Humpty's Bones (11 page)

Two

This is frightening.
We entered the bunker. There was no light at all. You know when you reach out of bed in the middle of the night to switch on the lamp? Even though you’re alone, isn’t there always that moment when you search for the switch that you fear you’re going to touch some living body; something with cold skin; or with manky hair? Just imagine the shock. Your fingers suddenly feel a face with bulging eyes, and -
‘Get it off me! It’s biting!’
From the darkness came a yell of terror. ‘There’s something alive in here!’

‘Adam - ’

‘Help me!’

‘Shush, it’s me.’ Jenny shouted. ‘I pushed your head down so you didn’t bang it. There are chains hanging from the ceiling with hooks on them.’

‘Hooks? What kind of hooks?’ Adam still sounded frightened. ‘I want out of here. It’s too dark. There’s something wrong about this place... ’

Even though the dark made me nervous I couldn’t stop myself saying, ‘And make sure you don’t step on the snakes. They’re everywhere. Sssss... ’

‘Naz.’ Jenny sounded annoyed. ‘That’s not helping. Adam, there are no snakes.’

‘It’s the vampires you have to watch out for.’

‘Naz.’ Jenny’s eyes must have adapted to the gloom enough to target me. I felt her fist thump my arm. ‘Stop scaring Adam.’

‘Didn’t you hear me earlier?’ Adam’s voice wavered. ‘There were no marks on the outside of the bunker door. It had been gouged on the
inside.
Nobody broke in here. Something broke
out.
And it must be
huge.
’

What he said made us fall silent. I pictured a big animal prowling down this passageway to bump aside the chains hanging from the ceiling before attacking the door - snarling, gouging, then battering it in total fury. A shiver ran down my spine.

I whispered. ‘Maybe we should wait for Pitt outside?

Only it was too late for that. Far too late.

We were in the middle of that darkness. It seemed to drown us in deep, deep black. Then... a scraping noise. We flinched. Adam moaned in fear. ‘Oh, man...
it knows we’re here... ’

Slowly, a door creaked open, a strange door that worried the life out of me. Weird! It was as narrow as the lid of a coffin. A light shone through it as a ghostly figure stepped through the gap. Its face was a cold blue. It beckoned to us with these chilling words.
‘You can’t go back. You must come with me.’

Three

For what seemed like an age we froze. We stared at the figure. Stared as a blue light burned with a strange, phantom intensity. Stared as the weird apparition loomed through the doorway.

Adam pointed.
‘Look, there’s something wrong with its mouth.’

For some reason I found my eyes yanked to those monster-size fishhooks that hung from chains above our heads and wondered if -

‘Come on,’ boomed the figure. ‘You’ve got to look at this! I’ve been calling you for ages. Didn’t you hear? Naz, what’s wrong? You look as if you’ve stood on a ghost.’

‘Pitt?’ I blinked. ‘Is that you?’

‘Who do you think? Frankenstein?’

Jenny shook her head. ‘The phrase, Pitt, is “seen a ghost” not “stood on one.” ‘

‘Whatever.’

Adam swayed. ‘I was so scared I thought I’d puke... think I still am.’

The weird ghostly effect was caused by a blue light shining onto Pitt from the room that led off this corridor. Of course, the ‘something wrong with his mouth’ comment by Adam referred to the scabby cut on his lip.

‘Aw, come on, people.’ Then this from Pitt gave me chills: ‘When you see what I’ve found you’re not going to believe your eyes.’

Four

Adam lagged back in that corridor of chains. ‘I’m not going. There’s something bad about this place. Can’t you feel it?’

‘Trust me,’ Pitt called as he clattered down a staircase. ‘You’ll remember this until the day you die!’

Jenny went through the door. I followed. Blue lamps lit the stairs making our skin glow strangely.

‘Daylight bulbs,’ Jenny explained. ‘They’re used in places where people stay indoors for months at a time.’

We ran down the steps after Pitt. Even so, I felt cold. As if instinct warned me danger lay ahead.

‘Don’t leave me alone!’ Adam shouted. He realised that once the door swung shut he’d be alone in that dark corridor with its hooky chains.

A second later we pushed through big double doors into... well... I couldn’t believe my eyes. I just stared.

Pitt whistled. ‘Look at this. It’s all twenty feet underground. And it doesn’t smell like poop. There’s air-conditioning.’

I struggled to take it all in. ‘There’s a kitchen. A lounge. Sofas. And is that a TV?’

‘The screen’s six feet wide,’ breathed Jenny in awe. ‘Look at all those DVDs.’

Adam walked in, gob-smacked. ‘A house underground? How weird is this?’

Jenny said, ‘Last year we went on a school trip to an old military bunker. It had stuff like this. Bedrooms, kitchens, offices. If there’s a nuclear attack that’s where all the generals would stay so they could run things. This one must be kept unmanned until there’s an emergency.’

I checked out the DVDs. A lot were new movies. ‘Maybe the government will stay down here if there’s a war. When they aren’t working they’d come here to relax.’

‘We shouldn’t be in here,’ Adam said. ‘We’re trespassing.’

I shrugged, ‘The door’s open.’

‘We could get into trouble.’

‘Scared?’ Pitt grinned. ‘Let me take your mind off going to jail. Da-dah!’ He swung open a fridge door. Packed with chocolate! Every shelf had neat stacks of chocolate in bright blue wrappers. Right at the front of the confectionary was a single bottle of tomato ketchup, with a dried dribble of sauce stuck to the label. He opened another door to reveal frozen chickens. ‘People could live for months down here.’

Adam followed us in a daze. ‘But that door upstairs? Something clawed at it. Then bust it open. What happens if it comes back?’

Only we were too excited exploring to listen to his warning. But we should have done. We really should. Because what happened next was the most terrifying thing I’ve ever experienced.

Five

We’d discovered that the big TV had a games feature. Jenny and Pitt were figuring out how to get the two silver androids onscreen to shoot down the helicopter gunship when...

‘Hey guys.’ Adam’s eyes bulged in fear. ‘Did anyone hear that?’

Pitt studied the onscreen
Game Help.
‘Hear what?’

‘Bad news, guys. Someone’s coming down the stairs!’

This time we froze.

‘What if we’re caught down here?’ I whispered. ‘It might be the police.’

‘Or soldiers?’

Adam shuddered. ‘Or the thing that smashed open the door.’

That complex of subterranean rooms had been brightly lit. But somehow the light seemed to fade. The bright greens and oranges of the furniture became dull. That big glassy TV screen seemed to resemble a huge alien eye. One that stared with hatred. Or so it seemed to me. A cold, cold sensation crept through my veins. For some reason a pain flared above my right eye. It must be THAT SOUND. I’d heard nothing like it before.
Something was coming down the stairs we’d used just ten minutes ago.

Jenny whispered, ‘It doesn’t sound like ordinary footsteps.’

A soft clump, clump. Shivers ran along my arms.

Pitt turned to face the stairway door. It was closed. Even so, he heard all too clearly. ‘A voice... but can anyone hear what it’s saying?’

‘That’s no human voice.’ I heard a low snarling. Also, I made out words but not in a language I understood.
‘Neefer-ratt-saaar.’

‘It’s getting closer.’

The door began to creak open.
‘Neefer-ratt-saaar.’

‘Run!’

‘But where,’ cried Adam.
‘That’s the only way out!’

Six

Panic! We searched for somewhere to hide. Jenny pointed to another door. ‘Through there!’

A sign on it read
DANGER. NO ENTRY
. But this was no time to pause. Behind us the stairway door creaked. That strange, menacing voice grew louder:
‘Neefer-ratt-saaar
.
’
After that, an excited snorting as if a hungry beast had smelt food. Beyond the door Jenny had pointed out were more steps - only these went down, deep underground. The stairwell was a gloomy pit, descending into a forbidden, dangerous place. Here were yet more signs.
CAUTION. NO ENTRY. DANGER OF DEATH!

Seven

The four of us dashed downstairs. Upstairs, whatever had entered the bunker must be in the lounge.
Does it know we’re here? Will it follow?

‘Sheesh,’ Pitt gasped. ‘What is this place?’

Jenny raced into a maze of tunnels. ‘Keep moving. We don’t know if that thing’s going to come after us.’

‘What we gotta do,’ panted Adam, ‘is find a way out. Fast!’

These tunnels were gloomy places. Shadows lurked at every corner. I guessed the tunnels were broad enough to accommodate three buses side-by-side, they were certainly high enough, too, but the length? They stretched faraway into the distance. And did I mention the cold? Breath misted out all white. In the tunnels were huge, hulking forms covered with plastic sheets. Adam was so frightened he hurried forward without pausing to look. Pitt hauled up the sheets.

‘Hey, a Jeep. And check this out... wow! A tank. Look at the size of that gun.’

Jenny whistled. ‘This is where the army must keep spare equipment, just in case the other stuff gets wiped out in an attack.’

Pitt’s eyes shone. ‘I wonder if there are any rockets.’

Jenny started to say, ‘You can forget taking - ’

BANG!

Adam shouted, ‘That’s the door to the stairs - something just bashed it open.’

By now the entrance we’d come through was way off in the distance. Just a speck. But we could make out
another
speck.
This one moved.

Fast!

‘It’s found us!’

We ran like crazy. By tanks, vans, troop carriers, all covered with sheets of plastic. They formed sinister mounds. They hinted at deathly things.

In the gloom, the confusion, the speed at which everything happened, it was inevitable. I turned off into another tunnel. A minute later I stopped to get my breath back. Then I saw the others weren’t with me.

‘Pitt, Jenny, Adam. Where are you?’There was no reply. A deadly silence filled the tunnel. My friends? No sign. Only the unnerving shapes of vehicles under grey shrouds. At any second that demon-thing might prowl round the corner. Here I was, alone.

All alone.

Eight

Listen. When you’re alone, your head fills with thoughts, doesn’t it? If you’re walking by yourself through a forest you start to imagine you’re being followed. If you’re alone at night, then open the blind to look out, you’re convinced a stranger’s face will look back at you through the glass. Being alone can make your imagination turn bad.

There in the tunnel, deep underground, I waited. I could hear my own breathing. I saw warnings:
CAUTION. HAZARD ZONE.
At any moment I expected that monstrous thing to come roaring at me. But what was it? There was a sense of menace and strength about it, but I’d not seen it clearly. It had only been a speck at the far end of the tunnel. Just what could live down here that could break out through a thick bunker door?

Shivering, I continued walking in the hope I’d find another exit to the surface. Then a sight met my eyes that didn’t give me any hope. One of the plastic sheets had been ripped to pieces. Shreds of grey covered the floor. A container on a truck had been broken open. Soldiers’ helmets had tumbled out. I picked one up. There were four holes in it, big enough to wiggle my fingers through. Bite holes.

‘They sure have big mice round here.’ I tried to laugh at my own joke but the echo made me flinch. ‘Time to get out of here, Naz,’ I told myself. ‘Otherwise you’re going to end up as dinner.’

Nine

I went through the tunnel. Silence oppressed me. That quietness felt like a towel pressed over my face. At times, that alone, seemed as if it would stop me breathing. When I paused to catch my breath the silence got even worse. All I could hear was the scratchy rasp... rasp as I breathed in and out. The air from my lungs blew in white blasts in the harsh light. Got to find the others, I told myself. Then gotta get out. Get away from here.

Because I knew the truth - down here we were not alone. Some
thing
hunted us. As I rested for a moment I looked back the way I’d come. I stared until my eyes watered. All those vehicles covered in grey plastic sheeting. They waited for war. Above me, on the tunnel roof, clung a big black object with spider legs. My eyes locked onto it. A gurgle sounded in my throat as my heart raced - bang, bang, bang. Then I took a deep breath. The spider object was some kind of mechanical hoist bolted to the ceiling. That’s all. The black legs were a steel grab. Probably the soldiers used it to load equipment onto these trucks that lined the tunnel like slumbering beasts.

I rubbed my eyes then checked the tunnel again. Nothing there... yet. I continued walking. My footsteps echoed from the walls.

‘Pitt, Jenny, Adam.’ The call came as a whisper rather than a shout. A sense of danger filled me. I didn’t dare shout the names of my friends, just in case
it
heard. I shuddered. Were they still safe? Or had they been caught? Dread oozed inside of me. What if I never saw the three again? What would I say to their parents? If the worst happened, who would tell the police? Imagine having to identify the bodies? I pictured figures lying under sheets on the ground. There’d be police dressed in those white forensic suits with the tight little hoods. One would start to pull back the sheet. ‘Okay, son. This isn’t going to be nice. Brace yourself for a shock. But take a good long look at what’s left of the face... and tell me the name of the person you see lying there.’

Suddenly, a whispering startled me. I’d been so preoccupied with imagining the gruesome scene with the police that I nearly leapt out of my skin. A grey shape began to swell outwards across the tunnel. I couldn’t run back because I might bump into whatever followed me. Now I couldn’t go forward because a grey, lumpy mass blocked my way.

‘Idiot,’ I panted. ‘It’s only the plastic sheeting.’ I took a closer look. The relief! I even tingled with embarrassment when I realised what had happened. A ventilation duct at the other side of the truck blew air under the wheels, causing the plastic sheet that covered the vehicle to inflate in the draught.

I pushed on. With luck I’d find my friends soon.

But life isn’t always so kind. A moment later I found scratch marks on a wall. On the floor were the remains of a poster. From what I could make out it had been a picture of a man and a women with children. Their faces had been clawed away as if some creature hated the sight of humans.

A huge shiver crawled up my spine. So: whatever lurked down here didn’t like people. That’s a fact. What’s more, its claws were so powerful they’d etched deep lines in the concrete wall when it destroyed the poster. I found myself touching my face. What would those claws feel like when they hooked into your skin?

‘Keep moving,’ I murmured, ‘whatever happens, just keep moving. You don’t want to be standing here when it comes round that corner.’