Scratch Deeper by Chris Simms Read Free Book Online Page B

way out of.’
    Just the thought of it sent a shudder down her legs. An ankle knocked against the table leg, making their drinks wobble.
    Another cut, now the view was off some kind of ledge, looking down on to a smooth, glassy surface. The tunnel seemed to have got bigger. A hand reached out and let go of an empty sweet wrapper. As soon as it touched the surface, it shot off to the side. Iona realized it was water – and it was moving fast. The camera tracked it for a few metres before it was swallowed by the blackness beyond.
    â€˜That’s the main tunnel, the bit before was just an overflow,’ Hidden Shadow explained.
    â€˜How deep is it?’ Iona asked.
    â€˜Hard to say,’ Cropped-hair responded. ‘Three, four feet? More than enough to sweep you off your feet.’
    â€˜What if one of you slipped and fell in? Where would you end up?’
    â€˜Just don’t slip,’ Hidden Shadow laughed.
    The footage cut again, Hidden Shadow on the ledge, peering upwards, bathed in a shaft of daylight. It looked for a moment like he was in the beam of space ship and Iona could imagine him rising into the air. The camera drew closer and tilted up. A shaft, one side of it lined by a row of rusty rungs. Sheets of cobwebs stretched across it, dead leaves and twigs causing them to droop. The top of the shaft was capped by some kind of perforated cover through which the sunlight was shining. Hidden Shadow made a spider with one hand and crawled it through the air towards the camera’s lens.
    The next scene was him approaching a circle of bright light – the mouth of the tunnel. The song came to a stop as he turned and saluted. The picture faded out.
    Iona stared at the screen for a moment longer before handing the iPhone back. ‘You’re mad.’
    They were clearly delighted by her comment.
    â€˜So, back to Cornbrook,’ Hidden Shadow said. ‘Which, by the way, makes the Bunker look like a Sunday stroll. In fact, we nearly gave up after four-and-a-half clicks. Backs were killing us. Only reason we carried on was we couldn’t shift any liddage to get the fuck out –’
    Iona shot him a questioning look. ‘Liddage?’
    â€˜Man-hole covers.’
    â€˜You mean,’ she said, voice slightly hoarse, ‘you could have been trapped down there?’
    â€˜No way we wanted to turn back,’ Cropped-hair continued. ‘Plus, our GPS told us, if we did surface, it would be in some rather on-top locations. Busy areas with traffic and cameras, you know? So we pressed on to the finish, finally popped a manhole only to find a dome cam directly above us.’
    â€˜Yeah,’ Hidden Shadow laughed. ‘Not wanting to outstay our welcome, so to speak, we got moving. Had to schlep right across town to our dry gear, sun coming up, head-to-toe in the most acrid gunk imaginable.’
    They looked proudly at each other.
    Iona dropped her gaze to her notes. What a pair of weirdos.
    â€˜When he tried it, our man clocked up a fail a few hundred metres in,’ Hidden Shadow said. ‘Started pouring down and the poop-flow got too strong for him.’
    â€˜Oh, my God,’ Iona said. ‘There’s a danger of these things flooding while you’re down there?’
    â€˜Well,’ Cropped-hair said, looking amused, ‘they are storm drains.’
    â€˜Obviously,’ Hidden Shadow added, ‘you pick a dry spell to do them. Which he didn’t. Then, a few weeks after that, he posted something that really got our attention. He made it up on to the town hall roof. Took some amazing photos across the city, many from the top of the clock tower.’
    â€˜I thought you were only into below-ground stuff?’
    â€˜Primarily, yes. But we’ll go up cranes or on to a roof if the opportunity presents itself.’
    Iona pictured the neo-Gothic architecture of the civic building. The clock tower was frighteningly tall. ‘He’s got a