Crawlers

7:56pm

'What the hell . . . ?' said Ben, aloud. He was standing at the bottom of the stairs on the lower level of the foyer. He'd been on his way back to the theatre when his attention had been caught by the nearest of the massive, grey, square concrete pillars that bestrode the room like giants' legs. 

Halfway up each pillar an oval grille had been punched into the concrete. These metal-slatted vents stared out into the room like black, lidless eyes. And something was coming out of them. 

For a second Ben was reminded of a nature documentary he'd seen once about worker ants - columns of them, marching unstoppably over every obstacle. With a tingle he realized that what he was seeing was something similar. 

A long line of spider-like creatures was emerging from the foyer's air-vents. The creatures were hairless, pale, rubbery-looking, and a bit bigger than Ben's hand. Each one forced its way, wriggling legs first, through a hole in the grille, then followed its predecessor, crawling up towards the ceiling. Their movements were identical and the flow of them seemed endless. Gaping, Ben walked to the next pillar along, on the opposite side of the stairs, and saw another emerging line of creatures just like the first lot - just as many. 

'What . . . ?' he gibbered again. 'What the hell . . . ?' 

An alarm bell rang. 

'Attention, ladies and gentlemen,' boomed a voice from loudspeakers all over the building. 'This is an emergency. This evening's performances are cancelled. The building is being evacuated. Please make your way to the upper level of the foyer.' 

Ben looked around the foyer's still-empty lower level. The sudden alarm had made him jump: his heart was beating fast and a sick taste was climbing the back of his throat. For a moment he wasn't sure what to do. 

'Ladies and gentlemen, please make your way to the upper level of the foyer as quickly as possible. This is not a drill.' The voice carried on, repeating its instructions again and again. 

The theatre doors slapped back on their hinges and the first people came through. Chatting loudly, a rapidly thickening snake of theatre-goers milled past Ben, doing what they were told and heading up the stairs. So far the crowd were all adults - ordinary men and women dressed in jackets and coats and cardigans. Some of them looked annoyed. Some looked disbelieving. Most looked confused and more than a little panicky. Ben didn't want to have to explain what he was doing there and why he wasn't moving, so he didn't meet their eyes. Instead he looked up at the pillars again - but the strange creatures seemed to have gone. He was still searching for any sign of them when- 

'Freeman!' 

It was Josh, using Ben's surname. Ben turned and saw that Mr Clissold and the tutor group were just coming out of the theatre. By now the crowd going up the stairs was forcing Ben to shrink back against the railing to avoid being swept along with them. He knew that it would probably have been a mistake to stay on his own, but as he watched Josh and the others make their way towards him, a part of him wished he hadn't waited. 

'Right,' said Mr Clissold as they reached him. 'Now at least we've got everybody. Well then, until we find out what this is all about I suppose you'd better follow me.' 

The mass of jostling people pulled the group along. The pressure of the crowd was irresistible, the staircase narrowing and squeezing them on like toothpaste out of a tube. 

'Um, sir . . . ?' said Ben. Even if the crawling things hadn't vanished it would have been hard to make anyone believe him, but he had to say something. 'When I went to the loo, I saw something weird.' 

'Not now, Ben,' said Mr Clissold. 

Hugo made a snorting noise in his nose. Josh just smirked - and perhaps, Ben reflected, that hadn't been the best way to put it. Ignoring a sympathetic if nervous look from Robert, he gritted his teeth. 

Forward progress was getting slower. The upper level was rapidly becoming packed with bodies. The Main Theatre must have emptied completely by now, along with the Barbican's concert hall, cinemas, and the rest of it. But there was nowhere for the crowd to go. Moments ago there had been silence and emptiness; now there were people everywhere, and they were getting anxious. Individual voices merged into the swelling crush as the crowd took on a life of its own, becoming something less than human. The noise was getting louder and the room was getting hotter. 

Ben looked up at the ceiling.