Slugs Page 19

  Brady waved a hand to silence the sewage man and then the cockney himself heard it - the loud splashing which seemed to be growing nearer.

  ‘It’s probably just the water flowing into the chamber,’ he said, reassuring no one, including himself. ‘We’d better move on.’

  He started to crawl again but Brady remained still, his ears and eyes alert for the slightest sound or movement. He kept the torch beam directed behind him for long moments before finally crawling along behind Palmer. Perhaps the sewage man had been right. Perhaps it had just been the water gushing into the chamber.

  Behind them, the vault was filled to overflowing with the black creatures, all slipping and sliding over one another in their haste to reach the two humans just three or four yards ahead.

  ‘We should be reaching another of the chambers soon,’ said Palmer, his own breath coming in gasps. His knees ached from crawling so much and he paused for a second beside a connecting pipe to get his breath.

  Brady crouched beside him and rolled up the sleeve of his overall. He shone the torch onto his watch.

  ‘Eleven forty-five,’ he said. ‘Fifteen minutes of air left.’

  Palmer nodded. The Health Inspector patted him on the shoulder and they prepared to move on but, before they did, he swept the tunnel once more with his torch light.

  There, glistening on the roof of the pipe, were a dozen slime trails.

  ‘Palmer, look,’ said Brady, pointing to the mucoid paths.

  The sewage man turned his attention to the slime, watching as the Health Inspector touched it with a gloved finger. As he pulled it away, gobs of transparent fluid dripped from the material.

  The trails were fresh.

  The two men followed their course to a small outlet which Palmer said fed in from a drain. Brady bent close and shone his torch inside.

  ‘My God,’ he murmured and Palmer directed the beam of his own light inside.

  Half a dozen of the slugs were in there, most of them larger than six inches. For long seconds they seemed to recoil from the bright lights but then, slowly, they began slithering towards the two men.

  ‘Let’s move,’ said Brady and they suddenly found renewed strength, scrambling quickly down the pipe towards what they knew to be the second chamber.

  Brady shone the torch behind him, puzzled when he saw no sign of the slugs.

  There was a sibilant hiss which made both men gasp and it was a second or two before they realized that it was the static on the radio.

  Foley was trying to contact them.

  Brady snatched his two-way angrily from his belt.

  ‘What is it?’ he snapped. ‘You scared the shit out of us.’

  Palmer looked across at him. ‘No pun intended I hope,’ he grinned.

  ‘Have you seen anything?’ the curator wanted to know.

  ‘We’ve seen half a dozen of them,’ Brady told him.

  ‘They’re down here all right, it’s just a matter of where.’

  ‘Is it working?’

  ‘If you mean are they following us, I don’t know.’

  Palmer tapped him on the shoulder.

  ‘We’d better move on,’ he said.

  Brady nodded and switched off the set again, clipping it to his belt.

  The two men found that the pipe curved slightly, eventually branching out into a kind of fork, presenting them with a choice of which one to enter. Palmer was about to radio through for directions when he saw the first of the slugs spilling from the left hand pipe ahead of them.

  ‘Oh Jesus,’ he said and tugged at Brady’s arm.

  The Health Inspector snatched for his radio.

  ‘Foley,’ he shouted into the set. ‘We’ve found them.’

  ‘Where are you?’ the curator wanted to know.

  It was Palmer who spoke next. ‘They’ve got in front of us. They must have come from the second chamber. We’ll have to go back the way we came.’

  With the slugs less than a yard behind, the two men twisted awkwardly in the narrow pipe and scrambled back towards the first huge chamber. Brady now leading, held his torch before him and he was the first to see the other group of slugs. Those that had been pursuing them now blocked their way to the first chamber.

  The two men were pinned between different groups of the black monstrosities, their route to the first and second chambers blocked off.

  The seething mass approached slowly from both sides.

  ‘In there,’ shouted Palmer, pushing Brady towards a narrow outlet. ‘It’s a connecting pipe, it should take us through to another flow pipe.’

  Brady squeezed through the narrow tunnel, finding it so confined that he had to crawl on his stomach to get through. His oxygen tank scraped against the stonework and the effluent splashed up against the perspex of his face mask but he crawled on, using his knees and elbows as means of propulsion. He slithered along - like the monstrosities which pursued him.

  Palmer threw himself into the narrow opening behind the Health Inspector, pushing the older man along in an effort to escape the hungry black hordes.

  ‘Foley,’ shouted the sewage man into his radio. ‘They’ve got us trapped. We’re in a connecting pipe mid-way between the first and second chambers. Where will we end up if we keep crawling?’

  The curator’s voice sounded a million miles away as he spoke.

  ‘You should come into another flow pipe, if you crawl down that it’ll bring you back out into the first chamber again,’ he told them, tracing their progress on the map. His own heart was now thumping madly against his ribs. He started the engine of the Volkswagen again and drove to the centre of the road. There, he pushed open the passenger door and struggled to lift the heavy drum of poison onto the tarmac. With perspiration running from his face, he managed to push it over towards the manhole cover. Then, he bent and took a hold of the metal bar across the top of the heavy iron disc.

  It wouldn’t budge an inch.

  The sewer remained sealed.

  Brady was crawling as fast as he could through the rancid effluent, his breath coming in gasps. Behind him, Palmer was able to see the slugs as the first of them slithered into the pipe and made for his heavy boots. He crushed the first half a dozen beneath the weighty footwear but, in the beam of his torch, he could see more and more of the black things swarming into the tunnel. Fear gripped him tightly, and he found it difficult to swallow.

  ‘Move,’ he shouted to Brady.

  The Health Inspector was scrambling along as fast as his aching limbs would allow but, suddenly, he let out a mournful groan.

  The other end of the pipe was blocked by a grille.

  ‘Give me the screwdriver, quick,’ he bellowed, looking back to see the tunnel filling with the obscene fat slugs, all eager to reach their prey.

  Palmer tore the implement from his belt and handed it to Brady who didn’t even bother trying to loosen the screws, he merely jammed the blade between the slats and tried to tear the grid free. The screws were rusty, the stonework decaying, but still the recalcitrant grille kept its place, barring their escape.

  ‘Hurry,’ screamed Palmer, the leading slugs now seething over his legs, trying to bite through the thick material of his protective suit.

  Brady beat at the grille with his hands in an effort to loosen it and, finally, the metal started to give. One screw came away and the Health Inspector used all his strength on the screwdriver, using the implement like a lever to tear off the grid.

  ‘For fuck’s sake,’ shrieked Palmer and then he screamed in agony as the first slug found the rent in his suit and began eating its way into his thigh.

  ‘Brady,’ Palmer screamed but the Health Inspector could do nothing to help him. He just continued to wrench at the stubborn grille, hearing his companion’s shrieks of pain. In that confined space they seemed to be deafening and Brady wanted to scream himself.

  Blood spurted up from the gash in Palmer’s leg and he tore at the first slug, managing to rip its vile form from his leg. But its head remai
ned embedded in the flesh and it was just the bloated body which he tossed away. And now more of the creatures were swarming over him, tasting the fast-flowing blood, burrowing deep into his meaty thigh, sliding up inside the suit until they reached his genitals. The sewer man shrieked again as two of the slugs began boring their way into his scrotum. He felt waves of unbelievable pain lance through him as more of the creatures found the rip in the suit. They slithered inside to feast on his shaking body. He tried to swat at them with his hands, feeling one huge fat body burst under his fist. It squashed against his torn thigh, its own pus-like bodily fluid mingling with his spurting blood.

  Brady began to shout in rage and terrified frustration when the grille wouldn’t come away and, behind him, Palmer’s screams became fainter as the slugs ate their way into him, a number burrowing up through his torn genitals, using his anus as a means of access in their search for the softer, more succulent parts of his body. Blood filled his mouth and gushed out into his face mask, bubbling up behind the perspex, running back down the tube to the oxygen cylinder until he was breathing the coppery fumes of his own life fluid.

  With an angry yell, Brady finally tore the grid free.

  He slithered through and found himself, as Foley had said, in another flow-pipe.

  He shot out a hand and began to haul Palmer free of the connecting tunnel but it was too late, the little man was already dead. The only movements his body made were spasmodic contractions of the muscles and now many of the slugs were sliding over his torn body in their efforts to reach Brady.

  Panting for air, the Health Inspector began to crawl back towards the first chamber.

  He had just five minutes of oxygen left.

  Foley tried one last time to remove the manhole cover but could make no impression on the heavy disc. Looking around in panic he saw a piece of wood lying by the roadside - the branch of a tree torn down by some kids a day before. He hurried across to it, relieved to find that it was reasonably stout. The curator stuck it into the indentation in the lid and put all his weight on it.

  The lid still refused to move and Foley put more pressure on it.

  There was a loud groan and the wood snapped.

  He threw one half to the ground, his mind desperately searching for a means to lift the heavy lid.

  The radio crackled and he snatched it up.

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘Foley.’ The curator recognised Brady’s voice. ‘The slugs are right behind me,’ he gasped. ‘I’m coming up. Get ready to let the poison in.’

  Foley hesitated a second. ‘I can’t get the lid up,’ he said, flatly.

  ‘Oh God. Have you tried prizing it open?’ gasped the Health Inspector .

  Foley said that he had.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, hurry,’ Brady implored him. ‘I’m at the main chamber now, the bloody things are right behind me.’ His voice rose to a shout. ‘Hurry, Foley.’

  ‘Rope,’ the naturalist said aloud and hurried to the boot of his car. He flung it open and rummaged through the other debris in search of the thick hemp which he knew to be in there.

  He found it and scurried back to the manhole cover where he slipped the rope under the metal bar in the lid. He tied a hasty knot, tugged on the rope then secured the other end to his front bumper. Then he leapt behind the wheel and reversed slowly.

  Inch by agonising inch, the lid began to lift.

  Foley smiled, triumphantly.

  It was almost halfway up when the rope began to fray.

  Brady stood in the central chamber looking up, watching as the lid was lifted. He shot a glance towards the pipes which opened into the vault and shuddered.

  From every outlet, hundreds of black shapes were spilling. Like an unstoppable tide of death, they poured out of the pipes into the central chamber and Brady could only guess at how many thousand there were. Led by the huge seven and eight inch monsters, they piled on top of one another, gliding effortlessly towards their helpless prey.

  He stood transfixed for long seconds, watching as the seething black mass drew towards him, then, he grabbed at the metal ladder and began to climb towards the rapidly opening gap above him.

  The slugs reached the spot where he had been standing and he saw a number trying to slither up the ladder after him but they could gain no adequate hold and fell back amongst the rest of their companions.

  Brady was halfway up the ladder now and his oxygen was running out rapidly. His head felt swollen, as if someone were filling it with air. The ladder swam before him and, once, he nearly lost his footing but he continued up, gripping each rung tighter than the next until he was mere feet from the opening.

  It was at that point that the rope snapped.

  All Foley heard was the dull clang as the manhole cover fell back into place. He looked round in alarm and saw what had happened, leaping from behind the steering wheel to re-affix the rope. He could hear Brady’s weak banging on the bottom of the lid as he fastened the hemp once more. Then the Health Inspector’s voice drifted wearily over the two-way.

  ‘Running out of oxygen,’ he groaned. ‘I can’t breathe. I...’

  Brady found himself nearing unconsciousness, he looked down into the darkness and saw the slugs seething about below him almost as if they were waiting for him to drop into their midst. He lost his footing and thought he was going to faint but he gritted his teeth, trying to hold his breath to prevent himself inhaling his own carbon dioxide. He heard the roar of the Volkswagen’s engine and then suddenly, the manhole cover was torn free. In a daze, Brady felt strong arms grabbing him, pulling him from that hell hole. He felt hands struggling to remove his mask and then he was breathing fresh air again. Fresh clean air.

  His head was throbbing but he scrambled to his feet when he saw Foley struggling with the large drum of poison, attempting to tip it over.

  Brady joined him and both men put their weight to it, feeling the drum teeter then finally fall.

  Five gallons of the deadly substance spilled from it and rained down into the sewer, onto the writhing slugs.

  There was a flash of light so brilliant that both men thought they must be blinded, then a blistering geyser of white flame rose almost silently from the manhole. It rocketed up into the heavens a full fifty feet before disappearing in a billowing mushroom cloud of grey smoke. The ground shook as, beneath them, the poison set off a chain reaction which swept through the. entire sewer system of Merton. As Palmer had warned them, the fire-flash set off the clouds of methane and the earth rocked. Both Foley and Brady were thrown to the floor and, below a lightning tongue of flame tore along the pipes in all directions, fanning out like some kind of fiery amoebic creature. Tentacles of screaming flame ripped through pipes and tunnels. The taps in the houses nearby were blasted from their housings and in many places, the water boiled in lavatory bowls. In the street nearby, a manhole cover was blasted a full thirty feet into the air by the explosion and, all over town, sewer vents lit up momentarily as the flames roared beneath them.

  Then, as suddenly as it had come, the fire died and just a mournful plume of grey smoke wafted up from the open hole.

  Brady rose slowly to his feet, the smell of burning strong in his nostrils. A moment later Foley joined him and both of them peered down into the smoke-filled maw below. They could see nothing.

  ‘I’m sorry about Palmer,’ said Foley, softly.

  The Health Inspector nodded. ‘The slugs killed him. The poor bastard was dead before the explosion.’

  Brady was suddenly aware of a foul smell and he realized that it was his overalls. Pieces of dried excrement still stuck to them in places and he hurriedly pulled them off, dropping the stinking garments in an untidy heap on the road beside the manhole.

  ‘What now?’ asked Foley.

  The Health Inspector exhaled deeply. ‘The sewers will have to be checked. We can’t take any chances. I’ll go down again in the morning with some more men, just to be sure.’

  It was as they turned to head back to
Foley’s car that they saw it.

  Crawling in the road was a single solitary slug.

  ‘Oh my God,’ whispered Brady.

  Before he could react, Foley had snatched up one of the discarded gloves and was moving towards the slug which looked to be about two or three inches long. He knelt and, watched by Brady, picked the black creature up. It tried to contract itself, anxious to be free of the grip and, when Brady stepped closer he saw that the animal had retracted its posterior tentacles.

  Foley put it down on the pavement and it crawled away towards the safety of the bushes nearby.

  Brady breathed an audible sigh of relief.

  ‘Looks like my theory was right,’ said Foley but there was no joy in his words, just a thankful affirmation of his beliefs. ‘Let’s wait and see shall we,’ said Brady, patting the younger man on the back.

  Lights were going on in houses all over the street, people were peering out of doors and windows and, far away, the two men heard the wail of police and ambulance sirens.

  ‘I think you and I are going to have some questions to answer,’ said Foley, pulling a packet of cigarettes from his pocket.

  Brady nodded. ‘Don Palmer’s wife will have to be told,’ he said, softly.

  ‘The police will do it,’ said Foley.

  ‘No. It was my fault he died. It’s my job to tell her.’

  ‘He knew the risks involved,’ said Foley.

  ‘Yeah. But I’m still going to be the one to tell her.’ Foley offered him a cigarette.

  ‘I don’t smoke,’ Brady said.

  ‘Perhaps it’s time you started,’ said the curator and both men smiled.

  Epilogue

  George Thomas watched as the crates of lettuce were unloaded from the back of the lorry. He chewed the end of his pipe which, as always, remained unlit.

  All around him the place was alive with the sound of crashing boxes, raised voices, laughing. The usual cacophony of noise which went to make up Covent Garden.

  He’d arrived later than usual that morning due to the traffic on the roads leading into London. The drive from his farm in Merton usually took him less than an hour but he’d left at five a.m. that morning, when the mist still lay heavy on the ground, and now at seven o’clock he had finally managed to struggle through. The sun was already high in the sky above the city, pouring its unrelenting heat down over the people scurrying for buses and tubes.