Johnny Moon's skin danced with fear, and for once he didn't want detention to finish.

He sat at the rear of class behind other mavericks, his shirt clinging to his armpits, his breathing phlegmy. He is fourteen, slight and pale. His asthma impedes entry to a street gang. Joining a clique in '70s London meant everything to him; it signified street cred. So he accepted an invitation to join the Smith's gang; three brothers who lived in a caravan, a big chrome winking one, in a gypsy community.

He sucked on his inhaler. Tonight is initiation night.

He glanced at the school clock in the playground, through coalesced windows. The timepiece hung in winters' gloom beyond, like the moon. Two minutes and detention will end. His slanted, obsidian eyes turned towards the freeze-glass door, where shadows — Demons — skulked, waiting to conscript him. A trap door opened in his stomach.

Suddenly, the clock resounded. He jumped. Teacher stood and opened the door. The other kids with him left in a blur. Moon stayed, his eyes, glued to the open door. Teacher coughed. Moon packed his books into a satchel then stood. Listening to himself, he edged towards the door: they are out there, waiting. I know it. Oh why did I say I would join?

He reached the door, peered outside. No movement, no sound, just the mournful dirge of fluorescent strip lights. Nervously he made his way along the corridor towards the toilet. He heard a noise and stopped. He tensed and looked up towards the source of the sound. Wind beat the gnarled fingers of a tree against a window. He wheezed thankfully.

He arrived at the toilets and would have entered but the light outside the door burst. He clutched his satchel and nearly wet himself. ' Dew neh loh moh, on all lights bulbs,' he cursed, then pushed open the toilet door. It swung freely revealing a green-grey empty dimness and an unmistakable atmosphere of urine. He expected the door to swing back. It did not.

Instead, two red devilish faces appeared from above the door frame. White, glassy eyes above pale, insidious lips; faces without skin, just pulsing muscle and big blue drainpipe veins; ears corkscrewed into horns. His heart bolted. He ran after it heading for the entrance to the playground. Hoof prints followed, clattering over linoleum. One of the Demons caught him. They landed heavily. Moon struggled for breath.

Laughter?

He looked up into a hideous face. A face that began to change. It mutated, stretched upwards shredding a layer of skin, then plopped. 'Gotcha Moon?' Shrieked Dennis Smith, and behind him, peeling of his mask was his brother Timmy, both members of the gang who wanted to initiate him. They wore jeans and black bomber jackets, with the words Demon Gang, stencilled on the back in blood red; a modern day Golden Fleece. 'Thought we'd forgotten you, hey Moon?' Taunted Timmy. 'You ready to shoot the tube?'

Moon nodded.

They made their way across open fields towards a wood, and railway line. The wind whipped at the long grass and bullied nearby tree tops. There should have been a third brother — Jed. But he was ill, they said. In the wood he drifted behind the brothers, barely evident ahead, listening to his notions, sucking his own atmosphere. He thought about shooting the tube, and the dignity of wearing that prized pelt.

His heart missed a beat, he slowed down; something moved to his left. He could not see it, but heard it, parallel with his course. He continued. The thing followed, and the ground vibrated. Anxiously, he chased after the brothers. The vibrations intensified as he reached a clearing above the lip of a railway tunnel. Below, a train shot out of its burrow sounding its horn. Behind him a bush collapsed under tremendous force. The thing had found him.

He spun round. It looked maniacal. A rotting thing with a misshapen body, far older than any human being and wearing ragged clothes. With phlegmy screams it grabbed for him. He ducked and ran from it, straight into the returning brothers. They landed in a heap. Moon recovered quickest. Saw the alabaster mask of horror on the brothers' faces. They had seen the thing, and from their faces he gauged it was upon them. He turned, and it began to regenerate; its head stretched to the stars and it shed its rags.

Laughter?

'You gota do better than that, Moon, if you want to shoot the tube.' Said Jed.

Jed led them down the embankment to the railway track. He wore the same jacket as his brothers, a pair of faded jeans and grubby pumps. At the rail line, the Demons stood about like Crows at a roadside, Moon their carrion.

'Right Moon, the rules,' announced Jed, oblivious to the maw of the tunnel looming behind. 'The next trains due in twenty-five minutes, were letting you go in ten—'

'The tunnels half a mile long, fifteen minutes, to get there and back — I'll never do it?'

'Plenty of time Moon, you can do it.' Encouraged, Dennis and Timmy.

'—stay between the tracks and run on the sleepers—'

'Aren't they live?'

'Sure Moon,' Jed winked to his brothers, 'makes it more interesting. Don't stray 'cause we dusted. Spot any chalk on your pumps, and that's it?' Jed made a slashing cut across his throat with his index finger. 'When you get there you'll find an Ace of Spades on the track. Bring it back to prove you've been there. Got it?'

He nodded dumbly and eyed the tunnel. He shivered.

Jed unzipped his jacket and removed a thick belt that clanked. 'Here strap this on. There's workman holes every two hundred yards, if the train looks like its going to mash you, duck into one and hook yourself up to a ring.' He demonstrated. 'It'll save you from being sucked to a really nasty death.'

Although he felt some relief at this gift, he trembled as he strapped on the belt.

Jed checked his watch. 'Right, Moon. Get ready; thirty seconds to go.'

He scampered to the dank cavern, feeling awkward on the sleepers.

'FIFTEEN SECONDS!'

He ditched his satchel, school blazer and tie at the tunnel entrance, milked his inhaler. He didn't ditch it, but held it like a baton concentrating on the hole. Ahead of him was perhaps twenty yards of track winking twilight, after that just blackness.

'GO!'

He ran into the darkness. It swallowed him easily, the gloom crushing him like the jaws of a shark. How fast he ran and how far he'd gone, he had no idea. There were times when he wanted to turn back, but didn't; he had to be a Demon and ran on.

He sensed the tunnel turn, not sharply, but in a long easy curve and rounded it like a sprinter. When it straightened, before him was a hammer head of silver light at the other end. After what seemed an age, Moon stood, sweating, heaving down the cool night air. He took a dose of gas and felt better, although the crackle remained. The card lay two sleepers away. He pocketed it, turned, then started back.

He was well past the curve and looking at freedom when the rails rattled.

The train! He picked his pace up immediately .

The locomotive hooted as it bore into the tunnel; the noise assailed him rushing like water along a sewer. The rails rattled like thunder, the pressure of the train helping to propel him along.

I'm not going to make it!

He could see the gang rooting for him, but could not hear them over the sound of the fireworks display in his chest, and the train. in his head The driver sounded the horn again. It felt like the breath of a bull about to spike him.

Leaping from the track Moon landed with a thump in a workman's hole. There were no rings, his fingers searched frantically tearing skin on brick. If he stayed put the train would suck him under its wheels so he made a dash for the other side of the tunnel hoping to find safety there, but ran straight into the path of the engine.

Brakes filled the cavern sounding like a thousand fingernails scratching a highly polished table, he almost made it, but the train hit him. The force of the impact spun him through the air. He reeled over and over as if he was on a rollercoaster ride. He landed heavily, his inhaler shattering as it landed a short distance away.

Moon sat up dazed, his breathing easier than he had been in a long time. He shook the fuzz from his head, saw sparks fly from the train and commuters thrown forward in their seats. He stood up, staggered after the train that had halted fifty yards away and reeled from the tunnel, head down, shoulders hunched like a dog dragging its tail.

'Way to go Moon, you did it?' Celebrated the Demons, running to him and patting him on the back.

'I-I-I, did?'

Jed gave him a black bomber jacket. Moon looked at him, confused. 'I don't understand?'

Jed was ecstatic. 'Moon, that was the best tube shoot ever. There must be a hundred bits of you scattered along the track?'

Moon wavered, felt sick and tried to retch.

LAUGHTER!

'You got a lot to learn, Moon?' Said Jed. 'First of all ghosts don't puke.'

The train driver crunched his way along the track. Stopped when he saw something in the bushes. After a brief glance he turned and vomited. Moon ran over to see what it was, and cringed at the sight of his own torn and battered body, misshapen and bruised by the impact.

Jed placed a consoling hand on his shoulder. 'Welcome to the Demons, Moon.'