Eldren: The Book of the Dark Read Online Free Page A

torch on...I don’t like being down in the dark.”
    That was the first time Tony had ever heard Billy admitting fear and he felt a small thrill of pleasure...this place was getting to him.
    Tony took out the map again and had to squint to read it in the dim torchlight.
    “Over there, in the left-hand corner,” he pointed with the torch, lighting the rough walls. “There should be a storeroom where the scientists kept their equipment. Granddad said that….”
    Billy interrupted him. “Yeah, yeah. Just shut up about your Granddad for a bit.”
    Their voices set up echoes around the room, whispers coming back from all sides as they followed the torch beam. The chamber came to an end at a corner that turned right into a smaller room.
    The floor here was littered with debris, pieces of sacking, empty beer cans, wine bottles, cigarette ends and Chinese take-away cartons.
    “Looks like your Granddad got here before us,” said Billy, laughing as he jigged out of reach of the swinging torch. He started to say something else but Tony had seen a grayer patch on the wall.
    He swung the torch round and there it was…Granddad’s door.
    It was metal and, judging by the dents in it and the scrapes on its surface, it had stood up to many attempts to force it open. The only significant feature in an otherwise empty expanse of steel was the small-shadowed keyhole.
    “What do you know. The old bastard was right,” Billy whispered. In the dim torchlight Tony could see the beginnings of doubt come into his eyes. “What do we do now?”
    “We go in of course,” Tony replied, taking the key from his pocket.
    It fit perfectly, turning easily in the lock with a loud click. The door swung open revealing a greater blackness beyond.
    Up till this point Tony had wondered about Granddad’s stories. Part of him knew that there were no Morlocks...the same part that knew there was no Santa Claus.
    But that didn’t stop him waiting for the sound of sleigh bells at Christmas and it wasn’t going to stop him finding out what was down that corridor.
    He shone the torch around. The corridor led to another chamber barely ten feet away but the torch beam was stopped by blackness. He moved forward, gesturing for Billy to follow.
    “Come on then. We didn’t come all this way for nothing.” Tony’s voice echoed, booming, much louder than before and the words continued, fading down the path ahead.
    The path sloped slightly downwards and he noticed the puffs of dust being kicked up by their feet. Nobody had been this way for a long time.
    The corridor led to a door that lay open. Beyond this was a large room that was still in blackness. They stopped as the torch lit up the open door and Billy’s face widened into a grin as he read the notice.
    R.N.A.D. BUNKER 186A/2
    NO UNAUTHORISED PERSONNEL BEYOND THIS POINT
    “RNAD...that’s part of the Navy. My Uncle Tom works for them. Morlocks my arse...it’s just an old air raid shelter.”
    Leaning over he pressed a light switch at the door-side. To their surprise the light in the room beyond came on, pale and flickering but enough to light the room’s contents.
    The room was twenty feet long by ten feet wide and the only furniture in it was six bunk beds...twelve berths in all. Anything else that might at one time have been stored there had long since been removed.
    Tony turned off the torch and attached it to his belt as they moved into the room.
    Billy was entranced.
    “Hey, this is some place. We could turn it into a secret den...you know, bring food and cigarettes and stuff up here and nobody would ever know where we were...wouldn’t that be great?”
    Tony wasn’t so sure. “But what about the Morlocks?”
    “Morlocks schmorlocks,” Billy said. “Haven’t you sussed it yet? Your senile old Granddad was having you on...spinning a tale to keep you happy.”
    He shook his head at Tony’s gullibility as he bounced on a bunk on the other side of the room, slapping his hands against the wall