Vortex (11 page)

It wasn't clear to Ben what had got the old man so agitated, but something had. As the aircraft continued to fly over, his arms started to flail and, taken by surprise by his sudden show of strength, Ben and Annie lost their grip on him. Joseph ran, but not towards the woods. Instead he seemed to be heading towards one of the huts, not far from the road. It seemed older than most, more weathered and stained but still whole.

'Joseph!' Ben screamed, holding his arms over his head as if that would be any protection from the flying chunks of debris. 'Not that way! We have to get to the trees!
To the trees, Joseph!
'

But if Joseph heard, he wasn't listening.

'He's going to get us all killed,' Annie shouted.

Ben knew she could be right. He looked sharply towards the woods - they were close enough for him and Annie to get there safely and quickly. Maybe they should just make a run for it: if Joseph wanted to stand in the middle of a live ammo exercise, that was his lookout. But then he looked back towards the old man. He was staring at the hut, oblivious to the chaos around him. He wasn't in any kind of position to help himself. Ben took a deep breath. 'You go,' he told his cousin. 'Get to the woods. I'm going after Joseph.'

Annie stood for a moment, her gaze alternating between the woods, Ben and the old man. 'You can't manage him by yourself,' she said. 'I'm coming with you.'

Ben saw the determination on her face and didn't even bother to argue.

'But, Ben . . .' Annie added breathlessly.

'What?'

'As soon as we've got him to safety, we're getting out of Spadeadam, OK?'

'Too right,' Ben agreed fervently.

Together they sprinted towards the old man.

They started running just as another plane screamed overhead, unloading its ammunition onto a rough patch of ground nearby. As the bomb fell, so did Annie. She screamed as she hit the ground. 'You all right?' Ben bellowed.

'Yeah,' she replied through gritted teeth, allowing Ben to pull her back up to her feet; but he noticed that as they continued to run towards Joseph she was limping a little.

By the time they got to the hut, Joseph was standing in front of the door. Even amid the panic, Ben could see an enigmatic smile on the old man's face as he stepped forward and opened the rickety metal door.

'We can't go inside the hut, Joseph.' Ben was so out of breath that it almost hurt to speak. 'The planes are aiming for them - it's too dangerous. You've got to come with us - it'll be safer in the trees, they're not a target.'

He stepped forward to seize the old man's arm, but Joseph brushed him off with unexpected vigour, opened the door and stepped inside.

Ben looked at Annie, who glanced over her shoulder longingly at the safety of the trees. 'We can't . . .' she started to say, but her voice trailed off. They both realized that if they wanted to help Joseph, they would have to get him out of that hut, at least while the training exercise was going on.

'Ready?' he asked.

Annie closed her eyes. 'This was meant to be a quiet weekend bird-watching,' she muttered to herself before looking directly at her cousin. 'Ready,' she responded.

They stepped inside.

It was dark in the hut, but the open door gave them enough light to be able to see inside. It gave the impression of being a disused office, with a rickety old tin table against one wall, and a rusting filing cabinet against the other. As another plane flew overhead, Ben found himself wondering how long it had been since anyone had used this place. Many years, he decided. 'Come on, Joseph,' he heard Annie saying urgently. 'We've
got
to get out of here.'

Joseph was standing in the middle of the room, looking around him with a sense of wonder, as though he were taking in the glories of some royal palace. 'This is it,' he whispered to himself. 'This is it.'

Quickly, he stepped towards the filing cabinet, and before Ben or Annie could say or do anything, he pushed it sharply. The empty cabinet clattered noisily onto one side.

The ringing metal seemed to echo against the concrete walls of the hut. And as the sound settled down, Ben found himself aware of something else.

It was silent outside.

He heard Annie breathe out heavily with relief. 'Thank heavens for that,' she said. 'It sounds like they've finished.'

But Ben didn't reply, because now there was something else to attract his attention - the same thing that Joseph was staring at, his face serious and any glimmer of madness in his eyes now gone. He took his cousin gently by the arm and pointed at the area of floor where the filing cabinet had been. 'Look,' he said.

Annie looked and saw what had grabbed their attention. A square piece of wood with a small hole for a handle and hinges along the opposite side.

'A trap door,' Ben whispered, and Joseph nodded his agreement.

Chapter Nine

'What is it, Joseph?'

Ben asked the question carefully, quietly. He was afraid to shatter the sudden calm that seemed to have descended upon the old man.

Joseph turned to look at him. His face was dirty, and Ben noticed a small cut on his left cheek, which bled slightly into his wiry grey stubble. 'What did you say your name was?' he demanded hoarsely.

Ben moistened his dry, dusty lips with his tongue. 'Ben,' he replied. 'Ben Tracey. And this is my cousin, Annie. You gave us a bit of a fright out there, you know.' The bombs might have stopped, but Ben still felt as though he needed to tiptoe around him.

Joseph inclined his head. 'Frights aren't always a bad thing, young man,' he whispered.

Ben's eyes narrowed. He seemed almost like a different person now, calmer, more focused, somehow less, well, crazy.

'But you're right,' he continued. 'It was dangerous and I apologize for my behaviour. Sometimes I am not the master of my actions.' His eyes flickered back towards the trap door, and he stepped tentatively towards it. 'You are the bird-watcher, yes?'

'Sort of. It's more Annie, really . . .' His voice trailed off.

'There used to be a great many birds here when I was a young man. And other wildlife too. I used to walk out and watch them. When I first came here there would be huge fields of roe deer. And there were butterflies too, like you never saw. Fragile and colourful.'

Ben and Annie listened to him in edgy silence. There was something fragile about him too.

'The world of nature can be cruel, but not as cruel as the world of men,' the old man said. 'And I meant what I said, about Spadeadam. This is not a place for you to be wandering around. You should leave now.'

'He's right, Ben,' Annie piped up. 'Come on, we had an agreement. Let's get out of here.'

Ben nodded. He felt suddenly exhausted after everything that had just happened, and not in the mood to argue. 'Are you going to come with us, Joseph?' he asked.

Joseph shook his head. 'They'll come for me soon enough,' he said obscurely.

'Come for you? Who'll come for you?'

Joseph's head seemed to shake of its own accord, and for a moment Ben thought he saw a hint of the old craziness in his eyes. 'It's not important. But there are things I have to do before then. Things I have to see.'

'And this is one of them, right?'

The old man stared directly at Ben. His piercing green eyes seemed an alarming contrast to the crimson of the blood on his cheek. 'Right,' he said.

And then, as if they were no longer in the room, Joseph bent down and tried to lift up the trap door. It was heavy - too heavy for the old man - and the wooden square slipped from his hands, sending an echoing bang around the concrete walls.

Ben and Annie exchanged a long look as Joseph tried again, without success.

Ben sighed. He wanted to get out of there, but he couldn't bear to see the old man struggling. 'Here,' he said. 'I'll help you.'

Joseph turned round. 'You should leave,' he repeated, but he didn't decline the offer of help as Ben stepped forward. Together they heaved the trap door up onto its edge, then stepped back.

A musty, damp smell wafted up from the cellar below. It was the smell of darkness, disuse and age. A flight of steps, chipped and dusty, descended into the gloom - Ben could not see the bottom, nor indeed more than a couple of metres down, and he had the impression that nobody had opened up this cellar for a very, very long time.

As if in a trance, Joseph took a step down.

'Wait!' Ben said, and the old man looked sharply at him. 'You can't go down there in the pitch-dark.' He pulled his rucksack from his back, rummaged around and took out his torch. 'Here,' he said, handing it to Joseph.

The old man nodded gratefully; then, shining the torch downwards into the darkness, he descended.

Ben watched him disappear. He seemed so confident, considering the fact that minutes ago he had appeared to be barely on the edges of sanity. What was down there? What was he so sure he was going to find? Why was he prepared to take such risks to locate this place? Half of Ben wanted to follow him, to find out what was going on; the other half just wanted to get out of there.

'Ben!' Annie's voice disturbed his thoughts. 'Ben, we can't stay here.' But then her voice changed. 'Ben -
what's that noise
?'

He blinked. Sure enough, the familiar drone had started up in the distance.

It was getting louder.

And louder.

'Ben!' Annie screamed. 'They're back!' And as she spoke, their ears filled with thunder, followed by the most spectacular crash they had yet heard. The walls of the hut seemed to shake - it was obvious that a bomb had just landed
very
near to them. And as though they had come out of nowhere, the air outside seemed suddenly to be filled yet again with the roar of jet engines.

Ben and Annie spun round to the open door in unison, just as it rattled on its hinges and debris flew into the hut. 'We can't go out there!' Annie shouted, and Ben knew she was right. But if one of those bombs hit the hut, it would be the end.

He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her towards the trap door. 'Come on!' he shouted. 'Down here!'

Hurriedly they started descending the steps.

As soon as they were below the level of the floor, Ben became aware of a chill. He shuddered. Below them he could see the torch, its beam moving around whatever was down there like a firefly, and faintly illuminating the figure of the strange old man holding it. The smell was even stronger down here, and in addition to the musty aroma of age there was something else. Something foul, as if things had been living and dying down here. What it was, Ben didn't even want to think. Under ordinary circumstances that smell would have made him turn round without a moment's thought. But this was not an ordinary situation. Planes were still flying overhead, and they could be victim to one of their devastating bombs any second. Whether they were safer down here, he couldn't say; but it surely couldn't be more dangerous.

The steps went a good way down - maybe five metres, maybe ten, Ben couldn't really tell in the darkness and in the hurry. At the bottom there seemed to be a kind of corridor. The felt their way along it, moving blindly and with care as they were unable to see where they were stepping. All they could do was make for the silhouetted figure of Joseph up ahead.

As he walked, Ben felt an irritating, tickling sensation against his face. It made him want to sneeze, but for some reason he felt he didn't want to make any sudden noises down here. The further they walked, the worse it got. Cobwebs, he thought to himself, as he brushed the silky strands away from his skin. He tried not to think of the spiders that had spun them. 'You all right?' he asked Annie.

'Not really,' Annie replied in a small voice. 'I don't like it down here.'

'It'll be OK,' he reassured her, though in truth he had to agree with her. His hand brushed against the wall - it felt cold to the touch, and damp. He wondered how long it had been since anybody else had touched that wall, and he tried not to think of the smell, which was getting worse and worse.

After several paces Ben sensed that the corridor was opening out a little, until finally they stood side by side with Joseph in a low-ceilinged room. The stench was even stronger here - a gagging stink - and Ben found himself breathing through his mouth so that he didn't get too much of that putrid smell.

The old man held the torch above his shoulder and slowly scanned the beam of light around the room, meaning that Ben was only able to piece his surroundings together gradually. The walls were hung with what looked like metal medicine cabinets. Mostly they were closed, but a few of them had their doors hanging off where the hinges had rusted away, and these ones seemed to be empty. A bare wire hung from the ceiling. There was a metal trolley - it was difficult to see in the darkness, but it appeared to be thick with cobwebs and discoloured by rust - and next to the trolley was a chair. When Joseph's light fell upon it, he did not seem inclined to move the torch, deciding instead to stare at that chair. It seemed to be bolted firmly to the ground, and it too was made of metal: metal feet, metal arms, a metal back. Whoever had designed that chair had not intended it to be comfortable. It had some other purpose.

What that purpose was, though, Ben did not give much thought, because there was something else on his mind. A scurrying, scratching sound of something surprised by the light and the sudden company.

'Can you hear what I can hear, Ben?' Annie whispered.

'Yeah,' he replied. He didn't want to think about what it was that they had disturbed in the darkness, but he knew it was better to try and find out. 'Joseph,' he said. 'I think you'd better give me that torch.'

But the old man was still pointing the beam of light at the metal chair. 'This is it,' he said quietly, his voice strangely devoid of any emotion. 'This is it. I've been wanting to find this place for fifty years.'

'Honestly, Joseph. Give me the torch.'

'They've been telling me I imagined it.
For fifty years they've been telling me I imagined it
.' His voice betrayed a tremor now. 'I knew they were wrong. I always knew they were wrong.'

The scurrying grew more pronounced. With a shock that made him jolt his whole body, Ben felt something brush against his leg. Almost without thinking he shot his arm out and grabbed the torch from Joseph's hand. He took a deep breath and shone it down on the floor.

And the floor seemed to move as he did so.

Ben closed his eyes. If there was one thing he couldn't bear, it was these. 'Rats,' he whispered.