Shepherd’s Bush Tube Station

“Spare a fag for the elderly, mate?”

The cripple’s withered hand darted from a shadowy alcove, snatching at the trailing fabric of Mr Norris’ cloak.

A gnarled face emerged from the gloom, wizened with age and crusted with pollution sores. A single milky white eye winked out of the ruined face, glaring up at Mr Norris from the chipped tile floor.

Mr Norris dug a gloved and beringed hand into one of the many pouches festooning his torso, fishing out a crumpled cigarette between two fingers.

“What’s down the tunnel?” Mr Norris asked, wheezing through his gas mask. He brandished the cigarette under the cripple’s blistered nose, jerking it swiftly out of reach as the old man made a grab for it.

“Latimer Road.” The cripple’s cackling laugh echoed around the deserted station, rebounding off the circular tunnel wall. An arthritic hand, marred by truncated fingers snatched at the cigarette.

Mr Norris twitched it away, shoving the cripple with his free hand. “We all know the Map.” He said sharply, ticking the stations off on his fingers, humming a half-remembered tune under his breath. “Hammersmith, Shepherds, Latimer, Ladbrooke, Westbourne…”

“Oak, Paddington, Edgeware…” Continued the cripple with a sing-song lilt. “Been a long time since I walked the Metropolitan...” He tailed off, looking pointedly at the cigarette with his lone, cataracted eye.

A booted foot crunched into his torso, driving the cripple back against the wall. The scuffed leather combat boot ground into fragile bones with a sound like dry twigs snapping. “Is the tunnel clear?” Mr Norris barked, spitting the words across the rubble-strewn platform.

“People-eaters!” The old man shrieked, writhing away from Mr Norris in pain. “They found a way in from above. No-one goes to Latimer any more. Not for years…”

“I have to get to Paddington.” Mr Norris muttered, half to the beggar half to himself. He gave the cripple a parting kick and tucked the cigarette back into his webbing. His patchwork cape swished through the dust and debris as he padded across the platform, dropping down onto the rails below.

With the cripple wailing and panting in the background, he touched a hand to the silver charm hanging around his neck and set off into the lightless tunnel.


The Metropolitan Line
Somewhere between Shepherd’s Bush and Latimer Road

A carriage blocked the tunnel ahead, skewed sideways across the tracks. Tendrils of rust cut haphazard patterns through the flaking red and white livery, shards of shattered glass littering the sleepers like fallen snow.

Disemboweled seat cushions and scrap metal littered the lopsided interior, punctuated by the occasional item of pre-war trash. A cleared space framed the blackened circle of an old campfire, complete with the discarded wrapper of a ration pack.

Mr Norris sat sprawled against one of the seats, the contents of his backpack arrayed around him like planets orbiting a star.

The wanderer’s worldly possessions were a haphazard mix of survival gear and useless miscellania. A spare army-issue gas mask and spare filters sat beside a half-empty box of shotgun shells and a brightly coloured enamel teapot, chipped and worn by use.

He sat whittling away at a human thigh bone with a scalpel, gingerly shaving away the yellowing ivory with tentative strokes. Firelight danced across the flashing blade, catching in the nooks and crannies of the carved surface.

A network of grooves and pits flowed across the mottled ivory, some exploding into jagged starbursts, others contracting like narrowed pupils. A large hole had been punched through one end of the femur, threaded on a woven cord that looked suspiciously like human hair.

Pausing to admire his handiwork, Mr Norris lurched to his feet and suspended the scrimshawed charm from a bent roofbeam.

A judicious kick scattered the remains of his chemical block fire. A series of deft and practiced motions gathered his remaining possessions and dumped them into the backpack.

Satisfied, he settled down in the far corner of the carriage, bundled up in his heavy travelling cloak with a pile of seat cushions for a pillow. Swaddled up like a babe in arms, Mr Norris drifted off to sleep with one eye open.

He awoke with a start, springing bolt upright into wakefulness.

The scrimshawed charm was jerking on some unseen current, the cord pulled tight by some invisible hand. Like the needle on a compass, it was drawn toward the open carriage door and the inky blackness beyond.

A low growl punctuated the silence, rolling out from the blackness like a peal of thunder. The shattered window framed a pair of lamp-like eyes, slitted and perfectly round. A great intake of breath hissed across the intervening space between Mr Norris and the doorway.

The once-comforting blanket and cloak became instantly voluptuous and entangling, encumbering flailing arms and tripping scrabbling feet.

A squeal of rust accompanied the disappearance of the carriage doorway into the blackness beyond. The slitted eyes coalesced into a flattened face and yawning mouth, studded with razor-sharp fangs. A stubby snout protruded from the sallow face, gaping nostrils flaring with every intake of breath.

The creature advanced into the carriage, hissing malevolently. Gangly legs seemed to fold under it like coiled springs, emaciated arms tipped with hooked talons trailing along behind.

Mr Norris backed himself into a corner, heedless of the broken glass slicing through his patched overalls and nicking the soft flesh underneath. He scrabbled at his belt, brandishing a rusted revolver in front of him like a priest exorcising a demon.

It was one of the People-Eaters. They had been men once. Warped by cannibalism and darkness into a twisted parody of humanity, one perfectly evolved to stalk the most dangerous game in the Tube’s lightless tunnels.

He shot it twice in quick succession, bowling it over. The carriage reverberated with the booming report, deafening him to the yowling of the wounded monster.

He lashed out at it with a booted foot, driving it into the ground with a flurry of kicks, punctuating boots with strikes from the pistol-butt. A sickening crack joined the cacophony as a lucky blow fractured the creature’s fragile skull, instantly reducing one eye to a spurt of foul-smelling jelly.

Scrabbling on the metal floor, the People-Eater lurched back towards the door, flailing talons deterring any further pursuit.

Mr Norris made to shoot it again, but his last shot fizzled in the chamber, jetting cordite smoke and sparks into the now putrid air.

He could hear the wounded creature yowling into the blackness, answered by the shrill hunting calls of its brethren. Stuffing the pistol into a pocket, Mr Norris shouldered his pack and scrabbled at the rubble blocking the other exit.

He didn’t have much time.