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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/ChristianWallis on 2024-09-13 16:44:17+00:00.
“Are they going to pump this out?” Alec asked as he stepped awkwardly into the flooded basement, the water rising to just a little below his knees.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Aren’t they renovating the place?”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “It’s just this mural they’re after.”
“Well we’re gonna need it dry,” Alec grumbled. “Can’t run electricity down here like this. Gonna need it for the imaging equipment too.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Plus, God knows what’s in this water. Some of these tunnels must lead off to the catacombs.”
“You can’t be serious!” he cried, his flashlight suddenly snapping from one bare stone wall to another. “Are there actually bodies down here?”
“It’s a church,” I said. “They buried people here. Not recently but, yeah, it has catacombs. Don’t worry they’re not just stacked up like firewood in some room. There’s gates and stuff to stop people desecrating them.”
Alec shone his light at the water lapping around his feet and curled his lip. It was the colour of old coffee.
“I don’t know how anyone can expect us to work in these conditions.”
“For the money they’re paying, I’d work waist-deep in the Thames,” I told him. “The guy’s last painting sold for seven million. You know how excited the church was when they found out he’d been down here in the seventies? Whatever he put on the walls, they charged him with vandalism then. But now there’s money on the line, they want whatever he did restored, packed up, and sold.”
Alec huffed. “Where is the damn thing anyway?”
I stopped momentarily to get my bearings.
“Down here.”
I waved him on and we delved deeper into the basement as I led us through a strange mix of large rooms and awkward tunnels carved directly into the rock, some of which you had to stoop just to fit in. Many of the rooms we passed had old boxes in them. One had furniture draped with once-white sheets that were now mouldy and stained. Another had an old piano, the lid still up. Thankfully it wasn’t far. A few minutes at most. Once we found the door, we both put our shoulders to it and forced it open. Water must have built up because it came pouring out at waist-height and nearly took us both of our feet.
“Fucking stinks!” Alec cried over the roar of water, but I ignored him. Once it was safe, we stepped inside and it was as if our lights grew dimmer and the air colder. A distinct sense that we’d crossed a threshold. A long and empty room where the only sound was water dripping somewhere in the distance. I was about to suggest we’d taken a wrong turn, but then I saw one of the walls had been painted black. And there was something strange about it.
It was only when you let your eye linger that you saw the brush strokes, each no thicker than my thumb. They covered every inch of it and caught the dim light of our torches, shimmering with brief flashes of iridescent colour that were impossible to focus on. The longer I looked the more I saw great depths in that work. The texture alone was remarkable, like you were up high and looking down on a vast stretch of unbroken ocean. Roiling waves made of slick black water. And the colour… The closest comparison is what you see when you close your eyes. The whole thing made my stomach churn, but there was no denying its artistic merit. The kind of thing I could imagine hanging on a wall in the Tate modern. No wonder the church wanted it restored and transferred out of the basement. But it would be no easy feat. It was huge.
“I don’t… I don’t feel too good.”
Alec wobbled momentarily before collapsing. I had to rush, but I managed to catch him before his head went beneath the water.
“Shit!” I hissed as I struggled to hold his weight with my arms beneath his shoulders. Panicking, I looked around for somewhere to put him but the room was empty. If I let him go he’d flop down and inevitably drown, but he was a big guy and my arms were already getting tired. I had no hope of making it all the way back to the stairs, but I remembered that room was nearby. The one with the furniture. It’d have to do in a pinch. Struggling to keep him upright, I dragged him slowly through the murky waters.
It wasn’t easy. While the ground was firm, it was still irregular and I was walking backwards through knee high water. My mind fluttered through all the possible outcomes of this situation and inevitably focused on the worst. He could drown. Get an infection. We could get lost. Those tunnels were tight and confusing. I could imagine it so very easily, the fear and panic of going around in circles. Rough hewn stone wrapping in on itself so that every turn takes me back to that place as my arms grow ever more tired. What would I do in that situation? I wondered. Would I let him drown? Or would I keep going until I collapsed from exhaustion? And how long would I last? A few hours? A day? Maybe more?
It was a silly idea, but it got my heart racing. Tried telling myself I had it under control. I had a plan. A good one. Get him upright in one of those old chairs. He’d probably just fainted because of the air down there. Maybe he was more sensitive to it than most. But while I tried to keep my eyes on him, watching for any signs of consciousness, I kept looking up at the tunnel ahead. With each step, the darkness felt heavier, and the lapping of the water grew so loud it seemed to almost hurt my ears. And yet at the same I could hear my every breath as clear as if I was standing in total silence. Without any real reason for it, a cold dread crept over me. I didn’t feel alone down there. No matter how hard I tried to dismiss it as a childish feeling, it just kept getting stronger. Each time I looked up, I expected to see something. God only knows what I thought would be waiting for me. But it didn’t matter. The mere thought there was something in the dark or lurking beneath the water was enough to make me hurry, even as I kept reminding myself that was a great way to make a mistake.
Thank God it wasn’t far to the room with the furniture. There was no door, so I simply turned and plodded backwards until I saw a chair that looked good enough. Sure, it was disgusting and green with mould and mildew, but all it had to do was hold his weight. Alec is a good six inches taller than me and built heavier too, so by the time I lugged him onto the chair I was exhausted and had to stop and catch my breath. Hands on my knees. Entire body trembling. I took a few seconds to comfort myself before leaning over him and calling his name.
“Alec,” I cried. “Alec!” I gave him a few gentle pats on the face. He seemed to stir, but I couldn’t say for sure. “For fuck’s sake,” I hissed, hearing just the slightest hint of alarm in my voice and trying to suppress it. “Alec wake up and let’s get the hell out of–”
Someone pressed a key on the piano and everything inside me came to a screeching halt. It was dull and off-key, but there was no mistaking the sound that had come from the nearby room. The thought of there actually being someone else down there made my skin tight and my head ice cold. Took every ounce of willpower I had to stand upright and look towards the doorway.
“Mike!” Alec groaned and I damn near jumped out my skin. I don’t feel well.” he muttered while rubbing his face. “It’s so dark in here. I think I might be dreaming.”
As the initial shock left me I was flooded with relief at no longer being alone in that horrible place.
“You fainted,” I said with as friendly a laugh as I could manage. “Must be the air down here. We’ll need respirators from here on in.”
“I’m cold,” he moaned while pushing himself upright. “I want to go home. Can I go home please?”
“Damn right!” I said while taking his elbow and leading him to the exit. I felt a lot safer knowing it wasn’t just me facing the darkness, but I still found myself hesitating as we passed the next room along.
“What is it?” Alec asked as I paused to look at the old piano.
“Nothing,” I muttered before hurrying us both along.
Someone had closed the lid.
“It’s like a different painting when photographed.” Marie pursed her lips as she looked at the camera display. “Something to do with how it catches the light?” She picked the tripod up and moved it several feet to her right. She pressed a button and the flash went off in the dark room like a bolt of lightning. For an instant the whole place was laid bare. Roughly hewn stone and stagnant water. “Look.” She called me over. “It happened again.”
I stopped my work setting up the fourth pump at the far end of the room and wandered over. So far I’d managed to pump out most of the water, but it still lay an inch thick along the ground. Of course the rest of the tunnels were still flooded. No hope there. So the room itself was sealed off. Sandbags at the only doorway with further waterproofing from rubber tarps. I’d since spent days trying to figure out where the last of the water in that one room was coming from, and had been so busy chasing leaks that I’d had to hire Marie to help with imaging.
“Looks funny.” I said as I leaned over her shoulder and looked at the latest picture. The wall appeared as an explosion of psychedelic colours. Closer to a tie-dye t-shirt than the black obelisk it was in-person. “But it’s a weird piece. Very textured, and the paint itself is quite unique. I’m not surprised it behaves strangely under a camera’s flash.”
“But look at it,” she said.
“I did,” I replied while wandering off, unwilling to stare too long. “It’s weird...
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