Scar Island(20)

“So do whatever you want, guys. Run around. Eat some more. Whatever. But be back here for dinner. Have fun, Scars.”

Everyone sat and looked at each other for a moment. Then Francis stood up and started toward the kitchen. David got up and headed for the door that led outside.

“Wait,” Jonathan said. “What about the generator? We still need electricity, right? For the fridge and the … freezer?”

Sebastian pursed his lips. “Oh, yeah. Right. We’ll, uh, take turns. It only has to get done, what, like three times a day?” He looked to Benny, who nodded eagerly. “We’ve all done it, we know how it works. So, first, how about … you and you,” he said, pointing at Miguel and another kid Jonathan didn’t know yet. “Head down and fill it up.” They grumbled and trudged away together.

Slowly the rest of the boys wandered away in different directions, most in groups of two or three. Sebastian headed out into the courtyard. Benny followed like a puppy at his heels.

Colin and Walter and Jonathan were the last left at the tables. Colin still looked unhappy.

“Cheer up,” Jonathan said to him. “Now the good times start.” Colin just rolled his eyes.

“So … what is there to do around here?” Jonathan asked.

It was Walter’s turn to roll his eyes. “Who knows? All we ever did was work, man. Mop the floors, clean the kitchen, scrub the toilets. I’ve been here weeks and I bet I ain’t seen any more of the place than you have.”

“Well, then,” Jonathan said, standing up. “Let’s go exploring.”

Walter hopped up to join him, and after a moment Colin did, too.

“We’re gonna need lanternth,” Colin said with a sigh. “I know where they keep them. Matcheth, too.”

A few minutes later, the three of them were walking through one of the snaking, shadowy hallways that had been so confusing to Jonathan the night before. Jonathan and Walter each held a hissing lantern.

“This place is like a maze,” Jonathan said, moving his lantern from side to side to banish suspicious shadows in the corners.

“It is a maze,” Walter said. “I heard they built it that way on purpose, to confuse the crazies. So only the guards would know their way around, you know?”

Jonathan slipped on an especially slimy stair and, putting out his hand to catch himself, almost grabbed a huge brown rat. He jerked his hand back and the rat squeaked angrily and slithered into a hole between two blocks.

“Well,” he said, standing up. “If they weren’t crazy when they got here, I bet it didn’t take too long to get that way.”

Walter looked uneasily at the hole the rat had disappeared into.

“Yeah, man. You got that right.” He shook his shoulders in an exaggerated shiver. “This place gives me the heebie-jeebies. Thinking about all them crazies that lived here. And died here.” He dropped his voice to a whisper. It echoed in the corridor like turning pages. He looked from Jonathan to Colin. “You guys believe in ghosts?”

Colin shook his head, but he didn’t look so sure.

“I don’t know,” Jonathan said, squinting into the blackness ahead of them. “But if there are ghosts, this sure seems like the kind of place they’d be.”

“Yeah,” Walter answered. “No lie.” He looked at Jonathan. He had second thoughts written all over his face.

Jonathan put on a smile that was a lot braver than he felt.

“Well, let’s go find ’em, then.”

Walter shook his head and almost smiled.

“Fine. I’m following you, though.”

They wandered up and down staircases and peeked into sinister-looking side passages. Jonathan was hopelessly lost within minutes. They found one room they were pretty sure used to be some sort of dungeon; rusted chains dangled from the walls. They took a quick look and then kept going.

Suddenly, the light of Jonathan’s lantern fell on something familiar. It was a rope, stretched across a staircase spiraling down into darkness.

“Hey! I know where we are! Mr. Warwick showed this to me.”

Colin and Walter stood shoulder to shoulder with him.

“Yeah,” Colin whispered. “He loved to try and thcare uth with thith.”

“The door to the deep, he called it,” Walter said in a low voice.

“The Hatch.” Jonathan nodded. “What’s really down there?” He felt both Walter and Colin shrug beside him.

“No one knows, man,” Walter whispered. “They’d never tell us. Some big, dark secret, I guess.” From the stairs rose the same thumping and slurping Jonathan had heard the night before. He swallowed, then stepped forward and lifted the rope. He ducked his head beneath it and stepped down onto the top stair.

“What are you doing?” Colin hissed.

“I wanna see it,” Jonathan answered.

He took another step down, then another, holding his lantern out before him. When he didn’t hear any footsteps behind him, he looked back. Colin and Walter were still standing on the other side of the rope in the corridor.

“Come on,” he whispered. His voice echoed eerily in the tight staircase. “Don’t make me go alone. Things are always bigger and darker when they’re secret. Let’s find out how bad it really is.”