The Secret Bunker Trilogy Read online

  Often, as a child, things happen around you and you don’t get their meaning. You take them at face value, you see them as they are. One of the things that I had noticed since I’d been at home more was that there was hidden meaning in most things. Take Dad’s ranting, for instance. He said one thing, but he meant another. And it was the same with Mum and Dad when they were together. They had conversations, but they sometimes seemed to mean a different thing from what I understood. Like a double conversation, as if the words meant one thing to me, but they were hearing something different.

  So, when Dad left me in charge of David and Harriet, he was – on the face of it – going to see Mum after she’d fainted in hospital. But it felt to me as if something else was going on, something I just wasn’t getting. Dad wasn’t that long as it turned out. I think the reason he was most worried is that Mum had been away the night before. They always got crabby when they didn’t see each other for a while. She’d been away at some business meeting and had left to catch an early train long before I got up. Dad was cross that she’d given blood rather than coming straight home. Of course he’d never have known if she hadn’t fainted. And now she was in hospital overnight and we were travelling to Scotland the next day.

  Sometimes parents seem to make life so difficult. All Dad had to do was get the packing done and pick Mum up from hospital on the way out in the morning. When he got home, David and Harriet went to bed, and Dad got me to help with the packing.

  I liked it that since I’d been at home, Dad treated me differently. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but it was as if I was an adult at last. He just chatted to me the same as he did with Mum. He didn’t use that kind of talk you reserve for kids, as if you’re overacting in a bad TV series. That’s why I was still up when there was a knock at the door.

  It’s funny that a knock at the door means nothing at all during the daytime, but at night or in darkness it can take on such a different meaning. At night it can be threatening, or it can take on a new urgency, as if important news has to be delivered that cannot wait until morning. So when the knock came, at shortly after eleven o’clock, it made both of us jump and we could only stare quizzically at each other while we registered what had just happened.

  Dad told me to get ready for bed and to stay upstairs, and I felt a sharp change from his easiness in the minutes just before the night-time interruption. I wasn’t much the wiser for what was said at the front door – it was just a series of mumbles preceded and followed by greetings and farewells. But there was something about the conversation that registered with me, not words, but a tone and style of speaking. It was only while I was lying awake in bed long after Dad had retired for the night that I finally realized what it was that had felt so familiar to me. That was Doctor Pierce talking to Dad at the door. So why had Dad said, after closing the door and rejoining me, that it was a wrong address?

  In The Darkness

  I’m trying to stay calm, but it’s really difficult. None of this makes sense to me at all. It’s as if somebody just turned all the lights out and now they refuse to tell me what’s going on. I don’t know what to do. If I try to move in this darkness, I might fall. Even worse, I could get lost.

  I’m desperately trying to remember the layout of the bunker beyond the blast doors, but I can’t, and anyway it’s complete darkness. I have no light or sound to help me navigate. I’ve called for help until I’m hoarse and my water is gone now. I’m scared, hungry and alone. It’s ridiculous, but in spite of this I can think of no better strategy than to stay where I am. If somebody comes, they will either enter via the doors or try to leave using this route.

  The thing is, I know there are lots of people still in there. So why can’t they hear me? And what happened to Dad, David and Harriet? They were pretty close when the darkness fell, but now I can’t see or hear them. It seems crazy to just stay here, but I can’t think of anything better to do for now. And if death comes? Well, I was at Nat’s side when life ended, so I know what it’s like.

  Loss

  The black car didn’t stop when it struck Nat at the roadside. Nobody even thought about the car at the time – everybody’s attention was focused on the bloody body that lay lifeless in front of us. It could have been an invisible, brutal force that came out of nowhere and took the life away from my twin without a care. It was only once the ambulance had been called – as Mum cradled Nat in her arms and a crowd of passers-by had gathered – that the question was asked about the driver.

  All those people around, yet the only information that we could get about the driver was that he was in a large black vehicle. Make unknown. The driver appeared to be a male. And the car didn’t have number plates.

  On Our Way

  We finally set off on our journey to Scotland. Needless to say, we did win the competition, in the end. We weren’t used to having that type of luck, but in this case it was all very quick. It must have been less than a week between Dad sending off our entry and his announcement that we’d actually won, and in no time at all it was the day of the holiday. So, after a chaotic breakfast and a hasty packing of the car, Dad locked up the house, we all got in the car, picked up Mum from the hospital and we were on our way.

  Mum seemed fine after her night in hospital. None of us needed any medical detail, so long as Mum was back in sight and we could see her and tell that she was okay, the whole incident was forgotten. Or at least for a while. When I asked her to show me where they’d taken the blood from her arm, there was no mark. ‘I must be a quick healer,’ Mum had joked. But I didn’t think injections healed that fast.

  Chapter Four

  The Grey Office

  She couldn’t really feel the device but she knew that it was there. It must have been microscopic to enter her bloodstream so easily and painlessly, and she was uneasy about its presence in her body. But the man was blunt and dismissive – he had the manner of an impatient doctor.

  The woman seemed to be wary of him, so held back the questions that she wanted to ask. When he stood up, it was clear that she was supposed to follow him. He took her through a long corridor. This whole building felt military – or governmental at least.

  Nothing was there for decoration or pleasure, it was as if things were only around because there was a job to be done. Charmless functionality. She was taken to an office which instantly looked out of place in this building. A nameplate indicated that this was the man’s office and it was full of high-tech equipment. Still, the office was grey and without character. The man seemed to have no need to show his personality here. There were no family pictures, no artwork, no attempt to create any life in this room.

  This office was like nothing you’d see at home. These were not laptops and screens that you would buy in your high street store. This was something completely different – almost as if they came from a different world.

  It was clear that this visit was not yet over for the woman. But in three hours’ time she would wake up in her local hospital with no memory of these events. Her husband would be on his way to see her after she’d supposedly passed out when giving blood. That wouldn’t feel strange to her at all and she would have no memory of what had taken place earlier. Except there would be a lingering feeling that made her feel uneasy. She wouldn’t be able to remember having given blood in the past eighteen years.

  The Holiday Highlight

  David and Harriet didn’t really care what we did on holiday – they were just happy that we were all together. Mum was not at work and the garden seemed to be a place for great adventures, even in this terrible weather.

  As part of the holiday we had a special visit organized. We didn’t have to pay for it, but we did have to turn up at an agreed time, so that they were expecting us. Mum and Dad were really excited about it. I wasn’t sure what to expect and David and Harriet didn’t care anyway. We were going to an old nuclear bunker which lay hidden in the Scottish countryside. According to Mum and Dad, it was a relic from something called the Cold War, when
countries didn’t get on as well as they do now. From what I could see in the news, countries still didn’t get on that well.

  Apparently, it was a huge warren of concrete tunnels buried under the ground, the size of a football pitch. At one time it would have been used as a shelter in a nuclear attack. These days, we didn’t need it any more.

  A Glimpse In The Darkness

  I wish I wore a watch because I have no idea how long I’ve been here now. Never in my life have I known such impenetrable blackness. I used to be scared in my bedroom at night after Nat died, but even then, I could clearly see the objects in my bedroom, though you’d still describe the room as ‘dark’.

  Something has been bothering me. I’ve been distracted by fear, hunger and the silence. But I keep thinking back to those last moments before the huge iron doors swung shut. David was right at the end of the long concrete corridor, behind as always. Dad had propelled Harriet along the dimly lit concrete tunnel when he’d seen what was happening outside.

  As I stood in the mouth of the doorway, looking up at Mum who was desperately rushing towards the closing doors, I’m sure I saw something else. I’m doubting myself because I know I’m exhausted. But I’m certain she was with a child. The child was my kind of age and height and had a familiar look. Like I’d known them once, but we hadn’t seen each other for a while. I’m sure it was Nat.

  Chapter Five

  The Unusual Holiday

  Looking back, the holiday in Scotland was a bit suspicious from day one. But things always seem clearer when you know how they turned out. It’s like flicking to the end of a book to see what the ending is. It all seems so obvious when you know how the story finishes – but when you’re there, in the thick of real life events, it’s not always so clear.

  That’s how it was with our free holiday to Scotland. I think the fact that we’d won it out of the blue, rather than having to pay for it ourselves, made us much more willing to go along with what they said. After we’d got the ‘Congratulations’ email, we just took it as a fact we’d won a holiday and we’d soon be on our way.

  It’s amazing what we accept on the strength of an email. If it looks official, has a nice logo and comes from an address that looks okay, we’ll just happily embrace it as we would a phone call or a face-to-face conversation. But many deceptions can lie behind an email, and we’re all too willing to be fooled. And so it was with our family.

  I think I was probably the only one to notice it, and I can’t even remember if I pointed it out to Dad at the time. He called me over to take a look at the email on the morning that it arrived. Mum was at work already, David at school, and Harriet at playgroup. Just me and Dad. It looked just like you’d expect any holiday company email to look. A big banner packed with images of wonderful scenery and happy people. A signature at the bottom of the email that looked as if it was real, but which was really an image. A big, red ‘Congratulations’ sign at the top of the message. An 0800 ‘Call us if you have any queries’ telephone number in case of problems. Why would anybody be suspicious about that?

  Except that company logo was troubling me. Where had I seen something similar to that before? It wasn’t a perfect match, mind you, but it was almost as if it had been copied from somewhere.

  It took me a day or two before I figured it out. I’m sure that with some problems your mind works away on it in the background and then – at a completely random moment – you just get the answer. My moment of realization came while I was cleaning my teeth with my electric toothbrush, my mind idly skipping from thought to thought. I recalled where I’d seen that logo before. Not exactly the same, but not far off it. It was just like the metallic logo on Doctor Pierce’s tie.

  I think I saw it more as a coincidence than a clue. With hindsight, it was a very strong clue. To be honest, it was a bit careless, an in-joke that could have given the game away. How many times have you seen something or somebody that reminded you of something else? If one logo looks fairly similar to another, it’s not a big deal. Unless you get caught up in the events that we did, of course.

  Remembering Nat

  Memory is a funny thing. Sometimes I can remember thoughts, events and feelings with absolute precision, as if all five senses captured and recorded every aspect of a particular experience. Other times I wonder if I was even there, my recall is so hazy. Even though I was only thirteen at the time, I can remember certain elements of Nat’s accident with remarkable clarity.

  Bear in mind that I was processing the world through the eyes of younger child, not a sixteen-year-old. So many of the things that happened, although I didn’t fully understand them at the time, have taken on a new significance as I get older.

  Three things happened that day that I still remember very clearly. On the day itself, and in the weeks and months that followed Nat’s death, these didn’t seem to have much significance. But now, when I rerun those events in my mind, things don’t seem to quite add up.

  It’s similar to a complicated jigsaw puzzle. You can know where the corner pieces go, where all the straight edges line up and how colours, lines and shapes need to cluster together to create some sense of the main body. But until that final part slots into place, there is no standing back and seeing what you’ve got – the picture is incomplete until you have that last piece in place.

  There were three pieces of this puzzle that I was unable to slot into place. It was as if they belonged to a different jigsaw. First of all, I’m pretty sure that black car was coming for both me and Nat.

  It was only because I stepped back to pick up a coin on the pavement that it missed me. Secondly, Mum had been distracted by somebody talking to her, so she wasn’t really paying any attention to what was going on with the traffic.

  That’s the only reason the car got anywhere near us – Mum’s attention was completely elsewhere at the time.

  And last of all, I’m pretty certain that I saw Nat moving as the ambulance doors closed and we were parted for the last time.

  Inside The Grey Office

  Although she would be unable to recall these events, just like those who went before her, the woman was all too aware of what was going on before her memory was erased. To somebody watching from the outside, it would be clear that she was nervous, uneasy, concerned – but she was not being coerced or imprisoned in this room.

  She was here of her own free will, but she would rather not be. She’d had to make a choice, and this was the best of a series of bad alternatives. Where there are no good options available, it’s amazing how the human mind can make the best of a bad thing. All of a sudden, a choice that in any other situation would look like madness, suddenly becomes the right thing to do. That’s how it was for this woman. Whatever the other options that she’d been given, it was better for her to be in this plain office.

  It was a sensible thing to have been injected with a tiny electronic device that she didn’t understand, by a man she barely knew, in a place she’d never heard of. If this was the best choice, somebody observing these events would be forgiven for asking how bad the alternatives were.

  Chapter Six

  Connection

  I’m not sure if the sirens have stopped or if it’s just that the doors to the bunker are so heavy that I can no longer hear them. That last view of Mum running towards the doors is troubling me. That can’t have been Nat, I must be imagining it. Anyway, Nat would be completely different now, three years older, just like me. I’ve certainly changed in the past three years.

  I’m much taller for a start, taller than Mum and almost as tall as Dad. This seems to excite Mum and Dad beyond my comprehension. They’re always saying things like, ‘I’m sure you’ve grown overnight’ or ‘You’re almost as big as me now’. Personally, I don’t really notice, nor do I particularly care. My hair has got darker and I wear it shorter than when I was a kid, too. So, if the positions were reversed, would Nat recognize me now? It would be like one of those photofits that you see on the TV, where they age people who have
gone missing. You take a look at the photofit and you can kind of recognize the original person in there. But if you saw them in a crowded place, would you really be able to spot them?

  I can’t be sure, and anyway, it’s ridiculous; Nat died three years ago, I was there. It must be my mind playing tricks on me, I’ve been alone in this dark corridor too long. I’m scared, disorientated and exhausted. No, it wasn’t the sight of the person that was with Mum that made me think that it was Nat, it was not a visual recognition.

  Nat and I were twins and we’d always had a connection. The day I saw Nat carried away in the ambulance, that connection had been broken, like a laptop losing a wireless signal and desperately trying to reconnect. When Nat died, the signal died. I can’t be sure who it was outside those doors with Mum. One thing I do know with complete certainty though: when I spotted that person with Mum in the distance, something very strange happened. For the briefest moment, that connection came back online.

  Twins

  I can’t quite remember when I started having ‘difficulties’ at school. After Nat’s funeral, Mum and Dad were keen to get everything back to normal. Of course, there was no ‘normal’ anymore, not without Nat. It hit me hardest I think. I may be wrong, but seen through my thirteen-year-old eyes, everybody else seemed to adjust quite quickly.