by Adam Melrose
‘I would have expected to find someone here.’
‘If this place is what I think it is Ava, it concerns me greatly that we are most likely not alone.’
They presented the key card to the keypad on one of the doors. The same green light display occurred and the door opened. They stepped inside, again as they did so the place lit up. This time though there was a dramatic change in air temperature, a cool air rushed at them knocking the warm corridor air out of the way; washing over them, flooding up their nostrils and reaching into their inner senses, as if they had just been transported to some high mountain top. They both stood there, light after light switching on, their mouths open. Even in their wildest dreams, they had not expected this, not here. What lay before them was still incomprehensible; how could something this size exist underground.
Ava was the first to speak, ‘So it is a Freeport.’
‘I think so. Evo has built a massive, illicit, private Freeport deep underground in the middle of the Gloucestershire countryside, its either genius or madness.’
Ava looked slightly concerned, ‘I sincerely hope its genius, because if its madness… all bets are off. There is no telling what Evo could do. At least genius is based in reason.’
Bruno didn’t want to go there in his mind, certainly not at the moment. Mentally processing this place and all its craziness was enough to going on with. What lay before them was a vast store room. On one side of the wall there was a vast floor to ceiling store of wooden boxes containing fine wine all stored on industrial racking painted red.
Bruno had wandered over to take a look. ‘There has to be over a million pounds worth of wine in here.’
‘And what about this side?’ Ava was looking at a large glass store room, with a humidity control panel fitted to the door. It was filled with different wooden boxes, a couple of which were over twenty feet tall.
Bruno wandered over.
‘Those are paintings. I guess God only knows what is in there.’
‘Whatever is in there,’ said Ava, ‘Something tells me that we are definitely going to have heard of the artist.
Bruno gave a small nod of his head, ‘Yup, I agree.’ He reached his hand out to touch another smaller box that was on the floor by their feet. As his hand made contact with the wood, an alarm started sounding in the roof space. Both Bruno and Ava were startled. They turned towards the door instinctively, and as they did so, to their horror, they saw the door begin to swing shut. Without needing to say anything to each other, they both ran for the door. Just before they got there it clicked shut. Bruno panicked and lunged at the door handle. He pulled down with dread, expecting it to do nothing, but quite to the contrary, the door opened. He looked out into the hall, there was no one there.
‘Bruno,’ Ava’s voice sounded very calm.
He wandered back into the room.
‘I think we are OK. It was just a climate control alarm. We probably triggered it by leaving the door open.’
She pointed towards a control panel on the wall. It was flashing some text. HEVAC alarm. Climate parameters are outwith pre-set limits. Auto correction protocol initiated.
‘That’s OK then,’ said Bruno, ‘But that is likely to have tripped an alarm somewhere, there is no way in hell this place is not heavily monitored. I think we may have just shown our hand. Let’s head back.’
They looked at the map schematic of the layout of the place that was on the wall. ‘Look at the size of this place it has to be something like forty thousand square meters of floor space. Why don’t we head over to the other side of the canal and look for the others? We could get lost here, and I am sure we will only find more of the same.’
‘Good plan.’ Suddenly Ava had a very real desire for everyone to be together; there would hopefully be safety in numbers.
They closed the door and headed off back into the entrance hall. As they passed through the larger doors, they encountered Evo waiting with four henchmen, all of them armed.
‘Hello you two. Do you like my little secret? I really would have rather that you did as I asked, and left it alone. Now what am I going to do with you?’
Neither Ava nor Bruno felt like playing along, so let the silence linger. Evo seemed to be finding the whole thing quite amusing.
‘Shall we go over to the other side of the tunnel, and join your vandalistic cohorts? I hope they are going to pay for the damage to my dam. Let’s go.’
Two of the guards each jabbed a gun in the back of Ava and Bruno, indicating that they should start walking. The other two guards flanked Evo, who led the way up the stairs and towards an anonymous metal grey door with a large yellow and black warning sticker on it. It had some black wavy lines and just three words. Beware Deep Water.
Chapter 44
Max cautiously pulled back the grey metal door. To both he and his twin’s relief, no water nor anything else tried to make its way through. Instead, they found themselves on top of a large concrete gantry, with some sort of enormous winching kit that rolled out across the rest of the chamber. Over the edge of the gantry was the rest of this enormous concrete chamber below, it was the size of a large warehouse. There was a large oblong hole in the floor that looked like it went a long way down. To the right, was a ramp or slide that slid down into the hole in the floor. Besides that, ran a staircase right down to the chamber floor. The only other noticeable feature was what looked like a vast round metal chimney that sat in the middle of the chamber; its top a good way off the ground. There was damp everywhere, and at various points on the walls, there were white and brown stains where the water was eating away at whatever was behind the concrete façade. Both Joe and Max stood in silence, taking in this strange place.
‘The inside of this portal is no less strange than the outside. What is this place? Do you have any ideas?’
‘None.’ Joe peered over the gantry railings.
There was a large raised concrete plinth below them.
‘Shall we wander down those stairs and have a poke about. The floor looks wet, but if we take care we should be fine’
Joe was hesitant but agreed. They tried the most obvious door, and sure enough it led them to the top of the staircase beside the ramp that ran down into the floor.
‘I’m in a building, and yet I am getting vertigo with the difference in distance and depth between where we are standing and the hole in that floor. Can you see how deep the hole is?’
Max took out his exceptionally powerful torch from the rucksack, and shone it down towards the hole.
‘Nothing, the beam barely made an impact. ‘It doesn’t seem to end. Of course, it has to though. It probably just drops into The Portal.’
Joe nodded. They both descended the staircase until they reached the section where the last six steps headed off to the left, and took them down to the floor. There was a metal banister railing that Max shook violently to see how well it was connected. It held fast. Joe headed past Max down onto the floor. Max grabbed his brother by the arm.
‘Let’s not take any chances with this place. Here, I brought these.’
Max opened the rucksack and brought out a couple of harnesses, and two retractable metal ropes. He set everything up and soon they were clipped in. As they walked, the wires unwound leaving them free to move forward. Max explained that if they were in trouble to hit the red button; the wire would lock in position then retract so they could get to safety. He didn’t want them falling down the hole in the floor. He could not see how they would, but then neither Max nor Joe could explain why the floor was soaking wet. That was cause for concern.
They slowly made their way around the floor. First they looked at the plinth directly below the railings.
‘Max, look at this. That’s a blood spatter consistent with a fall from a great height.’
Max came over and looked, then took a photo. Both twins looked at each other at the same time.
‘Pete,’ they chorused.
Max nodded, ‘It could certainly be where he fe
ll from; if he did, there is no way Evo would reveal this place to anyone, he would move the body to somewhere he could explain away Pete’s injuries. I guess Evo thanks God for the quarry.’
Question is though… did Pete fall, or was he pushed.
Max pursed his lips, ‘That’s the billionaire’s question.’
They wandered towards the hole in the floor, making sure they moved about in such a way as not to get their wires tangled up. They peered over the small single wire rail around the hole in the floor. Max shone the torch again. They could still see no bottom.
‘That doesn’t make sense though; we haven’t come up that far from the tunnel floor. It could just be black non-reflective paint at the bottom.’
Joe said nothing, but stepped back. They both set their eyes on the blue metal chimney; its scale and size only truly becoming apparent the closer they got. Its size was truly unnerving.
‘That thing is giving me serious anxiety bro. You ever looked into truly deep water and got that nervous feeling and tingling in your fingers?’
‘I have – I do. What are we afraid of though? It’s a large metal tube.’
‘Yeah, but it’s a large metal tube on a scale we are not used to dealing with, so it’s size and scale has got us on edge.’
Joe snapped his head towards his brother.
‘Did you feel that?’
‘The thump, yes I did. We’ve heard that before. It doesn’t bode well. What’s that other noise?’
‘I don’t know, it sounds like a rumbling, and a roar at the same time. I can feel the floor shaking. And there’s suddenly a strong draught, I can feel it on my face, I can’t tell where its coming from…It’s getting stronger. It seems to be coming from the roof, but that can’t be right, its solid concrete.’
Max suddenly looked terrified.
‘The draft, it’s coming from the chimney, I think we need to get out of here, I think that’s like a harbinger breath. I think it is being created by water coming towards this chimney from somewhere. Can you hear that?’
Joe listened. He could.
‘Shit. That is the sound of a lot of water coming this way fast, like a lot of water. We need to go now.’
They both turned towards where they had come from. They began moving across the room, back past the hole in the floor to the safety of the stairs; the racing water sound was getting louder and louder. The sound was changing, both men could hear the sheer power of the water that was heading their way. There was a sudden sense of futility. The size and scale of this place and what was happening made them feel powerless, and yet they had to keep trying. They felt like a couple of ants trying to cross a football pitch.
It dawned on them both at the same instant, this wasn’t a room, this was a giant mechanism, a giant mechanism that created and unleashed a Shadow Tide; technically they were inside the Shadow Tide machine.
Chapter 45
They both began to sprint back the way they had come. When they saw what was before them, they were both pretty sure their time was up.
Rising out of the hole in the floor was a huge wall of water. Such was the power and force that the water seemed to hold the shape of the hole it had just risen from. Within seconds the wall of water that rose up was higher than the metal banister. The water then crashed to the concrete floor, spreading out in all directions.
‘Mate, we are cut off, we aren’t going to get back to the safety of the steps.’
‘We have to, otherwise…’
They were now both having to shout, such was the noise of the water flooding across the floor. The sound was magnified as it reverberated around the concrete chamber. One word flashed across Max’s mind; Tomb – he blocked it out.
Joe was looking around, panicking and wondering what their best chance was.
‘The chimney, maybe we can climb the chimney. Let’s head for it.’
‘OK.’ Max joined his brother in the run. The water was around their feet now, but still shallow, so they could gain traction.
They reached the edge of the chimney and realised the plan, like their predicament was totally futile; the rib that ran around the metal edifice that they had hoped to get hold of was at least twenty feet above them. They were trapped.
‘We are going to have to just try and run back mate. Oh shit… run. Look out.’
They were both looking up as Max spotted what appeared to be steam rising from the top of the chimney. Steam? But the water was icy cold.
‘Joe just run…now’
As they stepped back from the chimney in shock, a massive wall of water began to rain down from the top of the chimney. It crashed to the floor where they had just been standing, and both men realised, had they still been standing there, they would have been knocked to the floor with enough force to seriously injure them. The volume of water instantly increased tenfold, and as it hit the floor there was a loud crack that sounded like a massive rifle shot. Now the sounds were defining, the roar of water danced around the chamber. Max and Joe were just able to run through the tide of water that was rising up from the hole and coming towards them. Behind them the larger volume of water chased after them, and won against the lesser tidal power rising from the hole. They were both knocked off their feet. Having met a dead end, the water was now coming back from the far wall, which meant the depth was increasing dramatically with every moment that passed. It foamed and changed direction as if in search for something to attack, like some rabid beast.
Both men managed to take a massive gulp of air before they were pulled under and thrown around in the liquid torrent that had now formed around them. The last thing Max saw before he was pulled under was Joe being wrapped around one of the banisters, and being bent out of shape like a rag doll.
Chapter 46
Evo and the guards were escorting Bruno and Ava along a corridor that Bruno reckoned was directly over the tunnel, and was connecting the opposite sides. The door behind them flew open; they all swung round to see why. Bruno and Ava were dumbfounded by what they saw. Matt seemed to be struggling with carrying a lifeless Bella, and Norton – Norton appeared to be pointing a gun.
‘Wait up Boss.’
‘Boss?’ Bruno looked to Ava for some help with understanding and processing what was going on. ‘Matt’s your boss…Norton what’s going on?’
Evo smiled at Ava and Bruno, ‘I’ll explain everything in a moment. Mr Holland looks like he is struggling, would you like to give him a hand?’
Ava and Bruno realised they should have done that straight away. They were quickly at Matt’s side; they took the lifeless Bella from him and carried her between them.
‘Is she… alive?’
Matt was so exhausted, all he could do was nod.
‘Come on everyone, we need to sort out what we are going to do with you; let’s keep moving.’ Evo was interrupted as the door swung open again. It was Eva this time. She looked shocked at seeing everyone here.
‘Sorry Mr Evelyn, I was just coming to look for you, what on earth…’
‘Nothing for you to worry about Eva, just come with us. It’s OK.’ Evo pushed her to walk with the others.
They moved off through another door, the noise inside this room was deafening. They moved to the far end. The Scott and Munro team all looked at the swirling raging waters below; trying to work out what this place was. Matt was trying to get his breath back when he noticed a body moving about in the water. Then another. He knew instinctively who the bodies belonged to. He scanned the room; on the wall was a large red button with STOP on it, and another with DRAIN. He ran to them hitting the STOP button first, then the DRAIN button. Evo took a moment to compose himself with what he was witnessing. This was not part of the plan either.
‘Hold it right there Mr Holland. You move, and these men will shoot you, or I will. You can’t help your friends now I’m afraid.’
The look on Matt’s face made Evo very nervous, something about it said desperation, and he knew desperate people were dangerous people.
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Matt started running for the open door that he reckoned led down to the water, shouting back to Evo, ‘Well you had better fucking shoot me then hadn’t you.’
The guards looked to Evo for guidance. He shook his head. Matt was gone. Evo motioned to two of the men.
‘Go and help him recover the bodies.’
Chapter 47
Matt made it down the stairs in fast time; to his utter delight he saw Max come up for air. He couldn’t see Joe though. As he got to the last step before the water’s edge, he noticed the two wires clipped to the banister; he tried to pull on one, then the other. His feet and legs were soaked from the cold water as the waves smashed against the stairs. Each wire was tight with the weight of its user, and the wire was wet. Matt could not get a grip. The two guards appeared beside him. Their guns were holstered, and he realised from their body language that they were here to help.
Looking to make a plan, Matt couldn’t believe his eyes. There right where Max was, a vortex appeared. Like the vortex you see in a plug hole only this one was the size of a large HGV. It whipped the water from a light blue colour to an angry foaming white. Matt knew there was nothing he could do. His heart sank. At least the water had stopped pouring in.
He was about to collapse, when he noticed there were four wet steps below him where there were none a moment ago, now five, six. The water level was rapidly dropping. As soon as he could he and the guards ran out onto the floor. They first rescued Max from the hole and then rescued Joe from being wrapped around one of the banisters. Both men were alive. In a state; coughing and spluttering and fighting for breath, but OK. The water was still running across the floor and dropping down the hole, sounding like it did when you stood close to an enormous waterfall. The sound was so loud, it hurt. They all sat for a few minutes catching their breath. When they could stand, and when Matt had uncoupled them from the harnesses that had saved their lives he hugged them both. The guards motioned to start climbing the stairs.