‘Are you kidding me?’ Lucy sits up, grinning. ‘An actual hidden door . . . like Aladdin’s cave. This is absolutely mental.’ She starts laughing, and she can’t stop. She waves a hand in front of her face. ‘Oh my God, seriously? I thought we’d had all the surprises today . . .’
Scott takes a few tentative steps until he is partially inside the concealed section. He scans the walls, the ceiling. Frowns. ‘Well, it sure ain’t lined with gold. You found a magic lamp yet, Lucy?’
Lucy starts laughing again, and Scott joins in. The sound of their manic laughter echoes around the small cave.
Amelia clamps her hands over her ears. ‘Would you two shut up? I can’t hear myself think.’
‘Maybe you should come out of there,’ James says from the mouth of the cave. He’s the only calm one of them left now. ‘It might not be safe.’
‘It might not be safe?’ Lucy cries. ‘Oh, you are hilarious, Jamesy-boy.’ Her laughter filters away. ‘We haven’t been safe all day.’
‘I know, it’s just . . .’ He lets his sentence trail off. Lucy is right, obviously. But there’s a reason they found this place. Isn’t there?
Amelia take a few steps inside, looks around. It’s not a lot different from the main part. They’ve just sectioned it off with that slide-up door – which was incredibly convincing in the murky muted light from Scott’s phone. Lucy must have triggered it when she fell. She circuits the small space, tapping on the walls, pressing. But nothing else moves, and there are no hollow sounds when she taps.
‘Are you thinking there might be more of these doors?’ James takes her lead and starts tapping and pushing on the walls. ‘Maybe it’s a network . . . it might lead us to the big house.’
Amelia frowns. She hadn’t really considered it, but it makes sense. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised. But it doesn’t seem like there’s anything else leading off here.’
‘Maybe this is how they get around the island so fast,’ Scott says. He starts tapping the walls too. ‘Maybe there are underground tunnels and they just scoot around in those carts, keeping an eye on us.’ He pauses. Stops tapping. ‘Is this instead of the cameras that we already found and they confessed to, or as well as, do you think?’
‘I think it’s safe to assume they’re watching us, listening to us and monitoring us in as many conceivable ways as possible,’ Amelia says.
‘And some inconceivable ways.’ Lucy taps her tracker. ‘Nice cave, guys,’ she says. ‘Now when are you coming back to get us?’
There’s a beep, and then the holographic lettering starts to scroll.
YOU’LL BE REUNITED WITH YOUR FRIENDS VERY SOON.
MEANWHILE, ENJOY THE REFRESHMENTS . . . AND THE SHOW.
WELL DONE FOR GETTING THIS FAR.
YOU WILL BE REWARDED.
Lucy swears. ‘Thanks, guys! You know what? This so-called game is doing my head in. Do you think we’re being live-streamed? Are people at home on their sofas deciding which one of us gets obliterated next?’ She glances around. ‘Where are these refreshments, then?’ She gets to her feet and wanders around the small section of cave, kicking at the base of the walls. A pile of different-sized rocks sits in a dark, recessed part of the space, with a couple of large boulders at the base and smaller ones scattered around. She picks up one of the smaller ones, examines it. ‘Definitely a rock.’ Then she tosses it to the back of the pile and pokes around a few of the others. When she gets to the larger ones, she kicks again . . . and one of them gives. ‘Bingo!’
Amelia has watched this little performance with interest. She goes over to help, and the two of them remove all the smaller rocks. As they reach the final large rock, they look at each other and grin.
‘What’ve you got there, ladies?’ Scott says.
It’s obvious, now that they’ve moved the real rocks out of the way, that these base-level boulders are not rocks at all – the tops are flat, and when Amelia runs a finger down the side, although well designed to look rock-like, it’s clearly made of some sort of fibreglass. ‘You do it.’ She nods to Lucy, who looks pleased.
Lucy puts her hands around it and pulls. It slips off without much of an effort. She holds the rock-like facade aloft, like a silver cloche in a fancy French restaurant.
‘Ta-da!’
Lucy
‘Well, well, well,’ Lucy says. Just when they think they’ve seen it all, they throw another curveball to knock them off balance. Whatever is in this box had better be worth it. She drops the fibreglass rock cover on the floor, then lifts the lid of the box underneath. Inside are two smaller boxes – one metal and fully sealed, the other plastic with a pop-off lid. She opens the plastic one first, handing the lid to Amelia, who is still hovering by her shoulder.
‘What is it?’
‘Hmm,’ Lucy says. She pulls out the contents of the box in one big handful. ‘Exciting, or not exciting?’
James picks up what she’s dropped on the ground. Unrolls it, and something else drops out. ‘Waterproof jackets . . . and a head torch. Intriguing.’
‘Only intriguing if we’re going caving, which, considering we can’t find any other concealed entrances, I don’t think we are?’
Scott disappears back into the main area. After a moment, the sounds of kicking and tapping echo through the space between the two sections of the cave.
‘Good thinking, Scott,’ Lucy calls through to him. Then to James and Amelia, she says, ‘We should’ve checked the other walls through there. No rules to state that the connections have to come through here. Maybe this was just the easy one for us to find. So we’d work it all out.’
Amelia picks up a jacket and torch. ‘Or maybe this is just so we can go outside in the rain . . . and dark.’
‘Why go to all the effort of making concealed rooms and boxes disguised as rocks, though?’ James pulls on a jacket and zips it up. ‘Bit of a waste of effort.’
‘All part of the amazing super-fun game though, Jamesy – eh?’ Lucy rolls her eyes.
‘Maybe. Just seems a bit elaborate.’
‘Oh, come on,’ Scott says. ‘It’s like Giles said right off the plane. It’s. A. Game. They’re tossing in as many ridiculous surprises as they can—’
‘But what if we hadn’t found the cave?’ Lucy says, interested now. ‘Then what?’
‘Then it wouldn’t matter,’ Scott says. ‘There’d be something else along the way.’
‘Hmm. Maybe. Or maybe they have no fucking idea what they’re doing yet, and we’re the mugs who’re testing out all the possibilities . . .’
‘It could be one of those “choose your own adventure” type things,’ Amelia suggests.
Lucy laughs. ‘Well, whatever it is, I hope they’re not expecting me to give them a favourable write-up.’
‘We’re not allowed to talk about it though, are we?’ Amelia says.
Lucy clenches her hands into fists. Amelia is becoming more irritating as the day goes on. ‘Seriously . . . what are they going to do to enforce us not talking about it? I’ll be making sure I tell everyone I know not to sign up for this if they get asked – and I know a lot of people, remember?’