He had never believed in ghosts or anything like that, but if there was anywhere they existed, it was here.

He heard Sally’s quiet voice through the hole. “I’m coming in.”

Robin knew he should wait—should be there to help Sally if she needed it. But it was almost like he was mesmerized by the dark. He stepped into the center of the tunnel, turning right and shining the flashlight into nothing but more of the same.

And he started to walk.

Chapter Thirty-Three

The tunnel had him now. He started to realize why Matthew had been so entranced by somewhere like this. It was like the outside world didn’t exist. The only thing he could count on was the ground in front of his feet—the ground that came alive in the circle of light. Nothing that was behind him mattered. Just that ever-moving circle—always staying one step ahead of him.

The sounds were still there. The hollow clunks, the dripping. Sally was behind him somewhere—he had heard her get through the hole and into the tunnel proper. But she wasn’t with him. And neither was her own hovering light. Maybe she had gone the other way.

He walked on the tracks—the wooden planks had ended and he was stepping over the sleepers now. He stopped every so often to point the flashlight around himself, but all he saw was the same—the walls of a railway tunnel. It was sleeping, having been forced into slumber.

Robin smiled at that, and stepped halfway over the railway line, tripping. He dropped his phone and it went flying ahead of him, the light whipping around, until it slammed into the ground. He cursed under his breath and scrabbled around in the dark in front of him, his hands finally finding the phone. But not before he discovered something slimy and slippery. He picked up the phone and shone the light down on what he had found.

It was a damp and dirty piece of plastic bag. An orange bag for a loaf of bread.

What the hell was that doing in a place like this?

Robin looked around him. And he saw something to his left. It looked like a brick doorway without a door. This must be a pathway to Standedge.

He got up and walked to the doorway, exiting the railway tunnel and coming out onto a landing of sorts, with a railing off into nothingness. And then another tunnel.

He leaned on the railing and shone the light onto a set of three stone steps that descended into water. The canal. This was the canal.