Spiders

by Tom Hoyle

  Frank leaned forward, interested to know why Abbie had arrived.

  ‘Apparently there’s a problem with the internal telephone.’

  Frank immediately picked up his phone, tapped and clicked it.

  ‘He says the wire is frayed where it feeds into the main building,’ lied Abbie.

  Frank frowned and tutted. ‘That would affect things down here, I suppose, depending where the disconnect is . . .’

  ‘He sent me down to ask you to get up to the castle immediately. He said that he must have contact with the cavern.’

  An apparent instruction from Bolleskine brought Frank to his feet and, although he was wary, he left immediately.

  Abbie knew that she had little time. As she feared, Vee had just alerted Bolleskine.

  Abbie turned to Noah. ‘Noah, now I’m here, I have to speak to you.’ She moved closer, her blue eyes wide and innocent. ‘Have you wondered how mad this all is?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Noah, looking at her mouth. He was fascinated by her tongue, lips and teeth glistening together. ‘But all will be well when we arrive on the Golden Planet.’

  Abbie knew that time was running out. ‘No – I mean now, doing all of this. Keeping people down here.’

  ‘But . . . Abbie, you know that this is necessary.’

  Abbie’s smile hid a fountain of desperate frustration. She was never going to win Noah round; it was going to have to be Plan B. ‘Noah, when we’re on the Golden Planet, I want us to be together.’

  Noah smiled. ‘Oh, Abbie . . . That’s wonderful. So do I.’ It was all so sudden to Noah – sudden and real , though he had imagined this many times.

  Abbie put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Everything will be perfect there. Can you imagine it?’ Noah smiled pleasantly and closed his eyes for a second.

  In that instant, Abbie pushed her right hand up and against Noah’s chin. Then she put one hand over his mouth and, vice-like, grabbed the back of his head with the other. She forced about half-an-inch square of crumbly yellow drug, taken from the kitchen store, into his mouth.

  Noah’s eyes were full of surprise as he fell to the ground. It was a large dosage, not quite enough to cause permanent damage, but Abbie had to be sure she could incapacitate him.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she muttered.

  She went back to the door, opened it and swung a metal chair at the keypad on the castle side, buckling and smashing it. The door clicked shut and she pulled across the bolts on the cavern side.

  Noah writhed on the ground in tormented agony, tearing at his face, aware of nothing other than his own fears.

  Frank was obediently testing one of the phones in the castle when Bolleskine and Vee passed, with three other people. They were running towards the cavern.

  CHAPTER 27

  SOMETHING IN THE PIPELINE (SATURDAY 20TH DECEMBER 2014)

  Bolleskine headed the group that ran down the white-walled tunnel towards the cavern. He could see that the crumpled keypad was hanging loose.

  ‘Abbie? Abbie!’ he shouted into the metal door. ‘Let me in!’ He listened but couldn’t hear anything other than the hum of ventilation and the faintest trickle of water. ‘Abbie! Abbie! ’ He pounded on the secure door. Lips tight with anger, he turned to Frank, who had followed, annoyed and embarrassed at having been tricked by Abbie. ‘We must open this.’

  ‘It’s an electromagnetic lock. We need to turn the power off.’

  ‘It’s controlled from the other side. Just cut the power to here – rip out the fuse, snap the connection, whatever it takes.’ Bolleskine forced his shoulder against the door but it barely made an impact.

  Frank ran off towards the main fuse box.

  Abbie raced over to the glass containers. ‘I’m going to do what I can to get you out,’ she called.

  Adam waved frantically with one hand, slamming the other on the glass. ‘Thank you,’ he mouthed, as Abbie came closer. ‘Can you undo these bolts?’ He pointed at the fixings on the outside of the containers.

  Abbie stood less than a pace away from him, separated by the thick glass. Some of the drug still coursed through her, but weak enough that she was able to ignore the spiders she imagined scuttling about the cavern. ‘No.’ She shook her head in case Adam couldn’t hear.

  ‘There’s no way you can smash the glass,’ said Adam with extravagant gestures and a look of wild despair, his words unheard by Abbie, but understood.

  ‘No,’ Abbie shouted again, impatient, opening the hatch so that Adam could hear.

  His words escaped in a rush: ‘In that case, you’ll have to go down and under and—’

  ‘Yes,’ shouted Abbie, running to the nearest manhole cover. ‘I know.’

  ‘Then what?’ screamed Adam.

  ‘I don’t know. Shut up!’ she bellowed back.

  Just as Abbie reached the cover to go underground, all the lights went out. It wasn’t the darkness of a cinema, with emergency lighting, nor the darkness of night, with light from the moon and stars; this was the utter darkness of being underground, as dark with your eyes open as with them closed.

  ‘Use your mobile phones as torches,’ ordered Bolleskine. ‘We still have to force the bolts.’

  The door gave slightly as they pushed and kicked at it.

  Frank arrived with a crowbar and torches, relieved that the stores were nearby in the cellar, and that the castle was equipped for all possible difficulties.

  Bolleskine almost immediately wedged the sharp end of the crowbar in by the lock and managed to force the door open a fraction more. There was the sound of rending metal and a loud crack as one of the locks snapped. The bottom half of the door was now about two inches ajar.

  ‘It’s the bolt at the top we need to force,’ said Frank.

  Bolleskine gave him a withering look, then kicked the door twice and pushed three times with his shoulder.

  On the third heave the door opened and dancing torchlight spilt into the cavern, intermittently shining on Noah, who still clawed at his own face, whimpering in mad terror.

  ‘Get the lights back on,’ said Bolleskine. ‘Quickly! If she’s done anything to Adam, I’ll kill her with my bare hands.’

  Adam sensed bats flying around – but these drug-induced creatures didn’t have to obey ordinary laws of flight; they could pass through the glass of his container and they stayed near him, their fine veiny wings flapping, their tiny sharp mouths squeaking, when he tried to push them away.

  Abbie was on her knees in the pipe, sliding the cover back on top of her. Her head torch cast light down the tube. Water swelled past her: it wasn’t very deep, nor especially fast, but it came about one-quarter of the way up a pipe that had a diameter of just over eighteen inches – big enough to crawl through, but still claustrophobically small. And the smell was beginning to rise – a mix of urine, bleach, and stale dampness. She looked up and saw a spider completely blocking her path. ‘I wish I was scared of kittens,’ she muttered, and forced herself to crawl down the tube towards it, slipping and banging her head, but going in a straight line towards Adam’s container.

  ‘I’m here – I’m here,’ called Adam, bending close to the grate, trying to direct her in the darkness, unsure of how the pipes were connected. First he saw flickering light, then the pipe below was properly lit, and then Abbie’s damp blonde hair appeared.

  ‘This pipe stinks,’ she said.

  ‘If you undo those four screws, we can lift the fixing up.’ Adam pointed.

  ‘Keep quiet,’ said Abbie, twisting one of the screws with clumsy cold fingers. ‘If you were so clever, you wouldn’t be stuck in a box.’ The screw came undone and she started twisting the second.

  It was during the undoing of the third that Adam said: ‘Thanks. I’m Adam by the way.’

  The third wing-nut dropped off. One to go.

  Abbie didn’t stop. ‘I’m Abbie, and for me it’s spiders.’

  ‘Bats,’ said Adam. ‘Hurry up!’ He could see flickering light at the corner of the cavern.

 
; The grate came loose. Adam pulled it up and sat on the edge, about to lower himself down, when he saw a torch coming closer, and quickly.

  Adam took off his cloak, and in shorts and T-shirt slid down the hole that had teased and tormented him, and his bare feet plunged into water. Then, slightly crouching and hemmed in by the narrow pipe, he pulled the grate neatly back into position from underneath.

  Bolleskine arrived and shone his torch into Adam’s container. ‘What?!’ he roared. Frantic, he shone his torch towards the other twelve prisoners.

  They put their arms up to shield themselves from the beam just as the main lights came back on. Before, the cavern lights had seemed a dim glow, but suddenly they felt piercingly bright. They confirmed that Adam’s container was completely empty. Everyone stared in a moment of stunned silence. Hope stirred in the captured children; anger stormed through Bolleskine.

  ‘What?!’ It was the same booming shout as before. Bolleskine turned to Frank and the others. ‘He must have . . .’

  They all peered at the floor. Frank pointed to the manhole cover.

  Bolleskine nodded. ‘They can’t get away without passing this point.’ A tiny smile. ‘Open it up. When they pass by, we’ll drag them out.’

  As Adam and Abbie splashed through the pipe on hands and knees, they had to pass under three other glass prisons. Adam peered up at the square of light less than a yard above him, frustrated that they couldn’t risk saving anyone else. His left shoulder gave the occasional twinge, but he ignored it.

  Abbie still had both torches, so Adam squirmed after her in near darkness, unspeaking. The pipes were not only used to administer the drug, they were also used for the removal of human waste from twelve people, so Adam didn’t like to think of what foulness he was putting his hands and legs in. He squelched on.

  Above them, Bolleskine and the others waited for Adam and Abbie to get to the point where they would pass under the manhole cover.

  Adam and Abbie moved on, cold, excited, driven by the lure of escape.

  Bolleskine and the others waited, increasingly doubtful. ‘What if they’ve gone down with the water, away from the entrance?’ Bolleskine asked.

  Frank shrugged. ‘They’d follow the old river into the caves. But that would be mad, completely stupid – they’d be trapped.’

  ‘We cannot leave without Adam.’ Bolleskine breathed out deeply. ‘Though fate will bring him back to us.’

  Following the water slightly downhill, Adam and Abbie passed under the last grating and then came to the point where another pipe joined theirs. The water was deeper here, nearly halfway up the sides, and flowing faster. Then the pipe went steadily downhill, and they both started slipping, having to push out with both arms and force their back and knees against the pipe to prevent themselves being washed away.

  Abbie stopped. ‘Being in here is really getting to me. We’re going to drown.’

  ‘We can’t go back,’ said Adam.

  ‘Listen,’ Abbie said, gritting her teeth to keep herself together, ‘I can see ahead. This pipe gets even steeper.’

  ‘Even if I could go back, I’m not going to,’ Adam hissed.

  At that moment Abbie slipped. There were knocks and scrapes and swear words, then silence.

  Adam was completely alone in the darkness, deep beneath a wintry Scottish mountain, pursued by maniacs, following a girl he didn’t know. Just as he was debating whether to go forward or back, he felt himself slide.

  Bolleskine looked intently at two of his most loyal men. ‘I can’t follow them; I have one hundred people in the castle. This is the most important moment in our history. We will have no delay; we will all travel tonight.’ He gave a flicker of a smile. ‘You two will have to go after him. The quickest way is down the pipe – otherwise we need to drill and blast away this concrete.’

  ‘We’ll bring him back,’ said one of the men.

  ‘Make it so,’ Bolleskine said. ‘We continue as planned.’

  CHAPTER 28

  THE CAVES (SATURDAY 20TH DECEMBER 2014)

  Adam splashed into icy water and felt his hands press against sharp rocks. He spluttered and swallowed water; bubbles rose past him in a flurry. Then he felt himself being heaved up and backwards. He staggered to his feet and was dazzled as he found himself looking into Abbie’s headlamp. ‘Where are we?’ he said, shivering slightly.

  Abbie handed him a torch and shone hers around the cave they were in. It was a jagged oval shape, about a quarter of the size of a football pitch and at least twenty feet high, thirty in places. They were standing knee-deep in water that covered most of the floor, apart from two or three boulders. Stalactites pointed down at them from above. To the left there was scree, the rubble formed over the years by crumbling rocks. Abbie followed it upward with her torch and at the top spotted a rope strung between rusty iron rods. Then they saw a neater tunnel carved into the side.

  ‘They used to mine here,’ said Abbie. ‘Lead and gold, according to . . .’ she paused. ‘According to my dad.’

  Adam sensed that this was not something to ask about now. ‘Can we get out?’ he asked. ‘Or will we just go deeper and deeper into the mountain until we get lost and end up looking like Gollum?’

  ‘We’re going to find out. Let’s go.’ Abbie set off towards the bank of rubble that would take them to the tunnel. ‘And ignore the spider that’s over there.’ She pointed to the left above the pipe.

  Adam looked. He saw a huge bat instead. ‘Are you scared of bats?’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ she said. ‘They’re sweet.’

  ‘Like spiders.’

  Climbing the rocks was difficult in places, but they pushed and heaved one another calmly, until suddenly a new noise echoed through the cave, emanating from the pipe.

  Their eyes meeting in silent resolve, they scrambled up the last few feet. Just as they were about to head further into the mountain through the tunnel, there was a dull roar and a man arrived with a splash in the pool. He got to his feet, holding his head and pointing his torch at the blood on his hands. Suddenly he turned off his torch, and the second that Abbie’s and Adam’s remained lit was enough to allow him to see them. ‘Adam, Abbie – stop!’ he shouted. ‘You don’t understand what you’re missing out on.’ He started towards them just as there was another garbled roar and someone else was spat out of the bottom of the pipe.

  Adam and Abbie ran into the tunnel, keeping low and having to crouch right down in places. The tunnel wasn’t quite straight: it twisted slightly, and sometimes there were recesses off it, so it was difficult to know how far they had gone.

  Before long, not surprisingly, Adam hit his head. He was knocked off his feet and ended up sitting down, lucky not to have damaged his head torch. He could feel a bump, but thought there was no blood. Abbie immediately came back and shone her torch down as Adam waggled his head from side to side as if trying to shake off pain. ‘There should be a Mind Your Head sign,’ he whispered.

  Abbie didn’t seem to do sympathy. ‘Don’t hit your head again. Ready?’

  Immediately afterwards, the tunnel split in two. The man-made route veered left, and what looked like an entrance to a natural cave went to the right.

  Abbie turned to Adam. ‘I say that way,’ she muttered, pointing left.

  ‘No – right,’ said Adam, indicating the rougher route.

  ‘Why? We could get trapped.’

  Adam looked at Abbie’s head. ‘Can you see something to your right, down that passage?’

  ‘One of those things ,’ Abbie mumbled. She didn’t want to say the word spider .

  ‘Me too, but I see a bat. With big wings and dripping fangs.’ Adam tingled with fright. ‘And we’re going to both run straight through the bastard creatures. Come on,’ he said, pulling her by the hand.

  ‘I’m going to punch you when this is all over,’ said Abbie, turning right, stepping over rocks, dipping under outcrops and running through the legs of a huge, drug-induced spider.

  When the men reach
ed the same dividing point, Adam and Abbie had gone far enough ahead for them to be unsure which fork to follow. They split. One went left down the man-made tunnel. The other went right, following Adam and Abbie, his torch shining on scattered items discarded over the years: planks of wood, rusty lamps, a bucket with a hole in the bottom – the remnants of a working mine.

  The tunnel had narrowed as Abbie had warned it might, but occasionally there were alcoves jutting off, so the pair paused opposite one another at a place that had hiding places.

  Footsteps echoed behind them.

  ‘I’m tired of running away,’ Abbie said, holding a cast-off pickaxe handle she had found. ‘You can look away if you like.’

  Adam looked around for a weapon of his own.

  The man blundered along the passage, torchlight announcing his approach, unaware that the pair hid in the darkness, armed and waiting.

  It was Adam who struck first. With all of his strength, he whacked his plank into their pursuer’s stomach, then – as the man bent over in sudden pain – he brought it down on the back of his head. The man made a small attempt to put one hand to his wound, then let out an anguished groan, and lay still.

  ‘You can look away if you like,’ said Adam grimly.

  Abbie struck the prostrate man with her pickaxe handle. ‘We’re taking no chances.’

  Down the other tunnel, the second man heard the noise of a struggle. Echoes made his colleague’s groan sound as loud as an elephant’s trumpet. The man reversed and, unbeknown to Adam and Abbie, darted back down the other tunnel after them.

  Adam and Abbie carried on through the mountain: at times the passageway was so narrow they had to squeeze sideways; then the ceiling dropped much lower, though luckily in a part where it was as wide as at the start. They crept on until rock came down and scree rose up, leaving a tiny gap between – maybe only twelve inches high in places.

  ‘Adam! Abbie! You will not do this to ME!’ The shout was not far away.

  ‘I know that voice,’ said Abbie. She described the man in two rude words. ‘We don’t want to face him.’