Yet again he found himself in the narrow room. Again the sensation of abject terror assaulted his mind, but this time he was determined to face his fears. Whatever was behind that door couldn’t possibly be nearly as bad as his fear suggested.
Was he a man or a mouse? Nothing could be gained by fleeing. Eventually he would be drawn back here again, faced with the same problem again. He had to know what was behind that door, and why it intrigued him so.
The door was surprisingly ornate, made of thick wood, perhaps oak. What was it doing here, below ground? He placed his hand on the handle, his heart in his mouth.
Now or never. Do or die.
He slowly turned the handle until the latch was fully retracted, then he paused. The terror was unreal in its extravagance. He had never felt anything like this. But, he told himself, it was entirely irrational. There was no need to fear whatever was on the other side.
What was the worst thing that could possibly be in there? Some deranged junky? Industrial waste? He would check quickly and then return the way he had come.
His hand almost seemed to make the decision for him. It yanked the door open suddenly, while his mind was still grappling with the fear.
He gasped.
In front of him stood … nothing. An inky blackness, darker than night.
From his pocket he took the little gadget that his aunt had given him as a birthday present. The tiny flashlight, the size of a matchbox, was capable of outputting even UV, but it was its ability to cast a strong visible light for (according to the instructions) 20 minutes, that interested him now.
He shone the light into the darkness. It seemed to make no difference. He could only think that the space beyond the door must be vast, or else the walls painted with some new-fangled anti-reflective paint.
He stepped forwards.
“Hello?” he shouted, inwardly cursing himself for allowing the fear to creep into his voice. “Is anyone there?”
Behind him, the door quietly shut itself. He immediately tried the handle, but it seemed to be locked.
Now he swore out loud.
For what seemed like an eon, he pounded the door, twisting the handle every which way, even kicking the door with his foot and slamming it with his shoulder.
Eventually he had to give up. The door was extremely strong and thick.
The effort of attacking the door had caused his fear to diminish slightly, but not much.
He had to think clearly. Formulate a plan.
There had to be another way out.
He began to walk slowly forwards into the yawning abyss, fruitlessly shining the light from the torch, which was immediately eaten up by the darkness.
The space seemed enormous. Try as he might, he couldn’t find another wall, much less a door.
“How can all this be underneath an ordinary road?” he asked himself, out loud, in the hope of calming his frayed nerves.
He had the feeling of being somewhere that he absolutely was not supposed to be, as though by entering the chamber he had committed an unforgivable blasphemy.
Then he remembered that even many major cities do have vast cave networks underneath them: Rome, Mexico City, Budapest, Maastricht.
He stepped slowly forwards, his eyes straining for the faintest light and his ears for the slightest sound, and gradually he began to think he could actually hear something. Slowly the sound became louder and louder, until there could be no doubt.
Coming from the very depths of the cavernous space was a low monstrous chattering, as if dozens of grotesque enormous beasts were … he hesitated to use the word even inside his own head … but it sounded as though they were conversing.
He froze and listened intently. What could possibly make that noise? The horrible cacophony was unambiguously animalistic and bestial, but it also sounded terrifyingly structured.
Demonic. It sounded like a nest of demons.
At this realisation, his blood froze, and he struggled to catch his breath.
What if every piece of superstitious nonsense he had ever heard on the topic was in fact true? What if demons did in fact roam the Earth, and here he had stumbled upon a whole legion of them?
He thought of turning back the way he had come, but which way was backwards now? In every direction he saw only darkness.
Then his heart almost stopped, as he realised one of the things seemed to be separating itself from the others and lumbering towards him.
“Oh, God!” he groaned, his mouth so dry and his throat so constricted that he could hardly make the words come out. “Please … no …”
But appeals to a God in which he, in any case, did not believe, proved fruitless. The thing was making a bee-line for him.
Then, almost as if emerging from his own lips, a deep demonic voice slowly rumbled “Oh, no.” in slow, deep, drawn-out tones.
They were mocking him! Had they already taken possession of his body?
Pete, a large and powerfully-built man, practically squeaked in alarm, his free hand feeling his throat as though he suspected some demonic entity to be physically attached to it.
At last he saw it: a shadowy, repulsively indistinct figure covered in black hair, shuffling closer and closer.
“No …” he gasped through tightly-constricted vocal chords.
Then, in a shattering final confirmation that these were in fact demons and that they had in truth been waiting for him all along, the beast, in a voice as low as the growling of a panther and with drawn-out syllables torturous in their slowness, uttered the words: “Hello Peter.”
He screamed.
From somewhere was the pounding beat of an idiotic popular song.
“Pete!” said a voice.
He felt a hand on his shoulder and swivelled around, terrified, to see the alarmed face of his wife, Karen.
“It’s every night now!” she said.
“Dear God!” he exclaimed, and he collapsed back onto the pillow.
“Was it the same dream again?” she asked.
“I went into …. I don’t know, a sewer or something, and … there was this room … and it was …. it was full of demons.” he gasped.
She put her head on his chest and stroked his arm reassuringly.
“We’ve got to find out what’s causing this.” she said. “This isn’t normal, Petey.”
The fear in his eyes turned to anger as he fixed his gaze on the ceiling.
“That ruddy piece of filth!” he shouted suddenly. “What time is it, darling?”
“It’s half-past two.” said Karen.
“Half-past bloody two!” shouted Pete. “I’m going to rip his head off!”
As he pulled his dressing gown on he continued ranting: “No wonder I’m having nightmares. Can’t get through a single night without that feckless womble playing his cretinous music at full volume.”
“Be careful.” said Karen, a worried expression on her face.
“I’ll be careful, all right.” said Pete with an anger that lent a certain ambiguity to the words, as he ran out through the bedroom door.
Pete ran up the uncarpeted wooden staircase, uncaring about the noise of his footsteps at such an hour, and pounded on Llama’s door. When Llama didn’t answer, he shouted, “I know you’re in there. Open up or I’ll smash this door down.”
Finally Llama answered.
“What’s your problem?” he said, curtly.
Llama was thin and wiry, and wore only a sleeveless denim jacket, revealing a large number of poorly-executed tattoos. Curly hair cascaded onto his shoulders, and his teeth were absolutely rotten. His pupils were dilated, and he was quite obviously as high as a kite.
“I’ve asked you time and time again to turn down that music in the middle of the night when people are trying to sleep!” said Pete, banging the door frame for emphasis.
“What the hell is up with you?” said Llama, eyeing Pete’s exhausted face in surprise.
“What’s up with me is I can’t—get—any—bloody—sleep!” shouted Pete.
Llama laughed in his face.
“Go back to your hag of a wife, old man. I haven’t time for this.”
He made to shut the door, but Pete pushed it violently open, sending Llama reeling.
“I’m going to wring your stupid little neck.” shouted Pete, but Llama, feeling hastily behind his back, fumbling in his intoxicated state, pulled out a knife, the blade flicking out and locking into position.
“You might want to rethink that.” said Llama.
Pete stared furiously at him, incandescent with rage, but decided the issue wasn’t worth getting stabbed over. Instead, he turned and stormed off.
“I’m calling the police about this.” he said.
“Do it.” said Llama, laughing madly. “I’m sure your noise reports are their top priority, my man.”
Llama insisted on playing his music on full blast for another hour, just to make a point, during which time Pete and Karen discussed moving somewhere else.
“We can’t afford it.” said Karen.
“These nightmares!” said Pete, pressing his hand to his forehead. “You’ve no idea …”
“I know, I know.” said Karen, soothingly. Then she said, softly, “Pete, don’t you think you should consider, just consider, seeing a psychologist?”
“Are you saying I’m mad?” said Pete sharply.
“Of course not, you idiot.” said Karen pleasantly. “I’m just saying, I’m not sure that nutter’s music is what’s causing your nightmares.”
“I’m not mad.” said Pete.
The following morning, Pete put on a suit to go to work. As he adjusted his tie, he looked at his exhausted face in the mirror. His face was pale and heavily-lined and there were dark jowly patches under his eyes. He had lost most of his hair several years ago, and the black fringe that remained was fast turning grey. He looked considerably older than his forty years, and he wasn’t sure why Karen was even still with him, especially since his mood was mostly foul.
Office work wasn’t really Pete’s thing, but in theory it would soon pay well if only he could manage to concentrate on it. The real problems had started when Llama had moved in above the flat they’d spent all their savings on, and a year after that, the nightmares had begun.
In two years, he’d aged ten years, easily.
He knew that if he carried on like this, the future wouldn’t be bright.
When he’d finished feeling sorry for himself, he made his way out of the door. Karen was already away, working her shift at the hospital.
As he was locking the door behind him, the girl across the corridor popped her head out of her door.
“Oh, hey!” she said. “Pete, I’m sorry to ask, but do you have any stevia?”
“Any what?” he said.
“Stevia.” she said. “You know … like, it’s a sweetener. For my teas. Karen normally has it.”
“Does she?”
“Yeah, usually. Only if it’s not too much trouble.”
“OK.” said Pete, and he unlocked the door again.
Mia was a pleasant enough girl, as far as he could tell, but somehow very annoying. He couldn’t even exactly say what annoyed him about her, but the nonsense she talked didn’t help.
She followed him into the flat and he rummaged about in the kitchen cupboards.
“We’ve got sugar.” he said.
“I never eat sugar.” she said, very seriously. “It’s a powerful toxin.”
“Really?” he said, half-heartedly, still rummaging.
“Yeah, if you’ve been taking that, you need to detoxify. I have some herbs that can help.”
“Don’t you have to get work at that … crystal … gizmo magic shop you work at, or whatever it is?”
“Oh, we’re not opening till ten now.” she said. “Lara says it aligns with our chakras better.”
“Very wise.” said Pete. “Got to get the chakras aligned and what-not.”
“Thanks.” said Mia.
He turned to look at her, holding the stevia.
She was nineteen years old and had straggly blonde hair littered with ribbons and flowers. Irony, sarcasm and indirection of any kind in general was completely lost on her. In a way, he envied her simplicity.
“Bingo.” said Pete, faking a brief comic smile.
“Thank you ever so much.” said Mia. “Listen, if you’ve got a minute I’ll give you some tea that’ll help get the sugar out of your system. Also it tones the immune system, and detoxifies generally.”
“That’s really not necessary.” said Pete, as they walked out through the door.
“Pete,” said Mia, suddenly turning and regarding him with a firm, grave expression, “I don’t mean to pry but I can see you’re exhausted. I’d really like to help you. I’d like you to give you some tea. I really think it’ll help you.”
He checked his watch. The last tea she had foisted on him had tasted like something passed out of a badger’s kidneys.
“Well, OK then.” he said.
She beckoned him into her flat.
Mia’s flat, where she lived alone, had been purchased for her by her parents. It was filled with crystals, dangling glittering things, holders for incense, incense sticks, and bottles and packets of various nostrums and resins.
“Have you got anything that helps with sleep?” he asked her.
“Sleep? Oh, of course. Are you having trouble sleeping?”
“Just a lot of nightmares.” he said.
“I should put you in touch with my friend.” she said, as she looked through her cupboards. “I think of him as almost a friend anyway. He’s ancient. Even older than you. Must about about sixty or something.”
“As old as that?”
She found the packet she was looking for and put it down on a breakfast bar that separate the kitchen from the living space.
“Yeah, he does research into dreams. His name’s Peter too, actually. He buys nearly all of our medium-sized amethysts.”
“Oh, right.” said Pete.
Clearly this other Peter was just as dotty as Mia.
“He’s a proper scientist.” said Mia, as if divining his thoughts with an uncharacteristic flash of insight. “He’s working on this machine. I’ve been helping him test it.”
“What does it do?” said Pete.
Now he felt on solid territory. He might not understand this particular machine, whatever it was, but at least it was a machine and not crystals, teas, or—even worse—a spreadsheet.
“I don’t understand it—you know I’m not technical—but it somehow projects images and sounds into people’s mind while they sleep. That’s the idea anyway. The crystals focus some kind of vibrational energy. Look, I’ll show you.”
She walked through the living room and opened the venetian blind.
“See that house over there?” she said, pointing into the far distance.
“No.” he said.
“It’s next to that red brick building, on the right. Little grey place.”
“Oh, yes.”
“He lives there, so his machine beams images and sounds over to my place at night. Hasn’t really worked, yet, though. Sometimes I think I’m receiving stuff but then it turns out he was sending something totally different.”
Pete’s mind was working overtime.
“He lives … there. You live … here. I … live there.”
He tried to trace a line with his hand, as if imagining a tilted plane. Then his eyes widened.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” said Mia, suddenly alarmed.
“I think I would like to talk to your friend.” he said.
Soon Pete was on his way to the house of Dr. Peter Morris, phoning his work as he walked to tell them he was going to be late that day. When he knocked on Morris’s door, a short and rather kindly-looking man answered. Morris was closer to 70 than 60, and looked closer to 80.
“Hello.” he said, with a puzzled expression on his face.
“Dr. Morris?” said Pete.
“Yes.”
“You do experiments involving attempting to implant dreams in people’s minds while they sleep.”
“Why, yes, I do.”
“I need to talk to you. May I come in?”
Morris looked back nervously over his shoulder into his house, as if he were in the middle of cooking something and didn’t want it to burn.
“I’m afraid the moment isn’t especially convenient. Could you come back another time?”
“If you make me come back, I’m bringing the police with me.”
“Whatever do you mean by that? I haven’t done anything wrong!”
Morris seemed outraged by the very suggestion.
“Are we going to talk or aren’t we?”
He hesitated for a few moments, then his shoulders sagged and he said, “Very well, come in. Just give me a few moment. I’m in the middle of an experiment.”
He continued petulantly complaining as he led Pete into a room at the back of the house.
“I shall have to switch the whole thing off. Three hours’ work completely wasted. I do hope your business is as urgent as you seem to think it is.”
Soon they were sitting in a pleasant, if somewhat businesslike living room. A photograph of Morris’s prematurely-deceased wife stood on the mantelpiece.
Morris himself wore a tweed jacket that looked like it had passed its best several decades ago, and thick cheap spectacles.
When Pete expressed his fears that Morris’s machine was giving him nightmares, Morris reacted with indignation.
“It’s absolutely out of the question.” he said. “You’re describing some kind of distressing sequence of horrific visions. I’ve consistently attempted to implant one very particular vision into Mia’s dreams, and there’s nothing sinister about it. Unfortunately she’s been unable to receive it, even after a year of trying. It’s quite frustrating. Still, I’m not paying her anything, so it’s good of her to help me out. I daresay the fault lies with the machine and not with her.”
“What exactly is this vision you’ve been trying to implant?”
“Would you like to see it?”
“Very much.” said Pete.
Morris led him through to a front room, the most notable feature of which was an enormous machine with a needle-like rod pointing directly at the building where Pete lived. In fact it was pointing directly, Pete guessed, at his bed.
“How does this thing work?” said Pete.
“Well, it’s complicated.” said Morris. “Essentially it uses a combination of electric and magnetic fields which create vortices in the air that produce a partial separation of the heavier argon from other gaseous components, setting up an ion gradient. The vortex travels at approximately —”
“All right.” said Pete, cutting him off. “But how does this affect dreams?”
“That’s all done through electro-acoustic methods.” said Morris. “You see, when the vortex hits the wall of your building, the ionic charge immediately collapses, creating —”
Pete held up his hand.
“Never mind.” he said. “I don’t understand any of this. Just show me what you’ve been trying to transmit.”
“Certainly.” said Morris, and he brought up a video on a computer at the side of the room.
“I filmed it at a conference I attended.” he said.
Pete watched as the camera’s point of view made its way through a door into a room, which then gradually began to fill with people.
“Can I skip forwards?” Pete asked.
“Be my guest.” said Morris, gesturing at the computer.
After skipping around in the video player for a while, Pete found the bit he was looking for.
The room was crowded, and the camera seemed to pick on one particular face which was approaching from the far side of the room.
Dr. Peter Morris, who was apparently holding the camera, muttered, “Oh, no!”
The face belong to an enormously large man, with an extremely extroverted manner. As he neared the camera, he said, “Hello Peter!”
Pete jumped back, shaking his head.
“What is it?” said Morris.
“Let me think for a second.” said Pete, and he stood by the window and gazed out, looking at the block of flats where he lived, in the distance.
“You see, the video’s quite harmless.” said Morris. “I’d hardly describe it as a nightmare.”
Pete went back to the computer.
“Can we slow this down?”
“There’s an icon in the bottom left of the window.” said Morris.
Pete reduced the speed of the video to a quarter of its original, then turned down the brightness on the computer screen to a minimum. Still not satisfied, he fiddled with the video player settings and reduced the contrast and saturation. Finally he stood back to watch the results.
“That’s it.” he said. “That’s my nightmare.”
On the screen only lumbering indistinct shapes were now visible, and the lively chatter had transmogrified into the low, rumbling growls of demonic entities.
“That’s what you’ve been dreaming?” said Morris. “You mean my device works?”
“Your signals,” said Pete, with barely-suppressed and growing anger, “have been going straight through Mia’s empty head and straight into mine.”
“Good heavens.” said Morris.
Pete exploded at him.
“You’ve nearly ruined my life!” he shouted. “You and your infernal machine! I thought I was going insane!”
“I’m so sorry.” said Morris, shaken. “I really had no idea. I don’t understand at all how the signal could have got slowed down. I wonder if the brain, during sleep, operates on a kind of clock frequency that —”
Pete lunged at him, grabbing him by the lapels of his tweed jacket.
“I could bloody well murder you.” he said, his voice cracking with a sudden gush of long pent-up emotion.
“Please!” said Morris. “I meant nothing bad, really I didn’t!”
“We’re going to take this demonic contraption apart right here and now, then I’m coming back with the cops, and you’re going to answer for your actions.”
Morris began to actually cry.
“This is my life’s work!” he said. “It’s all I’ve got left since my wife passed away. Please, I’ll find some way to make it up to you, I swear I will!”
Pete let go of him, pushing him as he did so, causing Morris to stagger backwards against the computer. He was about to commence wrenching parts off the machine when he froze, a thought occurring to him. He turned round to face the distraught scientist.
“What angle is this set at to the horizontal?” he said.
“Point four eight degrees.” said Morris. “Why?”
“Have you got a pen and paper?”
“Certainly.” said Morris, and he hurriedly produced both, hoping his eager compliance would somehow placate the angry suited man who had invaded his peaceful home.
After some scribbling, Pete said, “Work this out.” and handed the paper back to Morris, with a trigonometry equation circled on it.
Morris looked at him, pale and dumbfounded, then immediately entered the figures into the computer.
“Point one four three degrees.” he said.
“There is something you can do for me.” said Pete. “I want this machine’s inclination increased by 0.143 degrees or as near as you can manage. After that you’re to carry on running it every night, just as before, until I tell you to stop. And we need to edit that recording of yours. Instead of that guy saying ‘Hello Peter’, I want a voice that says ‘Llama’.”
“L-llama?” stuttered Morris.
“That’s right.” said Pete.
“And if I do this for you?”
“Then we’ll call it quits.” said Pete. “In fact, I might even buy you a drink.”
Llama was surprised when he spotted the open door. The opportunity was too good to resist. Business had been slow recently due to another police crackdown, and the house looked as though it almost certainly contained small valuable items.
Inside, the house was dimly-lit, with surprisingly little light making its way through the drawn curtains, even though the sun still hadn’t completely set. He considered switching on the lights, but decided against it for fear of attracting attention.
There didn’t seem to be very much of interest lying around, and he began to think that perhaps the occupants had moved out, carelessly leaving the door open.
Then, somewhere in the back of the building, he encountered a curiously ornate wooden door, possibly made of oak or beech.
He wondered if perhaps the door led to some kind of safe room, where valuables were kept. He tried the handle, not expecting it to open, but it did open.
Beyond the door he could see nothing. That was fine by him. He would feel around and see what his light-fingered hands alighted upon.
He stepped inside and walked tentatively forwards, his fingertips outstretched, expecting to encounter shelves, or perhaps the door of a safe. The thick door closed itself behind him.
He wheeled around, now unable to see anything at all, and a dreadful paranoid fear began to grow upon him. Was this some kind of trap, perhaps sprung by his enemies?
His heart began to beat wildly, and his mouth turned dry.
Then he heard it: a confused demonic mumbling and muttering. There were things here in the darkness with him: entities of some kind.
He had to find a way out.
He left the door, which he was unable to open from the inside, and staggered wildly into the darkness, looking for something solid to help him get his bearing. There was nothing; only the horrible evil muttering, which was getting louder and louder.
Just when he thought his heart would give out from sheer panic, he realised something was shuffling towards him. Something grotesque, abnormal. Straining his eyes, he thought he could see the faint outline of some massive shaggy creature.
Another sound struck further terror into his heart, and he realised a deep distorted voice was pronouncing the words “Oh, no” as if mocking him.
Then the horrible thing in front of him began to speak.
“Llllaaaaammmmaaaaa …..”
“What was that?” said Karen.
Her words caused Pete to awaken.
“What was what?” said Pete.
“I heard a horrible scream.”
“That bloke above us?” said Pete.
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Probably just a bad trip.” said Pete. “Go back to sleep.”
A month later, a priest was seen entering Llama’s flat. Whatever the purpose of his visit, he didn’t stay long.
A month after that, Pete found police milling about on the stairs, going up and down from Llama’s door.
He asked a young officer, who seemed friendly enough, what was going on.
“Bloke ran into the police station and confessed to a bunch of stuff.” he said. “Can’t say more than that, really. Do you know him?”
“Vaguely.” said Pete. “So where is he now? In prison?”
“Psychiatric hospital, probably.” said the policeman. “He was totally unhinged. Never seen anything like it. No way to know what’s true and what isn’t. One thing’s for sure though, it’s going to take us a while to sort through the all the stuff that’s been going on in his flat.”
Pete went back into his own flat and began putting on a jacket.
“Going somewhere, love?” said Karen.
“Yeah. Won’t be long.” said Pete. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours tops. Friend of mine did me a bit of a favour. I owe him a drink.”
“I’ll come with you.” said Karen. “I fancy a drink.”
Pete hesitated.
“Darling,” he said, “I’ve got a bit of a story to tell you.”
She looked at him curiously.
It was at least six weeks since Llama had kept them awake with loud music in the middle of the night, and Pete seemed relaxed and well-rested for the first time in a couple of years. He looked ten years younger.
“All right.” she said.
