Humpty's bones

And that brings us to now — this very moment when Pitt wanted to prove to us that he was no coward. One second he stood in the open doorway then he vanished inside.

‘His funeral,’ Adam grunted.

‘We can’t just leave him,’ Jenny protested. ‘What happens if he gets hurt?’

I agreed. ‘If he calls for help nobody will hear. It’s a mile to the nearest house.’

Adam gazed at the sign — DANGER OF DEATH — like it would grow claws and rip off his head. ‘They put that up for a reason. My uncle used to deliver propane here twenty years ago. He said they had nuclear weapons in underground tunnels.’

Jenny pointed at the bunker. ‘Kids have covered the walls with graffiti. The army wouldn’t have allowed that if it had still been in use.’

‘Oh no. I know what you’re going to do,’ Adam was horror-struck. ‘You’re going in there, aren’t you?’

This stopped me dead because I’d planned to wait here by the fence until Pitt returned. And surely he’ll come back soon. There’s nothing in the bunker that could hurt him, was there? Even so, that yawning doorway looked so darkly forbidding. Even the concrete bunker reminded me of a big dinosaur skull. From that grim building came a yell. Or was it a cry of pain?

‘Jenny,’ Adam caught hold of her arm. ‘Wouldn’t it be best to wait here?’

‘Didn’t you hear it? That shout came from Pitt. We’ve got to see if he’s alright.’ She gave us a hard stare. ‘Well, I’m going in if you’re not.’

I groaned. I’d no choice. I couldn’t let her go in there alone. Quickly, I followed her to the bunker. That huge metal door, fully six inches thick, made me have worrying thoughts about the entrance to ancient tombs. A darkly forbidden place.

Jenny regarded it with awe. ‘This door’s huge.’

‘It’s bomb proof!’

‘How could anyone have broken in here?’

Adam checked the entrance more closely. ‘See these gouge marks on the inside of the door? The way it’s scratched all over?’ He gulped. ‘Nobody’s broken in here. They’ve broken out.’

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.