Earthfall Read Online Free PDF Page B

pulled hard and, with a mechanical groan of protest, it slowly began to move. A moment later the lock disengaged and the two boys hauled the hatch open with a creak.
    ‘Quick, inside!’ Rachel hissed, glancing over her shoulder. The noise of the Drones was very close now. It sounded like they would be on them in just a matter of seconds. The three of them clambered through the hatch and Rachel closed it behind them, pulling the locking bar back into position before turning off her torch. They crouched in the darkness, hardly daring to breathe as the whine grew steadily louder and louder. For a moment Sam thought that they’d stopped outside the hatch, but then the buzzing sound started to diminish as the Hunters continued further along the tunnel and all three of them let out long relieved sighs.
    ‘Too close,’ Rachel said, turning her torch back on and directing its beam down the corridor that led away from the hatch. ‘OK, we should be able to follow the secondary tunnel network all the way from here to the Sanctuary. Once we’re there we’ll have to wait a while before we head back to Central Command. We can’t take the chance that any Hunters in the tunnels might follow us back there.’
    They continued down the dark, twisting passageways for another twenty minutes. Jay and Rachel appeared to know exactly where they were heading, but Sam was hopelessly disorientated after just a few minutes. He’d thought that the layout of London’s sewers was complicated, but the network of maintenance tunnels that they were now navigating was even more intricate and convoluted. If you got lost down here, he realised, you might just never see daylight again. Eventually, they arrived at a short flight of concrete stairs that led up to a heavy metal door. Rachel released the two bolts holding the door shut and pushed it open. Sam followed her inside and found himself in a room containing a bunk bed and a battered old armchair. On a table nearby was a kerosene lamp, which Rachel quickly lit. Hanging on the wall above it was a detailed map of the tunnel system surrounding them with various locations circled in red pen.
    ‘Cosy,’ Sam said with a wince as he felt the pain in his chest flaring again. ‘Reminds me of home.’
    ‘We’ve got bolt-holes like this set up throughout about a quarter of the tunnel system,’ Rachel said, gesturing at the map on the wall. ‘We’re expanding the network all the time. Idea is that you should always be near somewhere you can safely hide for a while.’
    ‘As long as you don’t mind eating this rubbish,’ Jay said, taking a foil-wrapped package from a locker mounted on the wall and tossing it across the room to Sam.
    ‘What’s this?’ Sam asked.
    ‘Twenty-four-hour, general-purpose operational ration pack,’ Jay said, taking another one from the locker and tearing it open, ‘as once issued to Her Majesty’s armed forces. Looks better than it tastes and it looks terrible.’
    ‘Do you ever stop thinking about food?’ Rachel said with a sigh as she took off her backpack and sat down in the chair.
    ‘Thanks,’ Sam said, putting the ration pack down on the table, ‘but I’m not really hungry at the moment. In fact, to be honest, I’m exhausted. I think I might just . . .’
    Sam gasped, clutching at his chest, and dropped to his knees as his body was engulfed by sudden fresh wave of nerve-searing pain.
    ‘Sam!’ Rachel yelled, leaping to her feet and catching him as he toppled over. She lowered him gently to the floor.
    ‘What’s the matter with him?’ Jay asked. He came over and knelt down beside them.
    ‘Hunter sting,’ Rachel said, lifting Sam’s T-shirt to show the bandage round his chest. The green tint to the veins leading away from the wound now extended almost to his waist and their colour was significantly darker than it had been earlier.
    ‘What do you mean?’ Jay asked, looking confused. ‘When did he get stung?’
    ‘Last night – least that’s what