Countdown to Danger: Shockwave

by Jack Heath

  The worker jumps off the platform and splashes down into the ocean. You realize you’ve reached the front of the line. You turn your life jacket around while you wait for him to swim out of the way. Then you take a deep breath and jump.

  You fall for a heart-stopping second before you crash down into the freezing water. The vest hits you in the face almost hard enough to hurt. The light flickers on. It must be designed to react with water.

  You paddle sideways so the next person can jump in—

  And then the oil platform lets out an ominous groan.

  “It’s coming down!” someone shrieks.

  The concrete pilings crack. Steel ropes snap and support struts bend. You swim as fast as you can towards the other workers, floating at a safe distance—

  But it’s too late. A million tonnes of oil platform crash down on top of you.

  THE END.

  Click here to go back and try again!

  02:08

  You run up to meet Stacey at the top of the stairs. She grabs your hand and drags you past the shipping containers to a massive cargo elevator. The doors are already open.

  “Will this thing still work?” you ask.

  “I have no idea. But we don’t have time for the stairs.” She steps into the elevator and slams her hand down on the button. An alarm buzzes. You barely have time to jump in before the doors roll closed.

  Because the oil platform is sliding into the sea, the elevator is crooked. You’re not just riding it up, you’re riding it up and sideways. The car grinds against the shaft, shooting sparks.

  “Why are we going up?” you ask. “Shouldn’t we be trying to get down to the hovercraft?”

  “That hovercraft is about to be buried under a million tons of metal and concrete,” she says. “But I have another way to get off.”

  The elevator buzzes again and the doors open. You expected to find yourself on the helipad, but instead you’re at the top corner of the platform, near the control tower where the sniper was shooting at you earlier. The sniper is gone now. She must have fled when the rig started to collapse.

  Stacey leads you over to the edge. “We’re going to jump,” she says.

  It’s a long, long way down. Hitting the water from this distance would be like landing on concrete.

  You stagger back from the edge, dizzy. “We can’t!”

  “We have to.” Stacey backs away from the edge so she can take a running start. “Come on.”

  You don’t move. “If we were going to jump, why didn’t we do it on the other side? When it was only a ten-metre drop?”

  “Kid,” she says, “this rig will collapse any minute. There’s no time to explain — just trust me.”

  Not trusting Stacey has gotten you into a lot of trouble today. But you’re dead certain that a fall from this height will kill you.

  The platform lurches. You wobble and almost pitch over into the ocean.

  “We’re out of time!” Stacey yells. She runs for the edge and reaches out to grab you.

  If you take her hand, click here.

  If you back away, click here.

  04:03

  You drag your feeble body across the dirt and dead grass until you reach the ditch. The thing that looked like a log isn’t a log. It’s your surfboard, already stained black with ash. This must be where the mercenaries first grabbed Agent Stacey, although the haze from the fire makes the forest look completely different.

  You tumble into the ditch and pull your surfboard down on top of you. The fibreglass shell bumps your cheek. Broken rocks and twigs prod your back through your wetsuit.

  Hopefully the dirt walls of the ditch will absorb the heat of the explosion, and the board will protect you from raining debris. But what if a great big tree lands on it? What if you get trapped, or buried alive? What if smoke inhalation kills you before the bomb even—

  KABOOM!

  The vibrations turn your insides to water. The flames instantly go out as all the oxygen is sucked into the explosion. You’re suddenly dizzy. A thousand tonnes of dirt are catapulted into the air, turning the sky black.

  You almost have time to scream before it all comes back down. The boiling mud pours out of the sky, slamming against your surfboard and filling the ditch around you, burning your skin. The roaring sound drowns out your hammering heart.

  The black spots at the edge of your vision fade away as the oxygen returns to the air. You can see a crack of daylight between your board and the crush of mud around you. You’re alive.

  You try to push your board off so you can get out of the ditch, but it seems to weigh as much as a dead elephant. Either you’ve been weakened by your ordeal — entirely possible — or there’s a whole heap of dirt and rubble on top of the board.

  “Hrrrrrrrgh!” You push again with all your might. Useless. The board doesn’t budge an inch …

  But the wall of the ditch next to you shifts.

  You start scrabbling at the hot mud. Maybe you can dig your way out.

  Then the side of the ditch collapses completely, and you find yourself falling!

  In a split second you realize what has happened. The explosion left a tremendous crater in the earth, and your ditch is right on the edge of it. Now the side of the ditch is collapsing into the crater, and you’re about to fall in after it.

  If you grab the nearest rock, click here.

  If you grab the surfboard, click here.

  19:56

  The bad guys have a head start, but Stacey’s boots have left scrabbling trails in the forest floor. You follow them into the trees, treading carefully. You have no shoes — now would be a bad time to step on a sharp stick.

  The trail dead-ends at a cluster of bushes. You look around.

  There! A glimpse of the two mercenaries between the trees in the far distance. They’re still dragging Agent Stacey. Her arms and legs are floppy. She’s unconscious, or worse.

  Once they’re out of sight again, you keep moving.

  Soon you come across a small campsite — not yours. A low tent, spray-painted green and brown to match the foliage, is pitched between two big trees. A satellite dish stands in a clearing nearby, pointing at the sky. A big metal box is padlocked closed beside a pile of camouflage netting. But where is Agent Stacey?

  “Mmmf!”

  There she is, under the netting. You can only see her wide eyes and some duct tape over her mouth. But at least she’s alive.

  She looks right at you. “Mmmmf!”

  You’re about to run across the clearing to help her when you hear voices. You can’t see where they are coming from.

  “What’s the problem?” one of the giants is asking.

  “Something broke the laser tripwire,” the other says.

  “Could be an animal.”

  “Or maybe that kid followed us. I’ll check it out.”

  You can’t see the two guys yet. Maybe you have time to run over, free Stacey and escape together before they arrive.

  Then again, maybe you don’t. You could dart into the bushes surrounding the clearing instead.

  If you run to Stacey, click here.

  If you hide in the bushes, click here.

  04:59

  You slam your hand down on the keyboard, hitting every button at once.

  “No!” the boss yells.

  The countdown stops.

  You run for the door. Maybe you can still save Agent Stacey—

  But once again, it looks like she doesn’t need saving. You watch through the window in amazement as she wriggles out of the security guard’s grip and stands up, banging her head on the underside of his chin. He topples like a building in a controlled demolition.

  The boss reaches for something in his pocket, but Stacey crash-tackles him before he can get to it. He hits the ground, wheezing, and Stacey holds him down.

  “Daniel Winston Christie,” she says, taking a pair of handcuffs out of her backpack. “You’re under arrest. You have the right to remain silent.”

  “Y
ou’ll never get off this rig,” Christie spits.

  Stacey raises an eyebrow. “Won’t I?”

  You can hear the drone of a helicopter approaching. A voice echoes through a megaphone. “This is the police. Vacate the landing pad immediately.”

  “Sounds like our ride is here,” Stacey says, hauling Christie to his feet.

  It doesn’t seem real. Less than half an hour ago you were standing on the beach, contemplating a surf. Now you’re on an offshore mining platform with a federal agent and a corrupt mining official. You’ve just prevented an enormous explosion from killing your friends and destroying a national park.

  “If I tell anyone about this …” you begin.

  “You’ll end up in detention,” Stacey reminds you. “This is all highly classified.”

  She must be able to see how disappointed you are. She puts a hand on your shoulder.

  “But you did well, kid,” she says. “Really well. Let’s go take a ride in a helicopter.”

  00:00

  You survived! There are twelve other ways to escape the danger — try to find them all!

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  03:19

  As the helicopter thunders closer, you run across a clearing to a tree trunk that has half-fallen into a shallow ditch. Vines shroud the trunk — it’s been there a long time. You should be able to conceal yourself beneath the vegetation.

  You scramble over the trunk and tumble into the ditch. The sky is mostly concealed. But what if the helicopter has some kind of thermal camera on board?

  You don’t get time to finish this thought.

  Boom!

  The bomb explodes with the fury of a thousand suns. You scream as the ditch rocks around you like a canoe in a cyclone. The world flashes bright white and then fades to an ominous grey as a wave of smoke rolls over the top of you.

  The tree trunk moans. Vines creak and snap.

  “No!” You try to clamber out of the ditch, but you’re too slow. The trunk rolls inward like a dying brontosaurus, ready to squash you—

  Crunch!

  THE END.

  Click here to go back and try again!

  07:31

  “OK,” you mutter. “Here goes nothing.”

  You grab the wires, already second-guessing yourself. Are you about to make a horrible mistake?

  But you have to do this. Bravery, someone once told you, is doing the right thing even when you’re scared.

  You take a deep breath—

  And wrench the wires out of the lump of T4.

  Nothing happens.

  After a moment, the timer fades to black.

  A wild grin spreads across your face. You just disarmed a bomb! Prevented a crime! Saved lives, including your own!

  Beep.

  The sound didn’t come from the timer. You look around.

  Another flashing light. Another timer. Another bomb, sitting in the shadows. Ready to turn you to dust.

  You should have guessed that just one charge wouldn’t be enough to create the stadium-sized explosion Stacey described. You look around for more bombs, but can’t see any.

  This timer is counting down quicker. Each second disappears in half a second. When you deactivated the first bomb, some kind of signal must have been sent to the other.

  No problem, you tell yourself. You’ll just disarm it the same way.

  But the first bomb wasn’t counting down so fast, and it wasn’t beeping like that. What if the signal has activated some kind of alarm?

  You tell yourself you don’t have a choice. There’s no time for you to get out of the blast radius …

  But maybe you can carry the bomb to a place where it won’t hurt anybody else.

  If you try to disarm the second bomb, click here.

  If you take the bomb out of the cave and look for somewhere to dump it, click here.

  ERROR: TIME UNKNOWN

  “Where are we?” Pigeon demands. “When are we?”

  You back away from the shuffling horde of zombies. “I don’t know!” you cry. “What do we do?”

  The nearest zombie groans, its grey lips tugging upward to reveal sallow teeth and a black, crumbling tongue. It reaches out for Pigeon. She kicks it in the chest. It stumbles backwards, but more are right behind it.

  “Take us somewhere else!” she yells.

  “I don’t know how!”

  “Use the book!”

  You look down at the book in your hands. Does it really have the power to get you out of this?

  A circle of rotting arms closes in to claim you.

  “Pick a new page!” Pigeon screams. “Quickly!”

  Click here.

  15:39

  Harrison looks alarmed. “The camp is empty,” he says. “We should get to a safe distance and contact the authorities.”

  You’re relieved that he’s believed you so quickly. “I don’t have my phone.”

  “I’ve got an emergency radio in the car. This way.”

  “What about everyone else?”

  “They’re up at the lookout, watching the sunset,” Harrison says. “Plenty of distance between them and the campsite — but we need to contact the police right away. Come on.”

  He must have taken your warning about the bomb seriously. You follow him up a narrow trail. In this direction, the cliffs block out the disappearing sun. Darkness shrouds the forest floor. It’s hard to avoid stepping on sharp rocks.

  Harrison has shoes, and he keeps getting ahead of you — you’re struggling to keep up.

  A distant keening splits the air.

  “What was that?” you ask.

  Harrison doesn’t stop. “What was what?”

  There it is again. It’s like the wailing of a hungry baby.

  “You don’t hear that?” you ask.

  Harrison pauses reluctantly. He listens to the distant scream.

  “Just feral cats fighting,” he concludes. “Nothing to worry about. Come on.”

  The screeching gets louder, and then suddenly stops. You wonder if that means one of the cats won the fight.

  A shallow river gurgles up ahead. A row of stepping stones crosses the water. Fine sand spirals in the water between them like smoke.

  And something else. As you follow Harrison onto the stepping stones, you peer down at the red stain creeping through the current.

  “Harrison,” you say. “There’s blood in the water.”

  He looks down and frowns. “No,” he says. “That must be something else.”

  The screaming sound had come from upstream, before it was cut off so abruptly. Now a flow of blood is coming from that direction. What happened?

  Obviously an animal has been killed. But by what?

  And then you see it. A dark shape beneath the water, getting closer and closer. Soon you can make out a giant tail, curving left and right like a dancer’s hips as massive claws paddle beneath it.

  An ancient fear surfaces in your brain. There’s something more scary than a bomb in this forest. Something that can swim, and think. Something with teeth.

  “Crocodile!” you scream.

  Harrison spins around — too quickly. He loses his balance on a stepping stone. Arms spinning, eyes wide with terror, he splashes down into the water.

  The crocodile immediately changes direction. It swims towards Harrison, rows of fangs glimmering on either side of its enormous snout.

  If you run over to Harrison and try to pull him out of the water, click here.

  If you try to distract the crocodile, click here.

  09:21

  “OK,” you say. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  “No offence taken,” Harrison says. It’s true — he doesn’t look offended. That’s what makes you sure you were right. If someone had accused you of being a dangerous criminal, you wouldn’t have let it go so easily.

  Harrison puts the phone back in his pocket. “Ready to head to the lookout? Everyone’s waiting.”

  “Well …” you say, bu
t he’s already walking away towards the forest. You run to catch up.

  A dirt bike lies on its side near the mouth of a narrow trail. Harrison picks up a pink helmet and tosses it to you. “We’re running too late to walk now,” he says, picking up another helmet for himself. “We’d better take this.”

  Late for what? you wonder. Meeting the others at the lookout, or getting out of range of the bomb?

  Harrison straddles the dirt bike and guns the engine. You climb on behind him and wrap your arms around his waist.

  He doesn’t wait for you to get settled. He twists the throttle and launches the bike up the trail at a reckless pace. The dirt is so rough that your legs barely touch the seat as the bike bounces up the mountain.

  You still don’t trust him, but suddenly you realize he might not trust you either. He might realize you still suspect him. If that’s the case, he might be taking you to somewhere other than the lookout.

  But he’s going too fast for you to jump off. Branches whip past, cracking against your helmet and the sleeves of your wetsuit. Harrison gets it worse, but he doesn’t slow down.

  “Be careful!” you shout, but there’s no way he’ll hear you over the roaring of the engine.

  You shoot past a deep gully and around a tight bend before the lookout comes into view. Harrison wasn’t lying — at least not about your destination. Pigeon, Neil, Shelley and the other three kids lean against the wooden rail, staring out at the sunset.

  Now’s your chance to warn them. About the bomb, and Harrison.

  “Watch out!” you yell to the distant group. “Harrison is—”

  Boom!

  You’re a long way from the bomb when it goes off, but the shockwave still pushes you off the bike. You hit the dirt as a wall of superheated air sweeps over you.