17:00 ~ The Secret Way

    Over at the kooky side of town, the clock hit five and spilled workers, like fish guts, onto the roads. There was a flurry of cars and buses and taxis and bicycles. All of which were acidic or black in colour. Blues and greens. Jack could not find peace anywhere. He thought of his home - so peacefully perched in its place. This was not acceptable for a man of his tastes. Not a tree in his sight, Jack sat in the shadows of the overhanging building. This building was the only thing that was soothing to Jack on his bench.
    Inside, things occurred that were similar to Jack's passions. Exhibitions and representations were shown to an understanding and applauding audience. The feminine in him bloomed on contact with The Theatre.
    Powerful lights accentuated the columns and the height of the stairs, leaving everything else at the mercy of the moody sky. Jack ran his eye along the roof and down all of the windows.
    In front of him, cars went by. One pulled down its windows in order to yell at a passing tramp. Another swerved in front of it, almost causing a crash. The two beastly machines made skidding noises like war cries. These were followed by staccato horn beats. Jack found it hard to believe that he existed in a world with laws.
    'Everyone has broken at least one,' he told himself with a grin, whilst the two cars passed each other to exchange words.
    'You f*****g idiot.'
    'S**t head. You should have been watching the f*****g road and not a f*****g tramp.'
    'Yeah. I'm watching one now.'
    Jack smirked at the ferocity and stupidity of the drivers. Their attention was once again distracted from the road, potentially causing another incident.
    His bench remained still, which was something he was very grateful for. He revealed his wrist, which in turn revealed a watch. 17:10.
    'Oh come on!'
    Jack was waiting for the last remaining people to leave The Theatre before he could enter. He waited for all except one with whom he would make an acquaintance when he was inside. First exited the remainder of the fans, then the cast, the managers and a dozen other men in suits. All waddled through the great pillars and down the grand steps in a trickle.
    Finally, at half past, the caretaker emerged from the depths with his jingling keys in his right hand. He locked the massive front door and descended, with pride, to his car. Jack smirked again. He thought of how disillusioned the man was. In no way was this place safe from Jack, or anybody. The huge entrance may be barred, but Jack had another way in. He knew for a fact that the last one in there was still there.
    The caretaker re-emerged from The Theatre from the car park below. A cautious man, he waited for, to Jack, a very long time at the exit before pulling out to join the current of the traffic. However, that was Jack's problem, he couldn't wait. He was so impatient for everything, even death, which cause time to drag and drag for him. Though tonight he didn't mind. Halloween always went too quickly for him to grasp it. This year he would not let it go so easily.
    It was time.
    Crossing the street, the air turned - probably to do with a gap in the violent traffic. A time for breath. Jack breathed. He strolled to the other side where the building loomed and the gargoyles beckoned. He paused directly underneath it and looked up before heading right. Not into the middle.
    At the side of The Theatre there was a tiny alley way, filled with rubbish and bins. One not necessarily in another. The way in was such a small crack that Jack had to side step. Luckily he was not claustrophobic, especially as he lived in a tomb. His foot's activities varied between kicking the clingy garbage from his path and scraping against the brick. The aged clay made scuff marks in his shiny black boots.
    After a minute of wriggling, Jack had covered about five metres. His feet were now almost completely useless so he was using his arms to clamber. This far in, light was almost completely absent, but a horrid smell crept up in order to take its place.
    'Argh!' he exclaimed and flung his arm around his face. The sweet smell of rotting corpse Jack could handle, but the smell of rotting sewers overpowered him.
    In his panic and jolting movement, Jack's belt had become caught behind him. He couldn't rotate to pry it away. In the pocket of the front part of the belt, his friendly hunting knife waited. After tugging his arm down from above him, he fumbled for it. It slid out, gripped between his little and ring finger. He could feel it sipping due to the sweat.
    Another panic overtook him. Jack jerked his wrist and the knife flew upward until gravity took hold. It began to fall directly above his arched back with the blade pointing down. As it passed his waist, his other hand moved. Jack yanked it free and grabbed the handle. He wouldn't have known if he had been penetrated until he had been, as his head was facing the opposite direction. Fortunately for him, his senses were incredibly attuned today.
    After cutting himself free, Jack's confidence helped him to power through the last few feet of the tunnel. He stumbled out into a meter square tower. All around him were bricked up windows and cats. Far above him, past all the floors of the Theatre, he could see the naked sky. It felt like being trapped in a well of s**t, with Bast protecting him. But Jack's way was not up, it was down. He wasn't in yet.
    The cats stopped their lazy hobbies in order to watch Jack. He counted the bricks up and along and found the gap. Pulling and pulling at the weakened brick, he could feel his muscles burning. It was becoming loose. Jack counted to three.
    'One.' Scrape.
    'Two.' Scrape.
    'Three!'
    The clay flew from its hundred year home and narrowly missed a startled cat. Inside the bear cavity was a lever. Jack reached in, up to his shoulder and yanked.
    He felt the movement inside the skin of the building like a heartbeat. The focus of his eyes dashed to the grill on top of the drain and through it he could see the opening appear in the concrete tube, just under the metal cover. Jack was in in a second. so as not to be followed by cats, he lowered the grill quickly and climbed onto the tunnel, branching from the drain, into The Theatre.
    ‘How theatrical,’ he uttered as he lowered.
    This was the fun part. Spiders and other alien like insects had made this their home for at least a century, due to one architect's superb sense of humour, and now his vision was finally being realized. Jack had heard that this was only the beginning of this marvellous journey and that there was about a mile of these fantastical tunnels. The feminine in him was dragged by the arm to one side to make way for the boy in him again. As he wriggled and groped around, Jack wanted to get dirty like he used to. His parents were at home. He could.
    Some other possible routes veered off the main one. Zeal grew and grew in him as he shone his torch down the passages, but Jack's instructions were to carry on through the middle - straight on - deep into The Theatre. His coat trailed from the damp and into the dusty. He was going up, he realized. A corner. Another corner. A bend. He was in the walls. The ceiling height began to increase, so Jack stood up and looked back into the depths. The torch in his belt glittered so that he would remember that he had brought it. This light source illuminated the passage in a gloriously uneasy glow. And there it was, at the end, a staircase. The torch pulled him to it, like a dog on a leash.
    It was iron. It spiralled upward to the galleries at the very top of the building. When Jack shone the torch, shadows and light danced together like a deathly kaleidoscope. One foot, then another. Despite its appearance, it felt fragile to the touch, so Jack was overly careful with his steps.
    The top. So high. And a door. This was it. The lock was complex. Jack was grateful for this as he would indeed be using it very soon again to cover his tracks. Rusty, it was like those he had seen on submarines. An air lock? Old air, like dead air, was what he could feel and taste. Something very awful had been here up until very recently. He knew it. Nothing was fresh and everything was evil here. Surely anything that had been here living would have suffocated.
    Frightened by this new feeling, his pace quickened, the lock twisted and the door opened onto the magnificent top floor. How easy and wonderful it would be to be left and forgotten up there crossed his mind, whilst he sauntered down the candle lit corridor. Red carpet was beneath him and the door from which he had come transformed classically into a book case.
    Then was the viewing area. Then were the seats. Then, past the obstructing view of the ceiling, stood, on the stage, a man. A man in a white tunic, facing, playing to an empty room - alone.