27 - A Night in Terror Tower (4 page)

The light from my flashlight bounced wildly from the floor to the rungs along
the top of the sewer. Eddie and I splashed through puddles of dirty water.

We both gasped when we heard the footsteps behind us.

Heavy, ringing footsteps. Thundering in the low tunnel. Growing louder.
Louder.

I glanced back. But the caped man was hidden by the curve of the sewer
tunnel.

His footsteps boomed steadily, rapidly. I could tell he wasn’t far behind.

He’s going to catch us, I told myself in a panic.

This tunnel is never going to end.

Eddie and I can’t run much farther.

He’s going to catch us in this dark, damp sewer.

And then what?

What does he want?

Why did he say that we
knew
what he wanted?

How could we know?

I stumbled forward. The flashlight bumped against the wall and fell from my
hand.

It clattered to the tunnel floor and rolled in front of me.

The light shone back into the tunnel, back toward the caped man.

I saw him move into view, bent low, running hard.

“Ohhh.” A frightened moan escaped my lips.

I bent to pick up the flashlight. It slid out of my trembling hand.

That was all the time the caped man needed.

He grabbed Eddie with both hands. He pulled the black cape around my brother,
trapping him.

Then he reached for me. “I told you—there is no escape,” he rasped.

I ducked out of the caped man’s grasp.

With another frightened groan, I grabbed the flashlight off the floor.

I planned to use it as a weapon. To shine it in the caped man’s eyes. Or
swing it at his head.

But I didn’t get a chance.

I froze in horror as the beam of light bounced down the tunnel—and I saw
the rats.

Hundreds of them. Hundreds of chittering gray rats.

The darting light made their eyes glow red as fire. The rats came scrabbling
over the sewer floor. Snapping their jaws hungrily, gnashing their jagged teeth
as they came charging at us.

Their shrill whistling and chittering echoed through the tunnel. The
terrifying sound made my breath catch in my throat.

The tiny red eyes glowed in the light as they scrabbled toward us. As they
pulled their scrawny bodies over the hard floor, their tails slithered behind them like dark
snakes.

The caped man saw them, too. He leaped back in surprise.

And Eddie came tearing out from under the cape. He gulped in shock as his
eyes locked on the charging rats.

“Jump!” I cried. “Eddie—jump!”

Eddie didn’t move. We both gaped at the rats in horror. A churning sea of
whistling, chewing, red-eyed rats. A living tidal wave of rats.

“Jump! Jump—now!” I shrieked.

I raised both hands. Jumped.

Eddie jumped, too. We grabbed on to the metal bars imbedded in the sewer
roof.

Pulling myself up, I frantically lifted my feet as high as I could from the
floor.

Higher. Higher. As the rats charged underneath me.

A foul odor rose up, nearly choking me as the rats ran past.

I could hear the
tap tap tap
of their long toenails against the floor.
Hear the
swish
of their sweeping tails.

I couldn’t see the rats in the darkness. But I could hear them. And feel
them. They jumped at my shoes. Scratched at my legs with their sharp claws. And
kept coming.

I turned to see the caped man start to run back.

He stumbled with lurching steps as he tried to flee the thundering wave of
rats. His arms shot forward as if reaching for safety. The black cape whipped up
behind him.

The wide-brimmed hat flew off his head and floated to the floor. A dozen rats
pounced on it, climbed all over it, and began chewing it to pieces.

The man’s footsteps echoed in the tunnel as he ran faster. Rats leaped up at
his cape, clawing it, snapping their jaws, and shrieking excitedly.

A second later, he disappeared around the curve of the sewer.

The rats scrambled noisily after him. As they vanished around the curve, the
sounds all blended together, became a roar, a roar that rang through the long
sewer.

A roar of horror.

My arms were both aching, throbbing with pain. But I kept my feet high off
the floor. I didn’t let go of the metal rung until I was sure all the rats had
disappeared.

The roar faded into the distance.

I heard Eddie’s heavy breathing. He let out a sharp groan and dropped to the
floor.

I let go of the bar and lowered myself, too. I waited for my heart to stop
pounding, for the blood to stop throbbing at my temples.

“That was a close call,” Eddie murmured. His chin trembled. His face was as
gray as the tunnel walls.

I shuddered. I knew I’d see the hundreds of tiny red eyes in my dreams, hear
the clicking of their long toenails and the
swish
of their scraggly
tails.

“Let’s get out of this disgusting sewer!” I cried. “Mr. Starkes must be
frantic searching for us.”

Eddie picked up the flashlight and handed it to me. “I can’t wait to get back
on the tour bus,” he said. “I can’t wait to get away from this awful tower. I
can’t believe we’ve been chased by a crazy person through a sewer. This can’t
really be happening to us, Sue!”

“It’s happening,” I declared, shaking my head. I suddenly had another
thought. “Mom and Dad are probably out of their meeting,” I said. “They’re
probably worried sick about us.”

“Not as worried as I am!” Eddie exclaimed.

I beamed the light ahead, keeping it down on the sewer floor, and we started
walking. The tunnel floor rose up and curved to the left. We started to climb.

“There’s
got
to be an end to this sewer,” I muttered. “It’s
got
to end somewhere!”

A faint roar up ahead made me cry out.

More rats!

Eddie and I both stopped. And listened.

“Hey—!” I uttered excitedly when I realized it was a different sound.

The sound of wind rushing into the tunnel.

That meant we had to be close to the end. And that the sewer emptied
somewhere
outside.

“Let’s go!” I cried excitedly. The beam of light bounced ahead of us as we
started to run.

The tunnel curved again. And then suddenly ended.

I saw a metal ladder, reaching straight up. Straight up to a large, round
hole in the tunnel ceiling. Gazing up at the hole, I saw the night sky.

Eddie and I let out shouts of joy. He scrambled up the ladder, and I pulled
myself up right behind him.

It was a cold, damp night. But we didn’t care. The air smelled so fresh and
clean.

And we were out. Out of the sewer. Out of the Terror Tower.

Away from that frightening man in the black cape.

I gazed around quickly, trying to figure out where we were. The Tower tilted
up toward us, a black shadow against the blue-black sky.

The lights had all been turned off. The tiny guardhouse lay dark and empty.
Not another soul in sight.

I saw the low wall that divided the Tower from the rest of the world. And
then I found the stone path that led to the exit and the parking lot.

Our shoes thudded over the smooth stones as we hurried toward the parking
lot. A pale half-moon slid out from behind wispy clouds. It cast a shimmering silver light over the whispering trees and the long stone wall.

It all suddenly looked unreal.

Without stopping, I glanced back at the old castle. The moonlight shone off
the jutting towers, as if casting them in a pale spotlight.

Real people walked on this path hundreds of years ago, I thought.

And real people died up in that tower.

With a shiver, I turned back and kept jogging. Eddie and I moved through the
open gate and out past the wall.

We’re back in modern times, I thought. Back where we are safe.

But our happiness didn’t last long.

The parking lot shimmered darkly in the pale moonlight. Empty.

The tour bus was gone.

Eddie and I both turned to search up and down the street. The long, empty
street.

“They left us,” Eddie murmured with a sigh. “How are we going to get back to
the hotel?”

I started to answer—but stopped when I saw the man.

A tall, white-haired man, limping toward us, moving fast, pointing and
calling, “You there! You there!”

Oh, no, I thought wearily, feeling my body freeze in fear.

Now what?

“You there! You there!”

The man’s shoulder dipped in the big, gray overcoat he wore as he charged at
us, limping with each step.

Eddie and I huddled close together, staring back at him as he hurried across
the empty parking lot. His white hair tumbled out from under a small gray cap.
The overcoat hung down nearly to his ankles and bulged over his skinny frame.

He stepped up in front of us and waited to catch his breath. His tiny eyes
caught the moonlight as he narrowed them at us, studying Eddie, then me.

“Are you the two kids that bus driver was looking for?” he asked in a shrill,
high voice. He had a different accent from Mr. Starkes’. I think it was
Scottish.

Eddie and I nodded.

“Well, I’m the night guard here,” the man told us. “There’s no one here but
me after closing.”

“Uh… where is our bus?” Eddie asked quietly.

“It left,” the man replied sharply. “He searched all over for you. But he
couldn’t wait any longer. What happened? Did you get lost in there?” He motioned
back toward the Tower.

“A man chased us,” Eddie replied breathlessly. “He said we had to come with
him. He was really scary, and—”

“Man? What man?” The night guard eyed us suspiciously.

“The man in the black cape!” I replied. “And the black hat. He chased us. In
the Tower.”

“There’s no man in the tower,” the guard replied, shaking his head. “I told
you. I’m the only one here after closing.”

“But he’s in there!” I cried. “He chased us! He was going to hurt us! He
chased us through the sewer and the rats—”

“Sewer? What were you two doing in the sewer?” the guard demanded. “We have
rules here about where tourists are allowed. If you break the rules, we can’t be
responsible.”

He sighed. “Now you come out here with a wild story about a man in a black
cape. And running through the sewers. Wild stories. Wild stories.”

Eddie and I exchanged glances. We could both see that this man wasn’t going
to believe us.

“How do we get back to our hotel?” Eddie asked. “Our parents will be really
worried.”

I glanced at the street. There were no cars or buses in sight.

“Do you have any money?” the guard asked, replacing his cap. “There’s a phone
box on the corner. I can call for a taxi.”

I reached into my jeans pocket and felt the heavy coins my parents had given
me before Eddie and I set out on the tour. Then I breathed a long sigh of
relief.

“We have money,” I told the guard.

“It’ll cost you at least fifteen or twenty pounds from way out here,” he
warned.

“That’s okay,” I replied. “Our parents gave us British money. If we don’t
have enough, my parents will pay the driver.”

He nodded. Then he turned to Eddie. “You look all done in, lad. Did you get
frightened up in that tower?”

Eddie swallowed hard. “I just want to get back to our hotel,” he murmured.

The guard nodded. Then, tucking his hands into the pockets of the big
overcoat, he led the way to the phone booth.

The black taxi pulled up about ten minutes later. The driver was a young man
with long, wavy blond hair. “What hotel?” he asked, leaning out the passenger
window.

“The Barclay,” I told him.

Eddie and I climbed into the back. It was warm in the taxi. It felt so great
to sit down!

As we pulled away from the Terror Tower, I didn’t glance back. I never wanted
to see that old castle again.

The car rolled smoothly through the dark streets. The taxi meter clicked
pleasantly. The driver hummed to himself.

I shut my eyes and leaned my head back against the leather seat. I tried not
to think about the frightening man who had chased us in the Tower. But I
couldn’t force him from my mind.

Soon we were back in the center of London. Cars and taxis jammed the streets.
We passed brightly lit theaters and restaurants.

The taxi pulled up to the front of the Barclay Hotel and eased to a stop. The
driver slid open the window behind his seat and turned to me. “That’ll be
fifteen pounds, sixty pence.”

Eddie sat up drowsily. He blinked several times, surprised to see that we had
reached our destination.

I pulled the big, heavy coins from my pocket. I held them up to the driver.
“I don’t really know what is what,” I confessed. “Can you take the right amount
from these?”

The driver glanced at the coins in my hands, sniffed, then raised his eyes to
me. “What are those?” he asked coldly.

“Coins,” I replied. I didn’t know what else to say. “Do I have enough to pay
you?”

He stared back at me. “Do you have any
real
money? Or are you going to
pay me with play money?”

“I—I don’t understand,” I stammered. My hand started to tremble, and I
nearly dropped the coins.

“I don’t either,” the driver replied sharply. “But I do know that those
aren’t real coins. We use British pounds here, miss.”

His expression turned angry. He glared at me through the little window in the
glass partition. “Now, are you going to pay me in British pounds, or are we
going to have some major trouble? I want my money—now!”

I pulled the coins away from him and raised them close to my face. It was
dark in the back of the taxi, and hard to see.

The coins were large and round. They felt heavy, made of real gold or silver.
It was too dark to read the words on them.