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‘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

T
HURSDAY
, J
UNE
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.

Calvin, Montag, and one of the security guards were closing in on him, but none of them seemed to want to get too close. Dad was hanging back even further, looking terrified.

I couldn't see any sign of the other two guards.

My stomach was doing laps inside me. I watched Dad trying to pull himself together, watched his mouth open and close.

And suddenly, I knew.

He had no idea what was going on here. No idea.

‘Find me!' Bill screamed, still pressing against the door. ‘Find me under the ground! I have to – we have to go there together!'

And then he was gone. Through the door and up one of the tunnels.

Montag and the guard ran to catch him, with Calvin limping after them on his crutch.

I saw Dad hesitate, stopping at the door and closing his eyes on this nightmare he'd fallen into.

I wanted to call out. I wanted to shout at him to turn around and go home, to get out of there while he still could.

But by the time I opened my mouth, it was too late.

He'd already slipped through the door and run off to join the others.

Chapter 26

T
HURSDAY
, J
UNE
4
70
DAYS

We waited under the beds for a few more minutes to make sure they weren't coming back, then pushed our way out from the wreckage.

The room had been completely decimated by Crazy Bill's rampage. It was nothing but a sea of splintered wood and crumpled metal. Turns out a bomb shelter doesn't work quite so well when the bomb goes off
inside
it.

One of the guards – the one who'd tried to call Bill out of hiding – was still lying where the shelves had flattened him, his boots sticking out like a re-enactment of
The Wizard of Oz.

The other one was lying on the floor in a pile of jagged rubble. Apparently, he was the heavy object that had been thrown into the wall of TVs.

Neither of them was going to be walking out of here in a hurry.

Did these guys have
any
idea what was going on? Or were they just like the rest of us, innocent bystanders suddenly dragged in way over their heads?

Either way, there was nothing we could do for them now.

We weaved our way through the rubble to the lifts. It seemed impossible that we still had work to do tonight. What had our lives come to that something like this was a distraction on our way to the
real
danger?

The lift slid open.

There was a column of three buttons on the panel inside, all unmarked. Luke shrugged and hit them all.

The doors closed and the lift trundled upwards.

‘Well,' said Luke after a long silence, ‘at least we know Crazy Bill is keeping Calvin busy.'

‘Keeping my dad pretty busy too,' I said.

Luke shut his mouth.

The lift came to a stop and opened to an empty room that was barely big enough for the three of us to stand in. There was a metal security door on the opposite wall. I realised it was the one that came out near my dad's office.

We all stayed where we were and the lift got moving again.

‘He was talking to us,' said Luke suddenly.

‘Who?' I said.

‘Crazy Bill,' said Luke. ‘Shouting about finding him underground. I think maybe he was –'

‘Don't be stupid,' I said. ‘He didn't even know we were there.'

The doors reopened, and we found ourselves staring into a shadowy room dotted with glowing computer screens.

We were there.

‘Doesn't look like anyone's home,' said Jordan, stepping out of the lift. We walked out after her and the doors slid shut, plunging us into darkness.

‘Someone find the lights,' I whispered.

‘No,' said Luke, creeping forward, ‘we should probably –'

But at that instant, there was a loud
clunk
and the lights flickered on by themselves.

‘Sensor,' said Jordan. ‘Like out at the airport.'

‘Wouldn't worry about it,' I said, before Luke had a chance to start hyperventilating. ‘Windows are all tinted, remember? They won't be able to tell from the outside.'

The room we were in was half the size of the one Crazy Bill had just trashed. It looked like a pretty standard open-plan office. Computers, filing cabinets, desks strewn with notes, and a few doors around the edges, leading off into other, smaller rooms.

‘Low ceiling,' said Jordan, reaching up to touch it.

‘Makes sense if they're trying to hide another floor up here,' I said, heading for the nearest window and looking out over the town. We were above the trees. In daylight, I reckoned we were just about high enough to glimpse the wall sealing us off from the outside.

‘Uh … guys?' said Luke.

He was standing over one of the computers, scrolling through a bunch of thumbnails of photos. As I got closer, I realised that they were all headshots. Faces of people in town.

‘It's all of us,' said Jordan, as Luke moved down the list. ‘Everyone in Phoenix.'