Half a Tangerine (Part 2)

He felt better with a firm grip on the rail. It was bitter cold, but it was a friend in this black emptiness. His other hand he used as a shield, straight out in front feeling...blocking...what he wasn't sure, but he dreaded the contact and recoiled at drips of water down the neck or fresh webbing in the face; a mallard ten yards in nearly stopped his heart, as it quacked off mockingly towards the tunnel entrance and freedom, and only his favourite swear words, hissed into the void, kept his feet moving. He was counting the yards. Stopping at twenty to listen for any more sounds. He thought he could hear a faint whistle, but it was far ahead if anywhere and it was all too easy to get carried away. 

He tried to regurgitate happiness, sunshine and golden mornings, laughter and friends, but the mind finds its own way in dark places. Flashes of horror movies came to him, Edward Woodward singing/screaming/burning; the killer lines of ghost stories told by his Dad, as they huddled round the gas fire, rain beating down relentlessly on one caravan roof or another in some dead-end holiday park. "You’re afraid of your own son,” she cried, struggling. “Let me go. I’m coming, Herbert; I’m coming...” '
He paused and smiled, but shivered involuntarily at the memory, rubbed his hands together and breathed over the palms - tried to remember the steps he'd counted, but was unsure if he was past halfway or not; listened for the summit pound, its drips and echoes from the world above some kind of relief, but heard nothing and so moved on, just as quiet as before, gripping the rail. It would soon be over, only a couple of hundred yards to go...just keep counting...one step at a time. Don't fall. 

A memory came back to him then, one he'd probably been trying to keep lost - the damp, the weight of gloom and the expectancy of something just beyond reach, all helping to unravel it and no matter what he did now, it couldn't be shifted or forced away, he could only give in to it as he moved forwards.

Christmas, or a few days after. He's watching a film with his sister, who's making noises with her Sindy and he's shushing her because it's so great, one of the best films ever. He doesn't remember the name of it, but Sean Connery (James Bond) is in it. It must be near the end because Sean Connery is in a tight spot, trapped on a rope bridge, and the people who once thought him a God are cutting the rope, because it turned out he wasn't a God after all, just an ordinary man, but he's doesn't seem that scared and he's singing like he's at Sunday School: "The Son of God Goes Forth to War". He's singing, they're cutting. Singing/Cutting/Singing/Cutting. Then the rope snaps and he falls. He just keeps falling, down and down and down, plummeting into the abyss. Falling down and into nothing and the darkness envelops him, is never ending, uncountable. It never stops - 

He can hear his sister crying, then his Dad hushing her. He's on the floor with a cushion under his head. His Dad is wiping at his mouth with a teatowel and smiling down at him. "You're O.K now Son, you're O.K."

He can't decide if it's ironic or not that he's crying and would normally have to stop to wipe his eyes to see, but that down here, it makes no difference at all. Come on soft idiot, let's get home. There's another hundred done...

fifty...

can't be far now...

fifty...

fifty...

Just a few yards more.

fifty...

fifty...

fifty...

"Where in Christ's name - " A sound behind, muffled but real, and then a light not so far away, skitting along the tunnel wall. A shuffling sound and a low murmur like a voice. Relieved, he waited for them to come closer.

"Hello? I've come through without a torch?" He could just make out a figure, huddled, hunched almost, wearing a hoodie, moving steadily closer, thirty feet away - now twenty. "I'm an idiot, hope I didn't scare you?" Ten feet now, not slowing. "I'll share your torchlight and we'll.." The figure stopped then, just yards from him, still but for the heavy rasping breaths and a gentle swaying. He was surprised that what he thought was a small torch, was in fact a candle that had been flickering as the figure moved; even stranger though, and he was sure it was no trick of his eyes adjusting to the light, the feet were bare, blackened and filthy and what he'd thought was a hoodie, was in fact a cassock with the hood pulled down over the face.

"Hello?"

It raised, uncoiled and stretched upwards, the face revealing itself - there was a charred mask before him, the broken remnants of a face rising close up to the candle, grim hollows where the yolk of the eyes had melted away, the jaw at an angle hanging perversely. Then a hissed whistle came from somewhere within the rags of its throat, escaping the mouth through a half-grin of shattered teeth - a whistle to blow out the candle. 

He did his best to run, gripping the cold bar as he did so, but blindness and the fear of tripping over would only let him go so fast. Oh fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. He had to be close now, please! It was the drink. He was dreaming. Fucking hell. There was movement behind. Was it gaining? Come on, we'll make this, we'll fucking make this...

It's the small details. The change of air, a light flickering in the distance, a house or street light, a slight change in the tone of the echo from his feet hitting the ground. The dark not so dark anymore. Even as he slowed and relief came to him and he breathed deeply the lighter air, and knew it was over, he felt the urge to turn, to check behind, even though he knew looking back was always the wrong thing to do. No-one made the end credits by looking back, he knew that, he'd read the stories, seen the films. Why would he? Just get out, just go, this is the last few yards. Run.

He turned. 

The whisper in his ear was like the opening bass rumble of a storm. He could feel the corrupt air, the brush of teeth on his skin. His natural recoil threw him off balance and he crashed hard to the floor, his head hitting the railing, splintering. He tried to crawl forwards, barely conscious. There was a sound of shuffling, feet moving around near his face, low voices, more whispers, but closer, inside now. He reached for the railing - found it, get up now, don't let go - it's numbing touch his friend still, a friend to steer him home, but somehow different to before, stretched out, hollow. It gripped his hand then, the burn of dead fingers clamping his flesh, clawing at it. A scream forms, but fails on his lips, his face scrapes brick and he is swallowing, submerged suddenly, shock of cold filling his lungs, head throbbing, but the cool numbness filtering pain. And then a slow falling.

                                                              -----
It comes to him vividly; the girl with black hair in the blue t-shirt. She's smiling. The writing says: "Half a Tangerine", the same picture below. He never got her name. If he reaches out he can take it - it tastes of on-the-way-home-after-school and Christmas. His Dad grinning over at him, peeling the skin, some joke just short of laughing out loud - a half each.