The Prestige

The cavern appeared to be a natural fissure in the rock, with extra tunnelling and hollowing carried out latterly. There were several natural shelves created by jutting rock strata, but these had been supplemented with cavities hollowed out in the tunnel walls. There had also been an attempt to smooth the floor, as it was laid with numerous small chips and chunks of rock. Close to the inner doorway a spring trickled water down the wall, leaving a huge yellow calciferous deposit in its course. Where the water reached the floor, a crude but effective drain had been put together with modern pipes, which conducted the water into a rubble-filled soakaway hole.

The air was surprisingly sweet, and noticeably warmer than outside.

I went several paces down the cavern, balancing myself with my hands against the rocky walls on each side. The floor was uneven and broken, and the light bulbs were weak and widely spaced, so in places it was difficult to find a safe foothold. After a distance of about fifty yards, the floor dropped steeply and turned to the right, while to the left of the main tunnel I noticed a large cavity which to judge by the roundness of the entrance had been hollowed out artificially. The ceiling was about seven feet high, giving plenty of headroom. The opening was not electrically lit, so I shone my remaining torch inside.

I immediately wished I had not. It was full of ancient coffins. Most were stacked horizontally in heaps, although about a dozen were leaning upright against the walls. They were all sizes, but the greater number of these, depressingly, were small ones obviously designed for children. All the coffins were in varying degrees of decay. The horizontal ones were the most decrepit: the wood dark, curled and fractured with age. In many cases the lids had fallen in on the contents, and several of the ones placed on the tops of the piles had sides which had fallen away.

At the base of most of the heaps were piles of brown, broken fragments, presumably of bone. The lids of the vertically stacked coffins were all loose, and standing propped against the box.

I stepped back quickly into the main tunnel and glanced up towards the door by which I had entered. There had been a slight curve, and my way out was now invisible to me. Somewhere deep inside the cavern, the generator continued to run.

I was trembling. I could not help but think; that distant engine, this torch I held, only these lay between me a sudden plunge into darkness.

I could not go back. My brother was here.

Determined to resolve this quickly, I followed the path down and to the right, curving away more steeply from the exit. Another flight of steps followed, and here the lights had been placed closer together because these steps were uneven in height and angled to the side. Supporting myself with my hand on the wall I went down them. The tunnel immediately opened out into a wider cavern.

It was full of modern metal racks, brown-painted, held together with chromium-plated nuts and bolts. Each rack had three broad shelves, one on top of the other, like bunks. A narrow gangway ran next to each rack, and a central aisle ran the whole length of the hall. A light was positioned above every gangway between the shelves, illuminating what they held.

2

Human bodies lay uncovered on every shelf of the racks. Each one was male, and fully clothed. They all wore evening dress: a close fitting jacket with tails, a white shirt with black bow tie, a modestly patterned waistcoat, narrow trousers with a satin strip along the hems, white socks and patent-leather shoes. The hands wore white cotton gloves.

Each body was identical to all the others. The man had a pale face, an aquiline nose and a thin moustache. His lips were pale. He had a narrow brow and receding hair which was brilliantined back. Some of the faces were staring up at the rack above them, or at the rocky ceiling. Others had their necks turned, so they faced to one side or the other.

All the corpses had their eyes open.

Most of them were smiling, showing their teeth. The left upper molar in each mouth had a chip missing from the corner.

The corpses all lay in different positions. Some were straight, others were twisted or bent over. None of the bodies was arranged as if lying down; most of them had one foot placed in front of the other, so that in being laid on the rack this leg was now raised above the other.

Every corpse had one foot in the air.

The arms too were in varying positions. Some were raised above the head, some were stretched forward like those of a sleepwalker, others lay straight beside the body.

There was no sign of decay in any of the corpses. It was as if each one had been frozen in life, made inert without being made dead.

There was no dust on them, no smell from them.

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