by Ian Woodhead
“I wonder where it goes.”
He shrugged. “I’ve no idea; then again, it doesn’t really matter. Anywhere will be better than here.” Dave didn’t mention that it was their only route out of here. The townsfolk were sneaking back along the passageway. Fuck, the bastards hadn’t left to find easier prey. Dave put his finger to his mouth and nodded over at the gate. Somebody else bravely pushed a hand through the gap. He counted to five before smashing down the brick.
“Let’s move!” he hissed.
Amber nodded and moved away from the wall. Dave followed the girl, watching her carefully pick her way through the bags, heading towards the low wall. He spun his head at the sound of something slamming into the gate and watched a single finger poke through the gab and retreat just as quickly. Oh, no, they weren’t going to give up! Dave turned back and silently urged the girl to pick up her pace. They didn’t have much time left.
He jumped as three rats shot out from under a black plastic bag just inches from his feet. It took a great deal of self-control not to scream when he saw the little furry bastards were everywhere. Oh God, he just hoped that Brutality's rats were nothing like their human equivalents! The three rats scurried past him and vanished under a pile of stinking rubbish.
Amber screeched to a halt, she must have seen them too. He moaned quietly at the sight of the biggest rats he had ever seen calmly looking up at Amber. Fuck, it was close enough for her to reach down and pet the bloody thing. She didn't move a muscle. After what seemed like an eternity, the rat jumped into another split bag. Dave shook his head in admiration, not believing that she was being so calm about the encounter. He was shitting himself; he fucking hated rats.
“These bags stink,” she muttered, gingerly stepping over one. “I don’t even want to know what could be inside them. Still, it's keeping the rats happy I suppose.” Amber reached a low brick wall that came up to her waist, and she peered over it.
“It'll be all the restaurant waste,” he said, reaching the bag that Amber had stepped over. Made total sense to him; after all, this was Brutality, a throwback from another time. People did what they wanted here. Dave kicked the bag out of the way and choked back a scream when a severed hand fell onto his shoe.
“Are you okay?”
He pushed it back under the bag and jumped forward, standing between her and the rest of the bag's contents, just knowing that the rest of a cut up body would be in there. Oh Jesus, were all of these bags full of bodies? No wonder the place was crawling with rats. Both Amber and Robert said they'd heard rumours about what happened in this town. He thought he knew otherwise, but mass murder? “It's nothing, Amber,” he said, proud that he had said that without breaking into tears. “It's all these rats. I can't tell you how much I hate the bastards.” All he wanted to do was to get out of here, get out of Brutality, and hold Amber as tight as he could. He strode over to the girl, not wanting to think about the insides of the other bags around him. Dave reached the wall and looked over.
Amber tore her gaze away and looked back at him. Dave looked into her fear-filled eyes and wondered if he looked the same to her.
“Dave, what the hell is that stuff down there?”
A slow moving river of dark sludge passed by them about twenty feet from where they stood. Dave shrugged, not wanting to even guess. It certainly wasn’t water, judging from the rank smell coming from the stuff. Dave looked back at the bags and shuddered. He then noticed dozens of large pipes jutting out along the walls along the narrow corridor. Thick glutinous fluid dripped from some of the outlets, splashing into the sludge below. Dave wasn’t that far wrong with his first idea regarding the bags. It looked as if the restaurants had already found another method of disposing their unwanted food. He wondered where it all went.
“Right, I’ll drop down first,” he said. Dave climbed on the wall. He turned and kneeled down.
“I really don’t think this is such a good idea, you know. That stuff stinks. Christ knows what’s in it. We’ll probably end up with a dozen diseases if we go down there.” She looked over the wall. “We don’t even know how deep it is, you could end up going under and drowning.”
Dave had already guessed what was waiting for them down there. He was about to drop into a river of mouldy, rotten pieces of dead things, combined with whatever the fuck was dripping out of those pipes. “I know all that!” he cried. “What choice do we have though?”
Amber whimpered when the alley gate rattled.
“Don’t worry,” he said, just hoping she wasn’t right about the depth. “When I get down, I’ll catch you.” Dave swung his legs over, followed by the rest of his body. He felt the sharp gravel digging into his fingers. Dave took a deep breath just in case and let go.
The drop wasn’t so bad. His feet must have only been a few inches from the surface when he released his hands. The vile slop had the consistency of thick mud. Dave watched as his body slowly sank down. The panic grabbed his heart like a steel vice as his waist disappeared. “Oh fuck,” he gasped. “No, I don’t want to go like this.” Dave looked up, into Amber’s terrified eyes. This brief thought of wondering if he’d just seen his last image vanished when his feet touched the floor. The stuff came up to his shoulders. The stench was just unreal; it seemed to have a physical presence.
“Come on, Amber. Do it.”
She shook her head. “I can’t, it’s too far down.” Amber gasped and jerked her head around. “They’ve got through!” she sobbed.
Dave pushed his body through the gelatinous substance until he was flat against the wall. He heard them running through the bin bags. The girl climbed down, almost losing his grip in the panic. He put his hands around her waist and lowered her in. “Keep your mouth firmly shut,” he whispered.
He slowly moved forward, staying against the wall. None of the ones above had thought to look down here yet. They sounded like they were searching through the bags. “Do you still have Lisa’s money?”
Amber nodded.
“That’s a bloody relief,” Dave hissed. “I’ve got a good idea. Do you fancy going to Alton Towers tomorrow?”
Her quiet sobbing receded enough for her to call him crazy. He smiled, thinking that he heard just a tiny bit of humour in her voice, however strained. Dave just wished he had someone to encourage him.
It felt as though they were now moving up, the level moved down to his hips. In the shadows in front of them, Dave could just about make out the shape of a narrow platform. “We’re nearly there, sweetheart.”
“Found the bastards!”
Two male faces stared down at them. Dave recognised the younger man; it was that miserable barman who’d served them drinks in the club. He bent over, picked up a large plastic bag, and held it above his head. The man roared in triumph, but before he could throw it, the bag split open and covered him in what looked like lumps of wet dog food. The older man beside the bartender sniggered.
“You fucking moron.” The older man stooped down, picked up a brick, and dropped it into the culvert.
Dave pushed the girl and jerked his head forward, crying out as the brick bounced off his back and sank into the sludge. Amber somehow found his hand beneath the stuff. She squeezed and dragged Dave away from the wall. “What are you doing?” he said.
“Look!”
There were some concrete steps just ahead and a door set into the grey wall. He looked up and saw the two men kicking rubbish down, no doubt looking for more bricks. Amber pulled him onto the steps. He didn’t want to think what they’d do if the door was locked. He could still hear the bastards kicking rubbish into the muck behind them. By the sound of it, they were throwing in stuff much larger than bricks now.
“Oh no,” Amber moaned. “They’re following us in.”
He turned his head and saw a dozen of them lining up along the edge. They were all going to jump. Dave ran up to the door, not daring to look back. He heard the multiple splashes. “What do we do now?” he shouted, staring in frustration at the metal plate
covering the door.
He frantically beat his fists against the metal while listening to the multiple splashes behind them. Dave felt the girl’s slime covered arms wrap around his waist. Her sobbing drowned out the excited voices emanating from behind them.
The door shifted in its frame. Dave gasped with relief at the sound of the lock clicking and the door swinging inwards. A pair of hands reached out and pulled them both inside before the door swung shut.
In the dim light thrown from a dozen candles set in either side of a stone corridor, Dave could just about make out the craggy features of an old man staring at the pair of them as they stood there shivering. As his eyes got used to the ambience, Dave realised that he knew this man. He’d seen him hanging around the shopping centre in town, asking people for money.
“Don’t look at me like that, boy,” he snapped. “Just who did you expect to be down here? No, don’t bother answering that one. Come on, you had better follow me.” He looked at the girl before turning his attention to Dave. His features softened. “I really am sorry.” The man then spun back around. “Come on!” he snapped.
The man led them out into a huge stone built chamber. Dave stopped in the middle and slowly turned around, gazing in awe at the domed ceiling. This must have been hundreds of years old; it looked like some ancient temple. Dave had never seen anything like it before.
“Oh, I’d better introduce myself. Sorry, I’m not used to company anymore. I’m Max. I would say that it’s good to meet a pair of non-locals, but under the circumstances it would seem somehow a little false.” Max wrinkled his nose. “Whoa! I never thought I’d ever say this, but you two smell worse than I do. Let’s see if I can find you some more clothes that don’t have the stench of rot clinging to its fibres.”
Dave took a deep breath and suddenly wished that he’d kept his nose shut. The tramp was right; they both stunk of rotting meat. He pushed back the thought of what they had just waded through to get here.
Amber grabbed Dave’s hand. “Please, can you tell us just what is happening out there, why are they all chasing us?”
Max sighed heavily. “Child, I’ve been outmanoeuvred. Look, at the moment you’re safe. Allow that to comfort you for the present.” He turned and hurried over to a large stone slab set in the middle of the chamber. “You know, this wouldn’t have happened if the powers had sent me some more colleagues,” he said, dropping to his knees. “I was due some more over two hundred years ago. I guess they decided that the other places took priority over Brutality. Well, looks like the powers aren’t as infallible as they make out.” He then stared at Dave. “Unless this is all part of their plan as well.”
Dave watched him crawl along the floor until he stopped by the base of the slab.
“I thought so,” he said, picking up a cardboard box and dropping it on the surface. “I knew I had some spares. They’re a little dusty but a lot cleaner than the stuff that you’re wearing.”
He followed Amber towards the box, his swirling mind having difficulty taking any of this in. He then gasped when he heard the sound of smashing wood.
Max glanced towards the doorway. “They found a way in! Take the girl and go over there,” he hissed, pointing to an unlit passageway. “Go on, get out of here. I’ll try to join you.”
Dave nodded, grabbed the box, and followed Max’s direction, daring not to turn around as he heard the sound of excited shouting getting closer. The girl beside him began to sob again.
“Is this nightmare ever going to end?” Amber cried.
Chapter Seven
Jackie Pullman squeezed just a tiny exclamation of breath when the corroded links betrayed her presence by clanging against each other. She leaned forward and wrapped her filthy fingers around the thick chain, keeping her eyes fixed on the back of those chairs. It looked as though luck was on her side tonight. The two old bitches hadn't heard Jackie moving about. Her good luck wasn't likely to last if she didn't find a more comfortable position.
She carefully stretched out the chain, pulling it tight whilst opening her legs. Resting her heels against the bare floorboards, Jackie arched her back and stretched her arms, keeping them parallel to her shackled legs.
Ada Fairclough and Betsy Palmer preferred to watch the shopping channel without any distraction. Betsy had made this fact perfectly clear on more than one occasion, and each occasion had proved to be very painful for Jackie. The row of narrow bruises running along her shins, a reminder of the consequences of fidgeting, had only started to fade. Betsy's number three stick was the culprit from that particular beating. Jackie could still hear the noise it made as the hateful cow brought it down on her leg. She'd received twice as many as the allotted punishment because Jackie had cried out after the first strike. She should have known better. Jackie knew full well what happened when she defied them.
It just wasn't fair. That vile bitch was supposed to be going out tonight. Jackie could just about cope with Ada. She could be just as nasty as Jackie, but Ada's mood swings weren't so severe, and neither were her punishments. Ada preferred the traditional methods. Jackie's hardened mind and body shrugged off the occasional slap and the not so common ear punch.
Betsy was supposed to be visiting one of their friends on the other side of town tonight. Jackie had overheard her boasting to Ada that she had been chosen to ‘break in’ another visitor that they had caught in Brutality. Jackie had felt the marrow inside her bones liquefying when she had heard Betsy utter those awful words. She knew exactly what she had meant; it’s what those two had done to Jackie and her brother James all those months ago.
She stretched her back, feeling the bone in her spine crack. Thanks to those two, she felt as though she’d aged about thirty years since they had captured them. Jackie glared at the back of Betsy’s tatty maroon high seat chair, wishing for the millionth time that she had a long kitchen knife. Just how satisfying would it be to push the blade through that decaying upholstery and feel the gratification of listening to the old bag’s death rattle as the metal entered the woman’s dried up body? Jackie would kill Ada as well but only after she had made sure that Betsy’s nasty life was definitely extinguished.
It was that dirty Betsy who was the main instigator. She was the one who had taken great pleasure in stubbing out her cigarettes on Jackie’s arms, leaving dozens of unsightly circular scars on her wrists and forearms. That dirty bitch had also enjoyed taking a blunt knife to hack off her once beautiful blonde hair. The foul hag took her time with the task, grinning and laughing like a hyena every time Jackie cried out in pain. All that happened in the beginning though. Recently, her punishments had become more inventive, more severe, not to mention more painful.
She gasped in fright when her leg quivered and the chain rattled, it sounded deafening. Betsy spun her head around and matched Jackie’s glare with one of her own. “Just how many times do I have to punish you? You’re doing that on purpose. Do you think I’m totally stupid? What do I have to do to keep you quiet?”
The other woman coughed into her hand. “Do you not think you could rein in your silly temper for a few minutes?” she asked, staring at a gobbet of glutinous green phlegm sliding down her palm. She poked the mess with her bony finger before bringing her hand up to her face and sucking it back inside her mouth. “Will you please leave that poor girl alone? You're making more noise than she is.”
Jackie turned away, not wishing to watch Ada's chewing motions any longer.
“Now, Betsy. I need you to concentrate. Cast your sparkling green eyes on that pair of framed pictures. Don't you think that they'll look lovely hung over the fireplace?”
The chair's springs groaned in protest as Betsy settled back into position. Jackie breathed a silent sigh of relief. Whether deliberate or not, Ada had just saved her from receiving yet another dose of unwanted pain. The springs moaned again when Betsy leaned forward. How long could that dilapidated antique chair continue to hold the old cow’s weight? For weeks now Jackie had stared at that hateful piece
of furniture, watching the bloody thing degrade day by day. Surely it couldn’t take much more punishment before it just collapsed. How fantastic would it be to watch the bitch sit in her favourite chair as it crumpled? Then for the wooden legs to splinter, push through the fabric, and pierce her black heart. Just like her knife fantasy, the chance of that ever happening was slim to none. Still, stranger things had happened, and besides, thinking of ways the fucker would die kept Jackie going unless, of course, that bitch did finally carry out what she kept threatening and murder Jackie.
Oh fuck, why did she have to keep going with that thought? Jackie had just broken her own unspoken rule. She had promised herself weeks ago not to ponder over her mortality, not ever.
Jackie already knew that she and James weren’t the first people to have ended up trapped in the insane women’s house, and she wasn’t the first person to have these chains around her ankles.
She choked back a sob when their capture flashed through her mind. She closed her eyes and forced herself to calm down; thinking back to that night would not do her any good. Trouble was, now that her subconscious had vomited up the experience, Jackie just couldn’t let go of the images. She didn’t remember how they had caught them, there was no image of a bunch of insane townsfolk chasing them through the streets or cornering her and James in some alley. She guessed that they had got them from behind and got them nice and quietly.
From what she heard overheard, the fuckers had plenty of experience in kidnapping strangers.
They had both woken up with a splitting headache. The first thing that Jackie saw was that their hands and feet were chained together, and they were alone in some junk filled room that stunk of decay and stale piss. Whoever had tied them up knew what they were doing; they were both trussed up like oven-ready chickens. After what seemed like a day of hoarse shouting and cursing, her brother had finally quieted down and tried to find some clue as to their whereabouts. He had discovered initials of somebody’s names scratched into a floorboard under a rusted bed. They had found six other names etched into the floorboards before their kidnappers had come for them.