“G’day fellas, how are we?”
There were a few murmurs in response, and Danny noticed that all the guys looked pretty down. The group had gone silent as he got closer. Finally, Derrick, one of the guys who’d been in the shelter for a while now, spoke up.
“You alright, Danny? I can’t believe they let you out of hospital already,” Derrick looked a little unnerved.
Danny grinned and flexed his bicep, “you can’t keep a good man down.”
His antics earned a few chuckles from the guys and the group began to warm up a little. Danny sat with the group and began to understand why the atmosphere was so downbeat. It seemed obvious once he heard it.
The whole shelter had been woken up by the chaos the other night, the guys staying there were all light sleepers on good nights. Everyone had heard his screams, everyone was shaken. Apparently of number of guys had considered leaving the shelter and risking the cold nights back on the streets, afraid of a repeat incident. Nobody in the shelter had gotten a good night's sleep since Danny had been carted off.
Danny then began probing about Claude. The reaction was instant, the guys all shut up and stared down at the dirt. Derrick cleared his throat and stood up, he walked away from the group and gestured Danny over.
“You know the Station, yeah?”
Danny’s blood went cold. “Yeah. What’s it got to do with Claude?” Danny already knew, but didn’t want it to be true.
“Claude had been buying down there recently.”
“Damn.”
Derrick spat. “Yeah, no shit. There’s been something happening down there lately. More people going missing. More stories from the guys down there.”
“What kinda stories?” Nothing ever coming from the Station was good.
“Stories of monsters down in the tunnels, attacking people.”
“We have all heard those stories Derrick, any kid in school can tell you a dozen.”
Derrick looked up and stared straight into Danny’s eyes. There was a fear in them, a fear that shook Danny to the core. “Nah Danny, these stories are something else. Guys I’ve known for years, serious guys, they’re talking Danny, they’re scared.”
Danny suppressed a shiver, something about Derrick’s tone was unnerving him. “What’s this got to do with Claude?”
“He’d been spending more time down at the Station, buying gear for cheap. Said there were guys giving the flith out for even cheaper to guys willing to head into the tunnels. Doing it for laughs or something.
“Guys were coming back different, scared, hell, I’ve heard some guys got clean ‘cause of it. But there are guys who didn’t come back, more and more of them. Claude went down there that day Danny, he came back different.”
“That’s one word for it. That wasn’t Claude anymore, I’ve seen him high, but that wasn’t high.”
“Got nothing else for you man, that’s all I know. Everyone’s on edge Danny. Something is happening down at the Station, something worse than usual.”
Derrick went back to the group and left Danny standing. Danny’s head ran, thoughts racing around. The Station was a place of almost a mythic status in Madley, school kids everywhere told stories of the monstrous men who lived there, murders, cannibals, psychos. In reality, it was a large homeless encampment that the state government wasn’t sure what to do with. Organised crime had a tight grip over it and it was the source of most of Madley’s drug trade. The issue was the fact that the encampment was built around entrances to old train tunnels that ran under Madley. Whenever there was a police raid the entire encampment, or at least the important pushers and movers, would flee into the dark tunnels.
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When the heat died down these guys would emerge from the tunnels and get right back to business. Working with homeless guys, Danny had heard plenty of horror stories about the Station. Enough that he had previously held no desire to go anywhere near the debauched grounds. Now? Now it offered potential answers.
Danny said goodbye to the guys and made his way back home. He forwent the bus and decided to take the longer walk. Walking had always helped him process his thoughts. He wasn’t sure what to do. He wanted answers, but he now knew that his answers wouldn’t come easy. Even after making it home, his thoughts wouldn’t stop, he couldn’t come to a satisfying answer. There was only one solution when his mind was like this. Danny pulled out his phone and called a friend.
“Yo, Mikey.”
“Hey big boy, what’s up?” A cheerful voice answered the call.
“Is the club open tonight?”
“Uhh, yeah we got the fighters training. You want in?”
Danny weighed it up. He didn’t like training with the fighters, they took everything too seriously for his liking. Still, he needed to process his thoughts.
“Yeah, I’m coming.”
An hour later Danny found himself inside a building in an industrial sector of the city. Loud hardstyle boomed through the speakers and a bunch of dudes on a little too much special juice were greeting each other. One of the guys walked up to Danny, this guy bore a beaming smile, showing off perfect white teeth.
‘G’day Mikey, been a while.”
Mikey pulled Danny into a hug. “Danny, my man. You’ve been away for too long. You’re spending too much down at that crummy shelter.”
Danny didn’t answer and the friendly giant let it slide. The session started with the usual warm-up of skipping. Danny let his mind empty, devoting himself fully to the physical activity. The bag and partner drills came next, the guys going far too hard for simple practice, but Danny let it slide. There was a reason he’d withdrawn from the club over the last few years.
Danny noticed that while he’d worked up a bit of a sweat he barely felt puffed at all. He looked around the room and saw that most of the guys were drenched in sweat at this point. Guess I’m just not training hard enough.
Sparring was up next, something Danny wasn’t too keen on. Everyone here had far too much to prove. He still found himself standing across from someone when the bell for the start of the round chimed though. The larger man came forward with a series of hard jabs, already looking to throw a big right hand. Danny slipped the jabs, circled to the outside, and landed a quick hook to the body followed by one to the head. He had only thrown at about 70%, as a good sparring partner should, but his partner looked pissed.
The bigger man charged him, clearly aiming for a takedown. Danny wasn’t willing to play his game, he danced on his feet, avoiding the man’s sloppy attempts. As the round went on Danny kept peppering the man with shots, while the musclebound man never landed anything clean. When the timer went the man half-heartedly touched gloves and walked off to find someone else.
Danny shrugged to himself. He couldn’t really hold any ill-will against the guy, he knew how he felt. When Danny had been new to the sport he’d gotten terribly frustrated almost every training session. The tantrums he used to throw were more than enough to make his ears go red when he remembered them.
Danny moved from partner to partner, through round after round. He was in flow, picking apart the guys he was sparring, blocking takedowns, forcing the fighters back to their feet. Danny had never much enjoyed groundwork, always a striker at heart. Before he knew it, the night was coming to an end.
“Have you been training somewhere else, Danny?” Mikey asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Nah man, I’m not even running these days.”
Mikey looked at him, his eyebrow raising even higher on his forehead. Danny looked around and realised everyone was looking at him with shock and a little bit of shame. Everyone was breathing heavily and drenched in sweat. Danny realised that he still had barely worked up more than a little sweat and his breathing was perfectly controlled. Huh?
“How many rounds did we do?”
“Of sparring? Six. I guess we’ve gotten lax fellas.” Mikey joked, but even he looked a little shocked.
Danny realised he’d just done six five-minute rounds of sparring with a group of guys who treated this like a job and he wasn’t even puffed. Something is seriously wrong with me, though, maybe in a good way.
Danny called it a night and went home. He showered and lay down in bed. His mind was far calmer than it had been during the day, but some serious questions lingered. Whatever had happened the previous night had changed something about him. The doctors didn’t know what yet, but they had mentioned that he seemed healthier now. After going through what he would have previously considered a gruelling night of training without much effort, the doctors might have understated their suspicions.
As Danny tried to sleep, the image of a dark tunnel plagued his mind. When he finally succumbed to the call of the night, he dreamt of an abandoned tunnel, filled with menacing shadows that beckoned him deeper into the depths. A pair of glowing orange eyes in the depths waited for him.