The Zombie Room

by R. D. Ronald

  ‘We’ll have to stop meeting like this, people will talk,’ Decker said, as Mangle put down his glass.

  ‘Very funny. Even if I was that way inclined I’d be way out of your league.’

  Decker laughed and took a drink from his own glass.

  ‘Did you manage to arrange a new flat to move into yet?’ Mangle asked.

  ‘I found one that’s suitable, but when I move in I want to do it with a clean slate, you know?’

  Mangle nodded as if this was something that had been bothering him as well. ‘It was a good job this morning and we’ve had a good run,’ he confirmed, ‘but maybe it’s best not to test our luck.’

  ‘The knocks are still coming on my mother’s door from Brian and that lot. My reason for not getting mixed up with them was to avoid the inevitable prison sentence that would come from the association. Now we’ve got some money behind us it would be stupid to risk everything for the sake of greed,’ Decker said, looking thoughtfully into his glass.

  ‘Are you going to pack it all in and just keep working at the shop for Latif?’

  ‘That’s what I’ve been thinking. You reckon Tazeem will be pissed?’

  Mangle shrugged solemnly. ‘We should probably talk to him and find out.’

  Tazeem arrived early for Friday prayers and met Latif just inside as he was removing his shoes.

  ‘Latif, how are Derek and Nick working out at the shop?’ he asked, crouching to unloosen his laces.

  ‘Hello, Tazeem. Very well, actually. Nick is working on the desk with customers and Derek is helping out in the stockroom. They are both very diligent, thanks for recommending them.’

  ‘Well hello there, cuz.’ Tazeem looked over his shoulder to see Ermina walking towards them.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked her.

  ‘I got a lift down with Sadiq and some of his friends; he’s parking the car outside. Don’t worry, I’m not staying, just thought I’d pop in and see if you were here so I could say hello.’

  ‘What friends?’ Tazeem asked, but before she could answer Sadiq entered with a group of men.

  ‘I’ll see you later, Tazeem,’ Ermina said, and turned to leave.

  As she sauntered by Sadiq he reached down and gave her a slap on the ass which roused a chorus of laughter from his friends. Ermina tossed a playfully disapproving look over her shoulder. Catching Tazeem’s glare from across the room Sadiq began to walk over, but Tazeem and Latif quickly moved on to the ablutions and from there straight into the hall.

  They found two free prayer mat spots and took their places. Sadiq and the others were last into the hall and first out again following the prayers. Tazeem and Latif intentionally dallied in the hall, hoping to give them enough time to leave so they wouldn’t be subjected to another instalment of how successful Sadiq had recently become. His boastings had been tolerable when the claims were fairly baseless, but now that he had actual achievements behind him he had become even more insufferable.

  Thinking they had waited long enough, Tazeem and Latif finally made their way back through to the entrance hall and collected their shoes. It was a sunny day and some clusters of men remained talking outside as they left.

  ‘Hello boys.’ Tazeem and Latif turned and saw Sadiq beaming at them from just to the right of the main doorway. ‘And how is business going for you two?’

  ‘I can’t complain,’ Latif said, flatly.

  ‘And you, Tazeem?’ he said, turning a shark-like grin in his direction.

  ‘I’m doing alright.’

  ‘That’s interesting, your cousin said you may have been struggling a little lately since you got out of prison. No need to be proud, my friend, I’m always willing to extend a hand of support to a less fortunate brother.’

  ‘Very noble of you, Sadiq, but you can save your help for someone who needs it,’ Tazeem said, taking all of his effort not to spit the words back at him.

  ‘Very well,’ Sadiq said with a mirthless smile. ‘My organisation is expanding very quickly, I’m sure there will be further opportunities for you to come on board.’

  Tazeem was understanding when Mangle and Decker sat down with him the following week.

  ‘To be honest I didn’t expect you both to hang around this long,’ he said, to ease any guilt they may have felt about leaving him in the lurch. ‘I have got one last job lined up, though. How about that, then we divide up the proceeds?’

  Mangle looked over at Decker and shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘It’s OK with me,’ Decker said.

  ‘Alright, I’m in,’ Mangle confirmed.

  It was arranged for Thursday morning. They arrived early, were briefed by Tazeem and drove to the location he’d given them, a warehouse in Bluebell Industrial Estate that he’d heard was receiving shipments of stolen goods from offshore. Same type of set-up they’d been to numerous times before: go in, kill the power, threaten an immediate investigation, then they bend over backwards to pay the bill.

  Decker drove the car through a maze of mostly unused units as Mangle read out directions from a sheet on his clipboard. He turned right and pulled up outside number 18 near a white Mercedes van with the logo of a frozen food supplier on the side. It was the only vehicle on the site.

  The concrete approach around the building was cracked and patches of grass and other weeds clumped where grateful seeds had been given the opportunity to grow. Mangle walked ahead while Decker fetched his toolkit. Nearing the building he became aware of raised voices inside and stopped, waiting for Decker to catch up.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Decker asked as he stopped beside Mangle.

  ‘I don’t know. It sounds like someone’s pretty pissed off though.’

  ‘You heard anything they said?’

  ‘No they aren’t speaking English.’

  The sound of a large metal bolt being thrown was followed by the steel door from the warehouse being flung open. An enraged Asian man strode out, then became aware of Decker and Mangle standing in front of him. For a moment they all stood unmoving and silent before the man regained some of his wits.

  ‘Spahee! Spahee!’ he cried, wild-eyed, and took off running across the deserted site and through the treeline beyond.

  Decker and Mangle looked from the disappearing figure back at each other, unsure whether or not they also should beat a hasty retreat. A large white man with a shaven head was joined at the door by two more Asians. He had ragged scar tissue on the left side of his face and neck that was shiny like plastic. The man quickly glanced around outside, noted the presence of only one other vehicle, and demanded to know what they wanted.

  ‘Ahh … hello. We’re from G&E Utilities,’ Mangle said, gathering himself and slipping into their rehearsed routine.

  ‘Whatever you are selling we don’t want,’ the man growled at him in heavily accented English.

  ‘We are from the electric company,’ Mangle explained again, speaking slower and more deliberately. ‘We must come and inspect your supply. For safety, it is required by law.’

  ‘No,’ the man said, screwing up the left-hand side of his face in a grimace that made his scars crinkle like cellophane. He began to close the door; the two other Asians had already vanished inside.

  ‘If you do not allow me to inspect the meter I will have to return with the police.’

  This had the desired effect and the heavily set man paused while pulling closed the steel door. Again his eyes drifted around the car park, before coming to rest on Mangle.

  ‘You are electric company man,’ he said, as if what he’d first been told had only just begun to resonate.

  Mangle remained silent but flipped open his ID. Decker, standing behind him, did likewise and rattled his toolbox.

  ‘You come in and look at supply, then you go.’ It wasn’t phrased as a question, but Mangle confirmed this was their intention.

  ‘Alright,’ the man said and took a step backwards, allowing barely enough room to pass.

  Voices were raised behind him, agai
n not in English; Mangle thought he heard two different languages, but couldn’t be sure what. Barely taking his eyes from them, the scarred man barked a few words over his shoulder and the voices fell silent.

  Taking this as their cue, Decker began to walk inside.

  ‘I’ll be right there,’ Mangle said and took out his phone. Decker looked at him quizzically, but continued walking. ‘Hello Clive,’ Mangle said into the silent handset after first going through the pretence of dialling a number. ‘Yes, we’re at the job now. Yes … yeah … just a few minutes and we’ll be on our way back. OK, see you soon.’

  Mangle put the phone away. The scarred man was standing just inside the warehouse, watching him intently. Breathing in, he squeezed past and walked along a narrow corridor. The warehouse had been segmented into rooms of various sizes. Each room had a door, and what looked like a small window obscured by a curtain. The light in the corridor was minimal and came from three bulbs suspended on chains from the ceiling high above. A large stack of wooden crates was piled near the rear wall.

  Mangle saw Decker just ahead, crouching to take his torch and other tools from the box. He knew what was coming next, so again quickly scanned the interior to orient himself before the impending darkness fell. There was no sign of the two Asian men. Mangle kept his eyes on the scarred man, who appeared to be in charge, as Decker began his lines about the meter having been tampered with.

  Mangle instinctively knew this was a bad idea, but like a runaway truck, it was too late to stop the inevitable. He backed up against a wall as the realisation came over the scarred man of what was about to happen. Decker had already turned on his torch and now he stood with the cable cutters in hand and flipped the switch. Immediately, complete blackness engulfed them.

  The scarred man ran forward and grabbed Mangle by a fistful of his shirt. Decker’s torch beam swung wildly backwards and forwards as he spun around, illuminating glimpses of the warehouse. Frightened screams sounded from numerous women somewhere within the building. Mangle tried to calm the man who had grabbed him, explaining that the matter could be sorted out in no time.

  The two Asian men and another white male came out from separate rooms, shouting things Mangle couldn’t understand. Decker’s beam of torchlight bounced from one to the other. The doorway behind one of the Asian men stood open, briefly revealing the frightened faces of a number of women sitting huddled together on the floor inside. One looked to have sustained a heavy beating, her face swollen and bruised. Mangle looked away. If they were to get out of this, he knew he had to think fast.

  He spoke to the scarred man, who still held him almost off the ground. ‘Let’s go outside and I’ll explain how we can solve this for you right away,’ he said, patting the man gingerly on the shoulder, hoping what little light flitted around the room would show his face to be calm, although he doubted he was that good an actor.

  The scarred man again shouted orders and the other three held their ground. Decker had dropped the disconnected meter and looked ready for a fight, but it was one Mangle was certain they couldn’t win. Still holding a handful of Mangle’s shirt, the scarred man pulled him towards the warehouse door. ‘You stay,’ he turned and shouted at Decker.

  ‘You try to trick me. You say just look,’ he said to Mangle after opening the door a few inches to let in some light. His breath was thick and smelled like rotting meat.

  ‘No, I didn’t trick you. Your supply had been tampered with, but I can still fix this for you. I need to return to the office and have the meter inspected. This will tell them the actual consumption, and I’ll have a new bill brought out by courier right away.’

  ‘You go nowhere,’ the man laughed, ‘you will fix now.’

  ‘I’m sorry, we can’t do that,’ Mangle said, hoping the man wouldn’t call his bluff. ‘Taking the meter away and giving you a new bill to pay is all I can do to prevent the police being involved.’

  The man stared at him a moment longer, his focus switching from eye to eye.

  ‘Manipulation of a meter is a criminal offence,’ Mangle said, almost apologetically. ‘Sometimes they can become damaged accidentally and can look like intentional tampering. I’m sure that’s all this is. Once the bill is paid your power will be switched back on and there’s no involvement from the police.’

  The man maintained his grip on Mangle and bellowed over his shoulder, ‘Can you move them yet?’

  ‘No, it’s too early,’ another voice answered back. ‘The clinic isn’t ready.’

  The man relaxed his grip and his appearance softened like tide-eroded stone. ‘I apologise for any mistreatment. I am a little stressed right now. You say you can have this taken care of and this will all be forgotten about. So how much?’

  Mangle explained again about needing to first return to the office, but the man looked less than convinced. ‘Bring money,’ he shouted to the others. Moments later another white man, almost ghostly pale in complexion, approached carrying a fat brown envelope. The scarred man opened it, took out a thick sheaf of notes and flicked through them. ‘This will pay for our electricity to be mended. You will take it, go away and make it right. No more intrusion.’

  Mangle nodded dumbly as the stack of money was replaced into the envelope and handed to him.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Decker called out to him.

  ‘Fix it back up,’ Mangle replied. ‘We’re done here.’

  9

  Even though they waited until dark, the men still seemed agitated as the girls were hurriedly shoved back into the van outside. Whatever had happened back at the warehouse when the lights went out, Tatiana was pretty sure it had been beyond their control. Thoughts of freedom flirted momentarily, before Tatiana shook them away. She was no longer even sure what freedom was, but immediately mistrusted her surfacing feelings of hope.

  Some of the girls seemed scared, one or two slept, and the others looked as if they shared Tatiana’s own numbed acceptance of their fate. The van was again driven by the pale man, and two of the Asians rode up front alongside him.

  It took just over an hour to arrive at their destination. They travelled through a bewildering cityscape, with buildings bigger than any Tatiana had previously seen; but other than the lights shining brighter and the buildings rising taller, the looks on the faces of the night people they passed were the same as those from the city streets she knew back home.

  The oriental man stood beside the van as the girls disembarked. From his thin, steel-rimmed spectacles, white lab coat and authoritative stance, Tatiana guessed he must be a doctor, and the place they’d arrived at, the clinic. It was a large stone building at the end of a winding gravel drive, shrouded to the front by a thick belt of pine trees. A few cars were parked in an otherwise vacant lot, but there was no sign of any other people. The man introduced himself as Dr Chu, and then led the girls into the building, along a disinfectant-scented corridor and onto Accommodation Wing A. In there, they were instructed to remove their clothes and put on the regulation blue cotton jumpsuits.

  During the next week, the women were subjected to various medical examinations and blood tests. Twice a day they were given injections, thankfully Tatiana thought, no more from the bizarre looking contraption that was used upon their arrival. Once each day they underwent a treatment session in one of the outbuildings known as the Audiology Suite. The women were filed out and led into the darkened room. Inside there was a huge screen and a number of plush chairs, like a small yet expensive-looking movie-theatre. Each chair had an unobstructed view of the screen and its own set of headphones. The girls were seated, straps were fastened around their wrists and foreheads, preventing them getting up or looking away from the screen, and the headphones were placed over their ears.

  Afterwards, Tatiana always remembered this part, but only snatches from the succession of images that began flashing onto the screen, and, no matter how hard she tried, she could not recall anything else of the sessions. Although twice since, she had woken in a panicked state during
the night, feeling as if she was again back in the chair.

  An older woman called Laura was assigned to stay with them much of the time. She slept in the same wing as the girls, wore the same uniform, albeit in a different colour, hung out with them socially, and exercised with them outside, although she wasn’t made to wear one of the outdoor collars. Laura intrigued Tatiana as she detected none of the underlying menace that appeared to lurk within the other staff, yet she also didn’t appear to be imprisoned there. She referred to Tatiana as Tatty; her mother had called her that, and Tatiana liked it. It felt like a connection to her past. Laura underwent the same Audiology sessions, and was given the same injections twice a day as the other girls.

  For the first two days, they had been rounded up and injected, told that their immune systems would be unable to cope with the influx of foreign bacteria, and that further injections were optional but should be immediately sought if any of the girls felt unwell. Tremors had been the first indication that there may be something in what had been said, followed shortly after by knotting stomach cramps. Tatiana was determined to resist the clinic’s influence. She watched Laura and her fellow captives as they lined up one by one, and were injected by a satisfied-looking nurse. On the fourth day Tatiana vowed that no matter how hard it got, she would not seek out the medication, but found that the attention she then garnered from the gathering cluster of perplexed medical officials might ultimately prove more hazardous to her health than allowing the continued subjugation of her blood stream.

  The next day, Dr Chu gathered the women together and told them that their progress had been good, that some of them were ready to begin the next phase of their re-education.

  It had been just over a week since their final job. Tazeem had tied up any loose ends, so no threads of evidence could be traced back to them. In his opinion, they’d got in, made a tidy sum, and then got out before anyone was caught, so he considered the project a big success.