Underground Rivers (3 page)

At the end of St Paul's Road, allotments divided the hillside into a patchwork quilt. Bailey Hill's counterpart was still visible on the Hart Hill ridge. Further north, in the valley in between, I saw the mass of houses punctuated by the spirals of Luton Parish Church and the Corn Exchange. I was just able to see the Town Hall by leaning out from the balcony and stretching my neck to look past three ancient oak trees.

The wind carried no sound and I hoped the crowd was dispersed for the evening. Swifts hung on the evening breeze, enjoying the thermal drafts thrown up from the chalk escarpment. There was lull in the rain as though the heavens were pausing for breath before resuming the deluge. I tried to recall if it rained on ‘St Swithern's', only four days earlier? Was I really interested in such superstition? Was this an issue a holy man should rightly consider?

I pulled a wooden chair out from the landing deciding to sit outside for a while in the calm evening, disturbing several, poorly concealed bottles of ale in the process, no doubt hidden by Greer or another water company employee. My head was clear again and I wondered if a few sips of beer might help recover my composure more fully?

It was easy to prise open a bottle and sit drinking on the balcony with darkness setting in. The scent of Sweet Peas and Buddleja wafting up from the allotments reminded me that it really was summer, rather than some foul day at the autumn equinox. I considered spending the night in the Tower and then walking across town at dawn, when I was less likely to be recognised in Greer's clothing. And if a stray policeman should happen upon me, then I was dressed for the part anyway. With this line of thought becoming established as the way forward, I easily justified drinking a second bottle as well.

For a while I sat content, impressed with the line of interlinked red circles of brick built into the wall, like the wheels on a steam train. I recalled that it was a notable architect from London who designed the tower. His name escaped me, but it belonged to life before the war, when things were certain.

I dozed again as the night began and although the rain blew about me, I was dry and warm enough in my solitary post. Occasionally, muffled sounds came from the town centre, but there was no way to know if sanity had broken out. Then I heard a commotion on the London Road and as the Town Hall bells pealed ten, I saw enthusiastic flames leap up into a drizzly sky.

And beacons also came to life at Hart Hill, the Downs and Popes Meadow. The brightness illuminated the town centre and I prayed the day of celebration was finally going to hit the correct note. But within five minutes, slices of yellow and orange were visible between the buildings. It was as though the flames were responding in kind to the message of peace cast from the hills around Luton.

But I knew there was no official bonfire built in George Street and it was nigh impossible, not to fear the worst. The mob was obviously in the ascendancy again and Mayor Impey was being burnt out. Fireworks flashed up over Popes Meadow but most spattered to nothing in the damp firmament. With the smoke drifting towards me from the London Road Beacon, I felt the whole world was on fire. It was like Arras again.

Now the wind billowed from an unseasonal North Easterly direction, snatches of sound drifted up to me: raucous, angry chants followed by the swoosh of water, as though a spring had burst forth on Tennyson Road. After a while, the obvious conclusion was that the sound was really of firemen's hoses gushing on George Street, trying to save the Town Hall and all within.

With oak trees obstructing my view, I climbed over the balcony ledge and dropped precariously on to the projecting concrete spout below, guessing correctly that it could easily bear my weight. I needed to see, if possible, exactly what was happening. My view of the town centre was improved but it required a strong grasp on grey Luton bricks to stay safe. Clearly, the Town Hall was ablaze.

Although it was too far away to read the time, the flames even illuminated the clock face. Had that impostor Greer, actually thrown the first fire bomb? Were the police and officials now hunting down a maverick priest? Would I return to the parish with a reward upon my head?

The shame mounted my entire being and I prayed briefly for forgiveness but something had happened. I felt cold and damp in the cheap Water Company clothing. The usual reply from above that normally, somehow, mysteriously, reached me, seemed slow in forthcoming. It was as though even
He
, could not compete with the din of the riot below. I wondered strangely had there been too many explosions over the last few years, too much shot fired from ‘Big Bertha', for even the almighty to keep his hearing intact?

How long I clutched this wall I don't know but eventually the sound of a piano came tinkling up the hill. Someone was playing ‘Old Barbed Wire', that rousing tune from the front. Maybe the riot has passed? I tried to sing along but the words from the town centre are not the ones I learnt with our boys in the trenches:

“Looking for old man Impey? We know where he's at. We know where he is.”

“He's a hanging at the old Town Hall.”

“We've seen him. We've seen him.”

Ernest Greer, that hero of Chocolate Hill in 1915, was obviously the town's nemesis and now it seemed, Mayor Impey's hangman too. My body was pressed up against the soaking wall and I began to feel Greer's thin municipal trousers loose their grip. My nails were dug deep into the concrete between the grey brickwork but I was slipping away. I remember Greer's words ‘Hey whisky priest ...'and I sought
His
guidance but I was slipping fast now and couldn't hear even,
His
reply. The lights went out in 1914.

Darkness still surrounds me.

A Fable from the New World

by Rob Sherriff

The few dozen or so children had been warned not to venture beyond the ‘Soft' but on such a gloriously humid dark time their inquisitive nature got the better of them. The ‘Hard', as it was referred to, was not as lush in plant life as the area they lived in, yet some plants grew through the cracks in the grey floor; the creeping vines the most abundant of these, which covered the great mountains of rock like a green net.

It had been about an eighth of a cycle since they left their burrow in the deep trees. Fleetingly one of the children wondered if their parents would be worried about them, before abruptly being drawn away from the thought by a screech from one of its siblings.

“Zszsszzzszzzsztczzzssszz!”

The children scuttled over the uneven landscape towards their sibling's call. It stood waiting for them at the bottom of a deep crevasse.

“Zsszszszszssssczzszzzsz?” one of them questioned it.

“Sszsz zszs z,” it replied before disappearing into a narrow opening at the

bottom of the crevasse.

The Brood quickly followed their brother, excited to see what he had found buried down under the crumbling surface. They squeezed their hard bodies through the confining tunnel eventually coming out into a massive dank chamber.

They had never seen a place like this before; the walls were wood just like the tree they made their burrow in but this wood was smooth and patterned with bumps and curves. The ceiling was even more amazingly patterned. Spreading out the children began touching the strange textures, all new and intriguing. The ground was so smooth and cold some of the children took to lying down and rubbing themselves on it to cool down.

Farther in the space narrowed and then split off into other great areas. Most of these contained strange objects made of crossed sections of smooth wood and resting on these, little blocks, made of some material unknown to them. A child tried to pick one up but it crumbled to dust in its pincer. The rest of the Brood found this astonishingly exciting and they too began picking up the objects. They clicked their mandibles in glee as the objects crumbled away. One member of the family decided the best use for these objects was to hurl them at its siblings, covering them in dust. With a good pick the object didn't explode into dust until the point of impact, showering the target in a pale yellowish cloud.

It wasn't long before they had nearly all joined in. As dust flew everywhere some of the more timid in the Brood went farther into this strange place to escape the dust.

Entering a smaller space they found before them another unknown artefact: a small thin black slate rested on a wooden construct, different from the previous ones. Something that looked like a black worm ran from the artefact down into the wood. Next to it were other black worms, but they where loose and had small shiny mouths. Cautiously one of the children reached out and took hold of the slate, the worm fell away as the child raised it.

“Zzzszszszstt,” said its closest sibling.

The child holding the slate ignored its sibling and began turning the artefact over and over trying to find its purpose.

“Zzzszszszstt,” insisted the sibling again.

Still being ignored it impatiently ripped the artefact away and began fiddling with it itself. It found that holding down a little raised bump made the artefact flare to life, a light emitting from one side.

“Sttzzzszz,” said the children in amazement.

They were dazed and delighted by the patterns in the aurora. It settled on one image.

flickered prominently at the bottom of the image.

The child touched the image and it changed. Two smaller lights appeared in the middle of the slate. Again the child touched it. Something spun in the middle then the artefact let out a small disheartening noise and the light changed again.

“Stzzzczzs,” suggested one of them.

The child holding the artefact agreed and began randomly jabbing at any light that came up.

On the far side of the space something moved. The children looked over to a pile of rocks where the wall had begun to collapse, it was rumbling as something tried to move inside. In a shower of crumbling stone a creature appeared, bursting out of the mess. The children had no idea what it was, they had never seen an animal such as this. It appeared to have a hard outer shell similar to their own but it was shiny like the sun reflecting off water. Weirdest of all where the children would have expected it to have eyes and a mouth it only had more lights with patterns, ever changing, moving up its head.

The creature seemed to be unsure of itself, flexing its various parts and bending here and there, until suddenly the light on its head changed and steadied a little.

It stepped out of the mess and moved slowly towards them.

Shockingly it had only four limbs and used just two of them to scuttle, if you could call it that. It was more a way of wobbling from one limb to the other.

The children drew back. Out of the creature came the most horrible sounds and its head light flickered.

“Hello, valued customer. My name is Stephen Repurposed0606049. I see you are having trouble updating your device, would you like some assistance?”

The children began to screech and scuttled back to the rest of the Brood as fast as they could.

“ZZSSTTCSSSZSZCSSZT!” they cried to the siblings as they reached the space still filled with dust. The Brood stopped their play fighting and turned to their returned siblings.

“Sszt?” asked one of them.

“ZZZSSTZSZ,” came the reply.

Failing to heed the warning, thinking it only a game, the majority of the Brood clicked their mandibles at their siblings in jest then returned to their dust fighting.

The siblings who had seen the Shiny Beast grew angry and hurried for the exit. They looked back as they left at their stupid siblings still playing. Something glinted in the dust cloud.

“YOU HAVE DAMAGED LIBRARY PROPERTY. YOUR ACCOUNTS WILL BE CHARGED... ACCOUNTS NOT FOUND...”

The Brood stopped playing and stared into the dust at the source of the noise. As the dust cleared they saw what had entered the space and began to panic. The creature's face was spinning with symbols.

“SEARCHING FOR ALTERNATIVE PAYMENT SCHEME ... FILES CORRUPTED ...”

The Brood all scuttled wildly towards the entrance, climbing over one another to try to reach the tunnel. The first one there began squeezing up the tunnel followed by its sibling. Over their heads a hot light appeared and the tunnel wall crumbled around them, crushing them before they could reach the far end.

Screeching and scuttling back and forth the few children who didn't reach the tunnel perished one by one as the shiny creature's arm blasted out waves of hot light turning them to crisp smouldering shells. Some tried to climb up the wood structures or hide in the piles of dust blocks but the creature relentlessly kept after them until soon there was only silence and the settling of dust.

The few children that escaped came home to the ‘Soft' with little notice paid to their arrival. They joined their couple of thousand or so more sensible siblings and elders who had been working all cycle long and climbed into the burrow. As they readied to curl up to past the light time, one of the children thought of the siblings they had lost, before quickly being distracted by a million or so other members of its extended family cramming into the burrow. Come the next dark time they would join in with the rest of the workers as they should have that dark time. Their lost siblings would never be thought of again.