Night on Terror Island (17 page)

The Neanderthal gave a horrible rasping chuckle. He was staring at Kip as though he was a Big Mac with legs. His eyes seemed to blaze with an unholy light.

‘You’ll
have
to,’ said Beth.

‘I’m not cutting somebody’s head off!’ hissed Kip. ‘Not even somebody who’s planning to eat me.’ He thrust the machete at her. ‘You do it!’

‘I can’t!’ protested Beth. ‘I … I’m practically a vegetarian. It … it’s up to you, Kip. Rose is
your
sister.’

‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

The two of them were backing along the corridor now and the Neanderthal kept following them. A glow of moonlight from a skylight illuminated his face for a moment and they could see that his chin and chest were plastered with blood. They were now backing past the doorway from which the Neanderthal had emerged.

Kip decided to try something desperate. He pointed in through the open doorway. ‘Oh, wow, look at that!’ he yelled.

The Neanderthal turned to look into the room, his mouth hanging open. Kip slipped in behind him, lifted a leg and placed a boot against the caveman’s backside. Then he pushed with all his strength. The Neanderthal lost his balance and was catapulted through the doorway, his arms flailing. There was a crash from within as he collided with something breakable. Then Kip grabbed the door and slammed it shut. He noticed there was a key in the lock and he turned it.

‘RUN!’ he yelled, and he and Beth sprinted along the corridor, back to the foyer. When they got there, they saw to their dismay that the heavy entrance door was beginning to splinter beneath the onslaught of the tiger’s claws. It couldn’t last much
longer
. Kip glanced up the staircase into total darkness.

‘We can’t go up there in the pitch black,’ he said. ‘We need some kind of light.’ He indicated a row of metal lockers behind the reception desk. ‘There have to be torches somewhere.’

‘What makes you think that?’ asked Beth.

‘In films like this there are
always
torches,’ he yelled. He threw open the nearest cupboard and set about rifling through the contents. Beth was standing there studying the rapidly disintegrating front door. ‘Help me!’ shouted Kip. She seemed to come out of a trance and sprang to the lockers, began throwing them open, one by one, pulling out the contents and scattering them on the floor, wincing at every blow against the entrance door. Now they could actually see moonlight filtering in through the places where the tiger’s claws had shredded the wood.

‘We need to get up those stairs,’ said Beth.

‘We can’t go up in the dark,’ insisted Kip. ‘Anything could jump out at us. Keep looking.’

The sound of a door being smashed open made him look back down the corridor. He saw a shambling figure in a yellow raincoat come staggering through the doorway of the room into which he had been pushed. The Neanderthal stood for a moment as though uncertain of which way to go. Then he turned, spotted his prey and came
striding
towards them, his brutish face contorted with anger.

‘Here comes laughing boy!’ announced Kip.

Beth had found a metal locker against one wall.

‘I think this could be a strong possibility,’ she yelled.

‘What makes you say that?’ asked Kip.

‘It’s got the word
Torches
written on it.’

‘Great,’ said Kip.

‘Only it’s padlocked.’

‘Not so great.’ Kip hurried over to her and looked at the padlock, a chunky iron contraption. ‘Why did they lock the bloody thing?’ he asked the room in general. ‘Didn’t they realise people might be in a hurry?’

‘Probably trying to create suspense,’ suggested Beth.

‘It’s working,’ said Kip.

There was another splintering sound and a great big paw tore its way clean through the entrance door.

‘Hurry!’ yelled Beth.

Kip lifted the machete, took aim and brought it down as hard as he could on the padlock. The rusted metal shattered beneath the impact and he was able to fling open the door. They stood staring, hardly believing their luck. There were half a dozen torches in the cupboard, and several packs of batteries.

‘Yes!’ said Kip. He dropped the machete, pulled out one of the torches and flicked the switch.
Nothing
happened. ‘No,’ he said. Sweat was pouring down his face now and out of the corner of his eye, he was aware that the front door was virtually coming off its hinges. Through the gap he could see a pair of malignant yellow eyes staring in at him.

‘Move it!’ yelled Beth. She was jumping up and down on the spot in her torment. Kip grabbed another torch and threw it to her. Then he tossed her a pack of batteries. From the corner of his eye, he was horribly aware of the yellow-coated Neanderthal lurching towards him along the corridor. Kip struggled to rip open the cellophane wrapping on a pack of batteries, tearing at it with his teeth. It split across the middle, spilling batteries onto the floor. He swore, stooped and grabbed a couple of them. He twisted open the end of the torch and slammed the new batteries into it, his hands shaking. He twisted the cap back on the end of his torch and jumped upright with a yell of triumph.

‘Right, let’s get up those—’

He broke off as a pair of hairy hands clamped around his throat and lifted him clear off the ground. Kip could feel the incredible strength in those hands. They were squeezing the life out of him. He kicked and struggled and even reached up with the torch and slammed it down hard on the Neanderthal’s head but it had no effect. A red heat filled his head and he could barely struggle any more.

Then there was a sharp hiss as something metallic sliced through the air. The Neanderthal’s expression changed to one of surprise, his eyes bulging, his mouth hanging open. He froze in position for a moment, his arms still outstretched. Then his head tilted sideways. It kept tilting, moving past the point where any head should be able to tilt and then it slipped off his neck and fell. It went bouncing along the littered floor like an oddly-shaped football. A few moments later, the hands lost their power and released Kip. The body fell too, completely devoid of any life.

Kip looked down at it in amazement. Then he looked up again. Beth was standing there, a grim expression on her pretty face. She had the bloody machete in one hand.

‘Somebody had to,’ she whispered.

Kip stared at her. He had a sudden impulse to take her in his arms and kiss her, but realised that there probably wasn’t time for that.

‘Thanks,’ he croaked. ‘I owe you one.’

There was an almighty crash as the heavy refrigerator tipped forward and hit the ground. The two friends looked up in absolute terror and saw that the tiger was pushing through the shattered remains of the door.

Without another word, they turned and ran for the stairs, switching on their torches as they went.

CAPTAIN HOLDER LED
the way into the large window-less room and the others followed him. They were all aware of noises coming from downstairs – loud thuds and crashes, shrieks and roaring sounds, but none of them were in a big hurry to go and see what was causing them. Captain Holder shone his torch around the interior, revealing rows and rows of oblong Perspex boxes.

‘Fish tanks!’ exclaimed Rose.

‘No, honey,’ said Tamara, gently. ‘They’re incubators. This must have been where they kept premature babies.’

‘Funny-looking babies,’ said Jade and the torchlight showed that one of the tanks was filled with large fleshy grey eggs. ‘What kind of a bird lays eggs like that?’ she muttered.

‘I don’t think they’re bird eggs,’ said Tad. ‘I’d say they came from some kind of large serpent.’ Everybody ignored him.

‘They still look like fish tanks to me,’ said Rose. She let go of Tamara’s hand and moved along a line of transparent boxes, peering into each of them in
turn
. She saw one had a big hole punched in the side of it and was full of broken eggs, but all the others were empty … no, not
all
of them. As she peered in to the sixth box along, there was a sudden shimmering light within it and something seemed to materialise, right in front of her eyes. She found herself looking at a funny, glowing contraption on a length of chain. She frowned. She was sure it hadn’t been there a moment ago. She noticed a little door on the front of the box, so she unlatched the cover, and reached in to take hold of the gadget. It was pulsing with a slow red light that seemed to be coming from beneath a metal cover. She was able to lift the cover up, revealing a black button with the word
E
XIT
written on it. She lifted the thing closer and reached out a finger to press the button.

‘Hey, hang on, kid, what have you got there?’ asked Captain Holder, moving closer with the flashlight.

‘I don’t know,’ said Rose. ‘It just appeared in the fish tank. Like magic.’

‘Interesting,’ said Tad. ‘Sounds like some kind of matter transfer.’

Everyone ignored him.

Captain Holder reached out and took the gadget from Rose’s hand. He examined it in the torchlight.

‘I’ve never seen anything like this before,’ he said. ‘I wonder what it does.’

‘Better not mess with it,’ warned Tad. ‘Press that button and you could blow the whole place sky high.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Captain Holder. ‘Why would there be something like that in here?’

‘Anything’s possible in this screwy place,’ said Jade.

‘But the button is marked
E
XIT
,’ said Captain Holder. ‘Maybe it activates some kind of escape equipment – a way out of here.’

‘Sounds reasonable,’ Tamara agreed. ‘It has to be worth a try.’

Captain Holder looked around at the others.

‘What do you think?’ he asked them.

‘I say go for it,’ said Jade.

‘I’m not so sure,’ said Tad.

‘I’m with Jade on this one,’ said Tamara.

‘Whatever,’ said Rose.

Captain Holder considered for a moment. In the silence there were more violent crashing sounds from downstairs.

‘Well,’ he murmured, ‘here goes.’ He pressed the button. There was a brief flash of light. His entire body seemed to shimmer for an instant and then quite suddenly, he disappeared. Unfortunately, he had taken the only source of light with him. The team found themselves plunged abruptly into almost total darkness.

‘Where the hell did he go?’ asked Jade.

‘I told you it sounded like matter transfer,’ said Tad huffily. ‘How come nobody ever listens to me?’

‘Well, he can’t just have disappeared,’ said Tamara. ‘He must be around here somewhere.’ She peered about in the gloom, trying to find her bearings. ‘I can’t see a thing.’

‘There’s no windows in here,’ complained Jade. ‘We need to get out and find a bit of moonlight.’

‘No, wait, I think I’ve got a box of matches somewhere,’ said Tad. He started searching his pockets.

At that moment, they all heard something. It was a strange rustling sound. It was like the sound of hundreds of dry leaves being stirred by the wind, and it seemed very close.

‘What is that?’ gasped Tamara.

‘I’m not sure,’ said Tad. ‘But whatever it is, I don’t much like it.’ He had got the matches out now and was trying to fumble one of them from the box.

‘Sounds to me like the kind of noise you’d associate with a large invertebrate,’ said Tamara.

‘A what?’ muttered Jade.

‘I mean a big—’Tamara stopped talking. She was staring at Tad. Rose followed her gaze and saw that something big and dark was rising up from the floor behind Tad – a great, long shape that seemed to rise higher and higher until it was towering six feet above him. Jade too had her back turned to the shape and was totally unaware of its presence.

‘What are you all staring at?’ asked Tad irritably.

‘There’s something behind you,’ whispered Rose.

Tad sneered.

‘Yeah, don’t tell me, it’s the Boogie Man. You know, kid, I’m getting a little bit tired of your fantasies.’

‘It’s not a fantasy,’ said Tamara, her voice filled with dread. ‘There really
is
something behind you.’