Project Wormhole

Chapter 3

Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery was pretty much the last place on earth William Shepherd thought he would want to find himself in. Just the idea of trailing around behind a fusty museum guide, most likely a shrivelled old woman in her seventies at least, hard of hearing and with a speech impediment too, had filled him with dread. School came a close second in the list of places he would rather gnaw his own arm off than be in. In fact, it might actually come joint first. But as this was a school trip to the museum, it just doubled up the t*****e for him.

But all that had changed in the large, round gallery. There, the bronze sculpture of a standing, winged figure dominated the centre. The archangel Lucifer’s wings were unfurled, and he held his arms out straight as though he were pushing some invisible object along the floor, or leaning on a table. He was n***d apart from a strap around his chest and hips, and strips of cloth hanging from his waist. The sculpture was obviously of a male figure, but the long, wavy hair gave him an unsettling female appearance.

Will was entranced by the bronze sculpture’s power, and the sinister quality coiled within its still form.

A quick slap across the back of his head snapped him back into reality and knocked his glasses askew.

“Wake up Willy!” shouted Mark Wakeling, running away and laughing.

Will pushed his glasses back into place.

The rest of his class snickered.

“All right now, that’s enough!” Mr Williamson shouted. Everyone fell quiet. No one disobeyed Mr Williamson. “Now, you all need to form an orderly line around the edge, starting here.”

Children began shuffling around, guided by the two teaching assistants and the parent helpers. Will took one last look at Lucifer and joined the line.

“Pretty cool, huh?”

Will looked behind him. The girl nodded her head at the sculpture.

“It’s a sculpture of Lucifer,” Will said. He pushed his glasses up his nose and looked at the girl. She had a short, boyish haircut, and didn’t look like any of the girls Will had known before. She was American, and on a school exchange visit. This was the first time Will had spoken to her.

“Lucifer. Yeah, that makes sense, he’s got some bad s**t going on in there, I sure wouldn’t like to mess with him.”

“All right then!” Mr Williamson shouted. “We are all going to go up to the second floor to the Egyptian exhibition. I want everyone walking.” He paused and looked at Mark. “Do you possibly think you could manage that today, Mr Wakeling? I know walking is a hard concept for you to grasp, but do try not running through a museum of precious artefacts, could you? Right, everyone, follow me up the stairs.”

“That Wakeling kid’s an i***t,” the girl said. “Want me to take him out for you?”

“What?” Will said, not sure he’d heard her right.

“You know, do a job on him,” she said, and smiled. “My Dad’s a marine, he’s taught me a few things.”

Will looked at her open mouthed. She poked him in the ribs and laughed, and he snapped his mouth shut.

“Hey,” she said, “I was just kidding, okay?”

“Oh, right,” Will mumbled.

“You’re Will aren’t you? I’m Lisa, but you can call me Lee. Most people do anyway, so you might as well.”

The line of children began shuffling forward. Will felt he ought to say something to Lee, but talking to girls was not something he was used to doing.

“Are you, uh, enjoying being in England?” he managed, and then cringed inwardly.

“Nah,” she said. “It sucks.”

“Oh.” Will didn’t blame her. The weather had been rotten since the Americans arrived, nothing but rain for four days straight.

“Cheer up, this place looks like it might be cool,” Lee said. “I’ve never seen an Egyptian mummy before, well, except the ones that walk around and kill people in those crappy horror movies my dad always makes me watch.”

They walked up the stairs. To their left, the rain punched against a broad stained glass window.

Will flinched as a sudden, terrible clap of thunder ripped through the building, startling the group of teenagers. A couple of the girls screamed and then giggled. Will felt the thunder through his feet, and his hand on the balustrade trembled with the force of the noise. He looked up at the window, expecting it to shatter, even as the noise died away, but though he could see the colours of the illustrated glass panes trembling, the window held firm.

“Keep walking everyone, it’s just thunder,” Mr Williamson said.

But before anyone had a chance to move, there was another loud roar. This one was so loud and so close it vibrated the glass cabinets lining the walls, and Will saw the stained glass window trembling. The girls screamed again, and this time, one of them burst into tears. The roar continued until it finally died away.

“What was that?” somebody shouted.

Will took a deep breath. He felt shaky inside. Mr Williamson kept turning his head, looking around him, his eyes betraying his confusion.

“It’s just the thunder,” he said. “Everyone stay calm, it’s just the thunder.”

That wasn’t thunder, Will thought. He glanced at Lee, and he could tell she was thinking the same thing.

That wasn’t thunderA shadow fell across the stained glass window and another terrifyingly loud roar shook the entire building. This time more pupils burst into tears, boys as well as girls.

“Right,” Mr Williamson said, his voice trembling slightly, “everyone downstairs again.”

The teenagers looked up at him silently, frozen with indecision and shock.

“Come on, come on,” the teacher shouted. “Down the stairs and back to reception, now.”

Just as they started moving, shaking themselves out of their torpor, the doors at the bottom of the stairs burst open, a man charging through them and skidding to a halt as he stared up at the children gathered on the steps.

“Don’t come down here!” he shouted, his eyes wide and terrified. “Go back, there’s—”

He was cut off as a sonic boom ripped through the museum, the force of the blast pushing the man to the floor and a cloud of dust particles through the doorway. Everyone began screaming and pushing in the confined space of the stairwell. Somebody fell and cracked their head on the stone floor. Mr Williamson was shouting and trying to regain control, dragging some of his pupils up the stairs and through the next door, into the Egyptian hall.

Lee grabbed Will’s hand.

“Follow me!” she shouted, and began pushing her way down the stairs, through the mass of confused, frightened bodies.

They stepped over the man, still lying on the floor. Will thought she was going to take them through the door where the blast had come from, but she ignored that and took the stairs deeper down into the museum. Another blast shook the building, knocking them off their feet, and then another, followed by that huge roar again.

Will clambered to his feet and looked at Lee. He felt terrified, so scared he thought his mind might just shut down on him any minute now, and leave him sitting on the floor, waiting for whatever it was that was making all that noise. But Lee looked calm.

She grabbed his hand again and began pulling. He resisted, and she glanced back at him.

“What’s wrong? Come on!”

“I don’t know, shouldn’t we stay with the rest of the class?” Will said, struggling to make himself heard above all the noise.

“Don’t be an i***t, we’ve got to get out of here!”

Lee dragged him down the stairs, taking the steps two at a time, until they reached the bottom. They were in a smaller reception area. Will remembered there were two ways of entering the museum, and this one led out of the back into Chamberlain Square. They ran for the doors and pushed them open.

Fat pellets of rain plummeted from the black broiling clouds, smashing onto the pavement with the sound of gunfire. Overhead, thunder growled and an arc of yellow lightning split open the sky, illuminating the storm clouds for a second before plunging them into darkness again. The day had seemingly disappeared into night, and Will could hardly believe it was still only the middle of the afternoon.

Lee and Will stepped back inside and let the doors swing close. Lee looked to be losing her calm composure. She stared at Will, her eyes big and round. Upstairs, they could hear people running, and someone screaming. No one was coming their way, though.

“Man, that’s some extreme weather you have in this country,” she said, her voice shaky.

Will shook his head. He felt a ridiculous urge to laugh, could feel the giggle bubbling up in his chest.

Pushing it back down, he said, “I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like that before.”

“What the hell’s going on? Did you see how dark it is out there?”

Before Will could answer, another deep, percussive explosion shook the building. Will flinched as shards of plaster fell from the ceiling and exploded on the floor.

Will dusted himself off, shaking white plaster dust out of his hair, and looked at Lee, searching her face for an answer.

“I don’t know, man,” she said, in answer to his unspoken question. “Maybe we should make a run for it, find cover somewhere else. This place sounds like it might come down around our ears any moment now. You got any ideas?”

“If we take a left outside the door, we could make a run for the town hall, maybe we could take cover there.”

“OK, I’m following you. Let’s do it!”

“Are you sure?” Will said. “I don’t like the—”

A deep rumbling followed by several screams cut him off. The rumbling stopped, but the screaming continued, the sound of people panicking growing stronger and stronger.

“I think we need to leave,” Lee said.

Will took a deep breath and pushed at the door. The sound of the storm enveloped them again. They ran outside, bending almost double under the force of the rain. Will felt as though he was being pounded by a hailstorm of fist-sized rocks, as the breath was punched from his lungs. He struggled to see through the dark and the rainwater pouring over his eyes. He stopped running, winded, and Lee crashed into his back.

“What’s wrong?” she shouted, barely audible over the rain smashing into the ground.

“I’m not sure where I’m going!” Will shouted. “I can’t see anything, it’s so dark and—”

The heavens ripped apart as thunder crashed above them, drowning out Will’s voice. He grabbed Lee’s shoulders as he sensed something looming over them and looked up. As his brain struggled to register the shadowy threat filling his field of vision, an arc of lightning struck them and their world suddenly turned from dark to the most intense, blinding light.

And then to black again.