Helen had put her foot down, told him not to, but he’d argued it was his job. Somebody had to do it. She’d looked unconvinced, worried.
‘Why you?’
For Matt, working in cramped spaces was the ninth circle of hell. And it didn’t get any better. Maybe it was his height — six feet two in his nylon socks and bearded with it. A short, tidy red beard, fastidious, Shakespearean. He spent hours in front of the mirror trimming it almost hair by hair. Freckles, too, across his nose and cheeks. What he hadn’t told Helen was that he seldom used the lift these days, fearing he might betray the panic he experienced every time the doors slid shut. Didn’t tell anybody, but walked up the five flights regularly.
And now the tunnels seemed to close in around him, alive with their own directionless murmurs, drips, shiftings and slitherings, sighs and whispers, somewhere beyond the lights in the velvet blackness.
They were hunting him, six of them now. Their mean little eyes were on him, waiting for the next drop of blood which had already soaked through his handkerchief and was collecting on his fingers. Any minute now … the little bastards were well aware of it, he knew from the way they watched … their heads above the water, swaying slightly, marking him as their prey. Two of them swam around, prowling backwards and forwards, patrolling… Were any others on their way? Had they sent signals?
He kept his hand up to try and reduce the flow of blood, using his buttoned jacket as a sling. The pain spread, throbbing and raw. Cramp seized the muscles of his arm.
He’d just finished lighting the next shot which was to start on the brick vaulting and pan across to reveal the anchorman — Charlie, as usual — going on about cholera in nineteenth-century London. If he could remember the words. Charlie was one of those TV presenters who can convince the world they are instant experts on everything, always providing someone else has written the script. This time he was going to have his work cut out trying to appear at ease with the dripping walls and the stench. But, no doubt, viewers would find it all very exotic as they watched in their cosy living rooms; they wouldn’t be able to smell it, nor feel hemmed in by those narrow walls.
Then someone had suggested a break for coffee before the take. And a breath of fresh air.
‘Great!’ Matt had agreed. ‘You go ahead, I’ll follow. I’ll just check this buttress.’
The director had wanted it in the foreground of the shot but it seemed to absorb all the light he could give it and offer nothing back. Matt was preoccupied with the challenge; for a moment his claustrophobia no longer worried him. He’d have to cross over to it and take a reading.
No problem, though. One stride, the full stretch of his long legs… A shorter man couldn’t have done it.
So why couldn’t he get back? He was afraid, yes, but… He must brace himself. Discipline himself. If only he weren’t so tall he could stand upright, give himself a better balance. And if only the ledge weren’t so slimy.
He glanced down. They were watching him. Maybe they could even read his mind.
‘It’s a matter of will-power,’ he told himself angrily.
Will-power, power, ower, er…
He ignored the echoes coming at him from all directions and worked out what he had to do. Extend his leg carefully over the stream of effluent, then try to shift his weight, his centre of gravity, so that…
No.
Cowardice, was it? Or commonsense? Nothing was going to make him move from that ledge before help arrived. One small slip and his foot would be in the water. Their teeth would find his ankle. Or the calf of his leg, perhaps. With six of them attacking together it wouldn’t take much to bring him down, force him to his knees, pull his face into the stinking water. Then they’d have a feast of vengeance for their dead comrade. They’d gnaw their way through the wall of his stomach, or into the heavy flesh at the top of his legs, up his colon, penetrating his intestines…
They’d keep him alive as long as possible, enjoying the flow of blood through his veins and capillaries, savouring it as a sauce to their meal.
Their cunning eyes observed him as they bided their time, knowing he hadn’t the strength to last out. He shifted cautiously inch by inch until he was facing the buttress, his legs apart for a better grip, his arms around the brickwork, his head forced to rest sideways on his hunched shoulders by the low curvature of the arched roof. His hand still bled through the handkerchief; the blood gathered into a great blob which fell on to the slimy ledge where it rolled and slipped into the water, like a raindrop down a window pane.
The loss of blood was weakening him. He felt his knees beginning to sag. His right arm was practically useless. The walk-way was so close, almost within reach, yet he was convinced he’d never get there, not without a firm, dry jumping-off point. It was absurd, this situation.
Though he should try. He’d no alternative. The longer he left it…
He edged his way slowly around the buttress, looking down at the ledge, searching for a foothold. The worms moved around with him, determined not to lose sight of their prey. But quietly. Without fuss. As if they knew time was on their side.
Those eyes had thoughts behind them, he could swear. And a hypnotic attraction. Yet they’d nothing of the soft sympathy of a dog’s eyes; nor the self-centredness of a cat’s, full of character; they betrayed no personality at all, only an alertness.
His foot slipped.
It skidded across the sloping ledge, the edge of his shoe scoring the slime, and almost touched the surface of the water. There was an immediate commotion as all six worms swung around to reach him simultaneously. It was a miracle he managed to save himself that time. Cheated them.
‘Get my breath back,’ he muttered, his heart thumping away.
Yet in pulling himself back up he was forced to place too much weight on the other foot and that also began to slide. His arms had to hold him up, embracing the bricks, his fingers desperately digging into the gaps left by the crumbling mortar.
For a few seconds he thought he’d succeeded. And a few seconds were all that should have been necessary, for it couldn’t be that long now before the rest of the film crew returned, surely it couldn’t be long…
But the fingers of his mutilated hand had no strength in them. His feet searched wildly for a firm hold but his shoes wouldn’t grip; their soles were coated with slime from the ledge. Slowly he felt the bricks of the buttress beginning to scrape against him as he slid towards the water. And he saw Helen’s face, reproachful, I asked you not to go… Then their daughter Jenny looking up at him, smiling.
The effluent filled his shoes, covered his ankles, soaked through his trouser legs. He waited, resigned, for the sharp teeth. No point in struggling. Just let it happen, the self-surrender of every hunted prey. It would be over more quickly that way.
But they didn’t bite. Why not? Where were they?
He was up to his knees, trying instinctively to get a footing, to stand straight, but without success. He slipped, and then pitched forward into the diluted effluent. The worms swam around him, investigating, nudging against him, then turning to try some other spot. Suddenly he understood why. They were puzzled by his clothing! They wanted naked flesh.
Their bewilderment gave him a quick surge of hope. He tried once again to scramble to his feet or pull himself up on to the walk-way. Too slow. Much too slow. A couple of the worms, attracted by the blood, started work on the fingers of his right hand. He screamed with pain and fright, thrashing about clumsily as he tried to shake them off, too panic-stricken to realize what he was doing.
A third worm brushed against his face. He recoiled. Its teeth cut into his cheek. He heard himself shrieking again and again.