The Shadow Project

Chapter Sixty-Four

Ben and Jeff moved quickly through the maze of corridors in the upper level, scanning left and right with their pistols. Ben checked the map again.

‘We should find the access point for the main lift shaft down here somewhere. I don’t think it’s far away.’

‘Something’s wrong with this place,’ Jeff muttered. ‘I can feel it. It’s weird.’

Ben had the same sensation. It was as though the air was crackling with energy, almost like static electricity, but somehow different. He’d never experienced anything like it before. He was convinced he could feel a thrumming vibration coming through the walls, growing steadily more intense with each passing minute.

‘Listen.’

The sound of someone yelling, echoing up the corridor. The voice was high-pitched, but it wasn’t a woman’s. It was a boy’s.

They ran towards the sound, and round the next bend they found themselves at the top of a tall iron stairway. A few steps down, a boy Ben instantly recognised as Rory O’Connor was lying on his back with a man on top of him. In the split second that he stood staring, Ben’s first thought was that the man was trying to throttle him – until he realised what he was seeing.

The man was too intent on trying to tear the boy’s clothes off to notice their presence. Ben stepped quickly over to him, grabbed a fistful of his hair and yanked him up and dashed his head against the steel railing. The man’s hand flew to his belt and came out holding a pistol. Ben sent it spinning, headbutted him and threw him bodily down the stairway. The man went somersaulting down the metal steps, hit the landing. His fingers scrabbled for a hold on the rails as he slipped over the edge. His scream lasted about three seconds before he hit the stone floor down below, and then was silenced by a crunching impact that echoed through the cavern.

Ben and Jeff helped the pale, trembling boy to his feet and checked him over. ‘Rory? We’re getting you out of here.’

‘Who are you?’

‘I’m a friend of your Aunt Sabrina,’ Ben said. ‘I think my dad’s here somewhere.’

‘Well then, let’s find him.’

In the time it had taken to save Rory from the attack, the thrumming in the air had intensified. It was getting more noticeable and uncomfortable every second. The kid looked scared. ‘What’s happening?’

‘I don’t know,’ Ben said. ‘But I don’t like it.’ He held on to Rory’s arm as they moved quickly back along the corridors. By his reckoning, any time now they were going to reach the passage leading to the circular gallery where the access point was for the main lift shaft. If Adam O’Connor was down there working on the machine, they still had a chance of finding him. But Ben couldn’t ignore the nasty feeling that they were running very short of time.

Jeff was rubbing his temple. ‘Are you getting a headache? I don’t know what’s wrong with me, mate, but I’m feeling really weird.’

Ben was feeling it too. A strange kind of inner turmoil that was both mental and physical. It seemed to be coming from somewhere deep inside him, as though the cells of his body were being agitated, the way water molecules were vibrated by a microwave oven. The headache was steadily getting worse, rising at about the same rate as the strange sound that was now thrumming loudly through the facility, rising to a howl.

But that wasn’t all he could hear as they drew nearer to the location of the main shaft. He strained to listen.

‘I can hear someone calling your name,’ he said to Rory.