Fic: The Days We Break (part 2)

[myrimidryad]

It was a railway tunnel. Wide enough for one train and a gap either side, it was big and echoey.

“Are we in danger?” Rich asked. “I mean, do trains come through here?”

Matty shook his head. “Not for years. This line’s been abandoned for decades - there are records of it and stuff. Running it wasn’t cost-effective. But this isn’t the surprise.” He grinned. Mini didn’t think she’d ever seen him so pleased with himself.

“Then what is?” Grace asked, sounding intrigued. Matty beckoned for them to follow him.

“It’s on the other side, hidden. Information about this tunnel is available to the public, but this…” He ran his hand over the rough bricks, searching for something. “…is secret. I haven’t found any record of it anywhere. Aha.” He passed the torch to Nick, who held it up as Matty knocked on a section of the wall sharply. It echoed in a strangely hollow way.

“A secret entrance?” Grace cottoned on as Matty shoved against the wall with all his might. It made a rasping sound of brick moving against brick, and then a door-sized section of the wall pushed backwards, creating a door-sized dent. Matty wriggled his fingers into the gap between the false wall and the real one and pulled. The false wall slid back behind the real wall and revealed a long tunnel stretching away into nothing. Matty stepped in without a word and Nick passed the torch to him as he beckoned to the others.

As they walked hesitantly into the darkness, Matty turned to the wall, looking for something. He made a little sound of triumph, and Mini gasped as the tunnel lit up. Bare light bulbs were strung along the walls and stretched far ahead, showing them how long the tunnel really was. “Oh my god,” she murmured, and Matty grinned.

“I told you. And this is only the beginning.”

“There’s more?” Alo looked stunned, and began to grin. “Matty, mate, this is fucking amazing!”

“I know.” Matty looked very pleased with himself. “Come on, follow me.”

“Seriously, Matty,” Rich wrapped an arm around Grace as they began to walk. “What the hell is this place?”

“A bunker.” Matty revealed. “From one of the world wars, I guess. I found it when I was a kid, and I worked on it a bit - redid the lights and shit.”

“You did this?” Liv gestured to the naked bulbs. Matty shrugged.

“Kind of. The wires were here, but pretty much all the bulbs had blown, and they were really weird ones too. Like, really fucking old and outdated. So I rewired the system and stole a shitload of new lights to put in, and here you are.” He grinned like a circus ringmaster, and Mini had to admit, she was impressed.

“Why have a bunker all the way down here?” Grace frowned. “What’s the point?”

Matty shook his head. “I don’t know. Like I said, I can’t find any record of it anywhere, so it wasn’t, like, an air raid shelter or anything. It’s fucking huge - something big must’ve been going on, but it’s been abandoned forever. This is just the way in, I mean, wait till you see the main deal.”

“You’re sure it’s safe?” Alo looked up at the ceiling. Matty nodded.

“Yeah. There’re layers of cement above the metal. It’s like the underground in London, y’know?”

“What for?” Mini asked.

“Stop the rocks above punching through, I guess,” Matty said. “Come on, it’s a way off yet.”

According to Mini’s phone she didn’t have any signal down here, which she didn’t like. Before long, they came to a door-shaped hole, and a lack of light beyond it. Matty stepped through and vanished off to the side. “Hang on,” he called. Then, “There!”

More bulbs lit up, and Mini gasped, hearing the others do the same. “Holy fuck,” Alo muttered. There was a wall to their left, but to their right was a corridor much longer than the one they had just come from. Lights ran along the right wall, casting huge shadows on the floor and ceiling and showing the dark caverns of more corridors and some doors on the left.

“Fucking hell,” Mini said under her breath without realising it. Matty grinned and clapped Nick on the shoulder, the sound disturbing the silence.

“I told you it was big. Look, follow me - I’ll show you how wide it is. And there are lower levels at the very end as well.”

“Did you wire up the whole place?” Rich asked, staring at him. Matty shook his head slowly.

“Nah. Only this corridor. The rest is dark, but…” He waggled the torch and smirked. “Come on. I’ll give you the guided tour.” He led them down the corridor to where another corridor split off to the left. “Up here.” It was shorter, but still long, with a door at the far end and a few along its length. The first doors were on the left, double and rusty. “Storage, I think.” Matty kicked them open and shone the light inside. In the deep silence, it was intensely spooky, and Mini shivered.

There was indeed what looked like a warehouse set-up in the large hall. Matty shrugged and led them forward to the next door, this time on the right. “I reckon there were soldiers here, and this is where they hung out and ate,” Matty told them, walking in this time and directing the beam around in a slow circle so they could all see. There were metal bench-tables like the ones at school shoved against one wall, and a small walled-off room protruding out of the opposite corner with a metal-shuttered hatch on the longest side. Matty walked over and pushed the door open gently. “Kitchen.” He told them as they followed him, sheep on his freaky tour guide. There was indeed a work surface and a large sink and oven. Mini looked back out at the room as Matty wrestled the shutters open and shone the torch light out. She tried to imagine soldiers in uniform sitting at the benches, eating shitty processed food served from the hatch.

“They lived next door, I think. There’re a few bunk beds in there anyway, and it’s all partitioned.” Matty beckoned them after him to the corridor and the next door on the right, bypassing two on the left.

“What are they?” Grace asked as they walked past them. “Where do they go?”

Matty shrugged. “Can’t remember - I haven’t looked round for years. Have a look in a second, check this out.” He booted the door to the right room open and shone the torch in.

“Weird,” Nick breathed. “It’s like an office or something with those cubicles.”

“Yeah,” Liv agreed, and Mini nodded. It did indeed look like that - the partitions were just one-brick-thick walls that rose to head height but not to the ceiling, and there were loads of them. She went up on tiptoes and decided that there was some sort of system to it, but she couldn’t be bothered to figure it out.

“Cool.” Alo grinned. “That’s fucking awesome. Dead easy to check if the coast was clear to sneak out for a snack or something.”

“They’d probably shoot you or something,” Nick scoffed.

“Shoot you?” Liv raised a sceptical eyebrow. “For a snack?”

“It’s the army, right?” Nick protested and looked around the group for support. “They’re pretty heavy, aren’t they?”

“Not that heavy,” Liv disagreed. Matty touched her arm and smiled. She didn’t smile back.

“Can we look at the other rooms?” Grace asked. Matty didn’t reply immediately, but kept his eyes on Liv’s for another moment.

“Yeah, okay. Follow me.”

“You’re the one with the light,” Rich reminded him dryly. They looked in the door closest first. The room beyond was long and thin with wooden partitions sticking out from the walls, and Mini recognised the layout instantly.

“Showers,” she said confidently. “Not many though. They must’ve stunk.”

Liv laughed. “Does the water work?”

“No way.” Alo shook his head. “Would’ve been disconnected.”

“No harm in trying.” Nick went into a cubicle and they crowded round behind him as he turned a rusty silver knob attached to a pipe that ran down into the wall and up to a showerhead. Nothing happened, and they laughed, Alo loudest.

“Told you so,” he crowed. They all backed out, then froze as the pipe groaned and rattled a bit.

“Fucking hell,” Rich muttered, taking a step back. They all watched the showerhead apprehensively, but nothing happened.

“This place haunted?” Nick whispered, looking very freaked out. Matty shook his head, apparently fascinated.

“Not that I know of.”

“It can’t be, since there’s no such thing as ghosts,” Liv whispered firmly, though Mini could hear how nervous she was. The groaning got louder and they all backed away, wide-eyed and scared.

Suddenly, the showerhead burst off the end of the pipe and water crashed out, pouring straight onto the tiled floor and Mini and Grace screamed as Nick jumped back and yelled, “Holy fuck!”

They looked around at each other as the water continued to pour out and burst into relieved giggles. Alo stepped forward and pulled the showerhead towards him with the toe of his boot. “Must’ve rusted all over the holes,” he said, and jerked his head at Matty. “Here, shine that here.” Matty did so and Alo nodded knowledgeably, turning the showerhead over in his hands. “Yeah, look - all the holes are closed up. The pressure was too much.” He looked at the pipe spewing water and laughed. “Guess the water does work then.”

“Turn it off then.” Liv nudged Nick, who grinned weakly and edged around the water to turn the knob back again. The flow slowed to a trickle and then stopped. Alo tossed the showerhead into the cubicle where it hit the floor with a clash.

“That’s useful.” Matty nodded thoughtfully. “I don’t think I ever checked the water. If it’s clean, we could use it.”

“What for?” Rich asked sarcastically. “I’ve got a perfectly good shower at home, don’t know about you.”

Matty just shrugged. “I don’t know. Could be useful, is all.”

They looked in the room next to it and discovered it to be a changing room, and the door at the end was a large, echoing hall they decided was for playing sports. There was another passage at the end that led off to the right, around the back of the dormitories, and that curved round to the right again to lead back to the main corridor. The door at the end led to a massive chamber three times the size of the sports hall full of pipes thicker than their bodies and cobwebs galore. Mini and Grace refused to go in point-blank, and waited at the door with their mobile phones as their only light as the others went in to explore. Matty told them the generator was in there, as well as the water pipes and other technical things Mini couldn’t give a toss about.

“I can’t believe he wants to give this dirty bunker to Franky,” Mini whispered, clutching Grace’s arm.

Grace tilted her head, considering. “I think she’ll like it, actually. It wouldn’t be bad if there were lights everywhere and it was all cleaned up. And it would be nice to have somewhere to go for her. Somewhere to hide, you know?”

“Hide from what?” Mini frowned. Grace shrugged.

“The world outside, I suppose. She’s not very happy with the way things are going at the moment -”

“Is anyone?” Mini muttered.

“- and this is totally removed from all of that.” Grace ignored her. “Underground, out of sight…safe, you know? And it would be cool for the rest of us as well - we could play music as loud as we liked down here, and no one would hear us. We could have parties.” She smiled, pleased with her idea. “We could throw her an actual party down here! She’d love that.” She looked up at Mini, knowing she would agree, and Mini nodded reluctantly.

“I guess so. It does look pretty soundproof.” She looked up at the concrete ceiling and pursed her lips. “You’re right though - if we’re going to give this to her, it needs serious work. Big-time clean-up.”

“It’d be worth it to see her face though, wouldn’t it?” Grace nudged her conspiratorially and grinned. “She’d be so happy.”

Mini smiled grudgingly. “Yeah, I suppose.” They lapsed into companionable silence until the others returned, Grace recoiling from Rich’s dirt and cobweb-covered clothes and hair. The others were looking just as bad, and Mini wrinkled her nose. “Gross. I’m so glad I stayed out here.”

“It’s huge back there!” Alo told her eagerly. “Fucking massive.” He threw his arms out wide and Mini jumped backwards.

“Watch it, Farmboy!”

“Sorry.” He dropped his arms, but kept grinning as Matty led them down the passageway that led back to the main corridor. The next corridor that branched to the left had lots of doors on both sides of it, each one leading to a small room. Most were empty, but a few had the occasional desk or chair in them. The corridor after that had no doors, and seemed to serve no purpose at all.

“How much of this place is there?” Alo whispered as they continued walking down the main passage to the next branch. There weren’t any corridors to the right at all. The next left had four doors on its right, each opening into a large room with a blackboard on the wall. There were some ancient tables and chairs in each one as well.

“Like classrooms,” Grace said, touching a finger to a dusty blackboard. “What would they teach soldiers?”

“Strategy?” Matty suggested. “Battle plans and shit?”

No one had any better ideas, and they left, closing the door behind them and sealing the empty room in darkness once more.

There wasn’t another branching-off corridor for a while, but there were doors instead, all double and rusty. Matty shone the torch briefly into each one as they came to them. The first had loads of wooden shelves, some of them collapsed and rotted away. “Storage, I guess.” Mini said as they retreated and moved on. The second door opened into a hall the same size, but with metal racks instead of wooden shelves. Matty walked in and kicked at some things on the floor that rattled and clinked against each other.

“Shells,” he told them. “From guns.”

“Weapon storage.” Alo nodded. “Makes sense.”

The next hall was mostly empty, but there were some metal filing cabinets that had been pushed over and rusted to hell. Paper covered the floor, and Liv picked one up, tilting it to let the dust and dirt run off. “Gross,” she muttered, lighting up her phone over it. “Looks like a load of gibberish to me.”

“Let’s see.” Nick looked over her shoulder. “Nah,” he said, pointing. “It’s a list or something.”

“Who cares?” Mini rolled her eyes. “Whoever’s on it, they’re probably long-dead.”

“Mini, that’s horrible,” Grace said reproachfully. Mini just shrugged.

“Moving on?”

“Yeah.” Matty nodded and led them out to the next door. “I remember this one!” he said, grinning as he pushed it open. Unlike the others, this room wasn’t as wide, or anywhere near as long. Or so Mini thought until Matty shone the light to the opposite wall and she realised that it wasn’t a wall at all - it was a window. Just so filthy that it looked completely opaque. There was a door in it that Matty opened gently and walked through. They all followed, mostly to avoid being left in the dark.

The room beyond was obviously some sort of hospital, or a laboratory. There was a worktop around the edges and medical-looking equipment scattered over it. There was an old-fashioned surgery light in one corner and Mini looked down in surprise as her bare feet touched material and she saw that it was a surgical mask.

“Creepy,” Alo muttered, and Mini agreed with him silently. Matty grinned - of course he’d love it - and walked to the far end, where there was another door and a window that took up the wall to the left of it.

“Doctor’s quarters,” he announced, looking in. “I always liked this bit.”

“Weirdo,” Liv said without any real bite, and he laughed.

“Come on, there’s more.”

“Does this place ever end?” Mini asked incredulously. Matty just tapped the side of his nose.

“You’ll have to see for yourself.” He led them out. The end of the main corridor was just beyond, but there was one last branch-off passageway to the left. Matty ignored it and went straight to the door beyond.

“What’s up there?” Rich asked.

“Doors that go into this room.” Matty kicked the door open. “I’ll show you, come on.” They followed him through. There was a small space beyond, with two rooms protruding out into it with a gap between them. “This was a conference room or something.” Matty opened the door into the room on their left. There was indeed a long table inside with chairs stacked in a corner. He closed the door and beckoned them to the gap between the rooms. “There’s a window here, look.”

Mini pulled a face. The window here was just as disgusting as the one in the doctor’s quarters, but it was longer, stretching the length of the room. “What’s in there then?” she asked. “Because I can’t see anything through that.”

“Communications,” Matty said confidently. “So they’d decide what to do in there.” He pointed to the conference room. “And do it in here.” He jerked his head at the window. “Y’know, like with computers or whatever they had back then.”

“Morse code?” Grace suggested. “Telegraphs?”

“Yeah.” Matty shrugged. “Like that. Anyway, come on.” He led them up the gap between the conference and communications rooms and into the empty space beyond. There were a couple of small wooden tables that had fallen apart over time and what looked like the remains of a cushion in the corner. “I think this was like a waiting area or a living room,” Matty told them. The small cubicle-like room at the end was revealed to be a toilet, and there was a square hole in the ground nearby with a set of metal stairs leading down into darkness.

“Is it safe down there?” Nick clearly hadn’t been down with Matty past there. “It looks pretty, y’know. Dark.”

“Scared?” Liv taunted.

Alo snorted. “I am. Looks like the entrance to hell or something.”

“Hell has hellfire, you retard,” Rich told him.

“This is the entrance to heaven.” Matty smiled. “Or sanctuary at least. It’s just got no lights yet. Trust me, it’s really cool.”

“How many floors are there?” Mini asked, suspicious.

“Including this one?” Matty shrugged one shoulder. “Five. But the bottom floor is half the size of the others. So four and a half.”

“How big are they?” Mini demanded.

“Not big.” Matty didn’t seem to mind being interrogated. “Same size as from here to the main corridor.

“And what’s down there?”

“Bedrooms, I think,” Matty told her. “I haven’t been down there in a while.”

“Bedrooms for who?” Liv asked, frowning.

“The people in charge,” Rich said like it was obvious. “You wouldn’t expect the commander to sleep in that dorm with all the grunts, would you?”

“Good point.” Alo nodded.

“Anyway,” Matty waved the torch and drew the attention back to him. “You coming or not?”

“Lead on, my good man.” Alo nodded, apparently over his fears. Matty grinned and went to the stairs in the hole. As he directed the torch’s beam downwards, the others were plunged into near-darkness but for their phones.

“Come on then.” Liv strode to the hole and followed Matty down. As she followed him everywhere these days, Mini thought, not a little bitterly.

The stairs led down to a corridor with four doors either side. Matty opened each one to reveal a heavy desk in each one. “I thought you said they were bedrooms?” Grace asked.

“There are.” Matty assured her. “I guess they’re further down.”

“Yeah, because I don’t reckon desks make comfy beds,” Liv said sardonically. “Moving on?”

Matty frowned a little, but nodded and led them back to the stairs. There was another hold next to it with stairs leading down and around, and they followed them down to another corridor with more doors either side, and a cupboard on the right past the first door.

“These are the bedrooms,” Matty said confidently. “Except for that.” He looked into the first room on the right. “That’s a bathroom. But the others are bedrooms.”

“They’re quite small, aren’t they?” Grace peered into one of them. They were about two metres wide and three metres deep. A couple had metal bedframes, but nothing else.

“They’re only for sleeping in.” Matty shrugged.

“Down again?” Mini suggested, and the others nodded. The floor below was identical to the one above, so they didn’t bother looking around and just went down again. Matty had been right - the bottom floor was only half the length of the others. The stairs opened into a long thin room that had an opening into the longer room beyond. There was a toilet directly to the right that they ignored as they went through the doorway. There was a chest-high partition dividing the room into two, with the first part obviously being a kitchen. Larger, swankier and generally better than the one up in the soldier’s mess room. And beyond the partition were two long metal tables without any chairs.

“Kitchen and dining room,” Matty told them unnecessarily.

“We can see that,” Liv said, still sounding a little grumpy, but curious with it.

“And this is everything?” Grace asked, sounding a little overwhelmed.

“We missed a bit upstairs.” Matty shook his head. “Not more rooms, just tunnels. Or a tunnel, really. Come on, I’ll show you.”

He led them back up the four flights of metal stairs and out a door in the waiting area on the top floor they hadn’t noticed before. It opened out into the corridor Matty had dismissed, and he walked right, expecting them to follow. There was another door on the right that Matty shrugged off. “More storage,” he said, and shone the torch at the door at the end of the corridor. It opened smoother than the others, and it went into another corridor that turned sharply to the right. “It turns left at the end,” Matty explained, “and then it goes south for ages. And I mean ages.”

“Let’s see then,” Rich prompted, and Matty shrugged.

“Alright. I never went down there though, so I don’t know where it goes.”

They walked in a close group to where Matty’s tunnel began, and Mini took a step back as soon as it opened up. “I do not like this,” she said instantly. “And there’s no way I’m going down there.”

“Fair enough, I’d say,” Alo whispered. “Looks long.”

“We can explore later,” Grace piped up. “With more lights and stuff. What time is it?”

Rich looked at his watch, pressing the button on the side to make the screen light up momentarily. “Nearly eight. Loads of time before curfew.”

“Cool.” Mini edged away from the darkness beyond Matty’s torch beam. “Can we go? My battery is going to die if I keep it turned on for much longer.”

“Come on then.” Matty walked back through them and led the way back through the tunnels to the main bunker. “What do you think then?” he asked. Mini wasn’t sure if she was imagining it, but she thought he sounded slightly hopeful, like he wanted their approval.

“I think it’s perfect.” Grace beamed.

“It’s not bad,” Alo agreed. “It needs some serious cleaning though.”

“We’ve got about three weeks to her birthday.” Nick shrugged. “We could do it.”

“We could really spruce it up if we knuckled down.” Alo nodded, pleased. “Maybe bring some stuff down here as well…”

“Like what?” Mini asked.

“Well,” Alo made a thoughtful face. “Like, like sofas and stuff, y’know? Chairs.”

“Where from?” Liv snorted. “I can’t afford to buy a bus ticket, let alone a sofa.”

“Junkyard.” Matty grinned, warming to the idea. “I know the bloke who owns one - bit weird, likes his wheelbarrows, but you could get enough from them. And people chuck out old furniture, don’t they?”

“We’ve got an old sofa in our barn,” Alo offered.

“It’s ancient, Alo,” Rich reminded him.

“Yeah, but it’d be free,” Alo pointed out. Rich rolled his eyes in silent reluctant agreement.

“We’d need to keep it a secret,” Nick added. “Do this behind her back and shit.”

“No,” Grace shook her head with a frown. “We should tell her something. If we all just disappear to do something mysterious without her, don’t you think she’d be upset?”

“Grace is right.” Mini nodded. “We could tell her we’re doing something special for her birthday but not tell her what it is. That way, she’d know we weren’t rejecting her or something.”

“Brill.” Grace smiled. “This is going to be amazing, I just know it.”

“We’ll have to work through this place systematically,” Mini decided as they reached the end of the main corridor and made their way back to the railway tunnel. “You’ll need to fix some lights before anything else,” she told Matty firmly. “We can’t clean in the dark. Think you could sort that in the next couple of days?”

Matty frowned. “We’d need a lot of light bulbs. And I mean a lot.”

“We can go through and count how many we need,” Alo said, “then all chip in to buy them. Can’t be that many, surely? Hey - reckon we’d get discount if we buy in bulk?”

“No,” Rich said bluntly, standing back to let Matty go up the ladder first, balancing the torch in his pocket so it shone upwards to light his way. “We need to come back and see what’s down those tunnels as well,” he added, looking around. “And see where this one comes out as well. Both sides.”

“Why?” Liv asked incredulously. Rich shrugged, frowning slightly as though surprised that he had said it in the first place.

“I don’t know. Seems like a good idea. You going?” He gestured with his phone to the ladder, which Alo, Nick and Grace were already climbing.

“Yeah.” She walked past him and hauled herself up onto the shelf and started climbing, putting her phone away. Mini decided to do the same and gestured for Rich to go first - she didn’t want him getting a view of her arse as they climbed. He raised an eyebrow as though he knew what she was thinking before leaving her alone as he climbed up onto the shelf, crouching awkwardly before starting to climb the ladder.

Mini waited a second before following him. She considered how disgusting her feet would be when she got up to the surface again and pulled a face, resolving to get her mum’s foot spa out when she got home. Rich’s chains swung and clicked against each other as he climbed ahead of her, and she let the sound guide her until Matty reached the top and shoved the metal sheet aside, letting dim light down into the tunnel. The sky, or what bits she could see of it around the others’ bodies, was much darker than it had been on their descent, but it was still lighter than the blackness pooling below her and in the tunnels and bunker beyond.

Alo reached out a hand to her as she reached the mouth of the hole and she grabbed it gratefully. Even Farmboy’s hand was preferable to scrabbling around on the ground for something to hold onto. “Thanks.”

“No problem.” He looked elated, and she rolled her eyes good-naturedly.

“Right then.” She turned to Matty and the others. “We need to make a plan.”

“Now?” Nick asked plaintively, looking up at the darkened sky, and Mini relented.

“Not now, but soon, yeah? And we need to tell Franky that we’ll be working on her present for the next three weeks. Are you all free this weekend?”

“I need to be home for lunch on Sunday,” Grace said reluctantly. “But that’s all.”

“Great.” Mini put extra effort into her smile. “Right then, we need to get organised. We’ll have a proper meeting tomorrow, but tonight we need to figure out how much money each of us have, and how much we can each afford to spend on this.”

“Can we go now then?” Rich cut in before she could say anything else. “Because we need to get home before curfew.”

“Good point.” Alo nodded. “I’ve got the van, so I can give lifts if you want.” He looked around.

“I don’t live far away.” Grace shook her head. “I’ll be fine.”

“I’ll take you up on that though.” Nick grinned at Alo.

“Let’s get out of here then.” Rich jerked his head back up the slope. “Come on.”

Mini looked around quickly and located her shoes by the tree she had left them near. As she stooped to pick them up, she glanced at her feet, wince already ready on her face. She couldn’t see much in the gloom, but she could see grime covering her pale skin and she wrinkled her nose in disgust.

“God, I can’t believe this,” she muttered.

“Need a hand?” Alo appeared next to her with a grin.

Loathe as she was to ask for help, Mini sighed. “Yes please.”

“Here we go then.” Alo slipped his arms around her and lifted her up easily.

“Won’t uphill be harder?” she asked him.

“Ah, I’ll manage.” He grinned.

“Oh.” She considered for a moment. “Thank you.”

He merely smiled, and she looked away, not entirely comfortable.

It was harder to go up the hill, especially since it was quite steep and overgrown, but Rich and Grace walked ahead to pull branches aside and stamp down shrubs that might trip Alo up and Alo soldiered on without a word until they reached the top and he plopped Mini down on the grass.

“I’ll see you guys later,” Grace said, waving. Mini nodded with the others and said her goodbyes. Grace kissed Rich with a smile and he whispered something in her ear she nodded to before turning her back and dancing away. Light-footed, princess Grace, Mini thought, and stopped, surprised at the bitterness in the thought. She frowned and buried it as she began to walk in the opposite direction with the others. Grace was her friend - she didn’t need to think about her like that.

But Liv was her friend too, and they were always bitching at each other these days. Mini looked at her former best friend and scowled. Liv was walking with Matty, their arms around each other and their heads bent together in whispers. After Mini had made her drink that vodka, Liv had given up on them. Didn’t she understand that she needed to apologise again? That she needed to show how sorry she was to prove that she was willing to save their friendship? But she had Matty now. Mini looked away, angrier than she had been for a long time. She remembered when they had read all those letters to agony aunts in the magazines they read in secondary school. They’d scoffed, dismissing those girls’ friendships as too weak if one of them needed to write to a magazine to whine about the other girl abandoning her for a boy. They would never be so stupid, they promised. Boys were good for a laugh, but if it was a choice between a date with a boyfriend and a girl’s night, they knew which one they’d choose. It was almost a matter of honour.

When Mini had started going out with Nick she hadn’t sacrificed her girl time to hang out with him instead. Sure, she may have been avoiding him occasionally to get out of situations that might lead to sex, but that didn’t mean she didn’t love her best friends. Her and Liv and Gracie. She couldn’t blame Grace for going off with Rich to get away from her and Liv feuding, but it was Liv’s fault they were feuding in the first place. And Nick’s too, of course, but he didn’t matter. He wasn’t part of their trio. Liv was the one who had betrayed her the worst.

As if she could hear Mini’s thoughts, Liv looked at her, a dark glance. Mini looked back coldly until Matty said something and Liv looked away.

And now Franky was being dragged into it, Mini thought unhappily. If only she would stop thinking about Matty. He didn’t deserve her - she was far too good for him. And he was just too…Matty. He was unpredictable and weird and a bit of a dick as far as she was concerned. But Franky thought the sun shone out of his every orifice. The way she used to think about Nick, she supposed. Except she knew, even then, that it was partially an act. That she had chosen him because he was a rugby player and ‘fit as fuck’ and everything she was meant to have in a boyfriend.

Alo drove her home after dropping Nick and Matty off and she waved a hand as he drove away before going inside. Luckily, she came home to an empty house instead of her mum and the latest boyfriend making out on the sofa. She would never get used to that, or stop being disgusted every time it happened.

Under decent lighting, she could see the full damage done to her feet. “Gross!” She moaned, wiping her soles on the welcome mat before tip-toeing to the kitchen and getting a cloth to wipe her feet down with. Just a quick fix before she went and soaked them in the bath. “Oh!” She remembered. “Foot spa, foot spa, foot spa.” She looked around before remembering that her mum had shoved it in the attic. “Fucking typical.” She rolled her eyes and made a face as she wiped dirt from between her toes.

When Franky sat down next to her in the common room the next morning, Liv grinned at her. “Got a surprise for you.”

“Yeah?” Franky looked a little wary, and Liv laughed.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to bite you.”

“Heya.” Grace stood next to Franky’s seat and smiled. “What’s going on?”

“I was about to tell Franky about our surprise for her.” Liv grinned. To Franky’s surprise, Grace frowned.

“You can’t do that - then it won’t be a surprise.”

“What’re you talking about?” Franky asked, looking between them.

“We should wait for the others to get here,” Grace insisted. “It’s from all of us, after all.”

Liv sighed and rolled her eyes. “Urgh, fine. Christ.”

Grace smiled a little and turned around as a familiar voice shouted Franky’s name. “Morning, Alo,” She said before looking at Rich and smiling properly. He smiled back, just quickly, and came to stand next to her, his arm draping around her shoulders.

They were sickening, Liv thought fondly, stretching. “We’ve got to wait for everyone, apparently,” she told Alo.

“What for?” He looked at her quizzically and she sighed.

“To tell Franky about her present, of course.”

“Oh yeah.” He beamed at Franky. “Seriously, Franks, you’ll love it. It’ll be the best birthday you’ve ever had.” Franky raised her eyebrows.

“Now I’m interested. What’re you doing?”

“It’s a surprise.” Alo grinned. “But you are gonna love it.”

“Calm down, Alo.” Rich smirked. “Here come the masterminds.” He nodded at the door, which had just swung open to admit Nick, Matty and Mini. Mini smiled widely at Franky, and Liv rolled her eyes. Did her ex-best friend have any idea how blatant her girl-crush was? It was practically embarrassing.

“Hey, guys.” Mini pointedly ignored Liv in her sweeping greeting smile, and Liv snorted and looked at Matty. He smiled and came to sit next to her, letting her swing her legs over his and press a kiss to the side of his face.

“What’s this I hear about a birthday surprise then?” Franky asked, obviously trying to sound nonchalant, though they could all tell how pleased she was.

“You didn’t tell her anything, did you?” Mini looked at the others, who all shook their heads. “Cool. Well basically, darling,” she perched on the arm of the sofa between Grace and Franky, “we’ve come up with the best birthday surprise for you ever, but it’s going to take a while to prepare it, so you might need to hang out on your own for bit while we work on it. Is that okay?”

“What are you doing?” Franky seemed more amused than anything. “Building me a house?”

“Ask me no secrets, I’ll tell you no lies.” Mini tapped the side of her nose and winked. “But promise, Franky, you’ll love it. Or you will when we’re finished, anyway.”

“It was my idea,” Matty added, and Mini shrugged, allowing that.

“But we’re going to need to put in a lot of time between now and your birthday to make sure it’s all ready in time, so you might not see a lot of us outside of school.”

“That’s okay.” Franky smiled. “I don’t mind.”

“Fab.” Mini’s eyes sparkled. “Can we all meet up after school today?” She looked around at the others, who all made noises of agreement. “Aces. You pop home today then,” she nudged Franky and grinned. “And we’ll get started.”

“Fine by me.” Franky smiled. As the bell rang and they all went their separate ways, Franky tried to contain her happiness. She had never had friends who were prepared to work for three weeks on a present for her. She wondered what they were planning. She didn’t mind being on the outside for a bit as long as it wasn’t a trick, which she was sure it wasn’t. They were proper friends, real friends. She could deal with seeing a little less of them for a while, especially if they were doing something nice for her. It made her feel warm and liked. Her past was truly behind her now.

“Where’re we going then?” Nick asked as they waved Franky off at the end of the day.

“Van?” Alo suggested with a shrug, and looked around. There were no objections, so he grinned and pointed to the car park. “Onwards ho then!”

“You are so weird.” Mini rolled her eyes, but Alo just grinned wider, leading the way. When they were all sat, a little cramped, in the van, they all looked expectantly at Mini, who sighed mentally. She always ended up being the leader. “Okay then.” She looked back around at them. “We only have three weeks to turn that hovel into a respectable present for Franky, so we’re going to have to work fast. Matty,” she looked at him calmly, “can you wire lights up to the rest of the bunker?”

Matty tilted his head to one side. “Probably, but I’ll need a few things. I’ve got my tools at home, but I’ll need some wire, probably, and a lot of bulbs. We need to go down there again and measure out how many we’ll need. We should get spares and stuff too, and candles in case they cut out somewhere.”

“Okay, we can do that today, or some of us can.” Mini nodded, thinking. “You go, Matty. Take…I don’t know, Liv and Nick or whatever. The rest of us should figure out how much money we’re going to spend on this and get some cleaning supplies together. Could we get a broom each? We could start sweeping the bits that have lights already to save some time.”

“Sounds good to me.” Alo slapped his knee and nodded. “We should find out what’s down that tunnel too.”

“Let’s concentrate on lighting the place up first,” Mini said hurriedly. She didn’t like the thought of going back down that horrible black hole that stretched who knew how far under the city. “And sweeping - Farmboy, can you drive us to our places to get brooms?”

“We should get new ones.” Grace shook her head. “Not expensive ones - I’ve seen ones in pound shops and stuff, we should get ones we’re going to keep.”

“What for?” Mini stared at her.

“Well, so we can keep it clean.” Grace smiled, small at first and then wider. “It’s not going to stay dust-free forever, and we might be down there quite a bit. It would be useful to have our own things.”

Mini nodded slowly. “Okay then. We’ll go into town, get brooms and other cleaning supplies, and meet you guys down there?” She looked at Matty, who nodded, apparently pleased.

“This is gonna be awesome.” Nick grinned, looking around at everyone. “Franky is gonna love it.”

“Only if we’ve done a good job by her birthday,” Mini said firmly, standing up. “Okay everyone - let’s get going!”

They all worked every day (except Grace, who refused to skip her ballet classes, but made up for it by paying for the majority of the cleaning supplies), even forgoing parties to go down to the bunker to clean it up. Matty wired up each room in the top level before moving onto the lower floors, always one step ahead of Mini’s cleaning crew, who rotated regularly. Nick usually went with Matty to help, or to reach high places, as Mini cuttingly remarked on occasion. Liv had initially gone with them, but hung back with Mini and the others after just a couple of days. Mini discovered her animosity towards her ex-best friend declining as they worked together, getting Rich and Alo to move the heavy tables or carry out the bits of wood that had been chairs and sweeping up the piles of dust and cobwebs behind them. They got dustpans and plastic bin bags and filled them with dirt, leaving them outside other people’s houses.

It was more fun than any of them had been expecting, working together and complaining about the states of their backs. By the end of the second week, everything was clean, and they dragged the sofa from Alo’s barn into the bunker, all the way down to the end and the ‘waiting room’ type place behind the conference and operations rooms, at the top of the stairs. Rich, on a drive home from Alo’s, noticed an old pair of armchairs and a two-seater sofa wedged awkwardly in a skip, and together they managed to get all of them  back to the bunker, one at a time. The rest of the gang helped shift them down to join Alo’s sofa the next day, and Nick produced beer which they drank on their new chairs, grinning like kings.

The day after that, three days from Franky’s birthday, they finally went down the tunnel Mini had been secretly hoping everyone else would forget about. But no such luck. Reluctantly, she showed up on the appointed afternoon with a torch she’d found in the cupboard under the stairs in her house. Alo noticed the way she clenched the handle in both her hands and grinned in what he hoped was a reassuring way.

“Don’t worry - worst that’ll be down there’ll be rats, I reckon.”

“That’s great, Farmboy,” Mini hissed. “Thanks for that.”

Alo’s shoulders slumped and he slunk off to Rich’s side, his own head-sized flashlight heavy in his hand. “Alright?”

“Give it up,” Rich said bluntly, under his breath so that Grace, who was chatting with Liv, wouldn’t hear. “She’s a bitch, so it doesn’t even matter.”

“It does matter.” Alo scowled. “And she’s not a bitch - we’re all mates now anyway.”

“If you say so.” Rich looked above him and around at Matty. “We going then?”

“Lead the way.” Matty shrugged, waving him on. Rich raised his eyebrows, not expecting that, but walked forward through the door before Alo could call him a pussy.

“Come on then,” he called from round the sharp corner, and the others followed.

“Think you could light this up?” Liv whispered to Matty as they reached the end of the part contained by the bunker, the endless tunnel ahead stretching out into darkness beyond the lights of their torches.

“I don’t know,” he spoke quietly, but didn’t whisper. “Maybe. Might just be a waste though, depends where it goes.”

“Well we’ll find out,” Nick said confidently, reaching forward to clap Rich’s leather-clad shoulder. “After you, mate.”

“If I get attacked by something, I am haunting you all,” Rich deadpanned before stepping into the unknown.

They walked for what felt like forever, the minutes ticking slowly by, until they suddenly came to a tunnel that branched off sharply to the right. “It must go under the river,” Matty whispered, shining his torch down it. “Wonder how far it goes?”

“Well this one keeps going.” Rich jerked his torch to the main tunnel. “I say we keep going down this one and explore that one on the way back.”

“Good plan,” Liv agreed, looking up nervously. “How deep do you think we are?”

“Deep,” Alo said quietly, following her gaze. The tunnel was concrete all around with no gaps or cracks, rectangular like a corridor, and only wide enough for two people to walk side by side.

“Let’s keep going then,” Mini urged, her arm linked tightly with Grace’s. “Who knows how long this thing is?”

“Yeah, okay.” Rich nodded and started forward again, Alo at his side, the others following behind. In another ten minutes or so, they came to another tunnel that also branched off at a ninety degree angle to the right. They bypassed it and kept going, on and on.

Finally, after roughly another ten minutes, their torches illuminated the end of the tunnel. Sighing with relief, they sped up until Rich and Alo were standing right in front of an ancient metal door. “Looks like it won’t open.” Alo shook his head, running a hand over the slightly rusted metal handle.

“Try anyway,” Grace encouraged, and Alo shrugged, gripping the handle and shoving down. It didn’t budge, and when Alo added force, it snapped off with a loud snap that made everyone jump.

“That’s useful.” Liv raised an eyebrow.

“It opens outwards.” Alo examined the hinges. “We can’t kick it down.”

“I wonder where we are.” Grace looked up.

“It wouldn’t be too hard to find out, actually,” Mini considered. “I mean, we’ve been walking for what, half an hour? But in the same direction - shouldn’t be hard to find where we are on a map.”

“Well this door isn’t opening any time soon.” Rich gave it a kick and turned around. “Back?”

“And see where those other two tunnels go.” Nick nodded, enthusiastic as always.

The first tunnel was long, and after a while it sloped upwards gently, getting shorter in the last few metres until only Grace, Liv and Matty weren’t hunched over, finally coming to a stop with a wall. Just bare concrete with no door at its end.

“Well what’s the point of that?” Liv frowned, and Grace pursed her lips and slipped forwards to the front.

“Look,” she said with a triumphant smile, pointing up. “The door is on the ceiling.” More like a trapdoor, she thought. It was too square to be anything else.

“Stupid low ceiling,” Rich grumbled, almost bent double. He shuffled forward to Grace’s side and had to crouch down to look up. “She’s right, there’s a handle. Looks like it opens outwards. Here, Alo.” He stood up carefully and braced his shoulders and back against the trapdoor and Alo stepped forward to copy him.

“On three,” Alo told him as Grace stepped back. “One…two…three!” They both strained upwards, faces screwed up in effort, and with a hideous squeal of metal on metal, the trapdoor popped upwards and soil fell in through the edges, making Alo and Rich flinch away with cries of disgust even as slivers of light appeared above the soil.

“Gross.” Rich wrinkled his nose as a worm fell through the gap and writhed helplessly on the floor. Grace rushed forward and picked it up, cradling it in her palms.

“Could you open it properly so I could put him out?” she asked, and Rich rolled his eyes good-naturedly.

“Sure.” He and Alo kept away from the edges and pushed upwards with their hands only, heaving the thick metal slab up and away. There were a good three inches of earth between the edges of the frame and the ground above, and Alo stood up in the gap first, blinking in the sudden light.

“Hey, we’re in the woods!”

“Makes sense,” Matty called up to him from behind the others. “Leigh Woods is on the other side of the river, and that’s the direction we went in.”

“Cool.” Alo grinned.

“Shove up, dickhead.” Rich nudged him aside and stood up next to him, their heads and shoulders poking up above the ground like meerkats. “Fuck, we are literally in the middle of fucking nowhere.”

“Brilliant.” Mini rolled her eyes. “Can you get out so we can all look?”

“Yeah, right.” Alo scrambled up onto the ground and got to his feet. Rich gave him a withering look before pulling himself up and out too, bending down to help Grace out as well.

When all seven of them were out, it was Nick who broke the silence. “This is interesting and all, yeah, but shouldn’t we get a move on? It’s nearly six thirty.”

“Nick’s right.” Matty nodded. “We should go and see if the other tunnel comes out in the woods as well.”

“Probably does.” Liv shrugged and dropped back into the hole.

The other tunnel was not as long, and it also ended in a trapdoor that required Rich and Alo’s strength to open. It also opened out into the woods.

“Handy for getting away quickly,” Liv noted, looking up through the canopy of leaves.

“Why would we need to?” Nick frowned.

Mini snorted. “Come on, Nick. It might not be an actual law, but I’m pretty sure renovating a bunker in secret isn’t exactly the sort of thing the regime would be okay with.”

“Mind you, neither’s being in the woods.” Rich looked around. “We must be pretty close to the river - those parts are out of bounds.”

“I’ve always wondered why.” Alo walked into the trees and ran his hand over one. “Was this ever open to the public? Reckon there’re regime buildings hidden in here?”

“We could explore,” Grace suggested. “Have a real look. We’d have to be careful though,” she added.

“Scared of the wolves, Gracie?” Liv teased. Grace smiled and shook her head.

“No, because there aren’t any. But think about it - I don’t think there are any paths in here. You could get lost really easily. If we explore, we should do what Theseus did.”

Mini shared an amused glance with Liv without thinking. Both of them looked away quickly, unhappy expressions replacing their smirks. “What do you mean?” Mini asked, recovering first.

“Get a ball of string and tie it to the trapdoor, so we’ll always find the way back,” Grace explained with a smile.

“That’s actually pretty smart.” Alo came back and grinned at her.

“I know, right?” She grinned back at him.

“We should head back,” Matty reminded them quietly, and Liv nodded.

“Yeah, come on, guys.”

It was past seven when they got out of the bunker and scrambled out onto the Downs. “What else do we need to do now then?” Rich asked, looking at Mini expectantly.

“We need to set it up for a party,” Mini told them with a sly smile. “So, streamers, lights, a cool box for drinks and music, of course.”

“It’ll just be us though, right?” Nick asked. “We’re not telling other people?”

“Just us,” Mini affirmed. “Any more would be a bit of a risk. So who wants to take care of what?”

“My dad’s got a cooler,” Rich said. “I could sneak that out, no problem.”

“We’ll need more than one.” Matty nodded. “Our dad’s got one too - Nick and me’ll bring that.”

“Excellent.” Mini smiled. “Streamers won’t be expensive, I’ll take care of those -”

“Aren’t we forgetting something?” Grace interrupted, looking at them pointedly. At their questioning silence, she sighed. “Electricity. I haven’t seen any plugs down there, have you? And we can’t run everything on batteries.”

“Good point.” Liv frowned and looked at Matty. “There’s a generator in the big room with all the pipes, isn’t there? Reckon you could get that running?”

Matty pulled a doubtful face. “I don’t know…it’s pretty rusty down there, I don’t know if it’s even safe. Or what it runs on.”

“Find out,” Mini ordered. “If not…I don’t know, we could buy a big battery pack or something? Temporary solution.” She added, noticing Grace’s worried expression. “Find out tomorrow, yeah?” She looked round and tossed her blonde curls. “I’m going home. See you.” She wiggled her fingers and smiled, turning away and pulling her iPod and headphones from her little bag.

The others watched her go. Alo nudged Rich. “Mine tonight?”

“Yeah.” Rich nodded and turned to Grace. “You alright getting back?”

Grace smiled, amused. “It’s less than ten minutes away - I’m sure I’ll manage.”

“Okay.” Rich smiled back, just a slight upturning of the corner of his lips, and bent to kiss her goodbye. Liv rolled her eyes with a smirk and slung her arm around Matty.

“Yours or mine?” she whispered in his ear, touching her tongue feather-light to his lobe for a fraction of a second before she pulled away, watching him close his eyes for a second with satisfaction.

“Yours,” he whispered back, kissing her lips and smiling that enigmatic Matty smile. The one only she got to see. She pretended not to see or feel Nick’s sad stare and kissed Matty back.

Alo and Nick caught each other’s eyes and exchanged dry half-shrugs. Alo grinned suddenly. “Hey, wanna come back to mine, Nick?”

Rich whipped his head around as Grace began to walk off. “What?”

“Uh…” Nick started to grin, looking between Rich and Alo.

“That’s okay, right?” Alo looked at Rich and grinned, his eyes gleaming. Rich hesitated - despite their new friendship, he still felt uneasy around Nick, Mini and Liv, but there wasn’t any real excuse, and he didn’t want to look like a total dick.

“Fine, yeah.” He managed to sound grumpy without meaning to, and looked at his boots awkwardly.

“Splendid.” Alo grinned at the two of them and looked at Matty and Liv. “Lift home, you two?”

“If you’re offering.” Liv nodded gratefully.

“Manners cost nothing,” Alo recited, as if from memory, and shot a meaningful look at Rich, who rolled his eyes.

Part 3

Diagrams for the bunker and the tunnels are here.