thethemeis: Monsters
The pleasant aftertaste of herbs and spices following his uncharacteristically obnoxious burp only proved to Ben something he had suspected all along: once he had disregarded the rubbery texture and crude packaging, the Pot Noodle was actually quite tasty. Of course, there was no logical reason as to why it shouldn't have been.'You should never judge a book by it’s cover, young Benjamin.’ A long time ago when Ben had commented on the dirty, slob-like appearance of a working class family on the London Underground, that’s what his grandfather had told him. And as a man who had started with very little, and worked hard to earn the high standard of living his family enjoyed, Thomas Wight had a good idea of what was meant by the ancient proverb. Unfortunately for Ben however, his dear old Grandad Tom had married a cold woman who cared much more for beauty and wealth than she care for her fellow man and this left both his mother, and consequently Ben himself, with a less noble set of morals.
Rik's honking laughter (and there truly was no other description for it) cut through the dank air like an axe. Ben winced as it pierced his ears.
'You might not look like us, but you sound more like one of us every day!' he exclaimed joyfully between irritating guffaws. He let out a loud burp of his own, his loud ensuing laughter echoing around the walls. Ben wasn't impressed but, as this was one of Rik’s less disgusting habits, let it slide. He had only been down here for two weeks this time around yet it felt like years since he had last seen daylight.
‘Live with wolves…’ Ben quipped absently. Rik briefly looked perplexed at this response before disregarding it entirely in favour of lancing the enormous boil on his forehead. Ben cast him an accusatory glare but quickly looked away when he saw what he was doing. Not long now, he thought. I’ll never have to see that vile face again.
‘No wolves down ‘ere.’ came Marcus’ gruff voice. He threw the blood covered remnants of the raw (and possibly live) rat he had been eating out onto the train tracks before continuing. ‘Lemme know if you see any though, gotta taste nicer than this shit.’ Using his two-inch long claws to impale another unfortunate rodent, he began his second course.
Despite the amount of times he had witnessed Marcus dine, Ben’s body still wanted to wretch. Monsters. That’s what they were. Sickening, grotesque, rancid, putrid, bilious, horrid, ugly, stinking fucking monsters. Sure, they were technically human, they probably even behaved like humans at one point in their lives, but The Incident had caused them to deteriorate into these abominations and they were deteriorating still. In spite of his orders Ben detested them, all of them. He loathed them, each and every one. Of course, he did his best not to show it. This immense network of tunnels and shelters that was once an extraordinarily under-appreciated marvel of human engineering known as the London Underground was their territory. A minor disagreement with one of the more aggressive sorts down here and Ben might never see sunlight again. Not long now, he thought. Not long at all…
Kurt stopped picking the thick, crusty hairs from the singular nostril that was too large for his face long enough to participate in the conversation. ‘What I wanna know…’ he began in his irritatingly nasal drone ‘…is ‘ow did you manage to boil the water? It's always hard when I have one.’
‘Don’t be fuckin’ stupid Kurt, he’s used the old electricity hasn’t he.’ said Marcus, through loud, crunching mouthfuls. ‘Don’t you know he was an engineer before?’
Ben merely grunted. In truth he had been a little taken aback by the question and was grateful for Marcus’ convincing, if horrendously misinformed, explanation. He cursed his own stupidity; if they had really known how he had eaten his ‘meal’ there would have been a lot more questions. Or perhaps worse - none at all. Kurt's face lit in admiration for Ben's apparent well-retained wisdom.
‘I don’t really ‘member much about before,’ he reflected sadly. If his hands weren’t covered in mucus, Ben might have pitied him. ‘Do you Marc?’
‘’Course I fucking do don’t I!’ spat Marcus. ‘The grass was green, the trees were brown and the sea was blue. It was bright too. Not much else to say about it.’ The angered look on his face stopped Kurt from pressing him further.
It was always the same when one of them claimed to remember life above ground, Ben had noticed. The descriptions were bland somehow, as if they had revised the information for an exam and were simply repeating a mantra to aid their memory. There was no feeling there at all. Even the worst raconteur will recall the minor, insignificant details of memory that give a story life. No such detail was present down here. Their memory was deteriorating as quickly as their humanity, probably. Ben wondered how long it would be before they forgot how to communicate completely.
‘I’d like to go up there again, maybe one day soon…’ said Kurt finally.
‘Hmph, I'm not sure you would. Remember what happened to Pete?’ asked Ben, rhetorically.
Nobody remembered what happened to Pete. That was the point. Nobody knew. Around two months ago one of the less barbaric of their contingent had decided that the time had come for them to return above ground and volunteered himself as lead canary. Excluding the vicious, solitary horrors that now reportedly stalked the Northern tunnels, it would be safe to say that Pete was liked by most of the tunnel-dwellers. His celebrated departure had given even the most pessimistic among them hope of returning to their natural home. He had promised to return within ten sleeps with a report on the above ground conditions, good or bad. This made it all the more hard to swallow when he failed to return at all. They all knew the score. General consensus was that the above ground toxins had killed him. For a long time nobody spoke as their minds dwelt on the subject.
Thirty minutes later a loud snore from Rik considerably lightened the mood, though the underlying feeling of disgust Ben felt around these creatures never quite dissipated.
‘Not a bad idea that Rik. Thanks for cheering us all up anyway Ben,’ said Marcus, wiping the blood from around his mouth of dangerously sharp teeth. ‘I’m gonna turn in.’ The very thought of Marcus’ “bed” gave Ben the creeps. The tangled mess of furs and skins of the various rodents and small mammals he had chanced upon (and for whatever reason not eaten) may have been softer to lie on than the hard stone, but the sheer stench made his creation inexcusable.
'You're real lucky Ben, there's not many of us who weren't affected by all this.' observed Kurt after Marcus had left. He sighed heavily. ‘Do you think we’ll ever get back up there?’
Ben watched him catch the large bluebottle that had been buzzing around his head with his freakishly long tongue before determining a response. ‘…Sorry Kurt, not in this lifetime’.
After he was sure the three of them were safely asleep, Ben quietly made his way up the stone steps, through the long uphill tunnels before finally ascending the ancient metal staircases that no longer moved as they were originally intended to. At the top of these old electric stairs where the walls were lined with old screens that no longer displayed their advertisements, there appeared to be nothing but a dead end of fallen metal and concrete to the naked eye. He was sure that none of the creatures that were once human would venture up here, especially these days, but checked the surroundings all the same and was pleased to find himself alone. Standing to the far left of the apparent blockage, he pushed open a concealed door and waited for the security scanner to recognise him. This was the part he had been dreading most. He had always harboured an irrational fear that one day the scanner would reject his genetic reading and the silent but oh-so deadly security measures would put a swift end his existence.
He thought of Pete.
‘Thank you for your time, Benjamin Reynolds-Wight. Au revoir!’ came the chirpy security voice. Ben couldn’t tell if it were human or machine, it was all the same to him anyway. Before he left through the front entrance of the defunct London Bridge train station, he approached the security desk at the front gate. Sam greeted him jovially.
‘Anything to report before you’re off for good?’ he asked.
‘Nothing new, still getting worse. I’ll check in at the office and fill a final report with Trevor.’ replied Ben, dreaming of the liberation he would feel when he finally got home that night.
‘Shit… I can’t help but feel for them Ben, those people were just like us before…’ Sam trailed off, as if finishing the sentence could make the situation worse. ‘Is there no hope of integration?’
‘Monsters Sam, not people. They’re monsters; you don’t want anything to do with them, trust me.’
Ben heard Sam sigh as he walked away towards the company car that would take him to the office and paid no attention to his reflection visible in the chrome body of the vehicle. Pulling the handle, he opened the door and positioned himself comfortably inside, all the while thinking that he never wanted to see any of those disgusting monstrosities again.
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