British Zombie Breakout: Part Three (3 page)

Alex was lifted
off her feet and carried into the back of the van. Steve followed
immediately afterwards and they were dragged further in by two of
the men. The van set off, with the driver taking it up through the
gears at a brisk pace but not pushing the engine so hard it made a
lot of noise.

Alex discovered
that trying to scream with tape over her mouth had little effect,
other than to make her feel even more frightened. The van kept
going straight but it stopped after only a few minutes. It turned a
single corner, just before it came to a standstill, like they'd
pulled into a side road. The rear doors flew open, they were hauled
out and then hustled into a dark building and along three or four
corridors. Each man had a torch with which they lighted their way
downstairs into a basement, dragging the kids along with them.
Apart from the one in uniform, the other men kept on their ski
masks.

In a room
smelling of damp, they were shoved against a wall. One of the men
put his torch down on a table. It shone enough light against the
blank wall that Steve and Alex could see the man making a signal
for them to sit down on the floor. In his hand he held a
rectangular object on which he pressed a button. It gave off a high
pitched whine and blue sparks sizzled between two spikes on the end
of it. The kids wasted no time in sitting down. A smell of ozone
wafted towards them and the man laughed at the expressions on their
faces. He stayed with them, while the uniformed man and the other
two stood outside the door to the room.

Alex thought
Steve looked scared but he didn't look too badly knocked around,
which was about how she felt. The man in the fake soldier's uniform
spoke into a radio but Alex didn't recognise the language. Then
nothing much happened for about ten minutes, while Alex and Steve
felt the cold seeping through their clothes. Alex shivered and
tried to change her cramped position, which prompted taser man to
demonstrate his device again. A second radio message came through
and the men stubbed out their cigarettes, gesturing and arguing
amongst themselves over what to do with their captives. The
uniformed one turned to Alex and Steve, saying two words only in
English, 'No move!' He jabbed his finger downwards. To reinforce
the point, taser man waved his device in their faces before joining
the other men as they ran off down the corridor.

Steve and Alex
heard the sound of the men's feet, apparently going further up into
the building, rather than back to the van. After the footsteps
faded to nothing, the kids waited, listening to the drip of water
somewhere in the darkened half of the room. Alex counted three
hundred drips, then she strained to push herself up onto her feet.
If she kept her eyes away from the torch, she could see some way
into the darkness. The room had the look of a laundry, with a
metal-topped table and a line of large machines glinting in the
shadows. It felt old and damp and Alex could see her breath in the
torchlight.

Steve made a
noise and Alex turned to look at him. He was still kneeling on the
floor. She turned her back to him and carefully felt for his face.
Taking the edge of the tape, she pulled it back from his mouth.

'Well done!' he
said, changing places to remove her piece of tape.

Relieved to
have her mouth uncovered once more, Alex took a deep breath of the
dank air and immediately regretted doing so.

'Cigarette
smoke and mould. What a vile combination!'

'Never mind the
smell, we've got to get out of here.'

'You really
think they're not coming back?'

Chapter 6: Brute Strength

For a few
moments they stood still, holding their breaths but the only thing
either one heard was the drip, drip of the water and the thump of
their own hearts.

Steve answered
Alex's question. 'I don't think so.'

'Thank goodness
they didn't bind our legs.'

'Didn't need to
when they could zap us with the taser.'

'That's what it
was! Don't they have wires that shoot out?'

'Not the sort
that guy had, they just press the spikes against you and it knocks
you out. Or if you're unlucky it gives you a heart attack.'

'Nice! I'm even
more glad they've gone now.'

'We need to get
out of here. Mum will be worried sick.'

'Getting these
things off our wrists would be a good move. Why couldn't they have
put them on with our hands in front of us?'

Steve laughed.
'Oh, that would have made it way too easy!'

Steve backed up
to the table to reach for the torch and managed to pick it up
without dropping it on the floor. He flashed it around the room,
making a quick survey. It was indeed a laundry, with water dripping
from a tap into a steel sink. Other than the sink, a metal table
and the washing machines, the room was empty.

'Nothing here.
We could do with something to cut the cable ties. Pliers,
preferably.'

'The thing on
my wrists is really tight.'

'Mine's quite
loose, still,' Steve said.

'How'd you
manage that?'

'I read about
it in a magic book once. It's an escapology trick. When someone is
going to bind your wrists, you cup your hands, so it keeps them
apart. You can also yell, like it's so tight it really hurts.'

'I'd have had
no trouble with that bit!'

'Except your
mouth was taped shut. A proper escapologist can do it so well
anyone who ties them up thinks the ropes or whatever are competely
tight. The truth is they've kept enough gap to be able to get their
hands out.'

'Can you do
that?' Alex's eyes were full of admiration.

'Not quite. But
I can move my hands around a fair bit.'

'There's
nothing I can see in here can help us. Let's try another room.'

Steve walked
backwards carrying the torch into the corridor with Alex following
close, giving him directions. There was a musty smell to the
passageway, with patches of mould on the walls and puddles on the
floor.

'This was most
likely a hotel that was left when people moved out of this part of
London,' Steve said. 'You know, to buy up vacant properties further
south.'

'Can't be in a
very good part of town if it went out of business.'

'Should mean
that once we get outside there won't be anybody much around and
with any luck we can take the van.'

'What if the
guys come back?'

'We keep our
ears open.' Steve said, trying a door marked Cleaning Stock and
finding it unlocked. Inside were shelves carrying neat rows of
aerosol cans of polish, spray cleaners, boxes full of tiny bottles
of shower gel and cartons of miniature bars of guest soap.

'Oh, this is
good stuff!' Alex said, 'I wish I had my hands free.'

'As I was
saying,' Steve continued. 'If we hear anything, we run for it. This
place must have hundreds of rooms we could hide in and more than
one way out.'

All the doors
were labelled and before long they found one bearing the name
Maintenance. The door was locked but at the second attempt, Steve
succeeded at kicking it open. The noise of splintering wood was
incredibly loud in the silent corridor and they stood still,
holding their breaths and listening. There was no sound of the men
returning, so they went into the room.

'I don't know
why they bothered to lock this door, it's been pretty well wrecked
in here,' Steve said.

There was stuff
strewn about everywhere: plumbing and electrical spares, paper,
broken light bulbs, nuts and bolts, and on the floor about a
thousand cable ties in different sizes and colours.

'Oh, just what
we need!' Alex said.

Steve strained
to look over his shoulder as he shone the torch around. 'There's a
knife there but I don't want to use that.'

'Especially as
neither of us can see what we're doing.'

'There're
plenty of tools scattered around, though. There must be pliers
somewhere.'

Alex took the
torch from Steve, while he found a large screwdriver and used it to
poke around the workbenches under Alex's direction. At the point of
giving up, Alex realised the bench which ran right along one wall
had a row of drawers. It was easy to pull each drawer out and let
its contents spill onto the floor. After flooding the floor with
containers of screws, washers, assorted copper fittings, paint
brushes and other paraphernalia, Steve pulled down a drawer full of
small tools, including a single pair of pliers. Alex bent down and
tried with great difficulty to retrieve them, fumbling around
behind herself while rolling about on the floor.

'Don't you dare
laugh!' she said but couldn't help from having a laughing fit of
her own. Steve joined her, until they were all laughed out. The
torch had rolled across the floor but they were too weak from
laughing to do anything about it. When they had calmed down
sufficiently they struggled, back to back, to pick up the pliers.
Finally, Steve's fingers closed around them.

'Got them!'

'At last. Come
on, get me out of this thing.'

Steve carefully
eased the pointed nose of one side of the pliers between Alex's
wrists. Feeling his way without being able to see, he trapped the
cable tie between the cutting surfaces and squeezed until there was
a loud click.

'Oh, that's
better!' Alex said, rubbing her wrists and shoulders.

'My turn now,
please.'

Alex was able
to easily get the pliers into position around Steve's cable
tie.

'What's the
matter, Alex?'

'These things
are unbelievably tough.'

'They're made
out of hard nylon.'

'No kidding. I
can't cut through this. How did you do it?'

Steve laughed.
'Brute strength?'

'OK tough guy,
how are we going to cut through yours?'

With her hands,
free, Alex was able to operate more effectively. Eventually, using
a hammer and chisel with Steve's hands resting against the edge of
the workbench, Alex punched through the plastic band.

Steve turned to
Alex and she hugged him. 'Thanks for that,' he said, hugging her in
return.

'What the hug
or cutting you free?'

'Both,' Steve
laughed. 'OK, we need to get to our hotel.'

Finding their
way back outside took longer than they thought, having been turned
round several times in their search for the pliers. When they
stepped out into the street, they saw that the van was still where
it had been left.

'That's handy,'
Steve said. He opened the door with a smile that very soon faded
when he saw what was inside.

The cab was
occupied by a shadowy figure. At first he thought it was the men
who'd taken them before and he turned to shout for Alex to run for
it. Two more figures appeared from round the sides of the van. They
each wore dirty raincoats and had grubby, unshaven faces. Alex
recoiled from the thought of what their hands probably looked
like.

The one in the
cab pulled on the rim of a battered trilby hat. 'So you'd be the
feller wot stole our van,' he said.

Chapter
7: Bad Boys

'We didn't
steal it, we were kidnapped,' Steve said.

The youth in
the cab got down and peered into Steve and Alex's faces, then he
turned to his mates and laughed. Then he rounded on Steve, saying,
'You don't look very kidnapped to me, Sonny Jim.'

'We've only
just managed to get free. They were holding us in there.' Steve
pointed at the building they'd left five minutes ago. 'After a
while they left us and cleared off.'

'Very
convenient.'

'Sid, p'raps
that was the copter we 'eard goin' off.'

Steve looked at
Alex. 'So that's where they went.'

'Where who
went, Sonny Jim?'

'Guys in black
masks and one in military uniform.'

'Oh give it
rest!' The one called Sid said, leaning against the cab, laughing.
'There's no-one around her like that.'

'It's true!'
Alex said, 'Look, they had us tied up.' She held out her wrists to
show where the cable tie had left marks on them.

'Listen, missy,
I don't care what kinky goings-on you and your boyfriend have been
up to in there.' He paused for his mates to enjoy the joke. 'But
our van was took and just now and you,' Sid poked Steve in the
chest, 'was going to get right back in it, weren't you?'

'We have to get
to our hotel,' Alex said.

'Yes, my mum
will be going spare.'

'Oh, the hotel!
His mummy will be going spare!' Sid mimicked their voices to the
great amusement of himself and his friends.

'You don't
understand,' Alex said vehemently. 'We've been brought here from
Kilkorne, in Cornwall.'

'Kilkorne?' Sid
said, backing into the cab. 'Wot, that place in the news?'

'Yes, where the
zombies attacked a couple of days ago.'

'That's it,
we…'

Steve was
interrupted when one of the accomplices found his voice, 'Sid,
Bert, they're freakin' zombies.' Even in the semi-darkness, his
face showed white through the dirt.

'We got to get
out of here,' the third one said, running around to the other side
of the van.

'Get in,' Sid
said to his mates, starting the engine and reversing it out of the
street. The other two jumped aboard as it backed round the corner
and roared off into the night.

'Looks like
we've got a long walk, then.' Steve said, taking Alex's hand.

'You think it's
safe walking about out here?' Alex said, casting nervous glances up
and down the main road.

There was no
sign of the van, other than a pair of skid marks, where Sid had
floored the accelerator, and the fading smell of exhaust. Silence
alone appeared to lurk in the shadows of shop doorways and the road
seemed deserted.

'I don't know
but it appears we only have to say either 'Kilkorne' or 'zombies'
and we'll be OK.'