Atomic Gothic

And so, finally, I reach my destination. In front of me looms a concrete rock face, chipped and battered by decades of weather and neglect, the crumbling creating nooks that could be footholds if it came to it, though I hope to find a door. I walk a slow circle around the monumental building, a temple to hubris and the nuclear gods, looking for the way in and admiring the decay as I go.

Outside the walls, nature is thriving, the leafless trees are tall and strong, holding tight to their energy for an explosion of colour in spring, tiny birds peck winter berries, the few mammals without the sense to hibernate scurry, digging in the soft, rich earth for growing grubs and hidden roots. This quiets the anxious voice gnawing deep in my psyche - if life can go on so undisturbed at the foot of this dead man’s great mountain, I surely face no danger to spend an hour inside.

The entry way is not hidden at all, a great shining door, mottled with rust and flecks of stubborn paint, is closed before me, but not locked, a firm push from one hand reveals. It creaks open, hinges stammering, and slams shut behind me, pulled by its own great weight. My first impression is of overwhelming disappointment. After my pilgrimage - a flight, a train, a night in a smoke-stinking hotel, a train, a bus, a hike - my destination looks like nothing more than a builders yard. Surrounded by the towering walls is flat concrete and mud, pallets of ancient rebar and rotting lumber still stacked up, vehicles already stripped for parts slowly folding into themselves, curling up like leaves. I knew the building was never finished, but surely it was started. There must be something here, some sign of man’s ambition beyond an elegantly curved wall and a handful of supplies.

I photograph as I search, angling my camera up then down, capturing the sky with the top of the walls as a frame, and the healthy moss and weeds growing on beams and up through cracks. It is during this, walking with my head tipped to the sky, that I find what I’ve been looking for. I stumble, and look down, and underfoot is a flat plane of textured metal, half an inch lower than the concrete. Not gleaming, but not yet rusted, and stamped with the almost forgotten crest of the Ministry for the Atomic Age. I photograph it, up close, then from a distance, then in context. For a sad few moments, I believe it to be a foundation stone, the only part of the planned complex to be laid, but then I see a tiny barrow of metal that can only be a protective cover for a hinge, and so this can only be a hatch.

I have not brought tools of my own, but the yard is littered, and a rusted pallet knife is sufficient to scrape away the grime and growth where the hatch meets the floor, and then to act as a lever to open the shockingly lightweight cover, which lacks a handle. It lifts, and I push it high and then back over itself, and stare down into the darkness it uncovers. The cloudy daylight penetrates merely feet, but that’s enough to see a ladder, the same unrusted silvery metal as the hatch, and I have a light. I now regret rejecting the upsell of a headlamp.

Unsteady, I sit, legs dangling into the hole like a child at the edge of a pool, and then slowly turn myself around, upper arms shaking from the rare exertion. I bend, crouching now on the top rung, and slowly step down, until my body is straight with my hands on the top rung, and I descend, blinded and with my back to the darkness. I am slow, measured, one foot testing a rung at a time before I rely on it, and the technique is only just starting to feel natural when I abruptly reach the bottom, feeling firm concrete underfoot.

I take a breath, stretch my arms, and then take out my torch. It is several degrees colder down here in the depths than up above, and although I can easily look up and see the sky and birds, it feels like I have taken a drastic step away from my world. My half numb fingers turn on the torch, and shine it forward.

I see a face, with an angry furrowed brow, taller than me, young, fit, and close enough to strike. I scream, and drop the torch. I drop to the floor, scrambling for it as I stammer in a poor rendition of the local language, “I’m sorry, excuse me, I’m a researcher.”. Silence answers me, and I flash my torch back up, still squatted down, both hands gripping the torch as not just a source of light, but my only potential weapon.

The face is attached to a body, but to my great relief both are stone, a pinkish, lifelike marble statue depicting a trio of workers, a man in coveralls flanked by a man and woman in officewear, stepping boldly forwards to some imagined future. I slowly rise from my knees, heart still pounding but face red now with embarrassment, and cast my torch around me. There are more artefacts around me, decaying wood carvings, other statues, a plaster relief leaned upside down against a wall. It could be a gallery, but it is clearly hastily put together, and must be where the decorations were stored during construction, or once construction was paused indefinitely.

More interestingly, the space is cavernous, the ceiling must be barely six feet from the opening in the earth, and all the walls are smooth, finely finished concrete. In the floor are embedded long-dead lights, and there are small niches in the wall that look designed to hold statues, vending machines or bookshelves, I can’t tell which from context. Far away from the ladder, there is a door, steel, with a wheel handle like an old submarine. Too far in to turn back unsatisfied, I approach it, photographing the art by torchlight as I go.

It feels almost wrong how easily the door yields. A twist, a pull, and I am in a long corridor, just as smooth and frozen in time as the cavern. If not for the broken lights, this could have been built yesterday, there isn’t even dust. I walk slowly, inspecting every detail though most are much the same - dead bulbs, seamless concrete.

And then, there are doorframes without doors, one on either side of me in parallel, and that pattern repeated over and over, as far as my torchlight reaches. I shine my torch to either side of me, and am underwhelmed. Small boxy rooms, unfurnished, giving no hints to their original purpose. From the size I can narrow it down to a handful of things - residence, office, storage. From position, the first two rooms in the belly of the beast… my best guess is offices, maybe for guards or secretaries, nothing I have so far read agrees on the exact function of the building. Were they preparing for war, or did they just want a more fitting HQ than their floor of a reclaimed palace?

I keep walking, inspecting each of the next empty cells in turn, ten pairs are much the same, and then, abruptly, one isn’t. I glance in and have already taken a step before I process the difference, and step back to look again. The walls are clad with warm-toned wood, the floor carpeted, and a large metal desk sits in the centre, like a car in a garage, not touching any of the sides. A seat behind it is rich burgundy leather, or some pastiche, shiny brand new. I step inside, and go right for the desk drawers. All open, all are empty, and with a sigh I sit down on the chair. The leather cracks below me, with a sigh as if it has been waiting to do so for forty years.

A show office, I deduce, designed perfectly as a template for the others to copy. I stand, and tuck the chair back under the desk so my vandalism will not be visible in my photographs. And I continue, and the next doorways are not rooms at all, but corridors, each full of doorways of their own, extending further than my torch will let me see. So, I have a choice, and one that could easily get me lost. I have no pen to mark my way, so very gingerly remove my beanie hat, and set it on the floor with the top pointing back the way I came. I have no desire to be trapped in this labyrinth.

I turn right, being right-handed, that feels the natural choice. The next room is larger than those in the first corridor, and though still unfurnished, the wall has a built-in platform for a mattress, creating a long storage space underneath the right-angled concrete. I flash my torch in there, and in it lies a body, glassy eyes shining up at me. I scream, but this time do not drop my torch, keeping my light upon the fat, decaying rat.

Just a rat, which must have burrowed its way through an air duct and died of starvation, poor thing. I continue my walk. The next room of note is again set up for show, a small living area immediately in front of me with two chairs and a table, the same carpet and wood-clad walls, and a dressing screen separating off the area with the built-in bed. I peer past the screen, and in the bed is a sleeping figure, head on the pillow and ancient quilt over the rest of it.

“Hello?” I greet, in my own language, and flash my torch up to where there should be eyes. There are no eyes, only the smooth injection-moulded plastic of an old mannequin. A demonstration, that’s all, and I quietly praise myself for encountering it without fear. A deep breath, and I am once again exploring the corridor, doorway after doorway showing me only the same, sad, never-used barracks, human storage for the scientists and soldiers surely envisioned inhabiting this mighty warren.

I take another turn into another corridor, right again, and leave my empty water bottle pointing the way back. This time I can see the end, my torchlight hits red velvet curtains, and I ignore the rooms to either of my sides as I walk towards them, bold as I step through. My eyes burn as I open the curtain, lights bright enough to sting, though only in comparison with the darkness elsewhere. I blink, and freeze as I see a hundred faces staring towards me, rows upon rows of dummies dressed up on overalls and office wear, posed to look towards the door.

I then become aware of the absolute silence, which is not strange, given where I am. What is strange, is that the silence is new, a contrast with what I heard before, the ever-present hum of modern life, of electricity thrumming through walls and white goods generating convenience. A hum I should never have heard in an abandoned underground complex.

I run, and lights turn on behind me as I do, through the corridor, right at the bottle, already panting - the corridors are longer than they felt when I was looking in every room, the air is drier, my muscles are stiffer and colder, and when I arrive back at the first crossroads, my hat is nowhere to be seen.