by Jack Heath
The driver wrestles for control of the brake. You cling desperately to it. If the train stays here, everyone will die.
The woman in the beret hasn’t fled like her men. She’s taking two more items out of the equipment case: a gas mask, which she pulls over her face, and a massive gun-shaped object.
She aims at the departing train.
‘Get down!’ you scream.
BZOWR! A bolt of lightning punches through the train, in one window and out another. It doesn’t break the glass or hit anybody, but all the lights in the carriage go out. The control monitor flickers and dies. The conductor finally manages to grab the brake lever, but when he pulls it, nothing happens.
All the passengers drop to the floor. The woman on the platform fires the electric gun again. BZOWR! Another energy beam blasts through the carriage, setting one of the seats on fire. Everyone is screaming, including you.
But the train is gaining speed. Already the platform on top of the mountain is shrinking into the distance. Soon the woman and her lethal weapon are just specks, shrouded in green smoke.
‘I can’t stop the train!’ the conductor shouts. He pushes a button and yanks a lever. ‘The system won’t reboot!’
Pigeon is right behind you. ‘What happens when we hit the bottom?’ she asks.
‘At this speed? I have no idea, but it won’t be good!’
You run out of the conductor’s compartment and into the main carriage. The floor shudders as the train hurtles faster and faster down Mount Grave.
‘Everyone strap yourselves in!’ you yell.
As the passengers scramble to their seats, you notice something out the window—a curved mirror bolted to the side of the carriage, designed to show the tracks behind the train. The train is racing backwards down the slope, so this mirror is the only way to see what’s up ahead.
You can see a Hummer—an oversized four-wheel drive—chugging up the tracks, a cloud of exhaust pooling behind it.
As you watch, two men leap out of the Hummer. One is a huge man in a suit, the other is an old guy in a golf cap. They scramble away from the car, leaving it idling on the tracks.
There’s no way to stop the train. All you can do is jump into your seat next to Pigeon and fasten your seatbelt.
Smash! The train hits the Hummer like a sledgehammer. You jerk backwards in your seat. In the mirror, you can see the Hummer sliding down the rails, stuck to the back of the train.
And you can see what’s ahead: the platform at the bottom of the mountain, complete with great big wooden buffers. Those are supposed to stop an out-of-control train; but you doubt the engineers had this particular scenario in mind.
Pigeon has seen it too. ‘Hold on tight!’ she yells.
BOOM!
The impact pushes you down into your chair. The Hummer absorbs a lot of the force—it gets crushed between the train and the buffers like a soda can under a hobnail boot. The buffers crumple. All the windows of the train carriage smash. The walls bend in zigzag patterns, like an accordion.
Finally everything stops moving. The echoes of the crash die away. You look around at all the other passengers in stunned silence. Everyone seems to be OK.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ Pigeon says finally. ‘How about for our next holiday we just go to surf camp?’
You survived! There are ten other ways to escape the danger—try to find them all!
‘I don’t get it,’ Pigeon whispers. ‘How can they expect to get away with this?’
‘Seems like a dumb way to keep a secret,’ you agree. ‘They must know we’ll tell everyone as soon as we get back.’
The doors start to slide shut. Through the window you watch as one of the camouflage men approaches the train. Just as the doors are about to close he tosses something through the gap into the carriage.
It’s a small matte-grey canister, spilling clouds of green smoke.
Tear gas!
Someone screams. You and Pigeon scramble out of your seats and down the aisle towards the other end of the carriage, desperate to outrun the toxic mist. The other passengers around you are doing the same.
But you’re suddenly so tired. Your limbs seem to weigh hundreds of kilograms. You can barely keep your eyes open.
‘Not tear gas,’ you say. ‘Sleep gas. Forget … gas …’
You were going to say more, but now you can’t remember what you were talking about. You’re not sure who you were running from, or even where you are.
‘Pigeon,’ you hear yourself say, but you’re not sure why. Is there a pigeon in the train carriage?
How did you get here, anyway?
The floor swings up to meet you.
Go here.
You slip into the gloom just before the door clangs shut. As your eyes adjust, you see the balaclava man walking away up a corridor with smooth concrete walls and fat power cables snaking along the ceiling.
You’re inside. But inside what?
‘Sedrick!’ A woman’s voice. ‘Where have you been?’
You quickly duck out of sight around a corner, heart pounding. Hopefully the woman didn’t see you.
‘Outside,’ the balaclava man says. ‘A train full of people came up the mountain—I wanted to make sure they weren’t here to interfere.’
‘And were they?’
‘No. Just sightseers.’
‘I hope they didn’t sightsee anything they weren’t supposed to,’ the woman says darkly.
‘I don’t think so. We’re good.’
Their footsteps are coming closer. If they walk past this side-corridor, there’s no way they won’t see you.
‘I thought we arranged for that train to be cancelled,’ the woman is saying.
‘Me too. Someone messed up, big time.’
You look around. A nearby door is slightly ajar. You could go through, but you might find yourself trapped.
Maybe you should go up the stairs at the end of the corridor instead—but they’re made of rickety metal. The man and the woman might hear you.
‘Should we postpone the second test?’ Sedrick is asking.
‘Are you kidding?’ the woman says. ‘The machine is already warming up. Shutting it down now would cost tens of thousands of dollars. Besides, we have to find out right away if it’s possible to send the item back. We press on.’
If you slip through the door, go here.
If you go up the stairs instead, go here.
The door falls shut before you have time to reconsider.
You flatten yourself against the wall and contemplate your next move.
Looking back at the fence, you can’t see a way out. The automatic gate seems to be locked now. The razor wire would shred your hands if you tried to climb over, the snow would freeze them off if you tried to tunnel under. Plus there’s probably concrete underneath.
But presumably other people will be coming and going. You just need to follow them out—and stay hidden between now and then.
You look back at the door the balaclava man went through. You can’t stay here. If someone comes out, they’ll see you—
And then you spot the security camera. Perched above the door like a curious crow, its black lens pointed right at you.
You turn to run—
But it’s too late.
A klaxon blares through the compound. It sounds like an air-raid siren. You half expect a nuclear weapon to drop out of the sky.
Boots thud in one direction. Dogs bark in another. You can’t see anyone yet, but in seconds you’ll be surrounded.
You sprint towards the fence. It’ll cut up your fingers, but that might be better than being caught.
As you run, you take off your jacket and bundle it around one of your hands. It’s the best you can do.
You’re almost at the fence when one of the dogs explodes into view—a Rottweiler, galloping towards you on long legs. Its mouth is crowded with slobbery fangs.
You dive for the fence, but you’re too slow. You’ve barely grabbed the chain-link when the
dog bites your trouser leg and pulls you back down off the fence.
Hitting the snow knocks the air out of your lungs. The dog pins you down with one massive paw and growls in your ear.
‘Sergei! Down.’
The dog releases you and, grinning like a puppy, trots over to an approaching soldier. The man is dressed head-to-toe in white camouflage fatigues. Mirrored glasses conceal his eyes.
He scratches the dog behind the ears. ‘What are you doing here?’ he asks you.
‘I was on the train,’ you stammer. ‘I saw someone walking around near the platform, and I went to get a better look, and then I got trapped inside the fence.’
‘Uh-huh.’ He doesn’t sound like he believes you.
‘Please. I just want to go home.’
He helps you to your feet. ‘And you can,’ he says. ‘But not right away.’
‘What do you mean?’
He leads you over to the white building and presses the numbers on the keypad to unlock the door. ‘Well,’ he says, ‘I don’t know how much you’ve seen.’
‘Nothing,’ you say quickly.
He pushes you through the door into a concrete corridor. ‘So we can’t let you go,’ he says, ‘until we’ve finished our activities here. At that point, it won’t matter what you saw or didn’t see.’
‘But I didn’t see anything!’
He nods understandingly and opens another door. ‘Through here, please.’
In the room beyond there is a mattress and a stainless steel toilet. By the time you realise the soldier has led you into a prison cell, he’s already closing the door behind you.
‘See you in two years,’ he says.
‘Two years?!’
The lock clanks shut.
THE END.
For another try, go here.
You dive through the gap and close the door behind you, muffling the two voices. The room is small and circular, with plastic laminated walls. A spider’s web of power cables dangles from the ceiling.
There’s no way out. You just closed the only door.
In the centre of the room is a raised platform with a single shoe on it. It’s old-fashioned but unworn, with thin black laces and crisp, shiny leather sides.
It’s such an odd thing to find in this strange round room that you can’t help but stare. You pick up the shoe and turn it over, as though something is going to be written on the hard rubber sole. But there’s nothing—not even a price sticker.
Something hums above you. Looking up, you see that the power cables are starting to light up at the joins. It’s like staring up at a sky full of stars—
Really hot stars. You’re suddenly sweating.
Whatever is about to happen, it’s bad. Maybe you’d be better off getting caught.
You’re about to scream for help when all the stars rush inwards and there’s a mighty ZAP—
Turn here.
You race up the staircase, your feet near the edge of each step so they don’t clang too loudly. Sedrick and the woman keep chatting in the corridor behind you. It doesn’t sound like they’ve heard you.
But you’re trapped. At the top of the stairs is a wall, featureless except for a small maintenance hatch, bolted closed.
The stairs rattle. Someone is coming up after you.
You crouch down beside the hatch and yank on the bolt. It’s not locked. Once it’s out of the way, you pull the hatch open and wriggle into the crawl-space behind it.
The tunnel is pitch-black and rubbery, lined with dozens of power cables. There’s no room to reach back and close the hatch behind you. All you can do is crawl forwards into the darkness and hope whoever is coming up the stairs doesn’t see your feet.
‘Hey!’ Sedrick calls.
You freeze.
‘Did you leave the access hatch open?’
‘I don’t think so,’ the woman calls back.
Sedrick grunts and slams the door closed. You hear him sliding the bolt into position, sealing you in.
Don’t panic, you tell yourself.
Maybe there’s a way out at the other end.
You crawl deeper into the tunnel, trying not to sneeze as concrete dust tickles your nostrils. The power cables remind you of eels. And is it your imagination, or are they humming?
It’s definitely hot in here. Your collar is sticking to your neck.
More voices, from somewhere below.
‘How long until transmission?’ someone is saying.
‘Six seconds,’ someone else says. ‘Five. Four—’
The hum is getting louder now. It’s like a beehive just behind your head. Your hair stands on end, charged. Something is burning the back of your neck. You go to brush it away and sparks shower down around you. Whatever they’re testing down below, it requires a huge amount of power—and you’re stuck in the middle of the circuit!
‘Two,’ the voice says. ‘One.’
BZZZZZT. The whole world vanishes like a TV switching off.
THE END.
For another try, go here.
‘Argh!’ You cover your face with your arms, but the heat is suddenly gone. So is the humming. You can’t hear anything but jingling, like sleigh bells. The air smells different too—a farmy odour. Like reindeer poo.
‘Santa?’ you say stupidly.
But when you uncover your face, it’s not Santa. It’s a man in a brown coat, a cream shirt and a bowler hat. He’s just walked in through a glass door with a wooden frame, nudging the little bells dangling above it. He looks at you as though you’re mad.
You’re in a shop. You turn around slowly. A shoe shop. Racks and racks of shoes surround you, all leather, even the children’s sizes. They range in colour from black to brown. The floor is varnished wood. Sawdust fills the cracks.
‘Is it your intention to buy that?’ a voice says.
You turn around. The shopkeeper—a moustachioed man in a grey apron—is glaring at you.
‘Because I don’t think it will fit you,’ he continues.
You look down and realise you’re still holding the shoe from the round room. You drop it. It clatters against the floor.
‘You’d best be off,’ the shopkeeper says sternly.
You push past the man in the bowler hat, who still hasn’t said a word. The door bells jingle as you pull the door and step out into the open air.
It’s not a proper street. There are no streetlights, no telephone poles and no asphalt—just tightly packed dirt. You watch in amazement as four horses trot past, snuffling and snorting. That explains the reindeer-poo smell. Behind them, a driver with a whip is perched atop a stagecoach. Through the coach window you can see a woman in a dress with puffy sleeves, her veil half concealed by an enormous hat.
You’re getting dizzy. You sit down on the dirt as the awful truth dawns. You’ve survived the train, the mountain and the balaclava men …
… but now you’re stuck in the past.
THE END.
Go here to try again.
You race forwards, your blood thick with adrenaline, and throw yourself through the gap …
The top half of you makes it.
THE END.
For another try, go here.
You can’t see much. The valleys far, far below are concealed by a blanket of clouds that look almost solid. It feels like you could jump off a cliff and land safely on the cotton-ball waves.
You dig out your compass. You had heard from someone that the needle would spin around and around because of the altitude, but it doesn’t.
Suddenly you realise someone is standing on the mountain. A man dressed entirely in white, from his boots to his balaclava.
Camouflage. It looks like he’s staring at you—but you can’t be sure, because the train sweeps into the station, cutting off your view.
The train stops so suddenly you jolt forwards in your seat.
‘I’m going into the station to use the radio,’ the conductor says. ‘I’ll need everyone to disembark. I recommend taking a look from the
observation platform—if the wind picks up and clouds move on, the view will be spectacular.’
‘If the wind picks up we’ll all freeze,’ Pigeon grumbles. But she obediently shuffles off the train along with everyone else.
The platform is even shabbier than the one at the bottom of the mountain. Scrunched up balls of paper hop along the concrete like tumbleweeds. There’s a vending machine with no power, and a map covered in too much graffiti to read.
This is supposed to be the maiden voyage of this train, but the platform looks like it has been here a long time. So who built it, and why?
The conductor gets out of the train and trots over to an unmarked door on the far side of the platform. He unlocks it and disappears inside.
Pigeon is saying something, but you’re not listening. You can see the man in the balaclava again, trudging through the snow towards the platform. He’s much closer than he was before.
A gust of wind comes up and the man disappears in a cloud of snowflakes and mist.
‘Huh?’ you say.
‘I said, let’s go this way,’ Pigeon says, pointing to the conductor’s office. ‘Out of the wind.’
You look back at the slope, but you can’t see the man anymore.
If you follow Pigeon into the shelter behind the office, go here.
If you go to investigate the man in the balaclava, go here.
You try to make your case, but the conductor waves you off.
‘That’s a decision for me,’ he says, ‘not you. Now you kids get back. I wasn’t kidding about that fire.’
You and Pigeon trudge back over the stones and snow to where the other passengers are huddled like penguins.
‘Hey,’ Pigeon says. ‘Look.’
You follow her gaze to a dark spot in the sky. ‘Is that a helicopter?’
‘It sure sounds like one.’
Now that she mentions it, you can hear the swirling blades—a distant whopping sound.
