by C. M. Gray
The further down I went, the quieter it became. Soon there was no sound at all, except for a gurgling noise, like water running through a pipe.
When I reached the bottom of the steps, the tunnel became wider and little rooms branched off it on either side. I flashed the torch into them as I walked past. These rooms didn’t seem to lead anywhere, and some of them had collapsed, leaving piles of stone and rubble on the ground. Why had someone built all this?
Up ahead, the tunnel forked into two. I stopped, wondering which way to go. Both tunnels looked exactly the same, which made me realise how easy it would be to get lost down here. I shuddered. Perhaps I should go back and tell Sophie about it? Now that I’d found a secret passageway, she would have to believe me! We could come down here together to explore the rest.
I turned to go back. But before I could take a step, I heard a distant noise — a faint clatter, like something had fallen onto the floor. My ears strained. I could hear myself breathing fast. Was someone down here? Or something?
Another sound rang out: footsteps on rock.
Someone was walking down the stairs toward me.
13
It was Slender. It had to be. I glanced around wildly. I had to make a run for it, but which way?
I’d read somewhere that when you were lost in a maze you should keep to one direction, either the left or the right, and you would eventually get out. I didn’t really understand how that was supposed to work, but right then I didn’t have any other ideas.
I chose the left-hand tunnel and started running. It sounded like the footsteps were getting closer, although it was a bit hard to tell because I was breathing so hard. I came to another fork in the tunnel and again chose the left side. This tunnel was wider and, instead of little rooms, there were more tunnels branching off it. As I raced past their open, black mouths, cold air blew over me. I ditched my bag in an empty room and kept running.
But it didn’t seem to matter how fast I went — the person, the thing, was gaining on me. A stitch formed in my side. I could hardly breathe. Then, out of nowhere, I was running on air. My torch went flying. I landed on my hands and knees.
But that wasn’t the worst of it.
Before I could get up, there was a hideous screech and an enormous weight landed on my back, squashing me flat.
‘AAAGGHHHH!’ I heard someone scream and realised that it was me. Man! Did I really sound like that? ‘AAAAGGGGHHH!’ I guess so.
‘IT’S OOOOKKAAAAAYYYYYYY!’ screamed another voice. ‘It’s MEEEEEE!’
It took a few seconds for me to realise that I hadn’t been attacked by a Cannibal Corpse from The Zombie Returns. ‘Sophie?’
By now she had climbed off me and was dusting herself down. ‘Thanks for breaking my fall. Are you OK?’
‘I think so.’ I was still pretty shaken by the whole thing, but I didn’t seem to have any injuries other than the gravel rash on my palms and knees, which I had scraped pretty badly on the rocky ground. I clambered to my feet, found the torch, and shone it on the ground behind to see what had tripped us. It was a steep step.
I turned to Sophie. ‘What are you doing down here? How did you find me?’
‘When I realised you’d left History early, I guessed you had gone to Mr Slender’s room to check out the cupboard. I noticed your pencil wedged between the wall and the door, so I pushed it open and followed the sound of your footsteps.’
‘So you believe me now?’
‘Sure.’ Sophie found the Fuzzil, which had fallen off her shoulder, and as she stuck it back onto her collar she muttered, ‘Sorry.’
‘That’s OK,’ I said. Secretly, I was relieved to see her. ‘Anyway, I dunno if we should go any further. We don’t want to get lost.’
‘Let’s go back and check out the other tunnel,’ said Sophie, turning back the way we’d come. ‘The big one with the light.’
‘What one with the light?’ I asked. How did I miss that?
‘It’s just back here.’
For the first time, I noticed she held a small torch. ‘Did you bring that?’ I asked as I trotted along behind.
‘Nah. Found it in Slender’s cupboard,’ she explained. ‘I guess he uses it when he comes down here.’
As we walked, I realised that the ground was sloping slightly upward, which I hadn’t noticed while I’d been running. We were also a lot further into the tunnels than I’d thought.
After a few minutes Sophie stopped before the mouth of a tunnel that branched off to the right. I peered into the opening; it was bigger than any of the other tunnels I’d seen. A strange smell drifted from it and there was a sound too, although one I didn’t recognise. It was a high-pitched screeching sound, like fingernails running down a blackboard.
‘C’mon.’ Sophie began walking down the tunnel.
Nervously, I followed. Around the first bend, the tunnel widened even further. On either side, old wooden doors were placed at regular intervals, some shut, some slightly ajar. I opened one. Inside was a small room. It was empty except for a pile of bricks in one corner where part of the wall had collapsed.
‘Come on!’ hissed Sophie impatiently. I closed the door and we kept walking until we rounded another corner.
A pair of big metal doors stood in front of us. They were tightly closed, but on one door, about halfway up, was an enormous old latch with a key jutting out of it.
Above the doors was a sign.
‘What does Rattus mean?’ asked Sophie.
‘I’m not sure,’ I said, feeling pretty certain I didn’t want to find out. Then, before I could stop her, Sophie reached out and turned the key.
14
She pushed the doors open.
The sound and smell hit me at the same time. It was like we had walked into a sewer filled with howling ghosts. I tried not to be sick, although I couldn’t stop the hairs on the back of my neck from standing upright.
‘It’s OK,’ said Sophie. Her face was stark white. ‘They’re in cages.’
Even though every instinct in my body told me to run away, I edged forward.
Through the doorway was a big room. I shone my torch around; the walls were made of stone, just like the tunnels, and they were lined with cages stacked two or three high. Inside these were rats.
Now I haven’t seen that many rats in my time, but these were nothing like the friendly white rats that are sold in pet stores. These guys were huge and grey and covered with patchy fur. Their eyes were bright red and some of them had bits missing; a leg here, an ear there. As the beams from our torches swept over them, they snarled and turned away from the light.
We crept further into the room. I noticed that every cage had a plastic water dispenser attached to it. Most of the dispensers were full.
‘Who put these animals here?’ I asked.
‘And how did they do it?’ said Sophie. ‘I wouldn’t be game to try to catch rats like these.’
The rats sniffed the air as we walked past, and began flinging themselves at the bars of their cages. Some of them ripped at the metal with their teeth or tried to squeeze through the gaps.
‘They can smell us,’ I said, watching a rat that seemed desperate to get at us. We’d get eaten alive if they managed to get out of their cages!
‘I think they have rage issues,’ agreed Sophie. ‘Hey, look at this.’
She pointed the beam of her torch above the cages. Scrawled in chalk on the stone wall opposite us was the word ‘half’. On the wall nearest us was the word ‘full’. ‘The “full” ones look way scarier than the “half” ones.’
I gazed at the rats. She was right. The ‘half’ rats looked almost normal. I mean, they were still freaky and their eyes were still red, but they weren’t quite as big and ragged. And they didn’t look as vicious.
I shone my torch across to the far end of the room.
‘Look!’
In the middle of the back wall was another set of doors, like the ones we’d just walked through. Then I noticed the sign above th
em. I walked over to the doors and peered upward. I could just make out the words:
‘What does that mean?’ asked Sophie, her voice shaking.
I didn’t answer. Surely it couldn’t be worse than the rats, could it?
I turned the key this time. My hands were shaking so much I could hardly move my fingers. I slowly opened the doors.
The hairs on the back of my neck leapt straight up; inside the room, it sounded like a thousand zombies were screaming for brains! The smell was just as bad as the rat room, but this time the cages were bigger — and so were the animals in them.
‘Dogs,’ breathed Sophie.
They were snarling and growling and pacing around their cages. Like the rats, their eyes glowed bright red. We edged inside.
‘They’re bulldogs,’ she said. ‘My next-door neighbour used to have one.’
‘Do they like bulls?’ I asked.
Sophie smiled nervously. ‘No. They were used to hunt them. The dogs would track them by following their scent.’
I shuddered.
There were at least twenty dogs in cages. Instead of being stacked, the cages stood alongside each other on the floor. Their doors were attached to black chains that stretched up and disappeared toward the ceiling. That must be how the dogs are put into the cages, I thought. Or let out of them.
Just the thought of the dogs being let out made me want to pee myself.
‘They’re not that bad,’ said Sophie, looking into a big cage that contained three dogs. ‘I think they’re kind of cute.’
‘Yeah. If you like animals that want to tear you apart for fun!’
She ignored me. ‘Look! That one wants to play with his ball.’
I stared. ‘That’s not a ball.’
‘Ewwww!’ said Sophie, backing away.
We wandered around the room, staring at the animals. Why would someone want to keep all these dogs? And what was wrong with them?
‘How do you think they got like this?’ I said.
‘I don’t know . . .’ Sophie began, as she went over to the far corner of the room. Then she stopped. ‘Hang on, I think I’ve just found the answer.’
I walked over to where she stood in front of an old table. On it was a bottle.
She lifted it up. Brownish liquid swirled around inside it.
‘There’s a tag,’ she said, peering at a bit of paper tied to the neck of the bottle. She read aloud: ‘“Formula 1037 — USE WITH CAUTION! EFFECT IS IMMEDIATE AND PERMANENT!”’
‘Is it some sort of medicine?’ I asked.
‘I don’t think so,’ said Sophie. She put the bottle back down carefully. ‘I think they’ve all been given this. I think it’s what turned them into . . . something else.’
‘What are they?’ I said, staring at the creatures that had once been dogs.
‘I’m not sure exactly,’ said Sophie in a shaking voice. ‘But I think we should get out of here before whoever did this to them comes back.’
15
I didn’t need any convincing. I turned toward the big metal doors where we’d entered the chamber. Then stopped.
‘I can’t remember closing the doors,’ I said. Even to my own ears, my voice sounded small and scared.
‘Me neither,’ said Sophie. She grabbed one of the wooden door handles. ‘It’s locked!’
‘Get out of the way,’ I said. I was really starting to freak out. I closed my fingers tightly around the door handle and pulled as hard as I could. Nothing happened. I put one foot up on the other door for extra leverage. I tried pushing instead of pulling. Still the door didn’t budge. ‘Holy cow!’ I said finally. ‘It’s locked.’
‘That’s what I said.’ Sophie sounded annoyed, but I knew she was freaking out too. ‘We’re locked in a secret chamber deep underground. Nobody knows where we are. Nobody will ever find us.’
‘It’s not that bad,’ I said, trying to sound brave. ‘Whoever has been looking after the dogs will have to come back to feed them. They’ll find us then.’
Sophie looked at me with her mouth hanging open. ‘Great! We’ll be found by a madman who turns animals into monsters! That’s exactly the sort of person I’d like to avoid!’
‘Hey, I’m just trying to make you feel better!’ Girls! No matter what you did for them, they were never grateful! ‘Anyway, there must be another way out of here.’
It didn’t take us long to find it. Another pair of metal doors, even bigger and stronger-looking than the ones we’d just walked through, stood at the other end of the room. There were at least a dozen big bolts around the latch, which again had an old key sticking out of it.
‘What does it say?’ I asked, pointing my torch above the doors.
We squinted upward through the darkness. Visible faintly in the dim light was another sign.
‘That sounds familiar,’ Sophie said uncertainly. ‘I’m not sure if we should go in there.’
‘We don’t have much choice,’ I told her.
It took us ages to draw back all the bolts and, the whole time, my heart was thumping. Finally, it was time to turn the enormous key.
I looked at Sophie. She gave a little nod. Whatever was inside the room, we would meet it together.
Side by side, we turned the key and pushed the doors open.
Before us lay a huge chamber. Flaming torches were dotted around the walls and a stone platform stood at the far end. Along the walls were more cages, bigger than the ones used for the dogs. Luckily, they were empty.
‘What is this place?’ whispered Sophie.
I walked closer to the cages. There were a dozen altogether, each standing taller than a man. A chain was attached to the bars at the back of each cage. These chains were connected to sets of shackles.
At first, I thought all the cages were identical, but then I noticed one that was different. This one stood a little apart from the others. Above its door was a sign.
As I read the words, my knees went weak.
The sign above the cage had my name on it. That could only mean one thing.
‘It’s meant for me.’ My voice sounded like it was coming from some other place.
Sophie made a choking sound. ‘Why would anyone want to put you in a cage?’
Suddenly, there was flash of movement in front of us. A figure strode onto the stone platform.
‘Welcome! I’ve been expecting you.’
I could feel my face turning white with shock.
‘You!’ gasped Sophie.
16
It was Mr Crumpet. As usual, Corvus sat on his shoulder, but for the first time the bird wasn’t wearing his usual hood.
‘Welcome to my little experiment! Don’t look so surprised — surely you must have figured it out by now.’
‘What . . .? Why . . .?’ I stuttered.
‘Dear oh dear! We are slow off the mark.’ Crumpet strutted up and down like a performer on a stage. ‘Don’t tell me you still haven’t got a clue what’s going on. Good grief! And to think that, at one point, I thought you might be on to me.’
‘You? How can it be you?’ Sophie said. She looked as stunned as I felt.
‘Who else could it be?’ snapped Mr Crumpet, glaring at her. ‘Nobody else around here could pull it off. Nobody! Do you know how difficult it was? How many rats I went through before I stumbled across the key ingredient that made everything work together? But the chemistry is perfect now! It reads like a masterpiece. And you,’ he said as he pointed at me, ‘you are the lucky one.’
‘Me . . .?’ I stammered.
‘Oh, I know you don’t deserve it — I mean you’re nothing special, are you? You’re small for your age and not very smart, as it turns out. You’re really not much good at anything at all. But that’s exactly why you’ve been chosen! I wanted someone who could disappear easily. Someone who wouldn’t be missed.’ He waved his hand dismissively. ‘Sure, your parents will be a bit upset at first. But after a year or two, you’ll fade from everyone’s minds. People will think you were just a runaway.’
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‘You chose me? For what?’ My knees felt like they were going to collapse under me.
‘To join the ranks of the immortal,’ said Mr Crumpet, staring at me with his pale blue eyes. ‘To become more than human!’
‘To become a zombie, that’s what you mean!’ shouted Sophie. ‘If you want to experiment, do it on yourself and leave him alone!’
Mr Crumpet turned his icy stare on her. ‘Oh, but it’s not just him, young lady. You have an important part to play too. A very important part. In fact, some might say it will be you making . . . What do they call it? Oh yes, the ultimate sacrifice! You will make the ultimate sacrifice for the good of science.’
Sophie opened her mouth, but no sound came out.
‘Don’t look so upset!’ cried Mr Crumpet. ‘This is a great day for science and it’s a great day for you. Oh, how I worried that it wouldn’t happen at all!’
‘You won’t get away with this,’ I said, hoping I sounded braver than I felt. Could this really be happening? Maybe I’d played one zombie game too many and was stuck in some weird zombie dream!
‘I won’t?’ Crumpet raised his eyebrows at me. ‘Does anyone know you are here?’
‘Yes!’ I lied, my heart sinking. Why hadn’t I told anyone else about the secret door?
‘I doubt that,’ said Mr Crumpet with another of his thin, sharp smiles. ‘I doubt that very much.’
‘It’s true! Mr Slender knows we’re down here.’ I was pretty sure Mr Slender had no idea where we were, but I was prepared to try anything.
‘Slender?’ snapped Mr Crumpet. ‘Yes, he’s been a bit of a complication. He’s been poking around ever since I set up that little trap under the stairs. You don’t know how disappointed I was that it didn’t work!’
‘What trap?’ I said.
