Project wormhole, p.9
Project Wormhole, page 9
Daniel shrugged. “Search me. Hey, Will! Wait up!”
He’d tried to be fairly casual about it with Lee, but Daniel had also noticed Will’s change in attitude and it annoyed him. Yesterday, and the day before, it had been friction with Lee that had been the problem, but now he and Lee were getting on fine Will had decided to go in a strop. If they were going to get through whatever lay ahead of them Daniel knew they had to stay strong as a group, and not let petty arguments cause friction between them.
Time to think about that later, right now he had to deal with walking past the crashed jet, as Will seemed determined to take them that way.
As they approached the mangled, smoke blackened plane Will’s pace slowed until he came to a stop. Daniel and Lee caught up with him, and stood next to him.
“Man, you survived that?” Lee whispered.
One of the wings had been shorn off, probably when they hit the ground, and the jet had tilted further to one side, just as Daniel had dreamed it had. The plane’s nose had crumpled on impact, and the cockpit windscreen smashed in, leaving a gaping hole. A blackened, charred arm lay draped out of the shattered windscreen. He could see the open escape hatch from where he had jumped to safety, and he thought about his dream, and how he had climbed inside and searched for Renton.
And how Renton was no longer there.
“Dan?” Will said.
“I got out before the explosion. The plane was on fire, but I got out.”
“Wow.” Lee whispered. “I knew you’d crashed but I just . . . I just never realised.”
She slipped her hand in his and squeezed. When Daniel looked at her she gave him a shaky smile, and he thought he could see tears in her eyes.
“Come on, we can’t stand around here all morning,” Will said, breaking the silence.
As they approached the plane Daniel felt his legs turning to lead and his stomach morphing into a churning nest of vipers. But, not wanting to show any signs of weakness, he kept moving. They drew closer and closer, and Daniel tried to look away, to fix his eyes on the gap between the plane and the building that they would have to walk down to get to the Rotunda, but his eyes were constantly drawn back. And as they walked closer it suddenly began to make perfect sense to him that he should climb inside, and check on Renton’s corpse. After all, there was no way he could have survived that inferno. It wasn’t going to be pleasant but all he had to do was climb inside, take one quick look at the charred corpse, and his mind would be at rest. He could forget the dream, forget his nagging fear of Renton prowling the city streets with his carving knife.
“Dan? What’s wrong?”
He realised he’d stopped walking again. He was staring at the escape hatch, a black square, an opening into another world, a portal into a nightmare. Renton was inside after all, and he was sitting up, the flesh melting from his skull, and he was whispering to Daniel, Come on in, come inside from out of the hot sun, Daniel, come on in and let’s talk, man to man.
“Hey Boss,” Lee said, placing a hand on his shoulder. “You look like you’ve seen that ghost again.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, tearing his gaze from the burnt out wreck.
“Will, isn’t there another way to this Rotunda building? Coming this way is freaking Dan out.”
Will stared at them, looking hot and impatient. He gestured behind him, at the gap between the plane and the shop.
“It’s only through here and then a short walk. If we turn around we’ll have a long way to walk around to get to the same point.”
“I’m okay,” Daniel said. “Don’t worry about me, let’s carry on.”
They continued walking, drawing ever closer to the wreck. Daniel thought he could feel the heat of the flames again, could hear Renton screaming. He decided then that he wasn’t going to look in the plane. There was absolutely no point, Renton was dead, and he had no desire to look at his corpse.
That was it, decision made.
A few more steps and he would be behind the plane, he wouldn’t even have to look at it anymore.
They walked past the jet. It was behind them now, out of sight unless he turned to look at it again.
Daniel stopped, and turned, and looked.
“Guys?” he said.
“What now?” Will said.
“Hold up a minute, will you? I just need to take a look inside.”
“Inside where? Not the plane?”
Daniel was moving already, heading back round the other side of the jet, back to the escape hatch. It was like it held him in some sort of magnetic force, that he had no control over his limbs anymore. He might as well have been sleepwalking.
He was dimly aware of the other two behind him as he hoisted himself into the cabin. The light was dim inside. The floor was tilted at an extreme angle and he had to hold onto one of the seat backs to stay upright. The seats were little more than metal struts now, all the foam padding and covering having burnt away. He turned and looked through the square of light at Lee and Will outside, watching him.
“Don’t worry, I’ll be out in a second.”
There wasn’t far to go to reach the front of the jet’s cabin, but Daniel had to hold onto each of the burnt seats and pull himself forward. If he had let go he would have slid to the side, and possibly to the back of the plane. Despite his offhand comment to the others about not worrying, Daniel felt sick with fear. His legs trembled as he inched slowly forward and his hands, slick with sweat, struggled to keep a grip on the metal seat backs.
He’ll be there, he will. He’s dead, there’s no way he could have survived. He’ll be there, lying where you left him, his hand still trapped in the wreckage.
He has to be.
Daniel reached the front of the cabin. His legs finally gave way and he sank to his knees, melted plastic crunching beneath his weight. He had to hold on tight to the seat back as his world began spinning, stars popping and exploding in his darkened vision. Putting his fingers in his mouth he bit down hard, and the pain snapped him out of his faint.
Taking a deep breath Daniel closed his eyes. When he opened them he half expected, half hoped that it would be different, that he would see what he had wanted to see, not this thing that he had most feared all along. But there was no denying what his eyes told him.
Renton was gone.
Chapter Thirteen
Daniel sat on the ground with his head between his knees trying to control his panicked breathing. Lee and Will stood by him, watching him, helpless and confused. He had slithered down the cabin floor and fallen from the escape hatch. Just minutes before, his legs had had a life of their own as they carried him to the crashed jet, but now they refused to work at all. It was as though his limbs were made of rubber.
“Dan?” Will said.
Daniel hardly heard him above the howl of thunder inside his head. He took a long, deep breath and held it, waiting for his heartbeat to slow down, and the thunder to subside.
“Dan? Dan, please, we need to go,” Will said.
We need to go.
As he began to calm down the note of urgency in Will’s voice began to penetrate Daniel’s fog of confusion. He looked up.
“Why, what’s wrong?”
Will glanced behind him. Lee was standing with her back to Daniel, constantly scanning the undergrowth for something.
“I think there’s something here with us, we can hear rustling in the undergrowth. Something’s watching us.”
Daniel hauled himself to his feet. He felt a little better now, at least as long as he didn’t think about Renton. “Lee, can you see anything?”
“No, but I can hear them. There’s more than one out there, not sure how many.”
“I think we should head for the Rotunda, get inside where it’s safe,” Will said.
Keeping close together they ducked back around the crashed plane. Here they could see the path the jet had gouged as it crash landed, and beyond that the Rotunda building, much closer than Daniel had realised.
Will flinched as a loud crack ripped through the silence, and Daniel heard a zzing! in his right ear.
“What was that?” Will said.
Before anybody had chance to answer they all ducked as another loud crack sounded above them and a window behind them shattered.
“Somebody’s shooting at us!” Lee shouted. “Look, up there!” She pointed up at the Rotunda as another gunshot smashed the silence, and a small pocket of ground erupted just a few feet in front of them. As one they turned and ran for cover inside the shop, diving through the empty doorway and into a clothes store.
In the vast, silent space, rows and rows of clothes on hangers and shelves disappeared into the gloom. The three teenagers huddled just inside the entrance, ready to run when they heard more gunfire. Outside all was silent.
“I can’t believe it,” Lee said, shaking her head. “We thought we were the only people alive, and then when we do find somebody else they try and shoot us!”
“But why were they shooting at us?” Will said.
“Maybe they weren’t shooting at us, maybe it was something else,” Daniel said.
Lee shook her head. “No, whoever’s up there was definitely aiming at us. Maybe they wanted to scare us off, keep us from getting in the Rotunda.”
“What now?” Will said. “I really don’t want to back outside, not if I’m going to get shot at. And then there were those other things…”
Daniel turned and looked behind them. The shop looked huge, more like what his mother might once have called a ‘Department Shop’ in that strange way she had of calling things by names which nobody else used. It used to annoy his father no end when she called the dishwasher the ‘Washing Up Machine’.
Despite some piles of clothing and upturned shelving units scattered here and there, the shop looked relatively undisturbed.
“Maybe there’s another entrance somewhere. It looks big enough to have more than one way in.”
Daniel felt almost mesmerised by the rows and rows of clothing, the skirts and dresses filling one half of the shop, and trousers, shirts and suits filling the other. He thought it might be a good idea while they were here to find themselves some new clothes. His were beginning to smell and needed replacing, and he thought it might be useful to pack some spares too.
“Hey guys, why don’t we do some clothes shopping while we’re here?” he said.
“Are you mad?” Will hissed. “There’s some nutter out there trying to kill us and you want to go on a shopping spree and choose a new wardrobe?”
“Dan’s right, we should get ourselves some fresh clothes while we have the opportunity. That guy wasn’t trying to kill us, he just wanted to scare us off.”
“Oh, right! Well, you would side with him, wouldn’t you?” Will hissed, rounding on Lee. “You know what, if that nutter with the gun was trying to scare us, he succeeded! Now I think we should get out of here as fast as we can and get back to safety.”
“What do you mean I would side with him?”
“You know exactly what I mean. I’ve seen the way you two’ve been acting all morning. ‘Hey Boss, how ya doin? Hey Boss— ’”
“Will you two shut up!” Daniel whispered. “I don’t think we’re on our own in here.”
Lee and Will had been in each other’s faces as they argued, their noses almost touching. Now they turned their heads as one and looked at Daniel.
“Over there,” he whispered, pointing at some tall racks of striped, men’s shirts, one set hanging above the other. “See those shirts over there?”
“What about them?” Lee said.
“Just watch.”
They watched, and just as Daniel began to think that he had imagined it, the shirts moved.
“Did you see that?” He looked at the others.
Lee nodded.
Daniel watched again as the shirts moved some more, a bulge appearing and disappearing and then appearing again.
A reptilian head forced its way through the shirts, pulling some of them from their hangers. Daniel felt a chill run through his chest and down into the pit of his stomach. This was one dinosaur he recognised immediately, and he didn’t need to see the rest of it to know what it was.
A velociraptor.
Chapter Fourteen
The raptor had been leaning forward when it pushed its head through the racks of clothing, and now it straightened up, scattering shirts and hangers to the floor. Standing upright it looked huge, maybe 7 or 8 feet tall. It flicked its head from side to side, and then it saw the teenagers, and its eyes locked onto them like a cat spotting a mouse.
This is it, Daniel thought. We’re dead.
The raptor was maybe 20 feet away and tensed, ready to charge. It would only take a second or two for it to reach them and snatch one of them up in its vicious jaws. Daniel wondered if that would give the other two an opportunity to escape, or if the raptor would quickly savage its first victim and then hunt each one of them down before returning to devour their bodies.
The dinosaur arched its head, opened its jaws and screeched. Daniel wondered what it was doing, but then Lee gasped and gripped his arm, and Daniel knew that their situation had just got a whole lot worse than he could ever have imagined.
Standing behind them in the open doorway was another raptor, summoned by the first one’s calls, and its dark eyes immediately fixed on the three teens. This one was much closer as the teenagers hadn’t ventured far into the shop. Daniel knew the raptors would be on top of them before they had even had a chance to move. How long would it take for them to die, he wondered. Would the dinosaurs play with them first, like a cat plays with a mouse? Or would they go straight in for the kill?
Daniel flicked his eyes from side to side, glancing at his friends. Will looked as scared as he felt, but Lee was scowling, staring down the raptor in the shop doorway as though she was about to fight it hand to hand.
The raptor in the shop entrance tensed, leaning back on its haunches, ready to spring forward. Its eyes bored into Daniel, and he knew it was coming for him.
This is it, he thought, holding his breath, hoping that it would be quick.
A rifle shot rang out and the raptor’s head snapped forward as blood spurted from its skull. It swayed a moment and then collapsed, and lay twitching on the floor.
“Run!” Daniel hissed, grabbing Will by the shoulders and shaking him from his torpor. Lee was already on her feet, and grabbed Will’s hand and hauled him upright.
Daniel whipped around at the sound of metallic clattering behind him just in time to see the first velociraptor lunging for him, spittle flying from its long, pointed teeth. When had it covered the space between them, and got so close? Already it was on top of them.
Daniel gasped as its snout smacked into his chest and its jaws snapped shut. He fell, landing on his back, and looked in numb horror at a strip of his shirt clutched in the raptor’s mouth.
The dinosaur opened its jaws and lunged again as Daniel instinctively scrambled backwards on his bottom. Its teeth snapped shut only inches away from the boy’s flailing feet. It lunged for Daniel again, but couldn’t seem to advance any further, and again there was the metallic clatter that they had heard earlier.
The dinosaur’s hind quarters had become entangled in the shirt racks it had pushed its way through. It had dragged the tangled metal tubing with it in its first attack, but now that had got caught up in another clothing rack attached to one of the shop pillars. As it thrashed its tail from side to side and kicked at the mesh of poles and wires, Daniel ran.
He sprinted into the gloom, blindly pushing past dresses and suits, trousers and skirts. Stumbling against a display of underwear he glanced behind him and saw the raptor loping towards him. Its long, powerful hind legs moved slowly and gracefully, its long stride propelling it forward at a frightening speed. Daniel ran for the escalator he had spotted moments earlier, its steps silent and still.
As he sprinted up it his momentum carried his upper body forward and over, his palms slapping against the metal steps. He carried on up, scrambling upwards on all fours. The raptor reached the bottom and stopped, unsure of how to navigate the escalator. It lifted a leg up and placed it on the first step, its claws scratching at the metal grooves. It tried again with the other leg, and then lifted its head and squealed with frustration.
Daniel reached the top and sat down, out of sight of the raptor. Gingerly he pulled apart his ripped shirt. His chest and stomach felt tender to the touch, and a big, purple bruise had blossomed across his torso, but the raptor had not managed to sink its teeth into him.
Daniel held his breath, waiting for his heart to stop hammering in his chest. He kept reminding himself that he was safe up here, the dinosaur couldn’t work out how to climb up the steps.
But Lee and Will were still downstairs. The last he remembered seeing of them was Lee grabbing Will’s hand and hauling him up off his feet. There was no way Daniel was going back down there again, but he had to think of a way of finding them, letting them know they were safer up here.
Maybe he could risk a look over the edge of the balcony, maybe he would see them, could signal to them. There had to be another set of escalators they could run up, and join him in the safety of the first floor. Daniel shifted onto his knees and peered over the edge of the silver railing.
A keen bolt of fear sliced through his stomach at the sight that met him.
The velociraptor was slowly climbing the escalator, and it was already halfway up the steps.
Daniel hunched down on all fours and began crawling through the gloom.
A wall of large windows at one end of the shop allowed in a reasonable amount of light through the dirty glass, but the department store was large, and much of it lay in semi-darkness and deep shadows. Up here on the first floor the store sold furniture and Daniel crawled between sofas and coffee tables, still decorated with yellowed magazines and dusty fake flowers, teacups and empty wine decanters.
He flinched as, somewhere in the gloom, glass and china shattered against the laminate flooring. Already the raptor had managed to climb the escalator, and it was up here on the first floor, hunting down its prey. Daniel curled up into a ball, his hands over his head. His mind went blank and for a moment all he wanted to do was lie down and let the velociraptor find him, and kill him. Even if he managed to escape today, even if Lee and Will managed to escape too, there would be other dangers, more dinosaurs. They still hadn’t managed to solve the problem of finding drinking water, and how long would their supply of tinned food last? There were too many insurmountable problems, too many threats to their lives, to make it worth carrying on. Why not give up now, instead of trying to prolong the inevitable?
