A Life To Waste (10 page)

He was almost there, he reached
out, finally! He grabbed the back of the truck. He used the last of
his energy to pull himself up. He pulled himself as close as he
could get to the back of the truck. He spread his arms and legs
wide gripping on for dear life.

He knew that wherever this truck
was taking him, that’s where he would find his mum. Now he just
needed to hold on.

Chapter 16

The reality of what he was doing
began to sink in. Still gripping to the back of the truck, trying
his best not to fall off. Thoughts started to rush into Dave’s
head.

“What the hell am I doing? I
shouldn’t have done this”

The truck had picked up speed
now, it must have got onto one of the main roads, Dave was sure
that if he fell off at the speed they were going, the impact would
probably kill him. He tightened his grip, as best as he could.

He started creating scenarios in
his mind. What if this killer knew that Dave was hanging on to the
back of the truck? What if he was just waiting until he reached a
quiet spot to pull over and then kill him? Dave hadn’t thought this
through, he didn’t even have any weapons to protect himself. Even
if the gorilla didn’t use a weapon. One on one, this giant would
crush Dave. He would be completely helpless. No, he had to stop
thinking this way. He hadn’t been seen, surely if the freak had
seen him he would’ve got him before he left and thrown him in the
back with that kid.

“Oh shit, the kid?” Dave
thought.

Was he still alive? He must have
been, if this freak was going to kill the kid then why would he use
the fake blood back at the house. There must be a chance the kid
was still alive. He had been unconscious, he definitely wasn’t
moving when Dave watched the freak throw him into the truck. What
if he
was
dead. Dave had been hugging the back of this truck
and just on the other side of the door was this kids dead body?
What if it was all messed up? Dave started to imagine the kid
bleeding, his blood beginning to creep out from under the door,
dripping passed Dave’s feet, leaving a red trail along the ground.
No, he
had
to stop thinking like this. The kid was alive, he
was!

What about his mum? She had been
gone for a while, for well over two weeks. There could be a big
chance that she was already dead. The police had said the blood in
the house didn’t belong to her but that didn’t mean that she hadn’t
bled since. What was with freak doing with the people he took? What
if he was torturing them or something? Doing all the sick things
that the freaks on the movies do, the movies that Dave enjoyed
watching so much. What if he got there and his mum had been cut
into little pieces to be fed to the dogs?

Dave’s stomach tightened, he had
to concentrate hard to stop the vomit from rising up to his throat.
If he started puking now he would fall off the back for the truck
for sure. The thought of his mum like that was too much. He had to
think positively. This is what he had been waiting for wasn’t it?
This is why he had sat up all those nights looking out of the
window. He had been waiting for this freak to turn up, now he had.
And he was leading Dave to the place his mum was being held. This
was even better than he’d hoped for. This freak was going to drive
him straight to his mum. He could sneak out and get her then he
could go and get the kid and lead them to their escape. He could
rescue them.

After they were free he would be
able to tell the police exactly where this sick bastard was hiding
out. The police could go along and arrest him then see if he had
any other people held there. Lisa was still there, Dave thought, he
didn’t know how many more. But the point was, after the police had
gone and arrested the guy, Dave would be the hero. He would have
saved the day. He would probably be given a medal of bravery from
the police. He would most likely even have his picture in the
paper, and be on the news!

The truck started to slow down,
Dave couldn’t see where they were going with his face pressed to
the back. But he could feel they were slowing down. They must be
close, he had to be ready to jump off and hide before bigfoot came
around to grab him.

Chapter 17

The truck slowed right down,
almost to a stop. Dave chose this opportunity to jump off, he
quickly ran behind a group of large red bins. He crouched down and
peeked over the bins. Was he seen? It didn’t look like it.

“Thank god!” he thought.

The ice cream truck crawled
forward at a snails pace, like an old man driving round a red light
district looking for a hooker. Eventually it stopped, it was only
one building away from where Dave had chosen his hiding space.
These building were huge though so it was still quite a distance
down the other end of the dark street. Dave looked around.

“Where the hell am I?”

He was surrounded by huge, old
looking buildings, they looked like factories of some sort. He
could smell something horrible, it was almost like sea air but it
was mixed with smog and rubbish. He looked further down the street,
he could see water. He was at the docks. There were huge industrial
estates at the docks, they had massive old building which had been
used as factories. As far as he knew they had been abandoned for
years now, at least ten years. He has always wondered why they
hadn’t been demolished or reconstructed. The recession had it every
area of industry so there was no money to build any businesses up,
everything had been left to go to waste. Which was evident by the
rows of derelict buildings.

The bald giant got out of the
truck, it was so dark that even at the other end of the street Dave
could still hear the freak whistling that haunting tune.

“If.....you.....go.....down.....to.....the.....woods.....today”

He strolled to the back of the
truck, unlocked the door and threw it open. Dave saw the boy run at
the freak, he had his arms raised in the air screaming. The giant
man didn’t even flinch as the boy ran at him, he grabbed him with
one hand around his throat, lifted him up in the air and then
slammed the small body back down to the floor of the ice cream
truck. The sound the impact made echoed through the streets. Dave
began to tremble as he watched the boy’s body go limp.

“Oh shit, he’s killed him
now”

The giant threw the lifeless
body over his shoulder and strolled towards the building, still
whistling, as though he were plodding along with his nine to five
job.

“You’re.....sure.....of.....a.....big.....surprise.”

Dave’s view was partially
blocked by some more bins and protruding walls further down the
street. He heard a loud bang, like a metal fence being punched. He
leaned around the bin to get a better look. The freak had gone. He
must have gone through a door in the next building.

Dave’s heart began to beat like
a humming birds, he was struggling for air, he tried to calm
himself as began to hyper ventilate. He knew that he was going to
have to follow that freak into the building. He had come all this
way, he
had
to go and find his mum. He walked slowly and as
quietly as he could down the dark street, the street lights were
lit but they were spaced lengths apart and the street was very
narrow with tall buildings either side. This left a lot of black
spots on the street. Dave thought he could use these to his
advantage, as he crept down the street, he thought if that guy
comes back out he can hide in one of these black spots.

H

He continued his walk, almost
holding his breath, waiting for the moment this giant emerged from
the darkness, standing over him with a meat cleaver, or a chainsaw.
He reached the ice cream truck, it had been left in the middle of
the road. Dave knew that no one would be coming near this building
anytime soon, it was just him, bigfoot and whoever was being held
captive inside. Unless......unless bigfoot had friends inside. Dave
hadn’t thought about that, what if he got inside and there was a
gang of these crazed killers? What would he do then? He wouldn’t
even stand a chance hiding, let alone fighting if there were a lot
of them.

He stood outside looking up at
the tall abandoned factory thinking that this would probably be his
final act, this would be the place he was going to die. He could
see a sign half way up the front. “Windas Development” It had a
picture of a conservatory next to the writing. It was a window
factory, it had obviously been left abandoned a long time ago. For
a window factory it had surprisingly few windows, Dave thought. He
could see some further down the street but they were quite high up.
It didn’t matter, he
had
to have a look inside before even
attempting to go in there. He needed to have some idea of what he
was up against.

He ran down the street until he
was stood underneath the raised windows, there was no way he could
reach them. He needed something to climb on. He rolled one of the
big bins from the side of the road until it was placed under the
window. The top of the bin itself was high up, it was just above
Dave’s shoulder in height, so getting up on that wasn’t the easiest
task. Finally he was there, stood upright on the bin, he still had
to really stretch himself up to see in the window. It was really
dark, it looked like the window had been painted. There were some
spots were the paint didn’t appear as thick as other, Dave cupped
his eyes and tried to look in. He couldn’t tell if it was dark
inside or if it was just the paint on the window making it look
that way. He strained to see something inside, to see anything. He
couldn’t all he could see was the dark floor. But wait a minute,
the floor was moving. There was movement all over the floor, he
couldn’t see what it was. There were shadows raising and dropping
all over the span of the factory floor. It looked like a giant
carpet that was being shaken from side to side in the dark. There
were things in that factory moving around on the floor.

He didn’t know what they were,
maybe they were guard dogs? Couldn’t be, not that many, anyway
these thing weren’t moving like they were walking, these things
were squirming along on the floor. But what
were
they? And
how many of them were there?

Chapter 18

“I need to find a way in” Dave
whispered to himself.

The window he had been looking
through, apart from being too high up, was locked. He would have to
smash it to get through and then it would be at least a ten foot
drop, probably face first. No he didn’t want to choose that route.
There had to be another way, there had to be more windows
somewhere. Maybe round the back? Dave ran down to the end of the
street and then across to the next street behind the building.

“Shit!” He said.

He didn’t need to go any further
up to see that the window factory was joined at the back to another
building. Probably another old factory, there were definitely no
windows at the back.

“There has to be somewhere.”

He ran back up the street passed
the factory, ducking and diving in the shadows, stopping every now
and then to crouch behind another big red bin. He had to be ready
to hide if that freak came back out. When he reached the end of the
factory he noticed that there was a low roof connecting it to the
next building. Perhaps it had been an extension added on years ago?
Perhaps it was a toilet block or something? It didn’t matter what
it was, it might have a window or a sky light that he could get
through.

He spread his arms and legs
either side of him and began to shimmy up the narrow walls that
were protruding either side of the low roof. He remembered doing
this sort of thing when he was a kid. It had seemed a lot easier
back then. After a lot of climbing and a lot of grunting, he
reached the top of the roof.

“Yes!” he said.

There was a window on the
connecting wall of the factory, it wasn’t very big, probably only
used to let a bit of light into a bathroom or something. But maybe,
just big enough if Dave could break it and then climb in. He tip
toed across the roof and knelt down next to the window, he was
surrounded by darkness, crouched in the narrow gap on the small
roof between the larger buildings. He leant over to try and see
into the window, he wanted to see if it would be a safer route than
the high one he had been looking in before. As he leaned forward he
was stopped about an inch short of the window when something
pressed against his forehead.

“Fuck!”

There was a metal grate, or
metal bars of some sort nailed to the outside of the window. He had
seen the checked lines when the window first came in sight but he
thought it was just a pattern. Looks like this route wasn’t going
to work either. He snuck back across the low roof and lowered
himself down. He tried to drop quietly but the drop was bigger than
he anticipated and he made a loud thud, he dropped hard onto his
knee, smacking it against the concrete floor.