The Shelter Read online

  "God you're gross," Mark said to Tom, who belched after finishing the cola. He walked on stiffly, and after a pause the others followed as if they had no choice in the matter. He led them into the shadows under the trees, which seemed very dark after the bright sunshine. The mud path was still wet here, where the sun hadn't been able to reach it all summer. As they walked, large insects buzzed past their ears, and cobwebs brushed against their faces. Toadstools sprouted from dead wood, and Alan hated the spongy look of them, wanted to brush their pale soft flesh from the logs. He looked behind him, and all he could see were the trees crowding in, and the muddy path.

  Emerging from the wood into Clipston itself, the light seemed too bright and made the village look unreal - the few houses seemed aglow in the sunlight, the single post-box and the Please Drive Carefully sign like mirages. There was no one around, no sound, and no sign of life other than from the encroaching countryside, which looked poised to swallow up Clipston any time it chose. The boys left muddy footprints on the roads as they walked quickly through the place, not speaking or messing around.

  Why is there an air raid shelter out here? Alan thought. This place is tiny, is it because it overlooks the airfield? Had that been used during the war? Maybe there isn't any shelter, he thought, and it's all some more of Gordon Ross's bullshit, but he couldn't convince himself.

  Whether deliberately or not Alan never knew, but he found himself walking at the back with Mark, while Tom and Duncan walked ahead. Mark seemed on the verge of saying something different when he eventually said,

  "Exams next year for me. GCSEs"

  "Bummer," Alan said.

  "All the teachers think I'll do crap at them. And my parents don't give a shit. But I'll show them."

  Alan kept quiet, not knowing what to say. He had the feeling that despite the fact this seemed another conversation about school, that it was in fact about something else entirely that, like beer and girls' tits, he didn't fully understand.

  "I'll show them," Mark repeated, staring ahead. "Everyone thinks I'll end up same place as my brother."

  "Nah," Alan said, "you're not dumb enough to get caught like him!" He was aware his answer felt forced and seemed like the wrong one, but he felt unnerved by how the conversation was going, and he was nervous enough as it was.

  Mark laughed, after a pause. "You're right," he said, "I wouldn't get caught. Rob a bank me. What you going to do when you grow up? You want to rob it with me? You be the brains and I'll be the muscles?"

  "Sure," Alan said, but Mark just laughed again.

  "I had a dream about the shelter last night," he said, in the same light tone of voice, but Alan couldn't see the connection between what they had been talking about and this. "I've been dreaming about it ever since I heard Gordon Ross and that lot talking about it. I can't remember the dream, but I remember it was about the shelter, does that make sense?" He didn't let Alan answer before he continued. "That's why I said to come up here. Because I keep having the same dream - I was going to say it yesterday, and Tuesday, but I didn't. I feel kind of scared about it you see." He laughed harshly. "I'm just a pussy, huh? All those kids who are scared of me at school should see me now! But they're not good dreams..." He looked at his dusty trainers. "You been having dreams Alan?"

  "No," said Alan, although he had, sort of. He couldn't remember what he dreamt about, but he knew he dreamt every night, and no, he didn't think they were good dreams either. But he'd had his first wet dream the other week too, and he wanted to change the subject.

  "Looks like they've found it," he said, pointing ahead to where Tom and Duncan could be seen standing by a gap in the hedge, gesturing impatiently.

  ***

  The shelter was in the far corner of a field, and Alan vaguely wondered why it was so far away from the village itself. At least two hundred metres.

  The field was full of bright green grass, but it didn't grow around the air raid shelter itself, so that it seemed to rise up out of the dry, cracked mud. What was visible above ground was a cylinder of concrete which came to about waist height, with a diameter of about a metre and a half. There was a rusted metal hatch at the top, about the size of a manhole cover. Alan walked slowly up to it, wondering how deep it went down, and how large it was underground. Was it beneath his feet right now?

  Scattered around the bare mud were cigarette butts, beer cans, pages torn from magazines, chocolate wrappers, and a few stubborn clumps of nettles. The corner of the field was bordered by stunted trees, looking old and twisted. One tree seemed to be full of wasps, and there was a constant droning sound, dull but somehow malignant. A few of the wasps were crawling over the shelter, as if feeding on something on its surface.

  Alan's eyes were drawn to the torn magazine pages on the ground - they were from pornographic magazines, something he had never seen before (although he'd told the others he had). He stared at one faded looking woman, her legs spread, her hands placed either side on her paper-white thighs. Alan didn't like the picture, it seemed somehow fake, and the woman wasn't very pretty looking at all. But he still looked at it. He struggled with his feelings, not understanding them, but then started guiltily and flashed an ugly shade of red when Tom caught him looking.

  "Hey Alan looking at the pornos!" Tom shouted; Mark and Duncan turned to see.

  "No... I, no..."

  "Looking right up her pussy!" Tom laughed and turned away.

  Alan's fists clenched, and he took a step forward.

  He was used to feeling angry at Tom's jibes, used to feeling frustrated and annoyed with his family and life in general... but he'd never felt anything like the overwhelming rage that visited him at that moment. His vision blurred and the faint buzzing of the wasps seemed to intensify, become less somnambulant and more like the anticipatory whine of a chainsaw. And amid this din he saw, clearly and precisely, how he could come up behind Tom and smash his head down against the concrete air raid shelter...

  Then as quickly as they'd come the images and the anger faded, and Alan felt himself shaking with the after effects of adrenaline, and shivered in the hot sun. He felt scared that his body and mind could be overrun with such anger so easily, in the same way that his sudden sprung lust at seeing the porno had disturbed him.

  Mark had walked up to the air raid shelter, not paying any attention to the others, and he ran his hand over the shelter as if in thought. To Alan, the sun made the concrete look red beneath Mark's hand; he blinked the colour away. Mark tried to lift the metal lid up, but he couldn't get any purchase on it, nor get his fingers beneath it for leverage. Alan was glad. He still felt unaccountably uneasy at the thought of going down into the air raid shelter, and now he wouldn't have to, but wouldn't look a wimp to the others either.

  Mark was still pulling at the rusted lid. "You just going to stand there and watch?" he snarled at the others in frustration. They gathered round half-heartedly, but none of them could get a proper hold on the metal lid. They could raise it a few millimetres but nothing more, and then it snapped back down and pinched at their fingertips. It was obviously useless to go on trying but they did so, aware of Mark's annoyance.

  Tom stopped first, standing back and pulling his t-shirt away from his body and gasping as though he'd done something strenuous.

  "Fuck. Walked all this way for nothing."

  Mark spun round as if insulted, and Alan could see his body was tense with an anger beyond all proportion to Tom's words. He stepped back surprised and Duncan did the same. A wasp flew in Duncan's face and Alan saw him wave it away absently, not looking away from Mark.

  "Shut it you fat fuck," Mark said slowly, taking a step forward with every word. Tom took a corresponding step backwards each time, but his hands had bunched into pudgy fists.

  "Don't call me that!" he shouted angrily. "Don't call me that or I'll..."

  "Or you'll what?" Mark said. "Fight me? You wouldn't stand a chance, fatty."

  Alan saw Tom's face redden with flushed blood, his body tense as if to ch
arge. He really is going to fight Mark! he thought, marvelling because Tom would never win. Or so Alan would always have assumed, but something about the strange, hot atmosphere, the ringing tension made him not quite so sure. He saw Tom glance away from Mark, looking at the concrete shelter behind. Smash it until red... Alan thought vaguely, a thought not his own.

  "I know how to get into the air raid shelter," Duncan said. He shifted uncomfortably as they all turned to look at him - Duncan rarely said anything, and very rarely anything of import. Alan realised he'd barely even glanced at his supposed 'best friend' since they'd set off across the fields - he still had his home-knit jumper on he saw; everyone else had tied their jumpers or sweatshirts around their waist in the heat.

  "What?" Mark said, still shouting. He realised, and lowered his voice. "How?"

  "If we had some tent-pegs or something we could wedge 'em under the top, get it open easy then." Duncan said. There was a silence; Mark turned to look at Alan.

  "That could work," Alan said reluctantly. He felt obscurely betrayed by Duncan.

  "We haven't got any tent pegs," Tom said scornfully.

  "I could get some," Duncan said, eager and excited that his idea hadn't been laughed at. "If I ran all the way back it would only take half an hour and my brothers go camping and..."

  "Yeah, go," Mark said. "We'll wait here, we'd only slow you down if we all came. Some of us would anyway," he added, with a scornful look at Tom, who protested, but there wasn't the same sense of rage in the air anymore. Duncan sped off like a dog after a ball, and Alan felt another stab of betrayal. Since when did Duncan have such bright ideas? He looked again at the shelter with unease, not daring to admit how much he dreaded the thought of opening it and peering down to whatever was inside. He had the vague sense that something, somehow, had got out of control.

  "Great, we get to hang around here for hours until that retard comes back," Tom muttered, moving to sit in the shade under the trees. The others went to join him. The stunted, leafless trees provided little shelter from the sun and no one was inclined to talk. Alan tried to relax, and daydream, but the buzzing of the wasps, and their occasional clumsy collisions with his bare forearms kept him staring at reality; at the concrete of the air raid shelter sticking up out of the dried cracked mud.

  ***

  The sun moved sluggishly through the sky, and Alan started to hope that maybe Duncan wouldn't return at all. It would be just like him to forget. The heat seemed to mount and there was a feeling of rising tension again, despite the fact that nothing was being said or done. Tom wandered around in circles, kicking dust from the ground. Mark got up and sat on the concrete shelter, hunched forward, looking into the distance as if listening. Alan once again wondered how big the shelter would be underground; was it beneath the twisted, wasp infested trees under which he was sat? Looking down, his gaze was drawn to a scrap of a pornographic magazine on the ground beside him. It showed a blonde woman on all fours, looking over her shoulder with a faded invitation in her eyes. Alan felt uncomfortable, and remembered the wet dream he had suffered the other week, and the sticky feeling of guilt in the morning because his mother would have to wash his bedclothes.

  He looked up and realised Tom and Mark were gone.

  He knew they must be playing a trick, but surely there was nowhere for them to hide? The field was bare and flat. He got up, for some reason trying to keep quiet. All he could hear was the buzzing of the wasps. He walked up to the mouth of the shelter, to see if they were hiding round the other side of it. He stepped round - no. For a brief moment he wondered if they'd got the shelter open and gone down somehow, but the rusted metal hatch was still shut tight. He laid his hand against it; it was almost painfully hot from the summer sun.

  There was a sound behind him, from back amongst the stunted trees. Alan turned too late, and two bodies leapt at him and forced him to the ground. Even as his head hit the hard mud, he was grateful that it was them. He didn't know what else he had been fearing.

  "Should have seen your face!" Mark laughed, punching him a couple of times on the shoulder.

  "Yeah!" Tom said. "You shit yourself like you'd seen a ghost! The ghost of Martin thingy."

  "Shut up jerks," Alan said with forced anger, because he knew that they'd just carry on taunting and hitting him until he reacted. The boys got off him, and he stood up and rubbed the dusty mud from his clothes. Tom was still red faced and excited, breathing heavily and laughing at Alan. Mark was scowling, as if the game had ceased to be fun for him, if it ever had been.

  "His mum aint gonna see him again," he said, defiantly, as if he'd been wanting to say it for a while.

  "Who?" said Tom puzzled.

  "Martin Longhurst, dickhead, who'd you think?"

  "Oh right, no, I guess not," Tom said. He looked uncertainly at Mark, as if awaiting him to clarify what that remark had to do with anything. But Mark was still scowling, and he turned and looked across the fields and trees, towards the distant church spire that was all they could see of their home village.

  "Bloody thing," he said, kicking the air raid shelter. "It's boiling, what are we doing out here anyway?" And Alan saw that it was going to end, that Mark was uneasy about the thought of going down into that shelter too, but hadn't dared admit it. But now enough time had passed for boredom to be a reason to leave - they'd trudge back across the fields, no doubt meet that idiot coming the other way and taunt him for being late and useless. Then they'd go home, and hang around together bored in the sun for the rest of the summer holidays. But then back at school would Mark and Tom continue to be friends with boys two years their junior? Alan didn't think so, and he felt a certain relief at the prospect.

  He knew even before he turned round that it wasn't going to be so - they'd all three turned round at the same time, although there had been no sound to prompt them. Alan was aware of the bodies of the others tensing as they saw too - none of us want to open this thing, he thought, so why are we going to? For coming running up the field was Duncan, clutching something bright and flashing in his hands and shouting about his idea. He arrived out of breath and handed the tent pegs to Mark like a dog returning a thrown stick. But when Mark turned without a word towards the shelter, Alan saw a momentary look of confusion on Duncan's face - Duncan too, he thought, even Duncan feels worried about this. Why?

  "We going to open this thing or what?" Mark said tightly, and the others agreed and went to help him.

  ***

  The metal hatch was easily pried open with the tent pegs, opening almost eagerly for the boys. It stood at an angle on stiff rusted hinges, and the four of them stared down into the gloom. An old metal ladder descended down into the darkness; they could see the floor about twenty feet below. Trash littered the bottom, and graffiti could be seen on the walls of the shaft. Someone's got inside here before, Alan thought. A vague, nauseating smell escaped from the shelter, like the smell of dustbins and old garbage.

  For a few seconds no one moved or spoke; Alan was aware of the heat on the back of his neck in contrast to the chill coming from the shelter. The darkness of it seemed very black after the intense brightness of the summer day. We're going to go down there, he thought blankly, no longer doubting it.

  "We going to stay here all day?" Mark asked, then without waiting for any answers climbed up onto the concrete and swung one foot onto the ladder. He paused, then put his other foot on a rung further down and for a second Alan was convinced that it would break away from the wall and send Mark falling to the bottom of the shaft. But it held. Mark looked up and grinned, then started climbing down, the ladder squeaking as he moved. The others watched him uneasily from above, none of them following him. They saw him jump the last couple of feet and land at the bottom. He looked up, waved sarcastically at them, then walked to the right into what was presumably the main part of the air raid shelter, out of the their sight.

  They waited, listening to the silence.

  "You okay Mark?" Tom called uneasily after a while.
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  "Yeah," Mark's faint voice came back, seemingly from further away than he could possibly be. "Hey there's a skeleton down here!" he said excitedly.

  The three of them at the top glanced at each other in puzzlement; Alan saw his nervousness reflected back in their eyes. Before any of them could respond Mark called up again.

  "Ain't any of you going to come down here with me?"

  No one said anything, but Duncan backed away from the opening of the shelter. Tom met Alan's enquiring look and stepped away too. Alan didn't feel any surprise, or even any anger with them - there was something inevitable about the course of this day, and he'd known he would have to go down into the shelter as soon as Mark had mentioned it. He took a deep breath, but none of the oxygen seemed to help his constricted chest. Then he climbed onto the concrete, and put one foot onto the ladder.

  ***

  Although the ladder had seemed stable enough from above, Alan noticed that the large bolts that held it to the concrete walls were partially pulled out, and the ladder dragged back and forth across them as he descended, making a squealing sound. Flecks of rust span down to the shelter floor. Alan paused halfway, wondering how he'd ended up here. He looked up at the circle of light above him; Tom and Duncan gestured at him to keep going, brave now it wasn't them. Alan felt a moment of intense, violent anger - not the urge to say something, but to climb back up and... hurt them. Blood on stone. All day he had felt his emotions not to be internal, but things visited on him from outside. When the feeling of anger passed it left him hollow and trembling.

  He reached the bottom and reluctantly let go of the ladder; he gingerly stepped to the concrete floor as if it were uncertain beneath his feet. He looked around the interior of the shelter - the ladder shaft was connected to a single chamber, about fifteen feet square. The ceiling was low, but not uncomfortably so for a kid like Alan. He looked in, his eyes not adjusted to the darkness yet. He couldn't see Mark.