Humpty's Bones (14 page)

‘How?’ Adam swallowed.

‘We use our brains. There’s a way to figure this out.’

‘Jenny’s right,’ Pitt said. ‘It doesn’t like noise. Look how it’s taking that motorbike apart. It’s making sure it never works again.’

‘Which gives us a few seconds to come up with an answer.’ Jenny glanced from face to face. ‘Apart from noise, what else doesn’t it like?’

‘Us,’ Adam whispered.

‘What else?’

‘Think quickly,’ I said. ‘It’s starting to lose interest in the bike.’

Pitt stared at the bunker door. ‘It took a lot of trouble to break out of there, but then it went back into the tunnels. Why?’

This time Adam came up with an answer. ‘It doesn’t like being outdoors.’

‘Why?’

We all looked up at the brilliant sun shining down. This June day was going to be a hot one. The light seared our eyes.

We all shouted at the same time.
‘Sunlight!’

I peered from the bushes at the snarling Voggron. ‘Look at that thing, guys. What’s happening to it?’

Out there on the grass by the shattered motorbike the Voggron grunted. It shook its head as if angry at something we couldn’t see.

All of us, apart from Brian, who was frozen in fear, studied the creature.

‘Something’s different.’ Adam frowned.

‘What’s wrong with its skin?’

‘It wasn’t like that before. It’s changing colour.’

Jenny added triumphantly, ‘Sunburn!’

She spoke too loudly because the Voggron realised we were in the bushes. It took a lurching step toward us. The tail whipped angrily.

But I realised something else now. Yes, the once yellow skin had turned to a sore-looking red. And as for its eyes?

I hissed. ‘It’s eyes were orange. Now they’re white.’

Pitt whooped. ‘The sun’s hurting its eyes. It can’t see properly.’

‘But it can hear us,’ Adam groaned. ‘It’s coming this way.’

It darted toward the bushes. The tentacles reached out to feel the branch of a tree. Even though it couldn’t see much, it could hear... and with those tentacles it could feel. And there was nothing wrong with its sharp teeth or that whip-tail with the claws. If it grabbed us that would be it. Dead meat.

‘Spread out,’ Jenny said. ‘Then start calling.’

We did as she said.

After running to different parts of the fenced compound we all started yelling out loud. All apart from Brian, that is; he curled up under a bush and whimpered.

We shouted:

‘Here.’

‘No, over here!’

‘Come and get me!’

‘Yahoo!’

Those shouts from all different directions confused the Voggron. Disorientated it. The beast whirled round. Sometimes it attacked a bush with its teeth, or whipped a tree trunk with its clawed tail. Splinters flew.

Jenny hollered, ‘It can’t find us! Keep shouting.’

The creature’s skin turned crimson. Its eyes were pure white now. Blind... sightless... But the monster’s fury increased.

‘We can’t keep shouting forever,’ I called out. ‘Pitt! Help me with this.’

I grabbed at the sign bolted to the fence. It bore the stark warning:

CAUTION!

RESTRICTED MILITARY ZONE

DO NOT PASS.

DANGER OF DEATH!

This was the same sign that Pitt thumped angrily before we entered the bunker. The danger notice had been printed on a big metal sheet, then fixed to a wooden backing. After all these years the metal had started to peel away. Pitt didn’t know what I’d figured out but he helped me pull the steel sheet away from the timber board. Although the screws had rusted away, making it come free easily, it was almost the size of house door: so awkwardly cumbersome that it needed both of us, working together, to carry it. Then trouble. The metal sheet was bendy. When it wobbled it made a loud metallic
Wub-Wub-Wub.
The noise alerted the Voggron. It turned menacingly to the source of the clanking.

Snarling, the monster took a step toward us.

‘This better be good,’ Pitt said, ‘because in five seconds that thing’s going to chew us to mush.’

‘Turn the sign round,’ I told him.

When he saw the other side of the danger sign was bare, silvery metal - as bright as a mirror - he whooped. ‘Bingo! Naz, you’re a genius!’

The Voggron homed in on our voices. It ran across the grass. Jaws opened wide. Teeth! So many, sharp murderous teeth.

Then - whoosh.

We used the metal sheet like a giant reflector. Sunlight bounced off of it into the face of the Voggron. It must have known that it had been blasted by an even brighter light than the June sunshine because with a roar it stopped running toward us. Then, like a dog chasing its own tail, it began to spin. Round and round. Faster and faster. It spun until the green tentacles, mane, whip-tail, and red body became a blur of colours. What happened next caught us all by surprise.

The colours vanished. They were replaced by black... deep, deep black.

‘It’s gone,’ Pitt uttered in amazement.

‘Keep the light on it,’ I told him. ‘We’ve got to be sure.’ So we held the metal sheet so it reflected intense, blinding sunlight on the monster. Seconds later I realised that the spinning blackness was a swirling dust cloud. Just black particles. A twister made from dark grains.

‘Okay, we can stop now.’ We let the danger sign fall down into the grass. After that we all gathered round where the monster had done its last mad dance. All that remained of the Voggron was a pile of black dust.

Jenny heaved a sigh of relief. ‘The sunlight you reflected onto the creature killed it.’

‘Like I said,’ I managed a smile, ‘I don’t think it was ever alive. Not properly anyway.’ At that moment, I realised my smile was a false one. Because a sudden doubt smacked into me. Listen, the Voggron affected me in a way that was completely different to what the other three experienced. Briefly, I’d seen through their eyes, knew their thoughts, felt what they were feeling. Why me? What made me different to them? Had the Voggron infected me in some way? Or did it go further back than today? Am I different to them because of what happened when I was younger?

The truth is, I’m adopted. The man and woman who became my parents found me in a cardboard box when I was baby. That box had been in the lane just outside the bunker fence. Both tell me they remember that night well. The moon shone bright.

And for the first time in their lives they’d seen that the bunker door was open. Wide open. A ghostly blue light shone inside. In the morning the steel door was locked shut again.

The shiver that ran up my spine made my back itch. A squirmy itch that made the skin on my back so sensitive I couldn’t bear the pressure of even my T-shirt against it. If anyone else noticed I was troubled they didn’t mention it.

Adam looked into the distance. ‘Army helicopters. See? Four of them. They must have received an alarm call from computers in the bunker.’

With an effort I made that false smile on my face even bigger. ‘We’ll leave the experts to clear up the mess.’

Jenny noticed Brian still gawped in shock at the wreckage of his bike. Before we headed home, she said to Pitt. ‘You saved Brian’s life.’ She grinned. ‘Something tells me he’s never going to even think of bullying you again.
Ever.
’

They were laughing with relief that the danger was over. I laughed, too, though I found myself thinking hard about the Voggron. For a while back there in the tunnels, my mind had evolved into an uncannily powerful instrument. One that could reach into other people’s minds - just as the Voggron had done. When my back gave that itchy squirm again I asked myself the question:

Is this story really over?

Or, for me, had it only just begun?

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