She stumbled off into the bush again, and this time I let her go.
Chapter 24
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 3
71 DAYS
When we got to school the next day, Cat showed no sign of ever having run into us.
Maybe she convinced herself that she’d imagined the whole thing. It would’ve been a perfectly understandable reaction. But somehow I didn’t think that’s what was going on.
She’d caught us out, up to our necks in apocalypse. And I had a feeling we’d be paying for that before long.
The rain had eased up overnight, but it was back with a vengeance by the morning.
Mr Larson took pity on us at lunch, and let everyone hang out in his room instead of freezing to death in the playground. Jordan, Luke and I sat up the back and made what little plans we could for that night.
We decided Pryor’s office was the safest way in, once Reeve took care of the cameras. At least we could be pretty sure there’d be no-one around. We’d meet at the back gate at 11.45 p.m., sneak inside, and then …
Well, the rest was pretty much up for grabs.
To no-one’s surprise, the perfect storm didn’t keep Pryor from sending us out with our clipboards. I doubted I’d have much trouble convincing Staples to let us off early again, but Jordan and Luke didn’t want to take any risks today.
When 4.30 p.m. finally arrived, we went our separate ways.
After following Luke halfway across town to make sure his and Jordan’s separate ways really were separate, I went home to my room, searching for some way to pass the next seven hours.
For a while, I tried reading to take my mind off things. It always used to help me. But that was back when the things I was taking my mind off didn’t liquefy people’s insides.
I gave up and turned to video games. Then email. Then ice-cream. Then video games again.
Eventually I gave up altogether and lay on my bed, staring up at the ceiling.
It wasn’t the first time I’d faced death since all of this started. But it was the first time I’d actually known going in that that’s what I was doing.
If we got caught up there tonight, that would be the end of it. There’d be no weaselling out of trouble. No escaping. No playing dumb or pleading innocence. You don’t accidentally wander into a place like that.
I skipped dinner.
At about 8 p.m. Dad knocked on the door.
‘You all right, Pete?’ he said, walking in and seeing me lying on the bed. He was better on his feet now, but still not great.
‘Yeah,’ I said, sitting up. Fear and suspicion and pity all combining into one dull lurch in the pit of my stomach. ‘Just tired. Think I might be getting a cold or something.’
‘That’s no good,’ Dad frowned. ‘Anyway mate, I’m off to a meeting in town. Could be a late one. Take it easy tonight, all right?
‘Uh-huh. See you.’
He was out of the house before I realised the full weight of what he’d just said.
Dad had a meeting tonight.
Calvin was out tonight too, overseeing a ‘special project’.
Whatever was going on with this cage thing of Crazy Bill’s, it was happening tonight.
I rolled over on the bed and buried my face in the pillow. As if I needed that to worry about on top of everything else.
I got up, walked around the room for a bit, went out and said goodnight to Mum, came back in, changed into some dark-coloured clothes, and got into bed.
I lay there in the dark, eyes open, waiting.
A hundred years later, it was time to go.
I got up, walked halfway out the door, then doubled back.
Crouching on the floor, I reached under my bed for where I’d taped Pryor’s phone. I ripped it down and stuck the phone into my sock.
Just in case.
I crept down the stairs and out of the house, keeping watch for Mum coming out of the bedroom, or Dad coming in from his meeting.
It was still raining outside. Not as heavy as before, but enough to soak through my clothes.
I took the path along the back streets into school, staying well clear of the Shackleton Building. It was slow going. Even in the middle of the night, there were a dozen security officers patrolling the streets – and no cover anywhere, except the shadows and the tiny picket fences.
When I finally got to school, I thought I was the first one there. But then I saw movement a few metres away. Jordan was sheltering under the awning of the maths block.
‘Hey,’ I whispered, jumping the gate and walking across to join her.
‘You ready?’ she asked.
I pulled the hood up over my head. ‘I don’t really know how to answer that question.’
Jordan smiled.
‘Are you?’ I asked.
‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘I mean, too late to turn back now, right?’
Actually, now was feeling like the perfect time to turn back. But I figured that probably wasn’t the response she was after.
I moved in closer to her, as though I was trying to get further under the shadow of the building.
‘Luke said you’re still getting those headaches,’ I said.
A flicker of frustration crossed Jordan’s face. She looked at me for a minute, considering. ‘Not just headaches,’ she said. ‘They’re – I think they’re part of … something else.’
‘What d’you mean, something else? ’ I said.
Jordan sighed, like I’d said something wrong. ‘This why I didn’t –’ She leant back against the wall. ‘You’ll think I’m going nuts.’
‘Try me,’ I said.
‘I think I’m going nuts. Or, I would if this whole thing wasn’t already so out there.’
A clang of metal made us both jump.
I looked up and saw Luke clambering in over the fence.
Nice timing, idiot.
‘That was close,’ he said. ‘I was halfway down the stairs when Mum came out to go to the toilet.’
‘She see you?’ Jordan asked.
‘Nah, she was still half-asleep,’ said Luke. ‘Good thing, too. Imagine if she’d caught me sneaking around the house like this.’
He was dressed all in black with a beanie on his head. He looked like a cat burglar from an old movie.
Luke checked the time on his phone. ‘Five to,’ he said. ‘Should we head over?’
‘Not yet,’ said Jordan. ‘There’ll be guards all over the main street. No point getting any closer to them until we have to.’
We waited in the shadows until midnight, then for an extra five minutes on top of that, just to make sure we’d given Reeve enough time to do his thing. Then we left our hiding place and crept to the front of the school.
There were still a few lights on in the quad, shining gleaming circles down onto the wet asphalt. We splashed across to the front office and peered in through the glass door.
‘Now what?’ I asked.
But Jordan was already reaching into her pocket. She took out a sharp, pointed rock as big as her palm and crouched down at the door.
Luke grabbed her arm. ‘Jordan, they’ll hear you!’
‘Not if I do it quietly,’ said Jordan, pulling away from him. She started tapping the rock gently against the wide glass panel at the bottom of the door.
Luke got up and started scanning the quad for any sign of movement. ‘They’re going to know it was us,’ he said nervously.
‘No they won’t,’ I said. ‘It’s not like a window getting broken in a school is anything –’
SMASH!
I whirled around. ‘What happened to quietly? ’
‘It was taking too long,’ said Jordan, clearing the spikes of glass away from the edges of the frame.
That was one explanation. Really, I think Jordan just likes to smash stuff.
‘C’mon,’ she said, crawling in through the hole in the door.
Luke followed right behind her. As soon as he was inside, he ducked across to the other side of the room and peered out
at the main street.
‘Doesn’t look like anyone noticed,’ he whispered as I crawled inside and stood up.
‘See?’ said Jordan, brushing the broken glass off her knees. ‘Nothing to worry about.’
We headed down the hall to Pryor’s office. I shivered. This place was bad enough during the day. At night, it was a whole new kind of creepy.
‘Uh-oh,’ said Luke, stopping at Pryor’s door. A little red light was flashing up from the key card scanner. ‘Does that mean the security’s still on?’
‘No, Reeve would’ve left the doors switched on deliberately,’ said Jordan. ‘Otherwise they’d be stuck bolted shut, right?’
I cringed. ‘If you say so.’
She swiped Montag’s key card and the door clunked open.
My eyes shot straight to the ceiling. No blinking lights. Reeve had got the cameras off.
‘You bloody legend,’ I whispered, heading inside.
‘All right,’ said Jordan, pushing the door shut and switching on the lights. ‘Let’s get down there.’
‘Uh-huh,’ I said. ‘Any idea how we actually do that?’
She bent down and started rolling back the rug on Pryor’s floor. ‘The entrance has got to be down here somewhere, right?’
‘Here,’ said Luke. He bent down and started tracing his finger along a tiny groove in the floor, between two lines of grey tiles. The groove ran around in a perfect, metre-wide square.
‘Trapdoor under the rug,’ I muttered. ‘Unbelievable.’
Luke pressed his hands on the middle of the square and pushed. Nothing.
‘Can’t be pressure-activated,’ I said. ‘If it was, it’d be popping open every time someone walked across the room. Maybe there’s –’
‘Jordan!’ said Luke, jumping up. ‘You all right?’
Jordan was leaning against Pryor’s desk with both hands, stooped over like she was about to pass out. Like back in the Shackleton Building.
I stumbled over to give her a hand. She shrugged me off, refusing help as usual, and stood up, squinting.
Definitely not just headaches.
‘Yeah … I was only …’ she said vaguely, turning to gaze at the enormous old tapestry of the Garden of Eden that hung at the back of the room. I looked at it too, wondering where on earth Pryor thought she fit into that story.
But then Jordan cut across in front of me, walking around behind Pryor’s chair to the right-hand side of the tapestry. She grabbed hold of the bottom corner and pulled it up.
There was a power outlet set into the wall, behind the tapestry. Nothing plugged into it. Jordan reached down and flicked the two white switches.
A hiss of compressed air blasted out from the floor behind us.
The panel of tiles on Pryor’s floor was sinking into the ground.
‘No way,’ I said, as Jordan brushed past to look down into the tunnel. ‘How did you know?’
‘I didn’t,’ said Jordan slowly. ‘I just … saw it.’
The chunk of Pryor’s floor slid away into a gap the side of the tunnel, revealing a set of shining silver stairs.
‘Well,’ said Jordan, taking the first step down. ‘Guess this is it.’
In a couple of seconds, she’d disappeared into the tunnel.
I took one last look around the room and followed after her.
Chapter 25
THURSDAY, JUNE 4
70 DAYS
The staircase took us down to a tiny, empty room, about half the size of the office above it.
The walls, floor and ceiling were all panelled with the same gleaming metal as the stairs. Harsh, bright lights glared down from the roof. A doorway at the other end led into a long, narrow tunnel.
I looked up, visualising the town above my head. The tunnel pointed straight at the Shackleton Building.
We started walking, and I suddenly felt completely exposed.
There was nowhere to hide.
Nothing but tunnel and blinding spotlights.
If anyone else was down here, we were dead.
I looked sideways at Jordan, wanting to ask how the crap she’d known that flicking a couple of power switches would get us into this place. But we were already making too much noise. The narrow tunnel amplified the sound of our footsteps a hundred times.
Every ten metres or so, a security camera pointed down from the ceiling. Even though I knew they were switched off, I still felt like I was being watched. I imagined Pryor making this journey every day, sneaking out right under our feet.
We were getting close to the end of the tunnel now, probably walking underneath the school hall.
There was a door at the end. It slid open as we approached, but not like an ordinary automatic door. This thing was about a foot thick. It clattered into the wall, groaning under its own weight.
‘Whoa,’ I breathed.
The room on the other side was way bigger than the one under Pryor’s office. It was perfectly circular, with more doors spaced around the walls – the entrances to the other tunnels.
But it was what was in the room that really got my attention. It was like stepping into the world’s swankiest bomb shelter.
A row of nine neatly made single beds lined the stretch of wall to our right. One each for Shackleton and his mates. Off to the left, there was a little kitchen area set into the wall, and two frosted-glass doors leading off to what I assumed were bathrooms. Rows of shelves jutted out from the wall on the far side of the room, piled high with boxes and cans of food.
The door clanked shut behind us, resealing itself with a dull thud. The noise reminded me of something, but I couldn’t think what.
‘What do you reckon it’s all for?’ Luke wondered, walking out across the silver floor.
‘Maybe somewhere for them to hide out,’ said Jordan. ‘You know, in case everything doesn’t go according to plan.’
‘Or in case everything does go according to plan,’ I said.
I stood in the middle of the room, looking around for the lift that would take us up to the top of the Shackleton Building.
‘Hey, check this out,’ said Jordan.
Behind us, on either side of the door we’d arrived through, there were about thirty flat-screen TVs mounted to the wall in a giant grid. The screens were all blank, and I couldn’t see any obvious way of turning them on.
‘Part of the security system?’ Jordan suggested, peering up at them.
‘Probably,’ I said. ‘Either that or Shackleton just really likes PlayStation.’
‘We should keep going,’ said Luke. He was pointing to a door on the far side of the room, which I now realised was different to all the others.
The lift.
‘Definitely,’ I said. ‘This place is starting to –’
A deafening, sub-human roar echoed through the room.
It was coming from somewhere outside. Somewhere close.
‘Is that …?’ Luke began.
‘Yeah,’ said Jordan. ‘What should we –?’
‘Hide!’ I said.
‘But he might be able to show us where to –’
Another animal growl rang out, cutting Jordan short. Then more noises that might’ve been gunshots.
‘Does it sound like he’s in a talking mood?’ I shouted. ‘Hide!’
I sprinted across the room. The others followed.
Behind us, a door began clanking open.
I dived under one of the beds, rolling over just in time to see a crazed, scar-faced man come lumbering in through the half-open door.
Crazy Bill.
They’d cleaned him up since the last time we’d seen him, shaved off his hair and beard, and put him in a white hospital gown. But there was no mistaking those disfiguring burns, those rotting teeth, those wild, bloodshot eyes.
Bill limped across the room, tracking bloody footprints across the metal floor. He’d been shot.
Jordan sent me a pained look from the next bed over. I shook my head at her. We couldn’t make this our fight.
Crazy Bill stumbled into the aisle between two shelves of food.
A second later, three security guards came sprinting in, guns drawn. It didn’t take them long to find the trail of blood Crazy Bill had left on the ground.
And then –
‘Don’t shoot!’
Dr Montag burst into the room, carrying a giant syringe.
My dad was right behind him.
I gasped so loud that Luke reached over and thumped me.
Thankfully, the security guys were too busy to notice. They crept across to the shelves where Crazy Bill was hiding, their feet passing inches in front of my face.
‘Out you come, Bill,’ said one of the guards, like he was playing hide-and-seek with a three-year-old. ‘Nowhere to –’
BOOM!
The shelves went flying. As in actually flying. They exploded out from Bill’s hiding place, wiping out the first security guard and sending the other two ducking for cover.
Another set of shelves came crashing down on top of us, crushing the foot of the bed I was under. I shrank back just in time to avoid losing my head.
Crazy Bill let out another furious howl.
I twisted around, trying to see what was going on, but my view was blocked by the wreck of the shelf.
One of the guards let out a shout. It lasted only half a second before it was drowned out by a blast of shattering glass. Something heavy had just crashed into the wall of TVs.
‘How –? How did –?’ I heard my dad stammer from somewhere nearby. ‘Sir, there was no way I could’ve known he was capable of –’
BLAM!
My insides twisted again.
Dad let out a shout. But it was panic, not pain.
Someone had opened fire on Crazy Bill.
‘No!’ the doc ordered. ‘Your orders are to –’
‘DO IT!’ screamed another voice over top of him. ‘SHOOT HIM!’
Officer Calvin had just joined the party.
I rolled across to the next bed, desperate to see what was going on.
BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!
‘Bruce, no!’ Montag shouted over the gunfire. ‘Noah wants him alive! Order your men to stand –’
There was a crash and a scream and the firing stopped.
Then a clattering, groaning sound filled the room. One of the doors was opening.
Peering out through a gap in the mess of broken shelves, I was finally able to catch another glimpse of Crazy Bill. He was across the room, pushing against one of the doors, ready to squeeze through as soon as it opened wide enough.
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