Freefall

by Roderick Gordon

  “Yes?” Will pressed him, becoming impatient with his father’s musings.

  “… a deep-level military shelter … a fallout shelter … maybe dating back to the Cold War.”

  “The Cold War?” Will asked.

  “Yes … it’s before your time, Will, in the fifties and sixties. It wasn’t a proper war, as you’d think of it … just a load of absurd posturing between America and the Soviet Union, really. But people genuinely thought the world was going to be torn apart by a nuclear war. So each country had its own contingency plans, which included building fallout shelters … even here in England,” he said, then turned to go through the door. Will trailed after him, still clutching a Browning Hi-Power pistol. Dr. Burrows was on a roll with his theory, gabbling away ten to the dozen. “And if this is a fallout shelter … that would mean it would be self-sufficient, with its own water supply, and there’ll probably be living quarters down here, somewhere.”

  They ignored the remaining cabins and cranked open the door at the end of the passage. As it swung back they were greeted by another blast of air. It was dark inside until Dr. Burrows located a row of switches by the side of the door. He flipped them all up with the side of his hand.

  Banks of lights flickered on in sequence.

  “My word …,” Dr. Burrows gasped.

  Although the ceiling was at a lower height than the passage, the area was immense. And row upon row of bunk beds were arranged regularly throughout the space.

  “I bet a hundred men could have been billeted here!” Dr. Burrows exclaimed.

  Will ran to the first bunk and touched the pillow. Like all the other bunks around him, it was made up with white sheets and coarse brown blankets. “A real bed!” He put his head back and gave out a whoop, which echoed through the floor. “I can sleep in a real bed tonight!” Then he was running between the bunks to reach the rooms that lay around the outside, each one with a gray-painted door and a number stenciled on it.

  “Showers!” he yelled, leaning inside the first room. Then, as he inspected the next, “Lavatories!” Several rooms farther along he was screaming, “Food! There’s food in here!” as he vanished into it.

  Dr. Burrows jogged over to join his son.

  It was a kitchen area, with a bank of ovens and a long grill, like one might find in a large restaurant. But what interested Will more than anything else was the huge quantity of tin cans on the shelves and in the cupboards.

  Will picked out a large rectangular can — it didn’t have a label stuck on it, but the contents were printed on the outside in small blue letters. “Corned Beef,” he read. “Do you think any of this is still OK?”

  “Might be,” Dr. Burrows replied, as he took the tin from his son to check it for any signs of rust or leakage. “Will, have a mosey around for a can opener, will you?”

  22

  “WATCH OUT!” Chester spluttered, gesturing frantically at the shadows behind Martha as she entered the section of the Wolf Caves where he and Elliott had been waiting for her. Snuffling, Bartleby came into view, his head down as if he was ashamed of himself. “It’s that darn cat!”

  “It’s all right,” Martha said, beckoning the cat over. He sat by her feet, looking up at her. “I couldn’t just leave him out there, at the mercy of the spiders and the wolves.”

  “But he was about to go for Will! He was going to attack him,” Chester said, his rifle ready in his hands. “We can’t be sure of him.”

  “You heard what the Rebecca twin said. It was the Styx,” Elliott said casually as she bit off another mouthful of spider meat.

  “What do you mean?” Chester asked.

  “They used the Dark Light on him,” Elliott replied. “He had no choice but to do what the Rebecca twin ordered. With the Dark Light, the Styx can break the minds of the strongest men and make them their slaves, and Bartleby’s only a dumb animal. Anyway, he might come in useful,” she added.

  “I reckon I’m the dumb animal,” Chester grumbled as he lowered his rifle, still regarding the cat with misgiving. “We should have had Bartleby burgers back on the sub.”

  Martha stroked the cat’s bald pate, which was still stained with fungus juice from the explosion. “No, Elliott’s right — he is a Hunter. He might yet come in handy,” she said.

  As his father entered the radio operator’s booth, Will was lounging in one of the canvas chairs, his feet on the bench. He stuck a fork into the large can of pineapple chunks in his hand and, spearing several pieces, crammed them into his mouth. “Mmmm … rather good. This is the life, isn’t it, Dad?” he said as he munched on them.

  “Don’t overdo it with that fruit — your body won’t be used to it,” Dr. Burrows advised him, placing an army mess tin on the bench. Reaching into his pocket, he produced a few small foil-wrapped packets. Will sat up, immediately interested.

  “Brought you some crackers,” Dr. Burrows said.

  “Great. And what’s in this?” Will asked as he regarded the steam rising from the mess tin.

  “Tea,” Dr. Burrows said. “Try some.”

  “It looks about the right color,” Will observed. He took a sip, then stuck out his tongue. “Urgh … that’s foul! Far too sweet!”

  “That’ll be the condensed milk. I loved it when I was young — we used to have it on peaches….”

  Taking the chair next to Will, Dr. Burrows began to reminisce about some great-aunt Will had never met, at the same time flicking the switches on the various boxes on the bench. Finally, as Dr. Burrows was waxing lyrical about the steak-and-kidney pudding this great-aunt would make especially for him, he pushed a button on the largest device, and a large dial in its center was instantly suffused with a pale yellow light. Several of the valves on the top of the unit also lit up, emitting a pinkish glow. From a small speaker mounted high on the wall came a sudden burst of static, which gave way to a sound that seemed to ebb and flow. It wasn’t that dissimilar to the sound of waves breaking on a distant beach. By now Dr. Burrows had fallen absolutely silent.

  “Finally!” Will muttered under his breath, relieved that his father had curtailed his incessant reminiscing.

  “Yes, indeed — at last some hope of …” Dr. Burrows trailed off in thought, not realizing the real reason for his son’s remark. He swiveled the dial in the center of the main unit. But this only had the effect of producing further bursts of static, and after several minutes he stopped, shaking his head. “I expect some of the valves must have blown,” he said, pointing at the glass tubes on the top of the unit that had remained unlit.

  “Could we try to fix it?” Will suggested.

  “I saw some spares in one of the storerooms, but I wouldn’t know where to start. It’s all a bit beyond me,” Dr. Burrows grumbled, as if annoyed with himself. He sighed and sank back into his chair, playing with a packet of crackers. “Anyway, I haven’t a clue what all these settings mean or how any of this equipment works,” he said regretfully. He got to his feet and clicked his tongue against his teeth distractedly. “It might be a waste of time, but while you’re in here you could try to sweep through all the wavelengths, Will. This equipment was probably only for communications around the harbor, and since there’s no one else down here but us …” He didn’t bother to complete the sentence, instead leaving the room.

  Will took over, turning the main dial slowly and trying different combinations of switches. As he did this, he repeated, “Hello, hello, anybody there?” into the microphone, although the question was barely intelligible because he was still gorging himself on pineapple chunks. As his efforts only seemed to be resulting in the odd crackle of static from the speaker, and he’d also had enough of the fruit, he eventually gave up.

  “No,” he said to himself disconsolately. “It is a waste of time.” Tearing open the packet, he nibbled on one of the dry crackers as he contemplated the rest of the room. His gaze settled on the pair of telephones on the wall. He stood up and lifted the receiver from the nearest, the red one, and put it to his ear to check
for a dial tone. He couldn’t hear anything, so he pressed the tabs on the top of the phone and dialed random numbers to find out if that made any difference.

  “The Bat Phone’s out of order,” he grumbled, still hearing nothing, and he eventually replaced the receiver. He chuckled to himself as, on a whim, he picked up the receiver from the black phone next to it and began to call the number of his house in Highfield. Sticking his finger in the rotary dial, he dragged it around. It took ages for the dial to spin back so he could dial the next digit. “Why did anyone put up with these?” he wondered. He thought about how strange it would be if his mother were to answer. That would be a conversation in a million.

  He closed his eyes and began to imagine how it might go.

  Click!

  Hi, Mum, it’s Will.

  She would undoubtedly be furious with both him and his father. Where in the world have you been all this time? You’ve no idea what you’ve put me through, have you? You couple of selfish snots — GET YOURSELVES HOME RIGHT THIS MOMENT!, she would bellow at the top of her lungs.

  Er, Mum, that’s not so easy. We’re thousands of miles below the surface, in some sort of secret government installation….

  He abandoned his imaginary conversation as silence continued to reign in the earpiece. “Nobody home, nobody home …,” he muttered, and was about to replace the receiver when he decided to try again.

  He managed to remember his mother’s cell phone number, although she rarely had it switched on. As he finished dialing, he strained to listen. A burst of white noise made him start.

  In the solicitors’ office where she worked, Mrs. Burrows was at her desk typing away furiously. Wearing a headset, she was listening to the Dictaphone and transcribing a letter from one of the law firm’s partners. It had to do with a couple in divorce proceedings who were wrangling over custody of their five-year-old daughter. As she imagined the heartbreak and upheaval that lay behind the dry legal language of the letter, Mrs. Burrows was finding it really quite upsetting.

  Thinking she heard her cell phone, she tore off her headset and snatched up her handbag. The phone was still ringing as she got it out. Answering it, she put it to her ear and heard a loud crackle. “Hello?” she said, just as the line went dead. She studied the number. She didn’t recognize it — it certainly wasn’t a London number. “Another annoying telemarketer,” she said, slinging the phone back into her handbag and resuming her typing.

  After another, much louder burst of white noise, Will had whipped the receiver away from his ear and ended the call. “What am I doing?” he asked himself, but nonetheless resolved to give it one last go. On the spur of the moment, his mind went blank and he couldn’t think of a single number to try. He didn’t know the numbers for Chester’s parents or Auntie Jean’s apartment, and as a last resort he thought about just trying to call emergency services — as if he could order an ambulance to the underworld.

  But, in a flash, the number that Elliott had been babbling over and over again in her feverish state suggested itself and, knowing it by heart, he immediately dialed it. Again he didn’t seem to be getting any sort of connection — in fact, there wasn’t even the smallest crackle in the earpiece this time — so he announced, “This is Will Burrows. I’m calling from deep within the earth and I will be back soon. Thank you — good-bye!” before he slammed down the receiver.

  Gnawing on one of the dry crackers, he went to find out what his father was up to.

  “Don’t know how you can drink that stuff,” Will said as he approached. Taking occasional sips of tea from his mess tin, Dr. Burrows was hunched over a table he’d set up in the main dormitory area. Around the legs of his chair were an assortment of folders, boxes, and wads of loose papers — he’d clearly gathered together everything he thought might be useful and was now sifting through it.

  Some kind of plan, so large that it covered the entire surface of the table, was spread open. It was of graying paper, with the odd area of pastel color. As Dr. Burrows finished with his tea and put his mess tin down on the plan, a section close to the tin caught Will’s eye. It stood out because it was so heavily shaded. From its shape, Will knew immediately it must be the harbor and the complex where they were right now. Other than the river, which looked like a pale blue ribbon draped across the surface of the plan, small yellow lines radiated off from the harbor cavern, studded every so often by red triangles. Will assumed these were distance markers that corresponded to the triangles they’d seen painted on the walls in the fissure, which had led them to the harbor in the first place.

  “Anything interesting?” Will asked, inclining his head toward the plan.

  “Not really,” Dr. Burrows answered distantly. “Just that they were surveying the surrounding area for freshwater springs.”

  It was then that Will spotted the small stone tablets nestling in a grimy handkerchief, and was immediately interested because he’d only had a brief glimpse of them before. Dr. Burrows had one of them in his hand and was examining it closely.

  “Can I take a look?” Will said.

  “Just don’t drop them,” Dr. Burrows mumbled as he jotted something illegible on a pad.

  Will reached over to the handkerchief and took a tablet in his hand.

  “Wow! You said the carving was tiny, but I didn’t think it was that tiny!” he marveled, squinting at the intricate inscriptions and minute diagrams.

  “No matter how long I spend on this, I just can’t get anywhere with the script. I’m completely stumped.” Dr. Burrows exhaled, sitting back in his chair with a resigned expression. “I can remember a few of the words, but not enough of them. I need someone trained in code-breaking to help me decipher the whole caboodle.”

  “Want me to have a go?” Will offered enthusiastically.

  “No, it’s too involved,” Dr. Burrows said. “It would only frustrate you, too.”

  “What do you think this map’s of?” Will asked as he took a second stone tablet from the handkerchief and began to compare it with the first.

  Dr. Burrows turned to a clean page in his pad, on which he began to scribble wildly. Then he twisted it around so that Will could see it. He’d drawn a circle with tiny stick men walking inside its circumference, and a stylized sun right in the center of the circle with jagged rays issuing from it. “This is a mural I discovered in an ancient temple in the Deeps. It depicts a world within a world,” he said, then sighed.

  “Yeah, I saw your drawing of that,” Will remembered.

  “What?” Dr. Burrows shrieked, knocking the chair over behind him as he jumped to his feet. “How in the world could you have?”

  “I told you, Dad — we found some of your pages by the Pore,” Will said.

  “Yes, but I thought they were illegible. I thought they’d been ruined by water!” Dr. Burrows cried.

  Will looked completely taken aback. “I didn’t say that. Some of the pages had been soaked, but most of the ones I managed to pick up weren’t too bad. I could read them, anyway.”

  Dr. Burrows tottered slightly, as if he’d just been struck on the back of the head. He attempted to sit down, stopping himself just in time as he realized the chair wasn’t where it should be. He seized it up impatiently and righted it, then sat down and began to scrawl on a blank page like a madman. Seconds later, when he was finished, he shoved the pad in front of Will.

  “Was there a drawing like this in with them?”

  Will contemplated the outline his father had sketched and the three blocks of text within it. The way Dr. Burrows had reproduced them, the quickly formed letters rather resembled swatted mosquitoes. “Yes, I definitely had that page, with the three areas of writing on it,” he said.

  “And, pray, where is it now?” Dr. Burrows demanded.

  “I put it in a safe place, in Martha’s shack.”

  “In … Martha’s … shack …,” Dr. Burrows repeated slowly, emphasizing each word. His face was already white from months of living underground, but it seemed to Will that it ha
d now completely drained of blood.

  “Why — is it important?” Will asked tentatively.

  “I need that page with the Burrows Stone to translate these tablets. Yes, it’s important.”

  Will frowned at the mention of the Burrows Stone, then shot his father a brief look to see if he was being serious. Turning his attention back to the tablets, Will helped himself to another one from the handkerchief.

  “The Burrows Stone is like the Rosetta Stone,” Dr. Burrows explained. “It has three distinct areas of writing on it, all saying the same thing, but one is in Phoenician. That enables me to translate the other two languages, neither of which I believe has ever been seen on the surface. If I had it now, I could translate these tablets and …” He trailed off.

  “What?” Will said as he looked from one tablet to another.

  “And I think it might be the route map to this inner world the ancient civilization believed in. The Garden of the Second Sun.”

  “The second sun,” Will repeated absently.

  Dr. Burrows was surprised by the lack of reaction from Will, but his son’s attention was elsewhere. He was moving the tablets around on the tabletop and helping himself to more from the handkerchief until they were all laid out, apart from the one his father had been working on.

  “Can I have that?” he asked, indicating the tablet in his father’s hand. Dr. Burrows passed it to him, and Will turned it one way, then the other, as he examined the edges, before placing it carefully down with the rest.

  “Dominoes,” Will said, “they’re like dominoes. The edges are quite worn, but didn’t you notice the little notches on them? Look,” he said, choosing one to show his father. “This has four notches on the end, and so it fits with the next, which has the matching four notches.” He put it back into place and straightened up.