Cities, in spite of their liveliness, or perhaps because of it, can seem just as mysterious and unknowable as a lonely cemetery or underground catacomb. There’s always something going on in the city, and if you’re attentive, you can catch glimpses of unusual encounters, often in passing or out of the corner of your eye. What’s in the unusually-shaped package the man is carrying furtively down the street? What are the two men hunched over and examining in the alleyway? Is that dark figure upon the rooftop simply a silhouetted air vent, or something else? It often seems like there’s a hidden world behind the city’s outward façade, which might be entered if one is fortunate… or highly unfortunate.

It’s not surprising that numerous authors of horror and weird fiction in general have been inspired by thoughts such as these to give their own take on things that are happening behind the scenes. I came across one such story recently, and that inspired me to put together a short list of stories, long and short, about the secret goings-on of cities…

• Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman (1996). (h/t to Personal Demon, who pointed me to Gaiman some years ago.) Richard Mayhew, living an ordinary life, stops one day to help a girl he finds injured on a London sidewalk. He soon finds that she’s being pursued by a pair of unpleasant characters, Mr. Vandemar and Mr. Croup, and even less pleasant is the realization that his existence has suddenly been erased from the memories of everyone he’s ever known. To earn his life back, Richard must follow the girl Door into a world below London, filled with dark magic, mighty warriors, and a monster known as The Beast.
  Neverwhere is an excellent novel that I suppose falls into the category of ‘dark fantasy.’ Like all of Gaiman’s writing, it is masterfully written and impossible to put down. It’s worth mentioning that a low-budget miniseries of Neverwhere was produced for British television. It’s extremely charming, except for two flaws: 1. the low-budget effects, and 2. the fact that I now have to say, “Richard. Richard Mayhew,” in my best Scottish accent every time I think of the story.
• The Doorkeepers, by Graham Masterton (2003). Where Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere plays out as a dark fairy-tale of a hidden London, Masterton’s Doorkeepers is unforgiving brutal horror. American Josh Winward’s sister Julia has been missing for almost a year when her body turns up mutilated and floating in the Thames. Josh travels to London to investigate her death, and finds that Julia had been working for a company that never existed – and living in a location that hasn’t existed for years. He quickly stumbles upon a conspiracy associated with an alternate London: a primitive land ruled over by sadistic inquisitorial types known as the ‘hoodies’. Josh’s quest for answers leads him and his wife into much danger and pain – and an encounter with a device known as the ‘holy harp’.
  This novel is a relatively recent Masterton tale, and one of his most enjoyable of recent years (if one can consider books with descriptions of torture ‘enjoyable’).
• The Thin People, by Brian Lumley (1987). This short story by Lumley is best introduced in his own words: “Up there in Crouch End, you’d bump into some weird people. And there were these weird, thin houses. On my way back from the pub one night, I found myself looking at a thin house and wondering who in the world could live in such a cramped-up, concertinaed sort of place. The answer seemed obvious.”
  The answer is perhaps obvious, but the story is clever and eerie anyway. The story appears in Lumley’s collection Fruting Bodies and Other Fungi, which is worth reading. One story collected there, The deep-sea conch, is one of my favorite Lumley stories.
• The Midnight Meat Train, by Clive Barker (1984). A man falls asleep on a New York subway train, and awakens to find himself at a mysterious station with a murderer who has already butchered and hung a number of other passengers. The murderer is not doing this for himself, however, and the secret of his true occupation involves the entire city.
  One of many excellent stories in Clive Barker’s Books of Blood, TMMT heralds from Barker’s early bloody phase of writing. A movie version, which will obviously be extended dramatically from the original story, is slated to appear in theaters sometime this year.

• Pickman’s Model, by H.P. Lovecraft (1926). An art academic named Thurber describes to a colleague the reasons that he decided to break contact with artist Richard Upton Pickman, and the reasons center around a visit Thurber took to Pickman’s private studio in the north end of Boston. Pickman is a macabre artist whose subject matter is nothing short of monstrous. Thurber’s visit to the studio teaches him more than he wants to learn about activities below the streets. Remember, “Holmes, Lowell, and Longfellow Lie Buried in Mount Auburn.”
  This story is one of my favorite Lovecraft tales. It has little of the “cosmic horror” he is best known for, but establishes a worldview all its own and equally disturbing.

These are a few of my favorite stories about the hidden world behind (or beneath) cities; anyone have any of their favorites to add?