Night on Terror Island (19 page)

‘Oh, that’s just her way. But I overheard her talking to Jade. This was before she was killed by the Neanderthals …’

‘Obviously.’

‘She was telling Jade how much she admired you … your strength, your courage, your … rugged good looks.’

‘She said that?’ Captain Holder smiled. ‘Hey, how about that?’ He seemed to consider for a moment. ‘I guess you’re right,’ he said. ‘A good captain never deserts his crew, huh?’

‘Absolutely,’ said Mr Lazarus and he gave a smart salute. ‘Good to have you back on board, Captain!’

‘OK, so I’m convinced. How do I get back in there?’

‘No, wait just a minute. A couple of things. First, that torch you’re carrying? Hang onto it very tightly when I send you back. The Neanderthals spend most of their time in darkness. If you shine that into their faces I believe it will dazzle them.’

‘This?’ Captain Holder stared at it. ‘It’s just an ordinary torch.’

‘Even so. Trust me. And the thing you have in your other hand? Don’t press the button again, whatever you do. Close the metal cover. Yes, that’s the way! I want you to give the device to a boy called Kip.’

‘Who the hell is Kip?’

‘He’s a friend of mine. I sent him into the film to bring back his little sister. The weird girl you mentioned?’

‘And how the hell did
she
get in there?’

‘Too long a story, I’m afraid. And we’re too near the end of the film to waste any more time. You’d better prepare yourself.’

‘OK.’ Captain Holder climbed back onto the platform. ‘I’m ready,’ he said.

‘Excellent. Oh and, Captain Holder?’

‘Yes?’

‘Please try not to say “hell” so much. It’s not very polite.’

‘OK, pal, whatever you say.’ Captain Holder adopted a macho pose. ‘Let’s get this show on the road,’ he yelled. ‘GERONIMO!’

And with that, Mr Lazarus kicked the platform back into the light.

ROSE AND TAMARA
raced full pelt up the gloomy staircase, pursued by several hungry Neanderthals. They reached the third-floor landing and stood there for a moment, glancing hopelessly around. Rose noticed another short flight of stairs and a stencilled sign that read,
T
O THE ROOF
.

‘Come on!’ she screamed and pulled Tamara after her.

‘But we’ll be trapped up there,’ gasped Tamara.

Rose glanced desperately back the way they had come. A group of shambling, ragged figures were bounding up the stairs after them and there was simply no other place to go. They made it to the short flight of stone steps and went up them, as fast as they could. The door at the top of the steps was ajar. They burst through it and found themselves on a wide stretch of flat roof. A full moon sent a wash of silvery light over its concrete surface. As far as they could see, there were no Neanderthals up here.

They turned back to the door and swung it shut, but it was flimsy with age and they both realised it could not hold back the cavemen for very long.
Even
as they threw their weight against it, they felt the ancient wood shuddering and buckling under the impact of several pounding fists. Tamara snatched up a length of wood lying by the doorway and pushed it though the door’s metal hasp. Then she and Rose backed slowly away, staring fearfully at the door, seeing how the length of wood was already bending beneath the pressure of so many hands.

Tamara ran to the edge of the roof and peered down into the darkness. It was too high to jump and there was no sign of any way they might climb down. They turned back to face the door as a loud splintering sound filled the night air. The length of wood had just snapped in two and now the first of the creatures was emerging onto the roof.

Tamara threw her arms around Rose and pulled her close. ‘Shut your eyes, honey,’ she whispered. ‘It’ll soon be over.’

They waited for the end, all hope gone.

And then they heard a noise from above them – the droning, rhythmic sound of an engine. Rose looked up in amazement. Something was hovering in the air thirty feet above them, lights flashing on its metal fuselage.
A helicopter!
As she stared at it in amazement, a hatch opened and a rope ladder began to descend towards them.

*

At first, Kip wasn’t sure what he was looking at. The light of the torch picked out a great mass of shifting coils over in one corner of the room. Then something reared up from the midst of them, a huge oval head with two staring eyes, and he began to understand what it was. It was some kind of prehistoric snake; the biggest reptile he had ever seen. This would have been bad enough but sticking out from the snake’s mouth was a pair of human legs – legs that kicked desperately as they slid, bit by bit, down the snake’s gullet. For a horrible moment, Kip thought they might be Rose’s legs, but then he reasoned that Rose didn’t own a pair of heavy boots like the ones he was looking at.
One of the men from the film
, he told himself.
Most probably Tad Baxter. He was now lowest down the cast list
.

He swept the torch beam around the rest of the room and saw the glass tanks Mr Lazarus had mentioned, but there was no sign of the Retriever in any of them and he certainly didn’t feel much like going in there and doing a more thorough search. A slithering sound from the far corner made him snap the beam back in that direction, only to see that the snake had finished ingesting its dinner and was now moving in his direction. He cursed and slammed the door.

‘Wasn’t it in there?’ asked Beth. ‘That has to be the room.’

‘Take it from me,’ said Kip. ‘You don’t want to go in there.’

‘But we have to,’ argued Beth. ‘We can’t get back without the Retriever.’ She went to open the door again but Kip put a hand on her arm.

‘Trust me,’ he said. ‘Don’t go in there.’

Just then Mr Lazarus’s voice buzzed in his ear.

‘Kip, are you OK?’

‘No I’m not. The bloody Retriever’s not here!’

‘I know.’ Mr Lazarus sounded annoyingly calm. ‘And there’s absolutely no need for bad language. It arrived back here a few minutes ago, but I’ve just sent it into the film again.’

‘This is getting ridiculous,’ complained Kip. ‘Where is the pigging thing? It’s like a flipping yo-yo.’

‘Don’t worry about that. Just concentrate on finding Rose.’

‘That’s easy for you to say,’ screamed Kip. ‘You’re not stuck in this madhouse. Now just tell me where—’

‘She’s on the ruh–’ The Communicator gave a loud beep and went silent. Kip stared down at it in dismay. He pulled it out of the holster and thumped it a couple of times, but it was as dead as a doornail.

‘Oh, brilliant,’ said Kip. ‘It’s packed up.’

Beth was staring at him in open-mouthed dismay.

‘Now what do we do?’ she asked.

Kip shook his head.

‘I have no idea,’ he said. ‘Rose is on the
ruh
.’

‘The what?’

‘The
ruh!
That’s all I heard before the pigging phone conked out.’

Beth thought for a moment. ‘The …
railway?
’ she suggested. ‘The …
racecourse
?’

‘What are you babbling about?’ cried Kip.

‘I’m trying to think of things that begin with
ruh
.’

‘Oh, and you reckon there’s a railway around here, do you?’ Kip shook his head. ‘And a racecourse!’ he yelled. ‘That’s really likely, isn’t it? What are we going to do now?’

‘I tell you what we’re going to do,’ said Beth quietly. ‘We’re going to run.’ She was pointing back along the corridor. Kip turned his head to look and saw that a couple of Neanderthals had just come round the corner from the direction of the lower staircase. They were all scratched and bloody from their fight with the sabre-toothed tiger, and the ends of their spears glistened with gore. Clearly the third member of their party was either dead or incapable of walking. Now they were staring at the two friends and the expressions on their faces were far from welcoming.

‘Good idea,’ said Kip and he turned and led the way along the corridor. They reached the end and found another staircase leading up. They made it to
the
next landing without trouble, but glancing back Kip could see that the two Neanderthals were climbing up after them. Kip shone his torch frantically around to try and get his bearings. Ahead of him was a short flight of stone steps and at the top of it, several Neanderthals were banging their fists against a closed door, a door that even as Kip watched was beginning to shatter under the onslaught of those powerful fists. On the wall beside them was a sign that read
TO THE ROOF
.

‘RUH
!’ yelled Beth, pointing.

‘Huh?’ Kip stared at her, thinking that she must have lost her mind.

‘The roof, you idiot! That must be where Rose is.’

‘Oh right,’ said Kip. He was going to say something else but an angry bellow from just behind him made him spin round. The two armed Neanderthals had just come round the corner and were racing towards him, their spears raised to strike. But in turning, Kip had accidentally pointed the torch in their direction, directing the beam full into their faces. The effect was astonishing. The two Neanderthals dropped their spears and lifted their hands to shield their eyes. They screamed in absolute terror.

Kip stared at them in amazement.

‘The torches,’ he gasped. ‘They can’t take the light. It dazzles them.’

‘They’ll soon get used to it,’ Beth told him.

‘Never mind.’ Kip put a hand on Beth’s shoulder and turned her round. He pointed at the bunch of cavemen at the top of the short flight of stairs. What was left of the door was breaking and splintering beneath their combined attack. ‘We’ve got to get through them,’ he said. ‘We’ll use the torches.’

‘But … they’re facing away from us!’

‘Then we’ve got to get their attention, somehow. What did Mr Lazarus say distracted them? Opera? Do you know any opera?’

If Beth did, she wasn’t about to admit it.

‘Beth, what songs do you know?’ yelled Kip. He was keeping his light trained on the two armed Neanderthals, who were cowering away from the light as though it was burning them. ‘You need to sing something.’

She glanced at him in sheer disbelief.

‘What do you think this is?’ she asked him. ‘The X Factor?’

‘Never mind that. Just sing something. Anything.’

‘You
are
kidding, I hope.’

‘No, I’m
not
kidding,’ bellowed Kip. He pointed to the creatures on the stairs. ‘Sing to them,
loudly
. They’re nearly through that door and I think Rose is on the other side of it. We’ve got to try and get them to turn round.’

‘I don’t believe this,’ protested Beth.

‘Just do it,’ pleaded Kip. ‘Please! There can’t be much time left. The film’s nearly over. If we get to the credits, we’re all stuck here for ever!’

Beth looked at him in alarm. Then her shoulders slumped and she moved to the foot of the steps.

‘What do you want me to sing?’ she asked.

‘I don’t care. The first thing that comes into your head. Just sing something!’

She nodded. She cleared her throat and she began to sing as loudly as she could. Her voice seemed to echo in the narrow confines of the landing.

‘Half a pound of tuppeny rice …’

Ape-like heads turned to stare at her in dull surprise.

‘… half a pound of treacle …’

More heads at the back of the queue turned and Beth gave them a blast of torchlight full in the face. Two Neanderthals screamed, lost their footing and fell down the steps onto the concrete floor below. Emboldened, Beth moved closer.

‘That’s the way the money goes …’

More of the creatures were turning round to see where the sound was coming from and as they did, each of them received the torch treatment.

‘It’s working!’ gasped Kip. ‘Keep singing.’

‘Pop goes the weasel!’

The two of them began to advance up the steps, Beth at the front, still singing and still blasting
Neanderthals
, Kip fighting a deadly rearguard action on the half-blinded creatures that were stumbling in pursuit. On either side of them, screaming Neanderthals fell down the steps, groping blindly as they went. Within a matter of moments Kip and Beth had cleared a path to the doorway but they could see that several of the creatures had already made it through onto the roof. They had no other choice but to follow.