Scar Island(21)

Walter gulped. Then he ducked under the rope and followed Jonathan.

“No way,” Colin said. “I’m thtaying here.”

“Suit yourself,” Jonathan said. “But we’ve got both lanterns.”

Colin scooted under the rope and joined Walter. “Jerkth.”

Jonathan reached back to pat Colin on the shoulder.

“Relax,” he said. “Whatever’s down here can’t be worse than the dead Admiral, and we spent plenty of time with him today.”

“Thut up and go.”

The stairs were steep, and the boys held one hand against the slippery wall to steady themselves. The steps curved down around a corner and then stopped at a small, dark landing. The landing was a little bigger than a bed, and on the other side, another staircase climbed up and away from them, in the opposite direction of the one they’d come down. On one wall of the landing was another doorway, smaller and rounded on top.

The scraping, slurping, knocking sounds were coming from the smaller doorway. They were louder here, closer. Goose bumps popped out on Jonathan’s arms. He held his lantern as far out in front of himself as he could toward the doorway.

Through the doorway was another staircase. It dropped down into even deeper darkness. The lantern’s light couldn’t reach the end of it.

He felt Colin breathing in one of his ears, and Walter in the other, looking over his shoulder.

“I ain’t going any farther,” Walter whispered. The darkness down the doorway sloshed and chunked.

“Me neither,” Colin breathed.

“Fine,” Jonathan said. “I’ll go by myself.”

“Why?” Colin asked. “Why don’t we jutht go back, Jonathan?”

Jonathan stared down into the blackness. He answered without turning his head. His voice echoed back at him from the dark downward passageway, like he was talking to himself.

“It’s this big, awful secret, right? The Hatch, down here in the dark? Well, maybe, once you know it, it’s not all that terrible after all.”

He looked back over his shoulder and locked eyes with Walter.

“Maybe it’s the hiding that makes it horrible, you know?”

Walter furrowed his brow.

“Uhh … not really, man. I think we should get outta here. Like, fast.”

Jonathan turned back toward the rattling, grinding blackness. “Big, dark secrets can’t stay that way forever,” he murmured. His free hand rubbed absently at the wrist that was holding the lantern.

A dull, heavy thud echoed up the stairway toward them.

“Jonathan?” Walter’s whisper was right in his ear. “I am really, really, really”—he paused—“hungry. When you’re done playing with the monsters, you can find me in the kitchen, eating sausage.”

“I’ll be with him,” Colin added.

“Thanks, guys,” Jonathan said, and his only answer was the sound of their footsteps retreating back up the spiral staircase.

He held the lantern in a shaking hand and shuffled to the end of the landing, to the very edge of the final staircase. This one was narrower than the other corridors; the walls weren’t much farther apart than Jonathan’s shoulders.

Jonathan took a deep breath. Before him, there was another loud clunk, and a snuffling sound like a huge hissing nose. When he blew his breath out, it came out shaky.

He took the first step down. The steps were bigger drops down than the other staircase. He had to fall the last couple of inches. He took the next step down. He almost turned and ran when an especially loud metal rattling rang up from the darkness below. But he licked his lips and took a breath and dropped down another step. And another.

The darkness before him growled and crunched. The walls seemed to close in around him. He felt with his foot for the next step and realized that he was at the bottom. And that somewhere along the line, he had squeezed his eyes shut.

He opened his eyes.

He was in a tiny square room with a stone ceiling so low he could’ve reached up and touched it. It was freezing, and the walls were covered in dripping moisture as if they were sweating.

In front of him was a huge, round, metal door. Heavy iron bolts circled its outer edge. It was rusty and grimy and covered in shiny, green slime. It looked ancient. The door was big enough that, if it had been open (and he was extremely thankful that it wasn’t), he could have stepped through it without ducking. It was a door like a submarine would have, with the large iron handle in the middle that Jonathan knew would open the door if he spun it around.

The door seemed to rattle rhythmically, like it was breathing.

“The Hatch,” Jonathan whispered. He stepped toward it. He reached out with his empty hand. He could see the trembling in his fingers. They closed around the iron handle in the center of the door.

As his fingers touched the metal, his eyes dropped down to a round shadow at the foot of the door. The wavering light from his lantern flashed across it.

A human skull, white bone spotted with green slime, propped against the grimy stone doorway, black eye sockets gaping right at him, toothy mouth frozen in a silent scream.

The door suddenly rocked and banged against his shaking hand. There was a tremendous crack and a wet, sloshing thud, and a freezing mist sprayed Jonathan in the face.

He screamed and fell back, slipping on the wet stone. The lantern dropped from his hand and landed on the hard floor with a shattering crash.