A Tap at the Window by Gabriel Dylan

Author:Gabriel Dylan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bonnier Publishing Fiction

16

The Basement

As much as she tried to stay logical, Sophia couldn’t stop the wave of fear that washed over her as they made their way down the steps that led beneath the farmhouse. The smell hit her first, musty and ancient, as if something had died down there a long time ago. There was something else mixed with it too – another odour, sour and familiar. The same smell from the Shivering Post and Point Academy.

Sophia felt a surge of satisfaction override her fear – they’d found something here, something that linked to everything that had been happening recently.

Riley reached the bottom of the stairs first. She shone her torch around the cramped space, the halo of light drifting from one spot to the next. They’d emerged into a small chamber carved out of the ground, like a bomb shelter left over from the war. But this looked more like a workshop, or a design studio.

‘There’s no one down here,’ Mo breathed, the words heavy with relief.

‘No,’ Sophia replied. ‘But this place isn’t empty, either.’

Everywhere Sophia looked, sketches, diagrams, drawings and plans had been pinned to the walls. Underneath them were benches strewn with wires and tools and circuit boards.

‘This must be your idea of heaven, right, Riley?’ Alex murmured, shining his torch towards a bench at the end of the room.

But the more Sophia studied it, the more she realised that the work here had a macabre edge to it. A sprinkling of unfinished creations sat among the mess: mannequins, dolls, parts of children’s toys melded together to form ghoulish shapes.

‘Or hell,’ Riley answered, taking a step towards the left-hand wall and the row of small labelled bottles shelved there. ‘Chemicals,’ she murmured. ‘Sulphur, hydrochloric acid, and lots I’ve never even heard of. Who does this stuff all belong to?’ Riley lifted one of the larger vials, undoing the stopper and sniffing its contents. ‘Ammonia. It’s the wee smell we keep coming across! But what’s it used for?’

Out of the corner of her eye, Sophia saw Alex crunch over to the other side of the chamber, studying something amid the diagrams and sketches on the wall.

‘Look at this. There’s a photograph here of that guy from upstairs – the farmer. It’s from a newspaper cutting. The caption says his name was Simon Baxter and he accused another farmer of stealing some new tractor design he’d come up with. It doesn’t sound like he was very happy about it.’

‘Maybe he wasn’t just a farmer,’ Riley suggested, moving alongside Alex. ‘Maybe he was an inventor as well. There was a clock upstairs. It looked strange, like it had been made rather than bought.’

‘Or a mad genius,’ Mo muttered, shining his torch onto the head of a doll, its eyes removed and the sockets implanted with bulbs. ‘This stuff is awful.’

‘Hey, look. Look at these.’ The tone of Sophia’s voice made them all turn towards her. She’d retrieved something off the floor and was shining her torch onto her find. ‘More newspapers,’ she announced, moving her attention to the top of one of the pages.

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