Aftermath

door behind him.
    “I’m Michael,” he said. “Pleasure to meet you too.”
    “Michael’s the dad-to-be from the island,” Harte explained.
    “Then what are you doing here, you muppet?”
    “I’ve been asking myself the same question,” he replied. “Now where’s this exit?”
    “In here, somewhere,” Kieran said unhelpfully as he began searching through the few boxes of supplies which had been left in the gift shop. He found what he was looking for on a shelf—torches. It didn’t matter that they were novelty kid’s torches made in the shape of castle turrets, as long as they worked. He handed them around, then distributed packs of batteries from a wall display behind a long-unused till. Lorna was the first to get hers working. She shone it around the various faces.
    “Michael, this is Howard, Caron, and Kieran.”
    “And you’re all that’s left here now? Harry got the rest of you away?”
    “As far as we can tell. I think everyone’s accounted for.”
    “Too late now if they’re not,” he mumbled as he went deeper into the shop. “Now what exactly are we looking for?”
    “Some kind of door, I guess,” Kieran explained. “All I know is that Jackson got in this way.”
    “And you never bothered to look for it before?”
    “There wasn’t any need. No one was trying to get out of the castle until your lot turned up in your bloody helicopter.”
    “Fair point.”
    They split up and scoured the walls of the cluttered room. In the months since the castle had first been used as a base by survivors, the gift shop had been used for a variety of reasons. Bayliss and Melanie’s love nest apart, people had dumped rubbish here, used it to store less useful items which had been scavenged (Michael noticed a couple of flat-screen TVs) and, judging from the smell, someone had used this place in favor of the chemical toilets too.
    “There are catacombs and dungeons here, you know,” Caron said suddenly.
    “What?” Michael asked.
    “Ignore her,” Howard said, “she’s half-pissed.”
    “I might well be,” she continued, “but I’m not stupid. I tell you, there are dungeons and all sorts under this place.”
    “How would you know?”
    “Because I’ve spent hours and hours pretending to clean the museum, remember? I saw some displays.”
    “And you didn’t think to mention this?” Lorna said in disbelief.
    “I didn’t think it mattered. Like Kieran said, we weren’t planning on leaving until a couple of days ago.”
    “Wait,” Michael said, “this guy Jackson. You said he came into the castle through here?”
    “Yes,” Kieran replied. “Why?”
    “Because if that’s the case he probably got in this way.”
    Michael flashed his torch at a door he was standing next to. It had a large NO EXIT sign in the middle of it. They’d all glanced at it, but the penny hadn’t dropped. They’d been looking for a way out, not a way in. Jackson had been coming the other way. His entrance was their “no exit.”
    “Must be it,” Kieran said, reaching for the emergency access bar right across the middle of the door. He pushed it down and the latches opened. Mchael slipped his fingers around the edges and between them they pulled the door open. A blast of cold, musty air hit them. Michael shone his torch into a small room which looked like it had been carved out of rock.
    “We need to get moving,” Howard said nervously. “I think they’re coming this way.”
    “Go for it,” Michael suggested. “Even if we just end up hiding in here for a couple of hours, it’ll do.”
    He led them down into the confined space; Harte and Kieran close behind, Howard, Lorna, and Caron bringing up the rear. The temperature felt ice-cold.
    “Fuck me!” Harte cursed. “Jesus!”
    Michael turned around quickly to see what it was that Harte had seen. It made him catch his breath too. A painfully thin, ghostly white body was shackled to the wall. Lorna sighed.
    “Harte, you’re bloody useless,” she said. “It’s a bloody dummy.”
    “How was I supposed to know? Christ, what kind of place has fake dead bodies chained to the walls?”
    “Castles with dungeons,” Caron said. “I told you I saw displays. It was part of some kind of ‘be a smuggler’ attraction, I think.”
    “Be quiet and keep moving,” Michael said, leading them toward another door.
    “Go through?” Kieran asked, pointlessly.
    “Unless you’ve got a better idea?”
    Kieran tried the door and it opened. He cautiously