Rakes Away - a Halloween story

 RAKES AWAY

Gert Ramm

 

 

The baffling case of the time-travelling hipster bar…

In October 2024, paranormal blog Supernatural Sightings was granted an audience with two of the most enigmatic writers of recent years; Becca Stone and Jack Dutton. Friends since 2001, the pair keep a low profile, shun social media, and rarely give interviews.  Dutton is the author of the facto-fictional time-travelling novel Nobody's Future, published in 2021 to critical and commercial acclaim. Stone is the screenwriter behind Netflix’s time-travelling fantasy/horror series Resurrection Men, soon to begin its second season.  

We meet at a pub called The Ship and Shovel near Charing Cross station. Popular with civil servants from the nearby offices, at eleven o'clock on a drab Tuesday morning we have the place pretty much to ourselves. Despite the relatively early hour, Dutton and Stone are both drinking pints. 

Dutton, on a flying visit from his adopted homeland of Spain, tells me he’s hard at work on the follow-up to Nobody’s Future, which moves the action away from its original setting of Second World War London. Stone is already working on season three of Resurrection Men, but doesn’t reveal much. “It’s set in 1940s Paris and features Montmartre and Nazi necromancers,” is all she offers. Given the entire premise of Resurrection Men involves graveyards and magic, this hardly constitutes a scoop. 

Talk turns to their various inspirations. Tim Powers’ evergreen triumph The Anubis Gates is top of both lists. Michael Crichton’s Timeline gets a critical mention along with a more favourable one for Stephen King’s 11/22/63. Add in the usual TV and movie staples and you end up with a fairly standard read and watch list for time travel aficionados. All of which is very satisfying, but what encouraged two (at the time), unknown writers to knock on the doors of the notoriously closed-shop publishing and television industries?  What did they have that would successfully admit them into the toughest businesses out there?

Stone shrugs. “I suppose we got lucky. Right place, right time...”

Why does their work focus so heavily on World War Two?

Stone and Dutton exchange a glance. Noticing my attention they finish their drinks in unison and Dutton offers to buy the next round. As he places our orders at the deserted bar, Stone sits back in her chair, looking thoughtful.  

“Jack’s a war historian,” she tells me. “It’s his thing.”

Is it yours as well?

She doesn’t reply. 

As Dutton returns with the drinks, another look is exchanged and it seems an agreement has been reached. As we settle into the second round, a remarkable story emerges. 

“You’ll think we’re crazy,” begins Stone, “but you’re from Sightings, right? Interdimensional portals and all that?”

Her request for validation is confirmed by my assurance that we at Supernatural Sightings hold very open minds indeed.  

“So it was January 2019 and Jack was in London for a visit. Usually we have a few pints in here then head over to Pizza Express for food and a bottle of house white.”

Dutton nods agreement. “It’s a bit of a tradition, but I’d been working on my story outline for months and thought it would be fun to spend the evening in a conducive environment. I did some Googling and this place called Rakes came up.”

For the uninitiated, Rakes is a themed club in Soho, dressed to resemble a World War Two swing bar. It’s located in a mocked-up tube station called Prospect Place but in reality, there’s never been a station there.

“It looked amazing online,” says Stone, “subterranean, authentic, drinks served in billy cans, music…”

She tails off and I sense a ‘but’ coming.

“But that was mostly my expectation.”

It failed to deliver?

“Not really,” says Dutton. “It did what it said on the tin, or rather the website… It’s just that we wanted more.”

How much more?

“It was all a bit too clean, wasn’t it?” says Stone. 

“No smoke or smells,” adds Dutton, “the band was using modern equipment, the toilets had actual three-ply roll…”

“We were expecting high flush cisterns and cut-up newspaper on a spike, weren’t we?” says Stone. “Which is kind of ironic considering what happened.”

Sensing the grand reveal is imminent, I ask the million-dollar question. What exactly did happen?

Dutton immediately advances a disclaimer. “Bear in mind this happened after three bottles of wine…”

Stone gives him an irritated look. “So we were both a bit pissed. Does that explain how we both experienced it?”

Dutton shrugs but offers nothing more. She picks up the story. 

“The band was getting on my tits; they were too loud and too modern. The girl on vocals was using an SM58 instead of a radio mike, and she was totally upstaged by two blokes wanking on acoustic guitars. They’d stacked their cases onstage so the backdrop to this supposed 1940s jump swing outfit was a pile of Rhino gig bags.”

“Becca wasn’t impressed,” says Dutton wryly. 

“I really wasn’t. So we ordered another bottle of white and we both went to the toilet to make room for it. That’s when things got weird.”

How weird?

“I was sitting on the loo, checking my phone when the signal died. I was trying to reconnect, even though every Wi-Fi network had disappeared, when I started choking. I panicked, thinking it was some kind of attack but then I realised the air had changed. It was full of smoke and fumes and the light was hazy, like some kind of yellow mist had drifted into the cubicle. 

“My eyes were streaming, I could hardly see so I felt for the toilet paper and stabbed my hand on something sharp. When my vision cleared a bit I saw I’d jabbed myself on a nail with pieces of newspaper spiked onto it. I didn’t fancy wiping on that so I shook and reached for the handle, but there was nothing behind me except a pipe. I looked up and saw an overhead cistern with a chain. It took three yanks to get a decent flush.”

Dutton is fidgeting in his seat, eager to speak, and now seizes the opportunity.

“I was at a urinal in the gents and a similar thing happened. I wasn’t on my phone, obviously, but suddenly the light went dim and there was a lot of smoke and fumes. I had a coughing fit, but after I’d hacked my lungs up for a minute it began to pass.

“Someone came into the toilet and stood next to me. There was British army insignia on his sleeve, he was a corporal I think, and he was smoking an unfiltered fag which smelled like a bonfire. It’s bad etiquette to look at other blokes while taking a piss, but I could tell straight away he wasn’t dressed right.”

In what way?

“I thought he was in fancy dress, you know? Some hipster who’d taken the whole vibe a bit too far and come dressed as a World War Two soldier. But when I stepped away and got a better look, it seemed too real to be a costume.”

How so?

“It looked worn out and was covered in dried mud. His boots, trousers, coat… even his hair. He smelled weird too, sort of coppery, but what really creeped me out was a gaping hole in the back of his coat, below his left shoulder blade. That’s the kind of hole a bullet makes on the way out, there was blood around it–”

What is he saying, exactly? 

Dutton pauses for a moment. “I think I’m saying this bloke took a bullet through the heart then stood up and decided to have a piss.”

I’m at a loss for words so Stone picks up the story again.

“I didn’t see anyone else in the ladies, but the whole room had changed. There was lino on the floor, dingy tiles on the walls and the sink only had a cold tap. The fumes were coming from a paraffin heater, it was giving me a headache so I went outside and bumped into Jack.

“The corridor had changed as well. There was carpet on the floor, those big, old-fashioned bulbs hanging from the ceiling, and another bloody paraffin heater. The smoke and fumes were worse out there; I thought a fire had broken out but there were a load of people in the bar, singing and laughing. A Glenn Miller song was playing and it sounded like a proper big band; the trombone player was amazing–” 

“Almost as good as Glenn Miller,” says Dutton. “The bar was through a set of double doors and we wondered if we should go in. It sounded like they were all having a great party.”

What could you see in there?

“Not much. The glass was fogged out. All I could make out was red light and shadowy figures.”

There was an archway at the end of the corridor,” says Stone. “I could see a spiral staircase leading down, you still get them in some of the older tube stations. There was a coach lamp at the top but the light only reached the first turn, below it was pitch black. I remember this because on my way to the toilet there was a solid wall with a mocked up tube sign saying Prospect Place. The sign was still there but now it said… well, I wasn’t actually sure what it said.”

She digs in her pocket and pushes a piece of paper across the table. There's a symbol drawn on it. 

“That’s what it looked like.”

Do you know what it means now?

“Later,” says Dutton. “For the moment, go with the fact there was a working underground station below that club.”

How can he be sure?

“We felt a train coming in. The corridor shook so it couldn’t have been far below. The brakes went on and a rush of air came up the stairs. It wasn’t warm like you usually get on the tube though, it was freezing cold. We heard the doors opening and a lot of voices, like a huge crowd was getting off.”

“It was freaky,” adds Stone, “I thought we should get out of there, back into the club, but as I was reaching for the door handle…”

She falters, her face losing some of its colour. Dutton takes over and there’s a tremor in his voice.

“The doors opened and a man and woman came out, going towards the stairs. They had their backs turned but the woman was dressed like a nurse, the guy had an aviator jacket and cap, like an American fighter pilot. There was a weird smell coming off him, like scorched meat.

“He was trying to chat the nurse up, but when he put his hand on her arse she told him to get lost. He laughed, turned round and came back towards us. We could see him properly then, the left side of his face was almost completely burned away.”

“Like an overdone steak with bits of bone poking through,” says Stone. “He was lighting a fag, even though his left hand was just a charred claw.”

My stomach roils. 

“He was looking right through us,” adds Dutton. “He was about to open the door when the nurse called after him. ‘Find yourself a good seat, Captain; the train’s just in from Market Garden. It'll be packed in there in a minute’.”

Dutton looks at me expectantly, waiting for the penny to drop, but I have no idea what he means. He notices my confusion. 

“Operation Market Garden was one of the biggest disasters of World War Two. The allies suffered terrible losses.”

A shiver runs down my spine.

“We heard feet echoing on the stairs,” says Stone. “There was this awful stench of rot and I absolutely did not want to know what was coming. I tried to get into the bar, thinking we could leg it out that way, but the doors wouldn’t open.”

When I ask what happened next, my voice is shaking.

“The nurse turned round and looked right at us. ‘That’s not the way back,’ she said, ‘and you’re not supposed to be here’. As shadows appeared at the top of the stairs, boom, we were back in Rakes.”

There’s a long silence as I digest the implications of their story.

“We’ve never told this to anyone,” says Stone quietly.

So why now?

She shrugs. “It was such an influence on our work, we felt it should be out there. We didn’t know how to do it without sounding like lunatics until we found your blog.”

And what happened back in 2019?

“We necked our bottle of wine and left,” says Dutton. “We haven’t been back since. They’ve expanded quite a bit since then, I hear.”

Stone taps the symbol on the piece of paper. 

“I looked this up the next day. Turns out it's ancient Greek…

“It means Hades.”