The Tunnel

There is a scratching on the floor, in the floor in front of my desk. A frantic scratching a scrabbling, scuffling, scrofulous, scratching which only I can hear. I noticed it when they moved me to the new desk I had never heard it before and neither had anyone else. I asked Diane who sits next to me if she can hear the scratching but she says she can’t hear a thing. I asked Dan in IT if it was something to do with my computer but he can’t hear it either. It has been nearly a month and still no one can hear it but me.

I'm worried I'm starting to go insane, I know I can’t go on with my work if the scratching won’t stop but I need to keep my job. I've got to find some way to make the scratching stop. When the lunch break starts I take my chance. I say to Diane that I need to finish up some notes and wait till my team has left the floor. I don’t think anyone else can see me, the manager has the blinds down on the window to his office, so I clamber down onto the floor where the scratching is coming from and then it stops. I sit back up again and as soon as I am off the floor the scratching starts again. A proximity detector? Maybe it is an animal which is stopping when I get too close. I get back down on my knees and bend down closer to the floor and the scratching stops. I use my fingernails to try and find the edge of the carpet tile and begin to pry it loose, the feel of the dirt and grime of carpet all over my fingers, the glue clogging up my nail tips

“Are you okay?”

I jump upwards almost banging my head on the table. The scratching works away at my head again and I grimace.

“Are you okay?” she repeats, the woman from HR.

“Uh yeah, I'm fine just, just dropped a paper clip” I shoot an unconvincing smile.

“Oh okay, well there are plenty on Diane’s desk” she produces a smile as worthless as mine and wanders off.

It’s obvious now that I can’t investigate during work, there is too much chance of being caught and I don’t want to be caught. They will do anything in this job to give you a disciplinary and I can’t deal with that. I have to be smarter. I have to investigate at night once everyone is gone and I can be on my own.

I spend the next few weeks working out how I will do it. I come in early and stay close to the boss so I can find out what the code for the alarm is, it’s not too hard. Once I know how to turn the alarm off it just a matter of waiting in the building till after dark. It is a simple plan but I can’t think over the scratching, eventually I realise that I could  go to one of the toilets on the abandoned floor above and wait until everyone has left.

The office seems different without anyone else there, without anything on, without the constant fear of the phones. Even though everything is as soon as I get close to my desk the scratching breaks through the silence. If it isn't something electric then it’s got to be something alive? Why can no one else hear it? Why are they pretending not hear it?

The carpet tile is still lose from before so it comes away easily but I see nothing there which could be making the noise, just a mass of wires and a build up of filth. I start digging in and my hands are soon coated in dust. As I dig the scratching comes back but I have to fight through it. Unable to see in the dark and through all the clumps of dust and fluff my hands start to scrape against the sharp ends the wires and cables which I must break though and my hands are covered in cuts and blood.

Finally I hit something solid, I try to claw at it but I do nothing but tear away my own fingernails. I pick myself up and kick the hard bottom as hard as I can. The floor doesn't give way but the scratching is louder than ever now, I have got its attention. I keep kicking and kicking until my legs are aching and sore. Finally I hear a crack, I kick again and the whole floor gives way pulling me and my desk with it,

There are no lights at all down here and the tunnel is dark and damp, the sides made of earth and mud despite the fact that I should be nine floors above the ground. What are they hiding down here? Why are they lying to keep this from me? What dug the tunnel? I extricate myself from the remains of my desk and begin to crawl hoping to find answers, my shirt and trousers becoming caked in mud. The tunnel twists and turns as it slowly slopes further and further down. The deeper I get the louder the scratching becomes, joined by new sounds now, whispers after one corner, strange clattering noises which start to echo after another.

I don’t know how long it takes me, I can see nothing in the darkness, but finally the corridor straightens out and I see a faint light at the end of the tunnel. I hurry along the passage, my filthy clothes becoming ripped and torn on rocks and sticks. The noises become a deafening roar that claw at my mind from the back of my skull. Finally I reach the end and look down the opening where the light shines up towards me. I see the top of my own head.

I look up and see my face, bloody and dirty, staring down at me through the hole in the ceiling. I turn away from it, back towards my desk and begin to type.