Underworld Read online

  Chapter 24

  Captain Goldner kicks me hard, sending pain shooting up through my leg. ‘Get up. Do as you’re told from now on. Next time it will be more than your ear I will shoot at.’

  I stumble to my feet, pull a rag from my pocket and hold it to my ear. There is so much blood.

  ‘But, sir, where can we go?’

  His answer is to swing a blow against my head, knocking me to the ground again. ‘I will find their arsenal. I will destroy it. Destroy them.’

  He is losing his mind. He must be. If the enemy had weapons stored here, there would be guards, soldiers.

  Then, as I trudge behind him, a terrifying thought comes into my mind.

  Who needs soldiers when you have an even more fearsome guardian?

  * * *

  The only sound in the cave was Zesh’s breathing. It rasped around the walls like the breath of an old dying man.

  It was really getting on Fiona’s nerves.

  ‘Can you not stop that for a minute?’ she snapped at him. She was trying hard to listen for Angie’s voice, sure every second she could hear her calling, and then Zesh’s hoarse breathing would smother any other noise.

  Zesh looked at her and smiled. ‘You’re something else, Fiona.’

  She watched him as the words struggled out of him. ‘Could you really die?’

  Zesh didn’t speak. He just nodded.

  ‘I kinda thought that,’ she said. ‘I saw this programme about it on telly. Some film star died of it, you know.’

  ‘Thank you for that,’ Zesh croaked.

  Fiona turned her eyes on the teacher. ‘Do you think he’ll die?’ she asked.

  Zesh rolled his eyes. ‘You’re a … barrel of laughs, Fiona.’

  That took so much out of him. He leaned back, exhausted. Fiona ignored him. She was thinking now of Angie. ‘I don’t think she’s dead. I really don’t.’ She was almost talking to herself. Yet she was glad that Zesh, someone, was there in the dark listening. ‘I think she’s somewhere, unconscious, and when she comes to she’ll climb back up here.’ Angie climbing anywhere seemed improbable. ‘Or she’ll shout.’ That sounded more likely. ‘Aye, she’ll shout.’

  Fiona felt her throat tighten. ‘I was so horrible to her. D’you know that? I called her fat and ugly. I thought she was a wimp. Always going on about being a Girl Guide, always that cheery, always looking on the bright side. She got right up my nose.’ She looked at Zesh. ‘I’m a horrible person, so I am?’

  Zesh said nothing, but she didn’t need an answer. She knew what she was.

  ‘She wanted us both to jump Axel. Did you know that? She thought her and I could take him, force him to give you back the inhaler. And d’you know what I said? I said, Don’t be so stupid, Angie. But she wasn’t stupid, was she? She was brave. I think I’m so smart and she was the stupid one. But she was the one that was ready to jump Axel.’

  She covered her face with her hands, blotting out the picture of Angie falling …

  ‘I’ll never forgive myself for that, Zesh. See from now on, I’m going to be a better person. For Angie’s sake. I’m going to try harder for her sake as well. I’ll even help Mr Marks, there ye are!’

  Zesh still didn’t say a word. Too breathless. But his eyes said he didn’t believe her.

  ‘The leopard cannot change its spots, is that what you’re thinking? Typical Zesh, never look on the good side of me. Well, I’ll show you. Anyway, where do you get off criticising me! You were going to leave Marks here so you could get your inhaler. So you’re every bit as bad as I am.’

  She dared him to disagree with her, but still he said nothing. ‘OK, I know, you could die without that inhaler. I didn’t know that before. And do you know what? I don’t think Axel knows it either. I mean, he’s thick. You should have told him. I don’t think he’s that bad. He wouldn’t have kept your inhaler off you if he knew you might die.’ Zesh stared at her.

  ‘Aye, you’re right. He is that bad,’ she said after a moment. She leaned back against the wall. ‘It’s good having somebody to talk to, ain’t it?’ Zesh let out a long sigh. She was sure he was disagreeing with her. ‘Mind you, you’re even annoying when you’re quiet.’

  * * *

  ‘I can’t move,’ Axel said again, and Liam answered again, ‘Sure you can.’

  Liam sounded annoyed. Axel should be angry with him about that. He should be lashing out at him, so he knew who was the boss. But all he could think of was … he could not move. He wanted to try to sidle back. He was here in the middle of this black hole and he couldn’t go back, go forwards, go anywhere.

  Yet, he couldn’t let the likes of Liam see his fear.

  And what was there to be scared of? He wasn’t scared of the dark. The rest of them were. But not him. The dark held no fears for him

  He wasn’t scared of any creepy crawlies that might emerge out of the rock. He wasn’t even scared of the Worm. A legend. A made-up story to frighten children.

  There were too many real life-terrors to be feared.

  The ground beneath him was hard and damp. He felt as if he was clamped in rock. Like being in a coffin. And it was as if a memory deep in his subconscious was burrowing to the surface. He gasped with fear and Liam touched his leg. ‘I’ll try pushing you.’

  Axel could just see the other chamber, inches away, an eternity away. It looked dry and wide. He could stand up in there, stretch and jump. He longed to be there, but he couldn’t move. He was so tight in the rock he couldn’t even shake with fear. He tried to move an inch forwards, felt the rock scraping against his face. I’ll get through it, he kept saying to himself. I’ll be fine.

  He felt as if the rock didn’t want to let him go, as if it was an enemy. Getting back at him for Angie, for letting her fall, for not going after her. Or avenging Zesh, who was lying desperately trying to breathe on the cold damp floor of another cave.

  NO!

  Had he shouted it aloud? He didn’t think so. All he knew for certain was that he had never been more afraid.

  Yes you have, the memory seemed to whisper to him. A memory he had always locked away.

  ‘Relax, breathe in … squeeze yourself through.’ Liam’s words were trying to reassure him, but nothing would. Axel closed his eyes. He couldn’t bear the thought of the rock so close to his face, pressing down on him, rock above him, rock all around him. No escape.

  His eyes snapped open. He didn’t mean them to, they just did. And it was like a black stony face staring down at him, touching him. Immovable. Maybe this had been a man once, just like him, squeezing through, finding himself stuck for ever.

  Turned into stone.

  Merging into rock.

  No! He had to get out of here. It suddenly didn’t matter to him if Liam did know how frightened he was. He yelled. ‘NO!’ Began to struggle wildly to free himself.

  Real mind-bending terror set in then. He couldn’t move. Not back. Not forwards. Stuck. His nightmare. His memory … the jaws of it opened up and sucked him in.

  A little boy, locked in a tiny trunk for being bad, screaming to get out, pounding on the lid. Told he would never be let out. Believing it.

  ‘NO!’ He yelled it again and his terrified scream echoed through the cavern. Over and over he yelled. ‘NO!’

  Liam was trying frantically to pull him back. ‘I’ll get you. I will.’ He tried to put his hand between Axel and the rock, but there was no space. ‘You can’t be stuck. You can’t be.’ But he didn’t sound so sure now.

  This was Axel’s worst nightmare. The worst he could ever imagine. Here in the dark, pressed against solid rock, for ever.

  And Axel screamed so loud a tremor went through the cave.

  Chapter 25

  ‘What was that noise, Zesh?’ Fiona was on her feet the instant she heard it. A scream. Was it a scream? It seemed to wail through the caves like a train in a tunnel. ‘This place gives me the creeps.’ She waited for another scream, but the sound died away till all she could hear was Zesh, struggling t
o breathe.

  She sat down again. ‘Did it sound like a girl’s scream?’ She looked at Zesh. ‘It did, didn’t it?’ She wanted him to tell her that it couldn’t have been Angie. Not screaming like that. There was so much terror in that sound. It probably wasn’t even a scream, she decided. ‘There’s so many weird noises in here, isn’t there?’ She shivered. It was getting colder. Why was that? Were they closer to the sea? ‘It’s never quiet.’

  There were sounds, that swished through the tunnels and whooshed and whispered. Sounds you could never quite catch. Sounds you heard but when you stopped to listen they would swish past your ear and down into another cave.

  And Angie was somewhere on her own, listening to those same sounds.

  If she could listen to anything.

  Fiona scrubbed that thought from her mind. She wouldn’t think like that. She’d think like Angie. Always looking on the bright side. She’d find her.

  The only sound now was from Zesh, and it was getting on her wick.

  Mr Marks was better company than he was. She turned her beam on Zesh and he blinked weakly. ‘Is it really that bad?’

  He couldn’t even answer that. ‘You look awful, Zesh. You’re always that smart. You always look as if your mother had ironed your uniform with you still in it. You get on everybody’s zonking nerves. I always look like an unmade bed – mind you, did an unmade bed not win some big prize?’ She thought about that. ‘Saw that on television. So there you are, I’m a work of art really.’ She grinned at him. Zesh was too weak even to grin back.

  ‘I’m trying to cheer you up here. You could at least be zonking grateful.’

  To her complete and utter surprise Zesh said, very softly, ‘Sorry.’

  ‘What! Did you just apologise? I wish I had a tape recorder. Zesh apologises. That must be a first for you. There must be two moons in the sky.’ Fiona sighed then. ‘I wish I could see the sky to check.’ She fumbled in her bag for water. ‘Do you want some of this? I’m going to give some to Marks.’

  This time Zesh nodded and Fiona held the bottle to the teacher’s lips first. The water trickled in and his lips moved to catch it. At least he was still alive.

  Then she turned to Zesh. And handed him the bottle. It looked like a struggle for him even to lift it to his lips.

  Fiona watched him thoughtfully. ‘You know, Zesh, I saw this programme on television. It was about asthma. Some new breathing technique …’ She paused, thinking. ‘People that breathe like that don’t even need an inhaler.’

  She saw Zesh’s eyes grow bright with hope. Was that hope? It looked like it. ‘I wish I could remember what it was. It’ll come to me.’ She closed her eyes, thinking hard. Once she clicked into that programme, maybe she could help Zesh to breathe.

  * * *

  Liam tried to calm Axel down. He’d never seen Axel like this. He was terrified. Liam was sure he was crying.

  ‘Hold still. I’m trying to push you through.’

  But Axel wasn’t listening. He was trying desperately to free himself and only seemed to be clamping himself further into his rock prison.

  ‘Get me out of here. Get me out of here. Get me out of here.’ He repeated it over and over like a prayer. Liam couldn’t see his face, but he could picture him staring at rock, unable to turn his head this way or that. Liam was working frantically, trying to clear rock beneath Axel, trying to make more room so he could push him gently through. Mr Marks had said, you had to be calm in tight corners. Well, they didn’t come much tighter than this. But how could he get Axel to be calm?

  Liam felt a shiver run through Axel’s body, a shiver of fear. Why had they come this way! Because it was the only way, he reminded himself. It was the right way. It had to be. Don’t scream again, Axel, he prayed. Because that scream of his had cut through him like steel through bone. It was the scream of someone in terror, or someone confronted with their worst nightmare.

  Liam sat back on his heels, exhausted.

  ‘Don’t stop! Don’t stop.’ Axel was almost pleading. He was struggling to breathe. He sounded at that moment just like Zesh had. Was Axel thinking the same thing?

  Liam didn’t believe Axel was thinking at all. Instinct had taken over, the instinct to survive. Suddenly, he cried out so loudly that Liam jerked back. ‘Get me out of here!’

  But he’d never get him out while he was panicking like that. ‘Listen to me, Axel. Listen.’ Now Liam’s voice was forceful. It didn’t sound like him at all. It took him by surprise. It surprised Axel into silence. ‘I’m going to get you through there, but you have to do what I say. You have to do what I say.’

  Axel swore at him. Liam swore back. And then Axel said nothing. He listened. Liam probed through his memory for everything Marks had told them about calmness, teamwork. ‘I want you to take deep breaths, Axel. Breathe in. Breathe out.’

  Axel yelled again. ‘Are you stupid!’

  ‘You’ll get through this if you do what I say.’ He could imagine Axel making a supreme effort, but he couldn’t manage it. His breath was still coming in gasps.

  ‘I’m never getting out of here, am I? I’m going to be stuck here, for ever and ever.’ He began to roar and push and Liam knew if he couldn’t stop him now he might just be stuck there for ever. He felt like screaming too, but that wasn’t going to help anybody. He gripped Axel’s ankles.

  ‘Close your eyes, Axel. Don’t think about anything, except breathing. In through your nose, out through your mouth. Slowly, Axel, slowly. In. Out.’

  He heard a sound and it took him a minute to realise what it was. Axel’s teeth were chattering.

  ‘Liam, I’m shit scared,’ Axel stuttered.

  ‘That’s right, Zesh, in through your nose, out through your mouth.’

  For ten minutes Fiona had been talking Zesh through this breathing technique. Breathing less deeply but still fully from the abdomen. She’d seen them doing it on television. Was it helping? He couldn’t be sure. Maybe a little.

  She breathed along with him, in and out, nattering on relentlessly about this programme and that. Was that all she did, watch television? Zesh was glad she had. In spite of everything she was making him laugh. Maybe it was way deep down, but she was definitely making him laugh. She talked such a load of rubbish.

  And yet …

  In. Out. He did feel slightly, ever so slightly better. The pain in his chest, in his back, was just as bad but the breathing, did that seem easier? Please let it be.

  Positive thinking.

  It was helping. It was getting easier.

  He wanted to talk to her, but for the moment, he had no energy.

  ‘Do you think Axel and Liam are OK?’ Fiona asked. ‘I know what you’re thinking, who cares? But if they don’t get out of here, how will we? Maybe they’re out already.’ She strained her ears to listen for the sound of rescue, but all Zesh could hear were the strange sounds that seemed to crawl through the caves like something alive.

  ‘Do you think that scream could have been Liam?’ Fiona seemed to dismiss that right away with a toss of her head. ‘It wasn’t even a scream, it was just a noise. These caves are full of noises.’ And once again she seemed to strain to listen.

  Liam’s hands were bleeding as he clawed at the rock beneath Axel. Axel was silent as stone, breathing deeply just as Liam had instructed him. Too terrified to move, except for the tremors that seemed to pass through his body, as if he himself was rock and earthquakes raged deep inside him.

  He could hear the trickle of water behind him. The cave, it seemed to him, was getting wetter. He kept asking, ‘All right, Axel?’ but there was no answer.

  ‘We’re getting there, I promise.’ This was the only remark that drew a response. Axel let out a low moan. Almost like a prayer.

  Liam felt him relax and in that second he pushed Axel as hard as he could. He felt him move, Axel felt it too, for he came alive in that second and began to edge himself through.

  ‘Careful now,’ Liam said softly ‘Calmly does it. You’re getti
ng there.’

  Inch by inch Axel moved forwards. He was almost there. He would get out! The joy of freedom came out of Axel in a roar. Liam heard it and knew he was through.

  Liam scrabbled through after him. It was nothing for him. His hands ached and bled. The two boys stood looking at each other. Axel’s face was strained with the fear still. He looked at Liam for a long time, then he said softly, ‘Thanks, Liam.’

  Liam collapsed to the ground, exhausted. In that moment he knew something had changed for ever.

  Chapter 26

  ‘Did you hear that?’ Liam stood up and looked around, his headlamp sending an eerie beam through the chamber.

  Axel watched him warily. His head was splitting with the pain throbbing in his temples. He took off his helmet and lay back, more exhausted than he’d ever felt in his life.

  Liam looked down at him. ‘You OK, big guy?’

  Axel couldn’t meet his gaze. Liam had seen him afraid – more than afraid – terrified. Had he cried? He couldn’t remember, didn’t want to go back, even in his mind, to that awful time. Those hours – or was it only minutes? – that he’d been trapped … NO! Don’t go there again.

  ‘Say something, Axel.’ Liam sounded as if he was worried. Axel’s mouth was too dry with fear to say a word. Instead he gave the thumbs-up sign.

  Liam crouched down and his light beaming into Axel’s eyes made him throw his hand up to shield them.

  ‘Sorry,’ Liam said, and he turned his lamp away from Axel’s face. ‘I’ve never seen you like that. You were really scared.’

  Any other time Axel would have punched him for even suggesting that. But now, he couldn’t even look into Liam’s face. Liam said nothing for a long while. When he did speak he took Axel by surprise. ‘Give me Zesh’s inhaler.’ He held out his hand.

  Now Axel did look at him, and he felt he was seeing Liam for the first time. His long thin face, his weak mouth. Yet now, his eyes were bright and bold in the half-light from his lamp.