They stopped when they reached a particularly dilapidated barge at the end of the wharf. A skinny, bearded man of undefinable age in a grubby, checked shirt was stretched out in a mouldy deckchair in the bow. He stood up slowly and raised his gun.
"Get in!" He gestured towards the door with his weapon.
They were bundled inside, and the doors slammed behind them.
The cabin was dark, and it took a few minutes for their eyes to adjust to the gloom. James saw Anita before Lisa did, and he rushed over to her. She was sitting on the floor at the other side of the cabin.
Lisa knelt down in front of her. Even in the dark she could see that she was deathly pale and small beads of sweat were glistening on her forehead.
"Oh my God, Anita!"
"I'm ok, I think. Don't worry," Anita said.
"You don't look ok. Where are you hurt?" James said. He was nuzzling at her body, trying to find the wound with his hands still fastened behind his back.
"Really, I'm ok. It's just my hand."
"Turn round," Lisa instructed. "Let me see."
Anita awkwardly shuffled round until her back was towards them.
Her hands were both dark and wet. There was an oily black puddle on the floor behind her.
"Which hand? I can't see." Lisa asked.
"My left. My wrist."
"Here! I've got it! There's a lot of blood. We have to stop it. Give me your bandana!" James's tone was urgent.
Anita bent her head towards him as he pulled the bandana from her head with his teeth.
"Help me Lisa!"
Somehow, using only their teeth, they managed to wind the bandana around her injured hand, twisting it as tightly as they could until she cried out in pain.
"That should work for now, but we have to get out of here!" James said.
"I know, but how?" said Lisa.
They didn't talk much over the next few hours. They sat on the floor, with their backs against the wall, all three of them dazed by the shocking rapidity of how events had unfolded. One minute they had been almost at the end of their journey, and the next, they were tied up in an old boat, having been captured by a group of Hells Angels, and Anita had been shot!
Anita and James sat close together. The worst of her bleeding seemed to have stopped. He whispered words of comfort to her and she dozed, on and off, on his shoulder. Lisa, on the other hand, was in computing mode. Her mind was whirring … processing what little information they had … trying to work out what their options were, and indeed, if they even had any.
They were in the main cabin of the boat. Behind them, the door to the sleeping area was bolted shut and padlocked. All the windows were obscured, either by dirt or filthy curtains. Through the grime on the doors, she could just make out their guard in his deck chair. He was taking regular swigs from a rectangular bottle. It had to be booze and he was almost certainly drunk by now. If any of them did make a sound, he banged on the door yelling at them to, "shut up or he would kill them", and similar clichéd threats.
Outside, was a large group of armed men and women, in various stages of inebriation. Their boat was the last in a row of about five or six and there appeared to be others, like them, being held in them.
And infected! They had infected in cages! What were they doing? What did they want? What was going on? She couldn't make sense of it. Her head was spinning.
But, instead of trying to understand, she focused her attention on something she could do. She had to get her hands free … get all of their hands free. Whatever came next, they'd have a better chance of dealing with it if their hands weren't tied up behind their backs.
Quietly, with one eye on the man outside the door, she shuffled herself over until her back was facing the corner of a cabinet. She began to move her arms up and down, slowly and steadily, rubbing the plastic tie against the sharp edge in a sawing motion. Anita was asleep on his shoulder, but James nodded his encouragement.
As she worked, she started to feel anger about the fact that a day, which had held so much promise, had ended in such disaster. The anger fired her energy and she moved her arms faster and harder. She allowed herself to go over and over the details of their capture in her mind. She was furious: furious with her captors, and furious with herself. How had they become so complacent? Over the past couple of days, they had drifted up the canal as if they were on a bloody holiday! They were in the middle of an apocalypse, for God's sake! What had they been thinking? Her arms moved faster and faster. This was not how it was going to end. Not after everything. She wasn't going to let it!
It was dark by the time the plastic fastening on Lisa's wrists finally began to loosen. James and Anita both had their eyes closed. They seemed to be asleep. Her back and shoulders were screaming in pain. Not long now. She could tell it was about to give. She could feel it.
But something was happening outside. Soon after it had got dark, the noise had increased. The music had got louder. Deafening. More frenzied. The thump of the bass vibrated the whole boat. She could feel it pulsating in her stomach. The raucous voices and laughter were loud and feverish. Bursts of gunfire crackled and popped. It all seemed to be building
