawn’s shoulder after his mild outburst. He knew what it meant. She continued.
“My partner is right, it just appeared one day. Much smaller and shallower at first, but it’s grown over the weeks. The big crack in it came a bit after. You heard about Evie getting her leg trapped in it?”
“Evie?” The reporter said.
“My daughter. It was horrible. I had to pull her out.”
The reporter scribbled some notes on her pad while the cameraman took photos of the offending patch of garden. A few moments later the doorbell rang. It was the man from Bloomfield, equipped with a tape measure and clipboard. Haillee let him in, showed him to the back garden, and introduced him to the growing throng. He introduced himself as Andy and after brief apologies took his own photos and measurements. Haillee went over similar ground with him as she had with the reporter. Andy apologised again for the seeming lack of care that Bloomfield had shown. They weren’t being dismissive, he assured her, but the company was going through a restructure, and certain things may have fallen through the net. Things that really ought not to. But her situation was being taken seriously now, and the wheels had been set in motion to try and resolve whatever the problem might be. He told her the developer had been contacted and they were waiting for their response. These things were complicated and required careful management. The reporter made notes as Andy spoke. Haillee thought he was well trained in saying whatever it was that ought to be said in these situations.
Ten minutes later, the doorbell rang again, and Montague-Gray was standing at the threshold, secretary in tow, looking mildly sheepish to be there but covering it up well. It took years of training to be a politician. This guy had plenty. Haillee was civil but curt. He was apologetic and assured her he would do all he could to assist her in her situation. Haillee responded by saying it was a shame it took so long, and required the possibility of injury to her daughter, for any action to get underway. She led him to the back garden, where he joined the others. Introductions were made; conversations initiated. Clifford then took it upon himself to approach the dip while Kath was speaking to Haillee. He went right up to the tape, where Andy was standing. The two men exchanged thoughts about the possibility of subsidence or heave in the garden. They talked amicably before Andy returned to speak to Shawn and Haillee. She told him, in no uncertain terms, that she was fed up with constantly hitting brick walls and dead ends while trying to find solutions for problems with the house they were renting. She wasn’t the only one either. It didn’t only affect the social rented properties. But she was digressing; she was aware Andy was only there to look at her own, and she didn’t want to burden him with the feelings of many others on the development. Although she knew he must be aware of them. She had friends there who had shared their own experiences with her. He must be aware. The reporter looked on and took notes while the cameraman took snaps, before turning his attention once again to Clifford, at the dip. The MP’s secretary was standing some three feet behind him when the unthinkable happened.
Gearing up for the confrontation, Haillee was waiting for Clifford. As he turned around to face her, the fissure in the ground rapidly expanded around the circumference of the dip. Kath glanced downwards as the thing joined up a foot away from her. An instant later, Clifford disappeared into the ground as a yawning chasm opened up. Kath was hauled backwards by the quick-thinking cameraman. The children screamed. Before anyone could react further, the ground trembled and undulated. Then, unmistakably, because everyone heard it, it sighed. The gathering looked at the hole, then at each other. A moment later, the ground undulated again.
“Back to the house, everyone, quickly!” Andy shouted, as the whole garden seemed to be trembling.
They were all in the lounge in seconds, and as they watched out the French doors, the trembling ceased. And the hole filled itself in. From the inside.
“What the fuck…” Shawn felt the dig in his ribs before he could continue.
“Someone call the fire brigade,” said Andy.
“The fire brigade?” replied Haillee.
“They’re usually the best people in these circumstances. This is a rescue, right?”
* * *
Clifford felt the ground give way so quickly that he had no time to react. Instead, he found himself plunging into an earthy tomb. He hadn’t realised he’d fainted until he eventually came round, on his backside, waist-deep in loose soil, unsure how long he had lost consciousness. He thought he ought to be crushed by the weight of it. He woke up expecting it, the suffocating terror of being buried alive under tons of earth. In the darkness, he felt the soil behind his back move, and a panic welled up in him. Oh god, it’s happening, he wanted to scream, but the choking fear of it silenced him.
It didn’t bury him. Instead, it pushed him forwards. Pushed him, intentionally, as though animated by an unseen hand. An invitation. He found himself somewhere he could not understand. There was space around him; damp, foetid air permeated the blackness. I should be dead. Slowly, he groped out to his sides, feeling his way in the blackness. Clifford was in a tunnel. He shouted. The voice, deadened by the weight of the earth that surrounded him, refused to carry. Unable to go backwards or upwards, he weighed his limited options. He could wait where he was and hope for rescue, or he could move forward like a blind man and see where the tunnel went. But then it dawned on him. Why a blind man? He fished his mobile from his jacket pocket and shook it. The torch illuminated and momentarily dazzled him before the glow of the LED was swallowed by the blackness. Moving it around, he saw the sides that hemmed him in. They were rock, and clearly hewn by men. Clifford knew there had been a monastery on the site of the old air base centuries ago. Perhaps this tunnel led somewhere. Perhaps there was still a way out. He looked at his home screen and the glowing icons. Despite the no network message, he dialled his secretary in the vain hope of anything. He got nothing. But the 80% battery life gave him some comfort.
Clifford discovered that he could stand upright without needing to crouch. The roof above him curved down to the walls, three feet apart. If there was no way backwards, the only thing left was to move forwards. Decision made, he left the vestiges of panic at the entrance to the passage, as best he could, and carried on with fear as his companion. The bright LED of his phone was a major comfort. He dreaded to think what would happen if it powered off before he managed to get out. As he moved along the tunnel, all sense of time and place shifted. Apart from his shuffling footsteps, he was alone in a soundless, hostile environment that he had no control over. The feeling wasn’t lost on him. After ten minutes he came upon a passageway leading off the main tunnel. It was lower, making crouching necessary to enter. Clifford studied the tunnel entrance, knowing he would need to explore all avenues if he was to find a way out. Before entering he searched the ground around him, picked up a stone, and, on the wall opposite the entrance to the side tunnel, marked an arrow in the direction he had been travelling. Clifford pocketed the stone. The air in the second passageway was cloying and denser than the first. This, and having to stoop to move along it, made progress slow and uncomfortable. After another ten minutes, the light from his phone hit a solid object. The tunnel had ended. Clifford moved the light around to discover it had been sealed. At the bottom edge, there was what once could have been a step, that had, at some time, been filled in with stone and mortar. About two-thirds of the way up, Clifford noticed letters scratched into the surface: DCL. He thought them initials, possibly of the mason who sealed the tunnel. There was nothing to do but go back.
* * *
Andy was the first to venture back out into the garden, just before the fire brigade turned up. He made it as far as the edge of the patio, before turning back. The lawn in front of him rippled. Rippled, like a flag in the wind. It sent him back into the house in disbelief and a little more afraid than he let on. Kath looked on, frantically re-dialling Clifford’s number hoping for any answer, even voicemail. Moments after the crew commander learnt what was going on, he ventured outside with a couple of firefighters. He got as far as three yards onto the lawn before the dip moved. The narrow fissure closed up as the ground heaved upwards several inches. And to his wide-eyed astonishment, it moved towards him. Like a giant mole was burrowing under it. The officer looked on, bewildered, as the earth ceased its movement two feet from his boots.
“I don’t like it, Jimmy. What the hell’s going on?” one of his colleagues said.
No sooner than he spoke, the ground sunk inwards. As though that giant invisible robot had slammed its foot into the garden again.
“Back! Back! Into the house!” Jimmy shouted. “Get everyone out, including the neighbours.” He radioed base for his station commander to come out.
“What about Clifford? What about Clifford? He went into that thing. It sucked him under!” Kath implored the crew commander.
Jimmy looked out the French doors and then back at Clifford’s secretary. “I don’t know what we can do about that now. But it’s unsafe for anyone to be out there. Us included. We’ll need to get specialists in.” Jimmy’s tone was firm but reassuring, which wasn’t lost on Kath. She meant to speak but found herself drifting into badge bunny territory. It was understandable, she mused. “Are you okay?” Jimmy continued, eyeing the woman with her lips parted; like she meant to say something.
“He’s my boss. Clifford, the man who went into the ground.”
Jimmy glanced outside, then back at Kath. “We have to hope he’s in an air pocket. We’ll have to hope for a miracle. Right now though, you have to get out of here.”
* * *
Clifford walked two hundred yards further along the main tunnel before he came to a T-junction. He groaned, before removing the stone from his pocket and marking the wall so he knew which direction he had been travelling in. Instinctively, he chose the right-hand turn. Turning left was a thing he only did when absolutely necessary. A weird, internalised quirk that didn’t even register anymore. After a hundred yards, he came upon another side passage, much like the first. He marked the wall opposite as before. Then continued down the new route before finding a bend and another entrance leading off the one he was in. Frustration crept in to join his companion, fear. He swore and marked the entrance with an X, denoting it was unexplored.
At the end of the tunnel, he came to a dead end. This one was simply that. There was no obvious masonry work as before, but as Clifford shone his torch on the wall he saw more writing. DCXL it looked like, but he had no way of cleaning the surface to make sure. He turned, walked back to the passageway he’d just passed, and entered it. This tunnel went on for eight minutes and was much the same as the last. But as he came to the end, his spirits lifted. Instead of a solid stone wall, there stood an ancient and decrepit door. Age and dampness had turned the wood into an almost living, fungal barrier. Clifford stared at the rusty ring latch handle, daring to hope that it still worked. He reached out, trying to turn the handle and pull the door at the same time. It fell apart in dusty splinters, choking the air with pungent mould. Clifford drew back out of the miasmic cloud; the limited air in the tunnel was bad enough. When it settled, he moved forwards again to discover the doorway had been bricked up. Bricks, old bricks, not stone blocks. Again, inscribed three-quarters of the way up, was a series of letters: CDX. He shouted in frustration at the barrier, cursing at the door’s deception. Then he raised his foot and stamped on the wall. To his surprise, there was some flex in it, the tiniest possibility that it could be breached. Mustering himself, he tried stamping again, before realising age and lack of fitness was against him. He would need to charge it and use his corpulence to best effect. His first effort shifted the bricks off their mortar beds whilst reminding his shoulder of their solidity. On his second attempt, he went through, landing roughly on the heap of masonry. It hurt like hell; Clifford discovering he was no action man.
After swearing and raising himself from the rubble, he retrieved his phone which he’d propped up on the other side of the doorway. This new passage was more grim than the last, the air more rank, the walls almost slimy. Even so, he would keep moving. Better forwards than back, until all avenues had been explored. Clifford consoled himself with such clichés as he trudged along, mumbling out loud. In the distance, when he'd become silent again, he thought he heard the sound of water. More succinctly, dripping water. It reminded him of two things that required attention. The need to relieve his bladder, and that he was becoming thirsty. He never had time for that cup of tea at that Haillee woman’s house. The one he thought might be forthright when they got a chance to sit down and thrash things out. He knew she’d want that, and he would be ready of course. What he was ready to do now was easy enough, he could simply piss down the tunnel in the direction he’d come. The other thing may be harder. That was unless there was water ahead. Drinkable water.
Clifford let the thoughts of Haillee drift from his mind, concentrating as he was on the sounds of dripping. He rounded a bend and saw what had been echoing softly through the passage. Water was slowly dripping through a crack in the ceiling, trying miserably to pool on the porous stone floor of the tunnel. Beyond it was a crossroads of sorts – two smaller tunnels directly opposite each other – leading off this main one. He looked towards them in disdain, a creeping vexation niggling at him. For now, he would concentrate on trying to catch some water from the rocky ceiling. Standing open-mouthed underneath the crack, his phone propped against the wall, he realised it may not be a simple task. The first splashed onto his cheek. The second on his chin. His third attempt was successful. Cold, earthy, mineral-tasting, it was a torturous way of drinking something he took for granted. Clifford was there ten minutes before his neck ached enough for him to stop. He wondered how much longer he would have to endure this before he stumbled on a way out. Picking up his phone, he glanced at the battery life. It was down to 71%. He’d been down here nearly two hours. It might be prudent to switch off the apps that consume battery power. Marking each tunnel he passed with an X, he moved on, keeping to the main one he was in. It led to a fork and his heart sank. Clifford shouted his frustration, weariness boiling to the surface, his swearing echoing softly through the dank passages. Left or right? Did it matter? He marked the tunnel entrance he chose.
* * *
However the crew attempted to traverse the garden, it thwarted them. At one point, a narrow digger was brought down the side of the house. No sooner had the operator driven it onto the lawn than the ground subsided, tipping the machine on its side. The driver escaped unharmed, leaving the stricken machine where it was. A drone arrived, equipped with a thermal imaging camera. It was more of an appeasement than any practical use. A search and rescue team versed in post-disaster techniques appeared. The garden resisted. Resisted as a living thing might to protect its possession. The team was dumbfounded. All this took two days, while Haillee and her neighbours were evacuated to local hotels. The local press were like leeches on a wading tourist. They weren’t allowed access to the garden; nobody was. The police cordoned the site off. Local youths gathered as near as they could, hanging out, shooed off by the constabulary when they got too close, too rambunctious, as if a demented circus had arrived in town and given the populous something to chew on.
It took five days for the garden to quieten and allow anyone to walk on its scarred lawn. Whatever malevolent intent impelled it to resist, vanished. By now, everyone had given up hope of finding Clifford alive. At best, it was a recovery of his body.
* * *
This particular tunnel was long. Tendrils of roots hung down at intervals, caressing its meandering occupant like grasping cobwebs. Clifford passed rank seams of fungus and mineral-stained walls, marked by the constant slow drip of water from above. His weariness, and the niggling uncertainty that he would ever find a way out, began to take their toll. His travelling companions, fear and frustration, were eventually joined by dejection. And all three sat heavy within him. Ahead loomed another T-junction, he wasn’t sure how many he’d encountered, didn’t count anymore, didn’t consult the time on his phone. But the light from his mobile showed that one direction was sealed off.
As Clifford studied the in-fill, what had only been a minor tick at the back of his mind bloomed forth in a grotesque spasm of understanding. He wanted to deny it, to put it aside as an implausibility, but it was staring him in the face. The figures etched into this particular dead end were CXXVII. They weren’t initials at all – they were numbers – but it hadn’t been obvious before without the V’s and I’s. Clifford flopped heavily to the ground, exasperated, and thought back to the first set he’d read. Tried to remember what they represented. DCL. It came eventually: D, five hundred, C, one hundred, L, fifty. Six hundred and fifty. Clifford croaked out a groan and shut his eyes. Weariness descending on him like a black shroud. Some perverse coincidence surely. It couldn’t mean what he thought it meant. Please, it couldn’t mean that.
Clifford sat hunched, his head cradled in his hands, the damp wall chilling him through his jacket. He could not stay there; should not be defeated. So he took a rest, gathered himself, then stood and moved on. More minutes passed when in the distance, something caught his eye. With his mobile pointing at the ground, Clifford stood for a moment and squinted at the object. He turned off his torch. It was light. Faint, and from this distance, one with an eerie, greenish glow. The vision animated him as he flicked his phone torch on again. It added vigour to his flagging step, eyes concentrating on the dim glow ahead. Ignoring the small openings on either side of him, Clifford moved on at pace, gaining momentum with the increase in the new light. The light at the end of the tunnel. And it was a doorway, just like the one that previously tricked him. Except this one was open and the light was coming from the other side. Eager and single-minded, Clifford reached out, eyeing only the prize in front. What he failed to notice was the deep, black shape in the ground beneath him. The deep, black void that yawned and swallowed him up, six feet from the exit.
Clifford dropped like a stone into the shaft, landing heavily, as unwitting baggage might onto its conveyor, his knees and ankles crying out in pain at the impact. As he tumbled over, instinctively reaching out to protect his face from the ground, he dropped his phone. All was utter blackness around him as his illumination vanished. Clifford crawled in the darkness, desperately searching for his device. Fear clawed at his shoulder, whispering in his ear. What if you don’t find it, what if it’s broken? The politician groaned, trying to blot out the whisperings, desperate to retain his sanity. He eventually came upon it, lucky not to crush it with his knee. Thank you, God, please let it be okay. It was; although the screen had sustained a crack, it still worked. Lifting the device, he shone the light in both directions. In one, the now familiar sign of a once accessible stairwell sealed shut. Rising slowly, cursing at his creaking joints and sore ankles, Clifford moved towards the barrier. CCXI. He leaned heavily against the stone, a croaky shout and feeble slam of his fist all he could muster. There was nothing else to do but turn in the opposite direction and go back.
Hours passed in the now familiar ritual of hope dashed by dismay, the endless barriers plaguing the maze of his subterranean world. Thirst and hunger vied to weaken his progress, his emotions veering wildly. That was until the thing he had been dreading the most, the thing he would rather not contemplate, happened. The power finally drained from his battery. Clifford cried out as he was consumed in total darkness, reduced to shuffling along with outstretched arms, groping along the passages. Terror stalked him as a tangible shadow, a moving entity, an oppressive force in the absolute blackness. It would be his only companion now until the moment came when Clifford dropped to his knees from exhaustion. He crawled on all fours until he could take no more. Until all resolve and strength withered from him. Sleep, sleep now and rest. It was all he could think of.
* * *
Clifford awoke from his sleep sitting upright, waist-deep in loose soil. It wasn’t how he remembered succumbing to it. A movement in the soil at his back nudged him forward. Pushed him, with invisible hands, until he was clear of it. Instinct told him to reach into his pocket and fish out the mobile he remembered dropping. Shaking hands activated its unbroken screen and wide eyes stared in horror at the 80% battery life. He shone the torch down the three-foot-wide passageway.
The darkness eventually swallowed the light and was pierced by a scream that wasn’t dulled by the weight of the earth, not this time. Instead, it echoed back, shrill, reverberating through the maze of tunnels. The pitchy, lunatic scream of a broken man in an endless nightmare. The death-dream of eternal dead ends and pitfalls. A terror borne on the realisation of where he was, what had become of him, and that he would do this again. And again. And again…
* * *
Haillee refused to return to the house backing onto the Fire College. Even when Bloomfield gave the all clear that it was safe to do so. The local papers carried her story right to its conclusion, visiting her in the makeshift accommodation after the incident at her home. It made the BBC local news as well, after the ten o’clock national broadcast. Her pink hair and outspoken manner made her a local celebrity. For a while. Until the new shiny thing came along to displace that particular nugget. She was glad when the fifteen minutes wore off: fame being like a carbuncle on privacy, she discovered. Eventually, her family were relocated into a suitable property on a newer development. The one thing she took with her from the episode in the garden, was never having it out with Montague-Gray, and the way, when they’d locked eyeballs, he just disappeared into the ground. She’d been ready for it though, more than ready.
As a moving-in gift for the children, Haillee’s mother bought them a pet hamster. Haillee approved and even helped the children choose its name, Clifford. Shawn and her would often join the children, laughing as they watched the creature scamper around in its plastic maze.