As it happened, being younger, more lithe, and generally an awful lot fitter than their fathers, the children had already reached the crater of the volcano. Bewitched by the mere below, they had descended the precipitous slopes, scrambling down the compacted ash, clinker and glass hard lava that made up the interior beneath its concealing cloud of green foliage. They had to be careful because some of the exposed lava had razor sharp edges. A number of cuts and other lacerations testified to their determination to reach the bottom of the crater and head to the lake. Thirst drove them on, visions of fountains of sparkling mineral water bubbling straight from the earth’s heart, clean and cooling, flashed before their eyes. Except for Trev.

Trev, not being challenged by the climb, hunger or thirst, had the luxury of maintaining a glowering disapproval of the expedition up the volcano. At every opportunity he would sigh extravagantly at any reversal. Or make a tutting sound, or would simply hiss. Soon after setting off, Charlie had narrowly avoided breaking his ankle when his foot slipped down an animal burrow, hidden under a mass of spreading creepers. Carmen had dazed herself when she had struck her head on a low hanging branch as they ducked beneath a collapsed tree trunk. If a path took them into a dead end, forcing them back on themselves, Trev would disappear and then reappear later on, looking mournful and shaking his head. By the time they had reached the crater rim, Charlie was quite sick of him. Carmen, on the other hand, was as cheerfully oblivious of his behaviour as anyone could be with a splitting headache and an egg sized lump on their foreheads.

They had made good time and the sun was only just at it’s apex in the sky. Figuring that they had time to spend a couple of hours at the top, they relaxed about having most of the afternoon to get back down the cone to their hiding place beneath the pandanus.

At first Carmen worried about having enough time to reach the water as they struggled down the inside of the crater. However, the one thing she reasoned was that the most likely draw for her father would be the lake. If he wasn’t there waiting for them, and if he didn’t turn up in the afternoon, she decided she would leave some sign that they had been there. It was as good a place as any and better than most.

Charlie too had been deep in thought, whilst ignoring Trev, who was busy ignoring him as he leapfrogged ahead of the children in a series of dematerialisations and materialisations. He thought about his mum, London, his mad granddad and how refreshing it would be to spend a wet afternoon on the beach at Dungeness. How long had he been in the South Pacific? Five days, or was it six? He could not really believe where he was, what was happening to him, who he was with or who was chasing him. Only a few short days ago he had been looking out of a taxi window at a grey London morning as his mum took him to the airport. He had drunk a mug of tea and eaten a couple of slices of toast, listening to the radio as it played the hits of the eighties, whilst his mum buzzed around like an angry bee, asking him for the umpteenth time if he had his passport. Normal home life: routines, fussiness, and reassurance. She’d given him a kiss at the airport, hugged him several times over (embarrassing him in front of a group of teenagers on a school trip to somewhere exotic) and waved good bye with a crumpled tissue in her hand, as he was escorted by his chaperone to the departure lounge. That was all pretty normal as far as he was concerned. Climbing up a volcano with a ghost chased by men with guns was a little out of his experience. He was amazed that it didn’t really seem to faze him. Its like, he thought to himself, you just have to get on with it. Doesn’t matter where you are, or what’s happened to you. You can’t just lie down and give up because you’re tired, hungry and afraid. You’ve just got to keep going. It’s all you can do.

That thought alone gave him a momentary sense of peace. He was doing his best. Carmen was doing hers. They made their decisions together, for good or for ill. There wasn’t a huge amount they could do about their situation; they were only children after all. They just had to find George and Rick. Their dads would know what to do to get them out of this mess.

“Hey, Carmen!” Charlie said, “Thanks for everything. Thanks for getting us off the Cat, thanks for the survival kit and thanks for keeping it together. If I had to be stuck on a deserted island with someone, whilst being chased by loonies, I would definitely choose you.”

Carmen turned and faced him. She had wiped some of the mud off her face, leaving streaks behind, and smiled crookedly. “Why thank you, Charlie Buttons. I believe that was a compliment. You can also thank me for something else too.”

“Sure, what is it?”

Pointing at a palm below them, Carmen showed Charlie a clump of bowling ball sized, green coconuts growing at the top. “Time for a snack, I think. That lake’s only just round the corner but I can’t take another step without something to drink right now,” she said.

Ten minutes later, after reaching the foot of the palm, Carmen had proven to Charlie that there was more to her than met the eye. She had gathered a number of fallen palm fronds, twisted them together into a kind of rope, which she looped around the base of the palm, and secured her feet in it. Using it to provide extra grip, pushing against the rope with her feet, she shuffled up the palm in the blink of an eye, lifting the palm frond loop rope with her with each step.

“Watch out below!” she called and knocked down half a dozen coconuts, which fell like a lethal rain. Charlie dodged them easily, not really sure if they weren’t being aimed, and started gathering them up when he was certain Carmen had finished her bombardment.

Using the multi-tool in the survival kit to help, Carmen showed Charlie how to remove the outer skin and husk by plunging the coconut onto a stick, twisting off the casing in the process. Very quickly, they had cut into the green fruit and drained them of their water. Feeling much livelier now that their thirst had been quenched, they took it in turns to cut out the white flesh to satisfy their hunger too.

“If Sir and Madam have quite finished their lunch, perhaps they would like to get a bleeding move on,” Trev said in a voice dripping with sarcasm. “I do believe time is getting on.”

“Which way from here do you think?” asked Carmen.

“Follow the slope,” said Charlie. “Water runs downhill. I expect we’ll find the lake at the foot of the slope.”

They plodded on through the tangled forest. Happily, the undergrowth was much less dense within the crater and they made good progress. Soon, they could see the gleam of water through the dark trunks of the trees around them, as the ground sloped gently down towards the bottom of the crater.

Not long after their foraged lunch, they emerged from the forest by the mere. Eyes blinking against the sudden brightness of the day, they stood on the shore of the milky waters and gazed in wonder at what they saw. Brightly coloured wading birds by the score ignored them as they peacefully sifted their bills through the shallow, rippling waters. Reeds wafted gently in the slight breeze, around which large iridescent flying insects hummed, their bright metallic colours flickering blue, golden and orange in the sunlight, darting this way and that, skimming the surface of the waters. Downy seeds drifted on the zephyr, whilst butterflies made their haphazard way between them, floating in the air from one water flower to the next. Above it all, above the lake and the forest, rose the green-blanketed walls of the crater.

“Not bad,” said Trev, “If you like that sort of thing.”

“I do,” Charlie said as he walked into the mere and sat down up to his middle, revelling in the water’s soothing, cooling caress. He splashed the water over his face and let it trickle down his back. Rubbing furiously at his arms and hands he managed to wash off the worst of the accumulated dirt and bloodstains.

“The only way it could get any better,” said Carmen, who had come and sat down beside him, “is if I had a long, cool soda to drink!”

They sat like that for a while, letting the water work its magic on them. Aching muscles, sore feet and blisters were all forgotten for the few minutes they sat in the silty mud beneath the waters.

It was while they were sat there that Charlie noticed something on the other side of the lake. Grey lumps of something massive poked from between twisting vines and stands of young trees. What had caught his eye was that these grey lumps had regular shapes. He could see straight edges when naturally occurring boulders would be irregular in form. Curious, he pointed them out to Carmen and sloshed out of the water, determined to investigate further.

They skirted the shore of the lake to the mysterious grey blocks and soon found themselves at their foot. As they had drawn closer too them Trev had started to behave even more peculiarly than normal. He had grown paler and paler, shaking and muttering to himself. At first Charlie had thought nothing of it. Trev had been a pain in the neck all day. More weirdness would make no difference to him either way.

From the other side of the lake the mysterious blocks had seemed deceptively small but up close the children could see they were actually part of a massive concrete construction that disappeared into the forest, which was doing its best to reclaim it. Vines slithered over the surface, covering the mottled and streaked surface of the pitted concrete, concealing it beneath a mask of leaves. As they walked up to the base, Charlie realized with surprise that it was almost two stories high. At the base of the biggest block a curtain of brush, saplings and vines almost concealed a dark opening almost ten metres wide.

“Well, look at that!” Carmen pushed back the leaves of one of the vines to get a closer look at the concrete.

“Yeah,” Charlie nodded knowingly then added, “What is it?”

“I don’t know, but it does remind me of the wartime bunkers I saw in Australia.”

“It’s bad!” Trev's voice shook with effort. “It’s bad…don’t go near…I can feel something inside… it… something bad!”

Charlie turned and looked at his old friend. Trev was flickering like a broken neon lamp and was bent over, holding his head as if in pain. “Trev? Are you all right?”

The dead boy looked up. Grimacing, his face was twisted with the effort of speaking. “Don’t…”

Before he could complete his warning, he disappeared. One minute he was there, the next all Charlie could see was the ground beneath where Trev had been standing.

“Trev!” he shouted. “Trev!”

“Charlie? What’s wrong?” Carmen's face drew into a frown.

“It’s Trev. He’s gone! Something was wrong! He looked awful and then he just went - like he was switched off. He was warning us not to go near that place.” He pointed at the concrete building.

That was when they heard the clatter of a tumbling rock within the darkness of the arch.

The children froze, ears straining to hear beyond the deafening drumbeat of their own suddenly racing hearts.

From beneath the arch, from behind the curtain of foliage, came the noise of something panting. It sounded like a large animal, straining against some unseen obstruction with sharp grunts.

“Charlie!” Carmen yelled.

“Get back!”

The whole mass of vines suddenly shook, and with a rustling, tearing sound a whole wall of plant matter ripped free from the front of the building and rained down on the children, showering them with lengths of vine, dust, insects, spider webs and leaves. With a wail, both children fell beneath the collapsing plants only to find themselves looking at something they were almost too shocked to believe. 

Standing beneath the arch, covered in the detritus of the fallen vines, was Rick. Sweaty - as dirty as the children and red in the face - he ran to them, stumbling over the gnarled remains of the curtain, fell to his knees and wrapped them both up in a giant hug, sobbing with relief all the while.

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