"This is lame." Harry Knightley scuffed his shoes through the autumn leaves as they traipsed up the hill.
"Come on, this is way cooler than sitting at home and watching 'Jurassic Park' again. Like, no one's been here in years. We'll be legends when we tell everyone!" Luke shone the torch into Harry's eyes and he shielded his face.
"This place gives me the creeps," Reece Martin, the smallest member of the group, nodded across at a hulking shape that was a shadow out of the torchlight. "Is that another of those freaky dino-mutants?" Luke flicked the torch across and they all stared in silence for a moment at a nearly headless T-Rex, it's papier-mâché insides on display and its strange pale blue, red paint rimmed eyes, staring up from the brown neck at them.
"Urgh!" Reece shivered and Luke grinned.
"Hey, at least they haven't started moving… yet." The torch went below his chin and he looked eery and skeletal. Harry moved up and patted Reece on the back.
"Ignore him. He's just trying to trick us into thinking we're having fun, which seriously isn't going to happen." Luke tried to look upset, but couldn't manage it for long.
"You're both losers. You'll be thanking me once we get to… Mystery Hill! Where time and space make no sense…" He waggled his fingers at them and Harry rolled his eyes.
"It's a dumb building built on a slope. Real mystery. But if that's what it's going to take to get you to shut up so we can go home and chill out, then let's just get on with it. I don't know why you thought it was such a good idea to come here anyway, it's definitely trespassing." He bit his tongue as Luke swung the light back into his face.
"Pussy." Harry raised a hand to shield his eyes.
"Dick!" He responded and ran through the leaves to try and take the torch off of Luke.
He never made it.
His foot caught on something concealed beneath the autumn deluge and he fell hard on the side of the hill, crying out in pain as his ankle twisted and his knee glanced off something solid.
"This place is a death trap," he muttered angrily as he shifted the leaves with his hands to see what he'd fallen over. After a few moments of digging, the board that had hit his knee came into view. Slightly engraved, its yellow paint practically peeled off, were the words 'Mystery Maze'.
"Never heard of a maze anywhere near here," Luke commented when he'd examined the sign too. There was a moment's pause and then all three boys started digging through the leaves until shortly the entrance to an angled tunnel appeared on the hillside, a little to the left of the sign. Luke let out a low whistle as he shone the torch into the deep blackness. Behind the three boys, the wind got up and blew down the tunnel. It must have remained hidden ever since the park had closed.
"Look, it's boarded up," Reece said as Luke stepped through the archway. Harry followed his pointing finger and noted the paltry crisscross of two wooden beams with a 'no entry' sign hung at a jaunty angle. Not exactly Fort Knox.
"Come on, this might actually turn out to be interesting after all," Harry said, giving Reece a light push so they could follow Luke's already fading light. All the time they were walking down the shaft, which seemed to be leading them to the heart of the hill, Harry was racking his brains for anything he could remember about there being a maze here. He'd never heard it mentioned, and he only lived a mile down the road. Had the park owners been halfway through working on a new attraction when they'd gone bankrupt and closed? That would explain it. It was highly likely that this tunnel just came to a dead end.
"Why would anyone build a maze under a hill anyway?" He muttered, thinking of how much it must have cost to make. If it actually existed, anyway.
"You guys have to see this," Luke called from up ahead and Harry and Reece jogged up to where he was standing. All three of them stood in silence and stared at what lay before them.
"I didn't realise this hill was so big," Harry said, as he took in the vast cavern they were in. Now it made sense why they'd built the maze here. With the exception of the entrance tunnel, this place must have been readymade for it. Mystery Hill was one of earth's natural air bubbles.
"This…. has to be, like, the best find ever. Now who's going to race me to the centre?" Luke said, his ever present grin stretching even more. Reece and Harry looked uneasily at the seemingly endless landscape of stone walls that made up the largest maze they'd ever seen in their lives.
"I dunno about that. It looks like you could get seriously lost in there," Harry said, trying to sound serious and unafraid.
"It's too weird, I don't like it. We can say we found it and everyone will think that's cool. Let's go back now," Reece joined in and Harry instantly knew he'd stuck his foot in it. Luke drew himself up to his full height and gave them both disappointed looks.
"You're saying that we've come all this way just so we can go back and tell other people this really cool thing is here? When they ask us 'so what's it like in the maze, what's at the middle?' we'll have to tell them we just stood here and wimped out about going in?! No way! That's balls and you know it. It's like travelling halfway across the world and seeing India for the first time and then turning back around without setting foot on land." He shook his head. "You're bringing shame upon our forefather's memories." Harry raised a hand to stop Luke from getting further into his motivational speech.
"Fine. Whatever. Let's just have a look and then get out of here. It's cold and I don't want to get caught by the cops. God, why can't you be satisfied with an evening in on the Xbox like normal people our age?" Harry muttered and Luke flashed him a megawatt grin before striding towards the start of the maze. Harry shuffled along after him with Reece trailing even further behind.
Luke's flair for being different was what had drawn Harry to become his friend in the first place, but tonight was one of those times he would have settled for a little less adventure. It felt like something was playing xylophone up and down his spine as he got closer to the green mossed concrete walls.
Luke was first into the maze and the instant he rounded the corner, Harry and Reece were left in darkness. The paused for a millisecond longer and then hurried after the torchbearer.
"Hey, what if we get lost or something?" Reece said after they'd been walking for thirty seconds. Luke snorted.
"It's a maze, that's kind of the whole point."
"Yeah, but I mean like, really lost." Luke shook his head and walked a little faster, turning left at random.
"It's a dumb theme park attraction, not some mythical labyrinth of death." Harry noticed Reece's lip quiver at the mention of 'death' and wished Luke would quit with the drama. His eyes happened to fix on the concrete wall to the left of Luke's head and he frowned at the four parallel scratches that were ingrained in the concrete. Were those claw marks? Then again, this had once been part of a prehistoric theme park. It was probably one of the special effects. He screwed up his eyes as he passed the mark and felt another ghost step on his grave when he thought he could pick out dark rust coloured flecks in the gouges.
"I think we've gone far enough Luke. This thing seems to be going on forever and I'm starving. If you really want, we can come back and do this properly with supplies and stuff."
"Yeah in the daytime," Reece added. For a moment Harry thought that Luke was going to ignore them again but he stopped walking, hefting the torch between his hands.
"Okay fine. I guess we got this far. But not a word of this place to anyone until we can come back and get to the middle of it, okay?" The others nodded, already thinking gratefully of popcorn and grilled cheese sandwiches with some Call of Duty. Reece started walking back the way they'd come and Harry followed, but both boys stopped as they reached the edge of the torchlight.
"Are you coming, or what?" Harry said, turning back to Luke who hadn't moved from the spot. "Luke?" His friend's eyes were staring straight at him but there was something fixed about his expression. As Harry moved closer, the torch dropped from Luke's hand and hit the concrete floor with a bang. By some miracle, it didn't go out. The shadowy light cast everything in dramatic contrast which is why it was only when Harry was three metres away that he finally discovered what was wrong.
Something was sticking out of Luke's neck.
Harry was about to step closer when he heard a steady drip and his eyes were drawn down to the floor where a dark wet pool was gathering around Luke's feet. The blood looked black in the dim light. Luke's body suddenly jerked and Harry took another step forwards, deceived into believing his friend was still alive. A horrible guttural groan cut through the empty air and Luke was thrown against the concrete wall, which he hit and then slid down, leaving a bright smear of blood before landing in a lifeless heap. Harry was transfixed as the object which had pierced Luke's neck began to move forwards, turning the corner of the maze that had concealed it.
Harry's eyes bulged as the shadow of the monster towered above him. He was distantly aware of Reece screaming hysterically at him to run, but it all seemed so unreal. It was impossible. Harry Knightley just went on staring as the impossible creature reached out and picked him up, raising him to head height and meeting his gaze with its own dead eyes – far worse than those of the papier-mâché monsters. Harry's legs twitched as he finally realised he was no longer on the ground.
"No…" his voice grated as the beast opened its mouth and tore his face off, crunching through bone and flesh in a single bite.
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