“Mila? Mila? Where are you?”
“Down. Look down.”
Robyn stood back before noticing something that looked like a large letterbox. She crouched down and opened it up to see Mila peering at her through a similar gap from the door across the hall.
“What the hell is this?”
“I’m pretty certain we were drugged.”
“Drugged? Why?”
“I don’t know, but I don’t remember much of last night. I woke up just a few minutes ago.”
“Please be quiet!” called another voice from down the hallway.
Robyn and Mila looked at one another. “Hello?” Robyn said. “Who are you?”
“My name’s Freya, and I’m begging you, please be quiet.”
“Where are we, Freya?” Robyn continued.
“Look. They all go outside sometimes. We can see them from the window. If that happens, I’ll tell you everything, but they threatened us with a carving last night for making noise. We can’t have that. Not so soon. Please be quiet.”
“A carving? What the hell’s a carving?” This time there was no response. “Hello? Hello?” Robyn and Mila looked at one another through the small gaps again. “What do we do?” Robyn asked.
“There is not much we can do. Right now, we are prisoners.”
“I don’t understand any of this.”
“No, me neither.”
They remained there for a few seconds just staring at one another; then the clunk of a lock being disengaged echoed down the hallway.
“Wakey, wakey, rise and shine,” called a voice. There was a knock on one of the doors at the far end followed by the sound of a food hatch opening.
A few seconds later, there was another knock and another hatch opened. Robyn and Mila closed their own peepholes and backed away from the door as whoever it was continued along the narrow corridor. Eventually, a knock came against the thick wood, followed by a plate being shoved through the hatch.
“Hello,” Robyn replied.
“Feeding time at the zoo,” came the voice.
Robyn took the plastic plate of food along with the plastic knife and fork. “Why have you locked us up in here?” she asked.
“Just eat your food, do as we say and we’re all going to get on famously.” It was Krissy’s voice.
“I’m thirsty,” Robyn said.
“Over by the sink, you’ve got an enamel camping mug. The water’s good to drink. It’s all fresh from the well. When you’re done with your plate, make sure it’s washed before we collect it.” Robyn heard Krissy shuffle away and knock on the opposite door.
Robyn crouched down to look through the narrow slot. Krissy was wearing a half-cut top and on her smooth brown back were tattooed the words GIVE PEAS A CHANCE.
Robyn’s brow furrowed. She closed the hatch, walked over to the sink and poured herself a cup of water before taking that and the tray over to her bed where she sat down. The plate contained some mushrooms that appeared to be past their best by date. There was a small portion of baked beans, a single piece of dry toast, a hash brown, two small sausages and three strips of bacon. It looked a little dry, but it smelt good. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten bacon and sausages. If nothing else, this would get rid of her heavy head. She carved a piece of sausage and salivated as the aroma warmed her nostrils. She raised it to her mouth then stopped suddenly.
Give peas a chance. She’d seen that before somewhere, but where? Oh well, it will come back to me. She was just about to put the food in her mouth when she stopped again. Michelle Berkin from school, that was it. Michelle had it emblazoned on her backpack, right alongside CRAZY VEGAN CHICK and VEGANS DO IT 24/7.
The door at the end of the hallway clunked shut once again, pulling Robyn from her train of thought for a few seconds.
Weird, why would someone who keeps pigs have a vegan tattoo on their back? Robyn shrugged and raised the fork to her lips only to stop again. A memory came back to her from the previous evening. Everything was hazy and dark, and there were voices … lots of voices. Don’t eat the meat! Don’t eat the meat!
She pulled the fork back from her mouth and looked at the sausage. Suddenly, another recollection came to her. Brie had made a weird comment about her leather trousers. At the time, Robyn didn’t think anything of it, but it was the sort of thing a radical vegan would say. So, if the sisters were vegans… “Holy shit!” She placed the tray on the bed and ran to the door, immediately opening the food hatch. “Mila! Mila!”
Mila appeared at the hatch, chewing away on something. “What is it?”
“Please tell me you haven’t eaten the sausage.”
“No… I’ve just had a slice of bacon. A little salty but not bad.”
“Oh God. It’s not bacon, Mila.”
Mila stopped chewing. “What do you mean?”
“The meat’s human.”
Mila’s hatch closed. Robyn heard thudding feet and even through the thick wooden door, she could make out retching sounds. She looked back towards her own plate on the bed. Suddenly she’d lost her appetite. Two minutes later, Mila’s hatch opened again. Her face looked pale, and her eyes were bloodshot. “You are sure?”
“These people are vegans. Best case scenario, it’s tofu, and I’ve done you a favour anyway.”
“Freya! Freya!” called Mila.
For a moment, there was no response. “Please be quiet. They’ll come back in here. Don’t eat the meat. The rest of it’s okay. You need to keep your strength up.”
“How long have you been here?” Mila asked.
“Quite a while.”
“How many others are here?” Robyn asked.
“Please. If we see them outside, I’ll come back and talk, but it’s too risky if they catch us. Please be quiet.”
The two women heard the serving hatch shut, and their eyes locked on one another again. “We’re in trouble here,” Mila half said, half-whispered.
“You think?”
“Oh, sarcasm. That is going to be useful right now.”
“I’m playing to my strengths. Listen, Freya’s right. We have to eat something. We need to keep our strength up. At some point, we’re going to have to get out of here.”
“And how do we do this exactly? I don’t know if you have noticed, but there are bars on the windows, and these doors are like coffin lids. I am fairly certain this was a psychiatric hospital.”
“What gave it away?”
“And there we go again with the sarcasm.”
“Listen, eat the toast, beans and mushrooms. Tip the rest of the stuff down the bog, wash your plate and when the psycho bitches have gone out, we’ll find out what’s really going on here.”
“Okay. Robyn…”
“What?”
“I’m scared.”
“I know. But look, I’ve been in tight situations before. If there’s one thing my nerdy little up-with-life sister taught me it’s that things are never as bad as they seem.” Robyn closed the hatch and looked back to the plate of food sitting on her bed. How the hell weren’t things as bad as they seemed?
She tore off a small piece of toast that was resting against the sausages and bacon but ate everything else on her plate and then emptied the remainder down the toilet. She flushed, and for a moment her heart jumped into her throat as the water started rising in the basin, but then the blockage disappeared, and it began to flow properly again. She rinsed her plate and leaned it up against the wall to dry.
A fresh bar of soap, a tube of toothpaste and new toothbrush rested on the sink. There was a bath towel placed over the partition between the sink and the toilet. This was her new prison life. Until she could figure a way out, she may as well stay clean if nothing else. She stripped off and washed herself from head to toe then washed her clothes and rinsed them too before placing them on the horizontal bar at the top of the window to dry.
She went across to the chest of drawers and opened one. There was a new pack of medium white T-shirts, a pac
k of size 8–10 knickers and a pack of socks. In the drawer below it, there were two pairs of what looked like starchy pyjama bottoms and two boxes of tampons. Just how long are they intending to keep us here?
She threw on the fresh clothes then looked at the selection of books on top of the chest. Her boredom hadn’t reached a level where she felt compelled to read yet, but she knew it would come. Robyn walked back across to the window and leaned against the bars looking out. Snowball and Napoleon were chasing each other around a clump of bushes at the far end of the garden. Despite the dire situation, she couldn’t help but smile.
She had only seen pigs in the confines of a sty before when they had been on a school trip to a farm. There the animals looked sad and cramped, always jostling for position and food, never comfortable, never relaxed. But here the two pigs frolicked like children in a playground. Robyn watched them for over ten minutes before they disappeared out of view. She was about to walk back to her bed when the lock on the outer door clunked open again. One by one, the plates were collected. When the knock came on Robyn’s door, she handed the plate through the hatch along with the plastic knife and fork.
“Keep those,” Krissy said. “They’re yours now.”
“Really? Wow. A knife and fork, all those trendy threads and two boxes of tampons and it’s not even my birthday.”
“It’s good that you’ve got a sense of humour. That will help you here.”
“Why are you doing this? Things don’t have to be this way.”
“People like you will never understand people like us, so there’s no point in wasting my breath.”
“Try me.”
“I have neither the time nor the inclination. Keep cleaning your plate, keep the noise down, do as I say and you and I are going to get on fine. Break any of those rules, and it’s Robyn chipolatas all around.”
“You’re sick.”
Krissy banged hard against the door, making Robyn jump back. “You wear the flesh of a tortured and butchered animal, and you call me sick? You willingly allow the rape and kidnap of millions of innocent creatures so you can have a bit of milk on your cereal, and I’m the sick one?”
“Rape and kidnap? What are you talking about, you psycho? I’ve never—”
“You’re so ignorant. You make wanna vom. Where do you think your milk comes from?”
“Tesco.”
“Oh, you’re just hilarious, aren’t you?” Krissy smashed her fist against the door again. “Have you ever heard the screams of a cow as it has its calf stolen away from it? My guess is no because it’s a sound you never ever forget. It haunts your dreams.” She slammed the hatch shut, and Robyn just stood there with her mouth open.
“Okay,” she whispered to herself, “that probably wasn’t too smart.” She walked across and flopped down on her bed, weaving her fingers behind her head. Time quickly lost meaning. There was no clock, her only guide as to what part of the day it was rested on the position of the sun, but that was something else she had never studied that hard.
It was some time in the afternoon when Robyn heard the bikes and the van starting. She knew she was hungry so it was well past lunchtime, but that was the full extent of her knowledge. A little while longer passed and then she heard hushed shouts from down the hall. “Robyn! Mila!” She walked across to the food hatch and crouched down. She opened it up to see Mila opening hers at the same time.
“Freya, is that you?” Robyn asked.
“Yeah. They’re all out at the moment. This is the only time it’s safe to talk.”
“What the hell’s going on?” Mila asked.
“I would have thought that would be pretty obvious by now.”
“So, we’re waiting here to die? They’re going to turn us into bloody sausages?”
“Not me,” Freya said.
“How come not you?” Robyn asked.
“I was one of them. When they hatched this crazy idea, I went ballistic. I told them I wanted no part of it. So, this is my punishment. I stay locked up in here powerless to do anything but watch others die.”
“Holy crap. How many people are here? You, me and Mila are the only adults. The rest are kids.”
“What? Where are their parents?”
“Our parents are gone,” said another voice.
“Who are you?” Robyn asked.
“I’m Aiden. Me and the others all went to a private boarding school. When the outbreak started, there were nine of us whose parents didn’t show up. There were two teachers, Miss Pettigrew and Mr Lang. They stayed with us. They looked after us, then—” He burst out crying, and Freya carried on.
“Then Deb found them and convinced them they’d be safer back here with us. That’s when it all started. Lang was the first. Y’know, it’s really amazing how much food you can get from a body. They dried, cured, smoked and processed the meat. That one body lasted them over a month.”
“What, they ate it?” Robyn asked.
“No, they traded what they made from it, sausages, bacon, black pudding. They convinced people it was the real thing. Each time they’d go out to trade, they’d come back with all sorts of supplies. Then it was Miss Pettigrew’s turn.”
More sobs began to echo down the hallway despite the closed doors. “So how long ago was that?” Robyn asked.
“About two months ago, but last week they picked up a survivor from one of their scavenging trips. He was only in here a night before he became the third victim.”
“So, you’re saying we’ve got about three weeks before they come for one of us?”
“Provided they don’t decide to increase production, that sounds about right.”
Robyn suddenly thought back to her altercation earlier with Krissy. “Great, and I know just who that’s going to be.”
chapter 24
The days all drifted into one another. Robyn managed to snatch quick, hushed conversations with Mila, Freya and occasionally Aiden and the other prisoners when the sisters were out, but other than that she was forced to become completely self-reliant.
After the morning ritual of breakfast and her daily wash, she usually watched Snowball and Napoleon play. They had their routine as well, and it was the one thing that could be guaranteed to put a smile on her face. They were big, ugly, clumsy animals, but they had a genuine sense of fun, which was infectious, and Robyn looked forward to seeing them.
Afterwards, she would exercise, doing everything from push-ups and pull-ups to squats and lunges. Usually, she would read for a while then and have a nap before dinner. It was a simple and uninteresting routine, but it stopped her from thinking about what awaited her. Soon after hearing the news of her impending demise, she had desperately looked around the room trying to figure out what she could turn into weapons. There was nothing. This had been a cell for psychiatric patients, and despite the addition of a pair of curtains and slightly warmer bedclothes there was very little difference. She slowly resigned herself to the fact that, one day soon, her breakfast would be laced with drugs and then she would be collected and carted onto the killing floor. With a bit of luck, they would get the dose wrong, and she’d be able to put up a fight, but five armed women against one unarmed teenager was not really an even match.
There had been tinned tomatoes on the breakfast plate this morning, an added bonus. Any calories were good calories. It was only after Robyn had eaten them that she wondered whether they had been spiked. She rinsed her plate as normal, expecting a drowsy feeling to overcome her, but, for the moment anyway, she still had her faculties.
She washed herself, cleaned her smalls and hung them to dry then went to the window to watch the two pigs play. She stood there with her arms folded, just smiling. Every day it was the same routine; they chased around the same bushes like two children never tiring of the other’s company. Just then, Robyn saw movement from behind a hedge. At least half a dozen scruffy looking men with what looked like industrial-strength catch poles and cattle prods appeared. They advanced slowly. Two of them had rifles st
rapped to their backs, but they were surely for any human interference. Nobody in their right mind would try to shift three hundred plus kilograms of dead weight.
They carried on; the two pigs still oblivious to the intruders as they continued to play.
“No! No!” Robyn said, putting her hand up to the window, touching the glass almost as if she was stroking one of the animals. “No,” she whispered sadly then ran to the door, smashing it hard with her fist. “DEB! KRISSY! SABINA!” She banged and banged on the thick panels then pulled one of the drawers out from the chest and battered the sturdy wood against the tiled floor.
Within a few seconds the door at the end of the hall burst open. “What the fuck do you think—”
“Some men are trying to grab Snowball and Napoleon,” Robyn shouted, interrupting Krissy’s tirade.
There was a split-second pause then the sound of feet running back across the landing. The door clicked behind, and everything became muffled again. Robyn ran back to the window. One of the men had got Napoleon in the noose of the catch pole and then a second mirrored the action. Napoleon struggled, and the more it struggled, the more its airways became constricted. Snowball was going wild, not running in fear as Robyn expected but desperately screaming for help like a frightened child.
A few seconds passed, and Napoleon was struggling more as the two nooses slowly began to choke the life out of him. Oh no! Please no! They were just dumb animals, but they had become like friends to her in the confines of that cell.
Suddenly an almighty crack erupted below her, and one of the men flew backwards. More rifle reports began to echo, and before either of the armed men could even reach for their weapons, they were all down on the ground, dead or dying. The five sisters walked across to the bodies, and a heated discussion ensued between them before the last moving intruders were finally put down. The nooses were cut from Napoleon’s neck, and, although clearly traumatised, he gradually began to come around.
The bodies of the men were dragged out of sight, and Snowball and Napoleon were taken inside too. A few minutes later, the van and the two bikes started up and then that was it. Robyn went to sit on her bed for a while wondering where the men had come from, wondering if Napoleon was going to be okay, wondering if she was going to get into trouble for breaking the furniture. She looked across at the shattered fragments. The drawer front was still intact, and one of the sides was attached. Robyn walked across and slid it into the slot. It looked okay but without proper repair would never hold anything again; not that it ever needed to hold anything, she only had enough items for the top two drawers.
The End of Everything (Book 7): The End of Everything Page 17
