The Poison Factory

by Oisin McGann

  Gaz reached back with the toe of his trainer and pushed the zombie’s ear into the path of its searching fingers. The hand came upon the missing body part and grabbed at it. There was a moan of relief, the arm disappeared, and the zombie continued on its way.

  ‘I think I’m going to be sick,’ Hayley gulped.

  ‘You can’t,’ Gaz told her. ‘They’ll hear you.’

  She decided she’d be all right after all. They crawled on, reaching the door on the other side of the factory room. In a frantic dash, they sprinted through the open door. Jets of gas hit them as they rushed in and they had to hold their noses as they stumbled through a tiled room filled with clouds of steam and into the corridor beyond. They were in a long, narrow hallway with big lockers against the walls. Their skin and clothes were damp from the gas, which smelled like disinfectant.

  ‘S’like the stuff Momma uses to clean the toilet,’ Damo sniffed. ‘Suppose with all the zombies rotting like that, there must be loads of germs around.’

  ‘Well, I think it’s stained my trainers,’ Gaz complained. ‘Mam’ll kill me. These were almost brand new. I was at her for weeks to buy them!’

  Hayley bent down and picked something up off a bench by the side of the lockers. It was a remote control for a television.

  ‘What’s that doing here?’ Damo asked.

  She didn’t have time to reply. A siren was going off out on the factory floor. Staggering through the clouds of disinfectant steam was a huge, groaning zombie. The three children froze. There was nowhere to run. They would never make it to the other end of the corridor before it saw them. Gaz did the only thing he could; there was an open locker right next to him, and he jumped into it. No sooner was he inside, than Damo and Hayley piled in beside him. They pulled the door over just as the undead creature lurched out of the clouds of gas. They cowered in the tight space, watching through the slits in the metal door as it waddled down the corridor, followed by a second lumbering figure and then another.

  ‘Must be break-time,’ Gaz muttered.

  One by one, all the zombies trudged past. None of them were coming near the lockers. There was nothing for the Root Street Gang to do but stay in hiding and wait.

  4

  Total Loss Of Control

  Squashed into the locker, Gaz shivered as he thought about his brother. What if Molars was a zombie? Didn’t zombies eat people? They did in all the horror films he wasn’t supposed to watch. Joey was a pain in the bum, but he didn’t deserve to become zombie food.

  Thinking of food, Gaz felt the bulge of the bag of sweets in his pocket. Jammed in the closed metal space of the locker, he could smell them too. He pulled them out. The smell was sweet and tingly. Almost irresistible. Cornelius had said they could take some – there were plenty in the bag. Gaz knew he shouldn’t … there were loads of reasons why he shouldn’t …

  Opening the bag, he peeked inside. They were jellies. He loved jellies. He took one out, just to look at it. He’d put it right back. He smelled it; it smelled nice, like apple. It almost made him dizzy, it looked and smelled so good. It was in his mouth before he even knew it, almost as if his hand had a mind of its own. Chewing on it, he shrugged, savouring the taste. Damo was staring at the bag, which was being held up right in front of his face. Gaz handed it to him.

  ‘Just take one,’ he whispered, around the sweet between his teeth.

  Damo picked out a black one, and popped it in his mouth.

  ‘Dey’re goodge,’ he mumbled, still trying to use his hand to talk, and nearly sticking a finger in Gaz’s eye.

  Outside, the zombies continued to stagger past.

  Damo offered the bag to Hayley. ‘Have one.’

  ‘No,’ Hayley hissed. ‘I’ve a funny feeling about those sweets. They’re giving off a … a negative energy.’

  ‘What a load of rubbish. Take one!’ Damo insisted.

  ‘Yeah, go on,’ Gaz repeated.

  He was feeling a little guilty about taking one now that she’d said no. If she had one, he’d feel better about it.

  ‘Mam told me never to take sweets from strangers,’ Hayley told them, giving the bag a longing look. They did smell good.

  ‘So what? I’m not a stranger,’ Damo pointed out.

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ Hayley frowned, as she twisted the logic round in her head. ‘I suppose that’s alright then.’

  She reached into the bag, and took an orange jelly.

  ‘They’re really nice,’ she smiled, as she chewed. ‘Sort of fizzy.’

  Munching on their jellies, they waited for the zombies to go away.

  ‘This is totally mental,’ Damo muttered. ‘What kind of factory uses zombies to pack boxes?’

  ‘I don’t want to find out,’ Gaz said softly. ‘That’s the last of them. Let’s get a move on.’

  Very, very carefully, he opened the locker door and looked out. The corridor was empty. The three children tugged themselves free of the cramped space and nearly fell out into the hallway. There was only one way to go; a door at the very end of the corridor. But that was where the zombies had gone. They crept forward, none of them wanting to be first to look through the door. There was a low, angry groaning, and the sound of dozens of feet shuffling hurriedly around. The children’s curiosity got the better of them. They all peeked their heads round the doorframe.

  The door opened into a large lounge. It was filled with couches and armchairs, and a big wide-screen television hung on one wall. The living dead were milling around and moaning angrily. They were pulling up all the cushions on the couches, and turning over the furniture. They seemed very annoyed.

  Hayley suddenly let rip with a loud belch, and Gaz and Damo turned to look at her in shock. One of the zombies – a woman with no nose and her teeth showing through her cheek – spun round and spotted the children. She stared for a moment, and then let out a hoarse bellow. The Root Street Gang screamed. The other zombies turned, and with a chorus of growls and snarls, staggered towards the children.

  ‘LEG IT!’ Gaz yelled.

  And they did. They tore back the way they had come, through the gas-jet door, out onto the factory floor, with the zombies chasing them at a frightening speed for creatures that could only move at a lurch. As they passed one of the machines, Damo caught the hood of his tracksuit top on part of a conveyor belt. It lifted him off his feet, and dragged him up towards a hatch in the wall.

  ‘Help!’ he shouted, his would-be American accent lost in the panic. ‘Oh, Holy God!’

  The other two skidded to a halt, and turned just in time to see their friend disappear through the hatch. They stood stock-still for a moment, terrified by the sight of the zombies, but unable to leave Damo to his fate.

  ‘Not him as well!’ Gaz said through gritted teeth, realising how scared he was, and getting angry about it. ‘I can’t take my eyes off any of you for a minute. Right, come on!’

  He sprinted back, and Hayley was forced to follow as he climbed onto the conveyor belt. As she grabbed on, Hayley realised she was still holding the remote control she had picked up. She threw it at the zombies with all her might. One of them caught it with surprising skill, and the others immediately turned on him and started pushing him around. A mumbling, moaning argument ensued, and Gaz and Hayley watched in relief as the conveyor belt carried them upwards.

  ‘They just wanted their remote control,’ Hayley said, in a sympathetic voice. ‘Look, the poor things. All they wanted to do was watch telly.’

  ‘I hate it when somebody else has the remote,’ Gaz nodded.

  The conveyor belt trundled up and through the hatch, and they found themselves suddenly shrouded in darkness.

  5

  The Disgustinger

  The conveyor belt picked up speed as it carried them through a dark, square tunnel. Up ahead, they could see Damo pulling his hood free of the steel pegs. Gaz and Hayley hung on to the edges of the belt as they crawled forward to catch up with him. No sooner had they reached him, when the belt tilted and turned and
they shrieked as they were thrown off, tumbling onto a second conveyor and clinging onto it for dear life as it clattered through another room, speeding them high above rows of bronze-coloured vats.

  There were signs over the huge tanks, but Gaz was not sure he believed what he was reading. They whipped past below him; ‘Jellied Slugs’ said one; ‘Used Earwax’ said another. The belt dipped like a roller-coaster and he ducked under a third said ‘Armpit Hair’. All of the vats were full of the most disgusting things he’d ever heard of. There must have been tons of the stuff.

  Suddenly, a row of robotic claws came dangling down from the ceiling, snapping at them, trying to drag the kids into the tanks.

  ‘Aaagh!’ Damo shouted. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘I think they’re trying to sort us!’ Gaz yelled back as he dodged the grip of a steel claw. ‘All that rubbish must get carried along here and dumped in those tanks!’

  Damo went a yellowy-green colour and flattened himself against the belt to avoid a grasping robot hand. Hayley yelped as a claw managed to grab a tuft of her hair, and dropped it into one of the tanks.

  ‘Hang on!’ Gaz called to them. ‘I think we’re going to–’

  The conveyor came to an abrupt end, and they fell screaming off the belt, down a chute and into a steel tank. Scrambling through a mass of white pellets to the edge of the metal box, Gaz saw that the whole thing was full of reject pills. He could tell they were rejects, because nobody can swallow something that’s shaped like a star, or has hairs sticking out of it.

  The other two crawled up beside him, trembling and breathless. One after another, they let out loud burps. Gaz felt gas rising in his throat, and then he too gave a deep belch. They all looked at each other with puzzled expressions.

  ‘What’s the story here?’ Damo wheezed, fixing his cap tighter onto his head. ‘What was all that stuff for? This place is a nuthouse! And now we’re completely lost. I WANNA GO HOME!’

  ‘Shush!’ Hayley said in an ominous voice, while rubbing her temples. ‘I sense a great evil in this factory. This place has a very sickly aura.’

  ‘That’ll be the jellied slugs and the earwax,’ Gaz snorted. ‘Hey, maybe they feed that stuff to the zombies.’

  Hayley screwed up her face.

  ‘Nobody’s that dead, Gaz.’

  The three children climbed over the side of the container and dropped down to the floor. The room they were in was dark, but there was the light outline of a door only a few feet away.

  ‘We’re wasting time here anyway,’ Gaz turned towards the door. ‘Joey could be hurt or … or worse. Come on, we haven’t got all day.’

  Damo threw a glance at Hayley, who rolled her eyes. Gaz could be a right pain when he tried to act the boss. Through the door was a flight of stairs, and at the top of the steps was the kind of corridor you’d find in a rich person’s house, with gold-striped wallpaper and thick red carpet. There were paintings on the walls, the kind that didn’t look like anything and strains of classical music could be heard from a door halfway down the corridor.

  They were completely lost now, and they knew it. They had no choice but to check every room they came to, and hope that they might find some trace of Joey. But the Kanker & Byle factory was enormous, and now they couldn’t even find their way out. And soon their mothers would start wondering where they were. Their footsteps were completely silent on the carpet, so they crept forward and peered in the door.

  A dapper, balding little man in an expensive suit sat at a dark, wooden table. The whole room was filled with books and old-fashioned furniture, and in one corner a stereo played the violin-piano type music. It was all very nice and peaceful. The man had a number of small containers in front of him, and a teaspoon in one hand. By his elbow were a notepad and a pen. He looked up and caught sight of the three heads peeking around the door.

  ‘Gracious, hello!’ he said, in a posh voice. ‘What brings you to my little hideout?’

  Gaz glanced at the other two. This guy didn’t look too dangerous. Straightening up, he strode into the room.

  ‘We’re here for my brother,’ he said. ‘We’re looking for Molars – the Head of Security. Do you know where we can find him?’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t know anyone by the name of Molars,’ the man replied. ‘I don’t mix much with the security people. We get few visitors to this part of the building. I’m left to myself most of the time.’

  Gaz was closer to the table now, and he couldn’t resist arching his neck to try and see what was in the containers. There was a range of things; a jar of frog-spawn, a tin of shoe polish, bowls of maggots, engine oil, and even a cup full of fish eyes. They watched as the man dipped his spoon into a bowl of raw eggs and raised it to his mouth, sniffing it delicately. The children stared, unable to take their eyes off the contents of that spoon. The man glanced up at them, a knowing smile on his face. He took another sniff. He made a note on the paper. Then he lifted the spoon to his mouth.

  ‘You’re not going to–’ Gaz started.

  ‘You wouldn’t–’ Hayley gulped.

  ‘Eyuuugh–’ Damo gasped.

  The man put the spoon to his lips, and sucked the contents into the back of his throat. He swilled the bit of raw egg around his mouth, and then spat it out into a bucket that was sitting by his feet. Damo belched and covered his mouth, his cheeks bulging. Hayley went green. Gaz stuck his tongue out and gagged.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ he gasped, his face twisted up in disgust.

  ‘It’s not the most pleasant job in the world, I’ll grant you,’ the man said. ‘But I’m good at it, you understand? It’s what I do best. I’m the company’s Disgustinger. I find the worst tastes imaginable and we mass-produce them. Then our agents sneak into farms and supermarkets all over the country and inject them into natural food. I make healthy food taste disgusting.’

  ‘I knew it!’ Damo exclaimed. ‘I knew boiled cabbage didn’t taste right. I’ve been telling my momma that for years!’

  ‘Cabbage was one of my personal triumphs,’ the Disgustinger smiled bashfully. ‘It used to taste like potato crisps before I got my hands on it. And you know liver? That naturally tastes like southern-fried chicken. I soon changed that. But my personal best was spinach – spinach used to taste like mint chocolate mousse before we added our extract of sweaty Wellington boot. I’m particularly proud of spinach.’

  ‘But why?’ Hayley asked, twisting her hair. ‘Why make good food taste like wellies?’

  ‘Oh, so we can sell people the food we want them to eat,’ the man told them, with a hint of pride in his voice. ‘And we make it taste especially good. All of our ingredients are artificial … for maximum pleasure. Haven’t you noticed how no child in this country wants to eat natural food any more? That’s how good I am at my job.’

  Gaz burped, and breathing into his hand, he grimaced.

  ‘These burps are starting to smell now,’ he said. ‘What is it about this place that everything stinks so much?’

  ‘Everything here smells …’ the man smiled. ‘Unless it’s made not to smell. Here try this …’

  He took out a little canister, and sprayed something into his mouth. Then he offered it to Gaz.

  ‘It takes away the odour. I need it for my work, you understand. Press down, and take a breath.’

  Gaz took it tentatively, and sniffed it. Then he sprayed some in his mouth, breathing in as he did. He belched into his hand, and his face brightened.

  ‘Hey, that’s quite cool,’ he said.

  ‘Let me smell,’ Hayley piped up, coming over to him.

  He belched in her face.

  ‘Yeah, that’s nice,’ she nodded. ‘Like strawberries and vanilla.’

  ‘Hey, give me a blast o’ that!’ Damo shuffled up to them.

  He and Hayley each took a spray of the breath freshener.

  ‘I could do with some of this stuff for my socks,’ Damo grinned.

  ‘The Security Office is on the top floor,’ the Disgu
stinger informed them. ‘The elevator is out the door, turn right, down the corridor, up the stairs and past the kitchens. Steer clear of the cooks – they’re frightful creatures. I wish you luck in finding your friend.’

  He picked up his spoon. Eager to avoid watching him take another mouthful, the children thanked him and made for the door. As they left, they heard a slurping sound behind them, and then the sound of raw egg being spat into a bucket.

  6

  The Kitchen Of Death

  The flight of stairs led up to a landing, where there was another door. The steps started again beyond the door, but something made the Root Street Gang stop when they reached the top of the stairs. A small cuddly toy – a dog – was lying on its back near the top of the first flight of stairs. It seemed to have fallen down the steps, and its legs were waving around, but it couldn’t get up. It was obviously robotic. The boys looked around warily, suspecting some kind of trap. Hayley picked it up and set it back on the floor of the landing.

  The little dog immediately started towards the stairs again, but it was clear it would never make it down the steps on its own. Hayley grabbed it, and held onto it, tickling its tummy.

  ‘Little mutt must be from in here,’ Damo pointed towards the door. ‘Check it out.’