Chapter 3

17th September 1969  

Three paracetamols washed down with two cups of strong black coffee had failed to make a dent in Robert Jayston’s headache. He couldn’t remember having a hangover this bad, not even in the bad old days, and he hadn’t even touched a drop. He was now sixteen days without a drink—good to his word to Cherie—and he felt like shit. He tried to think about the money he was earning from this job—that normally improved his mood—but not even this chipped the corners off.

He was known in the profession by his surname and Jayston’s specialty was surveying and reinforcing old mines, extending their life and the lives of those who worked in them. He had a talent for the work— everyone agreed—but they also agreed that he had a short fuse. He would get frustrated when people couldn’t see what he was getting at. Why didn’t people understand? He would feel the anger boil up inside him like hot lava, and then he’d explode. The last time he exploded, he put his fist through a partition wall, broke three of his fingers, and had to take six weeks off while his hand healed. He was working on his temper. Sometimes he was more successful than others. 

That incident—and his drinking—had meant that he’d left his previous job by mutual agreement with his employer; however, it had been a bit more mutual on his employer's part. He had been on welfare for the last two months. This contract had come through at the right time, via an old work colleague. 

 Too many days started with a hangover, which couldn’t be ignored, despite the continued high quality of his work. His stretch of unemployment had left him on thin ice with Cherie, but the money they were offering with this current contract was enough to not only blow away all their debts, but also start building the college fund they had talked about for their kid. Why couldn’t they have the things that everyone else had? Getting the job had involved so much cloak and dagger that, had it not paid so well, Jayston would have walked away from it. He had received a letter with no sender’s address on it, and no postmark, telling him to expect a phone call on a certain day. The letter stated that he would receive the call to tell him where the interview would be. If he missed the phone call, he was out of the process. At times, it had felt more like a kidnapping than an interview process. But he had got through the interviews and was amazed that his previous employer had vouched for him. No bad feelings, indeed. When Sam Hobson had rung him to tell him that he’d gotten the job, he’d put down the phone and almost burst into tears.

The future looked bright. He’d been given a second chance. Thank you, Jesus, Mary and Joseph! He just had to get through the next few months, just had to do the grind, and get the job done. It wasn’t such a sacrifice, not really.

The cherry on top had been that he’d been asked to put together his own crew; however, he’d had to sign a confidentiality contract. Not a word could be spoken to anyone outside of the project about anything he did or saw. If he did, a whole storm of shit would be unleashed upon him. Jayston could understand the request for secrecy—that was the reason the pay was so good—but a nine- to fourteen-month contract working in Alaska wasn’t going to be to everyone’s taste. He knew a few people who would come aboard if he asked. Jayston, had worked with John “Joe” Halliday in his last job, and knew that he would be looking for a new job. He and Joe went way back. Jayston remembered walking in on day one of his very first job and wanting to throw up as soon as he stepped into the mine. The acidic burn at the back of his throat warned of a Technicolor yawn to come. He had to take  a moment, close his eyes and focus, to get the nausea to subside. There had been a dozen men looking around the tunnel, and Jayston hadn’t taken any notice of the beanpole-thin blond guy in the corner who looked like a hard sneeze would knock him on his ass.

“What support and bolting do you think this section of mine needs?”

Confidence was the key.

“It needs split section friction rock stabilizers with split set rock bolts.” He looked the gaffer straight in the eye when he said it. The gaffer—a big fat fuck of a man, who hooked his thumbs into his already straining belt—looked impressed, right up to the point that the beanpole spoke.

“I don't agree. We need something more heavy duty. You can see the frisson cracks in the rock. We need some mine roof belting and split shift bolting with support meshing.”

The gaffer took a step back and beamed with a big shit-eating grin on his face.

“It appears we have ourselves a disagreement,” the gaffer said, and he let them fight it out amongst themselves until it looked as though they would actually come blows. Eventually the gaffer stood between them.

“Boys, we need to keep our heads cool. You’ve both got some good ideas. We’re going to use a combination of them.”

Both men remained as far away from each other as they could manage. Mercifully for Jayston, the contract was only eight weeks long, and he breathed a sigh of relief to see the back of the beanpole, aka Joe Halliday. Jayston went home to Cherie, but didn’t have to wait long for the phone to ring with the next offer of work.  He walked into another contact and almost straight into Joe Halliday.

“Jesus Christ, not you again!”

“The feeling is mutual.”

Their second job was working on a drainage system in a coal mine in Peterborough, New Hampshire and they had to work closely together.

“Wait! What’s that?” quickly became Joe’s catchphrase. At first, Jayston thought that Joe was too jumpy, too quick to panic, but over the time of the contract he began to trust the other man’s cautious instincts. When the contract finished, he even managed to slap Joe on the back. “It’s been good to work with you,” he said, and he pretty much meant it. That didn’t stop him shouting out “Fuck!” when they both walked into the same room, at the same time, on the next job.

“It seems like someone wants us to be together,” said Joe in his usual deadpan fashion.

Much to the other workers’ bemusement they both broke out laughing so hard that Jayston blew snot bubbles out of his nostrils. When Jayston finally stopped laughing, Joe allowed himself a wry smile. Even though their paths continued to cross over the years. It would be a stretch for Jayston to call Joe a friend, but they worked well together, and Joe had mellowed over the years. He’d been the first person Robert had called when he’d got this contract.

 The third member of survey team number three was Larry Paines, a twenty-two-year-old graduate. Robert had worked with him in his last job and liked his energy and enthusiasm. The important thing about Larry was that when you asked him to do something, he did it—which was all too scarce these days. He also liked Larry for his sparky humor, which—although it needed to be reined in from time to time—kept him smiling. A few weeks ago, Larry had taken to calling Jayston “Skipper.” He didn’t know why, but he liked it. Larry was often the butt of the other two men’s good-humored jokes, and he seemed to take the gags with a casual shrug and smile.

“See, I thought I understood, but I don’t,” said Larry. 

So here he was with Joe and Larry deep in a cavern in Alaska. Jayston smiled and massaged his temples trying to get ease away the last vestiges of the headache.  

“No change there then,” said Joe.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fuck you very much.” Larry could give it as good as he took it. “When you first told me how much this was paying, I was ready for a lot of things.”

“It’s simple, our boss doesn’t want chicken shits like you blabbing about what’s going on here,” said Joe.

“Our boss Joseph Jennings?”

Jayston grinned. “You don’t know it’s Jennings—and even if you did, you’re getting paid enough to keep that big mouth of yours shut.”

“Understood. What’s on the schedule today, skipper?”

“We’re checking tunnel sixteen—nothing complicated, just a basic survey job to see where it goes and if it can be used for anything. I’m thinking maybe ventilation at this point. It may be a pain in the ass to do anything more with that, but hey, I’ve been wrong before, just not that often.” He smiled. “Come on, ladies, let’s get to work.”

“Yeah, tunnel sixteen, the Bridge of Souls …” said Joe.

“The Bridge of Souls? Where did that come from,” Larry smirked.

“Apparently, years ago, some Indians took shelter down here, and that’s what they called this tunnel.”

“Bridge of Souls?” Larry laughed until he had to bend over to catch his breath, “Bridge of Souls? Bridge of Ass holes more like!” and the rest of them joined in with the laughter, until their laughter was drowned out by a deep rumble. They all looked around.

“What was that?”

“Probably some work going on somewhere else in the cavern.”

“Yeah right.”

They all looked into the tunnel.

“Come on, let’s get this done.”

“So do you buy the story, Joe?” Larry asked.

“About this being an old diamond mine? Nah, that’s pure bullshit. I’ve worked in a lot of mines, and this ain’t no mine. Those rooms at the top? They’re a top luxury fit—big bucks. Have you seen all that agricultural stuff? If I didn’t know better, I’d say they were setting up farms …”

“What the fuck is this all about then?”

Joe looked around before he spoke, which made Rob smile.

“Lord only knows. One thing’s certain, Jennings is crazier than a shit house rat.”

The three men laughed.

“Come on, boys, we’re not being paid for the yakety-yak. Let’s see what these tunnels have got for us.”

The other team was surveying tunnel thirteen, one of many tunnels that led off the ground level. Some led to dead ends, others snaked back in on themselves, and others opened into smaller chambers. The three members of survey team number six walked into tunnel sixteen and before long had to stoop to get through. All three had miners’ hats with lamps attached to battery packs and powerful torches. As they walked down the corridor, Joe called out measurements and Larry wrote them down. They carried a spool and laid down a string of lights which were connected to the central generator. Jayston had already flattened a rudimentary path as he had previously made an initial reconnoiter without the other two men. The three of them got into a rhythm and managed to cover a lot of ground. The tunnel opened up, and they were able to stand upright again.

After an hour they reached a junction where they stopped to drink some water and look around.

“We’re going to run out of the lighting rig soon, skipper. Are we heading back?”

Joe looked back at where they’d come from and at the paths leading on from the junction. If he mapped out a bit further, his team would be way ahead of the others. Surely that would get him noticed—and being noticed by Jennings would be a good thing.

“No, let’s press on a little farther, boys. We’ll check out where one of these paths goes, and then we’ll head back.”

“How far do you think the tunnels go?” asked Joe.

“Dunno. This mountain is riddled with them. Some of them probably go on for miles. Who knows where they lead, but that’s our job to find out.” He clapped Larry on the back, but Larry was staring down the right-hand tunnel.

“Are there rats down here?”

“No, no rats, but maybe some of their flying cousins. Why?”

“Bats, that’s probably it. It’s just … yeah, bats. I thought I saw something down there,” he said, sounding as if he was trying to convince himself.

“Come on, let’s get moving.”

“Which tunnel, Joe?”

“Let’s take the left. We don’t want to spook Larry.”

“Fuck you,” said Larry with a wide grin.

With their flashlights and headlamps to guide them, they made their way down the tunnel.

“This tunnel feels cooler,” said Jayston as he took off his gloves and ran his hands over the tunnel walls.

“The walls are bone dry, so no evidence of any underlying ground water here. Odd. There’s still signs of some of the plant life around. Never really seen anything like this before,” said Joe. He pointed  his torch on the patchy scrubs of plants around the wall, highlighting the jagged, snarled-up rock wall, spider webbed with cracks and fissions. The plants also grew out of the holes in the wall. Jayston ran his fingers over them; they had a tough, bristly feel, like tumble weed.

Gotta be tough to survive down here, thought Jayston

“Why’s that?” asked Larry.

“We know that there’s a substantial underground spring, and I would’ve guessed it extended out to here. You getting this down, Larry?”

“Yes, skipper.”

The men slowly edged their way along the tunnel. A light whisper of a breeze whistled through the tunnel and over the men.

“Could this tunnel lead all the way into the open?” asked Joe.

“I don’t see how. It’s more likely to circle back to one of the other caverns. I’ve taken a look at the primary surveys and the only entrance is the one we came in by. There’s talk of creating another entrance, but nothing's been done so far. There could be some air breach from another interacting tunnel, but that’s what we’re here to find out.”

The men laid down markers as they continued. Robert found fissions in the rock where he inserted a Rohde & Schwarz ultrasonic anemometer to check for airflow. He wedged the yellow plastic casing into the rock and called the results out to Larry to record. It had a radio transmitter in the pack, which meant that Larry would get the results as they walked on.

 Barely ten minutes after they set off, Larry’s headlamp began to flicker and then went out entirely. Larry took off his hat and hit it a few times.

For a split second, Jayston wanted to slap him. Larry, you dumb fuck, you forgot to put new batteries in. An incandescent flame of fury wrongfooted him. Holy shit where did that come from? He managed to swallow his anger.

“Son of a bitch! I only put new batteries in it this morning,” said Larry.

“Let’s just carry on. You’ve still got your torch.”

They edged down the tunnel and Jayston felt a sudden spike of fear, akin to an animal being backed into a corner. For a split second he nearly spun around and ran in the opposite direction in blind terror, but he took some deep breaths and managed to calm down.

“You okay, skipper?”

“Yeah, fine, just ... you know ... breakfast. Shouldn’t have eaten it so quickly. Anyone got any Pepto-Bismol?” he asked lamely.

“Jesus, what’s that smell?” said Larry.

“What were you saying about breakfast?” said Joe. They all laughed. “No, but seriously, what the fuck is that?”

One summer, Jayston had worked for a delivery service—in reality, two cousins with two vans—and for a seemingly endless two weeks he’d helped one of the cousins to deliver meat. This involved offloading headless pig carcasses to Indian restaurants. He never thought he’d get the ripe, sharp smell of the pigs’ carcasses out of his nostrils. The smell in the cave, somehow,  reminded him of those two weeks with the dead pigs. This too had the sharp, stinging, rotting smell.

“It's sulfur. You get that all the time underground,” said Jayston. He got some mumbles from the other two.

They know I’m bullshitting them.

The three men walked in silence for a few moments until Jayson heard a crunch under his feet. He shone the torch down. There were scattered pieces of yellow scuffed plastic. The torch picked out the words Schwarz; it was the ultrasonic anemometer. He knew he’d lodged it in firmly. It was a heavy-duty piece of kit. Even if it had fallen out there was no way …

“It must have dropped out,” he said, trying silence his doubts.

“How did it get here? This isn’t where we left it.”

“How the fuck should I know?” he snapped, and just at that moment his torch began to flicker. “Fucking thing!” Jayston slammed his palm against the torch, which only made the flickering worse—but it did distract them from the matter of the debris on the floor. After one last splutter, the torch died.

“Skip, I’m getting the fear. Let’s get back.”

“Oh for …” Jayson bit his lip. “Okay, okay, just another minute and we’ll leave.”

They’d just begun to walk when Joe’s headlight spluttered out, leaving the team with one torch and Joe’s headlamp—which began to flicker.

“Fuck! Don’t you fucking dare!” yelled Jayston. It gave two more flickers and then died. 

“No!” screamed Larry.

“Right, calm down, boys, calm down. We’ve still got my torch. We can make our way back to the junction, and from there we’ve got the lights.” 

From deep within the tunnels came a grinding noise, which tapered off into a sigh.

“What the fuck was that?” shouted Larry.

“Calm down, for fuck’s sake! That was nothing. Just the sound of the rocks settling. Come on, let’s get out of here.”

They made their way back along the tunnel. It all looked the same.

“It wasn’t this far, was it?” asked Larry.

“Calm down, it’s not much further,” said Joe, just as the last remaining torch was beginning to flicker.

“No! No! No!” Larry yelled.

“I said calm the fuck down, Larry!” shouted Joe. “You panicking like a little fucking girl isn’t going to get us anywhere.”

“Boys, we’re not far. The junction has to be just ahead of us,” said Jayston.

They picked up the pace as Joe’s torch spluttered and finally died, leaving the three men in the dark. Joe could hear Larry breathing.

“Fuck! What the fuck was that?” said Joe, clutching his chest.

“Skipper?”

“Look we’re fine, we can’t be more than fifty …”

“Skipper?”

“What?”

“I think … I saw something …” said Larry slowly.

“Something—something like what?”

“It …” Larry took a deep breath, “it looked like some kind of huge bear.”

“Don’t be so fucking stupid. There’s no bears down here,” said Jayston.

“I said it looked like a bear.”

“Jesus! What are you trying to do—give me a heart attack? Stay calm. Just stay calm. Feel the sides of the passage, and edge forward slowly.”

All that could be heard was their labored breathing. The seconds ticked away like hours.

“How are we doing, Larry?” said Joe. “Larry?”

“Larry?” Jayston joined in. “Where the hell’s Larry gone, Joe?”

“I don't know ... maybe he’s found a shortcut?”

“Larry!”

“Larry!” they both shouted down the passage.

“Fuck. Fuck. Right. We’ll get out and send people back to find him. Come on, we’ve got to get out.,” 

They carried on shuffling until a loud thud filled the tunnel. The sound of his heart beating sounded like a bass drum in Jayston’s ears. “What the fuck was that? Joe? Joe? Shit, shit, shit!”

Jayston stood in the darkness in silence. Somewhere in the distance he heard the dripping of water. His breathing sounded thunderous in his ears.

Stay calm, stay calm.

He reached his hands out against the rock wall. The icy stone felt comforting. He felt his way across the wall like a blind man and tried to move faster. He couldn’t see any light; he may as well have had his eyes closed.

“Hello? Hello?”

The hairs on his arm stood up, and time to stand still for a moment. Robert Jayston’s final thought the second before the dark swallowed him was that if he got back home he was going to buy his wife a steak and some flowers.

#

 “How long have they been missing?”

“Nine days.”

“Has there been any sign of them at all?”

“Nothing. We’ve sent two teams of five up. The Bridge of Souls is a honeycomb; anything could have happened to them.” Hobson ran his hand through his hair.

Jennings thought for a moment. “Call the search off.”

“What? You can’t call the search off! These are men’s lives! You can’t just leave them!”

“What would you have me do?” Jennings asked calmly. “We’ve already sent two teams to look—and nothing. Would you have me send even more men, farther in, and have them lost as well?”

Hobson ground his teeth. “There must be something we can do.”

“We’ve done everything we can. What have their families been told?”

“It was only …” Hobson checked his clipboard, “only Robert Jayston who had dependents, a wife and a young daughter. The other two had extended families, parents and siblings.”

“Make sure they’re provided for.”

The two men stood looking at the entrance to tunnel sixteen.

#

Four hours later, Hobson stood alone in the cavern. He’d spent the time ringing the families and now, more than anything, he wanted a drink. The cover story was that there had been a rock fall and that the bodies were buried under rock. As Hobson suspected, being told that they’d be “looked after” had provided little comfort. There had been tears and swearing, and all three calls had ended with the phone being slammed down after a barrage of accusations, leaving him numb and holding a dead phone. Boy did he want a drink.

Hobson’s head whipped round to the left as he saw something dart into one of the tunnels.

What was that?

He looked around and squinted into the darkness.

Was … was something moving?

“Hello?”

He jumped at the slight echo his voice created.

Hobson ran his hands over his face. This place did strange things to you. You ended up jumping at your own shadow. Was there something down here? He hadn’t even seen or heard the bats that some of the contractors had suggested were indigenous? Other than shadows, he had seen nothing. He’d heard some strange noises, but so far down in the earth that was bound to happen. No, nothing odd, except—even before the survey team had gone missing—he hadn’t wanted to go near the Bridge of Souls. Hobson couldn’t explain why; the place just felt wrong. Even just staring into the entrance made him feel nauseous, as if he’d eaten something which had turned rotten. The thought of the Bridge of Souls and that nauseous feeling prompted him to take a swig of his coffee, which was now lukewarm. He must have been up for fourteen hours. Everything was getting a little hazy around the edges, and he felt a bit punchy. No wonder he was seeing things.