Chasing the Dark

by Sam Hepburn

  I flicked to a re-run of my own – the view I’d got of the container just before they shoved us inside. It’s amazing how desperation sharpens your mind. By stopping breathing and blanking everything else I got it into focus. Nine or ten feet high, eight or so feet wide, peeling brown paintwork rusted round the base, a silver locking bar running horizontally across the double doors. And . . . tucked under the roof, a little black box with a grey, plastic-coated wire poking out the back and trailing down the side.

  ‘It’s above the doors, slightly to the right,’ I said.

  ‘How do you know this?’

  ‘I saw the wiring outside. Check if you want. Stand on my back.’

  I got on all fours. Breathing in short, painful gasps, she climbed up, light as a bag of rags, and all I could think of was Bogdan’s huge fist smashing into her skinny frame.

  ‘I have got it,’ she said from the darkness above me. ‘Stay still . . . Yes. It is thermal for seeing in dark – no lens, just heat sensitive plate. My father, he installs these sometimes.’ She made a funny little sound. ‘Maybe he installed this one.’

  We braced ourselves for one of Viktor’s thugs to come running in to stop us messing with it. Nothing. They’d all gone to find Yuri. But if they found him how long would we have before the Vulture turned up and started her interrogation?

  We huddled in the blackness thinking about that camera capturing thermal images of our long slow deaths if no one came back for us, or our quicker, more agonising ones if they did. Telly programmes about hostage situations always go on about keeping your spirits up, which is fine if you’re in a TV studio. Not so easy if you’re sitting in the pitch black and it’s your spirits that are spiralling into freefall. They got one thing right though, silence is a killer. Nina was all out of small talk and the only thing I could think of to say was, ‘You seem pretty clued up about your dad’s work.’

  She took a while to answer. ‘I had reasons for learning.’

  For all she was so shaky there was a definite hint of pride in her voice.

  ‘Am I missing something here?’ I said.

  ‘How do you think I know so much about Viktor’s business?’

  ‘I had wondered.’

  ‘I used my father’s equipment to bug his office. I hoped that if I got enough – what is word – dirt on him, one day I would find way to use it.’

  She wasn’t bragging, just telling it like it was. No wonder she’d scoffed at my pathetic attempt to bug her with my phone.

  ‘You won’t get the chance if we die in here,’ I said, searching my pockets. ‘Maybe we can unscrew the camera and let in some air. You got a coin?’

  I felt her lean forward and fiddle with her boot. ‘No, but I have still got tie-clip.’

  Right then I’d have swapped all the diamond tie-clips in the world for a screwdriver. But it was better than nothing.

  I dropped back on all fours. Unsteadily, Nina heaved herself up and poked around in the dark, her breathing getting scratchier by the minute.

  ‘The camera is on bracket but I can only reach one screw and I cannot make it turn.’ She toppled off. ‘You must do it.’

  She handed me the tie-clip and I felt her curling into a crouch. Kicking off my trainers I prodded her back with my toe, gentle as I could. Her spine felt bony and brittle, like it was about to snap. She let out a hiss of pain.

  I jerked my foot away. ‘I can’t. I’ll break you in two.’

  ‘Do it, Joe.’

  So I stood on her back and fumbled in the dark, working my stiff cold fingers in quick bursts and stepping down every few minutes to give her a break. The end of the tie-clip was too thin to be any use but wedging the longer side in the screw slots and jerking it round bit by bit for what seemed like hours got three of the screws undone. A hard twist loosened the fourth. I gave the bracket a tug, and a shaft of light punctured the darkness as it fell forward with the camera, still attached, dangling from its cable. With a whoop I leapt off Nina’s back. She rolled over, gasping for breath. For all the blood round her mouth she was definitely smiling this time.

  If you’ve never been locked up in a dark, airless box you’ll never understand how beautiful that little round hole looked to us, or how good it felt to cross suffocation off the list of ways we were going to die. OK, so it still left plenty of alternatives but that wasn’t the point.

  My brain hit rewind again, playing back the sight and sound of Shrek’s fat fingers slamming down the locking bar and the grating thud of clamping metal. Slam clunk, slam clunk. I played it over and over, trying to take in the details. The locking bar was roughly the height of his chest and the pressure he’d used had barely rippled the muscles of his thick neck. Slam clunk. Slam clunk.

  A crazy idea crept into my mind. I lurched round in the gloom, seized on the coat hanger and started unbending the stiff metal till I had a long straight-ish piece of wire with a hook at one end.

  Nina watched me, puzzled. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘You’re going to use this to pull up the locking bar.’

  ‘Me?’ She shook her head. ‘You are taller and stronger.’

  Holding her breath, she let me clamber on her back again, barely buckling when I got her to raise herself higher so I could double check there was no one patrolling the yard. It was deserted. Beyond the wire fence a steep ridge sloped up to a line of tall, skinny trees that flickered as a lone car sped along the road behind. The only sound was Oz’s furious yapping from the tyre store.

  Slowly, I fed the wire through the hole. Trouble was, this job called for precision and I was working blind, with three fingers squeezed into a space the size of a tea cup, with nothing to guide me but the clink of the hanger bouncing off the bar. The wire kept slipping, my fingers were going numb and Nina was gasping that she couldn’t take it much longer. Then the hook bit. For a second I understood the obsession people get with fishing. I jerked hard and felt the bar give, just a little. Gripping the taut wire I tugged again. Something slackened. The hook was uncurling. Swearing loudly I shifted my fingers to yank the wire back inside, lost hold and heard it clatter on to the yard.

  Game over.

  I jumped off Nina’s back and slithered into a heap beside her. If there’d been any one out there who cared if I lived or died I’d have scratched a goodbye message on the wall. Instead, I handed Nina the tie-clip and told her to write something to her mum and dad.

  She threw me this annoyed frown, grabbed the dangling bracket and started unscrewing the little nuts and bolts that fixed it to the camera. Once the bracket was free she held it up. It was a heavy strip of metal, about an inch wide and L-shaped. ‘If we make smaller we can use this as hook,’ she said.

  Game on again.

  I took the bracket and stamped it into more of a V-shape. ‘We can use our belts to lower it down,’ I said, trying to sound like I’d never lost the will to live.

  Her belt was thin white plastic; mine was leather but badly worn. I buckled them together, worried how much strain they could take and began to wonder the same about me and Nina. We used a screw and nut to fix the belts to the bracket and stood back to admire our handiwork. It didn’t look like much but it was all that stood between us and death. Nina was pale and trembly, too weak to stand up straight, let alone take my weight again.

  ‘You do it,’ I said.

  She shook her head and got down in a crouch. If willpower was all it took to survive, Nina was in there with a chance. I wound the end of her belt tight round my hand, stepped on her back and passed the bracket out through the hole, with the angle facing away from the container. Carefully, I fed the belts out after it, inch by inch until our DIY grappling hook just had to be hanging lower than the bar.

  ‘OK. Here goes.’ I closed my fingers tight round the belts and wrenched with both hands. The bracket caught. I heard it. My heart leapt. The locking bar didn’t move. I pulled again straining every muscle. Nothing.

  ‘I cannot . . .’ Nina groaned. Her body shuddered. She sw
ayed for a moment and collapsed, leaving me strung up like a pig on a butcher’s hook, my weight pulling the tightly wound belt so hard it stopped the blood in my hand and nearly wrenched my shoulder out of its socket. I yelled in agony, trying to jerk my fingers free. Suddenly the excruciating pressure released. A length of belt slithered through the hole, my feet hit the floor and with a beautiful clunk, the locking bar lifted. For one long, gobsmacked moment we stared at the strip of silver between the door panels before I kicked them open, letting in a flood of dirty grey light. I tore off the belt, and, flexing my throbbing palm, I burst across the yard to free Oz, who stalked past me in a strop when he saw I hadn’t brought him any food.

  Nina made straight for the caravan, panting with pain as she ran. She peered through the window and tried the door. It was locked, so get this, she picked up a brick and chucked it through the window. She blushed when she saw me staring.

  ‘Don’t mind me,’ I said. Reaching for another brick, I knocked away the splinters of glass round the edge. She folded her hoodie, wedging it across the frame and made me give her a leg-up so she could scramble inside. Two seconds later she was opening the door and letting me and Oz into a poky little space that stank of alcohol, chips and sweat. The telly on the table was tuned to a gripping shot of the floor of the shipping container, glowing flickery and green like a cheap horror movie on account of the thermal imaging. I turned on the tap and sucked at the trickle of tepid water while Nina rummaged through the fridge and cupboards. Except for a couple of squares of chocolate, a mildewed loaf and a squidgy black banana it was just beer, vodka and a mountain of empty take-out boxes. She handed me half the chocolate and poured some water into a foil container for Oz.

  ‘What do we do now?’ she said, wetting her hand and wiping the worst of the blood off her face.

  ‘Stay here.’ I left her trying to tempt Oz with the banana and did a quick recce of the yard. The gate was the only way out and that was fifteen feet high and locked. I ran back to the caravan.

  ‘Tools,’ I said. ‘Look for anything we can use to cut the fence.’

  We hunted through the garbage, pulling open every drawer and cupboard. I heard her gasp. She reached between the beer bottles and fished something out. With a tiny crooked smile she held it out to me. It was a bottle opener attached to a Swiss army knife. I ripped my nail digging out the folding pliers attachment and told her to keep searching while I checked the fence for weak points.

  The mesh was thick and heavy, stretched tightly between sturdy metal posts cemented into the ground, except for one place at the far end where it looked like a car had backed up, busted a couple of links and bent one of the posts. Trying not to worry about the fading light, I knelt down and got on with it, using the tiny pliers to gnaw at the damaged wires. From across the yard a car boot slammed.

  ‘Any luck?’ I shouted.

  ‘Maybe. I find tool box. No cutters for wire though.’

  Physically, Nina was built like a dragonfly, mentally she was pure steel. It was amazing the way she ignored the pain in her ribs and set to with a hacksaw blade. We got into a bit of a rhythm, snipping and sawing. Even so, it took us ages to cut a flap the size of a cereal box. Oz squeezed through it a couple of times and I had to shout to get him to come back.

  After we’d cut six more links in each direction the gap was looking more promising. Spurred on, we were working like crazy when Nina let out a shriek and yanked her hand back. I spun round, shocked by the panic in her voice. Blood was gushing out of the deep cut she’d sliced through the curve of skin between her thumb and forefinger.

  I ripped a strip off the bottom of my grubby T-shirt, trying not to think about tetanus, lockjaw and blood poisoning. She must have cut through a vein or an artery or something because the blood kept coming thick and red even though I was winding the bandage as tight as I could. Reaching out to steady herself she glanced over my shoulder.

  ‘Joe. They are back!’

  I looked round. Up on the ridge two sets of headlights were swinging off the road and bouncing down the track to the gate. We had to hide. Fast. I hauled Nina across the yard, tugged open the door of the broken-down limo, pushed her on to the back seat and scrambled after her, reaching up a finger to ease the locks shut. I strained my ears for Yuri’s voice, wondering if they’d caught him, praying that they hadn’t. Nina raised herself up to look through the window.

  ‘Get down!’ I hissed.

  ‘It is OK. It is tinted glass.’

  Feeling stupid I got up beside her. They’d seen the gaping door of the container and screeched the Jeep and the Lexus to a halt in the open gateway, engines running, doors flung wide. Viktor, Shrek and Bogdan piled out and tore off in different directions, kicking doors, racing round the caravan and smashing packing cases with Oz barking at their heels like it was some kind of game.

  I was tempted to laugh till Shrek got out a gun.

  Bogdan ran past the limo, looming close enough to see the acne on his cheeks. Suddenly the white glare of floodlights lit up the yard and the whole surrounding slope, like an alien space ship was landing. If we’d made a run for it through the gate they’d have picked us off like ants.

  In the glow filtering through the tinted windows Nina looked like a ghost, her face drained grey by the blood spreading across her jeans. I squeezed her wrist, trying to stop the flow. Make a plan, Joe. Make a plan. Why hadn’t I listened to Mum when she wanted me to join the boy scouts?

  The good news was that I couldn’t see Yuri. The bad news was that Nina was bleeding to death.

  CHAPTER 20

  Viktor, Bogdan and Shrek were tearing through the yard like a pack of starving sharks. Any minute now they’d get to the limo. Come on, Joe. Think. Think.

  I’d been petrified Oz was going to give us away but a couple of sharp kicks from Bogdan had sent him flying towards the gate. I could see he was hurt and I felt bad I couldn’t help him but he suddenly seemed to perk up and started snuffling round the Lexus, getting more and more excited till he finally jumped inside. If they’d got another takeaway in there I didn’t fancy their chances of finding much of it left.

  I stared at the cars parked there in the open gateway – lights on, engines running, doors open – and froze, torn between the crazy escape plan storming my brain and the picture of Mum getting smashed up in Lincoln’s Renault. One glance at the blood pumping out of Nina’s hand made up my mind.

  ‘I’m going to steal the Lexus,’ I said.

  Considering how little we had going for us I thought the plan was pretty inspired. All Nina said was, ‘You can drive?’

  ‘Yeah . . . kind of.’ It wasn’t a lie, not really.

  She blinked a bit but didn’t come up with a better idea. I flicked up the blade of the Swiss army knife.

  ‘Keep your head down and stay low. Ready?’

  Nina nodded. I unlocked the door, dropped to the ground and lifted her down. Pulling her by her good hand, I crept along the side of the limo, peeked round the battered bonnet and saw them circling the far end of the yard.

  ‘Now,’ I hissed. We ran for the Lexus. Shoving her in the passenger seat I sneaked towards the Jeep and managed to plunge the blade into both of its nearside tyres before Viktor found the hole in the wire mesh, let out a bellow like a wounded moose and led a dash for the cars. I dived for the Lexus. It was an automatic. D for Drive, R for reverse – right? I bloody hoped so.

  I dropped the hand brake, rammed the selector to R and floored the accelerator. We shot backwards through the gateway. Shrek lumbered into the light and fired off a round in our direction. I swung the car in a circle. It was like riding the sickest roller coaster ever. The ground veered up and the door clipped a tree before I managed to pull it shut. I hit D, revved the engine and made for the top of the slope. Shrek fired again, hitting the bumper. I peeled off the track on to tarmac, hurtling down the wrong side of the road. A lorry roared towards us blaring its horn … Je-sus! I swerved into the other lane struggling to steady the car
as the world whizzed past. Locking my eyes on the road, I gripped the wheel as if my fingers were welded to the plastic but a few spins round the estate with the Farm Street joyriders and a life-long addiction to video games were no preparation for hitting the road in a tank-sized Lexus. I yelled at Nina to get the sat nav working. She reached a shaky hand towards the screen.

  ‘Find where we are. Check the nearest hospital,’ I said.

  After a bit she said, ‘Essex,’ in a weird spacey voice. ‘Nearest hospital . . . five miles. But we cannot stop.’

  She had a point. Who knew how quickly Viktor could call up more cars and come looking for us? But if she was going to make it we’d have to risk it. I reached over, hit ‘confirm’ on the sat nav and floored the accelerator.

  ‘Tighten the bandage. Hold your arm up.’ I ordered, though I wasn’t sure if gravity worked on blood.

  Trying to hold the Lexus steady and keep a look-out for Viktor was a nightmare. Every time I checked the mirrors the car swerved, or some random truck roared out of nowhere nearly blinding me. The sat nav sent us left. I pulled hard on the wheel. The car veered violently, bumping and scraping the kerb as we screeched on to a dual carriageway. Nina crumpled down in her seat, her eyes fluttering like she was slipping out of consciousness. I kept yelling at her, clutching her wrist, squeezing it hard, then dropping it to grab the wheel again, panicking every time I caught headlights in the mirror. The bossy voice of the sat nav was the only thing keeping me going till a sign saying ‘Hospital’ loomed out of the night. I skidded into the car park and pulled Nina out. Oz tried to come too but I pushed him back and told him to lie down and keep quiet.

  Somehow I managed to half-drag, half-carry Nina into Accident and Emergency. Considering how much I hated hospitals, it was pretty ironic how much time I was spending in them. I pulled her through the doors, steeling myself for the sounds and smells that I knew were going to trigger the dark memories of the night Mum died. But now they were mixed up with pictures of Prof Lincoln hanging between life and death in intensive care and visions of what was going to happen to Nina if she lost any more blood. And it was all because of that evil psycho witch who called herself the Vulture.