Underworld (11 page)

‘You're priceless, Angie,' Zesh said. And Angie beamed with pleasure, almost lighting up the dark cave with her bright face. It's really hard to insult her, Liam thought. She forgets insults so easily. Not like him. Liam never forgot.

Angie flopped down beside Zesh, still beaming. ‘Are we going to rest now, Zesh?'

Fiona yelled across to her, ‘What are you asking him for?' But she sat down too. ‘If I want to rest, I rest. I don't ask anybody.'

‘I think we need a leader. And Zesh is naturally the leader.' Angie had decided. Zesh could tell by her tone.

Zesh didn't say anything to that. Couldn't. He was trying too hard to get his breath back. Anyway, he knew someone who would have something to say. Axel. He came towards them. ‘What makes him so special? How am I not the leader?'

Fiona guffawed. ‘Oh aye, Axel. You. The boy who's
in training to be a serial killer. Oh yes, everybody'll follow you.'

Zesh took a long breath. ‘I'll tell you what, Axel. It's a democracy. We'll take a vote on it … and then I'll decide, OK?'

He had meant it to be funny, but he could see that Axel didn't see the joke. He was nodding. ‘As long as we get a vote,' he said.

They ate another sandwich, rationing them out, not knowing how long they could be trapped down here. Zesh longed to have the nerve to pull out his inhaler and use it. It shouldn't matter now that anyone knew. Yet here, in this dire situation, he felt it was more important than ever to keep his secret. Leaders should never show their weakness, his father had told him. And it seemed to Zesh that leadership had been thrust upon him.

Fiona spat something on to the ground. ‘What's in these sandwiches? They're zonking awful.'

‘I think it's the pesto sauce,' Angie's voice came from the shadows.

Fiona shone her light on her open sandwich. ‘It's green,' she said in disgust.

‘Mmm, lovely, isn't it?' Angie munched as if she had
never tasted anything better.

‘Who made them?' But Fiona already knew the answer to that.

‘Mrs Soames,' Liam said. ‘She probably put poison in them after what –' he almost said, ‘I', ‘after what somebody did to her.'

And there in the dark, Zesh remembered the legend she had told them. He remembered the Worm. He knew from the silence that fell around him that they were all remembering the Worm. And the cook's ominous words. ‘When you're deep down in those dark caves, you'll remember about the Legend of the Great Worm, and you'll be afraid then all right.' Almost as if she was prophesying that this would happen.

‘It's just a stupid story,' Liam said, as if they had all been talking about it. ‘It's rubbish.'

‘Course it is,' Fiona agreed.

‘There's more natural things to be frightened of down here. Like caves collapsing, and shafts filling with water, and rats.'

‘Thanks for those cheery words, Zesh,' Fiona snapped at him.

He
had
meant it to cheer them up. Surely they were less terrifying than what they had been thinking.

‘I read a book once –' Axel began, taking them all by surprise.

Fiona interrupted. ‘You? A book? One of those papery things with words written on it? I am gobsmacked!'

Zesh was surprised too.

Axel glared at her, but he went on. ‘It was about miners that had been trapped down a mine. They never found their way out. They became like animals, like cavemen.'

‘So, how did they survive? There's nothing to eat down here. Did they bring sandwiches as well?' Fiona laughed again.

‘They began to eat each other,' Axel said flatly.

Angie began to gag. ‘I could never do that.'

Axel laughed now. ‘We could survive on you alone, Angie, for years.'

Fiona jumped to her defence. ‘We're not going to start eating Angie and that's final!' She went to her and sat beside her. ‘Don't worry, Angie, I won't let anybody eat you.'

Zesh almost laughed too. It was Fiona's fault, she was so funny at times.

‘What time is it, anyway?' Fiona trained her light on
her watch. ‘This thing's broke.'

Zesh looked at his watch. The face was cracked and the hands still. Broken during one of the landslides, he supposed. Angie didn't have one on, and he was sure Axel still couldn't tell the time.

‘Mine too,' Liam said.

And that chilled Zesh more than anything else. More than being trapped down here. More than the dark, more perhaps, than the legend of the Worm.

None of their watches was working.

* * *

‘I attended school on this island. In a private school for the very elite, before the war.' The Captain offers me this information before I have asked for it.

We have stopped to rest and have water, water which runs down the rock, caught in our cupped hands.

‘You have friends here, sir?'

Stupid question, for who would be friends with a man of such cruelty? Once I saw him throw a dog over the side of the ship and watch it drown, taking bets on how long it would last in the sea. Why did I not have the courage to jump in and save the poor struggling animal? But I didn't. And neither did anyone else.

This man does not make friends.

‘Stupid people!' is all he says. ‘I will now tell you a secret, Lothar. Our mission in coming here was to discover what is in these caves. The Reich believes that this is a top secret location, and here they are building a new kind of weapon. Our mission was to destroy these caves.'

‘Here? But surely, sir, a top secret location for weapons would have soldiers guarding it. Here, there is nothing.'

Stupid people maybe, but surely not that stupid.

‘They are a gullible people. They protect it with stories, legends to keep people from the caves.'

I began to shiver. Is it cold, or fear? ‘What legend, sir?'

And then he tells me the Legend of the Great Worm which had its lair in these caves. An enormous creature, with ravenous jaws that swallowed up anyone who intruded into its underground world.

‘Do not look so afraid, boy. It's a story, a made-up story. Do you want your Führer to be ashamed of you?'

I do not care if he is ashamed of me or not. He is not the one deep in this dark cave, with an ancient legend cloaked around his shoulders.

The Captain stands up. ‘We move on. We may find something interesting in here.'

I am afraid now we may find something terrifying.

* * *

They all slept. Axel by the mouth of the cave, Liam close beside him. Angie close beside Zesh, and too close for his liking. As soon as she was sleeping he moved away from her.

Fiona was sure she would never sleep. Not here, with dangers lying in every dark corner. But she did. She closed her eyes and in just a few minutes she was snoring. As if she was sleeping comfortably in her own bed. But her dreams were dark. She was running through a ghost train at the fair, trying to find the way out, and behind her, close behind her, she could hear the slithering and the squishing of the Great Worm. But when she did dare to glance back, the face of the Worm was Angie's, bright and smiling, and just as scary. The Worm was calling her. ‘Fiona. Fiona.'

Her eyes snapped open and she almost screamed. The great, fat face of Angie zoomed close to her. Too close.

‘Fiona …' she whispered.

Fiona shrank back. ‘What is it?' Still a little caught up in her dream.

Angie leaned closer. Her voice became even softer. ‘I'm dying for the toilet, Fiona.'

Suddenly, Fiona realised that she hadn't been to the
toilet for … how long? Too long.

‘What are we're going to do?' Angie asked her.

Fiona was thinking. ‘In there can be the boys' toilet, and that one the girls' toilet.' She pointed out two tunnels leading from the cave.

‘I can't go in there on my own.'

‘What? Do you think the boys should come with us?'

Angie clutched at her arm. ‘I'd die if they knew I needed the toilet.'

No wonder Angie drove her bonkers. ‘Everybody's got to do the toilet, Angie. It's a well-known fact.'

However, even she had to admit that she wouldn't want Axel playing any of his cruel practical jokes on them in the dark of a cave. ‘We won't wake them up,' she said, and she got to her feet quietly. Angie clutched on to her tightly.

Fiona shone her light into the tunnel, and they stepped gingerly inside. Did it lead anywhere? It didn't seem to. It curved around and then opened up into another cave.

‘This'll do,' Angie said. Fiona hoped it would. It gave her a creepy feeling.

She'd never done the toilet so fast in her life. Her imagination was going haywire, spiders crawling the
floor, armies of insects, rats … or … even worse. She talked all the time to keep her mind off it. ‘So where did you originally come from, Angie?'

Angie was breathing hard. Fiona couldn't see her in the dark, but she knew she was close beside her. All she could see was her beam moving rapidly all round the tunnel in a panic, from the roof to the floor and back to the roof again. ‘I moved here with my parents. We move all the time.'

‘And why is that? You on one of these witness protection programmes? I saw that on a soap once.'

Angie giggled nervously. ‘No, of course not. We never settle in one place for long. And everywhere I go, things seem to happen. Maybe I'm a jinx.'

And Fiona remembered her story about her last trip, wanted to ask her more, but not here in this dark place.

‘So why do you keep moving?' Hey, you've not been expelled from everywhere else? Is that it? Known troublemaker, bully?'

That made Angie giggle. If Fiona had been prone to giggle, she might have joined in, because the thought of beaming, enthusiastic Angie ever getting into trouble was ludicrous.

‘Actually, it's really bad luck that we always have to
move,' Angie said.

Bad luck and Angie? Yes, that sounds right. ‘I can't wait to hear this story.' Fiona was beginning to think story-telling was something Angie had a knack for. She always had one to tell. Whether they were true or not was another matter.

Angie missed the sarcasm in Fiona's voice. She was ready to tell all.

She didn't get a chance.

‘Fiona … what's that up there?'

Fiona followed Angie's beam to the roof of the tunnel. The light flickered across it. She held her breath. She felt Angie step close beside her.

The roof was moving.

‘What is it?' Angie's words came out in whispered gasps. Her eyes never left the roof.

‘I don't know, and I'm not staying to find out.' Fiona began edging her way out, pulling Angie with her.

‘In case of emergency make your way Calmly to the nearest exit.' Isn't that what notices always said? in planes, in trains, everywhere. They hadn't reckoned on this kind of emergency.

The roof moved again. Something fluttered up there. In that same instant Fiona and Angie realised exactly what was ‘up there', and Fiona forgot about remaining calm.

‘BATS!'

Their screams echoed high, and the roof came alive.

They screamed as they ran, back into the cave where the boys were. The girls' screams brought them abruptly awake. Their screams, and the flapping sound
of a thousand wings.

‘BATS!' Fiona yelled at them. Axel rolled into the next cave. Liam, with only a second's glance at the bats, followed him.

Zesh jumped to his feet. The bats were all around him. The cave was alive with them. ‘Mr Marks.' He shot to the ground beside the teacher, tried to shake him back to consciousness.

‘Leave him!' Fiona shouted, running after Axel.

But Zesh couldn't. She could see that in his face. Even panic-stricken, he still wanted to be Sir Lancelot.

‘Cover him with something.' Angie threw a jacket over his face. ‘We have to get out of here!'

The bats were flying everywhere. Fiona threw her arms about wildly as she ran. She tripped over a rock, fell headlong forwards, covered her head with her hands, sure at any moment the bats would smother her, suck her dry.

Feet ran past her. Angie's darting light steps. Light as a feather. Funny, especially with her being so fat. Even in her terror, Fiona could think that.

Someone was screaming. Fiona realised it was herself. She couldn't stop. She would never stop. They'd never get out of here, and what other horrors would
they have to face? No wonder she kept screaming.

After an age, the flapping of the wings moved into a distant cave, although the echoes remained for a long time.

‘They're gone,' Zesh said, his voice shaking.

Fiona risked a look. Zesh was lying by the teacher. She tried to sit up, but she was shaking so much she could only drag herself to a wall, lean against it.

‘You OK?' she asked Zesh. He nodded. ‘What about him?' She meant Mr Marks, but she couldn't bring herself to say his name. This
was
his fault. He always said he would get his own back on them – but she didn't think he would be rotten enough to die on them just to get his revenge.

‘He's cold, but he's sweating buckets,' Zesh said.

Axel and Liam stepped warily back into the cave.

‘Thanks so much for staying here and protecting us, Axel. As usual, look after number one.' Fiona glanced at Liam as if he was dirt. ‘Didn't expect anything else from you either.'

‘Good job we did go in there.' Liam pointed back at the cave. ‘Axel's found the way out.'

Zesh got to his feet. ‘Did you? The way out?'

‘It's a path, well used, leads down into a bigger cave.'

They all breathed easier. ‘The way out!' Fiona jumped up. ‘I wish I had a fag to celebrate.'