OK, I get your point, just be careful and don't stray off anywhere else right? asks Paul's Dad.
Paul nods and replies, OK Dad, just going to..... Paul pauses as he tries to remember if he'd given a name of the boy he's supposed to be seeing, then remembers that he had not given a name and continues, to Keiran's house. That was a distinctive enough name that he's bound to remember.
Paul's Dad says, Not too late mind.
OK Dad, see you later. replies Paul and he departs in the direction of the building site. Well at least he appears to have a legitimate reason for going there now.
~~~~~~
Chapter 4 Strange
Paul is now back in the den , he enters the place rather cautiously, checking to see if there is anyone around. Paul reaches the first of his movement monitoring devices, he almost missed it as he'd disguised it so well. He checks the reading and it shows that no one has passed by it, at least the reading is identical to the one that had last appeared on the device. So unless the invisible man had been down here, no-one apart from Paul has been visiting this place. Paul breathes a sigh of relief and can now relax. Although he thinks to himself, that he'll just check the detector at the other end of the corridor in-case there is another way in and out of this place that he is not aware of.
When Paul reaches the second detector, he is most alarmed to find that its count had increased by one, so someone has been down here. Paul is once again nervously listening out for unusual sounds. It is then that he notes that he had not heard the high pitched sound that had been emitted by that cupboard at the end of the corridor, the last two times that he had been here. Someone must have been down here and switched something off. Paul proceeds with caution to the control room door, which is closed. Should he open it, or if there is someone down here will it alert them to his presence. What oh what should he do? If he does nothing, he won't find out if this place is being visited, if he does something he may stir up trouble for himself. Having discovered that the second detector had picked up someone and the high pitched noise has gone, someone must have been down here. Paul is very tempted to sneak off, before being discovered himself. Yet the adventurer within him is very curious as to who owns this place and what they have been doing down here. Paul bends down and picks up something off the floor that he feels he could use as a weapon, should the need arise.
Paul reviews the situation, he does not want to be trapped, so he decides to check out that room at the other end of the corridor first, the one that appears to be a cabin of some sort. He sneaks past the control room door, alert to the fact that someone could emerge from it at any moment. He manages to get past it without incident. Nervously, Paul keeps glancing back at the control room door. After much tension and what seems like an eternity, Paul reaches the cabin door. He triggers the glass bump and as the door slides open, Paul checks both up and down the corridor, but there is no change. He quickly glances into the cabin itself and everything seems to be in the same place it was last time he had been here. OK that room is clear, nothing for it now, but to be extra brave and go for the control room. If there is anyone in there, they are bound to have heard the cabin door open and now close.
Paul takes a few deep breaths, before creeping back towards the control room door. As he approaches he keeps a careful listen out for the least little give away sound which would indicate someone the other side of that door.
Suddenly there's a noise behind him, he swings round expecting to see someone at the main entrance, instead there is nothing. Then there's that noise again, its..... its &... a flapping noise. Paul looks up and he can just see the wings of a bird flapping the other side of the doorway. The bird had somehow found its way down into the entrance chamber and was trying to get back out. Paul walks quickly but quietly back towards the door and tries to coax the bird to change its direction, he shines his torch upwards towards the upper doorway. The bird continues to panic for a bit then, catches sight of the area that Paul's torch beam is shining at. The bird turns its attention to reaching that spot and soon finds its way into the open air again.
Paul again breaths a sigh of relief as calm descends upon the den again. Paul turns his attention back to the control room door, he is soon approaching this again, his torch swinging at his side as he quickly walks back to the doorway.
Suddenly, to Paul's horror, he hears the door sliding open. There is someone inside after all. Paul darts back towards the entrance, looking repeatedly over his shoulder, whilst also at the same time concentrating on making good headway towards the entrance. He had forgotten the items strewn on the floor, as he trips on one and finds himself heading towards the floor. 'Why now?' he asks himself.
As he hits the floor, he manages to spin himself around to face his attacker, only to find....... the corridor is completely devoid of anyone. Perhaps they are as nervous as Paul is.
Paul picks himself carefully up off of the floor, watching all the time, the somewhat vacant doorway leading to the control room, expecting someone to emerge at any time. Then suddenly the door slides shut, making Paul jump.
Paul decides, no matter how fool hardy, he just has to find out if there is someone here. So pushing all caution to one side, he boldly walks up to the doorway, sweeps his torch across the door trigger, he clutches tightly to his weapon and waits for the worst to happen. He doesn't have to wait long, as the door slides open fairly swiftly. To reveal the two chairs, the same clutter on the floor that Paul had seen before, nothing appeared to have been moved. The control desk appeared to be undisturbed.
Paul suddenly thinks, 'perhaps the person is hiding behind one of the chairs.' He glances to the floor, but no legs appear below the chairs apart from their own central supports. If there is someone hiding there, they would have to be small. That thought spurs Paul to walk into the room and check the chairs, if the person is that small he is sure he could defend himself against them, should they turn nasty. His confidence is rewarded, as he sees that there is no-one in either chair. Then the thought occurs to him that they could be hiding below the control panel. He quickly ducks down and shines his torch under the desk. He is glad to see nothing there, apart from a panel half hanging down.
'OK that puts all thoughts of someone hiding down here, to bed.' thinks Paul to himself. He turns his mind back to the mystery of the detector at the back of this place having recorded someone passing it. Suddenly Paul bursts out laugh as he realises his own stupidity, the person who triggered the device was him!
Paul relaxes again and decides to get on with what he has come here to do, find out what the controls on this panel actually do, that is if they still do it. Paul decides that he will close the main entrance door, that way if anyone attempts to enter he will hear them and have plenty of time to react.
Once the door has shut Paul heads back towards the control room, on his way, he remembers that the noise that had been previously coming from the end cupboard if that's what you'd call such a small space, had ceased since his last visit. Paul decides to take a look and see if he can solve that mystery. He reaches the door, triggers it and it obediently opens to reveal the panel with displays and lights as they previously appeared. No obvious changes here, equally no noises being emitted. So the mystery continues to exist. Paul wonders if it had been some sort of intruder alarm that he had inadvertently managed to reset on his previous visit. Anyway the important factor is that there appear to be no threats to stand in Paul's way now. No-one has visited this place in the last few days and it is highly likely that no-one is likely to visit it in the near future.
Paul closes the door and returns to the control room. He decides to get down on the floor and examine that open panel a little closer. He sets his tools down on the ground, then remembers that the door was likely to close itself shortly, he certainly does not want such a distraction to make him nervous again, so kicks something in the path of the door. As it happens his action is just at the right t
ime, as the door starts to glide shut, then changes its mind.
Mind at ease now, Paul turns his attention back to the control panel. He gets down on the floor and eases the partly open panel fully open and shines his torch inside. Bad move! There is a sudden rumbling sound. Paul quickly gets up off the floor to check what has happened and see if he can what he has triggered now. At first it is not obvious, then suddenly he catches sight of small glimpses of light coming from one of the large black panels on the wall, the other side of the control panel. He catches sight of something metallic moving, it is the other side of the glass. So he was right this is a window and he has triggered the shutters.
Paul wonders how he can continue exploring the interior of the control panel without accidentally triggering anything else. Then decides to shine the torch towards the back wall and rely on the light bounced back. His plan works, whilst it isn't ideal he can just about make out the stuff behind the cover. It appears as if someone has been trying to either do repairs or vandalise the system, as there appear to be some sort of fibres hanging down, not attached to anything, or at least not at this end of the strands. As Paul looks around higher up into the panel, he can see several small pipes hanging down, these are about the same size as the fibres, or at least the holes are. Paul come to the conclusion that the pipes must lead up to the glass bumps on top of the panel itself. Perhaps the glass bumps were no longer triggering properly and whoever owned this place, needed to trigger things in a hurry, but to pull masses of these fibres out seemed to be daft, how could they know which ones to trigger, they must have been desperate or carrying out sabotage.
'Well one problem, solved.' thinks Paul to himself, Zack wanted a bit of the circuitry, this looks like it, or at least the control panel end of things. Paul gets up and looks down at the control panel, to see if the damaged part can be removed. He finds that there are discrete parts of the control panel, but the things keeping these sub-panels in place do not have conventional screw heads, they are unlike anything Paul has seen before. He is totally mystified as to how he is going to remove these things. In desperation, he tries every tool he has brought with him, but no luck. He even tries a bit of, what did his uncle call it? Oh yes 'Brute force and ignorance.' Paul's version of this involves a screwdriver and hammer. Unfortunately even that fails.
Paul turns his attention to his original mission, which was to see what the glass bumps on the control panel trigger. He had brought some masking tape and pens so he can mark up each glass bump after he has tested them. The first bump is disappointing, nothing happens, despite repeated attempts, it stubbornly refuses to do anything. Paul gives up and moves onto the next one and is stunned at the result. There is a strange sound, flash of light, followed by a loud explosion. Paul can see that the area immediately in front of the window now has a largish cavernous space whereas before it was a collection of branches and soil.
Paul wonders if the explosion as alerted anyone nearby that there is something strange going on in the woods. He decides to quickly label the glass bump as 'Weapon', pack his stuff away and get out of here before anyone has a chance to discover him here.
Paul soon finds himself covering over the den's entrance with the branches again. He quickly looks around to see if there is any evidence of the explosion in front of the windows. Luckily the area is so overgrown that it is not obvious where the cavernous area has suddenly opened up. For a moment Paul catches a glimpse of light. He remembers that the window covers are still open and the light in the control room could be seen up here. The lights must have now gone out though as it is no longer visible. Paul will need to disguise that area better if he returns again. He darts off through the woods, watching carefully for any signs of people coming to investigate the explosion.
As Paul is heading towards the back of the building site, he suddenly hears the crack of a twig. He instantly stops and looking out for any sign of someone in the vicinity. If only he could tell what direction the sound came from. It was vaguely to the left of him, but apart from that he could not tell the exact direction. No matter how much he strains to hear any further noises, Paul hears nothing more. He waits a while longer, not wanting to wait too long though in-case he is discovered. He decides to press on and soon finds himself at the gap in the fence. He pauses a while watching out for any traffic, but at this time, there is none.
When Paul reaches home, he is shocked when he enters the hallway and his Dad walks towards him from the kitchen. Paul's Dad asks, Are you OK? You look like you've had a fright.
Paul, surprised yet once again at his Dad's concern answers, Yes, I just got a bit spooked up, I thought someone was following me home, so I put on a burst of speed.
Did you see someone then? asks his Dad full of concern.
Er, no, no I didn't see anyone, it was more a feeling than anything else. replies Paul.
I get that sometimes, especially if I am tired. Perhaps you've over done things today. Anyway, did you have a good time at, what was his name? asks Paul's Dad.
Keiran's, yes his mum did spaghetti Bolognese and we played on his Xbox. replies Paul, he had hurriedly thought of one of his favourite meals.
What and you are not covered in sauce? What happened? asks his Dad.
Paul simply replies, Napkins.
Well there's no need to be rude I was only asking. replies his Dad with a big smile on his face.
Paul is worried now, what has happened to his Dad, the man before him has to be an imposter, he certainly isn't behaving like the Dad that Paul knows too well. This man is almost like the Dad Paul knew when his Mum was still alive.
~~~~~~
Chapter 5 Trapped
Zack cannot believe his ears, as Paul relays the previous evening's events. Zack says, Hey good buddy this sounds far too dangerous, that weapon meant serious business. Trigger the wrong thing and you could end up blowing yourself sky high. I think its time to hand this over to the authorities. What does your Dad say about it all?
Paul replies, He doesn't know anything about it and that's the way its going to stay. There's no way I'm handing this over to anyone, this is my project and I'm sticking with it.
Zack admires Paul's courage and enthusiasm, but at the same time is concerned that he's in over his head, after all he's only, how old did he say he was? Zack just can't remember, but he knows that Paul isn't very old in the scheme of things, especially given the potential dangers he is now facing. There is no way that Zack can just sit back and let Paul continue with this, his conscience won't allow him. Zack continues to try to convince Paul that he has to stop and not to return to that place, it just sounds far too dangerous.
Zack is most surprised when he hears Paul suddenly cave in and agree that he will talk to the police about his discovery.
Paul then changes the subject to a problem that a friend of his is having trying to open something with damaged screw heads in it. Zack suggests that provided his friend gets permission from his or her parents, they could use one of these rechargeable drills and simply drill the head away, then the cover will slide off the screw shaft. Paul thanks Zack for the advice and turns the conversation to a funny occurrence that had happened earlier in the day at school, then they chat about a game that Zack had played with someone earlier that day. The person concerned was known to them both as being a 'right royal pain' as Zack put it. Apparently this person had cost the team a victory that seemed to be 'in the bag' at least until, they came on the scene.
Zack and Paul settle down to a quick blast 'em up game and are joined by others. After about an hour of such game play, Paul decides to quit. He is wondering why he hasn't heard his dad's car arrive, then remembers that he'd muttered something about being late back as he had a late meeting. Paul fixes himself something for tea, watches TV for a short while, then sets about gathering the things he feels he is going to need. One of those things he is going to need, is his Dad's rechargeable drill,
which luckily had been left plugged in charging up. Paul fetches a selection of drills from his Dad's toolbox and sets off for the den.
~~ Later ~~
The journey to the den had been rather tense, Paul kept an eye open for anyone paying close attention to him and anyone in the vicinity of the woods. Typical that any other day, he would encounter only 2 or 3 people on his way to the woods, yet today the area seems to be buzzing with people. Paul wonders if last night's explosion had attracted more attention than it appeared at the time. When he arrives at the entrance to the building site, he realises why the increased activity. The first show home was open and the locals were curious and lets face it...... just plain nosey, as to what the new places were like.
Luckily the increased presence of people didn't extend to the back of the site where the entrance to the wood was.
Paul thinks, ''Typical that my exploration and experimentation has just reached the interesting phase and that just happens to be the very time that people turn up to examine the houses that are being built nearby.'
Soon the entrance to the den is reached. Paul checks carefully for any sign of disturbances to his camouflage, but there are none. To the untrained eye, it still looks like this place was of no interest at all, just another path through the woods and not a well trodden one at that.